Disclaimer: I don't own The Walking Dead. Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.

Authors Note #1: For imorca because she tagged me on tumblr and literally just said: "Milton x Jesus, tho" and here we are because I am an entire trash can, apparently. Set in an AU where Milton escaped Woodsbury with Andrea in season three instead of staying, but lost Andrea before they could get to the prison and ended up on his own in the wild. Everything basically follows canon, but Milton is on his own until around the time when Team Family discovers Alexandria where in fix his comes across Jesus.

Disclaimer:Grief/loss/healing, depression, adult language, canon appropriate violence, blood and gore,

Scintilla

Chapter Six

He didn't sleep that night.

Or the next.

He stayed up, watching the door.

The windows.

Listening to the old house creak and settle-shift.

He waited for them to show their true face.

To prove him right.

Only they didn't.

Honestly, he didn't know which option was worse.


The third day, he slept.

In fact, he slept right through.

When he finally woke up, the middle of the night on the fifth day found him padding quietly down the hall in a bleary search for the bathroom. Stumbling a bit as he blinked sleep out of his eyes and more or less managed to remember to shut the bathroom door with the least amount of noise possible. Still, when he was finished Paul was sitting on one of the lounge chairs on the opposite side of the hall, waiting for him.

The man made no show of hiding it when he gave him a clear once over. Eying him from head to toe. Rumpled, barefoot, cow-licked and feeling like nothing was quite real, before placing his bundle of journals – the same one's he'd stolen, what almost a week ago? – on the footstool in front of him.

"Want to talk about it?" Paul asked quietly, leaning forward. Tan sweater rucked up to the elbows. Palms spread over his knees like it wasn't just an open invitation for what was in the journals, but for everything. For right here, right now and all those awful, dangerous little bits that were stuck in-between.

Things like the near half dozen pieces of ammunition he'd already manage to squirrel away, bullet by bullet, from their pathetic little armory when the guards weren't looking. Things like how he was secretly afraid that he'd forgotten how to sleep on a bed and had spent half of it lying side-ways, mostly falling off. Things like how he'd eaten far too much that first night and spent the early morning heaving it all back up. Things like how he didn't want to-

He bit down on the inside of his cheek until he tasted red.

He was a trigger warning made flesh.

He couldn't-

"Memories have teeth," he replied simply, repeating a dead woman's words like they were his own. Only this time his voice was so steady that unless he'd felt it coming, unless he'd heard the words coming from his own throat, he would have thought it hadn't come from him at all.

Because he didn't feel like he sounded.

Collected.

Stable.

"Yes," Paul agreed, nodding like he'd managed to say something profound before swaying to his feet. All long-legged grace and sure muscles that hadn't known the slacking weakness of real hunger as the man stared him in that way he had. "Yes, they do. But are you ready to start trying?"

His bare feet curled across the polished hardwood. He had questions. Questions like why Paul was choosing now to give back his journals. Why he cared. Why the man was making this entire thing personal when he could have washed his hands of him days ago. Why he was thinking about tomorrow. Today. Even five days into the future when the idea of it only a week ago had seemed unfathomable and impossible.

Instead, he nodded.

After that the days passed quicker.


He settled into a rhythm, eventually.

A routine.

He still went out, keeping his skills and machete sharp. More often than not with Paul whenever the Hilltop was in need of supplies. Slowly meeting their network of trading partners as his face started to lose the gaunt edge of sharpness being out on his own had carved out.

But he also starting making sense of the equipment in the manor's sub basement. Figuring out what could be used, re-purposed or just trashed all together. Gregory had him making chemical solutions for the most part. Mind-numbingly vapid tasks, but ones he took on eagerly all the same. Finding a familiar solace in their simplicity. There was no grey area when it came to this type of science. You either made the solution correctly or you didn't.

Science had always been his escape, and this was no exception.

Still, Paul always managed to drag him out. Taking him around to meet people. Forcing him to remember names, faces, connections. He'd like to say it had happened gradually – forcibly. But the truth was everything with Paul was organic – natural – easy.

These days when he looked in the mirror, his eyes looked less haunted.

He laughed now, genuinely.

And as always, Paul stayed close.

It wasn't something he'd expected, but it was something he'd come to value.

Count on.

Even look forward to.

Unable to help up set himself up for disappointment as the days passed and his grudging admiration for the man started to evolve in a way he never would have expected. Either from himself or their less than affable beginnings.


"Why is Gregory the leader?" he asked plainly one day while they were coming back from a meeting with their newest trading partner. They'd stopped for lunch on the side of the road, propped up against the grassy hillside as Paul stretched out beside him in the long grass. Hands behind his head and eyes closed like any minute now he was going to hear snoring.

The man hummed his way through a low-lying laugh.

"Why wouldn't he be?"

"You're a leader, the leader, they look to you," he returned, peeling the skin off a small apple with his pocket knife before he handed the man the first slice. The first pickings from a small orchard a few miles away from Hilltop that had grown wild in the absence of people. Giving voice to something he'd suspected for quite some time now but hadn't had the necessary data to back it up until recently.

The others ultimately followed Gregory, but they respected Paul's opinion on a scale that often surpassed any loyalty they had to the former. When there were important decisions to be made, Paul was always in the room and nine times out of ten, things went the way he suggested.

"Don't let Gregory hear you say that," Paul remarked, amused. Popping the slice into his mouth and making an appreciative sound at the sweetness. "Some would call that treasonous talk ya' know."

Something about the sound made his belly tighten in response.

Simmering a growing, familiar warmth he hadn't felt since-

He ignored it.

"There is nothing Gregory can do to me," he replied, cutting slice for himself. It wasn't a complete sentence, but Paul knew him well enough not to press for more. At least not in the way most people would have. Allowing him time to compose himself as an after image of Phillip's deranged face flickered in and out in existence in front of him.

"Not anymore, you mean?"

He nodded, letting the silence do the rest as he considered how not that long ago, he'd used words like shields. Prone to nervous babble and an overabundance of complex terms when he knew full well a laymen's understanding would have been better received. Being on his own had taught him that sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes, you could say more with silence than you could with words.

He watched the man's boots waver lazily, flirting with the stems of the wild flowers they were more or less surrounded in. Warm and amused as he anticipated the man's answer before it could leave his lips.

"I suppose the short answer is, who wants that? Honestly? People like Gregory want the position. They like the prestige. But I don't. That type of politics doesn't interest me and despite Gregory's- well, being who he is – when it comes down to it, he is good at it. Not the best. But still good. And this way I can still come and go- when I am home and I can be there, fully. But when I am out there? I don't know, it's two-fold. It's for them, but it's also for me, you know?"

He nodded. Because weirdly enough, he did know.

This new world had a way of changing you.

Sometimes for the good.

Sometimes for the better.

But when push came to shove, change was inevitable.

He squinted, checking his watch before doing the same with the position of the horizon. The sun was shining down hard, like fall wasn't just around the corner. Ready to lull them into a false sense of security. It made him think about the winter. About rationing and finding some way to mitigate the cold. About his current estimates of the Hilltop's food stores and next year's seedlings and-

He was startled out of his thoughts when the man tossed a handful of grass at him. Feeling the earthy strands tickle down his nose. Getting caught in the bridge of his glasses as he expelled a huff that made Paul bark with laughter. Rolling away into the long, wheat-grass as he watched him open mouthed. Unsure of what to do with the suspicious itch in his limbs that yearned to do something remarkably childish. Like toss it back, chase after or worse.

"Com'on Milton! It's a beautiful day! Enjoy it while it lasts!"

He arched a brow when the man popped up on the other side of the thicket. Long hair mussed up and seeded with mulch and a couple seasons worth of dead leaves. Eying the pine cone beside him consideringly as Paul just smiled right back. Daring him with warm eyes and a cocky smile.

Paul had a way of encouraging that sort of behavior in him.

And in all fairness, he hadn't had any desire so far to stop rising to the bait.


He gave the feelings a couple weeks of starvation.

But they didn't fade.

In fact, they only got worse.


A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – There is more to come, stay tuned.