Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead nor am I in any way affiliated with the show, the comics or AMC. This is strictly a work of fiction for entertainment purposes only. Thanks.

A/N: Okay, first and foremost, thank you to everyone who reviewed. Now, I have to address a few specific reviewers.

Erotic Dreams- I have a method in my writing. I write things out and then I rewrite them twice more before actually posting a chapter. I try to keep at least three chapters ahead. When I read your review, I started laughing. You will see why as you read. I don't want to give anything away, but you were very, VERY close. Let me know what you think!

Now, an anonymous guest reviewer asked if I have ever seen any of the interviews with Norman Reedus where he discussed Daryl's inexperience. I have. I love Norman Reedus as an actor and devour anything I can find of him. As to Daryl's experience, in my story's universe, I do not think Daryl is a virgin, but I definitely agree what Norman has said in that when something happens between the two characters, I want to feel like they have earned it. Also, when it happens (and it is very close to happening, I promise) I have a very specific idea as to who is the aggressor and how the other party is going to react. If anyone else has seen these interviews where Norman discusses this, then I don't think it will be a surprise. It will, however I am sure, be a lot of fun to write. Keep reading and let me know what you think!

Okay, to everyone else, thank you, thank you, thank you for reviewing. Please continue to do so and let me know how you feel about what is going on! Thanks so much! On to the chapter!

Hunted

Chapter Six

Morning had yet to break but Daryl stood with his crossbow, staring out the window of the basement. He had never been a sound sleeper; not in his house. There were too many arguments happening all the time and you never knew when you would need to head for cover. You learned to sleep light and awaken quickly. A few hours rem was all he really needed before his body naturally woke on its own. So, he stood watch. It was getting lighter outside, they needed to get going. He should really wake Beth.

He glanced over his shoulder to where she slept on the mattress. She was bundled in a coarse, grey wool blanket but underneath he could see the edge of the light blue flowered piece he had given her. She hadn't slept in days. She was exhausted. But she had tossed and turned half of the night.

Then she had looked over to where he had been sitting up against the wall underneath the very window he now stood beside.

Her voice had been soft, quiet, "Daryl?"

"Yeah, Beth."

"Would you c'mere? Just for a second?"

He had been confused by the request but he had pushed to his feet and walked over to her all the same. Her eyes had been luminous, two shining beacons in the dark. She withdrew on slender hand from beneath her covers and raised it up to him. "Lay down with me, just for a minute? I need you close."

Daryl couldn't believe how badly he had wanted to do just that but he had remained standing, frozen in place.

"Please," she begged, "Every time I close my eyes, I think I'm back in that cage. If you'll hold me for a little while, I'll know you're real. I'll know I'm safe."

If had been heaven and hell all at the same time. Every instinct that had been beaten into him since birth had made him want to shy away from that moment. Instead, he had reached his hand out. The fingertips brushed before her small, cold hand curled around his. He felt awkward and clumsy as she had drawn him down to her side on the mattress. His joints stiff as planks of wood, he had stretched out on his back beside her. She had rolled toward him and lay her head on his chest.

Daryl wasn't sure how much time passed before he breathed again, but when he finally did, it was the scent of her hair that filled his nostrils, pooled into his lungs, seeped into his body. Even mixed with the dirt and the sweat and the blood, Daryl couldn't remember having ever smelled anything sweeter. Before long, her breathing evened out and he knew that she had finally drifted off. Only after he knew that she was sleeping did Daryl give in to the impulse to actually touch her. He stayed in that position for hours with her head on his chest as he stroked a hand over her hair. He fell asleep as well.

Daryl stared at her now from across the room once again. Extracting himself from her arms when he had woken had been one of the hardest things he had done in his entire life. She had been all warm and soft. Had he ever held anything so soft?

If he had, he couldn't remember it.

Enough of this, he thought. He needed to wake her up. Get moving. He managed to drag his eyes away from her and back to the window just in time to see three men closing in on the house.

"Shit!"

It wasn't the boys. They hadn't been tracked; not yet. But most people out there weren't like Rick or Tyreese; they were like Joe. They were like the governor. No way in hell he was letting any single one of them near Beth.

"Beth," he said in a harsh, almost frantic whisper as he knelt down by the mattress to shake her, "Bethy, wake up. Time to go."

She stirred from slumber and rubbed her fists over her eyes, "What?"

"There's some guys outside. We gotta go."

Beth didn't ask any more questions, nor did she dawdle. Rather she sprang to her feet, pulled on her still damp boots and began shoving supplies into her newly acquired messenger bag. Daryl motioned her over to the window with him. He had lost sight of the intruders, so he slowed his breathing, cleared his mind and waited.

He didn't have to wait long. There was a loud bang as the front door was most likely kicked open. They were gonna sweep the house. The crashing of that door may as well have been the starting pistol of a race with how quickly Daryl sprang into action at the sound. He popped out one of the windows. It would be snug but they could squeeze through. He grabbed Beth's bag and tossed it out, followed by his own. The footfalls above his head were as loud as ancient war drums.

"Ladies first," he said before boosting Beth through the narrow opening, then scrambling through himself.

As soon as she was outside, Beth hurried to her feet and flattened herself against the side of the house to wait for Daryl. She was checking back and forth in either direction and sliding her bag over her shoulder as Daryl emerged and got his feet under him. He scanned the perimeter while pulling his bag onto his back. Then without looking at her, just instinctually knowing where she was, he reached back and caught Beth by the elbow. The two of them crouched as low as they could and darted away from the structure that had served as a night's sanctuary.

Daryl slowed their pace to a brisk walk once he was confident that they were out of the sightline of anyone that might be in the house. They hadn't been seen. It was about time something went their way for a change. He released his hold on her arm as they slowed down. Beth didn't hesitate. As soon as he let go of her arm, she reached for his hand, threading her fingers through his.

"Was it Joe?" she asked, breaking the silence that had hung between them since Daryl had opened that window.

His grasp curled around her hand, "Nah. Dunno who they were. Not takin' any chances, though. Not again."

"Daryl—."

"No," he cut off whatever she might have said, "Never again. Far as I'm concerned, there is only one good person left out there and I aim to keep her safe."

Something warm and wonderful flooded through her entire body at his words, even if he was wrong. She gave his hand a gentle squeeze thinking that there were at least two good people left. She wanted him to look at her. She wanted to put her arms around him. She knew that he was determined to keep her safe, to keep her alive. And she was all for that. But they could run forever. She didn't want to run forever. She didn't want to exist for the sole purpose of not dying. She wanted a home. She wanted some semblance of a life. And she wanted that with Daryl.

"Where're we goin'?" she asked.

He didn't answer. Just kept walking. She still held her hand which was reassuring but after everything, she needed more than just blindly relying on him to handle anything that might come their way. She needed to know the objective. If she knew what they were heading toward, the goal at hand, then she could be helpful in achieving it. She could be useful.

"Daryl," she said, giving his hand a light tug, "I'm scared—."

"I'ma take care of you."

"I know that!" Frustrated, this time she pulled him to a complete stop so that she could look him in the eyes, "But I can help you. You know I can, you taught me how. Tell me where we're goin', what we're doin' and—and I can help."

Daryl could do little more than just stare at her for a long moment. Her eyes were so big and round and glassy with determination. Her chin jutted out just the slightest bit as though daring him to contradict what she had said. Without his consent to do so, his hand tightened on hers.

Beth wouldn't allow doubt to enter her mind. Daryl would see it; see through any act she put on. He was the smartest, most observant man she had ever met in her life. And she needed him to have faith in her, to believe in her just a little. No more would she been the naïve, hapless little girl who sang songs and spent her time looking after the 'other, younger children.' She wasn't a child any longer. She wanted him to be able to see that about her; needed him to acknowledge her as a woman.

Daryl seemed to come to some internal conclusion, then pointed to their right, "Those tracks we were on yesterday are that way. Not too far, but not too close. We're walkin' parallel to 'em. They'll run along the edge of a town eventually. We keep an eye out, we're gonna find us a car. Get as far from here as we can."

"Okay, then," she said with a wide smile, "now I can help."

"C'mon," he said, drawing on the hand that still grasp his to get them on the move once again.

They hadn't been walking for ten minutes before Daryl swung his crossbow up and fired. The walker hit the ground while releasing one last gurgling snarl. It wasn't alone, however.

There were seven of them that descended; a pack of drooling, roaring, rabid beasts. Daryl managed to get off one more bolt, taking down on more walker before dropping his bow and unsheathing his knife. Beth had pulled the hatchet from her belt. The odor was strong, overwhelming. Stagnant blood, rotten, decaying flesh, death. It seemed to wash over Beth as the walkers bore down on them. She swung at the first one that came at her. She caught it in the temple, spraying her in the face and chest with dead, blackened blood, but the thing went down.

Daryl was faster than she was. He hacked the side of one walker's head clean off and pinned a second to a tree before jabbing it through the eye. He did all of this in what seemed to be one, long fluid motion. A walker was headed for his back and Beth leapt forward without thought. It grabbed onto Daryl's shoulders, but she reached out and caught hold of the collar of its grimy, threadbare shirt and jerked it back away from him. She then kicked it in the back of the leg, bringing the creature down to its knees and enabling her to slam her hatchet into its head just below the ear. Two left.

Daryl had one on the ground, trying to get a good blow to the thing's head while the other staggered toward her.

She brought her weapon down, embedding the blade in the top of its skull. The walker dropped. Beth took a deep gulp of air, willing her body to slow the adrenaline flow that was going on in her bloodstream. Daryl was still grappling with his walker so she went to help him, but her hatchet stayed stuck in the skull of the walker she had just taken out. She jerked on the handle again, a little harder. Nothing. She wrapped both hands around the handle and tugged again. It didn't budge. The damn thing was really wedged in there.

The bushes to her side rustled. Beth gave another frantic pull at the handle of the hatchet. An eighth walker emerged from the brush and came at her. Beth jerked again at the hatchet but her hands slipped from the handle and she fell backward, landing in the dirt with a thump. The walker closed in on her. It had been a man. The side of its face had rotted off and its left shoulder hung down at an unnatural angle. It gnashed its teeth and spit and sputtered as it drew nearer. Beth crab crawled backwards, trying to escape its reach and get back up to her feet. Its gnawed on, skeletal fingers scrambled for purchase on her legs when a wonderfully large hand wrapped around its forehead and jerked it back. There was a quick, somewhat squishy and all too familiar sound of steel entering flesh and the walker feel to the side.

Daryl stepped forward and helped her up. "Lose somethin'?" he asked.

"It got stuck." Beth defended.

"Mmm," Daryl mumbled and walked to the corpse that still had the hatchet buried in its head. He grasped it with one hand and gave a pull. The hatchet didn't move. He glanced up at Beth from the tops of his eyes and she didn't even try to hide the told-you-so expression on her face. He offered no more concession than a sideways smirk, but that was enough for her. He braced his foot on the walker's head and yanked her hatchet free. Flesh and brain and bone fragments flew through the air as he un-lodged the blade.

"Nice arm," he said when he handed it back to her.

Beth tucked the weapon back in her belt and watched Daryl retrieve his two used crossbow bolts. Wiping them on the leg of his pants, he turned toward her and said, "C'mon, Badass. We can't stop now."

Joe received none of his usual enjoyment from the three men they had discovered in the large plantation house. They were a sad substitute for the quarry that he really wanted. He worried that it was these men that they had tracked from the railroad. Had Daryl gone the other way? Had his instincts failed him? It was disconcerting to think so. What did he have if he could no longer trust his gut?

One of the bedrooms had a mattress missing so he took the other one. He lay on his back in the darkened room, staring at the ceiling and listening to the boys' raucous howling. He thought about Daryl. In the morning, after a good night's rest, he would reevaluate. No way would he let that boy get away. The girl either. No. He would find them and when he did—

They'd have to restrain Daryl somehow. Handcuffs or something like that. He'd slip any knot they put on him, of that Joe was certain. And if the boys tried to simply hold him down—well, Joe's money would be on Daryl. They'd find something though.

And then, Joe would go to work on Blondie.

He wanted to be able to see Daryl's face when he tied that bitch up and stripped her down. He wanted to bring agony to that boy's eyes when he drew his knife across her pretty, pretty flesh.

But first, he had to find them.

Dammit!

How had he gotten off track? That wasn't like him at all!

The door to the bedroom opened and Leon walked in. He tossed something onto Joe's chest, "Thought you might wanna see that. Found it in the basement—along with the missin' mattress."

Joe looked at the object that Leon had thrown to him and felt the grin spread slow across his face like melting butter. In his hands, he held a tattered yellow shirt. The very same shirt that had at one point been wrapped around Blondie's pretty little frame.

"They were here."

A/N: Okay, that's it for now. I really feel like Daryl was helping Beth learn to be self-sufficient and take care of herself in the show and I wanted that to show here. I hope it did. I want them to be a unit. I hope you'll let me know what you think.

Now, I have a little poll question! I already know where I am headed with the story, but I am curious to know what you all think. The question is, what character do you want to see Beth and Daryl reunited with: Rick (therefore Carl and Michonne), Maggie, Glenn or Carol? Let me know who you feel would be the most interesting! Thanks so much for reading and reviewing (hint, hint, wink, wink.)