Author's Notes: SOoo.. Please don't be mad.. I CANNOT EMPHASIZE HOW SORRY I AM for how late I updated. I've had a crazy week guys… in between the health problems that never leave me, the heatwave decided to come and not only completely overwhelm me, but also made one of our pipes burst and flood our house. I really did try to find the time but seriously, I just could not find the energy.

This is a very slow paced chapter, with more exploration of their relationship together. Sometimes I just really want to slow the universe down, just so they could have more moments like this. I hope you like it and I hope that the delay hasn't made you lose interest. Again I'm very very sorry and I hope you enjoy.

Also I made sure to use a really beautiful song. I hope you listen to it when you read this chapter. It just wouldn't be the same without it.


Compass

We can build a tree house in the pine trees
We can keep our secrets buried underneath
Wild flowers crash between your fingers
Clinging to the wild things that raised us

Compass points you home,
Calling out from the east
Compass points you anywhere
Closer to me
If we make it out alive from the depths of the sea
Compass points you anywhere
Closer to me
Where you are, I will be
Miles high, in the deep
Where you are, I will be
Anywhere, in between

Take me to the garden of your ecstasy
Make myself a headband from your fallen leaves
Woven in the fabric of your tapestry
Cover me in honeysuckle memories

Compass points you home,
Calling out from the east
Compass points you anywhere
Closer to me
If we make it out alive from the depths of the sea
Compass points you anywhere
Closer to me
Where you are, I will be
Miles high, in the deep
Where you are, I will be
Anywhere, in between

I will take the pieces, put them back together
Even when the grass isn't green enough
Taking all the branches, build ourselves a mansion
Love you in the way that you needed love

Where you are, I will be
Where you are, I will be
Miles high, in the deep
Where you are, I will be
Anywhere, in between

-Zella Day


Daryl had a superpower.

One that he was secretly proud of and taking all of his strength not to abuse… though his resistance was quickly fading away.

It had been two nights since he had discovered this gift of his… two nights since the storm had rolled in and entrapped him and his angel in the comfortable sanctuary of the infirmary… two nights since he had found out a sure fire way of tethering his beloved seraph back into reality when the darkness loomed and ghosted over her cerulean eyes. He would replace her grieving sobs with pleasured moans instead, and change her anguished tears of sorrow to breathless cries of ecstasy. His kisses would scorch through the paralyzing ice in her veins with the blazing flames of his and his body would make her soar into blissful heavens to save her from plummeting from the endless abyss of oblivion below.

Daryl would consume his bride whole— if only to save her from herself— but dammit, it was getting really hard for him not to admit that he was taking great pleasure in purging Beth of her ghosts. The archer loathed himself for it, but he almost looked forward to each time the angel's lips would tremble, or her words would halt as she got lost in her thoughts; his two biggest cues to stop her from whatever she was doing or thinking, lift her up from the ground where she stood and assault her in a relentless pursuit of carnal paradise, a moment of pure bliss that would leave her dazed and flushed, yet cheered and peaceful once again.

Not that Beth was complaining.

The sly blonde was just as bad hyper-aware hunter; insatiable and constantly longing for devastatingly gratifying sensation of being filled and dominated by her voracious lover whenever he purged her of the demons whispering in her soul, twisting the shadows dancing behind her glassy gaze and burning them away and turning its ashes into stars in her eyes.

The woman couldn't understand how this sweet cycle of torture could be so addicting.

"I want eight people are monitoring the fences at all times… In the meantime, Eugene says that he's working on making more ammunition for us… just in case."

Rick was addressing the rest of his community, all packed in the small space of the infirmary as they formulated a plan to defend their home in case the Savior's attempted to follow the path that the deceased vixen took. Daryl really wanted to listen to his leader's avid instructions, but all he heard was a slight buzzing noise in the background, all his attention directed to the golden seraph leaning against the wall a few feet away from him, silent with a tender gaze reflected towards smoldering azure eyes.

In a room filled with people, she was the only person he could see; her flame burning so bright, blinding him, for he was but a mere spark in her glorious daylight. She was beautiful… luminous and full of so much love and longing for solely him. His eyes traced the curvatures of her lips, gliding down to the soft beautiful swells of her chest down to her shimmering silver band that she was unwarily caressing with her thumbs. She was looking so much better now, her pale complexion long replaced with the flush of pink on her cheeks and her injuries healing accordingly along with his. But there was something more about her that beguiled him of all his attention… something more potent in the way she only stared at him amidst the crowd, like she had finally found a sort of inner peace and all the sharp edges of her had been smoothed away to rest… but only when she was drowning from the ocean blue of his gaze.

"…. Now that you're feeling better."

The sheriff directed his gaze at his comrade, awaiting for his response, only to realize that the archer had been paying no heed at all to the meeting at hand. He would have been offended by his lack of attentiveness, if he didn't know better than anyone that there were no instructions that the bowman needed to do what he did best: protecting his family. An amused smirk spread on the leader's lips as he humorously scoffed.

"… What do you think, Daryl?" he questioned at the man, with a challenging eyebrow raised.

"Huh?" The hunter replied, his head swiftly rotating as he caught the sound of his name in the air. "What was that?" he grunted, his skin flushing pink with embarrassment while the rest of his family's eyes directed to his flustered face. Beth couldn't help but tighten her lips, which were trembling with the hilarity of his reaction from being caught off-guard.

Rick rubbed the back of his head to hide the laughter bubbling in his lungs, tickled at the sight of his usually grouchy partner-in-crime acting like a lovesick teenager with glimmering heart eyes for the woman hidden through the crowd. "I said Denise gave you the all-clear to go back to your house, now that you're feeling better."

Home. Finally.

After a week-long comatose and another nine days having spent, trapped in the cold clinical room. He was more than ready to finally be free of these white walls to retreat at the comfort of his own bed, in his own room, with his w- , Hell… he could say it now.

His wife.

"I like the fuckin' sound of that." he growled, his lungs coiling tight with the sudden wave of homesickness that coursed in his veins. It's funny… he has never truly liked the threshold of his house before. Yet now, there was nothing more that he could possibly long for than being in the sanctity of his dwelling once more. He placed a steady palm against the hard cushions of his bed and pushed his body up, planting his feet on the floor to finally stand. "Let's go now."

"ABSOLUTELY NOT." Beth both spoke out loud, suddenly awash with unreasonable fear for his safety. He wasn't ready to walk that distance yet, no matter how small it may seem, and there was no way that that the seraph would be willing to risk his health… especially not after all the sleepless nights she spent ensuring that the stoic man would survive.

"Y—you're not completely healed yet. What if something goes wrong, or your wound opens all of a sudden or— or you need more blood? We have to wait until you're okay. We have to stay here where it's safe. We have to-"

"Beth."

Daryl interrupted her anxiety fueled babbling, his voice low and concerned once again as he watched the woman before him return to her frenzied trance of worry at the thought of him pushing himself too far, too quick.

"NO!" the blonde insisted, uncaring at how the rest of her family was staring at her with curiosity. They never had seen any other side of her but the strong, ferociously protective warrior that she was and the part of her that remained sweet, and hopeful and full of warmth. To see her this fragile and vulnerable was a novelty for their eyes, and though a storm of uneasiness settled in their stomachs, they all found themselves unable to rip away their gaze from the rare glimpse of heartfelt interaction between the celestial being and her usually tight-lipped protector.

"I can't take that risk Daryl. I can't." she continued, ignoring the tears that always threatened to break the surface of her lids anytime her emotions got involved. "We can wait a couple more days… You're only starting to be okay…"

The archer held on to his patience, understanding exactly where her deep-seeded fears were rooted at… where her heated paranoia simmered from and rose from his bed effortlessly. He closed in on her quivering body, still leaning against the wall, in steady unwavering steps; showing her without words the full extent of the strength he had regained. The angel's eyes widened in shock (and so did the rest of their audience, still speechless at the moment unfolding before them) when he lifted her from the ground from where she stood, pressed her against the wall so that their gazes were at the same level against each other's, and collided his lips against hers, rendering the woman speechless and bereft of breath.

Before the flames of their kiss grew into a bigger fire, he parted away from her much too soon, and pressed his brows against hers. "Calm down, Beth… Calm down.." he whispered against her skin tenderly, again and again.

"Look at me..." He commanded, though his voice was a mere whisper faltering in the thickness of his drawl. Daryl hugged her tighter, holding her entire weight in his vigorous arms, while the two of them stood in the middle of a crowd of people that might as well be invisible strangers gaping at the passionate exchange of ardor between two souls. "I ain't dying, remember? I ain't goin' nowhere without you either..."

"If you wanna stay here, then we stay here. " he conceded, placing a gentle kiss on her grimaced brows, and then gliding his lips towards her ear so that he may breath out words so softly that only she would be able to hear.

"But I just want to be home already…. with my wife…"

She would have melted into a puddle of boiling lava, right where he held her tight against him while he made her bones shiver at heat of his sentiment. She pecked his lips, barely discernible as her trembling dissipated as the seconds passed.

"Ok.." she whispered, followed by a kiss, again and again in a loop. "Ok…" she repeated, until the words have settled in her tongue and her mind agreed to what her mouth was saying. They would have stayed there, just like that for hours, taking bits and pieces of each other and replacing it with a part of them, in silent contentment… until the sound of Rick uncomfortable clearing his throat ripped them of their attention, making the two of them separate in embarrassment.

"Uhhh… guess we should leave the two of you to decide that for yourselves…" the leader stammered as he averted his eyes from the bashful archer to the ground. "We all.. uh… got stuff to do… some things here and there…"

Rick motioned to dismiss the crowd, each member of their tight-knit family bidding the couple goodbye to give them the privacy they needed. The scent of a lover's quarrel and palpable sexual tension simmered in the air and all of them babbled awkwardly out the door, giving the blonde a half-hug and him a pat at the back in their best attempt of acting nonplussed though they all walked away from the infirmary, stunned at bearing witness to a glimpse of just how passionately the two archers had fallen in love with each other. There was 'knowing'… and there was actually 'seeing' for themselves… and what they have seen was enough to make them all second guess if the emotions that they felt would ever match that which flowed in the river of the two lover's veins.

The sheriff was the last one to bid his farewell, only to be stopped by his comrade halfway out the door.

"Ain't ever gonna say it again… so ya better listen." Daryl strained to speak, his palm firmly gripping his brothers left shoulder while his eyes remained at the walls while the leaders gaze remained out towards the horizon.

"Thank you… for everything." The archer whispered. For his patience, for his friendship, for his support, for his will to protect him and the angel he loved with every fiber of his being.

"I'm not doing this just for you Daryl… I'm doing this for Beth too." Rick passively replied, exhaling a long breath of determination that steadied his steel. "Because the two of you have earned it."

"Earned what?" Daryl huffed, tender and confused.

The leader shook his head ever so slightly and departed towards the deluge of rain once more. But not before giving him another pat in the back, a heartfelt smile towards his golden glowing paramour, and the answer to just what the archer and the angel had fervently been reaching for all along.

"A shot at a life to grow old together."


"So… are you ever going to tell we what you did before the turn?"

She whispered, leaning against his shoulders while the two of them watched the sun set fierily in the horizon, while he busied himself with fighting the secret desire to hold her hand. He huffed an easy breath of humor, though all he could hear was the nervous thrumming of his heart, which he still hasn't gotten used to despite the fact that his pulse seemed to always race every time he was within the vicinity of the woman's presence.

"What… so you can tell your boyfriend and help him win our bet?" he replied.

Easy. Cool. Nonchalant.

"Pffft." She giggled, her cheeks rising pink in a half-smirk at his comment. "Zack's not my boyfriend." She was certain of her words, yet for some reason her movements became more fidgety, and her nervous habit of biting her lip returned while she averted her eyes to the ground.

"Uhhhuhh" he muttered, seemingly unfazed though the slight relief in his shoulders almost gave him away. "Does he know that he ain't your boyfriend?"

"Of course!" she giggled, suddenly putting all of her focus now on the wisps of dandelions swaying in the cooling breeze. "I've made it plenty clear to him. I'm just not sure if he ever listens…"

He scoffed at her, though he didn't know why. All that he knew was that a part of him wanted to MAKE the young boy listen… MAKE him remember that the angel wasn't his to claim.

Not that she was his, either.

"Besides… he's not exactly someone that I can see myself growing old with… and I'm not going to waste my time for anything less than that…." she continued softly, breaking his train of thoughts.

This time he truly was incredulous at her, suddenly pulling his shoulder away to give her a good long stare, before his lips parted with a curious reply. "Don't really think anyone gets to grow old with anyone anymore… Best you get is you die young together…"

"I know that…" she replied wistfully, pulling him close to her once again so that she could use his broad shoulder as a pillar to lean against. "I just mean… I want something… more."

"If I agreed to be with Zack, then yea.. maybe we would end up being together for a while… but I can never fall in love with him… I would never cry for him… Would never feel anything more than what I already feel right now… which is nothing.."

"Sounds like you're just picky as hell. Ain't no other guy in here that would make more sense for you." He gruffed. He was slightly disheartened by her statement… for if the empathetic woman could actually admit to feeling nothing for the cheery teenager awaiting for her hand, then he could only imagine just how much less the blonde cared for someone as downtrodden and broody a soul as him.

"I'm not looking for what makes sense… I'm looking for someone to fight for... To die for... To live for."

She breathed, unfazed by his callous response as she spoke true to her heart. "I guess I'm just a born- romantic at heart…"

"I want to be with someone who makes me so scared of dying that it makes me stronger. Someone that would burn me, but never hurt me… someone that would give me freedom, but always keep me safe.

I want someone that will always there for me… even in my dreams, to stay in the darkness with me and show me the light…. Someone to show me the things I've been to blind to see, and make me want to change… make me want to heal…"

"I want someone to give me the pieces of his heart so I can give him the pieces of mine…"

He couldn't reply to her, nor did he want to… for the only words threatening to escape his tongue were the professions whispering in his heart.

'Me too.' He wanted to whisper to her in reply.

In fact… it was all that he's ever secretly wanted for the entire length of his miserable existence, yet somehow, it was from her lips that his secret wishes spilt from.

But all that he could do was stare at her intently, his smoldering eyes piercing through the thin brown curtain of fringe hanging from his brows while she gazed at him tenderly with 'that look' in her eyes that made him want to rip out his beating heart from his chest and throw it across the sky, if only to escape the overwhelming torrent of emotions boiling in his core.

"What about you?" she murmured, suddenly catching herself losing her breath, twisting her head away from him to hide the crimson flush forming in her translucent cheeks. She hated it when her complexion gave her away at times, and it was all she could do not to bury her face in her palms from extreme embarrassment.

"Have- have you found somebody like that? Someone that just makes you… feel… like you've never felt before…."

She was staring at the last remnants of the sunrays on the vermillion sky, a façade of calmness plastered all over her face, but the twitching of her fingers against the dandelions on the field gave her anxiety away.

"Nah." He replied in an instant, rough and defensive before clearing his straining throat. He wondered why lies always tasted bitter on his tongue… especially since he met her… and pushed her away an inch away from his chest, hoping against all hope that she would not be aware of the sudden relentless booming of his pulse against his ribs. He couldn't help but notice a sudden glimmer of disappointment in her eyes, though it may have just been his imagination. Her pout on the other hand, was evidently real.

"Assholes like me don't get to feel shit like that… We just deal with what we got."

She shook her head at him, her ponytail and braid hovering in the air sending gusts of honeysuckle and amber through his lungs, intoxicating him more than any alcohol ever could.

"Well that's just not true… I believe that everyone has someone made just for them… even if you're an 'asshole'." She smiled, making air quotes with her fingers to emphasize her last word. "Everyone gets to have a wish."

She plucked a stem of dandelion from the grass below her and presented it to his lips. "Here… you only get one, so make it count." She whispered, gesturing him to blow on the featherlike wisps on her fingers after he made his wish. He smirked at her earnest gaze, and decided to humor her, closing his eyes and muttering incoherent whispers before blowing it all away in one giant breath.

She couldn't help but let more breathless giggles escape her mouth, her eyes lighting up at the sight of dandelion dreams casting shadows against the incandescence of the rising stars. "Whatever it is you wished for… I promise you…it's going to come true."

"You've earned yourself some happiness you know…"

He nodded at her in silence as he watched the seed float with the summer night's breeze. He believed her thoroughly, though he would never say it out loud. Of course the earth would possess magic within it… and he would never question that once again…

How else could it possibly possess a mystical being as ethereal as the angel before him?

He wouldn't tell her though… wouldn't tell her the ridiculousness of his wish.

In his hushed murmurs he whispered fevered words of gratitude instead; for in the universe's ever flowing magic, it had somehow miraculously given him all that he could ask for and more… If only he deserved to reach and safeguard her within his grasp.

And so he dreamed, a wish as grand as he ever dared to dream… and among the ghostly wisps he bestowed the only earnest plea that he deemed worthy to escape his ardent lips, before the seeds floated to the heavens to carry his selfless words to whomever listened from above.

"Please let her find all that she's looking for..."


"If we're gonna go back, then we better do it now." Beth spoke loudly while she packed away all the medication and ointments they needed in a tight-locked plastic bag, before placing the supplies in her tan, leather backpack and treading towards the door. "It looks like the rain is about lighten up a bit. We should make a run for it." She smiled.

The seraph turned to him, her eyes glimmering silver, the only point of illumination in an otherwise stark and gloomy chamber, arms extending in benediction for the man paralyzed at the ethereal vision before him.

"Come on Daryl…." she whispered, a soft smile crooning warmth in his fluttering heart. " You said you wanted to go home with your wife, didn't you?" There was a certain delicate quality to her voice, mingling with a tenor of affection that lingered in the thick humidity of the air. He nodded to her slowly, a silent reply, which she returned with a simple breath. "Now I'm no genie but…"

"Your wish is my command."

He took one step towards her, and another, and another, until he had almost barreled through the door in his urgency to reach for her palms. He twined his fingers around her, then tugged at her arms— hard— until she was toppling breathlessly against the expanse of his chest. There were no words on his tongue, no breath on his lungs, nor was he even sure if there was a beat in his heart. All he knew was the one word that echoed loud in his mind, a deluge of an emotion akin to relief yet with a sharper edge of bittersweet angst. For he had waited his whole life, to find a home… and a kindred soul to share it with. And if he had to endure all those years of pain to find her once more, he would do it, but that didn't mean that the torture would feel any less agonizing as the first. It had been a long road for the archer and the angel to reach this point of no return… yet the only words he could muster were simple ones… so full of grief and longing at the same time in a fevered gasp escaping parted lips.

"No… my wish is just for you."

They would soon both realize that one simple sentence could bear two different meanings.


"Oh crap!" Beth lightheartedly giggled as the downpour of rain intensified, in the mere seconds that they began to run down the street. There was no point trying to shield herself from the water anymore, not when the two of them were already soaked to the bone by the thick blanket of precipitation gushing down on them.

"RUNNN!" the blonde shrieked, laughing sweetly in the air as she leaped and bounded across the asphalt in graceful arches, while Daryl matched her pace with heavy pounding of feet against the ground. His eyes lit up with adoration while puddles of water splashed towards the gleeful silver goddess twirling effortlessly to in the howling rain.

"You're the worst weathergirl in the planet… you know that?" he growled at her, teasing while the two of them scampered towards the end of the block, where their house stood empty and waiting for their arrival. Beth only laughed harder, raising her face to meet the droplets of water crashing down her effervescent skin. "Hey! If I'm bad at reading weather… that only means I had a bad teacher."

"I'll teach ya somethin' els—"

Before the mirthful hunter could finish his response of indignation, he spotted her left foot catching on a small pothole, making the cheerful rogue lose her balance and stumble towards the ground. He grabbed her by the elbow and steadied her, making Beth blush in embarrassment for her clumsiness, only to feel the glide of his sopping lips against her brows before he led the two of them towards their porch— extra carefully this time.

"You'll be the death of me, I swear." He mumbled, though without a hint of heaviness in his tone. He said it as-a-matter-of-factly; as if this had always been a true fact in his life… like he had seen for himself what his tombstone would actually look like, and within it were the haunting words clearly engraved,

Daryl Dixon: Death by Angel

She smiled at him, though the joy didn't reach her eyes. "As long as you take me with you, I don't care." She breathed softly, tightening her grip around his arms while she concentrated on not slipping down the floor once again.

Daryl halted his steps, and for a second, Beth had thought that it was due to the sentiment she had exhaled. Only, it wasn't… for as she looked up from the wooden surface of their porch to his smoldering gaze, she found his eyes wistfully staring a hole through the door of their domicile once again. Immediately sensing a sort of turmoil in her lover's mind she reached for him, her fingers caressing the scruff of his angular jaw to draw his attention away from the barrier of their home to the comforting warmth of her touch.

He blinked away from the door, down to her translucent face, peering up at him with complete understanding while he tried to recompose himself for the moment at hand. He had been waiting for this moment for so long… and now that it was here, presented to him upon a silver platter… he couldn't control the jolts of electricity crashing on his every nerve with a blinding anxious excitement that left him bereft of breath.

"Guess it's time t'do this right.." he mumbled, a sideways smirk adorning his lips before he unlatched the door open and swung it wide to the wall. Beth giggled at the exaggerated intensity of his motions, before gasping with surprise as his arms swept her up from the ground and cradled her against his thundering chest. She clutched her fingers tightly together around his neck, her soft laughter gliding along the crook of his throat while he beamed down on her with utmost tenderness and adoration that almost shattered her to her very core.

The angel realized all of a sudden, why her beloved archer always insisted on carrying her this way… ever since they had been reunited.

How else was a husband supposed to carry his wife?

"Daryl.." she breathed, pain and guilt mingling with the waves of exultant euphoria of rekindling the long lost flames of their extinguished marriage. Their hearts swelled against the surface of their aching ribs from the overwhelming profoundness of just how truly their two souls had been stitched together all along.

"Don't cry" he murmured, the two of them paralyzed outside the door to their abandoned living room, drenched, dripping and shivering from the thunderous, yet completely undeterred by the cold penetrating their bones. How could they even mind the rain when the both of them were inundated by the rawness of their memories and wounds? When neither of them ever thought this moment a possibility any longer, since a year and a half ago?

"We're here now. It's all that matters." He murmured, consoling her as best he could while she trembled in his grasp. Beth's arms clung onto him tighter, her eyes closing while she buried herself within the crook of his neck, and nodded.

I'm ready.

Slowly, he carried her; a bride crossing the threshold of their home in her husband's arms, silent droplets of sweet, respiteful tears trickling down her fluttering lids. There was nothing spectacular that followed; no fireworks, no prophetic breaking of skies, no symphonies or orchestras accompanying the seemingly mundane moment. They have done this plenty times before after all… Yet four simple words made an entire universe's worth of a difference, and the angel found herself undone.

"Welcome home, Mrs. Dixon." He rasped, gravel and sand crumbling low on his tightening throat. How long had he wanted to exhale those words, free of any fear nor trepidation in his charred and battered soul? Too long… far, far too long.

"I found you Mr. Dixon…" she murmured, gliding two fingers against his jaws. "I found you."

"You did." he hushed her, tenderly pressing his lips against hers with utmost adoration and love. "Didn't think you ever would again… but you did…"

A heavy look of melancholy spread in the glimmer of her eyes, her lips and brows grimacing to a frown that tore at him without relent. "I was almost too late…" she murmured, suddenly awash with sorrow for all the times they had wasted with her not knowing the truth and with the archer waiting patiently for her memories to return. "I almost lost you without ever knowing…."

"Hey… that's my fault. Not yours." Daryl replied, clutching her tighter in his chest so that he may place a kiss upon the crown of her golden hair. "Thought I didn't deserve you… 'specially not after I kept letting you down…"

"Thought I could live with just watching you. As long as you were safe and happy… I would've been fine. Even if you never found out… even if you never remembered…" His voice trailed off, his chest smarting from the suffocating anguish that he was determined to live through for his beloved's sake. "For a while there… I really thought I was doing what's best for you."

She wanted to reach for him, wanted to reach out and grab his hands and take the weight of his body in her arms, but she was paralyzed, floating against his ramming chest that held on to her for dear life, while she allowed her lover to continue on his rare, heartfelt words.

"You just kept lookin at me like…. Like… I had all the missing parts of you…" he breathed, warm-ocean blue irises penetrating to her core, leaving her breathless and aching with sweet anguish and torment. "But I didn't have any… "the archer concluded. "All I had were two rings we barely wore… I had nothing else of yours… nothing else to give back to you…"

"I'm just a greedy asshole Beth…" he scoffed at himself, finally placing his wife down so that her feet were finally touching the ground. "I didn't tell you so you couldn't change your mind… so it'll always be the truth."

"That way… even if your memories never came back… then I would always still have that piece of you for myself."

"Oh Daryl…" the seraph whispered, gliding her palms across the hollows of his cheeks, gritted and pained with yet another profession of his ardor. "You can't be more wrong…"

The archer breathed raggedly, his ribs aching but yearning for more pain. He made a step back away from her, but she reached for him, and pulled his body close. "Listen to me… I need you to know this now." She ordered, cupping his face to redirect his gaze to hers once again. She could feel the tensing of his jaw as he swallowed, forcing himself to weather whatever sentiments the angel divulged despite his uncomfortable vulnerability.

She pulled at him, until his knees collapsed under the cushion of their sofa and he was sitting backwards, his gaze adoring her silver-glowing face from above. In one swift movement, she crashes her lips to his, kissing him with so much conviction as she threaded her fingers around the brown dampened fringes covering his face.

Daryl could barely keep his pulse in control, especially when the blonde decided to slide deeper into his lap and allows him a taste of her honeyed moans.

"Do you remember the first time you kissed me? When you stole my first real kiss away from my lips?" she whispers, caressing his face again and again while her mouth glided over every expanse of his tortured expression. He nodded, reminiscing the moment that colors showed up in his vision for the first time in his life. He would carry that memory of her to his grave.

"You took a piece of my heart with you that night." Beth hummed, sealing the truth on his lips.

'You took a piece of mine, too.'

He wanted to speak, yet no words escaped him, for the taste of honey flooded his tongue.

"The first time I told you I love you, and you didn't say it back because you weren't ready yet… so you walked away instead. You took another piece of my heart away with you." She whispered softly as she wrapped her arms around his neck and glided her mouth to the hollows of his throat.

'But I did love you. So much even then…'

His voice wanted screamed, but no sound echoed from its chords, for the glide of her warmth overwhelmed his thoughts.

Beth opened her hands and pressed it against his raucously beating heart. Silver-blue irises glowed with pure exaltation as her lips parted ever so slowly, delicately until only he could discern the fervent whispers on her tongue.

"The night you found out that I had the Flu? You were punching every wall then and I couldn't stop you because I just wanted to give up. I wanted to cry it all away because everything just hurt too much, but then you made love with me again and again and begged me to hold on… before you left me alone in that room and tried to find medicine by all by yourself…" a single rivulet of tear dropped from her lids at the bittersweet recollection of it all. "That was when I realized that you were the only one for me… that I would die knowing that you were the love of my life…"

"You took the biggest piece of my heart that night…"

'I didn't mean to. I just wanted to you live.'

His agonizing heart roared, but the tenderness of her touch muffled its deafening beat.

She lowered her mouth to his one final time, and he drops his head to peer up at the heaven in her eyes. Daryl couldn't help but tighten his grip on her, around her waist to her hips, anchoring each other into position to keep either of them from floating away to oblivion.

"And after… when we got married and we were the happiest we've ever been in our life." Beth smiled, the memory of their nuptials flushing her crimson with its momentary joy. " I gave you the rest of my heart and locked my soul inside you with it then… until you had all the pieces of me, and there was no coming back…"

'But I ended up losing you anyway. And you were just gone…'

His spirit shattered, but the light in her embrace kept him silent and engulfed in flames.

"Don't you see Daryl… or did you really just never realize it for yourself?" Beth whimpered, her thumb gliding over his bottom lip as she restrained herself from spilling her tears that yearned to flow freely in her bitter sweet sorrow.

"Tell me." Her lover rasped, his eyes seeking hers for an answer to the question he never knew he had but sought out for so long. He needed to know the absolute truth that was clearly gleaming in her cerulean exaltation, that was far beyond his grasp. The seraph sighed, but not before placing a fervent kiss on his brows and seared him petrified with the clarity of her pristine silver-moon gaze.

" You've always had me inside you all along… always kept the pieces of me safe. The reason I couldn't remember anything until I found you was because you were the only one.. the only key that guarded my memories until we could be together again…" she smiled, while running her fingers tenderly over the pulse of his heart.

"I survived because the pieces of myself were safe inside you..."

Daryl gripped her wrist and turned it around so he could kiss the inside of her palm before he completely overpowers her, and suddenly, his angel was pinned beneath him in a daze. His mouth parted, and finally he found himself with the ability to speak once more, reveling on the comfort he could only find when pressed against the willow of her loving light.

"I'd give it all back t' you if I could. I just… I just don't know how…" he mumbled, feeling a sense of guilt for being the keeper of her heart and soul. But somehow, a part of him knew that his beloved angel wanted none of it back.

"No.." she whispered, reaching for his temple to his rigid jaws. "I want you to have all of me… Remember?" This close to her, he could see a thin sheen of sweat across her skin and her cheeks were flushed a feverish pink.

"Besides… I have all the pieces of you locked away inside me too…" Instinctively, Daryl wrapped his arms around her, holding upright. Slowly, she ran her fingers through his hair, stroking over his scalp and down to his neck, sending shivers down his spine. She brushed over his face, following the line of his jaw, up to the curve of his cheeks, before running her fingertips lightly down his chest and over his heart. The archer reflexively took a sharp intake of breath, unaccustomed to the sensation of pain mingling with pleasure as the tendrils of her fingers glided along his newest, and most treasured scar.

"I want you… all of you… for as long as I could have you." she uttered, with such fervor and vehemence, rivaling that of a chorus of seraphim from the heavens above.

"And if there's anything I can do about it… We'll be together forever…"

The way her eyes lit up made him want to stop time, begging its passing to afford him enough lifetimes to look at her for all eternity. His heart swelled, threatening to explode in her palms while they trembled at immensity of their longing to eternally be one. He had never felt anything like this before… never had any emotion consume him to the point where his thoughts weren't even his own anymore, but the unquenchable demands of his soul. For once, he believed that Beth felt exactly the same for him, if only for this moment in time.

Rarely do words ever have a far greater effect on a heart than a kiss… yet somehow she always managed to untether him… unbound him and set him afire with nothing but the dulcet slivers of her voice.

As it turns out it wasn't him that had a miraculous 'superpower' … but the angel in his embrace.

For in her touches, and in her warmth, he found himself drowning but breathing the breath of life. And in her arms and in her heart, he found himself dying, though he became reborn as a new and stronger soldier... if only to fight for her love.


End Notes: I really do want to know your opinions about me writing some quiet chapters that are like this. I hope you liked this one guys. Also, I'm already working on the next chapter, as an insurance that I WILL post again tomorrow. :) Thank you so much for reading.