[March 30, 10 NE]

Carol's breathing has grown more labored. This afternoon, Daryl has held her on the bed between his legs, forced her to bend her head over the steaming bowl of boiling water and peppermint oil, towel over her head, breathing in. He's practically forced Raul's potion down her throat and the tea too. None of it is helping. He feels her head now, after a particularly bad bout of coughing. It's still hot. He pulls the sheet she's kicked off back up to her neck and lies another cold compress he's taken from the plastic igloo cooler across her forehead. His heart tightens with each hacking cough.

"Mama! Mama! Mama!" Sweetheart cries from the highchair where he's left her strapped, apple sauce on her tray, for the past several minutes while he's tended to Carol. "Dada! Dada! Down! Down! Down!"

He slips from behind the drapes, walks to his distraught daughter, unclips her tray, and leaves it on the table, which is still covered with the dirty dishes from the past two nights. He'll get to those. Eventually. If Carol lives. If he has the will.

He lets Sweetheart down. In response to the renewed again hacking behind the curtain, Sweetheart says, "Uh oh, Mama! Uh oh! Uh oh!"

Carol could die tonight. She could die and turn and slip from bed and try to eat Sweetheart the way Mary ate Bob. Daryl can't bear to think of that, and yet he has to think of it, because he's not just a husband anymore. He's a father, too. He has to stay awake, armed, all night. Just in case. And what if Sweetheart has to see her mother, glassy eyed and thrashing, trying to devour the ones she once loved? Sweetheart can't see that. She can't.

Daryl grabs a backpack and begins shoving Sweetheart's clothes inside. He flings the pack over one shoulder, scoops Sweetheart up, and settles her on his hip. "Dada?" she asks.

He hastens for the front door of the cabin, throws it open, and shuts it behind himself. Sweetheart bounces on his hip as he speed walks to the Barron cabin and pounds on the door with the side of his fist.

Garland opens it, takes one look at Daryl's haggard expression, and asks, with hollow fear in his voice, "Carol?"

"Could be tonight. Sweetheart's mostly better. Heard Shannon 'n the boys were, too. Don't matter if they're exposed to each other now, does it? And if ya ain't got it from yer –"

" – Yes, we'll take her."

Shannon is at the door now by her husband's side, looking tired and drained, but not heated or coughing. "Hey, Sweetie pie," she says, and holds out her arms to the little girl.

"Boobie!" Sweetie cries happily and reaches out for her.

"You want to play with Gary and VanDaryl?" Shannon asks as she draws the toddler to her chest.

"VeeDee! Gay!"

"It's not Gay!" cries Gary with annoyance from inside. Shannon disappears to the living room with the girl, and Garland eases out of the cabin onto the dirt floor of the fort and half shuts the door behind himself.

"What do you need?" Garland asks. "Is there any way at all we can help? More herbs, more – "

"- Got peppermint oil? Or Jamestown Shine? Almost out."

"One second."

Garland disappears inside. It's probably a minute but it feels like forever to Daryl before he reemerges and hands him a mason jar with at least three ounces of shine and a small tube of peppermint oil. "We're paying for Carol," Garland says.

I'll tell ya what it's worth, Daryl remembers saying as he and Carol and Andrea searched for Sophia, not a damn thing. All this hopin' and prayin'. 'Cause we're gonna locate that little girl. She's gonna be just fine.

Only they did locate her and she wasn't just fine. Sophia was turned. And Daryl had to hold Carol back while Rick put her rotting walker shell down. Hell, maybe Carol should have kept praying. Maybe he should have prayed, or at least not dismissed Carol for taking what little comfort she could find in those days of terror, in those hours of heavy anticipation of the loss that was to come.

"Thanks, man."

Daryl turns and runs back to the cabin. When he bursts through the front door, there's no coughing. He eases the door to a clicking shut behind himself and sets the mason jar and peppermint oil tube on the mantle.

The silence is deafening.

That absence of sounds is the worst sound he's ever heard. If she's not coughing behind that curtain, if she's not making a sound at all…

Swallowing hard, and feeling like his own chest is congested with a sickness that stops his breath, Daryl lets his hand fall to the hilt of his knife. With his other hand, he unsnaps the sheath, but he doesn't draw. He creeps slowly to the thick, royal blue drape that hides their bed, slides his hands through the gap, curls his fingers around the edges, and jerks it open abruptly.

Carol lies there on her side, her back to him, bed sheets down to her calves and tangled around her feet. He sees the breath rise through her back, and fall. And then he hears a low rasp, like the sound of a hungry walker smelling human flesh. He jerks his knife free, but he can't move. He can't move. Maybe he'll stay here, standing by her bed side, while she rolls over, crawls to him, and sinks her teeth into his thigh. Let some other unfortunate person put them both down. Let Sweetheart be an orphan again. Let the whole of Jamestown raise her, instead of a father who's wrecked by the loss of his wife, his lover, his first and most faithful friend.

Carol rolls over and Daryl doesn't move. The rasp continues, but her eye's aren't glassy. Those familiar, soft blues look up at him, pain pooled at their edges, and she gasps for breath. She coughs hard, twice, gasps for breath again, and in a moment, she's breathing clearer. It's labored, but she's breathing.

Daryl clicks his knife back into the sheath and falls to his knees at her bedside. He throws one arm around her and peppers her face and cheek and shoulder with desperate, grateful kisses. His lips move back from her shoulder to her cheek to her nose and then press down again on her forehead.

She's warm.

She's warm, but she isn't hot.

He rears back, turns his hand, and places the back of it against her forehead. Has her fever broken? Is it really possible?

She coughs again. "Daryl…" she murmurs.

"Shh….Shh…." He kisses her forehead again. "Gonna get ya that tea. Got more shine. 'N make ya another peppermint steam bowl to help the breathin'. Just don't try to talk, a'right?"

"I love you."

"Love ya, too. Rest. Don't talk." Daryl slips from her bedside, leaving the drape wide open so he can keep an eye on her, and lights the wood stove to put the kettle on.

[April 10, 10 NE]

Executive Order #12

Now that every infected person has remained fever free for 72 hours, by the power invested in me as mayor of Jamestown, I do hereby revise and amend my former quarantine order as follows:

(1) The daycare, lower school, and upper school will reopen on April 15. Any worker, teacher, or child presenting with a temperature or cough of any kind will not be permitted to enter.

(2) Public gatherings, including church services, are limited to no more than 25 people through May 15.

(3) The tavern will reopen April 15. Once reopened, all live concerts and dances are temporarily prohibited and the capacity of the tavern will be temporarily limited to 25 people, including staff, through May 15.

(4) No visitors shall be allowed from other Alliance communities, and no one from Jamestown shall be allowed to visit other Alliance communities through May 15. Mail may be sent and received, but the mailboat will only be permitted to dock for the exchange of mail.

(5) Continued caution is advised. If symptoms develop, report them immediately to the infirmary and self-isolate.

If conditions change, this executive order may be extended.

I would like to extend a special thank you to all of our medical professionals, who worked tirelessly through this epidemic: Dr. Ibrahim Ahmad, who organized the effort; Deputy Thomas Mayfield, who stepped up to take on the full responsibilities of a doctor; Dr. Enid Narcon, who expended her efforts as if Jamestown were her own community; Mr. Raul Dominguez, who mixed medicines day-round to treat our patients, and his apprentice Tyler Miller; Dr. Carolyn Taylor, who identified the source of the virus and prevented contamination of our food supply; and Dr. Emily Norton, who nearly gave her life in her effort to save others.

I would also like to thank our Farm Manager, Gunther Hamilton, who worked seventy-hour weeks to ensure the continuation of our food supply, and all of the farmers, fishermen, and hunters who put in overtime to keep our community fed through the severe labor shortage resulting from the quarantine of countless workers. Thank you also to Sheriff Earl Carter and those deputies and guards who worked diligently to ensure the security of Jamestown during this labor shortage.

Finally, I thank the Jamestown Council for its swift and decisive action in taking measures to halt the spread of this illness. Because of the efforts of our medical professional and your elected Council, the loss to life during this epidemic was less than the loss to life during The Great Flu of 7 NE, despite a more contagious and powerful strain.

By order of the Jamestown council, and with my approval as mayor, a memorial plaque shall be designed and installed in the museum to honor those lost in the Swine Flu of 10 NE:

Maude Williams (age 78)
Henrietta Merriweather (age 75)
Charity Conway (age 71)
Jacob Major (age 68)
Joe Wilkinson (age 60)
Bob King (age 51)
Mary King (age 49)

Let us all, as we are able, return to work, with a renewed gratitude for life and for our fellow citizens.

Mayor Garland Bennett Barron
Signed by my hand, this 10th day of April, 10 NE