Lost in Dreaming
One
"Need help with that?"
Daryl finds her on the farm.
He looks up from his spot on the ground and towards the steps of the front porch, and Beth's sitting there. A white painted fence forms a border around the house, but some of the slats are inexplicably broken and her long, jean-clad legs fill the gap; cowboy boots bouncing against the side of the porch, big blue eyes peering out at him from between the pickets.
"Nah," he replies, and hears his own gruff voice as if from far away. "M'good." He continues his task, sat cross-legged in the long, green grass; engulfed in blue skies the exact shade of her eyes. Absently, he hears birds singing.
"You sure?" Beth asks, and stops swinging her legs. The sun shines on the blonde of her hair and turns it golden, but Daryl can't help but think, suddenly, that she looks cold. "It might hurt someone."
"This?" he scoffs, and looks down at the harmless piece of wood he's carving with a sharp piece of slate. "Ain't nothin'."
She scoffs in return. "If you say so, Mr. Dixon." He looks up at her then, but there's something so old and knowing in her young face that he has to look away. He looks back down to the wooden carving in his hand, but before he can remember what he's making he hears the ominous creak of the barn door swinging open, and the sounds of the birds grow louder.
He's not sure when Beth came to be standing in front of him, but when he looks up at her, there's a faraway look in her gaze. She's looking away from him, somewhere over his shoulder, and he dare not follow suit.
"You were like me," she whispers, her voice almost lost in the birdsong, and it's only now that he realises there were never any birds – no singing, no calling – just the shouts. Just that old Beth's sobs when her mother and brother fall to the ground. Just Carol's screams when her little girl emerges from the darkness of the barn.
"Look," she breathes, so he does. He sees his own hunched shoulders, feels his own old grief flooding the air from one thousand feet away, and feels hers too. And they look so similar in that moment, this old Beth and old Daryl - so cut from the same cloth, that he doesn't know how he could possibly have missed her then. It's a scene from someone else's lifetime, so he looks back to Beth instead – his Beth, not that poor, young thing cradling her dead mother in her arms – and when she smiles down at him something in his chest aches inexplicably.
"You were like me," she says, but the grief is gone from her voice now, and she talks instead as though fondly admonishing an old friend. "And now God forbid you ever let anyone get too close."
They bury Beth between two trees on the outskirts of a field behind the Greene farm. Maggie directs Michonne distractedly from the front seat of a stolen police car all the way from Atlanta. Her directions are quiet, her responses short, and from Daryl's position in the backseat of the car all he can think in a moment of hopeless grief is that it's her own damn fault.
It's strange when they arrive. Their five cop cars roll up an overgrown path and enclose on a farm house that Daryl thought would have burned to the ground years ago. There's something eerie about seeing it standing there, silent. It's worse for wear, sure; there's a gaping, burned out hole in the right side of the house and he can see through what used to be the living room. The remains of the front door lie on the floor just inside the house, hinges completely severed, and he can see the blackened, ugly scars on the peeling white paint of the exterior. The walkers had moved on years ago, leaving destruction in their wake, and yet this house had remained standing, defiant in the face of it all. An inexplicable lump forms in his throat, and a strangled laugh tries to push its way past it at how horribly fitting it all is – that they'd bury her here, strong and defiant and good as the house she grew up in.
And if not for the splintered pine and the destroyed picket fence and the door lying defeated on the ground, this house would look just as it had in his dream. He shivers despite the heat and casts his eyes to where Beth had sat on the porch, legs swinging and blue eyes watching, but his gaze falls on an empty space. His eyes begin to prickle with heat and he has to look away.
Daryl's not sure how long he's been standing there, but when Rick's voice carries on the wind from somewhere behind him, he turns his head over his shoulder and feels an old curl of dread form in the pit of his stomach.
They're standing near the spot where the barn used to be. Nature has been steadily reclaiming its territory, but beneath the mounds of weeds and wildflowers he can make out the blackened husks of wood and ash, like an old wound festering beneath a band aid. Nausea coils in his stomach, so he tears his eyes from the sight and looks instead towards Rick, Glenn and Maggie, standing beneath a large oak tree. Maggie's face is in her hands, and this time when that flare of anger courses through him at the sight of her, he can't help but also feel guilty.
"Here?" Glenn asks her quietly, as Daryl makes his way towards the trio. It dawns on him that this is where they buried Sophia, and where they buried Beth's mom and brother, but those wooden crosses are gone; carried away beneath the dragging feet of a hundred walkers, and he can't tell precisely where those peaceful dead lie now.
Maggie shakes her head through her sobs. "I don't know," she breathes, and when her voice stumbles over her next words, Daryl's anger at Maggie dissipates a little, and his heart clenches tightly in his chest with pity for her. "I can't find them," she sobs. "I don't know where they are anymore." And when Maggie can't bear for that ground to be dug up yet again, when she cannot face the fear that a shovel may accidentally catch upon her brother's lifeless arms or her mother's unsmiling mouth, Daryl understands.
And so they bury Beth between two trees on the outskirts of a field behind her house – two weeping willows where Beth and Shaun would once-upon-a-time play hide and seek from an irate teenage Maggie. When Shaun got too old for games, she'd come out and climb these trees alone, and when she got a little older herself she'd sit right here in this space, covered in the shade of the leaves above her, and read book after book beneath sweltering summer skies. Maggie tells him this as they lower the body into the ground, blonde hair forming a halo around her small shoulders, blue eyes closed forever. When it's done Carol comes to stand beside him, places one hand on his shoulder and wraps her other arm around one of his, but he can barely feel anything through the deafening numbness coursing just beneath his skin.
Maggie stands opposite him on the other side of the grave, face wet with tears, her shoulders shaking with every shuddering breath despite Glenn's grip on her arms. Rick and Carl stand beside them, eyes shining with tears, while Michonne holds Judith, her face sombre. Judith cries then; lets out a long, heartbreaking wail – and Daryl knows she's just young, too young to understand what's going on or maybe even to remember Beth's face, but he can't help but imagine in that moment that the little girl is crying out for the first mother she ever knew. Tyreese stands on Carol's other side, a hand on her shoulder, and Sasha beside him. Abraham's group and Tara stand respectfully a little ways off; a sad, steady presence despite Daryl's certainty that the world is crumbling around him. Gabriel speaks a quiet prayer over the newly turned earth, and through the pounding head ache wrought from too many tears, Daryl imagines a younger Beth sitting up there in the branches of the trees, observing casually with eyes as blue as the sky above them.
Before they leave, he follows Carol to that spot before the ghost of the barn, and she stands in the place where the shell of her daughter was shot down. They visit the overgrown green grass beneath the oak tree where, somewhere, Sophia's body lies.
Carol's eyes howl. They scream. But they are dry.
"Y'alright?" he asks, his voice catching in his throat from misuse.
"I'm okay," she tells him, and though her eyes are hollow her voice is unwavering and strong. She squeezes his hand reassuringly. "You will be too."
They leave in the police cars, and as Daryl casts just one last look from the back window, he imagines a flash of gold on the stairs of that abandoned front porch. That hollow ache that has settled in his chest tears open, ripped anew, and he can't help but think of how wrong Carol is.
Short start to my first ever Walking Dead chapter-fic! After howling for days after the mid-season finale, I just had to write something to make myself feel better, and so came the idea of Daryl gaining some closure through dreams about Beth. But for the rest of his life. So maybe not closure? Maybe just endless grieving. And pining. Wow. This is so depressing. But trust me when I tell you that the ending is really nice. :)
If you could review, I'd love you forever.
Also, let me take the time to recommend you check out apenny12, whose Walking Dead stories I have been hooked on for the longest time. Her 'For The Ones...' series and her Bethyl one-shots have kept me going through all the tough Bethyl times. She also has a new story about our OTP reuniting and it's beautiful and actually could realistically happen, and Morgan is there, and Morgan is the best, so. Y'know. You should go ahead and read her stuff.
Thanks again. Updates will be fairly frequent, since I've almost finished the last couple of chapters anyway. Anyone reading this or my other Walking Dead stories, you are absolute gems to me.
Bored of the sound of my own voice now. Stay tuned. Bye byeeee.
