I am so, so, so sorry for how long this took getting out! I have a few excuses though, I was sick with the flu, and then my car broke down and I had to find a new one which took a while, and then I found out I'll be losing my job in June so I've been doing job searching in my spare time, and then I got a cold which I'm still getting over. Not great excuses but that's why I haven't been here. No editing except spell checker done on this chapter

Have you guys heard about this Stop SOPA 2014 thing? There's a law they're trying to pass to ban all fan based stuff, including fan fiction, fan art etc. If you want to learn more Google Stop SOPA 2014, you can even sign the petition against it.

A big shout out to all the people who continue to alert, favorite, and review even when I'm absent from writing. It means the world!

Lots of scene cuts in this one as I try to move things along a bit, no action but lots of dialogue.

Disclaimer: I do not now, nor will I ever, own The Walking Dead comic or TV show and do not make any profit from this story. This is purely for entertainment purposes, no copy-right infringement intended.

Chapter 45

Lori glanced to the side and couldn't help the sad smile that crossed her face when she saw that Lacey was asleep once again. It'd been a couple days since she'd abandoned the house she had made a home with Shane. At first she'd gone in circles around the house, following little back roads searching for any sign of Shane or Liam. She'd known he'd stick to some back woods shooting range, it'd be stupid to go anywhere near a town and start firing guns, but her efforts had been futile. Eventually, after two days of wander in circles she'd realized that not only was it pointless to keep looking for people who were obviously not coming back, but it was dangerous for her to be subjecting a little girl and her unborn child to the threats they might encounter.

This realization came too little too late though, as her eyes shifted back to the gas gage when the car gave a half-hearted protest and rolled jerkily to a halt. She'd wasted almost all of their gas for nothing and now she and Lacey were stuck on a lonely stretch of highway with no means of transportation.

Her fingers flexed on the steering wheel as she wracked her mind for some kind of plan of action. She knew she had little choice; they couldn't just stay in the car forever. If there was one thing she'd learned so far during the end of days it was that walkers did exactly that, they walked, and walked, and walked some more. Eventually walkers would find their little car and they'd have no chance of getting away then. A tear gathered in her eye and slid down her chin, followed rapidly by another, and another.

Lori rested her head on the top of the wheel and let the tears out. She cried for her family, and for Shane and Liam, but mostly she cried for her and Lacey. She was ill-equipped to protect herself, let alone a little girl who'd had almost no experience even seeing walkers, and here they were stranded, about to be thrown into a terrifying world of staying one step ahead of the monsters trying to eat them. She wished she and Shane had never gotten separated from the others. Surely Rick and Carl were alright still? They would be there to support her in this time of need, and of course Shane would be there too, instead of wherever he was now.

"Lacey," Lori said softly once she had her emotions under control. "Lacey, wake up, we have to go honey."

The little girl shifted in the passenger seat and moaned a little at being woken. When she finally sat up and rubbed her eyes a look of confusion passed over her face as their surroundings became apparent.

"What?" she asked sleepily. "There's no house." Lacey and Liam had been lucky, Lori thought. They'd had a roof over their head since this whole thing began. They had no experience with sleeping in a damp tent on the cold ground every night, knowing that the sheer walls of the tent wouldn't protect them from walkers. She supposed that had also put them at a disadvantage, there was such a thing as being too sheltered.

"I know honey, we're not stopping here. We don't have any gas left so we'll have to walk from here."

"I don't understand," Lacey said, her eyes clear of drowsiness now and filling with panic. "The monsters are out there, we can't go without the car! I want to stay here."

"I do so Lacey, but we can't just stay here. If walkers found us in here they'd break the windows to get to us, and besides we'd run out of food eventually and have to leave. Lacey, I know this is hard, and scary, and way more than you should have to handle, but I need you to be strong and help me here. I wish I could let you be a kid, but I really need you to grow up faster than your time, because we need to help each other get through this."

"I don't want to go," Lacey said again, her eyes damp with tears of fear. "I want Liam, I want the old house."

"Lacey," Lori said firmly but as gently as she could, "Would Liam want you to stay in this car when it's too dangerous? He would know that a car is not safe from walkers, and he would tell you that. I think he would want you to move on, stay ahead of the danger, find a house and stay safe there. Honey, we need to get out of this car right now and get walking, I'm trying to be nice but we don't have time to sit here and cry over it."

The girl's face hardened even as Lori watched her and with no further prompting, Lacey got out of the car and started packing things into her bag. Lori followed her lead and began organizing things that she thought were more essential to their survival. She instructed Lacey to pack some of the flashlights and batteries, the matches and any lighters they'd come across, a couple small folding knives, and any other small things she thought the girl could carry. The food would fall on her own shoulders and she knew she had a tough decision to make in what to take with them.

Finally she'd packed as much food as she knew she could carry, thrown a change of clothes in on top, and then strapped a sleeping bag to the bottom of the pack. She'd realized that even a sleeping bag would be too much to add to Lacey's weighted bag so strapped a smaller, thinner blanket to her backpack. They both wandered away from their last safe haven but stopped a few steps away to look back at it one last time.

"Lacey, I want you to take this and strap it to your belt," Lori said, giving the little dark haired child a knife she'd kept out just for this occasion. "Tuck your shirt behind it so you can get to it quickly and remember, if you have to use it you need to aim for the head alright?" Lacey did as instructed and nodded up at Lori once she was done. "But remember that you should always try to run first, running is safer than trying to fight off a walker that's bigger than you."

Lacey nodded again but didn't speak, she hadn't spoken in at least an hour and Lori suspected that the girl was mad at her for her harsh words earlier. Lori just shrugged her pack into a better position on her back, picked up the second, smaller bag she'd filled with essentials, gripped her knife in her hand and indicated for Lacey to start walking. She had no idea where they would go now, she didn't even know where they were anymore. All she knew was that their lives had just gotten exponentially more difficult.

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Dale's funeral was one of the saddest Molly had ever been to, including her own father's after his battle with cancer had ended. It was such a senseless killing, and Dale had been such an amazing man, she knew they would all feel his loss. Amy had become almost catatonic and had taken to spending as much of her time as possible alone in the room Dale had chosen as his own.

It was probably the smallest room in the building, smaller even than the office and lounge area. Molly supposed he chose it because he knew he didn't need as much room, being one person, and maybe he liked the closeness of it. She knew from her own experience that these larger classrooms sometimes felt too big even with her, Daryl, and Keegan. She'd handed Keegan's care over to Daryl, and Beth when the former was busy with important matters, and was doing all she could to bring Amy back out of her numb existence.

Shane had told them about what had happened in town when the leader of those men had assaulted Amy. Molly couldn't even imagine how she was feeling now, with that weighing on her mind combined with what had happened to Dale. Everyone had seen Dale as the figurative 'father' of the group because of his age and his wisdom, but he had truly taken a fatherly role in the lives of Amy and Andrea. It must have felt like losing her real father. Molly didn't blame Amy for losing control the way she had, not after Andrea and everything that had happened the day Dale died, but she did think it was doing no one good for the blonde woman to fold into herself like this.

She was sitting beside Amy in Dale's little room, their backs braced on the wall, staring at his twin sized mattress and the array of books he'd brought in from the camper set up haphazardly against the wall in the corner, when Rick came in. He'd been coming in every few hours since Dale's death to check on her, even though Molly knew he really needed to be heading off to find his wife and Liam's little sister.

"Hey Mol, can I get a few minutes with her alone?" he asked quietly.

Molly nodded and got to her feet, giving Amy a reassuring touch to the shoulder before she left to find Keegan and Beth.

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"Amy, feel up to talking today?" Rick said softly as he sat down beside the blonde, his eyes intent on her face.

She didn't respond to his question, didn't even move to indicate she'd heard him, just kept staring at the pile of books at the foot of Dale's bed, as if hoping he might walk in the room and declare them unsuitable for reading as he did so often. Rick had always laughed along with the others when he made these declarations and then went back to reading one of them anyway.

"I'm sorry Amy," he offered after several minutes of silence. "I'm sorry that I didn't take that Dave man more seriously. I never thought he would…if I'd realized, I would have done something, I would have done more to save both of you. It's my fault Dale's dead and I'll understand if you never forgive me for it."

Amy didn't respond but several tears did trail down her cheeks and she closed her eyes tightly, against the pain or against him, Rick wasn't sure.

"Look, whether you forgive me or not, we're all really worried about you Amy, we don't like seeing you so…closed off. Miranda and Molly are doing their best to hide this worry but we all see it under the surface. And Hershel says that we should just let you process but….how can we just sit here when you won't eat or speak or sleep? Please, tell me what to do to help you!" Rick hated the vulnerability in his voice, hated the way it wavered almost tearfully as he spoke, but if it was going to come out anyway then maybe it would motivate her to speak to him.

He watched as Amy's mouth opened slightly and her tongue poked out to wet her dry lips before she cleared her throat and spoke.

"When do you leave to find your wife?" she whispered.

Rick was taken aback by her question. It was not what he thought would be the first thing out of her mouth. And Lori's title sounded sour coming from Amy, it made him feel ill to think of Lori in that way after all this time apart. He hadn't really spoken of, or even thought about, Lori since the conversation he'd had with Amy about it on the highway after the girls went missing. It was easy to forget a woman that wasn't there, who'd never really been there, especially when someone like Amy was always around distracting him. "Uh, um, we're leaving in the morning. Shane thinks the house they were in was a few days south of here so we want to utilize the daylight while we have it. Shane says Lori and this girl Lacey have been alone for at least two weeks now, we can't put it off for too long."

"Well I hope you find her and everything goes back to the happy-go-lucky way it was before you got separated," Amy whispered and now Rick could hear the strange quality in her voice that told her something was wrong, something specifically to do with Lori or the retrieving of her.

"Amy, what's wrong?" he asked. "I'm really confused by what you're saying."

Her sudden movement as she turned to look at him actually startled him a bit. "You're confused? You?! Well God forbid the great Rick Grimes be confused like the rest of us! We've spent all this time since Atlanta without Lori and Shane, getting closer, becoming a….but the minute Shane stumbles back into the picture you're off like a bullet to find your missing wife without even a second thought! You might be confused by me Rick but you certainly aren't the only one!"

Immediately he understood what the problem was and he would have laughed in relief if Amy didn't look so serious and heartbroken. "Amy," he said softly, taking her hand despite her trying to pull away from him, "I'm not going to get Lori because I love her or feel any kind of husbandly devotion to her. I'm going to get Lori because of Carl, she's his mother and they deserve to be together. I never told you, because we never talk about Lori or my marriage, but I swore to myself that if we ever saw them again I would tell Lori that our marriage was absolved, that we would share Carl and she was free to be with whoever she wanted and that I was free to be with whoever I wanted. And I want you Amy. I should have told you weeks ago, when this first started being…whatever it is. I care about you and would be honored to be in a relationship with you, if that's what you wanted."

He looked into her eyes, which were shining with tears and he hoped they were tears of happiness instead of sadness for a change. "Really?" she asked. "You want to be with me? You'll leave Lori for me?"

"Of course silly girl!" Rick said with a chuckle. "Did you think all the time we've spent together, the things we've shared with each other has all been because I had nothing better to do? You weren't just something to keep me occupied while Lori was missing, Amy. Ever since that night on the highway, I've felt…connected to you, like gravity is pulling me to wherever you are. The attraction between us is undeniable. Somehow, somewhere in all this madness that is life, I fell in love with you, and that had nothing at all to do with Lori."

The first smile he'd seen on Amy face in two days appeared at his words as she flung herself into his arms and kissed him fully on the lips for the first time. His arms wrapped around her tightly as his own lips conformed to hers and his tongue asked permission into her mouth. Her hands were threading into his hair and a breathy moan escaped her as his focus shifted from her mouth to her throat momentarily. He was brought back to her lips with a little hair tugging but he didn't complain about the sharp pain in his scalp as Amy's lips moved almost frantically over his own.

Their relationship had developed as a snail's pace in terms of intimacy. They'd spent most of their time talking, getting to know each other and Rick hadn't wanted to put any pressure on the young blonde by moving in for a kiss or even a too friendly hug. Their chemistry was apparent to everyone in the building; Daryl had even questioned him on what was happening between them, but there'd never been a time that seemed right for discussing taking what was essentially just a friendship to any kind of higher level, whether intimate or not.

It was several minutes before they were able to pull away from each other and catch their breath. Amy was breathing heavily, her fingers playing absently with the hair at the nape of his neck as her eyes searched his own. Rick wondered what she was looking for, what she was thinking as she examined him. Fortunately he didn't have long to wait.

"You're really okay with this? With people knowing that we're involved even though you're still married? What about Carl? How will you explain it to him?" she asked.

"Amy, my marriage is just a technicality at this point, and everyone here knows it, especially after the quarry. Honestly, I think they've all be wondering when we were going to move forward like this. No one will judge us or think you're a home wrecker, if that's what you're worried about. As for Carl…this new world has made him grow up so much faster than I'd ever wish, but he is still a kid in a lot of ways. I think it would be best for me to talk to him alone, explain that his mother and I weren't happy and that you do make me happy. I'll tell him that this doesn't change how much I love him or how much his mother loves him but it's better for the family this way. I can only hope he accepts that. I know he likes you, so that definitely gives you an advantage," Rick teased. "I know this is new, and scary, but I wouldn't care if the entire remaining living population was against our relationship, I would still take the chance. Just knowing you, having you here has made me happier than I have been since before Carl was born, despite all that's going on in the world."

Tears had gathered in Amy's eyes again and Rick almost cringed. He must have said something wrong, he thought, maybe I've scared her with all this relationship talk too soon. But his worry was unfounded as Amy pulled him closer and hugged him tightly, crying softly into his neck.

"I feel the same way," she said against his skin, muffling the sound but not enough for him to miss her words. "I've never been as happy as I am whenever I'm around you Rick. For the first time in my life I feel like someone actually cares about me, loves me unconditionally, and you don't know how much that means to me."

Rick didn't respond, just let his arms tighten around her and pull her partially into his lap. They stayed like that for longer than he thought because when he looked up at the window he realized it was getting darker as the sun neared the horizon. He'd never just sat with Lori like this, she'd always needed to talk about something, usually all the things he was doing wrong, and it surprised him how much he enjoyed just being able to sit quietly and be close to someone else.

"I need to go and make sure all the last minute details are taken care of for tomorrow," he whispered, hating to break the comfortable silence they'd fallen into. "Are you going to stay here or would you like to come back to the office and eat with everyone? I know Molly and Miranda would love to see you."

Amy sat back and considered his words before nodding. "I know I've been worrying everyone, I haven't been meaning to…it's just the combination of Dale and what happened in town and thinking you were going to go back to Lori…I just kind of shut down. I just need some time to process everything but I know I can't do what I did again."

Rick got to his feet and pulled her up to stand at his side. His hand reflexively grasped hers more tightly as he began to open the door but he forced himself to let her go. As much as he wanted to make their relationship public right away, to get any jeering from the others behind them, he knew he needed to explain things to Carl before anything like that happened. He'd do it tonight, he decided, before they went to bed he'd explain everything. He couldn't help smiling as he and Amy walked side by side down to the office that'd become their eating and gathering place.

The women already had dinner ready and were passing out plates when Rick ushered Amy into the room, and there was an almost perceptive release of tension as everyone saw Amy come in, responsive and even smiling a little. Molly and Miranda gathered the blonde into a group hug as Rick wandered over to the corner where Carl was sitting beside Shane, picking at his food and stroking Bear's head peeking out from under the table. He ruffled the boy's head as he sat down, contemplating exactly what he was going to say later.

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"Shane," Liam said uncertainly from the backseat as the car moved closer and closer to the house, "where's the car at? We left a car for them! Where is it?" he was quickly growing hysterical.

"Calm down Lee, maybe Lori moved it to the back just in case. No reason to panic if there's no reason to panic right?" Shane said gruffly, but Rick could hear the underlying worry in his voice that anyone else would have missed.

They pulled to a stop when the driveway ended and Rick got out with his machete ready to do business. His eyes found Daryl immediately as the other man shut off his bike and swung his crossbow around. T-Dog brought up the rear in another car to make sure they had room for everyone and space for any supplies Lori and the girl hadn't gotten into yet.

"Lori!" Shane called, walking up the steps and pushing the door open. Rick followed close behind him and immediately felt unease seep into his body when there was no answer. In fact, except for their own footsteps as they walked Rick didn't hear anything in the house at all. Maybe their sleeping, he theorized, and Shane must have thought the same thing because he was now walking swiftly toward where Rick assumed the bedrooms might be.

"Lori?!" Shane called again after the master bedroom and the guest bedroom had yielded no clue as to the location of the two females. He was now frantically going from room to room until he'd made it to the kitchen and out the back door, clearly thinking they must be in the back yard.

"Ain't no sign of them," Daryl said quietly after he'd finished his own search of the house. "Don't look like anyone's been here in days, weeks maybe. Think someone took em?"

"Liam," Rick said after thinking a moment, "would Dave have found this house and taken Lori and Lacey without you and Shane finding out?"

"No," Liam said firmly. "He never hid the women from the men, they were always 'free for the taking' as he liked to say, until they'd served as much purpose as they were going to. And he never took kids, he just…if they weren't old enough to be of use they weren't needed. No, Dave didn't take them."

"Rick, they're not here, the car is gone, and most of the supplies we had are gone too," Shane said once he'd come back inside. Rick heard the worry in his voice and almost found himself laughing at the irony of the situation. Shane was much more concerned for his wife than he was himself.

"Is it possible they went through all the supplies and are out lookin for more now?" Daryl grunted from his spot near the window. After giving his report to Rick he'd moved so he had a view of the backyard, and any walkers that might wander onto them.

Shane was quiet for a minute or so, contemplating if Lori would leave the safety of the house to look for supplies. Rick didn't know what was taking so long, of course she would go out if they had run out of food. Lori might enjoy letting everyone else do her work for her but she wasn't about to let her or a child starve just because she didn't want to get her hands dirty.

"Maybe," Shane offered. "But I don't think she would have taken the girl too. Lacey's sweet but she's still just a girl, and she'd a been more of a hindrance on a run than a help. Would have been safer to leave her here than to take her with."

"Are their clothes still here?" Rick asked, following Shane back to the bedrooms to find out.

"Lori didn't have much, but what she did have is missing," Shane answered before sinking down onto the bed and covering his face with his hands. "They didn't go on a run, they just left. They…Lori must have decided to leave after we never came back. She probably thought we'd been killed or something and they probably were low on food. She…just left, they're gone."

Rick ground his teeth as he watched his friend lament the loss of a woman that hadn't even been his. He didn't care that Shane and Lori had clearly kept up their affair while they'd been gone, but he did care that the man was just sitting here moping now that Lori had disappeared, again.

"Do you know where she might go? Maybe we should check for a note, maybe she left one to tell you where she went," he suggested.

"We didn't have a backup place planned. Figured this house was off the beaten path, we were pretty safe out here, and we were always together, no need for a meeting place. I'm betting she didn't even know where she was going when she left. There isn't a note either, I didn't see one anywhere at least." Shane was still sitting in the same position, hunched over, elbows resting on his knees and head hanging downward, as if the weight of the world was crushing him into the ground.

"I never should have left, shouldn't have taken Liam out to practice. He would have learned on the fly, and Lori and Lacey would still be here with us," Shane said despondently.

"Come on, we can always head down the road, see if we can find any trace of their car. The roads out here haven't been driven in a while, with the leaf cover we might catch their tire tracks somewhere. We're not just going to sit here without at least looking for them as much as possible," Rick commanded, walking out of the room without another word to let everyone know the plan. He and the others were already waiting in the cars by the time Shane wandered down the steps and got into the passenger seat of Rick's car.

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"Shane look!" Liam exclaimed from the back, pointing forward and scaring the crap out of both of the men in the front. It'd been silent in the car for several hours as they each imagined their own version of what had happened to Lori and Lacey so his outburst had been unexpected. "That's my dad's car up there!"

Daryl was in the lead now, because not only was he the best tracker they had but the bike also afforded him a better vantage point for looking for tracks, and Rick had to honk the horn to get him to stop as he went to go around the car and continue on.

Shane and Liam were out of the car before Rick had even put it in park, and Rick could tell it wasn't good news just by the way the kid's shoulders hunched and he wiped at his face, trying to hide his tears. Rick walked over to join the others and saw that the car was empty.

"Ran out of gas," Daryl observed, dashing his internal theory that maybe they'd gone to look for water and would be back. "Must have started walking from here. No way I'm goin to be able to pick up their trail, not with their light steps and the walker traffic to compete with."

Liam had wandered back toward the car and was now bracing himself against it, clearly trying to avoid letting any of them see him look weak by crying at the loss of his sister. Rick doubted any of them would blame him for his reaction, Shane had told them how the siblings had holed up in their apartment and stayed together all these months since the walkers rose.

"Should we fan out and see if they followed the road or went off into the woods?" he asked Daryl. He personally thought Lori would try to stick to the road as much as possible, but he also knew that she knew that walkers sometimes liked the path of least resistance, which included roadways. She might think the woods would afford them better coverage and protection.

Before Daryl could respond, the bushes on the others side of the road began to rustle as something large began to force its way through.

There it is…I'm not sure how realistic the Amy/Rick conversation was but it was the best I could do while trying to get this out to you while I had some time. But it gets their relationship off the ground a little, which I've been waiting to do. I know there hasn't been much Daryl/Molly lately but I'm going to try to get back into that in the next chapter.

What do you think about Lori's situation? Will she and Lacey make it somewhere safe? What about Rick's attitude toward her and the fact that she's missing? Is it too unrealistic for him to not really feel as strongly about it as Shane?

Please let me know how I did, I feel like I rushed this out to you without really thinking about what I was writing so I'd like to know if it was good or bad.