I realised July had come around and that made me grateful for the cold concrete of the prison. Outside the yard absorbed the heat while indoors, the thick walls meant it remained cool. That made me think that keeping warm in winter would be a real bitch. Meanwhile being on watch was hellish because the heat the yard absorbed made you feel like you were being cooked from below, especially around midday when there were no shadows. We should have been planting crops and instead we were watching the grass turn yellow in the yard from the lack of rain. Hershel said we would have a storm within a couple of days and no one doubted him.

In the two weeks since we had retrieved Merle from Woodbury and Michonne had put out one of the Governor's eyes, nothing had happened. Daryl and Merle reported shooting from Woodbury which suggested they were training and then more shooting as they put down the walkers drawn by the noise. Woodbury was secure though and preparing. We would know when they were coming thanks to Daryl and Merle. Daryl had suggested I could go in again, maybe find out if Milton had a detailed attack plan in his lab, but Rick had quashed it. No more excursions into Woodbury. Not when the last one had stirred up so much trouble.

"I wish they would just get it over with." Glenn remarked to me. He, myself and the two Greene girls were on watch and they were together as Beth felt she didn't see enough of her sister these days. Glenn was awkward with me and for many reasons. Throughout the winter I had been on babysitting duty while he had been out scavenging so we hadn't interacted much. Before that, he had been weirded out by the fact I had amputated my own fingers. In the present, he was awkward that I had stepped out on that run so that he and Maggie could have sex which amused me because Maggie had never given it a second thought. He was further awkward about my original trip to Woodbury because he found it odd just how much information I could retain when I needed to.

And then there was Sophia. He hadn't found my situation with her as amusing as Maggie but he still had taken it as a joke. It wasn't so funny now though, given how Sophia acted toward me in ways that far exceeded a prepubescent crush. I was fine dealing with her because I knew about our agreement but the others were understandably weirded out by her treating me like we were the same age. Glenn wasn't so good at hiding it.

"I don't like the plan." I said.

"What's wrong with the plan?" He asked.

"If it works, it doesn't change anything." I said and he nodded acceptingly. "It doesn't get rid of the Governor."

"Maybe it will. Maybe they'll get rid of him if he tries to make them attack again. I mean, seriously, after heads in fish tanks… How's he even still in charge?"

"Maybe they don't know. If one of his henchman got there first, all they would know is that he was attacked…"

"Could they really be in the dark like that?"

"Trust me, if they could they'd like to pretend we don't exist. They prefer not to think about the dangers."

"How could anyone be so… How do you bury your head in the sand like that?"

"Some people do, don't they? Pretend everything's okay… Refusing to accept there's anything wrong until they're up to their neck."

"Which means the plan will work. When they're exposed to real danger..."

"But the Governor will still be around."

"Well, maybe he'll be the only casualty."

"Maybe." There were certainly enough people gunning for him. "Best part of the plan; we don't have to slaughter a bunch of people."

"Best part." He agreed. "Or maybe we will… Sooner or later…"

"Remember how upbeat we were when we found this place?"

"We were. You weren't." He pointed out.

"I was just starting to warm up to it." I thought aloud and then added. "Maybe things will work out."

"They will."

"How the hell do you stay optimistic?"

"Someone has to." Glenn said. "Everyone's so grim now." He glanced over to the two women. "Even Beth."

"Beth's just tired of being stuck indoors or sitting out here. She wants to be productive. So do I… That was the plan, wasn't it?"

"We'll get there again."

I shuddered uncontrollably. I couldn't help but think about what the plan had been the day that I had ended up face down in the yard, using Theodore as a shield. A good day turned bad in an instant. "We'll see."

[][][][][][]

How did they do it? How had such a small group managed to set up in a place that had been thick with the biters? Even by a low estimate they had killed hundreds of them to clear it and the group… It meant the toll had been paid by very few of them, half a dozen maybe, which meant individually those people were the most dangerous sumbitches out here.

But still as vulnerable as anyone else to a bullet.

No chance of that as they skulked behind the upper fence. A chain fence with a junk fence behind that hid them just enough from view to make a long shot not worth it. Maybe it would scare them. I didn't want to scare them. Not with a single bullet to make them duck. Not with a whole fusillade to make them cower in the dirt. That kind of fear was fleeting. Pointless. Martinez had advocated such attacks, keeping them on edge as they tried to guess when the next pot-shot would ring out and so jumpy and tired when the actual attack did come. But those attacks put our own at risk; the last thing we needed was to lose people to the biters outside.

No little frights. Just one big shock.

There she was. Exposed to the danger. No place for her.

[][][][][][]

It had been dry for too long and the rain came with a fury. Perhaps it might have been quieter if the prison had been fully occupied but as it was, it drummed on the roof and windows to echo hollowly through the cell block to make me feel like a legion of little soldiers was thundering back and forth. With it came the lightning which served to light up the cell block the way the sun never had, giving us momentary glimpses into what the place must have been like when lit by the harsh lights overhead. Without Sophia's murals, it would have been truly awful.

The lightning wasn't a problem but the thunder pissed off the walkers. We heard them out in the courtyard within the prison and down by the fence and I had chanced a look outside to see them at the inner fence in a frenzy. It wasn't a frenzy directed at anything though because the sound was all around them and the thunder and constant drumming of the rain meant they were completely unable to focus on anything for more than a second.

Andrea came in from outside looking like she had jumped in the creek and the raincoat she wore seemed to have done little. I could only guess that Allen and Rick had taken shelter in the tower by the inner gate. Otherwise they would drown… That was either one interesting conversation they were having or one long awkward silence.

"They could come now and we wouldn't see them until they were inside." Andrea declared.

"They won't come now." I said. "Trust me."

"You think so?"

"They wouldn't want to get wet." I could imagine the Governor seeing the tactical advantage of the weather, and seething knowing he could never get them to go outside in this downpour.

"Do you think Daryl and Merle are staying out tonight?" Glenn asked.

"Rick said they wouldn't be stupid enough to ride a bike through this." Andrea had an expression for a moment that said she thought Merle could be. "One walker and…" Meaning they wouldn't be able to see anything on the bike until it was too late, not unless they drove at a crawl. "They'll have taken shelter."

"Good thing Woodbury's scared of the rain then." Glenn said. "If our lookouts are stuck indoors."

"They'll have something to worry about." Beth sounded forlorn. The imminent conflict was really starting to weigh on her, more than anyone else it seemed.

"We can survive a night without Daryl." Carol told her. "It's Merle I'm worried about."

"Merle?" I couldn't keep the surprise out of my voice.

"He will want to chance it." She said, meaning riding a bike through a storm in walker-infested country. "Daryl's going to have his hands full."

"Merle's calmed down." Certainly he wasn't quite as on edge as he had been when he had first come here.

"What's calm for Merle is on edge for us." Andrea said and then demonstrated her own unease by taking her rifle and working on it again. I was convinced she was going to clean it to destruction. "They're taking too long."

"Takes time to train an army." Glenn remarked.

"And to get over losing an eye." I thought aloud, earning myself some disapproving looks. Some silent consensus had been reached that they wouldn't discuss the Governor's habit of collecting heads or Michonne stabbing him in the eye. Or his daughter… That part I really did want to talk about because it concerned me the most, and that was probably why no one wanted to talk about it. Before we had just been a threat to the Governor's power but then Michonne had taken one of his eyes and as far as he was concerned; his family. It obviously didn't matter that his daughter had already been dead. It made me think about when I had met Milton and what he had said about the walkers. Maybe he didn't actually believe walkers could be returned to normal but only considered the possibility so as not to break his friend. Or for his friend to break him. I couldn't imagine what Milton was going through right now.

I wanted to talk about the Governor's daughter. I wanted to talk about Milton. I wanted to talk about Haley. But no one wanted to hear about the Governor's daughter, I would only seem sympathetic to the Devil's right hand and if I mentioned Haley… Well, there was absolutely no way that it wouldn't be misconstrued. My concern was that the Governor would have gone after her simply because I had known her. I could believe he was that petty. But there was no one I could talk to about it and nothing I could do anyway. Nothing any of us could do. One Woodbury citizen's welfare wasn't their concern when our entire group was facing being slaughtered by the rest of Woodbury.

We ate and then I put my finger bones on the table. This was how I showed my unease. It wasn't practical like cleaning weapons but it served to remind me that being uneasy was a good thing. When you relaxed; bad things happened.

"You know that's gross, right?" Sophia asked me.

"One day we'll have a classroom and I'll be able to teach the kids about anatomy." I said. "It's better than a drawing."

"I think kids will know enough about anatomy." She replied darkly and I had to concede she had a point. "I know a lot about a person's insides now."

"I'll tell stories about my childhood and they'll tell me I'm lucky." I mused. "Maybe I was. Compared to this…" I scooped up my bones and returned them to their pouch.

"Are you going to wear those for the rest of your life?"

"Why not?" I asked. "Maybe I'll drill a hole through them and wear them as a proper necklace."

"I'm not letting you do that."

"Yes, sir." I said and caught her mother's eye. Little moments like this… I couldn't tell anymore if it was like the old days when she had simply been my young friend or if she said something like this and meant it like a wife forbidding a husband. And Carol gave me no hint as to which it was. She just smiled knowingly. That smile was starting to frighten me now and I never had gotten over my fear she would hit me with a brick in my sleep if she perceived me as a threat to her daughter. And I still wouldn't blame her for taking the precaution.

"I'm tired of waiting." Sophia declared. "I wish it was over."

"Everyone does."

"I meant everything."

"Everyone does." I repeated. Before the threat of Woodbury, it had been the threat of walkers. Before the walkers, it had been everything else. My fear had always been being caught and ending up here; in prison. For the others it had been bills to pay, relationship woes and health problems. Life was an unending river of shit flowing your way and in some ways, walkers and Woodbury were easier to deal with. Sure, you could have solved your money problems with bullets but that always created more problems. That was what had brought a lot of the inmates here after all. But there was only one solution to walkers and that was to shoot them or beat them down. And at this point, Woodbury could only be solved with violence. It was nice and straightforward.

Apart from the waiting.

"You want to play a game?" Sophia asked.

"What game?"

"Chess?"

"So you can humiliate me again?"

She did her best to look absolutely innocent and the freckles sold it.

"Fine." Being beaten at a game I was told required intelligence by a child was pretty straightforward as well. She insisted it was because I had only learnt to play during the winter but I was certain it was because she was smarter than me.

Less than ten minutes later, she proved me right.

"You play too aggressively." She said.

"That's the point of the game."

"No it's not. You always think you need to be doing something but sometimes it's best to do nothing."

I took a moment to reply because I felt she was criticising my time at Woodbury again and that seemed a little too intelligent for her age… On the other hand… "If you're doing nothing, you're not doing anything to help yourself."

"Sometimes you can't." She said and this didn't seem related to Woodbury. Life on the other hand…

"This is why I prefer puzzles." I declared and she rolled her eyes before resetting the board.

Carl came through from the infirmary, saw his father was absent and so came and joined us, sitting beside Sophia.

"How's everyone?" Sophia asked him.

Carl grunted in response.

"That good, huh?"

"Mom's sick and tired of being cooped up." Carl said. "Like everyone else."

"It'll be over soon." She told him and then Carl made a noise as I was about to make a move. "Don't help him!"

"Bully." I said.

"Have you ever won a game?" He asked me.

"Go away." I answered nastily.

"Shouldn't you be good at this?" He leaned forward to take in the board properly. "Making strategies. Plans. Isn't that what you did to rob people?"

"On my own. I wasn't planning bank heists! I didn't have all these…" I waved at the board. "Minions."

"That's why teamwork is better." Sophia declared loftily, and took one of my castles.

"The King is useless while the Queen has all the power." Carl mused, and then gave me a look. They were ganging up on me, again.

"I hate small people." I announced and Carol was wearing that smile again.

[][][][][][]

The storm didn't go away. It seemed to circle the prison because the thunder would become more distant and quieter only to return with a fury. It seemed the weather was making up for all the rain we had lacked so far in one day and one night. At least that meant the water barrels would be full as they were our main source of water while we were effectively under siege.

The third time the storm came back I got up and I didn't have to worry about disturbing anyone with my footsteps on the metal walkway because with all the noise in general, what was a little more? Rain, thunder, the snarling of the riled up walkers all around…

There was nowhere to walk except from one end of our inhabited part of the cell block to the other; from the cells to the common area. It was virtually black inside with all the lamps off and it couldn't be any better outside. Keeping watch now was futile. By the sound of the rain, even flashlights would have been useless. I had almost never used flashlights in my work and when I did, I had used a light with a red filter which preserved my night vision and was far less likely to draw attention. Another reason why I had worked mostly in the daytime on houses vacant because the occupants at work. I hadn't liked poring over Milton's notes the way I had.

The lightning flashed outside, burning an imprint of Sophia's mural of the Greene farm onto my eyes and I wondered what the farm looked like now. There would be a great pile of burnt timber, ash and bones where the barn had once stood, alongside Dale's gutted RV. Had the walkers gotten into the farmhouse? Probably. Or maybe it was just as we had left it; the window Carl had opened to slip out having caused the rain and snow to turn that room into a mess of mould. Maybe they could go back one day and look for keepsakes.

Again the lightning flashed and this time a face was burnt onto my eyes. A startled face. An unfamiliar face. A live face.

I was aware that I screamed but I was more aware of driving my head forward to crack on the cartilage of the nose swimming in my eyes. My hands seized a sodden coat and I hammered with my forehead again, throwing my small weight forward and we fell and I tangled with another person and with my only senses being touch and smell, I lashed out with all my limbs indiscriminately; flailing wildly. My foot caught something soft and this time it wasn't lightning that lit the room but the flash of a gun. The muzzle flash was nothing compared to lightning but the shot fired in the room with its smooth concrete walls was deafening and it hurt them as much as it hurt me.

Whoever was beneath me punched me in the ribs and I replied by clawing at their face, making them cry out and try to roll away and I smashed their face into the floor before someone seized me, picked me up seemingly without effort and hurled me. I didn't get far; hitting one of the tables and bouncing back so that it must have seemed to the thrower that someone else was attacking them. I hit them and they struck the wall and another flash of lightning let me see Martinez in front of me as an arm closed around my neck.

I bit them.

Humans didn't react well to bites and that had been in the past. Now it induced panic and they released me and I was going to throw myself forward when another gun fired, then another, and another. I hit the ground and clapped my hands to my ears and closed my eyes as the assault on my senses was total. I could feel through the floor however that the attackers were retreating. Fast.

The silence that followed was worse. My skull still reverberated from the gunfire and then a flash pierced my shut eyelids; one of the prison flashbangs. If my eyes had been open… Even so, it was brutal.

I remained where I was, letting it flow over me. My heart was pounding in my ears and the adrenaline was wearing off so that I could feel the blows I had taken to the chest. Someone pulled me up and a light was shone in my face. I was dimly aware of someone recognising me; someone who shouted loud because their hearing was as muted as my own. The lightning flashed and I saw Hershel and Maggie in front of me. I saw Tyreese on the ground over someone. I saw Andrea with her face sliced open. I saw this only for a moment and then I had the presence of mind to stumble to a table I knew had a dynamo lamp and I spun it up.

The wall of the cell block was pitted with bullet strikes and I didn't want to imagine what it looked like at the other end. There was a lot of movement, and noise that I couldn't make out. I stuck a finger in my ear and it came away wet. The guns or the flashbang or both had made it bleed. It wasn't the only place I was bleeding; I was scratched on my arms and my right leg stung. I felt it and there was a little sliver of something sticking in my thigh.

There was a man on the floor and I reached for his neck to find his pulse. There wasn't one. He was dead. I had killed him when I had smashed his face into the floor. Just like that. Dead.

My hearing started to come back and outside I heard gunfire amidst the rain and the utter fury of the walkers. It sounded like there were millions of them out there. I stumbled toward the door to the outside and my left ear popped instead, making my world lurch sharply to the right and keep spinning so that I fell and I couldn't rise again as it kept spinning, forcing me to shut my eyes as a wave of dizziness and nausea flooded over me. My stomach heaved and then the pressure in my head abruptly fixed itself and I yelped out at the sharp pop I felt in my skull. I pulled myself into a sitting position and tried to will myself up on my feet again but I was stuck as I was given new appreciation for the senses of hearing and sight and the weapons that could assault them.

I became aware that Sasha was wounded. So was Oscar. And Andrea's face. My leg. I pushed back into the cell block, seeing Beth applying pressure to Oscar's side while Hershel was treating Sasha. Andrea had clapped a cloth of some kind to her face which was bleeding heavily. There was a lot of blood. But no one was dead. That was a small miracle.

And then I saw what was missing from the picture and stepped over Hershel and Sasha into the first cell in the block where only a pair of prostrate legs were visible.

(3883)

Author's Notes;

Short chapter. Dramatic chapter.

Short POV from the Governor's perspective. I wrote it and then considered removing it. Decided to leave it in because I think a brief glimpse into his insane but devious mind works rather well.

I'll try to get the next chapter out quick.