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RHatch89- Glad to hear it.

The ladder is coarse and hurts my hands as I descend after Carol into the sewers of Alexandria. She went first after I hesitated, something about not being able to see the bottom turning my stomach, my head aching when I look down at it for too long.

When the bottom is finally in sight, my feet are already deep in it, at least a foot of dark grey water, my trainers filling and my sock turning miserably soggy.

My hand jumps to cover my nose beneath my sleeve, the sewer's stench causing me to gag, Carol reacting similarly. My feet kick things below the water that I'd rather not know about, and I bite my tongue when I almost puke again.

I closed the grate on my way down, bathing us in darkness, neither of us able to see anything, but I can hear Carol's breathing beside me, short inhales followed by long and controlled exhales.

"Hold on," I whisper, the sound bouncing off unseen walls and ricocheting down a tunnel in front of us.

I fish through my bag for two flashlights that I packed, awkwardly trying to find Carol's hand in the pitch black to give her one.

Our flashlights illuminate our way through the tunnels as Carol leads the way and I tell her which corners to turn, racking my brain for images of the map on Deanna's desk.

The curved walls down here look like the same metal as the walls up top, only down here they're coated in dark moss and a white slime, the water having rusted them to a sharply jagged edge.

Carol steps over a dead walker floating on the water's surface, roots growing around its neck, tangling with its mossy green beard. I notice the fresh stab wound in the side of its head.

"Maggie probably killed this guy when she was down here," I mumble, pointing my light at the dead man's face. "She told me she made it as far as the exit... means that we're going the right way."

Each step is squishy below the water. I hold my nose at the smell of the walker as I step over it, making my voice go nasally as I tell Carol to make a left. I start to wonder if climbing the wall would have been less awful. Weighing in my mind the difference between an ocean of walkers and a sea of shit.

We wade through the next tunnel, it happening to look the exact same as the last. Only this tunnel has a giant, thick cobweb spanning across the ceiling. I shiver at the sight, ducking under the spider's snare, only my feet don't manage to coordinate with my body, sending me plunging forward into the water, landing heavily on my hands and knees.

"Shit," I hiss as my arms submerge to my elbows, clumps of scum and foam floating on the water's surface, sticking to my jacket.

Carol tries to help me up, but I push her off and yell at her that I've got it.

"You got water on your bandage," Carol points her flashlight at me, making me wince as it blinds me.

"Let's keep going," I groan, wiping my hands across my knees to get some of the sludge off.

I'm wet and cold and smell questionable, but we finally manage to find the light. Real light. Almost blinding after the few minutes of bleaching darkness. The daylight comes from a cast-iron gate leading out behind the horde. Carol deals with a few walkers hanging off the exit, their arms reaching through the bars and their jaws snapping at our appearance.

I hand Carol the chain of keys that Enid left for Carl, waiting as she patiently tries each one.

"What happened to your hair?" she asks over her shoulder, each key grating against the rusted lock.

"Huh?"

"It's all-" she gestures to the side of her own head, the side where she's lucky enough to have an ear, "-off."

"I cut it," I shrug at her back, keeping my light on the lock. "Jessie can fix it when we get back."

The ninth or tenth try clicks and grinds against the metal lock, and we're out. Locking the gate behind us and disappearing into the woods.

Alexandria's walls melt from sight.

We walk for hours in an assumed direction, neither of us speaking to the other for more than pointing out distant walkers.

Carol feels complex out here, more particular. It's like when she was back in Alexandria, she was on autopilot, doing whatever she needed to do to look how she needed to look. But out here, everything Carol does feels manual. Her face is pinched up, and her eyes dart between still trees as she makes her way beside me.

"So, where do you think she would go?" Carol cuts the silence.

"Who?" I ask with a dumb look, Carol taking me off guard.

"Enid."

I don't answer her because I don't really know.

"Right," Carol sighs like I said it out loud.

After a long break in the conversation where I consider counting trees, Carol speaks again.

"How's your balance?" She asks, not sounding like she cares all that much. "The doctor said you'll take time to adjust to one ear, right?"

I stay quiet.

"I'm guessing that's why you fell in the tunnels?" Carol hums.

Again, I don't answer. Only this time because thinking about my ear makes me feel sick, and the thought of telling Carol how dizzy not having it makes me is even worse.

"Glenn and Nicholas turned the horde in a town not too far," I tell her, desperate to talk about something else. "Maybe we start there, and then-"

Carol yanks my arm, dragging me a few staggering steps back before I can finish, a walker appearing from behind a tree that I was about to pass.

Carol pulls her knife out, pinning the walker to the tree and stabbing it through the eye with a wet squelch.

"Shit," I breathe, pointing to my missing ear. "Didn't hear that one. Took me on my bad side."

"Two more," Carol points in the direction we were walking.

Before I can ask her which one she wants, Carol springs forward, knocking the one on the right to the ground and putting it down.

I take the other, a tall woman, taller than me, with a rotting fungus growing along the side of her grey skin. The ground feels wobbly under my feet as I try to focus, my knife missing the walker's head and sinking into her shoulder, a crunch as it cracks through a mushroom growing there. Her teeth are snapping inches from my nose, her face's skin tearing away from her skull as I hold a fistful of her hair to keep decaying jaw back. I hear Carol load her rifle behind me, telling me to back up. I yell at her to leave it, trying to reach for my hammer only for the walker to inch closer, forcing my free hand back to her chest, yellow gunk from the woman's torn scalp dripping down my other arm. I hold my breath, hurling the walker's back against a tree, my hand ripping the knife from her shoulder and finding its mark through the side of the woman's temple. She slumps dead at my feet.

"Yeah!" I yell at the corpse, breathlessly kicking it in the ribs for extra measure. "Fuck yeah! Fuck you, lady!"

I push my flopped hair away from my drippy forehead, fighting against how wavy it's gone.

"Did you get bit?" Carol asks cautiously, looking at me from a distance.

I don't answer her, bending down and wiping my walker-gunk-drenched arm on the leafy ground.

"That was-" Carol starts.

"Stupid?" I snap at her. "Yeah, in case you haven't realised, us being out here is stupid."

"You could have let me shoot it."

"I had it!"

Carol's forehead furrows and her mouth twists in a way that stops me from reading her. Then she tells me, "You got blood on your bandage."

I shake my head, snatching up my rifle that I'd dropped and walking past her.

Before long, Carol suggests we take a break, asking me about food. I shake my head at first, but my clothes are heavy with sewer water, and my face is splattered with walker blood, so I begrudgingly agree.

We find a seat on a run-down refrigerator lying on its side in the middle of the road, miles west of Alexandria. My jacket is lying flat on the road to dry, and after I change my ear's bandage, I hand Carol a can of sweetcorn from my pack, pulling out one for myself too.

"Could have made some sandwiches," Carol prods at her food.

"Didn't want to risk getting caught," I tell her, not complaining about mine.

"Caught making sandwiches?" She sighs, irritating me with it.

"Caught preparing to leave," I clarify.

When I finish my can of corn, I put it down beside me on the refrigerator, picking up my rifle and checking it over.

"Can I ask you something?" I question Carol, not sparing her a look.

"I came out here to help find the others, not answer questions," she says, still sounding disappointed with her food.

I nod, accepting that, looking down the scope of my watch rifle, cleaning a smudge from its lense with the hem of my shirt.

Carol rolls her eyes at me, putting her sweetcorn down.

"What?" She glares.

I look at her blankly.

"What's the question?" she tries again.

I consider if I even care about her answer, deciding I do.

"Why'd you come with me?" I ask, glancing over at her.

Carol looks annoyed by the question, crinkling her nose at it and shaking her head. "Because you asked."

"Right," I shake my head, moving my attention back to the rifle.

"Also..." she frowns, and I wonder if she realised how fake her answer sounded, "I hate being in there sometimes," she tells me, looking anywhere but me.

"You do?"

She hmms at me, nodding. "I don't want to be playing the homemaker."

I say my next part more tentatively. "Carl's told me about Sophia."

"And?"

"Is that the reason you don't like being in there?"

Carol rolls her shoulders with a click, scratching her wrists like they hurt. "I don't like being in there because it's up to us to keep that place alive... those wolves would have torn the place apart without us." Carol sighs heavily, resting her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands. "But I think we're weaker."

"Weaker?"

She doesn't say anything for a while, so long that I wonder if the conversation has ended.

"I like it..." Carol finally says like she just decided. "I'm sure you won't believe me, but I actually do like what I am in there... but it's still weak."

"You like making cookies and pot roasts?"

Carol nods, then shake her head, stuck somewhere between the two. "When Sophia was alive; when I had a daughter, a husband... all I had to be was the neighbour that made cookies and pot roasts, I wanted to escape that sometimes. Then the world died, and I got another go at it. Now it seems like I'm back in the same place, and the worst part is I don't hate it."

"So why did you come out here?" I ask my original question again.

Carol doesn't hesitate in her answer this time, "Because I know I shouldn't like being in there. I needed to make sure I still liked this- out here."

"Do you?"

Carol looks down at her barely touched can of sweetcorn. "I think I'd rather be eating sandwiches."

After she says that, my stomach feels like a pit. That feeling when you're about to cry, everything scrunched up inside of me, smaller and smaller, as I try my best at hiding from the truth. The truth, that as much as I don't want to... I believe Carol. And, as much as I want to see the big bad wolf ready to eat me up all while I'm still alive, all I see when I look at the woman sitting beside me on this fridge is someone that's tired of the blood and gutter water.

I stand up, grabbing my stuff from the floor. Carol does too, seeming ready, as she straightens her jacket.

The wind smells humid. The day is still in the late morning.

"let's go back," I say.

Carol looks at me, and I expect her to ask why. I expect that she'll ask, and I expect I'll answer by telling her that Glenn is also the kind of person that prefers sandwiches. That Enid is clever, and she'll find her way back. That Abraham, Sasha, and Daryl will never stop fighting until they get back to us.

We don't say any of this, however, not with our voices. Carol just nods before we turn back for home.

A/N

Sorry for the wait on this one, felt like a Carol and Rhys chapter needed my full attention and a little extra work.

Next Time: Rhys and Carol return to Alexandria. Rick makes an effort to help the teens get ready for what's to come. Rhys get the full story.