Rick put the bucket of hot water down on the floor near where Sadie was sitting, her back against the wall, and tossed a rag at her.

"You heard Mark, you've got to clean yourself up," Rick said. He walked over to the bed and sat down, reaching down to take off his shoes. He was tired and his head throbbed. Once his shoes were off he glanced over at Sadie. She was sitting on the floor in blue jeans. She'd put on a clean shirt from the one she'd been wearing that morning, but there were blood stains on it already from the scratches. She lifted the shirt and started dabbing at the scratches with the rag. Rick sighed and got up, walking over to where she was. He knelt on the floor beside her, reaching out and taking her hand in his to stop the dabbing. "Let me help you," he said when she looked at him.

"I've got it," she said. Rick chuckled.

"You are the most hard headed person that I've ever met in my life," Rick said. "Give it a break, will you? Let me clean the scratches for you."

Sadie sighed and looked at him. He could tell that she was just as exhausted as he was, probably more so. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to spend an entire day feeling like you had a death sentence hanging over your head.

"Fine," she said.

Rick got up and reached his hand out to her. She looked at him questioningly and he gestured again for her to take his hand.

"I'm helping you up. It'll be more comfortable for you to lie on the bed than on the floor, and I can reach you better there," Rick explained.

Sadie nodded and took his hand. He pulled her up and watched as she went to the bed, lying down on top of the cover and tucking her shirt up so that it exposed the claw marks. Rick set to work cleaning them with soap and water. He had brought some rubbing alcohol and bandages that Mark sent with him as well, but he figured the first step was simply trying to get dried blood and mud out of the wounds. Sadie hissed at him, but she didn't fight him, having chosen to put her arms under head to avoid any kind of knee jerk reaction.

"So," Rick said, pausing for a minute to tip her face toward him with the back of his hand. "Are you really not afraid to die, or is that some kind of performance you're enacting for the good of everyone else? We're alone now, you know, there's no one to impress."

Sadie stared at him. He continued to clean at the scratches, glancing every now and again at her as though he wouldn't be able to understand her if he wasn't looking at her, forgetting momentarily that it was a one way street.

"I don't know," Sadie said. "We all die." Rick nodded a little and chuckled at the absurdity of the statement.

"We all die, you're right," he said, "but most people still don't hold it together in the face of it."

"Are you afraid to die?" Sadie asked.

"There you go," Rick said, "always turning things around on me. Why don't you humor me, just this once, and tell me about you?"

Sadie sighed. She hissed again when Rick started the second set of scratches and he apologized to her. The cleaner they were getting, the better they looked, though one or two of them were pretty deep and trying to start bleeding again.

"No, I don't think I'm afraid to die," Sadie said. "I think…" she paused for a minute, "I think that when we die we get to see everyone that we've lost, and even people that we didn't know we'd lost because we never met them. I think that when I die, my grandmother is going to come and get me, and she'll take me to this place. My husband will be there, and my babies, all of them."

Rick heard her voice crack and he focused on her face. A few tears had leaked out the side of her and were running down the side of her face. Rick put the rag down for a minute and dug in his back pocket, offering her handkerchief, which she took and thanked him. She wiped her eyes and nose and then settled back down, flat on the bed again.

"Do you want to die?" Rick asked her.

Sadie shook her head.

"I don't want to die…not anymore…but I'm ready for it when they're ready for me," she said. "If it's tonight, then I will gladly go to them tonight. If it's not, I will wait."

"I don't think it's going to be tonight," Rick said. "I think it was those men that scratched you, not a Walker."

Sadie shrugged a little.

"Maybe so," she said. "Then later it is."

Rick walked away for a minute and came back with the alcohol and bandages that Mark had given him.

"This is going to hurt," he said. Sadie smiled at him.

"I'll pay you back later," she said.

Rick wasn't sure what it was about Sadie that he liked, but he felt like he was beginning to understand her just a little more than he once had, though she was still very much a mystery. He wanted to choke her sometimes, but then other times he just felt frustrated that she kept some kind of invisible wall up. She had a lot of masks, that much he was beginning to realize. He wondered if that had come before all the tragedy of the end of the world, or if it was her way of coping.

"I saw you run at those men," Rick said. "Why did you do that?"

Sadie narrowed her eyes at him. He realized that she had thought that no one had seen it.

"You did that when we moved in on that other group, too. Is that what happened with your old group? Did you throw yourself to them?" Rick asked. He dabbed at the wounds with the alcohol and blew at them when she started to writhe and squirm.

Sadie didn't respond to him until he was done and was bandaging the wounds. She was panting and he felt sorry that he was the one that had to do it. He wondered how Carol and Mark felt being the ones that had to handle everyone's wounds around the community. It wasn't a nice feeling causing someone pain, even if you were trying to help.

"Beth," Sadie said, "Chelsea…they were young. They weren't ready to die. They hadn't even lived yet."

Rick felt sorry for the girls. He'd been trying to put the whole thing out of his mind. It had been easy, perhaps too easy, since they'd been there to put it out of their minds that they were still in the middle of a very dangerous situation. The community felt safe. It felt like they were in a place where nothing could hurt them. Nothing could go wrong here. Yet every death was a reminder that it was all just a game. They were pretending to be safe. They were playing like the dangers weren't lurking. Last night had proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that each and every one of them could die at any given moment. The so called safety of their community was no more real than the safety of the prison that the Governor had penetrated more than once.

"And Josh," Sadie said, ignoring the fact that Rick hadn't responded, "he was just a boy. He wasn't much older than Beau, if any."

Rick hadn't known the boy well. In all honesty both Josh and Brenda had remained outside the community to a degree since they'd functioned as primarily nocturnal occupants. The most he really knew about the kid was that he'd lost his brother back at the prison, back when the Governor had made his final appearance. Now it seemed like very little to know about a person.

"There are so many people here," Sadie said, "that are too young to die. I guess it seems like if I could die and save some of them, I might make up for things."

Rick sat down on the bed and Sadie sat up, pulling her shirt down and sitting next to him.

"What are you making up for?" He asked. He knew a lot about feeling like there were things that you needed to make up to people, and he knew a lot about feeling like you could never make them up, but Sadie had never seemed like that type. She had it all together. Every time she'd tried to talk to him about his own situation he'd gotten the feeling that she had hers under control. Suddenly he was beginning to think it might be all an act of sorts.

"You think you let your wife down," Sadie said. "You think you failed her. And that's a hard thing to feel."

Rick stared at her. He knew she'd continue. Sadie took her sweet time saying anything that she wanted to say.

"I know I let my children down," Sadie said. "I was a mother. A mother is supposed to live and die for her children, but my children died, and I'm still here. That's my cross to bear."

"But you couldn't save them," Rick said. She'd recounted the story of her children for him more than once.

Sadie shook her head.

"Doesn't matter. No mother loses her children and doesn't feel like she's failed. I will never get them back, but if I could save someone else…" Sadie let her voice trail off and she shrugged. She sat still for a moment and then offered Rick a half smile. "It doesn't matter," she said.

Rick could tell that was the end of it. She wasn't going to talk about it any further, and it wouldn't matter if he pressed the issue or not. He was grateful that he hadn't lost Carl. He didn't know what it felt like to feel that you'd failed your child. He wasn't prepared for that. For a moment he let his thoughts trail to Judith, and whether or not he'd failed her. She would come to him now and she seemed to like his company just fine, but tonight had proven once again that she did not regard him as a parental figure at all. He had come to accept that, and he wasn't going to change her life dramatically as long as she was happy, but he wondered if he'd failed her by not being what he should have been from the beginning. He wondered if Lori would have thought he failed her, or if she'd have understood that he simply couldn't handle it all back then. He was only barely beginning to feel that he could handle it now.

Sadie didn't say anything, but she got up and crossed the room, making her way back to the floor where she'd been sitting earlier. She sat down and leaned against the wall. Rick watched her for a second and then waved at her, drawing her attention. The lamp was near him, and it was difficult to see her in the darkness across the room.

"Do you want to sleep?" He asked. She didn't respond and he picked up the lamp and made his way over to her, dropping on his knees beside her again. "Do you want to sleep?" He asked again.

Sadie shook her head.

"You can have the bed," Rick said. "I'll stay up if you're worried."

"No," she said. "I'm fine. You can sleep. I'll wake you if I feel sick."

Rick sat back on the floor and put the lamp between them.

"Fine," he said. "If you can be hard headed, so can I. We'll just stare at each other all night, then."

Sadie smiled at him a little and leaned her head back against the wall. He could feel his eyes burning, and her eyelids looked heavy. For whatever reason, though, she didn't want to sleep and he felt like he shouldn't. He really didn't suspect that anything was going to happen, but he knew that it would be foolish to take the chance when he'd agreed to be on guard against the possibility. She was through talking, though, he could see that. He resolved, finally, to sit in silence and wait out the morning with her.

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Tyreese knelt by the bed, having at least had enough of his wits about him to bring a cushion up from downstairs to kneel on. He had his head rested on Carol's legs and was trying not to fall asleep. She'd woke twice, if you could call it waking. Both times she'd moved a little and moaned, but he hadn't seen any real proof that she was cognitive.

Mark had told him that it was for the best that she wasn't awake right now. He'd said it was most likely her body trying to protect her. As long as she stayed out she wasn't moving and hurting herself, and she most likely wasn't fully aware of the pain. Tyreese knew it was his own selfish reasoning for wanting her awake, but he felt like if he could see her fully awake then he could feel like they were out of the woods, like this wasn't something he had to worry about.

He'd been angrier with her earlier. Even though he knew that she wasn't aware of what he was saying or what was happening, he'd scolded her for even going out there. They'd all been out there, but now he was mad that she had been too. Once a wave of anger passed, he'd been swept up into begging. He'd begged her just to wake up for a little bit. He wasn't going to force her to stay awake if she was in pain in the unconscious state kept her away from that. He could understand that, and he'd be willing to let her stay there as long as she needed to deal with it, but he just wanted her awake for a bit. Long enough to reassure him, that was all that he needed.

His mind kept drifting back to Sasha. She'd been all that he'd had left after he'd lost his daughter. Sasha had been the one person that he had to protect. Losing her had been like losing completely the life he'd known before, the person he was. She'd been the last link to the man that he'd been. Carol had helped him through it. She'd calmly and quietly listened to him, no matter how many nights he'd kept her awake talking about it. She'd assured him that he was the same man that he was, and that he hadn't failed Sasha, just as he hadn't failed his daughter.

The only thing that had kept him holding it all together had been his new family, his new life. He'd let himself get caught up, almost, in this new life that he had never imagined would happen. He had Carol, and she was unlike anyone he'd had in his life before. She was gentle and caring and shy. No matter how many times they'd been together, she always blushed at him when he looked at her after sex. He thought it was the funniest thing ever. She thanked him for everything that he did for her, even if it was something small, and acted like he was always doing her the greatest of kindnesses. If nothing else, she made him always feel like he was the best kind of man that he could be.

And then there was Judith. Together they were a family. He and Carol had this funny little girl who looked nothing like either of them, but she was as much theirs as he could imagine. Time and time again he teased Carol about Judith having her personality and her attitude. Carol hated to be told what to do, and Judith did too. She'd already developed the habit of throwing one of her tiny hands on her hip and cocking her head to the side defiantly when they told her what to do, an act that he'd seen from Carol on more than one occasion.

Tyreese felt now, though, that maybe it had all been some kind of fantasy. Here at the end of the world he'd let himself think that he had a new family, one that he'd somehow be able to keep safe, and suddenly he didn't feel so sure about any of that anymore. Mark had urged him to tie Carol's hands to the bed, just in case she slipped out on them as quietly as Seth had. Now she was sleeping, or at least she looked like she was sleeping, and Tyreese didn't know if at any minute she might simply give up. Then what would he be left with? Would he still have Judith? How long could he realistically believe that he could keep Judith safe? How long could he keep her alive? He hadn't been able to protect anyone else that he'd loved. One by one he'd lost them all. Now he was waiting, wondering if he'd lose Carol before the sun even came up.

Tyreese sat up and sighed. He leaned up kissed Carol's cheek. She didn't stir. Underneath the cover she was topless and he pulled them back, examining the bandage that Mark had placed over the wound. There weren't any signs of leaking. That was good. Mark had done a good job at closing the wound. Tyreese kissed her side, gently, and pulled the cover back up over her. It was getting cooler and she was always cold when she slept. He didn't want to leave her uncovered longer than he had to.

"You can sleep a little longer," he said, "but you're going to have to wake up soon. There's so much…" he stopped and took a deep breath. For a moment he felt foolish again, talking to her when he doubted she could hear him. He talked to her, though, because it made him feel better. It reminded him that she wasn't gone, at least not yet. Her breathing may be a lot shallower than it normally was, but she was still breathing. "There's so much to do around here," he said. "There's even more now. You're going to have to wake up because now isn't the time for sleeping."

Tyreese rubbed the side of her face, cupping her cheek a moment in his hand. He wished her arms didn't have to be tied above her head like they were. He knew that if she woke up, whenever she finally did, her shoulders were going to be sore from the position. He ran his hands down one of her arms.

"I'll untie them in the morning," he said. "You can sleep until then and I'll keep watch, but you need to go ahead and start thinking about waking up. Judith hasn't seen you all day either. She's going to be anxious to see you tomorrow, and you don't want her to see you like this. It might scare her."

Tyreese sat there a little longer, talking at intervals and simply watching at others. He didn't know what else to do. He couldn't let himself go to sleep simply because he felt like if he closed his eyes and slept that she'd slip away from him. Somehow his being awake and watching her was keeping her there. He just had to keep her there a little longer until she was able to stay with him without needing him to keep watch.

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Glenn felt completely helpless and unarmed for the situation that he was facing. Maggie had been crying most of the day. It hadn't been the kind of cry that they'd gotten used to these days either. These days it seemed that when someone cried it was an almost silent cry. It was one in which tears rolled down their face and sometimes their noses ran. It was a private cry, something they almost seemed to want to keep to themselves. Sometimes, when it got really bad, there would be sobs or hiccupping gasps from the person that was crying, but even then it was somewhat understood that the crying was meant for personal use and not really one that was willingly being shared with others.

That had not been the way that Maggie was crying. Maggie was crying with the same nature that Judith or Hope used when they cried about something that upset them. It was a full cry, the kind that let you know that whatever had caused it had destroyed their entire world. It was a cry that made it sound as though all the happiness had been sucked out of them by some kind of giant vacuum. That was the kind of cry that Maggie had sunk into.

The entire time that Maggie had cried, she had attempted to speak. Glenn had understood, at best, a word here or there through the screaming wails. He hadn't needed to understand the words though, they really didn't mean anything. The sound itself had told him everything. She was crying because her sister was dead. She was also crying, it seemed, because her father was dead. Her mother was dead. Her brothers were dead. She seemed to be trying to cry for the entire world of the dead. She had enough sorrow and tears inside for everyone that had gone before her, and she had almost choked on them, pouring them out all over herself and all over Glenn.

He hadn't known what to do to help her. He hadn't known what to say. His family was gone too. Most of the people around him were in the same boat. They were without anyone that had known them before. Whether all at once or one at a time, life had wiped their loved ones out of their lives. Maggie was just now being bulldozed with that reality.

As she cried, he had prayed that the crying would stop, even though he wasn't someone who regularly practiced praying for things. He wanted her to have some comfort, some kind of rest, and it was clear to him that he couldn't offer it to her. He didn't possess the power to take away even an ounce of the pain that she was feeling, and he felt like she looked at him like she was angry with him for his complete uselessness in the situation.

Now, though, the crying had stopped. It stopped suddenly. It had literally been like she'd simply run out. She'd run out of tears, perhaps. One moment she'd been howling in sorrow and the next she'd been completely quiet. And that was how she remained now, quiet. She sat in the bed next to him, hugging her knees up at her chest, her chin resting on them. She stared out across the room in the dim light. She wasn't staring at anything, but she was looking at the nothing as intensely as she could.

Glenn had tried to talk to her, but he didn't know the words that he should say. He didn't know what she needed from him. She wouldn't look at him, and when he touched her she let him, but she didn't return the touch. Now he sat beside her, not knowing what to say or do.

When Maggie had reached her, Beth was already gone. From the looks of the chest wound, Glenn doubted that Beth had lived even more than a few moments after she'd been hit. He'd insisted that Maggie let him handle the situation, not wanting her to have to be the one to put a bullet through the brain of her sister, but Maggie had looked as though she might kill him if he dared to try to stop her. She'd been the one to do it, and then she'd only allowed him to touch Beth enough to move her inside so that she could carefully bathe her and dress her to be buried.

Glenn couldn't believe that Beth was gone. It didn't seem real. Nothing right now seemed real. Not even Maggie seemed real to him. He felt almost dizzy from exhaustion, but he was wide awake on the other hand. Just a few days ago he and Maggie had been talking about their future. She'd even mentioned that if they stayed there, they might want to consider starting a family. The community was safe. They were safe. They'd lost loved ones along the way, but now it seemed that those days were far less frequent. There were accidents, from time to time, but the overwhelming danger that had hung over them before was a memory now.

And now Beth was dead. There were others dead too, but Glenn honestly hadn't paid enough attention to know who was missing or who was injured. He'd been entirely consumed by losing Beth. He'd been consumed by worrying about Maggie and how he could take care of her knowing now that their safety was just an illusion. They weren't safe at all. Somehow a herd of Walkers had invaded their safety. People had shot them, had killed Beth, and all in the very same place that they thought they were safe.

Now Maggie seemed like a hollow version of herself. Someone that Glenn wasn't sure how to help. He was on the outside of her now. All he could do was sit next to her, knowing that he loved her with all of his heart and soul, and hope that she could somehow eventually crawl out of her grief enough to realize that. He didn't know what to do, or even if there was anything to do, and it was the worst feeling that he'd had in quite some time. He felt alone and useless, and that made him angry, though he couldn't quite figure out who it was that he was angry with.

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Daryl woke a little when something didn't feel right. He swam just outside consciousness and tried to figure out what it was that was disturbing his sleep. Slowly the memory of the night before crept in on him and he realized that the nightmares that he'd been battling were less nightmares and more memories. He willed himself awake and listened, but around him there was nothing but silence. There were no alarms, no screaming, no moans and groans of Walkers, and no gunfire. He couldn't even hear any of the babies crying, but something had woken him up.

Daryl lie back down and put his arm around Michonne again, fitting his body against hers like he often did while he slept. As he closed his eyes and started to drift off again, he felt a tremor run through her body and pass into his. For a moment he ignored it, thinking that perhaps he had moved and let a wave of the chilly bedroom air pass under the cover. Then there was another tremor. He listened and realized that her breath didn't sound like it normally did while she was sleeping.

"'Chonne, you awake?" Daryl asked. He started to sit up, his hand moving to rest on her arm. She trembled again, but didn't respond to him. He shook her gently. "'Chonne?"

Michonne mumbled something, but it was unintelligible. Daryl got out of bed and fumbled around in the darkness trying to find the lamp and light it. When he finally succeeded, he moved in front of Michonne and sat on the edge of the bed. Her eyes were open, but she wasn't looking at him.

"You shakin', 'Chonne, what's wrong? You cold?" He asked. Michonne didn't look at him. Daryl started to feel his heart clench. He didn't know what was wrong with her, but something was wrong with her. "Answer me, 'Chonne, you alright?" He asked, a little more force behind his words.

Michonne rolled her eyes to look at him, but she didn't answer him. He felt the tremor again. He got up then and pulled on a pair of shorts. He went directly down the stairs and found Mark asleep on their couch, just as he said he'd be. Daryl shook his shoulder.

Mark rolled over. He'd obviously been asleep, but it hadn't been a profound sleep.

"What's wrong?" He asked. "Is it Carol? Sadie?"

"No," Daryl said. "It's Michonne."

Mark sat up a little. Daryl could barely make him out in the dark.

"What's wrong with her?" He asked.

"I don't know," Daryl said. "That's why I come to get you. She's shakin' an' she ain't talkin' at all."

Mark got up then and followed Daryl upstairs. When they came in the room they found Michonne just as Daryl had left her. Daryl stood to the side and watched. Mark went and sat in front of her. He tried talking to her and asking her some questions, but Michonne didn't respond to her any more than she'd responded to Daryl.

"Shock," Mark said after a minute. Daryl watched as the man massaged his temples. He sighed. "I'm not surprised. She won't be the last either, you can bet your bottom dollar on that. It's all just too much right now."

"What do we do?" Daryl asked.

"Right now?" Mark asked. "Get another blanket. Keep her warm. Comfort her, talk to her. Do whatever you would normally do to calm her down. It's psychological shock. She's not suffering from any physical illness right now, she's just emotionally overwhelmed. Keep trying to calm her down, but be prepared. When she finally let's go she's likely to be pretty emotional, and that's what you want."

"Ya mean she's gonna cry or somethin'?" Daryl asked.

"I hope so," Mark said. "I'm not a psychiatrist, but I know that the dam has to break. I'm sure we're going to see a lot of this. This has got everyone shook up and we're all going to have to deal with it in our own ways."

Mark got up and Daryl went to the closet, coming back with another blanket.

"Ya sure she's alright?" Daryl asked.

"I'm pretty sure she's alright, but you do need to try to get her to let it out. Stress can be hard on pregnant women, and I really don't want to deal with that baby trying to come early on top of everything else. It still needs to bake at least another month and a half. I don't know if I could do much more it if it came right now," Mark said. He squeezed Daryl's arm. Daryl nodded at him and started to put the blanket over Michonne.

"Looks like it's gonna be a long night," Daryl said.

"Something tells me that we haven't seen the last one of those," Mark said. He started out of the room and Daryl got back in bed. The extra weight of the second blanket bearing down on him. He started rubbing Michonne's arm and circled down, rubbing her belly, creating an unbroken circle.

"Calm down, 'Chonne," Daryl said, leaning in close to her ear. "It's all gonna be alright," he said. He didn't know what he was supposed to say to get her to calm down. He felt like right now he didn't have any certainty behind anything that he said. He almost felt as though he were lying to her just like she'd lied to Judith. Still, he had to say whatever he could to get her to relax. "If ya wanna cry, 'Chonne, ya can cry. I ain't gon' tell no one if ya don't want me too, but'cha gotta calm down. Ain't good for ya to be upset and it ain't good for the baby."

Daryl fought to stay awake. He continued rubbing, stopping every now and again to squeeze at Michonne's neck muscles, and he tried to say anything soothing and reassuring that he could think of. What he really wanted to say was that he needed her just as much as she needed him right now. He needed her to cry or scream or whatever it was that she needed to do and he needed her to be alright. There was so much that he felt like he had to be responsible for right now, so much that everyone seemed to want from him, and he was certain that the only way he could give them even half of what they needed was if she was with him.

Daryl felt a little guilty at the thought. Maybe she thought he needed her to be strong, even when she didn't feel like it. Maybe that's what had her dammed up now. He felt guilty to think he might be the cause of it. He didn't need her to be strong, he could understand if she wanted to cry. He just needed her to be alright. He needed to know that she was crying, and eventually the crying would pass, but she would be alright.

He didn't know how long he stayed there, rubbing her, holding her, talking to her, but eventually the trembling stopped. Not long after it stopped, he realized that she'd gone to sleep. He didn't know if that was it. He didn't know if that was all she needed, or if she'd wake up again exactly the same way she'd been before. There hadn't been tears, and she had never said anything. There was a lot that Daryl felt like he didn't know right now, but he did know that she was asleep, and he could only hope that she stayed that way until morning and that maybe she woke up feeling a little better about everything they still had to face with the rising sun.