Carl and I end up by Maggie and Glenn. Glenn's alive. Maggie still has the baby. Carl's hand and mine untwine and I grip my bow to make up the difference, but it's not the same. Carl takes the baby into his arms. The baby. His sister. I didn't know he knew how to hold a baby. I don't.

"Let me see the baby." Hershel. Hershel's alive. He's standing by Beth. Beth's alive. Carl moves over to them. I go with Carl. Dad's here, Dad's next to us, carrying his crossbow. "What we gonna feed it?" he's saying. He's talking like himself, maybe a little more heatedly, but mostly like himself. Level-headed, my dad. That's good. That's good. "We got anything a baby can eat?"

Hershel touches the baby, gently, eyes scoping her over. "Good news is, she looks healthy. But she needs formula, and soon, or she won't survive."

"No. No way. Not her." Dad's crossbow goes over his back. "We ain't losin' nobody else, I'm goin' for a run."

Carl's still holding the baby. He's good at it.

"I'll back you up." Maggie.

"I'll go, too." Glenn.

"Okay. Thinka where we're goin'. Beth." Dad draws Beth to the side, tells her something. The baby's crying some more. I guess she'll do that a lot. Carl's bouncing her up and down. Now someone's touching my arm, pulling me around, pulling me to the side, a few feet away from the others. Dad. He crouches down to me. "Baby girl. Hey, look at me, look at me. You okay, you hurt?"

"No."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Babe, I gotta go. I gotta make a run."

"I know, go ahead. Go ahead."

And he does, because he has to. He yells for someone to get the fence because too many walkers can't pile up, and I don't get what that means, and I walk back over to Carl, to the baby and Hershel and Beth, as Dad yells for Glenn and Maggie and Maggie yells for Rick, because Rick's picked his axe back up and is running into the cage-hallway. Into the prison. I don't have to guess at where he's going. I hear my dad yell again, saying we're gonna lose the light, and Maggie and Glenn follow him away, off to the vehicles, and the baby's still crying. Two men are a little ways off. I don't know them. They're in prison outfits. "They're supposed to keep to their own cell block," I murmur to Hershel, just as the two strangers move off, move down towards the gate, because someone'll have to open it for Dad and the others.

"I'm told they've helped us out today," Hershel says. "A lot."

I watch the men run off. Then I look to my left. My right. No one else is in here with us. "Where's Carol?"

Beth's eyes go glassy. Hershel sighs down at me. I nod slowly. "T-Dog?"

Hershel shakes his head.

I don't even hurt. I'm past that now.

We go inside, and Hershel and Beth don't know much. What they do know, I don't hear. It doesn't matter. Carl matters. He's still holding the baby. I sit by them, on top of a table. Glenn comes into the room. Just Dad and Maggie went on the run, on his motorcycle, because a car couldn't get through to where they were going. Glenn knows the whole story of what happened, and I try to listen. One of the prisoners they thought they killed hadn't actually died, and I miss how they made that mistake. I miss his name, but I hear how he opened the gate, lured in the walkers. Turned the alarms on so more came. I miss how he died but it doesn't matter, because at least he's dead. He deserved to die. He deserves to burn in hell, burn in hell, burn in hell. Glenn leaves. Rick doesn't show up. Beth makes food that Carl and me don't touch and Hershel goes outside to do something. Something. Rick still doesn't show up. He's lost somewhere in darkness.

Hershel comes back. Then Glenn comes back. Then the two prisoners appear. One is short and white and has a blonde beard. The other is tall and black and muscled. They say they have graves ready. Glenn says maybe we should wait, Hershel says no. Hershel says there's not much to bury anyway. So I'm left alone for a while, because I don't do funerals. I leave the dining room and go into the cell block. There are walker bodies in here. I go to my cell. I check on my picture. I don't look at it, I just make sure it's there, whole. Then I return to the dining room.

The others come back. Swollen faces. But the bodies of our people, or what's left, are in the ground. Lori's still in the darkness with Rick, but they put a cross up for her anyway.

We move the walker bodies into a pile outside. Between Glenn and Beth and Carl and me, we manage, though it's slow work. That's okay. It's work. It kills time. It's almost dark when we finish. Glenn goes outside to watch for Dad and Maggie. It keeps getting dark, with just the moonlight through the windows washing out everyone's weary faces as we sit in the dining room and don't talk much. The day's slipping by, which is hard to believe. A day like this should last longer. But no. Night's here, night never stands you up. And the door opens and my dad and Maggie are back. Carl's holding the baby. He holds her as much as he can. I haven't, I don't want to. Beth and Maggie go to the counter, and I hear the crinkling of a plastic bag. My dad comes over here, to the table we're still on, tossing his poncho in my lap. "How's she doin'?"

She screeches. Dad takes her from Carl, carefully, telling her shh. She's still in Carl's shirt. Dad stands up straight, swaying back and forth, and Carl stands up too, eyes on the baby. I stay seated. My legs are tired. The prisoners come in. Glenn. Beth comes over with a bottle. They got the food, then. The formula. Dad takes the bottle, starts feeding the baby. He rocks her, Carl watches her. The dear sweet baby.

"She got a name yet?" Dad asks Carl.

"Mm, not yet . . . I was thinkin' . . . maybe Sophia?"

I press my elbows into my knees and push my clasped hands against my lips. They're chapped, my lips.

"But then there's . . . Carol, too," Carl says. He sighs. And he can't stop now, can he? "Andrea . . . Amy . . . Jacqui . . . Patricia . . ." And now his eyes float down to mine. "Leah."

I haven't heard that name in a very long time. I don't know how Carl knows it. But it's just him and me in the room for a second, and I say "Lori" and the list is complete.

It's silent and cold. Then Dad says we should call the baby Little Asskicker and everyone laughs. I smile some, I think. Don't I? Then Dad calls the baby sweetheart and I'm aware of not liking that but I feel so fuzzy-headed that I can't concern myself with it too much, not now, it would take too much energy. The two prisoners are still here. No one tells them to go. Glenn kisses Maggie and Rick doesn't show up. Lori and Carol and T-Dog are dead. Carl sits next to me again at some point. He eats something. I eat nothing. Dad asks if I've eaten anything and I say no. He looks at me for a while. But he doesn't make me try. The baby cries and then stops. They've found a crate for her. They've put a towel in it, all folded up and soft. Rock-a-bye baby.

Carl peers into the crate for a while and then goes into his cell and I go, too. He puts his hat on the top bunk. He sits down on the bottom bunk, and I see it hit him all over again. I see it. "Syd . . ."

And so I sit beside him and rest my forehead on his shoulder and he puts an arm around me and, for a long time, sort-of cries. No sobs. Just gasps and an occasional whimper. His tears fall on my hands.

When he stops trembling, and my hands are dry, I say, "You should try and sleep."

"Won't be able to."

"I'll stay with you, okay?" I want him to sleep. If he can sleep, maybe he'll have good dreams. Maybe he'll forget who he is and what he's lost, maybe he'll be someone whole and happy somewhere inside of his mind, for a little while.

And so he lies down and stares ahead. The moon hits one of his eyes, making it glow, causing the tear streaks to glimmer and shine on his skin. I brush his hair from his forehead and eventually his eyes shut. I hum something, softly, maybe too softly for even him to hear. "Piano Man," that's what I'm humming. I keep my hand on Carl's arm until he's breathing so deeply and his face is so peaceful that I know he's gone from the world, because the world doesn't offer peace like that. He's become that whole and happy someone somewhere in his mind. For a little while.

I whisper, "Don't let the world spoil you." And I leave.

I spend a minute or two leaning on the wall outside of Carl's door. No one's out here, everyone's asleep by now. It's late, late, maybe it's tomorrow. Long day. Today, or yesterday, it was a long day.

I bend over for a second, trying to remember how to get air into my lungs.

My arrows. My arrows are still all outside. I have to get my arrows. Off the wall. Into the dining room. There, on the table, my bow, my release, my quiver. I take all of them into my arms and put them where they should be and complete the puzzle that is my body as it's up the steps, to the door. I open it as softly as I can, close it as softly as I can. Did someone hear? Who knows? Who cares? Into the cage-hallway, the deep blue night. Alone, I'm alone, and the air out here was bad earlier today but it's good now, it's cool but not cold and it feels nice on my face, but I still have to work to get it down me. My lungs won't relax until I get my arrows all together. Things will be alright when I get my arrows all together. Down the steps. Out the cage-hallway door. Asphalt beneath my feet, stars above my head, the same stars that have always been there. To the bleachers, where Carl stood. I stood right . . . here. With Lori at my side. Look at all the walker bodies before me. Walkers, walkers, everywhere. Which walkers can I claim? There. That one has an arrow in its head. Over to it I go and I take back what's mine. I keep going. Two arrows, three arrows, four. Deep breaths, fight for air, air is good. Breathe, breathe, breathe. Five arrows, six. The last one, lucky number seven, I can't find it. I can't find it. I look and look and I can't find it, so I sink to the ground and I bury my face in my hands, because if I can't find that arrow, then it's all hopeless. Someone walks up to me. Someone's out here, who knew?

"Sydney, what're you doing?" asks Glenn. Not mad. Tired. Everybody's tired. I don't answer him. I don't move. It's hopeless, everything's hopeless, I can't find my seventh arrow.

"Look," Glenn says gently, "You need to get back inside –"

"Glenn. I got her."

Dad. Behind me. Glenn and I have both managed to miss him. He's sneaky, my dad. I hear Glenn say okay. I hear Glenn walk off. I feel Dad lower down next to me and something slides into my quiver. "You missed one."

Lucky number seven. Lucky, lucky. I lift my head, wait for the hopelessness to go away. But it doesn't.

I open my mouth to tell Dad something. To tell him how I pressed my hand into Lori's insides as she died, maybe. Or to tell him how Carl wouldn't let me put Lori down. How I tried to make him let me, I tried, and he just wouldn't let me. Or maybe my mouth opens to ask Dad how Carol died, the woman who cried and hugged me after they found me in the woods, who worked so hard to bring my dad and me back into the group when he wanted nothing more than to get us away from it. Maybe my mouth opens to ask about T-Dog or to tell Dad that he's not supposed to call the baby sweetheart, that that's supposed to be just for me. But my mouth dries and my throat tightens and not a word comes from me. I can't talk. I can't.

I'm not past hurting anymore.

My hands try to rip out my hair and I curl up, gasping. Dad takes my wrists and holds them together. He keeps them both in one hand and his other arm goes around my shoulders and locks me to him. My arms go limp and he lets go of my wrists and then he's not locking me, just holding me as I cry with no reserve, nothing held back, not at all, not a bit. And my daddy just rocks me like he was rocking the baby earlier, and now it's my turn for him to call me sweetheart, and as far away as the world is from being right, that takes us one tiny step closer and I manage to stop crying, eventually. Then we go inside and my dad gives me a can of peaches to eat, since he knows they're my favorite. I eat the whole can, slowly, but I eat it. It doesn't come back up. Then we go into my cell and my dad tucks me in. The baby starts crying. Dad says let someone else take care of her.

"You really gonna call her Little Asskicker?"

"Why not? You were Little Hellraiser till your Nana found out and had a fit over it. We switched to Little Bit after that."

"You can't call this baby Little Bit."

"You silly thing . . . Course not. You're the one and only."

He hums to me, the same song he's always hummed. I don't even know what it's called, but I like it.

I don't know if he stays there all night. But he wakes me up in the morning, when the blue-pink light of dawn is starting to fill the cell block. Just as the day before flows all through me again, Dad says, "Hey. Wanna go huntin'?"

And of course I do.

The sun's peeking over the horizon by the time we get outside, and it casts its happy orange over everything. It takes us one more step closer. Still so far away, though, we're still so far away from the world being right. We leave the courtyard and go into the field. There are three crosses in it now. "Hang on," Dad says to me. "Gotta do somethin'."

I watch him go over to the crosses. He stands in front of one. He pulls something from his vest. I step to the side so I can see better, and Dad kneels to the ground. He places it on top of the fresh dirt. A Cherokee rose.

I swallow. Dad rests his hand on the cross for a second. Then he rises. He turns, he comes back to me. He bats at my head, but I'm quick, even now, and I dodge away. He smiles a little. "Think ya can get a squirrel 'fore me?"

"Hell yeah."

"Watch your mouth. Damn Dixon."