Author's Note: I don't own anything you recognize.
Beth never thought she would envy a ball of gas millions of lightyears away. However, as she lay beneath the umbrella of branches, with stars peeking through the oak leaves, she felt a burning jealousy in her chest. Earth was a tiny speck of dust in this massive universe, leaving the vast majority of space free from walkers. The sky was so peaceful compared to the world she was living in. And somewhere out there was a quiet, calm planet where there were no walking corpses trying to eat your flesh.
As the girl watched the sparkling lights hanging above her, she tried to imagine that everything on Earth was perfectly fine, her family was still all alive, and the apocalypse had never happened. She focused on this one thought so intently as she kept her eyes locked on one flickering star, that eventually, for one brief moment, her heart felt a huge weight lifted off of it. It was a fleeting instance of relief, as all of her thoughts condensed into one idea of her family and her security. She wished she could keep that sweet naivety forever, but her second of joy was gone. Her heart felt that familiar heaviness once again, and she went back to her constant state of fear.
"Beth, go on to sleep. I can take watch," said Glenn's voice from behind.
Beth stood up from her spot on the rock by the creek, dusting off the backside of her jeans. She turned to her brother-in-law. "Want someone to keep you company?"
"You've been walking all day, go get some rest," said Glenn gently. "I'll be fine."
She smiled gratefully. "Alright. 'Night, Glenn."
"Goodnight," he said. He didn't sit down until his sister-in-law was zipping up her tent.
The polyester sleeping bag beneath Beth cushioned some parts of her body, but she could still feel the hard ground pushing through. She was used to not getting much sleep at night, anyway, with the ceaseless anxiety lurking in the back of her mind since the beginning of the apocalypse. Eventually, she felt her thoughts becoming scattered and fanciful, slowly fading into a dream.
Beth's eyes blinked in the sunlight filtering into her tent. She could never remember the exact moment she opened her eyes in the morning, and she never thought to try and memorize the feeling until it was too late. She stretched her arms up above her head, popping her wrists. She heard footsteps outside accompanied by low voices.
As the girl emerged from her tent, she noticed most of the other tents were already packed up, and it seemed all the other group members were already awake. She walked over to Rick, who was holding Judy.
"Did I sleep in too late?" Beth asked.
Rick smiled at her. "It's probably earlier than you think," he said, smiling as Judy reached for the young blonde. "Don't worry about it."
As Beth cooed at Judith, Daryl came out from the trees and foliage behind her tent. He gave her a quick nod of acknowledgment as he approached the two and Judith.
"Catch anything?" asked Rick.
Daryl grunted. "Naw, but I got a couple'a walkers."
Rick looked out towards the thick woods. "We need to hurry up, and head out," he said. "Tents aren't safe enough out here."
The group had been camping out for a while, and their immunity to it had worn off from being in the prison for so long, with beds, food, and security. All they wanted was sturdy walls to protect them from the world around them. Terminus had seemed like such a safe haven, but it turned out to be the opposite.
Beth had had no idea what she was getting into when that car took her away from Daryl that night at the funeral home. She had been held down in the floor of the backseat, the faint glow of moonlight flashing over the leather interior as they'd sped down the road. Her heart had been pounding in the near darkness, and she'd been tossed over someone's shoulder. All she could think about as she was thrown into darkness was Daryl believing she had left him. The thought of Daryl believing that she had completely deserted him had made her mind go numb, and her chest ache. Surely he knew that she could never do that to him.
The hospital had been a dark place, but at least she'd had food, water, and a mattress to sleep on. However, she missed the group so horribly that she spent many nights in bed staring out the window at the silent city, wondering where her family could possibly be.
The memory of being reunited with them was blurry, but she remembered looking into Dawn's cold eyes. The next thing she knew, she was sitting beside Daryl, her head on his shoulder while his hand caressed her neck. He had been whispering soothing words to her, about how she was safe now, forever. She remembered having a terrible headache, but she was with the group again, away from harm. That was her foremost memory, safety and comfort.
The group packed up the tents despite their not being safe, and set out on the road by high sun. Beth walked closely to Maggie along the cracked pavement until she glanced behind herself and noticed Daryl lingering in the back alone. She slowed her pace until he caught up with her. For a moment, they walked in silence along the road blanketed with maple seeds, which spun down from the trees like helicopter propellers.
"Do you think we'll find somewhere to stay soon?" she asked.
"Hopefully," replied Daryl in his deep, gruff voice. He looked at her, lifting one corner of his mouth with a twinkle in his eye. "I bet you'd like to find a nice, big house with a long, pretty lane," he said.
Beth smiled up at him. "I wish we could find a big white house on a hill, with a creek behind it, and a nice little garden. The house would have bunches of windows, with pretty blue shutters and lace curtains." Her voice was dreamy as she spoke. She glanced back up to Daryl. "And a long, pretty lane."
Daryl looked up the highway, smiling slightly. "I'd like that."
She listened to the sound of leaves crunching beneath their boots, and Maggie laughing at something Glenn had said up ahead."Maybe we can find somewhere as nice as the funeral home," she said quietly.
Daryl didn't say anything for a second. Beth didn't look at him. She watched Rick instead as he walked at the front of the group, Carl by his side. Carl wore his dad's sheriff's hat, which always cast a dark shadow over his freckled face.
"Maybe the next place we find'll have pigs feet," said Daryl, making her laugh. She noticed him smirk as she giggled.
She wished he would bring up the last conversation they'd had back in the funeral home, the one that still gave her chills when she thought about it at night. Why'd Daryl have to be so dang cryptic sometimes? She couldn't tell if he saw her as a little sister, or something more.
They fell back into silence again, and Beth watched the shadows of tree branches dance on the ground around her, trying to figure out which shadow went with which gangly limb. A different shadow moved across the gray pavement, and she looked up to see a bird sitting in one of the countless trees lining the highway. Was it afraid? Had it lost anyone to the walkers? Was it even aware that anything was different? Now, not only did she envy the mindless stars in the sky, but she wanted to be that bird, carelessly sitting on a tree branch just as it did before everything fell apart, as if nothing had changed.
As the sky began to blush, and the hazy crescent moon was just barely visible through the wispy clouds, Sasha suggested they stop walking for the day and set up camp again. They wouldn't stay for as long as they had at their previous campsite. Rick led the group off the main road and into the dusky woods. Everyone was grateful to drop their heavy backpacks once they found a safe spot to stay for the night.
The group started the process all over again: unpacking everything, setting up the tents, and hanging up a string with cans on it around the perimeter of their camp. It'd been this way for so long. Camp out somewhere for a while, pack up, leave, and repeat. They were in the middle of nowhere, with no good shelters to be found. Everyone's eyes looked constantly droopy, a tired lull settling in the air around them all. But they were together.
Two mornings later, just as the gray light of dawn shone down through the leaves above, a disturbing cry broke the stillness of morning, making Beth's heart jump. She scrambled out of her sleeping bag, and out of her tent. Glenn was kneeling on the ground, clutching his arm and clenching his eyes shut. Beth saw a flash of deep red on the dirt below him, and quickly got down beside him. A long, bloody gash had been carved into his forearm.
"Glenn!" said Maggie in a brittle voice as she came up behind him."W-what happened?"
Others were running up to help as Glenn tried to explain himself. His words came out as strangled, shaky noises.
"Did you get bit?" asked Maggie in a panic.
"We need to get this wrapped to stop the bleeding," Beth said urgently. "Someone go get something, just, hurry!" Her hands were shaking and becoming more and more bloodied. Glenn's face looked blanched as he gripped Maggie's arm, where red scratches were beginning to show.
Rick sat beside Beth and handed her a dirty cloth. She wrapped it tightly around Glenn's forearm, tying a knot with the ends. A hand emerged from beyond her shoulder, handing Maggie a bottle of water for Glenn, whose breathing was slowly becoming steadier.
Beth turned and saw Daryl squatting behind her, his greasy bangs hanging over his eyes. Sasha, Bob, and Tyreese stood behind him, watching nervously. Carol comforted a crying Judith, while Carl stood close to Michonne.
"How did this happen?" asked Maggie.
"I got up to go to the bathroom, and I tripped. I reached out to catch myself, but a fallen tree branch got me instead," explained Glenn huskily. "Pretty lame way to get hurt these days, if you ask me."
The tension in the air dissipated like salt being poured into water. Maggie laughed disbelievingly, stroking Glenn's hair.
"Looked pretty painful to me," said Michonne, one hand on Carl's shoulder.
"We don't want that to get infected," said Rick in his gravelly tone. He turned to Beth. "Not saying our Beth here didn't do a great job of wrapping him up," he said, smiling.
She blushed. "No, I agree. We need to make sure to keep the wound clean," she said, smiling lightly back at Rick. "It was a nasty cut."
No one went back to bed after the episode, seeing as the sun was nearly completely risen. Tyreese and Abraham kept their weapons ready on the perimeter after Glenn's walker-attracting yelp.
"Let's get that blood off your hands," said Carol warmly as she sat down by Beth's tent. Together they walked down the hill behind the camp towards a tiny pool of water. The younger girl sat on the edge while Carol helped scrub off Glenn's dried blood with her fingernails.
"You did really well, Beth," she said warmly.
"Thanks," Beth said. "It really wasn't all that great, though. I just did what I had to do."
Carol snorted. "You acted quicker than anybody else. Even Daryl."
Beth smiled to myself. "I wasn't the only one who helped," she said. "Rick and Maggie helped, too."
Carol scrubbed away dried blood from the side of the blonde's thumbnail, chuckling. "You sure don't like taking credit for things."
Beth smiled. "It wasn't much of a thing to take credit for."
That night, as everyone disappeared into their tents, Beth walked up behind Daryl who was sitting on a rock.
"Keepin' watch tonight?" she asked him.
He grunted. "Yeah, never can sleep anyway."
"Mind if I keep you company?"
Daryl gave an awkward half shrug before muttering, "Not at all."
The girl sat beside him, looking down at her swinging feet. "I can't sleep well anymore, either," she said. "I remember when I used to sleep in 'til noon on Saturdays, back when I was in school." She gave a light chuckle. "I can't believe I thought school was so terrible. I think I'd take algebra anyday over this world." Not necessarily this moment with you, however, she thought.
She felt Daryl's eyes on her and nervously pushed a wisp of blonde hair behind her ear. She noticed now how Daryl's pinky finger and hers were just barely touching as they rested on the rock. He twitched uncomfortably beside her, but he didn't move away. They could feel nothing but that centimeter of their touching skin.
The clink-clink of tin cans interrupted their brief silence. Daryl stood up quickly, raising his crossbow. Beth stood up behind him, peering warily over his shoulder.
"Do you think it's a walker?" she whispered. "Or is it an animal?"
"Either way, we need to go check it out," replied Daryl. "An animal could mean food for us."
He stepped carefully through the rugged foliage, Beth following closely behind. The low groan of a walker stopped them in their tracks. Daryl moved forward, pushing beside a low-hanging tree branch to reveal a walker trying to move past the tin cans strung up around the camp. Daryl quickly killed it with a shot to the head.
"Do you think that's the only one?" Beth asked.
"Better be," he grumbled. "We don't got time to move out tonight."
She put a hand on his arm. "I'll let Rick know about the walker," she said.
Daryl nodded, cautiously watching the dense forest around us. "Be careful," he said as she made her way back to the main part of our camp.
Rick sighed when she told him the news. He sat up in his sleeping bag, rubbing his chin. Carl wriggled beside him, still asleep.
"Maybe that'll be the only one," Beth suggested.
"Maybe," said Rick. "But we'll clear out tomorrow anyway."
The blonde nodded, apologizing for waking him up as she left the tent. She saw the silhouette of Daryl sitting on the rock again, his crossbow glinting in the faint moonlight.
"Rick said we'll leave tomorrow," she said after clearing her throat.
Daryl glanced back at her. "You should probably get some rest then," he mumbled.
She knew he was right, but she hated leaving him alone. "I'm fine," she said, approaching him.
Daryl scooted aside to make room for her, but as she yawned and failed at trying to hide it, he smirked.
She smiled at him. "Well, maybe I should try and sleep…" she said.
Daryl smiled. "'Night, Beth."
"Goodnight, Daryl," she said softly, not feeling Daryl's eyes on her as she turned away. Once in her sleeping bag, after bunching parts of it up under herself to try and cushion the hard ground, she lay awake, thinking only of Daryl's pinky finger.