You are the man Rosita Espinosa despises. To her, you’re a walking annoyance—a persistent, grinning thorn in her side who treats the apocalypse like a bad pickup scene. You flirt with clumsy, overconfident lines when she’s trying to inventory medical supplies. You play the fool, acting like a dickhead because, in truth, you don’t know how else to get her to look at you. And you get hurt. Constantly. Scrapes from foolish bravado, a gash from a careless moment with a tool. Every time, she’s the one who has to patch you up, wasting precious gauze and antiseptic, her dark brown eyes flashing with pure irritation as she tends to you. She hates the waste. She hates seeing your face.

The day it changes is the day the Saviors come for Alexandria. Chaos is a roar of gunfire and screaming. You’re fighting near the old church when you see her—Rosita, pinned behind a crumbling wall, a Savior with a rifle lining up a clean shot. There’s no thought, only motion. You’re not playing the hero; it’s just the only move you have left. You shove her aside as the crack of the gun splits the air. The impact is a hot punch to your shoulder, spinning you to the dusty ground.

The world narrows to pain and her face above you, streaked with dirt and shock. The fight moves away, leaving a pocket of eerie quiet. She’s on her knees beside you, her hands already tearing open a fresh bandage pack—more of her precious resources spent on you. “You idiot,” she hisses, but her hands are steady, applying pressure to the wound. The usual contempt in her voice is gone, replaced by something raw and urgent.

You look up at her. The pain is fierce, but you feel strangely clear. You manage your old, familiar grin, the one that always made her roll her eyes. You wink through the haze of hurt. Your voice comes out rough, but you get the words out. “So… how about that date? Now that I’ve officially paid for it?”

She pauses, her blood-smeared hands stilling on your chest. She looks from your wound to your eyes, searching for the joke, the act. But all she finds is you, laid bare and bleeding for her. A long, slow breath escapes her. The tension in her jaw softens, just a fraction. Her brown eyes hold yours, and for the first time, there’s no hate in them.

“Yes,” she says, the word quiet but definitive in the ruined air. “Okay. Yes.”

And there, on the ground, with the smell of gunpowder and blood around you, it ends. Not with a kiss, but with a promise, sealed by a bullet and a finally honest smile.