handleyourshit | Duplicity Inbox

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

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"Do you want it to?" she asks, not because she thinks she doesn't know the answer, but because she does.

Her hurt over it is different, and in its way as irrational as his, but she meant what she said: nothing about this place changes them.

Only the two of them can decide to do that, so in the end the answer is important after all.

"No," he says, soft. "I don't want anything to change this."

He needs her, as much as they let themselves need anyone. She could be taken from him at any time; that's no different than at home. He doesn't want the time they do have together to be filled with any regrets.

She nods, accepting this, agreeing. Her eyes drop back to the contract although she doesn't read it again. It's just a distraction.

"I think it already has," she admits. "I know we didn't talk much, back home. I don't feel like we needed to. You had Hilltop to run and I had people in Alexandria to look after, and if something happened - we've already seen how we both react to that. I doubt a lot of people but if another Negan showed up, I wouldn't have been surprised to see you there to stop him with me."

A lot of this, of course, is speculation. She doubts either of them thought much about each other, back home in a place full of other survivors. "But here - I need you, in a way I don't anyone else. In a way I never will, because no one else makes me feel like I'm not insane. No one else reminds me that it all happened and there are reasons I am the way I am, and they're good ones. Even if I start caring about people here as much as I care about you, none of them will ever be able to do that for me like you can."

And it scares her, too, because that's a lot of pressure to put on someone - a lot of need. But she can't change it.

"I trust you," he says, looking at that contract, too. "More than I trust anyone. That's what I don't want to change. We get to have different lives here than we did at home, and adjusting has been- it's been hard. But it feels easier when I'm with you."

"That's the only reason it did... hurt." And it did, but she let it slide at the time because he'd already made the decision. No changing it, and no sense risking making things worse when he still felt safe enough to come stay with her afterwards.

"Because I don't know the first thing about how any of this is going to go, and neither did you, and now we both have to work it out with strangers. Now I'm going to be held accountable to a stranger, and their priorities are probably going to be different from mine."

"Everyone is entitled to their priorities," he says, which he still believes despite everything. But. "But we know what's really important. Survival, family." In that order sometimes; sometimes the other way around.

"I never want to be used to hurt you, Rosita." And that is what his choice came down to. "I was trying to protect us both."

"I know." If she truly thought otherwise, if she was confident that what she assumed was correct, her reaction would have been much different.

She's used to just carrying whatever hurt happens to her while what's necessary is done. She knows how to keep going until it's safe to hash it out, even if that's never.

"And we are. Family." Hopefully he knows that. Hopefully she didn't need to say it but she will anyway. "It just worries me sometimes when that's... all people are."

Her own irrational side of things.

He shakes his head slightly. "What do you mean?" That it worries her when all people are, are family?

"In the old world, family was enough, but not to survive the fall. You had to be more - partners, allies, fighters together. Like Rick and Michonne. Like the rest of us. People you can take outside the walls and know will watch your back, or help you build up the community."

And Maggie and Glenn, and Ty and Sasha, her and Abraham. At least until -

"We lost the most people when we settled down too much, tried to get back to the old world. This is the next world, J. Not the one we fought for, sure, but we're here and the rules are different. I'm just not sure they're different enough that family is enough on its own again."

"Hilltop was never safe. Before the walls went up, we were on a full rotation keeping walkers away. After the walls went up, there was Negan." He looks at her, looks away briefly, looks back. "I love the Hilltop. Everything I did was for it, even when I was gone. But they were never family for me because everyone there...they were farmers, they were suburban families. They weren't fighters. I was the only one there who knew how to fight, before Maggie came along."

He gets it, is what he's trying to say. "Family for people like you and me isn't what family means to people here. Not anymore."

Her eyes are there to catch his when he looks back, steady and dark; Negan and the Saviors will never not be complicated, especially between her and the man who got Alexandria involved with them, but she's long past resentment if ever she felt it. She finally just nods.

"That's what worries me," she says, offering it in turn for his fears: this is hers. "That we grow into what we need to be for this place, and leave behind what we are together."

"I don't want that." It worries him, too. He's thought about it, too. How could he not? Every time he goes shopping and the food is simply there, how can he possibly remember all the time how important each calorie is?

"How do we make sure that doesn't happen?"

"I want out of this city," she says, immediately - and, surprisingly, even a little fiercely.

Not Duplicity in general, she's already given up on that for the time being, but: "As soon as I have enough money, I'm getting land or a house or something outside the limits. Somewhere we can hunt, somewhere we can set up to run even if the city grid fails."

"I can help," he says immediately. "Adrian is going to give me a tour outside the city limits," which is illegal but what isn't? "I can scout some places and show them to you."

She nods.

"Find us a place," she agrees, because that's what Jesus does best, but also - it will be theirs, no matter what. If he ever has need of it and it comes right down to it, the SIN guards will have to fight through her tooth and nail to get to him. Fuck their laws, which are ideas, which are words on paper, which mean nothing to an appropriately stubborn will.

"We'll make it ours. All of this is nice, but I'd rather have home."

He's more alive with a mission, more relaxed knowing he can make up to her. "I'll figure out a way to get some of my funds to you, too."

She has more plans for it, things she's thought about, opportunities they have here that might help if she can remember any of this if she ever ends up back home; a pair of horses to plow fields and transport goods and cover ground, chickens for eggs and meat, a cow for milk, a root cellar, a stream if she can swing it for fresh water and backup power. A windmill to supplement the solar panels.

A second floor or a basement full of space for survivors. A ten foot tall perimeter fence. It will take time, but she's used to planning in years now, and each item has its place on the list of priorities. Location comes first, so the rest can be tailored to reality, not an ideal.

She nods. "I think having both will help us a lot. We can adapt, but still have something we built." And, finally, she quirks a small smile: "And I want to build that with you."

He hates conflict. He is always in the middle of fights because he always wants to settle them, be it with his own fists and knives, or with his words. Her smile washes away the nervousness in him and he smiles back.

"You're more than family, Rosita. I'm sorry I did anything to make you question that."

She shakes her head, though.

"There's a lot of shit going on here we don't know how to handle yet." They will. She has confidence they will, somehow, some way, even if she doesn't see it yet.

"Just... promise me you'll give me a chance if everything starts feeling like too much?" She didn't lose Abraham during the fight on the road. She lost him during the peace afterwards.

He nods. He looks down, brow furrowed. "I have moments where it starts to feel like that. Too much. Usually at night, but sometimes, lately, it's at the grocery store. It's when I'm getting ready for work. It's like I'm always waiting for something and sometimes it's just exhausting."

She nods, turning her empty glass in a slow circle on the countertop in front of her.

"You remember when it all first went down? Not the first month, but the few after that?" She knows she does, though she has to dig a bit more for it every year: "Did you have panic attacks or anything then?"

"No. But most of the people I met those first few months did." And it got them killed. By the end, by the time he met Rosita, it was rare to meet anyone whose post traumatic tics were incapacitating. "I dreamed a lot, though. More than I ever did in the old world."

"I did. Only a couple times, but." Small, quickly heeled, thank god. She saw the same.

"Did the dreams eventually stop?"

"I don't have them as often," he hedges. But he frowns because that's not entirely true now. "They're back. They came back six, eight weeks ago. They're about this place now but the rest is the same."

"Growing pains," she still insists, reaching out to cover one of his hands with hers.

"We're still adjusting. Keep going, and if it gets too bad? Call me."