The camp stared at Merle.
Nobody had expected him to do anything other than cause trouble and make people uncomfortable. And yet, here was Lucien, telling them Merle had helped drive warning signs into the ground with his good hand while his wrist was still healing.
Merle felt the eyes on him and his lip curled.
"What are you all gawking at?" He cracked his neck and shot the crowd an irritated glare. "We were in a hurry to get back, weren't we? Was I supposed to just sit in the truck twiddling my thumbs while you lot dawdled around putting up road signs? Someone had to get it done."
A few people looked away quickly. Others just shrugged and went back to what they were doing. Merle was Merle. If he wanted to frame helping people as an act of impatience rather than decency, let him.
Morales watched Merle stomp off toward the fire pit. Something had changed between the group and the Dixon brothers since Atlanta. Not enough to erase what Merle was, but enough that people no longer reached for their weapons whenever he moved.
Whatever had happened out there had eased the tension. Temporarily, maybe. But the change was real.
He was still thinking about it when Amy stepped away from the small group of women she had been talking to. She walked straight up to Lucien and wrapped him in a hug.
"Thank you," she said when she let go, looking him in the eye. "We've been talking about warning people away from Atlanta for weeks. Nobody could figure out how to do it without putting ourselves at risk. And then you just did it."
Lucien opened his mouth to deflect, but Amy had already moved on, stepping back. He didn't get a chance to respond anyway.
"Lucien!"
Lucien turned just in time to see Duane barreling toward him at full sprint, grinning like an idiot.
"You made it!" He skidded to a stop in front of him, slightly out of breath. "I knew you would. I called it. I told Carl you'd be fine."
"Did you?" Lucien couldn't help the smile that spread across his face. Duane's enthusiasm was infectious. "Well, you were right."
"Obviously." Duane puffed out his chest, then jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Come on. There's someone you should properly meet."
Lucien followed Duane's gesture and found himself looking at a boy about his own height. Brown curly hair, clean plaid shirt, cheeks that still had the soft roundness of childhood.
Carl Grimes.
He had seen him from a distance since arriving at camp. He'd studied him the way he studied everyone here.
Carl stepped forward.
For a second, neither of them said anything. He looked Lucien up and down, clearly trying to reconcile the boy in front of him with the stories he'd heard. Then he just opened his arms and hugged him.
"Welcome home."
Lucien blinked. Something about the word caught him off guard. He hadn't expected this place to feel like anything other than a temporary refuge. But standing there, with Carl's arms around him and Duane grinning at his side, it did. Just a little.
He hugged Carl back. "Thanks."
When they separated, Carl shoved his hands in his pockets and looked away, a faint flush on his ears that said he was embarrassed by how openly he'd shown affection. Lucien pretended not to notice. He understood that particular brand of embarrassment well enough.
"There's someone else you know here too," Rick said from behind him.
Lucien turned. Rick was gesturing toward the lake on the far side of camp, where a tall, familiar figure was walking toward them.
He was moving before he consciously decided to, his feet carrying him across the dirt at a near-run. "Shane!"
Shane saw him coming. The tiredness that had been sitting heavy in his shoulders lifted. A smile broke across his face. He closed the last few yards in two strides and scooped Lucien up like he weighed nothing.
"Lucien." His hand came down on Lucien's hair, ruffling it hard enough to make the sheriff's hat slip sideways. "Rick told me everything. Are you out of your bloody mind?"
Lucien flinched slightly at the word. Shane had picked it up, echoing Lucien's own slip from an earlier conversation.
"First you go out alone at night to draw those things off by yourself," Shane continued, setting him down but keeping one hand on his shoulder. "Now you're riding horses into Atlanta? Do you have any idea how many walkers are in that city?"
"I do, actually," Lucien said. "That's rather the point."
Shane stared at him. Then he let out a breath. "Christ, kid."
Lucien looked up at him, and for a moment dropped the careful composure he wore like armor around most people in camp. Shane had saved his life. Shane was the reason he was alive at all, back on that first day in Atlanta, when the world had ended and a kid had been lying in the dirt with walkers closing in.
"It was terrifying," he admitted quietly. "I don't want to do anything like that again. But everyone's alive. That's what matters, isn't it?"
Shane squeezed Lucien's shoulder once.
"Yeah, we all made it. That's... yeah."
They stood there for a moment, the noise of camp settling around them like background music. Then Shane cleared his throat and dropped his hand.
"Come on. They're about to serve dinner and I'm starving."
---
The welcome gathering that evening was, by the standards of the quarry camp, a proper event.
The women had spent the afternoon washing and preparing everything they had been able to scavenge. There was fish from the lake, vegetables from a nearby garden that was somehow still producing despite the chaos, and squirrels. The fire pit had been stoked high. People pulled chairs and crates closer, and settled in with plates in their hands. Their postures were easy and unguarded, like people who were allowing themselves to relax, if only for one evening.
It felt like living again.
Lucien sat cross-legged on a blanket near the fire with Carl on one side and Duane on the other. He'd brought back a small stash of candy from the nursing home and was distributing them one by one.
Carl unwrapped a butterscotch and popped it in his mouth. "These are good. Where'd you get them?"
"Nursing home," Lucien said. "The residents had quite a collection. I think they'd been saving them for years."
Duane was already on his third piece. "Your life is weird," he said, not unkindly.
"You have no idea," Lucien murmured.
On the surface, he was smiling and playing along. He enjoyed the warmth of the fire, the company, and the simple human pleasure of sharing sweets with friends.
Inside, his stomach was in knots. He knew what was coming that night.
Tonight, a big horde would hit this camp.
People were going to die.
Amy was going to die.
His hand tightened around the candy wrapper in his fist. He forced the smile to stay on his face as Carl said something about the fish and Duane laughed.
He glanced across the fire to where Ed was sitting, slouched in a camp chair with a beer in his hand. Carol was nearby.
In the show, Shane had beaten Ed bloody that afternoon. It had been brutal and entirely unjustified, but it had served a purpose. Ed had retreated to his tent to nurse his injuries, skipped the party, and become the first person the walkers reached when they hit the camp. His scream had been the alarm.
But Shane hadn't done it.
Lucien wasn't sure why. Maybe something about the dynamic had shifted since Atlanta. Whatever the reason, Ed was sitting right there, drinking his beer.
Which meant that when the walkers came, Ed wouldn't be the first one to scream.
He needed to find another way to sound the alarm before it was too late.
He watched the party for another few minutes, waiting for the right moment. The atmosphere was at its peak. Dale was up on the RV, keeping watch in his usual spot, but his attention was relaxed. Nobody was on proper guard duty. Eventually, he stood up, muttered something about getting more food, and carried his untouched bowl over to where Shane was sitting apart from the main group.
Shane was drinking alone. He was not drinking heavily, just holding a single beer loosely in one hand. Still, the way he sat, slightly turned away from the crowd, made it clear he was not looking for company.
He looked up when Lucien approached.
"Hey." His eyes dropped to the bowl. "Not hungry?"
"Not really." Lucien sat down on the ground beside Shane's chair, setting the bowl in the dirt. He sat there for a few seconds, not saying anything.
"What's wrong?" Shane asked, straightening slightly. "You've been quiet all evening."
Lucien glanced toward the fire, where the party was still going strong. The laughter carried across the camp. He turned back to Shane.
"Is everyone really celebrating right now?"
"Yeah." Shane frowned. "Why? What's the problem?"
"Then..." Lucien glanced at the fire again, then back. "Doesn't that mean nobody's on patrol?"
He let that sit for a beat.
"What happens if walkers are drawn here by the light and the noise?"
A few of the adults nearby had been half-listening. They turned their heads at the question.
Dale, still perched on the RV with his soup, offered a reassuring smile. "Don't worry about it. I'll be up on watch once we've finished eating. And we're a good ways from the city out here, there won't be that many walkers around."
Lucien didn't relax. If anything, he looked worse. He stared at the ground, like he was fighting with himself about whether to say the next thing.
Rick noticed.
He'd been watching from across the fire, half-listening to a conversation with Morales, but his attention had snagged on Lucien the moment the kid had walked over to Shane. Rick knew that look. He'd seen it in Atlanta.
He set down his plate and moved closer.
"Did you notice something?"
Lucien looked up at him. Something in his expression shifted. He nodded once. Then he glanced around at the adults nearby, reading their faces, gauging how much they were willing to listen.
Several of them met his eyes and gave small nods.
He took a breath.
"I can't be certain. But I think... The walkers may already be very close to us."