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RHatch89- Thank you :D
Remember, you travelled through the desert, you travelled to the sea
Looking out on some horizon, asking what you made of me
And we all hang around with a free or toiled mind
While all of our branches entwine.
You pass something down no matter where or how
Will there be weeds or wildflowers affixed upon your bows?
And there's a crooked burning cigarette rolling on your tongue.
Will there be weeds or wildflowers when you're done?
It doesn't take long for us to get home. I listen from the back of the RV as Rick speaks to Sasha, who meets us at the gate. I struggle to make it out over the rainstorm that's pounding against the roof.
I hear one thing that Rick says.
"I need everybody in the church in an hour. We're gonna have to fight."
We drop the RV off at the pantry. Mikey tells me he'll stay behind with Enid and help inventory what we've brought back. There's enough for another month, Michonne reckons.
I help unload everything, then find myself standing outside in the rain, ready to sneak off. But Tara appears from the armoury, balancing a box of eggs in one hand, catching my arm with the other.
"You coming to the meeting?" she asks.
I shrug at her.
"We'll be deciding if we take these assholes out or not."
I give her a blank stare.
"Come, dude," she tells me.
"Sure," I say after a long pause. Nodding, smiling, and lying through my teeth.
When I'm released from her grip, I disappear. I decide I'm tired and not in the mood for meetings right now. Meetings where we decide whether to kill people. Meetings where we pretend like we have a choice.
Pretending that it doesn't always end in blood.
It doesn't take long before I'm at Alexandria's graveyard. I stand over Ron's grave, sprouts of patchy grass brightening up the turned soil.
Carol arrives not long after me, stopping beside me. She's standing over Sam's grave.
"Going to the meeting?" I ask with hands in my pockets, trying to hide all the imaginary blood that I can't stop thinking about.
Carol doesn't speak. She takes a cookie from the white bag dangling off her shoulder, placing it on the earth that's titled, Sam Anderson. The rain eats it up.
"Can I have one?" I ask her.
Carol fishes through the bag and hands me one. I chew on it. Frowning at the taste.
"Is there carrot in this?"
"Beets," Carol tells me on a low hum.
I finish the cookie, realising my hands are in the open now. I put them back into their pocketed hobbit holes.
"Been a while since we talked," I note, breathing the cool air in.
Evening shadows are starting to close in around us.
"Talked about what?" Carol murmurs, doing that thing where she tries to sound like she's not a part of the conversation.
"Dunno," I shrug, leaning back on my heels. "Anything. Feels like it's been months."
"It has been months."
I give it a little time, waiting to see if she'll speak. She doesn't, lighting a cigarette under her palm instead.
"Don't you want to know what happened with the Hilltop?"
Carol takes a drag, holding the smoke between her lips before letting it vanish into the sky and raindrops. She shakes her head. "We'll have to kill people. The meeting's just a courtesy."
"For what?" I ask.
"To pretend we're considering the other option."
Carol offers me the smoke between her fingers.
"I'm good," I tell her.
When I get home, I'm soaked. The weather turned stormy on my way back, and now my clothes are heavy. I shake myself off like a wet dog on the porch, water exploding from my growing hair. It's still somehow lopsided, begging for a haircut that I keep refusing.
Maggie opens the door at the same time I do.
"Woah!" she rears back on her heels slightly, looking my drenched person up and down, rolling her eyes.
"Sorry!"
"Was just comin' to find you," she tugs me in, shutting the door and telling me to wipe my feet.
"Why?"
She pulls me towards the dining room when my shoes are off. Glenn's sat at the table, leaning back in his chair and strumming on the guitar Noah got me. The same three strings over and over.
"Sit." Maggie points.
I do as I'm told.
Glenn's sat at the head of the table, Maggie and I sitting on either side of him. He looks tired and ready for an argument. I bite my tongue and wait for someone to speak.
"The meeting," Glenn says to me, breaking the silence. "You weren't there?"
It feels more like a reprimand than a question.
I shake my head. "Lost track of time, I guess."
I watch Glenn as he runs a hand through his long dark hair, breathing in and sounding frustrated with me.
"What did I miss?" I ask, wanting to move past it.
"We're going to hit these Saviors head-on. Take out Negan and his people before they know about us."
I guess Carol was right. I'm not surprised. I don't think any of us are.
"When we go to get this done," Maggie starts. "Killing these Saviors. We'll need someone on the perimeter, keeping watch..."
I realise why Glenn's face is the way it is now. Gloom and worry.
"You can't... you're pregnant..." I state the obvious.
"I am," Maggie nods slowly. "It'll be safe."
Glenn scoffs lightly at that, pulling back.
"Safer," she corrects herself.
Glenn puts the guitar down, its neck against the table. He keeps his eyes down. "Whatever safe looks like now."
Maggie looks between us. "It wasn't my idea, but I led us into this. I made the deal. I have to come."
"I'm coming too, then," I fold my arms, trying to look as stubborn as I sound.
"Honey, you can't," Maggie purses her lips.
"So you can go... but I've got to stay back? That's bullshit."
"It's different," Maggie grimaces at me. "And watch your tone."
"I'd feel better," Glenn says.
Maggie casts daggers at him through her eyes.
"So far, Gabriel and Tara are the only other people staying out on the perimeter," Glenn says. "If Rhys is there too, it'll be safe."
Maggie's glare doesn't falter.
"Safer," Glenn uses her own words on her.
She's looking between us now. Me, then Glenn, then back to me.
"You do everything I say."
"Yes, Ma'am."
"You don't so much as think about gettin' in any fights."
"I won't."
"You don't think about anything. You just listen to me."
"I will."
I can hear the cogs in her head grinding. Looking for a way out.
"Fine," Maggie finally nods begrudgingly.
Maggie and Glenn head next door for another meeting with Rick. Jesus and one of Ethan's guys, Andy, will be there. They came back with us. Said they want to help.
I make myself a tea and sit on our porch swing. Aaron found a crate of teabags on his last run. They mysteriously went missing from the pantry after Olivia left me to lock up the other week.
One of Carol's cigarettes is on the bench next to me, half-smoked and looking at least a day old. I pick it up between my index and middle finger, rolling it around.
I decide that I want to try it. People always smoke them when they're stressed out in my books. Dying tomorrow feels real, so the harm today seems contrived.
Then I remember that they smell vile.
Then I realise I don't have a lighter.
I flick it off the porch, not hearing as it lands somewhere on the front lawn. Lost between a million blades of grass.
"Hi." Rosita comes up the porch steps. I don't hear her footsteps. If she hadn't spoken first, I would have jumped.
She sits down beside me, still not making a sound. I offer my tea, but she shakes her head.
"You alright?" I hum, hugging the mug between my hands.
"Abraham left," Rosita whispers.
"Left like..."
"-Left."
"Oh."
"Sasha," she says slowly, her voice quieter than a whisper now. "I think he left for Sasha."
"Oh," I say again, racking my brain for anything else that won't make me sound stupid.
"Yeah," Rosita nods like I just summed it all up.
"Why'd you come here?" I finally find words to say.
"Eugene..." Rosita puffs, scratching her cheek. "He kept offering me cookies."
I laugh at that, and Rosita glares at me until I feel bad. Then she laughs too, it's sad, but I think it's better.
"You can stay here," I say, starting to swing us slowly on the rocking bench with the balls of my feet against the deck. "We still have one of the spare rooms set up."
Rosita nods again, her thanks coming through in her own way.
"You're coming tomorrow?" She asks.
"Yeah."
"That's stupid."
"God," I groan, rolling my eyes. "You and Maggie should go bowling."
She snorts at me.
Rosita takes the tea off me then, not drinking it, just holding it tight. "Does Carl know that you're coming?"
"I don't know."
"You going to tell him?"
"I don't know."
"You should know," Rosita replies. "You should know, and you should tell him."
"What do I tell him?" I groan. "That I'm leaving again? That I know he can't come, and that I know that's the most painful thing in the world for him? That he has to sit on the sidelines while I go because staying and not knowing is the worst thing in the world for me too."
"Sounds like you know exactly what to tell him," Rosita says, finally taking a sip of the tea.
After an ungraceful climb onto the porch roof of 101, I wrap my fist against Carl's bedroom window, the cold glass stinging like ice against my knuckles.
Carl appears, rolling his one eye at my choice of entrance. He's probably rolling his imaginary one too.
"Everyone's talking with your dad downstairs," I explain myself as he slides up the window and lets me in.
Carl sits on the carpet, and I join him. A game of monopoly lies between us. A half played game, where a shoe seems to be holding all the cards over an ill-fated race car.
"Were you playing on your own?" I raise an eyebrow, picking up the unpicked tophat from the box, only we lost the tophat a while back, so the wooden hat Mikey and Enid made Carl for his birthday is in its place.
Carl shrugs. "Yeah, wanted to see if you could."
"Can you?"
"No..."
We both laugh at it, at the unimportance.
"We could play tomorrow," Carl suggests. "Something to do while we wait for them to get back."
My stomach drops. I feel like the non-tophat just punched me in the gut, or the entrepreneur shoe stole the last hotel.
"I know it's not a great alternative to sneaking out," Carl says after seeing my reaction. "I'm trying here," he jokes.
"I'm going."
I say it as quick as I can. Hoping that Carl won't hear, and we can just play monopoly.
But Carl does hear me.
"You can't..."
"I didn't want to-"
"-That's bullshit."
He stands up, and I quickly start to feel hot and ashamed.
"It's not..." I urge, getting to my feet as well. "I didn't go to the meeting. I tried not to be a part of it. But Maggie's going and-"
"Just stay," Carl tells me quickly, shaking his head, grabbing my arm.
I don't mean to flinch or yank my arm away.
Carl takes a step back, looking like an isolated buoy, hopelessly lost at sea.
"Stay," he says quietly, his head down.
"Maggie's going be out there..." I shake my head at his plea.
"So will my dad," Carl argues. "Michonne. Daryl. Everyone. I care about them all, too!"
"I know," I nod, the punch in my stomach happening over and over. But I can't buckle. I don't know why, but I just can't. "I'm sorry. I know you want to be there... I'm sorry."
"Don't run away again," he says then. "Please..."
"Carl..."
"I told Enid that I liked her today," he tells me, standing with his arms hanging by his side like he doesn't know what else to do with them. "I don't like her like I like you. I love you. But you've been gone... even when you're here, you're gone."
I know he wants me to say it back. I don't know why I can't seem to do it. I do love him. More than I've ever loved anyone. But something about that word has become so scary recently.
"Please..." Carl begs me, his voice groaning. "Stay with me. I need you..."
I don't know what to say. My tongue is tied in knots, and my stomach follows suit.
"I'm sorry," I say again.
I hate myself for saying that.
I know it makes Carl angry too.
"Just admit that you're running," Carl says. He starts pacing the room. I think he's hoping that I haven't noticed the tears brimming in his eyes. "You're running again. Just like you used to."
"I'm not running, Carl."
"You said that before!" he yells. "Remember when you went to DC? You said it then!"
"That was different!" I'm yelling now too, tired of being yelled at and tired of being in the wrong.
Carl scoffs at me, and it hurts.
"Right," he nods and shrugs.
"Don't do that," I shout. "I don't know what to say."
"I guess it's not that different when you're here anyway," Carl says.
"What do you mean?"
"Come on, Rhys... when was the last time we were us? Just us?"
Carl squints at me like I'm an idiot. "I don't mean the last time we were alone... I've been so patient, Rhys. When was the last time we talked like it mattered? Like what we were saying actually fucking mattered!?"
"I- I don't know."
"Yeah," he says, "because you're scared of me. I don't know what I can do anymore. You want space because of something I don't remember! I get that you can't handle how we were, right now... but you might as well give Mikey this stupid thing." Carl yanks the bracelet he made off his wrist, throwing it at me.
I just stare at him as it bounces off my chest and lands on the carpet with a pathetic thud.
"Say something!" he yells at me.
I don't know what to say.
"Tell me why!" Carl demands. "Tell me why you can't let me kiss you or touch you or even look at you without jumping."
He's really crying now. The kind of crying where you just let go. And he just keeps yelling.
"Because every time you do that, I feel like I'm nothing to you! I feel like I'm the worst thing in the world to you! Like I don't matter."
"You do..." I stutter.
"Then fucking tell me!" he roars.
"Because I lost you!" I scream at him. I kick the game board at my feet, pieces and fake money spilling across the floor. A shoe's empire toppled in a second.
After that happens, the whole world goes quiet. It's like the outbreak somehow happened all over again.
The silence gets to me. It makes me furious. I kick the last of the pieces across the room, watching as the small metal race car leaves a dent in the skirting board. I haven't been this kind of angry before. Vulnerable and naked. Guess I break things when I'm like this.
When I look back at Carl, he's still crying. Silent streams run down his pale cheeks, dancing between light dustings of freckles. I don't know why I'm not crying. Maybe I just ran out of tears sitting in that room in the infirmary for the last few months. But he looks so small, and I feel even smaller. I feel like the barriers I've had up for weeks are starting to crack.
"I lost you," I say again, my voice breaking.
"I'm right here..." he hiccups.
"I know..." I whine like some pathetic injured animal, cornered and desperate. I'm trembling. "I'm scared. You died. I saw it. You- you were dead, Carl. I watched it for months."
Now he's the one that doesn't know what to say. I put my hand on my own cheek and realise then that I am crying. I think I've been crying since Carl woke up. Since he lost his eye. I've been crying for so long, and no one could see me. I couldn't see me. But Carl's standing here, and he's the only one who can.
I feel myself buckling. Carl steps closer. He envelops his arms around my trembling shoulders, and I let him. And I realise in this second, this moment, that he's not the broken one.
"I'm sorry," I whimper into his shoulder.
"Me too," he sobs.
We stand in the middle of his room for eternity, locked in this pathetic tangle of tears and limbs.
Carl tugs me towards his bed, getting me to sit on the end of it. He sits beside me. We both calm down together.
"Are you still my boyfriend?" I ask him when my eyes stop leaking, feeling like the question is stupid.
"Do you want that?" he asks.
I shrug, wiping my face. "Don't think I deserve it."
His face goes all frowny at that, but he hides it by resting it on my shoulder.
"Please don't go," he says then, his voice muffled in my arm.
"You were fine with me leaving today," I say.
"Because you weren't going to kill people," he says.
I feel his body tense up then.
He didn't mean to say it like that.
But I still have to ask.
"You think I'm going because I want to kill someone?"
Carl holds his breath before answering. That makes it hurt so much more. Knowing he took his time. That he thought about what he tells me.
"I don't know." He lifts his head to look at me, his eyes all big and blue. "That is why everyone's going."
"I'll be on the perimeter, with Maggie and Gabriel," I tell him.
"What if things go wrong?"
"We'll handle them like we always do."
"Please don't leave me..."
"It's just one night..."
"What if you die?"
"I won't die."
"You can't know that..."
"I haven't died so far."
"Just tell me you'll stay..."
I pause.
"I love you."
I had a pure potential in a soiled white shirt,
With love enough to kill me but was unsure of its worth,
And though the night is sweetened by some rising of the moon,
I've lived enough to know the battle's never through.
Blown about by the wind, a worthless little thing,
But the world can feel the changes of a butterfly's wing,
And so that crooked burning cigarette rolling on your tongue,
Will leave its weeds before your flowers yet have sprung.
A/N
The song was Weeds Or Wildflowers by Parsonsfield.
Man, that argument sucked to write. Honestly, I could spend another month editing it, so it very well may change in the next few weeks. I was aiming to have to two arguments happen at the same time so that Carl and Rhys get a moment of love that they've both needed for a long time, but the argument still ends sad. Idk, I suck at this whole writing thing, but that's what I way going for lol.
After the satellite raid there will be more couple stuff between them.
Next Time: The first shots of war are fired.