The next morning, I wake up alone in the office. I figure Oliver might be on patrol, or visiting his brother's grave, so I head for the gardens to start chores. The cafeteria isn't open yet. Nobody is on fence duty. Nobody is even on watch. I don't see Oliver in the graveyard, but Flame is still here, in her pen, which means Michonne is somewhere around, and because I didn't know this until now, the horse hasn't had any hay or water all night. I give her as much as I can, feeling terrible but luckily she doesn't seem upset at me—just hungry.

Since nobody is out here, I head back for the office blocks, trying not to pay too much attention to the fence that broke last night—it's been boarded up. My office is still empty when I arrive. Oliver's beanie is still here, though, and his inhaler. I take them and stuff them in my pocket. I have this hunch, so I grab my own hat and head for the locked door, finding Oliver sitting on the first step outside, tapping his fingers into his kneecap.

"Hi," I say. He turns to me, waves, and lets me sit behind him in the doorway. "No chores?"

He shakes his head. I look out at the trees. This side of the building is in shadow, but the air is still warm and the air above the tarmac wiggles.

"Feels like the prison's on pause or somethin'," I say, and Oliver looks around at me, cocking an eyebrow. "I mean, I'm not complaining," I add. "I'm okay with it. It's just... different."

Oliver smiles — I look at that happen, and then I watch the clouds swim across the sky, all calm and quiet and lonely, and I think of Oliver; all calm and quiet and lonely, too, with big brown eyes.

"Uh, thanks," I say, "for last night. What I told you. I didn't think you'd want to be my friend after."

Oliver doesn't say anything, just leans back and pushes his shoulder blades into my knees. He wriggles, rolling his shoulder.

"Sore?" I ask.

He nods. "Kick-back."

"You get used to it," I tell him.

Oliver looks like he appreciates that. He watches the sky again, something on his face telling me that he's seeing things in it that I can't; I think Oliver's the type of boy who sees four dimensions, not three, like me. I've never asked, but I think he sees universes. I even tried to draw that once, the universe in his eyes, but it didn't work—I couldn't get his nose right.

He's frowning.

"What are you thinking?" I ask.

He hesitates, then shuffles around to face me. He says, "I just don't think we can stay in one place for too long. Something always happens. Sometimes it's easier to run." He inhales. "Pat and I—when things would go bad, we'd run, always... Leave all our ghosts. But, Patrick's gone now. He's dead. And now..."

"Don't leave," I say, and suddenly I can't not say it, and I'm watching his face as I say it and I can't tell what he's thinking and after a few more times saying it I think I'm only saying it to stretch time until he says if he will or he won't.

And then Oliver says, "I wasn't going to..."

He says, "You're everything to me, man."

And I'm whirring around inside my head and Oliver thinks it's funny because grins — I do, too — which is why I decide to touch our grins. I've never wanted to kiss someone so much as I want to kiss him, so I do kiss him, and when I pull back, the whole universe explodes in my face.

I'm out of breath. "Sorry."

He's out of breath, too.

"I just..." I swallow. "I just... really wanted to do that."

He mumbles something, smiling.

"What?" I ask, smiling, too.

"You..."

"You want me to..."

"To — yeah. Yeah, man, I do."

So, I do, again. I kiss him. And I keep kissing him. Kissing like they kiss in movies and pictures and music and books—well, none I've ever come across. But I kiss him like that anyway, and he kisses me back. I think I black-out. I think I'm jumping around all over the place, plummeting through the fences and back again, tangling into his hair and his hands and his teeth, only I'm still kissing and kissing and kissing him, and after some time we slow down, not so much kissing anymore but touching our mouths, totally gentle and sweet and there's no turning back now. This matters and — and, dammit, I like this so much. I think I get caught up thinking how much I like this, because then I'm laughing and I have to pull away and Oliver starts laughing, too. Then he kisses me again, laughing into my laughter, and I think my body is growing, like I'm Alice in Wonderland and Oliver is the cake.

"Can't breathe," he says finally.

"Oh." I blink worriedly. "Do—do you need your inhaler?"

He shakes his head and laughs, and then we're kissing again. I don't remember when we stop, just that at some point later we do and we're talking, leaning back against the door frame to face each other with our legs crossed at the shins.

"I didn't know your surname," I say, playing with his fingers, "not until I saw Patrick's grave."

Oliver shrugs. "It's not like some big secret or anything. It was just never really important."

"De Luca," I say.

"No. No, it's not Dee Luca like Lucy. It's De Luca," he says, almost with an accent.

"Oh," I say. "Got it. De Luca. What is it again? Spanish?"

"Italian," he says. "Mom's side. Dad took her surname when they married, instead of keeping his."

"Why?"

Oliver shrugs. "It was the deal they had. She'd leave Italy to marry him, but only if they kept her last name. Think it caused some issues though, with the synagogue—Dad was Jewish."

"So, can you speak some?"

"I don't know Hebrew."

"No, Italian," I say.

"Oh. Yeah. Err..." Oliver's head tips back and his eyes roll inside his head, thinking of a sentence. When he says it, it's floaty, like a song, and I decide in this moment that I'm going to live in Italy when I grow up, except that's impossible, so instead I decide I'm going to live in Oliver when I grow up, and then that thought gives me chills and I have to stop thinking about it.

"What does it mean?" I must look pretty flustered, because Oliver laughs. I ignore him, insist: "What's it mean, man?"

He translates: "The dishes won't wash themselves."

"Oh."

Anti-climactic, but I still grin at him. I get this feeling like he'll kiss me again, but I picture Dad's face if he knew, or Mom's. I think that if there are any such thing as ghosts, she definitely just had a front-row seat of plot twist — so I stand up. He stands, too. He is the quietest person I know, but I hear him clear as day...

"You're going to be okay, man."

I look at the fences. Some walkers are trying to get through. Oliver takes my hand. I let him, and we lock the door and head back for the offices.

"What do we do now?" I ask along the way.

"I don't know," Oliver answers. "I guess we just figure it out."

"Are you gonna tell anybody?"

He doesn't say anything for a few beats, then, like pulling off a Band-Aid, says to me, "No."

And I say, "My dad. He'd..."

Oliver is already nodding.

"I'm sorry," I say.

Still nodding.

"One day," I blurt, and we're both walking very slowly now. "Maybe. I mean, just—"

"I get it. Really."

We're not looking at each other. I squeeze his hand, then let go. "Come on," I say, "let's go see if breakfast is ready."

Breakfast isn't ready, but Michonne and Hershel are in the parking lot, loading walker bodies into the truck. Oliver volunteers to help them. I don't because I know I'm not allowed. Instead, I catch Dad heading for chores.

"Hey!" I call out. "You didn't wake me up."

Dad squints at me.

"Thought I'd let you sleep in," he says.

I stand in front of him to get him to stop. "I should help."

"Good," he says. He looks over at Oliver for some reason. "What's he up to now?"

"Helping. Why?"

"I've gotta go talk to him. Daryl, too."

"Right now?" I ask.

Dad just looks at me. "No," he says, patting my shoulder with his gardening gloves. "Soon... Soon."

We head down. Michonne, Oliver and Hershel leave to burn the bodies — I smile when Oliver waves at me from the trunk, then I help Dad tend to the peapods. I realise I forgot to return Oliver's hat and inhaler.

Dad holds out a peapod to me. I take it, pick out a pea and taste. It's sweet and fresh and soft on my tongue.

Finally, Dad and I are done and as we head back up, he tells me I can go see Judith now. I go to find her, all but snatching her from Beth when I see them in the office foyer. I kiss Judith's forehead so much that she tries to pry herself away from me, and then I'm mumbling to her and Judith is listening to me and snuggling into my chest.

"She missed you," Beth says.

I sit and set Judith on the floor. She plays with the toggles on my hat. "Thanks — you know, for looking after her."

Beth just smiles.

"How's your dad, after everything?" she asks.

"He's gonna be alright," I answer. "How's Glenn? Is he still in A block?"

"Yeah. Maggie's in there with him. Just needs his rest. But he'll be okay. Everything's gonna be alri—" Then, out of nowhere, the ground shakes and moans. The ceiling above us crumbles. Someone screams. Someone else is yelling. Judith starts crying and I stand and pick her up.

"What happened?"

Mika hurtles around the corner to us, shortly followed by Luke and Molly. They look terrified. "There's a tank outside!"

"Carl, come on," Beth says. "Kids, go to A block, stay with everybody else." She takes Judith from me and hands her to Lizzie. "Take her while I'm gone."

"Okay."

"Keep her safe," I tell her, leaving after Beth. And then we're outside. Maggie, too, and Bob and Sasha heading across the courtyard. Immediately, I see the guard tower. The top's been blown apart, the roof on fire, and smoke rises up into the sky. Opposite us, Dad is leaving C block. His gun is drawn, and he yells, "Get back!" Daryl and Tyreese are with him. They join us at the fence to overlook the fields and front gate. Like Luke said, there's a tank parked in the centre of a crowd of trucks, all lined up outside the fence, and standing on the hilt of the tank, is the Governor.

"Rick! Come down here," he yells. "We need to talk."

Dad shifts, out of breath.

"There's a Council now," Dad shouts. "They run this place!"

"Hershel, on the Council?"

My stomach lurches to my throat. A soldier brings Hershel out from one of the trucks. He hobbles to stand in front of the tank. Maggie clasps her hand over her mouth. Beth calls out to him. I can see other figures in other trucks.

"What about Michonne?" the Governor asks. "She on the Council, too?"

Another soldier grabs her from another truck and pulls her to stand next to Hershel.

"Surely, this Council of yours, wouldn't be so irresponsible as to put a child at risk?"

Then, a third soldier pulls Oliver out of a truck. He looks very weak and very bruised, with a bandage around his head, bled through. Someone whispers his name. I only realise it was me when Tyreese takes my shoulder. I grab his hand, then let it go.

"I don't make decisions anymore!" Dad shouts.

The three of them are made to kneel down in front of the tank.

"You're making the decisions today, Rick," the Governor says. "Come down here, let's... let's have that talk."

Notes

And then he totally died. Or he did when I first wrote this story back in July 2014. It was on another twd fanfic site, but I was asked to keep going, so I did. Thanks infinitely for reading.

As always,
Happy reading.