VerbalWalker Agreed, simply put.

fandomismylife Thank you! And yes thank you I'm enjoying the AU too! This arc in particular has been fun to write in contrast to how it's playing out in the main fic and show.

AU: Sorry for the hiatus. I have been preoccupied writing the AU: No Sanctuary *hint hint, go read it, I love it, like a lot*

While Princess went inside a large office block to get her belongings, the rest of them waited across the street behind some rusty, old cars, their new bikes strewn along the side-walk. They kept their heads down, just in case; Princess could still have other guns up there, or her own people. None of them liked the idea of an unexpected hail of bullets unloading down at them from one of the windows.

"Well, I like her," Quan said in spite of the thick layer of paranoia surrounding them. "She's entertaining."

"That's the last thing we need," Yumiko complained, peeking over a car hood at the building.

"Maybe it's not," Ezekiel said. "I like her, too."

Oliver let his silence communicate his Princess-scepticism.

"How much longer is she gonna take?" Eugene checked his watch, then glanced woefully at their bikes. "It's gonna take a miracle to get to Charleston on time."

Yumiko was still examining the buildings windows. She huffed impatiently, then twisted to sit back down against the car. "You're right. We're not waiting anymore. Let's just go."

She, Oliver, and Eugene turned to their bikes but Ezekiel and Quan hung back.

"Come on, wait," Ezekiel said. "Just another minute?"

Angsty glances were exchanged.

"Look," Quan said suddenly, just as Yumiko opened her mouth to begin arguing. They looked up towards the office block. Princess was leaving the building, carrying a skull-patterned backpack over her shoulders and a long, steel spear in her hand.

She waved happily. "All ready!"

Everyone stood, grabbing their bikes.

"Rad spear," Quan said.

"Thank you!" Princess said, mounting her electric blue bike. "I found it in town. Someone must've spent a long time making it. It's a great weapon. Keeps the dead from reaching you, you know, 'cause it's a spear..."

Yumiko shrugged. "It's cool," she admitted, and Oliver was pretty amazed to see that she was trying not to smile.

He rolled his eyes and got on his bike.

Eugene led the way.

They cycled all day. Oliver missed the horses. He thought of everyone back in Virginia. Hopefully they were at the tower by now, safe while they regrouped with Oceanside. Hopefully they had enough resources to protect themselves until he, Eugene, Yumiko, Ezekiel, and Quan came back with help from Stephanie's group. Hopefully that could happen at all before Beta reformed his horde.

Hopefully.

Hopefully...

Then Eugene hit a rock—

He flew off his bike with a yell, hit the road, and skidded on his face for several feet before coming to a heavy stop against the base of a sign post. Everyone hit their breaks —wheels screeching— then dropped their bikes to run over to him. Eugene groaned and lifted his head. Ezekiel helped him sit up against an overturned Range Rover. Eugene winced, then twisted round to look at his reflection in the wind-shield. Two streams of blood ran down his forehead and he touched them tenderly.

"You're okay," Oliver told him breathlessly, checking him over.

Ezekiel got Eugene's bike upside down to examine its bent wheel.

"Pound that puppy," Princess said. "I have a hammer in my bag."

"I don't know about this chain, though," Ezekiel complained.

"Eugene," Yumiko said, "we could use some of your problem solving skills over here."

He tried to stand, but grunted and gripped the Range Rover door. He shook his head. "Don't bother..."

"It's not that bad," Yumiko told him, coming over while Princess and Ezekiel fussed over the bike.

"Yeah," Quan said, "we'll be back on the road soon."

"Come on," Oliver said, crouched between them, "get up, Euge, let me—"

"It's too late!" he shouted, causing them all to jump. "I may have taken a shot to the noggin but I'm still capable of running calculations and estimates. This is all going to take too long. It's too great a mountain to climb."

"We'll figure something out," Yumiko insisted.

He glared at her, blood dripping off the end of his nose. He wiped it. "Unless it involves slowing the passage of time, there's nothing else to figure. Our rendezvous was set in stone. If we're not there, Stephanie won't be either..."

Yumiko paced a few steps away, disappointed. Everyone else stood there, still damp from the rain earlier, watching the road glumly.

"I'm truly sorry," Eugene said, "after all we hoped, and for all we went through to hold on to said hope, I believe it's time we go eye-to-eye with reality, and turn back for home..." His voice broke. He turned to wipe his eyes.

Oliver swallowed a lump in his throat.

Ezekiel frowned. He knelt down to Eugene and said, firmly, "We are not goin' back. We set out to do this, so we're gon' do this." He'd lost his performative grandeur accent for a beat. "In my own moment of doubt, you did not waver and I'm not about to let you do it now. This journey — your journey, must be completed. Not just for you but for all of us here. For the ones we left behind, we must try. That's what I wanna remember, that we gave it everything we had… even if it means I gotta carry you over my damn shoulder to do it."

Eugene blubbed a chuckle, and sat there crying and nodding for a moment.

Ezekiel stood up and held out a hand to him. "Come on..."

He pulled Eugene to his feet, who said, between sobs, "I want that, too. But it doesn't change that Stephanie will not stay past sundown tomorrow."

"Did she say that to you?" Princess asked, hammer on her shoulder. "You don't know. I mean, I thought I'd never see people again, but wow, look at me now."

"She's right," Oliver said.

"I am?" she asked, surprised at Oliver's faith in her. She smiled at him. Oliver frowned, in a way to warn her not to push her luck, to which Princess looked back at Eugene and nodded determinedly. "I am."

Yumiko stepped over to Eugene. "We keep going and we get there. Tomorrow's problems are for tomorrow."

After Princess had bashed Eugene's bike wheel back into shape and Ezekiel and Eugene has refitted the chain, the six of them were pedalling on the road again. Near dark, as they were searching for somewhere to camp for the night, three walkers stumbled out of a gated apartment block.

"How about in there?" Oliver suggested. Aside from the walkers, the gated block looked quiet, with good cover and a place to keep watch from the brick archway above the gate. "The building looks closed. We could set up camp in the courtyard."

"Yeah," Yumiko agreed. "We'll deal with the dead. It doesn't look like there's many more of them. Princess, Zeke, and I will go. You guys hang back."

"Why?" Oliver asked.

"You're limping," she answered, pointing to the three of them, "Quan's burns are still healing, and Eugene's definitely at least a little concussed after his accident. The three of us have it, right, you two?"

"Right," Ezekiel said.

"Sí, señora!" Princess said, twisting her spear.

So they hung back at the edge of the parking lot; Quan sat on a rusty car bonnet, watching Yumiko, Ezekiel, and Princess head over to the walkers at the courtyard, Eugene took out a pair of binoculars from his pack, then went and climbed onto the bonnet of a nearby truck to survey their surroundings, and Oliver sat next to Quan and watched the sun set behind the apartment block.

It was a nice evening, with only a few small, peaceful looking, pale, navy clouds. The orange shades across the sky were spread slowly along the darkening horizon. Oliver glanced at his wrist, and gently ran his amputation over his tattoo. The buck antlers had been burned in the fire at Hillside, and looked a little misshapen under the sore, broken blisters he had there now. The ink would fade as his skin healed, he knew, but hoped not so much that he would lose parts of the tattoo completely.

He thought back to the day Tara had given it to him, how, as a grieving seventeen-year-old, he'd chosen the design for Carl. He'd always loved deer. Getting it didn't hurt as much as Oliver had expected it to. Tara kept him talking while she worked the needle and ink. She didn't let him look until it was finished, and when it finally was, Oliver could have wept. As a thank you, he gave her a stack of obscure queer punk-rock CDs that he knew she liked. It took him weeks to find the right ones in local music stores.

"Can I ask you something?" he asked Quan quietly.

Quan nodded, glancing at him.

"How come you've never come out — not even to Papa Bear?" Oliver asked.

With a little sigh through his teeth, Quan dipped his head, smiling. "Wow. Heavy..."

"You don't have to answer."

Quan shrugged awkwardly. He twisted up his mouth to one side. "It's dumb, I know, but... it's just..." He sucked his teeth, squinting and checking Eugene wasn't eavesdropping. "Whenever I think about telling Papa Bear... I chicken out."

Oliver gave a disbelieving look. "You're scared?"

"I told you it was dumb," Quan said.

"But he loves you. And he never had a problem with Tara, or Jesus, or Aaron… or me."

"I know. I know. Just… what if he thinks I'm the way I am... because of what I was going through when he found me, you know? Like a product of my environment or whatever? I mean, it's embarrassing, 'cause... maybe I am, right? Maybe I'm only... gay... 'cause of those bastards who owned me. Maybe it just, I don't know... stuck..."

He sat there, thinking about that, until he looked at Oliver in this sad, desperate sort of way.

"Have you ever... felt like that?"

It was an uncomfortable question. One Oliver wasn't sure he'd ever asked himself, but one he half understood could seem relevant to ask. He glanced at Yumiko, Ezekiel, and Princess, who were all mashing up the walkers with ease. He looked back to Quan.

"I don't think so," he answered honestly. "I mean, I knew I wasn't straight before what happened to me. And after it, I don't know... maybe I started doing physical stuff with Carl a little earlier than I would have otherwise, but I never really dwelled on if it was because of what I went through or not. I guess I just managed, eventually, to separate it from that, you know — managed to turn it into something that wasn't... tainted, until at some point... there wasn't any reason to feel ashamed, or afraid."

"Guess I'm just messed up then," Quan joked wanly, seeming not to find this news all that comforting.

"No, man," Oliver said. "I mean, so what if you are or aren't into men because of what happened to you? Our past influences us all the time. It doesn't make you the same as the people who hurt you. At all. It doesn't make you… comparable, or… even associable. I mean, seriously, if you wanted to even try… look at the difference between them and you, the huge difference: They were choice takers. You? You're a choice giver."

Quan's smile had grown as Oliver spoke, until, by now, it lit up his whole face.

He looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn't seem to know how to say it, but he looked relieved, so Oliver elbowed him, gently. He squinted out towards Princess, Ezekiel, and Yumiko, who were all finished with the dead now. Princess raised two thumbs to communicate that the apartment block's inner courtyard looked clear. Yumiko and Ezekiel waved them over.

Eugene signalled that things were clear here, too, and climbed down from the truck.

Oliver stepped away from the car and turned to Quan. Quietly, he told him, "These guys wouldn't care, you know, if you told them."

"You don't know that," Quan whispered.

"I do," Oliver said, "look..." And despite Quan's discouraging hisses, Oliver turned to the others, cupped his hand to his mouth, and yelled, "Good job, guys! Just letting you know: I am totally, assolutamente, one-hundred percent bisexual!"

Ezekiel frowned, waiting for them at the gate. "Oliver... you know we already know that, right?"

"Yeah," Eugene concurred, looking confused. "I may not have ever witnessed you dating a woman before but I've seen you ogling the pretty models depicted on the windows in that old local lingerie store back home."

"Euge," Ezekiel reprimanded.

Princess snorted. Yumiko rolled her eyes. Oliver laughed, following them into the apartment courtyard. "My bad, man. I'll keep that in mind in the future. Anyway, I said it because Quan here is trying to deconstruct some internalised homophobia, and I'm helping him, by showing him that you guys don't care that I'm not straight."

"Oh, Quan," Ezekiel said, smiling and securing the gate behind them, "good for you. An open mind is an open heart!"

Quan had gone purple for the second time in twenty-four hours. He dropped his bags as an excuse to hide his face. The apartment courtyard was small but secure. All the doors leading into the building were blocked by overgrown weeds and vines. Yumiko was setting up camp by a dead flower patch next to the wall. Oliver climbed up onto the wall, then shuffled onto the archway, which was wide enough to sit on, and as he'd predicted, gave a good vantage point to keep watch from.

"I used to be in your shoes," Eugene said to Quan a minute later as he began heating cans of food over Yumiko's fire, "then I learned that some people are just gay, or bisexual in Oliver's case, among other such non heteronormative or cis-normative identities, and that's just a good ol' fact of life."

"Uh, yeah," Quan stuttered, arms crossed. "Right... I get that now."

"Well if we're being totally open with each other," Yumiko said across their new camp, "I'm gay. A complete and utter lesbian, actually."

"You know, my best friend, Claire, was a lesbian woman. Transgender, too," Princess said reminiscently. "We went to the best parties together. And I took her to all her clinic appointments when she needed me. We were inseparable, like family. Oh, I miss her so much."

Oliver smiled, genuinely heartened by this, and turned to Quan, who had a moody look on his face.

"Not cool, man," he whispered when the others were preoccupied with their own camp duties.

"What?" Oliver chuckled. "I didn't out you."

"Yeah," Quan said, "but now I look like a homophobic asshole."

"Aren't you?" Oliver asked, pinching his thumb and index. "Just a little?"

Quan rolled his eyes, but allowed himself to laugh.

"Get back to watch," he said, and walked away.

"How's that grub looking, Euge!" Princess called. "Esto hambrienta."

The next day, they were up and biking before sunrise. Eugene brushed off his Stetson hat, re-braided his hair, and even put on his favourite bolo tie. The muscles in Oliver's legs were screaming by the time they'd crossed the south-west corner of Pennsylvania and on into West Virginia, but he kept going —they all did— on towards Charleston. Hours passed. They didn't even stop to eat. When the sun began to descend again, Eugene mumbled to himself from the front, "Come on, come on, come on!" until finally the sun was set and they were still miles away from Charleston.

They kept going anyway.

On after the sunset, through the night.

Until finally Eugene pulled in to Charleston's train station.

As they stood at the foot of the smart, square building, Oliver thought of Terminus, briefly, and felt a chill run down his spine. One look at Eugene told him they were both experiencing the same post-trauma. Oliver pushed the memories away and propped his bike against a tall fence. Eugene led them through the dark, deserted, and silent station, and finally out into the grassy train yard. He walked along the overgrown tracks, their way lit only by the half-moon above, towards a large yellow train freight he said Stephanie had identified.

"You guys set up, like, a secret code or something, to let her know you're here?" Princess asked, adjusting her goggles on her forehead.

Eugene looked around, removing his Stetson hat from his head, and then, at the top of his lungs, he bellowed, "GREETINGS! I AM EUGENE PORTER!"

Startled, Oliver swivelled around with his hand clamped in his hair. "Jesus, Euge!"

"So no code," Princess answered herself, "or… a really lame code."

The six of them stood around awkwardly in anticipation. The station remained silent. There wasn't even the small distant shuffle or crackle of leaves that meant either walkers had heard them and were approaching from the distance, or wild animals had, and were turning to flee. Charleston seemed empty for miles. Not even a bird spooked overhead.

"This doesn't feel right," Quan said, but nobody seemed to hear him except Oliver, who caught his eye anxiously.

"We could stay in one of the cars?" Ezekiel proposed. "Maybe she'll come back in the morning."

"She won't," Eugene said, looking devastated. He put his hat on his head and plopped down on a nearby blockade.

"Hey," Yumiko said, joining him, "no regrets. That bolo can work it's magic some other time."

He smiled appreciatively, then looked around at them all. "We're not turning back," he said, and got up, pointing across the tracks. "There are people out here. Maybe not on this very train yard or… a ten or twenty mile radius, but they are. Stephanie is… We'll keep trekkin' until we find 'em. The very reason we boldly voyaged was to get help for our people, not to mention make what we built stronger, by assimilatin', with like-minded folks. Se we keep lookin' for 'em. Assimilate, we shall."

They all exchanged agreeing nods, energized by Eugene's pep talk.

Princess walked over to Eugene and stood before him, shaking her head and grinning.

"Damn…" she said, "you one really horny dude."

Ezekiel burst into laughter. Quan snorted loudly. Yumiko cracked a grin and Oliver scoffed, and Eugene bowed his head, managing to both nod and shake his head at the same time.

Then, all at once, several bright white lights clunked on atop each train freight around them, lighting up the whole train yard like a stage. They were blinded. Oliver snatched his mace, squinting under his amputation shadow. There were figures beyond the lights, shifting. Footsteps were closing in, surrounding them.

"WEAPONS DOWN!" someone roared. "HANDS IN THE AIR!"

Orders were being shouted around them all. It was happening too quickly for Oliver to follow. His heart thumped in his ribcage. He saw an army assembling around them in a circle. At least twenty or thirty in all, dressed in smooth, twinkling, white armour, with matching helmets that hid their faces.

"Holy shit! Stormtroopers?" Quan laughed — a laugh that sounded more like a horrified sob. "You've got to be kidding me!"

"WEAPONS DOWN, NOW!"

Notes

Ya boi got rona, so I figured I'd pay this some more attention. Can't breathe well but I can still type so help me, Lord. Hope you liked the Quan arc, even if it was a bit messy start to end. He's a good guy deep down, just complicated. Figuring stuff out.

Enid's POV for the next one because I miss her :(

Inspo from comic issue 172 and 173.

As always,
Happy reading.