"There's a stair here." I guide Carl down the porch stairs of the infirmary. He grips onto my hand as if it was his life line as he tries to go down the stairs. It's kind of hard to do that with one eye in the beginning.

Denise finally let Carl out yesterday, but he had to come back in today for me to show him how to apply his bandage on correctly.

Carl almost trips on the last step, but I catch him and help him down. He smiles sadly. "Thanks for helping me."

"Any time." I grin.

"This is going to take sometime to getting used to." He mumbles and touches the bandage with a grimance. It's still tender and he said he still has minor headaches, but he's making great progress.

"I'm sure you'll get the hang of it in no time." I encourage with a cheesy fist swing. He envelops me in a hug. "You don't know how much I missed you." I say softly.

"I've missed you too." He says into my hair.

"Does this mean we're back together?"

He chuckles. "Definitely." He pulls away and then kisses me passionately.

I pull away first. "I forgot what kissing even was." I joke.

He laughs and takes my hand. "Help me back home?"

"Of course." I intertwine our fingers and walk along with him, catching him each time he miss steps a curb or uneven sidewalk.

We eventually make it to the Grimes plus Michonne residence and Carl opens the door.

"Need help up the stairs?" I ask him. His dad and Michonne along with the rest of the community are helping build the walls back up and get things back in order. I got off today to make sure Carl got home without any problem.

"Nope, I did it yesterday. I mean, falling up them wasn't great, but I got the hang of it." He says as he turns on the tap to get a glass of water.

"That's the spirit." I chirp and receive a glare from Carl. "Well, here are your meds. Take this one once a day," I hold up one in a green bottle. "And this one twice. Once in the morning and once at night." I hold up a green bottle. "Also, come in everyday to get your bandage changed."

"I can do it myself now." He points out.

"Now how fun would that be?" I smirk.

He chuckles and shakes his head. "I'm sold."

"Remember to keep it dry when you take a shower. You don't want to have it filled with water or bacteria will grow." I remind him.

"Yes mother. You told me this yesterday." He teases.

"Shut up. This is important."

"I know, I know. Anything else?"

"Hm, I don't think so." I grab my bag and sling it across my shoulder I kiss Carl goodbye. "If you need anything, I'll be at the infirmary. I've already had two people accidentally put nails through them with a nail gun." I shudder.

"Sounds exciting." He says with a look of disgust on his face as he takes another sip of water.

"Indeed it is. Come by tonight for dinner?" I open the door.

"Yeah sure. Why not." He smiles as I walk out and almost fall backwards off the stoop.

I close the door and let out a sigh. I can't even imagine what's going on in his mind. Poor kid's already badly traumatized and this just adds onto it.

The days in Alexandria have been mostly building. Everyone that's well enough to do something has been doing something. Even those who aren't physically capable have been encouraging everyone. I work half the day helping build the walls and houses back up and expanding them or guarding the workers, and the other half working in the infirmary taking care of those who pass out from exhaustion or get injured.

I peek in the infirmary door. "Hey Denise. Need my help today?" Sometimes we have days where no one gets hurt or just a few and Denise doesn't need my help. Those days I work all day on the community.

"No, just some joint pain patients today and I haven't gotten anyone else in. We're good for right now." She says without taking her eyes off her medical book. 

"Coolio." I close the door and jog over to the guard tower where Maggie is. "What side has less people?" I call up.

She jumps and places a hand over her heart, giving me the look of death. "Jesus, Lauren, don't scare me like that."

"Sorry." I quickly apologize.

She slings her gun across her back and shields her eyes from the sun as she looks towards the back of the growing community. "Looks like they're starting the houses on the south west side."

"Ugh, those are the ones that got burned down." I whine. "Definitely not looking forward to those ones."

"Better you than me." She smirks and turns to face beyond the wall.I curse under my breath and stomp in the direction of the burnt houses.

When Daryl came in and set the lake in fire the night of the attack, the flames spread to a few houses that were close by the lake and flaming walkers. Some were badly damaged where as others won't require much fixing.

I walk over to Abraham, who is leading the constructions. "Hey Abe, where do you want me?"

He looks around for a moment and hands me a hammer. "That house that's almost fresh out of production can use an extra hand on." He points to one of the houses a little bit away from the burnt ones. We were working on it yesterday and I guess they almost finished it while I was away.

I accept the hammer and jog over to the cream colored house. Kennedy stands outside looking up at the roof where people lay down the shingles. 

"Hey." I stop next to him and look up at the guys on the roof.

"Oh hey. I thought you were off today."

"Carl's fine at home. Besides, no one gets to check out now." I look at him and smile before heading to the ladder that leads up to the roof.

I swiftly climb up it and pull my self up onto the half shingled roof. I stand up and stand on the edge, my toes hanging off the edge, and close my eyes. Memories of my grandpa and uncle taking my cousin and I onto the roof replay in my head and I smile at the memory of them. My cousins were my best friends and I have no  idea where they are or what happened to them. All I know is that Christian said he saw Emily, my cousin a year younger than me, alive. But that was how long ago?

"Do a back flip!" I hear a familiar voice yell up to me.

I open my eyes and look down at Austin. "Only if you do one first!"

I grip the hammer and turn to help the others lay down shingles. Austin climbs up and helps.

"Where's Olivia?" I ask as I notice she isn't with him as she normally is.

"Abraham assigned her to a different house. She wouldn't refuse the assignment even when he asked her if was OK with that assignment!" He looks over at the house a few houses down.

"She's too nice. That's why if you break her heart, Kuper, I break your face." I threaten.

He puts his hands up in defence. "Woah killer. I didn't even hint at doing so."

I shrug and grab a nail to nail the shingle down. "Just saying."

We finished the roof, which was the last part that needed to be done, twenty minutes before the sun went all the way down. It was getting late and I had to rush home to shower and change so I could help Carol with dinner since Daryl was on the run with Rick and Michonne, Carl and Judith are coming over.

The doorbell rang just as the oven timer went off. "I'll get it. " I slide off the kitchen stool and rush to the door, almost slipping on the wood floor with my socks.

I open the door and greet them. "Hey! Just in time."

They enter and kick off their shoes. Carl had gotten yelled at by Carol in the past for wearing muddy shoes in the house on her "nice clean floors". It's amazing how a woman like her can kill you without caring at all, yet be Suzy homemaker in a flash. 

I hug Michonne and take Judith from her who reaches towards me. "Hey Judy." I smile and she returns her three tooth smile.

"Hey!" I smile widely at Carl who stands next to me as he kisses me on the cheek.

"Lauren, can you please get the high chair put of the hall closet?" Carol asks as her and Michonne set the table.

"Sure." I reply and hand Judith back to her brother as I walk over to the hall closet right by the front door and grab out the foldable high chair and set it up at the table.

It was a nice dinner with baked pasta. Carl seemed awkward for he was the only boy there and I couldn't blame him. I had past experience when I was stuck with my brothers.

After dinner we all help clean up before Carol all but beats us out of the kitchen, telling Carl and I to go find something to do after I accidentally dropped a glass. Michonne took Judith home to put her to bed and a couple minutes after she left, Daryl came trudging through the door. He mumbled something about having to watch a prisoner and grabbed some left overs before heading back out. 

Carl turned to me. "I stole some video games from Patrick. Want to go play?"

I agreed and we head over to his house. "When on earth did you have time to steal Patrick's video games?" I ask.

"Well, he more like gave them to me since he can't really play them anymore." He chuckles at my the look of realization on my face.

"Oh yeah, that'd make sense."

Rick sits at their island eating a bowl of cereal. "Hey kids." He waves tiredly. We wave back and head up to Carl's room. It looks untouched since the last time I was in here, the day the wolves attacked and I climbed out the window. I sit on the edge of his bed as he shuffles through the disks to the Playstation.

"There's red dead redemption." He holds up the red case. I nod and he tosses me a controller. He inserts the disk and turns on the TV.

We play the game for half an hour before his eye starts hurting and gives him a headache.

"You didn't take your pills." I sigh in aggravation.

"It was fine then." He whimpers as he holds his head in his hands. I grab the pills and shake one into the palm of my hand and hand it to him. He takes it and curls up on the bed.

"I should be getting home." I run my hand through his brown hair.

"No, please stay." He whimpers and looks up at me with pained eyes.

"Ok." I give in and lay down next to him, turning the lamp off. It's not unusual for us to share a bed. We had to when we were out there, outside the walls. It's not like we were doing anything bad, that's not the kind of relationship we have.

I face Carl and run my hand through his hair until he falls asleep. I eventually fall asleep too, and this time I don't have any nightmares.

We both jolt awake at around six in the morning when we hear voices coming from one of the other rooms. I look at Carl and we share a look that makes us both grab our weapons. The person whistles as they walk back down the hall way to the stairs.

Carl slowly gets off the bed and holds his gun infront of him as he advances towards the hall. I follow behind him with my axe as we muffle our footsteps.

"What the hell are you doing in my house?" Carl points the gun at the man's head.

The man puts his hands up and turns to face Carl. "I'm waiting for your parents to get dressed."

Confusion is written all over Carl's fave as he looks at me. I shrug and look behind my shoulder when Rick's door opens as Rick runs out pul Li ingredients in shirt over his head and Michonne follows buttoning her pants.  I turn back to face Carl with wide eyes.

"Carl, put your gun down son." Rick orders Carl, who doesn't listen and gives his dad a confused look.

"Who is he?" He motions towards the man on the stairs.

Before Rick could reply, the man speaks up. "The name's Jesus."

I crack up laughing, thinking the man was joking, but realized he wasn't when everyone gave me a weird look.

"Alright, you have me convinced." Rick tells the man. "We'll go to Hilltop with you."

A/N: Sorry for this really pathetic chapter that took me forever to write. It's just a transition one from event to event and those are always boring. Lo siento.

But hopefully you stick around for the next chapter because things are bound to get exciting!