They reached Columbia, Missouri the next day and found their way back to the main road. Georgette sat on one of the bags, trying to find some comfort. Every time they went over a bump her whole body would fly in the air and she'd come down painfully on her tailbone. Next ride she was switching with Candice whether she liked it or not. She was also pretty cold. They had gone through some rain further back which has soaked her. Her vest didn't give her much warmth so she dug pulled on a sweater shirt instead. She looked out at the fields that stretched alongside the road. Missouri was definitely not as open as Wyoming but it still had a lot of farmland. There were a few walkers stumbling around out there. They'd make great target practice if they had more ammunition.

Daryl stood on top of an eighteen wheeler, keeping his eye on the dirt road and the surrounding woods. They rarely saw walkers but he wasn't going to take any risks. They had the whole place surrounded by cars and big trucks but that didn't always stop them. He kept his crossbow close and slept with one eye open. He heard someone walking up behind him. He didn't say anything as Michonne walked up next to him.

"Hey,"

"What are you doing up here?"

"Keeping watch."

"You don't have too."

"I want too." She knew she wasn't going to get anywhere with him. She sighed and sat down next to him.

"You know things have gotten a lot better around here. Springs coming, Carl's finally teaching Judy how to properly trap, and Sarah's showing Carlotta how to clean and stitch wounds. She's getting old and her sights starting to go so it's good we have someone else who knows how to do those things." He continued to watch the road and said

"Good, none of us are gettin' any younger." Michonne laughed and said

"You ain't so old yet."

"I'm the oldest here 'cept for Sarah." It was true. Sarah was in her seventies. The youngest was Judy who was twenty-three.

They sat quietly for a bit, listening to the nature around them. Then Michonne got up and said

"Well it's about lunch time, better be heading back." She expected him to follow and he heard her stop at the top of the stairs. "Come on Daryl, really there's no need to sit up here. Nothings gonna come through here and ambush us."

"You don't know that." He heard her sigh and then come up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder.

"Look I know what it's like to lose someone you love and care about." Daryl knew she was talking about Rick and her son Andre. "But you have to push on." She was quiet for a moment then she quietly said "Beth wouldn't want you acting like this." The mention of her name almost sent him over the edge but he took a deep breath and said

"You still got Carl and Judy, you're their mother in all but blood, I don't got anybody left." He felt her pull him into a hug and she said

"We're still here for you." Michonne had become like a sister to him since she'd found him near death in the woods and brought him back to the camp twenty years ago. He'd been wandering around the woods, not giving up on his search for the girls when he'd collapsed from exhaustion and hunger. He'd woken up to find Carl, Michonne and baby Judy there. He'd thought he'd died but as he had come to he realized it was actually happening. He soon discovered that Rick had died months earlier while saving Carl from a herd of walkers. That had been a big blow. He'd lost Beth, the girls and the man who he had considered a brother all around the same time. He also came to discover that Michonne and Carl had met up with three Woodbury survivors, Carlotta, Sarah and a man named Talmidge. They had been the ones to grab Judith and bring her onto the bus before leaving. The bus had been overrun and they had been the only ones to escape. Together they started building a camp.

Michonne had stepped away from him and said "You coming or what?"

"Ya." He followed her down the wooden steps and across the field. They had no vehicles to get around in so it was about a five minute walk. He thought of how much the girls would have loved this place. They had a good amount of land closed in so there would be lots of places for them to explore. He remembered how much Georgette had loved playing in the sand.

Daryl walked down the street, holding Georgette so that she was facing over his shoulder. He listened to her babble away in baby talk. Some things she said were becoming clearer now that she was one. She could say dada, mama, uh-oh, ya and no which was her favorite word to use as of late. She had only turned one about a month ago in the spring and now they were in the full heat of summer. Beth had gone to do some laundry and it was his day off from helping the guys so he decided to take Georgette down to the small park they had set up.

He gently pulled her away from his shoulder as he felt her grab onto a strand of his hair and tug hard. He brought her back so he could look at her. He smiled and said

"Hey what'd I say about pullin' daddy's hair?" She had a grin on her chubby face and she said

"Uh-oh dada." He laughed and said

"Uh-oh is right." He held her to his chest and kept her away from his hair. Beth had offered him the small carrier he could strap on his chest and put her in but he wouldn't humiliate himself like that so he carried her. There were other children playing in the park when they arrived but nobody in the sandbox. He sat down on the bench next to it and put her down. She took a few wobbly steps and then sat down in the sand. She picked up a small pink shovel and started to probe around at the sand. He leaned his head back and let himself relax. He felt something hit his leg and heard her giggle. He looked up to see Georgette with a handful of sand. With all the force her tiny body could muster she threw it at him. It hit his leg again. Amused he said

"Hey no throwin' stuff out of the sandbox." With a devious look on her face she grabbed another fistful of sand and threw it at him. "Do it one more time and I'm comin' in there." Slowly she reached down and picked up another handful. As soon as she threw it he was on his feet. She let out a high pitched squeal of excitement and he picked her up and twirled her around. They landed back in the sandbox and he let her crawl out of his hands and back into the sand.

As they got closer Daryl could see the building through the trees. Inside the barriers was an old brick hospital. It wasn't huge and had clearly been a smaller branch of a larger hospital. It was about four floors and small enough that they'd been able to clear the whole thing. Their living space was on the first floor and their bedrooms were in the underground basement level. They only used the other floors for storage. The place had a good amount of medicine still left in it when Michonne had discovered it so they kept that there too.

They walked into the main courtyard. Next to that was the small helicopter pad were people used to be medflighted out from. He saw Pedro there gutting a deer.

"I'll be in in a sec." Michonne went on and he walked over to Pedro. "Nice catch."

"Thanks," he said, "Where you been all day?"

"At the fence." Pedro looked up at him, his face sweaty from work.

"Haven't seen any walkers for days now. Maybe it'll stay that way." Daryl doubted it and said

"Need any help with that?"

"Nah I got it, I'm gonna clean up and then come into eat. See you there." He and Pedro had become fast friends since the time he'd walked into the camp. They'd been cautious towards him at first. He'd told them he got separated from his group weeks ago and had been on his own ever since. He'd quickly proved himself by hunting for food and helping out. He and Pedro roomed together and he'd often be the one to wake him out of disturbing dreams. Pedro had PTSD from being in the army in Iraq before the walkers so he was also a troubled sleeper.

Daryl was turning to head inside when he heard an excited voice call out to him. He looked up to see Judy running towards him, Carl fast on her heels. She was holding out a huge dead rabbit.

"Daryl look! Look what I caught!" She came to a halt in front of him and said "Carl showed me how to set traps!" He smiled at her excitement and said

"Good job," Carl came up behind her and said

"And you thought the trap wouldn't work."

"Well it looked pretty ridiculous at first!" No matter how old the two got they would always get in little arguments. "Where's Michonne? I wanna show her!"

"She's inside eating." The two took off again towards the door. Sometimes he couldn't believe how old they'd both become. Judy had grown into a tall, thin, pretty strawberry blonde woman. She looked a lot like Lori except for the hair. She was so sweet and innocent, almost a little too much for her age. Carl had insisted on sheltering her and Michonne had gone along with it. Of course she knew how to fight off walkers but she had never seen how bad things could be out there. She had never lost anyone extremely close to her yet. Of course her parents were both dead but she hadn't known them to mourn them.

Carl was now a handsome thirty-five-year-old. He was a good mix of both Lori and Rick. He still had the same dark brown hair and blue eyes but he had Daryl beat in height. He had been thrilled when Daryl had gotten his father's sheriff hat back to him years ago. He still wore it everywhere he went.

He walked into the main lobby area where they had pulled out a long table to eat at. He grabbed a plate, got himself a piece of venison and took a seat next to Talmidge.

"Hey Daryl, how's it lookin' out there?"

"It's quiet as usual." Talmidge was a middle-aged man that had escaped the bus but shattered one of his kneecaps in the process. Sarah had done her best to heal him and he now walked with a permanent limp. He was a good asset to the group as he had some great survivalist skills. He also used to work in construction and had been the one to make the walls surrounding the hospital sturdy. He started to eat and took a look around the room. He found himself watching Sarah show Carlotta how to properly bind a broken leg. The old woman had been a nurse before the walkers and she was the one who tended to everyone's injuries. Carlotta had been a stay at home mom and had lost both of her children to the walkers back before she'd even become a part of Woodbury. She'd volunteered to be the one to help Sarah out. He looked back down at his plate. He knew this was his family now, the people he had to look out for. But he would never let Beth and the girls go. Someday when his life was over, he'd see them again.

They had stopped for the night and found a small car garage to stay in. The floors were concrete and it was cold and damp inside but they found a backroom with a couple of couches to lay on. They were almost out of Missouri and into Illinois. Like they had done with Kansas City they decided to pass by St. Louis and make a wide circle around it. They had to keep pushing forward. They were three states away. She finished her meal and then lay down, her eyes half open as she rolled over so she faced the back of the couch. She hadn't quite thought over what would happen if they got there and weren't able to find their parents. Would they continue onto Louisiana with Odilia? How long would they take to look? Georgia was a pretty big place and their parents could be anywhere by now. Maybe they'd left the state and this was all for nothing.

After an hour of rolling around and feeling wide awake Georgette sat up. The fire was still going and both Odilia and Candice were asleep. She dug through the bag and pulled out the thick history book. She leaned back against a pillow and flipped open to the chapter she was on, letting all of her troubled thoughts sink away.

Thanks DarylDixon'sLover, electrickpanda, hearts-without-chains, daywalker28, K. Lynn Perks, Eliza and all the guests for commenting :) Tonight's episode was so amazing! I'm so excited for the next time we see Beth and Daryl and get to see how they've developed now that they've opened up to each other. To celebrate I decided to do a whole piece on where Daryl is now :) There are a ton of new characters introduced here. I've got adult Carl's, adult Judith's, Carlotta's, Sarah's, Pedro's and Talmidge's pictures posted up in my profile as they will all become more important. I've also posted the another piece of the map that shows the girl's path. Along with that I made Odilia's, Beth's and Daryl's banners as well as a new cover photo for the story. So go check all that out and let me know what you think lol :)

Thanks for reading,

Wanderlustt