❝ 𝖨 𝖥𝖤𝖫𝖫 𝖨𝖭 𝖫𝖮𝖵𝖤
𝖶𝖨𝖳𝖧 𝖠 𝖶𝖠𝖱. ❞
Later on, Rick and Michonne returned to the prison with Maggie and Glenn. The absence of Daryl and Oscar makes Ross immediately tense upon sight. His first concern is Glenn, running up to his friend to make sure he's okay as soon as he sees him.
"I'd hate to see the other guy." Ross attempts to crack a joke when he sees the state of Glenn's face. The older smiles at the very corner of his mouth, shaking his head.
"Other guy's dead." He nudges the brunet.
"And I'd hate to see him!"
Glenn laughs and Ross feels a sense of accomplishment. "Shut up. What's happening here?" He gestures to the group that were kept to themselves. Rick hears Glenn's question and walks over to listen to Ross explain.
"I couldn't move for a couple of hours after Hershel stitched me up— If I did they'd tear open again. So when I was down, Carl managed to wander off to the other side of the prison and found them. They got in through breach, fallen fence or something. They seem like nice people, barely armed," Ross finishes, glancing over at them once again. "Where the hell are Daryl and Oscar?"
Rick's eyes bounce around erratically. He's still in rough shape from losing his wife, anyone could tell. He mumbles something incoherent to Glenn, who nods and the pair take off towards the unknown group, where Hershel and Carol already were. Although excluded from the conversation, Ross follows.
So far, during his time in the prison, Ross has caught a total of one important conversation. It felt like every word going into his ears as his uncle and Glenn and Hershel speak are cascading out of the other. As if the pain of being cut open and losing his aunt-slash-mother-figure in under twenty four hours was taking up all of his brain space. Carl was also at the front of his mind, his younger cousin's reckless behavior racking at his brain even though he'd confronted the other about it. On one hand, he knows better than anyone else that preteens will be preteens, but it feels like that rule isn't in place in an apocalypse state. It makes him miss when he could just sleep his problems off— given the problems were usually math homework or something else alike.
Voices waft back into his ears, the words sticking this time. "...take him, please," Sasha's voice urges. "He's too young to keep going with us. You people have a roof over your heads, give him the life he deserves."
Ross' ears perk up. Rick was turning these people away? It didn't make any sense, they were good people and it couldn't help to bulk up their defense. They were obviously okay fighters if they made it this far. It made him angry, how inconsiderate Rick was in this moment. They had all this room.
"No, I'm sorry, he's better off with you all. Don't abandon your family with strangers," Rick insists. As Glenn is about to speak, the younger dark-skinned woman (Zoe, he quickly recalls) interrupts.
"Alfie is my younger brother. He can take care of himself, which is why I'm not concerned with you all being strangers or trying to hurt him, because he will put up a fight and win or die trying. But please, I don't want him to keep wandering with us. He deserves a bed and food even if you're going to turn all of us away." Zoe's mouth is moving as fast as a bullet train, but her tone is unwavering. Ross admires how she's solid in her wood.
His eyes move to Alfie, watching his conflicted gaze shift between the adults. His family is offering him up to be left behind, thinking it's the best for him. The people they're putting their trust in are adamantly against the idea of housing him. When Rick starts degrading and spewing off more and more shit, Ross steps in with a fire on the tip of his tongue.
"Rick, he is a fucking kid!" Anger explodes out of his chest, and the room falls silent. Glenn looks at him with a shocked expression. "You are turning these people away for no good goddamn reason, and won't even take their one request of housing a teenager. I was that teenager, remember? Sick outside of the prison gate. Even if you knew me, I was still the kid you took a gamble on." He steps forward, almost challenging Rick.
"They're strangers," Rick speaks low, getting close to his nephew's face. He doesn't want to accuse the strangers to their faces. "That may be their kid, but I can't risk their kid coming in here and killing my own children because we don't know them. We don't know these people, what if that boy and his sister conspired to kill you and Carl and Judith in your sleep?" Rick's face is sweaty and his eyes are wide, almost delirious. The sight makes Ross hesitant to keep pushing.
"They're good people, I know it. Look at Alfie, he's terrified!" The younger's voice is louder, bouncing off of the walls of the prison. Looking around the room of adults, he recoils at the situation they put Alfie in. "All of you really need to do some self-reflection, actually."
Ross steps towards Zoe. "I don't care how bad it is out there, family is so important. And you're just offering him up to strangers? You want him to have a better life but he'll be plagued with worry of whether or not you all are alive!" He spins back around to Rick. The man still wears the same shocked expression.
"What you're doing is wrong. Sending these people back out there, when you know damn well what it is like. You barely know the half of it!" Hershel steps towards Ross with a gentle hand, urging him to calm down. The boy didn't even realize he was yelling. "Every moment you spent outside was with a group, enough cover to move fast. I was alone for a year, I know the dance of the dead better than any of you. And you are sending these people to that hell." He finishes with ragged breath, turning back to Zoe one more time.
"Seriously. Don't abandon your brother. I'm fucking done," He mumbles and stalks off to his cell, leaving a quiet yet explosive room in his wake. He didn't care in the slightest.
As he sits on his cot with his head in his hands, he feels as if a weight has both been lifted off of his chest and as if fifty extra pounds were added on. His skin feels heavy and dirty and he can't shake this terrible, dark feeling settled in his chest. He listens to people argue over something in the holding area, but he can't bring himself to really listen. Minutes fly by, Ross has no idea how long he was sitting alone until he heard someone approach his cell.
By the weight of the foot steps as the person sits down next to him, he can tell it's Glenn. The pair had became good and close friends in the small time they knew each other and Ross was thankful that it was indeed him that followed.
"That was... a lot," Glenn breaks the silence.
Ross snorts, looking up from staring at the dirty floors. "That feels like an understatement. I think I just created a supernova in the holding area. Fuck," He groans and covers his face again. He could hear other people approaching his cell wordlessly, more as understanding listeners than comforters. "Why did I do that?"
"Because Lori died four days ago and you've been either unconscious or busying yourself since?" Glenn retorts. "You have had zero time to process a major event."
"I don't want to think about it. First my Mom, then my Dad a day or two later. My sister lives in the U.K. so I don't even know what's happened to her. Now Lori," He looks over at Glenn with a bitter laugh, swallowing the lump in his throat. "Did you know I had to kill my mom too? When I fainted, after we realized Carl had killed his mom. It was half blood loss and half terror."
Glenn looks at the seventeen year old next to him, his eyes twisted in pity at what he sees. "Ross..." He sighs. He looks up at him, his eyes filled with tears that beg not to spill over. Glenn just turns towards him and pulls his friend close and letting Ross cry without showing his face.
"I'm lucky I was never alone out there," Glenn continues over the sounds of Ross' gentle sobbing. "You're stronger than me in that right. I could never last as long as you did alone out there, and that's why I know you can get through all of this. Don't give up now."
Ross nods against his shoulder. He was eternally grateful to have met Glenn in those moment, as a flood of tears pour out of him like his previous anger had. He sees the shadows of Maggie and Hershel in the doorway behind him, and he untucks himself from his position.
"Were you really alone all that time?" Maggie inquires with an empathetic look on her face.
"I met this girl, Aliyah. She was amazing, taught me so much. We were only together for about two weeks, before we got separated in the city. Haven't seen her since." Ross can tell that the three of them are taken aback. Often people can't imagine pointless wandering for that long.
"And no groups?" Hershel adds. Ross shakes his head.
"Never stuck around, they scared me." Ross smiles fondly at the people surrounding him. "I'm gambling on you guys being sane, so far I'm winning."
"Listen son, I'm glad you found us. I can tell you're smart and you're strong. You remind me quite a lot of Glenn when I first met him, just with less of a sarcastic attitude," Glenn laughs over Hershel's talking. "Which is why I'm also glad it was you who yelled at Rick. He knows you well, and it needed to be someone like you who finally snaps him out of whatever's going on in his head. Carl's too young, and the rest of us don't have as strong of a connection as the two of you. Thank you," The white haired man nods at him with a small smile. Ross weakly smiles back, before Hershel walks away presumably to deal with Rick. Maggie sits down on the other side of Ross.
"I feel bad for hiding," Ross admits to them. Glenn and Maggie look at each other before looking back at him, confused and urging him to go on. "I should've stepped in, just stabbed the guy on the spot. I was behind him anyways."
"No, I'm glad you didn't. It wouldn't have been an instant guarantee that he wouldn't kill Maggie." Glenn looks at him with darkened eyes, Ross can tell awful things had happened to them. "Don't feel guilty, there's nothing you could have done. I'm glad you weren't there with us."
"He's right," Maggie's voice cuts in, her southern drawl sweetening the atmosphere instantly. "It was horrible, Ross, where he took us. You were already bleedin' out under that car, I don't know what they would have done..."
Ross nods in defeat, pushing his guilt farther down his throat. There really was nothing he could have done, and that made him feel helpless. The trio spends hours in that spot, swapping stories of days past and present, and no one else in the prison comes to bug them. Ross, in between the against-all-odds couple, feels more at home than he had in months.
—
"Rick, you're out of control," Hershel speaks as he stands in front of the man. They're alone just outside of the prison, Rick clearly delirious for the umpteenth time that day.
The man shakes his head, pointing towards the group being escorted out of the the prison with a few supplies in their hands. They had ultimately taken Ross' words to heart, not separating the boy from his family. The outburst had struck a particular chord in Hershel's heart; he couldn't imagine being in that situation with his own children.
"They can't be here, we don't know them," Rick mumbles, wiping sweat from his brow.
Hershel waves him off, "That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about that lost teenage boy in there that you've neglected. He looks up to you like a father he doesn't have and there's not much else he has left. You heard him in there! He's been alone for all this time!"
"Then he should be able to handle this—"
"He killed his own mother, for Christ's sake." Hershel cuts him off in hopes that Rick would really think before making excuses. "Carl had to kill Lori and has all of us to hold his hand while he processes that. He had no one. Do you not understand that?"
"You just lost your wife, you're grieving a pain not many can understand. But you are not the only one grieving. He's lost nearly everything, found his family again, and then lost more. So pull it together and be the man I saw walk into my farm all those months ago." Hershel finishes with a hand grasping the man's shoulder, watching the gears turn in his head.
Rick wordlessly nods and turns around to walk back into their residing cell block. The voices of Glenn, Maggie, and Ross echo softly through the halls and he can't bring himself to break the sweet bliss they're lulled into, despite the world cracking around them.
—
OKAY shorter chapter but a lot of action in the coming few!! i'm gna wrap-up s3 next chapter with a very Long one because so far most of the story has centered around building Ross but i'm so ready to introduce Aliyah shes so cool ahh!! happy reading <3
cmt/vote if u likedd !!