The day he could feel his son's arms around him on that sun-scorched stretch of highway was the happiest day of his life. It wasn't the first time he'd followed his own ghost down. But it was the first day he'd been able to feel anything. And when he did it was like something just snapped into place. The world lined up and suddenly the others weren't ghosts anymore. He wasn't a ghost. They were real and he was real and he could finally nod and sob and tell them yes, he knew them. He knew them all.

They were on him in seconds. Arms wrapped around him and he was holding them back. His brothers, his sister, his son. His family. They were there and they'd been waiting for him.

"Bout time you woke up," Daryl laughed as he pulled back so he wasn't crowding Rick. But he hung close. So close just a shift in their feet had shoulders and arms brushing. Glenn was the same way. Carol, too. Carl was the only one that kept hold of him, his arms around his waist.

"Woke up?" Rick asked, blinking at him.

"That's what we've been calling it," Glenn filled in. "We all went to sleep in Alexandria, but we keep waking up back in the quarry camp. Just before sunrise. Same day, every time. We started figuring out that others were waking up, too, when one of us would do something different. It took a while for all of us to wake up and be awake on the same day. But for, what? The last twenty or so times? We've all been awake and waiting here for you."

"We figured of all of us, you were the only other one who might wake up," Carol explained, reaching out to fuss with Rick's hair as Rick dropped his had onto Carl's head. It was Carl's hat now. Had been for ages. "Since we're the only ones to make to Alexandria."

Rick nodded along, his hands on Carl's shoulders as he looked out over Atlanta. That made sense. As much sense as any of this made. "I kept seeing you as ghosts," he said, voice distant. "Kept seeing myself as a ghost. Stopping to grab you and greet you. Saw the car first. Empty. Then you started to fill in. The more I repeated the same things here, the more you filled in."

"What did you repeat?" Glenn asked, shifting on his feet as Daryl moved around them to grab the reins of the horse and move it back toward the station wagon.

"Just... stuff..." Rick muttered. All four of them gave him a look and sighed loudly. "Saving Merle mostly. Making sure he got out and we didn't waste time checking the sewer before getting the car."

"We did that, too," Daryl said, smiling at him. "Before all of us woke up. Glenn an' me would make sure Merle either didn't go or got back. Carol an' Glenn did the same. If it was just me awake or me and Carl, I'd go. Keep my brother in line."

Carl smirked up at his dad, "If it was just me, or me and Carol, sometimes I'd try to kidnap Glenn and make it back before Merle cut his hand off."

"You kidnapped Glenn?" Rick couldn't help the laugh before he looked over at the Asian man, "Really? You let a twelve year old kidnap you?"

Glenn was laughing with him and gave a shrug, reaching out to lightly push at Carl's shoulder, "He's a very capable twelve year old. One with the mind of an even more capable fourteen year old."

"Amen to that," Daryl murmured before pointing at the horse. "We should get 'em somewhere a little more shady and figure out what we're gonna do."

"We've been waiting for you so we could work a plan out," Carol said and moved off toward the car. "Before this, we usually just took you straight back to the quarry. Skipped the city trip altogether. But now that you're awake, we should probably get what supplies we can. In case whatever we do today holds through to tomorrow."

Rick followed with his hand in Carl's as he answered Daryl's unspoken question about riding the horse. Daryl could handle it while Rick got a ride. "What if we wake up again tomorrow?"

"We'll do it again until we can figure out what the trigger is. We know saving Merle is important, though," Glenn answered. He was no longer bitter about it. Merle had proven himself over and over to be a good enough man to protect Sophia and Carol from Ed. He just had to be approached right. And maybe, if they changed things enough, he might wake up in a world where Merle had never tied him to a chair, beat him bloody, and sent a walker after him while laughing his ass off. "Telling off Ed, too."

"Protecting our family," Rick said softly, brows furrowed. "The more times I saved Merle, the more times I could hear you. Maybe meeting here and getting back to camp together will be enough."

"Maybe. And if it is, we should definitely get those supplies. We'll need them for the trip the the farm," Glenn said as he pulled the car into drive. He leaned out the window and called to Daryl, "Meet us back at the park entrance." It went without saying that Rick could handle the in and out.

They all held hope that the next morning they'd wake up in camp together. Or back in Alexandria.

They didn't.

The day started over as it had been.

At least this time, though, they all knew they were going to be awake together.