Season 8:

Vilomah

Siddiq was walking towards Barrington to check on some of the wounded from the previous night's battle, but he stopped in his tracks when he spotted the person sitting on the front steps.

Clary Dixon. Or Raleigh. Siddiq wasn't really sure which, as her brother was a Dixon, but that same brother had also told him how Clary was adopted by Aaron and Eric Raleigh after they met Negan. Daryl had also warned him not to mention Eric, and to be careful with Aaron as her remaining father had taken off and left her in Hilltop.

Daryl hadn't just warned him about Eric. He had advised against Siddiq interacting with Clary at all. "She holds you responsible," Daryl had told him.

"I am responsible," Siddiq had replied.

"I know," Daryl said. "And that's why the rest of us won't be able to stop her if she snaps."

Clary didn't seem to have noticed him. She remained sitting on the steps, eyes still on the Saviors being held prisoner in the pen. Siddiq took a breath, braving himself to face her for the moment it would take to step past. He walked up the steps, quietly excusing himself as he stepped around her. Siddiq had just made it to the top of the stairs when he heard Clary say, "Siddiq."

He hesitantly turned, pausing for a moment before he asked, "Yes?"

"Will you sit? With me?"

Clary looked like she was trying to figure out why exactly she had just asked that. Siddiq wondered for a moment himself before he nodded and sat down next to her. Clary rubbed her shoulder, and Siddiq asked, "Were you hurt last night?"

"I was shot about a month ago," Clary replies. "It passed clean through and it's long since healed, but it still hurts every now and then." Clary ran a hand through her hair, sighing. "Christ, it's been a month. It's only been a month, and we've lost so much." Clary glanced at Siddiq. "The rest of us, I should say. 'Cause you're not one of us. You never will be."

Siddiq knew that. He knew that there would be some that would never accept him, but he wouldn't let it get to him. He was here now, and he wasn't going anywhere.

Clary paused for a moment before she looked over at him. "How many walkers have you killed?"

"Two hundred forty-five, give or take," Siddiq answered. "Your three questions, right? Carl asked me them."

Clary nodded once. "How many people have you killed?"

"One," Siddiq answered, then answered the third question before she could ask it. "The dead tried to kill him, but didn't."

"A mercy kill," Clary translated, and Siddiq dipped his head in affirmation. "That was my first kill, too. A mercy kill. I didn't even know her, but she was bitten. She asked me to. I had seen what happens. It was in the early days, before anyone really knew what was going on. She wasn't strong enough to do it herself, so I ended it for her."

"How many walkers have you killed?" Siddiq questioned. "Sorry, I know those are questions for new people, but—"

"Four hundred twenty-seven," Clary answered. Siddiq's mouth hung open, cut off in the middle of his sentence, as he stared at her. Clary looked at him out of the corner of her eye, adding, "Give or take." Siddiq let out a soft laugh. "I don't know how many walkers. I don't know how many people, either."

"You don't count?" Siddiq asked. It was an honest question—he wasn't accusing her of being so cold that she didn't care how many people she killed. He was just genuinely surprised that she didn't count. Siddiq, when he first met her, saw how the weight of the amount of people she's killed hung on her shoulders.

"It was fifty-three," Clary said, "as of the day Eric died. I stopped counting when I lost my dad."

"I'm sorry. Is that… is that why they call you the Orphan?"

"My birth parents, the ones I shared with Daryl and Merle, are dead. There was no love lost there. Daryl was the one that raised me, after all. When Negan took Daryl, Eric and Aaron took me in. They're my dads and, as far as I'm concerned, my real parents. Negan found out they adopted me, and he started calling me the Orphan. Like he thought I gave a shit about Will and Camille Dixon. I never knew my mother, and Will has always been the reason I've been cold to the world." Clary glanced down, shaking her head. "I lied. I'm not as cold as I say I am; I feel it all. I told Ezekiel once that I had to stop counting, or else it would kill me. And now it kills me that I've stopped. This world changes people."

"I don't think it does," Siddiq admitted.

"Damn, are you blind or just straight up stupid? How can you look around at all these people and think this world hasn't changed them?"

"That's not what I meant," Siddiq countered. "Of course this world has an affect on people. You know, you kill things that were once human and watch the humans get killed by those things. That affects people, but it doesn't change them. This world… it brings out what was hidden inside people before everything went bad. Whether it's something bad—" Siddiq nodded towards the Saviors, and then looked down at Clary. "—or something good."

When Clary realized he was looking down at her, she questioned, "What the hell do you know about me?"

"I don't know much," Siddiq said, "but from what I've seen and what little I know about Will Dixon, I know that you're a survivor. What you went through, you lived through it. You survived it. And now, you fight to survive in this world. You fight and you survive for all the people you care about that are here right now. And you fight because they care about you, too."

Clary didn't reply right away, instead turning to stare out into the dark Hilltop. She spotted Carol down by the infirmary, saying, "There's words like orphans, widows." Clary looked over at Siddiq. "What do you call someone that's lost their child?"

"There's a Chinese saying, that the grey haired should not bury the black haired. You shouldn't have to bury a child. That it's against the natural order." Siddiq paused, looking away. "Aaron shouldn't have to bury his daughter."

"I've lost everything. I don't know how much more I can take, and I think I'm already at my breaking point. I don't want to live, Siddiq. I've tried to get Negan to kill me so many times, but he just refuses. No matter what I do, I just can't seem to die. And I'm terrified of dying, but I so much more terrified of becoming Negan. And that's the only way to stop it. The only way for me to not become Negan is for me to die."

"What if we stop it by killing Negan?" Siddiq proposed.

"They're all Negan." Clary closed her eyes, shaking her head. "I had my bad day." Clary opened her eyes, staring down the path. Siddiq thought that she was just staring off into space, but Clary was seeing the boy she loved standing there. Carl's ghost stood in the path, watching her, forever a reminder of the dreaded day Negan was so insistent upon her having. "I had my bad day." Clary suddenly stood. "I gotta go find Jesus."

Clary's back was to Siddiq, not seeing his smirk as he quipped, "I thought you were an atheist."

Clary let out a short chuckle. "You know, I don't really think it matters if there's a God anymore. Doesn't matter who you believe in. Every religion has a concept of an afterlife, of a Hell. Here we are, livin' in it. As the walking dead."

"Are you saying we're dead?"

"We're all the same, us and the dead. The dead and the people they leave behind."

"'Do not send us astray after them,'" Siddiq recited. "That comes from a prayer for the dead."

"So pray for us, Siddiq," Clary said, turning to look back at him. "Pray for the dead, pray for those still walking. Pray so that the orphans and the widows and... and the vilomahs are not sent astray after those who left us."