Carl grabbed his gun and some little rectangles from the floor before we left, pulling me along by our connected hands that I was trying very hard not to focus on.

I let him tug me through the cell block. He only stopped once, to let Beth know where we were going and to ask her to keep an eye on Judith. She agreed, of course, but I watched the recognition slip into her eyes when she took stock of our conjoined hands and the look on my face. When Carl turned away, she threw me a knowing little smile, and I fought to keep a blush from spreading across my face.

He didn't let go of me until we were outside. At that point, I guess he just trusted that I would follow him. To his credit, I did.

Carl led me down to the fences that surrounded the prison. It was a little disconcerting to see them so close, but having two ten-feet-high walls of chainlink between us was a comfort.

"I didn't bring my gun with me," I told him, once we came to a stop. Honestly, I hadn't even remembered it until we were out here.

"You can use mine," he offered, tilting the handle of his pistol towards me. "It's better for practice, anyway; there's a silencer on it, so it won't make a lot of noise and attract more of them."

After a second of hesitation, I reached out to take the gun. It wasn't much heavier than mine, but the so-called silencer on the end made it look strange. For a few seconds, I simply examined it, until Carl started to shift back and forth on his feet.

"Okay," I said, letting out a breath. I adjusted it in my hands, until both of them were wrapped around the grip. My forefinger hovered near the trigger, but I was hesitant to rest it there. To be honest, I was a little hesitant about holding the gun in the first place. Sure, I'd carried Jackie's gun in the back of my pants for the entire week I was alone, but I hadn't drawn it until I was in actual danger. Growing up, I'd learned guns were dangerous, something to avoid.

When I had one in my hands when there was time to actually think about it, they still scared me.

Carl must have noticed my hesitation, but I don't think he knew what to say, because he placed a soft hand on my arm. I stared down at the weapon in my hands for a few more seconds before I turned back to him.

"What's first?" I asked, doing my best to keep my voice even.

He withdrew his hand. "The safety is still on," he told me. "Do you know how to turn it off?"

I nodded, scanning the gun for a few seconds before I found it. Once I had, I flicked it up, glancing over to get his approval.

"Okay, awesome," he said. "Now try to aim and shoot."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that," he confirmed. "Just try to hold your breathing steady and look down the barrel."

"Okay," I said, raising the gun. It felt heavier when I did, like actually using it added some weight. Taking a few deep breaths, I held it up to my eye level and did my best to aim, until I could see the head of a walker down the point of the muzzle.

My arms jerked when I pressed the trigger.

I'd forgotten about the kick, and it flew back towards me, nearly hitting my forehead. It took me by such surprise that I missed wherever my shot had landed, too focused on not smacking myself in the face.

"Did I hit anything?" I asked Carl, when I had recovered.

He shook his head, and I deflated.

"Here, let me show you," he said, reaching out to take the gun back. I watched as he showed me how to hold my stance and aim, taking note of how he handled the kickback. His arms jumped with each shot, but he kept them within control and was quick to refocus and aim again. With three bullets, he took down three walkers, explaining what he was doing as he did.

I listened, trying to commit what he said to memory. This wasn't stuff for kids, this was learning a skill that could be the difference between life and death. Even as young as I was compared to the others, I knew that.

When he handed the gun back, I straightened my arms out in front of me and prepared to try again. There were still quite a few walkers milling around the fence, which meant plenty of targets.

"You got this," Carl encouraged, as I picked one to focus on, correcting the mistakes in my aim last time based on his advice.

I fired. My hands still jerked this time, but I was expecting the recoil. This time, I actually got the chance to see where the bullet went. The walker I had been aiming for stumbled when the shot hit him in the chest, but he didn't fall.

"That was better!" Carl said.

"It's still moving," I replied.

"Yeah, but you hit it," he told me, grinning. "Now come on, try again!"

—

We shot for another half an hour, only pausing to let Maggie and Glenn out of the gate for the run they went on.

In that time, we burned through almost three cartridges of ammo. There wasn't a lot to spare, so once we'd made it close to the end of the last clip, we'd headed back inside. I'd managed to nail a couple in the head by the time we did, but not on a consistent basis. However, nearly all my later shots hit the walker somewhere in it's upper body, which was still progress, at least according to Carl.

"You did a lot better than I did when I started learning," he assured me as we trudged up the hill.

"Really?" I asked. "How did you get so good?"

He shrugged. "We spent most of the winter on the road," he explained. "Trying to find somewhere safe for… for Judith. Kinda just had to learn."

I nodded. After all, most of the group seemed just as skilled with guns, and I doubted they were all marksmen before the walkers started up. I couldn't see Glenn spending his spare time between pizza deliveries at the shooting range, or my mom taking weekend trips to go hunting.

A lot of life was about adapting, I guessed.

There wasn't a lot to be done around the prison when we got back, so Carl and I holed up to read comic books in his cell. He leant me a few new ones that I hadn't read yet before settling down with his favorite. Judith was somewhere off with Beth, so his room was quiet as we poured over the pages.

"So this guy has, like, a monster attached to him?" I asked.

He paused for a second, thinking. "It's not really a monster," he explained. "It's like a symbiote that bonded to him."

"What's a symbiote?"

Carl shrugged. "I dunno," he said. "But it's not really a monster. It's like science. I think it's an alien."

"Aliens can be monsters," I retorted.

"But they're different, they come from space. That makes them an alien, not a monster"

"Why does that mean they can't be a monster? Monsters are still monsters even if they come from a different planet. Can't they be aliens and monsters?"

"It's not the same thing—"

Our bickering was cut off when Beth came into the room. Judith was clutched against her chest, and her eyes were wide, lips between her teeth. Even from the floor, I could see the worried lines that creased her face.

"Have you guys seen Maggie and Glenn?"

—

Maggie and Glenn didn't come back from their run on time.

At first, the only one that seemed concerned was Beth, but when she was out of her earshot, Carl told me that she tended to be a bit of a worrywart as it was. According to him, she had grown particularly nervous about her sister and father's safety after she'd lost her boyfriend and the rest of her family back at the farm.

That made it easy to brush off the concern at first, but as an hour dragged by with no sign of them, the nerves started to pool in my own stomach. I wasn't close to either of them, but I liked them well enough, and I didn't like the thought that something had happened to them. Especially because they were going out to get formula and supplies for Judith, which the little girl needed badly. The formula that we had already was only going to last another week, at most, and she was way too young to eat anything else.

At some point, Carl drifted outside to see his father, who had emerged from the tunnels only to head out into the yard. I watched him go, unsure of what to do with myself.

Eventually, I wandered off in search of my mother. She wasn't in our cell, or Daryl's. I searched the extra room where the door was, but I didn't find her there, either.

I finally found her on the upper floor of cells, talking to one of the prisoners, Axel. For a second, I contemplated interrupting, but the sound of her laughter was actually kind of nice. She didn't use to laugh much, not when my dad was alive. He had a way of bringing down the mood, no matter the day or occasion. It was nice to think my mom was happy.

Before she could notice me, I slipped away and headed back to my cell, carting the newest comics from Carl with me. With nothing else to do, I had time to finish the stack, although I feared I would read through his entire stash before anybody else could manage to find more. If that happened, I guess I would just find something else to do.

Settling down on my bed, I picked up where I had left off, with the one about the guy who had the weird monster-alien thing attached to him. It was interesting, even if I didn't quite understand how the whole thing worked.

For a while, I just laid down on my bed and read for a while. It wasn't too different from how I'd spent time with Jackie when we were moving house to house, but now, there wasn't an underlying anxiety about having to run or fight for my life. Inside the prison walls, I felt safe and protected, something that random houses on an abandoned street had never been able to do for me. Jackie, to an extent, had made me feel safe, but we were still two people alone against a world that was trying to kill us. Still, she had done her best.

We might not have been close, but she did take me in, made sure I was fed and alive. I missed her.

I got a half hour to myself before Carl barged in. His eyes were wide, and he was wearing the same look of fear that Beth had earlier. My stomach dropped.

"You should come quick," he said. "Something happened to Maggie and Glenn."

raphaelthecowboy: the story was intended to follow canon save for the differences that sophia coming back would make, but i started this originally in season three, meaning that i didn't realize just how HUGE the ripple effects some of those decisions would have.