"What are you doing out here?" Sasha asked as her and Austin stumbled across each other in the woods.

He looked down at his walker covered clothes. "Killing walkers."

"Make you feel better?" Sasha asked, encouraging him to sit on the barrel across from her.

"For half a second." Austin admitted as he set his gun down and took a seat. "But, unless i'm constantly doing it, nothing helps."

"Yeah." Sasha agreed. "Either that or I bite everyone's heads off the second they say something remotely wrong."

"Tell me about it." Austin agreed. "I dropped the F bomb on my dad the other day. Only reason he didn't slap me was because of the circumstances."

"You should have heard me at that welcoming party last night." Sasha shook her head. "I bout ate some woman alive when she asked what my favorite food was."

"I'd have tried to stab her, so, maybe you're a step up." he joked as Sasha flashed a minor smile. "What was it?"

"What?" she frowned her eyebrows.

"Your favorite food. Before this." he crossed one leg under the other, looking at her.

Sasha looked like she wanted to laugh. "Popcorn."

"Popcorn?" Austin gave a look of disbelief.

"I know it's basic, but with a bunch of butter, infront of a good movie." she hummed in delight. "My favorite Friday night plans."

"I worked part time at a movie theater before all of this." he pointed out as Sasha listened. "It was one of the only places that would hire fifteen year olds, and no one my age was actually working yet. But, I wanted to because if I didn't have something to do after school, my mom would drag me to spin class with her."

Austin cracked a grin at the memory. "So, I got burnt out on popcorn pretty quick."

"Did you have to wear those uniforms?" she asked, getting a nod. "And scrap gum off the seats?"

"Oh, yeah." he nodded. "The amount of times my glasses fell off trying to lean under those seats. I'd get so pissed and swear I was gonna quite the next day."

"Why'd you keep the job then?" Sasha gave a questionable look. "Spin class was that bad?"

Austin rolled his eyes. "No, I was stupid and kept it because of a girl."

Sasha rose her eyebrows and encouraged him to go on.

"I had this friend, not really a friend, we'd talk sometimes at robotics but we weren't friends. I just kinda liked her, just a little." he explained with a shrug. "And, she'd always talk about how much she liked really old movies, and I overheard her so many times. So, i'd go in on Sundays, when it was suppose to be closed, and run old movies."

"She much have been crazy about you after that." Sasha said honestly.

"No, she didn't know it was me." Austin admitted with a scoff. "She thought it was just the movie theater doing it, her and a few old people would show up. Got me an extra 20 bucks each week though."

Sasha watched Austin's face fall again as he looked down. "Beth was the first girl I ever actually was able to talk to outside of stupid robotics club."

Sasha sighed as she sat up. "I didn't know Bob long, but he made this shitty world a hundred times better."

"I liked Bon a lot." Austin nodded. "I liked a lot of people a lot."

"I could have recovered from Bob, over time." Sasha admitted with a staring look. "But, my brother.."

"I never told you how sorry I was." Austin stared over at her. "I loved Tyreese, he saved my sister. I should have died instead of him."

Sasha gave a confused look. "Why do you think that?"

"Because he saved the people I loved so many times. I owed him my life." Austin shrugged his shoulders. "Instead, I was just completely frozen."

"I didn't think you were gonna come back from that." Sasha said honestly.

"Doesn't feel like I actually have. But, Glenn needed me." Austin shook his head. "Something about him just got to me that day."

"Do you think the sadness or anger is worse?" she asked.

"Crying never made me feel better." Austin grabbed his gun as he saw a walker coming, shooting it from where he stood. "But, hurting and killing things fixes things for one second."

Sasha and Austin came through the gate hours later, together. They didn't make it far before Glenn was running in their direction. Austin dropped his bag and gun immediately at the sight of his sad, swelled up eyes. "Glenn, what happened?"

He didn't answer him, hugging Austin tightly. Clearly, whatever happened, it was enough to make him cry. Austin hugged him tightly, giving Sasha a worried look. "Hey, it's okay. What happened?"

"We lost Noah." Glenn cried, Austin shut his eyes and felt his heart hurt for the kind boy. "It was so bad, I couldn't even do anything."

"It's not your fault." he promised Glenn, holding the back of his head for a moment. Sasha frowned, placing her hand on Glenns shoulder. "I have an idea."

Glenn pulled back as Austin held his face a second. "Come on."

The Beth and Noah Memorial Bench

"They would love loved this." Glenn spoke as Austin came off the ground. Jessie had welded the writing into a hunk of metal. Austin hammered it onto the front of the bench.

"Yeah." he agreed, looking at it with an exhale. "They would."

Maggie wrapped her arms around the pair, Daryl standing on the other side as Austin slipped his hand into his. Firstly, he slapped it away. But, after a second, he held his hand again.

"Son." Rick walked into Austin's room, seeing him cleaning his knife. "I want to talk to you."

"What's wrong?" Austin looked over. Rick exhaled as he sat across from him on the floor. "If this is about me threatening that dude-"

"You were threatening someone?" Rick gapped.

Austin blinked in realization, pursing his lips and shaking his head. "No. No, I wasn't."

Rick had to laugh, shaking his head. "Well, it ain't about that."

Austin leaned forward some to listen to him. Rick nodded. "When your mom died, back at the prison.....I started to see her."

Austin blinked. "Are you seeing Beth too?"

"No, but I can tell you are." he shook his head. "I don't- I know it's a hard thing to experience, but it can't go on. When I went through this, I really lost myself. I don't want that for you."

Austin looked down, Rick leaned down some to try and catch his eye. "You eating? Sleeping?"

Austin shrugged. Rick nodded his head. "Why don't you sleep in my bed for the night?"

"You really think that's gonna help?" Austin asked him in disbelief.

"You slept with me and your mom until you were twelve, I think so." Rick teased as he stood up, helping Austin get to his feet.

Rick was right, only for a few hours anyways. Austin slept next to him, Judith's playpen on the other side of the bed. He woke with a jolt when he heard a screech, the sound of a walkie going off. Austin looked back at his dad, waiting for him to wake up. He hadn't been moving, fasted asleep. It sounded again, coming from down stairs.

Austin got up, walking down the steps as they creaked slightly. Everyone started to live in their own houses now, leaving the living room empty. Austin found the walkie talkie on the counter, sighing as he rubbed his eyes and flicked it off. When he turned to go back, it went off again. The boy turned around, his eyebrows knitting together.

"Austin, is that you?"

His heart dropped, grasping it's immediately. "Beth!"

"Where'd you go?" she laughed from the other side.

"I'm here." he smiled, his eyes filling up.

"I'm looking all around the prison." she spoke. "Carl just walked past me, I know he knows something.

Austin's eyes gave a slow blink, he knew this conversation. An exhale escaped his lips. "Marco."

"Polo." Beth called.

Austin whispered as he listened to her laugh. "Marco."

"Polo!" Beth shouted as she came around the cell corner. "I found you!"

"I thought I was good!" Austin laughed as she threw herself at him in a violent hug. "Not good enough."

"Really easy, actually." she smiled up at him as he grinned, rubbing her arms.

"Austin?" Carls voice made him gasp, spinning around and ready to throw the walkie. His brother stared at him. "Why are you awake?"

He inhaled, his eyes blood shot badly as Carl gave a worried look. "Austin."

The walkie slipped from Austin's hands, hitting the floor at his feet. Carl looked in worry as Austin stared at him. His eyes were crazed, nor the usual innocent, sweet ones that Lori had given him. His face was harder, the faint scars standing out a little more. Carl kept still, because he was scaring him. "Are you okay?"

Austin blinked at his brother. "I don't think so."

•

kylie speaks

good news babies... almost
done with ST books so i can
update this one more often
again! i miss my daily updates
so much