And it's in the night – in the brief moment of blissful respite – that the two of them begin to really get to know one another. Words exchanged, sometimes angrily, hating the world around them and the condition they're placed in. By some cruel twist of fate, they are the survivors. For her, not one that was even sure she could go on, it seems almost ironic. While he, in his inner self-loathing that sometimes slips out in how he talks, just keeps up with it because there is no other choice. And it's in the silence, after the angry words and accusations, that they sit and stare at each other.
Moonshine in a glass in her hand, she averts eye-contact. His furious outbursts are warranted. She understands. He understands her all too well in reciprocation. It's the illusion that the two of them pretend now to know as much about each other as they do that keeps them silent for the moment. A silly little game gone wrong, when it's all in fun. When she looks up again, he's still staring at her with those fierce eyes of his. The remnants of his alcohol are spilled across the floor amongst shards of glass. It's an echo of their mental psyche. The life they live has turned the two of them into characters they no longer recognize.
She takes a sip of the moonshine. There are no words she can offer as solace. He can't help her either. Not in the way of old, with psychiatrists and their pills and advice. He does it in different ways. Whether he is aware of it, she does not know. And she has become something strange and different in his life. A person he never thought would have such an impact on him. She is a light in the shadows for several reasons. She reaches into his darkness and endures his fury. She is just as wild with her words as he is and it puts him in his place when he feels like he's slipping. To her, he's more than just a survivalist companion – one that any sane person would cling to in their apocalyptic world – but something else entirely. Just the right amount of broken emotion, strength and bravery. He is a pillar that holds her up and gives her the inspiration and desire to keep at it when at times she'd rather give up and be eaten by the undead.
She breaks the silence with a bold statement with regards to their previous game, "I've never been with anyone."
His eyebrows do a momentary rise and fall just as quickly. Now he averts his eyes for a moment and then stares back at her. The air is heavy around them for reasons they both won't say aloud. "What? You mean-"
"Yeah."
There is a pause. It lasts long enough for the two of them to wonder when they will hear each other's heart beating. The silence presses in against them, pulling strings that have been winding around them for too long. He shuffles slightly in his sitting position, unsure of how to voice what he's thinking. She is trying to break the illusion. She has left it in his hands. The pressure – but the hindsight of knowing what relief is to come – wells up inside him so that he manages just enough to respond, "We can fix that."
The wall of denial is broken in soft touches. Caresses of each other, the silence that once threatened to smother them is forced out into the cold. Gentle fingers in hair, tracing skin and the face of one another, with the brushing of lips. It's calm. The solitude, the isolation, it all beckons to them as they progress. In the arms of one another's bare embrace, the suppressed truth becomes far more apparent than words could have ever made it. The lies and denial all fall off them like cobwebs. It's the gentleness and warmth they find in one another that ignites the growing fire the two of them had been trying to control. It takes hold, burning their skin into one another in amongst divine gasps and pants. There is no need for words between them in this moment.
This is right where they need to be. In the night beneath the moon, with the sound of shambling corpses feeling like nothing more than a distant memory. Where it seems that they could fall asleep in one another's hold and wake up to the horrors of their reality having vanished. When the deemed end of the world – the death of humanity – is no longer a threat. In a new life where they could live together and the possibility of family is no longer dreadful. A life where they could live no longer wondering when the reaper's scythe would come crashing down upon their heads. This moment they are free, soaring through skies of passion and requited love.
And it is this moment that she thinks of when she's decided to attack Dawn. She hears his whisper of her name in the dark morning hours, Beth, and this is enough for her. Perhaps, someday, he'll understand her resolve as she moves forward with the scissors and plunges them into the female officer. Perhaps, he'll know. He'll know why. Maybe, out of all of them, he'll be the only one to truly understand. It's the silence that drives a person mad. Pretending things aren't the way they are that gets people hurt. Just before the trigger of Dawn's gun is pulled – for less than a fraction of a second – she can see his piercing eyes before her.
When the blood flies and her body crumples, his hope is shattered. His instinct reacts faster than he can process what he's doing. With swift retribution for his departed hope – the lost light he had finally found – he pulls the trigger of his own weapon and Dawn dies.
The worst is carrying her out of the hospital. Seeing her sister fall to her knees screaming. Her sacrifice to save another is not lost on anyone present. Least of all him. It had been too late for him to stop her – to save her – by the time he became aware of what she was going to do. If he had been just a little faster – but then as her sister sobs on her knees, he knows that no matter what he never would have been fast enough. His light has gone. His hope has died with her. The success of humanity is once again fleeting.
When his dear friend tells him afterwards that he needs to mourn her death, he finds a place in the silence where he can return back to that moment. In the old house that was more like a decrepit shack. Where she had told him that he would miss her when she was gone. That place of sanctuary that they had burnt to the ground together in perfect understanding of each other. He goes back to remember the feel of her skin, the smell of her hair, the soft kisses and traces of her fingers across his body.
And he thinks: At least.