"You a cop again?"

Beth can hear the scowl in Daryl's voice as her eyes take in the unfamiliar clothing that Rick's wearing. The way Daryl spits out the word cop, thrown harshly from his mouth like an insult, makes Beth think of an entirely different, much dirtier, word. As her eyes scan the black and blue uniform up to his clean shaven face she feels her brow crease.

He doesn't look like Rick. More accurately, he looks like Mr. Grimes – the gentle man she first met on her Daddy's farm compared to the Rick he became out on the road, the hardened savage who shed blood to keep their family alive. This place is already sloughing off their rough edges, the parts that aren't pretty to look at but keep them safe.

Rick sighs, heavy and tired, his exhaustion not sated from a night in a warm bed as though it were laced into the marrow of his bones.

"I'm trying it on for size."

Daryl ducks his chin; a gesture that could easily be taken as affirmation. It's not. As he looks away, his jaw tightens and there's no way that Rick doesn't notice his discomfort, but he simply mirrors the gesture.

"You settlin' in alright?" Rick asks, swinging his gaze to Beth. "I didn't see you two at the welcome party last night."

Beth sucks in a breath, not having expected the attention to fall on her. Maybe it's because of the uniform but Beth suddenly feels her face growing hot under Rick's attention as her brain floods with memories of last night.

Wine. Daryl's questing hands. Her tight nipple entering the wet heat of his mouth. Her body tingles, remembering the sweet sensations seared into her skin, so vivid they steal the air from her lungs.

Tilting his head back, Rick's eyes narrow as they scan her flushed face, before sliding to Daryl's purposefully averted gaze. The silence stretches between them for a moment too long.

Rick's mouth falls open, a question forming on his lips, when Carol appears, diverting his attention. Relief washes over Beth's hot cheeks for just a moment until she sees Carol. She's wringing her hands as she casts her eyes around the house and then behind her to the empty street, as though wary of being followed.

Tension cracks through the porch like lightening. Daryl's head snaps up, eyes immediately scanning their surroundings for the threat, and finding none, brings a hand up to clutch his bow strap. When Carol turns back to them and settles her gaze on Rick her mouth is a tight line.

"Pete's hitting Jessie."

The words drop like a stone from a great height, and as they sink in the silence grows colder.

"Maybe Sam, too."

Beth feels Daryl's entire body clench. She keeps her eyes on Carol's anguished face even as she can feel Daryl's body winding tight enough to snap, bicep pulsing against hers as his hands frantically clench and unclench at his sides.

"You know this how?" Rick asks, tone brusque to match his uniform, "Sam tell you?"

Carol holds his gaze, hers shimmering. "He didn't have to," she says quietly.

Beth feels her stomach knot as they unanimously fill their lungs with dread and let out a combined sigh, resigned to the inevitable horror of what they know is coming next. Carol's eyes are watery with unshed tears, but her voice is made of steel when she speaks.

"He said his mom put a bolt on the inside of his closet. Tells him to lock himself in sometimes and not come out till morning. He said he can hear his dad yelling, things breaking, his mom crying. Last month it got quiet right in the middle of it and he went out and found her on the floor unconscious, bleeding. Pete was just sitting on the porch."

Beth can't concentrate on anything further than the sound of Daryl's faltering breaths. The way they shake almost as though he is in pain. She can feel the tension in his arm behind her back, strung tight like a bow from his white knuckle grip on the railing. When she dares to glance up at his face, his jaw is churning painfully tight.

She fights a wince when she hears the grind of his teeth. Anger is coming off him in waves, dark and thick, billowing from his flared nostrils with every laboured exhale. She can't remember ever seeing him so furious before, like he could kill a man as soon as look at him, with his bare hands.

Just like when he beat his anger into a walker back at the golf club. His barely caged rage frightened her then, but it doesn't frighten her now. There is nothing for her to fear in him. Yet there's something under the anger that does frighten her; something in his darting eyes that looks a lot like fear.

Raw fear, peeled back and rattling around just under the goose bumps on his scar covered skin. The thought that even a small part of Daryl might be scared chills her to the bone, causing her to wrap her arms around her chest as a shiver runs through her. What could possibly scare Daryl in this place? He's uncomfortable here, that's clear, and this situation with Jessie and her husband is more uncomfortable still, but it's not scary.

Not after everything they've been through. Daryl could kill Pete as easily as look at him. So why is he trembling? She can feel him vibrating out of his skin from where he's pressed against her, overtight like he can't bear not to be touching her.

She presses back, for what it's worth, feeling the pain in each grating breath. Pain. She doesn't understand it, but she recognises it. Here beside him she can feel the rumble of his chest as his anguish swirls violently within.

His fingers wrap around her wrist, pressing hard into her pulse point as though anchoring himself to the beat of her heart. Even as his fingers constrict in a bruising grip she only feels his pain screaming against her skin, suffocating her and sending a tremble through her breath.

Through her entire being as she feels the only constant in her world shift, as though the ground beneath her feet has suddenly become unsteady. Dragging in a breath she looks to Rick, just as Carol is and just as their family always has and always will. His eyes are hard, burning with a cool anger as he rolls his jaw.

Beth watches as his gaze drifts down the street and his hand drifts to a pistol badly concealed in his jacket. Huh. She feels her stomach roll over once more. The more time she's spent with Daryl, the more observant she's become. She notices things she wouldn't have before. She's started to mirror Daryl's darting eyes, his ability to stand back and observe, to question, to listen to her gut.

She's noticed the gun. Deanna said no guns. If the pistol is part of his uniform, why is he hiding it? Because it isn't part of his uniform. Something is going on here that doesn't feel right. That Rick has a weapon he feels the need to hide, and that he's reaching for it now. The murderous look in Rick's eye is all she needs to tell her this isn't leading anywhere good.

"You're a cop. What would you have done before, in situations like this?"

Each set of eyes widen in surprise and swing to Beth. Everyone seems shocked that she is the one to speak, breaking the tense, spiralling silence like a window. Daryl's white-knuckle grip loosens on her wrist, body jerking at her voice as though she's just woken him up.

She clears her throat before blinking up at Rick, "Handle it like that. Don't make it personal."

Rick's eyes narrow for a split second before he levels her with his icy blue gaze.

"An' why would I do that?" He drawls, voice low and rough and laced with an unspoken warning.

Beth doesn't hesitate, she doesn't even blink. "Because Maggie told me how you were lookin' at her, like you wanna save her."

This time, all eyes descend on Rick and follow as his head tilts to the side and his mouth falls open to release an anguished sigh.

"Maybe she needs savin'." He says, with a pitch of desperation.

It's Beth's turn to sigh and she closes her eyes for a moment to keep from rolling them into the back of her head.

"She doesn't need you to be her knight in shining armour, Rick," she tells him, keeping her voice and her face neutral.

Rick snaps, leaning forward, eyes flashing with all the ferocity seething just below the surface, "and how the hell would you know what she needs?"

In a split second, Daryl straightens up off the railing, squaring up to Rick with his broad shoulders. He lets out a warning growl, so low that it's barely audible but Beth feels it run down her spine. She doesn't need Daryl to fight her battles for her. She chose to make this point and she's more than capable of standing up for what she thinks is right.

But her heart squeezes too tight knowing that he'd go to bat for her against his best friend. Rick's eyes flick up to Daryl's and widen a little at what he finds there. He stills; the ferocity in his eyes dying down to a simmer as he stares at Daryl with his sky-blue gaze pulsing wildly.

"I do," Carol interrupts quietly. She takes a step forward and they have no choice but to look at her and give her their full attention. Beth feels Daryl's impossibly wide hand wrap around her waist, rough fingertips catching the soft fabric of her vest.

"I know how this is gonna go with Pete," Carol states flatly, voice heavy with resignation, "There's only one way it can go."

The finger tips curled around Beth's waist close into a fist, pulling worn cotton tight across her clenched stomach. For a moment all she hears is the blood thrashing in her ears as she looks into Carol's desperate eyes, screaming with past pain. Daryl's usually solid presence behind her is racked by tremors that she feels in her heart. Her mind is white noise, the thrashing of her pulse in her ears making her dizzy, until Carol's voice cuts through the noise.

"We're gonna have to kill him."

As all the breath drains from her lungs she feels a great deal of hope go with it. Beth steps back until she feels the heat of Daryl's chest against her shoulder blades, surrounding herself in the haphazard pounding of his heart.