Naomi
I slipped my shoes off at the front door. Most days I got home from looking for Mia too tired to do much more than eat, shower, and go to bed. Today was different. I'd still been out searching all day, but I didn't feel so exhausted. I had Daryl with me, and somehow that made me feel like I could move mountains.
"That you, Naomi?" Eric called from the kitchen as the door shut behind Daryl. I could smell something good.
"Yup," I said, slipping my coat off and hanging it up by the door. They were both unusually quiet, I could feel them listening to every noise I made. I knew why, so I announced, "Daryl's here."
I could feel Daryl's nerves as if they were my own. Like they were radiating out from him and hitting me. I tried to absorb as much of it as I could. Meeting new people had never been something he'd been comfortable with. It takes him so long to warm up to them that a lot of folks just give up, write him off as rude, but that ain't it. He's protecting himself. People have a history of letting him down, and I was determined to change that.
"Ah, good," Aaron poked his head out into the hallway and smiled at Daryl. I was glad he'd shown his face first, it sounded like he'd made a bit of an impact when he'd run into him in the woods. And Eric's endless energy could be a little overwhelming at times. "We were hoping you'd join us."
Daryl smiled back but didn't say anything.
"Did I hear you say Daryl's here?" Eric yelled again from the kitchen.
"Yup," I hollered back, and then I wanted to change the subject so the focus wasn't on Daryl and he wouldn't feel like some weird zoo exhibit. "Smells good, Eric."
"Thanks!"
"I live for the day you two stop yelling through the walls at each other," Aaron said. "Whole conversations that the entire neighborhood is probably in on."
"Why does that matter? Ain't like we're talking about you," I pointed out.
"Is he complaining about us being too loud?" Eric called.
"Yes!" I yelled back.
"Why?" he shouted. "It's not like we're talking about him?"
"I kno-"
"For the love of God," Aaron marched towards me and, with one hand between my shoulder blades, propelled me towards the kitchen. He glanced back at Daryl, "Has she always been like this?"
"Yup," Daryl said, following us towards the dining table. "Only way to shut her up is to stick a book in front of her."
"Hey!" I said indignantly.
"Oh, yeah," Aaron said. "I've learnt that trick."
"Well, snacks work too," he offered as an alternative.
"Noted. Thanks," Aaron said. They shared a smile, and I felt like my heart might burst, even if their joke was at my expense. I wanted Daryl to feel as comfortable in this house as I did. I wanted him to be able to come and hang out here even if I was out someplace else. The thought of coming home to unexpectedly find him here made me stupidly happy. I guess the feeling of having him back in my life still hadn't worn off. Maybe it never would.
"Wine, anyone?" Eric carried two bottles into the room, and I realized how excited he was to be hosting this dinner party. Wine was hard to come by, and here he was using up two of their bottles.
"I'd love some," I said. I got the sense that Aaron and Eric had enjoyed entertaining in their previous life, but hardly ever got to do it here. There were few people in Alexandria that they felt comfortable enough with to invite over.
"Me too," Aaron said. I glanced at Daryl, suddenly worried that I should've said no so that he'd feel like he could turn it down if he wanted to. He'd refused a beer at the party, said he was trying to drink less, but didn't say he wasn't drinking at all. I knew his relationship with alcohol was… complicated, to say the least. I should've pushed him for more detail, but I'd been too caught up in the moment. Too distracted by how nervous he seemed, all cleaned up in a new shirt.
"Sure," he said after a slight pause. "I'll take a glass."
Eric gave him a huge, beaming smile and put both bottles down on the table.
"Dinner is basically ready, can someone give me a hand with the plates?" he said.
"Yeah, I will," I said, following him towards where a stack of plates and a family-sized bowl of pasta was sitting on the counter.
Eric started to dish some out onto the plates, leaving the rest in the bowl for people to help themselves to seconds. He leaned in very close to me and whispered, "He looks a lot cleaner than he did before. And I think that's a new shirt. Do you think that means anything?"
"That he had a shower and found a change of clothes?" I said, as quietly as I possibly could.
"But do you think that means anything?"
"Alright," I said loudly, balancing all four plates in a way that had become second nature to me. "Grub's up."
I carried the plates over, leaving Eric and his annoying ass questions to pick up the bowl with the leftovers. Daryl caught my eye and grinned. I put the first plate down in front of him. "Like being back at the diner."
Eric put the bowl down in the center of the table and opened up one of the bottles of wine.
"You used to work at a diner?" Aaron asked.
"Sure did," I said, setting his plate down in front of him. Then, as I moved on to Eric's place, I put on my best customer service voice and said, "Welcome to Eric's Diner, the special today is spaghetti bolognese, and the house wine is whatever the fuck Olivia had in the pantry."
"Was there a uniform?" Eric asked, filling up wine glasses
"You bet," I said, taking the seat next to Daryl. "This godawful blue dress with one of those dumb aprons, which - by the way - do nothing to keep you clean. Spilt more shit on the dress than anywhere else."
"I bet you looked adorable," Eric said, sitting down opposite me now that everyone had a full glass. He looked at Daryl like he was expecting him to say something.
I was about to change the subject when Daryl shrugged and said, "I liked the blue. Went with your eyes. You got any salt?"
As Aaron passed him the salt, I forgot anything I'd been about to say, just looked at him to see if he was taking the piss or not. He wasn't looking at me, he'd already started tucking into the food in front of him like what he'd said was no big deal. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe I was just letting Eric's dumb teasing get to me. I looked down at my own plate and started eating mine, hoping it would squash down the weird feeling in my stomach.
There were a few minutes where nobody spoke, and then Eric said, "Well..." and I looked up from my plate again to see him staring at us while we ate. "It's easy to see where Naomi gets her terrible table manners."
"Hey, they ain't that bad!" I protested, but then I looked at Daryl, caught him with three pieces of spaghetti hanging out of his mouth and sauce on his chin. When I touched my own face, there was sauce there too.
"You got a lil' sauce beard," Daryl told me through a mouthful of food and laughter.
"You got it too, dipshit," I said.
"Do I?" he wiped his face on the back of his sleeve and then stared at the stain. Clean-shirted Daryl had lasted all of half an hour. "Huh. Well, it's good grub. Thanks."
He glanced up at Eric before he started shovelling food back into his mouth. Eric caught my eye and did his best not to laugh.
"No problem," he said, and finally stopped gawping at us for long enough to start eating his own damn food.
"How was the party?" Aaron asked. Beside me, I was aware that Daryl slowed his eating down to listen to my answer. Probably still wondering if he should feel bad that I'd left with him. At that moment, there were few places on Earth I'd rather be than here.
"Exactly as expected," I said, with a shrug. "Good snacks, mediocre conversation, terrible music."
"You lasted longer than I thought you would," Eric said, with a glance at the one clock in the house that worked. Or, at least, we thought it worked. The time it showed seemed close enough to the level of light outside for all of us to just accept it.
"So, how'd you guys meet?" Daryl asked, waving his fork between the two of them.
"Work," Aaron said. Daryl nodded, and there was another silence.
"That's it?" Eric sighed. "That's all you're going to say? Just 'work'?"
"Well it's true, isn't it?" I could see Aaron trying to hide a smile behind his wine glass as Eric looked outraged. "And you just tell the story so much better."
"So, it was my first day on the job," Eric launched into the full story without any further prompting. "Just started at this tiny little NGO in DC. Hardly any funding, a whole team of us crammed in this one tiny little office space, and right on Day One, I nearly quit. Felt so out of my depth."
"You were late," Aaron reminded him.
Eric rolled his eyes.
"So you say," Eric said. "I don't remember that. All I remember is having no idea what I was doing and looking around and seeing everyone else had their shit together, and I was so panicked."
"You'd missed the morning brief," Aaron said. "So of course everyone else knew what they were doing."
"And this guy comes over to me," Eric said as if Aaron hadn't even spoken. "Cutest guy I'd ever seen in my life, so cute I could hardly listen to what he was saying. But he explained everything, totally saved my life."
"Bit of an exaggeration," Aaron said. "But you were floundering."
"I'd seen him carrying around a chai latte that first day," Eric said. "So to thank him, I brought one in for him the next day. And every Monday after that."
"It made you at least five minutes late every time," Aaron said, shaking his head slightly.
"But what I didn't know," Eric said. "Is that the first day, he'd actually just been holding on to it for one of the Directors, and absolutely hated them himself. Right?"
"Right," Aaron nodded.
"But..." Eric prompted. Aaron rolled his eyes, tried to resist whatever Eric was trying to get him to do.
"...But I drank it anyway," Aaron finished, embarrassed but grinning.
"He drank it anyway," Eric repeated like we might not have heard. "Took him six weeks to break it to me that he didn't like them."
"Think it might actually have been seven," Aaron said.
"Seven weeks to tell me you didn't like chai lattes and only five dates to tell me you loved me," Eric said, a little smug.
"When you know, you know," Aaron said like it was no big deal. But you could tell from the way he looked at Eric and smiled, and the way that Eric looked back at him like he was the single greatest person on earth, that it was a huge deal.
"Enough about us," Eric said, returning his attention to his dinner. "What's the shortest amount of time it's taken you to tell someone you loved them?"
He looked at me, and my mind went blank.
"I..." I could feel everyone at the dinner table looking at me. I took a few sips of wine to stall for time. "I ... don't think I have."
"What?" Eric almost choked on his wine. "Really? Never?"
I could feel my face getting hot, shifted uncomfortably in my chair. "Er, no..." I said. "Don't think so."
"How is that possible?" Eric asked. "Were you some kind of nun in DC?"
"No," I said. "I mean... I dated people. I just wasn't looking for anything long-term. I had Mia to worry about. Didn't want her getting attached to anyone I'd just end up breaking up with. My job was pretty full-on too, so..."
"Okay, so you're a commitment-phobe," he said, and then looked at Daryl. "What about you?"
Daryl shrugged, didn't look at anyone, "Better on my own."
Hearing him say it made me sad. It wasn't entirely unexpected, Daryl had always been a bit of a lone wolf, but did he really think he was better off that way?
Eric shook his head at both of us, "Unbelievable."
"Not everyone is a hopeless romantic like you, Eric," Aaron said. "Some people are fine by themselves."
"I just can't imagine going through this shit without you," Eric told him. "Sounds terrible."
The way he looked at Aaron made my chest ache. Aaron looked back at him, took his hand and gave it a squeeze.
"Ain't it hard?" Daryl asked. "Having to worry about someone else all the time?"
"I know Aaron can handle himself out there," Eric said. Aaron stayed quiet.
"Liar," I said with a grin, happy to finally have something to make him squirm for a change.
"What?" Eric said.
"That's bullshit," I said. "I've been there when you're fretting about him not coming back to the car. Damn near shot me the first time we met and I came out of the woods before him."
"To be fair," he said. "You looked half-dead and fully-disgusting."
"Rude."
"But you're right," he admitted. "I worry about him a little."
Aaron smiled again, but it wasn't as sincere. I knew Aaron worried about Eric a lot. He let go of Eric's hand and said, "More wine, anyone?"
I looked at my glass. It was emptier than I thought. "I'll take some," I said.
Aaron stood up to fill up my glass across the table. Eric held up his glass for more too. Daryl refused, still only halfway through his first.
"Help yourselves to more pasta," Eric reminded us, gesturing to the bowl in the middle of the table. Daryl immediately started heaping more onto his plate. I was impressed that he'd restrained himself for so long, took it to mean he was trying to make a good impression on them both.
"We're always telling Naomi she should start a paper here," Aaron said. It would have been an almost welcome change of subject if it hadn't been about me. "Give us all something decent to read."
"Yeah," I raised an eyebrow at him. "And what am I going to write about? 'Noodle Nightmare: Neudermeyer speaks out about the horrors of 500 days without fresh pasta'."
Eric laughed, "God, don't put her on the front page. That would go right to her head."
"Only you two idiots would read it," I said. "What's the point in printing it when we discuss it all to death over dinner anyway?"
"I'd read it," Daryl said with a shrug. I hadn't been expecting him to say anything at all, he'd been silent for a while.
"There you go," Aaron said triumphantly. "That's three. A growing readership."
I looked at Daryl, couldn't tell if he was taking the piss or not. "You'd read a whole newspaper story about one woman's complaints about being unable to make her own pasta from scratch?"
"If you wrote it, yeah," he said, then he looked back down at his plate, shoved another two forkfuls of pasta in his mouth at once. I could feel Eric staring at me across the table.
"Bullshit," I said.
"Her stuff's damn good. She'd make it good, whatever this pasta-maker shit was," Daryl glanced up at them. "Don't let her convince you otherwise."
I didn't know what to say. I drank some more wine just so I had something to do, but I knew it probably wasn't the best idea. I felt giddy all of a sudden, my head was light. It had been so long since I'd had any alcohol that my tolerance was the lowest it had ever been.
"Have you met Mrs Neudermyer yet?" Eric asked. Daryl shook his head. "Okay, well she's really looking for a pasta maker, and we're all really trying to get her to shut up about it. I mean, we have crates of dried pasta in here, so... if you see one on your travels-"
I cleared my throat. "Em... Eric..."
"You haven't asked him?" he looked between Aaron and me.
"No…" I said. "Not yet."
"Ask me what?" Daryl put his fork down and looked at me.
"Should we…?" Aaron nodded in the direction of the garage door.
"Yes," I stood up, looked at Daryl. "C'mon."
I lead him over to the garage, let him open the door. Aaron had laid all of the bike parts he'd collected out across a few workbenches. The bike itself was under a sheet. Daryl walked in, I watched him take it all, and my stomach turned over with nerves. I wanted so badly for him to like it, for this to interest him enough to keep him here. I hung back by the door, let Aaron step in there with him. I wanted it to be clear that this job offer was coming from him.
"When I got this place, there was that frame and some parts and equipment," Aaron said. "Whoever lived here built them."
"It's a lot of parts for one bike," Daryl said, picking one of them up and turning it over in his hands.
"Whenever I came across any parts out there, I brought them back," Aaron said. "I didn't know what I'd need. I always thought I'd learn how to do it, but from what Naomi says, you already know what do to with it. And the thing is, you're going to need a bike."
"Why?" I watched Daryl's face change. Instant suspicion. Did he think Aaron was going to tell him to get out?
"I told Deanna not to give you a job because I think I have one for you," Aaron said. Daryl said nothing. "I'd like you to be a recruiter for Alexandria. I don't want Eric risking his life anymore."
"You want me risking mine, right?"
"Yeah, because you know what you're doing," Aaron said. "You're good out there. But you don't belong out there. I know it's hard getting used to people getting used to you. And I understand right now you need to be out there sometimes. So do I, but the main reason why I want you to help with recruiting is because you know the difference between a good person and a bad person."
He glanced over at me. "You fill his head with this crap?"
"I may have pointed them in the right direction," I said. "But the recruiting thing was all his idea."
"That true?"
"Yeah," Aaron assured him. "She was too busy trying to argue with me."
"Sounds about right."
He looked away from us, back down at the bike. I could tell he was on the verge of saying yes. I wanted to say something else, but didn't want to push so hard he'd change his mind.
"I got nothing else to do," he said eventually. But he was happy about it, I could tell. Maybe even excited. He looked back at Aaron. "Thanks. I'll get you some rabbits."
"Great," Aaron laughed, probably not realizing that Daryl was dead serious.
I tried to hide my smile, but I couldn't. Watching Daryl examine the bike under the sheet made me want to jump around with joy. He'd had been aimless since he got here like he was just waiting for the first chance to run. I hoped Aaron was right, and giving him a purpose here would help him find a home. Every morning when I woke up, there was a tiny part of me that worried he'd have up and left in the night, having gotten sick of this place.
Aaron glanced up and me and gave me a subtle nod. I grinned back. He walked past me and back into the house, giving me a gentle pat on the shoulder on his way.
"What you grinning at, dummy?" Daryl asked when he was gone. I'd been too busy looking at Aaron to see him look up from the bike.
"Nothing," I said, trying and absolutely failing to wipe the smile from my face. "It's just nice to see you with a bike again."
"Had Merle's for a while," he said. "Lost that, though."
"Oh, shit," I said. That bike must've brought Daryl some comfort after he'd lost Merle. "That -"
I didn't get to finish. Eric pulled the garage door open so suddenly it made me jump. He looked around the place like he was a parent expecting to catch us getting up to something we shouldn't be. When he saw me by the door and Daryl by the bike, he looked a little disappointed.
"I should go," Daryl said. "It's getting late."
I wanted to disagree with him, but a yawn betrayed me. I was full of wine and pasta, the garage was cold, but the rest of the house had been warm. For the first time since I'd got here, and even though today hadn't been the day I'd found Mia, I was happy. It was a heady mix that made me very sleepy.
"You sure?" Eric asked him. "I'm sure we can dig some more wine out of somewhere..."
I shook my head at him and yawned again. The alcohol already doing just enough to make my brain fuzzy.
"Nah, it's okay," Daryl said. "Thanks, though."
"I'll walk you out," I said. Eric sighed and let us both back into the house. Aaron was sitting back at the dining table again.
"Thanks for having me," Daryl said to them both, and then pointed back to the garage door. "And thanks for…"
"Any time," Aaron said.
"Lovely to have you," Eric said. "Come back soon!"
Daryl didn't say anything else, just kind of nodded at them both and we walked to the front door. I tried not to stare too much at him, but I was trying to read his expression. See if we'd done enough. I opened the door, yawned again, "Thanks for coming."
He stepped outside, turning quickly to glance at the house behind me he pulled me out by my elbow.
"Hey," he said quietly, reached over to shut the door behind us. He looked serious. It worried me.
"You okay?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said, but he didn't smile. Out on the front porch, the only light came from the house we'd just left and the stars above it. His eyes were serious, looking at me in a way I wasn't quite used to. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For what you did tonight," he said. "The job and…"
I started to protest. "Aaron told you that he-"
"Yeah, yeah, I know," he said. "But all that good stuff he saw. That's on you."
"No," I said. "Aaron saw all of it for himself when you were out there together. He told you that. And-"
"Will you close your damn mouth and let me finish for once?" he said. I closed my damn mouth. Out of shock more than anything else. He took a deep breath and looked back at me. "You always believed in me. Even when there was nothing there to believe in, you still saw something. And that made me think that maybe there was... something... good."
I wasn't sure he was done. I hated when he was down on himself, but didn't want to interrupt him again, so I waited until the pause was too much.
"Daryl," I said softly. "I didn't see anything that wasn't there. It's all you."
He shook his head. "I did some bad shit," he said. "With Merle... I wasn't always... after you left, I didn't..."
"I'm sorry," I said because he was struggling and I was sorry for leaving him behind in Georgia.
"Ain't your fault," he said. "Ain't what I'm trying to say either."
"It doesn't matter what you did with Merle," I said. "We've all done bad shit when we had to. God knows I have."
He looked at me like he didn't believe me. I almost cracked. Almost told him about Terminus, about killing José, and that it was nobody's fault but mine that Mia was gone. But I couldn't, I didn't have the strength to unpack all of that tonight. Couldn't deal with Daryl seeing me differently, not yet.
"I'm different now," he said. "Better. Or, at least I'm trying to be. I need you to know that."
"You ain't different," I said. It broke my heart that Daryl thought any part of him needed to change. For a moment, he looked crushed. "Whoever you think you are now... it's who you've always been. Just more people around to see it is all. I know you. Rick, Carol, everyone else you're here with clearly knows you too, else they wouldn't trust you so much. Give yourself some credit, man."
He was frustrated. "If you want me to accept that I had any part in the shit you did, you have to accept that you helped me too."
I sighed, hadn't thought of this working both ways. I knew how frustrating it had been when he wouldn't accept what I'd been trying to say. So I said, "Alright. Okay. I get it. Thanks, dumbass."
He breathed a sigh of relief.
"You happy here?" he asked. "With them?"
"Yeah," I said. "They're good people."
"Yeah, they seem it," he said with a nod. "Good."
He looked reassured like he'd been worrying about something he didn't have to any more. He turned to walk away, and I felt my stomach drop. What if the only reason he was sticking around was to check his friends, were happy here? What if Aaron and I hadn't done enough to make him feel at home here too? What if I woke up tomorrow and he was gone?
"Daryl!" I called for him before I'd even thought about it. He turned. I ran to the bottom of the steps. "If you ain't happy here… if you decide you wanna leave. I'd come with you."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I mean… not right now. This place gives me a good base to look for Mia, but...," I said. "In a little while, I could move on and search other places. I'd leave with you. If you wanted me to..."
I hadn't expected this to leave me feeling so vulnerable. I'd just blindly assumed that if Daryl left, he'd want me tagging along. But maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he really did believe he was better on his own.
"Yeah," he said. There was a light in his eyes now. Could have been from the wine but it felt new. "I get it."
It wasn't enough of a response to calm my fears.
"Just…" I sighed. "Don't leave without saying goodbye."
He looked surprised. "I wouldn't."
"Okay," I nodded. We looked at each other in the moonlight for a second. I felt better, less like he'd melt into the shadows and never come back out of them again. I reached out to hug him. Daryl and I had never been the type of people that hugged each other when we said goodbye. Usually, it had been reserved for if one of us was upset - if his dad had beaten him or my Momma burned me. Maybe it came from years of Merle teasing us about sleeping together, but there was an unspoken rule that we never got too close without good reason. Unless one or both of us had needed a hand to hold in the dark. I didn't have a reason this time, other than it was still so unbelievably good to have him near that I still couldn't fully believe he was real. Or maybe I'd just had too much wine.
He was surprised, but he hugged me back. Something about it felt different too, at least to me. Like he held on a little longer, a little tighter. Like his hands lingered on my hips when we pulled apart. Like the way he looked at me in that moment was different from the way it usually was.
I fought the urge to ask him to stay again, although the question was burning my tongue. Told myself it was because the only night I hadn't had nightmares was when he'd been in my bed. But that wasn't a good reason to take him away from his friends again. I wasn't a child, I should be able to deal with a few bad dreams on my own for fuck's sake. So, I said, "Night, Daryl."
"Night."
I turned and walked back up the porch steps, stopped by the door and watched his silhouette fade in and out of view under the streetlights. Before he went into his house, he turned back to me and waved. I lifted my hand and waved back. When I opened the front door, Eric practically fell over backwards in his attempt to get away from it without me smacking him in the head.
"Were you..." I looked from him to the door and back again. "Were you just standing there with your ear pressed against the damn door?"
"Well," he looked a little sheepish, but not enough. "If you two would just speak louder..."
"Then you wouldn't have to be almost knocked unconscious by someone coming through the door?"
"Yes, exactly."
Eric followed me back to the dining table. I picked up a few of the dirty plates that were still lying out and took them through to the kitchen where Aaron had already started washing up. I added the dirty dishes to the pile beside him and picked up a tea towel and started drying.
"He's nice," Aaron said. "I like him."
"Good. You should," I said. There was a moment of quiet, where I could feel Eric staring at the back of our heads, and when I glanced at Aaron, I could see he was doing his best not to laugh.
"Is that all you have to say?" Eric demanded. "He's nice? Were you not at the same dinner party I just was?"
"What?" Aaron laughed.
"The glances," he said, with an overdramatic demonstration. "The giggling… the blushing. I didn't know you could go that red, Naomi."
"I didn't!" I protested and flicked a tea towel at him. I looked at Aaron to back me up, but he didn't. "Did I?"
"You did a bit," he said gently.
"It's not just that. You light up when he's around," Eric said. "It's like… you're still you. But you're… more you... if that makes sense."
"Not at all," I said. But it was kind of a lie. I kind of knew what he meant. I felt more like myself when Daryl was around. I had a habit of getting self-conscious, of quietly adapting myself to whatever situation I was in. It came from years of trying not to stick out around people of a higher class than me. Like he made me comfortable enough to be myself, no matter what company we were in. I hadn't realized it was so obvious, even to people who hadn't known me that long.
"Will you stop it?" Aaron said, but he was amused.
Eric heaved a loud and overly dramatic sigh, "I wish I could. But this is the most exciting thing that's happened in Alexandria since we got here."
"Eric likes to think of himself as some kind of matchmaker," Aaron said. "But he's only been successful on… I think about three occasions?"
"Yes," Eric said.
"And one of them was the Joe and Hannah Frankish," Aaron reminded him. "Who lasted about two and a half years."
"Oh yeah," Eric sighed. "Six months of marriage and then the most bitter divorce I've ever witnessed… maybe you shouldn't listen to me."
Daryl
Most of the shit in the kitchen was meaningless to me, but the knife sharpener was at least useful. I sat at the dumb little breakfast bar and sharpened the knives I carried with me. Months of jamming them into goddamn Walker skulls had made a lot of them kind of blunt. There was a knock on our door. I didn't pay much attention to it until I heard Carol answer. Her surprised voice floated through the hall and into the kitchen.
"Oh, hello, Naomi," she said. My heart leapt into my mouth. "Come in, I'll get Daryl for you."
"Actually, I ain't here to see him," I heard Naomi reply. She sounded nervous, although I doubt anyone but me would've known that. Something was up. I put my knife down. "Are Rick and Michonne around?"
At the sound of his name, Rick stood up, shot me a puzzled glance to see if I knew anything. I shrugged.
"Sure," Carol said. "Come on through."
"In here," Rick called, wiping his hands on a tea towel.
"Hi," she looked nervous when she stepped in but maybe in a way that only I'd have noticed. She walked up to Rick and stuck out her hand like they were in a business meeting. "Thanks for seeing me."
"That's okay," he said, shaking her hand but wildly confused. "Everything alright?"
"Deanna says you and Michonne are our new police officers," Naomi said. "That right?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"And Daryl says you were a real cop… before all of this."
"That's true," he said, although she hadn't necessarily been looking for confirmation.
"My sister's missing," she said. "I know she weren't taken in Alexandria so there's nothing you can do about it. I'm not asking you to take it on as a case or anything. I just… I wondered if you had any advice? For finding her?"
There was so much hope in her voice, she looked at him like he might have all of the answers. I stood up, took an automatic step towards her. If this didn't go well, if he dismissed her, I wanted to be close. Rick's gaze flickered from her to me and back again.
"Sure," he said, and I watched her light up. "Can you walk me through what you've got so far?"
"Yes," she said and pulled a stack of papers out of her bag. Most of them were the maps I'd seen her and Aaron looking over at breakfast that first morning. In true Naomi-style, she'd made detailed lists and notes on every place she'd searched so far, and she'd written down every piece of information she could get from Perla. I'm sure if there'd been spare binder in the whole of Alexandria, she'd have filled it. I listened to her walk Rick through her findings. He occasionally interrupted her to ask a question or check something. She had a look on her face. One she always gets when she's focussed, like the only thing that exists is whatever she's working on. Whole room could catch fire and she wouldn't know.
Rick was calm and kind. It was like getting a glimpse of the old cop-Rick, who might've dealt with families of missing kids, without having to worry about hordes of Walkers. He gave her the best advice he could, told her to search places that it was likely communities would have sprung up. Told her to steak out any she found and get as much information on them as she could before she went in there. Safety first. She nodded along and took notes, but even as she did, so I couldn't imagine her staying that calm if she thought someone had Mia. I'd have to go with her. Stop her from going in, guns blazing, to the first place she found.
"If you find something that looks promising," Rick said. "Come back and tell us. We'll help."
She stared at him. "You serious?"
"Well, I sure will," he said. "Can tell Daryl will too."
"I'm in," Michonne said. "I wasn't a cop before this but… I'll help."
"Thank you," Naomi said. I could tell she was touched. "Thank you so much."
"I lost my little girl," Carol said suddenly. She'd been quiet for so long I'd almost forgotten she was there. It had been a long time since she'd said anything about Sophia. Felt like a lifetime ago that we'd lost her.
Naomi looked over her shoulder at her. "I'm so sorry."
"She would be about the same age as Mia now, I guess," Carol said. "She got scared. Wandered off…"
Naomi put down the piece of paper she'd been making notes on and moved towards Carol. "What was her name?"
"Sophia."
"Pretty name," she said. "I'm so sorry you lost her."
"Thank you," Carol said. "And I'm sorry for your loss too."
The way she said it made it sound like Mia was dead, not just missing.
"Mia's only my little sister," Naomi said. "I'm sure it ain't the same as losing a kid."
"Bullshit," I said. "You raised that girl. Better parent than her own Momma."
"A rock would've been a better parent than our Momma," Naomi said, turning red. She glanced at me, the first time in a while. "But thank you."
There was a short silence. Rick and Carol looked at me like they were expecting me to say something else, but I didn't know what. Naomi looked at the ground. I knew my praise would've embarrassed her, but I couldn't sit around and let her sell herself short.
"Losing a child is always tough," Carol said. "No matter how you're related. Daryl actually did a lot in trying to find my Sophia."
"I'll bet he did," Naomi said. She and Carol shared a smile, and it was my turn to look at the ground. "He was great with Mia when she was younger. Used to babysit her all the time."
"Explains why he's so good with Judith," Rick said.
"Who's Judith?" she asked.
"My daughter," Rick replied. "You wanna meet her?"
"Yeah," Naomi smiled, surprised that Rick was so welcoming compared to the last time he'd been here. "I'd love to."
"Carl," Rick called up the stairs. "Will you bring Judith down here for a sec?"
We all stood and listened to Carl's footsteps on the stairs. He appeared at the bottom, holding Judith in his arms. She looked around at us all with her big blue eyes.
"Hey," Naomi said to both of them. Carl looked at her from under the brim of his daddy's old hat.
"You're Perla's friend?" he said. She nodded.
"You're Carl, right?"
"Yeah, this is Judith," he said, with a nod to his little sister.
"May I?" Naomi asked, reaching out to her. Carl glanced at Rick, who nodded and then held her out for Naomi to take. She balanced her on her hip and smiled down at her like she used to do with Mia. "Hey there, Judith."
"How's Perla?" Carl asked.
"She's on the mend," Naomi said. "I'm sure she'll be up and about in no time."
Judith looked up at her, grabbed a lock of her hair.
"Sorry," Rick said. "She does that."
"It's alright," Naomi laughed. "Mia was the same at her age. Do you remember?"
She looked at me then, so suddenly it made my heart jump. She was still smiling, but her eyes had misted over remembering Mia at that age. I cleared my throat. "Yeah. I remember. She used to take my keys off me. Made it real difficult to go home."
"I might've encouraged that one," Naomi said with a cheeky grin. She peeled her own hair out of Judith's hands and held her out to Rick. "Thanks, Rick, I won't take up any more of your time."
"No problem," he said, taking Judith from her.
She started gathering up the maps and papers she'd brought with her. I moved to help. She looked alarmed, "I have a system. I put-"
"Yeah, I remember your damn system," I said. She relaxed when she saw I wasn't wrong. She'd had the same color coding system since she was nine years old. I could have packed her shit away in my sleep. When it was done, she glanced at Rick and Michonne, "Thank you for your time."
She said it all polite like they were teachers she'd annoyed by sticking around after class to ask too many questions. Rick looked amused.
"No problem," he said, then he stuck his hand out just like she'd done to him on the way in. "Sorry I was so hard on you," he said. "I should've trusted Daryl."
"That's okay," she said, shaking his hand. "I was just glad someone in this group had enough damn sense not to trust any old person stumbling out of the bushes. I'd have tried to shoot me too."
He chuckled, and I looked from one to the other. They weren't so dissimilar; Rick and Naomi. They could both get people to listen when it mattered, they could both see the bigger picture in most situations, they'd both go to the ends of the earth for the people they cared about. I was happy they were getting on. Don't know what I'd have done if they didn't. Before I followed Rick, I followed Merle, but before I followed Merle, I followed her.
On her way out, she stopped where Carol was standing by the kitchen door, her back to the hall. She held out a Tupperware box. "You want to take some with you?"
"You sure?" Naomi asked, but she was already reaching for them. It's hard for her to turn down snacks.
"Of course," Carol said.
"You're... you're the one who burned down Terminus, right?" Naomi said it real quiet, but Carol still looked behind her in case someone else had come into the house without her knowing.
"Yes," she admitted. "But I don't..."
Naomi rushed forward, threw her arms around her. Carol was shocked. Over her shoulder, I caught sight of Naomi's face reflected in one of the hallway mirrors. While she thought nobody could see her, I watched the way she quietly fell apart. Her eyes squeezed shut, her face crumpled with some kind of sadness.
"Thank you," she whispered and then she let go, her face smoothed over again. A smile like nothing had happened. Carol smiled back, and Naomi made her way towards the front door. I went to follow her, but Carol caught my arm.
"Be careful," she said quietly as the door closed behind Naomi. "With her."
I didn't like the way she said it, or anything it implied. I tried not to get mad. "Thought you liked Naomi?"
"I do," she said. "Which is why I don't want either of you getting your hopes up about finding her sister. You remember what happened with Sophia?"
"Of course I do," I said. "But this ain't the same."
"Really?"
"Mia was taken," I said. "Someone's got her."
"Doesn't mean she's still alive," Carol said. "Not knowing… that's the worst part."
"We'll find her," I said.
"You might not," Carol said. "She might be alive, she might be dead. But either way, she might never find out. Don't get her hopes up. Or your own for that matter."
"We'll find her," I repeated. We had to. I'd promised Naomi that we would. When we'd found each other again, nothing had felt impossible. But a part of me felt guilty about it now. I'd been confident we'd find Sophia too. Carol gave me a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. Like I'd already lost.
I picked up my crossbow and headed out to catch up with Naomi.
"Hey!" I called to her. "Wait up."
I heard the door slam behind me. Naomi stopped and turned, waited for me to catch her up. "You alright?"
"Yeah," I said. "Just thought I could come work on the bike. Y'know… so we can head out soon. Tomorrow, maybe?"
"Yeah," she said, with an excited little smile. "Sounds great."
She opened up the garage door for me. I pulled the sheet off the bike, and she cleared a space for herself on one of the workbenches, where she sat cross-legged and watched what I was doing.
"You just going to sit there?" I asked.
"Yeah."
"Ain't you got a book to read or something?"
"I do," she said. "I'll get it out in my own sweet time if I get bored, thank you."
I tried not to think about her watching me, tried not to let it pull my focus away from the bike. But it was difficult.
"So, what was all that about?" I asked, my eyes still on the bike so she wouldn't feel like I was putting too much pressure on her to answer if she didn't want to.
"What was all what about?" she asked. I wondered if she was playing dumb, but I was playing it cool so I couldn't look at her and check. I thought about just telling her I'd seen her reflection in the mirror, but it felt like an intrusion.
So instead, I just said, "With Carol? Thanking her?"
"Oh," she said. A slight pause and then, "Place deserved to burn is all. Glad she did it."
I wanted to push her for more details but didn't know how to ask. So, I worked in silence for a while. It wasn't bad, it was still comfortable.
"Hey, Lucas!" she called. I looked up from the bike to see him walking past the open garage door with Perla. They both waved and crossed the street to join us. I noticed Perla still looked both ways before she crossed, which was funny given there were never any cars around. The garage felt too small when there were four of us in it. I hoped they'd get out soon.
"You feeling better?" Naomi asked, and Perla nodded.
"Just taking her to see if Carl's in," Lucas said.
"He should be," Naomi said. "We were just over there. You guys want a cookie?"
She held out the box Carol had given her. He hesitated, put his hand out to stop Perla from reaching in.
"You didn't make these, did you?" he asked. Naomi laughed. I wondered if it was some kind of private joke.
"No," she said. "Carol made them. They're safe, I promise."
Perla took one. Lucas did too.
"What's wrong with Naomi making them?" I asked. She didn't seem offended but was he making fun of her? He looked warily at me, which given the number of times I'd threatened him, I guess was fair.
"Well," he said with a nervous smile. "Naomi told us about this one time she made a cake and forgot the flour, so it was just eggs and sugar and butter. And I think you even iced it, right?"
He looked at Naomi, who nodded. "Yup. And it was hard to stick the candles in it because it was more liquid than solid."
I knew the cake.
"Weren't it suppose to be like that?" I asked.
"Nope." She grinned from ear to ear.
I looked at Lucas and shrugged. "Still tasted good."
His mouth dropped open a little, "That's the friend you made it for?"
"Yup," she said. "And he comes with a steel stomach, so I wouldn't recommend anyone else eats my baking. Carol, on the other hand… must be some kind of wizard. These are good."
"The cake you made for Mia's was nice," Perla said. She'd been quiet since she got here and now she looked sad.
"It was," Naomi agreed and put an arm around her. "And we'll make another one for when she gets back, right?"
"Yeah," Perla nodded and smiled for the first time since they'd come in.
"You wanna go and see if Carl's around?" Naomi said. Perla nodded and ran out of the garage. When she was out of earshot, she looked back to Lucas, "She doing okay?"
"She's getting there," he said. Naomi nodded and looked thoughtful.
"What about you?" she asked. "How are you doing?"
"Got a job with Deanna," Lucas told her.
"Oh, yeah?" she said. "Good for you. What's she got you doing?"
"I'm part of Alexandria's Long-term Development and Survival Strategy Team," he said. "We're constructing another wall, taking inventory of our supplies and looking at the potential threats from outside the walls. Deanna wants a list of biggest threats and how likely they are."
Sounded like some bullshit for people with no real skills and too much time on their hands.
"And she thought New York's Top Risk Analyst was the man for the job?" Naomi said. I wondered if she was humouring him or if she thought that kind of thing was important. "Very good."
"Yeah," he laughed. "I should go, or I'll be late. Thanks for the cookie."
"No worries," she said. "Good to see you."
"You too," he said. "And… uh, good to see you too, Daryl."
"Uh-huh," I said, glancing up at him as he walked past. The garage felt less confined when it was just the two of us again. I could feel Naomi watching me again, but it was different, her eyes boring into me.
"You should give him a chance," Naomi said eventually.
"Dunno what you mean."
I didn't look at her because I knew she'd be giving me that one eyebrow-raised look that she always gave me when she thought I was talking shit. "He's a nice guy."
"A nice guy who eats people."
"Ate people," she corrected me.
"Would've eaten us," I pointed out.
"I thought he helped you escape?"
"Yeah," I said. "Probably only because Carol was blowing the place to shit."
"Nah," she said. "You brought Perla back, he'd have got you out either way."
She sounded so confident it was hard to argue with her, and there was no way of knowing what would've gone down if things had happened the other way. So I shrugged and said, "If we hadn't had Perla?"
She sighed.
"I know it was awful for you guys at Terminus," she said. "But you were there for a day. Lucas had weeks of it."
"Yeah, weeks of being the one eating people."
"Before that," she said, and I paused what I was doing. Realized that something about this was making her open up more than she thought. "The people who came and took over Terminus when it was a sanctuary… they put him through hell."
"Ain't an excuse."
"They broke all of us," she said. "He was just trying to survive."
"Didn't break you."
"Yeah," she said quietly. "They did."
I looked up at her then. Her eyes were bright with tears. I saw the muscles of her jaw clench like she was swallowing something back and she looked away from me. I put down the spanner I was holding. I wanted to hug her, do something to keep her together, but my hands were all covered in oil. "Naomi…"
I looked around for something to wipe my hands on.
"It's fine," she said and shook her head to snap herself out of it. "Sorry, I shouldn't have said anything."
"Nah fuck that," I said. "You can talk about this stuff… y'know… if you need to."
She looked at me like she was considering it, but then she sighed and said, "Just try not to be so hard on Lucas, okay?"
"Fine," I said and looked back at the bike. I wanted to push her to talk, but didn't want to wind up pushing her away.
She was quiet again for a little bit and then she said, "Want a cookie?"
"Can't," I said, and held up my oil covered hands.
"When's that ever stopped you?" she said. And then she threw it up high and towards me. I got at once what she was doing and leapt up to catch it in my mouth. A piece of it broke off when my jaw snapped shut, but I got the rest of it. She cheered.
"Thanks," I said when I'd swallowed down enough of it to be able to talk.
"Good to know you can still do that," she said. I grinned at her, felt the crumbs all around my mouth. She laughed, and it was good to see her smile again.
Work on the bike took about another hour. Naomi made herself a coffee and started reading. It felt like old times. Not needing to talk, but still enjoying being around each other. Silence was never so comfortable with anyone else. When I tried the bike for the first time and heard it start. Naomi started whooping like she might if she cared enough about sports to have had a favorite team. I lined it up with the garage door.
"You wanna take it for a test drive?" I asked. She looked surprised.
"Getting a little late, ain't it?" she said, but she'd already hopped down from the workbench.
"Maybe," I shrugged. "We ain't gotta go far. No harm in a quick ride."
"Alright," she said. "Can I drive?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because you'll crash."
"Bullshit," she said. I climbed on the front real fast so she couldn't beat me to it.
"Just get on the back, will ya?"
"Fine. Next time, though."
"We'll see," I said.
"We'll see? Wouldn't even have this damn bike if it weren't for me!" she grumbled, climbing on behind me. "We'll see…"
I ignored her. Heard her sigh and waited for her to hold on. We hadn't done this kind of thing in a good long while. I waited for it to feel exactly the same, but she hesitated for a moment and then put her hands on my shoulders when she used to put them around my middle. She sat further back on the bike than she used to like she was scared to let herself get too close. I didn't say anything. Just started the bike.
We drove down to the gates and waited for them to be opened up for us. Once we'd cleared the parked cars outside it was just us and the open road. It felt good to leave Alexandria behind for a bit. Although she was still sitting behind me in a way that wasn't normal like I was a stranger she didn't want to get too close to, it was still good to have her on the back of my bike again. Alexandria still felt so busy, closed in. Being able to ride with nothing on the road and empty forest around us felt was freeing.
Naomi tapped my left shoulder twice, a signal we'd used long ago for when she wanted to say something but the bike was too loud. I slowed a little. "You alright?"
"Yeah," she yelled over the sound of the engine, the roar of the wind. "Set some traps near here. Wanna check them for rabbits?"
I nodded. I owed Aaron some rabbit, and it would be good to pay him back sooner rather than later. She directed me to where she wanted to go. We got off the bike and hid it in the woods, out of sight of the roads and covered in a few large branches, so nobody would stumble across it and steal it.
"This way," she said and led me deeper into the woods. "I haven't checked them in a while, so if I have got anything, it might not be so fresh."
Her first trap had caught nothing. There was a rabbit in the second. It was so well-hidden that she had to point it out to me. Captured and killed the rabbit without it suffering too much. I was impressed, as always.
"These are good, even by your usual standards," I said.
"Thanks," she said. "You get that one, there's another one over here."
I crouched down to untangle the dead rabbit, heard her walk off into another part of the forest. The wind picked up. I got the dead rabbit by its ears and caught the smell of death. But it weren't from the rabbit. It was much older, much stronger than that.
Walkers.
Then I heard them. Their slow walk through the undergrowth, the snarling they make when they think food is nearby.
"Naomi," I yelled, looking around for her. Why'd I let her get so far away! "Look out!"
There were three of them. Way too close to her. She was on her feet. A knife flashed in her hand as she took one of them out, she still clutched a dead rabbit in the other. I scrambled with my crossbow. I remember yelling her name just before the second Walker fell. She glanced back at me, her eyes wide. She kicked the last Walker away to buy herself some time and then drew her gun. What the hell was she doing? A gunshot in the woods was a huge risk.
She turned, and for a second it looked like she pointed her gun right at me. The shot came so close, I felt it ringing in my ear. Walker blood sprayed all over me and then I felt a cold body slam against mine, knocking me to the ground. I didn't see it coming.
Where the hell did that come from?
I pushed it off me. A second gunshot took out the Walker she'd kicked away and then Naomi was by my side, leading over me. "You okay?"
"Yeah," I said, feeling a little dazed.
"What the hell? I could've shot you!" she grabbed my shoulders. "Didn't you hear it? It was so close!"
I wiped some of the Walker-blood off the side of my face and shook my head. She was looking at me like she couldn't believe I'd missed something so obvious. I couldn't blame her. It had almost got me, and I hadn't even known it was there. My heart was racing. It was the most vulnerable I'd felt in a long time. Her hand reached out, I think to wipe some brains out of my hair, but I batted her away.
"I got this," I snapped, scrambling to my feet and pulling as many chunks of dead Walker off me as I could. I was angry now that the shock was fading. Didn't know why. Knew it was probably masking something else but I couldn't work out what and there was too much anger now for me to stop it. "We need to go. That damn gunshot is going to bring more of them out."
She wasn't listening to me. She stood up, took a few steps forward.
"Did you see that?" she said, staring off at something in the trees. Not looking at her surroundings. Not checking that it was safe. I felt my anger rise again and checked the rest of the trees around us for more Walkers.
"Nah," I said. "What was it?"
"Guy on a horse," she turned to me, all wide-eyes and pointing. "Over there."
"Didn't see him," I said, glancing quickly up in the direction she was looking. "We should go."
"Yeah," she agreed and started walking deeper into the forest, towards whatever she thought she'd seen. "We'll need to be quick if we're going to catch him."
"No."
"Hey!" she yelled as I grabbed her by the arm. "What the hell?"
"Shut up," I said, started marching us both back towards the bike. "You'll bring more Walkers out."
"But he might lead us to whoever took Mia!" she said.
"Whoever took Mia had a car," I said. "Not horses."
"Don't mean they ain't got both!" she said. "Come on."
"No," I said. "You heard what Rick says, we ain't supposed to just go up to them. We gotta keep watch on their community for a while."
"And how are we supposed to know where his community is if we don't follow him?" she asked.
"Ain't nobody there now," I said, looking back at the empty spaces between the trees.
"So?" she looked at me, confused and a little betrayed. "He was right there!"
"Move."
"Daryl, let go!" she tried to tug her arm away from me.
"No. We're going home."
"You're hurting me."
Shit.
I let go. She stopped, rubbed the part of her arm I'd been gripping on to.
"Sorry," I said, feeling damn awful. I didn't realize how hard I'd been holding on.
"It's okay," she said. She turned back around, to where she'd seen that guy. Or, at least, thought she had. "Look, I wanna go check that out. Before he's gone."
"No," I said. "It'll be dark soon. We should get going."
I started walking the rest of the way back to the bike, I could see it now. So close. Tucked away out of sight of the road. I heard her sigh behind me, and then run to catch up. "Daryl, wait! Even if he ain't got Mia, he might need help. You're supposed to be recruiting for Alexandria now!"
I got it now; why Aaron didn't want Eric out here.
"I didn't see the guy," I said. "You did. If he's got a horse, he's doing just fine."
"Daryl-"
I dragged the bike out of the bush. "Get on the bike."
"Daryl!"
"Get on the damn bike," I climbed on myself. "Or I'm going without you."
I was bluffing, of course, the only reason I wanted to get out of the damn woods was so I could get her back behind the safety of Alexandria's walls. But she didn't know that.
"But I saw him!" she pointed in the general direction. "Daryl, he was right over there-"
"He's gone now," I said. "And we ain't gonna catch him on foot. Get. On."
She glared at me. I could see her weighing up her options; get on the bike with me or run into the woods alone to chase a man who was travelling on horseback. Even if she started running now, she'd be hard pushed to catch him on foot. And that was if she knew where he was headed, but she didn't. She'd have to track him too. I saw her lose the fight with herself, her glare deepening before she climbed on the back. Didn't say a word. Just held onto the back of the bike instead of me, which didn't feel as safe but I didn't want to pick another damn fight. I sped away from the place. Riding usually made me feel better, especially now the roads were clear of other assholes, but not this time.
I couldn't get the image of that Walker out of my brain. It played itself over and over, felt like it was getting closer to her each time. I stopped the bike, cut the engine. She still didn't say anything, but I felt her sit up a little straighter, wondered if she was still glaring at the back of my neck. Felt like she was.
"Sorry," I said. "Just don't want you getting hurt."
I heard her sigh. Tried not to get mad about it because I knew how unreasonable this would seem to her.
"I've been doing fine on my own, Daryl," she said. I knew she was annoyed, thinking that I thought she was weak or something. "I can handle myself out there."
"I know," I said, staring at the empty road ahead of us. The wind in the trees on either side sounded like whispers reminding me that Naomi didn't need me. Had never really needed me. She'd never needed someone to follow, not like me. She'd never been scared to be on her own. "I know you can. I just…"
...love you.
I couldn't say it. Not now. Not like this. But the thought took me over, and I couldn't think about anything else.
"It's okay," she said eventually after I'd sat in silence like an idiot for what felt like hours. "I get it."
"You do?"
I doubted it.
"Yeah," she said. "When that Walker got close to you, and you were too busy yelling at me to notice… I almost lost it too. Do you know how I'd feel if you got killed because you were too busy worrying about me for no damn reason?"
I hadn't thought of it like that, but I could imagine the feeling. The pain. The rage. "Yeah."
"Don't know why you were being such a dumbass," she said. "But this is the world we live in now. I won't always be there to save your ass, but I trust you enough to save your own when I ain't."
"I know," I grumbled. "I trust you, too."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. I just… freaked out."
"It'll take more than one lousy Walker to get rid of me," she said. I felt her arms wrap around my waist, knew everything was okay again. I smiled, even though she couldn't see me.
"True," I said. "Took me years to shake you off, and here you are again."
I felt her laugh more than I heard it, the feel of it shaking her body against my back. I put one hand over where hers were joined across my stomach and gave them a squeeze. Her chin rested on my shoulder, her skin smooth and warm against the side of my face. I looked down at her hand. Then I saw it. A crescent-moon shaped scar on the back of her hand.
I knew it was my fault, it was in the exact spot that shard of glass had lodged itself in.
It made me feel sick. I looked away from it, down at the road.
"You good?" she asked quietly.
"Yeah," I said, but my heart was heavy.
"Then let's get home, dumbass," she said. "It'll be dark soon."
I started up the bike again. Naomi's arms were still joined around me, and it felt more normal. More like it used to. I sped back to Alexandria, stopped outside her house.
She slid off the back of the bike and stood beside me.
"You coming in?" she asked. "Cook up these rabbits?"
I kept thinking about that scar on her hand. That Walker that had been too close to her. It all made me want to say no. To turn away from her and shut off everything I was feeling. But I'd told her I was trying to be better now. What good was telling her about it if I didn't actually do it?
"Yeah," I said. "That sounds nice."
The way she smiled made me realize she'd fully expected me to say no but was happy I didn't.
The house was empty when we got in. Eric and Aaron must've been out someplace else. We headed to the kitchen, and I watched her skin the first rabbit. She hadn't lost her touch.
"Still surprised you didn't become a surgeon or something," I said, as she made a neat little cut down its stomach.
"I keep telling you," she said. "Pulling all of the guts out at once ain't what surgeons do. Although, maybe I should've. Would have been a damn sight more useful now."
"You're doing great," I told her. "Look at this."
I held up a handful of guts she'd scooped out. She smiled. Now that we were back in the safety of Alexandria, I started to feel dumb for freaking out and bad for not letting her investigate. If she found the community that guy was from and it turned out they did have Mia, I'd find it hard to forgive myself. Wondered if she'd blame me too.
"We'll find Mia soon," I said, forgetting all about Carol's dumb warning. "I know it. If you wanna go back there and find that guy on the horse sometime, we can."
"Thanks," she said. She moved on to work on the second rabbit.
I knew I couldn't be able to stop her from going out there. The thought of her doing it alone because she didn't want me freaking out again was terrifying. But could I deal with seeing her in danger? I wished she was more like Eric, happy to stay here in this house while I went out. But that weren't her style. In so many ways, she'd made me stronger. Showed me that opening up to people weren't always bad. Encouraged parts of me that might've stayed dead and buried otherwise. Made me want to be smarter, just to keep up with her. But loving her also made me weak. I hadn't seen it like that before, but I couldn't deny it now.
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the front door closing and someone else coming into the kitchen.
"What in the holy hell is this?" Eric asked. I knew he'd be focused on the blood everywhere. That was always everyone's first concern.
We turned around to look at him. Naomi held up the half-skinned rabbit by its legs, hands covered in blood and a smear of it across her cheeks.
"Dinner," she said with a grin.