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Chapter 9

She was wide awake when he pushed his way through the tent's flaps. He could tell by the sudden way that her breath hitched. From the little light he had from the low fire burning outside (to keep away the mosquitos ), Daryl could make out her form across the floor of the tent. She had her head on his pillow again and there was a small blanket wrapped around her despite the late summer heat.

"Move over," Daryl grunted, before he even realized he'd opened his mouth. Beth complied. Her back was turned to him and Daryl watched her for a moment before he took a deep breath and laid down beside her, careful not to touch her. What the hell was he doing?

"I thought you'd make me leave," Beth whispered with a light laugh. She turned towards him. He was lying on his back, arms crossed, and she could make out that he was staring up at the ceiling of the tent.

"If you don't shut up, I will," Daryl responded while closing his eyes. If he kept them open, he'd be tempted to look at her and he'd already done enough of that during the day. He could still feel her eyes burning a hole into the side of his face. Her voice aggravated the hell out of him. Because he wanted to hear it.

"You won't," Beth spoke softly, breathily. He felt her words as they caressed his cheeks and he resisted opening his eyes and turning his head towards her to welcome those words as the letters danced across his face, carried by the air.

He didn't speak because she was right. How was she always right with him?

Beth watched Daryl's face carefully, noting the way that the shadows moved as his eyebrows begin to furrow despite his closed eyes. She reached her hand up slowly and brushed some of his dark hair away from his forehead, her thumb stopping near his ear.

Daryl shocked himself by not flinching away from her touch. Instead he turned into it and he couldn't stop himself from opening his eyes. Her big, bright blue eyes were staring directly into his now and he felt like he was frozen in flames.

"What the hell you doin' in here, girl?" His voice sounded weak and he hated it.

Beth moved her thumb over his hair once again, not quite sure on what she should say. He wasn't going to make her go unless she somehow messed things up. She breathed in deeply, a small smile forming at the woodsy scent emanating from all things him, before she spoke her truth hoping that she wasn't ruining things.

"I don't know…but I'm not goin' to leave you."

When Beth woke up, Daryl wasn't in the tent. She'd closed her eyes and fallen asleep shortly after telling him that she wouldn't be leaving and she could only guess that he'd slept after.

She sat up with a yawn, sure that her hair was wild, and that red sleeping marks covered her cheeks. She hadn't had any nightmares after she'd fallen asleep with him near and it was refreshing. Not feeling the need to change clothes, having done so the night before in her bedroom, Beth made her way out of the tent. She squinted her eyes at the sun.

It was still quiet out so she could only guess that the sun had just risen. She looked around the campsite seeing that Daryl was seated in a fold up chair by the small fire whittling away at something. Beth approached him quietly and took a seat next to him on a stool.

He didn't look away from what he held in his hands, as if he knew it was her, and Beth was curious.

"What're you doin'?" Her voice was still hoarse with sleep. Daryl sighed and opened his hands toward the blonde woman. He held a small knife with an even smaller piece of wood. He was looking at her waiting for the response he knew was coming.

Beth wore a quizzical smile as she glanced up at him, "What is it?"

"Nothin' yet," Daryl muttered. There was something about the gentle look on her face that made him look away and back down at his project. He went back to swiping at the wood with his knife, a light frown marring his features. He liked her being around and he didn't like that he liked it.

"What's it goin' to be?"

"Dunno," Daryl hummed out in response, a little too quickly. He hadn't intended on making anything when he had initially started cutting into the wood but she made him want to.

He'd left the tent that morning right as the sun was rising. He didn't get any sleep thanks to the blonde woman's hand on his face. Daryl spent the night arguing within himself how inappropriate all of it was.

Beth didn't say anything to that and Daryl glanced up again to see her watching his hands at work. He turned his eyes back to his whittling.

"Goin' back to the trail today," Daryl said after a few moments more, his eyes and hands attending to the project he'd given himself to distract his focus on her. It wasn't working. If anything, it made focusing on her easier. He watched her from his periphery and it seemed like she knew he was watching because she nodded.

Beth then noticed Daryl's bag and crossbow at his feet. She reached her hand out to place it lightly upon his, ceasing his movements.

He was burning up alive. That's why he'd left the tent that morning. It had gotten ridiculously hot and it wasn't from the Georgia heat.

"You'll find her," Beth said with confidence on his behalf. She pulled her hand away from him quickly when she noticed T-Dog and Dale coming down from the RV. She didn't mind touching him and it seemed like he was becoming accustomed to her nearness, but she was sure that he'd be uncomfortable if others were aware.

Dale and T-Dog walked over, joining the two around the fire.

"Mornin', small fry," T-Dog greeted Beth, lowering himself into one of the chairs. Beth smiled up at the man and turned to greet Dale who offered her a warm smile of his own.

"Last night Carol said that she'd be tending to breakfast today. Can't wait," T-Dog grinned rubbing his hands together in anticipation, "Spam and eggs. The poor man's steak."

Beth let out a small giggle while Dale chuckled. Daryl wasn't amused. His hands had stopped moving over that piece of wood he was molding. How could that woman even be thinking about cooking breakfast for other people while her daughter was out there in the woods all alone?

He stood up abruptly closing the little pocket knife that he'd been using. He stuffed it into his pocket along with the wooden piece he'd been carving and reached for his bag and crossbow.

"Prolly be back 'round dusk," he managed to say, his gruff comment directed at Beth, before he started his walk towards the woods.

"What's up with him?" T-Dog questioned tossing a large stick atop the fire from his seat.

"Just worried about Sophia is all," answered Beth. She didn't move her eyes from Daryl's retreating figure until he disappeared behind the cover of the trees.

Beth then excused herself from their company, intent on heading back into Daryl's tent for a few more minutes of sleep leaving Dale and T-Dog with grim expressions on their faces.

XXXX

Every time he lifted his eyes, they found her almost as if there was a magnetic pull. It didn't matter if she was on the porch shelling peas with her daddy or if she was chasing chickens around the coop, his eyes always managed to find Beth Greene. Even when she was talking to Jimmy.

Jimmy was replacing a few of the fence posts across the yard and Beth had volunteered to help him. And Daryl's eyes hadn't moved off of them since. He saw the way the younger man stared at her. Like she was God's greatest gift. Hell, maybe she was if you believed in that sort of thing.

Daryl sighed and glanced down at the piece of wood he'd been whittling. It had started to take on the form of a cottontail. She reminded him of one. Stubborn yet skittish with that twitchy grin of hers that she always seemed to wear when he was around. Why was he so focused on her?

It had been a few days since they'd arrived at the farm but it felt like months. He couldn't deny that he was beginning to feel comfortable around her. He woke up each morning, nearly suffocating due to her long braid being wrapped around his face or hell, just from the fact that she was so damn close to him. One morning he'd woken himself up right before he tossed his arm over her sleeping body, seeking to hold her. He always kept his hands to himself. It was already awkward enough when she'd fall asleep with her hand on his arm or in his hair. Once she'd realized the first night that he wouldn't, that he couldn't, kick her out, she'd kept at it.

This pull that Daryl felt towards her wasn't new, he soon realized during one of the moments that he'd caught himself searching for her. When he'd told her to get in his truck when they were still at the quarry, he'd started something. He didn't know what it was, but it was something. It was different and he still didn't know if he liked it. He couldn't control it. And while they strived so hard to appear that they could, Dixons were never able to control themselves.

Apparently her sister had several choice words to say when she'd awakened days prior to find Beth's bed empty and Beth down at the campsite helping Carol prepare Spam and eggs. Glenn had been working that jaw of his to the point that he'd told Maggie that Beth was seen coming out of Daryl's tent again. He knew that the group was forming their own narrative in regards to what was going on between he and Beth and now her sister was going to jump onto that bandwagon too.

Daryl's ears had become so hot when he finally understood what the brunette was insinuating but he found that he couldn't look away from where they were arguing on the porch.

Hershel had just sat there on the porch, his eyes on Daryl though he sat clear across the yard, while Maggie yelled at Beth as if she were a child, and Beth stood there and took it. It certainly didn't help his case that Beth continued to wear a carefree smile on her face, as if she were a million miles away the entire time that her sister berated her.

Beth and Hershel had a conversation following that, an attempt on Beth's end to explain that nothing weird, like Walsh kept trying to say, was going on and that she preferred the outdoors with him as opposed to her bedroom.

Daryl only knew most of this because Beth had made it a point to fill him in on the daily goings-on at Farm Greene, while she lay on his pillow, much to his dismay. He thought she was an idiot, wasting her time trailing after him. Daryl scoffed to himself and shook his head.

The wooden cottontail rabbit that he'd been working on was starting to actually look like a rabbit. Daryl's lips twitched at the mental image he'd conjured up of Beth with rabbit ears framing her head. Damn.

"Stupid," he said to himself. Hearing her laughter, Daryl lifted his eyes to find her…again. When he did, his face flushed red-hot in anger, almost instantly. Jimmy had his hand in that very blonde, and very curly, hair of hers and they were both laughing.


Notes:

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