I'm noticing a lot of food-oriented chapter titles... Now, it's time for Beth's rambling thoughts!

…

"Beth."

Beth's head jolts up and it takes her a second to realize that she has fallen asleep. It then takes her another second before she can see and fully process that her daddy and Rick are standing, looking down to her. She puts her hands against the wall behind her and pushes herself to her feet, feeling her cheeks grow pink. She didn't mean to fall asleep on the catwalk outside of Daryl's cell and she certainly didn't mean for anyone to see her do such a thing and have to wake her up, but it's obviously too late for that.

At least her daddy and Rick aren't looking at her as if they want to ask her what the heck she's doing out here. She then wonders if she should wonder why they aren't asking her that. Shouldn't they be wondering it themselves? As far as anyone knows, she and Daryl never even speak to each other and now, she's falling asleep outside of his cell, waiting for him?

"He's resting now, but you can go in and see him if you want," Rick suggests.

Beth looks to him and then her daddy, silent in her questions.

"He's alright," Hershel reads her thoughts. "Just a bit banged up."

Beth nods and does her best to squash down the gnawing guilt in the pit of her stomach. Banged up – because of her; because she had asked him to find her fruit. She shouldn't have done that. She knows how Daryl can be. Whenever someone in their family asks for something, Daryl tends to do his best to move the earth to find it for them. Lori and Carol had been talking over the winter of body pillows they had used during their pregnancies and Lori had mentioned that she would die for a body pillow again.

Two days later, Daryl had suddenly walked up to Lori and had given her a – slightly dirty – body pillow and Lori had been too stunned to even manage a "thank you" to him without stumbling all over her words. Daryl had shrugged, hadn't said a word and then had gone off to see if Rick needed him to do anything.

It's just who Daryl is and its just what Daryl does.

Beth knows that and she had sent him out there on some wild goose chase anyway. She has no idea if fruit trees are anywhere around them, but she had asked him to see if he could find any; as if that's some easy task to send him on and not a fool's errand. He had been hunting. Hunting fresh meat for dinner tonight is far more important than finding fruit that she'll can and they won't eat until months from now.

When the sun had begun to head down further in the west, everyone was getting worried. Daryl had been gone all day, since right after breakfast, and he still wasn't back yet. Sometimes, it took him a while to hunt, yes, but not quite this long. Beth had stood at the chain-linked fence, her fingers curled through it, and stared out at the road that led to the prison, her stomach tightening with each passing moment that he didn't come up that road again.

If anything happened to Daryl while he had been out there – alone – Beth would never stop blaming herself. This family needed Daryl more than any of them; certainly more than her. And though she didn't know for certain if his looking for her fruit had caused something to happen to him, Beth was going to blame herself anyway; until he got back, safe and sound, and maybe even after that.

Rick, Glenn and Carol had set out, not wanting to wait for him to get back; wanting to find him before it got too dark outside to see much of anything in front of them.

Beth hadn't moved from her spot at the fence. She didn't care what the others thought and she didn't think of what she would say if someone came up to her to ask why she was waiting and looking so worried. Of course, everyone was worried and waiting, but Beth felt as if – somehow – it would be strange for her to be doing it over Daryl as well. After all, no one really knew that they even spoke with one another. Why would Beth be standing here, obviously so distraught and worried that he wasn't back yet?

When Rick, Glenn and Carol had come again, Daryl was with them. A small dead deer was hauled over Glenn's shoulders and Carol's shirt was folded up, holding a bundle of red apples.

And Daryl's arm was slung around Rick's shoulder and he was walking with gritted teeth, obviously bursting in pain with each step that was being taken.

"Did he say what happened?" Beth asks her daddy and Rick.

"Thank goodness apple trees aren't that tall," Hershel answers with the faintest smile. "He could be a lot worse off than just a couple of bruised ribs."

"Guess he was climbing one and his foot slid clear off the branch, knocking himself down to the ground," Rick finishes and Beth nearly winces at that, having to look away.

Guess he was climbing one – because of me, Beth finishes silently to herself. Daryl getting hurt is her fault, all because of her selfish want for fresh fruit.

Beth shakes her head and takes a step back. "I need to go help Carol in the kitchen with dinner and I don't want to disturb him when he's resting."

"He's asked to see you," Rick said before she could turn and hurry down the stairs.

Those words stop Beth, her body completely still, and she looks at the two men standing in front of her. She honestly doesn't know what she had been expecting as far as reactions go, but both men look as if they're biting back smiles and Beth definitely hadn't been expecting that. A barrage of questions? Yes. Thinly veiled disapproval? Absolutely. But looking as if they're wanting to smile, but trying to stop themselves from doing so? Definitely not.

Beth looks at them for another moment before looking towards Daryl's cell and without another word or look to her daddy and Rick, Beth takes slow steps into the cell. It's dark except for a candle flickering on his desk and she stops for a moment.

Hollywood has never gotten this right, Beth has learned since everything in the world came to a screeching halt. In the movies, when a character lights a candle, it always lights the entire room. That's far from the truth. A single candle lit leaves much of room still in complete darkness and it takes Beth a moment to focus her eyes and see Daryl's body on his bed.

"Hey," he grunts, his eyes closed, but they open slowly to look right at her.

"Hi," she replies softly, her eyes glancing back towards the cell door, but her daddy and Rick have left.

She would love to be able to read their minds right now and she wonders if they're telling anyone else anything. What would they tell? That Beth is in Daryl's cell because he has asked to see her? That would open a can of questions that she knows that no one – including herself or Daryl – can answer.

"I am so sorry, Daryl," she then blurts out.

Daryl doesn't answer right away and his eyes seem heavy and her being there, he's forcing them to stay open. Beth needs to let him rest. He definitely deserves it.

"Where you goin'?" He asks just as Beth moves back towards the cell door.

Beth turns back towards the cell and the bed and in the candle's flicker, she sees his eyes open again.

"You need to rest," Beth tells him, but she moves back towards the bed anyway.

This time, Daryl is able to look up at her without looking like he's seconds away from slipping into sleep. "Why you apologizin' to me?"

She takes a deep breath, feeling herself beginning to get upset and that's the last thing she wants to be right now; at least not in front of Daryl.

"Because I asked you to look for fruit and you fell out of a tree, doing that," Beth says and her voice sounds shaky and she forces herself to take a deep breath.

Daryl doesn't say anything to that. He shifts on the paper-thin mattress, wincing a little as he does, and Beth kneels down on the floor next to the bed. She adjusts the two pillows behind him and then makes sure the blankets are covering him, but Daryl grumbles and begins to push them off.

"Daryl, stop," Beth frowns at him sternly. "You need to rest."

"Beth, stop," he echoes. "You wrappin' me up like I'm a piece of damn sushi. I ain't sick," he matches her frown with one of his own and shoves the blankets down to his waist.

"When have you ever even seen sushi, Daryl Dixon?" Beth finds herself almost smiling at the idea of Daryl sitting at a sushi bar somewhere, eating California rolls with chopsticks.

"You tellin' me I ain't fancy enough for sushi?" He asks and she can tell he's trying to keep his face blank and the fact that she can seem him trying not to smile, it makes her begin to smile, too.

"I just can't imagine you eating anything with chopsticks," she admits. "Have you?"

"I never understood eatin' noodles with two sticks," Daryl then says, almost as if he's thinking it out loud, and Beth lets out a burst of laughter before slapping a hand over her mouth. Daryl looks at her, seeing her trying to keep herself from laughing more and he begins to smile more himself. "There it is," he says softly, looking at her smile, and Beth finds her cheeks growing hot.

"Thank you for the apples you found," Beth tells him, finding her voice not much louder than a whisper.

"Don't think I would 'ave come back until I found some fruit to bring to you," he tells her and his voice is low and quiet, too.

"Daryl…" she begins to say, but she has nothing more to say than that.

Her heart is hammering so fast in her chest, it's all she can hear in her ears and she doesn't doubt that Daryl is probably able to hear it, too.

Does this even make sense? She wakes up one morning and a man who has been in her life for the past year is suddenly a man she actually sees. And he seems to see her, too. At least, that's what Lori says and Lori has been so quiet, taking care of Anne, Beth doesn't doubt that Lori has seen a lot more lately than the others. And just now, neither Rick nor her daddy seemed surprised whatsoever when Daryl asked to see her in here. Oscar, that night they were out together and he found them, for some reason had just smiled and didn't seem to think anything odd of it. And even Maggie with all her over-protective act had been teasing Beth like any sister would be teasing another sister about having a "boy" in her room.

Does everyone see it?

Does Daryl?

Beth wants to see it so badly, but she doesn't want to see something that's just completely imaginary. It can't be though; not if everyone else is already acting like anything happening between the two of them is just what's supposed to happen.

"What are you thinkin' 'bout?" Daryl asks her then, his voice still quiet and gruff and her cheeks aren't the only warm part of her now.

Just with him looking at her, she feels like he's wrapped a blanket around her while handing her a steaming mug of hot chocolate. She feels warm from the inside out.

She wonders…

No. No more wondering.

She and their entire family can't be wrong. They all can't be seeing something that's not real. And it being real is all Beth wants in this world. More than anything. This prison is good and safe and Beth wants it to always be that way – with everyone inside being good and safe, too – but right now, there's something that Beth wants even more than all of that.

It's almost funny – in a very dark way. If Daryl hadn't fallen from that tree, if she hadn't asked for fresh fruit of all things, she wouldn't be here, right now, kneeling at his bedside, talking about sushi of all things and not wanting to be anywhere else in the world.

She can be brave. She is brave. She delivered Anne. She's killed walkers. She yelled right back to Daryl when he yelled at her. She's just as brave as any of the rest of them; just as brave as Daryl.

Maybe even braver than Daryl.

And she knows there's only way to prove that to herself.

"Beth," Daryl says her name, but that's all he says as Beth pushes herself up on her knees, leans into him and presses her lips firmly to his.

…

Thank you very much for reading and please take a moment to review! This chapter is a bit shorter, but it serves as a halfway point. In S3, Glenn and Maggie get kidnapped and taken back to Woodbury. In this AU S3, that will be Beth and Daryl and we're almost to that point. Thank you again!