Disclaimer: I don't own AMC's The Walking Dead or any of its characters, wishful thinking aside.
Authors Note #1: So, this was inspired by the 5x09 promo, specifically the first two minutes of the episode that were released and revolves around Father Gabriel – from the events of Coda to what we see and hear of him in the promo. This is based on the assumption that the funeral we saw in the promo is Beth's and not someone elses.
Warnings: *Contains: spoilers, religious content/allusions/references/quotes, adult language, adult content, angst, season five spoilers up to the first 2 minutes of the 5x09 promo. References to the usual emotional and mental trauma, hurt/comfort and unexpected solace along the way.
Tell God to Release the Doves (his children surrender)
We look not at what can be seen.
But we look at what cannot be seen.
For what can be seen is temporary.
But what cannot be seen is eternal.
For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God.
A house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
The air was heavy when he let the cover of the bible feather closed. He winced as the spine creaked, in danger of splitting down the center as he looked up at the people ringed around him.
What he saw was little different than what he was used to. The acrid tang of freshly churned earth. The tart of salt-tracks. The blank faces. The wrecked faces. The guilty. It seemed like regardless of the circumstances, at least in this, death would always look the same.
And that was, well, not comforting at all actually.
He watched as some of them came forward, losing handfuls of dirt across the ground Rick and Daryl had already packed level. A singular lonely mound centered in a field of long grass and crowned by a tangle of young trees. An abandoned farmhouse visible in the distance.
He hadn't understood the significance, but the metaphor had been stark all in its own.
He watched the sister – Maggie – through the fan of his lashes. Keeping his eyes lowered as she stared straight ahead, unfocused and blank like she was another world away and had no intention of ever truly coming back.
If the world had been like it was, he would have offered her some comfort. He would have been expected to. It was his job after all. To pick up the pieces. When all the people had eventually trickled away he would have taken her away from this place, filling her hands with a cup of discount tea the ladies on the Luncheon Committee insisted on buying – trying to trim an already strained budget.
He would have sat with her. Taking the cues she'd inevitably give him that would tell him how their time together would go. Sometimes that meant sitting in silence. Sometimes it meant watching them burn their tongues on awful tea just to escape him sooner. Uncomfortable with another being witness to their vulnerabilities. Sometimes it meant comforting them with familiar phrases or the warm clasp of a hand. Less often it meant writing a cheque, quietly assuring the grieving that everything would be taken care of. Seeing God's love spread like unsteady relief across crumpled faces as they sobbed, shaking in gratitude.
But sometimes it meant a mug that remained untouched, forgotten as a nervous tongue babbled nonsensically about family and after-funeral arrangements. Manic and hyperactive until he called them a cab and pressed his card – including his personal number written hastily on the back -promising that when they needed him, when exhaustion hit and they finally fell apart – he would be there, day or night. Ready to guide, advise and listen. To help them understand God's plan for the future.
Only this time he did nothing.
He just let her stand there.
Surrounded by people, yet somehow still painfully alone.
There was a fragility to her faith he respected too much to try and heal with empty words.
He supposed, that for once, he recognized it was not his place.
He rubbed the back of his neck, uncomfortable in more ways than one when he realized that save for Maggie and Glenn, he was alone. When had that happened? How long had they been standing there? Where they waiting for him to say something? His eyes flickered from Glenn to Maggie then back down to the lonely grave, collar tight and damp with sweat as he struggled through a swallow. Unable to shake the feeling that he was a trespasser, an unwanted witness to a grief that was not his own. He spied the other's retreating backs - wavering like oil-heat radiating from the blacktop in mid-summer – heading back towards the distant farmhouse – just like he should be doing.
In the end he took the coward's way out.
The familiar way out.
He said something. A small meaningless platitude that Glenn acknowledged with a graceless nod before extending his sympathies and turning his heel. Fleeing the scene as discomfort and misplaced grief rose up in the back of his throat like bile.
He was halfway across the field before he let himself look back. Catching sight of the two of them crumpled in a heap at the foot of the thin little mound. There was no sound. No muffled sobs or wild cries. Just silence. Just a rickety wooden cross speared crooked in the soft clay and a name carved into it that time would quickly erase.
He looked away just as quickly, tears pricking on the edges of his vision. More sure than ever that he'd made the right decision. There were some things that even the Lord could not mend. And the rawness of new death was one of them.
He walked back to the house slowly, keeping his gait uneven and stilted to afford the others a measure of privacy as they talked quietly. Pairing off here and there. Talking about what had happened, what came next, how much gas they had in their tanks, how much water, how much daylight, food. All the little questions he'd been avoiding since the first news reports had started trickling out of the major cities.
The dead were walking.
Hell had broken open.
Stripping flesh off flesh as the minions of Satan rejoiced in their newfound freedom.
He'd scoffed. Snorting so hard he'd nearly inhaled a bit of pastry, suffering such a coughing fit that the landscaper had tip-toed in to check on him. But the reports hadn't gone away and soon enough his congregation started getting restless - worried. So, he did what he'd always done during such times. He'd worked it into a Sunday sermon. Preaching about the need for Christ in the modern age. Pointing towards the too common social hysteria that gripped the masses. All one needed was to have faith. Faith in one's self. Faith in a higher power. Faith in the fellowship of family and friends – of those that surrounded you and there would be no need for fear.
But he'd been wrong.
More wrong than he could have ever believed possible.
So wrong that he'd papered the floor with ripped up shreds of that very sermon. Screaming into his neat little bed – quilted blankets that smelt like moth balls and hospital corners so sheer they could have taken an arm off. Trying and failing to muffle the sound as his flock – his friends and neighbours - beat at the doors. He could still hear them. A mess of wild cries and desperate nails that scraped across the walls of the locked chapel as the walkers surrounded them. Echoes that to this day, refused to fade.
He closed his eyes, feeling the warmth of the sun against his face as his palms skimmed across the tops of the long grass. Humbled to quiet as the events of the past few days slowly began to sink in.
He felt like he'd spent the last year – no, more - staring at the inside of his eyelids. He'd made an art form out of avoiding reality. Waiting for the world to change back. Waiting for judgement. Divine inspiration. For rescue, death, or maybe just chance to make things right. For a long time it hadn't mattered. He'd just been going through the motions. Desperately lonely with a spiraling sense of sanity and no small measure of self-loathing.
Until them.
Until they'd saved him.
Perhaps in more ways than one.
These people.
This family.
Somewhere in the distance, the baby – Judith – burbled out a laugh. Gifting the breeze with the honest sounds of innocence and genuine pleasure. Evidence enough that the world was still turning - moving on, with or without them as the sun hung heavy and full in the afternoon sky.
The grand irony about death - especially your own - is that it's not really about you. Perhaps it should be. You are the one that's dead, after all. But all too often, it's not. It is about how your death - your life - affected those around you.
It felt selfish.
But that was because it was selfish.
It was a very human thing, selfishness.
Much like fear and doubt, it was our self-awareness that put us above the beast. Our awareness of our own mortality. Of the uncertainty of our own destinies. Whether viewed religiously or secularly, the unknown was a constant worry.
He felt as though they few – those who'd survived - understood that more than most.
He shuddered, remembering. Finding the stiff line of Rick's back at the head of the staggered crowd still making its way across the field.
We've all done something.
Part of him still wondered. What had they done? What sins had they committed that they were able to accept his so fully? Were they beyond judgement? Beyond reproach? Was he? Somewhere along the way the wires had been crossed, lost in a jumble of complex twists and tangles that he was half certain could never be set to rights again. Things used to be so simple. Easy. Not perfect, not ideal, but better.
The vice in his chest tightened another notch as he caught sight of a shambling shape stumble out of the tree line on the opposite side of the clearing. He opened his mouth to call out a warning, but before the words could air out, an arrow was already flying. Sinking deep into an eye-socket with a meaty sounding thwack as Daryl broke away from the group to collect it.
He closed his mouth, chastened.
Everything about the way the world was now frightened him. It cored him out. Making him lesser - lesser than he should have been. Lesser than the expectations his flock had once held him to. He was so fearful. Fearful of what the world had become. Fearful of what he might let it change him into. Fearful of the wandering dead. Fearful of those who still lived. Fearful of being alone. Fearful of-
It wasn't until he tasted his own red that he realized he'd bitten clear through his lower lip. Finding himself stock still, fists clenched tightly at his sides. Lord, he was drowning in it!
He didn't fit into this world, the way things were now. Perhaps, given time, he'd learn to. Maybe he'd even fumble his way through learning how to protect himself and find his place. His niche amongst them, god willing. But he would never relish it. He would never own it like they did. The world had changed them - changed him. Only thing was that some people were just better at adapting to what it demanded.
Even now, in the presence of all this beauty. Surrounded by people who cared about one another, who lived and loved like every day was immeasurably precious, he was still afraid. Host to a creeping paralysis he knew would one day rear its head and mean his death. The deer in the proverbial headlights.
He blinked over an unexpected sheen of angry tears, tipping his head back as he willed them not to fall. Well aware of the spectacle he was probably making of himself as somewhere ahead the others started organizing, planning to stay in the farm house overnight.
He couldn't deny that he felt strangely lost. Realizing that somewhere along the way he'd forgotten how to live. Forgotten about the joys of conversation and what you did beyond not sleeping and figuring out new ways to pass the time. Ascribing meaning to the simplest of tasks because the routine was the only thing keeping you sane. Trying to ignore how hungry you were as you wondered if you could risk boiling water for drinking the following day as you watched your propane reserves steadily dwindling.
Yet, this time he wasn't alone.
And strangely, life, as it were, seemed nowhere near as bleak.
He took a cautious step forward, then another. Watching the long grass hush over the cuffs of his worn black slacks as his feet began to broach the space between him and the others. Taking him soundly out of the middle ground as a small, hopeful little smile threatened to curl at the corners of his lips.
He'd already made his decision.
He wanted it.
And maybe that was the point. Maybe that was why the little one had died. Sacrificing herself in the name of whatever it took to keep that flame burning in the heart of them all. Maybe it didn't have to be senseless. Maybe that was what he was here to do. To relearn what it took to truly make it.
After all, living doesn't mean you're alive.
It just means you aren't dead yet.
Because no one should have to be alone.
No one should be left behind.
No matter what sins they might have committed.
That was God's love.
His son's greatest gift to all mankind.
The ultimate sacrifice.
Redemption.
Forgiveness.
Even to those who didn't deserve it.
It was a comforting message.
Still, he'd be lying if he believed he deserved such mercy.
A/N #1: Thank you for reading. Please let me know what you think! Reviews and constructive critiquing are love! – This story is now complete.
Reference: Big thank you to gunslingerdixon for the promo dialogue from Father Gabriel's eulogy.