Chapters for this story just seem to always fly out of me and I couldn't be more grateful for that because writing this universe is honestly one of my favorite things to do. Thank you to those who love it as much as I do and who continue to read and review.

…

Three. Rest.

They had collected many books over the years and they read from one nearly every night after dinner. It had begun when it had just been Daryl and Beth, starting out, and they had grabbed a couple books by Susanna Kearsley that they had found. And after it was decided by them that they would be staying in their house in the St. George subdivision and began going through more of the houses there, they took books and added to their collection.

Now, years later, they had books in stacks all throughout their living room and bedrooms and whenever they found themselves going through a house or store and the previous owners had had books, they would look over titles to see if they had any of these yet.

Everyone took turns, picking the book they would be reading from for the next few nights until they finished it and moved onto the next. Tonight had been Bee's turn and after the table was cleared and the dishes were washed and drying, everyone gathered in the living room and waited as Bee looked over their vast collection, wanting to pick the best one. She finally picked a book of Greek tragedies of all things and picked a play at random, laying down on the floor in front of the fire, her head resting on Lily, beginning to read all of the parts in Medea simply because she liked the sound of it.

But as Bee continued reading all of the character parts, she slowly began sitting up until she was standing, her voice growing in eagerness as she moved to read the next character's part and then the next.

Just let me stay this single day

To arrange my exodus from here

And make provision for my little sons –

Whose father cannot bring himself to care.

Be kind to them.

You are a father too;

You know what kind feelings are.

As for me,

It means nothing to me

Whether I stay or go.

It's them I shed my tears for:

Their lot is hard.

"Is this children appropriate?" Rosita whispered in Spencer's ear.

Spencer smiled a little and shook his head. "Not at all. But she won't know that yet."

His eyes moved back to their daughter as she continued reading and everyone was watching her and listening, all hanging onto her every word, and Spencer couldn't help, but imagine Bee standing on a stage in an elementary school auditorium and he and Rosita sitting in the audience with the other parents and he would be recording every second of it on his phone. And the more he thought of it, his smile began to slip from his face. Rosita looked over to him and it was as if she was able to read his mind because she reached her hand over and slipped it into his. Spencer gave it a squeeze and held on.

Daryl was sitting in the rocking chair, Jack dozing on his chest, and he turned his head towards the kitchen. Beth was sitting at the table, listening to Bee, as she nursed Cecily, a blanket drawn over her chest and the baby. There was a single candle on the table in front of her and even in the flickering flame, Daryl could see the slight circles under her eyes. She was exhausted. She would never say, but she wasn't able to hide anything from him. She should know that. He had learned to read her years ago.

Girl was running herself into the ground – just as she always did – and she needed her rest and even though this is what Beth always did to herself, it always managed to piss Daryl off that she never seemed to want to take better care of herself.

Finishing with Cecily, Beth took a moment to put herself together once more before she pulled the blanket down and then stood up, shifting Cecily in her arms to burp her. Daryl stood up as well, slowly so not to disturb Jack, and he looked to Aaron, who was sitting in the chair next to him. Sensing him standing there, Aaron turned his head up towards him.

"We're gonna head to bed," Daryl told him and Aaron gave a nod.

Eli, having been sitting on the floor, listening to Bee, turned his head as well, and saw his parents standing up, and he then stood up, too. He walked around the room, hugging everyone goodnight, before heading towards Daryl.

"You can stay and listen to Bee some more," Daryl told him.

Eli shook his head and yawned as he did and that was all he had to do. Daryl smiled a little and putting a hand on the back of his head and holding Jack in his other arm, he guided Eli towards the back door in the kitchen.

The family left the cabin, closing the door behind them, and they crossed the yard to their treehouse. Until a person experienced absolute darkness, a person really didn't understand it. In the past world, there had always been some semblance of light for most of them. A nightlight plugged in somewhere in the house, someone's porch light or a streetlamp shining in past the drawn window blinds. Out here, there was obviously nothing. The moon was out that night, but in the spring and summer when the leaves were thick on the trees, hardly any was able to shine through. In the winter, it could be as bright as a spotlight, but for now, it was pitch black. But they all knew every inch of their fenced in yard and could walk it blindfolded – which is how it felt now.

On the first landing, Daryl handed Jack to Eli and he went up the step ladder first to light a couple of candles in the room and stoke the fire in the stove and he then poked his head through the door to look at them waiting for him.

"All good," he told them.

Upstairs, Eli went to go change into his pajamas and Beth and Daryl worked side by side, giving the twins fresh cloth diapers and changing them into onesies to sleep in. It was warm that night and Eli went around, opening a few windows for them to sleep, feeling the air circulating through the room. When Daryl had been building the tree house, he had stumbled upon mosquito netting, of all things, in another house while scavenging, and in the warm months when they kept the windows open almost all season, they hung the netting over the windows so they weren't eaten alive by bugs as they slept.

Eli flopped down on his bed, on top of the quilts, and he yawned again. Beth kissed Jack and Ceci on the heads and Daryl did the same and they then laid the twins down in their crib. And as she did every other night, Beth began to sing a song to help them go to sleep.

"Blackjack Davey came riding by,
Whistling so merrily.
He made the woods all around him ring,
And he charmed the heart of a lady.
And he charmed the heart of a lady.

Come with me, my pretty little one,
Come with me, my honey.
I swear by the beard upon my face,
You'll never want for money.
You'll never want for money.

She took off her high heeled boots,
Made of Spanish leather.
Jumped behind him on his horse,
And they rode off together.
And they rode off together."

Eli blinked up at the ceiling, his lids growing heavier with each passing second, and his lips curved into a little smile as he listened to his mom sing. This was one of his favorite songs and one of the first that he had a clear memory of Mulligan singing to all of them one day as they worked in their garden. Listening to the song, it made him think of the smell of dirt; of feeling an earthworm against his fingers as he pulled at weeds; of plump red tomatoes ready to be picked from their vines.

When she sang the last note and the song was finished, Beth came to his bed and sat down on the edge. She brushed some of his dark hair back from his forehead and then leaned in, placing a kiss there.

"I love you very much," she whispered to him.

"I love you, too," Eli answered back and she kissed his forehead one more time.

"Sweet dreams," she said before looking at him for one more moment and then with a faint smile, she left to go get herself ready for bed.

Daryl came next and made sure the mosquito netting was secure over the window above Eli's bed and then he sat down on the edge in the spot Beth had just vacated. Eli was nearly about to drop off to sleep, but there was something he had to ask his dad before he did.

"Am I really going on the run with you?" He asked.

"'bout time you learn, don't you think?" Daryl asked him back and he really wanted to know the answer; wanted to know if Eli could see why going on a run was an important thing for him to learn.

The kids had been lucky. Living up on this mountain, they were pretty isolated from things. They saw walkers, sure, but no people. When Rick and Carl had come, Eli, Aiden and Bee all hadn't been able to stop staring at them because up until that moment, they had never seen another person outside of their family. And when Anna left and brought Matt back with her, they had all thought that Bee had had a little crush with him, but they had learned that no, the little girl had just been fascinated by the new arrival and it reminded them all of how Anna had been with Mulligan.

And though Daryl didn't want to leaves these mountains for anything and they were so vast and hard to navigate if a person didn't know what the hell they were doing, that didn't mean that it was the smart thing to keep the kids isolated. Anything could happen and the world was a violent place and the kids had to learn that. Daryl wished it didn't have to be that way, but keeping them so ignorant would only be like leading sheep to the slaughter.

He thought of Carl and the little kid he had met all of those years ago at the quarry. Christ, that had been a completely different life, but back then, Carl had just been a helpless little kid and then, he began to change as he adapted to the world around him and he had lost his childhood too soon and had killed his first person when he was too young. And Daryl knew it was just the way things had to be, but he had wanted to keep Eli, Aiden and Bee away from that for as long as possible.

But it was time now.

After a moment of thinking it through, Eli then nodded. "Yeah. You think there's still something out there for us to find?"

"Guess we'll find out." Daryl leaned in and kissed his head. "G'night."

"Good night," Eli said and then rolled over onto his side, his eyes immediately closing his eyes, and Daryl swore that the boy's breathing dropped off before he even stood up from the bed and crossed the room to his and Beth's bed.

Beth had changed into her pajamas and sat on their bed, combing her hair out from the braid it had been pulled back into for the day and Daryl began changing out of his own clothes, folding the jeans again to be worn the next day and putting the tee-shirt into the basket on the floor for laundry day. In his boxers, he went to the basin of water they kept on one of the counters he had built along the wall and splashed some on his face and wiped at the back of his neck before going to join Beth in bed.

Like Eli, he laid down on top of the quilt. It was too warm to have the fire going, but the crickets' chirps were a bit slow that night, which meant that the temperature would probably drop a little later that night and he didn't want the babies to get chilled and in the morning, Beth would need water and she always boiled a pail on the stove.

He rested his head on the pillow and watched Beth as she combed her hair. "Whatcha' thinkin' about?" He asked her because it was damn obvious that she was thinking about something and though he asked, he figured that he probably already knew the answer.

Beth shook her head and didn't speak until she finished combing. She stood up to place the comb on their shared dresser and checked once more on the twins – now sleeping peacefully and deeply in their crib – before crawling back onto the bed.

"Spencer's angry," Beth said as she laid down beside him, on her side so she faced him and she tucked her hands between her cheek and the pillow. "You should talk with him."

"Already plannin' on that. Prob'ly before breakfast tomorrow," he said. He rolled onto his side so he was facing her as well and he couldn't help, but take his thumb and brush it lightly across one of the circles beneath her eye. "You gotta take care of yourself, Beth."

"I'm fine," she immediately said and Daryl swore that she had said that so many times over their years together, the two words had become her damn theme song. And as he usually did when she said it, he just stared at her because it was bullshit and he knew it and Beth knew that he knew. She let out a sigh. "There's just so much to do," she said and that was always her excuse, but Daryl wasn't buying it.

He wasn't stupid enough to think that having two babies wasn't a lot of work. Hell, back before the world became a shit show, having two babies was hard on any woman no matter how many modern conveniences they had to help them. And now, with no modern conveniences, and with the twins now crawling and starting to toddle around, on top of all of their other daily tasks they saw to, yeah, it was hard. Daryl wasn't saying it wasn't. But it wasn't as if Beth had to do this all on her own and even after all of this time together, he still didn't get why she always seemed to hate asking for help; even from him.

"Beth," he said her name then and she looked into his eyes. "'m right here."

Beth looked at him with her brow furrowed as if she didn't understand. "I know you are…"

"'m right here and all of us are right here," he said, his voice soft, but his words firm. "What do we gotta do to show that to you?"

Beth opened her mouth to respond, but whatever it was, she must have changed her mind, because slowly, her lips closed once more and she shook her head. "I don't know," she then admitted in a whisper and Daryl moved closer until he could rest her forehead against his.

"I don't know what I'd do without you, girl," Daryl said. "And you ain't gonna have me find out." His arm slipped over the dip of her hip until he could wrap it around her frame and bring her body flush against his.

Beth shook her head. "I won't. I promise," she said and over the years, they had always been so careful to not promise anything to anyone. This world was just too unpredictable and anything could happen, but sometimes, a promise was all they needed to hear. "Now you," she said, pulling her head back just enough for her eyes to look into his.

"I promise," Daryl didn't hesitate in saying. "I ain't gonna have you find out."

She leaned in then and pressed her lips to his for a soft kiss. It felt, to him, that he hadn't kissed her in hours and his hand slowly lifted to the back of her head, cupping it, his fingers finding themselves tangled in her hair. One of Beth's hands rested on his chest and the other moved to the side of his neck, her thumb following along the line of his jaw.

"Tell me the story," Beth said with a faint smile and a light in her eyes once their lips parted.

Daryl didn't ask her what she wanted. He knew and he smirked with a shake of his head. He had told her plenty of times already, but for some reason, she could never hear it enough.

He sighed then as if this was the last thing he wanted to talk about, but he couldn't help, but smirk and his hand trailed back down to her hip.

"First time I saw you, you were wearin' tight brown jeans and a white shirt with no sleeves and I 'member lookin' at your pale skin and wonderin' how you were so pale. And then I 'member thinkin' of how pretty you were and how I was a huge fuckin' pervert for even noticin' you, let alone thinkin' things like that 'bout you."

Beth laughed – softly so not to wake the kids – at that just as she always did when he told her the story and she leaned in, kissing him again, and this time, Daryl kissed her a bit harder and slowly rolled her to her back. He knew she needed sleep. They both did. But right now, maybe they both needed to kiss one another just a bit more.

…

Anna ran into the kitchen, first thing in the morning, and she was beaming as she presented Beth with a goose egg. And Beth gasped and held it as fragile as gold and the kids crowded around, all wanting to see because they had never seen an egg that big before. Beth hadn't been lying. Goose eggs were much bigger than chicken eggs.

"It could be a dinosaur egg!" Eli exclaimed and Beth laughed.

"We should have something special for breakfast with our first goose egg," Beth decided and then was quiet for a moment, thinking.

"Biscuits!" Bee suggested.

"Blueberry biscuits!" Aiden added.

"I'll go pick the blueberries," Eli eagerly volunteered because they had used the last of what they had the day before for their blueberry corncakes.

"Alright," Beth smiled. "Aiden, do you mind going, too?"

"Course not," he said and he sounded a little affronted that Beth would even have to ask.

"You two don't be gone too long," Beth said as Eli hurried to go get one of their baskets. "If you take too long, we'll have to have blueberry biscuits for lunch instead of breakfast."

"We'll be right back," Eli promised.

"Knives," Beth said and both boys showed her the sheaths they wore hooked through their jean belt loops and the knives safely encased inside. "Alright. Hurry back," she said and both boys went running out the door.

"Where are you two off to?" Aaron asked as he stepped from the outhouse and went to the nearest rain barrel to wash his hands with the bar of soap they kept next to it.

"Picking berries for the goose egg!" Eli told him quickly from over his shoulder and he and Aiden didn't stop as they ran, opening the gate door and bolting outside, making sure the door was shut firmly behind them.

Aaron smiled a little to himself and then headed towards the barn. Inside, Matt was in Jasper's stall, brushing the horse down as he chewed lazily on a mouthful of dried grass, still giving looks to the donkey in the next stall as if he hadn't made his mind up about him.

Spencer was picking eggs from the dried grass the chickens roosted in, carefully putting them in the basket he carried and Daryl stood there, watching him. Anna wasn't in there as she usually was. She was in hers and Matt's little room where they slept, stripping the bed so she could wash the sheets that day, so Aaron took it upon himself to get the stool and pail and head to the goats.

"What did Rosita say when you talked with her?" Daryl was asking.

Spencer hesitated as if he didn't want to say. "She doesn't seem to think it's the worst idea in the world," he then admitted. Spencer turned to Daryl. "But you get it. You have to."

"Course I do," Daryl said. "I just thought, if Crispin could be as important as we're beginnin' to think it is, I'm gonna wanna have as many hands as I can get to help with the supplies. And this way, it makes the most sense. Beth's gotta stay with the babies and Anna's gotta stay with the animals."

Spencer sighed heavily. "Why are we so sure this town is going to be anything?"

"You're the one who brought the whole thing up in the first damn place," Daryl frowned.

"I know," Spencer muttered and he then shook his head. "I just figured, Crispin was the biggest town around here and it'd be impossible for us to have gone through every little town and house in these parts. So I was thinking that it'd probably be impossible for someone else to have already found the place except for those who were from this area, but Mulligan said that this area was hit hard and fast and there was hardly anyone alive left."

"'s a good plan, Spencer," Daryl told him. "And if you're right and there's still plenty to have, just sittin' there, waitin' for us…" he exhaled a deep breath. "It'd be the last run we ever do."

Aaron stopped in the middle of milking and looked to Daryl. "You think that's possible?"

"All depends on what this town has left. If anythin'. But if they've still got stuff…" Daryl paused for a moment. "Yeah. I think it's possible."

They were all quiet at that, thinking that over. It wasn't as if they went on runs constantly now. Probably one a year or little ones spread throughout the months for this or that, but to never have to go on another run ever again, that was almost too good to be true, but with Daryl thinking that it was possible, maybe it actually was.

After another moment, Spencer spoke again. "Are you sure it's time for Bee to come? She's not even seven yet."

But they could all hear it in his voice as he said it; Spencer could, too. Yeah, Bee had to come, too. Even if this was the last run they ever did, she still had to learn how to take care of herself when off of their side of the mountain. Anything could happen and it didn't matter how young or little she was. They all had to be prepared.

Spencer sighed heavily and Daryl reached a hand out, squeezing his shoulder.

"'m sorry," he then said quietly and Spencer shook his head.

He knew nothing could be done. It was the way things were now and there wasn't anything he could do to change a damn thing about it. Bee had to learn and he couldn't be stupid enough as her father to think that she would never have to protect herself or learn how the rest of the world was when they left their home.

They finished their work in the barn and Matt pushed open the doors, the others helping with guiding the goats, sheep and chickens out that day to graze their yard. The others headed towards the cabin to bring Beth the eggs and milk, but Daryl couldn't help, but linger and look at the donkey again. Today, Anna was going to take Jasper down to the field where they had been working on breaking him and try to get a saddle on him. They knew how lucky they were to be able to get the horse, who was damn near wild. They had already been talking about finding a female horse so they could possibly start breeding for more horses.

They'd really have to expand their yard if they were able to have more than one horse.

But all of that had to be held off until Jasper was completely broken and calm once again.

Now, in the meantime, they had a donkey. An actually living and breathing donkey. He had been more open to it over the years – especially with Beth, always holding onto her faith no matter what seemed to happen to them – and as he watched the donkey as he ate his dried grass, Daryl didn't stop himself from sending a quick thanks to the big guy upstairs for this.

"I just need a few more things," Daryl spoke in a low voice to himself as stayed in the barn for another moment, not wanting anyone to hear him or know what he was doing. "And then I swear, you keep me and my family safe and I'll never ask you for another thing as long as I live."

…

One of my favorite "mountain" songs is Black Jack Davey, which Beth sings in this chapter. If you get a chance, do you ears a favor. Go to YouTube and listen to the song sung by Almeda Riddle. It is honestly pure perfection.

Thank you very much for reading and please take a moment to review!