I didn't get a lot of sleep. Despite the fact that my body was begging me to close my eyes for a second, I still didn't trust the man beside me. For the most part, he didn't trust me either—whether he thought I'd kill him or run away again I wasn't sure.

We spent a lot of the night in uncomfortable silence until he turned in for sleep in one of the bedrooms, saying that if I was going to be awake then I could keep watch for a little while. It made sense, but whether I could get my body to where he slept to warn him was a whole other story.

I didn't argue. I didn't really want him around, so him being in the other room gave me the time to put his story together in my head. It made sense, partly. I wondered why he didn't return to his group if he was beaten by the Governor. It sounded like they would've trusted him more, being a leader, and a whole group of people would have been able to take down the Governor.

The man came back out of the room sometime in the morning, which was when everything started feeling slow and had even closed my eyes to get some sleep. I heard him step closer, and I opened my eyes to see him tap me on the shoulder to wake me up.

"Thought you were out," was his apology as he quickly retracted his hand.

I shook my head, my eyes squeezing shut as I pushed myself into a sitting position. I breathed in and out deeply, trying to ignore the pulsing feeling that was beating through my temples. There would be time to sleep in the car, I reminded myself, using it as the excuse to keep myself awake.

"I'll put the things in the car," he said, turning to gather stuff around the room. "I wouldn't bother changing, it's gonna be much harder to get jeans back on with one hand. We'll work on finding you some more clothes today."

I nodded, rubbing my eyes with my hands in balled up fists before stretching my one arm up into the air and over the opposite side. I would have done the same with the other arm if I could have lifted it. The guy just started carrying the gallon bottles of water he had out to the car.

I waited for my face and arm to start hurting, to catch up with the rest of my body. It was bad today, for whatever reason. Maybe because I hadn't moved all night and being mobile had reminded my limbs that they were heavily injured I felt like I couldn't breathe, and had to just sit there forever until my body decided to react.

"Fuck," I whispered to myself.

"I'll see if I can find some pills today, as well," the guy's voice startled me as he came back into the room. "That thing is going to be a bitch."

"Tell me about it," I muttered.

"I got everything, pretty much," he continued. "I'll carry the bags out as I'm getting you into the car," he explained, crossing the room until he was standing at the table. "First, we gotta get your arm supported, stop it from moving around. Everything should start to hurt less. And you won't break your stitches if you can't move your arm."

He picked up the sheet that he'd been cutting up last night and held it in his hands before nodding for me to get up. Unfortunately, I followed his instructions, almost crying as my feet finally got my body weight up off the sofa.

"Turn around," he said as he folded the square of the white sheet he cut out into a triangle. I turned my back to him, holding my bad arm in the opposite hand. "Okay, I'm not too sure how to do this right, but I think this part comes down in front," he draped the triangle so the tallest point was aligned with my elbow, and then pulled the back upwards between my arm and body. "And then I think it ties up behind the neck."

He tied the knot at the back of my neck when it was tight, and my elbow was stuck at a 90 degree angle. I let my arm relax, testing it, and the cut-up sheet was able to hold the dead weight of my arm. It was good, something to remind me to stop moving it; the more I used my arm the longer it would take to heal.

"Okay, you're all good," he said.

Reaching behind my head, I tried pulling my hair out from underneath the makeshift sling, and winced when some of it was stuck in the knot. "Ow."

"Sorry," he said. "But honestly, I think you have more going on right now than knots in your hair."

"I need a brush," I blurted, now suddenly reminded of that point. All of the things I never really thought about were back at the prison amongst the rubble; brush, bobbles, tools. Everything I used I would have to find again.

"Oh, wait," he entered the bedroom and came back out with a black hairbrush in his hands. "There. I saw it last night."

I nodded, taking it from him. "Thanks."

"Alright," he clapped his hands together. "Let's get moving. See if we can find you the stuff you need, some of your people. You can get some rest in the car."

I grabbed my bag on the way out of the door, hooking my wrist through the arm strap of the backpack I was given. We walked outside, I shoved my things in the backseat of the car and got into the front, waiting for the guy to get inside the car. It rumbled to life, and he drove off down the road.

This time I woke up with a start, gasping as I jumped forward. There was shooting, and then there wasn't, and I realised that I was still just in the car. It had a steady hum as it kept moving, and that sound was one of the things that brought me back and made me realise that I was in no immediate danger, thankfully.

"Take it easy," the guy's voice came.

I saw that his arm reached across my chest to hold me in place, making sure I didn't hurt myself so much. I continued breathing heavily and waited to catch my breath. He pulled his arm back and grabbed a water bottle from the cup holder between us, holding it out so that I would take it from him. I sipped the water, and put it back where it came from.

"How long was I asleep?"

"An hour or two," he said. "I found a house and got you some more clothes. I didn't want to wake you up so I locked the car and searched the house. Not great pain meds either, just some Advil, but it'll be better than nothing. I'll get it out for you next time we stop, I thought you'd be asleep longer."

Yeah, I thought so too. I wished I'd be able to sleep longer than an hour, but apparently, luck was not on my side these past few days. I don't know why I thought luck was ever going to be on my side, but the heuristic I worked with was that I was due some good luck. Gamblers thinking at its finest.

"You always get nightmares like that?" He asked after a while.

I wasn't sure why he asked; my sleeping habits seemed a little personal for someone I hated. And the first answer that popped into my head was that he and the Governor were probably the reason I even started getting more nightmares. Sure, I had some in Winter but it was generally okay. After what happened in our group, I was a wreck.

"Sometimes," I mumbled. "It was bad after the war."

"I'd bet."

Something in his tone seemed that he understood, maybe he felt the same way after getting beaten up and almost killed by the Governor. Anyone would be scared after something like that, despite the tough guy persona that he seemed to uphold. Maybe he felt the same way with events that happened before he even found Woodbury. I had to remind myself that I didn't know anything about him.

"If you don't mind me asking," the man started, getting my attention, "who was it? Who'd he kill?"

I glanced over for a second, wondering whether I should even answer. My chest tightened to the point where it felt like I couldn't breathe as I remembered what the Governor had done on the field, and who he killed. It was a memory I was trying to keep down knowing that he had also once worked with the Governor.

Either way, I answered. "It was Hershel."

"The old guy at the peace meeting?" He asked, and it took everything for me not to yell at his description of him. He seemed to understand, and his face softened a little as he stared out of the window in front of him. "I'm sorry. I liked him, he was a tough bastard."

"I know," I muttered.

Hershel had been nothing but that for the past few days, taking care of anyone and everyone he could to hold the group together. He did much of the same after the first war, trying to keep Rick in check while he led the group for his last term. We had the council in place, but we all saw how hard it was for Rick to take the time he needed to get better.

"You are, too," the man added after a while. "And that shit you pulled with the truck," he snorted and shook his head, a smile forming on his face. "We had to radio one of the guys out to pick us up and go back there so someone could work out how to fix it. Funniest shit that happened. Governor was pissed."

A small smile worked its way onto my face when I started to remember pranking them. I wished I could have set up a camera or something to see it for myself, but it was probably one of the best things I'd done against an enemy. It reminded me that the whole reason I was shot the first time was because the Governor thought I would be too useful to Rick in the war, so me doing the most basic of pranks was the funniest fuck you ever.

"I tell you now, though," he said again, "it was not as good as that smoke bomb in the cupboard. You should've seen the look on Merle's face when he realised what it was."

"He seemed impressed," I agreed. "I just didn't have any nails."

"Nails? You could have made a shrapnel bomb?" He blew out a whistle, shaking his head. "Goddamn, I'm glad you didn't lock yourself in with the building supplies. How'd you even learn how to do that?"

"I'm a mechanic, and I was good at chemistry so I probably would've just worked it out eventually anyway," I said. "But I found some military guides when we stayed in storage units. Thought it was interesting, that's all."

"Well, it had us fooled for a second," he nodded.

"Why'd you help me that day?" I meant back in Woodbury. He helped me yesterday because he thought he would dump me at the prison and leave. That still didn't explain everything after, but I wasn't so curious about this anymore.

"I don't know," he shook his head. "It was stupid, that's for sure. Everything I did there I did because it kept me alive. The Governor killed traitors and made up a story. But you were a kid—a kid who could make bombs, sure. But you didn't have to die there. Honestly, I didn't realise you'd be stupid enough to come back in there and kill everyone."

The only reason I kept going back was because your group kept kidnapping my people. "You had Daryl."

"Yeah," he nodded. "We did."

"I thought the orders were shoot to kill?" I asked when I realised that they probably should have killed Daryl. The people with him who wanted to capture me were more than happy at the idea of putting a bullet through my head, so why didn't they do the same to Daryl?

He shrugged. "They were, I don't know what happened. I think he just recognised Merle's brother and used him as leverage," he explained in an uncertain voice. "I doubt he would've done the same for you though."

I frowned. "How come?"

"You got under the Governor's skin," he said. "He didn't show it a lot, but after the bomb and the truck . . . I think he was just pissed that you were on Rick's side. He kept asking Milton how stuff like that could be done, what they needed to do something like that, but Milton didn't have a clue. I think you scared him."

"Is that why I got shot?" I asked sarcastically because that was the exact reason I got shot.

"Yeah, surprised you survived that," he said.

I remembered him telling Rick that the only reason I was alive was because losing an eye changed his aim, making him miss. He really did want to kill me at the shootout, and it was only by some miracle that I was still alive. I say miracle, if Michonne hadn't gone to find him or his daughter that had turned then he wouldn't have lost an eye and would've been able to kill me just fine.

I turned to the man, a frown on my face when I realised that he was probably there that day. "Did you know he was going to try and kill me that day?"

There was a long, quiet pause before he nodded. "Yeah."

I gave a nod, understanding. There really was nothing he could do to help me at the shootout, even if he wanted to. He wasn't going to stick his neck out for me when he was blatantly on the other side. Even after what he did for me back in Woodbury I assumed him saving my life was just a one-time thing, a way of seeing if I'd make it given the chance. But the good news was, I did make it.

It was actually funny to me to know how badly I'd scared the Governor, that he'd want to kill a teenage girl over something that he started. It was only because I knew more than he did, because I was better than them. Normally I wouldn't be so vain, but I had indisputable proof that it was what they thought, because they tried too hard to kill me personally.

Now the air had changed in the car to something calm, nostalgic—nostalgic over awful things—but fun to think about nonetheless. I never thought I'd be reminiscing about any wars in my time, it was funny the way it all worked out.

I leaned my head back against the headrest, now no longer scared about going back to sleep and ready to close my eyes. I breathed out deeply, rolling my head to the side. And I was completely ready to go back to sleep until I opened my eyes and noticed the speedometer.

"You're driving too fast," I said after a moment.

He looked at me like I was stupid, but when I just stared back at him, he asked, "How am I driving too fast?" He scoffed.

I ignored the frustration and answered him in a normal voice. "The most fuel-efficient speed is 55 miles an hour. After that, the usage of petrol per mile increases exponentially. You need to drive 55 miles an hour if you actually want to get anywhere."

"We've been getting places just fine," he said.

"That's what you think," I said. "But we'd be able to go so much further if you drove at 55 miles an hour.

He let out an audible sigh and I waited for him to argue with me again. When I told Rick this same information he just told me that it was not going to happen and he'd continue driving the fuel guzzling 65 miles an hour that he was going. But this time, the car jerked until it moved slower, and I noticed him grip the steering wheel tighter.

"There," he snapped a little, "Is that better?"

"Yes, much," I nodded.

We drove in a miserable silence after that, and I was actually able to close my eyes and get a short rest.

While I was asleep, the guy must've stopped the car and tilted my seat backwards so I was more laying down in a better position for sleep. I worked hard to push myself back up, groaning in pain as my hip cried out for me to just lay there. He said something about stopping in three different places while I was asleep, and now he wanted to leave the car to check another vehicle on the side of the road.

I made myself get out of the car and walk around to see if my hip was feeling any better. I was in pain just sitting in the car, but also my back was starting to hurt and I just needed to walk around for a little even if it hurt my hip.

He'd only left the car to look through another that had been left on the side of the road, so really I had a little time to walk around with my hand on the bonnet of the car in case my leg decided to give out. I could feel myself limping a lot less than I had been doing yesterday, which was a good sign. All I had done today was rest my leg, so at least like this I wouldn't injure it much more.

For a moment when I felt stable enough I just kept an eye out for walkers so he could look through the car without having to worry about getting eaten by any mystery walkers that came out of nowhere. He glanced around a few times before he noticed me there doing it for him.

After that, he opened the boot of the car and looked inside. "Ace, come take a look at this, a sec."

Ace?

Hearing him say my name just then made me realise that I had no clue what his own name was. I never asked, never had a reason to. We were always on separate sides, never in a situation where either of us had to introduce ourselves, which begged the question: how did he know my name?

The guy asked me to check a spare tyre in the back of one of the cars, but I said it would be too big for the one that we had currently been driving and would cause more problems than it was worth. There was really no point in taking it.

That's not what I was really thinking about, though. The only thought in my head anymore was that I had no idea what his name was as we walked back over to the car. I racked my mind for any memory that would tell me his name, any situation where I could have heard it. The only thing I remembered was Merle calling him Brownie, which I didn't understand until I realised that he was Mexican. Merle was one of the only racist people I knew personally, so his nicknames for other ethnicities was not something I really understood all that well.

Then I frowned, realising that I could have been wrong. Is it racist to call him Mexican in my head? Ask him. "Hey . . . Are you Mexican?"

A confused glance was sent my way as he sat down in the car, but I tried my best to ignored it and cringed as I waited for his answer. "Yeah?"

"Okay."

Wait . . . shit. Why didn't I ask his name? Now it's weirder. I asked his race before asking his name, that had to have been racist. His mouth opened and he probably contemplated asking me why I wanted to know, but instead he shook his head, closed the door and started up the truck.

"Whatever," he finally muttered to himself.

We stopped in the store, because upstairs the man found a small flat that we could rest up in until morning. I took the sofa again, hoping that the next day my leg wouldn't hurt so much because I really didn't want to have to hobble my way back down those stairs the way I came up them.

When we were settled in and the place was clear, he had made a small fire in a metal bin to cook our food over, using a tea towel to pick them off his makeshift fire when they were cooked through. It was tinned meatballs, from what I could tell by the torn up paper on the ground.

"We had a good haul today, should keep us going for a few more weeks," he was saying as he dished out a tin of food and handed it to me. "I'll separate some so that when you get back on your feet you'll have enough for a little while on your own."

"I'm not going to be on my own," I said. I'm going to find them.

He looked like he wanted to say something, his mouth open as he glanced at me. He shook his head and looked back down to finish setting out the food for us to eat,

"I wish I could do more," I muttered. "I hate just sitting around and doing nothing."

"It's fine, I can go through the houses," he waved me off, pushing the bowl closer to me across the table.

I shook my head. "No, I mean I could hunt or something. I can't do shit when I'm like this."

"You can hunt?"

I shrugged. "Daryl taught me."

The man nodded, his eyebrows raised making him look more impressed. "You know, you'd be the most useful person I've ever met if you weren't held up by all these injuries."

"I am very accident-prone," I said.

"I don't know if getting shot or beaten is an accident." He took his bowl with a chuckle and sat back against the wall behind him. He shovelled a meatball into his mouth.

"I meant in general," I corrected. "Although most of the things that happened to me since the world ended were not due to my accidental behaviour."

"You had more enemies?" He made a fake hurt look, holding a hand up to his chest.

"Yeah, but we didn't seek any of them out to kill them," I shrugged.

He scoffed, taking another bite of his food. "Yeah, yeah," he waved me off. "What happened then?"

I frowned. "Which time?"

It didn't escape me how he raised his eyebrows, staring at me for a long second. "How many were there?"

"Not including you guys?" I clarified. "Three others from outside the group at least. One inside the group," I listed, not intending to say who all of them were. "But we saw another group of people dead because of people, but we showed up there afterwards."

He gave a nod. "Who was bad inside your group?"

I clenched my teeth, now cursing myself for bringing it up. Shane was really a hard story to tell, and really, nobody brought him up anymore. I could tell the story, but adding his relationship to everyone was not really something that he had to know.

"Someone recently killed our own members because of the bird flu we had, but that wasn't the one I meant. So, uh . . . I guess two people were kind of bad inside the group," I rambled, shaking my head. "The other was just someone who kept ending up in bad situations and he lost it. It isn't my story to tell."

He gave a nod. "What about the other ones?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"You seem like a good group of people, just curious about how many times you wound up in trouble," he shrugged.

I gave a nod. "The first was a group. Rick, Glenn and I had come to get Hershel back to the group, but he was out of it a little," my voice cracked when I remembered Hershel, but I pushed past it. "When we convinced him to come back, these two guys showed up. One of them was staring at me the whole time, really creepy."

"Sick bastard," he scoffed.

"Yeah," I mumbled. "Well, they got mad because we wouldn't tell them where we were staying and Rick killed them. I'm glad he did it, too. I knew what they were going to do if they lived." The man gave a nod in agreement, and I continued. "Their friends showed up, one of them impaled their leg on a fence and we saved him. Our friend at the group wasn't happy about it, I think it was one of the things that changed him."

"Jesus, glad we never ran across those guys," he muttered. "I know we had some sick people, but fuck. Were those the first people you saw get killed?"

I gave a solemn nod, remembering my panic attack as it happened. "Yeah."

He was quiet for a moment, wondering whether he should even continue asking. "Who were the others?"

"One was just a guy that wanted to steal the car," I said. "I felt a little sick and stayed in the car while, and some guy opened the door. He dragged me out of the car and choked me out. Daryl killed him."

"Rough winter?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "The last were some prisoners. They were found locked in the canteen and Rick said we'd help clear them their own cell block for half their food. They'd been trapped there for like ten months, so they never killed walkers. One killed his friend when he got scratched, and then he tried taking out Rick. Rick put a machete through his head."

"Hang on," he stopped me. "One of the people we killed in Woodbury was a prisoner."

"There were five to begin with," I said. "One got scratched, Rick killed one, when the third tried coming after him, Rick took his weapons and he ran away. The other two surrendered. Rick locked the other bad one with the walkers . . . I saw it with my own eyes. But he made it out somehow and let out the walkers in the prison. We lost a lot of people that day."

"I'm sorry."

"After that it was you guys, and I killed like six people," I finished, blowing out a sigh.

He shook his head. "It never should have been like that."

"Well, it's more now," I tilted my head, "what can you do?"

"It's just shit, I mean if my ki—" he stopped himself from talking almost immediately, but it sounded like he was going to say the word kids. I looked at him expectantly, wondering if he would finish it off or whether he'd just leave it. He shook his head. "It sucks."

I gave a nod, placing my empty tin down on the table. "Sorry," I said.

"For what?"

"Whoever you lost," I clarified. "I don't expect you to tell me."

He just gave a nod, standing up and grabbing the empty tin from the table. "Get some sleep, I'll take watch."

"I can," I told him, "you're driving."

"Nah, you were up most of last night," he denied. "I got it."

As he left the room to go outside, I watched him leave. Then I grabbed a blanket off the back of the sofa and pulled it down over myself to keep warm before lying my head back on the arm rest. The day times were warm, enough to give me heatstroke or make my skin melt, but the night was cold enough to be covered.

When he came back, he sat against the opposite wall. It took me a second to realise that I still had no idea what his name was. I realised it was better to ask now than embarrass myself later on, and he would've probably been less harsh on me because of the nice moment we were having.

I rolled onto my side to look at him from where I was lying on the sofa. "Hey . . . can I ask you a question?"

He looked up, sitting so that his arms were resting on his knees. "Yeah, what?"

Here goes nothing . . . "What's your name?"

There was a small frown on his face for a second, and his head tilted to the side as he stared at me. "You don't know my name?"

"I was never in a situation to hear your name," I told him. "Well, that's partly true. When I broke into Woodbury, I saw you talking to Merle, but I assumed that you wouldn't enjoy being called all the nicknames he used."

He chuckled, and shook his head. "Why didn't you just ask?"

"Well, there was never really a good time." I rolled onto my back, and threw my one good arm up in the air as if it would make my point.

"I'm sure there was."

"Nuh-uh," I denied.

Again, more silence, more thinking. Thinking didn't bode well for me in this situation, because there definitely were good times, but what I asked instead of his name was more embarrassing than just waiting this long.

"You asked about my race today," he pointed out. "Why not just ask then?"

"Well, then I ruined it and I couldn't ask what your name was," I explained.

"My name is Caesar," he said. "Caesar Martinez."

"I like Martinez better," I said.

"Yeah, most people do," he grinned. "I like it too."

I'm still kind of unsure about this idea of Ace not asking about his name, so lmk what you thought about that specifically. I didn't really like calling him the guy for three chapters because people might not know who he was, but the "Are you Mexican?" idea has been around since the beginning of the book.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed and let me know what you thought :)