Maggie had left Rio on the countertop. He'd fallen asleep as she patched him up, head resting against the nearest cupboard. His leg was now fully cleaned and stitched but it still ached. The boy jumped down from the counter, groaning as he landed. A jolt of pain shot down his leg.
The first thing he noticed was that it was night. The sky was dark, black even, and everything seemed empty. Rio wandered around the kitchen, turning the tap on and turning it back off again. He looked through cupboards, not planning to take anything but just for the sake of looking. He walked around for any sign that someone was here, all he got was the first aid kit messily splayed out upon the table.
The boy left the kitchen making his way through the house. He wanted to find someone. Anyone.
The door furthest from the kitchen was left ajar. It was at the end of the corridor just before the stairs. Rio walked over, poking his head between the gap in the door, careful not to open it incase it creaked. Inside lay a boy, his hair was dark and his skin was pale. Blood seeped through the bandage across the side of his stomach and his chest rose and fell slowly. Too slowly.
Carl.
If his appearance wasn't enough to tell Rio who it was, the man and woman sitting at his bedside would do it. Rick sat facing away from his wife and ate a sandwich, some sort of tube hanging from his arm. He looked distressed and sweaty. Lori sat with her hands together, resting her chin upon them. She sat at Carl's bedside, unmoving. She almost looked like she was praying.
Rio felt like he was intruding, which he probably was, so he stepped away. He walked into the corridor, about to go upstairs when a vehicle pulled up outside. Rio squinted his eyes as the light shone through gaps in the closed curtains, trying to make out the figures.
He opened the doors, stepping outside, only to be met with Maggie who was sat in a rocking chair out on the porch.
"You were sleepin'." She said, turning her head away from the car and facing the boy.
"Uh.. I woke up." He replied, unsure of what to say.
Glenn and another man he didn't recognise exited the car, beginning to walk towards the porch.
"Suppose you did." She responded, already ready to greet the two men.
Rio scrunched his face in confusion. Was he not supposed to have woken up? He was going to respond but was cut short by Glenn anyway. As him and the other man approached, he began to speak.
"Hello. Nice to see you again." Glenn announced, he rocked on the balls of his feet, nervously. "We met before, briefly." He explained to Maggie. He saw Rio who was stood behind the woman and waved down to him.
Rio waved back to him, biting his cheek to hide his smile.
"Look we came to help. There anything we can do?" The other man added before letting out a grunt of pain.
Maggie looked down at the man's arm, blood seeping through the make shift bandage taped to his arm. Bandages didn't seem to be helping anyone today.
"It's not a bite." He explained. "I cut myself pretty bad though."
"We'll have it looked at. I'll tell them you're here." Maggie answered. She got up out of her seat, standing before the front door as she held it open.
"We have some painkillers and antibiotics. I already gave him some, so if Carl needs any..." Glenn continued.
"Come on inside. I'll make you something to eat. You too." She nodded at Rio, gently pushing him through the door.
"What's your name?" The man Rio didn't recognise asked. He looked up at him and saw that the man seemed sincere, despite his pain.
"Rio." He answered. "What's yours?"
"Theodore, but no one calls me that." He replied, holding out a hand. Rio smiled as he shook it.
"What do they call you?"
"T-dog." Rio laughed at the name and the man pretended to be hurt.
"You live here?" He asked.
Rio shook his head and they didn't continue the conversation. They all followed Maggie into the room where Carl, Rick and Lori were. This time Rio saw two other people sat surrounding the boy, an older man with a stethoscope wrapped around his neck and a woman. She sat on a rocking chair in the corner of the room.
Glenn took his cap off his head as he entered the room, holding it just below his chest. Rio looked up and copied him, taking his own cap off, he wasn't sure why though. "Hey." Glenn said. It was so quiet it was almost a whisper.
No one seemed to have noticed them before that, not that they were trying to sneak in. Rio thought that maybe they were just too distracted. He didn't blame them.
"Hey." Rick replied. He brought his eyes away from his son to acknowledge them all for a second. He held his hand over Carls.
"Um, we're here, okay?" Glenn tried to assure them. His voice wobbled but he still got his point across because Lori gave him a sad smile.
"Thank you." She replied, looking between the group and her son.
"Whatever you need."
Rio nodded along enthusiastically, he didn't know how he could actually help but it was the thought that counted, right? Lori took a look at him and let out an exhausted laugh. Nothing was funny, Rio knew that much by the way she looked at him. It was more of an 'if I don't laugh I'll cry' sort of thing.
Rick nodded along drowsily, running his hand down his face.
Everyone took that as their sign to leave, everyone exept Rio.
"What's he like?" He asked, everyone turned to face him. Rio bit his cheek maybe he shouldn't be here, maybe he should've gone.
The woman sat in the chair in the corner of the room spoke to him. Rio started at her for a moment before realising he didn't understand a word she'd said.
"I'm talking to you." Rio froze, suddenly anxious.
"I.. I didn't hear."
"You looked at me." It was now she appeared more concerned that mad.
Rio felt ashamed to do so but he pulled his hearing aids out of his pocket. He'd been doing so well at managing it. "I can still hear. It... it's not that bad. I just have to focus, like really focus," he was rambling now, "and I wasn't really focused on you, I'm sorry, I was focused on him." He pointed to Carl, who lay on the bed.
Hershel, Maggie's dad, sighed. He turned to face Rio and gave him a stern look. "Ask Maggie if we have any batteries spare. I need to talk to Rick and Lori right now."
"Okay." He complied, back up slightly as Hershel stood. Just as he was about to exit the room, Glenn entered. His cap was now back on his head and he reminded Rio of his brother more than he would care to admit. More than he wanted to admit.
"You need to come with us." He said.
"Okay." Rio just nodded along.
They walked out of the room in silence and into the hallway. Hershel shut the door behind him so now the only light was coming from the kitchen, a soft orange glow barely lighting the room.
"You cant just spy on people." Glenn whispered as he sat down on the stairs, Rio sat next to him.
"I wasn't spying they knew I was there." He argued.
"But.." he stumbled over his words before he let out a huff, Rio guessed he didn't know what to say. That used to happen a lot with his brother, he'd tell him he must be either really smart or really stupid.
Rio hoped he'd find his brother. He looked to Glenn who was sat shaking his head at the boy, maybe he would help, or maybe the crossbow man from earlier would. Daryl. They were already looking for one kid it wouldn't hurt to ask, at least he thought it wouldn't.
The older woman from the room suddenly walked out, she led them into the kitchen despite both of them knowing where it was.
Maggie and T-dog sat at the table, first aid kit set out around them. A towel had been placed beneath the man's arm and the bandage had been ripped off. Maggie stepped aside and let her mother do the work. Rio winced as the needle went through T-dogs arm, remembering how that had been him less than a few hours ago.
He sat down, pulling at his jacket sleeves. He wanted to help somehow but he didn't know what he could actually do. Rio doubted that anything he did would help.
"Why don't you have a look for some batteries?" Maggie's mom said, not looking away from her stitching
"Batteries?" Glenn asked and Rio reluctantly handed him his hearing aids.
"Oh." He sighed. "But you've been understanding us?"
"I'm only like half deaf, it's okay." Rio tried to joke about it but it came out kind of pathetic.
"That's still a half more than the rest of us." Maggie retorted. She got up out of her seat and dug through some drawers
After a short while T-dog was stitched up and Maggie had found some batteries, "there's probably enough to last you a month, give or take" she had said. Rio didn't put them in, he shoved them in his pocket, he needed to save the battery for as long as he could.
There was a silence in the room, filled only by people sipping drinks. No one seemed tired, despite the hour. There was coughing. Ragged, muffled coughing coming from the other room. Rio's head shot around
"Don't." Glenn warned, coming to sit on the floor next to him. It wasn't very comfortable.
"I wasn't gonna." He replied.
"Aren't you tired?" He asked, taking a sip of his drink.
"No." Rio shrugged, he found himself growing tired the more he thought about it. "Okay, a bit."
"You should get some sleep."
"I don't really have anywhere to do that." Rio but his cheek, he hated that he sounded ungrateful. He'd slept in trees before now.
"Here, just use my shoulder." Glenn replied, he shuffled down, dropping his right shoulder for Rio to rest his head on.
"Comfortable?" Glenn asked.
"Are you?"
He laughed a little. "Yeah, I'm fine."
Rio caught sight of Maggie smiling down at them both as he shuffled into Glenn. He wrapped his arm around the boy. Rio didn't know if this was weird, falling asleep next to a guy you trusted after only an hour or two just because he reminded you of your, probably dead, brother, but he was too tired to care. Rio tried not to think to hard on the, probably dead thought, as he slept.
He pushed it away, just as he had every other time he thought about Jesse. He fell asleep with a frown upon his face.
***
Rio woke to the sound of rushed tires, and a flash of light through the window. It was brief, he was only awake for seconds but those seconds were long enough to notice Glenn was gone. It seemed to have become a theme in Rio's life recently, that he'd fall asleep with people and wake up alone. First it happened with his brother, then Maggie and now Glenn.
He got up and walked around until he ran into Glenn again, who just told him to go back to sleep. Rio shook his head but Glenn came with him. Maggie shouted over to them to take the sofa.
It was only when he woke the second time, to find everybody already busy, that Rio realised he and the unconscious boy in the next room had been the only ones to really sleep. There were new people now, people who hadn't been there before and Rio decided he didn't want to know what had happened last night.