CHAPTER 2

Glenn reached the side door to Cell Block C first, but he held the door open for Maggie, who smiled in appreciation and stepped inside. Glenn kept the door open for Beth (who carried the baby Judith Grimes) and her and Maggie's crippled father Hershel Greene, but the old farmer nodded for Glenn to go inside, so the young Korean reluctantly agreed.

Inside the common room, Glenn saw Daryl sitting on the vestibule steps, drinking a cup of coffee, with his Stryker Strykezone 380 crossbow leaning against the holding cell beside the vestibule's steps. Carol was pouring a box of oatmeal into the pot as she began to cook breakfast. Maggie was standing beside the coffee machine, pouring two cups for herself and Glenn. Glenn walked over to a table and sat down.

A few moments later, Maggie walked over to Glenn with a cup of coffee in each hand; she smiled and set one cup down in front of him. Glenn wrapped his hands around the coffee cup and looked up at Maggie. "Thank you," he smiled.

Maggie smile grew broader and she sat down across from Glenn, who looked down at his coffee cup. "Are you okay?" she asked with concern.

Glenn blinked and looked up again at Maggie. "Hmm?" he asked.

Maggie glanced at Daryl, sipping his coffee, and then she glanced over her shoulder at Carol, cooking breakfast. Maggie brought her coffee cup to her lips and whispered: "Didn't that bother you when Daryl called you 'the Korean kid'?"

Glenn glanced to his left at Daryl, sipping his coffee calmly despite nearly causing a brawl out in courtyard just minutes earlier. "Not really," Glenn whispered with a shake of his head. "Far as Daryl's insults go, that one was tame. Besides, Daryl was right: he risked his life to bring back some meat. It's not his fault it's not enough to feed everyone."

Maggie took a sip of coffee, lowered her cup, and whispered: "I agree…partially."

"What do you mean by that?" Glenn asked a bit louder than he intended.

Maggie glanced at Daryl, but it didn't seem that he heard Glenn. Maggie leaned forward and beckoned with her index finger for Glenn to come closer. "Daryl needs to stop being a racist," she whispered. "We're not just a group, we're a family, and believe me…a family doesn't know how much time they'll have together."

Glenn smiled and gently put a hand atop Maggie's. "Thank you for saying that, but I'm good," he whispered.

"Really?" Maggie whispered.

Glenn nodded.

The side door opened and a baby's wailing filled the common room. The four group members turned their heads towards the side door and saw Hershel, holding the door open while leaning on his crutches, as Beth stepped inside with Judith crying in her arms.

Daryl stood up from the vestibule's steps and took a few cautious steps towards Beth and baby Judith. "She all right?" he asked worriedly.

"Yeah, a bee just buzzed around her ear and scared her," Beth explained.

Daryl lowered his head and remembered when he and Maggie rode on his motorcycle to get formula for the newborn baby. Daryl especially was determined that they wouldn't lose that baby…and they didn't. Daryl also remembered holding the baby in his arms and giving her the nickname "Lil Ass Kicker".

Daryl sighed with relief, and when he raised his head he looked at Carol, and he saw she was looking at Judith, and she also sighed with relief at the news that Judith was all right.

"Well, calm her down," Daryl grumbled as he walked back to the vestibule's steps. "She's givin' me a headache."

Beth bounced Judith in her arms and walked into the cell block, and the baby's cries faded off into the distance.

"That meeting did not go as smoothly as I hoped," Hershel said as he hobbled towards Maggie and Glenn's table.

"Ain't my fault," Daryl said.

"I'm not blaming you," Hershel told the gruff redneck as he held his crutches in one hand while balancing on his one leg, and slowly sat down on a chair. "But you didn't have to be so profane to those people."

"Hey, one baby in this prison is enough. Those motherfuckers need to know we ain't gonna wipe their asses and sing 'em lullabies at night."

Hershel sighed wearily at Daryl's statement and leaned his crutches against the next table. "So how are you both doing?" he asked Maggie and Glenn.

Maggie glared at Daryl for a moment; he was sipping his coffee, unaware of the older Greene daughter's anger over him insulting Glenn. She then looked at Glenn, and her expression couldn't mask the disappointment she had in him for brushing off Daryl's racist comment. Maggie looked at her father and managed a fake smile. "We're fine," she said.

Glenn looked at Hershel and grinned as he blinked rapidly. "Uh…yeah. We're good. I mean, we're fine."

Hershel looked at the young couple for a few moments and smiled, "I'm glad to hear that."

Glenn and Maggie smiled in return and went back to sipping their coffee. Hershel looked at the other two group members in the common room: Daryl was still on the vestibule's steps, sipping his on cup of coffee. Carol was now sitting in a wooden chair against the far wall, waiting for the oatmeal in the pot to cook. Hershel placed a hand gently on Maggie's left hand. "Sweetheart, could you get me a cup of coffee please?" he asked.

Maggie's eyes widened when she realized her father didn't have a cup of coffee. She put her cup down on the table and leapt to her feet. "Oh…oh I'm sorry, dad. I forgot to bring you a cup."

"Better late than never," Hershel smiled sincerely.

Maggie smiled in return as she nodded her head, and then she turned around and walked over to the coffee machine. Hershel folded his hands on the table and glanced at Glenn and thought about the unspoken trouble between his eldest daughter and the young man who he had grown to love as a son.

•••

John Boyd was still furious with Daryl over his refusal to join the construction crew, and as he stomped into the common room of Cell Block D, he took his Atlanta Braves baseball cap off his head and hurled it with all his might across the room. "That son of a bitch!" he shouted.

Sam Dunbar, a white man with receding gray hair, was standing by the far wall when he caught a glimpse of the blue object flying towards him, he threw his arms around his head, closed his eyes, and braced for impact. The object—John's Atlanta Braves baseball cap—missed the back of Sam's head by a few inches and it fell lightly to the floor. Sam slowly lowered his arms, opened his eyes, and realizing he wasn't hurt, looked down at the floor and saw that he'd been afraid of a frayed baseball cap. Sam glared at John, and angrily kicked the baseball cap at the Vietnam veteran. "What the hell is wrong with you, John?!" he shouted.

"Fuck you, Sam!" John shouted, as he pointed angrily at his fellow survivor.

Sam held his hands out to signal a stop and nervously sidestepped his way out of John's line of sight. John bent down, picked up his baseball cap, and began slapping the dust off of it.

Donna walked over to John, and put a hand on her husband's shoulder. He looked from his frayed baseball cap to his wife, and saw the worry on her face. "Do you want to get yourself thrown out?" she asked.

John swatted the last fleck of dust away from his baseball cap and stomped towards the cellblock. "Honey, when I leave this prison, six of my friends are carrying me out in a box."

Donna huffed and followed John. He entered their cell block, put his baseball cap on the desk that was screwed onto the wall, and began to remove his jacket. "Why did you have to say that, after losing our son and his family?" she asked angrily.

John froze for a minute, and then he began to roll up his jacket, but as he turned around to face Donna his complexion had gone pale. "I…I'm sorry, Donna."

"Really? Because sometimes you act like Adam never existed," Donna said as tears filled her eyes.

"How can you say that?" John asked as he dropped his jacket onto the bottom bunk. "I loved that boy. He made me proud. I didn't want him to join the army, Donna, I know you thought that's what I secretly wanted for him, but it wasn't. I tried to talk him out of it; I told him the truth about happened to me in 'nam and how I was treated when I came back home, but he was determined. The boy was as bullheaded as me."

The tears started to run down Donna's face and John stepped forward, wrapped his arms around her and hugged her gently. "I'm sorry, Donna," John said, as his voice cracked.

"I miss him, John," Donna cried.

"I do too," John admitted.

"It's not fair! Our son survives two tours of duty in Iraq, and he gets called up to go defend Los Angeles from those….those…monsters, and we never hear from him again!"

"I know, honey," John said softly.

The Boyd's held each other and cried together for several minutes, and when Donna called down she said, "Adam was a good boy, but that damn girl he married…."

John took a deep breath, knowing that Donna's grief was about to explode into rage.

"How dare she call us and say that she poisoned our grandchildren before she went and did the same thing to herself?"

John closed his eyes, and the last picture Adam took with his family appeared: Adam was in his full dress uniform and standing beside him was his wife Lisa, a young blonde with a friendly smile. Seated in front of them were their two grade school children, Gail and Robert. A tear squeezed through John's eyelids and it fell onto Donna's dyed Auburn hair.

"Lisa was scared, Donna," John explained. "After we lost contact with Adam, and the walkers appeared in Atlanta, she just gave up."

"But she didn't have to kill our grandchildren!" Donna screamed as she pulled away from John.

"I know," John nodded. "She thought by…giving the kids those pills, she was protecting them."

"Some protection," Donna quipped angrily. "Gail and Robert are dead and are now like those walkers! When you die, you turn, remember?"

For the first time, John pictured his and Donna's grandchildren as walkers, staggering about day and night with a constant hunger for live flesh. John closed his eyes immediately and shook his head to shatter the image forever. "I…I don't think Lisa knew about that," John muttered.

"Well, I pray Adam and our grandchildren are with Jesus in Heaven," Donna cried.

"I know that they are," John nodded confidently.

"And I pray Lisa turned and got her brains shot by a survivor!"

Donna dug into her jacket pocket, took out a Kleenex, and began to wipe the tears from her eyes. John put his arm around Donna's shoulders and they both sat down on the bottom bunk. "Donna, why are you talking about all of this?" he asked.

Donna dried her eyes, put her Kleenex down, and looked at John. "You need to start getting along with Rick," she said.

John huffed as he shook his head in disdain for Rick Grimes. "I can't believe you asked me that."

"Why?" Donna asked.

"Because Rick is just like the Governor!" John answered.

"Do you really believe that?"

"Hell yes! He gives orders, he gives long speeches, and he barely listens to advice. The only difference between the two of them is Rick hasn't killed anyone yet!"

Donna took John's arm off her shoulders and held onto his hand, and he instinctively intertwined their fingers like he had done countless times since they started going steady in high school so many years ago. "I could say the same thing about you," she said.

"What?" John asked as he blinked in surprise.

"You're bullheaded, remember?"

"Honey, that's not the same—"

"John, didn't you listen to what Rick's son said at that meeting?" Donna asked. "Rick's their leader because nobody else wanted to be. He's made hard decisions, and taking our group into this prison was one of them. And your behavior is just making things worse. Rick told us why there wasn't enough deer meat to feed everyone, and you tell him to send Daryl Dixon out to hunt some more?"

John shook his head. "Donna, the boy knows his business. He should be out there hunting instead of—"

"You need to give Rick a chance," Donna interrupted. "If you keep criticizing him like you've been, he'll throw you out. And if you get thrown out, I'm going with you, and we're too old to survive out there for long."

John looked at Donna and raised an eyebrow. "We're too old?"

Donna smiled sweetly, and brushed her auburn hair. "I'm down to my last can of hair dye, dear. Pretty soon my hair will be whiter than yours."

John leaned down and kissed Donna on her forehead. "That's a damn shame. You were the prettiest redhead in high school."

Donna smiled again. "So are you just trying to charm me, or are you going to give Rick Grimes a chance to prove himself?"

John sighed wearily, but he nodded. "Yeah, I'll give Rick a chance; he did take our group in, so I guess he deserves it."

Donna kissed John on his cheek. "Thank you."

John blushed, stood up, and gently pulled Donna to her feet. "Well, let's go eat breakfast before they stop serving it."

•••

Downhill from the prison, and behind the prison squad car, Jeanette and Marianna continued their morning sentry duties; only Marianna was now sitting on the folding chair against the guard tower that Eddie Nowak had brought out last night.

Jeanette heard a distant rustle to her left; she looked in that direction and saw a male walker, with disheveled blonde hair, a soiled and bloodied shirt, a loose necktie, and pants that were torn at the kneecaps, stagger out of the woods and approach the fence line. A few moments later, the walker's forehead hit the fence and it staggered back, but it moved forward again, hit the fence again, and it just stood there, growling with its forehead pressed against the cold, metal wire.

"Oh, my Lord," Jeanette whispered in horror as she tightened her grip on the brush hook in her hand.

Jeanette looked to her right and saw Marianna, looking down at the ground and her hands folded as if she were praying. "Marianna, are you okay, honey?" she asked worriedly.

Marianna didn't look up at Jeanette or respond to her question. Jeanette thought after Marianna's outburst that Rick would kill all of them, it was best to leave her friend alone and resumed her sentry duty.

Jeanette heard an engine in the distance and looked down the road to see a vehicle speeding towards her. A frightened Jeanette dropped the brush hook, and ran over to the two shotguns leaning beside Marianna.

"Marianna! There's a car coming!" Jeanette cried as she picked up one of the shotguns.

Marianna looked up at Jeannette, and saw her friend was running to the squad car, with a shotgun in her hands. Marianna stood up, looked down the street and saw a vehicle coming towards them. "Madre de Dios," she whispered fearfully.

Jeannette brought the shotgun up to her shoulder and was about to aim down its iron sights when she looked over at Marianna. "Marianna, go get—" she almost said Rick, but suddenly remembered Marianna's mistrust of the sheriff's deputy. "—get somebody!" she cried.

Marianna nodded and ran up the hill to the prison.

Jeannette looked down the shotgun's iron sights and aimed it at approaching vehicle. She suddenly remembered that the shotgun's safety was on, so she lowered the weapon, flicked the safety off like Rick had showed her, and Jeannette brought it up to her shoulder again.

Jeannette looked down the iron sights again, and she recognized the vehicle from the Governor's convoy when he left with his militia to attack the prison: It was a Jeep Wrangler YJ. A moment later she recognized the driver. Jeannette lowered the shotgun and flicked the safety on.

The Jeep started to slow down and finally came to a stop in front of the prison's squad car.

"Michonne? Is that you, girl?" Jeannette asked with a smile.

"Yes, it is. I'm back," Michonne answered.