THE REASON

chapter twelve ; what happened
[ season five - episode nine ]

   SEVENTEEN DAYS PASSED like a flash. Seventeen days since the loss of one of the youngest members of the group — Beth Greene. The boy some of them didn't recognize introduced himself to them.

His name was Noah, and while he was in the Memorial with the Greene girl, he had gotten close to her and she trusted him. Before she had died, she had told Noah that once they were to escape the place, they could go to Richmond, Virginia.

Noah explained to the group Beth's plan, and in honor of the girl, they all agreed to it. Their plan was to go back to Noah's old community where he used to live with his family — saying it still had walls and was heavily protected.

Over the majority of the days, Kloe figured out how easy it was to form a friendship with Noah. He was caring, helpful, extremely kind and courteous. She understood how Beth managed to trust him so quickly.

Currently, a few members of the group containing Rick, Michonne, Kloe, Glenn, Tyreese, and Noah all sit inside a van — only so many miles away from Noah's old community.

Tyreese was the one driving, Noah in the passenger seat beside him. Michonne and Rick were set behind them, and behind them were Glenn and Kloe.

The Rhee woman continuously flickered her eyes down to the side where Glenn held onto a CD, and he stared at it for a period of time. While he fidgeted with the object, she remained with her fingernails and her bottom lip.

She chewed on her lip, and she fidgeted with her fingernails that desperately needed trimming.

Rick turned his view over to the only teen in the car. "How far out?" he questioned, making the boy briefly glance across him over his shoulder.

Noah then peered over around their surroundings, squinting his eyes as he attempted to recognize the area. "Five miles," he answered.

The Grimes man grasped onto his walkie that lay in his lap. "Hey, Carol," he spoke into the device.

It only took a second for the woman to reply, her voice static. "I'm here."

"We're halfway there. Just wanted to check the range," he clarified, releasing the button when he was finished.

"Everybody's holding tight. We've made it five-hundred miles. Maybe this can be the easy part."

"Got to think we're due," he countered. "Give us twenty minutes to check in."

"We don't hear from you, we'll come looking."

"Copy that," Rick stated as a way to end the small check in with Carol Peletier. Now the car was now filled with silence once again.

Kloe gazed out the window, her head resting against the cool, frigid glass. The sun was behind the clouds that day, and Kloe couldn't help but beg for it to rain. The group were running low on water and there were no creeks nearby.

They were thirsty and had to seriously ration how much they drank per day. Food wasn't a massive deal, considering you could go three months without it — unless you didn't have water. If you had neither food or water, you'd only survive three days.

A reflective light shined into Kloe's eye, making her look back down to Glenn's hands. She watched the holographic surface of rainbows move as he shifted the disc around.

Noah, at the front of the van, turned his head to the side and faced Tyreese. "I've been wanting to tell you something," he said. Kloe sealed her eyes, returning to resting her head back onto the window, watching every tree that they passed.

"What's that?" Tyreese wondered.

"The trade," he replied. The raven haired woman's heart sank agonizingly slowly into her stomach as she remembered everything the group had told her with how the girl died. "It was the right play. It worked. It did work. Just something else happened after."

"It went the way it had to. The way it was always going to go," Tyreese told the teen, his eyes glued to the road as he battled the memory of the light blonde haired girl getting shot in the head.

"I never wanted to kill anybody before," Noah murmured. Now he caught Kloe's attention, her eyes blaring into the back of the teen's head. Neither did she.

"I've wanted that," Tyreese stated. "But it just made it so I didn't see anything except what I wanted. I wasn't facing it."

"Facing what?"

"What happened, what's going on. My dad always told Sasha and me that it was our duty as citizens of the world to keep up with the news. When I was little and I was in his car, there were always those stories on the radio. Something happens a thousand miles away or down the block. Some kind of horror I couldn't even wrap my head around. But he didn't change the channel. He didn't turn it off. He just kept listening. To face it. Keeping your eyes open. My dad always called that paying the high cost of living."

"I lost my dad in Atlanta. I think he would have liked yours," Noah nodded, a small smile plastering his lips as he gathered up all the memories. "Still got a mom and a couple of twin brothers... I hope."

"I hope so, too."

Noah, once again, gaped out the windows and examined their surroundings. He then peered over his shoulder and faced the four others in the back. "Two more miles," he announced.

Rick nodded, "alright." He leaned forward and patted Tyreese's arm. "Let's pull into the woods. We'll go on foot. Stay off the road."

Noah frowned for a moment. "We don't need to."

"Just in case."

Kloe's eyes lingered over the disc in her husband's hand. He began to bend it, the holographic illumination beginning to distort. Within a matter of seconds, the disc broke in half with a snap.

She watched as a few shards fell down to the ground, and she gazed over at him for a moment. The first thing she noticed was the solemn look on his expression.

She couldn't see if he was zoned out like he was, but she couldn't blame him. After everything that had happened, everything they had all gone through... it was hard.

She watched as Tyreese pulled off into the woods, parking in between trees. Glenn finally dropped the disc fully onto the floor and was brought back to reality.

The moment the vehicle's engine switched off, Glenn hauled over the back seats. He pushed open the back door, being met with a cool breeze of air. He hopped down, his shoes being partially covered with the excessive amount of dead leaves on the ground.

He held the door open for his wife, to which she copied his actions and jumped out, making sure to grasp onto her familiar bow that rested against the side.

The small group of six all joined together, examining the area. "This is good," Rick affirmed. "Through the trees, it might just look like part of the wreck."

A thump from one of the windows from the inside of an abandoned car caught their attention, a lone walker trying its hardest to reach out to the living. They all stared at the thing that used to be like them for a short while.

From beside Glenn and Kloe, Noah raised his thumb over his shoulder. "It's this way," he directed.

The five followed the teen, the limp still in his leg. He limped his way through the trees. They all wondered about Noah's limp, but no one asked. It was none of their business.

They walked through the forest for around fifteen minutes before they finally found something. No one spoke, but fortunately it was a comfortable silence. There were bugs flying around, buzzing to fill in that silence to make it even more comfortable than it already was.

Coming across some barbed wire, Michonne sped up her pace and looked across at Noah. "Your people do this?" she inquired.

"Wanted to. They must have."

The wire was wrapped around tree to tree, and when they looked, it seemed it could go on for miles. It reminded Kloe of when she was a young teen with her brother, trespassing onto one of the fields that were near her childhood home.

As they all inched toward it, everyone crouched down to squeeze their way through it. They attempted not to cut themselves on the sharp parts of the barbed wire, but Noah stood up too quickly and sliced some of his skin on his forehead off.

He winced, pressing his index and middle finger against his new wound. Rick stepped over to him. "You alright?" he wondered.

"Yeah," he shrugged it off as if it was nothing, continuing to lead the group to his home.

They walked for another few minutes until they spotted the walls of Noah's town through the trees. Glenn and Kloe were the most admired by the way the walls looked.

The two of them stepped ahead of everyone, examining the texture of the walls and the durability. They were exceedingly thick and not a single scratch was to be made out.

From behind, Rick set his hand on the teen's shoulder. Noah turned around to face him. "They have spotters? Snipers?" Rick asked cautiously.

"We...built a perch on a truck," he shrugged, his brows furrowing. "Sometimes it's out front."

The Rhees both shared a glance with one another when they spotted the sign of the town simultaneously. It wasn't a town. It was an estate. Shirewilt Estates to be exact.

Glenn peered over his own shoulder to the others. "Not today."

With that, they all pushed forward. Everyone held onto their weapons as they walked through the long grass and onto the road.

While approaching the estate, Kloe seemed to be the only one to notice the deceased rabbit in the road that seemed to have been eaten on by crows. Tyreese noticed the random grandfather clock, furrowing his brows confusedly.

The gate bashed and clanged when Noah grasped onto it, shaking it in an attempt to get it open. He pushed his ear against the metal, his brows connecting upon hearing some distant bangs.

Kloe's head snapped over to the direction it came from, swallowing thickly as Noah turned around to face them. "You hear that?" he asked.

She subconsciously nodded. Glenn quietly sighed, shoving his revolver into his sheath that was wrapped around his shoulder. "Just wait," he muttered, stepping over to the wall beside the gate.

He hauled himself up, grasping onto the top of the wall as he slowly peered over it. Noah stared up at him hopefully, praying that Glenn had managed to spot some of Noah's people in the distance or something.

Kloe watched Glenn's shoulder slump, causing her to glance down at the ground with a hundred percent less hope than Noah had. The Korean slowly looked down at them, shaking his head.

Noah stepped back, walking over to the other wall to see for himself. He grunted as he pulled himself up, except he jumped over it, landing on all fours on the other side.

He panted with panic as the others all did what he did — jump over the wall.

A large wave of sympathy hit the group as they watched Noah limp forward with speed. On the side of the road was a house that had burnt down — a few decomposed corpses in front of it.

"Noah, hold up," Rick said to him, noticing how his speed was picking up. The teen then began to sprint, making everyone behind him copy his actions. "Noah!"

When they reached the center of the estate, Kloe's eyes were immediately glued to the dead bodies on the ground and a lone walker dragging its feet over to them.

Sobs instantaneously escaped Noah's lips, his face contorting into nothing but sadness, grief, and shock. It wasn't long before he crashed down onto the concrete.

Kloe's heart clenched, watching the boy with pity. She looked around once more, something catching her eye.

WOLVES NOT FAR

"What the hell...?" Kloe muttered, loud enough for her husband beside her to hear. He noticed the graffitied writing in white, and sighed sadly. She then caught onto the scene before her. All the bodies, the burnt houses, the abandonment. "They were murdered. Look," she pointed to a body near her, "stab wounds."

Tyreese stepped over to Noah from behind, setting his hands on his shoulders. "Come on. It's alright," he stated comfortingly in a soft tone. "You're gonna be with us now."

The Rhee woman couldn't help but continuously look over at the lone walker on its way over to them. Everyone else copied her actions and glanced over at it.

"I've got it," she told them, grasping onto an arrow from her quiver and placing it in the arrow rest. She pulled the string back and within a matter of a second, the walker had an arrow through its skull and fell down to the ground.

Rick kneeled down beside the grieving teenager. "I'm sorry, Noah. I truly am." They were all sorry for him — the poor boy just lost his whole family. "We should see if there's anything we can use then head back."

"Then what?" Michonne asked coldly. Rick stood back up, having nothing for an answer. As she faced back to the walker that had an arrow sticking out of its head from where Kloe had taken it down, she spotted more. "They see us."

Kloe pursed her lips, grabbing onto more arrows and taking down more while Michonne did the same with her samurai sword.

"We can make a quick sweep," Glenn determined, looking across at the other three. In unison, RIck and Kloe turned to Tyreese.

"I'll stay with him," he assured, making them all look down to the teenager once more. He was swaying back and forth with his knees brought up to his chest, sobbing quietly into his arms.

...

Glenn and Kloe had scavenged one house, but everything was gone. Just dirt and ripped clothes that were useless. Everything else was burnt. How could someone do this? It baffled Kloe.

After that house, they decided to join Rick and Michonne to loot out another house. No one spoke, and Kloe liked it that way. She was lost in her thoughts, unsure if she was overstimulating or not.

Michonne stamped her foot down onto a display frame on the ground, shattering the protective glass. The others all looked over, to which she shrugged.

"Clean shirt," she clarified, kneeling down and pinching onto the white T-shirt. She shook it, the shards of glass falling.

"We'll figure it out," he had to reassure her, considering anyone in the world that was left could tell what was going through Michonne's mind. Kloe couldn't lie to herself, but she was highly doubtful with figuring it out.

"We will," she agreed firmly, avoiding eye contact with the man as she turned around. She faced the garage, eyeing the bags amidst the mess. "There's some garbage bags in the garage."

She walked away, the others watching her. Kloe's eyes settled on a few deserted suitcases in the yard beside the one they were in. She pointed over to them, "I'm gonna go rummage through those," she informed before slowly stepping over to them.

The moment she passed the fence — where Rick and Glenn could no longer see her — she heard him begin to speak to her husband. "You didn't think it would still be here?" he asked him.

Kloe tried her best not to eavesdrop, but she couldn't help it — especially with her unnatural hearing. She sucked in a deep breath and knelt down, unzipping one of the cases.

"Did you?" Glenn returned, raising his brows skeptically at the Grimes man.

There was a long silence, a silence that lasted around five seconds at most. Five seconds didn't sound like a long time, but when you were in the apocalypse, it felt longer than ever.

Once she got the suitcase full unzipped, she pulled out numerous spotless clothes — all that were for children. Useless to them. Their group contained mainly adults and three children; two of them being teenagers and one being an infant.

"After it happened," Rick began, causing Kloe to stop what she was doing, "right after with Beth in the hospital, I saw that woman Dawn. She didn't mean to do it. I knew it. I saw it. But I wanted to kill her. I remember I just wondered if it even mattered one way or another. Didn't have a thing to do with Beth."

Kloe squinted her eyes, slowly turning her head to the side of the fencing. She managed to make out the two figures through a small gap. Glenn leant on the side of the car, folding his arms over his chest.

"I don't know if I thought it would still be here," admitted Rick. "But Beth wanted to get him here. She wanted to get him back home. This was for her. And it could have been for us, too."

Kloe knew she wasn't the only one listening in — she knew Michonne was too. The Rhee woman felt no more need to look through the suitcases, considering they were all filled with children's clothes.

But she decided to stay out of the small conversation between the two men. She continued to pretend she found useful items in the cases.

"I was thinking about that guy in the storage container," Glenn spoke up, catching Kloe's attention. "Back at Terminus. How I made us stop." The man paused for a while, his eyes gluing to the fence that his wife was behind. "After the prison, on my trip with Brianna, we found Maggie, Sasha... Bob. Things went okay for Maggie. Her hopes were high... but then losing Washington, losing Beth right after finding out she was alive..."

He crouched down, wrapping his hands around the wooden baseball bat that was in its case on the ground in front of him. He stood back up, Rick watching him carefully.

Glenn's eyes flickered to the fence one last time, before he quietened down. But Kloe could still hear him. "I hadn't caught up with you yet. I know the others had. I know— I know Klo had. Especially after losing Vickie. I felt like I was one of the very few that hadn't. But... if it were now, I wouldn't make us stop. We'd run right by. And I would have shot that woman dead. Right or wrong. Anyone that interferes with us, we can't show fear. I've learnt that now."

Something in Kloe fell.

"We need to stop," Michonne chimed in, a garbage bag in hand. She stared at the two men as if she had no idea who they were — as if they were strangers. "You can be out here too long."

Kloe stood up, stepping back over to the others. She emerged from the fence, the others hearing her footsteps and casted a glance over at her. "Full of kids' clothes," she sighed, trying to push back the conversation between the men into the back of her mind.

...

The four split up momentarily, each going into garages with garbage bags. They all searched for the same supplies: clothes, bandages, foods to snack on. Yet, compared to what they all expected to find, it wasn't that great.

Kloe never stopped thinking about what Glenn had said — she would've never expected him to say something like that. The way he told Rick he would've killed Dawn himself.

Sometimes, she thought about how her self from Atlanta would react to her present self. She knew she would be terrified. She knew the others would have been surprised.

She held the polyethylene material trash bag over her shoulder, trudging down the street where she spotted the others. She quickened her pace and walked over to them, the bag rustling behind her.

Kloe listened as her black leather boots crushed some of the dead leaves on the concrete ground. The others had full trash bags of supplies, and sooner more than later, they could head back to the others.

However, Michonne had other plans. She raised her thumb and pointed over her shoulder once the others approached her, "we could put some of the garage doors together against the break. Park the car against them until we can brick it back up."

Rick exhaled deeply through his mouth, the skepticalness frosted in his ocean blue eyes. Hesitant by the idea, he gazed around their surroundings.

"It can work," she persisted. Kloe could see the hope Michonne had in the estate — she didn't want it to go to waste. Kloe didn't either, but the place was a ghost town and were all murdered by... Wolves. Whatever they were.

"This place is surrounded by a forest. There's no sight lines," Rick declined, not thinking it was a good idea or that it could work. Michonne sighed exasperatedly. "Whoever, whatever would be on top of us without us even knowing it. That's probably what happened."

The four all walked down the street, side by side. Glenn stared down at the ground, "that's what happened to us." Usually Kloe had something to say, to give her own opinion. But this time, it was like her brain had no words for her to give.

Michonne stepped in front and faced them. "We could start taking down the trees," she suggested, pressing on with the topic. She truly wanted the place up and running. She didn't want to keep on running on the road. "We use them to build the walls up."

Rick casted his eyes down to the ground, dropping his hand holding the garbage bag down his side. Glenn looked over to the side of him, watching his silent wife. She remained silent, being the only one that continued to look at the desperate woman.

"Look," Michonne stepped off to the side, pointing over to the fallen fence in the distance. She began to walk off over to it.

Before Rick and Glenn — the ones doubtful about the whole thing — Kloe pushed forward, following Michonne. The men peered at the raven haired woman, puzzled on why she hadn't said anything about Michonne's idea yet.

They shared a glance with one another before following the women, despite the fact they disagreed with Michonne.

The four all walk to the demolished fence, having to step over the rubble and debris. Michonne had come to a stop after gluing her dark eyes down at whatever lay beyond the broken wall, which baffled Kloe.

Her random stop became evidently clear the moment the putrid smell of decay filled her nostrils. Kloe had to hold herself back from gagging, slapping her hand over her nose.

"Oh God," she muttered as the other two joined them. Her stomach twisted, and she had to battle down the bile rising in her throat. Her eyes had broadened upon spotting all the corpses ripped apart from their limbs.

All of their body parts were pulled apart, the blood and guts splattered all over the grass.

Kloe subconsciously stepped back, sealing her eyes shut to restrain her from vomiting. Once she reopened her glossed eyes, she noticed Rick and Michonne had slowly stepped over to the fencing.

"It doesn't matter," Glenn muttered solemnly, his eyes not leaving the body parts on the ground.

"What?" Rick inquired, his eyes stuck on the fence.

Kloe found herself subsiding her stomach churns and dropped her hand down to her side, eyeing Glenn with a frown.

"You said you wondered if it even mattered if you killed her or not," he clarified. Kloe's head whipped over to Michonne, and she could tell that she had the purest look of disgust and disappointment her group had become. "It doesn't matter if you had done it or not, or if I had, or that Daryl did. It doesn't matter."

Everything matters, is what Kloe wanted to say in return, but she proceeded to stay completely silent.

"Washington," Michonne singley stated, turning to face the other three. "Eugene lied about a cure, but he thought of Washington for a reason."

"Except he was lying," Kloe finally spoke, sighing heavily as she remembered what had happened seventeen days before.

"About the cure, but he did the math and realized that Washington was the place where there'd be a chance," she argued. The last time Kloe had ever had hope about a place with a chance was the CDC — a year and a half ago. "We're close. What if there are people there? Huh? What if it's someplace that we can be safe? We're a hundred miles away. It's a possibility. It's a chance. Instead of just being out here. Instead of just making it. Because right now, this is what making it looks like. Don't you want one more day with a chance?"

Quiet snarls became loud, their attention being drawn over to the walkers coming from the forest.

"We should go," Rick told them, watching the walkers inch closer.

Rick and Kloe noticed Glenn turning his back to them and began walking away. They didn't have to be a genius to see that he had no hope for anything. Kloe would be lying if she said she had any hope left.

Everywhere they went, someone died. Everywhere they went, they ended up leaving. Atlanta camp, they lost more than half of their people. The CDC, they lost Jacqui. The farm, they lost Sophia, Dale. The prison, they lost Lori, T-Dog, Hershel, the people who died from the flu. What next?

"It's a hundred miles away," Rick said, causing Glenn and Michonne to turn to face him and for Kloe to tilt her head. "We should go to Washington."

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words: 4312
30th june 2023
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sigh... next chapt is not gonna be a nice one. this chapter is named 'what happened' and the next chapter is gonna be 'and what's going on' in honour of tyreese ml. :'(