I have been feeling a bit down lately and when I feel like that, this is the universe I want to crawl into and not leave.

Also, just a reminder - no matter how many "years" have passed, Daryl and Beth always look like they did in S4.

…

Four.

"What are you reading, Bee?" Beth asked as she stood at the table, sprinkling flour on the surface before beginning to knead the lump of dough and she listened to the little girl giggle from behind the worn paperback open in her hands.

"I, Claudius," Bee smiled as she sat in the chair across from her. "He was always boasting of his ancestors, as stupid people do who are aware that they had done nothing themselves to boast about," she then read out loud and Beth smiled, too.

An almost seven-year-old reading such a book was impressive – quite so – and Beth told her so, making Bee beam with pride. She read for a few more minutes to herself as Beth continued kneading the dough that she would be baking for breakfast, making sure she didn't knead it too much since it had no yeast and she didn't want to overwork it.

"Beth?" Bee asked, closing her book. "Can I put on a record?"

"You know you can, sweetie," Beth smiled at her, turning to get the Dutch oven, and Bee smiled in return, sliding down from her chair and going into the living room where they kept their record player and all of the records they have found over the years.

The record player was one that Daryl and Beth had found years earlier – when it had been just the two of them. They had found it at an antiques store with a stack of classical records and it was an old-fashioned player that had a handle and had to be cranked. Bee choose a record from the shelf where they kept them and then stepped past Jack, who was sitting on the floor, right in front of the record player that morning, playing with one of his toys.

"Excuse me, Jack," Bee smiled and turned the handle a few times, making sure it had enough juice, before carefully placing the record down on the turntable and lifting the needle, placing it down at the particular song she wanted to hear that morning.

Beth smiled to herself as one of Haydn's String Quartet in C Major began to play, softly filling the cabin with music. Bee returned to the table and with the dough formed into a round loaf inside of the Dutch oven, Beth slid it into the oven, shutting the door firmly.

"Beth?" Bee asked as Beth next went to stand at the counter, beginning to cut apples from the basket next to her into slices.

"Hmmmm?"

"What were people like?" The little girl asked and Beth's knife paused in mid-swipe. She then turned her head and Bee stood at her side, looking up at her. "Before everything changed, were people really different?"

Before everything changed. That was how the kids had been taught about the world now and how it had ended years before they were born.

Beth sometimes found herself thinking about all of the things the kids didn't know and would never know. It could be the most random thing – like rubbing a towel over her wet hair after bathing in the creek – and she would think that the kids would never know what a hairdryer was. Or how they'd never know about going to the movie theater or getting blizzards from Dairy Queen with their friends or going to a high school football game on a Friday night.

It would make her sad when she thought of it and she did her best to not think of it too often. There was no point. That world was long gone and this, here, was how things were now and would continue to be. Human civilization took thousands of years to build up to what it had been before everything changed and Beth knew it would be that way again. Hopefully. But all of them would probably be long gone by the time it was.

"People were how people have always been. Some are good. Some are bad," Beth answered. She looked down to Bee as Bee was quiet, frowning a little to herself as she thought that over. "And sometimes, you think there are just bad people because that's all you hear about and you don't hear about the good at all."

"Like us?"

"Exactly like us," Beth smiled. "We're good people, but the truth is, living up here, no one knows we're here."

"And we want to keep it that way," Bee was quick to add.

"Exactly," Beth said again with another smile, but it faded as she looked to the girl. "Bee, why are you asking?" She couldn't help, but be curious.

"When I go on the run to Crispin, I know my mommy and daddy have killed people," she said quietly and she sounded so much older in that moment than almost-seven. She shook her head. "I don't want to kill anyone," she whispered and Beth's stomach fell to her feet.

"Oh, Bee," she said softly and knelt down in front of her. "You won't have to do anything like that. I promise. Daryl, Aaron, Matt and your mommy and daddy will keep you safe."

Bee just stared at her though. "I thought we couldn't be too safe," she said.

Beth opened her mouth to say something else though she admitted she had nothing on her mind that she thought would help the little girl because the truth was, they all had told the kids – over and over again – that they could never be too safe. They might be so isolated up here on their mountain, but there were still walkers and other people would could hurt them. They had to live every day of their life, being as careful as possible.

They knew – the adults knew – what could happen if they let their guard down.

"Haydn, my favorite," Spencer entered the kitchen then through the back door with a smile on his face when he heard the record playing, but it almost immediately disappeared when he saw Beth kneeling in front of Bee and Bee frowning slightly. "What's going on?" He asked and both Bee and Beth turned their heads to look at him.

Bee looked back to Beth, who gave her a smile and kiss on the forehead before standing up again. Bee then went to her dad and slipped her hand into his. Spencer held on and frowned a little, having absolutely no idea what was going on.

"Daddy, I know you're afraid of them, but will you come with me to see if the goose gave us another egg?" Bee asked him.

"I am not afraid of the geese, Bee," Spencer informed her. "I'm cautious. Big difference."

"Okay," she replied to him and it sounded as if she didn't believe him for one second.

"So, what's going on?" Spencer asked his daughter as they left the kitchen and headed outside. Beth hoped that Bee would tell him and hopefully, Spencer would be able to think of something to tell her.

Once the baking sheet was filled with the apple slices, Beth took the jar of honey and the jar of cinnamon and sprinkled amounts all over the apples before sliding the sheet into the oven. She checked on the bread and then closed the over door once again, wiping her hands and beginning to clean up the kitchen and gather the plates to set the table.

The windows were open, allowing the cool morning summer breeze to blow into the rooms. She could hear the boys in the garden, walking with Aaron and Rosita, as they looked over their crops that were beginning to grow taller and bud, checking on each and every single one of them, and they pulled a few weeds as they passed them. The sheep and goats were out of the barn, roaming the yard, some already laying down and others munching on the grass. Jasper and the donkey were still in the barn and looking out the window, Beth didn't see Anna so she assumed she was in the barn with them, probably checking over their hooves as she did every other morning and just how Mulligan had taught her to do all those years ago. They didn't use horseshoes, so Anna was rather meticulous in always checking their hooves and making sure that they were alright.

Beth tried not to think of Bee and the little girl's words. It wasn't something she wanted to think of because she knew – when they had started having children – that they're children would not have the childhood that she had been lucky enough to have, but still, Bee even thinking about having to maybe kill a person and she wasn't even seven-years-old, it made Beth's stomach tighten and her eyes began to gather moisture.

Coming to the Blue Ridge Mountains and living here in isolation, it had saved their lives. There were still walkers, of course, but just a couple a week, more when they went lower down the mountains, but for the most part, their lives were quiet and the kids had been able to be just kids. She understood why Daryl wanted them to come on the run. They wouldn't be able to be kids forever and one day, it would be their job to keep this farm going and they needed to know how to do everything that the adults had to do.

Still, Beth only hoped that this run to Crispin would be worth all of this.

"Beth, what the hell you feedin' this girl?" Daryl asked as he came into the kitchen, carrying a giggling Ceci in his arms, and Beth lifted her head from the table to look at them both.

"Jack's actually heavier than her," Beth pointed out, thinking that he was making a comment as Eli had made, and she smiled as she stepped forward, taking Ceci from his arms into hers and she kissed her daughter on the side of her head, Ceci still giggling.

"I meant, what the hell you feedin' this girl because her shits are explosive," Daryl said and Beth couldn't help, but begin laughing at that.

Beth kissed Ceci's head again and then set her down on her feet. "Go on, baby girl. Go play with your brother," she said, giving her a slight pat on her rump.

Both Daryl and Beth watched with little smiles as Ceci scurried off and at the last moment, she tripped over her own feet and fell completely on top of Jack. Ceci began giggling all over again and the twins managed to right themselves and Jack began talking to her in their baby speak, as if lecturing her for knocking him over.

Daryl then looks to Beth and he leans in, giving her a kiss on her temple. "Smells good in here," he said and he went to the sink to wash his hands. When he began making a move to open the oven door, Beth whipped the hand towel draped over her shoulder onto his arm.

"Don't even think about it, Daryl Dixon," she scolded him. "Breakfast will be ready soon."

"Don't be smackin' me, woman," he grumbled with no bite in his tone. "You haven't made your apples in a while."

"I swear, we have more apples than we did last year. I'm not sure what we'll do with them all," she commented, going to the oven now herself, and she playfully bumped him with her hip so he could step aside and she could open the door herself, peeking in.

The smell of bread and cinnamon and baking apples smacked her in the face and her stomach let out a grumble as a reflex.

"I think I should try one," Daryl suggested, looking in from over her shoulder. "You know, jus' to make sure they're bakin' the whole way through."

Beth laughed and rolled her eyes and she plucked a fork from the container on the counter. "You are such a child," she teased him, handing the utensil to him and then with her towel, she slid the baking sheet out just enough for him to spear one apple slice with his fork.

She closed the oven door again and then watched as Daryl bit and chewed. And when his eyes slid closed as if he was experiencing pure pleasure, Beth felt herself smiling and blushing. And then, Daryl's eyes opened and he quickly swooped in, pressing a kiss to her lips, letting her taste the combination of apples, cinnamon and honey. She smiled against his lips before her hands lifted to his cheeks, framing his head, and she kissed him again.

"You alrigh'?" Daryl murmured to her quietly once their lips parted.

Beth opened her eyes and found him already looking at her. "Don't I seem alright?"

"You seem distracted," he noted and of course, she wasn't able to hide anything from him.

She knew it would be pretty easy for her to tell him about what she and Bee talked about and odds were, the girl was telling her daddy right now and Spencer would talk with Daryl about it later, but honestly, Beth could tell him, but nothing was going to change. She understood completely why Daryl wanted the kids to come on this run, but Bee being so young, she could only think of Eli now and what would happen if he – or any of the kids – had to kill someone at their age?

It made her sick to her stomach.

She had never killed a living person. Would it be too much to hope that the kids would be as lucky, too?

"I'm okay," Beth told him as honestly as she could, but Daryl kept studying her.

"Don't know if I believe that," he said, but Beth just shook her head and gave him a little smile before pressing her lips to his in another kiss.

"You're drivin' me crazy," Daryl grumbled.

"Because I'm kissing you?" She asked, barely lifting her lips from his to do so.

"'cause you ain't talkin' to me."

Beth's lips curved into a small smile against his. "I'd rather be doing something else right now, if you don't mind."

"What the hell are we going to do with all of these eggs?" Matt asked as he came into the kitchen, the basket of chicken eggs in one hand and one goose egg in his other hand.

Beth pulled her lips from Daryl's and turned her head to look at the basket of eggs he was setting down on the counter. "Yes, such an awful problem to have. Too many eggs," she teased.

Matt smirked a little. "You know what I mean," he said and then put the goose egg carefully on top of the smaller eggs in the basket.

Beth looked to Daryl. "Do you remember the winter after the farm, but before the prison?"

"A lil'," Daryl shrugged though they both knew that Daryl remembered everything.

"Could you imagine how better things would have been if we had eggs?" She asked.

"What? You sayin' you didn' like eatin' dog food?" Daryl asked, joking, and he smiled a little when Beth visibly shuddered.

She turned towards the basket and began gently looking over the eggs. "We'll have some fried eggs for breakfast and then I'll think of something else to use them for dinner."

"You know what I miss?" Matt asked as it was his turn to go to the sink and wash his hands. "Egg McMuffins. There was a McDonald's on the walk to school and I'd drag my sister in there every morning so I could get one."

"That's not a bad idea, actually," Beth said. "I have the bread and we have the eggs to fry… I can make us egg sandwiches."

"Don't tease me, Beth," Matt threw her a grin and Beth laughed a little.

The record suddenly jumped and the needle scratched and they all turned to see that the twins were rough-housing, pushing one another over, and Jack had just fallen back into the record player stand, hitting his head. He sat there for a moment, stunned, and then he exploded with tears.

Both Beth and Daryl hurried over, Beth swooping Jack up into her arms, trying to comfort him and Daryl gently checked the back of his head to make sure that he wasn't bleeding.

"I'm going to go walk him around outside," Beth said. "Can you guys make sure the bread and apples don't burn?" She said to both Daryl and Matt, already heading out the door.

Jack's cries had quieted down now, but he was still whimpering and Beth rubbed the back of his head gently. This was something else the kids wouldn't be able to experience; having ice in the summer.

…

They had their big breakfast of egg sandwiches and apple slices and the egg sandwiches were such an instant hit, Beth was going to bake another loaf of bread so they could have them for dinner, too.

And after they were stuffed, they all went about their daily chores. Beth asked Anna if she would mind going to get some kudzu so she could fry it up on the stove and Anna took the basket as well as the sheep to have them graze. Lily came with her and though most would think that using a wolf as an animal to help with herding the sheep, Lily had never attacked any of their farm livestock before. When they had found her, pregnant and starving to death near their creek, and they had taken her into their home, caring for her and giving her a home, it was as if – though Lily was still wild and still went off to hunt on her own – there was a part of her that was now domesticated and she knew that if she hurt anything or anyone within the fences, she would no longer be able to consider these people her pack.

Matt came with her and they headed down the road, towards the simple white clapboard church that had fallen into ruins over the years of abandonment and the little cemetery next to it. It was surrounded by an iron wrought fence and it was easier to have the sheep graze around when there was some sort of barrier to keep them in the same spot and Anna and Matt could go about picking.

Mulligan had taken her here before and she knew that his family was buried here. There were stones so old and faded and Mulligan had told her that some in this cemetery dated back to the 1800s. There was a headstone "The Girl in Blue" with no dates or name. Just that title and the story Mulligan had told her, there was a girl in a blue dress who came to town one day and no one knew her name or where she came from or where she was going. Mulligan had been just a little boy then, but he remembered that she had smiled at everyone who she met. The next day, she was found, swinging from a rope that hung from one of the rafters in her room that she had rented in the inn.

The whole town had pitched in to bury her and get her a stone and after that, there had been more than one sighting of a girl in blue walking through the trees.

Kudzu was growing all over the cemetery, covering most of the stones and creeping up the sides of the church, but Anna made sure that the kudzu never covered any of the headstones with MULLIGAN name etched into them or over the "The Girl in Blue".

She knelt down on the ground and began cutting at the kudzu with her knife and Matt collapsed on the ground next to her, lying on his back and folding his hands on his stomach, he closed his eyes.

"So, you're not going to help me then?" Anna asked.

"Nope," Matt said, popping the "p", keeping his eyes closed. "Someone kept bothering me last night and didn't let me get nearly enough sleep."

"You're an idiot," Anna said even as she felt her cheeks warm with a blush.

"That's what I get for marrying a younger woman," he continued, grinning. "Oof!" He grunted when Anna leaned over and smacked him in the stomach.

He opened his eyes and grabbed her arm, pulling her nearly on top of her, and she laughed, trying to get away from him, but Matt held onto her tightly.

"You're an idiot," she said again, still laughing.

"So you keep telling me," he replied. "But you married me so what does it say about you?"

Anna was quiet for a moment, pretending to think that over. She looked back to him. "Alright, Mr. Berry, you win this round," she said and he grinned before cupping the back of her head and pulling her down for a kiss.

They both froze however when they heard it at the same time.

A twig snapped.

Matt let go of Anna and she scrambled to her feet, grabbing her knife that was resting in the grass near her basket, and Matt stood up quickly as well, with his own knife out in his hand. The sheep were lazily grazing around, bleating as they ate their grass, and Lily suddenly appeared at Anna's side, crouched down and growling, her teeth visible.

There were the woods all around them and Anna's eyes sharply moved over the landscape just as Daryl taught her when she was still a little girl. Her instincts were telling her that someone was here and that someone was watching and that this someone was not one of their family. If it was, they would have made themselves known already. This someone was still hiding and Anna couldn't figure out where they were. She could just feel their eyes.

Anna looked to Matt, his own eyes were searching the trees, trying to see anything, and she then glanced down to Lily before lifting her head once more.

"If you don't come out, I'm sending my wolf in and I bet she'll have no problem finding you!" Anna called out, the gentle wind blowing carrying her voice. Lily growled as if she understood and was more than ready to do just that, but Anna put a hand on her head, making sure she stayed at her side.

She really wished Daryl was here.

She could feel her heart beating as fast as a rabbit's and she just needed to see who was in those trees; hoped that there was only one someone in those trees, watching them.

Lily growled, crouching lower down to the ground, ready to spring at Anna's command.

"Okay!" A voice – a man's voice – called out. "We're coming out!"

We're. Anna made sure she was at complete attention.

Hers and Matt's fingers both tightened around their knives and stiffly, they waited.

At least they had been facing the right direction, Anna thought to herself as she saw a man slowly step out from behind a tree and she took a moment to take in the sight of him. It had been a very long time since she had seen another person outside of their family. He was probably in his forties, she gathered, with a brown beard speckled with grey. Matt had a beard as well, but unlike his, this man's beard was wild and unkempt; the same with his scraggly matching dark brown and grey hair.

He was thin. Painfully thin.

The woman behind was around the same age and Anna nearly cringed because she looked as if she was a walking skeleton. Her hair was long and dark red and tangled. They were both dirty as was their clothes as well as ripped.

Anna could just imagine what they saw when they looked at her and Matt. Both were clean and wearing clean clothes and had bathed in recent memory and their stomachs were still full from eating so much at breakfast. And not only that, but they had a herd of sheep with them. Anna looked at this couple and hated that she had actually forgotten that most of the people left in the world weren't nearly as lucky as she and her family was.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Matt's fingers loosen ever so slightly from around his knife's handle. He still held onto it tightly, but was no longer white-knuckling it. His body remained tight though; at the ready, as did Anna's. She couldn't imagine these two having any sort of energy to actually give too much of a fight, but Anna always remembered what her family had told her when she was much younger.

Desperate people were the most dangerous.

"We're just looking for something to eat," the man said as he and the woman help up their hands to show them that they weren't armed and if they were, they weren't pointing those weapons at Matt and Anna.

There was food all around them, Anna noted. Flowers and mushrooms and even the bark could be eaten, but she knew that most wouldn't know that. And even if they did, these people looked as if their bodies were falling into themselves. They needed more to eat than flowers and leaves.

For once, Anna actually hadn't brought any snacks with them. They were so full from breakfast, and collecting the kudzu and letting the sheep graze for a bit, she hadn't thought that they would be gone that long to be hungry again. She thought of all of the food back at their home. Beth would want to feed them. Maybe none of the others, but Beth would.

Anna glanced to Matt and Matt gave her a quick look before looking back to the couple, but it was a look quick enough to communicate.

"You stay here," Anna said. "I'll go and get something and bring it back to you."

"Thank you," the man said, his hands slowly falling to his sides.

"Thank you," the woman said and she sounded like she was about to cry.

Anna swallowed a sudden thickness in her throat. Long ago, before Aaron, Rosita and Spencer found her, she had been living in a supply closet, eating stale chips from a broken vending machine and though it had been so long since then, she still remembered the hunger; the hunger that had hurt so bad, she felt like rolling into a ball and crying.

"Stay here and we'll be back soon," Anna said. "I promise."

She turned her head quickly away so she wouldn't see the woman now crying.

Anna and Matt gathered the sheep and she picked up her basket again. There wasn't that much kudzu, but she could always pick more. As they guided their herd and Lily from the cemetery, Matt continually looked over his shoulder to make sure the couple wasn't following them to see where they were going.

"You think Daryl will come and kill them?" Matt asked.

Anna had told him what Daryl did when a living person got too close to where they lived. It was Daryl's way of keeping them safe because he didn't trust anyone anymore. To Daryl, the living was far more dangerous than any walker.

She didn't know what Daryl would do. She hoped he wouldn't kill them. And she also hoped that once they returned with food, the couple would leave and not come back.

…

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

I also was researching colonial-era ice houses and I've decided that there are just some things that this family can't do.