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Kara’s on edge. Can’t sit still. Can’t think of anything except Silas. How she’ll pull his fingernails off with a pair of pliers and then take his eyes one by one before ending it with a bullet.

He doesn’t deserve a quick death. Kara isn’t a violent person despite everything she’s had to do. She finds no pleasure in torture, but some crimes are so horrific that the only way to pay penance is to suffer.

She assumed that Wade would need the closure of the kill. She’s more than willing to hand him the gun and stand back, but now she isn’t so sure. They aren’t on the same page anymore. In fact, she thinks they might be in different time zones and has no idea how that happened.

They made a plan back at the blue house to end Silas together, yet given that option, Wade is only pulling away.

Fear of his torturer could be keeping him from embracing this, or maybe it’s fear for her, for them , that has him hesitant.

It could be a huge mistake asking him to dive head first into this.

Who is she to dictate when and how he should confront the man who hurt him?

If it were reversed, she can’t imagine it would be simple.

He doesn’t want to talk about it, though, and so she forces herself to avoid the subject…for now.

“Walk the dog with me?” she asks, intent on getting him outside for some fresh air.

He agrees easily enough, eager to have something to do that doesn’t involve staring at each other in the kitchen. They use the leash Juliet brought with their lost puppy and head out into the neighborhood, braving the bright sun.

The dog’s idea of a walk is different from theirs. He takes a few steps only to stop and sniff a flower. Another three steps before licking the pavement. Four more and he’s distracted by a worm on the sidewalk.

“He ain’t that bright, is he?” Wade points to the puppy currently mesmerized by a butterfly.

“He was feral not long ago, don’t forget that. He’ll learn how to walk like a normal dog, eventually.”

“Or he’ll take five-hour walks the rest of his life.”

“Or that. In which case, I’m fine with going slow.”

As they make their way through the cobblestone streets, Wade grows agitated. Always looking for a threat and ready for a hit. Every nook and cranny could hold a possible monster and he’s on alert to fight them.

He’s trying, but this only highlights how wrong she was to expect him to go with her in search of Silas.

She’s overestimating his progress, only thinking of their moments together alone, and forgetting how quickly he falters in new situations.

A walk in a fenced community is enough to make him anxious.

She needs to be realistic or she could get him killed out there in a rushed quest for revenge.

“Can I ask you something?” he says.

“Of course.”

“When you think about leaving, going out there to see what’s left, is it…you know, long term? Or would you wanna stop eventually and settle down somewhere? Even come back here?”

She hadn’t expected the conversation to go this direction, but if he wants to think about the future, she’s happy to follow.

“I’m not sure. I don’t think I’d want to come back, but I’m not sure I’d want to travel forever either.

There has to be somewhere quiet and safe to just live off the land. Find chickens and maybe a cow…”

“A cow?”

“You don’t like cows?”

“Got nothing against cows. We could have some goats, too. Something for the dog to…chase, collect whatever.”

“Herd? You want sheep?”

He shrugs. “Why not? Wool for sweaters. You could knit me one.”

She laughs, imagining him in some ugly sweater she crafted herself. “I can’t knit.”

“We’d have time to learn.”

“I like the sound of this.” What she likes even more is how he automatically assumes the two of them would be doing all of this together.

What she actually replies with is self-deprecating and self-destructive instead, always eager to throw herself under the bus rather than accept what’s right in front of her and risk getting hurt.

“Anyway, you’ll get sick of me eventually, so maybe we pick side-by-side plots of land instead of the same one.

If we spend too much time together alone on some distant farm, pretty soon, my voice will sound like sandpaper. ”

“Who told you that?”

“What?”

He frowns. “That fucker on our doorstep every day?”

It had only been a light statement, but everything has a root.

This is no different. She shrugs, unwilling to admit that she is afraid he may leave eventually, like everyone else in her life has, right down to her father, who ate a bullet before she was thrown into foster care, because she wasn’t enough to make him stay.

It’s a ludicrous thing to take the blame for, but she has held onto it with a vice grip since the day it happened.

“I’m just hard to live with, that’s all. You know that.”

Some part of her worries that he may grow to have regrets. That once they finally settle down, he’ll realize she isn’t exactly significant other material. Never has been.

“We spent a lot of time together already and I’m not sick of you yet. Never felt that way the whole time we lived together growing up either,” he tells her gently. “Maybe you’ll get sick of me. Make me sleep in the pasture with the cows.”

He bumps her shoulder with his own, raising a teasing brow.

“That won’t happen.”

“Are you sure? It won’t be me and Bessie out there on the farm alone?”

“I’ll never get sick of you, Wade. If you’re sleeping with the cows, then I’ll be out there in the pasture with you.”

He goes quiet, chewing at the edge of his thumb in a tell that he’s trying to gather his thoughts. “It won’t always be like this, you know? I won’t be such a mess forever. I’ll get better, eventually. Used to think I couldn’t, but I can see it now. You won’t always be nursing me back to health.”

She hisses through her teeth, cutting him off. “What he said was so far from the truth. Jealousy makes people say terrible things. I’m the one you need to be listening to. When I tell you that you’re not a burden, that this isn’t just about me taking care of you….believe me.”

She hoped he wouldn’t take Luke’s words to heart. Wade is sensitive, and those are exactly the type of comments that would burrow deep.

“I wish we could go right now,” he says suddenly, and so tentatively that she wonders if he meant to say it aloud. “Leave. Make a beeline west and never look back.”

“Me too.”

“We could.”

“Wade…” she trails off, unable to voice how badly she wants to agree, or how impossible it seems. They can’t leave until Silas is dead. They could never move on until he pays for what he’s done.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. I know.”

And yet…she begins to have reservations.

It’s a struggle to push her own feelings aside, especially after trying for so long to cut the head off the demon, but this isn’t only about her.

It’s about Wade, and he’s telling her, the only way he can right now, that he’s changed his mind about needing revenge.

“Sorry,” he continues. “Said we weren’t gonna talk about it and then I brought it up.”

“It’s okay. We can. Tell me what you want.”

He takes a long moment before leveling her with a confused, defeated stare.

“I don’t know what I want when it comes to him.

Want more than one thing. Dunno how I feel.

I want him dead. I want to see him suffer like he made me suffer.

I want to make sure he can never hurt anyone else again.

And then, I want to forget he ever existed and focus on what’s left of my life before it’s too late.

Try to find what little happiness I can squeeze out of this apocalypse instead of letting him take even more time than he already has.

I can feel it, ya know? The possibility of a future that isn’t just fighting and killing.

I’m so fucking scared I’ll lose the chance of getting there.

So I dunno what I want. What do you want? ”

“To finish this walk, go home, and not think about Silas the rest of the night?”

It’s avoidance at its finest, something she’s always been an expert at.

“Alright.” His pinky finger brushes hers as they reach the end of the path and circle back.

She hooks her own around it, maintaining the smallest contact all the way to the house.

* * *

That night, after they’ve fallen asleep tangled together, he has the worst nightmare she’s seen yet.

It isn’t violent. He doesn’t attack her. It’s worse than that because he shuts her out so completely that she can’t reach him. None of her tricks work like they used to, and instead of finding comfort together, he only looks at her with fear.

She watches him scramble from the bed to slide down the wall in the corner of the room, his waking scream still rattling her bones. She half expects a knock at the door to make sure they haven’t been attacked, but nothing comes.

Kara wraps a blanket around her shoulders before joining him on the floor.

He doesn’t respond to his name. Doesn’t look her way. He is part of this corner now and it is a part of him, offering protection he won’t accept from her.

That’s alright, she’s good at carrying on a conversation by herself until he’s able to hear her.

She picks up their earlier musings about going west. Adds a few more animals to the fake pastures and twinkle lights to some non-existent porch on a non-existent farm they’ll find one day.

Tells him they’ll be able to bake pies somehow, she just knows it.

“I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life there with you,” she whispers. “Wherever that is.”

It’s then that he lifts his head, his bloodshot eyes meeting her own.

“Hey,” she says gently. “It’s cold. Warm up with me?”

He only nods, and she fans the blanket out like a cape, wrapping it around his bare shoulders to bring him into her cocoon. His head finds her lap, one arm curled around her knees while she warms him.