a/n: I highly doubt ANYONE is still reading this, but I have never intended to leave it unfinished... even if it's just for me - I will see this piece of me to the end. This is a filler... once upon a time, I had this beast written to the bloody end. That was several computers ago. Only now have I found some inspiration. Xoxo.

Beth stumbled backward, attempting to transfer any trace of strength she could muster through her shoulders, to her arms and wrists and hands, into the light, damaged door of the dwelling, as Holly pushed her way inside.

Beth couldn't manage or in any way reduce the lump that had formed in her throat. She couldn't speak. She couldn't voluntarily shift the expression on her face away from what must have been a chaotic medley of fear, disbelief, anger, sadness, and disgust.

"Beth," Holly breathed, slowly lowering her sunglasses downward from her eyes to the bridge of her nose before removing them deliberately and with some sort of control that Beth could not fathom and flinging them onto the floor. "I – I wasn't sure I'd ever see you again."

"It's you."

Beth had stepped backward until she'd collided - firmly but quietly - with the half-wall in the entryway. She pressed her palms into the wall behind her and willed her lungs to expand as she inhaled forcefully.

"I thought I'd never see you again, if I'm bein' honest," Holly continued in a delicate, low voice that trembled so, so subtly.

Beth focused on breathing. She inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. Allowed her eyes to see, and her mind to attempt to process what she was seeing.

"You're pregnant." Beth finally spoke, and her voice sounded like grains underfoot, or skin being pulled taut across a flame.

Holly stared back at Beth, blankly for several minutes, before she finally shrugged a shoulder and furrowed her eyebrows, glancing down at her own pregnant belly and her puffy, dirty feet.

"I am," she confirmed in a dull, unimpressed voice with a quick nod of her head.

Beth felt her face growing hot; blood surfacing under her skin.

"Which one's is it?" Her voice was strained and curt and devoid of the emotions she knew she would feel if she'd allow them to be felt. She felt the words come out in the form of a whisper.

Holly had taken a few side steps into the house as she and Beth cautiously yet urgently studied one another. She'd found a half-wall of her own, one that she trusted to accept the weight of her body - and of her mind and soul. She bent her hips and knees gently, sliding her back along the wall until she'd properly sat on the floor, directly in front of Beth. They were like mirrors in form.

Holly was quiet for a moment, and still. Silent and whole. She studied Beth's shoes and legs and the curve of her jaw. She felt too many things, all at once.

"I - I'm not totally sure – " Holly started, voice quiet. She was twisting the fingers of her left hand over and over and over in the palm of her right hand, trying to light her body and skin on fire. The war between her relief and fear was raging in every nerve ending of her entire being.

Beth huffed, cutting off Holly's words. "You aren't sure? How did this happen, Holly? Who did this? Was it Robert? Maybe someone else? The farm – the Colony - what?"

"Yes," Holly said quietly, nodding in asymmetrical patterns even as her eyes bounced everywhere and nowhere all at once.

Several feet away, Daryl flipped from his belly to his back, sighing loudly.

"Yes?" Beth repeated, "Yes - what?" She took short, slow steps forward, pushing off the floor to stand and the wall to advance forward, towards the girl that had not long ago helped her in ways Beth could never begin to describe.

"Do you know? Does someone know? Does anyone know?"

Holly shrugged again.

Beth slowly bent at the waist, then the knees and the hips. She sat, again, with her back to the wall opposite of Holly. She pressed her face forward, briefly allowing her forehead to rest against her shaking, clammy palms.

"Liz - I - I came here to tell you something."

"The Colony isn't what you think it is. It's – it's the closest thing to humanity I've seen since all of this began. Houses, jobs, children – don't you remember how important those things were, Beth? The Colony is not what you think it is." Holly's voice sounded hollow and uncertain to Beth.

"There's bad - so much bad - underneath the good." Holly's words became nearly inaudible.

Beth was quiet for several moments. When she spoke again, her voice had an edge of accusation and weariness.

"Did Gregory do this to you?" Beth found Holly's eyes with her own. She was silent and still as she waited for Holly's response.

Holly fidgeted. She ran a hand through her hair and then down her cheek and chest and over her belly. She turned her head right then left the center. She looked at her fingernails and nibbled on their jagged edges.

Beside the two young women, Daryl had rolled onto his side facing them both. He couldn't identify what he was hearing; whether it was fact or fiction or dream or nightmare. He focused on summoning the strength and stamina necessary for supporting her and encouraging her. He focused on his senses, and willed his ears to hear and his mind to interpret what he heard.

Holly continued fidgeting, silent and restless and beautiful. Her mouth opened as if to speak or yawn or sing - and then just as quickly her lips were sealed together tightly.

After several minutes and hours of silence, Beth stood and walked slowly across the room, crouching down into a squat as soon as she'd arrived within mere inches of Holly.

"Please, Holly. Tell me." Beth pleaded, reaching forward across the distance between herself and Beth.

Holly snatched her warm, forgiving hand in her own, squeezing intermittently wen she felt uneasy or sick or unloved.

Time continued passing. It felt like hours and days passed, as weeks and years vanished without any specific warning.

After several more minutes of silence, Holly dragged her hand, which was enclosed entirely within Beth's palm, upward toward her own chest and heart and soul.

"Yes," she finally responded, a small inexplicable smirk developing in the right corner of her mouth.

"Yes, Beth. Gregory did this."