"What do we think?" T-dog asked, looking around at the others.

They were standing in a driveway that led from the road, beside a tall sign advertising storage units for rent. The driveway was fenced off by a chain link gate, the two large gates held together by a chain and padlock.

Daryl walked up to it, wrapping his fingers into the fencing and shaking it. The metal clanged, rattled and shook violently. It was flimsy, weak, not held together very well. The fenced gates even swung and creaked back and forth, much more than they should have. The metal chain locking the doors together was not tight, allowing both doors more freedom and a large gap between them.

"It's a fence," Lori commented, an obvious observation, but important. It's what stood out the most.

"It could be safe, right? No walkers?" Carl asked.

"We don't know when it was locked," Rick said, walking down the fencing to take a look inside. "Someone could have thought of this place already."

"It looks pretty dead," Glenn said.

"It could be worth it," Hershel added, "for the supplies alone. We would just need to be sure no one else is here, like you said."

"I don't see any walkers," Beth said.

"Daryl and I will go this way," Rick motioned down the fence, "follow it all around, see if there's any other openings, or signs of living. Glenn and T, go the opposite way, do the same, we'll meet up on the other side."

"Do you want us to just wait here?" Lori asked.

"Not here," Rick answered. "Across the road, or back to the cars. Out of sight of the gate, just in case. Don't go anywhere until any of us come back."

The group agreed and split off. Daryl gave Ace a nod before following Rick. The four men set off, following around the property. Hershel, Maggie, Beth, Lori, Carl, Carol and Ace made distance from the fencing; waiting nearby and out of sight.

The four men returned, meeting up with the rest of the group back at the cars. They didn't look too happy, Ace noted. She doubted it would be a place that they could hunker down, like Rick wanted.

"No sign of anyone," T-Dog said.

"Saw two walkers, just wandering," Glenn added.

"There are a few openings," Rick said, addressing the group more than the other pair. Ace assumed that they already had this discussion on the way back from the units, "it's not very secure."

"Most secure we've seen in a while, though," Glenn pointed out.

Rick nodded, agreeing with him, "Walkers or intruders still could get into those breaches, but this is better than being in the open. We know where they are, where walkers or people could come from. We'll know where and what to watch for."

"Could we . . . live here?" Beth asked hesitantly.

Daryl shook his head, "Property's too big, with the buildings around it's like a maze. Too many blind spots. The fence is cheap, owners didn't care much for security when buildin' the place. Too easy to get in, pull the chain link outta places."

"We couldn't fix it?" Hershel asked, putting a hand on Beth's shoulder to comfort her.

"Not worth it," Daryl said, repeating the talk Rick and he had on the walk back over to them. "We'd need a whole new fence, and again, the place's got too many problems."

"It'll work well enough for a few days," Rick announced his decision. "There's units to explore, lot's of supplies that could be useful. We can take a break, get out bearings and make a plan. Rushing, running, panicking as we're doing isn't going to help in the long wrong. This could be our chance to get our shit together."

Going back to the gate, they talked and planned going into groups to scout out the inside. They prepared their weapons. It was decided they wouldn't break the chain on the gate, wanting to keep the large entrance blocked. But the not so tight chain allowed enough room for them to push the gate forward, and the gap between the gate doors was enough room for them to squeeze through, bend down under the chain, one at a time.

"Take it slow, be careful," Rick instructed. "There is still a possibility of people taking shelter. Take extra caution to any units that aren't locked."

Ace headed straight with T-Dog, Beth and Carl. Every time they opened a unit, Ace aimed her gun, ready. The gun was a precaution, only for people, to which she said that she had it covered. T-Dog offered to do it instead, but Ace just shook her head and told him to open it.

They worked their way through a few units in quick succession, the longest part being searching through them for items they could take. When they had a few boxes packed with some useful things to sort through, they would move them outside and move onto the next unit.

And again, T-Dog opened a unit, but this was different. They all recoiled almost immediately. Ace couldn't even see what it was, but the smell was bad enough to send her running away, forwards to get away from the smell, coughing, and trying not to be sick.

"Oh my God," she heard Beth say before turning and walking away with Carl, covering her nose.

Ace was standing in the middle of the 'street' between the rows of storage untis. Putting her distance between the one they'd just searched. Her hands were on her knees, keeled over with her hair dangling to block the one side of her face.

Ace gagged for the fourth time, it was followed by a very real dry heave. She felt the burning of bile in her throat, but nothing came up.

"You know, with the dead coming back," T-Dog started, approaching her side. "I keep thinking, 'man, there ain't no way I can see or smell anything worse than this'. I keep getting proved wrong."

"That was," Ace breathed through her nose, trying to compose herself. "Awful. Just awful. Did you close it?"

"Yeah, just marked it too."

"Good. God. I can still smell it," Ace stood up straight, putting her write to her nose to take a deep breath into her mouth. "Don't let Lori go down this way. She was actually able to hold down her food."

T-Dog chuckled, "got it."

Ace shook her head, walking next to T-Dog, "I don't know why you're laughing. Not sure what part you find funny."

"None of it's funny," He shrugged. "Not a single damned thing. But we have to laugh, what else do we got? Honestly."

Ace frowned and followed silently.

Beth and Carl were already standing at the next unit, having almost ran after the smell. T-Dog broke the lock, Ace held out her gun, aiming it forward. After they shared a look, T-Dog quickly lifted the door. It rattled and dragged loudly.

"Nothing," T-Dog muttered.

Ace nodded, but kept her gun out. There were things piled up, places to hide behind, and they had the guns out in case there were any people. Walkers she was okay with, sort of. But after everything that happened, Winter, she was paranoid about there being people hidden around.

"Come on," T-Dog glanced at Beth, and then Ace. "Let's take a look around."

Carl waited outside while the three started digging through random boxes, his hand ready on his holster. Ace also still had hers out as she peered around the corners, but still saw no humans.

T-Dog flipped over a cardboard box, random object, knick knacks and the like tumbled out. He kneeled down next to the pile, and pushed them along the ground with the palm of his hands, looking at everything that fell out.

Ace held the thick, fleece blanket that was rolled up under her arm. When he was done with the box, he held it out to her with both hands, Ace put the blanket inside.

Then she turned, grabbing a smaller cardboard box that was filled with old clothes. She placed it inside of T-Dog's bigger box, beside the rolled up blanket. Once that unit was sorted out, T-dog slid the box with their findings right outside the unit. He pulled the door down, and Beth used her spray can to mark an X.

They left the box in front of the unit as they moved onto the next. The general idea was to just place the findings out in the open they could get to, but not drag them around every step. After the units were searched, and they knew it was safe, they'd collect the findings and go through them.

"Damn," T-Dog commented inside another unit later. "We need more tents?"

"Maybe," Ace said. They were looking into the unit, a couple of boxes with tent pictures, company logos.

"Let's grab them all," Carl said, going forward to grab a box. Ace smiled as he wrapped his arms around it, it wasn't a wide box, but it was long, Carl had to drag it out of the unit. Then dropped it noisily right outside the door.

"Even if we need more, we don't need that many," Beth said quietly.

"Kid's right," T-Dog nodded at Carl, grabbing another box. "We don't know which of these would be any good. Some might be broken or something. Put the boxes out, after we find out what we need we can go through them, and choose."

They pulled the six boxes out of the unit. After Carl had done one, he mostly watched from the outside. His gun wasn't drawn but he rested a hand on it, buckled into the holster. Carl constantly stepped back away from the unit, looking both ways for any signs of danger. The rest of them didn't ask him for help, or even expect him to do anything more. It was his job as lookout. They were being extra cautious after Wiltshire.

Beth found a box labelled 'christmas decorations'. She used her knife and opened the box anyway, just to be sure.

"Sleeping bags," Ace called. She was deeper into the unit, blocked by boxes and pins. She came out walking backward, dragging a very large box that was the height to her waist.

"Damn," T-Dog's voice echoed. He went to the other side of the box, pushing it to get it out faster. Outside the unit, he looked through. There were a couple rolled up sleeping bags. He had to bend over low into the box to see more. They found some metal rods with two sharp, fork-like ends. For cooking marshmallows, or more.

"We could keep those," Ace smiled. "Better than sharpening sticks when we cook the meat."

"I always get a piece of wood or bark in my mouth," Beth grimaced.

T-Dog looked through the boxes, before rubbing his hands together to clear them of any dust, "We ready to move on?"

"No, there's still more stuff in here," Ace said, quickly walking back inside the unit. "I'm not done."

T-Dog shrugged and followed her inside, now noticing that there were some boxes they had missed, or just forgot to look through. Either way, they could finish the job in the next few minutes.

Ace moved towards the first box, which was full of books, making the box heavier and solid. She pulled some out, manuals from cars, random unimportant things before finding one something much better,

"Oh, wow," Ace breathed out in surprise. "Look at these."

Beth walked up from behind, "Books?"

"Survival guides," Ace informed.

Beth frowned, shoulders sagging slightly.

"That's cool!" Carl exclaimed, holding a hand out for Ace to give him one.

Ace handed him the smaller of the bunch, before flipping through one of her own.

"I thought maybe you found a real book," Beth said, crossing her arms.

"Guides are real books," T-Dog said behind them, going through another box.

"You know what I mean," she argued. "I haven't found anything good in ages. I just want to read something good, fun."

"This is what we should be reading," Carl gave Beth a very adult look. It was just shy of condescending. "This is useful. It's good for us to read."

"Everything's about survival, Carl," Ace relayed gently. "I get what she means. It's nice to enjoy something that isn't about that."

Carl shrugged. "We should show Daryl. He says that when we find survival stuff, like those old magazines a few weeks back? Sometimes it's bull—" Ace elbowed him before he could continue, shooting down a look at the boy. "—It's wrong," Carl met her eye, when Ace nodded in approval he continued. "Or made up."

Ace flipped a few more pages, then took the other book back from Carl when he was done. "They look pretty good. Older," she said, leading them out of the unit. "Older is good for these types of books, I think. Before everyone started making their own books, spreading misinformation," Ace flipped through a few pages. "The chemistry is okay, nothing fake in the science. I'll show Daryl, though. 'People think they know shit when they don't know any shit'," She recited the quote from Daryl.

Carl eyed her with a frown.

"I'm older," Ace winked at him.

Outside the unit, T-Dog pulled the door down, Ace dropped the books into the box with the sleeping bags.

The next unit was less eventful, not much inside, so they quickly moved on, not wanting to spend too much time on a dead end. The final one at the end of the hallway where they were supposed to meet the others was a much better find.

Ace grabbed one of the boxes from the shelves, barely able to read the word written on the side of the cardboard. She squinted, rubbing a finger under the word, before reading electronics.

A smile worked its way onto her face. She had been wanting to find something like this for a while, even back on the farm, in Atlanta, but she could never find anything. She pulled it down from a shelf and held it at waist height, before she looked inside the box. All she could see was the green of circuit boards, silver pieces and red and black wires.

Finally, was the first thing that crossed her mind.

She put the box on the ground next to her feet, and kneeled down, looking through a box next to the one full of electronics, before reaching in and grabbing the first thing she saw. A denim hat, baseball cap like Glenn used to wear. At first she wondered whether he would want this one.

Ace's eyebrows crinkled, turning the hat over in her hands. Around the rim, on the inside of the cap, she felt a hard object, flat and oval shaped. Playing with the fabric, she saw the black box was folding into it, but the rest of the hat was either sewn or glued in. She saw tiny wires protruding out of a hole on the one side, trailing into the cap. The rest of the fabric didn't unfold, sewn tightly into place to protect the wires.

Ace inspected the object the best she could, since she couldn't move it out of the hat, or even turn it on its side since it was attached. A battery pack? She internally wondered. There was a very tiny screw to open it, she'd need a very small screwdriver.

Her fingers felt through the fabric, following the wire that she lost the feel of when it seemed to go into the hard, front part of the hat. Battery pack, wire, it did something.

There were no other symbols Ace could see. Out of curiosity, she put the dusty cap on. Her fingers went in front of her face, feeling the cap, then she found something. It must've been hard to feel with the angle she held the cap with. But then, on her head, she found the hard lump, right on the underside of the cap, on the right.

With her thumb on the bump, index finger over top of the cap, she squeezed. There was a dull click, and her lips parted before smiling. The dark wall of the unit in front of her was illuminated with directed light from the hat. She took it off, seeing the tiny light bulbs hidden in the edges.

The others were looking her way, not that she noticed, their attention caught by the light. Ace held up the hat a little, smiling at her find. She found the button, clicking it off.

"It's a hat? That's so cool!" Carl reached forward, but Ace held it up out of reach quickly.

"Nuh-uh, buddy," She shook her head. "This one's mine. You have your own."

"I'll find you a flashlight to glue to yours," T-Dog joked and Beth laughed.

Carl rolled his eyes.

"Maybe you can borrow it," Ace relented. Instead of putting it with other findings, Ace put the hat into her backpack.

"That's all of 'em," T-Dog announced as they walked outside, holding a plastic tub. "We can wait here for the others."

Ace shrugged, turning back to some of the boxes that Beth and Carl had yet take out to the car. She saw the survival guides in the box with the sleeping bags where she had left them, next to her box full of electronics.

She moved the books she found into the box with the electronics, keen on keeping them for herself. Ace liked all the science-y, crafting pages, seeing as she knew and understood all of it. She could improve on them, make them better, maybe even use some of them if she found the right parts.

There was some noises from around the corner, and Carl placed a hand on his holster, ready. Ace glanced back over her shoulder as Rick entered their hallway, followed by Carol and Daryl. Ace have a smile to the three, before digging through her cardboard box of electronics, the pieces rattling has she pushed them aside,

"How's it going?" Rick asked.

"All the units on our side are clear," T-Dog said.

"Ours too," Rick said, glancing at Daryl. "Hershel and the others are still working."

"Shall we get started on emptying some place to sleep in?" T-Dog asked.

"Yeah," Rick gave a nod.

"Any place in mind?"

Rick took a few steps back down the hallway, "This one's bigger, emptier. Close to an exit. We can stay here for a little while. We'll drag out the boxes, make some more room. Everyone grab what you found, bring it in, we can sort through them here."

Then they all got to work, walking into the big storage unit and grabbing something to either push aside or move out of the unit. Ace started by dragging a few boxes out of the room, emptying out almost one whole corner.

It took a little while, but eventually there was a lot more room in the storage unit that Ace decided to move whatever she needed into the unit. She grabbed the cardboard box she found of electronics, with the survival guides placed precariously on top, and started dragging it into the unit.

"Ace," T-Dog stopped her, "we're supposed to be moving shit out, not in."

"I need all this stuff," Ace argued.

"For what?"

"None of your business, Theodore."

Ace continued what she was doing, dragging the box of electronics over to the corner she intended on leaving her things, and left them a metre or so away from the walls. Then she pulled her bag off her back, and dropped it on the ground next to the boxes.

Ace helped the others a little bit more, pulling out some metal shelves and larger boxes before leaving them in a hallway that they had piled everything else into.

When she was done, she decided to get working on her plan. She walked back to the storage units and grabbed an empty plastic container, before someone could take it away. She walked it to her corner, kneeled down and turned it over in front of her to use as a table.

She then grabbed the cardboard box and pulled it to her side, before sitting on the ground with her stuff. Ace then leaned out to grab her yellow bag, before pulling out the light hat she found earlier, and turning it on. She pulled out the ziplock bag next, with her broken radio pieces.

Ace put it down on her makeshift table, before she started to dig through the cardboard box, between all the metal pieces and wires to find a circuit board that resembled the one in the ziplock bag in front of her.

"Ace," she heard a laugh from across the room, and looked up to see Glenn staring at her from the doorway of the units. "Nice hat."

Ace just stuck her tongue out at him, before going back to doing what she was doing. Glenn sat down against the wall, a little in front of where Ace had settled in the corner.

She pushed herself so she was sitting on her knees, and started pulling wires and screws and parts out of the box, placing them on the ground beside her. She was so focused on what she was doing she didn't even hear it when someone walked over, standing in front of her.

"That's a stupid hat," Daryl said, standing in front of her.

Ace jumped a little, frowning as she didn't remember him being there before that. There frowned for a different reason, that Daryl was making fun of her light hat.

"It's a good hat," she emphasised her words, making sure to make eye contact with Glenn as well.

"I said it was a nice hat!" Glenn said, unable to stop the smile that was on his face as he looked at the hat. Maggie was sitting beside him now, also grinning at Ace.

"You laughed," she crossed her arms. "I'm trying to do something over here, and I wouldn't need the hat if you assholes stopped taking all the lights away."

"Okay, I'm sorry," Glenn said. "It's a good hat."

"Thank you."

Daryl was smirking, glancing between the two as they argued. Eventually he sat down next to her with a grunt and leaned back against the wall. "What're ya doin'?"

She picked up the ziplock bag, "Trying to fix this radio."

"The one ya were talkin' to yer dad on?" Daryl asked almost immediately, and it shocked Ace that he even remembered that part of the story. Sure he knew her, he knew her dad, but she wasn't sure how well he listened when she said how she lost him. Then again, he probably wanted to know what happened to him almost as much as she did.

Ace nodded, "Yeah. It needs a new circuit board. Just trying to see if any of these will work."

"Lemme take a look," Daryl pulled the plastic tub she was using as a table closer to him, picking up the ziplock bag and looking at the circuit board.

Ace gave a nod, pushing the cardboard box of spare parts in front of him. She opened up one of the books at her side, reading the contents page of the survival guide.

"What else ya find?" Daryl asked, nodding over to the books

Ace picked one of them up in her hand, "Just some survival guides."

Daryl frowned, glancing over. "Ya don' need that shit."

"But it talks about a lot of stuff," Ace said, flipping through the pages. "And all the chemistry is right."

"Whatever."

Daryl continued looking through the pieces, wires, whatever, trying to find something that closely resembled the circuit board in the ziplock bag. Finally, he pulled out a board with wires wrapped around it, that he untangled, before comparing the two.

"This'll do," Daryl said, dropping a circuit board down on the plastic tub.

"It doesn't look the same," Ace said, confused on how he thought it would work.

"Doesn't have ta exactly," was the only confirmation Daryl gave. "Close 'nough."

"Okay," Ace said, still unsure.

Daryl also dug through the box, pulling out some wires, and solder that had been hidden deep at the bottom. He placed the wires on the tub beside the new circuit board and pushed it back towards Ace, the box scraping along the ground as he did so.

He put the items they didn't need back in the cardboard box that they didn't need, and pushed it away from them.

"Y'know what yer doin'?" Daryl asked.

"Kinda," Ace mumbled, looking down at the radio in front of her, trying to remember how it looked before she took it apart many months before. She reached inside the bag and started pulling the pieces out, now hating herself for taking it apart and not putting it back together.

"Kinda?"

Ace hummed out a response, trying to get across that she didn't think she needed any help with this stage. If she did, she would ask, but at that moment, she wanted to do it herself.

She placed all the pieces in a row, before looking around for something she could use as a soldering iron. When she saw nothing, she slowly started to remember how Shane taught her to make a soldering iron back at camp. She pushed herself forwards onto her knees, leaning past Daryl to pull the cardboard box a little closer, before digging through for some wires.

Daryl watched her with squinted eyes, but shrugged and leaned back against the wall, ignoring her. Ace placed the wires down on the plastic tub, before pulling out her knife, and stripping back the rubber from the wires.

She looked around for something to heat the wires up with, before her eyes landed on Daryl, "You have a lighter, don't you?"

Daryl hummed in response.

"Can I borrow it?"

Daryl sat forwards, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small, silver zippo. He held it out to her, and watched as she flicked open the lid, immediately putting the flame against the wires she twisted together.

"Jus' . . ." Daryl watched her hands, making sure she didn't burn herself. Ace was accident prone, so burning herself with a lighter was something that he would not put past her. "Be careful."

"I'm always careful."

"I know that's a lie," Daryl argued. "I remember ya saying how 'accident prone' ya are."

"I don't know what you're on about," Ace said. "I would never say such a thing."

"Sure," despite his words, he continued to keep a close eye on her hands.

When she was done, Ace placed the zippo down on her makeshift table. "You shouldn't smoke, you know."

Daryl just hummed, pretending to agree with her so she wouldn't talk about it any more. The last thing he felt he needed was a PSA on how smoking was bad from a teenage girl that would probably draw up some kind of diagrams to show how it was affecting him.

Ace started putting together the radio with the new parts, using the old circuit board as a guide to where she needed to put everything. She soldered new wires in place of the old ones, and connected all the pieces from the old device that was still needed to get it to work.

"It should be good now," she muttered a little while later, getting Daryl's attention.

Ace flicked the switch, turning the radio on, silently praying it would work. She didn't know what she expected, some static, the screen lighting up, but something she didn't expect to hear was a voice. She perked up, listening closer to see if it was her dad.

No, she thought forcefully. It can't be him. Don't be stupid.

Everyone around turned to her, when they heard the new, staticky sound. Just faintly, every so often, there was a woman's voice. Ace listened quietly, dropping down a little so she was closer to the sound.

"Term—" the woman's voice cut out, and static grew louder.

"What is that?" Maggie asked from across the room, pulling Ace's attention from the jumpy voice on the radio.

"I dunno," Ace leaned her head closer to the speaker, turning her head to the side.

"Follow . . ." The signal cut out for a short second. "—minus . . . who arrive . . ."

"Signals weak," Daryl pointed out. "Whatever it is, s'not close."

"It could be like that emergency broadcast the car picked up on the highway," Glenn said, paying special attention to not bring up Shane's name.

"It doesn't sound the same," Lori said.

"It could be someone who wants help?" Hershel asked.

"Maybe," Daryl agreed.

"Shush!"

Ace waved a hand at them absently, trying to make them all stop talking. They all quietened down, waiting for Ace to try and hear something. She listened for another loop, still unable to make out any new words, until:

"Survive."

Then the loop of what she was able to hear repeated, some words cutting in and out whenever the radio felt fit. She couldn't make out the sentence, and anything she came up with in her head didn't sound anything like an emergency broadcast.

"Jus' turn it off," Daryl said after a few seconds. "Signal's too weak, won' be close enough to check it out even if it is somethin'."

"He's right," Rick agreed. "Whatever it is, we don't have the resources right now to find out where that takes us."

Ace frowned but flicked the switch to turn the radio off. The group was quiet for a few moments, thinking about what they could have been listening to, before they all turned back to their small groups, talking amongst themselves.

Still looking at the radio, Ace was quiet, thinking about the message. They were probably right. Even if the signal came through strong enough that they could hear what the woman was saying, there was no way of knowing for sure that whatever it was is still up and running, or even safe.

"You finished?" Daryl asked, snapping her out of her thoughts as he reached for his lighter at the same time.

"Not yet," Ace covered the lighter with her hand before he could reach it. "There's still something I want to do."

Daryl stared at her for a moment, glancing down at the radio. It was fixed now, that's all she said needed to be done, so what else could she possibly be trying to do.

"Okay," he pulled his hand back, resting his arm on top of his knee.

Ace quietly thanked him, reaching over his legs for the cardboard box again. She still had things she wanted to do, but she didn't want to say anything. Shane once taught her how to modify a radio to communicate with a CB, which she knew was now useful because the group had both radios and CBs. She just didn't want to say what she was doing in case his name came up.

Daryl watched her closely, a little confused, but understanding of what she was doing as she did it. She lit the lighter again, heating up the twisted end of the copper wires to use as a solder, before getting to work.

It only took a few minutes to do what Shane had taught her to, now understanding what that was, unlike the first time. When she was done, she grabbed a small screwdriver from the belongings they collected in the storage units, and put the whole radio back together. She hoped that there was some way her dad still had his, and she could contact him, but it was too late.

Months too late.

Exams are done, I can finally focus on this again.

Let me know what you thought, I love reading all the comments coming through. I'll see you all soon :)