Just as Daryl had promised, he was taking Rosie back to her old house in hopes of finding something that could at least somewhat make up for the hoodie that Liam destroyed. Lots of people were still out looking for Liam, so almost all of the cars were gone. This was the perfect opportunity for Rosie to ride on Daryl's motorcycle. She turned to him, raising her eyebrows. "We can take your motorcycle," she said. 

Daryl shook his head. "No," he said. Rosie huffed out a sigh, looking down at her shoes. "I don't got a helmet for you."

"I'll hold on tight," Rosie told him, lifting her head once again. She looked up at him and made her eyes as wide as she could. She prayed her trick would work today. There were some days that her trick didn't work at all, and Daryl would just roll his eyes and look away from her. She couldn't trick him if he wasn't looking. But on other days, he'd give in almost immediately.

 Today, Daryl scoffed and looked away. But he looked back a moment later. "You're pissin' me off, makin' your eyes all big, know that?" Daryl said, raising his eyebrows as he looked down at the girl. Rosie gave him a half-hearted, tight-lipped smile, hoping it would sway him in the direction of yes. "Jesus," Daryl muttered under his breath as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Rosie didn't know what that meant. Yes or no? Daryl sighed. "Go run inside, get one a' my shirts to wear on the way there. Too cold to be wearin' short sleeves."

Rosie's eyes lit up with excitement. "Yes?" she asked, her voice full of hope. 

"Yes. Go. Be quick. Don't got all day," Daryl said.

Suddenly feeling less devastated and horrible, Rosie ran back to Barrington House and went all the way upstairs to get one of Daryl's shirts. As quickly as she could, she took off her backpack, pulled a long-sleeved, gray button-up out of Daryl's bag, slid it on over her blue t-shirt, and put her backpack back on before running back out to Daryl's motorcycle. When she returned, Daryl was strapping his backpack to the back of the bike. He turned to her, having heard her quick footsteps crunch against the gravel on the ground. Seeing as he was strapping his own bag to the bike, Rosie handed over hers so he could strap that on, too. 

"Lemme see your hands," Daryl said once he was done getting the bags on the bike. Rosie held her hands out in front of her, but the gray sleeves of Daryl's shirt covered them up. Daryl cuffed the ends of the sleeves until he could see her hands, then helped her onto the bike before getting on himself. He turned his head back so he could look at her out of the corner of his eye. "You hold on. Understand me?" he said. Rosie nodded and wrapped her arms around his abdomen as best as she could. "Not havin' you fallin' off out there," he said as he started up the motorcycle. 

Rosie's stomach bubbled with excitement as the engine roared to life. "Don't crash!" she shouted to Daryl over the rumbling. He nodded and double-checked to make sure that she was holding on tight enough before driving off.

The motorcycle ride was everything Rosie could have ever dreamed of. She'd been on motorcycles before, but only around her old neighborhood. She never got to be on one this far out, away from the city. She liked to watch the trees whip by and the clouds floating above them. It made her feel a bit better- a bit more calm, after everything that had happened. 

They only made it about half of the way there before Rosie shouted out, "Daryl, I gotta pee!"

"Hold it! Only got a little while longer," Daryl replied.

"I can't!" Rosie alerted him. Daryl rolled his eyes because he was sure that she could hold it and she just didn't want to. But he pulled off to the side of the road, anyway. As soon as the bike was stopped, Rosie scrambled off of it, almost falling face-first into the pavement along the way. Daryl grabbed his crossbow off of the bike before leading Rosie out into the forest. While Rosie went behind a tree and did her business, Daryl kept his eyes peeled for the dead or the living. There was nothing. When Rosie was done, she went up behind Daryl and tapped his shoulder, almost spooking him. "My hair keeps goin' in my face," she complained to him.

"Then tie it up," Daryl told her. 

"Don't know how," Rosie said, shrugging her shoulders and instantly regretting it. Her arm was getting better, but sometimes if she moved it the wrong way, it could send a bolt of pain down her entire arm. 

"You don't know how?" Daryl asked, skeptical at first. Rosie shook her head. "You played baseball. Didn't ya have to tie it up for that?" he asked.

"Coach Smith did it for me," Rosie said, avoiding eye contact. She knew Daryl- along with most other people- never liked it when she brought up Coach Smith, so she tried not to bring him up. But sometimes she just had to. He'd been such an important figure in her life before the apocalypse that he was relevant to the answers to a lot of questions. 

"You got a hair tie?" Daryl asked her.

"Yeah. In my backpack," Rosie answered before heading off back to the road, Daryl following behind her. When they reached the motorcycle again, Rosie went to the back and dug around in her backpack for a minute before pulling out a pink hair tie and handing it to Daryl. "Do you know how to do a braid?" she asked. She wasn't sure if she'd asked that before, or if she'd been too nervous to ask. But she did really want to have a braid in her hair. 

"Hell no," Daryl answered, fidgeting with the hair tie in his fingers.

"What about a ponytail?" Rosie asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Never done it before, but I'm sure I can figure it out," Daryl said. He turned Rosie around and began gathering up her messy, knotty blonde hair. "Can't be that hard," he muttered under his breath as he attempted to smooth out the several bumps in the ponytail. It took much longer than it would've with anyone else, and it was a bit lopsided and bumpy, but Daryl got her hair into a ponytail, nevertheless.

Rosie turned to him, a hidden smile on her face. "Is it good?" she asked, hopeful.

"Yeah," Daryl murmured noncommittally. He squeezed her shoulder and pushed her in the direction of the motorcycle before she could ask any questions. "Let's get goin'," he said, helping her onto the back of the bike before climbing on himself. He didn't want to say it out loud for fear of setting Rosie off, but they had to make this trip a quick one. Daryl had to get back to the Hilltop and make plans with Rick to end this damn war; to put Negan six feet under the ground. But it wasn't like he could admit that to Rosie. She still didn't want Negan dead and Daryl didn't want to argue with her about it anymore. 

When they made it into Reston, Rosie kept her eyes down, hiding her face in Daryl's back. She didn't want to think about everything that had ever happened in this town. She didn't want to think about Liam and the worms he smushed or the hoodie he cut into pieces. She didn't want to think about David and the marks he left on her skin. She didn't want to think about any of it, so she didn't look. Not until the bike rolled to a stop and Daryl shut off the engine. 

Daryl got off the bike first, helping Rosie down after. He put on his own backpack and gave Rosie hers. "Ya ready?" Daryl asked her. Rosie nodded, but she was really unsure of herself. She wanted to go inside- she needed to go inside- but she knew it would make her stomach hurt. 

Her thoughts and feelings about her dad were more firm and final than they were the last time she came here, so that was good. At least she didn't have to think too much about any of it. He was bad. He was a bad father. She knew that. And now she had Daryl, so who gave a shit about David? Not her. At least that's what she kept telling herself. It did matter, though. David mattered. He had an impact on her life, but she didn't need to dwell on it anymore. She could move on. She had other people. She had better people.

Rosie trailed behind Daryl as he made his way up to the front door. When he opened it up, Rosie felt the anxiety bubble up, just as she expected it would. She took a deep breath. 

"We don't both gotta go in. You could wait out here, I'll go in, grab somethin'," Daryl told her, remembering how much she had cried the last time they came here. To be fair, he had cried, too, but that was just because of how much he'd been holding back from crying back then- about who he'd lost. 

"I wanna go in," Rosie said, shaking her head. She wished Glenn was there, so he could hold her hand as they went inside. That always made her feel better. But Glenn wasn't there, so she pulled her velociraptor toy out of her pocket and held it tight in her right hand. That usually made her feel better, too. 

"A'right," Daryl said, nodding. He put his hand on her back, pushing lightly so she would walk with him and stay by his side. She had a problem with wandering off on her own, apparently. He still hadn't talked to her about that- or scolded her for it, rather. He wanted to get this over with first, so he wouldn't have to feel bad for getting mad at her. She had to understand that she couldn't do that anymore. It just wasn't safe. Daryl started making his way toward where he remembered Fraser's room being, but Rosie stopped him, grabbing onto his arm. "It's this way, ain't it?" Daryl asked. 

"Yeah, but I wanna look for somethin'," Rosie said. She started pulling him to what used to be David's room, which was strange. When they were here before, she didn't even want to come into the room. Rosie pulled him over to the closet and pointed up at the top shelf. "I can't reach. Can you look?" she asked.

"What am I lookin' for?" Daryl asked, stepping into the closet and shining his flashlight up at the top shelf. He could see lots of papers scattered around up there, some sort of kit, and a pair of socks. 

"A paper," Rosie answered.

"There's a shit ton a' papers up here, Ro," Daryl murmured, looking back at her. 

"Let me look," Rosie said, taking the flashlight out of his hand. Daryl huffed out an exhausted sigh before picking Rosie up and lifting her high enough to see the top shelf. 

Without any warning, Rosie messily climbed out of his arms and onto his shoulders. "Jesus. You're kickin' me, kid," Daryl grumbled, holding onto her ankles to stop her kicking.

"Well, ya weren't holdin' me up high 'nough," Rosie told him, adjusting herself on his shoulders so she'd be able to see. 

"'Cause you're gettin' too big," Daryl complained. 

"Ya called me little a week ago," Rosie reminded him. 

"You're both," Daryl decided. Still little, but bigger than she was before. 

"Medium?"

"Sure. Medium."

Rosie leaned herself closer to the shelf, letting her eyes scan over all of the papers in her father's closet. Shining her flashlight at them, she read over some of the words. There were some documents, some old letters, and some bills. But Rosie was looking for a piece of notebook paper. She sifted through the papers, searching and ignoring Daryl's hurry up's and I'm too old for this shit's. 

It took about three minutes before Rosie suddenly exclaimed, "Lemme down! Lemme down!" Frustrated with her squirming and kicking, Daryl did so immediately. "I knew he took it," she muttered under her breath, looking down at the paper in her hands and swallowing back the lump in her throat. After reading through the paper, Rosie folded it up. She took a deep breath and dried her wet eyes with her sleeve. After a moment, she held the paper out to Daryl. "Can you, um, put that in your backpack, in the front pocket? I got stuff in mine, and I don't want it to get smushed."

"Yeah," Daryl said, taking the paper from her. He glanced at the name on it, wanting answers, but not wanting to make it obvious that he was looking. He caught the name Fraser in messy handwriting and understood, sliding the paper into the smallest pocket on his bag. "Ya wanna go pick somethin' out now?" he asked, slightly changing the subject. Rosie nodded and they went down the hall, to Fraser's room.

At the doorway, Rosie took another deep breath. She never liked going in there. It made her think about him too much. But she supposed it was good to think about him, so she could always remember him. She really didn't want to forget him. Sometimes she worried about forgetting him, or any of the other people they'd all lost. It was better to remember them and feel sad that they aren't there anymore than to just forget about them. At least, then, she had their memory. 

Noticing that Rosie had stopped and was staring at her shoes, Daryl nudged her arm to get her attention. He really hoped she wouldn't cry like she did yesterday. He worried that he wouldn't know what to do to help her if Maggie wasn't there. He never knew what the hell he was doing, parenting her, and that scared him. He wanted to get it right, but he didn't know how. It wasn't like she came with an instruction manual. Things just happened and he had to figure out how to best deal with them. The crying, though, he never knew how to stop. He'd never been good with crying or anything like that. All he could do was hold her and murmur sh, sh, sh into her ear, hoping that it would be good enough to get her to stop. But he didn't know. He didn't know anything, other than the fact that he hated the crying and it made his chest hurt. But he didn't know. He just really hoped he wasn't fucking it up too badly.

"You don't gotta go in if you don't wanna," Daryl reminded Rosie, remembering how long she'd lingered in the doorway last time. 

"I wanna," Rosie said, and she really meant it. Hesitant, anxious, and embarrassed, she reached over to grab Daryl's hand. She kept her eyes on her shoes, her cheeks glowing red from both embarrassment and the urge to cry. But Daryl didn't even acknowledge it. He just walked into the room, bringing Rosie with him. Rosie was sure he'd shake her hand away, trying not to be mean about it. But he didn't. When they got to the closet, Rosie looked away again. She remembered seeing him in there, and it was like the image was burned into her pupils. She squeezed her eyelids shut, trying to make the image go away. 

Daryl squeezed her hand. "You want me to pick somethin' out, see what ya think?" he asked, eyeing her warily. He really didn't want her to start crying. Rosie nodded and turned away, looking elsewhere around the room. She looked at the pictures on the walls, examining the picture of her mother and comparing the woman's features to her own. "How 'bout this?" Daryl's voice said as a big, black leather jacket appeared in front of her eyes. She took a step backward to get a better look at the thing. "Too big now, but you'll grow into it," Daryl told her.

"It's cool," Rosie said with a small smile on her face. She almost mentioned the fact that Coach Smith had once bought a leather jacket and got in trouble for it, because his wife told him not to. But she thought better of it, knowing that Daryl wouldn't like that story. "I like it."

"Yeah? Saw him wearin' it in some a' those pictures in that book I gave ya," Daryl said, handing her the jacket.

"Yeah. He said he felt real cool wearin' it. Like Danny Zuko," Rosie reminisced, chewing on her lip. 

"Who?"

"Danny Zuko from Grease. Daddy hated that movie, but Fraser liked it. He said Momma liked it a lot, and they'd watch it when Daddy was gone. He said Momma would sing the songs with the movie and she had a crush on John Travolta," Rosie rambled as she let her fingers rub over the leather. She dropped to her knees and put her backpack on the floor. She began taking off Daryl's shirt so she could put on the jacket. "I ain't got to see the whole movie, 'cause Daddy hated it, but I seen John Travolta in Pulp Fiction and he had real weird hair. I don't know why Momma liked him. That movie was weird."

"You seen Pulp Fiction?" Daryl asked, slightly concerned. 

"Yeah. Daddy had it on DVD," Rosie said, pulling the jacket on and stuffing the shirt into her backpack. "I didn't get any of it, though. It didn't make no sense."

"Hm," Daryl hummed, turning back to the closet with hopes of changing the subject before she could ask any questions about the plot of Pulp Fiction. He pulled some band t-shirt off of a hanger and tossed it over to her. "Prob'ly wanna grab some t-shirts, too. It'll be too hot to be wearin' a leather jacket all the time," he said.

"'Member when I was tellin' ya 'bout Depeche Mode?" Rosie asked, turning back to look at Daryl. He shook his head. "Words are very unnecessary. And I called ya old," Rosie reminded him. 

"In the truck, on the way to the CDC?" Daryl asked. 

"Yeah," Rosie confirmed it, nodding her head. She held the t-shirt out in front of her. "This is a Depeche Mode shirt."

Daryl hummed in acknowledgment as he took a few more t-shirts off of the hangers and tossed them over to Rosie. Rosie tried to look at each and every one of them, but Daryl told her she could look at them when they got back to the Hilltop. They needed to hurry up. That was only halfway true. Part of the reason was that Daryl didn't like being in this house, and he didn't like Rosie being in this house, either. He'd look into a room and think things like, this is where her brother killed himself or this is where David would beat her black and blue. He'd see an ashtray and think, those are the cigarettes David would burn her skin with. It was all he could think about in this house. That's the room Rosie would hide in when she was scared. That's the chair where David would drink bottle after bottle of beer. That's the TV Rosie had watched Pulp Fiction on. That's the mattress Rosie would have nightmares on. He hated it. He hated every bit of it. 

Once Rosie was done shoving the shirts into her backpack, she followed Daryl out of the room. She expected him to go straight outside so they could leave, but he went past the front door and into the kitchen. He went to the doorway and searched the wall for the last mark he'd made on it. 

There it was.

Rosie, 11 maybe

When she'd written that, she'd only been ten, just a few weeks away from turning eleven. But she didn't really know. Now, she might've been twelve, or maybe she was still eleven. Eleven was more fun to say than twelve, anyway, she thought. Time was all erratic. They didn't really know how much of it had gone by, but the mark on the wall was shorter than Rosie, and that was proof that it was still going by, even when it felt like it wasn't. Daryl's mark was still right where Rosie had written it, right at the top of his head. He hadn't gotten taller or shorter, but Rosie had. 

"Here," Rosie said, snapping Daryl out of his thoughts. She gave him a pencil and stood up against the wall, making herself as tall as she could. Daryl put a new mark on the wall, just at the tip of her head. It was almost an entire inch higher than the last one. 

Daryl wasn't sure what age to write, and Rosie wasn't taking the pencil to write it herself, so he guessed it was his job to figure out what to write. He sighed, thinking about it for a moment. 

Rosie D., he wrote.

He didn't know if she was eleven or twelve. He knew her birthday was April 10th, 2001, but he didn't know if it was even April yet, or if April had already passed. But time had gone by and Rosie had grown, both on the inside and the outside. The D. was an indicator of that. She'd gone from Rosie B., to just Rosie, all the way to Rosie D. Now here she was, taller than she had ever been before. 

"Let's get goin'," Daryl said, tossing the pencil onto the table.