AN: many of you may not like this chap, mostly because it derails majorely from the normal genre I write about (Action/Horror/Drama) and replaces action and horror for Romance. I wanted to try my hand at a new type of genre I never once wrote in before. I probably fucked it up, but whatever. Let's see if I did any good.

| Riley POV |

I knelt behind a tree, my breathing slowed. Five Infected were slowly walking behind me. I tried to stay hidden, best I can do. We still had no bullets, only knives.

As they disappeared from view, without seeing me, thank God. I looked up at Fate, who was crouched on a tree branch, surveying the area, trying to find our friends.

"Any luck?" I called up, squinting my eyes in the setting sun.

"Nope. Damn it!" She spat.

"Come on down, Fate! It's gettin late, we better go back!" I looked up at her, and she sighed angrily, punching the tree with her hand that wasn't missing a finger.

"Alright, we'll pick up the search tomorrow I guess." She groaned and jumped down. I caught her before she hit the ground, and she blushed angrily.

"Put me down, idiot." Fate scoffed.

"I just saved you from a twisted ankle." I grinned as I gently set her down. "Least you could do is say thanks."

"Let's go." She crossed her arms and without another word, began walking off.

"Let's." I sighed.

:: ::

We walked to the house we were staying in, and I opened the door for her.

"I didn't need help." She scoffs, and looks away, but I still caught the tiniest glimpse of a blush.

"Just go in." I shifted from foot to foot.

"You okay? You seem a bit jumpy today." Fate looked at me and entered.

"Yeah. Just miss our buds." I sighed.

"Me too." she sighed as I closed the door behind us, and pressed a heavy table against it, in case an infected tries to break in while we sleep. "Been a week and a half. Maybe two. I lost count."

"Riley... We are never gonna find them are we? Ever..." Fate started tearing up suddenly as she spoke.

"Yes we will Fate... I guarantee it..." I pulled her into a hug suddenly.

"I hope your right..." She clenched me tightly.

After a minute of this, me holding her and her crying into my shirt she suddenly stopped. I looked at her and suddenly she leaned up and kissed me on the lips. I pulled away almost instantly.

"What..." She breathed.

"No. This is wrong, Fate." I pulled away from the hug and turned my back to her. "We can't fall in love. We can't"

She didn't speak for a few seconds and then...

"I knew it, Riley!" She suddenly screamed at me.

"What?" I looked at her.

"You hate me! I knew it all along! You can't stand being alone with me! You wish you were with someone - anyone else! Darren, Lyon, Blake - anyone!" She screamed every word in that sentence, she began pouting and I saw tears going down her cheeks again.

Without a word I pulled her into another, tighter hug. I held her as for the first few moments she tried to pull away but couldn't. She then stopped struggling as she wrapped her arms around me tightly.

"To be honest, Fate." I suddenly spoke. "I don't know how I feel."

Suddenly she leaned up again and kissed me, this time making it so I can't pull away no matter how hard I try. And honestly, looking back on that - I don't know if I wanted to pull away. To be honest, I liked the kiss. It felt... Good. God, what the fuck is wrong with me!?

As she pulled away after a minute, she just looked at me.

"Do you know now?" She grinned.

I stared blankly, no thoughts going through my head. I didn't know what to think! I just did the first thing I could to show her I did know.

Suddenly, I pushed her back to the wall, pinning her as I leaned in, kissing her this time.

She didn't even try to pull away, just stood there, kissing me.

I suddenly began lifting her shirt.

:: ::

The next morning we were in the backyard of the house, sitting beside each other at a campfire, eating squirrel and rabbit.

She suddenly looked up and wiped a little bit of Rabbit blood off her chin, and grinned.

"Oh god, what's with that grin?" I looked at her and joked.

"How was it?" She looked at me, smiling, blushing hard.

I honestly did not know what to say. It felt like a mistake, but at the same time I liked it. It was a guilty pleasure, I guess you'd call it.

"Good. It was... Good." I smiled at her and without a word she nodded, and looked away, continuing to eat.

We sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity.

"You never told me... Why did you pull away the first time I kissed you?" She looked at me.

I didn't know what to say. How to answer. The full truth was, I missed Tiffany. It felt like I cheated on her. That's why I felt this immense guilt.

"A while before we met, I had a girlfriend Tiffany. She died in a herd." I decided to tell the truth. "Guess I would consider it cheating. Don't get me wrong, Fate. I loved the kiss. I did."

"I don't consider it cheating. She's dead, Riley... You have to be able to move on, if you wanna be happy..." Fate held my hand and I went to pull away but didn't - couldn't.

"You sound just like Darren." I sighed and chuckled.

"What?" She Looked at me.

:: ::

Flashback - between season 6 and season 7

I sat at my table in my house, and looked down at my hands. They were shaking. I felt cold from the inside out. Tears splashed on the hardwood table, and I sobbed silently. This is the first time, in a long time I let my emotions out. The sadness I was feeling.

Darren suddenly walked in.

"Hey, you... Riley, your crying..." He sat down across from me, and I didn't look at him nor talk. "Talk to me, man..."

I still didn't look nor talk.

"It's about Tiff, isn't it." He sighed When I nodded weakly. "You can't keep being so gloomy about this shit, Riley. You need to put yourself out there again."

"I-I Can't forget her..." I stuttered.

"I'm not saying forget her. I'm saying, she'd want you to move on. Not sit here moping about her." Darren sighed. "Like that Fate girl - you two have been getting close ever since you saved her from Nova,huh?"

"Yeah, I guess..." I looked out the window weakly where I saw her leaning on a wall talking with Emily and Violet. Fate waved slowly when she noticed me looking at her. Worry was evident in her eyes, she saw the beet red in my eyes from crying. I slowly stopped crying.

"You're like a son to me, Riley. You are." Darren smiled at me, warmly.

"You never had a son right?" I looked at him.

"I did. One. Me and my wife got married when we were nineteen. I'm thirty-one as of now... So 12 years I believe. He'd be 11 now." Darren sighed at the memory. "We got divorced a year before this shit. I caught her cheating on me on five different occasions, she swore until the day the divorce was finalized that she never cheated."

"Oh... I'm sorry..." I looked at him sadly.

"She won custody of Billy - our son. And they moved to Florida." Darren sighed. "Their both probably dead now. Whatever."

"I'm sorry to hear that..." I sighed.

"No. It's okay." He smiled.

"You're like a father to me, too Darren." I sighed and smiled.

"I'm glad to hear that, come on. Lets go on a run to clear our heads." Darren walked out without another word.

:: ::

Present times - Fate still listening to his story.

"... Then we left for the run." I concluded.

"Oh... Yeah, Darren is like a father figure to us I guess." Fate smiled weakly and put her arm around me. "It's understandable if you feel guilt, Riley. You can't let it hold you back. Right?"

"Yeah..." I kissed her cheek and stood. "Go back to the house. I'm going to get some water from the woods. Meet you there later." I stomped out the last of the embers of the fire.

"Okay. Be careful." She smiled, and went back to the house.

"I always am." I walked off.

:: ::

I knelt by the river with a bucket and filled it to the brim. My mind was racing, I felt weak, like this was not real.

I had... actually fallen for the girl I once hated. Damn... It's like something out of a sappy romance novel.

I turned and sighed seeing an Infected. I stabbed my knife in its head as it fell and I began walking back with the bucket of water.