Chapter 7: Last Man Standing

"Daryl, just stop..." Beth pleaded.

"No! They came...they stole you. That black car with the fucking cross, it ripped you right outta my life like you'd never even been there...but the hole it left...Maybe if I would've run further, tracked longer...maybe 'cause I gave up that day. Sat down in the middle of the road. That's on me..."

"Daryl..." She was trying to get him to stop, stop punishing himself, but he couldn't. It was all on him.

Beth reached out for him...touching him, but he jerked away, not because he didn't know how to handle being touched like the first time but because he knew he didn't deserve her touch...her comfort.

"No...you died...maybe...maybe I could've done something..." All Daryl could do was bow his head in defeat because he was broken...couldn't say anymore.

That's when Beth wrapped her arms around him, squeezing him tight, pressing her cheek against his back. He was wounded, but she was dead... and still the one with all the strength, givin' all the comfort.

This had all happened between them before, driven by moonshine, tension, anger, loss, but the memory had been altered in the moment of Daryl's dream. Another reminder of his failure...the unbearable loss, but sitting across from her on the porch, looking at her, knees drawn up, head resting against the wooden beam, her face serene in the moonlight...it was all so peaceful. His dreamscapes were so vivid...so very real. The night birds were calling, the cicadas were singing, and Beth was alive...if only in this moment.

"This is where you tell me that you're a dick when you're drunk," Beth smiled at him, recalling the memory...or since it was his dream...was he recalling it? Didn't really matter.

"Yeah...well, I'm not drunk. I wouldn't waste a second of being with you that way..." Daryl looked away, driving his knife in the wooden beam in front of him, still ashamed of his actions from that day...that day that seemed like so long ago. "I never gave up on you, Beth..."

"I know." But how could she?

Maybe he just needed to unburden his soul...

"After I couldn't follow you anymore, I just didn't know what to do. I lost myself for a while, but eventually...eventually I caught up with Rick, Carl, and Michonne..."

There were a lot of things that happened between the point where he lost himself and when he found Rick again, but he didn't want Beth to know about that darkness...his darkness...

"We ended up trapped at this place, a place that was promising sanctuary...but it wasn't...they were..." Beth didn't need to know that either...the purpose of drawing people to Terminus...what they were doing there. "That's where most of us were reunited, locked in this train car together. Maggie was there. I told her that we'd been together, you were taken, and I tried to follow you. I told her, I knew you were alive..."

It stung. He knew in his heart that she'd been alive...believed it when he'd always been so short on hope. He'd be right...and just when they were together again...Beth might as well have been dead all along. It would've been kinder for her. She just watched him, listening.

"They were gonna kill us. Me, Rick, Bob, Glenn...they had us and some other people tied up, on our knees in front of this long trough, slitting people's throats. All I could do was watch as the blood flowed towards the drain waiting for it to be my turn. I knew I was dead...nothin' I could do..."

"How did you get out of it?" Beth questioned thoughtfully.

"There was an explosion...sent everyone there on edge. Rick...Rick went ballistic, he snapped. Never seen him like that. He got us out...we fought our way out. It was a slaughter..." Daryl shook his head, thinking on it...it had been an impossible situation, and he'd survived. Beth's situation, it was so simple...everything had fallen into place...they almost saved her...then she died.

"The hardest part...I've never been afraid to die." That was the honest to God truth. Well, maybe once, when Merle's janky little dealer had his gun pressed against his temple...but that was a different world. "Never had much reason to be afraid, but I wanna go out fighting...I wanna go out with meaning. I couldn't even fight for my life; I was just tied up like some stupid animal sent to the butcher. Worst of all...before this...before you, I knew I was nobody...nothing...but you changed that. I wanted to live for you, and I knew you were alive. If I died...who would go after you...protect you...didn't matter shit though anyway..."

"I died...I didn't want to, but I did...I mean, I knew I was going to die, probably sooner rather than later, but I guess I just didn't expect it...but then who does? Being with you, that time we spent together...I thought I had a chance...not a chance because you were protecting me, a chance because I saw a future that might've been there." She paused, caught by emotion.

Daryl didn't know what to do for her. Wasn't ever no good at comforting people...

"I thought there would be a first kiss, a first..." she stopped herself, blushing in the moonlight, shaking her head a little at what she didn't say, "...sweet moments, we would find a place where we could be safe, happy...just be, even if it was just the two of us..."

He brushed away a stray tear with the back of his hand. He was supposed to be the strong one for her.

"Maybe even a baby...your baby...I always wanted a child..." Beth let out a breathy laugh through her tears. "That's how incredibly stupid I was..."

"No...that's how it was supposed to be...I wanted that too...saw that...for us. I wanted to give you everything...everything..." How he ever imagined those things in their world...in any world...he was the stupid one...

"I thought if I changed...I thought I would make it, but it wasn't enough. I was stronger, but I wasn't meant to live...I wasn't meant to be. You, you were made for how things are now."

I'm going to be gone someday. You're going to miss me so bad when I'm gone, Daryl Dixon.

She knew it...how he didn't know, but Beth predicted their future that night.

"I miss you, Beth...I can't even breathe without you..."

Clenching his eyes tight, trying to fight the tears, he didn't see her come to him, but he felt her hand over his heart...

"You have to put it away...your guilt...your hate, or it kills you...here..."

Daryl pressed his hand over Beth's, opening his eyes to see what he would never have. She was so innocent...so beautiful. He didn't know how it was supposed to go, but he had to.

He'd never kissed a woman before just to kiss her, didn't even know what it was supposed to feel like...didn't know how just a kiss went. He'd kissed her in his dream about the prison...but that...that was before he realized the truth...it was just a dream. This was a dream rooted in reality. This was a moment that should've happened...as close to reality as he was ever going to get...and he felt. It wasn't just about her soft, welcoming lips, the way her hand clenched at his shirt, letting his fingers find their way into her silky hair...it was everything on the inside...the excitement, anxiety, fear, self-doubt, love...even the pain and loss...

They separated...didn't really pull away, but the soft, sad smile on Beth's face...it was heartbreaking. Her fingers came up and tentatively brushed her lips like she wasn't sure what she felt was real.

They should've stayed. It was a shit hole, a reminder of his past, but maybe Daryl could've protected her there...they could've lived. Instead, they'd burned it to the ground.

You're going to be the last man standing.

He was glad Beth didn't say it now...he couldn't have handled it, but her words from that night were burned into his heart forever. Daryl realized that was going to be his curse. When she'd said it to him, he'd thought that was his biggest fear...knew then she saw that fear in his eyes...but now, his most devastating fear had come true...losing her. Being the last man standing wasn't a fear; Daryl knew that it was going to be his fate. He was going to be the last man standing, standing on a pile of charred bones and ashes, watching the world die...burn...alone...

Beth's eyes on him brought him out of his sadness...pulling her fingers away from her lips, she averted her gaze, refusing to look at him as the words came out of her delicate mouth.

"Will you...will you kiss me again..."

God, she didn't even have to ask. Daryl gently lifted her chin so she could see him...see that she meant everything...was his world before he allowed his lips to gently meet hers again.

In this moment...if only this moment...he wasn't alone...