The next morning everyone crowded into the now meeting hall to hear the plan for the day. Standing in front of the room, waiting for everyone to settle into their seats and quiet down was the first time Rick realized what he had done, becoming a leader again. He hadn't thought about it; it had just come naturally. Everyone's got jobs to do, he told Herschel in his mind, brushing away the thought. He ran over the crowd with his eyes. There were about two hundred people there. Some already had their purpose and been given priority in the breakfast line. The children and teachers were in the classrooms, the second shift had taken their crowbars to the fences and the hunting party was away. The kitchen staff was probably enjoying their portions of oatmeal last before cleaning up and getting things ready for supper. Martha had appointed a cute little lady who had been an organic farmer and actually gone to college for it, (which Rick hadn't realized had been an option,) to handle choosing how much and of what they would eat from the gardens each day, and no doubt she was surveying their crops and making those decisions right now. She had also appointed one of the cleverer teenagers, (though Rick suspected him to be on the spectrum, somewhat,) to take on a similar role in doling out pantry goods, which were limited. Rick was just settling on this thought as he sensed the room was ready to hear him, so he added it to the agenda in his mind and after opening up the room to address a few minor complaints, he came to it.

"We got a few things we got to take care of today. First is, I'd like to get a lay of the land when it comes to resources. Now, we got a lot of stuff in the cellar here and y'all don't need to worry about food, but I mean to stay as far ahead of that concern as possible. I want to be over prepared." He didn't know what he was going to say next, but he spoke with confidence, anyway. "Glenn, I'd like you to put together a sweep team. Take three others, take some maps and come up with areas to search each day. Everything within half a days radius, I want it searched and I want what's out there." Glenn hopped up beside Rick and a dozen hands went up. He chose a few and they went out together. Maggie sunk in her chair after not being chosen but Rick knew why and he knew she knew it, too. It was why he had given the power to Glenn and not her in the first place. He'd do better out there if he didn't wasn't constantly worrying about her. "Next thing up is plumbing and other infrastructure. Place seems to be doing fine, but I want someone to take a look and tell us what we're working with. We got any plumbers or other contractors in here?" Several hands shot up. Rick chose one at random.

"My dad was a plumber. Used to take me out with him when I was a kid. Helped him for a summer job all through high-school and college." The guy didn't look old enough to be more than a couple years out of college, so it seemed all right to Rick. He chose another.

"Inherited an apartment building. Couldn't afford a super. I learned enough, working on the place." That was good, too. Everyone was worth something, and Rick sent the little team out to start their survey. He was liking the feeling that people were getting more and more specialized jobs.

"All right. That leaves the rest of us with the hard part. Martha has figured out a plan to reinforce the walls and talked to Emmett, here, who I guess knows about these things, and they've come up with a plan. They're gonna take it from here."

Rick sat down and watched as Martha and Emmett got up to give their little presentation. Martha explained that they were going to extend the brick parts of the perimeter until there were only a couple small access points, which would be easier to choke off in the case of a swarm. Emmett explained the construction of this. Martha also explained that to the east there was a field with good soil and that everyone would be divided into groups. Some would be enclosing Terminus and the courtyard, and some would be enclosing the field, which could then be used for farmland.

"Why are we building a wall between Terminus and the farmland?" someone asked.

"Because Terminus isn't big enough for all of us to live in. We don't have enough beds, not really. I know a lot of you are uncomfortable. Even if you have something to sleep on, we don't have room for people to put their personal effects."

"We don't have any personal effects." Maggie told her.

"But you will. And if we make the field as secure as the train yard, we can add residences there, as well."

"So, why the wall?"

"In case something goes bad in one area. The more sectioned we are, the safer we are."

Everyone accepted this without fuss and the meeting continued. Martha and Emmett assigned people to tasks and work stations and the room cleared out, but Rick was still glued to his chair, staring at the place where Martha had been. He was playing over what she'd said. Picturing it. It made sense. It felt permanent. He wondered whether, if he'd thought of something like that at the prison…

They had fallen into a rhythm after only one day, and everyone returned late in the afternoon to eat wild turkey and cabbage, with a couple slices of canned peach for desert. The huge number of workers made building go quickly, even with Martha and Emmett hovering to insist that everything be done just according to specification, a trench had been dug and concrete poured, so that just inside the fence, all the way around Terminus, there was a base ready for a wall. The field had been enclosed with new fence, and that trench was half dug, as well. "I can't see the whole project taking more than three more days." Martha announced, plopping down beside Rick. "Depending on what kind of shelters we want to build, we could start moving folks into permanent homes in the field by the end of the week."

"You thinking half the people will move over there?"

"What? No. You just need enough to tend the fields and guard them. Maybe a dozen, at most. We'll have the whole crew till the soil and all that, but then we'll be ready to start on the next section of wall. We're going to need to do another materials run."

"Okay, I'll bite. What's the next section of wall for?" he asked her, and had to wait for her response while she chewed.

She swallowed as hard as she could, and spoke through the rest of the food in her mouth. "I was thinking we could build a shop. We have a lot of guys here that are real handy with cars and such. There's one guy, George, who says he can build something that turns fire smoke into gasoline and he reckons if he can pull an alternator out of something, he can build a generator that doesn't spend any of our gasoline. I figured it'd be good to let him try. Plus there's a blacksmith, can you believe that? He was talking about making stuff, if we need it. His list of supplies is real simple."

"So what's the idea, here? We keep building these little enclosed what, villages? And they each have their own purpose?"

"Sure. And most of 'em will probably farm. But, like, the hunters could have their own barracks, attached to Terminus. I'm just trying to spread folks out, a little."

Rick chewed a while. She was right. The flu never could have hurt them so badly at the prison if there'd been more separation. If the prison had been full of choke points like the passages through the wall, would the Governor's attack have been so devastating? "Each village will be responsible for posting a sentry at every entrance, so there'll be one on either side." Martha had gotten distracted playing with Tulip, but she looked up and smiled. He was getting in the spirit of her idea. "And if we make sure each village has a similar number, we can have a counsel with one from each village on it to make decisions. Terminus will be the capitol; people will just come here for meetings and send their kids to school." Her smile was even bigger. Together, they were figuring out what a society could look like without goods coming in from out of town. He stood up and pointed with his fork. "The hunter's barracks will be on that side. We'll build those next. It'll just be a small courtyard with ten or so homes and a building for fletching and butchering." Martha pulled Tulip into her arms and they walked around the perimeter, talking. By the end of the meal, they had come up with a plan to move three quarters of the population out and into their own homes by winter.

Just as they finished their circle, a clamor went up and they jogged to the gates to see the trucks returning from the day's run. Maggie sprinted forward to greet them, but it was clear that she needn't have worried. Glenn hopped out with a smile on his face. "Got everything you asked for, I think!" he announced, greeting the doctor and two assistants who also ran forward. "You were right about the clinic. The basement hadn't been touched!" The pantry manager and a couple of his folks came forward, too, and weren't disappointed. "It's a total mishmash. We found two vending machines and a pretty picked-over gas station, and other than that it was just houses. Lots of stuff, though!" From where he stood, Rick could see them unloading Pop Tarts and Spagetti-Os and boxes of sugary cereal. The truck was more or less full of the stuff.

"That's good," Martha said. "Anything to slow down the eating of the vegetables for a while. In the spring, we won't need it anymore, but for now we've got to make this stuff last." He looked at her. He wasn't sure she was talking to him. "It's good. It's good. It's working." He nodded. She was-as he was finding her often to be-right.

The sun was getting low. It wouldn't be dusk in an open space like Terminus for another hour or two, but deep in the woods the low angle meant it was getting darker.

"We should turn back." Michonne told Daryl. She was taking very deliberate steps, at this point. He was moving fast and she didn't want to encourage him. He didn't reply. "Daryl, if we don't turn back soon, we won't be able to get back to the car by nightfall and we aren't equipped for camping."

"You don't need nothing to camp."

She stopped walking. "Daryl, come on."

He turned to her. "What do you want me to do, Michonne? Why did you even come with me? You ain't looking for nothing. You ain't finding shit! Seems like you're just here to make sure I don't get my damn hopes up. Well I ain't giving up 'til I've fucking LOOKED." He turned back and kept moving forward, quickly. She sighed and followed.

"You said these people had a car."

"You can't track a car."

"So what are you trying to track?"

He didn't answer.

"Daryl…"

"Based on the direction they took off, they had to come down that road. It only leads to that town back there, where we both know they ain't, and the highway."

"And if it's the highway, then you don't know where they went."

He scowled. "Why would they come that far from where they were just to snatch little girls?" At first, she thought the question was intended to shoot her down, but then she looked up. He had stopped walking and he was looking at the ground. His shoulders were hung. Michonne blinked. She had never seen Daryl emotional but as she looked at him, it occurred to her that he might cry. She blinked again. She wasn't the coddling type.

Just as she was formulating a sentence, (something along the lines of, "plenty of reasons, maybe they were just taking her because they saw that you guys were surrounded,") when a twig snapped behind them. In the time it took them to spin around, Daryl had notched an arrow and Michonne had drawn her sword. They glanced at each other, squinting into the dim spaces between the trees. Daryl jerked his head to indicate stepping apart to circle around the source of the sound, and Michonne followed the tacit instruction. They both stepped gingerly; they had the softest footfalls in their group. As they rounded, they kept themselves tense for a possible fight. They moved several paces until they felt they should be level with the sound, but saw nothing. It was unnerving. Then they both jumped out of their skin.

"Hey, down there!" They looked up. In the tree between them, just a couple branches up, was a teenage girl with a very big gun, pointed right at Daryl. "Why don't you go on ahead and set that bow down by your feet?"

Daryl lowered the point, but he didn't set it down. "What're you doing up there?"

"Well, I was trying to avoid you completely, but it kinda seemed like you were gonna find me, so I thought we might as well have this conversation on my terms."

Daryl smiled. Michonne didn't understand. She wasn't feeling too calm, yet. "We ain't gonna hurt you," he said, "so why don't you come down and we'll have the conversation on equal terms, instead."

"I don't think so, buddy. You're outgunned!"

"It's a plenty big gun, but it ain't worth nothing if you don't know how to use it. I'd be happy to show you."

The girl was mad. She tried to maintain her attitude. "Go on and push me, boy, and you'll see how well I know!"

Daryl laughed. His crossbow arm was now completely relaxed. "Girl, you're not fooling anyone and you're not in danger, neither, so come on down and let's talk this out. The girl was hating this, but she slung the gun over her shoulder and hopped down, absorbing the ground not quite as gracefully as she had obviously hoped. He slung his crossbow over his shoulder and plucked the gun from hers. He pointed it off to the side and told her, "First of all, this is how you hold it. You hold it like you were doing and the damn thing's gonna fly out of your hands as soon as you fire. Second, this right here is the safety, which you'd like to be off." He clicked it into the next position and handed it back to her. "There's only a couple more rounds in there, so be careful."

She studied the side of the weapon and then clicked the safety back on. "Thanks."

"You traveling alone?" Michonne asked her.

"Yeah. A couple days now. I'd sure appreciate if I could tag along with you."

Michonne and Daryl made eye contact.

"How many walkers have you killed?" Daryl asked her.

"What?"

"Dead people. How many you put down?"

"I don't know. I lost count. Lots."

"How many people you killed?"

She chewed her lip for a second. "Seven."

"Why?"