A/N: "Scar Tissue" by Red Hot Chili Peppers.

scar tissue I

The first time Beth and Daryl met was in a river on a hot, humid, and scorchingly sunny day in June. Merle was still free and going through one of his short bouts of sobriety, working some construction job with Daryl in the city during the week. Their Pa had finally keeled over and died the year before, leaving them untangled from the remaining burdens that came attached to the Dixon name.

It was the last summer that Maggie would return to the farm from college, and though she was single and still bitter about her last ex at the time, she was unaware that just a few short months later, she would meet a particularly shy pizza delivery boy in Atlanta who would steal her heart - and her last name. It was also the last summer that Merle would spend outside of incarceration, despite his feeble attempts to better himself.

After a long week of work and a couple days of heavy summer rain, Daryl and his older brother had decided to spend their weekend getting drunk and floating down the river on a pair of inner tubes, clad in cut-off jean shorts, old T-shirts, and beat-up tennis shoes. They both had intense farmer's tans, but as they sipped beers and floated leisurely down the river, sunscreen wasn't even one of the problems on their minds. There were no problems on their minds - they were carefree. Probably not for long, but at least for now.

When he first spotted her, Beth was no more than a blonde-haired blur off in the distance. For a second, he thought she might be a kid because she was so short, but then he spotted the curves and the bikini and the graceful gait and he knew she was definitely no kid. She was standing on the bank in ankle-deep water, struggling to help her sister and cousin to untangle their inner tubes from the rocks they'd gotten wrapped up in.

Just two young girls with their male cousin out for a day of tubing on the river and forgetting their worries.

And then Daryl had to come along and change everything in Beth's life.

Admittedly, neither of them could remember all the details from their first day together. Or even that first summer. It had all become a blur of alcohol, river water, cigarettes, bonfires, and frightening new experiences. That first day, though… it was what Beth had always liked to refer to as "accidental magic." And he couldn't help but agree. There was simply no other fitting definition for it.

Except maybe fate.

There were a lot of things that stuck out in his mind, though. Things that he felt could never be replicated, things that had made him feel emotions he'd never been sure he was even capable of. At first, he didn't even really like Beth. She was young and naive, talkative and nosey and kind of clingy. He was indifferent towards her, at best. And her sister was worse - loud and bossy and a little too cocky for her own good.

He could tell that the Greene girls leaned toward the spoiled side of life. They lived on a big farm, had a do-gooder daddy that took care of them, and they'd probably never end up stuck in dead-end Senoia like the Dixon boys. They'd probably never experienced the kinds of hardships Daryl and Merle had, nor would they ever have to. They weren't the kind of people that the Dixons got involved with, let alone befriended, and vise versa.

Then, after several hours of floating side-by-side and sharing jokes and exchanging coy smiles with little, blonde Beth, Daryl felt something strange coming to life in his stomach.

Maybe it was the combination of beer, sun, and nature, but he started opening up. He started talking back, joking with her, smiling and laughing. And as much as he tried to ignore it, he was more than aware of the way his heart would flutter wildly whenever their hands brushed or she reached out to grab his inner tube and pull him back to her. They'd wound up hooking the little ropes on their tubes together, floating along behind Maggie and Arnold's tied-together tubes, with Merle floating after them in the back.

And the entire time, Daryl's internal warning system didn't go off. Not even once.

Sometimes, he still cursed himself for allowing Beth to get close. For allowing whatever happened on that river to culminate into a monster of its own. How had he not known? How had he not felt it when she was near? That gravitational pull, that eternal burning that simply knowing her had set ablaze and refused to extinguish. It was something so intense and ominous that he surely should've felt the very tips of its long tendrils grazing him when his eyes first set on her. Maybe he had and he'd just ignored it. Maybe it had been something too strange and incomprehensible to even acknowledge.

There was a single moment from that day that stuck out more prominently than any other: when she'd been applying a fresh layer of sunscreen and squeezed the bottle way too hard, spurting sunscreen all over herself - far more than she needed. He'd laughed at her and watched with amusement when she turned and gave him a look that said, really…? And then she'd grinned mischievously and scooped up a palmful of sunscreen before reaching out and splatting it across his bare legs.

And while she laughed loudly and leaned halfway over the edge of her inner tube to playfully spread the sunscreen across his hairy, already-tanned lower legs, that odd fluttering overwhelmed the inside of his chest and filled the pit of his stomach. He laughed with her and shook his head, and afterwards, he admonished himself for being so stupid as to wonder - if even for the briefest second - whether she was flirting with him.

Of course she wasn't, he'd told himself. She's just friendly, she's just like that.

Jesus… he'd always been a goddamn fool.

After that, it was more of the same. Bits and pieces of memories, details that stuck out in his mind for no particular reason. And Beth. So much Beth.

All tanned skin and long legs in cut-off jean shorts, bikinis, and sundresses. Glowing blonde hair that nearly blinded him in the sunlight, and even brighter blue eyes. A voice coated in sugar and honey with a soft Southern lilt, laughter that filled his head and reverberated through his chest and echoed off all the trees. Long, pinkish scars that seemed to decorate her body like some form of morbid artwork, bared openly and without shame. But most of all: those big, beautiful eyes. She nearly knocked him off his feet every time she flashed a smile his way and fluttered those long, thick eyelashes. His stomach flip-flopped more in a month than it had in the last forty years.

There was a handful of more days spent on the river, floating on inner tubes, making a habit of tying their tubes together while Maggie, Arnold, and Merle paired off separately. The first time Daryl heard Beth sing was when she was half-full of warm beer and bathed in afternoon sunlight, belting out the National Anthem at the top of her lungs. Halfway through, he and Merle joined in with their unabashedly hoarse and off-key voices, and by their second recitation, Maggie and Arnold were in on the chorus as well. They floated down the slow-moving river in the summer sun, sipping beer and singing one well-known song after the next. And whenever they passed another group of inner tubers, Beth was always the first to gleefully wave and invite them to sing along. And most of the time, they did.

It was a damn good summer. Probably the best Daryl had ever had.

Along with their countless hours floating down the river, he fondly remembered weekend nights spent at the bar. Of course, this was way before Beth was legally able to drink, and even before she'd acquired a fake ID. But in a small town like Senoia, that wasn't stopping her.

There were only two bars in all of Senoia, and one of them was out near the edge of town - a little more run-down, a lot more lax on the rules and regulations. One of Maggie's friends from high school was in charge every weekend night, and that friend didn't care about carding people. The place was usually fairly quiet, no more than ten or fifteen patrons at a time. Mostly older folk, overworked farmers and whatnot, people who minded their own business and didn't care that the Greene girls were throwing back beers behind their daddy's back on the weekends. Daryl had never been particularly fond of the place, but he never turned down an invitation when he knew Beth would be there. Sure, he'd prefer to go into Atlanta and find a nice bar to drink at, but after seeing how much fun she was to be around, he felt that he'd only end up bored and lonely.

He was frightened at how quickly he had grown fond of her. How rapidly she'd invaded his head and stayed there. He was a little annoyed at how often he found himself thinking about her, wondering what she was doing, wishing he could talk to her. But then he'd see her and she would seem just as anxious to talk to him again, to tell him about her day and ask about his, to hang out with him, to simply be around him. And it felt… really fucking nice. Just to know that someone saw him as a friend. To know that she saw him as someone she wanted to know.

He couldn't remember the exact moment he fell in love with her. Just like he couldn't pinpoint the exact moment when he knew he was too far gone to be saved; when he'd given in and let her consume him without resistance. It was more like a culmination of several different moments. A combination of days and nights, sunshine and moonlight, beer and whiskey and cigarettes, bonfires and skylines, the strum of a guitar and a soft, melodic voice singing an old country song that spurred unfounded bursts of emotions within him. Along with a small peppering of intriguing text messages and inside jokes and the deep bond that inevitably follows an outpouring of one's soul.

They shared a lot more than a summer together. They wound up sharing painful memories, deep-seated trauma, anxiety, and fear. They bonded over the scars that didn't show on their skin - and the ones that did.

He already liked nearly everything about her. She was smart and funny and quick-witted and sassy to no end. She was brave, strong, resilient to the nth degree. She didn't take anyone's shit, nor did she allow anyone to intimidate her. She was fully aware of how beautiful she was, yet oblivious at the same time. She was an old soul in a young body, almost too compassionate and trusting for her own good. She was loyal to a fault.

But most of all, she was damaged... Like him.

When he finally mustered up the courage and swallowed enough beer, he managed to ask her where her scars had come from. It was during one of their bonfire nights, after a long day of floating on the river.

And she'd blinked, smiled, and shrugged, and then she'd nonchalantly explained that they were the remnants of a horrendous car accident that took the lives of her mother and half-brother. She didn't even flinch when she told him that she'd been twelve years old, that she hadn't been expected to ever walk again, and that she died twice on her way to the hospital before miraculously surviving. She didn't even sound bitter when she mentioned how her daddy and sister had escaped with no more than a handful of bruises and a nasty case of whiplash.

In fact, she joked about it. She told him that she wished she could remember it more because everyone told her that she'd crawled from the wreckage and waved down help from the side of the road, all while suffering from a broken pelvis, a shattered fibula and tibia, and a fractured spine. And she laughed, cracking a macabre joke about how she wished she could've been able to give a first-hand account to all the news stations that had bombarded her afterwards.

He'd laughed it off with her, but inside, something stung sharp. It felt wrong.

Even before he really knew her, he felt that he knew her. He recognized the pain and guilt and suffering that lay nestled in those cornflower blues - everything that she was trying so hard to keep pushed down. Surely, she had to be exhausted by now. He knew, from personal experience, how tiring it was to keep all that shit locked up. How utterly draining it was to continuously blame yourself and carry a heavy load of guilt from year to year. And this bubbly little blonde might have a pretty face to put on everyday, but sooner or later, that face would become too heavy for her to lift. And she would crumble beneath the weight.

The evidence was already there. A thick scar on her wrist, something he didn't ask about until much later. Something that seemed to haunt her family just as much as it haunted her. An attempt at ending her own pain and guilt when she was fifteen, only to result in more pain and guilt spreading outwards like a plague on everyone she cared about most, she explained one night. She never liked going much into the details, brushing it off as "a bout of selfish immaturity and weakness." Laughing it away with another misplaced joke about how, maybe if she'd been physically able to join sports in high school like she'd always wanted to, she wouldn't have had so much time to sit around and wallow in her own pity.

He thought that sounded more like a guilt-ridden explanation that she'd convinced herself of rather than an actual reason. But he didn't pry. And the night that he finally asked about it, he noticed that she took a few more shots than usual and chugged her beer just a little faster. He tried not to think about the flicker of darkness he'd seen cross her face, all too familiar and foreboding.

When other people asked about her scars, it was always a different story. All it took was witnessing one encounter for him to be convinced that she was like no one he'd ever met before - in the best way possible. And that, maybe, he could learn a thing or two from her.

There were numerous times when she'd wear a blouse that dipped low in the back and exposed her spine, the long and grisly scar that lay there as a reminder of her forever-damaged vertebrae. Or she'd wear shorts or a skirt or a dress, and the equally-long, equally-grisly scar that ran down the length of her calf would be exposed for the world to see. And once in a while, a curious drunkard would wander over and try to spark up a conversation based solely on the tragedy that framed this beautiful little blonde girl.

And she always brushed it off. In his eyes, she was coated in impenetrable armor, standing tall and rigid atop a pile of bones and ashes, prepared to defend herself and the ones she loved with the only defense she knew best: humor. And light-heartedness.

She was full of positivity and optimism, constantly radiating its confident heat wherever she went. All he could do was stand back and watch in awe.

"Damn - what happened ta yer back?"

"Oh, that was a terrible whaling accident… But I got the fucker."

"Shit, girl, what's that brutal scar on yer back?"

"You ever played Russian Roulette with a machete?"

"So what's the story on that scar you got?"

"Bear attack. Why? You tryin' ta go hunting with me?"

In the same way that she made him confront his own pent-up pain and aggression, she also made him laugh. At the most ridiculous things, at the most macabre jokes. Somehow, she showed him a silver lining to the dark cloud that had followed him since childhood. Every second with her felt a little easier than the last. Every day felt like a slightly lighter load than the day before.

He caught himself chuckling quietly at stupid pictures and jokes that she would text him during the day, while he was at work or when he woke up in the morning or randomly, late in the evening. It didn't take long for his heart to begin leaping with excitement every time he saw her name pop up on his phone screen. And then they were flowing into long conversations on the phone at night, even longer conversations in person, more words per text message than he'd ever bothered with before.

She was the only one he genuinely enjoyed texting, or really talking to at all. She was definitely the only person he'd ever spent more than half an hour talking to on the phone. She didn't even seem annoyed or bothered when he began venting about Merle and life in general. In fact, she listened.

She absorbed everything he said and responded with words of reassurance. And when she didn't have any reassuring words, she simply gave him understanding. Which was more than enough, he figured out. He'd never realized how much it meant to have someone he could honestly talk to - about everything.

And when she talked, he did the same. He listened, he absorbed it, and even when he didn't want to, he empathized. He recognized something in her and reached out for it. Whether he'd been reaching subconsciously or not, he still wasn't sure. But it seemed inevitable either way. Their broken pieces were magnetizing towards each other, clinging together and refusing to separate.

And honestly, he had no desire to pull them apart.

For the first couple of months, it was all passive flirting, coy smiles, and inside jokes. Lots of lingering touches, long hugs, and sitting close together. To the point that Maggie had begun side-eyeing them, shooting him random glares from across the bar or from the other side of the bonfire, watching with narrowed eyes from her inner tube. Beth didn't seem to care about her sister's opinion - he didn't realize until much later that he'd been witnessing the last of the thin strings that connected Maggie and Beth slowly snapping and separating for good.

Not that it mattered. It had never been Beth's love life or her choices that pushed Maggie away - no matter how badly the youngest Greene wanted to blame herself. And as far as he was concerned, Beth was an adult, and more often than not, he found himself thinking that she acted far more mature than Maggie ever had.

Nonetheless, he'd denied any sort of attraction between him and Beth. She was young. Much younger than him. And even though he'd felt something indescribable upon meeting her, something that had immediately gripped onto him tightly and refused to let go, something that kind of felt like his soul was recognizing something familiar in hers… he wasn't about to admit it to himself.

Sure, she was beautiful, and yeah, he'd probably drag his dick through a mile of broken glass just for one night in bed with her. But that didn't mean shit. She was too good for him. And he was too broken for her. Neither of them were in the position to be falling for someone, getting all wrapped up in emotions and desires. And a girl like her would get wrapped up. He already knew.

There was a reason he hadn't had an actual girlfriend since high school: because he didn't want one. Women were more trouble than they were worth. He'd learned that lesson time and time again, and had vowed years and years ago to stop wasting his efforts on something as pointless as romance. Something that had only ever resulted in heartbreak and general disappointment.

But there was also a reason that he'd never been the affectionate type. He'd never been one for hugging or cuddling or holding hands or any of the nonsense that brought people too far into his personal space, whether platonic or otherwise. That kind of shit made you vulnerable with another person, and he didn't do vulnerable.

Yet with Beth, it was inevitable. Unavoidable.

She reached out and took his hand, interlacing their fingers like it was normal and no big deal. She hugged him eagerly, didn't bother to hold back or act shy. She constantly reached out to touch his arm or grab his wrist, or to lean on him or use him as her own personal pillow. She was always urging him closer, always clinging to his side and gravitating toward him. She made it feel comfortable.

With her, it seemed natural.

He still wasn't even sure if she was flirting with him or not. At first, he'd been positive that she was just like that - touchy-feely and affectionate, well-acquainted with constant physical communication and reassurance in all her relationships. But then he made a point to pay close attention to how she acted with other people, friends and family and otherwise, and no matter how badly he didn't want to admit it, he had to admit that she definitely treated him a little differently than everyone else. And then he was flirting back, sometimes unintentionally, sometimes because it felt good to hear her giggle or see her blush while she playfully slapped his arm. Never with any intention of taking it anywhere, though.

They were friends. Maybe this was just what it was like to have a good friend - a good female friend. How was he supposed to know any different? He'd never cared about a woman the way he cared about Beth. No woman had ever looked at him the way she had, let alone given him the time of day. Or the benefit of the doubt. No woman had ever treated him like he mattered. He'd simply never been given a reason to believe that anyone genuinely cared about him except Merle.

And suddenly, if they were sitting on the couch together or at the bar, he didn't feel quite right until he had her physical warmth at his side. It became a reflex to reach out for her hand when they were walking somewhere together. To wrap his arms around her whenever he first saw her after being apart or while they said goodbye. To scoot just a little closer whenever she sat down beside him. Even to offer her a piggyback ride every now and then - just because it made her laugh (and a little bit because it gave him an excuse to feel her body pressed really close against his).

He didn't know what it meant. Couldn't decide if it was flirting or friendship. Couldn't quite explain it to himself, let alone figure it out. It was just… Beth.

And then she had her 19th birthday at the end of August, during the most humid part of the slowly ending summer. Of course, she planned a big party to celebrate, which she'd been excitedly talking about for several weeks, planning it around the time that her daddy would be out of town visiting family. And of course, Daryl showed up early to help her set up and pre-game with her.

What he hadn't expected, and what neither of them had planned for, was ending up drunkenly making out in the downstairs bathroom of her big white farmhouse. Too many "birthday shots" and poorly played games of beer pong had left Beth stumbling and giggly, somehow even more touchy-feely with him than she usually was. Admittedly, he'd had quite a few shots himself, and he'd been downing one beer after another for several hours.

But he could still remember every single detail of being in that tiny bathroom with her, of kissing her for the first time. Not even the alcohol could change that. He couldn't forget it if he tried.

The way she smelled like lilacs and freshly-mown grass, how she tasted like beer with the slightest hint of cigarettes and something fruity. The way she pressed her small frame tightly against him, and how he'd immediately shut his eyes the second he realized she was finally closing that distance between their faces, finally kissing him.

He vividly remembered the spark in his chest as soon as their mouths were connected - like the final piece of a huge jigsaw puzzle had just been placed. Like the odd, unspoken tension constantly hanging between them had finally dissipated and drifted away entirely. There was an overwhelming flood of something that he could only describe as relief washing through him when she slipped her tongue past his lips and began exploring his mouth, when she wrapped her arms a little tighter around him and leaned up on tiptoes to get as close as possible.

And it wasn't just the relief from finally knowing that she had been flirting with him the whole time. No, it was something more, something he couldn't understand at the time.

He'd never cared for kissing, let alone making out. It had always been a brief thing with him, like a technicality that some women required before they would allow him to bend them over a public toilet and fuck their brains out. But with Beth, it felt more like the final step of a long journey, and the first step of an even longer adventure that had only just begun. Something deep inside him just knew.

In the same way, something else inside him also knew that she was drunk. Very drunk. And running on practically non-existent inhibitions. Even in his own inebriated state, he didn't allow his hands to drift below her lower back, no matter how badly they wanted to. And he gently pushed her hand away when she made a grab at the button of his jeans, kissing her again and quietly mumbling about how they needed to get back out to rejoin the party before people started getting worried.

She whined at first, but then they kissed for a few more minutes and he eventually managed to guide her out of the bathroom and back to her friends. They spent the rest of the night practically glued together, though they didn't do anything more than hug and cuddle and hold hands.

He was glad he'd resisted temptation that night because, as it turned out, she didn't remember the last three or four hours of the party. When they woke up in the morning and she saw him sleeping on her bedroom floor while she slept in the bed, she asked him how she'd gotten there and thanked him for staying with her. And when he finally built up the courage to ask if she remembered "the downstairs bathroom," she responded with a blank, completely clueless expression.

Even though she didn't remember their first kiss/makeout session, something changed between them that night. They crossed a line that they could never cross back over again, and they'd landed in territory that they could never come back from.

Or maybe he had changed in that bathroom, Daryl wondered after a while.

Maybe she'd finally dug her tiny fingers into the well-hidden fault lines of his thick protective armor and forcibly pried them open. Maybe she'd finally snuck inside those cracks, slithered her way between the jagged edges and taken up occupancy within the depths of his chest. Maybe she wanted to fill those spaces with her flickering light and intense warmth.

Or maybe she just wanted to start a fire in his lungs and step away to watch him suffocate in the ashes.

Whatever it was, he had no control over it. And no willpower to walk away. She'd already consumed him entirely. There was no going back to how things had been before. Their relationship had hurdled the fence of friendship and taken a lightning sprint into the darkness of the unknown that lay ahead.

He was submerged in the vast sea of whatever the hell it was that he felt for her - that she made him feel - and he was quickly sinking deeper and deeper, farther and farther away from the surface and everything he thought he'd known before her.

And he wasn't even trying to come up for air.

to be continued...

A/N: I went ahead and finished the first flashback into the backstory of Beth and Daryl's relationship and it got a little long so I broke it into two parts. Next chapter will be the second half to this, and then we will resume where we left off last chapter. And there will be more flashback chapters scattered throughout later on, so you'll eventually get the full story of their 4-year relationship and how they got to the point where they are now.