I've had this idea for a while, but didn't know where to start. This is going to be a dark fic, with mature content so be advised. I really enjoyed writing it and hope you like it. Let me know either way/ if you have any thoughts or ideas on it. I hope you enjoy and continue to follow this story. Thanks either way!

Warning: Future chapters will contain rape and self harm. Be advised.

Chapter 1

Blood emerged from her nose as Rosita's knee made contact with the especially pale skin around her nose and mouth. The color division of the skin just emphasized the crimson color of the blood streaming from the girl's nasal area quick enough to stain Rosita's knee cap. The moment felt unreal to Daryl; his entire world had changed in a matter of seconds just like it had before. His bones tensed, he couldn't feel, hear or comprehend anything about the scene in front of him. Rosita's arms gripped the pale arms of the girl and pushed it in; her shoulder lost its shape instantly.

Everything rushed back to Daryl as the echo rang in his ears from the girl dropping the gun that her shoulder was dislocated to prohibit by Rosita as she yelped in pain simultaneously. His eyes automatically glared at the girl or the ghost in front of him. Her skin was paler than he had ever seen it, which just alluded more to a ghostlike state.

"Screw you." Her voice was weak as her head bobbed down after she yelped from the pain in her arm, but it was her voice. The girl leaned forward to spit a mouthful of blood out onto her grey T-shirt. Daryl dropped his clutch on the shaking Eugene next to him and walked to the girl sitting in dust on the ground.

"What the hell Daryl?" Rosita yelled next to him, running over to grab Eugene.

Daryl ignored her. He ignored everything except the girl in front of him. He didn't comprehend anything about her except the fact that she was there.

Her blonde hair was now dyed red with the dried blood encasing it, but untouched parts still glistened as she turned her face to him. Without the imposing threat of Rosita's gun facing her, she allowed herself to look at the new opposer. Her eyes felt sticky as the world blurred around her and she knew they probably looked smaller than they usually did, but she turned to see him nevertheless.

She glared at him. Her eyes followed the stray hairs around his face as she studied every part of him. She wanted to take the image in, whether it was real or not. She wanted to feel him against her. "Da-Daryl" She tried to speak through the shock, but merely could only stutter. Tears immediately streamed down her pale face. She tried to stand as quickly as physically possible for a girl in her condition, but only made it to a halfway squatting position while using the brick wall to support herself before she was engulfed in muscular arms and felt Daryl's soft shirt material against her swollen face.

Daryl's instincts took over him as he lifted the girl off of her feet and pressed her into him. He could feel her crying against him, but didn't stop to look at her face. He didn't know how or why, but he could feel her heart beating, her short breaths against him, the tears dripping from her eyes. He could feel her in her entirety. She felt real. The word swarmed around his head in impossibility. The name that had haunted him everyday for two years. The girl who had laid dead in his arms. The one person he had spent two years trying to move on from was now in his arms. Beth.

He didn't want to ever let go of her. For two years he had thought of what he would've done if Beth had lived and now she was in his arms, crying against his shoulder. He still didn't know what to do, but only knew he wasn't letting her leave him ever again.

The girl had imagined the moment since the gun went off at Grady. She would close her eyes and pretend Daryl would come to her rescue. That he would hold her and swoop her off her feet. He'd bring her far from whatever hell she was in and she'd be the Beth she was before she got left behind. Sometimes he'd bring her to Maggie and the others, but other times it would just be her and him. Sometimes he would kiss her or sometimes he would just want her to be safe with him. In her imagination she could be with him. For two years she only had her imagination.

"Daryl" Rosita called. "We gotta go." She stared at Daryl with the girl in his arms.

Daryl forced himself to let her go knowing Rosita was right, but she only leaned against him with her bare feet on the ground again. He looked at Rosita, who just raised her eyebrows at him in frustration. He grunted in response as he felt Beth leaning on him for support, but did not have time to wonder why. He looked down at the pebbles sticking into her swollen feet, but she didn't seem to notice. He didn't want to see what he knew he felt against him as he refused to look at her middle area.

He thought for a split second looking between Eugene and Beth before grabbing the girl in his arms. Daryl had lifted her before on a few occasions and figured he could run with the weight she once was, but didn't expect an increasement. He led the way as he felt the pressing weight of the girl in his arms. Beth felt the world spinning around her as they made their way through abandoned streets. She watched the woman, who had injured her arm in some way she still didn't know, kill two walkers on the way viciously. It was hard to run with the girl, but Daryl forced his body to keep going down the streets until they made it a few blocks away.

Rosita stopped next to him with her gun still facing Eugene behind a concrete building that Daryl thought would give them cover. He helped Beth on her feet again as she pushed her back into the concrete wall behind them. Rosita glanced around, carefully making sure that they had not been followed.

Daryl's hand grazed Beth's face and wiped the tears off her check. She smiled at him as she noticed his eyes studying her. "How?" He mumbled to himself rather than her.

"One, two, three…" Beth mouthed the words without sound while Daryl took her sight in, wondering if she was real. Rosita stood with an arm on Eugene as she watched Daryl interact with the strange fugitive they had just captured.

Daryl wanted to look away instantly, but fought not to when his eyes found her extremely protruding stomach. The grey T-shirt she had on didn't cover half of the swollen stomach that stretched in front of her, leaving the better half of her belly exposed. Her eyes met his as he looked down at her face, covered with beads of sweat. She shrugged and smiled sadly, knowing his discovery. He hardly had time to think about it in the moment though, nor ask any of the million questions that she knew would eventually be asked of her.

"Six, seven…" Daryl noticed her mouthing to herself.

"What ya doin'?" He finally spoke to the girl in words of unimportance for lack of thinking about what he actually wanted to say to her.

There were still tears in her eyes as she responded. "Dr. Carson said if I count to ten the hallucination will be over."

"'s real Beth, I'm real." He let his hand drop as she lifted her eyes to his again. Is it real? He wondered if he had just lied. He was staring at a ghost in his mind, but did not want to do anything to have it disappear again, real or not. How is she here? Daryl moved his calloused hand to her cheek again, wanting to feel real skin to prove he was not imaginating something. He felt the soft skin, moistened with sweat in the sweltering heat and studied her face, ignoring the scar his hand covered.

She opened her mouth to something, but then he watched her face contract in pain. She moaned and bent down to her stomach. She grabbed it tightly with her undamaged arm while the other laid painfully by her side.

"Beth!" Daryl called in fear as he swiftly let his hand drop to his side, thinking he could have caused her sudden crippling pain.

Rosita looked up to Daryl again in confusion. She figured he had probably once known the pregnant woman moaning in front of them, but anger built up inside of her as they put the mission at risk. She watched the pregnant woman's knees crumble as she fell to the ground with Daryl's hands on her back, guiding her down.

"The hell's wrong with 'er?" Daryl stood in between Beth, who was kneeling on the ground after just vomiting, and Eugene, who was still in Rosita's grip. Daryl lifted his gun to Eugene's head and grabbed the scruff of his shirt in his hand. He pushed him back with all his strength prepared to attack the cowering man as he pressed the man's back against the concrete wall.

"Your best bet is to let us go, she is in certain need of some serious medical attention, that can be provided with a condition occurring-" Eugene started as Daryl eased his grip suddenly to walk back over to Beth when she vomited again on the street. Rosita grabbed him again as Daryl carefully placed his hand on the back of Beth's T-shirt in some sort of comfort to the moaning girl. Eugene vomited, causing Rosita to drop his arm in shock as he bolted off.

Daryl looked up just in time to see Eugen disappear behind the side of the building. He looked down at Beth again, who was moaning on her knees, looking like she was about to collapse, before facing towards Rosita with his hand still on the girl's back.

"Go get him, I'll stay with her." Rosita compelled.

Daryl looked down at Beth one final time, scared she would disappear before he returned. He grunted in regretful approval.

"Daryl" Rosita had moved to stand directly behind Beth. "You see him, you shoot him dead."

Daryl just grunted again before running in the direction Eugene had darted off in. Beth started to compose herself again only to see him disappear behind the corner. She sat on her knees and pushed her sweat soaked curls behind her ears. Her hands briefly touched the side of her left ear, instantly feeling its imperfection. She quickly covered it again with her curls. Rosita watched the pregnant girl closely, studying her movements in preparation of some sort of a resistance.

A woman walker with blonde hair appeared across the street from them as its moans filled their ears. Beth watched it slowly approach them, not thinking about a defense mechanism until it was only a few feet away.

"Can I have my gun back?" Beth raised her eyebrows in sarcasm at the woman who had her gun out not particularly facing the pregnant girl, but Beth knew she was the reason it was out.

"No." Rosita scoffed sarcastically before stabbing the walker once it got close enough.

The corpse fell next to Beth's knees. She struggled to get away from it as the ends of its hair touched the jeans covering her knees. The smell of the corpse engulfed her quickly and she lost control of her stomach and vomited beside it.

Beth wiped her face aggressively before turning to the woman next to her again.

"Why not?" She asked still wiping residue off her chin as she struggled to stand up. Beth placed a hand on the wall again in an effort to push herself up before she heard the safety of a gun being clicked off. She looked to reveal Rosita's gun facing her.

Rosita smirked cunningly, making her opinion of the girl in front of her obvious. "Look, I don't know why Daryl wasted his time getting you from there, but what I know is you're a Savior. So I'm not giving you a fucking gun and you're gonna stay on your knees where you belong." Rosita walked to the girl kneeling on the ground and pushed the point of her gun into the side of her head where her left ear would be if it was not covered by curls that stood up by themselves on the wrong side of their natural part. "Now shut up, cause I won't hesitate to pull the trigger and put a bullet through your skull."

"Ok then." Beth rolled her eyes defiantly.

Beth carefully tried to push herself away from the corpse, but did not travel far from it on her knees. Eventually she sat back with her knees in front of her, feeling the rough sidewalk stick into her thighs through her jeans that she felt were suffocating her slowly. She felt her arm shooting with pain, but bit into her lip in an effort to conceal her pain rather than show it to the other woman.

"So you guys tried to capture Eugene?" Beth asked leaning back against the wall again.

"Did you not just hear me tell you to shut it?" Rosita squatted next to her.

"It would kinda make you a bitch though. Shooting a pregnant girl and all." Beth tried to push her, wondering how serious the woman was about her threats.

Rosita grabbed her injured arm and for a split second Beth actually feared she'd kill her as Rosita's hand pushed her shoulder in again. Beth yelled out in pain as Rosita pushed her arm behind the girl's back. Rosita ignored it as she pulled the flannel shirt tied around her waist off of her and tied it around the girl's shoulder to hold it up.

"You're welcome." Rosita snickered.

Beth reached up to her tied bent elbow, realizing what the intimidating woman had done. She nodded up to her, still in pain, but refusing to show it. "It was you who broke it in the first place." Beth looked at her only to see the point of a handgun still facing her.

Rosita smirked at her. "What did you say your name was?"

"I didn't." Beth rubbed the part of her stomach covered by her grey T-shirt, leaving the bare half starting under her belly button for Rosita to see.

"You know you've got some nerve. I've got a gun pointed to your head, you can't even stand up on your own to defend yourself and you're still talking like that." Rosita squatted next to her again.

"You're not gonna shoot me." Beth leaned forward again, pushing her head away from the wall as she felt her world spin and her eyes blurred. She grabbed the ground with her unwrapped arm and tried to compose herself again or rather hide her weakness from the woman with the gun. She tried to look as tough as possible, but leaned over to vomit again.

Rosita knew she was right, even if it angered her. As ruthless as she could be, she could not force herself to shoot a pregnant defenseless woman, Savior scum or not. "You think cause you were stupid enough to get knocked up, you're safe now?"

"No" Beth said through a hoarse cough after wiping sweat from her fevered forehead. "You just would've done it already." She looked up long enough to see the annoyance on the woman's face before hitting her head against the wall again. Beth wondered if what seemed like obvious bluffing to herself was as transparent to the other woman. She couldn't tell, but decided to risk everything with a feeling of immunity. Beth swiftly reached up to knock the handgun out of Rosita's hand. She hit her arm fiercely, but with not as much force as she suspected to and the gun only dropped to Rosita's side. Beth dove forward towards the ground, but Rosita grabbed the gun as Beth's fingers barely grazed it.

Beth didn't have the strength to pick herself off of the ground, so she lied on her elbow for a minute, half panting after her actions. It took her another minute to look up to Rosita again.

"I should kill you." Rosita said still pointing the gun at her face. "I mean you're no better than the rest of your people except you were stupid enough to get pregnant."

"Screw you!" Beth mumbled.

"I don't know why Daryl took you..." Rosita said hurtfully.

Beth tried to gain any strength she could to stand up, as she pushed her arm straight up. She coughed to herself, forcing tears away from her eyes while hoping the woman didn't see them.

Rosita grabbed a handful of blonde curls on her left side and rammed her head against the concrete wall. Her hand pushed past the misplaced curls that were parted purposefully on the wrong side of her head and pushed into her scalp.

"Listen you little bitch, you try anything and I'll-"

"Rosita!" Daryl's voice boomed in the quiet air from behind her. "Get the hell off a 'er"

Beth smiled in relief as she felt the woman she had just identified as Rosita let go off her.

"Is he dead?" Rosita asked as Daryl walked over to Beth.

Beth smiled up at him when Daryl leaned down to her. The shock of seeing him next to her again hardly wore off as he reached his arm around her back to help her stand. She stood leaning on him for a few seconds just staring before he spoke.

"Nah, couldn't find 'im" Daryl grumbled.

Rosita sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Let's get to the truck." She started to take off in a particularly straight direction down the street.

The world around her blurred as Daryl tugged Beth foreword. Beth's head pounded and she could hardly see, but she felt her feet moving automatically with Daryl arms around her.

"I got ya" he mumbled under his breath and let her weight completely lean on him. His arms held her up tightly, his eyes still glued to her in disbelief. She was in his arms somehow, breathing and living. "I got ya" he said again, still not thinking of anything else to say to her, but not intending to let go of her for a long time.

Hope you enjoyed and decide to stick with it. Please let me know what you thought and leave a review. I should post the next chapter sometime in the next week. Thank you!