"This whole follow the leader routine is kinda deja vu for me," Negan said as he walked just a few steps ahead of Rosie and Daryl with his wrists tied up. Daryl had only been with him for about ten minutes now and he already wanted to stick a bolt through his school. This whole Negan kidnapping his kid routine was kinda deja vu for him. Rosie seemed to have gotten over that too easily. But that's how she was with Negan, unfortunately. "It's the same way it went down with Alpha," Negan said.

Daryl didn't have any plans of engaging in conversation with Negan, so he stayed silent. He just hoped that Rosie would stay quiet, too, because it always bothered him to hear her and Negan talk to each other like they did. Maybe it was selfish, but Daryl wanted Rosie to hate Negan's guts. At least she had someone who remembered her brother is what he kept reminding himself.

"Y'know, I get it. Alright, you're pissed your gal pal didn't let you in on the plan," Negan said.

"Nobody asked you," Daryl grumbled.

Rosie let out an exhausted huff. All she wanted was for them to get along for five goddamn seconds. But no. Negan had to ruin any chances of that happening about six to seven years ago when he killed Glenn and Abraham.

"Look, I'm pissed, too. Lone wolves, they're not thinking about the pack," Negan told the two Dixons.

Pissed was an understatement of what Daryl was feeling. He was feeling way beyond pissed. But he was sure that Negan could already sense that. "Maybe I'm pissed 'cause a' Hilltop," he said.

God, Rosie almost forgot about what happened to Hilltop. She wasn't there to see the end of it. She didn't get to see all the walls fall. She didn't get to see Barrington House burning to the ground, leaving nothing but the charred outlines of what the place used to be. She was glad to have not seen it. It was probably a pretty heart-wrenching sight.

She remembered the first time she went to Hilltop. It was with Jesus, after he broke into their home in Alexandria. She hadn't recognized Negan's name back then because she only knew him as Coach Smith. So she had brushed off the name and asked for a cow, which she never ended up receiving, come to think of it.

She remembered escaping the Sanctuary and finding Rick and Michonne, who took her back to Hilltop. She remembered seeing Maggie in that trailer for the first time after thinking she and her baby were dead. She remembered seeing Ian and Sasha, too. And then she remembered running to Daryl.

That was the night that Rosie and Daryl officially decided that she wasn't going to be called Rosie Starling Banks anymore. From then on, she was Rosie Starling Dixon. Right at a picnic table in the center of Hilltop, the two of them sat together until Rosie fell asleep with her head in her arms.

Hilltop was where Rosie read the letter Carl had left for her. Hilltop was where Maggie and Daryl taught her to breathe in and out, in and out, in and out. Hilltop was where Hershel was born. Where Glenn and Abraham were buried. Where Negan brought Rosie for help after she'd been shot. Where Rosie had met Lydia.

And it broke her heart to think about it all being gone. What would happen to Glenn and Abraham's graves? Would those little sticks of wood still be standing if they ever were to return to the rubble?

"Whole bunch a' children almost died 'cause a' you," Daryl reminded Negan. Luckily, the children had all made it out ok. Earl did, in fact, have them. But Earl himself didn't make it. He got bit and passed. Negan seemed to pause at Daryl's words, taking in a deep breath. Daryl shoved him forward. "Keep walkin'."

"Hey, Daryl?" Rosie spoke up for the first time in a little while. Daryl glanced over at her, acknowledging her voice. "Where're we gonna go after this?" she asked. They couldn't go back to Hilltop. They couldn't go to Alexandria, either, because the heard was probably on its way there.

"We found a place. Don't worry. We'll figure it all out," Daryl told her. If Negan was really telling the truth about Alpha being dead and gone, then that would make things easier. However, they would still have Beta and the rest of the Whisperers to deal with.

"Sorry I didn't find the kids," Rosie added. That was what Daryl asked her to do, and she didn't do it. He wasn't mad, and she knew that, but she still wanted to apologize. It seemed like not doing what she was told had become a reoccurring issue and it sort of made Rosie feel bad.

"Wasn't your fault, Banks. It was mine," Negan reminded her. Rosie nodded in agreement. She knew it wasn't her fault, but felt like apologizing, anyway.

Daryl couldn't help but notice that Rosie didn't correct him. Maybe she'd just gotten sick of correcting him and decided it was no use. That would make sense. "Yeah. 'Cause you tied her up in shed like a fuckin' psycho," he grumbled.

"To be fair, I wouldn't have done it if she would have just listened to me," Negan said jokingly, raising his eyebrows. It was another attempt to lighten the mood, but Daryl wasn't willing to let the mood lighten.

"Why the hell would she listen to you after all you done?" Daryl scoffed. Rosie shoved her hands into her pockets and keot her eyes on the ground in front of her, trying to ignore their incessant arguing. It was frustrating having two of the most important people in her life hate each other's guts. She couldn't blame Daryl, though. If anyone deserved to be hated, it was Negan. She understood that. But it didn't make it any less frustrating for her.

"I don't know if you've picked up on this or not because I'm not sure how big that redneck brain of yours is, but if you haven't noticed, I've never had any bad intentions with her. I've known her since she was four years old, and even if I've fucked up a few times, all I've ever done is try to help her. She can trust me. She knows that," Negan said, fed up with Daryl trying to pretend that all he has ever been is a piece of dog shit.

Again, Daryl scoffed. He glanced over at Rosie, who had a blank expression on her face. "That right? You know you can trust him, Rose?" he asked.

Truthfully, Rosie knew the answer was no. Last night, she didn't trust him at all. He'd betrayed her trust far too many times to count, and she knew she should probably hate him for that, but for some reason, she just couldn't.

"I know I've messed up, Banks, but I hope you know I'd never do anything to hurt you," Negan said. And he meant it. However, he didn't always take into account the fact that he couldn't only physically hurt her, but he could hurt her on the inside, too.

"Jesus," Rosie muttered, annoyed. She wished they would both just shut up. "How much longer we got?" she asked. They hadn't been walking for very long at all, and she already wanted it to be over.

"A while," Negan answered.

Rosie huffed out a sigh. She needed to figure out a way to get both of them to stop talking to each other. One way to do that was making it impossible for either of them to get a word in. If there was one thing Rosie could talk endlessly about, it was dinosaurs. So that's what she did.

"Have I ever told either a' you about the gigantoraptor?" Rosie asked. She didn't give either of them the time to answer, but if she had, it would have been a no from Negan and a yes from Daryl. Daryl was there when she learned about the gigantoraptor from a book she found in a library they stopped in once. She read off all the facts to him. "Well, they were sixteen feet tall, which, for reference, is like, a little less than three Daryl's tall."

And she went on like that for a long time, listing off any and all facts she could think of off the top of her head. It made it easier to keep the two men's mouths shut.

•

Negan let out a shaky breath as the three of them approached a bloody spike in the middle of a field. "It was right here," he told them. Rosie didn't even want to look up from her feet to see the spike, but she did. And she saw that Alpha's head was not on that stick. "I swear to God, it was on that spike."

Daryl immediately lifted his crossbow, aiming it right at the back of Negan's head.

"Daryl, it's got blood. It was there. He ain't lyin'," Rosie said, her voice tense. She felt overwhelmed not only because Daryl was one bolt away from killing Negan, but also because being in this field in front of these spikes made her feel sick. Still, Daryl kept his weapon up.

"Look, we, uh, we- we sit here and wait for Carol. Or I can take you to find the-" Negan stopped his sentence when he turned around and saw the crossbow aimed directly between his eyes. "Oh, come on, man," he complained. Daryl still kept the crossbow up. "We're talking about Rosie and Lydia here. Why would I stash them out in banjo country unless the whole point was to keep them safe? Unless the whole freakin' point was just to use them as bait so I could get Alpha alone?"

Rosie didn't think about being used as bait. She just thought he was trying to keep her safe and hidden. It stung a little, but she tried to ignore it.

"You sure took your sweet-ass time, though, didn't you?" Daryl muttered, glaring daggers.

"What is with you guys thinking I didn't do it fast enough?! You didn't kill her. I did," Negan said, getting more and more frustrated the longer Daryl kept his crossbow aimed at him. He hoped that having Rosie standing there by his side would keep Daryl from pulling the trigger. "It took a minute. I had to get her to trust me. Because I wasn't one some half-cocked suicide mission."

"Nah. It's because you liked it," Daryl growled, taking another step closer.

"Daryl," Rosie murmured. She hated the words coming out of his mouth. They made her stomach twist and turn with unease. Negan didn't like Alpha. He couldn't like her. Not after what she did to Lydia all those years, right?

Negan's jaw was tight. He closed his eyes for a moment, tilting his head ever so slightly as he took in Daryl's words. He might have been right.

"Daryl!" Rosie shouted. This time, not because she felt uneasy, but because she had just heard footsteps from behind them. As soon as she said it, the sounds of several guns being cocked rang out into the night.

All three of them froze. Rosie looked at Daryl, unsure of what to do. Slowly, he let his crossbow drop to the ground as he held up his hands. Rosie raised her eyebrows a little, confused. There were three Whisperers, three of them. They could take them, couldn't they? But Daryl just gave a tiny, almost unnoticeable nod, silently telling Rosie to follow his lead. Hesitantly, Rosie lifted her arms up just like Daryl.

"Alpha's dead because of you," one of the Whisperers spoke, looking right at Negan. With his hands still tied behind his back, Negan couldn't hold them up in surrender. He sighed, slightly panicked, as he looked around at them. Three Whisperers, one of them pointing a gun at Rosie's head. Then, "We kneel... to the new Alpha."

As all three Whisperers knelt down in front of Negan, he chuckled, no longer afraid for his, Rosie's, or Daryl's lives. Daryl let his hands drop back down to his sides, so Rosie did, too. What the hell was happening?

"Alright, get up," Negan told the Whisperers. The three of them stood up so fast that Rosie almost wanted to laugh at them. What the hell was happening? How? Why? "Get this shit off me," Negan said, wiggling his wrists around in the ropes that bound his hands together behind his back. One of the Whisperers quickly untied the rope and Negan sighed in relief. "Tie him up," he ordered.

Rosie's heart sank and Daryl's anger grew as the Whisperers roughly grabbed his arms and tied them together in front of him.

"What about her?" the Whisperer asked, gesturing to Rosie.

After a moment of thinking about it, Negan said, "Take her knife." And the Whisperer did.

"Negan," Rosie spoke, anxious and irritated. What the hell was he doing?

"Sorry, guys. I am, uh... I'm just savoring the moment," Negan said. He reached down to the ground and picked up Alpha's mask. "Taking my sweet-ass time," he added, smirking as he taunted Daryl.

"Negan," Rosie repeated, her stomach twisting and turning with dread. He wasn't about to do anything bad, right? This was all a show. He was putting on a show. He had to be. Rosie wasn't sure what she'd do if he wasn't.

"Alright, fellas, first order of business," he turned around for a moment, and then looked back at the Whisperers. He narrowed his a little. "Wait, wait, wait, wait. One damn minute. I'm supposed to be the Alpha, right? I mean, the only reason I'm asking is I'm a little bit confused. If I'm the Alpha, why is someone who is most definitely not the Alpha holding the badass shotgun?" he asked, raising his eyebrows at the man with the gun.

And Rosie let out a heavy breath. She knew it then. He was putting on a show. There was no way he wasn't.

The Whisperer did not hesitate to hand the gun over to Negan. God, these people are stupid, Rosie thought to herself.

"See, that is what I'm talking about," Negan said, smiling as he took the shotgun in his hands. He readjusted it, switching his hold between hands. "That feels good. Right? I mean, I never had a kid of my own, but if I did, I would imagine this is what it's like holding your baby for the very first time, except for, it turns out, my baby can kill people by spitting bullets at 'em!"

Rosie looked at Daryl to see if he had figured out what exactly was going on just yet. He just glared angrily at Negan. Rosie could imagine that glare feeling like a thousand lasers blazing against your skin, making your throat close up and your heart beat faster. That glare said the words I'm gonna kill you. So either Daryl hadn't caught on to this little show Negan was putting on, or he was just downright pissed either way.

"Daryl," Negan spoke, smirking as he stared at him. Rosie looked between the two of them, sure that Negan was about to say something stupid to piss Daryl off even more. But what he said hurt a thousand times more than Rosie ever could have expected. "Kneel to the Alpha," Negan ordered.

As Rosie's heart sunk down into her stomach, Daryl stood himself up straighter. He stood for a few more moments before allowing the Whisperers to push him down into a kneel.

"You piece a' shit," Rosie muttered, now glaring almost as intensely as Daryl was. "I hate you."

Of course, he would do this. Of course, he would. Making Daryl kneel in the dirt just like he made him before bashing in Abraham's and Glenn's skulls. Making him kneel in the dirt just like he knelt before Dwight took him away and tortured him.

"Oh, damn. It is startin' to get real now, ain't it?" Negan chuckled.

"Shut up," Rosie spat. She wanted to take the knife back from the Whisperer who took it and use it to slice open Negan's face and make him bleed. She didn't want to kill him. She just wanted him to hurt as badly as she knew Daryl was hurting on the inside at that very moment. But she couldn't do that because that would ruin that plan that she was sure Negan had.

"Daryl, you were right when you said that I liked it," Negan said. He let out a breath and pointed the shotgun at Daryl's head. It made Rosie's stomach hurt and her throat felt dry, even though she knew for a fact that Negan wouldn't shoot Daryl. "The fact is... I like it a lot."

"Shut up," Rosie said again. She really, really wished he would stop saying things. She could no longer tell which things were true and which things weren't and she hated that. Did he like what he did, back when he ran the Sanctuary? He acted like he didn't want to do it. They needed to understand, he had said. Was that true, or was it just a lie?

"Banks, your best bet right now is keeping your mouth shut," Negan said, glancing over at her but keeping his aim on Daryl. And Rosie did it again. She let him call her Banks, like it didn't matter. That bothered Daryl more than it seemed to bother Rosie herself.

"You should probably shoot me," Daryl muttered with nothing but hatred and disgust in his voice.

"Don't threaten me with a good time," Negan said before switching his aim to one of the Whisperer's heads and pulling the trigger. Rosie knew he had a plan.

Negan took out two of the Whisperers with the shotgun while Rosie stole the knife back from the other and used it to stab them in the chest, and then the hide.

As soon as it was over, Rosie untied the knot in the rope around Daryl's wrists. Once she was done with that, she turned back to Negan and punched him square in the jaw. Both Negan and Daryl's eyebrows shot up in surprise, but while Negan's hand went up to rub his jaw, Daryl's lips lifted into a small smile.

"Ya act like you want me to forgive you and then ya go and do shit like that," Rosie grumbled, shaking her hand a little at her side. "It's bullshit."