Sorry for the long absence! Please enjoy!

Chapter Five: Grave Losses

After they left the CDC, the general atmosphere amongst the group was one of strained relief. They had managed to survive yet another brush with death, but the future was far from certain, especially now that their hope for a cure had combusted as violently as the still smoldering building they had left behind.

The only option left to them seemed to be Fort Benning, and making it that far would be a miracle. Between the shoddy radiator hose on Dale's R.V., the limited supply of food, water, and fuel, and the uncertainty of what they may find if they actually did manage to reach their destination, no one was particularly looking forward to the 125-mile journey.

Just outside of Atlanta proper, they pulled their caravan of vehicles to a stop outside a small-town cluster of buildings. Jack was the first to jump out of the R.V. and take a quick look around for any Walkers. When she didn't find any, she gestured for the others to leave their cars.

Everyone was still shaken up, ashen-faced, and went about silently searching for supplies in the nearest buildings and siphoning gas from the cars they would be leaving behind.

Jack squeezed herself through a gap in a boarded up window at a convenience store, and stumbled around in the dark until she lucked upon a display of pocket flashlights. With the limited illumination she was able to scavenge several useful items, including: a Swiss Army knife, bottles of aspirin and ibuprofen, a travel-sized first aid kit, sunscreen, a gaudy pair of sunglasses, more sticks of deodorant, several cans of soup, extra toothbrushes, and three 1-gallon jugs of water.

Most of the store had been picked clean already. Jack assumed the owners must have held out there for as long as possible before finally boarding up the doors and leaving for what they thought might be safety.

On her way out, Jack stuffed as many of the mini flashlights into her bags and pockets as she could. She had to slide her loot through the gap in the boards before crawling out herself. It was slow, awkward work, and when she made it out she saw that most of the group were already finished with their own tasks and were watching her with amusement.

"We were wondering where you got off to," Dale said. "I'm going to have to tie bells on your shoes."

"Sorry," Jack said as she straightened up. "Didn't mean to keep you all waiting. But I did find a little water." She gestured to the dusty jugs lined up on the ground.

"Appreciate that," Shane said. "But a few gallons ain't gonna go far between the dozen of us."

"Not to mention the gas pumps are completely tapped," Andrea said.

"Combining together in Dale's R.V. and Carol's Cherokee has saved us a lot of gas already. We can make it at least a third of the way, if we're conservative," Rick said. "We'll stop when we see something promising, try to get more fuel, more supplies."

"There's got to be something," Lori nodded. "And at least we have the food packets from the CDC."

"Those won't us last a week," T-Dog said.

"We're still close to Atlanta," Glenn said to the group. "I could go back and make a run. Just me. Well, maybe Jack, too." He looked at her directly then. "You can get into places I can't."

Jack nodded, but Rick said, "I don't think that's a good idea. Supplies are limited already, and there's no guarantee you'll find what we need and be able to get it back to us in time. If we're going to try for Fort Benning then we need to leave sooner rather than later."

"Rick's right," Shane said when it looked like both Glenn and Andrea were going to argue. "If we knew for sure that a run would be successful that would be one thing, but taking very recent events into consideration, it'd be best to just move forward. Besides we can't just sit here on the side of the road while the two of you run off for who knows how long. We're exposed. It isn't safe."

That was true enough. Jack hadn't seen any Walkers around the buildings, but they would be along eventually. The sounds and smells of living humans would draw them there, and the others would be in very real danger. Not to mention the possibility that other people might come along and try to take what little they had. It was better to keep moving, to stay in constant motion, and always on the alert. That was essential to survival now.

"Alright, then let's get a move on," Dale said.

They divided the supplies they had managed to scrounge up between the vehicles. Dale, Glenn, Jack, Andrea, T-Dog, and lastly Shane climbed inside the R.V. Rick, Lori, Carl, Carol, and Sophia took the Cherokee, and Daryl straddled his brother's motorcycle.

The caravan, now several vehicles short, was on the move again. Daryl led the way on his bike, using its superior speed and agility to find the safest routes for them to take.

The mood in the R.V. was tense at first. Even though everyone, aside from Jack, was used to living in fairly close quarters to each other back at camp, the cramped confines of the R.V. made for a less than comfortable transport. As it was, Glenn sat in the front with Dale as usual, Andrea and Shane were squeezed into either side of the dining booth, T-Dog sat on the bed in the back, and Jack leaned against Glenn's seat so she could watch out the front windshield. For the past four years that she had lived in Atlanta, she had never been more than a few miles outside the city in any direction, and she wanted to see everything she could, even if it was mostly desolate and depressing now.

The first couple of hours passed in mostly silence. Every now and then Glenn would ask Dale a question about where they were, how the R.V. was handling, and whether he could still see Rick in his rearview. Jack didn't think Glenn was actually all that concerned with any of those things so much as he wanted to fill the heavy quiet that sat between them all.

When Jack had had enough of staring at the empty miles of deserted highway, the abandoned cars, the ominous red and black stains on the pavement, she broke away from Glenn's seat and started to head back toward the bed that T-Dog was currently spread across. She just wanted to sit down and rest her aching legs for a minute, but as she started past the table where Andrea and Shane sat, she paused.

Shane had a gun out on the table and a couple of rags. He was taking the gun apart, piece-by-piece, with a smooth precision that implied years of experience handling firearms. Andrea watched him with the same fascination that Jack did.

"Looks complicated," Andrea said.

"The trick is getting all these pieces back together the same way," Shane said with a chuckle.

"Is it very difficult," Jack asked. "Did it take you a long time to learn how to do that?"

"Nah," Shane said. He cast his eyes between the two women, his expression more guarded when he looked at Jack. He'd been shooting her strange, probing looks ever since she caught him pawing at Lori in the rec room at the CDC. It was like he was waiting for Jack to say something to him about what she had seen; Jack would sooner dance naked on top of the R.V. than bring up that particular scene, however.

Shane looked back to Andrea and offered, "I could clean yours. Show you how." He reached down and grabbed Andrea's gun from beneath the table. He lifted it up, inspecting it, aiming it at the sink. "Oh yeah. It's a sweet piece."

"It was a gift from my father." Andrea smiled. "He gave it to me just before Amy and I took off on our road trip. He said two girls on their own should be able to defend themselves."

"Smart man, your father," Shane said, and Jack nodded in agreement. "Look, it's a limited capacity. See? Only holds seven rounds." He showed Andrea the chamber and then turned the gun to show Jack.

"Oh, jeez," Dale said suddenly.

Jack and Shane both turned their heads to see what had happened. Just up ahead on the highway were an overturned eighteen-wheeler and several other abandoned cars blocking the road. It was impossible to tell what might be on the other side of the massive truck; if they tried to go around it they could end up stuck and forced to abandon the R.V., which would be a detrimental loss.

Daryl rolled by the R.V. on his motorcycle and Dale called out, "See a way through?"

Jack could just make out Daryl's head from where she stood. He was squinting against the sun, and she suddenly felt bad for not offering him the sunglasses she had found. He nodded at Dale and took back off on his bike, leading them around the eighteen-wheeler.

"Maybe we should just go back," Glenn said. He had a map open and was tracing the various routes with his finger. "There's an interstate bypass—"

"We can't spare the fuel." Dale shook his head.

"We can't afford to get trapped here either," Jack said.

"Worst case scenario is that we have to get out and move some cars ourselves," Dale said. "Waste a lot of time. Expend a lot of energy."

"Worst case scenario is moving cars? That's optimistic," T-Dog scoffed.

Dale maneuvered the R.V. carefully after Daryl around the truck and between some other upturned cars. Beyond that lay hundreds more vehicles on both sides of the highway, all without passengers now, many with their doors and trunks thrown open, the contents within spilling out onto the road.

"Jeez," Glenn said under his breath.

"Spooky," Jack agreed. She was leaning against Glenn's seat again to better see the wreckage outside. The deserted cars seemed to stretch endlessly down the road.

Suddenly the R.V.'s engine clanked horribly and began to sputter. A jet of steam poured out from the front. Dale cursed and pulled to a stop.

Everyone stepped out of the R.V., and Jack took the opportunity to stretch and breathe in the fresh, humid air outside. She hadn't realized how claustrophobic she was getting until she was no longer closed up.

"I said it, didn't I?" Dale groused as he walked around to the front of the R.V. "A thousand times. Dead in the water."

Shane was just behind Dale, swinging a rifle in his hands impatiently. "Problem, Dale?"

Dale shrugged. "Just a small matter of being stuck in the middle of nowhere with no hope of—" He trailed off, taking a good look around at the jungle of abandoned cars. Daryl was at the closest one already, rooting around in the trunk. "Okay, that was dumb."

"If you can't find a radiator hose here. . ." Shane nodded his head at the cars.

"There's a whole bunch of stuff we can find," Daryl said.

"I can siphon more fuel from these cars for a start." T-Dog moved purposefully forward.

"Maybe some water," Carol said.

"Or food," Glenn agreed.

"This is a graveyard," Lori said and everyone paused, turned around, and looked at her. She looked to her husband and said, "I don't know how I feel about this."

Jack met Lori's eyes. She understood the other woman's discomfort. She had felt the same way the first time she had scavenged through buildings and homes that had been overrun, the occupants obviously now dead. She had felt like a vulture, a bottom-feeder profiting off the deaths of so many other people. But this was survival now. There was no room for feelings and weighing morality when there were hungry mouths to feed.

"C'mon y'all," Shane said, "Just look around, gather what you can."

Everyone sprang into action, no matter how disturbed they were about searching through the cars. Jack stood where she was for a moment, unsure where she would be the most helpful. Her talent for scavenging was on par with Glenn's, but as the only member of the group immune to the cannibalistic undead she wondered if she wouldn't be more valuable in another role.

She didn't have to waffle long; a hand tapped her elbow and she turned to see Rick. He gestured with his chin for her to follow him around the R.V.

"Help me keep watch? Can't allow anything to sneak up on us," he said.

"Sure," Jack said.

Rick lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes, took a quick survey of the highway behind them, and then handed them off to Dale, who was on his way up the ladder to the top of the R.V. Between the three of them nothing would be able to sneak past.

Jack followed Rick back through the maze of cars. He moved silently, his entire body on alert, his rifle held close to his chest. He moved with a practiced grace, a steady confidence that validated for Jack the instant trust and security she had felt upon meeting him.

They peeked inside the cars closest to them. Aside from some moldering trash and a decomposing body or two, there wasn't much to be found in them. Jack gave Rick a disappointed shrug when an open trunk turned out to have nothing more than a pair of damaged jumper cables and some loose lug nuts inside.

"It's alright," he said. "Hopefully the others will have better luck."

She came up beside him and let her eyes scan the highway on either side. A thought had been tickling her brain ever since they had found their camp overrun; a thought that had her feeling conflicted.

Jack looked sideways at Rick and asked, "Can you teach me?" When he met her gaze she indicated the gun in his hands.

"How to shoot?"

She nodded. "I've never really liked guns. They scare me, to be honest. But I want to learn. I need to learn. I'll be more useful to this group if I can shoot and actually help defend everyone."

"I think learning to shoot is a good idea," Rick said. "But don't think that you need to do this to be useful. You've already done a lot for this group. You're one of us."

She smiled. "I want to protect everyone. I think that's what I'm supposed to do. Otherwise, what's the point of being Walker-immune?"

"Alright. As soon as we get settled I'll teach you."

"Thank you, Rick."

Rick shook his head, smiling. "Why do I feel like I should be thanking you?"

Something in the corner of her vision caught Jack's attention. She looked up to see Dale staring just beyond them through his binoculars, a frown on his face. She pointed up to him and Rick brought the rifle up and started scanning the horizon through its scope.

"What is it?" Jack was at Rick's elbow, squinting into the distance.

"Walker," Rick said. He cocked his rifle and then brought it back to his eye. But he didn't shoot. He stared through the scope and the color began to drain from his face. "Oh, Christ."

Jack didn't need to ask what he saw this time. She could clearly see the enormous throng of Walkers rounding the overturned truck, shambling between the outermost cars, heading directly toward their group.

Rick dove behind a car. Dale flattened himself to the roof of the R.V.

Jack watched the horde approach, and for the first time since she discovered her strange invulnerability, the sight of the Walkers made a hard knot of fear form in her gut.

She wasn't scared for herself; she was frightened for the others that were still meandering around, spread out across the highway, and completely unaware of the danger approaching. She was afraid they would get hurt, afraid they might die horrifically. She had only known them for a few short days, but already she had been through so much with them. Rick was right; Jack was a part of this group now. And she would do what she needed to do to keep them safe.

Rick and Jack slid around the side of the R.V. and made a crouching run toward the others.

As soon as his wife was in view, Rick said, "Lori, get under the cars," as loud as he dared. Lori didn't question him, and grabbed onto Carol, throwing a hand over the other woman's mouth to keep her quiet. They rolled beneath the closest vehicle.

Jack reached Carl and Sophia and silently directed them both beneath two cars. She looked around in time to see Shane pull Glenn beneath a large commercial truck, and Rick disappear beneath another car. She didn't know where Andrea, T-Dog, or Daryl were, but the Walkers had caught up to where she now stood between Carl and Sophia's hiding spots, and she knew she couldn't go off in search of the others without drawing the dead after her.

So she stood still, her back pressed against the truck Sophia was under, and waited for the Walkers to pass. Several of the dead snarled and made toward her, but as usual they all lost interest in Jack as soon as they got in range of her, and continued to shuffle onward.

There were more than Jack had first guessed; the procession of roving corpses seemed to never end. One by stinking, rotting one they passed through the warren of cars, many of them dragging broken feet and nearly detached limbs behind them.

Finally, after what felt like time immeasurable, the crowd began to wan. The last few stragglers were bringing up the rear when Jack heard a faint scuffing noise from beneath the car she was leaning against. She looked down in time to see Sophia peek her head out.

Jack lunged forward to push Sophia's head back under the car before one of the remaining dead could spot her, but she wasn't fast enough.

The closest Walker was on the ground, reaching beneath the car after a now sobbing Sophia. Jack pulled at the Walker's shirt, trying desperately to keep it away from the girl.

Sophia's cries were becoming louder, more frantic. Jack tried to shush her, but the panic had already set in. Another Walker had heard and was shambling toward them.

Jack cursed, braced one leg on the side of the vehicle, fisted her hands in the Walker's shirt, and threw all her strength into pulling it out from beneath the car. When its head was exposed, Jack did the only thing she could think of, and stomped her foot into the back of its skull over and over and over until it stopped moving. The crunch of breaking bones, the squelch of soft tissue, and the spray of blood that soaked her shoes were so horribly disturbing that she knew it would become a part of her nightmares. But she didn't have time to be squeamish. There was still another Walker to be dealt with.

She looked around for it, and for a confused moment thought it had wandered off after the horde. Then she heard the snarls, the slide of shoes on dirt, and the whimpers of a little girl that was terrified beyond reason. Jack looked around the front of the car and saw Sophia running toward the woods on the side of the highway, the Walker hot on her heels.

She was about to go after them, but Rick was suddenly there. He leapt over the median, rolled down the short hill, and took off into the woods. He'd still had his gun in his hands.

Jack shifted from foot to foot, wondering if she should go too, wondering if Rick would need her or if she'd only get in his way. The rest of the group hurried out from their hiding spots and ran up to the median. Carol was sobbing.

"There's a Walker chasing my little girl."

Lori rubbed her hands over Carol's arms, trying to comfort her. "Rick's there. He's going to help her."

Everyone remained frozen, barely able to breathe. They watched the woods, hoping, praying that Rick and Sophia would emerge at any second. Lori kept muttering soothing words to Carol, promising her that everything would be okay, that Rick wouldn't let anything happen to Sophia, that they'd both be safe and in their arms soon.

Jack kept scanning the tree line nervously, unable to tear herself away from the median even after most of the others started to return to their tasks of looting cars.

Shane whistled behind her, and Jack glanced quickly back at him over her shoulder. He was standing beside the nearest car, the one Sophia had been hiding beneath, and looking down at something on the ground.

"Who did this?" Shane pointed with the tip of his gun.

"Jack did," Carl said. "She pulled it away from Sophia and kicked its head in." He looked at Jack then with a mixture of disgust and awe on his round, childish face.

Shane gave her an appreciative nod. "Crude, but effective."

"I didn't have a weapon," Jack shrugged, embarrassed and ashamed. How many skulls was she going to have to bash in before she learned to handle a gun?

"We'll remedy that," Shane said, "get you a knife, at the very least." He gave her a solid clap on the shoulder. "That's good work."

"We should all be carrying weapons," Andrea said. The blonde woman was covered in drying blood, and looked pale and shaken.

"Are you alright?" Jack asked.

"Walker came at me in the R.V.," Andrea said. "I had to take him out with a screw driver."

"Crude," Glenn said, "but effective."

Jack was about to offer Andrea some of the baby wipes she kept in her bag, but Daryl, supporting a limping T-Dog, rushed toward them.

"He ain't bit," Daryl said before anyone could ask. He lowered T-Dog onto the steps of the R.V. and then pointed to the grungy, bloodstained rag tied around T's arm. "He cut it open. The gash is deep. Gonna need something to clean it. Rubbin' alcohol. Drinkin' alcohol. Whatever."

Shane and Dale were at T-Dog's side in an instant. They unwrapped the rag as gently as possible to inspect the wound.

Daryl had been right; the gash was deep and long and still bleeding steadily. It needed immediate attention.

"The first aid kit," Jack said. "It's in the cabinet under the sink."

Glenn squeezed by T-Dog onto the R.V. and tossed the kit out to Jack. She unzipped the kit and pulled out several alcohol wipes, antibiotic cream, and a long swath of gauze.

Jack knelt before T-Dog and turned his arm slightly so that she could better see the wound.

"I'm going to treat this as best as we can right now," she said. "But I'm going to be honest; you need stitches."

"Just cover it up," T-Dog said. "I can't stand to look at it."

Jack nodded and ripped open the alcohol wipes. She dabbed at the gash as gingerly as possible, but T-Dog still hissed and tried to jerk away from her. It would have been easier if they had had an actual bottle of alcohol. Then she could have just poured it on quickly, gotten it over with, instead of having to keep swiping at the wound to try and clear away the dirt and grime.

"Here," Shane said when Jack had finished. He had already smeared a generous amount of antibiotic ointment onto the gauze and helped her to wrap it tightly around the wound.

T-Dog nodded at them both in thanks and Glenn helped him move to the bed in the R.V.

Jack wiped her hands, still sticky with alcohol and medicine, onto her jeans and turned back toward the median and the forest line beyond. She wanted to keep watching for Rick and Sophia, but when turned she saw Daryl staring at her oddly.

"Wouldn'a pegged you for a medic type," he said.

"I'm not," she said. "That was pretty basic. Common sense, really."

"A wound like that ain't basic. It'd make most people queasy."

Jack wasn't sure how to respond. With few exceptions (such as the burned flesh they had found in that office building in Atlanta—the last any of them had seen of Daryl's brother, Merle Dixon) she'd never been faint of heart about things like flesh wounds. In fact, as a kid she had been fascinated by blood and guts. She had watched innumerable documentaries, some quite graphic, about medical conditions, treatments, and surgeries. It had never bothered her. In fact, before she had gotten sick, Jack had been in the process of applying into the college of medicine at her university. She had wanted to pursue clinical research and dermatology.

After spending so much time in the hospital as a patient, however, her aspirations to become a healer diminished. She'd had enough of sterile rooms, beeping machines, and the cold utility of everything from the bleach-fumed floors to the buzzing fluorescent lights to the doctors' bedside manners. She had vowed that if she ever made it out of her hospital bed she would devote her life to something more cheerful, like snuggling baby pandas.

There probably weren't many cheerful career options during the apparent apocalypse though. Jack wondered if she would end up having to take up medicine out of necessity. Because Daryl was right: most people were queasy when it came to real life blood and injuries. Both Glenn and Andrea had turned away from the sight of T-Dog's wound as if they were the ones in physical pain. Even Shane had looked a bit out of his comfort zone.

"Look there," Dale said suddenly. He pointed toward the woods, and they all turned to see what was happening.

Rick was running up the hill toward them, and he was alone.

They didn't find Sophia.

When Rick had returned there had been a bit of a commotion. Apparently, he had hid Sophia and instructed her to wait for him a while. On the chance that he didn't return to her, Rick had given the girl explicit instructions on how to find her way back to the highway. Sophia had left her hiding spot, but she never made it back to the others.

Carol had flown into a full panic when she saw Rick had come back to the highway without her daughter, and it had taken Lori, Andrea, and Dale to calm her down enough so that she wouldn't start hyperventilating.

Rick had promised to go back and comb the woods for Sophia, and Shane, Glenn, Jack, and even Daryl had agreed to help.

Despite the horrible weight of dread and guilt in her stomach, Jack found herself once again surprised by Daryl. Not just that he had volunteered to help with something that had little to do with him (she was less shocked by his random bursts of altruism now), but because he stepped up and took the lead in their search. Because, though he didn't actually say it aloud, though nothing in his demeanor drastically altered, Jack had a suspicion that he actually cared.

Unsurprisingly, Daryl was an exceptionally talented tracker and seemed to be completely in his element in the woods. Jack's initial impression of Daryl's personality had been that he was a volatile, unpredictable person; she hadn't guessed that he could also be perceptive, directive, and patient. But that's exactly the side of him that they saw in the woods.

He was thorough in his examination of the tracks around the streambed where Rick had hid Sophia. Those tracks had led them back through the woods in the direction of the highway, and then had veered off, seemingly without reason. Daryl explained all this, pointing out subtle impressions in the dirt and grass that Jack, for all her effort, just couldn't make out. From the lost expression on Glenn's face, he couldn't see it either.

Jack had entered the woods with the hope that they would find Sophia quickly. She had thought that maybe the girl had gotten lost, turned around and confused in the forest of identical looking trees and vegetation. She had envisioned them stumbling across her hiding in a bush, or high up in a tree somewhere. But when Rick sent her, Glenn, and Shane back to the highway, that hope had started to wane and the initial guilt she had felt when Rick had returned alone began to creep back to the forefront of her brain.

If only she had followed them into the woods. If only she had been there to help Rick with that Walker. Maybe he could have taken Sophia back to the highway. Maybe things could have been different.

Jack threw herself into helping Lori and Andrea divide up some of the scavenged food amongst the group, assisting Glenn and Dale while they continued repairs to the R.V.'s radiator hose, and even patrolling the highway with Shane to make sure there weren't any Walkers sneaking up on them. She tried not to look at Carol; she couldn't bear to see the worry and heartbreak in the older woman's eyes.

She didn't say much to the others, choosing to work mostly in silence. She ignored their discussion of the herd of Walkers. She ignored Andrea's dissatisfied grumblings about being relegated to 'women's work'. And when she almost walked up on another confrontation between Lori and Shane, Jack made sure to get out of earshot before she could become an unwitting third party to their personal drama yet again.

Jack finally gave up her busy work and joined the others when the sun started to sink behind the western horizon. Her stomach still felt heavy with regret, and the fact that Rick and Daryl still hadn't returned with Sophia was making her increasingly nervous.

"Need any more help with that?" Jack asked Dale who was still fiddling with the R.V.'s engine.

He looked at her and shook his head. "It's getting dark. I'm about to pack it in for the night. We can work on it more tomorrow."

"How long until it's operational?"

"Can't be certain," he said. "It's a tricky hose."

Jack nodded, though in truth she didn't know much of anything about mechanics. She'd never been one to sit idle, especially when she was avoiding confronting her own emotions, so she looked around at the others in hopes that someone might need her assistance.

Andrea sauntered toward them then, her fierce blue eyes locked on Dale. "Where's my gun? You have no right to take it."

"You don't need that just now, do you?" Dale hedged.

"My father gave it to me. It's mine."

"I can hold on to it for you," he said. He seemed to have trouble holding her eye contact.

"Or you can give it back to me," she said, clearly frustrated and incredulous. She looked from Dale to Jack, who was watching their exchange warily, to an approaching Shane.

"Everything cool," Shane asked.

"No," Andrea said, "I want my gun back."

"I don't think it's a good idea right now," Dale said.

"Why not?" It was impossible to tell what Shane was thinking as he mediated.

Dale turned to Shane and answered with resignation, "I'm not comfortable with it."

Andrea scoffed and looked to Shane expectantly.

Shane gave Dale a contemplative look. "The truth is," he began, "the less guns we have floating around camp the better."

"You turning over your weapon?" Andrea's expression was becoming more and more indignant. She crossed her arms over her chest.

Shane chuckled once and said, "No. But I'm trained in its use. That's what the rest of y'all need is proper training. But until that time I think it's best if Dale keeps them all accounted for."

Andrea scoffed and stormed away.

Jack thought about Rick's promise to teach her to shoot. She hadn't thought about it before, but now it was obvious that it wasn't just her that needed to learn how to handle a gun. They all needed to be taught, and soon. There were too many unknowns, too many variables in this new world. They needed to know how to defend themselves, and they needed to know how to be responsible with their weapons. Their very survival might depend on knowing when not to use a gun, after all. They all needed to know how to read a dangerous situation.

"When can we start training," Jack asked.

Shane and Dale both looked at her.

"It's not that I'm eager to get my hands on a gun," Jack clarified. "But I want to know how to use one. Rick already agreed to teach me, but I think it might be better if we do this as a group. We can't keep going with most of our people unarmed, and we certainly can't have people waving around weapons they don't know how to use. I'm not disagreeing with Dale holding on to the weapons for the time being, but that's not a solution to our problem. It's a band aide at best, and a crutch at worst."

"Yeah, I know that," Shane nodded. "Let's make it off this highway. Put more distance between ourselves and that herd, and we'll get started on those lessons. I'll make it a priority, I promise."

Jack didn't doubt Shane's sincerity. Despite the strange, uncomfortable encounters she'd had with him so far, she could see that he was a strong person, and that he was willing to do whatever it took to keep everyone alive. She wouldn't say that she liked him, per se, or even that she trusted him implicitly, but she didn't doubt his intentions where their welfare was concerned.

"Oh God, they're back," Glenn said, coming up beside Jack with a crate filled with looted food items in his hands.

Jack snapped her head toward the highway median and saw Rick and Daryl emerging from the woods. Sophia was noticeably still missing.

"You didn't find her?" Carol looked between the two men, moving restlessly on her feet and fighting tears.

"Her trail went cold," Rick said. "We'll pick it up again at first light."

"You can't leave my daughter out there on her own to spend the night alone in the woods." Carol's voice was a desperate sob. Everyone had moved to the median. Lori tried to comfort Carol.

"Out in the dark's no good," Daryl said softly. "We'd just be trippin' over ourselves. More people'd get lost."

"But she's twelve. She can't be out there on her own," Carol pleaded. "You didn't find anything?"

"I know this is hard," Rick said, "but I'm asking you not to panic. We know she was out there."

"We tracked her for a while," Daryl said.

"We have to make this an organized effort," Rick said. He indicated the man next to him. "Daryl knows the woods better than anybody. I've asked him to oversee this."

Carol pointed to Daryl's soiled clothes. "Is that blood?" She was starting to hyperventilate.

"We took down a Walker," Rick said.

"Walker? Oh my God," Carol wheezed.

"There was no sign it was ever near Sophia," Rick said, trying his best to placate Carol.

"How can you know that," Andrea asked.

Rick shifted uncomfortably and looked to Daryl who said, "We cut the sonna bitch open, made sure."

Jack felt sick at the thought, and was suddenly grateful she hadn't been the one that had to perform that particular task. After all, what if they had found evidence of Sophia in its stomach? She didn't think she could handle something like that.

Carol, looking faint, sat down shakily on the guardrail. Lori sat next to her and rubbed a palm over Carol's back.

"How could you just leave her out there to begin with? How could you just leave her," Carol asked Rick. The accusation in her voice visibly shook him.

"That Walker was on us," he said. "I couldn't risk using my gun and attracting that group of them back this way. I had to draw it off. It was her best chance."

Shane walked up on Rick's other side and said, "Sounds like he didn't have a choice, Carol."

Carol wasn't having it though. "How is she supposed to find her way back on her own? She's just a child." Now she was openly crying. "She's just a child."

Rick kneeled on the ground in front of Carol. The look of pain, regret, shame that was plastered all over his face made Jack's chest constrict. Those same emotions roiled within her. Why hadn't she gone after Rick and Sophia? Why had she just stood there watching and waiting?

"It was my only option. The only choice I could make," Rick said, his voice choked.

"I'm sure nobody doubts that," Shane said.

"My little girl got left in the woods," Carol sobbed.

Rick, visibly upset, obviously agonizing over the choices he had to make, stood and walked away from the group. Daryl, too, moved past them all, seemingly no longer interested in talking to the rest of them.

Jack watched as Andrea sat on Carol's other side. She and Lori both held the crying woman and no one spoke.

There just weren't any words.

A/N: I will be trying to update soon. While this story will contain an eventual Daryl/Jack pairing, it will be a very slow burn. Please review.