Carol gets lots of compliments on dinner that night. She feels a little bad for Jeanette, who usually prepares the evening meal for everyone. She wanted to be of use while she was here, but she can tell the woman doesn't like being upstaged.

That night, Carol kisses Daryl goodnight in the infirmary once again. They're both smiling when she pulls away, and she still can't get over how much like a teenager she feels, after all these years. "I shouldn't let myself get spoiled," she tells him. "As soon as we're back at Copper Creek, I suspect I'm barely going to see you. Even with that wound."

"Nah. I'll be around. Can't wait to get outta here, though," he mutters.

"Thanks for gutting it out another day for Sophia. She's been having a blast. And it's been good for me to see my friends, too."

That night, Carol awakens to the sound of coughing drifting from one of the cells. Sophia stirs in the bunk above hers, and then both fade back to sleep. An hour later, Carol is drawn from her slumber once again, this time by the sound of voices outside the open iron door of her cell.

"I'll gather the council," Oscar says. "We'll make a call on your proposal."

"We need to get the body out of the prison immediately," Bob insists. "I'm not waiting for a call on that."

Through her one open eye, Carol sees Oscar take off in one direction, and Bob and Shumpert stride off quickly in the other. She slides out of her bunk and finds Sophia is not in bed above her.

Full of foreboding, she seizes her handgun and jogs after Bob. She follows the two men as they round a hallway, stride past the infirmary to the end of the hall, and then vanish into the prison bathroom.

Outside of that bathroom, a little ways down the hallway, Daryl sits with his back against the wall and his arm around a sobbing Sophia, who is spattered with blood. Carol runs the last few feet and, calling Sophia's name, falls to her knees before them. Frantically, she searches her girl for stab wounds or bite marks, asking, "What happened? What the hell happened?"

"She's okay," Daryl assures her. "Ain't been bit."

"Did a walker get in the prison?" Carol cires.

"Heard 'er screaming down the hall," explains Daryl, now twisting at his waist to wrap his other arm around the girl. She buries her sobs against his chest, and he tighetens his muscle to endure the pain that causes his wound. "Grabbed m'knife and ran down here. She must of come to use the bathroom. When I got in there, she was beating off Patrick with a shower curtain rod she'd pulled down."

"Patrick?" Carol asks.

"Patrick's shell," he mutters. "Must of died and turned in there. She ended up bashing its head in, after she hit 'em long and hard enough. His shell was dead when I got there. That's its blood. Not hers."

Carol sighs shakily. "Oh, sweetheart." She strokes Sophia's hair as Daryl holds her. Sophia turns and is about to crumple into her mother's arms when Bob comes out and jerks Carol away from her daughter.

Carol angrily protests, and Bob says, "Sophia stepped in the blood Patrick coughed up before he died. And he was likely contagious. Don't touch her right now."

Sophia pulls the rest of the way away from Daryl and looks at him in apologetic horror.

[*]

That night, Shumpert carries Patrick's body out of the prison, digs his grave alone, and buries the body by himself, because he's one of the few people who have already touched it. Bob, with the approval of the hastily assembled Council, establishes a quarantine in Cell Block A and confines himself there to treat the patients, while Lilly monitors the vitals of everyone in the camp and determines who will go into quarrantine.

Sophia ends up in cell block A, along with Daryl and Shumpert, all of whom have been exposed to Patick's blood. Little RJ spikes a fever, too, perhaps because he was in Patrick's lap all day, as does Carl, either because of the time he spent today with his friend Patrick, or because he got the sickness from RJ. Lori and Carol, however, remain untouched by the infection.

The two women insist on being let into quarantine to be with their children, but Lilly refuses. "You're not infected. You're not coughing, and you don't have a temperature. But you will be infected if you spend moe time around them now that they're coughing. This thing spreads fast, and it's deadly. There's no way I'm letting anyone healthy in there. We have antiviral medicines from Bob's ambulance, and he's treating them. They're going to be oaky."

"But Bob's sick too!" Lori cries.

"He'll power through it to do what he needs to do."

"My little girl needs me," Carol insists.

"RJ's just a baby!" Lori insists. "He needs his mama!"

"Daryl's in there with your daughter," Lilly reminds Crol. "She's not alone. And Carl's there with his baby brother. I sent some of your stored breast milk in a bottle through the bars. And apple juice, too, for hydration."

Shumpert seems to get the sickness the worst of anyone in quarantine, and he dies around two a.m. Bob and Carl, coughing heavily themselves, drag the hulking body of the former Woodbury soldier out of Cell Block A into the courtyard, douse it with gasoline, and burn it.

While the coughing fills Cell Block A, weeping fills the rest of the occupied prison.

[*]

By 6 AM, every fever has broken. No more people have fallen sick or been confined to quarantine. The coughing in Cell Block A continues on and off.

From a safe distance, Carol and Lori peer through the bars that cordon them off from their children. Sophia and Carl are sitting cross-legged on a matress in the middle of the hallway with a checker board between them, coughing between jumps. Daryl stands nearby, half leaned back against some iron bars, with RJ cradled football style across his entire arm, his little feet hanging over, as he sucks from a bottle Daryl holds. He spies the women, glances at Sophia, and then gives Carol a nod that seems to say, "Don't worry. I've got my eye on your girl." Then he takes the bottle from the baby's mouth, covers his mouth with the crook of his arm, and coughs. RJ fusses, and Daryl returns the bottle to his mouth.

"Come on," Lilly tells the women. "Don't get too close."

They walk away, back down the hall, Lori saying, "They're going to make it. The worst is over."

Carol nods.

Lori smiles. "Your Daryl's kind of cute with a baby in his arms. Ever thought about having one of your own?"

"He's been my boyfriend for about a hot minute, so, no, definitely not. And, besides, I can't. Ed made me get my tubes when I had the C-section for Sophia."

"Maybe you'e lucky. Worry free sex. If I'd ended up needing a C-section with RJ...who knows if I'd have made it."

[*]

As fast as the disease came, it fades, thanks to the Council's speedy decision to quarantine and the antiviral medications. But Bob advises that he, and the others in quarantine, remain there for three more days, just to be certain they don't infect anyone else. Books, more board games, and food are left at the edge of the cell block to be taken in, as are notes of love and encouragement to those inside.

Carol writes to her daughter how much she loves her, and how sorry she is for Sophia's loss of her new friend Patrick. To Daryl, she writes, "Thank you for looking out for my little girl. You're a good man, and I can't wait to thank you with a kiss."

[*]

The last day of quarrantine, Garrison and DeShawn show up at the prison gates around noon. Jefe has sent them to find out why Daryl, Carol, and Sophia have not returned as expected. The men are welcomed into the prison and invited to stay the day and the night, until their friends can be released.

When the recovered patients are allowed out of quarantine the following morning, a solemn memorial is held in the prison graveyard for Patrick and Shumpert. Carol hugs Sophia to her side as Carl shares a eulogy for his friend, and Daryl lays a hand on Carol's shoulder.

After the memorial, they all breakfast in the cafeteria. Sophia eats alone with Carl and Meghan, knowing she won't see them for a while, and because they all are still commiserating over the loss of Patrick.

DeShawn and Garrison join Carol's table, where RJ sits on his mother's knee and fists pumpkin puree into his mouth.

Garrison tells Lori, "I heard about your husband. I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thank you."

"He was a talented man. I mean, he managed to get the drop on me."

"I'm not sure how much talent that takes," DeShawn says.

Garrison flicks him off.

"There's a baby at the table," Lori warns him.

"Yeah, well, you said you were teaching him baby sign language," Daryl tells her, and Carol chuckles through closed lips.

Lori glances at DeShawn. Her eyes draw over his features. "You remind me of someone. I'm trying to place who…Malcolm X?"

DeShawn laughs. "Denzel Washington. That's what everyone tells me anyway. But he did play Malcom X when he was about the age I am now."

Lori draws her eyes up to his cowboy hat and smiles. "Are you a real cowboy? Or are you all hat and no cattle?"

"Sorry, ma'am," he replies, plucking the hat from his head. "It's rude to wear a hat indoors, isn't it?" He sets it on his knee. "But, yes, I was a cowboy at Copper Creek before all this started. And I'm a cowboy now. Among other things."

"So am I," Garrison tells Lori as he sweeps his John Green Deere cap off his forehead, runs a hand through his red hair, and sets the cap on his knee like DeShawn did. "Some of us aren't pretentious enough to wear cowboy hats, though. Or call ourselves cowboys. We're ranchers."

"I can't help if you don't look as good as me in a cowboy hat," DeShawn tells him.

"Baseball cap's more practical," Garrison insists, "when there's wind or your wrenching on equipment."

"Well, the rodeo required a cowboy hat for competition."

"All for show," Garrison insists.

"What can I say?" DeShawn smiles at Lori. "The ladies like it."

"DeShawn has a woman," Garrison informs Lori. "I, however, am footloose and fancy free."

"And I'm in mourning," Lori tells him.

Garrison smile falters. "Of course you are." He looks at RJ and waves his fingers to the baby. "Looks just like his daddy."

Maggie and Glenn, who are at the end of the table, trade a knowing look, both clearly trying to repress their expressions.

Toward the end of breakfast, when Carol has just finished her last bite, Sasha comes by her table and asks her to follow her out into the prison yard.

Sasha walks her to DeShawn's farm truck, and on the bed is her loveseat and coffee table, along with a classic wooden rocking chair with a padded seat. "How…how did you?" Upon a closer look, Carol realizes it's not precisely the same furniture. The color of the loveseat is somewhat lighter, and its a softer suede instead of leather. The coffee table looks similar, but it has only one row of drawers instead of two, and there's a shelf underneath the drawers.

"I bribed DeShawn with gasoline to get him to go to that furniture store yesterday. They didn't have a second set that was an exact match, so I grabbed the closest thing I could."

"Thank you. This will be so much better than the gaudy grandmother set we have now."

"Listen, I'm sorry. I just…it's hard to trust strangers in this world. And you were a stranger to me."

"Well, I hope we don't stay strangers," Carol tells her. She runs a hand over the soft suede of the reclining loveseat and smiles.

[*]

They leave the prison an hour later, Daryl riding in the cab of the farm truck, with Garrison sandwiched in between him and DeShawn on the bench seat, because the backseat of Carol's sedan is now entirely full of the additional loot DeShawn and Sasha scavenged while they made their way to and from the furniture store – half of that loot, anyway, since Sasha claimed her share. They got lucky, Sasha reported, by happening upon a backyard bunker with two grasping walkers and a boatload of supplies.

Carol glances at Sophia, who is staring out the window. "How are you doing, sweetie?"

"I'm sad," she says. "I wish I wasn't the one who had to…" She sighs. "But Daryl talked to me about it, you know." She looks back at Carol. "How it's a thing we do for the people we care about, so they don't have to go on like that. How it takes a lot of courage. And how he had to do it for Merle's shell."

"He's right. It does take a lot of courage."

"Really, though, I was just trying not to die. I got up to go to the bathroom because I didn't just want to go in that open toilet in the corner of the cell, and he just lurched out from behind a shower curtain and grabbed me. And I grabbed the nearest thing, and…"

"You did what you had to do. And you kept yourself alive. I'm proud of you, Sophia. But I'm sorry you had to do that."

She nods. "Daryl said to just try to think of the good things that happened this week. So that's what I'm trying to do. You know, hanging with Carl, and all the loot we're coming home with, and how so many of the farm camp is still alive, and how RJ's so adorable."

"You and Daryl talked a lot in quarantine, didn't you?"

Sophia nods. "I used to think he was scarry when we first moved into his cottage. But he's actually nice. And he's deeper than people think he is."

Carol smiles. "I know."

Sophia turns to look out the window again. She muses, "Carl looks so different now."

"Well, a year at the start of puberty will do that to a person."

"He's kind of cute now," Sophia says. "And not at all dorky anymore."

"Oh?" Carol asks, and notices that as Sophia watches the trees go by, a slight smile toys at the corner of her mouth.