A/N: Hey lovers! It has been so long, I kind of lost the thread of TWD and this story but it STILL rattles around in my head. Thank you to those who continue reviewing and bugging me to update this story- YOU are truly what made me do this. Next chapter is already in the works. :)

[insert legal mumbo jumbo about the fact that I own nothing.]

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Chapter 32: A Plan

He heard the footsteps pounding quickly down the stairs and the sound immediately drew his attention. Daryl knew Beth had walked upstairs a while ago and he assumed she was just locked in a room avoiding the movie night.

Recently, Beth's tread was so light that he could barely hear her footsteps even on the hardwood floors. So when he heard the sound, he knew something was wrong.

She flew around the corner into the living room like a cartoon character and her blue eyes were already trained on his. There was a mixture of confusion and fury burning in her eyes. Then Daryl saw what she was holding in her hand and he became confused too.

His black leather vest was clutched in her right hand. He hadn't worn the angel wing vest in over a year. But Daryl could still remember the day he finally took it off so clearly.

He and Aaron had been following a young blonde woman through the woods. Trying to figure out if she was on her own and if she was "good." When Daryl had first seen the girl he immediately thought of Beth. She was probably only 17—about the same age Beth had been when he first met her on the Greene farm. Aaron wanted to immediately go to the girl when he saw how young she was but Daryl had held them back. This world bred cruel people, and if she had grown up in this world there was a strong possibility that she was as cold and cruel as this world. He thought of how psychotic Carl could be at times and how it was their family that constantly kept the boy sane.

Also, the idea didn't escape him that using a young girl like her would be perfect bait. The Governor had used the innocent families in the community to lure people into a false sense of security and make newcomers think they were safe. Bad people might use this girl to draw others out. So Daryl insisted on waiting… watching. After a few hours, he realized this girl was being sloppy. She made no attempts to cover her tracks. She made no real attempts to be quiet as she went through the town they were following her through. This made him even more suspicious. Was she intentionally making it easy for people to follow her?

But then his thoughts changed abruptly. Aaron and Daryl had climbed up to the rooftop of an abandoned fast food joint to get a better view of the small town they had followed her into—they weren't just looking for people, but they were always seeking supplies too. While they were pondering if there would be anything useful left in the Walmart at the end of the block, everything quickly went to shit. In a matter of moments the blonde girl was surrounded. From Daryl's point on the roof he counted 40 people, mostly men, heavily armed as they swarmed the girl. He could hear the man in the center of the group babbling about how she should have been more careful, about how she had made "the hunt" too easy. How he thought she would have been smarter and more fun, but since they had found her in only a matter of hours, she wasn't "worthy" and now she had to die.

On that run, Aaron and Daryl only carried one small handgun each. They didn't have enough ammo to take these people out, much less to escape the hoard of walkers that would come their direction once they heard the gunshots and smelled the blood. So Aaron and Daryl watched helplessly as the group tormented and killed the girl.

The pair didn't speak the entire way back home. When Daryl stomped up into his room that night around 3 in the morning, he hung up his vest and collapsed into bed. He never put the vest back on after that.

He'd always seen it as his reminder to be good despite his upbringings—the golden wings light in the abused black leather. But he failed that girl horribly; even a year later he could still recall her screams of terror.

Just like he'd failed Beth.

So he no longer felt worthy of the angel wing vest. He wasn't a "good guy" in the darkness that stained the world, he was shit… just like everyone else. So the vest stayed in the closet.

Until today.

Now, Beth held it in her hand like she was grabbing a life raft in the ocean.

He could see words forming on her lips, so he picked Judith up out of his lap and passed her over to Carol where she sat on the couch. And he wordlessly followed Beth as she stormed outside.

Daryl thought she would stop on the porch but she kept walking up the street towards the little lake in the center of Alexandria. Yesterday's unmelted snow crunched under their boots. Without warning, Beth spun on her heels to face him.

"What the hell is this, Daryl?" she hissed, holding leather garment up.

He was unsure how to answer other than to simply say, "My vest…"

"So it is yours?" Beth stared down in shock, looking at the leathers in her hands as if they might disappear.

"Yeah." Daryl shrugged. "What's goin' on Beth?"

"Why haven't I seen you wear it since I've been here?" she accused. Suddenly, swelling with rage again.

"Stopped wearin' it. Why does any of this matter?" He was too confused by her reaction to the vest to get mad back at her.

But then, a light bulb clicked as he watched her blue eyes take in the stitching. The sun was almost done setting but the light was catching off of the lake and lighting up her face. "Do you… do you remember it?" He asked tentatively.

"No... I mean… I… I don't know," Beth sputtered.

"What do you remember?" Daryl found himself getting closer to her unconsciously. If she was actually getting her memories back, what would that mean?

"I don't… I don't know what I remember…" her voice faded and her brow furrowed in irritated confusion. "You should have told me! You should have showed this to me! I've been here for months and I… I didn't know it was you this whole time."

She threw the faded leather at him violently but he caught it easily.

"Didn't know what was me? What the hell are you talkin' about?"

Beth met his eyes finally and he saw that the anger had burned out of her. She looked in awe of him. As if he was a cold glass of water on a hot, Georgia summer day. He'd never had anyone look at him like that before.

"It was you, you protected me. You're the one I've been dreaming about for years…"

And then, unexpectedly and all at once, she was in his arms.

The blonde came towards him so quickly that he found himself frozen in place. Her small hands came up and found his face. Her body flung against him so tightly that he could feel every curve of hers against him. He leaned down automatically towards her and allowed himself to be captured by her kiss.

It was gentle at first, almost tentative. Daryl wasn't sure if it was his lack of practice in the past several years or if Beth was nervous. It started with just their lips crashing against each other. And then it evolved.

He felt her hands trace from his face to his shoulders as they left a trail of fire across his skin. Daryl instinctively wrapped his hands around her body. One rough hand found her tangle of blonde hair and the other pressed into her lower back as he pulled her even tighter into himself. Beth's lips were soft but the kiss was intense. He felt her tongue glide across his lips and he allowed her to take the lead. Daryl was afraid he was dreaming and if he pressed his luck too far, she would disappear.

They kissed until the sun dropped below the horizon and the lake fell into complete darkness. Beth was breathless when she pulled away and he watched as she slowly opened her eyes to meet his in the darkness.

She looked like she was waiting for him to say something. But he couldn't think of what the hell to say. The kiss had wiped his mind blank.

/

Beth's mind was silent and at peace for a full ten seconds. She just stared up at Daryl while her breathing slowed down to a normal pace. Her heart was still pounding frantically against the inside of her ribcage like a rabid dog in a too-small kennel.

When her brain clicked back on, she suddenly didn't know where to look. Daryl's pupils were so big that she could hardly see the stormy blue of his irises, even though she was standing closer to him than ever before.

It was dark outside now and stars were starting to appear. Beth didn't know when the sun had gone down.

We must have been kissing for a while, she realized. Her lips felt puffy and raw from Daryl's stubble. She liked the feeling, but it was entirely novel to her. Slowly, she withdrew her hand from her tight grip on his hard shoulder. She could feel the solid muscle through his jacket. And she pressed her fingers to her lips. There was a ghost of a smile that she didn't even know she had been wearing.

Removing her hand seemed to shake something in Daryl awake and he peeled his hands off of her while taking a miniscule step back. She felt cold in all the spots she lost contact with him.

What am I supposed to say to him? What do people say after a kiss like that? She wondered feverishly while searching her brain for the answer, but she'd never read anything about this. All of the books she'd read had been practical, survival books; she'd ignored all the romance novels.

The black leather vest had fallen into the snow at their feet so she bent over and picked it up gingerly. Beth had no idea if it was the right thing to say but she said it anyway, "I think you should wear it again. If you want to, that is."

"Yeah?" he half-grunted as he looked through his shaggy hair to meet her eyes.

"Yeah," and before she could stop herself she added, "I'd like that."

Then Daryl smiled. It was a rare smile, one that she had only seen once before when she'd brought him the cigarettes. The edges of his mouth pulled up and his eyes crinkled. He tugged the vest on over his long sleeve flannel.

Slowly, to make sure it didn't seem like she was running away from him, Beth turned back to the house and started back up the street. She could hear his heavy footprints fall into step beside her in the snow. The pair walked silently, which wasn't entirely unusual for them. But the silence felt charged with electricity now.

Beth was fine with the silence, it was comforting to think that maybe Daryl didn't know what to say either. He opened the front door of the house for her and his fingertips grazed her lower back lightly and she automatically smiled.

They joined the entire Grimes family to finish watching the silly robot movie.

/

Four days later, they came to a decision on what to do about the Raiders. They had poured over the maps but Michonne was not happy with the decision.

First off, Beth was being evasive about how she obtained the information. Michonne knew—from Daryl's surprised expression and his complaints on the ride back home—that Beth had gone off plan. She wasn't supposed to have gotten this information. And Daryl seemed nervous about how she had retrieved the maps. And if it was something that would make even Daryl uncertain of Beth, then Michonne certainly didn't trust it.

Second, even if Beth was being honest, who's to say this information was true? What if this was planted? Meant to lead them down a false trail? She mentioned this to the group and Maggie had scoffed and stated that she sounded like a "paranoid, conspiracy theory nut." But Michonne remembered the last time she'd disagreed with someone she considered her family. Michonne remembered how Andrea had written her off and trusted the Governor, only to be led to her death. So Michonne still maintained that the information could be wrong.

There were too many unknowns. How old were these maps? Had the Raiders moved since then? Were the counts of people accurate?

No one else seemed to think this was very likely.

So now, they were just charging ahead. They were going to attack one of the outposts. Rick hoped they could gain more information from the compound and that it may draw Raiders out if one of their outposts went dark.

"The papers say they use long distance radios, the same ones I used in Georgia. If they stop getting responses from the outpost, they will send scouts out to see what happened. Daryl can track them and we'll follow them back to their main compound. It looks like The Hilltop hasn't gotten close enough to find out where it is. That means the Raiders are hiding it. This is the only way we'll get a look at it," Rick insisted. He stood, hands on his hips, with that stubborn look that told Michonne he had already decided.

She loved him, she knew he was always trying to do what he believed was best for the family.

However, her gut felt like it was crawling with spiders in a manner that told her this plan was a bad idea. It wouldn't be the first time she didn't agree with Rick's methods. And it also wouldn't be the first time she went along with the plan only so that she could save everyone's asses when it all went to hell.

But now that the snow had melted and they wouldn't leave tracks on the road, the van was packed and their family was piling into it.

A tense silence filled the car as they all watched Maggie wave goodbye with Judith in her arms.

/

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