Those slim, white finger pads guided up my spine sending the slight chills down the skin of my arm as she guided me upward into a sitting position. Pain poked and picked at my body making me wince unconditionally ever few seconds. I tried to ignore it, but that sick part of me craved for it to take my mind away from the battle going on inside my head. I was always confused, always angry now. I tried to focus my attention on one thing but it was hard, since my awakening a million things were thrown into my life. Loss of a child, Keegan had somehow reappeared in my life, Philip was nowhere to be found, Woodbury residents were residing in the prison…No wonder people had left me alone most of the time to gather my thoughts. Daryl and Beth were the only ones that came to visit me while I was on bed rest for days I could not fathom to count. Always moaning in pain, always turning with agony. Daryl's visits shortened. He was too pained to even look at me injured and distraught, too concerned with figuring out what t do with my brother, too busy with cleaning up this mess, but he always fell asleep beside me at night whispering sweet nothings into my ear as if they even mattered to me anymore. I knew I still loved him but something inside me was twisting and wringing out my heart making it hard to breathe even. Once I got past this I would be myself again; I had to be…Beth on the other hand has gotten closer to me than ever before. We were sisters now; there was no doubt in my mind otherwise. My blood levels dropped that was no mystery when The Governor chose to given one last battle cry in shooting me, yet where would it be found to replace to loss? Beth was there to help me. She remembered my blood type from the farm after I volunteered to help donate blood to Carl and as it turned out she had the same one as me. We were blood sisters. I think Beth and I were closer than Maggie and she was. "Are you sad?"

"Yes." Was it even a realistic question? Everyone was sad these days. Just when you think you are happy someone dies...Her fingers ran through my hair taking up strands to braid them together. I knew my hair was long now as it reached past my butt. It was mostly always tied back, Carol always snapped at me to cut it short like hers so the walkers could not reach. She was just jealous suppose of the long dirtied blonde length she could never have. I should not be talking of this or her so badly but countless minutes spent up her alone or even with Beth led to gossip.

She twisted the hair. "Are you angry?"

"Yes."

"It will all make sense in the end." She was now eighteen much wiser than I was at her age. "Have you spoken to your brother yet?" I shook my head in her hands. "He asked about you."

"What did he say?" My interest was focused on this.

She gave my hair a tight pull branching strands over one another. "Asked if you were still angry with him. Asked if he could see you. Asked if Daryl and you were together. Asked an awful lot…" she trailed off waiting for me to butt in, but I never did. "He is living in D block with the other residents of Woodbury since he knows them a little bit more than us. He helps take care of kids too and he tries to find food outside the fence. He has really adapted to us. Him and Daryl got into a little fight though…Keegan kind of found out about you-know-what and blew up on Daryl saying you were too young to be doing something like than with someone older than you."

"He has no right to defend me after leaving me." I glared into nothingness as I felt Beth's fingers getting closer to the bottom of my hair.

"Didn't you say you missed him? That you needed him?" I felt her finger tickle my ears as she gathered up a strand.

I bit my cheek. "I thought I did until he actually came back. I realized all he ever did was abandoned me that day on the highway because he was tired of caring about me. I realized he was in Woodbury this whole time and he must have known I was in there too. I would be better off if I still believe him dead."

"Don't say that." Her hands fell away from my head as she finished. "Talk to him and sort your feelings."

I did not respond as her hand fell against the small of my back and the other grasped lightly around the forearm. I was not big for the amount of time I suspected I had been pregnant, but then again I had no idea when it was conceived. I knew I was tiny; who was not underweight in the apocalypse? So perhaps the prominent bloating in my tummy would fade sooner than it came. This expanding abdomen was just another reminder of the dead child inside me. Beth helped me up anyways wrapping my arm around her shoulder until my feet figured out how to work. They felt like noodles the minute they touched the cement ground and I was holding onto Beth for life support. In all honesty my leg wound hurt far worse than the puncture to my side. The bullet lodged itself in my rib cage proving to be mostly treatable. "Thanks." I mumbled leaning slightly into Beth while gripping the side of the cell door frame. Her hold on me faltered as she slowly pulled away trying to rehabilitate my skill of walking. I applied most of the pressure to my uninjured leg as I took a step out of the cell feeling almost free, but it was becoming hard to breathe standing up and blood rushed down from my head. I ignored the pain in my body savoring the fact I was alive and walking. Isn't that what mattered? I gave Beth a dumb smile before grabbing hold of any solid surface I could to walk down the stairs. I wanted to see people, to hear people, to just be by people. Solitude was never for me.

It was the first time I had seen him smile sincerely since I had woken up. "You good?" was all he asked as he wrapped his arm around my waist to ease the walking process. Even though we still fell asleep next to one another seeing him now felt so much more sentimental.

"I will be," I replied wrapping my hand around his torso to hold myself steady. We had to be okay for the sake of my mind. I would lose it if he was not so strong willed beside me, and I pushing strength so he may be strong. "Where is he?"

"In D block with the kids." He replied helping me limp out of the cell block. "He is helping everyone ease into this place. They look up to him really because he's the only one from Woodbury taking charge in anything."

I gritted my teeth falling into the prison lunch tables. "Have you found Philip yet?"

"No," he shook his head sitting beside me. "He slaughtered most of his soldiers a little bit away from here. Including Andrea and Milton…"

"Milton?" my voice stuck in my throat. "He killed Milton? But I-I thought they…oh god." My face collapsed into my hands. So much death.

"He turned from a wound to his stomach and attack Andrea. Michonne killed her." I expected to feel satisfaction but just as I felt when Shane died, all I felt was a twinge of sadness. Milton had given me so much hope for this child, and my hate for Andrea would not let me forget she was just a human like me. They were still human being, and as much as despising drove people, nobody ever deserved death, except The Governor. "He wants to talk to you. Explain. I listened to him and what he told me made a lot of sense. He had reasons behind his actions. As much as it makes me angry he just left you there I put it aside because if he had not left you there we would have never met." I picked my head up to face him.

"I just-I don't...I don't know," my expression softened.

He stood up. "I'll go fetch him." I watched him leave me inside here. I looked around. Where was everybody? I knew Beth was somewhere around, but that did not explain the unnerving silence. This place was a ghost town, not even Judith was making a sound wherever she may be. Was everyone okay? "She is right through there." I straightened up as best as I could feeling my side stretch with pain.

Daryl did not enter with him, but instead turned around and went in the direction he came. His walk was staggered stepping towards me; something happened. He never walked like that. He has never looked so sorrowful or guilty. He should feel guilty. Keegan smiled sheepishly at me as he sat down across the table. "Rose that day on the highway…I only did it to protect you." He wasted no time. "I knew you would never survive if you stayed with me. You depended on me too much, so what if I died? What would you do? I couldn't handle the thought of you being scared while you died. You needed to grow up and me being with you was stopping that."

I stared at him drinking up his explanation before reaching across the table and slapping him. My sophisticated approached was ruined as the blazing agony burned in my leg. "You left me! All alone in a car! Because what? Because you were tired of taking care of me! This is total bull shit! You abandoned me because you are selfish not because you loved me. I could have died in that car if I had not been rescued by Daryl. If that was not enough that learning my own brother ditched me the fact you were in Woodbury makes me hate you even more. Do you know where I was? What he did? What he was thinking of me? Did you see him pin Merle and Daryl against each other? Or was you choice to forget me easier than you thought?"

"I thought about you every day I was there!" He stood up slamming his fist against the table.

I winced in pain as I followed the same action. "Then why did you never come back! I sat in that car counting the cigarette holes in the ceiling until I could hear you voice again. After the third night I knew something happened to you." I slowly sat back down roaring with internal pain. "I cried endlessly, wishing you would just come back to me. You promised me you would never leave me..."

Something in his eyes shook like the old him from a different world long forgotten. Tears spurted from his eyes the same color as mine. "I killed him Rose. I beat him senseless and fed him to those monsters. My ghost won't let me forget." he put his face in his hands trembling with this corked screw sadness now set free of its bottle. "I-I could not handle the guilt of having to kill all those people who scared you, who threatened you. I had to kill them, I had to kill them, for you. I couldn't live with myself anymore. I had to leave you, so I didn't have to kill anyone anymore. I couldn't look back. I wandered around never daring to look back because if I did I knew I would run back to you. I had to forget or my demons would drown me." he reached out to touch my hand but it sprung back against my chest held by my other hand."You're afraid of me aren't you?"

"You've changed Keegan," I whispered to his darkened eyes. "What happened to after you left?"

"So have you." he wiped his face with the back of his hand. "I knew he would be out of that prison. I had to finish him off knowing there was no chance he would ever be able to come back to hurt you like her did. I killed him and spent those long nights driving with his blood on my hands trying to bargain with justice. Those people we came across, the ones you always thought were so nice? I had to kill them too. They threatened you, they could have hurt you like he did. There's nothing in the world I would not have done for you. I knew my sanity was making an exit. I did not want to turn into what I had became and that meant making sure you never had to kill anything. You would have died if you never learned to protect yourself, and you never had any means to protect yourself with me around. I had to leave you to save you from me." his breathe shook as he took a deep inhale searching in my expression. "The Governor found me after following my tracks and brought me back to Woodbury with him. They beat me up pretty bad for their sort of 'initiation' to see if I was worth their time-" he reached down and tapped his leg. "-they messed up my knee pretty bad with a crowbar, but I'll live." That's why he walked like a stranger. "I knew we were going to battle with a prison, but I had no idea you were here. I had no idea you were in Woodbury once, trust me on that. That night he made Daryl fight against his brother I was on look-out on the other side where it was held. I had no idea Rose. I would have helped if I had known." he glanced away as I sat there wanting to listen more and more to feel like I believed him. I wanted to forgive him, but he made it so damn hard. "I saw you get shot. I was in a car ahead of his when he wanted to drive away. I saw you run outside. I had to leave them after that, so I let some other guy drive the car away and lied low in the grass until the gunfire stopped. That's when you went down. I had to help you." I blinked staring at his face for seconds, minutes, an eternity. "Say something."

"What do you expect me to say? It's okay that you left me for your mental health vacation?" I raised my eyebrow. "This explanation, this return will never make up for those nights I spent thinking you would come back."

Keegan sighed. "I know I did wrong, but just find it in you to think this over and try to forgive me." I let my hands fall gracefully onto the table again for him to scoop them back up again. He would not let me avoid his love for me. "Little sister, your eyes are so cold, so sad...what troubles you?" My eyes flickered down to our hands. His able to wrap around both my intertwined fingers like a blanket, a safe blanket. "I have learned of you miscarriage."

My lip twitched downward as I looked back up at him. "And?"

"I care that you get to be alright." his bright smile beamed at me taking me by surprise. His world was brighter than mine.

Much brighter than mine. "I do not need your help." I pulled my hands away from him.

"Do you still believe in in love?"

I stood up glaring at him. "Not yours." His questions, such strange questions were taking turns I could not comprehend nor follow. He was trying to prove that he was still that same Keegan as before, but I know he has changed. We both have changed. That's what this world, that is what death did to you. Changed you. Everyone was changing, everyone was losing that humane part of them to survive. Keegan was my humane tie to that old world and once he left me everything I thought I was before slipped away like fog up into the morning air. He was the reason I had become so cold. He was the reason I had turned into someone I could not recognize anymore. I had no idea who I had become. This girl she was not me, this body, this brain could never have belonged to me. I was a whole different person now. How old was I even? When was my birthday? What was my mothers name? What was my favorite color? What did it mean to feel love? All these once known things were long forgotten into an oblivion. I was not Rose anymore. I was not that innocent, pure, naive, stupid, depended, scared little girl; I was a stranger wearing someone else's skin, thinking someone else thoughts. This; this was me now. This was who I was going to be then if I could not take another path of choice.

He grabbed my arm stopping me from leaving him. "Rose...I still love you. I am still your older brother."

I yanked my arm away from him walking towards the door that led to the showers. "Well, I am not your little sister anymore..." I stormed off into the tombs the pair of scissors in my hand after grabbing them off the counter holding boxes of food from Woodbury. They clattered into the sink as I gripped the side of it fighting back that older version of me begging to come back out of that mental door I had locked it behind. She was never coming back. I had nothing left to lose. I pulled the scissors up the length of the braid and slowly squeezed my fingers together cutting off the beautiful overlapping hair Beth had created. I heard it thud onto the ground feeling the tickle of shortened hair fall against my neck and shoulders. I brought my head up catching the eye of myself in the dainty, stained mirror in front of me. My face was pain despite the bright southern sun, my cheek bones were prominent from such malnutrition, my one shiny hair was dull, but it was my once pleasingly happy eyes that had vanished. Such sad eyes, such cold eyes, such new eyes.

This girl, this stranger...

She is me.

Comment and tell me what you all think please.

What are your thoughts on Rose's character changes? Keegan's explanation? Daryl's place in all of it? Beth taking care of her? Woodbury residents?