Summary: Yet another day of chores, only Oliver can't seem to find his brother around.

A bad dream wakes me up. I think I can hear someone cry out, but I listen to the silence and hear nothing. I'm not used to sleeping on the top bunk. I roll out expecting the floor to be closer but the ground hits me hard and cold. As I'm curled up in pain, a shadow crosses the floor, blocking the bright orange dawn-light. I turn, spooked.

A tall, lumbering figure stands in the cell doorway.

"Oliver, can I borrow your—" Ryan, Mika and Lizzie's dad, stops, a CD in his hand. "Are you alright there?"

"Yes," I say, suddenly on my feet and pretending I'm not in pain. "Borrow my what?"

"Erm… your radio? It plays CDs, right?"

"Sure," I say, handing it over. The time on it ticks over to 6:00AM. It's an hour earlier than most of D block wakes up. Ryan must not be sleeping well either.

"Thanks," he says. "I'll put it back when I'm done."

I figure this is as good a time as any for that chocolate bar Hershel gave me, except it's not in my beanie, so I look around. The empty wrapper is poking out under the pillow. He stole it. My brother stole my chocolate.

I'm about to growl his name but then I realise I am sitting in my bed — my bed that Patrick slept in last night — and Patrick's not here.

I get this feeling like I'm not really interested in where he is. I can always grill him about the chocolate later. But I'm awake, so I figure I can make myself useful somewhere, so I snatch my beanie, lace up my shoes, and go to find Carl in the gardens.

I really wanted that chocolate bar, I think bitterly. Patrick's dead the next time I see him.

As I leave through the common room, I can hear my radio playing gently from Ryan's cell.

'Sleep now under my skin
Make sure you try to
Conjure the wind
and ease my mind…'

The gardens smell of paprika and coriander. Carl and Rick aren't here yet, or in the pig pen, but Michonne is in a paddock by the stable, grooming a chestnut mare.

"Oliver, it's good to see you settled in."

I think I should say something like, 'It's good to see you back,' but I don't know Michonne well — this is the first I've seen of her since she left — and I get too awkward to say anything at all.

"You on garden duty?"

I shake my head. "Err, no, just up early."

"Hm." She squints and smiles at me. "Are you Italian? I an hear a little somethin' somethin' in your accent."

"My mom was."

"Pretty," she says.

I squint, flattered. I shrug so it isn't so obvious and say, "Dad was Jewish. He took her surname when they married."

"How modern," Michonne says.

"Yeah, think it caused some issues with the synagogue though." I'm not sure why I'm telling her this. I haven't talked about my parents like this since before, but Michonne laughs and it makes me feel great. I watch her as she puts a halter on her horse, eventually feeling brave enough to ask her, "Are you leaving again?"

"I am," she says, and I must be hovering because she says, "Wanna help?"

I look at the horse — all one million, blazing, orange pounds of her. She pushes Michonne's arm with her muzzle and Michonne scratches her chestnut shoulder, whispering something soft into her tall ear.

"Her name is Flame," she tells me.

"Hi, Flame..." I step into the paddock. Flame steps towards me and I grow five feet, pushing myself against the fence away from her.

"She won't eat you."

"Are... you sure?"

Flame watches me, licking and sucking her mouth loudly and rocking her head up and down.

"She looks like she's going to eat me."

Michonne laughs. "Total herbivore. Promise."

This, admittedly, is comforting.

"Here." Michonne runs her hands all the way along Flame's back and shoulders. "Hold out your hand."

Timidly, I do. Flame watches, one ear facing Michonne and the other facing me.

"Ease up."

I ease up.

"Horses can tell when you're afraid."

I am sort of very afraid.

"Ease up..."

Oh, right, yes, I do that... again.

Then this amazing thing happens because Flame eases up, too, stuffing a long ginger muzzle into my palm. Her mouth grabs my fingertips, no teeth, but I still yank my hand back, and then she's tugging at my pockets. Her top lip wiggles against my hip and I laugh.

"You got anythin' for her?"

I fish into the pocket Flame's so interested in and remove a half eaten Graham cracker. Flame pulls the plastic out of my hand and I have to grab it back before she eats it. I feed her while Michonne ties her to the fence and begins cleaning the paddock.

When Flame is done, I wipe slobber from my hand and put the empty packet back in my pocket. I've never really been around horses before, but I decide they're just lame zebras, and that I like them.

"I'll teach you to ride, if you want?" Michonne says, saddling up. I help her stock her saddlebags with all sorts of interesting things like maps with crossed out areas, pepper spray, and a knife sharpener. Flame stretches her neck when I rub the right spot under her saddle. Michonne hands me her reins. "Here, lead her."

We leave the paddock together. I'm not really leading Flame, rather walking by her side while she follows Michonne. Just as we make it to the driveway, Carl and Rick show up, heading down to the garden. I watch them through Flame's mane so as not to get caught staring, only the sun has caught inside the horse's hair, tangled in it, so real life flames dance around them both, like a sketch Carl would draw.

He could be a painting, I think.

A good book, I think. Or a song.

All that but the kind that makes you get that feeling like when you cry and laugh at the same time, I think.

I think Carl is art.

I remember to stop thinking so much when I trip over Flame's hoof.

"Mornin'!" Rick calls.

Michonne takes Flame's reins for me, bringing her to stop. I walk around them. Carl meets me, not noticing how busy I am scrambling up enough of my Guy-notes from last night to successfully saunter up to him Guyly and give him a big, muscly, Guy fist-bump. Grizzly bear strength. It jostles him. I'm doing good — ten out of ten on Patrick's Guy-scale, I'm sure.

"You're up early," he says.

I shrug, thinking, yeah, yeah, I knooow.

"Come to see Michonne go, too?"

I point at him. I came to see him. And it's possible he blushes at this. It's also possible I just flew up into the sun, Icarus style — I roll my eyes to scoop up some of the Guy that'd slipped.

Guy-Guy-Guy-Guy.

He's in a good mood because he slings an arm over my shoulder and rubs his nose in my neck. I shove him off like a total Guy, yes? Only, maybe he's feeling in an especially good mood today, or maybe it's just early, because then Carl grabs me, like he's trying to tackle me, like it's all for show, like too much Guy is just the right amount of Guy for it to be ironic enough, and I go with it and fight back and laugh and a whole minefield explodes from our eyeballs all the way across Georgia.

I get this feeling like I'm misplacing a lot of 'a's for 'u's.

"Alright, boys, settle down," Rick says.

I'm laughing, thinking about guys with an 'a' instead of a 'u' and I can't stop laughing. Carl, too. He pulls my beanie out of my pocket and I snatch it back and put it on. He brushes my fringe to sit right, all sweet and gentle and isn't it odd how much you can laugh when you're also knocked-out cold?

"Careful out there," Rick tells Michonne, oblivious to the universe caving in.

"Always am," she replies. "Any requests? Books? Comics?" She's talking to us now. "Some stale M&M's?"

I nod to her. I crave chocolate, especially now after what Patrick did to me. Chocolate makes the world go around — can fix anything, like thieving brothers and caving universes and boys who are gentle and sweet and make you mix up letters u and a too much. I believe in chocolate like I should probably believe in God.

Not Carl though.

"You're the ones who like stale M&M's," he says.

"Then I'll definitely be looking for some," Michonne, "I'll look for some stuff you like, too, Carl."

He waves. I check for any undetonated mines, but I don't see any, so I judge it a safe enough area to smile at him. He smiles back.

I'm burning alive and I'm okay with it.

"Hey, why don't you wear your hat anymore?" Michonne asks.

"It's not a farming hat," Carl answers.

I've never seen him wear a hat. Not even my hat.

"See you soon?" he asks her.

"Pretty soon."

The way Carl looks at her makes me think, for a second, that he's forgotten he's in a field with three other people because he sucks in a deep breath and his chest blows up all big and anxious. I look away because I get all anxious too — not sure why. While he goes back to his father, I keep walking with Michonne, matching Flame's front hooves, which is hard because she has very large steps and I have to hold onto her saddle to keep up.

"What hat?"

The question was in my head for so long it sort of just came out. We're at the gate already. I'm eyeing up levers and trying to remember which ones to pull on.

"He's got a deputy's hat," Michonne explains, pulling herself up into the saddle. "Rick's old one. Hasn't he ever shown you?"

I shake my head. I try imagining Carl wearing it. I can't. My imagination is on temporary retreat after all the mine detonations today.

Michonne thanks me as I pull open the inner fence, then shut it behind her and Flame. As I start on opening the outer gate for them, I grunt out, "Wolverine. That's Carl's favourite comic. Or more Science Dog."

"Got it. See you soon."

She and Flame trot away along the prison driveway, and I whisper, "Pretty soon," as I watch them, and then Rick is here, taking the levers from me and making quicker work of them for me, telling me to head back now, so I walk back along the driveway towards the garden.

Carl's carrying a piglet in his hands, squinting. I stand outside of the paddock, searching for Violet.

"She died last night," Carl says. "I just found out. Dad didn't want to tell me. He doesn't even know what was wrong with her."

He leaves the piglet in the paddock and meets me outside.

"One of the guards took her away last night," he says, "I guess they burned her."

We watch the orphan piglets, wriggling and squealing.

"They can't survive without their mother, not this young," he explains. I hear him sniff and it's so unexpected I look at him. He wipes a tear quickly. He doesn't seem like the kind of boy to get sad over pigs. Except he does, I guess.

He holds the fence and leans into it, then leans into me this tiny bit. I don't know what to say to comfort him, and anyway, that's not what Guy friends do, is it?

Carl sighs.

"Dad won't give me my gun back," he says, "and he won't let me help with the walkers, and he thinks he knows things but he doesn't know..."

He burns himself out like an old match.

I watch him. Again, I want to say something but I can't think of anything so instead I reach out to take his hand, then stop and take it back.

Guy friends don't really hold hands.

Guy friends don't even think about it.

Carl's dipping his head and thumbing at the fence post, nodding like I've said something. "I gotta get on with chores." I think he wants me to leave him to it, but he says, "Come with?"

So we wander into the tall bean stalks, far enough in that it's hard to see the prison unless we jump. The fence sways noisily behind our backs. I think of that night again — that night we don't talk about. Carl catches me glance at him. I clear my throat and pick a pea pod.

"Yesterday you said we keep secrets," he says eventually.

I don't respond, and insecurity washes Carl's face. He snatches a Tupperware box from a crate by one of the stalks and begins harvesting bean pods in it. I help him, feeling guilty. It takes several more minutes for Carl to say anything else.

"We keep them for each other, though, right?"

I swallow. "For each other?"

"To protect each other, so that we don't get into trouble."

I turn to him, anxiety rushing, heart banging, face heating up. I don't want to talk about this. I don't want him to tell me the things I've been telling myself for years. I don't think I could take it.

"I'm just..." Carl sighs, frustrated. "I feel like I'm telling a secret to a secret."

I stare at him, astounded. My hands are shaking and I have to hide them under my armpits, hugging myself. Another mine is about to blow, but this time it won't be good. It might kill me —kapow— only it's real, outside my head, shaking the ground under us.

Carl startles. I twist around towards the prison. And then lots of things happen at once. There's gunfire echoing across the grounds. I hear Lizzie and Mika running across the courtyard, screaming, "Help! Help! Please, come quick!" and then Rick is here, flying from the pig pen and pulling Carl and I from the garden by our collars.

"Stay close."

"Cell blocks?" Maggie calls down.

"I don't know," Rick yells. He turns to us. "Get in the tower with Maggie."

"My brother," I say, and saying it scares me.

"Don't argue," Rick cuts me off. "Go!"

I'm gripping Carl's shoulder, so I let go of it.

"Walkers in D!"

"What about C?"

"It's clear. We locked the gates to the tombs. Hershel's on guard."

"It ain't a breach."

"We followed the plan."

And then Carl is yanking my collar... away from the tower.

"Michonne..."

I break away from him – I gotta go — I gotta go to D.

"Oliver..." He's out of breath, running out of time. We both are. I have this feeling in my chest like the sky is losing its sun. I have to go. "Okay," Carl hears my thoughts. "Okay, but be careful."

And then he's leaving and I am, too. I rocket through the courtyard. Carol yells at me. Mika and Lizzie sob. Then I'm crashing through the heavy D block doors and sprinting down the corridor. I hear the screaming before I see the dim glow of the common room. When I get there, it's chaos. There's blood. Walker faces are dotted among living.

"Oliver!" Rick yells, urging people out of the block. "Go! Dammit, go!"

I ignore him, pelting to my cell. Patrick's not inside so I leave quickly. A walker collapses to my feet, snapping at my shoes. It takes six blows for its fresh skull to cave in under my shoe. Brain matter explodes over the cement. It's Teddy. And then Luke is screaming because another walker, Kyle, is grabbing his ankle. He falls. I kick Kyle in the face. Luke is crying and I pull him by the collar to his feet, and as we run away, a green bolt punctures Kyle's eyeball. Luke staggers, causing me to trip over him. He cries out. I grab him and I pull him back as hard as I can just as someone on the second floor throws themselves over the banister, landing in a heap. They clamber away, sobbing. For a moment I'm reminded of a night months and months ago when I was alone and hiding and I had to listen to somebody scream and scream their life away...

"Get back!" Daryl shouts.

I watch him throw Luke over his shoulder and lug him to Karen's cell. I expect him to pull me in, too, and I'm going to yell at him not to, but he just hands me a hunting knife from his belt and says, "Go, boy."

And, boy, I go.

Lacey is attacking Allison — they live next door to me. I sink my knife through Lacey's temple. Her corpse falls limp at Allison's side. I hold my hand out, pull her to stand, and by the time she's sobbed her, "Thank you," I'm already gone.

Screams surround me. I take out walker after walker. Oliver from D block leaves, stands on the side-lines and waits for it all to be over. Oliver the survivor is here now — coming back — taking over.

Then, all at once, a million years and dead bodies later, the cell block is quiet. I find Patrick's glasses. They're alone on the shower room floor, small trickles of blood draining along the tiles. I leave without touching them, not breathing. People are crying. Someone is bitten and being held by a loved one, someone else is crying over a dead baby, and I just stand there, knife in hand and out of breath.

There's music.

It's coming from Ryan's cell — my radio, left on.

'Somebody call out to your brother
He's calling out your name

Ooh ooh ooh

Hiding under the covers
With no one else to blame

Ooh ooh ooh

You couldn't help out your own neighbour
You couldn't tell it to his face
You were fucked up by the blame…'

I go in. Ryan is dying in his bed. The music must've drawn them…

"My girls..." he whimpers at me.

"They're safe," I say, all breath. I can't feel my fingers. Rick and Carol are here now, in the cell. Rick puts his hands on my shoulders and pulls me aside as he and Carol speak with Ryan. I don't hear what they talk about.

I need my inhaler.

I don't feel good.

I want my brother.

Rick leads me out of Ryan's cell.

"Are we clear?" he yells up at everyone. "Are we safe?!"

"Check the catwalk!" Sasha answers from somewhere. "But, yeah, I think so!"

"Oliver," Rick tells me, "stay close."

I do, and upstairs on the catwalk, Glenn, Daryl, Rick and I take every cell one at a time. One woman, Jenny, is bit and dead. Daryl puts a bolt through her forehead. Another man, Liam, a little further down has his stomach spilled out over the railing. Rick takes care of him. I want to call out Patrick's name, but my mouth won't open. Instead I keep looking. This cell is clear. The next cell is bloody. The one after that, has two dead bodies. While Rick and Daryl are busy stopping their Turn, I pull back the next cell's curtain—

I hear the growl—

See the pair of blood-soaked hands—

And drive my knife through the walker's temple on instinct.

And then without warning there is a scream in my chest.

It's odd, but when you see someone you know, who always wears a certain type of clothing or accessory — a hat or scarf or a pair of glasses — you imagine them always wearing that item, as if it isn't an item but an actual part of them, like an arm or a leg. Always there. So, when you see them without that scarf or without that hat or without that pair of glasses... it takes you a moment to recognise them again.

I recognise the walker that isn't wearing his glasses anymore. Patrick. My brother. Collapsing dead in my arms. Blood pours from his empty eyes and nose and mouth and ears.

I can't say his name or speak or even scream.

I just try to catch him before he falls, staggering under his weight. Some big, angry bubble of disbelief and loss explodes in my chest, and I lose all sense of how to process what I'm seeing.

I fall to my knees with a hard clank against the catwalk, my brother's cold body in my arms, and then there is just silence. It's that silence I've always dreamed of. Absolute silence. The kind of silence so quiet you can hear your own heartbeat.

It's like a nightmare.

I hold around his shoulders and pull him into me, but someone grabs me and pulls me away from him and then I am screaming and cursing and thrashing. Blood oozes from the knife I pushed through Patrick's temple. Cries wrack my whole body.

My brother's dead.

My brother is dead…

And I am being left alone all over again.

Someone puts their hand on my shoulder. I flinch and fight but they pull me to stand anyway. Tears pour down my cheeks. I'm coughing and crying and whimpering and Rick is just holding me tightly. I'm lost — so lost — I'm dropped in a hole and buried alive. I can't escape. I'll live in this place forever now.

It takes me a while to calm down again. I touch the catwalk railing, grip it, trembling. Rick's hand touches my shoulder. I face him. I don't hear what he says but I nod anyway. Help me, I say to him, but he doesn't hear me. I don't even hear me. Help me, please. Rick is talking to me. My tears won't stop. I need my inhaler. I cough and cough and don't hear it. This has never happened. I've never not heard the outside. It's always the outside not hearing me.

I don't understand.

What's happening to me?

Help me. Please.

Rick holds me. He holds me and I hear him clear as day when he whispers, "I'm here. I'm here."

And I don't just feel like the sky is losing its sun anymore. It's losing its stars and its moon, too. It's just a blank space. I am.

Rick lets go of me.

"Take your inhaler, Oliver. You're not sounding too good."

I do. Rick walks away. It's just Glenn and I. Patrick's body lies in the cell doorway beside us. I take my inhaler again.

"What happened to him?" Daryl asks.

Glenn sighs, shaking his head and rubbing the smooth chain of his silver pocket watch. "I don't know..."

Blood's still streaking in odd, wet, thin angles down my brother's face, oozing from his eyes and ears and nose and mouth. I frown at him, furious.

"See any bites?" Daryl asks. "Didn't see any."

Glenn is crouched by Patrick's side. I'm about to step closer, too, but I start crying again so Glenn tells me to take it easy, so I step back and sit at Daryl's feet — something he looks disgruntled by, but accepts nonetheless.

After checking him over, Glenn sets Patrick down again and says, "He wasn't bitten."

I have this feeling in my stomach and chest and skin like I want to die. Glenn stands up and talks with the others, who are all now standing outside another cell, another dead body inside. I watch the small view of their backs and shoulders from the catwalk and listen to their conversation.

"No bites," Rick says. "No wounds."

"Same for Patrick," Glenn explains. "Guys, I think he jus' died."

"Horribly, too," Dr. Submaranian replies. "Pleurisy, aspiration."

"Choked to death on her own blood," Hershel says, "caused those trails down her face."

"I've seen them before," Rick says, "on a walker outside the fences."

"Patrick's got the same trails, too," Daryl grumbles.

"Yeah, they're from the internal lung pressure building up," Dr. Submaranian explains. "Like if you shake a soda can and pop the top. Only, imagine your eyes, ears, nose and throat... are the top."

My chin shakes. Grief throws away more and more stars in my sky, knocking them right out of my universe. In my head, I watch Patrick choking and dying all alone. And me? Asleep. I feel like I've just been kicked in the back of the knees. I sit on the floor, else I'll collapse again.

Patrick was dying yesterday.

And I just slept while he choked on his own blood.

"Doctor S," Daryl says, soft and coarse. "That's his brother you're talking about."

"Sorry, Oliver," Dr. Submaranian apologises.

I keep my eyes shut. I want to sink away.

"So, it's a sickness – from the walkers?" Bob asks.

"Uh, no, these things happened before they were around," Dr. Submaranian explains, clearing his throat. "Could be Pneumococcal. Most likely an aggressive flu strain."

"Someone locked Charlie in just in time."

"Nah, man," Daryl says, "She would sleep walk, locked herself in — Hell, she was just eatin' barbecue yesterday. How could somebody die in a day jus' from a cold?"

"I had a sick pig," Rick says. "Died quick. Saw a sick boar in the woods."

"Pigs and birds," Hershel says. "That's how these things spread in the past. We need to do something about those hogs."

"Maybe we got lucky," Dr. Submaranian tries. "Maybe these two cases are it."

"I haven't seen anybody be lucky in a long time," Bob says. "Bugs like to run through close quarters — doesn't get any closer than this."

"All of us in here," Hershel informs everyone, "we've all been exposed."

It's my fault, I think, I was in the pig pen. I got Patrick sick. It's my fault my brother is dead…

Notes

Song was Brother by Matt Corby.

As always,
Happy reading.