Rolo-chan Too short? Shit, I was getting worried my chapters were getting too long. Yeah, don't blame you for not liking her that. Oh, man, yeah... Rosa was like four/five months pregnant when she died, so Em's still in there...

BloodGutsandChocolatePudding Thank you so much

A soft song is playing from Maggie's music box.

Mikey can't find his dad — "It's just weird. He doesn't stay out this long, ever. After what happened to Aiden runners aren't supposed to leave, not this late."

I snap the box shut and the song stops. It's hard to talk to Mikey after what happened, what his father did, especially since Mikey keeps trying to defend him.

"Anyway," he says, sensing the tension, "the meeting's starting in an hour and I was looking for him. I guess I thought you might have an idea."

"Do you think he's avoiding it?" Carl asks.

Mikey's face becomes a crack in a concrete road and then Abraham is standing at the front door with a cluster of flowers spilling over his hands. They're floppy and long and white.

"Any of you know where I can get a vase for these?" he asks, but when we don't have an answer for him Abraham sighs and looks at the flowers hopelessly. "Probably something in the infirmary."

He goes to the dining room table and does his best at neatening the flowers into something of a bouquet. When he can't he stares at them hopelessly, his lower lip bunching up his thick orange moustache. I walk over and neaten them for him. Abraham frowns gratefully and slaps me on the back hard enough I jostle and wince. Then he leaves. I guess he's nervous. Eugene's been hanging out at the infirmary lately in support of Tara and Abraham's been avoiding him ever since finding out about his lie.

It's not only me holding a grudge.

"I should go," Mikey says. "Good luck tonight. I hope everything is neatened out."

Carl and I nod awkwardly.

"Thanks," Carl says in a forced tone, walking him to the door, and even after it is shut and Mikey is gone Carl just stands there, lost in his own head. He's so worried he looks sick. Finally he turns back to the room and looks at me. "I need to sleep."

I think that's a great idea.

"Could you look after Judy for me?" he asks.

I nod and that's what happens for a couple hours. By the time it's dark and I've put Judith to bed I find a guitar in the closet and go downstairs with it. It's hard to play with one hand, but eventually after accepting that I can only play one tune at a time and that I can only play softly, soon enough I can get a decent sounding thrum using my bandage to strum. It feels good to listen to something that almost resembles music again, even if it sounds like a nine-year-old is playing.

At some point Carl comes downstairs.

"You don't have to stop," he tells me.

Still I set the guitar down on the coffee table, feeling hot and embarrassed.

"Didn't mean to wake you," I whisper.

Carl shrugs. "You were good."

I smile. "Liar."

"Mellifluous," he adds.

I frown. "Eh?"

"Means a nice, sweet sound," he explains. "Nell — she said it at the welcome party about Deanna's orchestra music. How many songs do you know?"

I shrug. "Not sure. Sometimes I just make them up."

"That one wasn't made up," he says. "I know it..."

"You Are My Sunshine," I say.

Carl nods.

"Few weeks ago," he tells me, "I saw you and Nell dancing. It was nice."

I smile, embarrassed. Carl is looking at his hands anxiously like he's running out of things to think and talk about. I have something, so I get up and take his hand, thinking we can dance, too, thinking that it might help. He laughs, draping his arms around my shoulders and leaning into me, pressing our foreheads. We sway side to side and then he starts to sing to me.

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey
You never know, dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away..."

He gets embarrassed so I kiss him and whisper for him to keep going. He does.

"The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping
I dreamt I held you in my arms
When I awoke, dear, I was mistaken
So I hung my head and cried

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey
You never know, dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away..."

We dance some more for a while.

"Do you still love me?"

"Yeah."

"Even without a hand?"

"Yeah."

"I understand, if you don't."

"I do. Come upstairs with me..."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

Sometime after the rain stops Carl is curled up at my side asleep. Feeling very calm, I run my fingers along his shoulder and down his side, his skin smooth and warm. A dog is barking non-stop in the distance. I can hear it muffled through the closed window and at some point it occurs to me that it's Bean. He goes on for a long time. Too long for normal. I get a bad feeling. I try to push it away. I try to sleep, but I can't.

Finally I shuffle my arm out from under him. Carl mumbles something but I tell him to sleep and he does. I get dressed and leave the house, arriving at the pantry not long later. Bean is inside barking through the side door at me and the corpse lying in the grass. It's a walker. Someone killed it. How did it get in? Are there more around? I knock on Olivia's door desperately. Nobody answers. I think of the meeting and I turn and run. The meeting is only a block away so I get there quickly. I can hear voices. Rick's mostly. A crowd of Alexandrians block the entrance to Deanna's front yard and I can't shout to get Rick's attention. I crouch and see through legs that there's a dead walker by the fire.

"It got inside on its own," Rick says. "They always will — the dead and the living. Because we're in here."

I push through people until I reach Nell and Enid. I tug on their sleeves. By the look on their faces they already know about the walker outside their house.

"And the ones out there," Rick goes on, "they'll hunt us. They'll find us. They'll try to use us. They'll try to kill us. But we'll kill them. We'll survive. I'll show you how."

He's doing it — what Carl said.

He's telling them in a way that they'll hear him.

"You know, I was thinking: How many of you do I have to kill to save your lives? But I'm not gonna do that. You're gonna change. I'm not sorry for what I said yesterday. I'm sorry for not saying it sooner. You're not ready. But you have to be. Right now. You have to be. Luck runs out."

Then Mr. Anderson rounds the gateway on the other side of the yard, leaving the shadows and stepping into the glow of the firelight. His shoulders are hunched, teeth bared, eyes red, and a katana in hand.

"You're not one of us!"

Jessie shakes her head.

Again he shouts, "You're not one of us!"

Reg rushes up and takes his shoulders. "Pete, you don't wanna do this."

He's shoved away.

"Just stop..."

"Get the hell away from me," Pete slurs at him, drunk. "Rick."

Everyone is uneasy on their feet, wet ground squelching.

"Reg," Deanna warns. "Reg."

Rick steps forward.

"Not now," Carol warns him.

"Stop," Reg begs, still trying to hold Pete back.

"Get out of my way!" The katana comes up. "Get away!" And suddenly Reg is hit by lightning, or that's what it looks like. The way he jerks back. Except electricity doesn't split your throat in two. Electricity doesn't send red siphoning out between your fingers so fast you can't hold onto it all.

Deanna begins to scream.

I've seen someone die before. I know what it's like. I can stare Death in the face and Death is always the one to blink first, but I never win the contest. Nobody does.

Abraham rushes past me in a gust of wind and then he's knocking Pete to the ground. Jessie is screaming, too. Death is blinking and blinking and blinking only it's Reg and he's dying and dying and dead in his wife's arms.

"Oh, God!" she wails. "No, my love! No! No! No, my love!"

"This is him!" Pete screams, his face in the ground.

"Shut up!" Abraham shouts.

"This is him! It's him! This is him!"

Nell looks away, hugging Enid. Enid just watches, tears falling down her blank face.

"Rick," Deanna, whispers, her face all wet and bloody and scrunched up like paper. "Do it..."

And he does.

Just like that.

He shoots Pete through the skull and his brains spread across the brick. I shudder. Nell is crying. Enid jumps. Jessie collapses. People are screaming and Rick glares down the barrel of his gun, blood dripping off his face.

"Rick?"

Three figures are stood in the place Pete came in. Daryl and Aaron and a third man — a stranger. Only he can't have been. He was who said Rick's name. Buzz-cut, black hair, bearded, wearing a trench coat and black gloves and a backpack. He's holding a long sturdy stick.

"Morgan?" Rick asks.

It occurs to me whose katana Pete used. Michonne's, which was kept above the fireplace at 101. 101 where Carl and Judith are. I run back to the house. Michonne must have the same thought because she's close on my tail. Carl is awake after hearing the gunshot and Judith is crying. They are both waiting anxiously downstairs.

"Are you okay?" Michonne asks.

"Yeah, yeah, what happened?"

"Did you see Pete come by?"

"I… I don't think so."

I look above the mantelpiece and the katana is gone.

"He came by," she says. "But it doesn't matter. You both are okay."

She explains everything that happened at the meeting. We all sit at the dinner table in silence afterwards waiting for the others. Maggie arrives first and makes soup for us and then as we're finishing Noah comes by and tells us we need to come to the clinic.

There, Glenn is injured from some type of a flesh wound on his shoulder. Denise is tending to him, but he isn't only who Noah brought us here for. Tara is awake sitting up in bed. Rosita is here, too. Sasha and Eugene as well.

"Noah," Tara says, "why'd you bring so many people. It's not like I just woke up from a coma or anything."

He laughs and holds her hand.

She looks at me and my hand or lack-there-of and her eyes become wet.

"Oh... shit."

"Yeah," I say, eyes wet, too.

"I'm sorry."

"It's alright," I say, meaning it. "It's alright."

Later, on our way back, we see Enid sitting up on the gazebo roof messing with a lighter. He wants to talk to her alone so he kisses my forehead and tells me he'll be home soon.

"That alright?"

"It's alright," I whisper. "See you later, man."

I wait for him at 99, sitting on my porch steps reading Philosopiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton. Carol gave it to me. She didn't say why. Whatever, I like Math. I look up when I hear footsteps. The street is dark, lit by nothing but the dim glow of the porch lights. I stand up. Ron leaves the darkness and walks up onto his steps.

His father just died.

He stops at his front door and I see that he's crying very hard. I've never seen Ron cry.

His father just died.

It's odd how someone can be feared and hated and loved and lost all at the same time. It probably doesn't scratch the surface. Suddenly Ron turns to me. He doesn't say anything. He just watches me and then he turns around and disappears inside his house.

And I can't tell if it's going to be alright this time.

Notes

There you have it, The Easy Part. Thank you for sticking around. Sequel's in my profile...

Super thanks to DarthGranola and Ana-DaughterofHades (DG mentioned you a while back) for the suggestion with the song part. It was so great, thanks.

As always,
Happy reading.