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Tara knows she isn’t leaving this place alive.
There are too many of them, and they’re closing in, and there’s only a few of them to fight off the countless masked enemies who walk among the dead. Tara’s fought her way out of impossible situations before, but this won’t be one of them. Her time is up.
She always expected she’d be scared. But she’s thought she was about to die before, and it’s never scared her. Whatever it was, a gun kissing the back of her head or a horde of walkers closing in on her, she’s always been filled with a deep, inexplicable calm. A sense of peace. A realization that she’s done her best.
And she feels it now as a stabbing sensation spreads from the small of her back throughout her body as a cold, dull ache. Tara glances down, sees the blade protruding from her stomach, impaling her clean through the middle. A little gasp of surprise - she hears one of the kids from Hilltop scream and tries to mouth I’m sorry - and then she’s falling, falling into a void of pure, empty whiteness.
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Everything is still white when her feet land on what feels like solid ground. She glances down, and the knife is gone, along with the bloodstain that had been spreading across her shirt. There’s no visible ground beneath her. Everything is fuzzy and hazy and tinged with a soft, blurring light. It’s bright after the darkness of the barn, but not too bright. It doesn’t hurt her eyes. In fact, nothing hurts. This is a place beyond pain.
She hears footsteps then, and her gaze flickers up, her hand going to her side for her knife and finding only an empty holster. But then she doesn’t need it anyway, because she recognizes the figure emerging from the misty, hazy fog of nothing surrounding her.
“Daddy…” She barely breathes it, her breath hitching in her chest as tears burn the back of her throat. His brown eyes - she has his eyes - glitter with amusement, and Tara suddenly feels like she’s trying to swallow a golf ball as her father stands before her. He looks better, happier than he had in years when he was still alive - no trace of the pain from the cancer that had ripped him away from her.
“Daddy…” She says again, and then she’s in one of his crushing hugs, and he’s just as strong as he was when he was still in the Corps, coming home in a navy blue uniform and lifting Tara up to the sky like she was a feather and she could pretend she could fly, seeming to soar among the clouds in her father’s loving embrace.
“Tara, my girl.” He squeezes her until it feels like her ribs are about to crack and then steps back, gripping her shoulders and gazing at her like he could never look away. “You’ve done so good, sweetheart.”
“Am I dead?” Tara asks softly, her eyes still welling with tears as she stares into the face of the man who raised her - who she thought she’d never see again. She’s talking to her dead father, and that seems like a pretty good argument for being dead, but she doesn’t feel dead. An exploratory hand pressed to her chest confirms it. Her heart is still beating strong.
Her father shakes his head, his warm, calloused hands still on her shoulders. “Not yet, sweetheart. Not yet.”
“But soon.” It’s not a question. He nods confirmation, his eyes still sparkling with the sense of mischief he’d instilled in her.
“Soon.” He gently touches her stomach, where the blade pierced her. “I’m afraid this is all happening inside your head, sweetheart.”
“So...so it’s not real…?”
“Of course it’s real.” Her father brings his hands back to her shoulders, gazing at her with a pure, loving pride she’d always dreamed of seeing. All she’s ever wanted is to make her father proud.
“Daddy…” She chokes on a small, soft sob, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve. “Daddy, I’m sorry...Lilly...and Meg...I was supposed to protect them…”
But he just shakes his head, squeezing her shoulders reassuringly. “You did everything you could, Tara. And you’ve done so well, sweetheart. I am so proud of you.”
Tara sniffles, wiping her eyes on his sleeve. “You’re...you’re proud of me…?”
“Sweetheart, I have always been proud of you.” A gentle pat to her cheek, and even if this is all just a dream, a hallucination of her blood-starved brain, his hand feels real. “You’re a good, good girl. You’ve saved so many lives. You haven’t gotten what you deserved in life, Tara, and I’m sorry you’ve had to lose so much. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there with you. I’m sorry your life was what it was. But you have given me so many reasons to be proud of you, sweetheart.”
Tara sniffles again, wiping her eyes desperately on her sleeve. “I love you, Daddy…”
“I love you too, Tara…” And then he hugs her again, and Tara melts into it, and then she’s falling again, spinning through nothingness, and her father dissolves into mist in her arms, and then she’s lying on the dirty floor of a barn in the thick of a battle with a mouth full of mud and a face streaked with tears.
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She’s dying slowly.
She’s too weak to stand, too weak to rejoin the fight. All she can do is lie in a crumpled heap in the filth and watch as the blood oozes slowly from the puncture wound in her midsection.
She hears her friends screaming. Their pleas. Their defiant cries. Only reaffirming that she’s the odd one out for being so calm about this. About the fact that she’s dying.
Dying doesn’t scare her. What scares her is that she’ll slip away again, back into that white void, and spend eternity there alone. All she can do is pray that her tentative belief in an afterlife where she’ll see them all again is more than just pie in the sky. More than just a fairytale she spun for herself when the heartache got too bad.
A booted foot comes crashing out of nowhere, slamming into her temple, and it dazes her just enough that Tara is falling again, the earthen floor of the barn tumbling away as she free-falls into nothingness.
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Her feet land on solid ground once more, ground that doesn’t look like ground, and Tara is alone again in an empty space of hazy white light. Her heart is still soldiering on. Fighting to keep beating. Tara is still alive.
More footsteps, and Tara’s head snaps up at once, and then he’s in front of her, smiling kindly, even if he looks a little sad. The top of a Polaroid picture sticks out of his pocket, and when Tara looks at it, it’s the picture of Maggie Rhee that he had when they first met what seems like an eternity ago.
“Glenn-” she sobs, and then she throws her arms around her best friend, the golf ball forming a lump in her throat again as she tries not to cry too hard. “Glenn, I’m so sorry- ”
“Tara, what the fuck are you sorry for?” He catches her anyway, hugging her back just as tightly. “I’ve missed you.”
“You died and you never got to meet your son and I never even said a real damn goodbye-” Tara’s voice cracks painfully and she clings to him even tighter, trying not to think about the crushing moment when she’d heard she would never hear him laugh again.
“And that was not your fault. ” Glenn shakes his head at her, not even attempting to peel her off of him. “You always blame yourself, T. Always have, and you haven’t changed at all, not in that regard. It wasn’t your fault I died. I forbid you to blame yourself any more, all right?”
“You deserved to live,” Tara tells him, and she finally steps back but only so she can see his face as she goes back to using her sleeve as a tissue. “You deserved to meet him. He has your eyes, Glenn-”
“I wish I could have stayed. Still miss Maggie every day. And I wish my son could know me.”
“She still talks about you,” Tara promises, laughing tearily, able to share at least a little good news. “Every day. The last time I saw her...he might not have met you, but he’ll know you. Maggie Rhee made sure of that.”
Glenn laughs too, but not for long, his face turning serious again - as serious as Glenn ever got, anyway. “I know you’re scared, T. You shouldn’t be.”
“Am I going to be alone?” Tara asks at last, and Glenn just shakes his head. He opens his mouth to say more, and then shuts it again firmly, turning his head towards the empty void as if he’s been called.
“I don’t have much time, T. You have to go back again.” And then he’s hugging her again, and Tara latches onto him even though she already feels him starting to melt away, as if clinging to him will keep him here in this place until her heart gives out at last. “I love you, Tara. I’m sorry.”
And she just barely manages to gasp out an I love you of her own before she’s falling again. She slams back into the dirt, crying all over again.
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The battle is quieting down. Most of her friends have been subdued. Some of them are dead. The survivors have been tied, she can see them out of the corner of her eye. They’ve been chained to the wall, shackled all over again. She feels a few stares on her, desperate ones, and realizes that they probably think she’s dead.
But she’s not. It hurts more now, though. She’s lost a lot of blood, and her fingers and toes are numb and cold as she lies motionless in a pool of her own scarlet lifeblood. It’s leaking into the dirt slowly, too slowly, and she’s drenched in it, in the sickening warmth of her own blood.
Her heart continues to beat feebly, though. She can hear it pounding in her ears, fluttering like a trapped bird, pumping what blood she has left through her body and to the stab wound where it oozes out and into the dirt.
“Is she dead?” a cold, malicious voice rasps, and then she’s being prodded with what feels like the blunt end of a spear. She twitches slightly, lets out a soft moan. And then the end of the spear strikes her skull and a smashing pain bursts through her head and she sees stars as an explosion goes off behind her eyes, an agony that blocks out anything and everything except how badly it hurts. Tara wails weakly in pain, and then the dirty earthen floor is ripped from underneath her like a rug torn out from under her feet and Tara falls helplessly into nothingness once more.
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“You’re an idiot.”
Tara spins around, startled, only to see Jesus standing beside her with that stupid shit-eating grin, his hair hanging loose and free down his shoulders. “Tara, Tara, Tara…” he shakes his head at her, feigning disappointment. “So easy to spook. It’s not even hard to sneak up on you.”
Tara growls out an “ asshole” and then flies into his arms, hugging him desperately. “I hate your guts, Rovia - but I missed you -”
“Of course you missed me. I’m pretty amazing, T.” He hugs her back, holding her for a second before letting her go, his hands falling to rest in his trench coat pockets. “You’ve done well with the Hilltop. It should have been you all along.”
“You were an amazing leader-” Tara starts to protest, but he cuts her off by holding up on one gloved hand, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“I led because Maggie asked me to. You led because you’re a leader, T. I should have asked you to take over years ago. You were better in a few weeks than I was in years.”
“Well, I am pretty amazing,” Tara parrots, her eyes stinging with fresh tears at seeing another face she thought she’d never see again. “I’m still not dead.”
“Nope. You’ve hung on a surprisingly long time.”
“But I’m going to,” Tara confirms, and he nods. “Okay, so why can’t I just go? I’ve been bleeding and bleeding...and it hurts ...come on, you’re literally Jesus, why can’t you just whisk me over the rainbow bridge?”
Jesus just shakes his head, still fighting back a smirk. “Not how it works, T. Besides, you’ll be glad you waited. You’ve got one more visitor before you go.”
Tara’s faintly beating heart does a backflip in her chest and she stops breathing for a moment, staring into his sea green eyes. “Is it-”
“Uh-uh.” He presses a finger to his lips, and then he really does give her another smile. “Now that would be telling.”
Jesus holds out his arms for her, but Tara doesn’t go into them. “As soon as I hug you, you’re going to leave, aren’t you?”
He nods, and he almost seems a little sad about it. “I don’t make the rules, T. But I can promise you that it’s going to be okay.”
“You promise…?” Tara breathes, and then she’s starting to cry again, because she doesn’t want to feel him slip away. She’s only just gotten him back, and now he’s already about to leave again-
“I promise, T.” He motions for her, and Tara reluctantly steps into his arms, relaxing into the hug, letting herself sob into his shoulder as his hands start to dissolve away into mist on her back.
“I love you, Tara…” he murmurs, and she sobs out one in return before he’s gone and she’s falling again, painfully, miserably alone.
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She lands on her knees this time, held up by a rough, unfamiliar hand. She’s dizzy, the world swooping underneath her, her vision of her friends’ blurred and fuzzy from their places chained against the walls. She can hear sobbing, and it hurts her almost as badly as the mortal wound in her stomach.
Her head starts to slump forward, only to be met with a vicious blade against her neck. Her eyes widen briefly in horror, and it hits Tara through her fuzzy, muddled haze that she’s about to be beheaded.
The cruel, calloused hand pulls her back by her hair, jerking hard on it so she feels it all the way in her scalp, exposing her neck. Tara is too weak to resist, too weak to fight back as she feels the knife press closer and closer to her sensitive flesh.
And then it cuts through, one burst of sharp pain, and then the floor disappears like she’s fallen through a trapdoor, and the pain is no more as she tumbles down into white, empty nothingness.
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She lands on her feet again, surrounded by the same empty void, her hand flying instinctively to her neck. Finding nothing, not a trace of blood, it helps her to breathe again, and Tara exhales deeply, desperately searching for the final visitor Jesus promised her.
“I love you,” she hears suddenly, a voice she never thought she’d hear again, and she spins around with tears already pouring to see Dr. Denise Cloyd sitting cross-legged on the floor behind her, a worn copy of War & Peace in her hands, her glasses perched on her nose. Denise looks like she’s about to cry too, and she carefully sets the book down to avoid getting any teardrops on the pages. “I told you I’d say it when you came back. You came back.”
A choked wailing noise tears from Tara’s throat and she practically crashes to her knees, skidding across the floor to fall into Denise’s arms, the book falling discarded to the side as Tara cups the other woman’s face in her hands, pulling her in for the sweetest, most loving, best kiss she’s ever had in her life.
Their noses bump a little awkwardly, and Tara giggles hysterically, sobbing as she clings to her girlfriend - it’s been so long since she’s been able to say the phrase my girlfriend and the thought only makes her cry harder - and she carefully runs a thumb over her cheek, unable to convince herself that this could ever be real. That Denise is really here in her arms, kissing her and telling her at last that she loves her.
Denise loves her.
“I love you, ” Tara gasps into the kiss, letting herself sob at last without bothering to wipe away her tears. “I love you, I love you, I love you - oh, God, Denise-”
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t tell you before,” Denise murmurs, gently smoothing her hands through Tara’s hair, running them down her sides, touching her face, pulling her in by the collar of her jacket, touching Tara all over like she can’t believe that they’re finally in each other’s arms again either. “And I’m sorry for what’s happening out there, Tara- ”
“It’s all right,” Tara interrupts, and it is as she throws her arms around her girlfriend’s neck and buries her head in her shoulders, and this time Denise doesn’t melt away. “It doesn’t matter anymore, all that matters is this-”
And then she feels it. Her heart, thumping weakly in her chest, gives out at last. Tara’s heart gives one last weak beat and then stills, her heartbeat gone. But nothing else is gone, Tara is still here and Denise is too and she’s solid and warm and there, not dissipating like the others did.
“Do you have to go too…?” Tara murmurs, and she almost subconsciously tightens her arms around her girlfriend, refusing to confront the possibility of losing her too.
“I’m never going to have to go again,” Denise promises, latching onto Tara just as tightly. “No one’s ever going to leave you again, Tara. Not here. Your fight is over, my love.”
“My dad…? Glenn…? Jesus…? Noah, my sister, my niece, everyone…? All of them, they’re here…?”
Denise nods, her glasses fogged up slightly with tears as she gently brushes away Tara’s with her thumb, her blue eyes shining with love as she gazes at her. “They’re here. Just outside. There’s more to the new world than this place. It’s beautiful, Tara…”
Tara forces herself to pull away slightly, and Denise still doesn’t disappear, and at last it sinks in that she’s finally getting a happy ending.
“C’mon,” Tara says, taking her girlfriend’s hand and pulling her to her feet for another kiss. “Show me around, baby. I wanna see the new world.”Denise nods, and bends down to scoop up her copy of War & Peace, and then they walk together, hand in hand, into their own little piece of heaven.