Daryl was in the process of skinning a rabbit in the snow when he heard footsteps coming up to his camp.
"Hey, you decent?" Sophia yelled.
"Yeah." He answered. She'd come up once with him not having his shirt on and since then she'd always made her presence known. Daryl didn't understand why it made her uncomfortable, but he wasn't going to bother her about it either.
"I brought a friend." She said as she walked into view and Daryl stood seeing the man that was with her. "He showed up at The Kingdom a few days ago."
"Romeo." Daryl greeted him.
"Hey." The man smiled back. Daryl noticed he looked a little rough, but being on the road could do that to someone. The man awkwardly looked around, "So I hear Angel left."
"Yeah." Was all he responded.
"Sophia told me what happened." Romeo stepped towards him, "I know it's winter, but I'm also ninety percent sure I know where she's at."
"What do you mean?" Daryl was now very interested in the man being there.
"When she got done with a tour, she always would spend a week or two in her grandfathers cabin. If she's not there, she's probably at their house."
"You know how to get there?" He knew she'd left for a reason, but it'd been six months and he was more worried about her than he'd ever been. Even if he just saw her at her grandparents house, he would feel better just knowing she was alive.
"It'll be harsh this time of year, but yeah. I know where it's at."
Daryl grabbed his bow in half a second, "Let's go."
"I'm coming too." Sophia walked behind them.
"No, your-" Daryl started but she stopped him.
"My mom already knows. I'm coming with you guys." She spoke with a stern voice.
"Holy shit, you really have turned into Angel." Romeo laughed which made the girl smile.
"Alright, let's go." Daryl was fine with Sophia coming as long as Carol was aware, he also knew it might help convince Angel to come home when they find her.
"You need to put your shoulder into it more." Her uncle watched as she tried to chop down a tree.
"Shut up." Angel huffed as she swung the axe again, "It's not my fault Mom and Dad put Aiden in baseball and not me."
"You hated going to his games." Will laughed.
"Yeah, because they were boring." She handed him the axe, "Finish it."
"Alright." He smiled taking it from her, "What are you planning on doing when winters over?"
"What do you mean?" She asked him.
"I normally go back across the lake once it warms up a bit, if you're not planning on going back to your husband, you're welcome to come with me." He told her as he hacked at the tree more successfully than she did.
"It's been at least half a year…can I even go back at this point?" She sighed.
He hit the tree again and spoke through gritted teeth as he tried to unwedge it, "You take after your dad, you know that?"
"What?" This time she laughed.
"He was horrible at communicating. Even if it was just to say, 'I don't know what's wrong', he couldn't do it. Instead, he let it fester. Almost ruined their marriage." Her uncle hit the tree again and as it started to fall, he stepped away from it, moving her back as well. "You see Ang, what you have to realize is that love isn't what makes relationships work. Relationships only work when both parties understand and communicate the terms of the relationship." The tree crashed to the ground and he motioned for her to start helping him saw off the smaller branches, "You have very valid traumas, but if you can't talk about them with the most important person in your life and instead keep running away and avoiding them, it'll ruin things beyond repair which will just add to the issues your already having."
"What if they're already damaged beyond repair though?" She felt like after this long, they might be despite how much she wanted to see Daryl.
"Then that's something you'll have to process when you get to it." He threw branches to the side, "But you'll never know unless you talk to him. You need to be more open with him. Constantly. Not just at the end when you break and end up doing something rash. All of the things you've been feeling are valid, but how you handle them isn't. Your mental health isn't your fault, but it is your responsibility."
She'd always hated hearing stuff like that. Mostly because it was the truth, but also just because it was hard to hear. For so long she thought she was okay, that despite everything from the war to the walkers that it was alright overall. But it seemed she related more to Carol than she had ever thought she would. She'd pushed it all down for so long that now everything was bubbling up and she didn't know how to handle it. Not knowing how to respond to what he was telling her she threw a branch into the pile and replied, "I thought only the first session was free?"
"Yeah, well I don't exactly get to use my therapist's license that much anymore, so family gets special circumstances." He finished his last branch and said, "Alright, let get this tree back to the house."
Food was scarce as they travelled but Sophia was the one getting most of their food as it didn't take her as long to load her bow, and Angel had taught her how to shoot it almost as well as she did. Daryl was impressed by how much the girl had grown up since the beginning of it all. He also had to admit that having Romeo back was kind of nice. He'd never spent a lot of time with the man, but it reminded him of the prison, when things were good, before everything went to shit like it always seems to do.
They were apparently halfway there, which was good because despite how well Sophia was doing, the cold was not her friend and every time they were near a house or store Daryl was constantly looking for a heavier jacket and blanket for her. At night she slept curled up next to him, much like she would when Angel was there. She'd fallen asleep early that night, a thick blanket wrapped tightly around her Daryls arm as her pillow, so he didn't dare move.
Romeo came back from checking the perimeter and pointed at the girl, "She really grew up didn't she."
"You have no idea." He looked down at the seventeen-year-old.
"I remember Angel teaching her how to track. Back then she could barley pull the bow string back." Romeo chuckled, "Now she's helping you guys fight wars."
"More than just helping." Daryl pulled the blanket tighter around her.
"Yeah, her hairs gotten darker, we thought she was going to end up looking like Sunny."
"What happened to her? You guys find her family?" He asked.
Romeo nodded, "Yeah, it took a while, but they're with a group that managed to clear an island just south of Charleston."
"Why'd you leave?"
"Sol." He let out a sigh, "She's more than my commanding officer. She's my best friends little sister. He always asked me to look after her if something happened. I never thought she'd need it but with how things were when we left, I couldn't shake it. Sunny could tell too. We decided she was safe and so I wanted to make sure Sol was too. She'd always pushed through…but this time it felt different."
"It was." Daryl responded. "Everythin has been."
"I've heard." Romeo then looked to him, "What about you? Are you doing okay? I…I heard what happened."
"Which part?" He asked.
"All of it." He then clarified, "Or well, as much as Sophia was okay telling me."
"Then you don't know all of it."
"If it was worse than what she told me, I wouldn't be okay."
Daryl looked into the fire in front of them, "It was. That's why we're going after Angel."
Angel was bringing down another box of files from the attic. They were using old records and documents that her grandparents had horded as kindling. Setting it down on the floor she sat down on the couch, her uncle finishing his dinner. Opening the lid of the file she pulled out a stack, ready to crumble the first one, when she was distracted by her mothers name. Looking at the top of the paper she saw it was from a hospital. She began flipping through the pages and saw they were all dealing with her parents.
"What is it?" Will asked.
"These are all about mom and dad." She answered him.
"Yeah, mom kept most of their records after the accident just in case anything needed to be referenced for you or Aiden." He explained. "She didn't care that they were all digital at that point, but looking at things now I guess she was right."
"What the-" She muttered as she grabbed another stack.
"What?"
"These…these are from fertility clinics…" Angel skimmed through them.
Her uncle shifted in his seat, "They…They never told you guys?"
"Told us what?" She looked up at him.
"You and Aiden weren't conceived naturally." He told her.
"What?" She was still confused, "What do you mean?"
"Your parents spent years in fertility treatments. You didn't know?" Angel could see the shocked look on her uncles face.
"No, they just said that moms pregnancy was rough. I thought it was because twins were rough."
"They are, but they don't run in our family."
"Does infertility?" She looked back to the papers flipping through more pages.
"I don't know. Your dad didn't like to share, remember? I just knew because he talked to mom about it and she told me." Will explained, "I think everyone else just thought twins were on your moms' side or…or no one ever wanted to say anything about it."
"Yeah, I guess it's not exactly dinner table talk." She put the papers back in the file. "I'm going to get another box."
"Angel." He looked at her, "You okay?"
"Fine." She stood up heading for the stairs, "Just wondering why I wasted all that time taking birth control."
"You're deflecting." He called after her.
"Yeah, I know." She muttered. When she got to the attic she sat down. It made sense. The military didn't really check for that kind of thing unless you asked and she had no reason to suspect anything was wrong because she'd never been told, so she'd just asked for birth control. Angel felt tears pricking her eyes as she thought about everything. They'd been planning a family. A family that would have never happened, and it got Rick killed. If she'd known maybe, then it wouldn't have ended like that. Things could have been so different if only she'd known they couldn't have a kid of their own.
