AN: Here we are, another chapter here!

I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!

111

The air was crisp and clean. Carol filled her lungs with a large breath of it as soon as she pushed back the flap on the tent to come outside in the early morning. The closer they got to their final stopping spot, the more she absolutely felt like she could feel herself brimming over with life and an inexplicable thick kind of happiness. She didn't dare to try to put her actual feelings into words. The blonde that was new to their travel group—Melodye—was a psychiatrist, instead of a surgeon like her partner, and she would certainly have thought Carol was crazy if she'd told her that she absolutely felt like she inhaled some kind of joy every time she drew in a breath of the magical air around them.

This morning, Carol's crisp and clean air carried a heavy array of smells. She smelled the horses—a scent she'd honestly come to find strangely comforting—and the odors they created as they fertilized the little area where they'd made camp near the current road they were using. She smelled the unpleasant scent of their latrine, too. She thought they'd dug it far enough away from camp the night before, but this morning it turned her stomach just a little. With the added numbers to their group, maybe they needed to think a bit more about their latrine situation when they stopped to rest each night. A few feet further away might be better, especially since it was impossible to figure out what downwind might be at all times.

Carol could also smell the smoke from the fire, and she could smell breakfast. Her stomach decided to ignore the latrine in favor of the scent of smoke and cooking meat, and it growled a request for breakfast. Carol decided to forego a trip to the latrine to relieve herself and, instead, headed across their camp toward the area where the fire was burning and breakfast was cooking.

"Is that the deer from yesterday?" Carol asked.

"Had to finish it before it spoils," Alice said. "I figured we'd cook everything. Whatever nobody eats before we break camp, we can split for the drive today. Sit down. Sadie—a plate?"

She signed well enough for Sadie to understand. The woman had adjusted to a life where people communicated with her using a hodgepodge mix of spoken words—which required her reading their lips—and rough signs. She quickly served a plate and passed it to Carol along with a fork. Carol signed a thank you to Sadie and got a sincere smile in return.

All around their camp, everyone was doing something. It had been a very short time since they'd brought the new people into their group—or, perhaps, it was better to say since they'd united their two groups together—but Carol was already starting to feel like she knew these people on a deeper level than just passing acquaintances. Maybe, she figured, it was because they all seemed relatively easy to know. There wasn't a great deal of mystery or enigma surrounding any of them except, maybe, Muh. The tiny old lady talked very little about herself, and she answered nearly none of the questions asked of her. Still, there was something charming about her secretive nature that made her seem endearing, instead of menacing in the way that Carol had come to find most people who were a bit too reserved with their personal information.

She reminded Carol, in some ways, of the faerie folk and other creatures she remembered from childhood stories, though she imagined that was mostly because of Muh's current preference for a black cape, seemingly made from a blanket, to keep her warm as a very slight chill seemed to find its way into the cool, crisp air around them.

Carol truly felt that she, Daryl, and Lydia had kept the most secrets of all of them—a fact that bothered her a little—but she hadn't yet figured out how it would be best for them all to come clean, and how much she was willing to share about their lives before they'd struck out for Wyoming, without making their new companions worried that they weren't to be trusted. It seemed better, somehow, to wait a little longer so that everyone would be comfortable in the trustworthiness of the others. After all, they all had pasts, and it was certain that they hadn't shared all their experiences—they'd barely scratched the surface.

"Am I the last one up?" Carol asked.

Sadie ate across the fire from her, and Alice kept her attention on the meat, making sure that it didn't char too badly on any one side as it cooked over the fire.

"Not by too much," Alice said.

"I didn't even hear Daryl get up," Carol said. "He didn't wake me."

"He said you were sleeping pretty good," Alice said. "We kept it down. He's…well…I don't see him now, but he was just over there. I think he's checking the wagons. He said he wanted to give them a once over before we kept going."

"Where's Lydia?"

"She and Beau are taking a walk," Alice said. "I thought it would be a good idea for them to stretch their legs a bit before we hit the road again. Don't worry. Dog went with them and they're not allowed to be out of earshot if they call for help." She leaned and put another hunk of meat on Carol's plate. Carol didn't need that much food, but the smoky, charred meat was delicious, so she didn't argue either. "Lydia's safe with Beau."

Carol's stomach tightened. She hadn't realized she was nervous about Lydia's well-being and location, really, until she'd suddenly realized that she didn't see the girl in camp and Alice had mentioned that she was gone without Carol or Daryl to supervise her whereabouts. Still, it seemed like Alice had anticipated her nervous reaction before Carol had even realized, herself, that she'd have it.

"I'm sure she is," Carol said.

While they sat there, Muh, came over carrying one of the mugs from their collection of metal drinkware. She offered it to Carol, and Carol took it. She smelled it.

"Not coffee," she said, the warmth of the mug heating her hands where a touch of the cool air nipped at them.

"Drink it," Muh responded. "It's good. You should drink it."

She sat down across the fire from Alice, to Carol's left.

"Just for me?" Carol asked. "Sadie doesn't get tea with breakfast?" She signed her question as best she could, at least managing the sign for Sadie's name and the one for tea—since Muh often made sure that there was always something in a mug for someone, though she usually insisted in brewing several different small batches so that everyone got just what she wanted to offer.

Sadie held up a cup that Carol had missed beside her.

Carol sipped the hot tea. It was soothing and comfortable.

"Mmm," she hummed. "That is good. Mint and…?"

It didn't do any good to question Muh about her ingredients. She would smile at any of them that asked or dared to try to identify the contents of their beverage. It was the kind of smile that would draw her lips and eyes upward until all three looked like individual smiles. She would say nothing, though, and she wouldn't confirm even a guessed recipe.

"It's good," she reassured Carol. "You'll enjoy it."

"I am enjoying it," Carol said. "Enough that—I don't even feel like I need coffee this morning for energy."

"That's probably for the best," Alice said. "I think Daryl finished the coffee off this morning. We'd have to boil a whole new pot."

"There's no need for that," Carol said. "We'll be on the road soon anyway. And Muh's tea seems like it's got a little something for energy. Did you give me something for energy in here?"

Carol tapped her fingertips on the side of the metal mug and cocked an eyebrow at the old woman who had produced her pipe from the folds of her oversized black cape and was packing it with the contents of a little cloth pouch she carried. She smoked a blend of her own herbs and something like rabbit tobacco. The aroma of what she smoked varied from day to day, but it was never truly unpleasant. She lit her pipe and puffed on it before she decided to respond to Carol's question.

"It is life that gives you energy," she said.

"It's life that makes me tired half the damn time," Alice said, laughing at Muh's response.

Muh narrowed her eyes at Alice for only half a second before looking around and then bringing her eyes back to settle on Carol and giving her an absolutely toothless grin.

"An abundance of life," Muh said. "This land is good for it."

"This land looks good for a lot of things," Alice said.

"Daryl says we'll start looking for something soon," Carol said. "Somewhere to settle. A few farmhouses close together with a good water supply. Then, we start looking for livestock escaped from farms and for seeds."

"We ought to find it," Alice said. "Everything we need."

"Anything that can't be found can be made," Muh offered. "Grown."

"We'll be doing plenty of growing things and raising things," Carol assured her, chewing through the last bite of her meat and waving away Alice's offer of more. Muh took a chunk of the hot meat in her hands, seemingly unbothered by the heat of it, and began tearing it apart with her fingertips while she ate small slithers that didn't require teeth for chewing.

"We shall," Muh agreed. "Plenty of it."

111

It took longer to make and break camp with the group than it had when Daryl, Carol, Lydia, and Dog had been travelling by themselves. Still, their time in camp was nicer than it had been. Since they'd joined together, the chores were split so that nothing really felt like it was very hard to do, or even too time consuming. There was an equality in this little group that they'd made that Daryl had never really sensed before in all the groups they'd known—everyone contributed in some way, absolutely everyone.

It made things simply go well.

"Oh, Daryl…it's so beautiful," Carol commented. It wasn't the first time she'd said that. It wasn't even the second or third time. The scenery was, as she said, beautiful, and it seemed to thrill Carol entirely. Her absolute excitement over the world around them made Daryl buzz like he was practically high on some drug he didn't remember taking. He was high on the fact that he'd found something to give her that made her so damned happy.

And with each declaration that everything around them was beautiful, she inched a little closer on the seat. She was as close to him as their bodies allowed. As they rode, when she wasn't marveling over the splendor of the surroundings that would soon be their new home, Carol was leaning her head on his shoulder and curling affectionately against him.

And Daryl thought that his heart might actually explode from everything that it made him feel—but it would be a hell of a way to go.

"You see what'cha like?" Daryl asked.

"I love all of it," Carol said. "It's so beautiful, Daryl. It's so clean! Just look!"

"That mean you ready to start lookin' for a nice place? Lil' farm. Lots of land. Good water supply?"

Carol smiled at him and nodded when he searched her face out. Her eyes were damp, but it didn't bother him. If she was feeling emotional, it was a positive emotion—or at least he figured it was. Maybe, at worst, she was thinking how sad it was that people she'd lost along the way weren't there to see it all. Maybe she was wishing that Sophia was there—or Mika and Henry…or even Lizzie, if they could have found a way to save her from her mind. Maybe, even, she was wondering if they might have saved her by running into Melodye who claimed to have a least a little professional skill for dealing with damaged minds.

"You sure you don't wanna go no further?" Daryl asked. "In them books I found you the other day, you didn't find another state or something that you'd rather call home?"

Carol laughed quietly at his teasing and shook her head.

"It's beautiful she said. And I love it. And I love you…and I love you for bringing me here."

Daryl felt the warmth of her words in his stomach. His stomach tightened and his throat did, too. He wiggled on the seat enough to bump her, and he rubbed his body against hers. She responded in kind, giggling at his best show of physical affection when he didn't want to drop the reins—even though he was relatively sure that their horses would have kept going just as they were. They seemed satisfied with the selection of location, too, and happily walked along the road chosen for them without any effort to pull or turn away from it.

"I love you," Daryl said. "And—I love that you chose Wyomin' for all of us."

"Let's just hope it's everything we want it to be," Carol said.

"It already is," Daryl assured her. "Now all we gotta find is a couple of farm houses, and we can start gettin' ready. You wanna ride on a piece or…start lookin' soon?"

"We can start looking today," Carol said.

"You satisfied?"

"I'm more than satisfied."

"Me too."

111

AN: Please do remember that I really know nothing about Wyoming beyond a few Google searches and what a few books and things have told me. My treatment of the state will, more than likely, be largely as idealistic as it needs to be in order to fit with my vision for the story. I ask for suspension of disbelief. You can pretend it is an entirely fictional place if that's what you need to do. Thank you for your understanding. LOL