Work Text:
Tara’s never been good at admitting when she’s sick.
Her strong immune system means it barely ever happens, and even before Glenn saved her ass, she wasn’t good at accepting weakness. Now she owes him, owes it to him to keep going, and she simply can’t be sick right now.
But by the time the stars are gleaming brightly in the sky and the last traces of dawn have faded into inky blackness, Tara is shaking so hard from fever chills that her teeth are chattering and she can’t go five minutes without having to slip away from the crackling fire to hurl behind a bush. As she straightens shakily from her hunched position, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, it’s hard to ignore that she’s not in good shape, and even the idea of walking makes her want to retch again.
“Tara?”
Shit. Tara frantically mops away the tears of exertion brought to her eyes from the force of her heaving, spitting out a vile strand of stomach acid before turning around as casually as she can, desperately praying she looks better than she feels. “Yeah?”
It’s Rosita.
Of course it had to be Rosita.
It couldn’t be Eugene to find her, whose opinion she couldn’t care less about, or Abraham, who might laugh at her, but would probably leave her alone, or even Glenn, whom she can’t bear to disappoint anymore than she already has . It had to be Rosita, who must have heard her, must have realized that she’s sick and disgustingly weak and came after her, looking so fucking hot in her top and those shorts, amber eyes glistening with concern. Of course it had to be her fucking crush to find her puking her guts out into a bush.
“You look awful.” Rosita touches her arm lightly, pressing the palm of her hand to Tara’s forehead. Her nose scrunches adorably at the heat coming off her skin, and if Tara didn’t feel so horrendously terrible, she’d be on the ground from how soft her skin is and how gentle her voice is and how she’s touching Tara-
“Come on, let’s get you back to bed…” Rosita starts to push her gently in the direction of the fire, but her stomach tosses rebelliously again and Tara shakes her head, drawing back towards her bush.
“Not a -” Her body cuts her off with a dry heave and she stumbles a little, bending over to support herself by bracing her hands on her knees. “Not a good idea,” she finishes weakly, her head spinning as she struggles to hold herself up.
“Okay,” Rosita murmurs, and her voice is so soft as she stands by Tara, gentle fingers gathering her dark hair back into a knot at the base of her neck. “Just get it over with then, and then bed.”
“You don’t have to stay,” Tara protests as strongly as she can, her voice wavering as she hunches over the bush. “I’m all gross…”
“I can’t have you getting eaten by walkers while you puke your guts out,” Rosita replies calmly, brushing a loose strand of Tara’s hair out of her face. “I had a little brother. Trust me, this is one of the least disgusting things I’ve ever had to deal with.”
Tara starts to smile, opening her mouth to reply, but that’s the exact moment another wave hits her and she retches painfully, bringing up even more of her stomach contents. Struck by an immediate flash of weakness, she stumbles, and Rosita barely catches her, easing her to kneel on the leafy forest floor. Her lungs ache as she coughs, nausea still brewing in her stomach.
“Okay, okay...you’re fine, I’ve got you…” Rosita murmurs in her ear, her knuckles gently kneading the tense spot between Tara’s shoulder blades. “You’re almost done, you’re fine…”
Tara heaves again, clutching Rosita’s arm for support, spitting out another long strand of acid. “Fuck…”
“Breathe,” Rosita orders gently, tracing gentle patterns down Tara’s back with long, delicate fingers. “You’re almost done…”
Her throat burns with acid yet again and Tara coughs hard, bitter bile splattering down onto the grass. Only a few mouthfuls come up this time, but it hurts and her mouth tastes like something died in it, and without Rosita’s arm she’s certain she’d be lying facedown on the ground by now. But her stomach feels a little better, still sore and unsettled, but the edge has lifted from her nausea.
“I think - think I’m done,” Tara gasps, realizing too late that her knuckles are white around Rosita’s arm. “Shit...shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you…”
“Don’t worry about me,” Rosita huffs dismissively, gently releasing her hair. “Come on, let’s get back to camp, you’re a mess.”
Tara winces as her hair falls back into her face, revealing bits of vomit trapped in the strands. She’s probably got puke all over her front too, and she must be paler than a ghost right now. “You really don’t have to take care of me…”
“Stop trying to get rid of me.” Rosita hauls her up, supporting her with both hands on her waist, and Tara’s heart threatens to beat out of her chest with excitement. “It’s okay to be helped every now and then, you know. You’re sick, and your leg’s hurt, and you need to rest. So let me help you, before I call Abraham to come carry you.”
“Okay, okay.” Tara forces a weak smile, reclaiming her grip on Rosita’s arm. “You’re sweet.”
“For you, maybe,” and then she winks, she fucking winks at Tara, and it registers for the first time that her hat is on backwards and what little of her breath she’d managed to get back is immediately kicked out of her lungs from an attack of sheer lesbianism.
With Rosita’s help, Tara manages to stumble back to camp and prop herself up against a tree, at the other woman’s insistence. “I know you probably wanna lay down,” she apologizes, helping Tara nestle in among the tree roots. “But I can’t pick you up to help you if you start choking, and I really don’t think your stomach’s done for the night.”
Rosita finds a clean rag to wet from a water bottle and hands it to Tara. “Try to clean yourself up a little, and then swish and spit. Get the acid off your teeth. Think you’re up to drinking?”
“A little, maybe…” Tara winces at the thought of putting something in her stomach, but she’s lost a dangerous amount of fluids to her new best friend the bush. Rosita nods, handing her the water bottle.
“Take it easy. I don’t want it all coming up on my sleeping bag.”
Tara nods, rinsing the disgusting taste from her mouth before taking a hesitant sip. Even with the warmth of the fire, she’s still trembling with cold, sweat trickling down the back of her neck from the fever. Rosita presses her hand against her forehead again, visibly wincing at the heat. “Tara, seriously, you’re practically on fire…”
“I’m freezing,” she mumbles under her breath, forcing down another sip of her water. “So fucking cold…”
Rosita bites her lip, and even through her feverish haze, it still registers that her hand is still on Tara’s forehead. There’s a few moments of silence between them, hesitant and frightened, and then Rosita nudges her with her bony elbow. “Here, move a little.”
Fevered brain struggling to keep up, Tara shifts obediently, and then Rosita is sitting behind her, tugging Tara into her lap and wrapping her long, slender arms around her shaking body. “Can’t give you blankets, your brain’ll bake…”
Tara absolutely cannot breathe. Rosita is soft and warm and her hair smells like woodsmoke. Her arms fit perfectly around Tara’s frame, one hand gently guiding her head to lay on her chest. Her fingers, nails just long enough to be felt, comb loosely through Tara’s loose dark hair. They fit together like puzzle pieces, and as embarrassing as it is to be cradled like a fussy toddler in Rosita’s lap, Tara can’t help but thank whatever god might be listening for this bug.
But of course, nice things aren’t allowed to befall Tara, and within three minutes of sinking into Rosita’s lap, her stomach rejects the water and she has to dive forward, hunched over shaking, retching so hard as her body searches for something that might possibly still be in her to throw up.
“Jesus, Tara…” And Rosita doesn’t let go, but instead moves with her, her arms supporting her as she coughs and gags, trembling from the fever. Everything is awful and Tara can almost feel her skin baking from the heat and her head hurts and her stomach hurts and her throat hurts and before she can catch her breath and bite them back, tears are trickling down her cheeks as she spits up a few meager mouthfuls of clear liquid.
When a full minute of dry heaving leads to no avail, her stomach finally quiets somewhat and Tara melts back into Rosita, too exhausted and sick to care that she’s still crying.
She can already smell it, too, and this is exactly why she was hiding in the shadows, trying not to vomit anywhere near the camp. “‘M sorry...you can move if you want, ‘s gross, I didn’t mean to be sick here…”
“Tara…” Rosita murmurs again, her thumb gently brushing away her tears, and then she eases her to lay back, head cradled in Rosita’s lap.
“Tara, get some sleep.” Gentle fingers still wiping away her tears. “I’m not leaving you.”
And a million protests run through her head, but she’s too exhausted to voice any of them, and for once obeys without question, burrowing into Rosita’s arms and succumbing to the waves of sleepiness lapping at her consciousness.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“How are you feeling?”
Tara blinks her eyes open slowly to be met with sunlight streaming through the trees. Rosita let her sleep well past the time she’d normally wake up, and Rosita’s still there, still holding her, and her legs must be dead but She’s. Still. There.
Tara almost mumbles her usual “I’m fine,” almost brushes it off to stand and stagger off to find Glenn. But there’s something serious in Rosita’s eyes, and she clearly wouldn’t believe Tara if she tried it.
So for once, she goes for honesty.
“Like shit,” she mumbles, blinking lazily in the sunlight. “Better, but still...not good.”
“Are you still puking your guts out or are we past that?”
Tara takes a moment to consider. Her stomach is still uneasy, and food is definitely tempting fate a little too much, but she’s in no immediate danger. “Past it, for now, anyway.”
“Drink,” Rosita orders, pushing her water bottle back into her hand. “You lost a lot of fluids...like, a lot. ”
“Yeah, I was there.” Tara uncaps the bottle, sipping a little less hesitantly than she had before. She’s parched from fever and dehydration, and the cool water washing down her dusty throat revitalizes her, making her feel a little less like one of the walkers. “You didn’t have to stay all night.”
“You looked too peaceful to disturb. I’m not leaving you, not when you’re sick.” Rosita kicks out one of her legs, shaking tingles from her dead limbs. “Now that you’re up, though, move. I’ve never had my legs this asleep before.”
“Sorry,” Tara mumbles, shifting out of her lap. A wave of vertigo hits her as she sits up and without thinking, she grabs Rosita’s arm, her head spinning. “Shit…”
“Tara?” Rosita turns to her, concern rising again in her face. “Tara, you good?”
“Dizzy,” Tara manages, slumping back against the tree. “Really dizzy...really, really dizzy.”
“Just breathe.” Rosita rests an arm on her shoulder, tingling legs forgotten as what little color Tara had regained drains from her face. “In through your nose, out through your mouth. Come on, breathe...try some more water, too…”
Rosita guides the bottle to her lips, gently prodding her to drink. Tara does her best to breathe, slowly feeling a little more grounded. Her head stops spinning as she sucks in another breath, letting her head drop onto Rosita’s shoulder.
“Think you might have taken it too fast.” Rosita gently brushes a strand of Tara’s hair out of her face. “Just relax, take a nap if you need to…”
Tara hasn’t taken a nap since she was two years old and her frazzled mother surrendered trying to force her to sleep. But Rosita wraps an arm around her, gently tucking her tattered blanket around her, and she’s still so bone tired that she sinks without complaint against the other woman, shivering a little from the persisting fever.
The last thing she feels before sleep claims her once more is Rosita’s cool, slightly chapped lips pressed against her burning cheek.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Tara, run!”
Branches whip her face as Tara races through the foliage, hot scarlet pouring into her eyes from the gash on her forehead. She swipes desperately at the blood with her sleeve, turning back to glance at her companions. “Rosita!”
“Tara, go, I’ll cover you!”
Snarling echoes in her ears, and Tara barely has time to blink before the walker lunging for her neck falls down dead, Rosita’s knife buried in its skull. The other woman jerks it out quickly, giving Tara a shove away from the corpse. “I’m telling you, go, cover Eugene and Abraham, I’ll be right there!”
“I’m not leaving you!” Tara shakes her head for emphasis, blood still gushing into her eyes. “They’ll swarm you, you can’t take this many on your own!”
“Tara, go!” Rosita buries her blade into another rotting skull, her face twisting with the effort. “You have to keep Eugene alive!”
“Screw Eugene!” Tara kicks another walker square in the chest, knocking it away from Rosita. “I’m not leaving you!”
“You’re an idiot!” Rosita steps so they’re standing back to back anyway, her hands dripping with walker blood. “Tara, you are an idiot, and I hate you, and I’m never talking to you again!”
“I’m still not leaving you!” And Tara steps away, just for a moment, plunging her knife into the neck of a staggering walker, and that’s when Rosita screams so shrilly any glass nearby would have shattered. Tara wheels around instantly, not even hesitating to throw herself at the walker pinning Rosita to the ground.
Her heart pounds in her chest like it’s threatening to break free of her ribs as Tara launches herself at the corpse snarling and snapping at Rosita’s neck, restrained only by one of her hands shoving desperately against its rotting forehead. The force of the collision sends them both rolling hard across the forest floor, and now it’s her that’s only inches away from being mauled, but she doesn’t even care, because it’s away from Rosita , and the idea of Rosita’s slim neck trapped in this thing’s rotting, jagged jaws scares Tara more than anything else has in a long, long time.
She manages to plant a boot into the foliage littering the forest floor and stops the rolling, pinning the walker down under one knee before slamming her knife down through its empty eye socket, horribly relishing in the sickening squelch that ends the monster that nearly took Rosita. Dark, rotting blood sprays everywhere, freckling her face and staining her clothes, but Tara doesn’t stop, bringing her blade down again and again until the skull is battered into an unrecognizable pulp.
“Tara! Tara!” A hand waving in front of her face, a living hand, and she snaps out of her haze at the sound of her name, blinking up at Rosita. The other woman is staring at her, staring in shock and confusion and maybe even a little bit of fear, but her jugular is intact and that’s all that matters to Tara in this one moment of time.
“Tara, it’s gone. It’s dead. They’re dead.” And she looks around, and Rosita is right, they’re dead, lying slain upon the ground.
“It was gonna hurt you,” Tara mumbles, and that’s when it sinks in that her cheeks are wet. She swipes at them half-heartedly with her sleeve, staring down at the bloody mess before her. “I couldn’t let it hurt you...:”
“And you didn’t. I’m fine, Tara. Fine.” Rosita extends a hand, offers Tara her delicate hand for support. “Come on, let’s find Abraham and Eugene and Glenn.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tara swings her legs absentmindedly as she perches on the edge of a kitchen table in the abandoned house they cleared for the night. By the sink, Rosita shuffles around in a cupboard, finally producing a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and some soft gauze. “Hold still...this is going to sting.”
Rosita gently dabs at the gash on her forehead with a peroxide-soaked rag, and Tara barely manages to restrain her gasp of pain to a sharp intake of breath at the touch. The other woman’s jaw is clenched tight, and her eyes are steely despite how gentle her touch is.
“Are you mad at me?” It comes out like an anxious child pleading for reassurance and Tara internally winces at how much her voice wavers, at how adrenaline courses anew through her veins at the thought of Rosita in danger.
“I told you to run.”
“And what would have happened if I did?” Tara bites her lip as the visual of Rosita frantically shoving back a snarling walker refreshes in her brain, still so vivid that it might be happening right now.
“You and Eugene and Abraham and Glenn would have gotten away, that’s what would have happened. You could have gotten yourself killed.”
“And you’d be dead! Rosita, you’d be dead if I’d left you behind! You’d be staggering around out there, one of them! If me getting away means you die, then I don’t want to get away!”
“I would have been fine. I could have handled it.” Rosita’s voice is hard and stiff as she threads the needle for Tara’s stitches.
“No, you couldn’t have.” Tara shakes her head, wincing as more blood drips down her face. “I heard you scream. You were pinned. It was an inch away from taking a chunk out of your neck. You were going to die, Rosita. And I couldn’t leave you to die.”
Rosita swallows hard, and the thread snaps through the eye of the needle in her hand, breaking in two. “And what was I supposed to do if it killed you instead, hmm? If you got bit trying to save me? What do I do with that?”
Tara sighs, slumping back into herself. She doesn’t know, she really doesn’t. “Rosita...I’d rather it be me than you. That’s all I can say.”
“Well, I wouldn’t.” Rosita re-threads the needle, cupping Tara’s cheek in her hand to stitch her up. “I couldn’t live with myself knowing you died to save me. I couldn’t.”
Her voice wavers, and Tara reaches out, resting a hand on her arm. “I’m sorry. But I’m not leaving you. Not now, not ever.”
And then they don’t speak anymore as the needle glides through Tara’s skin.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It’s nearly impossible to see where they’re going, even with the light of their flashlights. Tara sticks close to her group, especially to Rosita and Glenn. Darkness is dangerous, and if anyone is going to be devoured by walkers, it ought to be her.
They can all hear the snarling, but they can’t see the source. All they know is that there is danger, and it’s close. Eugene is breathing heavily, and Tara suspects that it’s not just from exertion. Even Rosita’s breath is a little hitched, and she’s hit with a sudden, strong urge to take her hand. But that’s ridiculous, they’re not close like that, and Rosita has Abraham to hold her hand if she wanted it, which Tara is nearly certain she doesn’t. So she lets her hand stay at her side, no matter how much she itches to just try, to see what happens if she holds Rosita’s hand.
“Only one,” Abraham grunts, sweeping out an arm to stop them. “I see it. I’ve got it.”
Rosita and Tara turn together towards the sound of his footsteps, but Rosita is the first one to get her flashlight up, and then she turns, her face suddenly frantic. “No, Tara, don’t -”
But it’s too late, and Tara’s flashlight beam lands squarely on the face of the walker.
It’s just a child.
Just a little girl, blonde hair still holding a resemblance of lovingly styled curls, a few pink bows still stitched to her soft rosy dress. There’s even still a doll tucked under one arm, its face torn and dirtied and missing one button eye.
And damn it, damn it all to hell, it could be Meghan standing there before her, staggering her way towards Abraham with fresh blood dripping from her teeth.
It could be Meghan, and Tara suddenly feels like she’s been punched in the gut, the air kicked out of her lungs as tears well in her eyes, and she clutches desperately at her chest, trying to remember what Lilly had always told her when this happened, in through your nose, out through your mouth, just look at me, except Lilly’s dead too and her pretty green eyes are glazed over just like this little girl who could be Meghan’s are, and there’s nowhere to look, nowhere to turn, nowhere to hide her face and wait for it to be over-
“Tara, hey, Tara, look at me. Just look at me.” Warm fingers on her face, cupping her chin in her hands, and Tara is looking directly into Rosita’s lovely amber eyes, and Rosita is calm and comforting where Tara is teary and frantic-
“Just look at me. Just look at me. Breathe for me, Tara. Just look at me. I’m here, okay? I’m not leaving you. I’m not leaving you. Just look at me, Tara, just look at me.”
And in Rosita’s arms, breathing is a little easier, and some of the weight is lifted off her chest, and Meghan and Lilly are fading away, their glassy dead eyes not so close, so fresh -
“Just keep looking at me. I’m right here,Tara, I’m not leaving you. Just look at me.”
And the last remaining strains of panic fade from her body as she looks into Rosita’s calm, clear eyes and without thinking she slumps into her arms, clinging to Rosita desperately, like a small child hiding from a thunderstorm. Rosita doesn’t even flinch, gently running a hand down her back, and pushes Tara’s head into her shirt so she doesn’t see and the sound is muffled for the first heavy thud of Abraham slamming the butt of his rifle into the child’s skull.
Even when Glenn coaxes her to step out of Rosita’s arms, Tara doesn’t let go of her hand, and although it’s very different from what she was imagining before, it’s just as perfect as she’d thought it would be.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tara sighs, her breath forming a white cloud in the chilly night air in front of her. Glenn was supposed to be on watch with her, but she told him to sleep, practically forced him to. He was dead on his feet, and she’d rather be alone anyway, at least right now. So there he is snoring at her feet, his gun in her holster and her own in her hand.
The light from their crackling fire illuminates their camp. Eugene, curled up on his side in a little ball, sleeping just as oddly as he does everything else. Abraham, flat on his back, his hand still loosely gripped around his knife. And Rosita, her loose hair spread around her like a halo, a few strands of it tickling her nose, making her twitch in her sleep.
Or at least that’s what Tara thinks, until the sound of whimpers drifts over to her position by the fire, and it clicks that Rosita isn’t fidgeting because of her hair.
She agonizes for a moment on what to do, how to handle it. On one side, she really doesn’t want to wake her if she can avoid it, and she’s pretty sure Rosita’s pride won’t take Tara seeing her like this well. But on the other, Rosita looks so sad and scared, her faint cries inspiring an odd sense of protectiveness bubbling in Tara’s chest. And even if she didn’t have more than a little crush on her, if Rosita starts screaming in her sleep, she’ll draw every walker in the area to their little camp. Mind made up, Tara inches over toward Rosita, careful to avoid waking Glenn.
“Hey,” she murmurs, desperate to keep her voice as low as possible. Rosita may be able to forgive Tara for seeing her mid-nightmare, but if Abraham or Glenn or, God forbid, Eugene finds out, she’ll never speak to her again. “Hey, Rosita...Rosita, wake up…”
Rosita tosses a little at her voice, but doesn’t wake. Swearing under her breath, Tara gives her a small shake, nudging her in the back with her knee. “Rosita, come on, wake up.”
Rosita stirs again, but her eyes are still closed as Tara shakes her, calling her name as loudly as she dares. “Rosita, Rosita, come on...wake up…”
“No...no, not her…” Rosita tosses again, her loose dark hair flying behind her as she rolls. “No, not her, not Tara…”
Now blushing what she’s sure must be fire-engine red, Tara bites her lip, gathering all her nerve. “Rosita!” she hisses, shaking her, hard. “Rosita, wake up!”
And then Rosita jerks under her arms, her eyes flying open. “No!”
“Shh!” Tara hisses, clapping a hand over her mouth. “It’s just me, it’s Tara, it’s just me…”
Rosita makes a muffled noise from behind her hand, and after a moment, Tara lets her go, inching back a bit to give her space. “You...you okay?”
The other woman doesn’t answer, breathing heavily as she tucks up her knees, burying her head in them. It’s the smallest Tara’s ever seen Rosita, and as distinctly uncomfortable as it is for her at the moment, she can’t leave her like this.
“You wanna...talk about it…?” Tara asks weakly, eyeing Rosita nervously. She’s never seen her as anything less than strong, even when her gentle side comes out. She doesn’t know what to do with this frail new Rosita.
Slow shake of the head, and Rosita still doesn’t look up. Tara nods to herself, forcing back her questions. What were you dreaming about? What was happening? And why were you saying my name?
Hesitantly, Tara opens her arms, tapping Rosita’s shoulder with one finger, and then suddenly her friend is in her arms, clinging to her so hard it almost hurts. “Don’t go,” Rosita murmurs into her ear, still clutching Tara like she almost lost her. “Don’t go.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Tara responds, and she pulls Rosita closer, cradling her just as tightly. “I’m not leaving you, Rosita. I’m not leaving you.”
And half an hour later, Tara is again on watch, but now one gun is in the holster and one is on the ground, and Rosita’s head is in her lap, and Tara’s fingers comb lightly through the sleeping woman’s soft dark hair, and she can’t help but to smile at the expression of peace on Rosita’s face.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It’s not often that Tara opens up about her family. It’s painful even to think about them. She lost her mom even before the apocalypse started, and then her father nearly killed her after he died. Finding Meghan’s limp and broken body still haunts her every night, and she can barely close her eyes without seeing Lilly swarmed by walkers.
But Rosita wants to know, bored and trapped lying down by an old leg injury flaring up, and the one book Tara managed to find for her has been read three times already and she gets the sense that if Rosita gets any more bored, she’ll amuse herself in much more dangerous ways than listening to Tara’s stories. So Tara steels herself before settling next to Rosita, hugging a bundle of blankets to her chest like a stuffed animal. “Okay. I’ll tell you about my family. But - but you can’t get mad if I cry, okay?”
“Course not,” Rosita answers, flopping back against the battered pillow Tara found in the remains of a house. “How could I ever be mad at you, Chambler?” And the combination of her smile and how casually she throws out Tara’s last name makes her blush so deep her face is practically on fire.
“Um...okay. Okay, then.” Tara exhales heavily, settling back against the wall. “I lost my mom before...car accident. She got hit by a drunk driver, she’d been on the way to pick up Meghan from daycare, about a year after Lilly’s husband left...she died in the hospital. My dad had terminal lung cancer, got diagnosed just before...he died from it back at our old apartment. Turned and tried to rip my face off.” Her voice wavers at the memory of her father snatching at her with strength he hadn’t possessed since she was a little girl, except now he was trying to hurt her instead of lift her up to the clouds, and his blood splattering her face as his skull was beaten in on itself. “Lilly and Meghan and I...we stuck together for a while, until the prison...Lilly and Meghan were supposed to stay back, and I don’t know what happened, I wasn’t - dammit, I wasn’t there - ”
She could have saved Meghan. If she’d been there, if she’d been paying attention, if she’d been with her family instead of on a stupid mission to take a prison, she could have saved Meghan. Meghan could be running around their camp now, squealing with delight, and Lilly would still be alive too, scolding Tara for cursing in front of her daughter.
Lilly might have been older than her, but Tara was always tougher and smarter. Even in grade school, Tara had to put her fists up more than once to defend her older sister, who just wouldn’t fight back. Lilly would rather have her ass kicked than hurt another person, and as much as Tara teased her back then, she’d die to have the chance to fight for Lilly one more time.
Tara sighs, deliberately avoiding Rosita’s gaze. “I could have saved them. Not Dad, yeah, but Lilly and Meghan...if I’d been there, I could have killed it before it got Meg, and then Lilly wouldn’t have gone to the prison, and she’d still be alive...hell, I could have just gunned him down when he stepped into our apartment and then plenty of people would still be alive…”
“Tara, that wasn’t your fault.”
“No, it was.” Tara laughs humorlessly, not even sure what she’s pretending to laugh at. “It was all my fault. I didn’t just go, Rosita. I was the first one to sign up. It’s my fault that old man is dead and it’s my fault that they lost everyone else too and it’s my fault that Meg and Lilly are gone and hell, I could have given my dad some more time too, if I’d just been brave enough to go get the damn oxygen myself when he first started running low-”
“Tara, shut up.”
Rosita hauls herself up, balancing on her elbows. “Shut up right now. That’s not true, and you’re not being fair to yourself. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, Chambler, and it’s not reasonable to keep beating yourself up over doing what you thought was the right thing. So shut up.”
“But-” And then Tara’s brain is completely wiped clean because Rosita Espinosa grabs her by the shirt and drags her in for a kiss that takes away her ability to speak or think or breathe.
Rosita’s lips are a little chapped, but warm and soft, her free hand coming up to tug Tara’s hair in just the right way. A little gasp slips out of her and Tara brings her hands to the curve just above Rosita’s hips, pulling her closer.
Time doesn’t exist when she’s kissing Rosita. Everything that’s been whirling around Tara like an out-of-control carousel, all these thoughts and emotions and the crushing guilt slamming to a halt at her touch, and the only thing that’s real is Rosita’s hands and Rosita’s hips and Rosita’s lips, the comforting warmth coming off of her body and the powerful muscles under her faded cotton top and how soft her hair is as a few strands of it tickle her nose.
Tara’s had several girlfriends in her life and even more hookups. She’s not unfamiliar with girls, not in the slightest. But kissing Rosita is not like kissing any other girl she’s ever touched in her life, and the women from her past don’t even exist anymore in Rosita’s arms.
And then Rosita’s hands trace downwards and start tugging at the hem of her shirt, and it’s an absolutely terrible idea, the others are awake and listening and just outside, but Tara lets her take it off anyway, tugging at the knot at the base of Rosita’s crop top as her shirt disappears into some corner of the room. She still doesn’t really know what’s happening, why Rosita is kissing her, or why Rosita keeps kissing her, but it’s happening and it’s real and she’ll hold onto it for as long as she can, because all she wants is more.
Rosita is gentle but insistent, expertly unclipping Tara’s bra clasp before pushing her back against the floor, and the burning between her legs is almost enough to distract her from the way Rosita winces in pain at the movement.
“Your leg-” Tara starts to say, but Rosita cuts her off with a kiss, and she is effortlessly silenced by the lips on hers.
“I thought I told you to shut up,” Rosita murmurs, and then she traces a line of kisses down Tara’s body, leaving a trail of soft pink marks in her wake, and Tara doesn’t need to be reminded to shut up again.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“How’d you get this one?”
Tara is careful to keep her voice low to avoid disturbing the others or drawing the attention of Abraham on watch as she traces a slightly raised pink scar on Rosita’s wrist. It’s long, a jagged line of damaged tissue, old, but not old enough to fade to pale white.
Rosita chuckles, touching the scar herself. “Knife accident. Don’t cut fruit pointing the knife towards yourself. It’s not a good idea.”
Tara giggles too, nudging Rosita playfully with her elbow. “Your turn.”
“Hmm…” Rosita scoops up her hand deftly, teasingly flicking at her thumb, bent slightly backwards and barely flexible. “How’d you break it?”
“Schoolyard fight.” Tara winces internally at the question, remembering exactly how she’d broken it. She dove into a fight she knew she wouldn’t win and had gotten her ass handed to her at the tender age of ten. It had been for Lilly, it always was. Lilly had been cornered by some of the big boys, and she refused to lift her fists to defend herself. So Tara had done it for her, and Terrence Gill had shoved her down and stomped on her hand until she screamed for mercy through sobs. She’d nearly puked up her cafeteria meatloaf looking at it; the thumb had been bent completely backwards and kinked at inhuman angles, nail already blackening. And it had been Lilly who wrapped an arm around her and encouraged her to breathe, talked her down from the panic attack that had struck at seeing her thumb bent and broken like a horror movie prop, who scooped her up and carried her to the nurse for a splint and some pain killers.
The splint had mostly straightened it, but it was never the same again, not after that break. Kind of like Tara.
But maybe it doesn’t have to be that way.
“Got it stomped on trying to fight someone I shouldn’t have,” Tara finishes, trying to bring herself back to the present. “It was way worse before, trust me. And you know what else?”
Rosita makes an inquiring humming sound, and Tara tries to hold her deadpan, but can’t, and her face splits into a huge grin. “It’s still the straightest thing about me.”
And Rosita snorts and shoves her, and Tara laughs, at her own joke and at Rosita’s reaction, and Rosita is here and real and beautiful, and that is good. And Tara may have lost everything, but she’s found something, and the Lilly she remembers from the schoolyard would never have wanted Tara to go through life alone and broken and hurting and guilty. And here, in the dim light of the campfire, Tara doesn’t have to ask Rosita not to leave. It’s already a given.
So, confident in her sister’s approval, Tara puts her past behind her and leans in to brush her lips to Rosita’s, and as Rosita surprises her by pulling her in to deepen the kiss, everything is so good in a world full of so much bad.