KEZZ 1: Thanks so much for liking the chapter!

Kaiya's Watergarden: Great!

pyrojack25: Man, seeing it the first time broke my heart because Daryl was killing himself to find that little girl who he kind of saw himself in and for Carol.

Angel JJK: Always sweet before it gets bitter lol.

Guest: Listen, he plays a great asshole that I can't watch anything he's in without going 'Fucking Shane' lol.

Lucy Greenhill: Thanks! Here is the next one!

Lolistarkiller: Sorry it took so long! Here it is!

Emotions were running high in the aftermath of the barn walker massacre that Shane started.

Miri held Carol tightly to her chest as Carol cried over her daughter, clenching the Cherokee rose close to her heart.

Rick lowered his gun as he stared down at the little girl that was once alive, running around with Carl and Alice and they had thought was running around the woods lost and scared.

Shane was regretting his words with the sight of the small body, stunned. He knows he had said she had to be dead already, but seeing was something different.

Daryl was angry—no furious. He had spent all that time looking for Sophia, hoping she was alive, and was ripping people a new asshole for doubting she wasn't alive.

Miri was trying to move Carol away from the view of her daughter but Carol was pulling her down. "Carol, please."

Daryl saw Miri needed some help and helped her move Carol away. "Don't look. Don't look."

Carol slapped Daryl and Miri's hands off of her and ran away, sobbing as she held the Cherokee rose tightly in her hand.

Hershel was on his knees as he could only stare at what happened, in shock.

His daughter, Beth, was crying in Jimmy's arms at the sight of her brother and mother gunned down. She moved out of her boyfriend's arms and moved toward her mother's body, sobbing.

Rick tried to stop her. "Shh shh shh. Wait wait wait wait."

Beth slapped his arms away from her, so she could head towards her mother. She fell to her knees in front of the body of her mother. "Ma…" she sobbed. As she turned her over so she could see her face.

The walker that was her mother grabbed her by the pigtails as Beth screamed.

Everyone except Lori, Maggie, Hershel, and the kids ran forward to help the teen away from danger.

"Come on!" Rick yelled as he and Miri tried to pull Beth away but the walker had a tight grip on her.

"Pull her away, pull her away!" Miri yelled as the others pulled the walker the opposite way.

Hershel ran forward as soon as she was free from his dead wife's grip, worried she had gotten hurt.

T-Dog started to stomp on the walker's head, stunning it so Glenn can grab its arms.

Andrea saw the trouble it was causing and picked up a scythe, driving it through the walker's head to end the struggle.

The Greene family decided they didn't want to see the bodies of the people they once knew and started to head towards the house, but Shane went after them.

Rick ran after him, knowing the temper Shane had. "Hey, Shane, just stop, man."

Shane shook Rick's hands off him. "Get your hands off me."

"I—" Hershel didn't know what to say.

"You knew and you kept it from us."

"I didn't know." Hershel's voice shook from the sobs he held back as they continued to walk.

"That's bullshit. I think y'all knew." Shane accused.

Maggie spun round, real tired of Shane's accusations. "We didn't know!"

"Why was she there?!" Shane yelled, wanting answers.

"Your—" Hershel sighed and turned around, letting the others go on without him. "Otis put those people in the barn. Maybe he found her and put her in there before he was killed."

"You expect me to believe that? Do I look like an idiot?" Shane went to take a step toward Hershel but Rick pressed a hand to his chest, stopping him.

"Shane, hey hey hey."

"I don't care what you believe!" Hershel's voice rose.

Rick could feel something was going to happen and tried to calm them down. "Everybody just calm down."

"Get him off my land!" Hershel told Rick as he pointed to Shane.

Rick shook his head. "Please. No."

"Let me tell you something." Shane growled as he stepped closer to Hershel.

Maggie panicked, seeing her father in danger and pushed Shane. "Hey." She slapped him hard. "Don't touch him!" She glares at him as Glenn moves Shane back, Shane glaring at Maggie. "Haven't you done enough?"

Hershel touched his daughter's shoulder, moving her toward the steps of the house. He walked up the steps and turned back to Rick, Shane, and Glenn. "I mean it—off my land."

Glenn sighed through his nose and goes into the house, worried about Maggie.

Rick licks his lips as he walks toward Shane, his shoulders tense as he was ready to ridicule Shane for his actions. "What are you doing? Hey, what are you doing?"

"Daryl and Miranda almost died looking for her, Rick." Rick scrunched his nose a bit, not liking the way his sister's name came out of Shane's mouth. "Any one of us could have. I'm gonna tell you right now—" he pointed to the house. "That son of a bitch, he knew."

"He didn't know. He's not like that. He opened his home to us."

"He put us all in danger." Shane glared. "Man, he kept a barn full of walkers."

"So you just start an insurrection, hand out guns and massacre his family?" Rick shook his head.

"His family's dead, Rick."

"Well, he doesn't believe that." Rick pointed to the house. "He thinks you just murdered them in cold blood."

"No, man, I don't care what he thinks." Shane yelled.

"I was handling it, brother." Rick pointed to himself. "I was handling it and you just—"

Shane's voice rose. "You had us out in those woods looking for a little girl that every single one of us knew was dead! That's what you did. Rick, you're just as delusional as that guy." Shane mocked. "You handling it, huh?" Shane walked away from Rick.

Miri was in the RV with Carol, just sitting with her in the silence after she put Alice in the back where the bed was.

She didn't know what to say to the woman, but Carol didn't care. She held the Cherokee rose tight in her hand.

The door opened and Daryl walked in, surprise to see Miri with Carol already, but he sort of understood why Miri went towards the mother. He saw how the little girl connected with Miri and Alice when Sophia was still around.

He gave the grieving mother a nod and stood by Miri, not saying anything.

The woman didn't need someone to talk to, and that was just fine by him, but she needed someone around so she wouldn't be alone.

Glenn stood at the door, arms crossed as he watched Maggie's back. "I have to ask you—" he paused, unsure how to word it. "Did you know she was in the barn?"

Maggie turned around, shocked that Glenn would even suggest that. She sat on the old sofa while facing him.

Glenn sighed. "You know, maybe in some weird way this is for the best. At least we know and now we can move on."

"Move on?" Maggie questioned, not understanding his words.

"Yeah, it's just like…" he pauses. "It meant so much to everyone— finding her, you know? And then—"

"So now you'll just move on?"

Glenn shrugs. "If we can. I mean, we've lost others. This is—this is Sophia. The whole group—this one was different."

Maggie nods. "So what happens now?"

"We bury her… with your stepmom and your stepbrother."

Maggie was touched that Glenn wanted to bury her stepmom and stepbrother instead of leaving it to her family. "And then?" wanting to know for selfish reasons, wanting to know about them.

Glenn walks over to Maggie and kisses her head, noting the slight tears in her eyes. "I don't know."

Lori and Carl sat on the ground in front of all the walkers around, Andrea and Dale putting a blanket over Sophia's corpse.

"I thought I'd find her." Her son mumbles as he looks at where Sophia lay.

"We all did." Lori whispered.

Carl shook her head as he pressed his knees to his chest. "I mean, me… That I'd be the one." That made Lori look down at Carl. "Like maybe she was hiding somewhere in a cave or a tree. She'd be safe. And I'd find her and bring her back." Carl looked down as Lori turned around when she heard footsteps. She saw Shane stomping his way over. "He did the right thing, shooting her like that." Lori turned back to Carl. "I would've done it, too."

Lori looks up at Dale. "Dale?"

"Yeah?" The old man looked at Lori, taking his eyes off the bodies.

"Could you take Carl up to the house?" Lori asks Dale, then looks down at Carl. "I want you to rest."

Carl nodded. "Okay." He got up and walked with Dale to the house, catching Rick on the way.

"Hey, you dropped that." Rick tells Carl as he plops the sheriff hat onto his son's head.

Everyone lined up in front of Rick.

"You want us to start burying?" T-Dog asks as he puts on the working gloves.

"We need a service." Andrea piped in. "Carol would want that."

T-Dog nodded. "Yeah, we all want that."

"Let's—let's dig a grave for Sophia, Annette and Shawn, uh, over by those trees." Lori points over to some trees. "And we'll need a truck to move the bodies."

Jimmy nodded. "I'll get the keys."

Shane stops him. "No, no. I got the truck."

"And the others?" Jimmy asks as he looks at the bodies. "That's a lot of digging."

"We bury the ones we love and burn the rest." Andrea suggested.

Rick didn't say anything, still reflecting Shane's words.

Lori noticed this. "Let's get to work." She moved to Rick as everyone went to work. "What did Hershel say?" she whispered.

"He wants us off the farm, or Shane at least."

Lori sighed. "That's not a surprise. We're lucky someone wasn't killed. And all that gunfire—" Lori shakes her head. "More walkers could've heard it." She notices the far off look in her husband's eyes. "Baby, what is it?"

"She was there all the time." He whispers frustrated, feeling like he had failed. He was questioning his own leadership capabilities.

"And you did everything you could." Lori tried to make her husband feel better.

Rick looked down, the frustration growing. "Yeah, I know. I always do, don't I? Went after her, protected her, killed those walkers, but she still got bit. Then Miri got lost and Carl still got shot."

Lori nodded, knowing to let her husband talk his frustration away. "Mm-hmm."

"People counting on me and I had 'em chasing a ghost in a forest." His voice wavered.

"Hey." Lori touched his face but he stepped back, then walked away from her.

Andrea, Shane, Jimmy, and T-Dog had finished digging the 3 graves.

"That's it." T-Dog said out of breath.

Lori nodded and went over to where Carol, Miri, and Daryl were. She knocked on the side of the RV, alerting them.

"They're ready." Carol looks back slightly and shakes her head no. "Come on." Lori tries to coax Carol out.

"Why?" Carol asks in a dead tone.

Daryl frowns, why didn't see want to go? "'Cause that's your little girl."

Carol looks at them with dead eyes. "That's not my little girl. That's some other thing."

Miri frowned. "Carol—"

Carol continued to talk. "My Sophia was alone in the woods. All this time I thought… She didn't cry herself to sleep. She didn't go hungry. She didn't try to find her way back."

"Now you don't know that." Daryl tried to tell her.

Carol slightly glared at the three. "Sophia died a long time ago."

Lori sighed and left.

Daryl stood up, ready to tell Carol off for not going to her own daughter's burial, but Miri stopped him. He looked down at her, a deep frown on his lips. Why was she stopping him?

Miri shook her head. "Let her mourn." Daryl went to move around her to yell at Carol, but Miri stopped him again. "Daryl, stop." She placed her hand on his chest lightly. "Let's leave her alone."

Daryl sighed through his nose and picked up his gun. "Fine. Get ladybug, I'll meet you at the barn."

Miri nods and tugs on the slight opening of his sleeveless shirt as a sign of affection, knowing he didn't want a kiss in public.

He wasn't that type of man, but that didn't bother Miri, she found other ways to show him the affection he wasn't use to.

They wanted their relationship secret, not knowing how Rick would react to it.

He left with a nod to Miri, and a small glare to Carol while Miri got Alice from the back.

Everyone except Carol gathered around the three graves, just finishing the funeral.

Everyone started to leave one by one.

"Don't be alone with Shane." Daryl whispered before he went toward the woods to get rid of his frustration, giving Miri a light tug that only she noticed on her belt before he left.

Andrea and T-Dog were piling corpses onto Otis' old truck when Rick walked up to them.

"A few more trips."

"We got lucky." Andrea huffed as they threw the corpse into the bed of the trunk. "If that barn had any more, we could've been overrun."

"Good thing Shane did what he did…" T-Dog said as he wiped his forehead with his forearm. "When he did."

Dale looked at T-Dog and Andrea perplexed. "You can't tell me this was right."

"It wasn't." Rick adds. "It'll cost us with Hershel."

Andrea sighs. "He's grieving. He'll come around, see we had no choice. Look, I shot too. This wasn't all Shane."

T-Dog raises his hands. "Look, I got no qualms about it. Walkers in my backyard?" he shook his head. "Hm-mmm."

"I'm not saying that we shouldn't have taken care of the problem, but creating a panic?!" Dale most certainly did not agree on that.

"There's no point arguing about it. It's done." Lori stops the fight. "There's nothing we can do about it."

T-Dog moved to the driver's side. "Better get moving." Andrea pops into the back as the rest walk away.

Glenn was leaning against the wall in the house when Maggie came up to him.

"So if your group leaves, you wouldn't stay?"

Glenn looks shocked. "I- I hadn't really thought about it. I mean, I- I didn't know that- Do- do you think this is really the time… to discuss this, I mean?" he stutters.

"Well, I'm not really feeling like there's a lot of time for anything."

Glenn moves closer to Maggie. "No, no, there—there is. There is. I mean, I-I-I want—"

Their conversation is cut short when Beth, who was behind them in the kitchen, collapses.

"Oh my God." Maggie whispers as she and Glenn run over to Beth's fallen body.

Glenn quickly picks her up and takes her to her room, where Maggie starts to take care of her.

"Sweetie, can you hear me?" Maggie calls out softly to Beth. Miri and Lori enter the room. "What's wrong with her?" she asks them.

Miri looks at Beth. "She's in shock." She remembers when she had gone through this when her mother had died, how Rick and Lori helped her through it.

"Where's Hershel?" Lori asks the eldest daughter.

Glenn spoke up from the corner of the room. "We can't find him anywhere."

"Lori, get Rick." Miri tells her sister-in-law, knowing Rick will know what to do.

Lori nods and leaves.

Maggie grabs Beth's hand. "Hey, kiddo."

"Your stepmother's things?" Rick asks Maggie as he, Miri, Lori, and Shane looked around the room.

Maggie shrugged. "He was so sure she'd recover. They'd just pick up where they left off."

Miri notices a flask on the dresser. "Your father drank?"

"That belonged to my grandfather, gave it to dad when he died." Maggie explained as Miri handed her the flask.

"I didn't take Hershel for a drinker." Rick frowned. He hadn't seen Hershel touch anything the whole time they were here.

"No, he gave it up on the day I was born. He didn't even allow liquor in the house."

Rick started to think. "What's the bar in town?" he asked Maggie.

"Hatlin's. He practically lived there in his drinking days."

Rick nodded. "Bettin' that's where I'll find him."

Glenn stepped up. "Yeah, I've seen the place. I'll take you."

"All right," Rick nodded. "I'll get the truck."

"Okay." Glenn moves to follow but Maggie stops him.

"N-no." she was worried for his safety.

"It's an easy run." Glenn tried to reassure her.

"Like the pharmacy?" Maggie threw back at Glenn.

Rick noticed how worried Maggie was for Glenn and decided to make a promise. "Hey, Maggie? I'll bring him back." He leaves the room.

"Maggie, that was different." Glenn whispers to Maggie.

Lori runs after Rick. "Rick? You want to have a conversation about this before you leave?"

Shane comes into the conversation, cutting Rick off before he can speak. "So you're seriously gonna go after this guy with everything that's going on, huh? What you gonna do?"

"Shut up, Shane." Miri hisses as she walked pass Shane, who watches her go with a glare.

"He's right." Lori cuts in before another fight issued. "This is not the time to head off, not today. You don't know what's—"

"I'm not arguing." Rick told Lori sternly. "It's the least I can do for Hershel after we—"

"What?" Shane cut in. "After we what?" Shane doesn't let Rick answer as he walks out.

Lori moves closer to Rick so they can speak in hushed tones. "Carl said he would've shot Sophia himself. That's your son. He's getting cold. He's growing up in a world with—" she pauses as she scans Rick's face. "He's growing up in a world where he needs a father like you—around, alive, not running off, solving everybody else's problems."

"It's not just his problem I'm trying to solve. We need Hershel for the baby." His words kept her quiet. "I'm going after him."

He left and came across Miri waiting at the truck for him, her bow around her back. "What are you doing?"

"Waiting on you. I'm going with."

Rick shook his head. "Nah, I can't let you come."

Miri frowned. "Why not? It's just a ride to get Hershel."

Rick looked down at his sister, not believing the beautiful woman in front of him used to be a geeky long limbed tomboy who used to bother him with Shane. 'She's all grown up…' Rick thinks as his eyes slightly tear up. He sighs and places a kiss on her forehead as he gives her a hug.

"Okay?" she pats his back as she melts into the hug. "This is nice, but why are we hugging?"

"'Cause we don't get to do it often enough." Rick squeezes her tight. "You need to stay here and watch over your little girl."

Miri nods, understanding what Rick was really trying to say. 'Stay here, where it's safe.' "Alright. Be safe."

"I will." He places a kiss on her head again. "I love you Mirandapanda."

Miri smiles at the old nickname. "I love you too Rickasuar."

Rick smiled and pulled away. "There's that smile. We'll be right back, I promise." He sticks his pinky out and Miri wraps her around his.

"You better, or I'm coming after you."