The silence was comfortable, and, for once, she didn't feel the pressure to start a conversation. He looked like he preferred the quiet, not because he needed to think, but because the outside world was too messy and loud without mindless chatter on the inside. She hated that, and no one ever seemed to understand.

She didn't exactly feel like talking, anyway. Only an hour ago they'd burnt the corpses of the men who'd captured him, and since then she'd been wondering how that had happened. He seemed too strong, too independent, too stubborn to submit so easily. And yet there he was, relief plain on his face as the fire burnt them, singed their skin and peeled down to the bare gristle. Similar to now, sat on the floor, leaning his back against the frame of the shelving unit. They'd moved away from the minor battle site, and he looked like he hadn't relaxed in weeks.

Would it be rude to ask him what happened? she wondered to herself, but she was too private herself to push into someone else's bubble. As she watched the fire dance one the face of the man across from her, she wondered what made her trust him so much. Was it the lonely look about him, the way something seemed to lift from him as the men burnt to ash, or was it that she wasn't so used to being in the company of someone so together, while obviously so broken? It was all so strange, how she'd watched so many die, and yet she was prepared to stick with this man, someone she'd only known a day.

"You didn't answer the question," she reminded him gently, nudging away her nervousness. He looked up instantly, and she wondered whether the silence was beginning to itch at his skin as well. "About your group-"

"They're gone."

When Eve reminded him of the question, he answered instantly because the question was running around his mind on a regular basis. He also thought that maybe she heard his silent wishes for her to talk, to make an effort to get to know his past, so they could build up a trust that would be justified in his head. So they could work together. Whether she wanted that, he wasn't sure, but she hadn't thrown him out yet.

"What happened?" She asked gently, perhaps a little too long a pause for simply conversational chatter. He returned his eyes back to the dancing flames, nudging a stray piece of kindle back in. "Ambushed... Desperate people."

...

Oh, she was aware of those kinds of people, having suffered the consequences of them. But they were never ambushed; they died in front of her, or they were killed on a run and a traumatised member of their group had to deliver the news.

"Yeah," was all she could say, feeling the lump in her throat. They'd never expanded on people; they were mostly people she was close too, and had lives with before it all began. They were her only link to the times before, and the after effects had left her more cynical and just a ghost of her former self. She was a survivor now, not a friend, or a fiancée, or a daughter. That was all gone.

"My group encountered a man once," she began, and it was like telling an old war story. "There were 6 of them, and 7 of us. They were on a run, and apparently they needed our meds. Could've asked but no...we lost 5 that day. 5 in the space of 1 minute, they said."

As Daryl listened, he switched from leaning back to pushing himself forward and leaning his elbows on his bent knees. "The way they described the man seemed a little...theatrical to me."

"How?" he asked, his thick southern accent contrasting with her own watered down version of it, being ages since she'd spoken so much, and she thought to the image of the man that had concocted over time. "An eyepatch, tall, thin-"

"The Governer," he murmured, hatred filling his voice. She realised instantly.

"It was him," she stated gently, and she watched his eyes narrow in distant memory.

All too quickly, he stood, and, despite her expectation of him going to bed, he stalked to the weapons shelf down the room. Eve watched, but the fire light didn't stretch that far. By the sounds emanating, he'd grabbed something heavy, and, a few rattles later, he returned, a crossbow in his hand. It wasn't the one he'd retrieved from the dead body of the other archer...it was smaller.

"See how this suits ya," he said, standing over her and holding his familiar crossbow out in her direction. She stared at it, confused and a little dumbfounded. "S-sorry?"

Instead of elaborating, he simply shook it slightly in answer. She stood in front of him, taking the crossbow with shaky hands. It rattled gently within them, but he eyed her with a hint of pleasure when she shifted it to hold it properly. Like she had done before, which wasn't the case. With that she felt a pang of something she could only identify as good, and felt confident. Confident, and touched.

"You're...giving me this?"

He looked at her from beneath his hair, which stirred another emotion, passing too quickly to identify it. He was moving too soon, and went back down, only to return with the larger, mother version of his old one. "Been eyeing this one up for days," he commented passively. He threw it over to rest on his shoulder, imitating the stance he'd adopted before Jack, seeing how it felt. After a few altercations, he shot the dark, and they heard it bury itself into something solid.

"We'll practice tomorrow," he said, placing his new weapon on the shelf before hopping onto it, concealing himself in the dark. Eve looked down at the gift, and felt such gratitude that it hurt. A tear fell, and she smiled. She'd not considered him capable of giving something so precious up so easily, not even to a loved one.