"Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real."

- Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

Cecilia's POV

I waited until I saw Glenn finally walking out of the church, people were still getting ready, only Daryl and my mother had already left, it was a small group and Daryl didn't have much to grab to get ready so they left quickly.

I stood up and approached Glenn after he finished talking to Rick. I stood in front of him, making him stop. He raised his eyebrow at me but didn't say anything to me, he just waited for me to speak.

"I'm going with you," I told him with a smile.

"Are you?" he asked surprised. "Alright but I thought you were going with Daryl and Carol."

"They already left."

"Okay then," Glenn said, finally smiling back at me.

Glenn and I walked out of the church together to meet with Maggie and Tara, who were waiting for Glenn to finish talking to Rick. Maggie raised her eyebrows when she saw me with Glenn and that I actually intended to go with them on this run.
"Are you coming with us?" Tara asked before Maggie could.

"Yes, I am," I said smiling at her.

Both girls smiled at me as Glenn told us to start going. Maggie and him were on the lead while Tara and I were a couple of steps behind them. I saw how Maggie grabbed Glenn's hand and I felt a pang on my heart, wishing I could do that with Daryl.

I wasn't completely sure why I decided not to go with him and my mother, I just wanted to stay away from them both for a while. I knew Daryl would have tried to talk about our issues and that look on his eyes, I can't just look at him right now, and I know my mother suspects something is going on, she had been giving me those looks when she wants me to spill what's wrong, and I'm not ready to tell her anything.

I was actually surprised my mother and Daryl were alone, before that would have been impossible. They would have killed each other.

About ten minutes later of walking through the woods we finally got to civilization, so to speak. There were some shops and some houses around, it was nice to not be in the middle of the woods anymore. I smiled, knowing tonight we might not sleep on the hard cold ground.

"Is it hard?" Tara asked me, making me turn to look at her, she just pointed at the crossbow.

"Not anymore. It took me a few days to get the hang of it and some more weeks to be accurate," I told her. "Daryl taught me around a year ago."

"He seems nice... sometimes," she told me. "Is he your boyfriend?"

"Uh, my fiancé actually," I said with a sad smile.

"Oh, is that why you wear that ring?" Tara asked me, looking down at my hand. "I thought it didn't mean anything."

"Yeah, he asked me about two or three months ago."

"You are lucky then," she told me. "During all this time I only had a partner, it didn't last longer than a few weeks."

"What happened? You broke apart or was he bit or something else?" I asked, not being sure if I should be asking or not.

"She died," Tara simply said, shocking me a bit.

"She?" I asked very surprised.

"Yeah," Tara asked, looking a bit shy. "I'm into girls."

"Oh. So, what happened?"

"She was killed at the prison," she told me as she got really uncomfortable. "I don't blame the person who killed her, I saw it all. She was just defending herself."

"Is she alive? Is she in our group?"

"Yeah."

"That must be hard," I told her. "Living with the person who killed your girlfriend."
"I understand, besides, you all accepted me. It's pretty much the same thing"

After that Tara accelerated her pace, obviously not wanting to talk more about it. I sighed. If someone even tries to kill Daryl, in self-defence or not, I would just lose it and kill that son of a bitch, no excuses, no nothing.

We stopped on one of the stores that didn't have the door open. I knocked and after a few moments of waiting, I realized there were no walkers inside. Maggie opened the door and then I went in with my crossbow raised. Even if it seemed empty, it could still be dangerous, walkers could be in here, trapped, or people could be hiding.

Glenn and I checked the place while Maggie and Tara waited outside. All I found was two used bullets and a dead rat.

The four of us continued looking inside places and it seemed like today wasn't our day, we hadn't found anything useful or edible so far and I was starting to believe we were not going to find something.

We reached a gun store there and it really looked like our luck wasn't going to change here, this probably was the place that was emptied first, probably at the very start. Glenn told the three of us to wait outside, we finally agreed.

"You know, I didn't want to mention anything when we looked this place up in the phone book, but I just can't imagine a gun store having leftovers nowadays," Tara said after some minutes of waiting for Glenn.

"Don't look good, does it?" Maggie muttered.

"I think we are just wasting out time," I told them.

Then we heard the sound of many things falling to the ground, Maggie, Tara and I ran to the entrance, they with her guns in their hands while I had my crossbow. Glenn walked out of the place only moments later. He looked a bit startled.

"Was it a walker?" Tara asked him.

"Uh, yeah," he mumbled. "It was a walker."
"Really?" I asked as I lowered my crossbow.

"It was a stack of boxes and a mop and I tripped," Glenn admitted, I burst out laughing, soon joined by Tara and Maggie. "Still got what we came for."
"You actually found something?" I asked surprised as Glenn took some things out of his back pocket and handed them to Tara.

"Three silencers stashed in a mini-fridge," he said and then he started to walk, I took some steps soon after him. "Rule number one of scavenging... there's nothing left in this world that isn't hidden."
We walked to the next store and as expected we found nothing, Maggie and Glenn went to another store in front of the one Tara and I went to. Tara looked in every drawer in the left side of the store while I looked in the right side but found nothing. When we walked out, Maggie and Glenn were already waiting for us.

"Nothing?" Maggie asked.

"Nothing," I said, disappointed. "You?"

"Just dust," she told me.

"I hope the others have better luck than us," I said as I started walking.

"Let's search just this block, if we find something or not, I think it's time to come back," Glenn told us.

Glenn and I went inside all the stores on the left side of the street while Maggie and Tara looked all the stores on the right so we could finish quicker.

"So, why did you come with me, with us?" Glenn asked me after we had searched half of the stores.

"What? Don't you miss our runs together?" I said with a smile. "I didn't see you for weeks, wanted to spend some time with you."

"From what I heard," Glenn said as he stopped searching and turned to look at me. "You didn't see Daryl either for almost the same time. What is going on?"

"Nothing," I said quickly. How could I tell him that his sister-in-law kissed my fiancé? I didn't think they needed to know that or anything else. "Seriously Glenn, I missed you."

"You are my friend, we always were, right?" I nodded. "You can trust me."

"I know, but it's nothing. I'm fine."

"Whenever you say you are fine, you really aren't," Glenn told me, I bit my lip and looked down at the ground.

"Well, our home was bombed, lots of people that were our friends died. We almost became some crazy people's dinner," I exclaimed loudly. "I think I'm fine compared to what has been happening these last weeks, plus I kind of bumped into my ex-boyfriend and had to kill him."

"What?" Glenn exclaimed in shock.

"It's nothing," I repeated, I wasn't sure how that just slipped. Glenn didn't knew about Peter, about me going to jail and I seriously didn't want to tell him, only Daryl knew, and my mother of course. "He was part of the group that was following Rick and me, we killed them all."

"Does Daryl know?"

"Yeah, I told him. But seriously, I'm over that. He got what he deserved." I sighed. "Look, I know I haven't been myself lately, I know everything has been so hard but I'm fine. I appreciate that you care and worry about me but there is no need, I'll be okay."

"So, you are not okay now," he told me quickly.

"Let's just keep looking, we don't want to lose more time here."

"I'm not letting this go so easily, Cici," he said. "I'm your friend."

"I know."

Glenn didn't bring it up again but I knew he wasn't going to drop it, like he said. About an hour later we were all done, all we found was the three silencers, a small bag of chips, which we ate on our way back, and two knives, that was it.

As we walked back, actually joking and having a good time, despite finding next to nothing, I ended up in the back with Tara once again. We hadn't talked since the start of this run.

"About how I acted before, I'm sorry," she told me out of nowhere. "I didn't care much about Alisha, I mean, I only met her for a few weeks, it wasn't serious or anything."

"Okay," I said, not knowing what else to say. "If you didn't care much about her, why did you get so... so evasive?"

"I don't like speaking of that day, I still feel guilty plus if we kept talking I would have eventually said something you didn't need to know but a part of me feels like you should know but please don't feel bad about it, I completely understand."

"What are you talking about?" I asked confused. "What do I need to know?"

"That day, a girl attacked you, right?" I nodded, still not making the connection. "That was Alisha, my girlfriend. I know it wasn't your fault and I don't blame you."

I stared at her in disbelief. I even gaped at her. I lowered my gaze, not being able to look into her dark eyes any longer, not after this.

"I'm so s..."

"Don't, you aren't supposed to feel sorry. She went after you, you had to do it."

"I don't care. I feel bad for every person I've killed, believe it or not."

"You've killed more people?" she asked me.

"A few, yeah."

"Sorry, I shouldn't have asked that. All I wanted to tell you is that I'm good with you, I don't have any bad feeling towards you, I don't blame you."

I nodded at her, still, this situation was very awkward. She smiled a bit before following Maggie and Glenn again, who had noticed we stopped but gave us space to talk. I sighed and went after them too, but what Tara told me still was going around in circles in my head.

Then, I stopped dead in my tracks once we had reached the woods and were only about eight minutes away from the church.

I got flashbacks of that day, of that specific fight with that girl. I remembered pretty much everything, every punch, every attempt to kill the other, how I ended up killing her but what made me stop was remembering when she hit me in the stomach with her big rifle, I remembered I struggled to breathe after that and the huge bruise she made on my side and front part of my torso but I also remembered going peeing that night and seeing I had blood in my underwear.

I was dying to ask Tara if she knew the girl that I had fought that day but I knew it was a sensible topic for her so I never got the courage to ask her but now I know. The girl that most likely killed my baby was named Alisha, and she was Tara's girlfriend.

Daryl's POV

"You okay?" I asked Carol as we walked down the road, after we got the water.

"Gotta be," she simply told me.
"We get to start over," I told her. "All of us with each other. You saved us all by yourself."
"We got lucky. We all should be dead." As we walked we saw an abandoned car ahead of us. "I'll check it."
"All right." I was still shocked at her words, how could she think we should be dead?
Carol got inside the car and tried to start the engine but the battery was dead, it just wouldn't start. She got out and checked the trunk.

"Hey, we ain't dead," I told her. "And whatever happened, happened. Let's start over."
"I want to."
"Well, you can," I said, she was trying a back-up battery that was in the trunk. "You have Cecilia back now, she's not upset at you. None of us is."
"We should leave this here for backup in case things go south at the church," she said, changing the subject.
"I know you don't want to talk about it but just let it go. You saved us, you saved your daughter, that's all that matters."

Carol said nothing to me, she just grabbed the two containers with water and started to walk. I sighed. Now I know where Cecilia got her stubbornness from.

"About last night," I said quickly, making her stop in her tracks. "When you asked me if there was something you should know, well, there is. Actually there are a lot of things you should know."

"Yeah?" Carol asked, she still wasn't facing me.

"Many things happened."

"Is that why Cecilia is like this now, so distant?" Carol asked me as she finally turned around and looked at me. I nodded at her. "Well, what happened?"

"If she hasn't told you," I exclaimed as I walked towards her. "It's because she doesn't want you to know, she might get upset at me for telling you but I think you should know, you deserve to know."
"Okay, I'm ready, just shoot."

I sighed. "This is going to be really hard. After you were exiled, you came back to tell us that you had run into Sean and that you thought something was weird about him, right?" She nodded. "Rick didn't tell you that Cecilia had been missing for days, just as Sean."

"What?" she almost shouted. "Why? What happened?"

"Carol, right after you left with Rick that day, Sean and Cecilia went out, she thought Rick ordered them to check the snares but it was a trap. Sean kidnapped her."

"And I just find out about this now!?" Carol shouted. "What did he do? Why?"

"I told you last night, Cecilia... broke. It was because of that. Sean was in love with Cecilia, since the very start, he wanted her all for himself, he wanted to kill me and Rick."

"What happened while she was with him? How long did this happen? Daryl, please tell me, what did he do?"

"She had a lot of bruises, a lot of wounds. The ropes caused most of the wounds plus he hit her a couple of times. Based on what she told me, he almost raped her but he didn't. She was a mess for weeks, but I didn't let her slip, I did what you told me. I saw she was slowly losing herself and I brought her back," I told her, trying to calm her down, she was at the verge of tears. " She was gone for around a week, I can't really remember how long exactly. I tried everything to find her but if you hadn't told us about Sean, we probably wouldn't have found her on time."

"Was she with him when I found him?"

"Yes, Cecilia told me she was in a bathtub when you got in the house, she heard your voice."

"Oh my God!" Carol exclaimed as she covered her mouth with her hand as she slowly got down to her knees. She was sobbing.

"This wasn't your fault," I assured her. "You told us where you saw him, we were going there when we kind of bumped into them. She got the virus, Carol. She was sick, she almost died."

I knelt in front of Carol who was crying harder now, her head was hung low as she tried to hid her face from me. I took a deep breath as I told Carol the whole story, everything. Since she disappeared until we found her and she got better, she made some questions and I answered them all.

Carol felt guilty for not walking inside the house, for not sensing something more was going on, but I told her she wasn't to blame here. I told her that maybe if she had done that, Sean would have killed her and then we wouldn't have known where Sean was.

I suspected that was one reason why Cecilia hadn't told her mother about that, because she would feel guilty about not knowing she was in there and because she hated talking about it, she just wanted to leave all that shit behind her and I don't blame her, it was awful. I still get furious with myself when I think about it.

"Is she like this because of that?" Carol asked me when she finally looked up at me. "Can't be, something else happened right?"

"I think it still affects her, it still haunts her, like sometimes when people touch her she gets very tense and steps away from them but you are right something else happened."

"I thought so, if she was like this since then, you wouldn't be engaged now. She would be too broken to even consider getting married. What else happened?"

"Lots of things," I admitted. "You know Peter, her ex-boyfriend or something?"

"Yeah, but they dated a very long time, I don't even think that guy is still alive, he was an idiot," Carol told me. "Why you ask me?"

"He's not alive anymore. Cecilia killed him."

"You are joking right?"

"I wish. I wasn't there but Rick and Cecilia killed two guys from a group and they tracked them and ambushed them one night, I was with them and Peter was part of that. I know it was hard for her to kill someone she once knew but she just keeps repeating she should have done that the first time."

"You know what happened between them?" I nodded.

"She told me a while ago."

"She stood up for herself, she did what I couldn't. I tried to get her the best lawyer I could find and pay for everything but she still went to jail, all for that jerk."

This time it was Carol who talked, she told me about those times when things were really bad at home. Told me when Cecilia decided to move to New York, told me she didn't know she was going with Peter, otherwise she wouldn't have allowed it. She also told me when she got the call from Cecilia telling her she was arrested and might go to jail for a long time.

"I sent her some money every week once she got out," she told me. "I tried to persuade her to come back, but of course that she didn't. Prison changed her. It made her even colder, she stopped believing in humanity or in anything else, she wasn't living, just surviving each day. But it also made her stronger in ways that only that place could have taught her, she learnt how to deal with that kind of people, she learnt to read people, to know when someone was really bad. I now think all that was useful, at least for these times. Maybe that's why she knew the Governor was a bad man and Andrea and all those people didn't. All I know is that what seemed horrible years ago, now can be used as an advantage, and she has done that, somehow, turned it into her favour."
"She has," I agreed.

Carol stood up then, and took off any dirt from her trousers. Her eyes were puffy and red from all the crying but she stopped a while ago, she looked better.

"Peter, huh? Who would have imagined?" she exclaimed. "Small world."

"Carol," I muttered as she was picking up the containers of water. "I think you should sit down again for what I'm going to tell you now."

She looked scared at my words, I knew I was throwing bomb after bomb after bomb at her but she needed to know what has been happening in Cecilia's life since she left, maybe she could help her now that she had been pushing me away, maybe it was her mother she needed now.

"That bad, huh? Alright, I guess I can take it," she said as she sat down with her legs crossed in front of me.

"I'm going to tell you something first and then I'll tell you that bad thing, okay?" She nodded.

With great difficulty I told Carol everything that happened with Beth after the prison, even that she kissed me. She didn't even blink when I told her, she didn't even react. I really thought she was going to say something like 'I knew you weren't good for my daughter' or 'you cheated on her? No doubt she's avoiding you,' but that wasn't the case.

"I heard Beth talking to Amanda, that redhead girl from Woodbury," Carol told me. "She told her she was starting to have a stupid crush on you and she hated it because you were with Cecilia. I never really thought she would do something about it but she was drunk, right? Just don't worry about it, I know Cecilia will come around, you are not that kind of man, Daryl. She knows that and I do too now."

"Thanks."

"Is that why you wanted me to sit down?"

"No, I just thought I should tell you that first and get it over with."

Carol took a very deep breath to prepare herself for what I was about to say. I took one too because this also concerned me, and a lot.

"I think you should hand me your knife before I say anything," I said teasingly.

"Come on, you already told me another girl kissed you. I'm sure what you have to say won't make me want to stab you, don't worry."

I smiled nervously, I was just about to tell Carol she could have become a grandmother if things had been different, I was sure that was enough excuse to want to stab me but I hoped she wouldn't.

"I just found out and I still don't know how to really feel about it, how to deal with it," I said, this time being me the one looking down at the pavement road underneath us. I sighed once again and my eyes watered. "Cecilia lost a baby, Carol."

I heard Carol gasped but I didn't dare to look up at her, I just glanced her way quickly, making sure she wasn't getting her knife ready to stab me and kill me for getting her daughter pregnant, but all she did was looking sadly at me.

"When did you find out?"

"A day after you saved us, she said she lost it after the prison was attacked. I didn't even know she was pregnant, actually, she didn't know either until... until it happened."

"How do you feel about it?"

"I feel like I failed her, like if this was somehow my fault. I wasn't there to help her."

"What else?" she asked me and I only furrowed my eyebrows together in confusion. "What about the actual loss?"

"I am..." I stopped talking for a while, thinking how I really feel about it, thing I hadn't really done, I was sad and shocked and I felt guilt more than anything for not being there for her when it happened, I really hadn't had the chance to concentrate on just my feelings, not thinking about Cecilia but just on the baby, I hadn't done that and now that I was doing it, my eyes watered even more. "I'm devastated, I never knew something like this could affect me so much but it did, I'm heartbroken. I wish it didn't happen."

"You wanted it?"

It was then when I realized I wasn't just telling Carol all this because I believed she needed to know and she could help Cecilia now. No. I was telling her because deep down I really was a mess and I needed to get it out of my chest, I needed to tell someone, I needed someone to listen to me and right now that person could only be Carol.

"Cecilia said it was what it should have happened. She said it wasn't meant to be and that she would have decided to abort anyway, so it was better she lost it naturally. She said that..."

"Alright, but what about you? How do you feel about it? Daryl, did you want it?"

"Before she told me she really wasn't pregnant, I actually got happy, I actually imagined ourselves with a baby. I guess I did want it."

After that I had to explain to Carol that inside Terminus Cecilia had to tell them that she was pregnant so they could at least consider not killing her, I told her it worked and they were going to let her live but kill us all and then told her when Cecilia admitted she wasn't pregnant, not really.

"I'm sorry," she finally said after a long silence. "It's so sad and I'm sorry. Daryl, it's okay to cry, it's okay."

"I feel like I shouldn't even feel sad about it."

"Why?"

"Because I only knew about it for a day and the baby wasn't even there anymore."

"Yes, but the baby existed and it was yours and you actually wanted it despite our horrible reality, you got attached and felt love for it, no matter how long you thought that baby was alive. You have the right to feel sad, to feel angry, to feel sorrow or despair, you are allowed to cry, don't bottle it up. The cruel reality is that your baby died, Daryl, that's something you won't ever get over and you can and have to allow yourself to mourn its death."

As soon as she finished talking, I broke. Tears fell down my face, her words painfully stung. Ever since Cecilia told me I took it as she just miscarried, she lost it but never even thought about considering it an actual death, about calling it mine, even though I knew it was. I was too concerned about Cecilia and her feelings I hadn't even thought about me and the baby. And just hearing Carol calling it my baby made it all hurt even more. My daughter or son died, that was what happened and I hadn't wanted to really see it that way, it wasn't until now that I stopped considering it just an 'it'.

Carol actually put her arm over my shoulder in a soothing way. But I didn't stop crying, I was finally mourning my child, finally accepting how tragic all this was.

Carol moved to get closer to me and hugged me for the very first time. She rubbed my back as I cried in her shoulder. Not ever had I cried like this, not even when I was a kid. Probably the only time I cried like this or close to this was when Merle died.

Suddenly, I just didn't feel sorrow and emotional pain, I felt so angry too, so pissed. I thought about my crappy parents, about my uncaring brother and my miserable life before and after the change, but mostly before it happened.

Nothing good ever happened to me and if it did, it didn't last for long, that's why at first I roundly refused to accept I was having feelings for Cecilia, that's why I didn't mention anything after we kissed back at the CDC or why I didn't try to kiss her again, she was too good for me, it wasn't going to happen, or if it did, it wasn't going to last. That's why once I admitted to myself that I liked her, I didn't tell her or ask her out, I was afraid of losing her. I thought I had lost her after the farm got overrun, that just convinced me even more that good things never last in my life.

I got this feeling not long after Cecilia told me about the miscarriage. I thought it was my fault because nothing good ever happens to me, Rick could have Carl and Judith, but I couldn't be as lucky as him. I was Daryl Dixon, I knew what that meant.

Actually, I thought I was extremely lucky to have Cecilia by my side. There were times I couldn't even believe it. I always thought I was going to live a lonely life, my only company would be Merle but that changed, I wasn't lonely anymore. I had her and that meant having everything.

"My life is just a series of tragedies," I whispered. "Nothing good ever happens... or lasts."

"Don't talk like that," she said sternly at me. "Yeah, your life was horrible but you can change it now. You have all of us, you have Cecilia."

"We are drifting apart," I said after I wiped my face.

"Don't let it happen, she's suffering, just like you, but she's trying to postpone it, trying to make herself believe it wasn't as bad so it won't be as painful, but trust me, she's breaking apart, she just doesn't know it yet, but the longer she keeps delaying it, the more it's going to hurt. I'll talk to her."

"What if she gets mad that I told you?"

"I'll tell her the truth, you couldn't keep it in any longer. You needed to tell someone because otherwise it would have killed you. You didn't tell me because of her, but because of the both of you." she said. "You already accepted what happened, you hadn't until now. She, on the other hand, is still in denial."

"Carol, thank you" I whispered as I wiped my last tear, at least for now. "I needed to speak to someone."

"I'm happy you came to me," she said. "That kind of stuff happened all the time before. I think one out of four pregnancies ended in miscarriages, so don't feel like only bad stuff happen to you, it's normal, still a tragedy though."

After that I took a very deep breath to calm myself. I still felt like crying and I wasn't sure if I was going to break down again or not.

"Let's get going," I muttered, my voice was hoarse.

Carol nodded at me. The two of us grabbed the containers full with water and started walking back to the church.

Now that I had gotten all out of my chest and I had cried I felt so much better, before I felt like if someone was chocking me, like if I couldn't breathe. Now, I was calm, still felt a lot of pain but I was better.

"I really thought you would be mad," I admitted.

"Maybe before I would have been, I would have probably lost it and tried to castrate you." I gulped. "But we are good now."

"That's a relief," I told her.

"You have done nothing but love her and protect her. I would be a fool if I thought like I used to."

"I just hope we can work this out and go past it, before so many couples broke up for this kind of situations."

"True but you won't," she assured me. "We won't let it happen."

"We?"

"Of course, I'll help you. My daughter hasn't been so happy since she met you and now she needs you as much as you need her."

Most of our way back was in silence, we only commented about stuff every once in a while, but for the most part we kept quiet.

Hello guys!

I felt super guilty for not uploading but then nobody told me to update or asked why I had been gone, so I sort of just thought, okay, if I take more time off, nobody will care.

But I'm sorry, I've been so stressed and my life has been a mess lately so I was just glad nobody really missed the story so I could concentrate on other stuff and take a break.

Anyway, here's a chapter... finally! So, what do you think will happen between Daryl and Cecilia? Will this break them? What will Carol do with the news?

Please leave me your opinions and thoughts! And hope to hear from you guys! I really missed this community!