They've been separated from the rest of the group for four days now. Rick's taken it badly of course, worrying incessantly over Carl. He forages ahead of her in the new Virginia terrain, the hills spotted with skinny pines and elms with bark that peels, dry, off the trunks.

"He's with Michonne and Sasha," Carol says, clutching Judith to her breast. "They'll take care of him. You know they will."

They were headed towards a survivor's colony on Hog Island when a herd came through, breaking the larger group down into duos and trios. Carol saw Michonne and Sasha grab hold of Carl before a walker came at him. It was around the same time she swooped down to grab Judith from a mass of undead feet. Daryl she thinks ended up with Noah, maybe Abe, too. She thinks she saw a flash of red hair disappear into the trees, along with the limping boy. She hopes that much, at least.

With Abe, Daryl will survive. They aren't similar, won't make friends, but they know how to get along in this world.

"Keep up," Rick grunts to her as he passes over a small stream and into a field that looks like an old section of farmland. Dry hay stalks wave in the early summer wind. They feel brittle and scrape against the exposed skin of her forearms as she wades through.

"Rick."

"Come on."

Irritation bubbles up in her chest. It's HIS kid in her arms, HIS kid they are fighting forward towards. Not hers. (Everything she wanted to fight for is behind her now.) "Your daughter is hungry," Carol says, trying to stifle her anger. "We need to find a place to stop."

Rick slows to a stop. His body is tense with anger, his muscles coiled and straining from beneath his soiled t-shirt. He looks like an animal. Almost unrecognizable from the man in the quarry. The other day he cut his beard down to stubble and it still takes her by surprise to see all of his face so clear.

Carol comes within inches of him before stopping to shift Judith. The girl has been fussy all day. She keeps sticking her fingers in her mouth and humming, something Carol attributes to teething, and it scares her how unprepared they are out here to deal with it. "Rick."

He stops, bends down, rests his head in his hands. He hasn't slept much, if at all, the past few days. It's been them out in the open, camped under old Sycamores with leaves and pine needles for cushion, the ground hard and still cold with remnants of the fading winter.

He exhales loudly. "I hate being separated from him."

Carol stares down at him, running a thumb over Judith's soft wisps of hair. "It's terrifying, isn't it?"

She doesn't mean it in a nasty way, but his face immediately twists so he's looking up at her. Like she's just dished out some barb to kick him while he's down.

A moment of charged silence passes between them. He keeps looking at her and she refuses to look away. The stalks sway, whispering like the release of Velcro in the silence of the otherwise still field.

She loves Rick, but God, out of all the people to get stuck with being with him has got to be the hardest. There is so much built up between them. So much is twisted, rankled with mistrust. Carol looks at him and is never quite sure which Rick she's seeing. He likely feels the same.

She can't keep holding him together.

"We'll need to hole up somewhere for a bit," she says softly. "Resupply."

"But Carl," he rasps.

A pang of pity echoes in the hollow of her chest. "We'll find him," she says, reaching down to touch his shoulder. "He knows how to fight. He'll survive."

She thinks he'll shrug out of her grasp but he doesn't. He reaches up, and takes her hand in his own, his face still tilted towards the ground. She feels the indentation of his wedding ring against her skin, the slickness of his sweat.

Rick surprises her. He always surprises her.

It turns out they are on a farm—a wheat farm from the looks of the silo. A metal rooster squats on the roof of the farmhouse next to it, still save for the faint brush of wind. The entire place is terribly silent. There are no trees nearby, only an old elm that casts shade over the western end of the structure. Otherwise it's just fields. Easy to sight, keep watch.

"Stay on the porch," Rick demands as he moves to sweep the house.

She touches his wrist. "You shouldn't go alone."

"You have Judith."

A breeze flutters the hairs curling at the base of her neck. Carol shifts. The baby's weight has caused a cramp in her shoulder and she readjusts the girl's tiny body, swathing her in an old scarf and securing it around her neck. "I'll stay behind you," she says.

Rick eyes her. He is very tired. Lines crease the dirty skin around his eyes, his mouth. His eyes flicker, veins straining. "Keep close."

With her right hand, Carol fingers the knife at her belt. The brass knuckles are worn, warm. Her fingers fit perfectly. She tries hard not to think too much about the fit and the knife itself and the man who gave it to her. Daryl is probably within miles of the meeting point by now. Probably lounging, ripping guts from some unsuspecting raccoon. Maybe missing her.

Maybe not. It's hard to tell with him.

And she is tired of trying so hard with all of these men, only to get so little in return.

Rick moves through the house one room at a time. There's an old man walker near the window in the kitchen which he takes out easily, but in the upstairs bedroom, a set of teenagers surprises him and she has to take out one to keep him from getting scratched, all while holding Judith firmly to her chest.

The sound of knife piercing rotted flesh dots the silence. Judith lets out a cry as the walker falls to the ground.

"Shh," Carol says, but she is suddenly very tired. "Shh, baby girl."

Judith reaches out and grabs hold of the neck of Carol's shirt, her tiny fingers squeezing. Rick is only a few feet away, breathing heavily even though they've barely exerted themselves. That's how tired they are. How weak.

And around someone else, she might be ashamed of this weakness but it's Rick. He's still terrified by her and probably always be. Men and their bifurcations. He swore to keep her close back when Sofia was still alive, but now that she can fly, he doesn't know what to do with her.

"I need to lie down," she says suddenly.

She doesn't wait for him to help her, instead goes for the bedroom they cleared earlier and settles down on the queen bed. Sleep tugs at her eyelids. The coverlet is stale smelling but clean of blood and guts and it's been so long since she lay down on a real mattress.

Judith fusses at first. But in time, she discovers the new feeling material beneath her palms. Delighted, the girl wiggles around, reaching for the pillows, feeling everything. Carol withdraws a tub of fresh raspberries from the baby pack.

"Y'alright?" Rick asks.

He stands at the foot of the bed, looking just as bad as she feels. "Fine," she says. "Rest."

He looks to the window. The sun is still high in the sky, sending warm beams across the old carpet. "We need food."

"Later." She places one of the mashed up raspberries in Judith's mouth and watches as the girl chews clumsily. Red stains the baby's mouth. Carol wipes it away with her thumb. "I'll stay awake. I just needed to set her down for a bit."

Rick exhales. In these soft moments, her words seem to hold some meaning to him. It endears her to him. Allows her to ache for him, ache that he is so weary. She yearns, as she does with many members of the group, to reach out and unburden him.

But Rick doesn't want to be unburdened. It just isn't his way.

Finally, he crosses the room and drags the dresser in front of the door. His eyes flutter as he secures the room, then takes off his belt and gun and sets the weapon on the nightstand. With a grunt, he settles belly down on the bed next to his daughter. A raspy breath wheezes through his chest.

"Thank you," he mumbles, his face obscured by comforter.

"For what?"

He shifts and his eyes open to catch hers. "For Judith. Now… and back at the prison."

A burning sensation strikes her chest.

Carol feeds the child another berry.

Sometimes she wants it to just be Judith and her. She loves so much the feel of being a parent again, having someone reach out, desperate to clutch at her. But other times, she doesn't want the weight. These children of her apocalypse have torn her down into almost nothing. "You don't have to thank me for that, Rick. I'll always do what I can for her."

His stare lingers.

"I loved Lori, too, you know."

Rick's eyes cloud. They blink a couple of time before closing completely.

He is asleep within minutes.

By the time the sun goes down, she's shot a mole and has the dead body up on the counter of the kitchen area. She wants to start cutting it up, but something about moles has always freaked her out, made her squeamish. Probably the fingers. The small, pink nails have always reminded her of a baby's hands, and she hesitates to carve.

"Can I help?" Rick asks. His shirt is dusty from rooting around in the attic where he found a car seat for Judith. She sits in it now, playing with a short keychain and notebook.

"You cut," she says. "Guess what I found in the cupboards?"

"Ammo?"

She chuckles. It's not the same as it was between them, but sometimes she feels affection from him. Like he's trying to reach out to her, he just doesn't know how exactly. She saw him do the same with Lori. "No ammo. But I did scrounge up two cans of cranberry sauce."

Rick pauses, his knife inches deep in the gut of the mole. She has to force herself not to look away. "You're kiddin'."

"Nope."

A smile flickers across his face, the first real one she's seen from him in a long time. It's infectious—so open and carefree and sudden that Carol starts smiling back. They stand there like that, grinning at each other like idiots, until the screen door at the front bangs against the hinges. They both draw their weapons. The mole falls, untended, to the countertop.

Carol leads this time, her knife raised. They walk slowly to the front. The light is dim but still enough to be able to see out into the fields.

No walkers.

On the wood porch, a small blackbird hops around, shaking its head.

"Poor guy," she says and reholsters her knife. "He must've gotten confused."

Rick exhales and a second later, she thinks she hears him laugh.

It rains at night and the droplets cascade in soft whispers down the windowpanes outside the bedroom. Judith's asleep in the car seat, tilted back with a new blanket wrapped tight around her little body. She's clean now; they put a bucket out earlier to catch some of the rainwater and Carol was able to rinse the girl down a bit before she got too squirmy and needed to be set down.

When the rain first started, Carol went out and washed herself first. Stripped down into her underwear and let the warm droplets leech away the dirt and grime. She felt no shame. She's long since stopped caring what Rick thought of her.

Still, it felt reassuring when he joined her, stripping off the grubby t-shirt and scrubbing away the filth on his body with a sponge.

Now he lies next to her in the bed, a new shirt on. It's maroon colored and cuts low on his chest so she can see the outlines of his chest muscles. It reminds her of Daryl. She aches for him, and wonders if Rick still aches for Lori.

"Rick," she says.

His eyes are open. He stares up at the ceiling with his hands behind his head, his legs halfway under the covers, one knee bent. "You feel okay?"

He keeps looking at the ceiling and it makes her want to scream. In this moment, in this quiet, this room so far away from everything she holds dear, Carol needs him to look at her. They are not in Georgia anymore. Daryl is not here to stay up all night on watch. Glenn is not here to make her smile, Michonne is not there to share a sleeping mat.

None of them are here. It's just them. And infuriate her as he might, Rick is the only tie now that she has.

She knows him. She knows all his tics and nasty habits, the negative emotions and things he does of spite.

"Carol?"

She rests on her side, watching him.

He turns finally to look at her. His gaze is drawn, serious. He shifts his body so they are face to face, then reaches out to cup her neck like he always does. His touch feels familiar, heavy. "We're gonna find them," he says. Rick, the fearless leader. "Don't think for a second we won't… "

She leans in close and puts her hand on his neck, mirroring his position.

He inhales sharply but doesn't move.

When she kisses him, he tastes like the cranberry sauce. Tart and sweet and wanton. It surprises her how easily he parts his lips for her, how quickly his hand finds her spine and traces it down, down, down, so his palm rests over the small of her back, and then her hip. The touch sends a warm streak of want through her belly. It's not like with Daryl, all hot and immediate and unbearable. With Rick, it's a slow kind of want. Easy.

They stay kissing like that for a long time, their bodies pressed up against one another, just feeling each other up. There is something so familiar in him that she doesn't feel in Daryl. It's that sense of calm rage, the feeling of watching things through eyes you no longer recognize.

Rick works his hand down her thigh, eventually finding the crux of her thighs. His fingertips ghost over her underwear and she jerks into his hand, shocked by her own need. They break apart, panting, and he pulls back the covers, shifting her so she's on her back and he's looming over her, cradled between her thighs.

He takes off his shirt, then hers. She manages to get her panties halfway down her legs when his hand is there again, rubbing the flesh on her upper thigh. He's not quick or desperate or fumbling. He just is. They just ARE. She doesn't feel embarrassed. If anything, her body's reaction is encouraging. It makes her think she might still have some gusto left in her. Maybe one last spurt of strength to get them north, where they'll be safe.

She works the fly on his jeans. Little jolts of please shoot through her body as he teases her nipple, kissing her almost tenderly. The space between her thighs is burning hot, like his skin beneath her fingertips.

Finally she works his dick free of his jeans and guides him slowly into her. He slides in halfway, pausing with his mouth hovering over hers, then pushes in deep with an exhale. Tension explodes in her belly. She holds his hips still, stretching. "Wait," she says.

His body stills. He kisses her once, then reaches between her legs.

Teasing. Soft touches, circles. More fluttery jolts of pleasure and she closes her eyes. Lets him do all the work. In this moment, she allows herself to be purely of touch, only focused on the sensations. She can feel his eyes on her, watching her reactions. He works her body well with patient, caring hands. It's not at all what she expected, but somehow it makes sense.

He owes her something. They both know it.

A sheen of sweat breaks out across her body, her skin flushed, nerves on fire. He starts a rhythm. Her legs widen. It's just them and the relics of the cranberry, the clean, dusty feeling of the sheets. He used to embrace her so often that she feels familiarity in the ridges of his muscles.

She orgasms and he does, too, a little while after. They roll away from one another, panting into the night air. He doesn't hold her and she doesn't want him to. But after checking on Judith, he settles belly first into the bed again and drapes his arm across her breasts, cupping her neck as if to root her there.

The gesture feels familiar. It feels like home, even though they are so far away now.

"We'll keep moving," she says. "Tomorrow."

He hums sleepily in agreement.

"It's best if we leave early."

His eyes close, like a child succumbing to a much needed nap.

"Rick?"

"Mm," he mumbles. And then, "We can keep this place, you know."

She thinks he means they'll stay another night, or maybe longer, but he never tries to correct what he's said. He just lies there. Carol strokes the back of his hand with her thumb until his breathing evens out and soft snores escape through parted lips.

They will not talk about this in the morning. When daylight breaks, they will collect their new supplies and strap Judith to his chest and make their way back through the fields. They will collect water from a river seven miles north and when they finally see signs for Hog Island, he will grab her wrist and pull her into him like a man that's just been saved.