~Rick~

"Rick."

I turn as I hear Daryl's voice behind me, and realize that it's now or never. He's going to find out about his sister and Carol. "Hershel said to talk to you about them," he says. "Clary and Carol."

"I need you to read this first," I say, handing him the note from Clary. He opens it, and I see his eyes widen as he recognizes his sister's handwriting. He turns away as he reads down the page, and I think I catch him wiping his eyes once, but I pretend not to notice. He turns to me, tucking it in a pocket in his shirt. Just over his heart, I notice.

"It was them?"

I nod. "They admitted to it. Said they did it to protect us."

"And you kicked them out anyway."

"No, that's not why I kicked them out."

"You couldn't have waited until we got back?"

He's starting to sound almost furious now. I say, "You mean until Tyreese got back?"

"Man, I could've handled that."

"Hey. Hey," I say, forcing him to face me. "They killed two of our own. They couldn't be here. I don't care if one of 'em is your sister or not." Daryl looks like he's about to punch me as I continue, "They're gonna be alright. They've got a car, supplies, weapons. They're survivors."

"Stop sayin' that like you don't believe it," Daryl snaps, getting in my face.

I glance down as he steps away. "They did it. They said it was for us. That's how it was in their heads. They weren't sorry."

"That's her, but it ain't her," Daryl says, and I'm not sure if he's talking about Carol or Clary. He sighs, turning away. "What are we supposed to do about those two girls?"

"I told Carol we'd look after them," I answer. Daryl leans against the railing, resting his head on his hands. "I haven't told Tyreese yet. I don't know how he's gonna take it."

"Let's go find out," Daryl replies, standing. I follow him down the stairs and out of the cell block, looking for Tyreese. "I keep wondering," I say, "why you haven't punched me yet."

"You want me to?" Daryl replies, completely serious.

"Well, no, not really."

"It's because she asked me not to," Daryl says after a moment. "Clary. She asked me not to hurt you. But I think it was more for Carl than you."

As much as I want to grin, or chuckle, I don't, because while it seems like he's joking, he's dead serious. After a moment, Daryl says, "And you're wrong. She is sorry." I look at him doubtfully, and he shoves the note at me. "Here, read it for yourself."

As we walk, I read Clary's note, her goodbye to her brother. I can almost hear her voice, reading it aloud, as I read the written words.

Daryl,

If you're reading this, then it means you've talked to Rick. It means that you now know who killed Karen and David. The answer is us. Carol and I. You know that I killed Karen. It wasn't in cold blood. We did it to try to stop it from spreading. Did a hell of a lot of good, didn't it?

Look, Daryl, I hate that I did it. I really do. It's not like back on the farm, when we were in town, and I killed Tony. That was defense, and also to protect my friends, my family. This time, it wasn't defense. But I was trying to protect my family. I truly hate what I did. I hate hurting Ty, and for damning Carol to share my fate, which I know will be a gruesome death, out here alone.

I'm sorry. For all of it. For everything that I've ever done. For killing Karen. Hurting Ty. Leaving my blood behind.

Rick's banishing us from the prison. Bit ironic, ain't it? Being banished from a prison for committing a crime? I know how you are, a hell of a lot better than most people. I know that you'll want to hurt Rick, but I need to ask you not to. As hard as it may be, please don't. I beg you, Daryl.

So, yeah, I'm leaving the prison. This means that I won't be seeing you again. Ever. So, I just want to say, thank you for all that you've done for me. And... I love you.

Though it will be in your heart, I'm afraid, I'll stay with you. Until the very end.

Cheyenne

I feel like I'm invading a private moment as I read her letter. I never saw this side of Clary before, not once. I look over at Daryl, gently handing him the letter back. He folds it and sticks it back in his pocket, over his heart. "Cheyenne," I say, remembering it was on the paper. "She signed it Cheyenne."

"Her name," Daryl replies. "The one that I chose for her. Cheyenne Clarissa Dixon."

I'm quiet, realizing just how much Clary means to him, and the other way around. You can't see one without the other. In some ways, there opposites, but they're also the same. They're the sun and the moon, the light and the dark. Night and day. Different, but the same. It's not natural seeing them apart. They're two sides of the same coin.

"Tyreese?" I call as we enter a section of the tombs. "You down here?"

"Rick? That you?" he replies. We meet him halfway, and before I can say anything, he says, "You guys gotta see this."

"Can we take a beat?" I ask. "There's something we need to talk about."

He turns and walks off, and Daryl and I have no choice but to follow. Tyreese leads us down through the tombs, and shines his flashlight on something at the bottom of the wall. "Look," he says.

"The hell?" Daryl questions, stepping closer. I look at it, and realize that it's a small animal pinned to a board. It's been dissected, like some lab experiment.

"I was just looking for answers," Tyreese explains. "And I found this. Same person that killed Karen and David did this. Remember the rats at the fence? They showed up the same day she was killed. We got a psychopath living with us."

"Tyreese," I say, starting to explain.

"We gotta find him, Rick. And I'm not gonna sleep until we do."

"Tyreese," I say. "Whoever did this, I don't think that's who killed Karen."

He looks down at the dissected rabbit, then back at me. "Why?"

Before I can answer, there's an explosion in the distance.

~Clary~

"Oh, shit," I hiss, hearing the explosion. I run forward, keeping to the trees, and make it to the clearing that I know holds the prison. I stop in my tracks, seeing an armed militia—with a tank—facing the prison. A man stands on the top the tank, and he calls, "Rick! Come down here. We need to talk."

I instantly know that voice, and it makes my blood run cold.

It's the goddamn Governor.

"Oh, shit," I say again.

"It's not up to me!" Rick calls back. "There's a council now. They run this place."

"Is Hershel on the council?" the Governor inquires, and I watch as a goon pulls the old man out of a truck. "What about Michonne? She on the council too?"

A second follower pulls Michonne out of the truck. They make them kneel side by side, standing behind them with heavy-duty automatic machine guns. "I don't make decisions anymore," Rick calls.

"Bullshit," I mutter.

"You're making the decisions today, Rick," the Governor replies. "Come down here. Let's have that talk."

The former leader looks to Daryl for the answer. My brother nods. Rick pats Carl's shoulder before Daryl opens the gate for him, allowing the officer to walk down to them. "Let 'em go," Rick says as soon as he stops. "Right now. I'll stay down here. Talk as long as you want. But you let 'em go. You got a tank, you don't need hostages."

"I do," the Governor argues. "This is just to show you I'm serious. Not to blast a hole in our new home. You and your people, you have till sundown to get out of here or they die."

Son of a bitch, I think. He is serious.

"Doesn't have to go down this way," Rick replies.

"I got more people, more firepower," the Governor states. "We need this prison. There it is. It's not about the past. It's about right now."

"There are children here. Some of them are sick. They won't survive."

"I have a tank," the Governor reiterates. Yes, we know. "And I'm letting you walk away from here. What else is there to talk about?" I watch as Daryl begins to hand out guns to our people. "I could shoot you all. You'd all shoot back. I know that. But we'll win and you'll be dead. All of you. Doesn't have to be like that. Like I said, it's your choice." I hear walkers snarling, which grabs the Governor's attention. I flinch slightly when gunshots ring out, thinking that he means to shoot the hostages. Instead, the snarling stops when there are two thumps. "Noise will only draw more of them over. The longer you wait, the harder it will be for you to get out do here.

"You got maybe an hour of sunlight left. I suggest you start packing." Rick looks down. "The longer you wait, the harder it's gonna be for you to get out of here."

Rick looks back up. "We can all... We can all live together. There's enough room for all of us."

"More than enough," the Governor agrees. "But I don't think my family would sleep well knowing that you were under the same roof."

"We'd live in different cell blocks. We'd never have to see each other till we're all ready."

Hershel looks over his shoulder at the Governor. "It could work," the farmer says. "You know it could."

"It could've," the Governor says. "But it can't. Not after Woodbury. Not after Andrea."

Michonne stiffens at the mention of the woman she rescued and grew close to. "Look, I'm not saying it's gonna be easy," Rick says. "Fact is, it's gonna be a hell of a lot harder than standing here shooting at each other. But I don't think we have a choice."

"We don't. You do."

"We're not leaving. You try and force us, we'll fight back. Like you said, the gunshots will just bring more of 'em out. They'll take down the fences. Without the fences this place is worthless. Now, we can all live in the prison or none of us can."

The Governor jumps down from the tank, and I flinch slightly when I see him unsheathe Michonne's katana. This won't end well, I know it. "We'll fix the damn fences," he says, then puts the katana to Hershel's neck.

Rick points to one of the Governor's goons. "You. You in the ponytails. Is this what you want?" He spreads his arms, gesturing to the full militia. "Is this what any of you want?"

"What we want is what you got," answers the guy in the tank. "Period. Time for you to leave, asshole."

"Look, I fought him before. And after, we took in his old friends. They've become leaders in what we have here. Now you put down your weapons, walk through those gates... you're one of us. We let go of all of it, and nobody dies. Everyone who's alive right now. Everyone who's made it this far. We've done the worst kinds of things just to stay alive. But we can still come back. We're not too far gone. We get to come back. I know... we all can change. "

Hershel smiles as Rick speaks. The Governor removes the katana, which gleams in the sunlight. "Liar," he breathes.

Then, it's almost as if the world stops spinning for a moment.

He swings the katana, partially decapitating Hershel. "No!" I scream, mine mixing with those of Maggie and Beth.

"No!" Rick yells, and fires the first shot.

"You motherfucker!" I exclaim, pulling out my own gun as bullets begin to fly. I fire at the Governor, but can't get a decent shot. I follow through the woods as he goes around the tank, and freeze as I see him kneel next to Hershel. I can only watch, frozen in shock and horror, as he finishes Hershel off, fully decapitating the old man. I don't even realize I have the perfect opportunity to finish my job, my mission. Then, I watch as a dark haired woman appears, carrying a blonde girl about twelve years old. "Sophia," I whisper.

It takes a moment for me to realize that it's not Sophia, but another girl, leaving her mother childless. I watch as the Governor takes her in his arms, putting a bullet through her brain to keep her from reanimating.

"Go through the fences in your cars," the Governor orders, turning to his forces. "Get your guns, go in. Kill them all."

He turns, and sees me standing there. The Governor doesn't raise his gun, but I do. I don't aim it at him, but at the woman that just lost her child. I fire, wincing as I do. She drops to the ground, and I know I spared her the pain of living while her daughter's dead. The Governor doesn't say anything, still doesn't raise his gun. He stares straight at me, both of us ignoring the bullets raining down. Then, he says, "I'm gonna kill your entire group. While you watch."

And he lets me live.

~Daryl~

I'd been in a few firefights before, but never a full out battle. As soon as Rick fired the first shot, Carl and I followed quickly. We fire down at the Governor's forces, careful not to hit Michonne as she rolls out of the line of fire. I see Rick go down behind the bus that Clary and I kept watch on our first night at the prison, and see him put his hand over his leg, where he was shot.

We can only watch as the tank rolls forward, pushing down the fences we worked so damn hard to keep up. Carl and I separate, driven apart by bullets. The tank blasts apart the prison, sending some diving for cover. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Rick tackling the Governor, throwing punches. I stand behind sections of filing cabinets, using them for cover, as I exchange gunfire with at least three members of the militia.

I'm not on the look out for walkers, and I should be, because one appears next to me. I grab an iron rod that's beside me, killing it, and use the walker as a shield as I make my way forward. I pull the pin on a grenade, tossing it at the impromptu soldiers. I pull a pin on a second grenade, tossing it down the shaft of the tank. "Grenade!" the guy inside yells, climbing out.

He jumps down from the tank as the inside explodes, the force of it making him fall. When he stands, I'm there, waiting for him. He raises his hand in surrender, but I pretend not to see it as I fire my crossbow. Beth runs up beside me as he falls to the ground, my bolt in his heart. "I was trying to find the kids to get them on the bus," she explains.

"We gotta go, Beth," I tell her. "We gotta go."

And we turn and run off together, away from the prison, the only home I ever knew. The only place that I felt I truly belonged, where I got to be myself.

~Rick~

The Governor and I roll on the ground, and he comes up on top. He continues to punch me, though we're both losing our energy. He puts his hands around my neck, choking me, and I'm too weak to fight him off. He presses harder into my throat, and the pain is the only thing that I'm aware of as my vision starts to go black. Suddenly, the Governor gasps in pain, letting go of me. I see a sword sticking through him, and instantly recognize it as Michonne's.

She pulls her sword out of the mass murderer's chest, and he falls to the side, one hand over his punctured lung. I gasp for air, and somehow manage, "Carl? Where's Carl?"

"I don't know," Michonne replies, helping me to my feet. I stumble away from her, going to try to find Carl. I make my way up to the courtyard, calling, "Carl!" the entire way. My leg gives out from under me, and I slide, gasping in pain. I get back to my feet, yelling, "Carl!"

I make it up to the tank, and see two walkers coming around it. They stumble towards me, and two gunshots ring out in the otherwise now quiet atmosphere. The two walkers drop to the ground, and I see Carl standing behind them. "Carl!" I cry, and he runs to meet me.

I hug him close, crying on his shoulder in relief of finding him alive. "Dad," he says, his voice muffled by my shirt. "I couldn't find Clary."

"She might have already been on the bus," I lie, feeling bad as I do it. I mean, I felt bad lying to him about it earlier, but now, I feel even worse. I ask, "Where's Judy?"

"I don't know," he admits, pulling back and looking at me. He breaks away, turning to where Judith's baby carrier lays. Judith's baby carrier! We go over to it, only to find what I had been dreading. Blood, no baby. Carl stares at it in horror, and I break down. A lone walker starts to make its way towards us, and Carl turns, firing at the walker.

It goes down on the first shot, but my son makes his way over, unloading all of his ammunition into the walker in frustration. Even though the shotgun is empty, he continues shooting until I wrap my arms around him to stop him. He doubles over, sobbing. "We need to go," I say to my son, and he stands, still sobbing. "It's over. It's over."

I use him as a crutch as we walk away from the prison. We come to where I first observed the prison with Daryl and Clary, when it was overrun by walkers, just like it is now. Carl starts to look back, but I stop him. "Don't look back, Carl," I say, and he looks ahead. "Just keep walking."

~Clary~

Up ahead, I see Michonne stick her sword through the Governor's back, and he falls onto his back once she pulls it out. She helps Rick to his feet, and he stumbles towards the courtyard. Michonne looks back down at the man that killed her best friend, then turns and walks away. I lose track of her and of Rick through all the walkers and the smoke, through the destruction.

I start forward, then stop when I step on something. I look down, and see a white chess piece lying there. I pick it up, and see that it's the king, drawn with an eye patch. It's the goddamn Governor. For some reason, I take it with me as I make my way forward. I reach my destination, staring down at the Governor. I throw the chess piece down at him, and it lands on his chest, over his heart. I raise my gun, aimed at his head. He stares up at me, his remaining eye somewhat glassy from the pain but he still sees me.

"You tortured Glenn, Maggie, me. You killed Jesse, Andrea... Merle," I accuse. I meet his gaze, relishing in the fact that after all this time, it's me that'll end it. "The Dixons send their regards."

And I fire the final bullet.