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[handleyourshit]

  


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

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[hippie_ninja]

"It really worries you, doesn't it?" He hadn't realized before. Not to the extent that she would hold onto him as tightly as she is now. "That I might end up being someone else."

[handleyourshit]

"I... don't know if I can explain it."

It makes sense in her head, but not everything does once it hits the air. She's not sure if she wants to try or not.

So instead, she gives in to the urge to set her chin on his shoulder, face tucked a little forward.

"But yeah. Yeah, I guess it does."

[hippie_ninja]

They're just standing there in the empty bar holding each other, talking, but he doesn't try to pull away. Somehow it's not awkward for him. "What are you worried will happen? Who do you see me becoming?"

[handleyourshit]

She doesn't try to rush them, doesn't try to force herself to answer; she doesn't feel awkward either. No one except Jesus can make her, and he isn't moving either.

She does finally shake her head though. She does start to take her weight back.

"You never had a group before Hilltop, did you?" she asks, voice dull.

[hippie_ninja]

He knows she had one before Alexandria. "I went with groups. But they were all temporary, just on the road... None of them were building anything."

[handleyourshit]

"I had... a few." Her entire goddamn history isn't relevant just now, since she can prove her point with the ones freshest in her mind.

"Me, Eugene, and Abraham joined up with some of Rick's group first, then the rest of it. Then we settled into Alexandria. Then we met you, and the other communities. And every time... it changed us. Adding people, subtracting people, gaining resources, losing them. It changed us and who we were to each other. And I have no idea how we're gonna change now."

Separately and together. She's drawn back by the time she's done, folding her arms around herself, and the searching gaze she fixes Jesus with is... resigned.

[hippie_ninja]

"The biggest change I've noticed with us so far is just that we're closer. I get to trust you with things I wouldn't have told anyone about back home. Like being tied up in someone's bed, or sleeping with the same man." He smiles slightly. "What do you notice?"

[handleyourshit]

"First you close ranks," she agrees, not unkindly; she smiles when she does. Familiar people in new surroundings tend to stick together whether it's a conscious decision or not.

"Then you get comfortable and settle in. Yeah, we're closer, and I like that. I like that change. Just... old habits, I guess."

[hippie_ninja]

"Even I can admit we haven't had a lot of good changes over the years," he tells her. She doesn't have to be excited about the inevitable differences their new lives will bring. Are bringing. But he's glad she likes that one thing, that one good thing, they both have now.

"What did you like about Alexandria? What kept you there?" That Hilltop didn't have.

[handleyourshit]

"I didn't want to yell at as many of the people there."

Hilltop is full of farmers, people who take a softer touch than Rosita tends to possess when she's trying to get something done.

"It made me feel safer. People listened to me because they knew me."

[hippie_ninja]

"My people would've listened to you. They liked training with you." Even if, yes, Jesus had to reassure several of them that Rosita didn't hate them.

[handleyourshit]

"I like Hilltop fine, J," she assures him.

"But Alexandria... There was always something about it. Plus Michonne is there, and she needed people. Judith is there."

And especially after Rick died, Michonne and Judith needed people. Sometimes she could be one of those people.

[hippie_ninja]

"I always wished there were more kids in Alexandria. Judith grew up with a lot of adults... not a lot of time spent playing." Which was how Michonne wanted it, he knows. It doesn't mean he agrees.

[handleyourshit]

"I did, too," she answers, and the corner of her mouth quirks a bit, pained if she'd let it but she doesn't so it's just resigned.

"But maybe she was always going to be that way. I carried her on the road, you know. We all took turns. She was so small."

[hippie_ninja]

"How long were you on the road before you found Alexandria?" They had seemed well settled in there when he'd been brought there.

[handleyourshit]

"With Rick's group? Or period?" It's hard to do the math, especially once they started moving and the seasons weren't the same in every part of the country they traveled through.

"About a year, I think? Maybe? We'd come up from Texas over about two."

[hippie_ninja]

"With Rick. When I got there, when I was looking around, it seemed like you'd all been there at least a year. Maybe more." But he has that curious look he gets when she brings up Texas and all those long days spent traveling the country.

[handleyourshit]

"The safe zone was there from the start. Before the virus even. It was like a bomb shelter for the politicians in the area - and one of them opened it up to the overflow from the emergency camps," she explains. They weren't starting from scratch. They couldn't have.

That's why Rosita is looking at the property she is now.

"Rick's group came in and we kind of... Took over. The leader that had been there before was killed in an attack long before you showed up, and they wanted us to step in after she was gone."

[hippie_ninja]

"They couldn't have found a better group for it. I'm just lucky it was Rick and the rest of you who stepped in. There were other groups out there that didn't make it, before I met you. I always wondered if maybe they would have if I'd been able to put them in touch with you instead." He's always networking, is the thing. It never stops for him.

[handleyourshit]

Rosita herself has to shrug. She was part of that foundational group - in Alexandria anyway, if not with Rick himself - and even she doesn't know how things might have gone more than generally speaking.

"We tried to be careful about who we took in. You know that. And there were some we didn't trust to let live, so." That happened.

[hippie_ninja]

"I didn't take in everyone. There were people who tried to follow me back to Hilltop a couple of times. I couldn't let them see the community." So they had to die. It happens. He tried to avoid it whenever possible, but sometimes it just had to end that way.

[handleyourshit]

It happens. She doesn't miss the insinuation and doesn't judge him for it, not even for a moment.

It happens. "It's harder to do here, but I'm still willing to do the same this time if it needs to happen."

[hippie_ninja]

"So am I." Just because people don't stay dead here doesn't mean he wouldn't find a way to make it have an impact. "But I like that here we get to have other options."