"I don't want to go back outside. It's pouring out there." Tara shook her head, grinning, "I feel like we've been spoiled already just by having a roof over our heads for a few days. A week ago I wouldn't think twice about going out in the rain, or would have welcomed it after we ran out of water on the road."
"Is it still stormy?" Carol pulled the curtain apart near Tara's elbow and looked outside, "Oh, it isn't too bad. Did you have someplace to go? We do have umbrellas in the closet."
"No place in particular, unless I wanted to try to convince Sasha to get out of the tower and let someone else take over for a while. She's been up there all day, again." Tara shrugged, pulling the curtains closed again.
"That's real devotion to duty." Carol walked back to the kitchen and Tara trailed after her. She had been working on a casserole of whatever miscellaneous ingredients she could find and Tara had been chatting, endlessly.
"It isn't devotion, it's stubborn determination not to think about what is happening in her life for hours at a time." Tara shook her head, "I don't really blame her I guess. I mean, I don't know her especially well, but I knew she was getting close to Bob before he died, and then losing her brother so soon? I can understand the need to lose yourself to work after that."
"So, what did you do? Didn't you lose your father, sister, niece and a girlfriend just before you joined us?" Carol caught Tara's raised eyebrow, "What? Glenn talks a lot."
"Yeah, he does. I guess I was going to give up until Glenn found me and after that I had a mission. I had to help him find Maggie. If only to make up for following that evil man for a while." Tara grabbed one of the kitchen towels, shaking it out for a moment before hanging it properly on the stove handle. "Wouldn't it be nice if it were easier to figure out who the bad guys were now?"
"Maybe." Carol stopped mixing and looked up at the younger woman, "But then again, maybe we're all the good guys and the bad guys. It all depends on the situation, doesn't it? We might do horrible things to protect ourselves and our people, and that might not be understood by others. The ones who have harmed us, haven't they just been trying to survive too?"
"Probably, but we haven't attacked without provocation. We haven't just gone in and stolen from a community, or killed people without cause. Even when you rescued us from Terminus it was because they took us, locked us up and were going to kill us. They drew people there for that purpose, innocent people along with the rest. We haven't done that. The Governor was the bad guy because he attacked offensively, not defensively. And I stood there and watched. Does that make me bad too?" Tara glanced up at Carol quickly before looking toward the darkened windows again.
"No. I think that makes you Switzerland. You found out that he was doing wrong and you didn't help him do it. If you have started shooting at our people at the prison, it would have been different, but even Maggie has accepted you. There are gradients here. It can't all be black or white, we're all shades of grey now. All of us, even you and me." Carol added some breadcrumbs to the top of the casserole and shoved it into the oven. Tara held up the timer and set it to forty-five minutes at Carol's request.
"Maybe we're like that storm outside. Some days you are prepared for it and you go out with your umbrella anyway. Other days you just can't face the overcast sky and need to burrow into a warm bed and read a story of something happier. It all depends on the day, but we can all feel differently about the same thing. How someone else defines our choice is up to them, but they might not understand how we really feel or what our true motivations might be at that moment. Maybe it doesn't even matter. Eventually the sun comes out again and the ground dries, and we have to live with our choices and move on again." Carol washed her hands and rubbed them dry on the hand towel, "And I think that my choice for today will be to go check on Judith, pick out a book to read to her, and sit in the living room until dinner is ready."