"Daryl, you've got to get it out of me!" Beth screamed in agony, small face flushed and contorted with pain.. "It's killing me!"

Outside, thunder rocked the earth so hard the ground shook under him. He could hear scratching against the door, walkers pressing in close, straining the wood. Beth wouldn't - couldn't stop screaming. Her blood was on his shoes, hot and sticky, leaving red footprints as he walked throughout the house.

"Beth, you gotta stop screaming," he told her, voice harsh. "I'm tryin' to help ya, but you're bringin' 'em down on us."

"Daryl!" she shouted at him, voice angry. "I'm being torn apart! I can't help it!"

He gave her one of the towels that wasn't soaked with her own blood and told her to bite down on it. It did little to stop Beth's screams. Somewhere over his shoulder he heard a window break, but couldn't be sure if it was a walker or just the wind, which was howling and picking up speed.

Daryl heard her whimper his name through the cloth. It came out muffled, full of hurt. He looked at Beth's face, which had went from flushed to pale, and her blue eyes - her beautiful blue eyes, full of panic. The baby wasn't coming out - only blood. His hands were now slick with it. He would've found it on his face, and neck, had he bothered to look. Beth's body, which had been wound tight with exertion, suddenly went limp.

"Damn it, girl, you gotta stay with me," he said, tears coating his voice. He knew he should be calm - had to be calm - for her - for the baby - but he was scared. He was fucking terrified. "You gotta stay with me, Beth."

"It don't..." she said, towel taken out from her mouth. "It don't hurt no more. Daryl, is the baby...? Daryl?"

"I'm gonna have to... take it outta ya," he said to her.

"Like Lori?" Beth said, her voice fading.

"Ain't gonna be nothin' like Lori!"

"I think... it might, Daryl," Beth said. "I can't... I'm so tired, Daryl."

Beth was there and then Beth was gone - like Beth always was. Sudden and completely. Disappearing wholly, leaving him broken and alone, with a task too great to shoulder on his own. He knew she was dead. Checked for a pulse and found none. He had waited too long - didn't know shit about this - was a God damn idiot and it had cost them her life.

Daryl raised his knife, pushing the pain aside, and the blade cut through her so smoothly it made him sick. His hands were inside of her - inside of Beth - moving - pulling out a perfectly still baby with white blond hair...

"Daryl, c'mon," he heard, pulling him up from the darkness. "That's it. Come on, wake up."

Beth. Alive. Well. The baby both of those things. He pulled her against him tightly, cupping her head with the large of his hand. Daryl could never get over how small she felt, even now, with her bump nudging against him.

"I died, didn't I?" Beth asked against his shoulder.

"What?" Daryl questioned, not wanting to worry her, trying to buy time.

"In your dream," Beth said. "It was the baby. Like Lori. You said her name. And mine."

"It was just a dream, girl," Daryl said, laying back down and pulling her against him. "Ain't nothin' like that gonna happen to ya."

"It could though," she said. "I've... thought about it. Had the same kind of dreams, Daryl."

"Ya don't need to be worryin' 'bout shit like that," he said gruffly. "Not while you're pregnant."

She huffed out a disbelieving laugh against the skin of his shoulder and he knew what it meant. Beth was saying, Who wouldn't worry? Who couldn't worry? Women long before me worried about it, and they had hospitals and doctors...

"Just try not to," he said in a low voice. "Let me do the worryin' at least. You carry the kid and push 'em out and I'll do the worryin'."

"Well, it is the least you could do," Beth said lightly.

She leaned up on her elbow and fit her lips against his. Like always, they were soft and sweet, like she had been sneaking sugar he knew they didn't have. He groaned, letting her slide her playful tongue against his lip. He didn't press for more. He never did. Beth laid back down beside him.

"I know you don't want to think about it," she started, voice soft and cautious. "But... we do need to think about it. Because... this could kill me, Daryl."

"Beth -"

"It could," she said cutting him off. "There are so many things that could go wrong. And it might go right. It might go as perfectly as it could in this situation - I know that. I hope that but if it doesn't -"

"It will," Daryl promised her, though he had no right to do so.

"But if it doesn't... this baby is going to be yours. And I'll want it to have... Maggie... and Glenn... and a home. Daryl, it can't live like we were livin' - dragging Judith everywhere, into the thick of it - this baby's gotta have a home - okay?"

"It ain't okay!" he said, anger bubbling up in him. "It ain't okay you gotta think 'bout this. It ain't okay, Beth!"

"It's gotta be okay," Beth said calmly. "You know that, Daryl. It's gotta be okay, if I'm gone, you've gotta be okay."

"I know," Daryl answered her, anguish lacing the words. "But ain't nothin' gonna happen. You're gonna stay, with me, and help me raise this baby."

"There isn't a bit of me that wants anything else," Beth said, eyes trained on his face, wide and honest. "Nothing is going to take you away from me without a hell of a fight - from either of us - and the world oughta know that by now."

"But just in case," he supplied.

"Just in case," she said. "And even if... even if the worst happened... you know I'd never be far. I'd follow you around, and the baby, and I'd see everything. Just like my Dad."

"I don't know if I believe in that," he said. "In God, and heaven, and all that."

"You don't have to," Beth said. "I believe enough for the both of us."

"Alright," he said, dusting a kiss to the top of her head. "But you're going to be fine. We just gotta be zen about this."

"Daryl Dixon - zen?" Beth said with a laugh that chased away all the bad, dark feelings lurking around inside of him.

"That's right, girl. I'm zen," he told her - and for a second, with her safe against his side, he felt it. He truly did.