There was a soft, rhythmic bleeping somewhere in the distance. It came to Beth as if from under water, as though she were submerged, unable to bring her head above the surface. Beth couldn't place it. Her eyes were unfathomably sore, even closed. She moved them lightly beneath her lids, trying to understand the light that was filtering through them. The beeping was steady, and she realised there was a ticking beneath it. Slowly, Beth opened her eyes, and looked around the brightly lit room she found herself in. It was small and sterile, and she was lying in the middle of it on a white bed, thin white blankets drawn up to her chest.

Suddenly, Beth pulled herself up, throwing off the blankets from her body and grabbed at her ankle, running her hands over the pale skin, dirty, blurred images of the walkers clamping its teeth around her boot swimming through her mind. It was clear. There were no bites.

She let out a heavy sigh of relief. Then she looked down at herself properly; she was garbed in a hospital gown with an IV tube taped into the crease of her arm, a heart-rate monitor attached to her fingers. She raised her hand to look at it, then down at her other arm that was in a plaster cast.

Panicking, Beth pulled the drip from her arm and tore off the monitor. The beeping ceased.

The light wooden door to the small white room opened and a doctor and officer entered – or at least, two persons in the uniform of each profession entered.

'Good, you're awake,' the man in the doctor's uniform said, whilst the woman in the officer's uniform looked on, her face still and stern. The room suddenly felt a lot smaller and a lot hotter.

'Where am I?' Beth blurted, panic rising in her throat.

'Grady memorial hospital,' the man said slowly, his voice calm and soft. He kept his eyes on Beth, and Beth felt he was attempting to reassure her. The woman kept her distance. 'I'm Doctor Steven Edwards and this is Officer Dawn Lerner. Do you remember your name?'

'Beth,' she said, looking from the man to the woman, then back to the man, wondering who on earth these people were and how on earth she came to be in their company. 'How did I get here?'

'My officers found you on the side of the road surrounded by rotters.' Dawn Lerner said. Her voice was laced with severity, and Beth was unsure how to take it. There was a pounding behind her temples.

'Your wrist was fractured and you suffered a head injury, not to mention dehydration and the reopening of old wounds.' Edwards said.

Beth gingerly reached up to touch her chest, feeling fresh bandages beneath her gown and acknowledging the ache that grew there.

'Was my – was the woman I was with – is she here too?'

The woman looked her over.

'You were alone.' She said. 'If we hadn't saved you, you'd be one of them right now. So... you owe us.'

Beth swallowed. Her head was still foggy and her chest was aching. She tried to get out of the bed. Something wasn't right.

'No, no, don't get up,' Dr Edwards said, 'you've been through a lot, your body is still healing.'

Beth looked from the doctor to the officer. She was having trouble processing the situation. The ticking of the clock continued to punctuate the room, and as Beth listened she realized she could hear voices and footsteps just outside the door, a low buzz of people.

'I'll leave you to it,' Dr Lerner said. She paused to look at Beth once more, and Beth felt an odd chill run down her spine.

Once the woman had left, the doctor headed towards the bed and tucked Beth back in, carefully replacing the blankets on the bed and fluffing up her pillows. Beth felt silly as he moved about her, she felt too undressed, vulnerable. She was having trouble processing how she had gotten her.

'I'm going to attach you back up to this heart monitor, is that okay?' Dr Edwards said.

Slowly, Beth nodded.

The doctor gently reattached the monitor; his hands were warm and soft, and it helped put Beth a little at ease. It was strange to feel another human's touch, especially a stranger. She tried to keep her breathing steady and remain calm. Whatever the scenario was here, her body was too weak to make a run for it just yet. She needed to figure things out first.

'You were in quite some state,' Doctor Edwards said as he fiddled with some dials on the monitor, 'is that a gun wound on your chest?'

'Yeah,' Beth said, glancing down at herself, 'it was.'

'Whoever patched you up did a good job,' he said.

Beth nodded, a lump suddenly forming in her throat. She swallowed past it.

'I was surprised to find you out in such a place and in such a state in your condition – and so dehydrated. That's what the drip was for.'

Beth nodded. Then she frowned.

'What do you mean?' she asked.

'I guess it can't be helped these days, no one is exactly where they want to be.' Edwards sighed. 'Do you want to reattach the drip? You're probably okay now. I can get you some water, some food, and we probably have some vitamins around this place.'

'What did you mean in my condition?' Beth asked; there was a sour taste in her mouth, and the beeping on the monitor was starting to speed up.

Dr Edwards looked her over for a moment, then realization dawned on him, subtly changing the look on his face.

'You didn't know.' It wasn't phased as a question.

'Know what?' Beth breathed. Her face felt flushed.

'How old are you, Beth?' Edwards asked.

'Eighteen – nineteen – I'm, I'm not sure,' Beth shook her head.

Doctor Edwards nodded.

'Well Beth, you're pregnant.'

Beth swallowed. Bile rose in her throat, which she tried hard to swallow past. She breathed out deeply through her nostrils as a strange numbness spread up her body.

'How?' she whispered.

'I -' The doctor stammered for a moment, frowning slightly.

'No,' Beth shook her head, 'I mean – how far?'

'I would put it at three months,' Edwards said softly. He returned his eyes to hers, his eyebrows slanted in concern. 'You really didn't know?'

Slowly, Beth shook her head. But had she really not known? She had been feeling sick, but it could have just as easily been the prison sickness, yet there had been a strange, niggling feeling in the back of her mind, but too much had been going on for her to think too hard on it. She shook her head. None of this made any sense. And Daryl – her stomach lurched as her mouth went cold.

'I'm going to be sick!'

Doctor Edwards was there with a card bowl in record time, holding it out for Beth to retch in to. There was very little left in her stomach, so what came up was mostly just water, but it hurt her chest and throat none the less.

Slowly, Beth came back up and leant her head back against the pillows. Her head was pounding. She wiped at her eyes. Edwards handed her a box of tissues.

'I'll leave you for a while,' Edwards said.

He waited for Beth to respond, so slowly she nodded. Edwards offered Beth a smile, then he slowly left the room, glancing across at her one last time before the wooden door swung shut behind him. He took the bowl with him.

Beth lay in her bed, her head spinning through the pain that reverberated through it.

How had she ended up in such a place, wired up and wrapped up in a completely strange hospital, full of completely strange people. They had taken her in and mended her, so it would have been safe to assume they were good people, but Beth couldn't quite accept that. There was something about the way the woman had looked at her. And where was Maggie? The officer had said she was alone, but Maggie must have been there... unless of course the walker's had overpowered her, got to her – but she couldn't think like that. Maggie was so much stronger than she was, she would have been okay. When had these people gotten to her, where exactly had they found her? If Maggie had been there, why hadn't they taken her in, too? It didn't make much sense and it only caused Beth's head to spin more. She didn't even have any real idea of how long she had been here for, how long she had been out for, or where she even really was.

Carefully, Beth took the monitor from her hand and climbed out of the bed. The floor was unexpectedly cold on her bare feet, and she winced as she stood up. She had been lying down for some time, and her muscles complained at suddenly being used, but Beth forced them over to the big window anyway. Leaning her hands on the windowsill, she looked out; a series of built up, high rise buildings met her view, the world around them decrepit, dark and singed. Beth had never seen this place before but she knew from her view that she was in Atlanta, and so not too far away. Somewhere out there were her family; she could not give up on that.

But where was Daryl? She still didn't know whether he had gotten out of the prison, if he was okay, if he was even alive. Beth's stomach lurched, and she put her good hand down on it. It didn't feel any different, any bigger. Was there really a baby in there? Maybe the doctor had got it wrong. How could this have happened? They had always been so careful, they had always used protection. Beth closed her eyes and thought back as she steadied herself as best she could with her cast hand against the windowsill.

Hadn't there been that once... in the house? Yes, Beth thought there had been one time. One time. One single time and she was pregnant – pregnant by Daryl Dixon – pregnant before twenty-one – what would her father say? Beth covered her face with her hands, feeling the hard, cold of the cast on one arm. It didn't matter what her father would say. He was dead.

Beth sniffed hard, her eyes welling. She couldn't think like that, not now, or she would fall apart. Her father would always be with her, she had to hold on to that. Just like her mother had always been with her, hadn't she? As Beth thought of her mother, she was overcome with a strange sensation, a mixture of fear, guilt with an unexpected hint of excitement. Slowly, she lowered her hands from her face and placed them both against her womb.

Like it or not, there was a life growing inside of her. It was not what Beth had planned, and not what she had expected; everything in this world now was so dark and gritty that something like this should never had happened, but it had. She had fallen in love with a man and together they had created a life.

Beth swallowed. If this was real, if this was going to be a thing, then she needed to find that man. She needed to find Daryl.

Beth took herself back over to the bed and sat down on the edge of it. There was no way of knowing how Daryl would react to this. Would he be pleased? Beth bit her lip. He was a serious, sullen man, and he only ever saw the dark in things, so somehow Beth did not expect that he would see the good in this. And as she thought about it, she wondered whether she could. Was there any sense in bringing a baby into this world, in the current state that it was in? At one point she had thought so, seeing Judith thrive and grow, but it had all been a lie; they had allowed a blanket to be pulled over their eyes. Judith's entry into the world and her first months were simple and easy because they had had the prison, and for some reason Beth had allowed herself to think that would always be the case, that Judith would grow up happy and safe and strong. Of course, that wasn't the case, and Beth had no idea whether Judith was even alive any more. If she had died a painful, brutal death, had her few short lived months in this dark world been worth it? How many happy times had she had? And if Beth had this baby, how many happy moments would it have? Would it's life too be short and painful, without even the pretense of safety. Would Beth be able to keep it safe?

She took several deep breaths, attempting to stop herself from spiraling into panic. She wasn't ready for this; she needed her sister, she needed Daryl, hell she even needed Rick, but none of them were here with her now. None of them were even guaranteed alive.

Doctor Edwards returned to Beth some time later. He had brought her a set of scrubs and shoes, which he lay at the end of her bed.

'Dawn wants you to help with the rounds,' he said. 'If you're up to it.'

Beth looked up at him.

'Alright,' she nodded.

Edwards left her to change and tie back her hair, then took her to a room not far from her own one. In it lay a man, wired up to a respirator. The machine hissed as the heart monitor beeped, and just like Beth's room, the click ticked.

'Cardiac arrest and extreme hydration.' Edwards said as he approached the side of the bed. 'I tried to do what I could.'

He walked to the respirator and turned the switch.

'Wait,' Beth said, frowning. 'That's it?'

'If patients don't show any signs of approving,' Edwards said as the patient began to flat-line, 'well, Dawn calls it.'

Beth watched as he moved towards the mans head and stuck a scalpel deep into his temple. She lowered her eyes.

'Help me get him on the gurney.' Edwards said.

Together, they managed to get the man onto the gurney, cover his body with a white sheet and wheel him out into the corridor. Beth pulled it along whilst Edwards pushed, the sound of the wheels squeaking against the linoleum as they rounded the corridor. They passed Officer Dawn and another officer as they went. Beth felt Dawn's eyes follow her as she passed, a cold look that not only chilled Beth, but almost frightened her.

'Come on, the bodies getting cold.' Edwards said.

They pushed the body past several rooms, some of which Beth saw were occupied. A woman made eye contact with her as she closed the door.

'How many people live here?' Beth asked Edwards.

'Just enough to keep us going,' Edwards said as they rounded the corner and headed for the elevator, 'some of us started here, some came as patients.'

'Can't we bury him?' Beth asked as she pulled up before the open shaft.

'No,' Edwards said, 'we only go out when we need to. It may not be the most dignified disposal system, but we work with what we have. We've managed to secure and guard the stairwells, but the windows are blown out 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.' Edwards tipped the gurney and the body slid off. It fell down the dark shaft, hitting one wall with a dull thud before continuing its descent and landing with a squelch at the bottom.

'Plus it's the fastest way down.' Edwards said.

He turned the gurney around and began the return journey as the sounds of the walkers below drifted up the echoing chamber, their hungry and curious groans ominous.

'We've got another one!' Dawn called as they pushed the gurney back towards the room.

Edwards paused to look at Beth, then they both followed Dawn into one of the room another officer was wheeling a new gurney in to. Upon it lay an unconscious man.

'Found his wallet,' the man said, 'Gavin Trevitt.'

'He fell from a first floor apartment trying to get away from some rotters,' a female officer who was already in the room told Dawn.

'He's lost a lot of blood and his vitals are dropping. I Don't think he's going to make it.'

Beth stood in the corner of the room, beside the door, watching what was unfolding around her. Edwards had opened the man's shirt and was inspecting his chest.

Dawn stormed to the other side of the bed.

'You said you wanted to save people, so save him.'

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

'Well, today I want you to try.' Dawn said.

Edwards stared at her, then he sighed.

'Okay, plug the EKG and the ultrasound into that battery pack. Go.' He said to Beth. Beth moved from where she had been stood beside the door and begun to do as she was told, plugging the equipment in as Dawn watched, stony face and serious.

'Good. Good, good, good. Now attach it to the patient.' Edwards said as Beth attached the wires to his skin.

The monitors started to beep as Edwards ran the ultrasound over his chest.

'Tension pneumothorax. Punctured lung - Beth, I need a large hollow needle in that cabinet.' He held his keys out to Beth but Dawn snatched them from her and opened the cabinet herself.

Dawn handed over the needle and Edwards jabbed it into his chest. It punctured the skin and the build up of blood spluttered from the hollow end and erupted into the air. He twisted it until the beeping calmed down.
'Is he gonna make it?' Dawn asked.

'He fell from a building, Dawn.' Edwards said.

'Is he going to make it?' Dawn asked again, puncturing each word with a dark emphasis.

Edwards looked at her. Then he pulled up the man's shirt to show his bloated, mottled stomach. It was covered in a series of intermingling purple and yellow bruises.

'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.'

Dawn stared across at him, and Beth could see her jaw working.

Suddenly she turned and slapped Beth straight across the face.

Pain and stars erupted across Beth's face as her head was whipped backwards. She grimaced in pain and put her hand to her face as Dawn said to Edwards -

'Steve, try to grasp the stakes here.'

Beth looked across to Edwards, who looked shell shocked as he watched Dawn leave the room. She held her hand to her burning cheek, feeling the trickle of blood that had begun to run from her suddenly newly opened stitches.

Beth and Edwards just looked at each other.

'Come. I'll – I'll clean you up.' he said.

In a daze, Beth followed him back into her room, where he set about cleaning and re-stitching her cheek.

'Is she always like that?' Beth asked as Edwards held a gauze against her cheek.

'Only on her bad days,' he replied, 'unfortunately for us, those are the only kind she has.'

Edwards restitched her with minimal pain, although her cheek stung badly from the impact. Whilst she sat in silence upon the bed, her mind wandered to the baby inside her. What was all of this doing for it?

Once he was done, Edwards sat back to admire his work.

'Noah left you a shirt,' he said.

'What's wrong with this one?'

'She likes things neat,' Edwards said, gesturing to the blood on her scrubs. 'I'll wait for you outside.'

Beth waited for Edwards to leave, then took the new shirt from her pillow. She took a moment to appreciate the soft feeling of the fabric, the smell of detergent, the way it had been folded. It was a luxury she was not used to. They had tried their best back at the prison, but this was a different level.

She lay it on her lap and began to unfold it when her hands hit upon something in the pocket. Opening it, she pulled out a green lolly.

Beth turned it over in her hands, smiling.

'Dawn needs you!'

Beth stuffed the lolly beneath her mattress and pulled the top on and joined Edwards outside. He nodded towards an adjacent room and Beth followed him in.

Within, Dawn and a fellow officer were strapping a woman down to the gurney. She was struggling against them, and Beth saw her arm was bleeding. On closer inspection, Beth saw it was a bite.

'Whatever you were thinking, it wasn't worth it.' Dawn said, strapping the woman down. 'Okay, you have two choices. Either we cut off your arm or you do.'

'Screw you and your little bitch!' the woman spat, aiming it towards the male officer in the room.

'Smart-ass whore.' he growled, suddenly moving towards her.

'Gorman, get out of here!' Dawn snapped, forcing the man away.

The man named Gorman looked at Dawn, then stormed past Beth and from the room.

Edwards moved to administer a shot to the woman, but she struggled away from him

'It's aesthetic.' he said. 'You need it.'

'Go to hell.' The woman snapped.

'She made her choice.' Dawn said seriously. 'Do it.' She looked steadily at Edwards. 'Do it.'

'No, no, no! I said leave me alone!' The woman screamed.

'We're not going to let you die. We are not going to let you turn.' Dawn snapped, holding the woman down against the bed as the woman sobbed.

Whilst this unfolded, Beth watched from the doorway, her eyes wide with horror. The sound of the woman's cries were turning her stomach, and she turned to leave.

'Where do you think you're going?' Dawn shouted suddenly, spotting Beth.

Beth opened her mouth, closed it, looked to the crying woman and opened it again.

'I can't help.' she stammered.

'Do you want her to die?' Dawn shouted.

'Beth, I need you to hold her down.' Edwards said 'Do it now. Now. Come on.'

He nodded to the woman, his eyes on Beth. Beth swallowed, panic rising in her. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to move, one foot in front of the other across the small room.

'Keep your hands off me!' The woman screamed as Beth moved around the bed and up towards the woman's head and pressed her hands down against the woman's chest. 'I'm not going back to him!

'You don't have to.' Dawn said.

'You can't control them!' The woman cried, tears pouring down the side of her flushed face as she pushed against Beth's hands.

'I will.' Dawn insisted.

'Beth, you ready?' Edwards asked.

Beth held the woman down as Edwards began to saw at her arm. The woman kept her mouth shut at first, as the cry of pain built up from deep within her chest, as a moan at first, and then she opened her mouth and screamed. Blood spurted from the wound as the flesh opened up, and Beth tried her hardest to keep the screaming woman down. Her vision began to blur and her stomach twisted, but she gritted her teeth and held fast as saw hit bone and kept going. Blood poured out and covered the bed beneath the woman's arm, and Beth tried her hardest to stay in the room, stay awake, stay from throwing up.

It was afterwards, once the woman was sedated and minus half an arm, that Beth was able to get her breath back. She took her blood soaked clothing to the laundry room, where a young boy was ironing. He smiled at her as she walked in.

'You okay? I'm Noah.' he said.

The room was warm, the air misty from the iron and something about it made Beth's heart ache, the particular smell the iron produced suddenly transporting her all the way back to her farmhouse and her mother. She blinked.

'Of the lollipop guild,' he said.

Beth stood where she was and held the clothes to her chest. She looked at the boy before her for a moment, then mustered a weak, unsure smile.

'Beth,' she said. 'Thanks for that.'

'Figured you could use a pick-me-up after this morning. Guess I should have brought the whole jar.' He said as Beth handed him the clothes over. Noah turned to the clothes on the shelves behind him and picked out a pair. 'Here, these should fit.' He handed them over to her.

'You know what happened with Joan?' Beth asked after a moments hesitation; she had learnt that that was the name of the woman from Doctor Edwards. 'If she'd have stayed, worked for a while, couldn't she have just left?'

Noah chuckled as he returned to his ironing.

'I haven't seen it work like that yet.' He said.

'How long have you been here?' Beth asked.

'I guess about a year.' Noah said. He looked at Beth, then put down his iron and pulled up his trouser leg to show a deep wound along his calf. 'Dad and I were both pretty messed up when they found us. They said that they could only save one. For the longest time, I actually believed them. Now I get it. Dad was bigger, stronger. Would have fought back. Would have been a threat.'

Beth frowned, slightly confused.

'They left him behind on purpose?' She asked. Noah smiled.

'And Dawn just looked the other way.' he said. 'See, she's in charge, but just barely. And it's getting worse. It's why I'm out of here when the time is right. I came looking for my uncle. Gotta get back to my mom.'

'Where's home?' Beth asked.

'Richmond. Virginia. We had walls.' Noah said, a smile forming across his lips. 'See, they think I'm scrawny. They think I'm weak. But they don't know shit about me. About what I am. About what you are.'

He smiled at Beth, and for the first time since she had woken up here, she smiled back with sincerity. Noah was right. They didn't know about her, what she was capable of, what she could do. She wasn't going to let them walk all over her and use her, and she wasn't about to let them keep her here forever, either. Whatever happened, Beth had to get back to her family, to her sister and to Daryl, and she needed to make sure both she and the baby got back to them in one piece.