"Austin!" Maggie was the first one to see him, the group all storming out of Hilltops building. They'd been here since Daryl got back, the news about where Austin was coming from Natalie, Cyndie, and Archie when Natalie lead them back. She knew Austin's family would be the best bet to get him back, she just didn't realize he would get out of there as fast as he did. She fully thought he wouldn't make it, yet there he was. Walker guts and all. "Rick, look."

"Dad!" Austin's face lit up as he dropped his bag and took off toward his son. Rick sighed in relief as a visible weight was lifted off him, holding his arms out to catch his oldest in a hug. He held him so tightly, his hand pressed into the back of his head.

"Stop doing stuff like that." Rick told him, hadn't let go. "I am not loosing you."

"You're not loosing me." Austin promised, squeezing his eyes shut as he held him even tighter. "I'm so happy you're my Dad. I'm so glad I have you."

After Austin saw Negan, Austin didn't realize truly how lucky he had it in the father field. After Archie told him that the saviors killed his parents, all Austin could do was think about his Dad. "I'm so glad I have you."

"You know, you're a real asshole." Carls voice caught his attention as the pair pulled apart, he walked over toward his brother and father. "Jump my back for doing the exact same thing you just-"

"I'm older." Austin cut him off, yanking him into his arms tightly. "And taller, I get to do whatever."

"Barley!" Carl laughed as he shoved his shoulder when they pulled back, their smiled identical and coming right from Rick. "Catch a few walkers on the way? You just got guts all over us."

"Something like that." Austin smiled down to Enid as she wrapped under his arms for a moment, Sasha and Maggie coming in right after.

"Hello there, you bloody little angel." Michonne grabbed his chin with a thankful smile. "Bravest little thing."

He almost felt guilty for feeling the motherly love he'd missed from Lori when she wrapped him up in her arms, Tara fist bumping him from behind her back while Rosita offered him a salute he returned. He knew when things cooled off, he would really be able to breakthrough to her.

"You stupid kid." Daryl smacked him upside the head. "Why you do something so stupid like that? Come and find me and some redhead kid? Moron."

Laughter fell over the group, even though Daryl was serious. Non of them could take his tone serious. "Was just bout to come looking for you."

"Is Natalie here? How'd you know what happened?" Austin questioned no one in particular, his eyebrows frowning together.

"Her and two others came runnin in late last night, been up looking for a way to get to you and trying to negotiate a plan with Gregory." Maggie answered him. "The boys are still in Alexandria, Eric's with them. Others out back drawing up a map for us."

"Go get them, we gotta get back. We need to be there is they come looking for you or Daryl, not letting him get his hands on Luke or Levi next." Rick didn't realize how much he took to the boys already. Not just as members of Alexandria, but family. Austin saw it, Michonne saw it. They shared a gentle smile.

"You don't have to go back yet." Jesus stopped him as he held up the small radio. "It's one of theirs, long range. We can listen in, keep track of them."

"So, if we're not going back, what we doing, then?" Michonne asked, a curious look on her face.

"Austin!" Natalie's voice caught their attention, she came running from behind the gates with Cyndie and Archie not far behind her. He caught her, barley having to bend down to hug her. "I'm s-"

"Don't worry about it." he cut her off with a wide smile, kissing the top of her head. "Don't you ever do something like that again. I mean it. When we get home....you're gonna be washing wine glasses ever night until you're eighteen."

Natalie smiled, pride filling her just to know he was alive and scolding her. "You got it."

"Hey there, Rude Boy!" Archie laughed as he practically skipped over to him, wrapping his arm around his shoulders. "And he sees another day!"

"How'd they meet again?" Enid whispered toward Carl.

"Pin pals over the radio." Maggie answered.

"I knew I should have just left you on that beach." Cyndie gave him a look of pure disbelief, shaking her head. "Would have avoided all this extra drama."

"Oh, come on. You know you'd be bored without me." he gave her a side smile, winking in her direction and bumping her shoulder with his.

"I think it's time we introduce you to Ezekiel." Jesus spoke toward Rick, looking over at Archie as the blue eyed boy gave a minor smirk. "King Ezekiel."

Rick rose his eyebrows in disbelief. "King?"

"King." Archie confirmed as he began to lead the way out the fence. "You'll get to meet that Maverick of mine, too. Fair warning....don't look her in the eye. Got a shovel to the neck last time I did that."

"Sounds like a show." Daryl scoffed at the kid he spoke up, already finding he'd obnoxious.

"Maverick?" Natalie frowned her eyebrows.

"Archie's silent girl." Austin answered. "Deadly, apparently."

"Apparently." Cyndie agreed as the two walked side by side, she looking over at the harsh bruise on Austin's jawline. "He hurt you?"

Austin took a double take over at her, Cyndie nodded to his jaw. He'd gotten use to the throbbing feeling by now, where the baseball bat had hit him. He could tell his jaw had gotten slightly loose and his back teeth were wiggly, but there were more important things at stack. Cyndie noticed the barbwire markings that were close by. "That son of a bitch."

"I expected it to be a lot worse." Austin spoke to her honestly, the leaves crunching under their feet. He made sure Natalie was well before them, walking with Carl and Enid. "I know it's obvious by now, but I really don't think there's any other option than to kill him, Cyndie. He's not gonna stop until he gets exactly what he wants. Based off what I saw and heard while I was there, it's not a place for any of us. Girls forced into marriage and sex with him, men under his boot like little servants. It's sick, but that's what he wants."

"I know your Dad wants to kill him, Maggie too." Cyndie agreed. "I mean, I even want him dead and we're strictly about letting people survive from my community. Show mercy. But for him...all I can do is see my little brothers face."

Just as Austin saw Glenns.

"Have you actually killed anyone before?" Austin asked her curiously, keeping his voice low to give her the respect of privacy. He pushed a branch out of the way, holding it up some for her to walk under while he followed.

"No. Not actually, anyways." Cyndie said honestly to him, glancing back as he caught up to her side again. "Walkers, yeah. I had to watch someone get banished from Oceanside, that practically lead her to her death. But, actually killing a human being, I haven't."

Austin nodded, Cyndie stared at his side profile. He could see her doing it in the corner of his eye, hoping she'd look away. "Have you?"

He had two options here, even though he was the one to open this can of worms with this question. He could either, one, lie to her and let her believe he was the good person he was before the world broke. Or, two, he could he honest and know she'd always have that thought in the back of her head. Austin Grimes was a lot of things, but a liar wasn't one of them. "Yeah, I have. Quit a few."

"How many?" she was curious, but her tone didn't change. "Anyone you know?"

"A man at Alexandria tried to kill Glenn, around the time we first went there. I killed him to save Glenn, that was the most recent." out of everyone he walked with, aside his brother and father, Cyndie was the one he'd known the longest. They knew the other as they were years before, but it was still that initial feeling of familiarity that made it easy to be around each other. Austin felt like he could say it all to her, and Cyndie refused to let go of the first comfort of the old world. Neither were fully aware of those nostalgic feelings at the time, but that didn't hide the fact that it existed. "Couple people back at Terminus, they were really bad people that talked about killing my family. Then, a friend of mine got bite back at a farm we stayed at. I shot her so she wouldn't turn, and she didn't have to suffer. But that's-"

He's stopped mid sentence, realizing what he did at the hospital had gotten brought up a lot. Negan said something twice now, now he was about to have to tell Cyndie. He felt like he was finally in a head space where he could talk about Beth without mentally breaking down, Glenn had helped him through that. And while Glenn wasn't here, Austin knew that he wouldn't want him to go back into that horrible headspace that he worked day and night to get him out of. Austin feared that the more he talked about it, he might go back.

"What?" Cyndie asked him, glancing forward as they trialed back some more. "Something you don't want to tell me?"

"It was pretty bad." he was honest with her, because what was there to loose at this point? "I think about it every day, and I feel guilty about it constantly. It wasn't right, but it's been a while now. But, I know it was wrong. I'll always know it, and i'll be sorry forever."

"What did you do?" Cyndie was curious, her eyebrows knitted. She was a sweet soul, but she was headstrong. The world they lived in now wasn't one that she took lightly, she demanded the truth and to see every corner. Austin Grimes was apart of her life now whether he liked it or not, and she wanted to see ever corner of his pain.

He crossed her mind every night when she looked at that little dream catcher before she went to sleep, there wasn't anything that would have her running for the hills like he thought. At least, not then. Not when the coincidence of seeing him again was so low, then there he'd been.

"I lost someone I loved at this one place, a hospital some people were hold up in. She was killed by someone inside, someone that my Dad took care of. But, there was innocent people that lived there. Just trying to survive, hiding from the world outside. They had nothing to do with it, they didn't even know her." Austin hasn't talked about this. Everyone assumed because he dissociated so badly after Beths death that he didn't really remember what he did at the hospital, but he did. He remembered it all, and that guilt would live within him forevermore. "I saw her dead body, and then all these people came walking out. I just, I can't really remember what I thought. All I saw was....rage, or sadness. I just grabbed that gun and I murdered them all, every single one of them. Innocent people, people that were filled with joy to get out of there and try to make the best of it in this world."

Cyndie saw the sorrow on his face as he walked, the way the sun lit up his eyes and revealed years of build up pain from this memory. Reliving it was one thing, but admitting it all out loud was something he clearly wasn't fully ready for. "I took that chance away from them. I killed them."

Cyndie let it sit in, because it was a lot that was laid on her. Austin chose honesty, and he gave it to her entirely. Cyndie just wasn't fully sure what to say next, how to respond to that. She wasn't the best person at comforting others, but Austin already knew he was in the wrong. What else was there to say. She exhaled and nodded her head. "Loosing people we love causes us to do things we end up regretting. It's a type of hurt that overtakes all of us, apart of human nature. Some cases are worse than others, but that's the world we live in now. It's hard because who we love is so limited."

who we love is so limited.

"I never thought of it that way." he glanced over at her, Cyndie did the same before they broke their eye contact. "Wise one."

"Shut up, Dallas." Cyndie chuckled slightly as Austin smiled. "Do the kids know about what happened?"

"Not yet." he exhaled in defeat. "I know Negan is gonna find a way to talk them, he's got me admitting to it on video. They run away from him because he does the exact same thing I said I did...I just haven't found the right away to show them that i'm not the saint they make me out to be."

"You're the first person to truly make them feel safe since Negan changed after their Mom, Natalie told me that when we were here." Cyndie revealed the conversation that they had just a few hours before. "Something tells me those kids aren't gonna go anywhere. Think you might be stuck with them for a while."

Austin thought that was something he was okay with being stuck with.

•

kylie speaks

i was really excited to
write cyndie and austin's
comfort around each other
strictly because they were
apart of each others life
before the apocalypse, a
reminder of who they use to
be and holding into an
ounce of innocence. i haven't
fully decided if i want to write
her into the later seasons
more and make them endgame
or have austin have a third
love interest but either way, i
think we're all gonna enjoy them together

luke and levi will be back soon!