Thanks for the Ko-Fi's, Mieren T, and for accomplishing the Ko-Fi goal for this extra!

Sorry, this took so long. Adding another 9,000+ words to a story that’s already this long took some time lol, enjoy!

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The cell block was quiet as people milled about on a lazy morning, everybody doing their own things to prepare for what they had to do today.

Daryl and Eve were talking quietly in the corner when a sudden gunshot came from outside the cellblock.

Eve immediately stood up shouting across the cellblock, “Go!”

The room scattered like an organized unit during an emergency.

Chaos erupted as the handful of people finished their checks inside and ran outside, immediately hearing a sharp, young, and high voice scream for help as two little girls came running out of the other cellblock, where most of Woodbury’s people lived.

Glenn was the first to get to them and ask what happened just as Rick came running through the gate from the field, calling to the group to ask the same question.

“Walkers in D!” Glenn yelled back, immediately taking off with Eve and Daryl towards the door the girls had just run out of.

“It’s not a breach. We followed the plan!” Sasha shouted as she and the rest ran behind them, ruling out an outside attack.

As soon as they entered the building, they could already hear the screams, loud bangs from guns and general chaos that was noisy enough to make your ears ring the closer you got until they all ran straight into the thick of it.

People and walkers were mixed among the chaos, people running all over trying to avoid getting bitten and run to the nearest safety.

It was hard to determine who was who until they were right in front of you.

As soon as they entered the cellblock everyone ran in a different direction, trying to kill the walkers and get the living to safety as fast as possible.

While it looked like pure chaos there was method to the madness of their movements and as soon as they arrived, the people in the cellblock remembered what they were supposed to do in a crisis and the panic gave way to organized running and dodging, like a herd that had been startled into a stampede and finally found the leader at the front.

Seeing walkers at the top of the stairs trying to chase people down, Eve pulled her knives and ran up — people jumping to the side out of her way without prompt — and a crunch followed by a nauseating squelch happened right behind the last person, but he didn’t stop to turn around at all.

A loud metal clang echoed as the walker crumpled on the metal staircase and rolled a few steps before it’s flailing limbs tangled around the railing and stopped it in place.

As her knife came free of the skull, Eve ran the last two steps up to kill another at the top before she was put at a disadvantage, but she didn’t see the other side in time.

Another walker came up the other side of the steps right as she killed the one at the top and Eve’s heart leapt into her throat as her jacket bunched up at her side and she was yanked off her balance.

With only a second to react, Eve’s arms shot up to protect her head just before the back of her hands smashed against the rigid metal stairs and the weight of her body crushed them into the metal as her legs went over her head.

Everything was a blur, things simultaneously moved too fast and felt like they would never end, until the ragdoll falling sensation finally stopped.

She stared at the ceiling, completely dazed, and numb for what felt like an eternity before the pain erupted from all over her body and her mind came crashing back into her body.

Her lungs felt as though they’d collapsed in on themselves, she couldn’t even feel her hands and her right forearm felt like it’d been run over and her shoulder on that side didn’t feel much better.

Her ankle didn’t feel right but she could barely lift her head to look down and see that it was twisted at a very not good angle.

She couldn’t even think for the first minute as she laid there.

Her vision swam and the noise around her was warbled and far away, sending an ache so intense it radiated from her head all the way down her neck into the very bottom of her shoulders.

When everything around her came crashing back with a violent intensity she could barely move, but as soon as she locked eyes with another walker and an inhuman roar ripped from its cracked and torn lips, a deep-rooted panic rose.

A loud squeak echoed off the walls as the heel of her boot skidded off the ground with a violent push, using her one — and only — relatively unharmed leg to push herself across the floor.

Pain dominated her senses as she pushed her back across the ground, surrounded by chaos. She almost couldn’t do it, but the excruciating feeling became numb and white under the thought of teeth tearing through her flesh and she pushed anyway despite how painful it was until she reached a cell.

Pushing herself into the cell — struggling to suck air into her lungs — she hooked her foot on the door and grit her teeth so hard her teeth felt like they would be ground into sand if she held it for too long and with one final raise of her leg, she pulled it far enough that the walker slammed into it and did the rest of the work to push it closed for her.

Brown spital full of congealed blood flew from the corpse’s mouth as it violently slammed against the bars, sticking its arms through, and snapped at her, trying everything in its power to get to the meal lying prone on the ground, even at the expense of its own body.

Eve tried to catch a breath but couldn’t hold it no matter how much she gasped and released it almost as soon as she got it.

The sharp aching pains from all over her body forced her to keep taking abrupt short gasps for several minutes, unable to hold a single one.

She couldn’t push herself any farther from the door, despite trying to use the last of her strength to do so. All she could do was wait for someone to kill that walker and find her.

It was rare she couldn't manage on her own but after a single attempt to even lift her head enough to see the door, she knew better than to try to help herself, and it was just as well that pain deterred her for once.

Just breathing hurt so bad that she tried not to, but she had to force more air into her lungs, or she’d have a panic attack in this state.

It wasn’t long before she found her awareness drifting and darkness started to encroach at the edges of her vision.

A jolt of alarm shot through her mind. She couldn’t lose consciousness in this state, the risk of not waking up if she did was a soberingly real threat.

Forcing her ringing ears, she listened to the screaming inside the cellblock, the panic; the walker banging on the bars, wetly snapping at her with vicious hungry growls, and the shrunken beady, and puss yellow eyes staring straight into her soul with a ravenous madness that sent a chill down her spine.

The feeling of being prey trapped in a cage, like live bait for a bigger predator, imposed itself on her as if conspiring with panic to remind her of the crushing weight of her own mortality.

Eve’s eyes stung as she tried to breathe, her vision clouding. Her throat felt like it was filling with boiling water, slowly closing with each gasp.

The walker outside was abruptly interrupted in its screeching by a throaty gurgle as if liquid had flooded its throat and dropped to the concrete in a bloody heap.

Glenn’s eyes widened in panic the moment they glanced into the cell after the kill and even before he opened it, he screamed for Daryl & Rick across the cellblock.

He ripped the door open as fast as he could, and almost slid on his knees as he dropped next to her, frantically asking on the verge of panic, “Oh god, oh god what happened? — Did you get bit?”

Eve shook her head slowly but a twinge in her neck stopped her short.

Glenn went to help her but the moment he barely touched her, she grit her teeth and scrunched her eyes shut in pain and he jumped, immediately retracting his hands.

His hands were shaking so much he could barely think, moving up and down, trying to help and rethinking half a second later over and over.

He didn’t know what to do.

In the end, he just wound up screaming again. “DR. S!”

Eve hasn’t seen that side of him in a long time, but that was just a passing thought, buried in the riptide that pulled at the fringes of her deteriorating consciousness.

She wanted to comfort him that she was ok, but she really wasn’t, and she couldn’t even muster the will to move her hands from where they were curled around her torso, barely touching.

The slightest movement brought the most intense pain she’d ever felt in her life, and with every inch of her trembling from it, it only worsened the longer she laid there.

Glenn barely heard the rapid steps outside before two figures appeared at the doorway and froze.

When Rick & Daryl’s eyes landed on the two people in the cell, they both froze for a fraction of a second before Daryl disappeared from beside him.

Daryl’s knees cracked against the concrete beside his prone partner, sending pain ricocheting up his skeleton, and the pain went completely ignored as his entire focus landed on her.

“Stay still.” Daryl ordered as he picked up her hand.

Rick finally snapped out of it and ordered. “Get Dr. S, now.”

Glenn dropped his machete without even thinking and flew to his feet. He blew past Rick in the doorway, running even faster than if he was being chased.

Rick took his place on Eve’s other side, snatching the thin pillow off the bed and muttering a quick apology as he moved his hand under her head. Daryl quickly supported her neck with his other hand as Rick lifted her skull off the concrete and slid the pillow under it.

Judging by the way she was cradling her ribs, she really f**ked up this time.

“Don’t move her, Glenn get Dr. S or Hershel.” Rick quickly assessed the situation and acted.

Daryl’s hand rested on the top of her head, the one part of her that wasn’t visibly hurt and mumbled in a low comforting tone, doing his best to ease her worries. “Stay still. The cell block is fine, all the walkers are taken care of.”

Rick didn’t want to, but he had to ask, “Are you bit?”

Eve glanced at him and barely moved her head before inhaling sharply and freezing, releasing that breath so fast it couldn’t even reach her lungs before it was on its way back out.

“Don’t. Don’t try to move.” Rick shook his head, unconsciously putting his hand on the side of her head as if to stop her from doing it again.

She almost found the strength to roll her eyes but couldn’t tell if her muscles were trembling or if it was just her heartbeat, so she decided against it.

Daryl asked her questions as he looked her over, trying to figure out where it hurt most and what the most important injury was that needed to be addressed asap but the most obvious one was her torso.

Glenn came back with help in record time and Rick immediately moved farther up above Eve’s head, while Daryl moved up by her shoulder to make room for Dr. S.

The three men knelt on either side of her, Glenn standing near the doorway, panting, and shaking like a leaf.

Dr. S looked at her, asked the same questions as Daryl and received the answers from him instead of her, before lifting her shirt to see why her breathing was labored to the point that it was almost non-existent.

Her stomach was fine but there were some darkening shades on her sides, running underneath her out of sight; the problem had to be on her back.

So, no poking at her ribs for once.

He concluded that she’d dislocated her ankle, but the ankle could wait, he was more concerned about her wrist.

Normally he would never recommend doing this without pain medication, but the bone needed to be snapped back into place, asap.

He looked at Eve with apologetic eyes. “I’m not gonna lie, this is gonna hurt.”

She didn’t try to nod again but with a strangled wheeze, she closed her eyes in a reserved manner, ready for it.

“Deep breaths, as deep as you can. In through your nose, out through your mouth.”

Eve did as she was told and flinched, tensed, and her hands trembled; Face scrunching with every breath she forced to be deeper than what her body was happy with, but she did it.

She kept her eyes locked on Daryl’s, but he had never seen such unmasked pain in her misting fiery irises, the whites of her eyes strained and turning red like she’d been pepper sprayed.

Daryl’s thumb grazed the droplets on her cheek that had squeezed themselves out against her will, feeling so helpless in the face of those tiny little drops and her face of barely restrained agony.

“Last one, I have to do your ankle next.”

Eve blinked in a comprehensive but barely conscious way, unable to conjure the strength for even a nod.

However, she didn’t feel a thing, everything hazed into black before she realized it was happening.

---

The council got together quickly and talked about what they had found. Eve was the only person with serious injuries, everyone else had either died or barely made it out with their lives.

They lost a lot of people, and it was still unclear what had happened, until Hershel reported his and Dr. S’s findings.

They believed it was a sickness.

One of their people, Carl’s friend Patrick, had contracted it and it killed him some time last night, then he came back and attacked the cellblock.

Signs pointed to a flu and Hershel suspected that it may have been transferred from the pigs they were raising, as these things have spread from pigs & birds in the past.

Rick speculated that one of the walkers outside the fence may have carried it here because he saw a walker yesterday outside the fence that had the same bloody trails down its face as Patrick did.

Dr. S had explained how the disease worked when himself, Rick, and few others were examining Patrick’s body and the rest of the cellblock for the cause of the sudden walker outbreak.

It wasn’t a pleasant way to die.

Not long into the discussion, the council had no choice but to separate everyone that had been exposed and isolate anybody showing symptoms.

They decided to separate the most vulnerable (children and old folks mostly) into the administration building and isolate the infected in Cellblock A.

There were mixed feelings about putting the sick on death row, but it was the only clean cellblock they had left.

Hershel was less than happy about being included in the vulnerable party and forced to isolate, but he moved past it and resolved to look after Evelyn and monitor her condition.

A fall like that wouldn’t be nearly as bad if they had a functioning hospital or more medicine and equipment but as is, it’s a miracle she survived that fall without fatal injuries.

The instinct to protect her head prevented her from damaging her neck as well. It probably saved her life, though her back suffered greatly for it.

Thankfully, Evelyn is in great shape and has an athlete’s physique, her body is accustomed to punishment and the doctors speculated that with some extra care and medicine if they can get it, she would recover quickly.

Most of the damage was to her skin and her muscles, which took most of the impact.

The most severe injuries were her ankle, shoulder, and the potentially broken ribs, but after a more thorough examination, Dr. S determined that it was more likely a fracture than an actual break, which was infinitely better than a break.

Concerning Eve, the bigger risk was this flu.

Judith is naturally the most vulnerable because of her age, but in her condition, Eve is the second most vulnerable.

If she contracts this flu with the damage her body suffered, one coughing fit could break the ribs and if she’s unlucky the break could puncture something and cause internal bleeding. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Her lungs could rupture, and her immune system is certainly compromised as well, which means the risk of her contracting this virus is almost guaranteed if she’s exposed any further.

She may already have it, by the simple fact that she was in D-block — they all could.

After a thorough discussion, it was decided to also isolate anybody showing symptoms and have people keep away from each other as much as possible.

After the meeting, Daryl, Maggie, Michonne, and Hershel carefully moved Eve like a wounded soldier, and set her up in the warden’s office in the administration building, before moving the young and old into a separate area inside.

As they placed her on the makeshift bed inside the warden’s office, Daryl lingered for a minute, touching her hand with his fingers.

“Hang in there. You best be here when we come back.”

On the bright side, this was the first time in months that she’d had so much as a scratch. It was a new record.

She was gonna make it through this, he had no doubt. No doubt…

Hershel checked up on her every so often, but she was still unconscious.

The few people who hadn’t shown symptoms were struggling to keep the base running with just the few of them.

Most of the people from cellblock C were ok at the start but after a few hours, Glenn and Sasha also began to show symptoms and moved the cellblock-A with the rest, choosing to help Dr. S and do what they could inside to help those who were sicker.

Everyone else was working their asses off outside and most of them noticed that the people who hadn’t gotten sick yet were in good shape. Lots of them were part of the runners or manual labor groups and had strong immune systems. Also, people who tended to not get too close with many people like Daryl, Randall; who practically lived in the guard tower, Merle; who not many people liked to get close to, Martinez; who was a fan of his own personal space, and Rick; who had been focused on farming and had spent most of his time in the field.

Carol and Rick were doing their best to deal with the water pipe that had become clogged with mud at the most inopportune time, and together they managed to get it unclogged with no incident or injuries, but the massive herd of walkers outside the fences did not make it easy.

Rick working to keep the walkers off Carol’s back while she cleared the clog was barely enough. (A problem that would later be fixed by attaching a small net of plastic bath-toy ducks to the end of the hose so that it would float and stay near the surface of the water instead of dragging in the mud at the bottom.)

T-Dog, Daryl, and Tiny were doing their best to deal with the diseased bodies from their fallen people.

It didn’t feel good to burn the corpses of their own, but they had no choice, they had to stop the spread.

Only after the fences started to give in and bend under the pressure of so many walkers outside — barely kept under control by Maggie, Merle, Martinez, and Randall all working together non-stop to clear the never-ending stream and keep the fences standing — did the council have to get back together again.

The situation was growing more perilous, the sickness was getting worse and those who were struggling to keep things going outside couldn’t keep this up forever.

They estimated that the fences would hold for another day if they kept up the constant things, they had been doing to support it. But maintenance or not, unless those walkers all suddenly disappeared, that fence was going down by the end of tomorrow.

Considering the more pressing danger outside, the discussion turned to riskier plans.

Hershel, who was being consulted through the separation of the door as they had their meeting in the entrance hallway of the administrative building, began to discuss getting medication from the Veterinary college to help combat the disease, but even if they could find a way to get a car out of the base, the college was 50 miles from them.

It would no doubt be dangerous but Daryl, Michonne, Martinez, and T-Dog were confident that they could do it. So, the decision was made without argument, despite the risk it posed.

They still had to deal with the pigs who were likely responsible for spreading the disease from the walkers to them, so Rick came up with a plan for how to kill two birds with one stone.

They could use the pigs to lure the walkers away from the gate and allow Daryl’s team to slip out.

Meanwhile, as they put their plans into action, things inside cellblock A were only getting worse as symptoms began to take a turn for the worse, the infection entering its second phase of lethality.

Glenn and Sasha, who were doing their best to help Dr. S, but they were barely being able to walk anymore.

Their feet felt like cement and it was difficult to breathe, but compared to most of the other sick, they were in some of the best condition.

Strong immune systems and the young, fit bodies of adults in their prime helped.

There was truly little that a healthy, fit adult could not endure or overcome but with a disease like this, the amount it helped was not as much as one could hope for.

Maggie kept the isolated informed of what was happening by talking to Beth — who was taking care of Judith — through the door.

As for the isolated infected who filled nearly the entire cellblock, people came to the observation room with two-way glass to speak to each other and try to keep morale high, communicating information back and forth.

The news that a team was on their way to get medicine brought a great wave of much-needed relief to their worried minds. The hope reinvigorated many people, and many who had felt their will beginning to fail, were once again holding on tighter, holding out for the team to return.

Despite knowing that wherever they planned to get the medicine from must be dangerous, they had absolute faith that if that team couldn’t do it, then it wasn’t possible.

Everything they were doing wasn’t ideal, but under the circumstances, it was a phenomenal effort.

It helped that Eve and Dr. S had briefly speculated before about how to handle illness.

They had no concrete plans before this and it was not meant to handle an outbreak, they had been focused on injury seeing as it was the most common need for medical attention, but what little they had discussed, they had been able to modify and apply to deal with the cells full of sick people.

Mass illness of this level had unfortunately been overlooked in their preliminary plans — that had only just been discussed a few weeks prior when they were finalizing their sanitation setups and germs just happened to come up in several aspects — but it worked well enough for the time being.

They had planned to set up an infirmary/hospital area and had only just moved all their medical materials into one place to be used as a little clinic room until they had a chance to set up something meant for surgery and the like, but it seems they were being punished for not creating their “hospital” fast enough.

The saying “When it rains, it pours” was highly appropriate.

It really felt like this disease had swept through because they had thought about healthcare but hadn’t gotten to it yet.

Life was a cruel mistress that really didn’t pull any punches.

While everyone else was struggling, Carl was walking the halls of the administrative building, taking it upon himself to keep everybody safe and he checked on Eve every time he passed her room.

Hershel didn’t like sitting on his hands, so after a while of being by himself and having nothing to do but think, an idea came to mind and despite how stupid it was, he decided to go out and do what he could instead of staying in quarantine.

It wasn’t the best example to be setting, especially since he himself knew the consequences of breaking quarantine, but after finding out that Dr. S had been infected as well and that there was a plan in place to send a select few who were still healthy to go get medicine from the college, the doctor in him couldn’t sit by any longer.

He knew of an old-school herbal tea — much like traditional Chinese medicine — that his first wife used to make, that could ease the symptoms and give everyone suffering a little bit more time.

The most important thing about this sickness was that the disease itself didn’t kill you, the symptoms did. So, easing the symptoms was equivalent to staving off death, and knowing that he could do that prevented him from staying put any longer.

Unfortunately, on his way out, he was caught by Carl patrolling the halls.

If he insisted on leaving, then Carl insisted on going with him.

Even after Hershel tried his best to tell him to stay here. It was of no use. The boy had become too headstrong and too smart to listen to anyone except Rick and Eve, and even they had little control of the budding teenager anymore.

It was somewhat reminiscent of tribalism. Much like children of that era, as Carl’s capabilities grew, so did his independence and willingness to pull as much weight as he could within the group to improve their “tribe’s” conditions.

The two of them made sure that Eve’s door was locked, just in case, and asked Beth to check on her occasionally, giving specific instructions not to unlock the door and not to go inside, just look through the window to make sure she’s still breathing, and then they left to go through the tombs and sneak outside the fence in the back — which had significantly fewer walkers — and collect elderberries.

Beth did as they asked and checked up on Eve, but she was still unconscious. She wasn’t doing much better than those who were sick though.

She had always been a quick healer but even if she woke up, she wouldn’t be able to do much. She wouldn’t even be able to walk on her own with that ankle.

To be honest, Beth was glad she was still asleep.

If she woke up now, it would be worse because she would try to get up, and no one was there to stop her. No one she would listen to anyway.

Eve had the same problem that Carl had unfortunately begun to learn from her. She was stubborn, sometimes to a fault, and refused to stay still when things were happening. Always needing to find something she could do to help the situation.

It wasn’t a bad thing to do, but the unfortunate part was that Eve tended to push her limits and that’s what Carl had been picking up that was concerning.

But after a talk with Randall, who came to check up on them, Beth had a plan just in case Eve did wake up.

She was fully prepared to barricade her in that room to prevent her from leaving, and even threaten to tell Daryl when he gets back if she had to.

Thank goodness it didn’t come to that.

The fence team was down to three as Merle began to show symptoms and was put in isolation with the sick.

The small team consisting of Daryl, T-Dog, Tyreese, Michonne, and an army medic (Bob) that they had recently taken in but hadn’t fully trusted yet, encountered their own trouble trying to reach the Veterinary college, but all of them were experienced in getting out of trouble and the entire base counted on them to get it done.

It had been a while since they had been in dire straits like this, but most of them were part of the runners or accustomed to going outside the base, so while the team wasn’t ideal or polished teamwork-wise, it was enough.

With the help of Bob, they managed to identify the correct medications that were on the list and secure what they needed.

Getting back took a little more doing as they had to find a new car after the one they brought was swarmed on the way over and had to be abandoned, but with Daryl there, fixing an old minivan that had been covered in overgrown vines proved to be little trouble.

Because of the college though, there were more walkers than normal in this area, and the walkers at the campus had been exposed to something that likely escaped from one of the labs in the building.

It wasn’t implausible that the disease the base was being scourged with had come from this place either.

If walkers could act as carriers for such things, then disease was going to be a big problem. A problem that a place like the CDC had countermeasures for, but little institutes like this did not.

Daryl finally understood why Dr. Jenner had been so concerned and locked down the base as soon as power ran out, and why it was necessary to destroy that place until nothing remained but charred rubble if the viruses and diseases couldn’t be contained.

Thinking back on that Daryl and T-dog both knew they couldn’t just leave this place be, but they had more pressing concerns for the moment, so they could only make a mental note to come back and deal with this place later once they had dealt with the infection back at base.

---

It felt like everything took so much longer than it had.

In the span of a single day the cellblocks had been infected and attacked by the fallen. A team went on a potential suicide mission for medicine, and by the time the sun was going down Hershel had gone into the cellblock and began alleviating symptoms with elderberry tea and unfortunately, the fence team outside was reduced to two as Randall joined him in there and Carl took his place defending the fence.

With half its manpower gone, the fence began to bow at a rate visible to the naked eye.

Maggie and Carl were quickly joined by Rick and struggled desperately to keep the fence standing but there were just too many walkers and too few of them.

Rick finally shouted for the both of them to run for the tower and all three of them ran as fast as they could as the fence broke, leaving only one inner fence still standing and walkers flooded into the fenced path, chasing after the prey that had hightailed it like jackrabbits to the nearest guard tower and made it back into the higher courtyard, just in time for the medicine team to return and find out that there was no way to drive back into the base.

With the road in front of them blocked, the small group quickly abandoned the car and fled into the forest, running to the back of the prison through the dark with only a single flashlight between them to guide their way around to the entrance for the tombs.

The three in the courtyard barely stopped to catch their breaths before realizing it still wouldn’t hold even though the walkers had been bottlenecked by the small part of the outer fence that had been broken, and only so many of them could push against it at any time.

They were forced to grab the semi-automatic rifles and several magazines of extra ammo and stood in a line. As soon as they were lined up, the walkers broke through the fencing and began to flood through the hole.

Rapid gunfire rang out into the dark cloudless night sky, only the flashes of fire from their weapons showing them where their targets were.

The team of three stepped backward every few seconds, keeping their distance from the flood of bodies dropping and the cracks of gunfire never stopped, like a battlefield in a warzone, locked in an intense fight for survival.

They had no time to notice that the medicine team had come back until the door to cellblock C slammed open behind them and several more people joined the line, and even more gunfire broke out.

Relief flooded their veins as the addition of more riflemen made all the difference in pushing the wave back until they could finally stop taking steps back and start taking steps forward, cutting down the torrential pack besieging them.

Maggie ran out of ammunition first and so Michonne passed the bag of supplies to her and she and Bob ran inside to deliver the medicine, quickly joined by Tyreese and T-Dog as they also ran out of ammunition and were no longer needed to finish off the last bit of walkers remaining.

While the walkers were being handled outside, the four quickly ran to cellblock A and were startled as the sound of gunfire and screaming from inside the cellblock rang clearly.

Busting down the door proved impossible, so Maggie directly ran to the observation room and shot the glass, allowing the four to jump inside and immediately began dealing with the walking corpses of those who had died inside the cellblock, saving both Hershel’s life, Glenn’s life, and Sasha’s life and everyone else who was still holding on.

By midnight, the medicine was flooding the veins of more than half the base and all efforts of those who had never gotten sick and weren’t helping handle the sick, worked tirelessly to patch the hole in the outer fence well enough that it would hold until they could fix it up properly when day broke.

After an exhausting day and night, they were finally able to rest and several of them wanted to directly collapse.

Daryl was among them, but he only leaned on a fence for a few minutes before he went to check on Eve.

Beth was in there with her with Judith, but because he had been exposed to all sorts of different things, Daryl didn’t dare go inside.

Instead, he spoke to Beth through the door, looking through the glass window as she told him that Eve had briefly woken up just before he came when Hershel came to give Beth some medicine to give her (the reason Beth was in the room with her in the first place) but had drifted off again not long after she had taken the medicine.

Daryl stuck around for a while before going to check up on the cellblock and with Hershel.

With Eve resting, he stepped up to do what she normally would in this situation. He wasn’t as good at it, but he was more than enough to help things get back on track.

Rick and Carl guarded the breach all night; trading out with T-Dog and Martinez around dawn after the two had finished all the emergency tasks they had been doing to keep the base going while they weathered the crisis, and things finally settled down.

The crisis plans that Eve and the council had spent long hours drawing up had come in handy, even though they had apparently overlooked a few things.

Everyone knew what they were responsible for when the crisis hit and because they kept to their positions and kept things going, they made it through.

It was a bumpy ride and close to a dozen people died but by the time the sun rose two days later, Eve woke up once again and Daryl was sitting next to her; Checked over and given a clean bill of health by Hershel, getting the ok to sit with her.

When she stirred, she coughed a bit and it obviously hurt but after a few seconds and some water, she was fine, and she was more than happy to see him without the separation of glass.

Daryl finally stopped withholding the details of what happened from her and they talked for a long time about exactly what had happened and how they dealt with it, including his suspicions about the college.

Eve’s lips parted with a sharp intake of breath and made her cough and once it settled down, she swallowed and tried to sit up.

Daryl stopped her immediately. Hershel said no sitting up, she’s on two weeks of bed rest. Doctor’s orders.

Her ribs will take a while to heal but she’ll at least be able to get up and walk around (with help, and crutches) by then.

After their conversation, Eve laid staring at the ceiling for quite a while, absorbing all the information.

She looked tired.

Tired and haggard, and Daryl told her to rest more but even though she closed her eyes, she couldn’t fall asleep.

In retrospect, disease should have been a more obvious flag, but they had been doing so many other things and dealing with things that had immediate consequences that it had just slipped through the cracks.

Nobody said it would be easy to run a base this size. The number of things they had to consider each day meant that most of Eve’s day had become deskwork. Sometimes she felt like a paper pusher in a big corporation.

Just purifying the amount of water, they needed every day took two people four hours daily.

Thankfully, that was a job they could give to the older kids like Carl and… Patrick. But other jobs were not like that. They were critical and couldn’t be done by just anybody, like runs, hunting, and medical care.

Most tasks required a set of skills that not everybody possessed. Even the farming had been left up to Rick and Hershel while the old veterinarian was teaching Rick and they only had plans to increase the number of farmers later after they were able to fortify the back of the prison and deal with the walls that were still broken down.

Eve was brought out of her thoughts and lifted her head when she heard footsteps, and a few seconds later Carl appeared at the door and asked how she was feeling.

She gave him a small smile and a thumbs up but didn’t try to sit up again.

Carl was still worried, but she was out of danger for the most part.

Since taking on the responsibility of leadership, her tendency to downplay injury and push through the pain had gotten worse.

In some ways, it was good that she kept up a strong face for the rest of the base. If she wasn’t worried, neither were they.

If she didn’t panic, neither would they, but for those closest to her, it mostly just made them worry.

However, as much as it made them worry, it was simply part of who she is. It always had been, and after Daryl witnessed how bad the pain would have to get before, she wouldn’t downplay it... it might be more worrisome if she stopped. He would never know how serious it was if she made a deal of every injury she got.

She could still stand to be a little more careful. She’s the type to get hurt all the time, like the kid you see on the playground who always has scraped knees and a band-aid somewhere on their body.

All in all, they didn’t mind so much that she was like this. Though at times it made Daryl feel conflicted.

She wasn’t bad enough to push it too far. She knew her limits, it just wasn’t pleasant to watch her endure because her limits were just too broad; enduring things without a fuss that would cripple a normal person. This was the only thing that she and his brother had in common. Both seemed like they were made of steel.

It made Daryl want to make her stop every time, and he had done a spectacular job so far at getting her to stop.

It wasn’t his job to regulate her, but he did because she was bad at it, and it made him want to. It was partly for selfish reasons and partly for her own good.

For the next few days, Eve had her work materials brought to her, and council meetings were held in the administrative building; A more fitting place than the library, if it weren’t for the fact that the warden’s office was currently acting as a hospital room.

A few things had to be dealt with right away and couldn’t wait even if she were recovering, like the fence, and despite that Hershel & Daryl were not too happy that she was still working, they let it slide if she kept it to only a few hours a day.

She was sleeping most of the time anyway and had been good (for a change) about resting, so it wasn’t a big deal.

The fence had to be repaired and they started discussing how to reinforce them so that they could survive the bigger and bigger build-ups they’ve been having without collapsing like they did when they were left alone for a single day.

The waves of walkers were getting bigger like they were migrating or something, and with every person that was added to the base, the problem was becoming worse.

It was manageable for now, but they got lucky this time.

Dr. S’s near-death during the outbreak was a huge blow to the base’s operations and he was in recovery for a long time.

Bob, the army medic, took over his duties for the most part but army medics had different training than hospital doctors. While Bob knew what he was doing and could perform operations that would save people’s lives in a pinch, he wasn’t a grade-A hospital surgeon like Dr. S; though the 3 doctors on base decided amongst themselves that they would start training others in basic medical knowledge, and even teaching each other what they knew.

They were lucky enough to have a skilled nurse that had served as Woodbury’s doctor who was able to help train more people, like Beth and Maggie in nursing, and slowly the number of people who could deal with injuries would become 100%, and at least 15% of the base could do more complicated procedures like setting bones and how to perform an amputation if necessary.

The most pressing thing aside from those was the college.

That college had to be dealt with.

If Daryl was right and it was the source of this infection, then this could be the first of many to come.

The same way they had to deal with the pigs that likely spread the virus to them, they had to take care of that college the same way the CDC had been taken care of.

They couldn’t launch a missile at it, but they could burn it the old-fashioned way, the way they did back in the day for plagues.

It was crude and not 100% assured but it was the only thing that was feasible.

After the fence was dealt with, and the base was mostly recovered, a plan was made, and another team lead by Daryl was put together and went to deal with that building.

They took precautions, finding fire-fighter suits & equipment from the fire station and taking precautions against picking up other infections.

It was difficult, but the next morning the group returned at dawn, ready for a long rest, and the college was no longer a problem. They had even managed to salvage a lot of resources from it before burning the building down.

Glenn & Sasha’s noise-traps played a key part in drawing most of the walkers out and away from the building, and they burned and killed as many of them as they could. Using two fortified steamrollers and other construction vehicles to kill most of them, as the safest and most resource-effective way.

Rotated teams of a dozen people turned hundreds of walkers into ashen bodies, used up an entire gas station’s worth of gasoline to get rid of all the possible infectors, and the operation took more than 15 hours straight over three whole days to complete.

It was by far the largest operation they had ever done. They had never dealt with so many walkers before but astonishingly, the only injuries they had were things like staying in the sun too long, dehydration, exhaustion, fatigue, and some accidental hand injuries but not one person received an injury directly from a walker.

This sort of operation would not even have been possible if they hadn’t been hoarding resources like crazy for months.

It was not fun using up that many resources on something like this, but the risk was too great to be stingy.

It was either, deal with the building and the potentially infected walkers, or move the entire base away from this area. Which may not have even been possible.

Moving forward, they were much more conscious about staying clean and the spread of germs.

Many of them chose to wear masks when leaving the base and covered up when doing work at the fences even if it were hot — which they got creative and set up some tarps between the tops of the fences to shade the pathway, and they could even be used for rain collection, so they were set up at an angle with big plastic storage buckets to catch the water.

Any suspicious walkers outside the fence were burned after the bodies were collected and moved away from the fence to the landfill where they had been dumping the bodies.

Anyone who showed any signs of being sick with anything was required to wear a mask and see the doctors.

The doctors also had to wear the protective gear that they had in modern hospitals when dealing with patients.

From this day forward, Eve — and many others — also began wearing body armor everywhere they went, from sunrise to sunset, and it became mandatory for anyone leaving the base to wear proper gear.

Getting the resources for all of this was something Eve herself took on after the base was back on its feet.

She put Rick in charge of the day-to-day running of the base while a specialized team was created for this purpose. And that’s how they found out that the hospital all the way back in Atlanta had people in it.

After observing them for quite a while and even managing to get inside a few times without being noticed, Eve decided to bring Rick down to negotiate a trade deal.

It wasn’t easy contacting them, but the woman in charge was barely holding onto leadership by a thread, and this is exactly what she needed to reinforce her position and take better control.

The prospect of getting things that they had difficulty getting in exchange for medicine, and a standing deal that if any of their people needed medical treatment the hospital group would provide it, was just what the doctor ordered.

Being the only person that Rick — the presumed leader of this new trading partner — would deal and exchange the supplies with, meant that her own group needed her. But Eve gave careful instructions not to tell these people anything more than necessary about them.

She didn’t trust these people. The fact they had medicine and doctors was invaluable and building a good relationship with them could save them down the road, especially if they have a major accident now that they’re starting to build better fences, but she was not willing to show more of their cards to them than necessary.

The mysteriousness of this trading partner wasn’t something the hospital leader, Dawn, could question if she wanted to hold onto her position in her own group, so she didn’t ask more than she needed to.

She never saw anyone other than Rick and a handful of others, but she noted that there were almost always a few new faces every time, and that was done on purpose even if she didn’t realize it. Because they wanted Dawn to know that there were more of them than her group could deal with, in case her untrustworthy officers got any ideas.

Eventually though, one of Dawn’s people (a boy named Noah, who was around Beth’s age) subtly told Glenn that he was not there by his own will. He was being forced to work off the medical treatment they had given him for his leg, which would have been fair, except for the fact that he didn’t ask for treatment in the first place. They had snatched him off the street and he was confined there ever since.

It was an interesting predicament to be in and the council and Eve had to take a long time to consider their options.

Ultimately, she and the council decided to help the boy and over the next two trades, he slipped them some information that they could use, and Eve came up with a plan.

At the next trade, Rick used some leverage and the price of a few bullets to trade for Noah himself, with the excuse that they needed another pair of hands.

Dawn was reluctant to let go of him, but the bullets were truly invaluable, and they knew it, because Noah had told them so.

In the end, they traded several things to pay off Noah’s “debt” to the hospital group and were able to take him away.

The way they did it was subtle, as to not raise Dawn’s suspicion and made it seem like they didn’t know much about Dawn’s group, also leveraging the fact that Dawn couldn’t let them know that they were in desperate need of bullets and other things, to pseudo-trick her into giving him up without a fuss.

It wasn’t easy to get her to let go of him, she did not have many people to spare, but they knew that she couldn’t afford to let them know that her group was too small to compete with theirs.

She was smart enough to understand that even though they were on good terms if they did not appear as though they were equals, it was entirely possible that they would just wipe out her group and take their supplies or force the hospital to hand it over themselves.

Of course, their group would never actually do something like that unless the hospital attacked first, but it was better if she didn’t know that.

Getting the supplies that the hospital found valuable enough to trade for was relatively simple, but they also kept that to themselves.

If Dawn knew how easy it was for them to get these things, their value would decrease, and she would start demanding more and appreciating their efforts less.

That was basic business practice, and thanks to one of the people from Woodbury, who had been a businessman, they were able to utilize this knowledge and avoid that pitfall.

It was better for her to think they were stronger than her and were willing to get hard-to-find stuff for them in exchange for the medicine that her group already had.

There was more medicine in that hospital than her group could use but they were running out of certain things that were being used daily and on people with certain medical conditions inside the hospital.

Unfortunately for them, Noah knew about the warehouse where that stuff was stored that the hospital had been unable to get access to because it was too dangerous.

They had neither the manpower nor the firepower to spare and couldn’t undertake a retrieval that large.

However, the prison base could, and that’s exactly why Noah brought it up upon their return.

He was astonished when he came back to the base with them.

He went through the same vetting process that everyone who they have taken in has, but he passed with flying colors.

They would not have taken such a risk to get him out if they hadn’t already been 70% sure that he would.

He was naturally confused when the small group he had been brought back to and had gotten to know over a few days, suddenly brought him somewhere else that was far beyond anything he had imagined.

He had not been expecting to be tested in such a way, or for their group to be so big, or this fortified and set up so well, and he did not expect that Rick was not the leader, but he quickly made friends with Beth and the few who were around his age.

Thanks to him, the group was able to put together another large operation and got all the medicine they could need for at least a few years.

Most of the stuff in that warehouse had no use for them so they only took what they could use and left the rest before letting the walkers move back in, but it was more than worth it.

A few weeks later, the hospital group fell apart — the officers killing each other in a power-struggle — as predicted, and what was left of the group was vetted and brought into their base, going through the same experience as Noah, if not more jarring for them because they didn’t have many dealings with these people before being taken in.

The medical conditions of some of these people were complicated but not so much so that they couldn’t handle it with all the new medical supplies they had gotten.

However, they did suffer one loss through the exchange, and that was the doctor that the hospital had had. He was not a good person and had killed another doctor who was more skilled than him, to obtain better benefits and protection within their group. He was even leveraging people’s medical conditions to exert a certain amount of control over the group, and that undoubtedly had contributed to Dawn’s power struggle and downfall.

At Noah’s warning and of the council’s own good judgment, they did not bring that man back to their base and found his corpse at the fence a few weeks later, snapping dirty teeth at the living with all the others.

---

In case anyone has missed any of my recent activities, my first original “Oh Brother” has officially been published and several chapters are already available.

You can read it on Wattpad, here on my website, and on Patreon; If you want to read ahead, choose any tier with the ‘early-access’ or ‘advanced chapter’ benefit.

In other news, I noticed that a lot of people tend to miss the announcements I make other than at the end of chapters, as well as like to chat with each other in the comments, ask questions, discuss theories, make jokes, submit fanart, promote other stories, and even make new friends. So, I thought a more direct way of communication and a space for a community would be a great idea, and so I had a friend help me set up a discord server!

If you’re interested in any of that, then come hang out on my server!

I plan to add a button to the website but for now, here's a good old-fashioned link ~ https://discord.gg/ADXVS7G68M