Future Ghosts • TWD

104. Goodbye.

"Rosie, it's ok. It's gotta be," Carl said, keeping his voice calm. Rosie didn't understand how he could be so calm. She didn't understand why Siddiq was there. Siddiq killed him and he still helped him. She couldn't understand. "You need to be quieter, or they're gonna find us," Carl reminded her.

"He killed you. He should be dead!" Rosie shouted, finally looking over at Carl again. Seeing him just struck another knife through her heart. Siddiq was the cause of this knife in her heart, so she reached for her own knife, on her belt. "Rick shouldn't've shot over his head! He sould've killed him!" Rosie said, pulling her knife out of its sheath. Siddiq had put a knife through her heart, and now she would put a knife through his. 

"Daryl," Carl said in warning, his voice tense with worry, but still weak with his impending death. 

However, Daryl had already seen the action coming, so he didn't waste any time in grabbing Rosie's wrist and prying the knife out of her hand. She tried grabbing it back, shouting in protest, but Daryl wouldn't let her get at it. "No! Let me go! Let me go! He killed him!" Rosie shouted, trying to pull away from Daryl despite how many times he told her to stop, stop it, Rose, stop. 

Carl was dying, and watching Rosie's reaction only made him feel worse. Daryl could see it on Carl's face, on Rick's face, on Michonne's face, on Siddiq's face. 

"Let me go! Please, please, let me go! He killed him!" Rosie practically screamed. She struggled against Daryl's grip on her wrist, trying desperately to get her knife back. "No! Let me kill him! No!" she screamed out. Daryl wrapped his arms around her torso and picked her up. She kicked and struggled, screaming "no!" over and over and over again. Daryl's hand pressed against her mouth to stop her screaming, but she didn't stop. She kept screaming into his hand.

Daryl carried her to a different part of the sewer, where it was just him and her with no one else. He set her down in front of him, holding onto her wrists firmly as she tried to get away from him. "Rose-" Daryl started.

"No!" she let out one last agonizing scream of heartbreak and anger.

"Rose, you have to stop screamin'. Please," Daryl said, moving his hands off of her wrists and up to her shoulders. As soon as he let her hands free, they went up to her hair, tugging on the roots as she squeezed her eyes shut tight. "Stop, stop, stop," Daryl murmured, trying not to get frustrated, sad, and angry himself. He pulled her hands away from her hair and held them down at her sides for a moment. 

Rosie's chin dropped down to her chest, still squeezing her eyes shut. Luckily for Daryl and everyone else hiding in those sewers, she had stopped her screaming. She couldn't hide her sadness with anger anymore, because Daryl wouldn't let her. Seeing her like this- seeing her lose another big brother- struck a hole through Daryl's chest. But he couldn't even imagine what Rick must've been feeling. Just seeing Rosie cry like this tore apart Daryl's insides, but to look at her and know that she was dying? To know that this was his kid's last day on earth? Rick must've been crumbling on the inside. 

"I don't- I don't know what to do," Rosie managed to say in between the sobs that tore through her body. Daryl didn't know what to tell her. There was nothing she could do. Carl was going to die, and there was nothing she could do. Rosie's arms wrapped around her abdomen, squeezing herself tight as some way of trying to comfort herself. She'd done the same thing when David had placed her outside of Fraser's bedroom, pleading for her to stay there. That time, she was left with no one but herself. This time, however, Daryl was there, and he saw this desperate attempt to comfort herself, just like he had seen it when they were in Fraser's bedroom back at her house. 

Daryl pulled Rosie towards him, hugging and comforting her the way Rosie had been trying to hug and comfort herself. When Fraser died, she was all alone. But she didn't have to be alone anymore. So she cried and cried and cried until she was all empty and the black fabric that covered Daryl's shoulder was soaked with her tears.