This is the third piece in my Bethyl Week series. As I announced in the previous pieces, this scene will be one of those that is lifted from my full-length work entitled Settling, Surviving, Thriving, Living, albeit edited and altered to fit the theme of the event for the day.
I suppose you could say I'm just not ready to let go of all the beautiful Bethyl moments 4B gave us; I just keep looking for new ways to interpret and look at them, to see if there is any possible further interpretations they have to offer me. As always, this can be enjoyed whether you have or have not read the original story :-)
Additionally, please note that, while these pieces are part of a larger story, they are stand-alone one-shots; therefore, they do not follow the chronological order of the show. The selections will be posted to follow the schedule of the prompts for the event. Once Bethyl Week is over, I will create a separate story and re-post the one-shots in chronological order there :-)
The sight of her bag crumpled on the ground sent a chill up his spine. His gut felt as if it had just been put on ice, numbed instantly by the cold—and not just as a result of the ever-cooling temperatures of the approaching winter weather. He knew, as he leaned down to pick up the bag, his hand nearly tingly in its numbness as he did so, that something had gone wrong.
A skid of a tire had him moving instantly. The sound sent a shockwave through his brain, as it overreacted to the small noise in its previously numbed and blank state and sought to suddenly force his body into jagged and erratic movement. Without even really authorizing his legs to do so, he started running, chasing after it…chasing after her.
He called her name so many times he lost count, as he did his best to keep up with the car. His legs went numb, not even able to register the pain that was undeniably pressing down upon them. But he didn't care if they were in pain; even if he had felt it, been able to acknowledge it, it wouldn't have stopped him—he would've kept running, no matter what.
It ain't possible, baby brother, Merle's voice whispered to him, sending another—albeit much smaller—shockwave through his brain. Daryl brushed it away; he didn't need to hear that shit. He would catch up to her or he would die trying, and that was it.
Eventually, the car slipped out of his sight. Didn't stop him, though, as he ran, continued to run, ran until he felt like he could collapse. But he didn't; he refused to.
He didn't realize the sun had even come up until it had obviously been up for several hours, barely visible through a cloudy haze. He paused for just a moment, almost feeling as if he could throw up his lungs; they were, after all, nearly the only appendage that wasn't completely numb at this point. However, they took matters to the opposite extreme, as they burnt and sent acid rising up his throat. He swallowed deeply as he wiped the sweat from his forehead and settled on continuing.
And he did. He continued for hours—or had it been days? Following the only path that they could've obviously taken.
Until he came to the crossroads. As he looked from one road to the other, he felt like his lungs wanted to revolt purely out of anger and overuse all over again. Which way had the car gone?
There was no way to know for sure, he realized as he finally caved to the pressing call of the numbness permeating throughout his entire body. He let it consume him finally, conceding to it as he allowed himself to collapse to the ground at the center of the crossroads. His bow slipped out of his now unfeeling hands in the process and, for the first time ever, he found that he didn't care, not in the slightest. He had always felt naked without the weapon before, but not now.
Daryl knew the cause of his indifference. It wasn't just his body that was numb at the loss of the littlest Greene. His entire soul ached, tingling in that unpleasant pins-and-needles sort of way.
His eyes set to his legs, unable to look up and take in the two roads, as they only reminded him of what he had lost, of the choice he now had to make.
He passed several hours this way—numb, mentally, physically and emotionally, simply sitting and ignoring the environment around him, plagued by thoughts of should've, could've, would've.
He should've stayed with her, not let her out of his sight. If he had done that, if he had done his one fucking job in the whole fucking world right, she would be here by his side right now, and not off with whatever the hell human being had the nerve to take a girl like Beth.
He should've moved quicker, should've found a way to evade the Walkers, get to the road faster. If he could've done that right, he could've stopped the whole thing before it even really started—could've intervened as soon as the asshole came up to her.
He should've—should've—should've told her, not danced around the damn thing. Sure, words were a bitch for him, but she had deserved to know, deserved better than what she got, deserved better than him.
No, her voice found its way into his head, appearing as it always did when he struggled with following her way of doing things. Its appearance sent yet another shockwave of feeling through his mind. For the first time in hours, he felt alive again, if only fractionally. I'm not gonna leave you, it continued for him, just as he had heard before she had been taken. It told him so many things and he was immediately glad that she had said it, even if he had forced her to leave anyway and gotten her into an even worse situation.
It told him she hadn't voluntarily hopped in any asshole's car—but he knew that already. It just wasn't her to do that, even if she hadn't liked what he'd implied before they were separated, what he had left unsaid in the kitchen of their funeral home. They relied on each other, even if she hadn't hoped for it to become what he had thought—what he had considered—what he had hoped for.
It also suggested to him that he wasn't alone, that their last conversation and the following life or death situation had brought some things to her attention, things he really wished he could know right now, things that he felt would give him the hope he needed if he had any chance of picking his damn ass up off this street.
Then, just like that, his eyes were no longer numbly glued to his lap; they snapped up to take in the crossroads again. Daryl knew what Beth would say—she would overanalyze this situation and resolve that it was perfect—symbolic, really—of what he needed to do now. He had a choice to make; he had known that since his ass had firmly planted on the pavement. And it wasn't just what road he'd take—it was a decision that would affect him, and his future.
The way he saw it, he could turn around, go back to the way he had been before he and Beth had gotten out together, the way he had been since they had lost Sophia—surly, a bit bitter at times. Someone who saw nothing but an ugly world with ugly old him thriving away—a world full of even uglier people and Walkers. He could go back to assuming his family was dead, that Be—that she was dead. He could shut down and just go back to making his own way in this shithole of a world, others be damned.
Or, Beth's voice drawled in his head and he could almost hear the smile and laugh in her voice. He could shove that numbness away, continue on, continue looking for Beth, continue looking for their family. Whichever one he found first, he knew they'd help him find the other.
He looked up again and glanced from one road to another. It wasn't even a choice, he decided.
He knew she was alive. There was just no other option, no other way. Daryl had taught her well since she had expressed her wish to find a way to change—to find a way to be better equipped for surviving this world. In their time together since they burnt down their moonshine shack, he had taught her what she needed to know to make her way through a situation like the one she was probably in right now—a situation he had gotten her in, he thought, as the numbness poked and prodded once more at the back of his brain.
No, he thought, cutting it off before it could infest his mind once more, inflicting a shockwave of his own to short circuit the pending pins and needles. No, he repeated, as a means of reassurance, she was an asskicker of her own now; the only reason she had probably been taken was on account of her still healing injury. The thought and the unexpected appearance of a nickname nearly prompted an unreleased chuckle from him; he probably would've managed a smile at least, had not his face still been nearly painfully numb and vacant.
No, she was definitely still alive, he reassured himself once again, as his thoughts flirted with going in another direction entirely, flirted with the idea of courting that numbness once more. But he refused to do it—refused to think of her in any other way. To lose her would be to lose his hope—to succumb completely to that chill that craved to consume his heart, that same chill he had succumb to so many times in his past. He may not know how to completely conquer that coldness, but he did know he just didn't want to live that way anymore.
He'd find her, of that he was sure. There was no other option anymore. Not for him.