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You'd think she'd be the one having nightmares.
After everything she went through, clawing her way back from death. Honestly, she's got enough material to feed nightmares for several lifetimes: a father murdered before her eyes (beheaded with a sword no less), an undead mother attempting to tear into her, a brother dead, a sister taken, attacked with a tank, expected to fight and kill to protect and survive, abducted, beaten, sexually harassed then assaulted, manipulated, a bullet tearing along her skull and the struggle to heal; the types of things not from fantasy horror stories, but from real life: hunger, disease, murder, war, the absolute worst parts of humanity. There were no demons or ghosts; the undead monsters of their world were not even the scariest part anymore.
When there's a choice involved, when a human being chooses to do evil; that's what the worst nightmares are made of.
But she doesn't have any. She says she doesn't even dream. Like the bullet scoured that ability away. When she sleeps it's like death, and God does he hate that comparison, but it's true. Her eyelids don't flicker; her body doesn't twitch. He'll stare in paranoid concentration as her chest slowly rises and falls, brush his fingers down her bare arm to get an involuntary reaction out of her skin, wanting to worship each goose-bump that appears as relief burns through him.
Because he dreams. He seems to dream enough for the both of them. Insomnia, fits, heart pounding, heaving breaths or none at all, trembling limbs, tight, scratchy throat as if he's been screaming.
He can't seem to stop the nightmares. So he sleeps very little. It bothers her a lot more than him but he argues what’s the point of sleeping anyway? There's no solace to be found when he closes his eyes, the only peace he finds is when they're open and locked on her.
He presses his lips to the back of her head, burying his nose in her hair and inhaling deeply, arm wrapped around her waist, hauling her body against his chest as they settle on top of twisted covers. She’s quiet and contemplative tonight and that doesn’t exactly make him nervous (ok, yes it does) but he is content to wait rather than pry.
"Do you remember?" She whispers after a few minutes. "What you did when you saw me that day?" The day we found each other again.
He shuts his eyes against the onslaught of images that his mind brings up and he frantically sorts through the real and the nightmare.
Because he does and doesn't remember.
It was an odd moment, although that word doesn't cover the half of it. Wasn't out of body, nor was it hallucinatory, like when he saw Merle on that creek bank, arrow through his torso, bruised and bleeding. That vision had manifested from physical pain and exhaustion. Seeing her alive was like he had blinked and was in a different reality. He assumes the strange state he fell in was brought on from emotional pain. The dreams (the nightmares) taking form in real life right before his eyes.
So he had retreated. He couldn't watch the dream become reality. Couldn't watch her begin to bleed again. It would finally destroy him, having already been broken since the moment the gunshot went off.
He dips his head so his forehead rests against her bare shoulder.
"I stepped back," he mumbles, lips ghosting over the silky strands of her hair with each word. "Turned away."
"Yeah," she answers as she traces her fingers along the back of his hand where it's pressed into her flat stomach, he imagines her eyes downcast watching the movement of her hand. "Why did you do that?"
There's an obvious answer, but she doesn't want that; she wants him to unpack his feelings about that day. And he will. For her. Only for her.
Always for her.
He's quiet for a long time, but then he takes a deep breath and speaks about the nightmares.
Night after night as he sleeps, she's there, alone in the hallway, that cursed hospital hallway. The light at the end of the hall blinding, but then she turns and blocks it so that he can see…and she gives him a smile, like he’s all she wants to see in the entire world.
But then she rotates fully and her knife is in her left hand and her wrist is bleeding, a steady stream soaking the gray cardigan she wears until it drips down her hand, red grotesque paths trailing down her fingers onto the handle of the knife then down, dripping off the tip onto the linoleum floor with a soft repetitive plunk.
And he looks to the right hand as her skin begins to purple and blacken around the wrist before flying to her face in horror. Her expression becomes what he had seen that day: tense, lips pressed in a straight line, guarded, wounded, full of tension, distrust and fear. His stomach roils and he desperately wants to hang his head in shame…but this is a nightmare and nightmares don't let you look away.
He stops breathing when the first cut begins to form along her left cheek, as if an invisible knife is carving into her, blood flowing out down the curve of her face, the collar of the filthy yellow polo catching the stream, turning the yellow a muddy brown like the day in the country club when he had splattered the pure white cardigan and polo with walker guts due to his rage.
There's no reaction from her at the wound, and she never speaks, never makes a sound; she just continues to stare at him, her expression not one of physical pain but emotion. The fear transforming into a pleading, her eyes screaming at him to do something. To save her. To stop the bleeding. But he can't move.
And then the second wound begins to cut into her forehead, blood flowing over her left brow, a few drops catching on blonde eyelashes, dyeing them a sickening red. And that's when her expression shifts to blame, to hatred. The skin under and around her right eye forming yellow and purple bruises, the skin swollen from whatever had struck her.
It's every wound she's had to endure. Every bruise, every cut, every hurt. All preventable had he done something. Been there. Done something different. Made a different choice. All of it doesn't matter though.
And that's when he begins to scream. Because he knows what wound is next. Knows what's coming and if he can stop it, if he just stops her bleeding, he can save her.
But he never does. He never will. The small black hole begins to form on her forehead, a single trickle of blood trailing out. He can't see the back of her head but he knows what it looks like, can see the blonde tendrils in her ponytail darken, the light from behind making it shine in a sickening way, yellow to crimson, like she's taking a gruesome shower under a red spray.
And she continues to stare at him, standing still and accusatory and he feels warmth on his lips; knows what's there and he doesn't want to think about it, doesn't want to remember. But his trembling hand rises to his lips of its own volition and he wipes her blood across his skin. When it happened, it was warm but in his mind, in this nightmare, it's scalding him, chapping his lips, pealing the skin back until her blood touches his, mixing with it, poisoning him with her death.
Take this, all of you, and drink from it:
this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant.
It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven.
(Do this in memory of me.)
He knows he'll never be forgiven. Doesn't deserve it for the multitude of sins on his back. Each raised line of skin the story of how he failed.
He falls to his hands and knees, finally breaking away from her stare, but he finds no relief closer to the ground (closer to hell) for he's fallen into her blood, the warm liquid seeping in his pants, staining his palms and he knows he's going to drown, drown in her death and he's relieved. It'll be over, he won't have to feel this way or see red anymore.
He never cursed color before this, in fact it was one of the few things he found pleasure in; he'd use color and light with hunting and then there were all the colors of her: yellow, pink, blue, white.
Soon there'd be no color, no light and he trembles in anticipation for it all to stop but then the toes of her haggard cowboy boots appear in his sight. He shakes his head which becomes a whole body quake as he refuses to look up.
He wants to plead, beg her to not make him do what he knows he must.
But once again his pleading goes unacknowledged and a force lifts his head without his permission to see Beth shaking her head sadly at him before she sinks to the ground as well and climbs into his lap.
His arms automatically go around her, red staining the skin of his arms, smearing on to the leather of his vest. She leans her head against his bicep, closing her eyes as if falling into a peaceful sleep and he catches a glimpse of the grotesque mess that is the back of her skull and he swallows down the bile but also hopes he chokes on it.
And suddenly he's standing with her dead weight in his arms and he realizes this is his punishment, this is his penance. Doomed to carry her for eternity. He'll have no rest; the blood will never be wiped clean from his skin. Forever burdened with her weight in his arms, dragging at the muscles of his shoulders, his back, his forearms and wrists, the tendons slowly tearing away, the cartilage diminishing until the bones grind together into dust. Pain piled on pain. And it never ends.
How can a God punish a man who doesn't believe in Him? He wonders.
The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping
I dreamt I held you in my arms
When I awoke, dear, I was mistaken
So I hung my head, and I cried
He thought you only reach purgatory after you die but then again it makes sense...He had died that day, at least a very large part of him had.
Sometimes in the nightmares, he walks the halls of the hospital, leaving bloody footprints in his wake. Sometimes he's in the stairwell, jostling her in his arms as he continues down, step after step, into the labyrinth, understanding he’s making his way to hell if he ever reaches the last step (he never will).
That’s what sleep had brought him almost every night. Punished for wanting undeserved rest. But part of him, a big part had accepted the punishment, didn’t curse it away. Because in his sick and broken mind, it allowed him to be with her just a little bit longer. He got to hold her for another night. So he took it. Just for that.
He chose the nightmare over reality. Besides, wasn’t much different. Those two words were interchangeable these days.
Night after night, he was tortured by his sleep until he was surviving in a constant state of exhausted numbness.
That's why he hadn't thought much or even felt much when Rick had come to the difficult conclusion that they needed a doctor in Alexandria, and knew with certainty the one place where they could found one.
"We have to go back," the words hadn't sounded right coming out of Rick's mouth.
And by the look on his face, like he tasted something foul, Rick hadn't liked them either. Knew they’d have to return to the place where everything went wrong.
They had thought they could get by without one for a while but they were only fooling themselves. A communal self-imposed ignorance.
And then injuries happened, an infant was building an immune system, illness and accidents were inevitable; so a medical doctor was a necessity.
There had been a vote, a travel party formed (it was him and Glenn, him for muscle, Glenn for diplomacy), fuel/food prep made, route determined, and 12 days later he was standing at the entrance to Grady Memorial, stomach churning, heart pounding, breath coming short and fast; the numb spell he had been living (surviving) in finally shattering. But the moment a Grady cop showed their face, gun raised in surrender, offering to bring them to the 5th floor, he refocused and buried it all, every feeling of terror, nausea, panic, poured it all in to the mission and crossed the threshold into the source of his nightmares.
But then he saw her in that sterile hospital hallway, all of his composure crumbled away and he had just enough awareness to turn away.
Could anyone blame him though?
Truth is, when it happened, when he saw her again, a multitude of emotions overwhelmed and a great war went on his head. It was real versus unreal. Reality versus fantasy. Life versus death.
This didn’t happen anymore, not in this world, especially not in his world. He doesn’t get second chances. She doesn’t live. But even if she does, it's in a way unfit for a human being. The only version of this scenario that makes sense, is the one where she's endlessly walking, seeking flesh to tear apart with her undead lips and rotting teeth.
This version isn't possible, the one with the bright light in her eyes, where her pale skin glows and burns, her hair bloodless and clean. This version is only allowed in dreams, but he considered them nightmares…because they always became one.
But then she had spoke, so soft and gentle.
The nightmare version of Beth never spoke, so he knew this was something different. Had to be. This was something new. Something worse.
In that hallway, lit half by artificial light and half by daylight, his back facing her, the maybe nightmare, his shoulders bunched up near his ears in defense, as if an ear splitting scream was tearing through the air, body hunched in a protective gesture and he had shut his eyes tight because if they were closed he wouldn’t see the blood, right? But then she said his name again, and he heard the soft squeak of sneakers on linoleum drawing closer, so he brought his hands to cover his ears, weapon abandoned to the ground with a clang.
(See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil.)
But what did him in was the scent that hit. It wasn’t the sickening metallic stench of spilled blood, nor the familiar smell of decay and death. It was a scent he had become so familiar with, trekking through the woods with a girl who was barely less than a stranger. A girl who was so sad but still so strong. Who screamed back. Who fought back. Who sang to him, for him. Who survived.
Once that scent of strawberries and hay hit he dropped his hands from his ears and brought his right hand to his chest, pressing into the skin where his heart felt like it was trying to burst out of his ribcage, through his skin. He wouldn’t have exactly been surprised if that happened, would simply have turned with the rotten, bloody organ in hand and offered it to her. Instead the infernal thing kept beating, the pain a reminder that he lived. Gritting his teeth, he kept his right hand over his heart, unable to drop it.
(I pledge allegiance…)
His eyes rose to meet Glenn’s shocked face, jaw dropped, eyes darting from his to whatever stood right behind him. He couldn’t get the words out, all speech having fled the moment he saw her. His wide eyes locked on Glenn and silently asked the question, expression screaming in desperation. “Do you see her? Tell me you see her.”
Or was he dead?
All Glenn had done, could do, was nod and then there was her voice again. Stronger. Demanding. Tearful. And the pain vanished, her voice a balm for all his wounds.
So he turned back around and accepted whatever version of reality this was, no matter the consequence.
When he finishes his tale of nightmares, dreams and reality all meshing together she turns, smoothly rotating her body to face him as his hand slides from her stomach up to span the curve of her waist and hip. Her arms are tucked close to her chest, cheek resting in her open palm as she gazes at him. She's calm and considering, eyes darting between his.
"Do you still have that dream?"
He sighs and drops his eyes from hers, giving two small nods. She shifts and he feels her right hand pulling at the one he had on her waist. Her small hand manipulates his fingers until the thumb, pinky and ring finger are curled towards his palm and then she brings his pointer and middle finger to her lips, gently kissing the pads, her breath igniting every nerve ending. He's transfixed as she turns her head towards the ceiling and brings the kissed digits to the scar on her left cheek.
His heart is beating so loud in his chest, but it's not painful; he actually relishes it, praying to the God he doesn't really believe in, the God he once cursed for all the pain and suffering He put those who actually did believe in Him through, that this feeling never leaves. That the numbness never returns. He won't survive that way, Carol had told him, "You have to let yourself feel it." And she was right. He's feeling so many things in this moment and has never been more alive.
His eyes track his hand as she brings it back to her lips to kiss his fingertips again and raise them to the second scar above her eyebrow running the length of her forehead. She repeats the motions again and his fingers, blessed by her kiss, brush the small indent two inches above her left eyebrow.
"They healed, Daryl," she whispers. "I healed and I'm here now. Forgive yourself."
Releasing a heavy breath, Daryl meets her shining blue eyes, marveling at them for a moment. How are they always like that? Glowing with such life and eagerness. She's stunning. He detaches his left hand from her loose grip only to take hold of it and bring it to his lips, kissing the inside of her wrist where it had been encased in a cast. Then he releases that hand to pull at the one trapped under the pillows near their heads and kisses the puckered 2-inch scar running along the inside of her wrist.
She swallows heavily, a small smile on her lips as they shift around on the bed; she returns her left hand under the pillow, and he mirrors her position.
"There's one left," she says after a moment. He frowns in confusion but she doesn't let him remain in the dark for long (she never does), her right hand grabs at his left once again; this time kissing the center of his palm and then lowering it to press into the center of her chest.
He stares at his hand pressed against her heart, concentrating on the steady thump beneath it. When he meets her eyes a small smile makes its way to his lips, matching the one across her own.
They don't need to break this moment with words. They both know what she means. Her heart has healed from the pain and loss, there's scar tissue but it's still beating, same as his.
As they drift off to sleep, her before him (every time), he thinks about the God she still believes in, the faith she still carries. And maybe, just this once, he can forgive Him and before sleep finally claims him, he sweeps his hand down her bare arm, finding comfort in the goose-bumps that rise, then closes his eyes, tossing out a prayer that maybe just maybe, tonight his dreams won't become the nightmare. That maybe the dream will measure up to the reality he lives when he wakes. (But he doubts it).
In all my dreams dear
You seem to leave me
When I awake my poor heart aches
So when you come back
And make me happy
I'll forgive and take all the blame