Red ~ TWD (Daryl Dixon)

Castles Crumble Overnight

Agony was the only thing that told me I was still alive. Dead people didn't feel, and right now, all I felt was agony. I clung to it because I knew as long as I felt pain, felt something, it meant I was still alive. I couldn't open my eyes, and I didn't want to. If it hurt this much while semi-conscious I could only imagine what the real world felt like.

I heard things though, things I didn't understand, things that made my heart spike with fear, and also things that didn't make sense. I heard a voice I knew desperately pleading to not turn off the machines hooked to my body. I heard a stern, unrelenting, female voice deny the request outright. I heard a faint beeping subsequently cease followed closely by the same familiar voice. The soft voice with a slight southern twang reassuring me over-and-over that everything would be alright.

"Alex, its Beth." A warm hand slide into my much colder one, and for the first time since the accident I felt something other than pain. "I just wanted you to know I was here."

Beth.

It was her. She was here, right beside me, holding my hand. My mind screamed at my body to wake up, to move, to do something other than lie here in the midst of our enemies. If she was really here then it meant I was inside the hospital. It also meant we were severely fucked.

"I have your picture," she continued, and I felt the bed dip slightly. "They searched you when you came in. Took all your weapons, but don't worry, I have them. I found the picture in the trash. They don't get it. None of them do. They most important thing you carried wasn't the knives or the guns. It was this."

I loved that picture. I couldn't remember how many times I'd pulled it out in the middle of the night while we were separated. It was my lifeline to him during that awful time when I had no idea where he was, or if he was even alive. She was right. It was the most precious thing I owned, and I would forever be grateful she saved it.

"It's a really great picture." I imagined her smiling, could almost hear it in her voice. "He was so worried about you after the prison. He didn't talk about it much at first, but I could tell."

They'd been together. While I was with Merle he was with Beth. He told me bits and pieces about their time together, but like all of Daryl's stories it was somewhat lacking in details. They got out and were on the run when she was abducted by a car with a white cross painted on the back. He never specifically spoke about the fact that somewhere along the way they became friends, but I saw it. Beth being taken weighed heavy on his heart.

"He didn't say much in the beginning, but he was always looking for you. He left messages carved into trees and logs every time we stopped. His eyes were always searching the woods, looking for clues you were nearby. He never gave up hope of finding you. Not being with you...it nearly killed him."

I wasn't sure I wanted to hear this. I knew how much I struggled during our separation. Hearing about his was too much to bear.

"One day, he took me to this house he found with Michonne. We drank moonshine because he said my first drink couldn't be peach schnapps."

Internally I rolled my eyes. Only Daryl would have moonshine tucked away in a safe house in the middle of the freakin' apocalypse. He was, however, right about the peach schnapps. Nasty.

"That night...after a few drinks...he got upset, angry. It was my fault. I pushed him. Maybe I shouldn't have, but he needed to get it out. We both did. That was the first time he talked about you."

I could see it.

The black fog in my mind cleared and instead of an endless sea of nothing I now saw the two of them in the woods, hearts broken, no food, barely any water, ignoring each other as well as their hurt. I could see Daryl struggling to keep them both alive, and Beth struggling to find a reason to let him. I watched Daryl carve "A.D. – Go East" into a log while they ate "mud snake" in uncomfortable silence. The more she spoke the clearer the picture became until I could see every details as if I was sitting next to them.