-Carl's POV-
The gate opens for Dad, Rosita, Tara, and me.
"Lose the car?" Tobin asks as we all walk in and the gate rattles shut behind us.
"It's somewhere safe," Dad tells him.
"You didn't find anything?"
"No. Listen, we need to get everyone ready. The Sav—"
Dad's cut off by the rumbling of a motorcycle coming down the road outside. The gate opens again, and a Savior convoy rolls in. They park by the solar panels, and Simon hops out of one of their trucks. His arms are open wide, and he's grinning.
"Rick! Hello." He looks at all of us. "And, hello again."
I find myself in a staring competition with one of Simon's henchmen.
"We thought it'd be longer," Dad says, playing dumb.
"Do you think we're here for a tribute?" Simon asks, strolling closer. "Do you?"
"Is there another reason?"
"There is. We're here for Daryl."
"Negan took Daryl."
Simon bends his knees on the spot, squatting and pointing at me. "Oh, but then your son showed up... Daryl went missing. Might those two things be connected?"
"They're not," Dad says. "We didn't know he was gone 'till right now."
"Then this should be easy," Simon says, his whole face becoming a toothy grin doing its best to threaten us while somehow also being filled with more joy than I think I've ever felt.
"Now..." Simon calls out as he looks around at us all. "Everyone find a buddy. Gonna have to follow us around. If he's here, we really need you all to see him die."
Simon walks past me, flicking my hat up like he had in the clearing.
They go through every house — under them, too. Every room and every closet. They break every vase and check behind every shelf. Luckily, since the last offering, I've hidden the last of Rhys' stuff at the gazebo, which they don't seem to find.
When we reach the pantry, it's empty. Not how we left it.
Simon whistles at it.
The rest of us try not to look shocked.
"Wow!" Simon walks down the aisle of empty shelves, running his hands through unclaimed space. "These are some empty shelving units. You guys have a barbecue or something and not invite us?"
No one answers. Aaron, Tobin, and Eric share looks.
"Seriously!" Simon barks. "This is sad. Hope you're not trying to hide stuff from us... 'cause that generally doesn't go over very well."
"We have a lot of people," Aaron says with a tight-lipped smile. "It's getting harder to find stuff, and our focus lately has been on finding things that Negan might want. We're still adjusting to the new system."
"We were gonna scavenge more today," Dad says. "If you just wait, we'll... bring something back. We'll find more."
"Aww," Simon pouts. "Relax! I'm not here for a pick-up. Good thing. But that day is coming, so you best do whatever you need to. Did deep. Go the extra mile. Take some risks!"
He looks around then.
"Speaking of the extra mile... where's that fine lady with the sword and dreads?" He grins. "That deer she got for us last time was just fantastic... I'm a real cook at heart, and where we hang our hats doesn't have much in the way of forests, so it was a treat!"
"She's out," Dad tells him. "With the food situation how it is, she's hunting again."
Simon steps closer. "Not with a gun, I hope."
"A bow," Dad says.
Simon looks to the ceiling and laughs. "What a woman."
The Saviors find nothing, so they leave.
"My apologies for leaving the place a bit of a mess," Simon tells Dad as the trucks start moving out, "but we got a litany of other shit to attend to. So do you, I guess. Tick-tock. Chop-chop."
Simon climbs into his dirty black pick-up truck, smoke billowing out an exhaust pipe on the roof.
"Oh! And, Rick... if Daryl does turn up here two days from now, two months from now... hell, two years from now... just know there's no statute of limitations on this. Keep that hatchet hand. You're gonna need it if he turns up with you people. And it won't turn out the way it did for your boy."
Hanging out the window, he slaps the door with his palm, and the truck takes off.
Tobin pulls the gate shut.
"What happened to the pantry?" Dad spins around to face us.
"We don't know," Aaron says. "And we need to talk about Gabriel."
"Where is he?"
"He was on watch the night you all went to scavenge," Tobin answers. "I was supposed to take over for him in the morning. He wasn't at his post."
My stomach turns over.
"Pantry was cleared out, and a car was gone," Aaron says.
"No one's seen him since," Eric says.
Rosita scoffs. "That son of a bitch. He stole our shit and ran."
Tobin grimaces. "That's what it looks like."
"I don't want to believe it," I say.
"I don't believe it," Dad barks. "That's not Gabriel. He wouldn't do that to us."
"I thought he changed, too," Rosita hisses, folding her arms, "but it can't be anything else."
"Yes, it can," dad argues, walking away before anyone else can speak.
-Rhys' POV-
The trees around the car are so tall that I get dizzy trying to find the tops.
Michonne's checking all the explosives are okay in the trunk. After storing Rick and Carl's guns in the glove compartment, I lie on the car's roof.
The forest clearing we've parked in is surrounded by cover. We can see the road, but the road can't see us. The Saviors drove into Alexandria a moment ago, so we're waiting.
A walker stumbles out into the open, hissing at us. Michonne reaches for her sword.
"Got it," I call, reaching down through the sunroof and grabbing my bow and an arrow. I Stand up on the roof and knock an arrow along my bowstring.
Fwoosh.
The walker falls to the floor in an explosion of dirt and leaves.
Michonne whistles, impressed. She walks around the side of the car. "You seem different," she tells me, looking gently up towards me as I sit, my legs hanging off the roof and against the passenger door.
"How?"
"Happier," she says.
I laugh.
"What?"
"Nothing," I shake my head. "Mikey said that, too. And Carl said he thinks I'm eating more."
"So, are you and Carl okay now?"
I nod. "I think so."
It's strange. I've technically known Michonne the longest out of everyone here, but for some reason we don't talk like it.
"He told me about Enid," she says then.
"He told me, too," I say.
"You know he still picks you."
"I know." I shrug. "I don't really care if he liked or likes Enid."
"Why?"
"He told me that he's with me. I trust him."
Michonne smiles, and it radiates warmth. Like the simplicity of that makes her as happy to hear as it make me to say.
"You really love him, don't you?" I say.
"Carl?"
I nod.
She nods. "I love you both."
"Nah," I grin. "I mean, with Carl... I don't know. It's different."
Michonne seems to get what I mean.
"Before you came to us," she says slowly. "A little while before. I wasn't good at... people. Figured keeping them away was easier."
"Seems stupid," I say.
She grins, rolling her eyes. "It was. But it made sense."
She fiddles with her little letter M necklace until it catches the sun.
"I guess Carl was how I got out of that. Him and his Dad. Then Daryl and Glenn. Tyreese, Maggie, Beth, eventually you. We're all we've got."
"Not true," I tell her.
"Oh, yeah?"
I nod, sneezing into my arm when the forest smells get to me.
Michonne blesses me and waits.
"I found more people at the Kingdom," I say. "I dunno... I think there's more than just us now."
Michonne smiles.
I hear another walker tripping over the body of the last one. Michonne sees it too.
"Wanna see something else cool?" I ask.
Michonne raises an eyebrow.
"Can I borrow your knife?"
Her eyebrow climbs higher on her forehead.
"Please?"
She folds, handing it over.
I line it up to my ear and fling the knife at the walker.
The blade sticks into the wasted's chest. It stumbles back a little but finds its balance.
"Wow," Michonne gasps mockingly. "Please do teach me that one."
"Jenny did say I was better at archery than knife throwing," I grumble.
"Clearly."
Michonne swings her sword when the walker gets close, splitting its head neatly in two. She retrieves her knife.
Someone clears their throat.
We both jump.
Carl walks into view from behind a willow tree.
He waves. "Hi."
"They're gone?" Michonne asks.
Carl nods, but we can both see from his creased face that there's more.
"Gabriel took all our food and a car."
I glance at Michonne, who looks as confused as I feel.
"I don't think he would do that..." Michonne says slowly.
"Nor do Dad and me... but Rosita thinks he bailed on us. Dad found a note that said 'boat' in the pantry. He and Aaron think they know where it is."
We get the van and the explosives home. Leaving the Kingdom and Benjamin felt like what I imagine leaving for college would feel like, but walking back through these gates feels like getting back from it.
Aaron and Eric are the first to see me, hugging me tight and saying welcome home. Tobin asks me about Carol, and I just tell him she's fine because I don't know what I'm supposed to say. Minnie hugs me tighter than anyone else has so far.
I find Rick and Carl talking about Gabriel when I escape the hugs for a moment to speak with them. They're standing by the RV. Rosita's filling it up.
"Do we know who took Gabriel?" I ask.
Rick grips my shoulder for a second. "No, son. We don't."
I notice Carl looking at my feet. I give him a funny look.
"You're going after him now?" I ask.
Rick nods. "I'm taking Rosita, Tara, Michonne, and Aaron. You both need to stay here."
"Okay," I say, nodding.
They both give me the same father-son squinty look of disbelief.
"Honestly, I just want to sleep," I say.
Rick pats my back, telling me to get some rest.
Tara hops out of the RV beside us and punches my arm painfully. "Yo, need your gun since we've only got Rick's."
Rubbing my shoulder and scowling at her, I take my gun out of its holster and go to give it to her, she reaches out, and before she can take it, I swivel on the spot, handing it to Rosita instead. Then I flip Tara off.
Carl offers his pistol, too, but Rick says we should keep one here, just in case. We watch them leave, and then it feels empty in Alexandria.
We start walking down familiar streets. Carl tells me the pool table had to be thrown away because of the blood. I think it's for the best.
We stop outside 101 and 99. It feels like it's been forever. Another life, even. Carl notices that I'm frozen, staring at 99.
"You okay?" he asks, slipping his fingers between mine.
I laugh. It's really a sad sort of laugh. More like a breath or an exhale of all the feelings that only just surfaced.
"I didn't think about how empty it would be," I tell him, looking at all the windows, no lights on to call me home.
"I'm sorry," Carl whispers, squeezing.
"Who's house is it now?" I ask.
"It's still yours and Maggie's," he tells me.
"She's not coming back," I tell him. "She wouldn't answer when I asked, but I know."
"Then it's yours," he tells me. "I don't see why it wouldn't be."
"Is Rosita still living here?" I ask.
Carl shakes his head. "I think she probably found it too empty as well. I mean, we thought you were dead, too."
"I'm sorry," I tell him.
He kisses me then, the two of us standing in the same spot we had with his dad when Aaron gave us these houses on our first day.
"Do you want me to come in with you?" he asks.
I shake my head. "I think I need to do it alone."
Carl tells me he'll be right next door.
The steps are faded, and the number 99 is slightly rusted. Maybe they were always like that, only now it's obvious because the house seems to match them.
The front door handle is cold to the touch, and probably hasn't been opened since the day Glenn and Maggie left together for the last time.
The house is cold inside, too. I find a window in the kitchen that was left open, leaves and small rain puddles on the windowsill.
I close it.
Out on the kitchen island, a pair of scissors and a small hand mirror lie beside a pulled-out stool. There's brown hair on the floor around the stool. It looks like it's been trampled through because I find it in the living room too. I realise Maggie must have cut hers that night before they left. That the Saviors must have tracked through it when they were here.
The downstairs is different. Carl told me the Saviors took most of our stuff. All of our beds. But the downstairs feels worse than empty. It feels quiet. The kind of quiet that gets too loud if you let it. And the quiet in here has been left unchecked, deafening me.
The steps creek with intimacy as I climb them one at a time. One of Glenn's jackets is thrown across the bannisters at the top. I pick it up. Holding it to my nose and breathing it in.
He's still there.
It's hard to put the jacket down. I get the faintest scent of curry powder. I wonder if maybe they had that for dinner while I wasn't here.
I would have liked to have been here for that.
Maggie and Glenn's bedroom door is ajar, pulled to. Still holding the jacket, I quickly close it the rest of the way.
I'm careful to put the jacket back how I found it, finding something important in the idea of preserving time here. Glenn put the jacket there. Undoing it feels like I would be undoing him. Scrubbing away the delicate flaws he left that make this home.
The door to my room is shut.
I open it.
It's empty.
My bed is gone.
Only my desk is in here. Posters are torn down, leaving crinkled corners and pale spots.
My books and music are all gone.
I lie down in the place where my bed used to be. It's a room I want to leave. A house I want to leave. There's nothing in here that I love. It's just four walls and a roof. But the way I feel only works in here. The house has made me feel the same way this room is, lonely and empty.
I decide to save it.
I go downstairs. I clean the mess on the windowsill and the hair on the floor. I scrub at muddy Savior bootprints until there aren't any left.
Then a knock at the door saves me.
I answer, and It's Carl.
"Hey," he smiles. "Thought you might have been lying when you said you should do this alone."
He can always see me crying when I'm not. He opens his arms and I go into them quickly and quietly.
"Can I come to yours?" I ask.
I've lounged myself across 101's sofa.
Carl walks in with a steaming cup in his hands.
"No way," I gape. "Is that—?"
He nods. "The Saviors didn't want your teabags, apparently."
"Assholes," I smirk, pulling my legs up so he can sit down.
I take the mug and sip.
"Good?" Carl asks, wincing a little, clearly not confident.
It's really not.
I smile, squeezing some warmth out of the cup between my hands before putting it down.
I shiver.
Carl laughs at me.
I frown. "What?"
"You're always cold, man."
"Am not..."
"Are too!"
"Well," I smirk, "It's probably because I'm so... cool."
He groans, covering his face and leaning back into the cushions.
I grin. "Get it?"
"I get it."
"Because I'm, like, super cool."
"Uh-huh..."
"And that would make me cold all the time—"
"I get it!" Carl gives in and laughs.
"Good," I nod, satisfied.
He leans back, putting his feet up and reaching out for me.
I crawl up the sofa, laying my head on his lap. He starts rubbing my shoulder.
"Better?" he asks.
"Better."
"I don't think I can go back in that house," I tell him, squeezing his knee, pulling against his fingers tangled in my messy dark hair. "Not yet."
"Then don't," Carl says.
"I reckon I'll stay at Mikey's house... it's empty, too, but it will probably feel less empty."
"Or..." Carl pauses. "You could stay here."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah..."
"Okay." I nod. "I will."
His thumb goes behind my ear, running up and down behind it. I want to twist around to see him, but I'm too comfy to risk losing my place.
"Are you worried about what's going to happen when your dad gets back?" I ask.
We've been avoiding it.
"I mean," I sigh, "I can't stay here... if the Saviors recognise me."
Neither of us wants to think about it.
I breathe deep, rubbing my nose against his jeans when it itches. "He's gonna send me back to the Kingdom to be with Daryl."
"No," Carl says quickly. "We can hide you."
"You said they were pretty thorough searching for Daryl today."
"They don't know to look for you..."
"What if they look for Daryl again and find me?"
"We'll protect you. I will."
"Carl..."
He moves his hand down to under my chin, the other cradling my forehead. He doesn't say anything, knowing I'm right.
"We could leave," I suggest after a long pause.
"What?"
"I don't know..."
"You mean that?"
"I guess."
"Where would we even go?" Carl laughs at the idea.
"I don't know. We could see the world... find somewhere that feels right."
"What about everyone else?"
"You're all I need."
Carl laughs again. "Man, you're just all emotional. That's not true."
I shrug. "I know. But it would be nice. No more Saviors."
Carl snickers. "Maybe one day, when we're older."