Daryl had only made it to the staircase when he heard a noise behind him, in the direction of Beth and their guest, and their own apartment, so he slowly back tracked. There was only one staircase, positioned at one end of the small block of apartments, a fire door blocking the stairs from each individual floor. If the intruder was indeed upstairs, there was no way that it could be them, but Daryl was untrusting of anything anyone else could say. As he neared the door, he could see it was open wider than when he had left it. Maybe it was Beth that had made the noise, to get his attention, or she was in trouble from the man he had left her alone with. It did not matter that he was unarmed, Daryl should have tied the stranger up, but he had been loath to and knew that Beth hated how much they had to distrust people, how hard they had to be sometimes.

It was why he had killed the two men he thought called themselves wolves, and why he had dealt with the babies in the car, so unwilling to even let Beth be aware of what was in the car. No one was innocent in this world anymore, except perhaps those babies and Judith, but Beth was the next closest thing that the world had and he was damned if it was going to change on his watch.

Peering past the door frame, Daryl saw Beth standing tall but a head shorter than a brunette woman, scissors in the blonde's hands and hovering above the brunette's chest. The brunette's back was to him, but he could see the gun in her hands so he drew his own gun, the one taken from the guy, and shouldered his bow.

"Drop it," he snarled as a weird sense of déjà vu made his spine shiver just the slightest. Not enough to alter his stance.

"Everyone calm down, please!" The guy implored, still sitting exactly where Daryl had left him despite his friend's gun on Beth. "Tara…"

"No, Heath," she objected. "She had you at knife point."

"Yeah," Beth agreed. "An' now I got ya."

"With scissors? Please," Tara scoffed. "Ya see this lil old gun here?" Beth cocked her head in Daryl's direction, over Tara's shoulder and she turned as much as she could given the point of the scissors now closing in on her. The woman looked at Daryl in fear as he squeezed his hand around the gun tighter, but then a curious recognition crossed the brunette's face, which was when it dawned on Daryl.

"Beth, lower the scissors."

"No, Daryl, I know her – she was with the Governor. She killed Daddy, Daryl!"

"I…" Tara tried to respond, but Beth pressed in closer, the scissors now actually pressing against the skin on her throat.

"Greene, ya don't gotta do this." He needed her to calm down, his finger twitched on the trigger, but he had no idea what he was supposed to do. There was no way he could let Beth kill this Tara woman, he recognized her from the boxcar, he was sure of it now that he could see her clearer. But how was he supposed to stop her? And Tara still had her damn gun in her hand.

"Greene?" Tara managed to hiss tightly and Beth blinked, panic and doubt in her eyes for a moment.

"Beth," Daryl said approaching slowly, all his weapons now down. Heath was still seated, waiting for whatever was about to explode first. "This girl," he remembered, "she got outta the prison wi' Glenn. 'Member I tol' ya 'bout Terminus? Her and Glenn, Maggie, Sasha 'n; Bob, Rick 'n' Carl, Michonne, too, some others – they were there."

Beth's hand relaxed slightly, but there was still a dangerous anger in her pose. "Still there when Daddy died," she argued.

"Maggie," Heath said, "that your sister?"

Beth blinked rapidly, tears coating her eyes. Confusion was evident on her face and she nodded jerkily.

"We know her," Heath whispered.

"What?" Beth fell back a step, the scissors clattering to the ground and Daryl felt all the air leave his lungs, but he surged forwards to catch her around the waist. Small and fragile hands surrounded his bicep, clinging on tightly as Tara nodded.

"We went back to the church," she explained to Daryl. "Got Rick 'n' the others, headed to Washington. You'd run off the night before, Angel Wings."

"Daryl," Beth mumbled. "His name's Daryl."

"So ya followed that fool up here?" No way that fool who had been in the boxcar with them knew shit about a cure, Daryl was sure of that; he had been at the CDC.

Tara laughed. "Yeah."

"Don't see no cure walkin' the streets."

"Eugene lied."

"No shit."

"We did make it to a settlement. With walls and security, only about a day's drive away. It's called-"

"Tara!" Heath objected. "We don't just tell strangers about it."

"Strangers? Heath, this is Maggie's sister. They're family."

"Are they all okay?" asked Beth suddenly, grabbing Tara's hands. "Maggie? Glenn? Judith? Carl?"

Tara nodded, a smile on her face and Daryl felt the relief fill Beth. As she had moved forward towards Tara, Beth had stepped away from Daryl and he could not see her face, but he knew her posture. "We got to… where we are," she shot a glance at Heath who rolled his eyes. "With most of us from that boxcar, and Carol, Tyresse and Judith who I met afterwards. We left that church with Father Gabriel. We lost someone there though, before we left. The medic?"

"Bob?" Daryl asked, remembering clearly who had been with them at the boxcar, at the church, before and after. He had repeated all the names to Beth multiple times over the past few months. Tell me again, Daryl, she would say, who was there on the railroad? Terminus? The Church? Who made it outta the prison like us? He would tell her what little of their stories that he could remember, only leaving out that Lizzie and Mika had made it but something happened that neither Carol nor Tyresse would speak of. There was no way that Beth needed to know that two such young had made it out but not to Terminus.

"Yeah, at the church. I… I didn't get to know him or anything. But, all the rest of us from the church, from that boxcar, we made it there. We've been on a run for over a week, but they were all there and safe when we left."

"Even Judith?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, thank you, Lord." She fell back a step and straight on to Daryl's hand which planted across her lower back, keeping her up and steadying her. Always keeping her up. She turned towards him and his left arm moved up and over her shoulder as she seemed to hide in his chest. Even through his layers of clothes, Daryl quickly felt the dampening of them from her happy tears.

"And Maggie, she's… she's having a baby," Tara blurted with a huge smile across her face. The idea of that completely confused Daryl, he had no idea how she and Glenn had made that decision, unless the place they had really was that safe.

"What?" Beth asked, pulling away from Daryl enough to see Tara's smile, a small hesitant smile on her own face. "That's amazing." That was all that Beth had wanted for Maggie, she had said so on the porch when they had no idea if Maggie or anyone else had even survived.

Daryl was far from trusting the girl he barely knew from the boxcar, but he did believe her. Maybe he might trust her more when he saw any one of the people she claimed was still alive. It would be good to see Rick again, and Carol. Fuck, both of them meant so much to him since the dead had started walking and something started itching within him to see them, like, now. "Can't go nowhere tonight," he commented, jerking his head to the door and Beth paused as if lost or confused, before jumping a step towards the door and he followed her.

"We're in 4B," she called over her shoulder. "We've checked each apartment, take any you want."

Once they were in the hallway crossing the short distance to their apartment, she twirled and walked backwards, smiling across at Daryl. It was the first genuine smile he had seen in weeks, maybe longer, maybe since Harrison's farm and the girl, Grace. He believed Tara, so did Beth, that was all that mattered given how sad she had been as time had worn on. He had started to worry for her and though he had never admitted it to her or even fully himself, sometimes in the dark of night, he would worry she would try and end it all again. Daryl had no idea how to try and stop that from happening.

"Can you believe it, Daryl, really believe it?"

"That they're alive and a day away, yeah."

"What?" she asked, closing the door to their place, locking it up tight behind her. "The walls?" she questioned, knowing his doubts already.

"Hmm-hmm." Nowhere was safe. He had taught her that.

"Look," she said, her right hand taking his left whilst her left hand cupped his cheek. Instantly, he leant in to it, comforted by the warmth and reassurance she provided him. "If Rick's there, it's gotta be safe, right?"

"What we all thought about the prison."

"Yeah, an' we got out together. We survived. So did they." He was still hesitant and she saw it straight away. "Give it a try, if we don't like it, well, Tara and Heath do runs. Said they been gone over a week. We could do the same." His eyes squinted at her and she smiled. "Yes, Daryl, I'd do that for you. We're a team now, you're stuck wi' me, but don't go gettin' all cocky, Mr Dixon."

"Get to bed, girl." He slapped at her hip to send her away, but she paused.

"Ya comin'?" They did normally sleep in the bed together, for warmth primarily, but also because they both slept better close to each other. Separately, sleep was filled with tossing and turning, together and they each slept deeper which had it's risks, but there were two locked doors to the hall, two flights of stairs to the ground. His eyes flickered to the door, to where two strangers were nearby.

Just on what could only be three months, maybe four, he and Beth had encountered enough people to not trust, but also enough to trust.

"Come on," she pulled at his hand. "Last night at home. Kinda feels sad, that we're gonna leave it, like it was ours."

He followed her silently, knowing already that anywhere with her was home.

It was not the walls, not the comfortable bed. It was not Maggie or Carol or Rick.

It was just her, all her, and nothing else.