"You're Nina, right?" asked Dwight. He remembered her name because she had been with Negan for almost as long as Sherry had, and because Cindy often talked about the other girls and it had become easy to remember their names, and he recognized Nina amongst one of the people he ran into when he was looking through their supplies and taking stock once more.

"Sure am," she replied. "Don't really have to ask who you are."

"No, I guess you don't," he said with a small smile. "I just wanted to see how things are going for you, and how you've been settling in after all the changes around here."

Nina laughed and said, "Not too bad. I'm not exactly living the high life now, but I can't complain. I know some of us are settling in better than others."

He was sure that that was some sort of jab at Cindy, but he chose to ignore it. "Yeah, well, I know it can be difficult to adjust, so when I saw you, I just wanted to ask. If there's anything I can do for you..."

"Got any more room in that bed of yours?" He hesitated just long enough for her to burst out laughing. "I'm kidding. No, I know you're not like that. Or at least, I hope you're not." She winked.

He let out a relieved sigh, laughing a bit. "Yeah, that isn't something I'm doing. I'm not going to send the message that I think that sort of thing is okay."

"Well, you weren't exactly on the good end of that before," she said, and he could tell she was looking at his scar. "Speaking of which," she continued, though he had no despite to keep talking about it, "you heard about Diane, right?"

"Diane?" he asked. It was Sherry's middle name, he remembered, but he didn't know anyone else with that name.

"So you haven't, then. Yeah, Sherry decided she wanted a little change, so she's not answering to anything but Diane now. Just thought you might want to know, in case you try to talk to her about anything in the future." She gave him a knowing look, as if she could tell that he still wasn't over it.

"I doubt I'll have any reason to," he replied.

~X~

"Did something happen today?" asked Cindy, not long after he got home. She was getting to the point where she could read his mood like a book, and she could already tell that he was feeling off.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," he replied, but he knew he didn't sound convincing.

"If you don't want to talk about it, it's fine," she said, "but you know I'll listen to whatever it is."

"It's...it's about Sherry."

"Oh."

He sighed. "I just didn't want to make you uncomfortable, talking about my ex like that, so..."

"No, no, you can tell me whatever you need to."

He sat down beside her as he began to talk. "Well, I saw Nina today, and she told me that Sherry is going by Diane now. It's her middle name and..." He paused for a moment. "Her first name is Sheryl, and she went by that before we got together even though she hated it. I started calling her Sherry as a nickname, and she liked it and kept it. Now that she's going by something else, it just feels like she's throwing away more of what we had. I know it's stupid to care about that after everything that happened, but we were married so sometimes I still..."

"It's okay to miss her. She was your wife, and I know that you missed her before. I missed Negan a little bit at first, but I think that's different. I don't think I ever loved him like you loved her, or like..." She trailed off.

"Like what?"

"It's nothing," she said, and he wondered if that was the first time she had lied to him about something other than pretending to like something that she didn't.

"No, no, I want to know what you were going to say," he insisted.

"Like I love you," she finally said.

"You...love me differently?" he asked, surprised.

"I think so," she confessed. "I think I love you differently than I loved Negan. More like...more like Eileen loved him, I guess. Things were always different for her, that's why she didn't want to be with anyone after he was gone."

Someone had come across Eileen's reanimated corpse a while back and notified him of it, so he already knew her fate. He had known that she was a bit more devoted than the other wives, and it made since that she was really in love with him, but for Cindy to compare her own feelings to Eileen's meant that Cindy felt as though she was really in love with Dwight.

"You're in love with me," was all he could say.

"I've always been in love with you."

"I...I know, that's not...I mean, you reallylove me," he said. "And I know, you say you always have, but I mean...this kind of love is different, like you said." Could she really mean that? Could she really be genuinely in love with him? Half of his worries about their relationship related to his concern about her feelings, and now she claimed she had really, honestly fallen in love with him.

"If that's how you want to say it, then yes. I really love you, Dwight." She even looked a bit shy as she said it, and he had to admit that it was cute as hell. "I really love spending time with you, and I...I do think you're attractive, even though I know you have a hard time believing that. I just really want to do whatever I have to to make you happy, and even if you stop being my leader, I'd still want to." The last part seemed difficult for her to admit, which wasn't a surprise after how much she had built this up as her "job" or whatever.

Dwight didn't know what to say to her now that she had come clean about all of this. It was so hard for him to believe that she really loved him, after how long he had spent reminding himself that she couldn't and how long he had spent convincing himself that no one could love him anymore, but he didn't think that she was lying and he didn't wantto think that she was lying. He had let himself be so unhappy for so long, both because he wouldn't let go of Shery- Diane, he reminded himself- and because he wouldn't accept Cindy as a real relationship, but he didn't have to keep doing that.

He had to start to try to accept his marriage being over for good. If she hadn't come back to him after he helped defeat Negan, she wasn't going to come back to him at all, and maybe he shouldn't want her back anyway. Diane had gone back to Negan when given the chance, when she could have just stayed with him. She hadn't chosen Dwight then, so she sure as hell wouldn't choose him now, but Cindy had, and now she confessed that she would choose him even outside of his position. He had someone who wanted him, who even said he was attractive, and he couldn't keep questioning that.

Dwight didn't know if he loved her or not. It was hard to tell, but he hoped that he could someday know for sure that he did, because that was what she deserved for all she had done for him, and she at least deserved to hear it back. He knew, at least, that he cared for her and appreciated her, and that was enough for now. For now, he wouldn't worry about the particulars, and would do what he could to accept their relationship as being real and forget about his past.

"Come here," he said, and pulled Cindy close to him. "I want you to know that I love you too."