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, sexual content, slow burn.

Scintilla

Chapter Ten

He kept it together – contained – until they got into the van. He remembered pulling off his gloves so that he could push the key into the ignition. He remembered the groan that'd left Paul's lips when he'd tipped his head back and allowed him to strap him into his seat belt without comment. He remembered the chill of the key it in his palm and the iron-taint of old gore as his blood-smeared skin turned the metal slick with it.

He didn't drop the key.

But it was a near thing.

Instead, that was when he started shaking.

He had a fraction of a beat to get acquainted with the particular brand of hysteria he'd created before the world yawned dark and swirling in front of him. Dissolving into a mess of vibrating bones and clacking teeth. Shuddering inside his skin as flashes from the burning house rippled through his mind's eye like a lifetime of nightmares made flesh. It all came back. The dried blood on Paul's face. The man he'd gutted. The mist of living-red pebbling across his face when he'd slit his first throat. The taste of it on his tongue. The dead-cold of the shriveled organs he'd pulled from the steaming cavity as lifeless eyes watched him blankly. The way the men had fallen on one another – scrabbling and stumbling out into the open. Trying desperately to breathe through the thick hazing smoke. The people he'd killed. The feeling he'd courted when he'd found Paul in the darkness, mouth lax against his sleeve, coughing, looking up at him like he was-

He jerked like whiplash when cool hands hushed down his face, pulling him back from the etching swirl of nothingness that was still ringing in his ears like a badly tuned radio. Paul's hands. That was what registered second. They were Paul's hands. Somehow Paul had clambered out of his seat and was riding the gearshift. Leaning his warm weight into him like an anchor. Voice gentle and coaxing as he stared at him with wild, blood-shot eyes.

"Hey, hey- hey- you're okay, Milton- you're okay. Look at me. That's right."

He blinked, cataloging the warm stale of the man's breath, his swollen eye, the crusts of air-drying blood dusting red flakes across his lips every other breath. He blinked again and kept on looking. Unable to look anywhere else but Paul's face as the world slowly came back into focus. Trying to push through the haze of static and dying frequencies. Breathing ragged and uneven as he slowly registered that the fist he'd made around the key in his palm was shooting pain through the core of him. Threatening more bloodshed as his stomach roiled.

"Milton, it's okay. Your fine. I'm fine. God, com'on- I've got you."

The hand was back on his face. Petting, soothing and light down his cheek, like Andrea had done once, just before they'd grabbed what they could and ran. Just before he'd killed her. Just before his entire world ended and he was left wandering, alone. Only this time it was all in reverse. And now it was just Paul. He'd rewritten his own story from the end to the beginning, only this time he'd tasted the other side. He'd saved Paul- kept him safe. Just like Andrea had done for him. And despite the weakness in his limbs, he'd do it again in a heartbeat. The only thing missing was-

"I killed them," he whispered, words matter of fact and open despite the damning little quaver in his voice.

"Yes," Paul nodded, his good eye wide and emphatic. "You had no choice. You saved me. Those people? They were-"

He shook his head, trying not to hyperventilate.

There was always a choice.

He knew that.

But it was worse than that.

Because he'd wanted to.

They'd deserved it.

In that moment, for Paul, he'd been capable of anything.

And while the man didn't say anything, choosing instead to pull him in. Encouraging him to bury close as his body did it's best to shake apart. Allowing every stolen second as the man's arms tightened around him like he needed it just as much. Warm and awkward in the enclosed space. He knew he did have to.

Paul already knew.


He drove them home when the shaking stopped. Drained and almost weightless as the morning sun stained orange across the horizon. Ignoring the unsteadiness in his limbs as he pulled into the main road and coasted gently through a thin dusting of snow. Accepting the silence for what it was as Paul leaned up against the window and just breathed. Not quite asleep, but stubbornly hopeful in a way at twinged warm in his chest.

And while he was sure he had better things to think about as he drove, he couldn't help but dwell on the way the hand that'd found its way around the knob of his knee sometime during the night seemed to had settled in to stay.

He didn't know what that meant, but he didn't pull away.

The truth was, he was ready to see what happened next.


"This can't go on," Paul murmured later, more to himself than anything as they hitched the abandoned Jeep to the back of the van. Figuring they were close enough to the Hilltop that the strain on the van's engine wouldn't be much to worry about. More concerned with getting home with Paul's supplies than the welfare of a vehicle that was probably going to end up being used for parts anyway.

"We need weapons, fighters," the man continued, smacking a dent in the hood of the van when he pounded a single, angry note into it. Uncharacteristically angry to a degree that it made him pause - looking up from the makeshift hitch with a wary expression.

"What are you suggesting?" he asked, ducking his chin into his chest as he turned up his collar against the howling chill. The snow had stopped sometime during the night, but the cold had only gotten worse. Freezing right through his layers in a way that made him seriously contemplate if he would ever be warm again.

"We need more people. Other people. Fighters. This? Negan? None of it would have happened if we'd been able to fight back like them," Paul hissed through gritted teeth. "If we had weapons to spare at the very least-"

"You don't know that. And other people are dangerous," he pointed out. Bringing up the obvious as he gestured towards the man's blackened eye and back the direction they'd come from. Wincing internally as he recalled a series of discomforting memories in hindsight. Things like the holes in the Governor's story when it came to Lieutenant Welles and his men and a half dozen similar situations where Woodsbury always seemed to come out the winner.

He'd never questioned it.

None of it.

Not until-

"Some are. Some aren't. You're here, aren't you?" Paul insisted, animated in that way only exhaustion and slow building frustration can bring on. "It's not that different. You just have to be sure. Those guys surprised me on the road. They had a trap set and I fell into it like an idiot - the brakes on that van are shit by the way. They weren't exactly people to bring home to meet the folks, if you know what I mean."

He considered the idea for a moment, frowning. Finally getting the hitch in place before he looked up and found Paul's eyes already on him. And, ah- he knew that look. The sigh he let out was less long suffering than he'd hoped. Edging instead towards an unabashed sort of fondness as the man's hip cocked against the front grate. Waiting.

"Old world politics," he started, shaking his head with a small smile.

"What?"

"Any group that's made it this far this with their morals more or less attached - with weapons and people that know handle themselves - will likely be well situated. They will have a place, like the Hilltop," he explained slowly, considering it as the logistics spiraled out. The numbers and variables comforting and familiar in a situation that was anything but. "With the scarcity of supplies now, and the reality that those supplies are only going to get scarcer, that means we're going to see more cross-over. More supply parties reaching farther and farther from home. More run-ins with other groups. Good and bad."

The man shifted, interested. Tying his scarf tighter around the lower half of his face as he gripped his own arms through his jacket. Encouraging circulation as what little sun was left disappeared behind a sheath of low hanging cloud.

"So, the question becomes, what do we have that is valuable? What is our best trading commodity?"

"Food, and the ability to grow more reliably," Paul answered, catching onto the vein he was steering the conversation towards. Nodding slowly as he turned his head exaggeratedly, watching him with his good eye as he moved around the hitch. Stowing the tools in the trunk of the Jeep. Ignoring the fog that immediately hazed across the lens of his glasses as they climbed back into the van and put the heat on blast.

"Trade. We can trade for what we need. Just like we do with the others. Everyone needs something – wants something. Even a group with fighters and weapons is going to be lacking in some area. We can use that to our advantage if we find the right people," he remarked slowly. "Someone that won't just wipe us out and take we have."

He couldn't see Paul's face, but he could tell by the square of his shoulders that he was thinking about it. Which made everything worse, honestly. He wasn't used to someone just taking his advice, not anymore. It was a responsibility he didn't want. To be honest, he'd never wanted it. He'd just wanted to be left alone with his research. But the Governor – Phillip – had made a habit out of pulling him out every so often. Asking his opinion on things. Taking an interest in his research. In what he could do for the community.

He thought he'd been helping. Helping everyone. But in truth, he'd only really been helping Phillip. Phillip who'd kept his own daughter turned in his apartment. Phillip who'd encouraged his experiments, trying to see if the recently turned could be reasoned with – controlled. Phillip who'd-

"I knew a group," he started. Stumbling a little as his voice threatened to fracture at the start. "Back in Georgia. Before I- that was where I was heading when we- when I-"

He shook his head, frustrated.

The past was never just the past.

It still had teeth.

They were dull and old, but still teeth, apparently.

"Milton, you don't-"

"Yes, I do," he broke in, eye-teeth grinding as the muscles in his jaw twitched under the layers of his scarf as he let the moment ride. Feeling the vibrations from the engine twitch through his soles like nervous laughter. "I think they're the type of people to look for. They were close-knit, loyal, a family. They'd been together, most of them, since the beginning. And they'd lost- lost people. They were still losing people, but they had a place. A prison. And my group, we- I thought I was on the right side. That I'd put my faith in the right person. But I was wrong. That's why I was out there. When I found out the truth – when I let myself see it – I ran. We were heading to the prison when she- then I was got lost."

It was the first time he'd talked about anything that had come before.

It wasn't therapeutic.

It was stale.

But he swallowed the aftertaste regardless. Choosing to focus on the quiet hitch of Paul's breathing and the warmth in his good eye as they watched each other from under the cover of their layers. Increasingly aware that it wasn't fear or grief thickening in his throat anymore. But rather something else entirely.

"There will be others, good people. I know it," Paul affirmed, clasping his shoulder gently. "There has to be. I refuse to believe that Negan and his group are the only ones around here that know how fight and use the guns they're hoarding."

He nodded. Knowing that was the appropriate response despite not really feeling it. He understood the words and the importance behind them, but the reality? He was too much of a realist to think this wouldn't end in bloodshed.

But his mind eventually stilled when the hand that'd been resting on his knee the whole drive back, made a sudden reappearance. Squeezing gently until he looked down then back up again. Meeting Paul's gaze without filter – without any of the usual masks he wore.

"The past shapes us, but it doesn't have to make us. I had a friend that said that to me once, before all this. She was a recovering alcoholic actually, almost killed someone drinking and driving one night during our first year of university. Stupid kid stuff. But she said the most important thing she learned was that we don't have become what we did. We can be better."

We don't have to become what we did.

He turned the words over and over in as he eased the van back into drive.

Eventually nodding again and letting the silence do the rest.

The only difference was that this time the action was sincere.

This time he believed it.

After all, he knew he was fighting for now.


A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – Two more chapters to go, stay tuned.