Her smile lodges a complaint in Daryl's throat, and he takes a moment to smell the earth, feel the breeze, and forget about choking.

"Yeah," he says, "I'll kill 'em for Carol. That shit always makes her-..." He raises one hand, wiggling it a little. Shaky, he means, but saying it aloud feels like a betrayal. If Maggie's read his letters, she knows her boy died; there's no point in bringing up the tangled spectres of their shared pasts. Half the time, it feels written on their foreheads.