Who: Zinnia What: Narrative/outtro Where: Greyhound station When: We'll say right before the Reavers came to town. She's sorry she missed them. Warnings: Self-mutilation and blood. Oh, and angst, but that goes unsaid.
It was, in the end, Zinnia's agent who had saved her. After the nightmare, if it was a nightmare, if it was anything at all, things had just gotten more and more mixed up in her head, and to sort it out she'd painted. It hadn't helped, and then she'd run out of red paint.
It made sense, when she'd done it. The consistency was wrong, but the only time she'd ever seen that perfect shade of red she needed was when she'd opened her wrists, and it wasn't as if she needed to really open them wide. Just little nicks, that was all, just enough to give her some color... but then it had dried to a dull brown, a rusty brown, and it had taken another nick, and another, and it kept turning to rust and flaking off her perfect canvas. She'd twined her fingers into tangled, matted hair and pulled, screaming her frustrations. Perhaps her neighbors thought she'd put a horror movie on loud - it wouldn't have been the first time. Maybe they just knew they should stay away from the madwoman.
The scratches throbbed still on her inner arms, and she scratched at them absently as she waited for the Greyhound bus. The day before, they had been wrapped in layers of medical gauze and tape, the itch soothed by numbing antibiotic cream. The sight of it had struck an unreasoning panic in her, made her want to retreat to the world of fire and blood once more. She'd taken it off as soon as the doctors had let her go. It was better to risk infection than to end up screaming in the middle of the streets, screaming and screaming until they put her in the hospital.
She would never stay in the hospital again.
"I just got your message," she said into the phone trapped between her ear and shoulder. Her scratching opened up one of the scabs, and she pressed the tips of her slender fingers against the trickle of red. "I'm sorry I didn't call before. I was... sick. But I'm doing better now. I'm on the pills again. Maybe, this time..."
She'd had a commission past due, and she hadn't been answering her phone. It wasn't as though she'd unplugged it from the wall, she simply hadn't heard it through her nightmares. She thought perhaps he had been angry when he'd come to her door, but the strange thing was that he hadn't stayed that way once he saw her sprawled on the floor. He'd bundled her up in his arms, ripped up one of her painting shirts (it had belonged to Teddy once, he'd never have been forgiven if he'd ripped one of Gabe's, not when they were all she had left) and used it to bind her arms to stop the bleeding. "I need you crazy," he'd told her, wrapping her in Gabe's coat, "but I need you alive more." It hadn't made sense then, but it made her smile when she thought about it later.
A change of scenery, the doctor had suggested, and did she have anywhere to go? At first she'd thought she could always go back to the Wilsons. They had told her she would always be welcome. It wasn't where she really wanted to be, though. It wasn't where she felt safe, not anymore. Not without the boys. She'd retrieved her cell phone, though, and thankfully checked her messages before she'd made that call.
"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. I should have been. I... I forgot anyone but me would be hurting." She scuffed her feet against the concrete, bumping her bags every time she moved. She wasn't supposed to be doing any heavy lifting, but hadn't wanted to ask Teddy for help. She couldn't let him know how bad it had gotten. Brothers worried too much. She'd wanted, wanted intensely, to call Ike, to revert to his leadership, but she thought he wouldn't have time for her, if he even answered her call. So she'd done it herself.
The station was nearly abandoned. There were one or two others sitting on benches, waiting. Monsters slid on and off their faces, but she tried not to look. She did wonder if they were running, like her, what they might be running from. Her fingers itched for her sketch book, almost as much as the healing cuts on her arm itched in a more distracting fashion. Sighing, she tugged the sleeves of Gabe's jacket back down over them to remove the temptation. Though she felt more nervous by the second, she forced her feet still with a thump that echoed in the emptiness.
It was almost time for the bus to arrive. That probably meant she needed to stop talking to the voicemail, though she wasn't ready to let go quite yet. Still... "I hope you get this soon, because I think it's a good idea for me to take you up on that offer. I'm waiting for a bus, I couldn't get a plane out this week and I just want to be gone. So, I'll see you soon. Thanks, LW. I love you."