Reviews:

BabySlothXYaoi- Aha, I definitely recommend catching up with their work, it's all so good! God yeah, I hated PE, except for rounders, that was always fun. Yes, Hershel/Glenn's pocket watch is too fancy for its own good! For a genius man, Eugene can really be a dumbass. And yes, Eugene is 100% that smart kid, aha, I knew too many of them. You're right, Tara even tells Eugene in the library that they would look out for him no matter what because they're friends, I think. Positively recommend fear twd, it has some great seasons. I've even been flirting with the idea of a Rhys spin-off in fear, aha. Just because I love the characters over there so much! Thank you for the lovely words!

Eugene lies unconscious as the day goes on, Maggie and Rosita keeping an eye over him. I leave my poncho and jacket in the truck, deciding that the day's unrelenting heat is starting to bother me. While Glenn leaves to check the horde, Abraham remains unmoving, kneeling on the side of the road.

Tara and I decide to think up a group name as we label our seven water bottles, each one having a letter on its cap. Each letter; corresponding to the name of a different person in our group.

"Okay," I look at the water bottles intensely as they sit on the firetruck's step. "What about- Maggie- Eugene- Rhys- Glenn- Rosita- Abraham- Tara." I re-arranged the bottles to fit the order, "MERGRAT."

Tara gives a mocking laugh at my suggestion, swapping the lettered water bottles around again for her idea.

"Dude, no! 'MERGRAT.' sounds so gross." Tara shakes her head at me. "TEAMGRR is way better... you know like 'team,' and then 'grr'?" Tara growls the latter at me, and I laugh at how dumb it is.

I throw my hand above my head in defeat. "Fine, TEAMGRR it is... I think you just want to have your name first, though."

"I do not!" She throws me the water bottle with the 'R' for Rhys on its cap, which I catch, with a thank you and a middle finger in trade.

Glenn finally gets back from his scout.

"Anything?" Tara asks.

He shakes his head. "The horde doesn't know we're here, for now."

"That is great news for TEAMGRR," Tara responds.

I shake my head in disapproval at the name.

She goes on, "In less great news for TEAMGRR, we just scraped the bottom of the water barrel." Tara knocks her knuckles against the truck's empty water tank.

Glenn looks slightly stunned by what she just said. "What- What's TEAM-GRR?"

"Us," I answer his question, "Group name."

Tara takes over, "Solidarity. Band of Brothers..." She points to me expectantly.

"TEAMGRR," I close. Tara is overjoyed when I do the growl.

Glenn shakes his head with a chuckle as me and Tara fail at a no-look high five, only getting it on the third attempt.

Maggie appears from behind the front of the truck. Her hands bloody.

"Anything?" Tara doesn't look very hopeful about the answer she'll get.

Maggie looks exhausted. "No, and moving him could make him worse."

Rosita joins the discussion, "What would make him better?"

"Waking up. If he doesn't..."

None of us wants to think about that.

Abraham has been kneeling with his back to us since he knocked Eugene out. Staring back the way we came.

"How is he?" I ask Rosita.

Her eyes seem to zone out slightly as she answers. As if trying extraordinarily hard not to burst into tears.

"Not good."

The day keeps turning, the water situation getting worse. Especially since Abraham threw a full bottle into a neighbouring field after Rosita told him he was acting like her six-year-old nephew. In hindsight, that may have proved Rosita's point.

While everyone discusses whether we should risk moving Eugene back to the church in his current state, I decide to climb into the driver's seat of the fire truck. I study over the only map we have, tracing the roads from our location, my finger lingering over the rough area where the church lives. I follow the roads back, arriving on us, then I move my finger a few inches along our road, landing on something promising.

I stick my head out from the truck, "Tara, I found a creek on the map. Just three or four miles up the road."

"Good find!"

Tara's unending well of optimism is not running dry anytime soon. If we could drink that, we wouldn't have a problem.

"Hey, TEAMGRR, huddle up!" Tara calls out. The group name, starting to grow on me.

"Found anything?" Glenn asks.

Tara gives a sharp nod, "Yeah. Rhys found us a creek."

"Good job Rhys." Rosita and Maggie appear, looking relieved.

"That's why he's the first 'R' in TEAMGRR," Tara tells the group, desperate for the nickname to stick, "Sorry, Rosita, that makes you the last."

Rosita shakes her head, less impressed at Tara's attitude than I am.

"Y'all go. I'll stay here," Maggie offers to Glenn when she sees him watching Abraham with a long face. Likely worried to leave him alone with Eugene.

"You sure?" Glenn squints at his wife.

"I am."

I ask Glenn to check his watch as we approach a felled utility pole, cutting our way through a field in the direction of the creek. Three walkers are trapped beneath the beam, all donning blue raincoats.

"It's just past two," Glenn tells me. "Why?"

"That means we're making good time," I answer, "We've been almost forty minutes. So we should be back for about four-ish."

"Just stay here, guys. Don't get up. There is nothing for you in Washington." Tara's taunts to the walkers don't seem to calm them as they claw and growl up at us from beneath the pole.

Rosita sighs at Tara's snark. "That's not funny."

"It's not not, not not funny," Tara shrugs.

Glenn tries very hard not to sound like an asshole. "I get that we're all dealing with things in different ways-"

"Listen!" Tara interrupts him. Her voice is high in pitch, "I don't know what to do without DC anymore, but I'm not dealing with it. I'm over it. I just want him to be okay," she points back in the direction of the firetruck. "Eugene's not strong. He isn't fast. He doesn't know how to use a weapon. The truth hurts, but he's useless. He had one skill to keep him alive. Are we supposed to be mad at him 'cause he used it?"

"Damn right." Glenn's voice is low. Angrier than I've heard him before.

Tara turns to me.

I'm trying my best not to give an opinion. Instead, picking at tall blades of grass while they brush past my knuckles as I walk.

Tara calls me out, "Back me up, Rhys!"

Damn it.

"What?" I pretend I hadn't heard the conversation prior.

"Eugene. Does he deserve us being mad at him?" Tara asks.

I think on this, hoping that if I stay quiet long enough, she'll drop it.

"Dude," Tara taps my shoulder. Not dropping it.

"I don't think it matters what he deserves. I think it matters if we deserve to be mad at him. Which we do," I tell her simply, hoping it's enough.

"Are you mad at him?" She asks.

Rosita looks too. Probably curious about my answer.

"No," I tell her sincerely. "No, I'm not."

We reach the little creek in silence after that. It sits in a small forest, hidden away from walkers and people. Glenn takes my empty R bottle from my satchel bag. Filling it with murky brown water.

"Perfect," he sighs.

"You think it's any clearer upstream?" Tara points up the river.

"Probably not," Rosita tells her as she rips the sleeve off her own shirt.

"Erm," I start, "why are you-"

"Water filter," she answers my thoughts before they finish becoming words. She takes the bottle from Glenn and gets to work, stuffing the fabric in as a stopper.

We all take a seat on the muddy riverbank, watching Rosita's MacGyver moment.

"So you just know how to build a water filler, huh?"

Tara's commentary gets a smirk from Rosita as she flips the finished, filtered bottle upside down. Letting clear water trickle into a bucket Glenn brought from the truck.

Rosita shrugs, "Eugene taught me. Takes a while, but it'll be clear. Then we can boil it."

Tara goes on asking questions about Rosita, Glenn's curiosity occasionally weighing in. And I find myself zoning out again, thinking about Carl. I'm not looking forward to telling him that the world isn't going back to normal. That Eugene had lied to us. I think he was looking forward to a normal life.

If that was ever going to be possible.

"Hey," Glenn whispers, "see that?"

"What?" I snap out of my daydream.

"Ripples... those are fish," Glenn points at the water.

"Okay, but how-" Tara watches the river.

"Come on."

Glenn gets up, flicking mud from his knees as he sets off back the way we came. We all follow, leaving the filter to filter.

Glenn leads us back along the winding trail we arrived on, tracing our steps until we arrive back at the downed utility pole. The three walkers that are still trapped beneath it are thrilled to see our return.

Glenn puts two of them down.

I get the third. Still not sure where the point is.

Rosita reflects my confusion with a question.

"What are we doing?"

"These jackets-" Glenn begins to strip a walker of its outer layer. "They've got mesh liners. Perfect for a fishing net."

"You just think that up?" I ask him.

"Nah, that guy I told you about earlier. He also liked to fish. We only had two rods at our first camp, so he got creative."

I used to love water. Being with friends at the beach, picnics by the lakeside. If you got wet, you could enjoy it, the feeling of cold water against sweaty skin, heavy clothes squelching as you run for a towel's warm embrace. You knew no matter how cold you were, a hot bath and a warm meal could be waiting at home.

Something you never think about is how this world can spoil the smallest things.

Now wet means cold. Cold means you can't shoot straight. Can't think straight. Heavy clothes slow you down. You don't know when you'll find more. Being wet means you die.

Now I hate the water.

Which is why it feels strange to be up to my ankles in it. Wading through the misty river, Slowly guiding a large fish towards Glenn and Rosita as they wait patiently with their makeshift net, holding two corners each.

"Now?" Glenn whispers to me, trying to spot the fish.

"Wait..." I mutter back.

"...Now?"

"Wait."

"How about-"

"NOW!"

The fish is launched into the air as the net wraps around it. Glenn and Rosita, barely managing to keep it inside the mesh in their excitement.

The same excitement causes Glenn to slip, lose his balance, and grab desperately at my shoulders to avoid the cloudy depth below.

Not ready for his weight, I fall backwards, and with no one to grab, I plunge into the icy cold water.

Particles of earth fly past me in slow motion beneath the opaque surface. Once through it, the water is crystal clear. Fish glide away from me as a curtain of disturbed dirt from my impact covers their escape. I feel a hand grabbing my collar. Dragging me back through the cloudy screen.

I emerge. Gasping for air and splashing around in the shallow streamlet. Sitting up to my chest in the water.

I look up to Glenn and Rosita, looking down at me, laughing their asses off.

"Thanks for that, asshole!" I glare up at Glenn.

"Dude," he snorts through wheezes of hysterics, "you needed the bath anyway!" This sets Rosita and him off again as they roar with laughter. Tara, chuckling from the river bank.

I try to be mad.

Water makes you slow.

Water makes you cold.

Water gets you killed.

I open my dripping jaw to express all of this. But only laughter finds its way out.

I sit there. Half underwater, laughing with the others in the little creek, hidden in the small forest that sits a couple of miles southwest of the empty fire truck.

Once the laughter subsides and the forest is calm, Glenn helps me to my feet, and I leave him and Rosita with the fish. Tara meets me on the bank. Handing me her checked flannel.

"Dry yourself off, sport."

I do.

The walk back is quieter than the walk to the creek. But it's better. Happier. More content.

I come to a silent realisation as we make our way back. I don't hate the water. I just hate being in it alone.

The fish is bland and chewy. But Eugene is awake, and Abraham excepts something to eat and drink. So somehow, it was the best meal we could have asked for.

"We all ready to head back?"

Glenn's question is something I've been waiting for all day. I thought it would scare me. Make me want to run and hide under the water. But in the end, I'm ready.

Everyone nods in agreement. Rosita and Glenn, exchanging a look of knowingness when she says she's ready. I heard them talking when I was drying off. How she told Glenn that she's with us now. Wherever we end up.

That just leaves one.

"Hope y'all know I'm driving."

Abraham's voice turns our heads on a surprised swivel.

"Let's get this show on the road."

Another thank you to notmuchmoretosay for inspiring me to come up with that group name! My original was far worse.

Go TEAMGRR!

Back to the church next time, promise.

Hope everyone has enjoyed reading this road trip as much as I've enjoyed writing it!

Reviews and Feedback are always welcome!

:)