Reviews:
BabySlothXYaoi- Honestly going to miss that firetruck a lot. Yeah... Rhys' is glad everyone's forgotten that name. Rhys is determined to just ignore Carol for as long as humanly possible, despite how difficult it is. You are right, Sasha truly is a queen, very happy that she's become a tad more involved. Rosita is rather grumpy at the moment, isn't she? Thank you very much!
Look how fast I'm uploading... Crazy.
We've been staying at a school for almost a week, sleeping in a classroom for 10th graders. The peeled posters hanging on the walls tell us that Spanish was taught here once. The school sits in a small town, just forty miles from Richmond.
The vehicles ran out of gas, leaving us stranded here until we can scavenge more or find new cars. Rick has taken Carl, Noah, Michonne and Gabriel north, hoping to find something to push us further on our journey to Noah's home, an old gas station in that direction. Glenn took Maggie, Rosita, and Tara west, in search of a separate gas station. Abraham and Sasha, going East to find food in a deserted shopping centre. The south is being covered by Daryl and Carol, who are taking Eugene to a mechanic shop, where he thinks he'll be able to scavenge a battery to replace the one that died in the white van.
All this planning leaves Tyreese and I looking after Judith in the Spanish classroom. The desks are still neatly arranged in rows, facing toward a whiteboard crowded with words I can't read. Some of the chairs are untucked from their neat desks, giving me an eerie image of the day the students got evacuated. I wonder how many of them made it home.
"What are you thinking about?" Tyreese asks me, Judith babbling up at him from my lap as he sits at the teacher's desk. Myself and Judith sat at one of the smaller desks at the front of the classroom.
"Karen taught Spanish," I answer, knowing he'll find my other thoughts sad.
Tyreese smiles at me from across the teachers heavy looking oak desk. He nods, "She sure did."
I frown at him, bouncing Judith on my knee when she gets bored. "What did you do? Before, I mean."
Ty seems to find the question amusing as he leans back, and his swivel chair squeaks. "I was an NFL player," he tells me. "Know what that is?"
"I'm British, not an idiot," I snort at him.
"I was a linebacker..."
"Okay, I have no idea what that means."
Tyreese laughs a deep and heavy laugh. I notice him looking at the tarnished bracelet on my wrist. I hold my arm out so he can see Karen bracelet better.
"Do you want it?" I ask.
Tyreese keeps staring at it, deep in thought. He sighs long and hard. "No, it's yours."
"We could share it," I offer.
"Maybe one day," Ty nods, "Still not sure if I'm ready."
"To let go?"
Tyreese shakes his head. "To hold on."
When Judith grabs at it, I slip the bracelet off and let her snatch it, only having to take it back when she tries to bite it, giving her a blunted pencil from the desk instead.
"What was she like?" I ask Ty once Judith is distracted.
"You know what she was like," he tells me, watching Judith with a bemused gaze.
"You knew her longer," I tell him. "Tell me something I don't know."
He leans forward, humming as he thinks and fiddling with a tiny American flag on the teacher's desk, before sitting back again with a smile creeping across his bearded face.
"She was a giver," he tells me.
"I know that," I laugh.
"No," Ty laughs back, "I mean, she really was a giver. She would always get me things. I don't even know where from. We lived in the same damn prison, but she'd always find stuff."
"Like what?"
Tyreese hesitates, not because it hurts, but because he's chuckling like he's not sure if he should tell me. He leans in, afraid the Spanish posters might hear him. "You can't tell Sasha," he insists.
"I won't," I urge him, getting more curious by the second.
He nods, "This one time, Karen was doing corridor duty- it was this thing we did before you showed up... when we were still clearing the prison of walkers."
"Uh-huh."
"Anyway," Ty shushes me, "I was on watch duty in tower two, and she came to me, right, hiding something behind her back."
"What was it?"
Tyreese looks at Judith, biting his nail uneasily. "Marijuana," he mumbles.
I laugh at how embarrassed he is and how guilty he looks.
"Weed?" I wheeze at him.
"Yeah, now, I told her no at first."
I chuckle, "Sure you did."
"I did. I'd never tried the stuff before, not with my career, and my dad would have beaten my ass if I had."
"So why did you?"
"Well," Ty looks more at ease now, having gotten it out. "Karen hadn't had it before either. Asked me, 'when will we get the chance again?' She told me that it would be a learning experience."
We're both laughing now, Judith too. I'm not sure she understands why, but that makes it funnier.
"How was it?" I ask.
"Eh, fine," Ty shrugs, "Tasted strange. But man, me and her? We were giggling like idiots for hours, telling dumb jokes and talking about the strangest things."
I cough from laughing too much, shaking my head in disbelief of the image it brought me while both of us calm down.
Once he's stopped laughing, Ty grins at a thought.
I get curious again. "What?"
"She's still a giver," he tells me. "Even after what happened to her. She gave me peace, her parting gift. The ability to forgive... it just took me a while to find it is all. Lost in the mail."
I nod, feeling sombre as my smile falters. Tyreese notices it.
"I know you find it hard sometimes," he tells me, "to find your smile."
I bounce Judith on my knee to remove some tension.
Ty goes on, "I think she gave you hers... her smile. I think it was her gift to you."
I shake my head, not agreeing with this idea.
"I do," Ty tells me, "I see it every now and then... that smile you can disarm the room with... the one that tells people you care. She had that smile. I think it was her parting gift to you, and you'll find it... I can't wait to see it when you do."
"I don't think so," I shake my head.
"You will."
There's a knock at the classroom door, the correct knock pattern, that means one of the group is back. Tyreese opens it. Rick on the other side.
Rick, Carl, Michonne, Gabriel and Noah all funnel in, through the classroom door, like students late for a lesson. The only difference, these students each have a can of gasoline in hand, looking proud of their find.
Rick puts his can down, taking Judith from me and planting a kiss on her forehead as he greets his daughter, nodding thanks to Tyreese and me for keeping her safe.
"Any trouble," I ask Carl, surprised when he hugs me with such an audience in the room.
"No," he grins, pulling away after a few seconds, "there was enough gas that we could drive to Noah's home and back."
"Which we won't," Michonne smirks.
"Obviously," Carl shrugs her off, rolling his blue eyes at her.
"Now we just wait for the others," Rick tells us as Gabriel starts stacking the cans neatly on the teacher's desk Ty had been sitting at. "Let's hope Eugene can come through on that battery."
"He will." Tyreese nods, returning to his seat.
Carl and I sit at the back of the classroom with his sister and Noah. Rick, Michonne and Tyreese stand at the front, looking over a map and trying to work out the best way to reach the location Noah has given them. Gabriel is sitting by the door, keeping watch and being his usual, miserable self.
"So what's home like?" Carl asks Noah when our game of guessing what Spanish posters read grows stale.
"Roomy," Noah tells him, looking around the shabby classroom. "Space to grow crops, and trees to build stronger walls."
"What about the people?" Carl rephrases.
Noah smiles at him. "Good people, kind people. My family, I suppose."
Noah squints, "What happened to where you guys were before? Beth mentioned a prison."
"It had crops," I tell him, "strong fences, too."
"What happened?"
"People," I answer bluntly.
"Bad people," Carl rephrases for me this time. "Which is why we've got to find somewhere."
I nod slowly, not sure if I'm agreeing or just settling Carl's nerves.
"Noah," Rick calls Noah to the front of the classroom, gesturing to the map.
Noah goes, leaving Carl and me. Judith on Carl's lap.
"Do you want Wiltshire to work out?" Carl asks me sceptically.
"Of course," I tell him, only a little bit offended.
"You don't think it will, though."
I blow air from my cheeks, loaded with unsurety. "People keep killing us," I tell him gloomily.
"So we just avoid them?" Carl sounds confused.
"I think we need to stop relying on them... the prison worked because it was people relying on us, not the other way around."
Carl asks, "So, what's the solution?"
"I don't know."
Carl's eyes suddenly light up as he suddenly starts fishing through my satchel bag, which I'd lent him for scavenging. "Got ya something."
"What?" I sit up at my desk.
"So... while Dad, Gabriel, and Noah were searching for gas, I saw this little music shop across the street. Michonne knew exactly what I was thinking, so she made up an excuse so me and her could search it..."
Carl keeps rummaging through the small satchel bag, and I swear if he somehow pulls out a guitar, I'll kiss him. I don't care who's in the room.
"Well, I couldn't find a guitar," Carl reads my mind, "not even a banjo... but I did find these," he finally pulls his hand from the bag, a small packet of guitar strings in it.
"Wow," I laugh, "are we going to build a guitar?"
"No, dumbass," Carl takes them out of the packet, grabbing a few and bending them into a circle before braiding them together messily and tying each end to make a loop. I watch, amazed as he does it again, with the other strings, the second bracelet he makes, slightly higher in quality. Carl gestures for me to give him my hand, which I do, letting him slide the guitar sting bracelet onto my wrist, kissing my hand once he's done, which makes me laugh. He then puts the other on his own wrist.
"They're acoustic bracelets," he tells me, revelling in how impressed I am with his craft skills.
"Acoustic bracelets?"
"Yeah," Carl grins, "because they're made from acoustic strings."
"Yeah," I laugh, "I got that."
"They're friendship bracelets," Carl puts his wrist against mine, comparing them.
"Friendship?" I smirk.
"Yeah," Carl nods, "I mean, you're more than that, but you're still my best friend too."
I'm beaming at him, which he laughs at, a cocky look on his face.
"I'm your best friend?" I ask.
"Duh," Carl shoves me from across the gap between our desks. "We're each other's."
"I don't know," I tell him, an evil smirk on my lips, "Tara's pretty cool."
"Oh?"
I nod, trying to keep a straight face, "Rosita too, oh and Judith. Judith is definitely up there."
Carl leans back in his seat, shaking his head as he picks at his bracelet, amused.
I sink back too, smiling at him, "You're my best friend too, man."
When the others return, everything looks hopeful. Eugene wields a fresh battery in hand, which Rosita installs into the white van, getting a cheer from the group when it roars to life. Not wanting to waste any more time, Rick gets us all into the cars, fueled and ready for the rest of our journey. I sit with Tara, who has labelled us as official road trip partners, even though she gets annoyed that I won't sing with her. The two vehicles set off, inbound for the Wiltshire estate.
A/N
I'm so upset that I never wrote a scene of Karen and Tyreese getting high and talking about life.
