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SlumberingVoid — I think Alpha realised at some point along the road that her way of life was stupid, and went to war because she didn't want to lose her people to working plumbing and warm beds.

Tara wasn't wrong.

The Skins had Alden and Luke down there, knives to their throats while Daryl talked at Alpha from behind the outer fence that surrounded the gardens. All the yelling had attracted a small number of real walkers. Rhys swallowed and watched as a few of the Skins circled them, gaining control and keeping them stationary on the far side of the field, roaming in a circle like the herd Daryl described him and Jesus seeing before the graveyard. His palms were sweating, gripped into balls as he watched.

"What are we going to do?" Enid asked calmly. Rhys knew she was more scared than she sounded.

"Nothing," Sasha said, watching Daryl march back up the path.

"We can't just leave them out there!" Henry barked, his head sticking over the top of the watch tower's ladder.

"Hey," Rhys hissed. "I told you to stay your ass down there!"

"We can't just leave them," he said again, staring at all of them like they didn't care. His eyes fixed on Enid, angry at how little she was arguing.

Except, Henry was the only one who didn't realise. Rhys and the rest of them were quiet because they'd come to the same realisation that must have made Daryl drop his shoulders the second they unmasked their people. They had to give Lydia back. None of them wanted to say it — to admit what they'd be sending her back to.

Until Tara did.

"We can't keep her," Tara said in one quick breath. "She hasn't killed Luke and Alden because she wants to trade. It's a good deal."

"A good deal?!"

Henry—" Rhys tried.

"There has to be another way!"

"If we push them too much..." Carl said.

"They'll kill our people," Sasha put it plainly. "The girl's not one of us."

Rhys turned towards the ladder, but Henry was already gone.

"Sorry," Sasha whispered, touching his shoulder.

"He'll understand," Rhys sighed.

Once the guards let him back through, Daryl stormed towards the house, only stopping when Enid caught his eye as she, Carl and Rhys chased to catch up with him.

Enid's brave face cracked a little. "Daryl... what'd she say? Are the-they okay?"

"Yeah, they will be," he grunted. "We got to hand back the girl. We can't shoot at them. They've got a damn baby out there."

"We know," Rhys said. "Tara's given you the go-ahead."

A small crowd had gathered around them, trying to hear what was going on.

Daryl looked at Rhys. "Where's Henry?"

"Tammy, you seen him?" Rhys called over to her and Earl, who were standing outside their trailer to listen.

"No," she said. "Why?"

They all looked at Daryl.

His nose wrinkled as he shook his head. "He's gonna want to say goodbye."

"Daryl!" Magna yelled, dashing over from the root cellar. "Yumiko went with Sasha and Tara to get Lydia... but—"

The other three came running out of the cellar after her.

"What?" Daryl frowned.

"She's gone," Yumiko grunted.

"How you mean she's gone?!"

Tara shook her head. "Her door was open... key was in the lock."

Daryl's face was sour. He scrunched his eyes for a moment, then stared at her.

"Daryl, you know we have to do this."

He dipped his head, nodding.

"Split up! Find them..." Sasha barked orders at everyone once he did. "Daryl, can Dog track?"

Daryl nodded his chin, whistling sharply for Dog.

"Alright, Rhys, go grab something from Henry's room with his scent."

Carl followed as Rhys raced up the stairs of Barrington House and into Henry's room.

"You're okay with this?" Carl asked, watching Rhys root through draws and check under his bed for something he'd seen Henry wearing.

"Alden's one of us," Rhys said. "Luke too, now."

"I mean..." Carl frowned like wasn't sure he should say anything. He did anyway. "Henry's already pissed off at you. Don't you want to talk with him first?"

"Obviously, but he's not here."

Carl smirked. "It'd be dumb of him to stay inside the walls with everyone looking for him. Didn't you say he snuck out last night?"

Rhys' face experienced too many emotions and realisations at once, finally landing on a sharp smile. "You're such a detective."

"Also," Carl said, tossing him a grey t-shirt hanging on the back of the door. "Wasn't Henry wearing this the other night?"

Rhys sniffed the t-shirt gingerly, pulling away and grimacing after.

"Please don't tell me I used to sweat this much?"

"I didn't mind." Carl shrugged. "You want me to distract Daryl while you sneak out after him?"

Rhys nodded, tossing the shirt back to him. "Sasha will just waste time arguing."

"I got you..." Carl said. He grinned for the first time. Grinned at him like he used to. "Partner in crime."

Rhys snuck out through the kitchen at the back of Barrington House, peeking around the corner of the building and watching as Carl came out the front and brought Daryl and Sasha Henry's t-shirt. Dog took one sniff and started bounding around the trailers in hunt of a trail. Rhys made a dash for the hidden tunnel that led out of Hilltop and quickly disappeared under the earth.

By the time he arrived, Rhys knew Carl's hunch was right. He could see people moving around inside the shack that the four of them used to hang out in before they made their little world complicated with betrayal and hate. It was overgrown now, ivy clinging to the walls like it was holding it up. The trees seemed to hold it close. Mikey used to swear this place was haunted, just from the way the floorboards would creak and sound like they were saying his name. Enid and Carl used to laugh at him for it.

Rhys didn't want to go in the shack. So he called out for Henry.

When Henry came out, he wasn't angry, just quiet.

"Just go," Henry whispered. "Tell them we weren't here. Please, Rhys."

"Henry, I get it..."

"You should," Henry said calmly. "You told me what happened to you before. You protected that girl."

"That was different. Years ago... and different."

"She doesn't want to go back to her mom. She hurts her."

"I know."

"And you're okay with that?!"

"No!" Rhys yelled at him, not meaning to. "Of course I'm not okay with it. But, man, if we don't give her back, Alden and Luke are going to die."

"There— there has to be another way."

"Sometimes there are other ways," Rhys said quietly. "Sometimes we find ways to give ourselves some time to figure it out — find ways where no one gets hurt. But Henry, we're out of time."

"It's not fair... It's not right."

"I know."

Rhys could remember when things were right.

"I know it's not fair..."

He remembered when things were.

"I know it's not right..."

He remembered how him and Michonne changed all that.

"But we can't let Alden and Luke die..."

How they ended Carl and Rick's new world.

"We can't let anyone else die."

Lydia came out from the shack behind Henry. She was dressed in clean clothes, her face scrubbed of dirt. Rhys almost didn't recognise her.

"Henry," she whispered. "It's okay... I'm gonna go. It's okay. I have to."

"What?" Henry hissed. "No. No, we can— we can..."

"I want to. She's my mother. They're my people. I miss them. I'm gonna miss you, too. And I'm going to be okay. So will you, okay?"

Then she kissed him.

Rhys squeezed his hands together and waited.

"Okay?" Lydia whispered.

Henry gasped, nodding. "Okay."

The Skins took Lydia and left. Sasha and Daryl had marched her out the gates and down the hill. Luke's group piled on top of him once he got through the gates. Enid pushed past the guards and threw herself at Alden, the two grabbing anything they could from the other as they cried and breathed words no one else could hear. Rhys watched as Henry stood on the watch tower and waited until Alpha's people were out of sight. He stayed quiet and kept his head to the ground before dragging his feet back to Barrington House. Carl found Rhys after, his face out of sorts.

"What's wrong?" Rhys asked him, able to name a hundred answers to that question but still curious as to what Carl's was.

"How do you know something's wrong?"

"You're doing that thing," Rhys said, pointing to Carl's face. "Scrunching up your nose like that."

Carl's freckled nose stayed wrinkled. "They tried to feed their baby to the walkers after you left."

Rhys' stomach turned.

"Connie saved him," Carl said. "We got him inside the walls. Earl and Tammy have him."

Rhys' chest fell, his lungs swelling with anxiety under his ribs.

"What's eating you?" Carl asked.

Rhys looked at him.

"You've got your tells, too, y'know?" Carl said, pointing at Rhys' hand bouncing against his thigh. "You always tap your leg when you get antsy about somethin'."

"It's the girl," Rhys said. "I told Henry everything that happened with the Cavalcade is old news. And it is," he added when Carl's jaw tensed. "She just really reminded me of her."

"The girl from that gas station?"

"Emma," Rhys said so softly Carl almost didn't hear him. Rhys could tell he'd forgotten her name.

Rhys took Carl's arm then, pulling towards the sand school where Bertie was wearing out one of the roan horses that Sasha and Jesus found in an orchard out west last month.

"I'm gonna go," Rhys said.

"Go?"

"After the Skins," Rhys said. "I'm going to go."

They knew each other so well once. Maybe they still did. Rhys could tell Carl wanted to call him an idiot. He knew that he wanted to tell him to stay. But he also knew Carl couldn't say any of that — too many years between them to talk without those riddles strangers use.

So Carl said the only thing he could.

"I'll grab my pack."

Rhys frowned. He wanted to say all the things Carl had wanted to but found the same obstacles in his way.

"Okay."

Rhys knocked on Henry's door after dark. He'd packed and thrown his bag into the flowerbeds below his room's balcony first. When Henry didn't open the door, Rhys decided to speak into it.

"Are you still moping, or can I come in?"

Henry didn't answer.

Rhys sighed.

"Sometimes the world can just be shit, man."

Quiet persisted from the far side of the door.

Rhys' shoulders locked, a throbbing in his chest that felt like a bag of sharp rocks. "I'll see you in the morning."