"You actually said that?" I'm looking at Carl, who's sitting on the filthy floor of my cell across from me on the bed. He has his hat on his knees, playing with one of the tassels.

"He's no good to anyone like this."

He means Rick. This morning, after arguing over whether or not we should leave the prison – the safest, homiest place we've been since the farm – Hershel ended up yelling at Rick. Like, full-on, right in the middle of the cell block where everyone could hear. Hershel told Rick he was slipping. That he needed to get his head clear. And do something. And then Rick went off and Carl went after him, to talk. And now I'm hearing it all second-hand.

Carl . . . Carl told his dad he should step down. Let my dad and Hershel take care of things for a while. And I can't quite wrap my head around it. But if what Carl's told me is true, Rick's been hallucinating, running around outside, acting totally out of sorts, and he probably doesn't need any extra stress on him right now. And he probably doesn't need to have all of our lives in his hands.

"You think he's gonna do it?"

"I don't know," Carl says, running a finger along the brim of his hat. His dad's hat.

Me, I play with my release. "You okay?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

My lips press together, tight, all thin-line, and I wait for him to look up, but he doesn't.

So finally I sigh and stand. "I can't do this."

"What?"

I can't deal with you not wanting to talk. "I can't stay in this prison the whole damn day. Or longer." I start pacing the length of the cell, which isn't much. We can't go outside, none of us, not after yesterday. We have a few places set up – fortified – in case of shootouts. The catwalk, the cage things around some of the doors. But we're not even supposed to go out to those except to keep watch. And I don't do well trapped indoors for a long time. So . . . "I'm gonna go keep watch."

"Maggie's out there."

"Well, I'll help her out. You comin'?"

He shakes his head. He's lying to me, he's not okay, and I hate that, but I have no idea how to fix it right now. And . . . he'll talk to me eventually. He always does. That thought calms me a little, and so I head outside, to Maggie. I find her in one of the lookouts, kneeling next to a long line of wood pallets leaned up against the cage fencing, her rifle propped through the fence, ready to go. When I close the door behind me, she gives me a little smile. "Hey. Need somethin'?"

"No. Just can't stay inside anymore. Can I help you keep watch?"

In answer, she unloops the binoculars from her neck and hands them over.

We sit for a while, me scoping the woods for anything strange. There's nothing strange, though, just dead people walking around. And my mind starts to go different places, like it does sometimes, and before long it goes to a place involving Maggie. And Glenn. And Merle. And I try to avoid that place, I do, but I keep coming back to it and it hits me hard each time, and finally, finally I have to give in, I have to. "Hey, Maggie? I'm . . . I'm sorry about my uncle. What he did."

I don't look away from the binoculars – they're too good at hiding my face – but I hear, "It wasn't your fault."

"But I shoulda known better. I trusted him right off the bat, even though you and Glenn told me not to. And I'm sorry."

For someone who hates being told I'm sorry, I'm sure saying it a lot myself lately.

"Hey." Maggie's hand is on my shoulder, and I pull the binoculars down, and her eyes are kind. "Glenn and I don't blame you for any of that. He's your family and you'd thought he was dead."

"It'd been better if he was," I murmur, tightening my fingers around my bow until they're white. "If he was dead, we never woulda gone to Woodbury. Glenn wouldn'ta got beaten up, I wouldn'ta got thrown across the room, and you –"

Her eyes, her kind eyes, they drop.

"Sorry," I say again, blushing. I'm not good at these kinds of things, not at all, I talk myself right into a hole . . .

Now Maggie's saying, "No one knows about . . . that, except for you and Glenn. And Merle. I need you to –"

"I won't tell anyone," I say. "Of course not."

She tries another smile, but it's too stiff.

And damn it. I look through the binoculars again, but as I scan the woods my mouth moves. "You and Glenn . . ." I trail off, because I'm pretty sure she'll know what I mean. How she and Glenn can barely look at each other. How they stand across the room when usually they're side by side. Anyone can see something's wrong.

"We're fine," is all she says.

And I know it's none of my business. I know that. But at the same time, it is. Because it's Maggie and Glenn. ". . . No, you're not," I say, which is bold of me. Maggie doesn't reply. So I go on. "Look, my dad doesn't know this, but my mom was raped."

I feel her eyes move to me. Dart to me. But I just keep on keeping watch. "It was an ex-boyfriend. Shawn. He still had a key to our place and he came in late one night. Mom never told anyone about it. Well, I mean, she did, she pressed charges, Shawn was convicted, but . . . she kept it quiet. She didn't tell anyone close to her. Not my grandparents. Or my dad. I wouldn't have ever known, I bet, if I hadn't been in the next room when it happened."

"Oh, Sydney . . ."

"It was a long time ago." Isn't that what Dad said to me last night? And what did I say back to him? I don't care!

But this isn't about me, not really. I lower the binoculars and turn to Maggie, who's looking at me with a very sad look I didn't mean to put on her face. Too late now, though. "I don't know why she didn't want to talk about it. But . . . she should've. If she had, I think things would have been . . . better."

Maybe she wouldn't have broken down crying so much for the weeks that followed. Maybe our liquor cabinet wouldn't have emptied out so fast only to be filled up just as quickly.

"I don't know what all the Governor did to you, or how far it went, but . . . I don't know. Just . . . maybe you should at least . . . try . . . to talk to someone. Because you've got a lot of people that love you. And you and Glenn . . . you guys are good together, I think."

She's looking away and her eyes are wet. Brilliant, I made her cry. But now she reaches over and squeezes my knee, and maybe, maybe I didn't just screw things up after all.

But that little story, that's pretty much all I got in me, so I sigh and put the binoculars back up to my eyes, more than ready to move on from it. It's one of those things I very much want to forget.

And I get to, at least for a moment. Because just as I'm on my first sweep, I see it. There, just moving out of the trees. A walker, a strange-looking walker, but why . . . ?

It has a pole connected to it. A pole like the ones the people at Woodbury had. And the person holding it has a very blonde head of hair –

"Maggie." I put the binoculars in her hands, my palms already starting to sweat, definitely not just because of the sun. "There's somethin' weird out there, I think –" And I just point, I'll just let her see for herself. She looks, the sad face gone, replaced by an on-edge, business sort of look, which is good, that's what we need –

And she confirms it. "It's Andrea. Go get Rick and the others!"

And I'm gone. Through the door, down a humid hallway and over a few walker corpses we haven't dragged out, down some stairs, then through another door and into the side of the dining room, nearly running into my uncle, who I ignore, and Carol's in here, over by the stove, and I don't even look at her, I bolt into the cell block – why the hell is the door between the dining room and our cells not locked? – and there's Rick, talking to Glenn and Michonne, and his face is hard and it's only going to get harder. "Hey!" I yell, and my voice echoes through the cell block and I can feel everyone's attention come to me and I don't even have time to hate it, and Carl's just stepping out of his cell when I announce, "Andrea's here!"

"What?" Yep, called it, Rick's face is harder.

"Andrea's comin' up here! Got a walker on a pole –"

The cell block explodes into movement. Rick barks orders as my dad comes down the stairs and Glenn starts handing out rifles. Carl's going to a lookout, Glenn and Carol are going to the catwalk, and everyone else with Rick. And out we go, right out into the courtyard, Rick and Dad and Merle and Michonne and Beth and me. I have an arrow nocked, and just as I'm leaning up against the truck like the others, it hits me: I have an arrow nocked. For Andrea? Can I shoot Andrea? Is Andrea the enemy?

Rick says go, and Merle moves up to Silver, does a sweep with his eyes, a gun propped on his metal arm. "Clear!" And then Rick and Dad and Merle move forward, move to the courtyard's gate, spreading out in three different directions as they do. Every one of them has their weapon ready. For Andrea.

"Are you alone?" I hear Rick yell.

Andrea's nearly here. I hear her say something back. Open the gate?

"Are. You. Alone?" Rick shouts again.

This time I hear Andrea clearly, because all she says is Rick's name, but she says it with such shock and desperation that it seems to be a lot more than that. And Rick tosses my dad the keys and Dad unlocks the gate, and Merle pulls it open, and as Andrea releases her walker and stumbles in, Rick shoves his rifle in her face. "Hands up! Turn around!"

"What?"

"Turn around!" And then Rick pins Andrea into a corner, and I watch as he pats her down like she's a criminal. A walker comes and tries to get at Andrea through the fence and Rick pulls her away only to shove her to her knees, and then he finishes the pat-down before taking Andrea's backpack and tossing it away.

And me, I think about Andrea putting her arm around me as we made our way across the CDC's corpse-riddled front lawn. And how she was the only one, the only one who took Dale's side the night he died, when he was pleading for Randall's life. I think of her sitting next to me on a piano bench, her telling me I was brave for putting down the walker that killed Dale and me telling her she was brave for standing up for him. Me apologizing for calling her a bitch after she shot my dad and her apologizing for shooting him in the first place. Me deciding that she might be alright.

And now, now Rick hauls this stranger to her feet and back over to me and Beth and Michonne. Michonne. How does she feel about this?

I don't want to see Andrea's eyes, I don't, but I make myself look because I have to be tough about this. Because if she really is the enemy now, she needs to know that we're strong. But when her eyes brush over mine, she certainly doesn't look like the enemy.

By the time we've gotten inside, Rick's let her go, but she's unarmed and outnumbered. The rest of us, we pour into the dining room, spreading out, Carl and me falling into place next to one another over by one of the tables. Then Andrea's hugging Carol. Hugging. And I'm so confused . . .

"Hershel, my God . . ." She's caught sight of Hershel, Andrea has, and the crutches, the gap where his leg should be. Hershel says nothing, so Andrea gets the message and just goes to looking around, all around the dining room, but she doesn't move from her place at the bottom of the steps. Which is probably wise. "I can't believe this . . ." And now her eyes land on Rick. "Where's Shane?"

I move just an inch to the left, so my shoulder's against Carl's. Meanwhile, Rick shakes his head.

". . . and Lori?"

Carl and Rick both look down.

"She had a girl," answers Hershel. "Lori didn't survive."

"Neither did T-Dog," says Maggie.

And let's not do this. Let's not go through this.

"I'm so sorry . . ." breathes Andrea. And then, then she looks over at us, with her face all distressed and whatnot. "Carl . . ."

I press into him harder and glare at Andrea. I don't even know why. But now that she's talking to him, she seems like more of a threat, and Carl, Carl says nothing back to her and I'm glad. Whatever Andrea was going to say, she doesn't say it. Her mouth closes, she pauses, and then she turns to our leader. "Rick, I didn't . . ."

He backs up.

Andrea, Andrea just won't get it. She won't get that we aren't about to throw down the welcome mat. Even after Rick rejects her, her voice half-heartedly brightens when she says, "You all live here?"

"Here and the cell block," says Glenn from next to Carl and me.

Andrea points at the door to the cells. "There?"

Glenn nods once. Andrea moves towards the door, towards where we sleep. "Well, can I go in –?"

Rick blocks her way. "I won't allow that."

She stops short. "I'm not an enemy, Rick."

But we don't know that, Andrea. We just don't.

"We had that field," says Rick, "The courtyard. Until your boyfriend tore down the fence with a truck and shot us up."

"He said you fired first."

"Well, he's lyin'."

Hershel speaks up again. "He killed an inmate who survived in here."

"We liked him," says my dad. He's sitting on the other table, his crossbow on his back. "He was one of us."

"I didn't know anything about that. As soon as I found out, I came." Andrea turns, looks over all of us again. No. She just looks at Glenn and Maggie and me, one by one. "I didn't even know you were in Woodbury until after the shootout!"

"That was days ago," says Glenn.

"I told you, I came as soon as I could." And she looks so disbelieving, doesn't she? Like this is all so unfair. Like it's absolutely unreasonable for us to treat her with such distrust, when she was right there, right there in Woodbury while Glenn was being beaten and Maggie was being . . . whatever and I was stored in Merle's apartment. If Andrea's been sleeping with the Governor, how did she not know about any of that?

And when did I hook my release back onto my bowstring?

Andrea's whirled around, around to Michonne, who' wearing a grimace over in the corner. "What have you told them?"

"Nothing."

"I don't get it. I left Atlanta with you people, and – and now I'm the odd man out?"

"He almost killed Michonne," says Glenn. "And he would have killed us –"

And here Andrea points up at Merle, standing on top of the steps. "With his finger on the trigger! Isn't he the one who kidnapped you? Who beat you?"

Yep. But no one answers her, and she covers her mouth with both hands for a second. "Look, I cannot excuse or explain what Philip has done –"

Philip?

"– but I am here trying to bring us together. We have to work this out!"

"There's nothing to work out." Rick's losing patience. "We're gonna kill him. I don't know how, or when, but we will."

Andrea says we can settle this, that there's room at Woodbury for all of us. Merle scoffs, says she knows better than that. Hershel, Hershel asks Andrea what makes her think the Governor wants to negotiate, has he ever said so, and Andrea says no, and Rick asks what might be the only thing in this whole discussion that actually matters.

"Then why did you come here?"

And Andrea, Andrea looks at him and replies, "Because he's gearing up for war. The people are terrified, they see you as killers. They're training to attack."

"I'll tell you what," says my dad. "Next time you see Philip . . . You tell him I'ma take his other eye."

In spite of everything, the corner of my mouth pulls up and I have to look down to hide it.

"We've taken too much shit for too long," says Glenn. "He wants a war, he's got one."

"Rick," Andrea says, and there's a strange mixture of begging and warning in her tone, "If you don't sit down, and try to work this out . . . I don't know what's gonna happen. He has a whole town."

Rick's silent. Except his eyes. They drill into Andrea and say a lot, none of it kind. And Andrea, she huffs out a breath, waves at the room. "Look at you. You've lost so much already. You can't stand alone anymore."

"You wanna make this right? Get us inside," says Rick.

"No."

"Then we got nothin' to talk about –"

"There are innocent people!"

"What innocent people?" I say. I say. Why, I don't know, but it's happened, and so as Rick walks off into the cells I speak again, managing to sound calm even though I'm angry now. Very much so. "The kids? The old people? Your Governor pitted my dad and my uncle against one another. Fight to the death, that's what he said. And your innocent people were cheering it on."

Andrea shakes her head. "Sydney," she says pleadingly, "It was a complicated situation –"

"No," I say. I have no problem looking into her eyes now. "It wasn't."

"And neither is this," adds Glenn.

. . . . .

Later, we give Andrea a prison car we don't need and Rick even gives her a gun. Two enormous acts of kindness that I guess come from the place inside of us where we remember the old Andrea, the one who fished with her sister and stood by us in battle. Who slept next to us, not a one-eyed psycho. She looks around at our group one more time, but she says nothing else. And she gets in the car and Merle opens the gate and we all stand out there with our weapons, and me, I'm thinking that maybe it would have been best if Andrea had stayed dead, too.