Author's note: Thank you all for sticking with this story and leaving me so much encouragement! The Bethyl fandom is definitely one of the best groups to write for. I'm sorry for the lag in the update, but life got a little busy. I definitely have not abandoned this story, so don't worry! Here's a longer than usual chapter to make up for it!
Daryl caught Beth by the backs of her shoulders and turned her around to face him. She tried to swat his hands away, but the fingers dug in uncomfortably. Beth attempted to unstick her lungs, force them to breathe, but the anger in his eyes was stunning. How did anyone ever look directly at Daryl Dixon?
"Don't you fuckin' say that," he snarled. He took his one hand off her to shove his finger in her face. "Don't you ever say that."
For a loaded second the two of them stood in the middle of the abandoned road. As the sun beat down around them, both of their chests were heaving with anger and exertion. Beth could feel every beat of her heart; it echoed loud in her ear, dragging on endlessly.
"What's it matter, Daryl?" she spat back at him. "Too close to the truth for comfort?"
"You ain't nothin'. They didn't change you. No one can change you, Beth, not really."
"They sure as hell did change me!" Beth said, placing her hands on his chest and shoving him a step back. "Look at me! There's nothing left to recognize."
"Damn it, girl, we don't always have to be who we were to be who we are!"
"Oh, that's clever. Where'd you get that? A fortune cookie?" Beth snapped, rolling her eyes.
"I look like the type who used to order Chinese take-out?" Daryl asked. He didn't wait for an answer, but plowed ahead, his fist still clenched at his sides. "You can't just take off again, Beth. I can't let you keep going on your own."
"Well, you don't have a choice, Daryl," Beth shot back. "I don't need anyone to look out for me. Don't you get that? All that's out there for me is death, everything else has happened. I'm invincible, Daryl. Did you know that? - that this is what invincible would look like? I can finally survive in this world, too bad it's not worth a damn!"
"So you're just gonna check out again, huh?" Daryl said with a humorless laugh.
Beth's first instinct was to draw in a sharp, offended breath, but she didn't - instead she pushed her hair back off her shoulder. A bird flew above them, calling out, and Beth tilted her head towards the sky. It was blue - bright and endless - in every direction.
"No. I'm not going to check out - I'm not going to go curl up somewhere and die, if that's what you mean. Don't get me wrong, I thought about it - dreamed about it - hell, I even planned it. But I get it now - that there's no place but here - no bright light, no heaven. There's just this sick shell of what the world used to be; and I'm here because I'm here, and I won't be here soon enough. So who cares?"
"Who cares?" Daryl asked in disbelief. "Pick a person, any person - girl, everyone cares about you! Maggie. Glenn. Rick. Carl. Michonne -"
"Stop it, Dar -" Beth started only to be cut off almost immediately by Daryl.
"You stop it! Carol. Tyresse. Sasha - do I need to keep going?"
"They wouldn't want me around. Not after... I'm not the person they used to care about."
It hurt Beth to even think about. She could see Maggie's eyes filling with darkness and pain - reminding her of the Governor, but worse. Glenn wouldn't know what to say to her, would be careful not to touch her, would hate himself for not protecting someone Maggie loved. Rick and Carl would try to show her that good things still existed, just in different ways - maybe Rick would teach her how to farm, and Carl would let her read his comic books. Carol would run her until no one could ever attack Beth again. But she didn't want any of that - she just wanted to disappear.
"What about me, Beth?" Daryl asked, his face closer to hers than she knew what to do with.
"What do you mean?"
"I cared about you then; and here you are now, swearin' you're different, and I've done nothin' but fight tooth and nail to keep you 'round. You sayin' I don't give a shit about you? Or do I just not matter at all?"
Beth was close enough to him that she could see the clench and unclench of his jaw. The angry tick of muscle. His skin was dirty and tanned, in the way everyone became dirty and tanned. Beth reached out her shaking hand to touch his cheek gently; first she cupped it, then trailed her fingers softly down the skin until her hand fell away.
"Of course you matter, Daryl," Beth said. "I wouldn't have gotten out alive at all if it wasn't for you. The whole time, I just tried to do what I thought you would do."
"Beth..."
"I took a lot," Beth said quietly. "I had to take a lot. I had to wait, and when the moment came, I got out. I disappeared; don't think you could've even found me."
"I know. I never stopped lookin' for you," Daryl admitted, taking a small step back. "To think with all my skill in tracking, I found you just wanderin' around."
"I had just killed a man."
Daryl shrugged in a way the conveyed quite eloquently So what? Shit happens. Beth looked away to the side, eyeing the trees, hoping for a walker to break their lull of silence. It was a dangerous thing to hope for, but was it more dangerous than opening her mouth? She couldn't be sure.
"I don't..." Beth started, stalled, and started again, "I don't want to talk about what happened. I don't even want to think about it. You don't need to know - no one needs to know. It's done and over with, and I'm doing my best, okay, Daryl? I'm doing what I can, and it might not be enough and it's probably not what's right - I wasn't taught how... how to feel like this... but I'm..."
Beth felt tears well up in her eyes. She blinked hard, wishing them away. Daryl's gaze burned her skin, and no matter how much he looked, she couldn't bring herself to face him. She saw some sort of movement out of the corner of her eye and held her breath. What was he doing?
"Beth, look at me," Daryl commanded.
When Beth finally managed to drag her gaze to him, she found him standing in front of her shirtless. She blinked, eyes gone wide like an owl's in the night. His body looked hard and dangerous, tightly coiled, ready to snap - like always. She chewed on the inside of her lip.
"What?" Beth asked.
Silently Daryl turned around and Beth's hand flew to her mouth. Scars. Long, jagged scars. Scars on top of faded scars. His back was a monument to both his pain and endurance. Beth remembered hugging his back before, cheek pressed against the sharp of his shoulder blade, and it made her heart ache. Then, just as quickly as he took it off, he was putting his shirt back on and turning back towards her.
"We all got our own hurts, Beth; some of them are just bigger than others."
"Why?" Beth asked. "Why did you... why did you show me that?"
"Because I trust ya, Beth. Because I know you would never think less of me, or stop bein' my friend because of it."
"Oh, I get it. You did it so I would feel obligated to spill all my deep, dark secrets to you."
"Naw," Daryl said, shaking his head, not looking at her, "I did it so you wouldn't feel so alone with all them deep, dark secrets. You ain't alone, girl. You get it?"
"But I want to be alone!" Beth cried. "It was easier alone!"
"Easier ain't always better, Beth," Daryl said.
"I just... I don't get what your end game is here," she said frustrated. "You know I don't want to go back to Maggie - you know I don't want to find any of them. I've told you that and I mean it. You know that I mean it, right?"
"No end game," Daryl said, holding his hands out to the sides, palms open towards her. "Just me and you, Beth."
"Why?" Beth asked.
"You ain't the worst company," he said. "And if you'd stop taking off every other day, you'd be damn near perfect. Now can we, please, get the fuck back in the car already?"
"I don't want to talk about what happened to me. I don't want you to freak out every time I have a bad dream, or say something without thinking - and we definitely aren't going to go looking for anyone... that includes the people who took me. Okay?"
"Okay - but what if we just run into them?" Daryl asked. "Then can I kill them?"
"No," Beth said flatly.
"Why the fuck not?"
"Because they would be my kill, Daryl, and it would be impolite to take that away from a lady."
He laughed and placed his hand on her back. The width of his palm compared to her shoulder blade was amazing. For a moment, she was so startled by the size and warmth of it all, that she forgot to panic or push him off. She leaned into his touch for a second - for a fraction of a second - for a fraction of a fraction, and then sped up a few steps ahead of him.
"Who did that to you?" Beth asked, suddenly serious. "Your back, I mean."
"My piece of shit father," Daryl responded.
"But... you would've been just a boy."
"Didn't seem to matter," Daryl said struggling to sound casual. "I went through some tough shit, Beth. Maybe it touches yours, maybe it doesn't - but I get it... at least some of it. For a long time I let this... the beatings and the things I did to forget the beatings... be all I was, but..."
"You're more than that."
"I was always more than that - sometimes it just takes the world ending to figure it out," Daryl responded.
"Well," Beth said, opening her car door, "I don't think we can afford another global disaster at this rate... maybe you gotta keep on reminding me sometimes."