Daryl thought very seriously about impaling himself on his own arrows.
What was he thinking? How could he have just… just kissed her like that? She had been mad at him (he'd been mad too, but that was irrelevant), and he'd just insulted her. Why on earth did he think it would be a good idea to kiss her?
But she had kissed back, hadn't she? Daryl couldn't even remember anymore.
He was at a total loss. He'd never live it down. Hence the idea to impale himself.
While stewing in the house, his eyes scanned over the leather jackets Beth had found on their first day. The first was atrocious; a structured jacket with horrible lining and a skull on the back. Probably from the man's glory days. The second, though, wasn't terrible. It was suppler than the other, and had a reddish tint to it. Daryl, in an attempt to get his mind off his irrevocably stupid actions, slipped it on.
To his surprise, it was a perfect fit. No sense leaving it when it was certainly a useful article of clothing.
After several minutes of pacing in the hallway, Daryl stopped and chastised himself.
"Dixons ain't scared of nothin'," he said. "Jus' go out there and act normal."
That was when Beth yelped. He ran back into the garage, only to see her on the floor with a dead walker on top of her, her knife imbedded in its brain. He quickly went and pulled it off of her. She was shaking slightly, but when given her blade back, she wiped it on her jeans and sheathed it.
"It just snuck up on me. Didn't even hear it rasping until its hand was on my shoulder." Beth shuddered with disgust. "I'll be right back… gonna go change." Daryl didn't even protest that they had a schedule to keep. He simply walked over to the driver's seat and sat down in it.
A few minutes later Beth returned in a new pair of jeans and a ¾ sleeve floral shirt which dipped low, exposing her cleavage. She was going to be the death of him, he just knew it. She hopped in the passenger side and buckled herself in.
"If you don't buckle yours, the car will start beeping." she said in a matter-of-fact tone. Daryl continued to say nothing, but turned the key in the ignition. As he pulled out of the garage, he saw from the corner of his eye Beth pressing her fingers to her lips, a small smile revealing her dimples.
Not five hundred feet later, the car began to beep. Daryl swore loudly and gave in, buckling the belt in.
The first day of driving proved to be exceedingly awkward. Beth had insisted on listening to a cd she'd found in the girl's room, and it was driving Daryl insane. He wasn't sure what a 'Rapunzel' was, and after two tracks, he didn't care.
"Ain't there anything you'd rather listen to?" he asked, his voice strained with irritation.
"Nope," she quipped, a snarky smile plastered on her face. "I've got a dream, I've got a dream! I just want to see the floating lanterns gleam!"
He simmered moodily and resigned himself to silent driving.
Beth had been doing everything she possibly could to get under Daryl's skin, he just knew it. She was being intentionally annoying. They'd been on the road for an hour or so, but their progress was akin to half that time.
More than once did they have to clear abandoned vehicles off the road, and, if they could risk it without attracting walkers, siphoned fuel. They were following a highway system Daryl wasn't familiar with, but the road map he'd found had been helpful thus far.
After the album had looped four times, Daryl had had enough. Angrily, he ejected the disk and snapped it in half before Beth had a chance to protest.
"Hey!" she cried as he chucked the pieces out of the window. "You've got to be kidding me—that could have been the last 'Tangled' cd in existence! It's not like we can go find zombie Mandy Moore and ask her to rerecord it!"
"Who?" Daryl asked, but then shook his head. "Nevermind. Don't matter. Tha' music's givin' me a headache."
"Good," he swore he heard her say under her breath. Then, without skipping a beat, she was opening another cd case and shoving the disc into the player. "This is mellower… sort of."
If be mellower she meant even more annoying, then she was right. Daryl didn't understand how anyone could listen to this music. As they drove, try as he might to tune it out, he unfortunately was now aware of a man named John who went to jail for nineteen years, all for stealing a loaf of bread or something to feed his sister's son.
It actually made him think about Merle.
The bastard had faults, sure. More faults than most, even. But he was a Dixon, and he'd looked out for Daryl, even when times were tough. That day he found his brother meandering around dead bodies as a corpse himself, was the day he never thought would come.
That day broke him.
Not that Daryl would ever fully admit that to anyone. He blinked rapidly to quell the tears which threatened to pour.
Dixon's didn't cry.
Beth sang along happily to the 'Les Mis' soundtrack, even more delighted to see it was annoying Daryl. She felt like a petulant small child, resorting to annoyance to get his attention, but as the minutes dragged on she could feel the tension in the car thicken until she was certain she could cut through it with a butter knife.
After another hour or so of travelling, their path was completely blocked by several cars strewn along the road.
"Shit," Daryl swore, pressing the brake pedal. Beth, who had taken her shoes off earlier and set her feet on the dash to irritate him, laced them back up in preparation. They got out of the vehicle simultaneously, knives unsheathed and at the ready. The first few cars were empty and easy to move. The last held a walker, constrained by its seatbelt. The airbag was deployed; Beth wondered if the impact didn't break this poor person's neck. She jammed her knife through its skull, and it immediately unanimated. Once they had moved the last car from their path, they got back in the SUV and continued on their way.
Beth guessed they were halfway through Tennessee by the time the sun began its descent. As they kept their eyes peeled for a secure place to stay the night, Beth had a thought.
"You know what's odd to think about?" she asked Daryl as a song she wasn't terribly fond of turned on. He didn't answer, and she didn't expect him to. "Probably all of these people on this soundtrack are either dead or walkers. Brad Pitt is probably a walker. So is Bill Murray and Morgan Freeman and Sandra Bullock and— "
"An' your daddy, and Rick and Carl. Little Asskicker's probably dead," Daryl cut her off viciously. Beth felt as though she'd been sucker punched. All the air ripped from her lungs, and her eyes watering violently. It was the most intentionally hurtful thing he'd ever said to her.
Beth ejected the disc and put it back in its case before picking her knees up and wrapping her arms around them tightly. She turned her head to the side, trying desperately not to let him see her cry.
The car was silent for several minutes before Daryl finally spoke up.
"Are you cryin'? Shit, I'm sorry." he said gruffly. "That was an awful thing for me to say."
"'S true though." Her voice was thick.
"Ain't nobody that made it out of that prison alive is gonna be a walker. They ain't gonna die, at all."
"Daddy did." Beth's voice cracked. "If Rick hadn't made y'all wait to fire, my daddy might still be alive, and we might still be at the prison, like it used to be."
"Sweetheart, lemme let you in on a little secret. If Rick had been anything less than what he was, we'd all be walkin' corpses. Without him, we wouldn'ta stood no chance." Daryl said firmly.
Beth wiped her eyes on her sleeve, sniffling slightly. "I s'pose… hey, that place looks abandoned to me." She pointed toward an old bard a couple dozen yards from the highway. "Can we drive this all the way over there?"
"That's what this baby's built for, sweetheart."
Ten minutes later they were nearing the barn. It was around the size of the barn on the farm, so it likely had a loft for hay as well. She crossed her fingers and prayed it wasn't being used for the same thing.
"I'm going to clear it; you drive in when I give you the all clear." Beth nodded, her thoughts still on her father. He got out of the car and she scooted herself over into the driver's seat, palm resting lightly on the gear shifter, which was currently residing in neutral.
Daryl wrenched the door open, knife at the ready, and without warning, six or seven walkers barreled out of the barn, their hands outstretched and groping and their jaws snapping. Beth jumped in her seat, startled. Daryl easily took out the first two, but then the others were all around him. Beth pulled the emergency break up and jumped from the vehicle, unbuckling her knife from its sheath.
They had yet to become aware of her presence in their frenzied state, and she was able to get one in the back of its decaying head before they smelled her.
"I told you to stay in the car!" Daryl hissed as his blade sank into another brain. It splattered Daryl with walker goo.
Before Beth could reply, one of the bigger walkers was lumbering toward her. Daryl was still fighting to putdown the other two. It came within range of her swing, but she missed the head, instead squelching the knife into the soft flesh of its neck. The walker was completely unfazed, and she couldn't unstick her knife. It lumbered forward and she tripped backward on a stick, sending her crashing to the ground.
The walker's teeth were nearly at her throat by the time Daryl was able to dig his knife into its skull. It exited through the walker's forehead, the sharp tip a centimeter away from Beth's nose. She sucked in breath.
"That was close," he said, pulling Beth up off the ground. She could only nod shakily, pressing her boot on the dead walker's head to remove her knife. She turned to thank him and found his shirt sleeve torn and bloody.
"Are you alright?" she asked, her voice hitching in concern. Daryl nodded.
"'S nothin'. Ol' tractor blade in the grass, cut me open when they had me surrounded an' I fell."
"Let's get the car in and I'll take a look at it."
"I'll be fine, sweetheart."
"People have died from less," she reminded him. "Daddy taught me how to suture; it might need stitches." Daryl blanched, and Beth sniggered.
Once the pair were inside the barn, Daryl padlocked the doors shut from the inside, just in case other survivors tried to make their way in. Beth hoped the locked doors would send them away.
She had been right about the loft; there were stacks of hay on either side. What was more, it looked as though someone had been living up there. From the ground, Beth was sure she could spot a bed frame. There was even a sturdy looking ladder and a pulley system beside it.
Beth scurried up the ladder and received the cooler and their food for the evening, plus their packs and, with Beth's insistence, a sheet set and pillows for the bed. There was no way she was sleeping on that bed without clean sheets. Maybe that made her picky, but so be it.
She watched as Daryl locked all the doors in the vehicle and made his way up the ladder as well.
"First thing's first," she said once he was sitting on the hay. "Take off your shirt."
"What?" Daryl asked. Beth rolled her eyes.
"If you leave it on, the sleeve is just gonna get in the way." Daryl reached around and tore the sleeve clean off. "That works too, I guess." Beth sat beside him, first aid kit on her lap. She looked at the wound; it wasn't terribly deep, but it needed cleaning and binding. Beth pulled the rubbing alcohol from the kit and poured some on a cotton swab.
"This is gonna hurt," she told him.
"Jus' do it. I ain't no pussy when it comes to pain." Beth shrugged and began swabbing the wound. He didn't even flinch, even though she was certain it burned. The silence as she cleaned the cut made her feel uncomfortable, and she wasn't certain why.
"Who do you miss most?" she asked quietly. "Carol? Michonne? Weren't you too… close?"
Daryl snorted. "Michonne is one closed off bitch. We was never more than friends." He looked at Beth, stared right in her eyes. "I miss your daddy most. He was the only one who ever talked sense a hundred percent of the time."
"You miss Merle, too, right? That's what you said at the moonshine house."
"You was drunk, you don't remember none of that." Daryl argued.
"I remember everything." she informed him. He looked down sheepishly. "It doesn't matter, Daryl."
He said nothing as she wrapped his arm with gauze.
"There. You'll be just fine. No stitches."
"Toldja." She stuck her tongue out at him. "Ain't it time for grub?"
"Sure. We probably shouldn't light a fire up here though." Daryl nodded in agreement.
After dinner, they stomped the fire they'd created out. The sun was nearly set, so they lit the few lanterns that they had, and Beth stripped the bed of its old sheets before remaking the bed.
"There's room enough for us both," she told him.
"Nah, the hay's fine."
"Daryl, I'm not letting you sleep on the hay." She tried her best to make her tone as final as she could. "Besides, it's gonna get cold up here; the extra body heat will keep us warm."
That was how Daryl found himself pressed up against Beth's backside, which was grinding up against him as she tried to get comfortable. This was going to be a long night.
This chapter was really difficult to write... I tried making it extra long for you guys, and I'm not so sure how it turned out. It's meant to be a transition chapter, because the next one contains the lemonade. ;)
Anyway, keep reviewing. You have no clue how much your reviews encourage me to keep on writing. Huge thanks to everyone that has told me how much they like it!