"This will only hurt a little," Scully promised Enid. They were both tucked away in a corner of one of the more open areas of the spaceship. The interior of the ARV was more spacious than it appeared from the outside. It consisted of the pilot's quarters, a couple adjoining hallways that led to the two shared living spaces, a handful of sleeping bunks tucked into little cubbies and two compact, airplane-style bathrooms. It seemed to be designed to carry about ten people comfortably. Having packed closer to two dozen people into the space made living conditions somewhat cramped, but it was hardly the worst thing the Alexandrians had been through.

When the ship had launched, many of the passengers had been sick. The launch itself was jarring. Even Mulder hadn't been prepared for the breakneck speed with which the spacecraft would leave the atmosphere. There was a reason astronauts spent years conditioning themselves for space travel. But the occupants of the vessel adjusted quickly. Now it was just a matter of passing the time until their arrival on the alien planet.

They had no real way to measure time anymore. They didn't know how long they had been traveling. Their only measure of time on Earth was counting the sunrises. In the blackness of space there were no sunrises. They had quickly rocketed out of Earth's atmosphere and through their solar interstellar neighborhood, past their local galactic group, and beyond the Virgo supercluster. It was a feat that would have taken a human-designed shuttle years, if not lifetimes. But this alien vehicle had technology that humans had never dared to imagine. They estimated they had left the Milky Way Galaxy in the equivalent of about one day.

Rick guessed by the growth of his beard that they had been traveling for several weeks. His crew had fallen into a sort of suspended animation. He couldn't remember the last time they had gone this long without having to worry about some sort of imminent threat or attack. But there was still a great deal of apprehension about their ability to reach the alien planet and what fate might await them when they finally arrived. Still, with a journey of this length ahead of them and nothing to do but wait, it was easy to fall into a sort of complacency about those fears. It seemed that everyone had accepted that whatever will be will be. There was no sense worrying about it until they arrived. Rick never ceased to be impressed by his people. They were unstoppable. They were resilient.

Even now, they were working toward survival. Rick stood idly by and observed as Scully carefully drew a blood sample from Enid. After it was clear that everyone had survived the launch and that they were truly on their way, Carl had brought Enid to Scully. She hadn't been present in Alexandria when everyone received their injection of arcB. She wouldn't have the gene pairing necessary to survive the atmosphere of the alien planet. Scully had determined that the easiest way to give Enid arcB would be to give her a blood transfusion. It was what she had done for Mulder when he nearly died at the beginning of the outbreak. It had worked on him. It was simple and effective. But first Scully needed a sample of Enid's blood to determine if they shared compatible blood types.

"Sorry," Scully said as she noticed Enid wince at the insertion of the needle. She slowly filled a vial with Enid's blood.

"It's fine, Dr. Scully.." Enid looked away, probably having seen more than enough blood in her young life.

"Please, call me Dana." Scully hadn't known Enid as long as everyone else, but she had quickly noticed how quiet she was. The teenager seemed melancholy most of the time. It was understandable, of course. They had all been through hell and back again. But it must be harder on those who were so young when the outbreak occurred. They had their whole lives ahead of them only to have it all ripped away. Scully understood that Enid had watched her entire family die in front of her own eyes and then had been left to roam the world alone before stumbling upon Alexandria. It was difficult for the girl to connect with people. But Scully sensed there was more to it than that. Enid seemed different somehow. As if she had seen more than she let on.

Scully thought she'd try to engage Enid. She hadn't been present for Scully's explanation of the alien genomes to the rest of Alexandria. Scully was sure if Carl had explained it to her something had been lost in translation. "Would you like to see what the alien DNA looks like compared to your own human DNA?" she asked tentatively.

Enid thought it over. "Yeah, I guess so." It wasn't as if she had something better to do. She watched as Scully extracted a bit of the blood she had just taken and put it in a smaller vial with a little plastic lid. She snapped the lid shut and placed it in the centrifuge. Scully switched the machine on and Enid's blood went swirling around in an impossibly fast blur. When the proteins had separated from the rest of the blood, Scully removed the sample and placed a few tiny drops on a microscope film.

Enid observed as Scully peered into the microscope, adjusting the knobs, searching for a specific chromosome. "Okay, take a look at that." Scully moved aside so Enid could look through the lenses of the microscope. "Do you see that DNA right in the center? That's your normal human DNA."

Enid nodded indicating she understood what she was looking at. She had taken biology class. She had seen plenty of diagrams of DNA.

Scully took back the controls and went hunting for the arcA she was sure Enid possessed, the alien chromosome that everyone had been given along with their Polio vaccine as a child. Enid waited, distractedly picking at a stray thread on the sleeve of her sweatshirt. Scully suddenly stiffened and looked up at her. "Enid…" she said, questioningly, but then trailed off. She looked through the microscope again, trying to confirm that her eyes weren't deceiving her.

Enid was now at full attention and the silence seemed to stretch on longer than she could bare. Finally she couldn't take it anymore. "Dr. Scully?" Scully didn't look up. Enid tried again. "Dana?" Still she didn't pull away from the microscope.

"Dana?" Enid was worried something was terribly wrong. "What do you see?"

Scully looked up and met the young woman's troubled eyes. "Enid," she said, unsure how to explain what she saw. "You already have arcB."

Enid's face barely changed, but Scully thought she saw a glimpse of something in her expression. Something had just clicked in her mind. Some long buried connection had been made. It looked like a mixture of pain and relief.

Scully was baffled. "How can this be?" She meant the question to be rhetorical, but to her surprise Enid had an answer for her.

"I was abducted." Enid dropped her gaze to the floor, no longer able to look Scully in the eye. She looked wounded, dejected, ashamed.

Scully was overwhelmed with emotions. She felt guilt for having reopened what was obviously a terrible memory for Enid. She felt anger at the people who had abducted her, taken her from her family and injected her against her will. She felt a maternal instinct to protect this girl from her own past. She also felt a strange sort of camaraderie as well.

Scully put an arm around her and pulled her close, unsure how Enid would react to a show of affection. When she didn't pull away, Scully squeezed her a little tighter and said, "Me too, honey. Me too."

"Are you sure this is it?" Rick stood over Eugene's shoulder in the pilot's quarters. He looked at the planet that had come into view in front of the ARV. Just as Mulder had been told, the passengers in the ship could see out even though it appeared windowless from the outside. It was sort of a trick of the eyes. Rick could see the controls of the ship immediately in front of him, but if he shifted his focus forward, outside of the ship, he could see what lay beyond. Eugene explained that it had something to do with the spacecraft being invisible.

Rick worried for a moment about their invisibility. If they could actually land this thing on the alien planet, would anyone even know they were there? He shook off the thought. The alien race that occupied this planet had designed this ship. Surely they had some method of observing their approach. Besides, Eugene was confident in his ability to land the ship safely. It was a confidence Rick had never seen in him on Earth. He was a new man; a redeemed man.

Eugene had called him to the front of the ship when the planet came into view. From that distance, outside the atmosphere, it looked very similar to Earth. There were large bodies of water separating various land masses. As they came closer they could see vast areas of brown deserts, green forests. After entering the atmosphere they could make out brightly illuminated cities. It was strange to observe something that looked so earthly, but without the familiar shapes of the continents they knew from their own globe.

The ship had zeroed in on its landing destination, seemingly navigating itself. They slowed as they approached what looked a little bit like an airport. Bright lights designated landing areas. Instead of being stretched out to illuminate a long landing strip, they were arranged in triangular shapes that the ship could drop straight down upon. As they drew closer they could see other similar ships resting in their designated landing spots. Most were much larger than the ship the Alexandrians had traveled in.

It seemed they were arriving as dusk was falling. The light was fading from the sky, but it wasn't dark just yet. The ship came in for a very smooth landing compared to its takeoff. Rick was awash with relief as he felt the movement of the ARV cease. He noticed that the landing field was surrounded by a circular building. As the ship touched down, a door in the building opened, but Rick didn't get to see who, or what, came out of it. The ship shimmered and became once again opaque. It must have become fully visible again from the exterior, which meant the occupants could no longer see out.

Rick had been planning this moment in his head over the months it had taken them to travel this far. He had planned what he would say to his people. He had planned to take Mulder and Scully with him to make first contact with the alien beings. But every time he thought through the plan he would get to the part where he actually stepped out he door of the vehicle and he wouldn't know what to expect. He couldn't begin to imagine what would await him, what the planet would look like, how the aliens would communicate. He had no idea how to plan for that. So he focused on his own people.

Everyone gathered in one of the common rooms. Rick attempted to make eye contact with every person in the cramped space. He tried to read their expressions. He saw fear, anticipation, relief, weariness. He began the words he had rehearsed in his head over the course of their journey.

"We have arrived. This is what we've been working toward. It's what we've been struggling to achieve. And now we've done it. We're here. We don't know exactly what's waiting for us out there. But that's no reason to be afraid. We've been through horrors most people couldn't have imagined. We've survived it all. We think of ourselves as Alexandrians. We were all from somewhere else before. But Alexandria is where we came together as a family. Now we're in a new place, uncharted territory. On this planet we're not just Alexandrians. We're people. We're human beings. We're earthlings. We're refugees. We fled our home because it no longer sustained human life. Yes, we are refugees and we hope that whoever is waiting for us out there will accept us as exactly that.

"But no matter what happens, no matter where we go from here, I want you all to promise me one thing. Promise me you will hold onto your humanity. It's all we have left of the world we came from. That and each other." Rick stole a glance at Glenn. "It's been pointed out to me that I'm a leader. A leader is nothing without his people. I'm nothing without all of you. I just want you all to know how proud I am of you. How proud I am of us."

Rick looked across the faces of his people. They looked like survivors. They were hardened by the world they had fled. It's what made them who they are. They could never forget everything they had been through. They must remember where they came from.

"Okay." This was as far as Rick was able to plan in his mind. It was time to face the unknown. "Me, Mulder, and Scully are going to make first contact. I want you all to wait here. And no matter what happens, remember, we have our humanity. Hold onto that."

He headed toward the sealed door of the ship that would lower down to become a ramp. Mulder and Scully followed close behind. As Rick reached the door Eugene knelt down to open the latch. The door seal released and all of their ears popped with the slight pressure change. Eugene looked up toward Rick. "Are you positive you're ready for this?"

Rick nodded and, even though the question wasn't directed at him, Mulder uttered under his breath, "I'm beyond ready." Eugene pushed the door release and the floor lowered down revealing the ground below. Mulder stepped out first, unable to contain himself any longer. Rick and Scully followed. What they saw took their breath away. They were greeted by a silently waiting crowd of about a dozen alien life forms, all gathered in close to get a look at the new arrivals.. Rick gasped at the sight of them. Scully swallowed her shock and fear and stood stalk still. Mulder alone moved toward the beings, unafraid, more sure than ever before that this was exactly where he belonged.

Rick couldn't help thinking they looked like monsters. Tall, hairless, unclothed, with large heads and eerily giant black eyes. He reminded himself that after the monsters he had seen on Earth, these looked relatively harmless, peaceful. Just as Rick had his story and his humanity to hold onto, he told himself that this alien race also had their story. He was just one intelligent life form meeting another. He had no idea how to address these people, these things. Having come all this way, he still didn't know what to say.

It turned out he didn't have to say anything. Mulder addressed the crowd. "My name is Fox Mulder. We come seeking refuge. We mean you no harm." He held up his hands in surrender. He hoped they would understand the body language and take it as a show of good faith. He knew this society had been studying humans for at least 60 years, probably a great deal longer than that. He expected they would know how to communicate with him. He prayed they understood English.

He waited for what was probably a matter of seconds, but felt like eons for a response. They didn't speak. They didn't open their mouths. But, one by one, all the alien beings turned their heads, looking toward the back of their own crowd. They stepped aside so Mulder could see what they were looking at. At the back of the group of fleshy gray creatures were two figures, shrouded in hooded cloaks.

One of them spoke. "Fox." It was little more than a whisper, but it rang loud and clear in Mulder's ears. "I sensed your proximity. I knew it was you." The speaker reached up a hand and pulled back the hood, revealing a woman, a human woman.

She was older. She looked weary. She was changed in many ways. But there was no mistaking those eyes. Mulder knew those eyes. He was frozen where he stood, feeling almost too weak to stand. It took all the energy he had left in him to say her name. "Samantha."

Scully's eyes widened in disbelief. She stepped forward to stand by Mulder's side, to get a better look at the sister he had lost so long ago. Mulder had been right all along. She wasn't dead. She was alive and well. She had been waiting for him all these years.

Samantha placed her arm around the other shrouded figure, sliding back the hood of his cloak in the process. Mulder could hardly tear his gaze away from his long lost sister. When he did his eyes fell on a boy, a teenager. He had Scully's fiery red hair and Mulder's icy blue eyes. Scully didn't need to hear Samantha's next words to know who this was that stood before her. "William has been waiting for you for a very long time."

Scully nearly fainted. She felt as though all the blood drained out of her as she dropped to her knees. Mulder broke her fall. This was her son. This was their son. The son they had let go of so long ago. The son they had given up for adoption in order to protect him from the things she and Mulder had seen, to give him a chance at a normal life. The son she worried had been consumed by the outbreak. The son she thought was lost forever. Here he stood before her, alive, thriving.

She wanted to run to him, embrace him, but she couldn't bring herself to move. She didn't know if he would accept her. She didn't know how to explain to him the choice she had made to give him up. She didn't know if he could ever forgive her for that. Finally, as she stood frozen in indecision, he approached her and placed a hand on her shoulder. She shook her head, unable to believe this was real. He spoke to her with a voice like an angel. "She told me you would come. She always believed."

Tears streamed down Scully's face and she finally found the strength to wrap her arms around the boy she thought she had lost. "I never wanted to leave you. In my heart, I never left you." Samantha stepped forward and the four of them wrapped their arms around one another. Rick stood by and observed the scene, stunned. A family reunited across galaxies. This moment, this beautiful moment, was worth everything they had been through.

He turned, slowly, and walked back up the ramp into the ship to face his people, his Alexandrians, his earthlings. He peered up at a sea of anxious faces. Rick spread his arms in welcome as he said, "We are home."

Daryl sat on the front porch of one of the houses he sometimes occupied, watching the stillness of the town as darkness settled around him. He had kept his promise to himself. He had returned to Roxobel. It was where he had left all of his supplies. It was where he had left Carol. But those weren't the only reasons he came back. Something drew him back to this place. Some force pulled him in every time he strayed too far. He had left many times. He had to go out hunting. He had to scavenge for the necessities of life. But something always brought him back to Roxobel. He told himself that sometimes in life you make choices. Other times your choices choose you.

He had given in. He allowed himself to be drawn back. He refused to call this little town home, but truthfully it was as close to it as he was ever going to get.

It hadn't taken too long for the walkers to clear out. Occasionally one would wander through town and he would take care of it without much trouble. He guarded the cemetery fiercely. He didn't want to allow anyone, living or dead, to set foot on that hallowed ground. Sometimes he would spend the night there, alongside Carol's grave. But most nights he took shelter in one of the tiny houses that dotted the little town.

On this night he was staying at a little house on Sam Pruden Road. Daryl didn't know who Sam Pruden was or what he did to get a road named after him. But he liked to think of this house as Sam's house. From the front porch he had a distant view of the entrance to the cemetery. He stayed at this house a lot just for that reason.

The moon was almost full, which meant he had good visibility even as night crept in on him. The nights were the hardest. They seemed to stretch on forever. He kept himself busy during the day, but in the darkness of night he had nowhere to run from his memories. It was the memories of the people he had lost that haunted him. The memories made the loneliness feel palpable, heavy.

He had run across very few living people in the months since his friends had made their escape. His gut had told him they were bad people. None of them had survived the encounter. Trust no one. That was Daryl's new axiom. Loneliness was his only companion. He wouldn't make new friends. He had accepted that he would live out his days as the solitary protector of this tiny town. The knight of Roxobel. That's who he was now.

The wind suddenly picked up, catching Daryl's attention. It had been a very still night. The incoming breeze caught him off guard. Something about it didn't sound right. He cocked his head to one side, trying to listen more closely, like an animal sensing a predator nearby. He stood, picking up his crossbow, and moved to step off the porch. He hesitated, his foot hanging in midair. Then he stepped back. He decided he needed more protection, just in case. He opened the front door to the house, Sam's house, and retrieved an RPG from inside.

When he stepped back out onto the porch the wind was whipping more violently. There was the sound of trees rustling, but there was definitely something else, something unnatural. He stepped off the porch and looked up. The sky was clear, nothing but a bright moon and a sea of stars. He started down the road. With each step the sound grew louder. It sounded mechanical. It wasn't a car. It sounded more like a helicopter or a small plane, but not quite. He headed automatically toward the cemetery. As the sound increased in volume, Daryl increased his speed. He trusted his instincts, and they told him to run. He rounded the corner onto Cemetery Road. He hopped the fence into the graveyard, sprinting around the outside of the burial plots to arrive at Carol's gravemarker. He peered up through the trees, still seeing nothing out of the ordinary. The sound grew louder.

Daryl stepped out into the open. The mechanical sound was almost deafening now and it reverberated through his head, making it hard for him to think. This noise made no sense in his quiet little world. Finally some sort of movement caught his attention in the sky. Something shimmered and began to take shape. He took aim at it with his rocket powered grenade launcher. He held his breath. The shape shimmered again and then, all at once there was a great expanse of steel on top of him. Polished metal blocked out the night sky, reflecting the darkness and blotting out the moon. He nearly fell backwards, but regained his footing. He blinked a few times to try to reassure himself that what he was seeing was real. Hovering over him was an enormous triangular ship. It looked like a much larger version of the ARV that had taken everyone he cared about off this planet. But his gut told him this was no replica.

A door opened up in the bottom of the ship, forming a ramp that touched down on the grass of the cemetery. The hallowed ground. Light poured out of the opening. It was blinding compared to the darkness stretching out in every direction. Daryl thought it might be the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He dropped the RPG in the grass and felt his legs carry him toward the light, although he made no conscious decision to do so. Some supernatural force was pulling him in. The closer he came to the ship the more certain he felt that this was right. This was what was always meant to be. Daryl set one foot on the ramp and squinted up into the illuminated interior of the ship. That was when he knew. He was going home.