He slid the gates open, watching the walkers standing around them. They rushed in, Michonne sliding the walker off of her sword before closing the gates behind her. Rick checked the gates and led them through an expansive yard.

"What happened to you…? Rick asked, Sage wanted to stab him because really although she had made the decision to stay, it was his fault.

"Well since you had to handcuff Merle to that roof, I stayed to help him. Which you already knew…"

"I'm sorry, he was out of control, and you knew that."

"Then we were saved by some mercenaries it seemed but uh, things went bad after that and well, basically an hour ago Merle took me to go kill Michonne," Sage motioned to Michonne who had her head down, "I had no idea I thought we were just going to kill walkers but um then me and Michonne escaped and well um Merle took Glenn and this other girl and…" Rick looked at her accusingly.

"Why didn't you help them?"

"Uh… I… I thought it would be better to not just have Michonne killed and then have me brought back to hell where I would most likely be killed and there was no chance of saving them. We needed to send real help." Rick sighed. "We know where they are, we know how to get in…"

"You won't be doing anything now by the looks of you." Sage then took the time to look at her knees, blood was pooling into her boots and the knees of her pants were completely torn off. They approached another gate, Rick opened it with a set of keys he had and then brought them to a door, Sage stopped him, putting her hand on the door and slowly closing it.

"Look, I don't really want to see Daryl so um…" Rick raised an eyebrow, Daryl had done everything in his power to save her, even more than he did so his brother.

"He needs to know you're alive…"

"Not before we know Glenn and…"

"Maggie"

"We need to get them safe first okay?" Rick nodded.

"I'll get Hershall and have him fix you up somewhere else okay?" Sage nodded, she now knew less than half of the group it seemed so far. He brought them through a door, bringing them into a small room between a cell block and a hallway, he entered the cell block, holding the door after him and motioning to an older man on crutches. He whispered something to him and then went into the cell block.

"Rick tells me you're a friend." He smiled sitting down at a nearby picnic table-like set up. "Hop up here so I can look at those knees okay?" She walked over to him, sitting on the table in front of him. "You messed yourself up pretty bad huh?"

"I guess so…"

"Here let me go get a first aid kit."

…

Rick walked into the cell block, motioning to Daryl who was idly playing with an arrow. Even though he was going against her requests, he had to tell Daryl no matter how indebted he was to her. Daryl got up walking over to him, he moved over to the stairs sitting on them. Rick stood over him.

"We need to talk…" Daryl raised an eyebrow, putting down the arrow he had next to him.

"Yeah?"

"I just found two girls at the outside gates and…" Daryl started to get up, Rick put a hand on his chest, pushing him back down.

"Rick they could be dangerous!"

"Trust me they're not… Look this goes far beyond two possible intruders…" Daryl looked helplessly confused.

"Unhuh? Well what's up then?"

"They were there when Glenn and Maggie were taken by a man who had tried to kill one of them and we presume hurt the other…"

"What are we waiting for then? Let's go."

"Daryl… it was Merle..."

"No. They're lying, you know that."

"There's a woman named Michonne out there that Merle had tried to kill… and um Sage is with her, she wasn't lying…" Daryl shot up, pushing past Rick but before he had gotten to the other end of the cell block Rick pulled him back.

"She doesn't want to see you…"

"What are you talking about?"

"She told me she wants to find Glenn and Maggie first before we get involved in what happened in Atlanta, and before that for your matter…"

"Rick..."

"I can talk to her once Hershall fixes her up a bit…"

"What happened to her?" Daryl was almost shouting at this point, and everyone was staring at them from inside of their cell blocks.

"Let's go upstairs eh?"

"No what happened to her?" he demanded his hands balling into fists.

"She just scraped her knees up a little bit she'll be fine."

"What are you talking about she'll be fine! You left her in Atlanta!"

"You need to calm down…" Daryl's chest was rising and falling at a rapid rate, he stood still trying to determine whether he should listen to Rick or go find her.

"You left my brother handcuffed to a rooftop and you left her there with him!" Rick gave in; he needed Daryl on his side he couldn't be fighting against him.

"Go ahead." Rick murmured motioning to the front entrance of the cell block. Daryl ripped the keys from his hands and undid the lock, walking over to Sage in a hostile manner, stopping as he saw her for the first time in what seemed like ten years. He remembered his dream, pushing her on the swing set in their old neighborhood, where he accidentally knocked her over, giving her a skinned knee before they retired to their childhood houses, his right next to hers. But now both of her knees were horrifically skinned and he could not think of one thing to do to make up for not being able to protect her. So he stood watching her as she stared at him.

"Daryl good thing you're here, could you help me with her? I'm going to fix up Michonne." Daryl didn't move. "Here just keep dabbing at the cuts with this," He handed him a large piece of gauze with alcohol and blood on it. "And when it looks clean just wrap it with the gauze on the table okay?" Daryl finally moved, sitting on the bench with her feet in between his legs. Hershall had cut her pants into shorts so he could clean her wounds better and her boots had been removed, her white socks only had small spots of blood on them. He pressed the gauze to her left knee and she cringed, he hesitated. She laughed, the exact same laugh he had heard in his dream.

"Don't worry about it, it doesn't hurt that bad." He looked up at her and she was smiling, her curly brown hair, which was remarkably clean, shifted forward into her face as she leaned down to look at him. He was between hating her for accusing Merle after all of the things that they had done before, and killing Merle for just the small possibility of ever hurting her. And then he realized it was Merle's fault, the way she smiled wasn't the way a liar would and after all she did stay on that rooftop with him, she saved him and damned herself in the process.

"What'd Merle do to you…?" Her face turned stoic, "Rick told me that he thought he had done something… I'm sorry…" She smiled again, looking up.

"That's for another time okay?" He didn't want it to be, of course he didn't he wanted to know now.

"Why?"

"Because if we go to save Glenn and Maggie… and Merle's there well I don't want you to decide to leave him there because of what I have to say…" Anger was starting to spread through his body as he tried to focus his attention on her knees and them only; he began to wrap her left knee.

"I need to know." He muttered with a hard jaw as Sage silently watched him fix her knee. She exhaled audibly.

"Can we please do this later? Please…" Daryl hurriedly finished bandaging her legs and, helping her walk, brought her out into the courtyard they were in before. She tried to think of anything she could just blurt out, anything to tell him so he wouldn't ask her anything, and so she wouldn't have to answer.

"Remember when this all started?" She looked down. He laughed.

"Sage, our mothers were best friends… hell we were even born on the same day. Don't think I can't figure out when you're avoiding me." Well that did not work, she thought.

"Yes and you and Merle were the best thing that ever happened to me when the world went to hell, so you have to understand why I can't just tell on Merle…" Daryl scoffed, he never thought that the day he would see her again he would be so pissed at her. He stopped her, turning to face her.

"I need to know... Did he do that to your face?"

"No um I…"

"Don't lie to me."

"Okay yes but…"

"So tell me what he did!"

"He protected me, yes I paid for it but it would've been a lot worse if I didn't…"

"What do you mean?"

"He knew that I was planning to leave the settlement we ended up in, he knew that I even had ways to obtain all of the weapons and bring their leader down, he knew that I was not loyal and I would be killed for it. So he protected me, but it came at a price and that's really all you need to know. He was helping me Daryl."

"You are such a liar…"

"What do you want Daryl? I know you, you'd choose your family over anyone else and I'm just trying to make it possible for us to all be together!"

"You know that's not true…"

"What do you want then?"

"Just tell me"

"We've been through worse together…"

"Yes but we weren't together, I couldn't help you this time…"

"So there's no harm in not knowing… it happened but it's over…"

"Tell me okay?" Daryl was practically screaming.

"Please…" He couldn't help but be confused, he had never seen her so distraught in his life.

"I… I don't want to make you upset but I just… I need to know." She walked over to a patch of grass on the lawn and laid down on it, he followed her sitting next to her.

"Just please don't be mad…"

"How could I be mad…?"

"Just… never mind." She started pulling individual blades of grass out of the lawn, trying to get the courage to tell him but I guess she had to eventually. "He um… well it started when he first found out what I had been doing and he sort of cornered me and told me all of this stuff about how when we were growing up he was jealous of you, how we were best friends and eventually he got to saying how he could never get over how jealous he was when he um… when he found out we had y'know had sex when we were teenagers… and uh he was saying all this crazy stuff about how since he had all this evidence against me he could use it against me so that I would have sex with him too… and then he acted on it." Daryl's head was spinning, he laid down next to her on the grass, putting his hand over hers and he knew that it felt forced but he hadn't shown anyone any sort of affection in years.

"I'm sorry…"

"No it, it kept me alive. At least he didn't tell…"

"How can you be thankful that my brother raped you…?"

"I couldn't do anything about it… I would've died…"

"I can fix this…"