I was really very much hoping for there to be a bit more Beth before October, but since that hasn't happened I guess I'm starting up my own little story…again…*nervous smile* Thank you to all those who had instant faith in this story, sorry it's been a while since I did anything. xxx

He didn't think the voices were real when they spoke to him, tried to harbour him in their little group like he was one of them. What was it Joe called him- an outdoor cat? And he guessed in this new age the outdoor cats took supremacy and fucking banded together. Mostly.

Guys like these, like him- they didn't bond well with others, and they certainly fared no better in bonding with each other. Death, lies, and destruction were what they were weaned on, fed and bred for a world of pain. Only now they had the walkers to kill with knives instead of their livers with whiskey. It would result in the same way though, he knew that much. All these guys living together, didn't take an educated man to see where the fault in the plan was. Leather jackets and armed to teeth. Maybe once he was one of them, sure he'd admit to that- but he wasn't one of them anymore. Something had changed the man who had never changed.

It wasn't joining a group- no, not at all. He wouldn't, or perhaps he couldn't, see it like that. His group were out looking for him like he was for them. His group was spread across Georgia. His group had been murdered by the governor. His group was in the back of a car somewhere being driven off. Daryl was a loyal man, loyalty got you far in life- it was honourable and the only thing of worth fucking Merle ever taught him. He learnt other things himself.

Everyone had regrets in life, everyone had things they'd do differently. Beth was becoming one of those, the new image that haunted his usual cold and light sleep. The pain of her flittering in his mind was more than any beating or pain he had felt. It was guilt- he could've done something more.

When the governor attacked that last late afternoon, all he could think about was how he hadn't tried hard enough to track him. Maybe if he hadn't stopped looking- and now he was on that damned loop again. Knowing he already had stopped looking for Beth, that really he was too scared to be alone so he let himself be forced in with these pitiful creatures instead.

It was dark, and his head was groggy but too light to be normal. He sat up, needing to drift off into the wood and calm himself down a while- there wasn't going to be any sleep for him until he could believe that he would find her. And the trees were tall and encompassing, as if nothing else calm existed outside their noble encasement. He was a man of the forest and of the woods, he grew up in them, and so they offered an additional calmness to his nature. The only place he was safe from it all, growing up and now.

He simply knew she was there before her could know, and perhaps that was the first sign of madness. She was crouched against a tree, stained yellow polo shirt and all. He stared at her, and she stared back. Blonde hair in that same half-up and half-down pony tail, little plait probably hidden in the flaxen mess. He frowned and walked over, offering a hand to her.

She took is so lightly that it might not be there, and suddenly little tears grabbed the corner of her eyes. She wrapped her little arms around him, and like always in these times he hated her touch but somehow found it less repulsive than when anyone else dared touched him. Over her small frame he could see the surrounding woods, its greenness and the beginning of lighting skies. He didn't move, just letting her be there.

''You haven't found me.'' Her voice was small and mumbled into his chest, right next to where the main muscle sat, pumping blood around a body that had no reason to want to be there. She was sad, he knew that voice it was the same one she used months ago, talking about the others and her lost hope for normality. Beth Greene what had she done to him.

''I'm looking fer ya','' he held her then, wrapping his arms back around her, holding her close to give him something to go off. She was too perfect almost, here but not here, exactly as he left her- and so how could she be real? But she was solid, and warm to him. He had to make her the promise, in hope that somewhere the real Beth was hearing his voice and fought in resolute optimism. Someone would save her. They would, he would.

He felt like clutching onto her, holding her face in his hands and staring forever. Instead he chided himself pitifully, knowing he would see her non-existence. He couldn't cope with losing her again- not yet. So he held her a while longer. So he kept his arms locked, and looked over her head.

''Yer alive Beth, I know y'are- you're gonna be the last one standing remember?'' His voice was small and cracking, pleading with her to be alright. Though how could she promise him that?

''That was about you.'' She sighed, a melancholy smile playing on her lips as he remembered. The moonshine, the drunken mutterings and that crazy rebellious smile. They were more alike than not, in that moment, so he prayed that meant she shared some indestructibility.

He held tighter her then. Giving into the feeling of his body to the resistance of his mind. It was going to hurt to not have her. Hell, it already hurt. And he was fucking sick of feeling like everyone's damn babysitter all the time. Couldn't anybody around here wipe their own arse and keep themselves alive? But she was an exception- he found after a while he didn't mind looking after Beth. In fact she made it kind of fun. She was so fucking pathetic but endearing in way that took others no time to warm up to. Wherever she was now, he hoped she was using that to her advantage.

''Save me.''

Her voice was gentle and soft, he saw the same eyes he had seen at the table of the funeral home. She had total faith in him, and somewhere she was in trouble, or struggling maybe even dead. But he wouldn't stop now, never stop until he saw her either dead or alive.

Beth walked of slowly, looking over her shoulder to invite him to join her. He followed a pace behind, relishing the bitter thoughts of how she once ran off in such similar woods in the hope she could numb herself. He hadn't let her go then, and he couldn't now. Rabbits played off in the distance, he slowed his steps, but she didn't noiselessly striding over. She knelt down next to the bunnies, a little way off, patting their heads and holding it in place for him to catch. Her small hands stroked and the animal seemed unperturbed, it didn't even see his bolt hit it. She smiled briefly, knees on the floor at the dead animal that could feed them both half the day or so.

And then the dash of a black arrow hit her in the stomach, she knelt, blood pooling and eyes rolling back. His body went cold. And then he realised is own bright arrow in her neck, mouth gasping and falling still. The beautiful face empty and dead, messy hair splayed around her as if she was in some dreamy spell and not dead- she couldn't be- oh God, oh God he had killed her. He realised those little arms couldn't hold him reluctantly anymore.

Snapping his head back frantically to the source of the arrow was the other bowman form the group he had adopted, bow raised still and sick prideful smile on his features. Daryl wanted to kill him right there. But his attention went back to Beth, barely a second had gone by but she was gone.

He didn't even get to say goodbye.

He turned round sharply, glaring at the man before walking over to pull the arrow out of the dead rabbit. He didn't even care anymore wasn't even listening to himself and the man violently expel words at each other. It didn't matter, nothing mattered.

''The rules of the hunt dint mean jack out here,'' surprisingly the bowman had hit the nail on the head of what Daryl was feeling. As if he knew there wasn't any reason for any custom. But still they followed them, they should follow them. Customs gave back a sense of humanity, the only thing left to distinguish him from a walker.

Then he kept talking, some shit that Daryl couldn't give two tosses about. The only thing going through his mind was you made me murder Beth. The man tried to grab the rabbit, Daryl pulled back sharply.

''It ain't yours.'' He was being childish. He could easily catch something else, he wasn't even hungry. But it was the closest thing to Beth in some sick way. That man didn't get to have it. He murdered Beth. It was men like him who took perfectly good people and destroyed them, left them for dead.

''I bet, there's a bitch that's got you all messed up. Hmm, am I right? Got you walking around here like a dead man, lost yourself a piece of tail- must've been a goodun'. Tell me something was it one of the littlun's 'cause they don't last too long out here?'' He smirked, settling into his own dark chuckle laughter because the look on Daryl's face was easy enough to read.

He wasn't talking about Beth, he simply, no, he couldn't be. Not at all. He didn't know Beth, couldn't say she was dead. He didn't know that! He glared daggers at the man because he was the one who didn't know. He set himself up to be an enemy, wanted Daryl to hate him. And so he would.

Hearing Beth be spoken about made every part of him boil over, she was meant to be some inside secret, one that never got out. He didn't know how he felt about her now, only that she was a hell of a lot less annoying than when he was first stuck with her. God, what he'd give to have her hear asking after booze so he could yell at her, so he could hate her. Anything but this.

He missed being the hunter. Tired of being hunted and broken and bruised. Pent up in a corner made him nasty and beastly, he knew this, and certainly soon the bowman would. The truth had been spoken. The bowman said 'the littlun's don't last too long'. He once said 'I don't think the good ones survive'. And she was both little and good.

Daryl hated this, being stuck in this godforsaken place losing all of himself. He was scared, though he swore to not be afraid of anything. She had been right the whole time, she had seen it and it was no surprise to him that others might see it too. When Sophia died he swore he wasn't going to let anyone in ever again. And then the prison had given him too much hope, he had thought and believed that it might be invincible, that they had a chance. Somehow that's the most dangerous thing to believe in. So never again, not ever. And then Beth.

God-forbid you ever let anyone get too close.

Daryl knew this was war.

He saw the mutilated face of the one who claimed the rabbit. His own arrow in his eye. Bloodied and beaten, and Daryl thought he only half deserved it. He was allowed to want that guy dead- but that was no reason that the others should feel the same. An absurd desire to cover the man went through is body, a little voice telling him to honour the dead. He knew it was the little changes in him that she had brought.

He set off down the train tracks, following the others in blind abandon. He didn't know where to head, hell, he didn't know where to start at all. Footstep after footstep of hopelessness, just like before. He may as well be a walker. Then he saw her, stood on the grassy verge where the grass met the trees. He walked quicker to meet here, closing the distance, watching her over his shoulder as she disappeared into the distance. She'd reappear again, in front this time, just where his eyes could focus on breeze blown hair and a stone-set face. Again and again he passed her.

The signs are there, you just have to know how to look for them.

Hope you enjoyed guys xxx Review if you like, they make me happier than anything else!