Chapter 36:

Vulnerability

Daryl's head whipped around the communal area from the pool of blood. He only allowed himself a second of stillness and fear before raising his crossbow and running past the blood.

"BETH!" Daryl sprinted towards the open cell door before skidding to a stop at the sight of a walker. It turned a sharp corner on him so he slid to his knees before taking it down with a single shot. He stammered to his feet and kept moving. "BETH!" He shouted again.

No reply.

All he heard was his own heartbeat, his scared, heavy breathing and the low growls of walkers above him. This time he didn't go still in fear. He cocked his head up towards the railing above with his crossbow pointed.

"Move!"

Daryl didn't hear Rick until it was too late, seeing a walker falling from above towards him with it's arms twisted at weird angles. He didn't hear Rick, but he felt him when Rick rammed him body into his, pushing him out of the way.

"Let me go!" Daryl grunted angrily and he could feel his eyes threatening to water in fear. Beth was his only thought. Daryl tried to scramble to his feet and run towards the stairs but Rick held him back with a strong grip on his arm. "BETH!" He shouted again. "BE—" He stopped his pointless shouts at the sight of more walkers falling in front of them. At least they were out of the way.

Daryl lunged ahead and away from Rick towards his crossbow; the one that he let go off when he had the wind knocked out of him. Daryl heard Rick growl loudly followed by the sound of a blade slicing through meat and bones.

He felt an unnaturally strong grip on his ankle and Daryl flipped himself onto his back. He let out short panicking breaths as he did his best to kick him away.

Beth. He needed her. Alive.

The walker's grip didn't loosen on him and for a moment time just stopped as he saw the walker's jaw open wide for his leg. Don't be still. Daryl flipped onto his stomach and reached his hand out for his crossbow, only a meter from his grasp. It wasn't loaded, but all he needed was an arrow.

Daryl clawed at the floor and grunted as he reached forward. The walker's grip tightened and he knew he had less than a second.

For a second, Daryl could see Merle standing above him, the crossbow at his feet. What would Merle do? What would he say?

"Arrh!" Daryl kicked his heel into the walker's jaw with one heavy thrust and yanked his crossbow into his hands, whipping it and himself around and smacking the giant weapon into the side of the walker's face.

He whipped his head around instinctively looking to Merle for approval, but it wasn't him. Just another walker. He lunged himself forward to his feet while sliding an arrow free and shoving it through the walker's ear. Daryl stammered as the walker fell to the floor beneath him and kept moving, eliminating any walker that got in his towards the staircase.

Carl didn't exist. Rick didn't exist. The only person that Daryl could think of was Beth.

"BETH!"

...

I didn't know how I was supposed to feel after forgiving Glenn for what he did to me. Probably because I didn't know I was going to until it was happening. I didn't feel better, or worse, but I did feel free. Almost like the giant weight sitting on my chest got a little lighter.

I tried to focus on that, instead of the guilt or fear that something would go wrong. I was an optimist though, so my hope of seeing Beth again trumped that. I made a mental note to get Abe to teach me all his fighting training to me again – in this community, I thought it could come in handy.

Tara had done her 'shift' on the wall and when I went to see her she acted all falsely cool and said she was gonna go for a walk and eat or something. We all had different ways of dealing and her's involved solitude. I wish I knew what mine was.

One thing I did know was that it involved knives.

I managed to find a place of solitude behind the back of a wooden building on the opposite side of Terminus, far away from the warehouse, the bloodstain, and that room with the metal door.

I used a knife to carve out an outline of a body, or walker, and circles for target areas on the head. It was crooked and the body was on an angle, but still pretty impressive for a girl with one eye swollen shut. At least there were no black spots, so I could see the shitty target.

I was no artist.

It felt good to throw my knives again – it gave the illusion that I was useful, when I clearly wasn't. If I may say so myself, my aim was impeccable. Knife throwing was something everyone in my family could do vaguely, but it was the one thing I wasn't taught, and one of the only things I taught myself.

After the second round of aiming my small throwing knives, I had to retrieve them, but the mere thought of moving my leg after the pain died down seemed pointless. I leaned down and slid the hunter's knife from out of my shoe, just like old times.

I twirled it between my fingers rather arrogantly before lifting it over my shoulder. I was about to throw when someone interrupted me and my own personal solitude.

"You're using the wrong knife for fighting." Max walked past me with his chin held high and his long hands shoved in his pockets, desperately trying to be cool.

I cocked a brow. "If you're trying to impress me, insulting my knives isn't gonna get you anywhere."

He walked further away, against the wall directly next to my walker target. It was like he was asking me to kill him. He shrugged his brow, still with the cool thing. "A hunter's knife is the combination of a saw and a blade."

I gritted my teeth. "Gee, Sherlock, thanks."

He grinned. "The serrated part gets stuck easily in their heads."

I sighed more heavily than intended while my raised hand dropped to my side. I twisted the handle in my grip.

"You should always use smooth blades," he concluded, then grinned proudly. He scoffed jokingly. "...Amateur."

I narrowed my glare on him, still twisting the knife in my hand. The corners of my mouth curled into a small, wry smile. "I bet you say that to all the girls."

"Only the ones who survive," he said with a weak smile. I would have been amused if it wasn't the truth.

Great. More guilt.

"Well," I said, softening my expression, "I promise to survive so long as your people don't kill me." I flashed him a smirk, but he just smiled back at me weakly, the vulnerability in his eyes was just as obvious.

He stared down at his shoes as he crossed his ankles and folded his arms, forcing himself to look cool and aloof again, which was far from convincing. "Your attempt at charming me doesn't make your ignorance about knives any less existent."

I gritted my teeth again. My tolerance for douchbaggery was low before, but now he was standing in front of me by a target while I was holding a knife. Clearly he was stupidly naive.

"Little boy, I've been killing walkers since I could crawl and I've taken down more walkers with this knife than you ever will." I didn't know this for certain, but I knew I wasn't overplaying my hand. Max was sweet and innocent by nature. There was no way in hell he was a prized killer.

Unfortunately.

He frowned. "Do you always come off as this arrogant?" He made a delicate gesture with his hand.

I twisted the knife in my hand more. My knuckles went white. "Only to the feeble that compare." I forced a smile on my face, then cocked my brow again. "Now hop your ass off my target."

Max just remained there. Then he shook his head vigorously like a dog, his hair flopping around and in front of his eyes. "Nope." He looked at me through the waves of brown hair and smiled brightly. "You think you're that good, then surely you won't hit me."

I just blinked a lot.

Max laughed a little through his grin. "What?" He raised a brow. "I thought you were that good."

I clenched my jaw. "I am."

He made another delicate hand gesture. "Then by all means; don't let me get in your way."

I knew this was one of those crossroads moments that pretty much defined who I was. Doing this would be either confident and impressive, or just so stupid.

I knew I could do it. And I wasn't a pussy. Not doing this would make me his bitch, and to quote Daryl, 'I ain't nobody's bitch'... My god, his grammar sucked.

I could do it easily.

Every knife I'd thrown hit the target right in the head area. But there was one that fell to the floor from my miscalculation of strength. I could do it. Easy.

But I wasn't going to. Not being an idiot was something I knew I needed to work on, and why not start now? If I had started earlier, Michonne would still be alive. That being said, I couldn't just let him win this.

I smirked. I looked at his bright smile and shiningly hopeful eyes as I slowly raised the knife back over my shoulder. The smile remained until I took a small step forward.

"Ah, stop! Don't kill me!" Max flung himself aside, shielding his head with his arms, crouched in a pathetic little ball.

I grinned proudly at my triumph before bending over and sliding my knife back into my boot.

I win.

...

"BETH!" Daryl yelled at the top of his lungs, fear in his tone. He whipped his head back and forth when he reached the top of the staircase. All he saw were walkers falling over the railing and even more coming after him.

"BETH!" His breath was heavy and his voice broke in sadness.

His eyes glazed over the small crowd of walkers coming towards him and he let his crossbow drop to his side, held limply in his weak grasp. He could live without Beth, but he would never want to. That was the truth, but in that moment, he didn't believe it.

And then he heard the muffled cry of a baby.

Daryl's eyes grew cold. His hearing came back and his crossbow was raised. He didn't care what he was feeling or how broken he was inside, because he knew he didn't have the right to die. People needed him and he needed them.

The number of walkers went down in seconds. He didn't know how many there were, but it didn't matter. Just another thing in the way of his screaming child.

He kicked the head of the last walker in his way, which remained stiff in front of a closed cell. It used to be his. Then he saw the most beautiful sight in the world. Life didn't suck, anymore – it was never ugly.

Because before his blue, unblinking eyes was his friend, his wife and his child.

"Beth."

Author's Notes: Just a quick shout out to Annierosewood who gave me an awesome review, as well as using the word eloquent properly in a sentence. That was awesome.