Naomi

"Does it look okay?" he asked.

Before I actually looked at him, the temptation to tease him was strong. I'd never seen Daryl dressed in anything close to formal. None of his own clothes were remotely appropriate for an interview. He'd had to borrow one of the shirts Merle had bought for one of his many hearings in front of a young offender's committee, although now that seemed unlikely Merle was coming back maybe Daryl could just keep it. The only smart jacket and tie we could find were old ones of his dad's. The jacket hadn't been worn for a while and probably wouldn't fit Mr Dixon now that years of drink had bloated him. His dad's clothes were what held me back from immediately giving him shit for wearing a suit. If I'd had to wear any of my Momma's old clothes thereby increasing the chances of me looking anything like her, I'd probably have set myself on fire. I knew Daryl would feel the same. So, I didn't say anything. I just looked up. And it was weird.

"You look good," I said and it wasn't a lie. I just weren't used to seeing him like this. Clean cut. Sharp. He looked older. Different. For a moment, I stood in front of a stranger with a familiar face. It made me nervous.

He fidgeted with the lapels on his jacket, shifting his tie up and down, clearly unable to get it to sit comfortably around his neck because he wasn't used to having one there at all. He slouched more than someone in a fancy suit should and one of the laces of Merle's only formal pair of shoes wasn't done up. Noticing these little things reminded me it was just Daryl, it helped me keep my cool.

"For real?" he said, trying to smooth out a crease in his pants and glancing at me like he was expecting me to laugh. I didn't. There was nothing to laugh at.

"Yeah," I said. Now, I was probably almost as uncomfortable as he was, having to talk about the way he looked. I was worried I was over-doing it, that he'd take something I said the wrong way. The last thing I wanted to do was offend him or throw him off his game right before a job interview. "You look put together. Very… handsome…"

Handsome.

The word clunked in the air. I felt my stomach twist as I said it and he immediately looked at me. The fidgeting stopped. It had slipped, unconsciously, from my brain to my mouth and now all of the cool I thought I'd been keeping was gone. It was too strong a word, I knew it instantly. This wasn't how Daryl and I usually spoke to each other. Heartfelt compliments were much harder than meaningless insults.

I could feel my heart pounding in my ears and it was so distracting I couldn't read anything into the look on his face. That weren't normal, it was usually easy for me to tell what he was thinking. There wasn't much I hadn't seen him do, or feel, or think. But now he was standing there looking so different, it was like he was actually different, like we were different.

"Handsome?" he repeated and I wanted the ground to swallow me up.

"I just meant," I said, trying to claw back an ounce of dignity. "If I didn't know that you can belch the alphabet and I hadn't seen you gut a fish or a freshly caught rat with nothing more than a sharp rock and your bare hands, I'd think you were some kinda fancy Wall Street guy for sure."

"You think only Wall Street guys are handsome?" he said. He was really clinging onto that word.

I rolled my eyes. "No, that's not what I meant."

"I ain't judging ya," he said. "I just didn't think you'd have such fancy taste in guys is all."

"You know what I mean," I said, desperate to talk about anything else.

"No, actually," he said. "I don't. What do you mean, Naomi?"

"You look different is all," I tried to explain. "I ain't used to seeing you all cleaned up. You look-"

"Handsome?" he said again with a ginormus grin and put his hands in his pockets.

"Alright," I turned away from him so he couldn't see that my face was getting hot. I could feel it, right down to my neck. What the hell was wrong with me? This weren't like me. "Don't let it get to your head."

It was just Daryl. My Daryl. Silly squirrel catching Daryl. Why was this so weird?

"I ain't," he laughed.

I distracted myself by collecting up all of the scraps of paper that were strewn on the kitchen table. I'd made lists and drawn flowcarts and come up with pages of prep interview questions.

"Which interview is this?" I asked. We'd managed to line up a few for him in the weeks since he'd dropped the bombshell on me that he was leaving school forever.

"That bank in town," he shrugged. "Just behind the counter, y'know. Nothing fancy."

"Doesn't have to be anything fancy," I said with a shrug. "It's a start."

"Bank don't really feel like me though, does it?" he said.

"No," I agreed. "But money is money. And if you wanna start earning, you can't be fussy. Not at first. You think serving assholes at the diner is my dream job?"

"True," he brightened at the thought of earning his own money for the first time. "We got time to go through more prep questions?"

"Yeah," I nodded and held up the appropriate sheet from a binder where I'd started collecting all of my research on jobs Daryl could go for. I had started a separate one for steps to getting him to his dream job and some ideas on what that might be, because at the moment it seemed like he had no idea. I hadn't shown him that one yet, I didn't want to overwhelm him. I'd give it to him when he was ready for it.

"You're a real nerd for doing all of this," he said. "You know that, right?"

I was extra glad I hadn't shown him the second binder.

"You are welcome for my extreme preparedness, without which you would certainly end uo jobless and probably dead," I told him. He opened his mouth to disagree but I held up my hand. "Now go outside and come in again like we're meeting for the first time in a real interview."

"Okay," he said and went to stand by the door.

"Outside," I told him again, waving him away with one hand. "And knock."

"For real?" he sighed, looking incredulously from the door to me and back again.

"Yes!" I said. "Go."

He gave a massively over-exaggerated sigh and turned around. I could hear him muttering his complaints to himself as he walked out. I waited. He waited. And then he knocked. "Come in," I called, sweet as sugar. The door opened. Daryl walked in, still half-laughing at how seriously I was taking everything. I stood up to greet him, "Ah, you must be Mr Dixon."

I offered him my hand. He looked at it for a second. "Er… yes."

"I am Mrs Thompson," I said. "Thank you for coming in to see us today."

I could hear him whispering, "Are you fucking serious?" under his breath. I pretended not to have heard him. Finally, he took my hand and shook it.

"Thank you for seeing me, Mrs… er-"

"Thompson," I reminded him.

"Right," he nodded.

"Please," I said, "take a seat."

He hesitated before he sat down. I sat down opposite him.

"How are you today, Mr Dixon?" I asked him.

"I'm fine thanks," he said. "How are you, ma'am?"

I smiled because I liked that he'd added ma'am.

"I'm well, thank you," I said. "Running a bit behind today because my husband's sick so he couldn't do the school run-"

"Husband? Kids? Fuck's sake, Naomi why has this become a one-woman play?" he sighed, unable to hold it in any longer.

"Daryl!" I snapped. "Do you want to go out and come back in again?"

"No," he said. "But can you just ask me some of the actual interview questions you weirdo?"

"Fine," I sighed because there was a chance I was getting too caught up in a fake backstory for the person I was pretending to be. "But you gotta relax, man."

I started to run through the list of questions I had prepared for this specific interview scenario. We ended up doing it five times. Each time I did it a different way, as a different person. Sometimes I asked him deliberately hard questions so he wouldn't get thrown off if whoever was actually interviewing him was a hard ass. Eventually, he stopped getting distracted by me pretending to be different people and knuckled down. I told him he was great and that I'd definitely hire him. He told me I was biased, which weren't exactly untrue.

I went with him to the interview. It was the summer holidays and I wasn't working that day, so there weren't much else for me to do. I sat outside while he was in there. When he came out, he was a weird mix of exhilaration and nerves. No matter how hard I pressed him, he wouldn't tell me how he thought it went.

A week later, he got the job.

Two weeks after that, he quit. And we were back on the job hunt.

That summer, I think he had about five different jobs. Some he quit, some he was fired from and one restaurant just went out of business. It was a real fancy one with mostly steak and wines we'd never heard of. Folks around here couldn't afford that kind of shit so it was no real shock when it went bust. And Daryl was just fine because we'd gotten real good at combing through the job ads. My binder was full of every option and I always made him update his resume every time he got or left a job.

I had flowcharts and diagrams and book recommendations all ready to help him try and figure out what it was he actually wanted to spend his life doing. I knew that when he did, he'd be brilliant. And happier. And that was the most important thing.

By the time school rolled around, he was working nights stocking shelves at a nearby Walmart wearhouse and he'd held down that job for nearly a month. It had been perfect during the summer because it meant I could just take evening diner shifts and we could still hang out for most of the day. Nights when I wasn't working, I would either add to my Daryl-binder or pour over all of the baby books and medical journals I could get out of the library. Momma was a timebomb, her belly growing by the day. I read up on all kinds of things that can go wrong with babies when their Momma's a drug addict. I knew they could be born addicted and I wondered if I had been, if that meant I was more prone to getting hooked on it when I was older than kids whose Moms had taken gummy vitamins instead of cocaine.

The only trouble with his Walmart job was now that I was heading back to school, him working nights would mean we'd see less of each other. Hanging out would be harder and that made a part of me real sad. It was a very selfish part, the same part that had been mad at him for dropping out. Most of me, most of the time, was just proud of him for working so hard to get himself financially independent from his piece of shit dad. I also knew that being out of the house at night meant getting away from his dad at his worst, which probably helped him stick at that job for longer than some of the others. He was growing too, not just getting taller but filling out. I think lifting heavy shit around all day was building up his arms. I hoped that made him less of a target when Mr Dixon was drunk and angry.

I was dreading being back in school without Daryl. I thought that the other kids would immediately notice that I was alone and comment on it. But the truth is, very few people noticed he was missing, or at least if they did they didn't care enough to say anything about it. I think Connor tried to say something smug and shitty about how he'd been right about Daryl turning out like Merle but all I had to do was glare at him and he stopped. Probably worried I'd punch him again.

It was lonely. But survivable. And Daryl had been right, I did get more studying done without him around to distract me or throw things on my books while I was reading them.

"Naomi!" Mr Hampsted called from his office, when I passed it on my way to my locker. I immediately felt like I'd been caught doing something wrong even though all I was doing was minding my own business.

"Yes?" I turned around and tried to think of anything I might have done that would land me in some kinda trouble. I wondered if Connor had said something about me glaring at him and if that was enough to warrant the headteacher stopping in the hallway.

"Will you come in here, please?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," I said with a smile but my feet felt heavy and I could hear my heart beating hard in my chest.

"Close the door, will you?" he asked so I closed it behind me, my pounding heart sinking down into my stomach. I looked back at him, reluctant to come much closer. "Take a seat, Naomi."

"Thank you," I said quietly and sat down opposite him, trying to think what assignments I might have forgotten or done so badly in that it was enough to get me pulled in here.

"How's your mother doing?" he asked.

"Oh," I was surprised by his question. "Much better thank you, sir. She'll be having a baby real soon."

"That must be very exciting for you," he said and I nodded and smiled because I didn't want to tell him how terrifying it really was. "And how is Mr Dixon, are you two still in touch?"

Oh, I thought. So maybe that's what this is about, he's mad that I couldn't get Daryl back in school.

"Oh he's good," I said brightly. Nerves made me talk fast. "Working nights at Walmart just now but he's doing real well. And once he figures out what he wants to do with his life long-term I'm gonna help make sure he gets there. I'm sorry I couldn't get him to come back to school but I this have a twelve step plan in my Daryl-binder all ready for when he-"

I started to pull it out of my bag so that he could see I hadn't completely failed my best friend.

"Slow down, Naomi," Mr Hampsted said with a laugh. "That's not why I got you in here, although it's good to hear that Daryl's doing well."

"Oh," I relaxed a little. "Then why did you call me in here?"

"I was wondering whether you'd given much thought to your own future or if you'd been too busy planning Mr Dixon's?"

"Um…" I blushed because until that second I hadn't thought of mine and Daryl's futures as being separate things.

"Do you have a binder for yourself in there?" he nodded at my bag.

"No…" I said, feeling dumb. "Just Daryl's."

"Is college something you've given much thought to?" he asked.

"Yes," I said, like it was obvious although I guess to him it wasn't. He wasn't Daryl so he didn't have the luxury of me boring him to death with all of my talk about college.

"Good," he gave me a big smile. "I'm really glad to hear that, Naomi. There's a scholarship I think would be really great for you."

"A scholarship?" I repeated, a thrill of excitement passed through me. I'd looked into so many options already, so many potential loans too that had sent me spiralling into a panic about how much debt I would be in before I'd even got my diploma. I knew I had no chance of any kind of athletic scholarship so that ruled those ones out at least. The choices were still overwhelming.

"It's academic," he said, as if he'd read my mind. "It would be a lot of work but I think you have a real shot. It's designed for kids like you."

"Kids like me?"

"Extremely bright but from low income households."

I felt my face get hot and I looked down at my feet in my scuffed shoes. It was usually only Daryl who said nice things like that about me. And he always said it while calling me a dumbass or a nerd, so it was much easier to hear.

I think I hesitated for too long because he quickly followed it with, "I didn't mean to offend or embarrass you, Miss Payton."

"You didn't," I looked up at him again. I could feel a lump in my throat, formed by the unexpected compliment. I swallowed it down. "You really think I could do it?"

"I do," he said. "And I've got the details of it here. Call it my Naomi-binder."

He held up his own folder, thinner and less covered in dumb stickers than my Daryl-binder. I took it from him and could see my hand shaking. "Thank you," I said and for a moment it felt like I was about to burst into tears, which was weird because I was so happy.

"Read up on it, tell me what you think," he said. "You're an exceptional student and you deserve the same opportunities as everyone else."

"Thank you," I said again but it didn't sound like enough. I hadn't realised how much I needed Daryl's insults to stop myself from becoming an emotional mess when someone said something nice.

"See you tomorrow," he said and picked up one of the papers lying out on his desk. I took it to mean that I was now dismissed. I put the Naomi-binder in my bag right next to the Daryl-binder. I barely remember the walk home, I think I did it in record time so that I could get there and read up on what I needed to do to change my life.

He weren't wrong. It would be a lot of work. Between that, the diner and Momma's new baby, I wasn't sure if be able to do it and sleep and eat and function like a regular human being.

I read it all. Twice. And then I took it outside with me and sat on Daryl's doorstep until I heard his bike approaching. Then I stood up, clutching the binder to my chest.

"Naomi?" he stopped when he saw me standing there and took off a bike helmet I'd gotten him when I got worried about him riding around unprotected all the time. He sounded tired and anxious. "Everything okay? What's happened? Is it your Momma? Is the baby okay?"

"I spoke to Mr Hampstead today," I said. I was way louder than I meant to be but I'd had nobody to share my excitement with until now. I felt like a can of cold that had been shaken a left sitting around and now Daryl had unwittingly opened it. "There's this scholarship he thinks I could get. Full ride to college."

"This about school?" he started laughing. "I thought this was some kind of emergency. It's four in the morning."

I was too jazzed to feel embarrassed about it.

"You have to read this," I said, pushing the binder in to his hands.

"What is it?"

"It's the scholarship details," I said. "I'd have to maintain this crazy high GPA and take on a few extra classes and assignments."

"What do you need me to read it for?" he asked. "Sounds like you got it memorized."

"You gotta help me decide whether I should go for it or not," I said. "I'm supposed to see Mr Hampstead about it tomorrow."

"You said it's a full ride scholarship?" he asked.

"Yes."

"So you can go and you don't have to pay anything?"

"Pretty much," I said. "Doesn't cover all of my living costs but I can get a job for some of that."

He pushed the folder back toward me. "Then, yeah. You should do it, dummy."

"You ain't read it," I protested. "It's a lotta work and what about Momma? The baby?"

"I told you, we'll deal with that when it comes."

"It's gonna come before college, Daryl."

"I know," he said. "But you ain't dealing with it alone, I told you that too."

"Okay," I said. "But it's a lotta work. You think I can do it?"

"'Course you can," he said. "You're the biggest nerd in the whole of Georgia. They gotta accept you. Just apply, idiot."

It was all so much easier to listen to with insults peppered in.

"Thanks," I breathed a sigh of relief. Felt like a weight had been lifted off me.

"Can I go to bed now?" he said. "Or do you need your massive ego stroked some more?"

"You can go to bed," I grinned. I started to walk away from him but turned when I didn't hear his door opening. "Hey, Daryl!"

It was too dark for me to tell whether or not he was looking at me.

"I miss you. I ain't seeing you enough these days," I said.

"I know. I been working."

In dark and quiet, neither of us moved away from the other. But we didn't move closer either.

"I know. And I'm proud of you," I said. Not sure why. Maybe it was hearing so many nice things about myself that day, reminded me to tell Daryl some about him too. I knew he wasn't getting it from anyone else.

"Did someone say something to you?" he said, aggressively suspicious.

"No… what would they be saying?" I said, my curiosity immediately piqued.

"Nothing," he said real quick and opened his door.

"Daryl Dixon, you tell me at once," I sped towards him.

"Keep your voice down," he hissed.

"I'll shout so loud it wakes everyone," I threatened. "Unless you tell me what it is you're keeping from me."

"It's nothing," he said but he was so embarrassed that it clearly was something. "Leave it."

"Nope." I stood in front of him and put my hand on the doorframe so he couldn't shut it without crushing my fingers. "C'mon. It's just me, Daryl."

He sighed. A real big over the top sigh that told me I'd won.

"They gave me employee of the month," he said. He said it so quietly, I almost didn't hear. It took me a second to hear it through all of his mumbling. And then I squealed. Louder than I meant to. He put a hand over my mouth, which was fair enough, I'd have done the same to him if I'd been worried about him waking my Momma.

"Shut up," he whispered. I bit his hand. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough for him to let go.

"I'm so proud of you," I said, this time in a whisper to prove that I could be trusted not to tell me head off. "That's really good news. I'm so happy for you. Bet they promote you any day now."

"It's not that big a deal," he said but I could tell that he was smiling. Even in the half-light, even as he tried to turn away so I couldn't see him.

"It's really good," I said, sincerely. "It shows they value you and the work you're doing. I always said you were a hard worker. Now I have the proof."

"Yeah, well it ain't no full ride scholarship," he said.

I jumped down off his front steps, ready to go home now that I'd gotten his secret out of him. "I ain't got that yet," I reminded him. "But you've already achieved that for sure."

"Alright," he conceded, probably mostly to shut me up. "Thanks."

"Can't believe they made you the King of Walmart," I said.

"They did not-"

"And now you get to rule over all of the other employees. You can make them fetch you snacks. Hope you still remember me when old Mr Walmart dies and leaves you the company."

"Go to bed, Naomi," he said. "You're so annoying. I miss you."

"Night, dumbass," I grinned.

"Night," he said. It sounded like he was grinning too but it was hard to tell in the dark.

Daryl

Mia Payton was born just before Christmas. It was cold. I got back from work and all I could think about was putting on some more layers and wrapping myself in a duvet. But before I could open the door I found a post it note stuck to it. I knew it was Naomi's handwriting right away, it's all slanted and so neat that if you look at it from far away or squint at it, it looks kinda like she typed it. It just said that she had a sister and they were all at home now. I dumped my work stuff on my doorstep and made my way to hers.

The lights were on when I got there but it was real quiet. I expected to be able to hear a baby screaming but there was nothing. I knocked real soft in case they were all asleep. Naomi answered almost immediately. She looked tired and her hair was all messed up but the big grin on her face was radiant. There was a bundle of blankets in her arms.

"Hey," she said with so much joy it made my heart speed up. She was speaking real low, so I thought the baby she was holding might be asleep. "Come in."

I was kinda nervous, stepping into her house. It had been a while since we'd seen each other. Longer than either of us would have liked. I started to try and count back how long it had been but it made me sad so I stopped. Christmas and Thanksgiving were busy times at work. And she was studying every waking hour that she wasn't in the diner.

"This her?" I nodded to the bundle of blankets in her arms.

"This is Mia," she said and moved so I could see her face. She was so tiny. So asleep. "Ain't she a kick-ass little sister?"

"Yeah," I said. Because she was. It was unbelievable that someone could be so tiny. That someone so tiny would grow into a full sized person. I stared at her tiny face and a calm kinda washed over me. She had everything ahead of her. Every chance for her life not to be fucked up. "She kinda looks like you."

"Shut up," she laughed. "All newborns look like potatoes, everyone knows that."

"Nah, she's beautiful," I disagreed. Naomi smiled even wider.

"You wanna hold her?" she asked.

"Nah," I said, feeling nervous again. "I don't know how."

"I'll show you," she said. "C'mon, hold your arms out, she wants to meet her Uncle Daryl."

Uncle Daryl.

Something about it sent a rush through me. Maybe it was just feeling close to her, hearing her say something like that out loud. She'd always felt like more than family. It was nice to hear it weren't just me who felt that way. We gave each other so much shit sometimes it could be hard to say anything soppy, no matter how true it was.

I held my arms out and tried to mirror the way she was holding the baby. Very slowly, very gently, Naomi placed her in my arms. She was heavier than I thought she'd be, especially for someone so small. So sold. Warm. I was worried she'd immediately start crying when she left her sister's arms and I panicked when she wriggled a bit but her eyes stayed shut.

"She born today?" I asked.

"Nah, a few days ago," Naomi replied. A shock passed through me. I looked up at her. She looked so happy. I couldn't believe something so big had happened to her and it had taken days for me to know about it. That weren't normal for us. Normally, she was the first person I told everything to and I assumed it was the same for her, although I'd never actually asked. I wanted to ask but that would have been too soppy or needy and even thinking about it made me uncomfortable. Something I was thinking must've showed on my face because she added, "I've been at the hospital with her and Momma since then. We only got to bring her home today."

It made sense and I knew there was nothing she could do about it. But I still hated missing out on something so big.

"She always sleep like this?" I asked, changing the subject to distract us both from how depressingly out of touch we were with each other. "Or are you just good with her? I thought babies were supposed to cry loads."

"She cries a bit," Naomi said. "I think most of the crying comes later. Right now she's just shocked to be in the world."

"Ain't we all," I said and Naomi smiled again.

As if she'd been listening, Mia opened her mouth, but it was just a yawn. A big one for someone so small and sleepy.

"Come and sit down," Naomi's hand gently guided me towards the sofa. I'd never walked so slowly in my life. Mia felt so small and breakable, like a doll made of the world's finest china. The last thing I wanted was to drop her and have Naomi mad at me for killing her little sister. I'd be mad at me for that too. She was hard to hold, not just because she was heavier than I thought but because she seemed so fragile. I couldn't stop thinking about how her life was, very literally, in my arms. One wrong move and she was a goner. She needed Naomi and me to keep her safe. I'd never felt needed like that before. Like what I was doing mattered.

I sat down beside Naomi slowly, so I didn't move Mia too much or wake her up.

"She's so small," I said because it was all I could think when I looked at her and I hoped saying it out loud would let me worry about something else for a while.

"I know," Naomi said.

"She's amazing."

"I know," she said again. "And I love her so much. Isn't that mad? I only just met her and already I know I can't let anything bad happen to her. Like I will kill anyone who so much as looks at her wrong. Do I sound crazy?"

"Nah," I said. "I get it."

And I did. Because I loved her too. She weren't related to me by blood, I know that. But it didn't stop me from feeling like I was responsible for her, like any harm that came her way would have me to answer to. Maybe it was just being able to see a piece of Naomi in her tiny face, the thought that she might have looked exactly the same as a baby, that made me feel so connected to her. Protective of her.

Naomi rested her head on my shoulder to get a better look at her baby sister. The silence was so comforting, so warm. Even though it was December and the ice outside had nearly sent my bike skidding off the road a few times on my way home, I had never felt warmer. I knew in that moment that there was nothing I wouldn't do for either of them.

"Where's your Momma?" I asked, the urge to scoop both girls up and run away with them forever was overwhelming.

"Resting," Naomi replied. "She's doing well though."

"Yeah?" it was hard to believe, I didn't think I'd ever heard her say something nice like that about her Momma.

"Yeah," she nodded. "She's been great with her so far. But it's only been four days."

The way she said it made it clear she thought that meant it was all still to play for. Which I guess it was. It's probably easier to be a mother for four days than for the rest of your life. Looking down at Mia, it made me even angrier than I usually was that Naomi had the kind of mom who could up and leave her for long periods of time. The kind that left bruises and burns on her skin. I wished I'd been around when Naomi was this tiny to stop all of the shit she'd been through from happening. But, I guess, when Naomi was that tiny, I hadn't been all that much bigger myself.

"How's work going?" Naomi asked.

"Yeah, okay," I nodded. She nodded too. It was nondescript and part of me felt bad for being so vague. I knew she'd want to hear more details, that was why she'd asked. But I'd just come from a long shift and it weren't really something I wanted to keep talking or thinking about. I felt the weight of Mia in my arms, the warmth of Naomi's head on my shoulder. I wished more than anything that this was our own little place and Naomi's Momma weren't sleeping on the other side of her closed door. "Think I might start looking for something else soon."

"Yeah?" that got her so interested she lifted her head off my shoulder. "What kind of thing?"

"I dunno," I shrugged. "Something I'm actually interested in, maybe something that makes more money."

Something that pays for a place for me and you and Mia, I wanted to add but didn't because it would have been way too corny.

"Good for you," she said and sounded sleepy.

"You still got that nerd folder?" I asked, deliberately mis-naming it to annoy her.

"My Daryl-binder?" she said. "Sure do!"

She sprang up. I watched her lift that damn silly bag I'd made her off a coat hook on the wall. It was nice to see that she was still using it for school even if I weren't going with her any more, it made me think that she actually liked it and hadn't just been humouring me when I'd given it to her. She pulled out a ring binder. It looked like it doubled in size every time I saw it.

"That's grown," I said. "What you been feeding it?"

"I work on it when I've got time," she said with a shrug like it was nothing. It weren't nothing. "It's as finished as it's gonna be so you can probably take it now. Or we can work on it together."

I could tell from her enthusiasm that she was extra keen for the second option.

"I'll take it with me," I said quickly. I was in no hurry to take up homework as a hobby now I'd left school.

"Fine," she sighed and brought it over to sit back down next to me. "Or I can take Mia and you can flick through it now?"

"I could do that I guess…"

"Please," she said. "It'll be fun."

Fun seemed like a strong word but she was so keen for it, there was no way I was saying no. Plus, my arms were getting tired from holding Mia in the same position all the time. Looks like I had some stamina and arm strength to build up before I had kids of my own.

Passing her over was difficult and not just because she was so cute that I didn't really want to let go. Also because I hadn't done it before I was worried about her head being unsupported and her neck snapping or one of us dropping her and her breaking into a thousand tiny but adorable pieces. When Naomi had assured me (several times) that she had her, I let go and slid Naomi's so-called Daryl-binder out of her lap.

"So how does this work?" I asked.

"Well," she said. "It's divided up several ways. There's an index of all of your best qualities and the jobs I think match up with them, then you just follow the page number beside it for a full list of the job description, places you could contact to see if their hiring and any other skills or training you might need to do. I've also ordered them by what I think you'd enjoy most so if you just want to go through it chronologically that's fine too."

I swallowed down the impulse to call her a nerd because it was the nicest thing anyone had done for me and the time and effort it must have taken her was huge. Curiosity took me to the index at the back where I found an embarrassingly long list that was essentially just 'Nice Things Naomi Thought About Me'. I think, due to her approaching it like a school project, she hadn't thought about a list of what she saw as my best qualities actually just being a list of compliments, but it was all I could think when I was skimming it so I quickly stopped and flipped to the first one before I got too embarrassed.

"Mechanic," I read aloud. "Subsection: motorcycles."

"Yeah, there's other mechanic stuff in there," she explained. "But that's the one I thought you might like best. I've seen you fix up your bike. You love that thing, you're good a building stuff and you're very mechanically-minded."

"Yeah," I said. I did love fixing up my bike, learning more about it wasn't a bad shout. "This ain't bad you know."

I felt excited about the future, maybe for the first time.

"You trust my process now?" she said.

"Yeah," I nodded. "Although, I don't know why you bothered doing any more one you'd come up with this one."

"You could do anything. I want you to have options," she said with a shrug that woke up her little sister. Naomi smiled down and Mia stared up, her big blue eyes trying to focus. She still didn't cry. Naomi held her up, turned her to face me with her hand supporting that tiny head. "This is your Uncle Daryl."

"Hey there, Mia," I said as she tried to focus on me now.

I stayed for longer than I thought I would, I even flipped through most of Naomi's stupidly thick binder of ideas. It was real late and I was exhausted but leaving was the last thing I wanted to do. All of this had got me thinking about family and the future, I couldn't help it. I thought about how my dad made me ashamed of my last name, how every time Merle up and disappeared from my life Naomi was always there, how blood didn't always mean much. She was family I chose. I chose Mia too. I had never given a moment's thought about what it might be like to have a kid of my own until then.

"See you soon?" Naomi said, when I did eventually drag my ass off her sofa.

"Yes," I said. "We can't leave it so long again."

"Agreed," she said.

"I got a day off on Saturday," I said. "See you then?"

She hesitated. "You mind hanging out at the library with me?" she asked. "Not all day. I just… got some things to do but if you come with me, it means we can spend the whole day together."

"'Course not," I said.

"We can do something fun after," she promised. I nodded. I didn't say that just hanging out with her was fun enough and it didn't really matter where we did it because that would have been too soppy, and meeting Mia had made me soft enough for one day.

"Tell your Momma I'm mostly on nights so if she needs someone to watch Mia in the day, I'd be happy to," I said.

"That's kind of you," she said.

"I meant it," I replied. "You tell her."

"Will do," she said.

I knew she wouldn't. So I went round the next day while Naomi was at school and told Miss Payton myself. And that's how I became one of Mia's unofficial babysitters.

There were a few of us around the neighbourhood who popped in to help out but Naomi did the lion's share. Mia balancing on her hip while she had her nose in a book became an extremely common sight. Miss Payton was better than I thought she'd be but my expectations were very low. My favourite times were when it was just the three of us- me, Naomi and Mia.

I started an internship at a local garage. They did more than bikes and the pay was crap but it was only a few hours a week and I was learning a lot and still earning a wage stocking shelves. On nights I wasn't working, I'd take Mia with me to visit Naomi while she worked at the diner and we'd sit at the counter and test her from one of her big textbooks. It amazed me how much she could fit in her brain, how she could remember all of it while dealing with shitty customers and remembering their orders. I doubt Mia was old enough to know what was going on, but I thought it was good for her to see her sister being such a smartypants.

Time went fast. Mia turned one year old when Naomi was in her last year of highschool. We both took the day off and threw a party for her at Naomi's. I think it was more for us than Mia, who had no idea what was going on, but was happy that her two favourite people were there. At least, I hope we were her favourite people because she was in my top two for sure. We laughed a lot. I don't remember what about now. I just remember those days as some of my best.

After that, Mia and I lost Naomi a little bit to an avalanche of school work and college applications. She was always physically in the room with us but part of her brain was elsewhere, always planning, always working on the next thing. It was amazing to watch, to be near. But it could be lonely too, when she disappeared to that space in her head that I couldn't follow her to. Exams came and she was nervous all the time. She burst with energy, always fidgeting and moving from one foot to the other. It was nearly impossible to get her to sit still. I don't think she slept. I think she'd given up sleep before Mia was even born. She didn't talk about it but I knew her GPA was whirring around that great big brain of hers.

She aced everything. Obviously. Because she was amazing.

And then one day, close to the end of the school year, there was a late night knock on my door. I knew it would be her before I opened it. I also knew what it would be about. I felt weirdly calm when I walked towards it, like I'd been preparing for this moment my whole life. Or at least, the parts of it I'd known Naomi, which were really the most important bits.

"You have any idea what the time is?" I said when I opened the door. Her shining, excited eyes gleamed up at me. I could see the envelope in her hands. I knew what would be inside. I was already proud of her.

She held it up. I stepped outside, closing the door so she couldn't see the state of my dad, who was passed out on the sofa behind me. Not that she'd have noticed, in the state she was in herself. Excitement. Her eyes were a little bloodshot like she might be about to burst into tears. But the smile that was about to break across her face told a different story.

She waved it at me. It was big, white, torn open at the edges with such hurried anticipation that she'd almost split the whole damn envelope in two. I knew what it was. But she was bursting to tell me so I feigned ignorance. "What's this?" I asked.

"I got in," she said.

I was happy for her. I'd never been more proud of anyone in my life. But I was also sad. Things were changing in a way that felt like an ending.

The world ended for real a long time after that, and I know it ain't related to that moment, but when I look back on everything I lost, this felt like the start of it.


A/N

Huge thanks to everyone who's reviewed! These chapters seem to just keep getting longer, sorryyyyy...