AN: Bet you all thought I forgot about this story - and you'd be totally right - so I'm sorry!
Two days. Two long, unbearable days. Two days of Daryl watching her, maybe not saying much, but always watching. Two days of her sister forgetting she was no longer Beth - bringing up old stories, only to go, Oh! I'm sorry! Two days of walls closing in on her.
Morgan was happy - seemed more like a person, less like a machine. Rick softened him. She was thankful for that. She didn't need to worry about him breaking quite as much. Morgan's intense eyes had settled easily into an intelligent, satisfied glow. He wasn't like her anymore. She could feel it. Humanity was slipping back into him, filling all those empty spaces she had related too so completely.
And here she was, at three in the morning, adrift. Like a red balloon floating in the sky, destined to be lost forever. Destined to be apart forever. Them and her. Always. Different. Always. Wrong. Forever. She looked at the wall in silence, making sure she had not been followed. Everyone was sleeping, even the archer; save for some poor soul sitting watch on the south side by the gates, she was totally alone.
Easy enough to shimmy up, she thought. Not to leave - not for long - just for some time. Outside. By herself. To fight, and run, and live. To do something she knew how to do - unlike being Beth, or a sister, or a something-that-meant-a-lot.
She had left Morgan a note. Just something they had used to do. A shaky P. so he knew she would be back. It was a promise. She knew she couldn't go anywhere now. Couldn't leave. And that was what made her skin so itchy, her soul - whatever was left of it - so restless. Like an animal caught in trap, gnawing off its own leg to be free. She needed to feel free. Just for a little while.
It took a couple of tries until she had climbed the wall and lowered herself down on the other side. Finally, it felt like she could breathe. The empty streets called to her. The trees. The cars. Every little bit of this destruction. Every little bit of this gone and terrible. She smiled, felt the tug of her lips, and laughed quietly in the night with her brandished knife and not much else.
It was a sunny, bright morning. Daryl, like every day since Beth had found her way back to them, was in a good mood. A happy mood. A lucky mood. Unfortunately dread snuck up on him when he saw Maggie and Morgan outside Beth's house, talking animatedly. Changing his direction, he stopped by the pair who didn't notice him at first, so intent on their discussion.
"P. does this a lot," Daryl heard Morgan say to a distraught Maggie. "She'll be fine, I promise. She can take of herself."
His feet moved of their own accord until he was planted firmly next to the older Greene sister. Daryl could hear his heart thundering in his ears, and clamped a hand onto the crossbow he had been carrying slung over his back and pulled it around until it was hanging at his side.
"P. does what a lot?" Daryl asked, voice tight.
"She's gone, Daryl," Maggie said, tears coating her voice. "I went to see her this morning and Morgan told me she had gone off on her own out there!"
"The hell you talkin' 'bout?" Daryl ground out, fighting against the urge to run past the gates to look for the blonde hair he would've recognized anywhere. God damn it, girl!
"She left a note," Morgan said almost casually - completely unbothered. It made Daryl's free hand clench into a fist he had to stop himself from throwing. "She'll be back. Probably just wanted some time to think. Being here... it was a lot for her before she realized y'all were..."
"I'll find her," Daryl said to Maggie, not taking his eyes off of Morgan. "She ain't stayin' with ya anymore. If ya can't look after her -"
"She doesn't need anyone to look after her. You know that," Morgan countered quietly. "You all have to know that by now."
Daryl growled low in his throat, the sound animalistic and almost surprising. He turned to Maggie, who nodded and pushed at his arm with her hands. Faster than he would've thought possible Daryl was out the gates, looking for tracks, looking for anything.
Keep calm, Dixon, he thought to himself. She's smart. She's tough. She's gonna be just fine. She's gonna be just fine. He wandered for what felt like hours. Going this way, then that - picking up parts of tracks and losing them again. Where the fuck is she? I'm gonna kill Morgan if anythin' happens to her.
His body went numb when he saw it. His feet stopped, right along with his heart. Her knife. On the ground. Blood and guts on it. And no Beth - no Phoenix - no P - no girl. No one. He twirled around in a couple of different directions, head swimming with panic. Unthinkingly he ran, not knowing where he was going, until he saw her.
Two walkers dead at her small feet, and a third a bit further back. She was wielding a part of one of their bones like a knife. There was gore in her hair - blood so thick and heavy it seemed to paint her skin black. And she was grinning - strange, and wrong, and eerie. Eyes alight with laughter. Body barely showing the strain of her fight.
"Found it," she said to him.
"What?" he responded stupidly, not sure how to approach her, or what to say.
"Knife," she said, tilting her head towards his hand. "Mine. You found... it."
"What the hell are y'doing out here, girl?" he said, more to himself than her.
"Feels... better," she said. "Makes me... feel better."