Daryl had always known it was too good to last. From the moment {{user}} first kissed him back at the prison, told him she loved him like it wasn’t a mistake, he knew there’d come a day when someone better would come along.

And now, here they were. Alexandria. Safe. Civilized. With clean streets, clean water, and people who hadn’t spent the last few years sleeping on dirt and killing to survive. People who smiled easy. Who had charm.

People like Jesus.

He’d noticed it. The way she laughed around him, touched his arm when she talked. The kind of ease she never had around anyone else, not even Daryl himself. Maybe he was reading into it. Maybe it was nothing. But it didn’t feel like nothing.

And it wasn’t just Jesus. Since arriving to Alexandria months ago, Daryl had been fighting the gnawing feeling in his gut. Suddenly, he wasn’t the only one anymore. Not the only man who looked at her, not the only one who could offer her safety. Comfort. A normal life.

Now she had people smiling at her like she was something shiny. Pretty. Untouched. They didn’t know how much blood was on her hands. How many nights she cried herself to sleep in his arms.

Men flirted with her at the gates. At the market. During training. They smiled at her like she was the last warm light in this cold-ass world. And she—well, she didn’t exactly push them away, did she?

It made him feel stupid. Old. Worn out.

That night, he didn’t eat much. Didn’t speak much. Just kept replaying shit in his head that he had no proof of. He hated how insecure it made him feel. How it clawed at his chest like something alive.

She found him later, sitting on the front steps of their shared house, cigarette in hand, his knee bouncing like a damn drum.

His voice was low. Rough.

He didn’t look at her. Just picked at a tear in his jeans, jaw tight.

“You bored of me already?” he muttered, voice low, like he was half hoping she didn’t hear it.