Carl's brain again.


CW: Like before, some non-con, but it's mild and not explicit like always.


Terminus is three miles away. It's taken us a longer time to get there than we thought. Things kept getting in the way, like the tunnel with the a message on the wall, so sun-washed and craggy that we couldn't read it. Michonne was sure she could see the word Glenn in it, but I wasn't convinced and neither was Dad; it looked more like Gone. I knew we should have gone straight through, but, of course, Dad wouldn't allow it. It took almost a whole day out of our journey going around it because the track turned underground, and we lost it, and there was a storm, so we laid low until we could figure out where we were again. Then there was a man who I thought I could save, but I couldn't, and he was eaten, and we ran and hid in an old, useless, blue truck parked and abandoned in the middle of a road. Inside, it smells of rot and blood and socks.

I learned something last night.

Something bad.

They found us, the men from the suburb — the men who took Oliver away. "Oh, deary me! You screwed up asshole! You hear me? You screwed up!" I woke up and there was a man outside my door, at the window. I didn't know him, but he looked like he knew me. He laughed at me — the truck windows rattled. "Restitution," the leader said. "Balancing of the whole damn universe. Shit!" He had a gun to Dad's temple. "And I was thinkin' of turnin' in for the night on new years eve!"

The guy at my window tapped his blade against the glass and said, "Claimed."

"Now who's gonna count down the ball dropper with me? Ten Mississippi. Nine Mississippi. Eight Missis—"

"Joe!"

I saw his black waist coat, those angel wings on the shoulder-blades. It was Daryl. He tried to stop them. He tried to reason. "These people, you're gonna let them go. These're good people."

"Now, I think Lou would disagree with you on that," Joe said. "I'll of course have to speak for him and all, 'cause your friend here, strangled him in a bathroom."

I must have done something to catch Joe's attention, because he glanced at me and squinted, then laughed.

"Christ, shit, I thought you were someone else."

Dad looked confused.

"Oliver ring a bell?" Joe asked us. "I think he said he was with you, right?" Something in Dad's face must' have confirmed it for him. "You see," Joe went on, "I thought it was him that killed old Lou, but Tony here. He says he saw two guys under the bed. The boy, and you..."

Dad swallowed.

"Poor kid." Joe laughed. "Determined, I'll give him that. Slipped away from our Dan, here." He glanced at him, still hovering at my window. "Still, guess he didn't make it very far."

I just remember this terrible feeling bulldozing through my chest.

"You want blood," Daryl said, "I get it. But take it from me, man. C'mon."

"This man killed our friend. You say he's good people." I saw it happen. I saw Joe turn crazy, just like that. "S-see that right there i-i-is a lie. It's a lie!"

Things went wrong.

"Teach him, fellas. Teach him all the way!"

Daryl was beaten. Dan pulled open my door and forced me outside. He held a knife to my throat and stood me in front of the others. I felt his breath on my neck, whispering things, and he was so strong I couldn't get away.

"YOU LEAVE HIM BE!" Dad couldn't help me, or Daryl, or Michonne, but he still tried. "It was me! IT WAS JUST ME!"

"See, now that's right!" Joe shouted. "Not some damn lie! We can settle this, we're reasonable men."

I was crying. I could smell Dan's breath, and feel his hands, and see Dad's eyes wide and wild and I knew he knew it was happening to me, too, it was happening to me the same way he didn't stop it happening to Oliver.

"First, we're gonna beat Daryl to death," Joe said. "Then we'll have the girl... then the boy. And then we'll shoot you and we'll be square."

I was thrown to my hands and knees. I saw a knife and tried to snatch it, but I wasn't fast enough. I wasn't strong enough. I was pinned and laughed at. I threw punches, and then I was held down, knuckles burning against the road.

"Stop your squirming."

I cried and fought and shut my eyes. A shot went off. Joe stumbled, nose gushing. He cursed, and then I saw my father's face. His eyes were empty. His head was twitching. He threw a punch, but it was hard for me to tell what happened after that because there were hands under my clothes and I was being buried and buried and buried into the cement.

"Oh, it's gonna be so much worse now!"

I was on my front, shoved there, cheek crushed under a hand. I heard a zip and a buckle and my lungs were too empty to scream.

"Come on! Get up! Come on! Let's see whatcha got! Right over here! What the hell're you gonna do now sport?"

We were going to die. Only we didn't. Dad tore Joe's throat out with his own teeth, and then he went after Dan. By then, Michonne had already taken out Tony, and helped Daryl take out the other two. Dan yanked me up, a knife to my throat. I didn't know why I couldn't fight anymore. I couldn't move, or talk, or focus, or calm down.

"I'll kill him!" Dan begged.

"Let the boy go!" Michonne said.

"I'll kill him!"

My dad just said, "He's mine," and then I was on the ground. Michonne held me. Dad marched past. He used his knife. And he was slow, and deep. Michonne tried to hide my face but I wanted to look. My father gutted him. And Dan didn't stop screaming until he couldn't anymore.

I'm back inside the truck now, laid along the back seats with my head in Michonne's lap. She's playing with my hair. Outside, I can hear Dad and Daryl talking.

"I didn't know what they were."

"How'd you wind up with 'em?"

"I was with Beth, we got out together. I was with her for a while."

"She dead?"

"She's jus' gone. After that. That's when they found me. I mean, I knew they were bad, but... they had a code. It was simple, stupid, but it was something. It was enough."

"Hey, you were alone."

"They said they were lookin' for some guy and his kid. Said the kid's trail went cold right at the beginning... weren't worth going after. Didn't know they were talking 'bout Oliver... They'd been trackin' the other guy since it all happened, well, las' night they said they spotted him. I was hangin' back. I was gonna leave. But, I stayed. That's when I saw it was you three — right when you saw me... I didn't know what they could do."

"It's not on you, Daryl. Hey. It's not on you. You bein' back with us, here, now. That's everything. You're my brother."

My cheek stings and feels crusty when Michonne strokes up from my jaw. She checks I'm awake, and even though I am, I don't look at her.

"Hey, what you did last night," Daryl says from outside. "Anybody woulda done that."

"No, not that."

"Somethin' happened; that ain't you."

"Daryl, you saw what I did to Tyreese. It ain't all of it, but, that's me. That's why I'm here now, that's why Carl is. I owe his life to Oliver. I owe all our lives to him. I can never forgive myself for that."

He's quiet a moment.

"I know there's something else, that there was, something..." I don't think I know what he means by this, but he decides not to finish anyway, and instead says, "I'm gonna do right by him. I am. That's all that matters."

There are clothes blocking the sun through the windows. I sit up, feeling rusty and old while I climb outside. I head to the back, searching for the bodies, but there gone. Just blood. It's in Dad's beard, too. He's sitting beside Daryl against the side of the truck, a bloodied rag in hand. They're watching me. Dad tries to wipe his face.

"Where are they?" I ask.

Daryl answers: "I moved 'em outa the way. You didn't needa see any more than y'already did."

I try not to frown. "Their—" My voice breaks. "—Their weapons?"

Daryl just gestures towards the front of the truck. I search through pistols and machine guns and supply bags and magazines, losing hope, growing frustrated, until I finally find what I'm looking for — Oliver's machete: I know it by it's sharp, chipped, steel blade, and the red handle. There's a pen in the pile, too. I snatch it and write on the handle: Oliver De Luca, 1996 to 2011, remembering Joe's countdown last night and realising it must be 2012 today, or at least it was recently. Then, suddenly, I sit back, remembering something else...

He slipped away. He escaped.

I stand up, hot-faced, clutching his machete in my hand while I march back for the truck. My father catches me by the leg.

"What?" I hiss.

He squints. "Y'alright?"

I nod. Daryl looks me up and down. I try not to seem so upset, but I'm blushing and thinking back to what Dad said to him about us.

"They took it," I say. "I just... wanted to see."

Dad nods, like he understands. You don't, I want to yell. And I want to yell other things, terrible things, but I just say, "Maybe, if he made it, I can give it back to him."

They both look confused.

"He could've made it out," I sat. "He's good at that stuff, he's done it before. Maybe he found the tracks. Maybe he's close, and looking for us."

Dad just says, "Carl..."

"Dad," I say back, all caught up. "He could be alive."

Dad's going to say something, but I cut him off.

"I know — I know, they said... But, Dad, he got out. You ran, remember? You ran, after Lou, that guy you killed. He turned. Maybe that's what let Oliver escape."

He wipes his face again, not listening.

"Dad..."

"I don't have the answers," he admits, mad. "I never will. But, son, Oliver is gone."

I stare at him. I can feel the words, rising in my throat and crawling over my tongue. I try not to say them. I've never said them, not all at once, not aloud, not once in my whole life, but I explode.

"You know what, Dad? Go fuck yourself!"

My father's face cracks open. His mouth curls into a snarl, but before he has a chance to give me the worst scolding of my life, I throw Oliver's machete back onto the pile of weapons and storm back inside the truck.


Notes

Happy reading.