*Beth*

I had asked myself the same question a million times, played it out in my head over and over, yet still the answer eluded me. You see the truth was, no matter how many times I had played different memories over in my mind, I still couldn't remember the exact moment I had fallen in love with Daryl Dixon. All I knew was that one day he was just the surly redneck who had helped my daddy and Rick run the prison, and the next he was all that I thought about, the person my heart ached for.

Daryl becoming the most important thing in my world happened so suddenly, and with no warning at all. It had personified everything about him, as it had been like a hunter whose prey had never seen him coming.

As he stepped quietly into my room, his head almost bowed and his eyes seemingly full of regret, it reminded me of that night on the moonshiner's porch. It had been just the two of us and I had listened to him talk about his life before us, before the farmhouse and before the family we had become at the prison.

My heart had been filled with sadness as he spoke about how life had been for him growing up, how there hadn't been anybody there for him, to care for him and love him. Instead his childhood had been a constant struggle, filled with violence and a need to get through one day at a time. Unlike me, he had been alone in the world without love for so long, that he neither recognised it or longed for it anymore.

I remembered how desperately I wanted to take all that pain away from him. How I wanted him to know that life could be good, that people could be kind and gentle and that he didn't always have to fight. And I wanted to be the one to prove it to him.

He had said that he was nothing, a no-one, but in that very moment as I sat looking at this man who had risked his life a million times over, not just to save me but everyone I knew, it couldn't have been further than the truth. He may of felt like nothing, but right there on that porch, he had become everything to me. He was all I had in the world, and that didn't scare me at all, because I knew he was a good man, a brave man who deserved to be loved, I just needed him to see it too.

I wasn't as strong as him, I knew that. I couldn't fight, could barely protect myself and knew I wouldn't survive on my own, but I had Daryl Dixon, the last man standing, and that was enough for me. I also knew I had nothing of any worth in this world to offer him in return, other than the only two things I had managed to hold onto through all of the anguish, a little bit hope and my naive heart. And so it could be said, that sat there alone with him in the dark, with only honesty between us, was the moment I had fallen in love with him, fallen in love for the very first time in my life.

There was a part of me I guess, which thought he had felt it too. At the funeral home, I hoped that he had seen in me what I saw in him, a future that could be good in a world that had gone bad. Staying in one place, putting down roots and knowing it might just be me and him, I thought he had seen a glimmer of hope in us, and that was all I had wanted. I felt like it was all we would need to help us heal, after everything we had lost.

I had been wrong, and this morning seeing him with Carol, I felt like a fool, humiliated by my own naivety. I had given him my heart and he had discarded it, broken it in two and there was no way to put it back together, I couldn't even take it back. And now stood in front of him in my bedroom I felt the tears of my humiliation start to rise again, and it made the anger in my tone bite out.

"What do you want Daryl, why are you in here?"

He was tentative as he moved slowly toward me; his gravelly tone carried in it a sense of questioning.

"I saw you cryin' down in the kitchen, just wanted to see if you were ok?"

His concern for me just served to upset me further, and I could feel the tears about to fall. I moved to my bed to pick up a small cloth to wipe my eyes, letting out a hiss as I caught the scar on my face with the rough material.

"I am fine Daryl, its nothing."

"Mhmm you don't seem fine". He moved closer, his eyes examining my face "My guess is, you ain't crying over nothing."

There was softness in his voice as he raised his hand in a gesture to touch my tear stained cheek before he realised what he had done, and pulled away.

"It's fine Daryl, just go ok. Go back to Carol"

I knew I sounded like a petulant child as I spat her name out of my mouth unintentionally. Words laced with malice that were immediately followed by my deep regret at lashing out at the person I cared most for. Daryl turned around to leave and my breathe caught in my throat, knowing that it had been my coldness that had forced him to walk away. But instead he shut my bedroom door over and walked back towards me, closing the gap slightly between us, a look of confusion on his face.

"Beth am I missing something here?" His voice clipped and held within it a sense of annoyance, but his eyes were searching and I shifted slightly under their scrutiny. "Are you pissed cus I was talking to Carol?"

Although he seemed close to the truth, it also felt like he was a million miles away from it. I wasn't pissed, not at all. I was hurt, deeply hurt, in ways I couldn't even find the words to describe, as it was so encompassed in feeling totally rejected and discarded. I wasn't pissed at him for not loving me, I wasn't even angry at Carol for being the one he had chosen, deep down in my stomach I was just angry at myself. Angry for wanting him and angry for believing I had something to fight for.

"Why did you get me out of Grady Daryl? Why did you even bother looking for me and bringing me back here?"

There was a change in his demeanor, the questioning lilt of his voice gone as he rocked in his boots, taken aback by my question. "I brought you back to your family, to Maggie, Glenn, Carl, Judith all of the people you wanted us to go find remember. I got you back safe where you belong, to the people who actually give a shit. Not a bunch of psychos in some nut job hospital."

And right there as I stood and stared into his eyes I had my answer, he hadn't come looking for me because it was what he wanted, he had done what he always did, looked for someone out of a sense of loyalty and obligation to the group, nothing more. His drive to get me back had been no more than a sense of duty; I truly had meant nothing to him at all.

"Well maybe you should have just left me there, at least then you wouldn't have to avoid me, wouldn't need to ignore me and pretend like I don't exist. You at least wouldn't need to convince anyone that you actually give a damn. After all I am just another dumb girl like Sophia who had gone and got herself lost and needed saving right?"

He moved towards me, pointing his finger toward my face as anger flashed in his eyes, "Don't, that weren't remotely the same." He took a short breath, his jaw set and his piercing gaze fixed on mine as I saw his anger and frustration rising to the surface. "What do you want from me girl, tell me? You want me to pretend like nothing happened, like you weren't taken and it's business as usual huh, that what you want from me?"

My voice was raised, meeting his anger head on. "I want you to remember Daryl, I want you to remember, so I don't feel like the only one who thinks what we went through before all this meant something. I don't want it to be like you don't give a crap and the fact I was taken away means absolutely nothing to you, like I meant nothing to you."

He moved in closer, almost like a predator in striking distance of its prey, poised to attack and bring it down "that's what you think huh." His tone not softening at all, instead it offered a challenge, a dare for me to stand true to my statement.

My mind flashed back to that morning, seeing him with Carol, no emotion in his eyes when he glanced at me. My voice broke, partly from the hurt, but mostly from defiance at knowing my eyes hadn't deceived me, I knew my words were true.

"Its what I know"

The words hung in the air as his eyes focused on mine and he brought his face within inches of mine "You know nothing."

Stepping back from under his glare, my heart was racing, my tone clipped and hurried. "I see how you look at Carol, how you care for her different. How you respect her cus she's strong, cus she fights, and she's is brave and don't need you to look out for her. And I know you saw me like some dumb bitch who needed protecting, bet you weren't even surprised I got taken."

My eyes fell to the floor and my tone lost its sting as the truth of my words hit somewhere deep inside of me. "You probably even expected it. But you don't get to bring me back here and just dismiss me Daryl. You don't get to walk away like I ain't worth anything, like I'm nothin', just because I made a dumb mistake that night and cus I weren't strong enough then to fight for myself, you don't get to do that to me. I paid my price."

Daryl stepped in closer to me, his finger and thumb lifting my chin and tilting my head back up, his eyes never faltering from mine. I felt my back hit the wall behind me leaving me pinned with no where to turn, as anger still laced through his words.

"I never walked away from nothin', you hear me. I'll tell you what I remember shall I? I remember how beat up and broken your body was when I carried you back in here, I remember you cryin' out in pain as Maggie washed over your cuts and bruises. I remember hearing you through that wall there, callin' out my name in your sleep, just like you did the night you were taken. You think I ain't punished, you think I got off scot free. I can't un-see the cuts on your face, un-see the blood on your knuckles. You think it don't play in my head what those motherfuckers did to you for you to get those bruises on your body."

He put his forefinger to his temple. "You think I don't see that shit in my head each time I close my eyes? You were taken away from me that night, and all you wanna talk about is me and Carol, like it's about who I am gonna take to some damn high school prom."

His words stung. His mocking of me and his dismissal of everything that had happened before Grady, everything good and reducing me to little more than a bad memory, pricked at my frustration.

"Screw you Daryl, you don't get it"

Daryl's voice was still raised, but the edge had gone. The anger was slowly burning away from his body like he had confessed all of his sins, purged and there was no fight left in him.

"No Beth you don't get it, we nearly lost you cus of me, Maggie, Glenn, Rick, everyone knows what happened to you was cus of me, cus I let my guard down. Maggie lost her sister, Carl, Carol, never thought they were gonna see you again. We all lost you cus of me; you understand that? What happened to you, it's on me."

The shame was etched on his face, and I finally realised the truth. This wasn't about the group after all, this was about what had happened while I was gone. He saw what had happened to me as something bad, a burden he would always carry, and that cut me to the bone. He didn't see that I had fought so hard to get back to him, hadn't seen that I was still stood in front of him. Instead he just saw me as a reminder of everything bad he felt about himself. I was no different in his eyes to the pain and shame of his childhood. I was exactly the same as all the bad things that had happened to him throughout his life, and the thought of that angered me to my core.

I pushed him away from me, my voice raised, anger and venom racing through it. "No! No Daryl, you don't get to do that; you don't get to make me a victim. Write me off as some innocent bystander and make me a burden on your conscience, you don't get that right. I'm not weak Daryl, I was weaker before, but I ain't weak now."

The rage was coursing through my body, everything I felt rising and taking a hold of the words that spilled in haste from my lips. "My face is scarred because I refused to give up, my knuckles are cut up because I made a choice to fight, stand up for myself, just like you and my family had taught me. And this body." I pulled at the loose t-shirt that had been covering me. "This body that clearly disgusts you so much. This body is bruised cus I chose to survive; I did survive Daryl. You talk like what happened to me made me weak, it didn't, it made me strong. And not you or anyone else can tell me any different."

Daryl's eyes had been trained on me the whole time I had spoken, unflinching, and although they held some apology, it was just too late. The damage was done. His words had sealed our fate, and as I walked over to my bedroom door and held it open for him to leave. I said the words that rang true through my heart.

"Daryl, the night at the funeral home, being taken from you that isn't what broke me. Everything I endured whilst I was away that didn't break me either. I fought because I wanted to come back to you, but coming back here and finding that you had let go of everything that was good and hopeful between us, that is what has destroyed me."

As he walked through the door away from me, I closed it behind him, and fell to the floor, letting the remainder of my heart shatter around me.

*Authors Note*

A 'Carol' chapter is coming up next.