-Marco-

I've been let down,

I've been turned around,

I've been misused,

And so confused,

I was a man,

And I held my ground,

And never once y'all,

Did it get me down,

I'M SO THANKFUL,

That I hung on in there,

Must have been the will of God,

I do declare!

I'M SO THANKF—

"Eugene!" Mikey whisper-yelled as he came skidding into the kitchen of Rosita and Gabriel's suburban home from their living room, the Alexandrian sunshine piercing him in the eye through the kitchen window. "Don't turn off the music!"

But it was too late, and Socorro had already started crying.

Eugene, sitting at the kitchen table, immediately started to make notes in his scruff notebook.

"Shit," Marco hissed, rushing from down the hallway.

"Where the heck were you?" Mikey squawked at him, fear the only thing in his eyes after getting the sun out of them.

"I had to pee, dude."

Mikey looked terrified, petrified, hopeless, because not a moment later, Rosita stormed in — drenched in sweat from her workout.

"What did I tell you idiotas about the music!"

"It wasn't—" Mikey attempted.

Rosita tutted him into silence, marching over to where Eugene stayed hidden in his notes and hitting the button to the stereo, allowing the music to resume blasting through the house. Socorro fell into a chorus of amused coos and baby noises.

"See," Rosita said. "My daughter has good taste, and you will not take it —or my alone time— away!"

"I will not apologise," Eugene grumbled. "From this alone, I've learned invaluable information on her reaction to stimuli."

Rosita rolled her eyes at him before heading back to their lately office-turned-gym.

Siddiq stuck his head into the kitchen from the living room, where he and Mikey had been having a nice conversation before all this.

"I've been meaning to ask, Euge," he said, pointing to a giant pinboard of notes and diagrams that had been taking up most of the kitchen for a few days now. "What's that?"

"That would be the feeding charts for your spawn," Eugene told him, standing up from the kitchen island and strutting over to the board, hands held behind his back like an ancient greek philosopher.

"That's a lot for such a small baby," Mikey said.

"Yeah," Siddiq agreed, bringing the rest of his body into the room.

"Well, I also have a record of Coco's sleep cycles and her growth rates, of course."

"Of course," Siddiq and Mikey said at the same time.

"Why do you need so much data for a baby?"

"But the real meat and potatoes here," Eugene went on, ignoring Marco's question, "would be the exact plan for her dietary needs... stick to this, and you'll be golden as goose eggs."

"Does that say how long to warm up her milk?" Siddiq asked, leaning in to look at the puzzling amount of numbers and wiggly lines.

Eugene nodded. "Five minutes and sixteen seconds. Not more, not less."

"So if I were to heat the milk up for, like, five minutes and eighteen seconds—"

"I have rigged the kitchen timer to go off at precisely five and sixteen so such a scenario will not come to pass. Furthermore, I've taken the liberty of charting her feedin's and diaper changes. She is very regular, congratulations."

Rosita, who had obviously been listening from the other room, stormed back in. "Eugene, she's a baby, not a science experiment! You can't boil people down to charts and graphs."

"No, you know what? I'll take it," Siddiq said, patting Eugene on the shoulder and smiling politely. "I might not use it all or, like... any of it, but thanks."

Marco was the first to notice Gabriel come in from the garage with a sour expression soaking his face.

"You know ever since everyone got those damn radio setups, Eugene, this one has been doing nothing but talking." She nodded to Gabriel but lost her smile when she saw his scowl. "You gotta move that thing out of the house."

Gabriel didn't respond.

"Everything good, father?" Marco asked.

Gabriel snapped out of it, swallowing and looking at each of them. "We need to call a meeting."

"What's going on?" Siddiq asked.

"They're back, aren't they?" Eugene said suddenly, like there was only one thing that could rile that fear from the priest.

Gabriel swallowed.

Then he nodded.

Marco waited outside Alexandria's town hall after walking down there with Mikey and the rest of the council. Instead of standing around, he offered to help one of the gardeners with setting up a tomato climber in an area of their crop field that had recently been targeted by crows.

When he finished the guy thanked him. Marco spotted Lydia practising with her bo staff a few paces away. Lacking anything better to do, he went to say hello.

Lydia stopped swinging the staff around as he approached. She watched him silently.

"Marco," he said, pointing to himself, stuffing a hand in his pocket. "We met when you came to Hilltop."

She nodded. "I remember. You blamed me for getting your doctor killed."

Marco glanced at his feet, nodding. "Yeah, I was upset."

Lydia just stared at him and waited, like she didn't think she was allowed to walk away from the conversation. She must have figured if she was trapped, she might as well get something out of it because she spoke then.

"When does Rhys get back?"

"His ship docks at Oceanside today," Marco told her. "Doubt he'll be in Alexandria for a while, though."

She looked disappointed.

"You could always go to Oceanside to say hi," Marco suggested. "Or Hilltop if he stays on dry land for that long."

Lydia shook her head. "That would be stupid."

"Whatever you say."

"Why are you even here?" She asked defensively. "You've been here a while now."

Marco didn't really have a reason to not tell her, so he did — after all, he did come over here.

"Me and Mikey," he said, pointing towards the town hall. "We're just testing the waters with staying round each other's places. I like Alexandria, so I offered to come here."

"Young love is somehow sweeter than these here tomatoes!"

Marco glanced over at the gardener who had said that — the same guy he'd helped just a moment ago. An older man with a short salt-and-pepper beard, dirty work attire, and a green baseball cap to keep the sun off his seemingly buzzed head.

"Can I help you?" Marco asked.

The man just grinned.

"Hi, Negan," Lydia said.

Marco's eyes widened, his heart rate picking up by a couple beats. He'd never actually met Negan... but everyone knew the stories. He'd expected a monster unlike any man he'd ever met, locked up in a cell deep under Alexandria's streets. Not a regular looking guy on his knees in the vegetable garden only a few feet away.

Marco grimaced at him, swallowing his surprise. "Got something to say?"

Negan watched him for a second before turning to Lydia. "Hey, kid, everything okay?"

"Fine," she sighed.

"What's the big meeting for?" he asked. "And why are folks giving you the side-eye?"

"Same folks eyein' you," she said. "What have you done in the past however many years you've been here, huh?"

"You don't have to talk to him," Marco told her.

She shrugged. "I know."

"Negan!" The guard standing not too far away shouted at them all. "Get back to work, sir."

Negan chuckled at Lydia before going back to his garden.

"Hey," the guard hissed at Lydia and Marco. "You're supposed to keep your distance."

The meeting must have ended because Mikey came around the corner of the town hall then.

"Hey, Lydia," he said, beaming like he didn't have an ounce of resentment towards her for what happened last winter.

He didn't offer the same warm smile to Negan. Negan smiled wide enough for the both of them anyhow.

"Mikey-boy!"

"Hi, Negan," Mikey said coolly.

"Hey, Negan!" his guard yelled again. "What did I just—"

"It's fine, Brandon," Mikey chuckled, waving him off. "I can handle Negan."

Brandon almost looked mad at him but seemed to bite it back before he nodded. "Sure thing, boss."

"So," Negan hummed. "What's got everyone pissin' their pants?"

Mikey thought for a moment, contemplating the value of his information.

"Someone found a mask," he said finally.

"Mask?"

"A skin," Lydia said. "Whole place is on alert."

"What does alert even mean?" Negan asked.

"You think I'm going to tell you our security protocols?" Mikey asked, an eyebrow raised.

"Course not, sweetheart," he chuckled. "But if y'all are about to start a panic over this, that puts my ass on the line."

"How so?" Lydia asked.

Negan smirked up at her. "Means people are putting their shitting pants back on. They'll be looking for someone to blame soon enough, and people like you and me? The outsiders. That's when the blame train pulls right into Negan town... via Lydia station, most likely."

"No one's panicking," Marco said.

Mikey nodded. "And you'll be perfectly safe in your cell."

Negan smiled like he'd of know how the end of the world would play out if it hadn't already.

"Brandon," Mikey called the guard back over. "Think Negan's done for the day."

Negan smiled. "That I am."

When they were gone, Mikey turned to Lydia, who was picking at the black wood of Henry's old staff that she carried with her.

"You'll be fine," he told her.

She squinted at him, her eyes a little nervous. "When's Daryl coming back?"

"Soon," he told her. "Maybe just keep your head down until then."

She nodded.

"Also..." Mikey frowned. "I heard from your teacher that you're not enjoying learning to read?"

She grimaced at the word. "It's dumb and unnatural."

"Why don't you swing by tonight?" Mikey smiled. "I'm smarter than I look, and Marco makes a mean courgette casserole."

"It's not that mean," Marco said.

"After living with Aaron's cooking, it's plenty mean."

Lydia snickered as they bickered, then nodded. "Okay."

"Cool," Mikey said. "Come by around six?"

Lydia nodded, picking up her bag of books from the ground and walking off with her staff.

Marco glared at Mikey. "I thought we were having dinner tonight?"

"We still are!" Mikey said. "Only now, we get to help teach a young mind! What could be more fun than that?"

Marco sighed. "Many, many things."

-Mikey-

The sun was getting lower.

Mikey stood at one of the guard posts outside the gate with Teddy, who seemed to be the only other person in Alexandria who could give Mikey a run for his money at the poker table.

"Call," Teddy said, tossing down a handful of chips. "So, where's Marco?"

"Getting extra ingredients for dinner tonight since we've invited Lydia over." Mikey studied his cards, sliding a carefully stacked tower of chips forward. "Call."

Teddy nodded, dealing a new card to the middle. "Don't you think she—"

"Lock the gates for tonight!" Gabriel yelled to everyone from behind the two, making them both jump. "And let's double up security at the walls."

Before anyone could speak...

BOOM

They all looked up.

Mikey leapt from his seat.

"Is that a shootin' star?" Teddy asked, cupping his hands over his eyes to look.

"No," Mikey gasped. He shot his eyes to Eugene, and the two shared a momentary look of excitement before Eugene bolted back towards the gate.

A/N

Apologies for the delay, New Year be crazy!

Hope everyone is enjoying 2024 so far :)