The next few days, the sickness was starting to look deadly serious. People were starting to die in quarantine; meaning zombie disposal was becoming necessary. It was getting dangerous in the cell block. Everyone I knew well had kept from getting sick, except for Glenn. Maggie was really cut up about it.

Daryl came up the stairs to the guard tower early morning to ask if I wanted to go on a run to a veterinary school with a group he was putting together. They were going to scavenge it for supplies; that people would have passed over it. It was hopeful there would be antibiotics there to cure this illness. His team seemed fairly solid, though, especially with him and Michonne. I didn't really think they needed me.

I seriously considered going, but in the end I decided to stay back and help out at the prison. With all going on, we were currently drastically under-manned.

I watched Daryl leave the guard tower and go directly to the packed and waiting black Charger. He turned around to glance up at me. I thought about giving him a sarcastic little wave, to show him I knew he was looking at me, but I thought maybe he wouldn't get that I was trying to be funny. So I sat there watching him, the whole way until the Charger left the gates and disappeared into the trees. I held the scope up to my eye, wondering if I could catch a glimpse of the car through the trees, but of course I couldn't.

I skimmed through the tree line, properly doing guard duty. Then, without me being completely sure where in the trees it happened, I saw a bright flash. Alarming to me because it was the same sort of flash like a scope makes in the sunlight. My heart beating rapidly, I whipped my scope back to approximately where the flash had been, but I saw nothing. I frantically searched around the same area, looking for any movement or anything out of the ordinary. In my concern, I almost stood up, but that's a terrible idea, I don't want to give anyone an easier target. I stayed perfectly still, my eye trained on the same forested area for near 20 minutes.

I could go out and actually investigate, but it's not like the person would sit and wait for me to get there. Not to mention the piles of zombies out there smushing against the fence and milling around aimlessly. But, what if it was actually someone? What if it was the goddamn eyepatch guy?

Fuck it.

I was feeling pretty reckless anyway. Rick had spoken to me in only the briefest of ways the past few days and I was feeling anxious about the sickness and suddenly something else I couldn't really put my finger on. Oh, and not to mention I'm an undeniable psycho. I needed to go out and check the forest for my own piece of mind.

I stood up in one swift movement, my decision propelling me out of the chair. I quickly skimmed down the stairs and strode across the yard, holding the .308 close under my arm, and went right out the cut open piece of chain link. I wound the bungee cord back up, closing the fence and darted around a few slow moving zombies. There seemed to be even more of them than it had looked from the tower, now that I was actually in their midst.

I was going to try to avoid killing them, though, that seems to make them gang up on you like a creepy herd of cattle.

I sped across the bridge over the river and pushed foliage out of my way until I came to the general area that needed investigation. I wasn't a tracker or anything, but the vicinity looked fairly undisturbed. And, of course, there was no one posted up waiting for me. I gave the brush around the perimeter another once over and decided to head back once I was pretty sure nothing was too suspicious.

I ducked under a hefty tree branch and found an unsettling sight awaiting me. An entire fifteen strong hoard was clawing at the exact part of the fence I needed to get into.

The prison gate was about a quarter mile away from me. The zombies were thinned out there, unfortunately though, I'd have to pray to god someone saw me once I got there, as there was no way for me to open the gate myself. Taking in my choices, I weighed more favorably to the main gate.

Sneaking past the clumped up walkers, I trekked my way to the gate, weaving carefully through the zombies, hoping they wouldn't acknowledge my presence.

Getting to the gate was going to be easy; figuring out how to get inside would be the complicated bit. Sure enough, I made it there, no issue.

A couple of walkers wandered around me at a safe distance while I scanned the prison yard. Too bad I was supposed to be the one on guard duty. I totally would have noticed someone standing out here.

I saw Rick up near the prison; he seemed to be looking towards the guard tower. That was close enough for me to assume I'd be in his line of vision. I leaned my gun against the metal barrier of the gate. Then, shooting a furtive look behind me to the walkers, I raised my arms and waved them as slowly as I could with it still being a clear signal. Seems like no recognition from Rick.

God dammit, Rick. Look over here. I was worried about the walkers taking an interest. If they did, they'd start piling up on me. Glancing behind me again, I tried one more time.

Ok, either he didn't see me, or he's so sick of me, he's decided it would be best for everyone if I just went ahead and got myself eaten. I'd like to think that wasn't the case, so I raised my arms to try my pathetic signal again, when I heard a snarl from behind me.

Shit. Well, I mean, at least my signal worked in some capacity. Lookin' on the bright side.

I pulled my heavy knife from my belt and turned backwards with my arm out, blade turned down, and slammed the knife straight into the advancing zombie's skull. And then the few around me started moving in. So much for flying under the radar. Two came at me. I kicked the first one in the chest, sending it to the ground. I sent the knife plunging into the temple of the other one, ripping it back out easily, and then straight into the first one's face.

Kneeling in the dirt, I looked around, I noticed a lot of them were headed towards me. I mean, a lot. They were moving down the fence at me, slowly, others appearing silently from the forest.

Starting to get a little panicky, I tried to pull the knife out the last one's face, but it was slippery with blood. It slid straight out of my fingers. I was still on the ground, trying to yank the knife out, but my fingers couldn't get purchase. I thought about pulling my shirt off and using it to grab the knife, but I didn't have time. I needed to back up.

Ok, Grey, try to stay calm.

But I was having a difficult time convincing myself.

I suddenly had a stroke of rare genius. Turning away from my deadly audience, back to them, I pulled the .308 in front of me and started waving it around, seeing the reflection of the scope hitting the steel plate of the gate a few times, flashing around desperately, I knew it had to be working. But I couldn't do it for long. Abandoning the attempt and hoping with every fiber of my being that Rick had seen it, I took the gun and crushed the butt of it into the closest skull. Unfortunately, with about ten of them coming at me, I was getting pushed into the huge plate and it was quickly causing me to feel like a cornered animal.

I really wanted to start shooting, but then I would attract every single one of them in a five mile radius, and I felt certain they'd stack up against the fence whether I was alive or dead and push through the fence…at least I'd know Rick would hear it though. I flipped the gun around in my hands and grabbed it by the barrel. Swinging it like a baseball bat, I got enough upwards force to actually lift one off its feet when I hit it underneath its chin. I swung at another one, its brain mush exploding on to the others. They didn't even notice. One got knocked over by the exploded head zombie. It fell directly in front of me, hands on the ground.

Oh, too perfect.

Raising the gun over my head like an axe, I brought the butt of it down, cleaving the fallen walker's head into a canyon shape, bits of skull and mush visible.

Taking another baseball stance, I prepared for the next closest approacher.

"Grey!" I heard Rick yell.

Then I heard the sound of the gate moving open, I was midswing at another zombie when I felt a hand grab my arm and forcefully drag me inside the gate.

Rick rushed to shut it and then took my shoulders in his hands like he going to shake me.

"Jesus, are you ok?" He asked, looking me up and down concernedly. "Why didn't you just fucking shoot them? And what the fuck were you doing out there without telling anyone anyway?"

I fought down a mad desire to smile and lost; a grin spread across my face. "Did you see that?" I asked him, thrilled, "That was fucking awesome. Holy shit."

I fidgeted happily in his grip, the adrenaline still pumping through me at a wild pace. I felt ready to take on the whole world. I wriggled around to throw a quick look back outside the fence. I would have at least been able to take down five more before I'd gotten swarmed. Those few I could have reached were snarling at us and growling menacingly, tormenting me.

He stared at me like he'd never quite seen anything like me before.

"Grey, why didn't you shoot? What the hell did you think you were doing out there? Grey! Listen to me! What in the hell is wrong with you?!" He got progressively louder, until he practically bellowed the last question.

His grasp on me was so tight it was getting painful. He was looking at me desperately, like he was trying to understand me, understand anything about me.

With deadly seriousness, I looked him in the eyes and in answer to his last question replied simply, "A lot."

Rick searched my eyes with a pleading look. I gave him a hard one back.

I wasn't even sure why his question had upset me so much. Maybe because I'd been trying to hide it from everyone. He was never supposed to notice. No one was ever supposed to notice anything. It was never supposed to even be a problem. It was a hell of a lot to ask of myself, but I thought perhaps I could keep everything down. But I still dreamt about it each night. I could still feel it every day. I was going to have to tell him. Not now, but soon. He'd need to understand, whether it meant he'd get me away from his people or not, I owed it to him.

He'd let go of my arms in a defeated way; I could see him giving up on me again. He took a step backwards, but I took one towards him and in the middle of prison yard, with undead spectators, I set my gun on the ground and I gave him our second kiss.

It was even better than last time. I don't know if it was the adrenaline I had coursing through me from my dangerous mission, or what. He didn't put his arms around me this time, but instead opted for one hand on my waist and the other on my arm; I had stood on my toes a little and wrapped mine around his neck.

He stepped back suddenly from me, grabbed my hand, and started to lead me towards the guard tower, I broke free, stooped and snagged the gun out of the gravel quickly and took his outstretched hand. Just before we went through the door to the stairs, I saw someone watching us from up by the prison.

Once up the stairs and in the booth, Rick pushed me aggressively against the wall. We kissed insistently, intertwined with each other until my face started hurting from his facial hair. The panic in me was there, lurking underneath the surface, but it didn't break through.

He grabbed me all over, getting so far to the point of beginning to take off my shirt. He pushed it up, exposing the bottom of my bra, his rough hands slid from my V muscles to the small of my back.

I was craving feeling his skin on mine. A little moan escaped me and I wrapped my leg around his hips, forcing my pelvis against his, trying to encourage him to continue. I actually wanted this. Bad. I snuck a hand up his button-up shirt to feel his lean, muscular body against me. His skin was just a bit damp from sweat, and god, I wanted to taste him. Starting at the sensitive skin just above the collar of his shirt, I licked him, slowly, ending behind his ear. He pulled me into him even closer, rubbing against me.

But then, in one of the most disappointing moments of my life, he let go of me. Closing his eyes and making one of the loudest sighing noises I've ever heard come out of a person, he held up his hands in a not unkind gesture of surrender. His face was set, as though he'd just made an extremely difficult choice.

"I don't know what you do Grey, but there's something about you." Rick said, raising his hands up to slick back his hair in a bewildered way.

I tried to take that as a compliment, but yeah, I already knew that. It wasn't a positive quality about me as it seemed (until now) to only bring negative attention on me.

But I smiled at him, in what I hoped wouldn't be perceived in a cocky way and tried to straighten out my clothes.

"I actually came to find you because I need your help. I had to made a difficult decision and I want you to come with me while I execute this decision," Rick said, looking determinedly at a spot on the floor as though not to sucked in by me again.

"That's way better than you avoiding me, innit? I can definitely help you out." I was attempting to be friendly with him even though I wanted to rip his clothes off.

"Ok… Great," he seemed so bewildered. It was cute.

"But," he said, taking a step towards me and pointing accusingly, "I do want to know why I had to grab your ass from outside the fence and why in the hell you were smilin' like an idiot when I found you."

I nodded at him unabashedly. He looked satisfied.

"Alright, come on," he said, motioning to the stairwell, "I didn't stop what was happening for no good reason."

He grinned at me with a slight air of embarrassment.