Maybe he hadn't realized it back then, but he certainly did now. Without a single doubt, he knew he loved that mess of waving blonde hair. He loved the sweet innocence or the determined ferocity that could play on her young face. It wasn't the sunshine that lit up his days; it was the shining crystal blue of her eyes. Though she was small in stature, the apocalypse had turned her from a delicate porcelain doll into a strong and courageous woman.
He didn't allow his thoughts to stray for long. Daryl wasn't quite familiar enough with these woods to know his way back to the group without having to pay attention. He looked around, noted the scraggly Virginia pine he'd scratched into, then trekked on.
Again, his mind trailed away to her. He let his thoughts drift off to the day they escaped from the prison going through every event between them. The long, hot days and the restless nights under a black sky speckled with stars. How she spoke to him openly even if he didn't want to hear. Oh, how he missed that voice, always positive, optimistic, hopeful. Even when he recalled the day when they discovered the moonshine, Daryl missed her, ached for her to lift him up out of the darkness that was drowning him.
For the first time in weeks, a smile flickered over his lips. He remembered the time spent at the funeral home. She was feather light as he carried her on his back and vulnerable when she read a headstone belonging to a father, but when their fingers twined together the fire that told her to keep fighting was rekindled within her soul. Later, her eyes flooded with hope when fresh food was found, softened with respect to the people who had been compassionate enough to lay a dead man in a casket, prepared for burial. Her pure delight the morning when he'd carried her to breakfast and her words to him, those words that alluded to their feelings toward one another, which proved to him that he didn't just see Beth as his little sister…not anymore. The night he lay, for once peacefully drifting towards sleep, as her bird-like singing voice whispered and a piano played. He considered that the last good night. What happened after Daryl much preferred to avoid. It hurt beyond any other pain he could possibly know.
It seemed sudden, but he found himself back with the group. The camp was only a ramshackle excuse, temporary, nestled some couple hundred yards from Terminus, the insane place they had recently taken down and escaped. Daryl snapped himself from his reminiscing to see Maggie as she stepped out of a hug. Glenn was there with Rick, Carl, and Michonne. Those the handful who had survived the prison attack. The newer folks were not so close, having no attachments to whomever Maggie had just released from her arms.
Then he saw the little blonde head when Maggie stepped away. His eyes immediately darted to her, soaking in the look of her. She was obviously exhausted, her body pushed to its limit, but still she stood tall and gazed right back at Daryl. She beamed wide, sprinting to him despite how tired she felt. Her lean body slammed into his, her arms wrapping in a death grip around his waist, her round face burying into his chest.
At first, he was paralyzed, his emotions sending him into shock. That only lasted a second though. Daryl wrapped his thick arms around Beth, raising one hand to rest on the back of her head, the other holding her as close as possible. She'd never be near enough to him though. He would always want her, need her, pressing against him.
However, their moment was only an embrace. For now, that was all it could be.