Reviews:
SlumberingVoid — Poor Mikey and Gabriel are in very similar situations right now, aren't they? Next chapter we shall see how it all plays out!
Bucket Hat — He is indeed! Mikey is very special to me, so I promise that if he dies it will be in a very heart-breaking and terrible way (proper walking dead style! muhahaha)
I make Sasha stop the truck by a small lake on our way home. I crouch by the water and scratch dried Savior blood from my skin and pull chunks of people out of my hair. I know that if I don't do it out here, Carl will do it for me when we get to Hilltop, and I figure he's cleaned enough blood from my hands recently.
When we do get home. Everyone is getting ready for tomorrow. Gregory came back from Sanctuary with a letter from Dwight. He's back in the pen now, looking worn from his sour face to his cheap suit. The letter he brought back has red crosses where Negan's planning to set ambushes for us tomorrow, and I don't really see much more of it than that because I leave the others in Maggie's office to talk about it. Sasha said she'd tell everyone else about Mikey for me, and I'm grateful, because apart from Carl and Enid, I don't really want to talk to anyone else about it.
I do tell Tara though... because I have to go see her anyway — because she's not dying anymore. She's just as surprised as I am. She thinks Dwight shot her with a clean arrow that night. That he's really on our side. I ask her if she forgives him for killing Denise, and she tells me she does. She says that it's all square and that if we don't let shit lie then we're never gonna rest.
Then I go tell the others about Mikey.
Enid cries for a little while. Sobs, really. But she keeps insisting they're happy tears when I keep quietly asking if she's okay. Siddiq has her picking herbs in the garden outside the trailers, and all the other gardeners look at her like she's lost the plot.
Carl's feet actually leave the floor when I tell him. He's so happy that I feel bad when I have to ground him and explain about the dive bar and the dead Saviors. I suppose, all things considered, I expected him to be more upset. I forget sometimes that he hates the Saviors, too, and that he's just better at hiding it and being better than it.
The afternoon is good. Like really good. Carl, Michonne, and I take Judith on a walk around Hilltop. She's gotten so good at walking now that we only have to hold her hands when she loses balance getting excited about petting the goats or jumping in a freshly dug vegetable patch that hasn't been planted yet. Rick even joins in when he gets back from scouting and away from planning the attack tomorrow. Carl says that these days matter. That these are the days that Judith will remember when she's older.
"I think she's still too small to remember," Rick tells him.
"No," Carl says, smiling at his dad. "I remember you doing it for me."
Rick disappears to talk with Maggie while Michonne takes Judith inside to play with Gracie. Carl and I find a bench tucked behind the stables, pushed up against the wall. It smells of hot manure and hay dust back here.
"Can't believe it's going to happen tomorrow," I say, scooching until we're joined at the hip. Apologising when I almost bump him right off the bench.
"What?" Carl asks, his head up enough for me to see his eye but low enough to keep the sun topside of his hat.
"We're going to beat them," I tell him.
He nods. "We are."
"What will we do when it's over?" I ask.
Carl almost looks confused. "I haven't thought about it."
"Me neither," I tell him.
"I think we should do something boring," he says after a brief moment of consideration.
"Boring like fishing?"
"Yeah, I guess," Carl laughs, shrugging at the idea before tucking his legs up and sitting on them. "Remember at the Prison when I had to take my gun off because it would just get in the way of farming?"
I nod.
"Something like that," he says, smiling queasily, like he's worried I'll think it's stupid.
"Boring sounds really nice," I tell him.
He bumps my chin with his fist, scratching some dirt off it with his thumb while I get lost staring into his eye.
"You know, Negan didn't change my mind," I tell him. "Mikey being alive isn't going to make me be stupid."
"You're never stupid," he tells me.
"You're a bad liar."
He chuckles.
When his hand doesn't leave my chin and just rests there comfortably, I take his other hand and pull it flat over my chest. I wait until I can see that he feels my heartbeat.
"I'm following you," I tell him.
"You don't need to."
I try dipping my head, but Carl keeps it up with his hand still on my chin.
"Do you know what a north star is?" I ask him quietly.
He smirks, curving his eyebrows and nodding. "The big bright one that helps you find north."
I get embarrassed for some reason when I speak. "Mikey's mum called you my north star."
"She did?"
I nod.
"I'm following you," I tell him again.
Carl squints at me. "You don't want to go after Daryl and Rosita?"
"I do," I admit.
Maggie told me they left just after I did. They reckon the Saviors must be low on ammo after the attack on Hilltop. That means that with any luck, they've taken Eugene to make bullets at the factory he showed to Abraham and me. Rosita and Daryl have gone to make sure that doesn't happen.
"Why don't you?" Carl asks.
"Because it's a bad idea."
"It is," he agrees.
"I keep doing things to make myself feel better," I tell him. "I went on my own to get those Saviors, because I was mad about Mikey and Tara. Now Mikey's alive, and Tara's getting better. I did it for literally nothing, because I tried to do it for myself. It can't be just me, though. It needs to be us. All of us. That's how we win."
Carl nods. Then he smirks fiendishly. "Plus, I don't you'd make it outside the walls. Pretty sure Maggie only doubled the guards earlier to stop you leaving again."
"Oh yeah, pretty sure I just got grounded for life."
Surprises are like buses.
When you want them — when you're expecting them — they don't exist.
It's like... poof. All the buses are sucked from the planet and jettisoned into space, and suddenly there's just the good news and the bad news.
Only... surprises, not buses.
After all the surprises today, you would think I'd expect one more.
You would think it would just be good news.
But when I see Henry, alive and breathing and crashing into me and knocking me down into a pile of Downy-Beardy's shit... it's a surprise.
The good news kind of surprise.
I'm crying, and he's crying, and I'm holding him like he might run away again, and he's gripping onto me like he really doesn't want to run anywhere.
I finally take him by the shoulders and pull him back a bit so I can look at him. It's dark now, and the lantern hanging in Beardy's stable is just enough for me to see all the red and itchy-looking scratches on his face and the patches of dirt and dried blood on his neck and forehead.
"What—" I stammer, overwhelmed with it all. "What happened?"
Henry is a whirlwind.
"I went after the guy that killed my brother, and I got lost and everything was so dark and I couldn't find the way home because I was in the woods and there were no signs or roads or people or anything and I just hid from the walkers after I lost my staff and then Carol found me and—"
"Slow down," I laugh nervously. "You're fine. You're back."
Henry nods, standing up and letting me get up. He apologises when he sees the state of me.
"I think you fell in horse poop..." He points at my jeans when I spin around to try and see myself.
"It's fine," I smile, picking up a pitchfork leant against the stable wall and scooping the manure into a wheelbarrow. "What happened after that?"
"Carol found me," Henry says, swaying on the spot as he watches Downy-Beardy, currently hitched up outside and gnawing at a patch of grass by the path.
"Good," I say, nodding and standing still when I realise I am also swaying.
"She cried," Henry says suddenly.
"Oh," I say, not really sure how to respond.
"I was calling for help when I got trapped in this river, and Carol saved me. She was hugging me, and she told me I can survive. Honestly, I kinda thought she didn't care about me."
I laugh, apologising when Henry squints at me.
"Sorry," I say. "It's just, I think that's how you know when Carol likes you."
"How?"
"When she acts like she doesn't."
Henry scoffs. "She must really like you."
I laugh at him as sarcastically as I can. "Funny one, smart-ass."
Henry's face is suddenly pale and sad again.
"What?" I ask.
"Morgan said he killed the guy that got my brother."
I shake my head. "I'm sorry, man. I couldn't."
Henry leans back on his heels, shaking his head, too. "I don't think I could have either."
"Is that bad?" Henry asks, lips tight and eyes wide. "Did I fail him?"
I shake my head again. "No, man."
"Why does it feel like it then?"
I sigh at the loaded question. "You know the King once said that we honour the people we lost by... erm, by standing tall in their stead. Feet on a foundation they made."
Henry smirks, pouting down at his chest as he folds his arms. "Feet planted firm on a foundation made sturdy by their memory."
"That's the one," I chuckle. "Smart ass."
Henry frowns, shoulders dropping.
"I don't think revenge would have been the foundation Benjamin wanted to leave you."
Henry nods. He knows that it's true. But I know from experience that it doesn't make it any easier.
Most people are sitting outside Barrington house around campfires dotted throughout the grass. Henry runs off to join Jerry with Ezekiel and Carol by a fire outside Jesus' trailer, where they drink coffee and talk. I swear in the dark that I can see Carol and the King holding hands.
Carl's lying on the bed when I get back to our room. He turns his nose up.
"You smell," he says.
"Horse poop," I sigh, turning on the spot.
He ahhs at me softly upon seeing my jeans before turning his attention back on a book he's reading.
I shut the balcony curtains before taking off all my clothes and searching around the room for somewhere to wash up. Carl raises a finger to the dresser in the corner of the room, where a blue china bowl sits filled with warm water.
When I'm done and pull on a pair of grey joggers and a white shirt, both two sizes too big since Jesus leant them to me again, I sit with Carl on the bed.
"Not outside with everyone else?" I ask.
"Nor are you."
I nod, putting my hand over his book so he can't read it. Carl looks up at me, and I slowly pull the book away, dropping it on the floor behind me.
I wait until he's really looking at me— until his pupil dilates, and I know that he knows I mean it.
"I love you," I whisper.
His eye is suddenly wet, and I realise it's probably because mine are too.
"I love you, too," Carl says gently, almost confused.
I realise I'm shaking when he sits up and holds my face between his hands. That's when I can't stop myself from crying. When I actually feel safe inside our walls.
"I'm sorry," I whimper.
"You don't need to be," Carl tells me, his lips twitching into a short lasting smile.
"I'm so sorry," I tell him again. "I just love you so much."
I lie down on the bed, and Carl lies behind me with his arms around my chest like parachute straps keeping me from hitting the ground and going splat. We don't fall asleep. Not that I remember. Every part of us just waits for the sun to come up and for the boring part to begin.