Daryl was marking on his map more areas of where he'd tracked the wolves and Ren was working on installing all of the programs needed for the system to run. They had the door open to the tower because while the sun was out, it was nice and cold outside which made the balance in the temperature just right.

Her phone began ringing and Daryl didn't pay any attention to it, he'd gotten used to the thing ringing multiple times a day, especially late into the evening due to the time difference from Georgia to California.

"Hey what's up?" Ren said as she put it on speaker like normal.

"Are you good to talk right now?" Becca asked, "Because I can call back if not. I don't want to bother you or anything."

Her best friend never rattled on unless something was wrong, "Becca? Is everything okay?"

"Fuck…No." Becca sighed.

"What is it?" Ren stopped focusing on the computer as much.

Becca groaned, "Okay so I'm going out tonight and I don't have anything to wear."

"Liar." Ren muttered.

"Shut up and let me finish." Becca was clearly having a hard time with this so Ren complied, "I remember that cute little blue dress you have a decide that would be cute to wear and I head over to your place to go and get it right?"

"Right." Ren agreed, then got worried, "Is my apartment okay? Did something happen?"

"The apartments fine…" Becca trailed off.

"But?"

"But I walked in on Chris and Veronica on the couch fucking." She blurted out.

Daryl turned his head quickly and looked at Ren who's face went pale. Her voice shook slightly, "W-What?"

"Fuck, I'm so sorry Ren. I…I didn't know how else to say it." Becca's voice sounded like she'd been deflated.

Ren didn't speak for a moment, trying to comprehend what had just been said. She started to reach for the phone but couldn't touch it for some reason. She didn't want to take it off of speaker, but at the same time she did. There was a banging sound in the background on Becca's end and then Ren heard him.

"Becca, come on! Let's talk about this. Ren doesn't need to know!" Chris was heard yelling.

"Fuck off prick! I already told her!" Becca yelled back.

"Shit!" Chris was heard.

"Wait are you still there?" Ren asked.

"Hell yeah, I grabbed an apple from the damned fruit bowl and chucked it at him mid thrust before running and hiding in your bathroom!" Becca told her.

Ren couldn't help but laugh a little at her friend, "You're the best damn friend I've ever had."

"I'm the only best friend you've ever had." Becca responded like normal.

"Yeah, I'm starting to realize that." Ren muttered back.

"Shit, that's not what I meant."

"I know." Ren half smiled to the phone even though her best friend couldn't see it. The phone started to buzz again, and Ren sighed, "He's calling."

"Fuck him up." Becca told her before Ren switched the call.

"Ren, look, I don't know what Becca told you but it's not true." Chris started.

"Yeah then what happened?" Her voice was sharper than Daryl had ever heard it, in fact he'd really only ever heard her sound happy.

"Becca came over and I was working, and she started flirting with me." He told her.

Before he could say anything else her voice got loud and she could feel her nails digging into the desk, "Oh fuck off!"

"What?" Chris asked.

"I said fuck off! Becca's been cheated on twice and she would never cheat on Greg. And she would never lie to me!" Ren tried to remain level despite how furious and hurt she was, "Get the fuck out of my apartment."

"You can't-"

"I can." She said, "I'm calling the building manager after this and telling him your whore ass has one week to get all of your shit out and that Becca will tell him what that shit is. Once you leave you are not allowed back into the building and once Veronica leaves, if her dumbass hasn't left already, she's not allowed back to help you pack."

"So you're just going to drop everything we have? Just like that? Over one mistake?" Chris sounded offended.

"Was it just once?" Ren asked him back, but he didn't answer, "Exactly. Keep the ring if you want. I don't fucking need that kind of negativity in my life. Prick."

She hung up the phone and Daryl just stood there. He'd never expected anything like that from her, she never seemed the type to talk to someone like that, but it was nice to see her stand up for herself at least. Her shoulders were tense, and she didn't know what to do, she could feel him standing there behind her, she'd never had the phone on speaker before when Chris called. It felt good to have Daryl hear it though for some reason, because he always looked concerned after. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard in their silence, which Daryl finally broke by asking, "You good?"

"Yeah." Was all she responded, going back to her work.

Daryl watched her for a moment before looking back to the map, he didn't talk much about things like that, so it wasn't right of him to worry about her for not wanting to talk about them. She didn't talk for the rest of the night though. She didn't stop working either. He'd made her food which she just picked at while she sat at the desk and when night came he laid down on the floor and waited for her to go to the cot, and when she finally did he heard her sniffle quietly, but nothing else.

It had been two days and Ren had barely spoken, pushing herself into her work like she always did. This tower was almost done in record time though. She heard Daryl climbing up the ladder. He hadn't really pried, he would just tell her when their food was ready and that was about it. Normally that was the thing he started on when he got back, but instead today as he walked in she heard him shuffling through the drawers behind her.

Turning slightly to see what he was doing she saw red down his arm and realized it was blood, "Oh my god! Are you okay?"

Daryl had barely heard her say anything since the phone call with Chris and he was a little shocked at how loud she was as she rushed over and took his arm. Her soft hands felt weird on his arm, but he nodded finally finding the first aid kit, "Fine."

"Are you sure?" She reached to take the kit from him. He looked at her confused as he held onto it, not quite sure what was happening. Ren looked back up at him, "You can't take care of this with one hand…you might even need to go back and have a doctor see this."

"Ain't that bad. Plus, I ain't leavin' you out here." He said finally letting go of the kit, not wanting to argue with her with how bad he still felt about what had happened, not that it was his fault, which made it even more weird that he felt bad, because normally he didn't even if it was his fault.

She pulled him over to the cot and they sat down as she worked on the gash on his bicep, she wasn't sure if it needed stitches but since he'd said he wouldn't go back she wasn't going to force the issue. Grabbing a sanitizing towel from the kit she wiped the blood from his skin. She tried to be as gentle as possible, this wasn't her area of expertise, but she at least had steady hands. He glanced over at her as she concentrated on the wound, how much care she was putting into it, but he looked away as she bit her lip. Ren asked, "What happened?"

"Fell." He answered.

"On what? And why?" She looked up at him.

"Found fresh tracks and went after 'em. Didn' watch my footin'." He told her. He felt the light touch of an ointment on his skin and looked down to see her carefully putting some disinfectant on the large cut. "You're good at this."

"I'm okay." She smiled, "My brother gets hurt a lot."

"Why?"

"He teaches mixed martial arts, and before that did martial arts. He got banged up a lot." She explained.

This was the first smile he'd seen on her face in days. He missed her being happy like she normally was. And Daryl knew her brother typically made her happy, "What's he like?"

"Teddy bear with a glare and tattoos." She laughed as she took thin pieces of medical tape and moved the wound to be less large. "I've seen him take down men twice his size and I've also had him kiss my knee when I scraped it learning how to use rollerblades."

"Sounds like a good brother." A lot better than his was he had to admit, but Merle was still his brother regardless.

"Best brother I could have gotten." She started putting a bandage over his arm.

When she started to wrap tape over the bandage he looked down at his bicep and asked, "How much stuff you gunna put on there?"

"Well I'm sorry I don't want you to go back out there, get an infection and die." She chuckled at him and he broke a small smile, "I kinda like you, ya know."

"Yeah?" He almost laughed.

"Yeah. It'd be real lonely out here without you Daryl Dixon. I'm glad you were willing to put up with me." She gave him a shy smile as she finished wrapping his arm. When she was done, she got back up and went over to the computer again.

"Hungry?" He asked, putting up the first aid kid.

"I could eat." She responded.