Chapter 10

Beth realized she was lost long after Alexandria settled for the night. She had walked up to two different blue houses that looked like the one her family had been set up in, just to find out they were not her would be home.

So she kept walking, thinking, and trying to ignore the ghosts that followed her and bickered loudly. She gave up responding to them hours ago, afraid she might wake people up and just spiral further down into the madness she felt pulling at her. She tried to hum to herself for a little while, hoping it might soothe her, but it only creeped her out in the ghost town she wandered through. She felt like she might have been developing a sense of the walled in community, but she just couldn't be sure in the dark.

At some point Beth found a bench and sat on it, arms folded in tight to her chest, she tilted her head back and examined the stars in their glittering brilliance. She watched Dawn's ghost sit beside her and tried to ignore the wolves as they pranced around and acted more like baboons than even dogs. Dawn looked to her with such a look of boredom it might have entertained Beth if Dawn had been anyone else.

"Whats your deal, Beth? You couldn't wait to get back together with your family. Now you are out here, walking around with us for company. Almost willingly, too"

'What's your point, Dawn…"

"You keep denying how weak you are, but you aren't putting up much of a fight to make this work."

Beth sighed, genuinely too tired to argue with Dawn or herself or God or The Devil or whoever it really was sitting beside her on the bench. She moved her eyes down the path and watched a figure move through the shadows, even her ghosts moving to pay attention to the movement. She watched as the figure grew larger in its approach, noticed his gait, definitely a 'he', no woman could carry herself that way comfortably. Something about it felt familiar and she began to hope it was Rick or Aaron, finally finding her to bring her back to the house. She watched the figure turn closer still and saw the smoldering ember-red end of a cigarette light up.

Beth's hands clenched, her throat tightened and she strained herself to see clearer in the dark. He was just about to walk pass her completely when she saw it, angel wings.

"Daryl!"

He stopped, every muscle tensing along his arms and back, rooting him to the spot. He didn't turn towards her and as Beth walked closer, she could see he was trembling. She slowly reached out and touched his elbow, a low moan of pain falling from her lips when he flinched and turned to face her almost violently. His eyes were barely slits in the moonlight, but Beth could see them, could see all of him, and he looked so very haunted.

"Daryl," she whispered so softly, but it still seemed to hurt him. She swallowed and stepped a tiny bit closer, "Please, it's me. It's really me, Daryl, I'm alive."

"You said that once before, I ain't forget about it." He grumbled roughly. He stepped back from her again.

Beth realized with another gut wrenching twist of pain that he thought she was a ghost, he thought she was his ghost. Her heart clenched painfully in her chest, her worst fears realized before she even knew it was her real life nightmare. She implored him with her eyes, begged him to see that she is real. She could only think of one thing to do, one incredibly risky but sure fire way for her to prove to him that she is no ghost. So Beth bum-rushed him and crashed her lips onto his, she clutched to his vest with both fists and pulled him tightly against her, pressing all of herself back against him. She could feel his body form rigidly against hers, feel his trembles through his lips, and she could feel his denial turn to desperation as he slowly brought his hands up to cup her face. They slid into her hair and then down her neck, thumbs brushing over her collar bones as his hands rounded her shoulders and then slid down to wrap fully around her midsection. Their faces pulled apart barely an inch, both fiercely drawing air into their lungs.

He had to ask, he had to know without any doubts that she was his Beth, his one and only Beth, "Who changed my mind?"

She released a breathy 'oh' and almost laughed at the situation, how he had so smoothly taken them right back to that funeral home, right back to that perfect moment before it had all gone so suddenly wrong. Beth steadied her gaze on Daryl and smiled, no insecurities lining her words, "I did, Daryl Dixon. I changed your mind."

A whimper fell from him, his face turning and burying into the crook of her neck. He sobbed against her, deep earth-shattering sobs that Beth could feel echoing deep inside the fissure in her soul. She held him, releasing her own steady stream of silent tears.

Eventually Beth managed to coax Daryl back to her bench, sitting as close together as possible. Beth fit herself perfectly against him and under his arm, which he kept tightly around her, making sure she was still with him. They couldn't do much more than that for a while, the emotions still too strong for them to coherently form sentences let alone ask the questions that needed answered.

As dawn slowly approached, bleaching the sky a warm pink to their left, Daryl had begun playing with her hair, murmuring against her ear that he liked it. She blushed and turned into him a little more, admitting she liked it too.

"Wha' made ya decide to cut it?"

"I didn't exactly, I had an…altercation. He grabbed my ponytail, so I cut it to get away and steal back the upper hand." Beth shrugged softly, but Daryl didn't miss the stiffness that spread from the space between her shoulder blades, nor did he miss the shadow that passed over her.

"Hey," he started softly, not continuing to speak until she lifted her haunted gaze to his, "You are the most beautiful an' strong willed woman I have ever met. You ain't just a survivor, Beth Greene. Yer a fighter, an' ya always have been."

His brows furrowed when she began crying, her bottom lip trembling. She started to pull out of his embrace, bringing her knees up to her chest. He caught her arm and tugged at her to prevent her from closing him off, but Beth cried out in physical pain that tore through his heart. She tucked that particular arm closer to her chest and refused to look at him now, his stomach dropping. Beth was injured, and worse off, she was trying to hide it. Daryl slowly reached out and closed his fingers over the wrist of the limb she treated so tenderly. He felt her shudder, watched her chest rise and fall dramatically, and felt her deflate and relinquish her tension as he drew her arm out towards him. He pushed her sleeve up, and slowly pulled the bandage covering her arm away.

The air in his lungs rushed from him hastily, his head spinning at what he saw. His thumb burned against the healed skin of the scar on her wrist, but his eyes burned the fresh cuts so much more. She tried to regain control, tried not to listen to the ghosts that were screaming things to her now. She continued to shake like a leaf while he continued to scrutinize her flesh. She bit her lip and closed her eyes, ignoring the wolves growling and ignored Dawn's monologue and her Fathers preaching, it took her far too long to realize she was speaking, "…I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm not strong. I'm weak, I'm so weak, she was right, always right, she saw me. Saw the pathetic girl, the useless pile of girl. So weak, shoulda died, Daryl. That Bullet Should Have Killed Me. Why am I still here? I ain't strong Daryl, and I ain't no damn miracle or blessin'. I'm weak!" Beth rocked back and forth despite the confining grip Daryl held her in, they both curled over their laps, Beth falling apart at her hinges and Daryl grasping at straws to try and keep her together.

As the sun broke over the horizon and drenched them in its warmth, Beth sniffed through the aftermath of her break-down. Slumped against his side as he slowly moved his hand up and down her arm in a soothing manor, both working to accept where they found themselves. Beth had managed to tell Daryl her story, she told him how Edwards had kept her alive, how she had rushed to Richmond as soon as she had gotten out of the hospital. She told Daryl about the ghosts, about Dawn and her daddy, and about the wolves ghosts after she filled in the parts when she had killed them. How the wolf had told her she was just like him, a wolf, and that she didn't think he was wrong anymore. She told him about her nightmares and panic attacks and how she had started cutting herself that first time on her own. She told him she was never aware of actually doing it, would just come out of the fog of another panic attack and discover herself to be a bloody mess each time.

Beth told Daryl who she had really become, the weak creature she had let herself turn in to. She told him she didn't deserve her second chance at life or the second chance to be with her family again, especially after what she had done to them the night before. Beth showed him just how damaged she was now, and that while she had changed his mind so long ago; she wasn't so sure she was right anymore.

And Daryl let her say it all; he sat quietly beside her, comforting her as best he could. He tried very hard not to let her see his clenched jaw or fists, he tried to hide his boiling anger with each heartbreaking sentence she spoke, but he still let her speak and get it all out. Because he knew exactly where she was, what her mindset was. That dark place she had let her insides become. The same place had become his home in his own mind in her absence, and he knew that if she didn't say it all, get it all out of her head, than it wouldn't matter what he would say to her, she would still only hear her words and in her ghosts voices. So he listened patiently even if painfully, and stayed silent even longer to figure out how to say what he wanted so badly to say to her.

He looks down at her now, at the sunlight turning her cheeks pink, and the plumpness to her swollen lips from the abuse endured by her teeth. He watched the sun light up the golden flecks in her hair and watched the colors in those flecks explode like miniature rainbows. He watched her lift her tired blue eyes up to his, burning in their brightness compared to the red rim around them.

"Yer a blonde, all righ', Greene."

Beth narrowed her eyes at him, confusion clouding her face. She opened her mouth to retort but he silenced her with a chaste kiss. She eyed him suspiciously as he sat back again, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

"What the hell does that mean, Daryl?"

"D'ya have any idea how much losin' you affected the entire group? How much ya did for the entire group?

"Beth, you raised a baby that ya never even mothered. An' you did it wit' a dance in your step an' a song in your heart, a song that ya shared with all of us, I'll remind ya. You became the sun fer us and whether ya noticed it or not, we all orbited around you."

Beth's face pinched even more in her growing frustration, "How were you orbiting around me? I could see Judith, but me?"

"Because every time we sat down in our council meetin's, every time we made a decision that would affect the group; you became the unspoken main priority, 'cause you represent everythin' we are still workin' to protect an' nourish. Maternal instincts, wisdom, kindness, generosity, empathy, strength, an' leadership. Not ta mention the only Pure Heart known this side of the Mississippi river. Don't you get it, Beth? You are the future for us, the one that will lead us back to humanity an' civilization. You are how we survive this world, Beth."

Beth snorted darkly, "Pure Hearts don't murder people."

"Yeah yer righ', they don' murder. But they will do what is necessary to keep their loved ones safe. An' for the record, I killed Dawn, not you. Edwards killed the other doctor, not you. And Dawn killed that other cop, not you. Gorman was eaten by a walker, not eaten by you. But the two men you did kill? Those men, they woulda hurt ya, Beth. They woulda hurt you far worse than death, an' then they woulda come here and they would find us an' they'd kill us. But you did what you had to, an' now you're here. An' when those other guys get here? We will be ready. 'Cause'a you, Beth Greene."

She has tears brimming in her eyes again, her heart aching so pointedly in her chest she could have been told she had been shot there, too, and she would believe it, she choked on his name, pressing her lips to his sweetly, telling him she might need him to remind her from time to time.

"Every. Damn. Day." He whispered back to her, nuzzling the space behind her ear.

"Now that you called me a blonde, I guess this is a bad time to confess that I'm out here because I lost the house…"

Beth swam in the sweet relief the barking sound of his laughter sent coursing through her, feeling that deep dark place inside her start to shrink a little bit.