I make a decision not to leave the catwalk until someone gets back. Dad or Merle or Michonne. Or all three. It could be all three. And that decision, I stick to it. The sun crosses the sky and has no mercy on me – I can feel it burning my face and arms – but I stay put, with my hands clasped on my lap, with my eyes on the field of walkers, the road with the spikes, and the day comes and goes. Tick, tock, tick, tock . . . I think about Dale's watch and how he wound it every day. Dale's dead and no one winds a watch anymore.

Carol brings me lunch. I know I won't eat it, and she probably knows too, but I thank her anyway. She says I should come inside and get some rest. I tell her I'm going to stay here and wait. She accepts this. She doesn't ask if I want company, either. Carol, she knows me. Or, at least, she knows my dad, and she knows I'm like him. Sometimes, dad and me, we need to be left alone.

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Flies start buzzing around the bowl of soup beside me and I pour the stuff over the edge and push the bowl away. The sun just watches me, drifting lower and lower.

I keep my eyes on the field. No one comes back. None of them come back. And finally Carl comes out onto the catwalk.

"My dad wants to see everyone. He has something to say."

I don't move.

"You gonna come?"

"Just tell me about it after, okay?"

"Syd, you've been out here for hours. Are you gonna tell me what's going on? Where your dad's at? And Merle and Michonne?"

No, I'm not. Anyway, I bet that's what Rick wants to talk to them about. I'd hate to steal his thunder. "I'll tell you later. You shouldn't keep your dad waitin'."

He comes over and puts his hat on me. "Here. You need the shade." And then he leaves and I stay. I stay, and stay, and stay.

Then there comes the time when Michonne appears in the field.

She races up the road, dodging the spikes, swinging her sword around and around to cut down the walkers who come after her, like it's what she was born to do, and before long Carl and Carol and Beth are at the courtyard gate and they're shooting at the walkers around Michonne, and then Carl opens the gate, and Michonne comes in and the walkers are closed out.

I've long been down the stairs by then. I'm running along the courtyard and I'm running fast, because it's Michonne. Michonne and Michonne alone.

I'm pretty sure someone's talking when I reach the group of four, but I cut them off and I couldn't care less that I do it. "Why're you alone?" I huff out, stopping fast, skidding a little, staring at Michonne as she turns to me with her eyes, always so dark and hard and piercing. Only not so much right now. Not so hard, anyway. "Why're you alone?" I ask again. "Where are they? Why're you alone?"

"Your uncle let me go," Michonne says slowly. "I met your dad on the way back and he went after him."

I take in the words, sort through them, try to grasp what they mean. What they mean for me and for Dad and Merle and for all of us. "My . . . my uncle, he was . . . Was he still goin' to meet the Governor?"

Michonne doesn't answer. Just looks at me. Which is answer enough, actually. I clench my teeth so hard I send sharp pains shooting through my gums. "Why'd you let 'em go? Why didn't you try and stop 'em?" Spit flies from my mouth, my clamped teeth.

Michonne just keeps looking. Carol touches my shoulder and I step back from her and tell Michonne, "You shoulda tried to stop 'em!" And then it's back across the courtyard for me, back up to the catwalk. I don't sit, I can't sit, there's too much of something, everything, rushing through my body. Adrenaline. Anger. Guilt. Terror. Terror. That's different from fear. Fear is dark and cold. Terror is bright white, icy, and icicles stab into your sides and chest and heart and lungs and it hurts and you shake a lot.

I pace. I'm a good pacer. By the time I make it all the way across the catwalk and spin back around, Carl's at the top of my staircase. He comes to me and I go to him. "Syd, this doesn't mean –"

"They're goin' to the Governor! They've probably got there already and –" Here, screaming gives way to a little kid's broken whine. "I can't lose 'em both – Carl –"

He's only thirteen, but his arms are so strong. I fit right into them, the way my face fits into his neck, like I discovered last time we hugged, and last time his hat fell from his head but now it falls from mine. This isn't a happy hug, though, it's not a good to see you hug or even an I missed you like hell hug. This is a hug in which he's a life raft, the only thing keeping me from collapsing and breaking down.

We end up sitting, eventually. Carl's arms end up away from me, too, which I know is how it should be, because we're not the way Maggie and Glenn are, but I still miss them, those arms. And we stay quiet for a while, and he gets his hat back and rests it in between us, and soon I ask him to tell me what his dad said, and he talks.

First of all, Rick told them about the deal with the Governor. About Michonne. He told them how he changed his mind but Merle took Michonne before Rick could tell him the plan was off. He told them everything about the whole thing, basically. And then Rick said that, what he said that first night, after the farm was overtaken? About how he was totally, completely in charge? It can't be that way. And then he said we're going to put it to a vote whether we stay and defend the prison or go before the Governor shows up here.

I've listened quietly, letting the tears dry. Now I wipe the streaks from my face as best I can, because I can feel them making my skin all chapped. "Think we get a vote?"

"Probably not. We should."

"How would you vote? If you could?"

His hand goes to his revolver, which gives me my answer right then. "This is our home. This is the safest place we've ever been."

"Yeah, from walkers."

"Then we gotta make sure the walkers are the only things we have to fight."

And we're going to do that by fighting. By dying.

But I don't want to leave the prison, either. I like the prison. I like my bed and my cell and the fact that Judith has a crib and I like the catwalk. "Yeah. We should stay." I take a deep breath. "That's how my dad'll vote, I think. When he gets back."

Carl looks at me for a while. I see him doing it out of the corner of my eye. "You don't know he'll get back."

For some reason, that makes me chuckle. It's like one of Merle's laughs, though. Not really happy. "Why would you say that to me right now, man?"

"Because you shouldn't get your hopes up. Because you need to be prepared."

Oh, Carl.

"Why?" I turn my head towards him, searching for an answer in his eyes. He doesn't offer one, not soon enough, not before I can tell him, "I don't wanna be prepared for somethin' like that. I don't wanna be that cold." And you don't either, Carl. Not really.

He doesn't have anything to say then. Or, at least, he doesn't bother to say it. Just keeps eye contact going.

"If it was your dad out there, would you be prepared for him not to come back?" I challenge, and I realize too late that his answer might not make me happy.

Carl, he takes his hat, puts it on, grips the fence, stands up. I watch his face the whole time. He watches mine right back, and then, when he's on his feet, he answers, "I was when he went to Woodbury after you."

I swallow. It's hard, because Carl's made my mouth dry up. Or the sun has. Or both. The question leaves my sandpaper tongue before I can think it through. "Then I guess you were prepared for me not to come back, too?"

He looks at his boots, then at me, and he nods. His favorite tough-guy expression is on his face. He walks around me, towards the door. Just before he disappears inside, though, I manage to call after him, "You can't prepare for somethin' like that, Carl! You can't!"

Or, at least, you shouldn't be able to.

The boy who wouldn't take my dad's stolen gun all those months ago, when I offered it to him to keep. He wouldn't try to prepare himself.

And now I'm alone again. And I don't have a hat to shade my face. And I got all too much to think about. So, I tilt my head up and watch the clouds again, say screw it to all the things to think about.

Eventually the clouds' background goes from lighter blue to darker blue, with a nice pink tint to it. Then the clouds start to turn a tiny bit orange themselves, just a little. The sun's all the way behind me now and it's not so hot anymore, but there's still sweat in my hair, my greasy, dirty hair. Mom would have a heart attack if she saw me like this. It's probably for the best, really, that Mom didn't live this long. She wouldn't have been able to bear the life. The dirt and the food and the guns and the gore.

No, no, it's not for the best. But isn't it nice to think so? Isn't it nice to think that it's what she would have chosen, to die so early on? That she would have preferred it to living now?

I want my dad. I want my daddy, I want him, and – and I want Merle –

Then there's the familiar sound of a walker skull cracking open and I'm on my feet and looking out into the field. There's a figure putting down a walker, I guess with a knife. Now he's running up to the gate, where Glenn and Maggie wait. And it may be close to dark, but I know that figure, and it doesn't even take the crossbow on his back to give him away. I just know him. And the air leaves my lungs and I've tensed to bolt down the stairs and into his arms and then I remember that he's not supposed to be alone.

My dad wouldn't leave Merle.

And so I watch. I just watch the shadows play before me. The one with the crossbow comes through the gate and walks past the boy and the girl. The boy and the girl stay behind for a minute and then follow, walking slower than the one with the crossbow. I move back and lean against the fence and sink down and wait some more. I've waited all day. I can wait longer. Actually, I don't mind it now. I could wait for another day, another hundred, or more, even. Hell, I could spend the rest of my life on this catwalk in this dusk. It's nice here.

Minutes. Not days. Not nearly long enough and the door opens. "Sydney?" Carol says. The first stars are coming out. I look at them as I answer.

"Is he okay?"

"He's . . . not hurt."

Oh, just listen to her voice. I wonder if she knows how much she gives away with that voice. But do I even know? No, maybe I don't. I could be wrong. I'm wrong all the time.

"Honey, you should come in –"

"He was alone."

That stops her. Pretty stars. Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight.

I say, "Why was he alone?"

I hear her come closer, and her footsteps are all soft. She'd make a good hunter.

"Carol. Why was he alone?"

For the second time today, she touches my shoulder, and for the second time today, I move away from her hand. My arms shove and my legs kick until I'm out of her reach but facing her and she hasn't answered me so it's for good reason, I think, that I shriek the question this time. "Why was he alone?" Her eyes are shining as much as the star light star bright, first stars out here tonight, and her lip is trembling, and her arms are crossed now and her head is shaking at me.

I bring my knees into my chest. "Why was he alone . . ." I say. Sob. I sob it. I fall over on my side in my little ball and I sob away. And I don't listen to either of the voices, I don't listen to the one outside of me, the one telling me it's okay, it's okay, honey, honey, just come with me, we'll go see your dad, and I don't listen to the one inside of me even though it's louder than the outside voice, I hear it but I can't listen, I can't mind – but I hear it, I hear it, like I always heard it before. Long ago.

Dry up, girl, you're s'posed to be tougher'n that.