06; LIKE CLOCKWORK
(season nine, episode seven)
SUN CREPT THROUGH the curtains that had been left drawn in an act of vengeance. The warmth spread across the floor, draping its brightness over the bare walls. It was supposed to be fall, the sun had no business being quite so bright and yet here it was; saving him from the clutches of another paralysing nightmare.
Leo jolted upright frantically. His chest heaved with heavy breaths and sweat trickled from his brow. This wasn't anything new, but that didn't make it suck any less. He reached into the drawer of his bedside cabinet and fumbled around until his palm closed around the familiar shape of his inhaler.
He brought the breathing device to his lips and pushed down twice, spraying two doses of the life-saving medicine into his constricted throat.
Breathing in through his nose quickly proved to be the wrong choice- his body odour had reached an all-new high. God, he smelled worse than Chase after that pathetic attempt to host a soccer competition three years ago.
There was no time for a shower, not with the many worried parents of sniffling children desperate for confirmation that their offspring's ailments were a common cold and not some life-threatening flu outbreak.
He got out of bed and switched his pyjama bottoms for yesterday's torn jeans that he was supposed to take to Tammy-Rose to stitch up- oh, god, she was going to kill him.
Leo slipped his arms out of his shirt and spared himself a glance in the mirror that Alden nailed into the wall. At the very bottom of his spine, the 'X' that had been burnt into his flesh all those years ago remained as prominent as ever, swapping its previous shade of scarlet for a ghostly white.
He hated everything about it, so much so, that sometimes he wanted to skin himself alive, tear off every layer of tainted flesh until he was left with skin that nobody except those he loved had touched.
Swallowing shamefully, Leo tore his gaze from the looking glass and pulled out a fresh shirt from his dresser. Deodorant was a thing of the past now, so it was an unspoken rule that nobody ever pointed out when somebody smelled. After all, it couldn't be helped, Hilltop didn't have running water like Alexandria.
Barrington house wasn't quite as empty as he would've liked. Raised tones infiltrated his ears the second he pushed his bedroom door open, making him regret ever leaving the surprisingly comfortable pit of sweat and doom that was his bed. He could determine the owners of the voices before he even reached them- Tara, and the reluctant leader of Hilltop, Jesus.
It had been almost five years since Maggie, Chase and Hershel left but Jesus refused to accept that it was anything less than temporary. He was delusional, but Leo wouldn't hold it against him- he understood.
There wasn't a day that passed without Judith Grimes finding her way into his thoughts. He'd grown used to the absence of her in his life or rather; his absence in her life. But, some days, it immobilised him. She held so much significance to him and all those that he'd lost.
Mika, Tyreese. . . Carl. The latter was the one that hurt the most. He'd spent his last day alive writing a request for Leo to be there for his little sister. He'd trusted that his friend wouldn't fail the only legacy he'd been able to leave behind.
That trust had been misplaced, and Leo would never forgive himself for making it so.
"- why did you give that kid a kazoo?"
"You. . . you find a kazoo, you give it to a kid."
Leo's footsteps alerted them to his presence, and with all eyes on him, he felt obliged to contribute to the conversation. "Or you don't, because now Aria wants a harmonica for her next birthday. Seems to think it's easy to come across instruments."
Jesus exhaled in amusement. "Well, you know, I could-"
"No!" Tara and Leo said in unison.
"But-"
"NO!"
Leo approached Tara's side of the worn couch, perching himself on the tattered fabric of the arm. This was no office for a leader, but, of course, Jesus refused to take the actual office because he was convinced that Maggie would be back in there upon her return. "Jesus, how many times are we gonna tell you the same thing? You are the leader, your life is sacred, and you cannot be throwing it away by going out on a stupid quest for instruments or noodles!"
"Those noodles made her birthday," Jesus argued, jabbing a finger in Leo's direction.
"Irrelevant!" Leo fired back.
"You sound like Gregory."
"Take that back, right now."
Tara rolled her eyes and delivered a swift simultaneous smack to each of the men's heads. "My time is limited, and we haven't even covered the re-election yet." She reached into her pocket, pulled out a crumpled ball of paper and held it out to the reluctant Jesus. "Congrats on being re-elected leader of Hilltop."
Jesus merely offered the parchment a split-second glance. "Yeah, well, a win is a given when no one runs against you."
"A win is a win," Leo corrected him. "Take it."
Tara nodded in agreement. "Yeah, you could at least pretend to be happy."
A sarcastic smile blossomed on the leader's lips. "Thank you, Tara."
"This place is a mess." Tara gestured to the coffee table that was barely visible beneath piles upon piles of documents. "Just take Maggie's office, she'd want you to have it."
Leo hopped back onto the linoleum, dropping to his knees in front of the table. If there was one thing he was good at it was organising - material objects that was, certainly not his thoughts, they were a never-ending thunderstorm that regularly uprooted telephone poles just for the sake of inconvenience. He was a victim to his own whirlpool of intrusiveness, spending many days imagining the very brutal death of his loved ones at his own blood-stained hands.
A letter caught his attention. The envelope was remarkably smooth and bore capitalised letters. He immediately recognised the handwriting as Maggie Rhee's.
"Maggie wrote?" Leo queried, glancing from the opened letter to Jesus. "What did she say? How's Hershel? And. . . Chase?"
"Good, they're all good." Jesus tried to smile but it didn't reach his eyes. "She said she's happy- they are. Apparently Chase has something going on with one of the guys there and the guy's sister, which. . . honestly, I can't say I'm surprised about. I guess I just hoped for a little maturity with age but. . ." He shrugged half-heartedly. "If he wants to be Peter Pan, who am I to stop him?"
Leo forced a swallow. He was, of course, happy to hear that all three of them were doing well. But he and Chase hadn't parted on the best of terms, there was much left unresolved and given the ginger's penchant for running from his problems, it would likely stay that way.
"When did it come?" Tara asked Jesus.
Jesus absentmindedly scratched his beard. "Yesterday morning. The twins dropped it off. They said there was a bit of a delay. A herd wandered into their path, they had to take a longer route."
"In the letter. . ." Tara sighed softly, sweeping her loose long hair over her shoulder. "Did she mention anything about coming back?"
Jesus's brows pinched into a deep frown, he knew exactly where this conversation was going. "I should go."
"Jesus, you can't just spend the rest of your life in denial," Leo stated, temporarily pausing his sorting to look up at the leader. "Look, I know it sucks, I wish they were still here too but they're not and we are. You're the best, that's why you were voted in. This is your place, it always has been- way before it was Maggie's. You're the right man for the job, you just gotta ditch the stubbornness."
He took Leo's words in but refused to digest them, opting to stand up and make a beeline for the stairs instead. "I'm gonna go check on those crop fields for Tammy."
Tara and Leo shared a knowing glance as his footsteps became fainter and fainter. This happened so often that it could officially be classed as a commonplace occurrence. Jesus didn't want this life and he wasn't afraid to make that a known fact either. It was like he was actively daring somebody to take his place and relieve him of his leadership duties.
"You want some help sorting those?" Tara lowered herself to the ground beside Leo.
"Don't you have somewhere to be?" Leo asked her, tilting his head curiously.
"I got seven minutes to kill." Tara mustered up a smile for him. "So, alphabetical order?"
Leo nodded. "Always."
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FOR TWENTY-FOUR YEARS, Leo never allowed anybody to change his hairstyle- not even Sasha. But upon waking on his twenty-fifth birthday, he was struck with the mind-blowing realisation that he was, in fact, well into adulthood and it was probably time to allow a physical reflection of that.
Enid tackled his overgrown locks with a pair of cuticle scissors and after an hour of impatient writhing, he was left with a crew cut that wasn't quite as terrible as he'd imagined. Aria seemed quite fond of it, when it was freshly cut she'd made a habit of running her hand against the bristly surface of his hair- he later discovered it was her way of emphasising her partiality for it. Jesus had taught her that body language and physical gestures were sometimes more important than actual speech and she'd taken his words very seriously.
She was a good kid, perhaps a little. . . mischievous at times, but overall. She had a big heart, though who she allowed into it was very much limited, she was still guarded and wary of strangers. It was understandable, life had shown her time and time again that the unknown was perhaps the biggest danger of all.
Leo brought up a hand to shield his eyes from the blazing sun. It was supposed to be fall- colourful leaves adorning the asphalt, a nip in the air that turned cheeks rosy and Leo's favourite thing of all; cocoa at night. This was not fall, this was like a torturous summer on repeat and he was over it. He'd be drowning in his own sweat soon if this sun didn't disappear.
Across the community at the chicken coop, Aria was guiding the clucking birds inside like a sheepdog, waving her arms and stomping her feet over and over. Her actions only aggravated the birds, but, of course, she couldn't hear them, so she had no idea just how much of a ruckus they were making in response to her attempt at herding them into shelter.
Deciding that Enid couldn't be in drastic need of services or she would've sent for him, Leo broke into a small jog to reach his daughter.
Alerted by the vibrations of his sneakers against the ground, Aria turned to greet him with a teasing smirk and smacked one hand into the other enthusiastically. "Did the sun wake you up?"
"It did," Leo signed back, shaking his head with a poor attempt at a frown. "Thanks for that, by the way."
"It's what you did to me."
"You were late for school."
Aria rolled her eyes at him and went back to zealously urging the chickens into their coops.
Leo winced as the clucking grew louder. He could feel a migraine coming on simply from being in their proximity. He tapped Aria's shoulder lightly, drawing her attention to him, "I think there might be an easier way to get them inside."
She tilted her head, intrigued. "How?"
Placing a hand between her shoulder blades, Leo led his daughter through the horse paddock into the barn pantry where several buckets of corn were stocked. "Grab a handful, throw it into the coop."
A deep frown tugged at Aria's brows. "But they'll fight over it."
At that, Leo hesitated, taking a few moments to come up with a response. "Friendly fire among animals is. . . beneficial."
"You just made that up, right?"
"Grab the corn, Aria, come on."
She did - though not without deliberately stomping on his foot and shooting him a fierce glare that told him she wasn't at all pleased with his plan to handle the creatures that she'd spent the past three years cherishing.
Whilst Aria pelted sprinkles of corn into the coops, Leo slowly turned to admire his home.
Hilltop was flourishing- better than it had ever been. The trailers were all remarkably still intact with gleaming white exteriors adorned with fall crafts made by the children, the gardens were booming, more and more ripe vegetables pushed up from under the soil with every passing day and they already had more than enough to do them all winter. New tools were being made daily, the hunting parties rarely came home empty-handed and with the fair just around the corner, the prospect of trading looked more than promising.
It was beautiful, and prosperous, and under the control of a leader who wasn't ashamed to be seen slipping out of the gates in broad daylight.
Leo shook his head in disbelief. Had Jesus not taken in anything that they'd said earlier? Was he somehow incapable of self-preservation?
It would be a lie to say that Leo had immediately adapted to valuing his life, but it was lot easier when he knew that lives were dependent on his survival - namely Aria's because despite her being known and loved in the community, the majority of residents still didn't know ASL and the ones that did only knew the basics. Enid was fairly fluent, Alden was close enough and Jesus tried his best. He'd trust them to take care of her in his wake, but with their highly demanding jobs, he knew that she'd go more unseen than ever, and so with that in mind- he was not allowed to die.
Aria closed the coop door over behind the still-clucking-away birds and stepped out of the elongated enclosure, pulling the gate shut behind her. They hadn't faced any predators yet but the possibility terrified the thirteen-year-old, so she took no risks. She nudged her foot against Leo's, snapping his attention to her, "You didn't know that Jesus goes out?"
Leo's eyes widened in confusion. "You did?"
Aria nodded sheepishly. "Every Thursday like clockwork."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Leo's hand movements were concise as he demanded an answer- he wasn't mad at Aria, just the situation in general. Jesus was a grown man and he was allowed to make his own decisions, but he was also a leader with a community that desperately needed him alive.
"You never asked."
"I didn't think I had reason to."
Almost as if he'd sensed the tension, Alden approached with Tyreese's now-worn beanie held delicately between his hands. He set it on top of Aria's head and playfully tugged it down over her eyes, waiting until she broke away from him and removed the obscuration from her vision to sign, "You left this in Enid's room."
"Thanks-" Aria paused mid-movement, eyes narrowing as she wracked her brain for an explanation. "Wait, why were you in Enid's room?"
"Uh. . ." Alden looked to Leo for help.
Leo crossed his arms and tilted his head. "Well, why were you?"
Alden swallowed. "I was, uh- cleaning?"
Simultaneously, Leo and Aria scoffed.
The former Saviour's cheeks turned crimson under the scrutinising stare of the father and daughter or rather- the brother and niece of the woman he was spending an inordinate amount of time with as of late. "People do clean, you know?"
Aria brought her hands together and signed, "So when are you coming to clean our room?"
Leo turned to her in outrage, hands moving rapidly. "Our room is already clean, Missy."
"There that's why I haven't been yet, Leo, he, uh. . . runs a tight ship, right?" Alden's hand gestures lacked conviction. It was one thing to tell a lie verbally but signing it- it was like your own body wanted you to get caught out.
Aria arched an eyebrow at Leo, her literary understanding was remarkable for her age but growing up in the apocalypse meant she hadn't been afforded the opportunity to learn the old wives' tales and sayings. "A tight ship?"
"Organised," Leo explained. "He's saying that I like to keep things in order."
"What's that got to do with him and Enid copulating?" Aria signed back casually.
Leo slammed the palm of his hand against his forehead, torn between laughing and crying.
Alden choked on his own breath and his cheeks grew so red that Leo was half-expecting steam to come flowing out of his ears.
Aria glanced between them with narrowed eyes, completely oblivious to the fact that words like 'copulation' weren't typically part of a casual conversation- especially not one taking place between a thirteen-year-old and two grown men. "Jeez, you guys are weird."
There wasn't any argument that either Leo or Alden could come up with to repel the claim, so they settled for sheepish nods of agreement.
The teenager rolled her eyes at them and promptly wandered off in the opposite direction. Leo couldn't say he blamed her.
"We're not-" Alden clasped his hands together, combatting the inner awkwardness that plagued his senses. "We haven't. . . there is no copulation, not yet any-"
Leo grimaced and raised a hand to silence his friend. "Okay, Al? I'm really happy for you, but I've known Enid since we were sixteen and she's like. . . family, you know? So, I really don't need or want to be hearing this."
"Okay, well I'm gonna. . ." Alden turned on his heels and approached Earl's blacksmith station, murmuring under his breath. "Go shoot myself."
A faint chuckle escaped Leo's lips.
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DESPITE THE PAIN it inflicted upon his patients, Leo found suturing to be incredibly calming. The repetitive motion of piercing the skin and pulling it back together thread by thread was inexplicably pleasing to his ever-imaginative mind. It was the best form of distraction he'd ever come across.
Earl Sutton was the patient today. Leo had spent the past ten minutes prying a nail out of the man's hand- apparently, Alden's concentration had been elsewhere (on Enid) and he'd accidentally hammered the tiny piece of sharp steel into the blacksmith's hand.
"You don't have any pain relief?" Earl grumbled, watching through half-closed eyes as Leo slid the needle into his wound and pulled the split skin together. "This stings like a-"
Tammy-Rose delivered a swift smack to her husband's head. "Don't swear at the boy, Earl. He's doin' you and your stupidity a favour."
"My stupidity? It was Alden."
"And who chose to take him on?"
In the corner of the infirmary, Alden was lurking like a lost puppy, nervously pacing up and down. "I really am sorry, Earl."
Earl waved his uninjured hand dismissively. "Ah, it's nothing. I've done worse to myself."
Tammy-Rose laughed softly. "I wish I could say he was lyin'."
"I've got some painkillers but they won't kick in until after I've finished," Leo informed the wounded man, temporarily pausing his suturing to gesture at the medicine cabinet. "You're welcome to take a few home with you, you know, for the aftermath pain?"
Earl shook his head. "Gotta be folks that need it more than me. I'll soldier on."
Tammy-Rose rolled her eyes at him irritably, but when the next suture elicited a wince from him, she held his hand all the same.
Leo watched the couple with a fond smile. In a strange way, they reminded him of Sasha and Abraham- at least, what they could've become if their forever wasn't stolen from them.
The door burst open and a breathless Enid stumbled inside, tripping over herself, "Are you- I-I can finish off here. You should go."
Leo set the needle down and slowly stood up, heart hammering against his ribcage as his eyes widened with fear of the unknown. "Is it Aria? Is it- what's going on?"
Enid shook her head adamantly, letting her hands rest on her thighs. "It's Rosita."
Rosita. . . he hadn't seen her in over five years.
What the hell was she doing here?
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author's note
writer's block has me in a chokehold rn, so i'm apologising in advance for this crappy chapter.
the next two or three chapters will be hilltop centric I think, and then we'll get back to the alexandria plots- plot. they really only have negan escaping going on over there but brodie has a big part in that so we'll cover it.
shameless self promo, i published a new twd fic called NO TIME TO DIE it'll cover seasons 2-11 and has multiple ocs too, if any of you wanted to check that out.