THE REASON

chapter twenty-four ; poignancy and grief
[ season five – episode fifteen ]

   NO WORDS. NONE at all.

Why did things like that always happen? When things started to go good again, something bad always came after it. Why? Kloe didn't know the answer to that. What had they done wrong to deserve the things thrown at them. And every time, it felt like a ton of bricks. No... worse than that. It was as if a wave consumed them.

For Kloe, that wave filled with nothing but darkness washed up onto her the moment she took that large step out of it. She had just gotten better. Now she was bad again. Wasn't Alexandria supposed to keep them safe? Yes. It was the people inside of it that made it unsafe.

By the time Kloe had been to the infirmary and got patched up, earning stitches on the side of her head along with a temporary cast on her hand, it had reached late evening.

The majority of the community had gone to sleep for the night. Kloe, on the other hand, sat in the very house that none of them used. She was sitting upright on the couch, her legs crossed with her hands in her lap. She pinned her hair back, the ends of her brunet hair brushing against the top of her back. Glenn had given her one of his shirts, being incredibly way too big for her, but she didn't care.

She stared off into space, hearing nothing but the faint muffles of Glenn telling Rick of what happened on the run in the dim light from a lantern hanging from the porch roof. The warm, cozy light provided Kloe some light through the drapes, lines of orange printing on her face. Her eyes were dry, and they stung. She didn't care.

The ringing in her ears made her physically want to punch herself in the head to knock herself out. She wanted out. She wanted nothing more than to fall asleep for a month or so. She couldn't deal with the pain for much longer.

Noah.

Why Noah?

He was the boy that everyone admired, especially her and Glenn. He didn't have a bad bone with anyone in the group and never had anything bad to say. He was just a kid. He often reminded her of the innocence the girl she once knew back in Atlanta camp. Sophia.

Her heart ached.

She hadn't even processed the thought that Noah was truly gone. She had only known him for barely over a month, but she felt as if she'd known him forever. He was like a younger brother to both her and her husband. Her mind lapped over the moment when they spoke about the Fast & Furious franchise earlier that day in the van. Her dry eyes soon filled up with salty water.

Her bottom lip trembled as her body threatened her to let it all out. She grasped onto a small cushion beside her and brought it close to her. She lightly fell down sideways onto the couch, the sore side of her face brushing against the material of the couch, a few strands of her hair breaking free from the pin and covered parts of her face.

A tear fell out of her eye, traveling across her nose and onto her other cheek from where she was sideways. The one tear resulted in Kloe creasing up her entire face, her eyes squinting shut as multiple tears fell out at a time. She raised the cushion to her mouth to make her sobs quiet. Except, no noise exited her. The sadness was so much that she was crying silently, low on breath from the pain.

It only took ten minutes for her cries to finally come to an end as she forced herself to go outside. She knew Rick was trying to get Glenn to tell him what happened, and she knew Glenn was going along with that. But she wasn't going out there to just be a part of the conversation — she needed fresh air before she ran out of it.

The door creaked open, the two men on the porch snapping their heads over to it. She had wiped away the tears from her cheeks, yet they could still tell she had been doing nothing but crying from just looking at her red, puffy eyes.

"Hey," her voice shook, stepping closer to the pair before she rested her back against the wall, slowly sliding down it till she hit the ground. The cool March air brushed against her skin, the small hairs raising and gifting her goosebumps.

"You okay?" Glenn asked her, his back pressed against one of the pillars holding up the roof of the porch, his knees raised with his arms wrapped around them. Rick was crouched down in front of him in his uniform.

"Mm-hmm," she hummed unconvincingly, her eyes unfocusing as she stared straight ahead. "Just... processing some things," she sniffed, swiftly wiping away another tear that sneaked its way out of her socket. She knew for a fact that no matter how many times she said she was okay, both Glenn and Rick could see right through her. "Um," she blinked back into focus and shared a glance with the pair, "are we staying?"

Rick nodded. "We have to."

"We do?"

"They need us," he affirmed. Kloe nodded with acknowledgement. "They won't last very long without us. This place is our chance, we can't leave it behind like a forgotten memory. I want— I want Carl and Judith to grow up here. To be kids. If it means we have to give these people a lesson on how to survive properly out there, then we'll do just that."

She absentmindedly bopped her head as he spoke, understanding him completely. "We can't have people like that on our supply runs," she stated, hardly above a whisper as she looked off into the air again. She was referring to Nicholas— about what he did to Noah. "Eugene, he says he's a coward. He's not. He's just scared and unaware of the bravery he has. It was a pretty brave move, lying to people like us. Nicholas, though—" she paused, a lump forming in her throat restraining her from speaking, "he's the coward."

...

A knock sounded from the outside of the door to the bedroom. Already? Kloe slowly lifted her eyes to the small alarm clock on the nightstand beside her bed she and Glenn shared, it read 6:23 a.m. The early morning sine beamed through the drapes, offering her light. She was on her side, staring at the wall.

Kloe went inside after thirty minutes of sitting on the porch and went up to bed. By that time, the time read 9:37 p.m. Kloe stayed wide awake, not being able to sleep unless she was in her husband's arms. He spent another two hours on the porch, grieving the loss of one of the youngest members of the group due to someone so cowardly. He came into bed at 11:43 p.m, the pure look of exhaustion on his face.

The pair spoke and comforted one another until the time reached 2:14 a.m. She knew Glenn hadn't slept well, given the fact he got ready to go on a walk for some fresh air and to clear his mind at 5:51 a.m. Kloe liked to keep track of time these days, never truly knowing how much longer any of them had left.

"The door's open," Kloe mumbled, loud enough for whoever was at the door to hear. The door handle was pushed down as it squeaked open, footsteps entering the room. "I'm not lazy, just... relaxing."

"I'm aware," the feminine voice belonging to Rosita Espinosa sounded, relieving Kloe's nerves somewhat. Kloe didn't budge. She didn't plan on moving — not yet. Rosita sat herself on the end of the bed, the mattress sinking in from her weight. "You should eat something. You never came to dinner last night."

"I'm aware," Kloe copied Rosita's words, her body subconsciously moving from its position. She sat herself upright, resting her back against the headboard as her fatigued eyes landed on Rosita. She had her dark hair tied back in a ponytail, a tint of her own tiredness presenting in her face after sitting with an unconscious Tara for most of the night. Underneath a black, fabric cardigan was the same black tank top she always wore — yet it was clean. "I'll eat something later."

Rosita without a doubt sighed, tilting her head to the side as she watched Kloe with sympathy. "Are you sure? I could always get you something like apple slices or something? Zayn harvested some apples from the trees down the road. We have three baskets full." Kloe's mouth watered at the thought of apples. When she was younger, her all-time favorite snack was apple slices. It was as if Rosita could see right through her.

"How on earth did you know I liked apple slices?" Kloe wondered, furrowing her brows with a small smile on her face. The same smile sprouted across Rosita's face as she caught the slight tint of happiness radiating off Kloe. "I'll have some later."

"You sure? They're really, really good," Rosita teased, knowing for a fact that Kloe was possibly dying for those apple slices. "You can't fool me, Klo. I know how desperately you want those juicy, sweet, delicious apple slices." Rosita mimicked biting into an apple, a delighted look on her face when she noticed Kloe's smile brighten. "If you don't have them, you're missing out."

Kloe finally rolled her eyes and gave in. "Fine, fine. I'll have some."

"Good," Rosita clicked her tongue, winking at Kloe. The Rhee woman smiled widely at her friend. "Oh, I almost forgot. Tara's doing okay— she's stable," she enlightened, making Kloe sigh with relief, muttering a 'thank God' under her breath. "Isabelle's taken over for the morning, we're more or less taking turns with it. Pete lets us take breaks now and then, but other than that, we're doing a pretty good damn job."

"I'm glad she's okay," Kloe nodded. Tara was lucky to still be alive, if it wasn't the head injury that killed her, it would've been the blood loss. Kloe could've passed out at the thought of how much blood spilled out of the woman's head.

"I had to switch out with Isabelle 'cause I think Sasha was out in the watchtower all night," Rosita added, her smile faltering along with Kloe's at the change of the subject. Kloe straightened her back, shooting Rosita a confused look. "Abraham's on watch now, but she hasn't come back. I was gonna head to Michonne's room and tell her about it, but I thought I'd come and see you first."

Kloe's face showed no sign of amusement. "She's been gone all night?" she had to ask to make sure she heard it right. Rosita nodded instantly, resulting in Kloe throwing her bed sheets off her body as she stumbled out of her bed. "Go tell Michonne. We're gonna go look for her."

"You need to rest, Kloe. Your leg and hand need to heal," Rosita shot back, shaking her head toward her friend who was ignoring the dull ache in her leg as she rushed. "I know we gave you some hardcore drugs last night to calm it down but you'll only make it worse."

Kloe, who was in her plain gray T-shirt, peered over her own shoulder and sent the woman an incredulous look. "Sasha is more important than my leg. If something's happened to her, we need to be there," she pointed out, only for Rosita to cross her arms over her chest and quietly scoff.

"Michonne and I would've taken care of it, Klo. You can stay here and eat your apple slices," Rosita stood to her feet, not giving him to try and make Kloe stay. It wasn't even twenty-four hours before Kloe had been practically crushed by several heavy boxes. "The bones in your leg are bruised. Your hand is sprained and bruised. If you keep doing shit like this, you're never gonna get better."

"A few hours outside the walls isn't going to hurt me. Besides, you said so yourself that you gave me hardcore meds. The worst that could happen is that I lay in bed later in pain, which, by the way, I've gone through worse. I'll be fine, Rosita. I promise," Kloe rambled out as she virtually dashed to each side of the room, picking up the essentials: a jacket, shoes, and her bow and arrows. "You would do the same. You know you would."

Rosita's lips twitched, along with her breath as she watched Kloe. She blinked her eyes down to the ground and huffed out a heavy breath from her mouth. "I'll go get Michonne," she stated before spinning on her heel, stepping toward the door. "Meet us down by the gate."

...

Before Kloe, Michonne, and Rosita left the gates to head into the wilderness where they assumed Sasha Williams had run off to, Kloe had spotted the small bowl of apple slices that Rosita had gotten for her. She knew Rosita had been trying to get her to eat some not even five minutes before, but she didn't know she had brought her some. Maybe she just wanted to distract Kloe from what happened the day prior.

They were in a cardboard bowl, ready to be thrown into the trash after use. While she waited for Rosita and Michonne, she didn't think twice to snack on them for a few minutes, savoring the sweet, watery taste of apple. Fuji apples were always her favorite.

Currently, the trio all walked through the woods. None of the leaves on the branches had thought to grow blossom yet, it only being March so it was a little too early for the spring to come into action. Kloe had been shocked when she noticed there was a calendar in the kitchen of the house— it had been homemade, but it was accurate, seeming that they used the 2010 calendar to base off what years would've been leap years.

The first thing Tara had done was go around asking the group their birthdays and jotted them down on the correct dates. Any thought of Tara made Kloe suck in a deep breath to not panic. She was okay. She had been saved just in time before anything bad happened — that's all that mattered. Now all she had to do was wake up.

The date marked March 12th. It was a bright, sunny Thursday. The early morning sun gleamed through the naked oak branches, illuminating lines of sunlight on the back of the trio's covered backs. Bugs sounded around them, living life freely without a care in the world like they used to. Baby birds chirped higher up in the trees, waiting for their breakfast from their parents.

"It's up ahead," Rosita informed, leading Michonne and Kloe through the area. Kloe casted a glance to the back of Rosita's head, wondering how she knew. Unless Sasha had told her, of course.

Michonne seemed to have the same thought leaping in her mind. "She told you about it?"

"I saw her going out one day with her rifle," she clarified, her knife held tightly in her grasp as her knuckles painted white. Michonne held her gun in her hand, her eyes persistently scanning the area for any sign of the woman. Kloe had her bow in hand, a blunt pain in her right hand but wasn't anywhere near painful to the point she couldn't hold or aim her bow. "I knew somebody was already in the tower. I asked."

Kloe's ears perked up, and it seemed the other two had heard it too. Someone had sprinted through the long grass that was desperate for a trim, but given the fact they were quite literally in an apocalypse, that was near enough impossible. Not that any cared, obviously. Michonne's gun cocked as Rosita gasped, raising her knife in a defensive manner. Kloe pulled back her bow string, grimacing slightly from the awkward position her arm was in from the bandage.

The three stayed in dead silence, the insects humming, not helping them out as they kept their eyes peeled in front of them for a few moments. There was nothing there.

Simultaneously, the three lowered their weapons. Rosita let out a breath, water vapor from the cold air traveling through the air from her mouth. Kloe gulped, her heart rate having picked up from the sudden tense moment. And just like that, they returned to walking wherever Rosita was leading them.

Rosita shook her head, her eyes casting down to the ground. "It's the first time I've been out since we've been here," she claimed in a low tone, barely above a whisper.

"Me too," Michonne replied, but in a whisper.

Kloe pursed her lips. She wasn't part of the crew of 'not leaving the walls since they arrived at Alexandria' since she was a supply runner — but she wasn't sure if she was going to stick with that job for much longer. Every time, something bad happens. Every damn time.

"It already feels different," the Hawthorne woman continued. She never would've thought she would say that. They had been out there so long, that they all thought it would never change. It would always stay the same. But that wasn't the case.

"That's a good sign," Kloe countered, causing Rosita to lift her head to the left to look at the Rhee woman, while Michonne kept her eyes trained ahead of her. "We were out here for a long time. We needed a break from this mess."

Michonne scarcely shook her head. "I don't know," she muttered, unsure if Kloe was right. If they continued to grow away from the outside world, that would mean it would be harder if they were to ever come across danger. They all needed to stay the beings they were to survive. Rosita and Kloe didn't see that side of things however. Since Kloe had still been going outside, it still felt the same, but for Rosita, she wasn't so sure.

"After Eugene," Rosita began, breaking her gaze away from the side of Michonne's face, "after finding out he lied, I was screwed up...because I lost something." Kloe dropped her eyes down to her leather boots, a pit forming in her stomach as she remembered the moment they all found out Eugene lied to them all, and that they were all chasing a conspiracy theory. "You seem screwed up because we found something. And you," Kloe looked back up to Rosita, "you seem screwed up because of the system."

All at once, they stopped. Michonne turned to face Rosita while Kloe stared off into space. "Noah's dead," Michonne said, a sharp pang at Kloe's heart. "And I think..." she focused her eyes onto Kloe for a moment, noticing the look in her expression, the pain, the emptiness, then she looked off into the distance toward where Alexandria was, "I just feel like I was asleep in there."

"You were trying to forget so you could try," Rosita affirmed as Michonne began to walk forward, making her and Kloe follow stiffly.

"I don't want to forget."

Kloe broke out of her daze and lifted her chin. "I think trying to forget is the worst thing. I've wanted to— I've wanted to feel normal again. But...the world is what it is. You said that to me, Rosita. That day on the church's steps, after..." she stopped, her voice trailing off into numbness when the memories were thrown at her like a ton of bricks.

"So don't forget," Rosita simply expressed, lifting her hands in a gesture as her eyes danced between Michonne and Kloe. "But that doesn't mean you should give up—" she cut herself off, realizing a major thing that was missing about Michonne. "You didn't bring your sword with you." Kloe shot her eyes over to Michonne, her brows somewhat lifting in realization. "That's not nothing."

...

It wasn't long before the three found a trail of dead walkers. The thoughts that plagued Kloe's mind were the things Michonne had said. Did it really take someone to die to make someone realize that maybe the world would never be able to change — even if you lived in a safe place or not? If so, why wasn't it easier to understand that doesn't require death?

If Kloe could, she would've crumbled down to the floor and cried to get an answer.

While walking, following the trail, something in Kloe's stomach churned unexpectedly. She felt like throwing up. Why? She didn't know. She oftenly held her hand over her stomach. It must've been from where she was hungry and hadn't eaten anything that wasn't apple slices in over twelve hours. But it was weird, considering she had gone longer without eating out on the road.

"Hey, you okay?" Rosita questioned, catching onto the look of discomfort in Kloe's face. She set her hand on Kloe's tense shoulder.

Kloe unconvincingly nodded, her mouth shut tight, only opening it to mutter a few words. "Give me one sec," she told them, spinning sharply on her heel toward a tree closest to her. She set her hand on the bark, leaning over as the other two stopped. She threw up the contents that were in her stomach, coughing from the burn in the back of her throat.

Thankfully, her hair was short. So it didn't get in the way as she continued to hurl out anything her stomach wanted gone. It came to an end, making her breathe heavily and straighten her back. Rosita and Michonne stepped toward her, Rosita setting her hand on Kloe's shoulder again and Michonne brushing her hair behind her ear — despite the fact it was indeed short.

She stayed still for a while, not wanting to move just in case her stomach decided to twist and turn again for no apparent reason. Rosita rubbed her shoulder supportively, while Michonne scanned the area in case they were greeted by visitors.

"What the hell was all that about?" Kloe asked herself quietly, the feeling in her stomach vanishing. She wiped her mouth, cringing at the foul taste in her mouth of bile. Now she was desperate for a bottle of water and some apple slices to get rid of the taste. "Must've been something I've eaten again..."

"This happened before?" Rosita questioned, a look of sympathy on her expression. "You don't usually puke out of the blue because of something you've eaten."

"No, no," Michonne chimed in, remembering that Kloe had a similar problem around a week before they left the prison, "it was the food then — in the prison. You stopped taking Zayn and Brianna's food and you were then good to go."

Kloe chuckled slightly. "Yeah, that was just Daryl's poor cooking skills. Carol made that better. Who knows? Might just be a stomach bug or something— or those pills. Most likely the pills," Kloe ended up whispering to herself in reassurance, stepping away from the tree and turned back around to continue walking to find Sasha.

Rosita and Michonne both shared a glance, their own questioning thoughts lingering in their minds on how she could've possibly been fine, threw up, then was fine again. It baffled them slightly, but they weren't going to make it their problem unless it was to the point Kloe wasn't okay. It probably was the pills.

Ten minutes later, the trail began to grow thicker. More walkers had been killed, fairly recent considering the rotten blood was still traveling across the ground. Wherever Sasha had gone, it seemed as if she was only out there to kill walkers. Maybe she had the same mind process as Michonne — she didn't want to forget how to survive the outside world.

As they continued to walk, walk, and walk, both Michonne and Kloe were stopped by a tap on the arm by Rosita. Kloe's head snapped up toward the Espinosa woman, noticing her eyes was set on something, or someone. In unison, Michonne and Kloe followed Rosita's gaze, their faces falling when they spotted the very woman they were looking for.

There were numerous corpses on the ground behind Sasha from where she had shot them down with her silenced sniper. There was a lone walker, dragging its feet toward her as it snarled loudly and reached out its bony fingers toward her, even though it was nowhere near in range to grab her.

Sasha pulled the trigger as the three grew closer to her, their weapons tightly in their grip since they were in the zone where many walkers were. The walker tumbled down to the floor lifelessly as Sasha lowered her sniper. "Sasha," Michonne hissed. Even from behind, Kloe could even feel the eye roll that came from the Williams woman.

Sasha sighed as more walkers emerged from the trees, growling hungrily as they rested their foggy eyes on the four women. "Go back," she instructed, beginning to pace forward to get away from the three.

"What are you doing?" Rosita questioned, frowning as she watched the back of Sasha's head.

"I'm sick of playing defense," she answered honestly, the hint of frustration in her tone. The death of yet another person from their group had taken a toll on her, and none of them could blame her for it. Everyone dealt with grief differently, but in this case, Sasha was fed up with pretending.

"So you're just gonna kill all of these walkers?" Kloe pondered, her eyes glued to the dead corpses beneath her as she strengthened her grip on her bow.

"Yeah."

Kloe inhaled sharply, pursing her lips as she gulped. There were over a dozen walkers stumbling over toward them. Sasha, who stood in front of the three as they separated off to the sides to create a gap between them, peered through her scope and shot down any walker that was first to earn the bullet.

As five bullets fired from Sasha's sniper one at a time, there were definitely more walkers than the four of them could handle. Kloe pulled back her bow string as far as her hand would let her, swallowing thickly from her nerves.

"We gotta get out of here," Rosita countered, to which Kloe and Michonne agreed. Sasha, on the other hand, didn't have that written down in her agenda. All Kloe now wanted to do was go home, have a drink of water to remove the awful taste of bile from her mouth and rest up.

"You do, I don't," Sasha returned, breathing heavily as she lifted her sniper scope to her eye and shot down a few more walkers. Kloe couldn't help but wait apprehensively for the walkers to get over to her so she could put an end to their misery, but every time she would go to release her arrow, Sasha would beat her to it and shoot down the very walker she had her eyes on.

A gun clicked from beside them, coming from Michonne. She held her handgun high, aiming it directly at a walker's head. The look on her face displayed a mixture of emotion. It was all to do with what she was talking about — about forgetting.

Sasha, having heard the gun cock, lifted her chin and swerved over to Michonne. "I don't need your help," she mentioned, her eyes briefly glancing over at Kloe too.

"This isn't for you," Michonne responded lowly, firing her gun. Michonne's gun didn't have a silencer, so even then it wouldn't have mattered if they were swift and quiet with it anyway.

Rosita switched her gaze away from Michonne and Sasha and over to Kloe, who was already watching her. Kloe simply nodded, sighing heavily before releasing an arrow at one of the two walkers that growled at them. A crunching noise sounded from the walker's skull, the arrow having crashed through.

The Espinosa woman dashed forward, flipping her knife and gripping it harshly. Once she was in close proximity with the walker, she clasped onto its shoulder and drove her knife through the walker's temple.

It wasn't long before the women got surrounded, hearing the commotion from a certain distance. Michonne shot down the walkers coming from behind. Sasha continued to hastily shoot around four walkers every five seconds. Kloe drew more arrows out from her quiver, Rosita helping out returning the arrows from some of the walkers' heads to reuse as she knifed some in the head.

Sasha's sniper was destined to run out of rounds sooner or later. She cursed under her breath as she lowered her firearm, the upcoming walkers ahead of her drastically getting closer and closer to her as every second went by. Michonne noticed almost within an instant and backed her up as she reloaded.

From sheer panic, she didn't reload in time as two walkers that randomly appeared in front of her presented their rotten teeth and snarled vigorously. She managed to retract her knife from her sheath and plunge it into one of their heads. The other walker, however, threw itself on top of her, pushing her down to the ground with a harsh thud. It snapped its teeth as Sasha held her arm against its neck, restraining it from successfully biting down onto her face. Her knife had fallen out of her grasp from the force and was just about out of reach from where she was.

Kloe released another arrow, the sound of the particularly loud thud catching her attention. Her head whipped around to face the others, and her stomach dropped into the lowest part of her stomach when she noticed the walker on top of Sasha. Before she could jump in to help her, a walker cut her short and entered her vision. She pursed her lips tightly and shook her head, lifting her bow once more and firing an arrow through the walker's head.

Michonne had gotten to Sasha before Kloe could. She aimed her Glock at its head and pulled the trigger, the walker limply falling off to the side as Sasha pushed it off of her. Sasha panted, maneuvering her eyes to Michonne. "I had it," she spat as Michonne offered out a hand to help the woman up from the ground. She swatted her hand away. "Don't need your help."

The walker that was on Sasha had been the final one they had to take out. Kloe and Rosita walked over to the pair. Sasha glared at Michonne, the look of hidden rage in her eyes. She also seemed as if she was on the verge of tears.

Sasha's bottom lip quivered as a thin layer of water coated her eyes. "I told you to go," she told the three shakily. She turned to Michonne. "You..." she jabbed her finger at her stiffly, leaning closer to her as her face creased with pain and anger, "you can't do anything. It worked out for you! Don't you see that?" Michonne's head tilted, her lips parted slightly from shock as Rosita and Kloe watched with saddened expressions. "You can't help me. Nobody..." she shook her head, even turning to face the other pair. They all stayed dead silent as the rage in Sasha's face slowly died down, and was replaced with poignancy. "Noah," her voice trembled at the mention of his name, a tear dribbling down her cheek,

"I told him he wouldn't make it."

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words: 5273
1st october 2023
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IT'S OCTOBER WHATTTT
also this chapter is a mixture of several things wtf I MISS NOAH SO MUCH AAGHGHHH