I do not own The Walking Dead or any of it's characters.
Everything was in chaos, the screams of Beth's people intermingled with the groans of walkers and gunshot after gunshot.
The gun she had been using ran out of ammo shortly after the horde had broken down the fence, their only protection.
She only had one extra clip on her at the time and that was gone within minutes.
Maggie had told her to stay in the bus, but as soon as she was gone Beth had thought of Judith and the other kids. They were probably terrified. As she watched more of her people dying, some of them parents of the children, She jumped out of the bus and made a beeline for the prison.
The kids weren't in the library, where they were told to go in case of emergency, so Beth checked the cell Judith had last been in. She was gone, as well as her diaper bag and car seat.
She made it out of the prison just in time to watch the bus drive away.
Beth trembled in fear as she ran, looking for any one she knew. A bullet whizzed by her head and she couldn't help but scream and duck, falling hard on her knee in the process.
Snarls erupted behind her. There were walkers, and they were hungry. Beth stood painfully, her knee screaming in protest.
She stumbled away from the walkers just in time, a rotting hand barely missing her hair. Her body screamed as she pushed herself to run from the murderous beings behind her. She stuck to the fence, narrowing down the sides of her that could be used as a meal.
She looked to the left and saw dead bodies, most of them unidentifiable. In the back of her mind, She knew one of them was her father's.
Anguish took her legs out, and she tumbled to the ground against the chain link fence. She hooked her fingers in it and tried to pull herself up, hoping that she could push past her weakness.
She heard a gunshot close enough to cause her head to ring and looked up to see a man she'd never met before, covered in blood and grinning.
"Hello little girl." He growled, he cocked his gun and held it to her head. "Looks like you've got yourself into some trouble."
Beth choked back a cry of fear as she stared down the barrel of the gun. Slowly, she raised her eyes to his.
"P-please-"
He laughed, "I tell you what if I don't kill you now you gotta repay me somehow." He hooked a finger in the belt loop of his jeans and gazed at her lecherously.
"No!"
He smirked and leaned down to grab her arm, his fingers bruising her pale skin immediately. Just as quickly as he'd grabbed her his fingers went limp.
His lifeless body fell over her, an arrow protruding from his temple.
She was confused until a familiar hand yanked him off of her.
"Get up girl." Daryl yelled, unceremoniously lifting her to her feet. "We need to leave, now!"
He dragged her behind him with one hand, the other held his crossbow at the ready.
From the sounds of the snarls behind them they had been running when he happened upon her and the man.
"Where is everyone else?"
"Hell if I know, everyone split up in the commotion. People were dropping like flies, groups of walkers separated us. They're lucky if they lived."
Beth felt like crying once more, the farther Daryl dragged her away from the prison, away from the place she had seen as a safe haven, the more the sorrow threatened to drag her away.
"They killed my daddy." she whispered, her throat so swollen from repressed sobs she almost couldn't speak, "They just... cut his... just like a-"
"Beth." Daryl turned quickly, looking her in the eyes. She was taken aback by the intensity in his gaze, "Now isn't the time."
"When is the time?!" Beth screams, surprising them both, "I'm tired of losing them all! I was never ready to say goodbye to any of them, but it happened anyways..." she wailed, her legs finally collapsing underneath her.
"God dammit," Daryl muttered under his breath before one of his arms hooked under Beth's legs, the other under her back.
As he carried her away from their home she sobbed. Her hands covered Her face in attempt to at least muffle the sounds.
Eventually he stopped, depositing her in the middle of a field. The sun was low in the sky and she didn't move from where he sat her. She heard him fall down beside her, a grunt of pain falling from his lips.
She looked up and watched crows circling the field, biting lip to stop any more tears from falling, deciding she'd embarrassed herself enough for one day.
Daryl worked quickly and efficiently as he set up camp. It was dark now, and after they rested he'd stood without a single word and strode away.
She'd followed him, of course, she may be weak but she wasn't stupid. Daryl was her only shot at survival.
He wrapped a string with some cans tied to it in a perimeter around them so that anything that got near would be heard, then he dug a hole and dropped a few pieces of a bush and some twigs into it.
In no time he had a fire started, a small one at that but the light comforted her.
She wrapped my arms around her middle and stared at it as she listened to the sounds of cans being opened.
"Daryl?"
He grunted from his seat across the fire.
"Thank you."
She looked up in time to catch a shrug from him.
"That man, he wanted to do bad things to me and I didn't know how to defend myself. He had a gun and he was big. I was so scared."
Daryl looked up, his blue eyes the only color around them.
" I'm also sorry," she continued, "I'm so sorry you're stuck with me. I'm useless. I couldn't save anyone back there... not even myself." she remembered the way that man had looked at her, and how helplessly scared she'd been.
"Don't be stupid." His low voice told her.
"I'm not! Look at me! I'm nothing but a stick of a little girl too inexperienced and scared to do anything but cry while some man who barely even knows her puts his ass on the line!"
Daryl just looks at her some more, the firelight dancing across his features.
"If you want to think that bout yourself I won't stop you." He tells her. There isn't a trace of sympathy on his face. In fact there wasn't a trace of anything.
Beth bit her lower lip hard, so hard blood oozed from it. She didn't want to cry again. She wouldn't let him see her cry again. She looked down to her lap, picking at the material of her jeans.
Beth jumps as Daryl sits down next to her. She hadn't even heard him move.
He holds a granola bar and a water bottle out to her, but she doesn't take them.
"I'm not hungry."
"I don't care." He drops the items in her lap.
This was Daryl she was stuck with, she remembered, Daryl Dixon. A man who went from sullen and silent to wild and dangerous at the flip of a switch.
The only time she'd ever seen him relax was when he was holding Judith. It was as if he transformed, his eyes and voice softening as he talked gently to the little girl.
He never gave anyone the same treatment, and that scared her. Beth craved human contact, affection, socialization. If he so much as called her a name she'd probably cry. She couldn't imagine getting nothing but the occasional grunt for the next however long they were alone.
As she imagined spending the rest of her life with him, however short it may be, dealing with his silences and moods she was filled with fear and loneliness.
And she was crying again.
She'd never been a quiet crier, but she didn't care. She sobbed loudly and ugly into the night.
Daryl's arm wrapped around her head and his hand covered her mouth to muffle the sounds.
"Be quiet, yer gonna get us killed." He hissed, his jaw tight.
If anything his words made her cry harder.
He growled and jerked Beth to the side, crushing her head and torso against his chest. His other hand settled on her arm, locking his fingers around it to hold her in place.
His body was tense, but it was hot and she could feel his heartbeat beneath the leather of his vest and his body moved as he breathed.
She calmed down a lot faster than she thought she would. The last time she'd cried like that Maggie had held her for close on an hour before she'd been able to calm Beth down.
One minute in Daryl's arms and she was relaxed. Maybe because she was scared of him. She really wasn't sure, but she liked the feeling of his arms around her. They were warm, large, and most importantly: safe.