Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“My name is Beth Greene. I was born in Senoia County, Georgia. I was raised on a farm. I woke up in Grady Memorial Hospital. I was shot in the head.”

Beth tells herself these facts, the facts that she is certain to be true, over and over and over again. They become a sort of psalm to her; how she’s kept herself sane, or sane enough, anyway.

When Beth contemplates her life beyond these few vague and basic facts, when she tries to actually remember, everything becomes muddled. Her memories just end up more impenetrable than they started off being. So instead, Beth focuses on the facts that she knows to be true.

Beth says her facts like a prayer each morning when she wakes and each night before she falls asleep. She whispers her name to the river when she stops to fill up her water-bottle, she presses her hand to her heart whenever she happens to pass by an old farmhouse, and she lets the tears that are constantly threatening to fall slip out when she encounters and has to put down walkers and she’s forced to remember the feeling of a bullet carving a pathway through her skull.

It’s not a lot, but for a long time, it’s all Beth has. It lets her remember without making her angry.

Beth wakes up at Grady Memorial Hospital, disoriented and alone, for the second time.

Immediately, she’s flooded by memories rushing to fill the empty space that waking up from a deep unconsciousness left in her brain. They’re good at first, managing to keep at bay the sense of wrongness that’s settling somewhere deep inside Beth’s bones: the farm’s kitchen table covered with jars full of fruit preserves, Patricia teaching Maggie and her how to braid their hair, laughing in the garden with Rick and her daddy, blowing raspberries onto Judith’s stomach.

Then, just as the ghost of a smile is starting to stretch across Beth’s face, other images begin to come as well: the farmhouse burning down to a pile of ashes, her momma attacking Shawn, taking chunks of flesh out of his neck, Daryl Dixon lying motionless in a coffin.

Beth’s head explodes with pain at the images. Each one increases the pressure inside her skull until she’s certain she can’t survive anymore. And yet more keep coming: Maggie’s dead, then Glenn, then Carl, then Daryl, then Judith.

She must let out a groan of pain, or else the monitor that Beth realizes she’s attached to as she reaches up to hold her head together sends out an alert, because a doctor comes running in.

“You’re awake,” he says.

Even through her pain and confusion, Beth can hear the clear tone of awe that fills his voice, and she suddenly becomes aware that her return to consciousness wasn’t promised.

She tries to smile, but it feels more like a grimace that marks her face.

“Some pain will be normal,” the doctor tells her. Edwards, she thinks. “Is there anything else you’re experiencing?”

“It’s-” Beth stops at the sound of her voice; it’s low and hoarse, and her throat aches with the effort of speaking. It makes her wonder how long she was asleep, how long her voice went unused, but she’s not sure that she’s ready for the answer. “Confusing,” she says, trying her best to answer the doctor’s question, but the word feels small compared to her reality. “Everything’s moving really fast.”

Beth can see that Dr. Edward’s mouth is moving, but everything is starting to blur around the edges. His voice sounds further and further away until Beth slips back into the comforting stillness of unconsciousness.

It takes Beth a while to figure out that something is wrong with her head. And longer still to realize that something is wrong with the hospital.

For the first few days, she can only manage to drift into consciousness for moments at a time. Those moments pass like hours, and leave her exhausted and in pain. It’s not until she’s awake for long enough for Dr. Edwards to ask her questions that Beth begins to understand how precarious her grip on reality really is.

“It’s perfectly normal after a traumatic brain injury to experience some form of amnesia,” Dr. Edwards assures her. “It’s a common side effect from the sedative that we used to induce the coma, as well as the lifelike dreams you’ve reported experiencing. It’s most likely temporary, but we’ll keep an eye on it.”

But it’s not amnesia, and it’s not temporary; days and then weeks and then months pass, and Beth continues to suffer with her disjointed memories.

Beth has hundreds, perhaps thousands of conflicting memories; she remembers things that cannot possibly be true at the same time.

She remembers her momma dying at the farm, ripping the flesh off of Shawn’s neck with her teeth before turning to do the same to Beth; she remembers her mom rotting away in the barn before being shot in the head by Shane. And yet, just as clearly, she remembers her mom at the prison, laughing and slow dancing with her dad in their cell, crying when Maggie told them that her and Glenn were getting married, rocking Judy to sleep on the nights that Beth couldn’t get her down, singing the same lullabies she sang to Beth when Beth was a baby.

Beth has no concept of what’s real and what’s false, and she has no one to help her figure it out. She thinks that amnesia would have been better, easier, anyway.

She tries, those first few months at the hospital, she tries so hard to create some form of clarity within her mind. She picks over her memories until all she sees is her loved ones dead or dying. When she grows tired of it, she takes a break, letting the wound scab over until she can’t resist it any longer, then she picks at her brain again and again until she bleeds.

But ultimately, her confusion only makes her frustrated, which only makes her head hurt more. It’s a vicious cycle that often leaves Beth confined to the small, dark closet of her hospital room, begging for a reprieve from her own brain.

“Focus on what you know is real,” Dr. Edwards recommends.

It’s a good suggestion, but there’s depressingly little that Beth is sure of.

And so, she tells herself her name. She tells herself where she was born, and where she grew up, and, although it’s the one thing that she’s sure she’ll never forget, she tells herself that she was shot in the head.

Beth knows that it’s going to be a bad day before she opens her eyes. Most of her days are bad, filled with grief and pain and loneliness. But this one, she thinks, she knows is going to be worse.

She wakes with her dream still coursing through her veins. Knowing that she’s awake isn’t enough, because she can’t be certain that her dream wasn’t based on reality.

In her dream, her hand is warm.

Her palm is clasped tightly to someone else’s, their calluses rubbing roughly together. Somehow, she knows it’s Daryl by her side, even though her focus is on the tombstone marked ‘Beloved Father’ in front of them. Beth can feel a sadness festering somewhere deep inside of her, although she thinks it's not as big as it once was. It occurs to her that she’s stealing comfort through her body’s link with Daryl, so she leans her head against his shoulder, trying to soak up more of his warmth.

He lets her rest against her for a moment, sharing some of the weight on her shoulders, then turns her to face him. Seeing Daryl’s face is like seeing the sun after a week’s worth of grey winter days. Beth feels herself forgetting why she wants to be so close to him; she just knows that she does. She feels that want burn in her belly, so she reaches up to meet him. His lips are just brushing against hers when the sour smell of green apple breaches her nose.

Beth reels away from Daryl, who’s offering a lollipop to her. His face, so warm and comforting just a moment ago, has gone mean.

“C’mon, girl,” he says, pushing the lollipop into her mouth, then farther and farther down her throat until she’s gagging on it. “It’s like a damn romance novel.”

His hands grow rough against Beth’s body, almost like they’re searching for something.

“It’s gonna be fun,” he tells her, “Let’s get a little more target practice.”

Beth is spun around in Daryl’s arms, the crossbow suddenly in her hands, cocked and loaded, even though she’s never been able to do so before. In front of her, instead of the peaceful scene she remembers, is her father’s figure emerging from the ground. His eyes are clouded over, and his fingernails are caked in dirt; worse, there’s thick, black blood spilling out of a bullet hole in his forehead.

“I hate goodbyes,” Daryl whispers into one ear. His voice sounds like his own, and his hands feel nice against her waist again. Beth wants to lean on him, to put some of her weight on him and feel held, but he steps back before she can. He’s already drifting away, fading into nothing, as he whispers in her other ear, “I ain’t leavin’ you.”

Beth’s finger shakes against the trigger; even so, she knows that her shot will land. The bolt sails into the hole that’s already in her father’s head, and when it does, her own skill erupts with pain as well.

She wakes to the sensation of being shot in the head.

The dream fades, but the pain doesn’t, and neither does the putrid smell of green apples.

She hides in the closet, where it’s dark and small and safe. “Beth Greene, Grady Memorial Hospital, shot in the head. Beth Greene, Grady Memorial Hospital, shot in the head,” she repeats and repeats and repeats, trying to fill the room with her words.

Eventually, quietly, as if from the other end of a long tunnel, Beth hears Dr. Edwards enter the room. She imagines him pausing at the doorway, clearly perturbed by her absence, until he sees the sliver of space Beth left in the closet door. Then, after it’s obvious where she is, he’ll hear the dull thud of the back of her head repeatedly hitting the wall and her soft whispered attempts at clinging onto her sanity.

The sudden flood of light hurts Beth’s head more than the fingers she’s digging into her skull to try and hold it together. Dr. Edwards grabs her wrist, prying it away from her head, and pulls her up to face him.

“You’re such a waste of my hard work,” he hisses at her.

All Beth can manage is a whimper in response.

He straps her wrists down to the bed-frame for the duration of their session.

Afterwards, once Beth has calmed down enough to find the five little bruises that pepper her wrist, she knows that she must flee from the hospital and that it has to be soon. She knows, as scary as being alone on the outside seems, that she’s no better off alone here.

Beth walks home from the hospital. She spends the entire journey worrying that it's too obvious, that somehow Edwards or Shepherd will know where she’s going and follow her, or else will already be waiting at the farmhouse for her. But, in the end, Beth doesn’t know where else to go, so she goes home.

Seeing her home hits Beth harder than she’d been expecting. She thought that she’d prepared herself, that walking through the ruins of Atlanta would have made her strong enough, but seeing her once carefully kept home in disrepair carves a hole in Beth’s chest that she’s not sure will ever heal. At least, she thinks, the bullet hole was physical; scar tissue filled in the empty space left in her skull. This just leaves her heart aching.

Beth stumbles into her home, up the stairs, barely checking for traces of walkers or people, and curls up in the fetal position beneath her bed. She wakes without knowing she’d fallen asleep, and although she’s not sure how much time has passed, it feels like a new day. 

Being at the farm helps a little bit.

Beth looks through the photo albums her momma made and reads her old journals, and she’s able to confirm a few real memories. But, eventually, she realizes that it only makes her heart hurt more; being at the farm only serves to emphasize just how alone she really is, and Beth knows that she must move on again.

Her hands shake around her neck; they’re only able to do up the clasp on her mom’s favourite necklace after she takes a deep, steadying breath. She dons Shawn’s favourite hoodie and slips her dad’s favourite book into the backpack she bought special for her senior year. She takes the stuffed animal that Maggie slept with until she was thirteen and the baby blanket that Patricia had given her when she was born.

Beth’s not under the illusion that she’ll be able to keep these items forever, not in this world, but it feels right to have them for now. She sleeps in her parents’ bed and then sets off for the prison at first light.

The prison is the last real landmark she has; the last thing she’s almost sure of. It’s the last time she thinks she remembers her family being whole and alive and happy and together. The majority of the walkers have moved on by the time Beth gets there. There’s nothing left at the prison for them either, she supposes.

Her fingers curl into the diamond holes of the fence as she gazes at the yard that holds so many memories, real and fake, happy and sad, for her.

She finds, as she walks along the perimeter of the prison, a prosthetic leg and confusion instantly takes over her.

Beth remembers holding her daddy down while Rick sawed his arm off; she remembers the way his body thrashed against hers from the pain until he fell into unconsciousness. But now, looking down at the disembodied plastic leg, she remembers watching her dad limp around the prison yard and searching through the infirmary with Carl for crutches. Beth remembers shortening her dad’s pants legs so he wouldn’t trip.

Her head pounds with the conflicting memories. Then, just as she’s giving up on trying to make sense of them, a startling flash of a grave marked ‘Beloved Father’ fills her mind. But no, she thinks, that was just a dream, and anyway, she tries to justify, it had only been her and Daryl there, and if they’d had a funeral for her father, then surely the whole family would’ve come.

She hears the sounds of her own groans, frighteningly similar to the groans of the dead that she’s become accustomed to, start to fill the air as each memory fights to take control of her.

Beth presses the knuckle of her thumb, the knuckle she can leverage to get the most pressure, into the small, circular indent at the crown of her head and instantly feels relief sweep through her body. The hot, sharp pain that Beth feels when she presses her fingers into her scar helps to ground her; the physical pain distracts her from the mental anguish of not being able to remember her own life. 

She’s fully dissociated from her memories by the time she comes across Judith’s torn and bloody car seat.

She carries the car seat from the prison yard back to the grass, back to where her father’s prosthetic leg lies, and she starts to dig. Beth claws through the hard ground for hours, until her fingernails are cracked and then bleeding, crying and singing to herself all the while. She digs until she’s made a grave big enough for the leg and the car seat: the only parts of her father and Judith that she has left.

She trudges into the prison, so covered by grime and blood that the leftover walkers pay her no attention, finds her old cell, and then cries herself to sleep.

When Beth wakes, she’s feverish, disoriented, and hostile. It’s not exactly unprecedented, but it’s unusual enough that it still scares her. Her dream, Judy being torn out of her arms by the Governor and then tossed into a pile of walkers, ready and eager to devour her, is still echoing through her brain.

It’s sometime later that she wakes again, perhaps a new day because the sun is shining in through the barred windows, to full awareness this time. In her alertness, Beth realizes that she must have fought when she woke up before; she must have thought that the Governor was there, because all of the decorations from the walls of her old room have been destroyed.

All Beth can do is hold together the torn pieces of the paper ladybug that she’d made with Judith and scream until her throat is raw and throbbing. She rocks back and forth, subconsciously mimicking the soothing motions she’d made in this room so many times before with a fussy Judith in her arms.

“Beth Greene. Beth Greene. My name is Beth Greene,” Beth whispers to herself, “I was born in Senoia Country, Georgia and raised on a farm. I’m in the prison and I’m safe. I’m safe. I’m Beth Greene.”

It takes her a few days to gather the courage to leave, even though she knows that she has to. The prison, just like the farm, just like the hospital, only serves to remind her how alone she is.

She’s able to gather some supplies to bring with her. They’d all fled in such a rush, and it doesn’t seem like anyone has been through since, because there are cans of food and matchbooks and flashlights that Beth can cram into her pack.

Her whole body freezes at the sight of an old, crumpled cigarette pack.

Beth lights one, not caring about wasting a match, and the stale smell of nicotine shrouds her in comfort the same way her momma’s homemade chicken noodle soup boiling away on the stovetop used to when she was sick.

“Daryl,” Beth whispers.

The name seems to reverberate through the prison, bouncing off the concrete walls. Daryl’s name, just like the smell of his cigarette smoke, comforts Beth.

She lights cigarette after cigarette. She doesn’t bother trying to smoke one; she’s pretty sure she never has before, and she has a deluded idea building in her head that she’d like her first one to be with Daryl. She just inhales the lingering scent and watches the smoke dance around her fingers and then waft up towards the ceiling.

Afterwards, Beth wishes she hadn’t gone through them so quickly. Next time, she thinks, she’ll savour them. It’s worthless now, but Beth slips the empty cigarette pack into her bag anyway.

Beth wanders around the prison vicinity aimlessly for a few days. She tries to remember Daryl’s tracking lessons and looks for any signs that her family might’ve left behind as they’d run. She stumbles upon it unexpectedly: 

Glenn, Go To Terminus, Maggie.

The pure and utter relief of seeing her sister’s name brings Beth to her knees. Maggie’s alive, or at least she had been after the prison, and for now, that’s enough.

But then, starting almost subconsciously, anger starts to swirl around in Beth’s belly, stronger and more intense than anything she’s ever felt before as she realizes that her name is missing from Maggie’s message. Without thinking, without considering the consequences, Beth throws her knife at the wall. She barely flinches when it ricochets back towards her.

Finding the sign was painful, but it gives Beth direction, so she turns on her heels and begins to follow the train tracks towards Terminus.

The next sign is marked Maggie, Bob, and Sasha, and the knowledge that two more members of her family had made it out of the prison alive isn’t enough to quell the hurt that’s building inside of her; Maggie’d had enough time to write out all of their names, but she hadn’t bothered to include Beth’s.

Maybe Dr. Edwards and Shepherd had been right, Beth considers; maybe she had been dead weight and a liability for her family.

Her knees collapse again, under the weight of her grief rather than relief this time, and Beth curls up beneath the sign and weeps until unconsciousness takes her away from her pain. When she wakes, all she feels towards her sister is numbness.

By the time she reaches the third sign, Beth has convinced herself that she doesn’t care. She tells herself that she’s going to prove Maggie wrong; she’s going to prove that Beth Greene made it, and she’s going to find them.

The numbness has started to envelop her by the time Beth reaches Terminus. It no longer revolves around Maggie; it’s encroaching into every corner of her mind. Beth barely feels sad when she sees the ruins of the train station. She puts it away; she stores the grief somewhere deep down inside her. It doesn’t matter that Terminus has been destroyed, she tells herself, because she’s alive, and her family is alive, and she’s going to find them.

Beth is looping around the decrepit fence when she sees the markings in the trees. With no other leads, just sheer determination buzzing through her blood, Beth follows them.

Finding the map is a gift from a God that Beth has been rapidly losing faith in. It’s real, tangible evidence that her family existed, that they’re not just some delusion she created in her coma; it’s proof that they’re out there somewhere waiting for her.

Sorry, I was an asshole. Come to Washington. The New World’s Gonna Need Rick Grimes.

“Rick Grimes,” Beth whispers under her breath.

Her tone is appropriate for the altar of worship she finds herself kneeling on. She brushes her thumb along Rick’s name and finds comfort in the action, as if the man, their leader, were in the room with her.

The map is covered in dust; it’s clear that it’s been lying on the floor for a long time, either forgotten or overlooked by anyone who’s been inside the church since her family. But it reinvigorates Beth’s hope all the same, and she sets off for Washington the next morning.

It’s been roughly six hundred miles since Beth found the map; more if she considers all of the detours she’s had to make to run or hunt, but increasing the mile count just depresses her and makes her head and her heart ache more than they already do.

Occasionally, as she walks, memories will come to her.

There’s no real way for her to know whether or not they’re real, but sometimes she just gets a feeling. Beth’s trying to learn how to trust her feelings again.

She remembers her momma singing to her; Annette twirling her around their kitchen, Beth standing on her mom’s toes, crooning out the lyrics to old Neil Young or Johnny Cash songs, accompanied by their giggles.

These memories are easier for Beth to bear. Truthfully, she doesn’t really care whether they’re real; she cherishes them regardless. She lets herself fall into them each night, playing them back like a favourite record until the words ache in her throat, begging to be set free into the world. 

So she sings; Beth sings, albeit quietly and under her breath, but still, she sings, and she finds that song lyrics are much easier company than her broken memories. 

Beth sings about walking five hundred miles and then walking five hundred more. She sings about flying over the rainbow, about following the yellow brick road, and about how she’s off to see the wizard. She sings about raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, about bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens.

She sings the entirety of Joni Mitchell’s Blue album; it feels important to her that someone remembers the lyrics to that record.

“Oh, it gets so lonely when you’re walking and the streets are full of strangers,” she sings to herself as she skins a squirrel. “All the news of home you read is more about the war and all the bloody changes. Will you just take me as I am?”

Beth sings Hard Sun on the days that she’s sure it’s not the dead or the hunger or even other people that will kill her, but rather the blistering sunburns that cover her pale skin. Beth sings The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia on the nights the moon disappears and the forest is so dark she can’t see her own fingers in front of her face.

She sings Christmas carols when the snow starts to fly, and then sings Here Comes the Sun when the snow finally starts to melt beneath her worn cowboy boots.

Beth sings, and through all of her songs is the undercurrent of her facts; like her own personal metronome, her facts make sure that she stays on beat.

“My name is Beth Greene. I was born in Senoia County, Georgia. I was raised on a farm. I woke up in Grady Memorial Hospital. I was shot in the head, but I survived,” Beth says every morning and every night. “I’m going to find my family. Come to Washington. The New World's gonna need Rick Grimes. My name is Beth Greene.”

Beth tells herself these facts, the facts that she is certain to be true, over and over and over again.

“I’m going to find my family,” she tells herself. “I’m going to find my family. I’m going to find my family.”

For each one of her six hundred miles, Beth Greene repeats these truths to herself.

Chapter Text

Beth wakes just before dawn with tears staining her cheeks.

By now, it shouldn’t be a surprise; she almost always wakes up crying or else with the remnants of tears still plastered to her face. And when she doesn’t, it’s because she’s been jolted awake at the crescendo of a nightmare before her tears have had the chance to start to fall. Still, her tears unnerve her all the same; they always do.

During the day, while the sun is out and she has a purpose, Beth is good at filtering her thoughts, at distracting and dissociating herself from her reality. Her subconsciousness, however, is much harder to control.

The subjects of her dreams rotate through the members of her family; Beth’s sure there’s no one she hasn’t watched die a gory and gruesome death, one she’s unsure whether she actually bore witness to, or if it’s just a twisted figment of her imagination. There’s no ghost that hasn’t haunted her, but Daryl and Judith appear to her most frequently.

Last night, it was Judith.

Beth’s arms still ache with the phantom weight of the child’s body. They’re stuck in the same position that, within her dream, Beth had been cradling Judith as she tried to soothe her. Beth had been halfway through her lullaby when she’d realized that the noises Judith was making were no longer her normal baby babbles, but rather the groans of the dead. She hadn’t been brave enough to act; instead, preferring to die herself than kill Judith, Beth had continued to rock her while letting the baby feast on the flesh of her body.

Her hands automatically fly to her eyes as fragments of the dream surround her. Beth presses into her eyes with the heels of her palms with enough force that she sees flashing lights in the dark expanse behind her eyelids.

Beth hates her nightmares: how weak they make her feel, how they start her day already deep in the throes of confusion. And today there’s no comfort to be found in the knowledge that this one wasn’t real. As far as Beth knows, what happened to Judith was far, far worse.

“Beth Greene,” she reassures herself, “My name is Beth Greene. I was born in Georgia and raised on a farm. I’m in Virginia. I’m going to find my family. I’m going to find my family.”

Her cheeks eventually dry, leaving behind small streaks that are clean of dirt and grime. As she packs up her meagre campsite, Beth begins to hum, and then to sing, already beginning to feel better as the sun rises and distracts her from the purgatory that night brings.

“You’ve got to get up every morning with a smile on your face,” she sings, low and sweet, just for herself. “And show the world all the love in your heart.”

At the farm, tucked away in an old photo album, Beth had found a photograph of herself, asleep, curled up in her momma’s arms. The inscription, written in her father’s nearly illegible cursive writing, read, ‘Annette singing Beth’s favourite lullaby: Beautiful, Carol King.”

Beth had whispered a silent ‘thank you’ for the confirmation of the memory: her mother’s melodic voice and kind eyes looking down at her, singing her to sleep, telling her that you’re as beautiful as you feel. Then, she’d had to whisper a second ‘thank you’ for the plastic sleeve that protected the photo when a thick teardrop escaped her eye and landed on the album.

Maybe one day, she’d thought to herself, after she’s found her family and the world has settled down, she’d be able to go back to it.

“I have often asked myself the reason for sadness in a world where tears are just a lullaby,” Beth continues to sing as she begins her day's journey, “If there’s any answer, maybe love can end the madness, maybe not, but oh, we can only try.”

Beth remembers singing the song to Judith, back at the prison where most of her good memories lie. She prays that the memory is real; she thinks that it is, but, of course, there’s no way to know for sure.

For now, as the days continue to pass in one relentless stretch of solitary existence, Beth sings herself the lullaby, for she’s her only source of comfort in the world, and hopes beyond hope that she’ll find her family soon.

Beth sings as she practices walking with silent footsteps and combs through her memories. She refuses to keep track of the passing days for fear that her journey is taking too long, that she won’t find her family in time, despite having lost all concept of the word time long ago. 

The day, beginning with her nightmare, is like all of the others; Beth is singing while she walks, tracking a rabbit in the vague direction that she needs to be heading in.

Suddenly, she hears the distinct clarity of living human footsteps. They’ve snuck up on her while she was distracted by her song and thoughts of her dinner, and seemingly all at once they’re too close for Beth to run. Instead, she braces herself for a fight; she wastes no time in reaching for her knife as she spins around, not letting herself startle when she ends up face-to-face with a man.

“Whoa, whoa,” he says, holding his hands up as if to highlight the lack of weapons in them. But the action does nothing to comfort Beth; she’s seen men commit just as much evil with their bare hands. “I’m a friend.”

Beth’s eyes narrow in suspicion as she examines the man before her.

There’s an urge building inside Beth to run, to run as fast and as far away as she can from this man. But there’s something in his eyes that tells her she should at least hear him out. Beth trusts her gut; these days, it’s all she has. Her ‘hunter’s instinct,’ she remembers Daryl calling it once. So she nods at the man to go on, although she tightens her grip on her knife as she does.

“My name’s Aaron,” he says at Beth’s nod, seemingly unbothered by her silence. “I’m from a community a few miles away. I’m looking for good people to join us. It’s safe… I know that’s hard to believe these days, but I have photos.”

The phrase ‘good people’ sends a jolt of electricity through Beth’s chest. 

There are still good people…

Beth remembers saying that, imploring Daryl to believe her, the words light and teasing and tender on her tongue.

She still believes in good people. The map, starting to fray around the edges from how often she takes it out to look at, assures her of this fact. Beth wouldn’t be able to go on, wouldn’t be able to whisper her prayer to herself each morning and night, if she didn’t still believe in good people. She’s just a lot more skeptical about the odds of running into them, that’s all.

Beth instinctively takes a step back, her free hand moving to the gun that’s holstered at her hip, when Aaron’s hands reach for his backpack. Despite her gut feeling that the man is good, she can’t control her wariness of his movements or concern for what he could be hiding in his bag.

This might be her chance to run, she knows that, to get away while he’s distracted, but the thought of a safe community makes Beth lightheaded. She hasn’t been with a group since the hospital, hasn't had someone to trust since Daryl. She’s surprised to find that she wants to trust Aaron, wants to go with him.

She reaches out, her hand shaking, to grab the photos that Aaron is extending towards her. The photographs, pictures of white-picket-fenced homes with children playing in the front lawns surrounded by a tall steel wall, blur immediately, and Beth realizes that she’s crying. 

It looks almost too good to be true; it looks like before.

“How do you know I’m a good person?” she asks, speaking her first words to Aaron.

It’s a test, but she also wants to know; some days she’s not so sure anymore.

“I saw you hunt, so I know you know how to survive. I haven’t seen you hurt anyone, and you haven’t tried to hurt me,” he rattles off with ease, “Plus, I like to think I’m good at reading people, and I just think you’re a good person. You remind me of someone.”

Aaron ends his declaration with a carefree shrug that convinces Beth almost more than anything else. You can’t be sure of anything these days; she knows that better than anyone, yet he’s making the choice to believe in her regardless.

“Okay,” Beth says, willing to try. 

She can’t stay there, not forever anyway; she’s so close to Washington, after travelling for so long, and she won’t allow the hope of finding her family to slip through her fingers just for the chance of comfort in a community. But Beth allows herself the possibility of resting there, of staying until her strength and her will and her sanity have built themselves back up.

The reunion is better than anything Beth had let herself imagine, even on her best days. 

When Deanna asks to see the map, she almost refuses. The map is sacred to Beth; it’s a priceless artifact that she would sacrifice the rest of her supplies for in order to keep safe. But Alexandria’s leader is stern and intimidating, a touch too close to Beth’s remembrances of Dawn, even despite the kindness she can see simmering below the surface of Deanna’s eyes, and she doesn’t want to refuse the woman.

So, with great caution, Beth hands the map over to another human being for the first time. 

Beth presses her nails into the flesh of her arms as she watches the woman unfold it. It’s so surreal, so intimate and captivating that Beth doesn’t notice when her nails puncture through her skin. She watches, confused as Deanna’s expression turns from neutral to bewildered, to recognition and then excitement.

Although Beth doesn’t understand what’s happened, she knows that something is wrong when Deanna abruptly stands, turns off the camera, and walks towards the door.

She tries to convince herself that it’s fine, that she’ll be okay, that she doesn’t need Alexandria. She made it this far alone; she can last a little bit longer by herself. She tries to swallow her shame, but it sticks in her throat. After bottling up her emotions, trying to be so strong for so long, it seems like they’re starting to slip out without her permission.

Beth looks down, finding and then inspecting the grooves her nails have left in her arms. She tries to blink back the tears that burn in the back of her eyes so the woman won’t have to see them, when she hears Deanna shout.

“Maggie!” the woman yells.

Beth inhales sharply at the familiar name. Her eyes squeeze shut, giving way to a single teardrop as they do. She desperately tries to steel herself for disappointment, but she feels hope climbing up her chest despite her best efforts.

“Beth?” a voice says; a voice that, through all of Beth’s confusion, she would recognize anywhere.

“Maggie,” Beth exhales.

She’s across the room and in her sister’s arms in an instant, her tears blurring her first sight of Maggie’s face.

It’s a supercut of screams and tears and hugs and laughter and more tears. Then, before Beth can really even fully comprehend what’s happened, that she’s done it, that she’s found her sister, Maggie is tugging on her arm, leading her out of the house, and talking about taking Beth to find everyone else.

“Everyone else?” Beth repeats, breathless, too scared to ask for specifics.

“Not everyone,” Maggie says, an obvious sad tenderness to her voice, “But, yeah, a lot of us.”

Beth’s reality begins to blur, although not in the hateful, confusing way that she’s become accustomed to, as, through her tears, the harsh edges of her vision loosen. It doesn't help that she’s suddenly being spun around in Glenn’s arms before being passed to Rick and Carl, then, somehow, finding herself in Carol’s arms, then Sasha’s, before finally being returned to Maggie’s.

They’re causing a scene, Beth realizes, as people she doesn’t recognize begin to gather around her. She doesn’t really care; she’s too preoccupied with touching each member of her family over and over again in a desperate attempt to assure herself of their existence.

Her head is starting to throb, but she doesn’t care; it’s a confirmation that this is real.

“But she-” Beth hears Carl ask, “How?”

Beth turns to face him, then, bracing herself for the pain that she’s sure will come with her explanation. But then, bypassing the surrounding chaos, Beth hears a near animalistic noise. Instinctively, her head jerks towards the noise, and when it does, her eyes lock with Daryl’s.

Beth frantically untangles herself from Maggie’s arms, pushes her way through her family and then the crowd of Alexandrians, and launches herself into Daryl’s arms.

Daryl’s body is warm and sturdy beneath hers, and he takes on the weight of their reunion with ease. There’s an inherent safety in the feel of him and the way that he smells, woodsy with a faint trace of nicotine, soothes Beth immediately. 

It takes him a moment, and Beth is briefly brought back to a hug she remembers between them in her prison cell, but then Daryl is responding with such force that Beth’s feet are lifted off the ground as he surges up to hold her, and she can no longer think about anything except the present. Beth responds in kind; she doesn’t really think about it, just follows the natural wants and inclinations of her body, and wraps her legs tightly around Daryl’s waist. There’s no way for them to be closer, and yet it’s not enough; Beth doesn’t think it will ever be enough. 

Daryl’s body seems to respond to her in the same way she did to him, and it makes sense; they’ve always been able to communicate without words. He collapses under the combined weight and force of their sorrow and happiness until he’s kneeling in the middle of the road.

Still, they hold onto each other. Beth’s feet hit the road as Daryl drops, causing her knees to jerk up and hit Daryl in the back, but she doesn’t let go and neither does he. Beth doesn’t care about the pain. She doesn’t care how many eyes are watching them, their family and strangers alike, because there is nothing that could tear her away from Daryl in this moment.

It feels like a second and an hour later that Daryl drags himself away from her. He doesn’t go far, just far enough to cradle her cheeks and look into her eyes.

Beth watches him as her examines her. She knows that she’s been crying; there’s been a near steady stream of tears falling down her face since her interview, but she’s surprised to see tears on Daryl’s face as well. She’s not sure she’s ever seen him cry before. Beth reaches up to sweep her thumb across Daryl’s cheeks. She gently gathers his tears, mesmerized by the sight of her hand against his skin. It’s another confirmation that this is real.

Her world has shrunk down to just the two of them as they continue to stare at each other with an intensity that makes her chest ache and her eyes start to water again. She’s not entirely sure what happened between Daryl and herself, but she knows there was something, and the idea of figuring it out, of being able to pick it up where they left it, is as exciting as it is terrifying. 

“Beth,” Daryl says, and she can’t quite place the emotions that his voice holds. She’s never seen him like this before, and it enthrals her. “Beth. How? How?”

She lets out a watery laugh, not quite sure of the answer herself, and rests the weight of her head in the solid embrace of Daryl’s hands.

“I made it,” she whispers to him, the words feeling right in her mouth. 

Beth can sense the rest of her family growing antsy behind her, and she’s eager to see them again, touch them again, reassure herself and them that this is real, but she refuses to untangle herself from Daryl to do so. She refuses, staring at the man in front of her until she sees the only thing that could drag her out of Daryl’s arms: a small, blonde baby.

“Judith,” she whispers, pure devotion and adoration in her voice. 

Although it felt like an impossibility just a moment ago, Beth quickly unravels herself from Daryl and sprints towards the child.

Beth had been sure that Judith was dead. Through all of her muddled memories, there had never been one that suggested she’d survived. Beth had buried the bloody car seat that proved it. She’s watched, through her dreams and her memories, Judith die hundreds of times in hundreds of different ways.

She feels a sudden pang of empathy for her family. It turns out that the sight of a loved one coming back from the dead is hard to reconcile with.

In Beth’s excitement to reach Judith, she doesn’t notice the looks of confusion that take over her family's faces or the way the woman who's holding Judith takes a small, scared step back from her. All Beth is focused on is reaching Judith as quickly as possible, wanting to feel the weight of her in her arms, and inhale the sweet scent of her.

“Judith,” she says, “Judy.”

Beth reaches out to cup Judith’s cheeks, finally noticing that something is wrong when the woman flinches away from her touch, turning to protect Judith from Beth with her body. 

Her hands shake in the empty space between them, in the space where Beth thought she was going to find Judith’s soft skin and instead found only air. Her hands shake until they land on leather. A different softness than she’d been expecting, but it comforts her nonetheless. Daryl must have followed her over because he’s suddenly standing in front of her. He’s put himself between her and the woman, another layer between her and Judith. His presence steadies Beth enough that she’s able to take in a deep breath of oxygen, but she still doesn’t understand what’s happening.

“Beth,” Daryl says, slowly and gently. His face is unreadable, and this time Beth finds it terrifying. “That’s not- That’s not Judith.”

Sorrow crashes into Beth like a tsunami wave at Daryl’s words; her despair is relentless, tidal wave after tidal wave. The weight of her grief pushes down on her, forcing her down until she’s crouching on the ground, trying to make herself smaller, trying to curl in on herself, trying to hide. She suddenly hates the audience that her miraculous return has garnered.

She presses her fingers into the bullet hole that marks her forehead, desperately searching for the sweet release of pain.

“I killed her. I killed her. I killed her,” Buth mutters to herself as she rocks back and forth. “I killed her. It’s all my fault. I killed her.”

Daryl follows Beth’s descent down until he’s resting in a crouch of his own. He spreads his legs around hers, encompassing her body in a circle of his safety; his broad shoulders protect her from the watchful eyes of the Alexandrians.

Beth feels Daryl’s hands wrap around her wrists. He gently extracts her hands from her forehead, pulling her away from the crater that the bullet left behind. Beth’s whole body shudders when Daryl pulls the side of her face into his chest. She felt so safe in his embrace just moments ago, like nothing would ever be able to hurt her again, now Beth’s not sure if the pain of Judith’s death is survivable.

“I killed her,” she whimpers into Daryl’s vest, desperately trying to make him understand that she didn’t mean to, that it was an accident. “I killed Judith. It’s my fault, it’s all my fault.”

“No. No, Judith’s alive, Beth,” Daryl says, pulling Beth’s head up softly so she can look at him. “It’s just- It’s been… She’s older now.”

Beth tries to take Daryl’s words in; she thinks she can see truth in his eyes, but his voice has faded as if her ears were clogged or her head’s underwater. Dimly, she registers that he’s right, that the baby she’d been trying to reach is too young to be Judith. The baby Beth remembers from the prison would be long gone by now: talking and walking and so many other missed milestones.

The knowledge reaches her, but it’s too late; fear and panic have taken control of her body. She can’t stop the shaking or the hyperventilating or the repeated sobs of, “I killed her.” Daryl’s face swims in her tear-filled eyes, and Beth has just enough awareness to be glad that she’s in his arms as she loses consciousness.

A shrill scream reverberates through Beth’s skull, shaking her awake.

Her hand is already clenched around the handle of her knife, knuckles white with tension, while her eyes search wildly around the dark room. It’s only when the door opens, spilling light into the room from the hallway, that Beth understands that the scream came from her throat.

She doesn’t scream, not after so many close calls where her screams attracted walkers or worse. Her subconscious, although it continued to torture her, seemed to shut that outlet down. Often, Beth would wake clutching her throat, her scream begging to be released, but with her voice caught in a vice grip of her own making.

Now, here, on the first night she spends back in the warm, safe embrace of her family, Beth wakes up to the sound of her own scream.

She drops the knife, hearing it dully bounce on the floor, and her hands fly to her face. She bangs the heels of her palms against her eyes with a cruel intensity, while her nails focus on clawing into her bullet wound as if they could pull the nightmare out of her brain and release her from its terrifying grip. But Beth’s movements are stopped abruptly by the pull of warm hands around her wrists. She whimpers when she looks up and sees Daryl's cool blue eyes illuminated in the dark.

Vaguely, Beth registers the presence of other people as well. The light in the doorway is blocked by the concerned faces of Maggie, Glenn, Rick, Carl, and Michonne. Even through Beth’s confusion, fear, and the dim lighting, she can see the worry that’s etched deeply into their expression and she hates herself a little bit for scaring them.

A sharp stab of shame begins to swim around her stomach as she realizes that this is the second time she’s broken down in front of them. Beth doesn’t want them to think that she’s come back weak; she doesn’t want Edwards and Shepherd to have been right. But the shame dissipates as the dream returns to her, and fear takes back control.

Beth’s eyes race to Daryl’s face, trying desperately to take him in and confirm to herself that he’s really there.

“You were dead,” she whimpers. Her hands frantically move from the space between their bodies, where Daryl had caught them, to clutch desperately at the fabric of his shirt. He’s changed since she last saw him, she realizes. “You were dead,” she repeats.

Her whispers turn more and more hysterical with her increasing remembrance of Daryl’s death.

Instinctively, Beth’s hands try to return to her face, to her scar, but Daryl doesn’t let go of her wrists. He presses his fingers deeper into her skin as if to reassure her of his presence.

“I don’t understand. You were dead! You were in a coffin and the house was on fire,” Beth insists, imploring Daryl to understand what she’s saying, what she’s seen, and explain himself. “You were dead!”

“Ain’t dead,” Daryl whispers, his voice slow and quiet, for her ears only. “‘M right here, Beth. ‘M right here. I’m not dead, I promise ya.”

“No!” she shouts. She pushes his chest in frustration, but Daryl’s too sturdy to go anywhere, and even in her hysteria, Beth knows that she doesn’t really want him to anyway. “I remember it! You were in a coffin… I- I played piano at your funeral! You were dead!”

Gently, like he’s scared that the movement will frighten her, Daryl uncurls her fingers from his shirt. When her palms are flat, he rests them against his chest, his own fingers still encircling her wrists. Beneath her hands, Beth can feel the steady rise and fall of Daryl’s breath and the soft thump of his heart beating below his warm skin; she can feel the proof that he’s alive.

She tips over, her head suddenly too heavy for her to bear the weight of, and catches herself in the crevice of Daryl’s neck. In his embrace, against the warm safety of his skin and his smell, Beth begins to sob.

In the periphery of Beth’s existence, she can hear Daryl speaking to their family. She can’t make out what he’s saying, but she registers the door softly shutting and the accompanying spread of merciful darkness. She’s grateful, for as the intensity of her dream begins to fade, exhaustion and pain rush in to take their place.

The still darkness allows Beth’s sobs to slowly subside until she feels strong enough to pull herself up from the puddle of tears she’s made on Daryl’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she croaks out, her voice still shaky.

She tries to move her hands again, wanting to hide herself rather than hurt herself, but Daryl still has them in his hold.

“You got nothin’ to be sorry ‘bout,” he says. His voice is as hoarse as hers is, and Beth wonders whether he was crying too; it’s hard to tell in the dark. “You gonna be able to sleep?”

Beth shrugs, but her body betrays her as she does, and she lets out a yawn. She doesn’t want to sleep, not if it means leaving Daryl; she wants to stay wrapped up in his warm embrace. She wants to know more: why were they in a funeral home, and why was it on fire? But the last of the adrenaline is leaving her body, and Beth feels herself sagging against Daryl as her eyelids begin to close without her permission.

She feels Daryl’s arms shifting around her, manoeuvring her back into bed. Beth shivers as she feels his arms and then hands and then fingertips leave her body, seemingly taking all of her warmth with them.

Suddenly, the thought of being alone again terrifies her. She should be used to it, but every step Daryl takes away from her is agonizing. Beth reaches out and grabs onto his arm before he can go any farther.

“Please, don’t go,” she whispers into the dark, “Stay with me?”

The room is so quiet that Beth can hear Daryl’s breath hitch at her question. She can almost hear the cogs turning in his brain as he considers her request. She wonders if he’s thinking of a way to gently turn her down. Then, she swears she can hear the soft padding of his footsteps against the carpet as he returns to her side. Beth holds her breath as Daryl climbs into bed with her.

Now, with the dream fading into the background of her brain and with Daryl beside her, Beth’s body is begging her to go to sleep. Her temple and her bullet wound and her heart are all pulsing in tandem. But there’s one last thought swirling around inside her head that needs to be released before she can sleep.

“Judith’s alive?” Beth asks, her voice catching in her throat in a mix of fear and anticipation.

She’d thought she could handle the question, but she can feel her lips quivering and her eyes burning again. If she’s wrong, if Daryl lied to her earlier, then it will break her beyond repair.

Daryl reaches across the chasm of space between their bodies and intertwines their fingers together. Instantly, Beth feels the effect in her body as she starts to calm.

“Carol and Tyreese had her,” Daryl confirms. “She’s so beautiful, Beth. You’re gonna love her. I’ll take you to see her tomorrow, yeah? But you gotta sleep now.”

Beth whimpers in response; the thought of seeing Judith again is too overwhelming for words.

Beth Greene, she says to herself, her lips moving silently in the dark: my name is Beth Greene, I was born in Senoia Country, Georgia and raised on a farm, I woke up in Grady Memorial Hospital, I was shot in the head, but I survived, I found my family, I found my family.

She smiles to herself, despite everything, she did it, she found them. Her head lolls towards Daryl as she sinks back into unconsciousness.

Chapter Text

The sound of the door thudding closed jolts Beth awake from the light sleep she’d been able to slip into after waking at dawn with a pounding head.

The space next to her is still warm to the touch, meaning it must’ve been Daryl leaving the room that woke her up. She’s sure that he meant to shut the door quietly, but the noise echoes through her sensitive head anyway, leaving a dull, throbbing sensation behind her eyes.

Then, through the door, she picks up on the quiet murmur of voices talking in the hallway. It brings her back to Grady, to listening to conversations through walls and around corners for scraps of information at the risk of being punished. Beth finds herself untethered at the thought. For a moment, a floating sensation takes hold of her body, but then she hears the clear cadences of Maggie and Daryl’s voices, and she’s able to settle back down to the bed.

She can’t catch much of the conversation, but her name and the word ‘doctor’ drift in under the space between the floor and the door, and suddenly her headache is joined by waves of nausea swimming around in her stomach.

Beth isn’t sure how much time has passed when the door opens to reveal Maggie. She’s only able to catch a glimpse of Daryl’s back, decorated with angel wings, before he disappears around the corner and into the house.

Her sister plops down on the bed, pulls Beth up next to her, and gives her a quick, firm hug before pulling back to look at her face. Beth winces at the sudden movement and the harsh, artificial light that the open door has allowed to spill into the room, but Maggie doesn’t seem to notice her discomfort.

“Gonna take you to the clinic this morning,” Maggie says, her voice blessedly soft, “Get everything checked out.”

The nausea in Beth’s stomach spasms, but she nods anyway. Aaron had already told her that all newcomers had to go to the clinic after their interviews with Deanna. It turns out that Beth hadn’t been able to avoid that fate, just postpone it.

Even the walk over to the clinic is miserable.

The sunlight hurts her eyes, her head pulses in pain with every step that she takes, and, worst of all, Beth can feel the weight of people’s stares as she walks by. She feels like a monster who’s breached their walls as she watches people’s mouths disappear behind their hands to gasp or gossip.

At least the man who opens the door to the clinic seems kind. He reminds Beth of Aaron in a way; there’s something inexplicably trustworthy about him.

“You must be Beth,” he says with a small smile as she and Maggie walk in, “I’m Siddiq.” Then, at the confusion that must be littered across Beth’s face, he explains, “It's a small town, word travels fast around here, especially about Maggie’s little sister.”

It occurs to Beth for the first time that her sister must hold a place of importance in the community: both Deanna and Siddiq seem to hold reverence for her. The thought makes her chest twinge. She’s proud of her sister, but it hurts that it seems like she was able to move on so thoroughly.

The clinic is set up in a small, one-floor house, and despite how different it is from Grady, the sensation of being back in a hospital still slithers up Beth’s spine and makes her skin crawl. The medical instruments catch the sunlight and burn her eyes while the antiseptic smell invades her nose and causes her stomach to lurch.

Beth fights to stay present as Siddiq examines her. She mostly manages while he checks her pulse, blood pressure, height and weight, but she can’t hide the way she flinches when he shines a light in her eyes to check her pupils’ response.

“Headache?” he asks.

Beth mumbles in accordance.

“Do you get them frequently?” he asks as he turns away from her.

“Yes,” Beth hisses, “They used to be more often, but I still get them a lot.”

She should’ve expected the pain, but it’s been so long since she had to endure a headache of this intensity; since, perhaps, those first few days at Grady. But yesterday had been too much: the excitement from the reunion, the panic about Judith, the nightmare about Daryl. But Beth has spent so long desperately clinging onto hope that she’d thought she might get a pain-free day as some sort of reward for finding her family. 

She should've known better, she thinks.

Siddiq rummages around in his cabinet, then comes back to Beth’s side with a handful of supplies. He presses two pills into her hand and then passes her a glass of water.

The glass is cool to the touch, and the feeling of it startles her. Beth is shocked by how cavalier the Alexandrians seem to be about such extraordinary things; the only water that she’s had access to has been boiled, still hot as it slid down her throat, or else water that she’s gulped down out of extreme desperation straight from creeks that was so cold it hurt her teeth. Having access to cool water from a tap is a revelation to Beth that Maggie and Siddiq don’t seem to care about.

“Well, you’re malnourished and dehydrated, but that’s to be expected. I’ll talk to Olivia about increasing your rations for the time being,” Siddiq explains once Beth gulps down the pills. “I’ll send you home with some painkillers and some antiseptic solution so you can get all your cuts cleaned up. But it seems like you’re mostly in good health. It’s a bit of a miracle, really?”

Siddiq smiles reassuringly over Beth’s head at Maggie.

“Now, I’ve just got a few more questions,” he continues, “Do you know when your last period was?”

Beth’s stomach sinks at the question, and the blackness that’s been creeping up around the edge of her vision since she walked into the clinic threatens to take over. She drops her head, choosing to look at the floor rather than the man in front of her.

“I don’t know,” she mumbles.

She hasn’t had it since she woke up; before that, she’s not sure.

“That’s alright,” Siddiq says, as if the knowledge that Beth doesn’t know her own body doesn’t concern him. “It’s pretty common to lose track of that these days. But it is a great benchmark to track health, so let me know if it hasn’t returned in a few months, alright? No chance of being pregnant, then?” 

Beth shakes her head; of this, at least, she’s sure.

“Any important family history I should be aware of? High blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, cancer? Or any mental health issues like depression?”

Beth mumbles something unintelligible and shrugs. She can tell from the direction of his shoes that Siddiq’s turned to look at Maggie, but Beth doesn’t look up; she doesn’t want to see Maggie’s face when she’s confronted with the knowledge that her little sister came back wrong. Beth is focusing so intently on her feet, studying the pattern of her boots, that she almost misses the soft sound of footsteps and then the door opening and closing.

“Maggie’s gone,” Siddiq says.

When Beth looks up, Siddiq’s moved away from her: he’s standing so his desk is in between them. She wasn’t expecting to be left alone with him, but, for some reason, it doesn’t scare her, even though she thinks that it should because being alone with Edwards terrified her. In fact, the dark spots at the edge of her vision begin to dissipate.

“Your memory?” he asks, and the relief Beth feels at his understanding is monumental; her body feels lighter.

“It’s… wrong,” Beth says, grasping for the right words to describe her brain. She hasn’t had to explain her memory problems to anyone since Edwards, and even then, she always got the sense that he never really understood her. “I have all these false memories mixed in with the real ones, but I don’t know what’s real.”

Siddiq hums as he considers what Beth’s told him. The action comforts her even more, further solidifying her like of the man.

“I’ll have to do some research,” he says eventually, almost to himself, before explaining to Beth, “I was trained in emergency medicine, so not a lot of focus on long-term side effects.”

He pushes himself off the desk and slowly walks back towards Beth, offering her a bag to put the supplies he’d given her in.

“Rest and food will be the most important thing for you right now,” he tells her as he walks her to the door, “And getting those cuts cleaned up. I can help you with that if you’d like, but you may be more comfortable doing it yourself at home?”

“That’s it?” Beth asks.

She can’t help the question from falling out. She’s so used to being poked and prodded at until she cries or blacks out at doctor appointments that she’s shocked to be let go so quickly.

Beth doesn’t even register his use of the word ‘home,’ isn’t able to begin to process it, before he’s speaking again.

“I’ll let you know if I find any pertinent information,” he says, “Of course, please feel free to come back at any time, if any new issues arise or if you just want to talk to someone. You know, I still believe in doctor-patient confidentiality, even at the end of the world.”

Beth wants to laugh; it’s almost funny how different things are here compared to Grady. There, her business was told to everyone. She reels herself in, smiling softly at Siddiq instead. When she meets Maggie on the front porch, she’s thinking about how she felt safe enough to turn her back to him.

Maggie’s silent on the walk back to the house; both sisters are lost in their own thoughts as well as their assumptions of what the other must be thinking. It startles Beth when Maggie reaches out and links their fingers together, but ultimately, the movement comforts her, and they walk the rest of the way hand in hand.

Maggie doesn’t drop Beth’s hand until they’re safely inside the house, and even then, it's only once she busies herself in the kitchen and needs both of her hands to work. Beth watches, fascinated, as her older sister flutters around the space. It's obvious that she’s intimately familiar with the room as she pulls a small box out of a cupboard, mugs from the dishwasher, and then turns the kettle on.

It’s almost imperceptible, but Beth’s only had her instincts to rely on for so long, so she notices the way that her older sister’s hands shake just like she notices the deep breath Maggie takes before she turns around to face her.

“I’m sorry, I’ve got to get going. Deanna, I work with Deanna, you know, needs me. She gave me the morning off to be with you, but she said to come by in the afternoon,” Maggie says while pouring a cup of coffee, as if she needs something to keep her hands busy, to keep them steady. She adds in a substantial amount of milk and sugar, and Beth’s mouth actually waters at the sight. “Daryl should be by soon, he said he had the afternoon off, said he’d show you around. There’s a clean towel and clean clothes upstairs for you, if you wanna shower. There’s hot water! And obviously, you can help yourself to any food or anything.”

Beth wants to push back at the idea that she needs a babysitter, that she needs Maggie or Daryl to watch over or take care of her. But at the same time, she can feel herself teetering close to the edge of overwhelm; she knows that one small thing could push her over the edge, and she knows that their presence will help her stay grounded. When Maggie slides the cup of coffee across the counter to Beth, her hands still slightly shaking, Beth realizes that her older sister is just as scared as she is, and the urge to fight falls away.

“Sorry, God, I know I’m rambling… It’s just-” Maggie cuts herself off, but she doesn’t need to elaborate. Beth knows that there are no words to properly describe the way her sister is currently feeling. “I just can’t believe it.”

The two sisters stare at each other for a moment, then, at the same time, they move to meet each other in the middle of the kitchen. Maggie reaches out first, and Beth can’t resist the temptation to fold into her older sister’s arms. Maggie feels like home: like the memories Beth doesn’t care whether or not are real because they comfort her anyway.

“We’ll talk more later, okay?” Maggie says, her hand reaching up to squeeze Beth’s cheek, “There’s so much I wanna tell you. I love you so much, Bethy.”

“I love you too, Mags,” Beth whispers.

Beth knows that they’ll have to talk soon; she knows that her family will have questions for her, just as she has questions for them. But the prospect of doing so is so overwhelming, and although the painkillers Siddiq gave her have taken away the brunt force of her headache, there’s still a dull, persistent throb lingering in her temples. The thought of being alone, just for a little while, to sort through all of the thoughts that are swirling around in her head, sounds nice.

“You’re gonna be okay here?” Maggie asks at the doorway.

Beth smiles, reassuring her older sister. The front door clicks shut behind her, and Beth is alone. She lets out a deep sigh of relief at the prospect of not having to act for anyone for a little while.

The house is silent around her, but it feels wrong somehow. It takes Beth a moment to recognize the faint hum of electricity. She hasn’t heard the sound since the hospital, and the soft drone fills her head; it feels like there are thousands of bugs buzzing around inside of her. It almost sounds like the house is breathing, almost feels as if the house is alive.

In an instant, the house goes from feeling safe to malicious.

It hits Beth, as she stands alone in the foyer, that this is where her family has lived while, unbeknownst to them, she suffered all alone, first in the hospital and then in the wilderness.

Beth spins around, taking in the clean, white couches and their pretty, fluffy pillows, the television set, and the shelves that are stacked with books and records. She thinks about the fully stocked cupboards, the cool tap water, and the ability to make coffee with milk and sugar.

She turns away from all of it.

This is something that Edwards had warned her about: wild and unpredictable mood swings as a result of her injury. And even though Beth can acknowledge that, it’s not enough to fight off the hateful anger that’s currently building inside her heart.

She bounds up the stairs towards the room she woke up in. She’s not sure who it belongs to, but right now it feels the safest. Beth focuses on her feet and the wooden floor beneath her boots, trying not to look up at all of the house’s comforts.

When she’s alone in the room, her back pressed up against the closed door, Beth’s able to take a deep, steadying breath. She looks over the room, and begins to take in the details that she’d missed the night before in the dark or else this morning through the haze of her headache. The room is small and sparse: a twin-sized bed, a dresser, and a closet. There are no decorations, no hints towards who it once belonged to or which member of her family now occupies it. The only thing hanging on the wall is a large, floor-to-ceiling mirror.

Without consciously deciding to do so, as if there’s an invisible thread or a magnet pulling her forward, Beth finds herself drifting towards the mirror.

She understands now why the citizens of Alexandria looked so scared of her this morning.

Beth watches as the girl in the reflection mimics her movements with exact precision, tilting her head in tandem with Beth. Logically, she knows that it’s her, but she feels no sense of recognition when she looks at herself. The Beth that she remembers, the Beth that’s featured in her memories and the photos she’d found on the farm, looks nothing like the Beth that’s standing in front of her.

The Beth standing in front of her is gaunt, haggard and emaciated, her hair is dark with dirt and blood and is matted with thick knots. There are dark purple circles beneath her eyes that look more like bruises than the result of a bad night’s sleep.

The Beth in the mirror is covered in scars. She’d known they were there; she’s dug her fingers into them, made them bleed, made them worse instead of better, but actually seeing them is a wholly different experience.

She’s marked, she realizes. Even if she recovers her real memories, she will always be the girl who was shot in the head, and she will always have the scars to remind her of that.

Beth only realizes that she’s trembling when hot coffee spills over the side of her mug and onto her hand. The boiling brown liquid slips down her thumb, then down her wrist as it follows the pathway of another scar left behind on her body.

The anger that Beth’s been diligently fighting off since Maggie left, or perhaps since the questions at the clinic, or else since Daryl slipped out of bed that morning without a word to her, or, if Beth is truly being honest with herself, since she woke up at Grady, bubbles up inside her. The knowledge of what she looks like, the outward expression of the pain and suffering she had to endure, while she stands in the house that her family was allowed to grieve and rest and heal in, infuriates her.

Without thinking, using all of the force and rage that she grew along her journey, Beth screams, then hurls her coffee cup at the mirror.

Beth’s eyes close at the sound of the objects shattering. When she opens them, she’s standing in a pool of broken glass. She’s panting, desperate for breath, as if she’s just run from a horde of walkers. The destruction has done nothing to dissolve her anger.

When she looks down at her feet, into the shards of the mirror and her broken reflection, a memory washes over her. Beth’s tried her best to push this particular memory away, tried to avoid looking at the evidence it left behind on her skin, because it doesn’t make any sense to her. She’s fought so hard to be here, to be alive, why would she have taken a piece of glass to her wrist?

But now, in the wreckage of her anger, the recollection is impossible to ignore: Beth remembers punching a mirror, albeit a much smaller one, grabbing a sliver of it, cutting herself open, and watching herself bleed.

Beth finds herself on her knees in the puddle of glass with no knowledge of how she got there.

With the memory swirling around in her head, she picks up a piece of the mirror. Then, as if she were in a trance or a dream or perhaps a play in which she has no say in the matter and just has to abide by her preordained lines, she follows the line of her scar. Beth presses down with just enough pressure to open her skin up and release a rivulet of blood.

The cut, in a strange way, reminds her of her facts: it’s a way to try and feel like her past self without actually trying to delve into any of the details. It’s cowardly, but every other option feels so far out of her reach.

The sight of her blood and the sting of her wrist do nothing to reassure Beth; they only cause her to spiral deeper into her shame and panic.

The room that Beth had originally categorized as small now feels too big, too open, too dangerous. So she crawls through the glass, leaving behind a trail of her blood, towards the place that seems the safest and most familiar.

It’s only once the door of the closet is shut snugly behind her and Beth is alone in the small, dark space that she’s able to embrace all of her sorrow and anger. She curls into herself, into the corner, trying to make herself as small and as invisible as possible, and cries.

Beth doesn’t understand what’s wrong with her.

She should be happy, she thinks. She accomplished her goal. She found her family, and they’re safe and happy, and now she can be safe and happy too. But she’s not. She’s furious. Beth is so, so angry: at herself, at her family, at the world.

She should be with them, but instead, she’s still sad and scared and alone and hiding in a closet.

“Beth Greene,” she says, trying to calm herself down. “My name is Beth Greene. I was raised on a farm in Georgia by Hershel and Annette Greene. I’m in Alexandria. I’m with Maggie and Daryl. I’m safe. I’m Beth. My name is Beth Greene.”

But, for the first time, her facts don’t work.

What good is it, Beth thinks to herself, to know her name if she doesn’t know who she is? If she doesn’t recognize herself in the mirror?

“I was shot in the head,” she cries, like it’s the first time she’s truly understood this, “I was shot in the head.”

Time melts together inside the dark confines of the closet, so when Beth hears her name being called, she startles, banging her head into the wall. She knows she should, yet she does nothing to alert the caller to her whereabouts.

It’s a few minutes later that the door to the closet is whipped open, the doorknob smashing into the wall with a resounding thud. Beth flinches at the sound. When she looks up, it’s Daryl’s face that greets her, just as unreadable as it had been the night before. Beth feels guilty for leaving a mess for Daryl to find, then angry with herself for feeling guilty.

Daryl falls to his knees in front of her, just on the closet’s threshold. His hand reaches out to her, but he stops himself at the last moment, as if he’s not sure whether or not he’s allowed to touch her.

“Beth,” he says, his voice low and careful, “Beth. What’s wrong?”

The question, despite Daryl’s cautious cadence and the worry written on his face, is so ridiculous that laughter bubbles out of Beth’s lips before she can stop it. She doesn’t mean to let it out, but once it’s free, it feels good. But there's a voice in the back of her head telling her it sounds wrong; it sounds cruel.

“What’s wrong?” Beth says in between giggles, “What’s wrong? I got shot in the head!”

She laughs so vigorously that tears begin to pour out of her eyes. Beth knows she’s hysterical, manic in a way she can’t remember ever being, but she’s not strong enough to fight it off. It’s as if something has broken inside her, and now that she’s started laughing, she can’t stop.

“I got shot in the head,” Beth repeats, breathless through her laughing fit, “I got shot in the head.”

It sounds so hilariously insane; she got shot in the head.

How did she go from the girl she’d seen in the photo albums, asleep in her mother’s arms, dressed in white for her confirmation, winning first place at her high school’s talent show, to this? To the girl she saw in the mirror?

It’s funny until, suddenly, it’s not.

“You were all here! Together!” Beth shouts at Daryl. All of the laughter has drained from her voice, and all that’s left behind is her anger. “You had a house and electricity and food and doctors and showers and… and… and coffee with milk and sugar, all while dead people are walking around, and I got shot in the head and left to rot in a fucking car trunk! What’s wrong? What’s wrong? You left me! Alone! With my fucked up head! I got shot in the fucking head, Daryl, that’s what’s fucking wrong!”

Beth launches herself at Daryl, just as she had the day before, but this time, instead of excitement at their reunion, her body is thrumming with a vitriolic anger. She rains her fists down against the broad expanse of Daryl’s chest, as if she could exorcise her pain by giving it to him instead.

“You left me!” Beth screams, each word accompanied by her fist pounding into Daryl’s body, “You left me! You left me! You left me!”

She doesn’t know what she expects from Daryl at her outburst, but it’s not for him to hold her through her anger. He’s sturdy and unmoving as Beth continues the torrential downpour of her fists against him.

It’s only when Beth’s tired herself out, when her fists break open against Daryl’s chest in order to clutch onto his shirt and hold herself upright, when her screams have subsided into sobs and then snivels, that Daryl moves his arms. Even then, it’s just to hold her, to press her deeper into his chest and run his hands in soothing circles across her back.

“Didn’t wanna leave ya,” Daryl says eventually. It’s more like a whisper, but Beth’s so close to him that she hears him with ease. “You gotta know that, Beth. I- I ran all night after the car that took ya. I didn’t wanna leave, you gotta believe me, Beth. I woulda stayed in that trunk with ya… I didn’t want to… I swear I didn’t want to.”

Beth nods her head, whimpering into Daryl’s chest. She knows, somewhere deep inside her, she knows that Daryl’s telling her the truth, knows that Daryl did not want this.

When Daryl finally starts to move, after both of their breathing has stabilized, he does so slowly. He gently manoeuvres Beth until he has one hand under her knees and the other beneath her armpit. When he stands, lifting Beth with him, her stomach flutters. Beth’s not quite able to convince herself that the butterflies she feels are just from the sudden movement and not the feeling of being in Daryl’s arms again.

“You’ve carried me like this before,” Beth says, the words falling out of her mouth before she can question whether or not it’s a good idea to voice the thought.

Her words are somewhere between a statement and a question. Beth’s not quite sure when or where or why, she has so many memories of being carried by Daryl, but she feels sure that it happened, that at least one of her memories must be real. She desperately wishes she knew the truth, but she’s not brave enough to ask him.

Daryl inhales sharply, Beth feels the movement of his ribcage expanding against her body. When he exhales, his breath hits her throat.

But all he says in response to her is, “Mhm.”

It’s a quiet confirmation, but it satiates her for now.

He carries her down the hallway to the bathroom, where Beth sees the towel and clean clothes Maggie had said were laid out for her. Beth expects Daryl to put her down inside the doorway and deposit her back into her solitude, but he carries her into the room. He braces himself on one foot, shutting the toilet lid with the other, before gently putting Beth down on top of the seat.

Now, Beth thinks, now he’ll leave me. But she’s wrong again.

She watches as Daryl turns, grabs a washcloth, and then runs in under the tap. With his back to her, Beth can see the way his body is slightly trembling, but she doesn’t have long to consider the implications of it before Daryl turns back towards her. He kneels down at her feet, taking her hand in his.

The sound of Beth’s breath, heavy and inconsistent, fills the room. To Beth, at least, it sounds like it’s ricocheting off the walls. She finds it difficult to look at Daryl’s face; it’s so serious. So instead, she watches his hands clean hers, fascinated by how small hers look enveloped by his.

Daryl cleans her hands with much more patience than Beth ever would have.

Perhaps this is the sort of indulgence she would’ve allowed herself before: back before the end of the world, back on the farm, back somewhere deep in her brain where memories of ‘girls day’ are buried, in which she and Maggie and her momma would put oatmeal on their faces and paint each other’s nails.

But this version of herself, the version she saw in the mirror, can’t remember ever caring about the state of her nails. But Daryl seems to.

He has to stand several times to return to the sink and wash away the accumulated grime. Each time he does so, a scared, desperate thought fills Beth’s brain that this will be the time he walks away from her. But Daryl always comes back.

He’s meticulous about it. Beth watches, completely captivated, as Daryl takes the corner of the washcloth into the crevice of space between her skin and the edge of her nails, where the dirt has hardened and made itself at home, and digs until all that’s left is Beth’s pale, pink flesh.

He saves her freshly opened scar for last. Again, Beth isn’t sure what to expect from the man kneeling before her. She deserves his disgust, she thinks, for even she hates herself a little bit for doing that: both times. But Daryl continues to surprise her. He treats her wrist with just as much care and tenderness as he had the rest of her hands.

When he finishes, when Beth’s hands are cleaner than she can ever remember them being, the thought bubbles up again; again, Beth thinks that this will be the moment Daryl leaves her, and again, she’s wrong.

After another wring of the cloth in the sink, Daryl settles at her feet once more. This time, he looks up at her instead of staring at her hands. Beth feels naked under his heavy gaze. She feels, simultaneously, like she wants to run away from him and like she wants to sit in this moment, Daryl between her legs, for the rest of her life.

Daryl reaches for her, but just as he had in the closet, he stops himself before he touches her. His hand hovers over her cheek, and Beth wants to reach her own hand up and pull him into her or else nuzzle her cheek in towards his open palm. She wants to tell him that he’s allowed to touch her, that he doesn’t have to ask permission, that he never has to ask permission, but she’s not sure that the words will come out of her mouth if she opens it.

“Can I?” he asks.

Beth isn’t sure what Daryl’s asking, but she nods anyway.

It doesn’t matter what he's asking, she realizes, because, despite her earlier frenzied anger and hysterical screams, she trusts him. Beth trusts Daryl implicitly and unconditionally. So, whatever it is that he’s asking, the answer is ‘yes,’ because she knows he won’t hurt her.

Beth’s eyes flutter shut as Daryl’s warm, steady hand closes in against her cheek. He takes on the weight on her head, manoeuvring it around as his other hand wipes away her trauma. Her breathing stutters and then stills as the washcloth travels along the numb skin of the scar along her cheekbone, then her eyebrow, and finally to the puckered circle that lies below her hairline.

Daryl’s fingers circle the scar with such gentleness that Beth feels tears begin to burn in the backs of her eyes.

Time stretches on agonizingly slowly, and yet, when Daryl finishes, Beth feels like it’s too soon. She has the passing, childish thought of wishing she were dirtier so he would have to keep touching her.

When he stands, Beth feels certain that this time he’ll leave her to shower and clean the skin that lies beyond his reach.

The thought of being left alone again, with just her scars and her scrambled brain for company, is excruciating. It’s difficult to breathe through the pain of it. So she’s not surprised when she sees her own hand dart out to grab onto the edge of Daryl’s shirt.

“Don’t go,” she whispers.

She’s too afraid to look at Daryl’s face as she speaks, so she stares at his wrinkled shirt that’s caught in the grip of her fist instead. Daryl lets out a cough in an attempt to clear his throat while he considers her request. Beth thinks of the awkward moment of silence from last night before Daryl climbed into bed with her and wonders if she misread him.

Beth catches him bringing his thumb up to his mouth out of the corner of her eye. She feels the urge to laugh at the fact that Daryl had just spent so long agonizing over the state of her nails, making sure that every speck of dirt was banished from her nails and every hangnail was carefully dealt with, just for him to bite his own the minute he finished, but the moment feels too fragile to disrupt with laughter. Besides, when Beth examines the thought, it doesn’t actually feel funny; it makes her heart feel too big for her chest.

“Maggie said Siddiq told her you gotta shower,” Daryl finally says, talking around his thumb, “Get your cuts an’ everythin’ all cleaned up.”

“Please stay with me,” Beth begs, despite Daryl’s careful rejection.

If he dances around her plea, she’ll be too scared to ask again.

Daryl shuffles back and forth, his weight shifting from one foot to the other as he contemplates her. He rips a bit of skin off from around his thumb, and they’re both distracted for a moment by the drop of blood that bubbles up before it disappears into his mouth.

“Okay,” he mumbles, still around his thumb.

He sounds unsure, but he nods short and decisive, then turns his back to Beth and turns the shower on.

Beth’s legs tremble slightly as she stands. Through the tremors, she’s able to toe off her boots and socks. Then, it’s her hand’s turn to shake as she pops open the button of her jeans. She removes her sweater and then a long-sleeve shirt until she’s standing in front of Daryl in just her underwear and a tank top.

As goosebumps erupt over her newly exposed skin, Beth realizes that she doesn’t know how long it’s been since she’s been so undressed; it was so rare for her to feel safe enough to do so while she was on her own.

Although she’s the one standing in her underwear, Daryl is holding his body with such awkward, rigidness, that it feels like he’s the vulnerable one.

Beth wants to reach out and reassure him that it doesn’t have to mean anything, that it’s simply because she cannot bear the thought of being alone again, but she can’t make herself say the words out loud. So instead, she stares at him, trying to convey the thought with her eyes. But Beth feels her nakedness when their eyes lock, and she has to drop her gaze to Daryl’s throat. She loses herself watching the way it bobs when he swallows until he finally begins to move, kicking off his boots.

She reaches into the shower, both to check the water's temperature and to give Daryl some privacy. When she hears the clang of his belt buckle hitting the bathroom floor, she turns to look at him over her shoulder, finding him in his boxers and t-shirt. Beth offers him a small, reassuring smile, then steps into the shower, confident that Daryl will follow her.

The anger she felt over her family having access to luxuries like hot showers melts away the moment the water hits Beth’s body. The heat works its magic, loosening her muscles, and the thick steam makes her problems feel far away. 

Beth stands with her back to Daryl. It’s enough just to know that he’s there, that she’s not alone. But when she leans down to grab the shampoo bottle, his hands beat her to it.

“Let me,” he says, “Please.”

His voice is low and hoarse, and it sends a shiver down Beth’s spine that she hopes wasn’t noticeable. But the effect that Daryl’s having on her body becomes glaringly obvious when his hands begin to tangle in her hair and she shudders so vigorously that she’s sure it couldn’t have been missed.

Beth gasps, audible even over the sound of the water, when Daryl’s fingers find the spot on the crown of her head that’s only ever been touched by herself and Dr. Edwards.

She feels Daryl freeze, and for a moment, she freezes too. Beth’s caught between the residual repulsion of Edwards’ touch and a newfound urge for Daryl to keep touching her in such an intimate place. Although it terrifies her, Beth makes the decision to purposefully relax into Daryl’s touch; she doesn’t want to risk him thinking that he’s done something wrong or the possibility of him being too scared to touch her again. Relief floods her body, making it easier to breathe, when his tender explorations start up again.

It occurs to Beth that this is the first time her wound’s known a gentle touch; she’s only touched it with harsh resentment, and Edwards’ only touched it with sick fascination.

“Does it hurt?” Daryl asks, his voice barely audible over the sound of the water rushing down around them.

“No,” Beth says, “It doesn’t hurt.”

It feels strange, somehow both dull and sharp at the same time. But it doesn’t hurt, at least not now, not under Daryl’s careful fingers.

He runs his shampoo-filled hands through her hair a few times, until the water that pours off her is clean and clear, before he grabs the conditioner bottle. While the conditioner sits in her hair, he grabs the washcloth again.

Beth wonders if Daryl, like Maggie, needs to have his hands busy around her, whether it’s stopping them from saying or doing something to her. She wants to know what those words or actions might be.

Daryl runs the washcloth over Beth’s feet, between each of her toes, then her calves, up her knees and her thighs, before moving up to her arms and neck. Then he pushes her forehead back, prompting her to tip her hair back into the water to rinse off.

When he finishes, Daryl busies himself with putting everything back in its place, but the sudden lack of his hands on her body makes Beth feel unsteady on her feet. Suddenly just knowing that Daryl is there is no longer enough; Beth needs to see him, needs to touch him, or else, she thinks she’ll disappear, vanishing into the steam that surrounds them.

She spins around to face him, her feet slipping slightly under the suddenness of her movement. She’s dimly able to register the way Daryl’s eyes widen in surprise before she tilts forward and buries her face in his chest. The moment Beth touches him, she begins to weep.

“I’m sorry,” Beth says through her tears.

These tears are different from the ones she’d shed on the floor of the closet. Those tears had been wild and feverish and completely out of her control; these tears are slow and steady, composed from a deep sadness that Beth doesn’t have the words for.

She doesn’t know what she’s apologizing for: for forcing Daryl to shower with her, for smashing the mirror, cutting herself open, and leaving the remnants behind for Daryl to find, for her missing memories, for dying, for being taken from him in the first place. But Beth repeats her apology over and over again, desperate for Daryl to know how sorry she is.

“I’m sorry,” Beth says as her tears mix with the falling water and then vanish into Daryl’s soaked shirt, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Daryl, I’m so sorry.”

Just as he had earlier, Daryl holds her through it.

His hands move in small circles on Beth’s back while he whispers, “It’s okay, you’re okay,” into her ear until she calms down.

It’s only when the water has started to turn cold that Daryl speaks again.

“Should be the one apologizing to you,” he says as he extracts himself from Beth’s grip.

Beth holds herself, wrapping her arms around her chest, in lieu of Daryl’s embrace. She shakes her head frantically at the thought of Daryl apologizing to her; the thought of it makes her heart ache.

“I’ll wait in the bathroom,” he says, finally tearing his gaze away from her after a long moment, “If you wanna finish up in here.”

It’s not quite a question, but Daryl waits for Beth to nod tentatively before he steps out of the shower all the same.

Beth feels his absence like a physical blow. She has to reach her hand out to press into the wall, quickly revelling in how solid it is beneath her fingers, to steady herself.

“Daryl?” she asks through the shower curtain, hoping that the sound of running water hides how shaky her voice is, “Can you talk to me?”

“‘Bout what?”

“Anything,” Beth says, then clarifies, “Good things.”

“Alright,” Daryl says, but he sounds unsure of himself. Beth pictures him standing in the same awkward, rigid posture as before, and smiles to herself. “Carl’s got a girlfriend.”

“Oh?” Beth says as she peels off the last of her clothes, finally able to move with the comfort and company of Daryl’s voice.

“Enid. Nice girl, you’ll like her. Maggie an’ Glenn practically adopted her,” Daryl tells her, “Guess we’ll have to see if it lasts now, the kid always did have a crush on ya.”

A giggle flies out of Beth’s throat. It’s small compared to her earlier laughter, but it feels right, real. She realizes that she doesn’t know when the last time she laughed, truly laughed, carefree and happy, was.

Beth stands still in the shower for a minute, counting her inhales and exhales, and letting herself linger in the sensation of being clean. Beth bathes in Daryl’s voice as he tells her about Carol’s newfound skill for cookie making, how they’d found out that Rick and Michonne were together, and the motorcycle Aaron had gifted him; she luxuriates in the knowledge that Daryl is on the other side of the curtain, waiting for her, before she turns the water off.

Daryl’s hand pokes through the space between the wall and the edge of the shower curtain, holding out a towel for her. Beth smiles to herself at the sight and finds that she’s glad, just for a second, to be out of Daryl’s sight.

When she finally steps out of the shower, she comes face-to-face with herself. Even through the steam that’s gathered on the mirror, Beth recognizes herself. The scars are still there, and she’s still skinnier than she should be, but she no longer looks quite so haunted; she no longer feels like a monster destined to wander the streets of Alexandria, taking advantage of a society that she’d never be able to fit into.

Daryl, already in dry clothes of his own, has his back to her in a clear invitation for Beth to dress in the clothing that Maggie laid out for her. They must be Maggie’s own clothes because they smell like her. Once she’s wrapped in the scent of her older sister and back under Daryl’s gaze, Beth feels safe in a way she wasn’t sure she’d ever feel again.

The walk back to the bedroom is quiet but comfortable until Beth reaches the doorway to the small room that she realizes must be Daryl’s. She freezes at the sight, greeted by the mess of blood and broken glass that she’d made. Her stomach rolls at the thought of Daryl opening up the door to his room and finding this.

He must’ve been so scared, she thinks, hating herself for doing that to him. Beth opens her mouth; she wants to apologize again, but her tongue feels thick and heavy in her mouth.

“Don’t,” Daryl says before she can speak. His voice is deep, firm and unwavering. “Already told ya, you’ve got nothin’ to be sorry ‘bout.”

His hand presses down between her shoulder blades, and for the first time that day, he didn’t hesitate before touching her. That, more than anything else, pushes Beth into the room. With his hand on her back, Daryl walks Beth to the bed. She sits down, perched on the edge, with Daryl standing between her legs.

Beth doesn’t know when he grabbed it, but Daryl’s holding the bag of supplies Siddiq gave her. He reaches for her wrist, turning it over so the back of Beth's hand is cradled in his palm, and exposes her scar. Beth hisses at the sting from the antiseptic solution until Daryl's thumb begins to rub soothing motions into her skin, and she’s able to focus on that sensation instead.

Daryl disposes of the cotton pad when he finishes, then stills. He doesn’t move, not to leave or to settle. So Beth makes the decision for him.

She curls her fingers around Daryl’s wrist and pulls slightly in a silent invitation to lie down with her. She shifts over, moving towards the wall, towards the side of the bed she’d slept on the night before, but when Daryl climbs onto the bed, Beth’s body instinctively curves towards him, leaving just a breath of space between them.

Daryl’s fingers seem to absentmindedly trace the path of Beth’s cut. They trail back and forth above the bandaid along the line she carved into herself.

In bed, with the door shut and the lights off, with Daryl next to her rather than in front of her, it’s easier for Beth to put words to the thoughts that have been floating around in her head.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt myself,” she starts, “Not really. I just- I just wanted to know if it was real… If I was real.”

Daryl’s fingers stop for a moment before resuming their journey along Beth’s scar.

“I know,” he says.

With his other hand, Daryl guides Beth’s fingers to the back of his hand. There, Beth feels a familiar sensation. She knows, intimately, what scar tissue feels like beneath her fingertips, and he instantly recognizes the rough, uneven texture.

“Did that right after,” Daryl says. He hesitates before continuing, “Was a cigarette… Needed to feel somethin’ other than losin’ ya, wanted to see if I even could.”

Beth’s heart aches at the thought of Daryl hurting himself, but she can’t help the small, sad smile that forms at the knowledge of their newfound similarity.

“Did it work?” she asks, suddenly morbidly curious about the time following her death.

“No.”

“Mine neither,” she admits.

At some point, his fingers must’ve stilled, because Beth shivers when she feels them start to move again. They sink into a weighted silence. The shadows in the room are starting to stretch when Beth speaks again.

“You ran after the car?” she asks, her voice small.

She feels silly asking, but she needs to be sure. Beth tried to hold tight to her convictions at Grady, but Shepherd and Edwards had been relentless, and she hadn’t been able to fight off all of the doubts that had slipped through. The idea of Daryl running after her has been bouncing around her head since he spoke the words. It goes against everything that they told her.

“All night,” Daryl says, “Only stopped ‘cause there was a crossroad. Didn’t wanna go the wrong way, an’ then-”

“And you didn’t want to leave me?”

“I didn’t want to leave you,” Daryl repeats slowly, seemingly understanding her need for reassurance, “A horde came, we put ya in the trunk to keep you safe. I wanted to go back, I tried to go back.”

“And you didn’t know that I was alive?” Beth asks, putting words to one of her worst fears.

“What?” Daryl asks, the calm, steadiness draining from his voice, “No, ‘course not. What?”

“They said that maybe you knew,” Beth whispers, her eyes squeezing shut, “That you left me on purpose ‘cause I was too weak.”

Daryl’s grip tightens around her wrist. Beth can feel the anger that’s radiating off him, but she knows it’s not towards her.

“Fuckin’,” he lets slip out in a mumbled whisper. Beth can tell Daryl’s trying to restore calmness to his voice, but he can’t quite disguise the rage he’s feeling. “We didn’t know. Beth, I wouldn’t- I would never-” 

“I know,” Beth says, although she just asked the question, she finds that she does know; she knows that Daryl would never knowingly leave her behind.

There’s so much more that she wants to tell Daryl, so much more that she wants to ask him, but Beth’s eyelids are growing heavy, and the ability to keep them open is getting harder and harder with each blink. Somewhere, she finds the strength for one more question. 

“Stay with me?” Beth asks, her voice coming out quiet and pleading.

“Don’t gotta keep askin’, girl,” Daryl tells her, “‘M not gonna leave ya.”

“Okay,” Beth whispers as her eyes blink shut, then repeats, wanting Daryl to know that she believes him.

“Okay,” he whispers back to her.

The golden sunlight of late afternoon is still spilling in through the cracks in the curtains, but Beth’s exhausted. She blinks one last time, then her eyes stay shut. She’s almost sure that she feels the light touch of Daryl’s nose in her hair, but Beth’s asleep before she can think too much about it.

Chapter Text

Beth lets herself fall into a fragile routine in Alexandria.

Her mornings are divvied up between family members: mornings spent with Maggie and Deanna after she walks Judith to school with Carl, making lunch and dinner with Carol, check-ins with Siddiq, and filling the gaps with whoever’s available. She no longer scoffs at the idea of needing a babysitter; Beth’s still mad at herself for scaring Daryl the way she did.

She still hasn’t fully explained herself yet, not to anyone but Siddiq, but she can see the worry starting to grow in her family’s eyes when they look at her. The first layer of their gaze is still a tender happiness for her return to them, but just below that, Beth can sense a deepening understanding that something is wrong with her.

It takes Beth a few days to brave the question that’s been swirling around like a tornado inside of her head.

“I tried to kill myself?” she asks quietly, finally putting words to the heartwrenching realization.

She’s sitting in the garden with Maggie, pulling weeds out of the flowerbed, and it’s so achingly similar to so many memories Beth has from the farm and the prison yard that the question seems to just slip out of her lips.

“Yeah,” Maggie whispers, her hands twitching and then pausing in the dirt, “Or- I don’t know, after, you said that you just felt so hopeless, that you didn’t know what else to do… But then, when you saw all the blood, that you knew you didn’t actually want to die.”

Beth’s eyes trace back and forth along the band-aid that’s poking out between the end of her shirt and the start of her gardening glove as she considers Maggie’s answer. It feels right; it resonates with her experience earlier in the week and the immense and immediate sense of regret that had pooled in her stomach as she’d watched her blood pool on the floor.

It’s a new bandage; Daryl’s changed the dressing on her wound every night for her, but Beth can still feel the ghost of his touch lingering against her skin, drifting along her scar. The thought of it alone is enough to send her stomach swooping.

“I don’t,” Beth says resolutely, “That’s why- That’s why I was so confused.”

Beth knows that Maggie and Daryl talk about her.

She doesn’t begrudge them for it, even though she thinks that at one point, perhaps even recently, she would have. So she knows that Maggie will understand her words, that Daryl will have conveyed the most important parts of their conversation to her sister. She’s glad that they were able to find comfort in each other in her absence.

“It was right after Annette and Shawn…,” Maggie starts, then trails off.

Beth’s head snaps towards her sister in surprise.

“I thought it was at the farm?” she asks, sure that she can see the shattered glass of the mirror from her childhood bathroom in her mind’s eye.

“It was,” Maggie carefully confirms, like she knows she’s breaking Beth’s heart with her words.

Beth knew that they hadn’t made it; they weren’t here after all. But she’d been holding onto hope that they’d made it further than the farm. That means, she realizes with an aching chest, that all her memories laughing and singing with her momma and brother at the prison are false. It means that they never got to meet Judith or watch Beth grow into someone that she’s proud of. Although she supposes, it also means that they never had to watch her slit her wrist; never had to watch a bullet go through her head.

“So no one else made it?” Beth manages to ask, terrified as she is of the answer. “Patricia? Otis? Jimmy? Daddy?”

Her voice catches and then breaks with her last word.

“Daddy did,” Maggie says as she pries Beth’s hand off her thigh.

It’s only then that Beth realizes she’d been digging her fingers into the flesh of her leg. When her fingers are free, they instinctively wrap around Maggie’s hand. Beth grips tightly to her older sister’s hand, her leg throbbing lightly below their clasped hands, and desperately tries to ground herself in reality.

“But then he died anyway, right?” she asks bitterly, “He got bit and we cut off his arm and he died anyway.” 

“We cut off his leg,” Maggie says slowly, “But he lived after that. He died- He died later.”

At Maggie’s words, Beth remembers the prosthetic leg she’d buried at the prison. Yet, she can also remember the feeling of holding her father down, the way he tried to buck her off as Rick sawed off his arm. She can feel his body’s desperate attempts to escape her hold.

“No,” she insists, “I held him down. We cut off his arm.”

Her hand reels back, ready to hit herself, punish herself, but Maggie catches her.

“You weren’t there,” Maggie tells her, “Glenn and Daryl held him down, Rick cut off his leg.”

Beth’s hand falters in her sister’s hold.

“But I can feel him,” she whispers, almost to herself, although she knows that Maggie can hear her, “Trying to fight me off. I can feel it.”

“Maybe it happened,” Maggie whispers back, “Maybe you had to do it for someone else.”

They sit in a heavy silence, their hands still clasped tightly together, as the last remnants of the Greene family. Beth remembers how their daddy used to make her hold Maggie or Shawn’s hand so she wouldn’t get lost in a crowd; she thinks about how soon she’ll be older than Shawn ever got to be.

“You know,” Maggie says, shaking her head slightly like she’s just come up for air after being underwater, “Carol was there, at the hospital, and she knew Noah the best. You could ask her if she knows anything.”

“Okay,” Beth whispers, desperate for both a reprieve from the current pain in her heart and also for an answer to at least one of her questions. As desperate as she is, she manages to squeeze her sister’s hand and whispers, “Thanks, Mags,” before she stands.

Beth finds Carol in the kitchen. She’s grateful; she’s finding that it’s easier to have these conversations when there’s something for her to do.

She pushes herself up onto the counter, grabbing a bag of granola as she does. The thrill of having easy access to food still hasn’t worn off. Beth swings her legs back and forth, her heels lightly hitting the cupboard below her, as she considers the situation before her.

“Hi,” Carol says after a moment, when it becomes clear that Beth isn’t going to speak first.

“Hi, Carol.”

“What can I do for you, sweetie?”

Beth freezes, caught in her indecisiveness; she’s not sure whether or not she actually wants to know the truth. And caught, too, in her wavering ability to actually force the words out of her mouth. Her throat feels tight and itchy when she thinks about it. But ultimately, she knows that she has to. If she doesn’t, the unknown will just continue to haunt her.

“I was wonderin’,” she starts, picking at a loose thread in her jeans as she speaks to avoid Carol’s seemingly knowing eyes, “If Noah ever mentioned anything about having to cut someone’s arm off?”

Beth wraps the thread around her finger, watching in feigned fascination as the surrounding skin goes white while her fingertip turns bright red.

Carol is silent, and in response, Beth braves a glance up. When she makes eye contact with her friend, she immediately has to look away, frightened of the dark intensity she finds in the older woman’s face.

“Yes,” Carol says. 

Beth’s hand twitches, causing the thread to rip away from her jeans. She wants to ask for more, but her throat's grown even tighter.

“Noah told me about a girl named Joan and a man named Gorman,” Carol says.

Beth’s insides go cold at Joan’s name, and freeze at Gorman’s.

It’s suddenly clear to her why her mind has tried to spare her of these memories as the feeling of big, clammy hands spreads across her stomach and the smell of sweet, rotten apples fills her lungs. Beth feels the sticky sensation of a licked lollipop between her lips. She shivers as the sensation travels down her body, along the muscles of her neck, across her collarbone, tracing lines on her chest and her stomach, between her breasts and her belly button.

She’s vaguely aware that Carol is still speaking, still explaining. But Beth no longer wants more; now, there are too many memories of Gorman and Joan competing for space in her mind.

“Thank you,” she manages to stutter, for although she feels sick, she wanted to know, and now she does, and she can’t blame Carol for that.

Beth stumbles out of the kitchen, up the stairs, and towards the room that she’s desperately trying to think of as hers. But as she passes the bathroom, another feeling takes over her body: the desperate need to wash Gorman’s hands off her.

She turns the shower on, remembering how safe she’d felt in there with Daryl. And it works, for a little while, at least. It works as she takes the same washcloth that Daryl cleaned her with and scrubs her skin until it’s red and stinging. It works until the water begins to cool and Beth begins to shiver; her shaking body makes her feel vulnerable. She suddenly feels naked as she gets flashes of Gorman’s hands around her waist, her breast, her throat.

Her stomach lurches, losing control, and Beth throws up chunks of spit-covered granola. She realizes, as she looks down at her vomit-covered feet, that the comfort she found in the shower was from Daryl, not from the shower itself.

Beth dresses slowly in the biggest, warmest, comfiest clothes that she can find. It’s when she’s already dressed that he realizes that the shirt and sweater she’s put on must be Daryl’s. She tucks her nose into the collar of the sweater and inhales, managing to steal a little bit of comfort from the smell.

She’s still shivering when she enters their room. It happened naturally: them sharing a room. He put her down in his bed while she’d been unconscious, and she’d never left. Rick and Maggie had offered to rearrange the houses to find her a room of her own, but Beth hadn’t wanted to, and Daryl had sworn that it was fine.

The room feels safe most of the time. At first, she’d found it devoid of personality, but now that Beth knows what to look for, she finds it drenched in Daryl’s presence. There’s a collection of small, smooth rocks on the windowsill and piles of feathers and sticks that Daryl means to turn into arrows on the dresser. It’s enough to comfort her most of the time, but now, with Gorman’s hands still ghosting at her body, the room feels too big.

She’s craving the comfort of a small, dark space to be alone with her thoughts. The closet is too obvious, Beth thinks; people know they can find her there now. So she crawls beneath the bed and finally lets her tears fall.

Beth isn’t sure how long she’s alone for, how long she’s lost adrift in a trance of her labyrinthine thoughts and memories. She doesn’t realize that she’s no longer alone until Daryl’s face appears before her, framed between the floor and the bed.

She startles, reeling back against the wall, her head hitting the bottom of the bed frame, before she realizes that it’s him. Then she berates herself for being so careless, so easily distracted, knowing that if she were still out in the world by herself, it could have been an irrevocable mistake.

Daryl’s shoulders are too wide to allow him to crawl in next to her, but he wedges himself into the small gap all the same. Slowly, carefully, he reaches his hand out towards her. Beth remembers approaching Nelly in the same way when she’d first started riding the nervous horse. Just like Nelly, Beth jerks back slightly when Daryl gets too close. It’s a minuscule moment, a reflex, but Beth can see the hurt that clouds Daryl’s eyes for a second.

It hurts her too, somewhere deep inside of her body, this instinctive apprehension of being seen and touched, because Beth wants to be seen and touched by Daryl; she wants to want to be seen and touched by him.

Daryl withdraws his hand, not completely, but far enough so it’s no longer lingering in Beth’s space. It makes her body ache with sad loneliness. She steels herself, begging herself to be brave, and reaches for him. Beth reaches out just far enough to link the tips of their fingers together, and it’s just enough that warmth begins to spread through her body, replacing the sadness. She notices, fascinated, as the shivers that have wracked her body since the shower finally start to fade away.

“What happened?” Daryl asks, finally.

His breath and his words cause slight movements in his body, consequently causing their fingers to slide together with a little bit more solidity.

“I don’t know,” Beth whispers, “I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“I don’t know,” Beth repeats. She hates those words: how they feel in her mouth, how often she finds herself saying them these days. “Everything.”

“Okay,” Daryl says, almost to himself, “That’s okay.”

“It is?” Beth asks, her voice quiet and unsure.

Daryl swallows hard; Beth can hear it in the silence that’s stretching out between them.

“‘Course it is,” he tells her.

“But you’re not scared,” Beth whispers.

Whether it’s real or not, she can remember Daryl screaming at her, telling her he wasn’t afraid of anything.

“‘M scared all the time,” Daryl mumbles, “Shit’s fuckin’ terrifying.”

“Oh,” Beth breathes out.

For so long, she’s been told, by herself and others, that being scared isn’t okay, that it isn’t allowed, that it’s not an option. And now, here’s Daryl, perhaps the bravest man she knows, wedged halfway under a bed, telling her that it is okay.

They lapse into silence again, their fingers lightly brushing together and then slightly separating as they each inhale and then exhale. As Beth considers the man in front of her and what he’s told her, she feels tears begin to prickle in her eyes. She tries to blink them away, but it feels like it’s only a matter of time before they start to fall again.

“But ya gotta quit actin’ like you’re still out there alone,” Daryl says, breaking their silence and startling Beth again.

“What do you mean?” she asks, retreating back into herself slightly at his words.

“You don’t know somethin’ or you’re scared, that’s fine, but you ain’t alone anymore. You don’t get to hurt yourself or run away. If you ain’t sure of somethin’, or somethin’ scares ya, then you find me and ask, and I’ll tell ya if it’s real or not,” Daryl says, almost without breathing. It’s overwhelming; Beth can hear the anger and worry and care that Daryl feels for her, all taking turns in his voice. “Or Maggie or Rick or Carol. Whoever. But you ain’t alone anymore and ya gotta stop actin’ like ya are. You don't get to hurt yourself.”

Beth’s hand shakes at his outburst, inadvertently pushing her fingers harder into his. This time, however, Daryl grabs onto her. He wraps the tips of his fingers around hers; they're not quite holding hands, they’re not close enough, but they are holding on to each other.

She feels, again, ashamed and angry at herself for scaring Daryl, for making him worry about her, for not being able to see the solution for herself.

“Okay,” she says, knowing that it will be easier said than done, but willing to try for him.

Beth fully extends her arm, finally fully grasping Daryl’s hand in hers, and begins to crawl out from under the bed. Neither of them moves to release the other’s hand once she’s free.

They sit, mirrors of one another, with their backs against the bed frame, their knees pulled up, and their hands clasped together in the small space between their bodies.

“Did you talk to Noah much?” Beth asks after a few moments of silence, continuing once Daryl grunts his affirmation, “Did he- Did he tell you about Gorman?”

The name feels gross in her mouth, and it brings back the cold, sickly feeling in her body. Daryl’s hand squeezes her, but Beth doesn’t think he did so consciously; it felt more like a spasm. He nods, just once, quick and short. Beth watches him out of the corner of her eyes, not daring to look at him straight on; she tracks his Adam’s apple as it bobs in his throat before he speaks.

“Dunno the details,” Daryl says, his voice suddenly hoarse, like he’s just smoked a pack of cigarettes, “Don’t think Noah really did either, but yeah… He told me that- He said that Gorman liked you.”

The shiver that seemed to have been banished by Daryl’s warm presence takes hold of Beth’s body again at the insinuation of Daryl’s words and the knowledge that, despite her promise just a few moments ago, there’s no one to ask whether or not the memories of Gorman that haunt her are real.

Daryl reaches his hand up, the one that’s not intertwined with hers, his sleeve pulled over his hand, and gently wipes Beth’s cheeks; it’s then that she realizes she’s crying.

Beth lets herself fall into Daryl. She collapses against him, her head tucking between his shoulder and his neck, and her arm wrapping around his chest like he’s a piece of driftwood keeping her afloat in the ocean. Her tears only intensify as his body responds to her: his arm wraps around her back, holding her to him just as tightly.

“What happened to him?” she asks once she’s calmed down enough to speak, “Noah, I mean.”

“Walkers,” Daryl says simply, and for a moment, Beth thinks he won’t elaborate. “It was- It was bad. Glenn was there if you wanna know the details, but… Tried to take him home, knew it woulda been important to you.”

Beth lets out a shaky exhale, feeling pain and sorrow for her friend, for the one kind person she’d gotten to know at Grady.

But there’s also a strong surge of relief that he hadn’t met his end by more evil from humanity; they served their time at Grady, Beth thinks. Walkers had once seemed like something brought up from hell, something she’d be warned about at Sunday school, but now, to Beth anyway, they almost seem like a kinder way to go.

There’s a warmth, too, a feeling that pools in her stomach when she thinks about Daryl trying to take Noah home for her.

“And my dad?” she asks, remembering the way Maggie’s voice had trailed off when she’d brought him up earlier. “He- How did he?”

“The Governor,” Daryl says.

The pain is clear in his voice, and for a moment, Beth wants to backpedal and relieve them from this conversation. But then she remembers her promise to Daryl, and even more so, she finds that she wants to know what happened to her dad; she needs to know what happened to him.

“He came back,” Daryl continues, “Your dad was out, collectin’ plants that he thought could be used for medicine. He was tough, even with one leg, he was tough, but the Governor got him. He said he would let Hershel go if we gave him the prison, but we all knew that wasn’t gonna happen. He blew it up and… That’s how- That’s how we ended up alone out there.”

Daryl finishes, answering questions that Beth didn’t even know she had as she sees them running, scared and free, hand in hand. 

Another image comes to her then: her daddy on his knees with a sword at his neck. Beth had desperately hoped that the memory was false.

She digs her face deeper into Daryl’s shoulder, her eyes stinging with the pressure of it, and begins to cry again.

“Thank you, Daryl,” she says eventually: for her dad, for Noah, for being there for her, both then and now, for everything. Beth doesn’t elaborate, but she thinks that Daryl understands her anyway, because he hums in agreement.

They stay that way, wrapped up in each other’s arms, Beth letting her questions and tears fall as they come, Daryl answering her and then wiping her cheeks, until Carol comes to knock on the door and tells them that dinner’s ready.