Hi there, here's another chapter for you all. I had a little trouble getting it out the way I wanted, and I'm still not totally thrilled with it, but alas it was time to post it anyway. Hopefully you guys like it. Thanks to those of you that recently added me to your alerts! I can't tell you how happy I am every time I get those emails telling me that someone likes my story enough to follow or favorite it.

Guest: Thanks for another wonderful, well thought out review. You are so kind! I'm glad that my writing makes you feel like you are bonding with the characters. That's how I feel when I'm writing these chapters, so I'm glad others feel that way as well. I also feel bad for Daryl, he always seems to get the short end of the stick, and walks away a little more beaten and broken down. Hopefully things start to turn around for him soon. Who knows. It's funny that you say you think Emma is honorable, because I don't think she believes that. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Thanks again for the review. Looking forward to your opinions in the future!

And here we go!

Chapter Five –

Emma's head snapped up like she was a marionette and her string had just been pulled by an inexperienced puppeteer. She had thought he would recognize her for the first ten or 15 minutes, but after that she had decided she was safe. She didn't want him knowing who she was; didn't want him thinking she owed him more than she was willing to give. Now all those hopes for easily dismissing him once she found his friends and he was able to travel were shattered.

She realized that she had been staring at him like a deer in the headlights, and struggled to get herself under control. She didn't want to end up as road kill, and she would if she didn't get her brain to working right. She cleared her throat to allow herself time to get her mind straight, then she spoke with a shockingly hoarse voice, "Didn't think ya remembered me."

She saw the man – Daryl – smile a little, and felt her heart flutter for some silly reason. "Hard ta forget after the beatin' I got fer sendin' ya out the window."

That was the last thing she had wanted to hear. If he had caught a beating for helping her, then she did in fact owe him more. He had not only saved her, but had risked bodily harm to do it, and had apparently paid a steep price for that risk.

She looked at him for a long moment, then shifted her eyes back down to her work. "I'm sorry for that."

"Nothin' ta be sorry for." She glanced up and saw him shrug. "I knew it was comin'."

She nodded slightly, and went back to her work; it was obvious he wasn't looking for pity or gratitude. For some reason that didn't make her feel any better, perhaps even worse. This was a man with a code, and that meant he held others at the same standard. He would expect her to do the right thing, and she wasn't sure she could anymore. A few years ago it wouldn't have been a problem; she had been known to be reckless and crazy back in her days on the ambulance crew. Even disobeying direct orders and entering areas still hot with gunfire to help a fallen man. This world had changed her though, and she hadn't behaved like that in a long time.

The silence had grown heavy while she was thinking, and she suddenly felt antsy. She quickly got her herbs packed neatly into the appropriate jars, and cleaned up her little mess. She then rose to her feet and tossed the debris out the window, noting that a few of the biters had started moving off in search of easier prey. She turned back to Daryl and found him staring at her intently, his thumb being chewed viciously once again.

She finally broke the silence by asking the question that had been burning in her mind since she volunteered to go after his friends. "So what are your people like? They gonna give me trouble when I find 'em?"

"Naw, they're good people. I'll be with ya anyway."

She promptly started shaking her head, "No. You aren't in any shape to be looking for people. You stay here and rest." She saw his eyes darken significantly, but ignored it. He could be pissed about it all he wanted; she wasn't takin' him out in the woods in his condition. Even if his condition was vastly improving every minute she was around him. "Do you know where they're headed? You guys have a camp around here someplace?"

Daryl continued to glare at here, obviously not impressed with her attempt to change the subject from his intended plan to join her. After a minute he shook his head slightly, "Naw, our place got taken out a while back. Think they're headed ta that sanctuary, Terminus."

Emma felt her skin pale, and her heart momentarily halted its steady rhythm. Her voice was little more than a whisper, "Shit."

She spun away from the window and strode to her wall of weapons, pulling one of her holsters off and fastening it around her waist. "I have to go now. You stay here, and stay out of trouble. If I'm not back in two days get out of here. Watch out for my traps around camp, then head west to the river, follow it north until you spot my marker. After that just get the hell away from here, and stay away from Terminus."

By this point she had her gun at her waist, along with three knives. She also had a second gun in the waist band of her pants and a small compound bow and its quiver slung over her shoulder. When she faced Daryl she could see that his face was full of confusion, and that he was about to start arguing with her, but she wasn't going to give him the chance.

"See you soon." she said as she darted out the window and into the night. She couldn't let Daryl's people wind up in that god forsaken place.

Daryl stood in the middle of the room for a long moment, just trying to figure out what the hell had happened. From everything he had seen of that woman she wasn't all that interested in finding Rick and the others. If anything it had seemed like she was fairly opposed to bringing them there at all. That was why he had said he would go with her. If she didn't want them around then he would just leave with his group and let her do whatever the hell she wanted. He'd saved her ass once, and she had saved his; they were even, and she could just hide out in the woods until the walkers got 'er if that was what she wanted. It wasn't his problem.

Then his brain clicked; Terminus. As soon as he had said that was their destination she had gone crazy. He'd had a feeling the place wasn't all it was cracked up to be, but her reaction said it was a lot worse than that. If she was willing to go out into a horde of walkers to get people she didn't even want around her, then that place had to be bad news. Oh hell. He'd forgotten all about those walkers at the base of the tree. That damn girl was probably already dead.

He shot over to the window, and didn't see any sign of her for several long seconds. He scanned the ground for signs of her being ripped to shreds, and was surprised to see that not only were those lacking, but the walkers didn't even seem to be acting any different than they had been when he had first looked out the window over an hour earlier. Then a sudden and unnatural shift in the shadows caught his eye and his head jerked up to catch the movement.

That damn girl was gracefully leaping from one thin tree branch to the next over 200 feet away from her starting point. She may not look much like her namesake anymore, but she sure as hell still moved like one. "Damn girl." He whistled under his breath. She really was a sight to see, moving through the trees like that. No wonder she hadn't wanted him to come with her, he never could have done that, even if he wasn't beat to shit. Now how the hell was she goin' to get Rick and the gang back there safely? Especially with Michonne shot like she was. If she was even still alive… if any of them were.

He felt his stomach clench at the thought, and barely had time to tilt his head out the window before all the food he'd eaten made a reappearance. They could all be dead; Rick, Carl, Michonne, the whole damn group. He hadn't seen any signs of the rest of the people from the prison, though he hadn't seen any of Rick either, until just the other day. It was possible they were out there somewhere, but like he'd told Beth, they weren't never gonna see 'em again.

Beth… was she gone for good too? Seeing Rick for that short moment had given him a bit of hope, even if it had disappeared when he was getting kicked into the ground. It had made a reappearance when Squirrel – could that be her real name? – had said she would go find Rick, but it was gone now. If Michonne could go down to people like Joe and those bastards, then Beth was most likely dead. She'd had an inner toughness that he had been surprised by, but she wasn't Michonne, or Maggie, or… him, and she had known that. He knew she would put up a fight, but anybody that would take her the way those people – or person – had couldn't have good intentions, and she wouldn't be able to put up that good of a fight.

He had thought he'd emptied his stomach the first time, but he'd been wrong, and a little more of his dinner came up with his dark thoughts of Beth. Once he was sure he was through with that nasty business he decided to take his mind off those kinds of thoughts by taking a better look at the place he was supposed to stay.

He'd noted early on that he was in a small wooden space, cluttered with things. He figured it was a fairly permanent camp based on the amount of goods stacked along the walls and on the shelves. He stepped away from the window and walked the few steps to the kitchen area. There was a short counter that held a single burner camp stove hooked up to a small propane cylinder, and a five gallon water cooler. There were also cooking implements, several sharp knives, and a few old cans of food. The shelves beneath the counter held a few more cans, and several packets of dried food, but it was mainly filled with jars of dried plants, and oddly colored liquids.

He picked one of jars up, and studied it. It was filled with a thick, red fluid, and had words written in loopy cursive on the side in magic marker. He struggled with the unfamiliar handwriting, but after a moment was able to decipher it; "Elderberry Tincture…" He placed it back on the shelf and grabbed another one, this one filled with what looked like dry, brown twigs. He had to focus on the writing for a moment again, but got it faster this time. Valerian Root. While he was familiar with both of the plants, he didn't really know what their purposes were, so he put the jar back and turned away from the kitchen section.

The crossed to the weapons wall, and studied the small armory. He had noticed that she took a .45, a .38, and a nice compound bow with her, but she had left several good guns and knives behind. His eyes fell on the crossbow he had noticed almost immediately after waking up the first time, and now that she wasn't there to stop him, he pulled it off the wall. It was a larger and more powerful model than either of the ones he had used over the last couple years, it also looked almost completely unused. He cautiously tested the draw strength on it, slipping his boot through the strap at the bottom and pulling gently up on the string. He didn't pull it all the way back, but enough to know that it was a damn fine bow.

He started to hang it back up, but changed his mind. His bow was obviously gone, and they might need help getting through the horde beneath him when they got back. He might as well be ready. So instead of putting it away he grabbed the bolts that had been resting on the shelf beneath it, drew the string back and loaded a bolt. He then crossed back to the window and took aim at one of the walkers beneath him. He hated to waste a good bolt, but he needed to see how it was sighted in so he could help later if he needed to.

He slowly pulled the trigger, and watched the walker drop with the bolt sticking out from between its eyes. "Damn." He whispered. That was one hell of a bow, and he sure didn't want to give it back when Squirrel came back. He reloaded it and ran his hands over the cool metal surfaces lovingly. "Ah well, I'll find a nice one again…"

Then he turned his attention back to the night outside the window. It was time to wait, and maybe even try to hope a little.

Rick sat with his back against a large tree, his hands clinging to his now empty revolver as if his life depended on it. Carl laid next to Michonne, sleeping fitfully, with his sheathed knife laying in his open hand. Michonne looked asleep, but Rick knew better. Her breathing was too strained and all the muscles in her neck stood up in stark relief.

She was tough, that was for damn sure. She had managed to keep running for over an hour, before she just couldn't keep it up anymore. He had carried her for another hour, but by that time they were making such poor time it hardly seemed worth it to keep going. He had laid her down and tried to see how bad the wound was, but she wouldn't have any of it and shoved his hands away. She hadn't gotten up since then, and refused the little bit of food he'd offered, though she had drank a little water. He knew she had lost a lot of blood, and had perhaps been hit in a vital area, but without her allowing him to look he couldn't know for sure how bad it was.

The eerily silence was broken by Michonne's hoarse voice, "You need to get Carl out of here before I turn." There was no request in her voice, just a firm resolve.

Rick crawled over to her side, and looked down at her now open eyes. "What are you talking about? You'll be fine. You just need a little rest and then we'll find some supplies to patch you up tomorrow." He knew he was lying as he said the words, but he couldn't bring himself to be brutally honest at that point.

He was surprised to see Michonne smile slightly in response to his blatant lie. "Yeah… You take him away before it happens though. You hear me?"

Rick felt his chest constrict slightly at the thought, but nodded his head. "Okay."

He was reaching out to squeeze her hand when he heard a twig snap just off to his right, and he spun in that direction. He was on his feet the next second, his empty gun pointed in that direction in one hand and his knife clutched in the other. At first he didn't see anything, but a moment later a shape melted out of the darkness in front of him.

It was instantly obvious it wasn't a walker simply based on the way it moved. Its strides were with purpose, but they were calculated, not simply intent on a meal. He felt his heart drop into his feet and swallowed thickly. He had thought those men wouldn't be able to track them in the dark, and that without a fire they wouldn't spot them out there in the forest. He had obviously been wrong.

"Just walk away, or I'll shoot." He bluffed.

The movement halted, and he had to struggle to keep the form in focus in the thick darkness. "Daryl sent me." The figure called out quietly, and he wasn't sure if he was more surprised by the words or the fact that it was a woman that said them.

"You with that group that tried to kill us?" He didn't expect an honest answer if she was, but he couldn't help asking.

"No. They were going to kill your friend for helping you. I stopped them, and then he said I needed to find you." She had started moving toward them at that point, and Rick could feel his heart racing. Though whether it was out of relief or fear he couldn't be sure.

Suddenly he felt a body next to him, and glanced down to see Carl mirroring his stance beside him. He knew it shouldn't give him strength to have his son beside him - he shouldn't rely on the boy like that - but it did, and he felt calm come over him. "How do we know we can trust you?"

Suddenly the woman was clearly visible, and only about 15 feet in front of them. He heard the hammer cock on Carl's gun and instinctively reached out his hand to halt him. The woman was short and slender, with a gun at her hip and a bow held loosely in her hand. She wasn't threatening them, but it was clear she could at any time if she chose to. Her head was slightly cocked to the side, studying them.

"Daryl said you were good people and that you wouldn't give me any trouble. Was he lying?" Her voice was warm and slightly husky. The kind that made a man want to hear more of it.

He let the thought pass through his mind like water. Voices didn't matter anymore, especially when they belonged to someone that could either help or hurt them in a matter of seconds. He had also noticed she had ignored his question. "Why isn't he with you?" Two could play the game of blowing off questions.

The woman stared at him for a long moment. She was sizing him up, and he oddly felt as if she found something missing when she shook her head. "He got beat pretty bad. He couldn't come out tonight, so I did instead." She gestured behind him with her empty hand. "That woman needs help. She won't make it another 24 hours if she isn't treated."

Rick glanced over his shoulder at Michonne, seeing that she had somehow gotten her feet under her and was holding her katana defensively. Her face was hauntingly pale in the faint light, and he saw a bead of sweat run down her face sluggishly. He turned back to the woman, slowly lowering his weapons. "You alone?" he asked softly.

"Yes."

Rick nodded, she could be lying, but it was a chance he would have to take. "Then I just have three questions for you."