Hi! That wait wasn't too long I hope! Huge thanks to all the faithful readers, and so much love to all the reviewers! This is a sort of slow chapter, but at least I was able to expand it past its original 468 words :)

"If we get y'r stove, Sy," Daryl speaks as they move with stealth through the empty town, "we c'n cut a hole easy for the chimney." In all their raids and riflings through houses, potbellied stoves have not been the rarest item they've seen multiples of, but as always with scavenging, it's more a question of finding the things you seek when you're in need of them, then of never finding them at all.

As it stands, there's a chance there's more than one in this town that'll do for their purposes, so too there's a chance they'll find at least one of them, and manage to break it down and transport it. Also there's a chance they'll find nothing at all, and find themselves instead retrofitting a barbeque for their heating. In the end, they'll need something. The temperature in Georgian winters can drop cold, and being stationary will only aggravate its assault. The others are too young, but Daryl remembers a winter in his youth when the mercury dropped below zero. Daryl has no reason to suspect this winter will be as cold as that; they'd had some early projections from Hershel—

Daryl spits, and keeps his feet walking.

Wide blue eyes look to the street's skyline, "Y'think th' roof can support a garden?" Beth's knife keeps loose in her hand and ever at the ready as she walks. "Don't have much to start with… S'already so late…"

All eyes scan up to the flat roof of the brick structure now behind them. "Prob'ly not," Daryl grunts. "Don' want t' weigh the structure down too much. Rains're comin'." He sniffs in the cold air. "Can find another spot."

"Have we even got anythin' to plant?" Simon asks, kicking away the debris at his feet as they progress down the street, scouring the environs of their newly adopted town.

"We've—"

But Beth's answer is cut short as past their ears a bolt whistles; in mere seconds Daryl's aimed and fired the crossbow, pulling the trigger at a stumbling walker. Briskly Daryl strides forward, steps on the thing's neck with the assuredness of seasoned routine, and yanks the arrow from the broken seeping skull. Quickly he reloads and fires again, meanwhile Simon and Beth employ their knives deftly to take down another three rotters that had emerged from the shadows. When no others appear, and the last one falls dead with an ugly thud, lying still and wreaking, the street settles once again into wild silence. Daryl stoops another time to retrieve the fired and bloody bolt as Beth steps deliberately away from the dispatched carcasses to spare herself rancorous odor. With heart rates quickened, they three move on, alert and prepared.

With no need this far along to list or discuss what they seek, they search in silence, moving through shops and houses, happening upon no great stores of goods or guns, but building up slowly supplies they badly need. Table salt, rubbing alcohol, cooking grease, corn meal, batteries, toothpaste, soap, and candles. They find some canned tomatoes, plastic cups of expired applesauce, vegetable juice, a protein drink, dusty lasagna noodles, and a box of currents. They grab more, taking what they can carry in the packs they wear, making note of what they will return for, mentally cataloging it all. The town has been swept, but not entirely, they may do well here. There are still some doors that have not been breached, still some houses that may be untouched from the early days. They will go back to those, when they have emptied their bags, and have generated a plan.

In every house Simon tries the water taps. Some still have water in their tanks from when the utilities failed. He adds those to the map he's drafting. It'll help, but it won't be enough. There's more talk about rain barrels. Simon distracts himself with idle talk about aqueducts, building systems in his head that will never be built in life. They move quickly, acquainting themselves with as much of the town in one outing as they are able. Nimbly and with efficiency they clear the walkers they can, and slip past the ones they can't.

"We're never going to clear all of them," Beth declares in hushed tones. Behind them in a veterinary clinic dozens of the beasts shuffle and beat about. As the hours have passed through the day they've crossed pockets of small throngs of them – in houses, in streets, in alleyways and shops. Taking care as they have to remain discreet, the trio hasn't yet had the occasion to run, but in calculation of the numbers they've seen in the quiet, without question there'll be more should any kind of raucous upheaval assert itself to call on the dead; no doubt they'll likely fall out in droves.

With this in mind, Beth considers the endless intersections of neighborhood streets. In truth, her focus on the apartment itself had blinded her to the larger issue: How can they set up residence in a town so open to a roaming herd, and already filled with shops and homes teaming with countless walking dead? She's grown accustomed to killing the dead and moving on, to circumventing them when their numbers are too large, and running when they must; staying means retraining herself again – reconditioning instincts and approaches. She sees now – as a decaying body slams itself with a mighty thunk against the clinic's window – this apartment they're scouting for is no apartment at all, it's a wishful safe house dead square in a war zone. They cannot stay.

"Don't have to," Simon whispers in response, ducking out of sight of the brazenly seeing eyes of the undead. "We lock 'em in the places that're too overrun to clear." Out of habit Simon cinches tighter the shoulder straps to his pack. "We can reinforce the windows and the doors. Maybe cover 'em so they don't see us when we pass."

"Daryl?"

Daryl looks at each of them, then surveys the landscape of the town. He sees it weaknesses just as they do. In silence his sharp eyes scan, and look, searching for solutions. The commitment to staying put has been made, it's on them now to make it work. "Depends," he speaks cagily. A minute longer and he's scratching at his nose clarifying, "What kind of profile we want? The safer we make this place, the clearer it'll be we're here."

...

It's on their second return from going out that day that they talk any further on it. Unloading food and blankets, hot water bottles and sundry, setting them into storage by need and by use, their conversation returns to armament. "On the council," Daryl speaks gruffly, like it isn't so easy to speak of these names and times with just casual regard, "'Chonne described Rick's hometown." He glances at Beth for context — "That time she and Rick n' Carl went on a run for artillery—" He makes no mention of the need for the run having been the Governor, the anticipated attack from Woodbury. He does not speak those words to her, they serve no purpose. "Whole town was fortified," he continues on. "Rigged, and trip lined. There were barriers, railings, wires, triggered blades and firearms. Walker traps and set bait. Jus' one guy did it all. Was survivin' on his own."

"Your group got through?" Simon asks, speaking partly from interest, and partly to test the impregnability of such a design.

"Not easily. And Rick knew 'im." Having offered his evidence Rick's breach might have been less likely had the acquaintance not existed, Daryl tests the sturdiness of the wardrobe shelf he'd just stacked high with food and supplies. When he's assured it will hold, he stands back then wipes at his eye. "—Morgan," he finishes the thought. "First living person he come upon after passin' the turning wired up in a hospit'l bed."

"Carl said that man was crazy," Beth's soft stable voice interjects.

Without a glance in her direction, feeling no rush toward a quick response, Daryl scratches his beard with steady deliberation. "Ain't all of us seen our share of crazy?" He does not betray those in his acquaintance by constructing a list of names, but surely on it, and high up, would be Rick. Maybe himself too, for hadn't he once strung rotting ears about his neck and had visions of a person never there? Merle had aligned himself with a psychopath. Carol had denied ever having been a mother. When first she'd joined them Michonne had been so steely and shut off to the world she hardly seemed human. Beth had gone cationic then tried to end herself. Morgan might have been crazy, but by Rick's account, no more so than the world had made him. And from Michonne's telling of it, that strain of crazy had served him well: he was still living, as one by one the lone men in the world continuously fall. "We could do the same here," his voice rumbles and scratches. "We could entrench and fortify."

Simon looks at him, waiting, soberly expectant, "'But'?"

"It'll tell others we're here," Beth answers for him. Her words are dry and sparse in feeling. "Make it look like we've got something worth taking." She does not say more, and in her response her face never registers specific pain or wounds, but experience and loss both shadow and shape her understanding; the past will not allow itself to not be learned from. Survival is dependent upon it.

Thanks for reading! Hearing form you makes my day!