It is only by luck that he finds them, or rather that she finds him. Daryl wasn't even supposed to be out hunting that day but he could not stand being cooped up in Alexandria any longer. He needed to be outside, not just outside of the house, but truly outside. He knew that the walls had been built to keep walkers and dangerous people outside but sometimes it felt as if their sole purpose was to keep him in.
So he had taken to fleeing the walls nearly daily, using the pretext of hunting as his excuse. He saw the looks people gave him, the weary looks of the strangers that eyed him like he was either a piece of meat or some feral dog that might rip their throats out at any moment. He saw the looks his family gave him too, the 'your with us but you've gone' looks. They knew he had not lost what they had lost back in Atlanta. He had lost something much more than that.
They tried to offer him condolences and platitudes, the preacher had even offered to pray for him and it was only Carl grabbing hold of him that stopped him from punching the other man in the teeth. Daryl could have shaken Carl off in a heartbeat, of course, but the kid had seen too much already for Daryl to add even that tiny insignificant thing to the list.
But rather than soothing him their words only sent him running like the wild animal he was to the woods. It was like Joe had tried to tell him once before, he was an outdoor cat and he no longer found the need to pretend otherwise. Daryl simply breathed easier once he was outside. But it was because of that that they found each other again.
Daryl had been hunting a rabbit and he was on high alert for any dangers as he always was out there alone. Rick and Glenn had both offered to join him on his hunts but Daryl had pointedly refused them both. There was only one person's company he craved and being alone with someone else in the woods would feel to much like stepping on her memory.
Still Daryl knew how dangerous it was to be out there alone without backup so when he heard a twig snap behind him he turned from the tracks he was surveying with his bow aimed and his finger already dancing on the trigger.
Two dirty tired faces stared at him through his cross hairs but Daryl barely noticed the second one as his gaze tunneled to the dirty blonde staring at him in shock.
He barely trusts his voice to speak but somehow he is able to whisper the only thought his brain can manage to hold at the sight of her blue eyes. "Are you real?"
The smile the stretched across her lips convinced him even more than her nodding. Daryl could never seem to remember the nuances of Beth's smile just right.
"I'm real." she whispered.
The bow fell from his arms with a clatter at her words and Daryl nearly tripped over it in his hast to reach her, to close those last few feet of space between them. A distance he had never thought they would cross again.
His arms catch her around the waist and Daryl barely even noticed that he had lifted her off her feet until he heard the small gasp Beth made before she wound her arms around his neck. He holds her for a long moment, relying completely on the stranger she was traveling with to keep watch for both of them.
They are pressed together so tightly that Daryl can feel her heartbeat against his chest and the feel of it makes his arms tighten around her until he begins to wonder if she can breath. Beth didn't whisper a word of protest as she curled her fingers into his hair and Daryl buried his face against her shoulder.
"I thought you were dead." he admitted against the worn material of the gray cardigan he had found for her all those months ago.
Beth's fingers curl against him and one of her nails breaks the skin of his neck as she whispered back.
"I'm alive Daryl."
He put her down so her feet rested on the floor, the words lifting a weight from his chest he had not realized the heaviness of until it was gone. Beth moved her hands to cup his face, smiling at him as Daryl drew what he felt was his first real breath since that hallway as she whispered.
"I'm alive."