It happened in stages. He would say that it disproved the idea of love at first sight, that instant attraction, but that would be wrong. You see, Rick had had that type once before, that hot summer day, the first day of junior year, when he'd laid eyes on Lori Johnson for the first time. But this, this second great love of his life had come in stages

When he had first met Beth, his eyes had skated right over her. He had Lori and Carl and everyone else to deal with, and she was still just a girl. It was only when Lori died and Beth devoted herself to his child that he really looked at her.

Rick distinctly remembered the first time he had felt something more. About a month before the prison fell, he came to relieve Beth of her child-minding duties but found her strolling up and down the bridge, rocking the sleeping child. When she'd heard his footfalls, Beth's arms had tightened protectively around her and she hunched her shoulders against whatever threat was coming. When her eyes registered it was only Rick, she relaxed visibly, and that megawatt smile came out. That was the first time he realised that this tiny, slender thing was now a woman willing to die for a child – his child.

"Hey!" Beth said, barely above a whisper.

"Hey to you, too." Rick wandered over to the pair, "Is she asleep."

"Uh-huh. First time today. I think she's teething." Beth turned so that Rick could peer over her shoulder at Judith's peaceful face. Rick had almost wrapped his arms around them both then. It seemed the natural thing to do. Instead, he caught himself and diverted his hand to her shoulder.

"Thank you." Beth just blinked those wide, wise eyes of hers at him and nodded. She understood what he was thanking her for.

After that they'd warmed up to each other a little more, maybe she realised just how much he appreciated her. Maybe he hadn't said it well enough until then.

But as it was, the prison fell and they were separated. They both thought Judith was dead for a while, their tiny, delicate family unit shattered.

But they found Judy before they found Beth. Or rather, Beth had found them. They'd come across her in a clearing the woods, dressed in scrubs and almost feral. When she had seen who was in their little search party she had dropped the knife to the leafy ground and sobbed.

Maggie was with them, but it was to Daryl's arms that Beth rushed. Rick wasn't an idiot, he knew from the way that Daryl had talked about losing her that there was something happening there. But thinking something was happening was completely different to seeing the skinny blonde jump into the monosyllabic hunter's arms, legs wrapped around his waist, causing them both to collapse to the ground. The two sat there in the forest, encircled by the group – whole for the first time in a month or more – everyone silent but for Beth's snuffling.

Maggie had dog piled on the two after a minute, unable to contain herself. The trio made an odd picture and odder still was to see Daryl include Maggie in their little huddle. Afterwards, Beth had sought out Judy and - Rick liked to think - him. Judy had gurgled with joy. Her face lighting up in way that not even he had elicited. Reunion of mother and child.

Their journey from there had not been a smooth one. It had led them, briefly, to Alexandria and beyond. Their trials ultimately led the group to realise that, despite a handful of good new additions, they would never trust outsiders as well as they trusted their own. Their friendship was something wrought in fire and in trials of faith. They were more than friends: they were family.

From there the long road from Alexandria led them to the ranch, somewhere down south. No one could seem to say more specifically: it seemed all the state lines had faded away.

It was here that patterns started to emerge, habits that would solidify over lifetimes. People began pairing off before their very eyes. One of the most obvious, to Rick's eyes at least was Beth and Daryl. They went from "maybe someday" to power couple overnight. Even Maggie didn't argue with the match, much.

Years slid by, almost without them noticing. The ranch population got a little bigger, a few new friendly faces joined. One a child, around Judy's age, the first playmate she'd ever had. The walker events became less common, most of them rotting away, reduced to dragging themselves along the ground.

Another change was the number of pregnancies. Procreation had never been on anyone's radar before, but after time passing with no invasions or herds crashing through, pregnancies started popping up all over the place. Soon there were even small children stumbling around, Judy no longer the baby to anyone other than Rick or Beth.

The day-to-day responsibilities changed too at the ranch. Runs were still important, but they became less stressful, if a little less fruitful. Meeting with neighbouring groups was less fraught than it used to be: good people really had survived. The Ranchers, as Beth had dubbed them, began to focus on farming again, taught themselves to sow and reap. Produce paved the way to trade and finally it seemed possible to imagine a real life in this new world.

The only thing they really missed was modern medicine, which was fast running out. Homeopathy was being brought back, books studied and basic first aid taught to all, but none of this was a comfort to mother or father when Judy fell ill. Three horrendous days of Judy's temperature soaring and her hardly moving at all saw Rick and Beth camped by her bedside, only leaving to fetch more supplies. When the fever broke they collapsed into each other's arms with relief. Rick had carried her to Daryl when she finally let exhaustion take her.

The Ranchers even took to building, making things with their bare hands. Good and hard work that most of them would never known in the Old World. Rick still felt a hum of pride whenever he walked past the first new residence that they'd put up. The boundaries had been pushed back, too, to take in the new people and new animals. Anything, it seemed, was possible.

Before they knew it, the ranch was becoming a trading post. Everyone pulled their weight there, none more so than Rick and Beth who had somehow become public faces of sorts for the ranch. And so it was that people started mistaking Rick and Beth for a couple. The first few times, Rick had hurried to set them straight. He didn't want people to think he was a dirty old man, he told himself, nor did he want to piss off Daryl. But every time he denied it, it made him sad for some reason. And, after a while, he didn't bother to correct people who were passing through, cooing over he and Beth and Judy. Neither did she. Her big blue eyes twinkled conspiratorially.

Besides, Rick figured Daryl didn't care in the end: it was his bed that she fell asleep in each night. He and Beth were just good friends making the most of an awkward situation, he told himself.

But Rick looked up one day to see Beth and Daryl walking beside the perimeter. They had been at the ranch for almost three years now. The two were talking easily, words spilling out of Daryl at a rate that anyone else would be stunned by. Between them they swung Judith who was warbling with laughter, turning her smiling face up at the two adults.

Rick felt his heart spasm with something at the image, something not entirely happy. Something darker than that. He realised he was jealous of Daryl. He told himself that it was because of what they had: that easy companionship. The warm bed at night. The easy 'good cop' relationship he had with Judith. Only late that night did Rick acknowledge to himself that he envied his friend for the simple fact that Beth Greene loved him.

It was an uneasy realisation. Once made, Rick buried it down deep and smiled for all their milestones. Laughed with the rest of the group when Daryl dealt with her stubbornness by slinging her over his shoulder and carrying her to bed, as she laughed and raged all at the same time. He wept, too, when his brother and his friend lost their unborn child.

Above all, Rick never complained or railed against the unfairness of the world because he knew that Daryl deserved this, deserved her, to be happy. Probably more than Rick did.

Then one day it happened, and all of Rick's faint envy and gently simmering resentment was flushed out with grief and shame. Beth and Daryl had gone out on a standard run and hunt one day and hadn't come back when they said they would. The benefit of the doubt was given, but two days past the deadline, the ranch was in a panic. Maggie raged and tore and frightened the children. But before the search party could leave on the third day, Beth came home alone.

Rick had been on watch in the guard tower they had constructed – the prison had taught them well – and had been the one to see her, staggering in the predawn light. Rick heard himself thanking God and realised that he must still believe.

Before he made his decision, his feet were pounding along the ground as he sprinted for the fence. He caught her, arm wrapping around her, when she fell at the gate. Her hands gripped his shirt collar and she sobbed against him. He carried her to the homestead in his arms, like Daryl had done before. Judy met them on her small legs, at the door. She just held onto the two of them, perhaps sensing that words were of no use. Rick wondered how many four year olds would be so intuitive in the Old World.

Beth wouldn't say what happened at the school. But she was covered in scratches and blood and, most tellingly of all, was carrying Daryl's bow. She didn't speak for days. Maggie fretted over Beth, stretched out and nearly catatonic with grief.

"It's the farm all over again." Rick heard her telling Carol in the kitchen one morning, her voice thick with grief. It seemed that the two years or so without any losses had made this one particularly hard to bear. But then, Rick thought, the loss of Daryl had always been unthinkable.

It took the rest of them, Rick most of all, a while to accept the unspoken truth: that Daryl was gone. Tyreese suggested that they take a small search party out to check, but Carl had spoken for them all when he pointed out that Beth would not have left him for anything in the world. Rick knew, in the heaviness of his heart, that Daryl must have saved her at the cost of his own life. Like Daryl had always known he would.

In the end, Beth re-joined the group on her own terms. Four days after her return, she found Rick in the watchtower. Dropped quietly down beside him, Daryl's bow across her lap. Despite the knots and snarls in it, her trademark hair was luminous in the moonlight. Rick waited for her to speak first. It took about three hours.

"I don't know what I'm going to do without him." Her voice was thick and scratchy with disuse. Rick just nodded and took his time in replying. She didn't seem to be in a hurry.

"That's okay. I don't either. He was my brother." Beth turned to face him, her features soft.

"I know. I figured you must miss him as bad as I do." She murmured before turning her gaze back to the perimeter. Rick could see Glenn approaching for his shift and waved him off. He didn't want Beth to clam up now.

In the end, they didn't say much more, just sat in sympathetic silence. But Beth started joining him every time he pulled watch duty, and when she asked to be put back on the roster in her own right, he repaid the favour.

Rick could tell you, better than anyone, that grief wasn't a straight road. Some days Beth was fine and dandy, others she never left her room. But she never strayed so far as Rick had done. Never turned people away from her door, whether they be Maggie or Judy or himself. He asked her once how she coped.

"Just gotta keep on living, takin' every day as it comes, just keep living for him." She told him. And so she did.

It took about a month before she told him how it went down. Rick almost wished she hadn't, but he sensed she needed to get it off her chest. It was just as most of them had guessed. They had gotten pinned down, managing to keep the walkers at bay for a while but their supplies had dwindled. Daryl had sacrificed his life for hers, given her the bow and told her he would meet her at a rendezvous point. He had made it, just. Just in time to die in her arms.

"Did you…?" Rick couldn't bring himself to ask the question, but she understood. Her eyes blazed with a strength he knew hadn't been there when she was just a girl on a farm.

"'Course I did. Couldn't let him be that way." She told him and Rick felt a lump build up in his throat and suddenly the tears that he had kept back for her sake were falling.

"I'm sorry," Rick was embarrassed at the sobs that were coming out of him; it had been a long time since he cried, "for it all." Beth pulled him to her and wrapped her skinny arms around him. It was completely backward, but he couldn't help but take the comfort that she offered. She shushed and rocked him and stroked his hair, just like a mother would.

The next day things seemed to be better. She started smiling again, even as she toted the heavy crossbow around the ranch land. She went back to her duties on the farm, tended the two horses that she and Judith loved. Those horses had been a bitch for him and Daryl to catch, but it was worth it for the smiles on their girls' faces. Rick smiled at the memory of Daryl saying as much. Everywhere Rick looked, he saw Daryl's touch.

And, somehow, life went on. Maggie had twins. Carol fell for a man in the next settlement over and left them behind, visiting like family would. Bob and Sasha married. Tyreese took a couple of teenagers under his wing, looked after them like they were his own. Abraham and Rosita drifted apart and onto other loves. Carl started enjoying a life not a thousand miles away from what it might have been in the Old World – a term that had passed into common use. Judith got bigger and brighter everyday. And Beth and Rick were left standing still. Friends and parents, but watching the world go by. And they might have stayed that way forever, without intervention.

"When are you gonna do something about that, old man?" Carol asked him out of the blue, on one of her visits. Rick started, nearly jumped out of his skin. Carol raised an eyebrow as he realized he'd been caught watching Beth, who was showing the children how to bridle a horse. Rick tried to laugh it off, but Carol was fearsome, only more so since she got pregnant.

"I'm serious, Rick. You need to do something about that before someone else does." She poked him in the arm – harder than strictly necessary.

"What are you talking about?" Rick said. He'd decided that playing stupid was his best policy here. Maybe she would take pity on him. Carol's lips pursed into a thin line.

"I'm talking about the fact that you're in love with Beth.' She said, matter-of-factly. Rick tried to laugh it off again but it caught in his throat. She knew them too well.

"I can't." He said.

"Why not?"

"Because it's not right." Carol heaved a sigh of impatience at him.

"And why's that?"

"Because she's too young for me. Because I'm an old man. Because she's still Daryl's girl. Take your pick." Rick fidgeted with his gun belt, averting her eyes from Beth, even as he could hear her laughter ringing. He didn't see Carol's face soften.

"You're a fool, Rick," He looked at her, "Of course she misses Daryl, she loved him. And now she loves you. It's plain to see." Carol said. Rick's tongue felt fat and stupid in him mouth, immobilized with hope. Carol just rubbed his arm out of pity before she moved off. Rick stood there in the dusty field and watched the blonde girl, wondering if he had the strength to roll the dice one more time.

A few weeks later, Rick looked up over the bonfire they were having to celebrate the anniversary of the founding of the ranch community and felt that familiar double beat of his heart that he always seemed to get when he saw her and he realized just how right Carol had been. He watched Beth's eyes sparkled at their daughter over the firelight. No one could tell him that Beth wasn't Judith's mother. Yes, Carol was right: Rick Grimes loved Beth Greene.

Beth noticed him and smiled across the flames, raising her glass to him. He was pretty sure she was drinking some of the homemade moonshine. She'd always had an inexplicable taste for it. Could hold it, too. She waved him over, and he wandered through the small crowd, exchanging niceties and trying not to let his dinner roll off his plate.

He sat down on the log she had managed to commandeer and exchanged a smile with her. He was watching for the signs now. She smiled at him and it reached her eyes in a way that belied the tragedy of their lives. She was twenty-five years old, or thereabouts, Rick reminded himself, and a mother of a seven year old who was not hers. But you couldn't read this in her face. Only that she was happy and beautiful and maybe a little drunk.

"Hey, you." She said, breaking his reverie.

"Hey."

"What is it? Have I got something on my face?" She laughed, and Rick realised his scrutiny had not been discreet.

"No, I'm sorry." Rick heard the laughter in his own voice. How long had she been making him happy?

"What is it, then?"

"You're just very beautiful." He told her. Beth blinked with surprise and Rick thought for a moment he'd made a horrible mistake. Her mouth formed an 'o' of surprise but before he could apologise, it was spreading into something like a grin.

"Wow."

"Is that a good wow? Not too cheesy?" He said. He was rewarded with another laugh.

"No, it's…" She bit her lip as she thought for a moment, "It's a very good 'wow'. A 'long time coming' wow. 'Bout damn time' wow." The humour in her face was made more alive by the flickering of the flames. Rick ducked his head in embarrassment.

"I'm real sorry about that, but how 'bout I make it up to you?"

"Oh, really, and how are you gonna-" Beth's teasing was cut off by Rick pulling her face to his, planting a good one on her. What started off as mocking became passionate, her mouth moving beneath his, her hands trailing along his chest. His hands gripped her hips and he heard a noise in the back of her throat that nearly sent him wild.

A burst of happy conversation near broke their spell and they fell apart, only a little sheepish.

"Really has been a long time coming." Beth said as she pulled his arm around her shoulders and he smiled into her hair. No, he thought, this wasn't the kind of love story you read in fairy tales, not the kind they sang songs about, but it was theirs, and it would do.