Naomi

"You gotta stay quiet," Daryl said in a faultless demonstration of what he meant. He'd perfected this low way of talking that didn't disturb anything around him, as if his voice was as much a part of the woods as the rumble of a nearby stream. I hadn't noticed it before; it was just how he spoke while we hunted. But now that he was explaining things to Mia, I saw it with fresh eyes.

God, he's fucking brilliant.

Mia nodded to show she was listening but didn't dare speak. Daryl beckoned her over. "Move slow. Real slow. Soft feet."

This time, Mia didn't even dare nod in case nodding was too much movement. She looked at us both with wide eyes and then moved towards Daryl, stepping carefully and quietly on the forest floor. He held out one side of some garden netting that we'd pilfered from Walmart. She took it and held it over one of the rabbit holes. Slowly and silently Daryl pinned it in place with one of his crossbow bolts. From my spot deeper into the forest, I watched my little family hunting together as they moved to secure more of the net over other rabbit holes and wondered how the human heart could be built to hold this much love.

As he looked up at me, I caught the little smile on Daryl's face. Usually so focused in moments like this, the joy of teaching Mia something put a little crack in his concentration. There was such a light in his eyes, and he kept looking at Mia and me with this glow about him. If there'd been a mirror around I'm sure I'd have seen it in myself too. It would have been sickening, probably, if it weren't so damn nice.
His signal set my body in motion. How many times had we done this? How many afternoons had we spent just like this? Even with the mild distraction of having Mia with us, we moved like a machine so well-oiled we hadn't rusted in all our time apart.

Now that their nets were secure I started making a hell of a lot of noise, banging Walmart's finest kitchen pans together to scare the rabbits away from this end of the warren and out into the nets at the other. The noise drew Walkers as effectively as it pushed the rabbits away. I was prepared for that, knowing it would happen, but it didn't stop Daryl's eager eyes from tracking me as closely as he'd track a rabbit. Bolts whizzed past me to take out Walkers that were, realistically, way too far away to be a threat but closer to me than Daryl was comfortable with.

Thankfully, it didn't take long for a few rabbits to get caught in the pinned nets. I stopped making noise and turned to deal with the last few Walkers as quietly as I could while Daryl took away the rabbits they'd caught to kill them out of sight. Not that Mia was unfamiliar with death these days or hadn't seen her fair share of gore in this new world, but he'd liked how much she'd gotten from this, and I don't think he wanted her to see that part.

Mia and I started gathering up all of the crossbow bolts we could find. Daryl could make more these days, but it took time and they were too precious to waste.

"Now that technique is only when we ain't got time for your sister to build one of her traps," Daryl said, returning with three dead rabbits slung over his shoulder. He threw one of them over to me, "Skin this for me, will ya?"

I caught it and sat down on a nearby log, drawing a knife. Mia watched me with a mix of disgust and intrigue. It wasn't something she was used to seeing. Even when I'd had to hunt for us both at the start of all of this, I'd done my best to keep the gore away from her. It had gotten easier to distract her from it once we'd found a group and she'd had Perla and José to hang around with.

Now, it was just the three of us in a clearing in the woods. Daryl had always deferred to me when it came to gutting and skinning stuff. Said I did it better, quicker, which was praise I'd never taken lightly. So, like old times, he built a fire and I got to skinning and gutting the rabbit for lunch. Only, unlike old times, Mia sat nearby watching us with morbid curiosity.

Mia caught my eye with a little smirk. "Hard to believe you used to be a vegetarian."

Oh no.

Daryl's head snapped up. "She was a what now?"

"Nothing," I said.

But there was mischief in Mia's eyes, and she repeated, "Vegetarian."

Daryl set down the stick he'd been using to stoke the flames and gave me his full attention. Amusement tugged at the corners of his mouth as he looked pointedly at the way I was pulling out rabbit innards without flinching. "You stopped eatin' meat?"

"Reducing meat consumption is the single best thing you can do as an individual to cut your carbon emissions," I said, my cheeks hotter than the flames that were starting to leap into the air.

"So you gave up hot dogs for the Polar Bears?" he said.

"Something like that."

"She lasted two weeks, and then she had a Big Mac," Mia said.

"Bummer for the Polar Bears."

"Hey, I said 'reduce' not 'cut out'," I said. I held up the freshly skinned rabbit for him. "You want this or not?"

Daryl took it from me and looked back at Mia, "See how easy she did that? How quick? How clean them cuts are?"

"Yeah," Mia said, trying not to look queasy as Daryl threaded the rabbit onto a spit across the flames.

"She never showed you how to do it?"

"No."
What about her traps, she ever show you one of those?"

"No."

"No?" his head whipped around, and he stared at me in utter disbelief - like trapping things and skinning them were life skills every kid needed, not just the desperate ones.

"What would I have been trappin' in DC, Daryl? Delivery drivers?"

"I dunno, you might've done some huntin' on the weekends or somethin'." He shrugged, but there was something a little vulnerable in his tone and the way he was looking away from both of us and down at his shoes. A little self-consciousness in his movements that I don't think Mia would have picked up on, but to me, his micro-expressions were easier to understand than anyone else's regular expressions. Silence fell on the clearing, the smell of cooking rabbit starting to fill the air.

"We didn't really have time for huntin' at the weekends," I said, testing a building theory. He'd included Mia in something from our shared past, but it was more than that for him. I'd left this kind of life behind for a while and taken Mia with me. He'd kept living this way, and he was feeling the gap in our experiences. This had been the first few bricks in a bridge he was trying to build across the time he hadn't known her. He looked up with an eagerness that made me want to keep talking. "Mia had swimming lessons on Saturdays, which later turned into swim meets when she made the school team."

"Oh, yeah. You did?" he looked at her, retroactively proud. "And you never thought to make your sister take lessons, too?"

"She was too busy. She'd bring her laptop to the pool so she could sit in the cafe and do some work while I was in there," Mia said.

"Unless it was a competition, then she'd be in the bleachers."

"Cheering you on I bet," Daryl gave me this look that made my cheeks heat up again.

Mia rolled her eyes; old embarrassment felt anew. "So loud I could hear her even under the water."

"Hey, it's not my fault your friend's parents were so quiet," I said.

"Quiet or polite?" Mia asked with a cheeky grin. I pulled a face at her and she pulled one right back.

"Did you like being on the team?" Daryl asked, all casual but I could see how much this all meant to him. Mia thought about it for a moment.

"Yeah, it was kinda fun, but the team always went for ice cream after," Mia said, "and I think I liked that more than the actual swimming part."

I nodded. "Sometimes reminding you about the ice cream was the only way to get you to go."

"Yeah because it started at six in the morning!"

"Yeah, I don't miss that," I agreed. I glanced at Daryl again. "Saturday afternoons she had Art Club at one of the community centers."

"Bet you were the best in the club," he said. Mia looked embarrassed again and gave a little half-shrug.

"I was okay, but I liked going because they had all of these cool paints and supplies, so I could try things I couldn't do with the stuff I had at home." Mia didn't say it with anything other than total enthusiasm, but I still felt a wistful twinge of guilt. I wished, as I had back then, that I'd had enough to buy her any art supply her little heart wanted. Without prompting, Mia kept going, "For dinner, we'd usually go to Naomi's work and they'd order takeout for everyone."

Daryl shot me a quizzical look. "On a Saturday night?"

"News don't sleep, Daryl," I said.

I felt another pang of guilt over how much time Mia had to spend hanging around at my job before she said, "It was cool. I got to play games on the computer, and Mindy at reception always gave me candy."

"You played games? You were supposed to be doing your homework."

"I did that, too!" she said quickly.

"You ever get to see your sister at work while you were there?"

"Yeah."

"How?" I said. "You weren't supposed to leave that room. Did Mindy not keep an eye on you?"

"Yeah, but she let me go to the bathroom and I could peek into the door in the window of the newsroom every time I went past," she said as if to prove that she was telling the truth, she added, "Looked like you were usually arguing with someone."

"Sounds about right," I said. "Finalizing the layout for the Sunday paper could get a little…argumentative."

"They didn't just give you the front page?" Daryl looked incredulous.

"Nah you had to fight for it."

"That was dumb of them."

"On Sundays, the theater near us did screenings for kids," I said, looking at Mia who nodded. "So we'd go there a lot. Or to the park when you were really little."

"And then we usually saw Bryce and Andrew in the afternoon," Mia said. "They had a big yard and a pool and we'd have barbecues in the summer."

"So, you see we really had no time for huntin'," I said. Daryl nodded, passing a paper plate of cooked meat to each of us. I took a bite, my stomach rumbling. There was a comforting familiarity in eating Daryl's cooked rabbit.

"Screw them Polar Bears now, huh?" he said, watching me tuck in with a smile. I doubted I'd ever live this down.

"They might be alright now," I said. "Ain't as many people around to mess things up for 'em. Hardly any cars on the roads, plants are growin' wild again… maybe in a decade or two the world'll stop heating up, and their homes will stop melting."

"So this was good for them, huh?"

"Maybe," I shrugged. "Dunno how much methane Walkers put out, though."

"That's the kinda shit Eugene would know," Daryl said with his mouth full.

"True," I turned the problem over in my mind. "I know decomposing bodies do produce a lot of-"

"Can we not talk about this while we're eating, please?" Mia interrupted me.

"Hey, if you hadn't snitched to Daryl about my brief time giving up meat we wouldn't be having this conversation," I reminded her.

"Yeah, but I wasn't expecting it to get so… gross."

She stuck her tongue out at me. I stuck mine out right back. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Daryl's smile as he looked at the two of us. He was so relaxed and at ease now. Comfortable. Happy. Himself.

When I was done eating, I pulled one of my trusty maps out of my back. It was getting a little worn, the paper weaker from being folded and re-folded over and over again. I laid it out in front of them and traced a route with my finger. "I think we gotta go this way."

They both looked at it, and I saw them deflate a little. It was a long way to go. Daryl leaned closer, frowning.

"Ain't this quicker?" he pointed to an alternate route, cutting through a large section of the woods we'd otherwise have to walk around.

"Can't go that way," I shook my head. Daryl raised an eyebrow. I indicated a portion of the map. "It's Negan territory. We gotta go round."

"Ah." he sighed.

"How sure are you that he stuck around?" Mia asked. "After you gave him supplies? Maybe he went somewhere else."

"Mia," I said with a warning note in my voice. "No."

"He can't cover all of it at once," she pointed out.

"Mia!"

"What? It would be three against one."

"I'm not having you two get shot because you're too lazy to walk a little bit longer."

"It's not a little bit, though, is it? It's a lot."

"Mia… No," Daryl said. "Naomi's right. We ain't risking it."

"Fine," she sighed.

"We should get going soon," Daryl said, getting up to put the fire out. "Make sure we're home in good time."

I folded the map back up again and looked at Mia, "You mind filling up our water bottles?"

She nodded and gathered them from our bags. She took them to a nearby freshwater stream. It was within our eyeline, but out of earshot.

"Daryl?"

"Mm?" he prodded the dying embers of the fire with a stick.

"You look happy."

"I am, angel." He looked up at me, frowning like I'd said something so obvious it was dumb.

It was just nice to hear it confirmed out loud. Made me tingle right down to my toes.

"She looks happy too, don't ya think?" I nodded to where Mia was crouched by the running water.

"I hope so," he said sincerely.

"You're so good with her," I said, and I meant it. I wanted to say thank you, but I knew he wouldn't accept it if I phrased it that way. He bowed his head a little, modestly. "Not just today. You were good with her yesterday, too, when she was scared."

"You didn't mind me showin' her how to net a rabbit?" he asked, his voice a little gruff. "Trappin' is more your thing, but yours are more… complicated, so I thought it would be okay if I-"

"It was," I said, quickly.

He nodded again and glanced back up at me. "I found some bikes at Sanctuary."

It threw me for a second. "More motorbikes, I thought-"

"Nah, not motorbikes. The cycling kind," he said. "You said Mia didn't know how to ride one, and I thought maybe… if you're cool with it, it might be a good way for her to get around. Can outrun a walker on one of them things."

It took me a second to realize he was asking permission. "That's a great idea."

"Yeah? You think?" he looked at me. "I got a helmet an' everything, but if you wanna be the one to show her-"

"No, you can teach her," I said. "You ain't gotta clear that kinda shit with me, Daryl. I trust ya."

"Yeah?"

"'Course I do," I said. "I mean, I dunno when you're gonna have time with all of the other shit you've got goin' on."

"I'll make time," he said, determined. I'd never had something so solid to hold onto, not when it came to raising Mia. "If you think she'd want to?"

"That's up to her," I said, although I was pretty sure the answer would be yes. "You'll have to ask her yourself."

"Don't think I've forgotten that you ain't ever learned to swim," Daryl said like a threat.

"What you gonna do about it, chuck me in that river?"

"Ain't deep enough," he said, which wasn't enough of a promise not to throw me in any body of water for my liking. Before I could say anything to that effect, Mia came back, three full canisters of water in her arms. We each took one and packed it away.

Although we had a long walk ahead of us, our spirits were pretty high, and full bellies were only part of it. We started down the route I'd planned, a long and abandoned highway stretched out into the distance but with both of them by my side, it didn't seem so insurmountable. It might even prove to be a little fun.

Daryl's arm slipped around my shoulder. A surprise, but a welcome one. He still wasn't one for public displays of affection, but maybe Mia didn't count, because she was his family too. Maybe he caught the way Mia smiled when she saw us like that. Whatever it was, I wasn't complaining, I reached up and held the hand that was slung over my left shoulder.

I could tell that he was building up the nerve to say something, and I squeezed his hand.

"I, uh, found some bikes at Sanctuary," he said eventually. I said nothing, and let the silence hang there for a moment until Mia looked at us both, unsure what this had to do with her and why he was addressing it to her instead of me. "Like… bicycle bikes, not… y'know."

"Oh. I can't actually…." Mia's cheeks turned a little pink. It had been a sore spot for a while, that all her friends could ride bikes and she couldn't.

"Yeah, I know," Daryl said without a hint of judgment. "You wanna learn?"

"For real?" Her face lit up, Daryl's did, too.

"Yeah for real, I can show ya."

"Alright," Mia said, there was a little spring in her step now. She was practically skipping alongside Daryl. I squeezed his hand tight in mine again and felt him squeezing right back.

Daryl

I didn't even feel tired, not like I thought I would. Sure, my legs were kinda aching from walking for so many hours, but when I saw Sanctuary ahead of us, it still felt too soon. Bryce greeted us at the gates with nothing of note to report. Seemed like Sanctuary had run just fine without us and seeing that gave me a second boost of energy. The day I'd be able to get us all out of this place felt closer than ever. Naomi would whip it into such good shape that Rick would be able to put anyone in charge of it and it wouldn't matter. I could take my girls somewhere better than this. Somewhere that didn't hold any bad memories so that we could make nothin' but good ones.

Exhausted from the walk, Mia sank down to sit on Sanctuary's steps the moment we got back. Naomi and I didn't dare rest, debating whether or not to go back for the corn we'd left spilled across the road. Sitting down would make it harder to get up and keep going.

"We should go get it, right?" Naomi said, a little reluctantly. "It would be a treasure trove for any other survivor groups out there who came across it."

"Longer we leave it out there, the more of a risk that'll be," I nodded in agreement, way less reluctant to head back out than she was. "Plus. I doubt Hilltop has any more to spare if we've lost it."

"Let me know where it is, I can head out there if you need a rest," Bryce offered.

"It's ok, I don't mind going. Drive won't be so long," I said, trying not to say it too quickly or sound ungrateful for his offer. I glanced at Naomi, and nudged her foot with mine, "You up for it? Another lil' roadtrip."

The corners of her mouth twitched in a little smile. Before she could let herself say yes, she asked Bryce, "You alright to keep holding down the fort for another few hours?"

"Of course," he nodded. "Been quiet around here today. I'm starting to think it's you three that make most of the noise."

Mia looked up from where she was slumped on the steps. Her voice was as weary as her face, "Are we going out again?"

"Not you, sweetie. You stay here and help Bryce, we won't be long this time," Naomi said. Mia was too tired to even complain when Naomi ruffled her hair. She leaned closer to Bryce, "Make sure she eats somethin', it's been nothing but rabbit and squirrel, and that was hours ago."

Bryce nodded. "You guys need something for the road? Dinner will probably be over by the time you're back."

"If we've got anything to spare," Naomi nodded.

"I'm sure we do," he said. "I'll check with Eugene. You wanna come help me, Mia?"

Mia nodded and got slowly to her feet. Naomi watched them as they disappeared back into the building. "Maybe we should bring someone else with us."

No.

"Why?"

"To help me load the corn back in," she said. "We could ask Jerry, maybe? Eugene?"

"Nah," I waved her off. "I can help ya. C'mon, let's get a truck."

I was already halfway down the steps, hoping to cut off any arguments. I should've known better. She followed, still protesting, "No, you can't, your hand…"

I started hustling us both to another pickup, thinking that if I just got her moving quick enough we'd be back on the road again before she'd had time to herself out of it.

"My hand's fine. Quit stressin'."

An impossible task for her. "No."

"C'mon. Promise I won't use it. I can help one-handed," I said. She hesitated and I tried to seal the deal by opening the driver's side for her. I held out my hand so she could use it to climb up, "I'll even let you drive this time."

"Well, you did get us in a ditch last time," she reminded me with a wry smile. I knew it meant I'd won. Her warm hand in mine and she stepped up into the truck, felt like I was helping a princess into a waiting carriage. I closed her door and walked around to the passenger side. She looked at me as she slipped into the seat next to her, "Think you can put up with my slow driving?"

"Sure. Gives me a chance to enjoy the scenery," I said with a shrug but I couldn't hide the excitement buzzing through me. Someone knocked on the window beside me, I looked down at Mia and Bryce, who were holding up a bag of food for us to take on the road. I wound down the window.

"It's like a drive-through," Mia said cheerfully as she reached up to pass the bag through.

"You sure we can spare all that?" Naomi called to Bryce who was standing behind Mia.

"Of course we can. None of you got your rations today or yesterday, so we've actually got more than we thought we'd have," he said. It wouldn't stop Naomi from worrying about our looming food shortage, but it was a good point. Bryce tapped the side of the vehicle like it was a horse. "Try not to get run off the road this time."

"We'll do our best," she smiled, starting the engine. "See you soon."

"You better mean that this time," he laughed.

I waved at them both as we pulled out. Mia stood at the gates watching us drive off and kept waving. I stuck my head out of the passenger side and waved back until she'd shrunk into the distance, the old factory looming behind her. When I was sure she wouldn't be able to see me anymore, I sat back in my seat.

"You're in a good mood for someone who's havin' to trek out to do a job we've already done," Naomi said, glancing back at Sanctuary in the rearview mirror.

"Mmhmm," I nodded. "Jus' like gettin' a job well done."

"Sure." she sideyed me as she turned the first bend. I guess I should have been more annoyed about having to go out there and do something we'd already done, but it felt like such a small price for the day I'd had. It was selfish, but having Naomi and Mia all to myself for the last twenty-four hours had been as close to heaven as I could imagine a guy like me getting. I didn't want it to end.

"Got snacks this time," I said. "Now it's like a real road trip."

"Oh yeah, you gonna start humming again?" She asked.

"Pfft. No." I said, but I could've. Could've burst into song like a damn Broadway show. Not that I'd seen any of those, but I'd heard about them and I got the jist. A lotta singing and sequins.

Naomi didn't say anything else. Something about going back to Sanctuary had started to take the shine off the day. For her, not me. Nothing could dull the day I'd just had. Naomi was quieter and more tense. I let her drive in silence for a while before I asked, "What's eatin' ya?"

"Winter's gonna come around fast," she said with a glance skyward.

"We'll get through it, angel."

"Our food supply, it's…" she glanced at the bag of food in my lap.

"I know. But we'll get through it."

"Hmm," she made a non-committal kind of noise like she didn't believe me. I didn't know what to say, couldn't explain why my faith was so strong. Maybe it was the sheer number of rough times we'd already gotten through together. What was one more? She'd figure something out; she always did. Me and her could do anything together.

"I enjoyed playin' hooky with you two," I said, wanting both to be honest but also to distract her from slipping any deeper into her worries.

"We got stranded, I'd hardly call that playin' hooky," she said but couldn't stop the smile spreading across her face. "But yeah… it was nice. We should do it again sometime."

"Do it again?" I couldn't hide my surprise. My little workaholic had not only managed not to spiral into worry about what we were missing while we'd been away, but she wanted to do it again?

She nodded. "Y'know, minus the part where we got run off the road by a pack of Walkers."

"For real?"

"Yeah. Bryce is good at keeping things running; we trust him. I know he'd be happy to do it for us if we wanted the occasional day off."

"And you'd be okay with that?" I thought I was going to have to fight her more on this.

"Yeah," she said. "I worked too much, y'know, before… in DC. I don't wanna be like that now, I don't wanna miss out on you two. This. Us."

"You'll always have me."

"I hope so," she said like it was out of her hands, but I couldn't imagine a world in which I wasn't by her side. Not now I knew how good I had it being with her, I couldn't let that go. "But Mia grows so fast y'know. Before I know it, she'll be grown and doin' her own thing, and I'll miss when she was this age, and we could take her places. I already miss when she was little. She'd say the cutest things; she was all… full of questions."

We could have another little one. Add to the family.

I had to physically stop myself from saying it, chewing on my bottom lip so that words didn't just spill right out of me.

One thing at a time, man, fucking hell.

I looked down at my fingers, glad she had her eyes on the road because I wasn't sure I could take the heat of her gaze on me. I was quiet for too long, and that gaze shifted over all the same. "What's eating you?"

"Nothin'," I couldn't even come up with a convincing lie. My head was too full of things I didn't dare say in case it sent her running for the hills. "I guess… yesterday was kinda a perfect day for me, y'know?"

"Seein' Glenn and Maggie?"

"Yeah, that was… yeah. But also… gettin' to spend time with my girls."

"Your girls?" This time, I thought she was the one about to send us swerving into a ditch out of shock. She sat bolt upright in her seat, eyes off the road and fully on me. But there was this crazy warmth in her voice. So warm it made my cheeks catch fire.

"Well, I know you're not… we're not… but I think of you like… both of you are…but we're not… I don't."

"No, we are. Just never thought I'd hear you say something so…" she trailed off for a second, those eyes of hers still searching my face like she was finding something new in it after all these years.

"Corny?"

"Yeah, but… good corny. Nice corny."

"Hmm. Eyes on the road." I said. It was so much easier to say things when she wasn't looking at me. She laughed a little, her head turning back to the road. I could still see that smile on her lips. I could feel my heart like a big lump in my throat. "If we left Sanctuary one day, and our lives were a little more… y'know, like yesterday…would it be enough for you?"

Although she wasn't looking at me anymore, I couldn't look at her when I asked. I stared out the passenger window so she couldn't see how red my face got when she said, "Of course it would."

It seemed impossible. "I mean it ain't swim meets and Art Club and -"

She cut across me. "I ain't ever been as happy as I am right now, Daryl."

I wanted to look at her then, but it would be a moment before I could. It was too much. The smile was stuck on my face, maybe permanently. I tried to cover it with my hand as I leaned my elbow on the window. Naomi didn't say anything else, although I felt her little glance in my direction. She let me deal with it, let it sink in. Knowing, in the way she always did, exactly when to give me time and when not to push me. My silences were always alright with her.

"Yeah. Me too." I cleared my throat but my voice still came out a little gruff. Naomi reached over and squeezed my arm. Her cheeks were flushed a little pink.

Although we hadn't known the exact spot where we'd run into trouble, it was very obvious once we'd found it. The Walkers we'd run into were nowhere to be seen, but ears of corn spilled out across the road. As expected, the truck was tipped over. Naomi stopped alongside it and we got out to take a look. The driver's side window was completely smashed in, and the front windshield was covered in a spiderweb of cracks. If we'd stayed in there instead of running, there's no way it would've held.

"Ain't worth savin'," I said. "Unless we got an exact replacement for that windshield."

"Damn it," she sighed.

We assessed the rest of the damage. Most of the crates had stayed in place where I'd strapped them down at Hilltop. Only a few of them had come loose and sent their contents spilling out across the road. We started with the mostly intact ones, undoing the straps and hauling them out together so that we could secure them in the second pickup.

Naomi's worried little frown was back, she kept glancing at my busted hand and trying to take more than her share of the weight. I kept my bandaged hand held up like only half of me was getting arrested, so she'd know for sure I wasn't using it.

"I can take a little more, darlin'," I told her. There was only so long I could deal with her taking the brunt of what we were doing.

"I got it," she said, determined but even her voice was strained.

"Nah, look," I said. I shifted the crete up slightly so that I could balance it on my forearm. My hand was nowhere near taking any of it. In the weeks since I'd broken it, it had been feeling better and better. If I had tried to use it, sure, it probably would've ached more for a few days, but Naomi would've stressed about it for months.

"Hmm," she said skeptically, narrowing her eyes and ducking under the crate to make sure I wasn't putting an ounce of weight on that hand.

"See?"

"It's a good thing you got those nice strong arms I guess," she muttered, which I took to mean I'd passed her little check.

"Nice, huh?" I said, sliding the crate along the back of the pickup to join the others.

"C'mon," she rolled her eyes, trying to play it cool as a cucumber while she was red as a tomato. "You know they are."

Once the crates were strapped into their new home, we set about picking up the corn that had spilled out across the road, gathering up as much as we could and throwing it into the back. Little drops of rain started falling from the sky. I glanced up at a dark cloud. Naomi paused and called over to me.

"Daryl, does this look… eaten to you?" Naomi held up an ear of corn with a sizable chunk taken out of it.

"I guess…" I shrugged. "Probably an animal."

"Maybe," she said, although she didn't look convinced. I wondered if she'd always be like this, a little bit haunted by Negan's ghosts in the woods.

"What, do ya think a Walker ate it?"

"Well, no…that's ridiculous, but…" the more we stared at it, the more the size and shape. l of it made it look like one bite taken by a human mouth.

"Vegetarian Walker seems more likely than you quittin' meant, I guess," I said. She sighed. "Hey, maybe they're worried about the Polar Bears too. Tryna offset those methane emissions or whatever."

"Shut up." It had worked in distracting her. She tossed the ear of corn aside.

"Here, look," I held up another one. "This one's picked clean. Probably a deer or somethin'. Raccoons, maybe. Lots of critters eat corn."

"Yeah, I guess," she said, but her eyes still scanned the forest on either side of us.

I was on high alert too. It was hard not to be, after everything we'd been through at Sanctuary. We kept gathering up the rest of the corn, finding the occasional critter-gnawed piece as we went. About halfway through, the heavens opened. Those small drops turned into big ones and we started moving as fast as we could. It didn't much matter how speedy we were, we were both soaked right through in a matter of minutes.

When we'd got as much as we could, I called it and secured the lids of the crates that had broken open before they could fill with too much water. We jumped back into the pickup.

"Fuckin' soaked," Naomi grumbled, slamming the door so hard behind her it shook a little more rain off the roof. "Wearing wet jeans should be a registered form of torture."

"Hmm," I ran my eye over the way her wet clothes stuck to her. "Well, it looks good on ya."

"Easy mister," she said, but she'd started smiling again. "Weather really turned out of nowhere, huh?"

"Sure did," I agreed. I didn't want to say anything about the seasons changing, didn't want her to dwell too much on how hard that was going to make food production. So instead I said, "You ain't started drivin'."

"I know."

"Why?"

"Happy where I am," she shrugged like it was nothing but I'd never known that girl to be happy where she was. She'd always been moving towards something bigger, better. "You wanna go?"

Hell no.

"Nah, I'm good to warm up in here for a bit." I also tried to shrug like it was nothing, but I didn't want to start driving, didn't want to head back, not yet. The sun was getting low but I was determined to eek as much out of this day as I could. I held up the bag of food Bryce had got for us, "Wanna eat before we head back?"

"Yeah, that sounds good."

I opened up the bag, "Now, there's some meat in here but I can eat all of that if you're worried about Polar -"

"If you don't hand it over, I'm eating you," she grumbled while I laughed. "Mia's double-grounded for even tellin' you that."

I passed her one of the sandwiches Bryce had packed for us. They had some kind of meat in them, probably the last deer I'd shit that we'd smoked to make it last a little longer. I unwrapped the other one for myself. Rain beat down on the roof, running in rivers down the windshield. We ate in cozy silence for a moment and then I said, "It was 'cause vegetables are cheaper than meat, wasn't it?"

"What?" she tried to play dumb but I knew I had her.

"Not eating meat."

"Oh my God, you're obsessed with this," she shook her head before she finally conceded, "But, yes."

I nodded. I'd had a hunch from the moment she'd said it, but hadn't wanted to say anything in front of Mia. Naomi had her reasons for hiding it from her. While it had been kind of fun winding her up about it, I knew it had been just another example of Naomi going without so that Mia wouldn't.

"Weren't no deers around, huh?"

"In the middle of D.C? No. Can't say there were."

"Roadkill's free. That's cheaper than broccoli."

"City roadkill is 90% exhaust fumes. I'd have poisoned us both. Will you drop it?"

"Just can't get my head around it. Need to know you ain't gettin' soft on me, Nai."

"Nai?" she repeated. Thought she was about to spit her food out in disbelief.

Aw hell.

"Better than Nomes, though. Right?" I said. In hindsight, it was mighty hypocritical of me to have made fun of her terrible college roommate's terrible name for her when I was just gonna wind up calling her every nickname that tasted sweet as honey on my tongue.

"God, anything's better than Nomes…" she agreed.

I looked at my sweet girl. "Does Mia know how much you give up for her?"

"No. And nor should she. She's a kid," she looked at me a little sternly like I was going to be the one to tell her. I wasn't. I knew it wasn't my place to do that, but someone should be appreciating the things Naomi did.

"She's damn lucky, I said. "We both are."

She smiled. "Now who's gettin' soft, Dar?"

"Shut it," I groaned.

"No? Not Dar? What about Dixon, you prefer that? Call ya by your last name like you're some kinda jock?"

Dixon.

She was teasing me, but it didn't sound like a curse when it came from her lips. The way she said it, with that big smile and all that warmth, it sounded good.

"Do you like it?"

It's yours if you want it.

"Like what?" she tilted her head to one side, scrutinizing me in the way she does when she thinks I've said something weird. Suddenly, my heartbeat hit right up against my ribs.

"Dixon?"

"Yeah. 'Course I do. Prefer calling you Daryl, though. If you don't mind," she said. "I'm your girlfriend, not your soccer buddy."

"Hmm," I nodded like I agreed with her but what I wanted to say was that 'girlfriend' didn't feel like a good enough word these days. Truthfully, I don't think it had ever felt strong enough, but with each passing day, it got flimsier and flimsier. "I don't make you think of… y'know, Merle and…"

"Your Dad?" her eyes widened in surprise. "Oh. No. God, no. Sorry, I didn't think… when I called you that I never thought it would…"

"No, it's fine," I said as quickly as I could, but I could see the misplaced guilt had already sunk in. It wasn't why I'd asked, but there was no way she could've known that.

"I don't think of you as havin' anythin' in common with him. Not even the name," she said. It wasn't what I cared about, but it was nice to hear all the same. "But, I should've realized that… I mean, the best thing about my name is that I share it with Mia,"

Shit, I hadn't thought of that.

"At least you made somethin' of your name, though," I said. Another reason she might never want to give it up. Naomi Payton had appeared in bylines on the front pages of newspapers. I'd seen them myself. If someone broke into my Dad's old place, the last place I'd been before the world went to shit, they'd find a drawer full of articles with that name on it. Neatly folded up like I was some kind of weirdo stalker.

"What, you think I like Payton?" she wrinkled her nose like she'd smelled something gross.

"You don't?"

"It's fine, I guess," she shrugged. "I mean, it's no Nai."

"C'mon, I was just tryin' something," I said. She was grinning at me. I knew she had no idea why I was suddenly so interested in her thoughts on our last names, but her light teasing still managed to stop the anxiety I was spiraling into. Stop me from blurting out a proposal right there and then.

"Been tryin' a lot lately," she said, that grin not letting up. "Nai, baby, sweetheart, darlin', angel…"

"What can I say, you bring it out of me," I said, trying to play it cool but my cheeks got warmer and warmer the more she listed. Especially as it felt like the tip of the iceberg. The shit I held myself back from saying when we had sex… girl should take out a damn restraining order. "Do ya hate it?"

"No," she admitted reluctantly, but her voice was all soft. "I don't. I mean, if anyone else ever called me baby or angel or good girl, I'd kick them in the teeth, but… there's something about you sayin' it that's different."

If anyone else called you that, I'd kill 'em.

"Different, huh?"

"Yeah," she said, something a little shy in the way she was looking at me now. "When it's you, I love it."

Oh shit.

"Really?"

"Yeah," she admitted, that shyness creeping into her smile again. "Makes me feel like I'm… I dunno…yours or something. Not in a weird way, not like I'm somethin' you own, more like… you've got me no matter what."

"I do."

"I know," she said, her voice all quiet. " And I love that."

So be mine.

Be my goddamn wife.

Fuckin' marry me, angel.

The words burned in my heart, but I couldn't say them. I might not know much about having a girl, but I knew that sitting in some rain-soaked truck with a smoked deer sandwich and no ring wasn't the way to go about asking that question.

As much as it could've been good to have some experience of this kind of thing before somehow landing the girl of my dreams, there was no way I could've been this way around anyone else. The way she knew when to let me sit in silence and give me the space to talk, and when to make a joke to get me out of my own head… It could only ever have been her. I couldn't have chosen anyone else. Her choosing me back was nothing short of a miracle.

Everything I'd started doing at Sanctuary, having something to work on that was mine - something that didn't require brute strength or violence - something that built on what we were doing… It was the first time I'd felt even a little bit close to being the kind of man who deserved her. Truth was I was stuck between knowing I wasn't good enough, and that I'd never be able to let her go if someone worthy came along. Stepping up was my only option.

I patted the space on the bench seat right beside me and said, "C'mere then, angel."

She slid down until she was sitting next to me and I could put my arm around her shoulders. I hadn't realized how cold the rain had made me until I felt the heat of her body against mine through our damp clothes.

My fingers under her chin, I tilted her head toward mine, "I'm gonna take such good care of you, baby."

"You already do, dummy," she said before I kissed her.

You got no idea, angel.

No fuckin' idea.