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

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He looks up at her, studies her quietly for a moment. "Even Carver?"

She hesitates a moment, then nods.

"He didn't know who I was. They have these masks - his is a skull. I could remember it but not why, and when I tried to get in his way it - it just didn't matter."

"You're getting closer to him. It makes sense that part of your mind is..." Afraid? That's maybe a too strong word for it. Or maybe too accurate. "... Wondering if he's getting closer to you, too."

"Or it's just the truth."

None of them would remember anything here if they got to go back. If somehow Jesus and Carver were to be anything other than what they are, the Reapers and the Alexandrians would never be able to inhabit the same world with the same scarce resources.

"They killed us all, and moved into our houses."

"It's a truth for a different world. Here, the only Reaper is Carver. And he wouldn't do that to us." He has a steady, quiet confidence in that. Carver is loyal when he lets people in, rare as it is.

"I know."

It was only a dream. It happens to them all the time, sometimes more and sometimes less, but it's just something that happens.

She takes another drink, and looks at him. "I miss home, but I'm not ready to go yet."

He shouldn't say this. But his mouth twitches, not a smile and not a wince. "I'm not ready for you to go, either."

If this works and he gets to stay, he isn't ready for a world without her.

"You make everything here better."

It is bad luck to say goodbyes, to say just in case, to simply hand over a neatly tied ending to the story of two people living in the same world. They all know it. They always have.

There's so, so much they don't know here. About how any of this works.

"That's all I've ever wanted to do." Make the world just a little bit better. Leave it just a little better.

"I know. Me, too." And when the world suddenly got so much smaller he'd been sure he was doing that: bringing people together, going out into the world to shoulder danger so people could live quietly behind the walls with their families.

They're not saying goodbye, he tells himself.

"You did. You gave us hope again."

Different from the kind Rick fostered, something delicate and bright where Rick's was bloody and grim. They needed one out on the road to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

They needed the other to know what to do without the road.

"Ask me one thing you've always wanted to know," she says abruptly. "Anything. I won't lie."

"When is the last time you were happy?" Here, back home, either or both. He just wants to know that she has experienced more than mere survival.

It's harder to answer than she'd like. She's someone who sinks her claws into the present and that means that she's found enjoyment in things like their spa dates or throwing flour around the kitchen at each other or shopping. Anything deeper than that she naturally shies away from because this, too, is armor.

She smiles, makes herself smile.

"The day we named Creekside." She thought for a moment there that maybe, maybe, they could all be alright.

"That was a really good day." He was happy then, too, satisfied with the work he'd done and was still doing, and just glad to be there with friends he is willing to fight for.

He doesn't care what the city says. It's theirs. It's already theirs. Sometimes you just have to take what you need, and he thinks the three of them need that space.

"Your turn. Ask me anything."

"What about you?" she asks, aware that it's a copout, but he picked a good question.

She wants to know, too, that any of the energy he puts out on a daily basis reached deeper than the surface.

"I'm happy here often. That day was one of the really good days. Knowing we could build something here, have somewhere we know what we're doing..." She's giving them that. "Recently? Being forgiven for running."

He didn't deserve to be let back into the contract, or back with K, so easily.

The corner of her mouth quirks. It still gives her heartburn, thinking of how vulnerable Jesus is to some of the people here, but she tries to remind herself that they're earning it.

"If we can do this - no more contracts. No more quota, no more bullshit." She has no idea how long the others will last, but she knows that she, Jesus, and Carver can go quite a long time on that alone.

"Just us." Surviving like they have for so long, but together. With their people. "It's going to be different, having a city so close by."

"It's going to be more dangerous for a while," she agrees. There are still cities back home. They just belong to the dead.

"Maybe we can fall back to one of the others if we need to. Insincerity, or Veracity."

"I want to explore them." He has for a while, but he's filled his days to the brim in Duplicity with people and three jobs and, lately, patrolling.

"Once they're not looking for any stragglers they missed," she cautions, even though Jesus knows that. She just needs to hear it out loud.

"We can't be anywhere they can find us until they've at least eased off their sweeps. Good thing we're going into spring. We have all year if we have to."

He nods. This can work. They're good at hiding; they can make it through.

"I'm going to go talk to K and Drake. You'll get Carver?"

She nods. Jesus already named anyone important enough to her - or that she suspects she's important enough to in turn - to risk this on, so she has no names to add to the list.

"I'll get Carver," she agrees. "I'll probably need to go meet him somewhere."

"Convincing people to go on the run is easier face to face." He knows this firsthand. He doesn't anticipate it will be hard with Carver, though. The man may already have a bugout plan of his own.

Rosita has her device in hand as she sips at her third drink, but she doesn't turn it on yet.

"He'll want Grayson and Vanessa to come."

He looks up sharp, something rare in his eyes, something very close to panic. He feels the knife in his chest, he feels the heat of the walker's breath on his neck.

"No."