AN: This chapter includes mentions and themes of self-harm. Please read with caution. As always, reviews are adored. Thank you all for sticking with me over the dry periods.
It happened suddenly, without warning; or maybe there had been some warning sign, but Daryl had missed it. No one had ever accused him of being too in tune with his own feelings, let alone someone else's.
Beth had been making leaps and bounds for the last couple of days - laughing, smiling. She had even been sleeping through the night. Maybe it was exhaustion, or relief. Daryl hadn't asked. Something about a gift horse. They settled into a lazy routine, and sometimes she looked lost, just for a second, but she blinked it away like a rain cloud, or a bad thought.
Then Daryl touched her - something he had done before - just a hand on her shoulder while he was passing and she flinched away from him in a way that made him feel like complete scum. She looked at him with big, startled eyes, as if she couldn't believe what she had done, and stuttered out an apology. Then he apologized. Then she apologized, until they were talking over one another, scrambling for the fleeting normalcy that had seemed to disappeared so easily.
From that, it had all went bad so quickly. She either didn't sleep, or woke up screaming. Daryl would try to comfort her, but she brushed him off, as if she was fine. As if nothing had happened. As if there weren't tears falling down her face. Beth no longer went outside; she spent almost all of her time in that bedroom with the door shut.
Daryl, who was in the woods, pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. He felt less than fucking useless. Sure, he caught her game, but he couldn't make her eat. And he could bring her water, heat it up for washing, but she would just say no, thank you so syrupy it made his teeth ache. It all seemed so damn futile.
Something needed to change, and fast, before the carpet in the hallway wore down from sitting his ass outside her door, because all he could do was mean it when he said he would be just outside if she needed anything. Sighing heavily, he hefted the bag full of rabbit and squirrel over his shoulder and headed back towards the house.
He tried to think of what Maggie would say to her, but Daryl didn't know nothin' about what women went through. Sure, he knew about the cruelty of men - could even be cruel himself, in his own way. Destruction was something he was familiar with; surviving. But building something back up, fixing something... he was clueless.
Daryl set his bag outside; Beth didn't like seeing the dead animals on a good day, and he didn't want to upset her anymore than she already was. He walked into the house, not saying anything, knowing Beth probably wanted to be left alone. Daryl set his pack by the stairs so if she came she would know he was around.
He was surprised to find Beth standing in front of the sink, looking out through the windows. Daryl stopped in his tracks when he noticed her shoulders shaking quietly. Was she crying? The thought made Daryl deeply uncomfortable, because he hated when she cried but he never knew how to make her stop and it always seemed to go on forever.
"Y'okay, girl?" he asked gruffly.
Daryl heard a metallic clatter into the sink that made his blood run cold. He strode up behind her and forced her to face him with his hands on her shoulders. He saw the blood immediately - the red stood out like an electric shock against her white skin. He grabbed her hand in his own and pressed it against her wound.
"Don't move, Beth," he warned her. "Just give me a second."
Quickly, with his head spinning in an embarrassing fashion, Daryl found a rag that looked more clean than dirty. He grabbed a bottle of water from the counter and dampened it, hoping it would wash off any bits of dirt or dust. Daryl moved her hand, holding Beth's forearm over the sink, and rinsing it off with the remaining water. He tied the damp rag around the gash - not deep enough to have done any real damage, but it sure was bleeding a hell of a lot.
"Sit down," he ordered her.
Beth dragged herself over to a chair and sat down. Her face was pale and sweaty. The dark circles under her eyes looked like blackened half-moons. Daryl tried to rid the images of Before; the girl on the farm who had wanted to die. He hadn't cared about her none then; had thought she was a spoiled brat who wouldn't make it anyway - not if she couldn't stomach losing people. But it was different now, and Daryl was shaking.
"What the hell, Beth?" he demanded. "Y'trying to kill yourself again?! Y'just throwing in the towel? Walking away, huh?"
"I just..." Beth said tiredly, "I... wanted to feel something."
"You wanted to fucking feel something?" he spat at her. "So you chose pain? You haven't had enough of that yet, girl?"
"It didn't hurt," she mumbled more to herself than him.
"You can't do this," Daryl said. "I'm not gonna lose ya, Beth."
"I wasn't trying to -"
"It doesn't matter!" he cut her off. "This is not the answer! Damn it, Beth. You gotta help a guy out. I'm in over my head. I don't know what to do with you. What to say. I don't know any of it."
"And I do?" she asked. "Being raped doesn't come with a handbook."
"You should've -"
"I should've what?" she demanded. "Came to you? Told you, Daryl, it feels like I'm drowning and I don't know what to do. What good would that have done? You just said you don't know what you're doing. Or what to say."
"Well, I could've at least hid the damn knives!" he shouted, gesturing an arm at the sink.
"What does it matter if I cut myself?" Beth said. "The dead have risen, the living are monsters, and we're all just watching the world decompose into nothing. It's one scratch. It's my body! What's the big deal?"
Daryl turned on his heel and walked over to the sink. He pulled the knife out of it with his back to Beth. Muttering to himself, What's the big deal? he turned around and pressed it against his arm. He watched Beth biting her lip, wanting to say something, but not wanting to take the bait.
"Just say the word, girl," he said, pressing the point of the blade until a drop of blood ran down to his wrist.
"Okay," Beth said, getting up quickly. "Alright, okay. Stop. Don't."
"But if it don't matter, why you trying to stop me, huh?"
"Because I care about you, alright?" she said, huffing a piece of blond hair out of her face with a frustrated breath.
Daryl flung the knife into the sink and walked over to her. Cautiously he put both his hands on her shoulders, and when she didn't flinch, he drew her into a hug so tender he questioned who he was. He cupped the back of her head, thinking how fragile and small her skull felt.
"And I care about you, girl," he said against her temple. "I know I ain't much, but I'm all you got right now. You're my people and I need ya."
She nodded against his shoulder. He could feel the wet of her tears against his shirt. Beth wrapped her tiny arms around him, but Daryl couldn't feel surprised. He couldn't feel anything. His brain was too busy trying to figure out why it had almost said love instead of need - and why, even though Daryl had corrected himself, the word still sounded right.