Daryl returns with bad news. Zach didn't make it. He kisses my forehead and goes to tell Beth the news. After doing this painful duty, he finds me in our quiet space, Dad had come in from a long walk looking almost as upset as seeing Lori's ghost had once made him and asked to take Judith earlier than usual. Seeing Daryl's face, I give silent thanks to my dad.

Opening my arms, he steps into them, and I hold him as he tells me that Beth's reaction wasn't what he expected. That one of our most innocent people, barely shrugged at the news that her boyfriend died. I tried to explain to him, to make him understand why he shouldn't worry, not about her or anyone else's reactions to this common news.

"She's already lost so much, Daryl." I whisper into his chest, as his head is buried in the top of my hair. "She's growing used to it, guarding her heart, because she's terrified of falling apart." I'm explaining Beth, but I realize I could be describing every single person in the prison. "You can't let this make you so upset." I pull away, forcing him to look into my face. "It wasn't your fault. It's never really anyone's fault, Daryl, some people just aren't meant for this world." And for once, I wonder, if I'm one of them.

I realized, far too late, at how complacent I'd become in our new home. I took for granted that our life was finally stable and safe. I didn't appreciate how truly fucked up the gods must be to unleash this fucking plague on us. And for that reason, I didn't have any idea that danger was circling us like a fever about to break out.

Not long after calming Daryl after he'd broken the news to Beth about Zach, hell found its way inside our new home. It started with a whimper, but it ended with a bang.

At first, it was a normal kind of issue. Walkers had overrun part of the prison. That had happened before, it was expected. What wasn't expected was finding out that these walkers were OUR people. That they hadn't been bit in most cases, which meant they died some other way, and in one case the man had been LOCKED in his cell. It was a personal precaution he took due to sleepwalking.

I watched, holding Judith well away from the killed walkers, as Dad, Hershel, Dr. Caleb, Daryl, and Bob inspected a body. And when Dad looked up and his eyes met mine, I knew deep in my gut that something was horribly wrong.

By the time I was processing what was happening, I was in quarantine with Judith and the other most vulnerable. Elderly, children, and of course, me the mediator. Beth was with me, and so I had SOMEONE I could fully count on to help me. But the news wasn't great, when it leaked in. A flu that was either transmitted through the very pigs that Dad and Carl had built a pen for, piled up walkers weakening the fence, an illness that raged so hard that death seemed inevitable for any who caught it.

I missed a lot simply by being kept far away. Even when Carl was added to our group, another helper, but no more knowledgeable about what was happening outside our sight and hearing than me. Dad visited, of course, but he couldn't or wouldn't share much.

There was a run. For antibiotics, and I knew Daryl would go. But there wasn't a goodbye, there wasn't time. Dad mentioned that Carol was gone, but wouldn't meet my eyes to explain. And he kept from me the names of the sick, and the names of the dead. He'd bring food, but no news, and for that reason I didn't look forward to his visits. I didn't know if or when Daryl returned.

I heard gunfire. I heard screams. Still no news.

And then, as abruptly as we'd been caged away from everything, we were out. Dad and Daryl were acting tense around one another. Tyrese was angry and had signs of a fight on his face. But still, no one told me anything.

I did learn of the dead. Dr. Caleb gone. Karen, the woman that Tyrese was with, gone. David, a man I'd barely gotten to know, gone. And the ones that I hadn't had the time to get to know at all, names that I couldn't put face to a name. So many people were gone.

And I felt hope at the survivors. Glenn, Lizzie, Sasha, Hershel names that I could say and know that they'd come through the other side. That there was a bright light in the darkness.

Until the very building shook with the first salvo of the Governor's return.

I wish I could tell you that I heard my dad give his speech to good ol' Phil, but I didn't. I was trying desperately to keep the promise I'd made to myself to keep Judith safe and innocent. I tried to get her onto the bus filled with the most vulnerable. And I really wanted to ignore Mika and Lizzie's argument about whether they should help with the fight or not, but I couldn't. Weren't they as innocent as Judith? Shouldn't they be kept safe?

And that's why, when our entire world crumbled around us, I found myself with Tyrese, Lizzie, and Mika. Holding tight to Judith, so thankful for the bag filled with her needs, and yet completely separated from the rest of my family.

Trekking through unknown territory with an infant, two young girls, and a very angry man isn't all that enjoyable. Now add in the complete and utter fear and pain I felt in not knowing if Dad made it out to safety. If Carl was alive and well. If Daryl, God please, if Daryl had survived.

Also add in the eternal optimism that Lizzie had for walkers and their place in our world. The unnatural empathy she felt for these diseased and mindless beings that were the first signs that our world was fucked. Keeping her safe, while also watching Mika flinch at every danger, while juggling Tyrese's attempts to hide the grief that was clearly eating away at him, and keeping Judith safe became a cakewalk in comparison.

He and I found ourselves fighting walkers who were attracted by screams from one. We had to explain to the other that it wasn't fine to keep them alive, even if they seemed benign. The night watch became a battle of wills between Tyrese and I. He would insist that I needed rest, since I was shouldering Judith's care, and I would fight back with the reality that he was our strongest warrior and his rest was paramount.

I never voiced the real reasons I couldn't stand to rest. I didn't trust Lizzie. I'd come back after battling a group of walkers with Tyrese to find her and Mika back to back as he'd instructed, but her mouth so tight over Judith's mouth that my sister was changing colors. There was this flash in her eyes, this moment where I truly feared her. A little girl. And I was scared of her.

The one I think Tyrese would have understood was the one that I didn't want to share. I couldn't voice my fears about Dad, Carl, and Daryl. If I spoke it out loud. If I gave in and said that they could be- Then I was terrified that I'd make it real. But in the same vein, I couldn't say that they were safe. I couldn't jinx the possibility that they were fine. That we'd find them again. I couldn't chance it.

And so, we'd have a standoff. And we'd both end up awake and watching.

Carol found us. She'd tracked us, and while I was burning to know why she'd gone. What had happened that she wasn't there when we needed her most? There was a flicker in the look she shot me that made me scared to know.

"Wow," I said instead, smiling at her appearance. "Looks like you had a good tracking teacher." It hurt, thinking about Daryl. About how he'd taught me as well. But I had to say something, had to show her I was happy to see her.

She wrapped me in her arms, Judith squished between us, as she kissed my temple. "He certainly is." She pulled back and I saw it, the question. Had he made it? Or was he not here with me because he didn't?

I shook my head, "I don't know." It was all I could say, because I said it through the lump that was lodged in my throat.

She patted my arm and we carried on along our path. Her and Tyrese talked about the signs we kept seeing mentioning a place called "Terminus". How far they imagined it would be? How long would it take to get there? I walked along, bringing up the rear, with Judith in my arms. I didn't really care where we ended up. As long as I could focus on Judith and her needs, nothing else mattered. Not now.

We found a small house situated in a pecan grove and decided to give it a try for now. While Carol and Tyrese cleared the house, I took Judith around the perimeter for my own clearance. A gunshot made me run back to the front of the house. Mika had taken down a walker. Little Mika, so soft and sweet, had done the necessary when push came to shove.

Carol and I, while setting up the house for our stay, talk about the two girls. She tells me that Mika may be too soft and sweet to survive, but she also says that Lizzie may be too unstable.

"She's different," I say, bouncing Judith in my arms as Carol bakes. And then, Carol is gone, rushing outside.

Lizzie had been playing tag with a walker. She'd had a fit when Carol killed it. She really does think they're still people, that they're misunderstood. That it isn't a fate worse than death to become one. A chill runs up my spine at the mere thought of this child staying near me and Judith. Near weapons that we have on hand. And so, for another night, I lose sleep.

Am I surprised that Mika and Lizzie are dead? No. I wish I could say I was, but I'm not. Carol had insisted that I come with her and Tyrese on the hunt, assuring me that Lizzie understood. That Mika would keep her in line. And we returned to a bloody and dead Mika with Lizzie standing over her, and a gleam in her eye. I ignored her and rushed to Judith who was sitting on a blanket nearby. I knew, before she said the words, that my little sister would have been joining Mika had we not come back when we did. And I knew, watching Carol look at the carnage, that Lizzie wouldn't live for much longer either.

I listened to Carol and Tyrese that night, before Lizzie was sent to play with her little sister forever, talking about the prison. The rats and rabbits that he'd found proving someone had fed the walkers that piled up on the fence. He even speculated that Lizzie, the obvious culprit, was probably to blame for Karen and David. And I learned, as Carol explained the situation, just why she'd disappeared from the prison. Why Daryl and Dad had been tense around one another in those final moments at the prison. Carol had ended it, thinking that killing the sick would end the illness. And as they made a version of peace, I knew that Dad had exiled her. For the good of our group.

The house in the pecan grove lay abandoned. As safe as the prison we'd fled now. And with it behind us, and the unknown promise of a place called Terminus, we walked on.