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SlumberingVoid — After something so evil... Alpha's made a lot of enemies.
Four Months Since The Fair
-Carl-
The days got colder since the fair. Travel between each settlement took days now, with roads falling to waste under the freezing weather, and Alpha's new borders cutting into their usual routes. Carl spent most of his time between Hilltop and Alexandria. The latter to be with his family. The former was because Rhys couldn't leave Hilltop much anymore. Not with him and Sasha charged to fill the hole that Tara left. The Kingdom's pipes had buckled and burst under the cold's intensity — Jenny had told Carl and Rhys over the radios that Eugene installed in each community, finally allowing them all to talk. Only, Kingdom couldn't hold out much longer.
Everyone that could be spared went to help.
Rhys brought an envoy from Hilltop with Yumiko — someone he and Sasha had counted on more and more since the fair. Alden came to help with the repairs. Carl came with Michonne and Aaron from Alexandria, too.
It wasn't enough.
And things fell apart.
One night, only a week ago, fires raged through the Palace apartments. Jerry and Ezekiel managed to save the royal apartments, Henry's old room being one of them. But the rest were lost.
Cracks crept down walls, and those walls crumbled soon after.
The Kingdom was lost.
And there was a storm coming.
A meeting was held one night, while wild winds blew outside the Kingdom's walls.
All the available leaders met on the same stage that they had signed a charter on only a couple of months before. A charter, that now held the name of someone dead and a community too far away to help. It was the same theatre and stage where they had met the King years ago. The roof now had a gaping hole where the fires had spread and made it crumble, flakes of snow drifting down to settle on the seats and stage where they stood.
Carol was quiet for most of the meeting, her hair tangled, long, and greyer than it used to be.
Michonne suggested moving everyone to one of the bigger buildings to keep them together and warm.
Ezekiel pointed out there were no fireplaces in any of the standing buildings.
Carl saw Rhys and Yumiko whispering to each other, and then Rhys spoke:
"Hilltop could take everyone in."
Ezekiel shook his head at the suggestion. "We're not there yet."
Rhys nodded. His creased eyes told Carl that he hated the idea of abandoning the Kingdom, too.
"Could Hilltop make room for that many?" Michonne asked.
"It would be a bloody squeeze," Yumiko said. "Better than freezing to death, though, isn't it?"
"Once the storm has passed, we could split the numbers between Alexandria and Hilltop," Carl added.
"I can send word ahead on the radio to Sasha," Rhys told them. "Tell her to open up Maggie's old office, set up beds in the dining room and atrium."
"I said we're not there!" Ezekiel roared at them. His eyes were so sad under the terrible rage burning there. "Kingdom is our home, dammit. I will not abandon the ship on account of one storm. You should know this, Rhys... this is where my son grew up. Where he—"
"We should go," Carol said.
The draughty auditorium was then quiet. It was suddenly just Ezekiel and Carol inside their crumbling walls as he stared at her with eyes of shock and hurt.
She stared back, seemingly dead behind her steely eyes. No fires there.
"We should go," she repeated.
Now they were packing everything that wasn't too heavy to carry. It was the morning after, and what they could salvage of the Kingdom was slowly loaded into five sad, small wagons. Everyone preparing to abandon their home.
Carl and Rhys both helped hand out food to the community before they left. Carl watched as Rhys passed a plate of the last of the vegetables to Daryl, who had already eaten. They didn't exchange words. They both knew what Rhys wanted. Carl knew, too, watching as Daryl took the plate to Lydia, sitting by herself at a table near the broken gazebo, wrapped tightly in a blue beanie and one of Henry's winter coats to keep her warm, staring down at her fingerless-gloved hands.
Carl asked Rhys if he'd eaten, and he nodded. There was a brief silence between them, and then Rhys asked the same, and Carl nodded back.
Whenever Carl had visited Hilltop over the past couple of months, Rhys had been the same. He would spend time with him, but come the the day's end, he was drowning himself in work. Either locked away in their room, pouring over paperwork and hashing out rations for the winter, or discussing their defences with Sasha if Alpha were to attack again. Carl had heard him crying one night when he thought he was asleep, curled up beside him and sobbing. Carl had made the smallest of movements, and Rhys had stopped.
His eyes were a faded, dull green with dark blue circles around them. Carl was sure he probably looked the same. Rhys was wrapped in Daryl's old poncho from the days of the prison that Carl didn't even know he had kept. He had Glenn's dusty brown jacket zipped up under it, a pair of dark denim jeans over thermal underwear, and the boots I got him for his birthday— someone in Hilltop must have lined them with fur for him because Carl could see the hem of it sticking out over his red socks.
Michonne led from the front with Aaron, and the convoy of horses and wagons and people on foot filed out the gates after them. Carl stayed at the back with Rhys, both of them on their horses. Both were wrapped in blankets Jerry had given them. They watched as Ezekiel and Carol came out last, Ezekiel closing the gates and chaining them shut before silently mounting his horse and riding to the front, leaving Carol to ride at the back alone as she probably requested.
Everyone knew the King and Queen would fight most nights. No one saw their smiles anymore. Only the fake, half-raised cheeks Ezekiel would try to put on. Carol didn't put on anything. The masks she used to be so good at wearing left tucked under a bed in the home they were abandoning.
The ride was long, and most people stayed quiet. Rhys and Carl had drifted to the middle of the convoy, where most of Hilltop's people were. Carl spoke with Alden briefly about Earl, finding out that his arthritis had been getting better since he'd finally been sticking to a treatment plan Enid had laid out for him. Carl noticed Rhys quietly watching Lydia as she walked beside Daryl. She was dragging her feet, hugging herself tightly.
Rhys leaned towards her in his saddle.
"Your feet hurt?"
She turned to look up at him, quickly looking away when she realised who had spoken to her.
A lot of people were watching. Most blamed her for what her mother did. Carl just found it sad. He knew what it was like to be held up under a microscope to the reputation of your family.
She gave a minuscule nod to answer his question but said, "I'm okay."
"You know how to ride?" Rhys asked.
She paused to look up at him, moving again to keep up with the pace of Downy Beardy's steps.
She shook her head.
Rhys slipped his feet out from his stirrups and swung his leg over Downy Beardy's back, slipping off his saddle to the road beside her. The horse didn't seem to notice.
"Climb on up," Rhys said.
Someone watching could think he was trying to embarrass her. It was most likely going through Lydia's head with how most people treated her. But Rhys' voice was too soft and too tempered.
Lydia opened her mouth, stuttering a little as she glanced at the towering, muscular animal. Rhys was often a head taller than any other rider, thanks to Downy being the largest horse in all the settlements.
"He's so big..." Lydia said.
Rhys just patted the leather saddle, leading the horse with a hand on his bridle as they kept pace with the convoy. He didn't say anything else, but waited expectingly.
Lydia stepped closer, putting a hand against the horse's neck, burying her fingers under his soft, black fur.
Rhys watched her clamber up cautiously, Downy Beardy so strong that he didn't mind the awkward shift of weight as she struggled her way up him. Rhys took her foot and fed it through the stirrup, telling her to do the same on the other side. It took her a few attempts before she finally threaded her other boot in. Rhys adjusted the straps so the stirrup fitted her height, walking around the other side to do the same with the other foot. Lydia had her hands clinging to the brown leather horn on the pommel, leaning forward a bit.
"Take the reins," Rhys told her, pointing them out. "He needs to know you're the boss, so keep them tight, but not too tight. Clenched in the palm with your thumbs pinching it on top, like this... there you go."
Lydia smiled for a moment when she had it, the feeling of control suddenly coming to her as Downy Beardy and her became one. Her smile faded pretty fast.
"Keep your back straight," Rhys told her. Then he took the blanket from his shoulders and held it up to her.
"You don't have to look after me, you know," she told him quietly.
Rhys didn't say anything to that. He tossed the blanket up onto the horse's back with her. "He doesn't spook easy, but keep him away from walkers, got it?"
Lydia nodded quickly.
Then there were walkers... stumbling in a field on the left side of the open road that the convoy travelled along. They hadn't noticed them.
Or maybe they had.
"Could be Whisperers," Carl said to everyone. "Eyes open."
Everyone was already watching them intensely, clearly of the same mind.
"Is that them?" Alden asked Lydia from his horse, Hooch. "Your people watching us now, huh?"
Lydia stared at him after wrapping the blanket Rhys had given her around herself, bobbing up and down with Downy's rhythm. Her eyes were nervous like a rabbit's, but they were guilty, too.
"Lay off," Carl told him.
Alden sniffed at the cold air, shaking his head. "We followed their rules. Haven't they done enough to us?"
Rhys was watching, too, but didn't say anything.
"Hey!" Daryl barked suddenly. "Carl already warned you. Why don't you lay off?"
Carl hadn't really meant it as a warning. More that he couldn't be bothered to listen to it... because thinking about Enid, and Alden's reasons made his heart break.
Alden did knock it off then.
Carl saw Michonne waving to him from the front, and he whistled at Rhys to get his attention. The two of them slowly headed up front of the convoy.
Michonne looked like she didn't want to ask what she had to.
"Yumiko's told me there's still been no word from Maggie, even with everyone Hilltop lost," she took a sharp breath. "Carl's said you got a personal letter from her a while back before we lost Jesus..."
Rhys shook his head. "Haven't got anything since."
Carl and Rhys had spoken the other day about this. It was one of those particularly bad days. Rhys woke up late screaming names and thrashing out. Carl held him for minutes before he spoke.
"I want to go," he had sobbed through a flood of tears.
"Go?" Carl had asked.
"Maggie left a place in her last letters where I could find her."
"Are you going to go?"
Rhys wasn't. He couldn't.
Carl had nightmares, too. He and Rhys had worked out a strange system now. Almost a game. The first one to wake up in cold sweats and panic won. They got to sit there while the other asked them what the dream was about and held them tightly. Carl normally won. His were normally about Enid. About how they used to be friends, and how he didn't get to make that right again.
"That's a shame," Michonne said, bringing Carl back.
"The council sent another letter," Rhys added.
"Right," Yumiko said with an estranged tone.
Carl noticed her rolling her eyes, too. They all knew why. Rhys refused to admit that he'd taken on Tara's job. Jesus' job. Maggie's job. Refused to admit it in the same way Tara had. He'd taken to calling it a council. The people who helped him and Sasha with keeping Hilltop on its hill.
Carl passed his horse off to someone else after a little while, getting queasy from the constant bobbing. He threw his blanket over Rhys' shoulders, sharing it as they walked, awkwardly joined at the hip.
"That was nice what you did for her," Carl said, feeling one of his migraines coming on. The cold seemed to make them worse.
"It's not right that people blame her," Rhys answered, wrapping an arm around Carl's middle under the blanket.
"No," Carl said.
"But I do," Rhys said then. "I hate that I do. But it's hard not to think about it."
"Why do you do nice things for her then?" Carl asked. "Apart from you being you."
Rhys smiled at him, squeezing his middle. "Henry wanted her here."
"Jerry said the barometer's dropped in the last few hours," Carl told him. "Storm's comin'. We'll be travelling at night if we want to make it to the next waystation."
Rhys grimaced. "I don't know if we'll make it through the night."
"We will." Carl nodded, breathing hot air into his hands before clutching the blanket and Rhys tighter. "We have to."
Snow started to settle over the next few hours of walking. Carl's had to keep prying his machete from its holster when it froze stuck. It felt like his hair was freezing to his scalp. The same with the bandage over his eye. He'd noticed he was doing worse than Rhys in the cold. He kept tripping on the road and needing to take moments to catch his breath. Rhys' had noticed, too, and Carl only agreed to ride on the wagon for a while to stop his worried looks.
They passed a million footsteps pressed deep into the snow after dusk started to set in. Horde tracks that led across the road from one side to the other. Carl could see the tracks were old. Maybe thirty—forty minutes old. Two strays were wandering into the woods in the wrong direction. Carol and Daryl shot them with arrows. Carol went to go get her arrow back, but Ezekiel told her to keep going and rushed to the walker bodies where Daryl was inspecting the tracks.
Carl hopped off the wagon as it started to move again and trudged through the snow toward Michonne.
"You think everything's okay back home?"
"I do."
Michonne passed him something from under her jacket. A small piece of paper that Carl unfolded carefully and whistled a wheezy laugh at. It was a drawing of the four of them. RJ, Judith, Michonne, and him — he had purple hair, and Michonne's sword was spikey and bigger than her.
"Did you take this off the fridge," Carl asked.
"Worse," Michonne sighed. "Stole it from his room before we left."
They both snickered at that.
Carl sneezed, pressing two fingers to either temple and wincing. Michonne watched him with narrowed eyes.
"You taken your medicine for the headaches?" she asked, reaching out to lift his chin and inspect his blue cheeks.
Carl nodded, shivering. "It's just the cold."
Michonne let his chin go, kissing away some of the snowflakes that had settled in his soft, brown hair before nodding and telling him to go back to the wagon.
Carl looked for Rhys on his way back but didn't see him.
Jenny asked if everything was okay from her horse.
"Have you seen Rhys?" Carl asked instead of answering that complicated question.
She shook her head. "Probably just strayed off to pee."
Carl inhaled, nodding. He noticed Jenny wasn't looking great. Her usually wavy brown hair was twisted and knotted under her baseball cap. Her cheeks were sunken and blue from the cold.
"Are you okay?" Carl asked.
She laughed. It was quick and laboured under her short breaths.
"No, man. I don't think I am."
Carl smiled weakly. The kind you give when you've nothing else to offer.
"I'm sorry about Mateo," he said. "He always seemed like a good guy."
"He was," she sighed, sucking on her frostbitten cheeks. She looked away. "I've got no family left, man."
"That's not true."
"After Benjamin, I knew it would get worse. My dad..." she looked back, staring at him with tears filling her sunken eyes, "...I knew that without his chemo he wouldn't—" she paused, wiping her face dry against her woolly palms. "But Teo and Henry? They were the only family I had left."
"We've all got to be each other's family now," Carl said quietly, and she nodded, even if she probably couldn't see that.
Carl saw Rhys then. He came out of the tree line with Carol and Lydia. Daryl and Ezekiel caught up with them, too.
It was getting dark, and the snow and wind had picked up.
The caravan of wagons stopped, and everyone gathered around.
"Weather's already kicking in," Jerry shouted over the wind as it began to howl. "Even if we hauled ass overnight, we'd never make it."
"We need to get off the roads," Aaron said, "find shelter between here and the next waystation."
"You have a place in mind?"
Carl knew these roads.
"Yeah," Michonne said with a dark expression.
"Where?" Yumiko asked.
"Sanctuary," Carl said, his face just as sour as Michonne's.
"Where?" Yumiko asked again.
-Rhys-
Daryl and Ezekiel charged in first with their weapons up, Michonne behind them, brandishing her sword. The storm outside had gotten so bad they almost didn't find this place. Inside wasn't any warmer. The floor was slick with pools of water that had melted down from icicles clinging to the roof and yellow catwalks above. At least the wind didn't get in here too much. Rhys helped Carl move through the doors and to the end of the tunnel leading inside. Carl was leaning all the way into him, his breathing had gotten shallower on the journey here, and his skin was a sickly kind of pale.
"Clear," Daryl called back.
Rhys led Carl further inside, brushing the snow from his hair for him.
"People actually lived here?" Magna asked.
Michonne sighed, glancing around.
"Welcome to the Sanctuary."
Jerry led everyone on foot inside first, working hard to set up fires and tents around the open warehouse as quickly as possible. Rhys and Alden brought the horses and wagons in through a sliding door they managed to get unstuck. Rhys already hated it in here. He'd only been here a few times when Sasha and Daryl were running the place — and he'd hated it then, too. After getting the horses unsaddled and set up with enough hay and water, Rhys found Carol sitting alone on one of the staircases leading to the catwalks above everyone.
He sat beside her, and they huddled close. Not because they wanted to, but because the step was small and they were freezing.
They skipped the pleasantries — which in their own way was kind of like their own pleasantries.
"I feel like I'm losing myself again," she mumbled, voice full of not much but misery. "I'm really trying to hang on, but I don't— I don't know what I'm doing."
"Ezekiel still loves you," Rhys told her quietly. It was more an observation than a reassurance.
"And I love him," she said. "But I don't know if I can anymore."
"Then don't."
She looked at him, tears rolling down her cheeks. She didn't look sad, just full.
"Leave," Rhys said. He didn't say it in a cruel way, though. Maybe in the nicest way that one can say that word.
"You think I should?"
Rhys thought about it, then shook his head. "No. But you've got to do what you've got to do. You always have."
Rhys thought again, getting lost in it.
"I could take her and leave," Rhys said.
Carol didn't scoff at the idea like anyone else would. She understood these ideas. How they pulled at you like loose threads on an old sweater.
"You'd both die," Carol told him.
"I'd take her to Maggie," Rhys said. "Take both of us. Maybe it would fix us."
Carol did snort then. But, like Rhys and his blunt words, it wasn't mean. "Daryl already offered to leave with Lydia."
Rhys chuckled.
"You want to go?" Carol asked him. "To Maggie?"
"More than anything," Rhys said. "But also, not at all."
Carol nodded like she really understood that.
Rhys passed her his water canteen, then stood up. "Keep it together, Carol."
She nodded.
Rhys took a breath. One that shook and said something sadder than any words could. "We were going to take her away before we brought her to the Kingdom."
Carol held his canteen between her hands. She looked up at him. "You should have."
He nodded. "I know."
Rhys found Carl downstairs. He was curled up under a wagon by one of the barrel fires. Rhys shook him awake.
"Don't fall asleep, man."
"I'm just..." Carl's voice was scarily quiet. "I'm tired, Rhys."
"I know," Rhys sighed. "Me, too."
He crawled under the wagon behind him, holding on to his middle as they kept warm.
They didn't get any sleep. They couldn't risk not waking up.
In an hour's time, they were in a stairwell. Michonne laid Ezekiel's map out and leaned over it with a solar-powered flashlight.
"The next way station is here," she whispered, pointing to a road too far away. "It's right along the river that runs alongside the old route B."
"I thought the only crossing was back along the route we were on."
"It is... there's no way we'll make it, not in these conditions," Aaron said, patting Carl's shoulder. "Your dad's bridge would have saved us."
Carl nodded, his eye barely open as leaned against the concrete wall.
"You okay?" Aaron asked, noticing his lucid state.
Carl nodded again.
Michonne and Rhys both pulled tense and anxious faces.
"We don't need a bridge," Carol said from under her scarf. "The creeks and ponds are frozen over."
"So as long as we don't all go at the same time..." Yumiko said.
"We could walk right across," Rhys finished.
Carol pointed to where Rhys and Sasha hunted deer a few months back.
"There," she said. "Through our old hunting grounds. It's a straight shot."
"A straight shot through Alpha's territory," Ezekiel warned her.
"We didn't agree to those borders," Carol hissed at him. "Those borders are hers, not ours."
"That's cold comfort if we trigger a war. We don't even know how to fight them yet."
"It's only a couple of miles."
"We have to cross," Rhys said. He did agree with Ezekiel, but his eyes were glued to Carl.
"We can cross at night," Michonne added. "They won't even know we're there."
Her eyes were in the same place.
"What if they already know?" Yumiko sighed. "They could have been watching us in that field back there."
"Those skin freaks don't have walls," Rhys snapped at her. "They don't have shit. Hopefully they all fucking froze to death, but if they were smart, then they would have found a building to hold up in."
"No way they're out there in this," Daryl grunted in agreement.
"We can do this," Aaron said.
"With the elderly?" Ezekiel asked. "With the children? We can't take horses and wagons across the ice."
"Then we go by foot," Michonne snarled at him. "It's risky, but we've only got enough food to last us another day or two, and this storm could dump enough snow to make these roads impassable for weeks. It's either we make it to the next way station or we die."
Rhys had taken off his poncho and wrapped it around Carl. Carl protested weakly, but Rhys ignored him and ordered him to stay warm before kissing his ice-cold cheek and leaving him by the fire.
Rhys ventured a little deeper into the Sanctuary until he found old blankets in what looked like it was probably someone's bedroom once. He made sure the horses had enough hay to last a few days and enough melted snow to last the same. Rhys cut a hole through one of the blankets he'd found with his knife, threading it over Downy-Beardy's head and draping it atop his damp fur. He did the same for some of the other horses until he ran out of blankets.
"I'm gonna be back for you," Rhys whispered against his pale mane. Downy whinnied, pushing his head into the warmth of Rhys' armpit. "You stay alive, big guy."
The path was hidden under a heavy blanket of snow that had settled over the past few hours. The roads were barely visible, but it didn't matter because they stuck to the woods for cover from the wind until they reached the border.
It was the same place they had been months ago.
Blood still dry on the spikes.
Against the pale blue sky and snow, their red tips gleamed.
When they reached the top of the hill, Rhys looked back, their hundreds of tracks already covering up again from falling snow. He looked at Carl after, watching him stumble forward through the snow. He wasn't the only one. Most people were dragging their feet, some falling and being picked up by others. He saw Lydia staring at one of the spikes.
"Keep going," he hissed at her, not looking up like she was.
Rhys waded on. He knew he was stumbling, too.
They walked another few miles, and the falling snow became a blizzard. They came across three frozen walkers. Daryl fired an arrow at one, and its head shattered into a million red puzzle pieces, but its frozen body stayed standing. They could hear the other two growling weakly as they drew closer. Michonne took their heads, and, like the first, they stayed on their feet.
Before long, they met with the river border that marked where Alpha's land crossed back in to their own. Daryl and Michonne went to check the ice. It was dark by now. Crazed snow zipped and whipped across the black canvas of sky.
Daryl pressed the toe of his worn boot against the ice, and they all listened for cracking sounds.
"Yeah, I think we're good," Daryl said.
Rhys looked around.
"Where's Lydia?"
Aaron shrugged, helping Jerry's kids down on to the ice as everyone started to ferry themselves across. Everyone else either did the same or ignored the question.
"I'll be right back," Rhys said to Yumiko.
"You sure?" she asked, eyebrows raised.
Rhys took her shoulder for a second, and then he was leaving, heading in a direction no one had been looking in.
Carl caught his arm before he vanished in to the blizzard.
"Be careful," he wheezed.
Rhys nodded, digging his nails into his gloves and hugging himself tight as he walked away.
He found tracks weaving through some trees. The blizzard blew hard against his face. He couldn't feel it. He couldn't feel anything. He called out her name, but could hardly hear himself over the wailing wind.
Then he found her — sitting under a table in an old boat shack just off the path — canoes hanging from the ceiling and ores decorating the walls.
The walls were weak but held out the storm just about.
Rhys crouched down to look at her. She jumped back.
"Come on," he sighed, putting a hand against the ground when he started to sway. "Let's go back."
She shook her head, pulling at her hat as a tear rolled down her cheek.
"Why?" he asked, his voice weary through his chattering teeth.
"I don't know," she mumbled. "But I can't cross that river."
"Why not?"
"Because I know what's on the other side... It's the same thing that's on this side. Everyone's acting like getting to Hilltop's gonna make all our problems go away, like it's gonna make everything better, but it's not gonna change shit."
She swatted his hand away when he grabbed her arm.
Rhys hung his head, holding onto the table above, his elbow hanging by his head.
"I'm not leaving without you."
"Why?" she whined like a wounded animal. "Why do you care? I got your brother killed... and you teach me to- to ride a horse? Give me food? Why?!"
Rhys kept his eyes on the snow settled between the floorboards by her boots, his jaw shaking.
"Why don't you hate me?" she cried.
"Please stop," Rhys said quietly.
She fell silent.
Despite the storm outside, he could hear her shaky breaths, and she could hear his.
"Henry said I was a good person," she whimpered. "But he was wrong."
She crawled out then. Rhys moved back out of her way.
"As long as I'm one of you, it's never gonna stop."
They slowly stood together.
"You know I'm right."
Her eyes were wide and full of tears, and Rhys was staying quiet like he had when Alden blamed her back on the road.
"There's only one way to fix this. You see it. It can be you."
She reached for his belt. He watched as she slowly pulled his knife from its sheath.
"No one else has to know," she whispered, taking his hand and pressing the knife handle into his open palm.
She pulled the blade's tip up to her chin, pressing it against her throat, keeping it clenched in his grip between her hands.
"This is how you keep Hilltop safe. Carl. Your sister."
She was sobbing, keeping his hand and the knife to her throat.
"Please, Rhys..."
Rhys swallowed, his heart thundering against his chest as she stared at him. Lydia moved her hands off his, clenching the blade steady instead. He looked at her properly for the first time since he found his brother on that spike.
"Please do it... do it for Henry. I'm sorry it has to be you, but it does. I'm too weak."
All Rhys could do was shake his head. Her hands were bleeding from holding his knife so tightly. He carefully pulled away. She watched him put his knife back in its sheath.
"He'd want me to be kind," Rhys said, his voice shaking and his eyes watering under heavy lids.
"It got him killed," she sobbed as her body shuddered at the cold.
Rhys nodded. He rolled up his jacket sleeve and tore off part of his flannel from a hole in the arm, tearing it again with his teeth before using the shredded cloth to carefully wrap her bleeding hands. He kept holding them.
"It did," Rhys said. "Now, please come back."
Lydia slowly followed him back to the river boarder, where only Carol had waited for them. Rhys saw her eyes before she made her way across. Rhys wasn't sure what he saw. Only that he saw it.
A/N
One of the best episodes for sure. So refreshing to see snow.