"Let them think what they liked, but I didn't mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I sank –

but that's not the same thing."

- Joseph Conrad, The Secret Sharer and Other Stories

A few days had passed, I wasn't sure how many but around a week. I just knew that because Randall had gotten better, Rick and Shane were getting everything ready to leave the boy several miles away from us.

My mother still hadn't talked to me, not even once asked me how I was or much less telling me she was glad she didn't lose us both. I didn't want to talk to her either. There were times I felt sad and alone because of her and other times I remembered when she told Daryl she didn't know if we were going to find Sophia, making me really upset all over again.

There were times I felt like this was her fault for not taking care of us, for not running after us and there are other times when I blamed myself and there were times when I blamed everyone but that didn't happen that often, it was mostly just myself or my mum that I blamed.

I was filled with rage towards my mother, the group, destiny, science, everything, especially the walker that did this to my sister. I just wish I could find it so I could kill it with my own hands. I wanted to make sure someone paid for it but that wouldn't be possible.

I was also filled with grief. I hadn't been the same all these days. I hadn't gone out of the house, I hadn't talked much and I had barely eaten. Actually, I had stayed with Beth all this time.

I had fallen asleep on the bathroom that day when everything cascaded into me, Maggie found me about two hours later. She had to unlock the door and get me. She took me to Beth's room, where Hershel was. He hydrated me and gave me something to relax my muscles.

Beth didn't let me leave her room and after two days I enjoyed being with Beth, I didn't want to leave. Not even to find Daryl. He had come to see me every day, trying to get me to go for a walk or get me to tell him something but I don't say much to him or anyone else.

It was like a switch was turned off inside of me. I felt like all kind of joy had been ripped out from me and the emptiness that it left, was filled with grief, sorrow, helplessness and lack of will to keep on.

It was like something similar to what happened to Beth just after what happened in the barn, except it took a bit longer to hit me.

People were trying to get us separated. They said we needed to cheer each other but we were so depressed that we weren't doing that, we were doing the opposite, bringing each other down even more or that's what they thought.

I was just coming back from the bathroom when I saw Lori walking into the room. She had brought us some food about an hour ago, I ate two slides of tomato and two of cucumber while Beth ate nothing at all.

"Couldn't eat a thing, huh?" Lori said, looking at the untouched food. "You're gonna – Hey!" she stopped mid-sentence when she heard Beth sobbing.

Lori knelt next to the bed, Beth had sat up. I just stood there, watching Lori trying to comfort Beth. She comforted me earlier when she brought the food, being a mother helped her being good at this kind of things. She knew what things to say, what to do.
"I know how hard it is. I tried for days to reach my mum, and get her on the phone, I can only assume..."

"It's just so pointless," Beth interrupted Lori, she sounded so angry.
"You have Maggie, and your father," Lori told her. "Patricia and Jimmy and now you have Cecilia and you've gotta stay strong for them. I wish I could promise you it would be all right in the end. I wish I could promise you both that but I can't, but we can make now all right and we have to."
"Thank you," Beth said to Lori, turning to look at her for the first time.
"I'll be right back, we'll go take that walk," Lori said to Beth as she stood up and ran her hand on her head. "I'll call Andrea or Glenn to go with you, Cici."

Lori took the tray with food and left the room. I walked back to the bed and got under the covers once again, I noticed Beth doing the same, she was lying on her left side and I was lying on my right, so we were facing each other.

For some reason the idea of a walk didn't sound so appealing to me, Andrea was nice but that would be awkward and Glenn... Glenn had been trying to get me to get into my senses again. He even shook me forcefully once, which ended in Glenn being pinned to a wall by an angry Daryl right after I started to cry.

"Beth!" Lori came into the wood, looking really startled. She was looking for something but I had no idea what. "You give it to me, sweetheart. You don't want to do this."

What was she talking about?

Beth said nothing, she just pulled the covers down, grabbed a knife and handed it to Lori without looking at her. I stared at her in shock, how could I not notice it?

"Beth?" I whispered to her. As I sat up slightly She said nothing, she didn't even look at me.

Soon after that Lori ran out of the room with the knife in her hand. I just let my head fall back into the pillow as I took a deep breath. I wanted to say something to Beth but I didn't know what or how. I wanted to be the voice of wisdom but also her friend. I didn't want to say the wrong thing.

"We should both do it," Beth said to me. I turned to look at her, my eyes widening at her words.

"Beth, don't talk like that."

"We could go so peacefully. I don't want to be gutted, I don't want to be eaten alive. I don't want to turn and become a monster. This is what we should do," she told me and the confidence she was radiating scared me. "There is no cure, Cici. We are waiting for something that will never happen. My dad believed my mum and my brother will get cured and we will all be a family again but he was wrong, there is no hope left."

"I know this is hard, Beth, but..."

"Now you either die your way or you get killed. I think I prefer to choose. I'm ready to die and I think we should go together. Think about it, no more suffering, no more fear, no more pain, no more losses. I'll go with my mum and my brother and you will see your sister again, isn't that what you want?"

"Yeah," I said, starting to cry.

"There's only death and suffering out there. It will only be a matter of time until the farm is overrun or we die out of something else. I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel, Cici, do you?"

I shook my head at her as I thought about all the things that had happened lately. "No," I muttered. "My mother doesn't even talk to me, she blames me for what happened to Sophia and my friends can't even look at me."

"See? It's better to just go, I've decided it. I want to do it tonight. I want to peacefully die in my bed. I just want the pain to end."

Somehow I started to think that Beth was making sense. I was trying to convinced her out of it, instead she convinced me.

I thought about the CDC. When we were there and we were just about to die I wanted so bad to escape the place and live. I was desperate to find a way out of that deathly trap. I had the willing to live.

I tried to remember to what I held on to, tried to remember what were my reasons to live. But I couldn't find anything good enough that made think that Beth was wrong about this. Jenner himself, a scientist, said it clearly.

"There is no hope, there never was."

And if I had hope back then it was long gone for sure now.

"We'll do it," I said nodding.

"This is the right cho..."

In that moment Lori came back, she looked a little bit pale and her face showed the distress she was feeling. Behind her I saw Sean, who looked quite uncomfortable with the situation. Great, now probably everyone will know.

"Cici, Sean will take you to another room."

"What?" We both exclaimed at the same time.

"You can't do this. You can't keep us apart!" I shouted.

Sean then approached me and held by my waist lifting me up, I could hear Beth screaming as well but Lori stopped her from helping me get free from Sean's grip. He took me to the guests' room, which was a bit far from Beth's.

"You can't do this to me Sean!" I said, saying the longest sentence I'd said to anyone except Beth in the last few days.

"Lori told me what happened, I can't let you be with that girl anymore!" Sean exclaimed to me. "When I met you, you were funny, you were happy, brave, maybe a bit reckless as well. What happened to you?"

"Haven't you seen the world now, Sean? It's shit! Reality happened to me. I realized I was chasing a dream."

It didn't take long for Maggie to go talk to Beth while Glenn came to talk to me and Sean walked out of the room but he stayed outside, like keeping guard. When Lori found Beth had the knife I was totally against what Beth had in mind and still people were thinking we were two psychopaths that planned to end our lives.

Well, we technically just did that a few minutes ago but I hated how people were treating me like if I was crazy.

I couldn't take the looks Glenn was giving me, those were worse than the words I was trying hard to ignore. I had never seen him so angry at me, he was normally a calmed, passive guy.

"What is going through your head?" Glenn yelled at me, running his hand through his black hair, as he paced from one side of the room to the other.

"I just want it to be over!" I exclaimed, tears threatening to fall down my face.

"I know it's hard, okay? But you can't give up!"

Suddenly the door flew open and none other than Daryl himself stormed inside, I took a deep breath preparing myself to what was coming now. Glenn closed the door and leaned against it, I thought he was going to leave but he stayed. Daryl walked to me and stopped right in front of me, I didn't dare to look up at him.

"Please tell me that what I heard isn't true," he said in an almost calmed tone. I said nothing or did nothing besides sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Tell me you weren't thinking about 'opting out'," he said the last part in almost a mocking way, doing air quotes in the process, but I didn't see that, I kept my gaze on everywhere except him.

"And what if I were?" I said, trying to sound determined and brave.

"Why are you so stupid?" he yelled.

"I'm not stupid!"

"Yes, you are! You are stupid, selfish, you are immature and you are a coward!" he spat, each word felt like a stab in my heart. "You are pathetic, Cecilia."

"If you think that of me then why don't you just leave me alone?" I stood up but still didn't dare to look him in the eye. "It's not like you care about me, anyway! Don't you understand this is what I want? I..."

"Selfish!" he exclaimed. "This is not just about you, don't you understand that?"

"Why am I being selfish?" I shouted. "My mother blames me for Sophia's death, she can't even see me in the eye! I haven't seen my friends in days, it's like they don't care about me anymore! I would just do them all a favour."

"And what about me?" he said so softly it hurt me more than if he had yelled.

"What about you?"

"I almost died trying to find you, Cecilia. I spent days and some nights in those woods!" he said, with each word his tone got louder. "I took a fucking arrow and a bullet in the process! Do my sacrifice and effort mean nothing to you? All I did and went through was worth it because I did find you for fuck's sake! Are you just going to throw that away by killing yourself? Didn't it even cross your mind how I would fucking feel?"

I stared at him in complete silence, my lips were slightly parted in shock. I did think of Daryl, but I assumed he would be sad for a short time and then move on, I wasn't that important to him, was I? Our friendship just started a few days ago, I couldn't mean that much to him, right?

"Beth said the pain would end!" I said desperately. "And she's right! She said we will die anyway, and I don't want to be bit and become one of those things! I don't want to become a monster, Daryl. She..."

"So, this was her?" he interrupted me, his voice was filled with venom. He then walked away from me and started to pace in front of me as he ran one of his hand through his hair, that had grown up a bit in the last few weeks. He was doing pretty much the same thing Glenn did, speaking of Glenn, he was just watching us in complete silence.

"I tried to talk her out of it today but I heard what she had to say and she's making sense! I thought about it and I want this pain to end!"

Daryl then stopped in his tracks, taking a deep breath. He turned around quickly and approached me so fast I thought he was going to run me over so I stumbled back but Daryl caught me by my shoulders.

"Cici, I know this is hard. I know what you are feeling, alright? You are vulnerable! She offered you the easy way out and it sounds tempting, I know, but that's not the answer! If none of this would have happened you wouldn't think like that!" I just started to cry, now that we were this close I could see the pain in his blue eyes, which was what finally made me break down. "Remember when we were at the CDC? You fought to get out of there, you wanted to live! And I'm sure you do now! You are just confused! You said so yourself! You tried to talk her out of it but she confused you! You don't want to do this, Cecilia!" he said, slightly shaking me as to get some sense into my head.

"The pain is too much," I cried.

"I know, okay? I know, but it will get better, I promise," Daryl said, embracing me, "I'll help you, you are not alone. You have me!"

"Really? I asked in a small, trembling voice.

"Of course."

Now Daryl had one hand running up and down my back and the other was on the back of my head. I removed my hands that were pressed against his chest and wrapped them around him. I hugged him tightly, gripping his shirt, like if someone was pulling me away from him and I was like holding on to him for dear life and in some way I was. I broke down again.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," I muttered against his chest.

"It's okay, shh, it's okay."

I had no idea how much time we stayed like that. I didn't know how long I cried but by the time I calmed down I had no more tears and Daryl's shirt was wet. He helped me to sit on the bed while he knelt in front of me and looked into my now bloodshot and puffy eyes.

"Don't do anything stupid, okay? I just need to get something done and I'll be back, alright?" he told me. I nodded. "Glenn will stay with you."

He stood up and gave me a kiss on the forehead, I was too overwhelmed by everything that was happening that I didn't even react to his unexpected action. He approached Glenn and whispered something to him and then he left. Glenn just raised one of his eyebrows at me.

"What?"

"Nothing," he said in a too innocent way. "I was just wondering if that was actually Daryl or his excessively nice twin brother."
"Oh, shut up!" I exclaimed. "Do you realize you are like my babysitter?"

"No, I'm just your friend," he said smiling at me as he sat next to me on the bed. "I would have stayed even if Daryl hadn't said anything, the one that is babysitting is Sean, I think he's still out of the room."

"Why? Do you think I'll go with Beth, grab the first thing I find and end this?"

"Probably yes." He nodded. "I know you braver than this, I know you wouldn't have done it, maybe get close to do it, but back away just in time."

"What if I had done it? What if I couldn't reverse it?"

"Let's just stop talking about this, okay? Uh, can you do me a favour and start eating again? You have no idea how sick and bad you look, it's scary."

All my life I was an average thin person, never had problems with weight but once I moved to New York I would only eat fast food and frozen food because I didn't have time to cook or the money to buy good food and I ended up gaining about twenty-five pounds. I got into self-defence and Taekwondo classes and I managed to lose about ten pounds, give or take a few pounds.

And now that I hadn't eaten so well since we got to camp and the fact that I didn't eat for four days when I was missing and now that I had barely eaten in the last week or so, I had lost about fifteen pounds, maybe even more.

I could feel it. I felt extremely weak, exhausted, my trousers were so loose on me now, and whenever I looked in the mirror, I just looked really sick. I was so pale and my eyes seemed lifeless. It scared the shit out of me, but what could I do? I probably felt as bad as I looked.

Little did I know that the reason why Daryl left was to talk to my mother, to make her get back into her senses and come around because I needed her. Daryl blamed her for the state I was in and told her hat if she didn't react soon she was going to lose both her daughters.

Rick and Shane had just come back but not alone. They had Randall in the trunk of the car. Both, Rick and Shane looked a bit beaten up, they didn't want to tell but they got into a fight.

Shane was getting more unstable every day. He was becoming dangerous and unpredictable. Dale, Andrea, Lori, and who knows who else believed he had killed Otis to save himself.

I wasn't even around when all that happened so I had no idea what really happened. I can't even give my opinion on that but I had noticed some changes in Shane, even when I had barely seen him lately.

About thirty minutes after Daryl left, Glenn left too. I was lying on the bed, almost falling asleep. Sean was there to 'babysit' me, though.

Glenn came back a few minutes later holding a tray. He couldn't cook very well so he just heated food from lunch. I smiled and thanked him as I sat up.

Glenn and Sean sat at the end of the bed and they started to tell me what had been going on lately. Told me more about this guy Randall, they also told me Carl had been asking for me, wanting the revenge on chess I promised him. They also told me Lori was pregnant.

"What?" I asked in shock. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah, I got her abortive pills but apparently she has decided to keep it," Glenn told me.

"That's a bit crazy, isn't it?" I said. "And very risky."

"Well, if things stay like they are, we can be okay," Sean told me.

I decided not to say anything else about it. It wasn't my baby, it wasn't my choice, and it wasn't my problem. If she wanted to keep it, then that was on her.

I ate most of what was in the plate Glenn brought me and when I was over I was so full. My body wasn't used to so much food even when it was less than a normal serving size.

"I'm relieved you ate," Glenn told me with a smile.

"I was a bit hungry." I chuckled. "Thank you!"

"No problem," Glenn said, then his smile dropped. "I, uh, I need to tell you something."

"What is it?" I asked, starting to get nervous.

"When I went to get you food, I heard something. I didn't want to tell you until you had eaten."

"You are scaring me, Glenn," I told him. "What happened?"

"Beth," he said and I felt how my heart skipped a bit, in a bad way. "She, uh, she tried to kill herself. She cut her wrist but it wasn't that deep. Hershel is stitching her right now. She'll be fine."

"Okay," I nodded and stood up quickly, so quickly I got dizzy at first but that didn't stop me to run to the door.

"Woah! Where do you think you are going?" Glenn asked me as he and Sean got in between the door and me, Sean actually grabbed me by my forearm.

"Where do you think? To see Beth!" I exclaimed like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"We, uh, we can't really allow you to see her," Sean said awkwardly.

"Why not?"

"Daryl ordered us to not let you out and … it's not only him!" he added when he saw my expression. "Lots of people don't like that you spend so much time together, especially with the idea you two came with."

"People think it would better if the two of you spend some time... separated," Glenn told me, choosing his words carefully. "Don't take it bad, please. But the two of you are... uh, unstable, sad, and that is not healthy for neither of you. Let Beth spend some time with her family while you stay with us. We miss you, you know? We were supposed to be like best friends, what happened? You told me everything and I told you everything! I miss having you around."

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

"I promise I'll let you know how Beth is," Sean told me. "But for the good of both, none of you can visit the other just for now."

"You know how ridiculous that is?"

"I don't think so," Glenn told me. "Now, we are going to out, maybe take a walk and you are going to spend the rest of the day listening to me talking about Maggie like if I were a high school girl because I have this need to tell you because we are best friends and then you are going to tell me about Daryl."

"Uh, Glenn, there's nothing to talk about Dar..."

"Bullshit!" he exclaimed. "Now let's go!"

Glenn grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the house. Sean went back to camp with Oliver and Teresa. Glenn and I walked around the creek, which was close to where the cows where and Glenn started to tell me everything about him and Maggie.

I knew there must be something between them but I had no idea Glenn and her had been through so much while I was missing and while I was going mental, I couldn't believe I had missed so much but I was glad Glenn felt comfortable enough to tell me everything, and by everything I mean absolutely everything, even details I didn't need to know.

Hello guys, I decided to give you a present today and update, so, Merry Christmas :D What are your plans for today? What presents have you gotten so far? :)

This chapter really broke my heart, poor Daryl! :( What do you guys think of this chapter? Hope you like it.

What do you guys think happens in the next chapter?