"Here!" Noah half-shouted across the small interior of the car they had found a few days earlier and used to get them the rest of the way to Virginia. It had still taken a long time as far as Beth could tell. She had seen at least two full moons and Daryl reckoned it had been a month and a half, maybe about forty days. They had only had this car for the final two days. Beth stalled the car as she tried to come to a stop and the other's lurched forward, except for her as she had decided to wear her seatbelt. Driving was new to her, though she had learnt to drive back on the farm, it had been so long since then and she was unused to different types of cars.

"What the fuck?" Daryl grumbled as he almost fell on to the dashboard, woken up by her awful driving skills. At least he was able to get some rest whilst she was driving because Beth had seen him enough at a night time to know that he was not getting enough sleep. Although he had started to warm to Noah, Daryl was still unable to trust him enough to take on a night time watch. Beth was the only one he trusted for that.

"This is my home," Noah declared, rushing from the car without a second glance outside and Daryl cursed again, following the younger man with far more caution. Turning the engine off, Beth closed her eyes for a moment to listen and then slowly opened her eyes and looked all around her, using the car's mirrors to help, too. There were no other sounds aside from Noah's footsteps, Daryl's were as silent as he had been teaching her to be. Daryl had quickly started taking Beth hunting again once they were on the road from the church. When they had vehicles, they would drive for a day, find somewhere to rest up and maybe stay two nights, hunting and checking the area the next day. When they did not have vehicles, they walked along roads, sticking to any tree line they could find mainly, but wandering in to the woods when they needed to get out of the sun or to hunt. Either way, Daryl and Beth would spend a few hours a day in the woods, tracking and she was enjoying learning so much from him.

It was more than that, it was of learning new ways to survive. She wanted to get to a place where she could survive on her own or just be equal to the others. She did not want to be just another dead girl walking. During Daryl's lessons, Noah had made it quickly clear that he was not up for it; he did not have the patience for Daryl. And Daryl did not have the patience for Noah either. Most of the times they would leave Noah on a long stretch of open road, or locked up tight in whatever house or cabin they had holed up in for the night, and they would venture in to denser woods, sometimes making it out with dinner. Or when Noah was safe in their campsite when there were no buildings nearby and it was first or last light, Daryl would show her more, passing over his crossbow. Daryl at least trusted Noah that much. It was going to take them longer to get to Noah's, longer then to catch up to their family and Daryl was not happy about it, he had made that much clear to Beth, but it was the best way to teach her and that was his secondary concern it seemed. Primarily, he was there to keep her safe.

Even when just a few days earlier, they had returned to camp to see Noah and a young lady sitting warily against a tree opposite to Noah, her knife out. "These are my friends," Noah had explained. The woman, Jocelyn as they had later learned, had eyed them safely, but stayed with them that night. She had been with them ever since.

"We should follow, I guess," Jocelyn said from the back seat behind Beth's driver's seat.

"Seems safe enough." Beth looked up and saw Noah already trying to scale the walls that surrounded his family's housing development. There were no guards on watch and it looked overgrown. She bit on her lip and gave a big sigh as Jocelyn opened the door and left the car. Something was not right, but Beth followed her anyway.

Even as Noah disappeared over the wall, Jocelyn started climbing it and Daryl turned to Beth. "Ain't nothin' good here." His hands were on his hips, eyes down at the floor.

"But we gotta go after him," Jocelyn answered, disappearing over the other side, too. By her counting, Beth reckoned Jocelyn had been with them almost five nights and from what they could all tell, she had been alone a long time before that. She reminded Beth of Bob in that respect. It was Beth who had asked her the three questions, without wavering or reacting to the answers, noticing Daryl's slight accepting head nod.

"Boost?" he asked her and Beth smiled, placing her foot in his hands and grabbing on to the top of the wall, heaving herself higher and swinging a leg over. She paused then, partially to survey the housing estate and partially to wait for him. Daryl was up and sitting next to her in a far smoother manner than she had climbed up, waiting next to her. She watched as Noah took off in one direction, a few Walkers ambling around though not many. He must have been heading towards his house, but Beth could already tell that there was no one left anymore. This place had been abandoned and her heart ached a moment for the farm and the prison, mostly for the prison really.

"I'll check out this way," Jocelyn called as she moved away in the opposite direction to Noah.

"We shouldn't let them go alone," Beth murmured from her precarious position with one leg either side of the wall, ready to go either way really.

"Ain't lettin' ya outta my sight, girl," he mumbled in usual Daryl volumes and she smiled despite her apprehension. She looked down at the distance and puffed out her cheeks as she exhaled slowly. "'Mon," he said, meeting her eyes with a nod of his head. "Or I can catch ya?" He waggled his eyebrows at her and she found herself smiling again, this time far more genuinely. Instead, Daryl held out a hand to her and she interlaced her fingers with his, swinging her left leg over the wall and they jumped together.

"Noah then?" she asked, nodding her head in the direction of her friend. It was clear that Noah's emotional state was not the best in the current situation whereas Jocelyn had made it months on her own. The newcomer's ability to handle herself in a strange environment was far more of a bonus than Noah's state. Daryl released her hand and they started walking along Noah's trail, Daryl's bow ready and Beth had her knife out and down by her side, her arm tense and ready whilst her free hand, no longer covered in a cast was twitchy by her side.

Following the trail in to a house, Daryl motioned for Beth to stay behind him and she did, double checking behind them as she did so. The first room that she followed him into had clearly been the site of a fight – furniture knocked over and photo frames askew. There was a dead body in the middle of the room, in between a couch and table. There was a head wound and it was clearly a female. Beth's free hand covered her own mouth in a soft "oh" as she realized the lady was probably Noah's mother. There was a hesitation in Daryl as Beth found her feet glued to the spot and he seemed to hover closer to her but then he was gone in a flash.

Beth wanted to move, hearing the grumbles and chesty breaths of a Walker or two nearby, but something was keeping her at the woman's side. What had happened to the entire estate? It was not Walkers. This was human and it was horrible and heartbreaking.

The commotion grew louder and Beth shook her head, running towards the danger just in time to see Noah standing in the center of a bedroom, tears running down his face as a Walker lay dead at his feet. Daryl was stood above the Walker, breathing only slightly heavier than normal and his knife covered in fresh guts and brains. As she walked further in to the room, Beth noticed the photos on the wall, brothers, twins, some of them Noah.

"Either of ya bit?" she asked, stepping closer to Daryl for a moment, grabbing his wrist and giving him a quick once over with her eyes.

"Nah, don' think so." His voice was thick and deep like this Walker kill was harder than the others.

Turning to Noah, she did more than just a cursory glance across his body, she ran her hands across both of Noah's arms, moved his head with no softness as she checked his neck. She pulled at his sleeves a bit, the collar of his shirt, padded down his abdomen.

"My brother." The sobs started then as his voice broke on the two simple words, his eyes squeezing shut and his face scrunching up in such pain that was such a constant now that it made Beth want to scream and rage. Instead she wrapped her arms around her friend, pulled him in close, one hand at the nape of his neck, stroking down his hair as the other held him against his shoulder blades as she began to make shushing noises and he sobbed on to her. For the longest few moments, Beth could feel Daryl's eyes hotly on her, burning in to the back of her head until suddenly it was gone.

She wondered if it was because Daryl felt uncomfortable with her and Noah embracing. She thought then on when they had left Georgia, how she had run up to his side as they approached the road sign indicating they were leaving Georgia and she had reached for his hand. He had hesitated and he never hesitated when she reached for him when they were alone, usually in the dark. It was because he was such a private man, that he would be skittish in public. The furthest thing from her mind was to make him uncomfortable so she rarely touched him in the daylight and certainly not in front of others.

Except for as they were about to walk out of Georgia. Their drunken game of I have never was on her mind as she had squeezed his hand tight and then tried to step forward. His hand had held hers tightly, keeping her moving away from him and she had looked at him curiously.

"I don't know what happens now," he had mumbled. "No clue ah the terrain here on out, what to hunt, lay ah the land. Don' know the sun or seasons th' further North we head."

"'S okay," she had smiled at him, seeing him immediately relax an inch or two. No one else would be able to notice it, but there was something about her that was in tune with him now. She knew it worked both ways but that he had got there first. "We'll learn it together. Anyway," she had laughed. "I ain't never been to Virginia."

It had been subtle, but he had rolled his eyes at her. "Smart ass." She had laughed again at that, to Noah's confusion over her shoulder and Daryl had added, "Missed ya so bad, Greene."

"Knew ya would," she had replied and so they had stepped out of Georgia together with Noah looking on curiously. Now, holding Noah as his sobs began to quiet, Beth could not remember how long she and Daryl had walked that road out of Georgia holding hands. Just as she was not sure how long she had been holding Noah until finally he pulled away, wiping a sleeve at his nose and puffy cheeks. It had gotten darker in the room and outside, but the sun was still up.

"Think I need some rest," he mumbled and she nodded.

"I'll go check with Daryl about this place." She did not need to though, she already knew that he would have secured the place so that they could stay for the night at least in relative safety. What did surprise her was that Noah's brother was gone, Beth had not heard Daryl remove the body. "You stayin' in here?"

Noah nodded, looking at the unmade bed. "Can't face my room. You or Jocelyn can though. Any of the rooms."

"Thank you," she spoke softly and quietly, a gentle smile on her face as she left the room and went back to the main rooms, where she found Daryl sitting on the couch. The body from the floor was gone, too.

"I buried her an' the brother out back," he answered her unspoken question and she sat down next to him. Immediately leaning against him, her cheek on his chest and an arm came up around her shoulder, his fingers swirling patterns on her upper arm. "All the windows and doors are boarded." Her head nodded against him as she curled her legs up beside her on the couch. One of his feet was on the table in front, jutting his knee up for his free hand to fiddle with the loose threads there. "Ain't safe here though."

"I know."

"Be okay for th' night. I'll keep watch."

"Jocelyn?"

She felt him shake his head. They would find her in the morning, she knew that. "Handful ah Walkers around here. Took a few out when I was diggin'. Lot ah the older ones, they got big ol' Ws on their heads. This place, weren't no Walker attack. Not a simple one."

Shivering at both the cold and his words, Daryl's fingers stopped swirling against her bare arm and pulled her tighter against him. "Think Noah'll mind us takin' some clothes from here? It's getting' colder. Winter must be here soon."

"Nah, don' think so."

"He made it ya know? He made it all this way, he survived Grady an… for what?"

"Ta know," he gruffed simply.

Burrowing into his softness, she squeezed her eyes shut tightly, breathing in his reassuring scent as she marveled at how soft yet firm his chest and arms could feel when she was pressed in to them. It seemed that ever since that night in the church, where she had slept a few hours on him, they had broken down something within him. Some sort of barrier was down. Maybe it had started when he had held her after Grady. Maybe even when they had been drunk on moonshine and she had held him as he broke down in her arms.

It had slowly become a mutual touching, either of them happily initiating contact, both of them really in an equal fashion. Those first few nights after leaving the church it probably had been more Beth initiating contact, but he had never shied away from it, never had he stopped her. In time he had started to lean in to her, reciprocating her movements. If any of the group from the prison could see them now, none of them would believe their eyes. Although, of course, Beth would never presume to be this intimate with Daryl in front of anyone. No, she could not see the day where she reached for him for anything other than gentle hand holding in front of any other eyes. These moments, just like the moonshine, the fire and the funeral home, they were all theirs, just theirs. Forever.

"Sleep," he commanded softly, stroking her hair and she soon let sleep claim her.

The next morning, Beth woke up still resting against Daryl who, once again, had taken the entire night shift, to a noise at the door. His eyes on her, she nodded at him as she moved away and he slipped away from her. Noah quickly emerged from the corridor that led to the bedrooms and they both watched as Daryl glanced out of the gaps in the boards on the window.

"Jocelyn," he murmured, unbarricading the door and letting her in. Once all four of them were in the same room, Daryl continued. "Gather up some supplies. Any food an' water, warmer clothes. We need ta head out."

Ten minutes later, Beth was at the front door of Noah's house as he looked back at it for a moment, saying goodbye for the last time. Now dressed in a clean yellow t-shirt that had belonged to one of Noah's brothers and a pair of jeans from the house next door as Noah had told her there was a teenage girl that had lived there, Beth also had a few spare tops and a pair of jeans in her back pack, a warmer sweater on and a coat tied around her waist. Their bags were packed and they were ready. She glanced first at Noah and then at Daryl, nodding at both. It was time to head out. When they had left the church, she had done so with her arm hooked in to Noah's, excited about trying to find his family. This time, she held on to both straps of her bag, her knuckles pressed against her chest as she felt filled with hope.

She was going to find her family.

Leaving Noah's family estate with a bounce in her step, Beth knew good things were just around the corner.