"You're going to miss me so bad when I'm gone, Daryl Dixon…."

The startling truth in that statement was heart-breaking.

Those simple little words, seemed to always be with Daryl now. Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, they were always there stuck at the back of his mind, and no matter how hard he tried to forget them, he couldn't. He still remembered the girl that had uttered them, so vividly. He remembered like it was yesterday, exactly how he had felt, as they had fallen from her sweet young lips. Sad.

He had lost too many people, and the thought of losing her too, wasn't one that he been prepared to entertain back then. She had been his little something to live for. She had lost everyone she had ever known, and he had vowed, he would never let anything happen to her.

...

But now, months had passed since he'd last laid eyes on her pretty blonde face. But he'd never forgotten her.

Sometimes he felt as though he couldn't even remember what she looked like anymore. He just saw flashes of bright blonde hair, big blue eyes, pale skin and an infectious smile. But that didn't matter. All that mattered was how he felt when he thought of her, how his whole system still warmed up inside when he remembered what it had been like when she had been there, how it had made him feel. A feeling he had never had before.

...

The group were on the road again, Daryl had lost track of how long exactly. The days all seemed to merge in to one. But the cooler weather with the changing seasons, along with the fact that baby Judith nearly had a full set of teeth now and an impressive shock of hair, reminded him alone that it was a long time since the days of the prison.

...

Daryl was thankful he had met up with his group again, that together they had something to live for. But it was bitter sweet. Beth had always been the one out of the two of them that had never lost hope that they would be reunited with the group, that she would see her sister again and their friends. Daryl would have all but given up if it hadn't been for Beth. So it didn't feel right that she wasn't here with them now, whilst he was.

Sometimes he felt angry that they weren't doing more to find out what had happened to her. That everyone seemed to have given up on her. But in reality he was just angry at himself that he hadn't done more. He hadn't been able to save her, to stay with her, to keep her safe and worst of all he hadn't been able to find her.

He knew the group were getting further and further away from the prison site and also with that further and further away from Beth. From her memory. But the pain of losing her was still there, every single day. First it had hit him like a raw stabbing pain, the heartbreak he had felt when everyone had met up again and he had realised she wasn't there, that they weren't going to find her, that she really was gone. It had taken him by surprise, but none the less it had hurt like nothing he had ever experienced before in his life. Daryl hadn't actually realised it was possible to feel such pain.

With each new day, it was becoming less and less likely he would ever find out what had happened to her. He had no leads, no clues to follow, locating her seemed near on impossible. To him, to Maggie, to Rick, to everyone. They had given up. He had given up, and that made him angry, sad and frustrated all at the same time.

Daryl tried to lock his feelings away, to bury them in a way he had always been so good at before. He had tried to move on, to forget.

Except he couldn't.

It was always there, like a dull ache. Every time something or someone reminded him of her, it hit Daryl how much he missed her and how much he longed for her to come back.

For the most part though, Daryl managed not to think about her in the daytime. The days were easier. He could keep himself busy, going on runs, fighting walkers, protecting the others and making plans with Rick. It was what he was good at. It was the only life he knew now and he felt finally for the first time in his life as though he belonged somewhere, as though he was valued. He mattered to his group, he knew that, he was a good person. But if he was honest it had been Beth that had made him see that. Ever since that night they had gotten drunk together and talked for hours, ending with them burning down that goddam awful place they'd found, Daryl had finally been able to leave the darkness of his abusive past behind him and take steps towards discovering who he really was.

...

However, if the days Daryl could just about manage to get by in, the nights weren't so easy. It was the nights that got to him the most. The long, lonely nights, where he couldn't pretend everything was okay. Where sleep never seemed to find him no matter how hard he tried, and mostly he would lie awake for hours haunted by his thoughts. Even on the few occasions that he did actually manage to fall asleep, Daryl would dream that Beth was still alive, that she was right there lying next to him, he could see her soft flawless skin and silky blonde hair, her pink lips teasing him with one of her playful smiles, telling him it was all okay, she was okay….Then he would wake with a start to reality, and he would hope for the best, but fear for the worst. She was dead.

Sometimes, he hoped she was dead, better that then what could be happening to her if she was still alive and with the wrong people. Something he knew he was completely powerless to stop now, and a thought he dreaded above all else. She had been so young, so innocent, he should have protected her better.

Mostly though, in the nights, Daryl would simply lie awake for hours, hands behind his head, staring at the night sky, shivering in the bitter winds, going over and over the same old things in his head. He thought about the guilt, the guilt of letting her get taken, of not being able to find her. He retraced every last second of their final moments together, how he had told her to wait outside without thinking. How he had shouted her name until his voice had gone hoarse and how he had run after her tracks until he had collapsed on the road. The immense guilt ate away at him.

He knew no-one else blamed him, not Rick, Michonne, Carol, Maggie even. They all knew only too well, what it was like in the world now. But that didn't stop Daryl from blaming himself. He couldn't look Maggie in the eye anymore either. Not because he felt bad that he wasn't able to save her sister, but because he knew Maggie had given up, she had accepted what he couldn't. That Beth was gone forever.

It wasn't just the guilt, that kept Daryl awake night after night either. It was regret. Regret that he hadn't handled things differently with Beth back when he had had the chance. He'd had plenty of time to think about it since she had been gone. Back when they had been together he hadn't treated her the best, he knew that, he'd been moody and silent, lashed out at times even, taken all his frustration at losing the prison, out on her. But looking back, he could see that he had behaved in that way in part because he had been confused, at how being with her had made him feel. At how much she had slowly been starting to mean to him. How much he had started to want her. He hadn't been used to having those sorts of feelings, especially not about a girl as young and precious as Beth.

In his eyes back then she had just been a girl, Hershel Greene's youngest daughter. She'd had boyfriends her own age, she was immature, naive even, she judged him as some redneck asshole.

Except, she'd never judged him, she'd been wise beyond her years. Daryl could see that now and he wished he could go back. Have their time together again. There were things he would never have been able to say to her at the time, that perhaps he could now. He would try and tell her how much she meant to him, how she had given him hope in a way no-one ever had before, hope that he could have a chance at being happy. If Daryl Dixon had been a changed man back at the prison, he was even more of a changed one now. He could see life was short, life was precious. Any small chance of happiness had to be grabbed by the horns with both hands. And he could see now that being with Beth, getting close to her, even for that short time, had made him happy.

He was watching other members of his group forming stronger bonds, while he felt alone, and now he craved that closeness in a way he never thought he was capable of. He had always been a lone wolf and happy with that. But just in those few days he had spent with Beth, he had come to realise that he could try to connect with another person, he could potentially take comfort from getting close to someone else. Beth had made him feel as though his life had meant something. He wasn't just some greasy redneck, he was a real man, a hero in her eyes.

Which was why losing her the way he had, felt so tragically ironic to Daryl. He had been anything but a hero, that dark night she had been whisked away from him so strangely and speedily. Leaving him feeling lost, as though there was something missing, something he hadn't even realised he'd needed, until it had been gone.

Sometimes, in his past Daryl had felt as though there was something wrong with him, because he didn't think he'd had needs like other people.

Although, he was still a male, and he'd had urges. He had appreciated the beauty in Beth even before the prison was taken and they'd grown closer. Having been unable to stop himself from experiencing the occasional sexual fantasy about her, despite thinking it was wrong and he would never act on it. Forcing himself to push his physical desires firmly to one side and see Beth only as a friend.

But when Daryl thought back to his last night with Beth at the funeral home, he could see now that he had wanted them to get closer. Even if he hadn't been fully ready to face it at the time. In those last few moments before he'd had to fight off the walkers and she had been mysteriously taken, Daryl had been beginning to entertain the idea, as crazy as it seemed, that he could start something more intimate with her.

But all that had been cruelly taken away from him. Time had made him see that Beth was the one good thing to happen to him and now she was gone.

A/N - Thanks for reading. Please, please, leave a review if you can :) Next chapter, Beth comes back!