ꜰᴏᴏʟ'ꜱ ᴍᴀᴛᴇ || ᴛᴡᴅ

087: ᴅᴀɴɴʏ, ʀᴀᴄʜᴇʟ ᴀɴᴅ ᴄᴀʀʟ

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The day was going really well.

Rachel and Danny were at Oceanside. Neither had been there very much. 

It was right by the ocean, mostly only girls, though there were a few young boys there, now, too. 

Danny stood on the beach, feet in the water, as it washed up, and he thought it was a good idea to wear shorts. He would probably drown himself with the feel of wet jeans. 

He wondered if Sami felt happy, when he was 19 and would go to the beach. but then he remembered 19 year old Sami probably wouldn't have been able to walk. 

So then, he wondered if 19 year old Sami was sad about it. Did he still go to the beach, just with crutches? Or were his legs so bad that he had to be in a wheelchair, unable to get down into the sand. He wondered if the beach made him feel better. It made Danny feel better. 

He looked at the waves, taking a deep breath, relishing the smell of the ocean, as he looked at the waves roll back and forward. No matter what interrupted it - Danny's feet or the driftwood, the water would still go out and in. Out and in. Out an in. 

It was comforting. To think that the water flowed no matter what happened. 

Danny just wished Sami was there. He wanted to hear his stories of the beaches where he grew up. Did they look different, in different countries? Was it always sand, right up to the water, or was there sometimes grass? Rocks? Soil?

He felt so small, looking out at the endless blue. But it comforted him. He was small. It's okay. He didn't need to know everything or change anything. He was only small. 

But, of course, he had to go out with Michonne. The children had found one of the walker masks, and as, once again, one of Hilltop's main leaders, he was sent out with Yumiko to look for signs.

Rachel was different. She didn't like the ocean.

She used to adore it, playing in the waves, away from her brother and sisters. She remembered an old video her Father liked - one of him out far, swimming in the deep blue water on a holiday to Australia. Her brother, throwing sand at his two little sisters, and further away, away from them all, little red-haired Rachel, just looking at the horizon, sitting in the water as it washed upon her.

Rachel often wondered what she saw there. A fish? Dolphin? An escape? Beauty? Danger? 

She wished she could find out. Go back in time, look at herself, as her questions. 

She sat in the sand now, far away from where Danny had been standing alone, knees pulled up to her chest. The wind was cool by the water.  She has been doing drills all morning, and was tired. The groups had come together for training, so they all knew each others weaknesses, how to harness them, protect them. 

Kelly, Connie's little sister, had thought pushing Rachel in the ocean was funny, meaning her clothes were soaked. Rachel pretended it was funny to Kelly, but it really, really made her feel low. She wasn't sure why. It was just the ocean.

Now, she'd stolen Danny's shades and sat on the beach in a shirt and pants too big for her, hair matted and drying curly, and her buckled red boots, which she couldn't bring herself to take off. She'd decided that Kelly's punishment would be not getting help pulling in the nets with the others.

Apollo sat beside her, looking at the waves. He was just sitting there, too. Just watching. Sami had sent him with them. With Sami being a dad now he couldn't spend a lot of time outside the walls without freaking himself out about back home. His baby was only three months old, so it was understandable.