This is How You Lose Her
(Bethyl)
By Mariel Santa Ana
"Why do the good people die early?"
"When you're in a garden, which flowers do you pick?"
"The most beautiful ones."
The sound of gunshot permeated the halls of the hospital. For a long, agonizing second, everything was still and quiet. As though there was nothing wrong. As though Beth Greene had not just been shot by the police officer Dawn.
Daryl Dixon reacted on instinct. Gunshot, ringing inside his head. Beth. He must had pulled his gun, pulled the trigger. He must had killed Dawn, yet he did not know. He could not think of anything else but the fact that Beth…
Beth was gone.
Hot tears began to stream down his face. Beth. Ringing and ringing, he could still hear the sound of gunshot. Trembling, he knelt close to the figure of her on the ground. Blood was seeping from the fatal gunshot wound, bathing her blond hair with red. Beth. She looked like a doll, lifeless and pale. Daryl clenched his fists. He could hear people, family, bustling about, but he did not let them any closer to her. No one should get near, but him. He was not going to let anyone hurt Beth, ever again.
"Oh, Beth…" his tears finally stopped pouring. Why would they? Beth was…To him…
Though his eyes were finally dry again, his shoulders were shaking as he, hands trembling, lifted her off the cold ground. She'd always weighed heavier than she looked, Daryl noted. He could not help but remember the brief moments they'd been together, just the two of them after the fall of the prison. He loved carrying her. Mainly because it really made her happy. She would have this twinkle in her big, blue eyes that'd always tugged at something inside Daryl's guarded heart.
Now he would not be able to see it again.
He averted his gaze before tears would fall again, and found out that everyone else was beginning to head out. He was not ready yet, just wanted to curl up in a ball and pretend nothing had happened. But Beth needed him. He must get her out of this sick place, away from the people who tried to hurt her. Away from the ones who took her away forever.
"…You're going to miss me so bad when I'm gone, Daryl Dixon."
"No…" He felt harder to breathe. Harder. He almost wished to lose it and just follow Beth to wherever she would now go. At least they'd be together.
Now, this confused Daryl. The effect of her death, of seeing it with his own eyes just a few feet away, it hit him hard like a freight train. He liked Beth, yes. During the times he had been so down, she was his only anchor to the ground. She'd been the light in his dark, the flower among the dead, wilting grass. But was she only…? Right now, he was willing to go with her, towards an uncertain ending. As long as they were together.
Eternal bliss with the one he loved.
Right. Loved. Clarity enlightened him. Of why it was getting harder and harder for him to breathe, of why it felt as though he were the one who died. For a moment, he almost was happy, cracking out the code. Yet he realized. And it only deepened the boring hole that was his heart. He almost collapsed in pain of what he lost. And what he knew he could never have again.
Love.
Daryl had never been in-love. He'd never experienced something as deep as what he found in Beth. Some kind of soulful connection. He could not even recognize it himself. Merle would've been so amused, he would've laughed all day long. Love was just not in the vocabulary of the Dixons.
But now, he just found out that he'd already fallen, right after losing the only one he'd be willing to give his heart to. Oh, he's drowning. Drowning in his loss.
He held Beth tighter, gasping for the air only she could provide to him, seeping whatever was left in her lifeless body in order to keep him alive. But barely. Blindly, he finally stepped out of the gloomy hospital. The heartbreaking shriek that could only be Maggie Greene's broke the suffocating silence hanging in the air. And Daryl finally let go of what he was stifling inside of him. He broke into more tears, more cries. Just what is more painful than thinking all will get better, grasping and clinging to that hope, just to see it all taken away from you under your very eyes? Daryl felt cheated. They all did. Was this nature's way of cracking some kind of sick joke? Weren't their sufferings more than enough in this single lifetime?
With nature keeping the answers he wanted, all Daryl knew was that he would not let go. Ignoring everyone and everything else around them, he gazed down at Beth, memorizing her face. The curve of her eyebrows, the arch of her nose, the blond lashes of her eyes, the pink lips that had spouted words that had, more than once, saved him from falling down the depths of inescapable darkness…He tried to memorize them all. Though he knew he'd one day lose them, would forget the simple things like merely living, he also knew they'd come back before the end. Memories of their brief, sweet moments would flash back on his mind until he could no more fight, no more move. Those memories would guide him to her. Into the eternal bliss with the one he loved, waiting from the other side.
At this moment, all he could do was cry for the most precious thing he lost.
And for now, that was enough for him.