Chapter 4: behind my eyes

The first several moments are filled with rushed introductions, pleasant but generic words and greetings, and small talk. Daryl hands Beth a bottle of bourbon, a lower-shelf brand she'd seen many times at the local liquor store, as he steps inside the kitchen. She closes the door behind him, but she strongly feels that he stands yet with one foot outside it.

"You didn't need to bring anythin'," she says quietly, placing the bottle on the counter. "Would ya like me to mix you a drink?"

His eyes move to hers and he shifts his weight. "No need to mix nothin'. Just a glass and a couple cubes of ice."

She smiles then and steps closer to him, the rest of the family now assuming their typical positions around the large oak dining table in the next room.

"Daryl, you don't need to be nervous," she says, nudging him, hoping – almost needing – to calm his nerves, whatever their origin.

"'M not," he replies quickly. "Just not used to this type of – this family thing."

"Don't you have any?" she asks then, feeling a well of sadness building low in her gut.

Before Daryl has the chance to answer, Glenn enters the kitchen, eyebrows raised expectantly. "Woman," he says, teasingly, "we're famished over there. Need help? Don't want Mags gettin' hangry, now, do we?"

Beth rolls her eyes at her brother-in-law. "Be right in," she says. "Daryl, go on and sit."

"Yeah," he mumbles, reaching around her for the glass of bourbon she'd only seconds ago finished pouring. She inhales sharply when she feels his hand brush against her hip, ever so lightly. "Yeah. Here, let me carry somethin'."

"Just carry your drink," she says, laughter in her voice. "This is my thing. Has been since mama passed. Be there in a minute."

Xxx

The conversation was flowing freely at the Greenes' dinner table that night, traveling from the upcoming wedding between Beth and Zach, Daryl's new role and position with Rick, the happenings of the vet clinic, Maggie and Glenn's trials and tribulations as they attempted to start a family, and beyond.

The alcohol, too, was flowing. Voices increased in volume for the most part, though Beth quickly realized she and Daryl, along with her sober father, were not quite as rambunctious as the rest. Zach's hands had found their way onto Beth's thighs and lower abdomen too many times to count. She'd slapped them away each time, fixing him with a look that she'd hoped would cause a cease fire, to no avail thus far.

"Ya know," Maggie announces, far too loudly, "I do remember you." She points a finger, of course one on the hand holding her – what? Third or fourth by now, Beth figures – drink, at Daryl, who is sitting directly across from her and to the side of Beth.

"Yeah?" He asks, but the question is filled with something more akin to dismay than intrigue. "I haven't been 'round here in a long time."

Daryl's answers to the various questions directed at him, mostly about his past rather than his present, for some reason, throughout the night had been vague at best, but Beth felt no need for anyone to push. He was a guest. A friend. A hard worker. Reliable. Maybe a bit broody. Incredibly mysterious in a way that she tried not to think too much on.

"Where's that piece of work brother of yours, anyway?" Maggie slurs, sloshing a decent amount of her drink into the nearly-empty bowl of noodles in the middle of the table.

Beth feels – even from the several inches between them – Daryl's body go completely rigid. The room quiets.

"Maggie," Hershel says roughly, and it's a quiet warning. "Please excuse her," he says to Daryl. "'Fraid she ain't quite got the ability to hold her alcohol. Never has. I would know."

Daryl shifts in his seat, and Beth watches his eyes drop to his hands, wringing against one another in his lap.

"I – uh. I gotta head out," he finally says, still intently looking at his hands. "Thank you for this – this was great."

Beth fights an urge to reach a hand out, maybe place it atop his own. She feels discomfort and shame roiling off of him and into her. But she doesn't. She can't.

He scoots his chair out and abruptly leaves without a second look.

"What the hell was that about?" Zach asks, his own words slurred just a bit.

"His brother's Merle Dixon - hasn't anyone caught onto that little factoid yet?" Maggie snaps.

Beth furrows her brows, searching her memory but coming up empty.

"Okay?" Zach retorts, "that name means jack shit to me. Wanna explain a bit more? There some gossip you're holdin' back from your future bro-in-law?"

"Maggie, come on," Glenn says, tone quietly apologetic. "There's no need to pass any bullshit along a grapevine that died out years ago."

"Inclined to agree," Hershel says, standing from his place at the head of the table. "Leave it alone, Maggie. An' watch your mouth." Grabbing his cane, he slowly exits the room, shaking his head as he does.

"Someone talk," Zach says, leaning in with a grin.

Beth sighs. It's not that she's not curious about whatever the hell her sister knows. But she can't relinquish how wrong it feels, for whatever reason. She's not – never has been – any sort of gossip queen. She feels badly for the people who have the misfortune of becoming the talk of the town – and she wonders why no one else in her family feels the same, since they'd once had that exact misfortune.

"Daryl's brother is a fuckin' criminal. Scum," Maggie says as she drains the rest of her glass, disgust dripping there in her words. "Literal scum. Thief, battery, drugs… anythin' you can associate with the word."

"Shit," Zach says, but his eyes are dancing. "Daryl, too? I thought he seemed odd."

"You just only met him, Zach," Beth snaps. "Don't accuse him of being whatever the hell my drunk sister seems to think about his brother when ya don't know a damn thing 'bout him."

"Chill, Beth," Zach says, rubbing his hand yet again up and down the length of her thigh. It makes her want to smack him hard enough for everyone to hear. "It isn't like ya know him that well, either. I'm lookin' out for you by askin' – kinda my duty as your future husband, don't ya think?"

Sean scoffs, loudly, and returns his attention to his phone, where it's been the entire evening.

"Actually –" Beth starts, digging her nails into the dorsum of Zach's hand still firmly planted on her thigh.

Maggie cuts her off, though. "From what I hear, Daryl ain't so damn innocent either."

"Enough!" Hershel bellows from where he's now standing at the border between the kitchen and parlor, unbeknownst to the rest of them. "Maggie, darlin', none of this is for you to tell. Every one of you knows how I feel 'bout gossip. Or do ya need remindin'?" He turns then, clunking his cane a bit more firmly against the floor than usual as he returns to the parlor room.

"Loose lips, sister," Sean comments with a yawn and a slightly arched brow. He stands abruptly, then, saluting all those still seated. "It's been real, fam. Gotta get my beauty rest, though." And then he's bounding up the stairs to the childhood room in which he still resides.

"I think I'm ready for some beauty rest of my own," Maggie says, looking at Glenn. "Let's go, Glenn."

Glenn shrugs, looking apologetically at Beth and Zach as he stands and places a hand on the small of his wife's back. "Guys, good to see ya." He crosses the end of the table as Beth stands, wrapping his arms around the shorter woman.

"Don't let anythin' she was yappin' about tonight bother ya, li'l sis," he says quietly as he embraces Beth. "You know much as I do that a person's worth ain't based on how they look on paper." He kisses the top of her head, shakes hands with Zach, and leads his wife out of the house. Beth doesn't even spare her sister a final glance.

"Well, then," Zach says from where he's standing next to Beth, "guess that was last call. You ready, babe?"

Beth is feeling unsettled and irritated and she isn't quite sure why. She doesn't respond, since she's not so sure that whatever would come out of her mouth would be coherent or rational. Instead, she begins collecting the dirty dishes from each place setting around the table.

"Beth?" Zach asks, still standing in place. "Ya ready?"

"No," she snaps. "I'm not ready, Zach. The damn kitchen is a mess, if you didn't notice. Nobody picks up after themselves here. I don't want daddy to have to hobble in here and clean up after all of us, especially after Maggie acted like a complete bitch."

She seethes a bit when she hears Zach audibly sneer.

"Why are you so pissed about what Maggie said?" he asks, piling some used utensils atop dirtied plates.

"Zach, it was entirely out of line. She was incredibly rude to Daryl."

"How was she rude? She just asked about his brother. Not quite sure how that's rude, Beth."

Beth halts in her tracks, hands full of plates and forks and knives, halfway to the sink.

"I can't believe you just asked me that," she says, voice hushed and full of a myriad of emotions that even she can't understand, half-turning toward her fiancée.

"Don't you remember what it was like for me – for us – when my mama got sick? When everyone in this goddamned town knew she was sick, why she was sick, what it meant?" She quickly closes the distance between where she stands and the counter near the sink, noisily dropping the pile of dishes. "Every single time someone asked me how she was, with that tone of voice, knowin' that she basically dug her own grave - it felt like I was being stabbed in the gut, Zach. You were there. You saw. You heard. I don't know a single thing about Daryl's brother, about Daryl's past, aside from the shit my sister spewed tonight after way too many drinks. And the people who asked about my mama, actin' concerned but really only diggin' for a story 'cause they knew she was an alcoholic? It hurt. It still hurts."

Zach closes the space between them and places both hands firmly on Beth's shaking shoulders. He pulls her into him, and it feels like an apology. She isn't sure it's what she truly needs in this moment, because the hurt she feels for Daryl, for his brother – regardless of his transgressions, if any did exist – is so familiar and raw that it steals her breath in this moment.

"I'm sorry," Zach whispers into her hair, stroking a hand down the length of her spine. "Beth, I didn't think about it that way." He straightens so that he can look into her eyes. "I understand. I haven't forgotten what it was like for you – for your family – when your mom was sick. The shit people said, how they said it – it was fake and fucked and cruel." He runs a hand through the strands of her blonde hair.

"Then why did you encourage her, Zach?" She can't help the tears that are filling her eyes.

Keeping his hands at her elbows but placing several inches between their bodies, he responds, "I promise you, Beth, I'm only thinkin' about you. You seem to really like the guy, like workin' with him. But the fact is, ya don't know that much about him. None of us seem to, aside from your sister, and whatever your dad may know. I don't want you to get hurt. I don't want you to get close to someone who isn't pure and good and honest."

She nods, sighing at the effort of the smile she forces onto her lips. "Let me just finish up in here. We can go to my place soon as I'm done."

Xxx

That night was quiet. There were no discussions about relationships, disagreements, values, or futures. There were only hushed apologies and confirmations, lips colliding, and sweat mixing as Beth sought an urgent need for comfort from her fiancée in the only way she could imagine at that moment.

She arrives Monday morning at Grimes' farm although neither Daryl nor her dad or brother had requested her presence. She can't shake the discomfort she feels from the top of her head to the depths of her core.

He's sitting on her stump when she hops out of her truck, smoke curling above his head. He doesn't move though she knows he must hear her arrive.

She twists her hair, already thick with sweat in the morning heat, onto the top of her head, inhaling deeply as she begins to cross the dusty driveway.

"Hey," she says quietly when she's within a few feet of the stump where Daryl sits. "Mornin'." She fidgets, inserting and removing her hands from the pockets of her jeans.

He turns his head to the side, exhaling a cloud of smoke, but doesn't face her.

"I – uh – I wasn't sure what time daddy was comin' today," she stutters, moving forward, toward him, slowly.

"Don't need any help," he says then. His voice is as rough as usual, but it lacks familiarity in a way that causes Beth's chest to tighten immediately. "Already got the horse ready."

"Oh," she says quickly. "Oh, okay. I wasn't sure. I just –"

"Don't," he says, voice sharp and solid. "Just don't – I don't wanna talk 'bout the other night."

She's silent and scared and feels the sting of rejection deep inside. It vexes her, given the novelty and levity of their friendship, or working relationship, or partnership, or whatever it is. But she finally forces her feet to carry her to his side. She sits beside the stump, just as he had done several days prior.

He won't look at her face. She's not sure why that bothers her the way it does, but she's feeling surges of desperation. He inhales the final drag of his cigarette and stubs it out under his boot.

"Daryl," she says, voice shaking. "None of it matters to me. Your brother – or whatever my sister said or thinks or heard. It doesn't matter. I don't want it to change anythin'- "

"What's there to change?" His eyes cut to hers, and they're as sharp as his voice. "Huh? We ain't nothin', anyway. Don't give a shit what you or your perfect fuckin' family thinks, anyhow."

He stands from her stump, tension radiating from his body, his words. She stands, too, and reaches out for him, grasping a firm bicep with every ounce of strength she can muster between her delicate fingers. Her thoughts are erratic, and she's not sure which of them audibly gasps at the contact.

"Wait," she says, feeling tears welling and willing them to dissipate. "Please."

"What do you want from me?" he says, dragging his eyes from where her hand and his arm are connected to her face.

"I want you to know that I'm not – my family's not perfect. By any means. We have too many skeletons in our own closet to have any business talkin' shit 'bout anyone else's. I – I like you, Daryl. I don't want what my drunk sister said to cause this – this awkwardness." Her words are rushed, and she's sure she stumbles over at least a few of them.

"Like me? You don't know me, Beth." He says it quietly, and she swears she hears a glimmer of pain there in his voice. "And trust me. No matter what skeletons you think you got in your closet, they're pygmies compared to the ones in mine. In my family's. I ain't a good person."

She removes her hand from her arm to swipe at her leaking eye. "I don't believe you," she says firmly, holding him in place with her eyes and her voice and her determination. "And I'm not leavin'. So you better give me somethin' to do, or I'm just gonna follow you around."

She isn't sure if she's only imagining it, but she swears she sees his lips twitch.

"Go start takin' that horse's vitals 'fore your daddy gets here," he says, voice filled with irritation. "Stay outta my way. I got shit to do."

Xxx