Dad wasn't lying when he said he was counting on me. For two whole weeks after that, we cleared out the remaining parts of the prison, just the two of us. We cleared out the other two cellblocks. We cleared out the library, the administration building, the two storage rooms, and the commissary. The prison was walker-free, at least on the inside. We even set up a small barricade in the administration building where it had partly crumbled. With the help of one of the Woodbury residents, we even managed to get the boiler running again. Meaning we had hot showers again, as long as we had water. Which that problem we also solved, with Daryl and Glenn's help. We dug a trench from the field in the prison to the small lake that was just outside the prison. We then laid a pipe with a hose inside of it in the trench. We covered up the pipe, and with some supplies that Daryl and Michonne had brought back from a hardware store nearby, we got a working water pump attached to the pipe. We have fresh water. Of course, we still had to boil it all if we wanted to drink it, but it improved everyone's mood significantly. That wasn't the biggest thing that happened though. Merle was alive. When Daryl was out scavenging with Glenn they found him, half-dead, but alive. Glenn wanted to leave him. But Daryl hauled him into the bed of the truck and brought him back. Herschel had him under close care and guard. Even though it had been a few days, Merle was still barely conscious, barely clinging to life. Although if it was bothering Daryl, he was hiding it very well. I sat up in bed. It was early morning, around the time I usually woke up. I kicked my legs over the side of my bed and rubbed my eyes. I got dressed for the day and grabbed my gun before I walked out of my cell to the common area, where we had actually started eating breakfast together, not just canned spaghetti either. We had lots of supplies from Woodbury that the people had brought with them. Cereal. Fruit, although canned, it was still fruit. Even some jerky and MREs which Carol seemed to know a lot about. I never asked why though. But, my favorite thing that they had brought with them, was coffee. I started drinking it every morning. I even drank it during the day sometimes. When I walked into the common area, Dad was in there already, feeding Judith. Herschel, Glenn, and Maggie were there as well. I grabbed a bowl and a spoon, and some powdered milk, as well as a water bottle. I sat down and grabbed the box of cereal from off the table. I filled the bowl with cereal and started on my least favorite part of the day. Making the powdered milk into, well, milk. I tore the one end of the bag after moving the powder down to one side. I then poured a decent amount of water into the bag and started to shake the bag. No matter how hard I tried, it always felt like half the bag ended up flying all over the place. I poured it into the bowl and started to eat it. It never tasted good, in fact, it was pretty awful, but I had learned not to complain all that much about the taste of something, after the winter we spent moving from town to town, house to house. I finished eating and put my bowl with the other dishes next to the makeshift sink we had made. I walked outside where Glenn was standing around. "Hey, Carl."

"Glenn."

"Uh, can I get your help with something?"

"What do you need?"

"I wanna go on a run...", he started with.

But, I cut him off saying, "My Dad doesn't want me going on runs."

"I already asked him if you could go. He's fine with it."

"Oh. What were you gonna say?"

"I was thinking that we make a run to a furniture store." I looked at him like he had twelve heads.

"A furniture store?"

"Well, think about. We're gonna be here a while, maybe years, the rest of our lives. We should make it more like home, and less like a prison."

"Alright, that's all well and good, but how are we gonna move all this, we can't exactly carry a mattress for twenty miles."

"Daryl and I found a trailer when we were out and found his brother. We couldn't bring it back, but I was thinking we could take the truck and grab it then head to the furniture store. We could use that trailer for supply runs too. We could clear out whole stores with it."

"Alright. Count me in."

"Good. Are you ready to go?"

"Yeah."

"Alright, let's go then." We both got in the truck. One of the Woodbury people opened the first gate and Daryl opened the second one for us.

We had driven a little bit away from the prison when I asked, "So why didn't you ask Daryl to come?" I asked looking out the window.

"We've been fighting about Merle since we brought him back."

"You think you should have left him to die?"

"Yeah."

"I know he's the biggest asshole in the state, but he's still Daryl's brother."

"I know. But, he's not one of us. I still barely trust the people from Woodbury, and they didn't even do anything to me, well not directly at least."

"Why not Michonne or Maggie then?"

"Michonne was busy and Maggie...well that's another story."

"Everything alright with you two?"

"Yeah, it's just...I, I think she's pregnant."

"You sure?", I asked looking at him in shock.

"Well no, but a lot of things are pointing in that direction, to say the least."

"Does she think so too?"

"Yeah."

"Well, congratulations."

"Thanks, but we don't know for sure. I'm not quite sure if I want that either."

"Why not?"

"This world, it's not meant for babies. It's not meant for anyone to be honest. Judith. She's can make it, we can take care of her. But, I don't know if we can take care of another baby."

"If you guys have a baby, we'll take care of it. We all well. That's what we do. We're family, at least, well, Maggie says so."

"She's right. Do you think she's wrong?"

"No. She's right."

"Whatchu said, about how if me and Maggie had a baby, that you would help. That you all would. Thank you."

"Well, we would. Like I said, it's what we do."

"Still, I think I needed to hear that. I've been nervous these past few days. I mean I don't know anything about being a parent. To be honest I feel like I just got the whole love thing down."

"Well, you got me beat then. I don't have anything figured out."

Glenn asked in a more serious tone, "With Beth, Maggie told me what you said. How you think she deserves someone better. Why would you think that?"

"I was stupid, with how I ended it, what I said. But, when I told her that she deserves someone better, that's still true. She deserves better than me."

"Carl, it's not about deserving. She loved you. She still does."

"Herschel said the same thing to me a couple weeks ago. How can you think she still loves me? After what I did, what I said."

"If she didn't love you, she wouldn't be talking to Maggie about you still."

"She what?"

"She's trying to figure out why you did what you did. All of it. But, never once did she say she doesn't love you." I didn't say much after that. She still loves me? No. Just because she didn't say that she hates me or doesn't love me anymore, doesn't mean she loves me. We got to a small gas station and I saw the trailer Glenn was talking about before. We got out and hooked the trailer up relatively quickly before we were back on the road. About half an hour later, we reached the furniture store. We pulled the truck right up in front of the door. It was still locked up from when the outbreak started. Glenn grabbed some bolt cutters from the truck and we walked inside. We walked around with our flashlights until we found the pillows. "Jackpot."

"What is your Government-issued pillow not to your liking?", I asked jokingly. Glenn laughed a little.

"This was a good find."

"Yeah, it was."

"Let's keep looking. We should find some blankets and sheets too."

"Yeah." While we were looking for blankets and sheets I found almost an entire pallet of curtains, all still boxed up. "Hey, Glenn."

"Yeah?"

"You think these could work as blankets?" He walked over and looked at them.

"No. But, we should take these. We can hang them in front of the doorways." He walked to the shelf behind us. "We need these too", he said grabbing a few curtain rods.

"Alright maybe we oughta start putting stuff in the truck, so we know how much space we have."

"Yeah, let's do that." We first grabbed pillows and boxes of pillowcases and put those in the back seat of the truck, along with 5 boxes of curtains. We grabbed all the door-sized curtain rods they had and placed those in the back as well. We then found the blankets and sheets we had been looking for and put those in the back seat as well. Then we put two big, reclining, chairs onto the trailer. We grabbed a few short bookcases and put those in the bed of the truck and tied them down the best we could. We placed a small table onto the trailer, as well as two tall metal shelves. We tied down everything on the trailer, and just before we left, we cleared out everything of use from the checkouts. Mostly just candy bars, sodas, water bottles, and gum. As we were walking out from the checkout area, bags full of candy and soda, I saw a small wooden horse figurine. It only made me think of one person. Beth. I grabbed it and went out of the store with Glenn. We closed up behind us, planning on coming back in the future. On our way out of the town, Glenn pulled over at a pharmacy. "Why are we stopping here?"

"I need to get something. For Maggie."

"This place has probably been looted to hell and back."

"I know, I need to look though."

"Alright." When we got inside Glenn went one way, I went the other. I looked around for anything anyone had left behind. I only found a couple of boxes of bandaids, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, two boxes of gauze, and a few boxes of random pills. I just grabbed it all, not knowing what we needed or may need. Then I went back to the actual pharmacy part of the store, I hopped over the counter and started looking around the prescriptions. Most of them were gone, but a lot of it was still there. I grabbed it all.

I climbed over the counter and heard Glenn call out, "Carl?"

"Over here", I replied. I walked towards where I heard Glenn. We almost walked into each other.

"Where were you?"

"I was clearing out the pharmacy", I said matter of factly. I took off my bag and opened it. Glenn looked inside, surprised.

"You did good." As we were walking out of the store, Glenn asked, "Do you even know what all those pills are?"

"No, figured Herschel might know, or maybe one of the people from Woodbury are a doctor." He shrugged and we got back in the truck. I tossed my bag into the back seat and we started the drive back to the prison. I took the horse figurine out of my pocket. "Glenn, can you make sure Maggie gives this to Beth?", I asked handing the horse to him. He looked at it for a split second and grabbed it.

"Why can't you?"

"You know why."

"You have to work it out with her eventually, Carl."

"I know, but, it's still too early."

"Don't wait forever."

"Will make sure Maggie gives that to Beth?", I asked again.

"Yeah, of course."

"Thank you."

"Did you grab this at the pharmacy?"

"No, the furniture store."

"Carl?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think I'd make a good father?"

"Yes, I do. I mean, I don't really know anything about parenting but, I think you would."

"Sorry, it's just ever since Maggie started thinking that she's pregnant, that's all she's been saying."

"Well, you will be, when every you and Maggie have a kid." We drove back mostly just talking about small things, like plans Dad had with the prison, and all the stuff we were bringing back. When we got back we pulled up right into the prison courtyard, where quite a few people were. Including Dad, Daryl, and Andrea.

"Did you guys clear out the Bed, Bath, and Beyond or something?", Andrea asked looking at all the stuff in the trailer.

"What did you grab the chairs for?", Dad asked more seriously.

"Well if you haven't noticed those metal "chairs" in the cells aren't exactly much better than the concrete, so...", I said.

"We got pillows too", Glenn said. "Real ones. Carl found these curtains too. We can hang them in front of the cells." Dad looked at me and nodded his approval.

"We also stopped at this pharmacy, I cleared out what was there", I said reaching into the back seat and grabbing my bag. I showed Dad everything that was inside.

"You had time to grab candy I see?"

"Well, it's food", I said matter of factly.

Daryl cut in then, "Alright let's unload this before it gets dark." We started moving the metal shelves first. We put them in the common area. Then we put the chairs in our cellblock, just outside the cells. Finally, we put a bookcase at the top of the staircases in Cellblock C and D. Then we put a bookcase in Glenn and Maggie's cell, one in Beth's cell, and one in my cell. It was weird being back inside the cell that Beth and I had shared what felt like years ago. It was especially weird because I could feel Beth staring me down the whole time. Everyone ended up with a pillow, blanket, sheet, and pillowcase, with a few extras. We left the curtains out to do the next day. When we were done it was late. We all ate together, it was different, usually, someone wasn't there. But, we all were there and ate and talked to each other, well most of us talked to each other. When we all retired to our cells, I fell almost instantly asleep. The final thing I thought about was Beth. She had been holding Judith the whole time we were at the table. But, Beth looked even more beautiful than usual for some reason. It only made me realize how much more of an idiot I had been.

I just finished updating Chapter Three, go check it out.