Rosie recognized that voice, somehow. It was familiar but distant. In her mind, somewhere, she knew it.

But Ian's eyes were wide. He knew it, too. He knew the face staring right back at him. He knew the shaggy head of hair, the dark and angry eyes, and the hand holding a knife to Rosie's throat. He'd been one of Ian's first friends in Alexandria, after all.

"Let her go," Ian said, his voice hoarse. The other boy was practically a stranger at this point. With the way he left; with why he left, Ian had no idea whether or not he would make that split-second decision to slice open Rosie's throat and let her bleed and choke to death right then and there.

"I let you go, one of them kills you both. They'll find you and they won't give you the chance I'm giving you," the boy explained to the two of them, his grip on Rosie unwavering.

And then it hit Rosie, just who had a knife to her throat. Liam fucking Johnson.

"I'm saving your life," Liam insisted.

"You ran away because you felt guilty for doing what you did. You think you're gonna make up for that by kidnapping us?" Ian asked with a scoff, his hand hovering over the knife on his belt. Every second felt like a century.

Liam didn't like that assumption. He scoffed, his grip on his knife tightening with his anger. "I ran away because I knew, with my mom gone, no one there gave a shit about me. She was gone and I had no one," he said, his voice loud, though he wasn't quite yelling.

"That didn't give you any right to destroy the thing that was most important to her!" Ian argued. Rosie had her eyes closed and she was just trying to keep herself calm. She focused on her breathing. The last thing she needed right now was to freak out and get herself killed. Ian was already freaking out enough for the both of them.

"I was twelve years old! I was a little kid! I was mad and I was hurting, and, yeah, I did something shitty, but I was a fucking kid! I didn't know what I was doing," Liam argued, his voice breaking a bit as he thought about that day. How angry he was after he lost his mother. Nothing compared to that kind of pain. "Rosie's done shitty things when she was hurting, too, but when I do it, it's suddenly so unforgivable? Where the hell is the logic in that? You hate me because you want to hate me. You don't hate Rosie because you don't want to hate her," Liam insisted.

"Rosie had a shitty life. That wasn't her fault," Ian said, shaking his head.

"Yeah? And what makes you think my life wasn't so shitty? Why the hell do you think I was in first grade, beating up kids on the playground? Because my dad was just so loving and supportive at home? Yeah," Liam muttered. He never really talked to anyone about this kind of stuff before. He didn't think anyone would care or understand.

It was silent for a few moments, until Rosie broke that silence. "We know we have nowhere else to go, now, so why don't you get your hands off a' me and we can get goin' to wherever the hell you're takin' us," she suggested, eager to get out of Liam's grasp. She had never really thought about why he did what he did in elementary school, or what he did to the hoodie. She just knew that he did it and she hated him for it.

Hesitantly, Liam let go of Rosie, but he kept his knife at the ready in case either one of them tried anything. "Alright, drop your weapons," Liam said, gesturing to the knives on each of their belts. Rosie let her knife drop to the ground, and then her gun.

Ian looked at Rosie like she was crazy. He would never have expected this from her. He expected her to kill or hurt Liam about five minutes ago, not to give up in a two-against-one situation. But there she was, dropping her weapons. "Are you crazy?" Ian asked, an incredulous look on his face.

"We don't have anywhere else to go, Ian. You saw those people. We're goin' with our best shot, and our best shot is Liam," Rosie said. Ian could tell she was frustrated by the tone of her voice, but on the outside, she remained calm.

"God damnit," Ian muttered, letting his knife drop to the ground.

"Gun, too," Liam told him.

"We're out of ammo," Ian said.

"Gun, too," Liam repeated, tenser this time. Ian let out a huff as he dropped his gun.

Liam took their knives and kicked their guns away, considering his people didn't really need two measly pistols. They had everything they needed. Once Liam was sure they didn't have any other weapons, he began walking. Rosie walked by his side, her hands shoved into her pockets. Ian followed. Begrudgingly, sure, but he followed.

"So, where the hell are we going?" Ian asked, glaring at the back of Liam's head.

"To bring you to Leah, and probably Pope," Liam answered.

Rosie looked over at him. The name Leah was common, right? It couldn't be the same Leah. "Leah who?" Rosie asked.

"Leah Shaw. Not like you would know her," Liam said, shrugging his shoulders.

That wasn't helpful. Rosie didn't know what Daryl's Leah's last name was. "How do you know her?" she asked next. There was just no way it was the same person.

"She's family," Liam told her.

"Family?" Ian asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Family. Everyone here is."

"Right," Ian murmured.

"So why does your family want to kill ours?" Rosie asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Pope's orders," Liam answered. That gave them just about no information. Liam's answers were all very vague and strange, and neither Rosie nor Ian knew exactly what was going on and what they should do.

"Great. Yeah. 'Cause we know what that means," Rosie said sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

Liam suddenly stopped in his tracks and turned to her. "You know, I could let you go and someone else could find you and kill you. I'm giving you a chance to live, here, and you're being pretty damn ungrateful," he said.

"You're not givin' us a chance to live; you're leadin' us to some strange place we've never been before to meet a whole bunch a' crazy people we never met before! For all we know, they could kill us the second we get there," Rosie argued. Her calmness was starting to wear off. She needed to take another breather.

For all her talk about being an adult and not needing to be taken care of, she really wished that Darly, Maggie, Negan, or literally any other adult were there to tell her what to do. She felt like, no matter what she did, she was doomed. She could go with Liam and maybe die, or she could run away and also maybe die. There was no good option.

After starting to walk again, Liam thought about explaining the whole thing to them. What happened to him, where he went, how he met these people, and what these people were going to do to them. But he wasn't sure whether or not he could trust them yet. He wasn't even sure whether or not they could trust him. Part of him, deep in his heart, still blamed Rosie for his mother's death.

His mom went out to fight Negan's people, and Negan wanted Rosie. So that meant, with some sort of twisted logic, it was Rosie's fault. Really, though, Liam just needed someone to blame.

Thinking about his mom and thinking about Negan reminded Liam that Negan had been with the group. With Rosie. With all of them. And that made his blood boil. "Why the hell is he with you guys?" Liam asked, his tone and eyes suddenly dark again.

"Who?" Ian asked.

"Negan. Why is he with you? After what he did," Liam asked, his jaw tight.

"He was helpin' us through DC," Rosie said.

Liam couldn't believe that. Negan was helping them? "What the fuck do you mean he was helping? He killed Glenn, Abraham, Sasha. He killed my mom," he said, his voice wobbling once again. No matter how long it had been since he last saw his mother, he'd always think about her. He'd always think about her and he'd always have that empty, aching hole in his heart. No family, fake or not, could ever make up for that. And no amount of help from Negan would ever make up for what he took.

"He's changed," Rosie insisted. She was tired of having this argument, but she supposed Liam had a reason to question it. The last time he saw Negan, he was essentially a raging psychopath on a killing spree. 

"He's changed, huh? So he's not out killing people's families anymore?" Liam asked with a scoff.

"I don't expect you to forgive him, but-"

"I'm not gonna forgive him. I'll kill him," Liam interrupted, his expression cold and his eyes empty. Sometimes he'd get that look and it would even scare Leah.

"Great," Rosie murmured, taking another deep breath. The last thing she needed was another person out to get Negan. Another person out to get Coach Smith, and another person out to get the only other living person who could remember things about Fraser that Rosie couldn't herself.

"What, you don't want him dead?" Liam asked, glancing over at Rosie with his eyebrows raised. Rosie shrugged. She was tired of having this argument, and she wasn't about to waste her time on having it with Liam. "What if it was Fraser who he killed? How would you feel then, huh?"

"Shut the hell up, Liam. You don't get to say shit like that," Ian snapped, stepping forward and shoving Liam to the side to take his place beside Rosie.

Liam scoffed out a laugh. "So talking about her dead brother is unforgivable and killing people's families isn't?" he asked incredulously.

"No one is forgivin' him. We're movin' on," Rosie insisted, her jaw tight.

"Either way, you're one to talk. What's with those bodies out there? Bet those people had families," Ian argued.

Once again, Liam got quiet and angry. "They put themselves in that situation," he muttered.

Rosie rolled her eyes and Ian scoffed. "Well, that's incredibly vague," he murmured.

Again, it was quiet. Rosie hated that. Somehow, the silence made her panic more. It made her heartbeat quicken and her hands feel numb, so she had to stop it. "So, what are they gonna do to us when we get there?" she asked to fill the silence.

Shrugging, Liam answered, "They'll probably question you."

"About what?" Ian asked.

"You're people," Liam told them both.

"Well, I ain't tellin' 'em jackshit," Rosie said.

"You will," Liam insisted, staring blankly at the path ahead of them.

Rosie's stomach churned.

"When we get to my people, you don't know me," Liam then said.

"What?"

"We don't know each other. I... I lied to them. About a lot of stuff," Liam explained.

"So you want us to cover for you? Yeah fuckin' right," Ian scoffed.

"You cover for me and I'll make things easier for you, alright? Jesus."

"Fine," Rosie spat.

•

After a long while of walking in the woods, Liam found a few more of his people. Rosie and Ian both tried their best not to panic as the masked people tied up their wrists and put bags over their heads to make sure that they wouldn't be able to see how to get to their place. They were taken into separate rooms where they were tied to chairs before they were left alone in the rooms over night. Finally, once the sun rose again, the bags were finally taken off of their heads.

When Rosie opened her eyes, she saw two people in front of her. Liam, and by his side, a woman with graying hair. "What's her name?" the gray-haired woman asked Liam.

"She wouldn't tell me anything. Neither of them would," Liam lied easily. The woman seemed to believe him, too, without a doubt in her mind. There was a trust between the two of them. But Liam didn't feel even the smallest bit guilty for his lies.

The woman crossed her arms over her chest, looking Rosie right in the eyes. "What's your name, kid?" she asked.

"I ain't tellin' you shit," Rosie spat, glaring daggers. She could only assume that this woman was the Leah woman that Liam had been talking about.

"You will tell us what we want to know, or you're gonna regret it," Leah insisted with great confidence.

Shaking her head, Rosie remained stoic. "I been kidnapped before. Ain't nothin' new. You ain't gettin' nothin' outta me," she said. Inside, though, she was panicking. Her heart was racing and her throat was dry. She'd been questioned before. At just eleven years old, she was able to refuse to tell those few Saviors her name, even after one of them hit her. And in the woods, Beta was about to break her arm, and she wasn't going to tell him anything. She was good at this, but that didn't change how terrified it always made her feel.

Leah- or who Rosie assumed was Leah- sent a hard punch across Rosie's face. It stung, yeah, but it wasn't anything Rosie couldn't take. Leah smirked. She didn't necessarily like to torture people into giving her information, but it was always interesting to see who could take it and who couldn't.

"The boy is softer. He'll fold before she does," Liam told Leah.

She glanced over at him. "How do you know that?" Leah asked.

Liam shrugged. "Picked up on what I could on the way here," he said. Leah nodded, looking back at Rosie again.

Suddenly, the door to whatever room they were in creaked open, flooding the room with light. It was another person with black clothing and many weapons. He was tall and had dark hair. He looked threatening. Angry.

"Leah," he said. Rosie was right. The woman was Leah. She turned to look at him. "Pope wants you."

Nodding, Leah left out the door with the new guy, leaving only Liam and Rosie in the room. Liam turned back to Rosie the second the door shut. "You have to answer their questions, Rosie, or shit's gonna get a lot worse," he said quickly and quietly.

"I know it's gonna get worse. I don't care," Rosie said. She didn't care how bad it got. She wasn't about to rat out her family. She had already let so so many people die, and she wasn't going to let anyone else die.

"No, Rosie, listen. Shit is gonna get bad. Daryl's here," Liam revealed.

Rosie's eyes widened instantly. Daryl got caught. He was there, too. He could get hurt, too. "What has he said? What- what about anyone else?" she asked.

"He's saying he doesn't know any of you," Liam said.

"And you're not gonna tell 'em he's lyin'?" Rosie asked hopefully. God, lying was hard, especially when not everyone knew exactly how to lie or what to lie about.

"Not gonna tell them as long as you don't tell them anything about me," Liam told her.

And Rosie was fine with that. She didn't have a reason to fuck up Liam's relationship with these people right now, especially not if he was actually helping her. She hated his guts for what he did, and the bad part of her wished that he died the second he left Hilltop.

But the good part of Rosie understood Liam. After what he said about his dad, part of Rosie sympathized with him. She felt like he understood, even if he didn't fully understand. Just to know that he didn't just do what he did because he was a cruel person made it easier to want to forgive him. Rosie was an asshole to people, too, because of how she was treated at home and what she was taught. She couldn't exactly blame Liam for being the same way at times.

"She hurtin' him? Leah?" Rosie asked, her eyebrows pinched together.

"Not that bad. But they know each other," Liam said.

"What?"

"Daryl and Leah. They know each other somehow. I think they dated or something," Liam explained.

"No fuckin' way," Rosie muttered, letting out a deep sigh. Of course. Of fucking course this was the same Leah that Daryl had met in the woods. Why the hell wouldn't it be? Nothing could go right for them anymore, anyway.

"What?" Liam asked.

"Daryl did date a girl named Leah, but he never let me meet her. He never even told her I existed. It pissed me off, but now I'm startin' to get why, 'cause she's a fuckin' psycho," Rosie explained frustratedly.

"She's not crazy. You guys were the ones on our land," Liam argued, his eyebrows furrowed. These people were his family now. They weren't crazy. They couldn't be. They were just surviving.

"Does Daryl know I'm here?" Rosie asked, changing the subject back to what was most important, which was making sure that everyone else had a chance at being safe.

"Not yet," Liam told her. He planned on telling Daryl once he got a second alone with him.

"You can't tell him," Rosie said quickly. Liam furrowed his eyebrows with confusion. Why wouldn't she want Daryl to know that she was there? "He'll freak out and mess everythin' up. He can't know me or Ian are here. Ok? You won't tell him?" Rosie pleaded.

"What, so he'll have a better chance at escaping? I said I'd help you and I'd help Ian. I didn't say shit about helping Daryl," Liam said, shaking his head.

"If you tell Daryl I'm here, I'll tell Leah you been lyin' this whole time," Rosie threatened.

Liam huffed, pressing his fingers into his eyes. He didn't want to help Daryl. Hell, he didn't even really want to help Rosie or Ian, but he remembered walking along the sidewalks in Alexandria with them, and he remembered playing games with Ian, and he remembered sitting in the garage while his mom taught them all how to multiply and divide fractions. They were kids together, even if they didn't always get along. And there was a little soft part inside of him that wouldn't let him hurt the two. He just wanted them gone. Not dead, but gone from his life, so that all that weakness- that little soft spot- would be gone.

"Promise me."

He didn't really have a choice. So, "Fine. I promise," he said.

"Good."