Beth has known Daryl since always. She knows that can't be true, but her first memories include him on the farm with her daddy, and she doesn't remember a time when he wasn't there. She knows the story, that he found her family after the outbreak, that her mama was dying and her daddy was old, that in exchange for shelter he'd agreed to protect the Greene's from the living and the dead.
Beth only knows one world, a world in which Daryl has a very clear existence. It's really nothing to her at all except absolutely natural when the spirit of her turns warm and bright in his presence (which is pretty much always) and his name slips into something like want in the way it comes from her mouth. She's met plenty of people in her life, but she's only really known two men – her daddy and Daryl. He isn't her brother and he isn't her father, he's just Daryl until he isn't.
She loves him and trusts him the way one does because they always have. What blooms in her isn't spurred on by friends and seventh grade sex ed courses. It just is. One day she enjoys his arm around her shoulder because it's always been there, and the next she enjoys it because she's close to him and it centers everything in a body she didn't realize was so terribly off kilter.
It's natural, it's right. There really is no one else, and even if there were she'd gravitate to him.
She gravitates toward him now from across the bed. Beth is never bothered by anything they do, but she can tell he's agitated after they've finished. When she was younger, she would ask him questions all the time, and she's taken to doing it now to calm him. She remembers him smoking a lot, but the cigarettes ran out a long time ago and this is the next best method.
Daryl takes up a good portion of the bed, sprawled on his back with one hand over his eyes and the other thrown into her territory. She lays her head there, at the warm junction of shoulder and neck. He's a little jumpy, because he's agitated, but he can't ignore her this close.
Still, she keeps her voice gentle and quiet, like he taught her for when they hunt. It rumbles out of her from her chest, barely there.
"How many Cold Times have you been alive?"
If it weren't for the fucking question, Daryl might laugh at her wording. But the question persists, and if she meant to make him feel any fucking better it isn't working.
The world went to shit when he was nineteen. His good for nothing brother left him with his good for nothing father. A quick hunt turned into a few days out by himself and he'd stumbled upon Herschel and Annette and little Beth. Cancer was taking Annette pretty quickly and Herschel was old and Daryl was hungry and they'd all kind of agreed that he could eat with them a few nights. A few nights turned into a few weeks, in which he'd warded off some assholes looking to take shelter instead of share it. There'd been an agreement made – protect the family, stay with the family.
He'd never gone back to his old man's trailer. Beth had been Annette's responsibility until she'd died, then Herschel's until one day he'd kicked the bucket, too. And then Daryl was alone with a kid. By then she was damn old enough to recognize the situation for what it was – two people stuck together at the end of the world. Wasn't that they couldn't stand one another, just took some getting used to on his part, being totally responsible for someone other than himself.
But he'd raised her, kind of, in the sense that he never let her wander off, taught her how to do for herself, protected her and her land when unfriendly types wanted to hang around for a day or two.
She was a kid and then she wasn't. Daryl hadn't been like his brother Before. He'd been gangly and fucking shy, unsure of himself and angry; girls had liked his face, his voice (product of cigarettes since he'd turned thirteen), the whole quiet tortured bad boy shit, but Daryl wasn't just fucking to fuck. No, he wasn't his brother.
There'd been girls, women really. Nineteen when shit ended and all, so the screws from bars were usually older, didn't care about much of anything except getting theirs for the night. And there'd been once After, though Daryl'd felt so much guilt afterwards it hadn't been worth it. She'd passed through with a couple and their son, and some random people they'd picked up along the way. She was grieving the loss of her child, inconsolable to the rest of her group. They were a good group, nice people. They weren't a threat to him, weren't a threat to Beth, so he let them stay a few days. He'd stay up those nights groups stuck around, and the lady always seemed to be awake, too. It'd been a distraction for her and a release for him. Her tears afterward and Beth's footsteps, coming down to check on him like she always did, had ruined it completely. They all left the next morning.
But that'd been forever ago. Beth wasn't anywhere close to a child anymore and there was no one left. It was impossible not to notice the changes in her – the changes in her body, sure, but more in the way she regarded him. Started sticking close to him without purpose, putting weight behind his name, fucking smiling when she'd been nothing but bratty for a stretch of years he could only assume were fueled by hormones.
Didn't mean he didn't hate himself, didn't mean he didn't feel like Herschel and Annette weren't cursing him from the great beyond. He'd avoided her as much as one can avoid their only companionship for as long as he could. (Amounted to a week. Maybe.) There'd been all the typical angst he'd expected of himself, and then the breakdown, also expected because he wasn't particularly strong, a fact his brother and father had loved to remind him of Before.
And then she'd started holding his hand and kissing him on the cheek and sleeping in his bed. And then…
It was all good. It was fine. He was happy, generally. As happy as a smoker and drinker can be when the tobacco has run dry and the beer is gone. Happy enough when being in the presence of only one other person was sometimes enough to drive him mad. But Beth was bright as ever, happy to have her way. By some stroke of luck there was still game to be hunted and their vegetables grew heartily and there was fruit to be found. There was laughter in their house, conversation, very relaxing days after very trying weeks.
It was all good. It was fine. It still settled like a fucking rock at the base of his gut when he'd finish rutting on top of her, when he'd try to get far and she'd settle back against him. Like he wasn't taking advantage, like he hadn't known her as a child. He doesn't really understand why he keeps fucking her, except that it's just kind of the flow of things. Except that he really does like it until it's over.
He puffs out a stream of air, aggressively wishing he had a fucking cigarette, for the love of God, and stares past her. Silently thanks her for her patience, and responds to a question he'd almost forgotten she'd asked.
"Fucking winter, girl. Stop saying Cold Time like it's a real thing."
She's unfazed by his gruffness, usually is, but he can tell she's a bit uneasy in wanting to tame his agitation. Probably feels bad, like she's in the wrong. Beth's good that way. He can feel her looking at him, waiting for what she wants. And she always gets what she wants, spoiled even when the world doesn't offer anyone shit anymore. He spoils her.
"And Iunno." He's trying to think about it now. For the sake of fucking mathematics, he'll round up to being twenty at the start of all this shit. But it's hard to keep track of years, of time. Everything just starts blending together and stretching on forever. They try to mark time with winter, because it's always warm until it isn't. That harsh line of demarcation is the easiest way to analogue change, but shit…it's all one long day at this point.
He remembers it took Herschel three winters to pass, so he's thinking he'd been twenty-three. He doesn't remember exactly how many more after that until that friendly group rolled through and stayed awhile, but if he's guessing he'd say two or three.
And then, Lord how could anyone forget, a few winters later Beth'd started honest to goodness bleeding and neither one of them had known what to do, and that'd led into endless summers and endless winters of unnecessary attitude from her. And then…well his beard is greying (grey, it's mostly just grey but he doesn't want to admit that to himself), and his joints fucking hurt.
In the end, he guesses he's been here maybe fifteen winters, not counting the one that'll start sooner or later. Fifteen years. He feels older than he is, and guesses neither his lifestyle Before nor After could be considered easy.
"Figure I'm about thirty-four, thirty-five now." It's still old enough to try hiding the answer behind her hair, though she hears it anyway. She lifts her gaze to him again and he's kind of embarrassed at how big of a pussy he's being about this, so he looks at her for the first time since they've finished. She has the prettiest eyes he's ever fucking seen.
Her voice is still low and quiet when she breathes into him, "So how many winters do you think it's been for me?"
That question isn't any easier, in terms of remembering but also in not feeling like a complete creep, but when he can't see anything other than her face, when he can feel her speaking, he doesn't really have a choice in getting closer. He loves holding Beth, never feels guilty for it. His body runs warm and hers runs cool and there's something that feels at ease in him when he's got a hand on her shoulder, her hip. His body, which is usually one jitter away from complete exhaustion, finds a way to be still when he's holding her. He does now, turns on his side and brings the arm she isn't laying on to kind of paw at her waist, slips it onto her back and relaxes.
She's waiting, getting sleepy but hanging on. Spoiled girl.
And he cannot believe in all his angst ridden self-hatred he never stopped to think about this, because it isn't as bad as he's always assumed. If he's been here fifteen years and she was four when he arrived (a fact he knows damn well because she introduced herself as "Beth Greene and my mama says I'm four years old"), then…
"Nineteen." And he's sleepy now too, in a way he usually doesn't let himself be after sex. She isn't a kid, and he knows if the world were right this would never happen. But the world isn't right, and he's the only person left that cares about her, knows about her. She's the only person left for him, too. And she's beautiful and he knows she loves him, because she doesn't know how else to be. And if he weren't such a dumbass, he'd have known all along the numbers they were working with. And she's smart and strong, she stands up to him when he's being an ass and waits for him when he's scared.
She's fallen asleep, satisfied with what he's given her. He follows.
