Hey!
This is a total flip from my other story (I'm totally on board with team delusional), but I couldn't get this out of my head after 5x10. I'm so sorry in advance (I ruined myself writing this but it happened so I figured I might as well put it up).
This will only be a one shot, so hopefully you like it!
Let me know what you think :)
Lexi
She never left him.
Daryl Dixon may have been alone, but she'd always been there (always would be).
She couldn't touch him. She couldn't speak to him, but she was there.
She was there each stair he stepped down as he carried her body from the hospital. She dimly felt his tears as they fell, sinking into her clothes, leaving thin tracks of clean skin as they slipped through her blood.
She was there screaming at Maggie when her sister collapsed to the ground. She stomped, she yelled, she raged with the intensity of the fiercest of fires. If they would just look they would see her (but she knew they wouldn't). She was right there.
She fought for their pain. She could feel her sister's despair. She could feel Daryl breaking. She could feel Rick's guilt drowning him. She could feel Carol's regret. Michonne's anguish.
But most of all she fought because they never got to see that she was strong. That she knew she was strong. She tried to defend Noah but she just wanted them to know.
She fought for the life she would never have.
The pain of the gunshot was nothing compared to the pain of the car ride to her grave. The pain of listening to Rick's voice break when Judith reached for her.
"Oh Judy, no".
She felt herself shatter when Daryl mumbled apologies to her body.
She was right there when they buried her. She was glad Daryl didn't go to the funeral. She was glad he couldn't bring himself to say goodbye. She hated goodbyes.
She was right there, watching as Tyreese fought a hallucination. She fought for him to hear her, don't listen to them. Don't give up. Fight. Live. This isn't okay. Death isn't better. Death is hell.
She stood next to Sasha as she poured dirt on her brother. She cried with them. She glared at Tyreese accusingly through her tears when he appeared next to her. She wanted to rail at him, but he looked at his sister the same way she looked at hers.
So she just nodded at him as he faded, smiling and mumbling a greeting to someone she couldn't see.
She wondered why she wasn't fading, but she understood when she looked at her family. She didn't know how she could be there for them but she knew it wasn't time to go yet.
She watched as Carol gave Daryl her knife, telling him to feel. She watched as his shoulders sank just slightly, but enough that she knew. She knew it was coming.
She'd been right.
It was only then that she cried. She cried as if she could flood the world and drown herself in her tears. Maybe if she died she could get back to him. She sobbed, each tear an apology she could never give.
She knelt in front of Daryl as he cried, leaning against that tree. She held his face in hands that weren't really there. She brushed tears away that continued to fall. She fought with every fibre of her being to pull the cigarette from his fingers as he brought it to his hand.
She burned with his skin as the cigarette hissed in protest. She couldn't protect him from this pain. She couldn't take his pain away.
She wished he could forget her. She wished she could wipe the suffering clean from his memory. She wished he could move on.
In a way she got her clean slate as a rain as fierce as her regret ravaged the forest. The dirt washed away the physical evidence of everything they'd been through, but did nothing for the mental scars that so obviously haunted them.
Maggie had always loved the rain, but this storm, she whethered in her mind. There could be no protection from that.
She wanted to strangle Rick as he proclaimed them the walking dead. She cheered when Daryl shut it down.
She tried to push the doors shut, but instead leant them her strength as they fought to keep the nightmares from outside on the other side of the door.
She sat on Daryl's other side as he told Maggie that she'd been strong. She smiled to herself as he said she hadn't known it, because she had. She had known because he'd shown her.
She kept vigil over them, and slowly a sense of peace settling over her for the first time in a long time.
She watched as Maggie began to show her reason for their desperate run for Washington. She told that baby stories every night as it grew in her sister's stomach.
She told her about her grandfather, and their farm. She told her about her grandmother, and how much she would have loved her. She made up stories about what a cool aunt she would have been.
When little Beth was born, she told her stories about Lori and how her older 'sister' Judith didn't have a mom, so she needed to appreciate Lori. She spent her nights sitting next to the crib in Maggie and Glenn's house in the safe zone, or on the bed next to Daryl in his small apartment.
When she realized the little girl could hear her, she told her stories about Daryl, so that the baby girl wouldn't think her adopted uncle hated her (even though he couldn't bring himself to look at the tiny light haired baby- who somehow had ended up with the Greene family blue eyes despite her father's heritage).
She told her of how the gruff man saved her life. She told her of how he would always protect her, and that even though he was prickly and angry, she needed to be extra nice to him because he was just sad.
She had never smiled bigger than when the little girl started talking and one day pointed at the big hunter and stuttered out "Dawil".
Maggie had actually dropped a glass before asking Glenn if he had ever even mentioned Daryl's name around their daughter. He shook his head adamantly, asking the little girl where she'd heard his name. The child bounced happily screeching, "Bef" and pointing right at her aunt.
Maggie smiled sadly and congratulated her daughter on knowing her name. The child shook her head and pointed angrily at the family member no one could see.
For one heart stopping second Daryl met her eyes, and she could almost pretend he could see her. He didn't, but after that he spent a lot more time around the little girl, rarely speaking when people were around, but regaling her (and usually Judith) with stories of her namesake when he was on babysitting duty (Beth loved him more than anyone else).
Day by day, she could feel herself fading as lives came together until there was one moment when she knew. It was finally time for her to go.
She turned from watching Daryl stare enraptured at her niece while the little girl hummed the song that had been her lullaby since before she was born. The same song Daryl had fallen asleep in a coffin listening to years ago, in what felt like a different lifetime.
For the first time since he'd seen her that day in Grady Memorial, he smiled and she mirrored him, turning to see her father standing next to her.
Her smile was blinding as she greeted Herschel, every bit the daughter he'd raised.
She nodded in understanding before turning back to her family. The people she'd watched for years.
She started to sing with her niece, harmonizing and laughing as the little girl matched her note for note. She hugged Maggie, waved to Glenn, and made her rounds to each other person she'd been with since the beginning of this world.
She brushed her lips across Daryl's cheek and she swear he felt her for one beautiful moment. His eyes darted to her and even though he couldn't see her, she had the absurd idea he could hear her, and so she still sang.
"And we'll be good"
Her niece smiled wider at the scene and waved to her aunt.
With a brush of her fingers over the little girl's head, she bent down and whispered "Take care of them for me".
"I will. Bye Auntie Beth". The words had been quiet, but silence descended as their family tried to see if they'd misheard the child. The little girl refused to repeat the words, choosing instead to start singing another song.
Finally she walked back to her father and for the first time since she'd hugged Noah on that day, she felt something hold her. This was a warmth the likes of which she'd never experienced before. It wrapped her up and encompassed her entire being, pulling her away.
She didn't know where she was pulled to, but she was happy. She saw her father, her mother, brother, Lori, Tyreese, everyone. She could still check up on the people she'd pulled away from, but she wasn't angry or sad anymore.
She still heard their words when Maggie, Beth, or Daryl spoke to her at night.
She never left them, just kept a little distance until one day, years later, when he saw her for the first time.
He'd gotten old. He was surrounded by their family, just as she'd wished for her father, but he had eyes only for her.
He had nothing left unfinished, and so she held his gaze as his eyes drifted shut, turning and seeing him right next to her, looking down at her.
He was younger than she'd ever seen him, probably a few years before they met, but he looked at her the same he had that night in the funeral home. Blue met blue, as skin met skin. She took his hand, knowing he didn't need to stay.
"Beth." He breathed her name, the same prayer he'd uttered every night of his life after hers had so abruptly ended. His smile matched hers as she her light encompassed him.
"Hey Daryl."
She never left him until he found her, it just took little longer than they'd expected.
And then she brought him home.
Thanks for reading! Let me know what you thought :)