*Daryl*

The cold air bit at my battered and bruised skin as I pulled my blood soaked t-shirt over my head and tossed it to the floor. My body ached and my abused muscles felt like elastic bands stretched to their limit over bones of shattered glass. My arms were like lead from wielding my crossbow, and my hands were cut and blistered from plunging my knife into the skull, of each and every walker I had seen from here to the highway and back.

It had been a massacre out there today, a slaughter brought on by my own uncontrollable rage. Beth's words had poured over me like gasoline, the hurt I had seen in her eyes had been the touch paper, and my anger at being the cause of her pain had been the spark needed, to bring about a blaze so damn fierce that had ripped through every part of who I had become, and burned away any good that had existed within me.

The anger that had coursed through my veins had been relentless and the attack had been frenzied, stripping away my adrenaline faster with every walker that fell pray to my knife. For each one I brought to the ground, I felt renewed, doused in a rage more blood thirsty than it had been before, and more vicious and inhumane with every blood curdling thrust of my blade. The devil in me had finally been granted his freedom and he was here to collect, he demanded recompense and the savage in my head knew the only payment he would accept would be violent, and it would be unmerciful.

After talking to Carol and returning to the house, I had sat alone on my bed, taking out my bandana and rubbing away the black tar of the walkers blood, now ingrained into my swollen knuckles. And yet still I had felt no release. There had been no redemption for the words I had spoken to Beth this morning, and no peace to be found for the look of sadness I had seen in her eyes as a reply.

I was exhausted, all of my energy had been depleted and there was nothing left, just the hum of shame that thrummed throughout my destroyed body as I sat and listened to Beth, listened to her as she cried in her sleep on the other side of the bedroom wall.

It weren't a sound I had gotten used to, didn't wanna get used to it neither, and there weren't a single night since she had been back from Grady, that I hadn't wished for that girl to find some peace from whatever nightmare she was trapped in, and tonight would be no different.

I paced around my room as I did every night, flicking the lid on my zippo lighter hoping to distract myself from the sound of her desperate pleas, and to somehow release the tension I felt starting to build in my bones. I needed to escape, escape the guilt I felt for the part I played in her torment, but instead I felt like I always did when it came to her. I felt helpless.

Beth had been wrong today. Dead wrong. All that stuff she had said about her being worth nothin, about her meanin nothin and me abandoning her, she just weren't seein it right. Didn't see the world through proper eyes was all. Even after everything she had been through she saw things as bein simple, still believin that there was good to be found in everyone. Truth was though people like me; we were flawed, damaged goods that ain't worth fixin. We just destroy things, good or bad there aint never no distinction, its just how it always was. She deserved better and I could see that, even if she couldn't.

If the world hadn't have gone to shit, a girl like Beth, would have gone about her life like most good people. She'd have gone to church with her parents on a Sunday, sang them songs she liked so much for people in her poxy congregation. Would have spent her days readin schoolbooks, probably listening to shitty Taylor Swift songs on the radio whilst thinking about college, and what to wear for her school prom. Certainly wouldn't be thinking about no white trash redneck from the wrong side of the river that's for sure. Cus' of course some smart college boy would have come along and gave her nice things and treated her right. Would have given her the life a girl like her deserved.

I weren't never gonna be that man, even if I wanted to be. That just weren't how it was written for me, aint how my life was ever gonna be. And that was why a man like me, didn't deserve a place in her world. Beth would have done better, would have known better. Her father would have made sure of it.

Hershel was a good man, a decent man, who never put no judgment on me, but he was one tough son of a bitch who would have stopped at nothing for his daughters. And we both knew that if times had been back how they shudda been, he would not have hesitated to put a bullet right between my eyes if I stepped foot on his land, or been anywhere near Maggie or Beth, and he would have been right to do so. Good people had needed protecting from me, and from Merle, cus we just weren't like them, weren't nothing decent left in us. No matter how hard we tried.

I weren't about to destroy Beth tho. I had come close before, I had damn near gotten her killed at that funeral home, but I had been given a second chance and I weren't about to mess it up again. And as I stepped out of my room and went to hers, I knew one thing for sure, I may not have been able to protect her from being taken to Grady, I might not be able to protect her from the world as it was now, but I would do everything in my power to protect her from me.

Her room was dark as I stepped inside and the silence was broken only by her whispered cries and the sound of her calling my name. It was a sound that haunted my nights and plagued my mind through the days, because it was the cries of someone I had broken.

I knelt down by her bed and looked at her as she slept, even through the slithers of light that came through the boarded up windows I could see how pale her skin was against the dark circles that seemed to always be present under her eyes. I reached out to touch her, to trace my finger along the deep red scar that marked her face, but pulled my hand back, too afraid that even my lightest of touches would be enough to shatter her or bring her more pain. Instead I just whispered her name, hoped that somehow she would hear my answer to her plea for help; that I would be able to reach her and save her from the hell she was caught in.

"Beth, wake up." My mouth was like the damn desert and the words caught in my throat as she failed to stir, still caught in a battle with the images in her head. "Beth". Finally I gave into my better judgment and moved the damp strands of her hair from her forehead as gently as my rough fingers would allow. "Beth."

Suddenly her eyes flew open, wide pupils of the deepest blue filled with fear met mine, as I watched her struggle to reach through to the reality from whatever nightmare she had just escaped. A desperate sob ripped from her chest as she reached out, wrapping her arms around my neck and clinging to me, crying my name over and over again. "Daryl, please, please don't leave me, don't leave me here."

The tightness in my chest almost stopped my breathing, the cry from this girl breaking down every bit of my resolve as I felt myself pull her down from the bed and cradle her in my lap as I sat on the floor, her frail body clinging to mine as I grabbed the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around her.

"Beth, its just a dream, ain't none of it real. I ain't leavin and ain't no one gonna come take you from us again"

Her body trembled against mine as I felt the dampness of her tears soak through the sheet she had balled up into her fists; her voice was broken and splintered with sobs.

"You've already left." There was a small pause as she struggled to catch her breath. "You brought me back from Grady, but you left me."

The words hit their target, driving home the comments Carol had made to me so many times over, that me avoiding Beth, staying away from her for so long had led her to believe I didn't care, and that I had somehow abandoned her after her return to her family.

"I ain't never left you Beth, it weren't like that, stayin away was the right thing for me to do, cus I cant be trusted to look after you. Not no more."

She sat away from me, lifted her head and looked at me, staring into my eyes as if she were searching for something, something that she couldn't find.

"Don't say that, don't let the people at Grady take you from me too, don't do that to me Daryl."

Her tear stained cheeks shone like silver under the sparse light of the moon and her eyes were shining, but they held in them a sadness I had seen all to often when I looked at her.

"I ain't tryin to hurt you Beth, just speakin the truth is all". I struggled to keep my tone even, trying to disguise my desperate need for her to understand, for her to see the truth. "I ain't good for you, you don't know men like me. You think you do, but you just don't."

Her voice was little more than a broken whisper. "I don't need to know other men, I know you."

I looked down, the shame of my words making my confession harder. "You think I am a good man Beth, but you don't know what I am capable of."

I chewed down on the inside of my lower lip, aware of the consequences of the words that followed.

"When we went to the quarry, the first camp site with Glenn, Carol, and T-dog, we only stayed around cus we had planned to rip them all off. Merle and me, we had been watching them for days, even Carl and his mom Lori. We knew they had nothin', knew they were scared for their lives out there. Still, we were take them for what little they had while they slept in their make shift beds. We didn't even care that we were leavin them for dead."

I looked into her eyes; I needed her to know the gravity of what I was saying.

"Randle, that boy Rick brought back to the farm. I damn near beat that boy to death, stuck a knife into his already fucked up leg until he begged for mercy, I never felt no remorse neither. After you got taken to Grady I ran with a group, a bunch of men just like me Beth, that beat one of their own to death right in front of my very eyes, and I didn't even flinch, not once. That same group near enough killed Carl, if it hadn't have been for Rick and what he did out there that day, that boy wouldn't be here today."

I raised my hand and wiped away new tears that had fallen from her eyes.

"That's the kinda man I am Beth. I aint the man you should be wastin no tears on."

She lay her head back on my chest and pulled the sheet around her.

"We do what we have to do to survive Daryl, it don't make us bad people. We don't get to just make easy decisions anymore, but that don't mean we don't feel, that we don't deserve to find peace."

I heard her take in a short breath, the last of her sobs catching in the back of her throat. "At the funeral home, you thought we would be ok, I know you thought there was still hope for us."

She was right, I had thought about it, had started to think that maybe there was some place for me and her, some place where we could just be away from this world. Thought maybe I could just forget my past and pretend like all the bad shit I had done didn't exist no more, like it had never happened and we just got to start over. But it just weren't to be, there was always a price to be paid.

"Beth it was different back then, back then it was just us two left, weren't no one else. Things are different now; you got your family back, people to look after you, people who can protect you, like I couldn't".

I thought back to that night in the funeral home, us sat at that table, her eyes so full of hope despite what she had lost just days before. I remembered how it felt to be with her, her innocence and view of the world still so untainted that just for a moment, it had seemed like we were untouchable.

"When you asked me back then what had changed my mind. It was you. You, who had given me hope. You were like this bright light at the end of a really dark tunnel. But that light ain't something I can have Beth, you have to understand that. I have to pay the price for all the wrongs I have done. That means you will always end up bein hurt if you are anywhere near me and I have to protect you, even if it's from me."

I felt the heat of her tears spill onto my chest, quiet sobs splintering the silence between us as I continued to speak into the darkness of her room.

"When we were kids me and merle used to rob from this old guy. He was just some veteran who used to collect old junk and build shit with it. We reckoned that he used to build tanks in the war or somethin like that and when he retired he just kept building stuff, just never stopped. So me and Merle used to break into his workshop all the time. We'd take things, wheels, jerry cans, fishin rods anything really, just cus we could. The old guy knew it was us but never did nothing to protect his stuff. One day we are there and we hear him comin and of course Merle just runs for it, don't even look back. But I had seen this bike in the corner, it was kinda hidden but I could see it had been fixed up like real nice. So the old man catches me staring at it and says nothing, just stands there, don't even try and stop me as I run past him out the door.

"I never told Merle about the bike, and everytime he spoke about going back to the workshop I would try and distract him, cus I just didn't want him finding this bike. Just seemed to me like it was too nice to ever just be taken. I thought maybe the old man was doin it up for a grandson or some shit like that and it deserved to be a gift. Anyway a week later me and Merle are outside playin when I see the old vet rock up and go into my house, and of course I am sure he is there to tell my old man what me and Merle have been doin up at his workshop. Merle sees him and takes off and I knew it would be days before I saw him again. Merle never could take responsibility for his actions. But me I decided to face my old man, figured it was better to just take my beating sooner rather than later. Turns out the old man had brought the bike, and wanted me to have it. Course my old man is drunk as always, and cusses the man out for given his boys charity, but the man stands there and takes my dads shit, not flinching just nodding at me before he goes, but leaves the bike anyway."

"I had never had my own bike before, I had been on other kids ones but never had my own, never had much of nothing before, but there it was all painted up blue, all shiney and new and shit. And I cant believe its mine. So my old man who is proper riled up now asks me why this man brought me the bike. So I tell him the truth, I was a crappy liar so seemed pointless trying to say anythin different. My dad says cus I've been sneakin in this mans place I aint allowed to ride it. Next day of course the bikes gone, just gone. Turns out my old man had sold it to one of his drinking buddies. Told me it was a life lesson that it don't matter how much you want something, if you do bad shit, you aint never gonna get to keep nothing good. And he was right."

"I saw the bike around, weren't to long before it got robbed off the original kid and stripped down to nothing again, just bits scattered among other peoples junk probably back where it started. Just something else I was never meant to keep."

Beth remained still, but the fluttering of her eyelashes against my chest told me she was yet to fall sleep. The darkness made the silence almost deafening until I spoke again.

"You really wanna know why I stayed away? It weren't cus I thought you were weak Beth, it was because anything good I get close to ends up broke or just gone. Something good like you ain't meant to be near someone like me."

She ran her fingers lightly over the bruises colouring the skin on my chest, her touch soft but it felt like ice dripping over fire. My throat was dry and I felt my breath catch in my throat, stopping any words from forming as she spoke in a whisper.

"Memories are just like bruises Daryl, at the time you know they are real, and they hurt, and you feel like you might not ever heal. Then one day they just fade to nothing, you remember them, but the pain is gone and all you have is a distant recollection of what they were, of what they felt like, but it's not real."

A small hiss left my lips as her fingertips grazed over the raised skin of the scars littering my shoulders and I felt her breath sweep over my skin along with her words "Scars are just the same."

I took her hand and placed it back in her lap, humiliation prickling through my veins at the fact she had seen the marks left behind by the leather and metal of my fathers belt. "Nah scars aren't the same" I shook and lowered my head, the weight of the shame taking its toll. "They are permanent reminders of another life, lessons that ain't meant to be forgotten."

Her voice was low and laced with a raw sincerity that spoke to a place inside of me that seemed never to heal. "There is no other life Daryl, there is no life where I get to go on vacation with my mom and daddy, no summer days in the sunshine or picnics at the beach. There is no other life where your daddy gets to beat on you and take anything and everything good away from you. The only life we have is the one here and now."

She tilted her head, forcing me to look her in the eyes "These bruises we have aren't because we were bad, these scars aren't because we had some debt to pay. They are here because it shows we are just the same. Right now in this moment, there is no difference between you and me, our choices are exactly the same. And this right here." She took my hand and placed it over the material of the nightshirt she wore, placed my hand where her heart was. "This you feel right here, this is life."

I felt her fingertips lightly brush down my arm before she linked her fingers with mine, embarassment running to the surface of my skin as I felt the roughness of my hands against hers, soothed away only by her voice. "And I am not gone Daryl, I am right here. If I were gone you would not feel this." I felt her move closer to me and in the shadow of the night I felt her press her lips to mine.

There was a tremor that thrummed throughout her body; her lips tentative and unsure as her heartbeat begin to race beneath my fingertips. Without question and without hesitation I gave in to her, and for the first time in a long time, as I held her body against mine and swallowed the soft moans that left her in a whisper, I was able to breath again.

Authors Note

* A Beth chapter is coming up next *