"You can ask, but I promised I wouldn't say anything," Beth informed Daryl, picking at the strings of her bracelet around her wrist. "So, don't make me go back on that."
Daryl had never spent much time with kids before the fall. Younger ones, sure. They popped up on occasion with the men he knew. But families always split and he saw them grow up through photographs kept on fridges, the names tattooed to skin like a legacy.
He hadn't realized what it was like to be stonewalled by a pair of teenaged girls. Ivy and Beth ran circles around everyone, nearly oblivious to the circles Daryl, Glenn, and Maggie were trying to run around them to keep them contained. "I gotta know what's happening."
His mind was full of horrible scenarios, shadows of what it had been like in the aftermath of Woodbury. Ron was bigger than his daughter. Daryl had seen the boy with a pack of others, noted the way his hand caught the wrist of another girl in passing.
"Ivy picked me. And I picked her," Beth told him seriously, tilting her head slightly. The low light of the room made her look older; a girl plucked from a world of safety and thrown into a place where she had to fight her way out. "I can't tell you anything."
Beth had watched her father die badly. And then her entire world had been shattered, a pair of girl sprinting into the unknown. Whatever softness she had, it was matched by an undeniable streak of stubbornness.
"Then I guess Ron is gonna die," he informed her, sharp despite himself. "If you can't give me one good reason to keep him breathing."
Her blank expression faltered and he saw the nervous shift of her hands, mouth pressing into a firm line before breaking. "Ivy doesn't want you to know because you'll do something like that," Beth said, unintentionally giving Daryl a shred of raw truth. Something was happening that would set him off and they both knew it. "That's why we're being careful. I'm watching out for her."
"That so?"
"If it looks bad, I'll tell you."
"I bet."
"We keep each other safe," Beth's voice was as sharp as a knife. "I'm watching out. But right now, it's important to her that no one else knows."
The secrecy was a noose around his throat. Daryl wanted to throttle Abraham for teaching the girls how to write coded messages to each other, himself for pushing ASL so they could exchange clever little conversations without anyone knowing what was being said.
And he wanted to throttle Ivy for deciding to let Beth go free in Terminus and to fight until she was on the ground, giving the girl enough time to run as far as she could. They had picked each other; a strange pair of sisters forged out of danger and wariness, bleeding comfortably without ever knowing the damage. Beth wasn't going to betray her promise now.
"Stay on the couch tonight. No more running around for a bit," he said, trying to mask the irritation in his voice.
"It'll be okay, you know? I thought it wouldn't be safe again but we all found each other. We're safe because we're together. Alexandria... it's just a place. And places don't last forever," Beth said quietly. "But I remember everyone and how we got here."
The house had been falling apart, Daryl remembered, when he found Ivy. The metal roof peeled up like teeth, rusted and torn. A door hung badly from exhausted hinges. Whatever home it once was, it had died. And Daryl had walked away with a daughter, old life discarded in favour of pulling himself in the direction of a new horizon.
"Just sleep, Greene."
.
The one true perk of having a kid with hearing loss was that Daryl never had to worry about an aggressive knocking waking her up. It didn't disturb the girl on the couch either, Beth happily buried beneath a few layers of blankets and unmoving in the early hour.
He unlocked and swung the door open, barely sparing Glenn a glance as he moved to the side just so the man could see the tangle of blonde hair barely visible behind him. "Pair of 'em came in late last night. Caught them both in the hallway. Didn't want to send her home alone and I didn't want to leave the other one to walk her."
Relief hit Glenn hard. "Fuck, I miss group chats, man."
He stepped back so Daryl could exit the apartment, walking down the stairs together so they could sit on a metal bench in front of the building. "You good?" Daryl asked, easing a cigarette out of a fresh pack he had in his pocket. As an afterthought he offered one to Glenn who surprised him by taking it.
"Just... I woke up and she wasn't there. Freaked out. Maggie was gone with Tyreese for some farm supplies and I was supposed to keep an eye on her."
"I get it."
"How'd they bust out?"
Pete had locked the door tight behind him, rattling it to check that it caught. Ivy hadn't been up for lock picking that soon post surgery without someone holding her upright and Beth didn't strike him as being someone with proficiency for the trade. "I'd like to think that they didn't go out the window."
They absolutely had gone out the window.
Beth had hovered by the ground level window minutes before leaving and she must have unlocked it. It would have been easy to hop up the slight height and help another girl out.
"Her stitches hold up?"
"Yeah. Looked okay. I'll check again in a bit."
A flock of people were making their way down the street to one of the pantries and he recognized a few women from the bookclub Sasha had joined. They were swapping three copies of a book around and he had heard a few bicker over the wait to get their hands on it. "It's better, though, having her home?" Glenn asked, words catching at the smoke in the air.
Daryl had stood in the doorway of her bedroom a handful of times that night, relieved by her presence. "Yeah. Away from that prick."
"Talk to Abraham about it yet?"
"No. Gotta get started on that soon, though. He's starting to escalate. Bet he won't be a happy ray of sunshine today when he opens the door and finds her missing."
However long Pete had intended on keeping Ivy hostage in the clinic, Beth had neatly ruined his plot. It wouldn't take long before he made his opinion clear, though. But Daryl was selfish. It was better having Ivy home, better having her somewhere safe.
"Maggie doesn't know. Wasn't sure if we should tell her."
"But she knows something is happening, right?" Daryl asked, side eyeing the man. Maggie had a strange habit of keeping tabs on every single person in the group; aware that Rick and Carol had stolen a few guns, aware that Jessie's youngest son had been plied with a gun to keep his mouth shut about finding Carol breaking in, that something had sparked between Michonne and Tyreese, that something could be sparking between Carl and some girl in Alexandria.
Glenn's mouth turned into a small smile. "She's smarter than all of us put together."
They finished their cigarettes together and went back up to the apartment. Daryl snagged a bowl and filled it with peaches from a can before ducking into Ivy's bedroom to give Glenn some privacy with Beth. "Hey, you awake?" He called lightly as he sidestepped a sweater tossed on the floor, catching sight of a knife next to it.
He placed the bowl on the table beside the bed and gently pulled at the pillow. "Hey, you gotta wake up. Just for a minute."
Ivy mumbled something incoherent as she turned her face deeper into the pillow, one hand yanking the blankets up higher around her shoulder. When he tried jostling her lightly one finger made itself visible, a clear signal of annoyance that made him huff lightly, brushing her hair away from her face. "Not now," Ivy mumbled. "Tryin' to sleep."
Daryl placed a hand across her forehead, relieved by the lack of fever. "Hey," he warned her when she tried to push him away. "Should've thought about this before you broke out of the clinic. Up you get."
It took some effort to pry her upright, cautious of her side. "Can I go shooting," Ivy said, signing the words as she spoke, "With Abraham?"
"Maybe not today," he said dryly, adjusting her so she was propped up better. "Wanna check your stitches some."
Ivy sighed and pulled the edge of her shirt up to show the bandages. "They're fine. I was careful about it."
Bob would have to come over and take a proper look. In a few days someone would have to remove the bandages properly and while Daryl could, he would rather Bob do the work. "I'm sure you were careful climbing out a window at midnight," he snarked lightly, stretching for the bowl. "You need to eat something."
"No, thanks."
"Gotta take the antibiotics," Daryl said, pushing the bowl into her hands. "You can sleep after."
She made a face at the peaches. "Oscar liked this. It was always his favourite," she said.
Daryl was used to finding traces of their dead everywhere. He saw fragments of Hershel in Maggie as she coached the others into working the ground into gardens; life growing in a reflection of those fields the man once owned. Carl had Lori's quick smile and Judith was growing up with more features of the woman. He even saw bits and pieces of Merle between Ivy and Beth; the two girls forming silent agreements as easy as a pair of seasoned hunters. "He'd want you to eat them," Daryl said, making a mental note to pick something else up at the pantry. "Otherwise it'll just hurt taking those pills on an empty stomach."
She managed half the bowl before shoving it away, grimacing. "No more."
Someone knocked at the door and Daryl frowned, caught between responding and plying Ivy with an antibiotic. It was a surprise that she had even considered taking the bottles with her during her escape but it saved him time, twisting the lid off to push one tablet into her hand. The knock came again, louder.
"Hold on!" He barked, gently prying open her hand to place the pill.
Ivy cringed back, wincing at the movement. The pillow dropped and he fumbled for it, trying to sooth the flash of pain and panic. 'Someone's at the door', he signed badly, trying to keep her from flinching again. "Take this and go back to sleep," he said, trying to soften his annoyance.
He left the room and found Glenn at the door, greeting Deanna and Pete with a flare of annoyance. They looked surprised at his appearance at the door. "Your daughter is missing," Pete said from around Glenn. "I'd like to know how you managed to break into the clinic."
"Yeah, hi. That was me," Beth said from the couch. "I left the window unlocked and came back later when you were gone."
"So, you deliberately went around a medical professional's opinion? What if she got sick? Would it be funny if she died because you-"
"You're not speaking to her," Glenn reminded, voice cool. "Talk to me. Not her."
"There seems to be a situation," Deanna sighed, mildly exasperated. "Pete thinks you have your daughter living in a crack house."
The apartment was vaguely tidy. Daryl wasn't much for keeping up with things and neither was Ivy but they kept their mess largely confined to their personal spaces. Whatever Pete was hoping to find, it was largely absent. "Your man's got a lot of opinions."
Pete nodded, unconcerned by the dark look Beth was shooting him. "Your daughter was extremely sick when she came in. How long did you wait? I have reasons to suspect neglect."
"Said she didn't want to go to the clinic. Apparently, the guy in charge is an asshole," Daryl sneered, his hand brushing the hilt of his knife. "You this interested in all the girls here in Alexandria?"
"I noticed scars on her arms."
Not her back, Daryl noted. Those old scars would have been damning to contend with. They were a match for his own, the kind that came from a beating with a belt. "Kid's rough," he said sourly, hearing the same words the neighbours used to say about him to excuse the marks on his arms and legs, the bruises on his face. "And it's a rough world out there."
"You're a single parent household. I sincerely doubt that you're capable of handling the responsibility of raising a child."
"What, would it be better if Maggie and I took her?" Glenn interjected, face twisted into a sneer.
"I think you're both biased to this problem. I don't even think you've shown an ounce of personal responsibility in reigning in that one."
Beth's expression was a thundercloud. She got up from the couch and Glenn lightly stretched out an arm, guiding her over to him. "I think you should have better faith in people. Otherwise you'll be on the wrong side of it some day."
"You wouldn't believe how difficult it was to get a word from Ivy during her intake," Deanna said. "It was like prying teeth. All she would say was that her father was a good person. And I believed her. I think you're looking for problems where there aren't any."
"We can't take chances. Jessie and I've talked-"
"No," Daryl snapped. "We're leaving first."
"That's not necessary," Deanna tried, frowning.
"I want my patient back in the clinic for observation. Otherwise I'm calling for a town meeting," Pete said. "We know how it'll turn out. Based on character? A guy like Dixon compared to a surgeon? I'm part of this community. Your daughter hit my son. Did you know that? Did you discipline her for that?"
That was a new surprising detail that Daryl hadn't known. How long Pete had that crime tucked in his pocket, he had no idea. "She would've had her reasons," Daryl sneered. Ivy typically had a solid backing for her acts of violence. Her execution of Carlos had merely been restoring the scales of justice back in order. "And I'll have my reasons if you don't get the hell out of my apartment, you spineless weasel."
"Three days. I want her back," Pete informed Deanna before storming out, slamming the door loud enough that the entire apartment vibrated.
"Get out," Daryl seethed to Deanna, fighting the urge to hit something himself. "I ain't having this conversation."
"We don't separate children from parents. It isn't something that we've had to do. But, it was nice, wasn't it? Having a surgeon on hand to save your daughter? That appendicitis would have been a death sentence if you were out there. That's the kind of thinking that will have people swayed by Pete. You don't find a surgeon anywhere these days."
"So, what? Just hand her off to that jackass? Think that'll work out nice?"
"There's no way any of us will let that happen," Glenn cut in. "That's not how we work."
"Unless Pete stops this spiral, there isn't anything that can be done. We've kept the peace this long."
The peace was going to be broken soon enough.
"Get out," he snapped again, swinging the door open. Deanna departed with a sympathetic glance that had him bristling and Glenn and Beth followed her down the stairs. Once they were gone he locked the door and jammed a chair beneath the doorknob, bolting the place up secure.
He was learning all the wrong pieces to a story and Daryl needed to straighten everything out to learn the truth. Time was running out.
.
Of all ways to pick apart a stone wall to find the truth, Daryl was choosing to demolish it instead. Pete had given him three days and Daryl gave the man one in turn. Let him enjoy the sunlight of the summer day, the security of walls around him. It wouldn't matter in the long run.
Those things always failed.
Ivy had slept most of the morning and afternoon, burrowed deep in blankets. And he waited her out, patiently keeping an ear out for any movement. Their group gave the apartment a wide berth and he savoured the privacy; knowing the door was sealed and he was standing between her and any potential danger.
But eventually she emerged and caught sight of the chair wedged against the door, frowning. "What's going on?"
"We need to have a talk," he said and felt her sudden wariness from across the room. "Sit down."
She took a chair at the table, tracking him carefully. "Talk about what?"
"Ron."
"No."
He took a seat at the opposite end to create space between them, the buffer of safety. And then he took the metaphorical sledgehammer and drove it through the stone wall. "Don't bullshit me. I know somethings going on and you're going to start filling me in on it. Otherwise, good luck leaving this apartment before you're fifty."
"I don't want to talk to you about it," she said stiffly, shoving her chair back and moving to leave. But Daryl shook his head, fixing her in place with a look. "You won't like it. If I tell you, you'll go and do something about it."
"Well, at this rate, Ron's a dead boy. So you might as well tell me the specifics while you've got the chance."
"You're not going to kill him."
Oh, he was.
"I'm not telling you shit," Ivy frowned, fingers catching at her wrist and tugging at the old laces.
"Watch that mouth," Daryl warned her, considering her loose control on her temper. If he pushed hard, it could escalate into a new fight. Or they could iron out the entire situation at hand and save him stumbling in blind to a wall of grief. But she was tired; body still recovering. "This isn't finished yet. You're gonna sit here until you start talking."
"It's nothing! He's just some stupid boy. It's none of your business, honestly," she said, looking at the table to avoid his gaze. The lie was obvious. "Ron just has some crush and it'll go away."
Lie, liar.
"Seems like a hell of a lot of work, then. Harmless crush and you go around forging his signature for some missing guns?" Daryl pointed out. Nothing had been said about the stolen weaponry but eventually that mess would spiral out. If Beth and Ivy had done their work well, they would get away with the crime while Ron had to sum up what his name was doing on the paperwork.
"Yeah, well. I'm making a point. It's all under control, I'm taking care of it."
"Taking care of what? Don't know if you've forgotten, but you're the kid in this arrangement-"
"I can take care of myself!"
"Oh, no. This? This is listening time," Daryl snapped, earning a resentful look from Ivy. "You're the kid here. I look after you, that's the deal."
"But-"
"What'd I just say?"
Rage simmered clear as day from across the room.
"Someone's messing with my kid? I need to know what's happening. That's not up for debate. Do you understand?" Daryl demanded, lightly tapping his hand against the table. "Well?"
"If you're looking after me, who's looking after you? That's not fair. I need to do my part."
Oh, he thought. That hit him like an arrow to the chest. "You're not the parent here. My job is keeping you safe, protected. You? You come home at the end of the day. You stay in one piece. You tell me when there's a problem so I can deal with it."
"But if I told you, you'd do something about it," Ivy protested, shoulders hitching up protectively. "And if you do that, they'll kick us out and you want this place. I don't want to ruin Alexandria for you."
"Think I'd get caught?" Daryl frowned, folding his arms and leaning back in his chair.
"I don't know," Ivy ground out, frustrated. "But if I kept you out of it, there wouldn't be a risk."
"To hell with this place. You? You're done keeping secrets. No more."
"But, I need to-" Ivy started before he cut her off with a look. "It isn't fair."
"Try again."
She scowled.
Pete was prowling, looking for a chance to separate Daryl from Ivy. And Ivy was apparently bottling up secrets so deep just to keep him out of it. His world was confined to the walls of the apartment and wolves were scratching at the door, begging for a fight. "You ever have much luck keeping secrets from me? Or," he paused, tilting his head, dragging up an old hurt. "When I was keeping stuff from you?"
The Governor, Phillip. Everything had settled itself out and the man had returned from the nightmares, butchering a path straight through Ivy's trust.
Ivy looked away and Daryl knocked him knuckles lightly against the table to bring her attention back. "You're job is coming home. That's all that I want from you. Make my life easier if you're not keeping shit buried, though."
"I thought it was helping," she frowned. "I was being safe about it, though. I wasn't picking a fight or anything."
"Are you going to explain this whole thing?"
Ivy heaved a sigh before fidgeting, sorting through her options. "It isn't bad. Honestly. But, Jessie wanted Carl to meet Ron and his friends, but he didn't want to go alone. And Rick was making him because he likes Jessie."
That, Daryl thought, was a strike against Rick on this front. He would eventually catch up with the man and settle up some points with him. "So you and Beth went off with him?"
"Yeah. It wasn't great. But Ron... kept watching me? Later he kissed me and only stopped when I hit him-"
"Hold on," he practically snarled. "He came onto you like that? And you didn't want that?"
"No. Ron just did it. I hit him and found Beth and since then we avoid him," Ivy admitted, voice picking up a sour note. "Deanna's house is the tallest building in town so we climb up the trellis to get to the roof and hang out up there where he can't find us."
Well, Daryl suddenly had an understanding of how his daughter spent her day. "What else?"
"I don't- it isn't really bad. Like, it's basically nothing."
"I don't care. Tell me."
"There's a box beneath my bed," Ivy said, giving him permission to go looking. Daryl got up and left the table, coming around her side to skim his fingertips along her shoulder, a silent offering of slight comfort. She didn't flinch and the touch helped settle both of them for a moment.
There was a shoebox tucked out of sight and he had to stretch his arm out to snag it and pull it out. Curiosity got to him first and he opened it up, frowning at the sight of folded scraps of paper inside the box and started rifling through, drawing one out and reading it. And then he felt red rage burn through his veins, tasted the gasoline that came with it. "The hell is this?" He snapped, barely restraining himself from hurling the box across the room.
Ivy's bedroom was safe. He wouldn't disrupt the peace of it.
Either Ivy hadn't heard him or it wasn't audible to her ears. Daryl dug a little deeper and bit back the urge to curse. Daryl stormed from her room and back towards the table, holding the box tight. "This boy calling you a whore?"
"It's just a word," Ivy said plainly but Daryl could see old hurt glimmering in her eyes, the way one hand covered the scar on her wrist. "It doesn't mean anything at all."
"Oh, it means something. Sure as hell means something. He's threatening you."
"I was handling it, I was trying to keep it all okay."
"Hey, Alexandria? Means jack shit to me. I picked you. I don't give a damn how old he is. I will kill that son of a bitch," Daryl promised, embracing the searing heat of his anger. "You listen to me real close. That boy isn't going to be following you around and trying to grab you anymore. He doesn't get a pass."
The expression on her face looked brittle. "I didn't want you to worry about it. It's not... it's not before."
Ivy, drowning under a sea of depression that nobody could quite break. There had been odd glimpses of the girl pulling herself back to life but they had been infrequent; the slow healing of a soul Phillip had sliced open. Daryl wouldn't forget how helpless he had been to fixing the damage. How he had caused greater damage just from lying. "Yeah, I know. But you still should've told me."
Home was a graveyard. Wherever Ivy had come from, she had known it for the damage it caused. Daryl wouldn't tolerate Alexandria recreating the edges of her childhood, wouldn't allow it to take more from her.
"It doesn't feel fair that I can't look out for you. You're always... doing everything for me. I need to-" Ivy cut herself off, frustrated by the words that she couldn't quite summon. "If this place is what you want, I need to... not ruin it."
Daryl sighed. "Look, that's not how this works. Only thing I need from you is knowing you're alright. If we had to leave right now and forget about this place, that would be fine with me," he said, sharp with truth. The benefit to striking out on their own would absolutely be the absence of nosey neighbours. "You're not the parent here."
'Sorry,' Ivy signed, uncomfortable with the apology. "I just wanted to help."
Which was presumably why she hadn't just shot Ron herself. Ivy had a deft hand for violence, a Dixon trait adapted. But he appreciated the lack of a scene she had caused. "There's stuff happening that you don't need to know about yet and don't argue with me," he said, cutting off the temper that clearly was spiking from the other end of the table. "This part is my job to handle. I'll fill you in when it's settled."
"What are you going to do?"
"You attached to Ron?"
"No," Ivy said, shaking her head. "He's just like his dad. They both... they're the same colour of anger. Everyone can see it, they just don't care."
Because a surgeon was gold in the world was up in flames. Daryl had kept him alive primarily for Ivy's recovery. And she was sitting across looking fairly recovered; a surgeon no longer needed.
"Then he's not going to be around much longer."
Pete wasn't going to stop the path they were all shifting down. The power play was shifting across the board and the man recognized it; knew that his own importance was diminishing as people grew into roles. Daryl just needed to stop the spiral.
"Bob said you'd be down for a week or two? Consider yourself grounded," Daryl informed her. "You don't leave this apartment. You don't answer the door."
Eugene had been by, apparently, and had messed with the wires of the apartment, connecting the lights to a buzzer to catch Ivy's attention when she was in her room if someone stopped by.
"I haven't done-"
"Let's not go down that road," he warned her, tapping the shoebox. Until he had loose ends tied up, it would be safer to keep her in one place, not running off with a dozen different plans of chaos. The less Pete saw of her, the better Daryl's chances were of a clean kill.
.
Grounding, however, was largely spent watching movies and letting Ivy micromanage the positioning of stars to her ceiling. The fight had dissolved into a tense illusion of peace and Daryl kept his actions light, aware of her watching him for further punishment.
Maggie had been the one to discover the stars in the pantry and left them for him and they covered the space, little white shapes turning a faint green when he switched the light off. They helped give the room the illusion of permanence, a contrast to the books shoved into piles on the floor, a get-away bag packed beside the door.
Despite her effort to stay awake, Ivy nodded off in the evening with her book in hand, unaware of Daryl easing it away and marking the page for later, turning the lamp off. "Dream better dreams," he muttered lightly, sliding the book onto the night stand so she would see it first thing.
But then the silence was interrupted by a knock. He contemplated ignoring it but his agitation clawed restlessly at him, forcing him over to the door so he could force the chair away. "Who the hell is it?" He demanded, hand frozen at the latch. It was late. Night had fallen in a swift blanket across Alexandria and the only lights came from houses and street lanterns; patches of domesticity under a veil of starlight.
Pete knocking on his door would have been convenient.
"It's Gabriel. I have Beth with me."
He swung the door open instantly and saw the pair. Beth had blood splattered across her cheeks. "Ivy didn't want you killing Ron. So I killed him."