In Hope Of Falling In Love (A Walking Dead Fanfic)

Chapter 57: Make-Believe

"Play me till your fingers bleed," Beth sung, strumming at her guitar. 

"Sounds nice," Carl offered with a smile, sitting across from her. "We should do a little talent show! You can sing, I can dance with Judy, stuff like that, you know? Hey, maybe my dad could show off his modelling kills."

Beth laughed, smiling at the young boy. "That's a great idea, Carl. We should talk to your father and see what he thinks. It'd help brighten everyone up a bit, they've been very melancholy and gloomy lately."

"Have you thought about writing a song about Daryl?" 

Beth stared then shook her head. "No, I guess I haven't thought of it. Do you mean about us or about me?"

"Neither, I mean from his point of view. Like, what it must have felt for him being with you and stuff."

"I guess I could, would you help me?"

The boy beamed at her, obviously happy to be involved in something at the prison. "'Course I would. Hey, maybe you could perform it for the talent show?"

"Great idea. Well, plop yourself over next to me and we'll get started."

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"I'm sorry for smelling like cigarettes," Beth sung, watching Carl's happy face. "And staring at you all the time. Sometimes I laugh too loud and get nervous around crowds, I can't help that I want to make you mine. You tell me I'm beautiful anyway, a word that wasn't made for people like me. When you spend this much time with a cigarette-smoking arsehole, it's easy to believe that it was a fake. Do your worst, break my heart, make it into a work of art. I'm not whole, far from perfect, lived a life and done my best, not my fault you can't see that. I've watched you slept, heard you wept, and now our love is wrecked..."

"That's good," Carl praised. "I didn't think it'd sound that good when we started writing."

Beth smirked at him, blushing. "It came together nicely, thanks for the help."

"My pleasure. Look, I'm to help out on a run later so I'll talk to you later. Bye, Beth!"

"Bye, Carl. See you later," she chirped, staring back at her guitar. The talent show was a great idea but the thought of performing a song that was so obviously about her ex-fiancee' made her nervous. Would it cause a stir amongst the prison or would it piss Daryl off?

Beth shrugged, getting to work on a new song.

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"The hardest part wasn't realised she didn't love me, it was that Beth spent so much time pretending she did," Daryl admitted, watching the sad face of his best friend.

 "Daryl," Rick breathed. "Pain changes people. Beth went through so much lose and so much pain that it's easy to believe she's chosen to shut everyone out."

Daryl was quiet before he spoke again. "Except Carl, right?"

"He understands her," Rick replied, scratching at his beard. "In a weird way, they both understand each other completely."

"Yeah, broken people gravitate towards broken people-"

"My son isn't broken," Rick interrupted, a frown settling on his aging face. "He's been though a lot, okay? But he's not broken, not like his old man, not like you, not like Beth. Put yourself in her shoes; lost her father, her sister. Can you imagine that?"

Daryl shrugged, mad that the man was making sense.

"She's distraught and scared, fear makes people do crazy things. You need to let her grieve in her own way and maybe pretending she never loved you is her way."