I wake up first. I roll out from Carl's arm, careful not to wake him. Rick's still on the couch. Dim light comes through the windows.

I grab a water bottle, go to the bathroom, hopeful. I get lucky. There's a half a tube of toothpaste in a drawer, among other used bathroom supplies. I put some of the stuff on my finger, dribble water over it, do the best I can do with that. When I finish, I start to look in the mirror, change my mind, pull my hair into a ponytail and go back to the living room. Carl has always looked his best asleep, so I wait a minute, just taking what enjoyment I can out of his soft expression, before I wake him, brushing the hair off of his face, being as gentle as I feel up to being. "Hey."

His eyes crack open, find me, he rubs them. "What's goin' on?"

"I'm goin' huntin'."

He sighs and pushes himself up. "Not by yourself."

"Yes, by myself."

"Sydney –"

"I'm better alone. We should search some of the houses, too, so I won't be long. I'll just see what I can see."

"Please let me come."

I kiss him. It's only the second time we've kissed, but it seems natural, easy. Just like the first did. "I won't be long," I say again, and then I get my bow and arrows and leave. I'm out the back door when it suddenly hits me that I don't have my revolver. I left it at the prison. And my knives were confiscated the night before the attack. I tighten my grip on my bow.

The pink sky and the cool air are comforting. The neighborhood is not. It's a ghost town, but not a cool one, like in the movies or Scooby-Doo, because, well, it's not really a ghost town – it belongs to a different sort of monster. A worse one. When I'm right outside of the house, I see one down the street, not busy with anything in particular. I leave it be and make for the railroad tracks, go into the forest – but no, I don't, not right away. I hang on the edge of it for a minute, looking for walkers, then just looking. I swallow. I woke up craving this, but maybe –

Over there, a stone's throw away, a branch high on a pine. A fluffy tail, teasing me.

I breathe and stop thinking. From here on out, it's all instinct, and instinct draws me in.

. . . . .

Like I promised him, I'm back fast. In under an hour. I have nothing to show for my trouble. I thought about staying out until I got something, but we have food, so I decided against it. Anyway. I got my fix. Or whatever.

I come in through the house the same way I left, the back door. A bowl of cereal is in the sink, the bag and another bowl are on the table. I sigh at them, knowing I'll have to eat sooner or later. And I will, in a minute. Right now I call out Carl's name, softly. No answer, so I check the living room. Rick's still asleep, but the cushion-bed is empty, and Carl's hat and gun are gone. My palms begin to sweat. I whisper-yell for him again. "Carl! Carl!"

Nothing. I go to Rick, shake him. "Rick. Rick? Hey!"

When his eyes don't open, I shake him harder, say his name louder, but nothing, nothing, nothing. My throat goes dry, I press my ear to his chest, hear a heartbeat, but I also hear the air moving in and out of his lungs, sounding more like water than oxygen, and a person's lungs should not make that sound.

"Rick?" I say one more time, desperately, then I back away. "Damn it – Carl!"

I check the bathroom, nothing. I go upstairs, into the teen's room. Nothing. I'm in the middle of a string of swear words when I hear faint noise below – the back door opening. I make for the stairs, but just as I reach them, I hear him talking, Carl – he's fine, he's alive, but something in his tone makes me stop short.

"I killed three walkers. They were at the door. They were gonna get in, but I lured them away."

I press my hand into the wall and promise myself that I will never, ever leave him alone again.

But he wasn't alone.

"I killed them," Carl says. His voice begins to grow, the words get fuller. "I saved you. I saved you! I didn't forget while you had us playing farmer . . . I still know how to survive, lucky for us."

Without really meaning to, I begin down the stairs. I'm tip-toeing. I shouldn't be listening.

"I don't need you anymore. I don't need you to protect me anymore. I can take care of myself. I can take care of Sydney. You probably can't even protect me anyways, you couldn't protect Judith!"

I flinch. My whole body flinches. But it keeps going. To the bottom floor. To the kitchen.

"You couldn't protect –" He takes a break, takes a breath. The cereal on the table disgusts me. I reach the door, the archway, that connects the kitchen to the living room. I see him, see his back, he's facing the couch, shoulders up, fists clenched, spine curled. His dad's still on the couch, still exactly like I left him.

"Hershel," Carl says. "Or Glenn. Or Maggie. Michonne, Daryl!"

I brace myself, because the real blow is coming. His ace in the hole.

"Or Mom."

There.

"You just wanted to plant vegetables. You just wanted to hide! He knew where we were, and you didn't care! You just hid behind those fences, and waited for . . . They're all gone now! Because of you! They counted on you! You were their leader!"

And then, he sinks to the ground, my boyfriend, my best friend. He wraps his arms around his knees. "But now . . . you're nothing. And I'd be fine if you died."

His head falls. The end.

I stand in the doorway for a very long time, my arms crossed. I watch Carl for a while, then I watch Rick for a while longer. I study his dirty face, his dysfunctional body. Our fearless leader.

I don't notice how tightly I'm clenching my arms until my fingers go numb.

. . . . .

Before Carl can realize I'm here, I retreat into the kitchen, open and shut the door. "Carl? You up?"

I hear him sniff. He appears in the archway soon after, hat titled low, protecting his eyes with a shadow. "Hey. Everything okay?"

"Yeah. Didn't get a damn thing, though."

"Can't remember you ever coming back empty-handed." He tries a smile.

"Yeah, well, don't get used to it." I clear my throat, nod at the living room. "All good here?"

He hesitates. "Yeah. Let's search the neighborhood."

"No rush."

"Let's just go."

He gets the canvas sack we hauled the food in yesterday, empties it out, and outside we go, to become part of the – the walker town. It makes me sad to think that this is the kind of neighborhood I would have liked to live in. It's not quite suburban, not the type of suburban I grew up knowing, anyway – the houses are spaced too far apart, and nearly all of them have at least two stories and a porch with a roof. They remind me of the farmhouse. Carl and I are just a little ways down the street before I jerk my head at a place with an overgrown patch of flowers. Lessons long learned force me to keep us close to home base, no matter who's there.

There's a sidewalk up to the front porch. On the way, he stops and bends down to one of those yard lights, the kind you drive into the soil.

"What're you doing?"

"I need something quiet." He yanks on the light a few times, and soon the soil gives it up, and he has himself a metal spike. He gestures at an identical light still in the ground. "You want one?"

"No." I clip my trigger onto my bowstring. "Already got my somethin' quiet."

We climb the porch steps. The white paint of the wood is chipping, rotting away. I try the front door, it's locked. The number of people who thought it necessary to lock up as they fled dead people walking blows my mind. I step back beside Carl, who's studying the door with narrowed eyes. "Let's try goin' around," I say.

"Wait." He moves back.

I look from him to the door. "You're not serious."

"What, you don't think I can do it?"

I raise my eyebrows.

He charges the door. The door wins. He ends up on the ground, flattened out. I suck in my lips, trying to smother a laugh. "You okay?"

"Bite me." He gets up, staggers a bit, grabs his light-spike and readjusts his hat. "New idea . . ."

He jams the spike in between the door and the wall, and this time, his body comes through for him. A few good shoves into the door, and it gives, we're in. I let him lead.

It doesn't take us long to find the kitchen. Cabinets are already open when we get there, and I peer in one. "Whoa," I say, drawing out a can. One of many. "You seein' this? This place hasn't been hit bad at all. If all these houses are like this, then –"

"Syd."

I turn to him, follow his gaze up to the top of a cabinet. A cylinder sits there, one single cylinder, alone and higher than anything, like a king. I stare at it.

"Is that what I think it is?" I ask quietly.

"I think so."

We push a chair to the counter, Carl steps up, reaches for the cylinder, reads it and grins down at me. "We're eating good tonight," he says, showing me the label. Chocolate Pudding, it says, and I've read every poem by Edgar Allan Poe and a good amount of Shakespeare, but I've never read anything as lovely as that.

We check upstairs. In the first room, there's nothing but a dead pet bird that I can't look at for long. The next room is a bedroom, simple, maybe belonged to someone our age – says Sam on the outside. Carl closes that door gently. The third door is already closed, which puts us both on guard. He puts his ear right up to it, neither of us moves, he shakes his head. His hand goes to the knob and twists.

The door is an inch open when the fingers shoot out and the snarling begins.

Carl is pushed away by the impact but he's back a second later, shoving, and I'm there, I'm here, my back against the door and my boots desperate for the floor below me, but our new friend really wants to get to know us. It pushes back, it grasps, it gets hold of my overshirt, and I turn and ram into the door with all my might, and there's a crunch and cold gore drips onto my shoulder, but my shirt's free and a bone is jutting out of the arm hanging above me.

Carl yells something.

"What?"

"Get back!"

I do. He moves away a second after, but at a different angle, crossing the path I just followed and ending up at my left. The walker stumbles from the room, heading for him, and Carl lifts his gun, and I'm painfully, awfully aware of my left hand's emptiness – my bow lies at the foot of the door –and Carl trips, he falls backwards, and the walker –

No knives, no gun, nothing – Carl's gun goes off three times but the walker never shuts up, a fourth time, blood splatters across the wall, the walker falls, but the growling doesn't stop, it's just a graze, like when –

I'm next to Carl now, behind him, because there's a door here, Sam's door, I grapple with it, the sharp clicking below tells me Carl's out of ammo, my hands are so sweaty, they slip, I try again, I get it, the door gives, but the walker's here, it's crawled over, it has Carl's foot, Carl kicks, kicks again, and then I kick and Carl's free, he's moving back, I'm moving with him, we're in the room, we stomp over books, slam the door, it won't close – the books are in the way, and now the walker's arms are in the way, and now it's back to square damn one, shoving and shoving, I look behind me and see it, the light, the –

"Window!" I yell, and Carl pushes everything he has into the door and I bolt across the room, please God let it open, it does, but just a little, it's jammed. "Can't do it alone!"

He's next to me a minute later, we both pull. He had to let go of the door, of course, so we have about two-and-a-half seconds to do what we can, and that amounts to the window being about a fourth of the way open, not open enough, and it's too late, it's here, and Carl's swinging a lamp at its head and there's more blood, the walker's down and I run past, but when I look over my shoulder Carl's on the floor too, not on my heels, he's clawing at the floor. The walker has him by the leg. I go back, of course I go back. My boot meets the skull and Carl's grabbing my arm and yanking me out, free as a bird. In the hallway, have to close the door, it's still moving and we have to close the door on it, there are still books in the way, shove them clear, hurry, hurry, close it!, and it's done, it's over. We're out here and it's in there. We're safe. Safe.

Carl and I slump against the door, panting like dogs. I relax my neck, let my head hang, and notice he's now missing a shoe. "Nice sock."

He asks if I'm hurt. No. He isn't either, and I'm leading the way to the stairs when he suddenly stops. A bunch of school supplies, like for an art class, are spilled outside Sam's door, and Carl picks out a piece of chalk.

"What're you doin'?"

He looks at me but doesn't answer. He presses the chalk to the door, which is still being pounded and slapped by a very upset walker, and begins to write. Scribble, really. It just takes him a minute. Then he steps back to admire his work.

WALKER INSIDE

GOT MY SHOE

DIDN'T GET ME

I run my hand through my hair, undo my ponytail because it's half-undone anyway. "Kinda big-headed of ya, don't ya think? I'm the one who got outta there fully clothed."

He turns slowly, looks at me in a strange way. I smile a little. The adrenaline's still pumping through me, making me tremble. Doesn't help things when Carl springs on me, when his hands bury themselves into my hair, when his lips press against mine, when they move, and mine move, too, and our mouths open, and this is nothing like the last two kisses, those kisses made me feel good in my stomach, my chest, but this kiss makes me feel good all over, it makes me feel things, things that I don't know what they are but I like them, this kiss makes me feel like an adult, his hands move, move down, grip my stomach, my hips, his hands keep moving, I feel him touch my skin, my stomach, higher and higher, up to –

I jerk away, breaking everything. His touch, my feelings, I cut it all away. "No – what the hell're you doin'?"

His hat's fallen off and his eyebrows come together, he's breathing hard, like before, but different. "What do you think I'm doing?"

"I – I – what? No!"

"What do you mean, no?"

"I mean, I mean no! I'm not –" I can't even say it.

"Why not?"

"Wh – because . . ." My mouth moves, working for words, but they're hard to come by. "Because I – I told my . . . Because I'm twelve years old! I'm a kid, Carl, so are you!"

As soon as I say the words, I feel like a liar. The walker in Sam's room knows something's up, I think. Probably hears us yelling. It's beating even harder against the door as Carl rolls his eyes. "When was the last time you felt like a kid?"

"That – that doesn't matter."

"How does that not matter?"

"Carl, we – for God's sake, you didn't even know – you didn't even know about this until a couple of years ago!"

That was a low blow, I know, and even more color floods his already-red face. "Oh, and you were so knowledgeable?"

"I had a very different childhood than you. And we don't have . . . anything."

"What're you talking about?"

"Protection."

"Protection from what?"

I stare at him. "From me getting pregnant." Even the idea . . . a baby in my stomach, a baby in my arms. The walker rattles the door. I feel sick.

But Carl, he looks me right in the eye. "Like that would be such a bad thing?"

My stomach turns, twists, and I spit, "How can you even say that? After –"

The red drains from his face. He looks at me like he looked at his dad on the road yesterday. Between that and the thoughts I've brought into my own head, I want to collapse, almost do.

"I'm sorry," I choke instead. "I'm sorry."

No sounds but the walker in Sam's room. And even it's gotten quieter.

"You're sad," I eventually say, forcing each word. "We both are. And I know it hurts." I gasp, gulp, blink, the wetness in my eyes has to go away, the lump in my throat needs to dissolve. I say, "They were my family, too," and let it end there.

After a minute Carl says my name, exhales in a shaky way. "I lost everything yesterday. Everything. Except you."

"Your dad . . ." I say, but he grimaces.

"You've seen him. What he's become, what he's . . . Syd, I love you."

"Carl . . ."

"I love you, and you're all I have left, and . . ." He moves in again. I let him. "I just . . . When I look at you? All I want is to get as close to you as possible. To feel you. To know I still have you –"

"You have me."

"Yeah. I just . . . I just love you."

He keeps going back to that. Can't say it's not good to hear. Also can't say . . . can't say I'm not tempted. Alone in this house, where no one would know. Maybe alone in this world where no one would know. Just me and him. Together. Forgetting.

But I can't. Because I promised I wouldn't.

And because I'll be damned if I create another person for me to love and this world to kill.

I step to Carl, kiss him. But only lightly. And only for a moment. "There are other ways to be close to me," I whisper.

. . . . .

The window in the room the walker was inside originally is as hard to open as the first one we tried was, but we manage. Carl helps me out onto the roof. We sit on the edge, look out at the walker town. And we eat our way through a 112-ounce jar of chocolate pudding, like two kids with no one left to tell them not to. The walker in Sam's room reaches out his window, hungry, but we let it bitch all it wants. It's peaceful out here.

Neither of us talks for a while, and then I tell him that I love him, because I know I've never really said it back. I've only said it to anyone a handful of times. At first he's quiet, but then he tells me he knows, and he moves over some, so our arms and shoulders are touching. So we're close.

God help me. He's all I have left, too. But there's some stuff I'm absolutely too young for.