The Walking Dead Fanfic: "Double Vision"
Title: Double Vision
Fandom: The Walking Dead
Characters: Daryl/Beth
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3060 words
Summary: Beth is gone, but that doesn't stop Daryl from seeing her wherever he goes.
Notes: Post-Terminus, the events at Grady never happened. Written for the Teamwork challenge at lands_of_magic.
Double Vision
by Severina
Outside, there are moans and snarls from the walkers, the rattle of rapid fire. Inside the boxcar, all of that seems muted and far away.
Daryl moves quickly to the side of the open door, waits for his eyes to adjust to the perpetual gloom. The rectangle of sunlight only stretches forward a foot or so, Glenn's shadow crisp and sharp. He watches the shadow jitter for a second before it stabilizes, and can almost feel his friend's exasperation. Dozens of walkers outside, Terminus in flames, god knows how many of those cannibalistic fuckers still on the loose out there, and they're still checking boxcars for survivors.
For one particular survivor.
He scans the long car; dust and dirt and a long-handled wooden spoon abandoned halfway down the aisle and in the corner, a pile of rags. He blinks and the bundle of clothes coalesces into a shape that's vaguely human: the hunch of a shoulder, a pale arm outstretched with a hand cupped toward the corrugated ceiling, a cascade of golden hair. His breath hitches in his throat and he pounds the length of the boxcar and drops to his knees. He ignores the flies that lift lazily from the corpse to buzz indolently around his head. His hand shakes and he has to take a steadying breath before he can fist her hair and gently lift her head.
The single eye that is not covered by the film of dried blood is blue. The hair is the colour of cornstalks in autumn. Her face is pale, her forehead concaved where she battered it against the grooved steel floor. Daryl doesn't want to think about how many times she must have raised herself up and then smashed her face into the floor, determined that she wouldn't be either a feast or a walker.
She was brave, and strong until the end. But the woman is not Beth.
He sets her head down carefully, smoothes a stray curl from the woman's cheek. There's no blanket to cover her. He sits back on his haunches and stares at the ceiling and blinks away tears because there is no time to get sentimental about another dead girl.
"Daryl!" Glenn hisses from the doorway. "We gotta move. Now!"
Daryl pulls himself to his feet, and moves.
* ~ * ~ *
The herd is small, as they go these days. No more than fifty head, most of them bunched together as they stumble through the clearing. The stench of them filters back through the trees to where Daryl and Michonne are standing over their snares, the rabbit forgotten with the first rustle of the undergrowth and sharp snap of a twig. Daryl reaches slowly and carefully for the crossbow leaning against the tree, sees Michonne's hand drift in slow motion toward the hilt of her sword.
They are a mass of grey-clad bodies, eyes rolling in emaciated sockets, teeth snapping at nothing as they stagger onward. No sign of fresh blood marring their washed out clothing, and heading east, away from the camp where they left Abraham and Rosita on watch, Rick nursing a twisted ankle and a fussing baby. Daryl sees the relief of that reflected in Michonne's eyes when he steals a quick glance her way. They remain standing, motionless, and though the grip of the bow feels comfortable under his hand he doesn't think he'll have to use it today.
Then he sees a glint of subdued yellow amidst that sea of grey.
He doesn't think, merely darts out from behind the meager cover of the trees and into the fray. He hears Michonne mutter his name before her katana sings behind him.
The walkers turn as one, and maybe they can't register surprise but they can express eagerness. Hunger, that great gnawing ache that unites the living and the dead. The first one lurches for him and gets an arrow in his eye for his trouble, and then the bow is useless. He swings it onto his shoulder and goes for the knife -- her knife, kept at his side all the long weeks since she's been gone - and dodges to the left. He thrusts his hand forward and the blade penetrates a skull like butter, and before the walker has folded to her knees he is wrenching it free and spinning toward another. And another. A fourth lumbers from behind an ancient elm and he has to duck to his knees to avoid its quick snapping jaws; comes up behind it and buries the knife deep. Skeletal hands scrabble at his jacket, their grip surprisingly strong, and his angle is wrong, his knife still stuck in the dead thing that used to be a dentist or a stockbroker or a schoolteacher, and Daryl throws himself to the side just before Michonne's sword rips through the air above him and the walker's head rolls to a stop at his feet.
He dives for his knife and rips it free and turns to the rest, side by side with Michonne. He slides past a stumbling geek with one eye dangling from a maggot-filled socket, slides his knife into the skull of another. He inches his way through the battlefield toward that hint of yellow and even though he doesn't really believe in God he still prays: that it won't be her, and that he'll be able to use the knife if it is.
There are less than a dozen walkers remaining in the clearing when he reaches her. Pale yellow polo stained with dirt and the crust of dried blood, long blonde hair. She snaps at him, revealing broken teeth behind drawn, bloodless lips. Her eyes are green.
Daryl slams his knife down into the walker's skull, hears the bones snap and crumble with the force of it. He grunts with the effort, screams with it, and then turns. But Michonne has taken care of the rest, the clearing now the remains of a combat zone and swimming with the ichor that passes for a geek's blood.
He feels for the bow at his back and only then realizes that somehow he'd dropped it when he killed the last walker. The not-Beth walker. He swipes a hand over his mouth and bends to retrieve it, but before he can complete the motion Michonne has fisted her hand in his jacket and slammed him against a tree.
"You wanna tell me what the fuck that was all about?" she snaps.
He knows he owes her an explanation. He almost got her killed. But he can only shake his head helplessly, take in great gulps of air.
And when her eyes drift down to the dead walker crumpled at his feet, she knows without him saying a damn word.
* ~ * ~ *
The streets of Alexandria are teeming with people. Well-fed people with clean clothes and smiles on their faces, who never had to sleep under a bower of trees with one eye open after sharing around a single tin of corn to settle starving bellies. Daryl resents them a little, the way they gather in little groups to giggle and gossip. They jostle him when he tries to walk, ogle him when he passes, stand too close when one or two get the nerve to stop him to talk.
And they make him uncomfortable; too many people, too many faces he doesn't know, too many faces he doesn't trust. So many that he hasn't even been able to meet half of them yet.
The sheer mass of them unnerves him. It reminds him of the state fair; the one time he and Merle decided to ride up and see what all the fuss is about. There are no buskers on the street or carnies yelling at him to try his luck at a stupid game - and he's not liquored up this time - but the feeling is the same, regardless. Bright colours and noise.
He keeps his head down as he hustles toward the northeast corner of the square and his afternoon shift on the tower. At least his watch partner today is Glenn, who won't babble on about bullshit all goddamn day. He'll be able to get some peace and quiet.
Daryl glances up to see how close he is to the ramparts, and that's when he sees it. A flash of golden hair done up in a high pony tail.
The breath goes out of his lungs. His slouching walk becomes a trot, then a full-on run. He pushes aside a small group of men standing in the middle of the street; ignores the grunt of surprise and indignation from one of them. He slams through the middle of a trio who are strolling casually down the middle of the avenue, boots slapping on the pavement as he runs. People are stopping to look at him now: arms raised to point, mouths open to gape. Someone - he thinks it might be Rick - shouts his name.
And she has heard his approach. She starts to turn just as his hand reaches out to grip her thin shoulder. Her ponytail bobs playfully at her back.
She is fifty if she is a day, eyes lined with crow's feet, and the hair that seemed so bright and vibrant from a hundred feet is clearly out of a bottle. Her brow wrinkles as she stares at him, and the hand that he lets drop listlessly back to his side.
"Sorry," he mumbles.
"Can I help-"
Daryl stumbles back, shaking his head. "Sorry," he says again, before he flees.
* ~ * ~ *
There's still good people out there. That's what she always said. And Daryl tries to believe it, to hold it in his heart and find it true, but the real truth of the matter is that he's a suspicious son of a bitch. Maybe it's because of how he was raised or maybe it's because of what he's seen since the world went to shit, but as he stands behind the copse of trees and watches this new group hunched over the downed deer he's not inclined to trust them farther than he can throw them.
He eyes the baseball bat in the hand of one; the bow on the shoulder of another. Gauges his chances at taking all four of them by surprise before they can mount a defense, give them a chance to plead their case before he decides whether to bring them back to Alexandria or not. His other option is to sneak away before they spot him, and his back bristles at the thought. If they are dangerous - and most people are not good, no matter what Beth's admonishing voice in his head is telling him - then stealing away gives them a chance to continue being not-good. And that puts his family at risk.
He's concentrating so hard on the foursome around the deer that he doesn't hear the whisper in the long grass behind him until it's too late. He spins on his heel and tries to bring the crossbow up and around, but the walker is too close, its wasted hands already twisting in his shirt as it arches its emaciated head forward. He dodges the first snap of brittle teeth and braces his back against a tree while he pushes outward, but the move that was meant to dislodge the creature only results in his hands sinking deep into the putrid flesh of its chest and his booted feet sliding on the slippery leaves. He stumbles, his hands still caught on broken ribs and decaying flesh, and he knows he'll never have time to reach the knife before the geek is on him.
Stupid mistake. Stupid fucking way to go out.
Daryl makes one last desperate lunge to free a hand for the knife - and then the walker stiffens. He blinks sweat-soaked hair out of his eyes in time to register the arrow protruding from its skull, and then the geek flops backward onto the dirt and his hands are free. He scrambles back, gore-streaked fingers clutching for his knife.
"You're welcome," a voice says.
Daryl squints up at the man standing over him. This one has a gun - a little six shooter than he hadn't noticed when he'd been watching them over the deer, another damn mistake that could've gotten him killed -- but the words come from the guy striding up behind him, bow now again slung over his shoulder. The others are crowding closer too, and Daryl tightens his grip on the knife at his hip and tries to decide when to make a break for it.
"Jeez," one of the men says, "don't thank us all at once. Not like we just saved your pitiful life or anything."
Daryl opens his mouth, though whether it's to thank them or cuss them out he can't say. And before he can say anything at all there's a rustle in the bushes behind them and suddenly the men are pushed aside as though they weigh no more than the scarecrows that used to dot the fields back home. The woman plows through them and drops to her knees.
His heart stops. Same faded yellow polo shirt, now streaked with dirt and the copper of dried blood. Same long golden hair. Same scuffed boots.
"No," Daryl says.
The woman's brow furrows as she raises her head toward one of the men. "Did he hit his head?" she asks. She doesn't wait for a response, turns back to him and lifts one pale, dirt-streaked hand toward his face. "Daryl, can you-"
"No," he says louder. He releases his grip on the knife to clutch her biceps, shakes the apparition hard enough to make her head judder back and forth. His fingers leave dimples on her warm, pale skin, and if she was real - if this was really his Beth - he would be clutching her hard enough to leave bruises behind. But it's not. It can't be. "It ain't you!" he shouts. "I see you everywhere and I think it's you but it's not! It's never you!"
He's vaguely aware of a gun cocked and ready at his temple. The woman in his arms shakes her head minutely, rests one hand against the straining grip he has on her arm. He can see the grime caked under her nails, and when she moves to again slowly and carefully lift her hand toward his face he sees the faint, jagged scar on her wrist.
Her hand in his hair is soft and gentle, and Daryl suddenly can't see. "Beth?" he says raggedly.
And then his head is buried in her chest and his hands clutch at her waist and he's telling her, in between the sobs he's telling her, of how he ran and searched, for months and months he searched and tried to remember what she taught him and how it was so hard, so damn hard without her.
Her hands rub along his back, knead his shoulders. She doesn't say a word. By the time Daryl lifts his head he sees that her own cheeks are damp. His hands convulse on her waist and he can't look away. Beth. Here, real, alive.
"I looked for you, too," she finally says, lifting one hand to swipe a palm beneath her eyes. She leaves a smudge of dirt behind, like a football player on the field, and when he lifts his own finger to wipe it away he succeeds only in smearing it further. "I had it all planned out what I was gonna say when I found you again. I was gonna tell you how much I missed you, and then I was gonna tell you how ticked I was that I got taken when I did. 'Cause we still got a conversation to finish, Daryl Dixon."
He remembers sitting across from her at that kitchen table like it was yesterday. Peanut butter and cola on the table that he'd set to make it nice for her, and carrying her into the room because she was still hobbling on her bad ankle. He remembers the pen held motionless in her hand when he suggested that they make a go of it together in that funeral parlour. Settle down. Just the two of them.
"But…" she says.
She ducks her head, and the lightbulb goes on in his. It's been months since she disappeared, months of thinking he sees her only to be bitterly disappointed. Months of stalking through deserted towns in hopes of a sign, months of seeing her in every woman clad in yellow or with blonde hair. And now to find her again and…
Daryl glares up at the men grouped around them in a half circle. Which one of them won her heart? Which one of them is the lucky bastard who gets to feel her warmth beside him during the day, hold her at night, kiss her and-
"I think we just finished it," she says shyly. "Don't you?"
Oh.
Daryl blinks. Her smile is hesitant and he knows she's waiting for him to speak, but all he can manage to do is nod. Helplessly. Like one of those dumb bobble-head dolls Merle used to have on the dashboard of his truck.
It must be enough, because she laughs and throws her arms around his neck, and she's warm and soft and their first kiss is messy and watched over by four dudes he doesn't know from adam, and Daryl doesn't care a bit. He nestles his nose beneath her ear and breathes in the scent of her and tightens his grip; makes a mental promise that their next kiss will be better than the first. And the one after that even better. A litany of escalating kisses until the end of their days.
When she finally pulls him to his feet some minutes later, he twines his fingers with hers. She keeps up a running commentary as she leads them all to their camp, and he happily lets the cadence of her voice wash over him. By the time he sits next to her at the fire and wraps his arm around her waist, she grins at him and he knows she's got it figured out.
Now that he's got her back, he's never letting her go.
.
Fandom: The Walking Dead
Characters: Daryl/Beth
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3060 words
Summary: Beth is gone, but that doesn't stop Daryl from seeing her wherever he goes.
Notes: Post-Terminus, the events at Grady never happened. Written for the Teamwork challenge at lands_of_magic.
Double Vision
by Severina
Outside, there are moans and snarls from the walkers, the rattle of rapid fire. Inside the boxcar, all of that seems muted and far away.
Daryl moves quickly to the side of the open door, waits for his eyes to adjust to the perpetual gloom. The rectangle of sunlight only stretches forward a foot or so, Glenn's shadow crisp and sharp. He watches the shadow jitter for a second before it stabilizes, and can almost feel his friend's exasperation. Dozens of walkers outside, Terminus in flames, god knows how many of those cannibalistic fuckers still on the loose out there, and they're still checking boxcars for survivors.
For one particular survivor.
He scans the long car; dust and dirt and a long-handled wooden spoon abandoned halfway down the aisle and in the corner, a pile of rags. He blinks and the bundle of clothes coalesces into a shape that's vaguely human: the hunch of a shoulder, a pale arm outstretched with a hand cupped toward the corrugated ceiling, a cascade of golden hair. His breath hitches in his throat and he pounds the length of the boxcar and drops to his knees. He ignores the flies that lift lazily from the corpse to buzz indolently around his head. His hand shakes and he has to take a steadying breath before he can fist her hair and gently lift her head.
The single eye that is not covered by the film of dried blood is blue. The hair is the colour of cornstalks in autumn. Her face is pale, her forehead concaved where she battered it against the grooved steel floor. Daryl doesn't want to think about how many times she must have raised herself up and then smashed her face into the floor, determined that she wouldn't be either a feast or a walker.
She was brave, and strong until the end. But the woman is not Beth.
He sets her head down carefully, smoothes a stray curl from the woman's cheek. There's no blanket to cover her. He sits back on his haunches and stares at the ceiling and blinks away tears because there is no time to get sentimental about another dead girl.
"Daryl!" Glenn hisses from the doorway. "We gotta move. Now!"
Daryl pulls himself to his feet, and moves.
* ~ * ~ *
The herd is small, as they go these days. No more than fifty head, most of them bunched together as they stumble through the clearing. The stench of them filters back through the trees to where Daryl and Michonne are standing over their snares, the rabbit forgotten with the first rustle of the undergrowth and sharp snap of a twig. Daryl reaches slowly and carefully for the crossbow leaning against the tree, sees Michonne's hand drift in slow motion toward the hilt of her sword.
They are a mass of grey-clad bodies, eyes rolling in emaciated sockets, teeth snapping at nothing as they stagger onward. No sign of fresh blood marring their washed out clothing, and heading east, away from the camp where they left Abraham and Rosita on watch, Rick nursing a twisted ankle and a fussing baby. Daryl sees the relief of that reflected in Michonne's eyes when he steals a quick glance her way. They remain standing, motionless, and though the grip of the bow feels comfortable under his hand he doesn't think he'll have to use it today.
Then he sees a glint of subdued yellow amidst that sea of grey.
He doesn't think, merely darts out from behind the meager cover of the trees and into the fray. He hears Michonne mutter his name before her katana sings behind him.
The walkers turn as one, and maybe they can't register surprise but they can express eagerness. Hunger, that great gnawing ache that unites the living and the dead. The first one lurches for him and gets an arrow in his eye for his trouble, and then the bow is useless. He swings it onto his shoulder and goes for the knife -- her knife, kept at his side all the long weeks since she's been gone - and dodges to the left. He thrusts his hand forward and the blade penetrates a skull like butter, and before the walker has folded to her knees he is wrenching it free and spinning toward another. And another. A fourth lumbers from behind an ancient elm and he has to duck to his knees to avoid its quick snapping jaws; comes up behind it and buries the knife deep. Skeletal hands scrabble at his jacket, their grip surprisingly strong, and his angle is wrong, his knife still stuck in the dead thing that used to be a dentist or a stockbroker or a schoolteacher, and Daryl throws himself to the side just before Michonne's sword rips through the air above him and the walker's head rolls to a stop at his feet.
He dives for his knife and rips it free and turns to the rest, side by side with Michonne. He slides past a stumbling geek with one eye dangling from a maggot-filled socket, slides his knife into the skull of another. He inches his way through the battlefield toward that hint of yellow and even though he doesn't really believe in God he still prays: that it won't be her, and that he'll be able to use the knife if it is.
There are less than a dozen walkers remaining in the clearing when he reaches her. Pale yellow polo stained with dirt and the crust of dried blood, long blonde hair. She snaps at him, revealing broken teeth behind drawn, bloodless lips. Her eyes are green.
Daryl slams his knife down into the walker's skull, hears the bones snap and crumble with the force of it. He grunts with the effort, screams with it, and then turns. But Michonne has taken care of the rest, the clearing now the remains of a combat zone and swimming with the ichor that passes for a geek's blood.
He feels for the bow at his back and only then realizes that somehow he'd dropped it when he killed the last walker. The not-Beth walker. He swipes a hand over his mouth and bends to retrieve it, but before he can complete the motion Michonne has fisted her hand in his jacket and slammed him against a tree.
"You wanna tell me what the fuck that was all about?" she snaps.
He knows he owes her an explanation. He almost got her killed. But he can only shake his head helplessly, take in great gulps of air.
And when her eyes drift down to the dead walker crumpled at his feet, she knows without him saying a damn word.
* ~ * ~ *
The streets of Alexandria are teeming with people. Well-fed people with clean clothes and smiles on their faces, who never had to sleep under a bower of trees with one eye open after sharing around a single tin of corn to settle starving bellies. Daryl resents them a little, the way they gather in little groups to giggle and gossip. They jostle him when he tries to walk, ogle him when he passes, stand too close when one or two get the nerve to stop him to talk.
And they make him uncomfortable; too many people, too many faces he doesn't know, too many faces he doesn't trust. So many that he hasn't even been able to meet half of them yet.
The sheer mass of them unnerves him. It reminds him of the state fair; the one time he and Merle decided to ride up and see what all the fuss is about. There are no buskers on the street or carnies yelling at him to try his luck at a stupid game - and he's not liquored up this time - but the feeling is the same, regardless. Bright colours and noise.
He keeps his head down as he hustles toward the northeast corner of the square and his afternoon shift on the tower. At least his watch partner today is Glenn, who won't babble on about bullshit all goddamn day. He'll be able to get some peace and quiet.
Daryl glances up to see how close he is to the ramparts, and that's when he sees it. A flash of golden hair done up in a high pony tail.
The breath goes out of his lungs. His slouching walk becomes a trot, then a full-on run. He pushes aside a small group of men standing in the middle of the street; ignores the grunt of surprise and indignation from one of them. He slams through the middle of a trio who are strolling casually down the middle of the avenue, boots slapping on the pavement as he runs. People are stopping to look at him now: arms raised to point, mouths open to gape. Someone - he thinks it might be Rick - shouts his name.
And she has heard his approach. She starts to turn just as his hand reaches out to grip her thin shoulder. Her ponytail bobs playfully at her back.
She is fifty if she is a day, eyes lined with crow's feet, and the hair that seemed so bright and vibrant from a hundred feet is clearly out of a bottle. Her brow wrinkles as she stares at him, and the hand that he lets drop listlessly back to his side.
"Sorry," he mumbles.
"Can I help-"
Daryl stumbles back, shaking his head. "Sorry," he says again, before he flees.
* ~ * ~ *
There's still good people out there. That's what she always said. And Daryl tries to believe it, to hold it in his heart and find it true, but the real truth of the matter is that he's a suspicious son of a bitch. Maybe it's because of how he was raised or maybe it's because of what he's seen since the world went to shit, but as he stands behind the copse of trees and watches this new group hunched over the downed deer he's not inclined to trust them farther than he can throw them.
He eyes the baseball bat in the hand of one; the bow on the shoulder of another. Gauges his chances at taking all four of them by surprise before they can mount a defense, give them a chance to plead their case before he decides whether to bring them back to Alexandria or not. His other option is to sneak away before they spot him, and his back bristles at the thought. If they are dangerous - and most people are not good, no matter what Beth's admonishing voice in his head is telling him - then stealing away gives them a chance to continue being not-good. And that puts his family at risk.
He's concentrating so hard on the foursome around the deer that he doesn't hear the whisper in the long grass behind him until it's too late. He spins on his heel and tries to bring the crossbow up and around, but the walker is too close, its wasted hands already twisting in his shirt as it arches its emaciated head forward. He dodges the first snap of brittle teeth and braces his back against a tree while he pushes outward, but the move that was meant to dislodge the creature only results in his hands sinking deep into the putrid flesh of its chest and his booted feet sliding on the slippery leaves. He stumbles, his hands still caught on broken ribs and decaying flesh, and he knows he'll never have time to reach the knife before the geek is on him.
Stupid mistake. Stupid fucking way to go out.
Daryl makes one last desperate lunge to free a hand for the knife - and then the walker stiffens. He blinks sweat-soaked hair out of his eyes in time to register the arrow protruding from its skull, and then the geek flops backward onto the dirt and his hands are free. He scrambles back, gore-streaked fingers clutching for his knife.
"You're welcome," a voice says.
Daryl squints up at the man standing over him. This one has a gun - a little six shooter than he hadn't noticed when he'd been watching them over the deer, another damn mistake that could've gotten him killed -- but the words come from the guy striding up behind him, bow now again slung over his shoulder. The others are crowding closer too, and Daryl tightens his grip on the knife at his hip and tries to decide when to make a break for it.
"Jeez," one of the men says, "don't thank us all at once. Not like we just saved your pitiful life or anything."
Daryl opens his mouth, though whether it's to thank them or cuss them out he can't say. And before he can say anything at all there's a rustle in the bushes behind them and suddenly the men are pushed aside as though they weigh no more than the scarecrows that used to dot the fields back home. The woman plows through them and drops to her knees.
His heart stops. Same faded yellow polo shirt, now streaked with dirt and the copper of dried blood. Same long golden hair. Same scuffed boots.
"No," Daryl says.
The woman's brow furrows as she raises her head toward one of the men. "Did he hit his head?" she asks. She doesn't wait for a response, turns back to him and lifts one pale, dirt-streaked hand toward his face. "Daryl, can you-"
"No," he says louder. He releases his grip on the knife to clutch her biceps, shakes the apparition hard enough to make her head judder back and forth. His fingers leave dimples on her warm, pale skin, and if she was real - if this was really his Beth - he would be clutching her hard enough to leave bruises behind. But it's not. It can't be. "It ain't you!" he shouts. "I see you everywhere and I think it's you but it's not! It's never you!"
He's vaguely aware of a gun cocked and ready at his temple. The woman in his arms shakes her head minutely, rests one hand against the straining grip he has on her arm. He can see the grime caked under her nails, and when she moves to again slowly and carefully lift her hand toward his face he sees the faint, jagged scar on her wrist.
Her hand in his hair is soft and gentle, and Daryl suddenly can't see. "Beth?" he says raggedly.
And then his head is buried in her chest and his hands clutch at her waist and he's telling her, in between the sobs he's telling her, of how he ran and searched, for months and months he searched and tried to remember what she taught him and how it was so hard, so damn hard without her.
Her hands rub along his back, knead his shoulders. She doesn't say a word. By the time Daryl lifts his head he sees that her own cheeks are damp. His hands convulse on her waist and he can't look away. Beth. Here, real, alive.
"I looked for you, too," she finally says, lifting one hand to swipe a palm beneath her eyes. She leaves a smudge of dirt behind, like a football player on the field, and when he lifts his own finger to wipe it away he succeeds only in smearing it further. "I had it all planned out what I was gonna say when I found you again. I was gonna tell you how much I missed you, and then I was gonna tell you how ticked I was that I got taken when I did. 'Cause we still got a conversation to finish, Daryl Dixon."
He remembers sitting across from her at that kitchen table like it was yesterday. Peanut butter and cola on the table that he'd set to make it nice for her, and carrying her into the room because she was still hobbling on her bad ankle. He remembers the pen held motionless in her hand when he suggested that they make a go of it together in that funeral parlour. Settle down. Just the two of them.
"But…" she says.
She ducks her head, and the lightbulb goes on in his. It's been months since she disappeared, months of thinking he sees her only to be bitterly disappointed. Months of stalking through deserted towns in hopes of a sign, months of seeing her in every woman clad in yellow or with blonde hair. And now to find her again and…
Daryl glares up at the men grouped around them in a half circle. Which one of them won her heart? Which one of them is the lucky bastard who gets to feel her warmth beside him during the day, hold her at night, kiss her and-
"I think we just finished it," she says shyly. "Don't you?"
Oh.
Daryl blinks. Her smile is hesitant and he knows she's waiting for him to speak, but all he can manage to do is nod. Helplessly. Like one of those dumb bobble-head dolls Merle used to have on the dashboard of his truck.
It must be enough, because she laughs and throws her arms around his neck, and she's warm and soft and their first kiss is messy and watched over by four dudes he doesn't know from adam, and Daryl doesn't care a bit. He nestles his nose beneath her ear and breathes in the scent of her and tightens his grip; makes a mental promise that their next kiss will be better than the first. And the one after that even better. A litany of escalating kisses until the end of their days.
When she finally pulls him to his feet some minutes later, he twines his fingers with hers. She keeps up a running commentary as she leads them all to their camp, and he happily lets the cadence of her voice wash over him. By the time he sits next to her at the fire and wraps his arm around her waist, she grins at him and he knows she's got it figured out.
Now that he's got her back, he's never letting her go.
.