Chapter Ten
"You can't move the fucking fences!"
Daryl had to physically restrain himself from leaning across the large oak desk to grab the old man by his lapels. Douglas Monroe steepled his hands together on the desk, his eyebrows lowering as he glared across at Daryl.
"People are growing restless at the lack of space here. We are getting more and more residents every week and soon we will be out of houses to offer them." Douglas said placatingly, as though Daryl was a toddler having a temper tantrum. He looked about to continue on his spiel but Daryl cut him off.
"Then make people start sharing houses!" he leaned down lower so that he was staring straight into Douglas's narrowed blue eyes. "You have any idea how many walkers we've taken down out there the past few days?"
The older man let out a long sigh as he tapped his finger against his chin. "I am aware of the sudden increase but-"
"But nothin'!" Daryl cried pushing off the desk to tower over the man, crossing his arms over his chest with a glare. "We might have a herd coming our way. You want them to find us with part of that wall down?"
The older man's eyes narrowed even further but thankfully he kept quiet as he thought over what Daryl was saying. Daryl kept his glare trained on him, silently cursing the oversight of his thinking that had caused him to be in this stuffy office so early in the morning.
"I suppose construction can be pushed back a few more days." Douglas finally said stiffly as he leaned back in his chair. "And we could have a few of the smaller groups move in with others to open up some more of the houses."
Daryl fought the sudden urge to roll his eyes as the man said these things like he was granting Daryl a gift instead of helping protect his community. "Good." Daryl grunted before turning to leave, his hand had just closed around the doorknob when the sound of his name stopped him. He cast a look at Douglas over his shoulder, the heat of the man's glare not effecting him even as he spoke in a dangerous tone.
"Dixon. Don't question my authority again."
That time Daryl didn't bother to hide his eye roll as he turned out the door.
XxX
The clinic had its own routine and Beth found that she fell into place very quickly. The most common injuries they saw were cuts and sprains, neither of which were very difficult to patch up. Major accidents were rare in the community and besides the man who had been brought in on the day Beth had agreed to work there she had yet to see anything of that caliber.
While she was happy that people were not being hurt the lack of incidents and the ending of the flu outbreak meant that she and the other aides were left with a lot of downtime. This would not have been a bad thing except that more often than not it left Beth alone with her thoughts which was the one place she did not want to be right now.
It had been three days since the dinner with her family. Three days where every time she looked at Daryl she nearly held her breath in anticipation for another flash of memory. Three days in which the only memory she received came to her in her sleep and was of riding a horse bareback. She still wasn't entirely sure if it was a dream or a memory.
As each day passed Beth began to realize that she had been right in thinking that telling others about the memories she was receiving would be a terrible idea. She would only get their hopes up when, in truth, she had yet to remember anything of real importance and the things she did remember she did not even fully understand. So she promised herself to tell no one about any of the flashes until she remembered something substantial, until not asking if it was a real memory or not was more painful then staying quiet.
Even though she would not talk to anyone about the memories Beth did have a sudden burning desire to find out more about her past. Meeting everyone had made her insanely curious as to how they had all gone from being strangers to family. She tried to ask everyone she saw at least one question a day but it was always hard for her to decide what to ask. Beth was not just trying to learn about her past from these people but to get to know them as well. It was becoming more apparent to her from what she had been told that she had once thought of these people as her family. She wanted to get to know them so that maybe one day, even without her memories, they could be that again.
XxX
Even as the morning gave way to afternoon Daryl was still silently fuming up on his guard post. The old man who ran their small community did many things that helped the community grow and more importantly he had kept them all alive so far. But the man had only lived outside of the walls safety for a short period of time. Either he had not seen many dangers out there or he did not remember how to deal with them because he did not seem to understand the danger he would be putting the whole community into by trying to expand the fences until they were sure that the sudden influx of walkers they were facing was not a herd.
Daryl had already asked the runners to keep an extra careful eye out at the amount of walkers while they were out there. Not just for their own safety but for that of the town as well. Daryl knew what a herd could do to a place, even with walls. With Beth here he was finally starting to think that this place could one day be a home. He did not want to lose it to a group of walkers and Douglas Monroe's stupidity.
Thinking about Douglas only kept him angry so instead Daryl tried to think about the one thing that always seemed to calm him down, Beth. He had missed seeing her that morning since he had to go talk to Monroe and that fact only made him more annoyed at the man.
His walks with Beth were starting to increase in their length, now when he met up with her after work they would often walk around the community for a bit before he walked her home. It was Daryl's favorite part of the day if he was being honest with himself.
Not only was Beth starting to ask him more questions about their shared past but they would also often pass the time by talking about mundane things, such as how their days went. The easiness of the conversations never failed to surprise him with how much it felt like when the two of them were out in the woods on their own. When they were only talking about the present Daryl could almost forget that Beth didn't know about her past.
XxX
Rubbing her temples in the hopes that it would help dull the beginning of the headache Beth could feel forming she slipped out of the nearly empty clinic to begin her solo walk home. Denise had kept her even after the other aides had left so that she could do a quick check up of Beth's eye and hand. She had been staring at the eye chart for so long in the attempts to see more past the black spots clouding her eye that her head was beginning to throb.
She was coming out much later than usual and so she was not surprised to see that Daryl was nowhere to be seen outside. She felt a small pang of disappointment at the nearly empty street but she had not truly expected to find him waiting for her. Beth had just grown so accustomed to their daily walks that not seeing him at all that day filled her with a strange sense of discontent.
Her shoes made slight scrapping sounds as she headed down the stairs, rubbing her numb fingers as she walked and tried to hide her disappointment. It was just one day after all, she would see Daryl again in the morning. Whatever had kept him this morning had clearly not been an illness or she would have seen him at the clinic at some point in the day. Beth tried to remind herself that sometimes things simply happened and he must have been held up by something at his house, it was not as big of a deal as she was making it.
Sighing, Beth pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear, shaking her head at her antics. She would see Daryl in the morning and she would stop fretting over him and the teeny flash of memory she had gotten in the meantime. Even though that seconds long memory was never very far from her mind.
The sound of her name drew her from her thoughts and Beth stopped to look back over her shoulder, surprised to see Maggie heading her way with a nervous smile.
Beth returned the smile with equal nerves, she had yet to spend any time alone with her sister since finding out about her. They had seen each other on the streets a few times and exchanged hellos but Daryl or Glenn had always been there as well. Beth had not yet been ready for anymore one on one time with Maggie. But her sister was stopping beside her now and Beth decided maybe it was time to get some answers to the question that had been bugging her for the past few days.
As the older woman fell into step beside her Beth began to fidget with the hem of her shirt. Maggie had just opened her mouth to say something when Beth cut her off. "What happened to our parents?"
A pang of guilt ran through her as Maggie stuttered to a stop as her eyes closed briefly. It was clear from the look on her face that she had not expected Beth to ask her such a thing when she had approached her. But even though she felt guilty Beth felt more curious than anything. She had been wanting to ask someone the question for the past few days, ever since the group dinner where the only blood family member she found out she had was the older sister standing before her. Beth knew by now that they had to be dead. She had remembered her mother's death after all and the lack of her father in the town led her to believe the only possibility of his absence was death.
Judging from the look on Maggie's face however their parents had died was not a pretty story.
"They're gone." Maggie finally admitted, her eyes still shut. She opened them slowly to look at Beth, who met her eyes wearily at the suddenly exhausted look her sister was giving her. "We're half sisters." she finally said, causing Beth to nod slowly as she finally understood the lack of physical resemblance between them.
"My mother." Maggie let out a sigh as she shrugged. "She died when I was a kid. Then Daddy got married to your mom, Annette." Beth rolled the name around in her head, trying to connect it to the blonde woman whose death she had so briefly remembered.
Maggie looked about to continue on but a flare of curiosity had Beth suddenly interrupting her. "What was dad's name?"
"Hershel." Maggie bit her lip as another flash of pain crossed her face before she shook her head, raising her hand to push some of her short brown hair out of her face. "Annette had a newborn boy when she and Dad got married. Shawn."
"Shawn?" Beth whispered, staring up at Maggie who met her eyes with a look of sadness at the surprise in Beth's voice before she nodded. Beth turned her gaze down the to shirt whose hem she was still twisting in her hands so that Maggie would not have to see the dismayed look in her eyes at the knowledge that they had a brother.
XxX
He felt strangely off kilter like he had forgotten to do something incredibly important. The others kept casting him strange looks from the corner of their eyes and Daryl knew that they could see it too. He just felt like something was wrong and it was all because of the simple fact that he hadn't seen Beth that day.
He had seen her almost everyday since she had miraculously come back into their lives, even if he didn't talk to her he had still seen her around town. Even though it had been weeks and he had accepted the fact that Beth was no longer a hallucination but a real living person it was hard for him not to see her. He had waited outside the clinic to walk her home but after nearly twenty minutes had passed he began to realize that Beth must have left early for some reason so he had turned away and walked home alone.
"I talked to Douglas today." Rick said as he pulled out the chair next to Daryl and sank down into it, resting a babbling Judith on his lap. Daryl made a noise that was a cross between a grunt of acknowledgment and a sigh of exasperation. "He said you came to see him about the fences."
That time Daryl did sigh before he pushed back the chair and stood. Monroe had been plaguing him all morning he was not going to let him interfere with his night as well.
"Gonna shower." Daryl grumbled as he turned away from the table, ignoring Rick calling something out to him about houses as he headed for the bathroom. The novelty of running water, no matter how cold, was still not something he was used to.
XxX
They stood in silence for a long time as Maggie let her try to come to terms with what she had just been told. She had been expecting to hear her parents were dead, she had not anticipated being told she had a dead brother as well.
"When did they die?" Beth finally asked quietly. "Was it before all this?" She knew she did not have clarify that she meant the walkers and the end of a world that she no longer remembered.
Maggie drew in a sharp breath before shaking her head. "After." she whispered.
Beth felt an intense surge of guilt at the question she knew she had to ask next. She had to know for sure. She needed to be certain that the woman whose death she had remembered was in fact her mother. But despite her reasoning for asking the question she did not feel any less guilty as she whispered one word,"How?"
Her sister shook her head quickly at the question, whether because she wanted to spare Beth the answer or because she did not want to rehash the last few moments of their family's lives. "Beth, no. It's not-."
"Please Maggie." Beth pleaded, reaching out to grip her sister's arm tightly causing Maggie to turn her head back to look at her forlornly. "I need to know." she could not tell her about the memory, not now when Maggie was looking at her with eyes full of such sadness
The pair fell into a loaded silence as Maggie likely debated over whether telling Beth would be a bad or good thing. She finally let out a long sigh before answering, her words tumbling out of her quickly as if the pain for both of them would be less if she could get the words out in a rush.
"Shawn and Mom got bit in the first days of the outbreak. We didn't know yet that the bite caused the turn but within a few days." she shrugged as Beth's hand fell from her arm. "They were gone."
Confusion filled her as she nodded for Maggie to continue. The woman's death who she remembered was not a bite that one could survive for a few minutes, let alone a few days. She had assumed, due only to the woman's blonde hair really, that she had been her mother. But if Maggie was telling the truth, and she had no reason to lie, then Beth had remembered someone else's death entirely.
As much as she wanted to question her sister, ask her if she knew whose death she had remembered in her sleep, she knew that she couldn't. Not only did her sister look immensely sad to be talking about the deaths of their family members but Beth knew that telling her about the one memory would make her question if she had remembered anything else. She was not ready to have that conversation with anybody just yet.
"Daddy." Beth looked up at Maggie in time to see her blink back tears as she whispered. "He was murdered. This man he-" Maggie let out a shaky sigh as she shook her head and suddenly the guilt became to much for Beth.
"Its okay." she reached out for Maggie's hand again, squeezing it in comfort as her sister tried to fight back the tears threatening to spill from her eyes as she remembered the death of their father. Beth felt a surge of anger at whatever man had killed the father she might never remember and caused her sister such pain. "You don't have to tell me."
Maggie nodded gratefully, using her free hand to brush at the tears under her eyes. "If you want to talk about it later-" she began but Beth shook her head quickly. If she wanted to know more about how their father died she would ask someone else and spare Maggie this pain.
They fell into silence again, but this time it was not uncomfortable as they began to continue walking in the direction of Beth's house. As they walked an idea slowly began to form in Beth's mind and she bit her lip before turning her head to ask Maggie hopefully.
"Do you have any pictures of them?"
The second the words left her lips she saw Maggie's face fall as she shook her head. Beth fought to keep her disappointment off of her face as she nodded and accepted the fact that she might never know the faces of her family.
XxX
After spending a few hours tossing around restlessly Daryl had finally given up on the idea of sleep. His mind was simply too full of worries about the fences and annoyance that he had not been able to see Beth that day. The house was quiet, its other occupants all asleep in their beds, as he eased open the front door and stepped outside.
Taking in a deep breath of fresh air Daryl placed the cigarette he had traded a squirrel from his last hunting trip for against his lips. He used a match from the stash they had come into the town with thinking briefly of his old silver zippo with longing. Shaking his head he sunk down onto the top porch step and listened to the katydids chirping in some bushes across the street from him.
Even after he had smoked his far overpriced cigarette down to the filter Daryl lingered on the porch, unwilling to leave the coolness of the night air behind just yet. He had never been much of a sleeper, before the turn it had been because more often than not he was crashing on the couch of one of Merle's friends and they usually ended up getting chased out by angry girlfriends in the morning. After the turn, sleeping became a luxury that he could never seem to afford and the nightmares he had been plagued with his whole life had only increased tenfold. He had long since been able to tell when a night would end up being sleepless and this felt like one of them. Daryl saw no need to go back inside the stuffy house when he could enjoy the fresh air out here.
As the night wore on he found himself remembering with longing the days where he had not been cooped up in a house. As much as he enjoyed the safety of the walls here it was hard sometimes for him not to see it as a cage.
XxX
She had fallen asleep with thoughts of farmhouses and family in her mind and her dreams were filled of green rolling hills and windmills. Horses galloping through empty fields and chickens pecking at the ground in front of a worn looking coop. A dark haired boy in overalls leaning his weight against a rake as he laughed at something she could not see.
Her eyes flew open and she sat up with a gasp, her fingers curling into fists around her blanket as she cast frantic glances around the room. Beth closed her eyes tightly, trying to memorize every little detail of the boy she had just seen in her dreams.
Brown hair, dark eyes, overalls, laughing.
Beth knew who she thought she had just dreamed of but she didn't want to get her hopes up. She had been so sure after all that the memory of the woman being eaten by walkers had been of her mother but she knew now after talking to Maggie that it hadn't been. She couldn't just assume that the boy whose face had just come to her in her dreams was that of her older brother especially when she had just learned of his existence that afternoon.
But she wanted it to be so badly. She wanted to know what the other members of her family looked like more than anything. She would never get to meet them, never know the sound of their voices. Maggie had no pictures, no one in their group did, all she had was her own memories that she could give Beth and Beth wanted more than that. She wanted to know their faces because she knew them, not because she had been told how they looked.
She wanted to believe she had just seen the face of her brother but she did not want to think that only to find out again that she was wrong. This time she needed to be sure. She had to know. Staying quiet this time was not really an option.
Beth pushed the blankets off of her and nearly tripped in her haste to get to the door. She simply had to find out whose faces she had seen in her dreams, had to know if they were really memories like she assumed. She just had to know and there was only one person she trusted enough to ask.
XxX
The sound of feet hitting the pavement caused Daryl to stand in a rush, his eyes peering through the nearly black streets to see the danger someone was running from. Instead he saw only a pale, wild eyed blonde girl running straight towards his front porch.
Daryl quickly stepped down from the porch reaching Beth just as she stumbled to a stop at the edge of his lawn. His hands reached up to grip her forearms as he continued to peer in the darkness for the danger pursuing her.
"What's wrong? Are you okay? Is Morgan hurt?" he grunted, checking her over desperately in a search of blood, whether her own or someone else's.
Beth shook her head, reaching up her hands to grip his arms as she peered up at him. The weight of her gaze finally caused Daryl to look her in the eye. She did not look scared which he found strange considering she had just run across the town barefoot to his porch in the middle of the night.
"Beth what happened?" he finally asked, trying to keep his voice soft so as not to frighten her in her already frantic state. Daryl's mind was going haywire with possible scenarios that would have caused her to run over here. He was imagining walkers breaking through the town, someone attacking her in her house, Morgan being injured and needing help, Beth being hurt somewhere he could not see. In a matter of seconds he had thought up tens of situations, each one worse than the one before. But none of the things he considered prepared him for the words that Beth panted out between her gasps of air.
"I think..." Beth paused as she shut her eyes tightly, seeming to steel herself before she whispered. "I think I remembered my brother."
XxX
"What?" Daryl was staring at her wide eyed, his fingers curling tighter around her upper arms as Beth bit her lip. She was suddenly overcome by an intense fear that she was overreacting over what would turn out to be nothing more than a dream of a face her mind had created. Perhaps she had wanted to know what her brother looked like so badly that her brain had created a face for her.
"I could be wrong." she mumbled shrugging as she stared down at the ground, finding she was suddenly unable to look Daryl in the eye as she explained in a rush. "I had a dream about a boy and Maggie told me about Shawn earlier so I thought it might be him and..." she paused to take a deep breath before looking back up at Daryl who was still staring down at her with his mouth slightly open in shock.
"Well you met him didn't you? At my farm?" she pleaded, desperately needing to hear confirmation or denial of whose face she had really dreamed.
A look of pain flashed across Daryl's face briefly but Beth still saw it and her shoulder slumped in immediate defeat. She could tell by looking at him that she had been wrong in assuming he had met her brother. It seemed he had died before Daryl's group arrived at her family farm.
"Oh." she paused to clear away the sudden lump in her throat before continuing. "I was just hoping- I didn't want to tell Maggie. In case I was wrong or-"
"Beth." Daryl's voice cut her off midramble, his hands tightening around her arms as he shrugged. "I saw a picture of him, on your fridge."
Her heart began to beat faster as Daryl rose one his hands to push his overgrown hair out of his eyes as he looked at her. "Tell me what he looked like. I can tell you if it sounds like Shawn."
XxX
His heart was pounding so loudly in his ears that Daryl nearly missed Beth's quiet voice when she began to speak.
"He-he had dark brown hair and eyes." she wrapped her arms around herself, whether because she was cold or because she was trying to protect herself from whatever answer he was about to give her Daryl couldn't tell. "He was wearing overalls and he was laughing at something." Beth her lip before shrugging her shoulders lamely and looking up at him. "That's all."
Daryl closed his eyes as he tried to remember the picture of the boy he had seen briefly in one of his few times inside of the Greene farmhouse. Glenn had been with him and felt the need to point out the boy and the woman who was Beth's mother. The woman whose reanimated corpse he himself had put down merely days before.
He may have only seen the picture briefly but for whatever reason it had stuck with him, nearly all the photos on that damn fridge had. Daryl didn't know why, maybe it was because of how strange it was to try and connect the people in those photos to the walkers he had helped put down. Hell, maybe it was because he had never seen so many photos of a happy family, let alone seen photos taped to someone's fridge before. Whatever the reasoning he remembered the faces in those photos and judging by her description Beth did too.
Daryl opened his eyes again so he could see her face as he nodded. "Sounds like him."
The smallest of noises left Beth and she rose her hands up to cover her mouth but not before Daryl could see the wide beaming smile stretching across it.
XxX
That morning when she had woken up Beth had not even known that she had once had an older brother. Now not only did she know of his existence but she knew his name and even his face.
She could not hide her smile any longer and Beth dropped her hands to her sides to stare up at Daryl who was looking at her with a look of disbelief and wonder in his eyes. He was handling her remembering something a lot better than she had expected of any of them. He was not pressing her for more details on what she remembered about Shawn or how the memory had come about. He wasn't even asking her if she had remembered anything else. Maybe he wasn't asking because he was simply to scared of what the answer might be.
Beth took a deep breath as she took a step around him before sinking down onto the porch steps, certain that if she kept standing she would either start jumping around or faint from excitement. Daryl looked back at her with a brief flicker of confusion before he sank down beside her.
"Do you have any siblings?" Beth asked curiously after they had sat in silence for a moment. Her mind was still reeling with the knowledge that she had remembered Shawn.
"Older brother. Merle." Daryl sighed as he reached up to run his hand across his beard. Beth found she could already recognize his look of sadness as he continued quickly. "He's dead."
"I'm sorry." Beth whispered, suddenly reaching over to place her hand on his forearm. Daryl turned his gaze to her then and he met her look of empathy with a quick pat on her hand on his arm.
"Was a while ago." he muttered, clearly trying to get off the subject. Beth nodded once as she squeezed his arm, trying to let him know without words that if he ever wanted to talk about it she would listen. It was the least she could do after all. Daryl constantly listened to her and was always patiently answering even the smallest of questions. Besides, she wanted to get to know him better too.
Beth suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of guilt that she was always asking Daryl to tell her about her past but never telling him about the things that she remembered. She didn't even fully understand the things that she had seen but she was unwilling to talk to anyone about them in fear of how they would react. But Daryl was handling her remembering her brother far better than she had expected of anyone, perhaps he could handle hearing about the rest of her flashes of memory as well.
It was obvious to her that Daryl had known her for a long time and he had known her very well. She had once known him too, she knew that from the brief memory she had of his face. Beth had several questions about the things she had seen that she thought were memories and since she didn't feel comfortable going to anyone else that left her with one option.
Beth twisted her hands together as she debated over what she was about to do. Finally she whispered nervously, "Daryl can you keep a secret?"
He turned his head to regard her with a look of confusion before he nodded slowly. Beth took a deep breath before reminding herself to be brave and continuing.
"I've been getting these." Beth paused to think up the right word, "Flashes." She turned her head to look up at him as she whispered, "I'm not sure but I think they might be memories."
XxX
Memories. Beth was getting memories.
Daryl could barely wrap his mind around the idea. No matter what he had told himself about keeping hope and faith in her he had not honestly been expecting for her to regain any of her memories, at least not anytime soon.
And yet here she was telling him she had received not one but multiple memories. His voice came out hoarse as he asked desperately, "Like what?"
Even as he asked he knew it didn't matter, not really. The fact that Beth was remembering anything at all was a miracle as far as he was concerned. He didn't dare let himself hope that she had remembered anything about him, that would simply be to much to hold out for.
Beth turned to stare down at her hands as she mumbled. "Its nothing big and I don't know what causes them." she shrugged helplessly before looking back at him, her blue eyes wide in confusion. "They're just flashes really." She seemed to be trying to get Daryl to understand that she had yet to remember anything vivid or important but the fact that she had remembered anything at all was important to Daryl. He nodded for her to continue, nearly holding his breath as he waited for her to speak.
"One of them was of this woman. She was blonde so I thought she was my mom but now." Beth let out a deep sigh before resting her elbows on her knees and dropping her head into her hands. "Now I'm not so sure."
She didn't speak for a long moment and Daryl began to wrack his brain for what woman Beth might have thought was her mother. It could have been anyone really, someone he had never even met perhaps. But it also could have been someone he had so with his mind pulling up memories of Andrea Daryl pressed Beth to continue.
"What did you see?"
She continued speaking to the ground as she whispered. "A blonde woman." she drew a quick breath before whispering, her voice surprisingly steady as she finished. "Her throat being ripped out by walkers."
A flash of pain ripped through Daryl at that. Of all the things for Beth to have remembered that was one of them. He had not seen what she was talking about himself but he knew enough to know the only person it could be. He had spent so little time with the woman himself that the thought of Beth's memory being of her had never even crossed his mind. It should have of course. He knew how close they had been, nearly every time he had seen Beth on the farm the older woman was somewhere close by. And he knew from their time alone together, where Beth would sometimes fill his sullen silence with dull chatter just to have some form of noise that she had thought of the woman like a second mother.
"Patricia." he sighed, causing Beth to lift her head from her hands to look over at him in surprise. Daryl held her eyes as explained to her. "She was a friend of your family." Daryl suddenly wished that he could tell Beth more, that he had spent more time with Patricia so that he had more to offer Beth about her. "Nice woman." he finished lamely.
Beth was quiet for a long moment as she took all of this in. Daryl didn't want to interrupt her thinking, of her acceptance of yet another person she might never know anymore about then their name and their face, but he found he suddenly could not stop himself from asking.
"You remember anything else?"
XxX
"Oh. Yeah." Beth shook her head as she tried to ground herself into the present. She had been whispering the word Patricia in her mind in the hopes that it would shake some memory lose but nothing happened.
"I remember holding a spoon engraved to DC, riding a horse and burning some pages in a fire." She spoke quickly, as if by saying them fast Daryl would not focus on how little there actually was to each memory. Daryl was still staring at her intently like he was trying to memorize every word and suddenly Beth found herself reaching forward and gripping his hand tightly.
"You promise not to tell the others right?" she whispered, knowing even before Daryl nodded in agreement that he wouldn't. Somehow Beth was certain that he would never tell anyone anything if she asked him to keep it between them.
"Promise." he whispered before squeezing her hand.
"Its just that I don't want to get their hopes up if-" Beth found that she could not finish the sentence, somehow afraid that by saying it out loud she would cause it to happen. But still Daryl was nodding and Beth knew without asking that he understood what she was trying to say. She didn't want anyone to know she was remembering even the smallest of things in case it turned out these were the only kind of memories she would ever have. Brief things that made no sense and showed her very little about her past.
Daryl was still staring at her intently, waiting for her to tell him about anything else she had remembered. Beth found herself wanting desperately to tell him that she had seen his face, that she knew by more than just everyone else's words that she had known him once but Beth found herself biting her lip. She could not get his hopes up either and telling him that would certainly do that.
"I remembered a tub with 'little ass kicker' written on it." Beth whispered, her blue eyes searching Daryl's for any sign of disappointment as she lied to him. "That's all."
If he was sad to think that she still did not remember even the smallest thing about him she could not see it. Daryl simply tightened his hand on hers before he whispered, "This is good Beth."
The smallest of smiles was on his mouth as they stared at each other. He must have been able to see the look of disbelief in her eyes at him thinking her getting such few brief memories was a good thing because Daryl whispered again."It's something."
And Beth tore her eyes away from his then, certain in that moment that he would be able to see her lie in them. That he would know she had remembered something about him, a fact that she was not quite ready to share. She was too close to admitting it aloud anyway and Beth knew that doing so would only raise his hopes, perhaps higher than she could reach.
They drifted into silence together, the chilly night air making her shiver. She knew she ought to leave, to go home and try to get some sleep but her body was simply to wired to even contemplate such an idea. Daryl looked to be in no hurry to head inside either but as she shivered again he cast her a look from the corner of his eye before slowly untangling his fingers from hers.
Beth looked over at him, certain that he was going to stand and tell her to go home or that they should go inside so she nearly jumped in surprise to see him lifting his arm up as if to place around her. For a second they both froze, his arm hovering a few inches above her shoulders.
After a moments pause Beth reached up for his hand and pulled his arm down around her. The weight of it felt completely new yet somehow entirely familiar and the sudden warmth had her scooting closer to him.
They sat in companionable silence as the night wore on and soon Beth was letting her head fall to rest on his shoulder before she drifted off to sleep.