Hershel sat at his desk in his room, his hands covering his face. He had given himself over to his needle's eye link to Daryl completely and had reached a point where he didn't even hear Maggie and Beth talking to each other in the living room next door. As he, like Carol, was determined not to distract Daryl he had locked himself down tight, but was fully open to everything coming from him.

Behind his closed eyelids he watched the darkening sky, the deepening shadows, the bushes and trees looming by the wayside that might be hiding anything - or anyone. He carefully analyzed each sound, however soft, however far away, to determine whether it might be the first and maybe only hint of danger to come. The cooling breeze caressing his cheeks and drying his sweat carried not only sounds but also scents, and he was alert for the dry, salty smell of the Feina every time he approached a corner and couldn't see over or between the bushes.

Gradually, the birds were falling silent in the trees, and night's predators were coming out. He stopped at irregular intervals, surprising Sandra each time, to make sure that what he was hearing were the regular, everyday night sounds appropriate for this time of day - or night. A brief smile touched his face when he heard the first night insects wooing their ladies or marking their territories.

And behind each of those sounds, each of those scents, each of those shadows, a danger might lie hidden that was using them as decoys to mask itself. He owed it to all the team members working on this tonight to not blunder and fall into a trap that he could have avoided had he been more attentive.

Hidden in Daryl's consciousness, Hershel kept following him.

.-.

Glenn had to stop to catch his breath, and Carol couldn't say that she wasn't grateful for a short break. They stepped up to the display window of a hardware store as if they were comparing prices, gesturing and pointing randomly as their panting slowly turned into regular breathing again. Carol kept looking about to make sure that nobody was coming up on them while Glenn, clearly nervous, did his best to keep his distinctive face hidden.

„Do you know what he's doing right now? Has he started placing them?" Glenn asked as they started walking toward the compound again at a brisk pace. He estimted that they would arrive in about five minutes, give or take, if they manged to maintain their speed. Carol, however, seemed eager to increase it. He briefly glanced at her before taking up his surveillance of their surroundings once more.

„He's inside, and he's already started", she mumbled back, fighting to make her voice sound sure and firm as she caught his eyes. „So far, they haven't run into trouble. Someone was waiting for him at the entrance to let him pass and he has someone with him now who has access to all buildings in there so he can get to where he needs to place the charges."

Her eyes unfocused briefly as she allowed Daryl's input to flood her again and Glenn wondered what it was like to have such a close, almost intimate connection with another person. He and Rick always needed words in addition to their link communication to convey the details of what they were thinking, and although they had been working together for months they couldn't seem to progress beyond that stage. „Come on", she breathed, nudging him with her elbow. „Let's see if we can get there a bit faster."

.-.

Lurking in the shadows of a clump of bushes, Daryl and Sandra watched as the group of Feina approached them, passing the bright light cone of a street lamp. She had felt him tense up when he had caught sight of them, and he was clearly nervous even now when before he had radiated an almost eerie calmness, but he controlled himself well. He was crouching beside her, perfectly still and so quiet that she would have sworn that he had stopped breathing.

When they had slithered into the underbrush, as a precaution he had put down his backpack and hidden in it a bush next to him so it wouldn't be lost with him if he got caught. Now he turned toward her. "If they catch me, now, or later on, you take my pack and go on alone", he whispered, his voice so low she had to lean in close to understand him. Bewildered, she noticed him immediately leaning back slightly to put more space between them again in turn. "You ever use your link?" he asked.

"Yes, I do, occasionally. Hershel's my guide", she whispered back, wondering where he was going with this.

"We have a map for where the charges need to go, and for the route I need to take to find them and get to these spots, so I'll meet as few guards as possible while I'm installing them", he mumbled, crouching down even lower now as the Feina were getting closer. She could sense his enthusiasm and excitement and wondered when she had ever been like this over one of her missions. "Forwarded it to Hershel, so if they catch me, you contact him and he can guide you the way Rick is guiding me now", he murmured. "First box contained the charge I just planted plus the tools I need, so when you find the boxes with the charges, you'll have everything you need right here." He patted his backpack.

"But –" she started to protest, agitated. This was not what she had signed up for. As one of two TE members who had jobs within the Feina headquarters in New Atlanta, she had only done reconnaissance so far and had no experience at all in actually sabotaging technology, information transfers or buildings. Watching the competent way in which he was moving in territory he had never seen with his own eyes before, solely based on limited visual input on the base from his agent during her single visit and a map he had had all of ten minutes to memorize, she doubted that she would be able to come through for him.

"No time to argue", he interrupted her before she had even phrased her arguments in her mind. "We're a part of one huge, world-wide operation. We fuck up here, we fuck up worldwide." He turned his head and she could feel his intense blue gaze on her even in the darkness under the bushes. "That can't happen. We have to do this. Failure is not an option."

She drew a ragged breath and managed a shaky nod.

The group of Feina passed them not three yards away.

.-.

True to his word, Daryl remained closed off to him, barely allowing him enough access to follow the mission so he knew when to scan the security feeds he was tapping into to be able to warn Daryl if danger was heading his way. Rick watched, heart pounding, as the Feina walked past Daryl and Sandra close enough for them to touch. Never having been an agent himself, he couldn't imagine how Daryl did it, especially in view of what had happened to him three years ago. Rick was quite certain that, if he were in Daryl's shoes, he would make sure to never cross a Feina's path again, if only to protect his family.

Checking the other feed windows, he looked at the map Daryl had sent him before setting out on what had become his mission and then tracked the route Daryl and Sandra would be taking through the compound in the various camera feeds to see if their path was clear. Once he was certain that he wouldn't have to usher them back into the bushes along the path again within a matter of minutes, he cautiously opened up the link with Daryl, sensing his aversion. "All clear again, you can move on", he whispered, careful to speak quietly so Lori and Carl wouldn't hear. Almost at once, he saw Daryl rising and stepping out of the brush like a wraith, quickly followed by Sandra.

His eyes wandering back and forth between the map to make sure they stayed on their path, and the camera feeds to make sure they stayed safe, he watched Daryl limping through the darkness, Sandra right behind him.

.-.

"Should be back here", Daryl growled softly, sitting down on the waist-high, purely decorative stone wall and carefully swinging his legs over it to crouch in the impenetrable darkness behind it. It was fully dark now, and the shadows cast by the shrubbery and the occasional low wall were pitch black. There was an uncomfortable pull in his left thigh as he stretched to find the small box Andrea had hidden somewhere around here. An involuntary hiss escaped him.

"I should be doing this", Sandra whispered unhappily as she tried to discern him in the darkness. "What did you do, sprain your ankle?" She had noticed his worsening limp and was annoyed that he wasn't asking for help for the more physical aspects of their mission. While she had never been that kind of agent, it wasn't as if she were made of glass, either.

He gave a humorless chuckle. "Yeah, I sprained my ankle, but I'm good, and I know where to look", he murmured back even as she heard the soft scratch of a screwdriver on metal from behind the wall – he had found the box and was opening it. After a few more moments he got to his feet and straightened up, his backpack hanging from his left shoulder, clearly heavier than before. After looking around to make sure they were still alone he came back over the wall again, lifting his left leg over it with one hand, and hobbled slightly when he stood. Grabbing his elbow, she tried to steady him, but he drew back from her touch almost violently, nearly tripping over the wall as a result. "Don't!" he hissed. "Don't fucking touch me!" Regaining his balance, he walked away from her, his limp bad now.

She stared after him, confused. "I only tried to help, you jerk!" she whispered angrily as she set out to follow him again. "You were falling and I tried to help you, that's nothing to yell at me for!"

He stopped briefly in a pool of shadow and she saw his shoulders rising and falling against the brightly lit path behind him as if he were taking a deep breath and then exhaling to calm himself. Looking back at her over his shoulder, he tried to meet her eyes, but found he was too ashamed of himself for losing control like that - so he looked at the ground instead. "'m sorry", he mumbled. "You're right, that was shitty. But don't touch me again, please. I'd rather fall."

Bewildered, she stared after him as he started walking again.

.-.

Rick had no idea what they had done – he hadn't seen either of them do anything that would warrant an alarm going off at their location. Maybe a new motion detector had been installed somewhere near them that the original building permit hadn't shown, and they had set it off. It didn't really matter what had caused it – they had to get out of there and he had to shut down that alarm, stat.

His fingers flew over the keyboard, entering commands and controlling input to the watch posts on the base's perimeter and at the main guard station inside the admin building. Ten seconds later, he had stopped the alarm signal, but not before it had been received at every post. Cursing silently, he fully opened his link with Daryl.

"You've triggered something, don't know what, and there was an alarm", he whispered urgently. "I stopped it, but someone might have noticed in the ten seconds it was active. You follow the route, keep the link open, and I'll make the cameras and sensors along your path malfunction when you're passing them." He took a deep breath, preparing himself to take shit from Daryl, but he received nothing but a tired sigh. With a glance at the feed from the guard room inside the admin building, he added: "Three are coming from the admin building. You need to get moving – now!"

.-.

Daryl quickly relayed Rick's instructions to Sandra in a forced whisper while securing his backpack and shortening the shoulder straps so it wouldn't bounce on his back. When she nodded, he set off at an awkward, limping run, staying in the shadows as much as possible, minimizing his noise and moving as fast as he could. She followed him at an easy trot, staying one step behind him so she had time to react when he stopped or turned without running into him.

As they came up on the next intersection, Daryl heard Rick whisper into his mind that they were cleared to go and loped across what could realistically be only a few square feet of empty space but seemed like a wide expanse now, completely without cover. He stopped on the other side to catch his breath and shook his head, panting, when she gestured ahead, prompting him to go on. "Need to rest a moment", he wheezed. The last time he had run was three years ago – and for some of that time he had been confined to a bed, and then learned to walk again.

Suddenly Sandra's eyes widened and she gestured for him to go into hiding behind the hedge lining the path. Suppressing his panting, he strained his ears and finally heard what she had noticed first – at least three sets of footfalls approaching them at a fast pace.

.-.

Glenn heard Carol heaving in a long, drawn-out breath as they were passing a house from which a young girl was just exiting. Once she was certain that the girl wasn't paying attention to them and would not look back, she caught the closing front door, grabbed a surprised Glenn's forearm and pulled him into the house with her. He stared at her, bewildered. „What is it? Why are we -?"

He fell silent when he saw her face - drained of all color, her eyes wide and sightless, the whites showing all around her irises. „An alarm", she whispered, her voice sounding reedy and thin. „The guards are coming. He's running!"

Glenn had no idea what was so bad about running, but she was clearly very upset. In the light of the hallway lamp he could see her fighting to regain her composure - and he could pinpoint the moment when she succeeded. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, and nodded. At the same time, an almost blissful smile crossed her face. „Good luck!" she breathed.

He could feel goosebumps rising all over his body.

And he envied her.

.-.

She was still running, as quickly and quietly as she could, again staying in the shadows and seeking cover whenever possible. She could sense Sandra more or less on her heels, close enough to touch, and was grateful that she didn't have to turn around to make sure she was still there.

The night air was cooling her down significantly now, filling her lungs and creeping in under her pants legs and her jacket. She could feel it affecting her already, the pain in her leg getting more insistent, but did her best to ignore it. Rick's voice in her head, slowing her down, speeding her up, stopping her, getting her to move again, all to time her movements with the brief „failures" of the motion detectors, heat sensors and cameras along their path.

The footsteps and the shouting behind them fading into the distance.

Her racing heart slowing down again once she could accept that they had made it. For now.

They exhaled in relief.

There was nothing left between them.

.-.

No attachment.