Happy belated update! The next chapter will be out on valentines day -maybe not directly on the day but hopefully so!- which is so not a hint for things to come (*wink wink*) XD hope you like this chapter, and, as always, Favorite, Follow and Review and i will see you all in the next update! Keep calm and Bethyl on!

(P.S., let's all cross our fingers for that Beth is following Andrea's storyline from the comics and will return next half of the season!)


Three:

Daryl woke Beth up just as the bus was stopping outside of the city, mentally cursing himself for wasting good money by trying to look after Beth Greene yet again. Luckily, he still had at least fifty bucks in his wallet, now about forty-eight since he'd used those two dollars to pay for their ride, but at least it was enough for food. Maybe even a decent meal once they sorted out their plans.

Wait… "Their" plans?

Daryl had to reevaluate his inner monologue, nearly screaming in frustration at his sudden attachment to the girl. He just tried not to think about it, putting it on the list of things he didn't want to worry about at the moment.

He should've let her go with her sister. He should've let Maggie or whatever her name was take Beth as far away from him as possible. He was bad news, half the city

Once they were off the bus, Beth rubbing her eyes sleepily, but keeping up with his irritated and confused pace pretty well.

"Where're we gon'na sleep?" Beth asked as Daryl stopped quickly by a vending machine, putting in about five bucks to give both he and Beth a snack and a boost of energy.

"Dun'no," he replied quickly, turning to see her sitting on the bench next to the machine, and threw her little bag of chips into her lap. She smiled gratefully at him and opened the bag.

"I can pay ya' back for that ya' know," she said, munching on a chip and pulling out her own wallet. "I got at least fifty bucks or so still, so here."

He waved a hand at her, grumbling about it not being a big deal. That she should save it for something else.

"What else could I save it for?" she asked, her eyes sparkling in amusement. "Food is food, and you've already done so much for me."

"Didn't really do that much…" he said, feeling slightly embarrassed by her niceness.

She held the few dollars out to him again, and this time he reluctantly took them.

Honestly, he admired her for paying him back so graciously. First of all, most of the people he knew probably wouldn't ever actually keep their word when it came to money -and that included his brother-, and secondly, it showed that to some extent, she could take care of herself. He liked to see that in people.

She ate her chips without a word, and Daryl ate his cracker mix -or whatever the hell it was- once he had seated himself next to her.

The silence wasn't uncomfortable, they didn't really have to talk, but he figured they should. They needed to decide what was going to happen now. Where she and he, if not they together, were going to go. What they were going to do. Daryl needed a job sooner rather than later, he knew that. He really wanted to rest for now though. He was the one who had stayed up, all night waiting for the bus to reach it's stop near the outskirts of Atlanta.

Suddenly Beth stood up, morphing her bag into a ball and throwing it towards the trashcan, missing by a small bit. He smirked as she pouted, walking over and tossing it in with a sigh.

He said nothing, but she turned, their gazes connecting, and he automatically froze under her blue eyes. He chewed slowly, turning his gaze away to wander down to the concrete nervously.

"Be right back, okay?" Beth said and he turned around to face her, giving her a confused look. She rolled her eyes. "I just gotta go to the bathroom."

He nodded, watching as she turned the corner, following the little sign with the black figure in a dress.

It was strange how she seemed to be observing him, which was never something he felt comfortable with. He just finished off the rest of his bag, getting up to throw his own dinky thing away.

After a few minutes of waiting, Daryl was starting to get a little worried.

The other people who had been scattered around the stop had seemed sketchy, and he figured he should have just taken a bathroom break himself, keeping her close and doing what all humans have to do at the same time. He went to get up when he heard someone call out his name, and he knew it had to be Beth.

He was immediately standing, turning the corner in an instant, not seeing her.

"Beth!" he called, a sudden panic taking over him.

"Daryl!" she called back, this time his name more urgent.

He followed her voice, turning another corner and finding some creep pushing Beth against the wall, his hand trying to get up her shirt, but she was fighting to restlessly. Sadly, that wasn't enough to overpower him. She was too small compared to him, and her strength wouldn't be enough.

This fucker should learn to pick on someone his own size!

Daryl didn't think twice about ripping the guy off of her, practically tossing the dude a few feet away, pure rage coursing through him. He wanted to permanently scar this guy so he would never ever touch any girl, especially Beth, ever again.

He kicked the guy, causing him to try out as he was scrambling to get away. Daryl went to go after him again, but the dude was already half-running half-limping away, and Beth had grabbed his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

Daryl looked back at her, still angry at the dude, but instantly checking her over, lifting her arms to see if he hurt her.

She smiled gently, tilting her head a bit at his fussy actions. "Daryl," she giggled out, "Ai'm okay! He didn't hurt me, just got a little 'feely' is all…"

"He could'a," Daryl grumbled out, and Beth nodded in agreement.

"But, he didn't," Beth remarked, suddenly standing on her tiptoes to press a small kiss to his cheek, which made Daryl freeze. "Thanks, by the way."

His face burned with embarrassment, and he just whipped around, turning to walk back towards their bags, hoping they were still there when they got back. And they were, thankfully.

When he turned around, after his stupid girlish blushing had stopped, Beth was watching him again, her eyes not judging, just watching his movements. It made him feel strange. It made him feel like she was trying to pick away at his walls with saying a word. Without pressing, without doing any of the things he normally expected from someone who was trying to break him open. It made him itch and feel like curling into himself. He knew somewhere in the back of his mind that if she could get him to open up as a child, she could probably do incredibly terrifying things to his walls now without even lifting a finger.

Beth walked over, gathering her things, and Daryl gave her a confused look as she held his bag out to him. "I know a place we can stay at, at least for a night."

He took his bag. "Where?"

"There's this cabin thing off of a road a ways away. I recognize this station, we can stay there. No one knows about it besides my family and some of my former classmates. Maggie probably doesn't even remember the place, and my classmates are all off at college -as far as I know at least- so they won't bother us," she replied.

"Why aren't you? Off at college I mean..." he asked, mentally slapping himself for pressing.

She stopped for a moment, looking back at him with something dark and very sad in her eyes. "I'll show you my scars when you show me yours," she said quietly, and he stiffened.

She knew something that he didn't, he realized. She had sensed something from him, and he wondered briefly if his suffering was obvious, or if she was just good at reading people.

He stayed quiet, hoping she understood that he got what she was saying, and she just turned around, leading the way in silence.


It had been a much longer walk than either of them had expected, so by the time they got there, they both were sweaty and tired. At least they had a place to rest.

Daryl looked the place over, deciding that, from what he saw one the outside at least, he actually liked it. It wasn't too shabby looking, and it was nestled nicely in the woods, deep enough to be private, but open enough to be inviting towards visitors. This had obviously been a nice cabin once, though it looked pretty abandoned now, nothing like the one he grew up in.

Before they stepped onto the porch, Beth suddenly started laughing. Daryl turned around to give her a confused look, and saw Beth clutching her stomach, bent dramatically at the waist. But something sounded off about her laughter. It sounded.. Odd.

He stepped towards her, seeing suddenly that little droplets were falling onto the ground. Her laughter started to sound a lot more like sobs, and instantly Daryl was uncomfortable.

Crying and girls -and even more so a combination of the two- were not his forte.

He stood there awkwardly for a moment before placing a large hand on her back, deciding to attempt to comfort her. She seemed to flinch a bit at his touch, but before he could pull away he saw her relax a little bit. He felt a bit less uncomfortable seeing that he was somehow helping. He waited for her to stop shaking, avoiding her gaze once she was standing up straight again, knowing that he wouldn't want someone staring at him after he'd been crying.

"Thank you," she said softly, and he grunted in response as he walked towards the cabin.

"Ya' think it's locked?" he asked, his large paces shaking the porch. He treaded carefully to the door, hoping the wood wasn't as fragile as it seemed.

"Could be," Beth replied, staying where she was for a minute, seeming to be gathering herself again.

He tried to door, the knob stopping halfway. "It is."

"Good thing I know where the key is," Beth replied. He watched as she came over to the steps, kneeling down to reach under the wood. After a few moments, she pulled her arm out and held the key up, a triumphant look brightening up her dim features.

He tried to ignore the fact that her eyes were still watery and bright from crying, but it bugged him. He didn't know why she had just broken down like that, but he was starting to think he wasn't the only one with dark demons haunting him with every step he took. But whatever it was, for now at least, he would leave it be. He sure as hell didn't like people stuffing their noses in his business, so he assumed she wouldn't want him doing that either.

"This was my family's old vacation cabin," Beth said as Daryl stepped aside to let her open the door. "We don't really come here anymore though. I used to bring my friends out here all the time, but they've all gone off far away from town, so it's just kinda… Here. I'm glad it finally has a use though."

Beth put the key in the hole and the door clicked unlocked. Beth turned the knob slowly, pushing the door open with careful hesitance. Once she seemed content with the place, she walked inside, gesturing for Daryl to follow her.

It was fairly bare on the inside; furnished in a simple-yet-elegant kind of way, and Daryl liked it. It had a rare charm about it, kind of like Beth did. Sure, the place needed to be dusted and the floor needed to be swept, but that didn't take away the feel the place gave off.

She went around to each room, testing the lights, then the water in the kitchen while Daryl checked the bathroom sink.

"S'nice," Daryl said as he entered the kitchen where Beth was checking the cabinets.

"Yeah, I guess," Beth replied, her eyes focussed on the task at hand, her body tense. "It's just'a cabin."

From some reason, Daryl's anger sparked, and he glared at her, feeling the need to defend this place for some strange reason. "'Is just'a nice cabin."

She stopped what she was doing and turned to him, her big blue eyes wide and quizzical. He just snorted and went over to his bag, pulling out a pack of smokes because he desperately needed a cigarette right now.

With that he walked out the front door, not slamming the door shut, but closing it roughly. God… Why the hell was he so pissed off?


Beth watched him walk out the door, confused, but also feeling a bit guilty.

She had been trying to play it off as if this place wasn't a big deal. As if it didn't hold hundreds of sweet childhood memories of her entire family, some even including their dear family friends Otis and Patricia.

But that's just it… She had been trying, but not necessarily succeeding, her breakdown once they first saw the place proof enough of her failure.

The tension in her body was making her on edge, every memory that fluttered through her mind causing this painful stabbing in her chest. She just wanted to forget… She just wanted to be stronger, so she could handle this. So she could go to her old family cabin and feel like her family members were at peace. So she could feel like she was at peace.

She wished she could just… Change. But things don't work like that.

As Beth grabbed some canned soup to cook, she considered for a moment that that's why Daryl had seemed so pissed off. She had broke down crying, and now she was acting all tense and tightly wound, trying to pass this place off as nothing, but he could see right through that.

The part she would never admit to anyone was the fact that some piece of her hoped that he could see right through her.

He was both easy and hard to read. His eyes gave away a lot, but at the same time, it seemed like he only let show what he didn't know how to hide. Which meant that there was so much more underneath his mask.

She knew a fake expression when she saw one, since she wore them everyday. She knew that most of the time he wore a mask, made for the same purpose as the patterns on a tropical butterfly's wings, to scare people away. A mechanism created out of fear and the need for self preservation.

Beth found a pan and poured the soup in, deciding it was better to put the bad stuff out of her mind for now. She wasn't going to pry information out of Daryl. Not only would that be hypocritical, but just rude in general. She knew though, that she shouldn't act all closed off forever. Besides that, she didn't want to act that way around Daryl at all.

She frowned at herself at the thought, mentally cursing herself for being so pitiful.

She had found Daryl Dixon by pure chance! Why couldn't she set her sadness aside for more than a few hours and revel in the sometimes beautiful strangeness of life?

She shook her head and found a large wooden spoon to stir the soup, deciding to sing a little tn to get her mind back in a good place.


Daryl knew this place had some meaning to Beth. She had started crying before they'd even gotten inside for christs sake! And then, she just started acting like it didn't mean anything. God, it's was just such bullshit!

He glared out into the daylight, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned against the side of the cabin and took a long drag.

He had an inkling in the back of his mind that this was probably the feeling people got when they talked to him. The irritation and the annoyance at that stubborn-as-a-bull attitude. He felt that he and Beth were similar in a lot of ways, and experiencing his attributes from an outside perspective was strange, almost educational.

He really hoped he wasn't this irritating.

He heard the door creak next to him and he turned his head, his eyes connecting with Beth's, whose momentarily flashed with a silent apology. He nodded curtly to her in response, hoping she understood that she didn't really need to feel sorry, he was known to be a jerk, so there were no hard feelings, and she seemed to feel a little better with his reply.

She smiled slightly, and said, "I made some soup if you want some."

He tossed his cigarette on the ground, crushing it with his boot and nodding to her. "Sure," he said, and they walked back inside.