Bob explains, "You can't be alone out there. We know that." He looks at Sasha, with some sort of smile Daryl feels like he shouldn't really see. A smile that says they understand things that no one else will, because they weren't there. He thinks about how he would have had that with Beth. Bob dispels that horrible thought by adding, "We found Glenn. That was a long shot. So we'll find Beth."
Daryl's honestly surprised it's Bob first, but he can only nod. In gratitude. In forgiveness.
But then he sees resolute looks. He realizes what's going on. Maggie's just nodding her head, her lips pursed together, on the verge of crying again. She's holding Glenn's hand, and she's saying to Abe and Rosita, "I'm sorry, we'll follow you to DC afterwards, if you still go. I know we said we'd help. It's my sister."
Then it's Sasha, Glenn, Tara. Dominos falling. There's some kind of undercurrent between Eugene, Rosita and Abraham, it makes them comical, and another reason Daryl doesn't quite trust them yet.
But it seems Abraham has already figured out how this is going to go down, because he's cursing again, glaring at Eugene. "How many wild goose chases you gonna bring us on, Eugene? Or are we gonna save the fuckin' world, here?" But he says it without real feeling, he's already defeated.
Rosita only mumbles, "The more the merrier, right?"
Rick, Carl, and Michonne, they've already shared their looks. Carl and Michonne, they leave it with the original leader, their leader. His leader.
Rick only says, "'Course we'll find Beth."
It makes Daryl want to cry. He doesn't.
He knows it's more than just Beth they're lookin' for. Each of them. It's Tyreese, too, and the kids they'd never found, Lil Asskicker. Carol, too, somewhere out there, because even screwed up, she was all the family they had anymore. It was purpose. It was the people next to them. He knew he wasn't great with people, not like Beth was, so able to look clear through to their secrets. But how some people couldn't see the way people leaned into one another, the way their eyes couldn't pull away, like magnets, kept sliding toward the others, it baffled him. The way the skin around those eyes softened, lost the deep groove of worry and strain.
People telegraphed everything in their bodies.
Observant. He thinks. Look it up. Memories from farther away come to him, when he first started to realize Rick was a leader he'd preferred to follow, unlike Merle. When he'd chased after the spectre of Sophia. He thinks of Beth, wondering how he'd been so unaware of her then, how he'd not seen that light before. She'd just been a girl, a member of the family.
He thinks of changing. How he's changed. How they all have.
He nods his head.