AN: *HUGE* thank you to reader nickiesaysstuff who's review for the original version of this chapter contributed the last three paragraphs of this new update, ideas & words, and who also acted as a great sounding board for the justification of this ending.
Simon lies in the dark awake as time slowly passes, slipping past him one tick of every muted unwound clock at a time. The world is more silent now. True his ears ring from gunshots, and the gnashing growls of the dead seem never to be silenced or too far off, but the sounds of the world are all but gone now, and mostly forgotten. On highways and in towns and in compartment bedrooms that had once been homes, these places echo with the silences of ghost sounds. No longer are there clocks that tick or chime, water faucets that drip or radiators that hum. No more soft sounds of radios in the background, no more traffic sounds or jet planes, neighbors or school bells. There's no time except for what one measures for himself, and no sound except for what a person makes for himself to hear. At the start, Simon used to click a pen top, when he was on his own. In and out, in and out, pressing the springed plastic top over and over, clicking, clicking, clicking. It wasn't nerves, it wasn't fear, he liked simply to know he was still of this world. Like an infant banging pots, he liked to know he could make a noise that could be heard, an assurance he could manipulate the world around him, even with the most minor of actions.
The blanket quiet was more difficult to notice in the woods. In camp there was always the constant of the river and the fall. There were the whirrings, buzzings, and tickings of insects, and the chirps and calls and knocks of birds, the rustling of breezes through leaves and the spits and crackles of campfires. The forest was never quiet and nor was their self-built camp. He aches for the voices of his comrades, their stories, their jokes, their games, and their razzings. Simon misses his true family also, still sometimes he dreams of being taken in by his mother's arms, and of his sibling's young faces, but those losses he's lived with for years; he's grown accustomed to their weight. He his not accustomed to the loss of Peter, of Michael James and John, to Tom and Rob. He feels it keenly, more so in the times when there is little else vying to be felt. The quiet fuels the sharpness of their absences. He knows he's not alone in this. He knows Beth and Daryl also feel the loss. He knows too they carry with them the losses of their own families, gone before their banding with Peter and the others. But unlike Simon, Beth and Daryl are not alone, so intrinsically coupled as they are. Simon has them, but he does not have that. In the woods there was always a brother there to jostle him, to tackle him, to pat him on the back. Hell, he'd slept side by side with them in their small huts, took cover from the rain and weather huddled close under cover and near fires. In the towering absence of the living world, he'd had brothers keeping him tethered to the world. They were his clicking pen, affirming he was real, not alone, not dead, not lost. It was contact. It was brotherhood. It was love and family. There were people to talk to, to confide in, who knew him. He is not alone in this room, but loneliness is his companion too.
Simon listens to the soft steady breaths of Beth and Daryl as they sleep above him in the room's iron-framed bed. On the floor, on cushions and in blankets, he lies, waiting for sleep to come. Not sleep even, rest. Warmly cocooned as he is, walking as long as they have, for as long as they have been, he should be dead tired and long asleep. The night had been a pleasure, comfortable and warm, with food and conversation and the rare room to breathe; he'd been caught up in the hazy languid dream of it as much as his companions had been, but now sleep is not finding him. He stares at the dark and shifting shadows on the ceiling, he pulls the covers in tighter, he shifts his weight and exhales. Slowing his breath deliberately, Simon lies there concentrating on feeling it travel in and out, trying to time it with the sounds of sleep surrounding him. And he waits. Near him his friends sleep, a man and woman together, entangled in slumbering embraces of comfort and love. They are there, and somewhere, far away maybe, are his lost brothers. He can only hope. And he is alone. Not unhappy, not unlucky, but not at ease. Sleep evades him, like so often safety and comfort do. He feels old in his fifteen years. So unlike the child he might still have been had all this never happened. In camp, always, he'd been the baby, and still is so with Daryl and Beth, despite the mere three year difference between himself and Beth, but regardless he feels old. Tired but not asleep. Lonely but not alone, not like those terrible solitary nights he spent on the run.
Beth stirs some in her sleep, twisting in the sheets. Daryl's unconscious arm drapes over her and tucks her close to him. Simon breathes. He is not ungrateful for what he has. He is not past finding good in life. He is not turning his back on their good night, on the companionship he has, or on hope for the future. Michael and James did not die for him to give up. Somewhere close a baby is growing, a new family is starting, one he can be a part of. He is not alone, he knows this. In the still darkness he fixes his mind on the soft give of his down pillow, on his full stomach, on the baby, on Daryl and on Beth, and on the future. He listens to their breathing and works to time his own with theirs, and tries to will his eyelids to grow heavy. Sleep will come when it does, and peace will come in time.
Outside the night's quiet breaks with the screeching of an owl. Simon stirs again, shifting and re-shifting, the covers don't pull in tight enough. Above him the bed creaks, and Simon holds still, frozen in place. Through the darkness from nowhere there's a touch, a hand reaching through. Beth's gentle hand finds him, softly and wordlessly.
A trained light sleeper from childhood, in bed with his love, keeping her close through the night, as he does always, Daryl'd sensed the sleepless angst mounting in the room. While warm and well-nestled Beth has slumbered peacefully against him, the kid's been still awake, restlessly battling the world by himself. No stranger to wakefulness or the hauntings of empty too-long nights (though he can sleep well enough in the day if given half the chance), Daryl nudged his sleeping girl. Beth stirred some and sighed, and when her small body stretched against his her eyes fluttered open just long enough to settle on Daryl, and his nod in Simon's direction. Still mostly asleep, at his prompting Beth reached out from the covers and found Simon in the dark.
At this touch his body caves, and his held breath escapes. "Simon—" she whispers his name. Lightly she tugs at his blanket and lets that speak for itself as she turns and curls back into Daryl who's made room in their bed. It's a small gesture of a world gone but not: No one is alone. They can't be. Humbled and reprieved, Simon rises and tucks in beside her in the cocoon of this small family. Her back against his, this small contact, solid and warm, serves as proof he is not alone in any of this. Daryl's strong hand, wrapped over Beth, lifts and pats Simon. Not Merle, not Rick, but a brother, a kid brother he's never had. He is loved as Daryl and Beth have loved others. In the space between sleep and wakefulness, Simon finds peace. He knows where he is — still part of the world, and part of a group.