…

"Do you have to do that in just your boxers?" She asks and Aiden lifts his head, smirking a little when he sees her, standing on the bank of the creek, her hands covering her eyes.

"Are you hungry?" Aiden asks though he knows she is. He is, too.

"Yes," she finally answers after a ridiculously long moment.

"I'm not doing this, dressed, and getting my clothes soaked," Aiden explains though he doesn't really understand why he has to explain. It seems pretty obvious to him as to why he's in the water in nothing, but his boxers.

They are quiet after that. Meg remains standing on the bank, her hands covering her face, as Aiden continues standing in the knee-deep cool water, bent over, his hands in the water, his eyes sharp and his body patient.

He can hear the slight wind moving through the leaves on the trees. He can hear warblers chirping and singing. He can hear the soft, gentle rush of the water around him. He is concentrating on the task in front of him, but he also is able to focus on the sounds around him. Just like he was taught.

He wishes his dad, mom and Daryl were here so they could see. He wishes his whole family was here with him.

Since the time he was young – but old enough to start leaving the yard for more than foraging – his parents and Daryl had been his main teachers outside. In the kitchen, Beth had taught him everything from math to US History and reading everything from Homer to F. Scott Fitzgerald. But outside, Daryl taught him to hunt and track and his mom taught him how to defend himself and how to perfect his knife and machete skills and his dad taught him how to laugh and joke and find the happiness in just about any moment.

Aiden's not sure how long he stands there. Fishing without a pole and just your hands can take hours and there isn't anything a person can do to speed it up.

The longer it takes, from the corner of his eye, he can see Meg's hands slowly lower from her face.

He still doesn't know that much about her – just that she is a good person and he knows that, to Beth and the rest of his family, that would be all that does matter. She's his age. Seventeen. And her little "brother", Grant, is about twelve. Aiden doesn't have to ask what happened to the rest of hers and Grant's families that left them out here, alone and wandering aimlessly with no direction or plan.

Aiden knows that the people left in the world, they haven't been nearly as lucky as he and his family have been.

Growing up in these mountains, they've been cut off from the rest of the world and even though he's seventeen, Aiden has still never seen anyone like Meg or Grant. Grant with his curly red hair and Meg with her Asian features. She's beautiful. Aiden can't help but think on that more than he probably should.

He came upon them four days ago and there wasn't even really a discussion once Grant stopped poking his knife in Aiden's ribs and Aiden had assured them both that he wasn't going to hurt either of them. They'd stick together.

It's obvious to Aiden immediately that Meg and Grant aren't from these mountains. They don't know much of anything and when Grant had gone to pick a mushroom the day before as they walked, Aiden had literally slapped it from his hand before Grant ate the poisonous object and dropped dead.

Finally. The fish swims between his fingers and he feels the cold scales on his hands and Meg lets out a gasp as Aiden grasps the fish – a brown trout, he notes – and immediately tosses it out onto the bank next to her. She looks at it as it flops wildly in the grass with wide eyes and then looks to Aiden.

"You just caught a fish," she then states to him.

"It would seem that way," Aiden grins.

"With your bare hands."

"I don't have a pole," he says with a simple shrug.

When he was leaving, Aaron had tried to push the fishing pole in his hands to take with him, but Aiden had pushed it back with a shake of his head. His family will need that far more than he will. He, after all, can catch a fish with his bare hands and is the only one in their family who can.

"How did you learn how to do that?" Meg asks as she watches Aiden now as he pulls himself from the water. She doesn't make a move to cover her eyes again even as his boxers cling to him.

Aiden shrugs. "Plenty of time to practice something until you get it right these days."

Meg looks at him as if she's never seen someone like him before and she then looks back to the fish, no longer flopping as it takes its last few gasping breaths.

Aiden goes towards the small fire still crackling further up the bank, where he stripped from his clothes earlier. He doesn't put them on yet though. He'll let the sun dry him for a bit. He glances into the yellow pup tent they have pitched and where Grant is sleeping inside.

On their run to that town, Crispin, all of those years ago, they had gone through an outdoors store and this tent is from that venture, being taken with Aiden years later now when he has set off on his own for the summer months.

Grant had insisted on keeping watch the night before so Meg and Aiden could get some sleep. The tent is only big enough for two people and while Meg hadn't seemed to have any trouble with sharing a space with him and falling asleep, Aiden had laid awake most of the night, feeling the heat from her body, so close to his, and listening to her deep, steading breaths.

Meg is still standing near the water, still looking to the fish, but she lifts her head when Aiden comes back, now with his knife. The sun is streaming through the leaves on the tree near her, glistening over her long black hair that she has pulled up into a ponytail. She has a mosquito bite that she's been scratching on her jaw and the knees of her jeans are dirty from kneeling on the ground that morning, feeding their fire more twigs.

Aiden's throat feels dry to him and he does his best to clear it. "Uh, want to watch me clean it?" He asks.

Meg then smiles and it's probably only about the third smile she has given him in the days since they've first met.

He feels disgust towards himself for seeing that smile on her face and the sight of it twitching a certain part of his body that he knows his boxers will do nothing to hide.

"Yes," she nods.

"Give me just one more second," Aiden says before heading back towards the fire and grabbing his blue jeans, tugging them back on over his wet legs as casually as he can.

…

Thank you so much for reading and please take a moment to review!

My pinterest is templeton21 and I have a board "Blue Ridge" that is specially for this universe if you're interested.

And if you go on my tumblr - templeton21 - I have posted pictures of Aiden and Meg.

Thank you again!