Rhys was up at the crack of dawn, the sun barely peeking its head over Alexandria's steel walls. Carl found him at around seven, sitting with his pack on a bench by the wagon he'd already prepared himself for their journey.

Rhys knew he probably looked as exhausted as he was. He'd tried wrestling with his bedhead for a good twenty minutes in the bathroom mirror that morning— opting instead for the baseball cap he'd been wearing more often, recently.

"Ready?" he asked, leg bouncing nervously against his palm.

"Michonne's still making breakfast for the RJ and Jude," Carl replied, smiling at him knowingly— the gentle look in his eye doing its best to soften the delay. "Shouldn't be long."

"I appreciate you guys coming with me."

"What'd I say," Carl hummed with his southern drawl. "No more splittin' up."

Rhys' chest got warm as he managed to smile back.

"Michonne's bringing Judith... figures it's about time we stop treating her so much like a kid."

"What about RJ? He upset about everyone leaving?"

"Oh, he can't wait for sleepovers with Uncle Daryl."

Rhys looked up at the morning sun, seemingly moving slower than he thought it should.

"Shoot," he groaned. "Maybe I should have gone with Sasha last night."

"Yumiko said Hilltop's handling it," Carl said in a poor attempt to soothe his anxieties.

"It's them," Rhys hissed. "No way that tree fell and took down one of Hilltop's walls on its own. Sasha has people check on the ones closest to the walls regularly."

"If it is them, we'll deal with it," Carl reassured him.

"How?" Rhys sighed. "More meetings where we give up our land?"

"You sound like Carol," Carl sighed back at him.

"Maybe she's not wrong."

Rhys regretted saying that. Not because he didn't mean it— more because he didn't want to fight about it.

"You're right," Carl told him slowly.

Rhys glanced up at him, a modicum of shock widening his eyes.

"We might have to kill them all," Carl said grimly. "But not until we can stop them from using that horde."

Rhys nodded, looking at his feet when he couldn't face that notion.

Carl crouched down in front of Rhys, getting back in his eyesight and smiling sweetly. He placed a hand on his knee and rubbed it until it stopped its nervous jitters. "Go take a walk, yeah? Michonne won't be long."

So Rhys did.

He walked.

Alexandria had always been good for that. Long streets. Houses with big windows that showed people living their own lives— thinking about normal things like if they should tidy the house today or what they'll have for dinner.

Rhys lingered as he drew close to the windmill to watch where Aaron was leading one of his close combat training lessons on the grass by one of the crop fields that filled the space between the back of the town hall and the windmill.

He was criticising one of the new recruits with a furrowed brow. "You're dead. Your eyes were on the ground! Track from head to hands always. Lose focus and you will get killed. Remember, the Whisperers took our friends. They took our land. They must be stopped. Again."

Rhys found himself nodding along as he drew closer, but stopped when he spotted Lydia hovering at the back of the crowd of fighters and listening to Aaron's words. He could see she was holding Henry's staff and leaning into it, the corners of her lips pulled down into a bothered frown.

Gage and a few others turned to her when they noticed her lingering.

"Hey, Lydia!" Gage sneered. He pulled a grain sack with eye holes cut out from his pocket that he must have made specifically for her tormenting her. He pulled it over his head so it looked like a skin mask. "You think mommy will take me in?"

Lydia took a few steps back.

He took it off slowly, laughing at her. "Oh, right, no, no, she kicked your ass out. Now you're just a frea—"

Before he could finish, Gage crashed to his ass on the grass, skidding back a few paces, the mask flying off to the side. Rhys was standing over him.

"What the hell?!" Gage gasped, scrambling backwards and holding his chest that was probably sore from the aggressive shove Rhys had just dealt him.

"Why don't you knock that shit off?" Rhys hissed down at him.

Margo, from the meeting the other day, and a few of her buddies helped Gage to his feet.

She scowled at Rhys for pushing him, but neither she nor any of her friends did shit about it.

"Hey!" Aaron bellowed over the recruits as he pushed his way through them— all no longer paying attention to his class and instead watching the commotion Rhys had caused. "What's going on?"

Rhys shrugged at him. "Just trying to make sure they're taking in what you're teaching. Your eyes were on the ground, Gage."

Aaron gave Rhys a very unimpressed grimace.

"Bullshit!" Gage shouted, getting flustered and embarrassed as his face burned red as a tomato. "You just knocked me down when I was distracted!"

"Too busy picking on little girls?"

"Enough!" Aaron roared at them both. "The last thing we need is—"

"No," Rhys cut in, his voice staying both sharp and blunt at the same time. "Carl and you are always asking me to help with training when I'm here. I'm free now."

Aaron blew out his chest and sighed, trying to look deeply into Rhys' intentions.

The youth gave him a hollow smile.

He seemed to buy it because Aaron stepped back and gave Rhys a heavy nod.

Gage looked nervous but seemed eager to get back some of the pride Rhys just knocked out of him.

Aaron cleared his throat and tossed Rhys a training knife. "First to touch skin wins... try to teach them something, yeah?"

Gage may have been a little shit, but he was lanky and stood at least six feet tall. Unlike Carl, Rhys hadn't gotten that much taller over the years.

He hadn't grown like him.

Sometimes he felt it, too.

Hanging out with Carl, who was known for his smarts and resilience by now...

Being around Sasha and the reputation of her brutal tactics and raw strength that would whisper its way throughout all the communities...

Rhys didn't think he'd ever earned one of those reputations.

It didn't normally, but in that moment, it pissed him off.

He looked around only to realise Lydia was gone.

He turned back when he heard the thundering of Gage sprinting at him, one of the wooden training knives in his grip and manically slashing toward his chest.

But luckily for Rhys, he'd learned from Carl.

From Sasha.

Rosita, Jenny, Dianne, Maggie, Jesus, Glenn, Abraham, and Rick.

From all of them.

But this trick he'd seen more recently...

On their last voyage, one of the crew had accused Carol of stealing their lucky spool of pink fisherman's twine, and she had been in a bad mood.

Gage jabbed forward at Rhys with all his force. Rhys sidestepped him, swinging his foot at Gage's shin in the same, swift movement.

Gage gasped as all his momentum took him off the floor momentarily before he crashed back down into it on his face.

A few laughs broke out.

Furious, face smeared with mud, Gage spun onto his back and slashed at Rhys' leg. Rhys was quick and kicked the knife out of his loose grip without much effort. Gage grunted as his back hit the dirt again.

Rhys crouched down and grabbed a fistful of his grass-stained shirt.

"You've always been a little shit, Gage. You always were, and that's fine," Rhys hissed, an inch from his face. "But if you try to spit on everything Henry died for, I swear to god—"

"He's done," Aaron growled, pulling Rhys off him and pushing him back. "Are you?"

"Yeah," Rhys grunted, tossing his own knife aside. "Yeah, I think I am."

Rhys found Mikey in the old gazebo by the lake that they, Enid, Carl, and Ron used to spend the hottest summer days cowering in. It actually looked better now than it did before. Rhys wondered if Mikey and Carl had made sure to keep it standing over the years.

"Hey," Rhys called out, waving the boy out of his book. "Seen Lydia?"

"Oh," Mikey gasped, surfacing from great expectations with an amused look, like the last line he read was a joke or something. "I thought you were off to Hilltop?"

"Dude."

"Erm... no?" he looked confused.

"Shit," Rhys groaned.

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah, just some people were giving her a hard time."

"Ah," he said diplomatically, like something came to him with that. "I think I know where she is, but..."

"But?"

Mikey tsked. "You're not gonna love it."

"Alright, kid, look, obviously you're having a day, but, you know... what happened to rolling with it?"

"I'm not just gonna smile and take it."

"I didn't say that. But I also didn't say run and hide. I mean, shit."

"You said to kill them with kindness."

Rhys had heard enough. He barged past all the strung-up washing that shrouded where Negan was talking to her on his duty rota.

"Come on," Rhys growled at Lydia.

"I'm good."

"Now."

"No!"

Mikey jumped through the sheets behind him. "How about we all cool it?"

Lydia and Rhys were staring daggers at each other.

Negan chuckled.

"You can fuck off," Rhys hissed, pointing at him.

"Where's Brandon?" Mikey asked, looking around.

"Who?" Negan asked, amused.

"Your guard," Mikey said, less amused.

"Oh... that's Brandon?"

Rhys had only met Brandon a few times. Some ex-Savior's kid. Honestly, pretty forgettable.

"I think you're done with chores for the day," Mikey told him.

"Never mind," Lydia grumbled at them, standing up and storming off through the sheets.

Rhys went to follow, but Negan called after him.

"She's just trying to fit in. You know that, right?"

"You think that's gonna work if she hangs out with you?"

"Maybe if some of the people meant to care about her would stick around—"

Rhys left before he heard the rest.

"Wait up!"

He caught Lydia a few doors down from her and Daryl's place.

"Why?!" she yelled at him. "So you can use me as an excuse to get through your own shit again?"

Rhys scrunched up his face at her, confused. "What are you talking about?"

"You!" she cried. "You say you care. Knock on that damn door and say all this shit about family! But you don't care! You don't! I'm just an unwanted promise you made to your brother!"

"Lydia, that's not—"

"I saw you," she said. "Nodding along to what Aaron was saying about my people."

"They're not your people!"

"And you are?" she screamed at him, her voice cracking and wavering close to tears, not caring about the people stopping and staring on the street, or the ones poking their heads from their doors to watch. "You promised to be around, and you're not! The people here treat me like I'm still one of them..."

"So you hang out with Negan to fix that?"

"He gets me."

"He doesn't care about you," Rhys told her slower, needing her to get that. "He doesn't care about anything. He's a killer. He's evil."

"At least he's here. He listens to me."

Lydia looked up at her door then, and when Rhys saw her gawking expression, he looked, too.

Yellow paint smeared across the front door.

-SILENCE THE WHISPERERS-

"Lydia—"

But she had already stormed up the cobbled steps and slammed the door shut behind her.

"It's up to you..." Michonne was sat in the driver's seat of the car-turned-wagon, ready to leave Alexandria for Hilltop.

"Things are bad for her here on her own," Rhys said. "Maybe I should stay."

"You could bring her with us?" Judith suggested, fixing her braid as he did.

Rhys shook his head. "She's struggling here. Hilltop's got even fewer friendly faces for ex-whisperers since the fair."

"Want my opinion?" Carl asked, wincing at the sun that was managing to sneak under his hat and hit his eye.

Rhys nodded. "Always."

"Hilltop needs you right now," he said simply. "Alexandria is safe, and she'll be safe in it. Hilltop isn't."

Rhys pulled his mouth in tightly, thinking about it.

He sighed.

"Gimme a minute."

Lydia was perched on the top step outside her house.

Rhys leaned against the railings at the bottom rather than sitting.

She looked down at him.

Her face was always hard to read, but seemed harder still at that moment.

"You know I've gotta go again, right?"

She nodded, pursing her lips. "It's my fault."

"What is?"

"I keep thinking that's gonna change."

Rhys gave her defeated exhale as he nodded in agreement. "Sometimes I wish it would."

Lydia gave him a dry chuckle. "Remember when it was the seven of us in the woods that night after we left Alexandria, before Kingdom?"

Rhys nodded.

She gave him a sad sort of smile, her eyes wet. "That's the closest I've ever come to feeling like what Henry always used to tell me about."

Rhys didn't want to talk about him.

But he listened.

"He told me all about his mom and his dad. How they used to have family game nights, and eat dinner at a table... sit around the fire and just be there with each other and have that be enough."

Rhys chuckled then. "You know... eating at a table isn't all that special."

Lydia smirked, but it quickly melted away.

"Now you and Carl are leavin'. Connie's at Hilltop. Henry's gone. Daryl's too busy with everything..."

"At least you've still got Dog," Rhys joked.

She didn't laugh at that one.

He did climb the steps to sit beside her then.

"Sometimes I wish I could forget about him," Rhys told her, keeping his face tight and his emotions in check.

She looked at him.

He looked at his knees.

"Sometimes I wish I'd never met Henry," he admitted. "Then I wouldn't have to live with this overwhelming pain of him being gone."

"Me, too."

Rhys looked at her.

"But then I remember that stupid, oblivious smile he had... like nothing bad ever happened to the world," Rhys said, his voice shaking through his smile. "That funny wobble in his walk when he was excited to get somewhere— like some new born deer trying to find his way. How he always thought about the positive before the negative."

Lydia's face brightened a little as she remembered it, too.

"It's you, Daryl, and everyone that knew Henry that reminds me why I'm glad I knew him. So don't you ever think I'm not coming back. Because I won't let him go either."

A tear ran down her cheek.

Rhys stood up. "I've asked Mikey to keep an eye on you, so don't be mean to him if he asks if you're okay... he's just doing his job. And make sure you talk to him if you need anything. Once I get to Hilltop, I'll call you on the long range."

"And what about Gage and the others?" she sniffed. "Negan thinks I should kill 'em with kindness. Daryl thinks I need to avoid them."

"Have you tried both of those?"

She nodded.

"Listen," Rhys sighed. "When I got to Alexandria... the very first time— I felt like an outsider for a long time. Felt like none of the people here knew shit about being out there and that I had to pretend to be one of them to fit in."

"So what did you do?"

He shrugged. "Sometimes pretending was the right thing to do. Sometimes, I had to rely on the people I arrived with to remind me what was what. After a while, though... I realised that being myself was normally the right thing to do."

"Okay, Rhys."

"And hey," he said, smiling at her. "Henry's not the only reason I'm coming back, okay?"

A/N

Sorry about the delay for this one. Had to get a new computer because my old one went kaput :(

Happy reading :)