Naomi

Turns out I could still be mad at Daryl.

I hadn't felt even a little bit of anger in the last few days. I'd been numb, my body so deeply entrenched in survival mode that it didn't leave room for anything else. Mia needed help doing basic things, she'd been in a lot of pain and that was hard to see. When she was asleep, I'd worried about Daryl and how he was doing, getting no sleep of my own. We'd been so cut off from him. I'd worried that when the storm finally stopped interfering with the radios it would bring me bad news from Sanctuary.

I'd barely slept and had trouble keeping down the little food I'd had time to eat when I wasn't caring for Mia. I sure as shit hadn't had time to break down over any of it.

But this? Finding out Daryl had gone onto Negan's land? It was one thing too many. I cracked under the weight of it all. I couldn't look at Daryl, couldn't be in the same room as him because I knew I'd very quickly wind up saying something I'd regret. Something I didn't mean.

When the rage finally hit me it hit all once. It had been pent up inside for so long that the force nearly tore me apart. All of my cracked and frayed edges shattered at once. Anger took it's place, as blinding white as the road I was now tearing down at speeds way too fast to be safe in the snow.

I cracked.

I fully cracked.

It's my only excuse for what happened next.

I passed three lumps of snow and knew at once what was underneath - one motorbike and two kid's bikes. Blood was probably frozen on the road there too. I tried to keep going.

This rage ain't meant for Daryl.

It belongs to Negan.

I had to pull over.

At the side of the road, with those three white lumps of snow in my rearview I let out a scream of frustration so loud they probably heard it back in Sanctuary. It felt good though. The way it kind of burned at my throat as it ripped its way out of me matched the burning in my chest.

Then, like a dam bursting, I finally cried. It poured out of me, pent up for so long that I didn't know how to stop it once it had started. Like a damn snowstorm, I just had to wait for it to pass.

By the time I'd stopped, the snow landing on the windshield was sticking there, blocking my view. I would have to move soon, it was getting bad out there.

But when I closed my eyes, I saw Daryl the way I'd found him in Sanctuary; sleeping in his hospital bed. It hadn't looked restful, though. He'd looked haunted. I'd wanted to climb up into that bed with him, hold him until he felt better, but I'd known I didn't have time for that.

God, I was so happy to see him.

Why'd it have to end like that?

I was angry with him. I knew I probably would be for a long time, but… I knew him. I knew he'd never knowingly put Mia in danger. When he'd tried to tell me that she wasn't supposed to follow him over there, and he'd told her not to, I believed him.

Because I also knew her.

How wilful and stubborn she could be. Her confidence had always been something I loved to see in her, but she was sometimes overly so. Brave, but…reckless with it. I mean… the girl had helped orchestrate an attempted uprising against a group of bandits at Terminus. She'd gone against everything we'd told her and left food out for Negan because she felt sorry for him.

When she wanted to do something, she asked for forgiveness, not permission.

Kids can be a beautiful, funny, terrifying nightmare. This was Daryl's first real brush with the sickening, sinking, dread of a kid you're solely responsible for doing something reckless. And she'd gotten hurt doing it.

It wasn't like I hadn't made mistakes with her. The times she'd vanished in the grocery store when I'd looked away for one damn second. Terminus, where I never should've let us be separated. Kids are hard work. They rarely do what you ask them to, even when it's life or death.

Even if I told him all of this, Daryl would hate himself forever for Mia getting hurt on his watch. He'd assume I hated him too.

I have to go back.

Storming out the way I had would've sent his thoughts to the worst possible places - if they hadn't been there already. I'd needed to cool down so I didn't say something I didn't mean, but that's not how he'd have seen it. 'I can't do this right now' would have filtered through his brain and come out as 'I can't do this ever'.

Fuck.

I need to see him.

There wasn't time to go back. The snow was falling thick and fast now. Visibility was shit. I was about halfway between Alexandria and Sanctuary. Turning around would mean I most likely wouldn't make it back to Mia. It could be days or weeks before the roads cleared enough.

I grabbed my bag from the passenger seat and switched on my walkie. It wasn't ideal, but it would have to do. "Sanctuary. Do you copy?"

Nothing but static and dead air.

Double fuck.

I was getting so sick of that sound. Five minutes. That was all I needed. With all of the shit I'd just been through, it didn't feel like I was asking a lot from the universe for it to give me five damn minutes to tell my fiancé that, yes, I was mad as hell, but I wouldn't always be, and I love him.

I don't even need five. Two will do.

I got out of the car in one of those hopeless, usually futile, attempts to get technology to work better by walking to another place. My boots crunched deep into untouched snow. I didn't even close the door, I didn't plan on being long.

Pulling my coat tight around me, I dug the walkie out of my bag again. The temperature had dropped since I'd left Sanctuary, or maybe it hadn't but I'd been too mad to notice how cold it was the first time.

"Sanctuary," I tried again. "Do you copy?"

Nothing.

I followed the road. The creek a little deeper in the forest that separated our land from Negan's was frozen over and almost invisible under the snow piling up. I only knew where it was because I knew where to look and could follow the faint outline of it under the snow.

Cold bit into my fingers as I tried to call again. This time, I thought I heard something different in the static, but the wind was whipping so hard around me it was difficult to hear. It could've been my imagination.

"Aaron, is that you?"

Aaron.

I forgot Aaron and Gracie.

Fuck's sake.

Two things to apologize for. I might need the full five minutes after all.

Nothing came back. I kept walking, to keep myself warm more than anything else. The trees opened up around a frozen lake, fed by the creek. I hoped the open space would help with the signal, but had no idea whether or not that was true. I was going to ask Eugene a shit tonne about radios the next time I saw him so that I didn't end up doing useless shit like this again on a hunch.

"C'mon, Sanctuary. Please. Please, please, please tell me if you can hear me."

I stopped by the frozen lake and looked out over it. This was pointless. I had to go back to the car. The snow was bordering on a full-on blizzard. I closed my eyes and tried to shut it out.

"Aaron, if you can hear me, I'm sorry I forgot you and Gracie," I said, yelling into the receiver over the sound of the wind. "And tell Daryl I'm sorry, too…tell him I said it'll be okay. That we're fine. Everything's going to be okay."

I wanted to say more, but it was too much. I waited but nothing came back.

I need to go.

When I opened my eyes again, movement caught my attention. A dark shape amongst the flurries of white. Between the trees across the frozen lake, someone was moving. The falling snow was so thick it was hard to make them out, but this wasn't the stumble of a Walker. They tended to slow down when it got cold, some of them almost got frozen in place. This was the hurried walk of someone who'd been caught outside in a snowstorm.

Negan?

My vision narrowed to a point. I started walking. I finally had something to do with all of my anger. Somewhere to put it instead of squashing it all down until the next time I could break down in a car at the side of the road. Someone to aim it at who deserved it. Because even if Daryl had been on his land, Negan still shot a kid.

My kid.

I put the walkie away and pulled out my gun.

"Negan!" I yelled. I didn't care if he heard me, or if he saw me coming. I wanted him to. I wanted to see the fear in his eyes before the life left them.

I didn't realize I'd stepped out onto the ice until one of my feet slipped a little. I paused and looked back. Then, I kept going. I'd already come quite far out, what was a few more paces to the other side? There was enough snow settling on the frozen water that it wasn't too slippery. I was getting close. It was hard to tell if he was walking toward me or away from me.

It was hard to tell for sure that it was Negan,

But it had to be him. Who else would be out here, on this specific patch of land, days after Mia and Daryl were shot?

Wait.

Are there two of them?

I stopped where I was and squinted through the flurry of white at what now looked like two figures moving toward me. Had Negan convinced people to join him after all? I didn't want to end up shooting the wrong person.

"Negan!" I yelled again. "Fucking face me, asshole!"

Crack.

For a split second, I assumed it was a gunshot, that Negan was determined to go three for three on the Dixon family.

Water closed over my head. Cold so shocking I tried to inhale. It was like a thousand tiny needles had pierced me at once. And I realized what had happened.

No.

Please. No.

Everything was so dark. A deep midnight blue as I sank. I looked up at a shiny ice-blue ceiling above me. So far above me. My lungs were already aching, shock had made me breathe in some of that painful cold.

"If you ever find yourself in water like this, the first step is to relax," Daryl's voice entered my thoughts like he was right there next to me. "Let yourself float."

It worked. Kind of. I tried to reach up. Tried to force my tense, cold, terrified body to relax.

I couldn't get my limbs to work properly. They were so fucking heavy. And I didn't know what to do with them anyway. Instinct kind of took over, my hands above my head, straining toward the light.

Relax.

Daryl was right. I'd stopped sinking. The ceiling of ice above slowly drew near. The initial pain was ebbing from my body, which was a relief, but I didn't think the numbness replacing it was a good sign.

My fingertips reached the hard ice above. Where was the hole I'd made when I fell through? I tried not to panic, but it felt like I'd already spent an eternity under the ice. I pushed up on the ice above me, which didn't budge but it did send me floating in a different direction.

I kept going, scrambling against an unyielding sheet of ice.

Come on.

Come on, come on.

Please, please, please.

Yes!

My fingers hit nothing. No ice. Air that had felt cold when I was in it now felt almost warm. I tried to get my fingers to bend, to grip the jagged edges of the hole in the ice. They were slow and wouldn't work the way I wanted them to. It was like there was a delay between my brain and my body, thoughts frozen by the ice water I'd swallowed and inhaled.

Finally, I gripped it and pulled myself up towards the surface. Air. I gulped in a painful breath and coughed out water a second later. I pulled myself up, forearms on the ice.

I couldn't get much further than that.

I tried to crawl further, but something was tugging me down, stopping me from pulling myself out. For one heart-stopping second, I thought there might be some drowned dead asshole under me, trying to drag me down. Make me one of them. I looked down at my feet, suspended in that endless midnight blue.

I was alone. A blessing and a curse.

It wasn't that I was being dragged, I was being weighed down. My bag. My coat. Waterlogged and heavy. I threw my bag up over the edge of the hole in the ice and tried to follow. But my coat was still too heavy. Taking it off would mean letting go of the ice shelf I'd been holding onto to keep my head above water. I was sinking again.

The numbness had turned into an almost warmth. I was so tired. I couldn't feel anything but exhaustion. The urge to sleep was overwhelming.

No. I need to get to Mia. She needs me.

I didn't think about what I'd do when I got out. Or how the hell I would make it to Alexandria on my own before I froze to death. I existed in this one singular moment. My only goal was to survive to the next one. The next heartbeat. The next breath. And a breath was something I desperately needed.

I twisted underwater, slipping out of my heavy coat and letting it float away.

My lungs were burning something fierce. I felt myself start to rise again.

Above me, and a little distance away, I thought I saw a shadow moving across the ice, but it could've been an extension of the darkness now encroaching on my vision.

I forced my fingers closed around the edges of the ice again and pulled myself up. It was easier in some ways, without my coat weighing me down, but my arms were weaker than before. I managed to pull myself forward, my elbows and forearms on the ice, but the more of me that was out in the air, the more I started to shiver. I pulled. The water was now only up to my waist.

Every breath felt like inhaling shards of glass. I coughed up water on every exhale.

I tried to pull myself forward again and get my lower half out of the frozen lake, but I was slipping backward. My fingernails dug into the ice, but it wasn't enough.

I sank again, scrambling to get hold of anything.

No.

No.

Please no.

The water closed over my head for the third time. Everything was fading. Everything but Daryl's voice.

"Relax. Let yourself float."

Then what?

"Well, hopefully, by then, you'll be swimming on your own."

And if not?

"I'll come and get ya."

I floated. The blue faded to black, although I was sure my eyes were still open.

A pair of hands closed around my wrists.

No fucking way.

"I'll come and get ya."

Daryl?

Even if it was a near-death hallucination. Even if it was the final synapses of my brain trying to keep me calm as I hurtled toward meeting my maker, I was grateful.

It was soothing. Painless for a moment. I felt like I was back in his arms, safe in our bed. Warm. God, so warm. Like none of this had ever happened. I'd wake and tell him I'd had a bad dream - about two bullets and a dip in the lake.

The illusion shattered. My back scraped against something hard. Pain erupted in my lungs. They emptied of water. Everything was white until it faded again.

Darkness, back down deep.

Something rumbled beneath me. Soft ground shaking. Was I safe? Was I going home? Had he found me? Chased after me when I'd stormed out on him? My skin felt like it was on fire. I could hear voices.

"Is she dead?"

"Don't think so."

"If she turns…"

"I'll deal with it." He sounded annoyed, but…familiar?

I tried to open my eyes. Tried to call for him, "D…D…."

A hand landed on my shoulder. The steadiness of it made me realize how much I was shaking. I thought I heard my name. And then I heard nothing at all.

Daryl

"A few more steps," Dr Carson said. I bit back the urge to tell him to go to hell.

He was mad about the painkillers. He didn't say so, but I could tell. I played dumb, like I'd just forgotten how many I'd taken but I'm not sure he believed me. He'd probably heard enough junkies feed him that line in his professional life to believe it from me. I was sure all of this damn physiotherapy he was making me do was punishment for it.

"All right, all right," I said, gritting my teeth as I walked.

"Use the stick," he grumbled. Not for the first time. He held up a makeshift crutch for me.

"Don't need the damn stick," I said. Pain shot through my leg in disagreement. I clenched my jaw even tighter to stop myself from reacting to it.

"It'd be easier for you if you did," he sighed.

He was right, but I didn't care that the crutch would have made things easier. I didn't want things to be easy for me. I didn't deserve that.

"Daryl, maybe you should just try with the crutches?" Bryce interjected after it looked like Dr Carson was about to throw something at my head. I was surprised it had taken him a week to get to that point. I knew I was being an asshole. I was hurting in a way no amount of physiotherapy could fix and making that pain everyone else's problem. I knew I was doing it but I didn't care. I didn't care about anything anymore. Everything I cared about had been taken from me. Because I'd let it.

The pain was a welcome distraction from all that.

"I don't need the damn crutches," I snapped. I glared at Dr Carson.

"All right," Aaron interrupted loudly. "Why don't we all just take a break?"

"Fine," Dr Carson's mouth formed a thin line. I glared at him. He held my gaze. "Come find me when you're ready."

'…ready to behave yourself' was the unspoken end of that sentence. He was looking at me the way teachers used to when Naomi wasn't around to keep me in line. Dr Carson stepped out of the room, leaving that damn crutch leaning up against the wall next to the door.

I sat down in one of the chairs. The small glimmer of satisfaction I got from staring him down faded and I found myself wishing he'd stayed longer. Yelled at me more. I needed somebody to fight.

"Sanctuary, do you copy?"

A voice over the radio broke the silence we were all stewing in. The storm had passed a few hours ago, and this was our first communication from anyone outside of Sanctuary in a week.

Turns out I could still care about something. Something twisted in my chest when I heard it was Rick. It's not like I was expecting Naomi to call, but the second snowstorm bought me more time. Aaron and Bryce had no idea what had happened. She hadn't seen anyone or spoken to anyone when she left. Radio silence from everyone made the radio silence from her less obvious. Another week where I could play pretend that we were still together.

Now, Rick had called instead of her. My little make-believe world was slipping.

"We hear you, Rick," Aaron said, picking up. "Everything okay?"

"Hi, Aaron. Anyone else with you?" Rick asked. There was a tension in his voice that made my heart sink. Bryce hovered nearby, clearly filled with the same worry that I was.

"Bryce and Daryl are here, too," Aaron said.

"Can you put Daryl on?"

Oh shit.

What now?

I took the walkie from Aaron. Tried to stop my hand from shaking.

"All right, Rick?" I asked when all I wanted to say was Is Mia okay? I had this horrible, stinking feeling that something had gone wrong. An infection. Torn stitches. I felt sick, Naomi would be in pieces if she'd lost that little girl.

"Yeah, she's fine. She misses you guys," Rick said. Bryce and I relaxed a little. Whatever Rick was stressed about couldn't possibly be as bad as that. "But, uh, there's been…a development, I guess you could call it."

"Spit it out, man."

"Negan's here. In Alexandria. He turned himself in a few hours ago."

I felt my blood start to boil. "Did you kill him?"

"No."

Good.

Naomi should get to do it.

My silence must have gone on too long for Rick because he said, "He hasn't said why he's here or what he wants, but he'll only speak to Naomi."

"How does he think that's gonna end for him?" I asked, wondering if this call was going to end with Rick telling me Naomi had already killed him. Or, maybe Rick was still trying to save Negan and had come to me for advice on how to handle my homicidal fiancée when he told her that.

Ex-fiancée.

Nothing was final. But I knew it was coming. I doubted she'd ever be able to look me in the eye again after this, she'd never marry me. But, I hadn't been able to bring myself to tell anyone that yet. Figured they'd all find out soon enough on their own.

"I know. I don't know what he wants from her, but do you think she'd be willing to listen? Or…will she decapitate him on sight?" Rick asked.

"Decapitation's too quick. Too easy," I said. "But, why are you asking me? Ask her yourself."

"Right," Rick sounded tense. "Is she listening? Can I talk to her?"

My stomach dropped. Bryce and I exchanged a look.

"She ain't here, Rick. She's with you." I said. It was like part of me knew already, goosebumps breaking out on my arms, but my brain couldn't accept it.

Something's wrong.

"Oh, she left already?" Rick asked. "We thought she might have set off the moment the snow cleared, but I thought I'd call just in case. I guess I can just talk to her when she gets here."

"No," I said. There was a sinking dread in the pit of my stomach. Still, the reality of it wouldn't set in. It was too much, too terrifying. "No. She's… she's been with you for a week."

"No. She hasn't," Rick said, the tense concern in his voice turning up a notch. "She left after the first storm to see you and pick up some things for Mia…Did she not make it to you?"

"No, she did," I said. My skin was crawling with it now. The fear. "But she left to get back to Mia."

There was another pause. Then Rick said what I already knew and couldn't stand to hear, "She didn't get here, Daryl."

Fuck.

My chest felt tight. This had to be some kind of mistake. Naomi had got to Alexandria. She'd just been holed up in the infirmary with Mia for so long that Rick hadn't seen her. But, I knew that was bullshit. If she'd arrived, he'd have known about it.

"Don't panic just yet, all right," Rick said, trying to talk me down from a ledge I was already dangling off. "Maybe she's at one of the other communities."

"Why would she be there?" I asked. "She was on her way to Mia. She wouldn't have left Mia."

She'd have walked.

Crossed snow and ice to get back to her.

Bryce knew it too.

"Maybe the road was worse than she thought and she had to turn back, find shelter somewhere else," Rick said. It sounded flimsy even as he said it. It didn't make sense with the route she would have been on for her to go anywhere else if she'd had to turn back. A slim possibility that she'd had to turn around because of the weather and couldn't stand the thought of seeing me again was all that stopped me from cussing Rick out until he called off.

"I'll contact the Kingdom," I said. "You call the Hilltop."

"All right-."

I didn't even wait for him to sign off before I switched radio channels. I had to try a few times before I got through.

"Kingdom. You reading me?"

"Daryl!" Carol's warm voice did absolutely nothing to thaw my mood. "It's so good to hear from you. How are you all doing over there?"

I didn't have time for small talk or chit-chat. "Is Naomi with you?"

"No…" Carol's voice faltered, confused. "Is she…. supposed to be visiting? I don't think we knew that. What time is she meant to arrive?"

"No," I said. I felt like I was on the verge of throwing up. Or punching something. Maybe both. I couldn't speak, couldn't bring myself to say it out loud.

"Then…what…?"

Bryce took the walkie from my trembling hand and said the words I couldn't yet bring myself to utter, "She's missing. She left us to get back to Alexandria a week ago, but she didn't make it there."

She's missing.

She didn't make it.

I couldn't hear the end of their conversation. My heartbeat was thumping in my ears, my throat constricting. I wanted to dig my fingers into my ribcage and pull it apart just to get some air in there.

Bryce called Rick back.

"Is she at the Hilltop?" Bryce asked.

"No," Rick said. Fear gripped my heart. Squeezed it in ice-cold hands. "I take it that means she's not at the Kingdom?"

"No."

It was all I needed to hear. I walked out, ignoring the pain in my leg. Almost welcoming it, it kept me focused. I needed to be focused right now, and it stopped me from slipping back into something worse. I ignored Aaron and Bryce yelling after me as I left. I wasn't stopping for anyone but her.

The snow had stopped a while ago, but it was still piled up. My feet sank into it. I didn't let it slow me down. I reached the car closest to Sanctuary's gates and found it snowed in like the rest of them.

There was a shovel in the trunk. I pulled it out, dug just enough to free the tires, and then got in the front seat. It took a few tries to get the engine going, but eventually, it spluttered to life.

I knew the route she'd have been on. I'd drive it until I found her. I'd drive the same route a thousand times if I had to. She must've gotten into trouble on the road, but she was smart. She could find shelter and stay warm for a few days until she could get back or someone came to find her.

I'll find you, baby.

Bryce yanked open the driver's side door and adrenaline immediately spiked in my gut. If he thought he could stop me from going out there, he was a damn lunatic.

"Piss off, man, I'm going!" I yelled at him.

"I'm coming with you," he yelled right back. Bryce, after all this time, had finally snapped at me. "Move. Your leg's fucked. You're not driving."

I got out of the car. Out of surprise more than anything else. I couldn't remember Bryce ever yelling at me before, not like that. Not even when we'd hated each other. Shut me right up. I sat down on the passenger side and shut the door as Bryce tried to start driving. The car lurched forward a little, and then the wheels spun against the snow. We stopped moving; the car rocked back to its starting point.

"We might have to -"

"Yeah, I know," he snapped. I shut up. I got back out of the car and dug while Bryce kept rocking the car back and forth. Eventually, the tires got enough traction to bite down on the snow and lift the car out of the ditch it had been snowed into.

Shovel back in the trunk, I hopped back into the passenger side. My fingers were numb, but the car was finally moving. Bryce noticed me rubbing my hands together and turned the heat up without saying anything. He was still glaring at the road ahead of us. I didn't say anything either.

Bryce drove slow. If we'd had a destination in mind, it would've driven me insane, but it was good. Gave me a chance to check the woods on either side of us for any sign of movement. Walkers tended to freeze up this time of year, so anything moving was likely still alive. Or very recently dead, which I couldn't stomach thinking about right now.

We drove in silence. Bryce was still simmering.

"You're not the only one who loves her, you know," he said after a while.

"Yeah. I know." I said. "I'm sorry. It's just…"

Been the worst week and a half of my life.

And it's slowly getting worse.

"Yeah," Bryce said, gently accepting it and forgiving me in that quiet way he always did. "I know."

I kept looking away from him, out the window. It was surprising it had taken him this long to yell at me. I'd been snapping at everyone lately, but Bryce worst of all. I think it's because I knew what was coming. Naomi would leave, she'd take Mia, and Bryce would still get to be a big part of their lives while I was shut out. Again. I resented him for it more than I should have when it was my fault.

I'd thought that history repeating itself was the worst-case scenario.

I was wrong.

This was way worse. I swallowed a lump in my throat. "I'm sorry."

"I know," he said. "We're okay man. I know you could have done this on your own, too, but when she comes back I can't have your leg being worse than when she left. She'd kill me."

I know he said it to make me feel better but it didn't. She'd probably take my leg off herself if given half the chance.

We were approaching the place where it had happened. Our bikes were stuck under a mound of snow, but I knew they were there. I wanted to look away from them but forced myself to look over them instead. Into the trees. Willing her to walk out and flag us down.

Oh no.

About a mile up the road, a car had stopped. I was pretty sure it hadn't been there the first time around. I glanced at Bryce, who nodded. He'd seen it too. Because I'd been unconscious at the time, I kind of forgot that he and Dr Carson were the ones who'd brought me back from here.

The closer we got, the worse it looked. The driver's door was wide open like someone had just stepped out.

Bryce sped up and then stopped right behind it. I got out. My feet felt like lead, a heavy weight sat in my stomach. Bryce crouched down to clear snow off the number plate as I checked inside.

There was snow in the car. That door had been open for a while. It was piled up over something lying across the backseat.

What if that's her?

The thought took hold of me. For a moment I couldn't bring myself to touch it. Had she crawled in here to shelter from the snow? Died curled up here in the back seat? Alone?

No.

The door was open.

People did weird shit in the late stages of hypothermia, didn't they? They'd get confused and think they're too warm. Hallucinated shit?

Please. Please don't be in here, angel.

I dug into it, almost expecting to find a frozen limb. A hand. Her face. When my fingers hit something I almost sobbed. I was too cold to tell what it was.

I dug at the snow with half-frozen fingers. It was a relief when all I uncovered was a box. A few bags.

"It's just stuff," I said. "It ain't her. It ain't her. It's just stuff."

I could've collapsed right there, lain down in the snow, and wept with relief. We hadn't found her, but she hadn't frozen to death alone in the backseat of her car, and that was something. I looked over at Bryce. My hands were shaking and not because of the cold.

"It's her car. It's the one she came to Sanctuary in," Bryce said grimly, straightening up from checking the license plate. He opened up the backseat door nearest to him and swept some of the snow off the stuff piled up there with his sleeve. It all tumbled into the foot well like a mini avalanche. "Those are her things, and the things she packed for Mia."

Fuck.

My relief died fast. I backed away from the car. The thing was a damn crime scene. Bryce backed away too, glancing from me to the car and back again. "What are we looking at here, Daryl?"

It took me a moment to realize he was asking, really asking. He thought I'd be able to track her from here. Any other time of year that might've been true, there'd have been some kind of story in the mud and on the road. I could have checked the dirt for footprints. Drag marks. It would have told me if she'd got out of the car voluntarily or if she'd been snatched. What direction she'd gone in when she got out. Even old snow could've given us tire tracks that would've told me if she'd stopped the car by choice or swerved to avoid something.

Fresh snow wiped it all clean. A blank page. I couldn't read anything in it. I walked around to the back, braced myself, and popped the trunk. She wasn't there.

"Negan. He did somethin' to her," I said, pacing circles around the car hoping it would tell me something different each time I looked at it. Something. Anything. If she knew she was in danger she'd have left me a clue, right? Dropped something?

"You sure?" Bryce asked.

"You got another explanation?"

Bryce didn't say anything. Neither of us did. We kept staring at the car.

"Should we search the woods?"

"Nah," I said. "We keep goin' to Alexandria. Ask Negan some questions when we get there. He's got her. He has to."

"We should take all this," Bryce said, gesturing to the stuff in the abandoned car. "Mia still needs it."

I nodded and helped dig it all out, loading it into the back of our car. I couldn't look too hard at any of it. Every glimpse of something of hers or Mia's made my chest ache. How has our family been reduced to this? A few boxes, the glue missing.

The box of books, binders, and stationery almost tipped me over the edge. I had to take a binder out of it. I flipped through looking for a blank page. There were a few pages that had my name on 'em, but I couldn't read then. Just seeing her handwriting was enough to make my vision blurry.

"Are you leaving a note?" Bryce asked as I took a blank page and started writing on it.

"In case she's sheltering somewhere and comes back," I said. "We should run regular patrols out here to check."

Bryce nodded and continued loading the remaining bags into our car. I leant on the car and wrote;

'Stay put, angel. I'll come get you.'

I stared at it for a moment, fighting the urge to add 'I love you.' Before, I never would have hesitated over any of it. But now? Now I wasn't sure for the same reason I was glad Bryce was driving. If it had been me on my own and I'd found her, would she have got in the car? If she knew I was the one looking for her, would she listen? Or did she still want nothing to do with me?

I ripped it off and stuffed it in my pocket. Tried to neutralize the second note;

'Naomi,

Stay by the car. We'll send someone to get you.

-Bryce.'

I left it on the dash before Bryce could get a look at it. Prayed she wouldn't recognize my handwriting.

We kept searching the treeline for any sign of her on the way to Alexandria. There was still a chance she was trying to make it there on foot. For most of it, I was annoyed I hadn't fought Bryce harder on who was driving. Seeing her car abandoned like that… was sending my thoughts down all kinds of dark roads. Most of them lead to Negan. A few even worse ones ended with a frozen corpse walking alone.

My leg seized up a little as it got used to the warmth in the car. That was fine. The pain made it easier to stop thinking of every worst-case scenario.

Rick met us at the gates.

"She show up yet?" I asked, in case, by some miracle, my angel had gotten here before us.

Rick shook his head, the same worried crease on his brow that he always gets when he thinks I'm about to lose it.

Too late.

I'm already too far gone.

I would destroy something. Negan for sure. Myself, depending on how this turned out. I was set to self-destruct, and the only one with the code to disarm it was Naomi.

"Do you want to see him?" Rick asked, tense.

"In a minute," I nodded once, walking in the direction of the infirmary. "I got a stop to make first."

Bryce followed. Inside Alexandria, the roads were pretty clear. They'd obviously been out shoveling snow for most of the day.

"Daryl!" Mia yelled when I stepped through the door. There was this moment where a big smile broke out on her face, and I ran to her bedside to scoop her up into a big hug, and for that split second, things were almost normal again.

"I'm sorry I couldn't come sooner," I said, squeezing her tight around the shoulders so I didn't put any pressure on her injury. "You doin' okay, sweetie?"

"Yeah. Mostly just bored," she said. "Are you okay? Is your leg okay?"

"Right as rain," I said. My leg throbbed with disagreement. I ignored it.

When I pulled back, Mia's eyes did what everyone would probably continue to do for the rest of my life. She looked for Naomi beside me. Her smile faltered in a big way, fading completely. When she looked back at me, there was real darkness in her eyes, "Something happened to her, didn't it?"

We all knew who she meant. Bryce moved around to the other side of her bed and put an arm around her shoulder, "We don't know that."

"I do," Mia seemed to shrink in the bed. "I knew it when I woke up and she wasn't here."

Bryce and I looked at each other. Everyone in this room knew Naomi would've walked barefoot in that snow to get here. Crawled if she had to.

"We're doing everything we can to find her," Bryce said.

"I thought maybe she'd had to stay with you," Mia looked at us. "Because of the snow, but…"

I shook my head.

"Negan's here," I said. "Turned himself in this morning. You're safe, Rick's keeping him in the jail cell."

Mia swallowed. Her bottom lip shook a little. "Do you think he…hurt her?"

"I don't think he'd have come here if she was… in a bad way," I said. Couldn't even bring myself to say 'dead.' Mia looked doubtful and I couldn't blame her. "If he'd seriously hurt her, he'd probably have brought her with him. You know how he likes to make a show outta everything."

Even as I said it, part of me believed it. If he'd killed her outright, her Walker would've been chained to Sanctuary's gates for me to see. Or her head would've been on a pike somewhere between Sanctuary and Alexandria. But that didn't mean she wasn't bleeding out in whatever lair he'd been holed up in. Some kind of time limit on her life.

"He's probably keeping her somewhere, maybe so he can try and use her to bargain for something, I dunno," I said. "And I don't care. Whatever it is, I'll get it out of him. You hear me?"

Mia nodded. Bryce shot me a worried glance over her head. Like I was promising something I had no right to be. Like I was lying to her, but I wasn't. I needed the lie to be true.

"I ain't saying he'll crack easy, but he had her locked up before and we got her out then," I reminded her. "And that time he had a whole army. This time he's got nobody."

Mia nodded again, more confidently than before. "Have you seen him?"

"Not yet," I said, "but I'm gonna head there now. Just wanted to check on ya first."

"I'm fine," Mia said. But she wasn't. She was miserable, broken-hearted, and scared but trying to be brave. "Please find her."

That was my sign to go. I couldn't even wait for Rick to get the keys to the cell, knowing it might take a little convincing for him to let me in there with Negan. I didn't need that yet. Right now, I wanted to look that bastard in the eyes and watch him squirm.

The door down to the basement was unlocked and I was glad because I didn't think my leg had the strength to kick it down. Compared to the brightness of the snow outside, the cellar was dark. Took my eyes a moment to adjust and take in the figure in the cell. He stood up when I came in.

"Daryl!" his smug, stupid voice sang out of the darkness. The day I didn't have to hear it anymore couldn't come soon enough. "Didn't expect you. Did she send you down to be good cop to her bad cop, or are y'all switching it up these days?"

Hatred, sharp and deep, twisted in my gut.

"Cut the shit, Negan. What did you do to her?"

I drew closer to the bars. A strip of light filtered through the window, hiding half of his face in shadow. That shit-eating grin faded a little. Naomi was right, he was looking like shit these days. Gaunt and pale. Hadn't shaved in a while.

"Look, I admit it. I'm sorry about Mia," he said. "I meant what I said. I didn't see her. I thought -"

"Not Mia," I snapped, walking right up to the bars. "I know damn well what you did to her."

Sometimes, when I closed my eyes, I still felt that splatter of warm blood.

Negan frowned. "Then…who?"

"Naomi. Where is she?"

"I came here looking for her, I wanted to-"

"Bullshit," I slammed my hands against the bars so hard they shook. "You've got her somewhere, and if you don't start talking soon, it won't be long 'til I'm takin' fingers."

"I don't know what you're talking about." He almost looked sad.

"You shot my little girl," I said, getting real close to the bars. I didn't want him to miss a damn word. "And now my wife is missing. The only reason you're still breathin' is 'cause I know you had somethin' to do with it."

"You better kill me now then," he said. "Because I don't have her."