Chapter 116- Rock in the Road: The Moonbow.
I thought that leaving the Kingdom would feel like leaving Neverland. Like I'd have to grow up the second the ground under my boots changed. Truth be told, I've never felt more like a teenager than right now, here with Carl.
With no Rick, no Maggie, Michonne, or anyone else, we do what we want. Carl turns his dad's CD player as loud as it will go, blasting Ronnie Dee through every room, each one lighting up and dancing to the beat of banjo twangs and clapping hands.
At some point, Judith points at Carl and screams: "YOU'RE IT!" And I don't have any time to ask about when she started speaking in full sentences before Carl's charging at me. Giggles rumble from my chest, and I scream for him to stop, but he won't. I'm Jumping over sofas and throwing cushions at him as he sprints with his arms out. We're juking around the coffee table and I'm warning him I'm not playing around, but he tackles me to the floor — crushing my chest with his, and I'm screaming and dying over and over in the best ways. Hyperventilating and crying with laughter as he's kissing up and down my neck without mercy, Judith giggling and applauding him on. And I look into his eyes, my face red and hot and telling him with everything but words that we really need to find a sitter for Judith right now because I love him more than the music, or the chase, or the stars in the sky, and I really need to show him that.
And we do find a sitter. Francine tells us she's more than happy to have her.
Then it's just him and me. We're every colour of the rainbow fused into one when we're like this. Daredevil reds and electrified blues curling and twisting into something brilliant. I play him music on the guitar he saved. He reads to me these books I can't read myself because they came out of his pen, my ear the first to hear them. And I love that. His words. His stories and poetry enough to keep me entertained for the lifetime we seem to live out in a few hours. He says he wants me in his room after — his room that has no bed or dresser because the Saviors stole them. But he takes my hand and tells me none of that matters because all he wants in his room is me. He tells me all the things only he can say. All the words that only he knows I need. And he touches me in ways that only he can do. He makes me feel alive like the way the smell of gunpowder and the touch of rain make me feel alive. And by the time the sex is over, we're curled up naked under his window, the kiss of the cool night air soothing against our bare skin through a crack in the frame. We're staring up at the sky because it has a rainbow in it — only the moon is out too, and constellations are sparkling above it. I tell him it's called a moonbow, that it's as rare as people are now.
"Not as rare as people like you," he tells me.
I laugh into his messy hair.
"People like you are like fairy dust," he says. "You let me fly."
People like Carl are rarer than fairy dust, I think. He loves me even though I find it hard to love myself. He's the kind of person that makes you an acoustic bracelet. The kind of person that will dance with you or run with you even when he's scared, all because you ask him to. He's that word Tyreese used to talk about Karen. He's a giver.
A smile creeps across my lips.
"I wanna smoke weed with you," I tell him then.
"What?" he laughs.
"You heard me," I speak into his hair, sweaty and damp on the side of his head. "It will be a learning experience."
"I guess." He keeps laughing. "Where's this coming from?"
"I just think we should do it... when we get the chance." I smile. "We can tell each other dumb jokes and talk about the strangest things and, y'know, giggle like idiots."
Carl nods, and he smells like fire smoke for some reason.
We get dressed before Rick and the others get home. They've brought back all our stolen food and Gabriel too— not looking great, but alive. Carl gets pretty alarmed when he sees Rick's hand oozing blood and wrapped in a less-than-clean rag, but after we get home and I help stitch it up with the first aid kit, he calms down.
"Another group?" I ask with my face all scrunched up and confused because we seem to be meeting those every other day now.
Rick nods from his seat, flexing his hand when I ask him to.
"It should be alright in a few days," I tell him.
"This new group can help us," Michonne says, sitting backwards on a chair at the end of 101's dining table, wearing a scratchy-looking cardigan.
"They have the numbers..." Rick tells us, "—thanks, Rhys," he adds when I get back from putting the first aid kit in the kitchen. "Guess it's a good thing Rosita took the time to teach you."
I just smile at him.
"What do they want?" Carl asks Michonne as I sit down beside him at the dining table.
"Guns," she sighs, frowning at her hands that she has interlocked and rested on the table.
We all frown at that. They have the one thing we need. And we don't have the one thing they want.
"Michonne and me are gonna head out tomorrow with the run truck," Rick tells us. "These Scavengers want guns, so we need to find 'em. Probably gonna be gone a few days."
"We'll take Rhys, too," Michonne adds. "Get you to the Kingdom."
Carl starts deflating in the chair next to me. I hold his hand, hoping to plug the tear.
"I'm sorry, son," Rick grimaces. "You can't stay here... if the Saviors recognise you—"
"I know," I say with a nod.
"I know, too," Carl adds.
"But—" we say at the same time.
Michonne and Rick exchange concerned glances.
I speak first. "I'm not going to go with you. Carl said that when the Saviors were looking for Daryl, they threatened to take Downy-Beardy and eat him the next time they were here for a pick-up."
Rick looks perplexed. "Who's Downy-Beardy?"
"The horse," Michonne and Carl both tell him in unison.
"Right..."
"So..." Carl jumps in before either of them can say another word, "Rhys should take the horse back. Which means he can stay here a little longer. The Saviors aren't coming back tomorrow."
"That we know of," Michonne sighs.
"Leave us that radio," Carl argues. "If they come, we'll hear about it."
"Okay," Rick says to the surprise of everyone in the room. "If you boys think it'll work, I trust you."
I wonder if he actually does or if he just knows we'll fight this corner until morning.
"But—" he says then, and both our hearts sink.
"You're not going all the way to Kingdom on that horse," Michonne finishes his words, somehow psychically linked to his happy mediums.
"It's a two-day trip," Rick tells us.
"I've done it before," I argue.
"You can go to Hilltop," Michonne says. "The horse will be safe there. They've got a bunch already."
"From Hilltop," Rick pitches in, "Maggie will get someone to take you to the Kingdom."
I sink in my chairs a little, but don't push my luck any further towards the cliff's edge.
In the morning, Rick and Michonne leave to find guns. I got the displeasure of overhearing them talk about what they were planning on doing once they were alone and away from Alexandria, and I consider it lucky that Carl wasn't around because he might just have puked.
Carl helps me muck out the makeshift stable built under one of the guard posts. Aaron made it for Downy-Beardy, and I feel guilty that I'm gonna take him away, but I really don't want him to be eaten by Saviors. Even if he still terrifies me ever so slightly.
Carl takes my hand after and tells me he wants to swim in the lake, only he doesn't want to wear any clothes. I laugh at him and say that people will see us, but he just shrugs.
"Not by the Gazebo they won't," he says, leading me by the hand. "It's so overgrown that the water is basically indoors— just... in-trees." He frowns at what he just said, then drags me to the spot to show me what he means, pulling us through prickly bushes and tall brown grass.
And he's right.
The autumn trees encompassing the gazebo hang low, kissing the surface of the water and leaving crispy orange leaves to dance out along its surface. I spin on the spot, taking in how different this place looks — all yellow and bronze with the dried willow petals floating off the trees and crunching under my boots. When I stop spinning, Carl's taken off his clothes, wading into the secluded pool that fall has created for us.
I do the same, my clothes and weapons falling in a heap, joining Carl in the freezing water.
"Fuck," I bark, my teeth chattering. "It's kinda cold, dude."
"Then come further in," he says, grinning, holding his hands out as he treads water. "It gets warmer out here."
"Mierda," I hiss.
I wade out further until the water laps against my chin and my toes stand on points in the swirling dirt of the lake bed.
"I still can't swim that great," I say when Carl looks at me expectantly.
He glides closer until we're face to face. He pulls a crackly leaf from my hair.
I realise we're both more exposed than we usually are.
"You took your bandage off," I say, pointing my nose to his eye as I try to keep it above water.
"So did you."
"I didn't even realise."
"That I did, or that you did?"
I sigh. "Both. We did it last night, too, when we were watching the moonbow."
Carl seems more confident with it off now. He told me about how Negan made him keep it off the whole time he was at their headquarters.
"I hate that he made you do that," I say, knowing that he's thinking the same thing.
Carl pulls his arms out of the water, dropping them over my shoulders, linking his fingers lazily behind my head and being careful not to get my ear wet.
"I'm not," he tells me.
"No?"
"I don't know... I think he was right in a way. I mean, I hate it. I don't want anyone to look at it like he wants them to look at it... like it's badass. But I want you to be able to see it. See me."
"I see you," I whisper.
I try something then. I thread my arms up through and over his, linking my finger behind his neck. Then I lift my legs off the ground and wrap them around his waist. Carl kicks his legs to keep us afloat, and it feels like we're flying.
"You make me fly, too," I say, kissing him.
We manage to get out of the water alive, being careful to keep our heads and open wounds out of the misty depths. Our clothes are all mixed up on the dust gazebo floor, so we just grab what we can. Our outfits definitely mostly swapped.
Carl says he should pick up Judith from Francine, and I tell him I need to go see Rosita because her stitches are supposed to come out today. He squeezes my nose between his thumb and index finger before we leave. I laugh at him, and it sounds funny between his fingers.
Rosita is sitting on the porch of her and Abraham's old house. She's got a small shaving mirror set up on a little round table with a glass top in front of her. A pair of nail scissors in one hand, a set of pliers in the other.
"Yo," I say before I reach the steps, worried I might startle her into cutting her face off.
She nods at me as I trot up onto the porch, not startled one bit.
"Let me," I say.
She glares at me. "I've got it."
"I know."
She keeps glaring, but after a moment of heavy huffs and puffs she reaches out to a spare seat behind her, dragging it around until it's opposite her before she hands me the tools.
"Know what you're doing?" she asks.
"Teach me," I say.
"There are two stitches. Slip the pliers under one of the stitches and lift it away from the skin, but don't let go of it."
I put the pliers to her cheek and do as she described.
"Now cut it with the scissors on the knot."
I snip the knot.
"Now pull out the thread, and do the same thing to the second stitch."
When I'm done, I put everything down on the table.
"Buen trabajo," she smirks.
"Thank you."
"Realmente entendiste eso, o sólo entendiste lo esencial?"
"Erm... yes?"
Rosita smirks at me. "Español, por favor."
I groan. "Sí... I did— sí entendí."
Rosita's face is stoic.
"Did I nail it?" I ask.
She smirks. "You'll get there."
Tara appears on the porch steps behind me. I scrape my chair around so that I'm facing her like Rosita.
Tara smiles, holding up a gauze pad. "Hey, I was just coming over to do that. Denise showed me how."
"We're done," Rosita says, her smirk that she showed me gone.
Tara stares at her like she can see that emptiness that I keep catching in Rosita's eyes.
"What?" Rosita asks.
Tara looks away. "Nothing."
"Okay."
Then Tara walks up the porch steps, leaning against the railings.
"It's gonna work out," she tells her.
"What does that even mean, Tara?" Rosita sounds dazed by the words.
"It means we've got the numbers to fight now."
"We've got to get the guns first," I point out, not intending to take a side. Not even realising there are sides until after I say it.
"We just need to find some," Tara tells me, "and then—"
"Do you know where we could find that many guns today? This week? This year? No. You don't. I can't just wait. I don't know about you, but I can't."
Tara's eyebrows arch, and she looks at me.
I stay quiet, pretending to suddenly find my boots very interesting.
"We're gonna find the guns, okay?" Tara says. "And we're gonna fight."
Rosita looks away, her eyes somehow not seeing anything as they glaze in frustration.
Tara sighs. "Look, it's not going to be easy! It wasn't the last time at the satellite outpost. And, hey, maybe you could just save all this," Tara waves a hand in her direction,"for them."
Rosita just keeps staring at nothing.
Tara scoffs, tossing her the gauze pad. "Here, it'll help with your scar."
Rosita catches it, then gets up, pushing it back into Tara's hand. "Keep it," she snaps. "We need guns. I'm gonna go find them."
Rosita marches off the porch and in the direction of the gate. Tara looks like she's about to speak to me, but I tell her I know and get up to follow Rosita.
