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SlumberingVoid — Rhys really should have been suspicious of that, haha.

Once night's cloak had swaddled Hilltop in a dark haze of mist and cool air, Carl and Rhys snuck out through Hilltop's apparently not-so-secret tunnel, under the glow of the stars and full moon. They stayed low and waited for the guard change that Rhys had been timing on his watch, pushing through the dense cornfield and making their way to the tree line of the woods the Skins had taken to after the exchange.

It's normally hard to track by moonlight, but since Alpha brought so many people with her, their trail wasn't hard to pick up between the two of them.

Carl was better at it.

"You're good at it, y'know," Carl said as they crossed a stream by stepping stones, holding out a hand that Rhys took to help make the last hop across the trickling water.

"What?"

"Being a brother."

Rhys scoffed.

Carl didn't push the opinion but chuckled as if to say he thought Rhys was full of shit.

"I'd tell you the same..." Rhys said. "But I haven't seen you being a brother for a long time."

"She talks about you all the time," Carl told him.

There was movement ahead. The boys crouched behind a thicket of brambles and watched as a group of three walkers stumbled past. When they were gone, Rhys pointed into the darkness after them.

"We should check they're not Skins," he whispered.

"I don't think they are," Carl said quietly, watching where they disappeared into the night.

"How do you know?"

"The tracks keep going this way..." Carl pointed forward. "And they didn't look like Whisperers."

Rhys nodded, standing up and following the tracks. "Jesus didn't think so either."

"Sorry," Carl said, following him as he buried his hands in his pockets.

Rhys shook his head, keeping his eyes forward. "No. No, I'm sorry... I don't know why I said that. You're right, they didn't look like Skins."

The two moved on through the night together. The forest was mostly quiet, which made them worry. Had Alpha dragged every walker between Hilltop and wherever they were going with her? They pushed that out of their heads with conversation. Rhys asked if Carl still wrote poetry, and Carl asked the same about his music. They both answered yes, making each other smile with relief that not too much had changed. Carl told Rhys about Judith when he asked — how she'd become a good shot, maybe even better than him now. Carl told Rhys that Michonne gave her sword fighting lessons, and he helped her with homework when he had the time. By the time Rhys felt caught up on the years they'd missed, the sun had started to rise on a new day.

They stopped when they came across a small cottage. It wasn't really much of a building anymore; most of the walls had fallen in, and the roof was gone, but the foundation was strong and held their weight when they took to the creaking floorboards spread with leaves and dirt. They checked each room, peering through openings missing their doors, only to find more forest that had broken its way in, vines and flora climbing in through the few windows still standing. Carl was picking up dried sticks and leaves as they checked the building.

"We should probably take a break," he stated, looking up at the moon that had made its way across the cloudless sky. "It's almost daybreak."

Rhys was eager to press on, but he nodded, watching Carl crouch beside a small, rusted stove with the handfuls of sticks and branches to try and get a fire going. They must have been in what was once the living room; all its walls, mostly still standing. Rhys sat down with his back pressed against one, watching Carl.

"What about RJ?" he asked, hands clamped together as they hugged around his knees. "Mikey's told me a little, but..."

Carl glanced over at him. "But?"

"I don't know," Rhys smirked. "It's weird to think of you having a brother."

Flames finally sprung up inside the stove's belly. Carl pulled a floorboard up from between his feet with little effort, snapping it over his knee and tossing it into the low flames before shutting the squeaky door. He sat down beside Rhys.

"He's different to Judith."

"Yeah?"

Carl hmmed, nodding with a small smile on his lips. "Less argumentative."

Rhys grinned. "Different to you, too, then?"

Carl shrugged. "Guess he'll grow into it."

They watched the fire for a moment, watching it lap against its cast iron cage.

"What about you?" Carl asked.

"What about me?"

"Well..." Carl said with a distinctly Southern tone, "What have I missed? I've told you all about Jude, and home, and almost everything else."

Rhys watched Carl with a starry look in his eyes, seeing a ladybug in his hair and reaching over to pick it out.

"Hershel's great," Rhys said, reserved in his quiet tone. "I wish I could say he remembered everyone like Judith does, but he was so small back then."

Carl looked at him nervously. "How long has it been?"

"Four years," Rhys said. "It's been about four years since Maggie took him."

Carl leant back into the wall, stopping when it started to creek weakly. He watched Rhys' face twist a little. "Why?"

"Hilltop was doing well," Rhys answered honestly. "Georgie came back like she said she would — talked about this other community her and the twins were trying to get started. Maggie agreed to go help. Asked me to go with her, and I almost said yes... but I guess I knew the real reason she wanted to leave."

Carl nodded, almost asking but not daring to.

"Suppose that's why I'm out here now," Rhys told him. "Can't break the heart of some of the only family I've still got."

"Henry will learn," Carl said. "We had to. Sometimes people are just gone."

Rhys nodded. "Sometimes they're not."

"Can I ask a stupid question?" Carl winced a little.

Rhys nodded cautiously.

"Why was it that whenever I asked someone back at Hilltop what your job was, I got a different answer?"

Rhys shrugged at him, picking at the mud on his boots. "I like being busy."

"Okay..." Carl nodded. "Another stupid and maybe annoying question... why, when I looked on the duty roster for Washburne, did it say Rhee?"

Rhys chuckled in a way that made it seem like he didn't find it all that funny. "That'll be Tammy Rose. She's always done that. Not sure if it's because she still doesn't like me or not."

"I'm sorry about that day," Carl suddenly said. "The day we sent you away."

"I understand."

Carl smirked. "No, you don't."

Rhys nodded. "You're right. I don't."

Carl smiled at him awkwardly. "Maybe when this is all done... we can talk about it?"

"Carl," Rhys sighed, his tone long and almost whining. "Are you going back when this is over?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean," Rhys said, staring at the fire for a moment, then looking back at him. "I hate this. I hate that we're talking about us like it's going to go back to exactly how it was. You'll go home to Alexandria, and Michonne won't let anyone follow you through that gate. Then Tara will keep Hilltop closed from Alexandrians because she'll still be pissed off about it."

"What would you do?" Carl asked.

"It's not up to me."

Carl reached down to the rotten floorboards and put his hand over Rhys', that had been playing with a loose nail.

Rhys watched him, suddenly voiceless.

"What if it was?" Carl asked.

Rhys felt like he couldn't lie. Like Carl's touch compelled him to tell the truth the way those superheroes in his comics could.

"I wish we could all be a family again..." Rhys' eyes were glassy and gaping like a deer. "I'm just scared we won't."

Carl smiled but shook his head. "I wasn't completely honest with you when I decided to stay at Hilltop — Michonne either."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm not going back," Carl said. "Not until Michonne changes her mind about the other communities..."

Rhys' eyes were wide with surprise then. "Will she?"

"I've tried everything I can," Carl said. "I stood by her choice for so long because I had to. I couldn't abandon her, not after we lost Dad... and what happened after."

"What changed your mind?"

Carl chuckled under his breath. "Judith. She told me the night before we left that she thinks Dad would hate what Alexandria is doing. I couldn't argue with her, so we finally made a plan... me and her. I didn't think I could stay away from her and RJ, but she reminded me that this..." he gestured between the two of them, then out towards the woods, "this is more important."

"So your plan is to just stay at Hilltop?"

"If Tara lets me," Carl said sheepishly.

Rhys beamed at him, unable to help himself. "You can move your stuff to my room when we get back."

Carl nodded. Rhys kissed him. Carl stood up and offered his hands down to haul Rhys to his feet. "We should keep movin'."

Not long after, they stopped at a ditch in the woods. They had come to the edge of the forest, where it wrapped its way around a field with tree lines on every corner. Rhys scanned the countryside with binoculars from his bag.

He lowered the binoculars after a second and shook his head, handing them to Carl, who looked for anything he'd missed.

Carl didn't raise them, though, looking at Rhys instead, wrapping the binoculars straps around his hand nervously.

"Was Negan the reason Maggie left?"

Rhys nodded after a moment of quiet. "I don't think she ever did get him out of her head."

Carl didn't ask if Rhys had.

Then there was a bark.

The boys turned to see Dog bounding towards them from a ditch, leaping out and scampering quickly to Carl's side to lick his hand.

"What are you doing out here?" Carl asked him, a puzzled look on his face.

"Same thing as you two," a voice answered. There was a brief moment where Rhys went crazy and thought it might have been Dog that spoke. But Daryl's voice came with a face when he and Connie pushed their way through brush on the far side of the ditch, hoping over to join them.

Connie waved, and Rhys waved back while Carl scratched behind Dog's ear — clearly knowing a sweet spot when Dog's leg started thumping against the ground in approval.

"He can't be too far ahead now," Daryl said, pointing the same direction Carl said the tracks were going in.

"He?" Rhys asked.

"Yeah," Daryl grunted. "Came to get you after Addy showed me his note. Tara figured you already saw it and took off."

Their blank expressions told Daryl all he needed. He glanced at Connie, who rolled her eyes. Then she handed Rhys a scrunched-up piece of paper from her back pocket.

Couldn't live with it...

Left to find Lydia.

"Oh," Rhys said, reading it a few times to understand it before passing it to Carl. "Fuck."

Daryl didn't ask why they were out here if they didn't know Henry was. He probably already knew.

Dog suddenly yapped at them, diving into the ditch and coming back out with a stick that was buried in the river of leaves. Henry's stick.

Connie wrote something down on a notepad from her pocket, showing them all.

'He caught up with them.'

"Yeah." Daryl nodded, looking at the muddled footprints on the floor and grunting, "There was a struggle."

Connie bumped his shoulder, pointing at his mouth when he looked up at her.

Daryl squinted at her, confused.

"She can't lip read if you're looking down all the time," Carl snickered but stopped when he saw how much Rhys had sunken into his own head — shoulders hunched and eyes pinned to Henry's staff in his hands. "You okay?"

Rhys' head darted up, nodding. "We need to find him."

"We will," Carl said, pressing a hand to his back and rubbing circles.

Daryl pointed to some oncoming walkers. "They went that way."

Then Daryl put an arrow through one of the walker's eyes. Connie exploded a hole in the second one's head with a rock flung from her slingshot. They looked at each other funny.

Daryl whistled, and Dog retrieved his arrow from the walker, only to snap it in his jaws on the return journey. Daryl sighed. "Bad dog."

They found their camp by the end of the day. A small clearing in the trees by a field where a small horde roamed in a circle.

Rhys crouched with Connie and Carl behind a holly bush on the far side of the field, watching as two walkers stumbled out of the trees where the camp was hidden, pulling a tarp of sewn skin that was moving something heavy toward the horde. They were Whisperers — as were the two walkers that broke from the horde to talk with the others before returning to the roaming circle of walkers and keeping it away from the tarp. The first two unrolled two bodies — one headless. They left it for the dead.

Daryl appeared behind them, clearing his throat and staying low.

"I checked it out. Camp's too big to take on."

"Did you see Henry?" Rhys asked, pulling at the staff strapped to his back.

Daryl nodded. "Got him tied up."

"And Lydia?" Carl asked.

"Walking around free."

Connie wrote something.

'Could we get more people? Weapons?'

"It's a day back to Hilltop," Rhys hissed at her, keeping his mouth movements wide so she could lip-read. "I'm not leaving Henry with these freaks."

"I heard some of 'em talking," Daryl grunted. "Something about Lydia proving herself again. Didn't sound good for Henry."

Rhys went to stand, but Daryl dragged him back.

"Still need a plan," Daryl said.

Carl pointed to the horde. "I've got a plan."

The sun went down a little after the plan was set.

And it went smoothly.

Rhys and Connie made a commotion in the trees on the far side of the field from the Skin's camp, cracking sticks against trees and rustling bushes by the clearing. The horde didn't budge, but after a minute or two, a pair of walkers broke from the crowd. The same two as last time. It wasn't hard to deal with Skins once they were without their pack. Daryl lurked in the shadows with his crossbow and blew a bolt through the first guy's throat so he couldn't scream. Carl got the second with his knife — dropping from a tree and digging the blade into his eye.

It was the now part that was hard.

Rhys argued to go in with them, but Connie and Daryl had already taken the only masks from the Skins. Their job was to lure the herd onto the camp and cause enough chaos for them to get Henry out.

Carl and Rhys didn't have to wait long. Dog whining all the while as he sat between them.

They heard screaming from the camp.

"Guardians!"

"Masks on now!"

Four figures approached. Rhys raised his bow. Carl pointed his python. They both dropped them to their sides when Daryl and Connie stepped out. Rhys grappled Henry into him when he followed them out, too.

"Idiot," Rhys hissed into the side of his head.

"I'm sorry!" Henry cried.

"I know."

"What's she doing here?" Carl asked after the fourth person.

Rhys let go of Henry to see Lydia standing a few paces back by a tree.

The screams from the camp started to die down.

"She can't come with us," Daryl said.

"If she stays, I stay!" Henry barked.

"Like hell you do!" Rhys yelled right back.

"Guys," Carl hissed for them to keep it down.

"We can't leave her," Henry pleaded, grabbing her hand.

Connie signed something, pointing back to the camp with flustered hands. Dog barked after.

"She's right," Daryl said. "We gotta go."

Everyone was staring at Rhys then. His eyes went wide. Had he been bit without realising? Shot? Was there something on his face?

Then he realised.

"Shit," he hissed.

He took a brief moment to think.

"No," Rhys said finally, shaking his head. "We made a deal with these people. We're not going back to Hilltop with the girl. Too dangerous for our people."

Daryl nodded. "You heard him, she ain't coming with us."

Connie glared at them both.

"We could run," Henry said quickly. "Me and her. You guys go back, and we keep running. They can't blame Hilltop if we just disappear."

"Not happening," Rhys scolded him.

"Think of your mom," Daryl said.

"Alexandria's not too far," Carl said then, looking up at the stars and reminding Rhys how much he used to love staring at them.

Rhys took Henry's staff off his back and shoved it into his arms. "We gotta go now, or we all die anyway."

Daryl nodded, pointing in a direction and moving.

Connie shook her head, pointing the opposite way.

"It's this way," Daryl said, pointing again.

Connie insisted.

"Yeah, this way," Daryl hissed.

She started running the opposite direction.

Henry and Lydia ran after her.

Then Dog.

Daryl whistled sharply. "No. No. Dog!"

Rhys and Carl glanced at him, waiting for him to give in. He did, and the three took off after them.