Author's Note: I'm so sorry guys! I know it took me too long to get this chapter done and I want to apologize. With this chapter being such a turning point for them I didn't want to rush it. I hope you'll understand it better while reading it.

I'm trying to find a healthy balance between my personal life and my work hours, but it's a lot more complicated than I thought it would be. I have to say I'm admiring fanfiction writers more and more each passing day. It's not easy.

Anyway, thank you, as always, for all the fantastic reviews. You all have no idea how much it means to me that this story is touching people in some way.

Disclaimer: I don't own The Walking Dead nor anything related to it. I just like to pretend Beth is still very much alive and play with that.

It wasn't the first time Beth found herself sitting in a car in silence with Merle and Daryl. In fact, the situations were so similar she almost felt like it was deja vú. However, not everything was the same, starting with the pungent smell of blood that permeated the air.

They were all bleeding, but Daryl's pants were getting soaked at an alarming rate. Why wasn't he saying anything?

"Daryl, your leg!" She said, alarmed.

"I know," He answered, not even blinking.

"You know?" Beth repeated, incredulous. "We need to stop right now. You can't lose all that blood."

Merle immediately swerved the car to the left and stopped.

"It's not a big deal, ok?" Daryl tried to downplay it. "It's the bullet wound. It hasn't healed yet, obviously."

"Take off your pants," Merle demanded without hesitation, stepping out of the front seat and opening the car's door on Daryl's side.

For a moment it looked like Daryl was going to object. And, to be quite honest, Beth expected him to do so. Following without questioning — or following at all — wasn't Daryl's style. But, surprisingly, he just took off his belt and lowered his pants.

Now, if there weren't so much blood on his leg, if she weren't so tired, if her mind weren't going on overdrive and if Merle didn't look so concerned, maybe Beth would've stopped to notice that Daryl was in his underwear right in front of her. As it was, the only thing she noticed was that his whole leg was a big mess of blood and dirt.

"This cloth needs to come off," Beth said, already moving to take the fabric covering the wound off.

However, Daryl clearly wasn't going to make this easy for her. He just slapped her hand away and moved to do it himself. It didn't bother Beth; she had other matters to attend.

"We need water to clean it. He can't stay with a dirty cut," Beth explained to Merle, even though he was probably thinking the same.

She was proved right when he nodded his head even before she finished speaking.

"I'm..." He struggled to find the appropriated word. "Concerned about leaving you two alone."

"Just fucking go, I won't let her die," Daryl dismissed his concern rapidly.

Beth didn't believe that, not even a little bit. Daryl was more likely to kill her when Merle left than to protect her should the need arise. But she didn't say anything. She deserved whatever happened to her, and she was painfully aware of it.

Merle looked straight at Daryl for a long moment before leaving without another word. Beth had almost forgotten how much they communicated with each other wordlessly.

Daryl immediately pushed his pants up again and proceeded to ignore her as best as he could.

Rationally, Beth knew he was in pain. She knew that he need rest and that she was the last person on earth he wanted to be stuck in a car with. However, none of those things made the silence any easier to bear.

The Dixon's silences were a different kind; she had found out on their first days together. They weren't a pleasant or comfortable kind of silence. No, the brother's always looked ready to snap and run, and their silences reflected that. It was an uncomfortable thing to experience, to say the least.

Regardless, it was better than anything she had lived in the past two weeks, so Beth closed her eyes and tried to pretend she wasn't feeling terrible and exhausted.

Maybe, if she tried hard enough, she could pretend that they had never left the cabin and all of this had been a dream.

Foolish little Beth.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Merle was taking so long Beth got out of the car to stretch her legs a little. What if he had run into trouble already? Their record wasn't the best.

"Why the roof?" Beth said, suddenly. "It would've been a lot easier to go out the back door."

The question was driving her crazy; there was no reason for Daryl to have done things the way he did.

"We were going to be on the top floor anyway," He answered, confused. Apparently unfazed by her interruption of his silence. "Why would we go back?"

Going to be? Why would he plan to go to the top floor?

"But why did you go up? That's what I don't understand," Beth said. "You could've grabbed Merle and left."

Realization flashed across Daryl's face.

"You thought I would leave you behind?" He asked, frowning his brow.

"Yes!" She half screamed. "Of course I did. Why wouldn't you? I killed you. I. Killed. You."

Beth was absolutely sure the desperation she felt was showing on her face, there was just no way to hide it. She didn't want to be alone — even the thought of having to survive each day without nobody else was enough to leave her in a state of panic. But she couldn't hold the questions screaming inside her in anymore.

"No, you didn't," He pointed out very calmly. "I'm right here, aren't I?"

"I don't know, are you?" Beth returned the question. "Maybe I'm hallucinating. Maybe I've gone crazy. There's no reason for you to be here, especially being this calm. You should hate me," She stated, before lowering her head and adding. "You should have left me there."

She didn't point out that she was the one that went after them, that she forced her presence on them. If the brothers had a problem with her being there, they would've killed her already. Beth thought they would, actually. Why hadn't they?

"So I should've saved Merle and left you there to die?" Daryl finally sounded angry; Beth noticed a little confused. Maybe it was coming back to him slowly?

"Yes, of course!" She responded, unreasonably. "Merle is hurt because of me. How can you ignore it?" She continued without giving him a chance to answer. "Isn't he your brother? Don't you love him? How could you save the girl responsible for his pain?"

"I didn't say I wasn't angry," Daryl backed padded.

He threw his crossbow across his back and walked forward until they were face to face. They were close, too close.

"Trust me, kid, I'm very fucking mad," He stated, his eyes sparkling with hidden anger.

Everything about Daryl was controlled, even if his words weren't.

"Then do something!" Beth screamed, completely unstable. "Don't just stand there looking so calm and unconcerned. I almost got you killed; I believed I had until today. Merle was tortured every day, Daryl! Do you want to know how I know that? Because I heard him screaming! He fucking screamed. Are you hearing me?"

She needed him to do something, anything. Beth felt so guilty that she could barely breathe and, the worst of all was that she deserved it. She hated herself and needed Daryl to hate her too. He should scream at her, curse her very name, hit her... Anything would be better than this serene acceptance.

"I wasn't there, Beth!" He finally screamed too, snapping like a string that had been pulled too hard. "It took me a week to find you both. A whole damn week! Do you know how long a week feels like when you think a person you love is dead?"

"Yes, I do," She answered, honestly. Obviously, she did. How could she not? Beth accepted that her family was probably dead, or worse. She believed Daryl had been dead.

"When I saw you both alive," He continued, ignoring her answer. "I felt so relieved I could barely think of anything else."

Daryl was showing more emotion than she had ever seen him show before. And, like everything about the brothers, it was intense and powerful.

"I was alive, and so were my brother and you," He added. "At that moment I couldn't have asked for anything else."

"Every bruise you have, every wound... They are all my fault, Daryl," She admitted, looking at her very scraped and bruised hands. "I hate myself for that. But I hate myself even more because I'm terrified that you'll leave and I'll be alone."

Confessing that was leaving her raw in a way that she had never felt before. Jonathan's words, punches, and touches couldn't hope to make her feel this exposed, no matter how much they hurt. This was indefinitely deeper — she was barring her very soul to Daryl.

"I ran after you both like a dog because I couldn't stand letting you go without me, even if I don't deserve it," Beth completed, painfully aware of how much she had humiliated herself. It didn't matter, though. If she had learned something being stuck in that room was that she was willing to give up on any pride she had just to be with them.

"Merle promised to teach you," Daryl explained it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Not a single trace of his previous anger to be seen. "You're one of us now, kid, and we take care of our own."

He then messed her hair with the confidence of someone who had done it before many times, with an ease that came with time. Only he hadn't...

Daryl's words and touch felt like a punch to her face, maybe worse. Every emotion she felt in the past two weeks came rushing through her mind and, suddenly, the weight was too great.

Beth started to cry in the same second Daryl stepped forward and hugged her. She began hitting his chest, struggling against his hold very unconvincingly.

"Let me go, let me go, let me go..." She whispered like a mantra. "Please."

Daryl's answer was to hold her tighter until she finally stopped struggling. He held her while she clung to him desperately and never complained.

If Merle took a little too long to come back with the water, then no one noticed. And, if his eyes were also a little swollen, no one mentioned it.

AN2: Daryl being tender and understanding! Enjoy it while it last, that's all I have to say about it.

Please review and let me know what you all thought of the chapter.