More Than This

by Graveyard Whispers

Naomi Payton was Daryl Dixon's childhood best friend. In truth, they were each others only friend. But sometimes growing up means growing apart and when Naomi's ambitions and Daryl's loyalty to his brother drive a wedge between them, will the world falling apart be enough to bring them together again? Hell, will they even find each other again?

51. Right?

Naomi

I turned an old pocketknife knife over in my hand. Rust bloomed on the handle, rough as coral. The blade, clouded with grime, reflected my own eye back at me, slightly distorted.

"You know what's weird?"

Daryl looked up at me from behind a pile of winter coats. His gaze flickered to the window directly behind me, and he said, "That you're still hauling those damn flowers around like they ain't ten minutes from dying?"

"No," I said, putting a protective hand over the wine bottle sitting on the sill where the flowers he'd given me were crowded in the top. A little droopy, maybe, but I wasn't ready to let them go. "That ain't weird."

"Ain't normal," Daryl said, but I hadn't missed the smile on his face when he'd seen me sitting with my makeshift wine-vase of his flowers in my lap on the journey from Alexandria. "You know there are flowers outside, right? Grow right out of the ground."

"No."

"Yeah, they do."

"No, what's weird is," I said, trying to ignore the way he was grinning at me and my cheeks were heating up, "that we've been searching through all of this shit the Saviors took from other people. Shit they've hoarded. We've found almost everything from Alexandria. But, you know what we ain't found?"

Daryl thought for a second, looking at me like it might be some kind of trick. "What?"

"Anything of mine," I said.

"You missing something?"

"The bag you made me, with Kinieval on it," I said. "The clothes I came here in when they took us from that clearing. That picture of Mia and us that Negan stole from my room. None of it's turned up."

I didn't mention that Negan had carried that picture around to mess with me and that whether he was alive or dead or something in between, it was probably still with him.

"Sure it'll be here somewhere," Daryl said. "Could've ended up at one of the Outposts. Saviors were moving stuff around all the time. We'll keep looking."

"Yeah," I nodded, but there was an unease in my stomach that didn't let up. Before I could put it into words, there was a soft knock at the already ajar door, and Michonne's head peeked through the gap.

"You guys almost done here?"

"Yeah, almost," I said.

"Rick and I were thinking of heading for some food soon," she said. "We were hoping you'd join us, as it's our last night."

"That sounds lovely," I said, ignoring the stony silence radiating from Daryl.

"Ten minutes?" Michonne asked with a smile.

"Perfect."

"Great," she said. "I'll get the kids and see you both there."

I waited until Michonne's footsteps had faded down the corridor before I turned back to Daryl. "You're going to have to forgive him some time, and it might as well be tonight. Who knows when we'll next see them?"

"I ain't mad."

"You've been grouchy as hell the whole time we've been here," I sighed. "Those first few nights were tough. I really thought some of the Saviors were going to try something, and Rick and Michonne have been great at keeping them in line."

Daryl couldn't argue with the rest of it, so he scowled and said, "Ain't grouchy."

"Are too," I said. Daryl sighed.

"They get to leave this place," he said. "Don't matter how great they are at yelling at Saviors, it ain't Rick and Michonne who's gotta live with them after."

"They'll be easier to live with now that Rick and Michonne have made it clear what kinda shit won't fly anymore."

"You shouldn't be living with them at all."

"I chose to come," I said. "If you're gonna be mad at anyone for that, be mad at me, not Rick."

"Maybe I am mad at you," he said like he was offended that I hadn't considered it.

"Are you?" I asked. If he was, he was doing a terrible job of showing it. He'd barely left my side since we went on our date, and he sure as shit wasn't keeping his hands to himself when we were alone. I pushed the blade of the pocket knife back into the handle and slipped it into my pocket, all the while studying Dary's face to see if he was serious.

"Tryna be," he said. "But it's hard to stay mad when you get all…."

"All what?" I put a hand on his arm. If he was mad at me, I wanted him to feel like he could talk to me without it being some big fight. Even if it turned into one, a blow-out argument was better than him bottling up his feelings and resenting me until it drove us apart.

"All… like this," he said, waving vaguely at the closing space between us.

"What?" I asked. "Close to you?"

"Yeah."

"So, you're only mad at me from afar?"

"Yeah," he said, and he looked at me like he always did - as if it was the first time he'd been allowed to look at me in the way he wanted to. "It's too confusing when you're close."

"That ain't incentive for me to go away then, is it?" I said, and Daryl smiled. He couldn't help it.

"C'mere you," he said like he was giving into something he shouldn't. He still got that nervous glint in his eye when I got close. I wondered if I got it too. Probably. The flutter in my stomach every time I realized he was about to kiss me sure as shit hadn't gone anywhere. The feel of his lips when they first met mine still made my head spin. His kiss was slow and deep, and I knew he was trying to distract me from where we were supposed to be, but it was a distraction that was extremely hard to get mad about. Extremely effective, too.

"Let's go," I said when I eventually managed, through a Herculean force of will, to pull myself away from him.

"Let's stay," he said.

"We just told Michonne we'd be there."

"You told her that. I didn't say shit."

Gotta be a good friend. I reminded myself. Gotta make sure Rick and Daryl aren't parting on bad terms.

I started listing off the reasons, for my benefit as much as his, "It's their last night; we might not get a chance to see them for a while."

"Sure they won't mind if we skip it," Daryl said with a shrug that said he didn't care if we skipped it. "Sure they'd understand if we wanted some time by ourselves."

His hand skimmed the curve between my waist and my hip. That formerly nervous glint in his eye was replaced by a far more suggestive one. Temptation tugged at my heart.

"We're about to have nothing but time by ourselves," I said. "Plus, if we go now, we've got the best chance of getting the good food before it's gone…."

"Eugene's cooking tonight, so it'll all taste like shit no matter what time we go."

"I'm hungry," I said, my stomach rumbling in agreement. "Ain't you hungry?"

We'd been working all day, sorting through boxes of pilfered shit. Lifting supplies that were to be returned to the communities they'd been taken from into waiting vehicles. I thought he'd give in then, maybe take a few steps back, but Daryl didn't budge.

"Can think of something else I'd rather eat," he said, and my heart nearly fell clean out of my chest.

"Stop," I gasped like someone might have overheard him. Daryl's smile widened.

"Stop what?" His words were innocent; the look in his eye was anything but.

"You're not the only one who gets all…," I tried to take a step back, but the pull toward him was too strong. "Confused when you're…."

"What?" he murmured, inching closer. "Close to ya?"

"Yes." I resented the way my body melted into his when I was trying to be annoyed with him. But, even more, I resented the way I didn't feel annoyed. Not even a bit.

"That ain't exactly… how'd you say it? ... Incentive to go away?"

"Come on," I said, my hand running down his arm to take hold of his. I forced myself to take a step back, although my feet felt like they were moving through syrup.

Gotta be a good friend.

Daryl didn't put up much more of a fight, but he walked real slow. Dragging his feet like a kid who didn't want to go to the dentist. His hand gripped mine so tight I had to choose between letting go or slowing down, so I wound up walking at a glacial pace too. Walking the corridors of Sanctuary wasn't as eerie as it had been when we arrived. People were moving around and doing things, and there was noise to drown out the ghosts.

At mealtimes, the din was concentrated in one room. We'd turned what had been the place that Saviors had once received their rations based on rank into a communal dining hall. Everyone got the same, regardless of whether they were a former Savior or from one of the communities they'd terrorized. The idea behind it was to show them that Negan's former hierarchy was over, but the tensions between us were far from gone. Saviors would walk past and stare at our plates, ensuring we didn't have anything more or better than they did. I'd heard whispers that we had our own stash of food somewhere that Saviors weren't privy to. I'd suggested to Rick that we put one of the Saviors on the kitchen team so they'd see for themselves that nothing was up, but my idea had been shot down by everyone else who'd said they didn't want Saviors spitting in their food. Or anywhere near knives.

The rattle of plates and indistinct chatter, along with having to drag Daryl in there, reminded me of our old school canteen. I stopped outside the door, and Daryl took advantage of my pause to tug me back toward him. "Last chance to turn around."

I best be winning Friend of the Year for making this kinda sacrifice.

"We're going in," I said, already cursing myself for saying it. "Play nice."

Daryl sighed as I pushed the door open. The tables set out in the hall were mostly filled. Rick waved us over when he saw us come in; standing behind one of the tables at the far end of the room, Judith balanced on one hip. Michonne stood up from her chair. Carl and Mia were sitting at the same table, their heads bowed in some kind of intense conversation. Nobody had yet got any food; they'd clearly been waiting for us. I'd thought Michonne's suggestion that we eat together had been a casual, friendly thing, but a part of me was suddenly very glad I hadn't let Daryl talk me into standing them up.

Michonne's eyes fixed on me with an intensity I wasn't expecting. She moved around the table before we could get to them and grabbed me by the elbow. "Come help me fix some plates for us?"

"You want me to help?" Daryl said a little too quickly.

"No, no, you take a seat," Michonne said, even quicker. Her other hand, which wasn't gripping my elbow like a vice, gave Daryl a push toward the table.

Rick smiled at me and then fixed that smile on Daryl, "Hello, Daryl."

Daryl grunted back. Something that could have been mistaken for a greeting or him clearing his throat, depending on how you wanted to read it. Rick's smile didn't falter. He'd been relentlessly cheerful, no matter how grumpy Daryl had been. I don't know how Rick kept it up. If it were me, I'd have yelled at him days ago.

Michonne turned to the kids. "Carl, Mia, you wanna come help?"

They glanced over at us, chairs scraping reluctantly against the floor as they stood up to join us. I thought they might protest. Hell, I thought I might protest about why we had to be the ones fetching food for men who were sitting on their asses. But, it was so unlike Michonne, and there was this determined look in her eye above her fixed-on smile that kept my mouth shut.

Sure enough, when we were away from the table, Michonne leaned closer to me and said, "So, you and I are on the same page, right? This coldness between Daryl and Rick's got to end."

""Definitely," I said as we took our places in the line to get food. "I'm sure Daryl will get over it eventually, it's…."

"It's a big thing Rick asked him to do," Michonne said. It was the first time I got an inkling that she disagreed with Rick about it. They were usually such a united front. "I knew it was the minute he suggested putting you and Daryl here. Daryl's got every right to be pissed. So do you."

Michonne looked at me with such sincere, kind eyes that I couldn't respond for a moment. In the silence, Mia tapped my arm. She was holding two empty plates.

"Can I get Daryl's for him?" she asked, and I was flooded with the kind of warmth you get when the people you care about most show how much they care for each other.

"'Course you can," I said, and then I looked back at Michonne. "As long as I've got Mia and Daryl with me, I'm golden. It ain't the place that makes a home; it's the people you got with you."

"We really did run through every option," Michonne said. "But there's nobody else cut out for a job like this."

"I'm fine. Really," I assured her, but I could still see the guilt in her eyes. We moved to the head of the queue.

Jerry's big, beaming smile could feel a little out of place here, but it was always a welcome sight. If anything was going to wear down some of the more stubborn Saviors, being served food by a guy like Jerry every day may very well be it. We greeted him, and he said, "Pasta ala Eugene," kind of apologetically as he spooned food onto our plates.

"Are those sardines?" I asked, squinting at the plate he'd handed me.

"Yeah," Jerry said. "Eugene swears by this recipe, and he's been begging me to trust him all week. Finally gave in."

"Had any complaints?" Michonne asked.

"Not yet," Jerry said, with a wary glance around the canteen. "But I got this on just in case."

He tapped the protective vest hugging his torso. I moved out of the way, letting Mia step up to the front of the queue. She brightened for a moment, "Are we having mac and cheese?"

"Lower your expectations, Mia," Jerry said gently, and Mia went quiet.

We made our way back to the table, plates in hand. Daryl was staring at his hands, absorbed in picking at the dirt under his fingernails. Rick sat opposite him in a silence that I could feel across the other side of the room.

"If it was Merle, I'd know what to do," I said to Michonne. "Let them punch it out until they got tired and hungry enough to forget about it. But Rick ain't Merle."

"No. He isn't," Michonne said with a light laugh. The familiarity in her voice surprised me for a moment.

"Shit, I keep forgetting you knew Merle," I said.

"Well,… I met Merle," Michonne said, which made sense - meeting Merle and knowing Merle were two wholly different experiences. "And I owe him my life, but I can't say I knew him. Not really."

"Not even sure I can say that," I said. My feelings about Merle had always been complicated. Daryl's love for him meant I could never hate him. But my love for Daryl meant I couldn't see how many times he'd been let down by his big brother and not resent Merle for it.

"What you two talking about?" Daryl asked. Something about the look on my face made him curious enough to break his silent and moody staring at nothing.

"Merle, actually," I said.

"Merle?" Daryl's eyebrows shot up.

Mia held out one of the two plates she was carrying to him and looked kind of nervous, "I got your food. It kinda looks like mac and cheese, but Jerry says it's not as good. Hope it's okay!"

I watched the way Daryl softened as he took the plate from her. "Looks good enough for a King."

He'd have said the same if Mia had handed him a plate of rocks and dirt. Mia beamed at him, relieved. I felt that warmth again, and my belief in what I'd said to Michonne solidified. There was no place I'd rather be than right here in Sanctuary with these two. Mia and Carl sat back down in the seats they'd been in before. Judith reached over from where she was perched on Rick's knee and tried to grab something from Carl's plate.

"You kids have a good day?" I asked, sitting in the empty seat between them and Daryl.

"Yeah," Mia said, but there was something in the way she said it - a little too light and breezy - that made it feel like she was trying to hide something. I glanced at Carl, wondering if the two of them might've had some kind of argument, but he was busy defending his plate from his baby sister.

Mia stared intently at her plate, trying not to catch my eye. Now wasn't the time to ask her anything too personal. So, before anyone else could pick up on it, I glanced back at Daryl, "Michonne and I were talking about when Merle saved her life by not handing her over to that guy. What was his name…? The Captain?"

I was playing dumb. Daryl had told me his name, and I remembered it just fine. Remembered the guilt he felt over not shooting him before he killed Maggie's father.

"The Governor," Rick and Daryl said in unison. Then they looked at each other. Michonne glanced between the two like she was waiting for a serve at a tennis match.

"That's right," I said when the conversation stalled again. "What was his deal?"

"He was a damn psycho," Daryl said, stabbing furiously at his plate with a fork. "That's all you gotta know."

In the abrupt silence, I glanced across the table at Michonne. She glanced back, sharing my worry.

"Actually, I think Merle gave me a warmer welcome to the prison than you did, Daryl," Michonne said, managing to sound light-hearted and casual. "Seem to remember you threatening to shoot me with that crossbow of yours."

I watched Daryl's sheepish grin spread across his face. He swallowed a mouthful of food and said, "Shit, yeah, sorry about that. Couldn't be too careful back then."

Can't be too careful now.

"I forgot that happened," Rick shook his head like it was a lifetime ago. He waved the end of his fork at Daryl, "Not sure if I should be mad at you. Threatening Michonne like that."

"No worse than you holding my girl at gunpoint when you first met her," Daryl was quick to retort. My stomach dropped at the thought all progress had been lost in one sentence.

"Yeah, you're not going to win this one," Michonne said to Rick.

"Alright," Rick raised his hands and glanced at me. "Well, apologies again, Naomi."

"No hard feelings," I said. "Sounds like Michonne had it worse."

It was almost impossible to imagine now. Michonne had Daryl's unwavering respect, and the way Rick looked at her… it was like he hadn't seen sunlight until he saw her face. Once you get close to people, it's easy to forget how you started out.

"Sure did," Michonne agreed.

"Either of them ever apologize for that?" I asked her. Michonne pretended to think about it for a moment while Rick and Daryl shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

"Y'know, I don't think they did," she said.

"Hey, I just said I was sorry," Daryl protested. Then, he nodded to Rick, "What's your excuse?"

"I really gotta say it?" Rick asked. "Haven't I done enough to make up for yet?"

"I don't know," Michonne said. "Without me, you never would've known what happened to Maggie and Glenn. Never would've got that baby formula for Judith, either."

"Governor would've killed you when he destroyed the prison," Daryl said, "if Michonne hadn't been there to save your ass."

"Alright, alright," Rick raised his hands in surrender. "I'm sorry. Alright?"

Michonne wrinkled her nose like she was thinking it over but remained unconvinced. "Well, it's a start."

"We are all forever in your debt," Rick said with a grin. "Is that better?"

"It's a good start," Michonne amended. Rick took her hand, raised it to his lips, and gave it a kiss. Everyone else in the room vanished for them as they shared a smile. Seeing moments like that used to make me ache in a way I hadn't understood at the time. Rick and Michonne, Aaron and Eric, Bryce and Andrew, couples I didn't even know… it didn't matter who it was, witnessing those small moments of love used to make me feel like something deep inside me was missing. Not anymore.

I glanced at Daryl. He was already looking at me, and when our eyes met, he gave me a small smile. It was half-apologetic like he thought I might be looking at this moment of public affection between Rick and Michonne with sadness that we weren't like that. I smiled back in a way that I hoped reassured him. Daryl had always been intensely private, and that was fine with me. I didn't need big public displays from him. As long as he was by my side, that deep longing in my chest was gone.

"You good?" Daryl asked, leaning in until his breath tickled my ear.

"Yeah," I said. I couldn't think of another time that Daryl and I had ever been around a table filled with this much love. "I really am."

Daryl nodded. Under the table, he put a warm hand on my thigh and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Good."

It took everything in me not to climb on top of him right there and then.

"After that fight with the Governor," I turned my attention back to the rest of the table. "You took in some of the Woodbury residents at the prison, right?"

"Yeah. Lost pretty much all of them to an illness," Daryl said in a way that told me he still carried that with him.

"I remember," I said quietly. "But, before that, how long did it take them to settle into living with you after they'd spent so long fighting y'all?"

"They didn't have a lot of choices," Rick said. "Woodbury wasn't as safe as the prison, and by then, the Governor had turned on all of them. Opened fire on his own people. It was pretty easy to get them to join us."

"Shit."

"Told you he was a psycho," Daryl said.

"You were hoping there'd be another answer?" Rick asked me.

"Yeah, I was hoping there'd be something you did there that could help turn people around here," I said. "But it doesn't sound like it was the same."

"Nah, not really." Rick agreed. Negan was far from a saint, but he'd never fire on his own people. He had a way of making those loyal to him feel valued; that was a lot harder to stamp out.

"Alright," I shrugged, changing tactics and returning to the root of the conversation. I glanced between Rick and Michonne. "How long did it take for y'all to trust each other after your rocky start at the prison?"

"Carl helped with that," Rick said. At the mention of his name, Carl looked up at us, away from whatever teenage nonsense he and Mia had been whispering about at the other end of the table. "She's always treated him like an equal, even when I found it hard to see how capable he was. Always looked out for him."

"We look out for each other," Carl protested.

"Right," Rick agreed. "Once they were friends, I didn't have much choice. On top of all that, Michonne more than proved herself."

"Yeah, I only started talking to you because of Carl, too," Michonne said. "I thought you couldn't be all bad if you managed to have a kid that cool."

"That right?" Rick laughed.

"Half-right," she admitted. "When I saw you take in all of those people from Woodbury, that's when I was sure you weren't going to be another asshole like the Governor. You were willing to put all of that aside to make sure innocent people were safe."

Michonne looked at him with an admiration that Rick didn't know what to do with. I think it was the first time I'd seen him blush. He looked down at his plate, head shaking slightly as if he felt undeserving of it. Then, I remembered Daryl telling me that Merle had taken Michonne to the Governor because Rick had been on the verge of doing it himself, something that clearly still weighed on him. Michonne's hand brushed against his forearm like she'd picked up on this too and wanted him to know it was alright.

"And you?" I promoted Daryl, thinking Rick might appreciate a shift in focus. "Once Rick trusted her, you trusted her?"

"Something like that," he shrugged, still too stubborn to give Rick credit for anything. "Also thought if she was someone Merle gave up his life for, she's gotta be worth something."

"Shit, Daryl," Michonne was as taken aback by his honesty as I was. "I hope I lived up to it."

"Yeah. You did," Daryl said. "You wouldn't quit looking for the Governor because you wanted to protect everyone at the prison and risked everything to come on that meds run when folks got sick, you more than lived up to it."

Now it was Michonne who didn't know what to say. She sat back in her chair, stunned, while Rick leaned forward, eyes fixed on Daryl. "And when did you decide I was someone worth trusting?"

Michonne and I glanced at each other again. Neither of us dared say anything or even breathe too hard. It was a bold move and risked reminding Daryl that Rick had left his brother to die on a rooftop, thereby adding to his reasons to sulk with him. But maybe that was the point. If they could get over something that big, this current disagreement was nothing.

"Took me a while at first," Daryl said, which came as a shock to exactly nobody. Daryl's trust was a slow-won prize. "In the early days, I only followed you because I didn't much care where I went. But… I guess it was when we found Sophia. When she came out of that barn, and it was clear she'd been dead most of the time that we'd been looking for her. You were the one who took the shot, so Carol didn't have to see her kid like that. That was when I knew you were someone worth following."

"Yeah," Rick nodded slowly. Daryl wasn't looking at him, but what he'd said had been sincere. "Sophia disappearing was right around when I knew you were someone I could count on, too. You should've seen the way he refused to give up the search for her. Right until the last moment."

Rick looked at me, but I was hardly surprised, "I can believe it. He's-"

"Don't," Daryl warned, sensing I was about to start gushing about him.

"Even when he got shot in the process," Rick continued. "Hardly slowed him down."

"He fucking what?" I turned to Daryl like I half-expected to see an open wound. Bleeding again now that I knew about it.

"Just a graze, don't worry about it," Daryl brushed it off as if he wouldn't have been the same if the tables were turned.

"Don't think you two are getting out of this," Michonne said. "When did you two start trusting each other?"

Neither Daryl nor I said anything for a moment. I'd trusted Daryl for so long it was a part of me. Couldn't remember a time when I hadn't. It was like trying to remember when I'd first learned the sky was blue. He'd always been there when I needed him, even if he didn't say much. But then, a memory hit me like a freight train.

"A month or two after we moved in, our place was broken into. We didn't have much, but my Momma had pissed off her dealer, so it wasn't really about money. It was a kinda warning, y'know," I said. Michonne nodded, but there was a vast and quiet horror in her eyes. "They took everything, right down to my toothbrush, and we couldn't afford to replace it all right away. So, on the way home from school, I made Daryl stop at a gas station with me, and I stole a pack of gum because my teeth felt like they'd grown fur, and I couldn't stand it. I put it in my pocket, and when I looked up, Daryl was looking right at me."

"Yeah," Daryl laughed. "You weren't as slick as you thought you were."

"You didn't snitch on me, though," I said. "I thought you might, but you didn't. And then two days later, there was a new toothbrush and a half-full tube of toothpaste wrapped in a bag on my doorstep."

"How'd you know that was from me?" Daryl asked.

"Ain't no one else leaving a Spiderman toothbrush all wrapped up at my door," I said. "And I could hear your Daddy yelling about missing toothpaste from my place. But, you never said anything about it, so I didn't say anything either."

"We had a spare, didn't need it," Daryl shrugged. "Ain't no big deal."

"Was to me," I said, knowing that he already knew that, and that was exactly why neither of us had spoken about it at the time. "And I guess if there was one moment where I knew for sure I could trust you, that was it."

"So, you've been a softie from the start, huh?" Rick said with a grin. Daryl rolled his eyes, tried to puff himself up a little.

"Usually, I couldn't get her to shut up, but that week I could barely get her to open her mouth," Daryl said. "I was bored, that's all."

"I thought if I spoke, my breath would be all green, and you'd faint like in a cartoon," I said. Rick and Michonne laughed, but I'd been half-serious. I'd had dreams about those animated green stink lines following me around.

"What about you, Daryl?" Michonne asked, and my heart flipped in my chest. "Was there a moment for you?"

Daryl had just lifted a spoonful of food to his mouth, and there was an excruciating moment where he couldn't say anything at all. Michonne's question hung in the air, and Daryl's gaze slid over to me, watching me squirm under it. He chewed on it.

"She gave me half her sandwich," Daryl said eventually, with a shrug and through a mouthful of Pasta Ala Eugene. Rick and Michonne burst into laughter while I scrambled to think what the hell he was talking about. "Nobody had ever given me shit before that."

"You mean the day we met?" I asked him.

"Yeah," he said. "I mean, it took a bit longer to be sure, but it was a solid start."

"To think, after everything we went through to get him to open up, we could've just given him a meatball sub," Rick said. I tried to shit out his laughter.

"The day we met?" I repeated, to be sure.

"When you know, you know," Daryl said with another shrug.

"Not even a full meatball sub," Michonne giggled.

"That's right," Rick agreed. "Half would've done it."

I ignored them and glanced at Daryl, "Sorry it took me so long to catch up."

"It's fine," he said. "I'm used to you being slower than me."

"You wish!" I said. "I'd beat your ass in a race right now. Let's go."

"Woah, easy girl," Daryl said. "Don't want you spewing your guts out 'cause you can't handle that I knew you had my back when you were still thinking I was some kinda snake."

"I never thought that," I said. Guilt started gnawing at my gut. Momma and I had moved around so much, friendships lasted anything from months to a few days, and I'd got used to goodbyes. So when I'd met Daryl, I'd had no way of knowing we'd stick around or that he'd change my whole life. "And just 'cause it took me longer, it doesn't mean… I don't… I ain't…."

"I know, baby," he laughed. "I'm only messing."

Baby.

I immediately wanted to make fun of him, but then my heart did a stupid little flutter that made me want to giggle. Not laugh at him, giggle like some kinda idiot, and I didn't know what to do with that. Daryl froze like he'd just heard himself say it and wanted the ground to swallow him up. Eyes still fixed on the plate in front of him. Nobody around us had noticed, Mia and Carl were whispering about something again, and Michonne and Rick were busy deciding which kind of sandwich would win Daryl round the fastest.

Daryl looked up at me really slowly. Waiting to see if I'd noticed. Our eyes met, and he gave me a look that said Please don't give me shit for this. I shot him one back that said, I'm gonna give you so much shit for this. But not now. Not while I was in danger of giggling like a schoolgirl.

"Well," Rick said in a way that was designed to draw the group's fractured attention back together. Daryl and I were glad for an excuse to look away from each other. "Interesting as this was, I'm not sure any of it helps with our Savior problem."

"Sure it does," Michonne said. "Compassion, forgiveness, and small acts of kindness with no expectation of anything in return… that's what all of those stories had in common. That's what builds trust, and that's what'll win these folks round in the end."

Daryl sighed. "You ain't got anything that'll work faster than that?"

"Nope," Michonne said. "Afraid not."

"Does that include Negan?" Carl asked. There was a collective intake of breath at the mention of that name, and it felt like the whole room got quiet. My skin prickled like we were being listened to. Maybe we were.

"Negan's dead," Rick said, and as he said it, he glanced at me. He knew I disagreed with him on this, but the meaning of his look was unmistakable. I was to shut my damn mouth about it. "You don't need to worry about him."

"But if he's not," Carl pressed. "Will you forgive him like Michonne says, let him live with us in peace like everyone else? Or is he the exception?"

"If Negan's alive, he's a dead man walking," Daryl said, which earned him a similar look from Rick to the one he'd given me.

"Well, he's not," Rick said firmly. "So, there's no need to worry about it."

"Naomi thinks he is," Mia piped up. Everyone looked at me expectantly, and I wanted to sink down through the floor. But, if I couldn't keep quiet, I knew what Rick would want me to say. He'd like me to agree with him, to lie and say that Negan was dead. And maybe Rick was only saying it to stop Carl from fearing Negan would come back. That, I got.

But I couldn't outright lie. Not to Mia. I also didn't want her or Carl to be scared, but I wanted her to be prepared. I wouldn't let us be caught unawares. Not again. "I… uh, I definitely think it's a possibility."

I avoided looking at Rick, but I could feel his disapproval.

"He's not going to hurt you, Carl," Rick said. "He's not going to hurt any of us again."

"That's not the point," Carl said. He didn't look scared; he looked a little angry. "We took in all the people from Woodbury after that fight was over, kind of like we've done with the Saviors. I don't think Negan should be any different."

"Didn't take in the Governor," Daryl pointed out.

"Maybe we should've," Carl said. "Maybe then he wouldn't have come back and attacked us the second time."

Rick, Michonne, and Daryl all flinched. They'd lost a lot to the Governor; a safe home, friends, and for a while each other. Mia shrank back from the table like she wanted to be far from the heaviness Carl had brought thudding down on the table. Carl's eyes were angry, but it was starting to falter as if he regretted saying anything at all.

"If Negan's out there," I said, focussing my attention on Carl because I couldn't bear to look at the guilt that was swallowing the others. "What happens to him next is on him. If he attacks the place and tries to regain control, we'll have to defend ourselves. You get that, right?"

"Yes," Carl nodded. "But we're not at war anymore. Wouldn't killing him without reason be murder? What if he's alone out there?"

"You think he'd give a shit if the tables were turned?" Daryl asked.

"Probably not," Carl admitted. "Isn't that exactly why taking him in would be the best way to show the Saviors that we aren't like him?"

At that moment, he looked so much like his dad that it took me aback. Even though they might be disagreeing, Carl was willing to stand by what he saw as right no matter what the rest of us thought. They got the same light look in their eye when they were trying to win people round to their way of seeing things.

Mia cleared her throat, a quick glance at Carl, and then she seemed confident enough to speak. "What if we kill him, and it makes him a martyr? The Saviors might be more likely to fight with us again. And that would be worse than if he came back on his own."

Who taught these kids to be so damn clever?

It was a thought that hadn't occurred to me before. I'd been so trapped in the fear Negan had instilled in me. But if he was out there, starving and injured, and we killed him in cold blood… it wouldn't reflect well on us.

"If he comes to us in peace, if he's genuinely willing to work with us, we ain't gotta kill him," I said. Daryl tensed beside me, an involuntary and immediate disagreement. "But he still has to answer for what he's done - the people he's killed and tortured, the things he's taken from communities - he has to pay for that."

"I know," Mia said.

"How?" Carl asked.

"I don't know, and I ain't saying the price is his life," I said. "It's probably something the communities would have to decide together, right?"

"Yes," Michonne leaned forward, her soft gaze fixed on Carl. "If there's a problem with anyone, it'll be dealt with by all of the communities. There will be a set of laws and punishments we all agree on..., or at least, the majority of us agree on."

Carl nodded again, and Mia looked more reassured. Michonne had been talking about the documents and agreements she wanted to draw up for all of the communities the whole time we'd been here. In her spare moments, she'd poured over old law books. Her excitement about it was infections. The thought of building a new foundation for the generations to come, one that could be less flawed and steeped in prejudice than systems in the old world, was as exhilarating as it was daunting.

In the evenings, Michonne would pass books over to me too, so she could get through them faster. We'd huddle over them, read bits out to each other, highlighting parts we thought were useful. She was even entirely on board with my color-coding system when we took notes. In short, Michonne was the study buddy I'd always dreamed of. If they'd been in a better mood with each other, Rick and Daryl might have enjoyed making fun of us. But, lucky for us, they'd just scowled and left us in peace.

The tension around the table slowly dissipated. It seemed that between us, we'd come up with an answer that satisfied the kids and calmed their fears, even if what we'd said hadn't been true. If Negan turned up here, I knew Daryl would shoot him on sight. But I doubted that if Negan came back here, he'd be coming in peace.

For a moment, it looked like everything was going to be okay again, and then Rick leaned back in his chair, pushed his empty plate away, and said, "We should probably head up. Early start tomorrow."

Michonne nodded in agreement, but Carl straightened up. "What's happening tomorrow?"

"We're heading home," Rick said. "You know that."

"I thought we had another day," Carl said, and nobody missed his frantic glance at Mia.

"Nope," Rick said. "Heading off at first light tomorrow."

"Can't we wait?" he asked. "Just…"

"No," Rick said firmly. Carl and Mia sat back and stared at their plates like they'd both just been handed a death sentence. Rick stood up, lifting Judith up too. "We better get this little one to bed."

He was trying to gloss over Carl's unhappiness that they were leaving so soon, and the rest of us took his lead on it. We left the table and headed toward our sleeping quarters, stopping outside the Grimes's door to make plans to wave them off the next day. I don't know exactly what it was that distracted me from what Rick was saying and tune into the kids' conversation. Mia might have said my name, but she wasn't talking to me. Instead, she and Carl were standing a little further apart from us, talking in hushed voices to each other in the same way they had all night. Not wanting us to hear. I hadn't thought much of it before; what kids want their parents and guardians eavesdropping on them? But now, it looked like whatever they'd been talking about all night had turned into a heated debate.

"I can't…," Mia said, followed by something I didn't catch, and then, "...not on my own."

"Sometimes kids need to show adults the way," Carl said. "They don't-"

"But-" Mia stopped abruptly, realizing the adult conversation had slowed, and they were being listened to. I'd been rumbled.

"You guys okay?" I asked.

"Fine," Mia snapped, but her face was stormy as thunder. "I'm going to bed. Goodnight, everyone."

Rick and Michonne wished her goodnight, but she barely responded, brushing past me as she stomped toward her room. Michonne smiled brightly like we were all supposed to be oblivious to the argument we'd interrupted. Carl was panicking, not for a second believing that Rick and Michonne weren't about to interrogate him the second the door closed behind them.

"Well, I think Mia has the right idea," Michonne said. "See you guys tomorrow?"

"See you then," I agreed. Rick put a hand between Carl's shoulders and nudged him toward the door. It was a fatherly gesture, but the look on his face might've been the same as if he'd been marching a perp to jail.

Daryl and I walked away from them and didn't speak until we heard their door close. He looked at me. "The hell was that about?"

"No idea," I said. "But I should, eh…."

I gestured in the direction Mia had stormed off in.

"Yeah, of course," Daryl said. "You want me to come with you?"

"No," I said quickly. This wasn't something he had to deal with. "I got this."

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but after a second, he just nodded. "Alright. Holler if you need me."

I stood outside Mia's door and waited until Daryl had disappeared into our room across the hallway. I tried the handle, and it didn't budge. Her door could be locked from the inside. Back in the old world, there's no way I'd have let her have a lock on her door at thirteen, but after the takeover at Terminus, I wanted her to be able to lock the world out while she slept. If something happened here, I needed to know nobody could get to her.

"Hey, Mia," I tapped lightly on the door. "Open up."

Silence.

"Mia, are you in there?" I called for her again. Still nothing. "If you don't answer, I'm going to have to kick this door down. Don't think I won't."

"Leave me alone!" she yelled back. She sounded mad, but at least she was saying something.

"No," I said. "Mia, let me in."

"No!"

"You gotta talk to me."

"No, I don't."

"Then I guess I'm gonna stand out here and yell all night," I yelled louder to prove my point.

"Stop!"

"Not until you open this door!"

Mia let out a scream of frustration, one of those ones that really rips its way through your throat, and the door unlocked. She folded her arms and backed away to the other side of the room like she wanted to be as far away from me as possible. It was clear she'd been crying but was trying to cover it with a scowl on her face.

I remembered what it was like to be her age, how everything that happened felt like the most important thing in the world. Every fight was a bile-fueled screaming match, every inside joke was worth its own stand-up special, and everything that went wrong was earth-shattering. Hell, sometimes I still felt that way.

I knew all of this, but it still stung to have one of my favorite people in the world glaring at me like I was the cause of all of her misery. It stung so much it took my breath away.

I gave myself a moment to shut the door quietly behind me, to take a few deep breaths and steady my own emotions before trying to deal with hers. The silence in that room was horrible, Mia's anger emanating from her like she was radioactive.

"I can't help if I don't know what's wrong, kid," I said.

"I'm not a kid," she snapped.

Yes, you are.

I bit back the urge to say it. To me, Mia still looked like the little girl who needed help tying her shoelaces, the little girl who thought the animals at the zoo worked there and cried when she found out they weren't allowed to leave to 'go to their own homes.' But, I knew she was different. She'd grown so much. Changed a lot. Helped organize an uprising at Terminus and watched other children die right in front of her. So, whether I liked it or not, she wasn't a kid. At least, not in the way she used to be.

"I'm sorry," I said. Mia glanced over at me, and I could tell she hadn't been expecting an apology so fast. She'd been geared for a fight. Maybe even wanted one. "You wanna talk about it?"

"About what?"

"About whatever's got you in this mood."

She sighed. That huge, loud kind of sigh that's meant to stop you from crying but never really works.

"I didn't know Carl was leaving today," she said eventually. It didn't feel like the whole truth. It felt like she was echoing the same sentiment Carl had objected to at dinner.

"Oh. I'm sorry, k…," I stopped myself. "I'm sorry, Mia. I thought we told you both."

"Maybe," she shrugged.

"I'd love for them to stay, but they've got to go back to Alexandria," I said. "They're needed there."

"I know," she said. "But I don't understand why we can't go with them."

"We're needed here," I said. Another sigh. Like the whole world was on her shoulders, and only an exhale big enough could dislodge it.

"I hate it here," she said, and she was trying so hard not to cry that she could only manage a whisper. My heart sank.

"We won't be here forever," I said. "It's temporary. Just until things are settled and set up to run on their own."

"Yeah, everyone keeps saying that," she said. "But nobody can say how long that'll be. Weeks? Months? Years?"

"It won't be years," I said, that much I was sure of.

"I was here for months, and I thought everything was fine. I thought they saved people. I thought they saved me," she said. "And then I saw Daryl…. And they were beating him…. And then you… you were…."

She trailed off. I heard a little break in her voice and hated that she'd had to see me and Daryl like that, beaten and almost broken while she could do nothing. Couldn't even tell anyone she knew us.

"I know," I said quietly.

"You told me this place was bad, and I had to leave it with Daryl, even when it meant leaving you behind," she said. "Now we have to stay? Why? Why can't we go to the Kingdom?"

"Our plans had to change," I said. "I told you that."

"You didn't tell me why," she said. "Why us? Why here?"

"We know this place better than anyone else," I said. "We saw how it ran before; we can stop the bad things that happened here from happening again."

"Anyone could run this place," she said. "You just can't stand the thought that Negan will come back, and you won't be the one to fix it."

"That's not true," I said. I didn't want Mia to know how terrified I was of Negan showing up here again, but I didn't know how she could have got it this badly wrong.

"It is," she said. "You never let anyone else take care of things. It always has to be you. You tried to kill him before, and you think you failed, so you have to be the one to do it if he comes back."

"I promise you, that's not what I want," I said. Sometimes, when I shut my eyes, I still saw the river of blood that had washed over me from the slit on Negan's neck. The shock in his eyes. I didn't want to tell Mia any of that. The fearless image she had of me would help her feel safe in a crisis. But it wasn't true. I was terrified.

"Yeah, right," Mia muttered.

"When things are better here, we can still go to the Kingdom," I said. "There's a place for us. I've talked to the King about it; it's all set up."

"We could be there now," she yelled. "If you weren't so selfish and it wasn't always about you and what you want. But instead, you had to drag Daryl and me here too."

I knew I was the grown-up here, and I had to keep my head, but it hurt. She was wrong about why we were here, but she might not be wrong about the root cause being my selfishness. I'd always sworn to put her first, but the unavoidable truth was that I'd dragged both of us here because I couldn't bear the thought of being apart from Daryl.

"That's not why we're here, Mia," I said, and there was a moment where she looked at me, expecting an honest answer. I struggled to give her one.

"Bullshit," Mia said through gritted teeth. Shock and anger twisted through me.

"Mia!" I snapped so loud she jumped. She knew she'd crossed a line. Her arms were still folded across her chest, but she shrank away from me. An apology in her eyes that stubbornness wouldn't let out of her mouth. We glared at one another.

I hadn't told her that Rick had appointed Daryl as the new leader of this place. I'd wanted her to think it was a decision we'd made as a family. I'd lied to her. I'd hated doing it, but I could hardly tell her the truth now. All the resentment she had about being here would turn on Daryl, and that would break my heart. I needed them to get on like they always had. So, I'd absorb it all until she got over it or we got out of here. Whichever came first.

"As soon as we can get out of here," I said, "I promise you we'll all be in the Kingdom with Bryce. But until then, you're going to have to grow up and make sacrifices. If you don't want to be treated like a kid anymore, you can't keep acting like one."

Mia nodded, but her face was still set in misery. I waited for her to say something. I wanted to put my arms around her and hug her, but I knew I was only just getting her to calm down, and that might only make things worse.

"I miss Perla," Mia suddenly blurted out. Her eyes filled with tears that her anger had been holding back. She was still trying to fight it, and then her sadness won out. She sobbed and covered her face with her hands.

There it is.

That's what this is about.

"Of course you do," I said, kicking myself for not seeing it before. Since we'd met Perla, the girls had only been separated once, and it had been the last time she was here. I reached out and wrapped my arms around Mia's shoulders. She didn't lean into my hug, but she didn't push me away either.

"Now that Carl's leaving, I don't have anyone," she mumbled into her hands. I wanted to tell her that she'd always have Daryl and me, but I knew that wasn't the same. "The kids I knew from back… when I lived here…, they were my friends before I left, but…."

"Are they giving you shit?" I asked. Anger flared up inside me. "Because if they are, I can-"

"No, please don't say anything," she begged through her tears, anger springing back at the thought of me interfering. "Please don't make everything worse."

"Alright, I won't say anything," I said, trying to calm her down again. I hadn't decided whether or not that was true. "But, are they giving you shit?"

"No," she said. "Not exactly. But… when they found out I ran away with Daryl, they knew I wasn't really one of them. That I was part of the group that's taken over their home. And they don't say anything mean, but… they don't really say anything to me at all."

I'll kill them.

"They'll come around," I said, although I knew I had no business making those kinds of promises. The kids of Sanctuary were adopting their parent's attitudes. The sooner the divide between the two communities was mended, the better it would be for all of us. "This new way of doing things is going to take people some time to get used to. There's going to be a bit of time to adjust, but it will get better."

"Sure," Mia muttered. She didn't believe me. And why should she? I was already lying to her, but she'd had this problem before.

"You remember when you came to live with me?"

"Yeah?"

"You remember how you had to move schools?"

"Of course."

"Did you like that school?"

"Yes," she said, annoyed by my line of questioning because she didn't see the relevance.

"Do you remember what you said when you came back from your first day there?"

Mia thought for a moment and frowned. "No."

"You said it was the worst school you'd ever been to; all of the kids were stuck-up and all of the teachers were posh poopheads."

"I didn't call them poopheads," she said, mildly embarrassed.

"Yes, you did," I said. "You also said you'd never go there again, and you were packing a bag to get the bus back to your old school."

"Oh," Mia looked a little guilty. She'd had no idea, at the time, the fight I'd had to put up to get her living with me and proving I was capable of being her legal guardian. Only now she was older had she started to piece it together.

"Took about a month for you to get settled, and then I couldn't believe how fast you made friends. Or how many you made," I added. "When I was your age, all I had was Daryl."

"I know."

"My point is, you're a great…," I swallowed back the word 'kid' again. "You're a great girl. Anyone can see that. And all of these Sanctuary brats would be damn lucky for a friend like you. They'll come round."

"Maybe," she said. She'd stopped crying, but she still looked glum. I couldn't blame her. I knew the kids here were no substitute for her other friends. Especially Perla. Those girls had been through a hell of a lot together. If someone had tried to separate Daryl and me at her age, I'd have made it my personal mission to destroy anything they held dear. Hell, I'd do that if someone tried to separate us now.

"We can visit Alexandria," I said. Mia perked up. "Can't promise any kind of schedule now, but I'll take you as regularly as I can. And I'll talk to Lucas about bringing Perla here, too. How's that sound?"

"Yeah," Mia wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. This time, when I put my arms around her, she leaned into the hug. "That sounds good."

"Good," I said. The relief was almost overwhelming. I knew it was a bandaid on an issue that would only get worse the longer we were here and the longer Mia was away from her friends, but it felt like a step in the right direction. Maybe by the time she was fed up with visiting, the kids here would have opened up to her, or Rick would've given us an end date to all of this.

"We good?" I asked her.

"Yeah."

"Then get some sleep, okay?" I said, letting go of her and resisting the urge to kiss the top of her head like I would've done when she was younger. "You'll feel better about all this in the morning."

"Okay," she said. She still looked sad, but her anger was gone, at least for now. "Goodnight."

"Night," I said, opening the door again. "Love you, Mia."

I wasn't expecting her to say it back, not after the mood she'd been in, but it still hurt when she didn't. I closed the door and waited outside until I heard it lock again.

'If you weren't so selfish and if it wasn't always about you and what you want….'

I leaned against Mia's door for a moment and stared at the one opposite it, her words echoing in my head. Had I really dragged her to somewhere she hated for a boyfriend?

I felt as guilty for thinking it as I did about

Daryl would probably already be in there. Waiting for me. Wondering what the hell had gotten into Mia. I'd tell him she was sad Carl was leaving and that we were allowed to call her 'kid' anymore. But I wouldn't tell him she hated being here. Daryl was beating himself up about us being here too much as it was.

We can be happy here, I told myself. This is all just teething problems.

Right?

Daryl

I dreamed Naomi was bloody and beaten, cowering in the corner of my old bedroom. The one I had as a kid. Hiding in the same place I had when my old man was in a rage. I looked for him, knowing when I found him I'd kill him for laying his hands on her. But, when I stepped towards her, she begged me to stay back. Begged me to stop. I'd never seen her look so scared. And when I looked down at my hands, my knuckles were bloody.

I did this.

A bucket of ice-cold dread dumped out all over me, and I woke up gasping for air. Naomi's face was the first thing I saw, turned toward me and sleeping peacefully. Not a mark on it, not even a scratch, but the guilt was still enough to make me sick. I sat bolt upright, my chest tight.

Naomi stirred. I stayed real still, hoping she'd turn over and carry on sleeping, but I felt the mattress shift again, and she whispered, "Hey."

"Go back to sleep," I told her, but of course, she didn't. She sat up beside me.

"You okay?"

I couldn't look at her.

"Yeah," I said. Hoped my voice sounded normal. "Didn't mean to wake you. Sorry."

"It's okay," she said. "Did you hear something?"

I shook my head. I knew why her mind had jumped there. It had only been a week since Rick and Michonne left us in this shithole. Every night we went to bed knowing there was a chance the Saviors might start something. I knew Naomi waited outside Mia's door every night until she heard it lock in case something kicked off. I hated that we had to live like this. My girls deserved a home where they didn't have to sleep with one eye open.

"It was just a bad dream," I said, hoping that would be the end of it, but then I felt her hands on my back. Real soothing. Calming. Touching me with a kindness that I didn't deserve.

"You wanna talk about it?" she asked.

"No," I said. A stab of guilt pulled the word right out of me before I had the chance to think about it. "It's fine. It was... it's nothing."

It wasn't nothing. It wasn't fine. But how could I tell Naomi about a dream like that?

She'd run for the hills.

Maybe she should.

Maybe she'd be better off.

"It's alright," Naomi said so softly it cushioned some of that jagged shame inside me. For a minute, I almost believed her. "I get 'em too. I bet most folks do these days."

"Oh, yeah?" I said, my chest clenching up again.

I bet yours ain't about beating the love of your life.

She had no idea what she was talking me down from. If she knew the truth, would she still be so nice to me?

"Yeah," she tried to reassure me. "I don't get 'em as much as I used to… but, they're still there."

Naomi let the silence stretch on for a bit. I knew she was giving me room to talk if I wanted to. I tried a couple of times.

I dreamed I'd beat the shit out of you.

The words lodged in my lungs, trapped behind my fear of losing her. Now that she was mine, I didn't know how I could ever let her go.

"Can we go back to sleep?" I asked. The thought of it - of being without her - was too much to sit with. I wanted to escape it in any way I could, and it couldn't touch me if I was unconscious.

"Yeah," she said. "'Course we can."

I lay back down, fixed my eyes on the blackness of the ceiling. Felt like it was staring back, like it knew, like it saw me for the piece of shit I was. Naomi's arm slipped around my waist. I felt her body start to snuggle up to me, the warmth of her skin against mine. The flash of guilt in my gut was so strong, I jolted back like she'd burned me.

I didn't deserve to be held that way. Not by her. Not tonight. Beside me, Naomi froze and then quietly withdrew. That fire I'd pulled away from had spread through me anyway, hollowing out my chest cavity leaving space for nothing but the dark.

"Sorry, I'm not in a…," I trailed off, couldn't work out how to word it. Could hardly speak. "I don't wanna…."

"That's okay," she said. The dark on the ceiling grew. A different kind of dark gnawed away at me.

Was she lying there resenting me? Did she have that worried look on her face? I didn't know which was worse. The thought of lying side by side like this until the sun came up made me want to jump out the damn window.

Then Naomi whispered, "Hand?" and something about it, how familiar it was, sent a breath of relief through me.

"Yeah," I said, reaching for where I already knew her hand would be waiting for mine. "Hand's fine."

The warmth of her hand in mine spread through me, loosening the knot in my stomach. It was crazy that no matter how shitty I felt, holding her hand in the dark always made things a little better. Naomi squeezed my hand in a way that said, 'I love you,' and I wondered if that was what we'd always been trying to say to each other on nights like this. Nights where we had nothing to hold on to but a hand in the dark.

I squeezed right back.

I listened to her breathing change and relax. Something about the familiar sound of her drifting off to sleep calmed me, and I wasn't far behind her.

When I woke, she was wrapped up tight in my arms with her head just below my chin. No matter how I'd felt when I'd fallen asleep, how I'd wanted to stay a safe distance from her, here she was pressed against me again. Asleep or awake, I couldn't stay away.

One of her thighs was wedged between mine. A hand on my chest and the other arm wrapped around my waist. I wiggled the fingers of the arm that was trapped under her shoulders to combat the numbness set into it. The fingers of my other hand rested against the warmth of her back, inches from a place that I knew could make her shiver with one touch.

I loved that I knew these things about her now and learned more every day that I was with her. I loved the way it felt, to make her tremble like that. To hear her whimper and whisper my name because all she could think about was me. For her to look at me like she needed something only I could give her.

Been waiting my whole life for her to look at me like that.

Used to be that to wake her up, I'd whack her with a pillow. Now, I could pull her real close. Kiss her forehead. Feel her stir against me. Wait for her to look up at me with this look I'll never get used to. A slow, sleepy smile, as if wherever she goes when she's dreaming, isn't half as good as waking up next to me. I can't last long under that look - a couple of seconds at most, and then I can't stop myself from kissing her. Can't stop my hands from mapping her body. The way she moves against me, the noises she makes… I can't control what awakens in me.

Not now. Not this time.

Last night's dream clings to me like morning fog. Sleep had thawed enough to let my anger with myself creep back in. Desire and self-loathing fought within me. Loathing wins out. There was an edge to that desire. My hunger for her has teeth, and no matter what, it is never satisfied. Maybe if I hadn't ignored it, starved it for so long, it wouldn't be this angry. But, as it is, it takes all of my self-control not to lose myself in her. I'm scared of what might happen if I do.

There was no way of moving without waking her. I turned my head so I wouldn't have to look at her smiling up at me like I was some kind of blessing. I slipped my arm out from under her as gently as I could, but I knew there was no way she'd sleep through it.

"Mornin'," she said. I could hear that damn smile in her voice. A tug deep inside me, back toward her, but I can't even look at her. Every time I so much as blink, I see her as she was in my dream - bloody and beaten. It makes me feel sick. I reach for my clothes before she wakes up enough to reach for me. Tempt me back.

"You in some kinda rush?" she asks as I pull them on. "Did we sleep in? Where's the fire?"

"Nah," I said. "It's early, actually. Get some more shuteye if you like. I told Eugene I'd help him with something this morning. Must've forgotten to tell you, sorry."

I didn't like how easy I was finding it to lie to her. I guess it was because I wasn't looking at her. Sometimes, when she fixes me with those beautiful eyes of hers, I feel like she can see right through to my soul. I couldn't let that happen now. I thought she might not like what she saw.

"Daryl, are you-"

A knock at our door interrupted her. Relief made me spring toward it, while guilt stopped me from looking back at her as I heard her scramble to put some clothes on. I waited until the scrambling quietened and opened the door a crack, so whoever was on the other side could see me but not her. Jerry looked back at me through the gap. He was, for maybe the first time ever, not smiling.

"Something wrong?" I asked although I knew the answer. I was already listening, straining for any sounds of a fight in the distance.

"There's something you should probably see," he said. Naomi was at my side in an instant, all anxious and alert, pulling sharply on the door until it had opened the rest of the way.

"Did something happen?" she asked. She glanced at Mia's door like she expected it to be kicked in.

"Nobody's hurt," Jerry said, quickly realizing he'd panicked us more than necessary. "There hasn't been a fight, nobody's seen Negan, it's… just some graffiti."

"Graffiti?" I repeated, and I'll admit that a part of me was relieved that this would distract Naomi enough that my weird behavior might be forgotten by lunch.

"Yeah," he said. "You should see it for yourselves, though. It's hard to explain."

Jerry took us downstairs to a corridor on the first floor near where the Saviors slept. At the other end of the hallway, a group was gathered around something, whispering. Mia stood at the back of the crowd, leaning up against one of the walls. She glanced back when she heard our footsteps and acknowledged us with a begrudging smile before quickly looking away again.

Naomi barely suppressed a sigh. She and Mia had been fighting a lot lately. I hated seeing it, but Naomi was trying to hide it from me, so I didn't know what I could do to help. Maybe this was normal new-teenage shit, but Mia had been sullen and sulky ever since the Grimes family left. Snapped at her sister a lot, which she'd never done before. Staying in her room as much as possible, which I guess was why it really stuck out to me that she was here. This was early for her to be up.

"It appeared overnight," Jerry said. "As far as we can tell. I checked with everyone on watch, and nobody saw anything, but why would they? We've been watching things outside of this place."

Despite all the whispering, our footsteps were the loudest thing in the hallway, and when we got close to the huddled group, they turned to look at us. Some of them looked a little scared, but there were smirks on a few of the Savior's faces. They parted when they saw us coming, and words painted in blue on the wall slowly came into view.

It said: Negan lives. We are Negan.

I heard Naomi's sharp intake of breath, and I wished she hadn't been here to see this. Because it wasn't just the words. There was something else, too. Something that made it personal.

Knievel was nailed to the center of the wall, smiling at us through a pair of broken shades. That dumb tiny teddy bear. The bag he'd once lived on was nowhere in sight.

"See, it's the bear I don't get," Jerry muttered. "What's that about?"

"It's mine," Naomi said. She'd been looking for her shit, and now something had been returned to her. I wished it had stayed gone. But, before I could tell if this had freaked her out or upset her, she'd flicked open a pocket knife.

Where the hell did she pull that from?

I wasn't the only one who was shocked. The crowd around us drew back, drew a breath, and the smirks dropped from the Savior's faces. It seemed a bit of an overreaction for such a small and non-threatening weapon. It wasn't like she'd pulled out a machete. But from the way they were staring, shifting uncomfortably, and glancing at one another, I realized it wasn't about the knife. It was about who was holding it.

I'd heard many whispered retellings of Naomi and Negan's final showdown. Some were close to the truth - he'd been about to kill her, and she'd cut him with a shard of glass. In others, she'd lain in wait in his room until he was asleep, or she'd slipped something into his food so he'd be too drowsy to fight back. In one, she'd slit his throat with her damn fingernails. The story had taken on a life of its own, grown legs and run amok amongst the Savors. It had worried me that they might resent her for what she'd done. That it would put a target on her back. But now, it dawned on me that they might actually be a little scared of her.

This is good.

This is better.

Right?

"You," Naomi snapped, eyes fixed on a long, greasy-haired Savior. He tensed up immediately. "Justin, right?"

"Yes?" he said, and I'll be damned if he wasn't fighting back the urge to add ma'am.

"Get a bucket of water and some sponges. You," she gestured to a guy on Justin's left. "Ronnie. Go with him and get the same. When you get back, y'all are cleaning this mess up."

When the hell did she learn all their names?

"I'm not cleaning shit," Justin said. Anger flashed in Naomi's eyes, and I took an involuntary step toward her. Justin's gaze flickered briefly to me, sizing me up. I knew I could take him, pity he didn't seem to realize that. "I didn't paint the damn thing."

"No?" Naomi didn't back down. Didn't even hesitate. "You know who did?"

"No," he said. Naomi said nothing. Just stared at him. Fixed him with a look that accused him of being a fucking liar and watched him squirm. She didn't let up, either. The icy silence spread through everyone there until it was more than Justin fidgeting under it. Still, Naomi didn't move, like to create a silence this cold she'd had to freeze herself. Eventually, Justin stammered, "I…. I could ask around… check a few things…."

"Uh-huh," Naomi said like a teacher who didn't believe that you'd left your perfectly completed homework at home. "Bucket. Sponges. Now."

"Fuck you," Justin muttered. But he and Ronnie did leave, backing away from her like they thought she'd put that knife in their backs if they turned them on her.

Naomi looked around at those who were left. "Anyone feel like fessing up?"

They scattered pretty sharpish after that. Probably just to get out from under that gaze.

Naomi stepped forward, folding her penknife until it was almost closed, with just enough of a gap to fit around the nail sticking out of Kineival's chest. Then, squeezing it between the blade and the handle, she managed to ease the nail free from the wall. She held Kineival in a cupped hand and stared down at him for a moment. There was a heaviness in her eyes.

"Dude," Jerry breathed. "You can be a little scary, you know that?"

Naomi looked up at him. Only now that everyone else had gone were her true feelings starting to creep through. That haunted look was sneaking back. "Sorry. Didn't want them to see that I was rattled."

"Think they'll wash it off?" Jerry asked.

"We'll see, I guess," she shrugged. She held Knievel up to me. Cotton-white stuffing plumed from the hole in his chest. "Poor little guy."

"Sure we can fix him," I said, without thinking about how ridiculous it was to fix a bear that was older than Mia. I glanced behind me, noticed that at some point during all of this she'd slipped away.

"You think?" Naomi asked, placing the bear in the middle of my palm with the kind of delicacy that she might have handed me a bird with a broken wing.

"Yeah," I said. "And we'll find whoever did this."

I gestured to the graffiti, but she looked at me like that was a crazier idea than performing emergency surgery on a damn stuffed bear. "I think it's pretty obvious who this was."

"Who?"

Naomi fixed me with a look like she couldn't believe I didn't already know. And, the truth was, I did know. Or, at least I knew who she thought it was. "Negan."

"We don't know that."

"Daryl, come on. Who the hell else would it be?"

"We ain't seen him," I said. "He's not been spotted here. Or in the woods. Or anywhere at all. It could be any one of these Savior assholes trying to mess with you."

"Why would they do that?"

"To get us out of here," I said.

"But how would they know this is ours?" she said, holding poor Kineival up to face me.

Ours.

I'd stuck that bear on a bag I made her when we were teenagers, but she still saw that dumb bear as something we shared. I wanted to scoop her up and carry her upstairs, away from all of this bullshit. It was hard not to get caught up in the drama here, the politics of all of this. But there were times it felt like a distraction from everything that was really important. Naomi and I were starting a life together…. How long had I wanted that?

As long as Mia had been alive, probably longer. I couldn't remember having any other dream or goal. I'd got into shit with Merle because he'd made me think it would be some kind of fast track to having enough money to build that life. After that, my only goal was to survive.

"We'll find whoever did this," I said again. "If it was Negan or someone else, we'll find them, and we'll deal with it."

It's moments like these that take me by surprise. How one moment Naomi goes from having this lost look in her eyes like everything's falling apart to sheer determination. Nodding like she believes me. I don't know if it's the way I say it or if I somehow find the right words at the right moment, but whatever it is, I pray I never lose it.

"Yeah," she said. "We will."

"Leave it to me," I said. It was a burden I wanted to take off her. This place had a horrible effect on Naomi, and I knew she'd lose herself in hunting down Negan if she was given half the chance. "I'll get to the bottom of it."

"What are you going to do?" she asked. "Interrogate them all?"

"Yup," I said. "Check all their hands for paint, too."

"Alright, good luck, Poirot," she said with a grin. I rolled my eyes and turned my back on her. She called after me, "Hey, Daryl?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't kill any of them," she said. "If you find out who did it, I mean."

"I'll do what I have to."

"Daryl…"

"If I find whoever's been messing with you…."

"You can't just go around beating everyone who messes with me to a pulp," she said. I thought of Simon and what had been left of him in the end. How I didn't regret it even a tiny bit.

"Wanna bet?"

"We ain't at war anymore."

"Fine," I sighed, but she needn't have worried; the Saviors didn't give up a damn thing. I questioned almost every one of them. At least one of them had to know something. Had to have seen something, even if the culprit wasn't going to 'fess up. It was so close to where they slept; someone had to know something. The only progress I made was finding the half-full paint cans ditched in a corridor on the second floor. But it wasn't like I could fingerprint them for evidence.

Every non-answer from their sorry mouths drove me a little crazier, and it got harder and harder to stick to Naomi's non-violence request. By the time I was through, the only people I hadn't questioned were the two bozos she'd told to clean down the wall and the Sanctuary kids. If it had just been the words on the wall, my first thought would've been that it was some bored teens. But, the bear made it personal. Targeted.

And the target was my girl.

I wanted to pull the whole wall down until the words didn't exist anymore. And why stop there? Might as well pull the whole damn building down while it was at it, make it like it had never existed. I'd never wanted it to stay standing at the end of our war. Never wanted us to stay here.

How had I gone from driving a truck through the wall to running this place? I wanted to smash something, punch a wall. But, the moment I clenched my fists, I thought about that damn dream and felt like I was the one who'd been hit. Right in the heart.

Can't keep lashing out when I'm angry.

Can't keep breaking shit.

But I gotta do something.

Deep in my pockets, my fingers closed around Knievel, and I remembered how sad Naomi had looked when she'd pulled him down from that wall. I remembered her squeal of joy when she'd pulled him out of the gutter on the way home from third grade. That stupid little bear had been with her for the years that I'd missed, and suddenly it didn't seem so little or stupid anymore. Naomi had never had much, but she'd always hoarded things from the people she loved. No matter what they were. She'd clung to those flowers I'd given her for as long as they'd clung to live. I couldn't bring myself to throw that bear out now.

I visited the sore rooms and dug through the 'repairs' boxes for an old sewing kit. I sat down in the food hall, knowing it was a while until the next mealtime so I was unlikely to be caught there. These kits were meant for mending clothes, not fixing things because your girlfriend was sad, but I knew it wouldn't take much. I could get it done before anyone knew the damn kit was missing. I cleared the stuffing that was sticking out of his back and closed the hole with three stitches. Couldn't find scissors, so I snapped the thread after tying it off. Snapped too hard, and the needle came flying off.

I turned the bear over. His dumb smiling face looked up at the ceiling. As I tried to rethread the needle, I realized how much less angry I felt now. I was so distracted by it that my finger slipped, and the needle stung the tip of my thumb.

"Fuck," I muttered. A small bead of blood pooled at the pin-prick.

"What are you doing?" Mia's voice made me jump. I was sure no one had been in here when I came in, but I hadn't heard her enter.

"Tryna patch up this little guy," I said, holding up Knievel and turning him around to face her.

"Oh," she said. "Need help threading the needle? I'm pretty good at it."

"Oh, yeah?" I asked. I was surprised she offered to help, given how sulky she'd been lately. She must have known I was doing this for Naomi. Mia knew how much that bear meant to her. She was probably one of the few people other than me who knew just how much it meant.

"Yeah."

"Alright then," I slid it over to her. "Let's see what you got."

Mia sat down and picked up the needle and thread. Her face crumpled in concentration. I didn't really know what to say to her. Or what kind of mood she might be in. She'd been so grumpy with Naomi lately, but Naomi hadn't told me why. And Mia was nice as pie to me.

"Done," she said brightly, passing it back.

"That was speedy," I said.

"Used to do it for Naomi all the time," she said. "Whenever she needed to mend our clothes."

It was the first time in a week that she'd said Naomi's name without a hint of resentment. In fact, she almost seemed to be in a good mood. That was surprising, given that she'd been up earlier than usual. I looked back at Knievel like I was caught up in mending him, but I thought about how I'd found the paint cans on the second floor. One floor up from where the message had been painted. Like whoever had done it had headed up the stairs before remembering to discard the cans.

"I'm gonna ask you something, and I'm only gonna ask it once," I said, my attention still on the bear. "So don't you dare lie to me. Okay?"

I heard her seat creak as she shifted uncomfortably. She was nervous about something. "Okay."

I held up Knievel again, the needle still stuck right through him. "Was this you?"

"Why would you think-"

"Wait. Before you answer," I said. Mia shut her mouth. "If you did this because you want to get you and your sister out of here, I get it. Hell, if that's your goal, I'll help you. But this ain't the way to go about it."

"You'd help?"

"Yeah."

"Why?" Mia narrowed her eyes like she suspected me of reporting anything she told me back to Naomi.

I shrugged. "This place sucks."

"Yeah it does."

"Been tryna keep her away from it since Rick suggested it," I said. "But, well… you know your sister."

"Yeah, I do," she sighed. I waited. Mia looked like she was thinking something over, I thought she might be about to confess to the graffiti, but she said, "I didn't know you didn't want to be here."

"Nobody in their right mind would choose to be here," I said.

"Then why are we here?" Mia said. "Why aren't we at the Kingdom, or even back in Alexandria? I thought Naomi would at least listen to you about it."

"Pfft. The hell makes you think she'd listen to me?"

"Well, y'know…." Mia shrugged, kinda awkwardly. "She loves you."

"She loves you, too, kid. That's a big part of why she's doing all this," I said, forgetting Naomi had told me we shouldn't call her 'kid" anymore. Thankfully, Mia was too busy thinking about what I'd said to notice. "She wants to build a safer world for you, and she thinks making peace with the Saviors will help all of that."

"Can't she let someone else do it?" Mia said.

"You know that ain't her," I said. "Trusting someone else to do something? Not sure she knows how. She ain't used to being able to count on other people."

Including me.

It was only in explaining it to Mia that I fully understood it myself. It was so obvious, I could've kicked myself. Naomi had always been this fiercely independent control freak who overthought every move she made. At school, many teachers had thought it was cute that she was such a serious mini-adult. But Naomi was only 'old for her age' because she had to grow up fast. She was only an 'old soul' because there weren't any grown-ups around to do things for her.

She'd had me, I guess, but I wasn't a grown-up either. I remembered the day she'd found out her Momma was pregnant, how Naomi's first thought had been that she'd need to drop out of school because she couldn't trust her Momma to look after a kid. I'd made all those promises to her about being there for both of them. And what had I done? Bolted after the first fight.

Left them both to figure shit out for themselves.

Guilt made me look away from Mia.

"She can count on us," Mia said.

"Yeah," I said. "And we gotta show her that. Gotta have her back. Make sure she's okay here. This place really… gets in her head."

"I know," Mia nodded. "That's why nailing Knievel to the wall wouldn't get her to leave. If she thinks it's Negan, that's only going to make her want to stay more. Finish what she started. Make sure everyone's safe."

I nodded, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. "So, it wasn't you then."

I pulled at the final stitch in Knievel's chest. It was only then that I realized I probably should have tried to match the thread to his fur a bit better. The neon blue I'd picked at random was really standing out.

"It wasn't me," Mia said. "I don't want to be here, but I know my sister."

"Yeah," I sighed. "You do."

I wouldn't have minded if this had been Mia acting out; maybe part of me hoped it was. But, now it was more likely Naomi was right. Usually, I don't mind that she's right about most things, but this was one issue I could do with her being wrong about.

"You'd really have helped me?" Mia asked. "If I was trying to get us out of here?"

"Yes," I said. "I'd miss you guys like crazy, but I'd understand if you wanted to get to the Kingdom."

"You mean you wouldn't come with us?"

"No," I said. "Rick's asked me to run this place for a while. I can't leave."

"Oh."

"Naomi didn't tell you that?"

"No, she didn't," Mia said. She thought for another minuet. "I wouldn't want us to go to the Kingdom without you."

"I'd wouldn't take it personally if you did," I assured her.

"It wouldn't feel right to split up," Mia said. "Guess that's how Naomi felt too."

"Something like that. Go easy on her, okay?" I said, standing up. "She needs us to have her back."

"Alright," Mia said. She might even have looked a little guilty for the way she was behaving. I didn't know what else to do or say, so I patted her on the shoulder as I walked past in a way that I hoped was reassuring. I knew there was nothing Mia could say or do that Naomi wouldn't forgive her for.

I returned the sewing kit and found Naomi back in our room. She had her damn maps out again, just like back when we'd been looking for Mia. Only now, she was concentrating on the areas around Sanctuary. You didn't have to be a genius to work out that she was looking for any place Negan might be hiding.

I was too late to stop her from sliding down this slope. Unless I found the real culprit soon, she'd keep slipping. She was spooked. And she was dealing with it the only way she knew how - making charts and lists and taking shit into her own hands.

Deep down, was she still that kid too scared of being let down to let anyone else do something for her?

Not anymore.

If I couldn't get her to look elsewhere, I knew I'd follow her down this rabbit hole. Even if she wound up chasing shadows.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey," she didn't even lookup. Stretched her arms out over the map, and I saw a smear of blue paint under her wrist.

"Why are your arms so blue?"

"It's paint," she said.

No shit.

"Shit, the whole time I've been inspecting under Savior's fingernails, and it was you who painted it all along."

"I was cleaning it, dummy," she said, too tense to recognize a joke.

"Did Greasy and Numbskull not come back?" I asked.

"Justin and Ronnie," she corrected me, and I didn't point out that she'd clearly known which was which without me having to say. "Yeah, they did. I cleaned with them. They're alright guys, actually."

No. They ain't.

There was an instant and sharp twist of something horrible in my gut. Something that made me want to storm down to the Savior's quarters and wipe both of those assholes off the face of the Earth.

"They're the only two I haven't questioned yet," I said, hoping it sounded as casual as the way she'd mentioned that Justin and Ronnie were 'alright guys'.

Alright guys.

Fucking assholes.

Naomi looked up at me, "You really questioned everyone else?"

"Yup."

Even your sister.

"Well, I doubt it was either of them," she said.

"You buddies now?" I asked. I tried to sound like I was joking, but part of me was pissed off. She'd been staring daggers at these assholes, and now she liked them? In the space of what… a few hours?

"No," she said flatly. "But c'mon. We both know it was most likely Negan."

I did my best not to sigh or react in any way that might upset her. But, I ain't gonna lie, I was already worried about this. Of course, I couldn't have known how bad it would get, but even then, I knew her tunnel-vision focus on Negan might blinker her to other dangers. Like Justin's dangerously greasy hair.

"On his own?" I asked and watched something click in her eyes. "You think if it was him, he got in and out without inside help? Or anyone seeing him?"

"Shit, you're right," she said. I thought it would feel better to be right. To show her that there was no monster in the woods that she needed to be frightened of. But, all I'd accidentally done was show her the monster was already living here.

"Also, it… eh… it wasn't Mia," I said. She looked at me like I'd grown an extra head.

"Why the hell would you think it was Mia?"

"She hates this place," I said. "I thought she might think this was a way to get you out."

"She doesn't hate this-" Naomi said. I could see her trying to find a way of explaining how Mia felt without offending me.

"Yeah, she does," I said, cutting across her. "She told me she does."

"Oh." A slight flicker of worry in her eyes.

"And even if she hadn't," I said. "You really think I ain't noticed she's been off? How moody she's been?"

Naomi shrank back, a little guilty. Couldn't tell if it was because of how Mia was feeling or because she'd been trying to hide something from me. Maybe both.

"She'll settle in. Just might take her a while is all," she said, but she didn't sound like she believed it herself. I nodded like I believed it, too, gave us both a minute to think things over.

"Why didn't you talk to me about it?" I asked. I tried to say it as gently as I could, I wasn't accusing her of anything, but she still winced.

"You already beat yourself up enough about us being here," she said. "Didn't want to add to it."

"That also why you didn't tell Mia it's my fault you're both here?" I said. "You just let her blame you? No wonder you've been arguing all the time."

"It ain't on you."

"It's more on me than you."

"You gave me every chance to go to the Kingdom," she said. "And I refused. I brought us both here even though you didn't want it, even though Mia didn't want it… It's on me."

"I want you both with me," I said. "I just don't want you both in this place."

"I know," she said. "And maybe it was selfish of me to put what I want ahead of what you and Mia wanted."

"Nah, you were right," I said. "Not to split us up. Even Mia thinks so."

"She does?"

"Yeah. Once I told her that I wouldn't be coming to the Kingdom even if we somehow convinced you to leave, she said she wouldn't want to be there if it wasn't the three of us."

"She loves you."

"It's mutual," I said. "You and Mia are my whole world, and I'm going to be there for both of you. Forever."

"Yeah. I know."

"No, you don't. I know I made that promise before, and I didn't keep it," I said.

"Life got in the way," she interrupted. Always making some damn excuse for me. "You were a kid when you said that."

"I let it get in the way," I said. "And I'm not a kid anymore. I ain't making that mistake again."

"You don't need to tell me all this," she said. "I know how much you love that kid. It's why I wanted her with you when we broke out of here. If anything happened to me, you're the first person I'd want taking care of her."

"Something ain't gotta happen to you for me to take care of her," I said. "I want to do it now. With you. That's what I'm trying to say. I know she's long past midnight feeds and bedtime stories, but whatever the teenage version of that is, you ain't gotta do it by yourself."

"Seems to be mostly heavy sighing and slamming doors."

"Whatever it is, I'm in," I said. "I mean… you gotta do the homework and shit, no point Mia asking me about any of that. Y'know, times tables and shit, that's all you."

"She knows her times tables," Naomi said. Then she gave me a slightly disapproving eyebrow raise. "More to the point, so do you."

"She can tie her shoelaces, right?"

"Yeah. Been doing that since she was five," Naomi said.

"Can she swim?"

"Yeah," she said. Her worried little look softened to an amused smile. And then she glanced down at her feet. "I can't, though."

"What? Yes, you can," I said, so confident in my belief that Naomi could do anything that I outright rejected her own knowledge of herself.

"No," she glanced up at me. Kinda shy, cheeks all turning red. "Swimming lessons were expensive, so I never went. Hey, how come you learned?"

"Merle threw me in a lake once," I said. "Deep enough that I could stand, but he wouldn't let me get out until I could swim out."

"Course he did. That's batshit."

"Hey, it taught me, didn't it?"

"Just glad Mia already knows so you don't have to teach her that way."

"You don't," I reminded her, and she froze like I was about to pick her up and throw her in the nearest lake. I would've, but I didn't know where it was. "How about a bike? Can Mia ride a bike?"

"No. Actually," Naomi was surprised I'd stumbled on something. "Couldn't afford to buy her one for ages. Then I got that fancy job and a pay rise, but… never had the time."

"Alright," I said. "I'll start there."

"Best be talking about a bicycle and not one of your bikes."

"No? We gotta wait until she's fourteen for that, right?"

"Don't you dare."

"Alright, alright," I raised my hand in mock surrender. "Fifteen."

"Daryl!"

"Okay, okay," I said, loving the flash of joy in her eyes. The way her whole body had relaxed now. "But seriously, I'll help out with whatever. Not just the fun stuff. If she's hurt or upset or mad… I wanna help with that, too. Even if it's me that she's mad at."

"I know you do," Naomi said quietly, her eyes serious again. "And obviously, I want you around for everything in my life, but when it comes to Mia…."

"Look, I know it's always been the two of you," I said. "But it ain't like that now. It was always meant to be the three of us. I've thought that since the first time I held Mia when you'd brought her home. She was tiny, remember?"

"Yeah," Naomi's smile was softened by the memory of it. "I remember."

"It's okay if it takes you both a while to get used to having me around like that," I said. "I'm the one who wasn't there at the start. I get that. It might take Mia her whole life to get used to it, but I'm gonna keep showing up. Every day. No matter what. For both of you. And just for her if you wanted nothing more to do with me."

"Yeah?"

"Yes," I said. "Hell, if you had the paperwork to adopt her, I'd sign it right now."

"Daryl…" she said, and everything about her was soft. Her voice when she said my name, the way she looked at me. Even the way she was standing, the stress went from her body as she realized she wasn't dealing with this alone.

This is how I want to make you feel always.

"We're building a life together, you and me, and Mia's got to be one of the biggest parts of all that," I said. She wrapped her arms around my waist, leaned into my shoulder. "Why else are we doing all of this if not for her?"

"I know," she said. We were quiet for a moment. I let it settle before reaching into my pocket and pulling out Knievel.

I heard her gasp before I'd even said, "Fixed this for you."

"Look at him," she said, sounding so happy that it was worth the stolen sewing kid and stabbed thumb. I'd have used my thumb as a damn pin-cushion for a year if it made her happy. "He's good as new."

"Hardly," I said, feeling the same way I always did when she gushed over every little thing I did - embarrassed but also weirdly proud all at once.

And then she fixed me with a mischievous grin that immediately put me on edge. I was in for some kind of teasing; I just couldn't work out what. And then she said, "Thank you, baby."

Baby.

My stomach dropped to my knees in the same way it had when it had first slipped out of my mouth on Rick and Michonne's last night here. Again, I prayed for a sinkhole to open and claim me. Naomi was still grinning at me.

"Shit, I hoped you'd forgotten about that," I said.

"Nope," she said. "Took me a damn week to convince myself it had even happened, baby."

"Stop."

"Stop what, baby?" she asked, all fake-confused.

"I take it all back," I said. "It just slipped out. I don't know what I was thinking, I… it just…."

"Y'know, I didn't hate it," she admitted when she felt like I'd struggled enough.

"You didn't?" I asked. I'd been expecting some kind of quip about infantilizing her.

"No," she said. "I thought I would, and I'm not sure it's very… y'know... us, but… I still don't think I know how I felt about it."

"Well…" I said. Her admission made me feel brave enough to say something else, something I'd been running over in my head since the whole sorry thing had happened. "Ain't that what we're supposed to do?".

"What?"

"Pet names and shit."

"Ain't that what dummy and dumbass are for?"

"I guess," I said. "But shouldn't those kinda things be… I dunno… nicer?"

"Maybe," she shrugged like it didn't much matter. But it mattered to me. When I'd thought about the kind of guy who deserved to be with Naomi, I'd thought about the type of man who'd treat her like a damn Queen. I sure as shit wouldn't have put up with some other asshole calling her names like that. That ain't right. That ain't how you're supposed to treat a girl, right?

I didn't know how to say that to her. I didn't even know if I was right.

I didn't know what to do with a love like ours. I felt it so strong inside of me it almost hurt. Like I might burst. Like there wasn't enough space in there for all of my organs too. Every tiny thing felt huge. Every kiss was like the first. Every time I made her laugh, I felt ten feet tall. But every argument felt like my whole world was ending. And everyone who looked at her wrong felt worthy of death. I thought all of this would calm down if she was ever mine, but I might have gotten worse.

Until very recently, I'd never even seen a love like ours. Every example I'd ever been around had been filled with yelling and smashing shit and flying fists. But just because Merle and our Daddy had been that way didn't mean I had to be. It wasn't like that violence was in our DNA, right? That dream. That horrible, fucked up dream could have been a warning, not a premonition.

You can unlearn that kinda fucked up shit.

You can break those patterns.

Fight the destructive impulse.

Right?