Future Ghosts • TWD

157. Ain't Kids No More.

Had humans always been so cruel or did the apocalypse make them that way? It was confusing because, in some ways, Rosie felt like she had more faith in the goodness of humanity only after the world ended. Because after the world ended, she found some of the greatest people that had ever walked the Earth- in her opinion at least. But there was still that darkness in the world. The bad. The people who slaughtered innocents. So did the end of the world make humans worse, or were they always so evil?

"The people that attacked us," Maggie went on to explain, "we only knew two things about them. They come at night, and by the time you see them, you're already dead. That was before we caught one. Daryl was with me. He came after us alone. Why? 'Cause there aren't that many of them. They're at Meridian now. There's plenty of food to feed Alexandria until we get this place back up and running again. That's why they took it. We just need to take it back."

"So, you're leaving to fight ghosts. That's the plan?" Aaron asked, unconvinced.

Rosie, however, had all the faith in the world that Maggie knew what she was doing. So, "I'll go with. I'll help," she offered.

"No," Rosita interjected, shaking her head. She turned to look at Maggie, and she seemed sympathetic, but just like Aaron, unconvinced. "Maggie, this sounds like a suicide mission."

Suicide. Rosie would never stop hating that word.

Especially in the phrase suicide mission. Because suicide was when people gave up. It was when they had nothing left they felt they had to fight for, so they gave up. And this mission wasn't because they were giving up. They had things to fight for; people to fight for. So it wasn't a suicide mission. Maybe a sacrificial mission, if they knew for a fact that they were going to die on said mission. But Maggie seemed convinced that they could beat these people, and if Maggie was convinced, then so was Rosie.

Daryl sighed, leaning back in his chair. "Well, if we don't have food, it's not gonna matter, anyway," he said. Rosie was glad that he agreed. She only hoped he wouldn't stop her from trying to help, too. "I'll go," Daryl said, standing up from his chair. And that only sealed the deal for Rosie. If Daryl and Maggie were going, there was no way she was staying back. "Anybody else?"

"I'll go," Ian offered, speaking for the first time in the meeting. A few others raised their hands, too. Gabriel and some of Maggie's people. Aaron, Rosita, and Carol, however, disagreed completely. They weren't going with.

"You're really gonna let these two go?" Aaron asked, gesturing to Ian and Rosie, who were heading outside. They paused, looking back at the mentions of them.

After chewing his lip for a moment, Daryl glanced at Rosie and Ian, and then back at Aaron. "They ain't kids no more. I can't make their choices for them," Daryl said.

Jesus, would he have liked to. He would have loved to tell Rosie and Ian to sit their asses down and play a card game or something instead. But they were stronger than they used to be. Hell, Rosie could shoot a crossbow just as well as he could. They were fighters, even if they weren't meant to be. And above everything else, they were do-gooders. They were good people who wanted to help, which should have been a fantastic thing. A parent whose child is both confident and kind has done their job well. But Ian and Rosie were both confident and kind, and it still felt awful to let them go out and do good things for people. Because their want to help people put themselves at risk and Daryl wasn't sure what he'd do if he lost Rosie.

Rick Grimes was one strong man, continuing on living after the death of his child. The death of his baby. Carl was, what, 15, maybe 16 when he died? Rosie thought about that a lot. She was now older than both of her big brothers.