𝔰𝔩𝔞𝔲𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔡

But he knows what it’s like to be out there alone and afraid, and he wonders if the regret of not acting will be worse than just doing it in the end.

He listens as he goes through the items, his face void of emotion like usual. It’s just how he’s learns to be, knowing that others being able to read him is a huge mistake. Even if he’s kind, he doesn’t have to be nice. He takes a couple of the canned items and stacks them, leaving them on the floor as he kneels. So, she’s alone and vulnerable, or she’s alone and highly capable of surviving on her own. He hesitates to say anything or react, slowly looking her up and down. She doesn’t give him the vibe of being evil, but he doesn’t trust that she could be as innocent as she is. But he knows there is still innocence out there.

He knows what it had been like, in a worse way: the hospital hadn’t been safe but they’d had no other choice but to wait for his leg to heal, to fit him for something to be able to walk. They’d seen how bad and emotional things could get firsthand. People sick, children dying, patients turning quicker than most. And parents at a loss. He was only alive because someone else had taken pity on him anyway.

"both, i guess.." perhaps evelyn should have considered herself lucky that she spent all these years creating herself in the image of what the covenant asked of her, cultivate a garden and forage for food, dress and prepare livestock- and above all how to be obedient. she could live through this if she could just play her role. "i can forage food and basic medicinals, and i can help grow a garden if you give me a bit of time." a good homemaker, a good wife- a thing to keep the others around her alive. washing the wounds lashed in the name of god, praying with bruised knees to a cold, black night. please, she wants to beg before she's a pile of bones left in the forest. please let me be enough to help. "but the forests are getting more dangerous, the fields over run, and old settlements are infested everywhere i go. there's just more of them. too many to stay anywhere for too long it seems, but god's kept me safe for this long. perhaps he will a little longer."

their last song was one of the only where rhi actualy sung. their harmonising voices had filled the hall and everyone else had grown silent to listen to them. it still felt like she was a little kid again. somewhere deep inside her, she was singing up on stage with her sister. that part of her ached. once sunbleach had finished the song, she and the rest of the band stepped off the stage to let northsiders clean up the stage for some announcement or something. for a moment, her sisters voice echoed in the distance among the chatter. all the other voices drowned it out but, she didn't just hear it... she felt it. evelyn.

thank god their 'backstage area' was right next to the backdoors to the hallway. her head was starting to spin from all the people, the noise, the feeling of her heart pounding in her chest. the woman reached for her pocket, hoping to find relief in the rare cigarette she had in her possession. that was until she heard her again. she made it to the door just as her not-so-dead sister started to pull her back in.

she wants to say she didn't stop praying for her, that every day she offered everything she had to a god she didn't think was listening just for any hope to have her back. but it feels wrong to stain this reunion with such a thing, instead she steps back slightly loosening her embrace of rhiannon just to bring her hands to her sister's face. it's hard not to see all the differences, she was so young when evelyn first lost her, now stood before her is someone who was able to grow into their own person outside of the influence. but her eyes, ever knowing pools reflecting the world upon them, they were the same. deep universes, holding too much pain, too much wisdom in this collapsed world.

"i'm sorry rhi, i'm sorry it took me this long to find you."

He doesn’t normally answer questions but there’s a tone to her voice that compels him to at least look her up and down. Maybe she’s the type to lure people in with her innocence and then strikes to kill but he’s not waiting around to find out. Or maybe she’s alone and utterly desperate for any help she can get. He’s taken risks on both kinds of people before and he’s lived through it, but he still doesn’t answer the question. If he’s alone, she might think it’s easier to kill him. If she’s alone, he might think it’s easier to kill her. Do any of them win?

her eyes fixated on the man before her as he leans down to the bag, watching every move of his hands with caution. "it's just me," there's hesitation in her reply, hoping it's the right thing to do- to put trust into this stranger. but evelyn was still a long way from knowing how to trust her instincts, after all her whole life had been spent swallowing her intuition until it ached her insides. even now she didn't know what really was her intuition and what was the taught voice echoing in her head. fear.

georgia had been asked, gently but repeatedly, to stop doing her job for one night.

it hadn’t worked.

she stood near one of the long tables set up outside city hall, fingers wrapped around a cup she’d already refilled once, quietly sorting a small pile of salvaged bandages back into her bag after tending to a minor cut someone had picked up in the crowd. nothing serious. it never was, until it was. the music carried on behind her, laughter rising and falling, lights flickering overhead like they were trying their best.

once she was finished, she zipped the bag closed and finally looked up, realizing she wasn’t as alone as she thought. “sorry,” she said lightly, glancing at whoever had ended up watching her. “old habits.” her expression softened, the apology quiet and unforced. “i promise i’m off duty. mostly.”

gentle chatter carried into air, string lights draped the streets and intertwined with the vibrant sky above, and evelyn felt guilty for not being able to relax on this joyous occasion. she could have sworn the bodies that moved in the dark out of the corner of her eye could have been a walker, and every time someone laughed to loudly it would echo as a scream in her head. she hadn't been around this many people all at once since the covenant, since home. but that was a sentiment she'd been trying to distance lately.

evelyn didn't mean to get caught staring at the medical supplies against the table, but she couldn't help but freeze at the thought something had already gone wrong. it was still early in the celebrations, and all she could think was fear, and blood, and how it had been a long time since she'd seen a celebration for something other than control. "it just means you care even when no one's asking you to."

The weather is bad: which is good. He tended to have better luck when the conditions weren’t ideal. People tended to stay in place when it was bad weather and the conditions often confused the dead. But if there was a storm, he would feel it coming. His body always ached when it did and he could smell it, used to the damp air. He tries to make it quick: shaking things into his own bag, discarding the others so he wouldn’t drag back any recognition. There’s things they need and there’s things that have no use: wrappers, garbage, all reminders of people who were loved once. Now all they need is what they can get: expired medications, food, supplies, batteries.

"it's yours," the words softer than she intended, not daring to look away from the stranger. "just please let me walk away without harm." fear almost gripping the words in her throat, but she manages them this time. she manages her plea. what a dangerous thing to ask from a stranger though, putting your life in the hands of a stranger. to trust that it would suffice if she simply walked away and let them keep it to themselves. but she was tired, and hungry, and knew that whatever was in that bag was never going to be worth her own life.

purpose: opening event.

He sits low in a weathered chair near the edge of the square, one boot hooked around the leg like he’s daring it to run. The music and laughter wash over him without quite touching, a half-empty bottle resting loose in his hand as his sharp eyes track the crowd. He sees the tells. The too-tight smiles, the hands that won’t stop moving, the ones drinking like they’re trying to drown fifteen years in a single night. Smuggling teaches you that. Teaches you how to read what people don’t say. Gus takes a slow pull from his drink, grumbles under his breath about wasted good alcohol, and then catches someone looking his way. He lifts the bottle in a small salute, mouth twitching. “Ya gonna keep starin’ or d'ya want a seat?” he asks, voice rough but not unkind.

He reaches into the crate at his feet and nudges a beer across with his boot, the gesture casual, unthreatening. “Relax,” he adds, leaning back, eyes still on the crowd instead of them. “No deals tonight. No favors, no debts. Just… survivin’ long enough to sit still and watch folks pretend the world’s normal again.” A pause, then softer, almost thoughtful. “Fifteen years is a long damn time. Figure it’s worth a drink with a stranger. Sometimes that’s how you remember what you’re still fightin’ for.”

she swallowed back the embarrassment that washed over her for being caught mid fixation on someone who was simply enjoying their night, wondering how it was they looked so comfortable in all of this.

"thank you," she mustered the politeness as she took the seat next to the man, looking down to the beer he nudged her way for perhaps a little too long. evelyn wouldn't know what normal felt like, she didn't have- this. they had ceremonies sure, but they were different. for the first time in a long time, she didn't know what to do with her hands. it was becoming increasingly more evident to evelyn every moment that passed, that maybe she should have stuck to what she knew. "i don't think it's my celebration to have, i only just got here." focusing her attention back to the man in front of her, her hands folded in her hap she offered the softest of smiles. it was supposed to be warm, and gentle, but in this moment she wasn't sure it would break through her discomfort. "but it's nice, seeing something last this long out here these days. to be doing more than just surviving."