Naomi

Daryl was waiting for me out on the front porch. It should have been the most normal thing in the world. I'd spent so much of my life either hanging around outside Daryl's waiting for him to get his ass out of bed or scrambling around my own place to get my shit together while he waited by the door. But I froze up in the hallway. Checked my reflection three times in the mirror. I even considered running to Eric for advice, but I hadn't come clean to him or Aaron about anything, and I knew I didn't have time to have that conversation. Or for Eric to fix everything that was wrong with me. Daryl was already waiting.

Plus, it wasn't like he didn't know what I looked like. He'd seen me looking much worse. He'd just spent time with my pale, sweaty, wound-infected ass, and that hadn't put him off, so maybe it was fine.

Chill, Naomi, I told myself, It's just Daryl.

I'd never been nervous about meeting him before. Hell, I'd never even been this anxious about going on a date before. And this wasn't a date, it was a damn drugs run, with several other people. That thought calmed me down enough to open the door. He was leaning on the rail at the top of the porch, arms folded across his chest. It was just Daryl, but also it was different. I opened my mouth, and nothing came out.

How did we greet each other now? Should I kiss him, or was that not taking things slow enough? I'd considered putting together some kind of list of agreed-upon rules, so we knew where we stood at all times. Like whether or not we were telling people, and if any public display of affection was alright. But I'd resisted, thinking that stopping to make him do relationship admin would've taken some of the romance out of us getting together. What should I say to him?

Just 'Hey' is probably fine, right?

He frowned at me. Probably because I was gawking at him like a weirdo. "What took you so long, slowpoke?"

There he is. There's the Daryl I know.

I closed the door behind me, "Hello to you, too."

"Taking your sweet time because you don't wanna do this run anymore?"

"You wish," I walked over to him. "You ain't still trying to talk me out of this, are ya?"

"Would that work?"

"God, no."

"Then, I ain't wasting my breath," he said reluctantly. We looked at each other, and I felt myself start to smile. I saw him trying to resist his own. Even though we were running a little late, neither of us moved. He nudged my hand with his like he wanted to take it but didn't know if he could. A small, hesitant smile twitched at the corners of his mouth, "Guess it might be kinda nice having you there."

"Yeah?" I felt my own dumb smile get a whole lot bigger.

"Yeah," he said. "But only so I can keep an eye on you."

"You'll feel better having me around to have your back," I said. "It's okay, you can admit it."

His smile grew, and there was this light in his eyes that I hadn't seen before. It made me feel lighter too. He straightened up, moving away from the railing. A quick glance around us to check that we were alone, and then he leaned in, his fingertips brushing my cheek as he moved his hand to the back of my head and drew my face to his. My nerves came flooding back. His eyes were all I could see. Fixed on me like there was nothing in the world but us, they flickered from my eyes to my lips and back again before he kissed me.

Every time he did, the doubts I'd had shrank a little more. I was painfully aware that this could still blow up in our faces. But faced with the prospect of ending it forever, I'd realized that whatever this was, I wasn't ready for it to end.

He pulled back too soon. Always too soon. Smiling down at me, he murmured, "Hey, Naomi."

"Hey," I said, trying to catch my breath. My heart lurched in my chest. The impulse to blow this whole run off and just hang out with him was intense. But we couldn't bail like that, not when it was me who'd used up the last of the meds, so I turned on my heels and said, "C'mon, let's do this."

He fell into step beside me. We walked close, like always, but it was different now. We were so aware of each other. Every time we caught each other's eye, I got this giddy, jittery feeling in the pit of my stomach. I wondered if he felt it too, and that's why the corners of his mouth turned up in a little smile every time he caught me looking at him. Was I looking at him too much? Or not enough?

His arm kept brushing up against mine. I wanted to take his hand, but I didn't know if he'd be okay with that. Daryl had always been fiercely private, I wasn't sure how he'd feel about rocking up to meet everyone hand-in-hand. It wasn't just him either, I wasn't sure I was comfortable with that just yet.

Denise was waiting with a truck by the gates. Rosita and Lucas stood with her. Lucas looked a little out of his depth, Rosita's face was set in deep-rooted anger. A dull look in her eyes like she'd forgotten how to smile.

"Oh, head's up," Daryl said quietly as if seeing he reminded him, "Abraham ended things with Rosita."

"He did?" I said. That explained why she looked ready to throw down with anyone who looked at her wrong. "So, are he and Sasha-?"

"Yup."

"And how did Rosita take it?" I asked as if it wasn't obvious.

"Not well. Don't bring it up."

"Ooof," I said. "Copy that."

We stopped talking about it when we got within earshot. Denise straightened up when she saw us coming. I raised my hand to greet them all.

"You're late," Rosita told us. Her voice was as tense with irritation as her face. I tried to keep my smile to a minimum.

I expected Daryl to make some kinda comment about how it was my fault we were late, but he didn't. He just looked at Denise and said, "You got the keys? I'll drive."

"I didn't realize so many people were coming," Denise said, throwing him the keys. She looked puzzled by how many of us there were. He shrugged. If she'd left coordinating this whole thing to him, then that was her mistake. As a natural loner who communicates primarily in grunts, organizing a group of people wasn't exactly a strength of his. "Maybe I should get a different truck."

I peered through the window. There was really only room for three people up there. Four if you all squished together real tight.

"Don't all have to come," Daryl said. "Sure someone can sit it out."

It sounded pointed. Directed at someone, but I couldn't work out who. Was it me? I thought he was done trying to talk me out of this.

"That's alright," I said. "We can sit in the back, right, Lucas?"

I gave Lucas a nudge and an encouraging smile. He looked nervously at the back of the truck, I could tell he was worried about a lack of seatbelts. "Er… yeah."

"See," I said brightly. "All fine."

Denise and Rosita nodded in agreement, Daryl looked like he had a thousand objections but didn't voice a single one of them. He gave Lucas a look I didn't understand. Neither of them said a word, then Lucas turned toward the back of the truck, and the moment was broken. Rosita opened the passenger door and stood back to let Denise in first.

"Hey," Daryl hissed, catching my arm. "Why you guys?"

He narrowed his eyes first at me, and then at Lucas like us sitting in the back together was a sign of some secret conspiracy. I frowned at him. "Denise ain't been out much, she should sit upfront with you. And I don't know Rosita well enough to get her out of that damn mood. Lucas and I will be fine back there."

"Huh," Daryl said like he didn't believe me. I saw the glare he shot Lucas's way. His mood had gone from good to crap in three seconds flat. Before I could ask him anything, he'd turned and pulled open the door. He slammed it so hard behind him that I thought the window might break. Not for the first time, I felt myself getting whiplash from how fast his attitude could change. It reminded me of the inexplicable sulk he'd gotten himself into after we'd found Bryce and the Kingdom. I climbed up into the back of the truck to sit beside Lucas before Daryl could decide to just drive off without me.

"So, uh," Lucas shifted uncomfortably next to me as the engine started. "How are you? You feeling better?"

"Yeah, I am," I said. "Thanks for asking. How've you been?"

"Yeah…" he said. "Fine."

He didn't say anything else. The gates opened up, and Daryl drove through. It was bumpy and uncomfortable. I heard the engine almost stall a couple of times and worried that this truck was almost on its last legs. Lucas didn't say anything else. He sat leaned back on the window between us and the front of the truck, his eyes fixed on the sky. Didn't look at me. Didn't smile. Daryl's lousy mood was clearly contagious. Or maybe it was Rosita's. Were Denise and I the only ones not stewing over something?

"Sorry, I ain't been around," I said. In case he was mad at me for not checking in lately.

"It's fine, you were ill," he said, though I hardly needed reminding. "And I don't usually do… this kind of thing."

That was true. Lucas, like Eric, took a more hands-off approach to the goings-on in Alexandria. More content with planning runs than going on them. I wasn't sure he'd been out of the gates since our failed attempt to reach that old factory and our subsequent run-in with the Wolves. It meant we didn't get to hang out much anymore.

"What made you decide to come on this run?" I asked, suddenly worried that he was rusty and no longer used to being outside of the walls. That could put him in real danger if we ran into trouble.

"It's been a while since I did something like this," he said. "I don't want to forget what it's like out here. Plus, meds are pretty important. I didn't want to sit it out if I could help."

There was something bitter in his tone. I nodded encouragingly like I hadn't noticed it. The car jolted on the road, throwing us around uncomfortably. I took hold of the side to steady myself.

"Sorry I didn't come and see you," he said. "When you were sick."

"That's fine," I said, surprised he'd even thought to do so. "I wouldn't have been much fun to hang out with, anyway."

The car jolted again. I heard the back of Lucas's head hit the window he was leaning on.

"Hey," I turned around to knock on it. "Mind driving better?"

"You hurt?" Daryl yelled back out of the driver's window.

"No."

"Then quit whining."

"I keep telling him I know how to drive stick," Denise joined in from where she sat between Daryl and Rosita. I heard her trying to convince him that she knew what she was talking about. The truck stalled again.

"For God's sake, will you just let Denise dive?"

"I got this," Daryl said. The engine jerked back into life, and we continued our bumpy, uncomfortable journey down the road.

"Idiot," I muttered to myself, but I could not get the smile off my face every time I thought about him. I looked at Lucas, who was rubbing the back of his head. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said and shuffled forward a little so that he was in less danger of injuring himself next time the car bumped us around. He was immediately glad that he had, as we bounced across some old railway tracks.

"Actually…" Lucas said, throwing his hand out to steady himself. "I did try to visit you."

"Oh, yeah?" I said. I caught his wary glance through the front of the truck, and I understood it immediately. "Daryl said something, didn't he?"

Before Lucas could respond, the truck came to a stop that felt more deliberate than Daryl's shitty stick driving. Lucas and I turned around to look at what was going on ahead of us. Peering past the heads of Daryl, Denise, and Rosita, I could see a fallen tree lying across the road. I stood up and jumped down from the back of the truck as the doors on either side opened. Lucas jumped down after me. Leaving Denise in the relative safety of the truck, the four of us went to investigate in uneasy silence.

If someone was trying to set up a roadblock, they couldn't have hoped for a better place for a tree to fall. There was no moving it. I raised a gun and scanned the trees around us. I hadn't been on this road before, but if it was frequently used, this would be a good place to get people out of their cars to take their shit. A growl from underneath and a dead arm shot out to grab Rosita when she got too close. She stabbed the Walker quickly through the skull.

"This happened fast," she said. "Tree rotted out, it wasn't people."

I could tell by the look on Daryl's face that this explanation didn't fully satisfy him. He didn't say anything, just walked back to the car and opened the door, motioning for Denise to get out and join the rest of us on the road.

"Truck ain't gonna make it past this tree," Daryl said, grabbing the bags from the back. "C'mon, let's walk."

He started to walk around the fallen tree, to take the road we would've driven. I followed him.

"Hold up," Denise said, nose buried in the map she'd found the Apothecary on. "Looks like a straight shot if we follow the tracks."

She gestured back to the railway tracks we'd just driven over.

"Nah. No tracks," Daryl said firmly. "We'll take the road."

"That's twice as far," Rosita complained, looking at Denise's map over her shoulder. Daryl did not slow down.

"Go whichever way you like," he called back to us. "I ain't taking no tracks."

As he stomped off, I turned to look at them. "You guys coming? Probably best we don't split up too much."

"Nah," Rosita said. "Waste of time going that way. I'll meet you guys there."

She started to walk off. I glanced at Lucas and Denise.

"She shouldn't go on her own, right?" Denise said.

I started to walk back over to them. Lucas raised his hand to stop me.

"I'll go with her," he said. "You go with…"

He glanced darkly at where Daryl had stomped off. Taking his chances on the open railroad was clearly his preferred option to taking a road with Daryl. I nodded, and he dashed off to catch up with Rosita. I turned around to try and get back to Daryl. He was already pretty far ahead. I broke into a run.

"Hey!" I yelled after him. He stopped and turned. I saw him look behind me at where the fallen tree was obscuring the view of the truck, and of Denise trying to catch up with us both. "We should slow down-"

"Where's Lucas?" he interrupted like I hadn't said anything. I glanced behind me again. Denise was the only one I could see following us.

"Think he went with Rosita."

"Dumbass," he said.

"Did something happen?" I asked. "You and Lucas… did you fight?"

"No," he said, but there was a quickness to it that made it feel like a lie.

"Then why you in such a crappy mood all of a sudden?" I asked.

"Who says that's got anything to do with him?" he said.

"Please. You've been glaring at him since we got here," I said. "Think I wouldn't notice that?"

"Don't much like him," he said. "That ain't a secret."

"That why you stopped him from coming to see me?"

He was so taken aback that I knew about that, he almost stopped. I saw the guilt flash in his eyes as he finally looked at me, searching my face for what I might know. "He tell you that?"

"Didn't have to," I said.

He clammed up. Didn't say anything else. His jaw clenched like he was angry, but he had a look in his eye like he was scared of something. For the longest time, I'd thought Daryl's outright dislike of Lucas was down to everything he'd experienced at Terminus, and I couldn't really blame him for it. But now, I wasn't so sure. It was so close to the sullen, angry fit he'd thrown when I thought he'd been jealous of my friendship with Bryce. He had been jealous. It just might not have been for the reasons I thought.

How long had he been thinking this way… about me? About us?

I didn't know how to ask, and with him in such a weird funk, I didn't want to start a fight either by leaping to defend Lucas from his completely irrational jealousy.

"Daryl…" I took hold of his wrist in an attempt to get him to stop and look at me. It half-worked. He didn't slow down, but he looked me in the eye long enough for me to say, "Did I tell you how happy I am? That we're… doing this?"

"No." His whole face softened. He stopped. "You didn't."

I could feel my face getting hot and prayed it didn't show. "Well, I am."

"Oh," he started smiling again. The urge to kiss him was unreal, but Denise wasn't far behind us, and I still didn't know where we stood on this kind of thing. So I settled for just smiling back at him. Felt like the biggest, goofiest grin in the whole world, but I didn't care. Then a frown crossed Daryl's face. "Wait, you are talking about... you and me, right?"

"No, I'm happy we're doing the meds run," I rolled my eyes. "Of course, I mean you and me, dumbass."

"Okay, good," he looked relieved, and like he'd forgotten all about his former lousy mood. I let go of his wrist, but I wanted to take his hand. I had nothing against Denise, but at that moment, I wished she'd gone with Rosita and Lucas. I wished it was just us out here on the road. I wished we didn't have a dumb run to go on.

"Hey, guys," Denise caught us up. Her eyes were wide and wild, she was clutching a big-ass machete like she thought she was walking into some kind of ambush. "Thanks for waiting."

"Sorry it took a while to slow certain people down," I said, with a nod toward Daryl. "Seems like he's tryna beat the railroad walkers after all."

"Shut up," Daryl shook his head at me, but I could still see his smile as we kept walking down the road.

"So, what is your aversion to the tracks?" Denise asked.

"Don't trust 'em," Daryl said.

Denise looked confused. "The tracks…? Is it the trains ..? I don't think they're running anymore..."

"The tree," I said, trying to translate Daryl's way of thinking for her. "The way it fell perfectly blocking the road… if someone wanted to drive people onto the tracks, that's how you'd do it."

"Why would anyone want to do that?"

"Tacks are a pretty open space," I said. "Makes people easier to rob."

"Jeeze," Denise looked a little queasy. "So, you think the tree didn't fall on its own?"

"Might've done," Daryl shrugged. "Fell in a convenient place is all. Might've fallen on its own and been moved there. Could be a coincidence. Either way, I ain't risking it."

Denise listened with a thoughtful frown on her face like she would have to take an exam on everything she was learning. I looked back at the nervous way, she clutched her machete and asked, "When's the last time you were out here?"

"Long time ago," she admitted. "But… I want to do more. Learn more. Can't stay behind those walls forever."

"Can't be sure those walls will stay up forever," Daryl added, which I'm not sure helped with Denise's nerves.

"Can't be long until Tara's due back, right?" I said, as a way to change the subject. Denise brightened immediately and started talking about her countdown until Tara and Heath were due back from their run. While she talked about the things she'd planned for them when Tara got back, I wondered if she regretted not going with her. Although, for obvious reasons, I was glad our resident medic had been around for the last week.

Lucas and Rosita looked like they beat us to the Apothecary by quite a lot. They were sitting comfortably at the corner of the road opposite the strip mall we were looking for. Their heads were bowed in quiet conversation. Rosita nudged Lucas and got to her feet when she saw us coming.

"About time," she said, but she was smiling for the first time that day. Daryl ignored her, walked right past to the doors of the Apothecary across the road. He banged on the door a few times, and we all stopped to listen. Nothing knocked back, which suggested there were no Walkers trapped in there. At least, none that could reach the front of the shop.

"Alright, me and her are going to do this," Daryl said, nodding at me. "Rosita and Lucas; cover us. Denise, stay back. You got that?"

There was a general, quiet murmur of agreement, and Daryl pulled out a crowbar, jamming it between the locked doors. I raised my gun to cover him, fixed my attention on the resistant doors. It took him a few attempts, but eventually, one of the doors gave way. The smell of death and decay burst out as Daryl raised his own gun and used the end of it to nudge the door open properly. I scanned the shadows around him, listening for the sound of the dead as I waited for my eyes to adjust for the sudden dark. We moved in slowly. The smell hit Denise at the back of the group, and she started to gag.

"We gonna find out what you had for breakfast?" Daryl asked her as she doubled over at the entrance.

"Oatmeal," she told us. "Just so you know."

Something had definitely died in here, and if you weren't used to that smell, I could understand almost vomiting. If it was Walker, it must have been taken out already. Nothing was moving behind the sunglasses stand or glass cabinets of trinkets and shelves of souvenirs. Rails of clothes hung on one of the walls, and behind the counter was a wall of scarves. At first glance, it didn't look promising.

"Hey," Rosita called us over. She shone her torch over where the word 'Pharmacy' had been painted over a closed shutter. Daryl used the crowbar to break it open. He climbed over the counter and into the back room where the drugs were kept. Lucas, Rosita, and I followed. It was an untouched goldmine.

"If you set it on the counter," Denise said, from the other side of it. "I can tell you which…"

"Nah," Daryl said. "We're gonna take it all."

"Are you sure?" she said. "Because…"

"No, it's fine," Rosita said. We spread through the shelves systematically, each of us scooping everything we could into the bags we were holding. We'd only been moving around a few minutes before we heard a repetitive banging sound from somewhere in the building. Coupled with the smell of death that had hit us on the way in, it was clear there was a Walker somewhere, and breaking in here had disturbed it. We all stopped and listened.

"Sounds like it's just one," Rosita said. It didn't get any louder, any closer.

"It sounds like it's stuck," Daryl concluded. Denise looked nervous, I gave her an encouraging smile, and we all went back to what we were doing. It was hard to worry about one trapped Walker when we'd hit on such a jackpot. This was more meds in one place than I'd seen in a long time. My bag was already getting heavy. I could hear the rattle of other pillboxes around me as the others tried to fill their bags as quietly as possible. Getting my hands on some antibiotics, I immediately felt better about having used the last of Alexandria's. This supply should last the town a good long while.

"Hey," Daryl whispered to me from where he stood filling his bag from one of the shelves behind me. A quick glance over at where we Rosita and Lucas could be heard quietly rummaging through another set of meds. A second quick glance back at the shop behind us, and then he beckoned me over, "C' mere."

"You alright?" I asked, walking over to him. I scanned the shelves he was looking at to see why he might have called me over. "You find something?"

"Nah," he said and took hold of me by the waist. "Just... I'm happy, too. I didn't say that before."

"Yeah?" my breath caught in my throat. This side of him was so new to me. So surprising. I almost asked him to repeat himself because I couldn't believe I'd heard him right. But the way he pulled me to him and looked at me with this burning intensity, I knew I hadn't misheard. I was glad it was dark here so he couldn't see how red my face had probably gone.

"Yeah," he said. "Crazy happy."

I kissed him. We weren't alone, but I couldn't hold it back. It didn't feel like he wanted me to either, kissing me back so deeply I had to hold onto his arms to steady myself.

Glass shattered behind us. I whipped around, my hand springing to the hilt of my knife. Daryl's arm tensed around me, and he took a step forward, trying to get between me and whatever that noise was. In case that Walker had broken free from where it had been trapped. We glanced at each other.

"Denise?" I whispered. He shrugged, and we moved forward. Rosita and Lucas stopped what they were doing, and we all crept forward to take a look into the shop. Denise started back at us from where she'd knocked into a stand and sent the glass ornaments there smashing to the ground.

"What the hell are you doing?" Rosita asked.

"Nothing," she said. But her voice was shaking. A door was open that hadn't been before, and I wondered if she'd come face to face with our trapped Walker. She backed out of the shop and into the brightness outside.

Moment as broken as everything Denise had knocked over, we went back to packing up the pharmacy as quickly as possible. When we were done, we found her sitting on the sidewalk, back against the wall. She held a dusty keyring in her open hand that she must have grabbed from one of the souvenir stands inside.

"Hey," Daryl said to her. She looked up at us. It was clear that she'd been crying. "You did good finding this place."

She nodded, wiped her eyes with the back of her hands, and stood up.

"Tried to tell you that you weren't ready," Rosita said, but there was a little sympathy, and some of her former firmness had gone.

"I know," Denise said dejectedly. Rosita and Lucas started walking back toward the junction between the road we'd taken and the rail tracks that they had. I glanced at Daryl, and we both fell into step with Denise.

"Who's Dennis?" I asked, noticing she was still clutching the keyring in her hand.

"He was my brother," she said. "He's the one who taught me how to drive stick."

"Shame he ain't here to teach Daryl," I said. She gave me a small smile.

"Was he older or younger?" Daryl asked, ignoring my comment.

"Older," she said. "By six minutes. My parents came up with the Dennis/Denise thing on one of their benders. Hilarious, right? Nothing scared him. He was brave... he was angry too. Kind of a dangerous combination."

"Sounds like we had the same brother," Daryl said.

"Hey," Rosita called from the intersection between the railroad and the regular road, urging us to hurry up. Daryl looked down the tracks.

"This way's faster, right?" he said, pointing down it. In a visibly better mood than he had been on the way here, Daryl didn't seem as worried about the railway tracks as he had been before. Lucas and Rosita walked ahead of us. They'd managed to get here just fine. So, maybe it was fine to trust someone else's judgment for a while. Denise fell quiet and walked a little behind us. When I glanced back at her, she seemed to be taking in everything around her, recovering from whatever she'd faced in the Apothecary.

"That was nice," I said quietly to Daryl. "What you said to her back there."

"I like Denise," he shrugged. There was a little pause, "She helped you get better."

I looked at him. His head was lowered, eyes fixed on the tracks slightly ahead of us. I'd never met anyone who cared as much as Daryl. He wasn't always the best at showing it. It often came out as some form of anger: fighting and sniping. But once you'd won his loyalty, nobody in the world had your back like he did. I'd always known how unbelievably lucky I was to know him, but seeing how he'd tried to put Denise at ease after her first major run, I'd never felt luckier. A rush of warm affection, and I took his hand without thinking. He turned his head to look at where our hands joined.

"You okay with this?" I asked quietly, ready to let go.

"Yeah," he relaxed into a smile. "I'm okay with it. Didn't think you'd be, though."

"I'm okay with it," I said. He held on a little tighter. We looked away from each other. The shade from the trees on either side of the tracks didn't come close to covering us. The heat of the sun beat down on us. Cars, abandoned by people trying to avoid the roads, littered the edges of the tracks. There was other shit too, debris dumped by people who were probably long dead. It sounds grim, but it didn't feel that way. Rosita and Lucas were talking up ahead of us, but all I could hear was birdsong in the surrounding forest. It was quiet and warm; with Daryl's hand in mine, I hadn't felt this relaxed in a long time.

"Hey!" Denise called from much further behind than I thought she would. We all stopped and turned to look back at where she stood beside an abandoned car. She pointed to it, "There's a cooler in there. Might be something we can use inside."

"We got what we came for," Rosita said, indicating to the full bag slung over her shoulder.

"Nah," Daryl said. "Ain't worth the trouble, c'mon."

She ignored him and opened the door anyway. The moment she started screaming, we all ran to help her. A Walker sprang from the car, grabbing her with its decaying hands. She was so far away. By the time we reached her, she'd managed to pin it down. She looked up at where we had our guns raised.

"No, don't!" she pleaded as she scrambled to get hold of her machete. She stabbed it through the head. We all relaxed. She stood up on shaky legs, taking several loud and deep breaths. Then she doubled over and threw up. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hands and looked at all of us. "Oh, man. I threw up on my glasses."

"It's only oatmeal," I remind her, as she picked them up and shook off the vomit. "Sure it'll clean up fine."

Legs still shaky, she stumbled back toward the car and pulled out the cooler she'd been talking about. There was a pack of sodas in there. She held them up to show us. "Hot damn!"

"What the hell was that?" Daryl snapped. "You could've died right there, you know that?"

"Yeah, I do," she said nonchalantly.

Her blase attitude rattled Daryl even more. "Are you hearing me?"

"Who gives a shit? You could've died killing those Saviors, hell, she almost did," Denise pointed at me. I wished she wouldn't remind him about that. "But you didn't. You wanna live, you take chances. That's how it works. That's what I did."

"For a couple of damn sodas?" Daryl said.

"Nope. Just this one," she held up a specific can as she walked away from all of us.

Rosita, as enraged by how reckless she'd been as Daryl, followed her. "Are you seriously that stupid?"

"Are you? I mean it. Are you? Do you have any clue what that was to me, what this whole thing is to me? See, I have training in this shit. I'm not making it up as I go along like with the stitches and the surgery and the…" Denise trailed off, self-doubt creeping in. She stopped and looked at Daryl. "I asked you to come with me because you're brave like my brother, and sometimes you actually make me feel safe. Rosita, I wanted you here because you're alone. Probably for the first time in your life. And because you're stronger than you think you are, which gives me hope that maybe I can be, too. And Lucas, you've been an outsider since you got here. Even with the group you arrived in Alexandria with, but you don't deserve to be. And, Naomi, I wish I had your sense of right a wrong, your loyalty. I know you feel like you didn't deserve the last of those meds, but you did. Even if we hadn't found more today, you still would have deserved them."

I opened my mouth to disagree with her, but she wasn't done.

"I could've gone with Tara," she said. "I could've told her I loved her, but I didn't because I was afraid. That's what's stupid. Not coming out here. Not facing my shit. It makes me sick that you guys aren't even trying because you're strong and smart. And you're all really good people, and if you don't wake…"

"Hey!" Lucas sprang forward and shoved Denise back. Denise stumbled on the tracks and fell back. None of us realized could work out what was happening until Lucas crumbled to the ground, too, an arrow stuck through his shoulder. Blood soaked through his shirt.

"Lucas!" I yelled, running to his side, too focussed on the injury to worry about who might have caused it. I looked down at him. He'd gone into shock. "You're okay. You're gonna be okay."

I heard Rosita and Daryl's guns click, and I looked up at where a large group of armed men had emerged from the forest opposite us.

Shit.

I stood beside Lucas's wounded body and raised my own gun.

"You drop 'em now!" someone yelled. We hesitated. And then Eugine was pushed out of the forest too, held at gunpoint. Reluctantly, Daryl and Rosita lowered their weapons. Behind him, now horribly burned on one side of his face, was the guy who'd taken Daryl's bike and crossbow. Something in me snapped.

"You shot my friend, you goddamn asshole," I aimed my gun at him and got ready to shoot. I was too blinded by rage and worry over Lucas to think through the consequences of my actions. I'd let this asshole go once before, but now he'd hurt a friend. He just smirked and looked at Daryl.

"I suggest you keep your bitch on a leash," he said to him. "So, we don't have to put her down."

He raised Daryl's crossbow and pointed it at me. I was so fired up that it would've just come down to which one of us could fire fastest. But Daryl grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to his side.

"Naomi, please," he hissed. There was a desperate, pleading note in his voice that made me stop. Hearing Daryl beg wasn't something I was used to. I dropped my weapons next to his and Rosita's.

"You got something to say to me? You gonna clear the air? Step up on that high horse?" the asshole said to Daryl. He was still holding up the crossbow, taunting him with it. He swung it around to aim at me again, "Still getting the hang of her. Kicks like a bitch, but uh-"

"I should've done it," Daryl said.

"Oh, what's that?" he grinned. "Seriously, I didn't catch what you said."

"I should've killed you," Daryl said, louder this time.

"Yeah, you probably should've," he said. "I get that you'll just have to take my word for this, but… she wasn't even the one I was aiming for, and then I wound up hitting this guy. Doesn't even look like he's dead yet. Like I said, kicks like a bitch."

"Let me help him," Denise said, she'd managed to get to her feet again and raised her arms above her head. "He'll bleed out if I can't get a look at him soon."

"Guess that means you'll wanna speed things up, huh?" the asshole said. "Look, this isn't how we like to start new business arrangements, but, well, you pricks kind of set the tone, didn't you?"

What did that mean? Last time we'd seen this guy, we'd let him live? What the hell had happened to him between then and now?

"What do you want?" I asked.

"I'm sorry, darlin', I don't think I had a chance to catch your name," he said. "Which is a little rude, given how many times you shot at us when we met. I'm D, or Dwight. You can call me either."

It took everything in me not to call him anything worse.

"So?" he prompted. "What's your name?"

"Naomi," I said, eventually. "What do you want?"

"Well, Naomi… it's not what I want. It's what you guys are going to do for me," Dwight said. "You're going to let us into your little complex. And then you're going to let us take whatever and whoever we want. Or we blow Eugene's brains out. And then your friends, and then yours. And then Daryl's. I hope it doesn't come to that, really. Nobody has to die. So what's it gonna be? You tell me."

Not my home.

I felt myself start to shake, and I reached for Daryl's hand, the only thing I thought could steady me in all of this.

"You wanna kill someone, you start with our companion hiding over there behind the oil barrels," Eugene said, staring pointedly at a row of abandoned oil barrels. I stared too. Was he bluffing? Was there someone there? Going out alone didn't seem like something Eugene would have done, so what had happened to whoever he'd left Alexandria with? "He's a first-class a-hole, and he deserves it so much more than the rest of us."

There was a silence where we all looked at the barrels like

"Go check it out," Dwight ordered one of his men. The rest of them watched as the man-made his way toward the barrels, gun raised. Nothing moved behind them, and I began to think that Eugene was bluffing after all. And then I heard Dwight cry out in pain as Eugene bit him in the crotch. Shots rang out from the trees and hit a few of his men. They turned to fire on whoever it was, giving us all enough time to pick up our own weapons again.

I shot at Dwight and the men around him, backing away to take shelter behind a car. In the chaos, they tried to shoot back at us, but with someone firing from the trees, their attention was divided. We kept firing on them.

The noise of our fight drew a group of Walkers from the woods. They attacked us indiscriminately. As they spread out over the tracks, we tried to pick them off from where we'd all taken cover.

I saw Eugene get hit by a flying bullet.

Abraham emerged from the trees to help him.

"Fall back! Fall back!" Dwight yelled to his men, finally able to free himself from Eugene now that he'd been injured. They turned to flee back through the trees they'd ambushed us from. Daryl and I ran out from behind the car we'd been sheltering behind. I headed straight for Lucas. I hadn't seen him move in a while. When I got to him, his eyes were closed, his face was pale.

"Lucas," I called. He didn't stir, but I could feel a pulse. I looked around me for help. Abraham and Rosita were kneeling by Eugene. Denise was only just standing up from the car she had taken cover behind. Daryl had picked up his crossbow and was heading towards the trees to finish off Dwight.

"Daryl! Stop!" I called to him. He looked back at me. "Help me!"

Daryl

Nothing will make you feel worse about being hostile to a guy than when he winds up in a critical condition after taking a bolt for someone. We'd managed to get Eugene and Lucas to Alexandria in the back of the truck. Denise and Naomi sat back there with them, trying to stop them from losing too much blood. Naomi looked so distraught that it was enough to make me regret every bad word I'd ever said to the guy.

Eugene was doing alright. He'd stayed awake the whole time, and now he was recovering, talking to Rosita and Abraham. Lucas hadn't woken up, but Naomi was insistent she could feel a pulse. She was still in Denise's with him. Noah had been called in to help out. He liked to distance himself from Hospital work since his experience at Grady, but this was an emergency. I paced around outside. I'd tried waiting inside, but with the three of them rushing around trying to save him, I'd wound up just getting under everyone's feet. I didn't want to go too far from the room, though. Naomi was too upset, and she might need me. So, I stayed out there for hours. Waiting. Pacing. Hoping.

The door opened, and Naomi emerged from Denise's, her arms covered in blood. She stopped when she saw me, the door swinging shut behind her. I tried to read in her face whether or not he'd made it. For a moment, it looked like she was considering turning back around and heading in again. But then she clenched her jaw, like she does when she's mad, and walked down the stairs to where I was standing. I expected her to stop, but she walked right past me. She looked exhausted. Like she'd lived an extra week in the hours she'd been in there.

"How's he doing?" I asked, running to catch her up. She was walking damn fast.

"Awake," she said but didn't look at me. "Talking."

"That's gotta be a good sign, right?" I said, but there was a tightness in her voice that told me it wasn't necessarily a good thing.

She shrugged, her eyes grew impossibly sad. "Denise did her best, but I don't know if he'll make it."

Her jaw clenched again. For once, it felt like she was the one who was on the verge fighting the first thing that crossed her path. I knew the feeling. I knew what it was like to take every ounce of worry inside you and turn it to anger. I wondered if knowing that would be enough to help me talk her down from it. If anyone was equipped to deal with this, I had to believe it was me. She didn't say another word, just kept walking, glaring at the empty space in front of her. I doubt she even knew where she was walking to.

"Hey," I said gently. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah?" she folded her arms across her chest and threw me a glare that felt like she was accusing me of something. I was immediately uneasy. Maybe I'd been more openly hostile to Lucas than I'd realized, and she was resenting me for it now. I'd wanted to punch him a couple times, but that didn't mean I was happy about him bleeding out.

"Course I am," I said.

"What you sorry for?" she asked, and her voice was so cold that it damn near stopped me in my tracks. "You sorry my friend got shot, or are you sorry you went behind my back and invaded my privacy?"

Oh.

Crap.

"What?" We both knew I knew what she was talking about. I wasn't trying to lie or play dumb to cover it up. I was so shocked she knew that it just slipped out.

"That tape," she spat the word out like it was poison. "I know you watched it."

"Oh. Shit, Naomi…" I wanted her to slow down so we could talk about this properly, but it was like her anger lit a fire under her heels.

"That's why you were so shitty to him today, right?" she said. "You were worried he'd tell me?"

Her eyes pierced me right to my soul. Felt pointless to try and lie about things now.

"Might've been a part of it, yeah," I admitted. "But that doesn't mean I wanted… Any of this to... or… Will you slow down?"

"No," she said. "Back off, quit following me."

"Hey!" I yelled after her. "Talk to me."

"No."

"Naomi!"

She stopped then, rounded on me, eyes blazing with fury. "You wanna talk? Now? Really? Because from the sounds of things you've had a damn week to talk to me about this and you ain't said shit. So, why so chatty now, huh? 'Cause you been caught out?"

She was shaking with anger. I'd only seen her do that once before. And it hadn't ended well for either of this. My chest tightened as I tried to take deep breaths to calm myself. I couldn't let this happen again. Not again. I couldn't take any more time apart from her. Not when things were getting so damn good.

"You were so sick," I tried to explain myself. "I didn't want to…"

"I've been fine for days," she said, making it clear she didn't have time for any of this. "You've had days."

"I know," I said. "I'm sorry."

She waited. Staring at me to see if I'd say anything else. When I didn't, she shook her head like I was the biggest screw up she'd ever laid eyes on.

"I don't wanna talk about this right now, Daryl," she said, running a hand through her hair to push it out of her face. "Go home."

My lungs got tighter. Felt like the world was slipping from under me. "No."

"We can deal with this later," she said. Her voice was flat and emotionless. I could tell she was fighting to keep herself from yelling at me.

"You're mad at me," I said. "I can't walk away from that."

"Damn straight, I'm mad at you," she snapped. "But my friend might be dying back there. I can't have this conversation right now, it's too much."

"Then, when, huh?" I said. I could feel that tight worry dissolving into anger, and I knew I could only keep a reign on it for so long. "Because, yeah, I've had a week to come clean, but you've had months to tell me about it, and you ain't bothered."

I knew instantly it had been the wrong thing to say. I watched her expression change from fighting to keep her cool to unconcealed rage in a second. Worst part is, I kind of didn't care. Part of me was glad. I'd have said anything, done anything to keep her talking to me. Even if she was screaming at me in the middle of the street, at least she wasn't gone.

"It was never any of your fucking business," she said, and there was a tremble in her voice.

"I know," I said.

"I know," she repeated, with venom in her voice. "That all you gotta say to me?"

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, you've said that, too," she looked away from me. "That it? Can I go now?"

"Please don't," I said. I'd run from one fight before, and I knew how hard it could be to come back. She looked back at me but didn't say anything else. She raised an eyebrow like it was up to me to fill the silence or she was walking. I could feel a lump forming in my throat. I swallowed and tried to talk around it. "I was scared of telling you. I didn't know how to bring it up."

"Why? Because you knew I'd be mad?"

"Yes, and… it was so much worse than I thought," I said. "And it hurt. I've never been so hurt. So angry. Hearing what you went through… I needed time to…"

"What I went through…" she interrupted. "It happened to me, Daryl. Me. Not you."

"I know."

"Do you? Because all that's come out your mouth is how it made you feel," she snapped. Something cold twisted in my gut. I had nothing to say to that. She was right. I was making this about me when it shouldn't have been.

"I'm sorry," I said, but things felt too broken to be fixed by something so simple. "That ain't what I meant."

I wanted to start over. The sharpness of the guilt in my stomach had cut open the vast, dark hole there. Felt like I was falling down into it.

"Why'd you do it?" she asked. I wondered if there was an answer on this Earth I could give that would justify it.

"I knew… something happened to you," I said. "And I know you're still dealing with it. I just… I wanted to help. To be there for you."

"If I wanted your help, I'd have asked for it."

"Bullshit," I said. "You never ask for help, Naomi. Never."

"Oh, and you do?"

"Not always," I admitted. "But I always get it. From you. You've always been there for me. Always have my back. I just wanted to do the same for you. I told you, if something happens to you, I want to know. Even this."

Her eyes flashed then, and she took a step toward me, "That why you said all that bullshit about wanting me to tell you shit? Because you'd already seen the tape? Because you already knew?"

"I've known something was wrong for a long time," I said. "I just didn't know what it was."

"So instead of waiting for me to tell you, you went behind my back to find out?" she said.

"I didn't see another way."

"How about you just butt out?" she said. "Terminus has nothing to do with you."

"Might seem that way to you, but you're… we're..." I stopped. Didn't know what to call her. There wasn't a word for how important she was to me. "I want to be there for you. I meant what I said."

"Bullshit."

"It ain't bullshit," I said. I heard my own voice start to crack with how much we were yelling at each other. "Stop saying that."

"If this was about me, you'd have waited for me to tell you," she said. "But this wasn't about me. This was about you feeling like you're entitled to know shit that I don't want you to."

"But why don't you want me to?"

"Because it's none of your damn business." I knew that wasn't it. Not the full truth, anyway. She was holding back on me like always. The thing about Naomi is, she often holds back on herself. She builds walls around her feelings so high that even she can't see over them. Sometimes it's like the only person more clueless about how she feels than me, is herself.

"Maybe not," I said. "But we… You are my damn business. Whether you like it or not, no matter how you feel about me, I give a shit about what happens to you. I know I went about it all wrong… I know I did, but you gotta believe I didn't want to hurt you."

She was quiet for a moment. "Well, you did."

It cut me deep in my chest. How did I always manage to do this? How did I always manage to wind up hurting the one person I swore not to?

"If you're hurting, I want to fix it," I said. "Someone hurts you. I want to make them pay. I thought you got that?"

"I do," she said reluctantly. "But it's not an excuse for…"

"I know," I said. "But can you honestly say you'd ever have told me? About any of it?"

"It's hard to talk about, Daryl," she said. "I don't much want to think about it, nevermind bring it up with you. Sometimes it's nice to just… be around a friend. Forget for a while."

Friend. I tried not to read too much into it, but it felt like we'd just taken several steps back.

"Okay, I get that," I said. She sniffed.

"And… I know you care. You care more than anyone. But… sometimes that makes it harder to tell you things," she said. "Because I know it'll hurt you too. And I don't want that, not if I can deal with it myself."

"It hurts more that you don't talk to me," I said. "It makes me feel like you don't trust me. That maybe we ain't as close as I think we are."

I saw her soften a little, a tiny amount of regret in her eyes, "We are. There's nobody I trust more than you."

"So, you didn't talk to me about it because you were worried I'd get upset."

It was heartbreakingly absurd to me that through all this, she'd even consider how it would make me feel.

"Yeah. And…" she took a few long, deep breaths. "I didn't want you thinking of me like that."

"What?" I said. Her eyes shone with fresh tears that sprang into her eyes. "You mean... what they did to you? That don't change how I see you, Naomi. I-"

"No," she said. "I didn't want you knowing I was a coward."

My anger died down a little, but I could feel this deep pain in my chest. My heart was breaking for her. "You kidding me? You ain't a coward."

"I am," she said like it was a fact.

"What they did to you, Naomi, that ain't your fault."

"I know," she said, but it didn't sound like she fully believed it. "But I didn't fight them when they got to Terminus. That's on me. I… complied with… so much of what they did. I…"

"This about the kids they killed?" I asked. She said nothing, but the way her bottom lip trembled was enough of an answer. "The one they made you kill?"

"I pulled that trigger," the words ripped right out of her, strong enough to cut me. Thought they'd tear her right in two. I reached out for her, desperate to hold her together. "I killed him."

"You can't blame yourself for that," I said, but I knew she did. I could feel her hurt buried deep within me like we were the same person. "That ain't on you."

"I killed a kid, Daryl," she said. Her voice was heavy with so much hatred, but I knew it was all aimed at herself. "Don't you dare try and make me feel better about that."

She looked away from me, and I saw her lose the battle she was having against the tears in her eyes. I took a step toward her, tried to get her to look at me.

"They threatened you," I said, desperate to make her see sense. I couldn't believe she'd been carrying this shit for so long. "It wasn't a choice."

"There's always a choice."

"And what was yours, huh? They were going to kill him. At least you did it quick and painless," I said. "If you'd refused, they might've done worse to him. To you. You might've died too."

"I wish I had," she said quietly, her voice crushed by the weight of a guilt she didn't need to be carrying. It was so heavy I felt it break me too.

"You don't mean that," I said, more to convince myself than her. She hadn't moved, but I felt in that moment that I'd lost her. "Naomi. No. You don't mean that."

She just shrugged and tried to wipe the tears from her face faster than they were flowing. The silence was worse than any amount of screaming. It almost swallowed her up. And then, a hushed whisper, "It's my fault I lost Mia."

"No," I tried to close the gap between us again, but she backed away and raised an arm to stop me from getting closer.

"I didn't fight," she said bitterly. "I should've fought."

"Naomi, you've been fighting your whole damn life," I said. "I don't believe for a second you made the wrong call."

"Daryl," she sighed. "I've been over it so many times in my head. If we'd fought them when they got to Terminus, she might be with us right now."

"Yeah, she might," I said. "Or you might both be dead at the hands of them assholes."

"You'd have fought," she said. "You always fight."

"Yeah, I do," I said. "And it ain't always worked out that best for me. You've always been better at thinking things through, keeping a level head. Your priority was keeping Mia alive. And you did that. Even if we don't know where she is right now, she's out there somewhere because you kept your cool."

I could see in her eyes that she didn't believe me. Didn't believe it wasn't her fault that Terminus had been taken, maybe even didn't believe Mia was out there anymore. She backed away from me.

"Go home, Daryl," she said, turning to walk towards her house. "Please."

"No," I followed her. "Not until we sort this."

"We ain't gonna sort this right now," she said. "I'm so tired. This day has been… so shitty, I just want to go home."

"Let me-"

"No," she said. "Daryl, please. Go."

It felt like something was ending, just as it had begun.

"I don't want to leave you," I said. "Not like this."

"I just need some space," she said. "Some time."

I couldn't even get her to look back at me. I felt like we'd been making progress and then hit a brick wall so hard that it sent us bouncing right back to square one. Frustration rose up inside me, did what it always did, and pulled something nasty and selfish out of me, "We couldn't even make it a damn day."

My words sat there. Cold enough to freeze the air between us. I wondered if she'd ever move again. Ever speak again. She turned. There was a fresh pain in her eyes.

"That's it?" she said flatly. "One fight, and you're done?"

"You're the one leaving."

"I said I need some space," she said. "That doesn't mean I'm just… done."

"Please, everyone knows that's just a polite way for people to walk away."

"I'm not walking away," she said. "It's been a really long day. Everything that happened back there with Dwight... him threatening to come here, to take it over like what happened a Terminus. And then finding out that you'd..."

She stopped. We both knew what I'd done, I was grateful she didn't bring it up again. She looked back at her house and then at me again.

"I need a day to cool down," she said. "To... process everything that's happened. At the very least I need a couple of hours to get Lucas's blood off me. Can you give me that?"

I looked at where her arms had been covered in her friend's blood for so long that it had started to dry. I took in her pale, tired face. The teartracks from her exhausted, sad eyes.

"A day?" I repeated.

"A day," she said again. "Tomorrow night, we can talk about all of it. I'll tell you everything if that's what you want. Can you give me a day?"

My gut was telling me not to agree to it, but I knew that holding on too hard was another surefire way to break everything between us. This whole thing had started because I'd put my need to know everything about her over her need to tell me things on her own terms.

"I promise I'm not leaving you," she said. "I promise I'll come back and see you tomorrow night."

Just hearing those words calmed my racing heart. I knew she meant it. I couldn't think of a single time that Naomi had ever broken a promise to me.

"Okay," I said.

She closed her eyes, I saw her relax. "Thank you."

She hesitated, teetering on the verge of turning and walking away from me, and something else. Then she took a step toward me, reached up and planted a quick kiss on my cheek. Surprising me so much that by the time I realized it had happened, she was already at her door. It lingered long after she was gone.

I fought the urge to run after her. She'd told me she needed space. I needed to learn to listen to that as much as she needed to learn to open up. I was used to people leaving, and there was a deep fear in me that I'd never see her again. But I wanted this to last. And trust is everything, right? I'd just have to trust that she'd come back to me.