Trigger warning. Suicide. Depression. Anxiety. Abuse. Basically all of it. But there are good parts too. Promise.

Thanks for reading.


Daryl's ears were accustomed to sound and direction, they picked up speed, sprinting toward the direction of the scream.

They passed the cemetery, past the large tree. Rounding a thicket of trees, there stood an old church. He'd forgotten completely it was there. When he was young the people of the mountain would assemble here for worship. Moreso it was a place to gather and gossip and eat potluck lunches. Now it was decrepit and falling down like something straight out of a horror movie - his own personalized horror movie, one where the monster was real.

He pressed a finger to his lips in a shushing motion as he and Michonne quietly made their way up the rickety steps. The door was ajar. It was too dark inside to see anything. Then he heard shuffling and the distinct sound of crushing cartilage, followed by a wail of pain. He shoved the door open and when he stepped in, his Colt was drawn outright.

Negan lay on the ground, holding his shoulder, blood pooled around him on the dirt floor. Blood also covered his face. His nose was now misaligned, crooked. Beth kneeled above him, knife poised to stab again.

Daryl pointed his gun toward Negan, put up a hand to stall Michonne. She stood behind Daryl but braced herself. It was impossible to think Negan wasn't armed.

"Beth," Daryl asked, low and gravely. She seemed frozen. Eyes unseeing.

"The crazy bitch stabbed me!" Negan groaned.

Michonne smiled. "Good." He wasn't going to die from a knife wound to the shoulder, she sure hoped he was in pain. From the looks of his bloody, crooked nose it was broken.

Daryl stayed a few feet away. Gently he said, "Give me the knife."

She looked up at Daryl, her gaze sharp with anger. Not seeing. Not hearing. It was as though she didn't recognize him.

Her mind swam. Memories of long ago mixed with the events of the last few months. Confusion muddled her thoughts. Was this real? Was she dreaming? Was her time with Daryl a hallucination?

White knuckled, she grasped the handle of her knife. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, tuning everything out. The urge to finish the job, rather than just maim Negan so she, as well as Dwight and Sherry and all the others, could finally be rid of him was so strong it scared her.

"Beth, listen to me. If you kill him, you'll be arrested. You'll go to jail. You don't want to risk the rest of your life's freedom over this asshole." It might not be true, she might not be arrested, but he sure wasn't going to be the one to arrest her. She didn't need to know that, he just had to find a way into her mind. Somehow appeal to her sensible side that was currently buried under all the hurt.

Opening her eyes she peered again at Daryl. Vacant, devoid of recognition.

He had to find a way.

"God damn it don't do this." He finally snapped. "Don't let him take away anymore of your life than he already has. I love you, Beth. You're who I want to be with the rest of my life. Don't let him mess that up."

Suddenly, like a door opening wide allowing the light to enter, all she heard was Daryl's voice pleading with her, telling her to put down the knife. Saying he loved her. He was the only thing that registered through the madness of her mind.

The knife slipped from her fingers. Before she was able to stand, Negan snaked his arm away from his shoulder, taking a pistol from the back waistband of his jeans, he pressed the barrel to her forehead.

The click of the safety release was deafening.


Here, faced with her own mortality, everything came zapping back. The gaps in her memory were filled as though they were never missing.

She'd joined the Saviors because of the guilt she felt after attempting suicide. The attempt itself was a half-hearted attempt, done mostly because she didn't know what else to do. It was a way of asking for help when words failed her. She was young and hurting, often feeling like she was standing in the middle of the room screaming but no one was listening. Anxiety coursed through her body every minute of every day. Depression bleak as the winter's sky at midnight came out of nowhere.

It wasn't about the boyfriend that broke up with her. He was nice but she wasn't in love with him. Her mental state had been fading for some time before that. As it often happens with these types of things, there was no one reason she could pinpoint as the cause of her depression and anxiety.

And once it all came crashing down, the hollowness mixed with crippling overwhelm, she felt she no longer had the strength to deal with anything anymore. She was stuck in a dark place with no light in sight. She felt nothing and everything at the same time. Irrationally, she thought to end her life was the only way out.

After she healed and came home from the hospital, her family tried their best, but everyone walked on eggshells around her. They didn't know what to do, what to say, or how to handle her. Even after she appeared to be doing better, going back to school and working as a waitress, her parents and brother and sister treated her with kid gloves. They thought she would break again at the slightest stressor.

Around the same time, Simon started coming into the diner. He looked different all those years ago in a baseball cap with no mustache. He was older and handsome in a rough cut kind of way. She was desperate for someone, an unbiased person other than her family, to talk to.

Too easily she opened up to him, telling him about her struggles. He was charming and said all the right things. Said exactly what she needed to hear. She wanted to be a part of something but didn't know what that something was.

Simon told her he had what she was searching for. A community of people trying to make the world a better place for the good of mankind. She fell for his story hook, line, and sinker. It was a case of the wrong thing at the very wrong time.

Once she was at the Sanctuary, Negan was more charming than Simon. The people were kind and focused. Mostly, she was naive and wanted to be somewhere they didn't treat her like a broken child.

They plied her with drugs. She wasn't sure what and she didn't realize at the time that's what it was. They claimed it was medication meant to cleanse her contaminated body of toxins from living with the commoners.

But the drugs - as well as their brainwashing, telling her the Saviors and Negan were the only ones that truly cared for her, saying she couldn't trust anyone else, even her family - kept her quiet and docile. It wasn't long before she was so entrenched in life at the Sanctuary, she had to forget her family. It was a survival mechanism, it hurt too much to think of them.

At some point, Negan picked up on her reluctance to become his wife. Those that do not obey must be shown the right way, he had told her before having her locked in one of the cages below the main building. She'd lost track how long she'd been in there when someone, someone that had taken pity on her, left her door unlocked and she was able to make her escape.

Now, here she was and the man she once idolized had a gun to her head. She was surprisingly calm, all things considered.

"Fuck you, Negan," she said with a small smile parting her lips.

A crashing noise sounded near the front of the church as a skinny figure flew weightlessly through the stained glass window. Brightly colored shards of glass flew through the air, shattered, but still beautiful.

The figure made an impressive rolling motion with his body when he hit the floor and landed upright on his knees. The distraction enabled Daryl to send a single bullet through Negan's forehead. His hands dropped releasing her, the gun falling to the side. She fell back landing hard, a splash of blood splattered her face.

Not quite able to quantify that he came so close to losing her, Daryl went to her, lifting her by her shoulders.

"It's okay, baby. It's over." He wound his arms around her, kicking the gun away from Negan's lifeless body just to be on the safe side. He took her chin in his hand, looking over her face, touching her shoulders, running his hands over her arms. "You're okay?" He asked. Then said more certainly, "You're okay."

She nodded. "Yeah, I, I think so." And she was. She made it.

The figure that had crashed through the window unfolded himself from his position on the floor, brushing glass from the sleeves of his jacket limped his way to them. He was thin and gaunt. Blonde hair long and shaggy, clothes dirty.

"Dwight?" Beth questioned.


It was hours before they were able to head back to Merle's. Beth refused to leave without Sherry and Sherry refused to leave without Dwight and Dwight wasn't allowed to leave until he was questioned thoroughly.

According to Dwight, he and Sherry had been caught by Simon, Joey and two other of Negan's men in town. They separated them and brought them back to the Sanctuary where they kept him hidden in a cage underneath the main building. The lock was old and rusted and he was able to jimmy it open with a screw he found abandoned on the floor.

He didn't want to leave without Sherry so he camped out in the perimeter of the compound, waiting for an opportunity to find her and make their way together back down the mountain. He saw Negan struggling with Beth and followed them to the church. He waited outside. Watching through a crack, listening for the right moment.

When he saw Negan pull a gun he acted without thought. He apologized to Beth. His crashing through the window could have just as easily got her killed. "But it didn't," Beth said easily. "You did the right thing."


When Beth and Sherry were able to be reunited, she had been waiting in the center of the Sanctuary pacing back and forth, they embraced for the longest time. Both afraid to let go, both afraid this was somehow unreal. Finally, Beth released her and said, "I got a surprise for you."

Sherry peered at Beth quizzically. She jutted a chin over Sherry's shoulder where Dwight came into view, flanked by Michonne and Daryl.

A strangled cry escaped her lips and she ran to him. They clung to one another. Sherry holding him around his shoulders, Dwight closing his tired eyes, burying his face in her neck.

The misplaced Saviors milling about unabashedly watched, some with tears in their eyes. The majority of them cared for Dwight and Sherry as well as Beth. They had no idea what to think, they were confused and still didn't know their beloved leader, Negan, was dead.

After their brief reunion, Dwight was quickly whisked away by Daryl and Michonne. Backup was called in. The majority of the Saviors were good people but there were a few that were no better than Negan. They'd need help in sorting it all out. In the meantime, they corralled everyone into the main building.

Beth felt as though she'd been hit by an oncoming train. Not just the physical aspect of what she'd been through, her head pounded, her elbow was swollen and difficult to move, the emotional component had rendered her exhausted. She wanted to sleep for days.

Going back to the shack with Sherry, the one they had shared, was like a continuation of a bad dream. But it needed to be done. She needed to see it one last time. She had actually been happy there for a while.

The room was small. A tiny wood stove was set up along the wall across the door and a skinny tall backed dresser sat next to it. They shared it, two drawers each. A washbasin sat atop it along with a plastic pitcher of water, probably fetched from the stream that morning. The room was completed with two cots, one to the right, one to the left. Both were covered with a patchwork quilt.

Now that she achieved what she came here for she wanted to leave and never come back. Beth gave in to her exhaustion and sat down on the cot she'd slept in. It was familiar, the bow in the center, the way it creaked under the slightest weight. The threadbare blanket. She ran a hand over the soft, patched fabric.

"I saved your stuff after you disappeared," Sherry said, opening a drawer from the dresser. "I didn't know if you'd be coming back, so I just kept it in the drawer."

Beth stood and went to the dresser, reaching in she pulled out her extra white dress. Her spare underwear that was so thin you could see through it, a toothbrush and a small jar of homemade toothpaste made with baking soda and solidified oil. The sight of it made her teeth grind.

"I don't want any of this," Beth told Sherry.

Before replacing its contents, she noticed the corner of something tucked into the crack where the bottom of the drawer met the side. It was a small photo booth picture. Black and white and faded, no bigger than an inch. Taking it out of the drawer, the tears she managed to hold back began to silently fall. It was her parents when they were young. She'd always loved that picture and carried it with her since she was a small child. She hid it when she first arrived at the Sanctuary. She willingly gave up everything else, just not this one photo. She put it at the bottom of her dresser, allowing herself to forget it was there.

Shame was a reoccurring emotion she doubted she'd ever be able to release. Shame, along with guilt.

Beth sat back on the cot, holding the photo in her cupped hand. Sherry had seemingly snapped out of the stupor now that she knew Dwight was alive and took a worn-out rag from a stack on a crudely built dresser. She dipped it into the water and sat next to Beth. She began to gently wipe the blood, Negan's blood, from Beth's face.

"Negan? He's dead?" Sherry asked, voice void of any emotion.

Beth nodded through more tears. "Daryl shot him before he could shoot me."

Sherry sighed with relief. "Good," she said.

"I don't know how to thank you for what you did. Coming back here. I should be angry with you," Sherry smiled, her own eyes damp with unshed tears. "Risking your life like that."

"I'm the reason you stayed. I was a part of this for a long time. I shouldn't have been so," Beth stalled, searching for the right word. "Complacent. I'm to blame too. I had to do something. " Guilt and grief thickened in her throat.

Sherry stopped wiping the dried blood away. "Oh, Beth. No. We wanted a fresh start. After the car accident that scared Dwight's face, his family blamed me. And I don't think my family was very happy with either of us. We needed to get away from our lives back home. This is just where we happened to end up. But we stayed because we wanted to. This isn't your fault. You understand me? None of this is. Negan was a manipulative psycho."

Beth nodded once, swallowing her tears. "You and Dwight can stay with me until you decide what to do or where you wanna' go," Beth told her. It was the least she could offer. She doubted Daryl would be opposed to a couple of houseguests.

"Thank you." Sherry stood, threw the towel on the dresser and said, "Now, let's get outta' here."

Beth smiled and laughed. With the photo in her hand, they walked out of the shack and away from what had been her home for five years for the final time.


Rick drove them back to Merle's in Daryl's Bronco as Daryl had to stay at the Sanctuary. Andrea didn't blink an eye when Beth showed up with Dwight and Sherry.

"You look like ya' seen some action," Andrea told Beth, giving her a warm hug.

"Good girl," she said approvingly.

Andrea all but demanded them to let her take a look at them, reaching for the medical kit that was never far off. She cleaned Dwight's cuts he'd sustained from his heroic leap through the window, checked Beth's elbow to be sure it wasn't broken, gave her some aspirin for her head. Told Sherry she needed a good hot meal and set about reheating leftover venison stew. The kids ran in and out excited about their new guests who did their best to answer their questions until Andrea finally shooed them out of the kitchen.

After Sherry and Dwight ate heaping servings of the stew, Sherry changed out of the white dress to a pair of Beth's leggings and an old sweatshirt. Soon she and Dwight curled up on Beth's bed and quickly fell asleep.

Awaiting Daryl's return, Beth was unable to eat. Forget about sleeping. She didn't even try. When the house was quiet, all the kids asleep, Merle and Andrea and the baby retired to their bedroom, she stepped outside into the cold night air.

The stars were bright pinpoints of light against the black sky. Vast and endless. She breathed in the cold air. The air, feeling like it reached her lungs for the first time. She felt exponentially lighter. Finally free.

She walked to the wood burner that was constantly burning all day and night this time of year. When she opened the grate door flames flickered against the sky, warming her face. In the pocket of Merle's oversized coat she had slipped back on to go outside, she retrieved the dress she ended up taking from the drawer in her and Sherry's shack. The dress was wadded up, wrinkled and dirty. She stared at it trying to figure out how she felt.

It symbolized five years of her life wasted. It symbolized leaving her family behind to wonder where she was. It symbolized how susceptible a person can be to another's words. It symbolized fear and dread. But all she felt was the relief that it was now over. She tossed it into the fire, the thin fabric quickly eaten up by the flames.

After every visible thread of the dress had burned she slid her hand into her back pocket, retrieving the photo of her parents. Running a finger over them she apologized, whispering I'm sorry, the words so incidental and not enough. They floated away along with the smoke from the burner, fading into the air.


Daryl, along with Michonne and Rick, pulled in moments later as she still stared, mesmerized by the flames. Closing the burner door, she met him halfway and they easily fell into one another. "You a'right?" He asked after a moment.

She nodded against his shoulder, unwilling to let go. "You?"

"I'm great," he said. She looked up at him, skeptical. She just made his life a hell of a lot harder, he'd have every right to be angry with her. But a smile breached his face in the headlights of the Bronco. "You're safe. I couldn't ask for more."

"I'm sorry for everything," she apologized. Again feeling inadequate. How do you apologize for what happened? For what she caused.

The smile slipped a little. "Don't be sorry." Switching gears, he said, "You know I was serious, right? When I said I love you. That I wanna make a life with you."

She shrugged. He could have said anything in that moment to make her drop the knife.

"Well, I do. I love you." He thought he'd always feel ridiculous saying that to someone but to his surprise he didn't. It was easy to say to her.

It seemed important to voice the words now more than ever. To make her believe it.


Daryl had a busy few weeks after that. He wasn't home often and when he was it was well after dark. It worked out well that Sherry and Dwight agreed to stay with them. Beth wasn't alone and they were able to rest and recuperate without the rush of deciding what they wanted to do next.

Beth waited up for Daryl every night. Sometimes he'd talk about the Sanctuary. Sometimes he didn't have the words. It was a huge ordeal finding everyone places to stay, finding the resources they needed, if they wanted them. Or, in the better case scenarios, aiding in reuniting them with their families. A few people chose to stay up there on the mountain, saying it was their home even without Negan.

It turned out not everyone wasn't as happy there as they acted. Stories of abuse and neglect. Of cold winters without enough clothing or food. Stories from a few women came out about Negan forcing himself on them. They thought it was their duty, as his wife. It infuriated Daryl. No one had any right to anyone else's body.

Some nights, even if Daryl was exhausted, he and Beth clung tightly to each other, taking solace in one another over and over. He needed to feel her goodness. The hope that her presence held. He needed to feel their future.

Tracing warm kisses down his chest and torso she agreed wholeheartedly, she rested her chin on his chest. "So what's next?" She questioned.

The investigation was wrapping up. Simon was in jail. He was the only one they could prove did anything illegal and Negan was dead. Death almost seemed too easy for someone like Negan. On the other hand, at least Beth wouldn't have to testify in front of him should it have ever reached a trial. Daryl's involvement now was more about the people and finding them the help they needed.

He ran a hand over her disheveled hair. "We move into our house," he answered simply.

He was able to sign off on the loan for the house and they had gotten the keys. Beth and Sherry had been painting and cleaning the house, getting it ready. It occurred to him how little he actually owned when they began talking about what they needed for the house, which was just about everything.

He'd been living day to day for far too long. It was time to build a life. A life with Beth.

"Sherry and Dwight might as well stay here. No sense in this place staying empty."

Dwight had gotten a job at the hardware store and Sherry was floundering a bit, deciding what life meant to her now. But she was happy and safe and that's what mattered.

Beth kissed her way back to his lips. "Why you so good to me?"

He chuckled, a sound that was easily one of Beth's favorite sonances. "'Cause I love ya'."

Those words still melted her heart. They came often now. Before he left for work. When they were falling asleep. At the end of a call.

"What about you? What's next for you?" Daryl asked. He was always sure to tell her however much she needed to hear it, that she had a life to live now. Yes, a life that included him, but also one beyond him.


Don't worry, I'm not finished with this one yet. We still got a bit more to go. Thanks again for reading.