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BabySlothXYaoi- People always seem to suck at shooting zombies!... But to be fair, Rhys sucked at shooting to start with too, remember! Sasha's always so critical of poor Rhy's shooting... I like to think it makes her a good teacher. Yeah, I genuinely felt bad putting Rosita into scenes with Pete, she deserves better. I'm getting a sense that you're not Enid's biggest fan, lol. Sadly Rosita isn't quite at the skill level of Pete, she can definitely stitch up a leg like it's no one's business, but I don't think she could pull off surgery. Oh, there are gonna be some new dynamics, don't you worry! Thank you for the feedback!


Carl and I haven't seen Ron or Enid after what happened yesterday with Pete. Mikey, on the other hand, came to knock for us this morning. Now the three of us are pushing Judith around the neighbourhood in her pram.

"So your Mom knows about Pete?" Carl asks after we've finished a loop of Alexandria's lake.

"Yeah," Mikey sighs, picking up a stone and tossing it into the lake, where it plunges from sight, gulped into the watery depths. "I hate that she lets him stay in the same house as them."

"I guess he's the doctor," Carl shrugs.

"Still," Mikey points in the direction of the brownstones apartments, where he lives. "Mom should do more."

I stay quiet, the last thing I want to talk about is this, so I decide it's best to just not talk at all.

As we approach Olivia's, we spot a group of people gathered outside. Mikey's parents are watching as his older brother, Aiden, gets ready for a run. Glenn, Tara, and Noah are there too. Nicholas appears from the armoury, carrying armfuls of ammo boxes into a truck with an eagle painted along its rusted side in red, the vehicle they use on every run.

"Hey there, you lot," Reg waves at our approach.

"Hey, dad!" Mikey smiles wide.

Mikey's smiles give me a weird feeling. They remind me of how the world used to be before the living crumbled. I think I admire how oblivious Mikey is to what's beyond these walls.

While Deanna fusses over Judith's cheeks, I ask Noah where they're going.

"Not too far," he tells me, checking his clip. "Apparently, there's a music shop next to the place we're going to. Could be a guitar."

"Fingers crossed," I sigh, fiddling with my acoustic bracelet.

"Hey, not still thinking about joining, are you?" Aiden turns to me.

"Aiden, stop being an asshole," Tara sticks her head out of the truck to scold him.

He ignores her, "Well, are you?"

Mikey speaks up this time, "Aiden, listen to her. You're being a butthead."

"Language," Reg hums as his wife puts her hands over Judith's ears and glares at her sons.

Ignoring Aiden, I smirk at what this family considers swearing.

Aiden seems to back down to his younger brother, "Okay, Jesus."

"Drive safe," Reg nods to his son, who hugs his dad goodbye, kissing his mothers cheek and ruffling Mikey's hair.

"We will," Glenn tells us all as he leaves the armoury, a rifle under his arm. "See you tonight," he pats my shoulder, nodding to Carl and Mikey before getting into the van. Tara and Noah dish out high-fives before they leave. Nicholas is shaking his head disapprovingly at the high fives as he gets in the front of the van. When Noah high-fives me, I manage to slip him a piece of crumpled paper that I wrote a special request on, trying my best to make sure Carl doesn't see.

The five of us left behind wave them off as dubstep rages from the open windows, like usual.


Once Judith is back in 99, and with Carol, Mikey, Carl, and I head to school. When we reach Dani's garage, Ron and Enid aren't there, just Dani, smiling wide as she sees off some of the younger kids from her last lesson.

"Hey, boys," she gestures for us to sit, "where are the other two?"

"Sick," Mikey tells her without missing a beat, Ignoring the weird looks we give him.

The school day starts with maths, which Mikey excels in. Leaving me as decent and Carl stumped as he stares down the equations intently. After an hour, the lesson turns over to English, where Mikey and I both, normally, excel. But Dani surprises us with a creative writing task.

Carl gets praised for his inventive story about a superhero walker.

Mikey writes about a billionaire who buys a chain of coffee shops across the world. Dani holds a disappointed look on her face after finishing it, telling Mikey that she enjoyed the language, but criticises the premise as fairly bland.

I rip mine up before Dani can read it, finding myself too embarrassed over my tale. A scholar escapes from prison to be reunited with her rugged basketball playing lover. They run away together, living a peaceful life on a boat where no one can ever hurt them again. I shake my head when Dani asks about it, mumbling about how "It was stupid."

The final hour of class is geography. Carl and Mikey both outdoing me in their knowledge of the States. Mikey, still exceeding me when we move to questions about Europe.


Class finishes, Mikey and Carl deciding that it'll be a good idea to irritate Olivia into giving them some chocolate. They ask if I want to join them on their crusade to the pantry. I decline, deciding to go check on Ron instead.

I stroll my way down the street towards the Anderson residents, think about how clean the roads are kept, still finding it odd on occasion. When I finally look up from the spotless street, I'm startled by Enid, sitting on the freshly cut lawn outside Ron's house.

She sees me coming, nodding with her lips pursed.

"You okay?" I ask.

"Didn't feel like school," Enid tells me. She takes a deep inhale, clearly a fan of the smell coming from the mown lawn.

"Were you with Ron?"

She shakes her head a little too quickly.

"Why are you sitting outside his house then?"

Enid shrugs, pulling on one of the tassels of her hoodie, chew marks denting the end of it. "Felt like I had to check on him... but then I got here..." she trails off, gazing towards the house.

"Do you want to come to mine?" I offer, seeing that she hates the limbo she's trapped in right now.

Enid gets up from the grass, blades of it collected against her knees. She nods.


Once inside 99, we head up to my room, Enid keeps staring at me for some reason, and I decided that I prefered it back when she refused to look at me.

We don't do much talking, Enid being the kind of person that creates comfortable silences. She spends so much time with her lips sealed that it starts to rub off on you. So we just lie on the floor of my bare-boned bedroom, listening to the quiet she's created for us.

"Why did you want to stop Pete?" I'm shocked when Enid is the one to break her own silence.

"Didn't you?" I ask, not meaning to sound angry.

"You were different." Enid ignores my question the same way that I had ignored hers.

I let out a long sigh, buying time to think. But again, Enid speaks first.

"What happened to you?" She whispers.

I turn my head to face her. She does the same. Both of us, flat on our backs, dug into the soft carpet.

"You never wanted to walk through those gates," Enid tells me. "I saw you when you arrived."

"Things change," I whisper.

"No, they don't," she pushes her head into the carpet. "We change, so the things are easier to deal with."

"Maybe."

"Do you think this place will last?"

I shrug, "I want it too."

Enid keeps staring, "You were right before. Everything in here doesn't matter... because someday it will all be gone, and we'll be out there again."

"Why didn't you want to check on Ron?" I change the subject.

"I told you," she whispers. "Nothing in here matters."

Then Carl and Mikey are here, waving a triumphant chocolate bar and laughing about something to do with a red balloon on the lake.


When the evening rolls around and dusk has settled, Mikey and Enid make their way home. Carl and I go downstairs, finding Maggie and Glenn in the kitchen, arguing over how much spice needs to go into a chili that they're making together. I ask if Carl can stay for dinner, and Maggie says, "Of course, sweetie. Have you asked your dad, Carl?" Carl answers, "Not yet... be right back," before racing out the front door.

"When did you get back from the run?" I ask Glenn, who's holding the spice bottle above his head as Maggie tries to grab it from him.

"About an hour ago. Tara and Noah are just de-briefing with Deanna."

"Smells good," I tell them, picking up a wooden spoon and moving to get a taste from the steaming pot.

Glenn grabs the spoon from me with the hand that's not holding spices out of reach. "Before you try it, keep in mind whether it needs more or less spice..." he hands the spoon back to me slowly, making me laugh at how serious he's taking this. I try the mix of kidney beans and canned corn beef.

"Definitely more," I answer after a moment of consideration.

"HA!" Maggie cries, her southern accent singing through her victory.

Glenn snatches the spoon from me, "Come on, man..."

Maggie then snatches the spoon from him, the spices too. "I told you, it's my daddy's recipe, and he always taught me, 'When in doubt, add some spice.'"

"Some spice," Glenn tells her, waving a hand at the pan. "Not all the spice."

"Oh hush, and set the table, would you. Noah and Tara will be back any minute."

She's not wrong. Once Glenn and I have finished setting plates and cutlery, the door opens, laughter spilling in as Tara, Noah, and Carl enter. I wonder why they're all smiling, but then I see what Noah's holding, suddenly smiling myself.

A guitar. An actual real guitar. Six strings and all.

Tara rushes in for a fist bump, but Maggie warns her to wash her hands first, the others too. Noah grins at me, holding the guitar up like a trophy, before leaning it against the dining table and whispering, "I got that other request too."

While the others are cleaning up, Maggie hands me a plate of chili, telling me to take it to Eugene's room, who's busy working on plans for the solar panels. Everyone is sat down by the time I get back to the dining room. I join them, the six of us tucking in.

"Where's Gabriel?" I ask over a mouthful of spicy chili.

"His church," Maggie sighs, "I'll take him a plate later."

"This is delicious," Carl tells her, rice falling from his mouth as he mumbles his compliment.

"Thank you," she tells Carl, giving Glenn a massive pair of 'I told you so' eyes, to which Glenn chuckles in agreement and says, "It's delicious."

As the evening goes on, we finish our meal, but we all stay at the table, laughing and talking like normal people might do. Glenn telling dumb jokes that everyone finds hilarious. At some point, Rick knocks at the door, asking after his son. I hug Carl goodnight, and he leaves, Noah going with them.

I help Tara with the dishes when Maggie and Glenn decide to go to bed.

"Can you believe how awesome this is?" Tara grins at me.

"Washing the dishes?"

"No, doofus," she splashes soapy water at me, earning a kick to the shin in return. "I mean this," she gestures around. "Us. All of us eating dinner like a family."

"We are a family," I tell her. "Bob was the first to say it, back in the woods. I think he knew this was coming."

Tara gives me a doubtful look as she scrubs rice off a plate.

"Seriously," I insist, "he told me in the church, the night Gareth attacked. He told me, 'this is the bad, but that just means you're due a whole lot of good.' I think this is what he meant, us, being able to eat as a family, the family he called us."

Tara just smiles down at the plate she's cleaning.


A/N

Okay, I swear we're going to get back to the main plot very soon! Y'all know I've got to find some page-time for the smaller characters. Something about the family dinner made me very satisfied.

Reviews and Feedback are Always Welcome!