Future Ghosts • TWD

147. The Bigger Person.

"No. No, no, no, no, no," Rosie muttered to herself over and over again as she stared into Negan's empty cell. He was supposed to be there. He was supposed to be there so Rosie could talk to him and so she could yell at him for telling Daryl what she said. But he was gone.

Maybe it was a good thing. If Negan was gone, at least the council couldn't vote to murder him for killing Margo. But, either way, he was gone. Rosie didn't want him gone, she wanted him there. Where she could talk to him, where she could see him. If Negan was gone, that meant Fraser was, too, and Rosie couldn't handle that.

Rushing up the stairs and back into the house, Rosie tugged on the roots of her hair. When she got inside, she went straight up to Daryl's bedroom and banged on the door, no matter what she said to him last night.

"Daryl!" she said, slamming the side of her fist against the wood over and over again.

After a moment, Daryl finally swung the door open, buttoning the last button on his shirt. "What?" he asked, obviously annoyed by the incessant knocking.

"Negan's gone. He's- I went down there and he's gone," Rosie explained quickly, her eyebrows pinched together. Daryl stared at her for a second, comprehending and thinking through her jumbled words, before stepping past her and hurrying down the stairs.

Rosie rubbed her face, standing still in her spot. What was she going to do now? Negan couldn't be gone. He couldn't be. Her head turned at the sound of a quiet inhale. Ian was in the doorway to his bedroom.

"What's going on?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"You were listenin'," Rosie scoffed, turning to follow Daryl down the stairs.

"Did you talk to Lydia?" Ian asked, following the girl down the stairs.

"Not since last night," Rosie answered, shrugging her shoulders. She probably should've gone looking for Lydia to make sure she was ok, but she panicked once she saw that Negan was gone.

"I heard you arguing with Daryl," Ian said. Rosie rolled her eyes. She definitely didn't want to talk about that. It was the very last thing wanted to talk about, in fact. She had kept her door open, just like she promised. It didn't make a difference, though. She wasn't gonna kill herself. "Is he still mad about it?"

"Don't know. Well, probably, but he feels bad gettin' mad at me, so he's pretendin' he's not. I bet he is, though," Rosie said, huffing out a sigh. She felt bad about what she said. That was supposed to be her apology for what she said before that. But it ended up even worse.

"You wanna go figure out what the hell's happening?" Ian asked, changing the subject much to Rosie's appreciation.

"Right after I go and kick Gage's ass," Rosie muttered, swinging open the front door.

Ian's eyebrows shot up, but then he just followed after her. "Mind if I join you?" he asked.

At first, Rosie was confused. "Thought Gage was your friend," she said, furrowing her eyebrows.

Scoffing, Ian shook his head. "He isn't. And he hasn't been for awhile. You'd know that if you weren't sitting around in your room all the time," Ian told her. Rosie rolled her eyes at him. She had had enough of people telling her to come out of her room more. "He said some shitty stuff about Maia a couple months ago," Ian explained.

Maia was the name of Ian's girlfriend from Oceanside. She'd come to visit a few times, and Ian had gone there a few times, too. So far, Rosie liked her. So hearing that Gage said shit about Maia, too, only fueled Rosie's fire.

"He's called me some shitty stuff, too. I didn't even know what some of it meant. Had to ask Daryl. I tried not to get mad and to be the bigger person or whatever nice people say, but now he's bein' shitty to Lydia, too, so I ain't just gonna let him keep gettin' away with it," Rosie ranted, working herself up more and more.