The first thing he'd noticed was the grayed pallor of her face, the sunken holes that were once her eyes. Then it was the slurred speech as though she'd drowned herself in several bottles of whiskey. Later still, she had said something that unsettled him, something about how she was scared because she wasn't feeling right. The vagueness of it was what frightened him most.

Because he didn't really have to ask what it was she meant.

He'd heard stories about what it was like for people who eventually turned. How they gradually changed. It started with little things like their appearance growing more gaunt, with protruding cheekbones over the course of what was usually only hours after the bite. Then it progressed into what Sarita had just expressed— she still felt hungry despite having eaten plenty.

"Don't worry yourself about things that don't mean nothin'", he said uneasily.

"But I feel hungry, Kenny," Sarita whispered. "I shouldn't—"

"I'll...I'll get you somethin' to eat." 'Your last meal',said the sinister voice in his head, but he'd shaken it away. "You just relax and don't think too much."

And so Kenny rose up and made his way out of the tent, hesitating upon seeing the gun near her on the floor. He grunted as he picked it up and took it with him. Being a witness to so many atrocities had made him wary, and he didn't want to risk her leaving this world before he was...well, maybe not ready, but at least not completely taken by surprise.

As Kenny approached the campfire and began cooking a can of beans, he could feel eyes boring into him from around the camp. All conversation ceased, as though he'd committed a crime for leaving his tent. He scowled as he focused on heating up the meager rations over the fire, feeling indignant. Feeling like he hated them all, especially her. Clementine stood with Jane and Bonnie, though he could see the girl awkwardly glancing at him every now and then out of the corner of his eye. 'Probably out of concern for Crazy Kenny', he thought bitterly. Ignoring the tense silence, Kenny poured the beans into a bowl and began walking back to the tent.

He was tempted to backpedal and return to the campfire when he heard muffled sobs coming from the tent. Entering it, he saw Sarita's shoulders shaking as she cried. For perhaps one time too many, grief coursed throughout Kenny. His head fell as he stared helplessly at the ground, not knowing how to comfort her, how to convince the both of them that there was something to latch onto instead of giving in to this premature death sentence. The beans nearly slipped out of his hand as his grip on it slackened.

"I'm not ready to die," Sarita blurted out, tears streaming down her face.

Kenny moved to sit beside her, placed a comforting hand on her back as she breathed raggedly. He set the beans aside as she continued to sob. Her words were desperate. "And I don't want to live either. I haven't for the longest time, honestly. I'm scared, Kenny. I'm scared I won't die when you...when you do it. That I'll survive somehow and come back and...and have to live like that. This is all happening too quickly. Far too quickly. I feel like...I feel like I'm devolving, like I'm becoming something misshapen and...and disgusting."

"Sarita, stop it. Just 'cause it's...just cause of this don't mean you gotta go out hatin' yourself. You're still here ain't you? I see you, not one of those fuckin' monsters. You're still my...you're still you, alright? I told you I'd never leave you to fend for yourself when it's somethin' you can't handle. And here I am." He wished he could say the right thing to console his agonized girlfriend, but everything sounded like a refusal to accept reality. And so he did what helped best at easing his mind. Blaming himself. "I should have been there. I should have stabbed those fuckers straight through their skull and s-saved you…"

"I keep telling you. It's not your fault, Kenny." Sarita sighed heavily. "I was foolish. I didn't have a good enough weapon when I should have. Even Clementine had an axe." She sounded defeated as she spoke, the two of them having traversed this subject for over the past hour. Unable to move on despite the deja vu of it all. "I keep thinking we should have tried to...remove it. Maybe there had been enough time, maybe I wouldn't have bled to death. Maybe…I don't know…"

"You know that wasn't a possibility, Sarita," Kenny said softly, trying to not upset her. They'd gone over this countless times already. There was no way Sarita could have handled the pain of amputation. At best she would have committed to it until the halfway point before begging him to stop, screaming hoarsely. And Kenny knew he would have been the one to be pressured into doing it, to help sedate her fears. When he'd sawed off Lee's arm, he'd had a burst of adrenaline help to fuel the insanity inside him as he did it. There was a dissociative feeling to it. It may have been due to his not being as attached to Lee as he was to Sarita. He knew he'd have had a hell of a time listening to Sarita's screams after chopping her arm off like a twig. As she bled to death. Because Sarita was right. They had nothing to stop the bleeding anyway.

"So then whose fault is it?"

Sarita's question hung in the air, unanswered.

Kenny had blamed Clementine from the beginning because she'd been closest to Sarita when it had happened. And, as Sarita had stated, she'd had an axe. So why couldn't this overly capable girl handle those particular walkers? Had she been outnumbered? Was it bad timing? Or was it simply because Sarita was Kenny's girlfriend and the universe hated his guts, just like everyone else did? His face contorted into an ugly scowl that Sarita thankfully couldn't see.

The worst part was that, deep down, he knew no one was to blame for it. Not really. They were all simply victims of fate. And fate was one sick, twisted bitch.

"I feel so weak," Sarita said, pulling him out of his thoughts. "Sometimes I feel like I don't belong with the rest of you. Killing…" She paused. "Killing is so hard for me. When I see you stab them through their skulls, their eyes, you look so detached, so unaffected that I feel jealous. I wish I didn't feel so much," she muttered. "Even though I hate those...those fucking things."

Kenny smiled a little at her curse. It was a rarity, coming from her lips.

"I hate 'em, too. The worst of it is you can't even torment those fuckers. 'Cause they're already as tortured as you can get. If only I could," Kenny ground out, trembling slightly. Carver's caved in skull flashed in his mind, his eyes bulging out amid the gory remains. Pushing aside the memory, he picked up the bowl of beans that had been forgotten. "Ready to eat?"

Sarita looked hesitant. She shook her head, hunched over slightly. Kenny set the bowl back down feeling like he should have kept quiet. He felt a sudden urge to chuck the beans outside of the tent, but managed to suppress it. Instead, he took one of her hands in his and began caressing it with his thumb.

"And you ain't weak, Sarita. Not at all," he murmured as he lifted the hand to kiss it. "You nursed my skeletal ass till I was good as new, don't you know?"

Suddenly he thought of Clementine, about how he'd perhaps permanently damaged his relationship with the young girl due to his vicious rebukes. And the guilt that was written on her face. At the time, he'd been too livid to let it process, but now...all he could remember was how it had felt to hold her diminutive body in his arms when they'd reunited. He'd grown so protective of her, even disapproving of times when she'd smoke or drink. And then he'd lashed out at her like he was her abusive father. A stubborn part of him wanted to believe she deserved it. But he couldn't help but remember the way she'd kept glancing at him at the camp. Worriedly.

Hopefully.

Damn her...

Kenny was sick of his depressing thoughts. He needed to change the subject. Perhaps something more light-hearted. A certain memory sparked, making his lips quirk upward. "You remember what you said to me when you were cuttin' my beard? Back in that restaurant you found me in?"

Sarita didn't say anything.

Kenny sensed he may have upset her unintentionally and considered pulling the plug on his attempt to revisit the past. But something in him decided to continue anyway.

"You said I look like a hick," he said cautiously, unsure of how she'd respond. "I knew you were just tryin' to make me laugh 'cause you felt bad for me, but it almost made me cry. 'Cause I wasn't in the right state of mind. And every time I think of it now, it sounds like the type of thing I'd say to someone. I mean, if I wasn't a hick myself."

The silence inside the tent was thick. Sarita sat quietly. Kenny wondered if he shouldn't learn how to choose his words more carefully. But then Sarita leaned to the side, rested her head against Kenny's shoulder.

"You're so sweet, Kenny…"

Kenny didn't like the nostalgic tone in her voice. It made him ache for times when she'd compliment him in such a way that was uplifting and even therapeutic. He was just grateful he didn't bring up the other memory he'd been stupidly tempted to resurrect. The one where she'd told him his snores made him sound like a walker.

"So sweet..." Sarita slurred. He shifted so he could see her face properly and saw longing in her eyes. The hollowness surrounding them twisted her expression into one that would haunt him, he already knew. He normally would have nudged her playfully in response to the compliment, but he couldn't quite bring himself to do so.

Instead he pressed his head against hers, shutting his eyes tightly, trying to quell the unease at the pit of his stomach. He leaned in and pressed a kiss against her cold lips. As they parted, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close, wanting to feel what remaining heat was left in her body. Panic struck him as he remembered they didn't have much time left. His eyes darted to the gun on the floor nearby. This could even be the last time they hugged each other. Things were progressing rapidly, and his heart fell as he realized it was going to have to happen soon. There wasn't going to be a miracle regression with Sarita. There wouldn't be a fairytale ending, full of sparkles and rainbows. For that matter, he sure as hell wasn't prince charming.

Kenny bit back a sob as he tightened his hold on Sarita.

He was going to have to put a bullet in his girlfriend's skull.