The Third Dixon [The walking dead]

Season four, Chapter one

The prison no longer felt like a place people were trapped.

It felt lived in.

Morning light filtered through the high windows of Cellblock D, cutting across concrete floors worn smooth by months of footsteps. Voices drifted up from the yard—someone laughing, someone arguing about rations, the rhythmic scrape of tools against dirt. Outside the fences, rows of crops stretched green and stubborn, proof that something could still grow in a dead world.

Inside one of the cells, a bedsheet hung where bars used to define everything. It wasn't much, but it was theirs. Privacy, of a sort. A small claim staked in a place that once stripped people of choice.

Nathan stirred first.

He woke slowly, the way you do when you're not afraid of what you'll see when you open your eyes. His arm was heavy around Measi's waist, her back pressed against his chest, her hair warm against his jaw.

For a split second, instinct flared—memory, fear—but it faded just as quickly.

She was here.

Measi shifted, a soft breath leaving her as she surfaced from sleep. Her leg ached faintly where the worst of it had been, the ache familiar now instead of sharp. Healing had done its work, but it had left its mark. Pale, angry scars traced her skin—on her thigh, her wrists, along places the world had tried to claim and failed.

Nathan's hand tightened just slightly, grounding rather than holding.

She didn't flinch.

That was still new.

Measi opened her eyes and let herself stay there for a moment, listening to his heartbeat behind her, matching her breathing to his. No panic. No rush to check her surroundings. No need to see his face just to be sure.

She turned anyway—slowly, deliberately—until they were facing each other.

Nathan smiled the second he saw her awake. It was small, tired, real.

"Morning," he murmured.

"Morning," she replied, her voice rough but calm.

Her fingers traced absently along his shirt, then drifted to her own leg, resting over the scars without thinking. Nathan noticed but didn't comment. He just pressed his forehead to hers, a quiet acknowledgment that said I see it too.

Outside the sheet, the prison continued to wake—shifts changing, people heading to their jobs, guards taking posts, farmers moving toward the yard. A real community, stitched together by survivors who refused to disappear.

Inside the cell, Measi breathed in and out, steady.

For the first time in a long time, waking up didn't feel like surviving.

It felt like living.

The yard buzzed with the easy noise of morning.

People lined up with tin plates, steam curling up from big pots near the makeshift kitchen. Someone laughed too loud. Someone else complained about portions. It was normal—shockingly normal.

Measi sat at one of the long tables with Nathan, one knee hooked around the bench, her boot nudging his ankle under the wood. They shared food without even thinking about it—her stealing bites off his plate, him reaching over and trading pieces like it had always been this way.

She laughed at something he said, leaned in, stole a quick kiss when she thought no one was looking.

Nathan grinned anyway. "You're gonna be late for your run."