Carol does not bring Daryl whiskey. An hour and a half later, after he's had his IV liquids and another vampiric dose of Tyreese's blood, and she's chatted some more with her old friends, Carol brings him Tang powder mixed with water, which he calls "poor man's orange juice," pumpkin puree, a slice of fresh tomato, and a handful of kidney beans. It's the strangest meal she's ever served him, but it's what was on offer at the prison cafeteria.

"This is bland," Daryl mutters of the puree as he pokes at it with his spoon.

"I didn't make it."

"'Course not. You'd of spiced it up. And you'd of fried this tomato, too. And seasoned these beans. And where the hell are the eggs?"

"They only have five chickens for a camp of thirty-two people. And no rooster. So they can't breed more. They only get unfertilized eggs."

"Gathering intel, I see." He picks the tomato up with his hand, folds it in half, and feeds it to himself with a slurp.

"Whatever do you mean?"

"Seen you do it at Copper Creek. Acting all innocent, asking questions, filing it all away in that little college-ruled notebook in your head."

She chuckles. "How do you know it's college-ruled?"

"'Cause wide-rule is for amateurs. So what'd you learn?"

She tells him everything she knows—the number of vehicles, the content of their gardens, their stores of canned and boxed food, the MREs and storage food they looted from a dead prepper's root cellar and are saving for the winter. The infirmary, she shares, was well stocked with supplies when they got here, and then when they found Bob, he still had his Army ambulance, which was two-thirds full of supplies. "And they have four piglets. They're three months old. They immediately ate one of the three pigs you traded them for Garrison and then bred the other two. They've since eaten the boar."

"How they got all this power?" he asks.

"There were barrels and barrels of stabilized diesel fuel already here. They use it to run the generator. Milton's rationing the fuel to last the next twelve months, but it may spoil before then."

"Who the hell's Milton?" Daryl asks just before he tosses a kidney bean in his mouth.

"He's on the council here. And he's not sure what they'll do when the fuel spoils. The prison isn't well ventilated for fires. He says they'll probably cook outdoors, and they may try to build some kind of crude fireplace and chimney in the gym and all hunker down there in winter."

"They got a gym?"

"Prisons always do."

"They got a heavy bag?"

"Probably."

"Might get in a few rounds this afternoon."

Carol snorts, and he smiles.

"What about the water?"

"The water comes from a massive reserve water tower that feeds the prison and a neighborhood four miles south. But since the neighborhood isn't using that water anymore, and the camp isn't using much, Milton predicts it will last another eighteen to twenty months with rationing."

He washes down his last kidney bean with his final sip of Tang. "Sounds like Sophia better pick Copper Creek. Clock's ticking on this camp. Water's gonna be a real problem without wells or a fesh water source nearby."

"I don't think Rick was thinking about a future food and water supply when he first cleared this place. He was thinking about walls, to keep Lori and the baby safe from walkers and men."

The infirmary door opens. Oscar almost has to duck his head to come inside. He has a pack on his back and a semiautomatic rifle on his shoulder. "You about ready, Carol?"

Daryl turns his head and looks him over, up and down, slowly.

"We're cool, right?" Oscar asks him.

"Only reason you're alive is 'cause Rick's wife was pregnant. You took Garrison, man."

"Rick took him."

"You guarded 'em."

"Yeah, but don't you think me having to listen to him talk for three days straight was punishment enough?"

Daryl snorts. "I gotta tell that one to DeShawn."

"How's your boss going to take me showing up there?" Oscar asks.

"Long as Carol's alive when you get there, to confirm I'm alive, think it'll be a'right. So you best get her there alive, huh?"

"I could get myself there alive, you know," Carol says. "I got you here alive."

"I haven't said thanks for that yet, have I?" Daryl asks.

"Well, to be fair, I haven't said thank you for you putting yourself between me and that bullet either."

"Love means never having to say thank you," Oscar tells them. "Or was that you're sorry?"

Daryl blinks, maybe because Oscar has made the bold assumption that they're in love, when the only "L" word Daryl has used is "like." And "lot." He did say he liked her a lot. "Hell kind of dumbass expression is that?"

"It's from a movie. About some woman dying of cancer I think. Or something like that."

"Sounds fucking romantic," Daryl mutters. Then to Carol. "You going to get your girl, or what?"

"I'm going," she tells him and bends down and kisses his forehead. "Try not to give the medical staff a hard time while I'm gone."

[*]

Carol insists on driving. After all, she knows where she's going. The farm truck is considerably lighter without the furniture. Sasha even destroyed the coffee table. She yanked out the drawers and dumped the contents in the truck and then just threw the drawers on the ground. Then she took an axe to the table so she could rip up the bottom to make sure it wasn't a false bottom.

Oscar fiddles with the radio.

"There's nothing on," Carol says.

"There is on this one station. Listen."

The static crackles and then a voice breaks in: "Terminus. Sanctuary for all. Community for all. Those who arrive, survive."

Oscar points to the radio. "It's been playing for weeks now, on and off, just that same message, over and over."

"I was at Terminus for two weeks. It was my third camp." Or fourth, if she counts those 28 hours at the CDC. "It was taken over by armed bandits. Sophia and I only escaped by hiding during the attack and sneaking out by night. That was nine months ago. I can't imagine they aren't all dead by now." Those screams still haunt her, as does the guilt for leaving them behind, even if there was nothing she could do, with no weapon and Sophia to think about.

"Maybe they overcame their captors," Oscar suggests. "Maybe they're welcoming people again."

"I'd like to believe that. But they had no way to defend themselves. If they tried, they were likely wiped out. And that broadcast could be a trick. Now that the bandits have killed all the original inhabitants, maybe they're just playing that old recording to lure more people to Terminus to rob and rape."

"Well, Sasha and I might check it out. Spy it out from a distance first. If they did regain the place, and they've rebuilt, maybe we can trade and share information." They drive a few minutes in silence, and then he asks, "Don't you want to know what I was in for?"

"Not particularly."

"Breaking and entering. I'd like to say I did it to feed my family, but I really just wanted money to buy drugs. I got clean in prison, though. Got my associate's degree, too, and my old lady was gonna give me a second chance when I got out."

"What's your degree in?"

"Basket weaving."

Carol chuckles.

"Call Center Management, actually. I thought I'd have a decent job when I got out. I even worked in a call center in the prison, for a whopping $3.75 an hour. No minimum wage laws for prisoners."

"Well, at least you've put the management part of the degree to use."

Oscar's quiet for maybe five more minutes when he asks, "You want to play twenty questions?"

"The kid's game?"

"I used to play with my kids on road trips all the time."

Carol glances at him and sees the sadness flicker across his otherwise stoic features. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Maybe my kids are still alive," he says. "I went back to the old neighborhood in June, once things seemed stable at the prison. Went to my old house. Found my woman. She was a walker, locked in the bedroom. But I didn't find my little girl or either of my boys. Jamal was fifteen. He was learning to drive, and the car was gone. So was all the canned food and the big ktichen knives. I bet they're all sunning on Jekyll Island right now. They always wanted to go, you know, for summer vacation, but you had to pay seven bucks just to drive on. There's no one collecting tolls now."

"I bet they are there," Carol lies. "Collecting seashells."

"Kalisha always did love those shells." He sighs heavily.

To take his mind off it, Carol begins the game. "I'm thinking of a famous person."

"Dead or alive?" Oscar asks, and they both laugh.

[*]

It's early afternoon when they reach Copper Creek, and Carol's glad she didn't try to drive Daryl here. He'd have bled out by the time she did. DeShawn is on guard duty today over the stream. He patrols the bank on horseback as three men and a woman fish in the stream and eyes them as they drive over the bridge. When she pulls up to the iron gate, Carol can feel every muscle in her body tensing in anticipation of Jefe's reaction.

It doesn't help that Garrison himself is on watch. Oscar raises his hands inside the vehicle as Carol steps out. She can hear DeShawn's horse now thundering up the dirt road from the stream.

Garrison looks from Oscar to Carol and calls down from his perch, "Did he have a gun on you?"

"No. I drove him here," she says quickly. "Willingly. Daryl was shot."

"What?" cries Garrison, his eyes flitting from Oscar to her.

"By those men you ran into on the supply run to the veterinarian clinic. We killed them all, and I took Daryl to the prison for help." She talks increasingly faster as the hoofbeats near. "They saved him. Oscar's camp saved him. He's still there, healing up. Oscar's here because he wants an alliance. He wants bygones to be bygo - "

The horse whinnies loudly and rears up as DeShawn reigns it to a stop on the passenger's side of the farm truck. He vaults off of his horse and jerks open the passenger's door with one hand before putting both quickly back on his rifle. "Out!" he orders.

"Hold up, DeShawn!" Garrison calls as Oscar slides out with both hands up. "I got the situation under control." He scurries down the watchtower ladder, swings open the gate, and comes out, his rifle on his shoulder.

"This is one of the men who ransomed you!" DeShawn exclaims.

"I'm aware. I got this." Garrison waves toward the stream. "Go on back. Can't leave those people unguarded."

DeShawn shoots Garrison a confused look. "Where's Daryl?"

"He was shot, but Carol says he's alive and getting treatment back at the prison. He's fine. Go on, I got this."

"You damn well better," DeShawn says, backing up a couple of steps with his rifle still trained on Oscar. He glares at the man and adjusts his white cowboy hat before mounting his horse again. Turning the horse elegantly by its reins with one hand, and holding his rifle upright in the air with the other, DeShawn rides three steps slowly forward, surveying the blood on the wooden rails of the bed of and the damage to the bumper of his farm truck as he does so. Then he looks at Carol.

"Sorry," she says. "It's still fully functional! I'm sure Daryl will make it up to you. Somehow."

DeShawn shakes his head, spurs his horse, and gallops off down the dirt road.

"We cool?" Oscar asks, slowly lowering his hands to his side.

"Yeah, brother," Garrison replies, "we cool!" He struts over and the two men do some kind of fist bumping hand slapping secret handshake.

Oscar says, "You still ain't doing it right."

"Well, it's been at least eight months. I forgot!"

Carol is beyond confused. "You two…are you…friends?"

"I told Oscar my whole life story while I was at that prison," Garrison says. "While we were playing checkers."

"And it's long story, too," Oscar tells Carol. "A damn long story!"

"So when's Daryl coming back?" Garrison asks.

"Soon," Carol says. "Oscar and I will go back in the morning, and then I should be home with him in three days."

"Glad you both got out alive. And you got the last of those claiming fuckers?"

"Daryl thinks so. We killed three."

"So, brother," Oscar says to Garrison. "Any chance you can introduce me to your leader?"

"I can't just waltz in and introduce you to Jefe," Garrison tells him.

"No? I thought you said you two were super tight."

Garrison shuffles in place. "Well…I mean, maybe not super, super tight."

"You said you were in her inner circle, practically her right-hand man."

"Technically, outer circle," Garrison says. He glances sheepishly at Carol.

"Technically?" Oscar asks.

"I'll ask Arthur for a meeting with Jefe," says Carol, coming to Garrison's rescue. "We're not super tight, but she does have my daughter over at the mansion, so she'll be expecting me to pick her up, and she'll want to know about Daryl." Or rather, she won't want to know about Daryl. Carol still has no idea how Jefe's going to react to all this. "But let me talk to her first, before I try to introduce you."

"Well, I was just about to switch out on watch with Zach," Garrison says. "I'll hang with Oscar, get your loot to the warehouse…" He cranes his neck to look in the bed of the truck. "Looks like you got quite a bit of food. No furniture, though?"

"That's a long story," Carol replies.

She leaves Oscar with Garrison and anxiously makes her way up the road to the mansion.