resonance
amarxlen
"You're gonna miss me so bad when I'm gone, Daryl Dixon."
He jolts awake, sitting upright in the darkened barn. The storm around them rages on, and he's grateful, because it means they can't hear him cry.
When the walkers crowd around the barn doors, he doesn't hesitate to throw his body against the doors. Between the walkers and his friends he remembers briefly that he is not alone.
The next day dawns, bright and warm and the sight of countless zombies crushed under tree trunks and impaled on branches makes him believe that Beth isn't truly gone.
When they stop on the bridge to deal with the walkers that have been trailing after them for miles, Rick turns and starts to hand off Judith to Beth. But the spot where she should have been waiting for the baby is empty and so he gives her to Carl, a strange feeling in his stomach.
He knows that his daughter will be safe with his son, but everything feels wrong.
Sitting in the barn that night, it's almost painful to see the fatigue and despair on everybody's faces. It's his turn to give the hopeful speech, but it's not exactly hopeful, and it's not Beth's singing, high and sweet and taking away the pain for just a moment.
As he tells it there are grimaces and frowns. His last words dissolve into the rolling thunder. Through the dim light they've managed to create, he can see resolve on their faces now. It's not hope, but it's better than before.
For quite some time now, Maggie has been used to the thought of her sister being dead. Beth was a fighter, but in her words, in her attitude, in the quiet way their father had been.
Some days it hurts. Some days there's no light, even as the sun crosses over them in a painful arc. Gabriel is even more annoying than the gnats that revel in her sweat.
She doesn't know how to function without her sister. It was one thing to consider her death in the abstract, as a side effect of living in the world as it is now. It's a completely different thing to have to live with the way her limbs hung limply in Daryl's arms.
Sometimes Beth's arms find their way around her and she feels comfort, feels hope for just a moment. But when she looks up, Beth's smile is marred by the blood dripping from her forehead and she wakes up, screaming and crying in Glenn's arms. Safe, but at what cost?
In the humid morning air, a songbird whistles a high mournful tune, then all is silent.
