The Last Goodbye - Part 2
A hole had been drilled into his brain.
At least that’s what his pounding skull was telling him. Kenny gripped at his head as an invisible titan hammered nails into it, striking harder as each second passed. He pushed himself up from the chair and collapsed forward onto the cold dock as the pounding in his head intensified. Ever the fighter, he reached for the chair and tried to pull himself up but each movement seemed to make the pain worse as his hand frantically searched for the gun.
It was gone. “Shit!” No trace of it remained, almost as if it had vanished into thin air. The black sky above was devoid even of stars, letting the night consume him and the dock entirely. His vision only extended a few feet in any given direction and the only sound to his ears was the lapping of the ocean waves beneath him. He could only imagine how ridiculous he looked, knelt over this stupid chair on a goddamn dock in the middle of the night. A drunken, pathetic, broken killer. He reached out, groping around the shrouded docks in a desperate search for the weapon.
He needed it.
Then a voice called out from the darkness. His heart quickened at the sound, thumping out of his chest at how hauntingly familiar the voice was. “Come on, get up.” Kenny raised his head. Someone was there, standing above him and surrounded by an angelic glow. He recognized her instantly. His hands were shaking. His breath failed him.
“Kat?”
Standing there, as beautiful as ever, she extended a hand and the warmth of her smile banished the cold from his bones. “You know I hate to see you like this, Ken.”
“This ain’t happening,” Kenny told himself. “You ain’t real. This is just a dream.”
She reached down to him. “Does that matter?”
He hesitated. Gazing into her eyes, searching deep for hints of deception, as hard as he looked for signs of malice the only thing he could see was his wife. “Fuck it.” He took her hand and practically floated to his feet. He knew he’d finally lost it. “This ain’t real…” he repeated. “Is it?”
“Ken…”
Desperation had seeped into his voice as he grabbed her arm and spoke. “Just... just say yes. Please? For a little while, just let me believe.”
She ignored his plea. When he realized he wasn’t going to get the answer he needed he let go of her, defeated. He could barely hear her as she talked. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Kenny looked away. “I got no idea what you’re talkin’ about.”
Her expression became stern and she guided Kenny’s gaze back to her. “You know very well what I mean.”
“I-“
“I know what you’re planning to do. Don’t pretend you came here for anything else.”
The lie died on his lips before he gave it voice. “Alright,” Kenny growled. “What if I am?”
“I’m here because you know you shouldn’t.”
His eye narrowed and his voice dropped to gravelly scratching. “What did you just say?”
“I said you know you shouldn’t do it.”
He tore his hand away from hers like she was a snake rearing back to bite. He made the smallest attempt to stop a tidal wave of indignant fury from spilling forth but after a few seconds he was washed away by it. “You got some fuckin’ nerve, you know that?” He kicked the chair aside and stomped a foot to the ground. “Where the fuck do you get off?”
“Kenny, please-“
“So I guess it’s just fuckin’ peachy for you to do it, leavin’ me high and dry the way you did, but suddenly when I want to do it it’s a fuckin’ crime?” He paced to the edge of the dock, away from Katjaa, and felt himself becoming colder with each step he put between them as the dark chill gripped him again. “You got no fucking right, Katjaa! No goddamn right!” Suddenly he felt something in his hand and brought it into his view. It was the gun he was searching for.
"I got nothin' anymore," he shouted. "So why in the fuck shouldn't I?"
“Nothing will be fixed, honey. We’ll all still gone, and you will be too.” Katjaa reached for the firearm but Kenny snatched it away.
“But we’ll be gone
together,” Kenny said. His anger had broken. “Is there anything else that matters?”
Katjaa came closer. “Don’t talk like that,” she demanded.
Kenny noticed how close she was, hands still reaching for the gun, and turned away from her. He stared out over the black void where the ocean should have been. “All the good people like you, and Lee, and Walt, and that dumb kid Luke wind up dead while I… just keep going on. There’s no sense in that. No justice.”
“It’s awful and unfair. You’re right. But you need to realize that this isn’t some punishment, Ken, it’s just bad luck.”
“It wasn’t bad luck when Walt got shot,” Kenny whispered. “That was all me.”
“You didn’t kill Walter,” Katjaa said. “You were trying to save him.”
Kenny crossed his arms. “I let Sarita die.”
“You got separated. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I got Clementine shot!” Katjaa’s protest was smothered by Kenny’s shouting. He paced back and forth on the dock, stomping his shoes against the damp planks and screaming out into the darkness. “I broke our fuckin’ group apart because I wasn’t gettin’ my goddamn way! Mike and Clem, they tried to talk some sense into me, but… Jesus, I was so pissed I couldn’t see straight. Everyone was scared shitless of me and when Clem tried to warn me I just yelled at her. So Mike, and that Russian kid I kept beatin’ on, they tried to leave us, and when they did Clem got shot. Kat, she nearly…” Kenny stopped for a second and took a deep breath before he went on, barely able to keep his composure. “She nearly
died because of that. If Lee were there he’d have done to me what I did to Carver, for letting that happen to his little girl. And I would have deserved it. I still do.”
“Ken-“
“It took me a long time to realize why my life’s turned to shit, but being alone now, I finally see it. It ain’t the walkers or the psychos. It’s me. It’s always been me.” Katjaa was silent as Kenny continued. “I did a lot of awful shit to protect you and our boy, but in the end it didn’t matter. When you both died I took out my anger on Lee and everyone else because I just had so much of it and I didn’t know what to do. And when I lost Sarita I did the same thing to Clem. She did everything she could to save her. She’s just a kid, Kat, but she did more than me. And I put all the blame on her because I couldn’t accept that it was all happening to me again.
"
Kenny crossed his arms. “I’m angry at everything now, all the time, and it’s just been gettin’ worse. I’m drowning in it, Kat. I have been for two goddamn years and it’s ruined everything around me.” He lifted his hand and stared longingly at the gun. “I can’t… keep… doin’ this. And I only see one way out.”
“No. There is another way.”
“Not for a guy like me. This right here,” he said, showing her the gun, “This is my light at the end of the tunnel.”
Katjaa gripped Kenny’s hand with a sigh. “You can just let us go.”
Kenny twitched. “What?”
“It’s the only way. You
are drowning, and it’s because you refuse to move on. You can’t go a day without thinking of us, and what happened to us, and each time you do you blame yourself for it and you keep sinking deeper. It’s killing you.”
“These memories are all I got left, Kat. I won't. I... I
can't."
“What about Clementine?” she asked. “You were overjoyed to see her again, and you pretended she was your very own daughter, but you walked away so she and that baby could be safe in that community. That was the first step. All I’m asking is that you do the same for us. Just… let go.”
“I did that to save her from me,” Kenny growled. “It was her only chance. Any little thing could set me off, that's how goddamn angry I am, and there's no tellin' what I'll do. I couldn’t take the risk of her and AJ being there when it happens.” Kenny felt something in his eye and wiped it away. “Goddamnit, I had to do it. Now she’s safe, and as hard as it was, I can at least look back on that and say that out of everything I’ve done in this madness that that was the one good thing I managed to make happen.”
Katjaa took his hand. “Now it’s your turn, Ken. You have a chance to save yourself and I’m begging you honey, please, please take it.”
“What if I don’t want to be fuckin’ saved!” he shouted. “All I want, all I have ever wanted was to live my life and grow old with you,” he said, lifting the gun to show her. “To be a
family. I only need one bullet. Just one quick squeeze, not even a second, and we can be a family again. Please.
Let me.”
She pushed his hand back down. “You said that it was wrong when I did it. You were right. And you know that if we were still here that we wouldn’t want you to go through with this because it’s still wrong and it always will be.” She took his free hand. “Kenny. Don’t.”
“You can’t ask me to do this, Kat.”
“One of your biggest flaws is that you can never let go of anything, but you don't have a choice anymore. You have to.” She pulled his hand to her chest. “For us. Not just me and Ducky, but the others too. Matthew, Walter, and Sarita, they all cared about you too, and they wouldn’t want you to give up after everything you’ve been through. And whatever reasons you had for being with them, I know that you cared for them too."
Kenny was silent.
“We’re all gone now,” she whispered. “And we can’t come back. But you’ve endured it. And you can get better. But clinging to the past is what’s dragging you down. If you pull that trigger then there’s no going back, but you don’t need to end everything just to end the pain.”
“But… how?”
“The past is ashes now, and when you try to rebuild something out of ashes it will always fall apart and just bury you deeper. Accept that and instead of remaining back there, move forward and put all that pain behind you.”
Kenny stood, staring into her eyes, wonderful and bright, each an ocean, and for a blissful moment he forgot that she was dead. His fractured world was whole again, for that short second, and that single second was all he needed to see she was right. The way she was always right. He embraced her, clinging tight, and she returned the hug and Kenny felt tears rolled down his cheek in waves. “I love you, Katjaa.” He buried his head in her shoulder and let it all out. Everything he had spent so long burying was unearthed and he couldn’t keep any of it back as he wept.
The anger, the sadness, the self-loathing, and so many regrets all spilled out at once. But Kat stood there and held onto him as it happened, keeping him steady, and making sure he wouldn't be consumed by the storm.
Even though she wasn’t crying he could hear the sadness in her voice as she held him there and let him cry. “We had so many great years together, Kenny.”
Kenny hugged her tighter, determined to make every last second of this fantasy count. “Before I met you I thought my life was good. No worries, no obligations, just… freedom. But when I met you I realized how empty everything was before.” He lifted his head from her shoulder, still stained with tears. “When I was with you life wasn’t just ‘good’ anymore, it was wonderful. And I wish I could have been there more, instead of off on some damn boat in the middle of the ocean, because each minute we spent together, you and me and Duck, was a blessing. And it all ended too soon.”
“No matter how much time we had together, Ken, it never would have been enough.”
He smiled. “Not even close.”
Kenny felt an eternity pass as they stood there in the darkness holding each other as close as they could, until he found the strength to release her and stepped back. She stepped back too and spoke one last time. “We love you, Kenny.”
“Goodbye, Kat.” She began to fade away. Kenny watched, still smiling, until she was gone completely.
The pounding in his head had subsided. He was still in the chair he had passed out in on the edge of the dock with the gun resting in his lap. Kenny picked it up and looked out over the Atlantic to see the sun rising in the distance. He stood up from the chair and stretched his arms. He felt lighter as he slid the gun into his waistband, like something had been lifted off chest.
The smell of the sea washed over him, that wonderful salty aroma, as seagulls screeched somewhere in the distance in tune with the rolling waves. The night was receding to the west. Kenny sat and let his muscles relax, content on resting in the chair a while longer.
The pain in his legs had faded and the irritation in his bad eye had vanished sometime during the night. He was feeling strong again in a way he hadn’t for a long time. The sea air was revitalizing.
He felt his bandage coming loose again and tightened it. “I gotta get a real eyepatch.” He laughed a little at the thought. He was one step away from becoming a proper pirate. Well, aside from not having a boat, which was practically criminal for a born fisherman. The ocean was beckoning to him.
“I think it’s time for a little vacation,” he said to himself, grinning, for the first time looking forward to what tomorrow would bring.
Mexico. He’d been meaning to head back for so long but had never found a good time. But now he had all the time in the world. There was nothing he had to run from anymore. He could breathe again. He was free.
His vacation would have to wait a little longer though, which he didn’t mind in the slightest. All he wanted to do right now was sit back, relax, and enjoy the beginning of a new day.
THE END
I figured that Kenny deserved a happy ending for once, given how he's dead as shit in 80% of paths and especially how lazily he was written out in ANF. He was the only remaining character who was with us from A New Day onward. And, call me corny, but there have to be some happy endings even in a setting as bleak as the Walking Dead. If everything is depression and evil and shocking deaths and every character always dying, well, why the fuck would anyone care what happens to any of these characters?
So this was my last goodbye to one of my favorite characters in all of The Walking Dead. Just once, in this path, he finally gets a break and manages to deal with his demons after all the shit he had to go through.
I'm real glad to have met you, Kenny.