Silence. Definition by dictionary, the complete absence of sound. So quiet that it's loud, so empty that all around feels heavy. 

Some would say that silence is so thin, so delicate, that the sound of a pin drop could shatter the tranquilized atmosphere and send shards of it flying into depths of noise, no matter how high or low it ran along the scale of volume. Others would say that silence is so thick, that the loss of sound would be such a distant thought it would be lost forever. Dead. Dead until brought back by someone on the outside.

That's what Riley wished she could be. The person on the outside, the person who could bring the sound back.

He was quiet, so quiet that Riley had begun to feel that scaling silence settle into the room, seep in from beneath the doors and in the cracks of the walls like fog on a wounded, gray day. Her breathing had gotten so shallow that her chest felt compressed, the sound of her own breaths canceling out. She couldn't even hear the beat of her own heart above the deafening silence, it was as if he had taken all the sounds that her body, her mind, her everything had once made with him. Where? She did not know. All she did know was that his sudden leave painted the world a ghostly color. Everything was vague. At least in that moment.

It's hard to understand exactly how Riley became stuck in such an environment. One that's building blocks were made from nothing- quite literally nothing. No sound. No feeling. No thought. Just heaviness, just weight that was enough to pull the nothingness into enough matter to create her dreary surroundings that she couldn't escape or recognize all at the same time.

It started when she'd cleaned her face with a wet rag given to her by Maggie and Rosita, who'd despite the girl's resistance of the disposal of their water, insisted she cleaned away the dirt and blood caked on her cheeks to avoid risking infection.

"Trust me." Rosita had said. "We can survive with a few drops less of water. You can't with a fever and sepsis."

Riley didn't remembering knowing what the word "sepsis" was, but she trusted Rosita to make the right call. She also couldn't deny the fact that having someone take care of her- no matter how minutely it might be- didn't embody the feeling of enclosing a warm blanket over a frozen body after what she'd just been through.

Sawyer had been huddled with Rick, Glenn, Michonne, and a few others from their group in a corner, relaying the information he'd gathered on his trip to find Beth and save Riley and Samson to them. Daryl, Carol, and Nessa had left, locating a place by the name of Grady Memorial to retrieve their captive friends whilst he himself took Riley back to the church.

Riley had been sitting on a pew, fingers trailing the back of her head gently to try and scout the damage there, the feeling of being hit in said spot and losing consciousness the night before was still there, making a fierce appearance. Her hand was met with flaked, dry blood, but she was skeptic to try and move any closer to the area bearing most pain, not wanting to introduce any new affliction to the injury. 

It was then that she'd felt a hand on her shoulder, causing her to look up. She recognized the person in front of her. Right after she'd retrieved her bow from the back of a truck when she was detained by the Governor only a few weeks prior, her first arrow that was directed toward a living person was to a man whose hostility drew her shot like a magnet. The man's forces were trained on this woman in front of her now rather than the fight itself. Riley hadn't known whether the woman was on defense of the prison or attack from the Governor, but she had not thinking all that clearly anyway. Before she'd departed the scene, all Riley could remember was the man falling with an agonized shout, the woman's gaze meeting her own with a look regarding a deer in headlights. Riley knew who she was now. Tara, the dark haired girl who'd accompanied Glenn in finding Maggie after their prison was demolished- by Tara's people, it was. But Tara claimed she wasn't aware of the damage she would be causing, and she didn't take any part in it afterward. Glenn believed her, so Riley did too.

"Hey." Tara had offered the younger girl a soft smile, but her eyes didn't match her lips. In them, a storm swirled, but not a storm of blistering rage and malevolence, but rather one of such in its ending phase, where the bad had passed, but it was clearing away to reveal all the destruction it had left in its wake.

Tara hadn't waited for Riley to reply, she didn't bother asking if she was okay- which Riley almost appreciated in a sense. She'd been asked the question enough for one night, and the lie of "yes" had become all too familiar on her lips. She hadn't wanted to taste it anymore.

"I know you've probably had a really rough twenty-four hours, but I think there's someone you should see. He's been asking for you. He was worried." Tara's tender smile melted away, her fingers picking at each other with just a hint of nervousness to accompany what looked like intense agitation.

Riley's lips had parted ever so slightly, eyebrows drawing in. "Who?"

"The other boy. Lucas." Tara spoke the name uncertainly, as if not quite sure she'd gotten it correct.

Riley had immediately felt every sense of trepidation and debility drain from her body. She sat up straight with a thousand questions badgering behind her eyes and bearing into Tara's all at once, too many to keep count of. She'd been almost completely convinced she had lost the boy, not just physically, after they'd been separated in the woods right before Riley had been taken, but in every sort of the way. Forever. She didn't know just what fate he had met, but she knew it was abominable, his silent disappearance had rained down hard like bullets in her skin. Quite obviously, she'd put her own survival and even Sam's while they were together ahead of everything from the minute she'd awoken in that car, but that didn't mean the thought of Lucas wasn't plaguing her mind like a disease fighting with its all to claim her focus. 

Just that night, just a little bit earlier, Riley had made her choice, if it even was a choice to begin with. Throughout her exhausting game of survival, of hide and seek with the men who hunted her like weak prey, of running miles to escape their wrath and their guns, of convincing herself that if she made it just a little farther, she would be back with the church and her people, throughout it all, she'd had one sole point of determination, of hope. Carl. 

She couldn't pretend Lucas was still in option in that manner, she cared for him, she really did, but he didn't mean anything close to what Carl did to her. Riley felt parts of her tie with the Grimes in ways she didn't even realize. He'd been there for her physically after the prison fall, when he'd held her in his arms after the Claimers had violated whatever modesty she'd been aware of having in her youthful state, when she'd awoken in his lap after Terminus knocked her conscious out of reach. Every time she'd hugged him and every time she'd held his hand. Especially when she'd kissed him, not even an hour earlier. And beyond that, he'd made himself her lifeline, to guide her through every situation in which she thought she saw death with her own eyes. He'd placed his hand over them and directed her the way out until she was stable enough to lead herself. Whether he'd known it or not, Carl was more to Riley than anything she'd ever realized, not in an ignorant manner, but rather in the sense that he'd become such a designated, important part of her that she couldn't even think of what anything would be like without him. It had always been like that, since their first time on the road, those cold and stony eight months after the farm was demolished. Regardless of their period of conflicting terms, he was still there. Riley still had him.

Discounting the Grimes, that didn't erase Lucas's meaning in Riley's life. The mention of his survival made her heart skip a beat, and she immediately stumbled to her feet despite the ringing in her ears and the wave of blindness sent from the injury in her head. She grasped onto the back of a pew for stability, attacking Tara with the desperate look in her eyes.

"Lucas?" She'd asked, just to make sure she had heard correctly, that she wasn't dreaming. "He's alive? He's okay?"

Tara's mouth opened as if she wanted to say something, to answer the girl's questions, but the gloomy, dejected look on her face spoke louder than any words ever could.

"He wants to see you." That was all she said.

Riley blinked, her posture weakening like melted ice. Tara walked away, up toward the back of the church where a storage room lay empty- or at least Riley had thought so. Her hesitance gained control for no more than a moment before she followed the woman into the back, into the room.

Tara waited respectively just outside the door, her gaze moving from the ground to meet Riley's gaze. She had no fake smile on her face, and the strange attitude lingering between them before the dark haired girl offered a quick look of support. There was no reassurance to accompany it. And then, she took her leave.

Riley watched her walk away, Tara's demeanor setting her completely on edge, leaving her almost scared for what she was going to meet when she walked in the room. Why had Tara seemed so despairing, nearly fearful? Or maybe fearful wasn't the right word, but so strained with concerning restlessness. 

Riley swallowed, turning to the half opened door. She gently pressed her palm against it, the hinges had squeaked as she applied pressure and gained full accessibility to the sight of the room.

At first, everything seemed normal. Walls of light gray, flickers of candle light dancing in the shadows, a couch with blankets.

A person on the couch with blankets.

"Lucas?"

Riley timidly stepped forward, her arm had outstretched behind her to shut the door before moving to the couch, seating herself on a half-sturdy stool placed before the furniture.

At the sound of her voice, the face of the person laying in the couch turned to face her, a head full of red hair accompanying it. 

The familiar sight had warmed Riley's body, no matter what their recent interactions had been like just before then. Just to see him alive, to see him breathing, that was enough for her. Her relationship with death had been all too rickety as of late, and to see that it had not yet grasped another one of the people she held dearest to her was more than enough.

Regardless of the response in him, Riley almost felt dejected by his appearance. His skin was graying, sweat sheening every inch of him so thickly she almost thought he'd been dunked in a river. His eyes were half open, lips just barely upturned in a smile. He looked almost dead.

"They... they told me you were gone." Lucas whispered, his voice weaker than that of an elderly person on the brink of the end of their lifeline. "Missing."

Riley shook her head, not quite having a response built up. She hadn't known what to say, to think. The boy in front of her was clearly as far from okay as he could be, but she had been so clueless as to what was wrong with him.

"I'm okay. I'm right here." She'd said quietly, the urgency to prove her obvious point filling up any empty space her low volume might have missed.

Lucas's lips split into a faint grin, eyes closing momentarily. His red long sleeve shirt was stained a dark crimson from the sweat leaking out of his every pore in his body. Riley recognized that red shirt almost as well as the freckles dotting his nose and cheeks. He'd been unfortunate in finding spare clothes, she remembered him telling her at one point after their reunion. He'd been wearing the same one for weeks now. It was dirty, ripped, and stained, mirroring his beaten down image.

"What happened?" Lucas murmured, his croaky voice had broken the two words into what sounded like a thousand little fragments. Riley pretended like it didn't tear up the insides of her ears.

"I..." She thought for a moment, trying to decompose the story into a few short sentences. "I was taken. But I got away and Daryl found me. Sawyer drove me back here, to you guys."

Lucas had let out a sluggish breath, his Adam's apple bobbing with his thick swallow that attempted to wet his parched throat. "I'm glad that... you're okay."

Riley's lips pressed together and she nodded. She reached out- one hand on his chest, where she could feel his heart rocketing with an expeditious pace, and her second out to interlock with his in attempts to provide any comfort, though it seemed that comfort would not have done anything for him. Not in the condition he lay rotting in.

"What-" Riley's cleared her throat as her voice cracked, betraying her trembling composure. "What happened to you? What's your story?"

Her attempts to add some light of humor, or even alacrity to their morbid conversion veered heavily downward, like a hollow drop one would hear after throwing a pebble into a deep, dark well. Her stomach pitted.

Lucas's head lolled gently to the side, his cold hand lay sweaty and motionless in Riley's. "They took me... took me, too. The people..."

His breathing was fading to shallow spurts, his eyes barely held open as they went in and out of focus on Riley's face. The girl didn't rush him, maybe because she had been too disturbed by his fragmented being or maybe because she didn't want to rip his story out of his mouth when he could barely form audible sentences. However, her hand had gave his a gentle squeeze, however he would interpret it, she didn't really mind. She could only hope it offered some sort of consolation to his dwindling being.

"The ones who took you." He finished croakily, lips barely parting as he mumbled his sentence.

"The cops? From Grady Memorial?" Riley questioned earnestly. Her concern was immediately piqued, how many of them were there? How much bigger of a threat were they than she'd already seen them as?

Lucas's eyebrows twitched, attempting to shake his head although it looked more like a ragged doll being shaken ever so gently. "Terminus."

Riley's heart had dropped to the pits of her stomach in that moment. She didn't have to ask. She didn't want to. Terminus had no mercy for anyone, not for innocents, not for women, not for children. They had a terrifying greed to stay at the top of the power chain, no matter how much brutality it took. Them before anyone else. Riley had learned that much from them, and she didn't want to even think about what they had done with one of the people who had burned their twisted society to the ground, leaving them in ruins and with numbers far below from what they'd started with.

"Look." Lucas breathed, eyes glancing down at his body. "Look what they did."

Riley's eyes stayed trained on his face, eventually traveling down his torso, wrapped in his red shirt, to his lower half, where the thin sheets covered his body. Blood soaked them. Dyeing them a cerise color with so much abundance it had looked as if they were dipped in a pool of cherry wine. Her jaw slackened.

"Look, Riley."

The girl's discomfort began to grow, so much in fact, that she could feel it attaching to every nerve in her body. Her free hand latched out, gripping onto the blankets and pulling them off of the boy's body. They had stuck to his clothes, the blood acting like a glue that was in the process of drying. She had removed it down to his waist when she began to see it, or rather, not see it. It was dark, perhaps by the shadows of the dark room, perhaps by his dark pants, or perhaps because there was simply nothing there.

Riley blinked, confusion tweaking her mind, and she began to wonder if her exhaustion was getting the best of her. Where was the wound? She was sure it was an infection that had Lucas in such a dire condition, but she couldn't even tell where the blood was leaking from. She tugged the blanket down just a little more before she gasped, eyes widening as her hand detached from the cloth of the blanket.

It was gone. From his mid-thigh down, Lucas had no leg. What was left of it was wrapped tightly in bandages, but those were no longer white, no longer dry and they were serving little purpose now. They were soaked, dripping thick blood that leaked onto the sofa Lucas was laying on.

Riley felt stuck, frozen in a moment in time where the only thing she could do was stare at the bloodied sight of the boy's leg cut directly from his body. Suddenly, Riley felt like her every sense awakened in a fresh light, not only could she see the wound, but she could begin to feel it. The smell of raw flesh infiltrated her nose, her tongue became drowned in the taste of blood leaking straight from the vein. She could nearly hear the pulsing of his leg's skinned muscle reaching for the rest of itself. 

"Riley." Lucas's voice was a little stronger now, but the small choke that followed it told her that was half of the strength he'd had left. His breathing had grown rapid, his jaw trembling as he fought against the lightheadedness to remain conscious enough to hold their conversation.

The girl forcefully removed her eyes from the sight, turning her head to meet Lucas's gaze, although her own lingered slightly on his missing leg for a second too long before devoting itself to the boy laying half-conscious on the couch.

Lucas's lips trembled, his face was so pale and covered in so much sweat he might as well've been bathing in the moonlight minutes before. His half open eyes were wet, though this time it wasn't just the glassy look of terror and his declining entity, but tears. His mouth pressed together gently as a shaken breath was inhaled through his nose, soft cries beginning to make their way out.

"I'm not going to live, am I?" He asked defeatedly, the tears that were once in his eyes were falling freely down his face. "'M too far gone now."

Riley shook her head, whether it was to tell him that he wasn't going to die just yet or in denial to herself, she wasn't quite sure. Both of her hands clasped his clammy one now, but he didn't have enough strength to hold hers' back.

"I'm scared." He whispered. "I'm scared."

Riley had shook her head again, leaning down a little and pulling one hand free to wipe away the  sweat glistening on his forehead. She had grabbed a cloth sitting on a nearby side table that was soaked with water and probably perspiration from the boy's sickly pale skin. Riley gently pressed the cloth against Lucas's neck, but she knew it wasn't doing anything. He wasn't healing- not from this. No comfort could be brought by a soft fabric, nothing was enough to turn his face from the side he was soon to be on.

"I'm sorry, Riley." Lucas murmured. His eyes had looked completely closed now, but they were just angled away from the girl's face, blinking slowly, each time his eyelids had fallen they were slower to open up again.

Riley's inspected Lucas's face, her eyebrows were drawn in. "Hey, no. Don't say-"

"I am." Lucas protested. "I shouldn't have pushed you to... for anything. From the start."

Riley had stayed quiet, afraid that if she were to open her mouth, her voice wouldn't be trusted to remain steady. So instead, she watched. She listened.

"I just wanted to say it... before... I wanted you to know it." Lucas rasped.

His face was void of color, awash in a ghostly palette and soaked with beads of sweat and tears alike. His eyes were nearly completely shut, the tips of his eyelashes tickling the upper plains of his freckle-dotted cheeks. Riley's face had began to crumble, and she pressed her lips into a thin line to prevent the emotion from cracking along her expression incase Lucas could still see it through his blurry, teared vision. 

She wiped the sweat from his forehead again, and her fingers had felt like they were brushing ice. His head sprawled to the side just a little bit, and his eyelids fluttered again before opening- at a pace so slow Riley could count the seconds- and he had looked her in the eye.

"Do you?" He whispered.

Riley didn't have to ask him to finish his sentence which was either cut short from fatigue and weakness or abbreviated to preserve his energy. She nodded her head earnestly- and the emotion she had been trying so hard to preserve fell from her eyes without her control, disorderly tears had fallen onto the his blankets and his skin, but Riley was sure he'd been detached from feeling anything at this point.

"I forgive you." Riley promised. Her face had become hot, her eyes blurred with the tears they had shared together. 

Had she known this was his fate, apologies over nonsense would be lost and discarded, but they weren't to Lucas, he had made that apparent. So Riley obliged, she had played the part and forgave him, she had told him so too, and she didn't have to pretend to lie about it either. Had she been aware this was what it would be for him, she would've forgiven him a thousand times over to trade for his life back. But that's not the way things work, so she spoke the words, she let him hear it.

"I forgive you, Lucas."

Lucas's hand fell limp inside Riley's. His head might have nodded slightly- or maybe that was her imagining things through the veil of her tears. His eyes had shut completely now, and his husky, rapid breathing had slowed, as if the weight he had been pulling was finally let go. Riley didn't need to have her sight wiped clear for her to see it, to see the way his body stopped moving, the way his chest no longer lifted unsteadily up and down, the way his eyelids would flicker in attempts to hold open, the way his red shirt would wrinkle with his sudden, minute jolts. He was still, conclusively and irrevocably still.

"Lucas?" Riley breathed near silently. 

She pulled her hand out of his, and swallowed back a gag when his cold clutch felt like a mannequin's plastic fingers melted around her own. Her eyes danced along his face, but they danced alone. Her head lowered down to his chest, but his heart was no longer beating at that rapid pace it had been two minutes ago. Now, it was silent.

Riley picked up her head and glanced back down at him. He was quiet, so quiet that Riley had begun to feel that scaling silence settle into the room, seep in from beneath the doors and in the cracks of the walls like fog on a wounded, gray day. Her breathing had gotten so shallow that her chest felt compressed, the sound of her own breaths canceling out. She couldn't even hear the beat of her own heart above the deafening silence, it was as if he had taken all the sounds that her body, her mind, her everything had once made with him. Where? She did not know. All she did know was that his sudden leave painted the world a ghostly color. Everything was vague. Everything was silent.

"Mother-" Riley yanked her foot away with a little jump as the wooden plank she held slipped from her grasp and nearly crushed her foot for what might've been the third time by now. "Jeez."

Riley bent down and lugged the plank back into her arms, pushing it back against the window she'd been trying to pin it against whilst attempting to align the nail she held correctly. As she repositioned the wooden bulb she was using as a hammer, the plank began to slip once again. Just before she could catch it, as it was about to fall to the floor, a hand came out and stopped it, holding it in place.

"Here. I got it." Carl offered, holding the plank steady across the window.

"Thanks." Riley murmured with a repressed smile, turning her focus onto hammering the nail into the wood.

Her fingers pinched the metal tightly, attempting to hold it as steady as her hand would allow, but it shook regardless. It had been shaking since last night, since...

"Hold it like this." Carl instructed, holding the board still with one hand and moving his other to guide Riley's atop the wooden bulb.

His arm that stayed stuck plastering the plank to the window had its sleeve rolled up to his elbow, revealing dirt-stained skin and an array of scratches, some painted with dried blood across them. Riley's eyes stayed locket on the sight before the boy's whole figure moved into her line of vision, and she'd averted her eyes from the scratched up sight and concentrated on what he was ordering.

His wrist angled the bulb to the left a little bit. "Because you're holding it with your right hand." He explained when Riley's gaze tracked to his face somewhat questioningly. "Makes it a bit straighter, so when you-" Carl, with Riley's hand still encased in his, pulled the make-shift hammer back a little bit and then gently but firmly pounded on the nail, sinking it deeper and deeper into the beam with each hit. "See?"

Riley glanced at him, her focus being divided between the wood and his face, though it wasn't quite even. She half-hoped he would walk away right after so he wouldn't see her mess up again. He was being gentle with her. Kind, tender. She couldn't tell if it was because of her recent kidnapping, of the event of a certain ginger-haired boy's absence ever since last night, or because of what happened in between those incidents. Perhaps it was all three, she just wished she could know which one was the leading factor.

Carl's eyebrows furrowed a slight bit in confusion when Riley's gaze followed him with no answer, and she quickly snapped her head forward and nodded with a small hum. "Yeah, got it. Thanks."

"Sure." Carl removed his arm from the plank, letting it fall and swing by his side. 

Stalking over a few feet away by another window he had originally been working at, Carl looked back over at Riley. He subconsciously ignored her desperate need for a hairbrush, the way her face was discolored from dirt, blood, tear stains- he purposely ignored that one. Basically everyone in their group had taken on the same appearance, but now a good bunch of them have left. Maggie, Glenn, Abraham, Rosita, Char, Eugene, and Tara had left a few hours prior, heading for Washington to gather up a so called cure. Whether that was true or not- the existence of a cure, that is- Carl didn't ponder much on it. He tried not to think about Maggie and Glenn's departure, and honestly the frenzied atmosphere that they swarmed in recently made it easier. However, he'd noticed it was also a hard pace to keep up with, more for some than others.

"Are you okay?" Carl asked, trying not to add too much of an intimate feel to the question, distracting himself with picking up another wooden board and walking over to Riley so she could nail it into the window.

Riley nodded with a deep exhale through her nose. She didn't want to lie to him, but she also didn't want to make her personal feelings a big deal. Everyone who was still alive up until this point had experienced loss, had feared for their life in a way so drastic the trauma stuck like glue. She was just like everyone else in their group, one or two harrowing incidents wasn't enough to make herself a burden.

"Yeah." She answered. "Are you okay?"

Carl shrugged, his face blank of most emotion. He looked entirely neutral, like he was tired but still wide awake at the same time. "Still in one piece, I guess."

Riley averted her gaze with her lips parted, her hand on the wooden bulb tightened as her palms grew damp with sweat. An awkward ambience suddenly grabbed them both inside of a threatening chokehold, and as Riley snapped her jaw shut, Carl's grip on the board faltered.

"Oh, I- I didn't mean-"

"It's fine." Riley cut him off. She lifted her head to look at him, clearly and in the face. Her goal was to put up a front of sturdiness, but she felt like every inch of her face was beginning to crack.

Carl's figure slouched, as if melting from the heat of guilt, but just as his lips parted to speak whatever mystery was about to escape them a new person appeared beside them.

"Hey, guys." A boy a few years older than Riley and Carl stood awkwardly just a few mere feet from Carl's left. He had shown up to the church that morning with Daryl no less than two hours after Maggie, Glenn, and the others' leave. According to the older man- the same one who Riley owed her life to after he had found her after her brief escape from the officers the previous day- Carol had been hurt and taken by Grady Memorial's police, the same ones who had attempted to steal Riley away. He'd ventured back to the church with Nessa to tell the group what had happened, and with them, they'd brought Noah, who had just barely escaped the hospital with his life.

"Hey." Carl acknowledged him with a half turn of his body.

"Need any help over here? Me and Billy just finished all the windows on that side, so..." Noah swung his arms a little, his social discomfort making a show on his face as he became aware of the already awkward situation he'd stumbled into.

Carl hesitated for a moment before glancing at Riley, who'd maintained a fixed silence throughout the interaction.

"Oh, yeah." The girl snapped back quickly, tucking her fallen hair behind her ear and placing a hand on the plank held against the window. "Yeah, sure. We were having trouble getting these up anyway."

"We were?" Carl inquired, his stare boring into the side of her face.

Riley didn't answer, instead resorting to flashing him a nasty look. Behave wasn't exactly in her common vocabulary, but with Carl it always seemed to appear. Besides, Noah was new, and new was scary, especially when you're coming from a hospital of psychopaths. That much Riley knew, as she'd been taken captive by them and just narrowly escaped. Their friend, her friend, Samson, hadn't been so lucky. She'd been meaning to talk with Noah at some point, he had been cordial with Beth, who he confirmed was at the Grady Memorial with him, although she hadn't been as successful with their escape plan like he had. Riley also wanted to know if Sam made it to the hospital, and if he did, whether he was still alive or not. The thought of the boy and his sacrifice for her had been stabbing at her repeatedly since they departed.

Noah picked up a wooden stake he'd been holding and walked over to the pair, starting to knock a nail into the side of the plank and secure it into the wall. He looked over at Riley, a faint look of what may have been hesitance or tension crossed his face.

"I actually wanted to talk to you before I go." He confessed, beginning to create a loud pattern of his stake hitting the nail repeatedly. "About the hospital and Beth."

"Oh." Riley's initial shock was swallowed down as she nodded. Apparently, that conversation was coming sooner than she had thought. "Yeah, shoot."

Carl, from the other side of Noah, cleared his throat. "I'll just, ah, go over there really quick. Help Gabriel or something."

Riley removed her sights from Noah, and instead guided them to Carl, who pushed off of the wall and prepared to make his leave toward the front area of the church, where the priest was scrubbing the floors. 

Noah had never said Carl had to leave, or made any indication that he wanted to speak to the girl alone, but the Grimes left them regardless. Riley surmised it was because the topic of Beth was probably a little sensitive to him, or perhaps he didn't want to feel like an outsider while the other two bonded over trauma about freaky hospitals and kidnapping police officers. Either way, he pushed off of the church wall and set course for Gabriel instead, passing by Riley with what appeared to be a look of slight dissatisfaction in his eyes.

"Please be nice." Riley murmured to him with only half of a joking tone in her voice. She eyed the boy with the church's owner on the sidelines of her vision, where he sat sprawled on all fours beside a pile of weapons.

"I'll try." Carl whispered back, the corners of his mouth curving upwards just the slightest.

As Carl passed her and made way for Gabriel, Riley allowed for her own lips to crack into a tiny grin before turning her focus back to Noah, who had successfully finished nailing the whole plank across the window by now.

"He all good?" Noah asked, dragging over a nearby chair so that he and Riley could hoist themselves up onto it as the advanced higher along the window.

"He's fine." Riley assured him. Despite the boy's sudden leave, Riley knew Carl well enough to know whether he was actually okay or not. "You said you wanted to talk to me? About Beth and everything?"

"Oh, yeah. She's- she's really... she's good. Not made for that place." Noah affirmed as he handed the girl a nail.

Riley felt her mood dim a little bit upon hearing those words come from his mouth. "What does that mean?"

"Grady Memorial, they're serious over there. I mean, they help people, they save lives, but most of the time they're the ones nearly taking them." The older boy explained himself.

"Trust me, I can tell." Riley muttered. She thought back to Samson, screaming at her to run as the two police officers grabbed him and dragged him away. The scene seemed painted with fresh blood that stained her memory.

"But Beth's strong." Noah said. "She's smart, got a good head on her shoulders. We were only together for a few days, but she gave away her own freedom so I could get mine... that's what I mean. She's good."

Riley nodded her head, feeling her throat clog up momentarily. "Yeah, she is. She always has been."

They were quiet for a few moments, only the sound of nails being pounded into wood, Carl's voice instructing Gabriel in the back, and Judith's faint cries brought any sound to the small church. Riley felt grateful, somewhat. The slowness of everything around them felt like a break for her, a chance to let her catch her breath. She looked back at Noah again.

"Do you really think you guys can get her back?" She questioned. Rick and a group of a few others, including Noah, would be leaving soon. They're on track to retrieve Beth and Samson back, hopefully with as little bloodshed and enemy-making as possible.

Noah sighed, as if the small question required an essay's worth of an answer. "I don't know your people, not well anyway. Grady's strong, like I said. They got people, guns, resources. If the rest your group is like Daryl, I think we stand a good chance against them. But it won't be easy. They don't like giving up what they think is theirs."

Riley's head dropped, her gaze angled to the floor. She didn't love the answer, but she appreciated his honesty. She'd rather be fed a nasty truth than false hope, no matter how badly it tasted. She admired Noah's respect for Beth too, most others severely underestimated the girl and what she really was capable of. Riley knew the Greene wasn't anything like Rick or Daryl, nothing like her older sister, Maggie, either- Riley could only wish she herself were like them too Beth was built of soft blocks, of gentleness and goodwill, she wasn't made for the world they lived in. However, it never made Riley think of her as a lost cause either. She was glad someone else thought the same, someone else who'd been able to see her deeper than a scared girl or a dumb blonde. It restored her faith in the hope that by the end of the day, she might be able to see her again.

"How good are their medical forces?" Riley asked. "Like, pre-outbreak doctor good or student in their first year of medical school good?"

"Uh." Noah's eyebrows furrowed a bit as he reached above him to place a plank. "They've only got one real doctor there, he knows what he's doing. The rest of them follow his commands when Dawn tells them to, so I'd say pretty good at least."

Riley's eyes narrowed. "Who's Dawn?"

"She's their leader." Noah stated plainly, he had a look on his face like he was racking his brain for the correct thing to say, but ended up with simply, "The woman in charge. A bad woman too."

"How so?"

"She's always making these decisions and calls that she shouldn't be making. She mistreats all the patients, she's the one injuring and capturing people and then making them stay and work for her in return for their help." Noah scoffed, shaking his head.

And Beth is stuck with her. Riley wanted to say, but instead she kept quiet, choosing to voice only what was necessary and give Rick and their group the benefit of the doubt. Beth would be back with them sooner than later, the brunette girl couldn't imagine losing her to a place like that, so horrible and tyrannical. It didn't seem right, not fair in any sense. But Rick and their people were on their way to get her back- her and Sam both. Riley just had to remember that.

"Hey." Noah said, drawing Riley's face up to look at his. "We'll get her back. We'll get them both back."

Riley nodded, trying to urge a smile onto her face no matter how dreary it looked. "Yeah. We will."

Light was scarce. It slivered through little cracks in the walls, little chips in the ceilings, little holes left by the boarded windows and doors. Everything was barricaded, everything was blocked. Everything except for the little window of stained glass up high in the back of the church, the very farthest wall. The sun shone through the small colored glass, painting the floor scrubbed freshly of blood different colors. Blue, light like the sky, red, watered down like Meg had used to do with her wine. Yellow, but yellow almost always stayed the same. Perhaps lighter like the corners of a sunflower that the color fought so hard to get to, but just could not pigment the same way it did the beginning, or the middle. The end was half colorless, sometimes completely colorless. But as of recently, when had the end been looking like anything but?

"See?" Riley cuddled Judith on her lap, her back pressed against the side of a pew as she sat in the main isle. "You see all the colors, Judy?"

The infant yawned, which turned into a small cry as her fingers dug into her mouth. Riley pulled them out, fighting against the baby's resistance. The older girl could nearly smell all of the bacteria that had gathered on Judith's hands, she wouldn't be surprised if she saw specks of blood beneath the young girl's fingernails and couldn't pinpoint whose it was. 

The Endicott's arm was wrapped around Judith's torso, holding her steady in her lap, and she tried to ignore how easily she could feel the girl's ribs, how her lack of food was beginning to make an appearance. How cruel the world had come to, Riley knew it was beyond her imagination. It was only scarier to think of how there was no exceptions for anyone. Not children, not babies, not even those soon to be born, not the mothers either. It's deepest pits dug themselves deeper by the day, and the only way Riley assured herself she would think any different would be when Beth and Samson returned safely to her, and so far, it hasn't happened.

Yet.

Riley faked a gasp and leaned toward a large square of red light painted across the floor. "Wow, look at this one."

Judith wasn't paying much attention, mostly trying to eat her fingers and walk all over Riley's thighs, but the older girl didn't notice a great deal, or rather, she didn't care. They'd already nailed a good amount of wooden planks to all of the windows and staked a ring of sharp metal poles around the church's entrance. There was nothing else left to do but wait, and waiting with  blank agendas and silence made Riley feel like her mind was a slippery bubble in her dirty hands simply waiting to pop.

She glanced around, propping Judith a little higher up in her arms. A few pews behind her, Michonne ran a half-damp rag over the blade of her katana, cleaning away any dried blood that might still soil it. Nessa sat with her, although she wasn't cleaning anything. Her knees were brought to her chest, chin resting on her arms. She was anxious, Riley could tell, agonizing over her twin brother's fate. The only movement of hers came from the eyes, which wandered over an array of knives and axes with intense contemplation. Riley felt her eyes narrow a little bit, unused to seeing Nessa look at any weapon without the fear it'd come to life and try to attack her, but Riley brushed over it. Maybe Sam's abduction gave her a new outlook on self defense, and maybe it was for the better.

Riley's eyes ran over to the back corner, where Billy sat alone, fiddling with a knife in his hands. Riley felt an immense weight of guilt bubble inside of her as she watched him. She hadn't thought much of anyone else after Lucas, she tried not to think about any of it. One could only bear so much culpability and despair at a time, but in trying to isolate herself and her feelings about it, she'd shut Billy off from the only other person who could share his grief- herself. Sometimes it was hard to imagine other people going through the same things she was, feeling the same feelings and reflecting on the same trauma. Riley made a mental note to talk to him at some point, just to see how he was holding up. He'd lost his best friend, after all. She had to remember that just because she'd pushed her own feelings aside- as much as she could, anyway- didn't mean that Billy did so as well.

Riley sighed, readjusting Judith on her lap. She looked around once more, noting the absence of Carl and Gabriel. She was pretty positive that the priest had retracted to a backroom after feeling a little unwell, though he'd been gone for at least half an hour at that point. Maybe he really was sick, but that was a problem for somebody else. She didn't wish to tumble into the current of another's person's path coming upon an abrupt dead end. Rather, she'd find someone whose presence brought her own mood a little higher, even if it was just a tad at most.

"Come on, let's go find your brother. You want to go see Carl?" Riley's voice pitched a little higher as she spoke to Judith and began to stand. The infant in her arms grinned wildly at the familiar name. "Yeah?"

As Judith giggled in her grasp, Riley's head swished around, trying to spot the Grimes. He'd nearly blended in with the wall, his light blue jean jacket fading into the grey enclosure's shadowing. His back was to her, head ducked and hidden beneath his hat. She wasn't quite sure what he was doing over there, but Riley walked over regardless. She'd found herself enticed with spending some of her own time in his, although the feeling came in waves. In recent hours she had sometimes found herself feeling overstimulated by the idea of somebody standing within a three foot proximity of her, but in other moments, she couldn't help but seek company from somebody to fill a void that was created in her time of seclusion. When in her instances of indulging in social interaction, she usually wanted to be with Carl. Perhaps, it was the recent weeks they'd spent in amity together whilst destruction tore down the world around them that made the sickly emptiness beside her urge to be filled with him. Riley couldn't ignore how he'd been the person stuck beside her whilst everything else crumbled, and how despite things were slowly patching themselves up, she still wanted the fire he'd blazed to keep her warm from the freeze of demolition to continue burning.

"Special delivery." Riley interrupted whatever activity Carl was participating in by himself at the moment. 

The boy turned around, smiling once he saw the girl and his baby sister swaddled in her arms. "Oh wow, just for me? Come here, Jude."

Judith's arms latched out toward her brother, and Carl took her from Riley with ease, keeping her supported with one arm while he placed his gun down on a bench beside them.

"Whatcha working on?" Riley leaned against the wall, wringing out her arms and crossing them to get rid of the tingles sent from the weight of Judith's body being subtracted from them.

"Just reloading my gun." Carl said, nodding toward the weapon on the bench. "I want to be ready, just in case."

Riley nodded slowly. She probably could've been honing her knife, but that was lost, stuck in the flesh of one of the police officer's from Grady Memorial and then clattered to the ground soon after, drowning in the blood that flowed from his arm and Samson's leg right beside it. 

She looked over at her bow and arrow she'd retrieved from Terminus, which rested on the stairs at the front of the church. She didn't have to restock on that, as there were no stray arrows lying around anywhere. She could've sharpened the tips maybe, but at that point she would've realized she was simply doing whatever she could to keep herself distracted from waiting until Rick and the others returned with Beth and Sam. 

"You nervous?" Carl asked, sitting down on the edge of a pew with Judith resting on his thigh.

"Nervous for what?"

"I don't know, to see Beth and Sam again. Or what's happening for us to get them back." Carl shrugged.

"I'm not nervous." Riley stated simply, although her stomach twinged and her heel bounced up and down off of the floor. It was merely anticipation that kept her on edge, but she didn't feel nervous. Possibly something a little deeper than that, not scared or frightened, it wasn't exactly something she could pinpoint, though.

"Oh." Carl half-mouthed. "You just look really..."

"Really what?" Riley inquired with her eyes narrowing down.

Carl shrugged. "Really contemplative. You look like you're planning some secret attack attack in your head right now."

"World domination." Riley flitted her hand, grinning when she saw him crack a little smile.

"Aiming high, at least."

Riley let out a small laugh, the first one to ever escape her mouth in a few days. It felt weird against her throat, as if it didn't fit in right with the melancholy dread the kept beating at her from the inside out.

She pushed off of the wall, going to sit next to Carl on the bench. His eyes followed her down, and they swam with a questioning gaze. It wasn't a look of a specific inquiry begging to slide down into his mouth and pop out at her, but rather one where he was trying to pick her apart layer by layer to see just how dark her interior would get.

"I wanted to, um..." Carl cleared his throat, holding Judith a little tighter as she squirmed and tugged harshly at the collar of his shirt. "I wanted to talk to you."

Riley tensed upon hearing those six words. That sentence never had a good tone carried with it, and it always filled her with jumbling nerves that surged inside of her like a fly caught indoors.

"Now I'm nervous." She confessed, hoping to add an air of amusement to their conversation and shake off some of the discomfort.

Carl chuckled lightly, but otherwise didn't respond. He opened his mouth to start his sentence when an ear shattering scream flooded through the walls of the church from outside.

Carl was instantly cut off, and both his and Riley's heads snapped toward the direction of the sound.

"What the hell was that?" The boy stood up, grabbing his gun and balancing Judith in the opposite arm.

"No idea." Riley merely mumbled in response as she pushed to her feet and stumbled toward the front of the church.

The screaming came again, much more audible and clear this time. "Please! Let me in, they're close!"

Within an instant, the voice clicked to the person who commanded it. Gabriel's shouts of terror and horror grew louder in volume and more frantic in desperation. The front doors of the church began to shake as they were banged against, but they were boarded shut long ago. How he had managed to escape the building, Riley had no clue, but he was out there now, and there was no way back in.

The girl made a quick dash toward her bow and arrow on the floor, and behind her Carl ran for the doors with Michonne, who called out for him to wait, but the boy discarded her commands. He held Judith out to Nessa, who scrambled to get the infant safely secured in her arms before Carl sprinted off to the barricaded doors.

"Please, don't leave me out here!" Gabriel cried in anguish, his collides with the door having no affect on them. "Don't leave me out here!"

Riley slung her quiver over her torso as she ran, drawing an arrow and knocking it as she stood a few yards from the doors. The wails and groans of the walkers were seeping into her ears, although she couldn't tell quite how many were out there with the pleading man. Enough, she knew though. There definitely weren't just a few threatening the church and everyone inside of it.

Gabriel continued in his screaming, his cries grew louder and more panicked with each passing second. Carl was at the doors, tugging at the wooden plank nailed across it, but the board was stuck fast. He banged against it, but it wouldn't budge.

"Billy, get over here! Help me get it off." Carl shouted, yanking desperately at the plank sealing the doors from them and Gabriel.

The other teenage boy had ran over, but even with their combined efforts, the board didn't break, it didn't even splinter. Gabriel's sobs and cries were beginning to be drowned by the snarls of the walkers, who with no doubt grew closer and closer to him the longer they waited

Riley shared a nervous glance with Nessa, who stood beside her, a crying Judith in her arms. As Gabriel's pleading screams grew evermore frantically hopeless, his chances at making it in the church, or even surviving at all, began to dwindle.

"Get back." Michonne called out. She ran toward Carl and Billy who immediately retreated from the doors. In her hands, a large axe with a shining metal edge was beginning to raise above her head. 

Michonne brought the axe down hard, splitting the wooden board into pieces with little fragments flying everywhere. Hauling the weapon out of the plank's splintering flesh, Michonne hit it over and over again until there was nothing left but chunks of wood left hanging on the doors and the floor.

Carl, who'd recently had his gun raised and ready, ran back to Michonne and pulled the doors open to reveal Gabriel in a fit of hysterics with sweat and tears covering his skin. Behind him, a hoard of over two dozen walkers began to ascend the steps.

Riley gasped, raising her bow again as she nearly tripped over her own feet running backwards. "Come on!" She shouted at Nessa at the same time Carl yelled to Gabriel.

Carl's gun went off, piercing the brains of two walkers who crumpled upon the instant.

"Billy!" Riley called, who was stumbling away from the incoming herd of walkers. "Behind me, go!"

Riley let her first arrow fly, hitting one walker out of what appeared to be tons that flooded into the church. Michonne had slashed and beheaded at least three or four now, but it didn't matter. No amount of bullets, arrows, or swords could shield them from this many walkers. Self defense was crossed out now.

Riley quickly knocked another arrow whilst turning to look for Nessa and Billy. The boy had gotten far enough away by now, uneasily holding a machete in his hands with what looked like little confidence, but the fear of now over twenty walkers crowding the church held it steadily in his grip. With him secure enough, Riley glanced around to find Nessa, who was backed against a toppled pew with Judith in her hands and two walkers advancing on her.

As Riley aimed at the one closest to her, Nessa kicked the other one in the stomach, driving it to double over and lose its balance. As it fell to the floor, mouth opening with a vulgar growl, Nessa kicked it once more- this time, in the jaw. Its soft skull broke upon impact, sending the bottom half of its face into shards of blood and rotting bone. Nessa held Judith closer to her chest, finishing the walker off with the heel of her boot in its cranium until all that was left was scrambled flesh.

Riley shot the next one down before it had time to reach out for Nessa and Judith. The two walkers that had advanced on the older girl and infant were deceased now, but for every walker the group managed to take down, another five took its place. 

Nessa ran back toward Billy, rubbing her shoe against the carpet to rid it of blood and skin. Riley's bow was knocked again, but she shot at nothing. She had around eleven left in her quiver, and even if she used them all on this hoard, there would still be too many left to take down with Carl and Michonne's weapons combined. She had to savor every last one that she could.

"The rectory," Gabriel shouted above the chaos, sprinting back toward Riley, Nessa, and Billy. "Come on."

All six members of the group scrambled to the back room as fast as their legs could get around the benches and stairs. On their heels, the walkers clambered after them with jaws slicked with blood and barbarity.

Once everyone had filed into the rectory, Gabriel slammed the door shut, face scrunched as he fought against the weight of tens of walkers sliding their hands through the cracks and fighting to get inside to their live prey. Michonne shoved a chair beneath the door handle, breathing heavily as she stared at the multitude of clawing fingers reaching out toward her.

Carl's gun remained up alongside Riley's bow; he glanced over at her as his chest rose and fell with intensity. "You okay?"

Riley's head turned from the pounding door and over to Carl. "Yeah. Are you?"

Carl nodded breathlessly. They both turned to face the two adults in front of them, clueless as of what to do next. They couldn't stay in that room forever, the walkers would break the door down eventually. After that, there was nowhere left to hide.

Gabriel pointed to the floor. "That's how I got out. Crawl under to the back. Just go, take the little one and go!"

Carl lowered his gun and reached his arms out for Judith, who was handed over to him by Nessa, who trembled and held onto the wall for stability.

"Go." Carl commanded Riley quickly, glancing down at the hole in the floor.

"No, you have Judith. You go first." Riley shut him down, lowering her bow only slightly.

She looked over at Carl when his figure didn't move from the side of her vision, and his hesitance was written in detail across his face.

"Go! I'm right behind you." She crowed, disclosing the conversation.

Carl broke his trance, hugging his sister tightly against his body as he grabbed a bag of their supplies and hastily crawled into the hole.

"Hey, hey." Michonne called out, striding over. She looked at Carl, every line in her face etched with solemnity. "You wait for me."

Carl nodded before ducking down and disappearing beneath the floorboards. Once he was completely out of her sight, Riley lowered herself in behind him. The space was cramped and the dirt below was rocky and harsh. The darkness caught her off guard, and for a few seconds she was left blinded, unsure of where to go. Her heart pounded in her ears, creating a nerve-racking rhythm with her labored breaths. She looked around for a second before a thin line of light appeared ahead of her, just a little bit to the left.

With adrenaline moving through her veins nearly as fast the walkers behind her, Riley crawled toward the opening desperately. The sound of either Ness or Billy descending beneath the church behind her reminded her which way she'd come from, and the babbles and faint cries of a baby somewhere ahead of her helped string her out from beneath the floor. 

Riley's palms and knees grew sore as they padded over little rocks and dead grass, but within almost half of a minute she was emerging on the other side. She flung her bow up a little bit ahead of her, sliding it out from beneath the building and began to crawl her way out. 

A hand reached down, and Carl's dirt-streaked face appeared in front of her. Riley grabbed his hand and pulled herself the rest of the way out from underneath the church, seeing a dead walker with blood falling from a stab wound in its skull a few feet away. To their right, by the entrance and the doors, a few more walkers still lingered, a good bunch caught on the metal poles Daryl and a few others had staked into the ground.

"Are you okay?" Carl asked again. He was still breathing heavily, a gun in one hand and a knife in the other. 

Riley grabbed her bow from the ground and stood upright before facing him, the corners of her lips. "Still in one piece."

Carl's eyes flickered with a hint of confusion for a moment before one of their previous interactions clicked in his mind. He cracked a small smile, but before he could saying anything Nessa came crawling out, her heavy breathing and frantic shouts drawing the pair's attention immediately upon her arrival.

"Oh, sweet Jesus." She sighed with relief as she fell against the wall. "I thought I was going to die, seriously. Are the guts still on my shoe? I think they're still on my shoe." Nessa picked her foot up and stared at it in disgust, wiping it on a patch of grass.

Carl only spared her a glance of annoyance, reaching down to help Billy and Michonne as they crawled out from beneath the church as well, followed by Gabriel.

"I can't run anymore." The priest's voice was weak, frail. His head was shining with sweat and there was blood splattered on his clothes and his face- a look Riley was positive he'd never worn before.

"We're not running." Michonne assured, helping him up. "Come on, let's get the rest of them."

The small group walked over to the walkers impaled on the metal stakes, still dragging their feet aimlessly and reaching toward the doors that led to a church house stripped of their food. Michonne lacerated the closest ones, leaving theirs heads split in half. Billy followed with the machete, still somewhat shaky in his movements but well enough to finish the creatures off.

"Here," Carl held his knife out to Riley. "I've got a spare."

"Thanks." Riley took the blade by its handle, walking over toward the walkers on the far side. 

She was grateful to have an easy handheld weapon again, as hers was lost now. She felt more secure with it, and the act of putting walkers down as easy as it was with something so controllable felt therapeutic in a way. She only had to put down four, as everyone else cleared off the rest of them. Soon enough, all of the walkers were dead, limp bodies hanging loosely on metal poles or laying unmoving on the ground.

Looking up, Riley saw the doors of the church still spread cleanly open, the large group of walkers that had made it inside were bumping around each other, looking for their next prey. With swift speed, Michonne and Riley slipped through the maze of poles and ran up, pulling the doors shut. Gabriel and Carl followed in suit, laying down a long, flat piece of wood against the closed entrance and nailing it in with spares left outside and make-shift hammers, being guns and knife pommels.

Michonne quickly undid her belt, looping it around the doorknobs and tying them tightly, completely sealing the growling walkers inside of the church and away from the group.

They all stepped back, surveying the patchy job done to conceal the monsters away. It didn't look very promising, temporary at the most.

"That board is weak, it won't hold for long." Riley pointed out, looking to Michonne.

The older woman nodded, turning to walk toward the fences. "We'll stay as long as we can."

Riley sent one last unsure look toward the doors before following her. She pushed herself up onto the fence, sitting against it and rubbing her eyes tiredly. She couldn't quite tell if her exhaustion came mentally or physically, it was like both overpowered each other just evenly. If offered a clean bed and a pillow, Riley was one hundred percent certain she would fall asleep instantly, but she also pretty convinced everyone else felt like that, and that maybe it was nothing to do with anything physical at all. 

A break would be nice. She thought to herself, although she knew that wouldn't be granted. When your only task is to survive, breaks weren't an option. The sole purpose of living became an everyday struggle, an every night struggle, basically an every minute of every hour struggle. That wasn't exactly something escapable.

Riley sighed, placing the knife in her hand on the fence next to her and rubbing away at some blood that squirted onto her wrist earlier. She wasn't exactly sure when, but she had no doubt that there were little sprays of blood all over her. She looked up, spotting Carl a little ways down the fence with Judith on his back, he stood next to Michonne, who was running a hand over the baby's head.

Her staring must've alerted Carl, because his head turned in her direction and he caught her eye.  Riley felt herself tense upon the eye contact, turning her head away and picking at the hangnails on her hands instead. 

Whether Carl would've let her be and stayed with Michonne or walked over, Riley wouldn't have known, because right after that a large splinter shredded one of the doors down the middle, leaving it even weaker than before. The walkers piled up against it, there were enough cracks and holes now for them to stick their faces through.

Riley jumped off of the fence, knocking her bow and walking toward the center of the group. Everyone watched in apprehension as the doors began to break bit by bit. Each weapon present was clutched in a hand and raised, but if the amount in the church was too much to take on earlier, it was still too much to take on now.

"Where do we go?" Carl questioned, nerves being mixed in with his voice. He held his gun up steadily, but he seemed unsure as to whether he should put it to use or not.

No one spoke an answer, as everyone was left facing the same blank options. There was nowhere to go, they couldn't wander far, because then when Rick and the others returned with Beth and Sam, they wouldn't know where they went. They had no backup places, no safe areas, they were stranded.

Michonne whipped her head around as if scouting the area of any ideas when the roar of a vehicle came out from the distance. Everyone turned to the right, watching as a large car- no, a truck came speeding toward them.

Everyone backtracked a few steps quickly as to not get hit by the quick-paced vehicle. It drove closer and closer until it had run right into the porch of the church, flattening the bodies of fallen walkers and blocking the exit that the ones still living were soon to appear out of.

Riley blinked, lowering her bow and examining the truck. It was big and rectangular, painted a loud red color. She'd seen those all the time before the outbreak, and it clicked to her immediately what it was: a firetruck, in specific, the same firetruck that Maggie, Glenn, and the rest of their group had left in earlier that morning.

The driver's door was thrown open, and out came Abraham, walking out and shaking off his cramped legs casually, as if he hadn't just destroyed the front of the church. However, he wasn't the one Riley was looking at. The girl dropped her bow and ran forward, the first real and genuine smile in days being spread across her face. 

"Maggie!" 

The Rhee laughed heartily, opening her arms and clutching Riley into her embrace with speed. Maggie's hands ran over the younger girl's hair and back, and Riley ducked her face into the crook of her neck. Even though she wasn't the one Riley had been expecting and waiting to arrive all that day, she was more than grateful, more than overjoyed to have Maggie back with her. She didn't know why Maggie was back- why any of them were, but she didn't quite care either. Perhaps, that was the form of a break she was given, not a chance to rest and forget the death clinging to her feet at every waking moment, but to be given a moment of genuine happiness, even if it was just a little bit.

Riley pulled away, looking up into Maggie's face. "Why are you guys back? You're supposed to be on the road to D.C. right now."

Maggie nodded, leaning into hug Michonne while Glenn came over to Riley, who the girl quickly accepted into an embrace of their own.

"Eugene lied." Glenn explained for his wife when he pulled away from Riley, still leaving a hand on her shoulder. "He can't stop it. Washington isn't the end."

Riley watched Michonne's face fall into disappointment, most likely half in the nonexistence of a cure to the hell wreaking havoc along the earth, but also because of the dishonesty spoken from Eugene's lips. That was who they had in their group now, a liar, and a selfish one too. 

Riley couldn't hide the little ache formed in her chest upon hearing the truth. A part of her had truly wanted what Eugene and Abraham had claimed to be real, but deep down, she knew that a cure didn't exist. If one did, she was sure it would've been made by now. Things would be getting better, not worse, but everyday proved just how wrong that was.

Glenn glanced around, taking in the absence of people and the snarling walkers from inside the church. "Where is everybody?" He demanded.

Michonne looked at him, as if realizing for the first time since they'd arrived that their whole group didn't know about Beth, about Sam. Her eyes lit up, and she turned to flash Riley a small look, one that exceeded elation toward the fact that finally they would be given the chance to turn the day around for themselves and for everyone else. For Maggie.

Michonne turned away from Glenn and looked his wife in the eyes, smiling with bliss drawn across her expression. "Beth's alive. She's in a hospital in Atlanta, with Samson. Some people have them, but the others went to get them back."

Maggie's face broke, like a wall of emotions splitting down and crumbling around her. Her hands began to shake as her eyes filled with tears, her mouth nearly fighting off a smile as if she struggled to believe it was true. "Do we know which one?"

Michonne nodded earnestly. "Grady Memorial."

Maggie looked toward Riley, recognizing the name from her and Sawyer's return the previous night. Her hands ran up to her face, moving through her hair as if trying to push herself through the realization. The tears that had welled in her eyes spilt down and she turned to Glenn, her arms slinging around his neck for support as she laughed, relief radiating from her in waves.

"Oh, my God." Maggie's voice resonated throughout the clearing, although not loud in volume, the sheer authenticity and alleviation cut through anything else that stood around them.

Riley's lips curved into a smile at the sight, happy to see something other than wearyingly depressing for a change. Tara, from the other side of the group stepped forward, her own grin matching with Riley's.

"Let's blow this join. We're going to save your sister."

a/n - sorry lucas lovers. im hurting too trust that was my baby fr💔 but at least carl's our main love interest now ?? cheeersss

- time line is tricky, but basically i crammed everything into two nights instead of three like in the show. riley was taken the first night they got there, and so were bob and lucas. it was midday/evening the next day when daryl, carol, sawyer, and nessa found riley and she went back to the church which is when lucas died. the next day (this chapter) is when maggie and glenn left for dc and rick and that group went to go get beth. i hope any of that makes sense but ill explain if u guys are confused

- pls say ur prayers for riley and sawyer cus we all know what is happening next chapter... anyways place ur votes in for whether samson lives or not cus this will be a fun one !!😝

- also i tried to add a few carley scenes to this chapter cus it is quite literally a carl fic and my apology for how long its been, but i don't wanna rush them too fast cus one kiss doesn't mean we're dating yet, but we'll get there eventually

- anyway, act 2 is coming super soon and i have big plans for it, i actually cannot wait for u guys to see them!!!

- thank you guys for real for being so patient and supportive, i am ✖️ a trauma dumper so im just gonna say the last few months have been difficult but im trying to ease my way back into frequent updates for u guys. thank you all for being the best readers ever, y'all are genuinely the sweetest and im so lucky to have people like you. i love all of you who read and support my writing on such a high level. thank you guys like seriously ill see you next chapter💗 (and i said this last time but i am DETERMINED to make it much much quicker)

p.s. ignore the mistakes cus this chapter is prob littered with them