:)

Maybe he should have found it harder to think with those damn walkers clawing at every inch of the car, trying to find their way in. But it felt too easy to deafen himself to their snarls and growls, leaning his head back against the seat behind him, knowing that there was no way out of this. Accepting that this was probably it for him. Not wanting to think of all the regrets he had, as if he had much of a choice at all.

"What changed your mind?"

He hadn't answered. Wouldn't. Couldn't. Not with her looking at him the way she did. The way no one else ever had. He should have said something. Daryl knew that. He should have answered her, told her the truth. Then again, somehow, she seemed to figure it out for herself. To hear all the words he wouldn't say in the silence that settled around them. But it wasn't enough to tell the ghost of who she was. It would never be enough, even after he was dead too.

Aaron didn't look as shaken as Daryl expected, for someone who had a whole life waiting for him back behind those walls. A home. Something that Daryl only got a taste of at the prison. In the moonlight with nothing but moonshine and open air between him and the girl that flayed him right open with a single look. In that funeral home, her voice filling the air as he laid in that coffin listening to the song she wove together. At least the rest of them were safe, behind those walls where he'd never really belong. In the houses that would never fit him. Not really. In spite of himself, a huff of almost laughter passed through his lips as he thought of the unnerving sterility of that community.

"What?" Aaron said, sounding more curious than judging.

Maybe that's why Daryl answered, pouring out the truth in a way that he hadn't since those blue eyes last looked into his.

"I came out here to not feel all closed up back there," he confessed, glancing over at the other man before looking away just as quickly. "Even now, this still feels more like me than back in them houses. That's pretty messed up, huh?"

Aaron gave it a moment of thought before a small smile formed on his lips, completely at odds with the fucked up mess they'd found themselves in.

"You were trying."

Daryl scoffed lightly, giving a small shake of his head just as his eyes flitted to the rearview mirror on instinct. His eyes fixed there for a moment, his heart giving a lurch when he saw her staring back at him. Curled up on the backseat, tears shining in those eyes of hers.

"I had to," Daryl said, looking away from them both.

"No, you didn't," Aaron said after a moment. "Listen, I saw you with your group out there on the road. Then you went off on your own by the barn. Storm hit and you led your people to safety."

Daryl shifted in place, casting him an uncomfortable look and hearing the soft sigh of his name from the backseat. Her voice, ringing with pride. It shouldn't have had any effect on him, but it did.

"That was it. I knew I had to bring you people back."

Aaron looked away, eyeing the walkers before shaking his head with a curse on his lips.

"You were right," he admitted after nearly a minute of silence. "We should have kept looking for that guy in the poncho. I shouldn't have given up. You didn't."

Without thinking about it, Daryl looked up into that mirror again just in time to see her look away, a slow tear slipping down her cheek. He knew the feeling. He'd run for hours, trying to catch up to that car. Giving up when it got to be too much. More than anything, he wished he could go back and chase it for a few hours more. Maybe then, he'd have found her.

Her eyes flitted up to meet his just as the thoughts passed through his mind and she held his gaze, saying nothing but letting him know everything. It made sense now, why he wouldn't need her anymore after this. There wouldn't be anything for her ghost to haunt if he was dead. Daryl looked away from her and Aaron both, pressing a cigarette between his lips. The last one he'd have, even though there were more in his pocket. He knew where he had to go from here.

"I'll go," he muttered, digging his lighter out of his shirt pocket. "I'll lead 'em out. You make a break for the fence."

Aaron tried to argue, saying it was his fault. Daryl didn't let him, even when he heard the hitching breath over his shoulder.

"It ain't nobody's fault," he said, flicking ashes away onto the console of the car. "Jus' let me finish my smoke first."

That was that. Or so he thought.

He always seemed to underestimate the stubbornness of the people around him.

"No," Aaron said after a moment, his voice more determined now. "You don't draw them away. We fight. We go for the fence. We do it together. Whether we make it or not, we do it together. We have to."

Daryl bit down on his tongue, fighting the urge to tell him that they'd both die that way. Instead, he gave a small jerk of his head, agreeing without really understanding why. Maybe he just didn't want to die alone. His eyes flitted to the mirror one more time and she was smiling at him, even through the tears that fell freely now. He nodded his understanding, wondering if she'd be waiting for him on the other side of whatever the hell happened when he died. Hoping that she would be.

"Alright," Daryl said, giving a firmer nod of his head as he took one last drag and tossed the cigarette onto the carpet. "You ready?"

"Yeah."

They both shifted in place, one hand gripping the door and the other holding a knife.

"On my count," Daryl said, his heart pounding in his chest as he readied himself. "Three, two-"

"One," Beth breathed out.

He knew that she was gone.

He didn't have time to think about it before he saw the blood.

It splattered over the windows of the car from every angle, dark and rotting and the answer to every prayer they never dared to pray. Neither of them had more than a single second to react before their doors wrenched open from the outside. Aaron flinched back for a moment only to stumble out as Daryl planted a hand between his shoulder blades and shoved as hard as he could. Seizing his crossbow, Daryl launched out of the car, swinging at the walkers before he even found his balance. He heard the sound of others fighting. Saw walkers fall one by one as he wielded his knife and made sure none of them got to him first.

Once they had a clear path to the gate, Daryl waited just long enough to see Aaron start towards it before he followed, keeping one eye over his shoulder and swearing to himself that the glint of golden hair in the corner of his eye was just a trick of the light. He nearly collapsed to the ground once the gate was closed and locked up, his heart rate slowing as the adrenaline drained from his system. Aaron hunched over with his elbows braced on his knees, a look in his eyes that Daryl was sure he reflected in his own.

"Thank you," Aaron managed to say, turning to whoever was crazy enough to run out into that small herd to save two assholes that got themselves trapped in a car.

Daryl glanced up from where he leaned against the fence, breathing in and out as he caught sight of an older man with nothing but a blood-stained stick in his hands. There were others around him. Two young girls, neither one any older than fifteen or sixteen, one with loose dark hair that she tossed out of her face as she wiped her buck knife clean on the shirt of a downed walker. The other with brilliant red hair that fell unevenly to her chin, clearly hacked short with a knife.

A grey-haired man with wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth and a shotgun in his hands stood close to the two girls as if he took it upon himself to protect them. Another man, lean and oddly familiar in the way he looked at Daryl with wide eyes. Something about him struck at Daryl's memory. He might have pulled that thread a little more if a flicker of movement in his peripheral didn't catch his attention. Somehow, he knew what he would see when he turned his head, even if he didn't understand it. The numbers were over, even though he felt no closer to letting go than he did that night in the barn with the music box.

So why was she still there?

He couldn't help how he looked straight at her, knowing and not really caring that the others would think he was crazy for staring off at nothing. Then he blinked and saw her, really saw her, and that's when the differences became clear to his eyes. Her hair, tangled and haphazardly braided over her shoulder instead of swinging around in a ponytail. Her face, streaked with dirt and walker blood that almost hid the scars. Her eyes, slightly narrowed beneath a furrowed brow. Her lips, chapped and parted slightly as her chest rose and fell quickly with every breath she took, leaving behind a mist in the cool air.

The faded black jeans that hugged her hips and legs all the way down to the scuffed black boots that she wore. The dark purple shirt beneath a grey leather jacket that was stained and stitched in several spots. The machete in her hand and the gun on her hip. The lack of trust in how she kept her distance, eyeing Aaron with wary indecision before looking at Daryl with a deep-rooted confusion as his heart did its best to beat right out his chest. His crossbow nearly slipped from trembling fingers as his eyes roved over her again and again, trying desperately to put the pieces together.

"You okay, B?" one of the girls asked from behind him.

She didn't look over his shoulder, but her frown grew more pronounced as he received his final proof that this wasn't like before. This wasn't the ghost that haunted him. This was a living, breathing Beth Greene, standing in front of him like her blood never stained his hands. Like she hadn't laid lifelessly in his arms. Beth, alive. Not rotting in the inside of a trunk in Atlanta. Standing before him now with the sun in her hair and blood still dripping from the machete in her hand. She took a slow step forward.

Closer to him.

Not close enough.

Her mouth twitched ever so slightly as someone breathed her name in a raw, choking voice. It took Daryl a moment to realize that it was him. She took another step forward. He matched it with one of his own, terrified that she might disappear if he made a single wrong move. She didn't. Soon enough, they stood less than a foot apart. Her head tilted back slightly. Her eyes fixed on his, striking and blue and alive. Her free hand lifted slowly, trembling just as much as his own, and Daryl held his breath as he waited for her to fade away. But then he felt it. Her touch, solid and real as she let her fingers brush over the worn leather of his vest. A slow breath passed through her lips and he could feel it. Right there and so real it nearly made him fall to the ground. Then she spoke, slowly and carefully as if she thought over every word in her head before she said it out loud.

"Who are you?"

His heart sank.

Don't kill me.