TW: in this chapter there is a flashback
with depictions of suicide.

I'll put *** at the start and end of it in case you want to skip over it. It's short.

"Rose," Rosie was awoken by Daryl shaking her back. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her face into her pillow. She hadn't even been asleep for very long at all. "Ya missed breakfast by, like, four hours. What the hell are ya doin'?" Daryl said as he picked up her empty backpack off of the floor.

"Sleepin'," Rosie murmured.

Daryl scoffed. "Clearly," he said as he got to her dresser and began tossing some clothes into the backpack. Rosie sat up and rubbed her eyes. "Stayed up all night lookin' at them fossils, huh? Knew I shoulda' waited 'til mornin' to show you," Daryl grumbled.

"I was readin', too," Rosie corrected, dragging herself out of bed. She took the bag of fossils and her book off of the table next to her bed and carried them over to where Daryl was shoving clothes into her bag. She placed the fossils and book at the top of the bundle of clothes.

"Should be packin' this shit yourself," Daryl complained. He tossed her hairbrush into the bag and then zipped it up. He placed the backpack on the floor next to the door. "Get dressed and let's go. They're waitin' on us," he said.

"But I'm hungry," Rosie said.

"Grab something small, or you're just gonna have to wait until we get there. Maybe ya shouldn't've stayed up all night. Then ya woulda had time to eat," Daryl told her, raising his eyebrows. Rosie tossed her head back in complaint and groaned as Daryl shut the door and left her to get ready.

And even though she was hungry, tired, and annoyed, Rosie did as she was told because she wanted to go to the Hilltop and show everyone her new fossils. So she put on a dark red t-shirt with some brand logo she didn't know and a pair of black shorts that went down about halfway down her thigh. It had taken a little while for her to get used to those shorts, considering she'd only worn shorts that went all the way down to her knees before, but now she liked them just fine. After that, she put on her shoes and jacket, slung her backpack over her shoulders, and hurried downstairs to find Daryl. Just as she expected, he was outside, packing his crossbow onto his bike.

"Lemme see your hands," Daryl said when she got to him. Rosie held her hands out in front of her and Daryl cuffed the sleeves back. When he was done, he ruffled her hair, but it didn't really mess anything up because the hair was still tied back in braids, anyway. "Ready?" he asked, and Rosie nodded.

One good thing about everything that had changed was that Rosie was allowed on Daryl's motorcycle now. Apparently, the little trip to her old house proved to him that she was responsible enough and nothing bad would happen. Another part of that reasoning was that they were running extremely low on fuel. The less they used, the better. If that meant that Rosie had to ride on the motorcycle with Daryl instead of in a car, so be it.

The drive was longer than Rosie remembered, but maybe it was just because she was dying to show Maggie and Ian her new fossils. It was all she could think about. She liked listening to the clip-clop, clip-clop sounds Rick and Michonne's horses made, too, though. Rosie had never ridden a horse before, and she wasn't sure if she even wanted to. They were pretty and nice to pet, but they looked very bumpy and hard to control compared to motorcycles. She hoped that, when she got old enough, she could have her own motorcycle. Daryl told her no, but he used to say no to ever letting her on the motorcycle at all, so she was sure he would say yes eventually.

When they got to Hilltop, Rick and Michonne let one of the workers take their horses and put them in the stables while Daryl parked his bike. As Daryl was getting his crossbow off the back of the bike, Rosie ran to Maggie with a giddy, excited smile on her face, so she could show Maggie the velociraptor tooth on her necklace. Daryl watched her as he started making his way over, too. He felt too cheesy to ever say it out loud, but he was sure that Rosie had the sweetest smile he'd ever seen in his entire life, especially when she was as excited as she was then. But that infectious smile faded when she looked up and saw Maggie's face. She had a big, purple bruise on the side of her face.

"What happened?" Rosie asked, her eyebrows pinched together.

"It's ok, Rosie. It's being dealt with," Maggie assured her, giving a fake smile. Rosie wanted to say I didn't ask if it was being dealt with, but she didn't say that because maybe Maggie just didn't want to talk about it. "Why don't you go on inside? Ian's excited to see you and introduce you to his new friend," Maggie said.

His new friend? That intrigued Rosie. She looked back at Daryl to see what he thought. He nodded his head toward Barrington House. Go on, his eyes said. Rosie wanted to show Maggie her fossils, but she figured she could do that later. Maggie obviously had some very important stuff to talk to Rick, Michonne, and Daryl about, and apparently, Rosie wasn't supposed to be there for it. So she went inside, feeling a bit anxious. She spotted Ian sitting at a table, playing cards with a boy Rosie had never seen before.

"Rosie!" Ian said, waving her over. Hesitantly, Rosie went over to them. She always felt anxious when meeting new people, but she felt especially anxious when those people were around the same age as her and she was all on her own- no adult there to intervene if someone was being an asshole. She wanted to hide, but she couldn't, because that would be weird. Rosie sat down next to Ian at the table, avoiding eye contact with the other boy. "This is Rodney. He just joined Hilltop a couple weeks ago," Ian said.

"Hey," Rodney said, giving a smile.

"Hi," Rosie murmured, feeling awkward. She hoped she wasn't being rude. She didn't mean to be, if she was. It was weird. Before the fall of Negan, she was pretty sure she might not have even paid Rodney any mind. But it'd been so long since she had hung out with anyone around her own age that it just felt weird. At the Sanctuary, it was just her and a bunch of adults. She didn't mind it. She sort of liked being on her own. But sometimes she wished she could hang out with Ian and Henry more often. To change the subject and fill the awkward silence, Rosie pulled her bag off of her shoulder and got out the fossils, placing them on the table in front of her. "Look. Daryl went to a museum and he found velociraptor teeth fossils," she said. She grabbed her necklace and showed it to Ian. "And he got me a necklace one, too."

"That's awesome," Ian said, looking at the fossils.

"Those are actual dinosaur teeth, or are they, like, plastic?" Rodney asked, leaning in close to look at the bag of fossils.

"They ain't the teeth, but they're fossils of the teeth. The rocks. Minerals and stuff. But it's from 65 million years ago," Rosie said proudly, happy that they were impressed with her dinosaur fossils. But then Maggie, Rick, Michonne, and Daryl all walked inside and Rosie caught a glimpse of the bruise again. It made her stomach ache. She turned to Ian. "What happened to Maggie?" she asked him.

"Oh, Gregory tried to have her killed last night. 'Cause he doesn't want her to be in charge anymore," Ian said, his voice tense. He looked back at the adults, who had started talking across the room. Ian leaned in closer and spoke quietly. "I heard her talking to Jesus. She's gonna hang Gregory tonight," he revealed.

"Like, with a rope? Like execution?" Rodney asked, his eyes wide

All of a sudden, that aching in Rosie's stomach became much, much worse. She felt like throwing up. She stood up, making her chair screech on the floor. She grabbed her fossils and put them back in her bag before looking around the room. Rick and Maggie were heading up the stairs while Michonne and Daryl were still talking near the staircase. Rosie went straight to Daryl and grabbed onto his hand, pulling it to get his attention.

"Gimme a sec, Ro," Daryl murmured, keeping his attention on whatever Michonne was saying to him.

Rosie pulled on his hand again. "No. I wanna go back," she said. Daryl was still listening to Michonne talk. Maybe it was something important. Rosie didn't care. She wanted to go before she could start crying, before she wouldn't be able to breathe, before she'd want to curl up into a ball and hide from everyone and everything. She could already feel the lump there, in her throat, threatening to make her start crying and embarrass herself. "Daryl, I wanna go! I wanna go!" she said again.

"Rosie," Daryl said with a warning tone. She was doing two things she wasn't supposed to be doing- she knew that. She wasn't supposed to yell at him and she wasn't supposed to interrupt, but she didn't care. "What?" Daryl asked, despite the fact that Rosie was doing two things she wasn't supposed to be doing.

"I wanna go back to the Sanctuary. Now," Rosie said, her eyes wide.

"We just got here, Rosie," Daryl said, confused. He gestured outside, to where the sun was beginning to go down. "We're stayin' here for the night. Goin' to start fixin' the bridge tomorrow. Don't got time to bring you back there."

"Rosie! I'm sorry!" Ian said as he followed Rosie over to Daryl and Michonne, Rodney right behind him. Rosie wanted to hide again. This was embarrassing. This was so, so embarrassing. She was too old for this. But she could see it again and she didn't want to be here anymore. "I didn't know that's how..." Ian trailed off quietly. That made everything so much worse. Now Ian knew. He knew. Rosie didn't want anyone to know. She didn't even know if Daryl knew, but he had probably figured it out, just because he was Daryl and he figured most things out.

"What's goin' on?" Daryl asked the three kids, concerned and confused.

"I want to go back to the Sanctuary," Rosie said again, trying to ignore the fact that anyone else was there.

"The hell happened?" Daryl asked, still not understanding. What had Ian or this other boy done to make Rosie want to leave already? Or did Rosie do something?

"Daryl! I want to go back now!" Rosie shouted.

"Rosie, go outside. Take a breather. I'll be out there in a sec," Daryl said, trying not to get frustrated with their lack of an explanation. Rosie pressed her hands into her eyes. "Go. Now," Daryl told her. Rosie felt like she was going to explode into a billion little pieces. She walked outside, biting down on her lip and keeping her eyes on her shoes. She counted the eyelets on her Converse, trying to get the image out of her head.

This was terrible. Rosie felt like a baby. She felt like an idiot. Nobody else acted like this. Maggie didn't have to deal with his when it came to Ian. Carol didn't have to deal with this when it came to Henry. But Daryl had to deal with it when it came to Rosie. She felt terrible. Something was wrong with her and all it did was make Daryl's life harder. She knew Daryl wanted to help, just because he was good like that, but she couldn't help but feel bad about it. He came here to help Maggie and now he had to worry about Rosie again. He already had to worry about every single person at the Sanctuary and he had to worry about Rosie acting like a baby on top of that. God, she hated it.

The worst part was that Rosie knew she acted differently than she should have acted. She knew something was different that made her act like this, but she couldn't control it. Why couldn't she just deal with everything like everybody else did? She used to be tough and just go on about her day, pretending that nothing ever hurt on the inside. But that was when she knew that if she had acted like she was acting now, David would beat her. Now that that threat was gone, she felt like she had less control over her own body.

It was more than five years ago, so why did it still hurt so bad? It was more than five years ago, so why did she still see it?

This feeling was familiar. She'd had it before Negan killed Abraham and Glenn. When they were trying to get to the Hilltop to get Maggie to a doctor, but the Saviors were blocking each and every road. When they had killed that man on that bridge. When they dangled him from that chain.

As soon as Abraham finished his sentence, a loud scream came from behind them all, and they all spun on their heels. When they turned around, the writhing man from before was hanging from the bridge with a chain around his neck. His face was red and he was grabbing onto the chain, trying to stop himself from dying. There were scratch marks, Rosie remembered. She squeezed her eyes shut, letting her hands pull on the roots of her hair. Suddenly, her ears were ringing like crazy. She felt a hand on her back, turning her away, and she felt weird. It's not like she was dizzy, but she sort of felt like it. It's not like everything was silent, but it sort of sounded like it. It's not like she was going to throw up, but her stomach sort of felt like it. It's not like it was hot out, but her hands were sort of clammy. She chewed on her lip, keeping her eyes shut. Don't look, don't look, don't look. It's just some guy. Who cares? Who cares.

Maggie was going to do that to Gregory.

***
First, her brother's shitty Vans. They had holes from his skateboard that were covered with shoe-goo. The weird thing was that his shoes weren't on the ground, they were in the air, a little bit below Rosie's eye level.

Next, her eyes trailed up from his shoes, up his legs, past his t-shirt, and to his neck.
***

Maggie was going to do that to Gregory.

Take a breather, Daryl had said. Rosie focused on that. She sat down on the grass, counting the eyelets on her shoes again as she breathed in and out, in and out, in and out. Each shoe had nine eyelets in total, which meant that, together, her shoes had 18 eyelets. In and out, in and out, in and out.

There's nothin' wrong with me. There's nothin' wrong with me. Things are just hard.

She took the backpack off of her back and placed it next to her in the grass before taking out the bag of velociraptor teeth. She counted those, too. There were seven in the bag and one around her neck, which meant that she had eight total velociraptor teeth. She had eight dinosaur fossils. That was amazing. She couldn't wait to see the bigger fossils that Daryl said they had. In and out, in and out, in and out.

It was ok. Rosie could breathe. She could breathe and she could close her eyes and pretend she wasn't there at all. She didn't have to see. She didn't have to watch Maggie do what Maggie was going to do to Gregory. She didn't have to see any of it. Gregory tried to kill Maggie. He could have hurt Hershel, too. He was a bad man and he had done bad things. He would die the same way Fraser did, but not for the same reason. It was just different. It was ok. Rosie didn't have to see it, and she didn't have to think about it, because all she had to do was breathe.

The front door opened and shut, and Rosie could tell that the footsteps belonged to Daryl, because they were heavy, but so, so quiet. He had a hunter's footsteps. When Daryl sat down next to Rosie on the grass, she opened her eyes again. She looked over at him and he looked over at her, surprised to see that her eyes were dry and her cheeks had the normal amount of pinkness rather than the harsh red that appeared whenever she cried.

In and out, in and out, in and out.

"I don't wanna see it," Rosie said, keeping her voice calm.

"You ain't gonna. You weren't even s'posed to know," Daryl said, his elbows resting on his knees. Rosie nodded. That made sense. That was why Ian was whispering about it.

"Did Ian tell that other kid 'bout it?" Rosie murmured. She didn't know Rodney. She didn't want him to know anything like that about her. She didn't trust him. She trusted Ian, and she didn't even want him to know.

"Nah. He's more understandin' than you think he is," Daryl said. Rosie nodded. She wasn't sure how understanding Ian was. She didn't usually like to talk about important things like that with anyone, let alone to her friends. She just assumed no one would understand or care. "You wanna talk 'bout any of it?" Daryl asked hesitantly. Rosie shook her head. She was done thinking about it for today, she decided. "Ok," Daryl said. He nudged her arm with his elbow. "Ya did good, calmin' yourself down on your own."

"Thanks. I focused on breathin', like you and Maggie said to," Rosie told him, picking at the grass.

Daryl put his arm around her shoulders. "I'm sorry things are shitty for ya sometimes, but you're doin' real good," he said.

Rosie felt glad to hear that, because she felt like she was doing pretty bad at it lately. It was something Maggie and Daryl had been helping her work on. Maggie said it was self-regulation, and Daryl referred to it as not losin' your shit. They had found that, for Rosie, focusing on breathing, counting things, and being away from everyone for a little bit helped her to calm down. Rosie didn't understand why she had to do those things when no else did, but when she asked, Maggie just said that everyone deals with things differently, which Rosie supposed was true, but it didn't answer her question. Why her and not Ian or Henry or anyone else? She didn't ask anymore, though, because it was clear that they didn't have an exact answer. She guessed it probably had something to do with David, because almost all of her problems did.

"You're doin' real good, too," Rosie said, craning her neck to look up at Daryl's face. He often said things like I don't know what I'm doin', but I'm tryin' and I'm sorry, I don't know what the hell to do. Rosie hoped he knew that, even if he didn't know what he was doing, he was still doing a good job, because he helped her more than anyone else ever had before.

Daryl scoffed out a laugh, then kissed the top of Rosie's head. He had been doing that a lot more than he used to. It was sort of comforting, Rosie came to learn. "Thanks, Rose," he said. Rosie nodded. "How 'bout we go get you somethin' to eat?"

"Yeah. I'm hungry," Rosie said, nodding her head adamantly.

🦖🦕🦖🦕

Bringing Rodney in early so Ian isn't lonely at Hilltop 🫡🫡