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This is Rosita. I'll hit you back when I can.

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"Well, do you have a gun yet?" She probably does but he's only ever seen her with her knife. Then again maybe one of these books is about how to build your own gun out of a soap bar.

"No, I don't have a gun," she admits, because she hasn't worked that out quite yet.

"Well, open your present," he motions.

It's a gun, Jesus's pistol he carried through so much of the war, and a pair of soft leather gloves.

She'd guessed the moment she touched it; the weight, the distribution and the shape, are difficult to conceal as anything less.

And here there are more resources, more opportunities to find more guns and more blades and more, more, more - but there's still something startling about recognizing it. They were in the middle of scavenging more arms to fight the Saviors when Rosita died and not sure they could get the job done, and now here's Jesus's own personal gun.

She blinks at it, picking up the gloves for something to put in her hands, something to touch while she glances up to be sure that he's sure.

"This is yours."

"It was. But you're a better shot; it should be with you." A little object from home. "And the gloves, you can pick locks in them. I mean. I have."

"Well, yes." She is a better shot than a lot of people. Thank God.

"But what are you gonna do, then?"

He shrugs. "My birthday's next week. I'll have someone else get me a new one. Besides, I've been working on my sword skills lately."

She smiles for just a moment, checking that the pistol isn't loaded and then hefting it in her hand.

"Muscling in on Michonne's territory?"

"No offense to Michonne but I'm old school Chinese discipline and she's very much Japanese," he teases. "No... No one will look as good with a katana as Michonne does."

He watches her. "Do you like it?"

Despite herself, despite the nagging that he's going to need this, he should have it, him being without it means he's either going to die or he's leaving- she nods.

"I do," she says, softly, and looks up at him. "Thank you. I haven't... had a birthday gift in years."

"Well that was lost time," he says softly. "And this is making up for it. You deserve a good birthday, Rosita."

So the cupcake and the gift and the hug. He hopes it matters.

Yeah. Lost time, she thinks, running her thumb over the palm of the gloves before she moves to pull them on. They've all lost a lot of time, trying to get more.

"Yours is next week?"

"June 6th," he says, not expecting anything from it because nothing has ever come from it before. "We're zodiac twins, Ro. Meant to fight the world together."

It's a nice thought and it makes her smile.

Just that it's an idea that hurts right now, in a few different ways.

"I always thought that. About Gemini," she admits. "That it feels wrong to be a lone twin."

"Me, too," he says, very softly. He's always been so aware of the fact his sign meant he had to have dual sides. "I'll be your twin, Rosita."

She breathes out and is dismayed to hear the faint shiver in it.

"Yeah?" she asks instead, and like the shiver, there's a faint ray of hope too.

"You know what that kind of thing means to me?"

"No," he confesses, but he can see it. He recognizes it so easily.

"But I know what it does to me." How senseless it makes him. How badly he wants someone on his side.

"Well."

Rosita Espinosa, you are damn near perfection.

It feels like letting him hold the gun in her hands on her but then, there are people you can sometimes live to tell the tale afterwards when they do. Sometimes, they're covering your blindside, if you let them.

"How can I say no to that?"

He grins at her. He knows this is not an easy thing for her, even if he does not--and will never--know how far that goes.

"Happy birthday, Rosita. I'm glad you're with me."

"Yeah, yeah," she mutters, but she's smiling.

"With the face," she admonishes, breaking off half the cupcake, offering it out to him.

He takes it because he'll always take offered food. "What face? This is just my face." His face, happy he's made her happy.

"You know exactly what face," she insists. "I refuse to believe you don't know."

She remembers the first time he turned it on Alexandria; not her specifically, but Rick Grimes representing the community worth of strength. There was definitely a moment where he leaned into it.

"I'm learning the sword too, you know. Not Japanese or Chinese."