Waiting at The Kingdom was made worse by my little quirk of feeling when people I love are in danger. The chilly fingers of fear, death, and danger crawled up my spine. Finding me unwilling to act on that warning, they danced across my skin. Still not getting me to move forward, to rush to save and protect, it felt like they were closing around my throat. Choking off my air. Holding me hostage for my impotence.
Who? I wanted to scream. Who, of the people I loved so much, was in danger? Who do I rush to? Which person was in MORE danger? Which person could I save? They were all in danger. Every single person I loved and cared for was at the mercy of fate. A fate that they'd pushed toward. A fate that would be marred by death and blood. So, I tried to reason with the warning that was screaming through my body, WHO do I pick? Where do I rush to?
It seemed like days passed, but the truth is that it was mere hours when the news spread. I was at the laundry. I had hoped that work, menial mind numbing work would keep the fear and warning of my body at bay. It didn't, but had moments that it wasn't at the forefront of my mind. When the call went up that the King had returned, I followed the others to see what news came with him.
He didn't have to speak, and he wouldn't. I could see, on his face, Carol's, and the man who acted as his guard Jerry's face that it wasn't a success. Regardless of what had happened out there, these three were all that survived. And, since I couldn't see the orange and black of the tiger peeking out, clearly the impressive cat was a casualty as well. My eyes met Carol's and I nodded, walking away, back to her house.
Carol joined me not long after. She told me what she'd seen, what had gone wrong, how they'd been cut down by the Saviors. She told me that Ezekiel was taking the loss far harder than she'd expected. I listened, drinking in the news, but learning that she couldn't alay any of my fears about the people I loved enough to have my skin crawling with the cold warning of the danger to their lives.
She leaves me, urging me to get some rest, and I know that she's going back to the theater to try to talk to Ezekiel. There's something there, between the two of them that I almost recognize. Something between what I had with Daryl and what I nearly experienced with Negan. I take her advice, laying down on the sofa to try to rest.
I wake up to shaking and I know it's happened again. That I started screaming, that in the safety of my dreams I had allowed all the fear and uncertainty to unleash and overcome my constraints. Opening my eyes to Carol's worried face, her hands brushing my loose hair away from my sweaty face. I'm gulping for air and I can tell that my face is awash with tears, I feel the dampness cooling.
"I'm sorry," I whisper, sitting up and looking around. It's dark. I haven't a clue whether she just got home or if I woke her. "I'm sorry-"
She hushed me. "I have them, too." She offers, letting me sit up and taking the seat that becomes available as my body rises. "We all do, I think." Carol's voice is still quiet, and I wonder if I simply scream, or if I scream their names?
"I didn't." I answer, swiping at my face with the blanket I'd been covered with. "I didn't have them at all, not one." I was thinking about the darkness and nowhere phase of my life. "It was blank and peaceful and I never wanted to wake up from it." I could hear the yearning in my own voice. "I still don't want to wake up." I finally admitted it out loud. That I didn't want to live anymore. And I couldn't and wouldn't take it back.
"Jessi," Carol murmured, pulling me to lean against her, like a mother and her child. "What would your death help? If you weren't alive, then it would be such a waste." I felt my heart clench painfully at how close she sounded to what Negan had tried to convince me of. "I know it's painful, I do, but you can't give up."
I let her comfort me and let the words finally flow free. "I'm tired of bearing witness, Carol. I don't understand why-" I stopped and closed my eyes thinking of all the horrors we've seen together and separately. "I should have stood up to Dad and told him to go find you when he exiled you." I felt her shake her head. "I've seen all of it. I've watched everyone change. Why was what you did to protect our people worse than what anyone else has done?" My fingers were fidgeting with the blanket. "I'm not strong enough for this world, Carol. I'm tired. I'm weak. And I wish I could do it-"
"No," she pulled back so she could force my face up to look at her. "Don't you ever even think about that. Not anymore. Do you hear me?" I looked away. "Jessica Grimes, killing yourself, removing yourself from this screwed up world isn't going to make it better for the people you love. Any of them." And I knew she included Negan in that group.
We sat for a while together, my head on her shoulder, and hand holding mine. The silence stretching, but not awkward, both of us lost in our own thoughts.
Eventually we tried to sleep again, Carol going to her bed, me settling back on the couch. I didn't let my body win the fight to chase after sleep. I couldn't risk it. I couldn't risk ruining Carol's chance for rest after her more difficult day.
The sun rose and so did I. I was standing on the porch when Carol joined me. Staring out at the grass swaying ever so gently, I heard her step beside me. I was expecting her to ask. I had a feeling that she knew I'd agree. And so, after a bite of fruit and some water, I was off.
I walked with purpose to the theater. I smiled at the guards, and realized that they were expecting me. Carol, I thought with a shake of my head, knew me far better than I considered. I approached the doors that kept Ezekiel closeted away from his people and knocked gently. No answer came, but I hadn't expected one. I pushed the door open, and slipped inside.
He looked incredibly broken. Sitting on his throne, holding Shiva's chain in one hand, but staring at nothing, I wasn't sure he'd even heard my knock, much less noticed my entrance.
"Jessica," his voice wasn't as powerful. It was still gentle, but it was filled with such pain that I could feel it push past the chill that was still trying to get me to pay attention to its warning.
"Ezekiel." I offered, moving forward and sitting down in a seat in the front row. Carol had told me he was having issues with his title, so I wouldn't use it. "I'm sorry about Shiva." His eyes meet mine and I can see the pain I heard in his voice pooled there. "It's terrible when you lose your hope, isn't it?" I ask, leaning back into the theater seat to get more comfortable.
He grunts and stares at Shiva's chain still clutched in his hand. "I've lost far more than hope, Jessica." I nod, even though his eyes are no longer on me.
"It's Jessi." I correct, and smile when he looks back up at me. "Have you ever heard of Pandora's box, Ezekiel?" He nods. "Well, I've always hated that they call it a 'box'. It was a pithos, but one wrong translation later-" I stop, realizing I was lecturing and enjoying it. "Anyway, you know the tale, the myth. I always think of it as a precursor for Eve's fall. Us women and our NEED for knowledge." My smile is far more genuine than it has been in a very long time. "Do you remember what was left when she opened it, Ezekiel?"
"Hope." He answered, and I noticed he seemed captivated by the change in me. "Hope was all that remained."
I nodded. "Pandora, like Eve, was created by the king of the gods. In Christianity of course, God created Eve from dust and Adam's rib, but Zeus created Pandora from clay. Clay very like the pithos that she opened." I was watching him drink in my tale. "She was curious, I like to think, because she was still learning what was inside of HER, so she was drawn to this other clay container. Perhaps she opened it to see if it held what she held." My eyes stayed on his. "And it did. All the darkness, all the pain and anger. All the rage and evils of the world. Because Pandora, like all women and men, wasn't perfect. She wasn't infallible. She wasn't someone who never made mistakes or never regretted her decisions. Hope, I like to think, was left behind because that is the VERY last thing that a human has to lose." I was watching him, taking in the fact that he had begun to relax into his throne at the yarn I was spinning. "If we lose hope, and I once thought I had NONE left too, then we're not human anymore, Ezekiel." I sighed, touching the arms of my seat. "And if we're not human any longer, then what do we have to fight for?"
Ezekiel seemed to come back to himself. Pain and grief were still there, they always would be, for all of us. He needed time. He wouldn't be ready for whatever battle came next, but he would be prepared to live. And that meant that my job here was done.
Carol left again. And others. Off to wage more war. And I stayed behind. This time I wasn't alone. And I wasn't doing laundry. Instead I sat with Ezekiel and together we waited to see what would come next.
