Michonne couldn't sleep as well or as long as she wanted, and she hoped that she'd feel up to napping later, before she had to start night watch again. She'd been sticking close to Carol, watching the babies for the most part. She was really too tired to consider everything else.

Carol was not back to normal, not by a long shot, but she was better than she had been that morning sobbing in the overgrown grass. She was wondering around, almost with the same nature of the Walkers, attempting to move between rationing jobs and preparing to make something for a late lunch.

Sadie walked up, waving. She was carrying a notebook. She stopped in front of Michonne.

"Do you think that Daryl could call a meeting?" Sadie asked. "I have a plan, but I want to talk about it with everyone."

Carol overheard her.

"Daryl doesn't have to call a meeting," she said to Michonne. "I can do that."

She walked over to the gong that they used to signal most of the community whenever something was happening. There was no emergency, but it was guaranteed to draw the attention of everyone, except maybe Mark who was sleeping in his house.

Michonne pointed to the gong when Carol started beating it and then touched Sadie's arm to call her attention back.

"They'll all be here in a minute," she said.

Sadie signaled a thank you to Michonne and hung around waiting for everyone to show up.

Daryl was one of the first to arrive, followed by Tyreese with whom he'd spent most of the day.

"What's goin' on? What's the emergency?" Daryl asked coming up.

"No real emergency, just a sudden group meeting," Carol explained. "Sadie's got a battle plan that she wanted to talk to everyone about and I thought it might be a good idea to hear what she has to say."

"Fine," Daryl said. He was grateful for any suggestions given the fact that they really didn't have much of a strategy at this point.

Everyone except Mark slowly trickled in and filled the dining room where Sadie was spreading pieces of paper that she had drawn and written on over the table top.

"Come here," she said, gesturing to Daryl to come over.

Daryl walked beside her, as close as he could get, and studied it over her shoulders, not entirely sure of what she was trying to show him.

"So, what is it?" He asked.

"We go in as four groups," Sadie said. "Each group has a job."

"I'm listening," Daryl said.

Sadie turned and looked at Michonne who was leaning against the wall.

"Umm, who has the best speaking voice?" She asked.

Michonne walked over to the table.

"You mean to act as a spokesperson?" Michonne asked.

"Yes, to speak to the other group," Sadie explained. "Which man? This group, they won't take women seriously, it has to be a man."

Michonne thought about it for a minute.

"Probably Rick or Tyreese," she answered. She shot a glance at Daryl, but he didn't look bothered by her suggestions. She didn't want his accent affecting the seriousness of the message, if there was a message that they were planning on transmitting.

"OK," Sadie said, "good."

"Rick, then, you'll be here with your group," Sadie said, pointing to her poor drawing. "Just behind the wood line. You'll be covered, but they can hear you. You will try to negotiate with them to hand over the people they've kidnapped from other groups."

Rick, standing on Sadie's other side caught her attention.

"So we're going in to try to negotiate? I don't remember that being part of the plan," he said.

Sadie shook her head at him.

"No," she said, "you're going to make it look like we're going in to negotiate. You will have Tyreese, Glenn, and Jimmy with you."

Daryl studied her more closely now. It was obvious that she had carefully thought about this and that her scribbles meant something. He was interested in seeing where this was going.

"I'm going to take another group," Sadie said. "I'll take Stella, Chelsea, and Beth. I've seen them in action, and they're not the strongest fighters that we have. They'll be better to go with me. We're going to cut a hole in the fence over here," she pointed to one side of the scribbles, "and we're going to go in the way I went before. We'll get our friends, they'll fight with us, so we'll pick up five people if they're all still there."

Daryl waved his hand in front of her face.

"What?" She asked.

"You think they might not be there?" He asked.

Sadie shrugged. "I don't know. I don't know what happened to the others," she explained. Daryl nodded his understanding.

"Maggie, you're going to lead another group. Your group is the smallest, sorry, but we'll be joining you as soon as we can," Sadie explained. "You'll come in from the other side with Rachel and Josh. We'll all be inside the fences, ready to attack, while they're still negotiating with Rick's group. They'll think they're dealing with a few people attacking from the front, they won't realize we're all inside. They'll rush their people to the front, so we'll be behind them, hiding when they start the attack."

Daryl tapped Sadie again.

"I don't know if you realize it, but you're missing something," Daryl said. "There's still a few of us not accounted for."

"I'll get to that," Sadie said, holding her hand up to him.

Daryl chewed at his thumb and waited for her to continue.

"Your group, Daryl, will have Beau, Junior, and Brenda. You'll be taking cues from Beau. You'll be hidden in the trees. When you see that our groups are inside, and I've signaled to you that we've got the others, then you'll signal Rick's group. They will start to attack the guards outside who will draw the others out and toward the front. Our groups will hit them from behind. Your group will hit them from above, and Rick's group will hit them from in front. Meanwhile, I'll make my way through, and I'll try to cut some of the fence down so that you can come in the front," Sadie said.

Sadie sighed and looked at Daryl.

"It sounds like it might actually work," Daryl said, "at least better than the plan we had before, which was basically run at them and pray for the best."

"Sadie's group should carry extra weapons, in case the five they pick up aren't armed," Glenn offered.

Sadie nodded at Glenn.

"No weapons," she said, "I know they don't have anything."

"I'm fighting," Carol said suddenly.

"What?" Michonne responded, everyone else was clearly shocked too.

"I'm fighting. Higher numbers means better odds of taking them out before they get any of us. I'm going in with Maggie's group and Maggie and I will cover Sadie when she's trying to clear passage for everyone else to get inside," Carol said.

"You've got to be here for when they get back," Michonne said. "What if someone gets hurt?"

"Then I'll take care of it when I get back," Carol said, "and Mark will be here."

No one spoke for a minute, but everyone looked at each other, trying to take in what Sadie had said.

"It's a plan," Maggie said, "and it's a plan that we didn't have before."

"OK," Daryl said, "we'll consider it the plan 'less anyone can come up with somethin' better 'fore we gotta go out there. If we keep with what Sadie told that other group I'm figurin' we gotta go tomorrow, or the next day at the latest."

"Let's go the day after tomorrow," Rick said. "Sadie's going to be there to get their attention, so they'll know she's with us. I think we could use an extra day, just to give everyone some time to cope with losing Sasha and to get ready to go into battle."

"Fine," Daryl said. "Then if y'all ain't got no problems, I reckon everyone can go get at what you got to do."

No one raised any issues for the time being, and everyone started shuffling around, most of them heading out of headquarters toward whatever activity they'd been working on.

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"Where are you going?" Michonne called after Carol as she followed her down the street.

"To train with Rick, my aim could use some brushing up," Carol said.

Michonne caught up to her and stopped her.

"Why are you doing this? You're supposed to stay here, you're not supposed to fight," Michonne said.

"We need all the people we can get, Michonne. I'm a good fighter even though people want to forget that. I'm going out there to help," Carol said.

"You don't have to do this, Carol," Michonne said. "I'm not going to let you do this."

"Do what?" Carol asked. "I'm going to fight. You do what you need to do and I am going to do what I need to do. It could be me, it could be my bullet that makes a difference out there. It could be the difference between someone we lose, and someone we don't lose. There's no need to argue with me, I'm going."

"I don't want you going out there and doing something stupid," Michonne hissed.

"I'm not going to do anything stupid, Michonne. I don't have a death wish, but I certainly don't want to lose anyone else. If we're going to fight, then I'm going to fight. You and Carl can help Mark get things ready, have everything ready for when I get back, for when we all get back," Carol said.

Michonne could see the resolve in Carol's face. There wasn't any arguing with her on this, she was determined not to be left behind, and Michonne didn't know what to say. Finally she dropped her hands from Carol's shoulders, not saying anything. Carol stared at her for a minute, sighed, and turned back the way she was walking, toward the area where Rick was working with others on target practice.

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That night Glenn was sure that they weren't getting any sleep, even though he knew that everyone was as exhausted as he was. Beth and Junior had come to join them, as well as Jimmy, declaring that none could sleep in the other house without Sasha. Jimmy had already decided that he'd rather sleep in the living room of their house than to go anywhere else.

"I've already been in too many houses," Jimmy protested. "None of them are the same anymore. Frank and Dora are gone, Dominique is gone, and now Sasha is gone too."

He'd held himself together pretty well to a point, at least to an outsider's perspective, but he was cracked now, and Glenn wasn't sure that crack would heal. Glenn couldn't put himself in Jimmy's shoes. The roll call of his life hadn't changed quite the way that Jimmy's had in quite the length of time lately and he didn't even want to lie to him and tell him that he could understand what he was going through. All he could do was try to hold together everyone that crowded into his house, everyone that couldn't sleep because losing Sasha meant something different to all of them.

For Jimmy, it seemed to mean that you should never get close to anyone anymore. That closeness just meant that you had sealed the deal that you would be without them and that silence and emptiness would take on a whole new meaning. For Junior it was similar, although the realization oddly drove him closer to Beth. He hadn't taken a hand off of her for the whole evening. For him, it seemed, it had mutated into some sort of belief that over the horizon, just outside of sight, loss lingered. He seemed to be trying to hold on desperately until that loss was upon him.

Beth, who had grown close to Sasha through their living environment, was even clingier with Maggie than usual, having begun to think of Sasha as another type of sister figure, and she was gone. There was no reason to believe that the upcoming battle might strip her of Maggie.

Maggie had always regarded Sasha as a friend, an equal, someone to tease and joke around with. Sasha had never proven herself to be someone they expected to go, and Glenn could tell that was hitting Maggie especially hard. She had assumed that Sasha could handle things. She'd even admitted to Glenn, in the privacy of their own room, that she'd thought it would be Carol that wouldn't return from the hospital run when she'd thought the two had been lost. She'd never suspected it would be Sasha. It had her doubting everyone else, but worse than that, it had her doubting herself.

Glenn was beside himself. He had to hold it together. Those around him needed that, but he silently wondered when it would be his turn and when he'd be finally allowed to express to the others what he had felt dealing with the losses they'd dealt with. He had dealt with them too, these were people that he had lost too, but he'd swallowed it back, trying to be strong for those who seemed to need that strength. He hoped the battle went well, because he didn't know how much more strength he had left. For now, though, he'd do all that he had to keep them all together, and hopefully to convince them all of getting some rest in light of their upcoming struggle.

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"Please," Tyreese argued, "don't do this, just stay here, where I don't have to worry about you, where I know you're safe."

"I'm not doing this to hurt you, I'm not doing it to hurt anyone," Carol argued. "I'm doing it because you've all seemed to have forgotten that I can do more than wash clothes and put Band Aids on boo boos. No one has let me do anything since…well, for a while."

Tyreese was clinging to her, stroking her hair, her arms, her back, whatever his hands fell on. She understood that he was upset, and that he was not having as easy of a time dealing with Sasha's loss as he pretended to be having, but she was determined not to let that sway her. She wanted him to understand that she wasn't someone that he had to look out for at all times, not someone she had to protect.

"I've got nothing left, Carol," Tyreese said. "Sasha was just a kid, and it was my job to take care of her and I let her down."

"You didn't let her down, Tyreese. No one thinks you let her down, and she wasn't a kid, and neither am I. Don't you think I'm terrified? What do I have left?" Carol countered.

"You've got me, you've got Judith, you've got Michonne, Daryl, and Hope…" Tyreese said.

"And don't you think, Tyreese, that if life somehow ever became normal, if we moved on, don't you think that Daryl and Michonne might get tired of me being that person that was always up under them? That person that had nothing else? Judith isn't even mine, Tyreese. You're all I've got for sure and you're willing to go in on the front lines, I'll just be in the background," Carol said.

"I can't handle it," Tyreese said, burying his face into Carol's neck. "I can't handle losing you right now."

"And I can't handle losing you," Carol said, "so I guess that just means we've both got to fight like hell, for the good of everyone, and especially for each other."

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Daryl felt like he was dying. His heart hurt as bad as every limb in his body. He couldn't sleep without Michonne. He was lying awake, wanting anything. He wanted the sound of her breathing, the touch of her skin, the feeling of her toenails, even, when she dug them into his shins searching for his legs at night. He'd have taken anything at this point.

The reality, though, was that his bed was empty and he was left babysitting Sadie who was babysitting the kids. Michonne was on night watch, and he hated it, every second of it. He decided a new rule was to be passed after this battle that she was never to have night watch again, unless it was with him. At least then, even if he was awake all night, he'd be awake in her presence instead of awake in his own bed, acutely aware that she wasn't with him.

He wanted all this behind them. The plan that Sadie had mapped out had started to grow on him. It had started to sound like something he could get behind. He wouldn't actually enter the battle until later, and that was strange for him, but it sounded like something that might actually work.

Daryl declared to himself then that if they made it through this, and he hoped they made it through with as little loss of people as possible, he was keeping his group safe, somehow, and locked away from the outside for as long as possible. All he wanted right now, and he was sure others agreed, was just a little time to sort it all out, to sort out all their feelings.

Daryl certainly didn't want anything else right now, except to spend his time figuring out how to make his family safe, and to spend the extra time that he had enjoying the comfort of feeling Michonne close to him, feeling his baby growing inside her, and watching all the changes that seemed to be happening so quickly to Hope. He was tired of loss, and he was tired of death. He was determined, in a couple of days, to take out this threat that might harm his loved ones, and then spend a while basking in the glow of safety and security that their little community had to offer.