I'm back! Anyway sorry about any errors it's too bright to see the screen of the laptop with much clarity so checking has been really hard! Hope you enjoy! xxx
Herschel had looked at his daughters exclusively. Then he had looked at the prison as a whole, the last place he made home. And he was alright with that, his time had come and God would foresee his rendering. The cold blade struck him with fear, as it would any man, but he smiled. It was his time, and he trusted those he loved to look after those he loved. A long time ago, many miles on foot and months of searching Hershel Greene was a changed man- he grew his hair, a beard and lost a leg, but the inner moral light never faded. Never, until the blade hit his neck and the life of one of the most honest men Daryl had ever known was gone.
He woke up from the dream, shaking and wanting to vomit. When she wasn't busy plaguing him, someone else always was. Dreams, thoughts and in every little task he did. Daryl saw them all, and he hated how it was slowly become less numb as the days passed by. The depression was coming off, the years of repressing hardships too hard to face because the monotony of life left him nothing to do but think about these things. Death, pain and loss.
He could just about stand thinking of the others, when it didn't catch his off guard in his subconscious. Herschel, Rick, Carl, Michonne- all the others he may never see again. But was it selfish for that to be ok. She had asked him to find the others, she had needed that comfort. But he denied that to her- wanting to pity himself and cut the pain of finding them turned. Sometimes he caught himself thinking what would have happened if the two of them had turned back to the prison, started tracking like she prayed he would to find her sister, her baby, her family. Perhaps they would've been able to protect her the way he didn't.
And now here he was, back into the thoughts he couldn't stand. The ones that made him feel like a tonne of lead and thin as paper all at once. He didn't keep her safe. He lost her. And out there someone else had her- for whatever reason, and he wasn't even searching for her. He imagined her as he knew her; perfect in the tanned look days of dirt gave her and the light stain of sweat on that yellow polo. She'd be sat somewhere, singing to herself- that much he knew must be true. In his head she wasn't dead until he saw the body, and so he wasn't looking for her, so he could never see it.
Joe's group walked down the road, they were following some revenge mission of their own whilst Daryl pained to think of his own not in action. He knew they were getting closer, gaining on whoever Joe wanted dead- he could tell by the tracks more accurately than any of the other men. But he kept his mouth shut letting them find out for themselves.
From the top of the hill you could see two cars in the distance, not together but near enough that from here they came as small dots on the road. It was enough to make them walk a bit quicker, to take on step because it was the ideal place to spend a night after all. The first car was about 200 metres from the next. It was long and dark, dirty with the Georgia dust and all doors were open, trunk popped open too. Daryl knew this car. It was the same car as in all his dreams, the one he burned to his eyelids as he chased after it. Running, always running.
His first reaction was to be fucking pissed. He gave up on deciding to find her whilst constantly planning on finding, and now he stumbled upon the first solid evidence that she was in fact findable after all. But he knew the anger stemmed from his own guilt, his own crippling fear that he hadn't tried hard enough- and maybe if he had kept running he would've been here sooner. And the fear came over him for another reason- the blood.
Blood wasn't a strange thing to see, not in his childhood and the copious amounts he saw nowadays meant it didn't bother him. When thinking about the browning stains in the trunk of the car however- that made his stomach clench. Red blood was for the living, black blood was for the dead.
It was stagnant, lost in its own void of time. Leaving this car, for whatever reason they had, was a hasty decision made under duress with injury. Joe and the others had started moving in the encroaching darkness, continuing up the road and Daryl slipped round the other side of the vehicle to follow the hasty tracks left behind. Intermingled in the tangle he saw the distinct limped print of a blonde in cowboy boots and it hastened his pace. Her tracks, so distinctive to him were thankfully mixed up underneath the others- she was ahead of them, running by the looks of it to get away.
The loss of light made it difficult to follow, hard to go after her and find the direction exactly. But the trees were so thick it was impossible, and they didn't hide the questioning calls of Joe's group who had doubled back to find him. He knew they were after him to ask questions, and he knew he couldn't live with himself if he didn't follow the trail. But it stopped.
The bark of a tree was torn up from a knife of some sort, once tacky blood from perhaps days ago left in the absence of the bark. Red blood. The outline of a small bloodied handprint and more strains on the ground in that same shade. He tried to think of what happened.
Beth struggled to keep running, her legs aching from being shoved in the car. And then she had injured someone, or someone else had done it for her- they left their blood spurting into the trunk she had been confided to. Burning and pain all over, ankle particularly and loneliness. They were following her, the bleeding one included. It was his blood on her hands, if God could give him that much, if not a small injury of her own that made the palms crimson and she held onto the tree to stable herself. They had caught her, wrestled her down to stop her disobedience. The thoughts of her high voice screaming for help or gasping in discombobulated confusion. Why was this happening to her? Where was Daryl? Where was God?
He shook his head, realising he was alone and the trail had gone cold. The floor of the woods had turned to gravelly, unwatered mud- hard and unrelenting to footsteps being shown this many days after the incidence occurred. What was the point of guessing a direction? Joe's group must have turned back and headed for the other car, he decided that walking that way he could check the dimmed floor for any signs of movement whilst trying to figure out if leaving was a good enough idea. Did he trust his own abilities to track, save and then live with the blonde girl?
With his thoughts all on Beth meeting up to Joe terrorising Rick was something that hit him like lightening. Michonne, Carl and fucking Rick Grimes- who would've fucking thought? Joe was holding them, threatening and shouting things that didn't make sense- couldn't possibly make sense at all. Rick had killed one of Joe's men. This was revenge, and Daryl was on two sides of the line simultaneously piecing together what he had missed.
Rick looked just as confused as he did, Michonne giving some weird untrusting look that he didn't blame. And they all hoped the words would be enough. These were good people, he knew them. And murder was going to be self-defence, it wasn't as cold hearted as black and white. He knew Rick. But he knew Joe too, the ruthlessness behind the good fella fade. He took Daryl in, and maybe once the Dixon brothers might have happily coincided there with the other cats. Maybe the inside had made him soft, because he didn't back down under that look.
''This man killed our friend. You say he's good people. '' Joe faced him, boring his eyes into his like everyone else's were. Somehow Daryl felt like a tiny school boy facing his father again, being told to back down but at the same time being so big everyone can see you and stare as he'll make it hurt. Die or life with yourself for letting them die.
''Now you see, that- that right there is a lie'' Joe sounded unsure, his eyes lost in the same confusion they were all feeling here about the random interconnection of events. But the coldness of the life before and after was something Daryl could understand far too easily, he grew up as an outdoor cat after all.
He didn't really hear the next sentence, didn't need to after all he had seen the bowman's death. The first punch, if he was honest, caught him in the back of his neck and threw him off. The subsequent beatings only really blinding painful him from so long suffering mental pain instead so that he had forgotten what a fight really felt like. Since Merle's death, there was little reason to fight someone. He thought he heard the rough accent of Rick calling out, perhaps in was just the discombobulation from his head hitting the paint-peeling truck.
Everyone was fighting everyone in this moment, a shot sounded and people were no longer anything but indistinguishable from one another anymore. Daryl's eyes were bleared and he kept his head down to protect it, praying to god he wouldn't be killed with his own arrow like the insensitive sonofbitches did to the bowman. Draw a parallel here, and then end it you are not going to die.
It was too quick to know what was going on, too many things happening at once and yet the world felt trapped in its own little freeze frame. For the first time Daryl was glad he didn't have Beth with his. The thought of her made him look up. And he saw what everyone seemed to see. Rick biting Joe's neck, and spitting it on the ground. Time froze and for a moment everyone stopped to simply stare at the devolution of humanity in all its glory. These were good people, but Daryl wasn't so sure of that anymore. Daryl finished the fight, using the scuffle to gain advantage and his own past to fight past the boundaries of normal pain. Only for him to turn back panting to the scene in front of him.
Rick stabbing away at the chubby man's throat, the look on Carl's face and Michonne's arms around him. Again and again and again. Like some hypnotic picture book of memories.
Daryl had never felt less human in his life.
Sleep was uneasy for the two that tired and too terrifying for the two that remained up. With little care, but great unease, Daryl pulled the bodies into the woods. Out of sight, out of mind. He stabbed them all in the head should they turn and felt a strange urge to salute the harbouring family that took him in, gruffness and all, after hours upon hours of running down the same greying tarmac road. They brought him home, unwittingly and now a choice had to be made.
He wanted to tell Rick about Beth. How he had failed her and wanted to look for her, only he knew he wouldn't say that instead hoping he could make it Rick's idea so he could keep appearances of not caring about anything up. There was no way he could think of explaining why he had to find her, not even to himself let alone out loud. So when he was finally asked, when he finally sat down next to the man he had once developed a trust in and was meant to say where he had been, to justify himself he knew there was nothing to do but let himself down.
I lost Beth.
It sounds like nothing. The emotion unregistered in his tone, because he's so so tired and he can't do this anymore- he wants her back, but admitting it outside of himself is weakness. It damns her. The minute he says he wants to find her karma will kill her, the minute he says he won't look for her he resigns himself to the ownership of her death. And when Beth Greene dies, Daryl dies.
Either way she dies. And so either way so does he.
Hope you enjoyed, now easter is nearly over I should be updating a bit more but reviews and feedback keep me happy! xxxx