(Temp hiatus) Observe (the walking dead)

Bickering

Ava grabbed the back of Carl's shirt, "stop it." She demands, the boy had been ignoring his father's pleas to stop walking so fast. Carl looks at her with an annoyed expression, but listens nonetheless.

"We need to stay together. We gotta find a place. Food, supplies," Rick says, stopping next to the girl and his son. "Hey. We're gonna be..." he trails off, seeing the look his son was giving him.

Ava and Roman would both be lying if they said Carl's bratty behavior wasn't beyond annoying. It reminded Ava of her petty arguments with her older brother, Cyrus, but they never came to this point. They always forgave each other, rather quickly at that.

Carl blamed his father for it all, which neither teen understood. Rick tried all that he could to get the governor to be peaceful, and it wasn't his fault that the governor wasn't willing to live in peace.

Carl keeps walking when he realizes Rick has nothing left to say. Rick follows, limping. Ava opts to wrap an arm around his waist, letting him lean into her for support. He quietly thanks her.

They approach an old bar/restaurant and Rick and Carl start bickering again about who would keep watch and who would clear it, making both teens scoff and enter without the Grimes boys. Ava swiftly nods, "clear," she calls out, letting Rick and Carl enter.

Rick walks in, making lots of noise as he tries to take out a rather large walker. Carl lifts his gun and Rick begins shouting at him to save bullets.

Ava, again, scoffs and swings her axe into the back base of the skull, opposite of where Rick's axe was jammed. The walkers weight drops, pulling both axes from its skull as it dies. "Someone's gotten rusty," she laughs lightly, trying to cheer Rick up from his rocky relationship with his son.

It works, Rick smiles lightly at her, though grimacing quickly after realizing how much pain it caused him to smile with his face injuries.

Ava cleared a few other rooms and waited for the three boys to catch up to her progress. She waited patiently on a bar stool, thinking to herself about the whole situation. Ava felt somewhat hypocritical, feeling like she had been doing the same to Roman as what he was doing to Rick.

Which was far from the truth. Ava was not being as hostile, not nearly. Despite her actually having a reason to, unlike Carl. It just wasn't in her nature.

Rick and Carl have a gatherer-off and she rolls her eyes at the petty ordeal, wanting so badly to wander off on her own. She knew Rick needed her, though. Carl sure as hell wasn't any help to his injured dad.

They get back on the road and Ava tunes out all the back and forth between the Grimes boys. She doesn't even realize when they stumble across a house. She decides to sit outside with Roman as Rick and Carl enter the house on their own. She figured it looked empty enough and that they could handle it. She also knew that they would argue during the clearing, which she didn't mind missing. It was getting annoying.

"What if.. what if we just tell Rick and Carl we're going to split off and look for more people? It beats being around their bickering," Roman suggests, sighing.

Ava thought about it for a moment. They would have a place to hole up now, wait a few days for Rick to recover a bit more. "We could.. stay in a house nearby instead? I don't want to leave them alone."

Roman thought about Ava's suggestion for a second before shrugging and nodding, hopping off the porch and strutting a few houses down. Ava watches which one he turns to and jogs back in, "Carl, Rick," she calls out. Both Grimes boys walk out to the living room, looking at her expectantly. "Roman and I are gonna stay in a house down the street. It's blue, you'll know it when you see it." She explains.

"Okay.. be safe, Ava. If you yell loud enough we can hear it." Rick pats her shoulder. She nods and smiles reassuringly at him before walking off, out of the house and down the street.

She wanders into the blue house and looks through each room, stopping when she sees Roman in the kitchen. She notes that he seems to be handling things better than he had before, and she wonders what has changed.

Ava leans against the doorframe and watches the boy loot the cabinets and cupboards for whatever he could find, which was a surprisingly hefty amount of canned goods. Roman turns around and jumps when he sees Ava, not knowing she was there, "Jesus Christ, Octavia. Warn me next time," he sighs, breathily laughing.

She smiles and shakes her head before turning around and walking into the living room, plopping down onto the dark green couch placed in the middle. Roman follows her lead, stretching his legs out and onto the coffee table. He places a can of corn in her lap, knowing that was the girls preferred canned food. She wasn't a fan of the weirdly sweet carrots or the dull and oily green beans.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, fidgeting with his hands, "I uh... I wasn't thinking."

Ava knew he was referring to her still aching ribs. She stood up, pulled her shirt up and held it with her mouth as she unraveled the wound up bandages around her abdomen. "I'm fine, see?" She says, noting that the bruising was gone. Which was weird, because she didn't think it would be, seeing as it was still painful.

He stares at her stomach for a moment, then grabs her and twists her around to look over her back. He knew that's what got hit the hardest. "Fuck," he says breathily, seeing purple and yellow bruising in the middle of her back, spreading to her sides.

She pulls away, shoving her shirt down. "It's not that bad, Roman."

"How could you say that? I hurt you. I hurt the one person still alive that gives a shit about me." He gets frustrated, but not at Ava. He's frustrated with himself.

"You didn't mean to."

"Yes, I did. You were pulling me and I didn't want to go so I hurt you." He shakes his head, rubbing his hands down his face.

"Well, you were grievin—"

"Stop making excuses for me! I did it, and in the moment I meant to."

Ava thinks about what to say next. She didn't necessarily blame him, but at the same time it was inexcusable. "What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to yell at me, tell me I'm a shitty friend. I want you to lay it on me about how bad I fucked up. It's what I deserve." He looks at Ava, eyebrows furrowed.

She bites the inside of her cheek and nods, crossing her arms over her chest. "Okay. You hurt me, a lot. Between you and Tyrese I could barely walk. Glenn wants you dead, and you're lucky Maggie doesn't know. I trusted you, a lot. And you ruined that for both of us. My ribs still hurt, Tyrese hurt my ankle and even that feels fine now. You hurt me more than a professional athlete did. And truth be told, I'm scared of you now."

Roman looks to the ground, taking it all in. He knew it would be bad, but he didn't expect her to say all that she did.

Ava grabs his face, forcing him to make eye contact with her through his tears. "But I love you, and you're my best friend. And that will never change."