Beth rapped her knuckles sharply on the door once before she eased it open and slipped inside. It was unlocked, as it always was when she came over (although she strongly suspected it was locked up any time when Daryl was actually alone here). The knock was merely a formality, a simple nod to the past and a way to make sure that she wouldn't be staring down the end of a weapon when she walked inside.
The house was quieter than usual as Beth toed off her snow caked boots in the entry way, the one candle in the room giving her just enough light to see by. Not that she truly needed the light anymore. She spent nearly as much time here as she did in the house she shared with her sister and brother in law. She could navigate its sparsely furnished interior with her eyes closed.
Beth quietly padded her way down the hall, her socked feet making no noise as she made her way into the kitchen which was the warmest room in the house, as it was in all of the houses. She stopped in the doorway to watch as Daryl slowly turned the page of the book he was so engrossed in he hadn't heard her enter. A small smile spread across her lips as she watched him and she thought that if this were before the turn, before being scared was a part of everyday life, she would have jumped at him and yelled 'boo!' or some other ridiculous thing.
But now she was content to merely lean against the door frame and watch him be taken away to a world far better than their own, one elbow propped up on the table to support his head as the other hand turned the pages. The candle flickered shadows across his face and Beth was happy to see a familiar look of contentment on his features. The one she only ever seemed to see when he was with her.
"You gonna just stand there all night?" Daryl finally grunted, pulling Beth from her thoughts and causing her to start with a small jump.
She let out a breathless laugh at being caught staring at him and approached the table where he kicked a chair out for her. Beth placed her own book down on the table and eased out of her coat before sitting down beside him, scooting the chair in close enough that their knees touched underneath the table.
Neither of them moved.
"Where's everyone else?" Beth asked as she flipped her book open to the page she had marked with a loose piece of string. Daryl watched her for a moment, as he usually did when she first came over, like he needed a moment to make sure that she was really there and really real. Maggie had confided in her how hard the search for her had been on Daryl and while Beth had once assumed that it was because he blamed himself for her getting taken (not that it was even remotely his fault) with time she realized it was for a much different reason. Beth kept waiting for Daryl to say something about the feelings she could see very clearly in his eyes, the feelings she had seen the night she thought would be their last together and the ones that she very much returned, but so far he had yet to make a move.
Beth was a very patient person and she wanted Daryl to come to her in his own time but as the weeks passed and they found themselves within the protective sphere of the Alexandria Safe Zone's walls and he still hadn't said anything Beth found even her patience was beginning to wear thin.
"They all went to the group meal." Daryl told her in his customary rough voice, the one that had once made her weary of him but now did something else to her entirely.
"I forgot that was tonight." Beth admitted, shaking her head. She tried to focus on the fact that she had forgotten one of the few things she looked forward to anymore rather than the fact that her and Daryl were, for the first time since the funeral home, completely alone.
"You eat?" Daryl asked, closing his book which prompted Beth to do the same even as she nodded.
"Yea I ate with Maggie before I came over. Have you eaten?" she was fighting very, very hard to focus on their conversation and not the fact that the whole house was empty. That fact shouldn't matter to her, she had once been alone with Daryl for weeks on end, but this was different. She had never been alone with him since she realized how he felt about her, or more importantly, how she felt about him.
Of course they had spent plenty of time with just the two of them but there was always someone else nearby. On the road when they first found her they were all on top of one another and she never had a moment to tell him what she had realized in their absence. How much he had come to mean to her. Once they reached Alexandria and spread out into four separate houses they still always seemed to be surrounded by the others. Daryl and Beth spent every night together, sometimes eating but usually just sitting in one of their houses, sometimes reading and sometimes sitting in silence. They were content just to be in the other's presence without the constant threat of danger breathing down their necks. They would talk as well, usually. Mostly stories of before the turn, but sometimes they talked about what happened to each of them after. Beth found herself telling him stories she never would have told Maggie about the way she was treated in the hospital and in turn Daryl told her about the men who had found him and what they had done.
Weeks had passed since they arrived here and Beth had stopped looking over her shoulder every ten seconds, she had finally began to trust that they would be able to make a home in this place. She had seen the others began to believe in it to, saw the way their muscles seemed to relax or how they didn't constantly talk at just above a whisper. The only person who seemed not to have relaxed at all was Daryl.
He was nodding in answer to her earlier question and she nodded back, thumbing absentmindedly at the pages of her book. Beth bit her lip as she tried to think of what to say or do in this situation as she simultaneously wondered if she should do anything at all. Didn't she want to wait for Daryl to admit to his feelings first? She knew how he was and she didn't want to scare him off or make him uncomfortable. His presence in her life meant too much to her to just have it gone again.
Neither of them said anything as they sat in a loaded silence, both all too well aware of the empty house looming around them. Both books lay closed on the table, neither of them bothering to even put up a pretext of reading. Beth shifted in her seat and her leg moved so that her knee was now pressed against Daryl's thigh. She sucked in a deep breath and looked over to meet his eye, certain that he was going to move. He didn't. He simply kept staring back at her with those troubled blue eyes.
They seemed to be locked inside a staring contest, neither of them really so much as breathing. After a near minute of this Beth finally gave up on waiting. A girl could only wait so long for a man to make a move and Beth had reached her limit. "Screw it." she whispered before she leaned up on her elbows on the table, using them as leverage to push herself closer to Daryl. She saw his eyes widen as she leaned forward but Daryl made no move to pull away as she pressed her mouth against his.
His lips were dry under her own and for a heart wrenching moment he didn't move under her touch but just as quickly as she had lunged at him he was wrapping his hand in her hair at the nape of her neck and tugging her closer to him. Beth couldn't move her arms without face planting onto the table she was half laying on but her mouth moved against Daryl's as softly as he was kissing her.
This was not like any other kiss in her life. Jimmy had kissed her timidly, his touch uncertain as if she might break if he pressed to hard. Zach had kissed her with a confidence she had never seen before, but he was mostly take and didn't give her very much in return.
Daryl was different. Their lips moved slowly against each other as if they had all the time in the world. It had taken them so long to come to this moment it seemed that neither of them was in a rush for it to end. But of course everything ends and all to soon they needed air and had to separate. Beth pushed off of the table to sit back in her chair again and for a moment her and Daryl simply sat and stared at each other, neither of them seeming to know what to say. Their kiss seemed to have said it all.
"Beth..." Daryl whispered, his eyes once again trained on her face as his voice faded into silence. She reached over to take his hand in her own and Daryl intertwined his rough fingers with hers as he kept staring at her. He couldn't seem to find the words to finish his thought but Beth could see it plain as day in his face.
She smiled at him sweetly as she ran her thumb over his palm. "I know." Beth whispered, because she did. Of course she did. If she hadn't known for sure at the funeral home she had known it when they had been reunited and Daryl had held her even longer than Maggie had. "Me too."
Daryl looked as if he didn't quite believe her but he didn't take his hand from hers. Slowly, as though she were approaching an easily startled animal Beth stood and closed the small bit of space between them, their hands still intertwined. Daryl looked up at her somewhat nervously as she reached up to run the fingers of her free hand down his face slowly. His eyes fluttered shut at her touch and Beth couldn't stop a smile from spreading across her face. Daryl turned his head to place a feather soft kiss against the inner part of her wrist, only centimeters from her jagged scar.
She let out a startled breath at the feel of his lips on her skin and Daryl turned his head to look up at her. Beth felt as though he could see every thought she had ever had on her face but she didn't feel embarrassed. This was Daryl, they had long since stopped trying to hide even the worst parts of themselves from each other. He disentangled their fingers to reach up and place his hands on her hips, his thumb just brushing against the bare strip of skin between her sweater and her jeans. Daryl stood suddenly, his chair screeching backwards a foot in his haste. Beth gasped as he loomed over her suddenly, tilting her head back to meet his eyes as he stared down at her.
Daryl bent to kiss her then and Beth reached her hands between them to clutch at the front of his vest, pulling him closer to her. The warmth from the kitchen oven and his body on hers suddenly felt like far too much and for the first time in weeks Beth felt truly warm. Part of her couldn't believe this was actually happening, that after so long of waiting Daryl was finally holding her. That his mouth was finally touching hers.
She had envisioned what their first kiss would be like many times but it had never come even close to this. Beth had never imagined how soft his lips really were or that he would taste faintly of mint and cinnamon, two things that didn't seem like they would usually go together but somehow with him they did. Just like she did.
His hands drifted from her hips to wrap tighter around her back and Beth rose her hands to twist behind his neck, twirling her fingers through his overgrown hair. Their bodies were pressed tight together now, not an inch of space between them as Beth rose on her toes to have better access to his mouth. She was beginning to feel unbearably hot wherever Daryl touched her and as he slipped his tongue into her open mouth a small moan formed in the back of her throat. His hands clutched her tighter so she knew he heard her but for once Beth didn't feel embarrassed by letting the sound of her pleasure be known.
Eventually he pulled away from her, dropping his forehead against hers as he stared at her, both of them struggling to regain their breath. Beth could see the question in his eyes, yet another thing he was not yet ready to speak aloud. She nodded almost frantically and Daryl was kissing her again, one hand firm on her lower back as he began to steer them out of the kitchen.
Beth knew it made more sense for them to just stop kissing until they got to their destination but neither of them seemed to be physically able to take their hands off of one another as they bumped their way down the hallway. She had never been more grateful for the group meals as she was in the moment when Daryl pressed her against the wall, his hips digging into her as their hands began to explore each other's bodies. The short walk from the kitchen to the small room Daryl slept in should have taken them all of ten seconds but instead took them five minutes.
Finally Daryl managed to get the doorknob to his room to turn and Beth nearly fell back inside when the door she was leaning back against swung open. Daryl's grip on her only tightened and he kept her upright as he kicked the door shut behind them. Now that they were inside the privacy of his room it seemed that neither of them could get the other's clothes off fast enough. The unbearable heat that Beth had been feeling didn't go away, even as she stood in her underwear within the circle of an equally near naked Daryl's arms.
Her hands roamed across his torso, feeling the rigid edges of many scars beneath the pads of her fingers. She felt Daryl shift uncomfortably whenever she touched one so she tried to avoid them in her exploration of his body. Beth knew one day he would tell her the causes of each of his scars. That one day when she touched them he would only feel her touch and not the shadow of pain they still caused him. But tonight was not that day.
Daryl walked them backwards until the back of her legs hit his bed and Beth fell back onto it with a sigh of contentment. His weight covered hers in an instant and as his hand trailed up to her bare chest Beth could not quite get over how different this was from the few other times she had sex. She felt as though every part of her he touched was being singed with live electric wires and judging by the hardness pressing against her leg and the short pants of breath in her ear Daryl felt the same.
It seemed as though neither of them could decide if they wanted to take their time or move in a frenzied rush as depraved of the other's touch as they were. Both all to soon and not fast enough Daryl was positioning himself at her entrance, his forehead resting against hers as they both fought to remember how to breathe.
"Are you sure?" he finally whispered, his voice rough as he stared down at her with longing in his eyes.
Despite his longing Beth knew with her whole heart if she asked him to stop he would without a second thought. But there was no reason to stop, she had been sure for a long time. Besides, if it didn't happen tonight it would eventually. They had never been a matter of if, only when.
She nodded, raising one hand to brush a lock of his hair off of his face. "I'm sure." she whispered.
That was all it took. He was inside of her with one beautiful delicious stroke and Beth gasped as he settled into her. His hand sought hers and their fingers intertwined on the crumpled bed sheets as their hips rocked against each other like the beat of a melody only they could hear. Beth wanted for it to last forever so when it ended, when they came with the other's name on their lips, she almost felt like crying. But that was silly, because even though their first time might be over they weren't.
Daryl moved to lay beside her and Beth turned to rest her head on his chest. As she stared at their once again intertwined hands, hands Beth was beginning to think were made to fit together, she almost didn't hear the words Daryl barely breathed, that unfinished thought he finally found the words for.
"I love you."
Beth smiled against his chest before propping herself up on her elbow to stare down into his eyes. She had never seen Daryl Dixon look terrified before but in the time it took for her to say those three words back she imagined that was what it must look like. She settled back against his chest again, smiling as he began to play with her hair, for the time being no more words needing to be said.
There was a time when Beth had truly thought she would never see Daryl again. There was a time when she thought they would never get past their longing looks and act on the feelings both clearly had for each other. There was a time when a lot of things did not seem possible to Beth but it seemed that despite everything some things, some people, were just inevitable.