A/N: Hey y'all. I'll be honest with you, this chapter is not the best. I was very disheartened at the lack of response to the last chapter so I don't think I was all in when writing this one. Sorry… But get through this one because the next chapter is already planned and is GOOD. (:

Thank you to those who took the time to review the last chapter, I love and appreciate your love and appreciation: ReedusRocks, draegon-fire, soniabell, Reignashii, and especially debraskelchy and .75

Companion song: "Hold On" by Tom Waits

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

/

Chapter 24: Hold On

They were planning and talking, talking and planning, pouring over maps and speculating about who could have set those traps at the hospital. It was obvious that someone had led those walkers through the hospital, there was no possible way they could have found them on their own. Plus, the doors to the stairwells had been closed and if Beth remembered correctly, she had locked the main doors in that particular section of hallway. She told Rick as much and watched his eyes narrow in anger.

Rick, Michonne, Morgan, Abraham, Glenn, Carol, Beth and, of course, Daryl all sat in the library discussing the possibilities of who was responsible and why.

"So they led these walkers through the maze of the hospital… but why? They clearly didn't care about anything inside because if they did they would have just followed us in themselves and taken whatever we got," Glenn summarized.

Beth rolled her eyes, they had already been over this.

"They set those damn nails in the road to stop your car from leaving though. Must've done that for a reason. But you said that you didn't see anyone, right?" Abraham asked and Glenn nodded before Abe continued, "That would have been the perfect time to drive up and take whatever they wanted, even if people is what they're after."

Daryl and Beth looked over at each other. They both felt certain that there were actually people out in the woods, watching them. However, neither of them had shared that fact with the others yet.

Now was apparently the time, "There was someone out there." Daryl finally spoke up but he didn't move from his position where he perched on the windowsill. "Could feel them watchin' us when we were on the road."

Morgan glanced at Beth, she knew that he would trust her judgment over Daryl's since they just met him. So he asked her, "You sure?"

Beth nodded, "Luck heard 'em too."

Morgan was clearly satisfied with this answer. Knowing that Lucky had the most reliable senses out of all of them.

"So they're not after anything you had that night. But if they wanted to kill you or trap you, why not just wreck your car when you went after Glenn and Tara and Rosita?" Carol asked.

Beth saw Abe flinch slightly at the mention of Rosita.

She had a theory on this too but she didn't want to say it to the room. It was far too morbid. Her eyes were drawn to Daryl again, and from the dark look in his clouded blue eyes that they had come to the same conclusion.

"They're after something bigger. Wanted to follow you home," Michonne said, speaking for the first time since they'd started this meeting. "Same as The Governor."

Michonne was apparently on the same page.

The room got uncomfortable. Everyone turned angry and hard. Abe was the only one whose demeanor didn't immediately change. Beth knew that even Morgan had visited the prison after the Governor, since he knew where Rick had been staying. It said something about the brutality that had been left behind that even Morgan was affected. Morgan had never really told her much about what he'd seen when he went to track down Rick. Because the two of them never knew that it was her "family" that had been at that prison. He'd only ever told her that it had been overrun and was falling apart. Now, she thought she'd like to hear the full story. But she'd ask Morgan about that later.

"So they're comin' to fight. Either to take what we have or destroy it," Rick stepped out from where he had been leaning over the desk.

"We've gotta go out there, track them down and kill every last one them," Carol's voice was full of numb malice that Beth only felt certain it was Carol because she'd actually watched the older woman's lips form the words. Out of the corner of her eye, Beth noticed that Morgan's eyes widened ever so slightly and she knew that he was shocked that Carol could be so cold. However, none of the others were surprised—which only told Beth that her hunch about Carol had been right. That woman was a maniacal cougar wrapped in a deceptively domesticated house cat package.

"That's not a good idea. If we find them out there, it's on their turf. They had us cornered like rats yesterday. Spencer would have been locked in that hospital forever if Beth hadn't know the place so well and their trap out of the city… Rosita…" Glenn's sentence dropped off. But leaned forward in his chair and he found his voice again after a moment, "We can't go after them. It's a death sentence."

There were a few small nods around the library.

"So we just wait for them to come to us?" Carol scoffed. "Just like last time." Her words were filled with venom.

"No. This time we'll be ready. We will get prepared and we'll be expecting them." Michonne was equally as stubborn. "Chasing him was a waste and chasing people that we don't know anything about would be rash and foolish."

Beth watched as Carol pushed up out of her chair and moved towards Michonne threateningly.

"Letting them come at us is cowardly!" Carol was shouting in Michonne's face but she kept her calm leaning against a bookshelf and Beth couldn't help but respect her more for this. The older woman's voice grew cold and quiet like the moments of cloud cover right before a storm, "You let him come last time, you stopped looking and it got people killed." Her eyes left Michonne and flicked towards Daryl and then Rick. The glance was accusatory.

"Carol," Daryl growled from the corner.

"I won't sit by and do nothing," was her only response before turning and stomping out of the library.

Rick glared at the empty doorway, tilted his head a little and then said calmly, "We are not goin' anywhere. Ain't gonna lose this place like we did last time. We'll send scouts out to learn more about them," he nodded at Daryl and Michonne before continuing, "double patrols," he added with a look at Abe and Morgan before concluding with a two-fingered point at Glenn, "and get everyone on board with the escape plans. The rest of the Alexandrians should be staying inside, staying quiet and doing everything they can to conserve and prepare. You know your roles."

Everyone began to move immediately, rushing off to do the jobs that they knew so well. Beth stood, unsure of herself. She wasn't given a task and didn't know her place in the community like all the others did. But staying a beat behind meant she caught an interaction between Daryl and Rick that the others missed.

The men's eyes met across the room, Daryl had remained at his post in the windowsill, and the leader hitched his head in the direction of the door. Daryl's face hardened but Rick requested in a whisper, "She'll listen to you."

It was a request, Beth could tell as much because Daryl actually contemplated this before following his direction without any verbal response. The hunter snatched his crossbow off the floor while nodding and gruffly mumbled as he walked out the door.

Rick seemed to notice her only when the rest of the room was empty. He was standing with his hands on his hips, with a weight on his shoulders the size of a bus. When he looked up at Beth, he appeared to want to say something but he didn't even open his mouth. She let him off the hook by giving herself a job, "I'll go out with the scouts. Just let me know when."

He stared at her. His eyes burned into her, as if they contained a sixth sense that actually revealed someone's inner strengths and weaknesses. Whatever he sees in her must have been promising though because after an agonizingly long minute, Rick slowly nodded. Beth walked out of the door before he could change his mind.

/

She had been up in the second largest tree inside the walls for a few hours before someone came and found her. She expected Morgan to come for her, or maybe Michonne, or even Daryl. But instead it was Carl.

"You stole my tree," he laughed as he climbed up to a branch next to her.

"You didn't come here for the spot though," she replied with a smile.

"Yeah, Dad sent me to get you for dinner, he thought you should start comin' to dinners with everyone," Carl said sheepishly. She could tell that he didn't want to be the bearer of bad news. However, Rick had clearly made a concession for her—letting her go on the run and now assigning her to the scouting missions. So she decided that she would play nice and go to some dinners.

The pair shimmied back down the tree and headed home together. The weight of unspoken words grew heavier between them as they walked. As with most of her "family" members she didn't pressure Carl to speak, but just waited for him to work up the courage for whatever it was.

Once the house came into view, he coughed awkwardly before asking, "Uh… Beth. I'm happy you're back. You were my best friend for a long time because we were the only kids around. I hope you decide to stay."

She glanced up at him in surprise. First, she never thought of herself as a kid. Age was meaningless in this world, especially considering that she didn't even know her real age. All she'd ever known was survival. And experience was more meaningful than the number of years someone had been around. Second, she was surprised that Carl too had realized that she was contemplating running from the safety of Alexandria. It hit her that even though she didn't know these people, they all seemed to know her pretty well. This comforted her because it made her think that maybe, deep down, she was in fact the same person as before her accident.

Unsure how to respond to him, she found herself asking more questions. It was as if her talk with Daryl last night had dislodged something inside her and made her finally curious about her past.

"Carl, how old are we?" she questioned with a small laugh at how absurd it was that she didn't even know her own birthday.

He laughed too. It was an odd laugh, deep like a grown man's but still with a care free air of a child. "Well, I'm 17 now. And you're 21. Although, your birthday is probably comin' up soon. I know it was in the winter sometime but you'd have to ask Maggie the exact day."

They began moving towards the house again, and with the second suggestion in only two days, Beth realized that she was really going to have to talk to Maggie soon.

/

He went to the funeral that evening but stayed on the fringes, watching everyone else mourn and staying out of sight. The group around the little graveyard was huge. People in Alexandria had loved Rosita. She was helpful in every aspect of their daily lives, on runs, on the wall, watching the kids, in the clinic and kitchens. People would certainly feel her loss and this was clear from the ample amount of tears being shed over the small mound of fresh dirt.

After Rosita was buried in the cemetery along the south wall, Deanna invited the town to her house for a wake. Daryl only went because of Abe. The man looked like a wreck. The bags under his eyes confirmed that he hadn't slept, and the glazed over quality in his eyes made Daryl think he was very close to losing it completely. He'd have to watch out for a mental breakdown—Abe got violent when he lost his lid, Glenn had told him about how he knocked Eugene out cold for hours.

At Deanna's house everyone wandered around, talking in subdued voices and throwing sidelong glances at Abe, Tara and the others. Daryl was standing next to Sasha, who was a perfect companion to these types of events because she stayed equally as silent as Daryl himself. He was finishing his beer and was just about to leave the wake when he saw Beth and Spencer enter through the back, kitchen door.

He stopped and stared.

The beer in his hand paused half way to his mouth. But he didn't notice.

Instead Daryl saw her brilliant smile as she laughed at something Spencer said. It was a genuine smile like he hadn't seen since she'd been back. This made him heart wrenchingly sad and also inexplicably happy at the same time.

"Wow, haven't seen her like that since the prison," said Sasha at his side.

"Yeah, I guess," Daryl replied tearing his eyes away from her. He had seen her happier since the prison, while they sat in a little kitchen eating food by candlelight. He wondered if she would ever remember that night.

"Do you think they've got something going on already?" Sasha asked with an undertone of displeasure and sarcasm.

He blanched at the thought of that and almost yelled at her, but then realized that Sasha was upset because she was jealous. No one else in the room seemed to have noticed Beth and Spencer together, but Sasha couldn't take her eyes off of the pair.

Daryl gave a noncommittal grunt to Sasha.

Spencer got Beth a drink, white wine, and a scotch for himself. Then, they moved through the crowd together and he followed her like the moon orbiting the Earth. The pair stood in the corner by the bookcase and Beth looked at all the books while Spencer chatted at her. She was still engaged in the conversation enough to continue asking him questions.

Daryl wanted to rip his eyes away, he felt like a creep staring at her. She had her hair in a haphazard bun and she was wearing the same black jeans she had on when he saw her in the airport, but now she wore a tight plain black t-shirt. It didn't show any skin, except for her tanned, toned arms, but it was so incredibly sexy it felt like he might as well have been back in the tiny trunk with her during the thunderstorm. The crossbow was still on her back and a knife in her belt even inside the house. Beth must have felt his gaze on her because she looked up and met his eyes. She had a scowl on her face at first, but then when she realized it was Daryl looking at her, she smiled a little. He credits this smile to their conversation last night.

Just then, one of the Alexandria locals, the teacher Miss Angela, began playing a song on the piano. It was subdued, as they were at a wake, but it was loud enough that the music rang through the entire house. It was an hour after sunset and they had already dimmed the lights as per Alexandria's protocol. Rick glanced at his watch with a furrow in his brow but seemed to consent to the music despite the late hour.

With the music making conversation hard, people either stopped talking or moved into tighter groups. Spencer and Beth were among the latter group. He leaned in and whispered something in her ear.

The grip on his beer bottle tightened, Daryl's knuckles turning white.

"I'm out of here. Going home to relieve Carl of babysitting duty," Sasha muttered. Chugged the last of her drink and slammed the cup on the kitchen counter with a final glare in the direction of Beth and Spencer. Sometimes, he and Sasha were so alike.

He was going to leave as well, but then a familiar song came floating out of the keys. Daryl heard the song only once before. It was in the prison… one of the last days that Merle had been alive.

Angela was singing quietly but he was remembering Beth's voice echoing in the cement walls, "They hung a sign up in our town/ If you live it up/ you won't live it down."

Maggie, who had been lounging on a couch next to Glenn and Tara, shot a look up at him. There were bags under her eyes, which were wide in shock, and her hands naturally went to the tiny protrusion of her stomach. Even though there were other people from the prison at the wake, he doubted that they would remember every song that Beth had sung. He remembered though. And so did Maggie.

This was what Maggie and him did, they found each other in those weird moments where Beth's presence was apparent. Only now, it was different because Beth was actually here again. The pregnant woman began to waddle over towards him; her gait had changed even though she was only a few months pregnant. Daryl met her half way across the room.

"Did you tell Angela to sing this?," Maggie half accused, half pleaded.

He looked at her skeptically and replied, "Course I didn't."

"I wonder if Beth remembers," she responded, looking at her sister distractedly. "I remember it so clearly, it's like I can hear her now." And Daryl could too, although he wouldn't say that out loud.

"You got to/ Hold on, hold on/ You gotta hold on/ Take my hand, I'm standing right here/ You gotta hold on," Angela continued.

Both Maggie and Daryl stared at Beth as she turned away from Spencer and towards the piano where Angela sat. The wide smile rolled off of her face slowly. There was a blank look in her eyes but it was accompanied by a profound wrinkle between her brows. Then, with a sudden snap of her neck, Beth looked directly at Maggie and Daryl. Her blue eyes were piercing and paralyzing. Daryl held his breath; his lungs were unable to take in oxygen under the weight of her gaze. The expression carved on her face was unreadable to him in the briefest moment before she turned and stalked outside.

"Do you think that means she remembered?" Maggie whispered in an exhale. In his periphery, he could see the brunette turn towards him with an open, hopeful expression.

"I… uh… yeah. I think it does," Daryl stammered in an equally quiet response.

/

A/N: UHHHHOHHHH! Did Beth just remember something?! What do you think? Leave a review in the comments!

Thanks for reading! Sorry if this was a boring chapter… I was honestly so discouraged after the lack of response to the last chapter that I didn't know if I was going to post anything at all...

Luckily, I have BIG plans for the next chapter. Someone goes missing, and someone new is coming to Alexandria. Gotta follow the story so you don't miss any updates ;)

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