AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

I've announced it on my other story, but I'll put it here too. I haven't abandoned anything. I've been so busy that I haven't had time to do things that I enjoy like write. I'm also in a situation where my internet is very hit or miss. I'm still here and I'll update whenever I possibly can. I appreciate you reading when I post and I really appreciate those of you who let me know that you're still interested and still reading. I'll try to get something more out to you as soon as possible.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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Carol stood and held Daryl's hand in hers. His hand was sweating, despite the slight chill in the air, thanks to the fact that they'd been standing palm to palm for a decent amount of time. Carol might have pulled her hand away, wiped it on her pants, and stood with her hand hanging loose for a while, but she was enjoying the contact with Daryl and she found that she was slightly uneasy with the happenings around them. It wasn't really that she was afraid, especially since she had nothing to fear, but there was a slight uneasiness that caused her stomach to churn a little.

The announcement had come over their televisions the night before that there were to be more Wilds joining Woodbury. The building projects were expanding their small community and there was room for more, so they were bringing new prisoners in to introduce them to the Woodbury lifestyle.

Because Carol knew what might happen to the prisoners if they were to remain in the prisons, she welcomed the news that they were bringing more in to the relative safety of the community. She was glad to know that there would be more people who would likely be saved from the "one bullet to the brain" humane manner of exterminating the Wilds that the government had devised—but there was still something there that was making her a little uneasy.

The newcomers would be temporarily separated from the established citizens of Woodbury. Their introduction time would give them the opportunity, just as it had for Carol and the others, to get used to being outside of the prisons and in more of a settled environment. It would give them time to weed out those who weren't capable of handling the transition without allowing them to cause havoc in Woodbury, as well.

And then, just the same as Carol and everyone else, those newcomers would slowly gain the freedoms that allowed them to go to and from their homes, meals, and work without escort and fanfare.

All of Woodbury had been asked to come out and gather so that they could witness the arrival of the new people and the sorting that would take place before they were "coupled" and sent to their new homes. All of those currently residing in Woodbury without mates were invited to come and "choose"—just the same as picking out a shirt—a mate for themselves. Anyone who wanted to "switch" their partners—like exchanging that very same shirt for one of a different size—was invited to come and make the exchange.

The whole town was supposed to be there, though, in one form or another to greet the new arrivals.

Even Andrea was being allowed to stand, guarded, on the porch of her home for the grand arrival.

But it was taking forever, it seemed, for the bus or buses to actually arrive.

And for all their waiting, Carol's hand was starting to sweat where Daryl was holding it so tightly in his own like he feared she might slip away or someone might somehow become confused and believe that one of them was hoping to change up their "mating" situation.

Carol knew that she would meet, and to some degree get to know, all the new people that entered into the community. Working closely with Alice meant that she frequently made rounds to other people's houses and she was at least a little acquainted with most of the people of Woodbury. New prisoners would mean that Alice would run an initial exam for each of them to decide where they were, health-wise, and how to get them in top shape as they shed off their less-than-gentle prison lifestyles.

From where Carol and Daryl stood, somewhat swallowed up in the crowd, they had a limited view of the area near the gates that had been cleared for the sorting of the new arrivals. Every guard they had was gathered there and it appeared they'd called in a few more for good measure. These Wilds weren't maximum security Wilds—all of those were gone beyond the few that were still alive in Woodbury—but the guards weren't taking any chances that those fresh out of prison might turn on the crowd.

Carol heard some of the squelching and static-filled noises coming from the handheld radios the guards carried before she even heard the sound of engines roaring as the buses approached. She raised up on her toes a little for a slightly better view over the shoulders of some of their "neighbors" when the guards moved to open the gates and clear the way for the vehicles to come inside.

Beside her, Daryl laughed to himself and squeezed her hand.

"You want me to put you on my shoulders?" He teased. "So's you can see better?"

"How many buses are there?" Carol asked.

"Looks like two," Daryl said. "Unless they got some outside that's gonna come in when these clear out. You know how many people is supposed to come in?"

"Alice said she heard twenty four," Carol said. She'd spent the morning in the clinic helping Alice get things ready for the rush that would hit them in the days to come. It had also been a chance for Carol to get something of the low-down on the information that the woman knew about what was taking place. "And then she heard fifty."

"Which is true?" Daryl asked.

"I don't know," Carol responded. "That's why I was asking about the buses."

"Looks like they from two different prisons," Daryl said. "Painted up different."

"They'd be coming from segregated prisons," Carol said. "Region Thirty Three..." Carol stopped herself. She knew, because Alice had told her, that Region Thirty Three was in the process of shutting down. Like the other prisons, funding was running low for it and it was simply going under. The government didn't feel the need to keep the larger facilities running. It appeared, instead, that they were simply "doing away" with any prisoners that they viewed to be beyond rehabilitation and they were shuffling the others off to smaller prisons that were cheaper to run—and those places were being run at the lowest cost that it was possible to achieve.

The government wasn't going to rehabilitate all the prisoners—not like they'd once boasted they'd do. Instead, they were keeping the best-behaved prisoners and waiting for Woodbury to prove, once and for all, if Kreegan's scientific findings were correct and all prisoners were simply a loss.

They were headed toward being the last Wilds standing. They would soon be the last people who recalled what it had been like to live out there—to the best of their abilities—with the Dead that still owned the country outside of the walls that were built to keep them out.

But Carol wasn't supposed to know all that she knew—some of which she'd just learned moments before stepping out to join the crowd-and she'd kept many of Alice's secrets. Even if she was going to tell Daryl what she knew, she was well aware that standing in the middle of such a large crowd wasn't the right place to do it.

"Region Thirty Three is one of the only coed prisons," Carol said, deciding that was the best way to save the comment that she'd left hanging.

When the bus doors opened, the guards blocked whatever view Carol and some of the others might have had of the newcomers. The prisoners were ushered off the bus and Carol's stomach turned slightly at the odd sense of déjà vu that came over her. That had been them not too long ago. She still remembered how it felt to come down the bus steps, carrying everything that she had to her name in a bag on her back, wondering what was about to happen to her. She imagined the experience might be at least a little less terrifying with all of them standing around in a group. At least they didn't imagine, right from the start, that they were being marched before a firing squad.

Carol watched as the buses emptied their contents out and the heavy metal doors closed behind the prisoners who stood, slightly disoriented, and shifted the weight of their bags. The number fifty seemed closer to correct than the number twenty four, but a head count would have been impossible from her position.

Samirah took her stand on the makeshift "stage" that they'd built for her to raise her high enough above the crowd so that everyone could see her. The speakers they'd brought in just for carrying her voice did what they were supposed to do.

Carol listened to the woman's welcoming speech and tried to recall what had been said to them when they were standing there wondering what was happening. She welcomed the new prisoners and explained to them that Woodbury was a violence-free community. She informed them that breaking the laws in place would result in expulsion from the community and their ability to remain there after any misdemeanor would be up to an invisible and unknown-to-Carol council to decide. Carol heard Samirah introduce Milton, who stepped up only long enough to give something of an obligatory wave to the crowd before disappearing again, and then she heard her tell everyone that Mr. Milton, who was something of a mayor to their new community, was not to be bothered without the approval of an escort.

And then the sorting began.

Coming from separate prisons, and being utter strangers to one another, there wasn't much of a scramble for people to pick their mates. They stayed where they were, still shifting their weight back and forth, and waited to be paired. Samirah called forward anyone who wanted to "trade" partners or find someone to replace a mate that they'd somehow lost or never been matched with.

She felt Daryl tighten his grip on her hand as though he feared that, somehow, she might be swept away from him and swallowed up into the sorting. She wasn't going anywhere, though. In response, and as a way of offering him some silent comfort that he seemed to need without any explanation, Carol simply tightened her own grip on Daryl's hand.

Two by two, like animals preparing to go to the ark, the prisoners were lined up by the guards.

Samirah turned her attention, then, to all of them that were gathered there. She raised her microphone once more so that the speakers could carry her voice.

"We're going to ask that all Woodbury citizens return to their homes," Samirah said. "Turn on your televisions and we'll post an announcement about when it's permissible to leave your residences. We're asking that you clear all public spaces so that the newly arriving citizens can be relocated to their homes and supplies can be handed out. They'll be fed in-home this evening and then the mess hall will re-open for your evening meals before lockdown. Tomorrow work and all activities will resume normally for established citizens. We thank you for your cooperation."

Accepting Samirah's dismissal, and certainly not wanting to cause any kind of disruption with such a large number of guards present and on edge, the whole crowd started to disperse and attempt to move toward their homes. Like he feared they'd be trampled, Daryl pulled Carol into him and hugged her against his body while everyone else moved around them like a herd that was trying to find its direction. Carol hugged him back and rested her face against his chest. She waited patiently until it no longer felt like she'd be stepped on or dragged away by the moving bodies around her, and then Carol pulled free from Daryl's arms.

"Let's head home," Carol said.

Daryl glanced back toward the area where the guards were almost circling the newcomers in such a way as to intimidate them a little with their close and watchful presence.

"They're already scared shitless," Daryl said. "A better greeting to them would've been to give us all a chance to speak. Some kind of forum where we could tell 'em what life is really like here."

"I get the feeling that's not what they want," Carol said. "Not at first. They want them to be scared before they get comfortable."

"How long you reckon they keepin' 'em under lockdown?" Daryl asked. He finally gave up trying to watch what was happening and put his hand on Carol's back, gently pushing her back in the direction of their own home.

"A week?" Carol offered. "Two or three, maybe. I don't know. I guess it depends on how they act and how they seem to fit in."

"How much longer you reckon they keepin' my brother locked up?" Daryl asked.

Carol smiled to herself. Every day Daryl asked about his brother. Every day she asked Alice about Merle and Sadie. This morning, she'd finally gotten a definitive answer from Alice after the woman had briefly discussed their plans to deal with the examinations that the new arrivals would undergo.

"A few days," Carol assured Daryl. "They're keeping quiet and acting just like they want them to act. And Sadie's got two more days before we run the tests to find out if you're going to be an uncle." Daryl laughed to himself, keeping step with Carol. She swayed her body to the side and nudged him as they walked. In response, Daryl dropped his arm around her and gently dug his fingers into her side as he pulled her closer to him. "What?" She pressed.

"Damnedest thing in the world," Daryl said, "to imagine Merle Dixon bein' some damn body's old man. Bein' some damn body's live-in or whatever the hell we're supposed to call ourselves since they don't make nothin' official. That's all. Just the damnedest thing to think it could be real."

Carol laughed to herself.

"It's real," she offered. "Hopefully you're about to be an uncle."

Daryl laughed to himself again and didn't speak until Carol had prompted him, once more, to say what he was laughing about.

"An uncle and an' old man," Daryl said. "Hell if I ever thought I'd be either one—less likely both."

Carol smiled to herself.

"Well," she said, "it's happening. All in good time—but it's happening."