"Daryl! Dad, Carol! Look! He's back!" A boy, maybe in his early teens, Methos thought, ran towards them eagerly, kept away only by the fence surrounding the prison. "Daryl, where ya been?"

A man looked over from where he was hauling wood towards a side yard, and straightened, scowling. "Carl, get back here!"

"Stop right there, all of you. Daryl, are you all right?" A woman's voice asked sharply from the guard tower overhead.

"I'm fine, Carol," Daryl said, looking up at the woman, his voice pitched to be reassuring. He looked oddly bashful at the attention he was getting from the her and the boy. "These folks are okay, we can trust 'em. Glenn and Maggie are in trouble, though."

Other people had come out of the prison yard, drawn by the boy's excited shouting. A young woman holding a baby gasped at Daryl's announcement. An old man stumping along on crutches stopped close to her and called, "What do you mean? What happened to Maggie?"

The woman descended from the guard tower and met the scowling man at the gate by the boy. She held a rifle at half guard, looking ready to have it up and aimed in a heartbeat.

Daryl nodded to her and smiled at the boy, then focused on the man. "Rick, this lady, Michonne, she saw Glenn and Maggie get attacked. They were captured and taken to somebody calling himself the Governor. We got to go get them."

Rick glanced around at them.

Methos was uneasily aware that there wasn't a great deal of sanity in that gaze. Instead, the man's eyes were full of overwhelming grief. He caught Michonne's attention and inclined his head slightly toward the horses. Her chin dipped in understanding, and she drifted back to stand by Joe's mare. By the annoyed look in Joe's eyes, he was going to have to find some way to make up for being overprotective later. That was all right, as long as there was a later, and Joe was all right.

"They need ta leave." Rick waved away Daryl's immediate protest, echoed by the young woman and older man, who had come closer to the group at the gate. "We'll rescue our people, but they can't stay here."

"We need people, Rick," Carol said, her words a deliberately calm, almost offhand reminder. It reminded Methos of someone who couldn't be sure if their words might set someone off. "We've lost too many."

"And we don't know these people," Rick waved his hand, "We can't trust them."

Daryl looked down, as if he didn't want to challenge his leader. "We didn't know Hershel and his family, neither."

"And look how that worked out," Rick snapped.

Behind him, the young woman bit her lip, casting an anxious look at the old man next to her. He scowled, not looking at her, and shifted his weight on the crutches in a way that suggested he was embarrassed.

"But Dad," Carl's wide eyes darted between the adults, and he waved a hand toward the two unnamed onlookers. "Hershel and Beth —"

"No." Rick glared until the boy's shoulders slumped in defeat.

Carol's lips tightened. "Sophia was dead. Hershel admitted that he was wrong to try to save walkers. And he operated on Carl after Otis shot him. Bad and good, Rick. Sometimes you just have to take a chance. We're all in this world together."

Rick stared at her, challenging, and Methos expected her to back down given her earlier care with her words, but she stood her ground. In the end, it was Rick that walked away, avoiding everyone, muttering that anything that happened was on her head.

Carl unlocked the gate, and Daryl led them through it, only to abandon them to go to Beth. He took the baby from her, cooing and bouncing the baby in his arms, ignoring her questions.

Carol shook her head at the sight of Rick walking away, then turned back to Methos. "You might as well come in and set up a place to stay. Lord knows we have plenty of cells available. Then you can tell us about Maggie and Glenn."

Carol watched the new man, Adam Pierson, with the horses. She wasn't sure about him or his friend, or even the woman that came with them but didn't seem to know them. The way he took care of the horses went a long way toward reassuring her. No one who was that careful with animals could be all bad. Besides, Daryl trusted them, and he seemed to have good instincts about people.

Adam finished with the horses and nodded to her, as if knowing — understanding — that she was keeping watch. As he headed inside, she fell into step beside him. They walked in an almost companionable silence that she felt hesitant to break. He had an air about him that she associated with Daryl. A kind of quiet watchfulness. But was he a good man, like Daryl?

Inside the prison, Adam detoured to the cell he'd claimed for him and his friend, and dropped off their packs. He came back out to join her again, and they went to find the others in the communal area.

The current prison population — those that survived of their original group except for Glenn and Maggie, the two surviving inmates, and now the newcomers — were there, sitting at the tables, eating dinner. Carol turned, looking for Daryl. She found him, as she half-expected, holding Judith and giving her a bottle. Her smile softened, and her fingers itched to brush the hair away from his face. He still seemed half-feral at times, but the last year or so had seen him become an integral part of the group, its heart, rather than someone barely holding on at the fringes. She remembered when she'd been so frightened of him and his brother. Merle had been no better than her husband, and she'd thought Daryl was just like them. How wrong she'd been! They'd both come a long way. She was no longer a timid mouse, frightened of her husband, and Daryl was no longer a posturing loudmouth, being offensive to cover up his own fear.

Of course, both of them had their losses to bear. Her husband and daughter both gone, turned, and had to be put down. At least her grief didn't stab quite as deeply anymore. As for Daryl, his brother had been his world, for all she suspected Merle had been an abusive bastard. Merle was gone, and even though they didn't know his fate for sure, he was probably dead or turned, and she was viciously glad — Daryl was better off without him.

She went and sat nearby, but not too close, careful to give Daryl the illusion of space, and Adam sat next to her. Beth got up from her spot between Michonne and Carl, and wordlessly brought them each a plate of food.

Hershel and Adam's friend, Joe, were seated, talking quietly together about something. Maybe about their children? Did Joe have children? She knew Hershel would be worried about his older daughter, even if Maggie was with Glenn. Or maybe they were talking about their injuries? She'd seen how carefully Adam had helped the old man down from his horse, and Michonne had made sure he had his cane. The two former prisoners, Axel and Oscar, were seated on the outskirts of the group. Part of them, but not, too. The sight of them left her uneasy, even though it was better to know where they were, to keep an eye on what they might be up to. Rick sat alone, off to the side, occasionally flinching at shadows that weren't there. Lori's loss had hit him hard — harder than she had expected. Even Carl was holding up well, even though from what Beth carefully didn't say, the boy had been the one to make sure his mother didn't turn.

Hershel cleared his throat. When everyone — except Rick — turned to him, he asked, "What do you intend to do about my daughter and Glenn?"

Rick stopped eating, but didn't otherwise show that he'd heard the question.

"Dad?" That was Carl. Carol's heart went out to the poor boy. His faith in his father was taking a beating.

Rick bowed his head. "Tell us about the people who took them. Can we negotiate to get our people back?"

"There are about sixty or seventy survivors in Woodbury. It's run by this guy who calls himself the Governor — he's charming, but like a snake. There's no way he will negotiate with you. I've seen…" Michonne took a breath. "He's come across other groups. He welcomes them in, and as long as they follow his orders, they're all right. If they don't, well… "

Carol frowned, not liking the sound of that. "What do you mean?"

"It's what he did with me and my friend, Andrea. I didn't trust him, not like her. He's got her completely charmed. I was lucky to get out. He has a herd of walkers. He throws dissenters in with them."

Andrea? She leaned forward. "You have a friend named Andrea?" It couldn't be… could it?

Michonne nodded. "Yes. I wasn't sure at first, but I believe that you are her friends. She's spoken of you. She thinks you are all dead."

Carol sat back, stunned. Andrea! They thought she had been killed by walkers when they overan Hershel's farm!

Beth, obviously shocked, brought her hand up, covering her mouth, as tears filled her eyes. Hershel closed his eyes, muttering a prayer. Daryl smiled down at Judith, and Carol saw him mouth a promise to her, something about getting everyone back safe and sound. She hoped that would be true, for Daryl's sake if nothing else. After the way he went searching for her little girl, she knew Daryl would never give up.

"All right. So we have three people to rescue, not two. Is there anything else you need to tell us, Michonne?"

"He thinks he's got the upper hand, that he's safe. He's got armed sentries on every wall, and a group of about twenty men who act like a military unit."

Rick nodded, obviously thinking over what Michonne had said. "You know a way in?"

"Yes. The wall is secure from walkers, but we could slip our way through. I know a place where there's a gap in the wall, close to a building."

"We'll need a rescue party." Rick finally looked up, his eyes finding Carol's, then searching out Daryl. "Someone has to stay here, to protect this place."

"I'll go!"

"No, Carl, not you. I need you to stay here, to protect your sister."

Carl's face fell, but then he grinned, excited. "I can do that, Dad!"

"I'm going, of course." Michonne shrugged, looking at Rick with a small smile. "I have to, if you want to know how to get to your friends, don't I?"

Adam looked down, shaking his head ruefully. When he looked back up, his face was resolved. "I'm going."

Axel and Oscar exchanged a glance, and Oscar nodded. Axel rolled his eyes, but said, "We're going too."

Carol bit her lip. She wanted to go help bring Glenn and Maggie back, but she knew Daryl wanted to go. With him and Rick gone, she would be the only one of their original group who could fight. Hershel couldn't go, and she was sure he wouldn't allow Beth to go, either. He wouldn't want to lose his younger daughter the way he might still lose his older daughter. That left protection of the prison and the children up to her. "I'll stay. Keep an eye on the old place while you're gone."

Daryl smiled shyly at her, and she knew she had made the right decision.

Rick nodded at her. "All right then, that's our rescue party."

Joe spoke up. "Best time to go on a raid — or a rescue — is in the early morning, when the guards will be sleepy. They won't expect you."

Carol watched both Adam and Michonne nod in agreement and tensed. Did they have that much experience with raids or rescues? What had they been involved in? Oh, of course, she thought, relaxing a bit. Maybe they had been in the military, or had been police, before the plague started.

Rick sighed and stood up, putting his plate on the table next to him. "Let's turn in, get some rest. We'll follow Joe's advice, and leave just after midnight. That will put us at Woodbury with a few hours to go until dawn. Plenty of time to get in position and rescue all of our people."