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On to the next bit...

My state of mind has finally

got the best of me – Demi Lovato

Chapter 14 – State of Mind

"Carol?" I wheezed out, trying to pull away from her even when she held me tighter.

"Sorry Beth," she laughed, letting me go a bit so I could breathe.

Her hands still held on to my shoulders, eyes glistening with tears that let me know that she had missed me…us. She missed us. I felt tears hit my cheeks. I had missed her too.

"What happened?" I whispered, my throat still dry and feeling like I had inhaled a gallon of smoke. It hurt to suck in and so I took small gasps of air to stabilize myself.

Carol nodded to the room around us, "You were pretty out of it when they brought you in." She shook her head, "I don't know why they went all primal on you both, guess it was just fear or something."

I racked my brain trying to recall what had happened after we were pulled from the car.

Judy. Daryl. Where were they?

"Where's Judy?" I asked first, licking my dry lips and beckoning for the water cup beside my bed.

A short bald man reached out and handed me a cup. I had the urge to throw it in his face but I was so thirsty that I took it down without even questioning what it was. So much for being safe.

Carol pursed her lips together, "Judy is fine. She's been in the room next to yours. They've given her some medication and everything will be fine."

I dropped the paper cup to the floor; if Carol said Judy was safe, well I believed her.

"What about Daryl?" My eyes shifted down to my knees, and I suddenly found myself tugging back from Carol's hands so she was forced to settle them at her sides. I didn't know why I pulled away. Maybe it was just the sudden weird proximity, or maybe it was the realization that Carol had something with Daryl that I'd never have. I hated my stupid dream for making me feel this way. It was childish and dumb. Thank god she didn't notice.

"He's fine," she laughed shortly, rising from the bed and coming to stand next to the bald man. "A little angry that they took you both in the way they did, but he seems to have come around. " she brushed her hand over my hair, "he knows they were just trying to be safe."

My eyes flickered across the room, I tried to convince myself that I was only observing my surroundings; my gut told me that I was looking to see him standing there in the doorway.

He wasn't.

My heart sank.

"This is Claud," she nodded to the man at her side, "he's been giving you some meds to get your system all straightened out."

I tried to sit up in the bed, "I'm fine," I started, "I don't need anything."

Carol scoffed, "Hell Beth, ya came in here half dead, all dehydrated and shit and you want me to just let it be?"

I felt the tears start to crawl down my cheeks; my head pressing back into the pillow behind me.

"I just wanna see Judy." I half sobbed.

And Daryl.

I wanted to see Daryl.

I wanted to know that he was ok and this wasn't some screwed up dream.

"You'll be out of here soon, Beth." Claud came up to my side and patted my head with a damp cloth. "We just wanted to make sure you were healthy enough to take care of her."

It was this that broke me.

"Take care of her?" I yelled, "How the hell am I supposed to take care of her if your just keeping me holed up here instead?" I raised my voice more, "You came at me with guns, with such harshness…you think that she doesn't understand that she's been ripped away from us?"

Claud furrowed his brow, cast a glance at Carol, and then looked back at me. "We wanted to take care of you."

"You wanted to scare us…be dominant…that ain't good qualities in my book." I spit in his direction, suddenly finding myself turning over and facing the wall away from them.

"Maybe you should go," Carol whispered; I could hear the pat of her hand against Claud's arm.

There was silence.

You'd think after months and months in a practically empty prison that silence would be something I was accustomed to.

I hated the silence. It made my skin crawl.

"He's a nice man, Beth." I heard Carol shuffle back to the side of my bed. The way the mattress pressed down I knew she had taken a seat.

I snorted.

"I'm sorry about your Daddy, baby." I could feel her hands run through my hair and settle between my shoulder blades. I held back a sob.

I had tried not to really truly cry since they day Daryl and I had found that cabin. I had tried to remain strong.

But I felt her hands running soft comforting circles on my back and I couldn't hold it anymore. I let it out. I felt my body convulsing on the old bed; my legs digging in to scratchy sheets.

I cried so hard that I couldn't even find the courage to face her; I just sniffled out broken words and broken questions.

"You…didn't…back.." I sobbed, "where did …ya go?" I wiped my nose on the blanket. "You were there….and gone." I sighed, my hand coming up to wipe at my face. "Where did ya go Carol?"

Slowly I turned to look at her over my shoulder, "Where did ya go?"

I've seen a lot of pained faces before; in the time of the end of the world I had watched people I loved go from one extreme to the next. I had watched people I loved die. I had seen a lot of faces. I knew when one was filled with hurt.

Carol bit her lower lip, her hand still rubbing my upper back like my Mama used to do before she died.

It was comforting, yeah, I felt like I had found my mother again, but at the same time I could see the pain in her eyes.

"Where'd ya go Carol?" I asked again, my voice vibrating through my tears.

"We don't need to talk about this now, Beth." She whispered, retracting her hand and folding it into her lap with her other. "It ain't right to talk about it now."

"Please?" It was all I could muster out, my body shot and my soul torn to bits. I didn't know how much more I could take.

Carol rose up from the bed and hovered above me for just a moment. Her hand moved up into her hair and quickly she moved across the floor and closed the door shutting us out from the rest of the community out there. I wasn't scared. I trusted her. Carol was like the mother I had always dreamed of after my own had been ripped away from me.

"Beth…I –" she stammered, took a breath, and then straightened her shoulders, "I don't know how ya may look at me if I tell you why I left."

Scooting myself around beneath the blankets I curled to the other side and smiled as best I could up at her. "You're my family, Carol. Ain't anything you could say that would make me feel any less."

I could see her mind twisting around this information, mulling over what she could say, and what she wanted to say.

Finally I pushed myself up, my head still slightly sore but more aware than I had been when I first opened my eyes.

"I'll forgive ya if it's that bad." I added, my eyes flickering to her knees and then back to her eyes. "That's what family does…we forgive."

"Daryl wont." I thought I heard her murmur, but she finally came back to the side of my bed and rested her bottom there.

"I wanted to keep us all safe Beth, ya know that, right?" I nodded. " I wanted to do whatever had to be done to make sure that our family was taken care of. I didn't want to see anyone hurt…not you or Judy…not Rick or Maggie or even Glenn and Daryl." She choked back a cry, "I even had the responsibility of Lizzie and Mika on me. I just wanted to make sure that they'd be ok and that the infection wouldn't get to them…"

My brows furrowed, "Carol if anyone loved us unconditionally it was always you…I don't know what your saying…I just want you to tell me-"

And it hit me faster than most puzzles ever did. In school I had always failed at those tests that asked you to make obvious inferences about surrounding situations. Course in the prison I had been holed up with Judy for so long I never did get much of the story besides the death of Karen and David. I knew there were things that Rick was doing to figure it all out, but as I looked up into Carol's face I could see the utter turmoil brewing beneath her skin.

"Is this about Karen and David?" I whispered, my hands trembling beneath the blanket.

She remained still for a whole two minutes before nodding.

"Is that why Rick came back without you? " I muttered, "Did you decide to leave?"

She continued to sit in silence, tears running from her eyes and falling down onto the plain purple tank top she was wearing.

"Rick asked me to go. Said it would be safer if I didn't come back."

I felt pelted with a barrage of emotions. Murder. Safety. Family. Death.

They all swirled together and as much as I wanted to reach out and take hold of her hand I was also scared.

I guess she could sense that because her eyes went wide and she quickly brushed her fingers over my forehead.

"Oh god Beth, no." she cried, "I'd never hurt you." She sniffed, "After everything in the prison, after Lizzie and Mika became my responsibility…it was a moment of white blindness…" She stroked my hair. "I hated what I did after I did it. I hated that I had done something I would have normally been so against…"

"Then why'd you do it?" I asked, still trembling beneath her touch.

She pulled her hand away from my head, her fingers moving up to her mouth as she thought how to answer.

"I know it's stupid…I know it's not an excuse…" she whimpered, "I just thought of when I lost Sophia, and how I didn't take any initiative." Her chin dropped to her chest, "I should have shot out from beneath that car! I should have saved my daughter!" Her shoulders heaved, "But I let Lori hold me there cause I was too scared to do anything."

My heart, as torn as it was, fell like lead to the floor beneath my bed.

"I was just tired of being scared, Beth." She added, "I was tired of watching people I loved die when I could have done something to stop it."

Something about her words brought me back to the moment Daryl told me about Zach.

Sick of watching people die.

I felt my brain short circuit, and suddenly I was sitting up and taking her into my arms and hugging her tight.

My head still throbbed, my body still ached.

It was my heart that seemed to hurt the most. '

"I ain't saying you did the right thing," I whispered into her shoulder. "I think Karen and David would still be alive…"

She sobbed harder into my hair, and I cried with her.

"I'm sorry Beth. I really am. I'm sorry about doing what I did and leaving the family and everything that went to shit after I was gone."

A sudden knock on the door had us both jolting back from each other and wiping at our red rimmed eyes.

"One moment." Carol sniffled, her eyes meeting mine.

"Did you tell Daryl?" I whispered, fixing myself in the uncomfortable bed. IT was even more uncomfortable after I mumbled his name.

Even after all this his name brought a sudden flutter to my stomach. I was glad when she stood and took away my attention.

"Not yet, ya gotta give me some time. He's been with Judith the whole time and I barely have said anything to him about it." She sniffed, "he knows…I know he knows…" she fixed her hair, "Rick wouldn't have left him hangin' bout where I went." There was a sudden flush to her cheeks that made my insides grow hard, and I merely nodded as she crossed the room and put her hand on the knob.

She looked back at me for just a moment, a shared moment between a once mother and child. That's what she had been to me. Its possibly what she could have still been even after all the horrible things she just told me.

But when she opened the door, Daryl standing there with Claud, I could see her demeanor change. Her smile grew brighter, and she looked at him just as I had mere moments ago in my dream. I felt a black hole swirl deep inside of me; sucking away at things I had been feeling. I wanted to scream out. I wanted him to hate her. I wanted him to lift me out of the bed and grab Judy and run away with us.

"Hey." Was all I said.

"Glad to see yer alive, kid." He muttered, and that was it. He gave a half shrug of his shoulder and then looked over at Carol.

My heart slowly shut down.

Ok, so now we have gotten into the meat of the story. For all of you who are waiting for more romantic relations between Beth and Daryl...well we are for reals not too far off. No more dream sequences! Still, like Norman Reedus saids...Daryl will always be a slow burn sort of guy so it will take a bit but not too much longer.

Let me know what you think! Review, Follow, Favorite or just plain PM me! I love input.

Next chapter will bring in a few more of the old crew. Can anyone guess who it is?