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Certain Doom — Part Two: Family
Faces rushed past with a forceful surge of hissing teeth. Walker's filled the room like a flood. Like a plague. It felt biblical as death and rot filled their sanctuary. Rhys tried to pay attention to everyone and everything, desperate to spot a Whisperer before a knife was jammed between someone's ribs and they died screaming, torn apart by desperate hands. He watched their eyes. You don't realise how vacant walkers' eyes are until you try to meet them and they don't see you back — there's no hate there. No malice. Only hunger. Rhys didn't see any Whisperers, but he couldn't check them all.
Before long, they were all shoulder to shoulder with the dead.
Rhys lost sight of everyone almost immediately. He couldn't see Jerry, who he was supposed to protect.
A walker stumbled against another and bumped into him, knocking him forward towards the door, and suddenly Rhys was a part of the churn — to stop moving might be too obvious to Whisperer or walker, so Rhys joined with the current of bodies.
He thought he'd caught sight of Jerry's back through the crowd but lost him again when another set of shoulders passed in front of him. Rhys squeezed out the open single door that walkers pushed through both ways. He had no choice but to push one out his way, holding back his gasp of relief when it didn't take offence and pounce on him.
The herd grew louder outside The Tower's purged airlock. A set of teeth chattered and grated over Rhys' shoulder as the walker behind him pressed up against his back. He couldn't gasp or even breathe too loud for fear of them tearing out his jugular in a single, luring bite. Rhys' vision fogged as he felt a tear on run down cheek as he held back everything else.
Ahead, suddenly, he spotted a backpack, picking up his pace ever so slightly to snatch ahold of it, trying to convey an apology with his eyes when Jerry almost made a noise in surprise and terror of being found out. Rhys let go of him, staying behind him as they pushed forward. Eyes still blurry, Rhys took a moment to recognise Magna beside him. Her eyes were pinched shut as tears squeezed from their corners, her chin trembling as walkers hung over her and wheezed against her ear. Rhys found her hand, squeezing it until she managed to open an eye to look at him. She shook her head, a tear racing down her face.
Suddenly, a walker lept from the crowd at them, two rusty knives about their head.
WHOOSH!
Magna's hair whipped violently as an arrow flew over her shoulder and pierced the Whisperer in the chest, throwing him to the ground before he let out a scream. His screams went on as he was torn apart by the dead. Rhys recognised the colourful band on the end of the arrow that had hit him as one of Jenny's.
The horde opened up for them as walkers descended on the now silent body. It gave the three of them a chance to pick up the pace for a few steps until the horde tightened again.
Another walker was suddenly struck by an arrow a few feet to their left, though the horde had gotten tight enough that they couldn't see them, only hear the screaming as the rest turned on the imposter. Lydia must have picked him out before he could even reveal himself.
The next time the horde tightened, it felt different. Walkers started to drag their feet in circles, forcing them all closer together. It must have been them, Rhys realised. The Whisperers knew they were among them now and were trying to stop them from making it out.
Rhys' eyes drifted down for just a second, and thankfully for it he spotted the knife clutched tightly in the fist of what he thought was a walker walker infront of him, only just managing to catch her wrist as she tried to force the knife up into his gut. He struggled silently with the Whisperer, both their arms locked down between their waists, glaring hatefully at each other from either side of the dead person's face she hid under. It only took a second or two for Magna to notice and quickly stab her knife into the Whisperer's thigh. Rhys' tunneling vision stayed locked with the Whisperer's eyes as they started to water, but she didn't make a sound as she continued to push against his strength, knowing it would be her death if she so much as squeaked. Suddenly, a window in her skull exploded open as a slienced round pierced her forehead from Gabriel's rifle. She dropped into him like a sack of potatoes, and Rhys only just managed to toss her body to one side before he was taken with her.
With one arm around Jerry's back, Magna grabbed Rhys' collar and pulled him close. They both clung to Jerry, terrified of being separated by the ever-tightening bodies. The three of them moved as one, almost out. They heard a small explosion from the Tower — one of Daryl and Carol's traps, and Rhys nearly lost his bow when he turned to look, only just managing to un-catch it from the shoulder that had bumped him.
When they reached the other side of the horde, the three of them found cover in the woods, collapsing behind a fallen tree.
"Are we the only ones?" Jerry asked in a panic as he looked over the bark and back into the horde a few feet away.
"I heard screams," Magna stuttered, staying low as she tried to breathe. "Someone could have—"
"There!" Rhys gasped, pointing as Luke and Jules made their way out with Sasha behind them.
Jerry waved them down.
"You guys okay?" Sasha asked when they reached them, touching Rhys' cheek briefly.
"Few close calls," he told her. "You?"
"Yeah," Jules panted as she checked Luke's arm for bites when he said it hurt. "Yeah, just a few— you're okay."
"You sure?" Luke wheezed. "Coulda sworn—"
"You're fine," she laughed with manic relief. "We're fine."
Daryl and Kelly made it next, Kelly collapsing into Magna's arms.
"Where're Carol and Beatrice?" Daryl asked, crouching behind the log with the rest of them and peeking over.
"We didn't see them," Sasha told him.
"Neither," Magna grunted.
"We need all the parts if we're gonna do this," Luke said. "Bea's got the last of it."
"Wait," Sasha inhaled, pointing toward the horde hopefully. "There."
Rhys looked, and he saw Carol with Lydia. Lydia was wearing her mother's mask and holding Beatrice's backpack in her hand, blood dripping from the straps.
"Where—?" Jules gasped.
"I couldn't help her," Carol stammered when they made it to them, standing against a tree like a ghost before them. "I... I couldn't. They got her."
"Shit," Sasha swore. "Fucking Skins."
"I got the parts," Lydia told them, holding the bag out with a trembling hand and passing it to Rhys. He hugged her after slinging it on his back.
"You okay?" he asked, holding her shaky shoulders after pulling the skin off her head. "Why did you come?"
"I couldn't stay back and not help," she told him tearily. "I can't lose more people because I'm not helping."
Rhys pulled her into him again, passing the mask back to her after they broke away.
"Let's do this," Jerry said gruffly, pointing to in the direction they'd stashed the wagons and the horses not far. "For Bea, yeah?"
"For all of us," Sasha said, nodding.
'AHH, WATCH OUT, YOU MIGHT GET WHAT YOU'RE AFTER
COOL BABIES, STRANGE BUT NOT A STRANGER
I'M—AN—OR-DIN-ARY—GUY
BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE...'
The wagon rolled out onto the road without any issue. Almost everyone who had been left to protect the horses went with them, save for a skeleton crew Marco picked out to stay behind and look after Downy Beardy and the other steeds not pulling the wagon.
Luke gave Rhys a thumbs up from on top of the wagon after cranking the volume up and hopping back down to the road with the rest of them.
"Nice choice, you little psycho killer!"
Rhys returned the gesture back as he marched alongside the wagon with the others, glancing over his shoulder at the horde that trailed them along the road, not thirty feet away.
"Up ahead!" Marco shouted from the driver's seat, pointing out a few walkers headed for them from the other direction.
Sasha and Daryl quickly killed them and dragged their bodies out of the wagon's path.
Kelly and Magna sat on top of the wagon, bobbing their heads to the music as they watched the dead to pick out any Whisperers in the horde. Rhys walked on one side of the wagon with Lydia, clutching her bow, Daryl, swinging his crossbow, and Sasha, twirling her axes to the beat. On the far side of the wagon, Rhys could hear Luke dancing his way along the road, Jerry beside him, Jake and Minnie from Alexandria, too — all of them watching the woods on their side of the road. Carol and Jules trailed behind with their bows, watching the horde closely.
It was working.
'HOLD TIGHT, WAIT 'TILL THE PARTY'S OVER
HOLD TIGHT, WE'RE IN FOR NASTY WEATHER
THERE—HAS—GOT—TO—BE—A—WAY
BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE...'
Hours passed. Moonlight settled in above. It was getting harder to see the horde. Besides the occassional glimpse of a shuffling corpse in the dark, their only way of knowing it was still there was from the intense vibration of feet under the booming music.
"Did you have to pick a single?" Magna yelled down at Rhys from the wagon, barely getting the words to him over the music.
"Sorry to say, the rundown music shop wasn't exactly spoiled for choice!" he called back.
"I like it," Jerry shouted at them with a grin. "It's the anthem of the living!"
"Could have at least had a B-side," Rhys was sure he heard Magna groan.
'AHH, ALL WET, YEAH YOU MIGHT NEED A RAINCOAT
SHAKEDOWN, DREAMS WALKING IN BROAD DAYLIGHT
THREE—HUN-DRED—SIX-TY—FIVE—DEG-REES
BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE...'
"They're coming!" Lydia cried over the Talking Heads, raising her bow in the direction of the horde that had been lit much better over the last half-hour by the risen moonlight. At first, Rhys thought they were just walkers he saw, but on closer inspection, he saw the Whisperers hiding behind them, pushing them forward faster as shields to get closer to the wagon. Rhys rushed to join the archers at the back, firing into the walkers but not stopping the advancing enemy behind them.
'AHH, IT WAS ONCE UPON A PLACE...'
"Aim for the heads!" Daryl barked, putting a bolt through one of their walker shields — the Whisperer holding it stumbling as they fumbled with the body-turned sack of rocks, then getting a slingshotted pebble to the head from Kelly. They killed the walkers, but some Whisperers still held their meat shields high.
"Speed up," Sasha roared at Marco.
"HYAH!" he cried as he whipped the reins.
'SOMETIMES I LISTEN TO MYSELF...'
More Skins came from the woods the booming music muffling their approach.
"Protect the horses!" Rhys heard Carol yell.
Daryl fired a bolt through a Whisperer's throat that sprinted at Jules from the dark while she and Luke focused on ones still advancing from the horde.
A Whisperer rushed Jake, getting knocked back by his shield, but another threw a knife that sunk into Jake's eye, killing him instantly.
"No!" Minnie yelled, blasting the Skin that threw it in his chest with her shotgun, sending him flying back in a cloud of blood.
'GONNA COME IN FIRST PLACE...'
Sasha threw her axe into the chest of the guy Jake had knocked back, barreling forward to yank it out and put her other axe through another's head when they rushed her.
'PEOPLE ON THEIR WAY TO WORK...'
Rhys spotted a Whisperer dart out from behind a tree, swinging a beartrap on a chain over his head and throwing it at the wagon. Rhys fired an arrow into his shoulder, knocking him down, but not before the beartrap caught the wagon's wheel and the chain rattled taut.
EEERRKKRRR
The wheel groaned and splintered from the wagon.
'AND BABY, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?'
The horses shrieked as the wagon got a lot heavier and scraped along the asphalt.
"GO!" Daryl barked at them all. "Go, go!"
'GONNA BURST INTO FLAMES, AHH!'
Everyone scattered out from the wagon and forward along the road as the horde caught up. Marco managed to slice the horses' reins just before, slapping their backsides and sending them fleeing down the dark road and out of sight.
Rhys looked back over his shoulder as they retreated into the woods, Whisperers climbing atop the wagon and beating the equipment down until the music fizzled out.
"BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE! BURNING DOW...N THE... HO...SE—"
They watched from the cover of the forest as the horde started to turn back the way it came. Daryl radioed The Tower to warn Gabriel, but they didn't get a response.
Rhys sat with the others in a small clearing under a leaning oak, the darkness their only real cover. He pulled up his hood as it started to rain.
"They should have evacuated by now," Luke said, his voice hoarse and hopeful.
"Then they're unprotected," Jerry said. "We need to turn that horde around."
"How?" Minnie asked.
Rhys watched Sasha and Daryl as they exchanged whispers before pulling grim faces and turning to the rest of them.
"Look," Daryl said, "this ain't a good plan, but it's all we got..."
"What?" Kelly asked.
"We go back in," Sasha told them. "Hunt the skin freaks down. Take them out, one by one."
"Then what?" Magna asked. "How do we lead them away?"
"I... I will," Lydia whispered.
"No," Rhys and Daryl said in unison.
"I know how," Lydia argued, her voice so gentle. "My mother taught me."
"Hold on— hold on," Luke stuttered. "Let's say we do this and then Lydia leads them to the cliff... there's no wagon to bring them over the edge. I mean, it's suicide."
"She's not doing it," Rhys said flatly.
"It has to be me," Lydia argued right back. "I can do it."
"We're gonna deal with this later," Daryl grunted at them, standing up and grabbing his crossbow as he headed for the road that Sasha was already on the warpath towards. "We gotta go — right now."
The horde swallowed them again. Rhys heard screams as the seconds ticked on like the rain drops pattering down on his hood. He couldn't know if they were his people or theirs. He just knew he had to do his part. One walker was walking too normally — Rhys drove his knife into its shoulder, vanishing backwards into the horde as the revealed Whisperer screamed and the horde loosened as they ate him alive. Another scream. Rhys thought about his people. He pictured Daryl and Sasha... Lydia, Kelly, Luke, Magna, Jules, Jerry, Marco, Minnie, and Carol. He stabbed another Whisperer who didn't see him first, letting the horde finish him off as well. More screams. Rhys thought about his brother — screaming at the end of his life on a night he'd been so excited for. Rhys grappled the next Whisperer he saw from behind, slitting their throat before they had the chance to scream.
The horde was so loose now without their wranglers, and Rhys could see through the crowd.
That's when he spotted him.
Beta — huge and menacing.
Rhys gripped his knife tightly, sneaking up behind the black leather trenchcoat.
But someone caught his arm and pulled him back. Rhys couldn't mistake him, even with the mask — not with that leather jacket and bat on his back.
Negan stepped forward and hissed at the new alpha of the Whisperers.
"Hey... asshole..."
Beta spun around, rearing his head at the familiar voice like a bull that just saw the reddest of reds. Negan shoved Rhys away as Beta charged them with his yellow teeth sneering, throwing an entire walker at Negan, knocking him to the ground.
Beta jumped on him, lifting and slamming Negan's body into the ground, then raising his knives high.
"For Alpha," he growled.
Negan would have been dead if Sasha wasn't as quick and brutal as a crack of lightning across a gloomy sky. She crashed into Beta so hard and so fast that they both went flying to the ground.
"YOU!" Beta bellowed as he rose and saw her.
"We were not done, asshole," she hissed, jumping to her feet and drawing one of her axes, brandishing her knuckle dusters in the other, clenched fist.
Before either could take a step, Daryl leapt from the cover of the horde, slashing Beta's arm with his knife, tearing open the leather and flesh before aiming his next blow for the head. Only Beta caught his wrists before the knives plunged into his eyes. Rhys barreled forward. He knew Beta only needed to use one arm to bat him away and send him crashing to the road, so he made sure he dodged it when it came, driving his knife into Beta's chest.
"For Hilltop," Rhys growled through gritted teeth as Beta roared in agony, bloody spurting from his mouth as he tried to grab him, only for Daryl to snatch Rhys back just before the giant's hand got a hold of him.
Sasha, once again, threw all her weight into Beta, knocking him back from them. He stayed on his feet this time. But Sasha didn't delay this time. Rhys and Daryl watched as she slammed her axe down into his shoulder, drawing another ungodly bellow from the beast as she yanked him in and bludgeoned his masked face with her metal fist — again — and again — and again. Beta's face was a bloody pulp, chunks sliding off as he stumbled back with Sasha's axe still in his shoulder, bits of his mask peeling from his head with chunks of his pumbled face. Beta took a step forward, but Sasha, again, was faster, whipping the shotgun off her hip and, with a deafening explosion of lead and smoke, she blew his knee into a stew of shattered bone and sizzling hot blood. Beta collapsed to his other knee, and Rhys saw it in his barely recognisable face, behind the purple welts and thick blood from Sasha's gouging — he saw all that power Beta must have felt when they killed their people in that barn and put their heads on spikes — he saw it taken from him like the pride he had stripped from them.
Beta reached up and feebly grasped at Sasha's arm in a final effort to stop her.
Sasha shook him off, gripping Rhys' knife that once belonged to her. She ripped it from Beta's ribs where it was lodged, then drawing her own. Beta wheezed, his breath a rattle from pierced tin of a body he had left. He watched, eyes red and wide as she plunged the knives into them. When she tore them back out, blood splashed across her cheek, brain matter clinging to the flats of her blades. A guttural scream raged its way up from somewhere deep in Sasha's chest, storming her throat as she pressed her forehead to his, giving back all he had taken before kicking him backwards into the horde. They all watched as the horde swallowed him, tearing the last of his mask from his face, then what was left of his face from his bones, then dragged his carcarse down until he was gone and there was nothing left.
"Holy fucking shit..." Negan panted as Daryl helped him to his feet. "You guys know who that asshole was?"
If he hadn't been so concerned about Sasha, Rhys would have been surprised, too. He'd seen the face he just watched get torn away on enough album covers in Hilltop from Enid's country collections to recognise it.
"No one," Sasha panted, blinking away tears. "He's fucking no one anymore."
The others found them, and they retreated from the spiral of walkers as it ravaged Beta's corpse. They all noticed the rest of the horde start to fall apart and split into clusters.
"I can do this," Lydia urged the rest of them, her eyes lingering on where Beta sank. "I can still take it all, but it has to be now."
Sasha and Daryl nodded, looking at Rhys after.
"I have a plan," Lydia said. "Trust me, please."
"I do," Rhys told her. "But I'm going with you."
"Rhys—" Sasha hissed, pressing a hand to her cheek to wipe away the blood smeared across it, her eyes still wet.
"You looked after me," he told her, his heart sunken and in pieces. "Now I need to look after her."
The sun found the horde as the horde found the cliff, finally at their last stop of the long trail they'd been walking for the past year.
Rhys' feet trembled in his worn, brown leather boots with their frayed, orange laces. He stumbled forward on the rocky earth about to run out.
Rhys felt the fresh air hit him as they ambled closer to the edge, his skin cooling beneath the dried blood that coated him under his sodden clothes. A gust of wind whipped around his legs and flapped at the tail of his coat. He saw the spectacle ahead of them, just past the cliff's edge and over the cusp of the ridge. An unfurled spread of golden valleys and twisting hills that lazed and reached out to the morning horizon that met them with a gentle brush of warm sunlight. Rhys couldn't stop staring at it. A smile tugged at his lips. He realised he could finally smile like he used as he let his eyes rest on the waiting vista.
It was so close, he thought.
Just past the gorge they were headed for.
"You know there's no plan," Lydia whispered to him, stealing back his attention as her shoulder knocked against his, both of them shambling forward at the head of the horde.
Rhys nodded, looking at her. He knew that, and, somehow, he felt calmer than he had in a long time.
"It's okay now," he whispered.
"It should be me," she said.
He shook his head. "It's my risk."
"If it doesn't work?" Lydia hissed under her breath, her words catching in her throat. He could hear she was starting to cry. She grabbed his hand. "If you don't make it back?"
"Then I get to tell Henry that you made it," Rhys answered her softly.
"Rhys—"
He ignored her, squeezing her hand before letting go to swipe a tear from his eye that was quickly followed by a downfall. They were the silent kind. The kind that fall and don't complain. Rhys walked ahead of her, slow and heavy breaths filling and fleeing his puffed out chest as he stumbled forward.
The edge was right there.
He closed his eyes, listening as the walkers behind him followed.
Someone grabbed his shoulder.
Rhys glanced back to tell Lydia this was how it had to be, only to see Carol staring back at him with painfully piercing silver eyes.
She looked how he looked. She looked at peace.
"Go," Carol whispered softly from under her hood as she passed by him, her eyes filled with the same tears as his. "My choice."
Rhys came to a stop. He watched her go, walkers bumping him as they passed and followed in her wake. The crowd pushed him a few steps forward. They knocked and barged him forward the first few steps. Those weren't his choice — not until they were. Not until he walked. He took his own steps through the horde, back to the front. Rhys made his choice as he caught Carol's hand just as the ground under her feet gave way and sent her forward from the cliff's edge. He snatched at the cusp of her leather glove and yanked her back with all his might. He saw the wild shock in her shining silver — how stunned she was that it was him as she tried to pull away. Rhys' feet slid against the shale and he almost went with her, but that's when Lydia was grabbing his arm and tugging them both, yanking them back from the edge and hauling them behind a boulder where they collapsed just as the horde began to fall.
Carol was panting, and her jaw was shaking. Lydia was crushed between them, and Rhys was holding both of them as they all clung to each other to stay safe from the dead that crashed around their port like waves in a storm.
"Why?" Carol gasped as she sobbed at him. "I deserve it," she whined. "I need to do it."
"You don't," Rhys cried, his heart pounding in his ribcage as he clung to them. "I forgive you for it. I forgive you."
Carol whimpered and sobbed, the sound of the dead drowning it out as her face creased and wept. "You... you can't."
Rhys' breaths were rapid and fraught with so much history of grief and hate. "I do."
Lydia suddenly tore her mother's mask off her head, tossing it off the cliff's edge.
Carol clutched around her shoulders, knocking her forehead to Lydia's.
"You told me to find my own way," Lydia told her. "This is it."
"Thank you," Carol whimpered at both of them.
Rhys reached out so Carol dipped her head over Lydia, and he pulled it to his chest. He held the three of them together as they waited out the storm. The storm that groaned and hissed as it poured off the edge of the world.
When it was done, the three stood together, looking off the edge as if frightened it might not be over.
But it was.
Lydia suddenly hugged Carol, who gasped a little before holding her back. Lydia pulled back and smiled weakly at her before stumbling back from the edge.
Rhys waited for Carol to move. When she didn't, he asked if she was okay.
"He's really gone," Carol moaned painfully. Her voice was a high pitch whine and heartbroken. "My boy..."
Rhys swallowed back the sob caught in his tight throat, nodding.
"Did you mean it?" Carol sniffled as she looked at him with tears streaming down her face.
"I did," Rhys told her.
Carol nodded a few times, turning back to the cliff.
They stood at the edge of the world together, staring out over the beauty past the drop. Out of reach but real enough.
Carol laughed, and it was sad. She hiccuped.
"Can we go back?" she asked softly.
He nodded, reaching out and taking her hand.
Rhys gently pulled her back from the edge.
-Carl-
Maggie and her friend Elijah helped them get everyone out of The Tower safely and into the woods where they made camp.
Carl cried when he called for his siblings, and to his blinding relief, they both came running into his arms.
By sun-up, after Sasha and the others brought back word of Beta and the Whisperers demise, it was calm.
Carl had gotten to see every person's reaction to seeing Maggie again. He got to watch as she met Coco and RJ for the first time, and he would have been lying if he said he hadn't cried at seeing her hold his little brother. Alden introduced Maggie to Adam, and then the two shared a quiet moment when he told her about Tammy and Earl. Carl didn't know exactly how much Carol's letter had said, but when he saw Alden tremble and whisper something to Maggie before the two embraced each other with tearful eyes, he knew it was Enid. Aaron introduced Maggie to a grown Gracie who pretended to remember her which made him laugh from his belly. Carl cried again when Maggie met Judith, who recognised her straight away, no introductions needed. They hugged neatly and Carl smiled from ear to ear until his cheeks hurt. After all, Maggie brought her into this world — Carl remembered it so well. The worst day and best of his life. He watched as the first hands that ever held Judith held her again, and it just made this broken world seem that much less spoiled.
But there was still one person he was most excited for. He could tell by how much Maggie's leg was bouncing from nerves that she was thinking about him, too.
"Daryl," Maggie called out to him, laughing when he hugged her for maybe the third time in response. "They said they'd be back by sunrise?"
He nodded, biting his lip nervously. "I'll go look for 'em."
"I'll go with you," she said.
"Maggie?"
Carl had done his fair share of crying that day. They all had. But now he was grinning like an idiot, watching as Daryl rushed to hug Lydia, and Jerry did the same for Carol. They asked if the horde was destroyed, and they told them it was.
But that wasn't what Carl was paying attention to.
Sasha was grinning too, like she rarely does.
Rosita and Jenny laughed.
So did Aaron.
Carol even cracked a smile.
Rhys was stood still beside the beech tree he'd muttered from, gripping his palm against the bark for support. His jaw hung, and he was breathing heavily. Panting like he was out of breath.
Maggie gasped, and that was it. Rhys marched right up to her, everyone watching as he collided with her in a hug so fierce it was like he was telling her off. Telling her off for all the sleepless nights and lonely moments she'd left him with. Only, like those who knew Rhys knew would happen, it melted. He melted. The hug became messy and rough as he clung to her, buried his face in the crook of her neck, and went from telling her off to begging her not to leave him alone again.
They were both sobbing as they held each other.
"Oh my lord," Maggie sobbed. "I've got you, baby. I've got you. I'm here, sweetie."
"Maggie," Rhys whimpered. "You— You're..."
"I know," she cooed softly into his ear. "I know, baby boy."
Rhys pulled back at some point, and Carl had to wipe the side of his own face because it was all wet from a rush of happy tears.
"You... you grew out your hair," Rhys hiccuped, his face a weeping mess.
"You cut yours," she laughed, running her finger through his short hair.
He was nodding. Maggie was, too. In an instant, they were embracing each other and crying for the second time around, losing their balance and falling to their knees this time.
Carl didn't want to interrupt the moment, so he went to where Negan was clearly avoiding Maggie at the edge of camp. Lydia and him were hugging. Carl waited patiently.
Negan smiled wearily at him once Lydia left.
"Negan," Carl greeted him, feeling on guard.
"We never got to really speak at the cabin," Negan said before Carl could say anything. "We okay?"
Carl shrugged. The truth was he didn't know.
"I tried to see the best in you for so long," Carl told him, not meaning to sound so betrayed. "I really thought you'd changed."
"I have," Negan sighed like he was tired of saying it.
"Yeah," Carl agreed. "I guess just not in the way I hoped."
Negan grimaced as he nodded and seemed to find that fair.
"Daryl and Rhys told me what you said about liking it," Carl explained.
"At least I'm honest," Negan chuckled, pulling a more dire face after. "Where does this leave us, kid?"
"Why?" Carl asked. "Because you wanna know if I'll jump in front of a bullet for you if Maggie decides to go on the warpath?"
Negan smirked dismissively, but Carl knew it was the truth.
"I'm done, Negan. You're free now. You're no longer under my protection."
Negan nodded. "Thanks for letting me know."
"So you're sticking around?"
"For now," Negan sighed.
Carl nodded. "Guess I'll be seeing you."
Oh, I'm just a kid
I never use my brain
I only use my heart
and my imagination—
Oh, I'm just a kid
I always make mistakes
And I never say I'm sorry
'Cause they're mistakes that I made
Oh, I'm just a kid
I've never seen the world
And I haven't quite decided
If I'm a boy or a girl
Oh, I'm just a kid
Afraid of the dark
But I'm obsessed with ideas
One day I'll go far...
A/N
Song was Kids by Current Joys.
Honestly feels like Rhys' anthem to me after hearing it. Definitely recommend.
So, that's the end of season 10! (Kinda). I have quite decided if I'm posting the Ohio Mikey stuff next or going straight into Reapers and continuing from here, sprinkling the Mikey stuff in later. Feel free to leave a review or DM me if you have a preference as to which you'd rather see first. I'll figure it out eventually.
Also, happy holidays! I think I posted the season 10 premier this time last year, so that worked out nicely.
As always, reviews and feedback are always welcome :)