They arrived at a house.
Just a house, could have been any really. The apocalypse had left it empty as if stagnant on the day that its owners disappeared; nothing was missing and nothing was out of place. Nothing, that was, except the overturned plant pot on the porch and a handful of clothes that had been shoved into a suitcase. But those clothes and that suitcase didn't exist in Beth's world.
She surveyed the upstairs, meant to be searching for anything useful. The decaying smell of dust tickled her nose with each step up the rickety stairs. Only a few hours were to be spent here, then after that it was moving up further toward Washington with the rest of the group.
She had been found, finally brought back home as if her dreams had been answered. But in this world the dreams became convoluted, her place in the group was irrevocably changed; she was irrevocably changed. But that hadn't worked its way in to anyone else's minds. So back on charge of caring for sweet Judy and forcing small sentiments of hope she didn't believe in, Daryl caught her disconnected.
So he took her on a run. But even they, the two who had forged a friendship out of total chaos, were far too distanced now. The guilt too heavy on both sides to consider initiating reconciliation. He had barely said two words to her since her coming back, instead he spent hours from main camp so she didn't have to look at him. And his distance made her feel damaged and lost, the only person she needed closed off, and so in turn she closed off too.
He was too far lost in a world of awkward unknowingness. Beth had been this light. She had forced him to fight for her dumb-ass survival, to forget the pain with softly spoken idealism he didn't buy into it and to believe somehow that despite it all there were good people. And shit, she had been right. And the only person he wanted to share joy of seeing Maggie and Glenn alive, to seeing rick and Carl, and most importantly Judith- was her. Somehow his family had reconnected they survived and strived as always, managing to reach out to all its lost members. Only she was missing.
Then all of a sudden Carol had her. Carol fought and fought to bring back Beth Greene. Only it wasn't Beth Greene, not how he knew. In the time lapsed to him turning his back on her for a second, she had grown. She didn't need his help to survive and he didn't need her unwavering optimism to ground him. He had no idea who she was, he had no idea who they were anymore. Once perhaps he understood her, knew her sad face and how her bottom lip stuck out too far when she was trying not to cry. That her mind was quick at picking up on little details, a good student. He knew her well enough to know that last longing look in her eyes, their heads inclined to each other, held the potential to break him with three words. And now never hearing them might be the thing that would kill him.
Maggie's hand pats and hugs were suffocating, they made Beth flinch and fight like a trapped bird. The sympathy of the others was directed at a non-existent predator, a trauma that Beth would simply have to get over. The issue they had was in thinking that Beth was the same and thus they treated her the same when so sorely she needed to be treated like a real person. The issue Daryl had was in thinking that Beth was different and thus treating her differently when so sorely she needed, from him only, a remembrance of the gentility he showed her.
For him Beth hadn't come home. And maybe, it hit him that Beth and Daryl were simply that without the sphere of desperate loneliness forcing them together. Had he found her, him alone, he wondered if she'd throw down her things and hug him like he dreamt about it in his head. She'd crush his ribs with an impossibly tight grip for one so small and instead of feeling suffocated he'd feel the floor under his feet and the world righted. This Beth came back with an inquisitive glance over and small nod of recognition. Days turned into weeks, wandering to the border and heading north. Nothing elapsed between them, they resumed acting as if it never happened.
It had been so long since any form of physical loneliness, that being in a room by herself seemed oddly calming. A discomforting silence settled across the entire house, though he was only downstairs. They used to search together. They used to do everything together, but perhaps that was simply in need of comfort. He didn't need her anymore. Her sigh seemed too loud, as if it might shatter the windows with its loaded strength.
The garden outside the dusty window was a lush green of tangled weeds, the flickering sunlight weakly penetrating the room in a bathed yellow light. She felt too open, that the silence and emptiness was unravelling. And this wasn't a safe place to unravel. Her heart had quickened pace and tears rolled down her cheeks as she pushed them away angrily, pulling this loudly out the wardrobe and rooting through the drawers. Distractions only get you so far. An insane desire to be back at camp took hold of her, to be with the people who ostracised her because they were after all still family. Or better yet, childishly she wanted to be back at the farm wrapped in a stupid duvet and waking up from the nightmare that become her life. Even the prison- oh, what wouldn't she do to have the prison back.
The time passed quickly, her destructive reflection hiding the passing of the time. Daryl moved up the stairs quickly, his head poking into the room. He looked at her. For the first time noticing the pale tear tracks down her face, the solid expression suggesting she didn't feel the hot tears. He made a motion as if they were to leave and head back to the camp, her bag was still half empty. Beth didn't blink. Her eyes fixed at him in the hallway.
He wasn't to know how there was picture of the Greenes in the exact same pose in the living room of the farm house as there was on the wall behind him. That the lined family albums burned an acidic hate through her veins. Instead he saw the lunge of a crazed woman, her face scrunched up and an unnatural high-pitched grunt from her mouth.
Reflexes made him duck out the way, hiding into the door frame of the room next to them, as small white shaking hands grabbed the wooden frame and tore it down. The wood thunked against the wall, shivering in her grip as tears dropped to the photograph obscuring the faces so they could be that of her own family. He saw her lift up the picture and smash it down on a table heavily, the resounding noise made him jump, the content of the table top falling off carelessly. But the picture didn't break.
Enraged she punched the picture, but only half-heartedly so a small fracture appeared. Then she brought it above her head again, hitting it over the cast iron bed post, the glass finally shattering the picture being torn and bending the backing. The frame was in two, her booted foot snapped it into three. Her frustration at destroying the picture didn't give any satisfaction, instead she felt more and more hollow. Dry sobs were streaming out now and no matter how hard she tried it just wasn't possible to breath.
Daryl watched her in a state of lost shock. The blonde hair whipped around to the bedside tables, taking the framed small pictures and throwing them clean across the room. Her hands cleaned off the dressing table, and she stood carelessly on its contents to move back to the hallway. Daryl was invisible to her searching gaze, one bleeding hand reached out to the picture-lined stairway. As if in some lost frantic need she tore each down, throwing it down to the bottom; holiday pictures, scenic views and school pictures of gap toothed children. They all thudded and separated from their frames as they hit the walls and floor.
Daryl watched the smiles fall as she pulled each picture down. He had moved almost unconsciously to the top of the stairs, watching her progress to the bottom. The last step tripped her up, and so there she knelt amongst the ruin of her anger, shoulders wracking heavily. Her hands threaded through her hair, pulling at the roots as she cried.
Beth Greene screaming surrounded by glass and paper.
He was lost. But his feet moved down each step slowly as not to shock her, his head at a total loss but his body moving closer to her magnetic energy. His heart had fallen somewhere in his gut, he had no idea what to call the raw emotion she brought out just in watching her.
He looked down at her, one again noting how little she really was. The lines of deterministic attitude had disappeared, she no longer held herself like someone capable of coping. He hated that. His hand reached out, it lay on her back innocently as the only gesture he could think of. The warm spread of heat seemed to surge her into a new rage. Her boots slipping to find purchase as she stood up, looking at him with a misguided hatred. Her words were unintelligible shrieks, ranting at him threateningly though she was barely a stick. Her hands itched, the violent edge of distilled learning taking over her brain.
Turning sharply she punched the wall, sobbing loudly at the inhumanity of it all. Her hands found themselves around her wrists like restrictive bracelets. Facing her now, in the captivity of her own need for protection, Daryl swallowed loudly holding tight. She fought free, so he caught her around the middle, the only thought in his mind to not let her leave the safety of the boarded up house.
Her sobs came out evenly, bubbling over with emotion. Her small hands tried to resist him, she wriggled against his touch and screamed over and over. Her fists pummelled into his chest, he caught her wrists and brought her closer. And all the fight left her.
Encased in his arms, her head slotted under his own and her fingers grabbing to the thin material of his shirt the sobs muffled into his chest. One word over and over.
''Why?''
She wasn't the prettiest crier. But somehow the honesty of her repression, the lost hopelessness made her more endearing. He identified with her, perhaps knowing too well what losing everything felt like. So he held her tighter, not caring that it hurt her, or that he himself could barely breathe. He saw months of anguished tears shed at once, her strength finally giving way to the loss of her old life. There had been weeks of his life when he wouldn't have cared, but Beth now, well nothing mattered to him more. Nothing in the world was more important than her goofy grin and sarcastic snide remarks.
Eventually she had exhausted herself. The crying stopped and the numbness took over. She wiped her eyes with her sleeves, sniffing ungainly and heading back upstairs. She returned to him holding the backpack, slipping her arms into it quietly. The change of atmosphere was too fast a change for Daryl to wrap his mind over. The entire episode had unsettled him, for some reason he felt like her sadness had punched him full in the gut. He physically ached looking at her small red face, the complacent grin of grim determination.
He didn't want to be alone anymore. She didn't want to be alone anymore.
''You don't need me, anymore.'' Her voice was pensive, soft as it always was but lacking the accusatory tone he deserved. She walked further up the road, her boots clipping on the ground in painfully reminiscent way.
He looked at her peculiarly from the corner of his eyes, uncomfortably lifting the crossbow further onto his shoulder as he contemplated what she said. It was true. The honest answer would be a simple nod and then they could both move on. But Daryl knew, underneath it all, that he didn't need Beth- he wanted her around. His dependence upon her had waned, as had hers on him. They had learnt to live independently, although he hated it.
He took a few brisk steps, catching up with her smoothly as they headed toward their people. Silently, he swung his hand next to hers, feeling the soft warmth of her skin against the back of his own. And then, in a moment of infinite confidence, he interwove his fingers with hers. He squeezed her fingers lightly, after a moment she squeezed back.
And it was like this, hand in hand, that the scars if the past began to heal. And the irreconcilable differences finally, when light was shone upon them, didn't matter.