dampish ahh, thank you so much. Glad you enjoyed, and noticed!

fandomismylife Thank you! And yeah, feel that. Glad I'm not going crazy lol

Shoutout to fandomismylife for proof reading this chapter!

Dante's corpse was burned a mile outside of Hilltop.

Oliver watched through Maggie's office window as the blazing crew returned through the gate with their carriage of gas canisters. People were already starting on scrubbing away the words 'SILENCE THE WHISPERERS' from trailer walls and shed roofs, since Oliver had explained to the council that Dante had written them.

At some point while tending to her patients, Enid found a moment to sit on the chair beside Oliver's bed and sip a mug of coffee. Coffee was a rarity nowadays. One of the cooks must've been stashing it for a special occasion. Oliver was glad they gave it to her. She deserved it, after everything she'd done. Both of her eyes were purple, and her nose was bandaged. Oliver's neck had a thin, uneven bruise running round it.

As Enid sipped her coffee, Oliver wondered if she'd slept yet, but knew it would be useless to ask. Instead, he decided to say, "I heard what you and Dante were talking about last night."

Enid froze, the raised the mug just touching her mouth.

Oliver looked away, ready to forget he mentioned it.

"I don't need you to tell me you're sorry," she said finally, and took her sip.

"Okay," Oliver said.

"And I don't need you to tell me you understand," Enid said, "because you don't..."

He waited.

And she said, "I didn't want it."

Oliver blinked. He wasn't sure why this hadn't occurred to him.

"I tried to," Enid admitted. "Alden was so happy when I told him. But I just... wasn't. And then I lost him, and I lost... it... too, and... I don't know..." She sat back in her chair, sighing. Her eyebrows raised, as if she'd attempted to smile, but hadn't managed it. "It kinda feels like a punishment."

"No..."

She shook her head. "In this world, having a kid is supposed to be a miracle, but... it was just too much. The responsibility, the risk, the stress. You have to be ready to accept it. You have to want it, at least. And I just... didn't."

"It wasn't your fault," Oliver said. "Not losing him, or..."

She nodded like she already understood what he was trying to say, then steeled herself. "It doesn't matter now. I'm never doing it again. I've made up my mind. I'm not cut out to be a mom."

Oliver nodded to her.

Enid took a breath. "Look... I'm sorry for the way I've been treating you."

"Oh, I get that. I snitched."

"It wasn't that. Not really."

Oliver thought for a second. "Was it that I left? With Carol?"

Enid looked at her mug. "I don't know. I guess it was. I guess I just thought, for a moment, that I was done losing people. I thought... I don't know. It was stupid. Losing Alden, and Tami, and even Bean. I felt like I felt when I lost my parents. I was so alone. I didn't even feel like that when I lost Nell; I had you and Carl. And then we lost Carl, but you and me, we had each other. Then this time... it was like you were gone, too. I thought I'd gotten over it by the time you last docked, but I guess not. I shouldn't have gotten angry at you. I shouldn't have used the snitching thing as an excuse to ignore you. It was wrong. I know you were trying to recover. I know you have been. I'm sorry."

Oliver took her hand. He smiled. "I love you," he told her. "You know that, don't you? You know that you'd have to do something much worse than ignore me for me not to love you, right?"

Her shoulders relaxed slowly as he spoke, like his words were winding down the spools in her spine. She finished up her coffee and stood up. She seemed unable to wipe the grin off her face. "Oh," she said, suddenly, reaching two fingers into her breast pocket. "I was asked to give this to you." She handed him an envelope. It smelled sweet.

"By who?" Oliver asked, reading his name in blocky handwriting.

"Guy who works in the distillery," she said, "not Papa Bear, though. His son, I think. I don't know his name."

"Quan," Oliver said, knowing it the moment she'd said 'distillery'.

Enid watched his face. Oliver felt through the envelope paper that something lumpy was encased inside the letter, but he didn't open it yet to find out what. He suspected Enid was waiting for him to, though, but she took the hint after a moment and went to tend to Kal when he called out for her. Finally, Oliver opened the envelope with his teeth, tipped it, and a small handful of flattened, dried, glazed fruit fell out into his lap, along with a single piece of paper.

I read:

Glad you weren't poisoned to death.
Had (here, the word 'me' was scribbled out) us scared for a minute there.
Here are some candied fruits I made. Non-toxic, I swear.
Q x

Not long before noon, Oliver was feeling well enough to sit outside Maggie's office and read a book, chewing absently on a tasty, slice of candied cherry — it wasn't that he forgave Quan, but it wasn't, either, that he was going to pass up candy, especially since some of the fruit was covered in coco powder. Not exactly like eating chocolate, but it was close enough. Oliver jumped when Carol ran through the front doors and threw her arms around his shoulders.

"I'm okay," he told her breathlessly as she fussed over him. He sat straight on the bench and pocketed his envelope of dry fruit. "I'm okay."

"You almost weren't," Carol said back, sitting beside him and gently moving his head side to side to get more light on the bruises around his throat. She began crying, clasping a hand over her mouth. "I don't know what I would have done."

Enid came out of the office, wiping her hands. Carol stood and pulled her into a hug.

"Thank you," she told her, "for saving my boy."

"Oh. Uh. No problem," Enid said, glancing at Oliver over Carol's shoulder.

Oliver looked away, embarrassed.

Aaron and Daryl appeared through the front door. Daryl came over and squeezed Oliver's shoulder, then pulled him in under his arm.

"What are you doing here?" Oliver asked them both. "I thought Carol was coming alone?"

"She was," Daryl said, "but somethin' came up."

Oliver and Enid frowned at them.

Daryl chewed his thumb, then said, "Lydia ran away."

Oliver's stomach sank. "Oh, merda..."

"We were going to find her, but a Whisperer showed up at Alexandria's gates."

"Her name's Mary," Aaron said.

"Rosita put her in the cell," Carol said. "Mary told us where Alpha's herd is being kept. Were gonna get a group and go find out if she was telling the truth."

"Yeah, then once we're done we'll look for Lydia," Daryl said.

"I'll help," Oliver said.

"No."

"Carol..."

"Oliver," she snapped back.

He gritted his teeth. "Michonne warned me about this. None of this should have happened. I should have gone back to Alexandria. I could have looked out for Lydia. I could have stopped her from running away. I could have stopped Negan from esc—"

"No, no, that's my fault!" Carol shouted.

Oliver frowned. "What?"

"It... It's my fault Lydia ran away," Carol said, sounding uncertain, suddenly, "look, you're barely strong enough to stand. You're staying here where Enid can take care of you."

It was only because she was right —proven by a small wave of nausea as he opened his mouth to argue— that he promptly shut up and did as he was told. Carol, Daryl, and Aaron gathered Jerry, Magna, Connie, and Kelly to search for Alpha's herd. They were gone all day and despite feeling almost fully recovered by bedtime, Oliver went to sleep that night among Jerry's family with harsh twinges of worry in his gut. The tent was too quiet without Jerry's snoring. It had started to sound like calming white-noise by now.

Oliver's anxiety became even less bearable around the next evening when there was still no sign of them. To make matters worse, Gabriel radioed later in the night to tell them that the Whisperer, Beta, had smuggled himself into Alexandria, killed a bunch of guards and some families in their sleep, and sent their corpses roaming the streets while he went round in search of Mary. He was stopped outside of Alexandria at the last minute, but got away. Mary, who Beta had left behind in his escape, was only spared her life because she had saved Rosita's during the attack. Alexandria had a mass funeral in the morning. A convoy was coming to Hilltop to bring Rosita and Siddiq, who were both injured in the attack, to have their injuries treated.

By the afternoon, Oliver was so worried over Carol and the others that he and Yumiko banded together, gathered their things, and headed out to search for them. They were stopped at the gate by Bertie, Beatrice, Kal, and Marco and got in a heated argument over if they should go or not. Though the argument was never resolved because mid-way through, Carol, Jerry, and Kelly staggered along the driveway.

They were bloody and bruised and covered in dust and dirt. Oliver and the others ran to them. Kelly fell into Yumiko's arms, limping, in a fit of sobs. Oliver was nastily aware of the far away look in Carol's eyes as he tried to get her to look at him.

"What happened?" Yumiko asked.

"We found the horde," Jerry said breathlessly, opening his own arms as Nabila ran down the driveway, baby Mariam in her arms and Ezra and Aliyah at her heels, yelling for their father. They all held each other. Over his wife's hijab, Jerry added, "It wasn't where Mary said it was."

"Where was it?" Bertie asked.

"Where are the others?" Yumiko asked, too.

"We got lured into a cave," Kelly cried into her chest. "There were so many of them! We couldn't get out!"

Yumiko face twisted up.

"We got separated," Jerry explained. "Most of us got out."

"Most of you?" Yumiko asked, like she was afraid to hear the answer.

"The cave collapsed," Jerry said. "Connie and Magna are trapped down there, I'm sorry. I tried to hold the mining supports. I tried for as long as I could." Nabila held him until he stopped hiccuping. "Daryl's out there looking for another way in," he said finally. "Aaron went back to Alexandria to let them know the sitch."

"How the hell did the cave collapse?" Yumiko asked, face draining of colour.

Jerry looked at Carol carefully. Oliver glanced at her, too, and in the space of just a few moments she had completely burst into tears. He reached out to touch her shoulder but Kelly got there first, shoving Carol to the ground and shouting in her face.

"You killed my sister!"

Oliver and Bertie pulled her off. Kelly thrashed in their arms. Even with her injured ankle, she was so slim and lanky and furious that it was difficult to keep a grip on her. Kal and Marco had to yell at her to stop. Carol knelt there, holding her face and sobbing.

"She blew up the dynamite — on purpose!" Kelly screamed. "It's her fault!"

Oliver turned to Carol. The others, too.

"You did?" Oliver asked, swallowing.

Carol just peered up at him through her shaking hands.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry..."

She was more distraught than Oliver had ever seen her in his life. She gripped her hair in her fists and bent over in heaving breaths. Oliver went to her, ignoring Kelly and Yumiko's glares. Jerry watched helplessly, then went on inside with his family. The others left, too. Oliver brought Carol to her feet and took her inside Barrington House. He spent a long time simply sitting upstairs in her room holding her as she cried in his arms.

"She killed my boy..."

"I know," Oliver said, rubbing her back.

"She killed my Henry..."

Oliver blinked the wet away and said again, "Shh... I know."

And when her wails slowed enough that she could sit up by herself again, Oliver ran her a bath downstairs with the boiling water from in the kitchen, and as she washed, he went outside onto the porch. His chest felt heavy like he was being crushed under the weight of something he couldn't see. He had to sit on the steps and focus on his breath for a few minutes until the feeling began to pass again. He wished he knew where Daryl was, and Magna and Connie, and Lydia, and Negan.

He could see Earl and Marco up on a guard deck in their blacksmiths' aprons rigging up a catapult. Bertie and Kal were at the next deck rigging another. Quan and Papa Bear at the next, and so on — somehow Quan seemed to sense Oliver watching him because he turned his head towards the porch. Oliver watched him for a moment, then looked away.

At some point, the gate opened.

The Alexandria convoy arrived; much quicker than usual in its rush to get Rosita and Siddq to Enid. The carriage horses were sweating and out of breath. Oliver asked Jerry's eldest, Ezra, who'd been on his way out of Barrington House, to fetch Enid from the infirmary trailer. He skipped off to get her.

Aaron, who must've arrived back to Alexandria from the cave in time to join the convoy with his daughter, drove the truck-carriage across the courtyard and parked in front of the house. Oliver only had to spot Judith and RJ sitting in the carriage to jump down off the porch and jog to greet them. He barely remembered he had a lousy leg by the time he'd scooped them both up in his arms with a hearty growl, their squeals and giggles in return enough to act as a cure for his pain.

He asked if they were okay and Judith said they were, and when Oliver asked why she wasn't at Oceanside anymore, she explained she and a few others went back to Alexandria the week prior after Michonne left with a man named Virgil to get guns — this topic was glazed over so quickly that Oliver didn't have a moment to re-examine it before Judith had already gone off on another tale about the attack at Alexandria. She and RJ began talking over each other in competition to get the story out first. Oliver managed to decipher that Judith and RJ were "right there!" in the attack and that Rosita had fought Beta "in their apartment!" and when she got hurt Judith had "shot him herself!" with her dad's Colt Python and that "Beta was bulletproof!" and Oliver, utterly horrified, looked at Rosita and Siddiq for help. Neither seemed keen to elaborate. Rosita was clutching the bandages wrapped around both her biceps and Siddiq was struggling not to move his arm. It was wrapped up, but Oliver could see clearly that his wrist was broken. Gracie simply sat beside her father, looking alarmed at Judith and RJ's excitement at being in so much danger.

"She saved us," Judith said, pointing at the stranger in the carriage. She was a short, pale, dirty woman who didn't seem to want to make eye-contact with anyone. She wore a dirty, purple, flannel shirt. Oliver did a double take. He'd seen her before. She was at Alexandria that day, summoning the others to a meeting at the border with Alpha, and she'd been there before that at Hilltop, outside the gates, snatching after Isaac's arm as he rushed to rescue his nephew.

"Hey!" Earl snapped at Aaron, climbing down from the guard deck and jogging over, wiping grime off his hands with a rag. "Who's that?"

Aaron sighed at the stranger. He put a hand on Gracie's head and gestured for her to go on inside with Judith and RJ, then he turned to Earl. "That's Mary. She ran away from Alpha's camp. She's been helping us out."

Enid and her new apprentice, Alex, had arrived. Overhearing Aaron's words, Enid cast Mary a brief, sceptical glance. Oliver understood why. If this was Mary then she was who fed the others false information about the herd's whereabouts. She was the reason Magna and Connie hadn't made it out.

"What's she doing here?" Earl asked.

Aaron shifted uncomfortably. "Her nephew is, uh… Adam."

Oliver looked at Mary.

"She wants to see him," Aaron added.

Earl scoffed. As he turned and walked away, he growled, "No..."

Enid grimaced at Mary as she helped Rosita and Siddiq down from the carriage. Siddiq was explaining how he'd broken his wrist during a tussle with Laura's walker. It was sad news to them all, even if Laura had been an ex-Savior.

"Earl," Aaron said a moment later, "can we talk about this?"

"You said you were going to bring people who wanted to see Enid," Earl argued. "Not one of our enemies who wants to see my son!"

Aaron shook his head. "She's not an enemy."

"You don't know that!" Earl hissed. "You keep her away from my kid."

"Earl—"

"What the hell do you think I was going to say to you? She left that kid out there to die! Your own nephew, young lady — who would be dead, by the way," Earl added, pointing a finger at Mary, "if your brother hadn't given up his life to save him!"

Mary's eyebrows arched. "I didn't know Isaac was alive until after—"

"I don't want to hear it!"

"Please," she cried, "I never meant to hurt my family—"

Earl spat at the dirt by her shoes. "You are no family to them. You were no sister to him. You gave that title up. Isaac said as much himself before he died, right there in that trailer!"

Tears fell from Mary's eyes, running pale tracks through the mud on her cheeks. Oliver didn't feel sorry for her. Earl was right. Isaac had hated what his sisters had done to him and Adam. Oliver saw Enid remembering it, too, so engrossed in the conversation that she'd momentarily forgotten her medic duties until Siddiq winced. Quickly, she pulled herself together and helped him follow after Alex and Rosita towards the infirmary.

Earl, too, walked away.

Oliver looked at Aaron wearily, then helped the stable-hands with the horses. The sweaty cart horses were thirsty after their rushed journey. Oliver filled buckets from the hose. Beside it, from a stall, Traveller tugged gently on his collar and when Oliver leaned over reciprocatively and kissed her muzzle, she wiggled her bottom lip against his chin and blew hot air in his face. It was the most affectionate exchange Oliver had ever had with a horse, considering that his previous, Roan, had had a nasty temper on a good day. It made his heart warm. After quenching the cart horses' thirst, he got on with helping Oscar and the other stable hands in unharnessing and sponging the horses down, until finally they let them loose in the round pen to roll and scratch their backs in the dirt.

"Hey," Oscar said as they finished off, "still not interested in taking your old job back?"

Oliver smiled. "I might be, considering my seining career is on hold."

Oscar slapped Oliver's back in agreement, said, "Consider yourself hired," and left for his trailer. Smiling, Oliver went back to the house to find Carol, only she wasn't in the bathroom anymore, and she wasn't in her room either. He searched everywhere, but she was nowhere to be found.

Ezekiel accompanied Oliver to search. They took two horses — Ezekiel's stallion Toby, and Traveller. They kept up a good pace despite the heat as Oliver led the way along country roads, up over some hills, and finally off through a familiar set of trails and into the woods.

"Are you sure you know where you're going?" Ezekiel asked.

"I think so, sì."

The mosquitoes were out and it was so hot that the air wiggled between the trees, threatening a bush fire. Sweat crept down Oliver's chest. His dripping hair clung to his face. Ezekiel still wore a scarf, though, despite the dark wet circles growing under his armour.

Again he asked Oliver, "Are you sure she would have come this way?"

Oliver sighed impatiently. "It's her best friend's old campsite, and it's the last place she spent any real time with Henry. Go look somewhere else if you can think of anywhere better."

Oliver hoped it was clear that he hadn't forgiven Ezekiel for trying to kick him out of his own home several months ago. It seemed so, because Ezekiel didn't argue anymore. Instead he sat deep in his saddle, fiddling with the gold ring on his finger as Toby tölted smoothly through the uneven undergrowth. Traveller was like a drunk mule in comparison to Ezekiel's stallion; her hooves clobbered loud and heavy, tripping over roots or stones every few strides and causing her head to buckle downward as to catch her balance, yanking Oliver forward by the reins in the process if he wasn't fast enough to brace himself. Still, he appreciated her unyielding enthusiasm nonetheless — she never gave up, or doubted him. The mare believed in him. It felt nice. He patted the grey dapples along her shoulder and squeezed her on through the woods.

They found the clearing not long later.

Like Oliver had suspected, yet still found himself relieved by, Carol was sitting down on the small dock by the river, beside Daryl's old tent. Its canvas was tattered and torn up since the fall, when anybody had last been here. The camp as a whole had not fared well through the winter and spring storms. Everything was broken or missing. Walker bodies were wasting away in traps that were never reset.

Oliver and Ezekiel approached her. Carol turned to them, looking a mess, despite her recent wash. Her hair was a tangled spiral twisted behind her head and although she was clean now, she hadn't changed out of her dusty clothes.

"How'd you find me?"

"I didn't know where else to look," Oliver answered, and saw in her eyes the memory of arriving to Lorton to find him after Rick's disappearance, when she had told Oliver the same thing.

"We thought you needed some comfort," Ezekiel said.

Carol looked at her knees. "I don't."

"We were worried about you," Ezekiel added.

There was a great pause between words as the river trickled on beside them all.

"Come on back," Ezekiel said, and when Carol didn't reply, he sat by her side and gestured Oliver to do the same on her other. Oliver did. And Ezekiel said to Carol, gently, "or we'll just sit here, with you, and we'll get eaten by mosquitoes together."

Carol looked at him, then she looked at Oliver, eyes swimming. He dipped his head at her encouragingly, then knocked his amp against her knee. She wrapped both her hands around it, her thumb stroking the thick scaring there, before letting go and glancing down at the dock.

"Everyone hates me," she said.

Oliver felt his eyebrows arch. "Not everyone," he said.

She hiccuped, watching him, weeping softly, and finally she told him, "My boy..."

Finally, she turned away to wipe her face, then took a steep breath and nodded, and when Ezekiel held out his hand to her, she nodded again and took it.

They arrived back to find Luke and a few others from Oceanside arriving to Hilltop in a carriage. While Carol and Ezekiel went inside Barrington House together, Oliver helped unharness the new carriage horses. He and the stable hands set them loose in the fields, cleaned up, and then Oliver headed for the house and found Luke, Yumiko, and Kelly on the porch, arguing about something.

Luke spotted Oliver coming. With a soft cheer, he opened his arms and Oliver hugged him. He wanted to ask how things went with Jules and he wanted even more to ask who the hell Virgil was and why Michonne had run off with him, but now didn't feel like the appropriate moment. He noticed Kelly's bag was packed. She was tying her shoelaces, looking bitter.

"You going out looking for Connie and Magna?"

"We think so," Yumiko said.

"We are!" Kelly retorted.

Oliver chewed his lip. "Want me to come with?"

Kelly glared at him, gritted her teeth, then nodded and threw her backpack over her shoulder. "Thanks, man."

Oliver nodded to her. He had his knife and a full water canteen on his hip, glasses on his face, inhaler in his pocket, and some supplies in Jerry's tent, so as far as he was concerned he would be ready in two minutes.

Yumiko turned to them suddenly, a radio on her hip.

She asked Kelly, "What was the last thing Magna said to you?"

"Why does it matter?" Kelly grumbled. "We're getting them back."

"Yeah, well, what if we don't?" Yumiko asked. "I mean, the whole bloody ceiling caved in on them."

Kelly got in her face. "If you think that they're dead why are you coming with us?"

Yumiko watched her sternly. Everyone held their breath. The silence was only broken when the rumbling sound of a motorbike approached from the distance. A moment later, Daryl drove in through the gates with Lydia clinging on behind him. She looked feral. Daryl looked far worse, though. He had a bloody bandage around his thigh. The rest of his pant leg was torn and crusted crimson. He slumped over in pain as he parked. Lydia helped him off his bike. The others rushed over.

"Any sign of them?" Yumiko asked desperately.

"We didn't get that far," Daryl grunted.

Oliver took under his arm and assumed they'd head to the infirmary trailer, only Daryl broke free from his support and turned towards the house instead. Oliver had to run and catch up with him.

"Daryl, what's going on? What happened?"

"Alpha," he growled, wincing. "We gotta talk. Inside. Get everybody."

"Dude, I'm sorry," Luke told him, pointing towards the gate, "but we gotta find our people, man."

"No," Lydia said sternly. "You can't go out there."

"Why not?" Yumiko asked.

They all stared at her. Lydia had that look Oliver recognised from the last time he'd spoken to her. That look like she was full of some big ball of fury or pride or both, only it was different. This time she was scared, too.

"My mother's coming..."

Notes

I enjoy childfree Enid. I think there's immense bravery in raising a child, and I also think there's some bravery in knowing that you don't want to raise a child, too.

Today in useless facts: "Tölt" is an Icelandic word (but universally used) to mean the single-foot/amble gate some specific horse breeds can do (it's extremely strange to watch in case you never have before). I couldn't find another verb to use. Can't exactly say "Toby single-footed smoothly through the undergrowth" and I can't say "Toby ambled through" either because of the context with walkers. Words are weird. I also named Ezekiel's stallion, Toby, after a Rocky Mountain stallion, Old Tobe, who lived during the mid-20th century and is basically the founding father of all today's Rocky Mountain Horses.

As always,
Happy reading.