"They stole my bike."

Beth and Daryl are sitting by the embers of the previous night's fire. The fog that hovers over the edge of the beach creates a silvery haze above the waves. It makes everything feel extremely close, yet still so far away.

"When did you first meet them?" she asks, running her fingers lazily along the outside of Daryl's thigh.

His legs are sprawled out in front of him in the sand so that she can rest her head easily in his lap. They've been watching the fog since before it moved in, and in the time it took to reach the shore from where it hovered way out in the middle of the sea, Beth's body has managed to calm. She shook when she washed herself with a damp cloth in the bathroom. Everything about that after-sex routine made her think of Negan. He always made her wash herself whenever the show she put on for him was finished. Sometimes she thought about refusing. What would he think if she let his cum dry and crust off of her skin like glue? He wouldn't be able to deny the evidence. But never did it. She at least had kept some shred of respect for herself.

Those details haven't come out in the conversations she and Daryl have been diligently sharing. They've been taking their time with their words, making sure what comes out is the utter truth. And the final straw. She's telling him now so she won't have to tell him again. And he's been attempting to do the same. It's his turn to talk, and Beth is genuinely interested in knowing how he managed to find himself in Virginia a mere thirty miles away from Negan's compound.

"There was a herd," Daryl explains. "Rick made a plan to lead them away, but we all got separated. I ran into some men and was forced into the forest. Dwight was with two girls. They'd been running from Negan's group, but I didn't know that at the time. They thought I was one of them. Then, even after they found out I wasn't, they still took everything. My crossbow. My bike. They were just afraid, but then…" Daryl falls silent. Beth can feel the muscles in his abdomen clench as he shifts to one side, awkwardly attempting to fidget his way out of what he's about it say. But he realizes he can't, so he says it anyway. "He killed a woman named Denise. She was a doctor. The only doctor we had."

It didn't seem like something Dwight would do. The Dwight Beth had known didn't pursue unnecessary violence. He helped her. Kept her safe. Gave her companionship and protection in a place of evil and isolation. And Honey. Did she know what her husband did when he left the compound?

"I don't understand," Beth admits. "Why would he do that?"

"He was aiming for me. Was gonna shoot me with my own bow."

"How do you know that?"

"Because he fuckin' confessed it. Right to my face not even minute after Denise's body hit the ground."

Beth sits up and faces him. "But why would Dwight wanna kill you?"

She knows the answer before she's finished asking the question. She remembers the look on Dwight's when she mentioned Daryl's name. It was after he and Honey tried to escape. They failed to get away, but they'd managed to come back with souvenirs. Daryl's crossbow was a link between Beth and the outside world. Dwight knew that, but only after he discovered the connection. Afterwards, he stopped seeing her. Honey spent more alone time with Beth than Dwight did, and whenever they met in passing he made sure to keep their exchanges short and sweet. It meant nothing to her then, but it means everything now.

Especially after what Honey did.

...⧫…

Negan smacks her hard against the cheek for the third time.

He changes it up by using the back of his left hand - the one that's got brass knuckles, unlike his right that merely hit with the force of his own bone strength. This hand has copper backing his swing, and it hurts like hell. She can feel the burn and hotness of blood bubbling around the newly formed cut just under her eye.

"She warned me you'd try to find them," Negan hisses, smacking her for a fourth time, without the brass, just to get the point across. "Honey said you knew the group we were watching."

It was a trap. All of it was a trap, but Beth still can't wrap her head around it. Why did Honey send her out into the wild just to be caught and trapped like an animal. She knew Beth wouldn't get far, but still, she set her free. Was it just to make a point?

"I get it," Negan continues. "You're attached. You hear your people are only a few miles away, your emotions start running haywire. Hell, for all I know, it could be that time of the month. No controlling that shit. Hormones all outta wack. Bitches do crazy shit." He lowers himself to her level and focuses his attention completely on her face. Her eye that's beginning to swell shut. Her jaw that's pressed so tightly together she might chip a tooth. "Lucky for you, this is only your second strike," he says. "And I've generously decided to give you three. It's standard, after all. But if you fuck up again, I won't accept it."

Beth spits on the floor. The blood running down her face has leaked into her mouth and it tastes like metal.

Negan smirks, then straightens his posture to full height. "Since you're so desperate to see your people, I'll allow you to watch the show." He gestures to a man at his right. "Put her in the van."

...⧫…

Daryl's calling her name.

She doesn't realize it, because she thinks it's part of a dream. But then she understands that she's not asleep. She's been awake the entire time. The sand between her toes and the distant sound of the waves in her ears - it's all part of her conceivable reality.

"Beth."

She makes eye contact with him, then directly cuts it off. "He wanted me."

"What? Who?"

"Dwight," she clarifies. "He knew I'd wanna go back to you if I knew where you were, but he wanted me to stay. And I think Honey knew about it too. That's why she sent me away."

Daryl's throat bobs with a thick and dramatic swallow. He's confused. Beth is too, but not because she doesn't understand. She gets it now: the who, the how and the why. But not when. Was Dwight aware of how much he cared for her from the first moment he sat with her in that cell? Were those miniscule, silent encounters the beginnings of something that she was an unwilling participant of? How long did it take for Honey to catch on? Was she just as dumbfounded then as Beth is now? Or had she always known?

"Beth, what're you talkin' about?"

"I tried to escape," she says. "That's how I ended up in that van. Honey told me how to get out, but she knew I'd get caught. It was all a trap."

Daryl shakes his head, as if physically clearing out the clutter Beth has just dumped into his brain will solve a damn thing. "But they let you go."

"Dwight did," she corrects him. "I don't know why, but it had to be because of you. If he let you go too, it's because he wanted us to find each other. But if that was the case, he must have had a change of heart."

She's speaking it all to herself now more than to Daryl. He's not the one that really needs to hear it. Unraveling the endless amount of twisted knots in their heads won't help him find his truth, but it'll ease the stress of trying to decipher her's. Dwight cared for her. He protected her by choosing between the lesser of two evils - or, at least, what he considered to be the lesser of the two - and for that she knew his devotion was true. He'd been selfish by keeping the information about Daryl to himself, and maybe he saw that. Maybe, in the end, he understood that the choice he'd made was only for his gain, and if he truly cared for Beth, he had to let her go.

How noble. How utterly brave.

"None of that matters anymore," Daryl presses. "They ain't here. It's just me and you now. Whatever they did to get us here, it don't mean shit."

She looks at him incredulously. "It means everything."

...⧫…

"I had to make you understand."

She can hear Honey's unreleased words in the back of her mind. They chip away at her subconscious even though they were never spoken aloud.

There are no windows in the van, but there is a tiny crack between the doors that lets in light. Artificial light. It's dark now, and the only source of illumination is streaming from the headlights of Negan's trucks. She heard them line up one by one and cut their engines, blocking in whatever prey they intend to capture. Just like her - they'll be caught in a trap with nowhere to run. She wonders if Daryl will be with them? Maybe he was smart enough to go out on his own. He was always a loner. But loyalty is his weakness.

Several hours go by. She can hear the murmurs of men walking to and from the cars, but it's never enough to make out full sentences. She tries pressing her ear against the flat surface of the door, but that only fills her ears with the echo of her own breathing. It's useless. If Negan wanted her to watch, then why can't she see anything?

Abruptly, one of the doors pops open. Just an inch, but it causes her to fall forward and clumsily catch herself with both hands on the cold metal floor. She waits a moment, then leans carefully into the opening with one eye closed.

A voice startles her.

"Keep quiet."

It's Dwight. He's standing guard outside the van. Must have opened the door, too.

"You shouldn't watch this," he says quietly, facing the opposite direction, "but you need to know."

Beth doesn't respond. She listens to his warning and keeps quiet, but she wants more than anything to say thank you. To do something so he will understand what this means to her. So, she taps once on the door with her fingernail. And that's enough.

Dwight was right, though. She shouldn't have watched it.

She should have kept her eyes closed.

...⧫…

They go back into the house.

The fog lifted enough to allow a small bit of sunlight to cast its rays along the beach and warm their skin. After a while, it got to be uncomfortable in their heavy clothing, so they ventured inside. Daryl offers to go on a run for more supplies, but Beth urges him to stay. She doesn't want to be alone. Not after all that talk.

And she doesn't want to talk anymore.

"Take off your clothes," she instructs.

His eyes go dark. His posture turns rigid. Timing was never their strongsuit, but it feels right to be asking this of him now. She still doesn't quite know how she feels about what happened between them. It was good, but she hadn't seen the other side of it. She hadn't stood in the place that Negan had, telling someone else what to do, watching with hopeful eyes. She hadn't felt complete control, because Daryl had stopped it. He didn't want to fuck her, but she still thought about it. She still needed to fully understand it.

Under his jacket is a thin white T-shirt, so it's nothing for him to strip from it. It's easier, and far quicker than the button-downs she's used to him donning. He unzips his jeans. Kicks off his boots and steps from each pant leg while keeping his focus on her eyes. She watches every move he makes, down to the motion of his thumbs as they hook under the elastic waistband of his boxers and pull them down. He stands there for several seconds looking extremely uncomfortable. Then, he clears his throat and waits for her next command.

She doesn't give it to him just yet. First, she matches his lack of clothing and strips from her attire. When she's fully naked, he moves to step toward her, but she raises her hand to halt him in place. He freezes. There's more than ten feet of space between them, but she can feel the icy claws of disappointment gripping at his ego.

"Touch yourself," she tells him.

He wrinkles his brow. Shakes his head.

"Please."

He does as he's told. His hand grips the base of his cock lightly, and she watches as it slowly hardens in front of her eyes. His fingers slide up to the tip, then back down again, all while keeping his gaze locked on her. Not her body, but her eyes.

Her heart is beating a thousand miles an hour. Is this what Negan felt when he watched her do the same thing? Is it power that she feels coursing through her veins, or satisfaction? It's possible they go hand and hand.

His fingers squeeze and start a rhythm. Daryl's lips part involuntarily, and she can see his chest rising and falling at a faster rate. There's a tingling in the base of her abdomen. She squeezes her thighs together to feel some sort of pressure, but it does nothing to relieve the ache now spreading between her legs. This is really turning her on, and she hates herself for it. She was supposed to be stronger than this. She isn't like Negan. What he did was different. She meant to prove that, but her experiment is failing. She can't help herself, for her own body is betraying her.

"Stop," she demands.

He's on the verge of reaching his climax, and it takes half beat after she says the word for him to actually stop. He releases the hold on himself and waits.

"Fuck me."

Daryl punches the wall. There's a glean of sweat on his forehead that's making his hair cling to his face. Resting with his palms flat against the now damaged wall, he hangs his head in shame. His back is glistening too, and it makes his scars glow.

"Is this just a game to you?" he asks, head still bent low. "Trying to fit all the puzzle pieces together in that fucked up head of yours so everything will make sense again?" He lunges for her unexpectedly, but she steps back. Waving his hands in the air like a cornered cat, he yells, "What do you want from me, girl? Hmm? Getting me to fuck you like they did ain't gonna rationalize what happened to you." He turns on the spot. "Don't ask me to do it again."

It might be pride, or it might just be pure stubbornness, but she refuses to listen to his argument.

"I said, fuck me," she repeats with a tone of finality.

He moves on her quickly, but this time she's got nowhere to go. He backs her against the opposite wall and pins her hands on either side of her head. She can feel his erection pressing noticeably against her stomach. A nice little reminder of what this is all about.

"And I said, don't ask me to do that."

Beth revels in the space between their lips. There's only about a centimeter separating their mouths from connecting, and the hot air within the in-between feels like fire. She thinks about saying it one more time, just to piss him off - just to see if it's even possible for him to be pissed at her - but then she caves.

"Then make love to me instead."

His breath clouds her mind like fog as he exhales in solace.

Then he releases her hands and kisses her.