And now there was that other thing. One more secret that he was keeping from her, from all of them, really, but her the most. Because while the others would certainly be affected by it in some way - at least the members of his prison family that had known him for some time - she would be disappointed in him.

She would feel hurt.

She would feel that he had let her down by letting himself slide.

That he had allowed himself to give up the ground he had fought so hard to gain, always supported by her, where she had been strong and would have expected no less of him.

After losing Beth, he'd believed that he was really the only one left, just as she'd said at that damn moonshine shack. He hadn't seen anyone else make it out the day of the attack, they hadn't encountered anyone or seen any tracks or leads apart from the half eaten bodies that had made Beth cry. For all intents and purposes, he had been the only survivor of their family, the one thing that he had never wanted to be. He had truly been at his lowest when Joe and his men had shown up, and he had almost hoped that they would end it for him there and then. What good was fighting, when there was nobody left to fight for? But as soon as that asshole behind him had claimed his vest because of its wings, his survival instinct had kicked in full force.

Now, of course, he was glad that it had - not least because it would have broken her heart to find all of their family but him, and not know what had truly become of him.

If he had just died, or if he had turned.

If she might need to be prepared for running across his walker and have to put him down.

Then again, it would also have broken her heart to see him with that group. See him not taking care of himself at all again. Not searching for food, not eating enough, rarely going out to hunt, because the whole claiming shit seemed so ridiculous to him.

Not sleeping enough because his mind kept running around in circles over what he had done wrong at the prison, about what he should have done, about how he should really have looked for her right after getting out instead of keeping his head up his goddamn ass and just vegetating for … How long had it been? A week? Ten days?

He'd really gone back to being Daryl before the world went to hell, and she would not have liked to see him like that at all, he knew that. He'd even known it while it had been happening, but had been unable to stop himself. After managing to gain some hope again in view of Beth's unwavering optimism in the face of the gruesome events at the prison, in the wake of seeing her father getting beheaded with their friend's sword, having her taken away from him without being able to protect her, to do anything about it, had really thrown him back …

No.

It had beaten him down.

Broken him.

And he'd let it.

It had come on top of so many blows over such a short time that he had been unable to take it. And so he had allowed himself to drift through the days, watching those shitheads taking it out on each other, talking dirty about the women they'd encountered, and about what they had done to them, laughing about killing the men who had tried to protect those women, and talking about some dude that had killed one of their own in some house they had stayed in not too long ago.

He had played their dirty game. He had „claimed" a blanket and a plastic bag to carry it for himself on the second day because the nights were just too cold to go without anything, the way he had been trying to, and even while saying the word that had tasted foul in his mouth he had felt like a piece of shit because this was not the way things were supposed to work, even now.

A member of your group, of your family, needed something and you found it, you didn't „claim" it for yourself but you gave it to them. As simple as that.

And he'd had that. And the people he'd had it with had given him the feeling that he had deserved that, not just for what he contributed, but for who he was.

Seeing her at his side now, weighed down by what had happened since he'd last seen her before that run to the Veterenary College, he couldn't but admire her strength, her resilience in the face of all that she had been through. Not only had she been exiled from the prison, banished from her family, without even being given a chance to say good-bye to any of them - to him, when Rick had to know what they were to each other - but she had obviously taken care of the two Samuels girls after the prison had fallen - until something had happened and they hadn't made it.

He knew that she was blaming herself for losing those two girls that she had promised to take care of, even though she would have done everything in her power to save them, just as she would have done - had done - everything to save Judith. But he knew, maybe better than most of them, that no matter what you did, no matter how hard you fought, sometimes it just wasn't meant to be and you lost, not for lack of trying but for lack of luck or for a dog barking and you falling for it because it was a goddamn dog.

But despite all of those blows that had surely cut into her soul she had remained strong, she had kept fighting, she had not given up on all of them. She had kept Judith alive and gotten all of their sorry, trusting asses out of Terminus because she was a damn survivor.

He was so fuckin' proud of the woman she had become, or maybe she had been like that all the time and it was only now beginning to show. She was strong and caring at the same time. Tough when she needed to be, able to make the hard calls, the ones that everyone else shied away from, yet kind when there was room for it. She had adapted to this life, she was a fighter, a survivor, yet she had never lost her heart and her kindness over it despite the blows she had been dealt - blows that would have taken down anyone else; blows the likes of which had taken down Rick.

Yet something was eating her up inside and he couldn't take it. Hated seeing her like this.

Like him.

The way he had been, before her.

Closed down, walls up, unable to open up to the people around her. Unable to talk to him, now that it was him trying to help her.

While talking had never been the thing for him, it had for her. He needed to get her to talk, to open up to him again.

Needed her to share that secret pain that was eating her before nothing was left of the woman he …

Maybe it was time for him to make that first step.