Summary: Oliver works another normal day of chores, but finds himself in a tight spot during storytime. Meanwhile, Rick meets a stranger in the woods.

Notes: Start of season 4!

On my last night on earth, I want to look to the sky
Just breathe in the air and blink in the light
On my last night on earth, I'll pay a high price
To have no regrets and be done with my life

L. I. F. E. G. O. E. S. O. N.

You've got more than money and sense, my friend
You've got heart and you're going your own way

L. I. F. E. G. O. E. S. O. N.

What you don't have now will come back again
You've got heart and you're going your own way…

Despite the cold last night, it's much warmer by the morning. Carol's got Patrick and I collecting coriander from the herb garden, to finish making the jerky. I have a song in my head. I harvest to its beat. I step to its beat. My own heartbeat is probably beating to its beat.

Patrick tells me he's going to try to shake Daryl's hand today, to thank him for bringing me back those few months ago, and I try to talk him out of it but he's already plotting.

"Mio Dio." I squint at him across the coriander patch.

"I'd tell Michonne, too, but she's been gone since a few days after she brought you here. I've been meaning to thank Daryl for ages, too, but he's always busy."

"Your crush on him is imbarazzante," I say.

My brother laughs at himself because he's confident in his sexuality.

I laugh at him because I'm not.

We get done in the garden, waving at Rick and Carl as we head past the pig pen back up to the cafeteria. Hershel got word of the soon-to-be-jerky and offered me his last chocolate bar for the biggest piece I could find.

Back under the shade of the cook-area canopy, we work through the breakfast rush and after a little Daryl comes along. People greet him good morning and thank him for yesterday's venison. It's not new, his fan base. But he still looks taken aback by all the attention.

Patrick looks star-struck.

Eventually, I have to throw a spoon at him to stop him gawking. Daryl and Carol don't notice. They're talking about the clusters, their worried eyes fixated on the fences, and then Carol holds out the prongs and asks, "Patrick, you wanna take over?"

"Yes, ma'am," he says — I give him a look across the kitchen like, 'Don't do it, man…' but he does. "Uh, Mr. Dixon?"

Daryl turns to him, squinting. I can already feel myself standing straighter, embarrassed out of my mind.

"I just wanted to thank you, for… for bringing that deer back yesterday."

That son of a bitch.

"It was a real treat, sir," he adds, "and I'd be honoured to shake your hand."

Daryl glances at Carol, until finally he looks back at my brother, licks the grease off his fingers, and shakes his hand. Patrick looks like he's trying not to grimace. I blow out my cheeks, serving a bowl of oatmeal to Doctor Subramanian. Carol chuckles and leaves for the courtyard. Daryl follows her, nodding to me and Pat.

"What was that?" I demand when they're gone.

"You should have seen your face," Pat says.

"My face? You just embarrassed yourself for a prank."

"Worth it."

"Vafanculo."

"Language."

"Fine," I say, "fuck you."

He swats me with a tea towel — a whip so painful I yelp and have to hit him back for revenge. We're told off by Tyreese and Karen, and both of us get back to chores — ignoring each other for the rest of the morning.

By a strange coincidence, Michonne's back — Carl tells us over breakfast — which is the breakfast I promised to save him a plate of last night — last night which I've been trying very hard not to think about all day. Instead, I think about the leftover jerky I'd promised to give to Hershel, in exchange for a scavenged bar of chocolate he's had stashed for a few months.

"Heard your pig gave birth," Patrick says at some point.

Carl, who is sitting at the canteen counter so he can eat near us while we work, looks up at him, like a deer caught at the end of Daryl's crossbow. He looks at me quickly, then Patrick again, and through a mouthful of venison asks, "Oliver tell you?"

"No," Patrick answers, shrugging. "I just saw them while I was in the garden."

Carl sighs. I catch his eyes and hope he knows I wouldn't tell anyone about last night, not even the pigs, but he looks away. I notice the way Patrick's eyes narrow at us. Quickly, I get back to work, realising for sure I've made it weird between Carl and I now. I worry about it for minutes on end until Carl fetches a stool and clears some room for me to sit at the bench next to him and eat breakfast, which I do, and I stop worrying totally when we play footsie between our stool legs and the world feels set right again.

"Michonne bought more comics," he says after a while, "said she wants to read some after us." A part of his flannel shirt is tucked in and I reach out and untuck it for him. "She didn't find any more X-Men volumes, though," he adds.

I shrug, even though this news colossally sucks.

"She found another Science Dog."

Mid mouthful, and without looking at him, I quickly pat my hand down on the counter top between us.

"Hey, no!" he complains. "I called dibbs on it months ago."

I glare at him, chewing my food.

"I have the T-shirt," Carl shoots back — on the outside, all anybody would see is an unimpressed frown on his face, but on the inside, I see his grin beaming.

I roll my eyes and continue eating while Patrick and Carl talk about something I don't listen to, until Patrick goes back to work for a while. We're almost done serving people, except I don't remember Carl's dad coming along to eat.

"He's out checking snares," Carl says, noticing the question in my face.

I nod and go back to eating, figuring I'll save Rick a plate for when he's back. Carl looks bothered so I knock our kneecaps.

He looks at me. "He wouldn't take his gun again. Even Hershel's saying he should."

I don't have anything to say to comfort him so instead I reach out and draw his initials with his hair along his shoulder. C G. I stop when I realise Patrick is watching me. He raises his eyebrows. I spin on my chair to face my plate and finish my food.

"Wanna play soccer?" Carl asks us.

"Do you want to?" Patrick asks.

Carl's nose wrinkles.

Patrick snickers, then shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe. Not sure if I'm feeling it today."

I notice he hasn't eaten this morning either.

"We can do something else?" Carl says.

Patrick inhales steeply. "Ah, screw it. I'll deal with it. Let's go. Oliver, catch you later?"

I wave them off as they go. I need to stay behind to finish up with Carol, as well as make sure Hershel gets his jerky and I get my chocolate, which he eventually pays me with under the table without anybody catching us. I keep the chocolate bar in my beanie, which I keep half tucked into my back pocket so it doesn't melt.

Once done with chores, I find Patrick and Carl again, hoping they're done playing by now so we can go do something else. They're in the fields with the other kids, but they aren't playing. They're by the fences, watching the walkers outside.

Carl and Lizzie are arguing.

"What the hell are you talking about? Okay? They don't talk. They don't think. They eat people. They kill people."

"People kill people," Lizzie answers. "They still have names."

"Have you seen what happens? Have you seen someone die like that?"

"Yeah," Lizzie retorts. "I have."

The staring contest between them is uncomfortable and I don't like it. I don't like fights. Not between living people or dead ones, and especially not between living people about dead ones.

"They're not people and they're not pets," Carl says flatly. "Don't — name — them."

Lizzie glares at him, then turns to her friends. "Let's jus' go read. C'mon."

They leave, except Mika, who asks, "Comin' to storytime?"

Patrick glances at me and Carl — Mika Samuels is sort of attached to my brother. Sometimes she tells people he's her brother.

"Uh, yeah," Patrick says.

"Oliver?" she asks.

I nod yes, tugging on my beanie, aware that Carl glances at me judgmentally.

"See you then!" Mika rises on tiptoes, then leaves, and despite Carl's earlier annoyance, he's smirking at us.

"Maybe I should come one of these days?"

"You wouldn't dig it. It's for kids," Patrick says quickly.

"You both go."

"We're immature."

I don't argue because I have to play along.

Carl snickers at the floor, nodding. "Whatever."

Patrick tugs my arm. "We're gonna head up there. Catch you later, young sir."

Patrick walks away. I don't, yet. Carl is looking at me. And I'm looking at him, too. I watch him smile from the inside out and I feel so guilty that I frown. Frowning is sometimes the only defence mechanism against him that I have.

I turn away, and even though I haven't said anything, Carl says, "Yep," as if I did.

"The children fastened their eye upon their bit of candle and watched it melt slowly and pitilessly away, saw the half inch of wick stand alone at last, saw the feeble flame rise and fall, climb the thin tower of smoke, linger at its top a moment, and then..."

Carol stops reading because Lizzie and Mika's dad has finally left the library. I look at Luke. On cue, he says, "Ma'am, should I take watch now?"

"Yes, Luke, you do that."

He goes. Carol brings over a large, heavy, rectangular box.

"Today, we are talking about knives," she says. I stretch my neck to get a better view of the array of sharp blades inside. "How to use them. How to be safe with them. And how they could save your life—"

"Ma'am, may I be dismissed?"

Patrick never interrupts anyone except me.

He's pale and sweaty and tired-looking.

"What is it?" Carol takes the question from my mouth.

Patrick shakes his head. He gulps, "I'm not feeling very well."

"Sometimes you're gonna have to fight through it," she says. "What if you wind up out there alone? Will you just give up 'cause you're feeling bad?"

"No, it's just. I — I don't want to yack on somebody."

A few kids shuffle out of the firing-zone, which I find a little funny. Patrick's not sick a lot. Usually it's me yacking all over the place — unfortunately, I have a pitifully weak stomach.

Carol sighs. "Go..."

He gets up. I watch the library door swing shut behind him. Carol continues teaching, but then, before I turn back to face her, something catches my eye behind the bookshelf, shuffling, and I double take.

Carl Grimes is looking directly at me through the shelf.

It's like getting electrocuted. I'm jostled back into my beanbag, through the floorboards, bulldozed into the earth's core, and with one, disappointed sigh, Carl emerges from his hiding spot.

I hear his soul sound, the ocean, smashing and crashing in waves. Books are washed from shelves. Pages spin and tear like coral in a typhoon, and I'm washed away in the riptide.

Carol sees him too.

"Please... don't tell your father."

He just stands there like a statue, madder than I've ever seen him — so mad I can see the embers sparking from the ends of his hair and fingertips, flittering across the floor at my knees. I get singed. Then he turns on his heel and leaves the library. His thoughts stay in the room, though, turning the air black and thick. I could cut through it with one of Carol's knives.

I look at the floor, knowing I should go after him, knowing Carol thinks so, too, because when I look at her, she gestures me to go.

"Later, Oliver," Mika says as I go, "hope Patty feels better soon."

On my way back towards C block, running, I skid around a corner and bash right into Carl with a grunt. In my head, he wraps his arms around me and I wrap mine around him and hold on and we bobble up through the ceiling through the roof and through the sky and through the atmosphere into outer space, and there, we aren't mad at each other, we're just okay and far away from everything... only that doesn't happen and we collapse in a painful heap on the floor.

"Watch where you're going!" he yells.

We scramble to our feet, panting. Carl crosses his arms, eyes narrowed and angry. I rush forward and cover them with my fingers.

"Hey—Oliver..." He swats my hands down. "Stop that." I do, and he's quiet for a second, just watching the floor. "I knew you'd come after me, so... I figured I'd just wait."

"I'm sorry," I say over him, breathless.

Carl looks at me, his face flat. "That's the first thing you've said to me," he says, "all day."

I frown. "You're keeping score?"

"Sometimes," he says, giving me more narrow eyes and gritted teeth until finally he loses enough patience to walk away. I watch him go, and I'm growing, filling up the corridor like a plug.

"We couldn't tell you!"

Carl stops, still facing away from me. "You lied to me."

My shoulders come down and I shrink to normal size again.

Carl turns to me then, slowly, and all quiet and deflated, he just says, "You're meant to be my best friend."

"I didn't lie," I say. "I just... couldn't tell you."

Carl's face flushes.

"I made a promise!" I add.

"So did we! Didn't we?"

I sigh. "We keep secrets, man."

We aren't supposed to talk about this stuff, but it must be the right thing to say because slowly Carl seems to decide to let it go. He leans back against the wall, and I join him, the cold cement behind our backs, our shoulders barely touching, and we stay like that, as close together as last night, standing in a minefield. It's not new, the minefield, I just have to always be careful when I step through it, like last night, while we were distracted and riled up and frightened, or other times, when it only has to be very very quiet, and he lets me play with his hair, or he falls asleep on my chest and I will only wake him if someone is coming by.

Then, between us, I feel his chilled fingers touch my wrist. Without looking, I twist my hand around and we slip our fingers together, like last night, and I realise now that he's been thinking about it, too, thinking about it like I have been, all day, like I can't think of anything else.

When he squeezes my fingers, only gently, a mine goes off and it's so good I die, only I just stare at the wall ahead of us, not saying anything. And then a group of fence cleaners walk across the hallway down from us and Carl and I let go of each other instantly, like nothing happened.

"Guess you'll tell your Dad about storytime," I say to the floor. Carl's eyes are studying me. I can feel them without looking. I want to look though. I want to look up and look back and keep on looking but he's still looking at me and looking back would set off another explosion.

"I'm gonna go find him," he says finally, "you should go check on your brother. He didn't look so good."

I watch him leave, and he's long gone by the time I say, "Yep..."

Back in my cell, I wander around, both tidying up and searching for my inhaler — all the running earlier wore out my lungs, like they're sixty years older than they really are.

Patrick groans from my bunk. He keeps needing the bathroom so I guess I'm taking the top bunk for now.

"Didn't mean to wake you," I say, dropping my beanie —chocolate bar stowed inside— on the bedside table.

Again, he groans.

"You look better," I add.

Patrick opens one eye, frowning, sweating. "Sei divertente."

"I am funny, grazie," I mock. "Mika says to get better… Patty."

He snorts, groans, winces.

"Want me to go get Doctor Subramanian?" I ask.

"No, dude, I'm fine. It's just a stomach bug."

I sigh, accepting this.

"Fine," I say, "but here." I grab a wash rag from the sink, wet it under the tap, ring it out... then toss it so it lands on his face. He flips me the bird, but presses the rag gratefully into his skin, sighing with relief. For a minute, I take a seat on the floor next to him with my legs crossed, tapping my knees.

"Carl saw us at storytime," I find myself saying. "He was watching, just as you left."

Patrick gives a disconcerted grumble.

"Do you think he really wanted to come, when he asked to?" I ask.

"Maybe."

"Maybe he felt left out."

"Lo sapresti meglio."

"Why would I know best?"

"Well, since you're such good Guy Friends with each other." He used air quotes and my heart is suddenly in my face, turning it hot.

I look at my knees.

"He's mad at me," I say glumly.

"I'm sure he is."

"He's telling Rick now."

"Mm."

I wait a moment, thinking, before going on.

"Did he still have his gun when you got here?"

"Who?"

"Carl."

"M-hmm," Patrick says, in a monotone like he's tired of me.

"He did? Did he tell you why his dad took it?"

"He didn't even talk to me. Or the others." I plead with my eyes for him to tell me more, so he does — "We'd hang out in C block sometimes but we didn't do anything together. I'd sit and mess with Lego and he'd be cleaning his gun."

I imagine that in my head. Patrick rolls his eyes at me. He takes a breath until he coughs on it.

"When Rick took his gun, did he take your weapons, too?" I ask.

Patrick nods.

"Even the gun?"

Another nod.

"But that thing was empty."

We only kept it around just in case we needed to pretend we were a threat.

"So," I add, "when did Carl start hanging out with you for real?"

He shrugs. "Few weeks before you turned up, I guess — said his dad wanted him to. I went with it. I liked it. We played soccer and read and stuff, you know? It was like I had a brother again... Now, are you done asking me questions? I'm sick of talking about Carl."

"Yes!" I say, feeling hot-faced again.

Patrick rests in peace for a while, eyes shut, sweating, frowning our frown. I get up so I can leave him be but he snatches my wrist.

"I'm sorry."

I grimace at him. "For what?"

"For what happened at the store," he says.

"Nothing happened," I say, pulling my arm out of his grip a little roughly. "I'm alive, aren't I?"

"Oliver." He says my name in a way that I've never heard him say it before, like it hurts him. "Oliver, I left you."

All of a sudden my breath is sucked out of me like a vacuum.

"I'm sorry," he says again, and it's horrible to see him begin to cry. "I thought you were dead, but you were out there alone. I didn't tell anyone about you. I just… couldn't. When Mom and Dad—"

"Stop."

He looks at me.

I sigh. "I just... don't wanna talk about this."

"Okay, okay," he says. "It's just… after that, it was just us, and it felt like we lost everything. And then I lost you. And I really did lose everything. And it was my fault. You were alone and it was my fault. And you can hate me for it if you want to."

"Pat," I say, curt. "Stop. I… I forgive you." And it only occurs to me now that I've never said this to him, that it's even true. "So shut the hell up and vai a dormire, si?"

"Yeah," he says. "Ti amo, fratello."

I get all dumb and grumbly then. He hasn't called me brother in a long time, let alone told me that he loves me. A small part of me knows I should say it back, and I do, in my head, but outside my head I just say, "Bite me, stronzo."

And just like that, we crack up like we own the same brain, and I get that feeling like I have all my life, only I've been missing it lately, because the feeling I get is the feeling like I've got a big brother because I do. He's right here in front of me, with the same blood and surname and underbite.

Patrick simmers out into quiet, and then he is asleep.

Later, when I'm on my way back from the supply closet, book in my hand, I find Carl sitting on the common room bench. He pats the table-top beside him. I sit next to him, feeling pretty good about myself until I realise that he's probably still mad at me.

"Did you tell?" I ask dubiously.

Carl shakes his head. "Couldn't. Dad ran into trouble outside — some lady."

"Is he okay?"

He shrugs. "He's talking to Hershel about it." There's this thing Carl does with his mouth when he's worried. His lips twitch. "Wanna go read in the office blocks?"

"I should stay with Pat."

"We could stay in your cell?"

"I don't think he'd appreciate company right now."

"Aren't you company?"

"I don't count. I'm his brother."

Carl seems to respect that.

"Tell him get better soon."

I smile a little. It seems he hasn't held a grudge, but I know enough not to take advantage of this, even though I want to push my hands under his and dance a waltz around the common room with him. Instead, I slip off of the bench to leave, only Carl stops me.

"Oliver, there's, erm..." He trails off, fidgeting. He watches my mouth. I wonder if I have a pimple or something.

Allison crosses the common room and says, "Hey," to us as she passes and suddenly Carl's standing up. I startle because he slaps my shoulder and walks away.

"Err..." I say, walking after him. "Aren't you going to... I don't know, finish your sentence?"

He stops and looks at me, then the floor.

"I just think you're cool and I don't hate you," he says.

There's a frown and it grows inside out of me only when it comes out it's a grin. A massive grin. I fill the whole common room with it.

"Okay..." I reply, because ooooookaaaay...

"Yeah."

I laugh.

He does, too.

And then I get a ball of energy in my chest like electricity. Because last night he let me kiss his forehead and — and we sit and we read comics and sometimes we hold hands now which is probably perfectly normal for guy friends to do, whatever Patrick meant by that, and sometimes too I wake up and he's just watching me, because, I guess, we are guy friends, who do guy things together, like run around and punch each other and say dude and bro and man at the right points during conversation, like guy friends do.

Guy friends.

I'm shrinking into myself, taking notes with my Guy-pen, all my Guy-barriers of Guyness up to make me more Guy, and again, Guy-Master-Carl slaps my shoulder so I grunt Guyly and then he's turning on his Guy heel and marching out of D block.

While in bed, I fall asleep reading with my flashlight —which is still turned on— and it clatters loudly to the floor, snapping me awake for a moment, but the fatigue returns quickly. My book is open, pages bent and digging into my cheek. Someone's coughing. I glance sleepily at the clock down on my radio.

'4:44AM.'

"Pat?"

More coughing, only he's out of bed now.

"Pat..."

He tells me to go back to bed through his coughs. "I'm fine..." Another cough. "Go... Go back to bed, I just gotta... cool down."

I do as he says, tired and dazed and listening to his damp, bare feet slap along the floor all the way through the cell block, and then, as I hear the faint splashing of a shower switch on, I fall asleep.

On my last night on Earth, I won't look to the sky
Just breathe in the air and blink in the light
On my last night on Earth, I'll pay a high price
To have no regrets and be done with my life...

Notes

Song was LIFEGOESON by Noah and the Whale.

Poor, Pat.

Happy reading.