One of Rick's hands cradles the back of Beth's head, and he's holding her while she cries, but he never looks away from Daryl. There must be something, Daryl thinks, he must look fucking crazy. Rick hasn't really looked at him like that since he crawled out of the woods on the farm, wearing ears, a hole in his gut, barely upright.
It's strange, he just feels like laughing at the absurdity. Instead, he pushes himself up and Rick is staring at him, but Daryl's already pulling his crossbow up, aiming, he is suddenly on fire. He is enraged. He thinks of touching the soft inside of her bicep. He thinks of this bastard's hand on her wrist, trying to drag her further inside the church, further away from him.
He thinks of one of the times his dad was off on a bender, and Merle'd been gone to juvie or a friend's house or somethin', and in boredom he'd read through the fucking dictionary. The whole fucking thing. He knows he's lost thousands of those words, but he thinks now of all the synonyms for being fucking pissed. He stands above where the guy- Gabriel, she'd said- has landed on his ass on the floor, scooting back toward the aisle between pews. He thinks maybe Rick called his name, but his ears are fuzzy with it, with this rage, anger. He's livid. He is seething. He is kneeling close, pressing the point of his arrow to his forehead. The skin is sweating, his eyes are terrified, pleading, but Daryl thinks of running after that goddamned car. He thinks of the fear.
He thinks of that man's hands on his, their Beth.
He had expected this to go down so much more differently. When he indulged in silly girlish fantasies, worst moments, the hardest, where he hoped, he'd thought they'd come upon the car. And they'd sneak in, the guns would blaze, it would be a massacre, like all the encounters with The Governor. He thought it'd be a bit more like that, if he truly ended up being a hero, saving her.
He'd thought he'd have plenty of reason, plenty of proof, to be judge, jury and executioner to the person that took Beth from him at that moment. He's holding his hands up, trying to slink, to become small. There's blood on his lips from where Beth popped him one, bloodied his nose to get to them.
Instead, suddenly, Beth's shoutin' his name right in his ear, she's hangin' off his arm, trying to drag it down, to point the crossbow away. She's yelling somethin' about how he's no harm, she's begging him to give this man his life back, Daryl, he can't even kill a walker! It's that slight, so very slight he could have missed it, the edge of irritation in her voice, a roll of her eyes, as if he'd just stuck his dirty fingers in a jar of jelly again. It's so mundane, such an unexpected reaction, she's exasperated with him, he's- he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing until he's flinched away from her, turned his back to her- he's trying to get himself under control, he feels like a fucking animal, he feels like he did when he learned Merle was handcuffed to a fucking roof.
He's fit to be fuckin' tied. He tosses his crossbow as hard as he can against the pews.
He wants to kill this man. He understands exactly what Rick meant when he said it was him, ripping Joe's neck straight apart. Gutting a man. The things you do for your family. For your people. Your tribe.
He paces twice but he can't stand the walls around him, and he can't look at her because she'll see the fuckin' animal, and she's barely even real yet, he's not even, it was just too easy and Daryl knew, if there was one thing he'd always been able to count on, it was that if it seemed too good to be true, it fucking was and you'd best at least try to have some line of defense. He wonders if he's dreaming. He has to fucking- go.
He hears Beth, confused, say, "Daryl?"
He stomps out the doors, into the sun. He rifles in all his pockets, dropping things, he finally pulls out the crushed, mostly empty pack of smokes he'd found in the dash of a car down the street in his shirt pocket. Maggie's running the opposite direction, she looks torn for a minute when she sees him, sees what he looks like, but she doesn't have time to apologize, no time to even feel bad right now because she's seen Beth, heard her voice, too.
He wonders if maybe he's going crazy like Rick did. Seeing phantoms.
Glenn's coming to meet him, trying to intervene, to put a hand on his arm, but he just can't take it yet. He's too angry. He'll snap and snarl at them all. He doesn't want to do that, he doesn't want to be that.
He thrashes through the trees behind a house, crashing, uncaring, swiping at branches and kicking at the dead leaves and pine needles.
A/N: Okay, guys. This is my first foray into fanfic, truly. (If I think about it, that means I've lurked in fandoms for over a decade, ugh.) I'd like thoughts and opinions. In character? Seem realistic? Please tell me.