Title - Bodies And Souls Collide
Chapter title - Flying The Nest
Author - OblivionsGarden
Genre - Hurt/Comfort/Romance/Family/Horror
Disclaimer - I do not own The Walking Dead in anyway shape or form. I only own the plot points surrounding my oc's, not recognized from the show or comics.
Chapter Word Count - 1661 words.

To: elljayde - Thanks so much for the review (: xx

A/n - Just a short filler chapter before season two (: x

Teddy had stayed with Andrea for the rest of the night, their argument forgotten for the moment. Neither of them slept, unable to get the image of Dale from their minds. When morning came Teddy left her alone in the RV to get some air. She spotted Daryl by the graves and headed over to him. It seemed so wrong to already have so many graves in such a short space of time.

"Hey." She rested a hand on his shoulder, alerting him to her presence. "You ok?"

"Yeah."

"You know... I know you don't talk much but if you ever want to just vent then I'm willing to listen."

Daryl nodded with a small smile. They stood, looking down at the friends they'd lost for a long while until the rest of the group had woken. Teddy heard Hershel call her name and with one last squeeze of his shoulder, left Daryl alone. Hershel was waiting for her on the porch with a coffee.

"Thanks." She smiled, taking the hot mug from him and inhaling the scent.

"I'm gonna need your help." He smiled, looking out at the tents in front of his house. "We're moving everyone inside so we need to clear some space."

"Are you sure?"

"After last night, I'm sure." Hershel took a sip of his own coffee before he continued. "Winters coming. I'm not going to leave them to catch their deaths. I can see now that Dale made sense. We need to keep this group strong and the only way we do that is by staying together."

"You gonna be ok with Glenn and Maggie sharing?" She smirked and Hershel took a breath before nodding.

"I like the boy." He chuckled at her shocked expression. "How are things with Rick?"

"Mom never told him where we were. It wasn't his fault that he wasn't around, he couldn't find us." She shook her head as the frustration flared. "I should've know it would've been her. She always hated the relationship we had when I was a kid, I can't believe I didn't figure it out."

"You were seven weren't you?" Hershel asked and Teddy nodded. "No seven year old, no matter how mature, would understand the inner workings of a woman like your mother."

"Sure they could. Seven year olds know what the words 'crazy bitch' mean."

Later in the evening, Teddy and Beth were in the house making sure everybody had somewhere comfortable to sleep. Beth was humming, a song Teddy didn't recognize but it made her smile none-the-less.

Teddy was wondering how long this would last, everybody living on top of each other in one house. She had noticed that Daryl hadn't moved his tent yet and wondered if he was going to be stubborn enough to refuse a roof over his head. She hoped he wouldn't and promised herself that if it came down to it, she'd drag the surly man in by his ears, kicking and screaming.

She was just about to suggest helping Patricia and Carol start on dinner when they heard loud voices coming from downstairs. They didn't sound angry like Teddy expected, but panicked. When the two girls reached the porch, Lori was saying that Carl is gone. When she spotted Teddy she reached for her arm.

"Have you seen your brother?"

Teddy paused, Lori hadn't spoken of her as being a part of the family since she found out. In fact she'd barely spoke to her at all so to suddenly be asked about Carl in that manner took her off guard. Eventually though she shook her head.

"What's going on?"

Beth pulled on Teddy's sleeve, bringing her attention the the herd of walkers. Her heart thudded loud in her chest as her mind went into overdrive on how to get everyone away from the farm. The following moments all happened in a blur, voices over voices and everyone bustling without a clue of what they should do or where to go.

Teddy remembered Rick's plan if anything happened. Get off the farm, circle back up to the highway where they had left the sign for Sophia. She was moving toward her truck, throwing the keys to T-Dog who was ahead of her. When she heard a scream behind her that sounded so like Beth her heart lurched. She turned, saw Patricia being taken and with Lori's help, pulled Beth away.

She practically carried her friend to the car, pushed her in after Lori and climbed in beside her. She instructed T-Dog to drive around, she still had her gun she could take out a few more, help whoever was still fighting. She did her best to ignore her brain. Half of it was telling her to get out, fight the herd and find the others. The other half was telling her to just make sure Beth was safe.

Once she'd emptied her clip, T-Dog pulled away from the farm. Beth turned in her seat, trying to find a glimpse of her father.

"He'll be ok." Teddy pulled her back around. "They all will, they know how to fight now."

"Patricia..." Beth glanced down at the blood covering her arm.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart."

The sun was coming up when Lori noticed the direction they were headed. She told T-Dog to turn around, head back to the highway but he was having none of it.

"T, we gotta go back. If you want to keep going forward, fine but you can walk. This is my damn truck and it's going back to the highway." Teddy murmured, too tired to raise her voice like she wanted to.

"You're out of your damn minds."

T-Dog reluctantly turned around, driving back the way they came. It wasn't long until they saw an all too familiar motorbike. Carol turned, holding onto Daryl with one hand and beckoning for them to follow with the other. There was another car in front and Teddy hoped that Hershel or Maggie was in there. If they hadn't make it, she wasn't so sure Beth would be able to keep going.

Soon enough they made it back to the Highway, everyone piling out of the car immediately. Teddy headed over to Daryl, moving to hug him but stopped short when she saw the awkward expression that came over his face. With a small laugh she instead gave his shoulder a pat and he nodded in return.

After realizing that they had lost Shane, Andrea, Patricia and Jimmy, the group solemnly decided to keep moving before the herd caught up with them. But once again, as it neared the evening, they hit another bump in the road when they were starting to run low of gas. They decided to set up a camp for the night, keeping watch for walkers or people like the kid they'd kept in the barn.

Teddy was half listening to the conversation by the fire, half standing guard. She knew she'd never be able to sleep after the days events so she was using her alert state to keep everyone safe. Until she heard Rick say what she never wanted to hear.

"We're all infected... At the CDC, Jenner told me. Whatever it is, we all carry it."

Teddy glazed over some of the conversation as she moved back toward the group. She noticed Daryl watching her with a concerned frown.

"Where I was when everything happened... There was a girl, she died. Killed herself." Teddy was thinking of Melissa back at rehab. "She came back and bit someone. She wasn't sick, she hadn't been bitten. She killed herself and came back and all this time I've been thinking, maybe it was something else, maybe she had been bitten and she just hid it... We all have it?" She looked to Rick and he nodded. "So we die, no matter what kind of way, we come back?"

She had no more words. She dropped down beside the fire, replacing her gun in her belt. She tried desperately to wrap her head around the new information. If they all had this thing that brought them back then why hadn't the dead been coming back all the time? Why was it only now that this was happening? Was it like some universal switch in everyone's brains that had all got flicked at the same time?

"We're not safe with him. Keeping something like that from us. Why do you need him? He's just gonna pull you down."

"No. Rick's done all right by me."

"You're his henchman and I'm a burden. You deserve better."

"Carol, I'm gonna ask you nicely to back off." Teddy kept her voice low, not wanting to cause an argument. "Rick has always done his best by this group. He tried to protect your daughter and when she was missing he was the one who went to find her right? He was the one who didn't want to stop even when everything pointed to her being gone. Even when Shane was telling him to move on. Rick has done his best for everyone and for you to sit there and say that... You're ungrateful. Telling you what some wack job from the CDC said, with Shane how he was and the everyone on edge as it was... It would've caused chaos and don't even try and pretend it wouldn't. He did the right thing."

Teddy stood, moving back to her place on guard. She listened to the argument about wanting to leave begin, listened to Rick tell of how he killed Shane. She listened to every word and despite how she'd felt about him for years, she believed in him. But the way he was handling this was wrong, she could see that on Carl's face.

"Hey." She gently placed her hand on his arm after he'd declared that this was no longer a democracy. "You're scaring people. We get it, alright. Take a breath and relax. No one is going anywhere."