The next morning Beth rushes out the door, he watches her dress from the under the warmth of their comforter, arm slung across his forehead to block out the early morning light. She helps teach at the makeshift school three days a week. He has a patrol soon with Rick and sets about getting dressed after he hears the front door click closed. He can smell the coffee that she brewed and knows he'll go downstairs to find enough for him and for Rick with the mugs and sugar already laid out on the counter. What he doesn't expect, after he lets Rick in, is that box he left in the entry way sitting right next to the coffee pot on the kitchen counter. The food and spices have been tucked away, lined up in their neat cabinets. He saw one of the books on her nightstand and assumes the rest are on the shelf in the living room. She put the underwear in the dresser and hung the sweater in the mostly empty closet. The shampoo is probably in the bathroom, on that shelf in the shower, but he doesn't dwell on that. Sitting there on the edge of the kitchen counter is that damn cardboard box with the tail end of one silky, shiny, black tie pulled up over the side.
He stares at it while he sips his coffee and nearly spills it all over himself. When he turns off the warmer, his elbow slides against the fabric hanging off the edge. He pushes the box back, away from the spot he knows she purposefully left it. Where it would be front and center in his mind all day.
Daryl fumbles a little putting the key in to lock the door. His reactions are off. She knows, Beth knows why he brought those damn ties home. She knows and she left them there to to show him she does.
As they walk through the cordoned-off town Daryl can't keep flashes of her at bay. His eyes flick around, catching details here and there but hardly stringing anything together like he normally does. Her warm, low voice is filling his ears when they walk past the water filtration system. He can practically feel her hair skim across his skin as he comes in and out of the shade. He's staring in the window of the school, nearly trips over a curb, aching for her to just walk by when Rick says something about checking the south gate. He follows along, every time he catches his hand in the corner of his eye he thinks about her holding his wrist, he pictures the dark fabric keeping him still.
It's one of those images. The easy one of her next to him, he can almost feel the pressure on his joint, but then Rick's yelling.
And dammit he was off somewhere, not paying attention to what he was doing.
Somehow they're outside the gates.
Rick's on the ground, pushing a walker back with his bare hands.
Daryl finally focuses and puts a bolt through it's deteriorating skull.
It takes them awhile to get back, Rick's limping along, babying a pulled muscle. Daryl's dragging his feet next him, babying a bruised conscience.
By the time he gets home she's already been there a few hours. Her bright greeting is met with little more than a grunt. He doesn't thank her for dinner or tell her she didn't have to cook. He doesn't tell her about his day or ask about hers. He definitely doesn't mention the box on the counter. The damn box that left him a mess all day, put him in a fog, filled the air around him with nothing but her and even after he slipped up it's still sitting there, on the counter and in his mind.
She asked him how it went and now his answers are short. She hears the lightly veiled shame when he tells her Rick got hurt. She can feel the bite in his tone and see the anger and self-pity in his eyes. Beth can also see the want and pleading behind them. She forces herself to relax, let him vent out these hot-headed reactions to whatever he thinks he did wrong. She reminds herself that it's not her he's mad at, it's himself.
Beth lets her words try to comfort him. Her gentle phrases get brushed off and so do her soft hands. He goes to bed before her and sleeps facing the wall.