There's only so much carousing Beth can take in a single evening, even with the promise of warm fires. You watch people drink, you sing songs, they drink more, you don't, and it goes on and on until your eyes are starting to slip closed. It's nice, for the most part, but after almost two months of it, you stop needing hours and hours seated at a campfire unless it's really cold.

Beth always says her good nights early, by Barrayaran standards, and then she heads back toward the outsiders' tent. It's usually a walk she takes alone, doing her best to bury her face in the collar of her coat, one hand always ready to grab her knife if necessary.

Tonight, though, she notices someone else trudging toward the tent, and something instinctive thinks Daryl before the rest of her catches up to the thought. Even in the dim orange light cast out by the fire, she knows his walk, the same way she could pick Rick or Michonne out of the shadows if she had reason to. But Daryl's back in Georgia--back in Grady, right where she left him. Homesickness aches in her chest, and she pauses a moment, taking the time to prove to herself that she's looking for features in people she doesn't know. People with dark hair growing long over their ears and facial features weighted by shadows, who glance around like they're waiting for walkers and--

It's like being punched in the gut and hugged all at once. It's him.