"Austin, don't fall!" Beth yelled as she drove the truck down the fence line, Austin firing the gun out the window. The barn was set on fire, leading a lot of the walkers that way. "Austin!"

"I got it!" he called back to her, shooting a walking in the face, then another, one more. Beth followed the truck Maggie was driving, Austin shooting what he could, loosing count along the way. "Shit, i'm gonna run out of amo."

"Why are there so many!" Beth called out, jerking the truck.

"Go back to the house, there's too many!" Austin got back into the truck fully. "We need to get my mom and your dad."

Beth drove back to the house quickly, the girls on the porch waiting while Hershel fired behind them. Beth jumped out to get them, Austin getting into the drivers seat. "Mom, come on!"

Beth cried out as a walker got Patricia, biting into her while two other came. Lori grabbed her, preying her away as Austin leaned out of the truck and shot Patrica to put her out of her misery. His heart dropped, shaking. It didn't set in until after he did it, until when he realized what he was doing.

The first human he killed.

Andrea ran over to help Lori and Beth. "Get in!"

"Get Carol, she ran that way." Lori pointed as Andrea took off. Austin's hands shook as he put his gun down, T-Dog getting in to drive when he noticed.

They all looked over, seeing walkers crowding Andrea and Carol. Lori cried out. "They got her. We gotta go!"

"Where's Carl?" Austin asked in a panic, putting his arm around a sobbing Beth. "Mom, I shot Patrica."

"Oh, baby, it's okay. It's okay." she spoke fast when his voice broke, holding his face. "You helped her not feel the pain. It's gonna be okay."

When daylight rolled around, Beth hadn't stopping crying in a silent Austin's arm. Lori looked to T-Dog. "Hey, we got to turn around."

"Straight back to that herd?" T-Dog asked her. "Um, no."

"The highways back there. That's where they'll be." she explained, holding Austin's arm. "Rick will go back to where we first broke down and Glenn too."

"But, we're headed east, get to the coast. We should've done that from the jump." T-Dog argued with a head shake, continuing down the road. "Look, we're got a shot to get out of here in one piece."

"I gotta find Carl. He may have escaped with somebody." she shook her head. Austin rubbed Beth's back when he felt her stop crying and flatten onto the crock of his neck.

"I hate to say it, but they're on their own." T-Dog said back effortlessly.

"Like hell they are." Austin snapped at him.

"There's no way to even begin to start looking." he said his way.

"You're wrong." Lori gave a cry.

"Look, we can't go back." he said in return. "I'm sorry. It's suicide."

"All right, then let me out." Lori nodded her head, opening the door.

"Hey! Hey! Whoa!" T-Dog yelled out as he hit the breaks.

"Turn around or we're getting out right now." Austin threatened T-Dog as Lori kept the door wide open.

"I should do it, you know?" he yelled back at him. "You're out of your damn minds."

Lori yanked the car door shut as T-Dog turned the car around, Beth laying back down in Austin's arms.

Some time had passed before they met up with Maggie and Glenn in the car before them, Daryl and Carol too, exciting Beth and uplifting her mood in the slightest. They followed them to the highway, driving as far up as they could until they came across Carl, Rick, and Hershel. Austin grinned. "Their they are!"

"Oh, thank god!" Lori cried as she got out of the truck, running their way. Austin helped Beth do the same before he ran toward his family ad well, being welcomed into the embrace of his dads arms.

"Where'd you find everyone?" Rick spoke up as he stood from the kneeling family.

"Well, those guys' tail lights zigzagging all over the road-" Daryl began as he used his fingers to point toward Glenn and Maggie. "Figured he had to be asian, driving like that."

Glenn laughed. "Good one."

"Where's the rest of us?" Daryl looked around.

"We're the only ones who made it so far." Rick said in return, squinting from the sun.

"Patrica passed." Austin frowned.

"Walkers got her." Beth spoke. "Austin put her out of her misery, so she didn't suffer."

Maggie hugged him tightly, Austin hugged her back as he squeezed his eyes shut. Despite it all, despite truly doing her a favor, the guilt played on repeat in his head over and over.

"Shane?" Lori spoke up.

Rick shook his head, silence taking over. Glenn looked up. "Andrea?"

"She saved me, then I lost her." Carol spoke up from leaning on the car.

"We saw her go down." T-Dog spoke up. Austin's heart feel as he shut his eyes, still in Maggie's embrace.

"You definitely saw her?" Carol asked with a frown.

"There were walkers everywhere." Lori said her way.

"Did you see her?" Carol repeated.

"I'm gonna go back." Daryl spoke up when she didn't answer.

"No." Rick cut in.

"Can't just leave her." the man shook his head.

"We don't even know if she's there."
Lori pointed out.

"She isn't there. She isn't." Rick shook his head confidently. "She's somewhere else or she's dead."

"If she survived, it's unlikely she ran back to the house or just wanted to stay with the walkers." Austin reassured everyone with a nod of his head. "More then unlikely. Impossible. Andrea is smarter then that. We should look for her, though."

"No." his dad stated.

"So we're not even gonna look for her?" Glenn looked at Rick in disbelief.

"We gotta keep moving." he said in return. "There have been walkers crawling all over here. "

"I say head east." T-Dog spoke confidently.

"Stay off the main roads. The bigger the road, the more walkers, more assholes like this one. I got him." Daryl spoke, grasping his cross bow and shooting the walker that was coming their way.

They drove for sometime until the gas came low, making the three vehicles venture off to the side. Daryl looked back. "You out?"

"Running on fumes." Rick said in return, Austin helped Beth out of the truck as they joined the others.

"We can't stay here." Maggie shook her head, looking around at the location they fell to.

"We can't all fit in one car." Glenn pointed out.

"We'll have to make a run for some gas in the morning." Rick turned back to the group.

"Stay the night here?" Carol wrapped her cardigan around her body more.

"I'm freezing." Carls teeth chattered from behind his jacket as well as Loris arms.

"We'll build a fire, yeah?" Lori looked back.

"Yeah." Austin agreed, rubbing Beth's arms to warm her up for the time being.

"I'm gonna go out looking for firewood, stay close. Only got so many arrows. How you doing on ammo?" Daryl looked toward Rick and Austin.

"Not enough." he said in return.

"Two bullets." the younger Grimes shook his head.

"Well, we can't just sit here with our asses hanging out." Maggie spoke up.

"Watch your mouth." Hershel warned her. Austin tried not to laugh. "Everyone stop panicking and listen to Rick."

"All right, we'll set up a perimeter. In the morning, we'll find gas and some supplies. We'll keep pushing on." he looked around to make the plan known.

"Glenn and I can go make a run now, try and scrounge up some gas." Maggie spoke up, considering they were the only one with gas.

"No, we stay together." Rick shook his head her way. "God forbidden something happens and people get stranded without a car."

"Rick, we're stranded now." Glenn pointed out.

"I know it looks bad, we've all been through hell and worse, but at least we found each other." Rick stated as he looked him in the eyes. "I wasn't sure, I really wasn't, but we did. We're together. We keep it that way. We'll find shelter somewhere. There's gotta be a place."

Glenn hesitated. "Rick, look around. Okay? There's walkers everywhere. They're migrating or something."

"There's gotta be a place not just where we hole up, but that we fortify, hunker down, pull ourselves together, build a life for each other." Rick listed on in agony. "I know it's out there. We just have to find it."

"Even if we do find a place and we think it's safe, we can never be sure. For how long? Look what happened with the farm." Maggie made the example. "We fooled ourselves into think that that was safe."

"We won't make that mistake again." Hershel said confidently with a shake of his head.

"We'll make camp tonight over there, get on the road at the break of day." Rick pointed to a decent sized wall.

"What if walkers come through, or another group like Randall's?" Beth walked up to Rick in worry.

"It'll be okay, Beth." Austin reassured her.

"You know I found Randall, right?" Daryl got all their attention, but he'd been speaking just to Rick. "He had turned, but he wasn't bit."

"How's that possible?" Beth asked with a curious look.

"Rick, what the hell happened?" Lori gave a frightened look.

"Told you you should have let me gone with." Austin shook his head. "But, no. No one listens to Austin ever."

"Shane killed Randal. Just like he always wanted to." Daryl said in return.

Austin nodded. "Once again, I was right."

"Austin." Lori waved him off. "Then the herd got him?"

Rick was silent a moment. "We're all infected."

They all stared, silent and still. "What?"

"At the C.D.C. Jenner told me." Rick brought back the recent memory they had there. "Whatever it is, we all carry it."

"And you never said anything?" Carol asked him with a look of disbelief.

"Would it have made a difference?" he asked her.

"No, but we should at least know." Austin spoke up as well. "It's our right, Dad."

"You knew this whole time?" Glenn shook his head.

"How could I have known for sure?" Rick defended himself. "You saw how crazy that mo-"

"That isn't your call." Glenn cut him off. "Okay, when I found out about the walkers in the barn, I told for the good of everyone."

"Well, I thought it best that people didn't know." the Grimes man looked casually.

"You doing okay?" Beth asked Austin later that night. He was too quiet, too far from the group. She sat down next to him to provide more warmth. "About your dad not telling us?"

"I'm sorry about Patrica." Austin mumbled, staring down at his gun. "She was such a good person."

"She was in so much pain." Beth looked his way. "What you did helped her not suffer."

"Yeah, but I didn't even hesitate, Beth." Austin looked at her, his eyes watery. "I just shot her. I didn't even realize I was doing it."

She grabbed his hand. "By the time you would have thought about it, hesitated, she'd have died painfully and slow."

Austin frowned, dropping his head as Beth leaned in and hugged him. Austen hugged her back, his head over her shoulder with shut eyes. There was a rustle, Beth gasped. "What was that?"

"Could be anything." Daryl stood to his feet. "Could be a raccoon, could be a possum."

"Walker." Glenn added.

"Glenn." Austin spoke, nodding toward a frightened Beth to indicated he shouldn't have say that.

"We need to leave. What are we waiting for?" Carol voice her panic.

"Which way?" Glenn looked to the woods.

"It came from over there." Maggie pointed.

"Back from where we came." Beth agreed.

"Someone following us?" Austin asked with frowned eyebrows.

"The last thing we need is for everyone to be running off in the dark." Rick spoke up as he looked around at all of them. "We don't have the vehicles. No one's traveling on foot."

A branch snapped again, Hershel looked to Maggie. "Don't panic."

"I'm not sitting here, waiting for another herd to blow through." Maggie shook her head as Beth leaned into Austin's side. "We need to move, now."

"No one is going anywhere." Rick spoke up forcefully to shut her down.

"Do something." Carol snapped at him.

"I am doing something!" he rose his voice her way in annoyance and anger. "I'm keeping this group together, alive. I've been doing that all along, no matter what. I didn't ask for this. I killed my best friend for you people, for christ sake!"

They all gapped his way in disbelief, shock. Rick shook his head. "You saw what he was like, how he pushed me, how he compromised us, how he threatened us. He staged the whole Randall thing, led me out to put a bullet in my back. Shane gave me no choice. He was my friend, but he came after me."

Carl sobbed as Lori wrapped him tightly into her arms, rocking back and forth. Beth hugged Austin, for the first time for his comfort rather then hers. Rick looked around. "My hands are clean. Maybe you people are better off without me. Go ahead. I say there's a place for us but maybe it's just another pipe dream. Maybe-maybe i'm fooling myself again. Why don't you-any of you go and find out yourself? Send me a postcard. You can do better? Let's see how far you can get."

"Dad." Austin got to his feet. "Just stop. We never said we were better without you, we're grateful. But right now you're scared all of us. You're scared Carl, so just stop."

Rick nodded. "So, no takers? Fine. But let's get one thing straight- you're staying, this isn't a democracy anymore."

Austin turned away from him, not recognizing his father anymore as he took his remaining seat with Beth.

•

kylie speaks

y'all i had a dream about this
book last night about what i
should have austin do in
the chapter i'm writing rn,
in season five, and i only ever
have dreams about my books
that i'm emotionally attached
to so...welcome to my unhealthy
attachment austin🤪