-January-

Beth knew Daryl was sick.

She was fairly certain that Daryl knew that he was sick, too. The only problem was that he was trying to hide it from her.

"Daryl." She reached out and grabbed the edge of his shirt. "Go back to bed."

He didn't take another step forward. Beth watched his shoulders rise and fall in a sigh. "That's no good to us."

"You getting yourself killed out there because you're sick isn't any good to us, either." She gave his shirt a solid tug, forcing him to backtrack to her.

His eyes were rimmed in red. The blue of them was dull, instead of their usual brightness. When Beth laid her palm on his forehead, Daryl's skin burned under her touch. "You have a fever."

To her surprise, Daryl did not protest farther when she slipped his crossbow from his shoulder. He must have been feeling worse than he was letting on. She insisted that Daryl take his boots off—and he did. She hoped the shock didn't show too much on her face.

"Let's get you back in bed," Beth said again, more softly this time.

"Sure, Nurse Beth."

He did not protest much when she gently pushed him down toward the bed. Beth tucked the covers in tight around his shoulders. "I'm sorry if it's uncomfortable and hot, but we don't have any medicine and we need your fever to break."

Her little hands smoothed over the blankets, their fluttering belying her fretfulness over the whole thing.

"I'll sleep it off," Daryl promised. He was already drifting back into sleep. Beth sighed, shaking her head. She knew exactly why Daryl had been insistent on going out. They needed more firewood. He had been heading to grab the ax when she stopped him.

Beth got Daryl a glass of water, leaving it beside the bed for him. She pulled on her another sweater, layering her coat over it. Pulling on a beanie, Beth stuffed her ponytail inside the knit hat. She forewent gloves, knowing she would need her hands free to use both the ax and the crossbow.

I'll only have one shot with this, she thought to herself. Re-loading the crossbow was something she still struggled with.

She also knew her abilities well enough to know that trying to fell a large tree would be useless. Younger trees, saplings, or dead trees…that's what she would need to go for. Bouncing up on her tiptoes, Beth ran her hand along the edge of the doorframe until she felt the cold metal of the housekey. Daryl had found it recently, inside a desk in one of the bedrooms. Now she could lock Daryl safely inside and still be able to come back without rousing him.

After locking the door, she slipped the key into her pocket.

It occurred to Beth that she had never been out on her own. Neither Hershel nor Maggie would have allowed it, at the prison. They didn't think she was strong enough. Beth wasn't entirely sure that Daryl would be thrilled, but it was either she went out and got more wood or they froze in their little house.

Still, she was careful to keep that little house in sight while she worked. There were a few smaller trees peppered among the forest surrounding the house. Before she ever swung the ax, Beth looked all around her to make sure she was alone.

Her nervous little breaths manifested themselves in clouds before her face in the cold air. She took a deep breath of that cold air, feeling it fill her lungs, before planting her feet in the snow and taking a swing at the tree before her.

Daryl had made the work look so effortless. She hadn't expected the way the ax would become lodged when it bit into the trunk of the tree. It took all of her strength to get it back out. But she had good aim, so it was not hard to hit her initial mark. It was slow progress, but eventually, Beth was able to hack away at the small trunk until the tree fell in the snow before her.

Now she knew why Daryl insisted he didn't need a jacket when he was cutting down trees. She felt absolutely bathed in sweat. Being out in the open, alone, wasn't as freeing as she always thought it would be. Her mind was mostly on Daryl, and how he was faring.

More than once, Beth pushed aside the intrusive thought that this sickness could be the same one that took so many at the prison.

She made her work go as quickly as possible. The tree was nearly frozen. Bracing her foot against the trunk, she was able to snap most of the thin branches right off.

Beth made due with three little trees before her worries over Daryl had her filling her arms with her bounty and heaping it inside the house, close to the door. She locked the door behind her and began shedding layers: her hat, her coat and sweater.

Despite her efforts not to wake him, Daryl didn't respond to any noise she made. This scared Beth enough that she rushed to the bed, laying her head on his chest to check for his breathing and heartbeat. It took several moments for her own to even out after she felt the rise and fall of his breaths against her cheek.

Daryl was not aware of much in his fever sleep. He woke a few times, hazily, and always to Beth. Once, she was dabbing at his face with a cool washcloth. A handful of times, he felt her hand burning cold against his fevered skin. He swore he felt her lips press to his forehead once, too. Another time, she was stroking his hair and singing to him.

When Beth was singing, her lullaby worked itself into his dream. It was an awful dream, a fever dream, featuring Merle. Not his living brother, but Merle once he had risen from the dead, blood dripping down his chin. For once, Beth's voice brought him no comfort.

Somehow, though, he had slept through Beth removing his shirt. He had no idea how.

When he managed to pull himself fully from sleep, he was surprised to find himself shirtless beneath the covers. He was equally surprised to find Beth asleep beside him. she held one of his hands in hers, with the back of his pressed to her lips.

He reached over, using his free hand to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. His touch startled Beth, causing her to jump a little in her sleep. Her eyes flew open, but when she saw him awake, she smiled against their clasped hands.

"I couldn't get your fever to break," she whispered to him. "You weren't much help in getting your shirt off."

"Sorry," he whispered back. The sun was setting. Golden light filtered through a crack in the windows. Daryl tucked his thumb between their hands, tracing a line across the length of Beth's little palm.

"I'll forgive you, considering. How do you feel?"

He didn't see any reason to lie to her. "Like shit."

That made her giggle. She sat up, drawing her hand away from his as she did so. Then she leaned over him, resting one hand on his chest to balance herself as she reached for a glass of water beside their bed.

"Here. You need to stay hydrated."

Daryl managed to prop himself up on his elbow and gulp down the water. Beth watched, making sure he drank every drop.

It took him a moment to realize there was a fire going in the hearth. "Did you…?"

She nodded, her blond hair tumbling around her face. "I was careful. I took the crossbow."

He knew that scolding her would do no good. And really, was there any reason to? She had taken care of what needed to be done. This Beth he was coming to know was entirely different than the one he had met on Hershel's farm. Instead, he nodded at her.

"Do you want some soup? I found a can of chicken noodle in the pantry." She was already up, padding across the floor in her sock feet. A pot and the can of soup were in her hand before he had given an answer.

In their early days in the house, Daryl had constructed a metal shelf of sorts that sat over the flames inside the fireplace. Beth poured the can of soup into the pot and carefully positioned it over the flames. She sat down in front of the fire, to watch over the soup. Daryl rolled onto his side, so he was facing her back.

She was not so far away that she was out of reach. He extended his hand, again touching her hair. Daryl ran his fingers through the length of her ponytail, watching how her shoulders relaxed under his touch.

If he had to be sick, then being sick here, with Beth to take care of him…Daryl figured his hand of cards wasn't all that bad.

It took a week for Daryl to feel well again. A week of bed rest, which Beth insisted upon. A week of anxiously waiting for her to come back every time she went out to get more wood or check the traps he had set after the last blizzard.

A week of Beth fussing over him. A week of falling asleep to her reading or singing.

When that week was up, Daryl could only think of one way to repay her. He had found an old wash basin in the basement—a different one than Beth washed dishes and did laundry in. This one was old, but clean, obviously from a time long forgotten.

He figured she would appreciate a proper bath, rather than the sink-baths they gave themselves every few days.

"What's that for?" Beth asked, looking up from the sheet music she was studying. She had decided to teach herself some new songs from the song books she found in the hollowed-out space beneath the piano bench.

"You'll see," was all the hint he gave.

Though Beth still sat at the piano, her song book in her hand, she watched Daryl intently. First, he took some of the larger pots and took them outside. From the window, he watched him fill the pots with clean snow. Then Daryl set each pot over the fire, waiting for the snow to melt and the water to boil a little before dumping it into the basin.

Beth knew well the contents of the bathroom. She knew they had no medicine, but a few bottles of astringents. The cabinet under the sink held soaps and shampoos, as well as scented bath salts. She was more than a little surprised when Daryl returned with some of these contents and poured some rose-scented bath salts into the steaming water.

She knew her eyebrows were scrunched in confusion, especially when Daryl used some pushpins—where had he even gotten those?—to hang some of the sheets from the ceiling.

"Seriously, what are you doing?"

"You would find out a lot faster if you stopped askin' questions, woman." He peeked over his shoulder in time to catch the contentious look on her face. It only made him smile, though. He held a towel out to her once he finished hanging the sheets. "You wanna take a real bath or not?"

As realization dawned on her, Beth's eyes lit up in the firelight.

"Really?" This, she knew, was something Daryl considered frivolous and unnecessary. Even as a wide smile crossed her lips, she almost couldn't believe it was happening.

"Yeah. I'll keep watch, but I don't think anythin' will be visiting us tonight." There was no snow, but the wind was howling outside. Beth bounced onto her feet, taking the towel from him.

"Thank you!" In her excitement, she leaned forward and kissed his cheek as she went by. Behind the curtains, the fire and steam from the water made the little space warm. Beth kicked off her boots and peeled off her socks before making quick work of her pants and underwear. She stepped into the basin with her upper half still clothed, relishing in the feel of the hot water around her feet. When she had shed all of her clothing, she piled her hair into a bun atop her head and sunk into the water.

God bless Daryl Dixon.

The bath salts had turned the water silky and sweet-smelling. Beth was still sore from her week of chopping down trees, and the liquid warmth eased the stiffness from her muscles. She sunk down as far as she could in the wide basin, enjoying the feel of the water.

Beth took her time scrubbing herself truly clean. This bath, which Daryl had put a lot of work into, was the most luxurious thing to happen to her since the world ended. By the time she was satisfied, Beth's skin was sunburn pink but felt scrubbed new. She stayed in the basin until the water started to go cold.

Sighing, she lifted herself from the water. Still standing with her feet in the basin of water, Beth wrapped the towel around herself. She was wonderfully warm, between the water and the fire, and took her time drying off, too. By the time she had dressed and pulled down the blanket-curtain before the fire, Daryl was in bed.

He was still healing from whatever sickness had struck him.

That night, when Beth slid into bed beside him, she smelled of roses and the crispness of snow. Her skin was radiating warmth from her bath. In his sleep, Daryl reached for her, pulling him close to him.

Beth giggled quietly, settling into her place beside him.

It was obvious when Daryl truly felt better.

His color was back, and his eyes were no longer tinged with red. He pulled on his leather vest first, before slinging his crossbow over his shoulder.

"Beth," he called out to her. She had woken up just a little while before and was washing her face. "You comin'?"

He waited for Beth to button up her coat and pull on her gloves. "Let's go."

They were lucky Daryl was feeling better. Beth had cleared the entirety of what constituted the 'yard' around the house of young saplings. The two of them were hurting for more firewood in a winter that had given no indication of letting up any time soon.

"We can't take too many from around here," he told her, leading her deeper into the woods. "Cover's too important to sacrifice."

"I feel bad I cut down all the baby trees." Daryl looked at her in time to catch her pout.

"You woulda felt worse if we turned into walkers after we froze." She rolled her eyes at his back. The snow was deep. Beth made a game of placing her steps in the holes Daryl's left behind.

"Not with that smart mouth, I wouldn't."

As was their routine, she covered him while he chopped down a new tree. There was nothing to cover Daryl from, though. With the howling winds from a few days past gone, the land was eerily quiet.

"Where do you think everything is?"

"Animals are probably hunkered down in snowbanks," Daryl told her between swings. "With any luck, the walkers are plain frozen over."

Once, when Beth was very little, a blizzard had come over them so quickly that her father hadn't had time to shelter the horses before it began. She remembered the way they had frozen to the ground, how Daddy had to cover their noses with his hands to melt the ice. The horses had looked eerie, so still, when they were usually running and prancing.

Thinking about walkers frozen in place, grotesque and silent, made her shiver.

"You good?" Daryl asked, not even looking over his shoulder. Not for the first time, Beth was surprised at how easy it was for him to guess her moods.

"Thinking about frozen walkers," she answered honestly. "Can you imagine? They would be so freaky."

"They would be easier to kill." Certainly not for the fist time in her life, Beth rolled her eyes at Daryl's back. "Try to tell me I'm wrong."

Daryl, she had come to learn, was full of teasing beneath his hard exterior. Unfortunately, Beth couldn't tell him he was wrong. But she could scoop up a handful of snow and lob it at him. which she did.

The ax nearly slipped from Daryl's hands in his surprise when the hastily made snowball exploded against his arm. Beth pressed a glove to her mouth to stifle her laughter, coating her own mouth in a thin layer of snow.

"Woman!" He chastised her, but she could see the way his eyes shined. "We ain't got time for friendly fire."

Beth shrugged, feeling the weight of the crossbow on her shoulder. It had long been her job to cover Daryl while he worked. Still, though, the crossbow was very much his. She liked to feel the weight of it, finding an odd comfort in it.

While Daryl swung the ax, Beth watched the snow fall lazily around them. She took a deep breath in, the cold, clean air stinging her lungs a bit. Her breath puffed in front of her when she exhaled.

The trees around them were coated with snow and ice. It sparkled, vaguely, in the weak light seeping through the snow clouds over head.

"I wish it were always like this."

Daryl didn't respond. It wasn't until Beth turned toward him that she realized the ringing sound the ax made when it hit the tree had ceased. Instead, Daryl was watching her.

"Me, too."

One night, Beth woke Daryl long before his watch was set to start.

"Come outside with me."

Her eyes were bright with excitement; that was clear even in the dark. She tugged at his hand, drawing him away from the warm spot she had left in the bed when she left hardly an hour ago.

"Better be good," he grumbled, unhappy with being woken from sleep.

"It is! It's a meteor shower."

Daryl did not possess the words to explain to Beth how little he cared about the stars. He let her pull him from bed and shrugged into his jacket anyway. She held his hand the entire time she led him outside.

"Look," she whispered, reverent. The night sky was streaked with lights. All the clouds that had haunted the sky during the day had cleared, providing a view that suddenly made Daryl feel small. "Isn't it beautiful?"

Now he didn't have the words to tell her he agreed.

When Beth shifted to press her back against him, resting her head against his shoulder, Daryl didn't protest. He wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him.

"Yeah," he agreed after a beat. There was a swelling feeling in his chest that Daryl wasn't exactly familiar with. It nearly choked him. He cleared his throat with a noise that came out as a cough.

"Are you too cold?" Beth asked, tipping her head back to look at him.

"Nah," he mumbled. "Watch the sky."

She pulled his other arm around her, snuggling herself even closer. That swelling feeling returned, and Daryl did his damnedest to ignore it.

It was Beth who kissed him first.

Daryl had been sitting in the rocking chair, reading an encyclopedia. He was trying his damnedest to work out how he might manage ice fishing on a nearby river. With one hand, he held the book open before him. He was biting the thumb of his free hand in concentration.

Beth let herself into the back door, home from checking the traps. Since Daryl had been sick, she had asserted her abilities to help. Somehow, Daryl was so engrossed in the book and his planning thoughts that, even with his hunter's ears, he hadn't realized she was back.

The traps had been empty. That had given her plenty of time to think. While she stared at the empty wire traps, her mind flipped back and forth. By the time she reached the back door, she was in the affirmative again…and she decided to act on it before she faltered again.

Taking big steps, she managed to cross the living room floor to him in six strides. She counted, to keep herself calm. His eyes hadn't even flicked up from the book.

The book, which she pushed down to get his attention. Only then did he look up, surprise coloring his eyes.

"What're you—" he started, but Beth didn't give him a chance to finish. She cupped his face in her little hands, angling it upward. She brought her lips to his before he could form another word.

Vaguely, Beth was aware of the encyclopedia hitting the floor. She was entirely aware of his hands gripping her hips, pulling her forward and into his lap. Those same hands moved upward, spanning her waist as he settled her.

Beth had thought Daryl felt hot when the fever burned through him, but she was mistaken. Now she felt that she herself might be burned as his lips moved against hers. She was light-headed and nearly dizzy by the time she pulled away from him.

They were both breathing heavily. Daryl had his head tipped back, meeting her gaze. Her hand still cupped his face; she ran her thumb along his cheek bone.

"What were you reading about?" As the realization of what she had done sunk in, Beth felt a blush bloom in her cheeks. She scrambled for something to diffuse the situation—but just a little. If she were being honest, she was enjoying this moment more than she could have imagined when she was daydreaming in the snow, checking traps.

"Ice fishing," he mumbled, looking more than a little dazed himself.

"Oh. That's useful."

"Yeah." He punctuated that single word by pressing his hand into the small of her back, drawing her in to kiss her again.