Zedler, M.D. // Daryl Dixon

Chapter One Hundred and One: The Kingdom

"You can't just act like nothing happened, Beatrix!" I flinch as he yells at me, his voice gathering attention from some of the people around us. "That man, he killed our family. Hell, he killed Lucas and then you just go and fall in love with him? I don't even know why I brought you with me if you were so happy there. Maybe I should have just left you with him."

"Daryl, don't you understand? I didn't have a choice," I choke out, barely able to look at him. The intense shame I'm feeling right now is almost unfathomable. "I did what I had to do."

"Yeah, you did. He told us himself, back at Alexandria, that he'd let you stay, but what'd you do? You stayed with him," he scoffs, halfway turning away from me. "I saw you with him, too. The way you smiled at him."

"Daryl, I-"

"And what the hell were you doing away from Alexandria anyway? How'd you even end up out there?" He cuts me off.

"Maggie was hurt. I was trying to take care of her," I say, tears streaming down my face at this point. "I didn't want any of this. If I didn't do what he wanted, he would have killed you."

He opens his mouth to respond, but instead, he presses his lips tightly together and turns, walking off to who knows where. It's in that moment that I realize pretty much all of the Kingdom is staring at me, probably thinking I'm psychotic, or a cheater, or both.

Without trying to save any face, I run off towards the room I slept in last night. As soon as I'm in, I slam the door behind me and sink down to the floor, pulling my knees close to my chest. Sobs wrack through my body as I let myself feel everything. Losing Lucas, Glenn and Abraham in one night. Staying at the Sanctuary with Negan for a week, the longest week of my life.

Daryl thinks I cheated on him. He thinks I actually liked being with Negan. How in the hell could he even think that? It makes no sense to me. I love him. I'm pregnant with his children, why would I possibly want to be with anybody else? Especially somebody who murdered my family right in front of me and laughed while he did it. 

The only logical explanation for why he's thinking this way is that they had to have done something to fuck him up back there. I mean, I know they tortured him, but I also know that Daryl can take that. He would be shaken up, for sure, but it wouldn't have affected him like this, not to the point where he thinks I would rather be with Negan than with him.

I'm not sure how long I sit there and cry before I finally slump over and fall asleep on the floor. The whole time I'm asleep I have nightmares about being back at the Sanctuary and all of the horrible things I could ever imagine happening to Daryl while I was there.

At some point, I wake up to a sharp pain in my back. On one hand, I'm grateful for it because it wakes me up from the terror in my sleep, but it hurts like a bitch. I force my eyes open and finally realize I woke up because the door hit me.

"What the fuck are you doing in the floor?" Daryl scolds me, standing over top of me and looking down at my body, sprawled out over the floor after he hit me with the door.

"Sleeping," I mumble, forcing myself to sit up. If I would have thought he was coming, I obviously wouldn't have let myself fall asleep in front of the door.

"Get in the damn bed," he sighs, bending down to help me up off of the floor. "You gotta stop doing shit like that or you're gonna end up losing them."

I frown hard at Daryl's words as I shuffle over to the bed. I sit down on top of the sheets and pull my knees to my chest again. I'm not sure if I'll be able to go back to sleep, and at this point I'm not sure if I even want to. It's obvious he's talking about the babies, and I know that he's right. He thinks I'm doing all of this on purpose or something, though, but I'm not.