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"What happened to 'ya and the kid? Back in Maryland?"
The man sat across from Daryl Dixon stilled his actions, however miniscule they were. Cleaning out the chamber of a six-shot was hand work, a job for dexterous fingers and callouses that didn't mind thickening another layer. After a short moment, he continued his ministrations. His cracked knuckles and worn fingers worked to drag an oiled rag up and down the barrel until he saw the reflection of the sunset outside the shades, but even then, he didn't let up. Crosshairs of dying sunlight fixated themselves across his cold, chilly eyes, bathing them in a fiery hue that created a mixed kind of watercolor hue.
He pulled in a breath through his chapped lips and released it in a slow exhale that carried the weight of a near-invisible ton. "Told you already when we got back," he replied, tongue drawn out in a dialect native to far from where they were now.
From his perch on the coffee table across the table, Daryl eyed the other man from between a gap in his curtain of hair. His nose twitched. "Somethin' else happened, Rick," he rasped, the bolt he'd once been sharpening in his grasp now long forgotten. "Somethin' neither of 'ya won't tell an'one."
The other man met his gaze.
Rick Grimes was by no means a private individual. No one very well could be in their little crew - not when the lot of them had seen each other's souls sleeping on the hot tarmac in the summers and huddled so close they felt each other's breaths in the winters. Every one of them knew practically everything about one another.
But this - whatever this was, whatever had happened in Annapolis - was as a secret as to just how and why the world had crashed and burned so beautifully and violently as it had. Rick was clever in keeping his tongue when he wished to remain silent, and the kid was even better when it came to this little game they shared. It seemed the pair of them had always been just a touch closer, just a bit more relaxed when the other drew near. They'd come together when the world divided.
They knew how to keep secrets amongst themselves.
Rick took another breath, and this one seemed more loaded than the last, more weighed down with blocks of lead and blood that had long since dried in the sun. After what could have been hours or days or seconds, he tilted his head down and began to clean his revolver again. The glint of the sunset reflected off the worn steel.
"We were on our way back," he said, and Daryl didn't dare move even a nerve or a muscle, thinking that perhaps even his breath would backtrack him five steps. "Got jumped by this group." His fingers hitched, but only slightly. It would have taken a loyal, trained eye to spot it. "They took 'er. Planned on sellin' 'er across state lines with a few others." Another pause. "So I saved 'er."
The dark, stormy, choppy sea of Daryl's gaze followed Rick's hands as they turned the six-shot over in his grasp, inspecting the sights that had time and time again saved so many lives they had each lost count. He considered keeping his mouth shut. But then the words were spilling out, so used to being allowed to reign freely when in his friend's presence. "What'd 'ya do?"
