driftfleet | open | action + video

Who: Glenn Rhee - and maybe you?
Broadcast: Yes
Action: ~~Also yes~~ SS Starstruck
When: Shuffle Day! Plus he just arrived in time for it! Good timing, Glenn!

action: SS Starstruck ]

[ The last thing that he really knew, that he understood and processed, was that his life was over. After that, he couldn't call the details to mind, but the certainty was there. And then, something else happened. He was in a completely different place, somewhere clean, utilitarian but gleaming... and there were stars.

Truth be told, he hadn't gotten past the disbelief, gradually coming to terms with both space and his own continued existence, when suddenly everything changed around him again. Only this time, there was a little tune to greet him, confetti and dessert?

So don't mind him, far more disoriented than he's ever been, stumbling and barely keeping himself upright, staring around the bridge in building bewilderment - and it's rather immediately clear that's what it is, the stations, the windows... space again. However that happened. ]

Um... hello?

[ Eloquent. He'll get to words. Eventually. ]

video ]

I, uh... I guess this is basically like the internet? It's been a while but: Hi. My name is Glenn, and I just got here.

[ He draws a deep breath - while he's doing a bit better, he's still unsteady. ]

To space.

[ He's hoping for what he figures is the impossible... he can't bring himself to put it into words. So he leaves it there, with the dubious tone of someone who still isn't sure anything is real. Himself included. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[She had been hoping to put off talking about it. Talking to anyone else about it had felt awful at the time but talking to Glenn was actually worse. She couldn't lie and say everything was fine.]

The baby. [It was best to just get it out, honestly.]

I don't really- the way we show up here it's like time is frozen, but we're frozen too, kind of? I don't know. It's just- the baby isn't- isn't there.

[The act of forcing the words out was almost physically painful. She wanted her husband back more than anything, yet to get him it seemed she had to lose something else.]

[ He remains quiet as that hits him, letting himself absorb it while hanging on, firmly, to her. That he won't waver in, he won't loosen his hold or step away. And then he moves to pull her in close again.

This is impossible, in and of itself; he couldn't have hoped for this much, but having it - having her - he couldn't help but hope that he would have a chance to know their baby, to be a father. ]

I'm sorry.

[ For making her say it, for the loss he knows she's feeling, for not being there - even though that isn't his fault. For everything. He doesn't know what else to say, finding himself at a loss for any other words through his own pain, unable to do anything but hang on tighter. ]

You know? For a while I deliberated which was worse - which person I wanted to kill more - the Atroma for taking away the baby or Negan for -

[She sucks in a breath and just wraps her arms around him again so she can bury her face into him again. It was like she could disappear from all the harshness of reality by doing something so simple. Being able to hold onto him and maybe even just cry, after being strong about everything for so long and focusing on what needed to be done instead of her own grief helped.]

[ Gently, he places a hand on the back of her head, his fingers intertwining in her hair, stroking gently. He swallows hard, a lump in his throat that's been steadily forming and built to critical mass at the mention of Negan, his own death - the death that he's somehow standing here in spite of, holding her. He takes a slow, shaky breath, trying to keep himself together for her.

He tucks his face downward, places a kiss on the top of her head, and he speaks softly, hanging on. ]

Hey... hey, I'm here.

[ He doesn't mean it to deny her any grief or rage - it's more of an assurance, a reminder that she can just lean on him for as long as she needs to. And maybe it will even help with his own, being able to just hold her like this. ]

[She nods, understanding what he's saying. They've both been through grief before - together and apart. She knows he understands what it feels like for her to suddenly have the thing she wants more than anything while also losing something else. Part of her feels like a disappointment, that now it might be impossible for them to ever have their family that they wanted, but he's here and he's alive and she would give anything for that.]

Mmhmm. [She hums an answer against his shoulder, just closing her eyes and taking in how familiar it is. It made everything else feel like a bad dream.]

I know. Me too.

[She knew what it was like showing up here, not knowing what was going on or if any of this was real. The only difference was she had something to go back to. Anything he had to go back to had been taken away.]

[ It's true; this is it now, for him. There isn't anywhere else for him to go, nothing to return to, no life to get on with living. Whatever life he's been granted has been granted to him here and here alone. The fact that she's here - that Carl, Daryl, Carol, any one of them are here - is beyond belief, beyond the impossible. It's more than he could have ever asked or hoped for.

Yet now that he has it, that he somehow has this renewed stay among the living, even here, that he has her... not having the family they'd been planning, hoping and waiting for, still cuts deeply.

But it does help, being here with her, weathering the grief that's each their own and shared. And so he hangs onto her, desperately, tightly, because he won't lose this. If he can just hold on, maybe he can keep them both here. He closes his eyes, dislodging a couple of stray tears in the process, and leans his head lightly on hers. ]

I love you, Maggie. I'd never stand a chance of explaining how much.

[It cut deep, knowing that she can't give him a family. The Atroma had traded their child in for her continued stay here, now with him. It was painful, but the relief that he was alive soothed it a bit.]

I love you too. It's going to be okay.

[Maybe not completely, but she needed to tell herself that just as much as she needed to tell him.]

The others are going to be so happy to see you.

[But she gets him to herself for now. They have time to see the others. This moment is for the two of them alone.]

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