"Why'd you adopt three kids?" Carl blurted it out as he sat next to Austin. "Do you really like them that much?"
Austin turned his head. "They're young, like how we use to be. I know they're scared and I was the first person they came to. I had to."
"But are you even ready to be a Dad?" Carl gave him a concerned look. "What if you meet someone and have another?"
"I can promise you, I won't do that." Austin kept his voice low to avoid Maggie hearing. "I'm not their Dad, i'm just taking care of them. What's wrong? You didn't like them?"
"I do like them, i'm just worried about you." Carl pointed out. "You just got better."
"Carl, I don't think I have much of a choice here. We had parents we felt safe with, all things considering. They don't." Austin looked his way. "Can you even image what they're feeling like?"
"I'm not talking about them, i'm talking about you." the younger Grimes tried to get his point across more.
Austin inhaled. "Carl, i'm okay. They're good for me, I can feel it. If it gets too much, we have a whole community to help out. I want you to get to know them better, I think you'd bond."
Carl laughed. "What's up with the one shoe thing?"
"I have no idea." Austin admitted with a laugh. "He doesn't talk much, you know? Levi. I think the shoe thing, I don't know, maybe it comforts him? I haven't figured it all out yet. Natalie and Luke are much easier to read."
Carl shrugged. "They seem like they like it there. I don't want you to go and forget about me though."
"Are you kidding? You're my original kid." Austin put his arm around him. "No one will replace you. Plus, I couldn't forget about you even if I tried. You've got too many stories on me."
"True." Carl laughed slightly as he pushed his arm off.
Abraham hit the breaks hard, making Carl and Austin stand up. They stared at the grouping walkers lining the road. Rick inhaled deeply. "Can't go through it. Can't risk the RV. You stay behind the wheel, just in case."
"You need me?" Austin looked at his Dad.
"Yeah." he nodded. "We'll clear it."
"Show time." a smile spread across his face, grasping his knife and following his Dad off the bus. "Just cover me and I can stab, avoid all the noise."
"Yeah." Rick nodded.
"Putting together a red rover like that takes people." Eugene admitted as he stared at the chained together, lined walkers. "A lot of em."
"God damn." Austin cringed at the chains through their abdomens. "Cover me."
"Got you." Carl nodded as Austin went down the line, stabbing each and every one of them until he ended up like how he always did when his emotions got the best of him, covered in walker blood.
Rick rose an eyebrow as his son turned around. Austin exhaled. "Let's go get Maggie to a better doctor then me."
"Wait." Rick walked forward as he eyed one of the walkers he took down. "Did you see this?"
"I try not to look at them." he admitted, turning around.
"That's Michonnes." Aaron pointed out as Rick examined the lock connected to the walkers head.
"That's Daryl's." Sasha added in, nodding toward an arrow in one of the other walkers chest.
Austin looked back at his Dad after he yanked the hair from the walker. "What going on in your head?"
"Same thing that's going on in your head." Rick stared at him, bullets echoing as they were aimed toward the group. Rick grabbed Austin and pulled him closer to the ground. "Get back to the RV! Go!"
Austin pushed his Dad out of the way. "We gotta get through!"
"I've got you, go!" Carl yelled.
"You're covered!" Sasha yelled out, the pair firing into the woods were it was all coming from. Abraham jumped up to help while Rick and Austin moved the line of dead walkers so the RV could pass.
"What's that sound?" Sasha asked after the group was back on the road, the RV making a noise. Austin was checking on Maggie as she slept, taking his stethoscope off and walking back to the main part of the RV.
"Undercarriage could've caught a bullet." Eugene pointed out. "Or could be transmission. It could be nothing."
"Could be our shitty-ass luck." Austin mumbled as he fell back into his original seat.
"They were firing at our feet." Rick looked their way. "They blocked the road, but they weren't trying to stop us. They want us in this direction."
"Barton Road takes us north, but they gotta know we wanna go north." Sasha looked up from the map.
"Meadows." Eugene looked down at it. "Could tale is east a piece, but we can get back on track on Mayhew."
"We're down to a third of a tank." Sasha looked to Austin when he put his hand on her back and kneeled with her. "We could top off at the next stop, but no refills after that."
"That should be enough, yeah?" Austin looked up as his Dad.
Rick nodded. "All right. It'll have to be. How's Maggie?"
"Burning up, bad." he broke the news as he stood. "I put an IV in but that'll only do so much."
"Rick!" Abraham called out as the RV began to slow down. Austin followed as he stared out of the window shield.
"Holy shit." the boy gapped at the crowd of Saviors blocking the road. "Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit."
"Austin, calm down." Carl tried.
"I am far from calm, far from it." he panicked with a hand through his hair. "Holy shit. No, we gotta go back."
"Yeah." Rick agreed. "Go back."
"Where?" the redhead hummed.
The world was still for a second, Austin felt his heart rate get louder and louder in his chest. There hadn't been much that scared him these days, but what was going on outside sure as hell did. Abraham turned back, Austin sat down and took a deep breath as Rick went to Maggie.
"Hey." Carl nudged Austin. "Where'd you go just now?"
"Movie theater." he said honestly. "Back at home. I was in the movie theater."
Carl gave a curious look. "Well, keep yourself there for a second."
"Yeah." Austin leaned forward as his elbows dig into his knees. "Yeah, yeah, yeah."
Every single person in that RV knew how fragile his mental health was. After Lori and Beth, it was easy for him to get lost in his head and fell into a cycle. Every single one of them also saw what happened to him when they were on the road, the way he simply shut down and was no longer there. When he got like that, they feared it, but they knew it.
"Code Blue?" Sasha whispered to Carl curiously.
He shook his head as Austin stayed with his head shut, mumbling under his breath. The old movies. He thought of the old movies he'd play for the girl he liked back at school, remembering them word for word. He let those memories, those quotes, consume his brain for a few minutes.
Austin's gaze shifted up when he leaned back. "Okay, i'm good."
"You're good." Sasha nodded her head. "You're good."
"He's good." Abraham confirmed from the drivers seat. "Massive balls."
•
kylie speaks
hey loml's i promise i didn't
abdomen you guys, i was just
kinda swamped for a little bit
but i'll be back on regularly
updating my baby again! sorry
for the massive wait!