Ch.5

They hadn't left her alone. Nobody was leaving her alone. And all that she wanted was to be alone. Maggie was constantly by her side, trying to coerce her to eat more broth, drink more water. When Maggie wasn't there, Daryl would take her place. He was quiet and thankfully didn't say much. But his eyes, they never left her. Even when she wasn't looking at him she could feel them boring into her.

Right now she had both of them. Maggie was sitting to her left, a bottle of water in her hands that she had been trying to get Beth to drink for the last hour. And Daryl was on her right, leaning heavily against the wall, his eyes shifting between Maggie and Beth. Beth hadn't said a word.

"Mind if you give Beth and I a little time," Bob asked, slowly approaching the three with a first aid kit in his hands.

"Uh, yeah, sure," Maggie said hesitantly.

"It will only take a few minutes," Bob said reassuringly.

Beth heard Maggie take a deep, shaky breath before leaning over and placing a gentle kiss on the top of Beth's head. "I'll be back as soon as Bob is done," she said, standing up and looking at Daryl. "Come on."

Beth sighed and watched Maggie and Daryl walk to the other side of the room, hoping that they wouldn't come back and would just leave her alone. Beth looked away from them when she realized that their eyes were still glued to her.

"How are you feeling?" Bob asked gently, kneeling down in front of her.

Beth shrugged her shoulders. "Fine," she said gruffly, her voice still raspy from her lack of water.

"Can I clean your wrists?" he asked quietly, extending a hand and carefully grabbing onto one of her hands before she even had time to answer him.

Beth jumped a little and tried to pull her hand away before she even realized what she was doing. Bob's hand tightened its grip on her, not letting her go. But his hands were soft, they weren't harsh like her mind and body had been expecting, and Beth relaxed a little when she remembered who it was that was touching her.

"I'm not gonna hurt you Beth," he said, sensing her discomfort. "I just need to get these cleaned so they don't get infected. Okay?"

Beth nodded, closing her eyes in an attempt to calm herself.

"Maggie said that you haven't been drinking much water?"

"Not thirsty," she said as Bob began to take off the bandage on her right wrist.

"You need to drink it, Beth. You're dehydrated. You'll feel better."

"Maybe later."

Bob sighed, but Beth ignored it.

"Have you slept anymore since you woke up?" he asked, starting to clean her wrist.

"No," Beth answered through clenched teeth, her wrist throbbing in pain.

"You should try to get some more rest when we finish up here."

"Alright."

Bob quickly finished cleaning her right wrist. He carefully took her left hand and unwound the bandage from her wrist. Beth kept her eyes closed as Bob turned her wrist from side to side, inspecting the wound.

"You okay?" he asked as he began to clean her wrist.

"Yeah."

The truth was, she wasn't okay. She didn't want to look at her wrists. She hadn't looked at them since she had escaped. She knew they were bad, she could tell by the way they burned when he gently swiped the alcohol swab over them. She could tell they were bad by the noises Bob was making as he cleaned them. She didn't want to see them; they would only remind her of things she wanted to forget.

After a few more minutes Beth felt as Bob finished re-bandaging her wrist. But even when he let her hand go he didn't leave her. Beth opened her eyes and looked at him for a moment before looking away.

"Are there any other injuries you want me to look at?"

"No," Beth answered curtly.

The truth was, there were other injuries, but she wouldn't let anybody see them. They knew about her wrists, and the bruises and cuts that were on her arms and legs and face. They didn't know about the injuries hidden beneath her clothes, the ones she wouldn't let any of them see.

"Carol and Michonne should be back soon with new clothes for you."

"Okay."

Soon after Beth had woken up from her nightmare, Maggie had convinced Beth to take off her pants. They were covered in blood and dirt, and the button was missing. Maggie had promised Beth that Carol and Michonne would find her a new pair of jeans, so Beth had agreed and had stripped herself of the bloodied garment, leaving her only in Daryl's flannel button down, which thankfully came to her knees.

"Drink some water," Bob said, standing back up and looking down at Beth sadly. "And if you decide that you have anything else you need me to look at, just let me know, okay? I won't tell anybody if you don't want me to…"

Beth nodded, refusing to look at Bob.

"Aren't you going to go?" Beth asked when she noticed that Bob was still standing in front of her, looking at her.

"Drink some water," Bob said again, turning and walking away.

Beth let out a sigh of relief, leaning her head back against the wall and closing her eyes. She was alone. For the first time since she had stumbled upon the others she was alone. She felt like she could finally relax a little. But her peace didn't last long, because a few minutes later both Maggie and Daryl were back, sitting on either side of her.

"Drink," Maggie said, forcing a bottle of water into her hands.

Beth looked at Maggie and instantly knew that Maggie wasn't going to stop nagging her until she listened to her and actually drank the water. Beth reluctantly opened the bottle and started to drink. The burning in her throat instantly subsided as the warm water washed through her parched mouth. Beth hadn't even realized how thirsty she was until she noticed that the bottle was empty.

Maggie laughed softly. "See…you need to keep drinking…get fluids into you again."

Beth smiled weakly.

"Daryl?" Maggie asked, looking past Beth. "Do you think you could give Beth and I some time alone?"

"Yeah," Daryl said, hesitantly standing up. "Y-yeah…of course," he said, slowly walking away.

Maggie looked at Beth, not saying anything for a few moments.

"What?" Beth groaned, knowing where this conversation was going to go, but desperately hoping that she was wrong.

"You wanna talk about anything?"

"No."

"You wanna tell me what happened?" Maggie asked quietly.

"Nothing happened."

"Beth…I saw your wrists. I saw the cuts and bruises and scrapes. The blood…" Maggie said quietly, reaching out and gently grabbing Beth's hand.

"Nothing happened, Maggie," Beth said, harshly pulling her hand away from Maggie.

"I know that's not true, Beth. Something happened to you. You were gone for weeks. What happened?"

Just as Beth opened her mouth to say something, Carol and Michonne appeared at the top of the stairs. Carol slowly made her way over to Beth, taking her bag off of her shoulder as she sat down beside her.

"We got you some clothes, sweetie," Carol said softly, pulling out a pair of jeans and a new shirt. "I think they'll fit…they may be a little big since you've lost some weight, but they should do the trick."

"Thanks," Beth said quietly, taking the clothes from Carol. "Thank you…"

"We got some broths and soups, too. I'll go warm you one up."

"Thank you, Carol, so much," Maggie said warmly, looking at Carol.

Carol smiled weakly. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

Maggie turned towards Beth again, taking the stack of clothing from her. "Here. I'll help you change."

"I got it," Beth said, taking the pile back from her.

"Take it easy," Maggie said, quickly putting her hands up to steady Beth as she stood. "You're still weak."

"I'm fine."

Maggie sighed.

Beth quickly put the pair of jeans on, but didn't change into the shirt.

"Aren't you going to change into the shirt they brought you?"

"No," Beth said, sitting back down.

The truth was, she didn't want to change out of Daryl's shirt. It smelled of a mixture of sweat, and woods, and cigarette smoke. It smelled like him. And to Beth, that was comforting. But more importantly, the shirt was big and baggy. It covered her arms, hid the bruises and cuts. The shirt that Michonne and Carol had brought back for her was short sleeved; it would show everything she was trying to hide, and she knew that everyone would stare.

"The jeans fit!" Carol said excitedly, walking over to Beth, holding a can of soup in her hands. "Why don't you sit back down so you can eat?"

Beth nodded and slowly sat back down, sliding down the wall until her butt hit the pile of blankets she had been using as a bed.

Carol handed Beth the can of soup, quickly wrapping a rag around the can. "Be careful, it's hot."

Beth started to eat the soup, looking around the room as she ate, her eyes stopping to rest on Daryl for a moment before looking away.

"So how are you feeling?" Carol asked.

"Bob already asked. Ask him if you wanna know," Beth said quietly.

Carol nodded, pursing her lips slightly, watching Beth eat.

Beth kept looking straight ahead, trying to ignore Carol and Maggie's staring.

"You seem pretty beat up. Wanna talk about what happened?"

"No."

"Beth, sweetie, you don't have to be ashamed about whatever happened. Nobody here is going to judge you. You can talk about it."

"There's nothing to talk about because nothing happened," Beth said harshly.

"Alright," Carol said softly. "Maybe later…"

Beth ignored Carol, still looking around the room as she ate the soup. Her eyes landed on an unfamiliar face that she hadn't noticed before. Looking around the room again she noticed that there were four faces she didn't recognize. She had never seen them before, so they weren't from the prison. She didn't know these people, and that made her nervous.

"Wh-who are they?" Beth asked quietly, setting the can of soup down.

"Who?' Maggie asked, looking up. "Oh, them? I guess you haven't met them yet. Hey, come over here," Maggie called out to the unfamiliar people.

"Who are they?" Beth asked worriedly.

"We met them after the prison. They're safe. They won't hurt us."

Beth cautiously watched the four people walk over to them, pushing herself as far against the wall as she could when they sat down in front of her.

"Beth, this is Eugene," Maggie said, pointing towards the heavyset man with a mullet. "He was with Abraham and Rosita," she said, pointing to a redheaded man with a mustache and a pretty young woman with dark hair.

Beth looked at the three and then looked down when all of them stared at her.

"They're trying to get to Washington, D.C. Eugene know what started this all…he knows how to stop it."

Beth glanced back up at the man and nodded once.

Maggie pointed to another young woman with short, dark hair. "And this here is Tara. She was with Glenn and the others when we found them."

Beth nodded again.

"They all wanted to help find you. Abraham postponed going to Washington so that they could help look for you," Maggie said softly.

Rosita looked at Beth, smiling softly. "Daryl was pretty determined to find you. He wasn't gonna give up. I figured if someone was that angsty to find someone else, the person must be worth looking for."

Beth looked at Rosita and then to Daryl, who was still standing on the other side of the room.

"But now that we found you, we're going to heading off to Washington again. All of us," Abraham demanded.

"Give the girl some time to rest and recover," Rosita said, looking over at Abraham. "Washington will still be there, even if we stay here for a little while. We'll head out soon enough. Just let her rest."

"The deal was to start moving again when we got her back."

"The deal was to start moving again when Beth is ready to travel," Rosita said matter-of-factly.

"Fine," Abraham sighed.

Rosita smiled and looked back at Beth. "So Beth, you just rest as much as you need to. We're in no rush. Take your time."

Beth nodded again, just wanting the four of them to go. It was bad enough having Maggie by her side every second, even worse when Daryl was there, too. And now she had Carol. And she knew that they were all waiting for her to talk, for her to say something about what had happened. Maggie and Carol were obvious about it. They would just keep asking her questions, trying to pry it out of her. Daryl, on-the-other-hand, was willing to wait until she let something slip.

She knew that Maggie was waiting for her to break. She could see it in her eyes; hear it in the tone of voice she used when she talked to Beth. Maggie thought she was fragile, and by the looks on everyone else's faces, they all were thinking the same thing.

Beth let out a sigh of relief when the four new people stood up and walked away. Her body relaxed a little, and she leaned her head against the wall, closing her eyes.

"Why don't you get some sleep, Beth? You look exhausted…"

Before Beth could even respond, she had fallen asleep.

Author's Note: First off, I want to apologize in the delay of updating. The past month has been hectic. My sister got married, and then a week later there was a death in the family. So, I haven't had any time to write. But, things have calmed down, so I am back at it!

Alright, so this chapter was a Beth chapter, but it had a lot of other characters in it. Beth is sort of feeling constricted right now. Nobody is leaving her alone. Everyone is worried about her. And, Beth got to meet Eugene, Abraham, Rosita, and Tara!

Next chapter will be from Daryl's POV.

Please leave a review and tell me what you think!