After obtaining Daryl's reluctant consent to enter into a meld with Rick again and act as his agent once more for this mission, Hershel left him alone to confer with T-Dog while Daryl made an attempt at preparing himself for the mission both mentally and physically. He stuffed several of his pills against the debilitating pain in his leg into various jacket and pants pockets and downed a third one with several large gulps of water - he couldn't risk a pain attack while he was out there. He forwarded the map to Hershel and, reluctantly, to Rick - without adding any comments.

While he was still constantly sensing Carol's overwhelming fear and helplessness, he knew that he had to try to shut out her feedback in order to concentrate on the mission. He was going to be the one exposed again, and he was completely unprepared in all ways that mattered, so distractions of any kind would be dangerous. But he found he couldn't block her. Although everything that came from her right now was negative and intimidating, it nevertheless told him that she was still there, alive, and they still had time to save her.

Glenn still had time.

He was not allowed to come to her rescue himself, although he would have sold his soul to go.

It hit him that he had never considered the possibility that she might not survive the night - but even if he had, he would certainly never have imagined her going out from being snagged by a random thug - or was he random?

He remembered the terror flooding her the instant she saw his face - she had never doubted for a second that this guy was bad news. She had known right away. He remembered the way that name, Ed, had reverberated within her the very second she had seen him, without the guy himself ever mentioning it. He remembered the way she had automatically submitted to being pulled along by him, without even trying to fight back - as if she had done it a million times before. Just like he had, every time he had been grabbed and dragged to that room.

She knew this guy.

She had history with him.

Clearly, there was something here that he wasn't seeing.

With an immense effort he pulled himself back to the present, to what he was about to do. What were the chances of ever meeting up with Rick again, let alone linking with him once more to allow him into his mind and let him tell him what to do? How would he be able to trust him after Rick had abandoned him once already, in a situation that Rick himself had gotten him into - about to be arrested or killed?

He found it hard to believe that he had agreed to do this - even thinking about going into a meld with Rick made him feel physically ill and he was seriously worried about how he was going to cope with this situation. Hershel was right, though - this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to reach their goal. If they should fail in this attempt, for whatever reason, the Feina would clamp down on them so hard that it would take decades to even get to the point again where sending them packing was a realistic outlook - and having been in on the present attempt, he would certainly not live to see Earth freed of their oppression.

He was not going to be the weak link here. He'd get himself to the compound and then link up with Rick to complete their mission.

He would make sure that their base would go down.

Much as he hated clichés, it was really a question of sacrificing his own well-being for the „greater good". He knew perfectly well that getting over the time he was going to spend linked up with Rick would take him far longer than just the actual hours themselves, if he even lived beyond the end of the mission - but if they achieved their goal it would certainly be worth the discomfort of one man.

Or his death.

After memorizing the map one last time, he set out for the compound.

.-.

Rick stared at his bike in utter disbelief, a vacant look on his face. Until a few minutes ago, he hadn't been aware of the fact that the guide of the main team was the agent he had thought he had lost during that reconnaissance mission three years ago - the one he had been severed from after he'd jumped off a roof to avoid being arrested and questioned. The one he'd assumed had died of his injuries later because he'd never heard anything about him again after that. The man he had told he'd be okay if he stepped out into the open, and then abandoned when he wasn't.

Boy, this guy was going to be so pissed.

His TE laptop, stashed away out of sight behind his toolbox, emitted the soft sound that told him he had just received mail.

.-.

Glenn was seriously out of breath. He'd been running for five minutes straight and was at the point where he was considering resorting to a strenuous walk. Then he remembered that the female agent - Carol - was in the hands of a psycho and probably fearing for her life, which spurred him on again. Additionally, he still felt considerable pressure from her guide, Daryl, urging him on. And a small, terrified voice in the back of his mind kept screaming that this might have happened to Maggie - some random maniac grabbing her off the street and dragging her into his lair to do unspeakable things to her.

Much as he told himself that he knew from her guide that it was NOT Maggie, the voice just wouldn't shut up. The most it would do was quiet down somewhat, but only as long as he remained running as fast as he could. As soon as he slowed down - lungs and legs burning with exertion, throat raw with panting - the voice would come on at full volume again.

Tearing around a corner, he recognized the street that Daryl had imprinted on him when launching him on his way and automatically started scanning the houses for the backlit hotel sign Daryl had shown him. Another nudge from Daryl told him that he would need to go further down the street to reach it. The excitement he received from him under the reined-in terror told him that Daryl had set out himself by now and was approaching the compound. He'd been expecting him to cut their link so he'd be able to fully concentrate on what he was doing, now that he was going out himself, but he stayed there in the back of his mind, stubborn and persistent, making sure that Glenn did his best to help Carol. He was sure protective of his agent.

His eyes fell on the hotel sign just as he heard the siren of a police car approaching.

.-.

Carol cowered away from Ed, utterly terrified. She had no idea what had come over her – her work with TE had helped her attain a level of self-confidence that she had never known before, and she had hoped that, if she were to ever be unfortunate enough to meet Ed again, she would not be reduced to the abject fear that she had known in her former life. Apparently, however, the reflexes drilled into her during the years of her abusive marriage were still stronger than the courage her new life had instilled in her. She found herself cringing away from him in fear as he spewed abuse at her, towering over her with one hand raised threateningly, about to hit her for the first time in years, and take away literally with one swipe of his hand all that she had achieved for herself.

The way she was cowering in front of him reminded her of something she had seen recently, but she couldn't for the life of her remember what it was and how it might be important to her present situation. She was infinitely grateful for Daryl's continued calming presence in her mind, talking her back from the brink of utter panic, teling her to hold on, help was on its way, she could do this and everything would be okay.

And suddenly his presence all but blasted into her consciousness, and in her mind's eye she saw a Feina looming over her against a very blue sky, looking down at her as if she were vermin as it reached for a comlink with one hand and continued pointing a weapon at her with the other. Next, the image in her mind erupted into motion as her legs, dressed in charcoal gray cargo pants and black boots she had never seen, scissored up and took the Feina in the knees, bringing him down. Her hands, spattered with blood, and covered with abrasions, cuts and bruises, some of her fingers obviously broken, struck out to grab the comlink and throw it wide even as one of her legs kicked the Feina's weapon out of his hand and way beyond his reach, out of sight. Her eyes widened.

The siren of a police car sounded in the distance, getting closer.

„Go! You can do this!" Daryl's rough voice whispered in her head.

.-.

Ed was utterly amazed when Carol suddenly threw up her legs in his direction. Completely unprepared, not expecting any kind of defensive reaction from her at all, he was stunned into inactivity as her legs scissored in front of him, and then her feet smashed into his knees from the left and right, first unbalancing him and then taking him down to the ground with the force of their impact. His head glanced off the wall as he fell and his vision started blacking out, dark ink bleeding in from the edges. Dimly, as if from very far away, he heard a police siren getting louder and then abruptly falling silent with a final indignant squawk.

Through the cotton that seemed to have been stuffed into his ears he heard the front door to the street opening downstairs, followed first by muffled voices and then by loud footsteps coming up the stairs and approaching the door of his room. A special effects voice sounding as if it called out in a cavern of incredible dimensions and echoed around in it endlessly before it finally reached him told him what he already knew - he had heard the siren. „This is the police. Open this door immediately or we will force it open! We are authorized to use deadly force!" A fist started banging against the door.

Still dazed from the blow to his head and stunned by the fact that Carol had dared to fight back, he shook his head a few times and tried to sit up. As he was still groggy and not expecting anything else from Carol, the kick she gave him with one foot to lay him out again took him completely off guard. All sound now seemed to come from very far away as he listened to her climbing to her feet and moving toward the door, where the fist was still hammering away, nearly making his head explode.

„Do that, bitch, and I'll kill you and your brat", he snarled viciously, the words slurring into each other. He forced his eyes open and turned his head with an immense effort to follow her movements. Unimpressed, she continued toward the door and pressed the emergency release on the maglock to open it, calling out to the men waiting outside.

„I'm opening the door now - I'm the victim. I've taken him down." The look she threw him over her shoulder was full of contempt and utterly without mercy as she stepped aside to allow the two human police officers waiting outside to enter the room.

.-.

Eyes wide with excitement, and exhausted from running over a distance of one and a half blocks to get here, Glenn crowded into the room on the heels of the two policemen. When getting out of their patrol car, they had cast him suspicious glances until he had told them he had been the one who had made the emergency call after seeing this guy dragging a woman through the door he was facing. He confirmed that the man had seemed to be violent, which had prompted them to abandon their half-hearted attempt at questioning him and instead go after the guy inside to get the woman out.

There was a seedy dude at the „front desk" squeezed into the dead end corner next to the staircase on the ground floor - a glorified office desk strewn with disorganized paper and lightly dusted with cigarette ash - who gave them directions to the only room with just one male guest living in it. To everyone's surprise, the door had opened almost immediately once the burlier of the two officers had started knocking on it and said his spiel. As soon as Glenn saw her standing in the open door, he knew it had to be her.

She was of moderate height, with a pixie face, beautiful blue eyes, shortish, curling silvery hair sticking out from her head every which way, and an elfin, fragile-looking body. Her collarbones, peeking out from beneath layers of black clothing, seemed to be sharp enough to cut paper on them. She was strikingly beautiful, even with stark terror still etched into her features.

Carol spied a handsome, black-haired, medium-height young Asian standing behind the officers, and she gave him a quick nod as the two policemen stepped around her, securing the hotel room. „It's okay", she assured him softly, making sure only he could hear her. „He hasn't touched me yet. Daryl … helped me take him out."

Glenn frowned, unsure of what she meant by that as nobody but the policemen and the guy who had tried to take her were in here with them, and Daryl, as far as he knew, was on his way to the compound, but he chose not to ask any awkward questions with the two officers still around. The older of the two was just flashing his ID at Ed. In a dreary, bored monotone, he stated: „I'm officer Merle Dixon, and I am arresting you for violent assault …"

Carol felt as if time had stopped. Her head whipped around and she stared at the officer towering over Ed, glaring down at him as his partner knelt down beside him to handcuff him.

Had he just said that his name was Dixon?