A month. They had been living within the walls of Alexandria for a month now. Two months since Atlanta. Three months since the mortuary, Daryl estimated. Three months since he'd felt anything that resembled happiness. Not that he would ever admit to it, but there was no point in denying it when the entire group could see it.

When they had divided the group into their houses, Daryl had kept quiet, not claiming anything. It wasn't until Rick approached him and asked what the plan was. He said nothing, only looking down at the dirt. They stood in silence for a while, and then Rick gripped his shoulder, looking at him with warm, fatherly eyes that reminded Daryl of Hershel, which reminded him of her. "C'mon, brother," he said as he pulled Daryl along into his new house.

A month he had been sharing a house with Rick, Michonne, Carl, and Judith. There were two bedrooms in the house. The larger one was occupied by the entire Grimes clan including Michonne – who was pretty much a Grimes already with the way the two adults looked at each other – and the smaller room was meant to be taken by Daryl. Meant to. Instead, he walked the perimeter, sat on the porch, smoked his broken cigarettes until there was little more than a nub left, snuffing them out with his skin. No one had brought up his new habit, but he was sure they knew, sure they understood, so they didn't stop him.

He barely slept. He barely ate. He barely spoke. Always went to the bare minimum on everything. He didn't go on runs anymore, not because he didn't want to but because Rick asked him to keep an eye on Judith. Daryl knew that there were plenty of people that would be able to babysit the girl, but he never said no. Judith didn't need him to speak to her, and truthfully, those big doe eyes were the only thing that could make him attempt to smile. And when the corners of his lips twitched up, Judith would laugh.

Sometimes he would have a bad night, and someone would find him wandering the community like a walker and deliver him back to someone from the family. One night, Maggie had stepped out of her house for some fresh air and found him standing out in the middle of street, staring out over the walls in a daze. "Daryl?" she inquired and received no response. She touched his shoulder and he whipped his head around to face her in almost clarity, and then returned to the haze when he saw that it was just her. She sighed with a sad smile on her mouth, said "C'mon, Daryl," and led him with one hand across his back and the other braced on his bicep as she directed him back into his house. He was so disoriented that he let her sit him on his bed. "Go to sleep, alright?" He didn't move to lie back, but she seemed satisfied just to see him in his own room. She retreated back to her own bed, and Daryl stood up from the bed, only to settle on the hard floor, the exhaustion catching up with him.

That's how he slept now. The others thought that since he was in his room with the door closed, he must finally be in his own bed. It kept them happy, thinking he was progressing through his grief, but he refused to sleep in that goddamn bed. Aaron had spoken like a salesman about the bed, saying words like "soft", "comfy", "warm", and all of those words made him cringe. This is the comfiest bed I've had in years. Really? I ain't kiddin'. That coffin was for the wrong person. He needed a cigarette.

When he ran out of cigs, he went to Abraham, someone he'd never really spoken to before, but he knew that if he asked Rick, it would start a conversation that he didn't want to hear. Rick would play the role of a caring father, but really all he wanted was the taste of stale cigarettes. Abraham hesitated for a moment, chewing on the inside of his mouth, but agreed to find him some. When the group returned half a day later, the burly ginger-haired man handed him a black garbage bag with three packs of mix-matched Marlboros. Daryl nodded him thanks, but Abraham quietly turned to find Eugene and give him a bag of Doritos.

Two months inside the walls of Alexandria and Daryl had not changed. He saw the good that came from being accepted into the community. Maggie had moved mountains, smiling and laughing with Glenn and becoming good friends with Tara. (Once in a while, she got this sad look in her eye, but she knew how to counter it by now.) Eugene, Rosita, and Abraham had recovered from Eugene's mistake and made up. Judith was starting to toddle around on pudgy legs, giggling and blowing raspberries, making the entire damn town laugh. He was sure that they hadn't seen a baby that young since before the turn. That baby gave life to the people, and gave them a sliver of hope. Daryl tried to cling to that hope, but it always became too painful to think about hope without Beth.

One day, there was a rush inside the walls. Daryl was sitting at the base of a tree, a cig perched between his lips, one of his bolts twisting ant hills out of the dirt, when he heard yelling from the front gate. One of the Alexandria people stationed atop the gate bellowed, "Stay back!" That statement brought Daryl quickly to his feet. His first instinct was to investigate, but instead he ran back to the house where Michonne was playing with Judith's little toes. He practically slammed the door behind him, alerting the woman of his entrance. "What's wrong?" she said, noticing his distress.

"Somethin' goin' on at the wall." He loaded his crossbow, made sure he had his knife secured at his hip and a gun in his waistband.

"Where are Rick and Carl?"

"I don' know," he replied lowly.

"We gotta find them," Michonne went to get up. "I gotta find them."

"No. You stay with her. I'll go see what's up. Here," he handed her a gun. "I'll be back." His heart was beating in overdrive as he moved through the streets, peeking around corners, expecting the gates to be overrun with walkers. Instead he saw one of Alexandria's doctors running to a cluster of people, then turning to run back to her office, as if to grab a piece of equipment. Between the bodies of observers, he saw a dark-skinned man lying on the ground with blood on his arm. People from town, including Carol, were checking him for bites and broken bones and making sure to keep pressure on the wound.

When he began to approach the scene, Rick appeared from the group and ran towards him. "Daryl," the man sighed tiredly.

"What happened?" he asked.

"A friend of mine… Morgan. He was the one that saved me right after." Before Daryl could ask if he was bit, Rick interjected. "He's fine. Just a deep cut probably from glass or wire. Doctor's on it. But you might want to wait back at the house for a bit-"

"Why? What's goin' on?" Daryl went to walk past Rick, but was cut off once again.

"This is just a very delicate situation and I think you just need to calm down-"

"What the hell are you talkin' about, Rick?" He didn't mean to speak so loud, but all this dancing around what could be a serious problem was pissing him off and all he wanted to do was smoke and burn. His voice broke the reverie of the gathered people, and he saw Glenn's smiling face turn toward him. It wasn't until then that he recognized Maggie's back. She was hugging someone to her, with Glenn at her side. When the Asian man turned at the sound of Daryl's voice, the smile faltered and then softened. He spoke to Maggie and the person she was holding, and soon Maggie released them. Daryl's already nervous heart picked up speed once again. He wasn't ready to see another happy reunion of someone else. It hurt too much. But when the person's head peeked out from behind Maggie's trembling shoulder, the drumming of his beating heart went quiet.

Four months. Four months since he's seen that face. Four months since he'd last touched her, felt her pulse alive under warm skin and sunshine hair. Four months since he'd heard her melodic voice singing him into the most blissful sleep since the fall of the prison. Four months since that word that she uttered into the flickering darkness, that word that didn't seem real, just like this moment. Oh…

Her smile gave way to shining tears in her eyes and her castles hand covered her mouth to smother her sobs. Daryl felt like he was floating, drowning, lost at sea. "She…" his voice crackled in his throat. "She can't…" She can't be alive. She can't be real.

"She is," Rick spoke softly.

"She's alive…" his words trailed off. "How?"

"Doesn't matter. She's here and she's alive. Worry about how later." Daryl's legs were cemented in place, the shock dripping from his form like melting ice. "Go on, brother," Rick gently pushed him forward. Slowly he trudged toward her, not trusting himself to run, in case he was dreaming.

The blonde, however, took off in his direction, a mess of tears and dirt and sweat. She collided with him at full speed, nearly knocking him to the ground, her strong, slender arms tight around his neck. His hands were weak and shaking as they reflexively touched her back.

She was warm. Her whole body seemed to be shaking, her mouth making a noise somewhere between crying and laughing. Her tangled hair tickled his nose and she smelled like blood, but underneath it all, this was her. This was the way she was. Dirty and bloody, and always juggling the good and the bad, but always breathing. Always surprising him.

Daryl's breathing picked up until he was almost hyperventilating as he tried to keep himself together, but at the feeling of heat from the once-dead girl that had saved his life, he shattered at the seams, and he didn't care who saw. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, letting himself let go of the tears. His hands clung to her upper back, clutching her so close he worried that he would break her, and whispered her name. "Beth." The name he hadn't spoken aloud since Grady came out broken and squeaky, his tired crying making his words sound like those of a child. His broad back concaved at the feel of her tiny hands stroking his hair, shushing him, saying things like, "It's okay; I'm okay." God, her voice was so perfect in his ears. God. He hadn't prayed, but he could definitely consider his existence now that he had brought her back from the dead.

His shoulders shook harder at the thought of how incredible the world was. The dead had been walking the earth for years now and he was standing in the middle of a street hugging someone he had thought was dead and gone. A sound he didn't recognize bubbled out of his throat into her mess of hair.

"Daryl Dixon, are you laughing?"

"Shut up."

…

That night, after the whole family gathered in the Grimes' house to catch up with her, Beth slept in Daryl's bed while Daryl himself slept on the couch just outside the door. It was at Maggie's behest that the decision was made. The married woman had missed her little sister, but she knew that Daryl needed this more. She had seen the way the loss had affected him and she wanted to give him something good for a change. Maggie had been fortunate enough to have Glenn at her side when things went wrong, but Daryl… he had no one to lean on, that much was clear. He needed her. They needed each other.

A whimper woke Daryl from his half-sleep, followed by a scream coming from his room. He burst in, crossbow lined up for danger, and saw Beth's twiggy body writhing under the covers. He let the bow fall to the floor and launched himself to her bedside. "Beth, Beth! Wake up!" Without much more, she awoke, breathing heavily like she had just ran miles. Her eyes flitted around her surroundings, and then focused on Daryl's worried eyes.

"Sorry," she whispered, her face lowering to stare at the ground.

"Nightmare?" he asked. When she didn't respond, he followed her gaze until she looked him in the eyes. "Talk to me, Greene."

A tiny smile touched her lips. "I always thought you were annoyed when I talked."

He returned the grin. "Yeah well, I haven't heard you talk for a while, so I've got some catchin' up to do, don't I?" She almost let herself laugh, but she didn't say more. Daryl sat up to return to the couch, saying, "Get some sleep. We'll talk tomorrow-"

"No," she said firmly. "I can't sleep. I can't go back there."

"What're you talkin' about, girl?"

"I'm…afraid that if I try to sleep… I'll wake up in that hospital… or I'll realize I really did die that day. I don't wanna go," she whimpered the last part, like she was on the brink of tears again.

Daryl sighed. "I know. I don't wanna sleep either…in case this is all just a dream. If I wake up and you were never here…I don't know what I'd do."

The two of them went silent for a while, letting the dust settle between them, when Beth finally spoke up. "You could stay here. With me."

Daryl's eyebrows furrowed together under his mass of overgrown hair. "What?"

"That way, when we wake up…we'll know that it wasn't a dream." She looked up at him with those big blue eyes that he knew so well, the same eyes that could ask him to set their only form of shelter on fire with moonshine. "Please?"

Again, he let a slow sigh breathe out through his nose, his eyes trained intensely on her, and without much room for argument, he settled on the bed beside her. She immediately draped her arm over his stomach and used his bicep as a pillow, catching him completely off guard, and soon she was fast asleep. For a few minutes, he watched over her, counting her breaths as her belly rose and fell, cataloging her injuries in his mind, trying to figure out how she survived a gunshot to the head. But after all the thinking started to make his head burn, he remembered what Rick said. It didn't matter how; the only thing that mattered was that she was here, in his arms, breathing against him, the quiet song of her lungs lulling him to precious sleep.

…

When Beth awoke the next morning, any doubt that she'd had the night before was snuffed out at the sight of a still-asleep Daryl Dixon. His bangs had been swept back in his sleep, leaving a clear picture of his face, completely relaxed, peaceful. Beth thought it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen in a long time. Through the night, they must have moved until they were facing each other, his heavy arm hanging over her thin waist, and her hand barely touching his chest, right where his shirt parted to reveal warm skin. This day was already a great day. She was awake and alive and Daryl was face-to-face with her, giving her the greatest gift she could ever imagine: A future. Hope.

She leaned forward to press her lips to his in a gentle, innocent kiss. She'd wanted to do this since that last night at the funeral home that was so peaceful and nice before it all went to hell. Surrounded by candles and his rumbling voice asking her to keep singing with those eyes that seemed to hold an entire ocean inside them, his hands on her when he carried her to the breakfast table the next morning; she couldn't stop smiling that day. The kiss was short, and definitely sweet, and she knew that being touched this way would wake the man up. When she pulled back, his eyes slowly opened to meet hers, blue meeting blue. She thought he would lash out or at least turn and leave. Instead, his hooded eyes watched her with a sort of fascination. He gripped her hip just a bit, the heat seeping through her clothes, before slipping it torturously slow up her side, over her shoulder and neck, until he was cupping her face in his hand. His thumb brushed just under her scar with a kind of delicateness that she didn't think he knew he had. He carefully traced her irremovable memories of the abuse, up to the circular scar at her hairline.

He surprised her by craning his neck out to kiss the bullet wound – which still hurt a bit, but she refused to let it show and make Daryl feel bad for being sweet – to replace the memories of being shot and in pain with the touch of his warm lips. Next, he returned his lips to hers; breathing her in like she was his last breath of clean air before drowning in the taste of her mouth. Her hand found purchase at his side, crumpling the fabric of his shirt in her fist as she pulled herself closer to him. Their chests pressed together and Beth couldn't hold back her moan at the heat. Her jaw dropped open when she couldn't get enough air – only then did they finally separate. Both were panting, cracking smiles like teenagers, love laced in their irises as they watched each other come down from the high.

They laid in bed together for a couple more hours. The others allowed them to sleep in – they could afford it and they both deserved some extra sleep. The whispered their experiences to each other between pillows, their fingers entwined, occasional kisses breaking the conversation when it got too serious. "I missed you," Daryl confessed to her. She smiled knowingly but didn't say anything back. She didn't need to. They both knew.

"I'm never leaving you ever again," she promised him. "Not for anything. We do this together. From now on." He clenched her hand in his, is eyes on her, in agreement. He told himself to ignore the beating of his heart in his ear, told himself that she probably couldn't hear it like he could. He briefly wondered if this is how it was for Glenn, or Rick, or Aaron. He'd heard Glenn say those words to Maggie on multiple occasions, and he'd always found himself cringing and wondering what it was about the words that made them so significant. He didn't know nothing about love – never knew it as a child, never understood it as a man – but he knew fully and wholly that what he feels for Beth, he would never feel that way about anyone else ever again.

Hey guys! Thanks for reading! This idea just kind of popped into my head and instead of doing the 5 different papers I need to get done this week for college, I decided to test my procrastination skills and write a bethyl short! You're welcome! (I'm so dead.) So I hope you enjoyed it and leave me some comments cuz I love feedback almost as much as I love the bethyl pairing (and peanut butter).

Happy Hump Day! :3