Anna jolted awake, her breath coming in short bursts as she stared around the dark room. The warm hand in hers reminded her of where she was and where she wasn't, and she could feel her heart rate slowing.

She was in Hilltop, in a bed with Daryl. They were safe.

Daryl's hand closed around hers, and she felt him shift beside her before an oil lamp bathed the room in a soft yellow glow. He turned over so that he was facing her.

"You alright?" He asked, his voice scratchy and just a little groggy.

"Yeah. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you," Anna said softly.

"It was another nightmare, right?"

Anna clenched her jaw. She hated when she woke him up—however rare that was.

"They've been getting worse," she admitted, sitting up against the headboard.

She had told him about her nightmares before, but now things were different. Now, the nightmares didn't end when she woke up. Isaac was still alive, Glenn and Abraham were still dead, and she still had to live with all of it.

Daryl sat up beside her, pressing his arm against hers. She knew he didn't have anything to tell her, no way to make it all better, but the feeling of his warmth against her was enough, and so they sat quietly until the sun started filtering through the thick green curtains.

"When you were with the Saviors…," Anna started, guilt choking out the words before she could say them. She sucked in a breath. "I should have gone after you, I should have—I didn't even try to help you."

"You were scared," Daryl said easily. "It's not on you."

"They would've killed me."

Anna squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the man's trembling voice. She wanted to convince herself that it was different—and maybe it was—but she still felt the cold seeping into her bones. Her fingers twitched as she rubbed at her thigh, trying to ease the tingle in her skin.

"He did that to you, right?"

"What?" Anna asked, looking to Daryl.

"Those scars," he said, nodding toward her thigh.

Anna clenched her jaw, looking forward as she pulled her knees up and held them to her chest. She had never liked to talk about her scars—she'd done her best to hide the ones she could.

"I didn't think you had seen them," she said as shame creeped its way up from her gut, heating her skin. "I—they're…they're from before Isaac. Most of them, anyway."

"What are you sayin'?" Daryl asked, frowning at her.

An old memory surfaced of a younger her and a younger Glenn sitting in her tent as he questioned her about it.

"Anti-depressants. I'm supposed to take them every day – but, since I don't exactly have access to refills, I've only been using them when it gets really bad."

She couldn't remember the last time she'd taken a mood-stabilizer. Sometimes, she still caught herself looking for them on runs. Anything to get the thoughts and urges out of her head. She thought of Rick's face when he had seen her scars.

"I've been doing it again," she had told Jessie. "I want it to stop."

And she had stopped. It took everything she had to keep herself from digging her nails into her skin. She had wanted to tell Daryl, to seek some sort of support for her recovery. But she couldn't. She had seen and felt the scars on his back. She couldn't convince herself that he'd understand—why would anyone want to do something like that to themselves?

"I did it," she finally said, her voice quiet. "I did it to myself."

He didn't say anything for a long time. She braced herself for the inevitable, but it seemed he couldn't find any words.

She moved to sit at the edge of the bed, pressing her feet against the hardwood floor. She pulled her boots to her and put them on.

"Where ya goin'?" Daryl asked.

"I need to train," she answered, grabbing her stick and heading for the door.

Daryl didn't try to stop her as she left, shutting the door behind her.

Anna headed outside in search of a good place to train away from prying eyes. She found her way around to the back of the house. When she turned around a corner, she paused.

There were two graves resting in front of her. She felt her heart constrict.

"Glenn is in the far one."

Anna jumped and turned around, seeing Sasha leaning against the wall.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude," Anna said quickly.

"You're not intruding," Sasha assured, gesturing for Anna to move closer. "Honestly, I was wondering when you were gonna come here."

Anna turned back to the graves and went to stand between them. Little blades of grass poked out between the piles of rocks that held up the crosses made of small branches.

"It feels like so long ago," Anna muttered. "It's hard to believe it's only been eight days."

"Yeah," Sasha agreed, moving to stand beside her. "It just doesn't seem fair."

Sasha moved to kneel beside Abraham's grave and pluck the grass from the rocks, tossing them to the side before she stood back beside Anna. She patted Anna on the shoulder, gave a light squeeze, and went to leave.

"You don't have to go, I can—"

"No," Sasha said, stopping at the corner and shaking her head; and then she was gone.

Anna looked back at the graves, twisting her stick in her hands. She didn't know what she was supposed to say—if she was supposed to say anything at all.

Quietly, she sat cross legged on the ground and laid her stick down behind her, staring between the graves. The throbbing in her heart grew until she thought her chest was about to burst and tears flooded her vision. She tried to blink them away, only to have them fall down her cheeks.

She sucked in a shuddering breath and wiped at her face as the memories of Glenn and Abraham's smiles filled her mind—and the sound of the bat cracking against their skulls. Her hands curled into fists and that familiar rage boiled up again.

She was angry. She wanted to be angry. But she knew it was only so she didn't have to feel the pain. She had never been good at letting herself feel it.

"But it's okay to be vulnerable," Glenn insisted.

"If I let myself feel it, I may not come back."

Anna took a deep breath, steadying herself, forcing herself to dig beyond the anger. Her fingers twitched, but she leaned forward and pressed her hands into the hard dirt.

"We'd pull you back."

This wasn't about the anger anymore. It couldn't be. Nothing was going to bring either of them back. This had to be about the people still standing.

"Hey, as long as you're still standing."

After gathering herself, Anna went in search of Sasha, finding her in the foyer of the house speaking with Emma.

"Hey," Anna greeted as she approached.

"Hey," the two women responded.

"I was just asking Emma how many people we have," Sasha explained.

"Pretty much all of the adults here are ready to start training," Emma said. "I was thinking, since there's so many, we should split them into groups. Sasha can train one group while you train another, and then rotate."

"That's a good idea," Anna nodded. "Since we don't have any guns to speak of, Sasha, why don't you focus on knife handling—get them comfortable with it. I'll show them hand-to-hand."

"Sounds like a plan," Sasha agreed. "We can start today, as soon as everyone's ready."

"I can go gather them now," Emma offered, already heading for the door.

The office doors swung open, and the three turned to see Gregory.

"Ladies," he greeted. "Might I have a word with you for a moment?"

"What do you want, Gregory?" Sasha asked impatiently.

"It's not about what I want. It's about what I don't want," he said. "And what I don't want is for my people to get mixed up in all this mess. You're just gonna get them killed. They're farmers, not fighters."

Sasha shook her head, clearly ready to lay into Gregory, when Anna stepped forward.

"What was it you said?" Anna asked. "What's outside of your purview is outside of your purview?"

Gregory hummed in response, raising his bushy eyebrows expectantly.

"Well, don't look out the window," she instructed, gesturing for Sasha and Emma to follow before she led the way outside.

Anna stood in front of her group, hands on her hips as she surveyed them. Gregory was right; they weren't fighters. Their stances alone were sloppy and unalert—especially for being outside the walls.

The thought occurred to her that the last time she'd trained anyone in hand-to-hand combat was when she and Marley were in Woodbury. She wondered what had happened to Martinez. If he was still alive.

"Is this where the combat training is happening?"

She turned to see Paul approaching.

"It's hard to find level ground on a hill," Anna shrugged. "Hey, since you're here; I want to start this lesson with a demonstration. Would you be up for helping me?"

"Uh, sure, I guess," Paul said uneasily.

"Great, thanks," Anna grinned before turning back to her students. "Alright. We're going to be focusing on hand-to-hand combat. Knowing how to use a knife or gun is good, but you can't always be certain that you'll have them as options. Jesus has so graciously agreed to help me. We're going to start with a demonstration of what I'm going to teach you today. Jesus?"

"Yeah?"

"Grab me," she instructed.

After a moment, she felt his arms wrap around her, pinning her arms to her sides. She brushed aside the panic rising in her chest and stepped her left leg further out.

Quickly, she moved her right leg around so that it was positioned behind him, effectively changing the angle in which he held her. Before he could adjust, Anna leaned forward and grabbed him behind the knees, using her hips to help pull his legs out from under him and drop him to the ground.

She fell with him as he released her, and she let go of his legs the second he was on his back. Standing, she brushed her hair out of her face before offering her hand to him.

"Alright," she said as he accepted her hand and she pulled him to his feet. "What he did was called a Rear Bear Hug. He pinned my arms to my sides, making it impossible for me to break his hold," she explained. "We'll show you one more time, slower, and then I want you to pair up and practice on each other."

She nodded at Jesus and he wrapped his arms around her again.

"I step my left leg out further," she narrated as she moved. "Then, bring my right leg around behind him. Lean forward and grab him at his knees. The goal isn't to lift him off the ground, but to get his legs out from under him. Use your hips to help you by pivoting them forward," she explained. "Let gravity do the rest."

Their fall this time was much more controlled, and Anna rolled off of him.

"Pair up. I'll walk around and help you," she said as she dusted herself off.

As the men and women found their partners, Anna turned to Jesus.

"Thank you," she said.

"Happy to help," he said, clasping his hands in front of him. "You called me Jesus."

Anna chuckled and shook her head.

"I meant thank you for bringing Daryl back," she elaborated. "And you said your friends call you that."

Jesus smiled and nodded.

After a long day of training, Anna returned to her and Daryl's bedroom. She saw the light flickering from under the door and knew Daryl was already there. They had avoided each other for most of the day. Well, she had avoided him. Anna wasn't sure she was ready to continue their conversation from earlier.

"Hey," came a voice from behind her.

Anna turned to see Emma heading down the hall.

"I was just about to go look for you," Emma said as she stopped in front of her door. "I've got something for you."

"Um, okay," Anna said, hesitant as she followed Emma into her bedroom.

Emma's room was decorated much the same as Anna and Daryl's, except for a few extra decorations that seemed out of place among the antiquity of the room.

"Here," Emma said, pulling a small, black book from the short bookcase set beneath the window and holding it out to Anna. "I think you'd get more use out of it than I ever did."

Anna accepted the book, first looking at the statue on the cover, then reading the title.

The Art of War. Sun Tzu. Translated by Thomas Cleary.

She turned the book over in her hands to read the back, spotting the first line of the summary, highlighted in an orangish text.

Conflict is an inevitable part of life.

"Thank you. I'll return it as soon as I'm done," Anna assured.

"No, I want you to keep it," Emma insisted.

"I still owe you for those books before," Anna said.

"You don't owe me anything," Emma said shaking her head. "But I was wondering, would you teach me to hunt?"

"You want to learn to hunt?" Anna asked, raising a brow. "Why?"

"You and Daryl aren't going to be here forever," Emma shrugged. "It'd be nice to contribute a little more."

"Maybe—if we have time," Anna said. "I should be getting back. Thank you again for the book."

"Right. Yeah—goodnight," Emma said as Anna turned and left.

She shut the door behind her and hurried across the hall to shut herself inside her and Daryl's room.

"Hey."

Anna jumped, turning to see Daryl sitting on the edge of the bed, just like he'd been waiting for her.

"Hey," she croaked out before clearing her throat. "Hi."

Stiffly, she walked over to the water basin, keeping her back to him as she set her things down and took off her shirt to clean herself of the days sweat.

"You did it before?" Daryl suddenly asked. "Why?"

Anna winced.

"Yeah. It's—" she shook her head. "It's an unhealthy coping skill I just kind of picked up as a teenager. It used to be the only way I could keep my emotions under control, to stay calm. It got worse as everything else got worse."

Daryl was quiet, and she wondered what he was thinking as she moved to the wardrobe to grab a night shirt.

"I was going to tell you. But then everything happened and you were taken," she took a breath. "It just never seemed to be the right time."

"Do you still do it?"

"No," she said quickly. "I've been trying not to—it's just hard. Harder since the farm."

"You used to take medicine," he said.

"That used to help. But I ran out," she said. "I always kept a look out for more on runs, but—" she shook her head.

"What kind was it?" He asked.

"Zoloft was what I took. I've never been very lucky in finding more," Anna shrugged.

"I'll look for it."

Anna turned to frown at him.

"You don't have to do that," she said. "I'm fine—I—"

"I do," he said firmly.

Anna shifted on her feet for a moment before crossing the room and wrapping her arms around him.

"Thank you," she muttered into his shoulder, hoping he understood how much he meant to her.