Everyone gathered around the long table, laughing hard and smiling so big for the first time since the outbreak started. How long had it been? Two months, maybe three? It felt longer. But, for the moment, for the night, they could forget all that. Dale was pouring wine for Lori while everyone else drank. Four bottles were already on the table, along with a veritable smorgasbord of food. Annie looked around the table, face vacant and eyes hollow. It felt like Thanksgiving or Christmas. The faces were very different, they weren't her family, but it felt very much the same. She tried to pretend, even if just for a little while, that things were normal but she just couldn't do it. Being underground with yet another stranger around her, it just felt wrong. The entire CDC, even Jenner, felt wrong. It was a feeling she just couldn't shake. It seemed too good to be true, and Annie remembered very vividly what her father always said about things like that. "If it's too good to be true, sunflower," he'd tell her, "that's because it is."

"You know, in Italy, children have a little bit of wine with dinner," Dale commented, nodding to Carl. "And in France!"

Lori shook her head and replied, "Well, when Carl is in Italy or France, he can have some then." Well, since the chances of Carl getting to either place were slim to none, Annie thought, it seemed he'd never have the chance.

"What's it gonna hurt? Come on!" Rick encouraged with a crooked grin. "Come on!" Annie had never seen him like this and realized that he was a little drunk. Lori burst into laughter as she looked at her husband and shrugged, consenting as everyone cheered.

"Here you go, young lad!" Dale said, passing the glass to him. Carl took a sip with a smile and everyone watched him in anticipation. Annie smirked at Rick and he snorted with laughter when he caught her gaze, both of them ducking their heads.

"EWWW!"

"That's my boy," Lori commented, kissing her son's head as he pushed the glass away and everyone laughed. "That's my boy."

"It tastes nasty!" he said, shaking his head, but his mother ignored him in favor of taking his bit of wine and dumping it into her own glass.

"You stick to soda pop there, bud," Shane told him.

"Not you, Glenn," Daryl stated and Glenn looked at him with a confused smile. "Keep drinking, little man, I wanna see how red your face can get!"

Annie almost spit out her wine at the comical look of Daryl's face, making everyone around her laugh even harder as they looked at her. When she finally managed to swallow her wine, she ducked her head, a little embarrassed. Wine had never been her favorite thing. Alcohol hadn't been allowed in her house growing up. After she moved away, hard liquor had been regularly stocked in her home. Whiskey was her favorite but, on occasion, she could be persuaded to have some rum or tequila. The boys at the shop loved beer but, like wine, she'd never had a taste for it. Too bitter. She hadn't had a drink in...shit, she couldn't remember how long so, tonight, Annie planned to drink wine to her heart's content. The room soon quieted down as Rick tapped a knife on his glass and rose to his feet.

"Seems to me we haven't thanked our host properly," he told them.

"He is more than just our host," T-Dog slurred, raising his glass.

"Booyah!" Daryl toned and everyone copied him, saying their thanks and clinking glasses with each other.

"So when you gonna tell us what the hell happened here, doc?" Shane asked, looking over at the morose man. "All the, uh, the other doctors, they were supposed to be figuring out what happened? Where are they?"

"We're celebrating, Shane," Rick warned kindly. "Don't need to do this now." Shane countered him, reminding him that coming to the CDC was Rick's move, where they were going to find answers when, really, all they found was Jenner.

"Well, when things got bad, a lot of people just...left. Went off to be with their families," Jenner answered politely. "And, when things got worse, when the military cordon got overrun, the rest bolted." Skeptically, Shane asked if every last person left. "No. Many couldn't face walking out the door. They...opted out," he answered cautiously, mindful of the children in the room. Everyone bowed their heads, some shifting uncomfortably and others taking long drinks of their wine. "There was a rash of suicides. That was a bad time."

Andrea, with a shaky breath, asked, "You didn't leave. Why?"

"I just kept working. Hoping. To do some good."

Glenn hopped off the counter and walked over, telling Jenner with a frown, "Dude, you are such a buzz-kill, man." Dinner was over, the mood sufficiently killed, so the doctor led them out of the mess hall and into another series of hallways, knowing they'd want to get some rest.

"Most of the facilities powered down, including housing so you'll have to make due here. Couches are comfortable but there are cots in storage, if you like. There's a rec room down that hall that you kids might enjoy, just don't plug in the video games, okay? Or anything that draws power." Both Carl and Sophia nodded obediently. Jenner looked at the adults and told them the same applied to them. "If you shower, go easy on the hot water." As he walked away, the group looked at one another.

""Hot water"?" Glenn echoed, flabbergasted.

"That's what the man said," T-Dog replied with a grin. Annie watched everyone disperse, moving into their own rooms to settle for the night. Rick let Lori and Carl go into a room first and caught sight of Annie, leaning against the wall and looking down the hallway. Walking over, he touched her shoulder and she jumped, apologizing for being jumpy.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I don't know," she answered, shaking her head. "It's just this feeling I have. I can't shake it."

"You don't have to be afraid anymore," Rick assured her with a strong hand rubbing her shoulder and a smile. "We're safe here." Annie nodded slowly and Rick grinned at her. He suddenly yanked her towards him and pulled her into a tight hug, chuckling in her ear.

"Sheriff, are you drunk?" Rick just laughed and pulled away, passing her the other bottle of wine he held with a quick peck on the cheek. "You better drink some water before you go to sleep," she advised. Moving, or rather stumbling, into his room, he nodded and wished her a goodnight with a big smile. Annie stared at the door for a moment and muttered to herself, "He's so not gonna drink any water."

Annie, with no other choice, chose the room next to Rick's. After closing the door, Annie sat on the couch and dumped out the contents from her pack beside her. Inside were an assortment of things: her first aid kit, two other big sheathed knives, a Swiss Army knife, a half-full box of ammo for her Beretta, sunglasses, matches, a compass, clean clothes – socks, two pairs of underwear, a spare sports bra, a few rolled up shirts, an extra pairs of pants, and a hoodie – her canteen that had a little water left, and several books. Opening the first aid kit, she surveyed the meager supplies with a frown. She had tweezers, aspirin, a tiny suture kit, some disinfectant packets, iodine, and a little bottle of sunscreen. There were still some adhesive band-aids and gauze pads but no more bandages as Dale had used the whole roll on the RV's hose, but that was it. She'd have to restock, if given the chance. Moving into the bathroom, she turned on the sink faucet and let it fill up the canteen. She didn't know how long they'd remain at the CDC. This would probably be the last opportunity she'd have to fill them up. Clean water was a precious commodity now. She'd save her water for tomorrow and drink the wine tonight.

Using the Swiss Army knife, she pulled out the cork and took a deep swig of the red wine. Bitter with a hint of sweetness. Sitting on the couch with a sigh, she picked up one of her books – Watership Down by Richard Adams – and flipped through it until the bookmark fell out. But it wasn't just a bookmark. It was two pictures. She gingerly grabbed the photos and turned them over, staring at the faces in them. She was in both, smiling bigger than she had in her whole life, but the faces around her were very different. In one, it was the boys, her boys, from the shop. Her surrogate brothers, uncles and fathers. Joe, Tony, Lou, and others. In the other one, it was her father and brother. She couldn't have been older than fifteen, maybe sixteen, meaning Paul was barely into puberty. Maybe Carl's age, still a baby faced angel. She could see the farmhouse in the background, their childhood home. After her father died, her and Paul agreed to let the bank take the farm and sell it. They'd both had mixed feelings of relief and regret selling the house. Annie had been twenty-four, trying to start a career, and Paul was off trying to find himself. Neither needed or wanted the added stress of a farm in a completely different state from where either lived. Hell, it'd had been over ten years since she'd even set foot on country soil. The last few days being a grand exception.

Tears ran down her cheeks as she took another long drain of the wine. Setting the bottle between her legs, Annie sobbed into her hands, running her hands through her hair and squeezing tight. While she wanted to hold to hope that Paul was alive, the state of Atlanta gave her little hope that DC was better. In all likelihood, her family was dead, both real and surrogate. She was alone, completely and utterly alone. Well, not completely. There were the others and most of them seemed like perfectly nice people, but how long would that last? Before she found Morgan, she'd seen perfectly nice people turn on their friends. Annie just wanted it all to stop, she wanted to stop caring for people, stop watching them die and unable to do anything. Hell, she didn't even know if Morgan and Duane were alive and she wasn't so sure she could hold to that hope anymore. What had hope ever brought her but pain? A hand on her cheek, she wiped the tears away and took another drink before setting the almost empty bottle on the floor and laid down. Her skin felt warm, whether it was from the alcohol or the innocent kiss Rick had given her, she didn't know.

Here it was, the first night she might actually get some real sleep and she couldn't sleep at all.

--------------------

The following morning, Annie showered and drank water straight from the showerhead in an attempt to clear the fog. What she wouldn't give for some pedialite, best morning-after hangover cure there ever was. Of course, hair of the dog worked just as well as she remembered, so she polished off the last of her wine. The moment she was dressed, she stumbled out into the hall and slowly made her way to the mess, hoping to fill her growling stomach. A hand on her shoulder startled her but made her would-be attacker chuckle. Rolling her eyes, she lightly smacked Rick's chest and walked beside him. He was hungover as well, it seemed, but in better spirits than her. As they ambled into the kitchen, she noted that everyone was there and eating with the exception of Jenner and Shane. Rick took a seat at the head of the table, Lori to his right, Carl next to her, and Annie cross from him. Most of the group was already gathered around the table, T-Dog cooking them a perfect breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, cereal and toast. He'd even found orange juice.

"Are you hungover? Mom said you'd be," Carl innocently asked his father. Smiling obligingly, Rick told his son that mother was right. Lori smiled and muttered that moms had that annoying habit. "Are you hungover?" he asked, looking at Annie.

"Not so much as your dad, but yes," she admitted. "Which is why you're never gonna drink. Otherwise, you'll end up like Glenn here," she told him, playfully patting Glenn's back. Glenn, who was sitting on her right, was groaning pathetically into his empty plate and looking rather ill. His look did not improve when T-Dog piled some scrambled eggs onto his plate, telling him protein helped a hangover.

"Where'd all this come from?" Rick asked, holding up a bottle of aspirin.

"Jenner. He thought we could use it," his wife replied, opening the bottle for him as he thanked her. "Some of us at least," she added, smirking at Glenn.

"Don't ever, ever, ever let me drink again," he begged as Shane walked in and headed straight for the coffee.

"Feel as bad as I do?" Rick called out.

"Worse." As he turned to the table, T-Dog asked him what the hell happened to him and nodded to the scratched on his neck. "Must've done it in my sleep."

"Never seen you do that before," Rick commented.

"Me neither. Not like me at all." Annie sipped at her juice, eyes moving back and forth between Shane and Lori from the rim of the glass. Lori was doing her best not to look at him but Annie saw the looks that passed between them. She could guess what those scratches on Shane's neck were from. Who they were from.

"Good morning," Jenner announced, following Shane's fashion and making his way to the coffee.

"Doctor, I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing..." Dale began hesitantly.

"But you will anyway," Jenner interjected with a wry smile. Andrea told him that they didn't come there for the eggs and, with no other choice, Jenner led them back to the big room. "Give me playback of TS-19," he told Vi.

The big screen lit up, showing a brain – an extraordinary one, Jenner told them. Not that it mattered in the end. Vi took them in for an enhanced internal view and they watched silently at the sight of millions of lights. Jenner told them that those lights were synaptic impulses that determined everything a person said, thought or did from birth to death. He told them that, in all that organic wiring, it was experiences and memories, the thing that made them all unique. The video, Rick realized, was a playback of the vigil of an individual who had been bitten and volunteered to be tested. Vi scanned forward to the first event and they watched as a blackness crept into the brain. It was the virus, Jenner told them, and it invaded the brain like meningitis causing the adrenal glands to hemorrhage, the brain to shut down followed by the major organs, then death. As soon as the word left his mouth, the brain on screen went completely black. Sophia asked if that was what happened to Jim and her mother gently told her yes. Off to the side, Annie saw Andrea deflate and knew she was thinking of her sister. Reaching over to comfort her, she rubbed Andrea's back and desperately tried not to think of Paul.

Vi moved on to the second event and Jenner told them that resurrection time varied. The quickest he'd ever heard was three minutes; the longest was eight hours. In the case of his patient, it had been two hours, one minute, seven seconds. Eyes on the screen, everyone watched in morbid fascination as a reddish light blinked on and pulsed in the brain. It got bigger and bigger, and Jenner explained it restarted just the brain stem to get them up and moving. He told them that the frontal lobe, the neo-cortex, the part that made them, them – the "you" part – didn't come back. Shells, that's all the walkers were. Shells. Empty husks, driven by mindless instinct and hunger. A beam of light burst through the brain and Andrea told them, upon Carol's gasped question, that Jenner had shot his patient. Instead of answering, although it seemed pretty obvious that was exactly what had happened, Jenner told Vi to power down the main screen and workstations. Andrea accused him them, saying he had no idea what it was. He just told her that it could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal or even the wrath of God as Jacqui had pointed out.

"Somebody must know something. Somebody," Andrea insisted. "Somewhere!"

"There are others, right? Other facilities?" Carol asked hopefully. Jenner told her there could be some, even some people like him.

Confused, Rick stepped forward and asked, "But you don't know? How can you not know?" Jenner told him that everything went down. Communications, directives, all of it. He'd been in the dark for almost a month. Annie nodded, figuring that was what happened since she lost contact with Paul weeks ago when her cell phone stopped working.

"So it's not just here? There's nothing left anywhere? Nothing? That's what you're really saying, right?" Andrea accused but he didn't answer. Everyone took his silence in as all the confirmation they needed.

"Jesus," Annie scoffed. Daryl groaned and began to pace, proclaiming that he wanted to get shitfaced drunk again.

"Dr. Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you and I hate to ask one more question," Dale said patiently, walking towards the electronic clock on the opposite wall, "but that clock? It's counting down." Annie looked over and saw that the clock read 00:00:59:59. Just under one hour. "What happens at zero?"

Hesitantly, he moved away from the group a bit and answered, "The, uh, basement generators, they run out of fuel." Rick asked what happened then but Jenner didn't answer. He just walked away, so Rick asked Vi and it told them that, when the power ran out, facility wide decontamination would occur.

"Decontamination, what does that mean?" Glenn asked, trying not to sound panicked.

"I don't know, but I don't like the sound of it," Annie told him, arms crossed and shifting nervously.

"Let's go find out," Rick stated. He, Shane, Glenn, T-Dog immediately went in search of the basement.

Not taking any chances, Annie rushed back to her room and started packing. She'd only been there a few minutes when the lights flickered off and on. Something else was different as well. Moving underneath the vent in the ceiling, she held up a hand to it. Nothing, no air; the AC was down. The lights flickered again, turning off completely. Grabbing her pack, she quickly shoved everything inside and went out into the hall just in time to see Jenner stride past. He snatched Daryl's bottle of liquor, the only explanation he offered was that energy use was being prioritized.

"Air isn't a priority? Lights?" Dale questioned in confusion.

Jenner took a drink and told him, "It's not up to me. Zone 5 is shutting itself down."

"Hey!" Daryl shouted after him. "Hey, what the hell's that mean?" Jenner ignored him, continuing his trek back into the main room. "Hey, I'm talking you! What do you mean it's shutting itself down? How can a building do anything?"

"You'd be surprised," he replied tonelessly.

"I don't like this," Annie toned suspiciously. "We should get our shit and go." Unfortunately, no one listened to her. Typical. Rolling her eyes, she anxiously followed after the others.

"Rick!" Lori called, looking over the edge of the catwalk, spotting their missing members running underneath. Everyone followed Jenner down the stairs, meeting up with their people as Rick asked him what was happening.

"The system is dropping all the non-essential uses of power," he explained, not stopping in his journey. "It's designed to keep the computers running until the last possible second. That starts as we approach the half hour mark. Right on schedule," he commented, pointing to the clock. The doctor took one last big drink, shoulders hunched as he passed the bottle back to Daryl, who snatched it from him in agitation. "It was the French," he told them, walking up the steps to the bank of computers. "They were the last ones to hold out, far as I know. While our people were bolting out the doors and committing suicide in the hallways, they stayed in the labs until the end. They thought they were close to a solution." Jacqui asked him what happened. "Same thing that's happening here: no power grid. Ran out of juice," he answered. "The world runs on fossil fuel. I mean, how stupid is that?"

"Let me tell you something—!"

"The hell with it, Shane! I don't even care!" Rick yelled and grabbed his partner, stopping him from attacking Jenner. "Lori, grab our things! Everybody, get your stuff! We're getting out of here! NOW!" The others bolted back to their rooms just as an alarm started blaring, but Annie stayed fidgeting in place.

"What's that?" Annie questioned, clutching the straps of her pack as everyone froze around her. The main screen lit up with the red clock, counting down. Thirty minutes, that was all they had.

"Doc, what's going on?" Daryl shouted but Jenner was in his own little world.

"Everybody, y'all heard Rick! Get your stuff and let's go! Go now!" Shane ordered, T-Dog leading the way back to the rooms. A steel door behind Rick, their exit, suddenly sprung up from the ground and the men stared at it in shock.

"Did you just lock us in?" Glenn exclaimed. "He just locked us in!" Jenner sat down at a computer and began speaking to it. The man really had lost his mind.

"You son of bitch!" Daryl screamed, charging at the doctor but Shane grabbed him before he could smash the bottle over his head.

"Jenner, open that door now," Rick demanded calmly. Jenner told him that there was no point, that everything topside was locked down, the emergency exits were sealed and he couldn't open them because he didn't control them, the computers did.

"I told you: once that front door closed, it wouldn't open again. You heard me say that!" he reminded and Rick began to pace, looking at the people he'd led into this death trap. "It's better this way."

"What is?" he asked. "What happens in twenty-eight minutes?" Jenner sighed, not answering as he turned back to the computer, but Rick kicked his chair. "What happens in twenty-eight minutes?!"

"Do you know what this place is?" Jenner shouted, rising to his feet. "We protected the public from very! Nasty! Stuff!" he shouted in Shane's face, unafraid. "Weaponized smallpox! Ebola strains that could wipe out half the country! STUFF YOU DON'T WANT GETTING OUT! EVER!" Everyone stared at him in stunned silence as he readjusted his lab coat and sat back at the computer console. "In the event of a catastrophic power failure, in a terrorist attack, for example, HITs are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out."

"HITs?" Vi informed them that HITs were High Impulse Thermobaric fuel air explosives that consisted of a two stage aerosol ignition that produced a blast wave of significant power more than any other explosion known, over six thousands degrees in temperature.

"It sets the air on fire," Jenner told them. "No pain. An end to sorrow, grief...regret. Everything." Daryl ran to door and chucked his bottle at it.

"Open the damn door!" he screamed as Annie started pounding on it with a nearby chair. She was not going to die, not like this, not after everything that had happened. Shane shouted for her to get out of the way as he started pounding on it with an ax. T-Dog found more and chucked one to both Annie and Daryl, who joined him. Behind them, they could vaguely hear Jenner saying they should have left well enough alone.

"This is your fault!" Annie screamed at him, sprinting down the catwalk to attack him but Glenn wrapped an arm around her waist and pushed her away. Pissed, she went back to stand with Shane and Daryl, swinging and pounding at the door. But nothing happened, they couldn't make a dent.

"Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher," Jenner told them.

Daryl and Shane had given up on the door but not Annie, she kept pounding and pounding at it. She ignored Daryl trying to kill Jenner, ignored Jenner accusing Rick of saying that he knew everyone was going to die, that there was no hope, that this was their extinction event. She needed to get out, she needed to live, she needed to make sure Morgan and Duane were safe, she need to find Paul. Behind her, she heard a gun cock and saw Shane point it at Jenner and scream, shooting at a nearby bank of computers. Rick fought him for the gun, causing the lights to be shot, and nearly knocked him out with it but let him up instead. Rick looked around at everyone and looked back at Jenner, telling him that he was lying about there being no hope because he chose the hard path of staying alive and working while others ran and killed themselves. Jenner told them that his wife was TS-19 but Annie didn't care. She had no sympathy for a man that was trying to murder them. She went back to pounding at the door and Daryl joined her once again. The two of them watched the others in between pounds, Annie hoping that Rick could talk sense into the man to let them go. A moment later, the steel door lowered and everybody made a break for the door. Annie held back, watching Rick as Jenner whispered to him.

"Hey! We got four minutes left! Come on!" Glenn shouted.

"Rick, come on!" Annie screamed and bolted as Rick finally joined them. Annie watched as T-Dog bid Jacqui farewell, who decided she was staying, that she didn't want to end up like Amy or Jim. Andrea said she was staying as well. Dale told them all to go, staying behind and rushing to Andrea.

The group bolted up the stairwell, T-Dog's flashlight leading the way through the dark. When they finally got back to the entrance, Annie rushed at the doors and tried to push them open but they wouldn't budge. No sense in worrying about walkers being attracted to the noise, not when they had only minutes to get out. She pushed harder and harder, frantic. Nothing. It was just like the one downstairs, she couldn't make a dent. T-Dog tried the panel, pushing various buttons but nothing worked. Annie picked up her ax and started pounding at the windows with Daryl and Shane but they didn't even make a scratch. T-Dog tried a chair, Shane shot at it. Still nothing. The glass wouldn't break. It didn't matter that Jenner had let them out from below, they couldn't get out above. Carol ran over and pulled out a grenade, one she'd found in Rick's pocket when she did his laundry that first morning. As he rushed to the window, everyone hid and waited. Just as Rick jumped to safety, the window blasted open.

The next moments were frantic and frightening as everyone jumped out of the CDC window and bolted for the cars, Shane and Rick shooting walkers around them as Annie and Daryl took axes to their heads; she even saw Daryl decapitate one. Everyone piled into the cars, Rick and his family with Carol and Sophia piling into the RV while Annie jumped into the Cherokee. Just as she settled in the car, she looked up and saw Andrea and Dale climbing out of the window. Noticing they had only seconds, Annie cursed. The others must have noticed as well because they joined her in leaning their heads out the window and shouting to warn them to get down. She could hear Rick honking the RV's horn in front her and threw herself to the floor of the car.

The ground shook and she could feel the heat through the open window. Sitting up, she saw the CDC a pile of rubble and flames. Andrea and Dale ran into the RV, safe and unharmed and Annie sighed heavily. With shaking hands, Annie sat there a moment, running her hands over her face. She screamed in frustration, kicking the floor of the car. Hearing engines around her, Annie lowered her hands and looked out the window. The caravan had started moving again and it was time she did, too. Annie ran her hands over her face once more, letting out a shaky breath to calm herself, before starting the car. Annie pulled the Cherokee into a U-turn back onto the highway, following the RV. In the rear view mirror, she could see the smoldering rubble and thick, black smoke rising into the clear blue sky.

What were they going to do now? Where were they going to go?