CHAPTER FIFTEEN － THE SNOWFALL OF 1998

People were getting sick. Sasha, Caleb, and at least ten other people who'd been in Cell Block D during the attack were beginning to turn pale, hardly able to breathe through coughing most of the time. Cell Block A, formerly meant for death row inmates, was now used for quarentining the sick far away enough from the healthy.

Problem with that, though, was that it also meant that everyone who was sick, was stuck together in one open space, even if they'd be sleeping alone in the cells. The illness wouldn't kill them though, as Hershel had out it. The symptoms would.

Daryl, Bob, Tyreese, and Michonne had left to find antibiotics, the closest possible place these days being a medical school about fifty miles to the east. Meanwhile, the young and the old, seeing as they were the most vulnerable to the illness, would be staying up in the administration building. Carl, of course, was a bit pissed off about it, seeing as he didn't exactly hang out with many of the kids, especially after Patrick's passing, unless you counted Beth, but she was four years older than him and mostly in charge of caring for Judith.

Kate, herself, hadn't felt any symptoms quite yet, despite being around both Charlie and Patrick's bodies when they were discovered. She kept counting down the minutes, waiting for herself to cough, or feel her skin bloat with allergies. She just didn't expect for her younger brother to get quarantined first.

Maggie had been the one to inform her, the brunette having immediately ushered Glenn to join those at death row before funding her. After which, Kate now found herself sitting in a small visiting room next to the cell block, squinting back at him in the limited lighting. Before all this, she doubted many of the inmates in this cell block recieved many visitors.

"I'm feeling fine," He croaked, his eyes barely open, snot nearly running down to his upper lip. "Honest. I look worse than I feel."

She rolled her eyes. "You're a shit liar. Always have been."

Glenn wheezed, wiping his nose.

"How many more people in there now?" She asked.

"Maybe twenty, I think, but thats probably half the prison." He sniffed. "I tucked in Lizzie about a half hour ago. Carol sent her in because she got sick too. Everyone's just holding on best we can. Is Maggie okay?"

"She's taking it a bit hard, so I told her to go talk to Beth. She always knows how to raise her spirits." Kate paused. "This reminds me an awful lot of when you got sick when we were kids－ remember when we went sledding on the hill by Mom and Dad's house, and you went so fast that you flew face first into he snow?"

He chuckled, leaning back on her chair. "Yeah, I think I was in 6th grade at the time. Broke two of my teeth, and Mom was so mad at you and Jo."

"She still believes that Jo pushed you off the sled, since she was right behind you and turned out just fine." Her smile would then turn into a soft frown. "You think they're okay?"

Glenn sighed. "I try not to think about it because I know the chances of one of the being dead is...probably really high. Mom's health wasn't all that great, and Dad's getting old. As for our sister...I'd like to think so, like I did for you, but she's on the other side of the country. It's really slim."

"They're in their late fifties. I mean, Hershel's at least ten years older than them and he's doing great－"

"Man's missing a leg and quarentining by himself so that he doesn't get sick. He's not exactly the epitome of health and strength, Kate." He turned, coughing into his elbow heavily. "But he's not in here, and that's good enough for me. Same with you and Maggie."

"They should be back with antibiotics by tomorrow morning. Just hang in there, okay?"

"That's assuming－" Glenn paused, turning as he heard a familiar voice on his side of the cell block. "Oh, shit. That's Hershel. I've gotta go. Stay safe, okay?"

Kate nodded, pressing a firm hand against the glass. "Don't do something I wouldn't do."

He rolled his eyes, lightly smiling. "Too late. I've always done that."

Hershel sacrificed himself, in the words of Maggie, who said her father was tired of quarentining alone and insisted on going in to treat the sick with some homemade remedies. He wouldn't take no for an answer, even though he was considered to be in the clear of the illness. Caleb was now too sick to even sit up, and therefore couldn't help from the inside anymore. The only other person as adequately trained for this was him, and his new assistant Glenn.

Rick and Carol went on a run soon after to find some food, though it'd seemed both sudden and out of the blue. Kate initially wanted to go with, give her something to do, but they'd been firm about it. Same with Maggie. Just them. She wanted to comment on the dejected gleam in Rick's eyes when he said that, but decided against it and chocked it up to him wanting both women to stay and be in charge. Not enough other people who could.

Kate spent most of her day after that sitting up on the watch tower, waiting, hoping to hear a car come back full of supplies. Ever since the department store run, it felt like everything was a short track down hill, and that sooner or later, they wouldn't be able to come back from it. Cell Block D, the gate, the sick－ a bad day was quickly turning into a terrible week.

The next day, late in the morning, the sick started dying. It started with an older gentleman named Henry, and then it wiped out three others. Even Hershel's tea didn't seem to fix the problem for everyone; not those who were already coughing up blood before he went in there.

Maggie and Kate were starting to grow restless, taking out their frustrations of the walkers out by the fence. Out of the prison's population of fifty six a week and a half ago, nineteen were dead, six were out on runs, sixteen were sick, and fourteen were being quarantined away from them－ the ones who had never stepped foot in Cell Block D when it fell. That just left the two women, the liveliness of the prison was gone.

The former of the women was no doubt the most frustrated of the pair, and it showed by the aggressive spear wounds in at least eight corpses. Her sister was being quarantined away from her, her husband was deathly ill, and her father was in there with him, though still fit and capable as of the last time she saw him.

"I spoke to Carl earlier. Beth's doing good." Kate told her, wiping her forehead of sweat. The summer air was starting to get particularly humid, making her desire to shower grow to be every over hour these days. The water was stuck in the cold position, and for now, it was pleasant. By winter, it'd be a nightmare. "Said he's keeping an eye on her and the other kids."

"As long as she's not sick, that's good enough for me." Maggie replied. "She told me Rick gave Carl his gun back, last time I spoke wih her. Whatever you said to him must've really stuck in his head."

"What I said?" She turned her head, facing the brunette. "You mean, back before everyone at Woodbury moved here?"

"Yeah. You didn't see it, since you were passed out, but he didn't throw as big of a fit as I'd thought he would when it got taken away from him. Carl just seemed...down." Her sister in law turned, jabbing another walker in its skull. "My dad was really worried about him, back when Carl shot that kid."

Kate paused, noticing Maggie's shoulders slump. She reached out, rubbing her arm. "They'll be okay. They have to be. We've just gotta be strong for them."

"We don't know that," She murmured. "I can't lose them. I can't."

"Well, I don't know who's more stubborn, my brother or your father." Kate chuckled dryly. "I'm trying not to let Glenn see how worried I am. I just got him back, and I'm not sure if I could handle losing him again. That goes for you too－ you're family, so is your dad and sister."

Maggie weakly smiled, nodding back at her as though she agreed with the sentiment.

A unfamiliar car began to quietly rumble in the distance, and Kate immediately tugged out the gun from her pocket, raising it while Maggie went to the gate doors. However, she'd lower it moments after upon noticing the familiar face in the car. Rick Grimes was alone now, a few supplies in the backseat.

After Maggie let the him in, Rick lulled the vehicle to a stop, hopping out of it and turning to the two. "My kids－ are they okay?"

Kate pocketed her gun, jogging over to him now that the gates were shut again. "They're fine, I just checked on them."

Maggie frowned. "What happened to Carol?"

"Glenn, Hershel, Sasha?" Rick pressed, not answering.

"It's bad, but they're fighting it. We're staying strong." The brunette glanced at Kate, nodding as she repeated her earlier statement. "Daryl's not back yet."

"Rick, where's Carol?" Kate pressed. "Was she bit? Is she okay?"

The man folded, squeezing his eyes shut as he sighed. "It was her. She killed Karen and David. She was trying to stop it from spreading. Tyreese－ he's gonna be back here soon, so I didn't think she should be here. I couldn't have her here either. She had a car, supplies－ she'll figure it out."

Kate sucked in a shaky breath, crossing her arms and using them to sooth herself.

"I'll tell your dad, Maggie, but don't tell anyone else yet." Rick turned away from the woman upon seeing her nod, now turning to Kate, who slowly nodded as well. This made him pause in his step, facing her more clearly. "Would you have brought her back?"

Kate wished she knew the answer. In reality, it was probably for the best that she hadn't found out with Carol or Tyreese nearby. Maybe she would've had a bandage over her hand like Rick, when he was forced to fight off Karen's mourning boyfriend. Her dark eyes trailed out to the graveyard, at the one with a few flowers sticking out of the dirt.

Her friend was gone, and no amount of guilt would bring her back.

"Carol said she did it because she thought it'd stop everyone else from getting sick?" She continued once Rick gave a curt nod of yes. "I get why she did it. It just wasn't her decision to make. I'm not sure what I would've done."

"You would've done the same thing I did. Both of you. You've done harder things－ experienced harder things before." He almost went to step closer, his leg shaking as he stopped himself. "Don't doubt yourself. We don't get to do that anymore." Instead, his leg turned to the right, the man making his way back over to the car.

"Rick," Maggie called out to him, "the cluster's getting bigger than the one that took the fence down. We need to do something."

"We will. I'll be back after I talk to Carl and Hershel."

The car began to pull away, leaving Kate and Maggie to try and hold off the growing hoard on their own. Each woman spread out, trying to draw the walkers out so that they wouldn't crowd together like last time. It wasn't much, certainly not their best idea, but what could they do?

When Rick finally did make his way back, about an hour and a half later, he was in one of the trucks, a bunch of logs inside of them that they kept closer to the cell blocks. The three would pant as they pushed them up, lining them up along the metal fence in the hopes of temporarily stopping it from folding in like last time. A few near risky incidents later, with the few rotting limbs previously stuck in the holes now on the ground, they had it mostly together.

Kate doubted they'd be able to ever really be able to fix the fence. They were too noisy, rattling every single time a curious walker discovered it. Still, everyone else was either sick or kept away. She hadn't even shown the sign of any symptoms yet, unless you counted the hunger and exhausted she felt from being out here all day. It was odd, especially since Kate was always the Rhee sibling who got sick the mot back when she was a kid. She couldn't help but wonder if she was just a ticking time bomb, the sickness taking its sweet time on her, but she knew as much as Maggie did that if she was going to have gotten sick in D that day, it would've happened by now.

The sun was beginning to come down when the trio heard it, a single gunshot coming from the prison. They had been chopping some more wood and transferring it over to the gate when it happened, their faces falling, but Maggie just kept chopping.

"The fence is more important. We need to keep it standing." She claimed, only stopping when Kate slowly tugged the axe out of her hand.

"We've got this. Go check on them. Signal if it's serious." Rick told her, his shaggy hair and beard thickening from sweat. As Maggie began sprinting up the hill, the remaining pair heard another gunshot.

This made Kate's heart drop. One gunshot, maybe a fluke; some idiot killing the dead in that way. Two? It was on purpose. She turned to him. "You should go check on your kids. I have a bad feeling."

The fence rattled some more, the walker count growing into the sixties－ far more than there had been with the fence bent last time. A group of seven struggled with it. Someone soloing it could be considered a death wish, and Rick Grimes was not about to lose another person today.

"You can't do this alone, you know." He replied. "Come with me."

Kate hesitated, rubbing her arm. "I shouldn't."

"You should." Rick insisted slowly, staring back at her before holding out his hand.

She sighed, taking his hand and allowing him to tug her away from the wood. He placed his hand on her back, unconsciously causing Kate to stand up straighter as he ensured she rushed over to the other side of the truck.