Ch.32

His eyes opened slowly and it was sunny. He could feel the warmth of another body lying beside him, the soft pressure of someone pushed against his chest. He was vaguely aware of his arm snaked around a body with soft, womanly curves. But his mind was still groggy from sleep, not yet making sense of what was happening.

As the fogginess in his mind cleared, his eyes began to scan the room. It was Beth's room. He was lying in Beth's bed. His arm was wrapped securely around Beth's body, her mop of blond hair splayed out across his chest as her head rested above his heart. And he was confused.

He remembered coming to her room last night to talk to her, to see how she was doing. And he remembered watching as Beth slowly fell asleep. But he had no recollection of falling asleep himself, let alone pulling Beth this close to him.

He wanted to move, to get up and leave her room before she woke up. But he knew that if he moved it would wake her up, and she looked so peaceful. The worried lines in her face that had been apparent yesterday were gone. The pained expression and the trail of tears from the memories of what had happened to her had vanished. And she wasn't having a nightmare.

So he laid there, his eyes glued to her face. His fingers gently brushed back a strand of hair that had fallen over her eyes. He watched the steady rise and fall of her chest. And he smiled when her hand curled into his shirt, gripping it loosely.

He didn't understand how someone could do something so horrific to someone who looked so innocent. He didn't understand how Eric could look at Beth, see her innocence and her goodness, and still want to do something so horrible to her. Eric had said that he had "tamed" Beth, that she had stopped fighting, but Daryl knew that he was wrong. Maybe Beth had given up the fight in that brief moment; maybe she had turned off her mind and tried to block everything out, but there hadn't been anything else she could've done. And Daryl knew that Beth had been fighting ever since her attack. He knew that each and everyday she was fighting the memories, the demons that haunted her, and he knew that she was winning.

Beth shifted slightly and Daryl knew that she was starting to wake up. He knew that he should loosen his arm around her, but he didn't. He was too comfortable. The warmth from her body heat was too comforting. And her body fit perfectly next to his. He felt his eyes starting to droop.

But then there was more movement. There was coldness where there had been warmth. His arm wasn't wrapped around someone anymore, instead resting against the warm spot on the bed where she had been. The heaviness on his chest from her head was gone, and the tickling sensation her hair had caused on his neck and chin had disappeared. Looking over he saw Beth sitting straight up in the bed, looking at him.

"Sorry," she whispered awkwardly, her cheeks turning a light shade of red.

"S'fine," he said tiredly.

"I-I didn't know that I was laying like that. You could've pushed me away."

"I said it's fine, Beth."

There was a long, awkward, and tense pause of conversation, the silence hanging heavy in the air. Beth was still looking at him, her cheeks still red from blushing, and Daryl was looking at her.

"Did you really mean everything you said last night?"

"What d'ya mean?"

"Everything about all the stuff I've been through and it makin' me stronger…me being like Daddy…"

Daryl looked at her for a moment, studying her face. "Yeah, I meant all of it. You haven't let them win, Beth," he said, sitting up, resting his back against the headboard of the bed. "It would've been easy to have just given in to it all, to let it overwhelm you, to let all of the bad things win…but you haven't let that happen.

"And yeah, you're a hell of a lot like your father. Hell, your father had his leg amputated and he kept goin', he didn't let it slow him down. He overcame it, just like you. You may have hit a few speed bumps, but you haven't let any of it stop you. He would be proud of you, Beth…I know he would be."

And Daryl saw it. He saw the way the corners of her lips quirked upwards. It was barely noticeable, but it was there.

"I'm nervous to go downstairs," she whispered after a few moments.

"Why?" he asked confusedly.

"Because it's gonna be like it was when everyone found out what had happened to me. They're all going to stare. They're going to be wanting to ask me questions, but they won't, because they'll be too afraid to ask."

"Then we'll go downstairs together. And if they want to stare, let them. If they're too afraid to ask their questions, then that's their problem. Just try to ignore them."

Beth nodded.

"Now go and get changed. We can't stay in bed forever."

Beth smirked at him before standing up. "I'm kinda already dressed…I never changed out of my clothes from yesterday."

"Alright, then lets go downstairs and get some breakfast; I'm starving."

Beth's smile faltered at his words.

"Don't be nervous, Beth. If they wanna stare, then let them. I'm gonna be right by you."

"Okay," Beth said, taking a deep breath.

Daryl slowly stood up, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. He looked at Beth for a moment before walking to the door and holding it open for her. And he soon found out why Beth had been nervous. As soon as they reached the bottom of the stairs, all eyes were glued to her. They followed her every movement, but every once in awhile stray eyes would wander to Daryl, and Daryl would meet the stare dead on, warning them to stay quiet, to look away from Beth.

And Daryl could feel the questions hanging in the air. He knew what they wanted to ask. They wanted to know if she was okay. They wanted to ask her if she needed to talk about it. They wanted to tell her that those men couldn't hurt her anymore, that she was safe now. But like Beth had said, nobody asked her anything; everyone's questions remained unanswered because they were too afraid of saying the wrong thing to her.

Placing a hand on the small of Beth's back, Daryl gently guided her towards the dining room table. Beth kept her head down as she walked, avoiding looking at anyone.

"Sit down. I'll go get ya' something to eat," Daryl whispered softly before walking to the kitchen.

He didn't really know what to get her. They were starting to run low on food. All that was left sitting on the counter were cans of mixed fruit, corn, and beans. He grabbed a box of granola bars and turned it upside down, frowning when nothing came out of it. They would have to go on a run, and soon. Grabbing a can of fruit, Daryl quickly walked back to the dining room.

Beth was sitting at the table, her hands resting in her lap. He was thankful that everyone had had enough sense to leave her alone. He pulled out a chair and sat down, gracelessly setting the can down on the table with a loud clatter, causing Beth to look at him.

"Klutz," she muttered jokingly.

"Whatever," Daryl said, trying to sound defensive, but not able to control the soft chuckle that escaped his lips. "You gonna go on your walk today?" he asked as he used his knife to open the can.

"I don't know…probably not."

Daryl nodded. He understood why she might not want to. Hell, if he had been through what she had, he probably wouldn't be going on a walk today either. She was probably scared shitless that something would happen while she was gone.

"Maybe you should just rest today," Daryl suggested, sliding the can across the table and to her. "Eat."

"No spoon or fork?"

"Nope, not today…sorry," Daryl said when he realized that he had forgotten.

"What are you going to do today?" Beth asked.

"Gonna go out hunting once you finish eating."

"You don't have to wait for me to finish eating, Daryl," Beth said, dipping her fingers into the can and pulling out a piece of pineapple.

"Yeah I do. Can't just let you sit here by yourself with the wolves in the other room waiting for you to come out."

"I'll be fine. I can deal with them."

"I know that you can, but it doesn't mean that I'm just gonna leave you."

"Well, if you're going hunting you'll be leaving me."

Daryl sighed.

"I'll probably just end up watching Judith or something. I don't know, maybe I'll go on a walk later…maybe Maggie will go with me."

"What about me?"

Both Daryl and Beth turned at the same time. Maggie was walking into the dining room, and by her tangled hair and tired eyes it was apparent that she had just woken up.

"I was just telling Daryl that maybe I'd go on a walk later on with you, but if you don't want to then we don't have to."

"No, I'll go on a walk with you. It'd be nice to get out of the house and away from everyone else for a little while," Maggie said, her words mumbled by a yawn.

"You can go now, Daryl. Maggie's here, you don't need to stay with me. Go hunt and bring us back some food," Beth said quietly, looking at him.

Daryl stood up and stretched. He reached down and grabbed his crossbow, which was leaning against the wall, and looked back at Beth. "I'll be back in a few hours."

"Okay."

Daryl began to walk out of the dining room but stopped. "Maggie, we need to go on a run soon. Got no goddamn food in this house. Are we trying to starve ourselves?"

"I think we've had other things on our mind, Daryl. I'll talk to Glenn about maybe going into town tomorrow or later this week."

"Better hope I kill something today or else we're all going to be eating beans and corn for dinner," he joked, starting to walk again.

It didn't take him long to reach the woods, which were unusually quiet for this time in the morning. He had walked past the spot he had killed that man. His blood was still staining the grass, and Daryl was hoping that it rained soon, because the blood of all of those men were staining the ground of the Greene property. He didn't want Beth to see that if she went on a walk today.

He idly wondered where their bodies were now. A part of him wished that Rick had just thrown them out in the middle of the woods. He wished that Rick had left their bodies to be eaten by walkers. He didn't think that these men deserved a burial of any kind, but he knew Rick, and he knew that Rick would bury them.

Looking down at his hand he saw the scrapes that had been caused by the punches he had thrown at the man he had killed. His knuckles were scabbed over, and his hand was lightly bruised. Flexing his hand caused him the slightest amount of pain, but he wouldn't change what he had done. He would kill that man over and over again. Just thinking about that man made him angry.

Daryl had been knocked out for the majority of Beth's rape. He hadn't had to endure listening to her screams for long. And while he had let his mind wander to the details about what may have happened to Beth, he had never really heard the full story. He had heard Beth's version, her brief version about what had happened, and that had been hard enough to hear. But listening to that man tell him what had happened to Beth, what Eric had done to her, it made him sick to his stomach.

A part of him was thankful that he had been knocked out. He was thankful that Beth's screams didn't haunt him every night, like he knew they would if he had been conscious for the entire thing. But another part of him hated himself for not being able to do anything. He knew that even if he had of been awake there wouldn't have been anything that he could've done for her. He had been outnumbered, and Beth had already been in the arms of that man, her body shielding the man's, making it impossible for him to shoot his bow.

But if he had been awake maybe he would have been able to distract Beth through it, talk to her. Maybe he would have been able to cause a big enough distraction, or put up a big enough fight to have allowed Beth the chance to run. He'd never know, though. There were so many different ways that it could have turned out, and now they just needed to deal with the one way it had turned out.

And there had been last night, his talk with Beth. He didn't know if Beth had felt it last night, the tension in the air, but he had. But it wasn't an unwelcome tension, it wasn't the kind of tension most people ran from; this tension was different, something he had never experienced before, it was a feeling he welcomed, a feeling he didn't quite understand, but he knew that it centered around Beth.

And then this morning, waking up with Beth nestled against him. He wasn't the type to sleep with someone else in his bed. Sure, he had done it a few other times with Beth, but he had only allowed it because he knew that she had needed him, that for some reason, he kept her nightmares away. But he had never fallen asleep and woken up with someone that close to him, and it felt so natural, so comfortable. And when Beth had moved from his side, he had immediately felt her absence.

Daryl was starting to realize that he'd do anything for Beth. He already knew that he would do anything for anyone in their group, but it was different when it came to Beth, and he didn't know why. He was protective of her, and he was summing it up to them having escaped the prison together, having been forced to rely on one another.

His thoughts were interrupted by the scattering of nails against bark. Quickly lifting his bow, he aimed and shot. The bolt found his target and a squirrel fell from the tree. It was just one little squirrel, but it was meat, meat that they desperately needed.

Author's note: I'm going to start off by saying that this isn't my favorite chapter, but I feel that it's necessary. I'm not going to lie, I had a bit of writer's block when writing this chapter, but I managed to work through it, and this is the end result.

This chapter deals a lot with Daryl's thoughts and his reflecting on what has happened. He admits that he'd kill that man again if he had the chance. And he still feels guilty about what happened to Beth. And something else, Daryl felt that tension that Beth had felt while he was talking to her.

Please leave a review and tell me what you think.

Side note: Updates won't be as frequent as school has started. I'm going to try to find a balance between my school work, work, and my writing. So until I find that balance, I'm not sure when the next update will be...I'd guess maybe two weeks tops, but I'm not sure.