In the Morning

Tara woke to find Abraham fast asleep and drooling. The sun was just coming up above the trees. The air was clear and crisp. She always thought the mornings had something special about them. Back at police academy, she wouldn't mind waking up at the crack of dawn for PT. Sure, sometimes it was cold and sleep was always nice but all that didn't matter here. Life was simpler in a way. Just the good and the bad. She tried not to think about where she fit into that.

She looked around their hastily set up camp. It was just a circle of bags, a burnt out fire, and noise makers. Suddenly the snap of a twig. She whipped her head around at the sound.

Glenn. He sat down next to a musty looking tree and faced the sunrise. Tara looked around. It seemed safe.

She went and took a seat next to him. Neither of them made a sound.

The sun came up slowly. It took its time climbing over the treetops, ray by ray reaching higher into the sky. There was some sort of beauty about it. "Wish I could take a picture sometimes," Glenn muttered quietly. "Scenes like this."

"Is that how you got that picture of your wife?" Tara asked. Glenn frowned a little. "Oh God, sorry. I didn't mean to, you know… I didn't mean anything."

"Don't worry about it."

Tara looked at his face, which warped into something between hope and misery. "It's just you don't talk about her too much," Tara explained.

"What's there to talk about?" Glenn said.

"Everything! Come on, she's your wife. And she looks really hot." The teenage girl in Tara came out whenever there was a love story. She always liked a good fairy tale. Glenn cracked a smile.

"Yeah, okay."

"So? What do you like most about her?"

"Is this an interview?"

"You know it."

"Alright, fine. You can't ask me what I like most about her though. That's a bad question."

"No you're not going to give me a sappy-ass answer like, 'I can't pick just one thing, it's too hard, blah, blah blah'. I want to know. Her eyes? Her hair? Her boobs?" Tara swore Glenn blushed at that last one. She was glad he still had something happy in him.

"Okay, fine."

"Oh man, please don't say it's her boobs. I mean, I'm sure they're great but seriously?"

"I was going to say her smile."

"That's a better answer."

"The way the edges of her mouth just turn up. And the creases around her eyes when she smiles. And when she gets all smug she does this smile where her mouth is just open enough to see the top of her teeth and she just looks so...so beautiful. And happy."

Both of them didn't say anything for a while. Tara figured she'd let Glenn bask in his memories. She could see it in his eyes. Maggie was with him. Right in front of him so he could touch her. It was the first time Tara had ever seen Glenn peaceful.

It was Glenn who broke the silence.

"There was this one time I was coming back from some guard duty. No big deal or anything. But she didn't know I'd be up there for the whole day. When I get back it's already dark and she's already asleep. I wake up the next morning and she's there, smiling like she hasn't seen me in ten years. I remember thinking, 'This is the most beautiful person I've ever seen in my life'. I thought I was in paradise. And it took this stupid apocalypse for me to get there."

"You two weren't together before?" Glenn shook his head. "So there's hope."

"Definitely."

"Wow. How does one score a lady like that in a shit show like this?"

"Luck? Fate? Maybe it doesn't matter."

"What does she think?"

"I don't know. We can ask her when we find her."

With that, Tara felt another pang of guilt. She couldn't help it after being a part of the Governor's attack. Ripping apart so many people's lives. But she was a good person. She knew that. And she would help Glenn get back to his wife. They both deserved it.