A/N: This is set before Otis's funeral, episode 4, season 2.

2. 4. 2 When Beth taught Daryl about flowers

"Do you want some gloves?" Beth eyed over the dirty grazed hand that gripped around the limestone rock.

Daryl quirked an eyebrow and eyed her over as if she had just spoken to him in some foreign language.

"Nah." He turned his hands and presented them to her, displaying how hard-worn and covered with callouses they were. "Ain't been soakin' 'em in milk and honey. They're made for this kinda work."

Beth shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly; she wasn't going to force the redneck to take comforts he didn't want.

Daryl's heavy blue eyes remained on Beth as she bent and twisted delivering the rocks to the tray of the wheel barrow. Beth was feeling a little unnerved, wondering why he was looking at her like that. She raised her eyes up and glared at him questioningly. Daryl crinkled his brow in confusion.

"Why you wearin' white doin' work like this?" He flicked his finger towards the collared, sheer blouse she had chosen to wear that day.

"It's my favourite colour."

Daryl scoffed to himself, and gave his head a gentle shake.

"You know what's out there?" Daryl waved his hand to the expanse of the farm, but Beth knew he was referring to the sick ones out in the fields, woods and towns surrounding the farm.

"Makes 'bout as much sense as wearin' red to a bull fight."

Beth dropped the stone she was holding in her hand into the tray and placed her gloved hands on her hips, ready to challenge this awful smelling, dirty man dressed in rags, who dared to question her choice in clothing.

"It makes perfect sense. The world still needs a lil' brightness and purity."

Daryl shrugged his shoulders and Beth took note of how broad they were. She didn't think she had ever seen a man with such broad shoulders. Certainly not Jimmy. At seventeen, his shoulders were still narrow and boyish.

Beth shook her head, and turned back to the task of collecting stones, hoping her boyfriend didn't catch her admiring a feature he didn't have. "Why you helpin' anyway, you never even met him."

Daryl dropped his rock into the tray and then wiped the back of his wrist across his brow, collecting a puddle of sweat as it went. He flicked a finger over to the pile of rocks that was collecting under the nearby tree where they planned to hold Otis's funeral later on. "He gave his life to save a kid, the man deserves my respect."

Beth nodded in agreement. "He was a good man. He was teachin' me to strum a six string. I was just startin' to get real good...and now." Beth glanced out to the fields and smiled sadly as she thought of the jolly, bulky man and the times she had sung along to his guitar playing.

"I wish I could do somethin' more for him." She was speaking to no one in particular, but it was Daryl who watched her as he hefting rocks and tossed them into the barrow with a loud clang. "I wish daddy would let me leave the farm. So I could pick some flowers for him."

She swept her arm around to the expanse of trees that surrounded the farm. "The woods 'round here are teemin' with roses."

Daryl looked up at her, squinting curiously. "Roses?"

"Yeah, Cherokee roses, the white ones with the yellow in the middle..."

"Yeah I know 'em." He interrupted.

"They're real pretty. Otis would've liked to have 'em." Beth held the large rock in her arms to her chest, smearing red all over her white shirt, she brushed away some of the dirt with her gloved hand. "Do you know the story about the Cherokee rose?"

"I know 'bout as much 'bout flowers as a dog knows 'bout playin' piana."

"We learnt about it in History." Beth smiled to herself as she took the opportunity to teach the redneck something new. "You know the trail of tears? Back in the 1800s, The Native Americans lived on the land here in the South. The military forced them to leave their homelands and walk thousands of miles across the Mississippi. The journey was real hard. Along the way they lost a lot of their kids; to exposure, disease, starvation, some of them just got off-course and were never seen again. The mothers were so full of grief that the elders said a special prayer for them, to uplift their spirits and give them strength and hope. The legend says the next time a mother shed a tear; those white flowers would start bloomin' wherever it fell."

Daryl looked as if he had hung on to every word as she spoke.

"I don't think he wants to hear stories about flowers, Beth." Jimmy stepped between them and dropped a pile of rocks into the tray. "When's he ever gonna need to know all that stuff?"

Daryl glared at Jimmy. "You don't know nothin' 'bout me or what I need."

A/N: More to come, tell me if you like the idea.