Chapter 3

Protego Me

Just after Daryl left she couldn't believe her luck but the back room sprung a leak in the ceiling and then it started to rain. Predictably the next morning there was a puddle on the floor in front of the desk. She mopped up as best as she could and she hoped fervently that Daryl could tell her someone who was a roofer to fix whatever was going wrong with the place now.

He wasn't wearing his vest when he came in the next day but it was alright by her. Seeing those wings on his back had reminded her too much of her anti-love spell and that was just something that she didn't need to think about just now. Not when she had more important things to do like ogle her customer-turned-handyman and how broad his shoulders were as he stretched his arms out to measure the board he was getting ready to cut to affix the counter back in its rightful place. She absently stirred her tea not even realizing that her finger wasn't on the spoon any longer and it was in fact stirring itself around in her cup, making a distinct tinkling sound around the rim of the cup.

He turned around abruptly and she knew she looked like a deer caught in headlights. The spoon clattered in the cup and sloshed liquid over the side. She really needed to stop casting while she was daydreaming. One of these days someone was going to get hurt, she thought.

Daryl grabbed his pencil from behind him and turned back to the board. She had been checking him out huh. Well likewise. He swore he had never seen anybody prettier than Beth Greene in all his days. He left the store the day before with a smile on his face and he knew it had to be because of her. Of course he'd talked himself down since then because when he left there yesterday he had been sure that she was the girl he was supposed to spend the rest of his life with. But as reality set in and he'd gone home he realized it had to have been something he made up in his head. Things like that didn't happen to the likes of him. Good things just weren't destined for the Dixons.

He had concentrated instead on his latest case. He was finishing up his write up on his report for tracking a missing college student. There were not many in his trade and he was well known in the law enforcement circle because of his work with local police on some missing person cases in the past. He had been helping the feds with this one and though he didn't like getting involved in government shit it was someone who was a friend of Carol's and he hadn't been able to say no. When he'd found her last week, tied up in some sick fuck's garage with nothing more than a t-shirt and a blanket on the floor, he'd known that he was right to stay away from cases like these. He didn't have the stomach for it. He couldn't abide people hurting women. He hadn't been able to get the case out of his head since then. He'd tracked her with nothing more than the keys she had been carrying when she was taken. She had dropped them and he had picked up various clues from then on out.

But now that he was back here and this pretty little miss was eyeballing him and most definitely checking him out and his stupid pea brain went right back to forever and flowers and hearts and shit. What the hell was wrong with him?

Beth could not take her eyes from him and she suddenly worried that she might be seriously attracted to him. She felt the sudden need of protection and she summoned up her best protection spell in her mind. She walked to the back room and focused on her center, pulling in her energy and her aura closer to her body and thought with all her might in hues of gold and white and yellow and orange, just basically warm, like the sun. Then chanted softly, in a near whisper the spell for protection, a Protego Me chant.

The breath of life
And the light of my mind
Creates an enchantment
Of protection and comfort
As the air I breathe is purified
I surround myself with an orb of gold
This golden haze
Is constantly purified
And separated from any negativity
May my space be protected

Daryl got up to go to the back room. He wasn't sure if Beth wanted the ends sanded rounded all the way around or if she wanted a slight edge to it. The place was set up to be rustic just like an old apothecary would be and that made it easy for re-fitting the place. But when he got to the door, he had to blink twice to see if he was missing something and by the time he did whatever it was had faded. But he could swear a moment ago Beth was lit up by some kind of glow and it made her appear even more ethereal than usual.

She felt instantly better for it and a soft smile played on her face, which immediately died when she saw the look on Daryl's face.

It was the creaking that made him look up and then leap across the few feet between them and knock her out of the way before the 2x4 fell from the rafter. It felt awkwardly behind them and made a lot of noise and took down a shelf on the wall on its way down but it had missed Beth. He didn't know what had made him do what he did. Instinct, he guesssed, but he was in a fix now. He was very much in the personal space of Beth Greene and she was definitely in his. The question was whether or not either of them minded it.

Beth didn't have time to process anything before Daryl was on her and even as she knew that a piece of the rafters had fallen with the ceiling, he was very much on top of her. She was leaned back on her desk and he had his arms braced on either side of her head and his face was inches from hers. He smelled divine and she didn't know where she got the air to breathe because it was getting more shallow by the minute. But he smelled like forest and man and she could breathe him in all day.

He finally came to himself and pushed himself up off of her and held down a hand to help her up from the awkward position he had knocked her into when he had come across the room like gangbusters.

"You okay?" He looked her over and she didn't look any worse for wear.

Beth was oddly bereft when he left her personal space so quickly. It was like he had been there forever and then suddenly gone. She was inexplicably reminded of Rick and then just as quickly that thought was replaced by Daryl's question snapping her back to the present. She looked at him equal parts dazed and like she was seeing the light for the first time.

She was supposed to know this man for some reason. She summoned a protection spell around him and then suddenly he saves her? It was not an accident. She looked up at him again, finally answering him. "I think so. Are you?" She asked him and without her even having to say anything he caught her meaning.

She looked at him expectantly. She looked at him like he had some kind of answer. He nodded his head. It was what was expected but what had just happened between them defied anything on his repertoire of dealings with women which albeit was very slim but he just couldn't shake that she was different.

He cleared his throat as he helped her stand upright again, knowing his fingers lingered longer on her hand than was absolutely necessary but she didn't seem to mind so neither did he. "You'll be needing somebody to look at that roof. My brother specializes in it. I could have him come over and give you an estimate later tonight."

Beth nodded her head. "I'm lucky you were here, Mr. Dixon. Thank you." It seemed so trite in light of the fact that he likely had just saved her from a concussion or at the very least a bad headache. He was saving her too from a figurative headache by offering his brother's services.

"Daryl." He nodded at her. "Only my old man goes by Mr. Dixon."

"Thank you Daryl. It seems I am in your gratitude now." She was being coy and she knew it. But it still didn't stop her.

He studied her for a minute. "Nah, we're even. The necklace remember."

Beth shook her head. "Nope. You saved my life. That counts for somethin'."

He nodded at her. He didn't know about that. He wasn't the damsel savin' type. But damn if he hadn't done just that. He finished up the job and helped Beth clean up the mess in the back room. By the time he finished it was near closing time for her. He tried not to think too much about the fact that he was hanging out like he was some kind of friend. He had never really had friends before.

Beth looked at him as he walked out of the door ahead of her and she turned the key in the lock. She turned back to face him. "You want to get a cup of coffee?" Saving a life for a cup of coffee.

Beth knew she had placed the protection spell on herself to keep herself from wanting to fall for this man but what if he could just be her friend. Maybe something of her girls' spell had rubbed off on her the day before and she needed a friend. And maybe just maybe he needed one too. She held her breath as she waited on his response.

Daryl nodded. "Coffee sounds great. Where do you want to go?" Worse things could happen than going to get coffee with a beautiful blonde beside him. Worse things had already happened to him. But looking at Beth, smiling ear to ear it felt like things might be looking up.

She beamed at him and took his arm. "I know just the place." As they headed up the street, she couldn't help but think again of that long ago chant as a little girl. A little girl who thought she had the world at her finger tips. Oh how wrong she had been.

She wished she could say she was surprised at the realization of part of the charm but by now, nothing with magic surprised her.

"He will be fiercely protective of those he loves."

That long ago spell came back to haunt her. She just dismissed the thought with a wing and a prayer and another round of a protection chant, looking forward to coffee with a friend. Her new friend, Daryl Dixon.

So what do you think? It wasn't much just an establishing of a friendship basically but remember she is a widow. This was basically a bridge building chapter for the next one and the one after. Hope you liked it but be sure to let me know. Until next time xoxoxo