I wake up before dawn, like I have so many mornings before. But this time, it's not because of an inner clock telling me it's the best time to go hunting, or because of any of the demons that like to keep me up sometimes. It's much simpler than that. It's just raw pain. The pills have worn off, and my hand screams me awake, as if it's angry I ever dared take those pills to calm it down in the first place. It's hurt, badly. It wants me to know it.

I pretty quickly drop the idea that I'll be able to get back to sleep, although I do make myself stay lying down for a while. But I lose patience even with that, because when you're hurting and all you can do is stare at the ceiling and listen to people breathe and snore, the hurting only gets worse. And when I finally notice that the place where my dad bedded down the night before is empty, I do get up. Out of habit, I start to get my bow, but stop myself.

I tiptoe across the supply room, over stray bags and hands and legs. When I reach the door, I ease it open as easily as I can – wincing as it makes the tiniest creak – and slide sideways out into the fresh air, which has that perfect, crisp feeling of dawn I've always loved. That sort of feeling, it means hunting, getting dirty, campfires, junk food, poker –

"Mornin'."

– and Dad.

He's sitting on the highest of the three steps leading to the door, his crossbow propped in front of him, his arms crossed over it. I check up and down the alley, empty except for an abandoned car and lots of litter, and lower beside him. "Did you sleep?" I ask.

"Some."

"When's the last time you slept through a whole night?"

"Where was this concern when you were a newborn? Coulda used it then."

I smile a little. How good things must have seemed to me then. I don't remember being a baby, I guess no one does, but that's kind of sad, isn't it? When you're a baby – if you have the kind of life babies should have – you always have people who love you right there, and if you cry, if you're hurt, they fix it. I stretch a leg out, tapping my toe against a torn Styrofoam cup. It rolls about six inches, arcing away from my boot and stopping with its narrow end pointing at Dad. "I wish I could remember being a newborn," I say. "I wish I could remember those two years. My first two years, I mean. When . . ."

When you and Mom were still married. When you lived with us. When we were normal and maybe okay.

"Yeah." Dad stretches his crossbow away from him, straightening his back. Then, "They were a good two years. In a lotta ways." He clears his throat. "It just wasn't workin' the way it was s'posed to, you know . . ."

"I know," I murmur, because I've heard it a hundred times, and I've always known myself, really. Put Mom and Dad in the same room, things get tense, and sometimes they seem to like that – or they did, back in the day. But sometimes it was – is – like watching two lit matches burn beside a puddle of gas, and all you can do is wonder which one will light it up first.

"How's your hand?" Dad asks.

I actually haven't thought about it all since I came out here, but of course now that he's brought it up, the pain hits me again. "Not good." I squeeze my palm between my other hand's thumb and pointer finger, gently, but it's a mistake. I suck in a breath. "Hurts."

"Remind me to look at it in a few minutes." He nods to the end of the alleyway. "Sun'll be up."

There's a strip of light flooding over the roof of a building across the street. I look at that, then look straight up. The sky's going from black to blue – dark, dark blue, but it's getting there. You can still see the stars, the morning stars I used to take time for every day at the prison, when I would get up to practice with my bow. That was an entirely different life. A different girl. But some things stay the same, I guess.

I say, "I love this time of day. Stars seem brighter to me."

He looks up, too. We don't talk anymore, but we don't need to, not right now. This isn't the time or place. Right now, it's plenty good enough – nice, even – to just sit quietly side-by-side, watching the stars and waiting for sun.

. . . . .

If Dad had any second thoughts about going to this new place, they're gone after he sees my hand. He starts snapping at people to hurry after he checks what's underneath the bandages. And, even if that's embarrassing, I can understand why he does it, because any second thoughts I may have had about going to this new place are gone, too. There are red streaks snaking up my hand, like armies of fire ants sent out to conquer my body. Dad tries to give me two pain pills again, and I almost take them, but then say, "Just one."

"Bottle says two's fine."

"I think they messed with my head. That's not good."

He hesitates, but then puts one back in the bottle.

The walker herd we ran into last night got too thick for Rick and the others to get out of, so they had to abandon the car. When Rick and the others found us last night, they did so on foot, by following the same flare we followed and whistling when they thought they were close. Eventually, my dad heard and whistled back . . . Basically, our group is smart, but we also got lucky. After we lost the car, at least. But even there, we weren't entirely unlucky, because the car outside of the supply room runs, even has half a tank. "Only abandoned because it's too ugly to be out on the streets, the poor bastard," Owen says, patting the hood as the last of our people emerge from the supply room.

Eric and Aaron are riding in the RV – Eric got his own dose of pain pills this morning, so it's probably smart for him to be near a bed – so Rick's okay with Glenn riding in the RV with Maggie and Carl and Judith riding in the car with him and Michonne. Carl asks me if I want to ride with them, and Dad says it's okay, so next thing I know I'm buckling up in the backseat alongside Carl and the baby. For a crazy second, I almost have the same feeling I would get when my mother and I were getting in the car to start off on a trip somewhere, an exciting trip, like when she had to travel to Atlanta or some other city for work and would take me with her, and we'd go shopping in strange stores and see movies she'd been meaning to take me to or even go to a play, we went to a play once.

But this isn'tthe same thing at all, I know that. I know this could all go wrong. But I want to believe Aaron and Eric. I've barely spoken to Eric, but I'm dangerously close to liking Aaron, and God knows I like the idea of a place with steel walls. Thing is, I've accidentally let hope take root inside of me, hope that this place is everything they said it is, and we can be safe again, like we were at the prison, only it will last this time. That's such a tall order, practically a fantasy, but there's a part of me relying on it coming true now, and I don't want that part beaten down. I don't want that disappointment. And as Rick puts the car in gear, I look at Carl, watch his tired eyes try to light up for Judith, and my bones ache with the fear of him facing that disappointment. He needs a win. We all do, but I want it for him most.

Him and my dad.

. . . . .

Midway through the morning, as we're following the RV down a curving slope, the trees break apart to offer a view down the mountain. Rick gets our attention. "See that?" he says, pointing to a tall white tower below that's surrounded by white squares and rectangles and cushioned by green. "That's the Washington Monument."

"We can write a report for Civics class," Carl says, making me grin. But I stare at that tower until it's out of sight. I'm not even sure what it is, really, but I know it was important once.

Maybe it can be important again.

It's only a few minutes after that, that kind-of good moment, when the RV suddenly slows and drifts to the side of the road, and I bite the inside of my mouth, hard.

Abraham slams through the door as I'm stepping out of the car, a second behind Rick. Abraham's hands are in fists as he stomps to the front of the RV. "It's the damn battery!" he snarls to Rick.

Aaron and Eric stay in the RV, probably because of Eric's ankle, but everyone else empties out of it to stretch their legs or rest in the sun while Glenn and Abraham work on switching the old battery out with a spare the RV had hidden away. Dad climbs the RV's ladder to keep a lookout, and I feel a pang. It's a familiar scene, except usually, at least once upon a time, it would have been Dale up there. And I might have climbed up to help him keep watch and talk things over, all sorts of things. Dale was good for talking things over. Well, Dale was just good.

I look over my shoulder at Carl, propped against the trunk of the car with Judith in his arms, facing the long stretch of road in the direction we just came from. Nothing back there but dead leaves on a gray stripe framed by dry sage and dark woods. I cross my arms and drift his way. "Bring back memories?" I settle beside him, resting on the car.

There's a shift in his eyes as he snaps back from wherever. He studies me, takes me in, before glancing at the RV. "The last time we were waiting for an RV to get fixed," he says, "You screamed at me."

"I didn't scream, I shouted. I was young." I don't even remember why I yelled at him. I just remember Dad getting onto me in front of everyone for being loud, and me hiding out in his truck until we were ready to start moving again.

And I remember that Jim was dying. Bit. When we finally got going again, we left him behind, because he asked us to.

"You were about to teach us to play poker," Carl says softly. "Sophia and me."

I swallow. There she is, nudging open a door deep inside my mind. There are her big eyes, peering out at me like I might bite, but she inches forward in spite of herself. Is it safe? she asks me, my imaginary dead friend Sophia. Can I come out now?

"Sometimes I go days without thinking about her," Carl says. "About any of them."

"I think that's normal." At least, I hope so, because I'm the same way.

He blows out a big lungful of air. "Then sometimes . . . I wake up thinking they're still there. My mom . . ."

Judith is playing with the collar of his shirt, trying to decide whether or not to taste it. I reach my good hand across his chest so she can focus on my fingers instead, and when she has me in her grasp, I press my wrist lightly against Carl's chest. I can feel his heartbeat. "They are still here," I say. "You and Judith are Lori, you know. Parts of her. And just now, we both remembered Sophia. Brought her back for a minute. And the RV –" I smile against the lump in my throat. "I will never see an RV without thinking about Dale. And Glenn only knows how to fix it because Dale taught him about RVs. He's helping us right now. Even after so long."

Carl's head is down, but his face is relaxed. Lips are tilted more upwards than downwards. His heartbeat is slow and comforting. Ba-bum. Ba-bum. "I think Dale would be happy we're going to this place," he says. "Trusting other people. And so would Hershel."

He's right, I think. Dale and Hershel, they believed in people. They both wanted to give people the chance to be good, to prove that people still could be good, even if they – even if we, because my people are people too – failed to be good before.

"Back in Atlanta," I say. "At Grady."

Is it my imagination, or does Carl's heartbeat speed up when I say that?

"Beth asked me where we'd be without second chances," I push on. I realize that, although Judith is still tangling up my fingers, my thumb isn't stroking her hand anymore. It's stroking Carl's shirt, his chest. "We wouldn't be anywhere good," I whisper. "We might not be anywhere good now, but . . . Carl, I think we are. I really do. There's no one here who hasn't almost died. We're all on our second chance. Or third, or tenth. The point is . . . We're the lucky ones. I'm trying to remember that these days."

He looks at me. Really looks, in a deep way, the kind of way that makes me believe – no matter what I've felt at other times, worse times – that there's nothing about me he can't understand. I love that look. I love those eyes. "I think we're really lucky we had each other," he says. "Like I told you the other night. You helped me become who I am now. And that's been a good thing. So really, I guess I'm just lucky I had you."

"I'm lucky I had you. You're my best friend. I mean – you're my boyfriend, but you're also my best friend. You're . . ."

You're my Carl.

But that sounds too silly to say out loud, so I just let my last sentence drift away and start a new one, dropping my hand as I do. "And if anything happened to me, I hope you'd eventually go days without thinking about me."

He snorts. "No."

"Yes. That would mean you'd moved on. Who knows? Could be good for you." I bump playfully against him. "Maybe I've actually been holding you back. What if you're better on your own?"

"Sydney," he says, "Stop."

"Hey, I'm teasing." I pause, then take his hand, locking our fingers together. "Maybe you wouldn't be better, but you'd be fine."

"Not without you. I've been without you. It's . . ." He trails off, but I see a shadow come over him, see him fall back to where he was when I first started this conversation, somewhere that's nowhere near as sunny as it is on this Virginia road. I tighten my hold on him. And then, just like he did before, he snaps into the here-and-now again. And kisses me. It's not a long kiss, but it's longer than I would usually be okay with in public, with both of our dads right there, but . . . it's the first time we've kissed in a while. I don't stop him. I kiss him back. I miss him when he pulls away. "We're at our best when we're together," he tells me, our faces still close. "We've always been like that, we've grown up like that."

Judith whines right as he says, "I love you."

"I love you, too."

He relaxes against the car, sighing. After a moment, I hook my arm onto his and rest my head on his shoulder. "Today's gonna be okay," he says.

I nuzzle him. "Yeah."

Behind us, the RV starts to growl again, quite the fearsome creature, like from a fairy tale. Carl puts his arm around me. If this was a fairy tale, him and me, our group, we would be the heroes. We'd ride into this new camp and be welcomed like kings and queens. We'd live happily ever after.

It could happen. We are the lucky ones.

. . . . .

The road ends with a gate connected to metal walls. Tall walls. As tall as the prison fences, maybe taller. Definitely stronger. Rick rolls the car right up to the gate, but doesn't put it in park. The RV idles behind us. Carl's shoulder touches mine.

Michonne's muscled arm stretches out to cover Rick's scarred hand, tight on the steering wheel, with her own. "You ready?"

Behind us, our people start to step out of the safe RV and into the dangerous world. I know we have to join them. I want to.

And, more importantly, so does Rick. He nods, he nods again, and turns to look at us, first Carl, then Judith, then me. "Yeah . . ." he murmurs. "Yeah."

He turns off the engine.

I step out with my bow and arrows hung across my back. I glance over the car, at Carl, and we both start towards the gate, falling into step with the others. We meet at the hood of the car and find one another's hands without breaking stride.

He was right. We've always been at our best together. And we're going into this together.

The End

. . . . .

A.N.: Sydney's story continues in Sydney: Mercy Prevails.