Author's Note: THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR READING. Really, I am so grateful and y'all are inspiring me to write that much faster. And as a treat for all of us, we get to hear from Daryl. I wanted to see where he's at mentally at this point, and to show what a change Beth has had on him. I'm itching to write their reunion - I can't wait!
As I was writing the dream sequence, I could not stop listening to Like Real People Do by Hozier. It pretty much inspired this entire chapter. If love could be expressed in one simple song, I think it would sound like this. It's magical.
"Hey."
"Hey."
"It's your fucking shift. Get up."
He's shaken awake by a rough hand on his shoulder, and immediately sits up, nearly punching Joe in the face. His eyes dart around wildly. He's never been one to sleep deeply – too focused on the dangers of the night to slip into dreams of better times. He's more than a little bit pissed off at himself for choosing now to show this weakness.
Is his mind trying to get him killed?
"Yeah, yeah, I got it," he gruffly responds, sitting up, eager to put some distance between himself and Joe. The older man appraises him as Daryl walks over to the spot with the best vantage point of the forest around them and sits down. Joe probably thinks he judged him wrong. What kind of hunter lets himself be that vulnerable surrounded by thieves and murderers?
"Interesting dreams you been havin'?" It's a simple question, but Daryl can feel the hairs on his neck standing up. It's not a question of concern; it's a question of calculation. Joe's a smart man and a cruel one – the most dangerous of combinations. He's been searching Daryl with his cold eyes since they picked him up about a week ago, eager to find what weakness led to him sitting in the middle of a crossroad. Daryl had managed to hide his pain and his plan quite well, but his nights were betraying him.
"It's nothin' – just blood and walkers."
Joe laughs under his breath, but his eyes remain entirely without mirth. "Man, we got enough of that in the waking hours. All you need to think about for sweet dreamin' is a pretty little thing. You ever have one of those?"
Daryl feels himself stiffen and tries his best to relax. Joe was goading him, trying to get a reaction. He knew what manipulation felt like – his father hadn't just been an expert at physical abuse. And, if he were being honest, his bodily response was irrational. He had never really had a pretty little thing. She had never been his.
He doesn't trust his own voice and so his silence does all the talking. He fears that it's saying the wrong things. Joe closes his eyes with a small smirk on his face. Daryl watches the other man carefully and it doesn't take long for his mouth to go slack and his breathing to even. Joe wasn't the sort of man who stayed up thinking on his life – he had long ago made peace with his own ugly soul.
After a few minutes have passed, Daryl lets out the shaking breath that's been clawing its way up his throat since he woke. He can't help but put his head in his hands, pressing his palms to his eyes. It's not enough to think of her when he's awake, but now she was infiltrating his dreams too. And his body welcomed it. He wanted to stay in those dreams for as long as he possibly could. Beth Greene wasn't even here, and he was still sure she would be the death of him.
...
She's always in a white sundress. Normally she's at her farm, walking through the tall grass of the fields she used to ride that insufferable horse around in. Sometimes she's at the prison, tracing her fingers along the chain length fence, deftly dodging the walkers' grasping hands. Her hair is down, but he can see the little braids she's so fond of winding through the tangles. Sometimes, when the breeze is right, her blonde waves move enough for him to get a glimpse of her slender neck.
He's always following. She seems to be walking slowly, taking her time. He feels out of breath, as though he's been chasing her for miles. But he never gets close enough. Sometimes she turns, smiling at him with her eyes crinkled like she's looking into the sun. And every time his heart slams into his chest as though his pace just isn't fast enough for it.
She never says a word and neither does he. He thinks on this after he wakes and he always concludes that besides her beauty and his thumping heart, this was the most accurate part of his dreams. They really didn't say much to each other. They never had to. She says all he needs to hear with her smiles and trailing hands and in every dream he always makes the same translation –
I love you.
And then, just as he realizes it, just as he reaches her, just as he can finally do something about the roaring in his ears whenever he looks at her, he wakes up. It happens at the same time every night. And every guard duty he sits, cursing himself bitterly in his mind. Even in his dreams, he's never quick enough to do something.
She still gets away from him in the end.
...
Daryl Dixon watches the moonlight filter through the trees, ears alert to every sigh of the wind and creak of the tree branches. After these dreams of his, he can't help but equate every sound to her somehow. He sees flashes of pale skin around every tree trunk, hears the wind like it's her sigh on the back of his neck as she holds him close. The old Daryl Dixon would say Beth Greene was haunting him, but now he thinks of it differently. The old Daryl Dixon would dream of his worst nightmare. Beth Greene – bloody, dead, sinking her teeth into him. But instead he dreams of her beautiful and whole and wonderfully alive.
He doesn't know if this is what love or hope does to a man, but he's grateful for it. It's why he can handle staring into the faces of the men around him, unable to escape them without an arrow in his brain. It's why he's got a pocketful of berries and shoes that are caked with the miles he's walked.
He doesn't doubt Beth Greene for one second.
God damn it, she's going to find him.