Twice as Far: A Week Later, Part 3
Apologise for the delay. This chapter's a little bit longer if that's any consolation :)
-Mikey-
Rosita keeps striding ahead of Mikey. He jogs to keep up, only to fall behind again.
"Can you— hold up a bit, Ro?" he requests between heavy breaths.
"No," she tells him over her shoulder, not sounding close to tired. "Don't call me that either."
"Sorry, I'm just so used to Rhys saying it."
She shakes her head, keeping up her fast pace.
Mikey hops between the tracks as they move along the train line, trying to balance on the rusted rails with his arms out like wings.
"Why didn't Daryl want to take the tracks?" he eventually asks.
She doesn't answer, so Mikey goes on.
"I mean, you seemed to get why he didn't... so there must be a reason. Does he hate trains?"
Rosita glances back at him, slowing down for a second. Mikey jumps off the tracks, using the slow in her pace to catch up and walk beside her.
"We spent some time on the tracks before we got to Alexandria," Rosita grumbles as they walk together. "Not a good time."
"What happened?"
"Bad things."
Rosita sounds more irritated each time she answers.
"Like?" Mikey hums.
She stops and whips about to face him, her restless brown eyes heated.
"Daryl lost Maggie's sister. Then cannibals took us all hostage. Rhys was kidnapped and—" She manages to bite down on the words before they make it out.
Mikey dips his head. "Sorry... I— I didn't know that."
Rosita shakes her head at him as she starts walking again, staying at his speed this time.
"Rhys doesn't talk about it," she says.
"Why... what happened to him?"
She looks dire.
"I'm sure he'll tell you one day," she says.
They pass a nasty car crash off the side of the tracks that must have happened a long time ago. Three dusty vehicles rammed into each other's rear bumpers.
"Why would he tell me?" Mikey asks quietly.
"The same reason he told me— you're his friend." Rosita lets a small smile pass over to Mikey. "You're probably the best friend he has nowadays."
He snorts at her.
"I think Carl's probably got me beat. I mean, they've got bracelets and everything."
That makes her chuckle, and Mikey grins with pride.
Then she shrugs. "Dating and being best friends is a different thing."
"Is it?"
Rosita smirks, shaking her head. "It's not always different. But sometimes it needs to be. Sometimes you need someone that you can talk to without all the... extra. If you fight with your boyfriend or whatever, you need someone else to talk to. So yeah, it's a different thing."
Mikey looks at her with a strange glint in his eyes, pretty sure that's the most she's ever said to him in one go.
Rosita must notice because she waves a dismissive hand his way.
"Did it change him?" Mikey asks then. "After he got taken by whoever took him... was he different?"
"I didn't know him," Rosita tells Mikey through thin lips. "I met Rhys a few days after he got away from them." She looks down at the stones between the tracks, watching as they pass and crackle under her boots. "He was so different then to how he is now, though. When I met him, he could barely speak to anyone. Too scared to look in someone's eyes in case—" she trails off again like she doesn't want to reveal too much of something that doesn't belong to her. "Sasha told me once that you remind her of Rhys."
Mikey's eyes get a little wider. As if the idea that people talk about him when he's not there is fascinating to him. "Really?"
Rosita nods, sucking her teeth. "Before they lost their old home—"
"The Prison?" Mikey interrupts with a high voice, getting excited like he did the first time he heard that they used to live in an actual real prison.
"Yeah..." Rosita rolls her eyes at him.
Then she pulls a face. One that makes it look like she's only just realised how talkative she's being. Like she hates it. Or maybe it's just the thought of Sasha that put the scowl on her face. "Never mind."
Mikey's whole face drops. "No fair! Tell me."
Rosita composes a very dramatic sigh for him. "Sasha told me that the way he was at their prison— the person he was. You remind her of that."
"How?" Mikey sniffs, the light rain making him shiver.
Rosita's eyes unfocus a little as she hooks a thumb in her pocket. "Told me that he used to be the happiest person she'd ever met. Sort of hopeful, I guess. Said she didn't believe he'd ever experienced anything bad— like the world had given him a pass. Like nothing could make him sad."
"He seems happy to me," Mikey tells her. "Before the slaughterhouse, that is."
"He's good at hiding it now," Rosita says.
They reach a crossing where the road intercepts the tracks. A walker is stumbling from one to the other, hissing when it sees them.
"Got it," Rosita says, drawing her machete.
Mikey draws his own, sticking his tongue out between his teeth and saying, "I can do it."
Rosita raises a quizzical eyebrow. "Yeah?"
"Rhys isn't the only one that's changed," he tells her before stabbing his red-handled machete into the walker's rotten expression.
It drops to the floor, and Rosita gives an impressed nod in his direction.
A thought occurs to Mikey as he wipes his blade clean on a patch of grass.
"If you understand why Daryl didn't wanna take the tracks, why were you annoyed with him?"
Rosita looks back down the way they came.
"What happened, happened."
-Rhys's POV-
Eugene spends less than a minute with a hairpin jammed into the door's lock before it swings open. Abraham and I raise our rifles to nothing on the other side.
Eugene holds the hairpin up by his ear and wiggles it in his fingers at us. "Standard pin and tumbler. Tick-tick-click, easy peasy."
"This is the place?" I ask.
Eugene straightens his jacket a little before pocketing the hairpin.
"It is indeed," he says as he leads the way in.
We follow him in, and I gaze around the room with a growing curiosity. It's like a factory. Filled with dusty machinery and cluttered worktops dotted about the open space. In the middle of the room, there's something that looks like a drill with a pressure scale on its top. A rusty steel-plated caldron hangs from chains over a flameless furnace in one corner.
Eugene struts around the room, like a territorial peacock as he checks each one. His eyes are brimming with both care and enthusiasm. Abraham, on the other hand, watches on impatiently.
"You about ready to spill the pintos on what the hell it is we're doin' here?" he asks Eugene plainly.
"Yeah," Eugene mumbles under his breath, pushing the suspended caldron so it swings back and forth with several squeaks from its unoiled chains.
"Eugene..." Abraham stirs him from his head.
I look on a table beside me, scattered bullet jackets lying behind rags and bottles of chemicals.
Eugene finally stops his determined pacing. He turns to face both of us with an assured and rigid stare.
"We're going to manufacture bullets here," Eugene tells us.
I gasp a little, all the anticipation from Eugene's pace-based build up getting me riled.
Abraham stares around at all the equipment again with the newfound knowledge in mind.
"I've been chewin' the cud on this for a few days now," Eugene says boldly. "The Hilltop's dry. Our supply's finite. So not only are bullets vital for defence, but per the law of supply and demand, a full cartridge is now the coin of the land."
"Makin' bullets from scratch," Abraham says like he's just catching on.
"Spent casings, but the innards are all us," Eugene nods. "And by us, I mean me."
"Then we trade them with Hilltop for food. Keeping us safe, too," I add.
"That is what I just asserted, yes," Eugene nods.
"And you think you can build them here?" Abraham moves to touch one of the machines. "With just this?"
"Well, the digs will require a thorough scrubbing. We'll have to scare up a hella-ton of lead, but yes. I most definitely, almost certainly think I can do that here."
Abraham steps closer to Eugene. I'm not sure if he's going to punch him or kiss him. He does neither, grinning wide instead. "That, my friend, is some damn fine, genuine, outside-the-box thinking!"
"Fuck yeah, Eugene!" I cheer, offering him a high-five, which he takes stiffly. I groan when it strains my ribs. Eugene frowns at me.
"Where do we start?" Abe asks.
"Well," Eugene shrugs, "we should inform Rick. Talk with Olivia. See what types of ammo would be most valuable to produce—"
"I'm gonna hit pause," Abraham holds up a hand to Eugene's face, "so I can kill that thing behind you."
Eugene turns to look, and I see it too. A walker stumbles towards our conversation from behind some machinery towards the back of the room. I can barely see it, shrouded in darkness away from the room's limited windows.
"Want this one, Rhys?" Abraham asks me.
"All yours," I say, resting a hand on my holstered hammer and shrugging indifferently.
Abraham grins at me. "Much obliged."
He steps towards the corpse as it shuffles closer, but Eugene stops him.
"Pump your breaks, Red," Eugene says, pulling out his own machete. "I'm formally callin' dibs on this one." Then Eugene stares at me. "Dips is dibs."
I chuckle, and Abraham pouts without interjection.
"Well, be my guest," Abe speaks. "Get some."
The walker steps into the light, finally reaching us. Its head is strange and catches the sunlight, covered over in a helmet of melted metal plating.
Eugene brings his machete down on the metal, but it bounces off with a clang.
"Strike one," Abraham says.
The walker closes the distance, Eugene dropping his weapon and wrestling it by the shoulders, pushing it against the cauldron as it snaps inches from his face.
"Strike two," Abraham tells him.
Eugene reaches for a small piece of rebar on a table to his side, the walker slipping closer, forcing his hand back to wrangle it. Just as I consider stepping in, Abraham grabs the rebar for him and sticks it up through the walker's chin, its torso going limp in Eugene's arms.
"Why did you—?" Eugene pants. "I called dibs!"
He drops the body to the floor with a heavy thud and a cloud of dust that makes me sneeze.
Eugene sticks a finger to Abraham's face. "You had zero authority to—"
"To what?" Abraham interrupts. "Stop you from dying?"
"I had full control of the situation!"
"You'd have better luck pickin' up a turd by its clean end!" Abraham snorts.
"I'm going to allow you to apologise for saying that," Eugene hisses. "So, how about you do that right now?"
Abraham kicks the walker's corpse. "Timmy down there almost ate your face, dumbass."
"He just wanted to help, Eugene. It's okay that you needed it." I try my best at defusing, only seeming to stoke the flames growing beside the cold furnace.
"All due respect, screw you both," Eugene snaps.
"Beg your damn pardon?" Abraham shoots back.
"Dispatching walkers is well within my skillset, so screw the two of you for suggesting otherwise." Eugene kicks the walker too.
I start to feel bad for the bag of bones.
"I'm sorry," I say. "When I said you needed—"
Abraham interrupts me, jabbing Eugene in the chest. "Let me get something straight, all right? Using your cabeza, this whole DIY ammo thing? That is your damn skillset. Just like ghosting hostiles, both of the undead and living variety, is mine and Rhys'."
I don't know why it stings when he says that. I suppose after you kill so many walkers and people you get a full membership to that club. Only there are no hats given on entry like Carl and Rick's club.
"Okay," Eugene says, calmer. "Thank you for your protection. I most certainly needed it between here and Houston..."
Abraham seems to calm down, too, turning around and taking a few steps from the conversation.
Eugene folds his arms. "But your services are no longer required."
Abraham spins around, staring menacingly.
Eugene gulps. "The truth," he says. "Plain and honest. You've outlived your usefulness to me."
"Is that so?" Abraham asks, taken aback.
"Plain and honest," Eugene says again.
Abraham looks so stunned for such a short time. Then he replaces it with a smirk, dropping the rebar I didn't realise he still had with a clatter. He takes me by the arm, then marches us right past Eugene, reaching the exit when Eugene asks, "Where are you going?"
Abraham stops us. He turns.
"Home. Our services are no longer required. Find your own way back."
-Mikey-
Rosita sits with her back to a bollard by the tracks while Mikey paces the barren road. He doesn't stray too far despite no more walkers being in eyeshot. When Daryl and Denise finally catch up to them, Rosita clambers to her feet.
"About time," she says, throwing a cocky look Daryl's way.
He doesn't acknowledge her as he continues past. His eyes fixed on the small group of buildings ahead.
Denise stops at Mikey and Rosita, throwing her head back like she realises how this all looks. She's as out of breath as Mikey had been following Rosita.
"I didn't mean to pick him over you guys back there," she points back and forth between them all.
Mikey grins at the doctor. "No worries."
Rosita shakes her head, telling Denise she's holding her machete wrong. Denise takes that as 'no hard feelings,' and they all follow after Daryl.
"Who taught you?" Denise asks the open road after a few steps in silence.
"She did," Mikey throws a thumb Rosita's way.
Denise rolls her eyes at him. "I was asking Rosita, genius."
"Oh."
Rosita stares at Denise like she thought she was asking Mikey, too, like the question is far too personal for her.
"You know how to fight," Denise states, recognising the look given. "Sorry, I didn't mean to bring up—"
Rosita holds up a hand to make Denise fall silent, then says, "A lot of people taught me a lot of things. Years from now... he'll just be a name in a long list of names."
They finally make it where they're going. A weathered sign hangs above the door.
Edis_n's Apot_ecary an_ Boutique.
Below the sign, the doors and windows are bored from the inside. Mikey swallows as he stares at them. Thousands of bloody handprints are staining the outside.
"Looks like an army wanted to get in," Mikey says nervously.
Daryl batters his fist on the glass door several times— he listens —then he nods, clearly satisfied with whatever he heard, which Mikey guesses was nothing.
Daryl hands his shotgun to Rosita before pulling a crowbar out of his orange rucksack.
"Alright, me and Rosita are gonna do this," he tells Denise and Mikey.
He points to Denise. "You're gonna stay back, got it?"
Denise nods quickly.
Then Daryl points to Mikey. "You're gonna keep her safe, yeah?"
Mikey nods, too.
Daryl cracks the door open, and a foul stench pours out of the forgotten building— Mikey and Denise both take a step back as it overwhelms them. Daryl and Rosita don't react to it. The small bell above the door rings out as the two swarm through with their guns raised.
Mikey rocks himself back and forth on his heels in his dirty red converse, twisting the machete in his hand as he keeps his eyes on the darkness that just swallowed Daryl and Rosita whole.
Daryl calls out to them.
"Clear!"
Denise walks in confidently like she has something to prove, immediately gagging on the room's smell as it gets worse. Mikey manages to hold back any visible reactions to the room, used to it somewhat from his patrols, but never having experienced anything this terrible.
"We gonna find out what you had for breakfast?" Daryl asks Denise.
"Oatmeal," she tells them, shaking her head and swallowing. "Just so you know."
"Woah, me too," Mikey whispers.
The room is filled with tat. The kind that would have been useless before the world ended. Mikey peers into glass display cabinets, amusing himself with the fake antiques, golden goblets, and glass decanters. Denise looks at a rack of eyewear— all of them are tagged with a range of prescriptions. Rosita and Daryl keep moving through the maze of cabinets until they reach a metal shutter, the word pharmacy barely readable above it, the letters rotted into the wall. Denise and Mikey both follow them, skipping by a pile of pictures of a little boy that Mikey finds.
"You want me to hold your bags, or...?" Denise trails off when the others ignore her. "Yeah."
"Hey," Mikey nudges Denise's arm while the other two fiddle with the lock on the pharmacy door. "What was your brother's name? Dennis, right?" He whispers.
Denise nods at him, biting her fingernails as the shutter makes scary noises while Rosita and Daryl try to get it open. "Why?"
"Hold on," Mikey says with a bold smile.
He walks over to a revolving display rack filled with little keychains, coming back with one after searching it with a few spins. Mikey hands it to her.
She smiles down at her brother's name in her fingers, pocketing it when Daryl finally gets the shutter up. Behind it lies a goldmine of medicine, every shelf full.
Denise lifts her flashlight over them.
"If you set them on the counter, I can tell you which—" she starts.
"Nah, we're gonna take it all," Daryl grunts as he tosses his orange pack over the counter and climbs over after it.
Denise frowns at them. "Are you sure? Because—"
"It's fine," Rosita smiles politely, sliding herself over the counter to join Daryl.
Denise sinks into her shoes a little.
Daryl and Rosita start emptying the contents of shelves into their bags while Denise watches. Mikey, keeping his eyes on the front door.
Then there's a small thud.
They all pause, listening.
Another thud.
It's coming from the storage door at the back of the room.
The thudding continues. Faint and gentle.
"It's just one," Daryl peers over the counter. "It sounds like it's stuck."
As Daryl and Rosita disappear behind shelves, Mikey goes back to watching the door. He hears Denise moving around behind him, and when he turns to look, she has her hand on the storage room door.
"What are you doing?" Mikey asks quietly and nervously, moving across the room to join her.
"It's just one, and it's stuck," she tells him. "You heard Daryl."
Mikey pauses, glancing at the door. "Safer to leave it."
Denise dismisses him, pulling out her machete and twisting on the handle. The door creaks open, and like with the last door, the smell gets so much worse.
Mikey follows her in, squinting through the dark, waiting for Denise to point her flashlight. He slides on something, catching himself on the doorframe. When Denise illuminates the room with her flashlight, Mikey sees what he slipped on. A pile of children's books, a trail of them leading to a squalid crib. The light continues past it, spilling along the moulding wall of peeling paint. Something hisses at them from the floor, and they both gasp when they see it. A woman, missing her bottom jaw. She looks like she's been dead for years. Her eyes rotted out, and her skin waterlogged from the damp. There's a rotten cast on her boney leg. They see the word hush written on the wall above her, scratched into the concrete with something sharp. The beam of Denise's flashlight finally falls on a sink beside them, a pool of blood... and a baby's shoe floating on the surface.
Mikey's stomach fails him this time as he spews vomit across the floor. Denise stumbles back and out, disappearing into the other room.
A smash lets out as she knocks over a shelf of those crystal decanters.
"What the hell are you doing?" Rosita glares over the counter. At the same time, Mikey re-emerges from the storage room, wiping his mouth against his shoulder and panting.
"Nothing," Denise says to her before walking out.
Mikey stays next to the storage room for a long time in a quiet haze. Only when Rosita and Daryl are almost done scavenging does he move. He moves back into the storage room, stepping around the puddle of vomit and apologising to the hissing corpse before hitting it with his machete.
Mikey finds Denise outside, crying with her back against the boutique wall. Her brother's name is in her palm.
Denise wipes her eyes quickly when Mikey sits beside her, realising she doesn't have to bother hiding her tears when she sees that she's not the only one crying.
"What do you think happened?" Denise asks.
Mikey sniffs. "They were probably trapped by a lot of them," he points to the bloody handprints behind their head that they saw on the way in. "Her leg was broken... she couldn't get help. Those pictures... the shoe..." He pauses. "The sink." Mikey stops realising they both know what sick hell was unleashed in that storage room.
"Did you kill her?" Denise asks, noticing the blood still on his machete.
"Yeah," Mikey swallows, nodding slowly. "She's with her son now."
"My brother would have done it," Denise tells Mikey, looking down at the name tag that she keeps flipping in her hand. "He was brave."
"I think you're brave," Mikey smiles weakly.
Denise nods, smirking back at him. "I think you're funny."
-Rhys' POV-
We've been standing behind a dumpster outside the workshop for twenty minutes now. Getting impatient, I ask Abraham a question.
"So we're not letting him find his own way back?"
"No," he shrugs like it's obvious. "I ain't lettin' him die if he can whip up bullets. We'll tail him homeward, make sure he doesn't. Save him when he needs saving."
"If he needs saving," I say.
"When needs saving," Abraham repeats.
I give up trying to change his mind at the perfect time because the door to Eugene's bullet factory opens, and the man himself walks out.
Eugene glances around nervously.
I swear at Abraham when he puts his hand on the back of my head and roughly ducks me down behind the dumpster.
Eugene, seemingly oblivious to our presence, walks in the opposite direction of us, down the alley and towards Alexandria.
We follow him, ducking behind cars and keeping a loose distance, Abraham's military training showing when he keeps telling me to stay frosty.
We lose visual after Eugene starts jogging to avoid a group of walkers that catch wind of him. When he puts enough distance, we're forced to deal with them to follow him.
"See?" Abraham says as he stomps the skull of the last walker against the curb.
"Probably smart not to kill six walkers on his own," I sigh.
"That a new piece?" Abraham notes my handgun.
"It was Paula's."
"Who's Paula?"
"The woman I fed to walkers back at the slaughterhouse."
"Why keeps her piece? Your old one not cutting the cheesecake?"
"Do we have to talk?"
Abraham stares at me with the same eyes he'd given Eugene back at the workshop. The kind of eyes that a parent gives when their kid backchats one too many times on a road trip.
"What?" I ask him.
"You got a problem with me?" he asks.
I shrug at him.
"Tell me."
I try walking past him, but he puts a large hand against my chest and holds me in place with ease.
He raises an eyebrow. "Say it straight, young Rhys."
I throw my arms up in a loss of options. "What do you want me to say?"
"Whatever's tuggin' on your ticker," he growls.
I laugh at him, shaking my head.
He switches eyebrows.
"Fine," I say. "I think this is all stupidly ironic, that's all."
"How so?" Abraham folds his arms and switches back to the original eyebrow again, cocking it in curiosity.
"You're mad at Eugene for tossing you aside because he doesn't need you anymore," I sigh. "You're angry because he dumped you."
Abraham keeps watching me like he's still waiting for the irony.
"Isn't that exactly what you did to Rosita?" I chuckle, but not in a funny way. In an honest way. And honestly, I can feel anger welling inside me now.
"Excuse me?" Abraham thunders under his moustache.
"I mean, you told Rosita that you didn't need her anymore... that you moved on!" I shout at him, trying to get it through his head. "Have you realised that's what Eugene did back there?"
Abraham frowns at me.
"You got dumped by him, dude," I huff, all worked up. "You kinda deserved it."
"You mad I'm with your sanctioned sister now?"
I don't bother correcting him on the sister point anymore.
"I'm not mad that you're with Sasha. I don't give a shit who you're with!" I yell at him, anger gone, frustration taking over. "If she's happy with you and you want to be with her, then fine, that's what you should do."
"So why are you mad?"
"Because you're not with her. And you were a dick to Rosita!" I take a second to calm down, shaking my head at him. "You didn't have to be such an asshole about it."
Abraham grimaces at me. Then he starts chuckling. I roll my eyes by the time he reaches a full-blown laugh.
"What?" I glare at him.
He holds up his hands in defeat. "Nothing, pal. Suppose I'm just thinking that what you said just now wasn't all about me."
"Huh?"
Abraham shakes his head, chuckling. Then he's looking at my gun again, so I hand it to him to check out.
He looks at the funny carving on the grip.
"That some kinda logo?" he asks, running his thumb over it.
I shrug. "It was already on there. Looks like a bat or something to me, with a snake around it, maybe?"
Abraham shakes his head, handing the gun back and walking past me and after Eugene. I think about what he means as we walk. But that's cut short. Angry voices are down the road ahead. When we see the angry voices, they have Eugene at gunpoint.
A/N
The 'Dips is dibs' line was a little call back to chapter 44 and chapter 46... well, I guess that was actually a call forward to this moment... since Eugene actually says it in the show here... right? Sigh. This is hard. I just remember being really excited when I wrote that, think, aw, Eugene's totally gonna be thinking back to this when he says it in the bullet factory!' ... Was it worth it? Maybe.
Thanks for reading.