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When the virus got defeated Carol was met with a cacophony of scientists, and military, and people who apparently run the world and she didn't even know existed, none of whom remembered anything, all asking questions and pushing, and poking and staring at her like an animal at the zoo.
Manousos had left as soon as possible, at the dead of night.
Not a very patient man for bullshit. The virus was over, his job was done, he was gone. Just like that. Puff.
Eventually everyone got the answers they needed and Carol could finally go back home.
So she went to a motel at the side of the road in New Mexico.
Thankfully, the virus left everything as well kept as possible and people went right back to work like the apocalypse didn't just fucking happen, so she could open Uber eats and order in.
She would turn on the tv sometimes.
The others were always on tv. Except for Manousos.
She wondered how long it would take for the novelty of the almost end of the human race to ware off. The only one she saw as potential celebrity afterwards was Diabatè. His life now wasn't so different then during the hive. Been famous and having the whole word at your feet are not very different things and he had the personality for tv. Laxmi not so much. And neither did Carol.
She never spoke about it. Didn't write either.
She just spent weeks on end there, looking at the wall or looking at her phone. It was all the same.
She missed throwing golf balls at the windows. Going to fancy restaurants all to herself. Driving around in any car she could possibly want.
But didn't miss doing it alone.
It fucking sucks. It made her want to scream, to bang her head at a wall.
How could she miss it? Miss them?
No. She missed Zosia.
It's the truth.
Zosia, the woman Carol didn't really know, and yet, her heart ached for.
Zosia, who held Carol's avalanche with her bare hands.
Zosia, who never met Carol.
It didn't please Carol, that her thoughts were full of another woman, but thinking of Helen was just another torture, one that she never stopped enduring since that day. The day when they took her.
All Carol has known since that terrible disease was loss. Since the beginning. Maybe that's why she judged the others so much. It was unfair. They all lost but she was the only one who couldn't pretend she didn't. The only one to whom the world truly ended.
And then she met Manousos. They didn't necessarily agree on everything. In fact when he showed up Carol had pretty much given up.
Drowning in loneliness, she tried to be optimistic but eventually her lungs were full and she needed a life boat.
Manousos had one, his family was there. Not their minds, their hearts, their souls. But they were there. They were alive.
She was hurt that he judged her so harshly.
She saw herself in him and she understood the others now. How they felt when she kept telling them that their loved one's were gone. That they weren't there.
She was a woman with nothing left, but Zosia was there.
When the world was too heavy for her shoulders. When the rope was about to break. When she called. She was there. And he didn't understand that.
Another part of her called bullshit.
Her wife died, and what did she do? Took everything her murderer offered.
Including her replacement.
It stings but Carol knows it's true. They wanted to replace Helen, to pacify Carol.
Well it didn't work.
She came back to her senses and pushed back against their tactics. She won. Humanity won.
So she finally went back home. Determined to get her life back.
And now she's sitting here, staring at a white flower painting on her wall, asking *why.* Why did she have to win? What did she win for?