He finds her in the kitchen, rummaging around through the drawers. Her back is turned to him and all he can do is stand, stare, and watch her methodically search drawer by drawer, cabinet by cabinet. He has no idea how to proceed from here. No idea how to make a move, let alone the first one. So he waits for her. He waits for a woman 20 years younger to act like the adult and make a decision.

As he watches her, he begins to see the tremble in her fingers. Begins to see a clumsiness seep into her movements. He lets out a sigh of relief and goes over to the kitchen table and pulls out a chair.

"Sit down, Beth." She jumps as his words echo through the empty carcass of a house. All of her bravado has fled her, leaving behind the quiet, sweet woman with so much left to learn and so many things left to teach. She turns slowly, seeing him motioning to the chair as he hops onto the tabletop to have a seat, tossing his crossbow behind him.

Her boots drag skittishly across the linoleum. Fear and apprehension written so clearly across her features. It's her uncertainty that calms him down, that grounds him, that frees him from his own fear. He still doesn't know what move to make, but he's pretty sure he understands the move not to make. As she steps closer, he tries giving her a tiny, little smile. An upturn of his lips. A small reassurance from the corner of his mouth. She smiles back and his heart skips a beat.

She sits in the chair and for awhile, both just stare at their laps. He picks at the dirt in his fingernails, searching for the right thing to say - or just a thing to say. She pulls at the loose denim threads of her jeans where her bony, dirty knees have worn through the material. Finally, he clears his throat as if just the broken silence will somehow find a way to say all the things that need to be said.

Their eyes flick back and forth to each other, filled with the nervous awkwardness of inexperience and those first, brave steps into unchartered territory. Being a man of few words, he abandons a preconceived need for conversation and instead reaches across the divide between them to touch, to finger that stupid, silly braid she still stubbornly redoes a million times a day - the one he sees Judith pull and grab and chew and destroy over and over again.

"Why do you always do this - keep a braid?" It's the only thing he can think to say.

"My mama used to give me a braid every morning. Ever since I was just a little girl. She'd sit me in front of the mirror on her bureau and work her fingers through my knotty bedhead, smiling at me even when I was squirming to get away. And now, I guess, as long as I keep braiding she'll always be with me in some small way. And it reminds me to keep smiling even when I don't want to. And to keep living even when surviving seems like all I can do." Her eyes catch his and he can see the tears brimming, begging for release. But she holds them back and smiles instead.

"I barely even remember what my mother looked like. Sometimes, I can forget she even existed." He drops the braid and returns his hand to his lap.

"Is that why you're so good with girls?" Her smile has grown into a full-fledged grin and he can hear the mirth, the teasing in her voice.

He snorts. "I just ain't had that much practice, is all. At least, not with the kind that you wake up to in the morning." He can feel himself blushing at what his words imply. Which is utterly ridiculous for a grown-ass man. If only Merle could see him now.

"Am I - would you want to wake up to me the next morning?" She keeps her eyes looking shyly down at her lap.

"I already do, don't I?" He watches her out the corner of his eyes. Trying to read how the conversation is going. But he's failing miserably and growing more unsure by the second.

"No, I mean, after...you know." He can see her gather all the courage she can muster to finally raise her head to him, despite the blush spreading across her cheeks.

His throat suddenly feels dry, scorched - feels used up. The air is heavy with what isn't being said. Heated and charged with the things they are feeling and the things they aren't doing, but so very desperately wished they were. He needs her to say it, though, to put a name to what she wants. So that he knows she is ready. Ready for her and for him.

"Beth, I've been with a lot of women. Too many to count, probably. And I ain't never stuck with any of them more than one or two nights. Truth is, what I want so bad right now is to put you down on this table and make you beg me to do things to you that you can't even imagine right now. But I'm scared if I do that, if I let myself at you like that, that it won't be a matter of me sticking around through the night. But rather, you running as fast as you can to get away from me. Cause I ain't sure there's a gentle bone in my body and that's what I want for you, more than anything. Someone gentle. Someone who won't hurt you the way I will." He can barely believe all those words came out of his mouth. But they did and she's still looking at him. And now the blush is gone. So, so gone. And what's left on her face is burning holes through his resolve quicker than he can catch his breath.

She stands up, abruptly, and is between his legs before he knows anything has happened. Her hands are on his knees, running up his bare arms before he can stop her. And then her fingernails are crawling, climbing up his neck and into his hair, pulling at him and all he can see is red. Red, red, red.

"I'm no virgin, Daryl. I don't want gentle. And I sure as hell ain't going to break. Now put your hands on me. Please."

And so, he does.