For Beth, walking into the dim recesses of the barn was like stepping backward into her childhood. Thin shafts of sunlight filtered through the shrunken boards here and there with tiny motes of dust floating in them, stirred up by Daryl and Beth's passage through the still air. The floor was hard dirt, packed down by years of boots and tires and hooves. In the corner near the door was a long watering trough, fed by a pump that she knew led down to a well far beneath the ground. She hoped it hadn't run dry. The sweet barn smell of old hay and animal dung, of engine oil and sawdust rose up to meet her, and she was reminded of countless afternoons in her family's barn, watching her dad build furniture and fix tractors. To her child's mind, he had seemed powerful and all-knowing, capable of anything and everything. She longed to have those innocent afternoons back, to somehow unmake the hell that had overtaken them all.
But underneath the smell of the barn was another smell. A familiar one. Was there anywhere in this new world untouched by the odor of decaying flesh? Almost without conscious thought, she slipped her small hand into Daryl's large, calloused one, drawing comfort from the way his fingers tightened around hers.
They found the family in the southeast corner, in a large paddock that looked like it may have once held livestock. There were three mounds of dirt, graves that had not yet settled with time. At the head of each was a single two-by-four stake sticking up from the ground, a name carved roughly into it. ELLEN. TABITHA. JACOB. There was a fourth grave, too, about three feet deep and still open, the displaced earth piled haphazardly beside it. The corpse inside it was sitting up but had tilted drunkenly to the side, as if sleeping off the effects of a hard night. The gun in his lap and the hole in his head told the story. Here was the digger of graves. Saving his own till last. A moldering piece of paper was safety pinned to his chest, a few drops of old blood like ink spots splashed across it. Two words, scrawled harshly in black marker, comprised the man's eulogy for himself: MY FAULT.
Transfixed by the scene, it took a moment for Daryl to notice that Beth's breathing had changed. Her hand trembled in his. He glanced at her to see twin rivers of tears making silent tracks through the dirt on her cheeks as she stared at the man in the grave. He shifted uncomfortably, not sure what to do. Why was she crying? They'd seen plenty of corpses in their travels, most of them worse than this. Thin cries were convulsing her shoulders now, as she turned her gaze away from the pitiful sight.
Impulsively, Daryl pulled Beth in to his chest and wrapped both arms around her. He didn't understand her tears, but he knew with sudden certainty that he would do anything to push back the misery he saw in her eyes.
His embrace seemed to trigger something in Beth, and the quiet rain of her grief turned into a storm. The tears became ragged sobs, and her tiny body quaked with the power of them. Daryl felt as if he was the only thing tethering her to the spot, as if she would be swept away completely by the deluge if he loosened his grip on her even a little. So he held on, and so did she, clutching fistfuls of his shirt and burying her face against his chest while the tempest raged on.
Minutes passed. Slowly, slowly, the unexpected burst of emotion ebbed away, until quiet reigned once more, broken only by the occasional hitch in Beth's breathing. Embarrassed, she unclenched her fingers and moved as if to pull away, but Daryl didn't release her.
Instead, he looked back over her shoulder at the gravedigger, and the pieces fell into place. Despite the advanced decay of the body—Daryl judged him to have been here several weeks—white hair and whiskers were still visible on the desiccated face. Suspenders hung loosely over the tatters of an old flannel shirt. He saw it now. The quiet farm, the dusty barn… and the ghost of Hershel Greene still haunting his daughter.
The rest of the day passed quietly. Trying not to think about the poor family in the barn, Beth instead busied herself taking stock of the supplies in the storm cellar. She used the LED light they had found to read labels and set to making an inventory on a legal pad from the desk in the study. It had been months since they'd had more than a candle to hold back the dark; this rechargeable flashlight was a stroke of luck. The crank was noisy, so it wouldn't always be practical to use, but a full charge was good for a couple of hours of light, so she decided she would add it to her pack anyway. Poking around on the lower shelves, she also found a couple of light sleeping bags, a first aid kit, and a radio. The bags were made of some sort of space age fabric; they'd be much lighter to carry than the scavenged bedrolls they were currently using. The battery compartment on the radio, however, had been corroded by leaked battery acid, so it was shot. Beth piled the sleeping bags and the first aid kit by the door and turned her attention to planning out dinner.
Do you hear yourself? Been eatin' pine nuts and squirrels to stay alive and you're wondering what you're going to fix for dinner. A snort of amusement escaped her at the thought.
There was so much food on the shelves that Beth almost felt guilty. How many people were still out there, nearly starving, surviving hand to mouth and never knowing where they'd find their next meal? That had been them up until yesterday. This bounty felt too good to be true. Food, a house, even a working well? She shivered, remembering that they'd had the same thought about the funeral home. Was this another trap, ready to spring its jaws shut on the unwary? She shook her head. No, she wouldn't believe that. For one thing, it was out here in the middle of nowhere. What kind of trap would be so hard to get to? And it had obviously sat empty for a long while, passed over somehow by the forces of chaos that had tossed everything else. Still… it felt like more than a coincidence that she and Daryl had stumbled into it just when they most needed a refuge. She thought about her dad, about his faith, and wondered whether there was some unseen force at work here after all.
Alone, Daryl finished burying the man in the barn. But first he unpinned the sign from his chest. "Ain't nobody's fault, mister," he muttered. "World's just gone to crap." He took off his leather vest, grabbed the shovel from where it lay beside the grave, and started filling in the hole.
As the dirt piled up over the withered body, Daryl marveled at the strength it must have taken for the older man—father, husband—to carve these four holes into the hardpacked floor of the barn. Experimentally, Daryl tried to push the tip of the shovel into an undisturbed section of the ground. It was like trying to force his way through rock. How long did the digger labor here, sweating in the oppressive heat, gouging holes in the ground to swallow up those he had loved most in the world? Daryl could imagine the refrain pounding itself into his brain, echoing over and over with the rhythm of his digging: My fault, my fault, my fault…
Wasn't that the same chant that had kept Daryl company for weeks after the prison fell, pounding with the beat of his endless footsteps, stabbing into his heart with every glimpse of the small, quiet girl whose father had been struck down right in front of her? My fault, MY fault, he had chided himself. He was finally part of a family, and he had failed them, failed to protect them. Failed again, like he'd failed so many times before. Why did he think he could do better, could be better? He'd had plenty of time to think about it on the road, plenty of time to whip himself with all the could-haves and should-haves. By the time they'd made it to that rundown cabin in the woods and hunted up the moonshine for Beth's first drink, he was half in the grave himself, bowed low under the weight of self-recrimination and drunk on useless rage. He'd been a powder keg ready to blow, poised to decimate whatever was left of the blonde waif ghosting along at his side.
But she'd surprised him, had raged right back at him and dared him to keep living, to keep fighting. That tiny girl who he'd thought so insubstantial and unsteady had stood in the flames of his anger and burned with him, until all that was left was the two of them, flipping the bird to the charred ruin of the past and moving, somehow, into the future.
He doubted she'd ever know how close he'd come to the abyss. But the moment they had turned their backs to the flames, a wave of some unfamiliar emotion had swept over him, along with the certainty that there was more, much more, to Beth Greene than anyone knew. Even herself.
Dinner that night was a surreal meal of beef stew and crackers, followed by a passable apple cobbler that Beth had made Dutch oven style over the small burner. They ate it at the table, like people who hadn't been sleeping in the woods two days ago. It was their first hot meal in over a week, and the first one since the CDC that didn't have some sort of wild game in it.
To their relief, the well pump in the barn had functioned just fine after Daryl oiled the cast iron joint and tightened up some fittings. It had taken a little while to draw up water and flush out the pipes, but soon there was plenty, so Beth had taken what she needed to hydrate the dried rations she'd chosen for dinner. After she left the barn, Daryl had filled up a five gallon bucket and dunked his whole head into it before doing his best to clean off the dirt, oil, and sweat that had accumulated over the long day of manual labor. It wasn't perfect, but it had to be an improvement. At least the food would taste better.
"Better" turned out to be an understatement. Daryl had to bite his lip to keep from moaning in pleasure at the long-missed taste of well-seasoned beef. You could hardly tell it had been dried and then reconstituted. He and Beth dipped thick, crunchy crackers into their bowls of stew and wolfed them down, hardly pausing for breath until the pot was almost empty.
When she brought out the cobbler and two spoons, he looked up at her in appreciation, but his mumbled thanks died on his lips at the unsettled look on her face. She passed him a spoon and set down the pan, but didn't join him in tasting the sticky concoction. Every time he glanced at her, she was looking at the table, her eyebrows drawn together as if gathering her thoughts to say something. The cobbler was delicious, but after a few spoonfuls, Daryl found that he couldn't eat any more in the atmosphere of growing awkwardness between them.
As the silence piled up, the memory of that moment of understanding they had shared in the funeral home kitchen last night came suddenly to his mind. It had almost been swallowed up in the blood and chaos that followed, but here, in this quiet kitchen, he found himself wanting to go back to it, wanting to delve deeper into the yet unspoken thing that had sprung up between them.
Thoughts bounced around in his head, looking for words to carry them to freedom, but as so often happened, he found himself unable to give voice to the rising tide of unfamiliar emotions. He suddenly hated that about himself. Maybe because he'd been alone through most of his growing up years, he'd always struggled to connect with other people. Feeling much, he said little. It had never bothered him before, but it was sure bothering him now.
Finally, he drew in a breath to speak, but Beth was there before him.
"I'm not weak," she said softly.
It was so far from the direction his thoughts were traveling that it took him a moment to take in what she'd said. "What?" was all he managed.
Beth tipped her chin up a little defiantly and, in a stronger voice, repeated, "I'm not weak. I don't want you to think… Just because I… because in the barn…"
He interrupted her. "I know you're not. Hell, girl-don't you think I know that by now?"
Beth looked straight into his eyes. Exasperation warred with affection there as he continued, "You're one of the strongest people I've ever met."
He held her gaze, and then tentatively reached across the table and placed his hand over hers. Her slender fingers were beginning to feel familiar to him.
She barely breathed. Her wide eyes were a question mark in her face.
Daryl needed to make her understand. "It's like you said. You ain't like Maggie or Michonne or Carol. They're tough, sure. But you- you got somethin' that's different from them. Somethin' that won't let all this mud and crap and fear beat you down. Somethin' inside you that can still sing even after everything you've seen. Somethin'…" he trailed off, suddenly embarrassed at his unprecedented flood of speech. When she didn't respond right away, he pulled his hand away and rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. "Sorry," he mumbled, "I'm not that good at puttin' things into words."
Beth stood up. Stepping around the table, she grabbed Daryl's hand and pulled him to his feet before launching herself into his arms for a hug, wrapping her arms as far as they would go around his waist and pressing her face into his chest.
"Those words were just exactly the right ones," she whispered into his shirt.
They stood that way, unmoving, for a long while. Daryl's arms came up and found her shoulders, pulling her in closer. As the warmth of her body spread through his, it became blazingly clear to Daryl Dixon that the way he felt about Beth Greene had passed well beyond the realm of friendship.
His hands seemed to move of their own accord, one sliding down to the small of her back while the other rose to cup her cheek. Pulling back a little, she looked inquiringly up at him. For a moment, his eyes searched her face, taking in everything from the flyaway curls of gold at her temple to the faint smear of dirt smudging her jawline. His thumb absently stroked her cheekbone as he fell into those storm blue eyes. Finally, he did the thing he'd been longing to do since the day she'd faced him down and made him really see her for the first time. The day she'd made him want to live again.
He kissed her.