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Chapter Three.
As Beth dug a small hole in the dirt for their fire like he had showed her once, Daryl took the tin cans left over from dinner and poking holes in them with his knife, he strung the "alarms" up around the spot where they would be sleeping that night. Rick was watching from the front steps of the house but Daryl didn't look at him. He knew Rick didn't approve of them doing this but there was nothing the man could do to stop it.
Once she had the fire going, Beth took the blanket Michonne had gotten from the other house and the one Daryl had claimed for them and shook it out, laying it on the ground next to the fire. She then took the blanket she had used the night before, shaking that one out as well so they could have that covering them for the night as they slept. Daryl watched everything she did from the corner of his eye. Not that he didn't trust her to know what she was doing. She had set up their camp every day for the months they were together.
But rather, he watched her just to watch her.
"Still think this is too risky," Rick spoke up as Daryl finished stringing up the cans.
"Don't feel like sleepin' inside," Daryl told him with a shrug. "Ain't the first time any of us have slept outside 'fore."
"Not when there's a perfectly fine shelter for us to bunker into," Rick pointed out to him.
Daryl didn't respond and looked back to Beth for a moment before back to Rick. "Not tonight," he said with a shake of his head.
Rick looked like he still wanted to protest but he glanced at Beth over Daryl's shoulder, now sitting on the blanket, her legs drawn to her chest, her cheek resting on her knee and her eyes staring blankly into the fire.
Daryl turned his head and looked, too, and he felt his throat grow dry as cotton as he watched her. Not many things in life scared him. It was hard to get scared about things when people who died didn't stay dead. Put fear a bit more into prospective.
But he looked at Beth now and he felt scared because he had no idea what to do for her and he knew he was the one who had to figure it out because no one else was going to be doing anything to help her. He had been scared for people before. Merle, his family here. But that was when their lives had been in danger. Whatever had happened to Beth in that hospital, it had done something to her and Daryl didn't know if it was something that even could be fixed. This was something completely beyond him.
Rick and Daryl looked at one another again and after a moment, Rick nodded his head, still looking reluctant but at least Daryl could see understanding in the other man's eyes.
As Rick turned to go into the house, Daryl went to the blanket, sitting down beside Beth. He sat close but he made sure he wasn't too close. None of his body was touching hers. She was so far away right now, he didn't want to scare her.
His crossbow rested at his feet and he reached into the pocket of his jacket, pulling out a crumpled pack of cigarettes he had found on a walker a couple of days earlier. He popped it in his mouth and then leaned towards the fire, putting himself closer to the flames and lighting the end of it. He sat back up and Beth turned her head, resting her opposite cheek on her knee so she was looking at him.
She didn't say anything so he didn't say anything, either. He turned his head away to exhale the cloud of smoke away from her and then turned back towards her.
"What are the others going to say?" She then asked, breaking into the silence.
"'bout what?"
"About us sleeping outside like this," she said.
He shrugged, the cigarette balanced on his lower lip, and acted like he hadn't been thinking about that, too. "Not our problem that they're idiots and want to be squeezed like sardines in there."
"You don't have to babysit me, Daryl," she then told him for the second time and he frowned much like he had the first time she said those words to him.
"I ain't babysittin' no one. Don't flatter yourself," he frowned at her. "I just don't like sleepin' inside all the time."
She nodded at that. "I know. When we were all still at the prison, you would sometimes go outside to sleep on one of the tower decks."
Daryl couldn't help but be a little surprised at that. "How'd you know that?"
"I know a lot about our family. No one really pays that much attention to me so it's easy to just be there and observe and learn," she explained.
He looked at her, not saying anything to that because they both knew what he was thinking. He had never paid attention to her either. In the prison, she was a part of his group; another person he had to look after and keep safe but he hadn't thought on her much. She was just Beth. She was Hershel's daughter and Maggie's sister and she was Lil' Asskicker's main caregiver. He knew she was the weakest amongst them and that's all he knew.
It was only after they escaped the prison did he learn anything about her.
There were things he wanted to tell her. He wanted to tell her that he had gotten used to sleeping outside with her and that last night, even in a room with their family and knowing she was in there, too, he hadn't been able to sleep well since he wasn't that near to her. They had been out here together, for weeks on end, just the two of them, and he had gotten used to her breathing and the small whimpers she made in her sleep as she dreamt and the way she didn't move that much while she slept, usually curled on her side and staying that way for the duration of the night. He wanted to tell her that when she was gone and he had no idea where she was, he slept like shit and only a couple of hours at a time.
He didn't say any of this though. He didn't have a place to. It would be too weird of a thing if he said he couldn't sleep if she wasn't close enough to him and he didn't much like that thought anyway. When had he gotten so attached to her? And what would she think if he told her? He wasn't anyone – not someone she would want missing her.
"Good night, Daryl," Beth then said softly.
He grunted in reply and took another drag of the cigarette and watched as she slipped beneath the blanket and rolled onto her side, facing the fire, putting her back to him. He moved the crossbow next to him and laid down, too, on his back, bending his arm behind his head and his eyes fixed up on the stars.
The night was quiet. A few crickets chirping and somewhere in the distance, he heard a coyoto letting out a lone howl and their small fire cracked and snapped at the wood. And he heard Beth's soft breathing beside him. He listened to it, able to detect when it dropped off and she fell completely asleep. She was next to him, sleeping and safe, and he told himself this, seeing her with his own eyes, and slowly, he was able to relax a little bit.
He didn't know what to do for her. She needed something – that much was obvious. But all he could think to do was get her a snake because she liked eating them. He still had to do that but after that, he had no idea. What could a guy like him do for her anyway? He had proved to them both that he couldn't even keep her safe. It was kind of amazing to him that she wanted to be anywhere near him after he had let her get taken like that.
He flicked the finished cigarette away and then turned his head towards her, looking at the back of her head as she slept. He watched her body slowly rise and fall with each breath she took and he felt his eyes grow heavy. The last thing he saw before he fell asleep was the small freckle on the back of her neck, near the top of her spine.
When he woke again, it was dawn. His eyes snapped open and it took less than a second for his brain to wake up completely and realize that he was alone. Beth was gone.
The fire had died and the morning and the blanket she had slept beneath had been pushed away. He hurried to his feet, grabbing his crossbow. He rapidly looked around but he didn't see her anywhere. He looked back to the house, thinking she had gone inside, but he quickly shook that off. She wouldn't have gone inside. There was no reason for her to.
How hadn't he heard her get up and leave?
"Beth!" He called out her name without thinking. He didn't give a shit about walkers right now. "Beth!" He nearly tripped over the cans as he stepped over them. He felt his heart pound in his chest as his eyes searched frantically.
How the hell had he slept through her getting up? And where the hell was she?
"Daryl!" She hissed quietly, suddenly, from behind him. He spun around and saw her emerge from the bushes, her fingers leaving the button of her jeans. "What is it?" She asked. "You know you shouldn't shout like that."
He looked at her and then closed the distance between them with just a couple of strides. With the crossbow in one, he reached out with his other arm and without thinking about it, he put it around her neck, pulling her in and crushing her to his chest. He felt her slowly lift her arms in response, sliding them around his waist, and her hands resting on the back of his vest, over the wings.
"You know I have to go to the bathroom as soon as I wake up," she said into his neck.
He didn't say anything and it took him a moment for his heart to return to a regular beat.
He wasn't sure how long he kept her to him but then, slowly, when he felt he was able to breathe again, he released her, his arm falling from her. Beth tilted her head up to look at him and he stared down at her.
"You scared me, girl," he told her in a voice hardly above a whisper.
"I'm sorry," she said just as softly.
"And sorry for just grabbin' you like that," he said gruffly, taking a step back.
Beth looked at him for a moment – too closely, for his liking – and she then shook her head slightly. "It's alright."
Daryl moved his eyes towards the house and saw that his shouting had woke some of them up. Rick, with Judith in his arms, and Carol were both standing on the porch, watching them. He felt himself taking another step away from Beth, making sure there was distance between them and he avoided her eyes, feeling them still settled on him.
"Gotta take a piss," he said before turning and disappearing into the trees.
He had to take a few minutes and get away from her and just be on his own for a bit. Get himself collected. Maybe hunt something. That always calmed him down. He didn't know what Beth was doing to him, making him act like a crazy man, shouting for her and grabbing her like that.
And in front of the others, too. Beth and him may have spent the night outside together – just the two of them – yet, being caught hugging her and holding her to him, that was something he didn't want the others to see; thinking something was going on between the two of them when there wasn't.
When he returned nearly an hour later, everyone else was awake and the fire was built again, larger this time, as they sat on the ground around it, eating cans of fruit and a few scraps of rabbit leftover from last night.
His eyes instantly found Beth sitting next to Carl but as had become her new habit, she was sitting a bit apart from everyone. She looked at him the instant he appeared, seemed to sit up a bit straighter, but he went and sat down next to Rick.
"Anything?" Rick asked.
Daryl shook his head. "Pretty bare out there."
Rick nodded. "Been thinkin' it's time for us to move on anyway. What do you think? You think we should keep goin'?"
"Don't really matter either way, does it?" He shrugged. "Can't really stay here though. Nothin' worth stayin' around here for."
Rick nodded in agreement. "We'll pack up after we're done eatin' and get on goin'."
"We ain't really goin' to Washington, are we?" Daryl asked as Sasha, sitting on the other side of him, handed him a can of peaches.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Beth get up and he followed her as she walked away from the group, going into the trees. He tried to tell himself that he didn't have to get up and follow her. He looked back to Rick, who was watching him, knowing where his eyes had gone, and Daryl frowned but didn't say anything and neither did Rick.
"We gotta catch up with Maggie and Glenn," Rick said.
"Why?" Daryl blurted out before he could stop himself.
"They're family," Rick answered matter-of-factly and without room for argument.
Daryl snorted as he ate. "Family who had no problem runnin' off with mullet man when another member of our family was still missin'."
He couldn't shake the memory of the way Beth's face had fallen when she realized that Maggie had left. Her own sister hadn't stuck around to help look for her, not-so-silently letting the others know that she thought Beth was probably dead and there was no point in looking for her. He didn't know if he wanted to find Maggie and put her near Beth again, to be honest, sister or no sister.
Daryl finished the peaches and then stood up, slinging his crossbow onto his shoulder. Rick looked up at him. "Gonna head towards the road," he said with no other explanation and began walking from the group.
"Daryl."
He turned and saw Carol coming out of the house and down the steps of the porch, blankets in her arms. He stopped and waited as she came to him.
"How'd you sleep?" She asked.
"Fine," he grunted.
"And Beth?"
He gave her an odd look but answered. "Fine."
Carol nodded her head at his answer. "And everything alright this morning?"
Daryl really didn't want to talk about this – even if it was Carol. "Fine," he said once more.
What could he really say anyway? That he had a momentary freak-out because he woke up and Beth was gone? The others didn't need to know that though he supposed it had been pretty obvious as to what had happened.
"You eat breakfast?" Carol asked and Daryl suppressed an impatient sigh.
Sometimes, Carol's mothering annoyed him. Yes, usually, he didn't mind at all and he rather liked it – having never had his real mother show any type of mothering towards him – but sometimes, Carol could just push and push when all he really wanted to tell her was he was a grown man and he could take care of himself.
"I'm fine," he said, his words a bit clipped and he hoped she would get the message.
"Never been a morning person, pookie," she teased him, laughing lightly, and then she turned, going towards the group again.
Daryl turned and began walking towards the road again, his eyes and ears keeping a lookout. When he stepped through the trees, he saw Beth at the bushes along the side of the road, plucking more berries. A dead walker laid nearby, obviously being taken out by her.
Beth turned her head when she saw him and he took that as a sign that it was alright for him to approach her.
"Elderberries are a natural flu remedy," she said and he figured she had learned that from her dad. "With the weather getting colder, we can't really afford to get sick."
"Smart," he murmured, watching her as she dropped the berries in a small bag in her hand.
For a few minutes, she picked and Daryl kept watch for any other approaching walkers. He tried not to think of the way her warm and soft body had felt against his chest. He felt like a dirty bastard when he imagined it again and he told himself that some filthy redneck shouldn't be putting his hands on Beth Greene anyway.
Beth took a berry and he watched as she popped it into her mouth, some of the berry juice stained on her fingers. She plucked another one and turned, offering it to him. He took it and tossed it into his mouth, chewing on it, watching her, as she went back to picking. It was quiet between them and yet, it wasn't the sort of quiet that made him uncomfortable and make him feel like it had to be filled with something. She picked and he kept watch and it was as if it was another of their routines though they had never done this before.
"Sorry 'bout this mornin'," he said but he wished he hadn't.
He wasn't really sorry and he didn't want to bring it up again.
"I'm not," Beth shook her head, still picking.
"You ain't?" Daryl looked at her cautiously and she shook her head again.
"It's been a long time since someone's hugged me," she said. She turned her head and looked at him with soft eyes. "Sometimes, we just need to be touched to be reminded we're still alive." At her own words though, he saw her eyes dim as if she was remembering something she didn't necessarily want to. "There was a guard at the hospital…" she turned back towards the berries so she wouldn't have to look at him but Daryl kept his eyes fixed on her, his body already growing tense as she began. "He wanted me but he got bit and died before he could…" she trailed off and Daryl's fingers tightened around the crossbow. "There were other guards, too. One…" she swallowed and he saw her fingers shake slightly as she didn't stop picking berries, needing the task to distract her. "He said I had skin like milk and he would always put his hand beneath my shirt so he could rub my hip."
Daryl wanted to tell her to shut up. He didn't want to hear any more.
But he wanted to hear everything.
He wanted to go back to Atlanta and though they were all dead, he wanted to kill them all again. He wanted to kill something.
"When you hugged me…" Beth looked back to him and he expected there to be tears but her eyes were dry and blank. "Don't say you're sorry, Daryl. It was the nicest hug I've had in a long time," she said quietly.
Daryl stared at her. He suddenly had a burning hatred for everyone else left alive in the world except for Beth. He hated people more than he hated walkers because at the end of the world, it wasn't the walkers that had done this to her. A man had killed her dad. A man had kidnapped her. A woman had beaten her. A man had touched her. Even her own sister had broken what was left of her.
He stared at her and knew that it wasn't just the walkers he had to protect her from. And he didn't care what she said about babysitting or anything else. He would protect her and keep her safe no matter what. He had to prove to her that he could.
She didn't give more details and he didn't want them. Not right now.
He wondered if he should hug her again. Did she want him to? If she thought his hug was nice, did that mean she wanted another one? He found he really wouldn't mind hugging her again.
But before he could take the steps towards her to do that, they could both hear that the group was coming. Daryl wondered if he felt relief at that.
They began walking up the road again and Beth closed the sack of berries, slipping it into her pack as Daryl fell in step next to her.
"Walking with me again?" She asked.
"Yeah," he said. "That okay?"
She shrugged and didn't say anything. They walked in silence, their arms occasionally brushing together, and when the group passed an abandoned car, Daryl waiting as Beth gathered shards of broken glass from the windows. They began following the group again. They had fallen behind but it didn't matter.
"You were shiverin' last night," Daryl told her. "We still need to be on lookout for a tent." Beth nodded and was silent.
They kept walking and kept their eyes out for anything and they didn't speak for nearly an hour.
"Big Macs," Daryl then said suddenly.
Beth looked at him, the corner of her mouth twitching in a smile of both amusement and confusion.
"The foods I miss the most," he clarified. "Taco Bell tacos, Big Macs from McDonald's and Hostess Ding-Dongs."
She laughed softly and nodded her head. "The Ding-Dongs were always my favorite, too."
He felt himself smirk. "I would have taken you for a Twinkie girl."
"Why eat a sponge cake when you can have chocolate?" She asked and her eyes looked as if they were sparkling like they used to. It made Daryl break into a smile and she smiled, too. "What about the Hostess Cupcakes?" She asked.
He shrugged. "A classic, that's for sure. I liked those yellow cupcakes they sold in those two-packs at the gas station. Merle and me, when we went out huntin' for a few days, I always packed a few of those with me."
She smiled and her eyes looked brighter as she focused them up on him. His stomach tightened and he wondered if the peaches were settling well with him.
"What did they always used to say? Two things would survive the apocalypse. Cockroaches and Twinkies," Beth smiled.
"I always heard cockroaches and Keith Richards," Daryl shrugged.
She laughed at that and the sound echoed in the air. A few turned back to look at them and Beth put a hand over her mouth but he could still see the laughter in her eyes and he grinned. Now that he saw light in her eyes again – no matter how long it would last – he realized just how dull her eyes had been for the past few days. He scrambled to think of something else to say, to keep that light, but his brain was drawing a blank and he swore at himself swiftly for being too dumb.
"Maybe, when we look for a tent, we can look for some Twinkies, too," she suggested.
Daryl nodded. "A whole crate," he said, almost promising.
Her smile – and the light – remained.
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