First off, as always I need to thank walkerfairytales (popculturesalad) for her help with this in beta reading and correcting my careless typos and lazy punctuation. Also need to thank swiftsnowmane for letting me whine incessantly about how long it took me to write it and for her help in fleshing out what it was I was trying to convey. I heart you both so much!

This was written while listening to Lead Me Out of the Dark by Crown the Empire. The lyrics speak to me and it feels very much like what Daryl feels for Beth, having him to lead him out of his perpetual darkness and then after she's gone and he can't find her, he slips back into that abyss again. In this story, for the sake of making this a fic that everyone can read, it is written as if season 5 never occurred and no one knows where Beth has been all this time. Hope you like reading it as much as I liked writing it.

I Remember (You were just like me)

Daryl was fairly certain he was screwed and this would likely be the end for him and he knew it was his own damn fault. A band of shitheads had gotten a jump on him right outside a warehouse where he'd been trying to find medicine for the infirmary. One of the citizens had fallen ill and there was a warehouse about 17 miles out that used to be a distribution center for a pharmaceutical company. It was a long shot, but it was worth checking out nonetheless.

It wasn't really seeming like a great idea now since he was riding in the back of a truck, burlap sack over his head and gun pointed at his chest. So it seemed that this was how Daryl Dixon was going out of this world. He wasn't sure he cared most days anymore actually. His life wasn't worth much anyways.

"Before all this? I was nobody….nothin'."

All his life was just one big series of running. Running from his Pops to keep from getting beat. Then from his blind and drunken pilgrimage from the broken shards of his childhood following Merle into an exodus of lies, deceit, theft, and such debauchery, if there had been a physical body to bury, his Mama would have rolled over in her grave.

Everyone had been saying forever that the world was going to hell in a handbasket; he'd said it himself enough times and then one day it was all over. The dead started to walk and just like that, it was time for the people of Mother Earth to pay for all their wrongdoings. Fate had come to call and they were all going die eventually. It was only a matter of how. Ever since then, he'd still been running. Running from the dead, from the assholes who were out to profit from the loss of the world, just one long succession of running scared and staying one step ahead, even if it meant putting one foot in front of the other was a mere slow shuffle to what was, at best, tenable safety.

That should have been enough to kill anyone; should have been what sent him to his grave long before now (some days he wished it had). So he guessed that today, with the sun beating on his back, it was his day of reckoning and he'd likely meet his maker. He wondered idly if she'd be there. If there was ever a person that deserved to be in some sweet afterlife where nothing bad could touch her inherent goodness, it was Beth Greene.

He used to think she was out there. Alive. But anymore, as month after month went by and he searched for her in every face of the dead ones, he was beginning to think she wasn't. On the worst days, he wondered if he'd imagined her; that maybe their time together had been part of some sick trumped up hallucination. It wouldn't be the first time. After Merle had disappeared, he'd seen him as some apparition on the banks of that creek where he'd nearly lost his life then too. Of course after Merle died (for real that time), he wished he could see him one more time, but he didn't. Little consolation that he heard him in his head enough, speaking his special brand of twisted wisdom from the great beyond.

Some days, when it was really bad, he wished he could see her. Just once. Just to actually know and maybe quit looking for her. They say that over time, the memory fades, but not for him; at least not about her. He remembered every single thing about her, the way her silvery blonde hair would snarl into a mess of tangles if she went too long without brushing it. The way her lip would curl up if she was getting ready to cry. That hurt more than anything he thought. It nearly destroyed him to know that, first hand, because of the time or two (or more) he'd been the one to make tears fall from her impossibly blue eyes.

He wished he could take back every single cross word he'd ever spoken to her. Just fling them out into space because the cruel words he'd uttered to her, they didn't belong to her and should have never fallen on her ears. They'd been words spoken in anger, frustration and crushing grief. But most of all, it had been the guilt that had him raging at her just like his Pops had his Mama so many years ago. And it had scared the ever living shit out of him, seeing just what he could be capable of given the right set of circumstances.

The next day, he'd looked for bruises on her pale flesh, to see if he'd marked her in that way. He couldn't bear it if he had. He'd looked hard and finding none, he'd vowed from that day forward to only treat her with kindness. With reverence, for what she was and what she represented to him.

He hadn't known it would be the way it was between them. Whatever it was. He didn't know how she felt about him. She'd not gotten to respond to his half-assed confession that it was her that changed his mind; only her 'oh' and then she was gone. Just like that, all the light in his life was extinguished and he was left to wander in what felt like eternal darkness. When she was taken from him, he'd looked for her and had run all through the night into the grey light of the next morning. He had no idea where she'd gone coming to that crossroads. He'd felt like tearing the earth apart, wishing he could just crack it open and peer inside for a just a glimpse of where she might be. If she was anywhere at all, maybe in some East of Eden underworld that he couldn't reach, no matter how dark his soul had turned.

That's where his mind sat as he felt the truck lurch upward as if going up an incline. He had been paying attention of course to the bits and pieces of conversation along the way and he knew they were heading to a place called "The Hilltop". He surmised that if they were willing to let him know where they were going, they were either not dangerous, or alternatively, they were going to kill him so they needn't worry about blowing their secret location.

That's the way it was nowadays. Trust no one. That had pretty much always been the Dixon credo, but he guessed it didn't take the rest of the world all that long to figure it out after the turn. He had vague memories of the farm and grilling that kid, Randall, that Hershel, Glenn and Rick had brought back from some shoot out they'd had up in town. Kid had galled him that was for sure, he'd never before wanted to strangle someone with his bare hands and beat his face to a bloody pulp (he nearly had) upon hearing him, talking about watching some poor girls get raped. They'd taken him into the barn, tied him up and questioned him about where the camp of his shit-for-brains buddies might be located. All the good it had done them. They'd wasted days on that kid, days, and then Shane just up and killed him under the ruse of some sick twisted plan to kill Rick Grimes and take his place in the group (and with his wife).

Stupid prick.

He carried with him the memory of another day in that barn like it was a weight he was meant to shoulder. He wore his guilt like a shroud and even though it was a long time ago and everyone had attempted to absolve him from his self-imposed sentence of blame, it was something he would never forget.

"I remember, when that little girl came out of the barn. You were just like me."

Shane had nearly gotten them all killed that day that their pointless search for a little girl lost ended in tragedy and heartbreak. Seeing Sophia walk out of that barn, the quiet innocence in her eyes snuffed out by the sickness that had claimed most of the population and replaced with the gaze of a monster, had nearly killed all of them. Nearly. It seemed that near death experiences went around a lot when the world came to an end.

He heard the unmistakable sound of gravel crunching under the tires and then they pulled to a stop. Someone hit the tailgate with their hand; male by the sound of the voice. "Take him on up to the sheriff at the barn. Jesus radioed ahead and he's already up there. They're getting the horses ready." Another couple of raps on the tailgate and the truck lurched forward again, the tires rutting along the gravel drive and finally smoothing out to a flatter surface until rolling to a halt.

He wondered about this compound. It couldn't be all that far from the safe zone. They'd barely been on the road 10 minutes from where they'd grabbed him. He'd injured one of theirs, shooting a bolt straight into his thigh. After that, there had been about five goons on him and it'd hardly been a fair fight. He hoped the guy's thigh rotted off with the clip he'd taken to the back of the head in the aftermath.

With a barn nearby and talk of horses, he had to wonder if they were on some kind of farm. Though he couldn't see much through the burlap sack, he could see a lot of green and it smelled kind of earthy. Maybe that's why his brain had dredged up that memory of that kid and their time on the Greene farm.

A fresh jolt of pain ripped through him, remembering her and how she'd looked standing on the farm all that time ago, watching as a boy child held her in his arms, so unprepared for the blow that had just been delivered. As if the hand of God himself had struck her down, he watched her crumple to the ground at her undead mother's side. She'd been just a kid then really and hadn't thought of her in that way, though he'd be lying if she said he hadn't noticed her on some more primal level that he didn't even know existed at the time.

He tried to pinpoint when he'd started to look at her differently and if he had to hazard a guess, he knew it was that night after he'd gone to tell her Zach had gotten killed. She hadn't even seemed surprised as she got up and walked over to her little board where she kept track of things like when they lost one of their own. Going back to zero count always made them all quiet and wary for a few days after, but knowing it was Zach and knowing that it directly affected Beth, that had smarted a bit more. At least for him it did as she stood there, playing with the cardboard square with the number 3 printed in neat typeface, like she knew she'd just drawn the wrong card. Life had dealt her a shitty hand and still, she cared for him and despite her own grief, she made sure that he was alright.

"Are you okay"

No one ever did that for him before. Well, no one besides Carol but with her it just wasn't the same. She had never had anything to offer him except a mutually shitty background and some shared (really bad) jokes.

But Beth?

No, she was different and that night had just highlighted it.

"I don't cry anymore, Daryl."

Oh how he wished that had been true. How he wished he could have protected her, created a world for her where she would never shed another tear. He would have too. He would have stayed with her in that funeral home if they could have.

Being caught up in a domestic life had never interested him before Beth. Before, he would have considered that a trap, something to keep a man from wandering (running) and anyways, he'd never seem himself settling in with conventions like marriage and kids, because, well it just never occurred to him is all. Until her.

Once he met Beth, he started to think things he didn't ever think he'd be capable of thinking.

"Maybe we can stay here….."

He shook the echo of the memory of that day from his mind as the tailgate was opened. "Let's go. Sheriff is waitin' to meet ya." The voice drawled and he scooted himself in the direction of the end of the truck bed and slid down to the ground, stretching the seized muscles in his calves.

He didn't say anything. Figured if he kept silent it would make it easier and maybe this sheriff would kill him quick. It might be a blessing in disguise; maybe this really could be it and he could just be done with all of it. Slip into the next life and never look back at the shit one he had left behind.

Such were his thoughts as he was shoved forward from behind with a shotgun nudging his shoulder. He remembered feeling exactly like this, out of control, helpless, like a trapped animal and there were too many times to count them off now. Maybe that's what had him feeling like he was on edge and though he couldn't see where he was or where he was going, he was astutely aware of his other senses slowly coming into focus.

A surge of acrid fear erupted at the back of his throat and fairly burned but he could smell the rich earthy smell of the soil under his boots. That's what soothed him as he walked forward, the familiar scent a callback to his roots. He realized he was a bit stunted in his footsteps so as not to trip and fall on his face, proceeding carefully at his captor's prompting.

He didn't know if it would help his case any to try and talk to them or not (he'd bullshit his way out of more than one near-death experience). He supposed it couldn't hurt. He heard a voice coming from in front of him, distant, male, mingled with the soft nickering of horses that were close by but a little off to his left. He turned his head in the direction of the voices and he could just barely make out another indistinctive male whisper. "He shot Mark in the leg. Doc says he's gonna be fine but you should see this guy. He looks like some of them biker guys that Zeke said he run into awhile back."

The closer, more clipped, gruff voice of his captor sounded right by his right ear. "Stop, 'at's far enough." He stopped in his tracks and well, waited. For further instruction. For redemption. For death.

He wasn't sure. All he knew was he was just tired, his shoulders felt perpetually stooped, his back permanently rounded with the damnable heft of all that was his past and he was ready to get this over with, whatever this was.

Something was niggling at him, something familiar, but not and he couldn't get the thought out of his head that Beth was near. And maybe she was. Maybe it really was his time and she was coming to escort him into the great beyond. It was a comforting thought somehow and he couldn't fathom a better ending of this day (his whole life) than getting to see her beautiful face again. It was something he'd let himself think about sometimes, when he was feeling stronger, being able to look upon her countenance just one more time.

Rick had seen Lori after she'd died; he'd confided in him later that he had thought he was crazy at the time (and if he had, it was understandable; it had been a hell of a thing to happen). He knew now looking back that he had been waiting for it to happen to him too, for the "crazy" to set in and though he felt close at times, he never did actually slip over that delusional edge. Instead he was relegated to seeing the ghost of her in the dead that walked among them. Sometimes he thought that was worse. Sometimes he thought it might kill him, but still here he remained.

"You're gonna be the last man standing"

Now as he awaited his fate standing in the dirt of an unknown place, the distant tittering of birds could be heard high in the treetops and he was struck with a bolt of wonder, sharp, sudden, piercing sometimes, that wild things still existed, seemingly untainted by this terrible new world. Maybe though he had it wrong; maybe it was that the wild things were the only thing that existed now. Wild things like him, like Beth. She had been a wildling all her own, just a beautifully evolved savage creature, so different from the broken little bird she used to be.

He saw her in his mind's eye, her knife poised in midair.

That. That moment there, when, with a flick of her wrist and flex of her shoulder, swiftly plunging her stone-sharpened blade forward into the gaping eye socket of a dead one. That was the moment when she had been the wildest to him, an untamed girl-beast except where there should be ugliness, there was feral beauty in the hard set of her delicate jaw, the furrow of her brow carved out by quiet, but hard-won ferocity, and most of all the tilted slant of her cornflower blue eyes. They flashed wildly, a brilliant light, ripping into time and coming out through her determined gaze and then just as suddenly that savage mask slipped from her face as she quietly stepped away from her kill.

You had to be wild to make it in this world. Had to or you died.

I made it. I survived and you don't get to treat me like crap, just because you're….afraid."

Except she hadn't made it and that was why as he stood there, the coarse thick sack cloth trapping in the heat of the day and the sweaty fear emanating from him, he barked out at his captors as a whole and to the sheriff wherever he might be. "If yer gonna kill me, just get it over with." His voice sounded pained even to him and he winced at the words that made him seem cowardly instead of gallant.

He would later look back and think that it was maybe what saved him after all. Words born of fear but also readiness to accept his ultimate demise were what redeemed him. A demise that he'd always known would come no matter that she had told him otherwise. In the end, it was the sound, the sound that he never thought he would hear again. That he never dared to hope. One word. One word was all it took for all his other senses to fall away to the only one that mattered.

"Daryl?" His name from her lips flew straight into his ears and surged through his veins, pulsing lifeblood returned after what seemed a lifetime of stuttered heartbeats. Her voice he would recognize anywhere. Somewhere within him the struggle began, an all-out war and he wondered if this was it. Delusion had come to claim him and he'd better just lie down and take it. That must be what his brain told his body because all at once everything slipped sideways, including his bones, reducing him to sinew and muscle puddled in a heap as his knees hit the dirt.

It was like his voice had been plucked from his throat and he could only whisper her name. "Beth." Or maybe he was afraid if he spoke her name aloud she would disappear back into the ether and he'd never know. Never see her. Even if she wasn't real; even if she was the ghost of his past come to call and he had really and truly gone crazy, he'd maybe get a dying wish. To see her one more time.

All at once, he needed the sack off his head and like his thoughts were audible (though his voice was not), the sack was pulled off his head and her gasp was the next thing to fall on his ears. That and her voice, stronger, surer, commanding.

"Untie his hands." It might have taken seconds. It might have taken days but when he thinks on it later he thinks he needed that time to regain his focus because the moment his vision is no longer obstructed, it's like he'd just stepped straight out of the scope of his bow. Everything suddenly comes into focus after being muted and blurred for so long and he thinks it's fitting that the first thing he sees is her pale blue eyes shining back at him, unshed tears lighting them up and he vaguely wonders why he is always making her cry.

In the hazy space directly behind her on the backdrop of the Virginia countryside he sees where she has just come from. It's an old fashioned town-raised barn, standing proud with two doors arced open to a darkened interior. It looks nothing like the barn Sophia walked out of and everything like it all at the same time but he can't make sense of that just now because she's here. In front of him, on her knees just like him and not another moment is wasted once his hands are freed. He has to touch her to make sure.

Everything settles into a mesh of sensations that pile in on him, his hands come up cupping her jaw on either side, absorbing every single thing that is Beth Greene, alive and well right in front of him and it doesn't matter where she has been and it doesn't matter that time has passed. Not to them, because like the sands that have just leaked their last grain into the bottom of the hourglass, some cosmic force flipped it over and time restarts (life restarts) and he gets it. He gets that everything that matters is right here and has just been returned to him. Whole.

Her face is like a quiet storm, her brow furrowed in concern and what looks an awful lot like tenderness as she mirrors his actions and puts her delicate hands to the sides of his own face. As her baby blues sweep over his face, it's almost like he can't look at that heartbreaking gaze another second and he doesn't think about it until later that he automatically presses his lips to her forehead and then her hair as he wraps his arms around her and pulls her into his embrace (where she willingly goes).

No words are needed for them (they never really needed them before either) and his heart feels like an actual working part of his body again instead of some bled-out, tired muscle that is too tired to beat. Her arms are around his neck and she is pressed to him just like he imagined and her softness and warmth are all he needs. He inhales deeply and the exhale is a broken sob that echoes her own as they weep a lifetime of hurt and separation into one another. This. This is all he needs. And a promise that he never has to be without her again. But that could wait.

For now, he just wants to hold her. For as long as she will let him (he suspects it would be a long while). He feels like a drowning man who found a life preserver and he was not letting go until he was safely on dry land. Tears still fall steadily from his eyes, a fountain of grief pouring forth as he quietly wept into her hair and she was still crying too. It may take them a lifetime of tears and embraces like this to soothe the ache and heal the places that had broken open time and again in their absence but one thing was for sure. Daryl Dixon was done running. He'd found her and if all that running came down to this one moment, it was all worth it. And not just the running since the world had ended. All the running he'd ever done in his life seemed to lead him to this one moment.

For such a long time, he had been walking around like a dead man, but now as he rose from the dirt with her and they stood, still intertwined (because he was never letting her go again), he felt finally completely and blessedly alive.

Well this was truly a labor of love. It is something that, for whatever reason, I just simply had to write and it had to be written a certain way and I hope it conveyed what I wanted it to. I would love to hear your thoughts on it. Thank you as always for being such loyal and devoted (don't forget AWESOME) readers.

This story is meant to be a stand alone story, as in there won't be a second part or third. The style that it is written in is meant to tell one specific thing and if I add to it, I fear that it will take away from what I tried to do here. That's why there is very little dialogue between them. It's meant to be a more introspective piece. Hope that makes sense but I wanted to go ahead and clear that up ahead of time.

I've been in the midst of a move after a long 6 and a half years where we are now so it's grueling but I am hoping to have updates for my other stories soon. Thanks for always being so great and until next time, xoxoxo