So many of Daryl's rambling thoughts in this chapter. He's kind of all over the place but I think Daryl is no longer the sort of man who acts brashly like he was on the first couple of seasons on the show. Now, he thinks before he acts and in this chapter, he is thinking - a lot. I was thinking the next chapter would be the last - an epilogue of sorts - but I'm not sure.
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Part Thirteen.
Beth stares at him and doesn't say anything but Daryl isn't expecting her to. She just stands there with the bed sheet clutched around her body as if she's trying to protect herself from him or something and Daryl gets why she's doing it but at the same time, the sight of it gets his anger growing.
He realizes his own nakedness and he grabs his boxers from the floor, tugging them on. "I ain't leavin'," he tells her and she just stares at him, still not saying a word.
He exhales a deep breath. He's never been good with words and Beth knows that but he knows he's the one who is going to have to talk. He owes her that much because when it comes to his brother, he's a dick and a coward and Beth got the brunt of that and she never deserves that from him. She deserves so much more than him and all of his shit baggage and he knows that he should just leave – especially with her telling him to – but lying in bed again with her, feeling her impossibly soft skin and smelling her scent of chocolate and frosting, feeling her fingers running over his own skin and whimpering his name as he moved above her… he's missed her. He's missed her this whole damn time and now faced with having to walk away again, he finds himself unable to. How the hell did he inch away from her the first time?
And he knows the answer. There are actually a few answers and he knows them all. He's not as stupid as a lot of people think he is. But Beth never thought he was stupid. Beth, with her smiles and soft laugh and bright eyes, she always believed in him and he looks at her and he wonders if she still does because how much shit can he put one person through before they give up entirely?
He hears a rumble of thunder and Beth hears it, too. She moves from the bedroom and goes into the living room where she has two of the windows open. The wind has picked up and is blowing into the room. She moves to close one window and he closes the other and another rumble of thunder shakes the earth.
He looks at her and she's looking at anything but him and he yells at himself to say something. He can't just be quiet like he always is and give her his usual grunts. This is too important right now. Beth is too damn important and just thinking that to himself, he exhales a deep breath.
"Merle used to be the only thing I had in this world," he begins. Beth stands on one side of the living room, hugging the sheet around her body and he stands on the other side of the living room, just staring at her. "Our mom died and our ol' man…" he doesn't say anything more about that because she knows enough and that's not what he wants to talk about right now.
The rain starts to fall now, the clouds bursting open and the rain falls all at once, a downpour that pounds the roof and the window panes. Outside, it's dark even though it's not even three in the afternoon yet.
"I spent a lot of my life just followin' Merle around, doin' what he told me to do 'cause I thought that that's all I really was good at." Daryl can no longer look at her.
Beth doesn't say anything but he hears her move and he looks to see her moving to sit down on the edge of the coffee table. She doesn't lift her head to him and her hands are clasped in her lap. She won't look at him but he knows she's listening. He inches a step closer to her. There is a crash of lightning and she flinches slightly.
"I know he's not good for me but he's my brother and he's the only family I got," he says and he exhales a deep breath. He stares at her. "And then I met you," he gets out in a breath and watches as Beth's entire body goes still. She still won't look at him and he inches another step closer.
He really doesn't know what to say and he focuses on his breathing for a moment. He knows what he wants to say but he can't actually get those words out of his mouth. He knows Beth can't read his mind and he knows that he'll actually have to say all of this so she knows. She deserves to know.
She stands up then suddenly and she finally turns her head to look at him. "I'm hungry," she says softly and he looks at her without responding and she turns to go into the kitchen.
Daryl follows but unlike those times with Merle, this is one person - and one time - he actually wants to follow.
…
He leans against the counter and watches as she mixes the batter together and adds the container of blueberries she has bought from the store earlier that week. She fills the muffin cups and he holds the oven door open for her just as he had that afternoon in the Grimes' kitchen when he finally asked her out.
She is still wearing a bed sheet and he's wearing nothing but his boxers but it doesn't feel weird. Not at all. They've done this before. He likes to watch her bake. There's something about it that relaxes him. The quiet whirring of the mixer. The soft song she hums as she stirs. The kitchen is small and there doesn't seem to be that much room but he likes the small dusting of flour on the counter, the way the room steadily grows warmer, the smell of the goodness and it smells like home and everything he's ever wanted and Beth.
He watches and he feels his fingers itching. He has just been inside of her not even an hour ago and he wants her again. He always wants her. These past couple of months, being with Merle and not being with her, he's felt a knot in his stomach that he's never felt before. He's never missed anyone. Not all of the times Merle would disappear or even when his mom died. He just moved on and kept on living his life. He has been taking care of himself and have been on his own for so long, he never saw a reason to be sad with people coming or going.
But when he inched himself away from Beth and no longer saw her every day, he felt himself aching. Actually aching and hurting and he would sometimes walk past the diner at night – never going in – and seeing her smiling at other people as she worked. He has told himself that it didn't matter. They had only been together for a couple of months. It shouldn't have gotten that intense in just a couple of months.
But as she stands at the counter now, wiping it down, cleaning everything up again, a strand of her hair has fallen from where she has the others tucked behind her ears and he doesn't stop himself from reaching over and tucking it back behind her ear.
She looks at him and he looks at her and he waits for her to say something but she's still quiet and he knows he needs to say something else.
…
The blueberry muffins are warm and practically melt on his tongue and he feels Beth watching him as he eats. He lifts his eyes to meet hers and he tries to chew a little more quickly so he can say something but she beats him to it.
"You broke my heart, Daryl," she says suddenly and even though her voice is soft, it pounds in his ears louder than the storm still raging outside.
He stares at her and the bit of muffin still on his tongue is now like sawdust.
"I fell in love with you," she continues. "And I knew it had only been a few months but I was just so convinced that you were the one."
She laughs then but it's not Beth's laugh – soft and light and washing over him. This sounds hollow and empty and it makes his chest twist and he can hardly look at her.
"That's how unbelievably stupid I am," she laughs again but her eyes are welling with tears.
Daryl is finally able to swallow the bit of muffin and he shakes his head. "You ain't stupid, Beth. And you weren't imaginin' anythin'," he says and he's amazed he can actually say that at all.
Beth stares at him, tears still welled in her eyes but none have fallen down her cheeks. He can see the battle waging on her face. She wants to move towards him. He can see it in the way she starts to lean forward but then she stops herself before she can take that first step.
"What are you going to do, Daryl?" She asks and her voice sounds stronger now.
Daryl just looks at her and doesn't say anything because he knows that she has more she wants to say and Daryl is relieved that she's finally speaking though he knows he isn't going to really like anything she has to say.
"When you finally leave here, are you just going to go back to Merle? Just keep following him around and doing nothing for yourself? What about you, Daryl?"
He looks at her and he tries to remember the last time someone had asked him that. What about him? What does he want? He doesn't need Rick or anyone to tell him that Beth is the best thing to ever happen to him. He may act like it sometimes but he's not stupid. His mind just gets clouded sometimes. Merle clouds him all up. He always has and Daryl wishes he could be as strong as Beth needs him to be.
"What do you want?" She asks, still staring at him with her glassy eyes.
What does he want? Again, has anyone asked him that? Even if no one has asked him that, he knows the answer already. Maybe he's always known. Maybe he's known since the first time he came into the diner and saw her. He's always wanted her. It was never a secret to anyone – except Beth and himself at first. But Lori and Rick saw something and got it into their heads that they needed to play matchmaker and when he finally had the balls to ask her out, he remembers sitting across from her in that burger restaurant, seeing her drink her chocolate milk shake, and thinking that maybe asking her out and being there with him was the best thing he's ever done.
He grunts something then because again, he knows what he wants to say but he really doesn't think any of those words are in his vocabulary. He doubts there has been a Dixon in the history of their family that has ever had this kind of conversation with another person.
"No, Daryl," Beth shakes her head. "Don't do that." She is frowning now, the tears in her eyes all but forgotten. "You don't get to just grunt and have that be that."
Daryl stares at her and he just keeps staring at her and he's yelling at himself to say something because this is it. This is his one chance. His only chance. And he's not going back to the motel to stay with Merle and he's not going to spend the rest of his life being his brother's shadow. When Merle's in jail, those are the best times in his life because he's free and he can do anything he wants. He can be friends with who he wants and work at a job he wants and spend his time how he wants. His life is his.
And it shouldn't have to be that way. He's a man and he should be able to live his life however he wants. And for a while there, he wanted to spend it with Beth because she made him happy. There's no denying that to himself. He was the happiest he had ever been in his dark, miserable life. He woke up every morning to that pretty face and she smiled at him like he was the only man in the world to her and for her and he believed that he made her happy, too.
And that's all he wanted to do because he had never made anyone happy before in his life. He has spent his entire life being looked down at or being avoided altogether. In Evergreen, just a stop along the way on Merle's drug dealing trail, he found a job and friends and a girl he looked at and saw the world being a little bit brighter with her around.
"Daryl," she says his name again – soft and sounding so damn scared all of a sudden as if she already knows his answer but still needs to hear it all the same even though she knows it will break her heart all over again. "Talk!" She suddenly shouts. "Can you talk at all?" Her voice echoes and bounces off the walls, as loud as the rain and the thunder and Daryl has never heard her yell before.
The sheet is starting to slip from her body and she grabs it before it can, tightening it even more around her body, her eyes flashing and never leaving his. She's scared and nervous and yet, there's still the slight hopefulness that he recognizes and knows wells because Beth always seems so damn hopeful over one thing or another in the world. No matter how shitty things are, she always seems to smile and shrug her shoulders and remind him that things can only go up from here.
What does he want? That's the easiest question he's ever heard. And it's a question he best not fuck up because there will be no coming back from it. No second chance. This is it. If he answers wrong or doesn't answer at all, she'll be gone and some other guy will come to town and see this pretty girl and the way she smiles when she brings them their order in the diner and they'll be able to say just the right thing and sweep her off the feet and in a few years, she won't even remember who he is while every night, he knows he'll have dreams – and nightmares – filled with nothing but her and he will never be able to move on from her. There is no moving on from a girl like Beth Greene because a girl like Beth Greene is the girl.
Daryl stares at her and swallows the sawdust he's convinced is still on his tongue.
"You," he answers in his gruff, low voice but it's not like he needs to shout it from the rooftops. Beth is the kind of girl who doesn't need that because she's staring at him and no matter how low he's said it, she knows, without a doubt, what he's said.
"Oh," she then says as if she's all surprised and tears are flooding her eyes again but she's smiling, too. Smiling so wide, she's practically laughing.
She flies to him then, rushing across the room, and her body slams against his. His arms instantly are tight around her, nearly lifting her off her feet, the tips of her toes grazing the floor as her arms circle around his neck.
"I need ya', Beth," he says because it's not just a want. And Beth tightens her arms even more around his neck and squeezes him and he holds her crushed to him.
He decides right then and there he's not going to ever allow an inch between them again.
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