They drive in silence for a long time, Beth focusing on the road ahead of them and Daryl tracing his fingers over the paper roads that might just get them home. He didn't want to take them through any big cities, not if they were going to be anything like the one they just came from. That narrows their route options by a lot but he's positive he can get them there.

It is over 2,500 miles to Georgia. What used to be a couple days on the road Daryl has a feeling is going to take them a lot longer. The side of the highway they are on is clear and Daryl has to hand it to Beth, he'd been so caught up in the map he hadn't even considered going over the median. He looks up at her now, noticing the crease between her brows and the rigid set to her mouth. He's sure she's worried sick over her family. He's watched her call them daily for the past four months, today is likely the first day in ages she hasn't spoken with them.

"They'll be alright." the words come out without him even meaning to say them and Beth takes her eyes from the road long enough to dart a look of surprise at him. He shifts uncomfortable at her eyes on him and goes back to studying routes through Texas that won't take them through metropolitan areas. "Your family."

Beth doesn't say anything in response which is good because they both know Daryl has no way in hell of knowing if her family is even still breathing at the moment. He is going to leave the comforting to other people if it always leaves such a weird feeling in his gut.

At least Beth has people to look for. All Daryl has is Merle and who knows what the prison will be like. If it's like this everywhere, with those things all over the place, the prison will likely be that way too. Will a guard let everyone out or will the prisoners be left there to slowly starve in their cells?

Daryl knows it doesn't matter what he will find at the prison, he is going to have to look. He has to know what happens to his brother, one way or the other. Shaking his head at his dark thoughts Daryl looks out the window as the bus turns.

"Why we stopping?" he asks as Beth takes the exit into a truck stop. There is a pickup truck on its side at one end of the parking lot and the glass doors into the building are shattered.

"This thing takes a lot of gas." Beth explains as she stops at a pump. "Vida hadn't filled it up yet."

"Shit." Daryl swore scanning the area around him to make sure they are clear before gripping the pipe and jumping out of the bus. He listens to Beth climb down and start getting gas while he makes sure the area is clear. Seeing nothing Daryl waits until Beth comes around the side of the bus to tell them she's finished before nodding at the building.

"Gonna check for supplies."

Biting her lip Beth pulls a wallet out of her back pocket. "Do you think there's still anyone inside? To pay for the gas?"

She flushes at the incredulous look Daryl gives her.

"Look around girl. You think we still gotta pay for things now?" he scoffs, taking in the ruined vehicles and the smoke off in the distance of another city burning.

Beth is silent for a moment as she thinks this through. When she looks up at him her blue eyes are dull but she doesn't flinch as she points at the trio of abandoned cars lined up out front. "If there's no survivors inside, we should check those out too. Might find something useful."

Daryl nods, tapping her arm to get her to follow after him inside. "You stand watch at the door. Shout if anything shows up."

"I can help you." Beth huffs but Daryl holds out a hand to stop her rant before it can begin.

"Gotta make sure no one tries to steal the bus." he is not about to let them get stranded out here. It might not be a bad idea to switch to a smaller vehicle, it is just the two of them after all and Beth already said it takes a lot of gas. He inspects the cars outside and judging by the state of two of them he doubts they would make it very far. The third is electric and useless as soon as the power stations stop working. He'll take his chances on the bus.

"You think people would do that?" Beth asks in shock.

Daryl shakes his head at her naivety. Is this what it's like to always believe the best in people? You were unable to actually see the truth about human beings?

"Just keep watch."

XxX

If it hadn't already been obvious from the interview Daryl would have realized in the first thirty minutes of his first day that Beth did not want him around. She spoke to him only when absolutely necessary and even then, she usually looked like it pained her to do so. If it was up to her Daryl never would have gotten this job at all. He almost felt bad for her but then he remembered the amount of money he was making and how it was going to be so much easier to put money on Merle's books and Daryl wasn't bothered as much. Besides, it wasn't like he was chatting her ear off either. He was just doing his job.

Mostly, that job involved standing and staring at stuff. Usually the door. There wasn't a whole lot else to look at when Beth spent most of her time in a recording studio or the dressing room of the opening night stadium. Even when she was on stage Daryl's job didn't change very much. Then he just stood in the wings and scanned the area around them, making sure there was no one there who shouldn't be and no equipment looked like it had been sabotaged (not that he really knew what to look for).

"You're taking this very seriously." a thick southern accent said over his shoulder and Daryl grunted, looking away from the rafters he'd been scanning. Abby, Beth's manager, was grinning at him with her arms crossed over her chest. She nodded in Beth's direction where she stood center stage messing with her guitar. "You listen to her play yet?"

Daryl shook his head no. He figured he was going to hear Beth's music so often over the next few months that he would grow to hate it and that was assuming he even liked it to begin with. He didn't see a reason to seek it out on his own time too.

"Voice like an angel. You'll love it." Abby patted him once on the shoulder before heading back into the wings. Daryl thought it was a bit presumptuous of her to assume he liked country music but it was one of the least rude redneck stereotypes so he ignored it. He probably deserved people stereotyping him anyway after all the mean and racist shit he'd said to people when he was younger and stupider.

Shaking the thought from his head Daryl rested his hand on the unfamiliar weight of the taser on his hip. Hershel had gifted it to him his first day. Daryl had been expecting to be armed with a gun and he had been all ready to show Hershel his hunting license (he'd finally gotten one a few years ago after Merle got caught shooting a buck and got them both a heavy fine) but the older man had balked at the word gun.

"I don't want firearms around my daughter." he'd said sternly as if Daryl had said he wanted to put a gun in Beth's hand and teach her to shoot.

"How'd you expect me to protect her?" Daryl barely resisted a scoff.

"With this." Hershel gifted him the taser then, a sleek black model that looked brand new. Daryl had been tased before, one of Merle's friends had a taser and one drunken night they decided they all wanted to know what it felt like. Those little things packed a hell of a punch. It would stop someone if he needed to.

As Daryl attached the holster to his belt, he felt a sudden twinge of nerves. If Beth really was in danger Daryl could only take out one person at a time with the taser. What if there was more than one person?

"What if someone attacks her with a gun?" Daryl asked meeting the other man's eyes and seeing the worry that lived there. "Don't you want me to have one too?"

Hershel looked pained for a moment and Daryl thought he was even going to reconsider. But in the end, he straightened, shaking his head stubbornly. "Let's pray it won't come to that."

XxX

Daryl finds one of the walking dead, or walkers as he starts to shorten them too, inside the station. It's tough as hell to kill these things but after several failed blows to the chest he finally delivers a killing blow and the thing crumples to the floor with a crack of its skull.

Most of the food in the truck stop is processed sugar that will keep their bellies full but not give them the energy they'll need for a cross country road trip. Daryl ignores those aisles, instead filling bags with all the canned food and water bottles he can find. Beth looks in at him at one point and sees him nearly emptying the water case.

"We should leave some." she calls softly. "For other survivors." Daryl looks up at her with a glare but he lets the case door swing close. If they end up dying of thirst, he's reminding her of this moment.

It takes them a few trips to get everything onto the bus and Beth starts poking through the cars as Daryl goes back inside to check behind the counter. After pocketing a few packs of cigarettes and a multipack of lighters he runs his hand under the edge of the counter. His heart stutters as his fingers brush something cold. Kneeling down Daryl's eyes land on black metal and his lips twitch in a smile as he pulls the gun from its hiding place.

Three minutes and two boxes of bullets later Daryl goes back outside certain they've taken anything useful. Beth is lingering by the cars, a small bag in her hands.

"Feels weird doing this." she sighs wrapping her free arm around herself like that will keep the feelings at bay. "You sure I shouldn't leave my credit card or my name or something?"

Daryl shakes his head, not sure what part of 'the world is ending' she doesn't seem to be grasping. "Nah, they'd just bill you for the broken doors too. C'mon."

Beth doesn't look happy with it but she goes back onto the bus without argument. Daryl follows after her and wonders if they are going to get this lucky every time they stop for gas. He very much doubts it. He'd looked for gas cans inside the building to take fuel with them but he hadn't found any, whoever broke the glass likely had that idea.

As Daryl settled into the passenger seat, he looked in the rearview mirror to see a pack of cars pulling off the exit. Beth looks over in time to see them too and she lingers with her hand on the keys.

"Maybe they're friendly." she asks, her voice and eyes hopeful.

Daryl shakes him head and tightens his grip on his gun. He'd prefer a bow but until he can get his hands on one this gun is his new best friend.

"Not waiting around to find out. Let's get the hell outta here."

XxX

Beth really did have the voice of an angel.

Every time she sang Daryl felt shivers race up and down his spin and he found that he couldn't look at her when she was singing or he became transfixed and it was too hard for him to look away.

She was hypnotizing.

Which wasn't exactly something a bodyguard wanted. Daryl tried to tune her singing out as he stalked around the backstage wings, careful to never let her out of his peripheral vision. For three days the most exciting thing to happen was for Beth's older sister to barge into her dressing room without knocking. Daryl had damn near picked her up to throw her out before Beth all but jumped on his back to hold him off.

"It's my sister!" she cried her arms wrapped around his shoulders in an effort to pull him backwards. The sister in question looked at him with wide eyes before falling into laughter.

"Forgot about the bodyguard! Sorry!"

Daryl had stopped from trying to throw her out the second Beth had yelled at him but she had yet to release her grip on him.

"Gonna let go?" he quipped, turning his neck to glare at her the best he could.

She glared up at him in response looking like she wouldn't mind giving him a swift kick in the shins.

"This is Maggie." Beth said as she removed her arms from his body and Daryl tugged his vest closer to him. It was always so damn cold in this room. "Don't attack her."

"He's just doing his job Bethy." Maggie laughed as she dropped onto the sofa against the wall.

"Wish he'd do it somewhere else." Beth grumbled.

XxX

Cars are starting to pass them from all directions on the highway.

The trend Beth started leaving the city still stands, a lot of cars pull over to the wrong side of the road and now both sides of the highway are moving at a regular rush hour pace. The cars on the wrong side try to contain themselves to one lane as there are starting to be cars heading in the direction of the city.

"Should we warn them?" Beth asks nervously, casting a sideways look at Daryl who was still pouring over the maps. There are a lot of ways to get to Georgia from where they are but Daryl has no way to tell which one will be the safest. He wants to go the fastest way but that takes them through too many major areas. He doesn't want a repeat of last night.

"How?" Daryl grunts, reaching forward to turn the volume up on the radio.

The static sound grows louder, filling Daryl's head like a swarm of bees. They've been searching the radio channels all morning and so far, all they've found is static and a few preprogrammed music channels. Whatever happened last night in San Franscico had clearly happened everywhere else.

"Do you think it was like a drug? Or a weaponized disease?" Beth asks as she slows down to let a Honda merge in front of her as another person sped towards the city, honking at them to either get on their side of the road or to thank them for moving over, Daryl isn't sure and doesn't really care.

"Could be space aliens for all I care. What caused it don't matter." Daryl rubs his eyes and closed the map. The sleepless night was beginning to catch up with him but it was only midday, it was far too early to stop. They had to get as far as they could while they still had daylight on their side. He wasn't about to risk them driving the bus through the night with headlights on. Plus, they need to find somewhere safe to hide this monstrous thing before night falls. He doesn't want anyone to see the bus and try to loot it or take it from them.

"You should get some sleep."

"I'm fine." Daryl lies, twisting in his seat to stare out the window. There is a car accident on the other side of the highway, blocking one of the lanes. It has clearly been there for a while, three cars crumpled around each other. There are a handful of people picking through the wreckage. Daryl sits up straighter as they grow closer and he realizes they are not people, but walkers.

"Damn things are everywhere." he sighs, pointing towards them when Beth looks his way. Her knuckles whiten on the wheel. She mutters something under her breath and Daryl turns to her to ask her to repeat herself but her eyes are fixed out the window and she's still muttering. It takes Daryl longer than it probably should've to realize that she is praying.

XxX

It was a pretty easy job all things considered. His first week passed in a blur of seamstress appointments and rehearsals, of watching Beth's glare at him turn into avoidance of him entirely. She asked him questions sometimes, randomly like the thought had just occurred to her. He couldn't tell if it was because she really wanted to know about him or if the silence got to her sometimes.

For the most part they didn't speak. She had barely even looked at him that first day, giving him a curt nod as she turned back to her guitar.

"Just stay to the side and make sure no one attacks me." she said with an eyeroll.

Daryl barely resisted the urge to roll his own. What did she think he had been planning to do? Take the guitar out of her hands and inspect it for bombs?

The whole week the only time he had seen anything out of the ordinary was when her sister appeared without warning. Other than that, it didn't seem like anyone was out to get her. Maybe it would be different when the tour started in another week and the crowds were there.

Cracking his neck Daryl watched as Beth finished gathering her things. She wasn't practicing tomorrow and had insisted that Daryl take the day off.

"I don't need you to sit around and watch me watch Netflix." she sighed as Daryl crossed his arms and glared down at her. "Besides, you have to have time off. There's labor laws you know."

Daryl didn't know the labor laws when it came to bodyguards but he stared at her coldly enough, certain that she was trying to get rid of him for the day to do something her father wouldn't approve of and get him fired, that Beth sighed and held out her hand. Daryl's brow wrinkled and he stared down at her hand, unsure of what she wanted. A handshake?

"Gimmie your phone." Beth sighed wiggling her fingers at him.

Still confused Daryl took the crappy prepaid flip phone he'd had for almost a decade out of his pocket and passed it to her. Beth rose her eyebrows at the style and Daryl flushed, thinking of the high-tech phone she was always messing with. It wasn't like Daryl needed one of those fancy phones. Only person who ever called him was Merle, collect from the prison.

"How do you add contacts in this thing?" Beth muttered to herself as she fussed with the buttons for a moment. The tinny sound of a Tom Waits song filled the room and Daryl recognized it as Beth's ringtone. Snapping the phone shut with a satisfied smile Beth passed his phone back to him. "Now we can get a hold of each other if something happens. Happy?"

She didn't wait around for an answer which was good because Daryl was too busy staring at the name in his previously empty contact list to come up with one.

XxX

He wakes as he always does, slowly and then all at once his limbs flying out in every direction as he tries to see what kind of danger he is in. Blinking at the glare of the sun coming through the window Daryl wipes his hand over his mouth before turning and seeing the driver seat empty. He's on his feet with a lurch as he realizes the while the bus is on, it's stopped.

"Beth!" He calls, double checking the door is locked. She isn't stupid enough to go out there without him, is she?

"Beth!" his voice grows more frantic and Daryl rests his hand on the hilt of the gun at his hip, his heart beating rapidly as he bent to check the bunkbeds. She would have woken him up if she needed a break, right?

The sound of a door opening catches Daryl attention and he looks over his shoulder in surprise but the door is still shut. Turning around he nearly jumps to see Beth walking towards him blushing.

"Where the hell were you?" he snaps, his heartbeat yet to return to a normal rate even at the sight of her.

"I had to pee." she blushes, gesturing to the bathroom behind her.

"Wake me up next time."

"I didn't realize my bladder was so important to you." Beth rolls her eyes and goes to move past him. Daryl shoots his hand out to stop her. She glares up at him at the gesture.

"This all a game to you?" Daryl snaps, "There's shit out there. Dangerous shit."

"I know that!" her eyes burn like fire as she glares up at him.

"Then act like it!" Daryl nearly growls. "We gotta be on the same page here Beth or we'll both be dead before Georgia."

Beth opens her mouth to fight him or apologize or even spit in his face Daryl never finds out. Their fight is broken by a voice coming through the perpetual static on the radio.