Beth woke up in a strange place. The first thing she noticed was a clock ticking away on the wall. The second was the fact that she was within Atlanta itself. The third, most disturbing, thing was that she was in a locked room with only one way out. She could tell it was a hospital by the way the room was set up and the parking lot she saw from the window, but that was all she knew. Where was Daryl? Was he here too?

As the questions began to swarm her panicking mind, she ran to the door and started banging on it while screaming for anyone who could hear her. When she heard people coming towards her room, she ripped the IV from her arm. All she had as a choice of weapons was the needle it was attached to, so pulling it out was the only option she had. Holding it up, she wished she would have taken more of Ani's classes instead of playing house-keeper and baby-sitter. There was so little she could do right now. As the door opened, she prepared her meager attempt at defense only to be surprised by a fully uniformed female officer and a tall but skinny male doctor in glasses to walk in.

"Everything's okay, okay?" the doctor told her reassuringly.

"Put it down," the officer said. "Drop it, right now."

Seeing how it was an actual police officer and a doctor, Beth decided that there wasn't much threat and dropped the needle. The two in front of her visibly relaxed, the doctor putting his hands in his pockets from their surrender position and the officer bringing hers to the front of her belt from holding one in front to calm Beth and the other being by her cuffs. Their visibly relaxed states did very little to help Beth's nerves as she began thinking of ways to either get out of here or at least gain the upper hand.

"I'm Dr. Steven Edwards," the doctor said softly and kindly. "This is officer Dawn Lerner. How are you feeling?"

"Where am I?"

"Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta."

"How did I get here?" Beth asked, remembering she was on the run from walkers at the funeral home and waiting for Daryl and then she woke up here.

"My officers found you on the side of the road surrounded by rotters," the lady, Dawn, answered.

"Your wrist was fractured and you sustained a superficial head wound," Dr. Edwards told her. "Can you remember your name?"

"Beth," she said, trying to figure out what happened, but all she could remember was getting to the road and feeling pain. "The man I was with, is he here too?"

"You were alone," the officer said.

"No, I was waitin' on the road for Daryl," Beth explained. "He was right behind me. I'd just made it to the road and there was this light and then pain and then nothin'. I woke up here. Your officers didn't find me," she said in a sudden realization. "They hit me with their damn car!"

"If we hadn't saved you, you'd be one of them right now," Dawn explained.

"That's bullshit," Beth spat. "If they hadn't hit me, I'd've been just fine!"

"We saved your life bringing you here," Dawn insisted. "So you owe us."

The next day, she was expected to follow Dr. Edwards on his rounds. She'd learned that, even though the woman in charge understood exactly what happened and how Beth had gotten there, she didn't care. Or wouldn't. Either way, Beth couldn't help but wonder whether these people were actually from Atlanta PD and if they were, did they know Ani? And if they did know her, would that be an advantage for Beth? She kept thinking about it as she followed the doctor into the room of one of his patients.

"Couple of them out there were on a run about a week ago," he explained as they entered. "They found a couple boxes of Bisquick and an Earl Haggard tape at a bus stop, and then this gentleman under a bridge. Cardiac arrest and extreme dehydration. I tried to do what I could."

After he flipped a switch on a machine, Beth noticed an obvious change in the man's breathing and said, "Wait, that's it?"

"If patients don't show any sign of improvement," the doctor said, "well, Dawn calls it."

He took a knife and made sure the man stayed dead before covering him with a sheet. Beth helped him wheel the corpse out of his room and into the hallway, passing by Dawn and another officer on the way. The doctor had her stop, waiting as he talked to Dawn. She took a few steps ahead, exploring the hospital corridor and not finding anything in particular. A boy mopping the hall at the end, a woman who closed her door as soon as Beth's eye flitted to her. There was something off about this place and it made Beth start when Dawn walked up on her from behind.

"Come on," she said. "The body's getting cold."

The doctor was wheeling the body along, Beth catching hold of the gurney to help guide it. She was trying to figure out exactly what this place was and what they were meaning by 'owing' these people. As far as she could tell, everyone here had a role to play, whether they wanted to or not. There hadn't been anything horrible happening as of yet, but Beth had learned enough from Ani to be able to tell that Dawn wasn't telling the truth about everything. As they wheeled the body to a darker corridor, they had to stop for Dawn to open a set of double doors. She stayed in the corridor while Beth and the doctor went through the doors.

"How many people live here?" Beth inquired.

"Oh, just enough to keep us going," the doctor responded vaguely. "Some of us started here, some came as patients. Everyone has a job."

"Can't we bury him?"

"We only go out when we need to. It may not be the most dignified disposal system, but we work with what we have," Edwards said as he uncovered the cadaver. "We've managed to secure and guard the stairwells, but the windows are blown on the ground floor. Rotters find their way into the basement when they hear a noise. And if the bodies are warm or warm enough, they clean up some of the mess."

"Use everything you can use," Beth said in understanding even though she was disgusted by the thought.

"Plus, it's the fastest way down," the doctor told her with a grunt, lifting the gurney so the body could slide off and fall down the elevator shaft and through a hole at the bottom.

When lunchtime came around, she had to admit that her stomach was rumbling. The stupid rules, though, made it to where the more you took, the more you owed, so she was doing her damnedest to only eat the bare minimum that she needed to. Right now, she was getting lunch for the doctor and the stupid cop who'd come to check on her last night before the doctor came in was there. He gave her the absolute creeps and she was thankful that she had at least kept up the S.I.N.G. method Ani had taught her, even if it wasn't an actual self-defense technique and something she'd taken off a movie.

"You're lookin' better and better," said Creeper Cop told her as she grabbed some tomatoes for the doctor. "We had a lead on some guns, so me and my partner were pretty far out. That's when we saw you."

"That's when you hit me, you mean," Beth spoke up. "I was fightin' off a walker just fine until everythin' went black."

"I think you hit your head, little lady," he insisted with a smile that made Beth's skin crawl. "Yeah, one was eyein' your thighs when we showed up. But, I got there first. Jacked that rotter up. I'm Gorman." When Beth refused to answer he looked at the food and said, "When someone does you a favor, it's a courtesy to show some appreciation. Unless you want me to write down everythin' you're takin'." Beth put down the tongs she was using to dish the doctor's food and looked at the man in irritation and disgust, rolling her eyes and taking the tray from the kitchen.

Walking down the corridor, she could hear Dawn talking to someone, "We'll find Joan. Until then, you've got laundry duty and I want my uniform-"

"Washed separately and pressed," the guy in the room with her said while turning around to show her. "I know."

"Smart ass," Dawn called him from her spot on her workout machine.

Beth sighed and continued her way to the doctor's messy office. His desk was covered in books and there was a record playing in the corner. A large oil painting stood on an eisel along one wall while the rest were lined with bookshelves or various medical equipment. Only a single lamp lit his office and the two chairs in front of his desk where he took consultations and answered questions from visiting patients. Beth was his ward, apparently, someone who did his bidding and helped with his tasks. Thus the reason she'd been sent to get his lunch while he sat at his desk reading books.

"I used to feel like I was drowning in research," he told Beth as she walked up before closing his book and tossing it to the side. "Now the oceans are dry and I'm suffocating in boredom."

"You're lucky," Beth countered. "If you feel safe enough to be bored, you're lucky."

The man looked over at the record player and pointed to it, "That's Junior Kimbrough. You like it?"

Beth nodded her head and gave him a small smile, truly appreciative of the music and wishing Ani were with her to hear it, "I can't remember the last time I heard a record. I have a friend, Tea, she'd love it."

"It's one of the few perks I get for being the only doctor here," he told her. "And T? T as in the letter or Tea as in the drink? Important question."

"As in the drink, why?" Beth asked, feigning ignorance as she put down the tray.

"Well, the officers talk about a Tea from time to time, especially Shepard and Lamson. Oh, guinea pig," Edwards said unenthusiastically. "Where's your food?"

"The more I take, the more I owe, right?" she asked. "I wanna get back to my friends as fast as possible, including Tea."

Thinking about it for a moment, Edwards ushered Beth to sit, "Have you ever tried guinea pig?" Beth shook her head, "I didn't think so. I wouldn't call it a perk, but it is relatively sustainable. Sit down, Dawn doesn't have to know." He cleared off some more of his desk as he ushered Beth to sit down before cutting a bite off the rodent on his plate. "You know, if your Tea is the same as Shepard's Tea, you're probably going to get out of here a lot sooner than you think. If you can believe what Lamson says, she wasn't even a cop when she went after Shepard and her then partner because she 'had a gut feeling,'" he said with air quotes. "Saved Shepard's life that day. Don't really know the details, just that she fought the perp physically after he'd gunned down Shepard. Hit her vest, but still. Swore up and down the perp was about to finish her off when Tea showed up like a bat out of hell."

"Yeah, that sounds like Tea," Beth chuckled, sitting down and taking the offered bite of meat.

"Well?" Edwards asked as she chewed.

"Different from squirrel," Beth admitted.

"Good enough for Peru," the doctor chuckled, he and Beth sharing a short laugh as she looked at the oil painting. "It's a Caravaggio," he told her. "I found it on the street outside of the High. Like trash."

"It's beautiful," commented Beth.

"It doesn't have a place anymore. Art isn't about survival. It's about transcendence. Being more than animals. Rising above."

"We can't do that anymore?" Beth asked, intrigued by his way of thinking and by the story of Ani she'd heard earlier; using Ani's old name seemed to be getting her somewhere.

Edwards looked back at her with a perplexed look, "I don't know."

"I sing," Beth said. "I still sing. Tea does too. She braids these little bracelets and does people's hair up nice and pretty. There's still beauty in the world to be seen and heard and made."

The sound of running footsteps alerted that they weren't alone, Beth sitting a little straighter in the chair as Edwards fully turned to face the door when Dawn came in with an urgent, "We got a new one!"

As they rolled the man into a room for treatment, Beth could see heavy bruises on his head and his stomach was bloated while Edwards got to work and the officer explained, "Found his wallet. His name is Gavin Trevitt."

"He fell from a first floor apartment trying to get away from some," the female officer, Shepard the name tag on her uniform said, announced.

I gotta talk to her, Beth thought as she noticed the first officer bend towards Dawn whispering in her ear before Edwards announced, "He's lost a lot of blood and his vitals are dropping. I don't think he's going to make it."

"We've already given him gas-" the male officer said before being cut off by Dawn.

"I got this," she said, walking to the side of the gurney and looking straight in Edwards's face as she threatening leaned towards him. "You said you wanted to save people, so save him."

"I don't even know the extent of his injuries," Edwards argued. "Look, this one's a loser. You said you didn't want me wasting resources."

"Well, today I want you to try," Dawn told him while nodding her head.

Edwards looked mildly distressed, but quickly turned to tell Beth, "Okay, plug the EKG and the ultrasound into that battery pack. Good, good, good. Now attach it to the patient." Beth did what she was told before backing off and watching the doctor do his work. "Tension pneumothorax. Punctured lung." He dug into his pocket to produce the keys to the cabinet and held them out to Beth. "Beth, I need a large hollow needle in that cabinet."

Before Beth could even take a step, Dawn had grabbed the keys herself and turned to the cabinet to grab the needle. As soon she produced it, the doctor grabbed it, took the cap off, and plunged it into the man's chest. A spring of blood came popping out the end of the needle, making Beth grimace as the injured man moaned. The doctor held it there as Beth watched, Dawn looking at Edwards expectantly as he hung his head and breathed heavily.

"Is he gonna make it?" she asked Edwards.

"He fell from a building, Dawn," Edwards spat at her, annoyed.

"Is he going to make it?" Dawn reiterated, much more serious and irritated this time.

Edwards pulled up the man's shirt to show a stomach that had turned purple, "You see these bruises? He has internal bleeding, but I need a CAT scan to know how bad. And even if I could determine that, I don't have the tools to save him. I told you, this was a waste of resources."

The last thing Beth expected was for Dawn to turn around and smack her with her entire strength, opening a gash on her cheek. Ani and Daryl gave me a backbone, time to use it, Beth said as she squared her shoulders and looked Dawn in the eye, "When Tea gets here and hears you did that, she's not gonna like that you hit her sister."

Dawn, as well as the male officer at the doorway, paled while Shepard spoke up, "Tea as in Titania Parker Tea?"

"One and the same," Beth said, still facing Dawn.

"Tea doesn't have any younger sisters, just an older one she filed a restraining order against," Dawn deadpanned.

"Yeah, but blood is thicker than water," Beth said, a saying she knew Ani had used often, one she'd apparently told to the officers as well who had mixed reactions; Shepard nodded while Dawn paled. "She chose me to be her sister, like she chose the rest of us in the group. We're her family."

"Dawn," Shepard said. "There's already bad blood between you and Tea, don't make it worse. She was ready to have you fired before all this went down. There's no telling what she'll do now."

"She can't do anything," Dawn said.

"You'd be surprised," Beth countered with a sneer. "She's different from you. She's not afraid of anything. Not the dead, not the living. Nothing."

Dawn paled before stomping out of the room, not wanting to deal with the little girl she thought was weak but turned out to have a trump card in her pocket. If she was telling the truth and hadn't just heard a little bit of the gossip from the officers that still talked about that bleeding heart that lost her her promotion all because of an error in handling the situation. Dawn wasn't a damned psychologist; how was she supposed to know the 'perp' had just been having a meltdown and not actually trying to hurt anyone, just get to a quiet place? How was she supposed to know the man was neurodiverse and not deranged? She managed to get a confession out of him of all sorts of things that had happened in the area, from petty theft to destruction of property, a pretty impressive feat until Titania Parker showed up to do a mental evaluation after watching the footage and reading the case file.

She actually had the audacity to tell the Chief of Police at the time that Dawn had coerced the man into admitting to the crimes simply because she refused to believe his answers. Why? Because he was too defensive about his innocence, which only made Dawn push him harder. If he wasn't guilty, why did he need to be so defensive? Dawn had tried so hard to counter Tea's objections only for the nineteen year old to point out that being neurodiverse meant having different reactions to different situations, and constantly being hounded about what someone considered their misdeeds triggers their defense mechanisms and instantly puts them in a fight or flight mode. Dawn had been required to take six months of extra training for mental illness and neurodiversity and deescalation techniques before being allowed back on patrol duty, ruining her chance of gaining rank. If Beth was telling the truth and Titania was a part of her group, that meant that she was coming to the hospital. If Dawn did too much to Beth or treated her too roughly, that was it. She would be done for.

"Is she always like that?" Beth asked once she was back in her assigned room with Edwards, who cleaned her cut and redid the stitches that Dawn had busted open.

"Only on her bad days," he responded with a sigh. "It's unfortunate for us that's the only kind she has. Oh, Noah left you a new shirt."

"What's wrong with this one?" Beth asked, looking at it and not noticing anything wrong with it.

"She, uh, likes things neat," he deadpanned, pointing to the little bit of blood that was on her shirt.

"You've got to be kiddin' me," Beth commented. "Says don't waste resources and we owe for every resource, but she forces us to take them? It's ridiculous!"

"I agree, that's why we all have ways of making her pay."

"Like your office?"

"Like my office," he agreed while giving her a small smile. "I'll wait for you outside."

He left the room, leaving Beth to change her shirt. Grabbing the shirt 'Noah' had put on her pillow, she unfolded it, only to notice a lollipop in the pocket. The small gesture had her smiling, thinking that at least one person in this place was genuinely nice. While she knew the doctor didn't mean her any harm, Beth couldn't quite trust him, either. Something about him that she couldn't quite put her finger on made her wary of him. The police officers themselves, some were decent, others, like Gorman, they were sick. She'd seen one of them hit an older gentleman, heard the stories about Joan, the woman Gorman was 'using.' Beth was highly suspicious that the term 'use' had been opted in for 'rape.'

Changing her shirt out, she left her room to stand next to the doctor and watch as Dawn and Gorman dragged a woman into another room, Gorman coming out and telling them, "Dawn needs you, now."

In the room, the woman, Joan, was lying on the bed in restraints with a bite taken out of her arm. "She's lucky we found her," Dawn told Edwards as he and Beth walked in before turning to Joan. "Whatever you were thinking, it wasn't worth it. You have two choices. Either we cut off your arm or you do."

"Screw you, and your little bitch!" the woman spat at Dawn and Gorman.

"Smart-ass whore," Gorman said, moving to smack the woman lying on the bed.

"Gorman, get out of here!" Dawn yelled, shoving the man out of the room as Edwards went to give the woman a shot.

Joan just kicked his hand away, prompting Edwards to tell her, "It's anesthetic! You need it!"

"Go to hell," was his answer.

"She made her choice," Dawn said with a flat tone. "Do it. Do it!"

As the doctor put something around the woman's arm to cut off circulation to stem the bleeding, the woman started pleading, "No, no, no! I told you to leave me alone!"

"We're not going to let you die!"

"So she can get used again?!" Beth yelled at Dawn. "You can't do this! This is wrong! Tea wouldn't-"

"Beth, I need you to hold her down," Edwards told her, taking note of Dawn's deteriorating face. "Do it now. Now! Or else she's going to die anyway!"

Dawn moved to hold the woman's legs down as Beth held her shoulders, all while the woman screamed, "I am not going back to him!"

"You don't have to," Dawn promised.

"You're a liar," both Joan and Beth said at the same time before Joan continued, "You can't control them."

"I will."

"You won't," Beth countered as she stared hard at Dawn while Edwards began to take the woman's arm off, Joan screaming the entire time until she passed out. "Tea's gonna eat you up when she comes for me."

~x~

Beth walked out of her room with her dirty scrubs in her arms. She'd stared at Dawn, who'd looked anywhere but at her, Joan, or the bloody mess Edwards made while sawing off the woman's arm. Dawn was weak, Beth could see that now. She might have the physical endurance of an officer and the strategic brains of one, but she was weak willed and had no real grasp of control in the entire hospital. That was something Beth could use against her when the time was right, especially since it seemed like bringing Ani up was working to rattle the older woman.

"You okay?" a boy around her age asked as she entered the laundry room. "I'm Noah. Of the, um, Lollipop Guild?"

"Beth," she said with a small smile. "Thanks for that."

"Figured you could use a pick-me-up after this mornin'," he said while taking her old scrubs from her. "Guess I should have brought the whole jar." He turned around and grabbed her a second clean pair and handed them to her, "Here, these should fit."

"Thanks," Beth said, folding them over her good arm. "Do you know what happened with Joan?"

"Pretty sure you already know," Noah told her.

"No, I mean, if she'd've stayed, worked for a while, couldn't she have just left?"

"I haven't seen it work like that yet," Noah admitted.

"How long have you been here?" Beth asked, wanting to get an idea of what she needed to do herself to get out just in case Daryl hadn't found Ani and no one was coming.

"Just about a year," he replied, limping as he turned around and earning a questioning gaze from Beth. "Dad and I were both pretty messed up when they found us," he told her as he brought the leg of his scrubs up to show her a nasty scar on his calf. "They said that they could only save one. For the longest time, I actually believed them. Now I get it," he said before looking away and then back at Beth. "Dad was bigger, stronger. Would have fought back. Would have been a threat."

"They left him behind on purpose," Beth said, catching what Noah was saying without him having to say it.

"Dawn just looked the other way," he told Beth. "See, she's in charge, but just barely. Honestly, seen some of the other ones more scared to hear that you know Tea than they are of her. Gorman, he, uh, he's not too happy about it, though."

"Oh? Why's that?"

"Apparently, your Tea put him in his place a couple times, by putting him on the ground. Dawn doesn't like her either. Wasn't happy you know her," Noah informed Beth. "If it was bad before, it's getting worse now that you've said that name. It's why I'm out of here when the time is right. I came looking for my uncle. I gotta get back to my mom."

"Where's home?" Beth asked, wondering is she could get the rest of her group to go.

"Richmond," he said. "Virginia. We had walls. See, they think I'm scrawny. They think I'm weak. They don't shit about me. About what I am. About what you are."

"Tea, I know her as Ani. But when she gets here, she'll take you too," Beth told him. "If we don't get out to find her first."

~x~

"Do you really know Tea?" Shepard asked Beth as the younger woman was pouring chemicals for cleaning.

"Yeah, she's like my sister. Shepard, right? Heard she helped you," Beth said, digging for information.

"Yeah, just finished her degree to actually join the force as a forensic psychologist. We'd take her to crime scenes every once in a while to get a better idea of what had happened," Shepard informed the young blond, a small smile playing on both their lips at the tale. "Well, we get to the scene of this triple homicide over in the warehouse district, Tea in tow with a few other units. Me and my partner go off looking somewhere, checking all our bases. We split off, making sure the perp isn't around still, and well, he was. Tea came running in like she was some sort of vigilante just as soon as I heard the first shot go off. Hit me dead center in the chest," the woman said, no longer simply standing with her hands resting on her belt buckle but talking enthusiastically. "And here comes this tiny girl, and I mean tiny; about as tall as you, a little shorter maybe, and just as skinny. She comes running in like a chicken with it's head cut off and does this flying kick, no joke, over my body right into the guy's chest. So, I'm on the ground, winded, and this tiny thing is flying over me and just knocks this guy back as his gun went off again, a couple inches to the side of my face! Like, she not only made him miss his shot, but she also managed to disarm and detain him before my partner got there. Said she had a feeling I was in trouble, so she came to check. Saved my life over a gut feeling."

"That does sound like her," Beth said, realizing that Ani had been the way she was about fighting for those she chose to far longer than just the end of the world. "She blew up a feed store close to the prison we were stayin' at. Knocked two people out back at the first camp. I wasn't there, I joined at the second. But one was a cop and the other a redneck."

"Redneck or hillbilly?" Shepard countered.

"Excuse me?"

"Redneck or hillbilly?"

"What's the difference?"

Shepard chuckled, "I guess she never had this talk with you. She, uh, she had this way of trying to make everyone better people, so she'd always try teaching us to think of things a better way, you know? So, we're all getting pissed about some redneck assholes who've been pains in our asses for the longest time and how they'd moved on out of the city. And here comes Tiny Tea, telling us that not everyone we say are rednecks actually are. Apparently, there's a difference. See, rednecks are assholes with a heart; they do the right thing while saying all the wrong ones. A hillbilly is an asshole and a bastard rolled into one; usually the sexist, racist, prejudiced assholes."

"Oh, that makes sense. I don't know about back then. Probably hillbilly from what I've been told, but he's just a redneck now. Tea straightened him out pretty well."

"Now that I can believe."

"Shepard, you've already pulled a double," Dawn said, walking in with a tray a few moments later after the two in the room had fallen back into silence, Shepard not wanting Dawn to hear her talking about Tea. "I've got it from here."

"Yes, ma'am," she said. "Thanks," she stated as she left the room with a look of sympathy to Beth.

"I know you didn't have breakfast. Or lunch. Peace treaty?" Dawn offered Beth as she walked further into the room and placed the tray down on a shelf.

"I don't need much," Beth told her. "I'm not stayin' any longer than you make me. Or than it takes for Tea to show up."

Dawn just gave Beth a look, one that reminded Beth of how her mother would look sometimes when she didn't want to scold Beth but she was still in trouble, patting the spot next to her for Beth to sit down. Not wanting to irritate the woman and receive another slap for nothing, Beth acquiesced and sat. However, that's all she did, staring at the food hungrily but not wanting to eat. Dawn watched Beth, wondering if there was a way she could use the girl to get rid of the 'Tea' problem the hospital was having at the moment, especially her officers. The last thing she needed was them thinking the young know-it-all was going to march in and take over.

"You know, you shouldn't see this as a sentence," Dawn attempted to placate Beth. "I'm giving you food, clothes, protection. When have those things ever been free?"

"When I was with Tea. She never wrote down what I ate or made me pay for it. Didn't keep me in the camp because I 'owed her' even if I didn't ask for help nor 'cause it was her people that put me in it, unlike some," Beth said snidely. "I will leave here."

"You needed my help."

"Only because of your people."

"Try to look at the good we're doing. Hard as it was, we saved Joan's life-"

"For her to get raped again?" Beth asked, disgusted. "I think Tea'd agree with me when I say I'd rather let her die. At least she chose that."

"Look, I'm keeping all of us going here. That is not a small thing."

"You're keepin' yourself goin', you mean. I haven't seen you do one thing in this place yet that helps the people who are here. All you do is help yourself and ignore your officers' misconduct."

Dawn was getting fed up with Beth's attitude, "You're just as stubborn as Tea. I was doubting you knew her, to be honest. But you pick everything apart just as good as she does. It's taken a lot to get us here, Beth. What Tea would or wouldn't do doesn't matter."

"I think it does," Beth interrupted again. "She wouldn't let a woman be raped just because a man intimidated her."

"When we're finally rescued, it won't matter," Dawn defended.

"It won't matter?!" Beth asked in shock. "It will matter to the women who's lives and bodies you've let get destroyed because you refused to stand up for them! There won't be a damn rescue anyway! You're lettin' people get hurt because you're a dumbass believin' a pipe dream!"

"There are still people like us in this world, Beth! People trying to rebuild and keep going! If you really want to get out of here, fine, keep working to pay off what you owe and you'll be released in no time if that's what you want."

"It is."

"Then you gotta eat," Dawn reasoned.

"I'll never pay off what I owe if I keep takin', which is the whole point of the system, isn't it?" Beth countered. "Keep us takin' 'cause we have to and add even more than we take just so you can keep yourself feelin' powerful. Tea will be comin' to get me. And when she gets here, you best hope she's in a good mood."

"Eat," Dawn repeated before leaving the room, leaving the tray there.

~x~

Beth was in her assigned room thinking about her conversation with Joan the night before. The woman had confirmed what Beth had suspected herself. Dawn was a coward that had the ability to control the cops under her watch, she just chose not to. It was easier to let the officers do whatever they wanted because they were officers than to control them and protect the people. Now Beth had a better understanding of what Ani meant when she said pretty faces hid ugly hearts; Dawn pretended to be a boon to others while she was actually just feeding lambs to the slaughter.

Deciding she needed a pick me up, she went over to her bed and lifted a corner to retrieve her lollipop. When she didn't find it where she'd put it, she thought that perhaps it went further under the mattress. She lifted it further but still found nothing, starting and dropping the mattress when a voice sounded out from behind her.

"Looking for something?" Gorman asked, pulling her lollipop out of his breast pocket. "This is yours, right?" he asked before pulling the plastic off of it and sticking it in his mouth while walking up to her. "Mm. Sour apple. Like the kind Dawn acquired from pediatrics. Suppose you could have a taste," he walked up and tried to corner her.

Beth saw through his actions and quickly moved to the end of the bed and around it, placing the bed between herself and Gorman, "It ain't mine. I was just tucking my sheet in. You better keep your hands to yourself."

"Really now?" Gorman said, putting the sucker back in his mouth and slowly walking around the bed. "'Cause I just want to be sure I'm returnin' this to its rightful owner."

"That would be you," Beth said as she continued to move, making it to where she had the advantage of being able to run to the door for help if he tried to grab at her again. "I didn't open it. It wasn't mine. You opened it and started eatin' it. That makes it yours."

"Leave her alone," Edwards said, storming into the room as Gorman started moving towards Beth again.

"The girl should've been mine," the officer said.

"Nobody's yours, Gorman," the doctor spat at him. "Nobody. And if you think you're getting Joan back-"

"Oh, I'm getting her back," Gorman said, spinning around to point the sucker at Edwards. "You think Dawn's gonna stop me?"

"I will," Beth told him. "So will Tea. Bet she's already on her way here."

"Oh, you'd like that wouldn't you. Keep threatening with her name, I dare you," Gorman told Beth when he looked back around to her.

"She trained me how to beat guys like you," Beth somewhat fibbed; she had trained her, but Beth couldn't remember much because she wasn't very physically strong.

"Uh-huh," the man said, though his face was visibly paler and the cocky smile had turned into a frown. "I'm sure she did."

"Even if she doesn't, I will," Edwards cut in.

Gorman scoffed, turning and walking to Edwards, "You steppin' up, doc?"

"What happens when you get sick, Gorman? When you get an infection? When you get bit?"

"Hmm," Gorman said. "I think there's gonna be somebody. Somebody who ain't you."

"Gorman," Dawn called from the doorway.

"And maybe somebody in charge who ain't her," he said before looking back at Beth and winking before putting the lollipop back in his mouth.

"Why do you stay?" Beth asked the doctor who sighed as the officers left the immediate area, thoroughly annoyed by his cowardice; Merle had been right in once you saw what a person could be, wasted potential was enough to make your skin crawl. "You could leave whenever you want. Why do you stay here?"

Edwards considered Beth's words for a minute before telling her to follow him. Leading her down a flight of stairs and through another corridor, he led her to the only opening she could see. It was grated shut with thick steel gating and pipes. The doctor walked Beth right up to it before he started speaking.

"Welcome to the ground floor of Grady Memorial Hospital. This isn't a way out. There isn't one. Not from here."

"Why'd you bring me here?"

"Watch," Edwards said, grabbing a piece of pipe and just barely rapping it on the grate in front of them. Almost immediately, walkers stormed it, trying to reach in to get at Beth and Edwards. "When I start thinking about it too much, I come down and look at this."

"Why did you bring me here?" Beth asked. "To prove that you're a coward?"

The doctor just looked at Beth as if she already knew the answer, "You asked why I stayed. Come on, let me tell you a story," he said as he lead her up to the roof. "When everything started, Dawn reported to a guy named Hanson. They had orders to clear the hospital and move everyone to Butler Park. It was close to midnight when we heard the jets, the bombs. The screams," he said as he showed her what had become of Atlanta, which was mostly a burnt out shell. "I was on the third floor and Dawn and Hanson's teams were doing a final sweep. And we knew it was bad. Just didn't know how bad until we came up here. The city had fallen. And everyone we evacuated they were just gone. We kept mostly to ourselves at first, until the food ran out. We started going out on runs, a few of us at a time. We'd see people who needed help. Barely holding on. But we were barely holding on ourselves. There came a time I couldn't look away anymore. I found this kid. Napalm burns on his clothes, his skin. Dawn said we couldn't spare the resources. So we struck a deal. I'd use what I could to heal him and he'd compensate us for those resources through service."

"But the service doesn't end," Beth reasoned. "You're not the problem."

Edwards scoffed and nodded his head, "We lost people. That was the problem. Hanson cracked. He made some calls and got some people killed. Dawn took care of things. She took care of him. She saw us past it. Kept us together. Kept us alive."

"You call this livin'?"

"We're still breathing."

"That's not livin'. That's just survivin'."

"The patients we've helped, they're still breathing. Outside these walls, out there unprotected? They'd be dead," he reasoned.

"Or maybe they'd live and be free from a life of servitude just to stay alive," Beth countered.

"Listen, we're not the ones who make it," Edwards told her, mistaking her to be the same type of weak as he was. "As bad as it gets, it's still better than down there."

"Maybe," Beth said. "But tell that to Joan. To me when Gorman stops listenin' and I can't stop him 'cause I'm not strong enough. Tell me that when you become a woman men prey upon."

"How about you look in on Mr. Trevitt and call it a day," Edwards said, not wanting to address that particular line as he'd already been thinking about it and how Gorman was acting. "He's stable, due for another 75 milligrams of Clozapine. And tomorrow, we'll start fresh."

"Sure," Beth said, leaving the man on the roof.

Entering the room Trevitt was in, Beth quickly got to work finding the right medicine and grinding it with a mortar and pestle. Adding some distilled water, she used the needle to gently dissolve the medicine in the water before pulling the amount she needed out. Walking over to his IV, she slowly gave the man the medicine as Noah walked in.

"Still at it, huh?"

"Noah," she smiled at him.

He was about to say something when the machines began to go off and the man started to seize. Neither Noah nor Beth knew what to do, standing there staring as the man began choking on his blood. It wasn't long before both Edwards and Dawn came running into the room to check what was going on. Finding only two wards in the room, Dawn was righteously pissed once they'd disconnected all the machines and cleaned Trevitt up.

Slamming a pair of medical scissors into the man's temple, she angrily turned on the two and demanded, "What happened?!"

"I gave him the medicine like I was supposed to and he started seizin'," Beth said calmly, watching as the woman looked back and forth between her and Noah. "If you want to point blame, Dr. Edwards told you yesterday that he wasn't gonna make it."

Dawn fumed, turning around and slapping Beth hard across the face for the second time, "Speak out of line again. I'm not about to let things slip just because a ward can't keep her mouth shut."

"This ward will sign your death warrant," Beth spat back at her, earning her being roughly tugged from the room by Shepard on Dawn's orders.

"You've got some mouth on you, kid," the woman said with a small smile, slipping something into Beth's cast. "Keep this handy. You may need it, and it was Tea's once upon a time."

~x~

Beth was sitting in her assigned room sometime later, having adjusted the small pocket knife in her cast, when Dawn came in and shut her door before she started talking, "You really think I didn't know? That it was you?"

"You mean Edwards? Doin' his dirty work through me? Everythin' with you is blamin' the people you bring in instead of the people you're in charge of!"

"A good man's mistakes almost ruined this for all of us and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let that happen again."

"So you blame everyone but the one who actually made the mistake now? Smart.

"Every sacrifice we make needs to be for the greater good. The second it isn't, the second we lose sight of that, it's all over," Dawn told her, before taking on a sympathetic look that made Beth's skin crawl. "The thing is, you're not the greater good. You're not strong enough."

"I am strong."

"How many of my men did it take to save you?"

"After they crashed into me in the first place?! If anything, you owe me! You stole me off the side of the road where I was waitin' for Tea and Daryl! You act like I owe you, but I don't owe you shit!"

"In here, you are part of a system. The wards keep my officers happy; the happier my officers are, the harder they work to keep us safe."

"That's bullshit and you know it. You're just keepin' yourself safe so you're not the one they're pinnin' down or beatin' up," Beth spat at her.

"This hasn't been easy," Dawn said, trying her best to ignore Beth's statement, even if they hit the nail on the head. "There have been...compromises. But it's working. And after they rescue us, we're gonna help put the world back together. Because we're the ones holding on. That's the good we're doing here. That's the good you're doing here," she tried to reason with Beth. "That's what makes you worth something. But out there, you're dead, or worse, somebody's burden."

"Tea never thought of me as a burden," Beth interrupted, disgusted by what the woman in front of her thought. "She was called weak and pathetic a lot too. And look how pale you get when I mention her name. You think she didn't train all of us that were with her? You're waitin' for help that's never comin' while she made people who could survive anythin'. You're weak, and that's all you're ever gonna be."

Dawn had to leave again, before she punched the girl and knocked her out. The little bitch had to be just as much of a fighter as Tea had been. And Tea had trained everyone the girl had been traveling with? Her officers weren't trained to deal with what could very well be a militia operation coming to rescue one person. Tea had always loved her action and war movies; even the Chief of Police could sit and have a long discussion on strategy with the bitch. It wasn't a far fetch to believe that the girl had a relative army backing her up. If Dawn wasn't careful, everything she'd worked to build, everything she'd worked to create would come undone.

~x~

Noah had been beat because of her words. Beth was pissed beyond belief that Dawn had taken her aggression out on one of the other people. It was ridiculous in every sense of the word. Even as she apologized and explained what had happened, the boy had been insistent that he was fine, even flicking the bruise surrounding his eye and along his cheekbone while Beth checked his split lip.

"I'm okay. Painkillers, barely even hurts," Noah told her. "Dawn needed Trevitt for something. I know that's what that was about. Screwed-up thing is, she's trapped too."

"We're not trapped, and neither is she. She's just makin' excuses to turn a blind eye to the things she doesn't want done to her," Beth told him. "I'm goin' with you, when you go. I'm goin' with you."

Noah looked at her and nodded his head before telling her his plan, "Basement's the fastest way out. Any noise and we got rotters."

"So we won't make any noise."

"I can keep an eye on Dawn. She keeps a spare key to the elevator banks somewhere in her office. Think you can find it?" he assked Beth.

"Yeah."

Later that day, she was doing her rounds in the hospital when she saw Noah helping Dawn move some boxes. A look and a nod to each other was all she needed to find her way to Dawn's office and start rummaging around. She found Trevitt's wallet, realizing that he had been a doctor as well. Everyone here is dirty, she thought, before thinking about Shepard and how the woman had been trying to help, even if it was just in small ways. Maybe not everyone.

Putting the wallet back, she went to move on to the desk, but stopped as she noticed the pool of blood on the floor. A bloodied stump and a hand with a pair of bloodied surgical scissors were the only other things she could see before she approached the desk. Joan lay dead behind it, whether by her own doing or someone else's, Beth couldn't tell. But she did need to get into the desk the corpse was laying in front of. Telling herself it was nothing, and then realizing it really was nothing, she searched the desk, finding a single locked door. With the letter opener on the desk, Beth busted the lock and opened that door, smiling to herself when she successfully found the key that she needed and closed the desk just before the door opened.

"Hey there," Gorman said with a smile. "I hope I'm not interrupting."

'Always use what ya got,' Ani's voice filtered through her head as she glanced downwards and back up.

Stepping carefully around the blood and body of Joan, she told Gorman, "Dawn was just lookin' for a key."

"Was she now? 'Cause I was just with Dawn, and I don't seem to remember that happenin'. It's okay," Gorman told her, boxing her into the desk. "Maybe she doesn't have to know. Maybe there's another solution. A little win-win for both of us," he said as he moved in to smell along her neck.

Beth looked over her shoulder while grimacing, noticing Joan's fingers moving, Just gotta wait a little longer.

Gorman stood back straight after getting his whiff of her, which still wigged Beth right out, and looked at her straight in the eye, "So how about it, Bethy? We gonna work somethin' out here? Now Joan, she wasn't much of a team player," he said, not waiting for Beth's answer before he grabbed her, whipped her around to where her back was to his front, and started putting his hand up her shirt. "Lucky for me, you're not a fighter."

No sooner had he said that than did Beth throw her full force into bringing an elbow into his stomach. As soon as he backed off, she stomped on the instep of his foot, knocking him even more off balance. Turning around, she used her palm in an upward strike to his nose before lifting her knee and bringing Gorman closer with her hands to get his groin. S.I.N.G., Beth thought proudly to herself as the man went down to the ground only for the walker that was Joan to immediately begin attacking him. Luckily enough for Beth, the first thing Joan got was his throat, making it impossible for the man to scream out.

Beth quietly, but quickly, grabbed the gun from his holster as the walker was distracted before leaving the room and latching the door. Walking calmly down the corridor, her wide eyes took in everything around her in her attempt not to get noticed. Unfortunately, that only made her more noticeable to the trio coming towards her down the hall. Looking down at her clothes, she double checked that there was no visible evidence of what happened in the office, finding a few drops of blood on the toe of her shoe. She had no choice but to try to play it off as she could now hear what Noah was telling Dawn.

"Probably just the battery. I'll stop in and grab another."

"Okay," Dawn said as Beth went to walk by. "Beth?" Beth stopped and looked at Dawn, "Is everything okay?"

"Oh," Beth said, as if she was just remembering something. "Joan was looking for you. I saw her and Gorman heading towards your office."

"Thank you, Beth," Dawn said before she walked away.

She and Noah grabbed the blue bag of sheets they'd tied together from the laundry room and high-tailed it to the elevator shaft. Beth used the key to unlock the double doors and Noah got to work. Tying one end to the railing of the hospital wall, he went over to Beth and tied the other end around her. Beth opened the elevator doors and used the flashlight they'd stashed away to look down it as screams broke out from the hospital behind them.

"Ready?" Noah asked her.

"Yeah."

"Once you're safe, I'll climb down," he told her.

"Okay."

She began her decent with the help of Noah. Scared as she was, Beth did her best to keep quiet as she moved to the opposite side of the shaft. Watching as Noah began his descent, they both righteously freaked out as a walker tried to reach him through a door that had been pried open a few inches. While it couldn't get to the boy, its presence and having to fight it while hanging from a rope made Noah lose his grip. It was by pure luck that he didn't hit the concrete and instead fell into the hole they through the dead bodies in, the bodies themselves breaking his fall. Partially out of worry and partially out of need, Beth threw herself down into the bodies as well, grabbing the flashlight she'd dropped earlier.

"Can you walk?" Beth asked Noah.

"Yeah, I'm okay."

"Okay," she said, removing the gun from the back of her pants and handing Noah the flashlight.

"There," he said, shining the light on where they needed to go before a walker grabbed him.

That was all it took to begin an immense escape. Walkers in the basement came out of everywhere and there wasn't much room to move. Beth had no choice but to use the gun, causing both Noah and herself to become disoriented. Each time she had to fire, the ringing in their ears became louder and louder. Each flash of light from the bullet discharging brought the darkness back on even darker. When they finally made it out of the hospital, all Beth could hear was ringing. IT took a few moments for her eyes to adjust, running ahead of Noah to find numerous walkers heading towards them.

Heading out of the chain link fence through a hole, Beth stomped the head of a walker laying on the ground before shooting a few more before she ran out of bullets. She kicked one walker out of the way and shoved another as Noah hobbled past her on his way to the heavily chained fence at the end of the parking lot. That was the way out and where they both needed to get to to be free of Grady Memorial. But at this point, Beth knew she wouldn't be able to get away. There were too many walkers in front of her and she had no bullets. Still, she fought to get through until one of the walkers about to take a bite out of her's head exploded. One by one, round by round, walkers started going down as Noah made it out of the gap in the fence. Beth started sprinting towards it only to be tackled to the ground by an officer.

He made it out, she thought to herself while smiling as she watched Noah's face contort in horror as he realized he had to leave her.

~x~

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Dawn asked Beth in her office where the disemboweled body of Gorman and the completely dead Joan lay.

"He attacked me," Beth told her. "Just like he's been wantin' to since I got here, since they hit me with their car. Just like he attacked Joan. Just like he would do to you if you didn't turn a blind eye to what he was doin'. I did you a favor by defendin' myself. You don't have to turn a blind eye while other women are raped in front of you. While you let it happen."

"So that we make it!"

"No one's comin', Dawn!" Beth spat. "No one's comin' to rescue you! You're all gonna die and you let this happen for nothin'! The only rescue comin' is for me! Tea will come here, Noah'll find her, and she will find out what you've done. And when she does, she's gonna kill you for it."

Dawn stared at her for a few minutes before looking down at the picture of her and Hanson. Her anger boiled as she thought about what the girl in front of her had said. Noah had gotten out, and if Tea was in the city, that meant that he could feasibly find her. She'd already put out an APB on Noah for the officers in the field. If they could get to him before he found Tea, Dawn stood a chance. Either way, her anger won out as she grabbed the leather belt next to the picture and beat Beth across the face with it, knocking her out.

Beth woke up the next day and was given the day off. Her face was bruised and she had new stiches above her right eye. Dawn had truly gone all out when she was beating her, even after Beth had been knocked unconscious. Edwards had told her that he, himself, had to go in and stop her. That was why Beth's back was sore and her stomach was bruised; Dawn had been whipping her with the belt when Edwards walked in.

The next day, she was directed to Edwards's office, where he checked her wounds. "You're healing quickly. A couple more days and you should be ready to jump back into it. Well, that should about do it," he said, grabbing his equipment to put it away when Beth just calmly stared ahead.

"How'd you know Trevitt was a doctor?" she asked him when his back was turned. "That's why you had me give him the wrong meds, right? Why you had me kill him? 'Cause if he'd lived, there'd be another doctor, and Dawn wouldn't need you. She wouldn't protect you."

"Trevitt was an oncologist at St. Ignatius," he told her. "I knew him. They would have kicked me out. Maybe Gorman...maybe he would have killed me. I didn't have a choice."

"Use everything you can use, right? You're a coward," she told him before she looked away.

"You know, when they arrested Christ, Peter denied being one of his disciples. He didn't have a choice. They would have crucified him too."

Beth just leveled him with a glare like she'd seen Ani do so many times to Merle to get him to shut up and realize he was wrong. It worked, or at least seemed to, as the man turned his eyes down and walked away from her. She was walking in the hallway on her way back to her room when she noticed a stretcher coming down the hall. Her eyes widened in belief and if she wasn't sure before if Ani was in the city, she was now. Looking at the woman on the stretcher, she couldn't help but sigh in relief.

"Carol."