Len never came back. They looked for him on every supply run and asked about him if they ran across any other survivors. It was like he'd vanished.

They buried Constance in the grave he'd dug and made a marker. They wanted to make sure that Will would know where his mother was buried. Judith was a pretty fair sketch artist and she tried her best to sketch a portrait from memory so that he could see what his mom had looked like. She always regretted not having a picture of her own mother.

Will was an energetic and healthy baby. The nickname Little Cuss did stick with him, if only through Daryl. He was never wanting for attention thanks to two sets of parents. Mama Maggie, Mama Beth, Papa Glen and Papa Carl all doted on him. Rick, Carol and Daryl had decided to skip the familial monikers so no Grandpa Rick. Judith, on the other hand, loved being Aunt Judy. For the first time ever, she wasn't the youngest one in the family.

The National Guard base started to look more like a farm as the years went by. They planted the whole back field with vegetables and even expanded to a plot outside the fence a few years later. Carol had been able to can several jars of beans and other vegetables over the past year.

As the walker population dwindled, game became more plentiful so they usually had plenty of venison on hand. The goats had multiplied enough that they occasionally feasted on goat meat along with their goat milk and cheese.

A few other survivor groups came and went over the years. The only ones who stayed were an older couple and their grandson who happened to be only a year older than Judy. It hadn't taken long for the two of them to become a pair.

When Will was about five, they had a surprise visit from some old friends. One day three riders on horseback rode up to the gate and a burly red haired guy jumped from one of the saddles. Glen stepped outside in time to hear him yelling, "Hey, assholes. You gonna open this gate or do I need to knock it down?"

"It's Abraham," Glen yelled back inside to Maggie.

It turned out to be Abraham, Tara and Rosita. They'd been on the road for weeks hoping to find their old friends. Abraham told them the story of their experience in Washington.

"Pardon my French, folks, but Washington is fucked. By the time we got there, the whole place was being run by basically military warlords. A couple of guys are controlling everything that goes on and it ain't pretty. They're hoardin' food and supplies and tradin' on the blackmarket. They got kids with AK47's running around shooting anything that moves. The fortifications are failing. It's the worst thing I've ever seen and I was in some third world country war zones before the turn. The shits in charge are worse than the walkers," he told them.

"What happened to Eugene?" Rick asked. "I thought he was gonna fix this thang."

Abraham shook his head sadly. "Man, he tried. The thing about Eugene was that he was super smart but naïve too, like a kid in some ways. He just wanted to do the right thing all the time, couldn't see the bad in people, ya know? When we got there, they locked him in a lab with a couple of other scientists, kept 'em locked up day and night so they couldn't leave or stop working. They didn't have the supplies or support they needed to finish their work. It ate at him constantly. About a year ago, he started gettin' sick. The Army doc said it was some kind of cancer but I think he was just broken hearted. He wanted to make things right again but he couldn't do it alone. He lasted for six months . After he was gone, me, Tara and Rosita waited for the first opportunity to split and we ain't looked back."

"Well, we're awfully glad you found us," Maggie told them all as she held Will on her lap.

"So who is this handsome fellow," Tara asked. "I can tell he's Glenn's from that jet black hair."

"I'm Will and I'm five," he said with smiling pride.

"Yeah, Maggie, Beth, Carl and I adopted Will," Glen told her.

"Oh, well that makes you four times lucky little man," Tara told him.

"How on earth did you manage to find us?" Carol asked them as she went about preparing a meal.

"It was the strangest thing," Tara said. "We'd been riding through northern Georgia for weeks. The roads are awful. We'd have to double back and take side roads, sometimes the horses couldn't even make it through where the kudzu and brush had gotten so thick. We came around this curve and there's a tiny cabin sitting right near the road with a pretty little creek running behind it. It was so picturesque that I asked Abraham to stop for a minute. It was like a postcard or something. The grass was trimmed. There were flowers in a pot on the porch."

"Yeah and a crazy old dude living there. He freaked me out," Rosita chimed in.

"He was a little strange for sure. It was a guy named Len. He had a long bushy beard and hair past his shoulders. He invited us in for some food. We got to talking, told him we were looking for our friends. He told us about a group he'd been with, said the leader's name was Rick. He told us he'd left you at a National Guard base near Ringgold Georgia. We came straight here or as straight as we could given the road situation. It was kind of a miracle or something," Tara told them.

"Len? His name was Len?" Rick asked.

"Yeah. He said you all were great but he preferred being on his own," Rosita told them.

"Well, that's fine then," Rick said, "that's good to know."

The three old friends joined the family at the base. About two years later, Abraham and Rosita had a little girl. On Rick's sixtieth birthday, Judith presented him with a healthy grandson.

"We're gonna have to build an addition if you folks keep breedin' like dang rabbits," Daryl teased as he got his first look at Little Asskicker Jr.

Life became calm again. The threats were still there but fewer and farther between. Rick and Daryl made sure that everyone kept vigilant no matter what. They always had someone on guard at night and the fences were reinforced if any weak spots developed.

One bright sunny morning, Rick found himself sitting at another festively decorated birthday breakfast table. This time Will was turning 16. He'd grown into a tall, handsome young man. Everyone had congratulations and small gifts.

Rick was almost 70 now. His hair was solid white and he'd grown a white beard. He'd catch his reflection at times and think he looked a bit like Hershel, except he still had a smaller ass. Daryl had gone mostly gray as well. He was a much quieter fellow after they lost Carol. She passed when Will was 13 from what they suspected was breast cancer.

Both men had passed the torch of leadership over to Glenn and Carl shortly after that. They now spent their afternoons hunting, fishing, playing with their grandkids or sitting around telling tall tales about their exploits from years ago.

Rick never expected to get this far in his life when he awoke in that ravaged hospital over 30 years ago. He figured he'd be lucky to survive a year or two in the hell that life had become at that point. He had done a lot of hard things to make it through. He couldn't regret anything though because it had all brought him and his family to this point in time where things were good again. The one thing he wished for was that Lori could have lived to see Carl and Judith grown up and happy. They'd be together again one day though and he couldn't wait to tell her all about their children and grandchildren.

Hershel, Carl, Michonne, Andrea, T-Dog, Tyrese and Dale would all be there too, maybe even old Merle Dixon. He hoped they'd set up a nice camp somewhere near the water like the one they had at the quarry. Eventually they'd all be together again. It wasn't a bad prospect at this point in life, not at all.

Authors note – Okay, final chapter. I kind of hate to end this. It was fun imagining all my favorite characters as they got older and faced new challenges. I appreciate all the kind reviews and hope you'll check out some of my other Walking Dead stories. I'm feeling another Merle story coming on so that may be next. Good luck to all my fellow Walking Dead fans in our wait for Season Five. In the meantime, keep yourself busy doing "stuff and thangs" as Rick would say.