-Rhys-
Wagons were sent out, inbound for either Oceanside or Alexandria. The aim was to transport everyone left to somewhere safe before the day's end.
Rhys and Sasha had a quiet word with Gabriel, Carl, and Aaron to arrange a deal so that most of those who survived Hilltop would move to Alexandria indefinitely. Though, it wasn't much of a deal. Hilltop had nothing left to offer — nothing being left of the community besides its refugees. Alexandria's present council were quick to accept anyway.
Though they were grateful, Rhys and Sasha remained stubborn in the face of their kindness, promising that any of their people strong enough would provide labour to repair whatever damage the Whisperers may have caused to Alexandria in their absence.
Considering that Hilltop had been the size of two communities, with the people of the Kingdom having resided there too, Oceanside offered to take as many as they could. Rhys had asked Luke to gather up a dozen or so people to take there.
Daryl and Sasha decided to stay back and scout the woods for anyone who might have been missed. Rhys, Carl, and Carol stayed with them to help, while Gabriel and Rosita had already left with the first wagon of Alexandrians and Hilltop refugees to ensure they had a home to send the others back to.
As they patrolled the tree line, Rhys' heart skipped a beat when he saw Maggie again, still not used to her existing outside his head. She stood by one of the wagons headed for Oceanside, chatting with Judith. Sheepishly, and with Carl's hand tightly squeezed in his, Rhys went to join them. Carl tried letting go when they got there, but he quickly realised Rhys had no intentions of letting go. That was until they all got distracted by the sound of a walker stumbling in the woods just off the dirt track.
It was a Whisperer. A dead one. A walker pretending to be a walker.
"I've got it," Rhys said, drawing his knife quickly. He considered the fact it was a fairly rare walker and thought that killing it would be like collecting one of those shiny Pokemon cards Henry used to collect when he was a kid.
"I'll go with you," Maggie told him, rubbing her hand along his back.
Judith stared up at her older brother longingly, and he rolled his eyes.
"Fine... but stay close to Rhys."
It felt like overkill, three of them for one walker. But, like they often could be, the walker was just an excuse. For Rhys, it was a reason to stop anxiously clenching and unclenching his hands.
They headed a few feet off the track until it saw them.
"Can I?" Judith asked.
"I've got this one, Jude," Rhys said, drawing a knife from his thigh holster and flinging it at the Whisperer-walker. The walker knocked its back against a tree and collapsed, his blade too short to pin it to the bark.
"Good throw," Maggie complimented, retrieving the knife for him. She crouched down to clean it against the walker's shirt before handing it back.
"Thanks," Rhys said, suddenly a little breathless.
"I coulda gotten that walker," Judith complained, pouting.
"I know," Rhys told her.
"You are your mother's daughter," Maggie said, noting her short katana that she'd drawn, ready.
"And my dads, too," Judith said.
Maggie smiled at her, then at Rhys. Rhys felt all hot on the inside, like coals were cooking under his itchy skin. He looked away and smiled queasily.
Maggie turned to Judith as they all walked back toward the track. "What'd you tell RJ?"
"Well, me and Carl took him to the roof," Judith said, looking up at the trees. "The sky was full of stars, and Carl pointed out the North Star at the end of the Little Dipper and told him that Mom would use it to find her way home. I told him that, right now, Mom's lookin' up at the very same stars as us."
Maggie smiled, looking up, too. "I said the same to Hershel when he would ask about his big brother."
Rhys' cheeks felt very hot all of a sudden.
"Even thought it myself... about all of you," Maggie went on. "Because it's true. She's out there... under the same sky."
Judith beamed. "She is."
"Hershel..." Rhys said hoarsely, making sure to blink a lot to avoid crying. "He came with you and Elijah?"
"He did." Maggie curled her lips into a raw smile full of happy and sad emotions. "He's so excited to see you... wouldn't shut up about it the whole—"
Rhys clutched the handle of his knife and turned when Maggie's face fell, and she stopped speaking. He relaxed his grip when he saw Negan on the track, standing beside a wagon headed for Oceanside.
The wagon started rolling away just as Negan and Maggie's eyes met.
Rhys' heart was pounding. He looked to Carl, who looked remarkably nervous. Maybe not as nervous as Negan, who audibly gulped.
"Hey, Maggie," he croaked.
Maggie stared at him, clenching her teeth as she clutched her bow tightly in her fist.
Negan glanced at Rhys, then Carl, realising no one was planning on speaking for him.
"I didn't escape," he said, "if that's what you're thinking."
Maggie stayed off the path, marching around him and down the track.
"Fuck," Negan groaned, hoping in front of Rhys when he tried to pass him too.
"Negan," Carl growled.
"Listen," Negan said quickly to Rhys, who wasn't meeting his eye. "Me and you are on rocky roads... the biggest scoop of rocky road... I get it. But, I guess it might put my mind at ease if I knew for certain that—"
"You should catch up with that wagon," Rhys said. "Oceanside's still taking people."
"Ha," Negan snorted. "And live with fish-wives of all the fish-husbands Simon put in the ground? I think not. I didn't move out of one hell just to go pay rent in another."
Rhys stepped around Negan, not saying anymore.
"Fantastic," Negan grumbled.
"Hey!" Carl called to the last wagon leaving for Alexandria. "Negan and Jude are gonna ride back with you."
He got a few raised eyebrows, but no one argued.
"You're not coming back?" Judith asked, looking concerned.
"Rhys and I are going to stay and make sure everyone's accounted for, okay?"
Judith sighed but nodded. "Need an extra pair of friendly eyes and ears?"
"Always," Carl laughed, cupping his hand to the back of her head and pulling her in for a brotherly hug. "But I need you to check in on RJ. Plus, I need someone to keep an eye on Negan."
Judith winked at him. "Rodger that."
"Rodger indeed," Negan groaned.
Back down the track, Carl and Rhys arrived at what was left of the camp. Everyone was gone by now, and all sign of them ever being there was cleared, save a few campfires that still let off a slight trail of white smoke from the nearby stream water that had been used to extinguish them.
The boys strolled over to where Carol and Daryl were chatting with Maggie, Elijah and a man they didn't recognise. He was tall and pale, with slick black hair pulled into a tight bun above droopy eyebrows and a neatly trimmed beard.
The stranger's eyes spotted Rhys and Carl just after Daryl did, going wide like they weren't strangers to him. When the boys reached them, he extended a very deliberate hand out to Rhys.
"You must be Rhys Washburne," he said happily, waiting for him to shake his hand, which Rhys did after a brief pause of hesitation. "I'm Cole. I've heard only good things."
Carl smirked at Rhys' awkward and slim smile.
Rhys' mouth hung open for a moment before he responded. "Um, thanks?"
"Going by the stetson," Cole said to Carl, shaking his hand after he got done wearing out Rhys' arm. "Carl?"
"Guilty," Carl answered politely.
"Hershel and I were living with Elijah and Cole's people until recently," Maggie said when Rhys and Carl's finite supply of polite smiles ran dry.
"Right," Rhys said, recalling a few name of the places Maggie had mentioned in her letters before she went dark.
Maggie grimaced painfully. "We lost the village. My people that made it and Hershel are nearby."
"And now we need to live with you," Cole said rather directly for Rhys' liking.
"How many of you?" Carl asked cautiously. "We're running low on space."
Maggie nodded, looking at Carol, then Rhys. "I thought I'd take 'em to Hilltop anyway."
Carol glanced at Daryl nervously. Daryl looked to Carl, who looked at Rhys. Rhys winced as he realised no one had told her yet.
"What is it?" Maggie asked.
It was easier to show her. That's what Rhys thought. But, when they reached Hilltop, he wasn't so sure. Barrington House's burnt husk was visible over the charred walls and through the fallen gates. Blackened bodies were pilled high outside the walls, and white smoke still rose from inside.
Maggie stared at it for a long, suffocatingly quiet time. She squeezed her fists into balls.
"Maggie," Carol said carefully. "Negan was with the Whisperers. That night. I wanted you to hear it from me because..."
"It was you?" Maggie's eyes narrowed, confused and dismayed as she looked at her. "You let him out?"
"Alpha needed to die," Carol explained, "and Negan was our best chance. We were going to lose everything. Negan's the reason we didn't."
Rhys swallowed as Maggie looked back at Hilltop's corpse, her face like she was seeing it for the first time again. She clutched her ribs, her face scrunching painfully.
"So, what now?" Cole asked. "What, everyone's just supposed to go to— what's it called?"
"Alexandria," Daryl grunted.
"Right," Cole grumbled. "So we all go to Alexandria and live next door to the guy who torched this place? Same guy that killed her husband?"
Maggie's jaw clenched. Rhys looked away.
"Is that right?" Cole added when no one answered.
"We're figuring it out," Carl told him sharply. "One step at a time."
Cole scoffed.
"Thanks for tellin' me," Maggie said to Carol then.
Carol flinched but nodded.
Maggie tapped Rhys elbow since he was still looking away from her direction. "We need to get to Hershel and the others."
Then she walked away, Elijah and Cole following her back into the woods.
"You didn't have to tell her," Rhys said to Carol.
"I did," Carol replied quickly. "I owed it to both of you."
"You guys coming with?" Rhys asked, already headed after Maggie and the others, Carl behind him.
Daryl nodded. "Gimme a minute to speak with Carol, and I'll catch up."
Rhys and Carl tagged along with Maggie, Cole, and Elijah, and about an hour after, Daryl caught up to them. Sasha and Kelly were with him, and Rhys sighed with relief. He watched Kelly chatting with Daryl at the back of the train, the two bumping fists after.
"Daydreaming?"
Rhys blinked at Sasha, who had snuck up between him and Carl.
"Huh?" he asked.
Carl snickered at him.
"I asked if you were daydreaming," Sasha chuckled.
"Oh," Rhys said, nodding. "People watching."
"Gotcha," Sasha sighed.
Rhys glanced at the bloody sleeves of her denim jacket.
"You... you're okay?" he asked, clenching his fists nervously.
She smiled at him, chuckling to herself, then she smiled a little wider. She grabbed his head suddenly, pulling it against her chest and kissing the top of it.
"Quit it!" Rhys squawked, wriggling out from her grasp and batting her hand away.
"I'm happy, Rhys," she said. "Honest."
"Carol doesn't seem to be at peace after killing Alpha," Carl noted.
"Hmm," Sasha hummed like it was a curious thought. "I didn't lose what she lost. But I suppose people are different, too. I killed that oversized monster, and I'll sleep like a fucking baby tonight."
Rhys was glad of that, though... maybe a little saddened by the sentiment, too.
"Gimme a minute," Rhys told them, then he sped up to catch Maggie, who was a league ahead of the rest of them.
Maggie smiled when he arrived at her side. She reached her hand out to brush her thumb over his cheek, maybe swiping away some dirt, or perhaps just happy to see him.
"Hershel," Rhys said excitedly.
She beamed at him. "I can't wait for you to see him."
"Me, neither."
They came across a pond after not too long. Maybe an acre of water across their path. It was narrow, and the footbridge across was old and rickety. It could only take two people at once Daryl told them after inspecting it with the toe of his boot. Elijah and Maggie went first. The autumn trees left curled golden leaves floating on the lake's surface. Rhys offered Carl his hand when they were halfway across after he noticed his feet wobbling.
"Vertigo hitting hard?" Rhys asked.
"I'm okay," Carl said, focusing hard.
"Still," Rhys said, shaking his hand. "Let me help."
Carl shook his head, taking a step over a gap where a plank was missing from the wooden footbridge.
"I need to get over it," he said.
"You don't," Rhys told him. "You're allowed to have fears."
"It almost killed us in the cave," Carl said as he took another small step, his eye widening when the whole thing groaned and swung gently.
"Sure, but be honest... how often are we trapped in caves?" Rhys chuckled, watching his step as he walked backwards on the bridge to keep an eye on Carl.
Carl grimaced. "More often than I'd like to— WOAH!"
He tripped. Rhys was there to catch him. Carl groaned, knocking his head against Rhys' shoulder as his tensed body went limp, secure in his arms.
"Well, hello, handsome," Rhys chuckled.
Carl looked up at him awkwardly. "Hi."
Rhys let go of him once he'd found his feet, but Carl kept hold of his hand.
"Fine," he hissed. "Maybe holding your hand wouldn't be the worst thing in the world."
Maggie and Elijah waited for them on the far side of the footbridge. All the stress of crossing made Carl need to pee, and when he went to find a spot, Rhys turned to Elijah, trying not to find the steel mask covering his face too intimidating.
"Hi," Rhys said, offering his hand. "Sorry, we haven't properly met yet."
Elijah looked at his hand, shook it, and said nothing. Then the masked man marched over to a walker that was rising out of the water after it caught wind of their crossing.
Rhys nodded. "Erm..."
"He doesn't talk so much right now," Maggie told him softly. "He just lost his sister."
"I'm sorry," Rhys said. "Sounds like they were good people where you were."
Maggie smiled miserably, watching as Elijah sliced off the walker's head after luring it from the water. Rhys wondered if he did as to not get his boots wet or because he didn't want to pollute the lake with its blood.
"I remember I was so lost after losing Bethy," Maggie said. "Even before I knew she was dead."
"I remember, too," Rhys told her.
"I know you do, sweetie."
Everyone got across without incident, and they all continued on their way to meet Maggie's people. Rhys tried to think positive thoughts. He'd noticed that everyone else seemed in higher spirits since they'd dealt with the horde, but there was something he still couldn't shake.
The sun was getting low. They came out of the woods and onto a road by a fenced-in lot stuffed with rusted shipping containers. Rhys saw atleast a dozen walkers trapped inside, then he noticed Elijah do some trick with his finger, putting three of them up to the sun and then showing the result to Cole.
"About a half hour left, boss," Cole told Maggie. "If we're lucky."
"We can keep goin' a little longer," she responded.
"No we can't," Cole said, firmer that time. "It's getting dark. We shouldn't be out here."
Maggie stopped, glancing at Rhys, who grimaced at the idea of waiting another night but nodded in agreement because it was the smart thing.
Daryl and Kelly were looking at the gated lot, a dozen walkers loitering inside. Daryl signed something Rhys missed and Kelly nodded in agreement.
Carl shrugged, cupping a hand over his eye to look up at the sun. "We still have time to find some higher ground and water to set up camp."
"This place would be secure if we cleared it," Sasha suggested.
"There's a lot of walkers," Rhys said.
"Here's good," Maggie told him.
"Here?" Kelly huffed. "You wanna stay here?"
"Carl's right," Daryl said, looking unsure at the number of dead weaving between the containers past the fence.
Maggie shook her head. "I think we'll all sleep better in some shelter."
Carl and Daryl exchanged a look. Daryl shrugged so Carl said, "Alright."
"Okay," Kelly said with snark. "So all we have to do is clear this whole parking lot full of sickos and haul up for the night."
"We've got this," Sasha told her, tugging the axes free from the loops on her belt.
"Oh, do you now?" Cole laughed, drawing twin daggers almost the length of swords.
"Yeah," Sasha said cooly. "We do."
Rhys frowned uncomfortably at the interaction between the two as they marched to the gate. Daryl rushed ahead and broke off the padlock with the butt of his crossbow.
Carl drew his sword and tapped Rhys shoulder to say he was ready as he unsheathed two knives. Rhys nodded, looking to Maggie who raised an eyebrow and cocked a confident smirk.
Sasha threw the gate open on Maggie's word and, in a flurry of well-sharpened blades, de-limbed the first two walkers — first their arms, then their heads. Cole took the next, slamming his daggers in its mushy skull. A crossbow bolt whizzed over Rhys' left shoulder as he stabbed one through the nose, hitting the walker behind it. Carl hopped up on a rusty car in the middle of the lot, banging the flat of his blade against the roof to lure four walkers who struggled to reach him. He neatly poked all four through the tops of their heads. Kelly waited by the gate, firing a rock from her slingshot into one that came close to sinking its teeth into Elijah's arm after he finished decapitating his third. The two shared a brief and grateful nod.
Rhys heard Maggie yelp from around the corner of a container. He skidded around it in time to see her struggling with the door of another, desperately trying to shut it as four or five walkers pushed from inside the container.
"Are you okay?" Rhys cried as he spotted the gash on her arm, slamming his shoulder against the door to help her.
"Just a cut," she gasped. "Now push!"
And they did. Daryl joined them. Then Elijah. Together, the four forced the container shut, crushing the head of one walker like a melon, blood spurting across Elijah's hood and mask.
"Fuckin' nasty," Rhys gagged as he recoiled away from the smell.
Maggie yanked down the bolt that kept the container locked. Rhys leaned his back to it as he caught his breath, feeling the banging from the other side vibrate through his body as he watched Elijah flick blood off his gloves.
"Woah," Cole said, smiling at Sasha in a way that made Rhys blink aggressively. "You really did have it."
Rhys blinked harder when Sasha smiled, raised her eyebrows twice and said, "Not too bad yourself."
Rhys tapped Carl's shoulder a few times when he appeared beside him, scrubbing brains from his sword with a grungy cloth he'd fished from his jacket pocket. Carl looked up, seeing what Rhys was seeing as Sasha and Cole walked back towards the gate chatting.
"Are they...?" Rhys murmured.
Carl's bottom lips curled into a perplexed frown. "No..." He took a sharp and thoughtful breath. "No?"
Rhys nodded making a few unintelligible grunting sounds. "No."
Cole relieved Rhys from watch duty after about two hours that he'd spent sitting on the highest point of stacked containers and rolling paper between his fingers trying to trick his brain into believing it was a joint.
Rhys thanked him, tossed away the creased paper, and climbed down.
Rhys found Maggie inside one of the containers on her own, pouring water over the gash on her forearm and trying to wrap a spotted bandana around it. An electric lantern by her feet illuminated the metal tunnel, her bow leaning against the wall beside her. She looked up at him as he pulled shut the heavy door behind him.
"Here," Rhys said, sitting with his back to the wall beside her and passing over a clean roll of gauze in a plastic zip bag. "Carl keeps his backpack stocked."
"Thank you," Maggie said sharply, fumbling with the bag's zip.
"Let me?" Rhys asked.
Maggie sighed, extending her arm out in front of him and passing the bandage back. Rhys lifted his knee, propping her arm on it as he took the gauze and worked it gently around her arm. They were both quiet until he was done, but Rhys could feel her watching him.
"Kelly was tellin' me that you and Sasha took charge at Hilltop," she said.
Rhys shrugged. "We tried."
"Carol's letter told me what I missed," Maggie said quietly.
"Must have been a long letter," Rhys replied bitterly.
Now they were alone and the immediate relief of seeing her alive had worn off, Rhys remembered just how angry he'd been at her for so long.
"Enid," Maggie whispered gently against the stale air. Rhys watched her as she shut her eyes and pressed the back of her head into the cold container wall. "Tara and Jesus," she continued. "All those people waitin' on me."
"We stopped waiting on you," Rhys told her. "Tara and Jesus held out hope for a long time that you would come back, but after we lost them..."
He trailed off, blinking back tears that frustrated him. Frustrated him because every time he thought he was past it, someone said their names again. Maggie opened her eyes and looked at him. Rhys looked away, not wanting to meet whatever apology she had prepared. Only, she didn't apologise.
"The last place I wrote to you from," Maggie said, "the one I was helpin' Georgie and the twins get up and runnin'... it fell. I almost came home, and maybe I should've, but..."
Rhys looked at her then, waiting for the answer, hanging off the hope that there could be a reason that made her leave him alone for so long.
"We took a detour..." she said, smiling briefly to herself before she aimed it at him. "Remember my nana's place by the ocean?"
Rhys' laugh was breathless, something sad lingering in it. He smiled and nodded. "I remember you cooking possum for us on the beach... I remember we had to keep such a close eye on Hershel because the moment we would turn away—"
"He'd be off," Maggie laughed. She had that same sad note trailing at the back of her laugh that Rhys did. "He'd run down towards the water and you'd have to chase after him—"
"I did," Rhys interrupted in the same way she had, telling the story together, their eyes collectively becoming more alive each time. "He was so fast for how small he was."
Maggie was grinning, her eyes wet as she said, "I took him back there."
Rhys felt a mixed pang of jealousy and excitement in his gut as he thought about missing that, desperate to hear what it was like.
"He loved it," Maggie told him, flicking her tongue against her teeth and rolling her eyes back in exclamation. "Waves twice his size knockin' him to the ground. He just bounced right back up laughing."
Rhys was laughing listening to it, imagining what Hershel must look like now, older, but still with that boyish grin he never seemed to not have plastered across his face.
"We did everything the same when we went," Maggie said. "Watched the sunrise... water crashin' against the rocks. Roasted fish, not possum this time."
"You got the traps to work?" Rhys asked, raising his eyebrows in surprise.
"Actually, Hershel did," Maggie said. "He's good at that sort of thing."
"I bet," Rhys said proudly.
"It was so peaceful." A tear rolled down her cheek. "One night we stayed up really late and I told him stories about his family. Beth and Shawn, and his grandaddy. He always ended up askin' about you, though..." Rhys chuckled at that, his cheeks glowing red as they stung from how much he was smiling. Maggie squeezed his arm. "Always."
Rhys sniffed, wiping his face and clearing his throat.
Maggie looked down at her boots, frowning. "Then he asked me how his daddy died." Rhys glanced at her, his smile fading and his chin shaking. Maggie swallowed, clenching her fists. "I knew he would. I knew it was comin'. We avoided it for so long... then I kept avoidin' it for so long after that."
They had. Over the years they'd only ever had the conversation once about what they would say, speculating how old he'd be. It always felt too far away to plan for.
Rhys strained his jaw and gasped. "What did you say?"
"I told him that a bad man killed him," Maggie said quietly. "He wanted to know if that man got what he deserved. He wanted to know if that man was dead."
"When you asked me to go with you," Rhys said, taking slow and methodical breaths. "I wanted to."
"I know, baby."
"Please," Rhys said with a sharp breath. "Let me say it."
Maggie pressed her lips together and nodded.
"I wanted to," Rhys told her again. "I wanted to chase after you for years. I missed you both and it hurt so much. Knowing Negan was alive... then having him out of his cell and around. I wondered every time I saw him if I was failing you by not killing him. And when you saw him today, I felt it again. That fucking agony that you might think I'd forgiven him. I hate him. I hate you for leaving me. I hate that I've spent so long feeling pulled away from my family while having Sasha and everybody else right there... you made me feel so fucking selfish."
"I know, Rhys," she said. "I know all that. And I couldn't bring Hershel back to that."
"Back to me, you mean."
"No," she said snappily. "Back to the way Negan makes the world feel so... small and unfair."
Rhys lowered his head, drying his eyes against his wrists and taking a deep and heavy breath of the cold night air trapped in the container with them. "I should get back to Carl."
Maggie nodded, she was looking at him longingly, so Rhys dipped his head and she took it as permission to reach out to touch his cheek, cupping his face with both hands and planting three kisses against his forehead, each more firm than the last. She brushed the wisps of dark hair out of his eyes and he smiled up at her wearily.
"We'll talk more about it," she said.
Rhys nodded in agreement, then he left for his and Carl's container.
Carl had rolled out a sleeping bag for them and was lying on it on his back, hand across his chest that rose and fell slowly. It was impossible for Rhys to not make a cacophony of sounds opening and closing the container door.
"Did I wake you?" he asked when Carl's eye fluttered open, lit by the candle he'd left burning by his head, one of the ones Bertie at Hilltop used to make.
"No," Carl yawned, rolling over as Rhys unbuckled his blade holster, taking his other two knives from their sheaths, too, before laying beside him.
"Liar."
Rhys kissed Carl's cheek before laying on his back and shutting his eyes, trying to find the groaning of the container comforting rather than concerning. Carl quietly slid his hand under Rhys shirt and rested it on his belly.
Rhys chuckled, "What're you doing?"
"Cold," Carl groaned. "You're so warm."
There was a gentle knock at their door then. Kelly stuck her head in after Rhys called out.
"Everything okay?" Carl asked, reluctantly removing his hand.
"Yeah... I've got a favour to ask."
A/N
Maybe the wait for this chapter is fitting since it's the first to cover the covid episodes... maybe not.
Thanks for reading :)