I'm still awake long after the sun has set and the others have turned in. Sleep and me, we used to get along better than this. But lately I'm completely at its mercy. I sit up on the bed, swing my legs over the edge, and listen to the faint noise of T-Dog snoring. The sound's somehow comforting, but not comforting enough, not tonight.

I think for a few minutes. Then I make the same hissing sound my dad made earlier today and I stand. I move out of the cell, see Rick slumped against the wall across the room. The shadows falls on his face in such a way that I can't tell if he's awake or not, but if he is, he doesn't see me or just doesn't say anything.

Unsurprisingly, Carl is in bed when I get to his cell. I shake his shoulder. "Hey."

He flinches before his eyes open, fluttering, confused, and then he's pushing himself up, starting to talk, but I don't let him.

"I'm not sorry I called her a bitch," I say flatly. "I was trying to make you feel better." And you hurt my feelings when you jumped on me like that, you jerk.

He blinks up at me, long and slow blinks. His hair is messy and I shuffle my feet. "So, yeah," I finish. "That's it."

One more blink, and then Carl says, "You woke me up just to tell me that?"

" . . . I couldn't sleep."

We don't break our solemn eye contact for a good two, three seconds, and then one of us starts laughing and the other starts laughing and I'm biting my bottom lip, trying to be quiet about it. After we've calmed down a bit, and our breathing's back to normal and blending into one another's like it does, he says, "We were right to go to the infirmary."

I nod. I could never say that to my dad or anyone else, but yes, I can admit it to Carl. We might've saved Hershel's life.

"My mom shouldn't have . . . "

"Yeah."

The laughter's long gone from him now. Silence, then, "Sometimes . . . Sometimes I wish she wasn't here."

I take a long breath. "No, you don't."

"Yeah, I do."

"No," I say steadily, and I look hard into his eyes. "You don't."

Because you'll miss her playing the piano and the way her pajamas smell like coffee and even the whiskey on her breath as she sings you to sleep.

And Carl understands, at least where I'm coming from, and he doesn't fight anymore.

"Hey, Syd?"

That came from behind me. Rick's here now. He doesn't look angry, just very tired. I wonder how much of the conversation he's heard . . . "It's late," he says. "You'd better get some rest."

And so I leave the cell. As I pass Rick by, he doesn't pat my shoulder or anything, the way he probably would on any other night. And so I think he probably heard more of that conversation than either Carl or me would have liked him to. But I get back to my cell and into bed, and I hear Rick's slow footsteps moving past outside. So he and Carl won't talk about it, then. What else is new, I guess.

But at least my partner and I are back on good terms.

In the morning, breakfast. Breakfast like we haven't had in forever. Water is boiling by the time I wake up, later than usual, and soon oatmeal's prepared, and I have a generous helping, pouring canned peaches on the top. We have eggs and milk, too, and they're the powdered kind, but I couldn't care less . . . No coffee maker, but somehow coffee is made, Carol filling up this little sack with the grounds and dipping it into the boiling water, and we all scatter around the cell block, the Greenes and Glenn in Hershel's cell, the other adults in the room with the tables – the dining room? – and me and Carl gorging ourselves on the staircase, laughing over nothing. Gorging. It's probably not healthy, but it's a real meal, not just a bite of meat or beans. It tastes like the old world.

The day is given to cleaning Block C. Miserable. But it smells a hell of a lot better after. Carl and I aren't allowed along when Dad and T-Dog and Glenn go to the infirmary, following the signs we made yesterday. They return with a pair of crutches we overlooked. Hershel's already stronger today, the color returning to his face, his dry chuckle echoing out from his cell now and then. He's going to be fine, Hershel.

At the end of the day, Block C looks like a place we can live in. And it's safe. It's safe, it looks safe, it feels safe, it's safe. And I sleep easier that night than I have in a while.

The next morning, another breakfast, but the rationing's starting to kick in and I can't stuff myself this time. Which is actually okay, since I had a stomachache in the hours following yesterday morning's feast. But there's coffee again and I sneak some when my dad's not looking. Still don't like the taste, but I drink it anyway, sipping it in my cell and letting the scent fill the place up. It reminds me of something, and I put the glass down long enough to dip into one of my backpack's side pockets. I unfold the picture of Mom and Dad and me on a quilt outside from a hundred years ago, and I tuck its edge into a crevice on the side of my bed, where I can see it at night but it's still kind of private.

It's a big step, putting the picture out. Nesting.

But we'll see.

The adults, all but Lori and Hershel, head outside after breakfast, because they're going to clear the courtyard and field. Burn the bodies, bring in the vehicles. Carl and I apparently won't be much use with driving and hauling around corpses, and Beth wants to stay with her father, so it's just the five of us left in here. With the place all cleaned up, Carl and I don't have much to do, so we sit on the stairs and he cleans his gun and I wax my bowstring so Lori won't make us do work in the textbooks that somehow surfaced back up last night after being absent for weeks. But when Lori and Beth appear from the dining room, and Lori has the crutches in her arms, I realize that she's not concerned with us today. As the two of them walk into Hershel's cell, Beth gives us a smile. Me and Carl both. In spite of myself, I return it. Beth, she's hard to be mad at. Mostly because even when she's bitchy she's really not that bitchy.

In the cell, Hershel pulls himself up from the bed, even though Lori tells him to take his time, and Beth says not to push himself. Hershel's face is set, though. "What else am I gonna do?" He takes the crutches under his arms, wobbling but staying upright. "Can't stand looking up at the bottom of that bunk any longer."

Carl and I back out of the doorway as Hershel clacks his way forward, so different from the man I thought I might have to shoot just two days ago. "I feel pretty steady . . ."

A rare smile is on Lori's face as she watches Hershel's feet – foot. She and Beth are hovering around him, though, hands inches from his arms. "That's a good start," Lori says. "Take a rest?"

"Rest?" Hershel looks at her like she's crazy. "Let's go for a little stroll."

Lori and Beth exchange glances but don't stop the old man as he goes forward, slow and steady. Across this room, into the dining room. He reaches the stairs, Lori and Beth still glued to him, me and Carl trailing along. Those stairs, they present a bit of a problem at first, but Hershel gets the hang of it fast. It's just like walking, really, but with three legs instead of two. Up the steps, through the door, and outside, into the cage-like hall of a thing. The station wagon is crunching its way across the courtyard as we step out into the warm air, but I don't pay it much mind, I'm watching Hershel make his way down the stairs out here. Lori stays in front of him, pressing a hand to his chest, and Hershel loses his balance once but catches himself. He's doing great, he really is.

Then the stairs are done, and it's out of the cage and into the courtyard. It's pretty nice, this courtyard, especially now that it's cleaned up. There are bleachers to my left, a basketball goal to my right. Might be a ball in the prison somewhere . . .

Hershel's got the hang of the crutches. He moves forward, almost as fast as he used to walk, gazing around. "Startin' to look like a place we could really live in."

"Hey, you watch your step," says Lori, even as she watches it for him. "Last thing we need is you fallin'."

Over on one end of the yard, Carol climbs out of the station wagon, says something to T-Dog. Maggie's with them. Directly in front of me, my dad and Rick and Glenn are on the other side of the fence, at the hole we cut open to break our way into this place. Rick and Glenn have their arms full of firewood for the bodies, but they all pause, and I think they're looking this way. I know they are, actually, because Glenn soon yells, "All right, Hershel!"

"You're doin' great, Daddy," Beth says. She and Lori have backed off a little now, and Beth's beaming.

From my right, Carl asks, "Ready to race, Hershel?"

"Gimme another day," he answers. "I'll take you on."

And you know what? What the hell. It's a nice day, just enough clouds out to keep the sun from being scorching, Hershel's alive and well, and there are no corpses in the yard anymore. So I walk backwards for a minute and catch Carl's eyes. "I'll race ya," I dare, smirking a bit.

"Two laps around?"

My bow and quiver are already settled on the asphalt. "Go!"

And we sprint, not even sure where we're going, because who knows what a lap is around here? But we bolt away from the others and around the bleachers, and I edge ahead, because Carl's the strong one and I'm the fast one, I'm faster, and my boots are light and easy to spring off of, and the concrete helps me along and we race, we race, and I'm grinning, and we go underneath an overhang and into this open area, the same area my dad and the others disappeared into the other day while I was standing outside of the fence, nervous, but it's safe here now, we've made it safe, and I turn the corner, and I collide head-on with a walker.

. . . . .

A.N.: One of my reviewers says s/he is unimpressed with Syd S3 so far. Agreement, disagreement, suggestions? Feedback of all type is very much appreciated. Thanks for reading, guys.