Future Ghosts • TWD

89. Rosie Starling.

Rosie wondered why. Why did Coach Smith- or Negan, rather- insist on keeping her in this room? Why did he do what he did? Why was he so angry? What could have happened? It felt like torture, being kept in that room. What she worried about more, though, was Daryl. Negan had taken Daryl, too. Rosie hadn't seen him since they took them inside and separated them. She could only imagine what they were doing to him. She wanted to help him, but she was just as stuck as he was.

Never in her life would Rosie have thought she'd be bothered by loneliness. All she used to long for was loneliness. She always wanted to be left alone, back before the end of the world. Even at the Atlanta camp, she isolated herself, but people never let her. So she'd never truly experienced this type of loneliness. There was really no one there. No one came to speak to her, no one came to entertain her, no one came to ask if she was ok, no one was there.

In the loneliness in which she found herself, squeezed into the corner of this small room- loneliness after months and months of constant togetherness, loneliness that could not be more absolute anywhere, either at the bottom of the sea or deep into outer space- Rosie lived only by her memories in the past. She found herself imagining she was crouched behind home plate, her baseball glove held open and ready in front of her, as she glanced over to first base, where Coach Smith stood with a somewhat proud expression on his face. Her imagination went back to when she met Coach Smith, to when he took care of her when her father wouldn't, to when he would check up on her after each practice, to her childhood, and she stayed there.

How could the man who just bashed in Abraham's and Glenn's skulls be the same man who let six-year-old Rosie stay with him when her father was high and/or out of his mind, or missing?

And why had he taken her if just to leave her alone in this room?

Rosie wasn't sure how much time had passed since she was torn away from Daryl; since she was patted down and searched; since she squeezed her eyes tightly shut and could only listen as the men stripped Daryl of all of his clothing and belongings and dragged him away; since she was dragged away into this cell herself. Whether it was morning or night, whether it had been days or hours since she knelt in the dirt, was irrelevant.

It was all the same: the images that flashed in her brain every time she closed her eyes; the sickening sound of the bat breaking Abraham's skull into bits and pieces right before Negan- not Coach Smith, they were not the same- made her show off her swing; the darkness of the van where the only thing that kept her grounded and conscious was the feeling of Daryl's arms wrapped around her; the silence of this god damn cell she was being kept in. Every thought and memory put a sick feeling into Rosie's gut. But none of it mattered. It would all lead to death, whether it be Rosie's or someone else's. So what did minutes, hours, or times of day matter for?

They didn't.

The only sound that Rosie could occasionally hear were the footsteps and murmuring voices from outside of the cell. Each time she'd hear it, there'd be a small flash of hope in her gut, only to be replaced by the crushing feeling Rosie couldn't put her finger on. Maybe it was hopelessness, maybe despair, maybe confusion, or maybe it was just the hunger. All Rosie knew was that she felt sick.

But this time, the footsteps stopped outside of the door. The flash of hope wasn't replaced by the sick feeling; it was replaced by terror. There were three light knocks on the door.

"Banks."

Coach Smith.

No, not Coach Smith. He wasn't Coach Smith anymore. He was Negan.

Yet the name had been so deeply rooted into her brain. Just like with her father- it didn't matter if she knew how evil of a man he was and how bad of a dad he was, he would always be Daddy in her mind, even if Daryl had started referring to him as nothing else but David. Negan, no matter how sick of a man he was, he would always be Coach Smith in Rosie's head. He taught her to swing a bat, how to catch a fly ball, how to steal a base, how to properly lead off. Not only that, but he took care of her. He didn't have to, but he did. Because he was a good man. He was.