Tragic.

That was the only word that could describe the whole situation.

Daryl pulled away and isolated himself more than he had in the beginning when the group first arrived at the farm. Beth knew it was because of the aftermath of the barn massacre and Sophia's death. That death seemed to have rocked Daryl to his core. Everyone grieved. Carol clung to Lori for support. But the odd thing was that Daryl seemed to be more upset about Sophia being in that barn than Sophia's own mother was.

Beth saw how Daryl set up camp far away from everyone else. She had watched from the porch days ago when he sauntered off to be alone. She wanted to go out there and talk to him. Sit with him and be silent if that was what he needed her to do. She didn't need to say anything. Maybe her presence would be enough.

But there were words that needed to be spoken. There was no way around that.

What she did want to say, though, was that Daryl had done the best that he could have in hopes to find Sophia. She wanted to pour out her heart and tell him that he was such a good person, so amazing and caring for searching relentlessly until he took an arrow to the side and a bullet that grazed his head, rendering him incapable to searching more.

She knew he would have gone back out there.

She knew he would have gone with the stitches still in and risked pulling them out if he was not under constant watch (house arrest, as he called it).

She knew he would have tried, and that was all anyone could ask for.

No one expected him to do what he did for Sophia. And Beth didn't think that he got enough praise for doing what he did (though she doubted he wanted it anyways).

It pained Beth to see Daryl go through such a whirlwind of emotion. It was obvious to her that he was not used to dealing with that sort of stuff. Something about the death of Sophia had hit him hard, dug through him and clawed at the edges of his conscious. The others did not see it as well as Beth did; she could tell that they were caught up in other various things like trying to control Shane.

Loose cannon, remember?

Problem with that is this cannon would go off without warning—explode and take everything down with it.

Shane was dangerous.

Off his rocker.

Something had snapped inside of that man, something bad, and something grim. He let a darkness in and grabbed onto it, not letting it leave him.

Beth was worried about it, and that was a generous understatement. She tried to convince herself that Rick would take care of it, handle Shane, but there was a large part that told her that Rick was the object that stood in Shane's way of getting what he really wanted.

Best friends turned enemies. At least that was what it was on Shane's side. Rick was in the middle of trying to save him, pull him back from the edge he was teetering off of.

The edge of insanity.

But the twisted look in Shane's eyes told Beth that there might not be a way to save him. Shane was gone. Shane wanted Rick gone.

Beth didn't know which was scarier.

Beth debated back and forth whether or not she should go out to where Daryl was. He sat out in the field up against the rock wall sharpening a number of knives and making more arrows for his crossbow. He had been doing that all day, trying to keep himself busy. Beth began to worry that he got too much time inside his own head to think about what had happened, to ruminate over it again and again.

Screw it. She was going to go out there.

Beth needed to say something to him, anything that might possibly make him feel better. Something that would let him know that he didn't need to feel guilty about what happened. She wanted to let him know that it was okay to feel the emotions. There was nothing wrong about feeling the way he did.

Beth stopped peeling the potatoes that she had picked out of their large garden earlier in the day and set down the peeler onto the wooden cutting board. "Can you finish prepping dinner?" she asked Andrea, who was setting up the steamer on the gas stove. "There's only a few more left that need to be peeled and cut."

Andrea nodded. "Sure. Where are off to?"

Beth took off her red apron and hung it over the chair at the kitchen table, hesitating before she answered. "To go talk to Daryl."

"Honey, I doubt he will say much."

"He doesn't need to say anythin'," she affirmed. "I'll do all the talkin'. And if he doesn't want me to talk then I'll sit there until he does."

"That the plan?"

"That's the plan," Beth declared.

Andrea sighed and went over to Beth's original station to finish the potatoes for part of the dinner they had planned. She playfully encouraged Beth by waving her off and said, "Well, go on. See if you can drag his ass in here."

Beth left the kitchen and swung open the front door, hearing it squeak in disapproval for not being as gentle with the wooden frame like she normally was. But she was a woman on a mission. She didn't have time for being cautious with little things.

Once outside, she saw that the sun had dipped below the horizon, giving the sky a beautiful orange tint to it. The sparse clouds were illuminated with a light shade of pink. It almost stopped Beth in her tracks. She thought that it was one of the prettier sunsets that had happened in the last few weeks (because, yes, she made an effort to view every single one).

She never knew when it might be her last.

Beth marched through the field in her cowboy boots over to where Daryl was. She was careful not to trip on any of the rocks or tree stumps that were hidden by the overgrowth on her way over. That was all she needed—to fall and injure herself on her way over to talk some sense into Daryl. That would have been the universe telling her it was a bad idea.

But it seemed the universe was in her favor this time. She got over to the rock wall with no problem.

From behind, Beth saw that Daryl had a tattoo on his right side up near his shoulder blades. It was visible because he was hunched over while sitting, his cut off sleeves revealing the tattoo as he worked on sharpening a hunting knife. She stared at it for a moment, trying to decipher what the ink was of with no luck.

Now is not the time, she told herself.

"Daryl?"

He flinched in her direction, blue eyes snapping up to Beth's, startled to see her there. Oops. She had a bad habit of sneaking up on people. It wasn't her fault, not really. Beth was small, she would tread light on her feet, and didn't make much noise as she approached people, even when she was in boots.

"Damn, girl. You tryin' to get yourself killed?"

"Sorry," she apologized, seeing he had gripped the knife in his hand tighter. "Didn't mean to spook you."

Daryl Dixon was not someone who was easily startled, and she could tell that by the way he looked over at her, like he was sizing her up, trying to figure out how she had managed to do the impossible.

When he turned back to the fire, Beth got the impression that this would not to very simple. Not that she had imagined it would be to begin with, but she had underestimated the resistance she would get from Daryl. He was clearly not in the mood to have company. But that was too damn bad for him. He was going to get just that.

Beth was a lot like her sister in that way. They were both stubborn and extremely persistent with a goal. Greene women never gave up easily.

Beth stepped around the fire to the other side and sat down opposite to Daryl where the grass was trampled down, the softness of it tickling against the palms of her hands as she adjusted herself so that she sat cross legged on the ground. She sat there in silence for a few moments, strategically planning what she would need to say to him, and also waiting to see if he would say anything to her and give her some indication of whether he needed her to sit there and watch the fire with him for a while or if she should get right on with it.

"How come you ain't askin' a ton of questions?"

Finally, Daryl spoke up. His voice was balanced at a low and husky tone, the usual way that it was. But Daryl didn't seem to be particularly interested in her answer because he kept his gaze trained on the light of the fire.

"You don't wanna talk," she responded.

Daryl snorted, glimpsing up at her. "You seem to think you know me pretty well, don't ya?"

Beth didn't miss a beat. She confidently replied, "I know you better than you think I do. Want me to tell you what I know? Like you said before, I'm very observant. I see what others fail to. I pick up on little things."

That shut him up. Daryl dropped his head back down to stare off into the fire. The way he so casually trained his eyes on the dancing flames concerned her.

"You tryin' to burn your retinas outta your eyeball?"

Only then did he look up at her again, head still tilted down at the ground, and face unchanged, though she could have sworn that she saw the slightest upward movement of the corner of Daryl's lips. She ignored the almost smile because Beth figured it was a good window of opportunity to say what she needed to.

"You shouldn't be so hard on yourself,' she directly told him, wanting him to instantly believe her. "You did the best that you could before and that's all that you could do."

"Don't need ya to tell me nothin'. Do me a favor and run back inside. Leave me be," he coldly muttered, averting his eyes back to the hunting knife that was in his hand. He sharpened the blade some more. "Don't need a pep talk from a farmer's daughter."

Her blood boiled right then.

"Well guess the hell what, Daryl Dixon," she spat out, angered by him trying to push her away and reducing her to just a farmer's daughter. "How dare you! I'm not out her to be your personal cheer squad. I'm out here because I'm worried about you, if that wasn't obvious. But why would it be, huh? You clearly don't notice that people actually care about you and don't want you out here isolating yourself because Sophia was in the barn. You can't push people away and expect them not to fight you on it. Not everyone gives up."

She surprised herself there. She did not know what exactly had come over her a few seconds ago. Beth almost never cursed in front of people or yelled at them but Daryl had gotten her so agitated by his previous don't need a pep talk from a farmer's daughter comment.

Daryl's eyes had snapped up to hers as she had gone off on a tangent and he stopped his movements with the knife. He stared her down, and she saw the shock that played out in his blue eyes, the flickering of the fire making it more evident in his face. She guessed he had expected her to up and leave him there, run off because he muttered some dismissal to her.

There was an extended silence where neither of them spoke a word, didn't even move a muscle. The only noise came from the crackling fire and from the crickets that started to chirp off in the distance because the day had turned into dusk.

Beth reconstructed what she wanted to say but then she gave up on that. She would say what came to mind in the moment, what felt natural.

"Pain is a part of life," Beth started, also staring into the fire to mimic Daryl's previous actions. "You feel it, you let it in, and it sticks with you for a while. It can take over, but only if you let it. The pain hurts. It hurts a lot sometimes and sometimes it feels like it might devour you whole." Beth inhaled a deep breath before she let it back out. "Until one day it goes away. The pain stops and you no longer hurt."

Daryl shifted his position but didn't say anything; she knew he got the message.

Beth got up off the ground and walked around the fire until she stood about a foot away from Daryl. She glanced down at Daryl, who had abandoned sharpening the blade so he could instead mess with his rough hands, finding them suddenly way more interesting than having to look at her.

"Now get up and come in for dinner," she demanded, still feeling bold and confident. "Because if you think for a second I'm gonna let you sit out here forever, then you're dead wrong."

Daryl hesitated. She saw that he contemplated his options. After a few seconds passed, he put one hand flat on the ground and pushed himself up so he could stand, grabbing up his crossbow, and stuck the hunting knife securely into its place off his side. He kicked dirt onto the fire to put it out, smoke floating upwards after it the flames died out.

He glanced over at her then, frozen in place. His eyes were apologizing to her, because he would not be able to get the words out. She understood. And that was fine with Beth. She had not expected an apology of any sorts from him in the first place.

They walked through the tall grass back to the house without saying anything.

Beth was very pleased with the outcome that she had gotten from this whole thing, and tried very hard to hold back the grin that attempted to spread across her face. She couldn't wait to see the look on Andrea's face when she walked into the house with Daryl by her side.

Beth had broken through to Daryl—reached out and yanked him back from the edge.

And he let her.