Chapter 2
His face was softer when he slept betraying no evidence that he had endured any type of hardships in his lifetime.
Beth was wide awake and staring at Daryl as he slept.
She sat huddled in her sheets a couple of feet from where he lay. The storm hadn't let up. Though she was pretty sure that it was just after dawn, the sky was still dark with rain.
They'd probably be staying in the storage unit until the inclement weather let up. It would be best as her boots were still damp from the day before.
Beth ran her eyes over the man's lithe yet muscular form counting, absentmindedly, the slow breaths that he made. He was still wearing his own boots.
Sighing, the young woman crawled forward as quietly as possible and reached her small hands toward Daryl's right boot. No sooner than her hand touched the ankle of his footwear did she find her neck in front of a blade.
"Shit," Daryl spoke softly from behind his knife. He lowered his hand, his widened eyes locked onto Beth's own shocked ones.
Her hands were gripping the ankle of his worn boot tightly.
"You shouldn't be wearing these," Beth nodded towards his boots as if he hadn't just held a knife to her throat.
Daryl stared at her blankly, his mind still slightly foggy with sleep.
"Trench foot, Daryl. You can't be a very good woodsman if you don't know about trench foot!"
At her indignant exclamation, Beth worked to pull the man's boots off while he stared that even stare of his.
His socks were wet, but they weren't covered in muck as their other garments had been.
"I ain't touchin' your socks," Beth grumbled. She pulled her sheets, which had fallen slightly behind her, over her shoulders.
"So if we need to run-?" Daryl began slowly, finally finding his mind.
Beth interrupted him with a smile-laced statement, "We run barefoot. Just gotta watch for ankle biters."
The older man furrowed his brow while sighing and Beth's small smile widened when he begrudgingly reached down to his feet to remove the wet socks.
"Next time I'm sleepin', don't wake me up with somethin' stupid like that," he spoke gruffly, narrow eyes brushing over hers.
Beth watched as he stood up, grabbed his crossbow, and started to walk, barefoot, toward the facility's main door before she hurriedly got up to follow.
"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed…" the woman grumbled. She nearly hurtled right into his back at his abrupt stop in front of the door.
"Can I pee in peace?"
Daryl gripped the handle of the door and pushed through slowly while Beth hung back, her face pink, at the realization that she had been following him so closely. She could not decipher, for the life of her, why she had been following him in the first place. She turned on her heel with her nose tucked into her sheets and moved to his makeshift palette of clothing.
It was still warm.
Left alone, Beth could hear every little sound, even the wind as it whistled past the concrete building. The torrential downpour from the storm had slowed to such a small pitter-patter of noise that she found herself drifting away.
"Hey Beth…Beth?" Daryl called out as he crept back into the building. His clothing was only slightly damp from the waning storm.
He walked to the pile of the clothing, a corner of his mouth turned up into a smirk. The girl was out.
She was trembling again.
Sighing, as he often did in her presence, the man sat down near her sleeping form and leaned against the wall.
"Beth," he tried again. This time she stirred and opened her eyes.
"Looks like it's lettin' up outside so I'll go huntin' in a bit."
"What're we doing, Daryl?" Beth blinked sleepily, sadness in her otherwise bright voice.
"What you mean?"
"This isn't livin', what we're doin'."
Daryl narrowed his eyes in contemplation. He hadn't heard her speak like this since before the moonshine shack.
"We're just movin' day to day. Not searchin' for anyone. Just…survivin' and I don't know how much more of this that I can take," Beth continued, "When those douchebags took me, I was excited. How stupid does that make me? I was excited because for once it wasn't killin' walkers and runnin' from herds."
"We supposed to just sit back and cop out?" Daryl responded, eyebrow raised. She should have known by now how he felt about that sort of thing.
Beth's eyes went down to the fabric wrapped around her wrist. The same wrist that had become responsible for her need to live.
"That's not what I'm sayin' at all," she spoke softly, "Remember when we were talkin', in the funeral home about stayin' there?"
The air grew heavy then, and Daryl coughed while averting his gaze. He knew that she'd bring it up eventually, what they had briefly discussed before she had gotten kidnapped, because it was just in her nature to not hold back. He just hadn't realized that it'd be this soon.
"It was a great idea, wasn't it," the bowman said sarcastically, his face set in a frown.
"Yes!" Beth exclaimed, "It was. We'd of had a place to live. We don't know what happened to everyone else but it's my firm belief that they all made it. Just knowin' that… it's okay with me. At least we'd definitely have one another. And we could live in peace…or at least somethin' close to it."
Daryl brought his eyes back to her face, searching for anything that might be amiss. She was fine. Sadness was etched in nearly every furrow of her brow with optimism laced throughout, but she seemed to be doing alright. What would it take to make her more than alright? What would it take to make her happy?
Three weeks later the couple found themselves in front of a run-down trailer park in the boonies that looked like it had been deserted since before the turn.
Standing outside an old rusty fence, they stared across the trailer yard taking it all in. There looked to be at least six trailers that were still standing while the others had collapsed over time into heaps of metal and paneling. Overgrown weeds had taken over making it look like an old junkyard.
"Perfect," Daryl whispered to himself before trudging forward with his crossbow extended. Beth followed behind him, her hand resting on the hilt of her knife.
Ever since they had left the storage facility, Daryl had barely said ten words to her. At first she had assumed that he'd reverted back to how he was when they had first escaped the prison massacre. That train of thought soon dissipated when she became aware of him staring at her often with a frown of contemplation set across his face. He had been studying her and she was afraid to know why.
Was he considering on leaving her, when he had told her he wouldn't? Even when he had closed off his emotions from her after the prison, he stuck by her and she had no fear that he would leave.
Not since her kidnapping did that thought take root within her mind. She was stuck with those bastards for five days. Five days she had to worry about being raped, killed or even eaten. She wasn't a fool. Food was hard to come by and non-transitioned humans were most probably a delicacy during these times.
But he had come for her in the end.
"Greene?" Daryl called breaking the woman out of her reverie. He was standing in front of an old RV surrounded in overgrowth. It was much like the one that had been lost with the farm so long ago.
"Yeah?" she responded making her way to him.
"I done called you about three, four, times. Stop daydreamin' and come here. Take a look inside."
Daryl had thrown his crossbow across his back and he was leaning against the outside of the RV. The door had already been opened. Beth looked at the doorway quizzically as she approached it, unsure of whether or not she had missed Daryl's clearance of it.
"Already cleared it," Daryl spoke up as if reading her mind, "Nothin' in there but a shit ton of dust and grime."
Beth stepped up the small metal stoop and looked around. There was a small kitchenette, a couch that looked like it could be pulled out as a bed, a small bathroom and a bedroom further back.
"I get to sleep in a bed tonight!" Beth exclaimed as she walked around the inside of the RV, happiness and understanding overtaking her confusion.
From outside, Daryl smirked at how happy the girl sounded to not be in the woods for a night. His smirk dropped as he realized that he didn't know how to tell her the news.
Sighing he stepped up into the RV, almost forgetting to duck his head. He came to an abrupt stop and leaned against the door jam immediately mesmerized.
Beth was sifting through dust-covered items in the kitchen area, a small smile on her face at a pile of forgotten food seasonings that she had found.
"I'm thinkin' about goin' on a run tomorrow for some things we need."
Beth slowly turned to face the dark-haired hunter. Her blue eyes grew wide at the grimace on his dirty face. This was it. He had decided to go, just as she had feared. She couldn't remember ever being this anxious before.
"You take the bed tonight. I'll sleep on the couch," Daryl continued, not looking at Beth. He had missed the stricken look on the girl's face.
"What things do we need?" Beth questioned breathily. She was just at the threshold of panicking.
Daryl sighed loudly before throwing himself onto the creaky couch, his swift movements causing Beth to jump.
"Chicken wire, barbed wire, and whatever the hell else we need to make this a decent enough home."
Author's Note:
Thanks for all of the support!
This chapter was most difficult to write. It is really trying writing Daryl because he's made up of so many different complexities but I did it. I think. This was to show how they came to find their home. The next chapter will be a time jump. Don't worry. I'll still be writing the progression of their relationship (pre-prologue).
Also having nothing to do with this fic other than Daryl, do you guys remember the episode of TWD when the herd is on the highway and T-Dog cuts his arm? Daryl ends up creeping up and saving him. I would consider that one of my most loved Daryl moments. "Oh no, a walker is going to get T-Dog" and then Daryl just pops up like a flower (albeit a dirty, wilted flower but a flower nonetheless).
You can follow me/send me prompts on: eeevawn . tumblr . com
What are your favorite Daryl moments?