A small crowd gathered that night, around Daryl and Rick. Mostly it was people from the train cars, who heard the commotion. They stood around and stared as the plan was worked out. It took a couple hours of planning, but it was agreed that Rick, Daryl, Tyreese and two more of the bigger, meaner-looking guys would head out after breakfast and pose as potential buyers. Another dozen guns would surround the place at a short distance and be ready to move in if they heard any kind of ruckus. One of the more mechanical-minded guys offered to slim down one of the two baby monitors they had on hand so Rick could wear it in his pocket and give the second wave a better idea of what was going on inside. Ideally, all they'd do would be to scope the place out, make sure Beth was inside and figure out where the other innocents were and then they'd broker their deal and leave. Once they'd regrouped with the others, they'd come back in, guns blazing. After that, they'd scoot out as fast as possible and split up, each vehicle taking a different, wide path back to Terminus. It was a good plan, but it still felt wrong to Rick to go out looking for trouble when they'd finally just found a place with so much promise. As folks started to wander away, he looked down at the cracked pavement around the fire pit, dark with ash. He ran his fingers across it. He couldn't have explained why he loved it so much, but he felt such a longing to put guns aside and build, and this felt like the old, bad days, threatening to drag him back out into the violence and the pain he so badly wanted to leave behind. From where he was sitting, he could see Martha's window. It was dark and he pictured her sleeping. Her and Tulip. He smiled at the idea that Tulip and Judith would surely grow up as close as sisters. He pictured them crossing through one of the sentry gates he and Martha had designed with the builders, a couple of ten year olds, lost in their day of play. He imagined the sentry-maybe it was Bob-greeting them as they passed. So familiar. So safe.

Daryl plopped down beside him, breaking the trance. They just sat in silence for a few moments, most of what was passing between them not needing to be said.

"I'm sorry I shoved you around." Daryl said. "I've been kind of a mess since she got took."

"I can tell." Rick nodded, and they went back to staring in the fire in silence. "Hey," he remembered, "I have some good news. I can't believe I didn't think of it, sooner." He hopped to his feet and offered a hand to Daryl, who took it.

They crossed the yard to a far train car and slid the door softly open. They kept their steps light as they moved down the aisle. There was someone asleep on almost every seat, curled up in the fetal position to fit their bodies across the two seats. "This is temporary." Rick whispered. They kept moving, with Daryl's eyes darting back and forth, totally baffled as to what he was going to see, until Rick found what he was looking for and stopped. Curled up tight, with her feet propped up on the window sill and a big jacket pulled over her, was Carol.

Daryl's breath caught and he dropped to his knees. He rolled to a sit and scooted himself back into the little space between the rows of seats, the top of his body leaned over hers. She started and opened her eyes, sitting up a little. When she saw him, tears filling his already red and puffy eyes, mouth open and head tilted in disbelief, she didn't hesitate. She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him to her chest. He wrapped his hands under her arms and up her back and sobbed, in spite of himself. She rocked him back and forth and Rick could feel a couple people in the car stirring, even though they were being as quiet as they could and hadn't said a word. He watched them there, rocking for a moment more, and then turned to go back to bed.

The next morning when the train compartment roused for breakfast, Daryl woke up with his back screaming. He was lying with his feet in the aisle and his head on Carol's belly, with her face twisted around right in front of his and her arm still around his shoulder. Despite the agony of having slept in this position, he stayed another minute, watching her sleep with a smile on her face. He resisted the urge to stroke her hair, knowing it would wake her. When she did wake, half an hour later, he was gone.

Tyreese and the other two volunteers, Jackson and Dennis were loading up their vehicle while Daryl and Rick talked through the plan again, working over every contingency, when Martha marched up to them, Tulip on her chest. "What the hell, Rick?!" The others all stopped what they were doing to watch. "Just what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Listen, Martha, we have to." He took her by the wrist and turned her away, lowering his voice. "This girl is one of our own and she's with dangerous people. There are other girls in these guy's custody and we can't leave them, either."

She wrenched her arm away. "I don't give a shit, Rick. You talk to me about this kind of thing, you hear? Before you go running off with half our best men, you tell me. Before you go walking into a house full of lunatics with guns, unarmed, Rick, you tell me." Her voice had gotten soft, too, and her hands were on either side of his head, her fingers wrapped around the back of his neck and her thumbs on his cheeks. She rubbed his cheekbone with her right thumb. "You can't always be the guy in the front line, Rick. You aren't disposable, okay? I need you." Rick was aware that they were being watched by many eyes. He saw her realize it, too. She dropped her hands. "You do what you have to do, Rick, but we're making good progress, here, and you're integral to that. This community needs you more than that girl does." And with that, she was gone.

Word of their expedition spread fast after that, and within ten minutes, just as they were closing the doors on the vehicles and hopping in, themselves, Maggie came running around the corner, with Glenn close behind her. "Rick! Daryl!" She ran right up to them, slamming into them when she got there. "Where are you going? I heard a rumor, Rick, I heard this rumor you were going to get a girl you knew from your old camp. Who is it, Rick? Where are you going?"

Rick and Daryl exchanged looks and Daryl hopped into the truck, eyes front. Rick turned back to Maggie and took a breath. "We don't know if she's there, Maggie, but we're gonna try."

That was all her body had been waiting to hear. The dam burst and tears flowed down her face. She fell against Glenn, whose arms flew around her. "You knew she was out there? Did you know she was out there this whole time?"

"Maggie, Daryl was looking for her. We weren't ever gonna-"

She leapt forward and pounded on his chest. "You shoulda told me! I coulda gone with him!" Her eyes focused and she wiped the tears from her cheeks, full of determination. "Well, I'm going with you, now."

"No, Maggie! Damn it." Rick followed her as she marched over to a van loaded with the perimeter folks and jumped in front of a big guy on his way in. She sat in his seat, buckled herself and then held out her hand. The big guy looked from her to Rick, who sighed and nodded. He turned his body so she could reach the rifle he had been issued and she snatched it from him and then slammed the door. "Let's move out!" Rick yelled, and hopped into the driver seat of the truck, next to Daryl.

A crowd gathered with crow bars to stop any walkers getting in when they opened the gates, but there were only a few left on the fences and a few seconds later the rescue party was gone and the gates had closed behind them.