"Why did you lie?"

The question has been on Mikey's mind for the last ten minutes of fast-paced trekking through thick woodland. He knows that Rosita made the decision to let him come— he's just not getting why.

"You wanted to come," Rosita tells him plainly, keeping her eyes to the woods for Saviors or walkers, her finger making circles on her rifle's trigger guard.

"So you lied?" Mikey whispers it like some big secret, maybe because it is to him. "You want me to be out here?"

"I don't care," she says, shrugging her shoulders and sounding apathetic about the whole thing. "You were there when Denise died. You should have the choice to be here now."

Mikey's tongue teeters on thanking her, but Glenn falls back to them, weaving between a few trees. The moment he's level with them, Rosita speeds up, taking point with Michonne.

"Where's your gun?" Glenn asks Mikey, looking him up and down a few times.

"I don't have one," Mikey tells him, only just realising himself. "We left so quickly..."

Glenn sighs, reaching under his heavy brown jacket and unclasping the pistol holster on his chest. He draws his polished silver colt and drops it into Mikey's hands.

Mikey struggles with it at first, the gun weighty and too big for him, but he says thank you and stuffs it into the back of his belt.

"Why don't you carry at home?" Glenn asks.

Mikey squints up at him, creasing his brow. "Dunno, really. I killed my best friend with one."

Glenn nods, seeming to get it.

"Do you worry when you're out here?" Mikey asks out of the blue.

"About?"

"Walkers. People. Stuff."

"We need to be out here," Glenn tells him, seemingly ducking the question. "Daryl needs us."

"What if Rosita's right?" Mikey asks.

"She's not wrong," Glenn says, surprising Mikey a little. "She just also happens to be angry. Being angry makes you rash."

"Why aren't you angry?" Mikey looks at him, a little angry himself. "They killed Denise... they almost killed the rest of us..."

Glenn raises an eyebrow. "You think I'm not angry?"

"You don't sound angry," Mikey points out.

"I'm furious," Glenn tells him in the calmest voice. But he still somehow sounds like a thunderstorm brewing on the horizon. "I want to kill all of them for what happened. Rhys and Maggie— they're what I have to protect, man. But If I'm rash and let my anger take over, it could end up hurting them."

Mikey watches Glenn's eyes for even a hint of the rage he's talking about.

"What happened at the slaughterhouse— Maggie almost losing the baby... Rhys almost getting beaten to death." Glenn's grip tightens on his rifle, but his eyes stay calm. "I want the Saviors dead. We just have to do it the right way."

Mikey sees a path out of this conversation and takes it for both of them.

"Did you and Maggie adopt Rhys?"

Glenn snorts at him, the word adoption seeming as preposterous as some fantastical magic spell that puts chow on the table.

"You know what I mean," Mikey scowls at him a little, not loving being laughed at. "You three are like a family."

Glenn nods and thinks about this, looking like he's never really thought about it until now.

"We never filled out any forms," Glenn finally says. "But when our baby is born, I'll be happy to know that he's got a big brother like Rhys looking out for him."

"Him?" Mikey asks.

"I've got a feeling," Glenn says with a smirk on his face.

Michonne lets off a short whistle at them all. Everyone stops. Mikey's hand reaches for the grip of Glenn's handgun behind him.

"What is it?" Rosita asks, looking at an enormous field they've stumbled upon, long grass hiding anything that could be within.

"Movement," Michonne hisses.

"Is it Daryl?" Mikey asks.

"Saviors?" Glenn whispers.

Michonne keeps staring into the field, none of the others seeing what she saw.

Rosita takes one step forward, and a crossbow bolt strikes the tree beside her head.

Daryl rustles through the grass into view, glaring at them all.

Rosita glares right back, yanking the bolt from the tree and marching up to the archer.

"Watch the hell out, asshole," she growls at him.

"Yeah, I did," Daryl barks, snatching the bolt from her. "You shouldn't have come!"

"You shouldn't have let!" Michonne cuts back at him as he starts walking away from all of them.

Daryl glances over his shoulder, and seeing how they're all looking at him makes him stop.

"Before we got back to kill that horde, I got split off from Sasha and Abraham," Daryl fires back at them all. "Dwight was out there in the woods, hiding from the Saviors in some burnt out forest with two girls, and he put a damn gun to my head. Tied me up!" Daryl shakes his head before walking away again and grumbling to himself. "I even tried to help him."

"So you think it's your fault?" Glenn yells, getting Daryl to turn back again.

"Yeah, I know it is," Daryl shouts. "I'm gonna go do what I should've done before."

"What, for Denise?" Glenn asks, speaking to Daryl's winged back when he tries walking away again. "She's gone, man. You're doing this for you."

When Daryl spins back to face them for the final time, Mikey could swear he saw a tear, but he doesn't have time to take it in.

"Man, I don't give a shit," Daryl shakes his head, going to leave.

"Daryl..." Glenn catches up to Daryl, getting in front of him this time. "We need to get back there and figure this out from home. Our home."

Daryl prowls up and down in front of Glenn like a wild animal, searching him with eyes both narrowed and full of emotions he can't express.

"We need you," Glenn goes on, his voice breaking. "And everyone back there needs us right now."

Michonne puts a hand on Mikey's shoulder as she passes him and puts herself in front of Daryl, too. "We'll square it," she tells him. "I will. I promise you. Just come back."

Daryl looks at them all, and when Mikey sees his eyes, he knows what Daryl's answer will be before he says it.

"I can't."

"Daryl..." Glenn tries.

"Man, I can't!"

Then after a moment's hesitation where she's glancing at Mikey with her mouth slightly agape, Rosita follows Daryl into the woods, telling the others, "I can't either."

Michonne knocks into Mikey's shoulder with her own as the three left behind make their way back to the truck, Glenn marching ahead of the other two with a looming atmosphere of outrage.

"Why didn't you go with them?"

Michonne's asking Mikey the same question he's been asking himself for the last five minutes.

When he doesn't answer, she keeps speaking.

"You must be pissed... I mean, you were there. You saw what happened." Michonne shrugs. She says it like she's laying out the facts, like she's only picking up on what he's putting down. Mikey remembers Carl telling him Michonne was a lawyer before all this. "Suppose I thought you'd want payback."

"I feel bad for not going," Mikey tells her. "I wish I did, but I couldn't."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want the Saviors dead."

"They deserve it."

"I know."

They killed Denise."

"I know."

"Then why?"

"Because," Mikey looks up at her, "I don't want them dead. I don't know why. I just think we shouldn't kill each other."

Michonne smiles at him a little. Just a small crease at the corner of her mouth. Then it's gone.

"You're just like your mom," she tells him.

"The thing is," Glenn calls over his shoulder to the two of them, "those men could be back in Alexandria right now."

"If they are, they're dead," Michonne tells him like it's reassuring, Mikey finding it scary.

"I hope not. We need them alive," Glenn tells her. Mikey double-takes at him, confused after all he said before. "We need to find out more."

"Yeah, we do," Michonne agrees, nodding a little. But something about the way she's looking at him gives Mikey the impression that she doesn't fully agree.

They come across a small stream. Glenn stops at its edge, letting Mikey and Michonne catch up. The surface is calm. Twigs and crispy leaves float along it.

"It's hard," Glenn says, looking over the shallow water like it might agree, like it might do anything but just be still. Then he glances at Mikey. "You don't want to kill them?"

Mikey looks down at the leaves, burying his feet in them, ashamed of the way he feels. He shakes his head. "I wish I did."

Glenn chews on his bottom lip. He looks like he disagrees. "It's good," he says.

"It's easier for you guys," Mikey tells them, still keeping his eyes to the ground.

"Us guys?" Michonne tilts her head, not following.

"You two— and everyone that showed up at the gate with you that day. Your group."

"We just got stuck with each other." Glenn sounds tired when he says it, ready to dive under the stream and never surface. "We were lucky," he says, glancing Michonne's way. "We figured it all out together. It felt like we did. After everything, we did."

Michonne's nodding along. Mikey can tell that they're thinking of Daryl. Thinking of how they're not figuring it out together anymore.

Glenn finally turns from the waterfront with a half-cocked smile. "The world's not what we thought it was. Alexandria, Hilltop— we've all got to work together, figure it out together." He watches Mikey until he looks up from his feet. "You're part of that group now," he tells him. "And I'm proud of you for not wanting to kill the Saviors."

Mikey looks away very quickly, pressing his wrists against his eyes tightly, stopping anything from getting out. He realises, at this moment, that this is the first time he's heard that since the fall happened. The first time someone's been proud of him since the world fell apart.

But then...

...Then there's a whistle.

Numerous haunting whistles echo from the trees.

Glenn points his rifle in every direction, stopping when a man steps from behind a tree with his gun raised.

Another stranger appears behind them. Mikey points the silver pistol that Glenn gave him with shaky hands.

More and more appear. Michonne's hand jumps to her sword, but they've lost before she can draw.

Whistling surrounds them. Glenn's the first to lower his gun.

A familiar face emerges. One that Mikey could never forget. Dwight's half scorched features step out from behind brown bark only a few feet away. His gun raised.

Dwight sees Mikey, recognition sparking in his droopy eyes. "Hi," he croaks.

A rag is shoved into Mikey's mouth, causing him to retch when the rough texture drags on his tongue. Glenn's pistol is ripped from his hands. Glenn and Michonne aren't treated any better. The dozens of Saviors roughly secure their hands behind their backs with rope, marching them through the trees at gunpoint.

At one point, a Savior gets too close to Michonne, sneering in her face and running a hand along her arm, only to stumble back with blood spurting from his nose after she swiftly cracks her forehead into his face.

"Fucking bitch!" he yells, cradling his nose, blood smeared across his face.

"Hey," Dwight snaps at the creep. "Keep your damn voice down."

"The damn ninja sword bitch broke my nose," he keeps whining. Michonne, not backing down when he steps toward her. Glenn tries to get involved but is pushed back to stand with Mikey, a gun barrel pressed to his chest.

Dwight glances at Michonne, his eyes flickering between her and the creep. "Well," he finally smirks, "maybe if you kept it in your pants until we got home, you wouldn't get your nose broken?"

The Savior grumbles through his bloody hands.

"hmphd somphhing n yr nse," Michonne tries to speak through the gag.

"What was that, darlin'?" Dwight asks, putting a hand to his ear mockingly.

She glares at him, so Dwight removes her gag.

"I said," Michonne spits the taste of the rag onto the floor, staring at the Savior she attacked, "you had something on your nose."

"That's funny," Dwight grins, pointing a gun at Mikey's brow, who has tears spilling from his eyes now. "But if you attack one of us again." He mimics firing the handgun, making Mikey yelp through his gag. "Bang."

Michonne keeps quiet after that, the gag going back in as the Saviors get ready to keep moving. But Dwight holds up his hand. "Here's good." He glances around. "Nice and open. Easy to find." He pushes long strands of blonde hair away from his burnt cheek, pointing to one of his men. "Get a fire goin', nice and big. Me and a few of the others will hide out over there."

Mikey and the others are sitting in the dirt, a fire roaring beside them, making the already hot day that much more uncomfortable.

They have to watch as Dwight hides behind a tree, setting up the same ambush they walked into minutes ago.

They watch as Daryl and Rosita find them.

Glenn tries shouting.

The Saviors have guns to their heads too fast.

Rosita lowers her rifle.

Dwight blows a hole in Daryl's shoulder.

"You'll be alright."

A/N

The chapter title for this one was a nod to my favourite Stevie Wonder song by the same name. Mikey also says it in the chapter of course, but I feel like that song kinda matches Mikey's headspace a little, what with everything changing right now.

Also, this was Mikey's first-ever stand-alone chapter! Big round of applause for my boy, please.

Sorry for the delay on this one. Get excited for next chapter because it's a Carol and Rhys special! There will be angst, there will be stubborn bleeding out, there will be two people that hate talking to each other trapped in a room talking to each other! All good things! The chapter shall be out on Monday as normal.

:)