Future Ghosts • TWD

108. Changing, Healing.

"Let go a' me!" Rosie shouted at him, tugging herself away from him. He knelt down in front of her, still holding onto her.

"Cut it out," Daryl said, trying to get her to keep still. Rosie kept pulling away from him, but wasn't kicking or trying to hit him anymore. "This is hard for you, I know, but it's hard for everyone else, too. Ya can't be actin' like this."

"You don't understand," Rosie grumbled, starting to try and kick him again.

"Stop it. I ain't ever gonna understand if you don't calm the hell down and talk to me," Daryl told her, trying to stop her from both kicking him and hitting him at the same time.

"You didn't know him! I did! He was good! I know he was!" Rosie shouted, still fighting against Daryl. "He can be good again!"

"You need to quiet down. C'mon. We're not talkin' 'bout this here," Daryl said, standing up. He started pulling her towards one of the separate, closed-off rooms. Rosie tried to get away from him, but he wouldn't let her go. He didn't release her until they were in a different room and he was blocking the door. "You need to take a breather, Rosie. You're freakin' out," Daryl said to her once the door was closed.

"He can change! You changed! You said so! He can, too," Rosie said. She took a deep breath, trying to calm her racing heart. "He had a reason. He had to have a reason. 'Cause he helped me. You don't gotta kill him!"

"What about Ian or Maggie or Rosita? What about when they hear you sayin' that? You forget about what he did?" Daryl asked, his voice tense. He wanted to yell so badly, because it felt like the only way to express his frustration, but he didn't and he couldn't. Yelling at her would only make her angrier, and then all of this would be a waste of time. So he kept his voice as calm as he could manage.

"That wasn't really him!" Rosie argued. That wasn't Coach Smith. That was Negan. That wasn't who he really was.

"Yes, it was, Rosie. That was him," Daryl told her.

"He's just hurtin'," Rosie tried to reason with both herself and Daryl.

"Good people don't hurt other people just 'cause they're hurtin' on the inside," Daryl said, shaking his head at her.

"I did," Rosie said, a lump starting to form in her throat. She dug her nails into her palms. "I hit Carl when I was hurtin'. He said stuff 'bout my daddy and I hit him," she reminded Daryl. She'd actually done that twice. Once at the Atlanta camp and once at the farm. She hurt, so she made Carl hurt, too. And she'd done it at school, too. After Fraser died, she was hurting all the time, and she'd hurt other people when she got angry. Did that make her a bad person?

"That ain't remotely the same thing," Daryl told her, frowning. He wanted to sit down on the bed next to her and talk to her about this in an easier and more calm way, but he knew that if he got out of her way, she'd dart out the door in less than a second. He could see her leg bouncing and her eyes glancing at the door every few seconds. "You're a kid and David ain't never taught you any better. And hittin' someone isn't the same as killin' 'em. You know that."

"He doesn't know what to do. And he didn't know what to do then, either.... He's gotta have a reason," Rosie said, the lump in her throat making her voice get all wobbly.

"I know. I know you want him to be good. I was the same way with Merle," Daryl said. He hoped that if he told her he had once felt similar to how she was feeling now, then maybe she'd stop acting like he didn't know what the hell he was talking about. "It just ain't somethin' you can forgive."

Rosie looked down at her shoes, thinking about when Carl had given them to her. She sat down on the end of the bed and took another deep breath. "D'you forgive Merle?" she asked, looking up at Daryl with watery, blue eyes.