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

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She shakes her head.

"No. No, I don't think so."

They've fought before and it didn't unsettle her like she is now.

"I just feel... I don't know."

"Restless?" He looks at her carefully, wondering if it's just having old instincts set off, thinking the threat of another apocalypse might have crept near.

"Always." The city is too tall, it presses in too close - it's too filled with people who are corpses that don't know it yet.

"This is... different, but it'll be okay. It'll pass."

He almost tells her then. He almost tells her how the dreams he has culminated in one panicked moment on a rooftop where he couldn't convince himself there hadn't been an outbreak, that people weren't pushing their way through the streets to evade something undead and ravenous.

It had taken him an hour to calm down enough to climb back down to the sidewalk.

He almost tells her. But he doesn't, because maybe this isn't the time, and maybe he doesn't know what to do about it yet.

"I'll pass," he says. "But if it doesn't, you know where I am."

She doesn't consciously know that there's something there, something he doesn't tell her; there are plenty of things they don't tell each other and never will and it doesn't change anything, doesn't mean anything.

She presses her lips together and nods now, though. She wishes she'd said yes. She doesn't think she could have. She hates this.

"I do," she agrees. She does know. She lifts an arm in silent invitation.

Edited Date: 2023-02-28 02:59 am (UTC)

It leaves him feeling he's failed somehow he can't put a finger on, reminiscent of old fears and old unknowns he hasn't had to worry about because he hasn't been close to anyone but Maggie in so very long.

It helps a little when she lifts that arm and he hugs her.

It surprises people, sometimes, that Rosita likes to hug; they don't know the half of it, though. Sometimes she thinks that she can get through anything, anything, if she can just put her arms around someone and hold on tight, and have them hold onto her just as tight.

They've gone awkward now between the two of them, but she doesn't even hesitate on this. She barely waits for him to reach for her before she's pulling him in tight, arms wrapped around without reservation to keep him close.

"It doesn't feel like we're okay," he tells her, holding her against him, face tucked into her hair. "What's going on?"

"There's just a lot here we never had to deal with back home," she says after a few moments of grasping, quiet, fingers pressing into his shoulders.

"I'm worried we're becoming different people. Again."

"We're letting new people in. We're doing it in ways we haven't been able to in years." Or maybe ever.

"It's going to change us a little."

"I know. But I don't know whoever you're becoming, or whoever I am."

She's allowed to be afraid, she thinks. She's still human. She's earned the right to fear the ways people can change when the world around them shifts violently from what they're used to.

"I know you now. I know me now. That's all it is."

"I'm still me. The same person you know, just-" He fumbles for an explanation. He settles on a joke, a faint laugh. "Now I'm slutting it up. That's the only difference."

The thing is, everybody changes. They change because of the world around them, because of the circumstances they find themselves in, because of the people in their lives; change and the ability to do so is a survivor's greatest strength, and they're two of the best.

She's not comforted by the joke. She just holds on tighter.

"You're here with me," he tells her, tucking her up a little closer against him. "Every step of the way. You'll see who I'm becoming. I won't be a stranger to you."

"I hope so," she says, and she means that.

She forces herself to breathe out, to let it go. It'll all be back again when she's by herself but for now, she makes herself listen to Jesus's voice, to the silent conversation their bodies are having breathing together.

"I don't want to lose you again."

"It really worries you, doesn't it?" He hadn't realized before. Not to the extent that she would hold onto him as tightly as she is now. "That I might end up being someone else."

"I... don't know if I can explain it."

It makes sense in her head, but not everything does once it hits the air. She's not sure if she wants to try or not.

So instead, she gives in to the urge to set her chin on his shoulder, face tucked a little forward.

"But yeah. Yeah, I guess it does."

They're just standing there in the empty bar holding each other, talking, but he doesn't try to pull away. Somehow it's not awkward for him. "What are you worried will happen? Who do you see me becoming?"

She doesn't try to rush them, doesn't try to force herself to answer; she doesn't feel awkward either. No one except Jesus can make her, and he isn't moving either.

She does finally shake her head though. She does start to take her weight back.

"You never had a group before Hilltop, did you?" she asks, voice dull.

He knows she had one before Alexandria. "I went with groups. But they were all temporary, just on the road... None of them were building anything."

"I had... a few." Her entire goddamn history isn't relevant just now, since she can prove her point with the ones freshest in her mind.

"Me, Eugene, and Abraham joined up with some of Rick's group first, then the rest of it. Then we settled into Alexandria. Then we met you, and the other communities. And every time... it changed us. Adding people, subtracting people, gaining resources, losing them. It changed us and who we were to each other. And I have no idea how we're gonna change now."

Separately and together. She's drawn back by the time she's done, folding her arms around herself, and the searching gaze she fixes Jesus with is... resigned.

"The biggest change I've noticed with us so far is just that we're closer. I get to trust you with things I wouldn't have told anyone about back home. Like being tied up in someone's bed, or sleeping with the same man." He smiles slightly. "What do you notice?"

"First you close ranks," she agrees, not unkindly; she smiles when she does. Familiar people in new surroundings tend to stick together whether it's a conscious decision or not.

"Then you get comfortable and settle in. Yeah, we're closer, and I like that. I like that change. Just... old habits, I guess."

"Even I can admit we haven't had a lot of good changes over the years," he tells her. She doesn't have to be excited about the inevitable differences their new lives will bring. Are bringing. But he's glad she likes that one thing, that one good thing, they both have now.

"What did you like about Alexandria? What kept you there?" That Hilltop didn't have.

"I didn't want to yell at as many of the people there."

Hilltop is full of farmers, people who take a softer touch than Rosita tends to possess when she's trying to get something done.

"It made me feel safer. People listened to me because they knew me."