Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead.

Her Angel, His Strength

22 Killer Within

All week they had been dragging the dead bodies across the field, cleaning up the cells, and taking care of Hershel's leg. Trying to organize their lives in the prison. Carol had started to open a few dead women in order to be better prepared to delivery Lori's baby. They hadn't stopped working ever since they found the prisoners.

"Alright, let's get the other cars in. We'll park 'em in the west entry of the yard." Rick said one morning, after they finished cleaning the fields.

"Good. Our vehicles camped out there look like a giant vacancy sign!" Daryl agreed.

"After that, we need to load up these corpses so we can burn them."

"It's gonna be a long day…" T-Dog sighed, and Lily agreed, though she felt happy they had that much work. It just meant they had found somewhere safe for them to take care of. It is a good day. She thought with a smile on her wide mouth.

"Where's Glenn and Maggie?" Carol asked after parking a car. "We could use some help."

"Up in the guard tower."

"Guard tower? They were just up there last night!"

"Glenn!" Daryl shouted. "Maggie!"

Glenn came out the tower with no shirt and buttoning his pants up. Lily made a face, Glenn was a brother to her, and she had no interest in knowing what he did with Maggie on their free time.

"Hey! What's up guys?" Everyone laughed at his sight.

"Ya comin'?"

"What?" Glenn appeared bewildered at Daryl's question, making all of them laugh harder.

"Ya comin'?" When Glenn looked at Maggie, who had made an appearance, still not understanding Daryl's meaning, he continued: "come on, we could use a hand!"

"Yeah, we'll be right down!"

"Next watch is ours." Daryl whispered in her ear while pinching her bottom, before walking away with Rick and Carol. Lily blushed but made no comment.

"Hey Rick!" T-Dog called from beside her. The two prisoners, Axel and Oscar, were outside their cellblock, walking towards them. Lily hadn't thought about them all week long, surprised to see them out of their part of the prison.

"That's close enough." Rick said to them, the laugh of before completely whipped out his face. "We had an agreement."

"Please, mister. We know that, we made a deal." Axel started just as Glenn and Maggie arrived. "But you gotta understand! We can't live in that place another minute, you follow me? All the bodies, people we knew! Blood, brains everywhere! There's ghosts!"

"Why don't ya move the bodies out?" Daryl asked with a frown.

"You should be burning them." T-Dog agreed.

"We tried! We did!" Axel cried.

"The fence is down on the far side of the prison. Every time we drag a body out, those things just line up. So hump in a body and just running back inside." Oscar made his input.

"Look! We had nothing to do with Thomas and Andrew, nothing! You trying to prove a point? You proved it, bro! We'll do whatever it takes to be a part of your group, just, please, please, don't make us live in that place!" Lily felt sorry for them.

"Our deal is not negotiable. You either live in your cellblock, or you leave." Rick said, after a while, his face and words hard, but Lily knew Rick still had a good heart underneath it; he must have been struggling with that decision.

"I told you this was a waste of time." Oscar told Axel, and looking at them, he continued: "they ain't no different than the pricks who shot up our boys. You know how many friends' corpses we had to drag out this week? Just threw 'em out like… Those were good guys! Good guys who had our backs against the really bad dudes in the joint like Thomas and Andrew. Now, we've all made mistakes to get in here, chief, and I'm not gonna pretend to be a saint, but believe me… We paid our due. Enough that we would rather hit that road, than to go back into that shithole."

When Rick looked at Daryl who just shook his head, Lily sighed. Daryl walked away then, motioning with his head for the prisoners to follow him, while the rest of them walked away.

"Come on, man. Look at them, we cannot send them out there. We should give them a chance." T-Dog begged Rick.

"They don't seem that bad, Rick." Lily agreed. "They aren't like Thomas, that's for sure."

"Are you serious?" Rick asked them, just as Daryl arrived. "You want them living in a cell next to you? They'll just be waiting for a chance to grab our weapons; you want to go back to sleeping with one eye open?"

"I never stopped. Bring them into the fold. If we send them off packing, we might as well execute them ourselves." T-Dog stood his ground.

"I don't know, Axel seems a little unstable." Glenn said.

"Well, who wouldn't? Being locked up in that cafeteria for all this time, no idea what was going on just to get out there and find all his friends dead!" Lily argued.

"That's not our problem! Besides, after all we've been through? We fought so hard for all this, what if they decide to take it?" Carol said that. T-Dog and Lily were going to lose that argument, Lily knew.

"It's just been us for so long… They're strangers. I don't… It feels weird all of a sudden to have these other people around." Maggie agreed with Carol.

"You brought us in." T-Dog pointed up.

"Yeah, but you turned up with a shot boy in your arms, didn't give us a choice."

"They can't even kill walkers!" Glenn said.

"They're convicts, bottom line!"

"Those two might actually have less blood on their hands than we do."

"I get guys like this. Hell, I grew up with them. They're degenerates, but they ain't psychos. I could have been with them just as easy as I'm out here with ya guys." Daryl said, and Lily was surprised. She was sure he was against them staying.

"So you with T and me?"

"Hell no!" Well, that hope's life was short. "Let 'em take their chances out on the road, just like we did!"

"What I'm saying, Daryl-" T-Dog started.

"When I was a rookie, I arrested this kid." Rick interrupted. "Nineteen years old, wanted for stabbing his girlfriend. The kid blubbered like a baby during the interrogation, during the trial, suckered the jury. He was acquitted due to insufficient evidence, and in two weeks later shot another girl. We've been through too much. Our deal with them stands."

Glenn left to prepare a box of supplies for the prisoners. Lily couldn't say she wanted to sleep next to them, they were convicts, but she knew that they were not prepared to what was waiting them outside. She had little faith they would last long.

"Move the cars to the upper yard. Point them facing out. They'll be out of the way but ready to go if we ever need to bail." Turning to Lily and T-Dog, Rick said, "We'll give the prisoners a week's worth of supplies for the road."

"Might not last a week." T-Dog voice her opinion sombrely.

"Their choice!"

"Did they really have one?"

"Hey! Hey, whose blood would you rather have on your hands? Maggie's, Glenn's, or theirs?"

"Neither." Lily went to the fence, ready to open them for the cars.

After bringing their vehicles inside the prison, Lily along with Glenn, Rick and Daryl left the prison to gather wood for a fire to burn the dead bodies.

"Should I take her out?" Glenn asked, pointing with his gun to a walker a little way away from them.

"No. If that armoury hadn't been picked clean, we could spare the ammo." Rick said.

"I'll start making runs, the sooner, the better." Daryl suggested.

"We'll throw as much wood as we can in the dog run."

"Won't the fire attract walkers? Maybe we should bury 'em."

"It'll contaminate the soil." Lily disagreed.

"We're behind a fence. It's worth a one-time risk to get rid of the bodies for good. I don't want to be planting crops in walker-rotted soil."

"Looky here." Daryl said, making they all turn their heads on Hershel's direction. It was the first time they saw them outside his cell ever since he was bitten. Lily smiled, happily surprised.

"He is one tough son of a bitch." Glenn commented, before shouting: "alright Hershel!"

"Shh…" Daryl reprehended Glenn, showing the walkers behind the fence. "Keep your cheers down."

"Oh, man, can't we just have one good day?" He muttered, though Lily was too happy to pay him mind. The sight of Hershel out of a bed and walking around was enough to make this a good day to her.

"Oh, God. No!" She thought too son. Walkers had gotten inside the prison, and were closing in on Hershel, Lori, Carl and Beth. Lily took off running towards them, and seconds later, she heard her companions close behind her, finally seeing the danger she had.

"Get out! Get out of there!" She heard Rick screaming. "No! Lori!" The entrance of the courtyard was closed; Daryl, Rick and Lily were blocked.

"The lock! Hurry up, the lock!" Daryl screamed to Glenn who had caught up with them after closing the fence.

"Keys!" When Rick finally opened the gate, they hurried inside, Lily's bow ready, though there weren't many walkers as before. They killed them and saw Hershel and Beth behind a closed cage.

"What the hell happened?" Rick demanded.

"The gate was open!" Beth answered, still frightened.

"Where's Lori, Carl, everyone else?"

"Maggie led Lori and Carl into C block!" Hershel answered.

"And T was bit!" Lily gasped.

"Anyone else?"

"I couldn't tell."

"Stay put!" Rick ordered, coming towards where Daryl and Glenn were still taking care of a few walkers that appeared from the now closed gate.

"Those chains didn't break on their own. Someone took an axe or cutters to 'em." Glenn said, making Lily frown. Seeing Rick's glance at the prisoners, she turned to look at them. "You think they did it?"

"Who else?" Rick asked, and Lily agreed. Suddenly, an alarm went off, attracting even more walkers.

"What's that?"

"Oh! Ya gotta be kiddin' me!"

"Daryl!" Rick screamed, shooting at the speakers in the courtyard. Lily helped them, knowing the sound would bring every walker on hearing distance towards the fences.

"How the hell can this be happening?" Rick demanded from the prisoners once the alarm went down.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, it has to be the backup generators!" Oscar said, raising his hands.

"Well how do you turn those on?"

"There's three that's connected to a diesel tank, okay? Each one controls a certain part of the prison. The hatch shut them all off when the prison was overrun!"

"Can someone open up the main gates electronically, with full power?"

"Well, I only went in there a few days, I… I guess it might be possible."

"Come with us!" Rick said, grabbing Oscar, turning around and running inside the prison.

There were walkers everywhere inside the corridors, even the ones they had already cleared. They ran towards their cellblock, trying to look for the rest of the group. Rick in front of them, screaming for his family.

"We just took down five of 'em in here!"

"There were four in here, but no sign of Lori or anyone!"

"They must have been pushed back into the prison!" Glenn commented by her side. Lily still trying to understand just how this was possible. The two prisoners they had with them apparently had no idea of just what was going on and Lily felt they were telling the truth. They had just asked them to join in their group; they couldn't have planned this.

"Somebody is playing games!" Rick shouted in outrage and worry. "We'll split up and look for the others. Whoever gets to the generators first, shut 'em down!"

"Let's go!" Leaving the cellblock, Lily paired up with Glenn and Axel to look for the generators.

She ran with them, looking inside every room they found in the hopes of finding what they were looking for, but every time they opened a door, it would seem that walkers were the only thing they could find. Axel didn't have a weapon with him, so Lily gave him Daryl's knife while she used her bow, not liking the thought of one of them disarmed.

"Wait, wait!" Lily shouted at them before they could open another door. "It stopped."

"They must have found it! Come on, let's go back." Glenn said, running back to where they had come. When they found them, they made their way carefully in the corridors, trying to go back to where they left Hershel and Beth.

When they heard the groaning and grunting sounds they now associated with the walkers, they moved warily, readying themselves. They didn't have to worry, though, seeing there was only two walkers that were… Oh, my God, no! Lily thought when she recognised the body as T-Dog. Daryl picked up a scarf on the floor, the same one that Carol was using earlier that day. Lily's eyes filled with tears, and she walked away from the scene not looking back to the others.

"Hershel!" Rick called from behind her. Lily hugged herself and looked around; the others had not come back.

"You didn't find 'em?"

"We thought maybe they came back out here."

"What about T, Carol?"

"They didn't make it." Daryl answered and Lily felt a new wave of tears in her eyes.

"That doesn't mean the others didn't. We're going back! Daryl and Glenn, you come with me…" Rick didn't finish his sentence as they heard a baby crying. Lily raised her head to see Carl, Maggie and a baby in her bloodied hands walking towards them. Maggie was crying, shaking her head and trying to, without being able, say something to Rick; Carl's face was unreadable, his eyes blank and his face pale.

Rick looked at them, dropping his axe, his face questioning, not wanting to understand what happened.

"Where is… Where is she?" Maggie shook her head, still not being able to say. When he tried to go back in the prison, she finally found her voice.

"No, Rick, don't!"

"Oh no… No! No!" Rick cried, looking at Carl, whose face was deployed of any emotion. Rick fell on the ground, his cries echoing around them.

"It's gonna be a long day…" T-Dog sighed, and Lily agreed, though she felt happy they had that much work. It just meant they had found somewhere safe for them to take care of. It is a good day. She thought with a smile.

Daryl encircled her waist, pulling her to him. A sob escaped her lips.


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English is not my mother tongue, if you find a mistake, please let me know.

Thank you,

Mel.