So I accidentally quoted the book thief in this 'marvellous' new chapter, props if you catch it. Thank you so much for the support already, and I have fixed a few buggy errors of my 'late night writing a summary as if it will be flawless''.

The next chapter will most likely not be tomorrow as I have a degree to try and work towards as well as fangirl about the walking dead, hope you understand.

Hope you enjoy xxx

The Prison- Part Two

''I hate goodbyes.''

It was as open as he was going to get.

''Me too.'' Her voice was small and meek. Her wiry arms holding onto him, the perfect height for him to want to give in and rest his chin on top of her head, hold her close. He didn't know why. Somehow Beth was so un-asking of him he wanted to offer and provide everything that she'd need. She never begged him for time or stuff- in short she wasn't like these other arseholes. There was no ulterior motive. He liked that. Or, maybe, he respected that.

He wondered, occasionally, if she thought the same of him. Though, he took up her time with meaningless conversations there was never a sense that he was bothering her. Beth was an angel. That's what his mother would've said, in the specific voice women use to describe pushovers who take care of the baby and help feed the expanding family. She did what she was told with a surprising lack of fuss considering her age, seemingly happy to bow to her role and accept the responsibility of child having not had any of the fun of making it.

But this was a sad occasion, him telling her that the guy he'd pressured her to date was dead- partially because of him. Of course, she never said that it was his fault, hell, he'd be surprised if it had even crossed her too kind mind, but for him the guilt became this massive weight. He was heavier than before, dragging himself up to her cell made him feel like lead, and though others had offered to tell her- even Maggie- the sadistic punishing side of his brain said it was his job. Of course, Beth doesn't really respond with any emotion, though he senses it rising under her skin, and so on that front the punishment doesn't exist.

It's later when he walks past her cell from guard duty and hears the tell-tale sniffles that the punishment begins. It's been eleven hours since the news. It's been about an hour before the numbness wore off and pain of the world came crashing around her. He knocks gently, strumming his hands along the bars. She doesn't hear, and he's not surprised. He wants to call her name so he knows if he's allowed into the privacy of her grief, but it's stuck in his throat somewhere. Then he's angry, angry at himself. He walks away, grumbling under his breath at the injustice of it all- though he knows selfishly, he's feeling sorry for himself. Unable to show the stupid compassion when he so sorely wants to. Instead he takes it out on thinking about how it's the walkers' fault, Rick's fault and our lord in heaven's fault for never doing anything to make his life worthwhile.

Halfway down the hallway he stops, nearly at his own cell on the far side. He wants to go back, as if he's attached to a piece of string that's pulled taut. But what would he say? And would it even mean anything? He wasn't a teenage girl, had no idea what they needed and it wasn't really (- his own messed-up ideas aside-) his job to deal with. Yeah, let her daddy or her sister or Carol cheer her up tomorrow. They'd be expecting this anyway, probably have a plan in motion to turn her frown into a smile and fix it all. Satisfied for a mere moment, Daryl walked into his cell, shrugged off his backpack and placed it on the floor. Then he walked out again.

Stood outside her cell. For the third time that day the gravity of emotion felt like it was going to pull him through the concrete of that spot. He forced himself to shuffle in awkwardly, looking at the ground and still absolutely no idea what he was to say. The scuffle of his boots made her look up. Blonde hair around her shoulders, eyes puffy and red. There was mucus down her face and too white limbs stuck awkwardly from how tightly she'd tried to wind herself. He kept his damned mouth shut because the coping mechanism in his brain was trying to fire out jokes about how she didn't cry anymore. But sometimes, thankfully, words aren't needed.

Surprised as Beth Greene might have been upon seeing Daryl Dixon in her bedroom in the early hours of the morning, she was made of gold and bones like a bird. Weak and vulnerable, he watched her contemplate him for a moment and then outstretch her arms like a child might to its mother, her face screwed up with emotion. And she wasn't a pretty sight, damn near the most pathetic thing he had seen, but his legs walked over there anyway. He sat on the bed, holding her in the second hug of the day and patting her hair in a soothing awkwardness as a new wave of grief wracked her body in sobs. Listening to her laboured breathing, and feeling very out of place, he tried to let the long lost empathetic side of himself take control. He stayed there all night, dozing a little bit once she had exhausted herself, back against the wall and her body curled up on his legs. What had become of the mighty Dixon?

He wondered how she had got so close. Not as in the physical lack of barrier between them as she literally snored on him. His head fell back on the cool wall, his back hurt but risking moving Beth seemed like a crueller fate somehow. Instead he closed his eyes too, telling himself he was just taking a moment, when in reality the soft calling of Beth's warmth and memory welcomed him into unconsciousness.

The weight of the world sat on Daryl's shoulders. Sometimes it felt like the burden was lifted with this adopted family they had created, that he could leave them to bear the weight while he had a glass of bourbon and smoke. Other times it felt he was the sole-owner of this thing, that he was left fighting alone against the barricades of the ignorant dead and the arrogant living. It felt like that now.

The sun was on its way to being set, not quite imminent, but the dusty sky stretched out pale gold and empty. The moans were second nature to him now, a background noise you tuned into when necessary. The swallowing pit of self-pity, of guilt and of depression was opening. He picked at it like a scab with in his head until he was burning hot with anger and had cooled back down again. He always enjoyed the numbness that came after.

Beth had somehow trudged behind him, sat herself heavily near him and resumed to breathe too heavily in his place of self-pity. He was pissed off. But her brows were furrowed, some emotion radiating of her straight back and squared-shoulders.

''awful sour face y' wearing.'' He muttered at her, the sarcasm dripping in his voice. But it was truth the look she shot him showed a frustration he had rarely seen cross the girl's face. He heard a small mutter of what could have been 'Maggie' or 'Daddy' catch in the wind, and her eyes narrowed to contemplate his face.

''Don't look too hot yourself.'' And that was all she offered, her eyes finished raking his face but for staring back at a fixed point in the herd of walkers.

And he was lost of what to say, because normally she did the talking. Or, rare times, perhaps he had something directly to say that he would impart and then leave. So he just made a low murmur, hitting his heel into the dirt gruffly and leaning back to look at the pathetic water-wash of yellow sky.

Silence.

He could hear her breathing getting shallower and calmer with each passing minute. The shoulders loosened somewhat and he realised watching her calm down had unwound his own frustrations.

''Just tired of the shit.'' It surprised himself. Not the ineloquence of the sentence, as that was the only thing that told him it was his own voice, but the open answer.

Alright, so it wasn't the most informative or useful of descriptions. Providing little detail to Beth on how to fix the issue or give any real basis for a response. But somehow her being there was enough to make him feel a bit more human, and a bit ore tied to earth. He felt her unconsciously take some of the weight of the world.

''You just gotta look fer the good. Here, Glenn found 'em.'' She stood up, dusting her arse off graciously and then pulling out a crumpled box and throwing it to him. Seemingly finished with their, what can be described as a conversation, she walked back up to the prison alone. Daryl opened the packet of cigarettes, taking one out and lighting it with a gratitude you only got for chemical addiction.

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''You're good with her y'know?''

He had been stood there a while. Ignoring the fact he was on fence duty and just back from a run he had come to drop off a gift for Judith. Beth was stood facing the wide yellow window of the common area of their cell block, talking in a soft voice to the child and bobbing her up and down on her hip. The sweet gentility of her voice had stopped him in his tracks, somehow lulling him from urgency into a sated calmness. The spell lasted until his priorities called the need for him to speak out.

Beth looked over her shoulder, to see Daryl walking forward, she smiled graciously at him after a moment of thinking. Judith was waving one hand vigorously holding her pacifier, the other wrapped onto the front of Beth's t-shirt so her pale collarbone was on show. Beth, for her part, turned around and strolled carefully toward him, the sun hitting her back so the wild hairs hung around her illuminated like a wispy blonde halo.

Daryl looked at Judith, his lil' ass-kicker beamed back at him as if she knew the secret to his soft side. She was just beginning to make a series of burbling sounds, the baby words becoming stronger and more frequent. They all encouraged this learning of course, especially Beth who could be heard saying random words at the child every hour of the day.

''I ain't no mamma-''she sounded somewhat pensive, rocking the child instinctively closer to her with a hidden sigh of melancholy. Daryl wondered if she ever looked at Judith and imagined her as her own child in a different life, it seemed the kind of sappy shit Beth would do. Or maybe the child was just a constant reminder to her that the dreams and aspirations she once had weren't likely to be fulfilled anymore. It seemed sad, somehow, that this might be Beth's only baby. But in any case, it was undoubtedly her baby.

'Yes, girl, yeah you are.'' He brushed Judith's cheek lightly so that she showed a gummy smile, the dribble resting on her chin happily as she burbled, fists still wrapped on Beth's shirt. Daryl stepped back placing a small cloth toy on the bench and leaving as silently as he had come.

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There was one person missing from the Greene table. Normally this was no cause of alarm, but it was Wednesday, or they had decided at some point a week system that suggested today was the only Wednesday they were going to know. And midweek meant soup and crackers, a meal which happened to be a favourite of a certain blonde teen. And Beth wasn't there to collect her extra crackers from Carol.

It wasn't until later that Daryl understood where she had been, or rather he assumed that she had in fact been sat near the fence helping stab walkers by the fact she was sweating in the sun holding her latest book from the library in the company of a certain blonde Woodberrian.

The memory of it now hurt, hitting a bit too close to home, as Daryl imagined that white-beam smile that the boy couldn't take off his face. Zach was a portal to the last life. He was telling her about baseball, using one of the garden tools-turned-walker-spears as an impromptu bat, gesticulating wildly with his other hand as she smiled happily, her hands picking out the grass by her side idly. And she was grinning ear to ear as if his words were gold. It was like a picture, the two of them flirting helplessly as teenagers were meant to do but the world hadn't allowed. Until, that was, you saw the back drop of the dead and the redneck striding along toward them.

''Should get inside, I'm takin' over-'' his voice was gruff, but hell did he like to see them both jump and flip their heads to look at him in embarrassment, blushing furiously at the interrupted intimacy of that ever romantic spearing of walkers.

''Yes sir,'' the boy jumped into moving, staring at Daryl with a scary form of reverence he never quite understood the entire time he knew him. But he was a good kid, and hell if he didn't like being called 'sir'.

''Uh girl- Beth-'' he called after her, doing a small hand signal to indicate she come over so he could hush down his voice. A subsequent glare was all that was needed for Zach to put two and two together a walk up the grassy hill, pausing at the top to wait for his detained interest.

''Yes, Daryl?'' Her voice came sweeter than honey, soft and breathless yet again as if she were fighting the unbreakable smile on her face. He imagined it's the same voice you might use with your daddy when a boy asked you to the prom.

But he couldn't for the life of him figure out why he was giving out boy advice.

He searched her face a second, her eyes blinking lazily back at him in total comfort. She was dressed as usual, jeans and vest-top, a plaid shirt tied round her waist from the strk geoergia heat. If he were being very honest with the primal part of him he fought off ninety-eight percent of the time then he thought she could be wearing more clothing or something to that effect- but that was by the by and the boy had been captivated by the expression in her eyes and the laugh like sunshine. In short Beth was too innocent to look like she wore the sweaty white top as a ploy.

''Only thing worse than a boy who hates you is a boy who loves you, remember that.'' He nodded toward the lone figure on the hill, taking out a cigarette idly.

''It's not like that- we're friends, Daryl-''she flipped her hair over her shoulder, and it was very apparent to him in her childish eyes, the way she bit her lip that she was only a young woman. She caught his eyes and sighed in defeat, her entire body deflating the falsehood, her voice getting small hinting at the repression inside her mind. ''Fine, so what? Not like there's any point of gettin' close right?''

Maybe it was because she looked so defeated, or that he genuinely did like both her and the boy. It made sense, like Barbie and the plastic man doll thing. There wasn't, at this point, much risk in a bit of harmless flirtation. Her daddy and Maggie sure as hell weren't going to encourage anything on that front, their protectiveness (somewhat hypocritical as far as Maggie was concerned) prevented her having anyone close. A bit of coaxing wouldn't be the end of the world, it was what teenagers were supposed to do- looking back now he wasn't sure exactly if he had changed his tune.

''Ain't you the one who told me to look for the happy things? He looks like a happy thing.'' Daryl shrugged her off and turned around shaking his head at the cluelessness of her age.

He heard her steps jog up the incline to where the boy had waited, she took a small look back at him, but Daryl had already picked up the discarded weapon, pushing it through the fence into stragglers eyes.

There was a scream, followed by a chorus of panic strewn voices echoing through the halls. His eyes snapped open, Beth's own blonde head shifting upward sharply. They looked at each other; her lips were parted in confused panic, his set in a straight line. Both took a beeline of the bed, clambering through her cell door into the hallway where they parted, Beth instinctively running down to Rick's cell to find Judith, Daryl running fast the opposite way crossbow now in hand.

There was trouble brewing in the prison.