The mood in Alexandria was tense for a few days. Although Deanna supported Rick and what he did, not everyone in Alexandria felt the same. Since they didn't trust Rick they didn't trust any of the group and everyone stayed close to home. Maggie and Rick spent time with Deanna figuring out the future of Alexandria. Daryl chose not to be involved. He trusted Rick's judgement, he'd let him handle that situation and he'd continue to do what he was doing with Aaron.

She was standing at the bedroom window. He knew what she was seeing, usually there were people outside, children playing, life going on. Not today. Today it was quiet and the streets were empty. She fingered the sheer curtain and he could see just by the way she held herself that she was bothered by something. He was also pretty sure he knew what that something was.

"Do you think they'll send us away?" The words were spoken quiet and soft like the breeze coming in through the window, like Beth when she was feeling particularly vulnerable. He looked back down at the gun in his lap, continued cleaning it and shrugged. She hadn't caught him looking, but now her eyes rested on him so he glanced up. Mistake. His gut clenched as Beth rested her hand on her stomach. "It's not safe out there."

"Think it's safe in here?" It wasn't really a question he expected her to answer. He knew it was how he felt. Walls may protect them for a time, at least from the walkers. But there were threats inside these walls and more threats out there that wouldn't be kept out simply by walls.

"Nowhere's safe for long. Everything eventually falls apart." She stepped away from the window and stood next to the bed where he sat. Finished with the gun, he laid it on the bed.

"Get yer pack ready. We're going out with Aaron." He raised his chin and met her eyes.

"Me?" her voice wavered.

"I told'ja I'd take you. Not leaving you here." Daryl said.

"But.. I'm, the baby?" He could see it in her face that she was relieved. She was easy to read, at least most of the time. Staying here without him wasn't what she wanted, even though the rest of her family was here. It was always him. He still couldn't for the life of him figure out why. He hated leaving her before, couldn't fathom it now. Pregnant or not he didn't want to leave her behind.

"I'll protect ya. Both of ya." he mumbled as he shoved the supplies he had on the bed next to him into his pack. He wasn't prepared for the sudden contact her body made with his as she wrapped her arms around him. Nothing was said. Nothing had to be.

Beth begrudgingly agreed to stop at Maggie's to let her know she was leaving. It would have been easier to just go, but Daryl had insisted, said it wasn't right to just disappear. And she had to agree with him on the point. Now she was second guessing agreeing with him as she listened to her older sister's tirade.

"Really? You're going out there in your condition?" Beth sighed. This whole argument was old. Not the topic, but the one where Beth did something and Maggie questioned it. Regardless of what it was.

"I'm fine. It's not like I'm going into labor any day now. And Daryl will be there." Mentioning Daryl might not have been the best choice. Beth bit her lip and squirmed under her sister's penetrating gaze.

"Daryl has done enough already." Maggie said sternly. Beth stomped her foot, (yeah that's how it usually happened in a Maggie and Beth stand-off) and put her hands on her hips.

"Maggie Daryl didn't do this on his own. I was there and a willing participant every time. I'm not a child, we'll figure this out together. I know he's here for me. He loves me Mags, and I love him." Beth gentled her voice when she mentioned love. Maggie just shook her head. Beth knew that she had won this round when Maggie looked up at her.

"I know. I know.. This is just scary. A baby.." Maggie took Beth's hand. "I wish you'd stay here with me. I know you won't.. Just, just be careful okay?"

Aaron was waiting by a car at the front gates when Daryl and Beth met him. He smiled as they walked up and Daryl felt Beth's hand in his relax.

"We ready to do this?" Daryl wondered how Aaron continued day in and day out to have such a sunny disposition. The guy was seriously in a good mood the majority of the time. They were complete opposites in that regard. And it suddenly hit him that he had a little blonde ray of fucking sunshine walking next to him and he couldn't imagine a world where she wasn't right there by his side.

"Thank you Aaron, for this. I hope it's not an imposition." So that was what was bothering Beth. He was so worried about Maggie's reaction he hadn't even thought Beth might have been concerned about Aaron's feelings about her joining them.

"Hey it's no imposition at all. Daryl is excellent at reading people, but I bet a woman's intuition wouldn't hurt one bit." The guy laid it on a bit thick, or maybe he didn't. Maybe he really understood that Daryl needed to do this and he respected his wishes. Whatever it was it made Beth smile, and that was everything.

The road was oddly walker and debris free for the most part. Aaron was able to drive close to the speed limit for once. Beth rolled the window down and put her face in the wind. The sun was shining and when he caught her eye in the passenger side mirror she looked so happy with the sun on her face and the wind blowing her hair he refrained from telling her to roll it up. They came across the signs for the food warehouse by chance and even though Daryl was against it, Aaron and Beth convinced him to take a quick look. They left the car parked out a ways. Better to come in on foot quietly just incase.

Graffitied trailers with flat tires and broken glass that glittered in the sunlight sucked some of the happy mood from the group as they climbed over a mangled gate. Beth was headed for the trailers when Daryl gave a low whistle.

"Best be on yer watch girl." he said eyeing the trailers. She nodded at him but kept going.

"I'll check this one." Aaron swung himself up onto the loading dock of the first trailer and disappeared. Daryl kept his eyes on Beth as she rounded the corner of the other trailer just a few steps ahead of him. He heard her gag and found her with her hand over her mouth and nose in front of a pile of rotting corpses.

"Daryl?!" He was behind her, pulling her back and she was trying to point at something when a crash erupted from the trailer Aaron was checking. Daryl heard the unmistakable moan of walkers and immediately raised his bow.

"It's a trap!" Beth looked back over her shoulder as Daryl guided her away from the trailers. Aaron came running from around the other side of the trailer and waved them towards a ladder leading to the roof of another smaller building.

"Run." He hit the ladder and turned to reach down and help Beth, pulling her small body up and onto the roof. Daryl fought off a few of the closest walkers pushing the inanimate bodies into the others to slow them down. He took a second and gauged the distance to the gate and knew it would be impossible to clear it when he heard her scream.

Beth was breathing fast and swallowing hard, doing her best to keep from puking. Thinking Daryl was right behind her she kept running towards Aaron and reached out when he lowered his hand to her from the ladder. Her knees slid in the gravel that covered the roof ripping her jeans. That was the least of her worries, when she pushed herself up she saw that they weren't alone up here. Walkers on the roof was her last coherent thought as one was on her. It's ragged nails brushed against her hair and she fell again, knees slamming into the gravel and rolling with it. From her vantage point all she saw was legs, she reached out and grabbed an ankle and tripped it. Fumbling for a minute she wrenched her knife from its sheath and buried it in the walkers head.

"I got them." The second walker was already down and Aaron took out the third and pushed it off the roof.

Beth knelt, hunched over, her face close enough that she could make out the small pattern of leaves on the shirt of the walker she had just stabbed. Pain blossomed like fire in her pelvis, she couldn't breath and she couldn't stand up and she was pretty sure she was going to puke.

"Beth?" She heard Aaron from what seemed like so far away before her stomach rolled and her face was buried in that delicate leaf pattern. She was sure she was gonna suffocate, but hands in her armpits pulled her away from the corpse. Aaron knelt beside her, his flannel in his hands and he wiped her face. She dry heaved again and it hurt so bad she choked on a moan. The majority of the puke must have landed in her lap because it was wet and sticky. She tried to wipe it away with her hands.

"Jesus Beth… Daryl! Daryl!" Aaron was calling for Daryl. Something was wrong, his voice sounded funny. Another pain had her wrapping her arms around her middle and was that blood on her jeans? She held out her hands and they were bright red. But walker blood is black, she's sure it is. Black and thick and putrid, Beth's stomach rolled again. It started small, just a whimper, but as realization pushed the to the front of her foggy brain the whimper turned into a scream.

Yanking out the last of his bolts Daryl took off towards the ladder. Aaron was calling him, yelling and he need to shut the hell up. His hands were on the rungs when he took a good look at the other man's face. Pale and scared.

"Beth?" He pushed himself over the ledge of the roof. His brain refused to accept what his eyes were seeing and his legs refused to cooperate. She knelt there in the middle of the roof, walker bodies crumpled up and silent on either side of her small form. Hands held out in front of her, she was looking at them like they didn't belong to her and they couldn't be hers cause they were covered with blood and Daryl tried to yell, couldn't breath until she hunched over again and moaned.

"What happened? What the fuck happened?" And can somebody please make it stop now. He's on his ass in the gravel, pulling her into his lap because she's crying and holding her stomach and she just keeps saying it over and over again, 'the baby'.

"There were walkers up here, I didn't expect them. She took one while I got the other two. I don't know what happened. I wasn't, I wasn't watching. Daryl we gotta get her back to Alexandria." Aaron ran around the roof looking for a safe way down and Daryl knew he should help, but he literally couldn't move. Her hands were on his now and he didn't care about the blood, just wanted it to stop and her to stop crying and he didn't want to hear the word baby.

"Daryl?"

"M' here."

"I'm bleeding."

"I know."

"It hurts so bad."

"M' sorry. I'm takin' ya home."

"The baby." Barely a whisper, but she said it and he didn't want to hear it. But he has to hear because he told her he'd take care of her. Take care of them both. He didn't.

There was a ladder and this time she climbed down it instead of up. The pains had turned into a dull ache and as far as she could tell the bleeding had stopped. She wasn't sure what to think so she just didn't think about it at all. Or at least not much. When they were all three on the ground she felt Daryl's hand at the small of her back and gave him a smile. Because he's so scared. She saw it in his eyes and he's probably already thinking of all the things he could have done differently, and that he should have left her home, and that this is all his fault.

"Where's the car?" Aaron went a little ahead and now he's back. "It's gone." HIs voice was strained and he turned and walked ahead again.

"What the hell?" Daryl followed Aaron to the spot the car had been parked. Beth reached down and felt for her knife. The shape of it reassuring under her hand.

"It was a trap. I told you. That's what it said on the trailer." Beth had tried to point it out to Daryl, but everything was chaos at that point. It was spray painted on the trailer. "Those walkers on the roof, how long were they up there? They were people first." She shuddered because it made sense. Walkers don't climb ladders. People climb ladders.

"Nah.." Daryl shouldered his crossbow. But Beth saw that he was suddenly hyper aware of their surroundings and Aaron seemed to pick up on that too. He fell in next to Daryl and pointed to a heavily wooded area.

"More coverage that way and it's still the direction we need to go." Beth watched as Daryl nodded and they started for the stand of trees across the road. Just like that. It reminded her of how Rick and Daryl had always been so intune with one another.

"Ya feelin' okay?" His hand slipped down from her back and he intertwined their fingers. She nodded because he was watching her.

"I'm okay Daryl." Basically she is. All things considered. Like the fact that her jeans are stiff in the crotch and down her thighs, with dried blood. And Daryl is covered with it too, her blood. It's streaked on their hands even though he tried cleaning it off with water and a rag. There might even be a thumb print on his cheek down low on the jawbone. She avoided looking there. She also didn't tell him about the constant ache and occasional sharp shooting pains that she has felt the entire they've been walking. At this point it was probably already too late.

The coverage that the trees afford offer Daryl some relief from the worry of being seen by whoever or whatever is out there. But that relief was short lived when he saw the blood. Traces of it left on his hands, a stain that has turned her jeans black now as it dries. He knew she lied about the pain. It's still there. And he's fucking angry and somewhere deep inside something was hurting too. He tried to focus on the path ahead of him, the trees, the direction they're headed, anything but what this blood on his hands meant.

"Clearing up ahead." Aaron called over his shoulder. The other man has put some distance between himself and them, giving them privacy Daryl supposes. He's pretty sure Aaron knows what's going on. The bleeding and pains, he has to have figured it out. Or so Daryl thinks. He scanned the trees and saw that there was a break. Maybe they can stop, rest for a minute.

"Daryl.." She leaned against a tree, her hand so small and white against the bark. He didn't know what to do, wasn't sure how to help anymore because he'd already failed. The minute he was within her reach she stepped into the circle of his arms.

"We're gonna stop, rest. I knew you were hurtin'." He can't quite look at her. He wasn't entirely sure why except for the nagging voice in his head that kept calling him a failure, saying he fucked up again and it sounded alot like Merle and his dad. But she had no problem looking at him and her blue eyes harbor something more than pain. He felt her hand on his chest and he's forced to look at her.

"Don't." Obviously she had no trouble reading him either.

"Shoulda left you home. None a this woulda happened, " he mumbled. He raised a hand to his mouth and chewed on a thumb nail. Scrubbing a hand through his hair he let his eyes rest on her face.

"You don't know that!" She leaned into him, pressed her forehead against his chest. "Coulda happened no matter what. Sometimes it does." Something changed when she leaned against him. He felt a slight shift. There's no blame there. She needs him like she needed him before. The reasons are just different now. But Beth needs him.

"I didn't want it like this.. Not like…" He can't get the words out. That's nothing new, it's always been like that, but he wished at times like these, he could just say it. Cause he wanted it out there, wanted her to know that she wasn't alone, would never be alone again as long as he was breathing. Of course she looked at him like she understood. Always easing his pain. Beth accepted him completely with all his flaws.

"Come on. Lets keep moving." He wrapped an arm around her and the followed in the direction that Aaron had taken through the trees and into a clearing.

Beth wrinkled her brow as they stepped out of the trees and into the clearing. She couldn't believe what she saw. Aaron was standing in the middle of the tall green grass petting a horse. A big black horse. He smiled over at her and Daryl. Beth felt a ghost of delight nudge her and she couldn't help the small smile that started in the corner of her mouth.

Daryl must have seen it to.

"Go on." Hand on her back, he gently pushed her in the direction of the horse. She didn't need much encouragement though, the horse was beautiful and her hands ached to touch it's sleek back and soft nose. She watched as Aaron ran a hand down its long neck.

"Come on, he seems really tame. Didn't flinch at all when I walked into the clearing. Just looked at me like I was a friend." Aaron's eyes were lit up like Christmas and Beth couldn't help but feel his happiness.

"You like horses too?" she asked as she stretched out a hand and let her fingers brush the animals velvet nose. He was absolutely gorgeous. Upon further inspection she determined it was in fact a he, a gelding which could have been part of the reason he wasn't skittish.

"Oh yeah. My grandparents had a ranch and they boarded horses. Some of the best summers of my life were spent there." Aaron spotted something on the ground and leaned down to retrieve it.

"We had horses on the farm. I used to ride. They were my only friends for awhile." Beth ran both hands under his mane and he nickered softly. "Are you lonely boy? I think you are. I think you've been out here all alone."

" 'S no good to be lonely. " Daryl's spoke quietly from behind her and she smiled over her shoulder at him.

"Hey look I found a lead rope. And I have a great idea!" Aaron came up to them.

"How's bout we take this ole boy home. Then you don't gotta walk Beth." Daryl said looking at her through his unruly fringe of hair. She turned to him, her hand still resting on the horse's neck.

"Hey that's what I was gonna suggest!" Aaron said. He held a blue rope with a metal clasp in his hands. Beth watched as Daryl's eyes flicked to Aaron and then back to her.

"Yeah? Well I already did." He stood next to Beth and admired the horse.

"You mean it Daryl?" A horse. In Alexandria. That would be a good thing. And they needed more good things. Beth felt her eyes fill up with tears. She nodded and smiled before she turned to him and sobbed quietly into his chest.

"It ain't nothin' ta cry 'bout." He rubbed her back awkwardly. Aaron fiddled with the lead rope in his hands.

"I know.. let's name him Buttons!" Aaron said. Beth felt Daryl chuckle and she looked up at him and gave her head the tiniest shake.

"Yeah, Buttons. 'S a good a name as any." Beth reached up and brushed Daryl's cheek with her palm. She couldn't say but she knew he understood she was thanking him for the horse and for letting Aaron name it.

"Let's go home Buttons." Beth whispered.