Hello everyone! I just randomly came up with this and quickly wrote it so I apologize for any mistakes or overall bad writing.

This oneshot was inspired by the song, "Echo" by Jason Walker.

I hope you enjoy it (or cry a bit, that's fine too.)

I own nothing!

…

Daryl Dixon was not a praying man.

Why would some all-knowing God allow a cruel beast like Will Dixon to be his father, let alone stand by as he was beaten within an inch of his life for years? What kind of being could be so loving when He let so many good people suffer, like his poor mother, whom worked her hardest in the worst of a bad situation? Where was the great God that protected the weak and evened out the scales of justice? No, there could be no such God.

He could not fault anyone else for looking up to Him, though. He wasn't a complete monster; just a skeptical man with itching scars and narrowed eyes. He looked up to Hershel as more than just the father he never had, but also as what he believed to be the image of God – kind, loving, forgiving, gentle. When the Governor murdered him in front of their family, Daryl could only guess the rest of them felt just as devastated as he. Especially, Maggie and Beth. He may have been a father to all of them, but to those girls, they were blood.

Blood.

Daryl cringed away from the thought. He had never been so frightened by blood before. He vividly remembered when he was wounded and caked in dirt, ripping into the skin of a squirrel, licking blood from his fingers like an animal. But now, blood only brought sickening memories. A growing puddle, creeping over tile floors. A gun. Motionless fingers. He didn't remember seeing much after that. His eyes quickly became too glassy and blurry to see the details; not that seeing the details would make it any easier. He had seen it happen, watched the chaos unfold, felt his heart completely plummet.

Frequently, he found himself shaking as they trekked through the woods. His arms trembled as if his hot, red blood had been replaced with ice water flowing through his veins. But in all actuality, he felt none of it. The ice froze every part of his body, leaving him indifferent to anything and everything. Abraham practically balked when he saw a possum cross right in front of the bowman as they paused to sit. The man didn't even seem to notice it.

It had been a little over a week since Grady, when Daryl's mind shut down and his instinct took over. He was lagging behind the group – Rick and everyone else could see how badly he was taking the loss, so they let him work through it on his own – when suddenly he turned off into the tree line. Slowly, he made his way into the thick of it, disappearing without a single look back at his people. It must have been a full hour before Rick noticed that the man was gone. He surged into a half-conscious frenzy, fighting the dehydration and fatigue with his worry

"He couldn't have gone far," Glenn offered. "Maybe he went looking for water."

"Nah," cut in Sasha's low voice. "He's gone. Probably for good."

"He wouldn't leave us. We're family," Rick raised his voice. Judith softly whimpered.

Michonne approached him delicately. "He's a different man since the hospital. If he goes off like this, it's because he needs to. He's a tracker, so if he decides to come back to us, he will." The corners of her lips lifted slightly into a sad smile. "Let him be."

Rick gnawed on his inner cheek as he mulled over her words. Eventually he nodded and they kept moving. The leader hoped that he would see his brother again, and not the shell of a man that remained.

…

When Daryl came to, he was in some sort of barn, leaning against a support beam in the middle of the room. Alone. That was the thing. It always came back to him being alone. His mother dying. His brother leaving him to deal with his father's fists. Beth. Beth.

Fuck, it just won't stop.

His open palm flew up to his greasy, unkempt hair, gripping it tight enough to sting, pulling until some of the strands snapped. Looking down at his own hand, he could see the callouses, the dirt. A memory flashed by of warm, soft hands interlocking with his fingers. How could she touch him when his hands were so ugly? How could he carry her out of that hospital with such rough and unworthy hands?

He disgusted himself.

Daryl brought his hand down hard against the crown of his head. Then again. Again and again and again until he felt his hand close over the hilt of his knife. Her knife. The knife that was all he had left of her. How fitting it would be to die by her blade, in her name. No, not in her name – she would have screamed at him if she could see him doing something so stupid right now.

With shaking fingers, he released the dagger and simply leaned back against the pillar. His eyes were heavy and he was so, so tired. I want to cease to exist, he suddenly thought. To be not dead or alive, but to be stuck in a limbo surrounded by silence and lose track of time.

The afternoon seemed stagnant. The wind was whispering gently, like an ocean wave through the air. The cicadas fell silent and the only other sound was the wavering of his breath. He hadn't said her name in a week, knowing that if he was to hear it or say it, he would collapse into the deepest, darkest hole and never return. He may have been ignorant of what his family thought of his reaction, but he did want to seem at least a little bit together for them. But now he was alone, all alone, once again.

So he let go, and it wasn't as relieving as he'd hoped.

He sobbed, not bothering to cover his face or wipe his eyes. He let the tears stain his dirty skin and he clenched his teeth so hard he thought they might chip. "Fuck, fuck", he groaned to himself. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing for the pain to stop, but the aching in his gut refused to let up for even a moment.

He was branded, he realized. Branded with her fingerprints when they had held hands in the cemetery, when her cheek pressed into the back of his neck as he carried her on his back out of the forest, stained by her blood on his lips and his chest where it had bled through his clothes. She was still all over him, but she was nowhere to be seen.

With a rippling sense of jealousy, Daryl thought back to when Rick lost his way – well, for the second time at least – after Lori's death. At the time, he thought the loss had just hit him enough to drive away his sanity, but upon further thinking and eventually asking Rick about it himself, he discovered that the man was seeing his dead wife, walking the grounds, silent and watching. Daryl had rarely been one to want something, but he couldn't deny that he was desperate to see just a glimpse of the blonde girl. To see her alive one more time, to destroy the last image of her hanging in his arms, limp and bloody. To see that brilliant smile again. To have one last look at her before trudging on through this ugly, brutal world alone. A single, beautiful memory of her alive could hold him over until death.

Daryl Dixon was not a praying man,

but he would pray for this.

"God," his voice crumpled through another sob. "I-I can't…I know I've never…" He stumbled through his words as he looked up to the ceiling, as if he would find God there listening. Only rafters and cobwebs lingered above him. He took a deep breath, and began again. "I ain't ever been good with words, so I'll just talk. I don't know if you're listenin' or even up there, but…I'm strugglin' to keep this up. I know I failed her and I never deserved… but I'm beggin' you-"

He had to pause, as the wind picked up outside, carrying with it a scent he hadn't recognized in a long time – fresh, clean air. For a moment, the smell of rotting flesh was absent, leaving behind refreshing pine and forest, with a touch of rainwater. It engulfed him, wrapping him up in a breeze, a cooling tingle against his hands and neck. Something pulled her name from his lips, and for once, it didn't sting to say aloud. "Beth."

With a gust of wind, the prayer changed.

"God," he said more strongly than before. "Take care of her. I know she's strong – the toughest girl I know – and she can take care of herself, but she shouldn't always have to. Make sure she's always happy. I could never bear to see her cryin'. I'm happy that she's with her mama, Hershel, her brother." Another heavy breath. "Ain't never been a selfish man, but if she could, I don't want her to forget me. Ain't no way I'll forget her. Tell her to wait for me. I won't be long, I reckon. Ain't been this tired in a long time."

Quietly, he settled down on the hay-littered floor, and his heavy eyes drifted closed.

…

Hours later – maybe days later, he couldn't be sure how much time had passed – he awoke to the fingers of daylight stretching through the wood planks. He was still alone, that much was no surprise, but he found his head cleared. He had dreamed of her, not of blood and tile floors, but of a shack on fire, blazing against the night sky, her middle finger thrust up in defiance, a big old "fuck you" tossed in his father's face from where he seemed to stand amongst the falling boards.

And her, looking over at him with those big doe eyes, nudging him to join her. His memory tells that he copied her and flipped off the burning house as moonshine jars burst, but in the dream, he merely stared at her, his lips turned up into a genuine smile as she slowly brought her offending hand down to her side. They exchanged looks silently, until she rushed into his arms. Daryl wasted no time in wrapping one arm around her shoulders and the other cupping the back of her head as she pressed her face into his warm shoulder. He felt her hum contently against him, before she pulled away and grasped his hand as she walked them away from the rubble, resuming the true memory.

The tiniest of changes, a glimpse at what should have been, what he would kill to have really happened, if he had been braver. If he had known the clocks were already ticking.

But this was enough. This could keep him alive for now.

Feeling refreshed, he stood, gathered his things, and departed back into the woods from the direction he'd come. He would track down his family and return to them, to what was left. Because they would be enough; he could make his life worth living until the end. Protect the people she didn't get to see alive, he would continue her work, her mission.

He would make room for the hurt, keep her close without pushing the others away. She would have wanted that for him anyway. Even if she wasn't around to see it.

Daryl Dixon wasn't a praying man, but he would gladly reserve his one prayer for her.

…

Sooo I hope this was okay. I've been thinking a lot about how Daryl reacted between Grady and the three weeks after where the show picks back up. A lot of people had said at the time that Daryl would leave the show after Beth's death by simply walking off into the woods and never be seen again. Anyway, it's pretty heart breaking, even to me, that Beth didn't actually make an appearance (since I love writing her character) but at the same time, I like to think that after she died, Daryl was weighing his options, like "kill myself, or live for her" and making that decision must have been pretty hard at the time.

Sorry, I'm rambling, I just like to think about what could have happened in that 3-week span of lost time. Anyway, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!