This idea came to me randomly while mowing the lawn. Hope you like it!
…
"It might help if you talk to her."
Daryl's head whips around so fast, it would seem as if his neck snapped, and he narrows his eyes at Aaron.
Aaron just gives him a smile though. "I know it sounds stupid but you never know. I talk to my brother a lot. He died just when this all happened and… it helps me, just talking out loud like he can hear me. It sometimes help me get my thoughts straight."
Daryl looks away, pretending to scan the trees again, his fingers subconsciously tightening around the crossbow in his hands. He's never told Aaron about Beth. He never talks about her to anyone because it's none of their business. Not Rick's or Carol's or Maggie's even though he knows they all of have some idea. But they can think whatever they want because Daryl never talks about it.
He doesn't know how Aaron knows but Daryl wonders if he's that hard to read.
"Just a thought," Aaron shrugs and then goes back to adding more sticks to the fire and Daryl pretends like he not thinking it over for the rest of the night.
…
"I ain't never had a pet," Daryl hears himself say quietly into the wind and he's sitting on the steps of the front porch, smoking a cigarette and watching two kids playing in the field across the street, their black Labrador with them, barking and jumping around, making them laugh. "When you looked so excited 'bout that damn dog, I figured I could get it and bring it in and it could be yours."
Ours, he says in his head.
"Maybe I'll get a dog," he says to nothing and finishes his cigarette.
…
"Still can't sleep inside," he says into the night as he sits on the porch once more, his back against the wall. "Everyone just fell righ' back into havin' a home and a job…"
He trails off and doesn't say anymore. His brings his knees up and loosely circles his arms around them. It's a cool night and he's getting chilled but he doesn't want to go inside. He means it. He can't sleep inside anymore. The walls, they close in on him and he lays there, feeling like he can't breathe. He's tense, waiting for something to happen; for one of the walls to fall; to have to start running all over again. And he can hardly close his eyes without seeing her. Not in her last moments. That nightmare has thankfully stopped haunting him every night but he sees other things.
He sees her sitting at the piano surrounded by candlelight, singing about being good. He sees her sitting at a table, writing a thank you note or sitting on a porch and smiling as she suggests they burn some house down. He sees her in his arms as he carries her to the kitchen, giggling and breathless and making him smile a little, too.
"You should be here," he whispers before leaning his head back and finally closing his eyes.
Tonight, he sees her standing in front of some grave, her soft hand sliding into his, her fingers lacing with his, squeezing. He doesn't pull away or stiffen. He just squeezes her hand back and thinks of how sweet the air smells around her.
On the porch that night, he thinks he can smell the same sweetness around him.
…
"Looking a little off balanced there," Rick says as Daryl is getting himself ready to go out with Aaron for another couple of days.
Daryl doesn't say anything as he clips his gun to his belt alongside his other hunting knife. Her knife is on the other side of his belt. The left side where he always has it.
Rick's smile falls a little, as if somehow disappointed by silence. Daryl doesn't know why. He barely talks to anyone nowadays. Just Aaron and… her.
"'m a'right," he says, shrugging on his vest. He grabs his crossbow and turns, looking to Rick. He still looks to the man as his brother but just as he used to do with Merle, this man's his brother but that doesn't mean he has to like what he does. "Try not to kill anyone while I'm gone," he grunts to the man and then steps past him without saying anything else.
…
The bike rumbles beneath him and the wind blows in his hair as he speeds down the two lane back road, heading in the direction he and Aaron had agreed on.
"Wondered if you'd ever been on a motorcycle before," he talks to her in his head as he drives and he imagines her sitting behind him, her arms around his waist. "I'd take you and you'd be gigglin' the whole time, saying you felt like you were flyin'."
His hands tightened around the handles.
He'd give anything to take her for a ride and to feel her sitting behind him.
…
"I ain't never had a birthday cake," he says to himself as they sing 'Happy Birthday' to Judith and the baby sits in Rick's lap at the table. They don't know if it's her birthday or not but the weather feels like it did when she was born and she's two and today is as good as day as any to have be her birthday.
He thinks of how much Beth would love to be here for this. She'd be singing and beaming and she'd help Judith blow out the candles.
She should be here for all of this and it's bullshit that she ain't because he'd trade most of the people in this room if it meant she could be here again. With him.
…
"Saw your sister today and her eyes were red. She's been cryin' for you 'gain," he says as he stands in the shower, trying to drown him beneath the warm spray.
He leans his head on the tiled wall and dropped his head forward, closing his eyes.
"She wants to talk 'bout you with me. I prob'ly should. Tell her all 'bout those weeks it was just you and me and how you were but… I can't."
He doesn't want to talk to anyone about Beth. He just wants to talk to Beth.
…
He always hesitates before plunging his knife into the heads of any blonde female walker. And he knows that Aaron notices but he never asks and Daryl's grateful to him for that. He wouldn't know what he'd say about it anyway.
He didn't have to stab Beth in the head to keep her from turning into a walker. The bullet had taken care of that. The bullet that ripped through her skull and murdered her right when he saw her again.
He tries not to think about that hallway but he can't help himself sometimes because he always thinks about how he had done nothing when he saw her again.
He put his hand on her back. That was all he did. He had run after her for countless hours and miles and had torn a city apart to find her and when he finally did, the only thing he had done was put a hand on her back. He had barely looked at her, his eyes too concentrated on Dawn and all of the officers at the other end of the hallway.
And when he thinks about it, how little he had done when he had her again, he hates himself more than he ever has.
She's dead. Beth is dead. And every time his knife goes into a blonde-walker, he reminds himself of this because he saw her died. And he put her in the car's truck and he had seen the end of Beth Greene.
She isn't a walker. She's not anything anymore.
…
Aaron is sleeping on the ground on one side of the fire and Daryl is sitting on the other side, keeping watch. He smokes a cigarette and stares into flames.
"I miss 'ya," he says in a quiet voice that'd lost to the crackling and snapping of the fire. "I miss 'ya so damn much."
And nothing answers him except the chirping of a few crickets and Aaron's snores.
…
He can't sleep and he's sitting on the front porch, looking into the dark night. He hears the front door slowly and quietly open and he looks over his shoulder to see it's her. She gives him a small smile as she comes and sits down beside him. She has a few scars on her face but her smile is still the same. She's still Beth. And that's all that matters to him.
"Hi," she says to him in a soft voice as if the late hour requires it.
"Hey," he grunts and she smiles.
He notices she's sitting as close to him as she can with her side pressed to his but he doesn't even think about moving away. Beth's the only person he can stand touching him and now that she's back, he's never going to even think about moving away ever again.
"You've been quiet," she then notes.
He shrugs. "Nothin' much to say," he says and she laughs quietly.
"Glad to see some things don't change."
Beth rests her head on his shoulder and Daryl sits there, feeling the warmth of her body and smelling the sweet air filling his nostrils.
"'m thinking we should try and find a dog," he hears himself say and he doesn't have to look at her face to know that she's smiling.
…
Thank you so much for reading and please review!