"Maggie, you alright?" the brunette turned and smiled at her husband as he approached, nodding her head and leaning into him when he sat beside her. Her hazel eyes moved back across the camp at the sound of a light laugh. The light laugh was joined by a softer, deeper chuckle and Maggie's lips quirked as her eyes settled on a laughing Beth who stood beside a smiling, chuckling, Daryl.
The sight of the smile on Daryl and Beth's face warmed Maggie and she felt her smile widen. It had been since the prison since Maggie had seen Daryl smile. The entire time in Terminus and the weeks after their escape, he had been angry. When he wasn't angry, he looked…torn. Lost. She had spent days wondering what had gotten under the hunter's skin until her answer was given to her the day he had seen a clue to Beth's whereabouts. She had been out scouting with him and Carol when he had seen it on the side of the road.
"It's Beth's knife…" he had whispered. His words had been so quiet that Maggie almost didn't hear him but the mention of Beth's name from his lips had her instantly intrigued and desperate for more information. She had instantly stepped into his personal space and taken the knife from him only to be surprised.
"No, this is your knife," she had corrected him but he shook his head.
"Beth stole it from me one day in camp. It worked for her and it added to the distance between her and the walkers, so I never took it back. They must have brought her down this way…and somehow, the knife wound up out here…Maybe she fought back," his eyes looked along the road, searching for any kind of sign of the car that took her sister. From the frown and frustration in the hunter's face and voice, the trail was impossible to find. It was weeks old and tire tracks on the concrete road were invisible. Maggie had fought to swallow down her fears and insecurities and had to remind herself what Daryl had told her in the train car at Terminus.
She's alive.
"We'll find her," she told him with a shaky voice. She hoped her doubts didn't echo through her words. She wasn't hopeful like Beth and everyday without her sister was one more day where her doubts whispered in her mind.
Daryl eyed her and in that moment, Maggie could see something. She didn't know what she was seeing in his blue eyes, but there was a light there. And it was important, so important.
She knew, deep in her soul, that Beth had put it there.
And she clung to it too.
If Daryl could believe that Beth was alive, then Maggie would too.
The three had finished their scouting, Daryl's eyes constantly searching for any other signs of the car or Beth as they went but giving up when it was time to meet up with the rest of the group.
The next day, Daryl had gone back to that road with Carol and the group went days, maybe even weeks, without a sight or sound from the two. Arguments broke out daily between Abraham and Rick about leaving and moving onto DC with Rick refusing to leave until Daryl and Carol had come back and Beth was found.
Just when things were about to get physical and break out into a full-out brawl between the two men, a car pulled up to the church they were staying in.
A car driven by Carol…and in the backseat sat Daryl, his arms wrapped tightly around a woman, his head bent with his nose in her hair.
It was Beth.
Maggie had stood frozen at the front of the church, her heart beating wildly and a lump in her throat. The minute the two were out of the car, Maggie was there with her arms wide and tears streaming down her face, and since Daryl refused to let go of her sister, she wrapped her arms around him as well as her sister and cried.
Neither one discussed what had happened and Beth rarely spoke of her time apart from Daryl, but whatever had happened, it hadn't been good. Beth wasn't traumatized. She didn't shrink away or act any different, not really. She was hardened. She fought off walkers more easily, without flinching or hesitation, and helped strategize supply runs.
But she was still Beth. She still smiled, laughed, and teased. She still held and loved Judith with her every fiber. But sometimes her eyes seemed to darken.
Until Daryl came back into her sights, which he rarely left her side so her eyes didn't get that darkness to them often.
Maggie noticed that they were always near each other and there were frequent, small touches the two shared.
A snort brought Maggie out of her reminiscing and her eyes went back to her sister and Daryl. The older Greene wished she knew more about their time before Terminus, before her sister had been taken from Daryl. The two had clearly formed a special bond during that time. Beth was the only person Daryl would let use his crossbow and he was the only one the blonde opened up to about what she had witnessed and been through while she was gone.
Maggie knows this because she had been eavesdropping on them while they were on watch one night.
"What are these?" Daryl's voice was soft in volume, so soft that Maggie had to really strain her ears to hear him. His shadow in the dim firelight moved to Beth's head and the older Greene knew he was pointing to the two scars she herself had seen on her sister's face. One was on her cheek, the other at her temple. Maggie had wanted to ask but had been uncertain of whether she wanted to hear what the cause of the two silver lines had been.
"Scars," Beth had replied, her tone light.
"I know that, Smartass." The hunter let out a breath and at first, Maggie thought it was in annoyance at Beth's reply. Then she realized it was because he was trying to prepare himself for whatever Beth was willing to share. "What…what caused them?"
"I was at this hospital...and a woman in a police uniform hit me upside the head with her gun. She broke my wrist too. All because I defied her and the insane rules they had. And I tried to escape," Beth replied. Daryl shot up from his seat.
"I'll kill her," he growled.
"You don't need to," Beth soothed as she stood too, her hands going around Daryl's middle as she hugged him from behind.
"The hell I don't, Beth," the hunter replied as he turned in her arms and wrapped his own around her. "Nobody hurts…"
"You. Don't. Need. To." The blonde stressed to the man in her arms and Maggie could see the tension leave Daryl's shoulders for a second. "I already did," and those words brought the tension back into his body. Maggie stood and stared in shock, no longer caring if she was seen. Beth had killed someone? Beth? Her sister? Daryl's hands moved from Beth's back to her face.
"Jesus, Beth…I'm sorry, I shoulda."
"No, we're not going through this conversation again." Maggie shook her head and carefully stalked off, needing to wrap her mind around the fact that Beth had killed someone.
The older Greene sister watched as Beth gently laid her hand on Daryl's bicep and how he tilted his head to glance down at her, a small smirk playing on his lips as Beth whispered something to him. The younger Dixon brother looked up, sensing being watched, and met Maggie's eyes from his place near the tree line of their camp.
The older Greene winked a hazel eye at him and smiled, trying to show her acceptance of his relationship, whatever kind of relationship it was at the moment, with her sister. She was proud of the man he had become in the years she had known him and she was proud to see how her sister had grown and changed because of him.
"Daddy would be so happy about them," she whispered to herself.
"What, babe?" Glenn asked from beside her, making Maggie jump. She had been so lost in her thoughts that she had forgotten he was still there beside her.
"Nothing, Glenn, just talking to myself about Beth and Daryl," she replied before giving him a brief kiss.
"Yeah? What about them?" Her hazel eyes widened in surprise. Did he really not see what she was seeing from where they were sitting? She shook her head and laughed softly at Glenn.
"You'll see it soon enough." She glanced back to her sister and Daryl and saw they were both looking at her. She pointed at the two of them and made a heart shape with her hands and winked again. The couple's eyes widened and they glanced at each other before blushing.
They're one step closer to figuring it out themselves, she thought. I'm just going to be that last little push they need.
Yes, she, Maggie Greene, was happy and excited for the love her sister and Daryl had found in each other. She couldn't wait for them to figure it out and for others in their camp to figure it out too.
The only problem she did have was the thought of the two having sex.
No, that wasn't allowed and she made a mental note to talk to the hunter about it as soon as it was appropriate.