Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead or any of the characters/plotlines associated with it.

"Is she bit?"

"Gunshot. Carl, get a blanket. Beth, water and a towel."

"All right."

"Here?"

"She's not coming in the cell blocks."

My head turned up at the commotion coming from outside the cells. I pushed myself up from where I had been sorting through and matching up ammunition to guns in my cell, moving towards where the rest of the group were gathered just outside the cell block.

A coloured woman was grabbing for a katana blade that Rick had moved hastily from her reach. She was injured, which I could see right away. Blood oozed from a cut in her jeans on her thigh. She had been placed on the floor, a furious expression on her face. I noticed that there was a basket full of baby formula nearby. I raised my eyebrows in surprise as I leant against the wall.

"We're not going to hurt you unless you try something stupid first, all right?" Rick told her sternly. You wanna tell us your name?"

Everyone had gathered around in concern. The woman remained in silence with a stoic face. My eyes wandered to the basket of formula that Carl had picked up. Maggie and Glenn had been sent to get the formula, and they still weren't back. How would this woman have known to bring that here as a peace offering, or whatever she was using it for?

"You wanna tell us your name?"

The silence remained loitering in the air. I looked around the room and noticed that Daryl still hadn't shown up. A sigh left my lips. Earlier, after Benny had interrupted us, Daryl had awkwardly announced that he was going to leave and continue his search through the corridors for Carol. I didn't really blame him. My brother had ruined everything in that one moment. Talking of my brother…

I glared at Benny from where he stood on the other side of the room. He raised an eyebrow at me and I just shook my head.

"We'll keep this safe and sound," Rick picked up the woman's blade when she remained unresponsive. "The doors are all locked. You'll be safe here. And we can treat that."

"I didn't ask for your help," The woman called as Rick walked in my direction.

"Doesn't matter. Can't let you leave."

Benny was the last to walk into the cell blocks, locking the door behind him so that the woman wouldn't be able to get in, although she wouldn't have been able to do much anyway with a bullet wound. Rick held the katana sword at arm's length, inspecting it carefully.

"What happened?" I asked him as we stopped outside the cells, Carl taking the basket of formula into where Hershel sat with Beth and the baby.

"She was outside the prison," Rick explained. "Carl was on watch when he pointed her out… She had the basket."

"Do you think she knows where Maggie and Glenn are then? They should have been back by now."

"I don't know… I hope so. I really do."

I sighed and nodded as Rick departed to go and see his children. Benny went to say something as he approached me, but I scoffed and turned on my heel, walking up the stairs to the perch and stepping over Daryl's mattress and into my cell. Benny persistently followed me, whining as he went.

"I'll go get him," He groaned as he slouched into my room. "I didn't mean to chase him off. I don't know why you're so angry though, he can handle himself."

"Fine," I rolled my eyes. "When he doesn't come back, I'll use you as the Walker bait to go and get him, huh? That sounds pretty good to me."

"Jeez, Annie… The apocalypse has not been kind to you."

My brother's serious tone dropped as quickly as it had started, a smile appearing on his face. I couldn't help but grin too. My attitude had definitely gone downhill, especially since being at the prison and losing Lori, Carol and T-Dogg so recently. Benny was sometimes there to cheer me up. Not very well, but he did an alright job of it when he had to.

"You think he'll come back with Carol?" I asked in an offhand voice.

"Maybe," Benny shrugged. "She's been gone for a few days now. If she's not back, she's either gone or she's seriously injured and nearing it."

I nodded in agreement. It wasn't that I didn't want Carol to be back here – I just didn't want Daryl thinking that I had been glad when he left to go and get her. He must have thought that I was relieved when he had stood up and pushed past Benny earlier. It had probably seemed like that, even in my eyes. I didn't want to chase him off, especially when he had been the one to make the advance. It was always one step forward and two steps back.

Benny informed me that he was going to go and relieve Oscar and Axel from their watch outside, leaving me with my thoughts. I listened to the echoes of my brother's footsteps and also the soft cries of the baby and Beth's helpless coos. Babies needed their mother, and this one was no different because of the new world.

My thoughts flickered to the woman with the katana blade and Maggie and Glenn. What had happened to our two campmates? It must have been something. Had they sent that woman to come to us? Our group was drastically thinning out as of recent times, and we really didn't need to lose two more people on top of everything else.

People would start to break and drop like flies. Rick had long passed his breaking point and the majority of us weren't far off from following behind in his footsteps. Heck, I'd witnessed a few wobbles of my own in the past few days and I couldn't even understand why. I'd always been emotionally strong. Even when I couldn't battle the same way as the others could, I never cracked under the pressure because I was made for handling it strategically and almost emotionlessly. It was like I didn't feel anything anymore. I just got by life doing what I had to do, a lot like most people now. The only thing keeping me grounded were the relationships in this group.

Along with the cries of the baby, a door was opening in the distance. I strained to hear before I realised that it was the door to the corridors. Daryl was back. It sounded like only one step of footsteps were present. The gates to the cell block opened and after a few moments, there were a few gasps. I rushed outside of my cell and leant over the bar of the perch. Daryl was standing there with Carol, hanging on for dear life, held in his arms.

"Thank God," Rick sighed in relief. "Thank God. How?"

"Solitary," Daryl answered gruffly. "Poor thing thought her way into a cell. Must have passed out. Dehydrated."

My jaw must have been hanging open at the sight of Carol alive. Daryl glanced up to the perch where my weight must have creaked on the metallic flooring upon movement, meeting my eyes. I smiled very briefly at him and nodded reassuringly. Carol would be fine and she would be healthy and she would remain alive. Hershel would be able to see to her easily. My own hand lifted to the stitches on the side of my face, running my hand against the bumps of thread rising from my skin. Carol would take a bit more work than a few stitches, but she would be okay.

The weak woman was deposited in her old cell that she had been cooped up in with Lori for the first few nights of being in the prison. I watched from the perch as Hershel dragged himself into her cell with his medical bag, seeing to her. Daryl stayed with her while she was there. I ran a hand tiredly across my face as I watched Axel and Oscar make their way inside from being relieved from watch.

"Is Benny alright on his own?" I called down to them as they came in.

"Fine," Oscar replied. "It's pretty much deserted out there. Not many followed after the sword wielding maniac."

I scoffed at his name for the woman. Surely she wasn't a bad person. After all, even if she had come in look of help, she had purposely brought the formula as some sort of sign of good will. She was a good person. Then again, my judgements hadn't always been the best in this society that we lived in. I'd made quite a few mistakes when it came down to who I could trust.

Daryl left Carol's cell to exchange a few words with Rick, most likely about the wounded woman outside the cell block, glancing up at me occasionally. He usually never made it that big of a deal when I was around but it seemed that he wanted to meet my eye. When he was finished with Rick, he took two steps at a time up towards the perch where my legs were swinging over the ledge, my chin resting on the bar. He didn't say anything as he rested his arms on the upper bar.

"She okay?" I asked softly.

"She's a fighter," Daryl mumbled. "She'll be fine. You okay?"

"I always am."

"Huh."

There was a pause as Daryl vaguely nodded at my comment. I sighed and swung my legs up, pulling myself up so that I was leaning against the bars next to Daryl. My mouth was dry and I couldn't think of anything to say to him. It was awkward, like a weird high school teenage crush. Neither of us could really spit our words out.

"So…" Daryl dragged out. "We're okay?"

"We're okay," I nodded.

I didn't know what else to say. All I could think of was how my brother had walked in on us. Would it have been awkward if we had kissed? Would Daryl had even gone off to search for Carol, bringing her back alive as a result? Or would it still be weird and odd, ending in probably another argument like it had done that one time on the farm? The weird thing was that, this time, I had actually wanted him to kiss me. I had wanted to feel his lips on mine and to know what he was thinking about it. But I hadn't done.

Rick whistled out to grab out attention from down below, motioning to where the black woman was still outside. Daryl and I exchanged one last forced smile before skipping down the stairs of the perch and following Rick out towards the woman. She rolled her eyes slightly at our entrance, but didn't turn away.

"We can tend to that wound for you, give you a little food and water, and then send you on your way," Rick offered as he stood above her. "But you're gonna have to tell us how you found us and why you were carrying formula."

"The supplies were dropped by a young Asian guy with a pretty girl," The woman answered surprisingly easy to his question.

"What happened? Were they attacked?"

"They were taken."

"Taken? By who?"

"By the same son of a bitch who shot me."

"Hey, these are our people. You tell us what happened now!"

Rick moved forward and moved to grab the woman. Although I knew how frustrating it was to not get the straight answers, I quickly stepped forward and laid a hand on Rick's shoulder. Daryl stood cautiously back as Rick glanced over his shoulder at me, nodding at me. I met the woman's eyes briefly before her own gaze flitted to the katana sword that Rick had laid on the floor.

"Don't you ever touch me again!" She snapped.

"You'd better start talking," Rick warned. "You're gonna have a much bigger problem than a gunshot wound."

"Find 'em yourself."

After the words that she spat out, she lunged forward to grab ahold of the sword. Nobody had a chance to stop her as her fingers curled around the handle, dragging it across the floor and allowing it to scratch shrilly as she pulled it to her body.

"Hey, shh… shhh…" Rick said calmingly. "Put it down. You came here for a reason."

"There's a town," She said after a pause, disarming herself. "Woodbury. About seventy five survivors. I think they were taken there."

"A whole town?"

"It's run by this guy who calls himself the Governor – pretty boy, charming, Jim Jones type."

"He got muscle?" Daryl asked curiously.

"Paramilitary wannabes. They have armed sentries on every wall."

"You know a way in?" Rick requested, nodding at Daryl knowingly.

"The place is secure from Walkers, but we could slip our way through."

"How'd you know how to get here?"

"They mentioned a prison, said which direction it was in, that it was a straight shot."

The telltale sign of crutches upon the floor signalled that Hershel was making his way into the room. He had his medical bag with him. I moved forward to take it off of him so that he could concentrate on balancing on his crutches as he approached the situation. The woman couldn't help but look slightly intimidated.

"This is Hershel, the father of the girl who was taken," Rick explained. "He'll take care of that."

Rick and Daryl left the room to discuss their plan with each other about getting Glenn and Maggie back. I paused for a few moments, watching as Hershel worked on the woman and her bullet wound. She met my gaze over his head and nodded at me in an almost strict manner. I returned the nod before leaving her and Hershel to it.

Our two leaders and Oscar stood together talking about tactics of how to get into this Woodbury place and out again with Maggie and Glenn unscathed. I approached them as they spoke about the weapons that they had prepared.

"I'll come with you," I said.

"No, ya won't," Daryl scoffed instantly, shaking his head and causing both Rick and I to frown at his unexpected outburst. "Can't risk another one of us getting hurt."

"So, what are you gonna do if one of you gets killed and you can't get to Maggie and Glenn? Just three of you and our new buddy out there… It's gonna be a shot in the dark if you want to risk it."

"She's right," Rick nodded. "We don't need her to stay behind. We're gonna need all the help that we can get. Besides, if Benny is staying… Well, we can't have two capable people doing nothing here."

"No," Daryl snapped again. "I won't allow it. No. I don't have the time to look out for her."

"Oh, as if I need you looking out for me," I rolled my eyes, suddenly feeling very irritated at Daryl's approach to this suggestion. "I can handle my own. And I've been doing it since the beginning of all this. You don't need to play hero."

"So, that's settled," Rick quickly interrupted before Daryl could argue. "We'll meet out by the cars with our weapons, alright? We're gonna have to drive some of the way before we ditch the cars."

I nodded in agreement as Rick left to go and talk to the stranger. Oscar moved away to go and prepare himself and I was left with Daryl glaring uncomfortably at me, but I was going to be persistent about this. I folded my arms across my chest.

"What was that all about, huh?" I demanded. "You think I can't handle myself, even though I've been on raids worse than this without any argument on your behalf?"

"It doesn't matter, it's not the same thing," Daryl's voice raised ever so slightly as he smashed his hand against the wall we were near. "It wasn't the same before then."

"What wasn't the same before then, Daryl? It's always been the same. Nothing is ever changing in this world. I'm not in any less danger than I've been in any other raids or situation, and neither are you."

"But I didn't feel the same way about ya before this!"

As my mouth was about to hurl a comeback at him, my eyes widened slightly. What did he mean? He groaned under his breath and quickly turned away from me, storming outside.

I hurried into the room where we kept the weapons, piling up on what I would need and trying to keep myself from thinking about what Daryl had said. There was no need to dwell on a mistake. Everyone said and did things when they were angry and upset. I was no different to him, and I understood where he was coming from. But my hear couldn't help but flutter in the slightest at the thought of his words perhaps being true, if I had interpreted them in the correct way.