Skeletons - ????? ?????

When Michonne spotted them coming out of the brush, she had grinned so wide, but it faded quickly when she realized Carol was not with them. And that they had someone else with them instead.

The kid introduced himself as Noah. He was helpful enough, did his part while they talked about their next course of action. Rick also took the time to fill them in on everything they had missed. Bob got bit, kidnapped by survivors from Terminus, eaten, and died in the back of the church. Rick, Michonne, Sasha, Abraham and a couple others finally killed Gareth and his gang of psychopaths. Abraham took Eugene, Rosita, Glenn and Maggie on their way to Washington, leaving the rest to meet Iris, Carol and Daryl when they returned and follow when they were able.

Iris and Daryl helped Sasha and Tyreese dismantle the pipe organ and a few pews in the church to use for material.

Sasha was furious. She was taking out her grief and anger on the church pew, laying her axe into the wood enough times that it was almost sawdust, and she started to dig into the floor. Daryl carried another armful of pipes outside to where Iris was starting to dig them into the ground. Rick, Carl and Michonne were nailing wood boards from the pews to the windows.

"Are you going to take the cross, too?" Gabriel asked, trying to be snarky, but Daryl just raised an eyebrow.

"If we need it." He replied, shoving one of the pipes into the ground. The ends were points, which helped them build a little bottleneck of spikes near the porch.

"The lord provides." Iris retorted with a smirk. Daryl shot her a grin, but Gabriel grimaced. Iris was simply itching to return to Atlanta. But Noah reasoned, the longer they wait, the better Carol will be by the time they come to get her.

Despite Rick's apprehension about returning to Atlanta, he agreed that they all owed Carol their lives. And if Noah assured them that Beth would be alive, then they needed to go get her. They built a small task force of Rick, Iris, Daryl, Noah, Sasha and Tyreese. Michonne would stay back to reinforce the church with Gabriel, Judith and Carl, and hopefully they would return with two more members of their group. They had already lost so much.

Iris sat in the back of the truck with Noah, Tyreese and Sasha while Daryl drove, Rick sitting in the passenger seat while Daryl relayed everything they knew about these people. Most of them were actually cops from Atlanta, Noah explained, but very few of them deserved the title anymore. Iris hoped for Rick's sake that he didn't know any of them.

-

"At sundown we fire a shot into the air, get two of them out on patrol." Rick suggested as they surrounded the poor makeshift map he'd made out of rocks and pieces of debris on the floor.

They had commandeered an old warehouse on the university campus, presumably once used as a garage for agricultural equipment, cars and trucks for campus security. They moved to the top floor where large windows looked out and down into Grady Memorial. Their small squad stood around Rick's map, formulating a plan of action, a plan of rescue.

"Then once its dark enough that the rooftop spotter won't see us, we go." Rick continued. "We cut the locks on one of the stairwells and take it to the fifth floor. I open the door, Iris takes the guard out—"

"How?" Tyreese interrupted.

"She slits his throat." Rick replied. He looked up at Iris for confirmation and she nodded. She didn't want to kill anyone, but they'd taken Beth. They'd brought it upon themselves. Besides, that ship had long sailed. If there was an afterlife, she'd be having tea parties with Satan. "This is all about doing this quiet, keeping the upper hand. They're not expecting us. From there, we fan out. Knives and silenced weapons. We need to be fast. Tyreese, Sasha, take them." He drew out more X's in the dust with a stick. "Daryl, you take care of whoever's in the kitchen, I got Dawn."