Reviews:
BabySlothXYaoi- Thank you, glad that you think so. Yep, Aaron has a tough job... I really like what Carol says to Rick at the end of this ordeal- "Even though you were wrong, you were still right..." Kinda sums up the impossible fight Aaron has to try and win. To be fair!... Rhys called them DeadHeads at first!... I just decided to change it over time, mainly because I kept accidentally writing walkers instead... but yeah, I like roamers, personally... my favourite is what John Dorie calls them in fear, 'The Past'. yup, Rhys has been treated like an adult in these difficult times, as has Carl... Maybe what lies ahead will allow them to try other things.
I find time to pee. The relief unbelievable.
Aaron has thirteen minutes left, sweat trickles down his brow as he keeps throwing hasty glances towards the doors. I asked Rick what happens when time's up, and Rick answered plainly, "I put a knife in his head."
When Rick takes Judith from me I'm left with nothing to do, so I crouch beside Aaron, one of the water bottles from his pack in my hand. Rick sits in the quietest corner of the barn with his daughter and the applesauce, not objecting since we can't trust his water anyway.
"Thirsty?" I shake the bottle.
"Thank you," Aaron nods.
I lift the open bottle to Aaron's lips, tipping it back so he can hydrate himself.
He thanks me again when he's finished.
"Do you believe me?" he asks me while I screw the bottle's cap back on.
"About which part?"
"Do you believe me about the community," he rephrases.
"I believe you have a community, yes."
"Why?"
I put the water bottle down, moving from a crouched position to sitting cross-legged in front of him. "Because you're clean. Your clothes are clean, and your gun was clean. And you had a toy hippo in your bag... you wouldn't have that if you were on the road. So yeah, I believe you have a community."
"You have a toy giraffe," he points out, attempting to seem casual, still letting his eyes dart between Rick and the doors every few seconds.
"We have a baby..." I answer like it's obvious, since it is.
He doesn't let the silence sit, nerves returning to him once he sees Rick checking his wristwatch.
"Why haven't you pointed all that out to Rick?" Aaron asks, trying to stay calm.
"Because he's already noticed it."
Now I'm the one asking him a question.
"Why did you eat the apple sauce?"
He chuckles, "Well, you were brave offering to taste it. I reckoned the least I could do was eat some applesauce."
I don't say anything to this, instead, wondering why he seems to find everything funny.
"Rick's son," Aaron says.
"Carl."
"Right, Carl. You care for him a lot."
"I do." Then I frown, "How do you know?"
"Because when I came here, I left behind someone I care about very much. That face you had when you walked back in the barn, that's the same face my someone had when I left him behind- You're worried for Carl's safety out there, so let me tell you, and I know it might not mean much coming from me, but Carl is safe. I haven't got anyone out there you need to be afraid of."
I nod, trying hard not to react. "I really hope so."
The sound of car engines come from outside. Aaron puts his back against the post he's tied to, breathing out relief.
I poke my head out the door once Sasha gives a whistle to signal it's safe, seeing a thin clean car and an RV, everyone back safe.
Rosita hops out of the RV, asking if there was any trouble.
"Nope. You?"
"Nothing."
I smile at her, at which she double-takes, squinting at me.
"Good to see you smiling..." she says it almost like a question.
"I've been taking your advice, trying not to be an idiot."
Carl comes out of the woods with Gabriel and hugs me tightly. Gabriel gives this a look but doesn't say anything, disappearing into the barn.
"I was thinking about it. I want to go." Carl tells me into my shoulder.
"I'm with you no matter what," I answer back into his.
"No matter what?"
"No matter what."
The two of us head back into the barn, everyone else already inside. There's a mountain of canned goods lying on the straw-covered ground, everything they found in the RV. Rick's holding a can of peaches, pointing it at Aaron. The two of us join the rest of the group behind Rick.
"This," Rick waves the peaches around, "this is ours now."
"There's more than enough..." Aaron tries, sounding exhausted, despite having been sitting for the past hour.
"It's ours," Rick reiterates in a snarl, "whether or not we go to your camp."
Carl pushes past me, confronting his father. "What do you mean? Why wouldn't we go?"
Michonne puts a hand on Carl's shoulder, "If he were lying or if he wanted to hurt us," she tells him. Then she turns to Rick, "but he isn't, and he doesn't."
Michonne glances around at the whole group, "We need this. So we're going, all of us. Somebody say something if they feel differently."
No one speaks. Rick glances at me, but I look away, looking at Carl instead.
Rick looks to Daryl.
Daryl talks to Rick, shrugging. "I don't know, man. This barn smells like horse shit."
Rick's nodding, "Yeah, we're going." He turns to Aaron, "So where are we going? Where's your camp."
I decide that I like the phrase 'camp' better than 'community'.
"Well, every time I've done this, I've been behind the wheel, driving recruits back..."
Aaron's answer pisses Rick off, Rick's teeth audibly grinding in frustration.
Aaron sees this. "I believe you're good people," he insists. "I've bet my life on it. I'm just not ready to bet my friends' lives just yet."
"You're not driving," Michonne tells him. "So, if you want to get home, you'll have to tell us how."
Aaron gulps. "Go north on Route sixteen..."
"And then?" Michonne asks while Rick crouches over the map Abraham found in the RV.
"I'll tell you when we get there," Aaron tells her.
"We'll take twenty-three north," Rick tells him. "You'll give us directions from there."
Aaron sits up, shaking his head sporadically. "That's- not- I don't know how else to say it- that's a bad idea. We've cleared sixteen. It will be faster."
"We'll take twenty-three," Rick mutters again. "We leave at sundown."
Aaron looks away, distressed, out of options.
Even Sasha sounds sceptical as she speaks up, an eyebrow raised at Rick's plan. "We're doing this at night?"
I look around. Noah is looking between Sasha and Rick, unsure what to make of everything. Daryl and Carol are just nodding along with Rick- the same goes for Abraham and Rosita, Glenn and Maggie too. Eugene and Gabriel look terrified, and Tara is shaking her head. Carl puts his hand on the small of my back, letting his arm drop to his side quickly after. I can't see Michonne's face since she's facing away from me, but I feel her annoyance.
"Look, I know it's dangerous," Rick tells Sasha. "If it isn't safe, we need to get gone before they know we're there."
"No one is going to hurt you." Aaron insists, "You're trying to protect your group, but you're putting them in danger."
Rick throws the map to Aaron's feet, getting in his face, "Tell me where the camp is... we'll leave right now."
Aaron looks away again.
Rick gets up, satisfied with Aaron's answer, he addresses the rest of us. "It's going to be a long night. Eat. Get some rest if you can." He steps out of the barn, Michonne following.
Everyone moves to take food from the pile of cans. Carl tells me he'll get us something and disappears into the starving crowd.
I'm about to sit down, but Noah finds me, rifle over his shoulder, his rucksack in hand.
"Rhys, do you have a sec?"
"Sure," I tell him, and we find a quiet spot behind some rusted barrels.
Noah opens his bag by the zip, "I offered this to Sasha," he fishes through it, "but she said she didn't want it. So I asked if I could give it to you."
Noah, finally finding what he's looking for, pulling a long-necked framing hammer from his bag. Tyreese's hammer.
"I would have given it to you sooner, but..." Noah trails off, not wanting to finish his sentence.
I clear my throat. "What?"
"It needed- um- cleaning. There was some blood on it, and- well, you know- we haven't had water to waste until the storm."
I understand, taking the hammer gently, like it's some living thing, clinging to its own survival by a thread.
"Thanks, Noah."
He purses his lips in a tight smile, nodding before leaving.
The hammer feels light. Like it's missing something.
"Hey," Carl rounds the corner of the barrels. "I was looking for you and-"
He sees what I have in my hands.
"Sorry, do you want me to stay?"
I nod.
Carl goes to sit down, but I stop him instead, getting him to help me to my feet.
"Let's go eat with the others," I smile.
Once the sun goes down and everyone's rested, we load the RV with all the food we took from it before.
Sasha notices me packing the hammer into my bag, but she doesn't mention it. I make sure to ask her if she's good with it, and she nods firmly.
I'm still hovering around the barn while everyone else is now outside. I approach the table at the back, which is still holding Aaron's pack. I take off the broken spear hanging from my shoulder, where it always has, unclipping the belt-sling Carl had given me for it so long ago. I stuff the belt into my satchel bag, putting the spearhead on the table as I start putting all Aaron's things back into his pack with care.
I put the backpack on myself when it's packed, the straps tangling in a dance with my satchel bag. I don't go to leave, staring at the table, my broken spear still lying on it, nothing more than a snapped broomstick with a blunt knife tied to the end.
"Rhys?"
Carl's voice turns my head.
"You ready to go?"
"Yeah," I respond, probably sounding distracted.
"Okay," he nods, chewing on his bottom lip, waiting for me by the doors.
I move to leave, my legs not wanting to at first.
"You forgetting something?" Carl asks, pointing to the spear I've left on the scratched, wooden table.
"No, I'm leaving something," I tell him, with a manageable smile.
He smiles back, looking confused slightly, he takes my hand, and we leave the barn behind.
'North twenty-three' reads the sign ahead. Illuminated by the headlights of the car as it drives in front of the RV.
Rick took Glenn and Michonne in the car, Aaron riding with them. Michonne and Aaron's heads visible through the strangely clean rear window.
The rest of us are travelling in the RV. Squashed into our seats by each other's shoulders, space not something we get the luxury of having. We're all used to it by now though, after weeks on the road spent huddled in small trailers and abandoned bus stops.
"Hungry?" Carl asks me.
I shrug, "Ate a whole tin of sweetcorn and two big cats."
"Two!?"
I grin at him, "What? I like big cats."
Carl snorts at me, "Jus', Not sure you'll fit through the community gates, is all."
"Asshole," I laugh, knocking his hat off his head, amused as he reaches under the table to pick it up, accidentally grabbing Eguenes shoe, apologising when he makes the Mullet jumps.
Then we all jump, the RV reeling to a halt, screeches of rubber on the asphalt as everyone is launched from their seats, Carl thrown under the RV table... me, going over it.
"Shit," I groan, pain shooting through every part of me.
I touch my lip, the scar on it open and bleeding after an unknown elbow had connected with it.
I can hear Judith crying from somewhere behind me. Carl scrambles to find her.
"Where is she?!" he yells out.
"I got her!" Tara calls back from the rear of the RV. "She's fine! She is completely and absolutely okay, Dude. Totally fine!"
Carl checks on his sister anyway, confirming that she is indeed fine.
I get up, seeing that everyone is relatively okay. I help Sasha and Noah in getting to their feet.
"What the hell happened?" Carol calls up to the front, pulling Daryl to his feet.
"Rick and company just went direct through a damn-lotta-dead," Abraham calls back from the driver's seat. He then checks on Rosita in the passenger seat as she clutches where her knee hit the dash and hisses through her teeth.
Daryl rushes to the front, peering out the windscreen and into the misty darkness beyond. "See them?"
Abraham shakes his head, "Just tail through the fog. This thing won't get through."
"Can we go around?" Sasha asks Abraham, grabbing her rifle from the floor.
"They had the map," Rosita tells her, fishing for her cap from under her seat.
"There was a road back there, maybe we could-"
The sky stops our conversation as it sets alight, turning a hellish red above us, everything glowing under its blaze.
Carl looks horrified, his face alight from the red glare filtering through the windscreen.
"That's what that strange-looking gun does," I tell him.
"So it could be them..." He answers, still staring at the tinted sky.
"That's our best shot," Abraham agrees.
"Let get going then," Daryl smacks the drivers arm impatiently, hating the small box that we're trapped inside.
Abraham hits reverse just as the dead start banging off the RV walls. The sudden movement sends us all jolting, managing not to go flying this time.
"That can't of been them! It was too far," Carol yells over the sound of burning rubber.
"It was his friend's..." Maggie tells her.
"What if it wasn't?" Eugene interjects.
"They'll go for it. we should too!"
The flare had illuminated a water tower in the distance, over the tops of roadside trees. We find said water tower in an abandoned town. The fired flare signal, long since dead.
Leaving the RV behind when the roads become blocked, we search on foot, thinking there's no chance we'll find them.
But then we hear screaming.
A man is the source of the cries. We duck down alleyways and cut through a burnt-out building as we follow the shouts. We find him trapped under a stack of tires, three walkers closing in. Abraham takes them all out on his own while the rest of us help the guy up, his ankle hurting from the fallen tires.
He introduces himself as Eric, and the way he asks after Aaron lets me know he's the one Aaron was talking about in the barn. Gabriel points out an abandoned furniture storage facility nearby. We carry the guy inside after Rosita, Sasha, and Daryl secure the first few rooms.
Maggie asks me to help her while the others finish securing the building. Tara sits with Judith nearby, cooing her while she panics over Eric's wails echoing through the giant empty warehouse space.
"Eric, Right?" Maggie asks as she props him up with some sofa cushions Carl found.
"Yeah... yes," he hums through pursed lips as Maggie roles up his trouser leg.
"Okay... you need to calm down. You're gonna be fine," Maggie tells him softly, squeezing the bruised skin and getting a hiss from him. "Just a sprain."
He shrieks, "Just!?"
"It's a volleyball injury," she tells him. Then she grabs a chair lying nearby, breaking off a leg with her foot. "Rhys... cut that into strips," she points at the man's jacket.
I do, struggling with my blunting knife, handing them to her.
She fixes the makeshift splint to his leg, tying the stips into bows. "All done," she smiles loosely.
I can see her mind is on Glenn.
Eric looks down at his leg, "Very, uh, pretty..."
Maggie gets up, clearly at her limit with socialising, turning to leave and wait outside.
"Was she lying?" Eric asks me out the corner of his mouth, seemingly calmer than he was. "I mean, a volleyball injury?"
I try to smirk, but the worry of the others turns it into a tight smile.
"You'll be fine," I tell him. "Mine's worse." I pat my leg where my stitched wound from the prison still lies, wincing slightly.
"Doesn't it hurt?" Eric asks, trying to distract himself from his own leg. "Being on the move with it, I mean."
"I just ignore it most of the time," I shrug. "Rosita- someone in our group -she does the stitches when they snap."
Eric smiles at me from his elevated position on the floor, "We have a surgeon back home... maybe he can help." He looks back to his own leg, "I'm sure as hell gonna need him."
I shake my head. "I don't need surgery..." I look at his leg. "Neither do you."
"Good," he sighs out of relief.
I hear quiet beckons from outside, recognising Rick's voice as he calls out for Carl. The calls must have reached everyone's ears because, in a few seconds, we're all outside.
Glenn and Maggie embrace.
Carl crashes into his arms. "Dad!"
Rick kisses his son's forehead, "Your sister okay?"
"Yeah, she's fine, we're fine."
"Rhys?"
"He's fine too," Carl tells his Dad. I push up onto my tippy toes to wave from the doorway, proving it.
Michonne pulls me into a firm hug, dazing me slightly as I hug her back.
Glenn pat my shoulder, "Good job, man."
Aarons is with them, stumbling around as he searches. "Eric? Eric!"
He races past me and into the warehouse when he hears Eric call back, "In here!"
Everyone's together, safe.
Rick follows Aaron into the main room of the warehouse, where Maggie treated Eric. The rest of us reside in a dusty lobby and wait.
"Excuse me, everyone?" Aaron comes out of the main room of the warehouse after a short wait. "Thank you," Aaron tells us. "You saved Eric. I owe you. All of you. And I will make sure that debt is paid in full when we get to our community- When we get to Alexandria."
Carl nudges me in the ribs, grinning at me. I'm grinning too. Everyone is.
"Now, I'm not sure about you, but I'd rather not do any more driving tonight," he chuckles.
For the first of all his jokes, we all smirk back. Abraham even breaking into a snicker.
"Maybe we can hit the road tomorrow morning?" Aaron suggests.
"That sounds fine," Rick's voice comes from the room with Eric. He steps out of the dark behind Aaron. "But if we're staying here for the night, you're sleeping over there." He points to the far corner of the room.
"You really think we got to do that?" Maggie asks, sounding tired.
Rick nods, "It's the safe play. We don't know you."
Aaron stands straight. "The only way you're going to stop me from being with him right now is by shooting me."
I enjoy Aaron's bravery but tense up when he goes too far and steps forward to pass Rick, breathing a sigh of relief when Glenn stops him since I think Rick might have actually shot him.
Glenn talks to Rick in hushed whispers for a while, and I get tired, deciding to find somewhere to sleep.
I leave the lobby, locating a small empty room that looks like it may have been an office once. I find a seat on a dirty crate, closing my eyes to relax until-
"Ack."
Carl sits on my lap, making me jump and cry out. He just laughs at me.
"That hurt," I grumble.
He pouts over his shoulder at me.
"Sorry... but your leg is mostly better now. So I thought you'd be okay."
"I like your optimism," I tell him wrapping my arms around his middle and pressing my cheek to his back, breathing him in.
"We're okay," he tells me.
I nod into him.
"I trust them," I tell him finally.
"You do?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"Because Aaron cares about Eric, enough to risk us killing him. He also never lied to us. Plus, Eric couldn't take three walkers, and he was pretty worried about his ankle."
"Why does the walker thing matter?"
I turn my head, pressing my chin to his back and squeezing his middle, "because if he can't take three walkers. He won't be able to take one of us. Not one."
Carl nods, his hair tickling my nose.
"Also, he told us where he lives," I whisper.
"Alexandria..." Carl whispers like it may vanish if he's not careful.
"Alexandria."
"Sounds weird," he decides, "Like a king would live there or something."
"I doubt we'll find a king there."
There's a silence before Carl talks again.
"You know, I think Aaron and Eric might be a- um- like boyfriends..."
"Oh," I chuckle, "You think?"
"You already knew?"
"I knew Aaron loved him... How did you know?"
"After you left, Dad let Aaron past. Aaron and Eric kissed. And you know- we kiss so, like- yeah."
"You saying we're boyfriends?"
I can feel Carl heating up in my hold, "I mean, I think so... are we? I mean, are you?"
"Am I your boyfriend?"
"Yeah."
"Do you want me to be?"
"Yeah, I do."
"Then, yeah, I am."
"Cool," Carl's nodding, "Am I yours?"
"Yeah," I kiss his back, "you are."
I keep holding him, my legs are going numb, but I don't care. I feel safe.
"How did you know?" Carl asks me.
"About what?"
"Eric and Aaron."
"Just something Aaron said about Eric in the barn... He said the face I had after you left the barn was the same face Eric had when Aaron left to come to find us."
"So how did you know he loved him, though?"
"Because that's how I feel about you."
Then the door opens, Rick Grimes walking in with Judith.
He pauses, staring at us for a moment as if needing time to realise what was going on. Carl still sat on my lap. We're all frozen. It might have only been a few second before Rick turned and left- left like he just walked in on a surprise party. A surprise party that he wasn't supposed to know about... and one that he definitely was not invited to. I see it on his face, I see that he decides at that moment to forget about it as he leaves, clearing it from his mind to avoid the conversations that have to come after.
Carl and I sit there, him still on my lap, both of us dead silent.