I Still Cry
A tribute to Beth Greene and Daryl from The Walking Dead...
Three weeks had passed since Atlanta, but the painful ache inside his heart had not eased even one tiny bit. He hardly ate or drank. He barely even slept. He just kept walking to a set destination with his people as he refused to speak.
His friends were obviously worried about him. It was Rick who tried to talk and ease his pain.
"You lost something back there," Rick said gently, but Daryl could only flinch.
"You know you can talk to me. We're brothers," Rick continued.
Daryl looked at him at him blankly as he refused the water that Rick held out to him in offering. He just kept walking, until he could walk no more.
Then without a word, he disappeared into the woods. He just needed peace and quiet. He couldn't take their voices anymore or their sorrowful looks. He didn't know he was being followed as he made his way through the trees.
He dropped down upon the ground, his crossbow in his lap. And then suddenly, it just happened. A torrent of hot tears began falling from his eyes.
*Why didn't I tell her?* a voice inside him cried out in anguish. *Why?!*
All the 'whys' were haunting him when Carol reached his side. No woman had ever seen him weep... not until Beth; not until he opened up to the sweetest and most innocent woman in the world... and for that reason alone, he was crying now.
He stood up, wiping at his tears, miserably failing as he tried to act as though his heart was made of stone. "I know you're hurting..." Carol said quietly. "I know things went in a direction you didn't want them to go. But you tried to save her, Daryl. We all did."
Daryl nearly choked on jagged sob, but he held it back. His heart was crying out her name and in his mind's eye he could see her smiling as he could hear her sweet song. He always teased Beth that he hated her singing, but honestly, her voice had turned his heart inside out. Everything about her had touched him in the deepest recesses of his soul.
"I'm sorry, Daryl," Carol said as she reached into her satchel and withdrew an object that Daryl knew so well.
She passed the knife case into Daryl's hand. It contained a very sharp blade. "It was hers," said Carol. "I know she'd want you to have it."
He didn't want Beth's knife, but he accepted it. He accepted it because it's all he had left of her - that knife and a bracelet.
He still twisted it in his fingers every single night. He'd found it on the roadside when she was taken from him- when she had been kidnapped and stolen from his side.
It was a small band she had made for her tiny wrist. It had covered a secret scar. She had given up at seventeen and hadn't wanted to live anymore. She had tried to take her own life, but someone saved her.
She went on because she was strong and because she was meant to live. Unfortunately, he had fooled himself when he thought they had all the time in the world and when he convinced himself that they were meant to be together. She had made him believe... and now she was gone.
"Are you going to be alright?" Carol asked Daryl with concern.
A small sad smile touched his face. "I always am," he said, crushing a little bracelet in his hand.
The End