Photograph

A/N: I didn't beta this. I just wanted to get it written and get it off my chest. I've been utterly crushed by Beth's death and this fic is likely my coda for Bethyl fiction, or fics involving Beth, or even fics, period, at least for The Walking Dead. Please let me know what you think of it. I'd love to hear from you. I love you guys.

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Life at the Alexandria Safe Zone provided safety from the walkers. It provided shelter, medical care, food. It didn’t, however, provide absolute safety from living enemies. They still had to fight evil from living, breathing, warm bodies.

The battles against people didn’t matter to Daryl Dixon. Nothing mattered to him, really. He just went along like a helpless leaf on a turbulent river. He had something more important to do today. Today was the first anniversary of Beth Greene’s death. He’d gone to the shrine wall to claim a spot for Beth a few days ago. The wall had grooves set into it with protective glass doors. The shrines contained crosses and flowers, wreaths, or, for a lucky few, a picture of the dearly departed.

Daryl had the day off from construction work on the wall. He’d prepared a tiny bouquet of dried leaves. Now he was about to leave the small house he shared with another couple of construction workers. He’d only gotten a block away when he heard Glenn call his name.

Daryl sighed. He didn’t want to deal with Glenn today. He didn’t want to try to convince all of his friends that he wasn’t going to try to take his life again. The thought of that dark moment made him lift his right wrist and gaze at the scar there.

“What?”

Glenn wasn’t put off by Daryl’s surliness. He understood why Daryl was unhappy.

“I have something for you. I was looking through my stuff and…to make a long story short, I found this.”

He handed Daryl a photograph that made Daryl’s breath catch in his throat and a pain shoot through his chest.

Maggie was the focus but Beth was in the background, watching the photograph being snapped, a smile on her face.

Daryl looked away from the photograph to meet Glenn’s eyes. He could feel his own eyes watering. His throat tightened.

“Thanks. I…”

“What?”

“I was having trouble remembering what she looked like. She was so young.”

“She was,” Glenn agreed. “I miss her.”

“I do too.”

Daryl continued on and came to the shrine. He left the wreath in the shrine labeled with her name and closed it. He needed to get back to his room. H needed to be alone.

***

That night Daryl was dragged to a dinner with the family. He tolerated their company. He shared their grief. He listened to their memories of Beth. Then he left as soon as he could. When he returned home he growled at his roommates to leave him alone. They knew better than to test his patience.

Daryl folded the photograph and lay back on his bed. He folded it so that Maggie’s faze no longer faced forward with an accusatory look in her eyes, as though she knew what would happen even before Daryl did.

He studied Beth’s face. This photo looked like it had been snapped maybe days before the sickness set in and the Governor’s attack on the prison, only a couple of months before her death. She was frozen in youth and beauty, so full of light and hope, and his chest hurt.

What hurt the most was that he never got to tell her he loved her. He would never know if she’d loved him too. It all felt so unfair. It was unfair but he was beyond anger now. There was only this impenetrable depth of darkness and despair within him. He liked to imagine, on his best days, that Beth had loved him too.

Since her death Daryl hadn’t felt desire for much. Not food, drink, sex, fun, anything. All he really had a desire for was for this sorrowful life to finally come to an end. He didn’t care if it was at the end of a bullet, a knife, or a walkers teeth. He just wanted it over. Then, if there was such a thing as an afterlife, he stood a chance of being with her. He wasn’t so sure of that, though. Would someone like him be allowed to cross the threshold of the pure and the good domain that was heaven?

A sudden rush of desire flooded Daryl’s blood. It happened when he saw, for the first time since looking at the photograph, that her nipples were erect in the photo. They weren’t too noticeable but they were visible. He hadn’t felt anything like this in over a year. He watched, in absolute amazement, as his cock swelled in his jeans, twitching and aching and demanding his attention.

“Fuck,” he whispered, shocked at this rush of need. He felt alive for the first time ever, as though he could possibly crawl his way from the depths of despair to feel something good for once.

He freed his erection before globbing lotion on his left hand. Then the began to stroke himself as he gazed at her. He’d done that once, while she slept, beating off from the treeline as he’d gazed at her breast, which had popped out of the top of her top while she slept in an awkward position that had pulled her shirt down. He’d felt dirty then. He didn’t feel that way now.

That was one of Daryl’s regrets. Not showing Beth how he felt in addition to never telling her. His eyes drifted closed on the smiling face in the photo as he imagined she was alive and under him. He fantasized about pounding into her, feeling her legs around him, her warm wet folds surrounding his cock, her hands on his back, running over his sweat slicked skin, her tongue in his mouth. The taste of her. The smell of the sex. The sounds of need that would come from them both as they gave into their love. Their desire.

When Daryl reached the peak of his need he opened his eyes to look at the photograph. He felt like he’d managed to cross the boundary of death itself. That she was in the photograph. Her soul lived in the image and he connected with her, even though he was on one side of the veil between life and death, and she on the other.

He came, come shooting high into the air before splashing wetly on his exposed belly and thighs. He’d never come so hard in his life. Never. It had never felt so good to find release.

“Oh, Beth…” he sighed. “Beth…”

His voice shifted to weeps as he cried for her. He cried for the first time in a very long time. He missed her. God, he missed her. He’d loved her so deeply. He’d never fallen truly in love before Beth and he would never love after her, even if he did end up sleeping with someone someday.

When the tears abated Daryl cleaned up his mess and looked at the picture. It was the best gift he’d ever received. Glenn had given him his angel back. His light at the end of the tunnel. He had his Beth back. He’d never forget her face. Her smile. Should he ever lose the photo he thought he’d die. He’d kill himself for sure if he lost it because it would be losing her all over again.

“I love you, Baby,” he whispered, before tucking the photograph into the pocket over his heart. He blew out the candle, plunging the bedroom into darkness, and slept the sleep of angels. For once his dreams weren’t tortured. She was there. They were together. They were happy, and he finally, with a light heart, rested.

He rested.