The days had started running together for Daryl from the morning he collapsed in the crossroads. Before that, each minute he had spent with her was crystal clear in his memory. Every time he drifted into a fitful sleep he could see her face, he could hear her saying she wouldn't leave him and every time he was jerked awake with the realization that she did.
The days he spent with Joe's gang reminded him of where he had been with Merle, Before. He could feel himself easily slipping back into that role he had assumed for most of his life. He didn't have to think, just followed the lead of someone who was probably more twisted and scarred up than he was, but Daryl remembered those nine days in the woods by himself. He remembered that first feeling of emptiness grabbing his insides when he saw the house charred up and smoldering along with whatever was left of his mother. He remembered grabbing onto his asshole of a brother because even though he had left Daryl once, it was better than being alone. A night Daryl remembered belonging somewhere for the first time in his life. He remembered being looked up to, cared about, respected. Things he never thought he deserved, things that he only got after the world had gone to shit. Then, he would think of her. Her blond hair, her smile. Her telling him that he was afraid, he knew that she was right. He was terrified. He knew she was right. He missed her so bad now that she was gone. And now, after burning down that shiner's shack in the woods, after letting her know she fed that little flicker of hope he had been trying to put out his entire life, being with this new group felt like breaking a promise, he found himself searching for a way to leave them. He would rather be alone than break a promise he made to her.
One minute he had found his opportunity to leave and the next he was being beaten to death while Rick, Carl, and Michonne were going to be executed in front of him. Then he was stomping someone's face into the cracked pavement. A minute later he was Rick's brother. Another tick of the clock and they were all in a train car pantry. One more and they were running away from a barbecue. He still wasn't really sure how much time had passed, but they had some food, a couple of beat up cars that were still running, and they had each other- at least that was what everyone kept saying. All he had were memories. Another minute ticked by.
They had made a small camp not far from the road, it was easy to get to the cars, but far enough away to be hidden. Two or three people would take a car out at a time, looking for supplies and a new place to call home for a little while. Daryl never went on a run. He had made a grid in his head of the woods around them and everyday he would leave and he would search. If she was anywhere nearby he wasn't going to leave her.
It had been a few days, a week maybe, when he noticed the worried glances he was getting from Rick. From Maggie and Carol too. When Michonne started asking him how he was sleeping he knew it was getting bad. That night Daryl forced himself to lay out on a bed roll instead of barely closing his eyes up against a tree. By the time Rick took over watch he had fallen into a fitful sleep. It wasn't the kind of sleep that came from comfort and daily tiredness. It was the kind of sleep where you would rather do anything than close your eyes. But after everything, hopelessly tracking that car, sleeping with one eye open around Joe's gang, getting nearly beaten to death and constantly moving, the dreams that were keeping his bloodshot eyes pinned open left the front of his mind.
Maggie had taken to waking earlier than the sun, she found it particularly easy after Rick had told her about Daryl and Beth. She would watch as Daryl shoved a few things in a backpack, readied his crossbow and rubbed the mason jar lid that he had taken to carrying with him. This morning was different though. The air had changed, gotten colder, and Daryl was still sleeping. Maggie moved closer to him when she saw him tossing his head back and forth. She kept watching as he tossed and turned, mumbling the same things over and over. She was nearly standing over him when she could finally make it out. "Beth! Run, Beth!" He made a noise that was a pitiful mix of whine and whimper, "No, I'm sorry, Beth. Beth."
She woke him with a swift kick to his boots, "What in the hell does that mean, Daryl?! 'Beth! Beth! I'm sorry!'"
He woke with a gasp and skittered back against a tree. He shielded his face with his arm.
"What." She kicked his boots. "Happened." Another kick. "To." Another. "My." She switched feet. "Sister?!" Glenn came and pulled her back a few feet. Rick stood behind him and Daryl could feel the pressure of the groups' eyes on him. He felt every set of them telling him how worthless he was, how they had tried to trust him and how badly he had failed. He didn't need them to tell him that, he felt it with everything he had left in him.