They finally let Carol back in the infirmary once Tyreese is hooked up and the blood is flowing from him to a bag to Daryl. But Daryl is out of it, and he's ghostly pale. Bob, now shed of his gloves, draws Carol aside while Lilly adjusts the IV. "Is he unconscious?" she asks nervously.

"I gave him something strong," Bob replies. "He'd be in intense pain otherwise. He's lost a lot of blood. Fortunately, the bullet didn't hit any major internal organs. He must have had angels watching over him."

Carol lets out a long sigh of relief.

"I got nearly all of the bullet out."

"Nearly?"

"There were some fragments I couldn't remove without causing more damage. Scar tissue will form around those remaining pieces, and they may cause pain or discomfort. But he seems like a tough guy." Bob glances back at the bed where Daryl lies.

"So he's going to pull through?"

"Four out of five gunshot wounds are nonfatal," Bob tells her.

"That's not an answer."

"- Carol. It's Carol, right?" She nods and Bob continues, "I won't make any promises. If I learned anything as a battlefield medic, it's that just when you think you're in the clear, things can change on a dime. But I think he has a really good chance of bouncing back fully from this. He's not going to be doing any heavy lifting anytime soon, though."

Or hunting, Carol supposes. She wonders how Jefe will react to all this. Will Daryl lose rations if he can't hunt? Will he lose the cottage?

She walks over to Daryl's bed and looks down at his chest rising and falling. Her crude tourniquet and the useless gauze she applied have been removed, and there are thick stitches across his wound. The flesh is red around it. Those two lashes his father gave him in the front are visible for all the naked world to see. She pulls the sheet that's at his waist up to cover them. Carol looks across the bed at Tyreese, who is sitting in a chair as the blood flows from his arm. "Thank you for this."

He's a big man, bigger even than T-Dog, but has a similar, friendly look about him. "It's my pleasure. I miss doing this. I donated blood every eight weeks in the Old World."

"I heard you were in the 50 Gallon Club."

Tyreese nods. "I just wish I got some of those snacks for heroes the blood bank always used to give you after a donation."

"Yeah? What was your favorite?"

"Sun Chips."

Carol smiles. She can't wait to tell Daryl that the chips that are the only thing worse than Fritos in his opinion are Tyreese's favorite. "Well, I've got a single serve bag of Sun Chips with your name on it when you're done with this. Maybe two."

"Really?"

"We just looted a whole bunch of chips. I don't know where our truck is at the moment, but I'll get them for you when I can."

Glenn opens the door and calls Carol out. In the hallway stand Maggie and Carl. Maggie looks very much the same, but with shorter hair. Carl, on the other hand, is growing his hair out, and he's shot up a good four inches. Rick's worn brown sheriff's deputy hat sits large upon his head, and the sight makes her heart seize. He's also wearing his father's revolver, in a weighted-down holster on his right hip. That surprises Carol. She remembers Lori and Rick arguing over him learning to use it on the farm. And now he's carrying it around. Lori's parenting style must have changed in the past year. Carol hugs them each, one by one, and Carl says, "My mom said Sophia's alive?"

"She's back at our camp."

"When do I get to see her?"

"I don't know exactly. But I'm sure I can bring her for a visit soon."

"A visit?" Carl asks. "You're not moving here with us now that you've found us?" He sounds surprised and disappointed.

"I…I don't know." Unless Jefe kicks her out, or Sophia wants to settle here, Carol doesn't envision leaving Copper Creek, but she can't explain all that now. "But Sophia will be so happy to see you again. She talks about you a lot."

"I still have her doll."

"You do?"

Carl nods. "The one Eliza Morales gave her when the group split. I…took it with me when we escaped the farm. I don't know why. I just…" He shakes his head. "I guess I thought, since I couldn't save Sophia…I'd save her doll."

Carol's deeply touched by the gesture, and she sweeps Carl into another hug, but he worms his way out. He's probably getting too big for hugs, especially from women who aren't his mother. "I'm very sorry to hear about your father."

Carl winces and looks at the toe of his brown boot. "He died saving us. Saving this place."

Bob opens the door. Daryl's angry growl drifts out from the infirmary: "Where is she? Carol! What'd you assholes do with 'er!"

"You better get in here," Bob says.

When Carol comes into the room, Daryl is trying to sit up in bed and is reaching for his IV, as if to rip it out. "Stop!" she cries. "Stop!"

He settles down when he sees her, falls back against the bed. "Oh," he says. "You a'right?"

"Am I all right?" she asks. "I'm fine. You're the one who got shot." She comes over and slides her hand into his. "They're trying to help you. Let them, please."

"Doogie Howser over there said you was here. Didn't know if he was lying."

"I'm right here," she reassures him and squeezes his hand. "And Tyrese there is giving you his blood because you lost too much of your own."

Daryl turns to look at him. "Oh. Sorry I called you an asshole."

"Your friend's not as friendly as you," Tyrese tells Carol.

"Doogie Howser?" Bob says. "I'm short, not a child. And in case you haven't noticed, I'm not white."

"Sorry, then, Dr. Huxtable," Daryl mutters.

Lilly laughs. "Dr. Huxtable," she repeats and chuckles again.

Bob shakes his head. Then he updates Daryl on his condition and asks him, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is your pain?"

"Where one is a papercut and ten is shitting nails?"

"Sure," Bob agrees.

"Hell maybe ten should be the papercut," Daryl mutters. "That shit hurts."

"Give me a number," Bob insists.

Daryl winces. "Seven."

"We'll need to start you on another drip after the transfusion." Bob turns to Lilly. "I have a dinner date with Sasha. I'll cancel it if - ."

"- Go," Lilly tells him. "You've been looking forward to this all week. He's stabilized. I can take it from here. I'll send for you if I need you."

"Thanks." Bob strips off his doctor's coat and hangs it up on a hook on the wall.

"Good luck!" Lilly calls after him as he heads out the door.

"I've got a picnic in the pumpkin patch with Karen tomorrow," Tyreese says. "Are you going to wish me luck, too?"

"I for one am done with dating," Lilly replies. "I clearly have very poor taste in men."

"She drugged her last boyfriend and left him to burn," Tyreese tells Carol.

Daryl gives Lilly a horrified look.

"Relax," she says. "I had a valid reason."

"The Governor?" Carol asks.

"Are we in Woodbury?" Daryl yells as he tries to sit up, but he hisses and falls back in his half upright bed.

"No. No," Carol soothes him. She puts a hand on his bare, upper arm. "We're at the prison camp. West Georgia Correctional Facility. And they're helping you. The Governor set Woodbury on fire because people started deserting, and now he's dead. This camp took in the survivors."

"How do you know about Woodbury?" Lilly asks him.

Tyreese leans forward. "You're that Daryl? Daryl Dixon? The one we've all heard about?"

"Sit back," Lilly tells Tyreese. "You'll dislodge the needle." Tyreese heeds her instruction, and she adjusts the needle in his arm. While she does so, she tells Daryl, "The Governor brought me and my family to Woodbury last October."

"Month after I busted out," Daryl mutters.

"The Governor and some of his men were out on a scouting mission looking for you and your brother," Lilly explains. "And there was a fire in the apartment complex where my sister and daughter and I were living. He rescued us. At least, that's what I thought at the time. Now I wonder if he didn't set that fire himself to play the hero." She sighs. "But we started a relationship. I just didn't know what he was at first."

"The thrasher heads in the fish tank weren't a red flag?" Daryl growls.

"I didn't know about that. I didn't know about any of that until later. I didn't know his daughter was a thrasher when you killed her. He framed you as a murderer and your brother as a traitor. He had his own mythos he fed the people."

"Yeah, well Michonne wasn't buying that bullshit," Daryl mutters. "She here, too?"

Lilly and Tyrese exchanged a glance.

"The story is she left about a week after you did," Tyrese tells him, "at night, with her little boy and a whole pick-up truck of supplies she stole. They say she shot a guard. She was on the Governor's most wanted list, for murder and larceny. Along with you and your brother. But I don't know what happened to her. She didn't end up here."

"How's your brother?" Lilly asks Daryl. "Merle?"

"Dead."

Lilly doesn't seem to know how to respond to that. Finally, she says, "Sorry" and then goes to pull a clamp from a drawer under the counter. "I think Tyreese has given all he can safely give for now, but maybe we can top you off in the morning."

"I ain't a vampire."

Lilly smiles as she ties off Tyreese's IV. She removes the needle, and waits for the bag to drain the last of the blood into Daryl's arm. Then she puts another bag on the rack as Tyreese stands, rolls down his sleeve, and heads for the door.

"Thank you again," Carol tells him as he leaves, "I'll get you those chips later."

"Hell you putting in me now?" Daryl asks the nurse.

"Party drugs," Lilly tells him. "You'll thank me later."

Lilly pulls her gloves off and disposes of them in a push-pedal trashcan. "I need to run to the ladies room, Carol. It should take about ten minutes for that bag to drain, and then he should be in dream city. By then I'll be back to check on him, and you can go get some dinner. Our priority right now is keeping Daryl hydrated. We'll worry about getting him food tomorrow."

When the door clicks shut behind Lilly, Daryl says, "They ransoming us?"

"No. When they're done helping you, we'll be free to go." She walks over and sits down in the chair Tyreese vacated and tells him everything she's learned and about the old friends she's found here.

"Holy shit," he says when her story is done. "Damn. You must be happy!"

She smiles. "I am. Happy they're alive. Happy you're alive. Happy I threw caution to the wind and brought you here."

"If you'd ever mentioned Rick, could of told you he was here. Only one you said by name was Glenn. Me and Deshawn and Monty, we met with Rick for the exchange. And some guy named Oscar."

"I don't know Oscar," Carol says.

"But he's dead? Rick?"

Carol nods solemnly.

"Fuck. Man had a baby coming. Was the only reason I didn't cap his ass for taking Garrison."

"The baby came. He's adorable. About six months old. Listen, about what happened right before we were attacked – "

"-Shot must have knocked my brain back in time," Daryl interrupts. "Last thing I 'member was you handing me a tub of barbecue sauce."

He's lying, Carol thinks. He's embarrassed by the kiss. He thinks she can't possibly want him for legitimate reasons. He didn't have an ex-husband to preach lies about his worth in his ear, but he had a father who did it. He knows Nadia slept with DeShawn the first time because she wanted to ensure her sponsorship. And he thinks Jefe only wanted him for his vices. He can't believe Carol wants him for his virtues, and he's hoping she just drops it.

She's not planning on it.

"Glenn told me that Sophia and I are welcome to settle here," she says. "They have gardens now and a couple of hunters and, as you can see, at least some power. A lot of medical supplies. It seems like a good camp."

"Oh." His hand curls around the sheet at his side. "And what'd you say?"

"I didn't say anything yet."

"Want to move here, though?"

"That is the question, isn't it?" she asks. "What do I want? Because no one can possibly think it's about need if I stay at Copper Creek. Not when I have this camp to turn to, right?"

He swallows. "Yeah. Reckon that's right."

"I don't need you to sponsor me to put a roof over Sophia's head or walls around her or food on the table, because they would take us in here. So anything I do? I'm doing because I want to. That's the only reason. And you know what I want to do right now?"

Daryl shakes his head slightly.

"I think you do." And then she leans in and presses her lips to his.

He responds with less fervor than he did in the parking lot, probably because he's been shot, but his lips are just as warm, and he eases his tongue timidly between her lips, almost like a teenage boy exploring a girl's mouth for the first time, but it still makes her gasp.

The kiss is longer this time, and softer, but every bit as good as that first one. She only pulls away because she hears his heart rate monitor beeping madly. She glances at the screen. The line returns to a steady pattern, and the mad beeping stops.

"Wooh!" he whistles, glancing at the almost empty medicine bag for his IV. "This is the good shit, ain't it? Feel like I'm flying!" He grins sloppily at her, closes his eyes, and murmurs, "Feel like I'm flying."