I can honestly say that I don't know where this piece of writing come from. I was in the middle of writing a chapter for my current story, "one at a time," and then suddenly this bloomed beneath my fingers. Regardless I like what it's become and it's completely different to what I'm writing at the moment. Warning that I have no beta, and that mistakes are my own. I hope you enjoy and review, let me now what you think about my 2 AM ramblings.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Walking Dead, or any of its characters. I own my character and this piece of writing. I make no profits from this.

The last time that they fucked, he had called her by another name.

She didn't expect it to hurt, but it did. She had no right to be upset. She had gone to him with the proposition, telling him that that they could use each other, just for release. She had even sounded convincing, calm nearly, as she explained the benefits of getting it out, of pressing the pain between their bodies. He had been dubious.

He gave her jerky shakes of his head and retreated into the forest. Unwilling to even listen to what she had to say. She didn't care for the rejection, didn't even think about it. She was hurting and he was hurting and she couldn't see why they couldn't mesh the pain together. Couldn't see why they couldn't burn together.

She knew that he had lost someone he cared about and he knew that she had lost her soul mate. When he came back later in the day, she asked him again and he considered it. But two days later and he was still avoiding her, no decision made and her still burning. Burning with the grief that wouldn't come out. She had lost so many people by then.

So many people that she loved. She couldn't determine how she even breathed without them. Walked, and talked, and slept and ate and survived. She was going through the motions, moving with the days. But she wasn't alive. She wanted to be alive again. She knew that whoever Daryl had lost had teased him with that.

That breathless life that filled your soul when you loved someone. She cornered him in the shower later that evening. Stripped wordlessly, joining him beneath the spray. He didn't speak, didn't move and didn't give her an answer. So she took it instead. He fucked her raw in the shower. No foreplay and no kissing, no caresses or pretend.

She didn't cum, but she hadn't expected to the first time anyway. He did. Thick, creamy spurts across her stomach that he scooped up with his fingers and shoved into her mouth. She had stared him in the eyes and sucked them clean. The next time they fucked, he rammed her face into the pillow and told her to bite down. Then he took her ass.

She had screamed and screamed and it had burned. It was the most alive she had felt for months, pushing on years. He'd flipped her onto her back shortly after, took her rough and hard and without mercy. He cum inside her that night and she couldn't even muster up panic that there was a chance that she was pregnant.

He could. He did. Ranted and raved, called her names. Said he wouldn't touch her again, that he wouldn't be back. He lied. He was back four days later when she was on watch. He bent her over and took her from behind. She cum for the first time. It made him frantic, desperate. He cum inside her again. They didn't talk about it.

They went on a run together two days after, and she nearly died. That night he was softer, gentler. They kissed. It was different, but not enough. Not the same. Not the same as the girl he thought about and the husband she craved. He told her about Beth that night. About her cornsilk hair and her blue, blue eyes.

Her singing, her hope. How he had seen the good in her and didn't want to soil it. Daryl said no one would have understood. Would have forced them apart, turned him out for being a pervert. Just seventeen, he said she was, but they hadn't seen her at the shack. She didn't know what he meant. About the shack and the moonshine, but she listened anyway.

She didn't tell him about her husband, because his name didn't belong between them. Daryl kept fucking her a little softer after that, a little gentler. But the spark was dying, the satisfaction of being alive waning and she forced him to be rough again. Riled him up on purpose all day long.

Gave him sly looks and sneak peaks when no one else was looking. Said things that would hurt him, so that he took it out on her. Things like redneck and hillbilly, and scars. He tied her hands to the bed that night and rode her for hours. He didn't tire and he didn't rest and he didn't cum.

He just fucked and fucked and fucked her until she came screaming, sobbing and shaking. Burning. She was burning so damn hot and bright and raw. He cum inside her, again. She got sick three days later. Morning sickness, she knew. She'd had two before, she knew. He panicked, said he didn't want it, shouldn't have happened.

She understood, but she was keeping it, didn't have an option, no way to get rid of it. But her growing bump made her feel alive, so desperately alive. Maybe this was what she had wanted. Maybe this was that burning need she had tried so desperately to fulfil. He came back, like she expected him to.

Said Dixon was a good for nothing name and that the baby could have hers instead. Said he didn't know how to be a Daddy, but he'd try. Beth would have wanted him to try. The very last night she saw him, he took her soft and slow and it was good. He worked her for hours, until she was sweating and near delirious from cumming.

But he'd called her Beth.

She hadn't expected it to hurt, but it did. They didn't have time to argue about it though, because he didn't come back from his run. She waited for months, but he never came. She give birth without him. To a sweet baby girl who looked like the two brothers she would never ever meet.

Looked like her Daddy who had chose to want her, chose to move on from his grief. She called the baby Beth. It burned her gut something fierce, but she did it for him. For Daryl who had left to reclaim his own burning, his own precious someone who made him feel alive.

She raised Beth until she was seven years old, and then she lost her too. It burned, but she thought of Daryl again. Thought of him surrounded by Beth's, alive at last.