HEART OF GLASS
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX !

[ season three, episode five ]

Grief was not temporary.

Marley came to that crushing realisation fairly soon after Lori's death. She woke from a brief nap with a heavy feeling in her chest, like someone was pressing their boot against her ribs, pushing her deeper and deeper into the mattress. The curtain was half-drawn open, and the afternoon sun was streaming into the cell block, pooling on the ground. Happy. Positive. Golden.

It was strange; Marley expected the clouds to be dark and dense. But they weren't. The afternoon dawned bright and sunny, as if nothing had happened, and her grief was inconsequential. She found she wanted it to be gloomy. She wanted the world to feel what she was feeling. She wanted it to mirror her sadness. It was supposed to. Why wasn't the sky crying? Where were the dark clouds, shadowing the earth in misery?

Why didn't it care?

Marley spent a long time gazing into the distance, curled up against the mattress. She missed Lori already, her soft voice and sweet disposition and motherly tenderness. But it wasn't just Lori she was thinking about today ─ grieving a mother brought memories of her own back, and she realised just how much she wished Monica Whitman was still alive.

If anything, it made her sympathise greatly with Carl. He had grown up cocooned in the curvature of his mother's wings, and now it had been stripped away, allowing room for coldness and unwanted independence. Marley knew that feeling all to well. And she knew how difficult it was to contend with, alongside a million other things to worry about.

Like the baby.

Marley could hear it crying from her cell. Beth was handling the baby in the cafeteria, taking over the duties of care, with help from Hershel and the others. Marley was absolutely positive Carol would've been more than inclined to help, but she died in the tombs during the chaos that morning. T-Dog, too. Glenn told Marley about their deaths, and she hadn't really felt anything. She had been numb. But now, she felt it all. It was suffocating, the grief pinning her in a chokehold. Carol had been an incredibly good woman who always looked out for the Whitman sisters despite her own troubles, and T-Dog had been the most selfless person Marley ever met. He had a heart of gold. He put people's well-being above his own, habitually. They were both good, and now they were both dead because of one fuck up.

One lapse in their judgement.

The prisoner they thought was dead turned out to be a loose canon, and very much alive. Andrew. He set the alarms off on purpose, as well as opening the gates to allow the walkers free reign of their home. It was safe to say, however, he wasn't alive anymore.

Lori was dead because of him. Carol, T-Dog. Rick hadn't been seen since his wife's death, and they had a newborn baby on their hands, with no formula to quench its hunger.

A domino effect. One bad thing led to another and another and another.

So much loss.

Marley rubbed her burning eyes. She peered over the edge of her bed, searching for any signs of Sage's small frame protruding from beneath her moth-eaten blanket. But she wasn't there, as Marley expected, considering it was midday. If there was anything in the world her sister was doing, it would be trying to alleviate Carl's depression through distraction, somewhere on the prison grounds.

Because that's what Sage Whitman did best ─ helping people.

Marley was lucky to call Sage her sister.

She turned onto her side and slowly clambered out of bed, her limbs stiff and sore. The knife on her bedside table glinted in the sun's glare, still caked in Lori's blood, though it was dry now and not quite as prominent. It was ugly and didn't bring her any semblance of relief, like it usually did. She could barely look at it. And physically, Marley couldn't bring herself to touch it. But she needed to.

There was something she wanted to do today.

Something important. Trivial.

She placed her hand on the metal drawers beside the knife, testing the waters first. Her stomach clenched. Seeing the blood up so close was harrowing, drenching the blade from top to bottom. Even the handle was covered.

When it was soaked in walker blood it was different ─ that didn't really mean anything to her. But this was nauseating in comparison, and the sight alone left a prickling sensation shooting up the back of Marley's neck. That was Lori's blood. That was the only thing Marley had left to remember her by. A memoir of the woman's last moment as she screamed out in agony, knife ripping across her flesh. That alone felt wrong. Felt bad. Remembering her should have been positive, recollecting memories of her genuineness.

That was why Marley had to bury the knife.

She inhaled shakily, and her hand darted forward. She curled her fingers around the hilt of the blade, arm trembling. The dry blood etched into the handle cracked beneath her fingers, burrowing deeply into her callouses ─ which were still stained crimson. Instinct took over, and Marley immediately wanted to drop the knife, but she persevered. Even though it felt like it was burning a permanent mark against her flesh, she persevered. Even when it became so mentally taxing, Marley persevered.

She didn't drop the knife. She couldn't. She had to bury it.

She had to.

So she moved.

Beth was sitting in the cafeteria, rocking the baby back and forth on her lap. It wasn't crying anymore ─ just gurgling and clenching it's hands into tiny fists ─ which was good. And it would have formula soon, since Daryl and Maggie were on a run to retrieve some.

Slowly, they were healing.

Very slowly.

As Marley passed through the cafeteria, Beth smiled. The gesture didn't reach her eyes at all, and instead appeared as though it pained her just to try. Her gaze then shifted to the bloodied knife wedged between Marley's fingers, and she looked back up, a knowing gleam in her oceanic eyes. She didn't try and talk, or demand Marley elaborate on her obvious plan, or pull her features into something sympathetic. She just nodded.

The Whitman appreciated that more than anything.

She pushed open the metal door and stepped out into the courtyard. The sun felt like hot needles sinking into her skin, and the humidity in the air was so strong that a fresh prickling of sweat beaded along her hairline. There were already people out there, baking in the early morning heat. Glenn and the two remaining prisoners, Axel and Oscar, were digging deep graves at the bottom of the grassy recreational grounds. For Lori, T-Dog and Carol. Glenn peered up when he saw Marley, hands cupped above his brow to shield his eyes from the sun.

Marley pretended not to see him and headed toward the other side of the plains. One of the closest watchtowers shadowed a patch of grass, and she chose that as her spot. It was cooler, and it was more reticent than any other place on the courtyard.

Knife clutched in hand, Marley kneeled in the dirt. She carded the grass between the fingers of her spare hand, tugging the soft blades out of the earth. When she threw them aside, some of the evergreen blades were dappled in the dried blood still clinging to her hands, and it reinstated the churning nausea that had plagued her since Lori's death this morning.

She gnawed on her lower lip and placed the knife on the ground. There were no spare shovels to use to dig the hole, so Marley was forced to use her hands ─ which she came to find was quite grounding. It sharpened her senses, shifting the haze looming in her brain.

She dug her nails into the soft spot of earth and clawed into it, yanking a mound of grass and mud away. The hole that formed in her destructive wake was small, so she continued ripping at it, hands covered in brown dirt. It concealed more than half of the blood coagulating in her callouses, however, and she found the oxygen came to her more easily than before. So she tore into the earth, tearing the world apart at the seams, until a hole big enough to bury a knife formed.

Without wasting a second, Marley tossed the bloody blade into the pit. It looked pathetic in there, and it brought the girl immense relief. Lori would be the last victim. Hopefully, nobody else would die.

She swiped the dirt from the edges of the hole back into the pit, covering the knife. It didn't take long to bury.

The final result was messy, and anybody could clearly see the earth had been shredded in half. But Marley didn't care, because the knife was underneath now, and it would remain there for the rest of eternity. And it wouldn't grow. It wouldn't bloom into something magnificent. It was where it belonged ─ gone.

But she still felt empty.

She thought burying the knife would bury her grief. She thought it would suffocate all memories of Lori's death.

It didn't.

She couldn't help but feel angry. Angry ─ the type where she wanted to rip her hair from her scalp and scream into oblivion. Because why couldn't she just be left alone? Hadn't she already been through enough?

Marley glanced around the courtyard, trying hard not to break.

There was a pile of wood stacked up beside the gates. Nails and a hammer, too. Thin pallets, thick pallets, wide pallets all piled atop one another like Jenga. Glenn must have put them there for Lori, T-Dog and Carol's headstones. Wooden crosses, to symbolise their lives and their subsequent deaths. Wooden crosses to show they were in heaven now, with God, if he even existed.

As far as Marley knew, only T-Dog had been religious ─ he talked about being buried this way back at the quarry, the overturned earth covering his corpse marked with the Lord's cross. Everything he did, he wanted God to be proud of. Marley didn't believe in that stuff, but she supposed it wasn't a crime to have hope. To have something to turn to in times of fear. The wooden crosses resembled a life after death, a place to go when time had ran its course on the spinning globe they called earth.

Idea sprung to mind. Marley pushed herself up from the ground and approached the mound of wood.

She picked the largest pallets amongst the stack, and then she scooped up a couple nails. There was only one hammer, so she glanced at the half-dug graves by Glenn, and realised they wouldn't be needing it any time soon. She placed the hammer on top of her wood, and traipsed back across to the watchtower shadow.

The entire time, Glenn and the prisoners watched her, brows cinched in confusion. But they didn't ask questions, only continued to dig the graves for the victims of the prison siege.

A truth universally acknowledged came to bathe in the light ─ people coped in different ways. She was an example of that.

Marley dumped the wooden pallets on the ground beside the lump of scattered dirt. She kneeled back down and pieced the wood together to form a cross. It was slightly misshapen and lopsided, but perfection didn't matter. Nothing was perfect anymore. Nothing would ever be perfect again.

She took the rusted nails and wedged them between the cracks of the cross, so it wouldn't fall apart. The hammer came down against the spiralled metal, pushing the nails deep into the rough surface, successfully pinning the pieces of wood together. The top segment was bent on an angle, and the elongated part making up the majority of the telling shape had a large crack at the bottom, but Marley didn't care.

In her waistband was Sage's boot knife. She took it out and began etching names into the handcrafted symbol of life and death.

It started with Lori.

Amy, Jim, Jacqui, Otis, Sophia, Dale, Shane, Jimmy, Patricia, T-Dog, and Carol.

Right beneath those names, Marley scratched another three.

Monica Whitman. Ethan Whitman. Bonnie.

She plunged the cross into the dirt behind the buried knife, and furiously wiped away the tears that were welling in her eyes. A few droplets had splattered against the cross, soaking into the wood.

In her state of melancholy, Marley didn't see the person approaching her until they sat down directly beside her. She turned away from them, hands balled into fists scrubbing away any sign of sadness brimming in her bloodshot eyes. But when she realised who the person was, the reigns holding Marley back snapped in half, and she could no longer keep down the sob that tore through her chest.

Sage.

The one person she had left from her life Before.

Sage placed her hand over Marley's and squeezed her fingers. Then, she used her other hand to reach forward. Sage grazed her thumb across their parents' names etched into the wood, and then moved it along to Bonnie's. Her touch lingered there for a while.

She remembered Bonnie ─ the bubbly girl with bleached hair and icy-blue eyes, always around their house. Marley's best friend.

"They would be proud of us." Sage signed, her lips curving into a soft smile. She hated seeing Marley cry. "And they would be so proud of you."

"I don't think so." Marley retorted, hands shifting together sluggishly.

Sage's shoulders slumped in disappointment. Her gaze shifted back to the cross, and she sighed heavily. Her eyes were glassy, darting across the names of the fallen. Instinctively, she fidgeted with Dale's watch, turning it around her lithe wrist. The clock hands had frozen in time, one touching the space between twelve and one, the shorter one pointing toward six. Sage didn't know how to make the hands turn again. That was Dale's speciality ─ making things work.

Sage missed him. He would have liked the prison; it was a place where humanity could breathe again, ironically.

Marley touched the glass face of Dale's watch, having noticed her sister playing with it. She managed to smile through her tears, signing the words, "Dale really loved you."

"I know." Sage replied. She looked down at the watch, remembering him.

"I think Dad would have liked Dale."

"Yeah. They both loved nature, and travelling, and books."

Marley laughed softly. "But Dale never read Dad's favourite book ─"

"─the Shining." Sage recalled, her smile nostalgic. "Dad probably would have forced him to read it. He couldn't go a month without rereading it."

"I remember." Marley signed enthusiastically. She wasn't crying as much anymore, and she felt weirdly warm, even though she was still sitting in the shadows of the overhead watchtower. Her skin prickled with nostalgia, "He made Mom watch the film on their second date. She hated it."

"I know. We weren't allowed to watch it. Mom said it would give us nightmares."

"If only she could see us now."

If only.

They were living a walking nightmare. Who was around to save them from it?

Sage dropped her head against Marley's shoulder, and they stayed there in the shadows of their new home until the sun went down and the world was plunged into darkness. The names on the cross were obscured by the falling night, and so ─ without anything else to gaze longingly upon ─ Sage tugged Marley up from the floor, and they walked arm in arm back up to the cell block.

It was then, at that exact moment, Marley realised just how much she needed her sister.

✧.｡. *.

The slammed door rattled against the hinges.

Theo stormed into Andrea's bedroom, where he could hear the all-too-familiar voices of Michonne and the former, weaved into a particularly tense-sounding conversation. But whatever it was that they were discussing was about to be scattered by his revelations.

He announced himself by dramatically throwing his pocketknife ─ which had been concealed in his boot since their arrival ─ onto the bed with a brazen flourish of his hand. Michonne and Andrea immediately opted for silence, but their pinched expressions did not loosen, and the tension in the room was still so thick it could be severed in half.

Theo crossed the room and scooped up his backpack. "It's time to leave."

"Theo─"

"No, Andrea." Theo interrupted, cutting his hand sharply through the air. "No more extra days. We've spent enough time here. We need to leave."

Andrea exhaled through her gaping mouth, stepping back incredulously. She cupped a hand over her forehead and tried to level her unsteady breaths, gaze darting between the teenage boy and his accomplice, Michonne, "What is with you two?"

"You've been blinded by the Governor's charm." Theo countered. "Have you actually stopped to take a look around? This place is hiding things. The people are hiding things."

"Michonne's got into your head─"

"No, I worked it out for myself. And it was pretty fucking easy."

The harshness in his tone was unsettling. He was usually soft in line-delivery, no matter the circumstances. He respected Andrea. He never spoke back, not unless it was absolutely paramount in getting a point across. Even Michonne appeared taken aback, her lips pursed as she tried to bite back a scolding. But this . . . Theo just wanted Andrea to understand, and if that meant being slightly austere, then so be it. Hopefully, it would shatter the glass-dome of ignorance that the blonde had built around herself during their short time in Woodbury.

He slid the strap of his backpack onto his shoulder and moved pointedly toward the door. No more waiting around ─ they had to leave.

"The Governor told me what happened." Andrea said softly. Her confusion had melted into disappointment, sadness, like a mother reprimanding her child after catching them with their hand plunged into the cookie jar . "You're both freaking everybody out."

"So? They're all clueless. I don't care what they think." Theo defended heatedly.

Truthfully, he though he'd gotten away with it. He didn't think the Governor would have known that he was responsible for overturning the golf-clubs in his office, or invading his personal quarters at all. But, clearly, he was wrong. And if Andrea knew, then the Governor must have grassed him up. The Governor must have been vexed by it.

"Listen─"

"If we leave now, we can slip past the northwest wall. It's guarded by some girl. She won't see us once it's dark." Michonne piped up, diffusing the building argument unfolding between her friends by reinstating a new plan to follow.

Andrea scoffed, "We are not prisoners here."

"No one who comes here leaves." Michonne insisted. Her patience was running its course.

Genuinely confused by that statement, Andrea frowned, the chasm between her brows creasing deeply, "What are you talking about? Its safe. There's food, there's shelter. There's people, for God's sake."

"That's what they show you." Michonne said. "But you can't leave unless they make you."

"And they make the ones who try disappear." Theo added severely, recalling Helen's words about 'doing what they were best at' earlier that day.

From beside him, Michonne appeared deep in thought, her head slowly twisting in his initial direction. She didn't know that part. She didn't even know what Theo had heard when he snuck into the Governor's office. But his statement gave her another reason to flee. And Michonne didn't need to know the ins and outs of it ─ she trusted Theo enough to believe his words without further questions.

Andrea raised her hands into the air, exasperated. "You're not making any sense. Maybe you both need to sit down for a minute."

"You need to trust us." Michonne persisted, yanking her wrists out of Andrea's pleading grasp.

"And you need to give me more to go on!" Andrea retorted. "We got a good thing going here."

Theo clicked his tongue, gazing up at the ceiling. His irritation was setting deep, like thousands of tiny needles sinking into his flesh. Andrea's ignorance was vexing ─ she needed to see through the idyllic falsehood that was clouding Woodbury and its residents. She needed to detach herself from the Governor's sickly charm, which had burrowed so deeply into her heart that she was struggling to wean herself from it.

He shook his head, "You said this was temporary."

Andrea only looked a little bit guilty, "We need this, Theo. I want to give this place a real shot."

"We're supposed to make those decisions together."

"Well, I'm sorry, but I had to step up while you two were breaking into houses and sneaking around." She placed her hands on her hips and glanced between her friends with nothing less than disappointment pressed against her features. "You're sabotaging something good."

Michonne inhaled deeply and did a slow, tedious loop around the room. She approached Andrea on her return to the centre, and placed her hands on the woman's shoulders, her mouth pressed into a thin and determined line. She dipped her head slightly, so their eyes were level, "This place is not what they say it is."

Finally, Andrea acknowledged the severity in both Michonne's voice and Theo's face. For the first time, she remained quiet, giving herself a moment to ponder the reality of the situation. That cloud of falseness was shifting, and the light was slowly seeping through the thick density to shine down against the truth that she refused to see earlier.

Theo jerked his chin in her direction, "Do you trust us?"

No matter how reluctant, Andrea mustered a nod.

And no less than twenty minutes later, the trio were storming toward the front gates with one destination in mind: the road. Theo had his tawdry bow again ─ which Michonne stole back from the Governor's office during her snooping session ─ and he felt ready to fight. Michonne was wielding her katana, while Andrea marched up the road with a large duffel bag strung over her shoulder, though still looking a little unsure.

Theo spared a glance around at the festivities still in full swing, hoping to see a familiar face. Ewan. They became somewhat fast-friends during his short stay there, and he didn't think it was particularly kind to leave without waving goodbye. Or, perhaps, giving Ewan a discreet warning. After all the boy's unknowing help in giving Theo insight into the secrecy churning through Woodbury, he felt that was what he deserved. An opportunity.

But he couldn't see Ewan. Only Merle, who had unfortunately noticed them, too.

"Hey, hey, hey," the redneck called after them, perched on a deck chair beside the snack table. "Where y'all off to in such a hurry? Huh?"

Andrea turned and slowed her pace to see Merle. However, both Theo and Michonne grabbed one of the woman's arms each and pulled her along; they didn't need unnecessary distractions now, not when they were so close to the end.

Ever-persistent, Merle jogged across the road to reach them, "Hey, come on, now. Hey, hey, hey," He swerved into their path, arms raised in a surrendering pose, "Y'all are breakin' my heart runnin' away like that."

"We're leaving." Michonne informed simply.

Merle chewed aggressively on a piece of jerky rolling around in his mouth. He hadn't expected their departure to be so soon, and it was more an inconvenience to him right now than anything else, "Its almost curfew. I'd have to arrange an escort. I mean, the party's still goin' on."

Michonne's worries were sharpened into complete clarity, thanks to Merle. Andrea's eyes widened ever so slightly, and she guiltily peered at Michonne from the corner of her eye, realising the woman's rant earlier wasn't a product of paranoia. They couldn't leave. Not without a valid reason. Theo's gaze remained glued to Merle, however, who he'd taken a rather immediate disliking to upon their arrival to Woodbury.

But, thankfully, Michonne's do-you-want-to-die look worked on Merle, and he relented. "All right. Martinez, open up them gates!"

Martinez, the man stationed on the front gate, frowned. He picked his way across the top of the metallic fencing and wrenched open the latch. Merle shoved the heavy gate open with his shoulder, gesturing to the wreckage of the outer world laying beyond Woodbury's protection.

"Now, if I was y'all, I'd find some shelter before nightfall." he advised.

Theo rolled his eyes. He noticed the look Merle and Martinez exchanged before that little show of supposed 'aid,' and he knew Merle's warning was an attempt to make them stay ─ scaring them away from the outside. It didn't work on Theo or Michonne, their motives already set in stone, but it did for Andrea, who was juggling her options like hot potatoes. Her indecisiveness was just disguised reluctance the entire time; she never really wanted to leave. The way she lowered her head to the ground and avoided eye contact with her friends was evidence enough.

"Come on!" Merle called out, his metallic arm propping the gate open.

Andrea peered at him over her shoulder, "Close the gates."

"What?" Theo blurted. "No."

The blonde pinched the bridge of her nose. She looked back up, her eyes probing and betrayed, "I practically begged the Governor to let you two stay."

"We didn't ask for that." Michonne countered in a hiss.

"You didn't have to. That's what friends do for each other."

Michonne clenched her jaw, "It goes both ways."

"So you wanna run around out there, with walkers on chains eating twigs? Is that right?"

"It kept us alive this long." Theo snapped icily, his frustration boiling over.

Andrea's head dropped, and she ran a palm across her forehead. She hated arguing with Michonne and Theo, regardless of how often it occurred. She especially hated feeling like one great, big disappointment, or something weighing the both of them down. They knew how to fight, how to survive ─ they rarely needed someone else to dote on. But she did.

She put her hand on Theo's shoulder, tears welling in her eyes, "I know it did. But I'm tired, Theo. I'm tired. I don't have another eight months in me. Not like that."

Theo couldn't think of anything to say. He understood where Andrea was coming from, he really did, but he would take the hostility of the walkers and the conditions out on the road over the dangers and secrecy of a place like Woodbury. Sometimes, people were more dangerous than the walkers ever could be. Who knew when the Governor's patience with them would teeter over the edge and he and Michonne would be the next people to disappear?

Andrea just didn't get it. She appreciated the walls and the lavish lifestyle and the parties, but chose to ignore everything else in between. That would be her downfall if she wasn't careful ─ her ignorance.

"I mean, we always talked about a place like this," the blonde continued emotionally, her voice thick with building tears, "A refuge. That idea is what kept us going."

She tried to step toward Michonne, but the woman raised her head and cut herself away from the conversation. Meanwhile, Theo looked at Merle by the gates, anywhere but Andrea's tearful gaze. He couldn't bear the guilt of ripping her away from something she was passionate about. Something for all of them, and not just herself. He couldn't do that. Andrea would have to make this choice now.

Michonne made sure she knew that, "Are you coming or not?"

Andrea's hope for a second chance burst like a balloon. She shook her head, "Don't do this. Don't give me an ultimatum. Not after everything."

"Are you coming," Michonne lowered her voice. This was Andrea's last chance, "or not?"

Andrea gnawed on the inside of her cheek, peering around at the festivities still going on around the refined streets. She swayed from foot to foot, choking on her own words ─ she couldn't bring herself to speak aloud. Her mind was made up, and she had never hated herself so much for betraying her friends like this. But her survival was paramount, and that wasn't by getting sick again and relying on everyone else to put oxygen in her lungs. Woodbury was the safest option.

Michonne took the silence as an answer in itself. She brushed past Andrea and stormed toward the gates.

Now, Theo was left to make a decision.

He hated goodbyes. He hated shedding any form of emotion. Theo already knew where he was headed, and that was away from this cult-town for good; it was away from Andrea. Michonne knew it too, so she waited on the other side of the gates for him, hand curled around her katana.

He spared Andrea one last, fleeting glance. Andrea knew he was never going to stay in the town, so his departure didn't come as a surprise to her ─ he'd been with Michonne since the beginning, and he wasn't going to abandon her so easily. But that didn't mean it didn't sting. That it didn't hurt, because it did. Her heart burned. But Andrea had to take it with a pinch of salt, for she knew Theo hadn't done it to deliberately pain her. He was forced to make a choice and this was it.

Theo marched past Merle and joined Michonne. Throat constricted by tears, he turned to say goodbye to Andrea, but the wooden gates were slammed in his face, and the woman was swallowed up by Woodbury.

He hoped he would see her again.

He hoped.

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

the trio is now a
duo :(

also can we talk about
sage and marley? they're
putting their difficulties behind
them to comfort each other
in their grief. no matter
what happens between
those two, they'll always
be there for each other.
sisters <33