(As Yet Untitled)

by DomWeasel

Watching the series again back in late 2022, I was reminded how much Sophia's arc in the TV show depressed me. Thought about it for several months and then rewrote season 2 with an original character to have some fun and take a break from another project, and to create a timeline where Sophia may or may not live as long as her comic counterpart. I don't know, I haven't finished yet

20. Survivors

For a long time, I had existed by myself. Before that I had run with a few people but never with groups. Then I had been stuck with a dozen people in a small RV before spending what felt like years with them during a cold and dark season where living had meant surviving to see the next sunrise. Then we had come to a prison where our numbers rarely reached twenty.

Now there were twenty-six people in the prison; eighteen adults, three teenagers, four children and a baby. I always thought of myself as a teenager while others thought of Glenn and Maggie as 'kids' rather than adults. And Aleksandra confused them with her youthful features and grim expressions. She could smile like a schoolgirl and then scowl fiercer than Merle.

I had to keep explaining to people that I did not speak the language, and my attempts to try amused the Russian woman greatly, but she appreciated my efforts to communicate with what tiny amount of her language I knew and it was fortunately quite easy for her to convey her thoughts and for her to receive instructions which she would follow without complaint. Rick, Andrea, Daryl and even a grudging Michonne admitted she was a valuable addition to the group for her willingness to work and her stoic and methodical attitude to walkers. They compared her to me for her habit of making sure that bodies were truly staying down for good by stabbing them again on the ground for good measure.

Meanwhile, I thought Rick had come to appreciate the grim simplicity of dealing with walkers and the likewise easy responses to dealing with hostile humans. Woodbury was not forgotten and more than once they discussed going to spy on the town but decided against it as it would violate the truce and could stir up a whole mess of trouble we did not need if we were caught. Better to stay on our side of the river and hope for the best. And in the meantime, Rick had to deal with Amanda and John.

Aleksandra would grab a spade, hammer or scythe and get to work without a word when asked. Those two however would complain that they were not 'labourers' and would ceaselessly grumble; everything was a discomfort to them. The obvious question was how two such people had managed to survive this long but the only answer was that the end of the world was not fair when it came to who lived and who died. Andrea often looked murderous listening to them whine that it was too cold or too windy to be outdoors. Hershel too though he did his best not to show it. But the old man had lost friends and family who relished hard work and so hearing two people complaining how much they hated it was a constant reminder for him.

Aleksandra had obviously despised them too and they found her sudden willingness to help out and to communicate with us to be a hard kick in the crotch for them. Ryan explained that she had always feigned total lack of understanding whenever they had asked her anything and at first, I had found this petty; before I had got to know the Florida couple and the Russian woman. Now I thought her trolling was the only way she had not killed them. I had thought her a cold, hostile person during our first encounter but despite the outward appearance, she was really quite friendly. And her eyes were hazel; not grey.

The main issue with Amanda and John was their attitude toward non-whites. This had become readily apparent when learning the story of how we had come to the prison and they had assumed that along with Oscar that Tyreese had also been an inmate. This misconception had been brushed aside with a sickening politeness and practiced ease by the adults but was neither forgiven nor forgotten. The couple were not overtly racist the way that Merle was which made their infractions worse in many ways; Merle did not pretend not to have his prejudices. He still referred to Michonne as the Nubian Queen and I had heard him call Tyreese 'Mandingo' which I had only a vague understanding of. It was nothing like the expletive and slur-ridden rant I had heard him direct at Theodore's grave but it was still there. Interestingly, Merle did not like Amanda and John. Merle might have been a racist asshole but he was a pragmatic racist asshole and a hard worker. Merle worked with non-white people because he had to and he worked hard despite his disability. He had no patience whatsoever for Amanda and John's griping about 'labouring' when Merle was a right-handed man forced to work with his left hand.

I believed the term that described their attitude was 'micro-aggressions'. Little acts and words that betrayed a deeper meaning. They did not trust a former convict like Oscar, they were shocked that Tyreese was not also a criminal and were surprised that Sasha had been a firefighter. In response and in a shocking moment of candour, Michonne revealed she had been a lawyer and the not-so-subtle implication was that she had a higher status than they had ever had. It was sad that anger provoked Michonne to share with the group rather than just Andrea who had diplomatically eased the tense moment by saying she had also been a lawyer.

Then there was Glenn who was dating a beautiful white girl, and me who spent a lot of time with the other beautiful white girl. I suspected that their inability to discern my racial heritage aggravated them greatly because there was no convenient label for me to fit their prejudices. I remembered what I had told Theodore about being too white for the blacks and too black for the whites and not brown enough to satisfy anyone else either. Aleksandra had made a clumsy inquiry, wondering if my knowledge of Russian was because of a Cuban connection. The language barrier had made the conversation really quite fun; I had learned about the history of Russia and Cuba from someone whose command of English was as limited as my grasp of Russian. And the loud public lesson about Communism had been a pointed attack by the Russian woman against the Florida couple; a reminder that their issues were not just against non-whites but against others who did not fit their ideal of America.

Ryan was a solid man but perpetually worried about his daughters, and I guessed was unable to stop grieving for his wife. He would not elaborate on her fate, not that he needed to, and he would frequently zone out while obviously thinking about her. I had watched Allen rage in his grief for Donna and Ben. I had seen Andrea lurch between despair and fury over Amy. Now I would see Ryan just… Stop. I felt that he was a hollow man now, unable to pull himself out of his grief to bring much enthusiasm to anything. There was no reason that could not change, especially now he was enjoying the comforts of our cell block; a safe bed and regular hot meals. Safety for his daughters. He could literally wake up fine one day. Over it. But one day could be a week from now, or six months.

Austin had alarmed Beth when she had first seen him and she still stuck close to me and when he was around would act like the two of us were quite a bit more than just friends. It had only taken me a day to fully grasp why. Haley had talked about guys and people in general being afraid of being alone now and Austin it seemed was in the camp of teenage boys proposing to girls they do their bit for the survival of the species. Beth described the look he had given her when he had first seen her as 'hungry' and the description did not do it justice if Beth wanted me to pretend that we were intimate to keep his interest off her. Hershel had two remarkably beautiful daughters so I could not blame Austin for looking at them, and I had certainly admired Maggie more than once, but Austin looked at Andrea and Lori too. Aleksandra, Michonne and Sasha as well when his parents could not see him. He did not look at Carol but that seemed to be because of his father's opinion that she was a lesbian. …Because she had very short hair… Morons.

He made me think very hard about myself. Austin was highly sexed and I… Was not. I had given little thought to sex in my youth because I had been focused on other priorities like a full stomach and not giving into the temptation, the escape, of drugs. This was not typical of street kids; often enough they had sex much younger than normal… For one reason or another. But those reasons had never found me and coming into this life as a 'survivor' I had looked appreciatively at Beth and Maggie but never beyond a few intrusive thoughts and the occasional dream. Haley had opened a door, and I had closed it swiftly only for her to open it again during our brief meeting between Milton and Rick. When the thought entered my head before I could stop it, I knew that if I really had been a refugee at Woodbury then things would have progressed between me and Haley to a point where… Well, it would have been pleasant. We could have been like Glenn and Maggie.

But I did not yearn for it. Occasionally I found myself daydreaming about Haley kissing me but I was not raring for another experience. I wondered if that was normal and there was no one I could ask, especially as one of my concerns was that my first kiss had been with Sophia. Haley and Sophia were vastly different experiences but the connection was there, and I might be contentedly remembering Haley only to have the moment with Sophia pop in there to make me feel unclean. Who could I tell about that? If it was uncomfortable for me to describe then it would be far worse for them to hear. I did not believe Sophia had anything to do with my lack of desire though. It just seemed to be part of me. Perhaps if I had someone and spent as much time with them as Glenn and Maggie spent time with each other, well then I would be pretty hopped up. That was what Amanda and John complained about; those two 'carrying on'. Glenn still had not proposed but perhaps he would just to make them shut up about them 'sinning'.

After a day spent planting winter crops in the planters kept up in the Yard, there were a great many now, I sat with Beth and brought up the topic to her. The wooden bench had come from Hannahs Mill and was more comfortable than the bleachers even if the view of the Field at this time of year was not picturesque. I thought she was taking the 'pretend couple' thing too far with the way she was leaning against me. Or maybe it was just cold outside and she was staying warm and I was thinking too much.

"I don't want to be alone." She said. "But I don't want to be with just anybody."

"You're waiting for Prince Charming to show up at the gates?"

"You never know." She smiled to herself. "There's more people out there. You never know…"

"But are you… Is it a big deal to you?"

"What are you asking?" She looked at me and the grey day made her eyes startlingly blue.

"You say one word, and Austin'll be all over you. Haley was flirty. …Really flirty… But she wasn't all over me and hated guys who wanted to be all over her. So where are you?"

"I'm like you." She said. "I want it, but I can live without."

"'It'?"

She blushed, but rolled her eyes.

"I think I'm supposed to want 'it'." I confessed and I did mean sex. "And it's weird I don't."

"You've kissed one girl. Once." Beth said, mercifully not including Sophia. "You need to do that a few more times before anything else."

"Is that how it works?"

"You have to walk before you can run."

"Not just dive in at the deep end?"

"You'd just drown."

The metaphors were a little confused now, enough to make me laugh at whatever ridiculous situation would unfold for me. I remembered Haley asking me if I wanted to fuck her and that arrow soaring off to break a window… Now there was a metaphor.

"Why are you asking, anyway?"

"Just wondering if I'm a real boy." I admitted. "Haley liked me because I wasn't like the Woodbury boys, and I'm not like Austin… I'm not even like Carl."

"Who do you think Carl will be like?"

I considered the tentative moments shared by Lori and Rick and thought that if Carl took after his reticent father, he was unlikely to continue the family line. But I couldn't imagine Carl being a skirt-chaser. But he did not seem to have started puberty yet and who knew what he would be like when the hormones kicked in. He could be a stubborn kid so imagining him as a stubborn teenager… I almost forget that I was a teenager. So was Beth. "Girls like brooding stoic types, don't they?"

"Depends how handsome they are. If you're handsome; you brood. If you're not; you're kinda creepy."

"Good to know."

"Sophia thinks you brood."

"Don't go there." I warned.

"She broods too. Sometimes I think she's copying you."

"Carl's not there, but I think she's hit puberty. She's gonna be tall as you soon."

"I know. It's depressing. She just shot up this year… It's her birthday soon, ain't it?"

"Soon."

"I don't think she wants to celebrate it. No one does."

"We don't do birthdays… When did you turn seventeen?"

"Does it matter?"

"You tell me." I said.

"I don't think it matters. Not this year. Maybe next year."

"Because you'll be eighteen?"

"No. Because if I reach my eighteenth birthday, it means we might actually all survive this." She said.

"That's grim, Miss Greene."

"Did you think we were going to survive this time last year?"

"This time last year I was giving you your first poker lesson. I thought I was keeping you from thinking like that."

"You're not that good." She smiled. "I hope we have Christmas. We didn't do Thanksgiving."

"I think people making speeches about what they're thankful for would be too… Weird."

"It could have been positive."

"For some." I considered. "Come on, I'm freezing."

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

[Sophia]

The group called her Aleksandra or 'Russian Sasha'. Sasha had warned that if anyone consequently referred to her as 'Black Sasha' they would drink their meals through a straw. I believed her. So had Tyreese who had nodded emphatically behind her when she made this declaration. Mom liked Russian Sasha. Russian Sasha knew how to use a pistol but not a rifle, and she had asked mom to show her. I did not know why she had picked mom but I knew it pleased her to have been asked over Rick, Andrea or Sasha. It had been interesting to see mom teach her when the limit of Aleksandra's English had been pretty much 'Yes', 'No' and 'Excuse?' Mr Grimes wanted to take some people out at some point for rifle training and mom wanted some practice while Russian Sasha wanted to actually fire a rifle rather than simply go through the motions.

Russian Sasha also liked my artwork. So did Mika. As our section of cell block was feeling very crowded, we had looked into expanding into the cells of Cell Block D that also had windows and first we needed to clean it up, and then make it look inviting. That meant more art. Something to transform the grey walls. Mika had wanted to help and Aleksandra had taken a small section for herself, and painted a beautiful cityscape that included a church or cathedral with those spires you saw on every old building that was meant to be Russian. These were green; like the Statue of Liberty.

"Krasnodar." Aleksandra declared and I did not know what this meant. But she looked sad.

Mika used chalk like me and she drew two alligators. One was eerily realistic, and the other wanted to be your best buddy. She was only ten years old. She explained it though. "'Gators are everywhere in Florida. Pictures, paintings, stuffed… Everyone can draw a 'gator. Even Lizzie."

Lizzie was no artist. Lizzie was… Morbid. During her second night at the prison she had asked Bas about his fingers, or lack of, and she had nodded as he had said they had been bitten off and then lit up when he said he had cut off what remained. "That's so cool!"

I had been shocked, but I had been there. Bas was not fazed at all and I did not know if that was because things that shocked other people didn't bother him, or because of his odd attitude lately. His only reaction had been to massage the empty air where his fingers had been but he did that whenever his missing digits were mentioned. "It didn't feel cool." He had said and I realised he had deliberately not been looking at me.

Lizzie was the only person who actually enjoyed cleaning bloodstains and for all the wrong reasons. I did not know how to ask her what the fascination was but Mika seemed to guess what I was thinking. "She's never had a problem with it." She had said, and did not need to explain what 'it' was when 'it' was splattered on the floors and walls and walking around outside the fences.

"Never?"

"No. Some people ain't. Why is that?" She had asked.

I thought about it and remembered how scared I had once been by walkers while other people had not been more bothered by them than you would be a dangerous wild animal. Some people were terrified by rats or spiders but untroubled by walkers. Some people could not handle blood but people like Hershel, Dr S or mom; they could have red up to their elbows. "I don't know." I finally answered. "What about you?"

Mika pulled a face. "It's icky." She said and I liked this.

Aleksandra claimed a space in Cell Block D, as did Merle. Daryl still refused to sleep in a cell and so he slept on the catwalk in the new Cell Block. There was only one vacant cell left in our little section of C which was probably being left for Michonne who still slept outside in the bus. I had heard Andrea trying to get her indoors but it was a lost cause. People would want their own space so more people would move when the new block was more comfortable. Beth would get a room separate from her father. Carl too would want to get away from his dad. I did not want to get away from my mom even if I thought she would let me.

I was not bothered by her overprotectiveness. I needed it. Maybe I could live in the cell next door to hers at some point but not now.

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

Bas had brought back a whole bunch of archery equipment on their last run and set up a booth or range or whatever it was called indoors. He had covered a whole wall with targets; squares of packed straw that fitted neatly together. Mr Grimes had agreed with it because it was safer than outside and the Commissary had been pretty much destroyed so clearing it out for archery was a good use of the space.

And archery was fun.

"Your girlfriend taught you this?" I could not resist asking, just because of the way it made him squirm. And the question really made him squirm. Really.

"She was good." He said. "Not as good as she liked to brag but…"

"This is what you did at Woodbury?"

"Hours sitting on their wall and sometimes she would shoot a walker with an arrow. Rest of the time, practicing with the bow. Then after dark I would creep around."

"You spent every day with her?"

"That was what the man ordered." He said carefully and it almost amused me the way he avoided saying the name.

"Governor's orders."

"Yes."

"I see him sometimes." I said, making Bas lower his bow. "When Mr Grimes tilts his head and his eye gets shadowed… And John, he sounds like him sometimes."

"Sometimes…" He nodded and raised the bow again as a distraction. "It's weird… You remember him with the one eye but I remember him with two. I had conversations with him…"

"I just had the one." I said and raised my own bow. He said we were using beginner bows but it felt like it had more force in it than the submachinegun. I knew that was only because the gun controlled that force while my arm was the only thing in control now. "He was telling me I wasn't safe with my own mother." I let the arrow fly and the room did not feel big enough as it hit the target hard, and loud. "I dream about him sometimes. When he took me. When I escaped… Do you dream about him?" I asked him because I had to know.

"I always have the same dream." He stared at his bow. "When you got shot. I see that. And then after…" He held his bow with his two fingers, seemingly amazed he could grip it at all. "He had this look on his face. This real look of satisfaction seeing you dead and your mom holding you… It made him happy. He lost his daughter and he thought your mom had lost hers. It made him happy."

"You felt sorry for him?"

He looked up at me sharply. "No, I did not!"

"But you understood him."

He sighed. "If you're about to tell me you forgive him, I'm gonna strangle you with this bowstring. No one's that nice! Not even you!"

"I pity him." I admitted, realising I was enjoying the look of disgust on his face as he seemingly viewed me as a saint. "Mr Grimes could have ended up like him. Or my mom. I think about that. If I died… If Daryl hadn't found us, or if the Governor had killed me; what would happen to her? What would she become?"

Bas had obviously considered it too because he looked away and put two arrows into the wall before he had constructed his reply. "I think if your mom was alone, whoever got in her way would have a very bad day."

He was trying to be polite and tactful but I knew exactly what he meant. "She's happy I'm here."

"Archery?" He asked. "It'll be useful when the bullets run out."

"She wants me to fight."

"To defend yourself?" He asked, and I could not tell if he was sad or mocking. "With bows and guns and knives and your bare hands?"

"She was horrified I killed a man. Now I think she's glad. If I did it once…"

"Maybe she's right…" He said, and he looked disappointed to say it. "If you have to… To defend yourself… Or someone else. That's why you killed Andrew. That's why I killed whoever… Whoever he was. Because I had to. And that's why they taught you to shoot, so you could defend yourself from walkers. If you have to defend yourself against walkers trying to kill you, then people trying to kill you-"

"It's not the same!" I cut him off. "I was terrified the first time I had to shoot a walker but I got over it. I'm not over Andrew!"

"Do you think you're supposed to be? You think anyone out there is getting over all the people they've killed?" He asked. "Sophia… There's nothing I hate more than saying we do what we have to, to survive, because it makes me sound like Shane and he reckoned the best thing for everyone's survival was to forget about you. But the world is full of walkers so we do have to kill them, and there are people out there who will kill us if we don't kill them first. That doesn't mean we go out there looking for them and kill them first. But if they come for us…" He shuddered, hating every word he was speaking. "That's the way it was before. For me anyway… That's why I already knew what it was like to be stabbed. How broken bones feel. I told you, I would run away if I could but sometimes I had to fight and sometimes… Sometimes I really had to hurt people. And sometimes I won. Sometimes I lost. But I knew how to fight. I knew what to do to survive."

"What is the difference? Between being… Strong? And… Cold?" I could not find the right words.

"That's up to you. Shane didn't give a shit about killing Otis, he wrote us off, he snapped Randall's neck, and Allen; he wanted to hurt people. And whatever the fuck is up with Michonne…"

"Michonne?"

"She wanted to kill the Governor so badly; she was ready to kill me for getting in the way. And she nearly took Haley's head off and she hasn't given it a thought. Or at least any she wants to share with me. We're just incidental to whatever she went through before. Do you want to be like her? I don't. But beating yourself up about things won't help you and… Fuck, why do you ask me this stuff? I barely know more than you do!"

"It means something coming from you." I said, which made him squirm. "If I ask the adults… You or Beth… You know what it's like to be me. You're not trying to remember stuff from twenty years ago. You really know what it's like to be my age."

"I really don't." Bas sighed. "My life wasn't like yours."

"You don't think my life now is anything like your life was?" I asked him, and I had him. He was so used to thinking about himself on the streets and me with a family home, fucked up as it had been, that he now had trouble realising that the way I lived now was not that different from his experiences. "What about how my life was before this?"

"Do you want to talk about that?"

"No." I said quickly. Bringing up the Governor was enough for today. "But we're not so different."

He looked at me. Suspicious. It made me blush as I realised he thought I was trying to make us sound like soulmates.

"I didn't mean it like that!"

"I don't know what any of you women mean anymore. You're all nuts."

I knew what was bothering him. "Don't you like Beth snuggling up to you?"

He glared at me. "Don't go there."

"You look very cute."

"You're way too much of a teenager now." He accused.

"I am a teenager now." I said. "I'm fourteen in three days."

"You are?"

"I told mom I don't want it to be a big deal."

"Is it?"

"It's fourteen. What's important about that?"

"You were still twelve when I met you."

I knew what he meant. "Mom was acting like my last birthday might be my last birthday."

"Doesn't feel that way now."

I looked around. We had made an archery range in a spare room in a secure building in a secure area. Last year our safety barely extended beyond the room we were sat in. "Do I look different?"

"You're like nine feet taller than you were a year ago."

"Shut up!"

"I mean it." Bas said and took a step toward me. "A year ago I could pick you up and carry you. Now you could pick me up." We did measure up more closely now.

"Carl hates it." I admitted. "He thinks Judith's growing faster than him." Bas was right though; it was hard to believe that it was just one year since I had clung to him as he carried me through the woods. It felt longer. Much longer. "Do you ever feel… Do you look at yourself and wonder who you're looking at?"

"…I don't remember the last time I looked at myself."

I could not resist. "That explains a lot."

He gave me a startled look. "Way too much of a teenager." He said, and then self-consciously felt the bristles on his cheeks.

I chose to be serious. "The cells don't have mirrors and we never carried any. I hadn't seen myself in so long…" I tried to think of the right way to describe it but the words would not come. "I look in the mirror and it's like it's lying to me." He raised an eyebrow because I sounded so melodramatic; so teenage. "I mean it! It's been so long… It's not me! It's some other girl! I don't know her…"

Bas put his right palm flat on my head. "You're taller." He said. "You've lost some of the puppy fat on your cheeks. You don't look like a little girl anymore." He patted my head deliberately.

"What do I look like?"

"An awkward teenager." He said pointedly. "Congratulations." He declared with a flourish of his bow. "And maybe in a few months Carl will be an awkward teenager too and people will miss when you were cute kids instead of annoying teens."

He was trying to lighten my mood and it was working just because he was annoying me. And I had a response. I pulled the loose short tail of my hair around over my shoulder. "This bothers me."

"What?"

"I used to be strawberry blonde. Now I'm… Ginger."

Bas actually did a double take and I mutely flapped my hair at him. "I used to think of you as blonde." He said. "Not Beth blonde but… Still blonde. You are pretty… Red now…"

"Mom said auburn. But I think it's ginger."

He paused for a moment, thinking. "What colour was your mom's hair?" He had not wanted to offend.

"Brown. …I think." I could not be more precise than that. Remembering my mother before she had gone grey was hard given that I did not want to remember my childhood. The question never far from my mind though was if my mom had gone grey naturally, or through stress. And it was concern about her as well as vanity. "Maybe it'll keep changing colour."

"Maybe we can get some motor oil and give you black hair."

"Don't make fun of me."

"If you can make fun of me, I can make fun of you."

"I'm not that tall, so you're just a bully. Bullying a little girl."

"You're all nuts." He declared and reached for an arrow. "All you women. Nuts." He nocked the arrow and then aimed and released it in one fluid motion. "Nuts."

"Like Russian Sasha?"

"I don't know even want to begin with what's up with her."

"She's pretty." I said.

"What? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing." I said innocently. "She's pretty."

"Are you planning on winding me up about every girl I talk to?"

"I like how high your voice gets." I said and he flushed self-consciously. "She doesn't like Austin. Beth doesn't like Austin. That makes you the… The… The eligible bachelor. Every other guy's ten or twenty years older than them." I said and I could tell he had been trying not to think about that. "You and Beth are just friends…" I let it hang to see his reaction.

"Austin's…" He tried to think of a polite way of putting it. A child-friendly way of putting it.

"Horny?" I offered and pulled what I hoped was an apologetic expression.

He still cringed though. "…Yes. He's horny."

"And Beth doesn't want his attention so she has you pretending you have a thing going on, and everyone's wondering what the hell's going on with you two and Aleksandra and Mika know you're just pretending."

"Mika?!"

"She's smart. She says if it was real, you'd be doing 'kissy stuff'."

"I think I'm having a nightmare." Bas declared.

"Do you want to talk about the dark stuff?"

"I'm starting to. Talking about this other stuff with you is just… Weird. And probably inappropriate and something I'll get an earful from the adults for."

"Why?"

He shot another arrow before responding. "You know, Andrea said I'll have to marry you one day." He declared and I did not know what to say. "Did anyone ever say anything to you?"

He meant about me kissing him. "People don't really talk to me."

"Guess not." He mused. "Andrea let me know she and I didn't have a problem, and then she said I'd have to marry you. Beth and Maggie found it funny. Glenn too. And Daryl… I don't know about Daryl… Dale, he wasn't judgemental. I think he was sympathetic… To both of us. But your mom… I don't know. Sometimes I'm scared of her."

"You're scared of her?"

"I see her looking at me… When I told her you kissed me, she apologised to me. To me! And ever since I've just been confused she lets you be around me like this. Like right now. Just me and you. Alone…" He looked at the door with genuine fear and then at me with even more fear.

"If it helps, I don't feel like the same girl who kissed you."

"No, you're the awkward teenager that girl grew into who likes to tease me about women!"
I nodded. "Point taken. But why are you scared of my mother?"

"Because it feels like the right thing for her to do was to tell you to stay from me, and me to stay the hell away from you. But she doesn't. She lets us do things like this. She trusts me. …She trusts you."

"Why wouldn't she trust me?"

"I don't know; isn't that normal? Lori doesn't trust Carl."

"He's a boy." I said.

"That's not fair."

"I promised mom I wouldn't kiss you again. I kept my word. She trusts me." I didn't know why he had trouble grasping this. "And she trusts you because the first thing you did was snitch on me." I enjoyed putting it this way. It made him squirm. "Why don't you trust people?" I asked him. "You told me you don't trust anyone. Did you really mean that?"

"People I grew up with… Their word didn't mean much at all. And once they started using, it meant even less."

"You don't trust me?"

He put the bow down and looked at me and I remembered how he had used to kneel so we could be at eye level and that was not necessary anymore. "You kissed me." He said. "And you knew it was wrong, and you did it anyway because you wanted to. It's the only selfish thing I've ever seen you do and it means I know you're just like anyone else so that means I can trust you."

This was not where I had expected him to end when he had started. "What?! If I was selfless you couldn't trust me, but I'm not, so you can?"

"It makes sense in my head." He admitted.

"Make it make sense in mine."

"People have drives. Your mom wants to protect you. Andrea and Rick want to protect everyone. Merle wants to protect Daryl, and annoy everyone he can. Hershel wants to see a world worth living in again. Everyone has something and I know how they work. I trust them to do certain things."

"That's not what trust means!"

"As good as for me."

"You're insane." I said.

"Feels like it." He sighed.

"You've been weird." I said. "Ever since Woodbury."

"What's weird?"

"Twitchy. Like you can't stay in one place too long. You always used to be really patient."

"I am patient."

"Not here." I said. "You make me nervous."

"Ain't you already nervous? I know you have trouble sleeping." He indicated his eyes which were shadowed. I knew from my look in the mirror that mine were too.

"I was abducted."

"And I had to deal with you being abducted. And I'm not over it yet. Ain't gonna be for a while. And if I ain't, you ain't."

"If you say you need time-"

"I know, it's stupid!" He hissed, suddenly flaring into anger which made me start. "But that's how it is." He had cooled off immediately. "And maybe with some more people now, I'll feel more comfortable. More secure. Maybe…"

I could tell where his head was at. "John can shoot…" I said charitably.

"Not a comfort." Bas replied and picked his bow up. He considered his grip. "Sooner or later I'm gonna have to try one of the powerful bows to see if there's any point to this." He meant that he had only two fingers to hold the bow.

"Is it a problem?"

"I don't know… And I don't want to find out the hard way."

"Does it ever bother you?"

"My fingers? I saw Glenn climb a water tower. I wouldn't want to do that now. And climbing in general ain't as easy as it was. But everything else? I guess I just get on with it."

"Like Oscar?"

"Oscar can get better."

They had found a cane for Oscar which he said made him look like his grandpa but he preferred it to the crutches. He had gone from two crutches, to one and then to the walking stick and Dr S was confident that he could forget the cane one day and all he would have to show for his wound would be a slight limp and an ache when it was cold. But Bas couldn't regrow two fingers. "Could be worse." I said.

"I could be Merle? Merle can't ride a bike no more. I know he hates that. And if I had one hand, I couldn't pick locks. Then what would I do?"

"Use the crowbar."

"Funny." He said. "Was it your idea to be here? Or your mother's?"

"Mine. I don't have any chores and it's something to do."

"No one had any chores." He said which was why he was twitchy. Besides the horrible tasks of sanitation and walker disposal, there was no more work to do in the Field or the Yard. I had scoured every leaf from the grass, the composters were full, the planters were all set and we could gather an ocean of water with all the collectors we had set up. Unless they came up with something else to build, there was not much to do right now besides collecting firewood and decorating the cell block some more.

"This is fun." I said.

"Archery?" He inquired dryly. "Or torturing me?"

"Hanging out." I answered to see him give me another suspicious look. "I'll tell Carl about it later, and he'll be here tomorrow. Then you won't be alone with scary me."

"Just alone with two moody teenagers…"

"Maybe you should take a look in the mirror." I suggested, and he nodded meekly.

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

I talked about archery to Carl at dinner and it did intrigue him. He did not get many opportunities to use his gun anymore after all and he was not invited to pike walkers at the fences so he did not have the chance to be warlike. He was bored. I knew his mom had not been keen on him learning how to shoot, or carrying a gun but she was happy for him to learn archery if he wanted.

"Just maybe have an adult in the room." She said and I giggled at Bas' expression. "Daryl, maybe?"

"Bow ain't a crossbow." Daryl grunted.

"I think Bas has it covered." Mr Grimes said. "Unless anyone else has had archery lessons?"

"All four of them." Bas murmured.

"Can we talk about something?" John spoke up loud suddenly and his tone made Mr Grimes close his eyes in weary anticipation.

"And what's that?" He asked.

"I don't like seeing those kids going around armed." John declared, meaning me and Carl.

"You got a problem with my boy exercising his 2nd Amendment Right?" Mr Grimes asked.

It momentarily confused the man because he had one of those 'cold dead hands' bumper stickers and if Mr Grimes had asked him to give up his gun; it would have been ugly. John rallied though. "It ain't necessary. Not inside." He was clearly arguing just to argue.

"It was necessary when we came here." Sasha was the one who spoke and that annoyed John, and his wife. "We fought our way inside and then we were in serious trouble until Carl showed up with his gun."

"Little man got us out of there." Tyreese added.

"Lay down cover fire and everything." Bas said.

"He'd be dead if I didn't have a gun." I said, looking at Bas who put a hand to his side seemingly without realising it. "So would I."

"If you want my daughter's gun, you'll have to take mine first." Mom declared and she was wearing that smile of hers. John did not yet recognise it as a warning sign. He did however seem to realise for the first time that he was drastically outnumbered and had no chance of winning this foolish argument he had started.

"Just thinking about people's safety is all." He grumbled, turning back to his food. "My safety. Yours. Now you want them playing with more weapons…"

I saw Merle give him a look that reminded me of how he had been back at the camp outside Atlanta. It was a good thing John had his back turned, otherwise he would have been put off his food. Daryl saw it and grunted, and then Merle grunted back. It seemed to be a meaningful conversation for them.

"There I am not liking guns." Bas remarked. "And I'm the new archery instructor."

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

Birthdays were arbitrary. When you were too young to know what was happening, it was for your parents to celebrate. Other people's parents anyway. When you got older maybe other people could appreciate it. For me, birthdays had always been that day of the year when my dad complained that my mom was spoiling me and wasting money and time. The best birthdays I had ever had had been one year he had been off somewhere with his buddies and another year when we had not been at home. We had been at a shelter. I had got a cupcake with a candle in it.

Mom respected my wish not to make a big deal about it. She said 'Happy Birthday' to me when we woke up and no one else knew. The compromise however was that she would not make a big deal about my birthday, and I would not make a fuss about what else was planned for today.

Carl was disgusted his mom would not let him leave while mine insisted I go. Andrea wanted a day of rifle practice and so off we went, out of the prison, to find some walkers to shoot. We could not waste ammunition shooting bottles or cans.

Mr Grimes had wanted to lead the training but he had gone out many times while Andrea had not. It was her turn. Sasha wanted to brush up her skills, Aleksandra wanted to learn, and mom wanted me to practice. Michonne wanted 'air' and Tyreese wanted to see the outside again. I thought he was looking bewildered as he realised he was surrounded only by women and wondering how that had happened. It made sense to me when you considered that before, Maggie had been the only woman going out. Things were just balancing out.

I realised it was the first time I had voluntarily left the prison since we had found it. My cell, the common area in the cell block, the Yard and the Field had been my life for over eight months. I understood why Bas resented feeling penned up but I had never felt the same way. The way we had spent last winter meant all the space in the prison would never feel too small. Maybe on my next birthday I would resent it.

The thing that struck me immediately, even in winter, was how overgrown everything was. We had spent so much time travelling backroads across the countryside last year and now a year later I could see how the trees were overhanging the roads, untrimmed, and how the grass was waist high and spilling onto a road that was a mulch of both wet and dry leaves. When we entered a built-up area, what I saw was that everything was dirty. It was an odd thought to have. But until I saw a house with a broken window and a splintered door and then a car wreck; it looked like everyone had just vanished one day to leave everything abandoned and neglected. That was scarier than seeing things that were in ruins.

We stopped abruptly it seemed and then I saw it was because they had found what they were looking for. We had found the prison because we had been running from the dead. Now we had been looking for the dead, and we had found them.

Getting out of the truck took effort. It had not felt so different leaving the prison because I had still been inside, but now I was outside. Out in the open. There were no gates or doors to close to secure myself a safe area. There was just a road and a whole lot of open space. Except for the walkers.

"Not the same as wine bottles." Andrea remarked, and then she raised Dale's rifle and fired. It sounded unnaturally loud and then I remembered the last time I had heard gunfire. Of course it would sound loud to me. I did not know how I was not on the ground cowering in fear. Andrea fired again, making both shots count. There were maybe two dozen walkers and the two Andrea were dropped were swallowed by the crowd.

Tyreese and Michonne stood to one side with hammer and sword respectively and Sasha also took a couple of shots and then I heard a dull click. Aleksandra had raised her own rifle to no effect.

"Safety catch." Mom pointed it out to her and Russian Sasha said something I was sure only Bas could translate before saying something anyone could tell meant 'Thank you'. Her first round took a walker through the throat, provoking another Russian curse, and then her second shot found its mark. I held my submachinegun and thought how weird it was to have a submachinegun that was 'mine'. Was it more or less weird than the fact that my mom had me out here in a place of danger because she wanted to know if I still had it in me to shoot at walkers?

But they were walkers. No lips, sunken eyes, skin that was somehow green, grey and brown at the same time. Monsters. Monsters that had once filled me with absolute all-consuming terror had become… Something to deal with. Something I could deal with. But it still felt very strange to have this weapon and to raise it and to shoot.

Four women and one girl made short work of a pack of two dozen though I only dropped three. Andrea and Sasha took the lion's share while Aleksandra was getting the measure of a rifle. No one seemed able to figure her out and I wondered if she had known how to shoot before all of this. My suspicion was that she had definitely known how to fight. Andrea tried to give her some pointers and then asked if she understand a word she was saying which made Aleksandra smile. My other suspicion was that she understood a lot more English than she would speak. Maybe she did not speak the language but she knew what was going on around her when people were speaking. Certainly, more than anyone of us would have understood if we were surrounded by Russians.

"Are you sure this ain't wasting ammo?" Tyreese asked and then the big man flinched as all the women looked at him.

"We need the practice." Andrea asserted. "And this isn't wasting it. This is the opposite of wasting it."

"Feels like poking a hornets' nest."

"We're miles from home. And every one we deal with out here is one less that could show up at the fences."

"Just don't sit right." Tyreese sighed.

"We can't pretend they're not out here." Sasha told him gently. "Just because we have somewhere safe to be."

Tyreese was not placated and I was not happy to be here either. No one had objected to me being here though, or maybe they had when I had not been around. I thought that Andrea approved while Sasha did not. Neither did Michonne. I thought her death glare might not have been directed at me though. Aleksandra meanwhile… She had lost that amused look she sported whenever she was around Amanda and John and did not have the soft smile I had seen while she was painting. She just looked… Cold. Grey. Bored even. It was as if a switch had been flicked. This was the way that Bas had described her when he had first seen her and I had not believed it. How did someone do that? How could someone be two different people like that?

Or maybe she just had what they called 'resting bitch face'. The expression was a distant memory, almost like a dream, and I wondered which was more surreal; a group of people standing in the road shooting at walking corpses or a time when mom and I had stood in line listening to a woman complaining that it should not matter her coupon for twenty-five cents off mac and cheese had expired, she should still be able to use it.

Mom had a different expression on her face now. A happier one. That was the thing about walkers; they were mindless creatures. They killed people but it was not malicious. But all the petty stupid things that people did were conscious actions. There was only one way to deal with walkers but people were so complicated. Shooting walkers was simple. That was why mom and Andrea were happy to be here. It only seemed to be me, Sasha and Russian Sasha who were here for target practice.

Andrea's rifle was not suppressed which meant it drew more walkers. They stumbled in from every direction but only a few. Ones and twos, and I wondered how far the sound of a rifle shot carried. A mile? Was this every walker for a mile? It did not seem like nearly as many as seemed to show up at the prison every day. And mom called dibs on certain ones for me to shoot.

Now this was a birthday I would not forget.

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

"Y'know, Beth says you brood. She says you brood like you're imitating me."

I tried to glare at him but then I felt self-conscious wondering if I actually did imitate his expressions. I knew I copied mom's way of smiling while folding my arms. But brooding? "Did mom send you?"

"She knew where you were."

"So that's a yes?"

Bas sat down. "When Rick tells me to do something, he doesn't sound as…" He searched for the right word. "Authoritative."

"I can't imagine mom sounds authoritative."

"I'm here and I'm scared."

"She's not scary."

"She is when she's worried about you." He said.

"Is she worried about me?"

"I don't know. Less than she used to? More now that you're older?" He stared into space. "Do you want me to say 'Happy Birthday'?"

"I don't feel happy."

"So, 'Birthday' then?" He shrugged. "It's supposed to be an excuse to be happy."

"What did your parents do for your birthdays?"

"They didn't. That's why I only know I was born sometime in the middle of April."

"You don't know which day?"

"No…"

"You win."

"No, I don't. I had fewer birthdays with my parents."

"I talked to my mom. About my dad… About thinking about him. I'm not scared of dead people who walk and bite but I am scared of my dead dad. Dead and buried." I sighed. "And mom turned his head into a carved pumpkin…"

"Maybe Beth's right." He said.

"Don't try to be funny."

"You never used to talk like that."

"I never used to talk."

"True. I remember when you were afraid to speak at all." He sighed. "There were times I thought you'd wet yourself rather than say you needed to go to the "bathroom"." He quoted it with his fingers as an unpleasant reminder of how we had lived last year. "Just so you wouldn't bother anyone. …Rick when he was in one of his moods…"

"I'm fourteen." I said, and I wasn't sure why. "Do you think that's supposed to mean something?"

"I asked the same thing when I turned eighteen."

"Did you have an answer?"

"I think I wondered if I was a man…"

The way he said it made me snort. And then for some reason I could not stop laughing.

"I guess you don't think so."

"What does that even mean?" I asked. "'A man'?"

"I don't know. That's what I was asking myself."

"Did you reach a conclusion?"

He said nothing and he became very still. I knew what this meant and the only thing to do was let it pass. My perception of time was messed up these days so I did not know if we sat there for a minute or twenty before he finally spoke. "Two things they say make you a man. I've done one of them."

I had only the one response to this. "Me too."

"Fucking stupid though. Killing someone to be someone… And the other thing…" He was questioning whether he was being appropriate again.

"Arbitrary." I said. My first thought of the day. "I shot another bunch of walkers today. I killed a man months ago. You've been stabbed. I've been shot. Carl's been shot. Mom hasn't been shot or stabbed, but she's been beaten half to death."

"And what does it all mean?" He asked.

"Mom prays." I said. "I don't think I ever believed though."

"It's a choice. You believe that everything we go through has a purpose and it'll all work out in the end. Or you ask yourself why you have to go through all these things and what kind of monster would set you these tests? …I don't know how Hershel has faith when he's lost so much. Endured so much. But then I realise that's because he has faith… And then I just get confused. Do you understand that?"

"I'm fourteen." I shrugged, only half-understanding what he meant.

"You're much smarter than me."

"Because I went to school longer than you?"

"No. In general."

"You think?"

"You and Beth…" He sighed dramatically. "I'm surrounded by smart women."

"I'm not that smart." I said. "If I was, I'd take one day to be happy and my birthday should have been that day."

"Or tomorrow. Be sad on your birthday for good reason and be happy on some random day." He pulled a face. "Listen to us… Fourteen and eighteen and talking like we know anything at all."

"Everyone else is making it up as they go along."

"Yeah, but Rick and his stubble sounds more authentic."

"Are you restless again?"

"I never stopped being restless. I spent my whole life having to do something and even when I was sitting around, it was for a reason. But this is just… Sitting around. Waiting for spring. We've got all the food we need, there's nothing to do to the Field until it warms up and everything else… Andrea wants to reinforce the Inner Fence like the Outer."
"Seems like a good idea."

"Yeah, but it won't be as hard as the outside. It'll only be a day or two of work."
"At least you can help. What do I get to do?"
"Cook, clean, watch the baby?"

"Don't say that to Carl." I warned. "He's bitter enough I got to go out and shoot walkers."

"Pretty sure his dad will want to do the same thing at some point. No matter what his mom thinks. He'll argue he doesn't want the boy to get soft and to stay vigilant, and that'll make it safer for him."

"Is that why my mom made me go out?"

"What do you think?"
"Yes." I knew that. "She had me shoot walkers before to see if I could cope with it after shooting Andrew… Now she had me out there today to see if I could deal with it after being shot."

"Does that bother you?"
I swallowed and tried to compose my thoughts into something coherent. "Mom and I don't need to talk. We can just look at each other and have a conversation. If I see her hugging herself, I know she's thinking of dad and I hold her hand and we look at each other and we know. If I do the same, she puts her arm around me. We never need to talk. So I know why she has me shooting at walkers but we haven't talked about it. …I think we should talk about it, but we have… In our own way… So we don't need to… But we should… Need to? Shouldn't we?" I looked at him, barely understanding myself.

"I think we all got too comfortable being that way. Last year, we were all saying one thing and meaning another and everyone knew it. We all still say 'Opted out'… Like Jenner did. Rick used to say 'We'll do our best' or 'We'll make do' and we all knew that meant 'Don't think about the alternative'. And then we reached the point where we didn't even need to talk. We just looked at each other. A jerk of the head that you needed someone to watch your back outside if you needed the bathroom… It's not just you and your mom. I think that's why all the new people feel excluded. Tyreese and Sasha are starting to get it but half the time Rick doesn't even need to say what needs to be done to Andrea, Daryl or Glenn; he just looks at them and they make it happen."

"Is that our inner circle?"
Bas smiled and it was an odd look somewhere between amusement and melancholy. "He's the dot in the centre. Andrea, Daryl and Glenn are his lieutenants. Dale was his conscience. Hershel's his spiritual guide. Merle's his wrath. I'm in the middle circle with Maggie, Oscar, the doctor, Sasha and Tyreese."

"Where does that put me and my mom?"

"You're a civilian. Family. Your mom… I'm not sure. He's been wary of her for a while. They definitely need a conversation."

"She doesn't talk much to other people anymore." I admitted. "Just Hershel and Daryl. And you…"

"She's still getting over it."

"'It'." I said. "Now you're the one saying one thing and meaning another."

"Alright, she's still getting over being attacked in the night while you were snatched from your bed. Getting over seeing you shot by a madman. Does that make you feel better?"

"Yes." I replied with the defiance I could manage. "I hate people not talking about it."

"Did you really want to talk about it before?"

"No! But it's different now!"

"How would we know that?"

"Because you should." I knew how ridiculous that sounded even before he gave me an appropriately incredulous look. "Mom and I have one of our silent conversations about it every day. We can't talk about it!"

"Pretend I'm your mother then." He said, and then he folded his arms and did an uncanny impression of my mother's innocent, winsome smile. "How do you feel, sweetie?" He even managed to nail the inflections she used.

"Freaked out." I said, and even more when he raised his eyebrow just like her. I remembered though how he had described studying people and their routines to know when to break into their homes. So of course, he knew enough to impersonate someone and make me feel that it was my mom looking at me. But the eyes were different, so there was no silent and instant communication. "Really freaked out."

He closed his eyes and nodded sagely the way that mom would and there was something about the gesture that made me snap.

"Helpless!" My voice cracked. "That's how I felt! I felt helpless! Getting kidnapped like a fairytale princess, getting tied up, getting locked up, getting shot! I couldn't do anything!"

"You did do something though." He dropped the act. "You escaped."

"And got shot!"

"You escaped."

"And I got shot because I turned back into a little kid and screamed for my mommy! I got myself untied. I got out of that room past a psychopath, but then when it mattered, I panicked. That's what I do. I go to pieces! That's why you lost your fingers! Because I got scared and ran off a road into the woods like an idiot! And then you got stabbed because I froze up and did nothing while you were fighting a psycho with an axe! Maybe that's why I got shot; it was my turn to suffer for a change for panicking!"

Bas looked at me for about twenty seconds, and then slapped me. It was not a hard slap, barely harder than a pat on the cheek but it was still a slap and the shock of it hurt more than the feel of it. "That's why you get scared, Sophia." His voice was thick. "Because that's what you got all your life. That's what you got when you were a little kid. You think you should just be over it? 'What doesn't kill me, makes me stronger' and all that bullshit? That's a fucking lie, Sophia. I grew up with the same shit that you did and look at me! What was I doing in that camp outside Atlanta? I was lying in a tent all day and all night scared out of my mind. I saw dead people walking around, and ripping living people to pieces and even though I grew up getting the shit kicked out of me, and then living on the streets seeing people kick the shit out of each other over an apple, or kill each other over a vial of heroin, seeing people dead in alleys from overdoses or the bug, none of that mattered. When I saw walkers, I got so scared that I hid in a tent for weeks and nearly died in there when they attacked the camp! I weren't some seasoned criminal who had seen it all; I was just a scared kid hiding in a tent from the monsters when they came and found me! And I was still a scared kid when I chased after you into the woods. I was scared out of my mind when I was with you! I was just better at hiding it!" He took hold of my wrists. "When you first met me, I was so scared I hadn't changed my clothes in weeks. When I first met you, you were crying because you were so scared of walkers. You said that to me! And then a few months later, you were standing your ground and shooting them. You were still scared because you're not stupid; you're smarter than me! But you stood your ground. You try and tell me you ain't brave." He released my wrists. "You try and tell me."

I hugged him instead. It was not like last time when he had put his arms around me. This time I was present. This time everything he had said which he had uttered to me before meant something to me now. This time I embraced my friend.

I saw movement but whoever it was had quickly vanished. I did not care.

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

[Bas]

I had referred to Rick having lieutenants, like a gang leader, or the Governor. It was not an inaccurate description. But ever since Woodbury, Rick had loosened up on his leadership. Maybe it was a response to the Governor. Maybe it was his tentative reconciliation with Lori. Whatever it was, he was not growling out orders anymore and dismissing everyone else's suggestions. He was delegating. Maybe he simply wanted more time to himself.

Andrea wanted to build that reinforcement for the Inner Fence for the Field, and to strengthen the fences inside the prison itself. Eventually we would take over the whole complex but, in the meantime, we had to hold what we already possessed. First, she wanted to reinforce the Inner Fence and then block up the hole leading into the burnt-out administration block where Tyreese had led his group in. Rick put her in charge of this.

Daryl and Merle were both restless on the inside and so Rick had no objection to them going out to hunt. Fresh meat was better than what came out of cans. Merle needed to stay active to stay out of trouble, and away from certain people. Whether he was hunting or in the slaughterhouse he and Daryl put together in a shower room; he was busy and productive. Seeing him gut a deer with his bayonetted arm was quite something. No one worried about the two of them being out there by themselves. They could handle walkers. They could handle anything. It was a bonus as they hunted in the area around the prison to have them patrolling and clearing walkers or reporting large groups headed for the prison.

Michonne was content annihilating the walkers that showed up at the fences. Depending on her mood, she might use a different weapon and safely stick them through the fences. Or she would have someone open the gate for her and go out there and carve them up with her sword. Large numbers were still a group effort but the woman who chose to live in the bus by the gate was seemingly happy to be a guard dog.

Glenn had no pressing need to go on runs after our trip to Hannahs Mill. We had more than enough food and all the farm supplies we needed. Fuel and ammunition was a question, and so far as I could tell they concluded that we would need to plan and execute another major run to acquire both if possible. That was putting it in crisp, almost military, terms. Bluntly, they were looking at the maps for police stations and marking military spots they knew about. Maggie called it playing with maps and would call Glenn 'General' when he became too engrossed in them.

He finally proposed.

It was not a public proposal which was a relief to me because I would have found that too awkward to endure. It was a sentiment shared by the majority of the group I felt. They were all full of well wishes though when the announcement was made. And then the wedding planning began.

Wedding plans. Christmas plans. All kinds of plans to make December a little less bleak.

Sophia was much less bleak since her birthday but the same could not be said for me. I was deeply ashamed of slapping her, even if it had finally managed to get it through to her that she was not responsible for the lingering traumas her father had inflicted on her. I had said the same to her before but she had not been in the right place to hear it. Now perhaps she was willing to accept that she could be more than one person. It was possible for her to be that scared little girl and the girl who had shot Andrew to save me. She could be resourceful enough to untie herself and get away from the Governor and then run for her mother at first sight of her.

Sophia was fourteen. It was a difficult age. I remembered that. But I could not believe there was a part of me that would literally attempt to knock sense into her. I knew which part of me too. Two parts of me. Sophia was fearful because of her father, and I would slap a girl because of both my parents. Bad parents… They were a plague. Here I was trying to help her with her family issues and now, despite how much I had believed otherwise, I had my own.

Fuck, fuck and fuck again. How could I be the kind of person who would do that 'slap some sense into her' shit?

And the worst part was that Sophia did not care. She seemed to think I had done a good thing. Perhaps I had, but I was not going to forgive myself for how I had gone about it. I would not let myself mope about it; not when I had just helped her to stop moping. But I would ask myself some serious questions.

Rick had some questions for me too. When Rick Grimes tapped you on the shoulder and said 'Lets take a walk', you did ask yourself if you had finally reached the end of your days. At least it was not a walk in the woods.

I had watched him take a walk in the Field with Tyreese months ago. That had ended with them clasping arms. I did not see a similar outcome here and I felt out of place with Rick as always. While he was not Shane with his immediate disdain for what I was, he had still been a cop and a lifetime of running from them for one reason or another meant I was never going to be truly at ease with the man. Cats and dogs.

"Do you want to bother with the small talk?" I asked.

"The way I figure, you never been one for small talk. Always straight to business. Some people say you're just rude…"

"Which people?"

"We ain't here to talk about your manners."

"What are we here to talk about?"

Rick stared off into the sky for a moment as we paced and then squeezed his temples. "You know I got a headache now? About this big?" He indicated someone taller than me. "It's too cold in the cell block, too noisy, dirty… And why don't I have the power flowing and the water running?"

I said nothing. He did not need any smart remarks from me.

"I like people who don't give me headaches. Glenn and Maggie don't give me headaches. Caleb doesn't give me a headache. Tyreese and Sasha, Andrea… Oscar, he gave me a little pain here about getting shot and not being able to walk or help out. Carol, she's always giving me this look like I'm not doing enough to keep her kid safe. And then there's you."

"Please get to the point."

"Oh, I'm getting there." He tilted his head in the familiar warning sign. "You don't give me any problems, but somehow problems start from you."

"Beth, or Sophia?"

"Both." He said. "Both. First it was about you and Beth 'carrying on' and I don't know what you're doing there. I don't care. But now I'm hearing tales about you and Sophia… Again… So tell me your side."

"What side?" I asked. "You seen Austin around? Drooling over every woman here?" His expression said yes. "He's been out there awhile so I get it, but he scared her. He scared Beth. And she wanted me to pretend that she was… Spoken for. I went along with it because she's my friend. Is sitting close to each other 'carrying on'?"

"Not my way of putting it."

"And what am I doing with Sophia? We know who we're talking about here, so what did they say?"

"The time you spend together." Rick said and then sighed. "Alone…"

"So they think I'm grooming her?"

"First impressions. First impression of you is that you like to spend a lot of time with young girls."

"They know how old Beth is?"

He evaded the question of how young Beth looked. "They know Sophia ain't your age."

"So?"

"So when people see things like that, they can be misconstrued."

"Like what?"

"Like the two of you alone. The two of you… Hugging." I wondered why he bothered to clean up whatever language he had heard.

We had still been walking but now I stopped Rick. It was unfortunate we happened to be standing right next to the graveyard. "It was her birthday." I said. "It was her fourteenth birthday and her mom had her go out for target practice against walkers so she could see if her daughter still had it in her, or too much. After everything Sophia's been through, her mom was testing her. I know that. She knows that. Hell, you know it. That's why you let Carol take her out there." Rick had a good poker face and that was how I knew I was right because he wore that face instead of letting his emotions show. "Carol wanted to know if she could still shoot walkers, or if she was messed up enough she'd want to take it out on them. But she's not. She's a different kind of messed up." I looked at Rick and realised something. "You weren't there… You were off on your Merle rescue when your partner beat Ed Peletier into lumpy gravy. You ever even clap eyes on the man?"

"I remember Shane had words with him that night before…" Rick frowned. I had not seen Ed take the beating but I had seen the aftermath. But Rick, had he even seen what was left of Ed after the walkers had got to him? He had had other things to worry about… I realised that Rick Grimes had arrived in camp and then the following night; most of the people in it had been killed.

"You didn't see the bruises on them before. I didn't like Shane but him beating the shit out of Ed for putting his hands on Carol and Sophia; I'll aways remember him fondly for that." I shook my head. "Ed's dead. But not to Carol or Sophia. I don't know about Carol, but Sophia's still scared of him. And every time she gets scared, she thinks of him. And when she gets scared and something happens, she blames herself. She blames herself for this!" I held up my maimed hand. "And this!" I lifted my shirt to show my stabbing scars. "If someone saw anything, it was the moment I managed to convince her that none of this was her fault and she had no reason to feel bad that she's scared. The girl hugged me. That's it. Not that it's anyone's fucking business what I do with my friends."

Rick stared off toward the railway tracks beyond the creek. He looked tired the way he had when we had been dealing with the Governor and now it was because of people and their drama rather than a petty war. I guessed he had been hoping it would all be smooth sailing for a while longer than this.

"How many times are we going to have this conversation?" I asked. "The girl kissed me." I nodded to myself while he grimaced. "We got past it. All that's just a joke between us now." It was not entirely true but Sophia's feelings were her business. Hers and her mother's. "She got abducted from under your roof. She got shot. Her father…" That was not Rick's business either. "That's what she's dealing with." Something snapped inside of me and I took hold of Rick's jacket. "If she hears someone saying… If she… Finding…" I let go of Rick and balled my fist and a half and tried to get a grip on my anger but it was the same frustration that had filled me listening to Sophia blame herself for what had happened to me and to blame herself for what had happened to her. It took a lot for me to get a grip on myself. A whole lot. "If she has to deal with someone accusing me of molesting her, I'll kill them."

Rick was still staring at the railway tracks. There was nothing there to see while there were three walkers down at the Outer Gate. I could not tell what he was thinking or even if he was thinking. I thought that perhaps he missed the days when we had first come here. After dealing with Tomas and Andrew anyway… Simple times with a tight knit group of people who all trusted and relied on one another.

"You know why I trust you?" He addressed the railway tracks. "Because I know you'd do anything to protect Sophia. I don't know how she feels about you…" He shook his head, not wanting to think about it. "But I know how you feel. But… Christ, I hate having to deal with it."

"Why do you have to deal with it? Let them say something to Carol."

"They say something to Carol and we'll be mopping the blood off the floors. That's why I'm talking to you first."

"First?"

"I heard their side of the story. Now I heard yours." He shrugged. "I didn't believe them in the first place. Now I'm gonna have a conversation with Carol and maybe convince her not to point a gun at anyone." He had evidently not forgotten this had been how she had negotiated her way to going to Woodbury after Sophia. "How are things between you two?"

"Polite."

"Polite?"

"How much have you talked to her since Woodbury?"

"Not much."

"She's still dealing with it. Maybe she's better than she was… But I know that when Sophia's with me, she doesn't worry about her. Me or Daryl. That's how it is." I laughed perfectly humourlessly. "And if I was grooming Sophia, Daryl would cut me up. …And Merle would stomp on the pieces." I knew Merle's kind. Racist, sexist pieces of shit, but when a child was hurt; a vengeful force for justice.

Rick looked down at the walkers by the gate for the first time and I thought he found solace in a problem that was easily dealt with. "One other thing… The Russian woman. How is she?"

I had not expected this question so I had to think about it for some time before it came to me. "I don't know. She's happy here… Food and a bed… But if she's got any deeper issues… I don't think you need to worry about her."

"I worried about Caleb when he first got here. But he opened up to Hershel. She doesn't seem to be integrating."

"She doesn't speak English."

"She doesn't seem to be trying to learn."

"Give her time. Michonne still looks like she wants to cut people in half and she's been here for months."

He nodded at this. "I keep an eye on her. I keep an eye on all our quiet people. Merle's a pain in the ass but I know what he's thinking. That's the one good thing about this headache I got; at least I know what Amanda and John are thinking."

"I don't know what Aleksandra's thinking. Except she has one person who can translate a few words for her and she likes us more than who she was stuck with before." I had a thought. "She likes Sophia. And Mika. Art and everything…" I laughed humourlessly again. "She's okay."

"She reminds me of you." Rick said and I was startled because I did not see any resemblance between me and the pale, Russian woman. "First time I saw you; you were sitting in the dirt with a hammer in your hand, looking at a fallen walker. Andrea was over there with Amy... Daryl and Glenn were moving bodies. You were just sitting there. And then the next few days, that was you; just sitting there. Not talking to anyone. Not looking at anyone. Just there…"

He was right. Thinking back to how I had first seen her at Hannahs Mill, with that disinterested look on her face and detached from the people she was with; that was me. That was me lying on the floor of Dale's RV until we hit that traffic snarl on the highway. "I think she fits in better than I did."

"Aleksandra." Rick spoke the name seemingly in reproof to himself for calling her 'the Russian woman'. "Only complaint I get about her is…" He did not bother to finish. "Good talk."

I stopped him. "You have these conversations with other people, right? It's not just me?"

Rick laughed, genuinely and warmly. "I talk to Daryl about Merle. To Andrea about Michonne. I had a conversation with Merle about what it was like for him to kill people for the Governor. I talk to Hershel about his daughters. I've had words with Michonne about Merle, and now John. Yesterday, I sat down with Ryan and we talked about this place. About the future we can have here. You ain't the only one I got to live with, Bas."

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

Now I was looking for it, I saw what Sophia meant about her and her mother being able to communicate with looks. Whether it was a glance or a protracted stare, they could hold a conversation. And one of these led to Carol fish-hooking my collar again and leading the pair of us off to the vacant infirmary for a private conversation for the three of us.

"Did Rick talk to you?" I asked Sophia before Carol could speak.

"No. He talked to both of us."

"And?"

She raised her fist. "This is too much for some people to handle." She said.

We bumped fists, something I had not done in years. On the streets it was normal because your hands were never clean and some people's hands with their scabs and cuts you definitely did not want to touch. It made Carol smile.

"So what did you tell Rick?" I asked her.

"That if I hear them spouting their filthy theories about you and my little girl, they may just wake up on fire."

The smile that had been on Sophia's face vanished at her mother's words and for a moment she was shocked. Then she gave her mom a hug that made the one that she had given me pale by comparison.

Mama bear.

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

Beth was tired. Not as tired as Sophia had been but still tired. Depressed. Her sister was engaged to be married and she was playing at having a relationship with me because she had not had a good first impression with a guy. She was fine being alone so long as she had good friends but playing at a more intimate relationship made her feel truly lonely.

I found myself on watch with Austin and Aleksandra and that made me feel lonely. He was bored and she looked indifferent as only she could manage. Of twenty-six people in the prison, sixteen were eligible for guard duty and the three of us were in the Yard overlooking the Field while Oscar and Tyreese were in the interior. Oscar had joked that they would be the first to die and with Aleksandra so pale she seemed to absorb the moonlight and glow with it, he had a point about the division. I had yet to see Aleksandra and Beth stand side by side to make a comparison, though I suspected Beth was the paler of the two since Aleksandra had enjoyed regular meals of our prison food and regained some colour.

"Goddamn, it's cold." Austin grumbled and then looked suspiciously at Aleksandra as she muttered something in her native tongue. He was right to be suspicious because the words I picked up were 'cold' and 'manhood'. In context, I guessed she had said a real man would not complain that it was cold. I doubted it had even dropped below forty-five. The one thing I knew for sure about Russia was that it was cold. "Ain't you cold?" He asked me.

"I used to sleep outdoors in a box." I did not intend to sound so hostile but he was complaining about the weather to two of the least sympathetic people.

"Seriously?"

"On the bad days. Good days I was in vacants… Trying to avoid dead soldiers…"

"Dead soldiers?"

I looked at him for a moment before speaking. "We come from very different worlds." I declared.

"Did I do something to offend you?"

"Not you. Your folks."

"You mean the race shit? I'm not part of that."

"Really?"

"You seen a Florida school?" He asked and then realised what a dumb question it was. "You can't have that 'those people' shit in your head when you're sitting in a room full of 'those people' and most of them are your friends."

"I haven't seen you objecting to any of it."

"What could I say? 'Don't say that'?"

"You could now. There ain't enough people left for that shit."

He glanced at Aleksandra who betrayed no hint of understanding a word. I had my suspicions though. Austin meanwhile was unwilling to declare he was taking a stand against his parents on that particular issue. "I know they sound ungrateful; I'm not dumb. It's just-"

"Just what?" Now I was hostile. "Do you want to be out there?"

"No, I don't." He had the decency to be embarrassed. "They still think everything's going to go back to normal."

"Are they crazy?"

"This is the Greatest Country in the World." He said. "It can't just be gone." He sighed and kicked the log bulwark. "Maybe there's something up north or out west but there's nothing down here. I know that. I've seen it. But them… They ain't seeing it."

"You were trapped in a McDonalds for how long?"

"If my dad stepped into the road and got knocked down by a car, he'd have gone to his grave saying he had the right of way rather than admit he fucked up."

"And your mom?"

"She's a woman of faith." Austin said and I remembered what I had said to Sophia about faith. Clearly, I was not the only one who struggled with what it meant.

I did not know how Michonne managed to sleep in that bus that close to the fences. It had become second-nature to us to sleep in the cell block despite the noise of walkers outside, but the bus was not a cell block. And it was much, much closer. How she slept with her level of alertness and paranoia; I did not know. Perhaps she did not. A total lack of sleep would explain a great deal about her, admittedly.

Aleksandra was an alert sentry despite her disinterested look. While Austin grumbled about the cold, she was doing the job properly. I had no interest in talking to Austin even though he was obviously reaching out and I had no subtle way of reaching out to Aleksandra even though I was curious how she was doing. Rick was right that like me she was an outsider but I had been quiet because I had been dealing with stuff. She was shut out by the language barrier. Or maybe… She was dealing with stuff and that was why she made no effort to break down that barrier.

Of course, the third option was that it was not a barrier at all and she wanted to be alone and isolated for the time being.

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

[Sophia]

We needed adult supervision if we wanted to practice with bows and Bas was sleeping in after being on watch last night so the only way Carl and I could get away from everyone else was by going to the Cafeteria. It had been cleared and cleaned but I still thought that it definitely smelt like five men had lived in here for months. The contents of the freezer… They were not touching that. That room no longer existed to us.

Our moms were not concerned about us being here. We were in the cell block. All the doors were locked and the exterior guarded. And it was daylight. No reason for them to worry we were out of sight. We had spent so long in our little piece of cell block that being able to be here away from it was strange in many ways.

"She's boring." Carl was saying about his sister.

"That's not a nice thing to say."

"It's true though. All she ever does it sleep. Mom says she's sitting up, but whenever I see her, she's asleep."

"Maybe she doesn't like you."

"So that's a nice thing to say?" He demanded, looking so serious and sounding so genuinely angry that I giggled which made him turn red. I had noticed he did this a lot these days; anyone could easily press his buttons.

"She's a baby. They sleep. That's what they do. But she'll get her teeth soon and you'll wish she was still sleeping."

"I bet everyone will love that."

"We'll all move into the new block. Or A Block."

Carl was drumming his hands on table and jiggling his legs; he was that restless. I was the same. We had had so much to do last month but now there was nothing. My mom was more concerned with me practicing my weapons and lockpicking skills to give me schoolwork while Carl's mom and dad had not yet given it a thought. Mika said she missed school so I thought that at some point we would have a classroom. Maybe even this room. "We should be doing something." Carl insisted.

"Like what?"

"Anything!"

"Good plan."

"Don't you want something to do?"

"Bas'll wake up soon, then we can do archery."

"I don't think I'm getting any better."

"It can take years."

"So, what's the point? Guns are better."

"You'll run out of bullets before we run out of sticks." I pointed out. "That's all an arrow is. A stick. Do you know how to make bullets?"

"You got to practice though. And leave. I've never left."

"You don't want to go out there."

"I want to shoot though."

"I know you do." I said and considered our height difference. I had left Carl behind though neither of us said anything about it but I knew he resented it. But I thought he was just beginning a growth spurt; something about his face had changed. "I know your mom won't like it, but I think as soon as we're tall enough we'll be at the fences same as everybody else."

"You think?"

"All hands on deck." I had heard Ryan put it this way when he had been called out to put down a pack at the fence. He liked the fences.

"I hate being a kid." He declared and I could only nod, which made me grimace. "You okay?"

"Still hurts." I said and pulled at my shirt to look at the scar as if it might have changed appearance since I had last looked at it that morning.

Carl pulled his own shirt up to look at his own, smaller, scar. He had been hit by a rifle bullet and I knew that the deer it had passed through first was the only reason he was alive. I had been hit by a pistol bullet, but I had a bigger scar because he had been hit directly and I had been slashed. Both of us had nearly bled to death. It was silly to compare scars but at the same time… Compelling. Carl knew what I was thinking. "It scares the adults. I got shot. You got shot. Bas got stabbed. If it can happen to the kids, it can happen to them."

"They've been hurt. Look at Andrea's face. Sasha. Oscar."

"We're the ones who almost died." He pointed out and he was right.

We put our respective scars away. "Do you think Glenn and Maggie getting married means something?" I asked.

"Like what?"

"I don't know… Like if, they get married and then they have kids. Does it mean something?"

"You mean…" Carl waved his hand in the air. "We're still here. This place isn't so bad now. I guess that means… That means things aren't so bad."

"Not so bad." I nodded. I thought that this had a nicer ring to it than saying that things could get better. Maybe that was it. Maybe instead of looking up and hoping things would improve, we should have been looking down and thinking about how they could be worse. How things had been. "Do you want to go to the wedding with me?"

"…What?" He squeaked and blushed because he had squeaked. "What?" He asked in a voice that was too deep to compensate.

"It's a wedding. You're supposed to have a date at a wedding."

"You are?" He was confused. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know." I confessed. "It was just an idea. I don't even know what they're going to do."

"Is Bas going with Beth?"

"Probably."

"Are they still pretending?"
"Yes." I remembered how I had asked Beth if she had feelings for Bas and she had said no, and then hours later they had begun pretending to be… Close.

"Why?"

"Beth doesn't want Austin flirting with her."

"Couldn't she just say that?"

I thought it said everything that Carl was the one stating the obvious solution. "I think she panicked."

"And Bas… He doesn't like her?"

"He loves her." I said to see the look on his face. "Beth took care of him when he was stabbed, remember? He'll never forget that."

"Are you just messing with me?" He asked.

"Maybe." I admitted and he rolled his eyes. It was good.

"Do you think he's awake yet?"

"You're not waking him." I said. Bas was still sleeping erratically. "Just be patient." I added to enjoy his look of disgust. We were always being told to be patient. At least at the moment, everyone had to be patient as we waited for spring.

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

[Bas]

I felt like the world's most ridiculous babysitter. Beth was five foot four and Sophia was only a couple of inches shorter than her so it appeared Beth was also one of my charges, along with Lizzie and Mika. Sophia was right; her hair had definitely darkened this year. She stood out compared to the three blondes.

Carl was a little awkward being surrounded by girls and I wondered how it felt to be the only boy around here. It had been a long time since he had been around a boy his age and he had had only Sophia for company for the longest time. Somehow, it was still Beth he had a crush on. I could still see it in the way he was around Beth and I guessed he was happy that in this place, Beth and I were not playing make believe. He was happy to use a bow and feel he was training to be a badass.

Mika did not want to try archery. She was a little too small for our bows anyway but she was not interested. She preferred to watch. When the arrows struck the targets, the thump was loud in the closed space and I watched her flinch for a little while before she got used to it.

Lizzie did not flinch. Instead, her pointy little nose seemed to flare with excitement each time she took a shot and she was rewarded with that thump. She did not care about improving her accuracy; only hearing that sound. Feeling it in the enclosed space. I tried to figure out if that was normal and after a while I realised, I had no way of making that judgement. Before and now, I had no frame of reference for what was normal behaviour for a child. Perhaps it was no different to the way people enjoyed fireworks. Some liked the light show; some liked the noise. Befitting a thief, I had never liked loud noises.

I suddenly felt a peculiar dread watching the three kids practicing, and then it became clear to me. The Governor had had his people using bows to save bullets for when they were really needed and it had made sense. Bullets were finite. Even if we met somehow who knew how to make them, I did not see how we could put together the resources needed to produce them. But arrows were just pointy sticks. These arrows had plastic or rubber instead of feathers but if we had to make our own, Daryl would ensure we never ran out. And arrowheads? There was plenty of scrap metal to find now. And bone… But what caused the dread was the realisation that for Carl, Lizzie and Mika; bows and arrows were their future. Bullets would become a memory and guns just ornaments. It was the tip of the iceberg too and I pressed away the thoughts of all the other technologies that would become unusable and only memories.

"You're thinking." Sophia warned.

"It hurts." I said instead of the proper response and she was not sure if I was joking or not. I pushed the thoughts away harder and tried to embrace my memories of being tutored in archery by Haley, but those memories felt inappropriate considering who I was with. I sought the middle ground of focusing on the arrows I released and what it could mean down the road if I became an accomplished archer. Maybe Daryl could teach me to hunt and I could combine that with my skill at creeping about.

A hunter. Being a thief was unlikely to be a useful career in the future for the simple fact there would be nothing for me to steal. But a hunter? Putting food on the table and bringing in whatever parts of an animal could be useful to us; that did not sound so bad.

"Do these really work on walkers?" Sophia asked of her bow and I knew she was trying to distract me.

"You've seen Daryl's crossbow. This is the same. …Just not as powerful." These small bows contained a fraction of the power of Daryl's crossbow but if we mastered them and used the larger, more powerful bows; they would be able to drop many more walkers in the time it took someone to reload a crossbow. Crossbows were good for quietly dropping individual walkers but against a group; they were of limited use. For that reason alone, we needed to train with the bows. "Crossbow's easier." They shot their bolts much faster than our novice bows so there was less chance of missing.

"So why aren't we practicing with them?"

"Because we can make new bows. We can't make new crossbows." Daryl had told me as much. The new crossbows we had acquired did not need to be worn out with constant practice. "Not yet anyway."

"We're always looking ahead now."

"Rick said it. 'Long term'." I tried to remember when he had used those words.

"We'll have food in the spring." Beth put in. "Food we grew ourselves."

"That will be nice." I did not need to think about it. "It'll be nice to do something worthwhile for a change."

"What's 'worthwhile'?" Mika asked.

"Harvesting crops." I said and then wondered why I put it that way. "We're growing our own food and in a few months; we can pick it and eat it."

Her little face lit up. "Can we help?"

"You'll regret volunteering." Beth said gently. "My daddy can be a real slavedriver."

"I prefer this." Lizzie declared, and made the room echo with another thump. I did not need to tell her that the adults were not going to let her shoot at walkers. But then I wondered if that was what she meant. Perhaps she just wanted to have fun shooting arrows at a wall.

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

[Sophia]

The one task that Amanda and John could not complain about was defending the prison. I listened to Andrea swearing graphically that after reinforcing the Outer and Inner Fences, the walkers had massed in force within the prison which they had not strengthened anywhere near as much.

So, Carl and I were watching the Field while they took care of it. There were walkers wandering about outside the Outer Fence and one was caught on the spikes in the road where it was thrashing and snarling. It was quiet though and they did not seem aware of us sitting up by the Yard Gate. They were more interested in the noise coming from within the prison and were unsure how to reach it… Unsure… They did not think. But they seemed to know that they could not reach it through the steel mesh and wooden fences and so they were shambling past the perimeter.

"I feel like we should stop them." Carl remarked.

"They'll take care of them." The inside fence they were defending might not have been as secure as those down in the Field but there were nearly twenty people to defend the tight space. The tangle of fences and buildings controlled their numbers. I wondered when I had begun thinking like this, although everyone thought this way now, didn't they? We had to in a world full of walkers. It was not weird or disturbing; it was just the way it had to be.

"I want to do something useful!"

"We are. We're making sure nothing terrible happens this side while everyone else is over there. That's the best thing we can do."

Carl grappled with his feelings for a moment; literally raising his hands to fight with the air. He started as I put my arm around him. After Andrew… I had had the same struggle with being too small and feeling helpless in a world where size and strength mattered. Bas had said you needed to know which fights you could not win and run away but sometimes you could not run, and you had to fight. And knowing your opponent was an unfeeling corpse… Size and strength did matter then. That was why being kids sucked so much.

And Carl was made anxious by my arm. I took it away.

"You remember a year ago?" I asked. "Sleeping in those storage units? They stank of motor oil and damp." I look down at the Field with its cleared areas for crops. The reinforced fences. The log barrier outside the fence. The barricades at the Inner Fence. "This is much better." I said, and for a moment he took me literally and he was confused until he realised what I actually meant. I was talking about how we had hope for a life now. "I like it here." It was an admission that surprised me but considering the alternatives from the first home I had known, the camp next to Atlanta and the tents by the farm… This place was the best. "I wish we didn't call it 'The Prison'."

"What would we call it?"

"I don't know. But calling it 'The Prison' makes it sound like we all want to get away from it."

"I wouldn't mind getting away." He said and I wondered if there was a different term for when boys pouted, or if it was still just pouting. "It's like being trapped at school."

"Your school had razor wire?"

"It had fences." He said. "They always said they were to keep us safe."

"Safe from strangers." The note of bitterness carried in my voice and Carl heard it, but he did not seem to understand it. Or did not know how to ask.

"Now we know what the danger is." He said, staring at the walkers. He was correct that walkers provided a straightforward answer to the question 'What are you afraid of?' and why we needed such brutal looking fences around us. But if walkers did not think, then they were not malicious. Unlike people.

We knew they were done on the inside only when Aleksandra came and sat on the log barricade a short distance from us and gazed toward the creek. It was hard to say what her expression carried and it made Carl and I unable to speak until Sasha and Tyreese arrived looking tired but cheerful. And we were free to go and take a look at their work. I would have preferred not but there really was nothing else to do. Besides, it was better to see what they had accomplished and what it meant for the next few days rather than hear about it second hand.

I remembered when we had shot at walkers through this fence. That had been unpleasant enough while this was something else. At the Field fences there was a backdrop of long grass and trees to offset the horror but here on the inside there was only concrete and brick. Nowhere for the ooze to go… And the bodies did not fall the same way when they fell on concrete rather than dirt and grass. It all looked so much more… Artificial.

Still, I knew why Sasha and Tyreese were cheerful. They had destroyed so many between them. That was what I had to remind myself as I took in the horrible sight of heaped bodies; that every walker eliminated made our bit of the world a little safer. Even if it meant they would be piling bodies in their incinerator and the prison would stink for days to come. Carl wanted to take a more active role but I would rather clean out the "sanitation buckets" than deal with corpses.

I watched Mr Grimes poke at one body and it made the face peel away from the skull, flapping limply like a mask, and I reeled and retched despite having seen worse. I did not puke but the image remained in my head and I kept retching, like a cat with a hairball, and for some reason I could not stop. A hand clapped me on the back and then rubbed and the shock of the touch snapped me out of it. It was mom.

"It's okay." She said, and I had another shock as I could not tell what she was thinking. There was something in her eyes that I did not recognise.

She did not eat much that evening and I had seen her lose her appetite before, but this time I did not know why. It was not the piles of mouldering corpses outside; that seemed to bother no one as they all ate wolfishly. Recovering their strength. Perhaps even, they were looking forward to having something to do tomorrow, even if it was burning corpses. It was activity.

When I was taking my shoes off for bedtime my arms and legs all ached. My arms were always sore after shooting arrows for a few hours, but my legs; that was just "growing pains" as Dr S called them. I took a moment to look at my limbs and they all seemed far too long for my body. Like a bug. And I was skinny. Taller like I had wanted months ago but skinny so I looked like I had been stretched like gum.

I realised mom was looking at me and I thought she was impatient for me to climb up onto my bunk but as I made to get up, she stopped me. If I needed to know if I would ever stop being skinny, I only had to look at her. Even after a year of shooting guns, fighting walkers and building fences; mom still looked like a strong breeze would snap her. But I knew that was not true and how much she had endured and that really did help with my worries about being… Puny.

"I wanted to say… I'm sorry." Mom said.

I was alarmed immediately because I did not know for what reason mom could possibly need to apologise to me and that alarm made her snatch my hands which was no immediate comfort.

"I'm sorry I keep pushing you. I keep telling myself it's for your own good but that's not why I'm doing it. …It's because… It's for me." She squeezed my hands painfully. "I couldn't protect you before. I couldn't do anything to help you because I was trapped." She released my hands. I was trapped by myself; I was scared! I was so scared! We led that life because I was a coward!" She gave me no chance to reply. "And I'm still a coward because the thought of losing you keeps me awake at night. It keeps me distracted during the day. I'm biting my nails!" She held up her fingers and I saw them for the first time. She had not just bitten her nails short; she had chewed her fingertips. "Sophia, I let you down your whole life. I didn't protect you, and then I lost you. You were in danger and I was so scared that Lori stuck her hand over my mouth to stop me crying out. I should have been with you! And then those things found you and I couldn't do anything! I saw you disappear, I saw Rick fighting one of them, and then I saw a complete stranger go after you and then Rick was gone. And everyone was telling me, they were telling me he'd be right back with you and to stay calm and how could I possibly stay calm when my baby was… Was gone!" For so long mom had held it together with such an aloof detachment she had sometimes felt like a total stranger but this near hysterical woman; I knew her. I had grown up with her. "And then Rick came back without you, and then he went after you with Daryl and Glenn and Shane… And then they all came back without you."

I knew what she was going to say next. "He told me. He told me you didn't sleep that night and then you were out there looking for me. He told me…"

Mom took my wrists again. "I didn't. I didn't sleep… They tried to tell me it was alright because you were with someone but we didn't even know his name. How could they tell me it was gonna be okay when my little girl was either lost and alone in the woods by herself or with some stranger they didn't want to say but I knew they thought was crazy? So I was awake…You know what happened? We heard church bells. It was a church with bells on an automatic timer… And I prayed. I prayed you were okay and in good hands and we would find you, and I begged. I begged…" She trailed off and took a moment. "And instead Carl got shot…" She swallowed again. "Was I supposed to take that as a sign?" She asked and I remembered how Bas had described the sound of the single rifle shot as a good thing. We had not known. "I didn't sleep again… Andrea and Daryl went searching in the dark because they couldn't stand to be around me… And then we moved to the farm and I don't know how I got through that day, or the day after when Daryl got thrown from that horse. …They went and took people shooting... Glenn and Maggie went to town for supplies… Daryl was the only one properly looking for you, and I knew, I knew Shane was telling Rick to give it up. Then that day, Hershel had Rick help him bringing walkers to the barn and Shane lost it. He really lost it. He screamed at me… I can still hear him. He screamed 'Enough risking our lives for a little girl who's gone!'" She crushed my wrists in her grip. "Sweetie, I…" She looked at me and her eyes were full of tears. "I believed him… I believed him! Oh God, I'm sorry; I'm so sorry!" She was literally on her knees begging me for forgiveness and I was utterly numb inside but my face was hot, and it felt like someone was squeezing my cheekbones tight.

Then mom was squeezing me. She wrapped her arms around my middle and sobbed into my lap and all I could do was return it. I remembered that day. I had been so relieved to see Daryl and then I had felt only dread. Daryl had told me that people had been saying they would not find us and I had been scared, and then outright terrified when he had abruptly announced Carl had been shot. At that moment I had felt sure that something terrible would happen and I would not see mom again. When we had heard gunshots… That was my worst fear coming true.

Just a little over a year ago…

"You hit him." I finally said. "You hit Shane."

Mom had cried herself out. She looked up at me, massaging my wrists and she had a wistful smile. "I did, didn't I?" She said, and I hugged her again.

(19,040)

Author's Notes;

A Sophia focused chapter. The challenge with this story was that Sophia was only twelve at the beginning. She was small and fearful. That limited how much she could do during the Greene farm arc. As it was, she and Bas are just caught up in the events that run, almost, the same as canon. But through 2011 at the prison, she's been through a whole lot. She's not that scared child anymore. She is as Bas calls her, an awkward teenager. And she's struggling with her accumulated traumas.

In 'September', Bas and Sophia had a conversation about her fears and experiences that led to him awkwardly hugging her. Sophia was depressed. Distant. They have much the same conversation again on her birthday a couple of months later and this time she's processed enough of her feelings for it to actually be cathartic.

I've been depicting Carol as detached since the Woodbury arc and it was all building to the end of this chapter. In the show, I was annoyed by how rarely Sophia was ever mentioned. That the loss of her child is the catalyst for this beaten wife to transform into one of the franchise's toughest and most capable survivors is pretty much confined to subtext or the occasional offhand reference. It took until a spin-off a decade later for her feelings of depression and guilt regarding Sophia to be addressed. In my story, Carol had the guilt she speaks of regarding losing her at the highway which she kept buried. When the Governor abducted and then shot Sophia, that pushed that guilt to the surface and so she became withdrawn and hyper-focused on Sophia's safety and capability. When she sees Sophia dry-heaving at a gruesome sight, it reminds her that behind the awkward growth spurt, the interest in archery and lockpicking and the shooting lessons that Carol's insisted on; Sophia's still her gentle child. In the TV show, Carol had indeed lost faith that they would find Sophia before learning the truth. I've always kept that in the back of my head writing this.

The focus of the story is on Bas and Sophia. Now Sophia's older, she can receive more focus. But the prison is full of people, isn't it? What about their stories? Well, Bas asking Rick about whether he has these conversations with the others is a reminder that their lives continue on. But I'm not going to write them because then this would sprawl. I can't write about every single character without falling into the George R.R. Martin trap. But their lives and dramas continue. Bas and Sophia both observe the others and speculate which is true to real life. So we don't know what's going with newcomer Aleksandra and only Andrea knows why Michonne prefers to stay detached from the others and live in the bus. There are only hints. Sophia does not realise that Aleksandra is homesick but as readers I hope you realise that from her painting a cityscape of Krasnodar which is a city in Russia, and as fans of the show, you pick up the warning signs regarding Lizzie.

You may have noticed a sudden absence of contractions in the text. I upgraded from Word 2013 to 2016, and it's much pickier. Admittedly, it is sloppy writing to use 'Didn't', Wouldn't', 'Couldn't' etc in prose that isn't character speech or informal like my thoughts here. So going forward, I'll stop being lazy and make the corrections. I also intend to go back and tidy up some earlier chapters.

It's still December in this chapter, and will be in the next. I think I may start adding dates at the end of chapters to keep the timeline of events clear. Some old chapters do have dates, something I accidentally left in. Now I think it should be an actual thing for reference.