Newly Revised
The gray squirrel was climbing down the tree early the next morning as Daryl carefully approached and took aim. It must have heard or sensed him, because at the same time he pulled the trigger, the damn thing scurried its way back up the tree. Daryl sighed in frustration as he moved to grab his bolt, noticing a crack in the shaft that meant it was no good to use anymore. He watched the way it splintered as he broke it before tossing it aside and continuing his hunt. Looking down at his hand, his eyes darkened angrily as he saw the mark, but he'd needed to feel something outside of his head. He never wanted Ani or Merle to know that he was still doing things like that when things got to be too much. Ever since the quarry and the end of the world, things had been different. There was less time to worry about too much other than survival in the world as it was. After he and Ani had gotten together, she had always had something to say to make the darkness in his mind leave. He hadn't needed to do anything about it because she was right there being a light in both his and Merle's lives. There had been a time when neither of them thought that someone would care for either of them. They'd grown up taking abuse since they were young, their daddy being the right bastard he was. He'd put cigarettes out on Daryl's skin for years and after he left that house, he'd done it to himself just to get out of his head when things got to be too much.
And hell if everything wasn't too much for him right now and he just didn't have the ability to deal with it on his own anymore. He'd lost his girl, lost his brother, and he had a kid that could barely defend herself to look after. He'd never see her again and that thought was all he could think about as he trudged along. The woods were so much more silent even though she barely made any noise when she was in them. How the whole thing was back to feeling like a chore, something he had to do to survive, where she made it something he was proud of showing off. He knew she could hunt just as well as he could, but damn if she didn't get that look in her eye every time he took down something, as if she was amazed by his every little movement. He was completely lost in his memories of her and the woods, even as they made the anger and rage swell within him once again. That was probably why he had heard the rattlesnake before he saw it, coming close to being bit by the damn thing. He grabbed a stick to hold the thing's head down and carefully followed behind the snake. It had begun an attempt to slink away as he cautiously stepped closer and pinned it to the ground, quickly cutting its head off. It was pretty decent sized, so he skinned it, saving the scales by laying them flat on a log. It was honestly just a force of habit that he did it, Ani not thinking twice about it, but Beth looked at him with disgust as he stuck the snake on a stick and popped it over the fire. For a moment, his mind took him back to when he'd caught a snake when he was hunting with Ani. They'd had it for lunch and she'd commented how she'd never had rattlesnake before, just water moccasins. That's when he'd learned that the cottonmouth was one of the deadliest snakes in Michigan and loved the water. The whole memory made him hate the fact that he'd caught the snake to begin with, but there was very little prey he wouldn't have a memory about involving Ani. They'd been hunting together for a year now and had taken down anything and everything that moved if they could eat it.
He watched the fire burning again as he rotated the snake over it while Beth was busy hanging the hubcaps to give them a warning system as he cooked. If Ani were there...He heaved an angry, frustrated sigh, half tempted to throw the snake into the woods and just walk off. Daryl started telling himself that this was why connections were stupid. Every time he formed a bond with someone, they disappeared right in front of him in some way, shape, or form. Scoffing to himself, he brusquely told her the snake was done before he cut it in half and all but threw the piece at her. They ate in silence for a good long while, Daryl not wanting to be bothered by conversation to begin with. He wanted to gouge out the part of his brain that wouldn't let him stop thinking about their lost people, Ani and Merle more than anyone else.
"I need a drink," Beth popped up all of a sudden, Daryl tossing his bottle over to her, hitting her knee. She tossed it right back to him, "No, I mean a real drink. As in alcohol. I've never had one," she said as Daryl kept eating his snake, her voice becoming staggered as she continued. "You know, because of my dad. But he's not exactly around anymore, so..." Daryl seemingly kept ignoring her, so she suggested, "I thought we could go find some." As he kept eating, not listening to a word she said, she decided to say to hell with it and go find some herself since he was being such an asshole, "Okay. Well, enjoy your snake jerky."
She got up and walked away, carrying her knife with her as she trudged out of the little camp they'd made. She didn't know where she was going, but she sure as hell wasn't going to just sit there and wait for him to pull his head out of his ass. Beth had her knife, she didn't need Daryl to look after her she thought as she turned around and called him a jerk when she was far enough away for him not to hear. Trudging along through the forest, Beth was only stopped by a group of walkers that had yet to see her. She hid behind a tree and picked up a rock to throw it in the opposite direction in an attempt to distract the group. She peaked around the tree and saw that most of the walkers had followed the sound and only one persisted in its course towards her. Beth readied her knife as the lone walker continued coming at her, breathing a sigh of relief when it finally turned and headed the same direction as the rest of the walkers in its group. A twig snapping behind her made her startle and turn quickly, only to find a disgruntled Daryl standing there with his crossbow. Daryl was in no mood to deal with whatever teenage bullshit Beth was cooking up when she left, but he had no choice but to trudge along after her to bring her back to camp. She was the only one from the group he had left and he didn't want to be alone. He just began heading back to the camp after he found her, not bothering to say a word or see if she was following.
"I think we made it away," Beth said after a while, getting used to Daryl's silence. "I'm pretty sure we got to go that way to find the booze." Daryl stepped over something Beth didn't catch, only for her to run into the hubcaps they'd tied up. "What the hell?!" she yelled. "You brought me back?" Daryl just turned to look at her as if she was an idiot, only infuriating her more. "I'm not staying in this suck ass camp!" she told him before flipping him the bird.
Daryl had had enough of the little girl's temper tantrum as she turned to walk away from him, his anger getting the best of him. Before she could even take five steps, he had her wrist in his hand and was dragging her back to the camp. Ani would kill him to see how he was treating Beth, but he didn't have it in his mind at the moment to care about that. All he knew was that the little girl in front of him was driving him mad acting like a diva and running off all the time. And if she wasn't being such a damn drama queen over just wanting to find liquor, she was a fucking chatterbox that just kept opening wounds. She was optimistic in every way that he couldn't be right now and the fact that she was still fighting him about this shit was getting on his nerves.
"Hey! You've had your fun," Daryl told her when she pulled against him.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Beth rounded on him, easily breaking his hold with a maneuver Ani taught her. "Do you feel anything? Yeah, you think everythin's screwed. I guess that's a feelin'. So you want to spend the rest of our lives staring into the fire and eatin' mudsnake? Well screw that! We might as well do somethin'! Ani would be so ashamed of how you're actin' right now! And when we find her, I'm gonna tell her how you just gave up! How you just let her go! How you wouldn't even look for her! So wallow in self-pity all you want. I can take care of myself and I'm gonna get a damn drink."
She walked off once again, leaving Daryl to look around the camp as he thought about the fact that he hadn't let Ani go, he'd simply lost her. What was there left for him to do but to give up when he didn't have any lead or trail to follow to find her? She said when, not if, the hopeful side of his mind argued, the little voice telling him that Ani could still be alive somewhere. Deciding it was better to deal with the bitchy teen than sitting alone, he sighed heavily before following after her. She had managed to go the right direction at least, as she busted through the trees ahead of him a little while later. There was an overturned golf cart sat in a field a little ways ahead of them, obviously what was left of a golf court. Off in the distance there was a building, most likely the golf club itself, that looked as if it hadn't been touched yet. At least at this distance it didn't look like it had been pilfered as the sun still glinted off all the windows.
"Golfers like to booze it up, right?" Beth asked Daryl as he came to stand beside her, watching a group of walkers off in the distance. "Come on. There might be people inside."
They walked to the building and checked the door to find it was locked and the windows were covered in both cardboard and newspaper. The walkers had followed them from the field, so they didn't have much time to find shelter anywhere else. Daryl cussed under his breath and told Beth to follow him, going around to the back of the building. There was a set of double doors in the back that he pushed her through before entering himself, shutting and locking the door behind them. Beth was just standing there when he turned around, looking around as they both heard the walkers. The floors were covered in camping gear, which was good for their luck since they didn't even have a flashlight and now they did. Daryl turned on the light and flashed it around only to realize that the reason he could hear the walkers but they weren't getting closer was because they were all hanging from the rafters. Even though the place was relatively safe and obviously had once been an up and running camp, every single person that had holed up in the building had 'opted out.' After what had happened at the prison and the subsequent losses they endured, Daryl wasn't sure if that was cowardice or the best way out of this hell hole anymore.
He led her slowly and cautiously through the room and under the walkers into an area that was better lit. Beth stood looking at something from one of the many dining tables while Daryl grabbed a bag that had been discarded and began shoving the contents back inside. He wasn't fully paying attention to what he was doing, only realizing after Beth spoke up that he was indeed grabbing a bunch of useless stuff. He meant to throw it back down, but bangs on the door had him heft the bag over one shoulder and usher Beth further into the building. He opened a set of heavy wooden doors for her to go through before going through himself, closing them with a grunt. He couldn't admit it, but he was more terrified of being trapped in this building than he'd ever been afraid in his life, aside from losing Merle and Ani. The prison falling ensured he had already done that and now he was scared shit-less running through the dark building with nothing but a flashlight and a teenager as company.
They made their way through the kitchen area where Beth managed to find a flashlight of her own and wandered off a bit as they began searching for any supplies they could use. He found some Bit 'O' Bacon and pocketed them before hearing pots and pans clanging in another room. He paused in his search upon hearing it, but determined it was only Beth when they stopped a moment later. It wasn't until the sounds of glass breaking and Beth struggling that he moved into action, though leisurely. When he got to the place where she was, she was fighting with a walker that neither of them had noticed. She wanted to be some big, badass, tough girl out in the woods, so she could deal with the walker on her own. He made no move to help her as she struggled and no move to see if she was okay when she finally fell the thing and looked at him in what might have been anger. She was too young and innocent to really manage the withering look she was trying to give him and Daryl honestly didn't care that she was angry at him.
"Thanks for the help," Beth quipped in a snarky tone.
"You said you could take care of yourself," he replied back. "You did."
They left the kitchen and headed down a hallway that was blocked by some kind of trophy cabinet, having to crawl under it in order to continue on. Another blockage in the form of a clock lay just ahead of it, seemingly in an attempt to block the corridor off. Daryl put his bow down on the cabinet and shifted the clock back to its original position before he and beth continued on. They found a store that sold various supplies including clothes and golf clubs, Daryl immediately going to the register and pocketing all the mints. Not able to find anything else worth doing as Beth looked around, he sat down to look at a corpse the girl had found accidentally. She was bolted to the door, it looked, her shirt open with a piece of paper saying 'rich bitch' stapled to her chest. Daryl didn't give two shits about it even though it was pretty obvious what had happened to the woman. Beth, on the other hand, being as young as she was and not understanding the world had tried to take her down. The bolt was stuck in the door too much and she didn't have the strength to take it down. Frustrated, she looked over to Daryl who was simply watching what she was doing again and not making a move.
"Help me take her down," she told him.
"It don't matter," he said. "She's dead."
"It does matter, and you know it. Ani wouldn't want her left."
Daryl considered her words, knowing she was right, and picked up a blanket before draping it over the corpse as the two of them headed down the hall. The clock Daryl had righted chimed and made them both jump and turn to look at it, quickly trying to get down the hall only for walkers to block their way. It didn't matter what way they went because every single way out was blocked by either walkers or junk that blocked off the exits. Damn clock rang the dinner bell, he thought ruefully as Beth found another direction to go. There was no way out and no where to go other than back to the room they'd just left. They were trapped in a building that was either slowly filling with walkers from the outside or had walkers already inside. Daryl wasn't sure which of the options was true, only that the anger in him boiled to a roaring rage as he stopped and thought fuck it.
He turned towards the doorway and shot the first walker before he throwing his bow at a second that came through right before a third. He grabbed one of the many golf clubs lying around and took out the second walker, swinging around to kill the third walker. He swung the club so hard at the thing as he took it down that he lodged the end of it in its head. He struggled to get it out as the next walker came in until he broke the handle off, forming a sharp stake he used to stab through the next walker before kicking another onto the ground. As a fifth walker came in, he dropped the stake, brought out his knife, and grabbed the walker in a matter of seconds. He roughly shoved it into the door way as he began shoving his knife into its eye socket. He slowly began to insert the knife before he plunged it in with a sickening squelch and ripped it back out, splattering his hand and arm with blood. He put his knife away and grabbed a driver as the walker on the floor stood up, barely getting on its feet before Daryl swung his club. It fell to the floor once again as he started beating the ever living life out of the thing, his anger not letting him realize that, in that moment, he was seeing the Governor. He was taking his anger and frustration out on the walker and damn if it didn't feel good to just beat something. It wasn't until he swung the club at the walker's head and hit Beth with a piece that broke off that he came back to his senses.
He looked at the girl who stared at him in frustration until she quickly took off the white cardigan she'd just put on and walked away. Daryl couldn't say he blamed her for her agitation as he followed her out of the room. She'd literally just gotten a new shirt and cardigan at the shop part of the club, putting them on in the changing rooms while Daryl had been looking for useful items. Again, he couldn't blame her for wanting clean clothes, or warmer clothes considering it wasn't exactly the warmest time of year. All she'd left the prison in was a couple of thin, layered tank tops that didn't offer any protection from the night's chill. His mind wandered to what Ani had been wearing when they left the cell to talk to Rick. She'd been in the clothes she'd worn since she'd gotten sick, his poncho being the biggest item he could recall on her, though he couldn't remember if she had left it on or not. He couldn't help but wonder if she still had it and, if she did, whether or not wearing it was helping her. Merle was easy to remember, the man hardly ever going anywhere without his vest, jeans and beaters. All he tried to do as he followed the teenager in front of him down the hall and into the bar area was recall what Ani had been in.
"We made it," Beth said, turning around to see the judgmental look Daryl was giving her. "I know you think this is stupid. And it probably is. But I don't care. All I wanted to do today was lay down and cry, but we don't get to do that. Ani wouldn't do that. So go ahead and beat up on walkers if that makes you feel better. But I need to do this."
She walked away and over to the bar as Daryl pulled a fancy bowl out of the bag he'd grabbed and set it down since it had absolutely zero use to them. He saw a piece of paper in a fancy frame and walked over to it to see what it was before busting the glass with his crossbow. He didn't care about the noise he made since there was no sign of walkers down here and the only other ones they'd seen had been taken care of. Beth had immediately gone over to the bar and begun looking for liquor as soon as they'd entered the damn room, so who cared what they did anymore? Reckless had always been the Dixon way; it was only because of Ani that he started caring and being careful to begin with. He and Merle had always flitted around, getting into fights and drinking liquor or beer until one of them passed out. It had been an easier life and letting his little woman into his heart had changed all that. A part of him wished he'd never gone to look for her back at the quarry or brought her back. They'd been dancing around their attraction to each other for a couple months and, even though he still wouldn't care right this second, he wouldn't be in so much despair.
"Did you have to break the glass?" Beth asked annoyed, bringing him out of his thoughts once again.
"Nope," he said as he began folding the paper, watching the teen flit around. "You have your drink yet?"
"No," she answered. "But I found this. Peach schnapps. Ani's had this. Is it good?"
"No."
"Well it's the only thing left. I remember one time, Ani was talking, telling me, Maggie, and Glenn about when she went to college and she mentioned it. Said it was really sweet."
"Ania don't like sweet," Daryl gruffed. "Why you think she never ate candy?"
"She doesn't like sweet things?!" Beth said, completely confounded by the knew information. "Guess this wouldn't be good to her then, would it? What does she drink?"
"No, she wouldn't," he answered the first question, leaving the second one unanswered, nights sipping moonshine with her in their tower flicking through his head.
He wandered around the room just looking at things before finding a dart board and taking the darts from it. Beth was muttering to herself as he began throwing them at the pictures of the club's board of directors. Nailing each man in the face, he angrily smiled to himself as he launched the darts, walking up to the board to grab them back up and looking at the girl sitting at the bar. She was staring at the bottle, obviously not sure if she actually wanted to open it. Nailing one of the pictures in the neck, he looked back at Beth who was now starting to break down which only added more fuel to the already raging fire that was his anger. He strongly threw the last dart at the wall before walking up to Beth and taking the bottle from her, throwing it down on the ground hard enough to break it. If the girl needed to have a drink of anything, it was going to be something hard, not some cheap girly shit.
"Ain't gonna have your first drink be no damn peach schnapps," he huffed out at her. Grabbing his bow, he opened another door leading out of the bar, "Come on."
He led her away from the golf club and through the woods, thankful that she dried her tears before they left and he didn't have to deal with an emotional teenager on top of a rebellious one. They walked in silence, Beth thankful to Daryl for presumably taking her to get some booze while Daryl was trying to keep himself focused on getting where he was going. Neither of them wanted to break the silence for the longest time, but Beth was used to some sort of chatter from the prison and after a while the silence began to be too loud. She was positive that their people had made it out; Maggie and Glenn had been no where to be found and she knew Merle and Sophia had, too. She'd seen them go into the administration building when she'd been looking for her sister. If they were out here, then the others had to be too, even though she wasn't sure if anyone else had made it out. The silence was absolutely deafening to her as she watched Daryl's back and followed along, a thought coming to her head.
"A motorcycle mechanic," she said suddenly.
"Huh?" Daryl asked, completely confused by what she said.
"That's my guess," Beth told him as they trudged forward. "For what you were doin' before everythin'. Did Zack ever guess that one?"
"It don't matter," he told her. "It hasn't mattered for a long time."
"Because of Ani?" When Daryl didn't answer, Beth continued, "It's just what people talk about, you know, to feel normal."
"Yeah, well, that never felt normal to me," he said as they walked through the break in the trees and out into the field where the small cabin and distillery were. "Found this place with Ania and Michonne," he told her as he stood looking at the cabin, remembering the last time he was here with Ani.
"I was expecting a liquor store," Beth commented.
"No, this is better," he said as he walked around the cabin and into the small shed attached to it.
"What's that?" Beth asked as he grabbed a crate with several bottles Ani had left out and handed it to her.
"Moonshine. Ania's favorite after whiskey. Come on."
He took her inside and double checked once more whether or not it was empty, opening the bedroom Ani and he had missed the first night with Michonne. Daryl couldn't help but frown at the fact that the place was empty, though he did find one of Ani's shirts. He'd 'accidentally' ripped it and she'd left it behind, opting to walk around in her sports bra rather than put a shirt back on in the heat. He wondered if she'd managed to make it this far if she even made it out of the prison as he pocketed the thing. As Beth put the crate down on the table, Daryl forced himself yet again to get out of memory lane and to pay attention to her. She had put the crate down on the dingy little table in the main room while looking around and had seen him pick up the shirt. He wouldn't acknowledge that she saw it when she asked him about, opting instead to go over to the table and pour her a drink using one of the cups he and Ani had left there. He didn't plan on drinking without Ani being around to put him in his place while drunk, but he watched Beth as she hesitated.
"That's a real first drink right there," Daryl said as he put the jar back down. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing," she answered quietly. "It's just...my dad always told me that drinking bad moonshine could make you go blind."
"Drank Ania's tonic didn't you?"
"Well, yeah, everybody did."
"Then you've already had this, just without all that shit she put in it to make it nasty. 'Sides, ain't nothin' worth seein' out there anymore anyway."
Beth considered his words for a minute before raising the glass to her lips and taking a sip, "That's the second most disgusting thing I've ever tasted. The first being the tonic." She lifted the glass and downed the rest before chuckling and grabbing the jar and pouring more. "The second round's better."
"Slow down," Daryl told her, not wanting to deal with a drunk teen anymore than a drama queen or a rebel.
"This one's for you."
"No, I'm good."
"Come on, you're not gonna make me drink alone."
"Only drink with Ania."
"Why?"
"'Cause I do," Daryl said, annoyed by the round of questioning. "Someone's gotta keep watch."
"So, what? You're like my chaperon now?"
"Just drink a lot of water," he said as he walked away, huffing in exasperation at Beth's reply.
"Yes, Mr. Dixon," she said as if she was talking to a boring teacher.
Daryl didn't deign to answer her anymore and just left her to drink while he boarded up the windows. He should have done this a long time ago, when he and Ani were out here every couple weeks just to truly be alone. No matter whether they were in their tower or in their cell, someone always ended up calling to them for some reason or another. Out here in the cabin, they didn't have to answer to no one and nothing and it had allowed them to just be. How could he have known they might need a more permanent place to hold up in than the prison? He briefly wondered once again if she'd managed to make it here before deciding if she had, she'd've stayed and waited for him. He didn't know why he hadn't thought about that in the first place and just come here and waited for her. Daryl was starting to get angry all over again until his reverie was broken by Beth's snickers as she pulled something out of a closet.
"Who'd go into a store and walk out with this?" she laughed as she held onto a pink metal bra.
"My dad, that's who," Daryl said, recalling when Ani had asked the same damn thing almost the same damn way; she'd added a few curses into hers while laughing. "Oh, he was a dumbass. He'd set those up on top of the TV set, use them as target practice."
"He shot things inside your house?" Beth asked quizzically.
Ania wasn't surprised, Daryl thought to himself before answering with a shake of his head and a shrug of his shoulders, "It was just a bunch of junk anyway. That's how I knew what this was. That shed out there, my dad had a place just like this." He pointed at the ratty chair, "You got your dumpster chair. That's for sittin' in your drawers all summer drinkin'. Got your fancy buckets. That's for spittin' chow in after your old lady tells you to stop smokin'." He looked around and picked up an old newspaper, "You got your internet." Growls interrupted his little tirade, causing him to go to the window and peak out. "It's just one of 'em."
"Should we take it out?" Beth asked quietly.
"If he keeps makin' too much noise, yeah."
Beth looked around before grabbing a jar of the moonshine, "Well, if we're gonna be trapped again, we might as well make the best of it." She offered him the jar before teasing, "Unless you're too busy chaperoning, Mr. Dixon."
Wanting to numb the anger and pain he was feeling, he reached out and took the bottle, "Hell, might as well make the best of it." He sat down in the chair next to where Beth was crouched on the floor and took the top off the jar. "Home sweet home," he said before taking a healthy drink.
"We should play a drinkin' game," Beth suggested.
"What the hell for?" Daryl gruffly asked her.
"I dunno, never played one. Always wanted to. At the weddin' after you and Ani slipped off, the adults started playin' 'Never Have I Ever' and it seemed like a lot of fun."
"Ain't much fun, just sayin' stupid stuff 'bout yourself," Daryl grumbled. "Never needed a game to get lit before."
"You played with Glenn and Ani at the CDC," Beth told him, quickly adding to it when he looked up. "Glenn told us. And wait, are we starting?"
"Might as well."
Beth took a drink of her moonshine before saying, "I've never shot a crossbow."
Daryl took a drink before commenting, "Ain't much of a game."
"That was a warm up!" Beth insisted. "Now you go."
"I don't know," he said after a minute of thinking and chewing at his thumb.
"Well, what'd you tell Ani?"
Looking up at Beth, he thought about it for only a moment before saying, "I've never been out of Georgia."
Beth took a drink of her glass, "Really? Good one. I've never...been drunk and did somethin' I regretted." Daryl took a healthy drink with a sour taste in his mouth before Beth continued, "Ani told me everyone who drinks regrets somethin' the next day, so did daddy."
"I've done a lot of things," he said putting the glass back down as he rambled. "Damn near hurt Ania after she ran off, and I wasn't even drunk."
"You couldn't hurt her even if you wanted to. She'd kick your ass!" Beth laughed. "You're turn."
Daryl scratched his chin and contemplated, remembering something both he and Ani had in common, "I've never been on vacation."
"What about camping?" Beth asked curiously.
"No, that was just somethin' I had to learn to hunt."
"Your dad teach you?"
"Mm-hmm, a bit. Merle taught me the rest."
"Okay," Beth said before taking a drink. "I've never...been in to jail."
Daryl stared at her hard for a moment before asking, "Is that what you think of me?"
"No," Beth said quickly, realizing her mistake. "Merle's been to jail, though, hasn't he? Don't get your knickers in a twist or whatever it is Ani says," she said with a roll of her eyes, although she still wasn't sure what kind of terminology that was, the moonshine loosening her tongue.
"Drink," he said angrily, the buzz doing nothing for him as she kept talking of Ani and making him remember all the times he'd spent drunk with her.
"You know, even my dad got locked up back in his drinking days," Beth said petulantly as she drank. "It's your turn again."
"Nah, I'm gonna take a piss," he said as he got up while drinking the last of the moonshine in the jar before throwing it on the floor hard, causing it to shatter loudly.
"We have to be quiet," Beth said.
"Can't hear you, I'm takin' a piss," he shouted.
"Daryl!" Beth said anxiously, turning her face as the man literally started peeing in the corner of the room, not caring whether or not she was there.
"Oh wait, it's my turn, right?" Daryl said angrily as he zipped his fly and whipped around on her. "Let's see, never eaten frozen yogurt. Never had a pet pony. Never got nothin' from Santa Clause. Never relied on anyone for protection before. Hell, I don't think I've ever relied on anyone for anything!"
"You did Ani," Beth said quietly, not understanding his sudden anger.
"Well she ain't here now, is she?!" he roared, kicking some of the junk in the house hard enough to make it bang against the wall. "Hell, it's all just one big game to you, isn't it?! Singin' out in front of a big group like everything was fine, like it's just a bunch of fuckin' fun! Everything just about attention to you! Cuttin' your wrists lookin' for it, singin', hell, even now! Bringin' up Ania every chance you get to try to, what? Remind me that I lost her?!" His angry tirade was stopped by the sound of walkers banging on the walls of the house. "Sounds like our friend out there is trying to call all of his buddies," he said while banging things around loudly.
"Daryl, just shut up!" Beth pleaded nervously.
"Hey, you never shot a crossbow before?" Daryl said, grabbing his crossbow before walking up to the young girl, his anger completely released with the aide of the drink. "I'm gonna teach you right now. Come on," he said as he grabbed her hand and pulled her to the door.
Slamming it open even as she protested, Daryl dragged Beth out of the house and down the steps of the porch. The last time he got like this was when they were with Michonne, and he'd damn near decked Ani because she'd been laughing about something he'd said. Even now, he couldn't remember what he'd said to make her laugh, just that he'd stormed towards her only for her to literally throw him over her shoulder and onto his back. His mind grew darker by the second as he thought about that night and how much he'd come to rely on Ani being by his side to keep the darkness away. Beth saying that was the straw that broken the camel's back when it came to his anger. Daryl didn't care anymore whether or not Beth protested, she was going to do things his way. He was sick of her bringing up his wife and sick of her constant badgering about this or that. It was enough to make him drag her against her will down the steps even as her fear got the best of her and she begged him to let her go. The walker came into view as they got to the bottom of the stairs and he finally dropped Beth's hand.
"Dumbass," he said loudly. "Come here, dumbass." He quickly fired a shot, pinning the thing to the shed. "You wanna shoot?" he asked Beth, though he didn't wait for her to answer as he prepared to give her his bow.
"I don't know how!" the drunken teen flustered.
"Oh, it's easy," he told her, grabbing her and whipping her around so her back was to his front and putting the crossbow in front of her and into her arms. "Come here. Right corner."
He forced her to shoot it before releasing her, bending to ready another bolt as she cried, "Let's practice later!"
"Come on, it's fun."
"Just stop it! Daryl!" she pleaded. "Just kill it!"
"Come here!" he said as he grabbed her around the shoulders and forced her to watch as he shut the thing one handed. "Eight ball!"
"Just kill it!"
"Come here, Greene. Let's pull these out. Get a little more target practice," Daryl said, releasing her and storming up to the walker.
Beth had had enough of Daryl's temper tantrum and he was going to get them killed if he kept up with it. She stormed past him as she pulled her knife out and killed the walker before he finished taking the bolts out. Whether or not he believed Ani was alive, she did, and if Daryl didn't care about his own life enough to be safe with it, it was up to her to help make sure he made it to Ani in one piece. Besides that, he was the only person she had right now and she couldn't afford to lose that. Try as she might to put on a brave face, she was terrified being without safety. She knew she couldn't really take care of herself if there were a bunch of the dead around. She had barely been able to take care of the one walker at the golf club. Beth was absolutely terrified of how Daryl was acting and that he was going to draw more attention because of it.
"What the hell you do that for?" Daryl yelled at her in anger. "I was havin' fun."
"No, you were bein' a jackass!" she yelled right back at him. "If anyone found my dad-"
"Don't. That ain't remotely the same!" he yelled right back at her.
"Killing them is not supposed to be fun!" she countered.
"What do you want from me, girl? Huh?" he said, getting in her face.
"I want you to stop actin' like you don't give a crap about anythin'!" she yelled back, not backing down an inch. "Like nothin' we went through matters! Like none of the people we lost meant anythin' to you! You didn't even try looking for Ani! You gave up on her! It's bullshit!"
"Is that what you think?" he said quietly, the rage inside him giving way to the grief the anger had been covering up.
"That's what I know," she said while crying.
"You don't know nothin'," he told her.
"I know you just see me as another dead girl," she cried. "I'm not Ani. I'm not Michonne or Carol or Maggie. I've survived and you don't get it 'cause I'm not like you or them! But, I made it! And you don't get to treat me like crap just because you're afraid!"
"I ain't afraid of nothin'," he growled quietly in her face.
"Ani told me," Beth said quietly. "Told me how you knew everyone's faces and names. How you looked after them without even thinking about it. Yet look at you now. God forbid someone try to give you hope that she's still alive. God forbid the great Daryl Dixon let's someone get too close!"
"Too close, huh?" Daryl yelled at her. "You know all about that. You lost two boyfriends and you can't even shed a tear!" His voice got progressively louder and gruffer as he spoke, "Your whole family's gone, all you can do is just go out looking for hooch like some dumb college bitch!"
"Screw you! You don't get it!" Beth chastised him quietly.
"No, you don't get it!" he yelled back at her. "Everyone we know is dead!"
"You don't know that!" she yelled right back. "How can you give up on them like that?! On Ani and Merle and Maggie and Sasha and everyone?!"
"Might as well be," he yelled as he got in her face, "'cause you ain't never gonna see 'em again." He paused as the girl looked about to cry, but the words kept flowing out of him as his grief completely overtook him. "Rick. You ain't never gonna see Maggie again!"
"Daryl, just stop!" Beth said, going to grab his arm to try to comfort him.
"No!" he said, pulling away and turning his back on her. "The Governor rolled right up to our gates! Maybe if I wouldn't have stopped looking...if Ania and I had stayed out there. If I hadn't've given up, wanted to keep Ania closer to home, not wantin' to risk her...That's on me!"
"Daryl!" Beth tried again.
"No! Your dad, maybe I could've done somethin'," he said as he started breaking down. "And Ania...She was barely fuckin' walkin' this mornin'! Had just started bein' able to breathe like normal again...she...she..."
Beth didn't know what to do, so she launched herself at his back, hugging the man as he finally broke down. She'd told Ani once that she didn't understand how the woman had fallen in love with Daryl when he was so cold and aloof. Ani had simply responded with a smile that Daryl was many things, but cold nor aloof described him at all. Like her, showing emotion had been driven into him to be a sign of weakness, a sign that only brought on more pain. It was easier to suffer in silence than allow others to see what was inside their hearts and minds. It wasn't until this moment that she understood what Ani had meant. Daryl was a weeping mess for a good while, just standing there letting her hold him and regretting that he hadn't looked harder for Ani or Merle.
In the end, after he'd calmed down they stayed outside, Daryl not wanting to go back in to see what new memories were going to plague his mind and drag him down again. He didn't feel as light as he did when Ani held him, how she could soothe his soul with a brush of her hand or a single, soft and gentle kiss. He couldn't help but keep his head down in shame about how rough he'd been with the girl that sat facing him. She was a little ways away and both their feet were facing inward, their backs against the porch. She was still drinking, though not as much now, and he'd had a few more sips, not enough to get drunk like earlier, but it was enough help him relax.
"I get why my dad stopped drinking," she said a little while after night had fallen.
"You feel sick?"
"Nope. I wish I could feel like this all the time. That's bad."
"Lucky you're a happy drunk."
"Yeah, I'm lucky. Some people can be real jerks when they drink."
"Yeah, I'm a dick, when I'm drunk," Daryl admitted, using his knife to dig at the wood in front of him. He looked at the girl before putting the knife down and sharing something he'd told Ani out at the log smoking weed, "Merle had this dealer. This janky little white guy. This tweaker. One day we were over at his house watching TV. It wasn't even noon yet and we were all wasted. Merle was high. We were watching this show and Merle was talking all this dumb stuff about it. And he wouldn't let up. Merle never could, not 'til Ania. Turns out, it was this tweaker's kids' favorite show. He never sees his kids so he felt guilty about it or somethin'. So he punches Merle in the face. So I started hittin' this tweaker in the face, hard. As hard as I could," he said, reminiscing and making a slight motion of punching. "As hard as I can. Then he pulls a gun, sticks it right here," he said, pointing to his temple. "He says, 'I'm gonna kill you, bitch.' So Merle pulls his gun on him. Everyone's yellin'. I'm yellin'. I thought I was dead. Over a dumb cartoon about a talkin' dog."
When he looked down and started playing with the dust on the porch, Beth asked, "How'd you get out of it?"
"The tweaker punched me in the gut. I puked. The both started laughing and forgot all about it. You want to know what I was before all this?"
He looked at her, contemplating whether he really wanted to tell her or not and whether or not it really mattered. Ani hadn't cared, but that was just how Ani was with everyone; it wasn't so much what they did as what they did. She wasn't judgmental over whether they had a job or not, whether they did something worthwhile or not. She just cared about how they acted every day, what they did to and for those around them, the respect they earned and gave. It was never about what he'd done before, it was about what he was doing in the present. She'd accepted him because of who he was, not what he was and Beth had looked up to her. She was a pretty naive girl and if anyone else wouldn't care about his past, it'd probably be her.
"I was just driftin' around with Merle," he finally said. "Doin' whatever he said we were gonna do that day. I was nobody. Nothin'. Just some redneck asshole with an even bigger asshole for a brother. Never really understood what Ania saw in us, in me. Never thought Merle would calm down."
"You miss them, don't you?" Beth asked, causing him to look down and around. Right, not big on emotions, she thought to herself before continuing. "I miss them too. I miss Maggie. I miss her bossing me around. I miss my big brother Shawn. He was so annoying and overprotective. And my dad. I thought—I hoped he'd just live the rest of his life in peace, you know? I thought Maggie and Glenn would have a baby. He'd get to be a grandpa. And we'd have birthdays and holidays and summer picnics. And he'd get really old. And it'd happen, but it'd happen quietly. It'd be okay. He'd be surrounded by the people that he loved," she finished before chuckling while breaking down, causing Daryl to focus on her. "That's how unbelievably stupid I am," she said before she took a drink.
"That's how it was supposed to be," he told her.
"I wish I could just...change."
"You did."
"Not enough. Not like you and Ani. It's like the two of you were made for how things are now."
"I'm just used to things bein' ugly. Ania too. Growin' up with a family like hers. 'Least I knew where my place was growin' up in a place like this."
"Well, you got away from it," Beth said with a small smile.
"I didn't."
"You did," she insisted. "You and Ani both."
"Maybe," he said giving it some thought. "Maybe you just gotta keep on remindin' me sometimes, like Ania did."
"No," Beth teased. "You can't depend on anybody for anythin', right?"
"Did Ania."
"And she's gone, right? I'll be gone someday."
"Stop."
"I will!" she insisted with a smile. "You're gonna be the last man standing. You and Ani when you find her. You are," she insisted with a smile when he simply stared at him. "You're gonna miss me so bad when I'm gone, Daryl Dixon."
"You ain't a happy drunk at all!" he told her with a glance her way.
"Yeah, I'm happy. I'm just not blind," she responded quickly. "You gotta stay who you are, not who you were. The man Ani fell in love with even though she still don't trust most people, includin' me. You were the first person to gain her trust. That says somethin'. Places like this," she paused, trying to find the right words with her fuzzy mind. "You have to put it away."
"What if you can't?"
"You have to, or it kills you," she said.
"When did you become a damn shrink?"
"When I was talkin' to Ani. I wonder what Ani's like when she's drunk."
"Freer. Talkative," Daryl mused. "Doesn't shut up about the stupid shit she's done."
"Like what?"
"Like stealin' a car and settin' a barn on fire," he scoffed.
"We should burn it down like Ani!" Beth laughed her suggestion. "If you can't put it away, we should burn it down!"
Daryl thought about it for a minute before grabbing the mason jar, "We're gonna need more booze."
Beth smiled at him and followed him into the house where he began splashing the room with moonshine. She joined in with helping douse the entire house, smashing the jars and bottles as they emptied them right along with Daryl. It was fun, and she couldn't help but smile and laugh the entire time, catching Daryl smiling a few times to. He had to admit that he was having a good time as he and Beth worked to empty every single ounce of moonshine into the cabin. There was something about the prospect of burning down the building that reminded him so much of home that set a part of him free in the moment. As soon as they were done with the house he poured a trail out onto the porch and threw the last jar back into the house. He still had the zippo Ani had given him so long ago and pulled it out, squeezing it into his palm before he held it out to Beth.
"You wanna?"
"Hell yeah," she answered, watching as he pulled out a stack of cash from the bag he took from the clubhouse.
She lit the money and Daryl watched it for a moment with a smile before tossing it into the house and watched it go up in flames. He felt so much lighter when he watched it burn, his childhood going up in flames in his mind with it. Beth stopped to look back after walked a short distance away from the heat of the fire and flipped it off. When she saw Daryl just standing there, she hit his arm and indicated that he should join her. He did for a while as they watched the house burn, holding their middle fingers in the air like a couple of idiots. It wasn't until he noticed a walker coming towards the flames that he ushered Beth on. As they walked away from the burning building, the buzz Daryl felt was still working its magic on his emotions. If it hadn't, he would have felt terrible at having burned down the only place he knew Ani could look for him rather than freed. It would be several more days before he realized just how stupid he and Beth were when they'd drank. They should have just waited there as it was only hours after they left the building to burn that, shortly after daybreak, Ani had found her way there.