my tears ricochet

Chapter Ninety Nine

"Greggory wants people coming in for the weekend," Maggie told him. She gave him a mug of coffee and sat on the edge of the coffee table. "Wouldn't hurt if you made an appearance."

"What's the occasion?" He snarked lightly as he cupped the mug in his hands and felt the warmth sooth the tension in the bones. "Spring festival?"

"Yeah," Glenn snorted. "He has this whole thing planned out. I'm pretty sure this is him gaslighting everyone into thinking he's a solid leader."

"Everyday people campaign for Jesus to take over and it's getting to Greggory's self esteem."

"What's stopping him from taking it?"

"Jesus doesn't want it. He likes to roam free," Maggie shrugged. "Doesn't want to be confined to a role he can't ever leave."

Relations between the Hilltop and Alexandria had been fairly icy ever since Jesus realized what kind of plan he had been involved in. Apparently Rick had been pretty clear that Ivy was to be extracted at first chance and would never be in any real danger.

Jesus hadn't taken it well when he found out exactly what he agreed to. Ivy's suicidal mission had taken everyone by shock, but he personally felt it to a sharper degree. "I'll travel with you, but I'm not sticking around."

"Can I come with you?" Beth asked from where she was pouring a generous splash of goat milk into her coffee, turning the drink near white from the amount. She then added five spoonfuls of brown sugar, just enough to make Daryl's own teeth hurt looking at it, with a sprinkle of cinnamon. "If you're just looking around the area?"

Maggie closed her eyes for a second before she looked at Daryl. "If you want a pest, take her."

That was a plain sign that Maggie trusted him enough to bypass her own wishes. He tried not to feel that bit of warmth catch at him, that familiar connection between them. "Yeah, we can get out of your hair for a bit. How good are you with playing quiet? That's part of the rules to hunting."

Beth grinned like a damned shark. "Oh, amazing. You won't regret it."

"Go pack some stuff, kid. We're hauling out of here soon enough."

Glenn looked away, scanning the room with a strange expression. His hand yanked at the yellow blanket from the chair and wrangled it into some degree of tidiness and Daryl refrained from helping. He had learned that the other man preferred to be left alone in his attempts, working out how to manage tasks without an additional person moving with him to try and aid the process. "Make sure you bring back some of that honey. Bob's run short ever since he started using it in the clinic."

"What, you aren't sweet enough?"

"Well, I try. But even I can't do much with that bread Tyreese keeps dropping off. That honey is essential if you want something done with it."

When Glenn was in a foul mood with Daryl's own moodiness, a loaf of that bread would show up for him at his campsites. Tyreese had taken it upon himself to start bread baking, a task Carol usually maintained herself, and his results were nearly as hard as any rock and just as tasteless. Daryl tried to hide his grimace at the thought of it.

While Maggie and Beth quickly assembled their gear for the weekend, Glenn vanished. Daryl followed silently like a shadow, hesitantly drawing in close when the man sat down on a familiar bench outside of a red door. "You not coming?"

"No. I'm staying behind," Glenn said firmly. "I know— I just don't want to see it."

Abraham's grave.

Rosita had buried the man at the Hilltop, the place where her pregnancy had been saved by the resident doctor. But she had returned to Alexandria because she wanted her child to grow up knowing the walls her father had once helped keep upright, the walls he died for. She didn't want the graveyard to be the only memory of who Abraham was. "I get it," Daryl said softly. "It isn't him anymore."