Chapter 48

DARYL

The man was easy enough to spot, a bright shock of red in a sea of yellowing grass and weeds. He bent over and pulled at the plants around him, tearing them out by the roots and rubbing them vigorously between his gloved hands before slapping at his face and neck.

"What's he doing?" Aaron asked, spying the man they'd been tracking through the monocular of the listening device he held.

"Wild leeks." Daryl said, without putting down his binoculars. "Sombitch knows about how to keep mosquitos off of him."

Something about that simple survival technique made Daryl want this to work. He wanted to offer this man refuge - if he wanted it.

"What now?" Daryl asked. They'd been tracking him for nearly 48 hours and now that they'd spotted him Daryl was ready to make contact.

"We hang back, set up the mic, watch and listen."

"For how long?"

"Until we know. We have to know."

On the 3rd day they lost him. They woke before the sun, only to find him gone, all traces of his makeshift camp gone with him.

"Bugged out in the middle of the night." Daryl said bitterly as he held his hand over the ring of rocks where the man in the red poncho had kept his fire. It was still smoldering, but Daryl noticed he had kicked dirt over it before he'd left. "Something spooked him."

"Walkers?"

"Nah. No tracks." He stood and swore, kicking at the dirt.

"It happens." Aaron said. "They slip away - sometimes we find them again, sometimes we don't. It's the nature of the job."

Daryl scowled. He'd always hated it when an animal he was tracking got away and apparently humans were no exception. It felt like a loss.

"With a bright red poncho we have a better chance."

Daryl huffed. "Should've talked to him when we had a chance."

"We have to know." Aaron repeated.

Forty-eight hours later and they still hadn't found a trace. The man in the red poncho had seemingly disappeared. Daryl didn't like the idea of his first recruitment trip being a failure, but it felt pointless, they were tired and discouraged and he had a feeling Aaron had wanted to give up a long time ago.

"I have an idea." Aaron said. "We could cut our losses, head back now - we'd be back late, but we'd be home...or…. we could make camp, get some rest and head south in the morning. There's this neighborhood I've been wanting to check out. Eric never wanted to. I think the idea of a whole group of people intimidated him."

"A group?" Daryl said warily. "How many?"

"I don't know - honestly, I've only seen men on their walls. But it wouldn't hurt to check it out, see if we think they're good people. Get to know our neighbors."

Daryl chewed his lip. They weren't all that far now from where Aaron had found them. "I know a place we can stay tonight."

The Civil War museum looked the same as it had when Daryl had forced open its doors the day after the storm. It was the day he'd found the cabin, the day they had met Aaron. It was a small, one story brick structure - less grand than other Civil War destinations with their historic buildings and replica quarters. The inside was an uninspired beige, with matching linoleum floors streaked with blue. Just inside the door was a map of the area dotted with all the battles and forts and long glass cases lined the walls filled with artifacts - uniforms, old weapons and a frightening display of medical tools.

"Amputation kit." Aaron read with a shiver, eyeing a case of saws and sharp objects.

"There ain't enough whiskey in the world." Daryl grunted.

Aaron tossed his pack on the ground and settled down next to a mannequin decked out in the uniform of the Confederates. He dug through the pockets of his bag until he found a pack of crackers and processed cheese.

"So is Kate gonna be pissed that we stayed out longer than we had to?" Aaron asked, using the included red plastic stick to spread the cheese on a cracker that immediately broke in two.

"Nah." Daryl said, examining the contents of the glass cases for anything useful they could use. "I told her it might be 10 days - s'long as were back before that she'll be fine."

"Ah." Aaron said. "Smart move. How does she feel about you being out here recruiting?"

Daryl shrugged. "She worries, but I've never been too good at staying in one place too long."

"I don't know her too well yet. What's she like?"

The question caught Daryl off guard. He'd never been asked a question like that before and he was torn between his normal desire to keep to himself and the surprising realization that part of him wanted to talk about her. He dropped his pack on the floor across from Aaron and sat. His sore muscles protested and Daryl worried about how living behind the wall with a warm bed and food on the table was already making him soft.

"She's intense."

"Really? Compared to you and Rick she seems so easy going." Aaron grinned at Daryl, who chewed thoughtfully on the side of his cheek.

"No, its like she feels things more than everyone else."

"Ah...passionate."

Daryl looked up at him in alarm, his face turning an amusing shade of pink.

Aaron shook his head. "In life….passionate in life."

"Sounds right." Daryl said, trying to clear his mind of the images of Kate that had come unbidden when Aaron had called her passionate.

"Has she always been like that or is it just since the dead?"

Daryl looked confused. "Hell if I know."

"Oh...so you and Kate...you weren't together before?"

"What the fuck do you think?" Daryl spat, bristling at the near constant reminder that in the world before there was no way Kate would belong to him and that people loved to point that out as if their relationship only existed for their entertainment.

Aaron looked at him impassively. "I honestly don't know."

Daryl studied Aaron's face for signs of amusement, but found none.

"Honestly." Aaron repeated.

Daryl nodded slowly and mumbled an apology.

Aaron moved on easily.

"Eric and I have been together a long time - seven years in March."

Daryl fidgeted uncomfortably. "You always been, you know, with men?"

Aaron laughed. "Yes Daryl. I've always been gay."

Daryl nodded.

"We were headed to Eric's parents' in Virginia when the army stopped us and directed us to Alexandria. We drove there once, after the army was gone, but no one was there. We have no idea if they're alive or dead."

"Same with Kate's family."

Aaron sighed. "That's rough. It's been hard on Eric. Of course, I don't know where my family is either, but that's not the same. I haven't known about them for a long time. They weren't exactly accepting of my sexuality." He laughed bitterly, disappearing for a moment to some place where bad memories of his family existed before snapping back to attention. "What about your family?"

"Just a bunch of assholes."

Aaron smiled. "Guess we've got that in common. So how does Kate like Alexandria?"

"She fits right in." He replied, not attempting to hide his unease about the situation.

"And that makes you uncomfortable?"

Daryl thought about it for a second. "Alexandria makes me uncomfortable." He said, surprising himself with his frankness. "Don't feel like its real and if it is, I ain't sure I belong."

"But Kate doesn't want to go?"

"If I asked her to, she would."

"Are you?"

"Am I what?"

"Going to ask her to leave Alexandria."

Daryl shook his head. "I couldn't ask her to do that. It's bad enough she's with a man like me, she shouldn't have to leave because of it too."

Aaron looked puzzled and like he was about to speak, but the conversation had already gotten too deep and Daryl started to feel like he couldn't breathe.

He stood, grabbing his pack and bow as he went.

"I'm gonna give huntin' a go before it gets too dark." .

KATE

The familiar smell of rotting flesh hit her as soon as she opened the infirmary door and the adrenaline hit her hard. She pulled her knife from where it hung off her belt and quickly scanned the room in front of her.

"Dr. Anderson?!" She yelled out, preparing for something not quite alive to come rushing her from the back rooms of the house that served as their medical building.

"In the bathroom." He shouted back, his voice calm and even.

She dropped her defensive stance, and made her way past the living room to the small guest bathroom on the right. Pete was on his knees, leaning over the bathtub, a paper medical mask covering his nose and mouth, slicing into the body of a walker.

"Hey Chicago." He said brightly, glancing down at the weapon she still held in her hand. "What's with the knife?" She quickly returned it to its sheath. Her heart hammered against her chest.

"I could ask you the same thing." She said, looking past the doctor to the rotting, filthy creature that laid motionless in the infirmary's gleaming white bathtub.

"Today, you can start to work on suturing." He said proudly. "I know you asked Daryl to see if he could bring us back something fresher from his adventure, but I didn't want to wait that long."

"You did this?" She asked doubtfully.

His features, hidden behind his mask, were inscrutable, but she thought she saw displeasure in his eyes.

"Surely, Kate, you don't think these walls have made us incapable of getting our hands dirty?"

She chuckled politely. She hadn't seen much to make her feel differently, but this seemed to be an important distinction to Pete.

"Of course not." She didn't mention that the idea was that Daryl would find something fresher with skin that resembled something closer to living.

"Should we move the whole thing or just hack off an arm?" Dr. Anderson mused lifting the walker's wrist up and letting it fall back against the tub with a hollow thud.

"Just an arm?" Kate suggested. The smell was already bad enough and if a resident came to the infirmary the sight of a walker laid across one of the tables might be frightening.

It didn't take long for them to separate the tenuously attached limb from its owner's body and instead of the exam table, they laid it on top of old newspapers they spread across the kitchen island. Bodily fluids quickly were absorbed by the newsprint which featured Safeway ads for bunches of bananas and the butcher's specials of the week. The fact that she used to live in a world where you could walk into a store and get whatever fresh food you wanted seemed impossible as she considered the rotting flesh in front of her.

"Let me see that knife of yours." Dr. Anderson said. "I left mine in the tub."

She placed it in his hand and watched as he made a long slice down the bicep. He did it carefully, with steady surgeon hands. Satisfied with his work he handed her back the knife and as she wiped it clean on another sheet of newspaper Dr. Anderson pulled a small box out of a kitchen drawer. Inside there were dozens of smaller packets and he tore one open.

"These are needle drivers" He said, holding what looked like small pliers up to her. "He used them to grab the curved needle, already threaded, from the packaging.

"Now watch where I'm grabbing this needle " He said, holding it out for her to inspect. "Can you see how it is flat in the middle? That's so you can get a good hold on it. You don't want it spinning around while you're trying to stitch someone up."

He stuck the needle into the decaying skin, just a few millimeters back from the wound.

"I'm going to teach you the most basic stitch first. It'll do in most cases. We won't bother cleaning the wound, but normally you want to irrigate and make sure all debris is removed. You want to pull the needle through the other side equally as far from the wound, but not too far back. You don't want to invert the skin. Just enough so the two edges can come together."

He pulled the thread through until there was just a small piece left.

"This is called a surgeon's knot. You're going to take the needle driver and lay it between the short end and the longer end. Now watch close, you take the longer end and wrap it twice around the needle driver before grabbing the shorter end and pulling. Notice I don't pull up, I pull to the side."

She watched him closely. He worked slowly so she could see everything easily.

"On the second pass you'll only wrap it once." He demonstrated again. "I would recommend doing at least three passes."

He picked up a tiny pair of scissors and clipped the long end leaving what looked like tiny antennae sticking up from the skin.

"Ok, put some gloves on, it's your turn."

"My turn?" She asked.

"What are you afraid of? I don't think this guy is going to care much if you mess a stitch or two up."

She pulled the gloves on and took the instruments from his hands. She bent over the rotten arm, trying to breathe through her mouth. The needle poked through the skin easily, like she was working with wet tissue paper. She fed it through the other side and pulled the thread through slowly. Following his direction she tied her first knot, remembering to wrap the thread around the tiny pliers twice, but when she pulled the stitch it ripped right through the skin.

"Shit!" She exclaimed.

"Language." He admonished sternly, a grimace replacing his usual smile. "It won't be that hard with living tissue and you'll get a feel for it. Try again."

She felt her face grow hot under her paper mask. She didn't like being called out on her cursing, but then she figured she wouldn't have cursed in a professional setting before.

She tried again, this time successfully.

"That's it." He encouraged. "Now just one loop on the second one."

She did what he said and did it once more before clipping the end like he had.

"Perfect! Now just finish suturing up that wound."

Kate leaned back into her work and closed the wound with a line of crooked stitches. It wasn't pretty, and a few more ripped right through the putrid skin, but she felt proud.

"Chicago! You did it!"

She smiled brightly behind her mask.

"Ok, now give it another good slice and stitch it up."

The afternoon continued much the same way, with Kate practicing every new stitch and technique he showed her. She was a quick learner and Dr. Anderson seemed as pleased as she was.

"So what if we are outside of the walls and we don't have these suture kits? What can be used?"

"Just bring the person back to Alexandria."

"But what if we can't?"

He looked at her blankly.

"What if something happens? What if the walls aren't here or the people outside of the wall can't get back for other reasons?"

"Kate," He said sympathetically, laying his hand on top of hers. "You don't have to worry about that anymore. You're safe here. This place is safe."

She didn't say anything.

"How are you doing with Daryl being gone?"

Daryl and Aaron had left three days prior on their first recruiting run together and Kate tried to keep her anxiety at bay by keeping busy. The nights had been the worst, laying alone in their bed, reaching out in the middle of the night to find his spot cold and empty. They had said they'd be back in a week, 10 days tops, but if she was being honest the time was crawling.

"Fine."

"Fine? I've been married long enough to know what 'fine' means."

She laughed and nodded.

"Ya. I mean, I can't wait for him to get home, but it isn't new, Daryl going out on runs. I've never loved it, but I accept it. Daryl was like that long before the turn, that won't change."

Dr. Anderson nodded and dragged his hand over his face.

"I'm sorry. That can't be easy on you." He sighed deeply. "That reminds me, Jesse wanted me to ask you if you would join us for dinner tomorrow night? She thought you might enjoy getting away from the house for a night. Come round about 6pm?"

Kate nodded. "I'd like that."

"Good." He smiled. "Let's clean up and call it a day."

DARYL

"This is definitely Motorhead's best album." Aaron said, taking his eyes off the road just long enough to watch Daryl's reaction as the distorted bass of Ace of Spades spilled out through the speakers.

"No fucking way." Daryl protested. "Its Overkill - ain't even a question."

Aaron twisted the volume knob up as Lemmy's voice rumbled through the speakers.

"We're going to have to agree to disagree, my friend."

"This is a fucking awesome song." Daryl admitted.. He still couldn't believe he'd found another Motorhead fan at the end of the world and it was Aaron of all people, he didn't strike him as the type.

They'd left the museum early this morning, securing it as best they could with plans to use it as a home base when they were out this far. They were on their way now to the neighborhood Aaron wanted to explore and Daryl was relieved they seemed to have traded the heavy conversation of last night in for arguments about music.

Aaron turned left off the main street and headed down a narrow, dirt road that trailed off into the woods. They parked their battered car in the trees alongside several others that had long ago come to rest, dented and useless. A walker hissed from inside one vehicle, smearing her rotting hands against the windows in a bid to capture Aaron and Daryl as they passed unconcerned towards the housing tract.

The fence surrounding the gated community was wrought iron, and particle board and planks of wood rose several feet above the bars so no one could see in. At some point this neighborhood had tried to make a stand, had banded together to survive - but there was no man at the gate and no sentries on their walls. Aaron pulled himself up on the fence, grunting as he peered over. He shook his head, "Looks deserted. Something happened since I was by here last."

They scrambled over the fence easy enough. It had been a good attempt by the residents, it kept out the dead, but in the end the dead wasn't what got them. The streets were littered with bodies and evidence of violent ends. The roofs of several houses bore the black scars of fire and Daryl wondered without a fire department how they didn't burn completely to the ground. They'd drawn the attention of several walkers who were slowly making their way towards them, stretching out bony arms, their flesh hanging in strips as they maneuvered through the suburban graveyard.

"Some shit went down and not long ago neither." Daryl said, pulling his knife and burying it into the skull of the nearest walker. A 'W' carved into its forehead catching his attention as it crumpled to the ground. He took care of the other advancing corpses before he knelt at the body and examined the mark. It was crude and bloody, but no mistake, it was a 'w' and it was done purposefully.

"What is it?" Aaron asked as he approached the final walker with his blade.

"This mark, I've seen it before - on a walker just outside Alexandria."

He didn't know what it meant, but it felt foreboding. They carried on through the deserted streets, going through the houses one-by-one. It was obvious these people had been attacked. Some were rotting in their homes, struck down where they thought they were safe. Some were wandering half-alive, but all the way dead, looking for a meal. The homes had been ransacked, but in a violent and destructive way. There were plenty of useful things left behind, it was as if terror had been the primary goal of the attacker and supplies an afterthought. Food was scarce, but they found plenty of the other things they could use - toothpaste, pain relievers, some winter coats and the real treasure - several economy sized packs of toilet paper stashed away in someone's garage. They gathered their spoils in a pile by the gate but despite their sizeable haul they stood silent and dejected. This community wasn't so different from Alexandria and suddenly Daryl wanted to be home.

KATE

The Anderson's house was beautiful, but so were all the houses in the neighborhood. The difference was theirs looked lived in. There were kid's drawings stuck to the fridge with magnets and a basket full of laundry on the floor in the living room. The stairs had stacks of belongings lined up along the wall waiting for one of the boys to take them upstairs with them and when Dr. Anderson opened the door he kicked irritably at the pair of shoes that had been discarded carelessly in the entryway.

"Sam!" He shouted irritably. "I told you to pick up your shoes."

Sam, the same chubby, blonde boy that she'd seen make a beeline for the food table at Deanna's, came shuffling in from the other room.

"Hey Chicago!" He said. "Sorry about that."

"Oh I don't care." She said and she truly didn't. She had always been a little messy herself and she wouldn't have even noticed the shoes if they hadn't been pointed out to her.

Jessie moved out from behind the island in their kitchen, wiping her hands on the back of her jeans before giving Kate a quick hug.

"I am so glad you could come." She said. "I can't imagine how tough it must be to have Daryl out there."

"Jessie." Dr. Anderson admonished. "Don't remind her."

"It's ok, really." Kate said. "It is constantly on my mind anyway. It smells delicious in here, can I help?"

"Oh no, I've got it all under control." She said, moving back behind the kitchen island and stirring something on the stove. "Please, relax, have a glass of wine."

Dr. Anderson led Kate through their entryway to a large room at the back of the house - it reminded her of Deanna's place with its long, leather couch and built-in bookshelves.

"What can I get you to drink Kate?"

"Um, red wine for me please."

"Coming right up." He said, turning and heading back towards the kitchen.

The fireplace stood mightily in the middle of the room, gray stone reaching up to the ceiling and a wooden mantle stretching from one side to the other. Kate stood in front of it and studied a photo framed in black. It was of a younger Dr. Anderson, his hair long and falling across his forehead boyishly. There was a small child in the photo too, standing still as Dr. Anderson held a stethoscope to his tiny chest, his ribs visible through his dark brown skin.

"That was taken in Somalia." Dr. Anderson explained, reappearing into the room with Kate's glass of wine and a scotch for himself. He handed her drink to her and took the frame. "I was there with an organization called Medecins Sans Frontiers - Doctors Without Borders - have you heard of them?"

Kate nodded, "I think so. Doctors that go and help in troubled areas?"

He continued on, "Yes, essentially. War torn areas, areas with horrific famine and disease. I worked with them through most of the 90's in Somalia, Liberia, Bosnia."

"Wow. That's amazing." Kate was impressed, she'd only been out of the country a few times and never made it across the Atlantic. "I was surprised to see a photo of you, from before, no one else seems to have any these days."

"Don't they?" Dr. Anderson said, bemused. He put the photo back on the mantle and sat on the leather couch.

She shook her head, "No, not really. There are just frames filled with strangers hung up all over our house. I guess someone might still have an old photo folded up in their stuff."

She thought about it, she knew that Rick had had a photo of him, Lori and Carl, but she didn't think it still existed. Dale had showed her a photo of his dead wife Irma. It was old and worn, but he said he'd carried it around in his wallet since 1987, but Dale was gone and the photo probably burned up with Jimmy and the RV on the night the farm fell to walkers.

"Glenn had a Polaroid camera he found in a store on a run once. We had a few new photos from around the prison, mostly just Judith, but they were left behind with everything else when we lost the prison. No time to grab much of anything."

Pete considered what she said for a moment.

"Do you know much about Somalia?"

She shook her head, feeling uneducated and insecure.

"They had a civil war. It went on for decades, it was still going on when the dead started to rise. In the early 90's the government was overthrown and in the wake of that, with so many rebel groups, there was no one really in power, so basically it was lawlessness and violence and suffering. The UN sent in peacekeepers to try and stabilize the situation and Doctors Without Borders worked alongside the UN - establishing clinics and hospitals and vaccinating the people. I ran a clinic there - that's where that photo is from. When the world here collapsed, that was the one thing I took from my office."

"Did you still work for Doctors Without Borders? When everything happened?"

"No." He said quickly, and then seemed lost in thought. "In 1998, I had just started a project with them in Sierra Leone - another civil war. We were doing amputations and other trauma surgeries. Believe it or not, it was really rewarding work - but, unfortunately, I didn't get to stay that long."

"Why not?"

His mouth quirked up in a mirthless grin. "I met Jessie at a bar on my one trip back to the states that year and she got pregnant with Ron. Newborns and civil war don't go well together and so, reluctantly, I ended my tenure with Doctors Without Borders shortly after his birth, came home, we got married - like real marriage - in a church, with a pastor, the kind you can't get out of without lawyers and custody agreements"

He chuckled darkly and drained his glass. Leaning forward he whispered conspiratorially, "...and all I wanted was a one night stand."

Kate laughed politely, assuming it was the Scotch talking. She looked over her shoulder, hoping Jessie would appear.

"Does Jessie need help?" She asked.

Pete waved her off. "She's good. She loves entertaining - believe me she is happy to be in there cooking for someone. So, Kate, what's your story?"

"Well, I grew up in California…"

He shook his head, "No, no..I know that…Southern California, Communications degree...blah, blah...I want the real story. The "I got someone knocked up and had to quit my dream job" story.

Kate looked down into her wine glass. She thought hard about what to tell him.

"Ok...let's make it easier - what is your biggest regret in life?"

"I regret that my family wasn't all together when everything went down."

"Why weren't you?"

" I was in Georgia, meeting the family of the man I was in a relationship with. It wasn't Daryl."

He snorted. "No, I didn't think it was. Clearly the apocalypse makes for strange bedfellows. So this boyfriend - what did he do for a living?"

Kate thought this was maybe the oddest question she had been asked since the whole world ended.

"Um...he was in IT...something with computers - I don't know that I ever actually knew."

"Fantastic industry! I mean, it wasn't for me, but for computer types. My sister is, was, married to a guy in that field. Beautiful home, vacation place down in the Outer Banks…" He stopped himself then, whether it was because he suddenly realized none of that mattered anymore or that he was interrupting Kate, she wasn't sure, but he quickly switched the subject.

"Did he die?"

"Who?"

"Your boyfriend."

She didn't like the way he kept saying that, your boyfriend. It made her feel like she was still attached to a man from a different lifetime - and she didn't understand why they were talking about him.

"I don't know." She said with a shrug. "I left him and his parents and tried to get home. When that failed, I ended up with a group of people trying to wait it out - camped out at a rock quarry outside Atlanta. That's where some of us first met."

"You didn't want to go back? Find him? You were serious enough that you were meeting his parents."

"The roads were blocked, it took me over 6 hours to even get close to Atlanta and it was worse heading out." She felt the need to defend her decision, but she couldn't say why exactly. "It wasn't safe. I was alone and scared - and I thought the military would come and save us and then I could be with my family."

He laughed bitterly. "When it gets really bad, even the strongest military in the world can't help. I've seen enough to know that."

Kate took a sip of her wine.

"Do you like art?" He asked, his face lighting up as he suddenly changed the subject.

"I do." She admitted. "Although there isn't much time for that anymore."

"I disagree," He said vehemently. "What better time than now? When we were assigned this house I inherited a couple decent pieces and a wonderful collection of books."

He stood up and crossed to the bookshelf, searching the titles before plucking one out by its spine and bringing it to her.

"Of course you're familiar with Quattrocentro artists like Michaelangelo and DaVinci - and they're covered in there - but there are so many more - Brunelleschi, Giotto...and then…." He said, rushing back to the shelf and searching again. "There is this one!"

He brought her another book, this one had Warhol's Marilyn smiling garishly off the cover in pink and yellow.

"Do you like modern art? I love it - I mean, I love the classics too, but it's the modern artists that speak to me. I'd love to hear what you think about this one."

"Awesome, thank you." She said, and could tell her response fell flat. For an instant his smile faltered, but he recovered quickly.

"Dinner time." Jessie said, appearing from the kitchen with an easy smile on her face. "Oh you've found someone to talk to about your books?"

Kate found her way to the table, taking a seat and watching Dr. Anderson refill her wine glass before pouring more scotch in his own.

"RON! SAM! DINNERTIME!" Jessie yelled up the stairs. The boys came barreling down the stairs, before sitting calmly in their chairs.

Jessie had made a stew - from what meat Kate wasn't sure, but it was delicious. She also baked bread - and unlike Kate's attempt it was perfect.

"Jessie," Kate groaned. "This is amazing!"

Jessie smiled, "I'm glad you like it."

"So Kate," Dr. Anderson started, spearing a carrot with his fork, "Tell me about this Carol woman in your group."

He glanced quickly at his wife before training his eyes on Kate, chewing his food and waiting for her to respond.

Kate's pulse quickened at the inquiry and she took a long sip of wine while she thought carefully about how to answer him. Despite her personal opinions on Carol, she was one of their group and that was where her loyalties were. Still, she didn't know quite how to answer - was she going to talk about the meek and subservient Carol? The one that had been crafted for the benefit of the Alexandrians? Or the strong and cunning woman - the real Carol.

"She's…" She shrugged. "She's been through a lot. Lost her little girl, her husband…"

She looked around the table at the Andersons. Sam was watching with wide, frightened eyes and she wondered if she shouldn't have mentioned Sophia - if Jessie and Dr. Anderson had shielded him from the truth beyond the walls. They hadn't had that luxury with Carl - he was there when the walker sunk its teeth into Amy's neck, when Dale had been disemboweled and Daryl had to shoot him, he had watched as Sophia tottered gray and milky-eyed from Hershel's barn - hell, he hadn't been much older than Sam when he had to shoot his own mother. But Alexandria was different, she had to remember that.

Dr. Anderson wiped his mouth with his napkin and spread it carefully back over his lap.

"The reason I ask…" He started.

"Pete, please." Jesse protested, pleading with her eyes that he would change the subject.

He held one finger up to her. She fell silent.

He began again, an edge to his voice, "The reason I ask, is because she threatened my son."

Kate stomped up the steps of the house feeling angrier by the second. She'd stayed at the Anderson's long after they'd told her about Sam's interaction with Carol. They'd finished their dinner and had dessert. She'd helped Jessie clear the table and do the dishes. Sam had shown her his room and drawings and Dr. Anderson had impressed her with more stories about his time tending to the sick in other countries. It would've been a great evening and the perfect remedy to worrying about Daryl if she hadn't been seething inside over Carol. She'd tried to pacify the Andersons and she hoped it had worked. She'd apologized profusely, she'd promised to talk to Carol and she tried to excuse her inappropriate behavior by giving them more information about the group's experiences beyond the walls than she'd known anyone to share with the Alexandrians yet. But despite all of that, Kate knew there was no excuse. Sam was eight years old. A vulnerable, pudgy little boy who already had to live in a world of monsters. What the hell was wrong with Carol?

Kate threw open the front door and slammed it behind her. Beth, Maggie, Carol and Michonne were in the living room watching a movie and eating popcorn. Their heads swiveled towards her, curious looks on their faces over her graceless entrance.

"How was dinner?" Michonne asked, the slightest hint of concern knitting her eyebrows.

"Carol, can I talk to you on the porch for a minute?"

Carol got up from the couch and placed her bowl of popcorn on the coffee table. Kate noticed Michonne and Maggie exchange a look, but they would be just as angry as Kate was if they knew Carol had been threatening children

"Want me to pause the movie?" Beth asked, already reaching for the remote.

"No, I've seen it before." Carol answered, sticking her hands into the pockets of her blue cardigan and following Kate onto the porch.

The moment Carol shut the door, Kate rounded on her.

"You threatened to tie Dr. Anderson's son to a tree and let walkers eat him?" She hissed, struggling to keep her voice down.

Carol let out an exasperated sigh.

"He found me in the supply room taking handguns." She said simply, like it was the most logical answer in the world.

Kate's mouth fell open. She had expected Carol to be ashamed, to admit her mistake, to deny it even - but she wasn't even sorry.

"He's EIGHT! You scared him to death! He's traumatized!"

"Stop being so dramatic Kate" Carol said, rolling her eyes. "He couldn't've been too scared since he ran and told his mommy. I'll talk to her, tell her it was a misunderstanding. I'll even bake him cookies."

Kate shook her head in disbelief.

"Like the world isn't scary enough outside these walls, now this poor kid has to live in fear of the people inside too. I can't believe you did that Carol."

"Oh I think Sam already has plenty to fear inside the walls."

"Like what?"

"Something isn't right with that family Kate. I have a bad feeling about Dr. Anderson."

It was Kate's turn to roll her eyes.

"What is your problem? Why do you do this? Why do you insist on constantly butting into other people's marriages!? Not everyone has a shitty relationship Carol."

She struck a chord. Carol's face hardened and any pretense of civility dropped away.

"What would you know about it?" Carol bit back. "Did your father ever hit you? I know Daryl would rather die than raise a hand to you, although God knows he must want to sometimes. Don't act like you'd have a clue. You don't know the signs like I do, you never lived that life."

"Maybe not," Kate said, her teeth clenched. " But I know how to mind my own business and I sure as hell don't go around threatening to feed children to walkers."