-Carl's POV-

"We have to go back! I have to!"

"We can't, Carl!"

"Michonne, tell him! I left him there!"

"Do you know the way back?"

"..."

"I'm sorry, Carl."

"Maybe he got away. Maybe he found one of these signs, son. It's our best shot."

-Rhys's POV-

I'm sat on a rock a few feet from the tracks, Sasha is dabbing at the torn skin on my cheek with a damp cloth. It's been hours since the ice cream truck, no sign of the Cavalcade. Now that I'm away from them, I can feel everything, and everything hurts. My flannel shirt's sleeves are torn to shreds, leaving my arms bare and exposed, cuts from the prison and the convoy sting against the cold air. My face is throbbing all over with blood in my eyes, mouth, and nose. All my senses have been left bleeding.

"Rhys," Sasha whispers my name, gripping at my hands. I pull away, a disgusting amount of pity filling my ears, my unviolated sense now infected with guilt. "You're okay now."

I don't speak. I can't speak. Fear of pain fills me. I can only nod my head and hope that everything stops hurting soon.

Maggie approaches us from her scout. "Bob can't be too far ahead," she tells us, "If we keep walking, we should catch up."

"Rhys needs rest," Sasha argues, "We passed that fallen tree on the tracks a couple 'miles back, that'll stop their cars getting any closer. We should make camp."

Maggie shakes her head, "Bob's a medic, and has all the meds we took from the prison in his bag," she explains slowly, "Rhys needs medical attention."

Sasha frowns, eyes darting between Maggie and me. She looks suspicious for a reason unknown to me.

"Can you keep walking?" she finally asks me.

My legs burn like wildfire. The wound that the doctor had sown up was now open and bleeding through my jeans.

I nod.

Maggie walks ahead of us, while Sasha stays under my arm, supporting me as we follow the tracks.

The trees are still and absolute as they flank us along the tracks, hiding all manners of horror beneath their shade.

There is a silence between the three of us, besides occasional grunts and cries from me, which Sasha kindly pretends not to notice.

"Are you hungry?" Sasha asks me.

I lie, shaking my head.

Sasha looks at me like she doesn't believe me, but continues talking, "Maggie and I, we were taking out walkers by that ice cream truck, that's where I found her, lying beside the truck waiting for Bob and me after we got separated from her. Now we're separated from Bob. We were about to leave, find him. But we heard engines. Maggie thought it might be some of our people. We saw you, and you know the rest."

Something about Sasha felt different. The way she is speaking feels uninformed, but there's also a strange tone trailing it all. Like she has something she needs to say, but she won't.

"Are you going to speak?" Sasha asks me.

I shake my head, watching the floor, the tracks going forward.

Then she asks, "Do you want me to stop speaking?"

I shake my head again.

Sasha nods, fixing the gun resting over her other shoulder. "Bob was smiling after the prison, can you believe that? I mean, I was angry. Angry that he could feel that."

Maggie turns her head in front of us, clearly listening to our conversation.

Sasha keeps talking, "See, Bob was smiling because he wasn't alone. Because he knew he wouldn't be by himself again. But when Maggie left us, I didn't want to chase her. I didn't want to risk my life. Bob did, so we separated... I was so confused why he would go off on his own if the only reason that was keeping him smiling is that he wasn't alone. Took me a while to work out why."

I don't speak.

"Why?" Maggie asks over her shoulder.

Sasha chuckles to herself, "Because he didn't want you to be alone, Maggie. Because he can't smile if he's letting someone else go through what scares him."

"He left you alone, though," Maggie points out.

"I think he knew that was my fear too," Sasha tells her, "The moment I stopped. The second I realised I was on my own... I realised I didn't need to be. I realised he knew I'd come after him because he could recognise his fears in me."

Maggie nods, smiling at us before turning back to the way ahead.

"Y'know why I told you that?" Sasha asks me.

I shake my head.

"Because just like Bob could see it in me, I can see it in you. So hear me when I tell you... you are not alone anymore, Maggie and me? We are going nowhere without you. We'll find Bob, and we'll go together."

I finally look up, not understanding the last thing she said, she sees it in my eyes.

"There's a place," Sasha tells me, "Signs along the tracks tell us how to get there... Terminus."

I don't say anything, or nod, or shake my head. I just keep walking.

Everything on the floor looks the same, tracks and stones. Weeds and dirt, nothing new. The pain in my leg is getting unbearable, but I'm too afraid to say anything.

Someone appears on the tracks ahead.

"It's Bob," Maggie points.

We follow him, waiting to get close before revealing our presence.

"Bob!" Sasha calls out.

He stops, turning to us, looking slightly shocked by who he finds walking towards him.

I feel trapped outside my body, forced to watch from a dream as we reach Bob.

Forced to watch as the others hug him.

Forced to watch as he pats my shoulder, a pang of guilt still weighing in my gut.

Apparently, in Bob's medical opinion, I need to rest. Sasha gives Maggie a look when he tells us as much. Once we find a spot off the tracks, Bob gives me some pills from his bag, Maggie throwing Sasha's look right back at her. Bob inspects my injuries after Maggie convinces me to let him. He deduces that my leg wound should be okay after he dresses it, and that my ribs aren't broken but cracked. Bob asks how the cracked ribs happened, but I keep hold of my silence. So Bob gives me some pills for the pain without asking anymore questions.

I get told to sit on a log and rest my leg while the others get to work building a camp. Sasha pulls bottles and metal cans from her pack, which she'd been collecting along the tracks. She ties each one to a long piece of string, making a daisy chain of noise as she secures a perimeter with the primitive alarm system. I can see Maggie watching me as she collects firewood, dumping it by feet and starting on a campfire. Bob unrolls sleeping bags and canvas behind me, smiling the whole time.

Once the beds are laid, and the traps are set in place, we all huddle around the low-burning campfire, trying to keep warm with the ever-darkening winds whispering around us.

Sasha hands me a can of sliced carrots, which I take, but only after my stomach and I have an argument that my stomach wins.

I shovel carrots into my mouth, Sasha and Bob sharing a suspiciously close tin of dried mushrooms. Maggie pokes at a bag of dried jerky.

"Rhys," Bob finally speaks up after staring at me for a few minutes. I look back, eyes wide. "Did you see anyone else get out?"

I take my eyes back to the fire, shaking my head.

"That doesn't mean nobody did," Bob goes on.

"We can talk about it in the morning," Sasha tells him.

Maggie's staring at me from across the campfire, and I'm staring back. There's so much I want to say to her right now, I can tell she wants to do the same. I don't notice how much I'm shivering until Maggie does. She starts to fish through her pack, looking with a rustling sound until she finds what she seeks, pulling out a stained brown poncho from her bag, red diamond shapes decorating it.

"It was Daryl's," Maggie tells me, getting up and wrapping it around my shoulders. "I saw it before we left- when Bob was grabbing those meds, I don't know why I took it."

I give her a notably weak twitch of the mouth, which may or may not have resembled a smile. Maggie nods at me, so I assume she got the point.

I think about the last person I knew to wear a poncho, glad that this one doesn't have the same affect.

"I'll take watch," Sasha gets up and grabs her gun. "Rhys, Bob, try to get some rest soon, you both need it with those injuries."

A/N

I have realised that I'm slowly dressing Rhys in everyone else's clothes... First Carl's sleeveless coat from season 3... then Tyreese's beanie... now Daryl's Poncho. I don't know why I have so much fun with it.

Thank you to everyone for reading this far!

Also side note, I just realised that the 'Moderate Guest Reviews' option was turned on for my story by default... I have switched this off so now you can leave a review as a guest without me having to moderate it. I welcome all feedback, critical or otherwise, so yeah, don't know why that was turned on!

Reviews and Feedback are always welcome!

:)