PART TWO

Dawn's always been a good time for me. I like catching the sunrise. Usually, I wake up in time to do so. Usually with time to spare. This morning is nothing unusual. As the camp begins to stir, Dad and Rick on their feet, Carol rationing out breakfast, a few people sitting up and a few people burying their heads in their blankets, I walk out of the den we've made, up a little hill, and out to the road. It's clear enough out here that I can see the sunrise, although I have to look past some treetops. I cross my arms and breathe in the morning air, always fresher than afternoon air, for whatever reason. The eastern horizon turns from gray to pink, pink to orange. That's about the time Owen gets here. We stand for a moment.

"How 'bout them Braves?" he finally says.

"They need a better quarterback."

"They're a baseball team, but thank you for playing."

I smile without looking over at him. Also without looking over at him, I say, "I'm okay."

He inhales, then asks, "Ever been to Virginia?"

"No, have you?"

"No. Only ever been to Illinois and Florida."

"Your dad was from Illinois, right?"

"Yeah. We'd have family reunions and such."

"I remember. And you went to Florida for Disney World."

"Yep."

"There was a picture of you wearing Mickey Mouse ears."

"No there wasn't."

"Owen."

"Sydney, I never wore Mickey Mouse ears, and if you tell anyone I did, I'll take another two of your fingers."

I hold up my bad hand. "I'm thinking of naming the stumps."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I'm thinking Stumpy, and . . . Frederick."

"Call him Freddie for short."

"Exactly."

The sun sizzles up above the tops of the trees.

"I went to Florida once, too," I say. "Mom took me to Orlando for a couple of nights because she had some sort of business down there. I wanted to go to Disney World, but we didn't."

"Sucks."

"And she took me to St. Louis. More business."

"Just Florida and Missouri, then?"

"And Tennessee. We drove through it to get to Missouri."

"You've got me beat, then, two states to three."

"Twice in my life I've been out of Georgia. And now we might be leaving it forever, and I can't decide if it's a good or a bad thing."

"You scared?"

"Did you ever wear Mickey Mouse ears?"

He smiles and ducks his head. It's worth looking away from the sunrise. "Everything'll be alright."

"I know."

"Yeah, I figured you did, Little Miss Sunshine, although I gotta say, this new optimistic Sydney is freaking me out a bit."

"You and everyone else."

"The transformation did seem to come at a strange time."

"Would you all prefer me to shut down again, like I did the first few days after . . .?"

"No. No, please never do that again."

The sun is up now. It's made it past the tree tops and I feel it on my skin. "At least you've gotten over it."

Owen sighs. "He will, too."

"He has more to get over, though. I mean, he thinks he does."

. . . . .

I reach out for him. "Carl –"

He knocks away my hand. Not hard enough to hurt, but it hurts anyway. So much that I can barely breathe.

"You're not being fair," I say. "You're not even trying to listen to –"

"Go find Owen. See if he'll listen."

. . . . .

"Sydney," Owen says, "Carl's going to get over this molehill of his and the two of you will be back to making us all sick in no time."

"I know."

"That one wasn't very believable, Miss Dixon."

I don't have an answer for him this time. He doesn't push for one. We stand together and watch the sun drift up a little more, and a little more, and then my father calls. It's time to go back.

. . . . .

I use my teeth to rip at my makeshift bandage as I heading down the little hill to camp. Dad waits at the bottom, tapping his fingers against his crossbow's strap. "I shouldn't have to tell you not walk away on your own no more," he says when I'm close.

"I just wanted to watch the sunrise, Dad." I unroll a bit of bandage from my hand. "Let's get this done."

The thing about having a couple of fingers cut off with a Buck knife on a dirty floor – there's a high risk of infection. I've been fighting one on and off. It got bad there for a while, because all we could do was wash the hand, try to keep it as clean as possible, and make sure I was eating enough (oh, yeah – I'm eating regularly these days). But three or four days ago, we found an abandoned caravan on the side of the road. Leah found a bottle of alcohol hidden under the backseat, just waiting for someone thirsty. I asked why she thought to look there. She told me it's where she used to hide her bottles.

And least we're being honest with each other now.

Although more than a few people in our group wouldn't have minded a drink, a different decision was reached. The alcohol would be used for antiseptic. And who needs antiseptic more than a new amputee?

I head to the back of the van. Carol's there. She gives me a thin smile as I hoist myself up and sit on the van's edge. I give a smile back as I free my hand from the last of its bandages, as Dad pulls out the alcohol and a more-or-less clean rag.

Owen's lingering at the base of the hill, watching me out of the corner of his eye. I don't look at anyone else. I know what I'll see. Sad smiles trying not to be sad, eyes pulling away, or a dull stare that never even made it over to me.

That last one is usually a Maggie thing.

I lift my hand. Stumpy and Frederick look alright today. I think the red lines that have been fighting their way down my hand have creeped backwards a little. Another win for alcohol.

Leah's appeared next to Carol, who takes my wrist and studies the wounds. "It looks better," Leah murmurs, although to me or Carol, I'm not sure. But then she lifts her eyes to me and asks, "How do you feel?"

"Fine. But Dad says I always say that, so you probably shouldn't believe me." I glance over for a reaction from him, but he acts like he didn't hear me. He twists open the bottle and tilts it over until the rag is wet enough.

"We got a bandage handy?" he asks.

"A whole set," Leah says, reaching deeper into the van and pulling out a stuffed plastic bag. "I took the liberty of accepting donations last night, which is why you might notice that some of our friends are missing slices of clothing. But no one complained."

"And you had time to clean them?" asks Carol.

"I went to the stream last night. Insomnia."

"You shouldn't go places alone," I say.

She gives me a familiar dry look. It makes my heart hurt and lift at the same time, though it's a shaky liftoff, like a baby bird trying to fly.

"You ready?" Dad asks me.

I toss my hair back. "Born ready, old man."

Deep breath. Quit shaking. It'll be over fast.

Carl comes to me right as Dad squeezes the alcohol from the rag and onto my fingers. As the fire sets in and my head falls back, and I fight back the cry I so desperately want to let loose, Carl hooks one hand on my arm and locks his free fingers onto my own. He doesn't speak, and neither does Dad as he holds my wrist and my shoulder, keeping me still, forcing me to hold my hand tilted up so as much alcohol as possible seeps into my flesh.

I forgot to mention one detail – the alcohol? It's vodka.

You have to laugh at the little things.

. . . . .

When it's over, when Dad starts wrapping my hand up in a checkered cloth that I think came from one of Rick's sleeves, Carl lets go of me and heads to the other side of camp, where he picks up Judith and keeps his back turned this way.

"Do you want me to do that?" Carol asks Dad, even though he always gives the same answer.

"Nah," he says as he works with the bandage, "I got it."

And Carol takes that as her cue to leave. After retying the bag with all of my future bandages, Leah leaves, too, though her eyes give a fair amount of time to my hand, to Dad, and to me. But Carol and Leah, even though they're always here during the Rewrapping (That's what Owen calls it – he thinks it would be a fantastic name for a Stephen King novel), always leave after the worst part is done. I think they hope that Dad and me will have some good, if quick, conversations and maybe help one another out. After all, even though we've had our time apart, Dad and I have been a team from the beginning of all this. And I decided to try and get over what he did – what he didn't do. Just like I'm trying to do with Leah . . .

Trying, that was my dad's thing for a while, right? Well, I am trying.

He's the one being difficult.

Not fair, Sydney, not fair.

He spent a lot of time with Beth while we were all apart.

"What states have you been to besides Georgia?" I ask.

"None."

"None?"

"That's what I said."

"You never – ah."

The Rewrapping can hurt a bit, too. Dad pauses long enough to put his hand over my half-covered one. "Sorry, babe."

"It's not your fault."

He sighs, and that sigh scares me.

"Dad."

He looks at me.

"It's not your fault." I'm not talking about that little slip of the bandage anymore, and he knows it, I know he knows it, because his eyes drop so fast and he flexes his hand and gets back to work wrapping me up without saying another word. There have been a lot, a lot, of words going unsaid between us since the hospital. We don't talk about Beth. We don't talk about the massacre at the church we missed . . . We don't talk about how we lost Bob to a walker bite. And we don't talk about how I lost my fingers.

Sometimes we talk about the weather.

He ties a knot and the Rewrapping is over. For today. I run a hand over the fresh cloth. "It's gotta be weird for you, then, right? Leaving Georgia?"

"Just more road. More walkers. A border ain't nothin' but a line on a map."

"One you've never crossed."

He pulls me out of the van, slams it closed, and says, "I've crossed a lotta other lines." He spits and wipes his mouth, backing away from me. "What's one more?"

I lean against the van and hug myself as he goes, moves, moves, moves. I touch the rose around my neck, and then I hug myself some more. Owen comes over and rests next to me.

"So," he says after a few seconds, "How 'bout them Braves?"

"You once wore Mickey Mouse ears."

"I hate you."

"Owen?"

"Hm?"

"Don't let me go under again, okay? If I start . . . If I seem to be going downhill . . ."

"You're not. You won't."

"If I do. Try and pull me out of it. Please."

He sighs, but it's the kind of sigh I can deal with, not like the one I heard from my dad a minute ago. "I will," he says, and before long adds, "Claimed."

I find his hand with mine. I wrap my little finger around his. "Claimed."