Chapter XXXVIII: The Distance

The storm had shaken something loose inside of me; relaxed the bonds between the two girls, one of logic and one of surrender; shifted into a relaxed, yielding state, wherein my brain could focus more clearly on the essential elements of my life now. Things had fallen into place - not a cure, by any means. Not a real solution. But there was now a law, rules. Acknowledge and tend to my wounds; eat what I had to; sleep when I could. And allow myself to feel - to feel anything I needed to, because I was alive. I wasn't the walking dead; I wasn't a corpse, void of emotion and purpose.

I was a girl who woke with a crick in her neck and straw in her hair, limbs gone dead and heavy from too much exertion. I was a girl who woke to the cool reprieve of relief, to a small kind of wisdom: things could get better.

Of course, things could also get monumentally worse, but for now, I could luxuriate in this raw hope, at least for a little while.

Suffice it to say, there was no breakfast, though my stomach ached. I stretched out on the ground, brushing away some of the hay I'd been laying on; it had left little sore spots all over my face, where I had pressed too firmly against it. Sleepily, I rubbed one hand over my cheeks, feeling the pits and valleys of the imprints, imagining just how fantastic I must look - and then my fingers traced a coating of dried drool just to the side of my mouth.

Wonderful.

"Hey." I glanced to my right, shoulder screaming with the effort. Several feet away, Daryl was perched on an old table, fiddling with the bolts on his crossbow. I'd woken once, maybe an hour or two before, long enough to smile at him, but then exhaustion had claimed me again and I'd rolled over and into forgotten dreams thick with regret. "You good?" he asked, eyes gliding up to meet mine through his long bangs.

Sleep had caught my legs in invisible sheets, tangling them up and tethering me to the floor as I stretched and yawned. My muscles were absolutely destroyed, shredded with the long, long days of walking, and the strain of digging my feet into the ground last night. I shifted my left leg, rubbing small, firm circles into the calf, and then did the same to my right. He watched, steadily.

It took me only a few steps to join him, and I was feeling bold that morning, a little more settled and sure, so I stood close enough that his knees, propped up, brushed my stomach. He didn't move away, didn't even twitch. Just met my eyes, blinking uncertainly. "Yeah," I said finally, now that I could answer honestly. "You?"

"Mmhm. Hold this." He pointed to the cocking rope on his bow. I'd spent enough time with him to know that the rope needed to be oriented correctly so he could use it to pull up and adjust the bolt within the bow, but his was old and well-used. It was tangled, somehow - probably during the chaos of the past few days. I tugged on one end gently, and he the other, trying to work out a knot in the middle with his fingers.

He fumbled for a full minute with no success. "Stop," I said quietly, brushing his hand out of the way and taking the rope in both of mine. "Your fingers are too damn big." Carefully, I worked the longer edge of my thumbnail under the edge of the knot, forcing a gap and thus loosening the tangle enough that I could simply pull the rope through. Fortunately for Daryl, I hadn't yet had time for an apocalypse manicure (read: chewing back my fingernails at least once a week). "Voila."

It was a small victory, but it was mine; a greater glow came from earning a faint smile, twitching at the corners of Daryl's mouth as he looked down at my hands, proffered cord now held slack between them.

A hundred quiet evenings crept between us as I handed over the rope and our fingers brushed. Sitting on the floor of our cell, handing a cigarette back and forth; the cool kiss of wine sweet on my lips; turning the pages of a book I was only half-immersed in. He had always been the most interesting thing in our cell. I'd watched him adjust the crossbow, fletch homemade bolts, stretch duct tape hopefully over all manner of tools. Ours was an uneasy kind of domesticity, both of us treading carefully around the broader implications of our close proximity, of the home we were carving out in concrete and shy silence.

Could we have that again? Not in this barn, of course, but somewhere else? Noah's subdivision had been a bust, but that didn't mean there wouldn't be other chances. And the further we got from the prison, from Terminus, from the aching memory of so much fucking loss - the lighter I felt. The storm had done something, I was certain of it. I felt like me again. Enough that I could feel a nicotine craving sparking at the back of my throat; hunger gnawing at my bones. Sensation and emotion and want colliding in the small space between Daryl and I, and for the briefest moment, my eyes met his, and I was sure he could tell. I was sure he knew. Everything I was feeling. Everything I wanted.

Another few inches forward, and I would be standing between his legs, close enough to touch his knees, cup my hands around them and lean in. It was a movie thing, wasn't it? I'd probably seen it in a rom-com a million years ago - the girl stepping close, hands trailing up his thighs. Leaning forward as his gaze shifted, breathing hitched.

Jesus, what the fuck was wrong with me?

I flushed, hoping he couldn't read all that in my eyes, or the new heat of my cheeks. This sense of desire was surprising, blooming - as it did - from nowhere. Of course, I'd wanted him for a while, but that was in the past, when wanting was a possibility. When I was a girl who could want, could desire.

On the road, life was need. It had to be that way. We needed to keep walking, keep moving, keep breathing. I'd needed to eat that awful chunk of meat. Needed to rest; to drink deep from the sky. But now, in the yawning aftermath of that fucking storm, things had shifted again. I knew the taste of want.

Want was a cigarette, twirled between his fingertips - it was wine and whisky and summer air; it was time, it was time with him. Guard duty. A supply run, my arms around his waist, even though my balance on the bike had improved and I just wanted to feel him against me. Want was a dream, a dream that hollowed me out and jolted me in the night, kicking me from the velvety confines of an unfulfilled fantasy, rudely thrusting me back into reality.

This was a dream, now. Outside, there was the road, and hunger, and worry. There were walkers out there, teeth to rend my vulnerable flesh - we would be back out there soon enough. I could dream a little longer. In dreams, there are few consequences, so, swallowing hard, I took a step forward. Daryl's knees parted for a second, yielding to my advance, and hope was a silky spirit on my tongue. Jesus, I knew we couldn't kiss here, I knew he wasn't ready for that, but I just wanted to be close, I just wanted, and he wanted it, too? Didn't he?

"D, I -"

"So you're scared of thunder, huh?" His voice was gruff. Weighted. I was forced to step back as he moved the bow, ensuring it was more prominently settled in his lap, leaving little room for me to be standing so close. It was a silent message, but one I could translate easily, after so long in his close company. The hand-holding the night before, our fingers brushing just a few minutes ago - he was spent. As much as I craved his touch, that was all he could give me.

And that was okay. A slow smile unfurled upon my lips as I tossed his joke around in my head, trying to think of a suitable response. This was our old humour, a light exchange of small barbs and gentle insults. Nothing to hurt, nothing to stick, just the easy comfort of two people who knew the others' shallowest vulnerabilities and how to exploit them. As for the deeper, darker wells of insecurity, we never, ever went there. Not even by mistake. And the fact that I'd cowered the night before because of some thunder and strong wind? Yeah, Daryl could dine out on that for a hell of a long time.

I opened my mouth, prepared to fire back a retort, to tug him into this old, familiar dance, but the creak of the barn doors striking through the relative silence of the space stole the laughter from my lips.

Anticipation crackled down my spine as I turned, hand stealing to the knife I'd been given at some point in the past few weeks - I couldn't even remember who had pressed it into my palm, only that it was there. If I needed it.

I wasn't aware that anyone had gone outside, but relaxed my stance when I realized that it was just Maggie, followed closely by Sasha. And a tall, slim man with wide eyes and clean clothes - a man whose presence sent a jolt of suspicion, of an old fear, streaking down my spine. Someone well-dressed? They had a place to stay. And people with a place to stay posed a threat, because they had numbers, and strength.

"Hey, everyone," Maggie said cautiously, stepping further into the barn, allowing Sasha and the new man to more fully join us. "This is Aaron."

Daryl sprang to his feet, pushing me back toward the table as he strode to the open doors, crossbow held aloft. Once he was satisfied the outside was clear, he turned his attention to Aaron, patting him down roughly while the rest of us simply stood and stared - stunned, exhausted. Afraid.

"We met him outside, he's by himself," Maggie rushed to explain. "We took his weapons and his gear."

The dusty warmth of the barn was rippling with tension, positively stretched taut with fear. Hands on weapons; eyes trained on the newcomer. I wondered how we must look to him. With exhaustion writ clear upon our faces, hunger in our eyes. Dirty and spent. Hollowed. But always ready to fight.

Swiftly, Tara and Rosita situated themselves in front of the closed barn doors. If Aaron tried to make a bid for freedom, or (stupidly) for more sinister designs, he had a handful of our best fighters far too close to him for anything bad to happen. Nothing bad would happen. Nothing bad at all.

I wanted to be next to Daryl.

The moment the thought entered my mind, I pushed it away. I couldn't think like that, I just couldn't. I'd come too far to turn coward now. Things had progressed to such a point that I understood quite clearly that, if worse came to absolute worst, I would need to be able to strike out on my own again, or at least adapt to the world on my own again. The risk of losing the people I cared so deeply about was sour milk in my stomach, but it was the truth. And standing alone, facing this (as far as I was concerned) low-level threat without reaching for Daryl - that was a fine damn start.

There's comfort, and there's codependency. Love is finding the balance between the two, I think.

"Hi," Aaron said slowly, interrupting my reflection.

Judith began to cry, the shrill whimpers bringing us all back to the present, to the real risk posed by this stranger. To what had happened before, the last time we'd trusted a man who'd come from nowhere.

"It's, uh, nice to meet you." Aaron took an uncertain step forward but Daryl was faster, hand shooting out to keep him there, where we could all see him.

I held my breath.

"You said he had a weapon?" Rick asked, hands on his waist, intent and bitter curiosity dripping through every word.

Maggie handed over a small gun, the make of which I couldn't make out from my distance. Rick gave it a brief once-over before tucking into his back pocket. "There something you need?" He looked back up at Aaron, levelling a steely glare at the visibly nervous man. A small burst of empathy flooded my veins; in another life, I would've stopped to talk to a man like Aaron. Asked him for help at a bar, like that time Chloe and I used fake IDs to get into a local band's show, and a man with creepy-crawly fingers had followed us around the dance floor, until a man and his wife (perhaps only a few years our senior, ironically) had made a big show of discovering their underage daughter and her friend at a nightclub "on a school night!"

I'd trusted that man instantly. Kind voice, good intentions brimming in his gaze. And strangely, frighteningly - there was an old flicker in my veins. Aaron was earnest, not persuasive. He hadn't tried to sell us anything yet, not like the Governor, or Gavin, or Joe. Maybe…

No, the girl on the inside said warningly. Wait for it - he hasn't spoken yet. They're all the same.

"He has a camp nearby," Sasha said evenly, as though unbothered by the entire situation. "He wants us to...audition for membership."

My eyes shot to Daryl's, ready to laugh. The mental image of a talent show, of him gutting a brave of squirrels on stage, immediately sprang to mind, and I wished for a minute we could pause the whole interrogation scene so I could whisper it in his ear, watch a smile he didn't want to indulge unfurl upon his face.

For his part, Aaron just winced. "I wish there was another word," he said. "'Audition' makes it sound like we're some kind of dance troupe. That's only on Friday nights." He grinned, but humour was in short supply in that particular barn. "Um, and it's not a camp," he corrected politely. "It's a community. I think you all would make valuable additions. But it's not my call. My job is to convince you all to follow me back home."

A community.

In case you're wondering, hope is summer on your tongue - that faint, distant tang of warmer days; the heady scent of grass and sun and saltwater on your skin, a perfume you never want to wash off. It simmered in me, in those moments, and I looked at Daryl again, lips trembling. If he were another kind of man, he would've seen what I needed in that moment, as that hope and that promise burst and bubbled within me, as my knees threatened to buckle with the tender weight of it all - I needed arms around me. A voice in my ear - "See? It's gonna be okay. I've got you."

A community.

I froze, breath coming ragged as I realized just what Aaron was proposing. We'd had a community once, with walls and purpose and a stupid fucking kitten poster on the wall. We'd had a home.

And it had been taken.

Was this a taunt? The universe allowing another horror to stroll into our midst, dangle hope in front of our faces and then yank it away in blood and ruin?

"I know." Aaron gave a small, sympathetic laugh. "If I were you, I wouldn't go either. Not until I knew exactly what I was getting into. Sasha, can you hand Rick my pack?" He gestured, and Sasha took a few steps forward, sliding the borrowed backpack from her shoulders and handing it over to Rick. "Front pocket, there's an envelope," Aaron explained. "There's no way I could convince you to come with me just by talking about our community; that's why I brought those."

Rick crouched, retrieved the pictures as promised. I didn't even bother trying to step closer; I didn't want to see, not yet. Not until I knew it was safe; until I knew it was real. "I apologize in advance for the picture quality," Aaron added earnestly. "We just found an old camera last -"

"Nobody gives a shit," Daryl said sharply.

Here was the real test, I thought inanely. Aaron's reaction to Daryl's gruff interjection would reveal a lot about the man stood before us. I watched and waited for any indication of dismay, irritation, but found none. Aaron merely turned to look at Daryl, bearing a calm expression. "You're absolutely, one-hundred percent right," he said.

Well, shit.

If there was ego, it would have flared into anger; if there was deceit, Aaron probably would've responded with over-ebullience. But instead, he gave us this: patience. Calm.

Daryl's eyes met mine over Aaron's head, as he began to gently prattle on about the photographs. I couldn't read anything in his gaze, and so took one step forward, wanting to talk, experiencing once again that funny little tug, that urge to be close to him - but he shook his head. Subtly. Not in warning, not in outright refusal. Just - stay.

"Each panel in that wall is a fifteen-foot high, twelve-foot wide slab of solid steel framed by cold-rolled steel beams and square tubing," Aaron explained eagerly, gesticulating smoothly with his hands to give us an idea of the scope of his promise. "Nothing alive or dead gets through that without our say-so."

Woodbury had had walls, too; sometimes the monsters were already inside.

"Like I said," he continued, as Rick stood and approached him slowly. "Security is obviously important. In fact, there's only one resource more critical to our community's survival. The people. Together, we're strong. You can make us even stronger. The next picture, you'll see inside the gates. Our community was first construc -"

A punch, square to his face, stole the rest of his words. I jumped back with the shock of it, Rick standing over him as though nothing had happened at all; Daryl crouched down closer to Aaron's face, then let loose a grunt, a growl - of frustration? Approval? What?

"So we're clear," Michonne said tersely. "That look wasn't a 'let's attack that man' look. It was a 'he seems like an okay guy to me' look."

"We've got to secure him," Rick said brusquely, brooking no argument as he strode back to join the larger group. Panic burst in the back of my throat, sickly sweet. "Dump his pack. Let's see what this guy really is."

In the cracks between our collective, waning resolve, a plan bloomed. Aaron had promised us a home; Rick resisted, treading cautiously back and forth over the wide span of doubt and lingering memory, remembering Terminus. Woodbury. What we had lost, when we trusted too soon. Who we had lost, when we assumed there were only two sides in the world anymore: the living and the dead.

Under the autumn sun, I sat with Daryl in a small copse of trees. He had his crossbow out at the ready, prepared for an enemy onslaught. But Aaron had promised; there was only one other. A friend. A friend with a smile just as warm, I imagined. A friend with hope trimming the edges of his every word.

"What do you think?" he asked gruffly, with no preamble.

Aaron had offered to drive us there, to the community, right up to those impenetrable steel walls. At Daryl's question, I found myself whirling through visions of a house, of a bed, of a bath. Elements of humanity that were beginning to slip from my awareness, from my mind. Limbs gliding through warm, clean water; a belly full of hot food. An afternoon of listless ennui, nothing to do and nowhere to go - nothing to run from.

I shook my head. "What do you think? Should we trust him?"

He loosened his grip on the bow, releasing it to just one hand so he could chew nervously on the thumb of his free hand. "Dunno. Rick's right to be cautious."

"Yeah, but -"

"Think about Terminus," he said softly, watching an involuntary shudder thrum through my arms. "They told us shit was golden there, too."

Fear and hope battled for purchase in my mind, a tug of war between the girl on the outside and the girl on the inside. Logic and love. Not for the first time in our friendship, I wished that Daryl would be the type of guy to know when I needed to be touched, to be anchored to the moment by the physical reality of someone else's care. He had touched me the night before - or rather, he hadn't pulled away from my touch.

My fingers twitched on the edge of a gamble - if I reached for him now, would he tug me closer? Pat my shoulder? Squeeze me, even for a moment? Or would he jerk away, stomp off? Remind me once again that my affection for him simmered far warmer than his did for mine?

"But it's a home," I whispered, hiding my words in the rush of the wind. "We could have a home, D. Don't you want that?"

He looked at me then. Fully looked at me. Sharp eyes boring into mine, freezing me into a moment so tangible, his gaze was a touch. Lingering on my skin, soft as a gentle hand, curving over the filthy, sweaty expanse of me. "I don't wanna lose nobody else, Riley," he said. My name was feather-light in his mouth. "I brought you to Terminus. And you coulda...we almost…"

"Hey." I reached out one hand, brushed my fingers against his bicep. "I didn't. We thought we were making a good choice, but we weren't cautious enough. I'm not saying we need to go skipping down the road with this guy hand-in-hand into the sunset. I'm just saying...oh, fuck, I don't know."

I shifted, drew my knees up to my chest, tucked my arms around them. "I'm scared. Of both choices. If we stay, keep on the road, we're going to die. I know it. But...going with him. It could be bad, too. Maybe if we just hear him out more? Ask more questions? Do you want a home? A community?"

Still, he resisted giving me a clear answer. "What do you want?"

"I want a home," I said honestly. "I want to forget the bad stuff. Try living again, make friends. Find myself...af-after what I did…"

"Stop." He dropped the bow. Touched the rise of my knee. God, my jeans were filthy. I watched one finger stroke the curve of it. It was one of the tenderest gestures I'd ever been in receipt of, and certainly the most chaste - but his skin left fire in his wake, even through the dirt-encrusted denim. "Stop," he repeated, gently. "You did what you had to do. You saved yourself. I...I...you did the right thing, girl. Don't do that."

Don't do that. I'd said same thing to him the night before, his burned hand in mine. That manifestation of his pain - guilt, grief, and God knew what else - branded onto his skin. "I k-ki -"

"You did what you had to do."

"Well, every time I've done this, I've behind the wheel driving recruits back. I believe you're good people." Bound and beaten, Aaron's voice was still even, smooth. Logical. "I've bet my life on it. I'm just not ready to bet my friends' lives just yet."

"You're not driving," Michonne countered briskly. "So if you want to get home, you'll have to tell us how."

Rick squatted, map spread out before him, studying the snaking, intersecting rainbow of roads and highways. Familiarity prodded at my mind, at the edges of who I had been. The memories were murky, but they were there, jostled to flourishing by the numbers traded back and forth. Back and forth.

Aaron wanted route 16; he would tell us the rest when we reached the next point. But there was another possibility, a potential detour. I stooped to point one finger down at a red, curving line. "How about 23 north?" I suggested quietly. "It runs along generally the same route as the 16, but it's a secondary. Where exactly are we headed?"

Beside me, Daryl stiffened; Rick's eyes flicked up to meet mine, surprise evident. I hadn't said a word to anyone besides Daryl in days, let alone spoken up too clearly among the group. "Are you" - I turned to look at Aaron - "familiar with the area?" he asked, friendly smile firmly in place.

I weighed my answer. Yes. I'd been to this particular area as a child, but was a long time ago. Eons, really. Those memories involved my father and I didn't want to bring them up right now. So I just nodded. "Um, yeah," I said, pushing away my dad's face, looking at Aaron's instead. "A little. I spent time here when I was growing up, off and on quite a bit."

Daryl's eyes widened, just briefly, and I wondered why. What had he been expecting? Further north? New York City? He knew I wasn't from Georgia (that had been evident the first time I'd opened my mouth), but I'd never given him a hometown, a state. Just north. Northeast. And even that was an argument - some people thought it was the beginning of the Midwest. But my vague references to home and the life I'd lived before the end were more about self-protection than privacy, but this little tidbit seemed to fascinate him, just for a second.

"Okay," Aaron said, drawing my attention back to him. "But listen -"

"We'll take 23 north," Rick interjected. "You'll give us directions from there."

Aaron glanced at me, a plea for sanity neatly composed in his gaze. "That's...I don't know how else to say it...that's a bad idea. We've cleared 16. It'll be faster."

Rick just shook his head. Sealed our fate. "We'll take 23. We leave at sundown."

Hope burst in my soul, and the fear slid from my skin, deep stains washed clean.

"How'd you know that, about the road?"

"Been here before. There was this museum - like a living history museum - not too far from here. My dad and I used to go sometimes. I liked watching the blacksmith work. I love that smell. Burnt fire."

"All fire's burnt, girl."

"Shut up. Let me poeticize. I don't know if you've picked up on this yet, Dixon, but I'm kinda smart."

"Yeah, you are. You, uh, you sound better, too."

"I know - I know I've been, uh, off. It's just...since everything in Georgia, things have felt a little weird...inside my head."

"When I-I saw what he was fucking doin' to you...I wanted to kill him. Rip him apart. But you took care of yourself. You didn't need me. And that's good. That's why you don't have to feel guilty. Okay?"

"I know, D. I know. Jesus, when I looked over, saw you down on the ground, when they were beating the shit out of you, I almost - I almost lost my mind. I think I did."

"You did what you had to do. Wish you didn't have to, but you did good. You did, girl."

"Thanks, Dixon."

After the crash, after the herd, I tasted regret. I'd encouraged the 23, encouraged the idea of maintaining some small hold on a slim vestige of control. I'd tempted Rick to it, and then I'd been forced to watch them careen out of the way of an oncoming herd, my fingers gripping tight to Daryl's. "Oh, shit, oh, fuck," I whimpered.

Yes - whimpered.

Guilt slipped and slithered in my veins and I wished I'd never spoken. Wished I'd listened to Aaron.

"It was Rick's idea, too," Sasha said, voice soothing and rainwater-cool in my ear. "Calm down. We'll figure it out."

Time crept forward then, in strange increments once more. Numbly, I took stock of alterations in my own environment, in the faces around me. Eric, the man Aaron had told us about, the one from the community, seemed nice enough. In another life, we might have been friends. But the longer Rick's absence went on, the more distant I grew, retreating to the contemplative but panicked silence I had worn for weeks, on the road from Atlanta.

But as we drove, then walked, and then waited, the uneasy calm and hope I'd known only a few hours before seemed to dissipate, soured and discouraged by a hasty sense of guilt. A herd had been waiting on 23, a herd that diverted our journey and caused us to separate from Rick, Aaron, Glenn, and Michonne in the lead car.

I sat under a pale moon, watching Daryl pace. Registering with faint shock the fact that I'd just been in an RV. I hadn't had to walk a long, dusty road. I had slept properly for the first time in weeks, shared a can of corn with Daryl. There was food in my stomach, and for a while there had been something easier than despair in my veins. Now, though, I was right back where I started.

Until Rick wrapped me in his arms. Until I sobbed an apology into his chest, and he released me with two hands cupping my jaw, making sure I could see him, making sure I understood. There was no blame there, no fear. Just eyes bright with relief, with absolution. "Wasn't your fault," he said. "Don't ever blame yourself for someone else's decision."

I slept that night curled into Michonne. A comma of small, flickering will.

Eric was more than Aaron's neighbour, and that gentle reminder of love and commitment in times such as ours, from someone other than Glenn and Maggie, just seemed to make Alexandria - our destination - more appealing. I sat with Eric for a little while; he'd broken his ankle waiting for us - gotten overwhelmed by a small pack of walkers, ended up crawling under a rusty old car to wait it out, and when they'd jostled and pushed at the vehicle, a tire had rolled onto his foot.

But he was nice.

Soft-spoken, and I found him soothing. He asked me questions about Georgia, about our group, but I just shook my head. Wrapped my arms around myself and smiled to reply. When he drifted off to sleep, Aaron came back in, having had a lengthy discussion with Abraham and Rick about our route. Wiggling and tipsy because of the movement of the RV, I fairly stumbled into Daryl, but managed to slide my way down the front of the cupboard again. Together, we filled the galley kitchen.

I didn't want to watch the trees and fields rush by. Not like the others. Hope and fear, joy and guilt - my mind was a writhing, twisting mass of warring emotions, and I was exhausted by them. Journeying through my own distant history on top of that? That probably would've killed me.

"You good?"

Eyes fixed resolutely on mine, Daryl nudged my foot with the toe of his boot. He knew I was slipping; knew how easy it would be for me to nestle back into silence, to detachment. How the fuck had it been only twenty-four hours since I'd woken up after the storm, suddenly brimming with physical want for him, and now I was so numb, so torn?

He'd told me it wasn't my fault. But I had killed someone, I had bartered in blood for my own life and the thought sickened me still, even weeks on. Maybe because it was a….a transition. Such a violent traversing of a basic divide. Kill or be killed.

I had lived in the world as it was now for a long time before doing what I had done. Daryl had more blood on his hands than I did, and I loved him still. But I was sick, sick with rue and horror; it had embedded itself deep in my bones, so that the very second I started to feel something more than hunger, or pain, or guilt - it would surge up within me.

The day before, I had imagined running my hands up the length of Daryl's thighs, leaning in close enough for a kiss.

The day before, Aaron had come and offered us a new world, a new home, a better life.

And now, two nights in a row, I had slept within the safety of roofed buildings.

The person I cared about most - in the entire fucking universe - had offered me forgiveness, in so many words told me he was proud.

And yet, there I sat. Afraid that I would wear what I had done like a brand, like Hester Prynne's scarlet A. M for murderer. K for killer.

"There it is," Carol said, voice soft with wonder. She pointed, and I followed the length of her arm to the broad front window of the RV, where indeed, the elegant - if ravaged - skyline of Washington DC had come into view. I couldn't see it well enough, only a few of the buildings. I craned my neck slightly, and felt a tap on my leg.

"Get up. Look." Daryl grabbed my hand, pushed me up. When I wobbled on my feet, he gripped my legs, and for a full sixty seconds, I took it in. Sanctuary unfurling on the horizon; faint, hesitant love pushing his fingers against my body. Or so I hoped.

While Glenn and Abraham worked on the RV, and Daryl kept watch, I made excuses to Michonne and retreated to the confines of the woods lining the road. On pretence of having to pee, I bought myself a few minutes' reprieve, a small sliver of calm and privacy.

Privacy. When was the last time I'd had that? At the little house, certainly. But even then, Peach's presence was a constant annoyance.

Before that?

Back at the prison, when Daryl had had council meetings, I'd close the curtain on our cell door and stretch out on my bunk. Maybe hide under the covers. Sometimes I'd read, sometimes I'd sleep - most times I would drink.

Now, I sat alone against the base of a sizeable oak tree, sun dappling my skin so tenderly and wholly I imagined it to be a new body I wore. Shimmering with sunlight.

It wasn't just the man. Brandy was on my mind, too. Beth. Julia, Levi. All those kids. Then further back - Andrea. Dale. Jim and Amy. Loose threads of loss, catching on me when I least expected. They stung, each and every one. Even if I could not claim the blame for each one, I felt...what was it?

I felt guilty for being alive.

Guilty for not appreciating it more. For not doing more with it. I'd lived through the end of the world; through the herd and fire at the farm; the attack on the prison; the shitstorm at Terminus. I'd lived through the flu, felt it hurtle through my body and then leave, just as quickly as it had come. I was a survivor, yes, but I was a goddamn ungrateful one.

I luxuriated in guilt, in feeling so damn sorry for myself. Daryl was right; I'd done what I had to do. That man had crawled on top of me and pressed me into the ground, wrapped his hands around my throat and fully intended to squeeze the life from me. I had fought back. I had survived.

And what did I have to show for it? A craven need for forgiveness; fleeting touches and tenderness towards the person I wanted most. And when hope did come, I found a way to quash it, to bury it beneath more fear, more panic.

I went further back. Chloe, RJ, Jill and Rhiannon. My family. My family - was that the problem now? That we were driving on roads my dad and I had once gone down, in search of small adventures? Is it that Virginia was so much more than a place on a map - not a place I had lived, per se, but a place where I had been alive?

A child. I'd been a child. And then I'd grown up and died. Reborn in a bloody tent, reborn on the road, reborn at the bottom of a well - over and over again, I woke to new conditions, new faces, new challenges and I had to find a way to mould myself in the rising. Could I do it again? Let go of that girl - inside, outside, who gives a shit? - laying in the dirt, hands wrapped tight around her throat? Let her die.

And rise up again, to a new challenge, a new world? Bury her in Georgia, just as I'd buried so many other versions of myself. Define myself in new words, introduce myself in new ways. Try again. Daryl, Rick, Michonne, and Carl knew what I had done. I knew. But Aaron didn't. Abraham, Rosita, Eugene, Tara - they didn't know. Neither did Noah. It could be a secret for a dead girl.

Cut the threads. Cut the loose threads of what had been, leave them in the dust. Mourn your dead, Riley, but keep them buried. Claw your way from the grave.

A cheer drew me back to the group; a sudden burst of clapping and audible relief, floating through the treeline to me. Just about a foot from the edge of the woods, Daryl appeared, face drawn tight with worry. "You good? I saw you go but -"

"I'm fine," I said warmly, chancing a squeeze to his arm. "Had to, you know, go."

My cheeks were stained with dried tears; I knew he could see them. I knew he could sense the slight tremor in my hand as I touched him. Daryl could read the sky and the trees, stories in broken blades of grass, scattered streams of leaves - a person's face was no mystery to him, especially when it was as familiar as mine. But I didn't need anything from him in that moment, beyond a quick expression of concern, a reminder that someone cared. If I had nothing else, I would have him.

"Wake up, girl." I shuddered from empty dreams, long hallways with locked doors and cool marble walls. A mausoleum; I left it happily.

Daryl shook my shoulder again, until I managed to blink awake, the sunlight of the late afternoon creeping in through the windows of the RV and painting the space inside a pale, golden yellow. "We're here," he said needlessly, gesturing to the high, safe walls ahead of us, just beyond the glass.

Alexandria.

Home?

I stepped gingerly from the RV, legs still jellied with sleep. And anxiety. My fun little epiphany in the woods had purged so much from me - but new places always give birth to nerves, right? New school, new town, new people - you worry you won't be enough, or that you will be too much.

Stupidly, I found myself smoothing down my hair, adjusting the clothes that I would (I hoped) have to burn soon. Adjusting the little details of my existence so as to look the most presentable. "Hi, I'm Riley - I've killed someone, smell like death itself, and I'm really good at making lists" - that wasn't going to go over too well, but it was all I had to recommend myself.

Take me as I am, I pleaded. Don't ask for more.

The walls rose tall and strident before us. Great swathes of steel, reaching towards the sky. Taller than the prison fences had been; far, far stronger. There would be no need to shove sharpened broom handles and lengths of rebar through these walls; they would keep out the dead just fine on their own.

It was like seeing a goddamn cathedral. They seemed almost sanctified, in their height and security. Like paradise lay beyond.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

Daryl looked at me, stopped for a minute to brush one hand against my wrist, enough to pause my timid advance. "I'm good," I said quietly, a smile in my eyes. "I'm good, D."

With a nod, he let me go.

It felt right to wait at the gaits alone, but in company. Not clinging to anyone; not wrapped around anyone or leaning against anyone. Just me. Caught in a moment of personal renaissance, as I offered myself. Not Riley of the college, the road, the quarry, the prison, the woods - just me. Me with my lists. My reading. My love. My acceptance. My fear. My anxiety. My hope. That was all I could give, all I could bring to the gates of Alexandria, and standing there, as Aaron convinced a man named Nicholas to let us in, as Daryl fired a last wild shot at a nearby possum, as Sasha killed a walker just before the gates closed, as memory tugged at my heartstrings with the familiarity of orderly streets, sidewalks and tidy lawns - I gave myself to it. To Alexandria.

Questions bloomed around me - "Who's Deanna;" "How many weapons do you have; "Where did you come from;" but the one that made me freeze and sing and want to scream all at once; the one that thrummed through me as an electric hope, was the light, simple question of my name, from the mouth of a ghost.

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