Good Things

Chapter 3

Being woken up by Beth had been unusual in itself. Daryl was always a light sleeper, awake before most people got close enough to lay eyes on him. He must have been that tired, to not have heard her. He had still been trying to clear the fog from his eyes when he had seen what she was wearing- or how little. Her long legs were pale but muscled from all the hard work demanded from her in the upkeep of the farm and now the prison. Her hips had shifted, curving up into her small waist and up to small but perky breasts. She didn't look like a child, but a young woman. Not the voluptuous women he had preferred, but a woman's body all the same, and not nearly as thin as one might have expected for their current world. And his body was making sure he knew it.

Daryl hadn't been very good with the ladies before the turn. Of course, he had had a few that he had seen regularly and they'd had a good time, but none he would have considered life sharing partner material. No, those had been purely physical. But this girl, this young woman, wasn't one of those women. She was the type that before, he would have seen perfectly at home behind a white picket fence with a yard full of kids, a mini van and a rich successful, doting husband. She wasn't a one night stand type.

He tried to pay attention to anything but her pale skin as he waited for her to spit out why she had woken him. And then, it was like he was tasting heaven. Sweet, merciful heaven. He wondered if this was a dream. If he had been bitten somewhere and he had woken in a dream and this was his torture, to feel heaven knowing he didn't deserve to. He stiffened up his hands lifting to her arms to pull her away when he felt her fingers slide into his hair. He almost moaned against her lips. No one had ever been so intimate with him. He had never imagined that anything had been missing in his life, in his prior experiences and in his wants until that moment. Her lips weren't nearly as experienced as some that he had met, but they were sweet and perfectly shaped against his. He could taste her want, her hope, her need.

The thought woke him and he jerked back, staring at her wide eyed. "Whadya think yer doin girl," he growled moving away from her and pacing the length of his room. This was bad. It was enough for her to have some sort of crush on him, but for him to respond? He was a sick old man. Her father was going to kill him.

"I'm tired of being alone," came her soft reply and he could swear he heard tears clogging her voice. He nearly swore. He knew what she meant. They were all alone, merely congregated together as a mismatch band of merrymen.

"Whadya mean alone? Yer dad and Maggie are here." He prayed, for maybe the second time in his life, that she didn't start crying. He didn't know how to deal with a woman crying, and he sure as hell didn't want to learn how.

"It's not the same. I... I want to be a woman to someone." Daryl watched her pull her knees up to her chest, looking very much a young scared girl that she obviously didn't want to be.

"What bout Zach? Or the guys from Woodbury?"

A small smile stole across her lips and she shook her head. "No... They only think they know what to do. I want a man... A man like you, Daryl," she said, lifting her eyes shyly to look at him. His groin tightened and that look, a mix of innocent and sultry that he was sure she didn't even know she could give.

Could he do it? Could he use her body, taste her innocence and still act as though nothing had changed? His body was screaming at him yes. And with her looking up at him like that, like he was some kind of hero, it made it hard for him to think straight. He had never had anyone look at him like that and it was a heady feeling. His body shifted closer to her on its own, pulled in like gravity toward her. As long as he kept things physical, as long as he didn't let her crush develop into anything more, maybe she would get bored with him and move on. The thought made his gut clench like he had been punched, but he knew he had nothing to give her. Relationships these days just didn't end well. Rick and Lori were proof of that, and they had been married before things went to shit.

Beth stood to meet him never breaking eye contact. Sensing his nervousness she was careful to keep still. He was in many ways a frightened animal. He inched closer, their breaths seeming to freeze in their lungs as his hand came up to cradle her face. Her skin was silky under his roughly caloused fingers, a foreign feeling that he had never thought he would know. Unbidden the impression of home drifted to him, but he pushed the thoughts away. Swallowing thickly before he could change his mind he stepped back.

"Tomorrow night, midnight. Meet me in the showers." He watched her blue eyes light up, fighting his bodys reaction. "This will just be sex, Beth," he warned, the light dimming slightly. She bit her lip again and nodded bravely, sticking her hand out to him.

"Deal," she breathed.

Daryl couldn't fall back to sleep after she left. He had lain on his bunk for an hour staring at the cracked dirty ceiling before he gave up and got dressed, heading outside to start his day. It was still mostly dark out but he had never slept well. Even as a kid he had been awake before dawn hoping to slip from his house before his dad returned home from the bar looking to start a fight with someone who wouldn't fight back.

He didn't mind the lack of sleep. It was less time for the nightmares to haunt him. Besides, the animals moved well in the early morning before it was light enough for them to be seen well. Maybe he would get lucky enough to get one today. They had been running slim on good meat lately, most times going without completely or dividing a few squirrels up into a stew big enough for everyone. They tried to make sure those who needed it most got it more often, the same with everything else that was in such short supply. Things were far better than they had been last winter on the road with a pregnant woman, though. He doubted things would reach that low again unless they were again on the road. He didn't think Rick would let that happen without a fight though.

Slipping through the darkened woods Daryl felt the pressure on his chest relax somewhat. The outdoors had always done that for him though. It was part of the reason he had been content to follow Merle around without much complaint. There were no limitations of a daily job, little to no obligations such as bills and time. Daryl had never been as much of a law breaker as Merle, had never been as deeply into drugs, but a 9-5 job and life had never appealed to him. The open road, the quiet of the woods, the solitude and absence of responsibility had been everything he had wanted.

Before.

Now, he would gladly go back and don a suit for a 9-5 job if that meant things hadn't gone to shit. If it meant Merle hadn't been cuffed to a rooftop because of his prejudices. If it meant that Beth could have finished her childhood and been happy.

He shook his head, ridding those thoughts from his head. He needed to be careful with her. Daryl Dixon didn't have much if any heart left, and it certainly wouldn't be pure and large enough to make someone like Beth Greene happy for very long. If he let her in any further he would be left behind broken and empty, not her.

AN: Thank you for all the reviews! I'm sorry its been a while. My kids got sick, then we got pregnant, then learned we are losing the baby. So its been hectic. Working on the next chapter now! Leave me a review :-)