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Carol came to in her own bed in the cell block. Even as she stirred, a familiar and gentle voice said, "Drink this," and a bottle of water was pressed to her lips.
"Slow," Daryl cautioned.
She'd been dehydrated and without food for … she didn't know how long. Too much too soon would be hard on her body. She forced herself to sip rather than gulp, as she wanted to do. "T-Dog," she whispered once the bottle had been taken away. "I'm … sorry."
"We took care of him." Daryl started to say something else, but stopped. Instead, he held out a small cracker. "Eat this."
Carol did, beginning to feel stronger.
Outside the cellblock, they heard the others. Daryl looked over his shoulder toward the sounds, then back at Carol. "You okay to see everyone?"
She nodded. She wanted to know what had happened during the attack, and while she was lost … but something in Daryl's eyes told her that maybe she didn't, either.
Daryl got up and left. She heard him and the others talking, but couldn't quite make out the words. She sat up, with some difficulty. Then Rick was coming around the door, looking into her cell, and she leaned forward, smiling at him. His eyes widened, and he reached his arms out even as she stood up, holding her close. Then Hershel.
"Poor thing fought her way into a cell. Passed out, dehydrated," Daryl explained, his voice hoarse.
Over Hershel's shoulder, Carol saw Beth … holding a baby. She started to smile at the wonder of it—but then it sank in that if Beth was here, holding the baby, then Lori … Carol turned to Rick, and his eyes told her what she needed to know, even before he nodded. She tried to hold back the tears, tried to find words beyond "I'm sorry," which seemed so inadequate to the enormity of his loss. Of their loss.
She took the baby from Beth, lifting it in her arms. "Is it a boy?"
"Girl," Daryl told her. "Little ass-kicker."
Carol smiled. "Don't tell me that's really her name."
"We … haven't picked one yet," Carl said. He took the baby from her.
"We've got a situation," Rick said. He explained about the woman he had found outside the gates, the woman carrying the basket of formula. She was wounded, but so far hadn't spoken.
Daryl went with Rick to interrogate the new arrival, waiting as Rick asked her to explain how she'd found the prison—and how she'd known to bring formula.
She stared back at Rick, defiant, then finally spoke. "Supplies were dropped by a young Asian guy. With a pretty girl."
"What happened?"
"Were they attacked?" Hershel asked.
"They were taken."
"Taken? By who?"
"Same son-of-a-bitch who shot me," she said tightly.
"Hey. These were our people." Rick's hand closed on the gunshot wound in her leg. "You tell us what happened. Now!"
Daryl raised his crossbow as the woman stood, pointing an angry finger at Rick.
"Don't you ever touch me again!" she hissed through clenched teeth.
He had to hand it to her—having that wound gripped like that must have hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, but she was still defiant, still on her feet, holding her own.
"Start talking," Rick warned her.
"Or you'll have a much bigger problem than a gunshot wound." Daryl aimed the crossbow directly at her forehead, to make the point clear.
She looked him straight in the eye. "Find 'em yourself."
Rick put a hand on the crossbow, pushing it down, and he and the woman stood facing each other. "You came here for a reason."
"There's a town," she said at last. "Woodbury. 'Bout seventy-five survivors. I think they were taken there."
"A whole town?"
"It's run by this guy, calls himself 'the Governor'. Pretty boy. Charming. Jim Jones type."
"He got muscle?" Daryl asked.
"Paramilitary wannabes. They've armed sentries on every wall."
"You know a way in?"
"Place is secure from Walkers, but—we could slip our way through."
Rick looked at her for a moment. "How did you know how to get here?"
"They mentioned a prison, said which direction it was in, said it was a straight shot."
Rick introduced her to Hershel, explained his relationship to Maggie, and left them there for Hershel to look at the wound, while he and Daryl withdrew to talk about how far they could trust her.
Carol held the baby, the remembered weight in her arms feeling so right and so strange at the same time, while the others debated. Eventually it was clear that all of them believed this woman enough to be willing to go after Glenn and Maggie, and they started gathering supplies in preparation for the trip.
Daryl stopped next to her on his way to the car, putting his hand briefly on her shoulder. "Stay safe."
"I have nine lives, remember?" It was him who needed the admonishment, but she didn't even try. He would do what needed to be done, and he would come back. He had nine lives, too, although he didn't know it.
She and Hershel and Beth and Carl were left alone in the prison with the baby. Judith, Carl told her. They had decided to call the baby Judith.
Axel, one of the two remaining prisoners, stayed behind, too, locking the gate behind the car as it pulled out.
Carl took the baby, and he and Beth headed inside to feed her. Axel paced back and forth in front of the gate.
Hershel looked down at Carol. "You all right?"
"I'll be fine. Nothing some food and water can't cure."
"It's good to have you back."
"I … It should have been me."
Hershel raised his eyebrows. "What should have?"
"T-Dog. He died so I could get away. He—he shouldn't have had to do that. And Lori. I wasn't with her. If I had been …"
He shook his head. "The way Maggie described it, only a hospital would have saved her."
"Still … Why do I deserve to live and they didn't?"
"It's not about that." Hershel gestured at all the Walkers outside the gates. "How many of them deserved to live and didn't? We don't get to decide. We fight, for ourselves and the ones we love, and we … we accept our losses when they come." His voice cracked. He was clearly trying to accept the possible loss of Maggie. "We stay strong."
"I don't know if I know how."
"You are much, much stronger than you think you are."
"I'm not Daryl."
"No." Hershel chuckled. "None of us are. In some ways that's bad—we could benefit from learning more from him—and in some ways, that's good. We need each other, and Daryl will never admit that."
Carol nodded. "He knows it, though."
"Because of you." Hershel put a hand on her shoulder. "It's good that you're back."
"I'm going to—I'm going to pull my own weight from now on. I can do more than cook and clean and do laundry."
"Yes, you can."
They both looked down the road, the way the car had gone, both thinking what neither of them was willing to say—if the rescue mission went wrong, she would have to pull more than her own weight. She would have to be the strong one for all of them.
