Trigger warning: minor character deaths mentioned briefly.

It took six years for the human race to learn to live with the walkers.

There was no getting rid of them, not truly. After all, everyone who was still alive had long since been breathing in whatever it was that caused the original infection. They all carried curses inside their lungs just waiting to be released.

No, they would never again know a world that was not haunted by the dead but they began to learn about a world where the dead were no longer their biggest concern.

Much like the original virus itself no one actually knew where the plan to gain control over the walkers started. It seemed to have appeared out of thin air, whispered to strangers where people used to flinch at a face they had never seen before. The plan passed slowly, often being changed or improved by whoever was explaining it. By the time it reached Alexandria it had already passed from several mouths where hope had long since shriveled up and died.

But it was the end of the world, what else did anybody have to do?

The first step was so simple it was a wonder no one had thought about it before. Then again usually people were more concerned with living through the day, no one ever spared a second thought towards living through tomorrow.

But with a plan in mind, even if most of the people involved didn't actually except to gain anything from it, the world set itself into a course of action. They began to herd the dead, using any loud sounds they could, into empty areas. Often fields or roads (it wasn't like there was much gas left for cars anyway) although the few cities still left standing used old buildings.

And then the world began to burn.

Every make shift explosion people could build, every grenade scavenged from military bases were used to blow the dead apart. The Maltov cocktail became the last line of defense of the dying. Because no one would say it but everyone knew that if this plan didn't end up working there was nothing left to live for.

But somehow it did. The bombs didn't always blow up the walkers heads but volunteers would go through the wreckage and end anything that made it through the blasts. There were still walkers out there of course, even after half the world blew up. Some refuge centers were lost to fires gone out of control and there were more than a few casualties.

But for once the living came out on top. For once the dead suffered the bigger loss. The world had greatly underestimated just how damn stubborn humans could be. They had come to far to simply lay down and accept their deaths.

And with the successful implementation of the first step the most dangerous thing of all was born, hope.

They moved to step two quickly, stranglers. If you saw a walker you killed it, end of discussion. It was risky of course, not everyone was as skilled with killing the walkers as some. But everyone who was still alive was that way for a reason. And they all knew that even if they got bit or if they died, if they could take that walker out with them it was one less death that would be caused later. For once people began to put others before themselves.

The next step was already in place in some areas but as the amount of walkers began to dwindle it began to become more common. For the human race to survive they needed to stick together and to do that they needed to be together. So small communities began to spring up out of the ashes of the world.

Of course some people had already been in towns. They had been in Alexandria for three months when the first whisper of the plan to take the world back reached Daryl. He ignored it of course. It would never work, not now. Humans were to far gone, to lost, to ever live in this world peacefully again. Not that he had ever known what it was like to live peacefully. He had a taste of it once, in a surprisingly clean funeral home with a girl whose name hurt him to much to even think. The truth was that even if this crazy plan could work Daryl didn't see the point of it. Not anymore. What was the point of trying to make the world liveable again if she was not there to see it?

By the time they reached step four, which truly had nothing to do with the walkers and everything to do with the survivors, three years had passed. Three years where the number of walkers diminished considerably but so too did the people Daryl silently dared to call his family.

They lost Tyreese shortly after they lost her. The pain of losing her had not even begun to numb and it was not until months later that he truly felt the pain of losing Tyreese as well. He had been a good man and while they didn't always see eye to eye Daryl still felt the hole where he used to be.

It was a week or so before they were found and brought to the safe zone in Alexandria that they lost Abraham. They'd run into another group and things had gone hostile fast. A stray bullet caught him in the chest as they were escaping and he bled out before they had gotten far enough away to treat him.

But the rest of them managed to survive long enough to see the safety hidden behind the walls of Alexandria. As the plan to take back the world began they lost others. Noah was caught in a blast from one of the bombs and Eugene was bit nearly a year later at another explosion site. They weren't able to amputate his arm quickly enough and so they lost him too.

As their family grew smaller, rather than expanding to let others in they shrank around themselves leaving no space for strangers to get through.

But then step four came and everything changed.

The survivors began to make lists, name after name of every person still alive in their small camps. They would pass their list to any other group of survivors close by and they would add their names before passing it on further. It became a chain, a letter full of people who were all hoping to gain something from this practice.

And they did.

Daryl saw more than one person get reunited with a loved one they had once thought was lost. Every time he saw it a bitter taste would fill his throat and he would leave the walls to go hunting. Sometimes he thought that his sadness was the only thing that fed the camp.

He had no one left to look for on those lists, his family was all dead or beside him and there was no one from the world before that he cared enough about to wonder at their whereabouts. So on the days where someone would run inside the gate, thick paper list held up high in their hands Daryl would grab his crossbow and flee to the woods. He did not need to hear the names of strangers called out to eagerly waiting ears.

Of course some of his family always stayed to listen. Rick might still have a brother out there, a real brother not a brother like Daryl was, and he would often wait with Carl and Judith to hear the names. Glenn had no idea what happened to his family and so him and Maggie would wait with crossed fingers that they would finally get a list down from Michigan and that one of the names he was listening for would be on it. Rosita still had family back in Texas and Tara would wait with her even though she had admitted there was no one else left out there for her. Even Carol would wait to listen to the names but she told Daryl she wasn't listening for anyone in particular, she just wanted to know that somewhere out there was someone she had known before the world had changed. That life before the turn wasn't just a dream.

Even the people who were like him and didn't have anyone to listen for stayed. Father Gabriel would sit and pray for loved ones to be returned to each other. Sasha would always stand with someone as if offering her support at them being reunited with someone they loved even though she had no one left to look for. Michonne would stand by Rick's side, where she was never far from anyway, and she would always hug Carl when he turned to her in disappointment as the list of names was ended.

Daryl had been present for the list reading once which had turned out to be more than enough for him. He could not stand to see the sad looks on everyone's faces as they tried to remind themselves that just because the names they were waiting for were not on that list did not mean that they were not still alive.

When a strange woman came into the gate with the newest list of names to be read everyone fled to the gate, Daryl with them. But he was not going to stop like the others, he was going to go out and hunt until the woman with her list of false hopes was gone.

But he wasn't fast enough this time and he was still pushing through the crowd when she started reading. He had just crossed over the threshold of the gate when she called out, "Beth Greene. Montgomery compound, North Carolina."

And then everything tunneled to that name, that face. The memory of her blood on his lips, a taste that he could swear had never truly left his mouth. He must have misheard her or it had to be someone else. A different woman with the same name. Even as he told himself these things Daryl was already sinking to his knees, finding it very hard to breath as sound began to rush at him and he heard Maggie's frantic sobs as Rick began to tell their family to go pack.

It wasn't Beth, it couldn't be his Beth. Daryl repeated those words like a mantra as he packed his meager belongings into a torn backpack. Beth was dead, this was just someone else with her name. It wasn't her.

But even though that thought was doubtlessly running through all of their minds it did not stop them from packing up and piling into a dented white van. They barely managed to scrap up the vehicle at all, gas was so hard to come by. But when Rick was protecting his family nothing could stop him and so even though it was a tight fit they all squeezed together and headed towards a town they had never heard of and a name that none of them had ever forgotten. They left their new home in the hopes that somehow, by some miracle, they would find not a stranger with her name but the woman that they were looking for.

The trip only took a day and a half. It only took them that long because they had to backtrack over areas that had once been roads but where now chunks of asphalt and gore. They finally ran out of gas with thirty miles to go and even though none of them had gotten any sleep the night before no one suggested stopping for a break as they began to hike the last part of their journey. Even if they had suggested it none of them would have stopped. Daryl and Maggie set the pace for the group, not saying a word as they both stared straight ahead for once in a singular mindset.

All to soon and far to long they were arriving at a fifteen foot fence topped with barbed wire. At the sight of it Daryl deflated, his shoulders slumping as he realized he had let himself hope after all. This was not the type of place his Beth would be.

But the outside was deceptive for what they found behind the walls. Children ran around laughing, kicking a soccer ball to each other. People were happy, smiling and joking with one another. They aren't even frisked for weapons when they arrived.

Judith was straining against Carl's hand wanting to go and play with the other kids and Daryl tried to keep his attention on her instead of Rick's voice as he asked the man who opened the gate for them where they could find Beth Greene.

"Oh you lot got here just in time!" he cried happily, a grin spreading across his face as he shut the gate behind them.

"Just in time for what?" Michonne asked, and even though her voice was calm Daryl could see how her hand was curled lightly around the hilt of her katana.

"Beth's just about to sing," the man explained as he turned away from the fence and waved for them to follow him. From the corner of his eye Daryl saw Maggie exchange a hopeful glance with Glenn but he only let himself focus on the back of the man's head as he began walking down the cracked road. "C'mon. I'll show you the way."

The only sound he could hear was the pounding of his heart as Daryl let this stranger lead him to what would either be his salvation or his destruction. For try as he might to squash down even the tiniest bit of hope that this was the Beth he was looking for he knew it was still there. If there turned out to be a stranger at the end of this road Daryl honestly didn't know what he would do.

He did not think he would be able to handle coming this far just to lose her again.

The man led them to a small brown house and he seemed to be completely out of tune with the tension that hung heavy around them. He opened the door with a grin back at them but Daryl didn't see it as the sound of a guitar strumming hit him. He could neither breath nor move as a soft voice began to flow out of the house. He knew that voice, that voice haunted both his waking and sleeping moments. But still he cannot move.

It seemed as if everyone was as caught up in their shook as he was because for a long moment they all simply stood there and listened to her sing. None of them had said it out loud but all of them had been certain that they were just chasing a ghost. A ghost that none of them would be able to live with themselves if they did not come here to see but a ghost nonetheless.

But they knew that voice and as far as Daryl knew ghosts did not sing.

Glenn broke through the shock first, tugging on Maggie's hand with a smile even as tears began to pool in his eyes. Her eyes were wide as her feet propelled her forward, seemingly without thinking about it, and with her motion suddenly the whole group was surging forward and Daryl let himself get taken along for the ride.

They caused quite a commotion with their entry and the girl, no the woman, playing guitar at the other end of the room looked up to see the cause of the disturbance with a frown. The guitar fell from her hands to clatter on the ground but she did not spare it a second glance as she stood up off her stool with wide eyes.

And then everything became a blur.

Daryl watched with wide eyes as Beth (it was her, it was really his Beth after all) began running towards them and try as he might to move he could not get his body to corporate. In the end it was Maggie who moved first, who shoved off her shock with a cry as she met her sister in a rush and they tumbled to the floor in a tangled heap of arms and tears and whispered apologies. Glenn joined them on the floor after a minute, wrapping his arms around both sisters as Beth let her head rest on his shoulder.

The other people who had been in the room were watching with wide tearful eyes but Daryl was suddenly convinced that he had to be dreaming. This could not be real. She could not be here.

But there she was, pulling herself off the floor to wrap her arms around everyone with tears streaming unbidden down her face. Rick held her for a long moment, her head cupped in his hands as he whispered apologies that Beth did not seemed to need as she held him.

She looked surprised to find as she hugged Carl that he was taller than her now. He had hoisted Judith up onto his hip and Daryl watched with shaking breaths as Beth plastered kisses to the little girl's forehead. The girl looked confused as she looked up at her and Daryl hoped that somewhere inside of her she remembered Beth.

He still wasn't sure if he believed that this was real, that this was actually happening as Beth let Michonne fold her into her arms. He had seen Michonne cry once before, on the day that they lost Andrea, and he had never thought that he would live to see it again. But as she clung to Beth he saw with a shock that tears were falling down her face. It was that, more than anything else, that made him realize that this was all real.

Suddenly unable to stand Daryl sank down onto the floor as he watched Carol press a kiss to Beth's forehead before she turned to hug Sasha who clutched her so tightly Daryl was surprised that Beth could breath.

She does not ask where Tyreese and Noah are because she knows. Of course she knows.

Finally the only person left that she knows is Daryl but try as he might to stand he cannot seem to do it. Beth turned to him with a smile that shone through her tears as she closed the distance between them in a rush. She looked like she was going to drop to her knees to hug him where he knelt on the floor, his knees already gone numb, but he never gave her the chance.

The second she was close enough to touch Daryl reached up and wrapped his arms around her waist, tugging her closer as he rested his face against her stomach. He doesn't spare a single thought for how they must look because Beth was warm under his touch. He felt it when she drew in a sharp breath and he clung to her, tears blurring his vision as she wound her fingers into his hair and bent to press a kiss to the crown of his head.

"I knew you were still out there." Beth whispered against his hair as he wound his arms tighter around her waist, content to kneel and listen to her breathing forever. "Even without finding any of your names on the lists I knew."

"How?" Daryl barely managed to get the word out, his throat was so tight from his unshed tears.

Her fingers were warm on his neck and his mind was going haywire whispering the word how on repeat. How was she here? How was she still alive? He had seen the small circular scar on her forehead, the only visible reminder of the moment that had become his worst nightmare.

Beth's voice was barely more than a breath as she whispered, "It's like I said, you're gonna be the last man standing Daryl Dixon."

"No." Daryl shook his head as he pulled back enough to look up at her in terror. Beth slowly sank down to her knees to kneel in front of him and he found that he could not tear his eyes away from hers. He had never thought he would see those blue eyes again, not awake at least. "I don't wanna be the last man." he whispered, his voice nearly pleading as Beth leaned closer to wind her arms around his shoulders. "I don't ever want to live without you again." he admitted as he pulled her closer to his chest, wrapping his arms around her back as if holding her would somehow put him back together.

Beth tucked her head in the crook of his neck and her lips brushed his skin as she promised, "You'll never have to."

And with Beth in his arms, breathing and her heart beat so close to his own, Daryl finally felt as if the world could truly start again.