-Rhys-
My legs wobble as I carefully tip-toe up a stacked pile of logs that took hours to roll up from the bottom of the hill the lumber camp is settled on. I look around. Daryl's sawing strewed branches from a freshly cut tree limb while five Saviors haul over the next one. Four mules for pulling wagons and timber stand secured to a rope between two trees behind me.
A ramp leads up to the timber stack I'm balanced — at the bottom of it, a heavy-looking log that Daryl just finished stripping of branches. Aaron ties the end of a rope around it and tosses the other end up to me. I catch it, glancing over to Jed as he clambers up on the other end of the pile to me. His nose is bandaged from where I broke it. He glares at me, a match between his teeth, as he takes a rope tied to the other end of the log. Jed and I start yanking the heavy timber up the ramp while Aaron and another Savior push it. My hands burn against the rope's taught friction despite the work gloves I'm wearing.
A few of us notice as the donkeys start rearing and braying at the treeline, and Daryl picks up a pointy stick he just cut to go and check it. I can't look since the heavy timber is taking all my focus.
We hear growling, and I notice Jed start to panic.
"Hey," I hiss through my teeth as we pull. "Daryl's got it. Keep pulling."
"Yeah..." he grunts.
I hear two walkers drop.
Then Daryl yells.
"A herd's comin'. Bug out, now!"
Jed turns to look, his eyes going wide. "Oh, Jesus. We gotta get the hell outta here!"
"Wait!" I yell.
He let go of the rope.
The log starts sliding back down the ramp and twists to one side as I pull on it. Aaron yanks the other Savior out of the way by the back of his shirt. The log falls and takes me with it, and I land on top of it with a grunt. Aaron is screaming. I jump up when I see his arm trapped under it.
"Daryl!" I scream.
Daryl sprints over after killing two more walkers, barking orders to people as he reaches Aaron and me.
"Get the mules out of here!" He yells at the Savior Aaron saved. Then he's pointing at Jed. "You— get over here right now!"
We all lift as hard as we can, but the log barely shifts, and each time it does, Aaron's arm cracks under the weight as he screams. The walkers keep getting closer.
"Go!" Aaron cries and groans at us. "Get out of here. Go!"
Daryl pulls out his knives and tells us to stay on Aaron, but I grab his wrist. He pulls away, but I shout at him.
"You're stronger than me!" I bark. "I'll keep the walkers off you."
Daryl's pupils flare, but he nods. And as soon as he does I'm sprinting to my pack to grab my hammer, cursing myself for leaving my spear back in the tent.
I haven't had to fight a herd in a long time — no more than maybe three walkers at a time in over a year. I realise as I slam my hammer down on walker after walker that either they've gotten older, or I've gotten stronger. Their skulls explode on impact, and each one takes little energy to drop.
The others manage to get Aaron out and up. His arm is crushed and flaccid, blood and ground pieces of bone showing through torn skin as they spill out of him. I rush back to them and jump as a walker to my side falls to a harpoon through the eye. I look and see Beatrice reloading her weapon. Everyone else is behind her. Rick charges a walker with his hatchet. Sasha stabs corpse after corpse as she pushes towards me. Carl knocks one down for Alden to finish. Anne and Gabriel cover behind them with their weapons out. Ezekiel appears from the woods with Dianne, and the two rush towards Carol as she kicks a walker back before slaying another. Then there's a gunshot from Rick's rifle. The rope holding the timber stack together snaps, and dozens of logs roll down the hill and crush the last of Horatio.
I almost take a breath, but Daryl yells at me to help with Aaron as he hauls him in the direction of the camp.
I tear open the flaps to Enid's tent, holding it out of the way as Daryl drags a screaming Aaron in and sets him down on an empty cot.
"Where's Siddiq?" Daryl pants.
"He— he's gone," Enid says, already rushing around the tent collecting medical instruments after seeing Aaron's arm. "It's just me."
"It's just you, then," Daryl says, nodding as he peels off my flannel shirt I gave him to tie around Aaron's arm.
Enid stares at it for a moment. Her eyes three sizes wider and twice as focused as she thinks. Then she tosses down the bottle of herbs marked 'painkillers'.
"I have to amputate," she says, running to the other side of the tent to grab a book on trauma response.
"What?" Aaron whimpers, trying to sit up in protest.
"There ain't no other way?" Daryl calls after her.
"The only way to stop the bleeding is to amputate and cauterize the wound," Enid says calmly, flicking through the book until she finds one with pictures of an arm being severed from the elbow down. "Rhys, grab that serrated saw and leather bind."
I scamper to the desk she pointed to, throwing papers aside until I find what she needs.
"What?" Aaron asks again, his face pale as salt as Enid rushes back over to him.
A crowd has gathered outside the tent.
Enid takes the binding off me and gives it to Daryl, who wraps it tightly above Aaron's broken arm.
"You got something for the pain?" Daryl asks her.
"It wouldn't kick in fast enough," Enid says, taking the saw off me and grabbing a blow torch and metal tray from a bench beside the cot. "We have to do this now!"
"Sorry, man," Daryl tells Aaron as he groans and sobs at his arm, still looking at it like it can't be real.
"Rhys, Daryl, hold him down for me," Enid barks.
She's looking between his arm and the book, sweat dripping off her short nose. Her forehead is damp with it. Her shaking hands pick up the saw. Aaron's nails dig deep into my arm as I hold his shoulders down, and he somehow, through all the blinding agony, manages a smile for Enid.
"You can do it," he says breathlessly, nodding. "Do it!"
There's the sound of tearing flesh, and Aaron keeps screaming. Blood drips between his nails where he claws into my arm, and the smell of burning flesh fills the tent after Enid grabs the blow torch.
Aaron passes out.
Maybe an hour later, the three of us are covered in blood and Daryl storms out of the tent. Enid is staring at Aaron's bandaged arm, her whole body shaking. I wrap my arms around her and wait for her to go still. When she doesn't, I ask if she's okay.
"Maybe we should have waited for Siddiq," she mumbles.
"You did so well," I whisper. "He left you in charge because he knew you would."
"He doesn't have an arm, Rhys..."
"He's alive."
"His arm..."
"He is alive."
Her eyes well up, and she cries, and a little while later Carl and Mikey both come in and join the hug, and eventually, after a long time of the four of us just holding each other, Enid stops shaking.
Justin was meant to divert that horde. Carol had to stop Daryl from beating him to death after he found out. Rick banished Justin from the work camp, sending him home to Sanctuary. I eventually go back to the lumber camp with Mikey and Carl to help clear out the bodies and retrieve the logs from the bottom of the hill. When we get back to the camp, Aaron is awake in the medical tent. Daryl is sitting by his bed. Enid's looking over Cyndie's hand that she sprained while helping clear the logging camp.
"I'm sorry," I say ever so quietly once Cyndie goes. "It's my fault. I couldn't hold it. I'm sorry—"
"Rhys," Aaron mumbles, managing a weak smile, his eyes still closed. "That's bullshit."
"Glad you're still with us, man," Carl says.
"Me, too," Aaron answers him. "Everyone else okay?"
"No one else got hurt," Carl tells him, guilt plaguing his voice.
"Enid says I won't be strong enough to go home tomorrow," Aaron whispers. "Mikey— think you could go home and check on Gracie?"
"Yes," Mikey says, nodding. "Of course. Yes."
"Thank you."
Rick walks in behind the three of us, looking around before his eyes find Enid, who has picked up some charts to distract herself.
"Well done," Rick tells her. "He's gonna be all right?"
"Yeah," she says drowsily. "If we can keep the wound from getting infected. But he's still in a lot of pain."
"He's holding on, though," Daryl turns in his chair to say.
"Damn right, I am," Aaron mutters.
Daryl gets up so Rick can sit in the chair by Aaron's bed. He touches my shoulder as he moves to stand beside me, and I give him a queasy smile.
"I'm so sorry this happened to you," Rick tells Aaron. "We were all supposed to be working together... I thought we were."
Aaron opens his eyes a fraction to look up at Rick. "You couldn't have known."
"I've been pushing everyone hard," Rick sighs. "I know I have. I put this project first... and you paid the price."
"It was worth it," Aaron breathes. "When the dead started to rise, I thought I was seeing the end of everything. But you changed all that, Rick. It's not the end of the world anymore. It's the start of a whole new one. I'll always be glad I was here to be a part of that."
Come evening, most of us gather around a roaring campfire outside the tents in the middle of the camp to keep warm. Mikey and Enid sit and play poker with Rosita, Sasha, Tara, Eugene, and Dianne — all of them dying of laughter over a joke Tara barks at them as she throws her hands up. Henry sits with Jerry and Nabila quietly with a copy of 'Born to Run' that I promised to bring him from Maggie's office last time I was in Kingdom. Carol finally says yes to Ezekiel's proposal. And I stay perfectly still, watching all of it, tucked under Carl's arm with my head against his as we toast our feet by the fire.
I think Carl is almost asleep because he jolts a little against the top of my head when I speak.
"I know why you're not going back with your dad," I tell him. "You want me to come back to Alexandria after the bridge is done."
Carl stays quiet, but his breathing gets shallower.
"Yeah," I chuckle. "Thought so."
"It's not fair how you invade my brain so easily," he mumbles, kissing my temple lazily.
"I'll come to Alexandria," I say.
Carl sits up, but I pull him back down into me as quickly as Carol pulled Zeke off his knee when he tried proposing properly... because I hate scenes almost as much as Carol does apparently.
Carl lets me get comfortable under his arm again, and I can feel him grinning into the side of my head.
"You mean it?" he asks.
I nod, turning my head to look up at him. There's so little space between us that my nose brushes against his.
"What changed your mind?"
"When that log fell on Aaron," I say. "Do you know what I was thinking about?"
Carl shakes his head. "I'm not as good at reading your mind."
I snicker. "I was thinking about all the time I haven't spent with him. All the time I've missed because of..." I pause. "I don't want that to happen with Judith, or with Michonne and your dad, or you."
I spot Rick and Mikey coming out of Rick's tent, carrying rucksacks. I nudge Carl in the ribs and point. He goes to say goodbye, but I catch his collar before he gets up and make him kiss me first. When Carl's out of the firelight, I notice three Saviors looking up from a backgammon board and staring at me.
Laura, Regina, and Arat.
I watch them, keeping quiet, waiting.
"Rhys?" Laura asks.
"Yeah?" I ask.
"Could you pass the coffee?" she points to the silver coffee pot warming over the fire by my feet.
I watch them for a couple of seconds but then sit up, reach over, and hand them the coffee.
"Thanks, kid," Regina says with a nod and a smile as she pours herself a cup.
I nod back, turning myself back to face the fire, but Arat speaks to me again.
"Hey, Rhys," she says, rubbing her buzzed head and squinting. "Thanks for swapping jobs today."
I just shrug.
"And sorry about Jed and Justin... Aaron seems like a good guy."
"He is," I say quietly.
Arat nods, half turning back to the game.
"Thanks for having Rosita's back out there," I say.
Arat nods, giving me a goofy grin and two thumbs up.
I manage a small smile back before turning away. When I do turn away, I jump out of my skin. Mikey's squatting in front of me by the fireside.
"Come say goodbye," he tells me.
"I can say it here," I tell him.
He rolls his eyes, taking both my hands in his and hauling me up to stand, dragging me towards the horses without letting go.
Rick's waiting over by his and Mikey's horses with Carl.
Rick hugs me and tells me he'll see me soon. I nod into his chest and say bye as quickly as I can.
Mikey crushes a rib and pops a lung with his hug, and he tells me to look after Enid.
Carl and I watch them ride away, and then I think of something.
"You know... with Michonne and your dad gone..." I start, raising an eyebrow. "We can finally use our ridiculously big tent."
Carl grins at me, knocking my shoulder with his. "But the stables have such a nice atmosphere— what with the smell of horse shit."
"That's true," I laugh. "I do love spending half the morning pulling hay out of my pants."
Carl takes my hand and pulls me back in the direction of everyone else.
"Let's enjoy the evening first?"
"Deal."