As requested.

I know everyone wanted an update on If I Loved You or Band-Aids and Coconut Cake but the muse grabbed hold of me for this one and wouldn't let go. I've been working on it for a couple of days now and I hope you like it. Thank you!

...

Chapter Four. Run.

Usually, the way they had done it in the past, on the days that they decided would be run days, they would put all of their names into the basket and four names would get pulled out at random. Four would go and two would stay behind, keeping watch of their house. But ever since Aiden was born, Spencer and Rosita were more hesitant to go though they would if their names were pulled and wouldn't argue because this was the way they did things and the basket was the fairest way to do anything. It was Daryl, without discussing it without the others, who began leaving their names from the basket. So it became that on run day, it was always Daryl, Beth, Anna and Aaron.

But today, they were all recovering from colds they had caught from something the week before and Spencer – always boasting that he had an incredible immune system – had barricaded himself down in the basement with Aiden so the baby wouldn't get sick, too, as Aaron, Anna and Rosita coughed and blew their noses upstairs. Daryl and Beth had gotten the same cold, too, but they were the first to recover. Beth had been giving them all garlic and lemon juice and then cold teas of pine needles that helped combat the mucus and coughing, and when run day came, Daryl told them all that he and Beth would be the only ones to go. And no one had argued with that decision.

They took the Buick rather than the truck because while the truck had a bit more room, the Buick had better gas mileage, and Daryl knew that they might have to go out for a while. They had already cleaned out the surrounding areas around them and would have to start going out further to find anything of use; until that ran out, too, and there was nothing else in this world to find.

Rosita had been the one to decide that Anna's education had to continue past gardening and defending herself and history had always been Beth's best and favorite subject in school so she volunteered to teach that besides the medicine and plant life lessons. Spencer said he would cover math and Aaron volunteered science. Rosita would teach English and Daryl had always hated school and hadn't even graduated high school but Rosita said that he could teach Anna about cars and fixing them and tracking and hunting and they all knew that those were the lessons Anna enjoyed the most. For her history lessons, Beth was starting with the Pilgrims and how when they came here, there was nothing and had to learn and be taught how to make everything from that nothing. And Daryl figured she was teaching Anna that lesson for him, too, because one of these days, they would have to do that as well.

Spencer, Rosita, and Aaron – and Eric when he had been alive – had first come upon Daryl and Beth from the north; a direction that the three never wanted to go in again for some reasons they never talked about and Daryl and Beth never pried, but they remembered what they passed. Aaron told Daryl of a town just an hour north of here. They had never stopped to investigate it but it seemed to be a good-sized town Daryl and Beth hadn't gone to yet and Daryl decided that for this run day, it was as good a destination as any.

So after checking the tires and the gas tank – Daryl figured that once gasoline expired, there would be no more runs and they really would be like the Pilgrims then – Beth gathered all of the lists together that everyone made of things that were needed – and some items which were considered luxuries – and made sure they had food and an emergency first-aid kit because absolutely anything could happen while out there.

They said goodbye to the family and Aaron went outside with them, going to the gate at the end of the driveway, opening it up for them, holding his hand up in a wave as Daryl drove out of the garage and eased into their cul-de-sac, watching in the rearview mirror as Aaron, once they were driving away, closed and locked the gate behind them once again.

"A road trip," Beth smiled in the passenger seat beside him, scooping her hair up into a ponytail. And once it was off her neck and face, she reached and pulled the backpack at her feet up into her lap. "Now, everyone gave me their lists and I was going over them so we need to be on the lookout for a few things. Everyone is requesting some new underwear and socks and I agree. They're all getting a little ratty and we can only mend so much. Also, the usual. More blankets. Candles. Aaron wants some Michael Crichton books if we can find them. More tea and hot chocolate and ground coffee if we can find any and Spencer is requesting a toothbrush still in the packaging."

"Spoiled brat," Daryl muttered and Beth smiled, nearly laughing. "What do you want?" He asked, glancing over at her for only a moment before back to the road.

Beth pulled out her own list. "Seeds, of course, vegetable oil, soy sauce-"

"Like Chinese restaurant soy sauce?" Daryl interrupted.

"Yep. I can use it in a lot of my cooking," Beth said. "More yeast. I still have plenty but I want to stock up so if we can find a church... More salt and spices. Tuna. Rice. Though I doubt we'll ever find those again. Maybe pasta noodles. More nails. Do you think we'll be able to find a male goat? For Lucky?"

"Wan' Lucky to get lucky?" Daryl smirked.

"Pretty much," Beth couldn't help but giggle a little. "She won't be producing milk forever. Biology and all of that. We need to get Lucky a beau."

Daryl kept smirking. "Got lucky with Lucky and our chickens. Real lucky. But we'll keep on the lookout for one."

"And what about you?" Beth turned in her seat more towards him. "What do you want?"

He shrugged as he always did when asked that. Daryl hadn't needed much before the world ended and he supposed he needed even less now. Just his crossbow and bolts and clean water nearby and maybe a blanket. Anything more than that was a luxury to him.

"Soap, I guess," he shrugged, because they really had enough of the things he would normally want. They had knives, rope, a fence… They were near fresh water and the woods were good to them and they had a roof over their heads. "And if you need nails, we'll keep takin' the houses 'part like I've been doin'. Get 'em from there."

Beth nodded. "I just like to have some on hand, just in case. You never know when you might need a good nail."

Daryl looked at her from the corner of his eye and the corner of his mouth began pulling up in a smirk. And after a moment, Beth's cheeks turned noticeable pinker.

"Shut up," she said, giving him a frown she didn't mean and he broke into a rare grin.

They had been driving for nearly thirty minutes now and on either side of the road, woods followed them. But up ahead, Daryl could see a break in the trees and he began to ease his foot off the gas pedal. Beth leaned forward in her seat to look at what they were approaching, both seeing the dirt road at the same time. He paused idly in front of it, looking at it quietly. Beth then turned his head to look at him and Daryl looked at her, waiting to see what she wanted to do. She gave a slight nod and nodding in return, Daryl turned the wheel and headed up the drive.

"Hmmm," Beth commented quietly as Daryl drove them closer to the worn down house and they both got their first look at it.

It looked like it had been falling down before the world ended.

But after a moment, they saw all of the bodies on the ground. There had to be at least a dozen, half- decomposed and spread out across the dead grass as if some sort of battle had happened here. And there were several holes in the front door from what looked to be like a shotgun. Someone had been protecting his home from inside. But what could possibly be inside that would need protecting and how did these people know about it?

Daryl shifted the car into park and then turned the ignition off, pulling the key out and handing it to Beth, who instantly slid it into the front pocket of the blue jeans she wore. He then grabbed his crossbow from where he kept it on the floor next to her leg, and when he pushed his door open, Beth pushed hers open as well. Outside of the car, it was quiet except for a few birds chirping nearby and a soft, brisk early Spring breeze blowing. Beth stood still as Daryl took in everything around them. He had trained her to do the same but even with practice and training, his eyes and ears and instincts were just better than hers and always would be so when they came to someplace new, Beth relied on him to do a surveillance of it.

He then took slow steps towards the front porch of the house and Beth followed after him, her own hunting knife drawn and clasped in her fist. The stairs creaked as Daryl came to the door, his crossbow drawn up and aimed. He stepped aside for Beth, who slowly dropped down to her knees, peering through the holes in the front door left from the shotgun. On the floor in the hallway, there was a man, nearly as decomposed as the bodies out on his front yard, a heavy grandfather's clock crushed over his head and a shotgun lying at his side. She did her best not to wince when she saw it.

"What you got?" Daryl asked in a low voice.

Beth lifted her knife and knocked on the door heavily with the hilt. They both waited a passing minute, both nearly holding their breath, and then she got back to her feet. She looked over her shoulder to Daryl, who nodded and kept his crossbow aimed and ready, and she tried the knob on the door. It didn't turn. Judging by the door, they could probably knock it down, but they didn't want to make more noise than they had to. It seemed quiet, but there could be a hundred walkers nearby for all they knew.

Dropping back to her knees, Beth thrust her arm through one of the holes. She pressed herself against the door and stretched her arm as far as she could until she felt the deadbolt. Her fingers fumbled, taking a moment to get a good grasp on it and then, with a relieved sigh, she was able to turn it over. She instantly pulled her arm from the hole and tried the knob again. This time, the door opened with a quiet click. She looked up at Daryl with a smile and got to her feet.

"Seems like a lot of trouble jus' to get into a house like this," Daryl said as they slowly stepped over the threshold into the front hallway.

He saw the shotgun and he immediately went to it. There was a dusty envelope on the table next to the door and Beth looked down to the address. Still in Georgia. She wondered how close they were to the border. Not that she was looking to leave Georgia.

"I wonder what happened here," Beth said, looking away from the envelope to look at the dusty house in derelict.

Most times, the story of what happened in a particular house was fairly obvious but in this one, Beth couldn't understand why people would be trying to get inside and what had made a grandfather's clock fall onto the man. Maybe someone had gotten in and had pushed the clock and whatever people had been after was already long gone. Still, she and Daryl would check the rooms. There might be at least one useful thing around here.

"'s empty," Daryl said once he had opened the barrel of the shotgun. "Maybe he's got more shells 'round here."

And that was another thing. If someone had come in and threw a clock down on this man, why wouldn't they take his gun? Unless this person was like them and didn't use guns often. They had their knives and Daryl had his crossbow and they had a couple of guns but those were kept in the garage, rarely ever used. Bullets were too scarce and guns made too much noise. They never used the guns on walkers or when Daryl went hunting. The only reason they had guns was for if another person – or people – ever found their home and they had to keep it safe.

"You're frownin'," Daryl said, breaking through her thoughts.

And Beth shook her head as if to free herself from them. "I just don't get what happened here," she said, looking at the body beneath the clock.

Daryl shrugged and went to prop the gun up next to the door so they could grab it on their way out to the car again. "Sometimes, things don't gotta make sense, Beth. You know that." Beth could do nothing, but nod to the truth of that. "Come on. Still got to get to that town to check out and I don't wanna be 'round here too long."

He gave her hip a gentle squeeze with a heavy hand as he passed her and with his crossbow raised, he went into the living room, Beth following after. They had been together for so long now – Beth had actually stopped keeping count, not seeing a reason behind doing it anymore – they could move through a house they were scavenging through as one. Talking wasn't necessary. They knew what the other was going to do long before the movement was made and they were able to clear through the first and second floors easily and quickly.

There wasn't much. A few sweaters hanging in one of the closets that moths had eaten. A couple of rusted pans in the kitchen that they didn't need. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust like most things were these days.

"Want to check the basement?" Daryl asked.

"Yes," Beth answered without hesitating.

Nothing could be overlooked or assumed anymore. The rest of the house hadn't had anything and it would be easy to think that the basement would be the same – and it probably was as empty – but until they saw it with their own eyes, Beth was going to think otherwise because nowadays, no matter how long it had been since the world ended, it still amazed her how people didn't investigate every single nook and cranny in a house. When they had first come upon their subdivision, and had settled in a house chosen nearly completely at random, Daryl had investigated the basement and found a plastic container that had been shoved into a crawlspace that had had food and aspirin. People who had raided the house before them had just assumed there was nothing in there so they hadn't even looked. It never ceased to boggle Beth's mind.

And then she would think of Rick and how he was always looking for the obvious. Medicine of the old world. Food of the old world, too. Even with his thinking guns were the most important thing, never thinking about the bullets that weren't infinite and would run out eventually. He had never looked at flowers and plants and thought that anything could be done with them. She wondered what he would think if he saw the way she and Daryl and the others were able to live.

Beth had brought a solar flashlight with them and at the top of the stairs leading into the dark basement, she turned it on and shone it downwards. She didn't ask Daryl if he wanted to go first. They had made noise since coming in. If there was a walker down there, it would have made itself known by now. But that didn't mean she didn't walk down the stairs slowly and cautiously.

As expected, there wasn't anything in the basement except dust and spiders. There was weak sun pushing in through the dirty windows that showed just how much of nothing there was down here. But Beth didn't feel disappointed. She had been expecting this. It didn't make sense as to what the people outside had been after or why the man upstairs had been crushed with a clock. Maybe whoever had done that had already cleared this house out of whatever it was that all of those people were after.

Well, that was that. She began heading back towards the stairs but stopped when she realized that Daryl wasn't walking behind her. She had stepped up onto the bottom step and then turned, seeing him standing in the middle of the basement, looking at one of the walls and then looking up to the ceiling with a frown on his face.

"What is it?" Beth asked, watching him.

Daryl didn't answer right away and then he turned, looking back to her. "Don't it look like this basement is too small for this house?" He asked.

Beth frowned, stepping down from the bottom step. "What do you mean?" She asked. "It could just be not a full basement."

Daryl just shook his head. "Nah. Don't feel like that's it. Bring the flashlight."

Beth went without question and he took it from her, shining to where the wall and ceiling met, and slowly, he ran the beam of light along the length. He then walked to the wall, running his hand along the cement wall, before trailing the light down to where the bottom of the wall met the floor.

"Feel how smooth this wall is," Daryl said and Beth instantly stepped forward to put her hand on the wall as he instructed. He was right. It was smooth. Perfectly smoothed as if someone had taken quite a long time on this particular basement wall because the others were made of cinder block and certainly didn't look like they would feel this way. "Here," he said and handed her back the flashlight.

She took a step back when he knelt down and took the bag off that he carried on his back. He then took out a water bottle and tipping it, he poured out a small amount. Beth shone the light on it, and watched it, fascinated, wondering what it would do because there was a reason that Daryl was doing this and she wanted to see what it was.

The water didn't stay, pooling in one spot. Instead, it began moving. Into the wall. She nearly gasped when she watched and Daryl got back to his feet, putting the pack onto his back once again and then swung his crossbow onto his shoulder as well.

"I figured," he murmured, both of them still watching the water, Beth still shining it with the light. And he then began pushing on the wall to where the water was slipping beneath.

"How did you figure?" Beth asked, watching him curiously, her stomach beginning to flutter because something was on the other side of this wall and it could be anything.

Daryl shrugged. "Just seemed like a really small basement for the size of the house upstairs."

Beth smiled as she watched him. "You are so smart, Daryl Dixon."

And she didn't have to have him in complete light to know that his ears were red right now. And she pursed her lips together to keep herself from giggling and embarrassing him more. Instead, she just held the light steady and followed him as he continued pressing his hands against the wall, running them along the smooth surface, his hand catching on something near the end of the wall, near one of the windows on the next wall. Beth held her breath as she then saw the tiniest handle and Daryl tugged on it. A door was pulled open and Beth gasped again.

"How did no one find that?" She asked.

He shrugged, taking a step back and raising his crossbow into his arms again. "We almost didn't find it," he pointed out to her. "Open it slow," he then said, positioning himself, his crossbow raised and aimed, and Beth nodded, her knife clutched in one hand and the flashlight held in the other.

Again, they had been making enough noise and if a walker was inside this room, it would have made itself known by now. But still, they moved cautiously and Beth slowly pulled the door open the rest of the way, nearly coughing at how stale the air in the closed up room was, being finally released after all of this time.

No walkers. And Beth stepped into the doorway, running her flashlight along the darkness of the windowless storage room and when she saw what was inside, she nearly fell to her knees. Daryl was directly behind her, looking over the top of her head, following the beam of light as she swept it over everything that was on the shelves.

"Now we know what the neighbors wanted," Daryl grunted. "Wha' is this?" He then asked, his eyes going to Beth as she began breathing harder and faster. He put a hand on her shoulder, about to ask if she was alright, but before he could, Beth answered him.

"Extreme couponing," she breathed and then, unable to help herself, she did fall to her knees then and her head began to spin.

…

By the time they filled the Buick to the brim with as much as they could take, Daryl closed the room up again – still even more that they could come back and take – and they began the drive home, the sun beginning to lower itself in the western sky.

When they drove into the St. George subdivision and then headed up their cul-de-sac, Spencer was outside, Aiden in one arm, and he went down the driveway to unlock the gate for them. The Buick slowly pulled up and into the garage and Spencer, once closing and locking the gate once more, followed after them.

"What happened to him?" Beth asked, getting out from the passenger seat, looking to the baby in his dad's arm, naked from the waist down.

"Crapped all over himself and I just got back from hosing him off in the creek," Spencer answered but his eyes were focused on the backseat of the car, absolutely stuffed to the windows and the ceiling with things. He then looked to Daryl as Daryl got out from the driver's side. "What the hell?" He asked.

"The others feelin' better?" Daryl asked instead.

"Feeling a lot better," Spencer nodded. "What the hell?" He then asked again.

"Got to get the others to help unload," was all Daryl would say and then headed up the steps that led from the garage into the house, rubbing a hand over Aiden's head as he passed by.

Spencer then looked to Beth, his face one of completely perplexity, the same question on the tip of his tongue.

Beth smiled and took Aiden from his arms. "I'll get a diaper on him. You can start unloading. Just put everything in the kitchen and hallway for now. We'll figure out where to put everything once we figure out everything we have."

She then turned and left the garage, bouncing Aiden in her arms and smiling as the baby beamed at her, and Spencer was left alone in the garage, staring back at the Buick.

"What the hell?" He asked again to no one this time except their chickens and Lucky the goat, but they didn't answer him either.

Beth had a spiral notebook that she kept track of their inventory and worked out rationing in and once everything from the car was unloaded in tall stacks in the kitchen and hallway, Beth took the notebook and one of her pens and as she looked at the seemingly endless canned goods, boxes of cereal and packages of toilet paper, she felt tears stinging her eyes. She sniffled as she began counting the boxes of pasta noodles and did her best to keep her mind on the task at hand. Warm, strong and familiar arms wrapped around her from behind and she instantly sank against the firm, hard chest and exhaling a shaky breath, she closed her eyes.

"I keep expecting to wake up at any second and we'll be getting ready to go out on our run again," she said to him quietly and Daryl responded by dropping his head and turning his face, pressing it into the side of her neck. "I think we'll have chicken noodle soup for dinner tonight to help with the colds and chocolate pudding for dessert," she then said and she felt Daryl's lips turn upwards into a smile against her skin as if he had never heard anything more amusing and amazing than that. Beth had to agree.

…

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