A/N: Thank you for the love for the fic!
I DO NOT OWN THE TWD CHARACTERS!
Daryl sat in the hallway propped against the wall next to the room Beth was in. He was chewing on his thumb nervously waiting for Carol or the Doctor to come out and give him the news.
"Mind if i wait with you?" Rick's rough voice said pulling Daryl from his thoughts. Daryl gave him a nod. "Really worried about her huh?" Rick asked looking over at his frazzled brother.
"Yeah." Daryl mumbled out.
"You love her dontcha? I've never seen you so hell bent on keeping someone alive." Rick admitted. Daryl gave Rick a look of disbelief but Rick retorted with a raised eyebrow challenging Daryl to think about it for a minute.
"I dunno." He mumbled shrugging his shoulders.
"She may be another Greene girl but shes definitely one of a kind. I don't know why she did what she did though." Rick said thinking out loud. Daryl shrugged his shoulders too. Daryl was just as puzzled at that as Rick was. "Guess she was just fighting for what she believed in. She is a Greene after all, stubborn as hell." Rick said causing both men to chuckle a bit. "And that's why she is gonna make it, brother." Rick said with a small smile. Rick had long ago stopped with having faith, but for his brother that looked torn into pieces, he'd muster up what he could.
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Maggie was sitting in the room where she had taken blood praying to God to keep the one light of hope this world had left to give. She was so broken sitting there in silence sending silent prayers to the Lord.
"Shes gonna come out of this. She has to." Glenn said trying to support his wife. He knew he was stating something he couldn't promise but he could always promise his hope. He hoped Beth would be okay. He wasn't sure Maggie could handle Beth dying too after they had just gone through the loss of her father.
Maggie have Glenn a weak smile and went back to silently praying. She knew she should be thankful for Beth making it this far but she knew she had Daryl to thank for that. She stood up quickly realizing she hadn't thanked Daryl for that. Her swift actions made Glenn give her a worried look.
"Ill just be a second." She said to him before walking out the door into the hallways. She looked both ways trying to find the gruff man who had saved her sister's life, finding him sitting with Rick outside of the room Beth was in. Quietly she patted over to him stopping in front of Daryl who seemed to be zoned out thinking about something. "Daryl?" Maggie squeaked out in a weak voice. "I just wanted to say thank you." Maggie said after waiting for a moment. Daryl didn't reply but looked up at her with a confused look. "You saved her." She said answering his unasked question.
"She saved herself." He admitted. One thing he wouldn't admit was Beth was the one that did the saving between the two of them.
"If you hadn't had gotten her out of the prison she would've died. If she had been on that bus like i told her..." she trailed off thinking of how grateful of that she was.
"I Ain't that good, all that got her was here." He said rubbing his eyes with frustration and exhaustion.
"But she wouldn't have lasted this long if she hadn't been with you. You are a good teacher, Daryl." Maggie said trying to prove her point.
"She made a shit decision cause'a my teachin. Now shes fightin fer life cause i taught her ta fight fer what she believed in." He mumbled out mentally kickin himself.
"No, that was Daddy. Daddy taught us that a long time before you. You, you taught her how to survive. How to take care of herself." Maggie explained.
"She taught me how ta live." He mumbled to himself in a broken voice. He had been fighting it, the emotions, this whole time. But he broke. He didn't sob, no he couldn't show anyone that, he hid his face and let the tears silently flow down his face behind his veil of hair. Maggie took his silence as her que to leave and walked back to her room with Glenn.
"Any word on Beth?" Glenn asked as she walked in and closed the door behind her. Maggie shook her head and joined him on the hospital bed and cried until the exhaustion of the day took over.
Daryl was starting to drift to sleep when he hurt the click of a door. He snapped his head up to see Carol standing at the door, waiting for the firing squad.
"Hows it lookin?" Rick pipped up before Daryl could form words.
"Shes stable but we don't know which way its gonna go. It was pretty bad. You'll have to talk to the doc when he comes out." She said with a sorrowful look. She looked down the hall to Michonne who was bouncing a crying Judith on her hip. "I'm going to go relieve Michonne and try to get Judith to sleep." She said and Rick gave her a nod. A few minutes later the doc emerged from the room.
"Whats the verdict?" Rick asked sternly.
"We have her stable. It doesn't look like shes in the clear yet. I'm going to be keeping a close eye on her. We were able to stop the internal bleeding. I'm a bit worried about the blood transfusions since we weren't able to test to make sure of blood type matches. Shes doing well for now. She needs to rest. I gave her some sedatives to help her sleep and heal. Now excuse me, I've got to check on a few other patients." The doc said before walking off.
"Can i go in?" Daryl asked before the doc went too far. The doctor stopped and turned to nod at him. Daryl looked at Rick for a quick moment not knowing what to do.
"Go on man, ill come check on ya in a little while." Rick said and patted Daryl's shoulder before walking away to check on the rest of his family.