Lucien closed his eyes and let his mind replay everything. From the moment he'd woken up here, feverish and disoriented, to now.
Being dragged here by Guillermo's crew had completely thrown off his plans. He'd been heading back toward the department store when they'd grabbed him. By the time he'd fought off the fever enough to think clearly, half a day had already gone by.
But lying there on that cot, head pounding, watching the nursing home residents shuffle past with their canes and wheelchairs, he had realized something.
This place was perfect.
He'd been worrying about exactly this problem for a while. His medical skills were solid, even impressive, thanks to everything Gale had taught him. Still, there were limits. They were not enough to justify some of the treatments he knew he would eventually have to attempt. Miracles without explanation would only draw attention, and attention meant questions. He needed a cover story. He needed a reputation. Something that would let him heal with magic without anyone realizing what he was really doing. And here, in a place full of sick and injured elderly residents with no proper medical staff, he had a stage.
The plan had come together quickly. First, he needed a win. Something impressive enough to turn heads but explainable enough not to raise questions.
The man in the next bed had a dislocated shoulder. He had seen Felipe try to work it back into place twice already, both times failing because the man was too tense or scared to let anyone near it. Lucien had talked him through it and popped it back in clean. Twenty seconds of work, but to the nursing home residents watching, it looked like magic.
Which, in a way, it was. Just not the kind they were thinking of.
That earned him credibility. People began to pay attention when he moved through the facility. They started asking for his opinion on things.
Then the man with the leg infection showed up.
Or rather, Lucien found him. A middle-aged guy named Derek, one of Guillermo's crew, who'd been hiding a wound on his lower leg for days. The bandages were soaked through with pus, the skin around it angry red and hot to the touch. Classic signs of sepsis setting in. Felipe had taken one look and gone pale.
"I don't have anything strong enough for this," he'd said quietly, pulling Lucien aside. "We'd need IV antibiotics at minimum. Maybe surgery."
They didn't have either.
Lucien had examined the wound and had made a point of doing it thoroughly. He had checked the edges, pressed gently around the infection, and had frowned in thought, mimicking the way Gale looked when she was assessing something serious. When he had finished, he had nodded and had asked Felipe for a few specific supplies.
Yarrow, honey, and clean water.
They had all been legitimate tools for wound care, nothing that would have raised suspicion. He had mixed them into a poultice while everyone watched, applying it with slow movements. He had played the part of someone who knew exactly what he was doing and why.
Then he had waited until everyone had left.
The room was empty for maybe ten minutes.
He had pulled out his wand, pointed it at Derek's leg, and cast Episkey.
He did not erase the infection entirely. That would have been too obvious. A wound that severe did not simply heal overnight, not in a world where people had seen others die from far less. Instead, he targeted the infection itself. He used the spell to slow its spread and give Derek's immune system a fighting chance. It was only a nudge, just enough to tip the balance.
It worked.
Less than fifteen minutes later, Derek's fever broke. His eyes fluttered open. The color was already returning to his face.
Felipe had nearly dropped the tray he was carrying when he saw Derek sitting up. The other residents who'd been hovering nearby, most of them had assumed Derek was a lost cause, stared at Lucien like he'd performed a miracle.
In a sense, he had. They just didn't know it.
After that, everything flowed naturally. When Mr. Gilbert's asthma flared up, no one questioned Lucien stepping in to manage it. When Felipe needed a second opinion on medication dosages, he asked Lucien first.
---
Lucien opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling of the storage room. It wasn't comfortable, what he was doing. Manipulating people's trust, even for good reasons, left a bad taste. These were decent people. They deserved better than to be used as props in his cover story. But the alternative was worse. If he couldn't use magic to heal people, people would die. Derek would have died. Mr. Gilbert might have died. And in the months and years ahead, as injuries and illnesses continued to pile up, the gap between what normal medicine could do and what magic could do was only going to widen.
Episkey was useful, but it had limits. It worked best on relatively straightforward injuries. For anything more serious, he was going to need potions. Essence of Dittany could heal wounds that would otherwise be fatal. Blood-Replenishing Potions could save anyone who'd lost too much blood to survive on their own.
None of that was possible yet. He didn't have the ingredients, the equipment, and, if he was being honest, didn't have the skill. Potion-brewing was precise work. One wrong step and you could make things worse instead of better.
But someday. Maybe soon.
And when that day came, having a foundation of "Lucien Green, the kid who somehow knows more about medicine than anyone else in the apocalypse" would make the difference between people accepting what he could do and people getting frightened by it.
It was the same logic behind the throwing spike he controlled with the Levitation Charm during fights. Everyone who'd seen it assumed it was some kind of clever weapon. A sling, maybe, or a trick with fishing line. No one questioned it because it fit neatly into their understanding of what was possible.
That was the key. Everything he did had to fit inside the box of what people believed could happen. Push the boundaries, yes. Stretch them, absolutely. But never snap them so hard that people started looking for explanations that didn't exist.
He let out a slow breath and pushed himself to his feet.
Time to get back to work.
---
While Lucien had been quietly laying groundwork for the future, Rick had been busy with a different kind of groundwork entirely.
He'd gathered his group in one of the nursing home's empty rooms. Guillermo and Felipe were invited too, since they were going to be involved in whatever came next.
"There are some things you all need to know about Lucien. He isn't my son. He's a kid I made a promise to, and I intend to keep it. He had nowhere else to go."
He looked around the room before continuing. "I want him to come back to the camp with us. That's all. He needs a place to stay, and we owe him at least that much. Probably more."
The room was quiet for a moment.
Glenn nodded first. "Makes sense. He did save your life."
T-Dog followed. "Yeah. After what I saw today, he's more than earned a spot at camp."
Daryl said nothing, but he gave a nod that Rick had learned meant agreement.
Guillermo leaned back in his chair. "None of my business, but for what it's worth, he's a good kid. The stuff he did for my people..." He shook his head slightly. "Whatever his story is, he's earned his place."
Merle, predictably, couldn't help himself.
"So let me get this straight." He picked at a splinter on the edge of the table. "Kid saves your ass, and all you're offering is a spot on the ground at some quarry camp? Real generous, Officer Friendly."
Rick didn't rise to it. He just looked at Merle with the flat expression.
"Now. The nursing home situation."
He briefed them on what Guillermo had told him.
"We can help," Glenn said immediately. "We've got weapons, ammunition, and supplies. We also have a camp with more resources than this place has seen in weeks."
"We're not taking them," Guillermo said firmly. "These people can't be moved. Half of them can barely sit up, let alone travel."
"Nobody's suggesting that," Rick said. "But we can organize regular supply runs and keep this place stocked. We could even leave someone here temporarily."
The discussion went on for a while. By the time they finished, the afternoon light had shifted, long shadows stretching across the nursing home's hallways.
Rick found Lucien in the main hall.
The kid was sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by what looked like half the nursing home's linen supply. A massive white bedsheet was spread out in front of him, and he was holding a can of black spray paint, shaking it with one hand while examining his work with the other.
He walked over and stopped, reading what Lucien had written so far.
WARNING! ATLANTA HAS FALLEN! LARGE NUMBERS OF WALKERS INSIDE THE CITY!
He stared at the words.
Then he stared at Lucien, who had noticed him and was looking up with a paint-speckled face and a slightly sheepish expression.
"Oh. Rick." Lucien set down the spray can and wiped his hands on his already-ruined shirt. "I was going to ask you about this."
He pointed at the bedsheet. "When we head back, could we hang this at the entrance to the city? Somewhere visible on the way in. Anyone who still thinks there's a safe zone in Atlanta would see it before they ever get close to the walkers. It won't stop everyone. Some people won't believe it until they see it for themselves. But it might save a few lives. Maybe even a few families."
Rick couldn't speak.
He stood there, looking at this kid and felt something crack open in his chest.
A few minutes ago, he'd been sitting with Guillermo, impressed by the man's dedication. A former security guard who'd stayed behind to protect strangers when every instinct told him to run. He had thought: that's courage.
And now here was Lucien.
He was just a kid who had escaped a walker horde, who had been kidnapped, who had been burning with fever less than twenty-four hours ago. And the first thing he thought to do, after making sure the people around him were safe, was to make a sign to warn strangers. It was not a grand gesture, and it was not heroic in the traditional sense. It was a bedsheet and a can of spray paint, something that would take maybe minutes to finish.
But it could save lives. Families who would have walked into Atlanta blind, only to be swallowed by the horde the same way Rick almost had been.
And none of them had thought of it.
He had been a cop. He had spent years protecting people and keeping them safe. And it had never occurred to him to leave a warning. Not once, across two trips through the city.
He could make excuses. Everyone was focused on survival. There were more urgent things. He'd been half-dead with shock and exhaustion the first time through, running for his life the second.
But standing here, watching Lucien pick up the spray can again and add another letter, he couldn't make any excuse stick.
This kid had just done something that every adult in the group had failed to do.
He thought back to the rooftop, to the walkers lying still after precise, single strikes through their skulls. At the time, the efficiency had worried him. The coldness behind it had worried him even more. He had been afraid that a child as smart as Lucien, hardened so quickly by the apocalypse, might be losing something essential. That he was becoming too willing to do whatever it took without feeling the weight of it.
But this wasn't cold.
This was a kid who, in the middle of the worst situation imaginable, had looked beyond his own survival and thought about someone else.
He wondered whether Lucien understood just how remarkable he was.
Probably not. Kids like that usually didn't.