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She wasn't moving fast enough.
That was the excuse. Because he needed one. Because the overwhelming, overpowering urge to touch her and keep touching her until he understood what touching her meant wasn't good enough, because he imagined himself trying to explain it if he did it too much and she asked him, got uncomfortable, and I need to touch you, this is the most amazing thing that ever happened to me didn't sound, in the awkward phrasing testing ground that was his head, like something he should really say.
He said a lot to her and he was never sure what counted as too much. He was very new at it. He just wanted to keep talking. Something else he was doing more of. Like stretching a muscle he's kept clenched and cramped for thirty fucking years.
Wrenching himself open. Prying. She's a crowbar: her hands and her voice, her eyes, everything she does and says. Cracking him. Breaking. It hurt at first. He wanted it to hurt, because he's no doctor but he's intimately acquainted with the physiology of living creatures, and he understands that growth is almost always painful.
He understood - without fully understanding, at least at the time - that he wanted to grow.
Sunlight touched him and it might have been possible.
This place is so dark now.
He wanted to touch her, so he placed the matter of inadequate speed between them and hoped it would be good enough, and when he scooped her up into his arms and she circled her own around his neck and laughed, God, he found a way to play it cool but everything in him felt as if it was exploding into violent green, extending leaves in timelapse.
He wanted to touch her.
Should have touched her sooner. Should have seen it, should have known, should have listened to those warning bells clanging louder and louder off the inside of his skull and scooped her up again and carried her out of there before she could do what she did, which he doesn't understand and never will.
He wanted to touch her and now he is.
Finally.
He doesn't remember going down but he did because he's here on his knees over her. He dropped the gun; he doesn't remember that either but obviously he doesn't need it now. She wasn't moving fast enough and now she's not moving at all, and he wanted to touch her and he needs to touch her and oh my God, he just doesn't know if he can.
Reaching for her. Hands bloody. He wonders just how bloody he actually is. How much of her is on him.
Those bloody hands in her hair, he pulls back, he can't do that, can't stain her more than she already is. Somewhere above him someone is talking - Rick, maybe someone else, and everywhere there's the shifting of legs like tree trunks come to life, and he's surrounded. Pressing in, he can't breathe, but that's okay, like the gun, dropped on the floor in her blood, he doesn't need to.
He can't stain her with herself but he can't just leave her there, because she isn't moving fast enough and he wants to touch her.
Those bloody hands - don't even seem like his anymore, just nerveless tools attached to the end of his wrists - sliding under her back and shoulders and gathering her, lifting her against his chest. Rocking her - that's stupid, it's not like she can feel it. But his body is doing things on its own. Wandering in odd directions, dazed.
He killed that woman, his blood gone cold, and he doesn't even remember why.
Rocking her because she isn't moving, so he'll move for her.
No more of those voices above him, muffled like distant thunder. For some reason that's a relief - they were an intrusion. They had no right to be here. His hand under her back, her head falling against his shoulder - this is okay, he can do this. Settling her into his lap, he doesn't need a reason. He doesn't need to explain anything. Probably he never did. Probably she never would have demanded an explanation at all.
Probably it would have been all right.
Sweet girl.
He remembers that kitchen. It was bright. She fit into it without blending, still piercingly visible. He felt like a shadow, moving through it beside her, but she was bright too, and he was allowed to stand in the circle of her illumination. She's still bright, even though they've both fallen into a patch of shadow and more shadows are being cast over them; her hair is a brilliant golden blur in the corner of his vision, and he sees the light white-gray of her sweater, yellow polo. She's dressed like she was that day, so really there's only one thing he can do.
Touch on his shoulder. He thinks of the pecking of a crow looking for eyes. It doesn't matter who it is. He twitches violently away and snarls, and the touch disappears.
Except he knows what it was and why it was there, because someone is talking to him, slight undertones of urgency, firm, and even if he doesn't understand what they're saying, he still does.
We gotta go, Beth.
We gotta go.
She's already in his arms. All he has to do is find his feet and move for her. It's not easy and the floor under him is slick with blood; halfway up he slides, nearly falls, but when a steadying hand presses against his back his snarl is more of a sob.
Let me help.
Fuck you.
He doesn't mean to direct it at that specific person. It's a general fuck you. The world as a whole has it coming. It's the only response that makes any sense.
He's not even positive he said it aloud.
We gotta go, and he feels her arms and legs dangling, her head still tipped against his shoulder, resting there. He's strong but he's already straining.
You're heavier than you look.
Dead weight.
One foot in front of the other, you useless son of a bitch. One foot front, other foot next. Sequence, rhythm. It's not complicated.
Follow your heart if you need to.
He's very familiar with this process by now, and when everything extraneous is stripped away it's always very simple. Death is a binary condition. It's zero-sum. Either/or. There isn't any room for questioning its clarity.
Maybe in some universe that makes it easier.
She wasn't moving fast enough and she still isn't, so he carries her, and he carries her to the stairs and he carries her down them, step by laborious step, and he staggers but he doesn't fall and no one else is stupid enough to try to touch him. No one is going to take her away from him. He would murder the entire building if they tried.
This is his job now, his one job to do: down foot by foot toward that door through which he'll have to carry her, like a bride, like his girl, one final time moving for both of them.
He wanted to touch her. Needed to.
Maybe now, at last, he won't have to stop.