I'm so happy that the next chapter of this is done, I'm trying to spend a bit longer on them, hence why there was a bit more of an update gap than with my others stories. Thank you to those who read it, and reviewed and all those other things. I will try so hard not to disappoint! xxx

Beth allowed Daryl to mope for another week or so. He still wouldn't look her in the eyes, but Herschel surprisingly eased off a bit, even letting Beth go back to her old duties. It was now that she back doing stuff that she felt his absence the most. He had become like a little duckling at one point, basically following her around to sit in silence with her, or she would sit on guard duty with him with the same book she was now reading alone. It wasn't so much the interaction she missed, just the void of

Curly haired cherub boy smiled as he followed his instructions. In one little hand he held a lone kit-kat, and the other he had his own payment of a stale cookie that Beth had stolen for him. He would do anything for Miss Bethy, and he felt special to be chosen specifically for this mission. In his head he played little music like they had in Carl's paper picture books. He pretended he had a long piece of scarlet material around him to play the part, but it didn't matter if he didn't.

The cell block was empty, everyone was doing their jobs or stretching their legs in some way. People were always doing something, he knew that much. His mother and he slept in the other cell block, but Miss Bethy had told him exactly where he was to go. The metal stair made a strange twanging step with each movement he made, but no one was near enough to look in, and if they did what would they say the child? At the end was Daryl Dixon's cell, and that's where he went.

Bethy hugged him when he got back, and he quietly nodded that it went okay. She smiled at him in that way that she hadn't done since she came back from being ill. He wondered what she caught to make her leave them for so long, he hadn't even been able to see her, though he cried and did the pouty face his mother hated him doing cause she would give in. The adults all seemed so serious, and the other children seemed as perplexed as he was at the whole thing. They accepted carol's lessons, though they talked about boring things and she didn't use different voices at story time. But Bethy was currently spreading out a jigsaw puzzle they had all played so many times, she made it into a race, happily yelling 'go' and counting seconds loudly to them all. She called them team building exercises, but he didn't join in.

Instead he leant him little blonde curls against her leg, she patted him hair happily and let him hold her hand. He had missed her. And he was scared she was going to get sick again. Sick like his daddy did, or his grand-daddy had when they left his spaceman themed room and started living in a car because those scary people tried to hurt them.

Daryl got back in from his shift on the guard tower, he had gone up straight from the hunt that day, not that it had lasted long they had unfortunately caught a buck not to hours in. it was good for them all, but he simply stalked off to find any job to do. After finding out fence duty was being taken care off, he took up the position of Glenn's watch so he could have Maggie time. That hadn't helped much, the whole reason he was staying busy was to try and forget the last portion of his life. How hard would he have to hit his head to forget and be at peace again?

Watch still allowed thoughts of her to creep in. and once they started they never stopped. He moved from how stupidly the sky matched the stormy shade of her eyes, to how it had rained that night at the farm too- just like it was now. And then the feel of her lips on his in the cold rain, and then the feel of her hot lips of his around that fire, to the feel of other parts of him against the same night. He groaned inwardly, feeling dirty thinking about Beth that way.

Because he'd do anything to have her back, anything at all. Not even for her to touch him, just to be allowed to be around her- watch her talk to the children and tap her feet as she read. He missed her being around, and it felt like the days after Christmas when you take the ornaments down and the room feels too big and too empty.

But he was resolute, space was what she wanted, or by any means what they needed. A bit of time and she, and he, could remind themselves this 'attraction' was caused by desperate emotions that she never had fulfilled. He was indescribably feeling positive emotions about her not being dead, but he couldn't name what it was he felt about it all, particularly not now. Pushing back his too long hair, he sat there another few hours. Being pulled from his thoughts by Rick, who even gave a brief smile for the first time since the Beth run incident, he left to go to his bed and hopefully not dream about blonde curls.

When he got to his cell he did the usual routine. Sheet down as an impromptu door, jacket off, sit on bed for boots- wait, why was there a kit-kat on his bed? Daryl looked around suspiciously, edging to look at the silver and red wrapper. It seemed weird to have a precisely placed chocolate bar on his bed, and no one would purposely leave him anything nice. Unless it was poisoned. He didn't suspect Hershel or Maggie of stooping that low. He opened it deciding it was 'whoever had left it''s loss, and if it was poisoned well he'd take that too.

After the pleasant, non-poisoned snack he settled in bed, pretending his life was back how it was before this. And he wouldn't sleep with a teenager in a tent because she wanted commit suicide. God, it was so messed up. Honestly, he couldn't even remember why he was the one dragged into this whole fucking mess.

Shit, Beth left the chocolate.

That's how it all started, wasn't it as simple as that? He had naïvely hoped that a slab of dark chocolate would make the Greene girl smile a bit more rather than have that damned fake happiness thing going on like a drugged up cheerleader. Then he was down the rabbit hole and into a world of sorrow and pain and self-destructive belief. Of course, it couldn't be over. She wasn't letting him get out as easily as he got in.

Chocolate is meant to be a classic way of cushioning blows. It's a way of saying 'be happy', and then it was a way of saying 'I'm sorry I'm killing myself', and now- what? What was Beth trying to tell him here? His brain hurt as he tried to force himself to sleep, or not think about Beth, or how he didn't savour that kit-kat that she had left for him.

Great, now a freaking bar of chocolate was stopping him from getting any rest. He made a noise of discontent, slowly breathing and finding it hard to lay here.

For the first week or so he had stayed in Beth's bed. He wouldn't talk to her, or wake her when he left in the early hours of the morning when he left. But after the whole affair he had needed to know she really was still alive and breathing, besides he hadn't slept so well in years. Then the talk with Hershel stopped his nightly visiting, no matter how innocent because his words were still too busy resonating in his skull. Beth was only a little girl really, but no little girl he had ever seen seemed so sure of her solidity of emotion. And that scared him about her. He could lie about what he felt, but she was never going to- not for him, not for anybody else either.

It was possible to not wake Hershel or Maggie and get into the cell they slept either side of. Sandwiched between her family members, Beth's light was always out on time and her movements had been forced to take on a silent quality for when she couldn't sleep and wanted to pace around restlessly instead. That's what she was doing now, pacing. But not the normal pacing, this was sleep-deprived, stay-awake-Beth pacing- she was waiting for him.

He sighed in the door way upon realising this, making her small frame jump slightly and look at him with a vulnerable smile. He offered a hand silently, to guide her thought the cells to a more appropriate place to talk.

Michonne just happened to be walking in as they got to the door, however unlike the rest of the guys here she had no issue silently letting them both got through and heading to bed without ever acknowledging it again. She was good that way, kept her business to herself even when a man way too old for a girl is dragging her around by the hand in her tiny little floral nighty. It didn't look good, but somehow he knew Michonne hadn't taken it out of context, or if she had she didn't actually give a shit. He liked people like that, respected them.

Beth was breathlessly tiptoeing behind him. He was impressed how stealthy she had gotten on her feet, even he was having difficulty remembering she was still there. They headed down the tombs to the library, shutting the door in place and clicking the lock for good measure. It crossed his mind that that looked more suspicious than his plan to talk to her.

Daryl looked up, letting go of her hand gently and imposing a bit of space between them. She looked uncertain, but he felt uncertain. Her little lips were slightly parted, and her lack of shoes made her a whole head shorter than him. He damned her fragility, because it made that needed gruffness inaccessible to his voice.

''What is it you want, Beth?'' he looked at her, hoping the icy blue glare he could do without trying would make her back off. It didn't. Instead she took a step forward, frowning as he took a matching step back.

''I want what we had before-'' her voice was straight-talking, it surprised him how well she had the sweet honey-covered drawl in check. A right little performer, because he could read her eyes like the hunter he was, she was scared- and the power gave him a rush.

''I don't know what you mean-'' he needed to cut her off, stop her fixing the issue with words he could believe, so that he could instead forever deceive himself into believing tried his very best.

''Yes you do, Daryl Dixon. I want us to read together, and sit at the table eatin' stuff, I wanna kill walkers and have you laugh at me being too short to get them properly- and and I want- I want whatever it was we had-'' her voice was stronger, more assertive but it wavered with the emotion she was trying to suppress. Beth was a good little liar, he knew that much, but she was failing to keep it all in. and somehow that was scarier than if she said she never wanted to see him ever again.

''None of that means anything, yer daddy-'' he was ready to throw out a bunch of obstacles and issues that she might give a damn about, but she had taken his moment of smug excuses to grab his face and press her lips against his.

It hurt slightly, but it was like a tiger seeing prey for the first time. Instinctive. It had been too long, but no time at all since he was floating in this ecstasy. He knew exactly how to kiss her back, holding his hands in her hair and tugging her roughly closer. The urgency and need was primal and surprisingly just as strong from her side as from his. He relished the little noises, briefly biting down on her lower lip smiling devilishly at her only standing further onto her tip toes. Her little hands were almost expert in their ingenuousness, pulling at his shirt to run soft hands up his warm skin.

She broke off looking him dead in the eye, hands now holding the waistband of his jeans. He felt dazed, as if she drugged him with that kiss to get exactly what she wanted, ignoring any of his valid reasons to not let himself get hurt.

''-Don't lie to me-'' her voice was small, and eyes too big and wide to belong to a woman of her age. He knew this was the crux of the matter, that he wasn't meant to shy away anymore. And the choice was as simple as having her in a terrifying admission of having feeling for her, or leaving and feeling the pain of the last week until he died.

His lips pressed against hers lightly, nodding as he pushed her into to wall and thus into the kiss. It was the choice he made that started her fervent kisses back, knowing he was moving in the right direction. His hands were on her hips, then lower, kneading the flesh gently. He propped her up effortlessly, using his body to hold her against the door. She made him feel like he was someone else, someone whole and real in a world ruled by humans again but without the shitiness that idea entailed.

And he got to the side of Beth he loved the most, the passionate raw little minx that took down a fully-grown man by laying with a kite and stole his heart along with his bar of chocolate.

Her thighs were cold as the rest of her, he kissed the exposed skin gently, his hard stumble grazing across it desperately. Pinning her down and carefully constructing their own little world in a fort of books. Mused hair and heavy lidded, Beth Greene was more than some farmer's daughter- she was life itself, but something was infecting the prison. Something was busy taking life away.

So what are you guys thinking so far?

xxxx