When Daryl woke up he decided to put a stop to talking to Beth. Then during breakfast he thought maybe he'd do nothing, just see what happened. While he made road signs he considered writing her a letter coming clean about all the crappy things he'd done to other people in his life, just layin' it out for her and waiting for the thundering silence that would follow. At lunch he realised that was the shittiest thing he'd ever considered doing and the last person who deserved that as Beth. And by the afternoon he was back to nothing, just his thoughts circling round and round in his head like a starving mutt.

In the common room he sank into a chair near Mick. There was a bank of payphones on the wall opposite and his cell-mate Blake was on one, hand gripping the receiver, forehead pressed against the wall. He couldn't make out the words but the man's voice was a low growl.

'What the fuck's his problem?' Daryl muttered as he pulled a Marlboro Light from the packet with his lips.

'Ain't he your cell-mate?' Mick asked.

'He ain't that talkative.'

'And you're a regular Chatty Cathy. His daughter's been taken into care. Tryna get the social worker to bring her in for a visit but they don't think it's the right environment for a child.'

Daryl smoked his cigarette. Mick would keep talking if he knew more.

'Wife's dead. He's got five years for embezzlement.'

Blake slammed the receiver down and stalked out of the room.

'How's your girl?' Mick asked.

Daryl decided he'd rather smoke his cigarette in peace and headed for the yard. 'Ain't got a girl.'

…

The girl who wasn't his girl visited on Saturday.

She looked fresh and pretty in a daisy print dress and had her hair loose and pulled to one side. Daryl tried his best not to look at her. Why was she here? There was nothing he could do to help her with her sister. Did she pity him, was that it?

He could see her fidgeting as the silence stretched. At last she said, with a nervous laugh, 'When I was here last time I asked the guard which one you were because I didn't know what you looked like, and he said "Oh, you're one of those, are you?" Did he mean, like … a prison groupie?'

Daryl felt his jaw tighten. How dare that guard talk to Beth that way? She wasn't one of those crazy bitches who got off on a bad boy locked in a cage. 'Yeah. He did.'

She fiddled with the sleeve of her dress. 'I suppose I am, in a way.'

Daryl looked up at last. There was unhappiness in her eyes. Unhappiness that he'd put there because he was being a jerk. This would be one way of ending it, he realised, to freeze her out till she left him alone, not knowing what she done wrong.

But he couldn't do that to her, so it was either tell her not to waste her time on him, or be grateful that she was. He pointed a finger at her. 'Listen to me. You ain't nothing like those girls. Don't go thinking about yourself that way.'

She nodded, looking down at the table. 'Daryl, I looked up voluntary manslaughter online. You don't have to tell me anything about it,' she said quickly, 'but I'd like to know what happened, if you felt like talking about it. It was some sort of accident, wasn't it? I know what the charge said, but courts get these things wrong, and –'

He cut her off with a shake of his head. He could see she wanted to sugar-coat it, to excuse him. But the courts hadn't got it wrong. He'd killed Will Dixon with his bare hands, and he'd meant to do it.

'Beth, it wasn't an accident. I didn't push him and he hit his head on somethin' sharp. I got a hold of his head and I slammed it into the kitchen tiles. Over and over. Till he was dead.'

She dropped her eyes. In a small voice, she asked, 'What was it he did, though? I know he provoked you.'

Daryl hadn't talked about this with anyone. Even his court-appointed lawyer knew only the barest details.

Beth waited.

'My mother,' he said finally. 'Said she died because he set the fire. Said he wanted her dead. I know that's not true. Firemen said she'd been smoking in bed. But he was coming at me with his strap as he said it. Wanted me to lash out I guess, so as he'd have an excuse. Not like he –' Daryl cut himself off.

'Coming at you?'

Daryl was silent.

Beth hesitated. 'You don't have to tell me anything. You know that. I'd sure like to listen to you though, if you'd like to tell me.'

Daryl looked off to one side for a moment, his finger tapping on the table top. Then he shrugged the top of his arm out of his jumpsuit, pulled his t-shirt aside and dipped his shoulder toward her. Across his shoulder blade she saw thick, silvery scars.

'Not like he ever needed an excuse, I was going to say.' He shrugged the jumpsuit back on.

Beth reached out a hand across the table but Daryl didn't close the gap and take it. 'Daryl. I'm so sorry.'

Daryl pulled his hand off the table and chewed his nail. 'No matter I'm a grown man, no matter how many dumb-ass bar brawls I've won, when my father was comin' at me with the strap it was like I was twelve years old again. He nearly killed me a coupla times back then. So I killed him.'

She was silent, but it wasn't a cold silence. There wasn't anything to say and she wasn't filling it with empty words. She was just being with him, and he liked that.

'You know, I been dreamin' about those woods ever since you sent me that letter.'

It was always the same dream, and it was a memory. It was one of those rare times that he and Merle had actually seen other people in the woods. A man and a woman, hand in hand, walking through the dusk. They were on a trail but he and Merle weren't, so he just glimpsed them through the trees. Then they stopped to make camp, cook on the fire, drink a warm beer. A simple memory but it was comforting. It had been the last time he'd slept under the stars. The next morning he'd headed for north Georgia. Merle had told him their father had been asking to see him. It had taken him a long time to decide to go, but finally he had. Turned out to be a mistake.

'I ain't had good dreams like that in a long time,' he said.

She smiled at him, and then something caught her attention over his shoulder and she frowned. 'I think I know that man.'

Daryl turned and looked. It was Blake, talking to a sharp guy in a suit. Probably his flashy lawyer. Daryl wondered how he could afford someone like that. And they said crime didn't pay.

'Blake. Embezzlement. My new cell-mate.'

Blake noticed them staring and stopped mid-sentence, fixing them both with a cold blue stare until they got the message to mind their own business.

'Yep, he lives in my town,' Beth said. 'I remember seeing him around. Didn't hear about the arrest.'

There was the sound of someone slamming their fist on a table top, and then Blake stormed out of the room.

…

Beth left the prison with a strange feeling. She was turning what Daryl had told her about his father's death over and over in her mind. Something didn't add up.

She decided to go to Sheriff Rick Grimes, the officer who'd originally told her about the Dixon brothers. He might know the answer to her question.

But when she arrived at the station an hour and a half later she found that Sheriff Grimes was out on a call on the other side of the county and wasn't expected back soon. Disappointed, Beth went to the camping and outdoor store and browsed the range of hiking boots. It didn't take much for the sales assistant to talk her into buying a pair of ankle-high brown leather boots. Then she treated herself to an ice-cream and sat on a bench in the town square, just people-watching.

When she got home she checked the mail box out of habit and found a folded piece of paper inside. A circular, probably. She unfolded it and read, in twenty-point Times New Roman,

MAGGIE'S ALIVE

…

Daryl laid Beth's letter in his lap. He'd never had such an excited one from her before. But something was setting off alarm bells in his mind. Why had someone sent Beth a note to tell her that Maggie was alive? Beth had never thought she was dead.

'Hey, Dixon.'

Daryl looked up from his bunk. Blake was lounging in the doorway to their cell.

'Your girl get any good letters lately?'

Blake must have noticed that Daryl kept one or two of Beth's letters in his pocket at a time, taking them out to read them when he had a quiet moment. Blake had seen them together in the visitation room, and he might even have seen Daryl write a letter, so it was an innocent enough question. But there was something goading in those cold blue eyes.

While he was watching he saw an inmate from a few cells down walk up to Blake, pass him a pack of cigarettes, and then disappear again.

What the hell?

…

Rick looked at the note, his jaw pulsing as he rhythmically clenched his teeth. Then he placed it on his desk and laid his hands either side of it. 'I wouldn't put too much stock in this, Beth.'

Beth felt her smile fade.

'Hershel and I never thought Maggie was dead. Neither did you, if I remember right?'

She nodded, feeling like an idiot. Of course. 'It's just,' she said, her voice trembling, 'it's been so long since we've heard anything about her that I thought this must be a sign.'

Rick nodded. 'I have to agree, it's strange that it's been going on for ten months now and we've heard nothin' from her. I told myself, tempers'll cool in time and she'll come back.'

'Please, Rick. What did daddy and Maggie fight about? He still won't tell me and I can't move on. Did Maggie do something bad?'

Rick shook his head. 'You know that's not my place to say. That's between you and Hershel.'

'She was seeing someone. Older, married. I found her diary. She didn't say who it was but it was someone in this town.'

'I know.'

Beth stared at him. 'You know? Why haven't you talked to this person? Who is he? Daryl said that nine times out of ten it's the boyfriend.'

'I did talk to him. He let me search his house, top to bottom. No Maggie. No sign of her. When people run away there rarely is any sign.'

Beth sighed, looking round Rick's office. There wasn't much to see. Maps of the area. Stacks of files. 'The only person who believes me that Maggie didn't run away is Daryl.'

'Daryl Dixon, the hunter?'

'Yeah. He's been real kind to me. I wanted to talk to you about him, too. Ask your opinion about something.'

Rick frowned. She could see he didn't like the idea that she was visiting a convicted criminal. 'Well, Beth, I don't know him, or his case.'

'I know. But you must know a bit about the law. He told me what happened when he killed his father and I looked up voluntary manslaughter. It fits, mostly, but I just wondered why it didn't say anything about self-defence. Only provocation. Doesn't seem to be anything voluntary about self-defence that I can see.'

Rick frowned. 'If Daryl was acting in self-defence then that's not voluntary manslaughter. Self-defence is what his attorney should have argued to get him off.'

Beth's heart surged. 'Get him off? You mean, no jail at all? Innocent?'

…

Ups and downs this chapter, weren't there? We're getting close to the resolution of the story now. If you've got a theory about why Maggie disappeared and whether anyone was involved in her disappearance, I'd love to hear it. There are clues throughout the story, and it nods to events at the end of Season 3.