[A/N: I'm not gonna lie, I struggled a bit with this one. Any feedback on what works/doesn't work would be appreciated.]

'You're slipping Rick. We've all seen it, we understand why, but now is not the time. You once said this isn't a democracy! Now you have to own up to that. I put my family's lives in your hands. So get your head clear, and do something.'

Hershel's words, charged with tension, bounced off the concrete surfaces of the cell block as Rick pushed his way outside. Asha hadn't paid that much attention to the group's debate— once Merle's comment about the likelihood that the Governor had scouts on the roads out of the area had dashed her hopes that the group might flee, and in doing so free her to go back out looking for her brother. But Hershel's words pierced through her apathy with startling clarity.

Asha frowned. She'd been wary of Rick ever since he'd turned his hard eyes on her at the fence line. There was an edge of brittleness to him, ready to shatter if pushed too hard. Asha wasn't sure whether the fact that his own group could obviously see it too should make her feel better or worse. The man had a shadow hanging over him, and being locked in a cell, at his mercy, made the hair stand up on the back of Asha's neck.

She was suddenly seized with a desperate need to get out the locked antechamber— even if just temporarily. She crossed over to the bars.

'Hey.'

The members of the group were dispersing after their meeting and didn't pay her any heed.

'Hey,' she said, louder. This time she got almost everyone's attention.

'I want to use the ladies room, maybe get cleaned up a bit.'

There was a pregnant pause as carefully blank faces were turned in her direction. She plucked at the clothing she'd been wearing for days and that had soaked up the sweat and walker blood from yesterday. She really did stink.

'Come on people.' she pleaded. 'You've got all my weapons and there's a yard full of deadheads out there. I'm not runnin' anywhere. I just want to get clean and then i'll come back to this cell like a good little prisoner.' She plucked at her clothes again. 'This is not ok.'

Daryl and Hershel shared a glance.

'Ok,' Hershel said. 'But Maggie and Michonne, you go with her.'

Guards. Great. Michonne to stop her if she tried anything she guessed, and Maggie to make sure that that was what Michonne did. Maggie nodded. 'I'll grab your stuff' she said, as Hershel came forwards with the keys.

'Hell, if blondie gets out, I want outta here too,' Merle demanded.

'No way,' Glenn retorted.

Hershel shook his head as he unlocked the gate for Asha. 'That's gotta be Rick's call.'

Merle grumbled under his breath. Asha reached out and patted him insultingly on the cheek. 'Don't worry big guy,' she said. 'I'll be back before you have time to miss me.' She darted quickly out the door before he could react, ignoring the startled expressions on everyone's faces—and the stream of expletives that spewed from Merle's mouth.

'We had to go through it,' Maggie said, dumping her pack in front of her. 'Couldn't let you have it till we'd checked it out.' Maggie was watching her carefully, cautious still, but the hostility from yesterday seemed to have faded.

Asha nodded and grimaced, the remnants of her life were in that pack and she hated the thought of strangers rummaging through it.

'We found your gun,' Maggie added. 'We've added it to our stock pile for now, hope that's not going to be an issue.'

Asha shrugged. It was an old colt revolver she'd scavenged early on when the world went to shit. 'Haven't had ammo for it for months now,' she said.

The rest of the group drifted away to their own tasks and she was left with just Maggie and Michonne.

She opened her pack and was immediately assailed by the smell of fish.

'Oh yeah,' Maggie said wrinkling her nose. 'We found a dead fish in there too.'

'Yeah, shit, I caught that the other morning, before I ran into Merle and Daryl.' She scrubbed the heel of her hand across her forehead. 'Forgot all about it.'

'We had to chuck it,' Maggie said. 'Didn't smell too great.'

Asha nodded, pulling a face as she dug around in her pack, the fish smell dampening her hopes of finding something cleanish to put on. She eventually found a pair of faded black jeans, a singlet and some underwear at that bottom of her pack which weren't too bad. Nothing in her pack was really all that clean to start with, but it was all an improvement on what she was wearing— even with the faint fish scent.

'Here,' Carol had come back, and to Asha's surprise, tossed her a clean towel. Asha fingered the soft material gratefully, and then almost cried when she saw what else was in Carol's hands.

'Is that soap' she gasped.

Carol grinned at the look on her face and nodded. 'It gets better.' She pulled a stick of deodorant from her pocket and handed it over with the soap. 'Men's,' she said a little deprecatingly. 'But this was a men's prison i guess.'

'I don't even care' Asha said fervently, clutching them to her chest. 'Thank you.'

She began desperately hoping for some washing powder so she could clean her clothes.

Maggie and Michonne took her into the prison bathrooms, where there was already a large tub of water set up for washing. They stood outside the door to give her some privacy while she washed, no doubt figuring it was a prison bathroom so there was nowhere to go. Asha carefully put down the precious clean towel, deodorant and soap, a little unnerved at how grateful she felt for receiving those simple gifts— even just the loan of them. She didn't want to feel grateful, or indebted to these people. Pushing the thought away for the moment, she stripped off her tank, trying to ignore its crusty stiffness. Then she swore quietly as she caught sight of the filthy, gaunt eyed creature looking back at her from the dirty mirror.

Her face was drawn and grimy and there were dark shadows under her eyes. Her green eyes looked huge, and bloodshot, in their sunken sockets. Her bones stuck out everywhere. She ran a finger down her sternum, noting how clearly she could she the outline of her ribs across her chest. Her belt was two notches tighter than it used to be, and it was the only thing holding her jeans up over hip bones that jutted out sharply through papery skin that looked thin enough to tear.

She looked like shit.

She drew in a shuddering breath, stripped off the rest of her clothes and lathered up with the soap, ignoring the sting at the back of her eyes.

Scrawny enough to break in two.

She hadn't realised she'd gotten so bad. She was amazed they had sent both Maggie and Michonne to watch her. In her condition Carl could probably have overpowered her. Depressingly, as she scrubbed off the grime, she realised she was covered in cuts, scrapes and bites from living along the river. There was a particularly deep scratch across one hip bone that she remembered getting a week or so ago. It didn't look like it had healed at all. She tried to build up enough lather to wash her hair, the blonde was barely discernible through the dirt, but she only managed to dislodge the worst of the scum.

She had pulled on her cleanish clothing and was holding her arms out in front of her and looking at them dejectedly when Maggie stuck her head around the door. 'Asha,' she said, with the tone of someone repeating herself.

'Huh?'

There was a momentary hesitation and then Maggie walked into bathroom, followed closely by Michonne. 'You didn't answer me.'

'Oh... Sorry,' Asha mumbled. She kept looking at her arms. 'I used to have muscle.'

'How long were you out there on your own?' Maggie asked.

''Bout a month alone, I think. About three or four months before that it was just me and Nash.'

'Living just on fish? Maggie arched a speculative eyebrow.

Asha shrugged, letting her arms drop limply to her sides. 'Mostly. We pretty much kept to the river, but we did the occasional scavenging run into towns. Hadn't quite worked up to making any on my own after we got separated.' She shook her head wryly. 'I couldn't get past the thought that he'd show up as soon as i left the river and we'd spend the rest of our lives just missing each other. Crazy huh?'

'Where are you from, originally i mean?' Maggie asked curiously.

'Before all this? Nash was a dive instructor in Jacksonville. I've been based down in Miami the last couple of years.' Asha rubbed the bridge of her nose. Time to deflect a bit of attention. 'What about you two? Where was this farm of yours?'

There was a flash of pain across Maggie's face. 'Senoia...near enough.'

Asha only vaguely knew where that was. 'South of Atlanta right?'

Maggie nodded tightly.

Asha looked inquiringly at Michonne, but only received a flat silence in response.

'How did you end up here?' Maggie asked.

Asha bit her lip. 'Florida went down before Georgia I think. Miami definitely did. Thank god I was visiting Nash at the time. When it happened, we headed north. Didn't really have a plan, but there was still some radio back then, and everything we heard said everything to the south was just...gone. Infested. But Atlanta, the refugee camp, it was still taking people in.' She swiped both hands down her face past the corners of her mouth. 'Never made it. Never got near it before we started meeting people fleeing from it, carrying stories of napalm and fire... Heading for the coast most of them, but...' she glanced at Maggie and Michonne. 'It was overrun. We tried it. Couldn't get near Savannah, or even some of the smaller towns...And the radio had gone silent long before that.' She stared unseeingly at ground, seeing again the seething burning mass of Savannah and the pall of black smoke over it, blocking out the sun.

'So what were you doing the rest of the time?' Michonne asked.

'What?' Asha silently cursed herself.

'A month on your own, three or four months with your brother, what about before that? Been a while since the turn. Were you with a group?'

Asha arched an eyebrow. 'Because groups are so welcoming these days?'

Maggie had the good grace to look a little abashed. Michonne was unperturbed by her comment. 'They're just being smart. Gotta be. Particularly with what's going on with the Governor.'

'Did they lock you in a cell when you showed up?' Asha challenged.

'Not exactly, but I had something they needed, and they had something I needed.'

Right, the baby formula and information on Maggie and Glenn. Asha had heard about that last night too.

'They're not hurting you,' Michonne added. 'And once they know you're not a threat they'll let you go. That's more than you'd get from most people.' Asha felt a swell of recognition at the bitter note of experience in Michonne's voice. The dread locked woman paused. 'You didn't answer my question.'

Damn.

'We were with a group right after the turn. Good people, most of them anyway. We had a camp, set up in an old… I guess it was an industrial warehousing complex. Didn't last though.'

She prayed for her voice to stay steady.

'After a bit, we decided we were better off on our own. We stuck to the river after that.' She forced a smile. 'My brother, he has this way with fish. I swear he could put his hand in the water and a fish would jump into it. He feed us pretty well until we got separated. I mean, I do ok with a speargun in the ocean, when I can get in and swim around with the fish, but trying to use a spear from a river bank? Totally different ball game.'

Shut up Asha, just shut up. You always ramble when you're nervous.

'Guess I wasn't doing so well on my own though,' she continued, gesturing vaguely in the direction of herself. 'Then Merle and Daryl showed up, and now apparently I've traded starving to imprisonment with Merle's crazy ass.'

Dear god, please let them be distracted.

'Merle,' Michonne said flatly. 'How is that working out?'

Asha breathed a little easier. 'He's an asshole, but he's all talk at the moment, and he doesn't say anything I haven't heard before.'

Michonne arched an eyebrow.

'I used to be a bartender,' Asha said. 'And not in a nice bar. Reckon he's always talked a bigger game than he's played anyway. Now that Daryl's clipped his wings, i just tune him out.

Maggie and Michonne looked at her curiously. 'What do you mean?' Maggie asked.

Asha looked between them, a little surprised. 'Daryl made his call, out there on the road. He picked you guys.' She shrugged. 'And he may have stewed on it for a minute, but Merle picked Daryl. So now he's got make this work. Which means he's gotta keep his hands to himself.' She sniggered slightly. 'No matter how much I piss him off.'

Maggie and Michonne shared a look.

'You watch him,' Asha said. 'He may be awkward and uncomfortable as fuck about it, but he's got no option other than to try and make this work.'

'We better get back' Maggie said.

'Yeah,' Asha said, 'wouldn't want anyone to think I'd managed to get the drop on both of you.'

Maggie and Michonne both looked at her flatly.

'Sorry,' Asha hunched her shoulders. 'I...'

Damn it. Think before you open your mouth idiot.

She scooped up her filthy clothes and then paused before handing the soap and deodorant back. 'Thanks,' she said awkwardly.

Maggie nodded noncommittally, and they headed back to the cell block.