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It’s taken her everything to get here. Realistically speaking, almost two months have passed since Grady, since that single bullet took her from the people she loved, but not quite in the way any of them believed. She tells all this to Rick; later, when her heart has ceased beating and fluttering in her chest at the sight of her family alive and well. After they had left her in the trunk, Dr Edwards came out and found her, breathing, but far from unharmed, the bullet tearing through her head but not killing her as they had all understandably assumed. There had been a lot of brain swelling, but the bullet went clean through, at least, well enough to minimise what damage it
could
have caused. When she’s finished relaying the details Edwards told her to Rick, the man in front of her sighs deeply, twisting his hands together.
“Beth, I’m sorry,” Rick begins, almost as soon as she has finished her spiel. The man’s face is downcast, his eyes full with unspoken apology, adding, “It was wrong of us to leave you. We shoulda checked.”
“How could you know that I was alive?” she offers, shooting him a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes because she still feels a faint tightening in her chest when she thinks about how alone she’s been, how much it took from her to survive out there without her family and only Morgan for company, and yet, she tries not to forget that she’s alive - and lucky to be. If they had taken her with them, they might have died at the hands of the herd Rick’s told her about, and she would be dead from brain damage, without the people at Grady to fix her.
“I’m just glad to be here now.” And she means that.
“Is there anything we can do? What side effects are there from… from the bullet?” Rick stumbles over his words, probably worried it will upset her, but she’s not afraid of her near-death.
“I’m okay, I guess,” she mumbles with half-smile as Rick looks on in awe. “They almost lost me a few times, and there are so many things that are fragmented, that I don’t remember... ” Beth trails off sadly. She knows there are things she’ll never remember, because there’s no one but her who knew them, and she’s fractured, some parts gone forever like puzzle pieces buried in the dusty, forgotten space under the bed. Rick reaches out to rub her shoulder with his hand.
“We’re just glad to have ya back,” he reassures her. “Take your time. Call any of us if ya need a hand.”
Then she is left alone - alone, of course, with Daryl, because he’s point blank refused to leave her side since she got here. The silence is tepid while Beth stares at her hands and Daryl’s eyes rest heavy on her from across the room. Just when she thinks he’s never going to speak at all, his voice breaks the quiet, rough from disuse.
“Thought ya were dead,” he rasps, “Held ya, carried ya out tha’ hospital without even checkin’...” He breaks off with a crack in his voice and she turns, squeezing her hands together as she struggles not to throw herself at him as she had when she first saw him again. That he blames himself is obvious, and she wants him to know that it’s not his fault and that he cannot condemn himself for assuming she was gone, for leaving behind the corpse of a girl he believed dead.
“After everythin’ tha’ happened... I shouldn’ta given up on ya so easily.”
Beth breathes in shakily, blinking to fight the tears in her eyes, because she hasn’t broken yet, and she doesn’t intend to start weeping now, not when there’s no excuse for it. “Daryl, don’t,” she pleads. She can’t bear it if he shuts himself away from her, when he is the only person she can remember clearly in the fog filling her head.
“None of this is your fault. None of it.”
He looks at her, eyes wide and brows furrowed. One of his hands slam into the wall, making her jump instantly. “Damnit, Beth!” he shouts angrily. “S’posed to be my job to protect ya, wasn’ every s’posed to let ya ever get hurt!”
“Daryl-”
The man in front of her growls with frustration, curling and uncurling his fingers. Beth leaps up, reaching out for his arm when he snatches it out of her hand and stalks out the door without another word, leaving her alone in the empty house.
Tremors wrack her body, and she sees her vision blur with unshed tears. All she can do is sink back into the couch, digging one hand into the plush material in an effort to control her rampant emotions, but she cannot subside the feeling that this is wrong. Maybe she
wasn’t
meant to ever come back - should she have died that day in a dingy hospital corridor? Daryl is the one she remembers most, the one she thought of as she fought her way here, to Alexandria. The man who grew to respect her, trained her with his own prized crossbow, found her drink because he wanted to put a smile on her face (she hopes). The whole time, Beth Greene has respected and admired Daryl Dixon, and more recently, she’s come to realise just how much she cares.
He might think he can just walk away, but she’s here and she’s going to be nowhere but by his side. If Daryl Dixon imagines otherwise, well, he can go and fuck himself.
Maggie finds her before she’s had a chance to locate Daryl, and the reunion inevitably reduces the sisters to tears. Beth wraps her arms round Maggie, her face in her sister’s shoulder as the both of them sob and hold each other longer than they ever have before. After they’re done, and Maggie has heard everything (everything, that is, that Beth can tell her), the sisters sit together and talk. There are things she can’t remember, things Maggie can tell her.
“Annette,” Beth repeats slowly, after Maggie tells her their mother’s name. She tries to ignore her sister’s soft,/ sad eyes, brimming with pity. “Annette Greene.”
“Yeah, your mama. My step-mama. And there was our brother-”
“Shawn,” she blurts out suddenly, remembering blue eyes, just like hers. “He used to wind me up a lot. He tricked me into putting salt in daddy’s coffee and daddy was so mad and he got in so much trouble,” she recalls with a grin that’s become foreign to her. Maggie grins beside her.
“‘M pretty sure daddy grounded him for a week,” Maggie adds as the two of them laugh at the memory.
“Mags, I…” Beth trails off uncertainly and her sister nudges her.
“Yeah?”
“What colour hair did Shawn have?”
Maggie runs a hand down her arm slowly, gaze dropping. “Brown,” she answers quietly - so quietly Beth barely catches it. The words are paper thin, caught and fluttering away on the wind like the years-old trash that borders the roads of this apocalyptic world.
Maggie sighs softly and Beth’s jaw clenches. “He had brown eyes. Just like me.”
She understands that her sister is finding it difficult, that Beth’s memory loss is a reminder of a sister she doesn’t really know as she once did, that her own flesh and blood is fractured and damaged. It is not enough that Maggie has her back alive. Her sister finds her imperfect, and the discovery angers and saddens Beth. Suddenly, she cannot stand to recall her forgotten family. Pushing herself to stand, Beth twists her head away, looking out across the community for one person in particular; someone who, for all she wants to find him, has been avoiding her with a vengeance. Her voice is strained, like a broken record as she rushes out a hasty excuse.
“I should go, Maggie. There are people who need me.” And she doesn’t mean Rick needs her to babysit Judith, or Carol needs her to do laundry.
Beth wonders if her sister will realise that, but she doesn’t stop to find out, rounding on her heel and making her way resolutely towards Eric and Aaron’s house. Carol mentioned that that’s where he spends most of his time.
The door is unlocked when she steps onto the porch and she has to swallow a bout of unease at the ignorance of the community members to the threat beyond their poorly-manned walls. All it would take is one herd. Beth doubts the citizens of Alexandria would all survive such an attack, as comfortable and relaxed and blissfully unaware of outside threats as they are. These people are fools. She wants to be here, but each minute in this environment grates more and more on her nerves and makes her feel vulnerable. These people are far too
exposed.
Don’t they realise that?
Beth is half-turned away from the door, lured by the prospect of finding some quiet, secluded corner to hole up in, when the door flies open and she’s greeted by a thin, red haired man with dark brown eyes and a furrowed brow. After a moment, though, his face smooths and he smiles warmly at her.
“Hey, you must be Beth, right? Come in, sweetcheeks.”
The man waves his arm across the doorway, stepping back to let her into his home. Beth swallows; she’s never been shy with strangers, not since she was a kid in diapers, and yet she can’t find the words hovering on her tongue. He, however, seems to understand and introduces himself without further prompting: “I’m Eric, hon.” He extends his hand to her. Still smiling, he adds, “Daryl’s out back, with my boyfriend Aaron.” Beth finds herself jealous of the way he says ‘boyfriend’, curling his mouth tenderly around the word, like it’s
easy
. The way she wishes it could be for her.
“Thank you,” she manages, forcing a quiver from her voice. Eric beams at her. Leading her through the hallways of the house, he brings her to the neat garden at the back. A bright shaft of sunlight hits her face and Beth flings a hand up to cover her eyes, blinking in the sudden burst of brightness. When her eyes adjust to the light, she sees two men sitting opposite one another: one is thin, just like Eric but with a little more muscle. This must be Aaron. There’s something in his features which reminds Beth of Rick in the short brown beard covering his soft jaw. He looks kind and protective - they both do, she muses, as Eric moves to his side, curling an arm round the taller man’s waist with a practised ease and a coy smile - yet it is the third figure which intrigues her so terribly.
In the daylight, Beth looks over him, noting the little things she hasn’t yet taken in, like just how long his hair is now. She may have been gone months, but still no one, not even Carol, has forced Daryl to trim the dark brown locks. There is a part of her which likes it on him, makes him look older,
changed,
but in no way badly. His skin is darker, tanned by the heat and the muscles on his arms bulge under the blue skirt he’s wearing. When he looks up, her breath stills in the air and she freezes. Daryl just stares at her, blue eyes roving over her body, his muscles tensed and poised, as if he’s holding his crossbow, out in the woods hunting, but this time, she is the one under his careful gaze.
“We’ll leave you guys to talk,” Aaron interrupts, shooting a look between the two of them before sharing a smirk with Eric. Daryl shoots them both a scowl and they leave with twin grins on their faces.
The awkward silence holds for another minute, before it’s broken by the harsh rasp of her name from Daryl's mouth. Her head snaps to fix on him, waiting with bated breath, and then, “‘M sorry… shit, Beth, I shoulda never left ya,” and his voice is filled thick with hurt and he drops his gaze. “Ya got took, and s’my fault.”
Daryl won’t look at her, not even when she reaches out to smooth her hand down his cheek. He flinches like he’s been burned and though she knows it’s the guilt acting, it seems a little too much like rejection. Jamming her knees together so he can’t see them shaking, she reaches out again, pressing her palm solidly against his shoulder, caressing his skin in a way she likes to think she would tame a startled animal. “It’s not your fault,” she says quietly as she waits for him to just look at her. He’s the only one who’s ever seen through her girlish, weak exterior. Rick, Maggie, even Michonne, they all see her as weak and her survival bewilders them.
I’m not Michonne, I’m not Carol, I’m not Maggie. I survived and you don’t get it ‘cause I’m not like you or them.
None of them can swallow the fact she’s survived on her own. It’s simply confusing for them.
But not for Daryl; he gets it. He’s the only one who knows that she’s strong, who believes in her ability to handle things herself. Maybe once, he saw her the way they all do: a weak, dependent teenager relying on the skills of stronger and better people to make it in this godforsaken world. Now he knows different and that’s precisely why she sought him out. It also explains why it’s him she’s been seeing so frequently in her bullet-battered brain.
Her hands run up and down his arms and she soothes the both of them with the simple caressing motion. Touching him reassures her that’s he’s actually there and not another hallucination.
“It matters that you’re here now. That I’m here with ya,” she says. He still won’t look at her, so she shoves her hand under his chin and jerks his head up, perhaps a little more roughly than she’d aimed for. Daryl’s eyes flash warningly but she continues to speak softly, “I don’t blame you. Never could, not for trying to protect me. I coulda got bit, back there. What I went through at… at Grady… Daryl, I’m just sayin’ that we’re alive and that’s all that matters. That’s the truth, the whole damn thing.”
His eyes shift over her hand, his fingers tracing her calloused palms, exploring her with touch where his eyes can’t reach. “It does matter. What happened to you, what I left ya to,” he clarifies. “It does matter.”
Suddenly, the air in the room slinks away, leaving her gasping. The dull thud in her chest intensifies, we head throbs right at the spot the bullet grazed her skull. A memory, summoned by his words, surfaces, as his blue eyes swim in the darkness in front of her, watching her face carefully.
It don’ matter. He’s dead
It
does
matter. And then Daryl looking up at her with a crinkled brow, just staring as she fixes him with a long, hard look, her eyes impossibly soft and wide, framed against pale milky skin and hair like spun silk until his head droops, fixed on the grimy stone floor.
“Beth?”
“I said that…” Beth’s mouth twists as the words settle in her mouth. Recollection, she remembers, putting name to the sensation. “At the funeral home, before they took me.”
“Yeah, ya did.”
“There was so much more I wanted to say.”
He sucks in a sharp breath that focuses her attention on him once again. When he exhales, his hand brushes hers off his shoulder and he threads his fingers through hers, his breath tickling her neck and sending her pulse fluttering. After a while he murmurs, “Yeah, me too.”
Daryl’s shoulders slump and Beth leans forward and rests her forehead on his shoulder. Her face is buried in the side of his neck as she squeezes their entwined fingers together, letting a small smile scurry across her dry lips when he squeezes back like they're speaking their own language. With a newfound confidence, she begins to sing, softly at first, worried he’ll tell her to stop but nothing comes out of his mouth but the gentle sound of his breathing.
Miss you terribly already,
Miss the space between your eyelids,
Where I'd stare through awkward sentences
And avoid through awkward silence
Miss your teeth when they chatter,
When we smoked out in my garden
When we couldn't sleep for all the heat,
Soft talk began to harden.
Miss your small hands in the palm of mine
The fact they're good at making,
Miss your sitting up incessantly,
And the fact you're always waking in the night.