Happy Monday, everyone! So I thought I'd make a little continuation one-shot of "Months" just cuz I felt like writing a Bethyl quarrel. :) They're so cute when they fight, right? Well, let's just get on with it. This includes reckless Beth, angry Daryl, and lots of walkers. (So pretty much most of the show? Haha!)

"Daryl-"

"No."

"Daryl."

"No."

"Come on, you're not even gonna listen to what I've got to say?"

"I know what yer gonna say. Answer's still no." Daryl had come home early in the morning from watch when he mumbled that he was going on a run with Rick and a couple others. Habitually, she immediately started to pack a bag, only for Daryl to take the pack from her hands and tell her that she wasn't coming. Before she could react, he was stalking down the street toward the front gate where the others were waiting for him. She had to jog to keep up with his stride, calling after him the whole way like a puppy going after a treat. But Daryl wasn't having any of it.

"You can't keep me cooped up at the house forever!"

"Don't gotta stay in the house-"

"Daryl," she said ruefully.

"Look," He paused his journey, his hand up to stop her from continuing her begging. "I won't be gone long. Just stay here, and we'll talk 'bout it later. Alright?"

She didn't reply, but she didn't fight back either. She just pressed her lips into a thin line and let him go. With a glint of regret that was swallowed by finality, he went off past the gate into the wilderness. She stood in that spot for a long time, mulling over the whole day, feeling like she'd just been passively reprimanded by her father. This is not how she expected the day to begin.

Each day she woke up in that bed in the Alexandria – sleeping beside Daryl – she couldn't deny her surprise. She could barely remember the first few days of being, what Morgan called, "reborn". Back then, the whole world felt like it was underwater. She felt like she was drowning; falling in and out of dusty consciousness. Every night, she prayed to her daddy that she wouldn't wake up dead, or worse, back at Grady, where she wished she was dead. And every morning, she felt his warmth, either through his arm around her waist or the heat still simmering in the covers where he had waited until she stirred to finally get out of bed, no matter how late in the day. She figured that he didn't want her to think he was ever too far away from her, never out of reach.

What came with this new found connection between the once-unlikely pair quickly became Daryl constantly trying to shelter the blonde, refusing to continue her training or take her on runs. Basically, anything that was happening outside the gates of Alexandria, she was to have no part in it. At first it had been sweet – and secretly she did want a little bit of time off to enjoy her reunion with her family – but after a couple of weeks of doing the same thing, she was getting annoyed. As time went by, Beth was starting to glare at everything; the laundry, the bookshelves, herself in the mirror. Everything was a target of her frustration. She was going stir-crazy. She wanted back out there; wanted a taste of that old action that fueled fire in her bones. But Daryl wasn't one to budge on something he was set on. And he was on it like walkers on a meal.

He and the group were only gone about an hour when her confined thoughts started to flow dangerously. She had resulted in folding both of their clothes and sorting them into their designated drawers, making sure everything was neat and tidy – gosh, she hadn't done something this domestic since the farm – and the boredom had only made her more agitated. The anger in her had just started to bristle when she stilled, a thought in her head that could have gotten her into a lot of trouble if it went wrong. And yet, an excited grin pulled at her lips.

The bag she had started to fill earlier was still in the plush chair Daryl had plopped it caught her eye. It found its way onto her shoulder, along with a handgun hidden under her brown-leather jacket and her hunting knife on her hip. Additionally, she grabbed the half-size crossbow that Morgan had found for her on their route north from Atlanta, the leather strap crossing over her front. Casting one last look into the mirror, she looked like her fair skin and cornstalk hair was being swallowed by black leather and sharp angles. She looked like a goddamn badass, she smiled to herself. Carefully avoiding any members of the family, she made her way to the gate. One of the men, Nathan she thought his name was, stopped her in her tracks. "Where d'ya think you're goin', little missy?"

"Huntin'. Didn't Rick tell ya?" She smoothly replied.

"Wa'dn't here this mornin'. Nobody told me nothin' about no one-woman huntin' trip." She didn't like the way he was patronizing her with that slick grin of his.

"Then somebody must've forgotten to keep you updated. Aaron and Rick asked me to go lookin' for some meat sometime today, so here I am, tryin' to feed the town. You gonna go against them just 'cause you didn't hear nothin' about it?" Nathan seemed flustered at her lecture, swiftly waving his friends to let her pass through, where she briskly veered off to the right into the thicket of woods. Once she was out of sight, she let the sly-fox smile play on her lips, proud of herself for her developed lying skills.

Once immersed of the forest, she stopped to stand and just breathe. She remembered Daryl telling her to shut her eyes, stand perfectly still, and listen. Now, in the present, she let her eyelids drift closed and let all the sounds of the world come to her. She measured her breaths to the rhythm of the cicadas, her diaphragm expanding and compressing with the flow of air across her cheeks and through her hair. This was her element. This was her kingdom. Her eyes burst open, ready for the hunt.

She was deep into the trees when she spotted some faint tracks between fallen leaves from the approaching autumn season. The prints were small, round at the tips, not much of a heel. From what she could remember, she guessed it to be a deer, maybe a faun or younger doe. She followed it for what felt like hours, which she had learned was part of the hunting process; to be tired and sweaty and ready to give up when suddenly something crosses your path. Daryl had been a good teacher back then. (Not so much now, since he was too busy keeping her inside.)

She reached the base of a rolling hill, where the tracks lead her clumsily up over moss and rocks and long-fallen branches. Silently – like she had been taught – she crept up toward the ridge of the hill, cocking back the drawstring of her bow. She burst over with the weapon pointed out in front of her, only to be met with a herd. A huge herd. At least thirty walkers just milling around waiting for something to come along. Like a sweaty blonde with a crossbow. Her stupidly sudden movement drew some of their gazes to her, and with her mouth gaping open in surprise, her foot slipped off of the loose rocks in the dirt, making them dislodge and roll noisily down into rattling branches.

"Shit," she cursed, turning to run back the way she came. Fuck, I gotta lead 'em away from the town. Dammit, I'm so stupid. She scolded herself as she took off away from the direction of Alexandria, and toward where Daryl and the others had gone, hoping to be able to go around the front of the herd and lead them farther and farther out. Unfortunately, the hours of tracking in the blazing hot sun had undoubtedly weakened her a bit, and it was becoming harder to just run. If she was going to lead them around, she would need more energy; even more so if she would eventually need to fight them off.

Beth couldn't help but feel the guilt of her stunt weigh on her chest. She didn't feel any differently about Daryl's treatment of her lately, but she shouldn't have gone out on her own when her hunting skills were this rusty and her energy levels so slow to adapt. God, she wanted to cry. Daryl was going to be so mad when she comes back.

If she makes it back.

Her paced had slowed when she had been too caught up in her thoughts, when she suddenly felt fingers clinging to her shoulder. She spun around on a dime and sunk her knife into the walker's skull, not waiting around to watch it drop. Maybe the others would trip on it and give her some distance. But when she went to look back, no dice. They were still on her. What would Daryl do? What would Daryl do? She thought. Dammit, he wouldn't do something like this! She weighed her options as her breathing became more labored by the second. She could climb a tree, but the branches were higher than she could easily reach and the herd was hot on her tails. They would have her before she could even jump up to grab something. The option of just outrunning them until they were far enough away from camp was becoming less and less of a logical conclusion, as her energy was failing, and even so, once they were far enough away, how in the hell was she supposed to lose them to get back home? She couldn't fight back for every long; fire power was limited and she could quickly be overrun by them.

"Fuck, what do I do?" she said out loud to herself, her eyes tearing up. "What do I do?"

Suddenly, she heard the thunk of an arrow embedding into a skull and the pounding of feet. Over in the distance between trees was the group from the supply run – Daryl included. Sasha and Rosita were running toward her, machetes raised to kill. Soon the entire group was on the herd, swiftly taking out heads and stabbing eyes and dropping walkers like flies. Rick, Michonne, Glenn, Maggie, Abraham, a couple of people they had met from around town…Daryl. She knew they were all fighting off the dead at the moment, but she could see the extra tension in his shoulders. This journey home was gonna be tense.

Somehow, they had all managed to put down every single one of the travelling bodies, the forest floor littered with rotting bodies and swimming in black blood. Rick had been the one to look Beth over for bites and scratches, and finally ask her what she'd been doing. Daryl was out of earshot, so she told Rick the truth: that she had been itching to go hunting and had decided to go on her own. She solemnly admitted that it hadn't gone very well, and he had given her a stern look that reminded her of her father, but he heavily sighed and said he was just glad she was alright.

As the group trudged up the incline back to the road that lead to Alexandria, Beth noticed one of the walkers and she had to resist the urge to cry. A toddler, with what she could only guess used to be fancy, shiny, bright pink church shoes. Her feet must have been the size of Beth's palms. She hadn't been tracking a deer after all. She had been tracking a baby. Her heart broke in her chest. This was her fault. She hadn't been careful and she brought an entire herd of walkers on top of her, only to prove to Daryl that she could track down a meal on her own.

When they walked through the gates, Daryl immediately went back to the house, not looking back to see if she was following. He probably couldn't bear to see her face, let alone talk to her about what had just happened, but she knew she had to confess to it. So she followed him.

He left the front door wide open, the swing of it connecting with the siding of the house hard. Taking in a heavy breath, she dove in to face her judgment. She walked in to the sound of slamming cabinet doors as he unloaded his finds from the run. He was angry, no, he was furious. She could tell it wasn't just anger, because if he was just plain old angry, he would have yelled at her straight away and probably yell at her all the way home. But instead, he didn't say a word.

Beth shifted from leg to leg, trying to figure out what to say to fix this. He didn't look at her once, didn't stop aggressively throwing the cans and packages of food into random drawers. Everything inside the house was so loud until suddenly he was bent over the sink with his back to her, the gray-wash wings making him look more menacing than ever. She could hear his heavy exhales of his nose, and suddenly he was like a bull just asking to be provoked. "What the hell were you thinkin'?" he growled lowly. It was so quiet she wasn't even sure she had heard him correctly. She stuttered wordlessly for an appropriate answer, but nothing came out. BAM! He slammed his palm down on the counter, making her jump with a squeak. "Tell me! What the fuck were you thinking going out there by yourself?!" he shouted as he turned to finally face her. The ferocity in his eyes would have scared her more if she didn't know him so well. She was shaking a little bit, but not because she was afraid of him. "You could have gotten killed if I hadn't hear you plowin' through the woods, pantin' like a damn dog! If that fuckin' herd had been any bigger, we all would've been overrun! All because you thought you could do it all by your damned self."

"Daryl, I'm sorry you had to save-" she started quietly like her old, mousy self.

"Ya know, Beth, that ain't even the problem!" He threw out his hands in frustration, walking about the room like he was stalking prey. He pointed into her face. "You put everythin' in this camp at risk just 'cause ya thought ya had to prove somethin'. I thought ya were smart enough to know that when I say somethin', it ain't a fuckin' suggestion!"

She was done. She wouldn't stand for this, especially from him. "You've been treating me like a child ever since I got here! Now, I'm sorry for what I did, truly I am! But I've been doin' nothin' but laundry and babysittin' for the past few weeks. I'm not gettin' back into that routine of stayin' inside with all the people that you and Rick think are too much of a liability to go on runs. News flash, Mr. Dixon, things have changed. I've changed."

"Clearly ya haven't since you're bein' a whiny brat about not being on a couple of runs."

"Shut up! You don't see it, do you? After the prison, you knew I could take care of myself. You taught me to fight, to shoot, to track. You did all this shit so that I would always be able to take care of myself. When I got to Grady-" Her voice crackled under the name. It hurt just to say the word. "I had to defend myself, and I fucking did. I took a stand in that place. I took… so much from being in there that if it wasn't for you, I probably wouldn't have made it this far. Remember Dawn?" Of course he did, how could he forget? "She said that outside those walls, I was nothin'. Nothin' or somebody's burden. And I knew it couldn't be true. But I think you're trying to tell me that she was right all along."

"Don't you dare even insinuate that bullshit!"

"What else am I supposed to think, Daryl?! You keepin' me here while the rest of you go out and keep the group safe and fed, while I stay here, sitting on my hands waiting for you to come back with the haul. This town is mostly women and children that can't fend for themselves, but I can! I'm not the porcelain doll I was back on the farm anymore!"

"Dammit, woman, let me fucking protect you!" He roared over her. There was a fire in his eyes that she had seen before, though not to this scale. She had seen a taste of this outside the moonshine shack, where they had gotten piss-drunk and screamed at each other. It was a miracle that they didn't attract more than that single walker with how loud they had gotten.

When she didn't say anything back, he continued, his lungs blazing with words he never thought he had the courage to say. "Twice, Beth, I've lost you twice, and I thought I was gonna lose you again today. First time, when I had to watch that damn car take you away, that was bad. Second time was so much worse. I thought you were fucking dead! I carried your body out of that hospital, remember?! If I lost you again…if it was for real, I would die." He watched as tears seemed to flood her eyes, moments from spilling over. He didn't like to see her cry, but he couldn't stop. He needed to finish this. "And I wouldn't hesitate neither. I'd just go." His once heavy breathing leveled out and Beth was still silently staring at him. "I don't think you're weak. I never did. Just…let me be selfish this one time. At least for a little while longer, until I trust myself to keep you safe again."

A breath of air escaped her nose in a sig and she smiled the tiniest bit, the emotion thick in her voice. "Okay."

"And you ain't ever goin' anywhere without me." He pointed out.

"Okay," she said again as she brushed away the wet tracks on her cheeks. He reached out to help her, the rough pads of his thumbs soothing the tension that had been building under her eyes and in her temples. From the crinkling of her nose and squeezed shut eyes, he knew that her bullet wound was twinging, so he gently massaged the area around it like he had when she first asked him to. His hands were slow and warm and had put her to sleep on a number of occasions. Wordlessly, he moved his fingers over her forehead, only pulling back when she gave a little nod of satisfaction.

"What would I do without you, Daryl Dixon?" she sighed against him.

"You'd probably still be runnin' from that herd," he lightly joked, though the fear was still fresh from seeing her trying to outrun those monsters earlier that day. "Why were you runnin' that way anyway?"

She mumbled, "…was tryin' to get them away from the town."

To her disbelief, Daryl shook his head with a low chuckle, the kind that went straight through Beth's body like a shiver. "You sure are somethin', Beth Greene," he said. "Dawn couldn't have been more wrong. Y'ain't nothin'. You're somethin'. You're everythin'." And with that, he leaned down to press a soft kiss to her forehead, right above her newest scar. Beth leaned into it as she always did, and suddenly, being inside didn't seem so bad after all.

It took a couple days, maybe a little over a week, for Daryl to stubbornly – with his teeth locked and grinding in his mouth – ask Rick to include Beth in local runs. Anything that would take more than a couple hours to complete was crossing the line where Daryl stood on the whole subject, but he was willing to try to let her back in. Damn those puppy dog eyes of hers.

On their first journey out together as just the two of them, he walked her through what he had taught her previously, solidifying things that had gone rusty over the months apart, and also adding a couple small things to her arsenal. Nothing big that would get her overexcited – in case she wanted to practice on her own or something insane. They tracked down a couple squirrels and rabbits, letting her take the shots to get a read on where her aiming was. Daryl remembered thinking she looked so tiny with his big crossbow in her hands, but now with that half-size, she looked perfect, in every way possible. On her fourth rabbit – right between the eyes – she caught him staring at her. He looked proud, still a little wary of her, but there was a shine in his eye, like he couldn't believe where he was, who he was with, and who they had become. And frankly, neither could she.

After passing around their findings around the fire pit at the town-wide dinner, the pair slunk off to the house, knowing that Rick and Michonne and the kids wouldn't be home until late, as per the usual routine. Twisting and turning around each other like a wave current, they tangled in the sheets like high school lovers, searing each other's skin with lips, tongues, and hands until they were both on fire. When the satisfying exhaustion settled in their wake, they went over the basics of tracks under the tented covers, his big, strong arms propping him up as he loomed over her, his fingers twirling her hair. They must have gone over a million different animal track patterns before she finally yawned. With a blissful smile, he kissed her goodnight and promised another lesson tomorrow. And Beth dreamed of a handsome, pointed buck wandering through the forest, coming face-to-face with a giggling, little girl with shiny pink shoes.

Thanks for reading, everybody! Honestly, I've been so distracted by bethyl oneliners going off in my head that I've been trying to put them into one-shots just so I can get them out. I know that I haven't been doing much with "Chloroform", and I can tell you that the reason is that I'm in a really bad spot her in college and I wanted to take a break until I know that I'll be able to stay enrolled. (yes, it's that bad.) So, yes, I'm doing one-shots, but only because I put so much time and energy into "Chloroform" cuz I want it to be perfect. With one-shots, I can literally just write for a couple hours and be done and still have time to finish my homework. So I really appreciate the patience of my followers. Please stay with me and continue to give me feedback, so I know if I need to fix anything.

Thank you so much for your support!