Naomi

Alone in the woods, just me and the dead, I started to feel like one of them. Less substantial, maybe. More like a ghost.

I passed through the world without leaving a mark on it. If one of the dead bit me or tore me apart, who would know? Who would care? I'd just be another person who disappeared like smoke, like Mia and Perla. Except there was nobody out there looking for me.

There was so no trace of the girls anywhere. I don't know what I expected to find on my own in the woods with no direction to head in, days after they'd left Terminus. All I had was a vague hope that if they were still alive, Mia would make them go North.

The further I got from Terminus, the more I thought about going back. Even if Mia never returned to it, there were people there. Shelter. Food. Then I'd remember the kind of food it was, and it would keep me walking away.

I was always hungry. It was hard to hunt when it was just me I was hunting for. I was used to having other mouths to feed. But, when it was just me, it felt like far too much effort. Hard to get up the motivation to do it.

Lack of sleep made it difficult too. I'd come across an old tent. The previous owner had been reduced to nothing but bone after the dead got in. I was back to sleeping in the trees again and wasn't about to make the same mistake as that poor bastard, but I took the waterproof outer layer of the tent. Just in case it rained.

It was hard to find somewhere secure enough to rest my eyes. Balancing on branches wasn't comfortable either, but I don't think I'd have been able to sleep in a real bed either. Every time I closed my eyes, I'd see the face of that mab. The one from Terminus. With his horrible breath, his unwanted hands. Every dream I had, no matter how it started, turned into a nightmare. Although I knew I'd left him tied up in an old train car, every noise I'm the woods felt like him coming to get me.

I wondered if Mary had cooked him up yet. The thought didn't make me feel much better.

Days turned to weeks. And weeks might have turned to more, but I'd lost track. The forest felt never-ending. It was quiet, I'd always liked the woods for exactly that reason. It was calming, reminded me of better times in my life. If I did die out here, whether of starvation or being killed by something else, it would be a fitting end. I'd grown up roaming the woods, might as well die in them too.

Silence turned from comforting to lonely. Made the thoughts in my head louder than I ever wanted them to be. There was nothing to distract me from the guilt that followed me everywhere.

José was dead because of me.

Perla and Mia were missing because I hadn't looked after them.

I'd had dark days before all of this, when I'd struggled to make enough money to support myself and Mia, felt like I would never achieve the things I wanted. I'd had days where Momma had called me to remind me I was a selfish piece of shit for moving out of Georgia and leaving her on her own. Days where I thought no matter how hard I worked, I'd never be able to give Mia the life she deserved. Days where I'd felt nothing but guilt over not trying harder to get Daryl away from Merle. Every time I heard a story about some drug bust gone wrong, I'd think of them both. And all of the things I could have done but didn't. On days like those, death hovered around me as a quiet last resort, a silent escape from that noise in my head. On those days, I'd told myself I had to stay here for Mia. I had to keep going so that she would be safe and happy and loved. But now, surrounded by the overwhelming possibility that she was dead and it was my fault, I couldn't find a single reason that I deserved to be here.

I sat down and put the barrel of my gun in my mouth. I'd heard that was the most effective way of doing it. If you just put the gun to the side of your head, some people flinch at the last second, and the bullet doesn't hit right. I didn't want to spend my last hours bleeding out. I also didn't want to do anything that would leave enough of my brain intact that I'd end up just another undead dickhead. I could taste metal and something bitter.

I didn't think it would be easy. But it was still harder than I thought. Every time my finger brushed against the trigger, I thought or Mia. The small chance that she was out there. Trying to make it on her own. How could I leave her here without knowing for sure what had happened to her?

Coward. I'm such a goddamn coward.

Mia felt like a convenient excuse. Deep down, there was a part of me that couldn't pull the trigger because I was scared to. Because something in me wouldn't let me. Survival was hardwired into me. Had been before all of this. Since I was a kid. I'd grown up with hunger and pain. Grown up fighting every day just to be okay. Turning that instinct off, after so long, was impossible.

Fuck you, Momma.

I took the gun out of my mouth, threw it to the ground. I think I would have cried if I hadn't been so dehydrated.

I'd failed Mia, hadn't been brave enough to fight for her. I'd told her to go, calmly, with those awful men. Because I was a fucking coward who didn't even have the guts to pull the trigger on herself when she had nothing to live for.

I could get up. I could keep walking. But, if I sat here long enough, death would catch up with me. Whether by starvation or dehydration or a horde of the dead come to tear me apart, it could only be a matter of time.

I knew I couldn't walk much further. My legs were weak, and I was always tired. I'd gone from feeling hungry all the time to nauseous because my stomach was so empty to absolutely nothing. Maybe a break for a few days would do me some good. A chance to rest, a chance to stay in one place for long enough to hunt something. I could re-evaluate my situation from there, draw up some kind of plan.

I dragged myself to my feet. I didn't have enough energy to hunt, but I could probably build a fairly decent trap. I found a ditch in the woods, used the biggest branch I could find to make it deeper. I found and sharpened as many pieces of wood as I could, and stuck them at the bottom of the pit I'd dug. I covered it with the outer layer of the tent I'd found and piled leaves on top of it to hide it from any unsuspecting deer.

I hoped it would catch something I could eat. But every morning t was full of skewered dead assholes who'd passed by in the night. It was dumb luck the brought the squirrel close enough to me for me to catch it. It didn't expect to climb a tree and find me in it. Didn't expect me to be so quick with my knife either. I threw it in my bag as a treat for after I cleaned out the pit and claimed down from the tree.

There were three of them in there, all of them stuck on something sharp and all of them still moving. I stabbed them each through the head before hauling their carcasses off. It's heavy work when it's just you, and you haven't eaten in three days.

When I was done, I sat down, back against a nearby tree. Every muscle in my body ached, and I wondered if I'd started digesting them. I vaguely remembered that was part of what happened when your body went into starvation.

A noise beside me made me reach for my knife. Thought it might be one of the dead, but it was a black cat. Just fur and bones. I could see its ribs. Couldn't remember if they were meant to be lucky or unlucky. Supposed it didn't matter now.

"Hey, Cat," I said, too tired to come up with a more original name. "You hungry?"

It meowed at me and licked one of my fingers with its sandpaper tongue. Trying to see if there was any food there.

"Yeah," I sighed, "You and me both."

It sat down beside me, looking up at me with these big, hungry green eyes. I knew the sensible thing would be to eat it. But it looked as pathetic as I felt.

"Fine," I said. I took the squirrel out of my bag and chopped it in half. I threw one half to the cat, ate the rest myself. Uncooked squirrel is not good, but it was the only thing I'd had to eat in days.

It was disgusting, but it helped. A few hours of shooting pains in my stomach while it got over the shock of having something to digest. I managed to sleep for a few hours before a nightmare woke me. But when I did wake, I felt a little stronger.

I also felt like I was being watched.

The dead all move in the same way. You get used to the sound of them moving between the trees. You get to learn when they're too close, and you need to take them out, and when they're far enough away to walk right by if you stay still. The living are less predictable. More deliberate in where they're going.

So, when I went to find water and heard a few twigs snap behind me, the hairs on my arm stood on end. Footsteps. Without the moans that the dead make.

Someone from Terminus? Had Mary sent someone after me? If so, why hadn't they killed me already?

I felt sick but tried to stay calm. Tried to continue my hunt for water as if nothing was wrong. Clutched a knife in my hand the whole time in case someone grabbed me. I was so damn sick of being grabbed. They followed me for a while. I found nothing to drink, I probably would've if I hadn't been so distracted by the sounds behind me. They left before it got dark. I think.

Maybe I was cracking up.

Maybe my grief and my guilt had driven me to imagine a phantom following me through the trees. Was this how it felt to be hunted and realize it? I thought of the deers I'd stalked that had seen me coming seconds before I'd shot them. I'd prefer to be shot without knowing it was coming.

The next day. More of the same. Always gone by dark.

The day after that, I got up before it got light and cleared away all of the dead things that had fallen into the pit I'd dug. I took out all of the sharpened sticks and covered it up again. When I heard the familiar quiet footsteps, I walked as fast as I could. I knew this would give me a good headstart. You can't rush too much when you're following someone, or you might make a mistake that gives yourself away.

When I got close to the pit and was pretty sure he couldn't see me, I pulled myself up onto a low branch. I sat there, still as I could, and waited.

It wasn't long before I heard him approach, watched him pass by underneath me. It was definitely a man following me. Not my imagination or a weird manifestation of my guilt. A real, living, man. Flesh and bone.

I watched him sneak through the trees underneath me. It was hard to tell from far away, but he didn't look like anyone from Terminus. His backpack and his clothes were in good condition, if he wasn't from Terminus, he must be holed up somewhere pretty nice. So why was he spending his days following me around?

From where I was perched, the outline of my pit was pretty visible. I wondered for a second if he'd be smart enough to spot it. But then I heard him yelp as he fell straight in.

I dropped down from the branch and walked towards him. He was scrambling wildly inside the pit, trying to work out what had just happened. And then he saw me approach.

It had been a very long time since I'd seen another living soul. I'd begun to think it might be just me and Cat and the dead left in the world. It was weird to look at one who could look back at me. I hadn't seen even seen myself in weeks, but I didn't need a mirror to tell me that I looked like shit. My lips were dry and cracked from lack of water, and my own blood was still matted in my hair from beatings I'd taken at Terminus. I wondered if there were still bruises on my face. My hands were covered in mud and dried squirrel blood. He saw the gun in them and raised his arms above his head. There was a clear plastic water bottle in one of them

"What do you want?" I asked.

"To give you this," he said, shaking the bottle at me. I reached down and took it off him. I held it up to the light; the water inside looked clear enough. I took a sip, let it sit on my tongue a while, didn't taste anything funny. I swallowed. "Why? Is it poisoned?"

"No," he looked horrified that I'd thought him capable of it. "Why would you drink it if you thought it was?"

"Don't much care if it is," I said, with a shrug. "But shooting me is faster if you're looking to take my shit."

"I'm not," he said. "I just thought you looked like you needed some water."

"Thanks," I said, and took another, longer drink. He watched me do it.

"What's this?" he asked, gesturing to the pit around him.

"It's a pit," I said. "Usually, it catches the dead and stops them from getting to me. If I'm lucky, it might catch an animal I can eat."

"And does that work?" he asked. "As a defence, I mean, how do you clear it of the dead ones that fall in here?"

"Usually there's a lot of sharp shit for them to impale themselves on," I said. He looked alarmed. "But I took it out so you wouldn't die when you fell in."

There was a moment of silence where he looked at me like he wasn't sure whether to believe me or not.

"Thank you," he said, his eyes were a little wide.

"So," I sat down at the edge of the pit. "Why were you following me?"

"I wanted to help you."

"Don't need it," I said, but he didn't look like he believed me, and I felt like I'd told a lie.

"How long have you been alone for?" he asked. I felt like I was the one who was in the damn pit.

"A while," I said, swallowing down a lump of loneliness in my throat. It sat in my stomach.

"There's a community not far from here," he said. "It's safe, you should join us."

"There are no safe places anymore," I told him. He looked at me like he pitied me. Usually, I'd have hated that, but I was too tired to care.

"It's a real sanctuary," he said. "You have my word on that."

"I don't know you," I said. "Your word don't mean shit."

"Fair enough," he said. "I have pictures... if you'd like to see those?"

"Sure," I said. He reached slowly into his bag, let me see what he was doing the whole time. Seemed he was taking the possibility of me shooting him much more seriously than I was. He reached up and handed over a stack of polaroids. I set them on my knee and flicked through them, with my empty gun still pointed lazily in his direction. The pictures were all of fancy houses, solar panels and big community walls. They looked too good to be true like he might've got them out of an old property sales catalogue.

"Ain't any people in these pictures," I said. "You could've got these from anywhere."

"Another fair point," he said. "I could be lying to you. But why would I?"

I laughed, couldn't tell if he was lying or just nieve.

"The world ain't what it was," I said. "People ain't what they were either. I've had a sanctuary before. It didn't last. Nothing lasts these days."

"You've lasted," he said. "And so have I. And so has Alexandria."

"Yeah, but for how long?" I said. "If you keep shouting about Alexandria to everyone who traps you in a pit, it won't be long before another group come and take it over. Destroy everything."

"To be fair," he said. "You're the only person so far who's trapped me in a pit. And I don't tell just anyone. That's why I followed you for so long. To see what kind of person you were."

I narrowed my eyes. "And what makes you think I'm the kind of person who wouldn't come and take over your so-called safe place?"

"Well," he said. "Firstly, there's only one of you. And there's many more of us."

"How many?" I asked. "None, if those pictures are anything to go by."

"A lot," he said. "In fact, I have someone nearby, who'll come looking for me if I take too long."

I smiled, wondered if he felt threatened or if he was the one making the threat. I put my gun down, ready to end this dumb charade.

"I ain't going to hurt you," I said, holding out a hand to help him up. "I just got tired of being followed."

"You knew I was following you?"

"Yeah," I said. "You ain't as quiet as you think you are."

He took hold of my arm and pulled himself up to sit next to me. We both started down into the empty pit.

"Second reason I don't think you'll wage war on Alexandria," he said. "Is that you fed that starving cat half of the food you had on you. People might be a bit different now, but they're still mostly good."

I felt my face get hot. "Didn't know you'd seen that. Maybe you are quieter than I thought."

"Maybe," he gave me a little smile. "Or maybe you were just more distracted than you thought. Will you reconsider?"

I didn't answer right away. Instead, I asked, "You found a lot of survivors out here?"

"Not as many as I'd like," he said. "But we found a teenage girl out here a few days ago. Now, you-"

My heart jumped.

"Just one? What was her name?" I asked.

"Enid."

It sank again, crushed with disappointment.

"Oh."

He looked curiously at me. "Were you hoping for someone else?"

"My sister," I said. "Mia. Her friend Perla. I'm trying to find them."

A part of me hoped that I'd say their names and he'd know them, that they'd reached his so-called sanctuary before me, but he just looked at me with a massive amount of sympathy.

"How long have they been gone?"

"A while," I said. Didn't want to tell him that time had stopped for me out here. Or that I hadn't actually seen Mia or Perla since Terminus had been taken over. I didn't really know how long they'd been missing. Didn't want to hear him politely ask if it was possible that they'd died in Terminus and my search was all for nothing. I'd had enough of those thoughts unprompted.

"Okay," he nodded. "I don't want to tell you how to conduct your search. But maybe having a safe base to search from is a good idea?"

A good point. If he was telling the truth.

I hesitated.

"I guess..."

"Well, then, the third reason I think you should come back to Alexandria is that it's is a great place to bring them back to. The other kids would love two new friends."

"You have other kids with you?" I asked. The thought of Mia and Perla playing with a new group of kids overwhelmed me for a moment. They'd been so happy at Terminus because of the friends they'd made. Friends who were all now dead.

"We do," he said. He took a breath. "And we have plenty of food. We have water. A safe bed to sleep in. If you don't mind me saying so, it seems like you might need some of those things. Build your strength back up."

"Strong enough to trap you," I pointed out.

"True," he said, with a small smile. "But all I've seen you eat in the last few days is half a dead squirrel. And you had to eat that raw. Looking for your sister would be much easier if you're also looking after yourself."

It was his best point yet.

"Okay," I said. "But I get to keep my weapons on me. If you turn out to be a psycho, I will use them."

He smiled like he was genuinely pleased I'd said yes.

"You can keep your weapons for now," he said. "But you might have to renegotiate if you decide you want to stay in Alexandria. Other residents might be a little nervous if you're walking around fully armed."

I nervous about the thought of these people walking around without being fully armed, but I didn't know this guy well enough to tell him that, so I held my tongue. I grabbed up what little stuff I had on me, and we started walking.

"What's your name?" he asked me.

"Naomi," I said. "Sorry, I should've introduced myself. It's been a while since I've seen someone else living."

"I'm Aaron," he said because I'd forgotten to ask him in return. "You need me to carry anything?"

"No," I said. "I'm okay, thanks."

Truthfully, I wasn't okay. I was still incredibly weak, and my whole body ached. I'd lost count of the number of blisters on my feet. But I wasn't about to just hand my shit over to this suspiciously friendly stranger.

"Okay," he said. We'd known each other all of five minutes, but he already seemed to understand that it was best not to argue with me. "The road's not far up ahead."

"You're taking the road?" I asked. "Little dangerous, isn't it?"

I'd found it was easier for the dead to form a horde on roads, the route was smoother, and there were fewer obstacles for any of them to get stuck behind. I hoped if Mia was out there, she'd stayed away from the roads.

"Er, yeah," he said. "But it's also the best place to drive a car."

"You have a car?"

"Yes."

"And it works?"

"Yes."

"Well, shit."

I could tell he was trying not to laugh, but my question had only been half-serious.

There was a car parked on the empty road. A guy with a shotgun stood guard over it. He straightened up when he saw Aaron approaching. He looked from me to him and back again. "Is this Squirrel Girl?"

"God, here's hoping that name doesn't stick," I said. He blinked at me a couple of times like he hadn't expected me to talk. I caught sight of myself in the car window, the first time I'd seen my reflection in weeks. Covered in mud and blood and God knows what else, it wasn't all that surprising he might have expected me to have lost my mind and ability to communicate. "I'm Naomi."

"Hi," he said. "I'm Eric."

"Nice to meet you, Eric."

"Are you hungry?" he asked, walking around to open up the trunk of the car. "I packed some snacks."

The way he said it made him sound like a dad taking his kid on some kind of road trip. I started laughing. "I'm starving."

"She means that literally," Aaron said. "So give her something small. If you eat too much at once, you could die."

Eric looked alarmed. I was disappointed not to be allowed as many snacks as I wanted. Eric handed me a granola bar. I could see more in his bag. He saw me eyeing them and zipped it shut.

"We should take her right to Pete," he said.

"Agreed," Aaron opened the back door for me.

It was weird to sit in a car again. I'd kind of forgotten how smooth they were, how fast they made everything go by. It was so clean in there too. Knowing how muddy I was, I felt bad for sitting on such clean seats. I ate the granola bar Eric had given me and sat back.

Stach pains hit me a few minutes into the journey. I did my best to keep quiet.

"You okay back there?" Aaron said.

"Eh... yeah," I said. "Just a few stomach cramps is all."

"Pass her some more water," he said to Eric. Eric passed another water bottle to where I was sitting. I took a few sips, felt a bit better.

"How'd you know I was hurting?" I asked. I thought I'd managed to keep it fairly quiet.

"Could see you grimacing in my rearview mirror," he said. "Figured something was up."

"That's very attentive of you," I said.

"Yes, well, he's very caring," Eric said, looking at Aaron with such love and admiration that it distracted me from the pains in my stomach.

"Did you two get together before all of this?" I asked. "Or did you meet in Alexandria?"

"Before," Eric said, with the kind of soft smile that people in relationships get when they talk about the early days.

The car was warm, and my aching body was sitting somewhere comfortable for the first time in ages. My eyes felt heavy. I had enough time to wonder if they really had put something in the water before I fell asleep.

A hand on my knee shocked me awake. I grabbed it by the wrist. Thought I was back in Terminus. My free hand reached for my knife before I remembered where I was, and heard the hum of an engine.

"Woah," Eric's shocked eyes met mine. They flickered down to the knife I was holding and back up again. "Just me… We're almost here."

"Sorry," I let go of him as fast as I could. My heart was still racing, it was difficult to breathe. "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," he assured me. In the rearview mirror, I saw Aaron look back at me, worried. I sat back in my seat, tried to calm my breathing.

When we came in sight of the high walls of Alexandria, they were instantly recognizable from some of the pictures. Aaron stopped the car outside a secure gate and wanted for someone inside to open it up. How Alexandria had managed to stand for so long became a little bit clearer. Their walls were big and relatively strong. Scalable, though, if anyone was looking to break in. I wondered how big a horde would be needed to knock them down.

Every house looked straight out of a brochure, right down to the neat and perfectly mowed gardens. The people walking around were unarmed, their clothes were clean, and many of the guys looked freshly shaven. They stared at me as I got out of the car. I probably looked at terrifying to them as one of the dead.

"What the fuck is this place?" I muttered. I was now entirely sure that I had lost my mind. That this was some fantasy constructed by my starving, dying brain to comfort me in my final moments.

Aaron chuckled and knocked on the door we'd stopped in front of. I hoped whoever he was looking for would hurry up and answer, I was getting tired of being stared at. "Pete must be out," he said.

"I'll go and get him," Eric said. And ran off in one direction. I hugged my arms across my chest and avoided looking at anyone. I wondered if I'd made a mistake in coming here. Aaron watched me with quiet concern.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. "Just not a huge fan of Doctors."

They always made me nervous. The exams they did, the questions they asked, how much they might cost. When I was a kid, Momma had only taken me when I'd really needed it. Had to lie about most things.

Eric came back with a man I assumed was Pete. He unlocked the door and led me into a makeshift doctors office. They had a hospital bed and everything. Aaron and Eric hovered in the doorway while I followed Pete in. They muttered to each other for a moment, then Eric nodded and ran off. Aaron looked back at me and gave me an encouraging smile.

"Take a seat for me, Naomi," Pete said. I must've looked nervous because he followed it with. "I'm just going to check you over and ask you a few questions."

"Okay, sure," I said and tried to smile. I still worried about the scars on my thighs, out of habit more than anything else. But Pete just checked over the ones he could see.

"A lot of these cuts and bruises look old," he said. "Any of them still bleeding, do they feel infected at all?"

"No," I said. Most of my wounds from Terminus were at the gross but painless scab phase of healing.

"That's good," he said and leant over me to take a look at one on my head. Pete had been drinking. I could smell it on him immediately. I was so surprised that I flinched a little when he came too close.

"Sorry," he said, with an apologetic smile. "Didn't know I'd be working today."

His grip on my wrist as he turned it over was tight. For someone who'd been drinking, he was skilled at hiding it. Only the smell gave him away. His smile was, on the surface, charming but something about his eyes warned me away from telling anyone. I knew that look. Every functioning alcoholic I'd ever known had given it to me at one time or another. I fixed a smile on my face.

"No problem," I said. "Sorry for all the dirt, didn't know I'd be seeing a doctor today."

His grip on my wrist relaxed, he took my pulse.

"It's a little weak," he said. "But nothing to worry about."

He asked me a few questions about how much I'd had to eat in the last few weeks, how much sleep I'd managed to get, how much water I'd drunk. All of my answers were surprisingly short, even to me. He took my temperature and tested some of my reactions.

"We'll need to reintroduce food slowly," he said. "And you should rest for at least a week. You've put your body through quite a lot, it needs time to recover."

"Okay," I said. The thought of resting for any amount of time felt bizarre. This whole place was weird. "Thanks. Sorry for disturbing your day off."

"Don't really get days off anymore," he said, with a slightly bitter laugh. "I'm the only doctor here."

I wondered if it was meant as a joke or a thinly veiled threat to stop me from telling anyone he'd been drinking on the job. Either way, I gave him a smile I hoped would placate him and said, "Well, thanks anyway!"

Aaron stepped forward. "She good to go?"

"Yeah," Pete said. I couldn't get up from the chair fast enough. It gave me a head rush.

"Take it easy," Aaron reminded me. I felt his hand on my back as he guided me out of there. It made me jumpy. He probably meant well, but he was still a stranger, and ever since Terminus, I found it difficult to be too close to people.

"Come and clean yourself up," he said. "And then we'll take you to Deanna's."

I wondered how much of that was for my benefit and how much of it was concern that Deanna would take one look at my muddy, bloody face and chuck me out of here again.

He took me to the house he shared with Eric. I was amazed to find they had a fully functioning shower. Stepping into it felt like stepping back into the past. I watched the water turn red and brown as all of the shit washed off me. Stayed in there for longer than I needed to, feeling equal parts bad about using so much water and astounded that I could shower in the first place.

I got out and wrapped myself in a towel, found that Aaron had laid out one for my hair too. The luxury in this place was too much to handle all at once.

The mirror was all fogged up. I wiped some of it away and peered at my face. Cuts and bruises were still there, but now the dirt and dried blood were gone I felt more like a normal human being, and less like a wild wan who'd been raised in the woods by a pack of wolves. I hoped the residents of Alexandria would stop staring at me now.

Someone knocked on the bathroom door. The sudden noise made me jump.

"Hello?" I called.

"Found you some clothes that might fit," Eric said. "I've put them on the bed next door whenever you're ready."

"Thanks!" I yelled back. I waited until I heard him walk away and then I opened the bathroom door and hurried into the next room. A pair of jeans and a shirt were laid out. It was odd to wear a stranger's clothes.

"How you feeling?" Aaron asked when I walked back out into the hallway.

"Incredible," I said as I towel-dried my hair. "Haven't seen a working shower since… well, I don't remember."

"No offence," Eric said. "But that much was obvious."

Aaron sighed and tried to hide an amused smile while I laughed. It was unsettlingly normal to be around them. Their spirits were still up. They still had enough hope to joke around with each other, and me, even though I was a stranger to them.

Aaron took me to see Deanna. She was not what I expected. She was older for a start. More like the kind of high-powered businesswoman that I was used to seeing in DC. It was unsettling to be around in this new world. The leadership skills of the past didn't fit right in such a brutal present. It was hard to see how someone with such little Before we started talking, she turned on a camera that was set up on a tripod.

"Er… I looked from it to her and back again. "Is that necessary?"

"Oh, just ignore it," she said, with a smile I didn't trust. "I'm just keeping records."

"You like watching them back or something?" I asked.

"We're living in historic times," she said. "I believe they deserve to be documented."

"But for who?" I said. "Everyone else is dead."

"Do you really believe that?"

"You guys have been unbelievably lucky here," I told her. She smiled like what I'd said was a compliment. It hadn't been intended that way. "It's bad out there."

"Why don't you tell me about how bad it is?" she said. I hesitated. How sheltered were these people?

"The dead have risen up," I said. "They're killing people. Almost everyone is gone. The ones who ain't…"

I stopped, didn't want to think about it.

"Aren't what?" she prompted.

"Things are hard," I said. "And it's made most people do shitty things."

"Has it made you do shitty things?"

I thought of José, lying in his own blood.

Deanna saw something in my face change, leant forward to study me. I narrowed my eyes, studied her back. "You some kinda psychiatrist before all this or something?"

"No," she laughed.

"Politician, then?" I said. One two types of people I could think of who was this keen to get so deep into people's heads when they'd just met them. She stopped laughing.

"Congresswoman," she said. "Ohio."

"Shit," I said, wondering how I could have got so lost. "Did I walk to Ohio?"

"No," she smiled. "You're in Virginia."

I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

"What did you do before all of this?" she asked me.

"Journalist," I said. "Washington, DC. That's where I was heading."

"I see," she said. "And Aaron tells me you were out there looking for someone?"

I nodded. Hadn't been aware that Aaron had talked about me to other people. It was a sharp reminder that no matter how friendly he seemed, I was still an outsider. He was a stranger. She asked me what happened to me at Terminus. What I had done.

So, I told her.

About the abuse we'd all suffered there. And about what the kids had done to get us out, what had happened to them because of it. What all of this had turned the people I was with into.

I thought she'd stop there. But she didn't.

She asked me what I had done personally. What had been done to me.

So, I told her.

About José.

About Mia and Perla.

About everything I'd been through.

By the time I was done, I felt like she'd surgically sliced me open, peeled back my skin and left all of my insides exposed to the world.

At the end of it all, she said, "Do you want to stay in Alexandria?"

I said, "Yes."

Although, the truth was, I wasn't sure. Maybe I'd been out in the real world for too long, but this place felt like a bizarre dream. Deanna might have been the kind of leader I'd have voted for back when democracy still existed, and there was a place for her specific kind of psychological warfare and big picture thinking. But now? Alexandria's luck would have to run out one of these days. And when the walls came down, none of Deanna's anti-gun policies and neat little roles for her community would do her any good. These people were soft.

"Why do you want to stay in Alexandria?" she asked.

"I want to find the people I lost," I said. There was no point in lying to her. She knew my story.

"And in return?"

"What?"

"If we give you a safe place to search for your sister and her friend, how will you contribute?"

"I know how to hunt," I said. "And I'm probably one of the few people here who knows what it's really like outside of these walls."

She waved at someone through the glass panel in the door. As Aaron came in, I wiped the tears from my face and prayed the tape she'd just made never saw the light of day.

"Show Naomi to one of our houses, will you?" she said. "I think she has a bright future here."

I looked up at Aaron. The thought of sleeping in a big house, alone with my nightmares, was not very appealing. Every creak in the dark would send me into a panic.

"Stay at ours if you like," Aaron said, with a glance at Deanna. "We have a spare room?"

Even if they were a weird cult planning to murder me in my sleep, that sounded preferable to letting my own thoughts drive me slowly insane.

"Would that be alright?" I asked. "I don't want to intrude or anything."

"No, that's fine," he assured me. "And if you decide you want your own place once you've settled in a bit, that's fine too."

"Thank you," I said. "Both of you."

"Get some rest," Deanna said with a smile. "I'll speak to you again soon."

Aaron hovered around me like a nervous father for the first few days, bringing me some small and frequent snacks according to Pete's specifications on what he thought my body could handle. It was almost enough to make me want to move right back out again. But Eric and Aaron had a lot of books, and that was enough to make me stay almost anywhere. After a few days, I could eat without getting stomach cramps.

"Think we could try you on a full meal today," Aaron said. I nearly cried with relief.

"Thank God," I said. "Can I at least help cook it?"

"Maybe," Aaron hesitated.

"Just let her," Eric called from further down the hallway. I heard him get louder as he approached. "She must be going crazy in there with you hovering around all the time."

"Bless you, Eric," I said. He popped his head around the doorframe.

He looked at Aaron, "Have you asked her yet?"

"No," he said. "I was going to wait until she's well enough."

"I'm not dying!" I said. "What did you want to ask?"

"We're going to start going out looking for more recruits soon," he said. "Alexandria still has a couple of empty houses."

"That's good," I said, wondering why he was telling me this. "This place could do with some fresh blood."

We both knew that by that I meant 'people who'd had bigger issues than not having a pasta maker'.

"When you have your strength back," Aaron said. "Do you want to come with us? I think we could use your skills out there."

"Oh," I hesitated. It wasn't what I'd expected to be asked. Things were good here, I liked Eric and Aaron, but it felt like too much of an inclusion. Like saying yes would turn me as weak as the rest of them. "I should really keep looking for my sister and her friend."

"Seems to me like we could do both," he said. "We can go out looking for them, and if we find some other people, you can stop me from getting trapped in a pit."

I smiled. It was still so strange to meet two people who'd remained kind in a cruel world. But, I also knew part of the reason they could stay so kind was that these walls had sheltered Alexandria from the worst of it when the world had fallen apart. They hadn't seen much of the new world, hadn't had a chance to lose faith in it. If they ran into the wrong people, how would they know? If they ran into a horde of the dead, would they know enough to get themselves out?

"Sure," I said. "I'll come with you guys. You wanna go soon?"

"Naomi..." Eric rolled his eyes.

"I feel fine!"

"Maybe next week," Aaron laughed. "Pete says you should be resting."

"Pete's an asshole," I said. "And I'm not sure he knows what he's talking about."

"Pete is a fully trained surgeon," Aaron reminded me. "He went to medical school."

I sighed.

"He is an asshole, though," Eric agreed from the doorway.

"Amen," I raised my glass of water like I was toasting him.

Aaron looked at us both and sighed in exasperation. "Next week," he said. "We'll get back out there and see if we can find anyone else."

Daryl

We'd not been at the church for long before I saw the car again. The one that took Beth, and might have taken Mia. Carol and I took off after it. Jump started our own car and hightailed it out of there. Didn't even have time to tell Rick and the others we were going. We just went.

The car led us back to the City. Or, what was left of it anyway. We broke down before we could see where it was headed, had to find somewhere safe for the night.

Next day we got ambushed by some guy - a kid really - who took our weapons. Don't think he had many of his own, and seemed to be out there alone.

Took a day before we found him again, by chance, and while he was about to be overrun by Walkers. Told us his name was Noah, and he'd been at Grady Memorial Hospital. He knew Beth. Said she was okay. Told us about Dawn, the woman running Grady, and the people she'd recruited as security around the place. It sounded like we'd need more guns, more people.

The small victory we'd just got in meeting this guy and getting information out of him was short-lived. One of the patrol cars hit Carol. Didn't have a chance to see her move before they bundled her into the back of it, just like they had with Beth.

I took Noah back to the church where everyone else was staying. Rescuing them was going to take a group effort. I wanted Maggie to be the first to know, thought it might go some way to making up for losing Beth in the first place. But she wasn't there. Some of the group had split off to try and get to DC early, Eugine reckoned he had a way of fixing this all. I didn't much care about that. All I cared about was getting everyone safely back where they belonged. Fewer Walkers would help with that, I guess.

I introduced everyone to Noah, explained what had gone down in Atlanta.

"So, now they got Beth and Carol?" Rick asked.

"Yeah," I nodded. I knew it didn't sound good, but we'd come back from worse odds than this. "Noah here says they got people and guns, so we'll need as many of our numbers as we can spare."

Rick nodded, let Noah and me into the church.

"Whose blood is this?" I asked, glancing down at the stains on the floor that I was sure hadn't been there when we'd left.

"Terminus," Rick said. "Some of them found us, but we took care of it."

"Terminus?" I repeated. The word lit my already short fuse. I grabbed Lucas by the collar, pushed him up against the wall. "You lead them here?"

"No," he said.

"You been spying on us for them?"

"No," he said again. "I swear. I haven't... Why would I want them to find us?"

He looked too scared to be lying. I glanced at Rick, who shook his head and reluctantly said, "He lured them in here, helped us kill them."

I let go. Knew I was just looking for an excuse to punch him in the face. I channelled my frustration into fortifying the church, for everyone who was staying behind. The City was still dangerous and full of Walkers. Carl, Judith and Perla would be safer here. Michonne would stay with them, along with Father Gabriel, who was upset and ungrateful about what we were doing?

"Any word on Mia?" Lucas asked, hammering a nail in beside me. "Or Naomi?"

"Nah," I said. "But if I can just get in there, I'm sure I'll find them... Mia, at least."

"You really think she's in there?" Lucas asked. "Because I was talking to Noah and he said-"

"She's gotta be," I said. "Car took her, just like Beth. And Beth's there for sure."

"But Noah doesn't seem to know Mia," Lucas said.

"It's a big place," I shrugged. "Might just not have crossed paths."

He didn't look convinced. I didn't much care. "Well," he said. "I guess we'll see when we get there."

"Guess we will," I said. The thought of travelling there with Lucas and his talk about them not being there made my head hurt. "Sure you don't want to sit this one out?"

"No," he said, quiet but a little sulky. "I want to find them too."

"Yeah?" I snapped. "Where was that attitude when you sent her packing on her own, huh?"

I hammered a nail so hard the wood split. I cursed at it.

"I told you, I-"

"You 'didn't want to slow her down', yeah I heard," I said. "Got no problem slowing the search for her down now, do ya?"

"Daryl," Rick called over to me. "Cool it."

I glared at them both but walked away to get a new nail, didn't want to see either of their dumb faces. Wondered what had happened in the fight against Terminus that had made them best buds all of a sudden.

When the church was as safe as we could make it, we left Michonne, Father Gabriel and the kids, and set off for Atlanta. Noah helped us get into the City without any of the patrol cars spotting us. We stopped at an old warehouse. Rick started making plans for ways we could surround them or draw them out. Each idea sounded like a lot of gunfire, a lot of danger to the people we were trying to get out. Then Tyreese suggested we take some of them hostage and arrange a kind of swap.

We got three of them. Two guys and a girl. By luck more than anything else. I was relieved, the perfect number for the number of people we were looking for. That had to be a good sign, right? I should've known it was too good to be true. One of them escaped. Rick went after him.

Came back without him.

"He wouldn't stop," Rick said, which I took to mean that the guy was dead.

"This change things?" I asked. I really needed this to work.

"It might," he said. I felt agitated.

"We really needed three," I said. "Clean swap. Three of ours for three of theirs."

"I know that, man," Rick sighed. "Can we go in with just the two of them? Bluff about the other?"

"As long as we get three out," I said. "I don't give a shit how we go in. You say the word and I'm ready to shoot."

He looked like he was considering it for a sec. And then the female cop we were keeping prisoner piped up, "He was attacked by Rotters. I saw it go down."

We walked over to her, looked down. Was she really offering to lie for us, or was she playing us to save her own skin?

"You're a damn good liar," Rick told her. "We're hanging by a thread here."

"We were attacked by Rotters, that's the story," she said, more confident this time.

"You said the trade was a bad idea," I reminded her. "What changed?"

"Lamson was our shot," she said. "So it's this, or you go in guns blazing, right? You don't want that."

"If this is some bullshit you're spinning-" I warned her.

"I know that place," she interrupted. "I know the good ones from the bad. Let us help you."

"What about you?" Rick asked the guy. "You wanna live? How much?"

There was a second where I thought he wasn't going to talk. Then he said, "Dawn's afraid she'll look weak in front of us. Thinks it'll tip things against her. Hell, it will. She'll see this trade as a rip-off if she thinks you took out one of our guys. So it's a good thing Lamson got aced by Rotters."

I think all of us were relieved to hear him say it.

From a vantage point on one of the nearby roofs, we kept watch as Rick handed himself over to two of Grady's other cops. He negotiated a meeting with Dawn. Couldn't hear what he was saying from so high up.

When he came back up, he took me aside. "They don't have Mia," he said. "Neither of them knew the name."

"No," I said. "That can't be right. They gotta be lying."

"I don't know what to tell you, man," he shrugged. "They knew Beth, and they knew Carol. But they ain't heard of Mia."

I shook my head. "No. She's gotta be here. Perla said a car took her, just like they took Beth."

"Could she have given them a different name?" Rick asked.

"I don't know," I said. "Maybe..."

None of it made sense.

"We might be able to tell more when we're in there," Rick said, but I knew he was just saying it to calm me down. Beth and Carol were his priority. Mia was nobody to him, she wasn't family like she was to me.

"Let's go in," I said, knowing I wouldn't get more out of him. I was going to have to just get in there and do the best I could. Search every room in every ward if I had to. I could always take another prisoner while I was in there.

Rick just gave me a nod.

We made sure that we were all armed and ready before we went in. Hospitals are weird places when they're mostly empty. They were ready for us too, of course. Four armed officers all in uniform. I assumed one of them was Dawn. Behind them, a doctor in a white coat.

And Beth.

She looked at us in shock. She had a cut on her head, and her arm was in a cast, but otherwise, she seemed fine. Carol was in a wheelchair just beside her. The relief I felt at seeing them both alive took some of the tension out of the situation. I knew I could get through this. I had to, for them.

Our guns were ready to fire, but lowered. Beth pushed Carol forwards.

"Where's Lamson?" Dawn asked, immediately noticing we only had two of her guards and not three.

"Got taken down by Rotters," said our male prisoner. "Saw it go down."

I wondered if she believed the lie, or if we should've told a different one. Should we have pretended that he was still alive, told her she'd only get him if we got everyone we were looking for?

"I'm sorry to hear that," she said. It was impossible to tell if she believed us or not. "One of yours for one of mine."

"Alright," Rick said. He gave me a nod, and I shoved the guy we had prison forward. One of Dawn's people handed over Carol. I took her back to the group, where she belonged.

Dawn walked Beth forward next. Rick went to get her.

"Now, I just need Noah," Dawn said. "And then you can leave."

"That wasn't part of the deal," Rick was angry. Noah looked scared. But all I could see was a horrible opportunity.

"Noah was my ward," she said. "Beth took his place, and I'm losing her, so I need him back."

"Tell you what," I stepped forward. Rick looked surprised. Wasn't like me to speak up in these kinds of negotiations, I usually let Rick take the reigns. But for the first time, our interests were slightly different. "You go get Mia, and we can talk about letting you take Noah."

Noah looked at me, uncertain. My brain was racing a million miles an hour to find a way to keep them both. I didn't need Dawn to hand Mia over right away, just bring her out and show me where she was. As soon as I knew she was safe, I could lie or shoot our way out of here.

Then we could both head North, find her sister.

"Who?"

My heart dropped to my stomach.

"Mia," I said again, said it louder in case she was trying to trick me. Maybe Mia would hear it and come running. I called again. Twice. When I was met with silence, I wondered if she'd given them a fake name. "You guys took another little girl... few weeks before you took Beth."

She stared blankly at me. "No, we didn't," she said. "We wouldn't take a kid unless they were injured. Was she?"

"Don't think so," I said. Hated that I didn't know. But nothing Perla had said suggested that she was.

"I'm sorry," Dawn said. "But I don't think we have a Mia here."

Rick glanced back at me, "I tried to tell you..."

"If you don't give me Noah," Dawn said. "Then I can't let you leave."

"The boy wants to go home," Rick told her. "You have no claim on him."

"Then we don't have a deal," she said.

"The deal is done," Rick reminded her.

"It's okay," Noah limped forward.

"No. It's not," Rick tried to keep him back.

"I got to do it," he said, beginning a slow walk down the corridor.

"Wait!" Beth called. She ran forwards, gave him a hug. It was comforting to see that even though I'd let her down, not been there while she was taken away, she'd still found a friend in all of this. And Noah seemed like a good kid too. She let go and faced Dawn. I didn't hear what she said next, barely had time to register the scissors in her hand or the blood that sprayed out from them as the pierced Dawn's flesh. All I knew was a bang echoing around us.

A gunshot.

Loud in the confined space of the hospital corridor. The back of Beth's head turned red. Crimson-soaked blonde. Splatters of it on the walls and floor too.

Took me a second to realize what had happened.

Dawn looked shocked, think she tried to say something to us. I pulled the trigger and watched her fall. It didn't help.

Beth stayed dead. No undoing that.

Everyone's guns were raised and pointed at each other. I wanted to shoot every last one of them, but Carol got up out of her chair and stopped me.

I picked her up and carried her out of there, felt like the least I could do for her. This was on me. She'd been taken here while under my care. Hadn't even had her covered when she'd been shot. If I'd reacted quicker, realized what was happening, I could've taken Dawn out first.

Rick opened Grady's front door. Maggie, Glenn and the others were out there. Must've heard that Beth was here and alive, arrived too late to see it for themselves. Maggie screamed when she saw her sister, fell to her knees. It was hard to look at either of them. One day, I'd pluck up the courage to tell Maggie I was sorry, to take responsibility for what I'd done.

We buried her at the Church. Seemed like as good a place as any. I was glad, in a way, that we could at least put her to rest somewhere nice. A proper grave. Not everyone gets that. Beth's one of the ones who deserved it.

She was gone too young, even for this world. Not much more than a kid, and she'd managed to stay kind and good. Takes a real strong person to do that when the world is so shitty.

Maggie hardly said a word. Couldn't look at her for all of my guilt. When it was too much, I'd stand by Beth's grave. Like apologizing to the Earth would make a damn bit of difference.

Sorry I failed you, Beth.

I heard someone come to stand beside me. I looked up, expecting it to be Maggi, but it was Lucas. I didn't react. Too numb to be annoyed by him.

"What now?" he asked.

"North," I said. Because it was all I had. When the group had started to heal a little, I'd move on, leave the Church and start walking. I didn't much care who followed.

Beth was dead. Mia was still missing. Naomi was…out there somewhere. Alone. I knew that thought was enough to keep me searching for the rest of my life.

But, how likely was it that I'd find them? I'd been too late to help them at Terminus. I'd been too late to save Beth.

I'd failed all of them.