The library has some of the cleanest windows in the prison, always has, and so it also has some of the whitest, most alive light. But even as that pretty light falls onto the three fresh gashes in my left forearm, it can't change what they are. How ugly they are. The red inside of them is spreading to the outside, and when Dad taps the darkening skin, it hurts.

"Might be gettin' infected," he says. "Hershel's gonna look at 'em later."

I don't argue, and Dad pops open the first-aid kit we brought in here. At first, he was going to change my bandages in our cells in the tombs, but I asked if we could do it in here instead. I hate the tombs. "Least we got them antibiotics now," he says as he digs for what he wants. "Sure we got somethin' that could help clean this up."

"No – we shouldn't waste any of that on me."

"Ain't a waste, Sydney."

"That's not what I meant."

He picks out a bottle of something, no nice and cool cream this time. Clearly it didn't do its job very well, anyway. Dad fills the bottle's cap up and I shift in my seat. "Been thinkin' bout what you said last night. 'Bout how I gotta try?" He dumps some of the disinfectant into one of the gashes and it burns, and I flinch but keep going. "Well, I am trying. I mean, I've started to."

"Yeah. I heard." He glances at me in between filling up the bottle cap again and pouring it over the second gash. "Back in Black's a better record, though."

"Ow – That's BS."

The corners of his mouth lift up, I think, just for a flash. He fills the bottle cap one more time and pours it over the last gash and the worst part is over. "Talk to Carl any?"

"Yeah."

"You still fightin'?"

"No."

He starts to unravel some clean bandage from the roll. "And he thinks you're his girlfriend, huh?"

I freeze. Oh, God. There's no way he can know about last night, is there? He would've woken us up –"

"Yeah," Dad says, taking my arm in hand again. "Don't think I've forgotten 'bout that."

Oh. Right. He means what Carl said, before Dad and I left on the run. I swallow and watch the bandage roll circle around and around my arm, trying to decide how to put this, and about the same time as the gashes are all hidden away, I mutter, "We both think that, Dad."

He snorts. "Well, I think you're too young for all that crap."

"I'm too young for a lotta crap."

"Just 'cause you gotta break some rules don't mean you should break 'em all." He pauses, leaving my arm half-bandaged. I would be content with keeping on looking at it, my half-bandaged arm, for all the rest of the day if only to not have to talk about this, but I can feel Dad eyeing me. So of course I eye him back.

"Look, this ain't no surprise," he says, sounding softer than before, at least. "The two of you thinkin' you're gonna get together. Seen it comin' for a long time, we all have."

A flush starts on the back of my neck. That's just wonderful to hear.

Dad goes around my arm with the bandage one time, slow, and then stops again. "Just always figured you'd be older when we had to have this conversation."

"What conversation? Dad –" Why does this bother him? If he and everyone else in the world have seen it coming, then shouldn't he – shouldn't all of them – understand? "It's – it's Carl. He's my best friend. He's not gonna do anything to . . ." I sigh. I look Dad right in the eye, though. "He's Carl."

And Dad, his lips get all tight, but he nods once. "I know. And if it's gotta be anybody, might as well be him. Just . . ."

"What?"

He doesn't answer right away. Finishes wrapping my arm first. But while he's pinning all the bandages into place, he says, "You do get that you're twelve years old, right? I mean, you understand that there's some stuff that ain't up for debate, stuff that you're absolutely too young for –?"

I flinch when it hits me, what he's saying. "Dad. God. Yes. I mean, no. No. We're not – no."

"Good."

That flush on the back of my neck has turned to a fire on my damn face.

"And by the way, what the hell?" He sticks the last pin into the binding. "Thought I's your best friend?"

"Yeah, well . . . You broke my sunglasses."

"That what killed me?"

"That's what killed ya."

"Hm." And there go the corners of his mouth again, up for just a blink of an eye, down just as fast. Dad doesn't flat-out smile much anymore. I mean, his smiles were always a little hard to come by. But now they're damn near extinct.

And this time, the corners of his mouth don't just go down back to normal, they go down about a hair too much. So then I check his eyes. Can't tell for sure – it's hard to tell what other people's eyes are doing – but I would say they're going up and down my arm. Because those three gashes might be hidden away, but they have lots of friends, friends that form a tower of awful memories – from my inner elbow to my wrist, my skin is ruined. I ruined it.

Dad strokes his thumb across some of the scars, but it's too tender for what this arm has been through and I can't deal with it yet. I'm not ready to try this hard.

"Dad."

He understands. He understands me so well, better maybe than what I've been giving him credit for lately. He lets go of my arm but gets hold of me again just as fast, only this time it's his whole arm around my neck. I breathe in his old leather vest.

"I need to keep an eye on you today?" he asks.

"No."

"You swear?"

"Yeah, Dad."

Someone calls his name then, from out in the hall. Rick. Dad lets me go, rubs an eye, gets to his feet. He looks tired. "In here."

Rick appears in the doorway. He takes in my dad first, then me, then my arm, and I automatically reach for my overshirt. "Everything okay?"

My dad says yeah and Rick doesn't push it any further. I feel a rush of fondness for him. He's one of my few constants, Rick, and he's been good to Dad and me. And to Carl, for the most part.

"Daryl, I need to talk to you about somethin'."

Which is my cue to leave. So I stand, I push my arms through the shirt, I get my bow and arrows, and I ask Rick if he knows where Carl is.

"I think he was goin' to the administration building, to check on Judith."

I go, but when I'm in the doorway, I glance back and meet Dad's eyes. He gives me a nod. I nod back and I'm gone.

The stench of walkers still clings to the air in the courtyard, but I don't mind as much as most people probably do. I figure that smell always finds you, wherever you go. And anyway, little things like that won't get me down today. Today is going to be a good day, I'll make sure of it.

I don't stay in the courtyard for long, no, I go into the administration building, to the lower floor, where I know Carl will be. Now that he's been exposed, he won't go right in to see Judith, which is why I find him standing at the end of one of the hallways, outside of a door with one of those foggy windows that don't let you see things clearly, just lets you see colorful shapes. Behind the window right now is the shape of a person, a person with blonde hair.

"Hey. What's goin' on?"

Carl straightens and gestures. "Talkin' to Beth. About Judith."

"She doin' okay?"

"Yeah."

"Good." I stand by him, all close again. He gives a crooked smile and I give him one back. "Hey, Beth," I call through the door. "She sayin' Sydney yet? I've got money on that bein' her first word."

"I'll get right on that," comes the muffled answer.

"No way," says Carl. "No way! Hey, Judy? Judy, say Carl. Say Carl, Judy!"

I push him into the wall, cover his mouth. "Say Sydney! C'mon! Say –"

Carl tickles my ribs, gets my arm off of him. This is why I'm laughing when the BOOM happens. The BOOM shakes the ground and the walls and me and the laugh dies.

Beth asks What was that? but I don't hear if Carl answers. I'm running before the BOOM has fully faded.

I burst into the courtyard before anyone else, I think. It smells like death out here. But the smell of death doesn't bother me, right? Because I've smelled it so much before? Because it always finds you?

Other people appear around me as I run, they're running too, we're all running to see, but I don't bother with them because they know as much or less than I do, and I'm the first to reach the courtyard fence. I'm the first to get to see.

Six vehicles sit outside of our fence, pointing towards it, towards our home. It's not the vehicles that I'm concerned with, though. The vehicles are crawling with people, but that's not what I'm concerned with, either. In the center of the vehicles is a tank. A real, military tank.

But it's not even the tank I'm concerned with, God help me.

On top of the tank stands a man.

People surround me. My family surrounds me. And, in my chest, a fog forms and rolls and spreads through me, ice cold, and lets me know that some of them will probably die today. Not because of the vehicles or all of the people or the tank. Because of the man.

I must be having a bad dream.

And then his shout comes from below and I close my eyes while the fog inside of me begins to warm, billowing to every last inch of my body and heating and heating . . .

Yes, a bad dream.

"Rick!"

You don't know what pain is. You have no. Idea.

"Come down here!"

But you will. You will.

Wake up.

"We need to talk!"

. . . . .

– and then the Governor's in front of me and blocking my view and his hand is choking me and his eye is level with mine and the Governor's touching my face and I hear my dad yelling but not as well as I hear the Governor mutter –

. . . . .

It's not a bad dream.

But it's the start of a nightmare.

. . . . .

"This is what pain is."