I have some thoughts/reasoning on why I'm taking the story here. There's a lot of emphasis in this world on how strong Beth is, and how healing their relationship is/how healing it could be after Grady (grumble) but I think there's evidence of her struggling before that… Idk. I love her. I'm trying to make this a two way street the best I can.

Beth let him drive. Which maybe she shouldn't have, because he wasn't at his best and she knew she'd caused a bit of a scene back there, enough that he was aware. Even now, being less than polite didn't come naturally to her, and she felt uncomfortable with the impression she'd made. Especially when Daryl hadn't wanted it to happen in the first place.

She'd apologize. For now she was focusing on what was around her, the sun rays in a patch of distant blue sky, the deep gray clouds that had blown in since she'd arrived at his place. They were being aimless again, nothing but road and horizon. She rolled the window down to let the wind whip through her hair, the same wind that was turning the leaves in the trees upside down, pale undersides flashing against the darker green, and hitting hard enough against the side of the car that he had to adjust his steering, easing on the gas as he glanced at her.

But not asking. He'd give her that.

"It's gonna rain," she said, looking at her own reflection in the side mirror and then at the thunderous looking sky above her.

"What?" he asked, louder over the whistling sound of air passing them by.

"It's gonna rain," she repeated, pointing at the trees. "When I was younger my sister told me whenever the leaves turned over it meant it would rain."

He nodded, eyes back on the empty road as the trees gave way to a field that stretched back, grass turning in ripples. "Looks that way."

She turned to look at him instead, eyeing over his profile. There was still the pattern of lines from what she assumed was the couch pressed red onto his cheek, disappearing into the scruff along his jaw, and he looked tired. Bags under his eyes, bloodshot and squinting slightly even though the dark, dangerous looking clouds had gathered underneath to block out any of the remaining sun, his hair needing a wash along with the rest of him.

He looked old.

Or not old. But older. Old enough. A couple gray whiskers on his chin, skin that looked weathered, and this was always there but sometimes she noticed and it caught her a little. Enough to make her pause, take stock. Make her wonder if he could look at her and see the same thing, how much of a spectrum there was between them, and it got hard to keep even a loose kind of grip on the scope of this. It never explicitly bothered her, even, and she'd like to think she'd somewhat outgrown being naive about people and how they'd act. But sometimes she saw and she couldn't stop seeing.

There were times he'd look at her and she wished she knew what he was seeing, if it touched him the same way it touched her. If she looked young to him. Or if he even knew at all, knew that there were some things she could see in him that, even though she hadn't thought to look before this had started, were so sorely lacking in others. Eyes that cut deep, muscles in his arms and shoulders that cut deeper, rolling and bending and bowing in orchestrated sinuous waves as he held her around him, the veins that stood out in his forearm when his hand was between her legs, hands that worked and fingers that were dexterous and controlled.

He looked old. But he looked good.

"Sorry," she said, and he didn't look but he was listening. He had a way of listening with his whole body, everything still and attentive, like a dog with their ears perked up. "About breakfast."

"Seemed off," he said, and that was it. She could let it sit there. No one was making her talk or asking her questions, and she found such welcome relief in that.

"I told you I did counseling for a while?" she asked him, and he nodded once, succinct and on edge. "She taught me this thing for when things start feelin' off. All about breathin'. She had this clock, and I'd just listen to the seconds, and count. In for three, hold for two, out for five."

He took a second, and she watched his shoulders move. Counted with them, smiling a little when she could see that he was testing it out. Once, twice, and then again, his arms relaxing a bit and his eyes on the road. "Alright."

She rolled the window back up some more so she could hear him better, ducking under the seat belt cutting into her shoulder so that she could turn and face him more. "He thinks I'm too young." She didn't need to explain what she was talking about. He understood, his head dropping back to the headrest so he could look at the road with lidded eyes, leaving one arm outstretched to the steering wheel while the other rubbed two fingers at his temple.

"Merle thinks a lot of shit," he said. "Don't make it true."

"What do you think?" she asked, and she knew that it wasn't a topic of conversation he was too interested in participating in but if she nudged him hard enough he would.

"Think he'll come around," he answered after a pause.

"I think he's lookin' out for you," she said, eyeing his arm. There was something she liked about watching him driving her car, an essence of precision and surety in everything that he did that she found overwhelmingly comforting. "Like Maggie."

He didn't answer that, but she could see his tongue pressing at his cheek, eyes narrowing a sliver more. "Yeah."

She wanted to talk more about this, about how she could start the process of getting a do over or how she could make things go more smoothly next time, but it seemed like a conversation for later and she had other things here that she needed to get out of the way.

Last night had been long and she didn't really even know where to begin.

She'd had a good handle on things, for a while, but sometimes it could just start to spiral down and in, so quickly she couldn't even have a chance to even get her fingertips on it, escalating and building grossly thick and heavy walls all in her stomach and her ribs and her chest and her lungs. She couldn't see Daryl and she couldn't go home. She wasn't even sure she had one. She hadn't wanted to be anywhere, and it was all she'd been able to think while she tried to take a breath.

In for three. Hold for two. Out for five.

There were moments it would come back to her, that whole two seconds it had taken to cut herself, those two seconds where everything was slow and the pain wasn't even there and the blood came faster than she'd expected or even knew what to do with. Not a cut, but a slice. She took out that wrist now, undid the faux leather ties, letting the cuff fall to the seat. He was looking at her again, quick little worried glances whenever he could spare them, and she felt that concern. Tried to ground herself, feeling validated with this scar that was real and this wind that was bitingly cool and it was just beginning to rain, big drops on her cheek and her forehead. Breathing, counting the breaths because those were real and the numbers were real, too, solid and definable in her head.

It was mostly okay, now. She couldn't pinpoint the last time she'd had a bad day, especially not since meeting him and the whole new set of distractions and feelings he'd introduced that were nice to focus on. Definitely hadn't had any bad nights, when she'd just get tired and it would all come crashing down for seemingly no reason at all, leaving her feeling so horribly and overwhelmingly awful and with nothing else to do but hate the unfairness of it. Physically withdraw from the ugliness, feel herself cut more strings and look down on it from the outside like she wasn't even there, where she felt bad but mostly felt like nothing at all.

No. Things weren't like that anymore. She'd gone through that and she was here now and so was he and that was all more than enough. But there had been a glimpse of it last night.

First at the bar. It was the first time in a while she'd been there without him, and while they'd never really even talk much when he was there he'd watch her and she'd watch him until they left together and he had a heavy sort of presence. It hadn't taken her long to figure out that she wasn't the only one who'd noticed it, either his being there or, worse, his absence. She'd had to field drunk customers away like she'd seen Shannon do, had been leered at, sweet talked, asked about being a bar wife and an old lady and been told she was too beautiful to be a good girl, all while she fended off men who were in a whole distinctly different category of old from Daryl trying to get her attention with touches and pulls. Not even entirely purposefully menacing, she didn't think, but even though she'd said no to boys before there was something worse about looking at these men who lingered somewhere between Daryl's age and her father's and having nothing she'd felt like she could say.

She'd felt weak.

She hated feeling weak.

She'd gotten off work, waiting an extra twenty minutes for the parking lot to clear out. Got in her car and put her hands on the steering wheel and tried to breathe, feeling like she needed to do something. Act. Decide. Something tangible. And then she'd remembered, suddenly, that night on the bar porch when he'd taught her to smoke, the way he'd looked at her and how hard he'd grabbed her, and that seemed a good enough solution. Drove to a gas station and asked for the first brand she could think of. Ended up having to go back in and buy a lighter, because she didn't have one and she felt committed to this path.

And then had come this whole experience of actually driving aimlessly around looking for a place that looked worthy enough for this nonevent, and she wasn't even sure why it mattered because people literally did this all the time. People smoked. Her friends smoked, her brother smoked, she'd watched Daryl go through dozens of cigarettes. So she'd ended up going back to that place she'd taken him, the empty parking lot and the empty fairgrounds, sitting back up on the hood. Tapped the box against the palm of her hand like she'd seen him do, took off the plastic and tucked it into her pocket so that it wouldn't blow away in the wind. Picked one out, held it by the filter, and it didn't feel natural but it felt like something.

But she couldn't get the lighter to work. Her thumb was fumbling and she was cold and she couldn't get the strength of her grip right, and any flame she was able to conjure up was gone a second later by wind she couldn't seem to block. She couldn't make it work, and she'd been exchanging a couple texts back and forth with Daryl these past few days but she hadn't seen him and she didn't think she'd realized until now how there didn't really feel like there was anybody else.

So she'd gone back to Sarah's. Which was about the time he'd called her.

There were a lot of these things that she didn't really have any intention of telling him, because there was nothing he could do and most of it she could handle. But she could tell him some. He hadn't noticed the box of her cigarettes sitting in the center console, and she nudged them toward him with her foot. He looked at her and then looked down, forehead wrinkling as he frowned in confusion. He reached down for them, picking them up and holding them on top of the steering wheel so he could look. "What're these?"

"Mine," she said. "I bought them."

Another flash of a look at her, more surprised and amused. "Since when you smoke menthols?"

"I don't. But I bought some last night." Breathing in. Holding it. Breathing out. "Guess I was thinkin' about you."

"That why you called?" he asked, sounding sort of like he might be relieved.

"Sorta." She was being vague without meaning to be, but there was just a whole mess of everything and it was hard to pick out what she wanted to say. He'd called and she hadn't gotten to say anything that she'd wanted to, so she'd gone outside to get some air only to see the peach tree he'd planted for her instead. She'd sat down, staring at that tree and the few blooms left near the the top, the lighter tucked in her pocket, thinking of Daryl but also thinking of other things. Summers past, sunrises and sunsets that reflected gold and pink off the grass and off the white siding of her house, going with her father on vet appointments to other farms, Maggie visiting and both of them riding in the bed of Shaun's truck because the weather was nice and they could.

But the longer she sat there staring the more she thought of other less happy things. More pictures and memories, all tumbling and snowballing together in ways she couldn't stop, the images conjoining, her room and Maggie's room, the kitchen, the study, the bathroom, blood in drips on the floor when she failed to effectively hold it in, being in that hospital and seeing her family's faces and how sorry she'd felt.

That was when she'd called him the first time.

"My brother called," she said, skipping the peach tree, moving onto something easier to explain.

"Your brother?" She nodded, trying to gauge his reaction. He rubbed at his jaw and his chin, pulling gently at the hairs. "What'd he say?"

"He and Maggie had been talkin'. She didn't tell him anythin'," she hurried to say when she saw him stiffen, but he didn't relax. "He just wanted to talk."

After she'd gone home this last time, she'd been on better terms. Called her mother more. Called Maggie a bit less than that. But Shaun had been mostly absent. He took after their father, not loud anger like Maggie, but quiet, simmering and disappointed. He'd called and she hadn't even been sure she could answer. But she had, and he'd told her things. Just catching up, at first, like there wasn't this huge mountain of bullshit that they both had to get over. One of the horses had been sick, but was doing better now. Annette had finally hired some hands to pick up the slack. Had boxed some things of Hershel's. Seemed to be doing better.

And then an apology, because things had gotten so screwed up and screwed up so fast. "He said sorry," she added, thinking back on the words. "Maggie had been keeping him updated. Knew that I was working at a bar." She smiled a little, because he'd been surprised and honestly so was she. "I guess I felt homesick. That's why I called you."

Very homesick, like nothing she'd felt before, and she'd hung up the phone and looked at the peach tree and Daryl didn't answer and everything had felt so wrong and out of place that she hadn't known what to do about it.

"Sorry," he said, and she could hear how much he meant it. "Didn't even fuckin' hear it."

"It's okay," she said. "You can't answer all the time, Daryl."

He didn't seem to like that, eyebrows furrowing as he rubbed at his mouth. "I know."

"Can you take me to the store?" she asked, and she hadn't been thinking about it but she knew that this was what she wanted to do. "I just thought of somethin' I want."

He looked at her, but she just smiled. There was something fun about keeping him in suspense, about seeing what could make him react. He looked back on the road, looking behind them and around before slowing down to swing them into a harsh u-turn, her tires skidding roughly over the dirt and making him light up a little in excitement. It took about twenty minutes, because when it came to basics there was really only a Walmart, always crowded because there weren't any other places to go. But he drove her there, waited in the car while she got what she was looking for.

The rain had finally really started when she came back out, skipping the sprinkling to go straight into a downpour, soaking her hair and her shoulders in a matter of seconds and forcing her to tuck her bag under her arm as she jogged back out to the car. He reached across to open the door for her so she could slide right in, blinking the water out of her eyes while he watched with distant curiosity.

She'd gotten a cheap little spiral notebook, along with a pack of equally cheap pens. She took the notebook out now to wave it at him, turning to set herself up with her back to the door and her knees bent so she had a surface. She opened to the first page, getting out one of the pens and tossing the cap at him. He caught it easily, still watching.

"It's a journal," she said. "Or it will be." She had one at home, one of the many things that had been left behind, and until she'd thought about it today she hadn't realized how much she'd missed it. Recording, releasing the mess of everything onto the page, looking back at it later just to see how far she'd come and how much difference time could make. "It's another thing I got from therapy. Sometimes things don't seem that bad if you write it down."

"You do that a lot?" he asked, resting an arm against the window frame, the heat of his skin casting a smudged line of fog against the glass.

"I used to. Even before I was supposed to." She put an absent little mark of a swirl down the margin, ending it in a messy flower while he watched, the rain coming down harder on the plastic of the rear windows. "Sometimes if you're thinkin' a lot it helps to write it down. Put it away."

He nodded, just listening, and that was fine. He'd pushed the seat back while she was gone, giving his legs room to stretch out, knee brushing against her keys in the ignition and making them jingle.

"So I'd make lists," she continued.

"Of what?" Not looking at her, but she had his attention, his face just barely visible over her knees.

"Things I want. Things I've done. Wishes." She put a number one down to start. "Like… I don't know. Anythin'." There were a lot of things that she wanted, but since last night there was only one that she could really think of. The biggest one.

Go home.

"I think I should go back," she said quietly, watching him.

He looked at her before nodding, reaching for the keys. "I'll take you."

"No. I mean go back. Like home."

If she hadn't been watching him carefully she might've missed the subtle look of what she could only identify as worry, face setting in stone, and he only glanced at her for a second before looking back out the front window. The rain was still coming down hard, different patterns of sound as it hit the plastic and the glass and the metal. "If that's what you want."

"I think it is," she said. "I just think it's time."

He'd forced out any of the panic that she'd been able to see, but still didn't look exactly happy, frowning before he looked out his window so she couldn't see. "Alright then."

"You sound mad," she said, looking at what she could see of his jaw, a tiny muscle towards his ear clenching. "Do you not think I should?"

"Didn't think you were askin'," he said, still edgy, and she sat with her head back against the window so she could try and give him some space to figure out the words she could still see coming, his fingers flexing along the top of his thigh.

"I wasn't," she said when he still didn't say anything. "But if you don't-"

"If you wanna go then go," he said, not shouting or even clearly angry that she could see but biting at the words, harsh as he threw them at her.

She thought she could maybe sense some of what this was about, but didn't know how to approach it. "It's just somethin' I should do. They're family. It won't change-"

He finally looked at her and it was enough that she stopped talking. "Don't."

She ignored him. "It won't change anythin'. We'll just have to make it work," she said, making her voice as matter of fact as she could, hoping he'd believe her.

He snorted, shaking his head. "Alright."

"What happened to trustin' me?" she asked, arching a foot over to lay on his knee. "Don't I look trustworthy?"

He looked at her and she could see him soften, the anger melting away as his shoulders relaxed. "Look like trouble."

She smiled wide, and he stared at her for a couple seconds more before looking at the rest of her. "It'll be okay. It'll be good," she added, more resolute, because she had a plan and there were definitive actions that she could take and she felt less lost already. "I'm gonna do you, too," she said, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Do me what?"

"A list," she said, drawing a line to cut hers off, starting anew. "What do you wish for?"

He shrugged, but she waited, looking at him while he looked out. Quiet but thinking, she could see, his thumb running along the undersides of his fingers while he clenched his hand in and out of a fist. "Nothin'."

"There's gotta be somethin'," she said, bearing down harder. "Somethin' you want. Somethin' you like. Somethin' you want to happen."

"I'm good," he said, shaking his head, picking back up the cap of the pen to turn it between his fingers. He wasn't, she didn't think, but he was better and so was she.

"If you don't tell me I'm just gonna choose for you."

He smiled, just barely, the corner of his mouth lifting as he broke away from looking at his hands to look over at her. "Go ahead."

"Fine," she said, looking back down at her paper. "You want a new motorcycle."

He was nodding as he listened, the smile still there, and he looked so good. She sat up a little higher, tapping the pen against the paper. There were a couple ways he did this, made her feel like she was strong enough to handle it. The ways he touched her were good, that barrier broken from soft to hard like he couldn't help but grip her tight, fingers digging into her waist or her thigh with his mouth on her chest. The way he stared, and the way he couldn't look at all if she was touching him back. But there were also times like this, where she could talk and he would listen and she could just tell he was alright with just being here. Content.

"And," she added, drawing out his name onto the page. "You want kitchen stuff."

He reached down the side of the chair, patting along until he found the lever so that he could recline his seat back, putting an arm behind his head. His eyes sidled over to her for a couple seconds before they closed, not sleeping but resting. "Alright."

She was feeling a little bolder, now, looking at him, and just the knowledge that she could reach over and touch him right now and he would touch her back was intoxicating. Hers and his, just these moments between them to make it theirs. She could sit here, naming off whatever list of wishes for him she could think of, and he would just sit and listen and be. She felt so safe, safe and secure, but also other things that stirred as she watched the little flexes of his whole body. "You wish I was touchin' you right now."

He didn't open his eyes, but she saw him react, hand tightening to hold onto the headrest, fingers making bold dents in the cushion. "Anythin' else?"

This was just on the boundary of edging into something else, the precipice there with him just waiting for her to push it if she wanted. She was reminded of that day in his bed, her on top of him and his mouth at her ear, voice smooth as gravel, and she felt that concentrated heat all over again, centered and intense. She jotted down what she'd come up with so far, trying to think of where she wanted this to go. But she looked at him, all of him, not just his face but his arms and his torso and his hips and his legs, and she didn't want to think at all. Because maybe things would be different, but right now they were the same and she had him.

She started without telling him, but he opened his eyes when he heard her toss the spiral to the floor. He didn't move, watching her struggle a little awkwardly with a hand reached over to his shoulder and one foot on the floor between his. Her knee bumped painfully into the center console, her head rubbing along the loose fabric of the ceiling while a couple fingers accidentally slipped into his open bottle of powerade knocking it sideways so it spilled onto her shirt. But then his hand was on the back of her thigh, pulling her the rest of the way over so she was in his lap, her knees nearly falling off the edges of the seat.

She stared down at him, pushing his hair back from his eyes, feeling them both settle, his legs spreading to support her. "You good?" she asked, and he nodded, his hand brushing up the side of her leg. Her wet hair was falling in chunks around his neck and shoulder, and he reached up to squeeze the water out between his thumb and index finger, looking at her mouth and down between them.

"I'm good," he answered a couple moments later, and this time she nodded, letting them both idle here. She twisted a little so she could press her crotch against the top of his thigh, shifting so that the seam of her jeans could catch her just right, and he shook his head like he couldn't believe the audacity. She smiled, wriggling again until she could grind a few inches, letting him watch her find her pleasure because she couldn't get enough of him staring at her like she was the sun.

He stayed still except for his fingers hooking into her belt loop to pull her in an encouraging little thrust, chin tilting back so his mouth could follow her when her head went above his, her hand bracing itself on the seat above his shoulder. "Enjoyin' yourself?" he asked, voice gruff like how it got when she had him like this.

She nodded enthusiastically. Her fingers were still wet with powerade and she hadn't really planned on doing anything about it but she leaned back a couple inches to press them against his lips, the edge of his teeth when his mouth opened for her as he stared with nothing but blue. She traced, smiling when she felt the sharp incisors and then his tongue, just the tip of it testing against the pads of her fingers. He caught her wrist in his hand, and all of a sudden the tables had turned and she wasn't in charge at all, him drawing her in until her whole fingers were against the flat of his tongue, smooth flashes of his teeth on her skin as his mouth closed and he sucked at her hard. Her mouth opened as she whimpered, a little surprised, looking at his hollowed cheeks, his eyes trained so firmly on her, and she could almost hear his voice as he told her how wet she'd get, and she was so aware of everything.

He finally let her go and she practically collapsed, only aiming with the general direction of her mouth against his, her fingers wet against his cheek and he was pressing hard against her, one hand on the back of her head holding her to him. She shifted again so her hips were on top of his, taking up the grind she'd started for herself, and he bit down on her lip and dug into her back like he approved. They weren't in some Walmart parking lot in the middle of the day, or even sitting in the humid and heat of her car. She couldn't care about any of it, dragging in air because suddenly there was none, her name whispered into her jaw and his tongue tracing whatever lines of her neck he found.

But then a car door slammed, startlingly close, and she snapped back hard enough that her foot nudged into the steering wheel and it honked. She jumped again and so did he, accidentally pulling her hair and his head knocking against hers.

Everything was frozen for a solid few seconds before she laughed, folding back down against him. Back to his neck, smiling against his jaw and biting a little at his ear. Softer, the intensity a little lost, but she was heady with him and he looked so, so good.

"Don't really plan on gettin' arrested, girl," he said, joking, and she knew he was right but his hands were skimming lower down her back because this was so hard to stop, and she kissed him anyways, light against his jaw. She could feel him stiffen, everything narrowing in focus, but then he was kissing her once against her hairline before laying back down, his hands stopping loose at the small of her back.

She was still so needful, a live wire or an open flame, and mostly out of her control her hips pushed down against his, a reckless rhythm of want. He grabbed her just to keep her still.

"Easy," he grunted, and she nodded into his neck, thinking about how for all that she knew about boys, for all the assumptions she knew people would make or had already made, it wasn't supposed to be like this. She wasn't supposed to be both the push and the pull against him, asking over and over to the point of begging, or him pulling her hands more safely north of his chest. "Take care of you later."

But that just made it worse, and she let out a frustrated groan against his shoulder, feeling the deep rumblings of a short lived laugh in his chest.

"Sorry," she whispered. She tried to breathe, in, hold it, and out, wanting to be as in control as he almost always seemed to be. She rest her head against his sternum, laying on top of him just to feel him strong and solid underneath her, his heart beating right under her ear and if she concentrated she thought she could hear his blood pumping, muscles shifting and lungs moving the air in and out, and everything about him was steady. She undid his shirt, just a couple buttons, enough to give her room to rest her mouth against his chest, a few hairs gone silver here, too. But everything was defined, his chest and his collarbone going into his shoulders, his hands on her back and then in her hair under her ponytail as his head dipped back to the seat and everything went warm.

She wasn't trying to push, not anymore, and she relented, trying to be calm.

He'd take care of her.

I'm not sorry at all