Daryl had never known what it felt like to have a family—not the kind that loved you no matter what, that saw you through the hard days without asking for anything in return. But then he found her. She was two, abandoned in the wreckage of a world gone to hell, wide-eyed and small, clinging to the remains of a life she couldn’t understand. And somehow, in the chaos of it all, she became his.

Now, at seventeen, she was no longer the scared little girl who had tugged at his sleeve for comfort. She had grown into someone he barely recognized sometimes—someone fierce, independent, full of life and energy. But there was still a softness to her, something that reminded him of the child she used to be. She had always been his, even though she wasn’t born to him.

Daryl was sitting on the porch of the Hilltop house, the same one they’d found refuge in countless times before. Dog lay at his feet, curled up in the sun, keeping watch as if it was his job. The wind carried the sounds of people bustling in the background, but here, in the quiet moments with his daughter, everything felt still, almost peaceful.

She was up on the roof, fixing something or other—she always had her hands in something, whether it was mechanical or medicinal. She was like that, determined and steady, just like him.

“Don’t fall,” he called up to her, though he wasn’t sure she could hear him.

“I won’t!” she yelled back, a laugh in her voice that made him feel something settle in his chest.

He didn’t say it, but he was proud of her. Proud of how much she had grown, how she’d become someone who could stand on her own. She had a strength that came from surviving, and from knowing the value of what it meant to hold on, to care for those around you.

Dog let out a low growl, his ears flicking. Daryl stood and made his way to the fence, scanning the woods beyond the Hilltop. There were always threats lurking in the distance. But with his daughter at his side, and Dog ready to fight if necessary, Daryl felt something he hadn’t known in years: hope.