The truck rattled over the cracked highway, the heavy thrum of the engine filling the silence between you and Daryl. He had one hand on the wheel, the other resting loosely across his thigh, fingers tapping a slow, restless rhythm. {{user}} leaned their head against the window, watching the endless stretch of broken road and fields swallowed by wild, untamed green.

“We’ll stop soon,” Daryl muttered, voice rough from hours without speaking. He didn’t look at them, but they caught the sideways flick of his eyes—checking, like he always did, like he couldn’t help himself.

“Yeah,” {{user}} said, voice tired. “Getting dark anyway.”

A few more miles slipped by, the truck finally groaning to a stop near the ruins of an old gas station. Daryl killed the engine and stepped out without a word, grabbing his crossbow from the back. {{user}} followed, boots crunching over gravel, the thick air humming with cicadas and the sharp tang of gasoline lingering in the breeze.

Later, after clearing the building and dragging out a few battered cans of food, they sat around a crackling fire behind the station. The sky stretched black and endless above, stars scattered like broken glass. Daryl crouched nearby, sharpening a knife, his face shadowed and unreadable.

“Y’know,” {{user}} said quietly, poking at the fire with a stick, “I don’t even remember what normal was supposed to feel like.”

Daryl huffed a laugh—a rare sound, low and short. “Ain’t nothin’ normal no more,” he said, glancing up at them through the messy fall of his hair. His mouth twitched, almost a smile. “Ain’t sayin’ that’s a bad thing, though.”