So let's find a place. Let's start there.
It'll be somethin'. And that's still better than nothin'.
Beth's words stick in Daryl's head in the days that follow their departure from Pickton, repeating over and over, as they venture deeper into the woods. He isn't sure if she's right, if they ought to try to settle down. Best way to protect a place is with numbers, with people, and they don't have that.
Daryl remembers last winter, all of them running every day, never enough rest or food or shelter or anything. They were better off, then, with the group around them and vehicles besides. Now it's just the two of them, swapping watch shifts each night, protected by nothing more than their senses and the new noisemaker rope they'd cobbled together after leaving the last one behind when they ran from their camp in the night.
Beth doesn't complain. Never says a word about doing her part, sitting up at night while he catches a few hours of shallow, restless sleep. But the shadows under her eyes give her away, the tired, tense hunch of her shoulders, and Daryl doubts he looks much better. They're both exhausted.
They can't go on this way much longer. Holing up some place is no guarantee of safety; they know that for certain, after the prison, after the funeral home. But sleeping out in the open is sure to go bad for them, sooner or later.
All things considered, they've been lucky, so far.
They pass by dozens of places that Daryl considers. Farms and acreages and little whistle-stop towns. He rejects each one. Too exposed, too far from supplies, no working water source, too far from good hunting grounds, too big, too small, too something. Often it's nothing more than a feeling he gets, unease in his gut, a feeling that says this place is easy to find. There's always a good reason to move on, and they do, the hopeful look in Beth's eyes dimming every time Daryl shakes his head and shoulders his bag and crossbow.
The woods are better. They feel safer, though Daryl knows they aren't. Walkers are everywhere. It's all a matter of cover, of staying downwind. Of outsmarting the other creatures so that they stay predators, never prey.
But the trees provide that. Cover and camouflage. The yellow and brown leaves that still cling to the branches enfold them as they walk. They can disappear in seconds, and it's better that way.
They eat their last can of food from Pickton one morning, sitting close to their fire in the middle of the woods. It's beans, at least, but Beth barely touches hers, just sits silently beside him and pokes at her portion. She's quieter than usual, no cheery "mornin' Daryl!" or smile from her that day. It's cold, the sun doing little to warm them even as it ascends the sky. Daryl figures that's probably what's the matter with her until she stands and walks over to where her pack rests against a tree. Daryl watches her, taking in the discomfort in her posture, his eyes trailing down her back, and he frowns.
There's a dark bloodstain on the seat of her jeans, and Daryl doesn't stop to think.
"Hold up," he says, standing. "You're bleedin'."
Beth turns around and looks at him, a confused frown on her face.
"What? Wh - oh," she murmurs, looking down at herself. Daryl's confused as a bright blush flames all the way to the roots of her hair, and then her frown turns to a look of horror, and then he gets it. She's bleeding.
Oh.
Daryl stares at her. The mortification on her face is painful. Out of his depth, he feels his own face heat as he flails around for something to say. "Uh, you wanna stop here for a bit, or head back to the highway, try to find a store, or...?"
Mouth twisting, Beth shoots him an impatient look. "It's just been a while. Maggie and I, when we ran out of… stuff, we figured out - I've got it, okay? I'm fine." She grabs her pack and throws it over one shoulder. "I'll be back."
She turns on her heel and disappears into the trees, an annoyed hunch to her shoulders. Daryl watches her go. He packs their things up, then stands there with his hands hanging by his sides. There's probably a good way to handle this, but he has no fucking idea what it is. When Beth returns a few minutes later, she's wearing a pair of black leggings in place of her jeans, and determinedly looking anywhere but at him. There's something defensive in the way she holds herself, like she's waiting for him to say something about it. Like she thinks he'll make fun of her or be angry at her, like she's done something wrong or stupid.
Like she's wrong or stupid for being exactly what she is.
Daryl doesn't think he's the one who planted that idea in her head in the first place, but he suspects he's done plenty to help it take root and grow.
They shoulder their packs and leave without speaking.
Daryl observes her more closely that day, as they pass under chevron flocks of geese honking their way to the Gulf. He watches her cut a trail into the woods before him, picking her way through the brush and darting between trees, and he can't help but think about it. It. The thing hanging in the air between them like smoke. He tries not to, but it doesn't work.
He worries about her blood. He worries about it staining the leaves on the trail behind them, leaving a scent. Attracting walkers, alerting the wild creatures to their presence. Hot shame like a physical pulse beneath his skin follows these thoughts. He shouldn't be thinking these things about her. It's private; he has no right. But they've reached a point where privacy isn't something either of them can afford. He has to worry about it.
But Beth's careful, he sees. When they find a stream, they stop and she scrubs the blood out of her jeans. She stands there with a pack of matches and burns a fistful of balled-up rags before burying the ashes in the rich, rotting heart of the forest floor. She hangs her jeans off the back of her pack to dry in the sun as they walk on, her bright blonde head bobbing along ahead of him, glowing against the brown-grey trees and brush of late autumn.
Daryl resists the urge to check in with her, see if she's hurting. He doesn't want to embarrass her more than he already has, but he knows that if she needs something, she won't say. She's been that way the whole time he's known her. When he'd stop by her cell before a run to see if she needed anything, she'd just smile and say "nope", and thank him for asking, like that dim little cell already contained everything in the world she could ever want. It'd confused him at the time, kind of annoyed him, actually. He'd figured a girl like her would want things. Expect them. He's not sure where that belief came from, but he'd let it go when, week after week, the most she'd ask for was a toy or clothes for Lil' Asskicker.
He wishes she would ask, now, but he knows she won't. Not when she's so embarrassed she'll barely look at him. He's never understood people's squeamishness about this kind of thing. It's natural, just a thing bodies do, like anything else. It's a good thing, he's pretty sure; it means she's getting enough to eat, means she's doing all right.
It means that, despite all signs to the contrary, something inside her has reason to believe the process is worthwhile. That it's worthwhile preparing for the potential of new life even in the midst of death and decay.
It stirs a strange feeling in his gut, knowing that, when she lies beside him that night, fast asleep, she's experiencing something private that he knows little about. Something no man in her life probably ever witnessed.
It stirs an even stranger feeling to see this sign from nature that Beth is all right. Deep inside her, nothing has changed.
She's living.
Daryl stands back, watching as Beth ducks down to climb after him through a rail fence. The sun sinks towards the horizon in the west, burnishing the brown grass gold and red. It's early yet, but the light is fading fast; the days are so much shorter now.
They're on the edge of a fallow field that looks like it once grew wheat or barley or something, Daryl figures, though he's no expert. Hershel would have known. Beth might, and he'd ask her, except she's stuck to one-word replies for the last couple of days. It's starting to get to him, her silence. He wonders if this is how she felt in those early days, when she'd try to talk to him and he'd just stare her down, because all he could think of to say was I'm sorry. As in: I'm sorry I let your dad get his head cut off right in front of you and I'm sorry we're going to die out here and I'm sorry you're stuck with me and I'm sorry I'm completely and totally fucking useless.
Beth steps over the fence rail and straightens up. She winces, briefly pressing one hand flat against her lower abdomen.
"Y'alright?" Daryl asks.
Beth looks at him, a little sharp. "I'm fine," she says, with a slight shrug, looking down to tighten the straps on her backpack. She blows a strand of hair out of her eyes and walks past him.
Daryl doesn't reply, he just follows her. He scans the treeline on the far side of the field and listens to her stomp her way through the tangled grass.
"This one time, I was home sick from school," he says. "Flu was goin' around. I was probably 8 or 9, I guess. Anyhow, I was on the couch watchin'Wheel of Fortune or some junk, and my guts start rumblin'."
Beth's pace slows, and she falls into step beside him. She may not want to talk, but he knows she'll listen. She's always listening.
"I drag my sorry ass to the bathroom," he continues, "tryin' to decide which is gonna be a problem first, shittin' or pukin'. I end up sittin' on the can and leanin' into the shower. Probably the only time anyone was ever glad they make the bathrooms in trailers so damn tiny."
A smile pulls at the corner of Beth's mouth, and she glances at him. He looks away, scanning the treeline.
"So I'm sittin' there, pukin' and shittin' my guts out - total firehose ass -"
"Gross," she scolds, smiling fully now.
"Anyhow, I'm a mess, snot and puke all over my face, and I hear this sound. Like a shufflin' sound, kinda. I look up, and right above me's the vent. Shufflin' sound's comin' from there. I don't got time to do nothin' before I hear a crash and the vent falls off, clocks me right in the damn head, this massive fucking possum right behind."
"A possum?!"
"So I'm up, pants around my ankles, got puke all over me, I'm yelpin' my head off, and that asshole's hissin' and diggin' his claws into my head like his life depends on it. I manage to bat him offa me, and I'm outta that bathroom like a shot. Slammed the door shut, trapped him in there, still hissin' to beat the band. I was all scratched and bit to shit." Daryl pauses a moment, remembering standing in the middle of that shitty old double wide, covered in puke, feverish and bleeding. He huffs. "Got a towel and cleaned myself off best I could and passed right back out on the couch."
"You were home alone?" Beth asks, though it's more of a confirmation than a real question. There's no judgement there, and no surprise, either. Still, he hesitates for several long steps through the grass before answering. Beth doesn't prod him. She waits.
"Nah, my mom was there," Daryl says. "She's passed out in her room, is all. Always was a real heavy sleeper; didn't hear all the commotion."
Beth just looks at him for a moment, then nods. Daryl's unsure why he doesn't come right out and say "my mom blacked out a lot," but there's something in Beth's look that makes him think she knows anyway. After all, he's not the only one who was raised by an alcoholic. It's just that the whole recovering part makes a big difference. He clears his throat.
"Woulda caught the whuppin' of a lifetime for the mess in the bathroom, but my dad didn't come home that night, anyway. Cleaned up the next day."
Beth doesn't reply to that, and when Daryl chances a sideways glance at her, he sees her brow is knit, her lips pursed, like she's considering something thoroughly.
"Your dad whup you a lot?" she asks, after a pause.
"Yeah," Daryl replies. He glances at her again. Beth's smart enough to read between the lines, he knows, and he hopes she's not about to make himtalk about it. "My old man whupped me a whole lot, when he could find me. He was a clumsy old drunk - couldn't find his own ass with both hands in his back pockets."
Next to him, Beth bursts out laughing. He looks at her, takes in the way her eyes shine, the way she grins at him.
There's something about her laugh that kinda kills him. He can still remember the way she laughed as she splashed moonshine all over the walls of that stillhouse, her eyes gleaming with joy and rebellion. Her hair whipped around her like the bright tail of a bottle rocket as she spun, arms thrust out like she was holding a pistol in both hands, and wild, near-hysterical giggles and snorts - actual snorts, for fuck's sake - bubbled out of her chest. She gasped and grinned, dousing Daryl's sad excuse for a past in pure, burning liquor.
She'd sounded crazier than a loon, smashing jar after jar into thousands of moonlit shards all over the floor. Her laughter's the kind of sound that would have set his dad's teeth on edge, once upon a time.
But Daryl fucking loves it. She sounded like a damn fool, then, and she does right now, laughing beside him in this empty field, and he loves it. He realizes that it's in his power to hear it more, because he can make her laugh. He just did. He can do it again, probably. He can make her smile. He can make her happy.
That's something he can do for her.
Beth's laughter fades, but her eyes still gleam. "How'd you get rid of the possum?"
"I didn't," Daryl says. "Merle took care of it when he got home. Gutted and skinned it right there on the back porch. We barbecued the little bastard."
"I wish I could have gotten to know your brother better," Beth says. "He seemed nice."
"Nice?" Daryl scoffs, side-eyeing her. She looks right back at him, her expression frank and open. She's not being funny. "Oughta get your head checked, girl. Merle got called lotsa things in his day, but nice ain't one of 'em."
"My head is just fine, thank you very much," Beth says, arching an eyebrow at him. She sniffs. "And I consider myself to be an excellent judge of character."
"Pfft. S'pose you saw us all come ridin' up to the farm and thought we were there to sell Girl Scout cookies, huh?"
Beth laughs again, but it's less joyful, a little drier and more hollow. Her expression turns sad, and he knows she must be thinking of her abandoned home. "No, none of us thought y'all were sellin' Girl Scout cookies."
Something presses against the inside of Daryl's chest, something tight and hard, and he wants so badly to ask her what she thought, that day. That afternoon they all came driving up the long road from the highway while Beth and her family gathered rocks for Otis's grave. He wants to know. He figures she must have noticed him and thought something, not only because he roared up on the loud brap of Merle's chopper, but because shewould. She would notice.
Thing is, he already knows what he thought when he saw her standing there under the trees, a chunk of rock in one hand, all clean, blond brightness and a troubled crease between her eyebrows.
Daryl looked at her, sized her up, and thought nothing. He just thought: nothing.
He wants to know if she has something better than that. If she noticed something. Anything at all - just something. A better beginning to Beth and Daryl In the Wilderness than him noticing the slight space she took up in the world and assuming there was nothing more he needed to know.
There was so much more, hidden away inside her, and he didn't bother to even look. He'd always been good at reading people, at being able to walk into a room full of people and take its temperature. He honed that skill early. It'd saved him more than one beating when he was a kid, and helped him and Merle out of many tight spots over the years.
But Beth - he'd had no idea. He misread her completely.
"Your dad sure wasn't happy," Daryl says, after a lengthy pause. He chews his bottom lip a moment, and then the words tumble out. "What'd you think of all that, buncha strangers showin' up, campin' out on your land?"
Daryl's looking ahead, scanning the treeline as they approach it. He's not looking at her, but he can feel her gaze on him, heavy and curious.
"Daddy wasn't thrilled that y'all were there, but… I don't know," Beth says. She shrugs. "I kinda liked it, having new faces around, after all those weeks with just us."
"Your dad was probably so worried about me and Shane comin' 'round his daughters, he didn't even notice Glenn."
"Daryl," Beth says, a gentle admonishment. "Nobody'd think that about you."
It's a comment so innocent, so oblivious to the judgement he's faced his whole damn life, that it almost angers him. Yet her eyes are so kind, her expression so soft, that he knows she doesn't mean to deny what he's lived. The way people've been to him. What she means is she would never think that about him. She just doesn't see the same thing others do.
He's not sure what she sees.
After that, the awkwardness between them fades. The silence becomes comfortable as they follow the grid of fences and the sun sinks below the treetops. Late in the afternoon they find a farm nestled in a little valley, the farmhouse and outbuildings surrounded by a sprawling apple orchard. They sit on the fence and watch the farmhouse for signs of life, eating windfall apples and cutting the bruised flesh out with their knives.
The farmhouse is a fine looking old place. Big and white, with a wide porch wrapping around the whole thing, and sprawling oak trees all around. Daryl can imagine the dark-green shade they'd give in summer. The place is bare and desolate now, but it's easy to see it was nice once, when it was cared for.
"Ain't nobody in there," Daryl says eventually, hopping off the fence. "C'mon."
They walk down into the valley between the apple trees. Beth tucks the semi-decent apples she finds in her pack as they go, but most of this year's crop seems to have been eaten by wildlife.
The farmhouse is dark and still. They pause at the edge of the orchard and watch it a few minutes longer before proceeding. Daryl holds his crossbow up and ready and is pleased to see Beth's knife already in her hand at her side as they approach the house and move soundlessly up the wooden steps.
Beth approaches the door first and tries the knob. It creaks open slowly, and she bangs the flat of her palm against the solid wood frame.
"Anybody home?" she calls. Her voice echoes down the hallway. After a long, silent pause, she turns and looks back at him over her shoulder. She shrugs. "Seems okay."
Daryl nods, and they proceed into the house. They search the place top to bottom; there's no one. The rooms are tidy, the furniture covered in sheets and the walls bare, stains visible on the faded floral wallpaper where pictures used to hang. Almost like someone was in the process of moving when everything went to shit.
They split up to look around a little more thoroughly, Beth disappearing downstairs and Daryl heading for the kitchen. It's a big room at the back of the house, and a door leads off to the back porch. There's a window over the sink, between sets of pale green cupboards. Through the faded lace curtains, he can see a little pond and the woods beyond. A pair of ducks flaps down out of the air and land like waterskiers on the surface of the pond as he watches, twilight deepening and turning the sky pink and orange.
It's a beautiful place. It's like something out of an old movie with ladies in great big skirts like circus tents, where everyone sits around on porches fanning themselves and talking a lot of bullshit about how the South is gonna rise again. It reminds him of that, and of the Greene farm. The place they left behind in a tower of flames and smoke you could see for miles and miles. Beth's home.
Opening the cupboard beside the window, Daryl lets out a low, pleased whistle. Inside are several cans of baked beans and soups, and a bunch of individual packets of ramen noodles in a tidy row. There are three jars of pickles and a jar of peanut butter.
There's no dust on any of it.
Daryl picks up the jar of peanut butter and weighs it in his hand. He frowns down at it for a moment, then swings his pack around to stow it inside. He walks out of the kitchen and down the hallway, where he finds Beth standing in the foyer. Her thumbs are looped in the straps of her backpack and her chin's tipped up a little as she moves in a slow circle, clearly lost in deep contemplation of the house.
"Daryl," she says when she finally turns enough to see him standing there. A slow, sweet smile spreads across her face, and her eyes shine. "It's just like home."
They'll stay the night. She likes it, so they'll stay.
But the peanut butter - it bothers him. There's a sick feeling of unease in his gut as they make a little camp in the living room, pulling the sheets off the couches and settling in for a meal of garlicky pickles and cold, salty noodles rehydrated in a saucepan. In the centre of the coffee table, they light a plain white pillar candle Beth finds in one of the storage baskets under the table.
"You sleep," Daryl says, once they've finished eating and locked up the doors. He sits on the floor across from her, back against his couch, his knife and whetstone on his lap. "I'll keep watch."
Beth nods, settling onto her couch. She closes her eyes and lies flat on her back for a long time before huffing and turning onto her side. Another long stretch of silence passes, and then she turns over again, this time flipping onto her stomach. She turns this way and that for a while longer, until she finally groans and opens her eyes.
"I can't sleep," Beth says, rolling over to face him.
"Count sheep," Daryl replies.
Beth scoffs, sitting up and raising her eyebrows. "Let's play a game."
"No."
"Come on," Beth says. She pulls her legs up onto the sofa and sits cross-legged, hands resting on her knees. The movement makes the candle's small flame flicker. "Unless you wanna swap shifts and sleep, 'cause there's no way I'm fallin' asleep right now."
"Hmph," Daryl says. "What kinda game? Didn't see no cards or board games 'round here."
"I've got one. It's called 'Would You Rather.'"
"Would you rather what?"
"Would you rather…" Beth pauses, pursing her lips, then grins. "Would you rather drink a tablespoon of someone else's piss, or a cup of your own?"
"Jesus Christ," he mutters. "Ain't doin' neither. What're you talkin' 'bout, girl?"
"It's a game, Daryl," she says, with a gentle roll of her eyes. "It's pretend. You pick between two awful or two really hard choices. Like if you had to pick. Absolutely had to. You can't say both or neither."
He frowns for a moment, considering her question. "My own," he says eventually. "I guess."
"Okay," Beth says, a look of quiet amusement on her face. It makes him nervous, that look. "Now you go."
"Hm." Daryl looks down at his lap and drags the blade over the whetstone several times. "Would you rather… Eat raw meat or rotten? Like a deer that's been sittin' by the side of the road a while."
"Raw," Beth replies, without any hesitation. "Definitely raw. Ugh. I'd rather deal with blood than maggots and like - ew. Good one. Um, would you rather… wear a snowsuit in a heatwave or be naked in a blizzard?"
"Snowsuit. Can't stand bein' cold."
Beth snorts and smiles at him. She pulls her knees up under her chin, hugging her arms around her shins, eyes gleaming in the faint candlelight.
Daryl wonders if this is what the other kids did when he was a teenager. If they sat around and played stupid games with girls, tryin' to make them laugh, make them blush. The boys who could put a sentence together in front of a pretty girl. The boys who had something nice to say. The boys who weren't tongue-tied and shy and angry all the time. The boys who didn't prefer to spend hours alone in the woods, avoiding their piss-drunk dad.
Daryl wonders if it would have felt like this, if he'd known her then. Like someone was pumping his chest full of air until he could barely draw a breath into a space filled to bursting with something he'd never felt before.
Her eyebrows draw together as she watches him, waiting for him to speak, like she cares what he's gonna say. He clears his throat. "Would you rather be stuck with one person for the rest of your life, or -"
"Wait," Beth says, holding up a hand. She frowns, tilting her head, and then Daryl hears it, too. Car wheels on gravel and the low hum of an engine. Her hand shoots out and she snuffs the candle's flame with a quick pinch of her fingers.
"Sounds like a car," Daryl says, moving into a crouch and approaching the window. He shifts one of the curtain panels aside just enough to see outside, to see bright headlights. Car doors open and slam shut. People pass in front of the headlights in long, warped shadows. Every hair on the back of his neck stands up. He turns away from the window. Beth is at his side, her eyes huge and dark in the half light, and her brows drawn together. She already has her backpack on, his in her hand. Beyond her, the candle and the pot of noodles have disappeared. He nods and takes his backpack from her.
"C'mon," Daryl says. He reaches and cups her upper arm, urging her toward the back of the house as he grabs his crossbow off the couch. His mind races.
Up or down or out? Up, they're trapped unless they can find a way out onto the roof and avoid being spotted by someone outside. Down, they're trapped unless there's a cellar door or a window leading outside. Out, and they'll run right into whoever's out there, if they're smart enough to surround the place.
A flashlight's beam shines through the kitchen window, trailing across the ceiling and down the wall. Someone's walking around the side of the house.
There's no time to work it all out, to figure out which way's best. They have to go right now. He'd rather go up on the roof and grab their attention so Beth can get away out the back, but he knows that after what happened at the funeral home, she won't go for it, separating.
Truth is, he won't go for it either.
"Basement?" Beth whispers. "There's a window down there, under the back porch. Saw it when I was down there lookin' for food."
Daryl nods quickly and they dash across the house as quietly as they can, slipping through the doorway to the basement just as someone starts to break down the front door. They practically fly down the narrow wooden steps into the dark basement, Daryl ducking his head to avoid the low floor joists. He follows Beth to the back of the basement, past a white chest freezer and several bookshelves crammed with faded, mouldy-looking paperbacks. Beth reaches up and unlatches the window, pulling at the frame to open the hinged windowpane.
"Shit," she hisses, "it's stuck!"
Daryl pulls out his knife, but a creak of floorboards above them makes them both freeze. He looks at Beth in the dim light and sees the panicked expression on her face. Grabbing her arm with his free hand, he tugs her after him, searching frantically for a place to hide. Across the basement, he spots a cupboard built into the space beneath the staircase. Gripping Beth's hand, Daryl runs over and opens the cupboard.
Inside is a low, dark space only a few feet across by a few feet deep. It's about a third full of cardboard boxes with things like CHRISTMAS LIGHTS and JENNY'S SCHOOL STUFF scrawled on them in black marker.
Beth squeezes in past them, pushing herself back against the wall. Daryl follows, pulling the cupboard closed silently behind him. He shoves the boxes up against the closed door to make the cupboard look fuller than it is. It only leaves them with enough space to crouch on their knees in the dark, face to face. Daryl can't see her at all, can only feel the warmth of her in front of him, the rapid puff of her breath on his sweaty clavicle. His own breathing is loud and rasping. He takes a deep, shaky breath to try to slow it.
Her fingertips touch his, and he flinches in surprise. She laces their fingers together, giving him a firm but gentle squeeze.
"It's okay," Beth whispers, the sound barely more than a breath. "We'll find a way out."
Directly above them, the top step creaks.
They stay completely still and listen as one person and then another step slowly down the basement stairs. Beth's fingers stay laced with his, the hot slide of sweat between their palms belying her fear.
"Gotta be here somewhere," a voice says from outside the cupboard. It's deep, a man's voice. Beth's hand trembles in Daryl's. "Someone's been in the house, and it was recent."
"Whatever," replies a second voice, another man, farther away. "Like you're a fuckin' CSI."
"Shut up, man. What're you doin' to contribute?"
"Yeah, well, after what happened to Gorman, I ain't exactly keen on these damn scouting trips."
"How else are we supposed to keep the hospital running, you idiot? Jesus Christ."
"I know, but come on, man," says the second voice. "They're like the third team that hasn't come back in the last few months. It's bad out here."
The knob on the cupboard door rattles, and the hinges squeak as it's opened from the outside. Beth squeezes his hand hard. Daryl knows all the man can see is a bunch of boxes stacked inside a tiny cupboard, but he goes absolutely still regardless. The door is slammed shut with a wooden slap. Beth jolts in response, her fingernails digging into his knuckles.
"This is stupid. There's nobody down here anyway. Waste of damn time." One pair of feet clomps noisily back up the stairs. The man stops at the top and raises his voice. "Basement's clear!"
There's a noisy sigh from the other side of the cupboard door, and a low utterance of "asshole" before the second man follows the other back upstairs.
Daryl remains still for several minutes, straining to hear the people move through the house. Beth stays still, too, but sighs softly. It's impossible to know how many there are, but judging by the voices echoing through the house, Daryl guesses they've got at least five or six people.
They're still in the house, so he figures now's the best time, when there hopefully isn't anyone outside watching the back. Hopefully.
Giving Beth's arm a gentle shake before dropping it, he shoves the cardboard boxes aside and they crawl awkwardly out of the cupboard.
They're back at the window in a moment, and Daryl wedges his knife between the window and the frame where years of expanding and contracting with the seasons have left it swollen shut. He jiggles the knife back and forth, trying not to panic at the sound of boots on the floorboards above them.
Beth stands beside him, looking frantically back and forth between Daryl and the staircase.
The frame gives way and the window pops free of the frame. Daryl flips the window up and gestures at Beth. She sidles over and he bends down to give her a boost. She hauls herself up with her hands and tries to drag herself through the window, but her arms aren't strong enough.
"You sure you checked the basement?" A voice at the top of the stairs, a different one than the ones before. "The whole basement? Y'all were down there all of a minute. Plenty of places to hide in a basement."
Daryl stands and pushes Beth hard, shoving at her ass and thighs, anything to get her out the window. She scrambles through and Daryl follows her, the window thumping closed behind them.
"Can't hide, they'll find us," Daryl whispers as they squirm on their stomachs through the dry leaves and dirt under the porch. There's a small opening in the wood lattice, and he points Beth towards it. "We gotta run. Head straight for the woods and don't stop for nothin'."
Beth squeezes through the opening and rolls to her feet, off and sprinting for the trees like a deer before Daryl can even stand. He gets to his feet and starts after her, but the sound of the back door opening has him dropping to the ground, hoping the porch and the dark are enough to hide him. He presses himself against the lattice and listens as someone steps out onto the porch. He hears the click of a lighter and the sound of a deep inhale. The scent of cigarette smoke carries on the night air.
Daryl cranes his head around to try to find a route to the treeline. The darkness helps, but the moon is out, and they're obviously looking, so it won't be easy to get away unnoticed. Glancing towards the front of the house, he sees one of the vehicles idling, its cherry red taillights glowing in the dark. He squints, peering at the car, trying to see if he's seeing what he thinks he's seeing.
There's a white cross painted on the rear window.
The person on the porch flicks the butt of the cigarette and it lands in the grass a few feet away from Daryl. The back door slaps open and shut again. Daryl doesn't hesitate. He scrambles to his feet and bolts across the yard, heading for the fence. He jumps it and dodges between the trees, pausing behind a large oak to look back at the house, see if he's been followed.
The farmyard and the woods are still and silent but for the sound of his ragged breathing. He looks around him, trying to find a sign of Beth. Her footsteps will be impossible to see in the dark, but maybe there's something. Maybe she thought of something.
"Beth?" he whispers hoarsely, trying to stem the panic he can feel pounding in his chest. There was no time to make a plan to meet up - she could be anywhere by now. He knows she'd stick to the woods and would try not to go far, that she wouldn't want to lose him. But still. What if there were walkers? What if she had no choice but to run?
What if - the very worst of all, the thought he can barely acknowledge - what if one of the men in the house somehow tracked her into the woods and grabbed her? What if she's unconscious in the back of that car right now? What if it's happening again, and he failed again?
"Beth!" he hisses, louder this time.
"Daryl!"
Beth's pale face appears from behind a tree another twenty or so feet ahead of him, deeper in the woods. It's hard to see her, impossible to read her expression. Daryl's chest clenches so hard that for a moment he considers the possibility that he's having an actual heart attack.
"Thank fuckin' Christ," he mutters. He goes to walk towards her, but she darts out of her hiding spot and suddenly she's in front of him, shoving herself at him, her arms around his neck.
"I'm sorry," she gasps in his ear, the sound sending goose pimples down his arms, "I just ran and I didn't even see you weren't with me until I was in the woods, and I didn't know what to do so I just hid."
Daryl stands there, frozen and dumbfounded and apparently unable to move his arms to hug her back. She pulls away and takes a step back from him. She's an anxious mess, her hair a rat's nest, sweat beading on her upper lip.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
"Beth," he says, ignoring the question, "it was them. The car had a cross in the window."
Beth frowns, a deep line forming between her eyebrows. "It was a trap? Again?"
"Seems that way," he replies.
She looks past him, over his shoulder towards the farmhouse, her frown deepening.
"Come on," she says after a moment, turning back to the woods. "Let's get out of here."
Daryl follows her, and they walk in silence through the dark woods. The bright moon mounts the sky and then begins its descent, disappearing behind the treetops. Eventually they stop at the bank of a creek so narrow it's nearly gone dry, its banks high and bare. An outcropping of red earth on one bank creates a small hollow enclave beneath, worn away by long-ago currents, just big enough for the two of them to tuck themselves inside. They don't light a fire; Daryl just sits down and leans back against the cold earth. Beth curls up on her side next to him.
They rest without speaking. Daryl listens to Beth breathing beside him. He knows she's not asleep.
"What's wrong with people?" Beth whispers eventually. Daryl glances down at her; there are tears shining on her cheeks. Lines crease her forehead and her eyes are sad. She looks so tired. "Why's everybody in such a big damn hurry to make a bad world worse?"
"Dunno," Daryl says. He doesn't know what else to say. There's no way to figure it except that plenty of folks look at chaos and see opportunity. That's all.
Beth sniffs and swipes at her eyes. She rolls over, turning towards him, her nose an inch away from his thigh. She sighs deeply. "'Night, Daryl. Wake me in a few hours."
"'Night," he murmurs.
He stares ahead at the creek bed, and he thinks about the long day behind them. He thinks about the farmhouse and would you rather? and that goddamn jar of peanut butter.
It's not that he should have known - it's that he did know. In his gut, he knew something was off about the place, but they stayed anyway. Because it reminded her of home. Because it made her happy.
Because it made him happy to make her happy.
There's something there, Daryl knows. He doesn't know what to call it - it's not something he's got words for. Just knows that it's there, between them, every time their eyes meet. Every time they move more than twenty feet apart and come right back together with a relieved, mutual half-smile, like it's starting to feel unnatural to be apart. Which it is.
It electrifies the air, makes it crackle.
Thing is, she feels it too. She's aware. He knows it, can see it in those wide eyes of hers, and in the way her cheeks and the tips of her ears turn pink sometimes when they look at each other for too long.
Oh.
Daryl's pretty sure she started it, too. Her and that damn moonshine. Shit's evil, the way it made all that stuff come pouring out of both of them like vomit on that porch, their fear and grief in great big messy puddles on the floor between their feet.
He woke up the morning after that night at the stillhouse with his head pounding from the moonshine and the heat. He remembers the shame that flooded him as he recalled the things he'd told her, things he'd felt and been unable to hide from her, things she'd seen and understood and put into words. He recalled Beth's eyes shining at him in the dark, no disgust or judgement in them, only curiosity and kindness. And this strange relentlessness, like she knew he would open to her, like there was no point in hiding because she could see right through him anyway.
He'd laid there on the hard ground, mind racing and stomach turning, trying to figure out how to undo the whole thing, unwilling to find out how Beth'd look at him now.
But when Beth woke, she'd merely clutched her head and moaned about hangovers, muttering "never doin' that again," before grinning blearily at Daryl and asking him if there was anything left to eat. There was still a smear of soot on her pale cheek.
That was it. Not a word about any of it. No awkward silences. No pity. No judgement. Just Beth, laughing and saying something about wishing Waffle House was still around.
Looking back, he should have known he was screwed.
Daryl didn't know it worked like this. That it could happen like this, all at once in a big rush. That a person could go from being just one of the group, one of the many whose safety was in his hands, to something else. Something more. An individual person, sparking and bright like a live wire, holding his attention every minute of the day.
He doesn't know what to call it, this head-swimming, stomach-churning, freight train roaring in his ears kinda feeling. If he'd ever believed feelings like that really happened, which he hadn't, he'd never have guessed that of all the people left scrabbling away at survival in this world, the one who'd make him a believer was an 18-year-old farm girl with a face like summer sunshine.
An 18-year-old whose father had trusted him, had thought he was worth something. Now here he is, thinking these things while Beth sleeps soundly beside him, her head pillowed on her arms at his hip.
What would Hershel say, if he knew? Or Rick, or Maggie, or Glenn? He can picture how Carol's eyes would dim in disappointment, how Michonne's lip would curl in disgust. A sick, cold feeling bores into his gut.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, there's a sharp laugh like a rooster's crow. Daryl doesn't have to wonder what Merle'd say. Somewhere back there, a part of him shrugs. Don't matter. They're dead.
But they'd all trusted him. Learned to trust him, after a long time of looking at him like he was trash. Useful trash, but trash all the same. But their looks had turned warm when they were at the farm, turned to a kind of respect and trust that scared the shit out of him.
They'd trusted him, then. They'd still trust him, if they were here. If they all weren't dead. If they hadn't joined the hordes that threaten the flimsy tin can alarm circling their campsite each night.
They'd trust him to look out for her, he knows. They'd be glad to know she's with him. No matter how his gut twists when she smiles at him, the way his chest gets tight when she tangles her fingers with his.
They'd trust him to be there for her, to do right by her. To be right with her.
Daryl exhales a long breath and cracks his neck.
It doesn't matter. Not really.
It doesn't matter that he's never felt like this before. Doesn't matter he's never met a person in all his life who could make him smile just because they're smiling. Doesn't matter that he knows he can't live without her, that the thought of her absence fills him with a kind of terror he hasn't felt since he was a kid.
It doesn't matter. None of it matters. What matters is that she's safe, that he keeps her that way. Helps her survive for as long as he can.
As for how he feels about her, it's like to make him stupid, get her killed, so it isn't hard to push it aside. To pack it in a box, and put that box away.
He has to put it away.