Rick tells the group that tomorrow, they are going to go into the walker-filled prison to hopefully move into it for good. Nell thinks it's stupid. Can't they just take a day's break? They've been on the move for months.

"This place could be a gold mine," Rick says, pointing to the prison.

"We're dangerously low on ammo. We'll run out before we even make a dent," says Hershel nonchalantly, his sweet eyes staring into Rick's.

"That's why we have to go in there— hand to hand. After all we've been through, we can handle it. I know it." Rick says, looking to his left at Carl, who has a slightly concerned expression taking over his face. "These assholes don't stand a chance," he says to his son, speaking of the walkers.

Everyone looks around, exchanging glances ranging from scared to emotionless. But yet, nobody dares to say a word. Nell looks up at Daryl, who is sitting on the grass next to her, and he shoots her the smallest smile he can manage when he notices that she doesn't agree with Rick's plan.

Rick stands up and walks away— Lori follows him. Then eventually, everyone else disperses to do their own things, some setting up their sleeping bag for the night while others remain around the fire.

Nell notices Carl is sitting alone, lying on his stomach while fidgeting with his pistol. Nell walks over to him, remembering she promised Daryl that she wouldn't be mute and at least try to make friends.

"Hey," Nell mumbles, avoiding eye contact with the boy. Her voice is so soft that she isn't even sure he heard her.

Carl looks up at the girl standing over him, expressionless. "What?" He grumbles, expecting her to bother him like usual.

"Nothin'," she says, sitting down on the patch of grass next to him. Carl sits up, brushing some specks of dirt off his shirt.

"What do you mean 'nothing'?" He asks, staring attentively at Nell. She rarely ever spoke to him, and when she did, it was never something nice.

Nell shrugs and awkwardly picks at the long strands of grass in front of her legs, which are crossed in criss-cross applesauce.

"Okay then..." Carl says slowly, finding her behavior odd.

After about a minute of painful silence, Nell decides to speak up. "I promised Daryl I would start talkin'," she says. "Figured I'd start with you."

Carl looks at the girl with raised eyebrows. He doesn't understand what Daryl has to do with any of this, but he shrugs it off. "I didn't mind when you didn't talk," He says, not purposefully trying to hurt her feelings, but rather speaking his mind.

Nell rolls her eyes. This is gonna be harder than she thought. She can't even talk to Carl, let alone become friends with him. She doesn't want to be his friend anyway.

"You're an asshole, ya know that?" Nell snaps, getting up from her sitting position, ready to walk away. She doesn't understand why he is being so rude when he was just teaching her how to shoot a gun earlier.

Carl stares at the girl completely unsurprised by her sudden change of heart. He doesn't know what he did to make her snap, but he knew that she would never try to willingly talk to him. "Whatever, go away," he says, trying his best to suppress an argument as he goes back to pretending to do something important— taking off the barrel of his pistol to mess around with.

Nell walks away annoyed. She heads over to the cluster of sleeping bags spread across the grass and continues to unzip her own. She usually sets up her things a bit further from the rest, making sure to keep her distance, but she realizes that in order to keep her promise to Daryl, she has to make some changes.

And so, she sets down her dark blue sleeping bag that she has had with her since the farmhouse across the long, cold grass. Then, she slips her bag off of her back and proceeds to take out Snuggles, laying him comfortably on top of the sleeping bag.  She leaves her knife in the back pocket of her jeans when she goes to sleep, just in case of emergencies. It used to be uncomfortable to sleep in jeans, even more so with a knife in her pocket, but she adjusted quickly.

She didn't get into her sleeping bag yet though. She waited for the others to eventually head over to their own, each individually preparing for the night. Nell likes to be one of the last to fall asleep, it makes her feel safer. Although, there are always a few each night who can't fall asleep, or either wake up frantically from a nightmare. Nell is usually one of those few.

Once everyone is tucked into their sleeping bags, most of them fall fast asleep, except the usually few, which include Daryl and Rick who swap taking turns on watch, and occasionally Lori who jolts awake to throw up, Nell lays on her back, staring at the beautiful star-filled sky. She noticed recently that the sky has become more clear, presumably because of the lack of pollution being shot up at the atmosphere. It's pretty. She wishes that the sky could have looked like this years ago. She knows that her mom and Ollie would have loved it.

• • •

The next day, Rick is ready to put his plan into action to clear out the prison. The yard that they stayed the night in is surrounded by gates, completely safe from the walkers on the outside. The space right outside the prison though, is packed with walkers mindlessly roaming. He plans to kill them and then move inside.

Nell, of course, isn't allowed to help with the walker-clearing, so she stays on the field. Rick, Daryl, T-dog, Glenn, and Maggie are the ones who rush through the prison gates to kill the walkers.

"Hey! Over here! C'mon!" Carol, who is right beside Nell, shouts and bangs on the gate to get the walkers' attention. Once a walker wanders its way over to her, Carol stabs it in the head with her knife.

Lori and Beth start doing the same, yelling and making noise to draw the walkers over to them. Nell looks to Carl, who gives her a nasty glare and quickly turns to stab a walker that's close to the gate. She can tell that Carl wanted to join his dad.

Nell grabs the metal gate with both hands and shakes it back and forth to gain attention from the walkers like the rest are doing. Even though she has killed walkers before, it is hard for her to get used to it, especially because the entire time that they were on the move, Nell hasn't killed a single walker. She didn't have to. She had Daryl, Rick, T-dog, and the rest protecting her.

A walker approaches Nell, flaring its rotting teeth and snapping its jaw. When it gets close enough, Nell grabs a handful of its hair, brings the walker down to her level, and sticks her knife into its head. It is a bit of a struggle to get the knife out, but when she does, the walker falls against the floor. Nell smirks at the sight of the dead walker, proud of herself for what she did.

Nell watches as the group inside the gate slaughters walker after walker with just old pipes that Rick found around the prison towers. Well, everyone has a pipe except Maggie. She has a machete.

Maggie catches Nell's eye when she slices the walker's head in half, yelling slightly as she does it. Nell's eyes shoot open, surprised at this new version of Maggie. Nell has seen her kill a few walkers here and there, but this, this is something different. She wonders how she transitioned into such a badass, now fighting alongside Rick and the rest of the "front line". As Nell watches her butcher dozens of walkers without even flinching, it's hard to remember the innocent farmer girl that she once was when she first met her.

After what feels like forever, all of the walkers are dead, even the ones with helmets and suits.

Nell can't tell what they're talking about from outside the gate, but Rick, Maggie, and the rest of them move into the inside of the prison and out of  Nell's field of sight. The walkers outside were gone, what were they doing now?

"Where are they goin'?" Nell turns to ask Lori.

"I think they want to clear the actual prison..." Lori says, more to herself than to Nell. Lori doesn't want them to go inside, they don't know what's in there. It could be dangerous.

Nell has noticed that Lori's baby bump has gotten really big over the past few months. Any day now and the baby will be here. She assumes that that's the reason for Rick being so pushy to clear out the prison.

"Mom?" Carl walks up to Lori and his irritating voice rings through Nell's ears.

"Yes, baby?" Lori says, diverting her attention from the prison to Carl. She is smiling down at her son with one hand on her stomach for comfort.

"Where did dad go?" He asks, repeating the same question Nell asked not even a minute ago. Nell rolls her eyes and walks away to go near Beth.

Beth has changed since the farm too, only she hasn't become as tough as her sister, Maggie. Beth is getting the hang of the whole walker-killing thing, but she isn't the kind of person to volunteer to clear out a building.

Beth smiles sweetly as she notices Nell approaching. Nell has always liked Beth, ever since the very first time they met when Nell had her stab wound. Something about her soft features makes her appear welcoming and kind.

"Hey Nell," Beth says. Beth has her blonde hair pulled back into a messy ponytail and she is wearing a tank top, revealing the dirt that has collected on her skin during their time on the move. She isn't the only one, though. Every one of them looks dirty, some more than others. Even Nell gets disgusted by herself sometimes.

"Hi Beth," Nell says. "Do ya think this'll work?" She nods towards the prison.

"Yeah," Beth says. "I think it will. It has to, right?"  Something else Nell loves about Beth is her positivity. There aren't many people like her around anymore. She's like a breath of fresh air compared to the rest of the group.

"Yeah. It has to," Nell repeats, trying to convince herself that the prison will be their new home. They won't have to fight for their lives every day on the move anymore.

There isn't much chatter going on around Nell. Everyone is anxiously waiting for Rick and the rest to return from inside the prison. After what feels like a millennium full of silence and racing hearts, Glenn exits the prison to call the rest in.

"What do you think?" Rick asks as Nell and the others enter the cell block. She trails behind Glenn, carrying all of her belongings in her arms.

The cell block is a longish corridor with prison cells, most of which are occupied by dead walkers. The rotten smell of death fills the air and makes Nell gag.

"Home sweet home," Glenn says sarcastically. Nell watches as T-dog drags a dead walker across the floor to clear a path for Glenn to walk through.

"For the time being," Rick says as he walks down a flight of stairs. There is a line of cells at the top of the stairs as well.

"It's secure?" Lori asks, looking around curiously at the dark cell block.

"This cell block is," Rick says. Nell can almost see a smile creeping up on his face when he shares the news that they're safe.

"What about the rest of the prison?" Hershel asks, stepping forward from behind Carol.

"In the morning, we'll find the cafeteria and infirmary," Rick says.

"We have to sleep in the cells?" Beth asks.

"I found keys on some guards. Daryl has a set too," Rick says.

"I ain't sleeping in no cage," Daryl says. "I'll take the perch." Daryl nods and walks towards the landing before the stairs, his crossbow slung over his right shoulder.

Nell watches as everyone disperses towards cells to claim their own. She decides to wait for a bit and choose any of the cells that remain. She doesn't want to take a cell that someone else may want.

"Thank you," Lori says and walks up to Rick, but to Nell's surprise, and Lori's too, he ignores her and walks out of the cell block.

"Why don't you go pick out a cell for yourself?" Lori says to Nell once she catches her staring. Nell nods awkwardly and walks away to scan the bottom row of cells.

She spots Beth in one of them and decides to take the one next to hers. The first thing Nell sees when she enters the cell are the dried blood stains on the wall across from the bunk bed. She cringes at it, but quickly forgets when she plops down on the bottom bed. It is probably the most uncomfortable bed she has ever touched, but right now, it feels like she's lying on a bed of clouds.

She throws her bag down onto the hard, concrete floor, making sure to take out Snuggles first. Then she lays on her back, Snuggles on her chest, and falls asleep staring at the dust and cobwebs from the bunk above her.

• • •

Nell wakes up to the sound of voices shouting. "Go, go, go! In there! Get him on the bed!"

"He's losing a lot of blood!" Says a voice that Nell recognizes as Glenn. The shouting immediately sends her off of her bed and running down the cell block to find the source.

Scared, Nell peers into a cell to find everyone circling around Hershel, who is lying on a table passed out.

"He got bit!" Rick shouts and Nell's jaw drops in fear as her eyes travel down to Hershel's legs, only to find that one of them is missing.