It's nothing. It really isn't. A forty-five minute round trip, tops. Carl and I slip out of the doorway at the back of the cell block and into lightless corridors, creeping along, his flashlight scoping out the hall. It's my turn to take lead, so of the three walkers we see, I end up shooting two. But three walkers. That's it. The infirmary is the fourth door we try, and there's not much, but we clean it out, get bandages, disinfectant, other stuff we don't recognize but grab anyway. We stuff full the little bag Carl thought to bring, and then we navigate our way back, following spray paint signs we left along the way. No more walkers. And then we're back in the cell block, just that quick and simple.

It's the easiest run I've ever done, ever heard of, and maybe that's why I can't quite contain my smile when we walk up to the Hershel cell, with Glenn eyeing us warily. Why I've pretty much forgotten that what Carl and I did could have been very dangerous. Why when Carl drops the bag in the middle of the cell and the others gasp at what it holds, I lift my chin and cross my arms in pride. And why it's a hard crash back to reality when, after Lori asks where we got this and Carl answers, she looks at him with a positively horrified expression. "You two went by yourselves?" she chokes out. Carol's too focused to be a part of this, her hands moving rapidly over Hershel's leg, and Maggie's sifting through the bag like it contains pure gold, but Lori, Lori doesn't seem able to move normally. On her knees by the bed, she's all still and stiff.

My arms uncross. I lower my chin. But Carl offhandedly answers, "Yeah," and now even Maggie turns to him with wide eyes, like she's just now understanding.

"Are you crazy?" gasps Lori.

"No big deal. We killed three walkers."

Lori gapes for a moment before sweeping her arm over Hershel. "Alright – do you see this?"

My eyes go to him, to Hershel and his stump, and then they go to the floor.

"This was with the whole group."

"We needed supplies," I finally speak up, but it's not good, my voice isn't as certain as Carl's, and I don't try to say anymore, but he picks up where I left off.

"Yeah, so we got them!"

Lori's close to yelling now. "And I appreciate that, but – "

"Then get off my back!"

"Carl!"

That was Beth, soft-spoken Beth, with her face still stained by tears for her maybe-dying father. From her place on the floor by her sister and the stupid precious bag, she says, "She's your mother! You can't talk to her like that!"

A very heavy moment goes by. I watch the back of Carl's head.

Lori starts, calmer now, "Look, I think that it's great that you wanna help –"

Carl runs out. I watch him go, and then I drop into a crouch, so I'm eye-to-eye with Beth. "I know you're hurting, and I'm sorry. But you can't talk to him like that." And then I run out, too.

I find him in his cell, and he's not crying. I haven't seen Carl cry since we lost the farm. But I can tell he's not good, the way he's sitting on the bed, slouching, his hands in fists, his hat covering most of his face.

I'm not good at this. Talking, I mean. But he knows that, so the pressure's kind of off as I step into the cell and lean on the bedframe. "Look, Beth . . . That was a bitchy thing for her to say –"

He's on his feet in an instant. "Don't say that about her!"

The few words I had formed in my head die before even getting their shot at possibly sounding like something kind of right. Carl's fists are still formed, and they're tight. And me, I end up doing this huff of a breath that's sort of like a chuckle but not really, because there's nothing happy about it. "You – I just –" I point in the direction of the others, but my tongue, my mind, they all fail me. Carl's eyes are sharp and poisonous, like rattlesnake fangs, and finally I just let this furious growl loose from my throat, spinning on my heel as the sound escapes through clenched teeth, and I stomp back to my own cell, where I slam down my bow and throw one of my books against the wall as hard as I can. It doesn't help much.

. . . . .

"Somebody help! Somebody – please help!"

Those are the next words I hear, after some amount of unimportant time has passed. It's a scream and it's Beth's, and me and my bow are at the Hershel cell in a matter of seconds. Carl's already there. Maggie and Beth are inside, staring at Hershel.

His chest isn't moving any more. At all.

Lori breezes by Carl and me. She bends over Hershel, puts her hand on his forehead, listens to his chest. Beth whimpers. I don't hear a thing from Maggie. Lori presses her lips on Hershel's, breathing air into him. She pumps on his chest. Wake up, Hershel, wake up. Lori mutters to herself, or to Hershel, or maybe I'm not thinking straight and Lori hasn't said a thing at all. My bow's with me but I feel off inside again.

Then Hershel's arms shoot up and the one not cuffed goes around Lori and there's shrieking and screaming and a man's shout and Lori moving and then she's on the other side of the room, safe from Hershel, but, but it's not Hershel anymore –

Yes it is. He is. Those are Hershel's eyes. Wide and blank, but blue and clear, too. Not the eyes of a walker. And now his eyelids are closing and he makes a snore-like sound and is out again. Out but breathing.

It takes a few seconds for me to convince myself I don't have to keep aiming an arrow at Hershel's head. But finally I lower my bow, and Carl lowers his gun, and I walk quietly back to my cell and get back to being alone.

Dale walks into my cell a little later. He sits at the foot of my bed and tells me I shouldn't have gone to the infirmary. Just like I shouldn't have gone to the swamps with Carl. I nod and tell him he's right, but he pulls down the collar of his shirt to show me the gory remains of his chest anyway. Then I'm back in the infirmary with Carl and my leg is missing. He's rushing around getting bandages and wrapping them on my stump, and over in the corner a walker without a shirt reaches out for us, but it can't get any closer, because its feet are stuck in mud. The walker snarls and Carl tells it to shut up, and I tell him not to talk to the walker like that. And finally I'm back in my cell, lying on my bed, and Carl's shaking my shoulder.

"Syd. Sydney!"

I shoot upright, remembering that there's another bed above me just in time to avoid a concussion. "What?" I grasp for my bow, find it, but Carl shakes his head at that. I loosen my grip when I realize he's smiling.

"Hershel's awake. It looks like he's gonna be okay."

The past few hours come crashing back to me, foggy memories and fuzzy emotions becoming sharp, intense. Anger at Carl rises up and is quickly drowned out by the feeling of hope taking over my chest. "He's up now?"

"Yeah. And our dads and T-Dog are back. They –"

I'm gone by then.

My dad is outside the Hershel cell. I stop beside him and look in. T-Dog and Glenn stand in the corners of the cell, T-Dog still in prison armor, but in one piece. At the bedside, Maggie and Beth, their four hands clinging to one of Hershel's. Hershel. Eyes open, not talking, but something like a smile on his face as he looks up at his daughters.

Alive.