Reviews:

valxra- I'm glad you loved them! It's always fun to write Rhys interacting with Carol since she's the only person that brings out this side of him. When it comes to how Rhys feels about Carol, I think every idea is totally valid— I'm not sure Rhys knows how he feels half the time when Carol's involved, aha. I think angst and frustration will always lie at the heart of this story lol. Thank you for the kind words, the next chapter is here!

-Carl's POV-

I look behind every tree we pass and check every walker on the ground in this endless field. Dad looks at me like I'm dying. Like everything is gone from me except finding him. Truth is, I feel like I am. I pushed him out here, but now I'm the one that's lost.

My relentless searching leads to some blood in the grass next to an overturned cattle van. I jump, pointing to it. Morgan and Dad don't look hopeful.

"It's not much," Morgan frowns at it. "But if it's one of them, then they've been bleeding for a while."

I bite my lip, looking at the blood funny as I try to figure out if it could be Rhys, realising shortly after that there is neither a way to work that out nor a reason to right now.

"So," Morgan says to Dad after we start walking again, "you're out here because Rhys matters to your boy? Because Carol is your friend?"

"I'm out here because they're my family," Dad sighs.

"I've heard a little from people back there... about what they've been through."

"It's complicated," I tell Morgan.

"Carol killed someone important to him," Morgan runs through it. "Now they're out here together. Surviving together."

Dad nods. "Well, like Carl said, it's complicated."

"Doesn't seem complicated to me," Morgan sighs. "People come back. Carol's different from what she was. Maybe Rhys sees that?"

"He'll never forgive her," I tell him. Dad watches me too, clearly interested since he's someone that Rhys doesn't say much to. "He hates her more than anything."

"Why would he be out here with her if he hates her?" Morgan asks. Dad's face looks like he doesn't know the answer to that either.

I sigh. "Rhys finds it really hard to hate anyone. Most people hate people because it comes naturally, and it makes them feel better." I smile. "Rhys is the opposite. Rhys hates Carol because he feels like it's his responsibility to hate her. Like— if he stops hating her, just for one second, he would be dishonouring Karen and letting Carol off for what she did. I think Rhys could forgive her in a second if he ever stopped trying because that's who he is."

"You really know him," Morgan says, his mouth curving into a smile.

I know I go red after that. "Less than I'd like to nowadays."

"People can come back, Carl," Morgan tells me.

The clouds above are grey and look like they're crying, sad and wet sky giants, holding out against the sun behind them, keeping the land grey and bleak.

There's a farm ahead. Before it is a walker— walking up the hill towards the buildings. The walker's hair is short and grey and we all panic, rushing to find out. Dad kills it, and it's not Carol, and we can all suddenly breathe again. It doesn't last long. Creaking comes from the barn ahead. Walkers are growling, and someone is struggling. My heart jumps each step with my feet as they take me up the hill behind Dad.

Dad checks corners as we step past ricketed fences and broken five-bar gates. Morgan and I stay behind him. Morgan keeps his stick raised, and I hold my gun in hand.

There's someone by the barn, he has a spear, and for a second, I think it might be Rhys, Rhys from before Alexandria, when that's what he carried everywhere. But it's not him, I see as he puts down the last of a few walkers. He's somewhere in his early twenties, with red hair and what looks like paintball armour.

Dad flicks back the hammer of his python, aiming at the man and shouting, "Hey!"

"Whoa, whoa!" The guy dives around the side of the barn and out of sight.

We take a few paces closer.

"It's okay! I don't want any trouble," the stranger yells out.

"Come out, drop your weapons," Dad calls back.

"I can't do that. The wasted are too close. I'm just looking for my horse. Have you seen him?"

"No," Morgan calls out calmer than everyone else, creeping around Dad's other side, trying to catch sight of the stranger. "We're looking for our friends. Have you seen them?"

"Have you seen them?" Dad repeats the question angrier when the guy doesn't respond.

"Dad," I whisper, pointing around the opposite side of the barn.

He nods to me. "Flank this guy," he whispers.

"They're coming!" the stranger yells out before I get the chance to move. Sure enough, walkers start flooding into the fenced area we're standing in, getting between us and the barn. "Just go! Just go!" the stranger jumps out and runs in the opposite direction, down the hill the farm is sat on.

"Stop!" Dad roars, aiming his gun at the guy, shooting a walker in the shoulder when Morgan pushes him and makes him miss.

It takes us only a few seconds to deal with the small group of walkers, Morgan flipping one over with his staff, thanking me when I kill one that latches on to his back.

Dad and Morgan glare at each other while we all catch our breath.

"We didn't know who he was," Morgan tries.

I walk over to the guy's spear, pulling it from the walker the stranger had left it in, sticking from its eye socket.

"Another one of the Hilltops," I tell them, "like the one on the road. Maybe that guy was one of them."

I hate that my dad would have shot him over so little, but I can't deny the evidence.

"Maybe he's looking for Carol and Rhys," Dad adds.

Morgan frowns at my father and me. "Maybe the man is just looking for a horse. Maybe he is from Hilltop. Maybe he's from somewhere else."

I toss the spear down.

Dad scowls at Morgan. "I don't take chances anymore. We don't."

Turning his back, Morgan walks a few paces. "Those people..." he tells us, "the wolves..." he turns back to us, "after they attacked, I found one of them. He had attacked me on the road before, when I was trying to find you. And I stopped him. But I let him live. And then... he was there... in Alexandria after the attack, hiding in one of the brownstones, so I stopped him again. I knocked him out, and I could have killed him." Morgan's face is stoic. He looks like an owl, lines and understanding written all over him. "But all life is precious," he glares like it's a burden.

Dad huffs, shifting his weight. Neither of us knows what to say, so Morgan says something.

"I put him in the cell of the brownstone basement. 'Cause I knew he could change. We all can change."

Dad suddenly doesn't need to know what to say, a fury in him spewing words like a catherine wheel. "You had one of them alive in the community?" he takes a step toward Morgan, only for the man to do the same.

"Oh yeah," Morgan nods. "And when the walls came down, and the walkers broke in, Carol found out. We fought, and that man escaped, and Denise... she had come to the cell to try and help him, and he— he took her hostage."

My imagination won't even see what he's saying. Maybe because I was unconscious most of that night. Maybe because that's the night I lost half my face.

Morgan doesn't stop. "She and that wolf... they got swarmed, and that man, that killer, he saved her life." He stares at me. "And then Denise was there to save you, Carl."

I'm staring back, not sure what he wants from me.

"It-" Morgan looks frustrated, "it's all a circle. Everything gets a return. But the fact is the fact. I did what I did. I let him live. Because everything gets a return." Morgan's brown eyes keep flickering to me. They're the kind of brown that doesn't say anything, that keeps quiet even when they're meant to speak. Secrets making them. "You don't think Rhys could ever forgive her," he smiles. "But he's out there with her. Everyone can change. Everything gets a return."

Dad looks like he's fallen into his own head, his eyes down on the floor, the kind that say too much.

"You both go home," Morgan tells us. "You take the car. You're both needed back there. You shouldn't be out here taking any more chances."

"I'm not leaving," I shake my head a hundred times before I speak again. "Rhys is still out here."

"And I will find him. Carol, too. Somehow."

And somehow, I believe him.

"You're coming back?" I ask him.

He nods. "But if I don't, don't come looking."

"You have a gun?" Dad asks.

"I don't need—"

I hand him Rhys', a gun Rhys told me once used to be Morgans.

"No, I—"

"Take it," Dad tells him.

He does.

"Morgan..." Dad stops him just as he's about to leave, "Michonne did steal that protein bar."

Somehow I remember it, despite only being thirteen when she did.

"Oh, I know," Morgan chuckles. "I know."

A/N

I found it so unbelievably satisfying that the gun Rick gave Morgan in the show actually is the same kind that Rhys is supposed to have. Swear I didn't plan that at all!