Chapter Warning- Descriptions of body horror and violence. (It's not too bad... basically if you've seen Terminus in the show, you know what's coming. Still wanted to put a chapter warning though.)
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BabySlothXYaoi- Rhys definitely deserves all the hugs right about now. Thank you so much again! Your support means the world.
Rick's words keep playing in my head, over and over, shaking me to my core. What is he going to do when he finds out what I did.
The group gets to work. Abraham's people are introduced to everyone by Glenn, while Rosita and Sasha are working on the door, trying to force it open, but yielding no results. Maggie is quick to grab Carl before he sees me. Spinning him by the shoulders to face her and explaining something to him. I can't hear what.
As the crowd thins and people move around in search of a way out, I realise my hiding spot is becoming less sustainable by the second, as it's left open to wandering eyes. Daryl's are the first to find me.
He crossed the car towards me, weaving between people with grace.
"These people do that?" he gestures to my cuts and bruises as he sits beside me. No pointless greetings necessary.
I shake my head. Not wanting to speak, and wishing I still had the poncho to cover my cut-up arms.
Daryl doesn't say anything either, it feels like he's reading my silence. Searching it for answers to his questions.
"Carl told us a little," he starts, "I'm sorry." His voice breaks the smallest bit. I can't even be certain if it did break or if I imagined it.
"Not your fault," I mumble. Despite having spoken since the Cavalcade, these were the first words that I feel truly passionate about.
Daryl is shaking his head. I notice he's mirroring the way I'm sitting, his legs are pulled to his chest while his arms hug them loosely.
He tells me, "Beth and I, we were tracking you and Carl for awhile. Had to give up when we got to a crossroad and lost your tracks. Didn't even know it was you two until I found Carl with Rick and Michonne. He said you two were in that gas station when the horde passed through."
"Is Beth-"
"Nah. She's just gone, man."
"Listen," Daryl clears his throat, "What happened to you while you were on your own. That's shit. I'm sure you're feeling guilt and everything else you shouldn't, but don't."
My voice scratches when I ask him, "What am I meant to feel?"
"Nothing," Daryl shrugs, "You just need to help us get everyone get out of here. Focus on that and let everything else go."
Carl is standing a few feet away, awkwardly staring at his shoes, waiting. Daryl gets up with no more words, leaving to speak with Rick.
I look at Carl, and my stomach hurts, so I evert my eyes to the floor. There is a brief moment of oblivion. Then he's sitting close beside me, not trying to touch me like so many others. He just sits there.
Rick gets the group's attention, "We need to be ready for when they come back."
I can smell Carl. It's different from what it was, but it's still him.
"Anything you can find," Rick's holding up the chain of Glenn's pocket watch, which had been taken with Karen's bracelet. "Belts, zippers, buckles, anything," he looks around the group, his eyes lingering on me for a split second before he looks out the gap in the door, "We're going to kill them. They don't get to live."
I find myself nodding small quick nods at Rick's words. Carl shifts, reaching into the pocket of a dirty, navy blue hoodie that he's wearing and pulls out a belt, the one he had given me for my long-gone spear.
He holds it out and I take it. Our hands lingering with the belt between them.
Green on blue.
"I'm sorry," we both whisper at the same time. Neither of us thinking the other should. Both of us knowing it. I realise that there's a chance neither of us said anything, our eyes tell each other everything that's happened, everything we can't put into words because it might just kill us.
Rick approaches, and Carl pulls away, his cheeks flush, and his pale freckles glow.
"Rhys," Rick gets my attention, his voice is hoarse and his face bloody. "You two are gonna need to keep each other safe while we all get out."
I nod, forcing myself to speak as well, "Yes, sir." I think about what Daryl told me. Don't think, don't feel. Just focus.
Rick walks away to the other end of the train car using the chain of Glenn's watch to saw into a wooden beam fixed to the wall, cutting out a sharp shard of splintered plywood.
For the next hour, everyone focuses on making weapons. Carl sits next to me, ripping the zipper from his hoodie, while I wrap the belt he gave me around my wrist, the buckle laced between my fingers to make a pointy knuckle duster. Carl notices me holding my exposed arms, left bare from my torn flannel. He offers me his hoodie, which I accept, despite how hot the train car is. I put the hoodie on over my jacket, glad to cover the scars.
Daryl is at the crack in the door watching for the Termites. A name that Tara had come up with before we arrived. I liked it back then.
Rosita comes up to me, kicking my shoe to get my attention. "When we get out there," she speaks down at me, "Abraham and I need to focus on keeping Eugene safe. Abraham wants me to get someone else on board with that. You in?"
I double-take at her words, "Why me?"
She sighs, "You in or not?"
I look at Carl, who doesn't seem to have a clue to what's going on. Then I look back up at Rosita as she stands there expectantly. Don't think.
"We're in."
She gives Carl a dubious look, then nods in thanks before turning to talk to Abraham.
"All right, we got four of them pricks coming our way," Daryl calls out, keeping his eyes trained on the outside.
Rick walks over to him, "Y'all know what to do..."
I get up with Carl, our hearts pounding.
"Go for their eyes first..."
I stand by Eugene as instructed, Carl beside me as we listen to his father's orders.
"Then their throats..."
A voice calls out from beyond the door, telling us to keep our backs to the walls.
We don't listen.
Rick looks back to Carl and me, nodding encouragement.
Eyes then throats.
Light spills into the train car. But the door stays shut.
We all look up to the hatch that just opened above our heads.
A metal canister hits the ground.
"MOVE!"
My ears ring from the explosion as the small canister bursts. I dive to the floor, landing on top of Carl with a grunt. I only know it's him from the sound of his coughing, he sounds like he's choking, then I realise we're all choking, as smoke fills our lungs, burning our eyes.
The belt stays wrapped around my arm, hidden beneath the hoodie sleeve, as I'm dragged to my feet by hands I don't know.
I hit the concrete outside hard, my head pulsating under the blinding sun. My arms are being tied behind my back while I'm forced to watch a helpless Rick get knocked unconscious by a heavy boot to the face, the owner of said boots stands over him, clutching his freshly cut face.
Glenn, Bob, Daryl, and I are dragged away from the container with our legs and hands tightly bound. The Termites take us into one of Terminus' many buildings, Rick is alongside us, seeming to slip in and out of consciousness.
My eyes adjust to darkness once again as I'm hauled into the building. An enormous warehouse space awaiting us, with cold looking surgical tables and people wearing blood-stained aprons spread throughout. Two men with buzzsaws are cutting into a human corpse that's laid out across one of the tables, blood spraying out as they remove limbs with a sickening crack of bone.
Three bins, similar to the ones we kept guns in at the prison, are sitting in the middle of the room. Unlike the ones at the prison, however, these each have a different word written on them which read-
BURN
FEED
WASH
I feel vomit rising in my throat and struggle to suppress the urge to release it.
I'm shoved onto my knees, forced by rough hands to lean over a metal trough, the rough edge digging into my chest. Glenn is placed to my right, then Daryl and Rick, and finally Bob. Long pieces of dirty cloths are shoved into each of our mouths and tied tightly behind our heads, gagging our voices to muffled screams.
I look around terrified, catching Rick's eyes, I see a hunger in his look. A hunger to slaughter every last person that put us here.
I know Rick wasn't always the farmer. I know that he had done things in the past to keep his family alive, but the look he was adorning was not what I had imagined. He isn't the same man that welcomed me into the prison.
Rick looks past me. I follow his gaze to my left, three more men are kneeling at the trough, stuck in the same position as us. The third man, a blonde man, kneels at the end of the trough, wearing a tattered vest and looking to be in his early 20s. The two men with the buzzsaws are behind him now. Only, one has a knife and the other holds a metal baseball bat. I know what's coming next, as the man with the bat starts practice swinging behind the blonde man's head.
Glenn must have known too, because he's screaming at me through his gag as he pushes his shoulder into mine, causing me to look at him. He stares into my eyes and I hear a sharp clink from the baseball bat to my left.
Glenn shakes his head, begging me not to turn around. Not to see what is happening.
I hear a wet slash from the man with the knife. I look down at the trough, a stream of blood rushing past my face.
I keep my eyes down, desperate not to see. But I can hear it all.
The next prisoner is begging for his life.
There's a Clink then a Slash.
The next man along is struggling and pleading through his gag. I'm next to him. Next in line.
I don't want to die. Not here. Not like this.
Clink, Slash.
The blood was pooling below me now as the smell of iron fills my nose. The river of red runs to Bob at the end of the trough, where it drains away like the people that had given it.
They're behind me now, Clink and Slash.
I look at Glenn, both of us knowing he's helpless to stop what comes next.
Glenn is hissing through his gag, telling me to keep looking at him.
"Hey! What the hell are you doing?"
The words knock the air out of me, my breaths rapid and uncontrollable as I feel death's fingers loosen around my throat.
Gareth stands in front of us, "Well, care to answer the question?" He's talking to the butchers.
I can somehow hear the silent confusion from the guys behind me. I wait for the cold metal to strike me. Not knowing when it might come makes me bite down on my gag in anticipation.
Gareth rolls his eyes, "Does that look like an adult?" he gestures at me as I gasp for air through the rag in my mouth, panic washing over me.
"Aw shit, man. I'm sorry," the bald guy holding the metal bat says.
I think he's apologising to me until Gareth speaks, "Who the hell brought a kid in here?"
The guy holding the knife answers, "Uh, Mason, I think."
"Fucking Mason," Gareth shakes his head, clearly pissed off, "Of course it was fucking Mason."
The slasher cuts the zip ties around my ankles, bringing me to my feet.
"No," Gareth tells him, "take him back after you finish up here. Or better yet, I'll get Mason to do it."
I'm thrown to my knees again, seething through my gag as the impact shoots through my wounded leg.
Gareth jots something down in his little notebook again, while the two behind me move past to Glenn. My panic returns to me.
Looking over my shoulder I see the bat guy lining up his swing to Glenn's skull.
"And your shot counts?" Gareth interrupts clink again.
Bat guy pauses to think mid-wind up, "thirty-eight."
Glenn is gritting his teeth into his gag. Eyes shut tightly.
"Hey," Gareth's words stop the butcher mid-swing, obviously frustrated. "Your shot count?" he asks the slasher.
"Crap, Gareth, I'm sorry," the guy dances on his feet like a child caught in the wrong. "It was my first round up."
Gareth sighs at the answer, writing furiously, "After you're done here, go back to your point and count the shells."
The slasher nods, happy to be let off the hook. The man with the bat pats his co-worker's shoulder supportively while uttering words of encouragement.
Gareth approaches me while the butchers talk. He squats down, face to face. "Listen, I am truly sorry about this mix-up. We're not normally so unprofessional." I try not to look scared, probably failing. I decide to look down, staring into the blood below me as the last of it struggles to drain away.
Gareth continues, "See, you and that friend of yours, the one in the hat, you don't need to worry. You guys have barely got any meat on you, and we're not savages. You two have got at least another three, maybe four years until your ready for this."
Bob shouts at him from the end of the blood trough, his voice muffled.
With a roll of his eyes and a grunt, the psychopath before me gets up and ungags Bob.
He begs with the Cannibal, telling him about Eugene and DC.
"We told you," Bob pleads, "There's a way out of all of this. We can put the world back to how it was."
"Can't go back, Bob." Gareth either doesn't believe him or doesn't care. Not like it matters now.
Gareth re-gags Bob then takes out Rick's gag.
While Gareth questions Rick about a bag, Glenn nudges me to get my attention again. He's staring at me, then he looks down at my tied wrists, giving me wide eyes and a subtle nod. I realise what he's looking at, the sharpened belt buckle still sticking out from my sleeve.
Catching the hint, I cast a peek at the butchers behind us, and when I realise they couldn't be paying less attention to me, I start sawing away at the zip ties restraining me. Hoping I can make up for everything I've done. Focus on it and let everything else go.
I feel the ties loosening as Rick promises to kill Gareth with a red machete, and Gareth thanks him for something I missed.
"You have two hours to get them on the driers. I'm gonna go back to public face," Gareth tells the butchers.
The five of us all feel like fools for buying what these assholes are selling.
Gareth starts to walk out, writing something in that stupid fucking notebook.
Two gunshots ring out beyond the walls of the slaughterhouse. I imagine more people have shown up, caught in this twisted trap. Then I see Gareth's look of shock as he pulls out a walkie-talkie, asking for someone called Chuck.
No reply.
Another shot goes off, the sound of ricocheting metal with it.
I keep sawing at my restraints, my wrists stinging something fierce.
Suddenly the ground shakes as an explosion knocks us all to the floor. I shriek into my gag as the buckle stabs into my hand during the fall. Thankfully the metal doesn't go too deep, so I yank it out and keep working on the zip ties. Biting hard on the gag as everything starts to hurt again.
Gareth is shouting at the butchers as he runs out of the room, but I don't listen. Nothing matters but getting out.
The butchers are arguing now, they've moved away from the trough, their backs towards us.
"We don't deal with security. That ain't our job," one of them tells to the other.
The zip ties on my wrists snap. I bring my arms from behind my back, rubbing my sore wrists before I start working on freeing Glenn from his binds.
Before I can get Glenn free, however, I hear the familiar snapping sound of zip ties. I look to see Rick on his feet, sneaking up on the butchers. Soon to be cattle.
"Hey, look at me," the man with the bat tells his friend. And his partner does, just in time to watch Rick sink a splintered shard of plywood into his friend's neck. The Slasher begs, but Rick is on him already, stabbing him in the gut repeatedly.
I think it might be over, Glenn's hands are free and I move on to his feet. But everything goes back to being scary when the guy that dragged me here walks into the room. Mason.
"Hey, Gareth told me to come and get the kid, so- What the fuck?!"
He charges at Rick upon seeing him standing over the two dead butchers. Mason knocks Rick to the ground, bashing his head into the concrete repeatedly, each time with a sickening smack.
Glenn shouts something muffled over his shoulder at me, shaking his head. I clamber to my feet, rushing to the man now cracking Rick's skulls into the ground. Desperately, I stab the buckle at his face. He screams in pain as the sharpened metal catches his eye. Clutching it in agony, he swings his arm around, knocking me to the floor.
But that was all Rick needed.
In a second, Rick's fist connects with Mason's throat, sending the man staggering backwards gasping for air that his crushed throat won't allow. Rick gets up and forces his wooden stake into Mason's eye socket, causing him to slump to the ground dead as blood pools from his face.
Rick pulls me to my feet, checking I'm okay before freeing Glenn. I'm staring down at the man now with a spike protruding from his skull. I'm feeling numb as I take off my gag.
"If they've got problems, we got a chance," Rick tells us as he moves on to freeing Daryl.
Glenn comes over to me, checking me over the same way Rick did, thinking out loud as he does, "Sounded like a bomb."
"Sounds like a damn war," Daryl gets up, searching for a weapon. He settles on two giant knives, handing one to me, its hilt a faded gold colour.
Rick frees Bob last with the knife that had, not long ago, been used to slit throats. Glenn takes the metal bat that was nearly used to crack his head open.
"What the hell are these people?" Bob gasps, ripping off his gag and finding himself a white-handled machete. He goes to put it through one of the butcher's heads, but Rick stops him, "let him turn."
Daryl answers Bob's earlier question, "They ain't people."
We move into the next room, past plastic sheets, and are met with horror.
I think we've found the Racks that Gareth mentioned earlier. Human torso's hang upside down, left to dry, while bowls of blood and offal sit on freakishly clean tables. Guts lie on top of chopping boards like some twisted normality.
Daryl finds an exit. Peering through the emergency door's window, we discover the reason we've been forgotten about. Walkers, flooding into Terminus, drawn by gunfire throughout the compound. A few strays slam into a bright red shipping container, drawn to it from the screams of a man within.
Rick wants to leave him, while Glenn argues we need to save people, telling Rick, "That's still who we are."
I'm not so sure it can be.
We burst from the door and take down the walkers surrounding the container. I get a rush as I drive the knife Daryl gave me into a walker's skull. A sense of control that I haven't felt in a long time returning to me.
Glenn opens the container in a desperate attempt to prove that we're still the kind of people that save people. A gigantic, bearded man rushes out, his clothes coated with sweat and dirt, his hair long and matted as he grabs a hold of Glenn, a crazed look in his sunken eyes as he screams.
"WE'RE THE SAME!"
Glenn pushes him off, and the bearded man latches onto Rick, screaming the same words he had to Glenn.
Rick throws him to the side, not seeing me until the guy crashes into my flank, his weight crushing me as it knocks us both to the ground.
His stench is unbearable as he starts clutching my face with his filthy hands, his nails drawing blood as they dig into my cheeks. He smiles down at me with stained teeth.
"WE'RETHESAMEWE'RETHESAME."
My hand moves instinctively. I don't realise what I've done. Not until blood drools from between his yellow teeth.
My hand retracts, pulling my knife from his neck, his dirty beard turning a crimson red.
Daryl's pulling the man off me as he shakes, clutching at his throat and gurgling over and over, "we're the same."
Rick pulls me up by the collar and drags me behind the container as Termites pass by, gunning down the dead and their endless numbers as they move.
Rick just tells me, "good job," before he and Daryl move to ambush the Termites from behind.
Bob grabs my shoulders, "You okay, man?"
"Yeah," I pant, nodding profusely, "he didn't hurt me."
"I mean-" he pauses, looking at the guy I just killed, motionless. "Is he your first?"
I'm still nodding, my hands are shaking, "I just-" I'm lost for words. Carl's hoodie is drenched in blood, so I take it off and throw it to the ground, preferring my cuts from the prison to the crazy man's blood.
Rick and Daryl are back with guns in hand. Rick passes me a handgun, an AK-47 over his shoulder as he hands the others guns of their own.
"We've gotta find the others," Rick tells us before urging everyone forward. Leaving the crazy man dead on the ground for the invading walkers.
Terminus is a smoking shell of what it was when we arrived. I see the downed fences, people screaming and on fire. Vegetable gardens are trampled and grills are knocked to the floor, as the five of us run through the sea of corpses, killing walker after walker, each one easier than the last.
We see the train car as we turn a corner, walkers not yet surrounding it as we rush towards the door, the smell of smoke everywhere.
Rick slides open the train car door when we reach it, freeing the group.
"Come on! We fight to the fence!" Rick bellows as he fires his gun into a cluster of the dead.
Carl runs out, straight into his father's arms.
Rick checks he's okay, "Stay with Rhys!" he shouts over the groans of the dead. "Keep each other safe!"
I pass Carl the knife Daryl had given me. The knife I just used on the crazy man.
Carl and I catch us up with Rosita and Abraham, who are pushing Eugene around like a rag doll. Avoiding walkers left and right. I blow the head off one that gets too close to him.
The fence is getting closer, as are the dead.
Michonne takes down a walker that Carl struggles with. While I shoot one that gets uncomfortably close to Maggie, catching it in the shoulder before she finishes it with a wooden stake similar to the one Rick left in Mason's head. Rosita clears the fence with a swift jump and Abraham practically throws Eugene over it after her. Then Carl and I. Then the rest. Abraham, scaling it last, making it with less than a second to lose before the walkers collide into the fence.
We're all running along the fence, following closely behind Rick and Daryl. Painful reminders come from the black smoke behind us, visible behind the trees.
Rick leads the group through the forest, searching for the bag of weapons he told Gareth he stashed here before being captured. The bag containing a weapon he'd promised to kill Gareth with. Daryl finds it, and Rick starts to dig the bag from the disturbed earth.
"The hell are we still around here for?" Abraham asks them, stroking his bushy moustache.
"Guns," Rick tells him simply, "some supplies," he pulls the bag from the dirt and starts pulling out weapons, his familiar hand cannon among them. "We go along the fences. Use the rifles. Take out the rest of 'em."
Bob steps forward, "What?"
Rick turns to him, "They don't get to live."
Sasha speaks out, "I'm with Rick."
I step forward without thinking, "I'm in."
Rick looks at me seriously, nodding. He hands Sasha her rifle from the prison. She looks pleased as she greets her old friend. Carl must see the confused look on my face because he whispers to me that he grabbed it before escaping the Cavalcade.
I notice my broken spearhead is also in the bag. Rick doesn't offer it to me, and I don't ask for it.
Rosita hits my shoulder, "Idiota! That place is full of walkers and not to mention on fire."
Abraham seconds her, "I ain't dicking around with this crap. We just made it out."
Arguments break out. Everyone shouting their points over others.
It all stops though, when I'm almost knocked to the floor as Daryl sprints past me. I grab a tree to stay on my feet and watch after him, realising why he did it.
Carol.
Carol Peltier is standing there with a crossbow over one shoulder and a sniper rifle on the other. She doesn't move until Daryl crashes into her, holding on tight. He lets out a small whimper into her nape as she pulls away, kissing his forehead and brushing hair from his eyes.
Rick steps up to her, "Did you do that?" his voice is quiet as he points to the smoke, and he's hugging her before she can say yes.
They pull apart, and she looks at Sasha and me, then to Carl, before finally saying to Rick, "You have to come with me."
The walk is fast, and Carol won't tell us where we're going. Instead, just smiling and telling us, "Almost there."
We reach the top of a steep road, a run-down cabin at the end of it. The door creaks open. We all reach for our guns out of instinct, until we see the man standing there, the man and what he holds safely in his arms.
Tyreese Williams steps onto the porch, Judith Grimes cradled in his arms. I realise I love knowing peoples last names, realising that's when you know someone for the long haul in this world.
The shock of it freezes us. We all stand for a moment, stunned out of time and into a brief instant of consternation. That instant fragments when Rick and Carl sprint forward, Sasha and I on their heels, time resuming, feeling plentiful as we try to reach our family.
The moment is a crash of tears, and hugs, and whispers of things that no one can hear over all the crying. Rick steals Judith away, holding her and Carl tight. While Tyreese lifts both Sasha and me off the ground in one of his famous bear hugs, drowning us in laughter and kisses.
Tyreese weeps happy tears as he puts us both back onto our feet, taking in our fresh scars, inside and out. He starts laughing again as he hugs us once more, and I feel so safe. Surrounded and safe.
I look over through wet eyes to see Carl, holding the back of Judith's head as his father cries into her. Our eyes meet, and I smile at him, meaning it for the first time in a long time.
A/N
Ahh, I'm sorry that Carl and Rhys's reunion is so bittersweet, but I don't think Rhys was ready yet. He's got so much guilt still stuck inside of him, but I promise the next few chapters are going to be dedicated to Carl and Rhys getting to know the new them.
I bet y'all thought I was giving Rhys Carl's hoodie for good!... it was tempting, but in reality I just needed something to hide the belt weapon, since Rhys' sleeves are gone. The poncho will come back, I swear!
Okay, just want to quickly address Rosita and code-switching to those who care! I went back and forth when deciding if I would have Rosita Code-switch or not. After re-watching some scenes from the show, I've realised that she does often jump into Spanish (especially when she's pissed off!) So, there is going to be code-switching from her since we've seen her do it on the show, and she is a bilingual character.
This is my first time properly writing for a bilingual character and I want to treat the subject respectfully since I know it can be overly stereotyped in writing or just media in general, which isn't fun to read if you are someone that is bilingual. Plus Rosita's character deserves to be treated with love because she's amazing. So if anyone has any input on the subject or see's me use it in a way that you think doesn't work, feel absolutely free to drop me a PM or just leave a review with some friendly feedback! I want this story to be enjoyable for everyone that reads it.
As always, Reviews and Feedback are always welcome!
:)
