There was a fleeting moment where they are both frozen in place, unable to move an inch. Daryl's eyes met Beth's before he stooped down and grabbed up the package before she could get to it. He looked at it again to make sure that he wasn't seeing things.

A goddamned pregnancy test.

Zach, is the first thing that came to mind.

That fucker.

Beth opened her mouth to say something but then quickly shut it. She stood there, waiting for a response from Daryl. She took a few steps towards him and snatched the cardboard package out of his hands and threw it back into her bag without saying anything to him.

What? Was there going to be no explanation?

Screw that.

"The hell do you need that for?" he growled.

"I can't tell you," she responded, her head turning in the other direction before she dropped her gaze to the ground.

"Can't tell me? You dragged me all the way out here for a fucking pregnancy test and you ain't gonna bother saying anythin' 'bout it?"

He wished those walkers were still moving. He would like to kill them all over again.

Beth stayed silent, keeping her eyes trained on the ground. Daryl threw his crossbow over his shoulder and stomped his way around Beth with a sour look on his face. He felt cheated, in a way. Felt like shit to be honest. Even the jealousy was dropping by again to give him a big slap in the face. He still hated that feeling.

Freaking pregnancy test.

"Wait! Where are you going? Daryl!"

Daryl heard her footsteps as Beth ran after him but he didn't say anything to her. He didn't turn around. He kept walking, slamming the door open so hard that it shook the front part of the building.

If he had been wishing that the fresh air would calm him down, it didn't. He wasn't anything close to calm.

Across the parking lot was another walker. It dragged its feet towards them, jaw moving up and down like it was trying to eat the air. Daryl didn't have time for this shit. He marched right over to that filthy, grime-covered walker that was missing an eye without any hesitation. Daryl brought back the crossbow in one hand and put his weight into bringing it sideways with a lot of force. He slammed his crossbow right into the walker's face, making it fall to the ground as blood splattered out around it, staining the pavement.

He didn't take a second look. He could tell that the thing was dead from the impact of his crossbow.

He turned back around and saw that Beth was standing there in the middle of the vacant lot, watching him, her eyes seemingly worried. "Daryl!"

"What do you want, girl?" There he went again with the growling at her. His tone was harsh and unforgiving sounding. "It's time to go. I got shit to do. You're wastin' my time. Draggin' me all the way out here 'cause you think you got a bun in the oven. Fucking ridiculous."

He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. They were uncalled for. Daryl had a way of saying stuff like that. He never learned to think before he spoke whenever he was angry.

"Stop it!"

"Stop what?" Beth tried to approach him but he recoiled and headed for his bike. "Come on, Greene. Let's not stick around to get eaten for breakfast. Ya got what you came for."

Beth rushed after him again, grabbing his arm so that he turned back around to her. "Why are you acting like this? It's not for me!" she shouted at him. "I swear! Why would you even think that it was?"

Oh.

It's not for her. Now that he knew, he realized that he had been irrational to begin with.

Now he looked like a straight up jackass for not controlling his temper. His fucking emotions had gotten the best of him. Wonderful.

"I wish I could tell you but I can't. I promised someone that I wouldn't say anything. Please don't make me break that promise, Daryl. I will tell you everything when I can. Just not now. Please believe me."

The world seemed to slow down just then. Her words sunk into his skull. Daryl gave her an apologetic look. He remembered then how Beth had said in his cell that she needed to get something for someone. Someone. As in not for herself.

Of course now he remembered that. It would have been nice if he had made that connection before he made himself look like an idiot for yelling at her, thinking that she was the one who thought that she was pregnant. What a fucking idiot he was. A fucking idiot who never thought anything through to rationalize before he spoke. What a joy is was to be him.

He should have said that he was sorry, that he screwed up and let his emotions get the best of him moments ago. He didn't. Daryl thought that him speaking would only make matters worse. He would say some shit that would force Beth to hate him, if she already didn't. If he were Beth, he'd walk right up to him and slap him for saying what he had.

"Can we go now? Someone is counting on me."

There was a certain sadness to Beth's voice. He knew that he had done that to her.

—

When they got back to the prison, Daryl avoided Beth. He had gotten off the motorcycle and headed in the opposite direction, ashamed of the way he had behaved. He was a grown man who freaked the fuck out on a young woman because for a second he thought that she was out getting a pregnancy test for herself.

You always gotta screw somethin' up, don't ya? Merle's voice came back into his. He knew that the voice told the truth.

He had no valid reason to be angry back there. He replayed the whole situation over in his head as he sat in the guard tower, shutting himself away from anyone else.

The more he did that, the more he wanted to bang his head into the wall.

Maybe it wasn't as bad as the thought it was. There was a possibility that he could be blowing this out of proportion. Most likely that was not the case. Most likely he was still the bad guy who had yelled at Beth Greene because he was jealous and upset. And now he was aware that there was no reason to have felt that way, to have acted that way.

The thing he felt the most was guilt. His mind searched for ways to apologize to Beth, to let her know how deeply sorry he was for being a jerk to her. He figured that he would have a good shot at her forgiving him if he put his thoughts together first.

In the process of doing that, he bent over and rubbed his eyes with his hands. He felt so tired all of a sudden. The lack of sleep was catching up with him but he knew that there would be no sleeping until his conscious was clear and Beth had heard him out. If only he could figure out how to say everything that he wanted to.

The latch of the guard tower door opened, interrupting his thought process. He was surprised to see Beth climb up and over until she was on the floor and walking over to the opposite side of the tower.

Shit. He was at a loss for words.

Beth sat down across form him, leaning on the opposite wall. "It was for Maggie."

Now it made sense. She had promised her sister, her own blood, that she would not say anything to anyone. Her promise to her sister had trumped telling Daryl the truth about the pregnancy test in the first place, as it should. Beth had trusted Daryl enough for him to take her out on a run and he blew up in her face when he found out what she had gone in search for.

He wished that he could take it all back. He wished he could start this day over again and do it differently. If only time reversal was a real thing.

The way he had acted was inexcusable.

He had assumed and that was the major issue. Saw one thing and automatically thought he knew what was going on. He had a track record of doing that, one that was not pretty. New flash. You ain't psychic.

In that moment he vowed to never assume something again. The saying about assuming is right—you ended up making an ass out of yourself because you're always going to be wrong.

"Sorry for being a dick to you," he apologized, not looking at her. He was afraid to see the look on her face. "Shouldn't have said what I did. Shouldn't have acted that way."

"Apology accepted." Those were the best two words he had ever heard.

Daryl started to mess with his crossbow to avoid looking at her.

"Maggie said it was okay for me to tell you." Beth got up off the floor and went over to the side of the guard tower so she could look out the window, back at the prison. "She's pregnant," Beth told him. "It's okay, though. At least she says that it is. Maggie says she's gonna be just fine."

The flashback of what happened to Lori was surely looming over the both of them.

Beth turned her gaze back to him. "Why did it bother you so much," she asked. "When you thought that the test was for me."

Daryl kept his head down. "I dunno."

"You don't know or you don't want to tell me? There's big difference."

This girl saw right through him.

He didn't want to tell her. Didn't want to say that he had thought she had been screwing around with someone and thought that she was pregnant. Didn't want to say that he had felt hurt in the moment where he had thought that—that Beth was with someone else that wasn't him.

There it was. He was being brutally honest with himself for the first time in his existence. Daryl didn't want Beth to be with anyone but him.

"I'm sorry," he repeated.

Sure, Beth had said that she accepted his crappy apology but he didn't know why she was so quick to do that. He hoped that he could fix this in some way and find a way to make things better. He wanted to say something that could change things. His whole life he had been cursed with saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Never good with words was the understatement of the century.

Beth crossed the room and slide down the wall to sit next to him. "It's okay. Don't beat yourself up about it."

He peeked over at her, his hair falling into his face and partially covering his eyes. Beth didn't look mad or upset or like she was faking being nice to him. She looked like her normal self. "You sure?"

There's a fraction of him that wanted her to press him for answers, to demand that he spill his guts to her right then and there. Enough with the bullshit, that's what she should say to him. Tell me how you really feel.

He wasn't ready to tell her, to say a word about it. He suspected that she had a good idea of what was going on inside his head due to his earlier outburst.

"I get it," Beth said in an even voice. For a second there his heart rate picked up because he is sure that she is going to say that she knows of the desires he's been keeping locked up. "You're…protective of me. And after what happened to Lori…"

That wasn't half the story but he's was going to roll with it. Beth offered up a reasonable excuse for his actions and he was going to take it for what it was. Telling her the truth would be too hard. He'd screw things up again.

Beth brought her hands back up and began to pick at her nails. "I should have told you that it wasn't for me back in the store and have said that right away when you saw. I don't know why I didn't. The look of horror on your face kinda scared me there for a second and I couldn't say anything," she continued. "So we're good now, right?"

"I should be the one askin' you that," he mumbled in her direction.

"Okay. Then ask it."

Daryl summoned up some bravery and glimpsed over at her. She was serious about this. Beth had her head leaned towards him and her eyes wide open, waiting for him to ask the question. "We good?"

"Of course." Beth folded her hands over each other and stretched them out on top of her legs. "Everyone's entitled to lose their mind and yell in a parking lot every once in a while," she mildly joked. "Little kids used to do it all the time. Freak out and scream at the top of their lungs because they didn't want to leave a McDonald's playground or something like that. But at least you didn't throw yourself onto the ground and kick the pavement like they did."

Daryl couldn't hold back smile that forced its way onto his face. He then sarcastically mentioned, "Wow. I feel so much better now…"

Beth giggled and got up off the ground, walking over to the latch of the guard tower. "Then my work here is done." She threw him a warm smile before she ducked down and started to climb back down.

Something about the way she had looked at him, the way she had smiled at him, made him believe that Beth had a clue of how he felt towards her. She hadn't mentioned anything to him about it. He didn't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing. But did it really matter right then? Beth was not mad at him and that was all he had wanted.

A/N: I must say that a few of you made me laugh with your guesses as to what Beth was getting. I enjoyed reading your thoughts and comments. Hopefully this chapter did not disappoint!

P.S. I was so hyped up on adrenaline from seeing the season 5 trailer today that I wrote three fourths of this chapter straight through and finished it (with the exception of watching the trailer a few more times. Okay, more like seven). Now the wait for October...anyone else want to skip over August and September?