Okay so my muse left and my job became a nightmare, hence this long break between chapters. Also for some reason writing has become completely overwhelming to me, so I agonise far too much over chaptered works like this one.

Also I just want to mention that this story has always flirted a little with reality, for example the safety of their house, the blocked roads, the three walkers dressed like soldiers. I've used some of these things as symbolic devices too. It is however never going to head into all out fantasy, but it will continue to push the boundaries in small ways.

I really appreciate if you are still with me on this journey.

As always nothing is mine.

Anyway, here it is and I am sorry for the wait and I do appreciate it if you are still with me.

"You never talk about her."It's not an accusation. Not yet at least. It's just a statement. Mild even. Bemused in a way that's not all that bemusing.

He lies on his back, one arm tucked behind his head, the other around Maggie's shoulders where she rests her head on his chest.

She's been sick again and she smells sour, hair wet and sticky. It's not lack of hygiene. They have showers, running water even. Flush toilets which are a luxury none of them thought they'd ever see again. They're in a good way. Except she's not.

She's been sick. So very sick and the stench of her vomit lingers in the air. Bob says there's nothing to be done. Nothing they can do at least, what with limited medical facilities. Keep an eye on it. Stay hydrated. Try and get some vitamins. He even gave it a name. Hyperemesis gravidarum. Sounds terrifying, but in their current situation it'll just have to be terrifying. Not much to do either way.

Maggie says her grandma on her dad's side used to have it. Says she doesn't remember if it affected her mom, she doesn't remember much about her at all. Not that all that matters. She has it. They're in the middle of the fucking apocalypse and now they have something extra to worry over.

Things could be worse though. They could be on the road. They could still be in that fucking boxcar. But they're not. They're not and they need to deal with that too.

He doesn't know why but he tries again. Somehow it's important. Somehow he needs her to acknowledge what she's lost, who she's lost. "Maggie?"

She shifts against him and he thinks maybe she didn't hear. Part of him hopes that she didn't in fact because god, oh god, she's sick and sore and why the hell did he think bringing up her dead family is a good idea anyway?

But she heard. Because she has to..

"Don't," she whispers. "Please don't."

He sighs.

"It's not healthy Maggie," he says gently, hand running through her sweaty hair. "Your dad. Beth. You can't pretend it didn't happen."

But she can. Apparently she can and she's good at it. And a small part of him wonders what will happen when it's his turn. If she'll shed a tear or two or if she'll shrug and just move on. Just another day, just another death.

It not true though. She feels it, he knows she does. Can't conceive of a world where she doesn't. Where this woman he loves so fucking much and he'd die defending has closed herself off so totally that she's nothing but a hideous facsimile of the girl who once offered him a quickie in a convenience store and changed his whole life in the process.

He loves her. She loves him. It's simple. She loved her sister. She loved her father. That's simple too. And she's a good person. That's probably the simplest of it all. But she's also a hard person and that's where things get complicated. So very complicated.

She sighs. "I asked you to stop."

She doesn't sound angry. Just defeated. Resigned. Exhausted.

He nods. "Okay."

"I can't talk about this now."

"Okay," he leans forward, kisses her brow. "I'm sorry."

And he really is.

xxx

He never actually thought they would just drive past the place they once called home. He realises it as he parks the car awkwardly between a ruined guard tower and a low wall outside F Block. It was never going to be that simple. The universe wouldn't allow it.

Sure, it was the plan, but the plan is making new things up as they go along, throwing them curveballs and forcing the puzzle pieces not to fit. He feels like they're on a Möbius strip, turning back on themselves only to go forward.

And then finding that they're back where they started. Which they kind of are.

The prison. The beginning and the end of it all.

He doesn't want to be here. Standing on the asphalt, Beth to his left, watching as the weakening sunlight casts a shadow across them and turns her dappled and grey. As much as he appreciates that there's a twisted poetry to this, something cyclical and fitting, he still doesn't want to bear witness to it.

Neither does she. He knows it. No need to ask.

He didn't want to. But they had to anyway.

When they turned onto the road that would take them past the prison it was like popping through a membrane, jumping into another world. And that part of him that buys into Merle's "what ifs", that part that does ask cosmic questions and wish there were simple answers, believes they did. Their little house, their garden, their haven, it all seems so far away. The other side of a dream they never had in the first place. That was beautiful. This. This is ugly.

The road was in bad shape. Potholed and littered. Broken. And the walkers. God the fucking walkers, multiplying exponentially the further they went, loose groups gave way to tighter clutches. Four or five stragglers turned into ten or twenty roamers and then 30, 40, 60 and then - as they silently and reproachfully drove past the ruined prison - too many to count. Just bodies. Rotten, decayed, writhing. Things that should be dead. Things that fucking went against every law of the universe just by being here. But then again the universe hadn't been playing ball for a while.

And so it had to happen. It had to. Maybe they would have stood a chance if they could get onto one of the arterial roads that led through woods. Maybe if they could have just kept going a little longer. Maybe if they had started out a bit earlier. Maybe it would have been okay.

Maybe that was one too many maybes.

And maybe it was never going to be okay.

He saw it as they rounded a sharp bend. He might have been surprised but something told him that he always knew it was going to be there. It kind of had to be. An army of the dead. An army so vast and so poisonous it would devour anything in its way. Hundreds upon hundreds of them, filthy and bloodied, clothes in tatters and skin hanging in loops off their bones. And moving. Moving towards them. Towards him. To Beth and Bo. His family. Trying to take it all away all over again.

No.

Turn around. Backtrack along that fucking Möbius strip. Find shelter. Let them pass. Keep Beth safe. Keep Bo safe. Nothing else matters.

And he'd already seen that F Block was fine, still standing, the fence still up if not the guard tower, the dirt road to the gate gleaming like a yellow snake in the muggy air. And he knew that was their only option. That there was no rhyme and no reason to not spend the night, to try again in the morning. They knew this place. Knew its secrets, its history. It served them well once… before everything fell apart. Before…

(the Governor rolled right up to our gates)

He pushed that thought away. Muttered a few curses and another apology to Beth under his breath and headed, hell for leather, towards the place they once called home.

xxx

Beth doesn't say anything as he bolts the gate. She lets Bo out to pee and sniff at the sparse scrubby grass that's trying so hard and so unsuccessfully to grow through the Tarmac, stares at the grounds, the rapidly darkening sky. The shadows.

He stands for a while, grasping the steel bars of the fence, looking out towards the road. Watching as the herd shuffles along, some plodding, some crawling. There must be thousands of them. Men, women, kids - the kids are always the worst - moving together like the Styx, foul and grey and right into hell.

He closes his eyes, wills it not to matter.

They made it. They're here. They're safe. If any place can really be safe.

And the truth is he's pretty sure the prison isn't. Maybe for a night. Maybe from walkers and raiders, from Governors and claimers. But not from the voices in their heads, the twist in their guts. The memories.

(Maybe I coulda done somethin')

(I gave up. That's on me.)

And then he feels her arms around him, sliding across his belly, her head pressed between his shoulder blades, her heart hammering against his back. And he wonders if comforting him this way comforts her too. If this is the little world she's made for them where they can both be safe.

He leans into it, even though this is wrong, even though this is his job and he's the one who should be holding her. After all, she lost more here than he did but then again he guesses this isn't a competition.

She starts to sob - he knew it was coming - choked sounds that bubble up from her gut and drown in his shirt. And he lets her. Wraps his hands around hers and bows his head and listens to her tears.

And then eventually, after what could be seconds or days, "Come on girl. Come on."

It's not admonishment. Could never be that. Just a gentle reminder that they're here. They're alive. Even if they're the only ones. It counts. It matters.

Her arms loosen and he turns. She's a mess. All bloodshot eyes and blotchy skin. Nothing like the girl in that pretty pink shirt, opals hanging off her arm, from this morning. He's seen her like this before. Once. He remembers now. He remembers how he left her crying in a heap of bodies, holding a shoe. He remembers how he walked away.

You could have been so much better. You still can be.

So he cups the back of her head, her hair clean and soft, and presses her to his chest, rests his cheek against her temple.

He doesn't tell her it's okay. He doesn't lie. You don't lie to Beth Greene. But he tells her they'll leave at first light, that she's strong. She's so strong. He's never met anyone as strong as her. And it's just one night. They've had worse. They've lived worse. Nights in trunks and cold barns. Nights pressed together while it seems all the walkers in the world groan for their blood. He tells her they'll get through this together. Like they always do. But most of all he lets her cry. Deep shuddering sobs that rattle her bones and then his. And it's okay. He doesn't feel any need to get her to stop, to hasten this. He whispers to her. Holds his lips close to her ear, breathes her in and plants clumsy kisses against the skin of her neck.

They can stay like this. They can stay like this for the rest of their lives.

But they won't. She won't. And eventually he feels her shift against him, she gulps and scrubs at her eyes, leans up and kisses the corner of his mouth.

She's ready. She has to be.

He glances out across the yard to the road. The strange humidity has given way to dark clouds and he can smell rain in the air. In the distance thunder rolls.

He takes her hand, threads their fingers together and leads her into F Block.

xxx

He never much cared about the setup of the prison pre-the world going to shit. Rick explained it to him once, maybe twice.

Where they stayed before was gen-pop, where they tried to leave Axel and Tiny was death row which seems morbidly ironic now.

F-Block, as far as he remembers, was for those awaiting trial who didn't get or couldn't make bail. Technically not criminals yet but the odds didn't look good.

He's not sure. He still doesn't much care.

It is how he remembered though. Slightly less depressing than the rest of the blocks, situated closer to the gym. But still dusty, dark, eerie. It reminds him of a tomb and in many ways it is. They never lived here. No real need because it was a little further from the admin block than they liked to move and they simply never expanded that far. Maybe if things had been different, if they'd been stronger, if the Governor hadn't destroyed everything they'd built, maybe there'd be people here now. Living their lives.

And maybe that brief and tender embrace in Beth's cell would have been the only time he ever touched her.

He shakes the thought away. He can't choose, he doesn't have to. The world doesn't work in hypotheticals. They're here now. That's important.

That matters.

They pull mattresses out of the cells, set them out upstairs near the window so they can stare at the rain. That part of him that remembers Merle's ridiculous "what if" movie wonders if the downpour will wash the world clean, take away the filth and the stench, but he doesn't think so. The world doesn't work in neat little cycles. It doesn't tie everything in a nice little bow and hand it to you with a handwritten note.

And yet here they are.

Bo sits near their feet, sighing and Beth pours some water into a bowl for him, opens one of their precious cans of dog food, which makes Bo dance and yelp but makes the place smell like a musty, meaty feed store.

He goes through their packs, finds some cold beans and a granola bar and offers it to her but she shakes her head. She doesn't feel like eating.

Okay. That's okay. They're both processing. Taking it in. Dealing with it.

Sort of.

He can't believe that their whole lives from before are nothing but a short walk away - they both had stubbornly refused to even look in the direction of C - but he wonders now. Wonders if Beth's cell is still the same. The red poncho on the wall, the godawful garden gnomes she liked so much. Her message board, the blue curtain covered in stars. Is it all still there? Preserved in time? Maybe a thick layer of dust it's only concession to the fact that the world changed. And then changed again.

He doesn't think much on his own cell. There's not much there worth thinking about. Some old clothes and he has new ones now. No mementos. Maybe because there was nothing worth having. Until now.

"Feels weird," she whispers not taking her eyes off the rain. "It feels so weird."

He doesn't say anything. Rather he slides his arm around her, draws her in. Let's her hair tickle his nose.

"It's like it's not real but it is," she says against his chest. "Like everything is only a short walk away but it's also on the other side of the world."

She reads minds Beth Greene does. Always has.

(You don't get to treat me like crap just because you're afraid)

"I hate that we're back here. It feels like we shoulda just left it."

He nods. He gets it. He wishes he didn't but he does. It's wrong that they're here, wrong on a fundamental level. Like they're ransacking a tomb. Disturbing the dead.

Which they are. In more ways than one.

He doesn't say anything. He just shrugs. She gets it.

She sighs and releases him, lies back on the mattress, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

And for the first time he doesn't have the slightest clue what to do with her. She's defeated somehow. Maudlin. Giving herself over to a kind of melancholy that he's never associated with her. Even before, even when she took that broken mirror and sliced her veins open, let her life flow out, it was done with a certain determination, a goal, an attempt to take control and go on her own terms.

And this is nothing like that.

He thinks if he asked her to leave, to go home, to find their silly house with it's blue flowerpot and the life they made together that she'd do it. She'd up and leave with him, tame as a lamb.

But he knows that's not how this goes.

"Do you think this is worth it?" She asks. Hands folded across her belly, opals at her wrist twinkling in the dying light. "Do you think we'll find Maggie?"

He grunts. He doesn't have an answer for her. Maggie was alive when she made the sign. That's all he knows.

(Wouldn't kill you to have a little faith)

Yeah but maybe it would.

He lies down next to her, gathers her to his chest and buries his face in her neck where she smells of sage. She fits. They fit. Always have. And she feels small and fragile against him. Like he could envelop her. Like he already has and she's become part of his skin and bones. Part of his blood.

She is blood. Always has been.

"We have each other right?" She whispers. And she sounds uncertain.

So he kisses her cheek, nuzzles against her jaw, chapped lips ghosting over soft skin. Lingering and then touching again. He still wants her. As much as he did earlier. As much as he did while they lay together in that sun drenched grass before the dead came to take it all away.

"Daryl?" She asks, voice low.

"You ain't getting rid of me that easily Greene," he whispers. And it's true. He'll follow her no matter where she goes. To hell and back. He thinks maybe he already is.

She laughs but the sound is hollow and she threads her fingers through his, little hands so delicate, his thumbs closing around her wrists and her scar a fiery brand against him.

"I'll keep you," she says. "Till you're old and grey."

He huffs out a laugh, just as hollow as hers. "Already old and grey girl,"

She sighs. "Yeah, me too."

Thunder rolls and the rain beats down.

xxx

When he wakes up it's dark and she's gone, a cold dent in the mattress where she once lay. And it seems so final he wonders if she was ever really there at all. Bo's asleep at his feet and doesn't stir as he stands nor as he calls her name into the darkness.

There's no response, he's not surprised. He knows where she is, even though he shouldn't.

He walks to the window, stares out into the night. The rain has stopped momentarily and the moon is full bathing everything in a white light, throwing the grounds, the trees, the walkers into sharp relief. But inside it's dark. Darker than it should be. Darker than he's ever seen it.

He walks down the stairs, footsteps oddly muffled against the linoleum. It's so quiet, so very, very quiet and his eyes aren't adjusting to the light, moving only by feel. A small leap of faith if nothing else. There are no walkers here, there is nothing.

Only spirits.

Only him. Only her. And maybe right now they're spirits too.

He knows the way, whether by memory or simply instinct he doesn't doubt himself. And maybe that's because he doesn't doubt her. She's a creature of habit. Just like him. But also not.

He reaches the door, pushes it outwards as bright moonlight and cold crisp air slams into him, the smell of rain and below that the smell of death. He ignores it.

He tries.

Bo's woken up now and falls in behind him, sticking close. Quiet. No puppy growls. No snuffling.

They walk through the scrubby grass and he lets his fingers touch the wet blades. The fence is up here. Up and strong but he knows it isn't where he's going. He was after all the last to leave. He was here until the bitter end.

Could the last one here please turn out the lights?

A bad joke. Lame. Stupid. He saw it in a movie once. Not the same one Merle couldn't shut up about. Another one. Another one full of "what ifs". Another one where the world died and people kept on living. Until they didn't.

He glances towards the road where the herd still shuffles on mindlessly, and then he turns, heads deeper into the grounds, until it feels like the night and the cold and the prison are all trying to swallow him up at once. All vying for a piece of him, all waiting to consume him. Take him inside and never let him leave.

He knows where he is going, because he knows where she went and when he gets to that gate to C Block he's surprised by how comfortingly familiar this all is. It's sturdy, like all the gates and doors here. Metal bars and reinforced wood, barbed wire across the top and tattered electric fencing above that. Designed to keep people in and then later to keep others out. For all the good it did.

(The Governor rolled right up to our gates)

There are walkers on the other side, not doing much of anything. They're wet, dirty, dripping from the earlier showers. Shuffling about slightly confused which is no surprise because rain can disorientate them, especially in enclosed spaces. He's not sure how long it will be until they regain whatever faculties they have, but he stays silent as he unbolts the gate and slips through, knife gripped tightly in his fist as he slinks across the courtyard, Bo a shadow at his feet.

He dispatches two walkers swiftly with a knife to the head. No noise, barely even a groan as they crumple on the tar. The others don't notice, still dazed by the wet, still swaying in the wind, the sodden thwack of their rags echoing across the yard. He's grateful but somehow not really worried. He's not sure if it is something in the air or just his general mood, but it doesn't feel like there is real danger here. It doesn't feel like they are meant to die now.

(We're not gonna die)

And he knows that's stupid and he knows that's reckless and he knows that if anyone was telling him this right now at this very moment he'd tell them they were a fucking idiot and that they fucking deserved to become walker chow with an attitude like that. But somehow he can't bring himself to meet his own exacting standards right now. Maybe it's the weirdness of the last few hours, that sharp rush of freedom and fear as they cut ties with everything they had. Everything they'd built over the last few months. Maybe it's that this still doesn't feel real and it still seems like some great quest that he's collecting items for, that he needs to move through before he actually finds any real challenges at the end of the line. After all, the hero doesn't get killed by a mindless minion. The hero makes it right to the end.

As he nears the stairs which lead into C Block, he notes a few more bodies on the ground, three of them. It must have been Beth. Beth on her way back here. Beth on her search for the past.

They are in a fucking horror movie.

He looks around. The moon is ridiculously bright and he can see the rubble from the guard tower, the broken wall by the garden and the overturned pots where Rick once had delusions of building a life. Sustaining them.

He thinks of that blue flowerpot and he wonders if he had them too.

There's a car seat in the rubble, a few broken bags, obviously dropped by those trying to get on the bus. The sick, the weak. The dying.

She was meant to drive the bus.

He remembers that now. God knows to where but he remembers that was the plan. You know, if things went South. Which they fucking did.

And he finds himself irrevocably grateful that she didn't get behind that wheel. That she stayed. That she didn't leave him to die out there alone. He wonders what happened to everyone else and finds he doesn't like the images his brain conjures up. Buses crashing and blood strewn across the road. Broken bodies savaged by the dead.

A shoe lying in a pile of corpses.

He pushes the door to C Block open. It creaks loudly, metal scraping across the floor, hinges squealing as he shoves his way inside, Bo silent at his heels. And then nothing. Dust and shadows. Quiet. So different from how it was the first time they did this, when they fought their way in, when Hershel lost his leg like he lost his farm, like he lost his wife, his stepson. It's not a mess, no belongings strewn on the floor. Patrick's table of Lego is still where it was, toy cars, a stuffed bunny that belonged to Judith, a thick layer of dust the only indication that time has passed at all. Maybe no one was in here to run out when everything fell apart. C Block was off limits after the flu, the sick were on death row.

He wonders if any of them ever left.

He steps out into the passage where the shadows are deeper, no light from the moon, no speckled dustmotes dancing in the cold spring air. He passes the cells slowly, fingers trailing against the cold metal bars, the moldy fabric of the sheets people pulled over the exits. There were lives here once. So many lives. If he walked into any one of these cells right now he'd find signs of it. Clothes, trinkets, weapons, small havens people carved for themselves inside these ugly concrete walls, a place they could hide from the death outside. He won't intrude though, rather leave them to their melancholy, leave them there as monuments, shrines to what they lost. Let them honour the fallen with peace, let them honour the dead and leave them to their solitude. There is no use trying to make life here.

So he walks. He knows where he is going, knows he's searching for the one spot of light in this dead place. This place filled with nothing but emptiness. It's not far, and yet the journey seems long, space and time stretching out before him, adjusting itself, throwing the world and everything he knew about it into stark shadow, hiding its face from him. Maybe it's scared. But when he remembers Judith's bunny he knows that more likely it's shamed.

But he doesn't want to think about that. Instead he thinks of her. About her golden hair and luminous skin, her blue eyes and her pink lips. The way she smells of rosemary and sage and earth, and how she tastes of sunshine and fresh air.

And how one day he knows he will lose it all.

Wouldn't it be good if we could wish ourselves away?

She's where he thought she would be, sitting on a bed that's no longer hers, ivory skin and hair turned silver spilling over her shoulders, and hands clasped in front of her. For a moment he thinks she's praying.

He doesn't know what she could possibly be praying for.

But he watches her, lingers in the doorway like he once did all those thousands of years ago and waits for her to notice him, waits for this girl of light to welcome his shadow, his darkness. And when she looks up at him, tear-stained cheeks and wide, blue eyes, there's a moment it seems she almost doesn't recognise him.

Almost.

She stands. He goes to her. And then his mouth is on hers and his hands are in her hair. And he loves her so goddamned much that all he wants to do is say it. Scream it into her mouth, take her breath with it. But he doesn't. They don't speak. As much as he wants to, as much as he wants to whisper into her ear, tell her everything and all the things and how much he fucking needs her to keep himself going, he can't. It's wrong somehow, making noise in this place. This place of the dead that should have been left to the shadows. Instead, he touches her. Runs his fingers down the goosebumps of her arms, to her hands and then back again across her stomach and over her breasts. She shivers and it goes right through him as he wraps an arm around her neck and presses his mouth on hers.

She's everything. Every little thing. And he knows it's fucked up and he knows it's unhealthy but he also knows he'd die without her.

And somehow that's okay. In his messed up head that's how it should be.

And then he's down on his knees, fumbling at her jeans, getting them halfway down her thighs and burying his head between her legs. Licking and sucking and feeding off her. Tasting her as her juices run down his chin, roll across his tongue.

She's hot and wet and she tastes of sunshine and rose petals. Sweet and subtle and he revels in it, tongue scraping along her flesh, fingers holding her open.

No time for lingering. No time to let it build into that delicious ache, that burn that kept going for months before their touches and their kisses, and the way his cock rested hard against her every night. And then she's pulling him up, framing his face with her hands, running her fingers over his cheeks, his lips, down across the scruff of his beard to his throat.

And she's pushing herself against him, hard and rough like she wants to climb inside him like he wants to with her. Hide in his heart and stay safe forever.

He's not sure his heart is a safe place though.

But he'll try. He'll try and make it one for her.

It's like a dam breaking as he opens his arms, as he engulfs her and swallows her and suddenly it's not slow any more.

And he remembers their first time, how this happened before, how it was so similar and yet incomparable. This isn't about easing anyone into anything. This isn't about consummating some simmering desire. This is hard and fast and necessary in a way that that first night simple wasn't. She says his name, quiet, low, her voice husky and nothing like hers.

And she's grabbing at him, his shirt, his vest, the button of his pilfered fancy ass jeans. He doesn't try to resist, it's pointless anyway. He doesn't want to. He doesn't want this to be slow and sweet and neither does she. She's biting at him, sharp teeth scraping across his lips and down to the hollow of throat, where she buries her face in him and then he's fisting a hand into her hair, backing her into the cold wall of her cell, knocking trinkets and books to the floor where they explode in a cloud of dust, his mouth frantic on hers, hands tearing at her clothes.

He says her name, choked and heavy and then groans as his fingers slide downwards, over her belly and hip and down the crease of her thigh to press against her hot, damp centre.

It's then that the world contracts, hard and fast. The dustmotes dance and shimmer and form miniature tornadoes where they spin and spin and spin just out of sight. He stumbles against something, a crash of one of those godawful porcelain garden gnomes she liked so much bursting on the floor. And it's like the whole universe is folding in on itself, over and over again, dark shadows and jagged stones and bloodied broken glass, the smell of decay collecting together under the sound of his breath, waiting to be expelled outwards again. It builds and builds inside him. Coils tighter with every small breath she takes, every movement of her slick cunt against him.

They don't speak after that. Only sighs and moans. Only the sound of flesh against flesh, the wet noises of his mouth on hers and his fingers inside her.

Somehow their clothes are gone. He's not sure how. Maybe in some other realm there was some unbuttoning, a gentle slide of cotton off pale shoulders, the grate of a zipper as jeans fell to the floor.

But not here. Not in this half light, this place balancing on the boundaries of life and death.

Oh my god girl.

And then she's reaching for him, hands grabbing at his cock, mouth hot and wet against his. Desperate.

Now Daryl, now.

She doesn't have to say it. The message in and of itself is loud and clear and so he lifts her, pins her to the wall as she wraps her legs around his waist and he slides into her. She moans as he does, drawing him close, burying her head against his shoulder, scrape of her teeth against his skin. A second of bliss. Perfection.

And in that second he sees everything. Everything.

His old man beating away at his Ma. Her blue eyes filled with tears, running over purpled skin. Opals sparkling in her wrist. Lost. The woods. Hungry. Merle snorting a mountain of cocaine. A cartoon dog. A punch to the gut. Hunting. The quarry. Andrea. The woman who lost her husband, the son who lost his father. A axe through Ed's head. Jimmy, his "bones like glass". Carol. Jackie. That CDC asshole. Running for their lives. The farm. Hershel and his shotgun. Sophia walking out of the barn. Beth putting stones on a grave. Randall. Beating him. The red haze behind his eyes when he did. Shane. Lori's belly swelling. The prison. Rick. Andrea coming back to them. Losing her again. Martinez and his menthol cigarettes. Hershel lying dead in a field of corpses. Rick bloodied and beaten. Beth in front of the fire. Hating her, but loving her all the same. A bloodied cardigan. A bottle of moonshine. A white dog. A home. Oh. A white cross. Len. Joe. Beth in his vest. Her bra. The blue flowerpot. Bo. Making love in front of the fire. Leaving. Back at the prison. Finding Maggie. Finding Glenn. Watching Beth slip away. Finding others. Junie Day and her red hair. Bessie. Oh my god Bessie. Beth's eyes full of tears. A baby in her arms.

He reels backwards and the vision bursts all over the world. And then she's coming, hard and thick against him, wetness spilling between them, nails scraping down his back, teeth on the skin of his neck.

He thinks she draws blood. Thinks that must be what does it, because all of a sudden he's shattering too, hard as nails against her soft skin, gasping ragged breaths into her hair, stars like shards of stained glass dancing in front of his eyes. He heaves against her, burying his face in her shoulder, wondering briefly if she's comfortable pressed so hard against the wall.

And then somehow, even though he still has her suspended in his hands, she's guiding them to her bed and he's collapsing in the dusty sheets, her weight soft and comforting against him. A tangle of limbs he has no desire to untie.

She's kissing him, he can feel her mouth moving over the skin of his chest, his shoulders, she might even be whispering softly now but he's not sure.

He's exhausted.

He closes his eyes. He doesn't dream.

xxx

When he comes to, he's lying on his back in her bed, Bo at his feet and Beth draped over him, head on his chest. His head is pounding and his mouth dry and fuzzy and for a moment he has no idea how they got here, no idea of anything after he felt blood on his chest and he cracked in her arms.

There's a part of him that wonders if it happened at all. The "what if" part. Merle's part. The part that feels like he's been living in a dark dream since the moment they left that little house - number seven with the blue flowerpot - the part that is struggling to make sense of it all. But of course it happened. It must have. Because here they are and how the fuck else would they have ended up naked and tangled in each other's arms in her cell.

It comes back to him now in fragments. Fucking her against the wall. Sobbing into her hair. His tears and hers and only the ghosts to listen. Shuffling about for their clothes, picking up her small workplace sign. Still set at zero. More crying.

But this is going to be okay. It will.

"Will it brother? Will it really?"

Merle. Oh god, Merle. Again. He's not even shocked. Truly. He knew the quiet was too good to last.

"Miss me?"

No you stupid piece of shit. No I didn't miss your sorry ass at all. And what the fuck are you doing here anyway? Why the fuck are you back? You've been gone, you've been gone for so fucking long and it's been so good not to have you around. So good to have a clear head. So good not to have that cacophony of voices banging around in my brain.

But he knows. Knows why Merle is back. And why soon his Ma will follow and then maybe if he's really fucking lucky, his old man too. It's easy really. Obvious even. Because the protection of their little house where they led their little lives is gone. Because they went through that portal and found their freedom. If he can even call it that.

And a nasty part of him laughs at the fact that he's thinking about freedom in a jail cell.

He shifts and Beth stirs against him. It's dawn outside. Early still. But no longer dark. He sits up, kisses her brow, runs a thumb along her cheek and then extricates himself and heads across the passage to the window. The day is dismal, grey and mean and sucked dry of any joy it might once have had. Like he thought it hadn't been washed clean. It had just turned to mud.

But on the other hand, the herd is gone. No walkers except for the few milling outside. If all the roads are like this they can make good time. They could be at Terminus by nightfall. Twelve hours on the road doesn't seem so bad.

Except when it does.

He feels her more than hears her behind him. And then her little hand is creeping into his.

"This was a mistake," she says. And he's not sure if she means staying here or if she means this whole trip in general. And he still knows that all she has to do is say the word and they can turn around and go back. He'll give up. He knows he will. He'll let the rest go and wish them well. Godspeed.

But he knows she won't. It's her sister. Her sister. And she hasn't forgotten that, even if Maggie has.

He turns, slides an arm around her shoulders, kisses her hair.

"It's so sad here," she whispers. "So dead."

He nods.

"And my dad…"

Her voice cracks and he pulls her against him. Holding her. Rocking her gently.

It's not like she hasn't cried over him before. It's not like they both haven't. It's not even like they haven't stood like this and cried together. But these wounds run deep. He still feels the sting when he thinks about his Ma. Merle. Even sometimes his old man and fuck, that in itself kills him. That he can feel that when he probably shouldn't. But maybe he doesn't need to worry about shoulds and shouldn'ts because who made the rules anyway?

"We should leave," she says.

(We should burn it down.)

But no, no they shouldn't. Because burning it down was an act of defiance and they don't need defiance here. They need to lock it up and throw away the key. Give the memories a place to live, the ghosts a place to rest.

So they do.

They don't linger. They get their clothes, gather their packs. And then she locks the door to her cell behind her, key clasped tightly in her fist.

"Don't you want anything?" He asks.

"Like what?"

He shrugs, looks at her pretty trinkets, the ones they didn't bust last night, the pictures on the walls. The ladybugs and the stick figures.

She shakes her head, reaches into her pocket and pulls out that green diary, runs her fingers over the yellowed pages. Her hopes, her dreams. And then tosses that and the key into the cell too, draws the curtain and turns to him.

An abandoned shoe.

A girl crying at a crossroads.

A man who has no idea how to comfort her.

He could have been better.

He could have tried.

But he's trying now and he pulls her to him again.

"We should go," she whispers.

He nods. Leave the ghosts to each other. Leave death in this grave.

She picks up Judith's bunny on the way to the door. Pink body now grey with dust. One eye missing. Hershel used to call it Philip and wasn't that fucking hilarious?

He wonders if she remembers but of course she does.

She puts the toy down.

They close the door behind them and they don't look back.

xxx

On the road again.

Terminus. The signs come faster and faster now. More offers of sanctuary, more declarations of safety for all. It's beginning to look like a big fucking joke, they both know it.

More messages written in blood. Messages for Glenn.

Glenn, go to Terminus.

Glenn follow the signs to Terminus.

Glenn we are heading to Terminus.

Maggie, Sasha and Bob.

Maggie, Sasha and Bob.

Maggie, Sasha and Bob.

Glenn, Glenn, Glenn.

It bothers her, he can see it does but she doesn't say anything. She accused him once, in their drunken moonshine rage, of not getting why she survived, of not getting how. How she wasn't like him or them but somehow she was still there. And he deserved it. He knows he did. He was being a massive asshole and the fact was that he didn't get it. Didn't understand how this fragile human being that looked more like a Disney cartoon than a real-life person had somehow got this far unscathed. And she set him straight. Told him.

He thinks for her it was easier to say it to him. To confront him with his own ignorance, to tell him off. After all, who was he really to her then? How much did his opinion really matter and how much did confronting him about it hurt her? He's going to guess not that much. Of course she didn't want him to have misconceptions, of course she didn't want him to treat her like crap, but the fact was knowing what he thought of her at the time maybe wasn't the biggest kick to the gut. Maybe it wasn't the worst thing that could happen to her. But this? Seeing that Maggie hadn't even bothered to consider for a second that she could be alive, that maybe she wasn't lying dead in the prison yard somewhere or worse, that maybe she might also need signs to follow. That's worse. Far worse. And he knows she feels it. Knows it's killing her deep inside.

"Don't you want to sing somethin'?'"

(Go on and play some more.)

She shrugs. "What you wanna hear?"

He ducks his head. "Anythin'."

And it's true, anything will do.

She gives him a tiny smile and then she sings. The song is old and he knows it but it's also sweet and sad. And her voice is clear and bright despite the gloomy overtones of the song.

Your face has fallen sad now
For you know the time is nigh
When I must remove your wings
And you, you must try to fly

Come sail your ships around me
And burn your bridges down
We make a little history, baby
Every time you come around

He stops the car. Pulls to a halt on the side of the road, tyres screeching and Bo tumbling off the back seat. For a moment he says nothing, just rests his forearms on the steering wheel, chewing desperately at the inside of his cheek, trying to find anything to focus. The road ahead is clear, the weather is still the colour of mud. But they'll make it to Terminus by nightfall. One way or the other they'll know.

And he's not sure he wants to. Not sure she does either.

He's voice is soft when he talks, soft and low and he doesn't look at her. "You say the word Beth. Say it and we turn this show around. We go back."

It's primal and he means it. Nothing else matters because in his bones he knows that when you take everything away this is what they need. What they want.

She's silent for a while and eventually he turns his head towards her, watching her through the fall of his hair. She's beautiful and she's biting her lip and there's a wild moment she looks like she'll agree. That they'll turn this car around and forget about this. Accept that one way or another the others are lost to them. They did that once. They did it at the funeral home before he lost her. Before the dog. Before she said "oh". They can do it again. They can. Even though he knows they can't.

"I have to see Daryl," she whispers. "I have to know if she's alive."

She stops, covers his hands with hers, threads their fingers together.

"You do too," she says.

She's right. Of course she is. Even though she's also wrong. Even though all he wants in the whole fucking world is to go home and fall into their bed with her, hold her and kiss her and listen to the silence outside, she's still right.

If there's a chance. Even the smallest glimmer of hope that they can regroup, that they can find some of the others, it's worth it. He allows himself a moment to imagine them making their way back, to them all living in little white Lego houses. Another community slowly expanding. A better outcome than the last.

(Maybe I coulda done something)

"Okay girl," he pulls her hand to his mouth, kisses her fingers and then leans their foreheads together, breathing in the heady scent of her, still thick with the musk and sweat from the previous night. "Okay. But we are in this together. You ain't alone."

She nods and smiles.

"I know," she says.

And he knows it too. But he can't shake the notion that it feels like a lie.

xxx

She's a little brighter after that though. He thinks it has something to do with the proximity of the prison, how they've left it behind. She sings and her voice is beautiful, melancholy, but not lost. A little bit of her fire is back and he's so fucking grateful for that.

There are still walkers. Another herd - although not as numerous as the first - forces them onto a side road, but it's not hard to loop back behind the dead and continue. They're not blocked. This is the right way, the way they were always meant to go.

It's dusk when they stop the car at the side of the road and get out, the elusive train track they've been chasing cutting across the road in front of them and then into the woodland on either side. There's a sign to the right saying Terminus is a mile and a half away. No scrawl from Maggie. He's not sure if that's a good or not, not sure he even knows one from the other anymore. He does know however that he's not just going to walk up and knock on their front door. Offer himself and Beth up like meat.

No, they'll walk from here.

He takes the bow and they pick their way through the trees and short grass, using the track as a guide. He thinks him and Merle might have actually ridden this route once, stowed away on a goods train to get to God knows where so Merle could land a few bags of coke. He doesn't remember if he did. Doesn't remember if Merle came back high or low but it doesn't matter now. Nothing much does except what he has next to him.

It doesn't take long. It's maybe twenty minutes of slow walking and they see lights winking in the distance, voices, the smell of something meaty and delicious, voices even. It's almost full dark now and crickets are singing into the night sky, Bo snuffling in the undergrowth.

Hand on her arm, they edge closer until they can make out a cluster of building in amongst some scattered box cars.

"Do you think they're here?" She says softly.

"Somebody's here," he answers. "I just dunno how friendly they are."

He can see now that the area is fenced in. Chicken wire like at the prison but maybe sturdier. Still might not be enough to stand up to a herd. Might be they also needed to feed piggies to the walkers every now and then.

This little piggy went to market..., Merle says in the back of his head and then crows like he's hilarious.

"Look," Beth touches his arm, points to the fence where he can see the shadow of someone patrolling.

It's a man. Sturdy. Broad. Built like a brick shithouse Merle would have said. He's walking with a kind of economy and precision that he could have only got in one place and it makes Daryl wonder if this was some kind of military compound. Some kind of last line of defence against the virus. He's seen enough horror movies to know that army outposts and crises of this magnitude never end well. But maybe this is different.

Maybe with her everything's different.

He takes a step onto the track. It leads right up to the gates, now closed and padlocked. Wooden spikes to each side, almost exactly like the prison. Almost like it's the same handiwork. Almost like the same people put together. Almost like those people are here.

The man halts in his patrol, turns slowly in his direction, rifle now off his back and clasped loosely in big meaty hands. He has red hair and a big bushy mustache which covers a good portion of his face.

"He looks like a walrus," Beth whispers close to him and it's so absurd and so incredibly random that he finds it hard not to laugh, shoving a hand over his mouth to muffle any sound.

She smiling too. First real smile he's seen from her in a long time and part of him says it's worth the risk of being overheard out here. He can kill people any time after all.

And then suddenly she clutches his arm, nails digging into his flesh and he swings his gaze from her face back to the fence.

"Oh my god Daryl," she says, not even trying to keep her voice low, not even attempting any kind of stealth anymore. "Oh my god."

He sees it now. A second man with a familiar gait joining the first. Hair curling over his collar and a beard so bushy he could hide the fucking military in there if he wanted.

("Your face is losing the war.")

And before he can stop her, she's running, pulling Bo along with her. And then he's running too. Chasing after them, after her, his home, his family.

He can hear her shouting, voice high and strained. "Rick! Rick!"

And behind her he's calling "Beth! Beth!"

And the two men turn as one towards the fence, guns raised.

For a wild moment he thinks they'll shoot. That Rick won't recognise her, that he'll act on instinct and ask questions later. That she'll crumble to the ground with a bullet in her brain and the world will bleed out in front of him.

But then he hears Rick's voice, sees him put a hand on the walrus man's arm.

"Beth?" He sounds confused, uncertain and then all of a sudden he doesn't anymore. Because he's also shouting her name, running along the fence towards the gates, yelling at someone to turn on the lights, to open the gates.

And fuck but she's fast, legs pumping hard as she increases the distance from him, as she throws herself towards this place, this Terminus, once only a name on a sign, now a reality. As she throws herself towards this place and away from him.

The lights go on. Big and bright, bathing her and Bo in a white static glow. She stops. Turns to look back at him chasing after her, her face lit up with a smile more ravishing than any he's ever seen.

"They're here Daryl," she says. "Oh my god. They're here."

And then she turns again, running towards the light, disappearing through the gate, under a sign that says "Terminus".

xxx

She's sick again. He can hear her in the bathroom. He should go. Should hold her hair back, wipe her brow.

There are many things she's not saying, grief she's allowing to poison her. Rosita says that's why she's so sick but he doesn't believe that. It frightens him though. This new Maggie. This hardness she has. Like she's so caught up in surviving, she's forgotten living.

He loves her. God he loves her so much. But there are things he just can't understand about her. And that scares him.

He hears her hurling again and pushes himself off the bed. He's not sure how long things can stay like this. How long this fragile peace will last. But for now he can hold her hair back.

Notes:

1. The song is The Ship Song by Nick Cave

2. I know I have taken liberties with the prison layout