Blind instinct tried to compel Diana to go after Hoffman, but in the end, she wrestled this urge into submission and stayed put to meet a few more people.

Contrary to every expectation in her gut, not all of the Atlanta survivors had made it to Arizona, though Sheriff Grimes and his wife and son had apparently lived to tell the tale, as had Daryl. They were now clustered around the fireplace as the rest of the introductions were effected, though Andrea, she noticed, had quickly and quietly absented herself with her son after the initial awkwardness. Diana didn't blame her one bit. In truth, and though she felt bad for Andrea, she was not the least bit surprised at Hoffman's reaction, either.

The rest of the civilians were new to her. First she'd been introduced to a local family: Tony and Inez, and their three teenage children, Jason, Sarah and Isabelle. The parents were kind enough if guarded – and she was by now well used to the reaction of strangers confronted with an axe-wielding woman – but the kids seemed withdrawn and subdued. Last, there was a young couple, Philip and Julia. Once again, Diana noticed a large disparity in temperament, but this time, it was so profound that she wondered what on earth had brought them together in the first place.

Philip, who looked to be in his early thirties, was all loose limbs and open friendliness, sporting long hair and a full beard and wearing a slightly frayed denim shirt. She made a quick but particular mental note of the fact that he wore a modest silver crucifix in the midst of this beach-comber ensemble. It almost looked like an afterthought, but still, it was a point on the graph.

Julia was perhaps ten years younger and, in complete contrast, was stiff and defensive from the outset in a way that Diana couldn't quite attribute to anything in particular, though she kept casting short, sidelong glances at Philip whenever his attention was otherwise occupied. It might have been simple jealousy, especially since Diana was the only other young woman in the vicinity.

She was not in the mood to talk, though, and had deftly avoided all meaningful conversation in spite of Rick's halting attempts to draw a few answers out of her. They were answers she didn't feel she was qualified to give, in any case, and she now stood with her back to the room, forehead pressed up against the cool, foggy window, staring out across the scarred airstrip as it shimmered in the afternoon heat.

There was a dark, hunched silhouette by the fence on the far side of the strip. Hoffman. Unmistakeable even at that distance. He had his head down and his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his coat, but it was clear from his stance that he, in turn, was watching something else. Diana angled her head, squinting a little, but she could see no further. Something about the set of his shoulders caused a prickle of unease, though, and she found her hand twitching, searching for the axe, before she remembered she'd set it down on the far side of the room.

"What's he doing?"

Andrea joined her at the window, placing one palm flat upon the glass as her brow furrowed in confusion. Diana stewed in uncomfortable silence a little longer before turning her head.

"Look," she said, uneasily, feeling her way through the sentence that lay ahead of her, "it's going to take time. It's come as a big shock."

"You're damn right it has," said Andrea, her voice taut with sudden bitterness.

"I meant –" Diana began, but the other woman cut her off. "I know what you meant," she said, lowering her voice a touch as she glanced around at the others in the room. "I wanna know why the two of y'all ran out on us."

Diana dropped her head for a moment and let out a long, slow breath, which turned into a sad little smile along the way. She looked up again, turning this expression upon Andrea.

"No, you don't," she said. "You want to know why he ran out on you, and you're asking the wrong person. I'm sorry." Diana averted her gaze, turning away from the window before Andrea could muster another query; she hated herself for a second, but it was clear that the conversation was on a fast track to nowhere and there was no point in prolonging it. She crossed the room, fetched her axe from beside the door and headed outside.

The blazing sun hit her like a hammer as she stepped out of the terminal and began walking across the runway, her head down but her eyes fixed on Hoffman. He hadn't moved, and stood close to the chain link fence behind the dry grass verge, staring at something still unseen. Diana kept watch upon the detective until she reached his side, and then looked out across the desolate plain. As she did so, it became evident what had caught his attention.

There was a solitary walker standing some way away in the middle of the sparse scrub, swaying slightly on its feet now and again but otherwise keeping what looked like a macabre, unblinking vigil over the base. It was thin to the point of cadaverous, and this – combined with the fact that its clothing amounted to little more than grey rags and tatters – made it impossible even to determine the creature's gender. Nevertheless, its eyes shone like pearls in its dull, weathered face, and it continued to stare.

"It's been standing there for an hour and a half," said Hoffman, softly, without looking around.

"So have you," said Diana.

"Your point being?"

"Unless you're camping out here," she told him, "you're going to have to talk to her at some point, aren't you?"

"If that's all you came out here to say," he replied, evenly, "then you can get lost." He turned his head a little as he spoke but, since she was stood on his blind side, he had to turn a little further still in order to see her, which caused him a flicker of discomfort before he looked back out over the rolling landscape.

"You know I'm right," she insisted.

"Either change the subject or fuck off," said Hoffman, and now his tone was seasoned with warning.

"Whatever," she said, smoothly, and returned her attention to the walker. That blind white gaze, the way it swayed, and the sheer force of naked patience bleeding off the thing like smoke were almost hypnotic, and she didn't breathe out again until she heard the brisk snap of a rifle bolt behind her, at which point her reflexes took control and jerked her aside less than half a second before the shot rang out in the glossy, wavering air. She was turning on her heel before the first echo returned from the distant buildings, but then she stepped back in surprise.

It wasn't Rick behind her, but Carl, and he caught her eye as he lowered the Remington from his shoulder, moving slowly and carefully. He seemed perfectly at ease with the Sheriff's rifle in his hands and – Diana turned briefly to confirm this – had managed to shoot the creature right through the eye at a distance of some thirty yards. He slung the weapon over his shoulder and approached the fence now, casting a cursory glance out at the dead walker and then offering Diana and Hoffman a small, humourless smile.

"We see a few of 'em out there every day, just about on the same spot," he said, by way of explanation. "That's all they do, stand and watch, so all we do is shoot 'em. It's easy," he added, confidently. "They don't run or nothin'."

Carl had evidently done a lot of growing in the intervening years, and was now several inches taller than Diana herself and almost as tall as his father. He was still appraising the fallen corpse, squinting into the haze beyond the fence, but as he pushed a lick of dark hair out of his eyes, he caught her studying him and gave her a quizzical look.

"Sorry," she said, ducking her head apologetically. "That was a good shot, though," she added, nodding at him.

"Thanks," he said.

"Gimme that," said Rick, stepping around his son's shoulder and holding out his hand, patiently but meaningfully, his mouth set in a bloodless line. After a little more hesitation, Carl returned the rifle and watched as the Sheriff checked it over and then unloaded the breech, putting the shells into his pocket. When he was done, he gave his son a hard look.

"What'd I tell you about playing with this?" he demanded.

"There was another walker out there," said Carl, jerking his head at the corpse lying in the dried scrub bushes. Rick cast a brief glance at it, then returned his attention to the boy.

"If that's the case," he said, "then you come get me. I taught you to shoot in case you had to, not so y'all could mess around. Christ, Carl. Don't touch it again, you hear me? Now," he said, shaking his head a little, "I gotta talk to Detective Hoffman. Alone," he added, pointedly, looking at Diana and Carl in turn.

"He still treats me like a goddamned kid," said Carl, sourly, as they walked back to the terminal together. Diana gave him a sympathetic look, but he had his head down as he moved, mired in angry confusion. He stopped outside the door, though, and rounded on her. "I remember you," he said, "and I remember that," he added, glancing down at the axe. "I watched you kill those things, y'know. You still good at it?"

"No," Diana told him, through a half-smile. "I'm even better."

"As good as him?" asked Carl, shooting a look back at Hoffman. Diana followed his gaze for a moment; Rick and the detective were still standing by the fence, immersed in conversation, but she could discern little from Hoffman's body language. He was about as transparent as a brick wall at the best of times, but now he appeared to have shut down altogether. She pressed her lips together for a second and returned her attention to Carl.

"Probably not," she said, quietly, and then readjusted her sights a little as a thought occurred to her. "Hey. How long have you been here?" she asked, cocking her head curiously.

"Just about a coupla weeks," he said, with a lazy shrug.

"Did you hear a radio broadcast telling you to come here?"

"I didn't," said Carl, his curiosity now mirroring her own. "I could ask my dad, though."

"No," she said, after the tiniest reconsideration. "That's okay. I was just interested. It doesn't matter." In the lee of this, she watched the boy's eyes carefully. For a moment she saw the briefest suspicion take up residence there, but it was gone as soon as she'd caught sight of it, and then he was squinting back out into the sun, gazing at his father.

"Somethin's not right," he muttered, so quietly that Diana wasn't sure, at first, of what she'd heard. Before she could react, however, Carl had turned away from her and pushed through the door, disappearing back into the cool gloom of the terminal. She watched him go with a deepening frown, and then sighed.

A soft, scraping footstep behind her had her turning on her heel, swinging the axe up, but she turned into the frightened expression of Corporal Mitchell, who was raising his hands defensively and stumbling back a pace. She flinched, smiling awkwardly, and lowered the weapon once more.

"Sorry, miss," he stuttered, his eyes wide and wary, looking her up and down as she relaxed her stance and unwound her muscles. "I just wondered how ye're settling in?" he added, though Diana looked a little closer and saw that a trace of fear was still lurking in his eyes. She turned aside for a second and set the axe down by the door, and when she looked back at him, he finally breathed out.

"We're fine, thanks," she said, picking up her smile a notch as an afterthought, trying to reassure the corporal as best she could. She studied him in the following hesitant silence, and it occurred to her, at last, that he was scarcely older than herself, by perhaps two or three years but certainly no more than that.

"Listen," he said, after shifting under her analytical gaze for a second longer, "I wanted tae say sorry. You know, for earlier...?" He subsided uneasily, clearly embarrassed, and Diana relented in the face of this, electing to come to his aid.

"It's okay," she said, kindly, and found that she meant it.

"It's just that it's been a wee while since I saw such a pretty lass," he said, and then looked down at his feet once more.

Oh God, she thought, at once. It wasn't a bad thought, but the understanding that the young soldier in front of her was making a clumsy attempt to flirt caused a small laugh to bubble up in her throat. Realising that it would probably mortify him should this sound escape, she managed to turn it into a cough along the way, and then regrouped a little.

"I'm sorry, too," she said, mustering her dignity. "I guess I didn't make your job very easy back there, did I?"

"It's no' easy anyway," said Mitchell, with a wry grin in her direction. "This is my first posting overseas, and when I was trainin', nobody mentioned aught about killing folk that's already dead."

"It gets easier after the first two or three, believe me," Diana told him. She hesitated for a second, and then plunged on. "What's your name?" she asked.

"Craig," he said, and at last, he offered her a genuine, unaffected smile of his own. It lit up his face, and Diana was about to respond to this when Hoffman appeared at her elbow. This threw her off her stroke, but that was nothing compared to the effect it had upon Mitchell. His expression solidified at once, and now he was edging away as well. She regarded this with dismay, but there she was little she could do about it, and once she turned her gaze up to the detective's face, she could see just what had spooked Mitchell so badly.

There was a cast to Hoffman's features and a chilly spark in his eye that she hadn't seen in a long time; it reminded her of the way he'd looked the night, more than three years past, that she'd made an attempt on his life. She fought to identify its source now, switching her gaze between this disturbing impression and the reaction it had provoked in the young soldier, but eventually resigned herself and stepped between the two, ostensibly to retrieve her axe, but also to divert some of the palpable tension. When she turned back, however, Mitchell had sidled away and fled the scene altogether, leaving Diana no immediate alternative. She jerked her gaze back to Hoffman, trying to rein in the worst of her irritation.

"What's the deal?" she asked, striving to keep her voice as non-committal as possible.

"Getting cosy with the ranks, are you?" he said, bluntly. There was, in fact, a spiteful edge to his words, and though this was hardly out of character, she sensed that it wasn't really directed at her. Some sixth sense had her glancing over at Rick, who was still stood by the fence, head down, reloading his rifle with a grimly preoccupied air.

"I was just being polite," she said, looking back at the detective. "Not that it's anything to do with you," she added, trying to match him for scorn. A faint wrinkle at the corner of his mouth told her, however, that she'd failed.

"Yeah," he said, and as she watched, that cruel smile died unborn. "Well, don't get too comfortable," he told her.

"Why not?"

"Because we're leaving."