Naomi

The Dixon boys lived like pigs. They ate a lot, they fought a lot and they didn't clean shit. I think Daryl tried for my sake but it weren't something he was used to or good at. I was grateful for it, though. I was grateful for all of it. The end of the week rushed towards us like a freight train, Ms Buchanan and her pale grey coat speeding with it. That week we went to the top of our hill less than we ever had. The freedom of having both of our places to ourselves meant we didn't need to get some fresh air on top of that log. Some nights Merle was out and we'd have the place to ourselves. Some nights he'd stay in and teach us card games. It was nicer than I thought it would be to have him around. He was more relaxed at home than I remembered him, wasn't trying to fight anybody.

Daryl and I sat on the steps outside his door as the sun came up, listening to Merle's snores from inside the trailer. It had become part of our morning ritual now that we didn't have to meet each other to walk to school. When one of us was awake the other one would get a smack in the face with a pillow. Then we were both up and the day could start. Everything was as quiet as it got at that time. Mostly everyone was sleeping, even the babies that cried through the night had screamed themselves to sleep by then. It was cooler than it was during the day, with the sun just coming up and the light made everything look a little bit nicer. Not how it usually did. It was like living in a dream where it was only Daryl and me that existed.

"You wanna hunt today?" I asked. It was Thursday. Daryl looked at me like it was him I'd set a trap for instead of a rabbit.

"We ain't got time," he said. "We got school. All the good light'll be gone when we get back."

"Yeah..." I said, hesitating. "We… we could skip it."

"Skip school?" his look changed to one of mock concern. He pressed the back of his hand to my forehead like he was checking for a fever. "You feelin' okay?"

"Yes," I rolled my eyes. "It just means a lot that you guys would let me stay here. I wanna contribute."

I didn't mention that it was nearly the end of the week and that might mean the end of my time with them. Friday loomed over me like a debt.

"You ain't gotta worry about that," he said. "What's yours is mine, you know that."

"But it ain't just you," I said. "It's Merle too. And I know he weren't that fond of me before all this, so-"

"When'd he say that?"

"He didn't." I shrugged. "Just a feeling I get."

"Merle ain't that friendly to anyone," Daryl brushed it off. "Don't take any of his shit personal. He likes you, he just-"

He stopped himself so abruptly it left his mouth hanging open. It was the first time I knew that he was holding something back from me. I didn't like it. It wasn't us. We could talk about everything, no matter how dumb.

"Just what?" I prompted. He shrank away from me a little and it was a while before he spoke again.

"He thinks you think you're too good for… for a place like this," he said it like he was embarrassed. I felt my face getting hot too. Something struck a nerve in me.

"Why?" I demanded. Daryl stayed silent. "'Cause I wanna leave it? 'Cause I don't wanna sit around here all day getting drunk like your Daddy or shooting up like my Momma?"

He said nothing. I stood up.

"We should all wanna leave this place," I said. "Everyone here deserves more than a place like this. I ain't a snob for wanting more."

I walked quickly away from him. I heard him scramble to his feet, the rush of his footfall as he ran after me. He caught my arm. I stopped. "I know you ain't," he said. He was closer to me than I thought he would be. "I know you ain't. Merle just don't get it, is all. He ain't smart like you."

"He ain't dumb," I said. "He can't be if he's already making money a week after getting outta prison."

"He's a different kinda smart then," Daryl said. "He knows to take advantage of the place he's in and he ain't looking to change it. Not like you."

I sighed. It really bothered me that Merle had made assumptions like that about me. But I guess I'd made my share about him too. "Do you think I'm a snob?"

"Nah," Daryl said immediately. "Wouldn't be here if you was. I ain't arguing with you anymore today, though. Let's play hooky."

"We going hunting?"

"Yeah. I'll get my things."

He let go of my arm and went back inside, quietly so as not to wake Merle. I waited outside, listening as the people around me started to wake up. They weren't really his things, they were his dad's but I'd never known his dad to use them so we'd stopped thinking of them as borrowed. He had a lot of hunting stuff and I wondered if he'd been more like Daryl before Daryl's Momma died. I wondered what she'd been like, if she'd have liked me. If things would've been different for Daryl and Merle with her around.

He came back out, crossbow slung over one shoulder and a canvas bag of knives in the other hand, which he promptly handed to me.

When we were younger, we'd had more traps set up. We'd needed them more and smaller things were harder to catch. Since taking the job at the diner, we'd had to hunt less out of necessity. I had access to free food and money to spare if Momma paid the rent on time. It was still fun to do from time to time and good to make sure we weren't getting rusty, you never knew when times were going to get lean again.

The forest was quiet, which was how we liked it. It makes your thoughts louder and the rest of the world hush up. we rarely spoke on our hunting trips. There wasn't always a need to in a friendship like ours. He can tell me things with a look that I wouldn't understand as fast in a written paragraph from someone else. It was effortless. If I wanted to tell him something, it was easy with a gesture or a pointed glance. After a while it always seemed like something in our brains synced up, I think about something and he'd move, having had the same thought.

Afterwards, when everything went wrong, the forests always made me think of him. Made me calm.

That day we caught a turkey, big and plump and far from whatever farm it had wandered away from. We took it home and plucked it. I sliced its head off and then ran the blade in one clean line down the middle.

"Maybe you'll be a surgeon when you grow up," Daryl said, watching me peel back the flesh.

I scooped out some of its guts and threw them into the sink. "This ain't what surgeons do," I said. "They tend to keep all the guts inside."

"Nah," he said. "That's what a big, fancy school is for. To teach you how to put it all back in right."

I laughed. "Well maybe I'll put turkey-butchering on my college applications."

I always found it easier to scoop out their insides with my hands, make sure I was getting it all. When I was done, we seasoned the turkey and stuck it in the oven.

"It's like having Thanksgiving in April," Daryl smiled.

"Kings don't eat as good as we do," I said and he nodded in agreement.

The front door opened. Both of us turned to see Merle in the doorway, mouth agape.

"What in the holy hell is this?" Merle asked, staring at the feathers, the blood, the guts. "You a pair of serial killers? This some Bonnie and Clyde shit?"

I see now how the blood and the guts might have made a stronger impression than the feathers.

"It's a turkey, dumbass," Daryl gestured to the oven. "We caught it."

"Okay," Merle nodded. "Why?"

"Dinner."

"Well shit," Merle chuckled. "Is this how you live when I'm not here? This is some caveman shit, bro. You help with this too?"

He looked at me.

"Yes."

"It was mostly her," Daryl said. "She gutted it too, takes way less time than when I do it."

"He's being modest," I said. "He's a better tracker than me. And he's the one who shot it."

"I could only shoot it because you distracted it for me. Also, you should see her traps, Merle. She can build the best traps outta nothing."

He beamed at me like me and my traps had single handedly solved world hunger.

Merle laughed for about a minute and then said, "You two are feral."

Daryl grabbed a handful of turkey guts from the sink and threw it at him. He ducked and it hit the wall behind him with a loud, wet splat. We all watched it slide slowly down the wall, leaving a crimson trail of blood in its wake.

"It's like a goddamn horror film in here," Merle said. "And I ain't cleaning it."

"We'll clean it," I promised. Daryl sighed. I gave him a look.

"We caught and cooked the damn thing," he complained.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Which makes this our mess. Get scrubbing."

I thought he'd complain more than he did but after a few grumbles he got over himself and got stuck in. He's so good with practical things, does what needs to be done and enjoys seeing the result when he puts the effort in. By the time we finished, the place was cleaner than it was when we started.

The turkey was almost done, we threw in some of the few vegetables in the house to roast alongside it. We let Merle be the one to carve it up, still laughing at us for going out hunting in the first place. I wanted to remind him that Daryl and I wouldn't have learned how to do any of this shit if there'd been an adult with a brain around to make sure we didn't have to but then I remembered that Merle himself was only just an adult. It would be unfair to hold him to the standard of a parent when he'd just been a kid himself.

The turkey was good. It had been a while since we'd had one.

"This is some good shit," Merle nodded his appreciation, mouth full. "But you guys don't have to do this shit no more. I got money."

"What kinda money?' Daryl asked.

"I got a job, I told you that. Good pay, you don't have to bring dead things home for dinner any more. No more of that cold diner food, either."

He waggled a turkey bone at me.

"The pie's good though," Daryl said, looking worried that his brother was cutting off pie supply. I gave him a reassuring nod so he'd know that, whatever Merle said, leftover pie would still be his.

"I can get you a whole damn pie," Merle said. "All for yourselves. Hell, one each if it means that much to ya."

That was a bold promise to make, given how much pie Daryl could put away when given half the chance.

"You get that kinda money from your new job?" I asked. Merle nodded.

"Yeah I got pie money," he said. "I got all sortsa money now."

"How'd you get it?"

"What?"

"The job. How'd you get it?"

There was an uncomfortable silence where I thought he wasn't going to answer me. I watched him glance at Daryl and then back at me. Then he shrugged, "Some friends of mine hooked me up." He looked at Daryl, "I can hook you up too, little brother."

A cold, hard knot formed in my stomach. The thought of Daryl wandering down the same shady path as his brother made me queasy.

"Maybe…" was all Daryl said, it was non-committal. But not enough to stop the fears bubbling up inside me. "What are we gonna do when Dad gets back?"

I think he was trying to change the subject, to stop me from stumbling on to something that might have been turning in his mind for a while. But I knew Daryl's mind better than my own, I knew the temptation Merle was putting in front of him.

"Leave him to me," Merle replied and reached over me to cut himself more turkey. He smelled of sweat and cigarettes. "And you won't have to worry about any of that when I got my own place."

"What?" Daryl put down his fork.

"I'll be getting my own place soon. And I'll take you with me when I go," he promised. "Both of you."

It was generous of him, to extend the invite to me. He didn't know shit about me, other than that I was friends with his brother, temporarily homeless and able to pluck and gut a turkey. It was suspiciously generous.

"Where you moving to?" I asked him.

"City, probably," he said with a shrug,

Daryl turned to me with hope in his eyes, "You have been talking about the City…"

I ignored him, leaning closer to Merle. I wondered if the features he shared with his brother would make it easy for me to read him too. "What is the job?"

"Supply and demand," Merle grinned, not even trying to hide things from me.

I knew what that meant.

My Momma was part of the 'demand' group of Merle's new business, whatever men like him were supplying was the reason she'd up and disappeared, the reason we had no money, the reason for the needle marks in her arm.

"So it's dangerous?" I said. I felt so angry but I had nowhere to put it. I knew if I pushed Merle to hard I risked of ending up out on my ass.

"Only if you're stupid," Merle said. "Which Daryl ain't. Are ya?"

"No," Daryl said but he would not look at me. I sighed.

"Well there we go then. Sorted." Merle sounded happy. "When I got my own place, we'll go and when you're ready to work, bro, you just let me know."

"Will do," Daryl said. Merle stood up, his plate empty and his stomach full. He grinned at me again. It didn't seem all that friendly.

"I'm off for a drink," he said. "Thank you both for dinner. You're the weirdest kids I ever met."

He laughed to himself again. I listened to his footsteps fade, heard his bike drive off in the distance. Then I turned to Daryl, who's eyes were on his half eaten dinner. "Promise me you'll be careful.*

"What?" he said but I knew we both knew what I was talking about.

"With whatever Merle's trying to get you involved in."

"I ain't dumb," he scowled at the table.

"No. You ain't." I said. "But still. Promise me."

He looked me in the eye. "I promise."

I felt so much better. Because Daryl Dixon hadn't ever broken a promise to me.

Daryl

Naomi's Momma came home just before our week was up. It was good timing, I guess, because it meant there'd be someone there to talk to the social service lady when she came back. But it felt like the end of everything good and the start of something terrible.

We only knew she was back because there was a light on in Naomi's house one night. She stared at it for a while, she'd been talking about some book she'd been reading and I was only half listening but I noticed when she stopped talking. I think it was mid-sentence and mid-word. I remember looking at her, wide eyes in the dark. I followed where she was looking. Saw the light. Said nothing. Just waited for her to speak.

Eventually, she turned to me and said, "I'll get my things then."

The way she said it, so quiet and sad, was like someone put a needle in my gut.

"You don't have to," I said, although I knew she'd disagree. I wanted to say it anyway so I knew that she knew she had a choice. "You can stay as long as you like."

"She might need sorting out," she said. Her eyes were back on that light in her house. "Who knows what state she's in."

There it was, so sad again. Needle in my heart.

I didn't say anything this time, I just nodded and watched her turn around and pack up all of her things into the trash bag she'd brought them in.

"Tell Merle I said goodbye," she told me. It sounded weirdly final.

"Tell him yourself," I said. "You ain't gonna swing by no more?"

"''Course I will," she smiled and shook her head. "Sorry, I dunno why I'm being a dumbass about this. Guess I kinda got used to being here."

"When Merle gets his own place," I said. "We'll both be there. This is just temporary."

She smiled but I knew she didn't believe it was going to happen. I didn't want to start a fight with her, not now, so I didn't say anything else about it. I went with her when she went home. She didn't ask me to and I didn't ask for permission but she didn't stop me neither. Miss Payton wouldn't be surprised. In those days, Naomi and I came as a pair. When we walked it was like we had one shadow.

It became obvious when we got close that her door was open. Light spilled out onto the ground where there a few empty beer bottles there, which hadn't been there a few hours before. Naomi slowed down when she saw them. Her breathing became less easy. Cigarette smoke wafted out the door towards us.

"Come on in from out there, sweetheart," a man's voice, definitely not her Momma. I saw Naomi's bottom lip start to tremble. She took a deep breath and stepped in. I followed close behind. I wished I brought Merle's gun. I knew where he kept it.

"What do you want?" Naomi asked. There was a muscular and heavily tattooed man sitting down at her kitchen table, smoking her Momma's cigarettes into her Momma's ash tray. He looked at me.

"What's this, you brought back up?" he asked.

"A friend of mine," Naomi said and then repeated her own question, stronger than before. "What do you want?"

"Brought your Momma home," he said. He stood up, nearly the height of the whole room. He gestured to where Miss Payton was lying passed out and wrapped in her own vomit-covered faux fur coat on the sofa. I saw Naomi panic as she looked over, until she realised that you could see she was still breathing. "Don't that deserve a thank you?"

"Thank you," she said. She sounded timid in a way that made me angry. Not with her. But with this colossal man threatening her in her own home.

He smiled. But it weren't nice.

"She owes me money," he said. "And I ain't leaving 'til I get it."

"What does she owe you?"

"Two hundred dollars," he said. "She thought she could cut and run with my takings. So me and you are going to come to some kind of arrangement over how you're gonna help pay her debt. You gonna work for it like her?"

"She's fifteen, man," I heard myself say, my anger spilling out of my mouth.

He looked at me with a smirk and a shrug. "A lot of gents are into that."

I felt sick.

"I can pay," Naomi said quickly. "I got money."

His eyebrows raised. "You got money?"

"Yes," she said and went to the biscuit tin in the kitchen where I knew she hid all of her money from the diner in case her mom stole it. I also knew that was the money she'd saved for rent gone in one fell swoop. She took out a bundle of notes and handed it to him.

He took it from her and started counting through every note. "How'd you get money?"

"I got a job," she said. "It don't pay that well but I got enough for you to leave."

I stepped closer to her, slightly between her and the big, tattooed man, incase he took offence to what she'd just said. His eyes fixed one me. He laughed. "Stand down, kid, I ain't gonna punch your girlfriend," he told me. "She's been honest and given me what I came for. Our business is done here."

"Thank you," she almost whispered it.

"Pleasure doing business with you," he smiled. "When your Momma wakes up, tell her to get in touch."

And he was gone, the stench of his cigarettes still hung in the air. Naomi's hands shook when she put her biscuit tin away.

"You okay?" I asked her in a whisper incase that man was still loitering nearby.

"Yes," she whispered. "He's been here before but… not for a while. Will you help me get her over to the bed?"

She was looking at her Momma, still passed out on the couch. I nodded. Not because I wanted to help Miss Payton but because I wanted to help Naomi. I wanted Miss Payton to leave again and not come back and for Naomi to come back to living with me. But I knew that weren't going to be possible. Not for a while. So lifted her by the arms and Naomi took her legs and between us we got her onto the bed. Naomi took off her vomit-coated coat and wrapped a clean blanket around her.

"Thank you," she whispered to me. I didn't like it because it reminded me of the way she'd just spoken to that pimp. I never wanted to be the reason she felt that small.

"You ain't gotta thank me," I told her. "You want me to stay over?"

Please say yes.

She shook her head.

"No, I got a lot to do," she said. "I need to take care of Momma and she'll be mad if she wakes up and you're still here."

"Okay," I said as she walked me back towards the door. "Well you know where I am if you change your mind."

"Thanks Daryl," this time she thanked me with a smile. I stepped out onto the top step and turned to look back at her. Then she did something she didn't usually do when we said goodbye to each other, she threw her arms around me and whispered, "Thanks for everything."

"You ain't ever gotta thank me," I said, feeling like I was repeating myself. This time it came out a little more gruff, like there was something stuck in my throat. I hugged her tight and then she let go.

That first night she wasn't with us I lay awake and all I could hear was Merle snoring and I missed the sound of her breathing. I thought about her, wondered if she was lying awake too. If she'd managed to clean up her Momma, what would happen when she woke up. The whole place felt colder. Her smell was still there.

The next day she didn't come to school. I waited for ages. Then I hurried along the road in case I was the one who was late and she'd gone on without me. But she wasn't there. Or in any of her classes.

I skipped the last one and walked home, where I found her sitting on the steps outside her home. Inside, everything seemed quiet. I wondered if her Momma had taken off again. I waved. She didn't even blink. I stood right in front of her and she barely saw me.

"You okay?" I asked. "You didn't show for school today."

She looked up at me, dazed, like she hadn't expected me to be there or thought I was some kind of hallucination. She was pale. There was a horrible moment where ice-cold fear gripped my heart and I thought that somehow some of her Momma's drugs had wound up in her system.

No.

Not her.

Not my Naomi.

She weren't like that and she would never let herself be.

"Daryl…" she blinked up at me a few times. I saw her hands tug on her jeans, holding them up and away from her skin. I don't think she knew she was doing it and I wondered if there were any fresh burns there. There was an anger inside me that wanted to lock her Momma up inside that trailer and burn the whole thing to the ground with her inside it.

I sat down on the step beside her. "Noami," I said. "You okay."

"She's pregnant," Naomi said. Her wide eyes gleamed in the light. It didn't make sense to me.

"What?"

"My Momma. She's pregnant."

I was so shocked I didn't know what to say. So I said, "You sure?"

She swallowed down a lump in her throat. "Yup."

"She keeping it?"

"If it survives," she shrugged. "If she can stay sober for long enough."

I relaxed, just a tiny bit. Sounds bad to say but it seemed unlikely that Miss Payton would stay sober long enough to have a healthy baby.

"What about the dad?" I asked, mostly because I had nothing else to say.

"Doubt she knows" Naomi said. "She never knew mine.'

"Don't matter, you turned out perfect." I said.

I don't think she was listening. "Probably some John who paid her more if he didn't have to wear a condom."

"Well," I shrugged. "Dads are overrated."

She finally looked at me. Her eyes were bright, tears about to spill over. "It's all over Daryl."

I felt my heartbeat speed up. Cold panic. "What do you mean?"

"School, college, getting a job and getting out of here. It's all over. I can't do it now."

"Yes you can, 'course you can," I said quickly, shocked she could even be thinking things like that. "You're the smartest person I know. And that includes all of those dumbass teachers."

She shook her head. "I can't leave that kid with her. I'm gonna have to look after it. Make sure she's okay."

Naomi looked too young and too small in that moment to be talking about taking on something so big. "That ain't your problem."

"I can't turn my back, Daryl."

"She raised you right." I said. I nearly said perfect again but I stopped myself. "She'll do fine."

"She's worse now. She's so much worse than when I was a kid. A new one doesn't stand a chance."

It sounded like she'd reached a decision and there was nothing I could do about it. So I made my own decision. "Well you ain't doing it alone."

"Daryl-" She closed her eyes, two tears slipped out.

"No. I'm not having you throw everything away for some kid that ain't even here yet," I said firmly. "You've worked too damn hard. You've got too much to give. World needs people like you running the show."

"I can't-"

"You can. I'll help," I promised. "Merle's gonna help. There ain't a person here you haven't helped in some way. Folks are gonna want to return the favour."

She didn't speak for a moment, just wiped away a few tears with the back of her sleeve. I put an arm around her and she rested her head on my shoulder. More things were decided in that moment than I think she knew. We walked up our hill together, looked out over Atlanta as the sunlight failed and the lights came on. I promised her over and over again that she'd get everything she wanted, everything she'd worked for.

When I got home, Merle was in.

"You're late home little brother," he said. I ignored it.

"You got a job for me?" I asked him. He smiled.

"I sure do."

That night, I lay awake and thought about Naomi. The life we could have, the future I could build her, the baby we might raise. The one thing I was certain of was that I would not let her give up on herself because she had never given up on me.