"The Dark Side of the Moon"

Author: carmen_085

Disclaimer: I don't own any Walking Dead characters. All original characters are mine.

Summary: When the Whisperers begin to threaten Hilltop and the other communities, Daryl gets a surprise as they find someone from the group's past among the enemy.

Chapter Two

He stood there in that dimly lit cell looking at her...really looking at her for the first time in years. She was the same but she was different. Her long blonde hair was now shorter coming just to her shoulders and it was darker somehow. Her face was still beautiful but she had aged into a grown woman instead of a teenager. A deep scar ran under her left cheek. He remembered that scar from Grady; it had stitches then. Her arms were more muscular than he remembered as he acknowledged that she looked bigger and stronger all over. Her eyes were the same though, big and blue and full of hope. He could only imagine the things she had been through since he had seen her last. And she still found a way to have hope. Daryl almost laughed. Just when he thought he had lost the last of his own hope; the person who taught him how to have faith in the first place shows up.

Beth knew he was watching her as she took the opportunity to stare right back at him. He looked the same ..well mostly. His hair was longer and scruffier, he was leaner than she remembered too like he hadn't been eating much. He had a scar on his neck that she couldn't place. His hands were the same though, and his arms, and the way he smelled; all the things that she remembered the most about him were the same. He still made her feel safe without even trying. He still made her feel alive without even trying. But there was one thing that wasn't the same. The light in his eyes; the light she remembered was gone.

He spoke first, his voice raspy and low. "How long you been with those freaks in the skins?" She felt herself tense. Beth had done a lot of things to find her way to back Daryl. A lot of things she wasn't proud of. But she had survived.

"Only a couple of months." She didn't say anything else right away which only made Daryl mad.

"What's this? You covering for your people?" All this time he figured she was alive he never thought that she would pledge her allegiance to another group, let alone a group of psychos. He cursed himself. He had been so stupid to ever even think that they could pick up like nothing had happened.

Beth looked at him incredulously. "I haven't had 'people' since you and everyone else left me at Grady eight years ago." Now she was pissed.

"You wanted to stay! We begged you to come." He pushed off the bars and got into her face. Much to his surprise she didn't even flinch. If he wasn't so mad, so confused, so scared; he would have found this new version of Beth incredibly hot.

Pushing up off the bed Beth squared off on Daryl her own eyes burning in anger. "I stayed because she wasn't going to let me leave there alive. No matter what you or Rick did she was going to kill me. She told me that. I owed her and nobody left that place until they worked their debt off." Daryl backed up as Beth took another step toward him. "So I played it smart and I knew... I KNEW... you would find a way to come back for me. That or I would find a way to get to you."

Daryl looked down at her as he blinked back years of emotion. "So what? You leave out of there and join up with the first band of freaks you find? Need someone to protect you? I taught you better than that!"

She was furious now. In less than five minutes he had managed to dismiss all the shit she had done in eight years to find him again. All the shit she endured and went through was for nothing. A small chair sat next to the bed as she kicked it hard. It skidded across the floor and hit the bars. "You want to know what I did well here it is, Daryl. I'll give you the short version since you don't seem to give a shit about me anymore. I stayed at Grady and waited for you as long as I could. I... I was one of the last people to leave that place. Me and two of the cops barely made it out of Atlanta. We met up with some other people and our group stayed together for a long time. Made it all the way to North Carolina together. And then a herd came through; we got separated and I was alone." Daryl felt his heart begin to pound. Beth, sweet innocent Beth had the shit to survive out there alone. Unreal. "I was alone for months. I didn't think I was going to make it and I almost didn't. But then a group of men picked me up. At first it was fine but then it wasn't. There...there wasn't a lot of women in the group..." She trailed off as her own anger faded to nausea. Daryl felt his stomach do a somersault as a dark realization dawned on him. "They liked to take women from other groups. A few months ago they took a girl named Lydia. She was the daughter of a woman who called herself Alpha. Alpha is the leader of the people who wear the skins. I protected Lydia; she's just a teenager I had to. When her mother came for her, Lydia told her this and she took me back with her daughter. They killed a bunch of people to get us back. A bunch of her people also died. So now I owe her." She paused staring at him like he was stupid. "That's what this world is Daryl...owing everybody something and doing whatever it takes to pay that off and stay alive."

Daryl tasted something bitter in his mouth as he swallowed hard. "Nah...ain't gotta be that way." His voice was soft as she saw the guilt on his face. He was supposed to keep her safe, keep her from doing that kind of shit but he didn't and here they were. Daryl stood in silence as Beth backed off of him. "So you think this Alpha is going to come after you?"

"She'll be here. Nobody runs out on her until their debt it paid in full." Beth laughed a little. "So there it is...I guess I just went from one band of freaks to the next doing whatever I had to do to make sure someone protected me...or whatever it is you think of me." She looked at him the hurt evident in her face that somewhere along the way he had lost all faith in her.

"What am I supposed to think? I ain't seen you in years and now you show up with a bunch of psychos who just killed one of our people?" He sneered at her, he was hurt more than anything. But he wasn't even sure why. It had been ten years since the start of all this shit and he knew, better than anyone, that you didn't make it ten years without some questionable decisions. She did what it took to keep living and for some reason that bothered him. "I don't know you, anymore Beth." He turned to leave the cell as the door slammed shut behind him.

Beth jumped off the bed in anger as she ran over to the bars. "I don't know who the hell you are anymore either. What did I say to you Daryl? The last time I saw you, what did I say ?I know you remember."

HIs voice was quiet and fragile with emotion as he spoke, "You said 'I'll find my way back to you'."

She crossed her arms over her chest waiting for him to turn but he didn't. "I kept my promise. You didn't. Just remember that." Daryl felt his breath catch in his throat. Why the hell was he doing this? For Christ's sake this was Beth. His Beth. It didn't matter what she did or who she was with. She was with him now; back where she belonged. But he just couldn't let her in again. She broke his heart once when she stayed at that hospital. And he guessed her broke her heart when he never came back for her. He couldn't do it though, just like at the funeral home, he couldn't drop that last wall and let her in. He was too damn scared. Walking up the stairs he slammed the door shut behind him.

"Hey you ok over there?" Beth's eyes snapped open as she stared up at the ceiling of her cell. She hadn't realized that there was someone else down here. "Hey..." Standing up she went to the bars and craned her neck. A young blonde teenage boy stared back at her.

"I'm ok. Who are you?" She smiled at him, her genuine Beth smile. She had so many questions maybe this kid would know some of the answers.

"I'm Henry. Carol's son." Beth's mind flashed back to Carol laying in the dirt outside her daddy's barn. That little girl, Sophia, stumbling around. Strange enough this kid Henry kind of looked like her; they could have been twins.

"I'm Beth. I used to be with Daryl and Rick and my sister Maggie a long time ago." Henry registered surprise at who he had in front of him.

"You're Maggie's sister? The leader of Hilltop?" Beth felt a flicker of excitement. Maybe her sister was alive.

"Yes. Is Maggie here? What about Glenn? And Rick..do you know where he is?" She looked through the bars hopefully at Henry as she saw a cloud come across the young boy's face and her heart sank.

"Oh man...you been gone a long time, haven't you?" Beth slumped back from the bars as she walked to the bed and sat down. "I don't know everything but I'll tell you what I can."

"You know, Henry, there's only one thing I really want to know." There were a million things she wanted to know but there was one thing she had to know. "I want to know what the hell happened to Daryl."

Henry exhaled loudly. "I was a kid back then but I've heard the stories and I heard the things my mom told my dad." He slid down the wall and sat next to the bars of his cell. "It's a long story."

Across from him Beth sat down behind her own bars. Her voice was soft and small. "I got time."

Beth listened intently as the kid told her a story of misery like none other. He never met Noah but he heard Glenn talking about him once and he died not long after they made it back to his home. His family was dead of course and Noah didn't last long either. Beth sighed internally, at least he made it home. The group settled in a place called Alexandria and soon they discovered the other communities of Hilltop and the Kingdom. But not long after that they came up against a man named Negan. He had his own group called they Saviors which was ironic because as Henry told her they didn't save a single person. A war broke out, beginning with Negan killing Glenn and another man named Abraham. Maggie was pregnant at the time and watched as this sick psycho beat Glenn to death with a baseball bat. Beth felt a tear slid down her cheek. Glenn, she was so sure he was going to make it to the end.

"He took Daryl prisoner." Beth stared at Henry wanting to know everything she could. "Treated him real bad. My mom never said anything else..." Her mind reeled at that thought. She continued to listen as he talked about how Rick and the others eventually won the war with Negan and took him prisoner. But in the months and years after conflict continued and Rick blew up a bridge leading a pack of walkers away from the communities. No one could get to him, not even Daryl. They never found his body and ever since Daryl had been searching for him. The communities broke apart and Maggie took her baby, Hershel, and left to start her life over. No one knew where she was.

Daryl sat back against the wall of the building listening to the two of them talking. He didn't care that she knew about him or the rest of the group, none of this was any secret. What he cared about was knowing more about her, where she had been and what she had done. He cringed. Didn't have the balls to ask her himself so he was up here like a pussy waiting for a kid to do his work for him.

Beth thought about what Henry had said. She was grateful for any information although she was sure there was more to all this. "So what about you...What's your story?" She swallowed hard as her eyes went to the floor before looking up to Henry.

"I uh...I was with them a long time ago. We lived in a prison and it was safe and then one day it got overrun and we had to run. Everyone took off, my sister included, and the only one who stayed behind was Daryl. We were together out there, just the two of us, for a while. We...we got really close."

Daryl felt his heart flutter. His mind flashed back to the moonshine shack and the funeral home and laying under the stars with her there next to him. He thought about the night in that car trunk and their final goodbye in Atlanta. He listened as she began talking again.

"Daryl and I...something changed between us out there. And I...I didn't want to live without him." Daryl shot to his feet. He couldn't listen to this anymore. Running a hand through his hair he stalked away. 'I didn't want to live without him.' He heard those words over and over in his head.

"How did you get separated from them?" Henry seemed genuinely interested and she had no reason not to trust him so she kept talking.

"I was taken by a woman in Atlanta, a cop, to a hospital where she made me work for her. When Daryl and Rick and the others came to get me she wouldn't let me go. She was going to kill someone so I stayed behind so that no one would get hurt. I knew that Daryl would come back for me...but he didn't." She trailed off for a moment. "I promised Daryl when he left that I would find a way back to him. So I spent the last eight years doing everything I could to stay alive and find him again." She stopped talking but Henry knew that there was more so he stayed quiet. "I did a lot of things I'm not proud of. A lot of things I wish I hadn't done."

"Do you love him?" His words snapped her out of her thoughts. Beth laughed softly.

"I...I don't know, Henry. I know that without him I wouldn't have made it this far. I wouldn't have had a reason to."

"Sounds like love to me." She smiled at the simplistic thinking of a seventeen year old. "What about your new group? What are they like?"

The smile faded from Beth's face. "I wouldn't really call them a group. Everyone has to do what Alpha says or there are consequences. We just exist there. Nobody cares about each other."

"There's nobody you can trust?" Beth looked down. The last person she ever really trusted was Daryl.

"Alpha has a daughter named Lydia. She's a good kid. A lot like you, actually. Her and I are close. She was taken by my group before Alpha, I helped them rescue her."

"You sound..." Before he could finish the doors slammed open and there were footsteps on the stairs. Daryl appeared in front of her, his face unreadable by everyone by her. Beneath the squinting glance and the drawn lips she saw pain and fear.

"Time for you to go." Beth got up from the floor silently. She didn't want to go, how could she? But this was a moment that happened once before. She stays with them and people get hurt. It seemed like a choice but really there was no choice. And this time she knew...SHE KNEW...nobody would be coming to get her.

"Wait ! Daryl where are you taking her?" Henry stood up to Daryl with all the balls he could muster.

"Her people are here to take her back." Beth stared at him for a long moment before walking toward the stairs.

TBC...