To the Guest who made the comment about Maggie calling Daryl a junkie... I think I mentioned a couple of sections ago how I've got trust issues with the Walking Dead Wiki? That's a minor example of one of the details I take issue with. They use the world 'junkie' to describe Daryl before the Apocalypse. I actually had Maggie use that word, precisely because of this entry on the wiki. It bothers me.

"Let me talk to him," Beth made a swipe for Maggie's phone, but her sister had it out of her reach in a flash and was walking backwards, narrowly avoiding the edge of the coffee table.

"Maggie—stop," Beth hissed through her teeth.

But Maggie shook her head and took another long stride backwards in the living room, putting her in the dangerous range, they were both be visible to Annette and Hershel who were sitting in the kitchen with Mr. Blake.

"Be nice to him!" Beth mouthed to her sister.

Maggie only rolled her eyes as she waited with the phone up by her ear.

Fuming, Beth crossed her arms and could only shake her head at her sister, in disbelief.

"Daryl?" Maggie wore a pained expression, "Can you hear me?" The rain was bad. It must have been muffling their voices. Beth couldn't hear much of a response at all from Daryl's end. "Yeah… actually, we did call the cops," said Maggie, biting each word.

She hated that Maggie was still treating them like this. It wasn't like she was trying to talk to Daryl on the phone because of a crush—she didn't think he should have to talk to Maggie when there was still his conflict between them; also, he was less likely to hang up on Beth.

"They got here about fifteen minutes ago. I'm just callin' to give ya a head's up. Looks like they want you to come back…" Maggie paused a moment, "What the hell's that supposed to mean?" Her demeanor changed abruptly. "'Cause it ain't safe—it's flood season." Her expression cracked, but Beth couldn't tell whether it was shock and anger or shock and confusion that mussed her features. "Look, I'm just tellin' ya what the cops are probably gonna—" Maggie stopped short as one of the officer's appeared beside them in the living room.

"Is this the tracker?" he asked in a stage whisper, pointing to the phone.

"Here—Daryl, you gotta hear it from them now," Maggie handed the phone to the officer, a tall, good-looking guy who was maybe a little too young for the rank indicated on his badge.

"Hello, Mr. Dixon? Listen, this is Sheriff Pete Dolgen. We really appreciate your efforts to locate Penny, but we're here to take over now, and with this storm as bad as it is—" abruptly Officer Pete stopped talking. His brow knit, his cheeks flushed as he pulled the phone away and looked at in incredulously.

Beth bit her lips, afraid to know what precisely Daryl had said to the man to cause that reaction, but after a second Officer Pete handed the phone back to Maggie and said, "He hung up on me?"

She had to fight not to laugh, "Bad connection maybe?" Beth tried to defend him weakly, but she knew that wouldn't be it. Daryl wasn't planning to come back without Penny.

Maggie gave her a look that said she knew she was lying, but Officer Pete gave her the benefit of the doubt, nodding, "Try him again?" he suggested.

With a sigh, Maggie redialed, but was left hanging for only the space of about ten seconds and then the phone chirped, using the same alert that Beth had set up to let her know when someone had sent her a text message.

Maggie looked at the phone, her eyebrows climbing higher and her cheeks going a little bit pink. She cleared her throat and read it allowed for them, "Daryl says—Can't hear. Rain. Battery dying. Ima turn this off."

Officer Pete sighed, but if he didn't buy it, he didn't express that belief as he walked away from them. Beth watched him go, knowing full well that her phone was fully charged when she gave it to Daryl.

"Hmm," Maggie was still staring at her phone with a peculiar expression on her face.

"What?" Beth couldn't quite read her in this moment, which was rare.

"Nothin'," Maggie shrugged, voice suddenly very mild, "It's just… I'm kinda impressed with how Daryl handled that."

Beth wasn't all that surprised that Daryl had worked out a way to stay out in the woods looking for Penny. She'd expected as much from him, but all the same, as the rain beat the windows, she couldn't help but worry for both of them. "I hope he finds her," she murmured as she walked away from Maggie.

In a futile attempt to keep it from getting as soaked as he was, Daryl wrapped Beth's phone in his handkerchief and put it into his pocket. Thunder shook the sky as torrents of chilled water rushed unevenly through the leaves overhead. The ground was slick and muddy in on higher ground, and under a few inches of running water in the low spots. It leaked into his shoes, ran through his eyes and stuck his hair to his face. It was still a while before dusk but the sky overhead darkened steadily. He might as well be tracking after dark in a hurricane. He knew that there was an argument to be made for why he should listen to the cops and head back. The chances of finding her tonight in this mess weren't good at all… but they were non-existent if he just left. He's carved a mark into a tree right near where he trail went cold, he could show the cops where that was and let them handle it. But he didn't know how long it would be before they got their shit together and made it out this far.

"Damn stupid girl," he muttered, wiping the streams of rain out of his eyes. There was no trail to follow, no signs; just water and mud and trees. With nothing to go on but his gut he tried to assess the terrain. It was a ways from the farm. If she'd made it this far she might have tried to change direction again, but up-hill wasn't likely. It was steep enough to tire her out, so she probably would have veered downhill.

As he headed down the hill he noticed the water-level steadily climbing. Through the trees, a narrow rushing river was coursing by, sweeping the weaker of the flora with it. The creek was flooding over. She wouldn't have wanted to get close to that, so he put some distance between himself and the rising water.

Through the steady chopping sound of the rain he barely made out a high-pitched whimper. "PENNY!" Another roar of thunder punctuated his shout, but once the rumbling stopped he heard her scream.

He followed the sound until a peculiar sight caught his attention. A small girl was dangling from a branch at about his eye-level, fifty yards downhill.

Penny's teeth were chattering and as she managed to regain her balance back on top of her branch, she turned and looked at him, face fearful. She was sniffling and from her ragged breathing he could guess that at least half the moisture on her face was tears. "Come on sweetheart, I'll help you down," he reached out to her.

She shook her head, clinging more tightly to the tree. "My shoes—it's getting in my shoes," she shuddered.

"I'll carry ya, so your feet don't get wet—come on, we gotta go." Before he'd even finished his sentence she'd been won over, with one little hand she steadied herself against his shoulder and he helped her down into his arms, folding her face into his shoulder as she started to sob in earnest.

In the kitchen, Hershel and Annette did their best to comfort a distraught Mr. Blake. It was bizarre to see her History teacher outside of his classroom, and to see him so wracked with guilt and worry. He'd arrived just seconds after the police—Beth suspected that if the cops hadn't been here to stop him, he would have torn into the woods to search for his daughter himself. Mr. Blake was a tall, well-built man with touches of grey coming into his pale, well-set hair and a face that rested in a frown when he wasn't forcing himself to smile genially.

Objectively, she could see what Karen found so attractive about him, but personally, she'd always found him to merely be intimidating, in a very sexless way. Not to mention, he'd once taught a lecture about the Donner Party with such enthusiasm that it made her skin crawl for the rest of the week.

He looked up when she came into the kitchen, not bothering to force his normal false smile; he nodded in acknowledgment of her. "Beth."

"She'll be okay, Mr. Blake."

"Is anyone even out there looking?" She hadn't seen it before, but now she could catch a kind of tremor in his eyes, not like he was about to cry, but more like he was barely containing a shudder of anger. "I see a lot of badges and guns in my way and none of them are doing anything."

"The police are organizing a search party, I talked to them," said Hershel, eyes shifting to the hallway. Officer Pete was with a few other uniforms, speaking in hushed voices. Outside the front windows, the falling rain distorted the flashing lights of two of the police cruisers.

"They'll find her," said Annette softly.

"Why aren't they out there yet?" his hand shook as he brought it up to his sweating brow.

"If you like, I'll go ask them," Hershel offered, a hard look was in his eyes that Beth had only seen on a few other occasions. Her father's temper was a force to be reckoned with, especially since his rage usually fell under in the category of 'righteous anger'.

"I'll go with you—" Mr. Blake started to stand up, but Annette caught his arm, shaking her head.

"I wouldn't," she said with a tenderness that was usually reserved for children and stray dogs and cats, "Might get yourself in trouble." Her mother's soft hand on his clenched fist was an odd sight for Beth, she felt the urge to separate them and perhaps Annette sensed it, because she stood up as well, following after Hershel with a backwards glance at her daughter that said clearly 'take care of him'.

Beth sat down across from her History teacher, "Someone is out there looking for her."

"One man," Mr. Blake shook his head, unimpressed.

"He's a tracker. He found her trail before the rain started. He's headed in the right direction, at least."

"That's—"

"Something," Beth forced his statement into a more positive finish than she suspected he had planned. "She hasn't been gone long."

"A lot can happen in a single instant," Mr. Blake countered.

"And sometimes nothing happens," Beth pointed out. "She's counting on you to have faith. To take her home and tuck her in. She'll be exhausted after today."

That shut him up for a few minutes only. She couldn't imagine what he was suffering; worrying about his only child, lost in the woods with a pack of wolves on the loose and flood season threatening from all sides.

"I had a psychology teacher in College… years ago," murmured Mr. Blake, "I remember he told me once about shyness."

"Shyness?" Beth repeated, not sure she heard him right.

He nodded gradually, lifting his gaze to look at her eyes. "He talked about why some cultures the majority of people tend to shyness. He said that all the outgoing children wandered off into the jungle and got eaten by leopards. Eventually, shyness was all that survived."

She wasn't sure what to say to that, so Beth just stared at him, trying to work out what was going on in that mind of his. That Mr. Blake was intelligent, intellectual even, had never escaped her notice, but his perspective was harder for her to occupy.

"Penny's a shy girl," he laughed suddenly, without sound or humor, just a Cheshire-cat grin for the floor at his feet, a hiss of air and he was upright again, looking at Beth like he expected an explanation.

"Well. With all due respect to your psychology teacher… did it ever occur to him that a shy kid might not go into the woods looking for adventure, but maybe just 'cause they wanted to be alone?" She wasn't sure precisely how that would make him feel better, but felt like taking his mind away from children being eaten by leopards—or wolves, as the case may be—should be her goal. "Doesn't really make sense as a theory."

"It's not like her to go off like that," Mr. Blake shook his head. He didn't seem to be listening. He was looking off into space. Beth followed his gaze to find her brother sitting in the living room.

Never before had Shawn looked so guilty. He blamed himself for not keeping a closer eye on the kids when he was taking them through the fields. But there was plenty of guilt to go around; Beth felt certain that the Little Learner supervisors were racked somewhere, and Mr. Blake looked like he'd never let his daughter out of his sight again.

"She's shy. She's so shy. I wouldn't put it past her to hide from your dad's tracker, even if he does come upon her."

"He will," said Beth.

Mr. Blake looked up, a little surprised by her firmness. He scanned her from the toes of her boots up to her eyes in a flicker. "You look different when you aren't framed by your two minions."

"Minions?" Beth repeated with a laugh, "I ain't callin' the shots. Minnie and Karen…" she trailed off, finally shrugging when she gave up on describing their dynamic.

"Huh," Mr. Blake seemed to understand what she was thinking, even if his mind was far away, "That isn't how it appears."

"Looks can be deceiving."

"Yes, they can be."

Annette returned and Beth took the opportunity to escape the kitchen, she slithered back into the living room where Shawn was now totally alone, chewing on his thumbnail and watching the blue and red flashing raindrops on the window.

She sat down on the arm of the chair he was occupying, hunched forward, half watching him and half looking out the window.

"Shit," Shawn said under his breath. "Shit."

"Don't let mom or daddy hear ya," Beth advised.

"I'm going to be the worst dad," Shawn groaned into his hands.

She patted his back a little harder than was necessary. "Or, you'll be better now," she offered, "'Cause you won't let another kid outta your sight, ever again."

"It was my fault," he admitted, "I was teaching them—they were supposed to all be looking at me, which means I shoulda been looking at them. I didn't even see her wander off. I can't even tell you when it happened. Zero attention." He shook his head, face deathly pale.

"You weren't the only adult there, and you were the only one who didn't know the kids already. But that doesn't even matter. It doesn't do any good to assign blame. Who cares whose fault it is? We just gotta find her."

Shawn looked hopelessly out the window at the beating rain. She sat next to him in the silence for a long while, but he didn't say anything more on the subject. She knew she hadn't managed to change his mind yet, because his skin was still a sickly greenish color and he wasn't blinking enough, his eyes were bloodshot from stress. Part of her wondered if a little bit of guilt might be good for him to experience. She loved her brother, but any lessons he could learn in responsibility would be much appreciated by any future children he might have.

The storm seemed to have brought the night on early. Out the windows the storm gave the whole farm the illusion of night. The flashing lights burned all-the-brighter. The police had finally organized their gear together. Just as Officer Pete came looking for Hershel to come be their guide out to the wooded area, a shout from outside brought the whole lot of them to a stand-still, accept for Beth, who had a guess.

Sure enough, in the false-dusk that the torrents and the grey had pressed upon the farm, she could barely make out a figure approaching from the far field. No one tried to stop Mr. Blake as he whipped past every officer, and ran at full tilt to meet them.

Daryl had a petite, exhausted shape folded into his chest. Her arms hung around his neck. They were both heavy with water, and dyed sickly grey. Beth was just a few dozen yards behind Mr. Blake and so she got to witness when Daryl set Penny back onto her own feet, so that she could run the last several feet and fling herself into her father's arms. He was already kneeling in the grass, soaked to the bone after only having been out in the rain for a few seconds of sprinting.

Penny said a timid goodbye to Daryl, who nodded in response.

Her father whisked her to his car, saying he thought the best thing would be to tuck her into her own bed as quickly as possible. Beth had already sacrificed herself to the rain and was plenty wet. Daryl watched her escorted them, plucking a couple of shock-blankets from one of the cruisers that had been left unlocked by some negligent officer. Daryl suspected that she hadn't asked and couldn't help but grin inwardly about it.

The cops were speaking with Hershel in the kitchen. He wasn't sure why, but the sight of it made him nervous. Beth burst through the front door behind him, blonde hair stuck to her face in messy swirls. Her clothing utterly drenched. As she passed him, she gripped onto his upper-arm, pausing just long enough to give him a smile of chattering teeth and a giggle, then she scurried up the staircase—presumably to change. He watched her go, heart still high in his throat.

Shaking and dripping like a stray dog on the rug in front of their door, Daryl tried to make these few dry minutes count before he had to plunge back out into the storm.

Unexpectedly, something rushed into him with painful pressure around his ribcage. It turned out to be Shawn Greene, "Ya saved my ass," he laughed shortly, "Seriously—thank you, man," he backed off a moment later, seemingly unconcerned with the dark, damp patches that Daryl had left behind on his sweatshirt.

"If it makes ya feel any better, Penny told me that she waited 'til you weren't lookin' 'cause she figured you woulda stopped her."

"Little miss trying to run from home?" Shawn knitted his eyebrows.

"Nah, just curious about nature," Daryl tried to shrug, but he was too cold.

From the kitchen, Hershel called to Shawn who visibly paled again, then went to go see what they wanted.

"Hey," it was Maggie who sauntered up to him next, arms crossed in front of her chest. "I uh… I don't like to admit when I'm wrong. So I ain't gonna."

For a moment, he thought that was all she planned to say so he just watched her looking off to the side of him stubbornly, then gradually she added, "But, I will say that I think Beth was right about you."

"…Okay," part of him wanted to ask her what precisely Beth had said about him, but all of him was terrified that she might actually tell him.

Maggie smirked at him and turned to head into the kitchen with her father, brother and the police. After that, Daryl tried to slip away quietly before Beth returned, but Annette wouldn't allow it.

"You're a mess! Come on. Let me throw those clothes in the dryer for ya."

He didn't see much point in that, they were just going to get soaked again if he went back in the storm, but her grip on his wrist was firm as she dragged him into the hallway. She grabbed a woolly blanket from one of the bedrooms and handed it to him, then pointed to another room, "Just drop your clothes on the floor here and I'll be back in a minute to grab 'em," she vanished like a ghost, leaving him torn on whether or not to actually obey her.

His hands and feet were numb with cold and he was trembling. The storm might just cry itself out in the time it took the clothes to dry. Still feeling more vulnerable than he liked about it, Daryl finally did as she'd instructed and shut himself in what appeared to be an unused guestroom. Once safely behind the door he stripped his clothing off, wrapped up in the woolly blanket and did his best to hold it high and closed around him as he poked his head out the doorway.

The coast was clear, so he dropped his clothing in a pile on the ground. Shutting the door quickly, he backed up to the bed. Just as he sat down and was actually starting to relax a little, he remembered Beth's cellphone. He strode to the door again and crouched in front of it as he opened it again, intending to snatch the phone out of the pocket of his trousers before Annette could come take his things.

The second the door opened he found himself at the bare feet of Beth Greene. Her long legs were bare too. She must have climbed out of her own soaked clothing in record time and all she'd thrown on to cover herself was a long t-shirt with buttons down the front left open. Her hair was still wet and her make-up a little smudged; she looked too beautiful for words. Daryl tried to ignore that and fumbled for her phone in the folds of his rumpled clothing. He stood up, taking care to hold the blanket tight around himself as he offered her the phone. "Here. Thanks." Maybe she'd just take it and leave.

Not a chance. She closed her hand over the phone and backed him into the room with the slightest amount of pressure. Once she'd crossed the threshold, she shut the door behind them.

Was that mean? :D Let's be real people, at some point, flood season was going to pay off with unexpected naked.

All About Your Heart - Mindy Gledhill