S2 is my favorite and with the way the show has been going lately (way too many characters and I care about less than half of them), I really miss S2 more and more. This first chapter is a short introduction.

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Chapter One.

"Beth-"

"Leave me alone!"

She didn't mean to slap his hand away and she definitely didn't mean to yell at him after dinner when everyone was still there, picking up their plates and cleaning off the table, but she had and she now felt everyone looking at her.

She felt a flush rise up on her cheeks and she quickly turned her head away so she was unable to meet anyone's eyes though she still felt them all burning into her. She left then. Headed right for the back door and didn't stop until she was outside and once she was, she sucked in greedy gulps of the cold night air.

Finally, she could breathe again. Inside, it was too warm and too small and there were so many people all there now. Not that she really minded them. Most of them. They were nice and good people and they were keeping this farm safe but right now, everywhere she looked, there were people and she couldn't remember the last time she was able to have just a moment completely to herself.

She knew she would go back inside in a few minutes and apologize to Jimmy. It seemed like she was doing nothing but apologizing to everyone lately but for the moment, she just wanted to stay out here and listen to the quietness of the night.

Any night that was a quiet night was a good one. She still sometimes could hear the shouts and screams of the others when Dale had been torn apart in one of the fields or when Rick had come back to tell them all that Shane had died and Lori had fallen to her knees, wailing as if she had been made a widow. If things were quiet though, that meant the walkers weren't coming and no one was dying this night.

She tilted her head upwards to look at the sky above. It was as black as licorice and the stars twinkled without a single cloud hiding them. Even with the end of the world, the stars still shone.

She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Inhale and exhale. She focused on that for a few moments, blocking out the sounds of the others coming from inside. She wondered how long she would be able to stay out here without someone coming to get her. She was never allowed out of anyone's sight. If it wasn't Jimmy or Patricia, it was Maggie or her daddy and somehow, her sister had wrangled Glenn into watching her, too. No matter where she was or what she was doing, she felt eyes on her. Even coming out of the bathroom, she had run into Patricia too many times in the hallway for her to consider it a coincidence.

And it wasn't as if she could even really blame any of them. After all, the last time she was left alone, she had shattered a mirror and slashed at her wrist.

But she was sorry about that. So sorry and she had apologized for it again and again. She had made the decision though to never to do that again. To keep living. And wasn't that the only thing that really mattered? Apparently not because now, she was glass more than ever.

The screen door opened behind her and she took another deep breath, bracing herself, but when she finally turned around to see which babysitter it was this time, it wasn't at all who she was expecting. Actually, he would have been the last person she would ever expect.

Daryl Dixon didn't necessarily scare her but he did make her nervous. When he had first arrived here, he always seemed to be snarling and pacing like a lion caged in at the zoo, desperate to have its freedom back. She couldn't figure out why he had stayed when he didn't seem to have any loyalty or obligation to the rest of the group with who he had come. But she saw how he had searched for that little girl and what he had done to himself in the process. She had been the one to help her daddy when they had dragged him back, unconscious and putting him down onto the bed.

She had seen the way he had slowly placed himself closer with the group, concerning himself with the decisions that had to be made and taking responsibility for the safety of the farm and all those who lived there. She saw the way Rick looked to him more and more now when he had once looked to his wife for advice and assurance.

And though he wanted to keep them all out of harm's way, she couldn't figure out why he would be the one to come outside where she was.

But before she could ask her mouth to ask, she saw him pull a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and popping one into his mouth, he lit it as he came down the steps. She felt her body stiffen as she expected him to speak with her – to tell her to get back inside – but he didn't say anything to her. She didn't know why she was expecting him to either. Of everyone on this farm, she was the one he should concern himself with the least. She wasn't part of his group and she couldn't handle herself like the others in her family could. If a walker did get her and she died, it wouldn't matter much at all to most of them.

He stood beside her – a couple of feet between them – and he smoked his cigarette in silence so she kept herself quiet, too. She crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself, pulling her sweater tighter around herself, and she went back to looking up at the stars. There was a time, when she was a little girl and what she wanted to be when she grew up changed every week, when she had imagined of maybe becoming an astronaut someday.

She had always wanted to touch the stars.

She almost forgot he was standing near her until he dropped his cigarette butt to the ground and stomped it out with his boot.

"Should get inside," he said in his gruff tone and she turned her head to look at him. He had never addressed her directly. Why would he? "You're shiverin'."

She shrugged even though she was cold. She just knew that inside the house, it was way too hot right now and she'd rather be feeling freezing than claustrophobic.

He turned his head then and looked at her and she noticed for the first time that he had his crossbow strapped to his back. He never went anywhere without it and she suddenly had an image of him snuggling up to it at night as he slept like a teddy bear. She almost giggled but was able to compose herself before she could.

He didn't scare her – not anymore – but he did make her nervous and she didn't want him to think that she was laughing at him.

"I'm alright," she said even though they both knew she was lying because just as she said that, another shiver, a rather violent one, tore through her body. "I just needed to breathe." She slowly moved her eyes from him and tilted her head back up towards the sky. "I can't really breathe in there sometimes," she then said so quietly, she didn't think he had heard her.

But then after moment, she heard him speak. "Yeah," he agreed, his voice quiet like hers, and she looked back to him but he was looking up at the stars above them now, too, and wasn't looking at her or even acknowledging that he had said anything at all.

So she didn't say anything else either and she found herself standing next to Daryl Dixon, staring up at the stars until the door opened again and Maggie told her to get back inside.

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