Prompt from ultrablondie, walkingdeadlover38.
Daryl could not explain to anyone how he felt sitting here with everyone, finally reunited with all of their prison family. He should be happy but he wasn't. They were talking about moving on to the Alexandria Safe Zone so they could get Eugene there to explain how this all started and what needed to be done to set the world back on its axis again.
Daryl honestly thought that the guy was full of shit but he didn't say anything. He actually said very little these days. He had been happy to be back with the group, except for one thing. Beth. The one person he cared most about in the entire world was not there.
She's just gone.
He had run after that car with the cross on the back the entire night. He had never run farther or faster than he had that night into the next morning. When he had collapsed at that crossroads, all life had gone out of him.
You're gonna be the last man standing.
Except he wasn't. He had been sitting in the middle of the road, legs feeling like rubber, heart thundering in his chest, head splitting open from exhaustion and he had collapsed to the ground, his knees buckling and giving way. His body had met pavement before he had time to think that he should be standing up, walking, running into the night and the next day, still looking for her. If Joe's guys hadn't found him, he would probably still be sitting there waiting for the next herd of walkers to come by and just throw himself into it. That's what had been going through his mind. He didn't know where else to look, had run out of options.
Until last week, six days ago, when he had spotted another car with a white cross in the back window. He had chased that car too, except this time he had commandeered a car sitting at Terminus, the place they had left then. But he had chased the car straight on until nightfall until he lost it. He rubbed his fingers over his left hand, feeling the throb from the contusions where he had punched the steering wheel and dashboard when he had lost sight of the car. Again.
He had gone out every single day to look for Beth. And they let him. He just hoped they would hold off on going to the safe zone for a while longer. Because no way in hell was he going to leave the state without finding her. He had always thought that the worst thing would be to find her dead or worse, turned into one of them. One of the walking dead, rotting flesh and putrid breath, death growls ripping up from her throat, stumbling around, the light in her bright blue eyes having gone out. But whatever he had thought about losing his shit if he found her dead or turned, it could not compare to the thought that nagged his brain every day and pounded his thoughts into the ground every night.
Not finding her at all would be the worst thing fate could throw at him. Because that was what was killing him. Not knowing what happened to her. How she had come to get in that car. Who she was with. Were they treating her well? Was she hurt or sick? Who was taking care of her, protecting her? Who was going to wrap her ankle for her when it ached? Who was going to make sure she ate? These are the things that kept him awake at night. And when he was lucky enough to catch some sleep, they were the thoughts that crept into his dreams, giving him nightmares.
Rick had woken him up several times when he was in the throes of a nightmare, afraid he would draw a herd upon them while they all tried to catch any snippet of sleep they could. Sleep was a precious commodity in this world, almost as rare as food. Lately he had taken to signing up for more than his share of watch. Somehow his brain had convinced his body that he didn't need sleep. He just needed Beth; he would sleep when he found her. Because he was going to find her. He had too.
Everyone we know is dead.
You don't know that.
She was right. Except she didn't know that. He did. They were all alive. Every single one. And it killed him. When he had walked in that train car, there had been a part of him that, even though he knew they were in deep shit, wished she was there too. Then she would have seen that she had been right. And that was one serving of I told you so that he would gladly accept because he had deserved it. She had faith when he had none. She had hope and she had passed that on to him.
Wouldn't kill you to have a little faith.
She had enough faith for all of them. Would she still have it when he found her? Or would she be forever changed, no longer the Beth Greene that he had gotten to know so well. The Beth that had fought beside him, felling walkers with the best of them. He wished he could tell all of them, Rick, Maggie, Michonne just how strong she had gotten. It's the only thing that kept him going now.
For the first week after she disappeared, he had been so pissed at her for tempting fate with that statement. For being right. But then that was Beth's way. She was so sure of herself, so sure of her beliefs that he just knew now eventually whatever she spouted as gospel would eventually come to be true. She had been right about their family being alive.
He thought back to the night she disappeared when everything he had been feeling for her had bubbled to the surface.
So you do think there's still good people. What changed your mind?
You did, Beth. You. That's what he was trying to tell her. He thought if he looked at her long enough, looked right into her eyes and let her see all that he was feeling, she'd eventually read his mind and just know. With her unfailing faith and glass half full attitude, she would just know. Wherever she was, he hoped she knew that she had changed him. Changed him for the better. And he would give anything to get her back.
He rubbed his hand over his face. He had watch the night before and he was getting ready to go out and look for her again, track the last car that he had seen. They were getting closer to finding her; he could feel it. Carol went with him sometimes. She had asked a few non-obtrusive questions which he had answered.
Do you love her?
He had looked at her then, his eyes filling up with tears because he knew. Fuck, he knew it. He did. But he didn't get a chance to tell her. And he wasn't about to tell anyone else if he couldn't tell her first. She should know first damn it. Because hell yes he loved her. He didn't know what the feeling was when it kept creeping up, making him do the craziest things he would have never dreamed he would do for anyone else. He just had to be close to her, had to touch her, and he had wanted to kiss her so bad. He didn't know when he had stopped thinking of her as little Beth Greene, Hershel's youngest daughter, to thinking of her as his. Just his. Because that's what he wanted. Beth to be his girl. He couldn't imagine being with anyone else but she had made him feel more things in those few weeks they spent together, alone than he had in the rest of his sorry miserable life. Before he met Beth, he had been just existing, surviving but he knew it then. He wasn't living.
If you don't have hope, what's the point of living.
She had taught him that too. So he was going to hope. He was going to have faith. He was going to be the last man standing. Until he wasn't. He was going to do all the things that she had taught him. He was never going to give up on finding her. Because he had to. That was all there was to it.
He was standing in the church and looking around at everyone paired up, early morning hours, everyone just waking up. Glenn and Maggie were giggling and whispering quietly to one another from the corner they had claimed the night before. Sasha and Bob were talking quietly, Sasha picking at the corner of her sleeping bag. He had seen the change in them as soon they had reunited. Something had happened to them on their journey back to their prison family. Even Michonne and Rick seemed different. They always seemed to have their heads bent together now, talking about Carl or Lil Ass Kicker. It seemed that everyone in their group had another half. Except for him. And it left him feeling incomplete, broken.
He threw his bow onto his back and the door to the church swung open slamming on the wall behind it and he drew his bow up quickly only to have his jaw drop open and he dropped the bow to the floor, his feet seemingly rooted to the spot.
"Beth?" It was a plea, the hope warring with disbelief and winning. Because that's what she had taught him. To hope.
And now it was all worth it as he saw her standing in the doorway to the church, hair gently tumbling about her shoulders and the sun behind her, bright and blinding, reflecting impossible light against her blonde hair. He went running towards her then, just took off at a sprint to the doors of the church and when he got there, ready to pull her into his arms, she was gone.
Is she dead?
She's just gone.
He looked around wildly and ran out into the courtyard of the church, searching for her. She just had to be here somewhere because who had opened the door. The wind was whipping about him, blowing his hair, the strands too-long covering his eyes and obstructing his vision. He pushed his hair back, frustrated and anguished. He turned in a half circle, thinking he might have missed her. She was just a little slip of a thing and she could easily be missed if she had entered the church and changed her mind.
But as he turned around and around, he fell to the sidewalk, the pavement delivering a blow to his backside and he didn't much care. He hadn't found her after all. She was gone. She was gone forever and he was never going to be okay again. The tears that had threatened him since she had disappeared into the night finally demanded release from the prison he'd kept them in. Locked away in his heart, saved for a day when he could handle it. He really didn't figure this was that day either, but it didn't change the fact that he now had tears streaming down his face.
He heard a keening sound that reminded him of a wounded fox he had seen caught in a trap once. He looked around to see if he had somehow missed a few walkers and someone went down. But it was just him. When he heard the sound the second time, he was horrified to realize that it was him. His heart felt like it had been ripped from his chest. She had been a vision, a hallucination, a trick of the mind. And he just couldn't. Not anymore. He wanted to melt into the pavement and be nothing again.
Know what I was before all this. I was nobody. Nothin'.
He didn't know how long he sat there on the sidewalk of the courtyard, sobbing, the cries no longer held in. Just letting it go.
"I miss her too," Carl said carefully as he approached him and sat down next to him on the pavement.
Some of the others had come to the doorway of the church, his outburst having drawn attention. He wished they would go back inside. He turned to look at Carl, curious as to why he was not with them.
"When my mom died, she was the first person to comfort me. I felt like she knew how I felt. Because her mom died too, ya know?" Daryl saw him eyeballing him carefully as if he might snap at any moment and the truth of it was that he didn't have the energy to snap anymore. All his energies were poured into finding Beth.
Daryl didn't say anything for a long minute. He didn't have to wonder how Carl knew what was happening. They all knew. He had told Rick and he knew he must have said something to Maggie because she often sent him looks, but looked afraid to approach him. And he honestly didn't want to talk about it with any of them.
Except that Carl had come out here to check on him and in looking at the kid, it looked like he might need someone to talk to more than he himself did. And even though he was loathe to admit it, he needed to tell someone what she meant to him. Maybe not saying those words but maybe if he told someone, it would make it real. Something that didn't just exist solely in his head. He was so tired. He wanted to find her. He needed to find her. He sobbed again, the tears just kept coming. He wasn't sure there was a big enough dam to restrain all the tears he had been holding back since she was taken from him.
"When we got out together, I wasn't nice to her." Daryl admitted, looking sideways at the kid.
"No offense, Daryl, but sometimes you're not nice to anyone," Carl said, adding quickly, "but it's okay. We all know you miss her. Want her back." Carl finished quietly.
"Back at the prison, I killed that guy, I felt myself slipping away to a dark place. Beth pulled me back." He said, his legs crossed in front of him. "She's my friend. I want her back too. But Daryl, ya gotta remember."
"Remember what?" Daryl looked at the kid, wondering when the hell he had grown up so much. When they'd met, he had been this scrawny little thing, never where he was supposed to be. He had changed when his mom died. And he supposed he had changed again. They all had. They had all evolved so much from what they were when they had become family back at the farm, a bond forged together from broken homes, broken lives and broken will. And right now he was about as broken as he had ever been. Where was Beth to put him back together?
Carl looked at him for a long minute before finally answering. "We're going to find her. Or she'll find us, who knows", he paused. "But you have to have faith. She wouldn't want you doing this to yourself." He was right, he knew it.
"We all got jobs to do, right?" Carl looked at him carefully, his hair even shaggier than his own.
We've got jobs to do. We don't get to be upset.
It's what she always said, her Daddy's words coming out reeling them all back in when it felt they had been cast too far out into the inhumanity of this hell on earth they were living.
Daryl looked to Carl again, his long hair shaggy in his face, just like his. If Beth were there, she'd sit both of them down and cut it. He had never cared about his looks before. Had never cared about getting timely haircuts, shaving the scruff on his face. But Beth made him want all those things because he knew those were things she cared about.
Daryl looked at Carl, a little confused by his last statement. "I'm doing my job." Daryl took watch nearly every night and if they were to eat meat, he was usually the one bringing it in.
"Not that kind of job. Right now, your job is to go sleep. I'll get Dad to find someone to cover your shift. You might have fooled everyone else but I see how little sleep. I see how hard you work. But you have to sleep. How do you expect to find her, if you're exhausted?" The kid was wise, he'd give him that.
"You've got balls kid." He sighed.
He wondered again when the kid had become so wise. He figured the world now did that to a person. Made ya grow up way the hell before ya were ready. Made ya think how all the things you never thought you'd do, you would. If it meant staying alive. And if it meant getting Beth back, he would walk across this hell of an earth to do so. Because she was all that mattered. Having her back was all that mattered and he could spend the rest of his life, whatever time he had left, making sure she never disappeared again.
Is she dead?
She's just gone.
As he walked back into the church, claiming the far wall, saying nothing to no one. He laid down on his sleep roll and closed his eyes, trying to force out all the bad thoughts and concentrate on the good. The good that she insisted was still there, they just had to look for it. God, he missed her. He missed the way she called him out on his shit. The way she never backed down from him and put him in his place. Made him think differently. He missed touching her, holding her in his arms, even if it was just a ruse hurrying her along to their redneck brunch. A ploy to feel her soft skin beneath the roughness of his fingers. He just simply missed her and all the hope that she embodied.
You're gonna miss me so bad when I'm gone, Daryl Dixon.
He wasn't angry anymore about her statement. He just knew it was true. He missed her more than he ever thought he would. And if he ever got the chance he was going to tell her. He was going to tell her everything. And never look back.
AN - this story would not have been possible without capncreature (tumblr) / wretchedwonderland ( ) who helped me channel my inner Carl. Thanks! ;)
