Outside the Palace, I'm tackled to the floor in a cloud of dust by someone half my size.
Everyone else jumps, reaching for weapons they don't have.
"Jesus Christ, Henry!" I laugh, flat on my back and pretty sure a flower bed just saved my head from a concussing meeting with the ground.
He wraps his arms around my middle when I sit up and yells at me for leaving.
"Sorry," I say. "It kinda just happened."
"Dickhead," he mutters, pulling away and punching me in the ribs.
"Ben will totally roast you if he hears you swear," I laugh, still a little winded."
We attend the sup as the King always calls it.
It's the worst. Kingdomers everywhere are staring at me like I never told them I was an alien with a whole other planet of people hidden up my sleeve.
I guess I didn't.
Everyone from back home manages to crowd onto one table in the mess hall, but only just.
"Sorry, dude-aruni," Tara says up at me as she takes the last spot between Carl and Michonne. "No space."
"Whatever," I sigh, rolling my eyes at her and taking my tray over to where Benjamin, Jenny, Teo, and Henry are all sitting at our usual table by the door.
Ben stands and takes a deep and theatrical bow as I sit down across from him. Jenny punches his arm. "Quit it," she hisses. Ben drops back into his seat, rubbing his bicep.
"What was that about?" I ask, confused.
Ben has the biggest grin as he looks across the table at me. "Just didn't realise we were entertaining royalty from another kingdom in my humble apartment this whole time."
I squint at him. "What are you talking about?"
"Carl is Rick's son, right?" Benjamin asks. The other two look in different directions, beyond embarrassed. I remain confused. Henry's just prodding at his vegetables. "Rick's the leader..." Ben gives me a face like I should be catching on. "And you're dating his son, which makes you part of the royal family in Alexia."
"Alexandria," I correct him, my eyes rolling to the back of my head. "And no. I mean— what? That doesn't even make sense. Alexandria hasn't got the whole King and Queen thing going for it. Carl's not a prince."
"Hey, we don't have a queen either," Teo tells me.
"I mean," Jenny wiggles her eyebrows as she bites a piece of jerky off her fork, "the King does visit Carol a lot nowadays."
I snort at her. "Right..." Then I frown. "How is she?"
"She's good," Benjamin nods. "Morgan and Ezekiel go to see her a lot."
"A lottttt..." Jenny does her eyebrow wiggle again.
Suddenly Carl sits down next to me with his tray.
"Hi," he says rather firmly, smiling at everyone.
"Hey." "Hi." "Sup." "Hey."
Carl looks a little overwhelmed, despite being the one to come over here.
"Guys, this is—"
"Carl!" Ben yips, giving me these stupidly wide eyes that swim with brotherly pride. I sometimes wonder if maybe, just maybe, he could be my older brother, and we were separated at birth. Then I remember we were born if different countries — and he's as blonde as blonde gets. "Pleasure to meet you."
Jenny chuckles, stabbing a carrot to death on her plate before eating it. "Forgive Benjamin... he thinks he's funny."
"I am funny," Ben scowls at her.
"And I'm Teo," Mateo says, extending a hand that Carl shakes.
"Right..." Carl nods. "Rhys told me about you."
"He did, did he?" Teo tilts his head in interest.
I decide that this is actually the worst. This, right here. This is hell, and I'm cursed to bathe in its flames.
Jenny snorts into her water.
"How's Downy?" Benjamin saves me.
"Good," I squark at the chance to jump topics. "He. Is. Good! In a stable back home and very well."
"Well," Ben nods enthusiastically, "that's... good."
Carl and Mateo are still staring at each other, despite mine and Benjamin's best efforts to change the subject. Jenny and Henry are just watching. Jenny's amused. Henry just looks confused, golden eyebrows knitted together as he tries to work out why everyone's being weird.
"So..." Jenny finally speaks up, "Carl, the three of us are having a pit fire tonight. You and Rhys wanna join?"
"Yes!" Teo claps to the idea. "I would like to see if you can hold your drink."
"Sounds good," Carl nods, cool as a cucumber.
"We could go see a movie instead," I suggest, really not keen for them to get drunk together. "Or—"
I can't think of anything else. I shoot Ben a desperate plea for help with my eyes.
"Or—" Ben thinks. "We could... y'know... do... erm, something else?"
Great one, Benjamin.
Carl shrugs. "Fire sounds good."
After lunch, Jerry shows everyone where we can sleep for the night. Benjamin tells me I can have my old room back and I politely decline.
The room we're given is at the end of a long hallway. It's giant and feels more like a small theatre with the seats taken out, with a stage and gilded pillars along each wall. The windows are stained glass, one of them a bright orange tiger lit by the falling sun. Cots and sleeping bags have been set up around the hall, and it reminds me of our first night in Alexandria.
While everyone settles in with sleeping bags that Jerry left, I wander into the hallway outside and catch Tara on her way out of the bathroom.
"Hey," she smiles, attempting to grab at me for what I can only assume to be a noogie.
I dodge her.
She laughs.
Then her face falls a little.
"I'm sorry about Denise," I tell her, rubbing my shoulder and grimacing at how obvious that sounds.
"Yeah," she nods. "You were there, right?"
"I was."
"The guy that did it..."
"Dwight," I say.
"Dwight."
Tara's voice goes dark and inky. Her words, churned into a stew of anger and disgust.
"We'll get him," I tell her.
I don't think she hears me.
"Mikey told me she went out fighting," she says, staring at an Ezekiel quote on the wall behind me. "Said she went out to get supplies."
I nod.
"We'll get them," Tara says. "We'll kill them all."
"Yeah," I breathe out.
"But right now, we need to be smart."
"We will be."
She pats my shoulder.
"Where's Heath?" I ask when I remember to.
"He didn't make it back from our run," she says, looking guilty. "He's not dead... I think. He's just gone."
"I'm glad you're back," I tell her.
"Me too."
When it gets dark, Carl and I show up at the same fire pit where Teo kissed me.
I spend the whole walk over considering whether I should jump into the fire head first or feet first.
On the one hand— feet first will hurt less.
On the other hand— head first will probably kill me quicker.
"Hey, you two!" Benjamin brings me out of my trance when we arrive in garden vibrant fruits and flowers.
I find myself gripping onto Carl's hand for dear life.
We sit on a bench by the fire. Teo is sitting opposite us, reading some book I can't make out the cover of in the dark while he snacks on a piece of bread smothered in jam. Jenny and Ben are joined at the hip on a bench under an apple tree a few paces from us.
"So..." Carl hums after a long silence that everyone but us seems comfortable in. "What do you guys do for fun around here?"
Jenny gives a mischievous grin, pulling back the blanket over her leg, and revealing a full bottle of tequila.
"We drink," she declares.
"Then she'll ask you very invasive and personal questions," Ben warns him.
She scowls at him. "Will not."
Teo chuckles, setting his book beside the fire and reaching for the bottle. In the light, I can make out the cover now. The ghost factory.
It doesn't take long until the bottle is well below its halfway point. Teo and Benjamin argue for awhile whether it's half empty or half full before they forget it all and just start singing shanty songs with Carl. All three of them stand by the fire, arm in arm, belting something about a drunken sailor as they sway back and forth. I want to ask Carl how he even knows the words, but Jenny appears from nowhere and drops down beside me on my bench. She throws the blanket she dragged over across our legs before offering me the bottle.
"I'm good, thank you," I say, hiding a hiccup in my palm.
She squints at me long and hard before taking a swig herself.
"Why?"
"Because the stars are starting to look blurry," I laugh, trying to catch one of the twinkling lights, disappointed when I check my hand and find it empty of hiccups or stardust.
"Not the booze," Jenny smiles at me goofily. "Why are you staring at the sky?"
I frown, not sure why there ever needs to be a reason to look at the stars. "It's pretty."
"No," she disagrees insistently, her eyes wide. "There's something else."
"She's not wrong!" Carl shouts at me. I forget he can be a loud drunk. "Rhys, you always watch the sky!"
The other three join us now. All five of us squished onto the bench. Carl attempts to get the bottle from Jenny, but I see his a mile off and grab it, passing it down the line the opposite way until it reaches Ben at the far end.
Carl pouts at me, pointing his nose to the sky now.
"You've had enough," I laugh.
"You've had enough," he grumbles, folding his arms, not letting the pout disappear until he gets distracted by a firefly that land on his freckled nose.
"So..." Teo says then, woozily. "Tell us, Rhys... why are you in love with the sky?"
Everyone is waiting for my answer.
I shrug.
They all boo me.
"I don't know!" I shrink into Jenny's blanket until it brushes my chin. "I suppose I find it comforting or something."
"I think it's scary," Jenny says, blowing air out her cheeks. "I mean... walkers? Sure, they're scary. But Imagine if a meteorite hit us right now. Poof. We'd all be pancakes."
"It would be less of a poof and more like a crunch," Ben tells her.
"Or Splat!" Carl adds.
"Yeah," Ben nods, pointing down the line at him. "Definitely a splat."
"Whatever," Jenny snorts, waving her arms out in front of her for no apparent reason. "We'd still be pancakes."
"I like pancakes," Teo shrugs, beckoning for the bottle to be passed up the line.
Carl pushes an open palm roughly against my face to stop me when I try to block him from getting a sip as the bottle passes him.
"Do you think it's because God might be up there?" Carl asks me when I finally shove his hand away.
"You believe in the big guy?" Jenny asks me.
I think for a while before answering that. The truth is, I don't know. I guess I did once... and I suppose I don't think about it very often, so it's hard to say.
"He doesn't anymore," Carl answers for me.
He smiles at me, and I smile at his face. I smile at how every crease and freckle still knows me.
"If you could have one wish from God... what would it be?" Ben suddenly asks. His voice gets all nasally because he's looking at the sky now, too. We all are.
Teo barks a laugh. "What is he a genie now?"
"Okay, it doesn't have to be him then," Ben groans. "Whoever you like."
I think hard about Ben's question.
There are so many things.
For the Saviors to not exist.
For Glenn and Abraham to be alive.
For my mom and dad to be here, so I could show them what my new family looks like.
"Pancakes," Carl says finally. Nodding like he's finalised the wish.
Stamped and posted.
"Yeah," I grin. "Definitely pancakes."