A/N: Ah! Who is excited by the first few episodes of 6B?! There are NO spoilers but anyone who wants to discuss the new developments please DM me because I love talking about TWD and 6.10 was one of my favorite episodes this season!

Got some different point of views in this chapter, review to let me know what you think! The first half of the chapter is slow, but there are some good Bethyl moments at the end ;)

Note: I did NOT edit this so I apologize for any spelling/grammar errors. I just wanted to get it out to y'all as fast as possible.

Thank you to everyone who reads and favorites and follows! Every time I get a notification about a new one, it makes me so happy! Special thanks to those who reviewed: AnimeRoxx, Reignashii, draegon-fire, AJ Granger, Agni, soniabell, DarylDixon'sLover, monicadixon

Companion song: "Every time I look for you" by Blink 182

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

/

Chapter 26: Cigarettes

He'd been in more near-death experiences than he could count or even remember at this point. Walkers were almost always at the forefront of his problems but if he could get out of this, it would be the greatest miracle of his life. However, it wasn't himself that he was worried about. Maggie, and his baby, and Judith all weighed heavily on his shoulders.

They came. And then more. It was a sea of walkers as far as he could see. He'd seen hoards of walkers before. But not in the last two years since they'd been in Alexandria. They'd been safe here for two years and he guessed their time was up.

Glenn climbed back down from the perch to confer with the others about what to do. Rick, Michonne, Carl, Maggie, Deanna, Abraham, Carol and Spencer all stood in the middle of the road.

"Probably more than I've ever seen at once," Glenn said as he jogged over to them.

He could see the tension in Rick's face ramp up. Rick knew all that Glenn had seen; they'd been together almost constantly since the very beginning. So Rick knew that this was serious.

"Deanna, get everyone unable to fight ready to get out. Take the bus and the vans, fit as many people as you can in there and drive. Herd's coming from the south, so head east," Daryl shouted and Deanna hustled off to gather her people. "Abe, take a team and head out back. Get the strongest guys you can and take the backhoe if it'll start—the gas doesn't matter—start digging more trenches; we don't have enough ammo so we'll need to lead them off. Carol head up to the walls use the walkie, be our eyes and keep shooting." She nodded but didn't move, whereas Abe was already up the block shouting for select people from his construction crew to follow him.

"Glenn, Mich, we're going out there. Gonna hit them from behind, keep as many away from the walls as we can and lead them away whenever Abe gives us the signal" Rick finished with severity but there was still a hint of a request. It was the most dangerous job, picking walkers off in close quarters like that. Rick was the boss, but he was fair and Glenn knew he was giving them an option to say no to the worst job.

"Maggie, I think you should go out with Deanna and the others—" Rick said and Maggie already started to protest. But he kept talking over her, "I know you're not gonna do that. So I want you to get the truck ready and wait in it. If the wall is breached, take whoever's around and get out. Carl go with her."

Glenn nodded his approval of this, making eye contact and silently thanking Rick for keeping Maggie close, but ready to leave. He knew his wife well enough to know she wouldn't leave on the buses with all the others while her family was still in danger. But this plan would keep her as safe as possible. Carl could be a sadistic mess, but he'd gotten better, more mature, now that he was almost eighteen. Most importantly, Glenn knew that the guy wouldn't hesitate to kill anything or anyone that was dangerous.

The group went to break up to head to their own jobs and Spencer asked Rick what he should be doing, but Glenn stopped listening. Glenn kissed Maggie fiercely and swiped a hand over the bulge in her abdomen. He didn't say anything, and neither did she. There was nothing to say. They'd lived in this world of misery and peril, and they'd learned that people you loved could get ripped away from you at any moment.

But they also knew that, in a situation like this, seconds mattered. Seconds could save lives.

He did spend one more second, with a hand on Carl's shoulder. The boy was just slightly taller than he was now, but it didn't matter. Carl nodded seriously in a silent promise to protect his wife and unborn child.

And then, Glenn jogged to catch up to Michonne and Rick.

/

Morgan stood on the top of the roof near the edge of the fence. He watched as people took their posts assigned to them by Rick and the others or piled into the vans. They were trying to pick the walkers off one-by-one, with bullets or knives. Then he saw the team that ran out along the sides and began digging holes. There should have been trenches dug long before this moment.

He shook his head. This would never work. There were too many walkers; the walls would give out long before they would make a dent in this herd.

But Morgan had an idea.

His knees creaked a little as he began trotting back towards the house. He rifled in his backpack for supplies and then down to the kitchen to grab a few other things. It was a long shot. But he had to try.

Pacing back out to the wall he came upon Spencer. The guy looked terrified, but determined.

"Hey!" he called out and Spencer turned. "Do you know if you've got any more of these?" Morgan asked as he gestured to the red metal tank in one hand and the bottle in his other.

"Yeah…" Spencer replied hesitantly.

"Run. Grab them and meet me up on the south tower," Morgan ordered.

He was climbing the ladder when the young man came sprinting towards Morgan with his arms full.

"Got 'em!" Spencer shouted over the growls of the walkers on the other side of the wall.

"Go over to the other tower, start pouring the lighter fluid on them!" Morgan instructed.

"This is all that's left! Deanna and Rick won't let us—" Spencer started protesting but the older man cut him off.

"Rick and Deanna aren't gonna have a city to lead if we don't kill off all of these walkers."

Spencer considered for another half second before nodding and heading off to the next ladder. When the bottle was emptied, spraying it on as many walkers as possible, Morgan lit one of the matches and tossed it down into the abyss of snarling monsters. He hustled over to the tower were Spencer was, Carol was still on the tower shooting at walkers that approached Rick, Glenn and Michonne from where they stood in the forest line. Spencer caught the matchbook and then threw a lit match into the other half of the herd. There was probably close to 200 of them along the wall, quickly bursting to a huge flame. The flames engulfed those doused in lighter fluid within seconds, fire spreading to the others quickly as the brainless biters moved towards the lights of their fellows flickering to their deaths.

Everyone else stopped what they were doing and watched the blaze. Rick, Glenn, Michonne and some of the sharp shooters on the wall took out stragglers but most of them were charring into a blackened crisp.

Luckily, the walls were metal so there was no danger of them burning, but Morgan watched the flames closely. When one of the bushes at the edge of the forest Morgan shouted down to Rick and tossed him the fire extinguisher. The leader put his machete down and then quickly sprayed the bush before the flames spread to the surrounding trees. This was why he brought the extinguishers with them. Because the forest was a vital part of the town's cover and their hunting grounds so he wouldn't let it burn down if he could help it.

After an hour, the walkers were nothing but a blackened pile of skeletons. Some of them still moved but Michonne put her katana through their heads from outside the wall. Glenn and Rick took off into the trees, and Morgan began climbing down the ladder.

The storm moved in quickly and raindrops began falling. Morgan was happy about that because if anyone else saw the flames they would assume that the rain put out the fire. Hopefully he didn't just lead more unsavory groups towards them.

Spencer came down after him with a huge smile on his face, "You saved our asses! That was amazing. How did you think of that so fast?"

Morgan shook his head lightly, feeling awkward under the young man's worshipping gaze. "We got through this attack but we're not out of the forest yet."

"What do you mean?" he asked as his face fell.

"They'll be back. People always want good things, things that aren't theirs. Jealousy is one of the only things that has carried over from the old world," Morgan responded as he started back up the street.

"You think people did this?" Spencer asked him with a line furrowing his brow.

Morgan just stared at the man. He was so naïve still, so trusting of others. It was amazing that he had survived this long. Duane came to mind then, he thought of his son, so young when this whole thing started, innocent and kindhearted. They'd tried to make it on their own and failed, but now Morgan wondered what would have happened if they'd found this place in the beginning. But he shook his head, trying to banish the sick feeling of failure in the pit of his stomach. No matter how many lives he'd saved, he would never make up for failing to save his own son. Today though, he tried to focus on the fact that he'd saved this young man who had lost his own father and brother. "You better go get your mom and the others. Take Glenn or Carol with ya."

/

It was the second time this month that she found herself following this man through the forest. Daryl was in the lead again, headed back to his motorcycle. Lucky was running through the trees next to them and Mark was in between. The kid was slow and looked like he was going to faint. However, they had to get moving so Daryl kept grabbing Mark's good arm and pulling him up each time he stumbled.

They saw the smoke over the trees, coming from the direction of Alexandria. And Daryl had seemed almost frantic.

She could understand, everyone he knew was there, that was his home. However, she couldn't really relate. Beth still didn't think of the others as her family. Even Maggie, she knew that they were sisters, but Maggie hadn't even really tried to speak to her since she'd joined them in Alexandria. Morgan was there of course, but she didn't worry about Morgan. She didn't really worry about anything and she guessed that it was because worry was so closely related to fear. Besides, Beth felt confident that Morgan could take care of himself. But Daryl had come out to save her this morning, so she felt like she owed him one. So they ran through the rain, which was now pouring, towards the highway where Daryl had left his bike.

Beth had a sense of familiarity again, following Daryl through the trees. She hated the feeling. It was like chasing a sunset, no matter how fast she ran towards the horizon it was always out of reach.

When they finally reached the road, they were at mile marker 102, so they had to back track several miles. By the time the group reached the cluster of abandoned cars, they were all soaking wet and the two men were panting heavily. Beth had never been happier that she ran everyday because she was hardly out of breath.

Daryl pulled his bike into an upright position. Beth tore open a car door and started rummaging through her backpack for something she could use to pry open the steering consol. The soaking wet hunter appeared in the passenger seat and handed her a multi-tool with a screwdriver head flipped out and she went to work on the car.

After minute, Daryl sighed loudly and said, "Let me try, Greene, we gotta get out of here."

It took Daryl only a few seconds to get the right wires out but the car didn't start. He tried three more cars while Beth looked on in awe at his speed. Finally, one started with a roar. The sound was drowned out by the storm, but she knew it would still draw any walkers nearby.

"Not much gas," Daryl said when she walked over to him.

"Do you think we have time to syphon it or should we just go?" Beth asked, glancing over her shoulder towards Alexandria. The fire must have gone out with all the rain but that didn't mean that they would be out of trouble.

"Gettin' dark, we better just go." His eyes turned to her now, when they stared at each other Beth realized how close they were standing. Both of them were dripping wet, she could see beads of water dripping off of the hair hanging in front of his eyes. She had an unexplainable urge to reach up and push his hair out of his face. But she kept her hands by her side. Beth could smell him, leather and sweat from running, mixed with the rain and the smell of the trees. It drew her in even closer. The scent of him was intoxicating and made her head swim. It was familiar, it made her feel comfortable and for the first time she felt like she had a home even though she was standing on the street in the middle of a wreckage of cars.

The rain kept falling on both of them and she couldn't tell how much time had passed but Daryl was staring at her like he was seeing her for the first time again.

Mark, who had been waiting in one of the abandoned cars, shuffled over to them and the spell was broken. Daryl took an exaggerated couple of step back from her.

She breathed a sigh of relief. She couldn't think straight when he was

"Ready to go?" Mark asked, opening the back door for Lucky.

"Yeah," Beth said hesitantly. She had only driven a car a handful of times. Cars were hard to come by and tended to attract attention of other people so Beth and Morgan tried to avoid them for the most part. However, Mark was incapable of driving and Daryl needed to take his bike back. So she needed to step up and do this. Mark walked around and got into the passenger seat.

"You remember how to do this?" Daryl asked her in a whisper. Although, he kept his distance from her this time.

She nodded. "I'll be fine. Just gonna follow you."

He grunted and said, "Honk once if ya need something."

Beth climbed into the car and watched as Daryl walked over to his bike, starting it with a thunderous growl. Vaguely she wondered to herself if he ever wore sleeves, but she guessed that his closet would be full of ripped shirts. She saw his arm muscles, slick from the rain, flex as he turned the bike around. But she told herself to focus and she looked at all the buttons inside the car and tried to remember everything Morgan had taught her during their driving lessons.

/

It was dark when they returned but no one was asleep. People peeked out of their windows as the group walked up the street. Everyone in Alexandria looked shaken and twitchy. Mark followed Daryl and Beth home to talk to Rick. Even though he probably saved Beth's life, he would still want to ask Mark "the questions." They came through the door and several people seemed to visibly sag in relief when they saw the group. No one hugged anyone though and this felt strange to Daryl. Beth used to be such a hug-centered, affectionate person so it was unexpected to see her as closed off as Daryl usually felt when the entire family crowded into the living room and front entryway.

But then Judith came barreling down the stairs.

She jumped right into Daryl's arms and began babbling about what had happened in Alexandria while he'd been gone that day. Beth couldn't understand most of the words she spoke but Daryl seemed to understand everything and he responded with follow up questions. She was amazed by how he was with this little girl, giving her rambling story his full attention even though he must be exhausted. And she was looking at him like he was her greatest hero, not even caring that he was still wet from the rain.

After a few minutes Daryl looked at Rick and nodded his head towards Mark and Beth, "Interview the new guy and get him over to the hospital." Then he turned to Judith and started up the stairs with her still in his arms, "Let's get you up to bed Asskicker, ya had a big day."

The hunter had the crossbow on his back still and the child in his arms. Beth heard Rick start talking to Mark but she didn't actually listen to any of the words. Her thoughts were bombarded with Daryl. She couldn't believe that man had come out into the forest to save her. He'd been watching the flag, left Alexandria alone, not knowing what he would meet, he chased her trail for hours and found a car to get her home. She thought at first that he was doing this because of who she used be—the girl she didn't remember from Georgia. However, as she watched Daryl today, taking in Mark when he didn't even know the man and caring for a child that wasn't his, she thought that maybe she had discovered one of the last good people left.

Maybe he was doing these things because he was a genuinely good person.

This thought made her smile. She was going to get to know her sister. But now, she wanted to get to know Daryl better too.

/

Mark ended up moving into Deanna's house. It was a giant house and it turned out that Deanna missed having a fuller house. She used to have two children but her other son died and now Spencer was much older and independent. Mark was still only 16 and after losing his entire family and being abused by those men for months, he needed some coddling. It was healing for both of them.

Two weeks after the attack many of the Alexandrians had fallen back into their comfortable routine. However, Daryl and the rest of their family had not. Rick doubled the number of people on watch, enacted an earlier curfew, stopped all supply runs past the first town outside the city, and focused efforts on the farm and the animals inside the walls.

Daryl had seen Beth around everywhere in the last two weeks. She had integrated herself into Alexandria's daily life fairly well. She worked on the walls early in the mornings, ran around the entire perimeter wall several times each afternoon with Lucky and sometimes Michonne or Carl, helped Rick and Morgan with the crops and began cooking dinner with Maggie every night.

At first, Daryl had seen the tension and awkward silence in the kitchen when he'd come home in the evenings. But by the end of the week the sisters had begun to connect again. On the seventh night, he came in to see Beth smiling and laughing with Maggie while she was cutting vegetables to put into a rabbit stew. Judith was playing with several hot wheels and was building a makeshift track out of books and other household items.

He stopped in the doorway and couldn't help but stare.

They looked like such a normal family, like something he would have watched on a television show years ago. Maggie, with her stomach bulging slightly and Beth with her hair piled in a messy bun on top of her head. Only if it had been a real movie, the woman wouldn't have skinned the rabbit themselves outside on the porch and Judith would have real toys to play with. However, seeing her like this reminded him of Beth at the prison. These days she always had scowl on her face and a darkness in her blue eyes like the sea in a storm. But that night, she had a sparkle in her eyes and there were laugh lines around her cheeks. This smile made his heart ache for a time before she had seen all the terrible things in this world today, before the governor had attacked, when she still had her father.

The sisters stopped giggling when Daryl came into the kitchen, but Maggie kept a light conversation going even when Daryl sat down on the hardwood with Judith. He knew that Maggie was doing this for his benefit because she kept looking at him when Beth would talk or ask questions about their shared past. Maggie told Beth lots of storied from when they were younger living on the farm—about Beth learning to ride a horse, about the time Shawn snuck out of the house how the sisters had stuffed his bed with pillows to trick Hershel.

Soon however, the rest of the family trickled in for dinner and the conversation stopped.

Beth had also started showing up in his daily activities. When he was on watch, she would sometimes come up to the tower. They never talked. He didn't know what to say to her and so he just kept waiting for her to explain why she was coming to see him. Instead, they usually just sat in silence while looking out at the forest around Alexandria. The silence was filled with tension of unspoken words but also was comfortable. She didn't come see to him every day, and on those days when she didn't show up Daryl found himself waiting for her and then incredibly disappointed when she hadn't joined him.

One day, she broke her pattern and spoke.

The blonde head popped up at the top of the ladder and he felt an automatic tug of a smile on his lips. Beth was wearing an old pair of blue jeans that day, they had several rips in them and he found himself staring at the patches of creamy white skin that poked through the holes. Her hair was tied in a long side braid again and her white shirt was clean but was clearly a size too big.

She handed him a pack of cigarettes. It was still wrapped in plastic and it was his chosen brand. He hadn't found this brand for at least a year and he couldn't believe she'd found this for him.

"Thanks," she said softly.

"For what?" He asked, confused about why she was thanking him after she'd just given him a gift.

"Coming out there to get me," she replied without making eye contact.

He just grunted in response and took the pack of cigarettes from her, being careful not to graze her fingers as he did so.

After several agonizing minutes of trying not to look at her legs gracefully propped up on the wall in front of her and ignoring how she smelled so good even though they used the same shampoo and body wash, Daryl decided he needed one of these cigarettes. So he opened the plastic eagerly and lit one up so he could focus on the burn in his lungs instead of Beth. He felt his muscles relax slightly and he knew it was bad how much he still craved nicotine. But it did help distract him slightly from the woman sitting on his left.

"I've never had one of those," she said with a smile looking the now lit cigarette in his hand. "At least, not that I can remember."

"Ya haven't," he said with confidence. Several years ago she'd told him the same thing when they were at the prison. Back then, he hadn't let her smoke because he knew her daddy had been watching and wouldn't have approved of it.

She stared at him quizzically, but then a smile broke across her face like the sun shinning through the clouds after a storm, "Oh I haven't, huh? And how exactly do you know what I haven't done?"

He looked over at her then, and thought about lying as he had done last time they really talked, but seeing her smiling at him in the sunshine he knew he couldn't do that again. So that's how he found himself saying, "Because of the 'I've Never' game."

Beth looked at him confused, as he took another drag.

"What is the 'I've Never' game?" she asked him with a laugh.

He found himself smiling too, "It's a drinkin' game we played once."

"We played a drinking game?" Beth looked astonished.

"Yeah," he said. And when she kept staring at him, he made an excuse, "Not a lot to do in the apocalypse and we were all outta Monopoly money."

"Do you think we could play again someday?" she asked him with such sincerity but he couldn't answer so he took a long hit on his nearly finished cigarette. Daryl flashed on the night they'd gotten drunk in the cabin. It was simultaneously one of the worst nights of his life and one of the best. Thinking about how he yelled at her, he was embarrassed and secretly pleased that she couldn't remember what a dick he'd been.

When he hadn't answered after several moments Beth continued, "Maybe you could tell me what I have never done before and we can cross some things off that list."

Daryl's heart sped up and he wondered if Beth knew what she was doing to him. He thought about things that she had probably never done, and he imagined

"Yeah maybe. You find the moonshine and I'll teach ya the rules of the game," he tried to say as casually as possible.

"Gonna let me try that cigarette too?" She asked jokingly.

It was almost to the filter now and he thought about giving her the last drag. But he shook his head, thinking of Hershel's disapproval, "Nah. It'll mess up your runnin' time and it's addicting. Started when I was sixteen, still can't get it outta my system."

"So you're just trying to protect me then?" she asked with some skepticism.

He half shrugged and then finished the last pull of his cigarette before stubbing it out.

The pair sat in silence for about 20 minutes after that.

Beth got up to leave with a small smile still on her face.

He kept his eyes focused on the tree line as she stood up, passing by him on the way to the ladder. Daryl couldn't stop himself from asking, "Beth, how'd you know?"

"Know what?" she asked.

"How'd you know about these cigarettes?" he motioned to the box sitting on the wall.

She stared at the pack, but then her eyes seemed to go somewhere else and it was clear that she was submerged in her thoughts. "I don't know how I knew. I just saw them and... I grabbed them even though I didn't know why. Been in my pack for about six months… I'm happy I finally figured out who they were meant for."

Her eyes lost that far away look but she wasn't smiling anymore. It was back to the same stormy look that he associated with the new Beth. Daryl wasn't quite sure what she meant by this. But if she somehow remembered his cigarettes, he was hopeful that one day she might remember him.

/

A/N: Hope you liked it! I'm sorry if there were mistakes, I didn't take the time to edit this chapter. This was kind of a filler chapter because I needed to resolve some things and I am setting up for some one-on-one, intimate chapters with Beth and Daryl.

PLEASE review let me know what you thought! Your reviews make me happier than Michonne with mints! ;) How is the chapter length? Did you like the other POVs? What you think of the Maggie/Beth and Daryl/Beth developments? Some nice little flirtatious moments :D Is there anything in particular that people would like to see in the upcoming chapters?