"Dad!" I call as I run – alright, stomp – down the stairs of this strange big house that is supposed to be ours, fire licking its way up my arm because I haven't learned that clenching my fists – at least both of them – is not something I can do anymore. I spin around in the middle of the kitchen. "Dad? Rick?"

I hear Owen clomp down the steps behind me. "You're being very childish about this."

"This is not childish! This is sanity!"

He lifts his eyebrows, hands in his jacket pockets as he falls against the wall. "Oh, yes, you're the picture of sanity. Please scream some more."

"Shut up. Dad!"

Across the living room, the front door opens and Dad strides in, his crossbow in hand – not aimed at anything, but ready to be. Leah follows him, fast enough for her hair to fly behind her like she's the heroine of an action film.

Why were they out there together? Alone?

Not important right now. Focus.

I point at Owen as they come towards us. "Did you know about this?"

Dad's eyes dart between Owen and I. "'Bout what? What's goin' on?"

"Deanna gave Owen a job. He spoke to her, and she agreed to give him a job instead of him having to go to school."

"I might here point out that she only agreed after discussing it with Rick," Owen says. "So, if I needed anyone's permission . . . you know, granted."

"He's going to go outside the walls. On runs. With Glenn. And Tara and Noah."

"Which sounds like a safe enough group," Owen says.

"Shut. Up."

"Syd," Dad says, drawing my attention. He licks his lips and nods once. "We know about this. Alright? Rick talked to us before he gave Deanna the okay."

"I . . . What?"

"Could I have a list of people apparently in charge of my life?" Owen mutters. "I'm starting to lose track."

"Owen," Leah says. He waves a hand and stops talking.

I stare at my father. "Are you . . . Owen isn't even three years older than me. One year older than Carl! If we don't get jobs –"

"It's not about age," Leah says. "There are other factors here."

"Like what?"

"Like there are fewer people to miss me if I were to die," Owen says.

"There are plenty of people who would miss you," Leah says. "That's not what this is about."

"Well, what the hell is it about?" I ask.

"Sydney, calm down," Dad says.

"No! This is Owen's life! If he's going out there risking it, again, I'm not going to go sit in a classroom learning about fractions and Columbus and gravity!"

No matter how much I want to.

Owen shoves off the wall. "This has been fun, and Sydney . . . I appreciate your concern. But I gotta go. Glenn and the others and I, we're meeting with some of the people here who already do this kind of thing. Should be a good time." He pops his collar and looks at my father and Leah. "I don't know why Rick thought he had to talk to you about this, but – whatever. Thanks for telling him whatever you told him." His eyes come back to me. "See you later." Then he's heading for the front door. I listen to his boots fall and fall and fall. The door swings open, I feel a touch of fresh air, and it closes softly. And Owen's gone.

"This isn't fair," I say. "If he's doing this –"

"You ain't gettin' a job, Sydney," Dad interrupts.

"It makes no sense for Owen to have one while I – while Carl and I – don't! While we go to school – school!"

"You want that," Dad says. "We both know you do. Owen doesn't."

"Sydney," Leah says, speaking in an annoyingly gentle voice. "Alexandria is a big adjustment for all of us, and if I thought it would help Owen to go to school with you and Carl, I would be the biggest advocate for that. But I just don't think it would do him good. Not right now. Right now, I think he needs to take this slow, I think he needs to feel – like he still has control. Like he isn't . . . bound to this place yet. He needs to spend time outside of the walls. He needs to feel helpful."

"And I don't?"

"Nobody here's been more ready to give this place a shot than you," Dad says. "You're more at home than any of us."

"Oh, why, Dad, because I took a shower? Just because that's a step you can't bring yourself to take –"

"Okay, okay." Leah edges herself forward, just inches away from being in between Dad and I, as Dad takes a half-step towards me, his jaw working. I cross my arms. "These past couple of days have thrown a lot of huge changes our way. We're all handling it however we can, all of us, everyone in this group. Sydney. I know this doesn't seem fair, and I know you're worried about Owen. But I watched that boy grow up. I know him. I care about him. Please believe that I wouldn't be letting him do this if I didn't think it was in his best interest."

You watched me grow up, I want to snap. Scream. You knew me, you cared about me, but you damn sure put me through a lot of shit that wasn't in my best interest.

But nothing good can come of that. And Leah, I know, is not that woman anymore – LC. LC is packed away somewhere inside of her, sure, but right now, Leah Cartwright is Leah Cartwright. And she does, I know, care about what's best for Owen.

And for me.

But still . . .

"I don't agree with this," I tell her.

"You don't gotta," Dad mutters, at which point Leah puts a hand on his arm. I stare at that hand. It makes my dad go quiet.

"What were you two talking about?" I find myself asking. "Why were you out on the porch alone?"

They look at each other. Leah's hand falls. Dad says, "We were just talkin', Sydney."

"Daryl," Leah whispers. My arms are still crossed. My good hand clenches my bicep, hard enough to maybe bruise.

"It can wait," Dad tells her.

"But maybe it shouldn't."

"Could I be included in this conversation, please?" I say through clenched teeth.

They don't break eye contact right away. They keep right on with their wordless conversation, and do so for all too long, before Dad finally turns to me, "Leah spoke to the doctor today. About some stuff for you."

"For my hand?"

"Nah. For . . . to make you feel better. To . . . clear your head."

It takes a second for me to work through that, but once I do, once the answer is clear to me, I laugh a laugh that in another world I would have sworn was my Uncle Merle's. "What, like . . . antidepressants? Or what?"

"Alexandria has a good stock of meds, Sydney," Leah says. "It's so lucky, it really is."

"Great. You should help yourself."

"Sydney, damn it, that's enough with the attitude," Dad growls.

Leah purses her lips, but her head is turned towards Dad more than me. "If I thought I needed them," she says, "I would ask for them. But I don't, not right now – and I'm not sure you do either, honey, I didn't get any for you. I just wanted to know that – that there was that option if things . . . if you felt you could use the help."

"Did they ever help you?" I snap.

"Some of them did. Sometimes. Lithium, more than anything else."

"Well –" It clearly never worked well enough. But no. No, I won't say that. I won't start that. Not now, in this nice house, at this nice maybe-beginning of something great, of a wholesome, safe life in Alexandria. We won't do this now.

Maybe someday.

"If you didn't get any meds for me," I say, working to control my voice, "Why are we talking about it?"

Leah takes a deep breath. "When I talked to the doctor – to Pete – he told me that . . . there's a psychiatrist here. Her name is Denise –"

"No."

"Sydney, hear me out."

"No. No way in hell. You want me to see a shrink?"

"Sydney, therapy has been tested and proven time and time again to do such good things for some people –"

"There is not a person alive anymore who couldn't use some sort of therapy! I'm not that special! If you think therapy's such a good thing, why don't you go see her?"

"Because," Leah says, and God, her voice is so calm . . . I wish it weren't. I wish she would just start yelling, so I could yell back. Well, yell back louder. "It's probably not the best idea for you and me to form such a . . . confidential relationship with the same person. I don't think you would trust her completely if she were . . . mine as much as she was yours. So, I would rather her just be yours."

"I don't want her. I'm not going."

"It's just an idea, Sydney. I was just telling your dad so he could think about it. Now you can, too."

"I don't need to think about it." I try to catch my father's eyes, but they're on the floor. "Neither do you, Dad. Come on. You can't think . . ." I laugh again. "Therapy? Seriously?"

Dad keeps grinding his jaw. He bites a hangnail off his thumb. Finally, "Don't know," he says. "Think it's worth thinkin' 'bout." He shrugs. "What could it hurt?"

"You . . . you don't even like this place!"

"That ain't true."

"Well, you don't trust it! We've barely been here two days, and you want me to go meet with a stranger and tell her my life story? Tell her about all the things we've seen, and been through – tell her what's happenin' in my head? I don't even tell you that!"

"Yeah, Syd, I'm aware. That's why I think it's worth thinkin' 'bout."

"You . . ." But I don't know where I'm going with that. My mouth has dried out, so I swallow, trying to make it feel normal again. But my throat is dry, too. I lean back on my heels, shaking my head. "I'm not going," I say, my voice filled with gravel. "You can drag me there, I guess, but I won't talk. I won't say a thing to her. I'm not talking to a shrink, and you can't make me."

And with that, with that unbelievably childish statement thrown out at my father like a handful of dirt, I turn and run up the stairs. Which is also unbelievably childish.

But not, I think, entirely unjustified.