Thank you for all of the reviews everyone! And to the newest reviewer, jeanf thanks! They are always appreciated!

Lily is my OC and just about nothing else in this belongs to me aside from a few minor ideas.

Lily," Beth called to her. "What do I do?"

The doctor walked over to help out the nervous girl and escorted her into the cell block.

"I wasn't thinking," she said taking the baby from Beth and lying her down on a table near the entrance. "I almost left you here without any explanation."

"My dad could have helped some. We wouldn't have been completely alone."

The others filed in and went to their respective cells.

"Could you get my backpack and some water please?" Lily asked the girl who ran to gather what she needed.

Lily took some string and a bandana from the bag and tied it around the umbilical cord to keep it from bleeding out before cutting it shorter.

"A bottle of water please," she asked Beth.

Using the water and bandana, Lily with Beth's help washed off the small baby girl.

"Please don't think me rude by my leaving the baby with you, but she's heathy and others need tending to."

Beth understood that she meant Carl and Rick and nodded.

"If you need anything please call." She wiped her hands off before walking over to Carl's cell where he was on his bed lying on his stomach.

She wasn't able to walk in because the smaller of the two prisoners approached her.

"Now's not a good time, but I have some questions…"

"What?" she asked tersely. If she didn't answer his question now, she'd just have to do it later. "Let's just get this done with, ok?" He waved his other friend over to join them.

Beth cast her a look from the entrance asking if she'd be ok.

"Call Glenn if something goes wrong," Lily told the girl but the tone in her voice suggested all would be fine.

"What?" she asked smartly crossing her arms looking at the prisoners.

"We hate to presume—actually, first things first. My name is Axel," the blonde one introduced himself extending his hand. Lily took it stiffly.

"Lily."

"Oscar," the large man that helped shut off the generators introduced himself.

"Thanks for not shooting us today."

"That's actually what we'd like to talk about," Oscar said shifting nervously on his feet.

"What? That you still want to be a part of the group? I can't make that decision on my own. That's for the group to decide…"

"But you think we're ok," Axel said.

"Yes," she nodded. "I still do, especially after today but I cannot let you join without the others approving."

"If I may ask, why are you so strict towards other people joining the group?"

Lily sighed looking at the ground. She raised her eyes and saw Glenn leaning out of his cell watching everything.

"I will answer your question, but you need to tell me why you are talking to me?"

"You seem the most stable…"

"I appreciate that. It took many years in the ER to get this way, but I'm not as stable as I appear. I've learned to keep calm for the sake of others. If the doctor freaks out, then people get scared."

"You were a doctor?" Axel asked sounding shocked and pleased.

"Yeah, still am, but on a different note, I'm not the leader of this group. Rick has taken that responsibility. Daryl follows behind him, then Hershel and Glenn. At least some of the order goes that way. Glenn seems to be your best bet right now, not me." She waved Glenn down to join them. "Back to your other question. Why don't we let people join the group? You deserve an answer. Glenn would be better at answering that, but I'll tell you what I know." She thought for a moment before a realization hit her. "It's me. I'm the reason they're cautious towards letting people into the group."

"What did you do?" Oscar asked.

"Nothing," Glenn answered for her walking up to join the conversation also showing his position in the group. "That's just it. She did nothing. She was the best addition we could have had, but the circumstances were different for her…"

"How so?" Axel asked.

"I was kidnapped by lumberjack who lived in the woods and he raped me," Lily said as if she'd said it a thousand times. "Daryl found me and brought me back. I was so happy to be with people who weren't after me I did all I could to help."

"After she showed, up we met these new people who took us in when we needed it most," Glenn said. "They showed us kindness when we needed it. Now they are a part of the group. Our two first encounters with people spoiled us in a way."

"The last people we met before you tried to kill us. We did everything we could to strike a bargain with them, but it just didn't work. We fought them off but their buddies showed up and took me…" She had to take a deep breath to compose herself. "Yeah, I know it sounds like a soap opera, but it was those people that put a damper on—on any new people joining."

"You're not telling them everything," Glenn told her.

"What exactly did they do that was so bad?" Axel asked nervously afraid of the answer.

Lily met Glenn's eyes before turning her back to the prisoners and lifting her shirt showing them the piece of abstract art her back had become.

"Oh, my God," Oscar choked. The injuries had long since healed but the effect was just as powerful as ever. Axel looked like he was about to throw up.

"Let's just say we don't make friends like we used to. But from the beginning I knew there was something different about you two. You kept trying to get into the group. If you had wanted to kill us, you wouldn't have gone to so much effort to join and you could have killed us today but you didn't."

"That makes you all right in my book," Glenn said.

"We should just let them join us," Lily said looking at him. "They hang out with us enough and we need the extra man power now."

"Yeah. As of right now," Glenn said. "You two can join us. We do need the man power."

The four of them finished discussing the details of them joining the group before Lily was finally able to go check on Carl like she wanted to do in the first place. As she made her way to his cell, she could feel the sadness in the air thicken.

.. .. ..

"How are ya, Carl?" Lily asked pitifully trying to get his mind off obvious things.

"I'd rather not talk about it," he said looking down at the ground immediately dodging her question.

"Then what do you want to talk about?"

"Nothing."

"I'm not leaving until you talk to me," she said sitting on his bed by his feet. "Look I know you went through something terrible today-"

"I had to shoot my mother in the head!" he shouted. "Yeah, I went through something terrible today!"

"Oh, my god," she gasped covering her face with her hands. She knew Maggie had been with them but she had not told her what happened. Lily just assumed Maggie finished the job. But no. A child had to kill his own mother to prevent her from becoming an undead freak. Never before had she dealt with something to that mental stress level and she didn't know what to say to him.

"I—I—" she stuttered.

"Don't bother," he snapped. "There's nothing to say."

It was Lily's turn to snap as she forced tears back. "I am here to keep you people sane right now and you talk to me like I'm the one who caused this! I'm sorry your mother, T-Dog, and Carol all died today! I really am! But there's not a damn thing I can do to fix that. We all miss them. I'm just trying to keep everyone from falling apart…"

As if to add to everything, the baby began to cry in the next cell adding to the tension and sadness in the air.

Carl threw his hands over his ears to block out the sound, but it wasn't necessary because Beth calmed her quickly. He was crying again. Lily took him in her arms and he didn't fight her.

"Today just sucks, ok. It just really sucks."

She knew talking was out of the picture. What could they say to each other anyway. She just sat there rubbing his head waiting for him to stop crying. By the time he was done crying, he was asleep in her lap as she continued to run his hair through her fingers.