THE REASON

chapter five : raise a toast
[ season five - episode two ]

   THERE WAS ONLY around seven clouds in the sky that she could see. None of them were shaped like anything — only like normal clouds that clumped together in the blue sky.

Just like earlier that day, her ears were ringing to the point everything else was muffled. She could hear Tara, Maggie and Isabelle talking to one another a few meters behind her — but Kloe's mind was elsewhere.

The thing was, she had no idea where her mind was. She couldn't think. She felt paralyzed. The only thing she could do was stare into one particular spot, her pupils dilating.

She could only hear the sound of the ringing inside her head, and her heartbeat. It was as if she was underwater. She could've sworn she hadn't blinked for at least five minutes while looking up at the sky.

All Kloe could remember was that they were in a town close by to the church. Glenn was inside one of the buildings, scavenging the place out. Kloe offered to help, but Glenn insisted that she stayed outside with the others.

The three other women's chatter died down as Tara turned her head to the side, her brown eyes landing on the side of Kloe's head. "Is she okay?" she asked in a concerned tone.

In unison, Maggie and Isabelle spun their bodies around so they faced the Rhee woman. "She said she was earlier," Isabelle countered. "But she was lying. I don't think she is..."

"Hey, Klo. You alright?" Maggie called out to her friend. She swallowed thickly as she watched her state. She didn't even blink, nor move.

"Do you think it has something to do with Vickie?" Isabelle whispered, leaning to the side so Kloe couldn't hear her.

"Has to be," Maggie responded, a sad look making its way onto her face. "She's grieving. We gotta let her do what she has to do."

Suddenly, a loud crash erupted from inside the building Glenn was hunting in for some supplies. All at once, the three immediately stepped forward, their guns cocking.

Even the loud bang didn't even manage to bring Kloe back to reality.

A few moments passed, and Glenn puffed and stumbled out of the store, avoiding any eye contact with the woman as if he was slightly embarrassed.

They all lowered their guns. Tara furrowed her brows. "Was it a walker?" she questioned.

"Uh, yeah," he answered as he fiddled with his rifle. "It was a walker." He looked up, meeting the eyes of the three women. Except, he was expecting another pair of eyes to meet his vision.

"Really?" Tara inquired again, raising her brows this time — unconvinced.

There was a long pause from Glenn as he pursed his lips tightly and blinked. He then sighed and said, "It was a stack of boxes and a mop... and I tripped."

Tara and Maggie chuckled, but Isabelle only cracked a smile and shook her head. The Marshel girl turned her face back to her first ever true friend — she hadn't even budged.

"Still... got what we came here for," Glenn reached into his back pocket and pulled out four silencers. "Four silencers stashed in a mini fridge. Rule number one of scavenging, there's nothing left in this world that isn't hidden..." he trailed off, his own eyes now staying on his wife.

He watched as Isabelle slowly moved over to the woman. "Kloe?" he heard Isabelle say in a low tone. "Kloe?"

Tara and Maggie heard the Marshel woman and both turned to face her. Glenn subconsciously stepped forward as he stared at his wife with worry.

Isabelle extended out her arm and set her hand on Kloe's shoulder. The Rhee woman's ears unexpectedly stopped ringing, blinked religiously and practically jumped out of her skin.

She snapped her head over to Isabelle as her eyes began to water from being dry for too long. "Huh?"

"Are you sure you're alright? You were completely out of it right then," Isabelle wondered, a sad look in her eyes.

"Yeah, of course," Kloe nodded. "I just, uh–– I think I zoned out. I didn't miss anything did I?" She walked over to Maggie, Tara, and Glenn –– Isabelle behind her.

"Kloe," Isabelle called out again, making Kloe spin around and face the younger woman, "I don't think zoning out for more than five minutes is okay. I mean, you didn't even hear the huge crash in the store."

"Huge crash?" Kloe twisted her body back around and faced her husband, who had his own look of worry on his face. He could see that she was dodging the point of what the Marshel girl was saying. "What happened?"

"He tripped over boxes," Tara informed, a small grin on her lips. "Seriously, though. How the fuck did you not hear that? You have great ears, right?"

Kloe chuckled slightly, "If I'm being completely honest, ever since Terminus, my ears never stop ringing. To the point it sounds like I'm underwater. It's weird... Only does it when I, uh... zone out. Like –– that."

"Maybe it's from all the shooting?" Maggie suggested. "You got shot at lots right? And Gareth shot at you next to you."

"God, I hate that douche's name," Kloe sighed, moving forward past them and walking down the pavement. "Gareth. Who the hell names their kid Gareth?"

Maggie and Tara somewhat laughed before following the Rhee woman, while Glenn and Isabelle stood still, their eyes trained on the back of her head.

Isabelle shifted so she stood beside Glenn. "Something's definitely wrong," Glenn muttered. "She may seem normal, but I can see it. I can see through her eyes that she isn't okay."

The girl stayed silent for a moment. "She's grieving. It must be her way of doing so. Imagine losing someone you've known nearly all your life. It must be like losing a parent or something."

Glenn felt his heart drop and his eyes widened moderately. He brushed his hand through his jet black hair and looked down at the ground. His mind instantly went to Kloe's father –– about how she had lost him at a young age. Was this her way of grieving? Or was she just bottling it in?

As if she could read his mind, Isabelle asked a question along the topic. "Has she ever lost a parent before?" she questioned as the pair began walking to catch up with the others.

Glenn began nodding. "Yeah. Her dad. I'm not sure about her mom though." That's when he realized –– Kloe never ever brought up her mother. The last time they had ever spoken about her was the day they arrived at the Greene Farm.

The day they went into the woods to find the young girl, Sophia Peletier. When they had all stopped at a small church, hoping to find the girl inside. While the group went inside, Zayn, himself, and Kloe sat around a tree and spoke about life before the apocalypse.

Glenn couldn't help but grow sad to some degree. It was the time before they had ever encountered any dangerous people. Before they came to the conclusion that they were stuck in the world they were still in –– some of them.

"I'm sure she'll talk to you when she's ready. She just needs time," Isabelle assured her friend, patting him slightly on the shoulder.

"Yeah, I know," he smiled, his dark eyes lifting to land on the back of his wife's head. If only he could see what exactly was going on in her head –– to see the things he could do to stop whatever was going on.

He wished he could've helped her.

...

The small group of people that went out into the town soon returned to the small church that belonged to Father Gabriel. Kloe, who was in front, pushed open the door –– the unfamiliar smell of a church meeting her senses.

There was a cool chill to the small building, but it was nice after sweating her ass off for the past hour.

As they all stepped inside, her eyes landed on Carl and Tyreese with baby Judith occupying them. Without hesitation, she moved herself over to them.

From the back of a pew, she leaned her hands on it and lent forward so her body was in between the two. "Look what I found on the way back from here," she pulled something out of her pocket as Judith's beady eyes looked up at her.

In Kloe's hands laid a small koala plush that was approximately the size of a grown man's hand. She had found it in a plastic container outside an abandoned store and didn't think twice about getting it.

"I am the queen of getting you plushes to play with, Jude," she grinned, handing the gray plush over to the baby. "Kinda sad that we couldn't save Doug the Duck, huh?"

"Doug the Duck?" Carl repeated, raising his brows at the woman with a large grin. "What are you gonna name this one? Kara the Koala?"

"You know what? Yes, I am. Kara the Koala it is." She booped the giggling baby on the nose as she fiddled with the ears of the koala. She then pulled out a candy bar and packet out of her pocket and crossed her arms over each other, offering them to the two.

"Ooh, chocolate," Tyreese cooed like a child, smiling as he gratefully took the Snickers candy bar as Carl took the packet of Reese's Pieces. "Thanks, Klo."

"You got it," she clicked her tongue, sticking up her thumbs as she pushed herself off the pew, beginning to make her way to the front where her brother was before she was stopped.

"Wait, Klo," Carl quietly called out. She spun around, facing him. "I gotta show you something." He handed his baby sister over to the man –– who was nibbling on his candy bar –– beside him.

"Yeah, okay. I can just give the rest of the candy bars out later, I guess," Kloe shrugged as she began following the teenager.

Tyreese playfully stuck out his bottom lip. "Damn, I thought we were special ones."

Kloe laughed, which caused the Williams man to laugh along with her before shaking his head. She went back to following the Grimes teen, confused on where he was going to lead her to.

He led the woman outside and around the back of the church.

"What do you wanna show me?" she wondered, setting her hands on her hips.

"Look," he stopped and pointed at the wall. It was covered in what seemed like scratches. Hundreds of scratches. They were particularly intense too. "Scratches."

"Yeah, I can see that..." she absentmindedly took a step forward, tracing her fingertips across the rough surface. "They're from knives––"

"Hey." Both Carl and Kloe whipped their heads to the side, spotting Rick Grimes approaching them. "Tyreese said you were both out back. Come on back in. We found food –– a lot of it."

"Nice," Kloe nodded before reaching back down into her pockets. "Want a candy bar, Rick? I have a bunch stashed in my pockets and they're starting to dig into my skin."

Rick couldn't help but silently laugh and shake his head. "Why not?" He extended out his arm, his palm waiting for the candy bar.

"3 Musketeers or Twix?"

"3 Musketeers will do." Kloe set down the chocolate in his hand, to which he took it and put it in his own back pocket. "Thanks."

"Look, guys, I get that chocolate is great and everything... but this is sort of serious," Carl shot a look between his father and his older friend.

"Right, yeah, sorry Carl. What were you showing me again?" Kloe asked.

"I might as well show both of you. I was planning on showing you, too, Dad."

"What is it?" Rick questioned, stepping closer to the wall as he noticed that his son was staring at a particular spot on the wall.

"The scratches." Carl pointed at them again. "They're deep. Like knives or something. Someone was trying to get in."

Simultaneously, Rick and Kloe shared a glance. Kloe couldn't help but think back to Terminus. Maybe her one thought she had earlier that day was right. Perhaps her threat to Gareth wasn't enough.

"I found something else," Carl added, making Kloe snap her head over to him, furrowing her brows deeply while Rick continued to stare at the scratches on the wood.

"Where?" Kloe asked.

"Over here." Carl turned the corner of the church as Kloe and Rick followed him. "I don't know what happened, but whatever it is," he stopped walking and turned around to face the two adults, "we can handle it."

He then motioned his head in front of him. In unison, Rick and Kloe lay their eyes upon whatever Carl had wanted to show them both. Writing.

The air around them seemed to thicken for Kloe, and she could've sworn she felt her stomach drop. "Doesn't mean Gabriel is a bad guy for sure, but... it means something."

Kloe couldn't break her eyes away from the writing which was surely scraped on from the exact knife used to make the scratched on the other side.

YOU'LL BURN FOR WHAT YOU'VE DONE.

...

Kloe took a small sip of her red wine she had in her wine glass as she picked at some of the food on a plastic plate in front of her. The only light they had was the warm orange light from several candles.

The only thing that plagued her mind was what the writing said on the wall that Carl had showed her and Rick earlier that day.

Her leg bopped up and down absentmindedly from the anxiety pumping through her veins, and this time took a mouthful of wine into her mouth.

Glenn, who sat beside her, noticed her anxiety and subconsciously set his hand on her leg — to which the bopping immediately stopped. "You don't have to be worried. We're gonna be okay."

"I know," she replied, sending her husband an assuring nod with a small smile. "Just a little... wary I guess."

"About what?" Glenn inquired, frowning slightly.

"Everything. Everywhere I go... I just have that feeling in my stomach that something bad is about to happen. I can't help it," she muttered, looking down at Glenn's hand that stayed on her knee.

"Hey," he said, making her look back up at Glenn again, "even if something bad were to happen, we'll win. No matter what happens, no one will get hurt."

Suddenly, a glass clinking caught the married couple's attention — along with everyone else in the small church. Kloe squinted her eyes as she watched Abraham step forward with his wine glass moderately in the air. "I'd like to propose a toast!" he stated rather loudly over the chatters coming from everyone in the room.

Everyone finally stopped talking and lifted their eyes up to the red headed man. "I look around this room..." he paused for a moment as he waited for everyone to settle down into their seats, "and I see survivors."

Kloe took a deep breath as Isabelle took a seat in the pew in front of her and Glenn, lifting her legs up and sat sideways.

"Each and every one of you has earned that title. To the survivors!" Abraham raised his wine glass high up this time as everyone in the room copied his actions and cheered.

A miniature smile set onto Kloe's lips as she then raised her glass, Glenn doing the same beside her. As she lowered her glass, she watched Abraham's expression. Behind his eyes, she could see that the man clearly wanted to tell them all something else too.

He waited for the noise coming from everyone to die down before he added anything more he wanted to say. And when it did, he inhaled and spoke again, "Is that all you wanna be?" Kloe somewhat squinted her eyes warily as she stared at the Ford man, some other members in the group copying her actions. "Wake up in the morning, fight the undead pricks, forage for food, go to sleep at night with two eyes open, rinse and repeat?"

Kloe blinked as she felt the heart in her chest ache ever so slightly. She set down her wine glass on the ground beside her leg and started fidgeting with the hems of a gray hoodie she had found in the bus behind the church.

"'Cause you can do that. I mean, you got the strength. You got the skill. Thing is, for you people, for what you can do, that's just surrender," Abraham added. "Now, we get Eugene to Washington and he will make the dead die and the living will have this world again. And that is not a bad takeaway for a little road trip."

Most people in the group stared into space and were put into consideration by what Abraham was talking about. None of them could lie that one of the main things they wanted was for things to be how they were again. How life was before everything had fallen.

"Eugene," Abraham's eyes transferred over to his friend, everyone else following. "What's in DC?"

The mentioned man turned his head to the side and pursed his lips when he noticed everyone was waiting on him to answer. "Infrastructure constructed to withstand pandemics even of this fubar magnitude. That means food, fuel, refuge. Restart."

Abraham chuckled and nodded. "However this plays out, however long it takes for the reset button to kick in, you can be safe there. Safer than you've been since this whole thing started. Come with us." His eyes then drifted down to little baby Judith in Rick's arms. "Save the world for that little one."

Kloe glanced over at Reina, who leaned against the wall with almost an empty glass of wine in her hand and her other arm folded over her chest. The Salazar woman looked over at Kloe and nodded.

Few of the other members of the group then nodded too. Kloe turned to the woman in front of her. Isabelle licked her lips briefly before looking up at the Rhee woman, nodding as if it wasn't even a question.

"Save it for yourselves," Abraham continued. "Save it for the people out there... who don't got nothing left to do except survive.

A small chuckle came from Rick, causing everyone to look over at him. He looked down at his daughter in his lap, and she cooed as he did. "What was that?" he asked, a smile that no one had ever seen recently on his face. "I think she knows what I'm about to say." He shared a glance with everyone in the room before facing back down to the baby. "If she's in, I'm in. We're in."

For the first time in a while, a wide smile plastered onto Kloe's lips. She was the first one in the room to begin clapping while a few others cheered. People copied her actions and began clapping as well as cheering.

They were gonna save the world — that's what they thought anyway.

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words: 3194
24th april 2023
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honestly kloe jst deserves the whole world atp. SHES GOIN THROUGH IT BRO