Sometimes, Beth wondered if she had meant to die. It was an accident, she knew that much. Nothing could have prepared her for the moment when everything stopped. There was the flash of pain, so quick it was barely there, and then everything was gone. Her soul was weightless, unbound. In death, she was more alive than she had ever been before. She felt no fear, no pain, and no lingering guilt that she was holding the group back. She was free.
But had she died on purpose? She had seen the gun – the finger on the trigger just in case, the tension in Dawn's muscles as she stared at the girl in front of her. The girl she hated so much because had strength where Dawn did not. The girl who threatened everything she had worked so hard to keep. Beth had known then, as she approached this woman, that there was a chance she wouldn't make it out of the building. But she hadn't believed it. She had faith. Staring into that woman's eyes, she saw her humanity. She saw the regret, pain and guilt. Those were the things that everyone carried around with them these days, but there was also more than that. She saw the fear. This woman was scared of her. This woman who governed an entire hospital, whose power was thick and endless, was scared of Beth, who had nothing. And Beth saw mercy. Despite everything, Dawn forgave her.
But Beth did not forgive Dawn. There was something that this woman had taught her during her time in the hospital, and it was something that she had been learning for a long time before, too. In a world where the dead reign and the living are prey, only the strong survive. That was why Dawn had to die. She was not strong. All of the power she harnessed was built on bad foundations that threatened to crumble beneath her. Everything she controlled was on string stretched beyond its limit, on the threshold of snapping. There was nothing strong about Dawn. But there was everything strong about Beth.
She had learned something before the hospital, too. She had lived it then but she only realised now, as she thought back to the events that replayed themselves over and over in her mind. Those with the most power were the weakest of them all, and that made them dangerous. They sat on thrones made of skeletons, hastily covered with a threadbare cloth in the hopes that no one would notice. Because the moment someone did, they knew that was the end of their game. The Governor taught her that. But the problem with was that those who dethroned them would usually end up out of the game, too.
Beth had noticed the hint of a skeleton under the cloth of Dawn's throne from the first moment she met her. Perhaps she had known even then that her time was running out.
Had she meant to die? Either way, she was glad that she did. To die was to be free. For years, she had thought it was the opposite. To be alive was to feel the tingle of life running through her veins and to breathe in the fresh air every day, knowing that she had the whole world laid out before her. Knowing that every moment – every breath she inhaled – was a blessing. But now, she knew that life was only a cage, a momentary flicker in the greater picture. In life, she had known unimaginable pain. Agony at the sight of her mother and brother becoming monsters, and heartbreak as the hope of them coming back was ripped from her. Grief and loss with so many deaths, one after the other, so often that she learned to cope with them but they never got easier. Death was ingrained in life so deeply that it almost became a part of her. She buried each loss deep within her chest and carried on, because she knew that those she loved would never leave her, and one day she would join them in the land of freedom.
And now, she waited. She watched and she waited. Of course, she didn't want her friends to die. She wanted them to live peaceful, fulfilling lives for as long as possible. She wanted them to escape the bloodthirsty chaos that she had escaped before them. But she first wanted them to live their lives to their fullest potential. Only then, when they were old and happy, did she want them to come back to her.
The first moment after her death was the hardest. To see the shock, pain and anger on everyone's faces. To see Daryl pull the trigger on the woman who killed her, and to see Maggie collapse to the floor as her heart broke. But they all had each other, and they needed each other to get through the rest of it. Maggie had Glenn, and Daryl had Carol. She needed them to look out for each other and replace her love with even more of their own. She needed them to survive without her, because she knew they could. They might not have believed it themselves, but Beth knew that they didn't need her.
She knew that they loved her. That was plain to see in Daryl alone. Weeks ago, they barely spoke. He looked out for her because he had to, because he didn't see the strength with which she held herself day after day. But then he did. And then she left him. Briefly, she wondered if he was angry at her, but she knew that he was mostly angry at himself. She also knew that he carried so much guilt, so much blame on himself, that one day it would crush him. And as she watched him engrave his skin with a cigarette burn, she wanted more than anything to take that blame away. None of it was his fault. None of it.
But not even the ghost of her hug, nor the shadow of her kiss on his cheek, could shake away the pain he felt. There was nothing she could do to take it away. She knew that he cried not just for her, but for all of the lives that had been taken away from him. His brother, Sophia, Dale, T-Dog, Lori. Hershel. She hoped that, one day, someone would be able to show him that he was made of more than just death. She hoped that someone would show him how deeply he had touched each of their lives. And it was with a smile that she watched Carol take his hand and watch over him in life. One day, without a doubt, they would all be able to move on.
So, from high above the heaving madness of the world, she watched and she waited. And one by one, she reunited with each of her old friends.
Just as she predicted, Daryl was the last to take her hand.