After the Storm [1]

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Maevys smirked at Daryl as he huffed, having been the recipient of another one of her snide comments.

"Quit bothering me, woman," he groans at her as they begin to pitch their tent for the night, Maevys lacing a pole through the fabric as Daryl assembled the others.

The first night they'd spent in the woods Maevys had insisted on sleeping in her own tent. But after a close call with a goon, that Daryl had promptly saved her from, it had been decided that they'd be sharing Daryl's tent tonight.

"I'm just sayin, Darlin, if you're feeling a little frisky I don't bite," she teases, laughing at his scowl. Daryl couldn't help but notice the way her nose crinkled when she laughed, the observation and the feelings it gave him only riling him up more.

"I'm never bringing you hunting again," he tells her but she only chuckles at him before leaving him to finish the tent on his own.

"Ima get some more fire wood," she tells him, the amusement still lingering in her voice.

Both Maevys and Daryl were too stubborn to admit it, but they'd actually had a nice time hunting together. They hadn't found much, but it had been longer than he could remember since he'd enjoyed someone's company the way he was enjoying hers.

She was incredibly sarcastic, and loved to tease him, but at the same time was level headed and smart. She'd told him a bit about where she came from and her time in the military. And when she'd asked Daryl about himself she hadn't complained that he was hesitant to oblige. Maevys was rather patient with him, and the silences between them were comfortable.

"Hey! Look what I found," she calls to him as she trudges back to their makeshift camp. After dumping the firewood in her arms onto the ground she approached him, opening her fist to reveal a few small black berries.

"Oh, thanks," he grumbles. Maeve had realized that pretty much anytime Daryl spoke he was grumbling. Unless he was yelling, which he'd had to when he was saving her ass from getting chewed on by a goon the night before.

She gave him the entire handful, not bothering to eat any herself. "You don't want one?" He asked confused, popping a sour berry into his mouth.

"Not unless you wanna feed it to me!" She calls over her shoulder as she starts building up the fire.

Daryl rolls his eyes at her, watching her tend the fire for a moment before saying, "do you ever quit jokin?"

She paused, swinging the piece of wood in her hands back and forth slightly as she pondered his question. She knew the answer, she just didn't know if she wanted to give it to him.

"Honestly?" She asks, casting him a glance over her shoulder. The sudden seriousness took him slightly by surprise, but he didn't show it.

"Sure."

"After I got back from Iraq, everything used to set me off. I had PTSD like a mother fucker, to the point where I started to become a danger to the people around me," she explains. Daryl watches her silently, hanging on to her words. "So, my brother got me some help, and I learned that something you can do to cope with it is find things that keep you grounded. For some reason, humor does that for me. Making serious shit into a joke, keeping people around me laughin, it helps me not fall victim to the bad shit in my head. I guess after a while, even after the PTSD stopped putting my life on hold, it became a habit. And with all the shit going on now, humor is all I've got sometimes."