It wasn't the piercing sunlight or the drought in my throat that woke me; it was the throbbing, pulsating, smoldering agony raging beneath the skin between my shoulder and chest. I saw disheveled hair through my squinted eyes. Reaching blindly, I felt a hand grab mine.

"D-Daryl?"

"Stay still. You got shot."

If I hadn't heard it with my own delirious ears, I would've sworn that wasn't Daryl Dixon's voice rattling with worry.

"W-Where are w-we?" I coughed, red spotting my lips and the taste of iron flooding my tastebuds. "Are w-we still at t-the hospital?"

"Don't move, Bethie," answered a familiar voice. Maggie appeared next to Daryl, speaking frantically fast. "We gotta get the slug out before you bleed to death. Stay very still, you hear?"
"Maggie?"

"Yes, honey, it's me. Just hold on, okay?"
I gasped as extreme pressure was applied to the wound. My brains were racing around inside my skull like bumper cars. I pumped my grip on Daryl's hand. "You're alive. I told you she was alive, Daryl. I told you."

"Yeah, you did."

Everything that conspired after that I remembered by the rushing of my pulse in my ears:

"Daryl, you gotta hold her real still!"

"Tryin' to!" he barked.

"Carol! Come here! We need you to hold her down!"

Boots pounding the earth. Weight on my torso.

Carol cried, "Go! Do it now."

"I'm so sorry, Bethie, this is gonna hurt like hell—"

The agony I'd felt when I awoke was nothing compared to the agony of a knife in my skin, my muscles, tendons, ligaments—shredding me apart and resetting the level of pain intake I could stand.

My screams blocked out the rest.

When I woke up again, Maggie was at my bedside and Daryl was standing right outside the door. The dark room I lain in was lightened by candles. My sister walked me through everything that had happened, starting with how I ended up shot.

"You stabbed Dawn alright, but you caught her in her vest and we didn't know she'd pulled her gun. She didn't have it aimed right," Maggie explained. "We were terrified she'd killed you—Daryl took care of her either way—because you dropped like a fly. She got you in your shoulder. We had to act fast. Daryl carried you out of there, and as soon as we could, we got somewhere safe to take the bullet out." She picked my hand up from the covers and squished it between both of her own, her lips crushing down on my knuckles. Tears beaded in the corners of her bright eyes. "Don't know what I would've done if I'd found you again only for you to be gone."

I smiled. "Same here. And what about this place?"

Maggie sniffled, glancing around the ramshackle room. "Sasha found it. We ain't far from the road."

"How long have I been out?"

"Not quite three days. I was gone most the day yesterday on a run for bandages and medicine for you. Daryl and Carl stayed close. Kept watch."

I glanced at Daryl as he stood guard at the open door. Crossbow ready, stance poised, expression schooled into scowling neutrality. "So he killed Dawn?" I whispered.

Maggie nodded. "Claimed it was a reflex."

"Don't care what it was," I breathed. "That bitch deserved what was comin' to her. At least those people are free now. Wait—is Noah here?"

My sister's eyes widened at my unsympathetic tone. Stammering, "Yeah. He made it out with us."

"Is he—is he okay? Dawn didn't try to hurt him before Daryl took her out?"

"Not that I know. Rick said those officers didn't put up a fight about gettin' him back."

"Will you go get him for me?"

"Sure." Maggie kissed my forehead as she rose. "Need anything else?"

"Water?"

Her fingers stroked my loose hair methodically, as if the action was more to steady her than me, which I had the feeling it was. I hated that I'd scared her so.

"Absolutely."

She left Daryl and I to it. For once, I didn't have to start the conversation.

"Didn't know what to do when they took you," he said, startling me. "I followed for a while then I lost 'em."

I sat up the best I could manage. "You tried."

"Mm hmm."

One candle was snuffed out by the sudden gust of wind through the broken window, but there was till enough for him to see the indebted smile on my face when he actually ventured to look. "That's what matters."

"Yeah but then you went and 'bout screwed the whole thing up by stabbing that lady."

My cheeks glowed violet in shame. "I was just—"

"I know," he interrupted, shuffling his boots to a more comfortable position against the wall. "It was stupid."

"Stupid?" I could feel the bile-like taste of protestation rushing into my palate.

"Mm hm. Too brave for your own good."

The sour tang went away. "Ah."

"Proud of you."

"Really now?"

If looks could make your bones transform into butter and your tendons and muscles to disintegrate, then Daryl had mastered that power.

"Really."

"T-Thank you."

"Don't do anything like that again."

I grinned ear to ear. "No promises."

Maggie and Noah's voices mingled in the hallway outside, and Daryl swiveled to stand at attention.

"You're too good to me, you know that?" I blurted it, murdering the tenderness meant to be threaded in the expression.

"Stop."

"You are." A delirious thought entered my mind when I was staring at him and he was looking anywhere but at me: I wish he'd look at me like he did that night at the funeral home one more time. Which led to a number of outrageous yearnings.

I wished the walkers hadn't knocked on our door. I wished we'd never gotten separated. I wished I could tell him everything I thought about at Grady Memorial; how often I imagined him there with me, how nearly every waking second I dreamed of him kicking in the barricades of the hospital, grabbing me, and running for the hills. Or vice versa where I broke myself out and found him not far away, and we could go on as we had. Sleeping, scavenging, moving through the days as one.

I cleared my throat, regaining his attention. "Thank you for that," I finished at last.

Daryl dipped his chin. "Welcome."

Maggie popped over the threshold of my room with Noah, who succeeded my sister's spot at my bedside. Maggie sat on the edge a stool and held out the canteen for me to sip. Whatever they said fell on defiant ears; for all I could hear, see, think of, was the man standing watch tirelessly at my door.