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This is Rosita. I'll hit you back when I can.

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"You're not supposed to know about the speakeasy, Warden," she comments drily. Of course she's found it already.

"Walkers first. Then booze."

He leads them up to the Enclosure. "We're all just lucky the Admiral keeps us from developing liver disease."

"Are we?" she asks, but she's distracted as soon as they move out of the cabin, still moving through the Barge hallways like it's enemy territory.

"At least there used to be some consequences."

"Most consequences for things are removed here." He moves easier than she does but he's never stopped watching the corners, he's never gone unarmed.

He programs in the forest again and lets Rosita walk in first. "Have you met anyone new?"

"Everyone's new."

The changeover is less pronounced this time than it was before, but still present: she feels more comfortable here, in ways she can't replicate or explain if she was asked.

She breathes, looking around, and pulls the knife he gave her from her boot.

"There's a guy that follows me around sometimes. Doesn't want me to stab anyone."

"You mean besides me?" he teases. He has a more liberal stance on stabbing than most people here, but still. "What guy is it?"

"Richter," she answers, mimicking the way he'd said it himself, "Of house Belmont."

Fucking cheeky youngster. She has a grudging appreciation for him though, for how responsive he's willing to be when she tells him to back off. Physically anyway.

"He's alright. Said he's new, too."

"He must be, I haven't met him yet. I know a Trevor Belmont though." What are the chances it's just a popular name?

"I'm assuming he's a warden if he's shadowing you to protect people." He breaks off to stab a walker and comes back to her.

"I tried to take his sword," she admits, shrugging.

"When I still thought all this was the Saviors."

"Tried?" He glances at her. "He must be pretty good if you didn't get it away from him."

He's seen Rosita fight. More in recent years than during the war when everything was done with guns, sure, but still, he knows what she's capable of.

"He is," she admits. "Once he had hold of me he didn't try very hard to hurt me, so I just focused on getting away."

She can hurt people - really hurt them - but she prefers an ambush style attack and run.

Jesus is discovering that a very, very quick way to earn his approval is to be nice to Rosita. Richter gets an automatic pass.

"Have you talked to him or was it all sword related?"

"He tried to talk to me some," she admits.

"I wasn't really interested at the time." She was also crammed behind a bench on the deck but that's neither here nor there just now. "I didn't even tell him my name."

Edited Date: 2023-12-08 02:12 am (UTC)

He doesn't blame her for that. It's a miracle she didn't end up in more trouble that first day, to be honest. He's proud of her self-control.

"You haven't talked to him since then?"

She shakes her head.

"He showed me where the dining hall was. I haven't been -" She tips her head side to side, considering, and then takes advantage of a walker lurching too close to them to stall.

"I just don't want to talk to people."

"I can't say I blame you. I mean we have to, the ship... it's going to compel us to either way. But I need a break from people." Rosita isn't 'people' the way they all are. She's one of his people.

"People around here don't seem to need the ship to compel them."

It's why she's taken to isolating in the cabins. Not that people in Alexandria never talk to each other but she knows who they are, she knows what they want.

"I thought you liked people."

"I do. But...I don't know how to respond to these people. To people whose world didn't end." He frowns, and can't quite look at her. This hurts.

"Everything that happened changed us all. Me, too. I don't know how to handle old world problems."

He won't find any judgment in her. She's already discovered the same thing, been trying to navigate the same thing, and she's only been here a fraction of the time.

It doesn't give her much hope, but she looks back at him anyway.

"Is there one in particular bothering you right now?" Just in case.

A soft huff. "Ironically? Yeah. Malcolm. The one who looks like me. And it's for old world reasons." But Jesus can't seem to make himself flexible for new world reasons.

"He tried to apologize to me," she offers, but she doesn't sound impressed.

"Tell me." She probably can't fix it, but they can put their backs to one another.

"I think he really wants to help people." Jesus always tries to focus on the good parts first. "But he's sleeping with someone who came to him as a patient--someone who's had issues with authority before here."

Another walker. He takes it out with a spinning kick, its head exploding over his boot.

"I grew up in the system. In a group home. My whole life depended on people who were paid to care about me, you know? People in authority. And I saw that authority get abused sometimes. So I can't...I can't get that out of my head. Nothing I do, nothing I tell myself, makes it feel okay."

She studies the walker as its body drops, then looks back up at him.

"It does," she agrees, flatly. It's a fact. Period. "And it doesn't have to be okay for you. Nothing I've seen or heard so far has made me think you're wrong."

And Rosita, at least, would tell Jesus if he was out of line. If he was wrong.

"Things were just so much easier back home." Not everyone got along all the time, but the lines were different, the rules more clear.

"Yeah," she agrees, looking around them. "They were."

And now they're here.

She sighs. "You're not giving me a lot of hope for my ever not feeling like this. How long you been here?"