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It had been such a nice day. Hershel up and about again on his crutches, the courtyard cleared of Walker bodies, everyone in a good mood. And then from somewhere, Walkers swarming the prison, inside. Everyone had scattered, running for shelter.
Carol found herself alone with T-Dog, who had a deep bite in his shoulder.
Daryl was out in the yard with Glenn and Rick when it happened. By the time they made it through the chains holding the gates closed, all their people were gone, deep inside the prison.
Glenn reported that the chains holding the gates closed on the far side of the prison had been cut. Someone had done this to them.
Then, from above their heads, blared an alarm. In the post-apocalyptic silence they lived in, that was going to draw Walkers from all over the area. "You gotta be kiddin' me!" Daryl shouted.
They shot out the speakers, but it didn't stop. Rick demanded of the two remaining live prisoners they had found inside the prison how this could be happening, and they grabbed the prisoners to find the backup generators and cut the power.
Following T-Dog, who was in terrible pain, Carol quickly found herself lost. She had no idea where in the prison they were.
"There's a set of double doors that will lead to a corridor that'll get you back to our cell block," he told her.
"You should stop!" Carol told him.
"I'm getting you there."
"Stop!"
"Why? Sit here and wait to die?"
"I'll do what I have to," Carol told him. "You are not becoming one of those things."
"I can't ask that."
"It's the pact, remember?" They had promised. Carol would do what she'd said she would do.
"This is God's plan," T-Dog told her. "He'll take care of me. Always has. He's gonna help me lead you out of these tunnels."
But in the midst of the tunnels, they ran into more Walkers. Carol tried to shoot at them, but her gun was empty. T-Dog was in no shape to run. "Go back!" she told him, but instead he charged forward, insisting they were close. He pushed the Walkers back, screaming "Go!" at her even as they began to overpower him.
Carol watched them tear out his throat before she ran, deeper and deeper, lost even before she started.
Daryl was with Rick and one of the surviving prisoners when they finally got to the backup generators. Rick tried to turn them off, but then the prisoner they had thrown out, the one they should have killed but had exiled instead, the one they'd thought had been killed by Walkers out in the courtyard, appeared from his hiding place and attacked Rick with an axe. Daryl threw his entire body weight against the door, trying to hold them closed. There were who knew how many Walkers out there. If that door came open, they were all dead.
He couldn't hold it forever, and Rick was still embroiled in the fight with the prisoner. Daryl's shoes slid across the floor. Unable to gain traction and regain his hold on the door, he let it come open and grabbed his crossbow. It misfired, so he put a knife in the skull of the first Walker and used the brief moment before the next one could climb over it to slam the door, making sure it latched.
Then the prisoner who had shown them the way to the generators shot the other guy in the head, returning Rick's gun to him, and between them they turned the generators off again. Mercifully the alarm stopped blaring.
In the resumed silence that followed, they went looking for the others.
They found Glenn and the other surviving prisoner in the tunnels. Not far from there, two Walkers were feeding on T-Dog's body. All of them stopped, shocked. He had been so strong.
Near the body, Daryl found something that chilled him to the bone. On the floor lay the scarf Carol had been wearing. If T-Dog was dead, if he hadn't been able to escape the Walkers, what were the chances she had? He picked up the scarf, twisting his face to force back the tears that sprang to his eyes. This was no world for tears. They'd all been doomed from the start, anyway.
Meeting Rick's eyes, Daryl dropped the scarf on the floor, even as Rick did what was necessary for the body of the fallen T-Dog.
Daryl went around the corner, afraid of what he would see, but there was nothing. Not even a Walker. Carol was gone.
Together, they went back to the courtyard. Daryl didn't feel like running, but Rick and Glenn were still worried for the others, so he followed them.
Hershel and Beth had found high ground and safety straight away. They were still waiting when Daryl's team burst out into the courtyard, but they were the only ones. Hershel asked about T-Dog and Carol, and Daryl answered him. "They didn't make it." He kept his voice even. His feelings were his own problem. If he'd loved her, if he'd counted on her survival to make life bearable, then that was his mistake, and he'd been a fool just like all of them.
Rick was about to lead them all back into the prison to look for Lori and Maggie and Carl when they all heard the faintest sound, one none of them had heard in a very long time—the soft mewling of a baby.
There was a smile on Rick's face as he turned around, but it faded when he saw a bloodied Maggie carrying the baby, and Carl next to her, looking like no kid should ever have to look.
Maggie couldn't speak, but she didn't have to. They could all see what had happened. Rick, who had been so strong all this way, went completely to pieces.
That prisoner had cost them all more dearly than they could have imagined, and nothing would ever be the same again.