The doors were open, why was nobody moving? June was just about to yell for everyone to get inside, but then Rick was moving froward and Shane told Daryl to watch the back, so she was released and the group quickly moved inside, closing the doors behind them and quickly looking around the lobby for any people.

"Hello?"

A gun clicked and Juniper whirled to look, finding a blonde guy, half standing in the shadows, pointing a gun at them. "What do you want?" He called, and Juniper pulled a face. Clearly they weren't there for the view... Before she could say that to him, Rick was speaking up, asking for a chance. The guy chuckled but lowered his gun. "That's asking an awful lot these days."

Once his gun was lowered, June relaxed some, looking around for any other armed people lurking in the shadows, but she saw none. Either they were really good at hide and seek, or the doctor had come alone. After demanding a blood sample from everyone as the admission fee, the doc explained that he was alone. Something about his face stopped Juniper from demanding exactly why that was the case, and she followed him and the others into a room full of computers.

They each took turns to give their blood, Carl sitting next to Jenner and introducing everyone as it was their turn. When June sat down, Carl smiled at her. "And this is Jupiter." Jenner smiled at the name and June blushed but didn't correct him. Maybe her new start with their group deserved a new name. So Jupiter would do.

She barely even flinched as the doc drew her blood, looking around the room they were in, something bothering her, but she wasn't sure what. When Jenner let her go, she got to her feet and walked a few steps before stumbling into the side, catching herself and waiting for her vision to stop swimming. She wasn't the only one. Andrea momentarily blacked out and Jenner saw.

"She hasn't eaten in days... None of us have,"Jacqui explained. Jenner seemed slightly taken aback, and quickly told them all to follow him.

Not much later, all of them were sitting in a dining area, eating pasta, drinking wine and laughing, everyone able to eat as much as they want and finally relax. Juniper was on her second glass of wine when Shane decided to ask the question they were all thinking about, putting a dampener on the conversation, so June listened for a bit, but then got up and left, taking a bottle with her as she wondered the empty halls, heading back up to the lobby to watch the world outside.

So Jenner was truly it, and there was no cure. Jim still would have died, even if he'd survived the trip to the CDC, and one of them would have had to put him down. It was sad, and June had to wonder if he had made a cure, would she have had anything to go home to in the end, or would she finally make it home, only to find her family already dead? She didn't want to think about it, but sitting alone in the dark lobby didn't exactly inspire any great thoughts.

The sound of light footsteps coming her way had her reaching for her knife and about to get up when Daryl rounded the corner, a bottle of whiskey in his hand. She relaxed and put the knife down, leaning back against the wall and waited for him to say something. He sat down next to her and offered her the bottle in his hand. "You left the party early. Doc says we got hot showers in our rooms." June accepted the whiskey and took a gulp, feeling it burn its way down her throat until it settled in her full stomach.

"Yeah, well Shane kinda killed the buzz..."

Daryl snorted and had another drink. "No kidding. That asshole needs to learn how to celebrate!"

Juniper nodded and leaned back again, debating telling Daryl about Shane pointing a gun at Rick, but decided against it. The last thing she needed to be doing was causing more fights between people. Especially if she'd read the situation wrong and Shane hadn't debated killing Rick. So instead she sat with Daryl for a while, but eventually the promise of a hot shower became too good for her to miss, so she helped Daryl finish off the whiskey and then got to her feet, giggling when she realised that maybe she was a little tipsy. Daryl snorted when he saw her stumble, but then got to his feet and walked with her, shaking his head. "Disappointing... You're a lightweight!"

Slightly offended, Juniper was just about to argue that she had necked a bottle of wine and half a bottle of whiskey, but then she almost walked into a wall and so decided to keep her mouth shut. Daryl walked beside her, making mainly smirking at her, but stopping her from falling when she stumbled. The stairs were the worst part as she started laughing that hard that she had to sit down for a few minutes, unable to keep moving. Daryl watched her and laughed, eventually giving her a hand to her feet and helping her down the final flight and into the place the group would be staying.

She thought he'd ditch her there, but he led her down the hall and into a room with a sofa and TV in it, along with some bedding thrown on the sofa, and made her sit on the sofa. He stood up to walk away, but Juniper reached out and caught his wrist, stopping him. He looked down at her and she released him, but he stayed to hear what she wanted. "Why'd you keep helping me out? You gave me weapons, let me ride with you, brought me alcohol..." He laughed a little at herself and he rolled his eyes, but then she continued. "Why?"

Daryl frowned at her but then looked away. "Because... You're different. You ain't afraid to speak your mind, and you ain't boring to be around."

Slightly smug that she seemed to have made a friend, Juniper grinned up at Daryl. "You ain't half bad yourself, Dixon," she tried to mimic his accent again, and Daryl choked on a laugh as he headed for the door.

"Stop!"

Juniper chuckled to herself, asleep before he was even out of the door. Daryl stopped in the doorway and turned back, shaking his head again before turning the light off and closing the door. In the hall he met a drunk Shane, looking at the door Daryl had just walked out of.

"Jupiter in there?" He asked, and for some reason Daryl felt himself tensing. It was obvious that she didn't like Shane, and she was too drunk to be dealing with assholes, so Daryl nodded but didn't move out of the way.

"She's sleepin'," he growled, and Shane raised his eyebrows at his tone, looking like he might say something, but then Carl walked out of a room at the end of the hall and Shane moved on. Daryl watched him go, refusing to move until Shane was inside the other room, at which point he headed off to find more booze.

He chuckled to himself thinking about Juniper. So she wasn't a great drinker, but she was good company, and Daryl was surprised to find that he liked her. Strange for him, as he didn't really get along with that many people... But she was different, and he wondered if maybe he'd found an actual friend.

XXXXXXXXXXX

"Oh god!"

Those were the first two words uttered by Juniper the next morning when she woke up, her head spinning, and a taste like something had died in her mouth. Falling from the sofa she'd spent the night on, she stumbled to the attached bathroom and threw up into the toilet, seriously regretting her life choices the night before. What the hell had she been thinking?! When she was fairly sure she wasn't going to puke again, she sat back and groaned, recalling the nights events and making a mental note to throw something at Daryl when she saw him.

She practically crawled into the shower, sitting under the hot water for a few minutes before she managed to get to her feet and actually get clean, even managing to detangle the birds nest that was her hair before she got out, wrapping herself in a warm white towel. She stood in front of the steamed up mirror for a moment before she worked up the nerve to wipe away the steam on the glass and look at herself. She barely recognised herself. She had barely caught glimpses of her reflection in the last two months, but even then... She was actually clean. Her face had lost weight, and she realised with a sad smile, that she looked like her mum.

Closing those thoughts down quickly, she got dressed again. It was too early in the day, and she was far too hung over to be thinking about that stuff, so she decided to distract herself. She wore the same clothes as the day before, but left her shoes in her room with her bag as she walked down the hall, following her nose to where she found most of the others eating breakfast.

Glenn looked as bad as she felt, groaning softly every time someone spoke to him, and Juniper could relate. She sat down after saying good morning and grabbed a piece of bacon, hoping she could keep it down. Daryl wasn't in the room yet, and Juniper secretly hoped he was still in bed, feeling as bad as she did.

"Hey Jupiter, are you hung over too?" Carl asked, and she looked up from her breakfast, blinking away the blurs in her vision. He was sitting next to his mum, with Rick at the head of the table, looking about three minutes away from being a walker, but smirking down at his plate. Looking back at Carl, Juniper summoned her best grin and nodded at him.

"Yes I am."

A snort came from behind her and she turned to see Daryl crossing the room, looking for food, and unfortunately not hungover. "Lightweight," he shot at her as he passed, and she flipped him off in reply before returning to her piece of bacon. She wanted to eat everything, but at the same time, she knew she was unlikely gonna be able to keep it all down, so she settled for a few pieces of bacon and loads of water.

The others were talking, but Juniper was zoning out, focusing on the pills on the other side of the table and seeing if she could move them with her mind. The dead walked the earth... So clearly stranger things had happened... Only the bottle didn't move, and focusing so hard on it had only made her headache worse. Accepting defeat, she reached over the table and grabbed the bottle, tempted to empty them all into her mouth in the hope that they'd work faster, but instead she took two.

She didn't realise anything had been said until she looked up and found everyone following Jenner out of the room. She got to her feet and followed after them, her sock feet slipping all over the tiled floor. She arrived in the main room in time to hear Jenner explain that everything went down, and he'd been in the dark for almost a month. Juniper came to stand next to Daryl, listening to the doctor.

Andrea's face was going red as she spoke. "So it's not just here. There's nothing left anywhere? Nothing? That's what you're really saying, right?"

At her words, Juniper felt her heart stutter, stop, and then restart. If it was everywhere, that meant her parents... Her family... Her blood ran cold at the thought of them. They lived in the middle of a city. If Walkers took over...

"Man, I'm gonna get shitfaced drunk again," Daryl said quietly from beside her, and she found herself nodding without really thinking about what he said, her mind still preoccupied. She could sense his gaze on her face, but she ignored him, only coming back to herself when VI spoke.

"When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur."

Wait, what?

"What does that mean?" She asked Jenner, but he ignored her and walked away, refusing to answer any of them.

She shared a look with Daryl, but he just shrugged and walked in the opposite direction, back towards the rooms. After a couple of seconds she followed him, walking into Daryl's room behind him and saying nothing as she sat down on the sofa. He handed her the half empty bottle of whiskey and she took a swig before handing it back.

"So the whole world's fucked then?" She said at last, and Daryl looked at her from where he was sat on the table on the other side of the room, biting his nails.

"Looks like," he shrugged. Juniper sat back on the sofa and stared at the ceiling for a second until Daryl spoke again. "You worried about your family?"

She sighed and sat up straight again, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees as she looked at him. "Not so much worried...Just accepting that they're all probably dead, and I can never go home... I'd retained a little hope until this point that I'd find a way home. But now? There's not much point."

Instead of saying anything, Daryl offered her the bottle again.

XXXXXXXX

Maybe twenty minutes later, the lights went out. Juniper froze, her bottle half way to her lips, waiting for them to come back on. After another few seconds, she put it down and stood up, following Daryl to the door, finding everyone else out in the hall already.

"What's going on? Why is everything turned off?" Daryl called, but as Jenner passed, he took the bottle of whiskey from Daryl and carried on walking, not bothering to stop as he headed back to the main room.

"Energy use is being prioritized."

Dale said what everyone else was thinking. "Air isn't a priority? And lights?"

Jenner took a gulp from the bottle he'd just taken from Daryl and shrugged, still not slowing down, so everyone started following him. "It's not up to me. Zone 5 is shutting itself down." Daryl and Juniper shared a look, walking faster to catch up to the doc.

"Hey! Hey, what the Hell does that mean?"

Jenner once again ignored Daryl, so Juniper frowned, starting to lose her patience. "Hey! We're talking to you! What the hell do you mean? How does a building do anything?"

Jenner smirked. "You'd be surprised..."

Helpful... Juniper thought to herself, her eyes narrowed as she watched Jenner walk over to the steps leading up to the work station, pausing as he explained what was happening. "The system is dropping all the nonessential uses of power. It's designed to keep the computers running to the last possible second. That started as we approached the half-hour mark. Right on schedule."

Juniper looked to the numbers displayed on the wall, seeing that he was right. They had thirty one minutes until the decontamination took place. Whatever that meant. Though she had her theories, and she could only pray that she was wrong.

Jenner took another drink from the bottle he was carrying before handing it back to Daryl, who snatched it away with a glare, spilling some on the floor. If Jenner noticed, he didn't care.

"It was the French. They were the last standing... Thought they were pretty close to a cure..." He explained to Andrea. If they were close to a cure, why not send their research everywhere?

"What happened?" Jacqui asked, and Jenner gestured around.

"Same thing as here. No power grid. The world runs on fossil fuels, I mean how stupid is that?" Juniper had to agree that the thought had crossed her mind. In a big fancy lab like that and they didn't have solar panels? Seemed a bit suspect. Still, nothing could be done then, so she focused on Rick, silently waiting for him to give the order to get the hell out of there. Jenner was clearly going off the deep end, and they were at his mercy.

Before anything could be said, red lights started flashing and VI's voice started talking, announcing thirty minutes until decontamination. Rick ordered everyone to run before June could, telling them to grab their stuff and get out of there. Just before they made it to the door, it slid up, sealing them in. Juniper turned back to the doc to see that he had pressed the button to seal them in with him.

"Did you just lock us in here?" She started, heading over to him, but he ignored her and started talking into a camera.

Suddenly Daryl was running past her, yelling at the doc and only just managing to get his hands on him before Shane grabbed him and pulled him away, telling him to calm down, even as Daryl continued to threaten the doctor with the bottle in his hand.

Rick demanded to be let out, but the doc only shook his head and said there was no point, and that everything top side was locked down. Something which he couldn't control. Rick refused to listen and continued arguing, but eventually even the doc got tired and yelled back, screaming about everything that the CDC contained, and what it had protected the country against. After a couple of deep breaths however, he managed to regain his composure and sat back down, looking more tired than anyone felt. "In the event of a catastrophic power failure—in a terrorist attack, for example—H.I.T.s are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out."

It was more of an answer than they'd got so far, but Juniper didn't like the sound of it. To protect from something as radical as terrorists, they'd need a radical response. Which was exactly what VI described the HITs to be.

"H.I.T.s—high-impulse thermo baric fuel-air explosives consist of a two-stage aerosol ignition that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive except nuclear. The vacuum-pressure effect ignites the oxygen at between 5,000 degrees and 6,000 degrees and is useful when the greatest loss of life and damage to structures is desired."

Juniper's breath left her, and the whole world seemed to go silent. They were going to burn. They'd survived everything so far, every walker that they'd encountered, only to die in the very place they sought sanctuary. It wasn't fair. The world only came back to her when something threw a bottle and it smashed, the sound shocking her back to herself. Some of the others were using various weapons to try and open the doors while Rick looked to be trying to reason with Jenner.

Clearly Jenner had a death wish, as he called out to Shane, Daryl and T-Dog, who were swinging axes at the doors.

"Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher."

Daryl ran back towards the doc, swinging his axe. "Well, your head ain't!"

Dale, Rick and Shane stopped him, and T-Dog took the axe away from him, making sure that somebody could open the doors. If they killed Jenner, then they might as well sit down and accept their deaths right then. It was then that Jenner decided to address Rick and say what he'd told him the night before, clearly when no one else was around.

"You do want this. Last night you said you knew it was just a matter of time before everybody you loved was dead."

Silence followed those words for a moment, and even Juniper was shocked. Had Rick really said that? Even after all the 'hope' he'd been feeding everyone since she arrived. If he didn't believe it, why bother making everyone else?

"I had to keep hope alive, didn't I?"

Jenner just looked bored now. "There is no hope. There never was."

Rick moved closer, refusing to believe the doctor. "There's always hope. Maybe it won't be you, maybe not here but somebody somewhere—"

He was cut off by Andrea, who looked like she accepted her fate then. She knew she was going to die and she was fine with it. "What part of "Everything is gone" do you not understand?" Her lack of faith and fight started Juniper's blood boiling, especially when she saw the two kids sitting on the floor, crying into the arms of their mothers. They didn't deserve this, and Andrea was only scaring them more, stealing their hope when they needed it the most.

Jenner nodded and looked at Rick while gesturing to Andrea on the floor. "Listen to your friend. She gets it. This is what takes us down. This is our extinction event."

Suddenly Juniper lost her temper and charged at the doctor, quickly stopped by Shane, who held her back, but she still yelled at him. "ONLY IF WE LIE DOWN AND LET IT!" The room went silent, all eyes on her, curious about her outburst. "We need to fight this! We're willing to, but you're stopping us! You're saying there's no hope left, but that's just your opinion. We've survived this long because we can. I for one, refuse to be taken down by some bullshit virus, and I'm willing to fight it for as long as I can, so that there's a world left at the end of it all. A new world. A different one. But a world that I'm willing to fight for, even if I never get to see it. Because I have to believe that this isn't the end. We can fight this..." She gestured to the two kids on the floor. "For them. For the kids who will grow up in this world and not remember before. Because they deserve a chance... So don't talk to me about this taking us down... Not when you're the one locking the doors."

Jenner just stared at her, and she saw the hint of doubt cross his face, and she knew that something that she said had hit home. They just had to keep pressing. Rick must have seen it too, as he moved forward, kneeling to look straight into Jenner's eyes as he spoke. "I think you're lying about no hope. If that were true, you'd have bolted with the rest or taken the easy way out. You didn't. You chose the hard path. Why?"

Jenner looked away, his eyes darkening. "It doesn't matter." Juniper wanted to yell at Rick to back off. He was ruining the slim shot they had. But Rick knew what he was doing, and he pressed Jenner for an answer, his Sheriff training obvious to all watching.

"It does matter. It always matters. You stayed when others ran. Why?"

It worked. Jenner broke, explaining why he had stayed and giving Rick what he needed to manipulate Jenner's emotions, so he'd release them. "Not because I wanted to. I made a promise." He pointed to the screen and the TS-19 who was on there. "To her. My wife."

Lori gasped. "Test subject 19 was your wife?"

Jenner nodded, looking to be close to tears. "She begged me to keep going as long as I could. How could I say no? She was dying. It should've been me on that table. I wouldn't have mattered to anybody. She was a loss to the world. Hell, she ran this place. I just worked here. In our field she was an Einstein. Me? I'm just... Edwin Jenner. She could've done something about this. Not me."

Rick's voice softened in sympathy. "Your wife didn't have a choice. You do. That's—that's all we want—a choice, a chance."

Daryl grunted as he continued swinging the axe at the door, refusing to give up, just like Lori, who drove the final nail that snapped Jenner's resolve.

"Let us keep trying as long as we can."

Jenner was done. It became clear on his face before he even spoke, and he sighed as he pushed buttons on his keypad. "I told you topside's locked down. I can't open those." But the door to the main room opened, and quickly everyone was on their feet and running towards it, screaming for everyone to hurry. Juniper didn't need telling twice and pulled free of Shane's grip as she ran for the door, cursing her sock feet as she sprinted for her room where her bag and shoes waited.

She glanced at the timer as she left the room and swore. They had four minutes to get out of there. She grabbed her shoes and bag, not bothering to put her shoes on as she didn't have time to spare, and instead quickly ripped her socks off and ran bare foot, her progress a lot better. She reached the lobby quickly, seeing everyone trying to get out, but the doors wouldn't open and the glass wouldn't break, even when Shane shot them.

Shit... They had to make it out. They couldn't die there. Not when there was only a window separating them from their survival... Juniper ran over, about to demand one of their axes, but then Carol of all people, pulled a hand grenade from her bag and handed it to Rick. If they'd had any more time, June would have kissed the older woman, but they were all too busy running away from the window, taking cover by the steps.

There was the sound of an explosion, and June risked a glance up, praying that the glass had broke. A breeze kissed her cheek and she almost allowed herself to smile, but then someone had their hand around her arm and was dragging her to her feet and towards the shattered window. She forgot about the glass as she jumped outside, slicing her foot open on a shard that remained in the frame, falling down and crying out in anger. T-Dog followed her out, helping her to her feet and wrapping an arm around her for support as the group ran for the cars, Shane, Rick and Daryl leading and taking down any walkers in their path.

Juniper was sure that every second would be their last. She'd lost track of time until the building exploded, and she was waiting for the blast to kill them before they could get out of range. But it never did. They made it to the cars and jumped in, Juniper finding Daryl already in his truck, the engine running. She wondered what the group was waiting for, but then she saw them. Dale and Andrea, climbing out of the window and then running towards the cars. Had they been planning on staying? Not that Juniper could blame them. If they wanted an end, that was their choice...

The RV's horn started beeping, and Juniper saw Lori lean out of the window, yelling at the stragglers. She didn't hear what was said, but she didn't need to as Daryl yelled it too as he grabbed June's shoulder and pulled her down. "Get your head down!"

June obeyed, covering her head with her hands as she ducked down across the middle seat with Daryl, her eyes closed as she waited for the blast. This time it didn't disappoint, though she felt it before she heard it, the ground rumbling beneath the truck before an almighty assault on her ears of breaking glass and shattered concrete, quickly followed by an intense heat that warmed her back, even with the amount of ground between the destroyed building and their parked cars.

After a few seconds, only the sound of crackling fires could be heard, so June warily lifted her head and looked outside. Where the building had been only seconds before, now stood a huge pile of rubble and broken glass. Trees and cars surrounding the site were on fire, their smoke joining the massive column of it erupting from the ruins of the CDC.

"Shit man," she breathed, hearing Daryl grunt his agreement from beside her. The place was totalled that fast... And they'd all almost been inside when it happened. Jenner had been. She shook her head at the surreality of it all.

As she watched the flames and the smoke rise into the sky, she thought back to what she'd screamed at Jenner back in the lab, allowing herself one second to wonder if she'd been wrong. Would the day ever come when she wished that she'd stayed? Would the world ever beat her down so bad that she agreed with Jenner about no hope? She had to wonder, and for a full second she did. But then Daryl put the truck in gear and the world was moving again. She didn't have time to think about the future, because all that mattered now was right then. 

That was the only way they were going to survive it all. 

One day at a time.