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BabySlothXYaoi- Ahh, college applications suck and are pretty scary, good luck! I'm sure it's obvious by now that I'm a sucker for bringing up things that have already happened... I think it was chapter 33 (maybe) that the Ty weed conversation was calling back too... Rhys broke his promise from that chapter, but I reckon Ty would get it. Honestly, the drinking scene cemented my love for the friend group, I love them all so much and am terrified of giving any away. Happy that the chapter was enjoyable! Thanks for reading.

There's kind of an after credit scene for this chapter! Make sure to read after the A/N!

I wake up, sofa cushions all around me, a shoddily placed blanket hanging precariously above my head. Our majestic fort, not seeming quite as impressive in the morning light.

The smell of eggs and bacon cooking gets me sitting up fast, but it's apparently too fast for my head. A pounding drum, knocking on my head from the inside.

"Morning, sunshine," Enid speaks to me from the kitchen, her and Carl are sitting at the kitchen island. Maggie and Glenn are in there too. Inside the fort with me, among the mess of blankets, Mikey's still asleep, and Ron is gone.

"Hungry?" Maggie asks. "When I'd crawl down the stair after a night out drinkin', there'd always be a plate of eggs ready on the table, and Daddy would say- 'Eggs can kill a hangover quicker than a horse kick to the head.'"

"Wow," Glenn snickers over the toaster. "That's shockingly violent for Hershel."

I waver into the kitchen, joining the others, leaving Mikey to snore.

"You guys look like shit," I say to Carl and Enid, who would both laugh if they weren't also fighting off the temptation to crawl into a ball and sleep forever.

"Language," Maggie says under her breath.

"I feel like shit," Carl says, head firmly buried in his hands.

"Language," Maggie says louder.

"Reckon you can handle canned bacon?" Enid asks me.

"Yeah, I reckon so."

Once Mikey wakes up, the six of us eat. Gabriel comes in from the outside at some point, refusing food with a hollow smile and heading to his room, returning with a change of clothes, his usual suit swapped for a clean, white long-sleeve.

Once we finish eating, Maggie says she needs to see Deanna, a troubled look on her face; Mikey offers to accompany her because he hasn't gone home since the night his brother died, and he really should.

Not in the mood to do dishes, I try puppy dog eyes in Glenn's direction, but he says he has to leave too. Apparently, he and Abraham have made plans to speak with Rick this morning. Carl wants to go, Glenn can see it, but he tells him to stay, that his father will be home soon.

"Looks like it's just the three of us," I say to Enid and Carl once the others are gone and we've finished the dishes- we tried our best to get out of it, but that's apparently Maggie's punishment for us drinking so much.

"Actually, I'm gonna head out too," Enid yawns. "Pretty sure Olivia's got some painkillers stashed somewhere at home."

When it's just the two of us, Carl and I go next door to see Judith.

Walking into 101, we're received by Carol, leaning her back up against a cabinet, halfway through feeding Judith her bottle.

She and I perform our usual routine of an intense and bitter staring contest until Carl breaks it up, saying, "Dad's coming home today."

"How do you know that?" Carol raises an eyebrow at us as we take off our shoes and tuck them away under the coat rack.

"Glenn," Carl says. "Him and Abraham are going to see Dad now."

Carol gets that look in her steely grey eyes, the kind of look I only question when I want trouble. Then she's handing Judith to Carl, the bottle to me, and heading for the door.

We spend the day hanging out and looking after Jude the same as we usually do.

I can see Carl's worried about his dad. I see it in the way he blinks, the way he breathes, the way he is. I can see Carl existing in his anxiety.

Mikey drops by after a couple of hours but can't stay long. His mom wants him to attend a meeting tonight, a meeting that Deanna is holding for the whole community, a meeting to decide if Rick should stay. I can practically hear Carl's toes curl in his socks when Mikey tells us that last bit.

"It's okay," Mikey tells us on his way out, "it's just a forum... so everyone can say their piece. Mom will make the decision."

It doesn't seem to calm Carl's nerves, and I start to sink into anxiety myself, wondering if his is contagious.

"My dad's talking her around... he's always been good at that," Mikey urges.

Mikey sees that our faces don't change.

"The cavemen," Mikey leans against the front doorway as he starts a story, "they were Nomads... and they all died. Then we evolved into this, and we didn't die."

I frown at him, a frown that asks where his point is hiding.

Mikey rolls his eyes. "It's a story Dad always used to tell me. Civilization starts when we stop running... when we decide to live together. Civilization can only start when we stop sending people away from the world and each other."

I nod, vaguely getting his point.

"That's what Dad told Mom this morning," Mikey goes on. "That's what he's going to tell everyone tonight. Your dad's not on his own."

"I know," Carl nods. "Thanks, Mikey."

Once Mikey's gone, Carl looks drained.

"What?" I ask him, watching as he hugs his sister close.

"I'm scared."

"For your Dad?"

Carl shakes his head, "For them."

I nod, swallowing.

"If they decide not to let Dad stay... he'll kill them. Carol will kill them. We'll all have to kill them," Carl tells me like he's sick of it all.

"Once we get the armoury under control, we won't have to kill," I tell him like I'm ready for it all.

Carl finds this funny. "Yeah, because they're all gonna take so kindly to us turning this place into a prison camp. They'll either wait for their moment... lose... and we'll kill them. Or we'll have to send them away, and when it comes to the people here, that would be as good as killing them."

I nod, seeing his point. "Hopefully, it won't come to that."

"If it does," Carl looks like a deflated balloon animal. "I don't want to kill Ron, or Enid, or Mikey... I like them."

"Me too," I smile.

Carl doesn't smile.

"Your dad," I tell him, "he just has to make them see. They will."

When the golden hands of my watch take us into the late afternoon, Rick walks through the front door of 101, his face battered and bandaged. Carl jumps up from the sofa, crashing into his father's arms which hold Carl close, Rick winces slightly from the strain.

"You okay?" Carl asks into his father's chest.

Rick pulls away, keeping his hand against the back of Carl's neck for a second. "Yeah. I'm sorry."

Carl shakes his head. "We heard about the meeting."

"You're both stayin' home." Rick looks between us. Me, sitting on the couch, Judith on my lap. Carl, leaning against the back of the couch, now, watching his father.

Rick goes for the stairs with a look of ease when we don't argue.

"That's what it is now, right?" Carl asks him. "Home?"

Rick stops, turning back and looking between us again.

"Yeah," Rick nods after a significant pause.

When he starts for the stairs again, Carl blurts out, "They need us. They'll die without us."

Rick sighs, rubbing between the bandages scattering his face. "I might have to threaten one of them," he turns again, stepping closer to us this time. "I could have to kill one of them."

I wonder at this moment if Judith understands any of this yet. Carl and I have tried to teach her words like giraffe and ratoon. She's still too young to make the sounds, though. But sometimes, I wonder. I wonder if she understands it all anyway.

"You won't," Carl tells his dad, more desperate sounding than sure.

"I might," Rick shrugs like it doesn't matter either way.

Carl looks at me for a second, then back Rick. "You have to tell them."

"I told them yesterday."

Carl steps closer to his dad with all his optimism in tail. "You have to tell them so they can hear you."

Rick brings his voice to whisper like he's worried that what he says next might hurt his son. "I don't know if they can." Then he squints at him. "Does that make you afraid?"

Carl shakes his head, looking far more exhausted than he did a few minutes ago. "Just- for them. You have to tell them."

"You know about how-" Rick hesitates. "How we got the guns?"

Carl nods, and I sink into the couch, trying my hardest to meld with it so Rick can't see me.

"Rhys..." Rick calls out to me.

Didn't work.

I surface from the couch cushions, looking at him with wide eyes. The human representation of a deer in headlights.

"I'm sorry I told him," I say quickly.

"No, I'm sorry," Rick says very softly. "I shouldn't have let you get involved."

Realising that this is unbelievably uncomfortable for both of us, Rick looks back to Carl. "I'm sorry."

Rick turns on the spot and goes upstairs to get ready for his trial.

Rick leaves for the meeting, heading through the back without saying goodbye. Carl and I sit at the dining room table, anxiously awaiting everyone's return. Carl picks up from a shelf the music box he gave Maggie. She must have left it in here on our first few nights. Judith seems to find the song that plays funny, clapping her hands along to the wound-up ballerina, the dancer's hair, a blond bob of painted plastic. She reminds me of Beth- I think that's the reason I picked it up all that time ago.

Tired of rubbing my hands together and staring at the door, I get us some water from the kitchen. Outside the kitchen window, darkness is apparent, cloaking the other houses. The lights of the living turned off for the meeting.

I spot Sasha outside, watching her as she goes into Gabriel's garage down the street, her rifle over her shoulder.

I stand there for a few seconds, confused, two glasses still in hand.

How did she get her gun past the guard?

After a moment, I see Gabriel go in too.

Still curious, I bring Carl his water. Judith, her sippy cup.

"I'll be right back," I tell them, moving to the door, getting my trainers out from under the coat rack and slipping them on, jacket too.

"You're not going to the meeting, right?"

"No, promise. I'll just be a minute."

"Okay," Carl smiles up from the twirling box.

The air nips when I step outside, charging my unprotected arms and face with a fierce chill. I pull up my hood and head towards Gabriel's makeshift church. When I reach it, voices are inside. I stand at the door of the garage church, my ear pressed to the cold glass in its frame, a curtain blocking my view.

"-I'm losing my head..."

Sasha's voice is hard to catch. Her words barely whispers through the cracks.

"Can you help me?"

There's a stale quiet, one that the night's dark advance dances with in a secret grace.

Gabriel's voice is cold and chiselled from stone when he speaks.

"No."

Again, retired sound settles on the other side.

Until Sasha speaks.

"I- I think I want to die."

It splits me in two that she had to go to him. That I couldn't help her and that she's alone with someone that's not me.

Gabriel, again, his words direct and rigid. "Why wouldn't you want to die? You don't deserve to be here... what you did can never be undone... the dead don't choose but the choices you made, how you sacrificed your own-"

Sasha cuts him off. "I know what you're doing..."

The calm that comes after sends a chill down my spine, nothing to do with the winter air.

"Bob was mutilated... Consumed," I can see in my head as Gabriel spits his words at her through gritted teeth. "Destroyed because of your sins!"

"Stop it."

My hand grasps the doorknob tightly, the cold metal sticking beneath my sweating palm.

"Your brother," Gabriel tells her. "Tyreese felt he was apart from it... he was a part of it. He didn't deserve to be here. Nor does Rhys, neither do you!"

"Stop it!" Sasha screams at him, "Stop it!"

I hear a crash, things tumbling to the floor behind the garage door.

I burst through it.

Sasha and Gabriel are grappling against the alter, her rifle between them, both trying to wrestle control of the gun.

I run towards them, I don't even realise my knife is in hand, trying to push Gabriel off, I cut his arm, he yells.

Despite his lack of experience, he's still far bigger than me. With a swift hit, I'm tossed aside, crashing into one of the chairs used for the makeshift pews.

Thankfully, Sasha doesn't need saving, violently connecting her rifle with Gabriel's chin, he falls to the floor, a window is shot out in the struggle, the night air begins seeping in.

I clamber to my feet as Sasha directs the gun at him, flexing her jaw in a blinding white rage. Her teeth bared to a snarl, animalistic and primal.

"You're killers," Gabriel growls up at us, a wounded beast taking his last stand. "We're the same."

My hand is shaking, and the knife slips through my fingers.

The last time I stabbed someone, they didn't get back up.

They told me we were the same.

Sasha's breathing is heavy as she presses the barrel to his chest.

"Do it." Gabriel nods to her, putting his head back. Ready.

It takes so much to say what I do. Every ounce of strength and humanity I've built up since we got here is put into one word.

"Don't."

"I deserve it," Gabriel tells us. "This is who you are."

I put a shaking hand on Sasha's back. "It's not you."

Sasha gasps, looking at me, tears flooding violently. Her chin shakes, and her rifle clatters to the floor. We hold onto each other tightly after that, nothing else in the world.

The door opens behind us.

"What happened?" Maggie's voice comes in, but she pieces it together, approaching us very slowly.

"You should let her..." Gabriel tells us. His confidence seemingly dropped with the gun, tear streaming down his face as he whimpers. "They died- my congregation- they all died because of me."

Maggie kneels to him, taking his hand, gripping it tight.

"They did," she says.

Gabriel sobs, and when he's done, he lets Maggie pull him up.

"You want forgiveness?" Maggie asks Gabriel rhetorically.

She pulls four chairs from the makeshift pews into the room's centre, sitting in one.

"Let's find it together."

Gabriel looks rattled through his tears.

Sasha quietly moves to sit down in one of the seats.

I pick up my knife, cleaning the blood against my leg, putting the blade away. The cut on Gabriel's arm is small.

"You want to pray?" Gabriel asks her, disbelieving.

Maggie nods, and I sit down.

Finally, Gabriel does too.

The four of us join hands and Gabriel doesn't speak any prayers for us. We just sit with our demons, only we don't sit so alone.

A/N

That's the end of season 5 folks! It's been an insanely long one, but I've loved the ride! The start of season 6 will be uploaded same time next week like normal. And to make it extra special, next week's chapter will have a very important update regarding the future of this story! All good things, all starting next week. Thanks for being great!

The prayers only last as long as the peace, and a gunshot breaks that.

Maggie jumps to her feet.

"Go check on Judith and Carl!" she shouts at me before she and Sasha sprint from the door in search of the gunfire.

I don't stop in my dash back to 101, leaving Gabriel in his church. I'm out of breath when I get there, I lock the door once I'm through it. Carl rushes down the stairs.

"You okay?" he asks, panicked.

I nod, trying to breathe.

"Jude?" I gasp.

"She's fine, in her room."

Both of us notice Michonne's sword is missing from the fireplace, the mantle looking bare.

"Did Michonne-"

"I was upstairs..." Carl answers the question before it's made.

With the doors locked, we go upstairs, sitting on the landing outside Judith's room, waiting for what comes next.