skcletcns:
it had been two days since tara had miraculously made it back to alexandria and somehow, everything seemed way, way worse than before. denise was gone, daryl too- maggie and sacha… abraham and glenn… god, finding out glenn was gone had killed her, but they were all still standing. they were family and they had each other’s backs, which is why right now, she wasn’t going to let rosita do this alone. she’d been standing a little away from the girl now hunched up on the ground, watching her as everything seemed to come crashing down. she didn’t want to get too close just yet, she knew that rosita needed a moment to just… break. now though? tara shuffled her way over to her, and slid down the fence as she pulled the crying girl into her body. “rosa, it’s not your fault you can’t blame yourself” tara tried to soothe, “eugene is braver than we all know, he’ll get through this and we’ll get him back alive, i know we will.” she held on tighter to the girl, stroking her hair as she sobbed until there was no tears left. “we’ve got this..” tara trailed off as she let rosita spill her emotions out.
In this midst of her emotional breakdown, Rosita hadn’t noticed anyone move beside her. Despite her mostly observant personality, the despair in this moment she felt was too much for her to bare. Tara’s familiarity invaded her space and before she knew it, her friend was holding her and her soft voice filled the air around them. Nothing was registering around her–the words Tara was speaking didn’t get to her–instead she just continued to cry. Rosita had no idea how long they had been there but when her cries finally died down and her mind began working again, she jumped into action. “W-we need to get him,” Rosita said in a weak voice as she lifted her head. “I need to do something. H-he can’t–he won’t–” Her voice was too sore to speak and her mind was racing too much to actually form words. Standing quickly Rosita tried to steady herself, “I need to get–” Her words cut off as her eyes caught something vibrant. Raising her hand, she noticed bright crimson on her hand and it made her freeze. Rosita knew it was her from the long forgotten about cut but she still couldn’t bring herself to move.
as the brunette jumped to her feet, tara's body shook as she was left sitting on the hot asphalt alone. however, it wasn't more than a couple of seconds later that she was up, standing alongside rosita, trying once again to calm her down. "rosa, breathe, please..." she pleaded softly, as tara tried to take her hands in her own. "we'll get him back, i promise." tara repeated herself, "but right now you need to rest, we all do... it's clearly been a rough few weeks and we need to talk about it... all of us, together. figure out a plan and win, like we always do." she wasn't really sure if she was saying this to convince rosita, or herself, but either way she was confident in what she was saying. they did always win, even if they lost people along the way, there was a group of them who had made it this far, and tara would be damned if she was gonna lose now. as she finally managed to grab a hold of rosita's hand, tara pulled it in closer noticing that the girl had frozen on the spot. "oh rosa," she mumbled under her breath as she saw the gash. "c'mon, we need to get you cleaned up and rested." she pulled at the girls arm with no avail. "please, rosa... for me? i'll stay with you, i promise. me and you..."
