Beth was blowing absently at her coffee while she watched the elderly playing cards sitting at a table. She felt a cold draft running through her and she huddled even more in her knitted cardigan, bringing the cup to her lips to take a little sip. She wrinkled her nose at the feeling of the lava running down her throat.

"You're here" she heard a voice behind her. She turned around and saw Rosita bent over the counter, looking at her coffee with desire, "Where did you find it? The coffee machine is broken".

"I always bring a thermos from my home" Beth explained, turning again to go into the small office and taking the recipient from her bag.

"I love you" Rosita said, bringing a cup to Beth so she could pour the dark liquid. The woman licked her lips when she felt the smell invading the room, "There's nothing better for cold than this".

Beth smiled.

"But I wished we could have heating. We have a chimney and we don't use it".

"It doesn't swallow the smoke how it should" Beth explained, "They will all end up choking".

"Talking about elderly" Rosita said suddenly, leaving the cup on the counter and crouching down to dim through archives, "I need you to go to see Mrs. Dixon"

"What happened?"

"What happened was the usual. Last night she had one of her nervous breakdown again and we had to sedate her, but this morning she was already nervous. She doesn't let anyone else to come close. If you could go and stay a while with her…"

"Sure" Beth immediately answered, before she dropped her coffee cup beside Rosita's and getting out of the office, "I'll see you later!"

"Ciao" said Rosita, winking at her.

Beth hurried in go the distance that there was to the rooms of the elderly. When she got to room 412, she knocked softly and half opened the door, poking her head through the doorway:

"Good morning misses Dixon" she murmured, smiling, "Can I come in?"

The old lady was lying on the bed, with her head turned to the window and her arms full of IV's for which were probably being injected tranquilizers. Most of the times she didn't even hear her, medicated as she was, and Beth just simply came in to help her cleaning up or taking her to the dining room. However, that time she turned her head and glanced at her before she nodded.

Beth came in and closed the door behind her, coming closer to her bed.

"How are you feeling this morning, Mrs. Dixon?"

"Mm…"

"I'll replace your pillows so you'll be more comfortable, alright?" she lifted her up slightly while she helped the old lady to move, "That's it, careful. That's it".

Beth covered her with the sheets again and then brought a chair that was beside the bed even closer to it, sitting by her side.

"Today's a beautiful day. Have you seen it?" she said, pointing to the window, "What about we put you in a wheel chair and we go for a walk?"

The old woman didn't answer, and despite Beth expected it, it didn't lessened the disappointment she felt every time the elderly ignored her or refused to do something. There were days when she seemed less reluctant to agree and was even able to try and walk by herself to the living room or eat anything, but most times –like that- the old lady was so caught up in her own world that she seemed unable to do even the easiest of the activities.

No one in the nursery home knew what had happened to the unfortunate. The woman had arrived after falling off a window of her home and breaking several bones. The AMT said that it had been almost impossible to get her on the ambulance, nervous as she was. The only thing that she wanted was to go back inside, but she couldn't move without screaming in pain. After two weeks in intensive care, finally she was brought to Rosewood. It was a public nursery home, with barely any resources or grants, but at least they had a bed for her and people who worried that she wouldn't fall again from a second floor.

At the beginning it had been so difficult to come close to her in any way, even with something as simple as trying to help her getting up, that some of the auxiliaries had nicknamed her "the beast". Beth thought that it was anything but funny. It was obvious that the lady hadn't had an easy life if she was that distrustful. Besides, every time Beth looked in her eyes, that penetrating blue eyes she had, Beth was invaded by the feeling that maybe, behind that dazed gaze there was hidden more than one story that she was willing to hear.

So she kept going visiting her every day, taking care of her personally. It wasn't especially difficult having her shifts changed to take care of "the beast", but it was getting her out of her shell, especially when she had these nervous breakdowns when there wasn't any way to calm her down except for medication. But little by little she was getting her to get out of that fort that had created and started sharing parts of her past with her. They weren't really momentous things, but rather little details, like that her favorite flowers were daisies, that her favorite tobacco brand was Camel or that there wasn't anything that she liked more than those old pin-up magazines.

Beth was going from one place to another of the room, trying to put nicely the flowers of the jar, opening more the curtains and trying to put everything in order, so focused on her job that she needed a few seconds to realize that the old lady was calling her.

"Sorry, Mrs. Dixon" she apologized, "What were you saying?"

"Sing, Beth" she begged in a small voice, "Sing a bit, today's cold…"

Sometimes Beth wondered if she really understood that what she was saying didn't make any sense, but she definitely wasn't going to make any comments about it. Instead, she approached her bed and smiled.

"Of course" she assured, taking her hand in hers softly. To her surprise, the old woman didn't flinch. Beth held her gaze while she sung quietly:

Every man has a right to live,

Love is all that we have to give

Together we struggle by our will to survive

And together we fight just to stay alive

Struggling man has got to move

Struggling man, no time to lose

I'm a struggling man

And I've got to move on

. . .

And while the old woman nodded her head softly to the beat of her voice, with her eyes closed and a soft smile on her chapped lips, Beth reaffirmed over and over again on why she had decided to start working in Rosewood. Just for things like that. Just to see people like Mrs. Dixon in peace for a few minutes.

Beth occupied a sit next to Rosita and Lori in one of the tables on the break room.

"It's the fifth cup today and it's just lunch time" Lori complained while she looked at her coffee.

"Yeah, today's has been a hectic day" Rosita agreed, burying her face in her hands. Suddenly, she raised her head, like she just had remembered something. Rosita used to do that frequently, from what Beth had seen, "Do you know what doctors were talking about today?"

"You shouldn't hear private conversations" Lori scolded her affectionately. Rosita frown, but she kept talking nevertheless.

"This is important, Lori. They're thinking about expelling Mrs. Dixon".

"What? Why?" Lori asked, worry evident in her voice.

Beth raised her head from her sandwich so fast that her neck hurt, but in those moments she wasn't so self-conscious to realize.

"Apparently they're tired of her deliriums, and it seems like yesterday was the straw that breaks the camel" Rosita leaned in before she lowered her voice, "Doctor Jensen tried to get her in bed and she screamed him some not very nice things before she scratched his whole face".

"That was her?" Beth intervened. That morning, when she saw the reddish line extending across his cheek, she had wondered if maybe he had an unruly cat. However, she didn't dare to ask. Doctor Jensen was almost as old as is patients, and he was, with no doubt, the most unfriendly man Beth had ever met. It didn't matter how much she tried to be polite, how much she smiled and tried to make him twitch a little bit the corners of his mouth, he always kept that expression of immutable severity.

Rosita nodded.

"He got so mad at her that he almost lost his temper. After they sedated her, he went straight to the nursery management and told them that he wouldn't keep working in those conditions. Alexis and Frank swear that the screams could be heard from the entry" Rosita giggled. She hated Doctor Jensen with especially intensity.

"Poor woman" Lori sighed, "It's like they don't realize that she's a person. What are they going to do, throw her to the street like she was a dog?"

"I don't know" her colleague shrugged, "I guess they'll deliberate and take a decision, but unless she changes her behavior, I doubt they'll allow her stay. They'll probably send her to Versan".

"What do you say?" Beth exclaimed, "But that place is awful".

"Helen worked there for a while. She says they had to heat the water in pans 'cause there wasn't running water", Rosita commented.

Beth's eyes widened, horrified.

"We have to do something" she said. Her partners looked at her and sighed.

"Sweetheart, I'm afraid we can't do much" Lori took her hand gently, trying to support her, "I know you really appreciate her, but it's not our call. No one wants to take care of her, and she has no one to look after her. They won't waste her money on someone who gives them more troubles" she added bitterly.

"And what if there was a relative?" Beth said suddenly, like a bulb had lighted in her mind, "Someone who could come and spend time with her, who could look after her. I'm sure management would notice that. And she'd be calmer, much better".

"And where are you going to find them?" Rosita asked, "You were here when AMT's came. There was no one in her house, and the two months that followed while she was at the hospital, no one picked up the phone when they called. I don't think she has nobody".

"But, what if I found them?" Beth insisted. Lori sighed.

"Then I guess you could try and put off all this a little bit more, but that doesn't mean that…" but Beth had already stood up, going back in a hurry to room 412.

Mrs. Dixon was staring at the ceiling, with those unexpressive eyes of her. Beth knocked softly on the door, but that time she didn't wait for her permission to come in.

"Ma'am" she started, "I need to talk to you".

The woman didn't answer, but she did the slightest gesture to note that she had heard her. Beth approached her bed immediately.

"We need to speak about your family" she said directly, without beat about the bush. She didn't respond, but from the way her shoulders tensed, Beth knew she had heard that too, "It's important".

Beth stayed quiet a few seconds, waiting for an answer. She sighed, almost desperate.

"Listen, please, I wouldn't ask you if it wasn't absolutely necessary. Are you married? Do you have a husband?"

"No husband, no husband, no husband" she started saying, jerking her head too sharply for her own good. Beth held her carefully by her shoulders to try to calm her down.

"It's alright, it's alright, everything's okay" Beth assured her. She stayed like that until old woman's shoulder stop trembling, and then she dropped her hands to her sides, conscious of how little the old lady liked to be touched, "Siblings? Do you have any brothers of sister with whom you had contact?" the woman took a little bit more time, but she finally shook her head, "Children? Do you have children?"

Beth didn't really expect her to respond. Mrs. Dixon stared at that water-stained ceiling for several minutes, almost as if she was on shock, before her lips opened slightly. She said it so quietly the first time that Beth didn't even understand her at the beginning, but then she got it.

"You said the drawer? Do you mean this drawer, Mrs. Dixon?" Beth asked, signaling to the nightstand beside her bed. She didn't reply, and then Beth opened the first drawer. She found an old metallic box, which had contained butter cookies once. She held it in her hands, and when she saw Mrs. Dixon didn't react in any way, she opened it.

Inside it there were lots of photos. Some of them had a faded color; others were black on white, but all of them with date and some note below. Beth started watching them one by one, until she finally got to the more recent ones. She stopped in the penultimate picture, which put apart from the rest and held in front of the old lady.

"These are your children, Mrs. Dixon? Merle and Daryl?" she asked.

"My children" the old lady muttered, turning slightly her head towards the picture. She raised a trembling hand and took the photo, "My babies".

"Do you know where they are?" Maybe I could call them so they could visit you. Would you like it?"

The woman raised her glaze to look at her, like she was gone again. She shook once.

"Far" she just said. Beth wanted to whine of frustration. She took the picture carefully from the wrinkled fingers of the old woman and observed the photography. There was a woman in it –Mrs. Dixon, Beth guessed- in her middle thirties, and two boys. The older one, who was around ten, looked at the camera with a serious expression, while the younger one, who Beth supposed wasn't more than three, had his fist buried in his mouth, resting her head against his mother's chest. Beth felt like her heart was breaking. It wasn't the first or the last habitant in that nursing home whom children never appeared, but with her that was especially painful, because the only thing Mrs. Dixon was able to say now was "my babies" in a low voice, in such an anguish tone that Beth felt her eyes watery.

"I'll find your sons, Mrs. Dixon" Beth promised her.

Beth spent the next two days running around from one place to another, looking for information numbers, asking anyone who could know where Merle and Daryl Dixon were. She skipped her breaks for lunch to go searching in the registers, to ask in any business, to Dixon's neighbors. She soon discovered that the most she would ever get from them was a place to buy drugs, and she desisted in that clue.

She had just learned that the management was going to communicate Mrs. Dixon that it would be better if she was transferred to another nursing home –like she had a choice- when she received a call in the middle of a break.

"Beth!" Alexis called her from reception, "It's for you!"

Beth hurried to pick up the phone.

"Hello?" she answered, almost distressingly.

"Beth?" she recognized official Walsh's voice. Shane was one of the cops of the town, and together with Rick, good friends of his father. She had known him for years and he had always been kind to her, "Why are you asking for the Dixon?"

"Do you know them?" she asked, excited.

"Of course I know them, Beth. In the police station they're already celebrities", he snorted, "But I don't get why you look for them. They're bad news, Beth".

"They can't be that bad" she protested weakly.

"I've arrested Merle Dixon several times, I think I know what I'm talking about" Shane retorted.

"So that you know where they are" Beth countered.

"I… God" he sighed, "I didn't say that".

"But you do know".

"Beth, don't get involved with these people" his tone was severe now; "I don't want to feel obligated to talk with your dad".

Now the one who wanted to snort was her. She was twenty-three, for God's sake. She wanted to point out that she wasn't thirteen anymore, but since Shane was the only person who could lead her to the Dixon; she couldn't risk to lose that clue.

"Her mother is a patient here. They want to transfer her to Versan, Shane. I can't let that happen to her", her voice wavered, "Please, I need to find them".

"What can they do anyway?"

"Maybe if… if they come here and be with here and the management realizes that she's not going to cause any more trouble they'll let her stay".

Shane snorted again.

"If what you're looking for is someone as a good influence for a senile old, you're looking for the wrong people" Shane answered, with a humorless tone.

"Please" Beth begged, without caring anymore to look totally desperate. She really was. She waited some seconds in silence, praying for her insides, until she heard him sigh.

"I didn't tell you anything, Beth. You hear me? Anything" he gibbered, and Beth had to suppress herself to not giggle of joy, "Take note".

Beth looked for a pen in her blouse's pocket and started writing in a post-it the number Shane was dictating her at full speed.

"I've got it" she muttered with a triumphal tone, giving a final tap with the pen tip to the paper, "Thanks Shane, I owe you one".

"It's nothing, Beth" he answered, "But, hey".

"Yes?"

"Be careful with these people".

"I'll be" she assured him, smiling of pure happiness. She hung up the phone and decided to mark the number phone that she had in front of her, but then the damn Doctor Jensen came and started scolding and asking her if she "didn't have anything to do".

Hours later, when she had got home, she let herself drop into the couch, burying herself in the softness of the cushions. She was about to close her eyes and take a five-minutes nap before she showered and had dinner when she realized that a paper had dropped from her pocket. Then she remembered all of a sudden and she got up quickly to get the phone.

Her heart was pounding while she marked keys, and she feared that her heart would go out of her chest when she heard the first rings of the call. It just needed to ring twice until someone picked it up.

"Hello?" it was a husky and deep voice, and it gave her goose bumps, "Who is it?"

Beth swallowed hard and inhaled deeply.

"Hi" she managed to say, "Merle Dixon?"

"Daryl" the voice answered, "Who's this?"

"I'm-I'm Beth Greene. I work in the nursing home Rosewood nursing home, next to…"

"I know where it is" the voice cut her sharply. Beth congratulated herself for being such an idiot. Of course he knew. It wasn't like Newborn was a place especially big.

"I take care of your mother" she said hurriedly, "There was a problem and…"

"I can't help you" he interrupted her rudely. Beth was momentarily speechless from the tone of his words.

"Sorry, I think I haven't explained myself correctly. Your mom has been having behavior problems and we thought that maybe…"

"Where did you get this number from?" he cut her again. Beth was losing her patience, but she inhaled deeply and tried to maintain calmed.

"It's a small town" she just said, "Now, if you could help me…"

"I just said I can't do anything. You deaf?" he barked, and Beth felt then like she was on fire.

"Listen, Mr. Dixon, I don't know what problems you could have with your mom, but she's still your mom. They're about to transfer her and she doesn't even realize what happens around her, but she remembers you and your brother and she keeps asking for you. She has a family which hasn't helped her in all this time, but I don't care what happened in the past, now she needs you!" she snapped. She cut herself immediately when she realized that she had spoken too much. She was practically panting because of the irritation, but she wouldn't be surprised if he hung up the phone. A complete stranger had just given him what was probably the lecture of his life about his personal issues and he had the whole right in the world to send her to hell.

However, when a couple of minutes had passed and she hadn't got any response yet, Beth steeled and talked again.

"Mr. Dixon, you there?"

"What do you want me to do?" he asked quickly, in a much lower voice than before. Beth felt secretly proud of being able to placate a bit of his bad temper.

"You could be with her, make her company. I can't be with her all day and I don't like her being alone. You don't have to talk much, she's usually medicated" she explained, a little more calmed.

"There aren't nurses to take care of her?"

"As I said" she started, "your mom has had some… behavior problems. It's not like there are lots of nurses willing to take care of her. That's why I thought that maybe, if she saw some familiar faces, her state would improve".

Daryl stayed silent a few seconds more.

"When?"

"Tomorrow afternoon suits you? At five o'clock?" she heard a grunt that she interpreted as a 'yes, five is okay', "We'll see tomorrow then. Goodbye, Mr. Dixon".

She wasn't surprised when the call ended and he hadn't said goodbye. It wasn't like he had been exactly charming during their conversation, but at least he had accepted to go, and that was a huge step forward.

Beth leaned further into the back of the sofa and took the old photo of her pocket, running her thumb over the baby's face.

"What happened to you? She asked out loud.