The drive was long. Long and extremely boring. No one did any talking until they finally reached Reston.

"Alright, Rosie. Do you know how to get to your house from here?" Rick asked when they got into town. Rosie kneeled in her seat, looking out the window. She didn't see anything she recognized all that much. She wasn't sure yet.

"Keep drivin' around 'til I see somethin' I know," Rosie said, keeping her eyes wide open. She felt very anxious, being here at home again. You wanted this, she reminded herself.

Daryl looked back at Rosie in the rear view mirror. He hated that they had to come here. He hated that Rosie had to come with to show them where to go. He hated it. He knew- no matter what Rosie said or did- he knew that this was going to be bad for her. This was only going to reinforce all of the bad memories of her father and her brother, and all he wanted to do was erase them.

They drove on for a few more minutes, passing a church and a two schools, watching as the houses changed from being big, beautiful houses to shitty ones. It was obvious that the shitty houses weren't well taken care of, even before the fall. Whatever neighborhood they were driving through, it was clear that this was the poorer side of town. The sidewalks were almost all cracked and the streets were full of potholes.

Rosie suddenly perked up in her seat. "That's Coach Smith's house!" she said, pointing out the window. She wondered if he was still there, but she knew that if he was still there, he would've died, so he must've left.

"Do you know how to get home from here?" Rick asked her.

"Yeah," Rosie said. She moved to the middle seat, leaning forward in between the two front seats. "You go left here, I think," she said, pointing to an intersection. Rick went left, and she pointed way down the street. "Then you go right after three stop signs," she said. Bringing her arm back down, she accidentally bumped her hand on Daryl's arm, and quickly retracted it. "Sorry," she mumbled out.

"Is it on this street?" Rick asked after he turned right at the third stop sign. Rosie looked out the window again and nodded. "How far down?" Rick asked.

"At the end. It's the second house on the left closest to the dead end," Rosie answered. Rick continued on driving down the street, and Rosie was finally able to see her house. It was really there. She was really there. Her stomach started to hurt as Rick finally pulled into the driveway. Rosie hurried out of the car and made a beeline for her bedroom window. Without explaining what she was doing, she climbed through the window, which was just barely cracked open before she opened it wider. Her feet planted on the hardwood floor of her bedroom.

Staring at her shoes for a moment, Rosie took a deep breath. She looked around her room for a moment. She wanted to come here. She wanted to go home. But now she was home, and she still wanted to go home. She still felt homesick. It didn't make sense.

Just another house, Rosie reminded herself. She left her bedroom and went down the hall, turning into the living room to go to the front door. She unlocked it and pulled it open, and Daryl and Rick were on the outside, both of them looking pissed off.

"You can't do that shit without tellin' us," Daryl snapped at her. Rosie chewed on the inside of her lip.

"Sorry."

"Whatever," Daryl grumbled, passing her to go inside.

The front door opened into the living room, which had an old, brown couch, a cheap coffee table found on the side of the road with an ashtray on it, and a dresser with a small flatscreen TV placed on top. There were also some shelves that held normal things like CDs, books, and movies. The living room made it look like any other house. Nothing was really out of the ordinary.

The living room was connected to the kitchen. The kitchen had a small table that was covered with cups and cans and bottles and other dirty dishes. On the counter, there were a lot of papers and unopened mail, along with some more cans and pill bottles. There were some other random items scattered around, but none of it really mattered. The only things they would need out of the kitchen were food and water.

Rosie went further into the kitchen and grabbed a pencil from a cup on the counter before dropping down to the floor. She slipped her boots off of her feet and stood back up. She went over to Daryl and held the pencil out to him. He had no clue what it was for, but took it anyway. Rosie walked over to the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. She pressed her back up against it and stood as tall as she could. Daryl stared at her, confused. She pointed to his right hand, which held the pencil she had given him, and then pointed to the wall right above her head.

That was when Daryl realized what she was doing. She wanted him to mark her height on the wall. He had a strange feeling in his chest that he never had before, but stepped closer to her with the pencil anyway. Rosie stood up tall, looking somewhat proud, and Daryl marked a line above her head. She stepped away and took the pencil from his hand before writing something next to the line.

Rosie, 11 maybe, Daryl read.

Rosie walked away from the wall to put her boots back on, but Daryl just kept staring at it. The mark he had just made on the wall was the only one higher up. All the others were pretty low to the ground. The highest one, aside from the one they just made, was marked, Rosie, 12-5-2007. Only a couple inches off the ground, though, there were messily written names, almost unreadable. Jessie, Lucy, and Bear, Daryl managed to figure out.

These are for toys, he realized. He tried to imagine it; Rosie, smaller than now, crouched down on the floor, measuring the height of a stuffed bear. After everything he had seen that kid do, it was hard to imagine her so small and doing something so childish and innocent. It made him miss the prison, because there, she could draw on the ground with chalk and play with whatever dinosaur toys she had. But it wasn't like that anymore.

He stared at the marks on the wall, his heart throbbing against his ribs, until he felt a tug on his shirt. He turned around to see Rosie, pencil in hand. She pointed at the wall and dragged a chair up next to Daryl. He was confused at first. "Put your heels back," she said.

She's measuring my height on the wall?

Daryl complied. He leaned his head back and felt the pencil brush against his scalp as Rosie made his mark on the wall. His mark was now the closest to the top.

Daryl, Rosie wrote. She didn't know how old he was. She didn't even have a ballpark estimate. So she didn't write anything but his name.

Rosie climbed down off of the chair and returned the pencil to the cup.

"Come on," she said to Daryl, and to Rick, who was looking through the cabinets. She began walking back to the living room. At the back of the living room, it branched off into a hallway. There were four rooms off of the hallway.

His crossbow raised in case of a walker, Daryl opened the first door. He lowered his weapon as he saw the room was empty. He didn't expect there to be any walkers, considering the front door was locked and closed, but he could never be too careful. Daryl looked into the bedroom. On the wall were two pictures of babies, lined up next to each other. Rosie stayed in the doorway. She wasn't allowed in there.

"Which one's you?" Rick asked her, standing behind her in the hallway as he looked into the room.

Rosie pointed to the one on the right. "That one's me. Fraser's the other one. He said my momma hung those up. Guess Daddy didn't bother takin' 'em down after she left."

Daryl stared at the picture on the right. That was Rosie? The baby's eyes were wide and dark and its hands were up in the air. He looked away from the pictures.

"Do you know where he kept his guns?" Rick asked, joining Daryl in the room. Rosie nodded.

"I think he had one under the bed, and another in the dresser. There's some in the shed, too, and bullets," Rosie said, wringing her hands together behind her back.

Rick and Daryl continued to look around the room, but Rosie stayed in the doorway. There was a dresser against the wall with various pill bottles and papers on the top of it. There were clothes hanging out the drawers, the bed was unmade, and the closet was wide open, but empty. What caught Daryl's eye was what was on the bedside table. Aside from a box of condoms, the only thing on the table were specks of white powder, probably left over from a line. "Jesus," he whispered to himself.

God, he hated himself for ever thinking of David as something similar to a friend, back at the Atlanta camp.

Rosie was still standing in the doorway, staring at her feet as she kicked her right foot into the side of her left foot absentmindedly. Daryl turned to look at her, raising his eyebrows. "Not allowed in here?" he guessed.

Looking up at him, Rosie bit her lip. "Yeah," was all she said before turning and disappearing into the hallway. Daryl followed after her.

The next room had no door. Daryl watched as Rosie walked right into it. It was a pretty small room. In the corner, there was a mattress with a green blanket and a single white pillow.

Above the bed were two pictures taped up. One was a photo of a younger looking Rosie. She was sitting on the shoulders of a teenaged boy with blonde hair, smiling wide. The other photo was of a man with dark brown, grayish hair and a clipboard in his hand, crouched down next to Rosie, who was dressed in a baseball uniform and held a baseball with small letters on it. ROSIE, 6-11-09, GAME BALL, he read.

Rosie stared at the pictures for a moment, too, before looking away with her eyebrows furrowed.

The bed was unmade. Next to the pillow, there was one teddy bear, one dinosaur stuffed animal, and a cowgirl doll with red yarn hair that Daryl recognized from some kids movie. Rosie picked a bag up off of the ground. It was a plain backpack, very different from the space themed one that got left behind at the prison, and she wasted no time stuffing the items on her bed into the backpack.

Next, Rosie went to her closet, which also had no door. She crouched down to the floor and pulled a Ziplock bag full of pistachios out of the corner. "Snuck these in here a couple days before we left," she said, holding the pistachios up to Daryl. He took them and stuck them in the side pocket of the backpack on his back.

He looked around the room a bit more. He knew there probably wouldn't be much to take from in here, but he was curious. The room was considerably empty, but on the windowsill, there were a plethora of different kinds of rocks Rosie had collected, along with a clear container filled with cicada shells. There was also a paper boat on the floor next to a baseball glove. This was weird to see.

In the corner, there was a dresser with an open notebook on top. Daryl looked at the notebook. It was filled with drawings of different animals and bugs, and a lot of dinosaurs. He flipped to the page before that one. It was a page full of long multiplication and division. He flipped to the page before that one. It had a bunch of different words listed on the page, and at the top, the page was labelled spelling words. He sighed and chewed his lip for a moment before closing the notebook.

Rosie sat on the edge of her bed, fidgeting with her hands in her lap, as Daryl continued to look around the room. She thought she'd like coming back here, but she hated it. A ball had formed in her throat, but she was determined not to cry. It's just like any other house.

In order to stop thinking, Rosie went to her closet again. There were only about ten t-shirts inside, and only two pairs of pants. There was a box at the bottom of the closet with a few pairs of socks. On the floor, next to the box, there was a pair of off brand purple Converse and a pair of baseball cleats. Rosie took her baseball jersey off of the hanger and shoved it into her backpack, along with two other t-shirts that were hung in her closet. Then she crouched down to the ground and pulled a cap out of the box on the floor. She stuffed that into her bag, too.

"Hey, Rosie," Rick said from the doorway, making both Rosie and Daryl turn to him. "Wanna show me where that baby stuff is?" he asked. Rosie nodded and got up to lead Rick and Daryl down the hallway. They went into the kitchen again, and Rosie opened a door that was in the corner, revealing a dark staircase.

"I don't got a flashlight," Rosie said, turning back to Rick and Daryl. Rick pulled a flashlight out of the bag on his back and handed it to her. Together, they all descended down the stairs, into the dark basement. She pointed the flashlight to the back left corner, revealing a stack of blue storage boxes. "In those," she said.

"Thank you," Rick said, giving her a smile. Rosie didn't return the smile, she only handed him the flashlight and turned herself around, about to go back upstairs. "You don't care what I take?" Rick asked.

"Don't care," Rosie replied before hurrying back up the stairs.

Daryl stayed downstairs with Rick, helping him go through the boxes. "Did you know she got expelled from school?" Rick suddenly asked, looking over at Daryl, whose eyebrows pinched together.

"What?" he asked.

"There was an expulsion notice letter open on the dresser in her dad's room. Apparently she had too many 'violent outbursts'," Rick said, his eyebrows raised. Daryl scoffed. "If only they actually looked into it, figured out why. Maybe they could've helped."

"School system was fucked, jus' like everythin' else," Daryl responded, pulling a stack of blue and green onesies out of the box. Rosie had worn those. Everything in this house was making him either sad, pissed off, or anxious. He hated this. He hated it.

"I don't know if it's best for her to be alone up there," Rick said, nodding his head up to the ceiling. That was code for I think you should go make sure she's ok. So, Daryl nodded, set down the baby things that he was holding, and started making his way up the stairs, leaving Rick alone in the basement.

When he got upstairs, he stayed in the kitchen, searching through the cabinets. He found a few cans and bags of chips, along with, for whatever reason, a big bag of rice. There were two jugs of water left out on the counter, but that was about it for drinks- unless they wanted to dehydrate themselves by chugging about fifty beers, because those were the only other drinks in the house.

"Daryl," Rosie's quiet voice said, almost startling Daryl. He turned to see her standing in the doorway to the kitchen, wringing her hands together. "Can ya help me with somethin'?" she asked nervously.

"Yeah. What?" Daryl said. Rosie didn't say anything, she just waved her hand towards herself and started walking down the hallway, so Daryl followed. Rosie stopped at a doorway at the very end of the hallway. She didn't step into the room, she only leaned against the wall outside.

Rosie looked up at Daryl. Her eyes were glossy- wet with tears that she refused to let fall. "Can you get the green hoodie in the closet?" Rosie asked, pointing to the closet in the bedroom.

Confused as to why she couldn't just get it herself, Daryl tried looking around the bedroom for an explanation. The walls were a light gray color, and there was a bed in the corner. This bed had a frame, and the blue bedding was set neatly on top of the mattress, untouched. Next to the bed was a small nightstand. On the nightstand, there were a few guitar picks, a pen, and a copy of The Catcher in the Rye. Across from the bed, there was a dresser. The drawers were all neatly shut, probably filled with clothes. On top of the dresser was a record player, along with a few records; Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys. Next to the dresser, a guitar was propped up against the wall, and next to the guitar was a beat up skateboard.

This room was weird. It was clean and organized, like no one had been in there in a long time. Daryl looked around it a little more, and found a few pictures hung up and actually framed. One was of a blonde little boy holding a baby. Then there was the blonde boy, but younger, with a big, toothy smile, standing next to a pretty woman with long, blonde hair. Then there was the blonde boy, much older now, standing with a group of teenagers. In the photo, he was wearing a green hoodie.

"Can you get it, please?" Rosie asked from the doorway, her voice high-pitched and shaky. Her body was craving a hug. It was so weird. Two years ago, when she was nine, she thought crying was weak and stupid, and if someone tried to hug her, she would push them away, thinking it was weird. But now she was standing there in the doorway, on the verge of tears, and her body was screaming at her for a hug. She scrunched her face up, fighting the tears, and wrapped her arms around her abdomen, hugging herself.

Daryl stared at her for a moment, his chest hurting. He went further into the room, closer to the closet. He pulled the green hoodie off of the hanger and held it loosely in his right hand. It only hit him then that this must have been her dead brother's bedroom, and he suddenly felt terrible. She was so close to breaking down and crying, Daryl could see it on her face, and he was the reason she was holding it in. Because he told her that it didn't matter anymore. He felt like a piece of shit, and he had no idea how to fix it. Hesitantly, he handed the hoodie over.

Rosie held it in her hands, staring at it with her face all scrunched up. "It doesn't matter," she whispered to herself as she pulled the hoodie on over her too-big t-shirt. It was much too hot to be wearing a hoodie, but she didn't care. "It doesn't matter," she whispered again, biting down on her bottom lip so hard that it drew blood.

We go there, none of the shit that happened there before matters. That's what he told her. That's what he said to her. Fuck.

She wrapped her arms around her stomach again, but it wasn't making that burning feeling go away. Her body was still screaming at her. She stared down at the ground, her hair falling over her face to hopefully hide the fact that she was trying so damn hard not to cry. It wasn't working.

"This was his room," Daryl finally said out loud. Rosie nodded.

"He died when I was little, and I thought that was it, at least 'til I got big, but now everyone's dyin'," Rosie said, her voice breaking into a whisper by the time she reached the end of her sentence. She squeezed herself harder, tilting her head down lower. "T-Dog, he... I saw.... And Hershel... and- and now Beth," Rosie whispered out. She snapped her mouth shut as soon as she said it, regretting it immediately. Her head lifted, looking up at Daryl with wide eyes.

Don't talk about Beth, don't talk about Beth, don't talk about Beth. Stupid.

Daryl's eyes were wet now, too, and it was her fault. He was staring down at her, and his face was starting to scrunch up, and it was her fault. Rosie squeezed herself even tighter, dropping her head again. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," she said quickly, her voice weak.

Rosie squeezed her eyes shut, and the tears started slipping through. It was too much. Everything was too much. This was stupid. She shouldn't have come here. She wanted to go home, but now she was home and she still wanted to go home. It didn't make sense. Everything. Everything burned. Her stomach, her nose, her cheeks, her ears, her eyes- everything.

Then she felt a hand on her shoulder and flinched, not expecting it. Her eyes shot open. Was it a walker? No. Daryl was knelt down in front of her, and he pulled her towards him, wrapping his arms around her. Rosie's face scrunched up again and she finally started crying, wrapping her arms around his neck. Daryl squeezed her tight, and instead of Rosie burying her face in his shoulder, this time, Daryl buried his face in her shoulder, trying to hide the fact that he was crying, too. For the first time since the hospital, they were hugging. And, God, did they need it.

Even though he was trying to hide it, Rosie could tell that Daryl was crying. His back was shaking slightly, and his tears were soaking through the fabric on her shoulder. Rosie squeezed him tighter. She didn't know what to do when people cried. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I'm sorry you're sad. I'm sorry bad things keep happenin'," Rosie sniffled out.

"Me too," Daryl whispered out. Rosie put her hand on the back of his head because he'd done that to her before, and it made her feel better. She wasn't sure if it would work, though. She wasn't good at this. When she did it, it seemed like Daryl cried even harder, and she didn't know what to do.

"I'm sorry I don't know how to make you feel better," Rosie told him before sniffling.

"You do," Daryl replied, his voice broken.