Hey kid - do I have your attention?

I know the way you've been livin'

Life so reckless, tragedy endless

Welcome to the family.

Hey - There's something missing

Only time will alter your vision

Never in question, lethal injection

Welcome to the family.

Not long ago you'd find the answers were so crystal clear

Within a day you found yourself living in constant fear

Can you look at yourself now? Can you look at yourself?

You can't win this fight

Daryl had faded in and out of sleep for most of the night. It wasn't much of a surprise, considering he never could get more than a couple hours of rest most of the time anyway, but Trish's presence next to him was overwhelming. She was everything he wanted and everything he loathed rolled up into a single package.

City girl. God damn, he hated city girls. Fancy bike, fancy clothes, fancy dog. She had all of that. Nail polish and cigarettes. Leather jacket and satin lingerie. Or, at least, Daryl had guessed it to be satin. Shut up, he told the little head. Not doin' me any favors thinkin' that way.

They had been alone in the tent ever since Shane had come to get T-Dog for his shift on watch as the moon hung low in the early morning sky. At some point during the night, Trish had put away the music player, and they had managed to scoot towards each other in their sleep. When he was finally awake enough, Daryl noticed something else. Both had been wrapped up tight in their individual bundles, but had settled into a comfortable position with their backs touching from shoulder to hip.

The sounds of others beginning to stir in the pre-dawn finally convinced Daryl to move. Nature called, motivating him to move a little faster as he crawled out of the tent and stuffed his feet into boots without bothering to tie them. Once he had finished his business a few yards away, a glance back towards camp showed him that Trish hadn't been too far behind him in waking up.

The morning routine didn't come to a grinding halt just because there was an extra body in the way, and Daryl didn't waste time getting to it. Water needed to be hauled up and put in containers for the next leg of the trip to Ft. Benning. Vehicles needed to be packed. Tents needed to be torn down. Bedrolls needed to be…

"I'll be damned," he mentioned casually, setting the bucket of spring water he had fetched near the fire pit. Daryl filched a hot piece of frying meat from the pan Carol was cooking in and received a playful slap on the wrist, which he promptly ignored. He ate it as he approached his tent, which Maggie was already starting to pull stakes on. A few feet away, Trish was attempting to roll up the sleeping bags.

"I'll get those," he told her, squatting down and taking the rope out of her hand. She had been fiddling with his bedroll, and there was a certain way it needed to be done for it to fit on the bike. "Help Maggie."

The two women made short work of breaking down Daryl's little corner of the camp. There wasn't much talking, which surprised him. Weren't women supposed to be chatty and gossipy? But Trish did more observing than talking, and Maggie was more than happy to show, not tell.

Glenn had approached them just as the ladies were tying up the tent, pressing his lips against Maggie's neck. Her reaction was instant as her pupils dilated, then closed to slits. The little displays of affection between the two weren't usually worth much to notice, but their attraction to one another was always apparent. Daryl couldn't have picked a more mismatched couple than the Asian pizza-delivery boy and the Southern farmer's daughter. Except for maybe…

Trish's face was a marvelous shade of red. And she was trying to look anywhere except the smooching couple ten feet away. Daryl whistled quick and low to get her attention, pointing first at the bundles near her feet and then at the RV. He saw her let out a breath she had been holding before she nodded in understanding. Not waiting around for any further help, Trish took off with as much gear as she could grab.

Daryl especially liked the hitch in her step from balancing a sleeping bag on her hip. She was wearing grey leggings, a dingy white men's dress shirt and pink low-top All-Stars. When she swayed just right, the shirt lifted and gave him an excellent view of her…

"Stop staring at her ass, Daryl." When he looked up to meet Maggie's gaze, he saw a bit of humor behind it.

"Might be the last I see of it," he teased back, but Daryl couldn't help but wonder just how much truth there was to that statement. Trish certainly wasn't making a beeline out of camp, and Rick had glanced her way a time or two since sunrise.

"Never thought I'd see the day when you were checking out a girl," Glenn added.

"Never been one worth it."

Trish was thanking Daryl in her head as she marched towards the RV with the camping gear. Being around other couples made her squeamish. It wasn't that she didn't like Glenn and Maggie. Trish just didn't see the need to be present when they decided to suck face in the middle of camp.

"You didn't have to help break camp," Carol said warmly, meeting Trish at the door of the camper and grabbing one of the sleeping bags.

"You guys put me up. Least I could do." She followed the older woman around the vehicle to stow the camping gear in the storage cubby. "Besides, I'm not used to being up so early. Needed to be productive to get my blood moving."

"I don't know how you do it on your own. The only one of us who might stand a chance is Daryl, but he has skills the rest of us could only dream of having."

Trish shrugged, trying to push the thoughts of the warm body she had slept next to out of her head. "Just a matter of staying quiet and out of sight."

"I don't imagine the motorcycle is all that quiet."

"No worse than any other vehicle. Besides, I usually hole up for a couple of days. It's long enough that walkers lose interest and move on."

"Good strategy," said Dale, coming up behind them with another load ready to be loaded. "If you're on your own. Not so great for a large group." She shrugged again, but softened it with a smile. These were good people, for the most part. "I trust the boys behaved last night."

Trish's heart skipped at Dale's words. Daryl had indeed behaved, as promised, and she had been all but oblivious to the presence of T-Dog. She didn't know how they had gravitated towards each other during the night, but Trish had felt Daryl's absence the moment he crawled out of his sleeping bag. Somehow, sleeping back-to-back the way they had gave her a sense of security that Trish didn't know she had been missing. "Everything was fine," she replied. "Except for the ground part."

Her response drew out a chuckle from Dale and a weary smile from Carol, who nodded at them both before slipping away. "I'm supposed to ask if you could go over the maps with Rick and Shane. They're over by the rest of cars." He nodded in the direction of the group of vehicles that were parked a few dozen yards away from the RV. The two men in question were indeed pouring over a map that had been spread out over the hood of a station wagon. Torn between wanting to help and wanting to leave, Trish's conscious got the better of her and she headed in their direction.

Rick caught sight of her out of the corner of his eye and moved to open a space for her as she approached. As Trish slipped in between them, Shane's posture stiffened, but he otherwise said nothing to acknowledge her.

"If we take this route, it should be less congested," said Rick, drawing an invisible line along a series of highways with his finger. She followed it with her eyes until it settled on a place she recognized.

"Benning?"

"Yeah. If anyone's still around to help survivors, it will be there."

"Benning's gone." Both men stared at her in disbelief for a split second. Rick with a tinge of sadness, Shane with pure anger. It was making her uncomfortable, and she backed away as she felt the stirrings of another panic attack coming on. After taking a breath and calming herself, Trish continued, "Get your people together and I'll explain."

She walked away, but could still feel their gaze on her back as she went to the Honda and got her map from the backpack that someone had sat next to it. Daryl was getting his own bike ready for the road and looked at her quizzically.

"There's a hitch in your fearless leader's plan," she told him. "Might as well come along and hear the news."

More than one person was fidgeting as the survivors sat around the campfire that T-Dog had extinguished less than an hour before. Daryl didn't know what Rick had told them all, but if it was as vague as what Trish had said, he couldn't blame them. If something was wrong with Ft. Benning, they would have to come up with a new plan. Rick didn't look too particularly happy about having to break the news, and Shane was downright fuming. Trish stood between them, then stepped forward when the former sheriff's officer nodded at her.

"There's no way to sugar coat this," she started, "so I'm just going to come out and say it. Y'all are wasting your time with Fort Benning." Although she was looking at them all, judging their reactions, her hands were twisted together and she was chipping away at the polish on her nails. Everyone was wearing a shocked expression, right down to Carl, and Lori looked as if she might be on the verge of tears.

"So you're saying it's…overrun?" Dale ventured, probably assuming that was on everyone's mind at the announcement. But Trish shook her head.

"It's just gone. A big scar on the land it used to sit on." She narrowed her eyes and pressed the fingertips of one hand against her forehead. Another memory she'd rather forget. "Carpet bombed was the phrase I heard used to describe it." So she hadn't been traveling alone the entire time. Daryl tucked that bit of knowledge away as Andrea chimed in with her two cents.

"Well, we've seen signs for another military base around this area. Can we try there?"

"Robbins Air Force Base, yes. They're overrun."

"Serves 'em right," Shane said with a snort. "Bastards and their jets, bombing any place folks might go to for help."

There was another awkward silence that filled the camp. Trish faded back behind Rick, her part in the conversation seemingly done. With both local military bases taken off the list of options, Daryl began to run ideas in his head. Damn these people for making him worry about their well-being. If he had just left them behind, found Merle… Merle's beyond your reach at this point, the voice in his head reminded him. If he even made it past the walkers in Atlanta, he wouldn't have survived long on his own with one hand missing.

"We should head back north," he finally said, cursing his conscience. "Get away from these towns and cities where all the walkers are collecting at."

"South would be better. Less hardship with winter coming," Dale argued.

"Every pussy with a mind on being comfortable will be heading to the coast. Too big of an infection risk if you ask me." More than a few heads nodded their agreement with him, which actually pleased Daryl. It was always surprising when they took him seriously, and they were beginning to do it more often than they used to.

"Well, North will have to be the new plan," Rick said with a sigh. "I need my drivers with me at the maps. And yes, that includes you if you want, Trish." She startled at the sound of her name, clearly not expecting him to include her. Obviously, she didn't know about the group's ability to collect strays. But as Daryl walked towards the station wagon to join Rick, Shane and Dale, he noticed that she wasn't too far behind.

**lyric credit** "Welcome to the Family" by Avenged Sevenfold