North of Hershel's Farm.

Lin Feng dug a fire pit with a shovel and stacked a pile of firewood beside it.

Rick and Shane found it a little odd, but Lin Feng had called it a core leadership meeting, so neither pressed for more.

Marcus came over carrying a crate of alcohol, set it down, and leaned close. "Lori... won't agree."

Lin Feng let out a breath and nodded. "Okay. I hear you. Keep a close eye on things for now."

"I'll do what I can."

But Marcus didn't feel entirely confident. Obstetrics wasn't his specialty. He could manage it, just not with the kind of fine precision the situation deserved.

Daryl emerged from the tree line with two rabbits hanging from one hand, looking anything but pleased.

"What now?"

Daryl dropped the game. "Ran into two walkers. No idea where they came from." Crouching, Daryl started dressing the rabbits. Marcus drew the hunting knife from his belt and moved to help.

Rick and Shane arrived not long after, arms full, and set their things down. They spotted the fresh rabbit meat and both raised an eyebrow.

"Looks like we're eating well tonight?"

"Lin, is this what you guys call a private feast?"

Lin Feng looked at the two of them, grins spread across their faces, and felt the corner of his mouth twitch. An irrational thought surfaced: last meal before the execution.

He rubbed his face with one hand. A strange guilt settled in his chest.

What was this? Personally presiding over the end of a friendship?

Damn.

Rick was perceptive. The unease had been building quietly, and suppressed suspicion began crawling out from the back of his mind. Had something serious happened, something even Lin couldn't handle?

"Hey," Rick said, testing carefully. "If there's something you need, just say it. Don't carry it alone. I mean it — I'll do everything I can."

Shane stepped up beside Lin Feng and raised an eyebrow. "Some blind idiot come knocking again?"

Shane couldn't imagine any walker giving Lin Feng trouble. Had to be an outside threat.

Lin Feng looked up and exhaled. "Let's eat first. We can talk after."

Even Daryl — slow to read a room — felt it then. Something was coming.

Daryl finished dressing the rabbit in a few quick moves. The pink meat, still streaked with blood, got a rough rinse, a rub of salt, and went straight onto a stick over the coals.

The movements were blunt. Not gentle.

Rick glanced at Lin Feng, who sat calm and unreadable, then at Marcus, who was in no particular hurry. Rick couldn't work out what it was. But knew it wasn't good.

Something to do with the camp's medical situation?

Rick and Shane exchanged a look, then let it go. They sat down on either side of Lin Feng, cracked open a bottle, and passed it over, quietly bracing to offer whatever comfort they could.

Between men, after all, there was nothing a round of drinks couldn't fix. And if there was, you just had a few more rounds.

Lin Feng took the bottle. His expression flickered with surprise, then settled into something tired.

Marcus finished his prep and joined them, the meat sizzling over the coals. The gathering had a weight to it, low and stifling.

Nobody ate particularly well. But the bottles kept clinking.

Every time Rick opened his mouth to say something, some attempt at comfort, Lin Feng cut in at just the right moment and took a drink instead.

Three rounds in, Lin Feng looked at Rick. Then at Shane. Then he turned to Marcus and gave a small nod.

"Lin, there's something I need to tell you." Marcus kept his voice low. "Lori might be pregnant. We need to start thinking ahead."

Not loud. But in Rick and Shane's ears, it landed like a thunderclap out of a clear sky.

Both went still.

Rick pulled back first. Turning, and catching it. Just a flicker across Shane's face: panic, then a burst of something that looked almost like joy, clamped down fast.

Rick's heart seized. A sharp, contracting pain. Ears filled with a dull ringing, the firelight dimming at the edges of his vision.

Shane got the panic under control. Felt the relief trying to surface. Forced it down. But in the instant their eyes met, Shane saw that Rick already knew.

Rick opened his mouth. Nothing came out. His throat felt like something had closed around it and wouldn't let go.

Silence settled over the fire pit, heavy and strange. Only the slow sound of breathing.

"Understood," Lin Feng said. "You're the doctor on this. Handle it however you see fit."

His voice broke the quiet, but the conversation that followed was hollow. Lin Feng spoke. Rick and Shane answered, automatic, barely present.

Lin Feng didn't push it. The information was out. Now it just needed time to do its work.

The gathering wound down slowly, and then it was over.

Lin Feng looked up at the moon, shoveled dirt over the fire, and said, "Head back. Get some rest."

He left with Marcus and Daryl, giving the two brothers the space they needed to say what couldn't be said in front of others.

"Lin..." Daryl said, once they were far enough away. "They're going to fight."

"I know. But better they get it all out now than let it build into something that blows up later."

Daryl worked it out a beat too late. "Hold on, that baby... could it be Shane's?"

"...You'll find out soon enough."

And Lin Feng was right. After maybe thirty steps, Rick and Shane still hadn't followed. Instead, voices, sharp and rising.

Lin Feng stopped. Didn't go back. Just stood in the dark and watched.

He was waiting. Waiting for both of them to burn through the anger and say what needed to be said. Only after that would it be time to step in.

➤ Next: Should Let Go

Chapter 60 - Should Let Go

Two roars shattered the quiet night. Before anyone could make out what was happening, the two figures were already tangled together, trading blows.

Lin Feng let out a slow breath. "Daryl, go tell the others not to come this way. Have everyone turn in early. Marcus and I will handle it."

Daryl nodded and walked off without a word, though there was no hiding the faint disappointment at missing out on the show.

Shane's fist came down hard across Rick's face. "What gives you the right to make decisions for me?! That's my child! Mine!"

Rick stumbled back a few steps, stood frozen for one stunned second, then launched forward and hit back. Those blue eyes were shot through with red, voice dropping to a low, furious hiss. "You think I didn't know?! I just chose not to see it! Don't forget what I used to do for a living, Shane!"

His own spouse. His best friend. A baby between them.

The betrayal was a needle, driving itself into his chest over and over again.

It hurt. God, it hurt.

And yet when Rick had first found out, he'd stayed calm. Hadn't blown up on the spot. Hadn't said a word.

Because he also knew the truth of it. He'd spent a month flat on his back in that hospital. For that entire month, it was Shane who'd kept Lori and Carl alive through the end of the world.

He could understand it. He could even accept it. He was genuinely grateful to Shane for getting them through.

But that was not a reason for Shane to keep reaching for what wasn't Shane's to have.

Shane spat out a mouthful of bloody foam, ran a tongue across the teeth to check for loose ones, then fixed Rick with a hard, vicious stare.

"So? You going to arrest me right here? Read me my sentence? Use this as an excuse to exile me?" A crazed grin spread across Shane's face. "Or just kill me outright?"

Rick's eyes looked like they'd been stabbed. The expression that followed was pure agony.

Because the Shane standing there now was no different from the criminals Rick had personally put in cuffs over the years. Same madness. Same volatility. Same need to tear everything to the ground.

Rick's reason was crumbling. Whatever remained of the rational mind was shattered. There was nothing left but helplessness.

Seeing it, Shane's surging rage slowly went quiet. When the words came out, they came out with a choke behind them. "I didn't want this either. It's you. Back then your heart wasn't even beating anymore, and yet somehow you didn't die. You came back."

"You walked back into this camp like nothing happened, took back your authority like it was yours by default, took away the people I'd come to care about, and now you want to take my child too!"

"Who do you think you are? God? What gives you the right?!"

Lin Feng stepped up to the two of them, their anger cooling at last, and said the cruelest thing there was to say.

"The fact that they are legally wedded spouses. Two people who once made a vow to spend their lives together."

The words landed heavy. They landed sharp. But Lin Feng had to say them. Had to drive them deep enough into Shane to cut away that twisted logic at the root.

Shane turned, crimson eyes finding Lin Feng, and had barely opened a mouth to respond before Lin Feng cut it off.

"Why do you think I pulled the two of you out here alone and kept everyone else away? Think about Lori. Think about Carl, Shane. Are you really so selfish you'd let them spend the rest of their lives under other people's stares, never able to hold their heads up?"

The words hit like ice water poured over a volcano seconds from blowing.

Held back. Cooled. Extinguished, one degree at a time.

"But... that's my... my child..."

"You can still be the godparent, can't you? The child, and Carl, can still call you father. If Rick agrees."

Lin Feng glanced over. Rick gave a slow nod.

"I completely agree. Shane, I'm grateful to you. Truly." Rick's voice came out rough, worn down to something honest. "If it hadn't been for you, I can't imagine how Lori would have kept Carl alive out here. I don't know how either of them would have made it to the day they found me again."

"And I'll say it plainly — without you, things would have been far worse. I wouldn't have known where to look. I might never have brought them back."

"That's why I saw it and said nothing. I looked the other way, because I knew the choice you'd been put in."

"But Lori is my spouse. That child is mine to raise. It has to be."

"For Lori. For Carl. And for your own sake — let it go. Please, Shane."

Shane knew what that was. That was as far as Rick could go.

The legs gave. Shane dropped straight down onto the ground and sat there with lowered head, voice muffled and dull. "I need to sit with this alone. Give me some time. Okay..."

Lin Feng and Rick exchanged a look. Rick understood, and walked away with heavy steps.

Lin Feng sat down beside Shane, cracked open a bottle of whiskey with practiced ease, and pushed it into Shane's hand. Then he opened one for himself.

"Shane." He kept his voice even. "My guess is you want to disappear. Lick your wounds. Wander this damned world alone until you grow old in some ditch or die on the side of a road somewhere. But that's not how it should go."

"You and I both see this apocalypse for what it really is, clearer than any of them do. You have talent none of them can match. You have the will to do whatever it takes to protect what you care about." He looked over. "You don't deserve that kind of ending."

Shane's head came up, slowly. Those grief-wrecked eyes settled on Lin Feng. Something shifted inside them. Something that hadn't been there before.

Lin Feng raised his bottle. Shane's tapped against it. Without a word, both of them tipped back and drank.

Glug, glug, glug.

Lin Feng lowered the bottle and went on.

"I told all of you before — I want to build a world where walkers aren't a threat anymore. A place where the old are cared for, the strong have purpose, the young are raised right, and people can just live. Together. In peace."

"I don't know if it's possible. But if it happens, it will be a utopia built on the far side of this apocalyptic hell."

"That's the one ideal I have in whatever time I've got left. I want to chase it. I want to find out what my life is worth. Whether I fall somewhere along the way or actually see it through, either way it'll matter. It'll be remembered."

He held out a hand, wearing that easy, slightly ridiculous grin.

"So. You coming, Shane?"

Shane looked at that outstretched hand. Looked at that stupid grin. Then let out a laugh, an ugly, broken thing that had no business being a laugh at all.

Shane had seen people comfort a broken heart before. Had seen people deliver a rousing speech before. But nobody had ever tried to do both at the same time.

Bizarre. Absolute nonsense motivation wrapped in a drinking buddy's pitch.

SMACK!

Shane's hand came down and met his.

"If you get yourself killed, I'm not following you down."

Lin Feng smiled wider, something genuine and clean behind it. The bottles came together one more time, and they drank.

➤ Next: Luckily This Guy Folded Under Pressure