Here is chapter four! It may be a day or two before I can post chapter five. Work has gotten insane and I'm working lots of overtime to meet extremely tight deadlines. Bear with me and please review! :)

"Hold it higher," Daryl instructed. Beth rose the crossbow, and Daryl shook his head. "Not that high." He stepped close to her and stood behind her, his arms reaching around her and gently lowering the bow to the correct height. Beth tried to ignore the jolt in her stomach that she felt as he touched her skin and squinted at the target ahead on the tree before firing. The bolt sailed through the air and hit its mark. She let out a victorious whoop and turned around to grin at Daryl.

"Told you I could hit it!"

"You wouldn't have with the way you were holding it without my help," Daryl smirked at her. Beth rolled her eyes and went to collect the arrow from the tree.

The pair of them had been at the hunting cabin for five days now, and Beth's ankle was bothering her much less. She had been going stir crazy sitting in the cabin recovering, and now that she could walk without a pronounced limp, she had demanded that Daryl take her out to practice more with the crossbow. She was still eager to learn more about tracking, but Daryl didn't want them to wander too far from the cabin until she was fully healed. Her ribs were still pretty battered, and despite the improvements in her ankle, he knew that if they came across trouble, she wouldn't be able to run very well. He had agreed to teach her more about using the crossbow, however, and now they were practicing with it outside the cabin.

"Let's make a game of it," Beth suggested as she returned with the arrow. She handed it to Daryl, and he loaded the bow for her.

"A game? Like how?"

"Like every time I hit the target, you have to tell me something about your life before the turn."

Daryl narrowed his eyes at her. "I don't like the sound of this game."

"Oh, come on," Beth said with an eye roll. "It doesn't have to be anything serious or important. You could tell me what your favorite food was, or what your first car was, or whatever."

"Why do you care? Why do you wanna know 'bout my life before?"

Beth shrugged. "Cause you pretty much never talk about it. You're a damn mystery, and I want to know more about you."

Daryl didn't look convinced, and Beth rolled her eyes again.

"You said it yourself; I wouldn't have hit the target without your help. Who knows if I'll be able to hit it at all?"

"Good point," Daryl replied with a smirk. "So what happens if you don't hit the target?"

"I'll tell you something about me."

Daryl almost made a comment about how much she already talked about her life before the turn, but decided against it. He nodded.

"Okay then. Take your first shot."

Beth carefully raised the bow and aimed it. Daryl could already tell she was aiming too low, but he said nothing, standing back with his arms crossed over his chest. Beth let the bolt fly and, as Daryl had suspected, it hit the tree a good 6 inches below the target.

"At least I hit the tree," Beth shrugged. She went and retrieved the bolt and handed it to Daryl, who was eying her expectantly.

"Oh, right. Umm, let's see. Before the turn, I wanted to go to college and major in elementary education," she stated.

"You like kids?" Daryl asked as he loaded the bow again for her, but he realized it was a stupid question since she had been Judith's primary caretaker at the prison.

"Yeah," she said with a smile. "Always wanted a few of them later in life. Obviously that's changed now. This world ain't a place for children."

Daryl nodded gravely, trying not to think of Judith's unknown fate as he handed the loaded bow back to Beth. She took careful aim again and released the bolt, and once again, it hit too low, but only by about three inches this time. Beth sighed heavily and went to retrieve it.

"I never once skipped class in high school," she stated as Daryl loaded the bow. "At least, not until things started going bad right before the turn."

"Really?" Daryl asked incredulously. "I think I skipped more than I went. Didn't graduate, neither."

"Well neither did I," Beth replied. "Hey, look at that. You're tellin' me stuff without me even hitting the target."

Daryl rolled his eyes at her and handed the bow back to her again. Something about Beth made her easy to talk to, which kind of scared him. Beth may have said she wanted to know more about him, but Daryl was sure that if she knew about all the skeletons in his closet, she would regret wanting to know.

Beth aimed the crossbow and let the arrow fly, and this time, it struck the target. She squealed in excitement and ran to grab it.

"Now you have to tell me something!" she said triumphantly, handing the arrow to him and trying to ignore the way his biceps flexed when he loaded the bow.

Daryl hummed in thought, wondering what he could tell her that wasn't serious or depressing. He handed the bow to her.

"My usual drink order at a bar would be a Jameson on the rocks and a Hamm's beer back."

Beth looked at him blankly. "I don't even know what that means."

Daryl chuckled, forgetting how young she actually was. "Jameson is an Irish whiskey. Hamm's is a shitty cheap beer."

"We still have a bottle of whiskey that remains untouched in the cabin," she reminded him with a grin.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd think you're tryin' to get me drunk," Daryl grumbled.

"Maybe I am." Beth smirked at him with a devious look in her eye, and Daryl couldn't help finding her mischievous expression sexy. He shook his head. No, not sexy. She's still practically a kid, he scolded himself.

"I'm surprised you'd want to be around me when I'm drunk after the way I was last time," Daryl said.

"I handled you just fine then, and I think I could handle you just fine now," Beth replied as she aimed the crossbow.

Her words were innocent, but Daryl immediately thought of Beth "handling" him in other ways. He wanted to slap himself for thinking such thoughts. Why couldn't his mind stay pure? Ever since he had accidentally walked in on Beth in her underwear a few days prior, he found it hard to ignore his attraction to her. It was completely inappropriate, but Daryl couldn't help it. Despite her young age, Beth was beautiful. Daryl now suddenly found her innocence alluring, and the desire made him feel like a perverted old man. He had tried to convince himself that his attraction was solely because he hadn't been with a woman in years, and walking in on Beth nearly naked had been his only glimpse of a real woman's body since the turn. But that was the problem—Daryl had been thinking of Beth as a girl, not a woman, until the sight of her body proved otherwise. And he knew that his attraction wasn't purely physical. Beth made him feel like a different person, and the goodness in her was almost intoxicating. As much as he tried to ignore his newfound feelings, the way his heart sped up when she would lay her head on his chest each night before going to sleep couldn't be ignored. One thing was for sure, though. Daryl was terrified of his changing feelings for Beth.

A delighted yelp brought Daryl out of his thoughts. Beth had hit the target again, and she was grinning ear to ear when she returned the arrow to him. She looked at him expectantly and Daryl sighed.

"Okay, uh . . . I shot my first buck when I was six years old."

"Impressive," she said. "Your dad must have started teaching you when you were really young."

Daryl nodded once, not wanting to delve into it. Beth looked like she was about to ask more about it, but he was saved from the query by the sudden appearance of a walker shambling toward them a few feet away. Daryl started to load the crossbow, but Beth had already flipped open her new Swiss army knife and was marching toward the ghoul with the blade in hand. Before Daryl could even aim his crossbow, she put the biter down with a swift thrust of her blade. She turned to smile triumphantly at him, but another walker appeared to her left, which Daryl quickly put down with the arrow he had loaded for the first. He scanned the woods for signs of other biters, and but thankfully the woods seemed quiet once again.

"First walkers I've seen out here," Daryl said as Beth wiped her blade clean on the dead walker's shirt. She flipped the blade closed and slipped it back into her pocket.

"They're bound to wander this way eventually," Beth shrugged. "Still, it was nice to not see a walker for a few days."

"We need a better perimeter alarm," Daryl noted, shouldering his crossbow and going to retrieve the arrow he had used to down the second walker. They had managed to rig up a small perimeter alarm in front of the porch using stuff Daryl had scavenged from the road, but it was nowhere near big enough to circle the entire cabin.

"Where are we gonna find the stuff to make one?" Beth asked. "Maybe we should try to find a town nearby?"

Daryl nodded. "Yeah, but not till you're in better shape." He glanced around the woods, looking thoughtful. He turned his gaze back to Beth, who was watching him.

"How long do you really wanna stay here?" he asked her.

If Beth was honest, she wanted to stay at the cabin for as long as possible. She wanted to find their group as much as she always had, but she had to admit that she had enjoyed the past few days with him in the cabin, not having to worry about finding a place to sleep at night or about the dangers of being on the road. It had been just her and Daryl for almost a month now since the prison fell, and even though finding their friends and family were still on her agenda, she selfishly admitted that she wanted to keep Daryl to herself for now. She knew that once they were reunited with the group, Daryl would probably go back to the way he was before they lost the prison, and he wouldn't spend more time around her than he had to. Beth wasn't ready to let him go just yet.

She realized Daryl was still waiting for her reply, and she shifted awkwardly and gave a half shrug.

"At least a couple weeks," she managed to say. "But I wouldn't mind staying longer. If you can put up with my company for longer, that is," she tried to joke, but it came out sounding forced, and she was afraid her voice had revealed her anxiety about the issue. But Daryl just nodded.

"We should think about fortifying the cabin a little. Maybe we can sharpen some tree branches into points to jam into the ground kind of like we had outside the prison gates. If walkers are trying to get to the cabin, it'd skewer some of 'em so we can deal with 'em easier."

"Good idea," Beth agreed. "D'you wanna start on that today?"

Daryl looked up and observed the position of the sun in the sky. He guessed it was early afternoon.

"Yeah. Let's gather up a bunch of wood, and you can start sharpening some of it while I go hunt us down some dinner in a bit."

Beth nodded and followed Daryl into the trees to search for suitable wood for their task. She couldn't stop her eyes from wandering to him as they worked, and she bit her lip as she watched his muscles flex as he lifted the heavy loads of sticks and branches to haul back over to the cabin. She shook her head at herself and wondered when she had become so attracted to him. They had been growing closer as time went on, that was for sure, but it was growing into something more. It was more than just a feeling of safety around him, because that had always been there. Maybe it was because before, they had always been running from place to place, focused on survival, and here at the cabin, they were finally able to relax a little and think about things other than how they were going to survive the night. Regardless of how it came about, however, Beth was starting to see Daryl in a different light.

Each night they had been at the cabin, Daryl had willingly let her fall asleep on his chest before he took first watch. It was becoming routine. At first, she had sensed that he had been uncomfortable, but he was beginning to tense up less when she laid close to him. She liked the feeling of his arm protectively wrapped around her, and she always fell asleep within minutes when she was next to him. It was becoming clear to her that she wanted more from Daryl than just his friendship. She hoped that he was starting to feel the same way, and she caught the way he looked at her at times, but she wondered if she was just seeing what she wanted to see. Daryl was a grown man, and he probably thought of her as just a girl, a kid, too young to have anything beyond friendship with. As she watched him drag two particularly large fallen tree branches toward the cabin, his muscles tense and his skin shining with sweat, she felt a heat in the pit of her stomach that was impossible to ignore. She decided that she needed to make Daryl realize that she wasn't just a kid and that she was a capable young woman. Maybe if he was able to see her as a woman, he would be more open to the idea of pushing the current boundaries of their relationship.

"I ain't out here just for your viewin' pleasure, Greene," Daryl suddenly snapped at her, bringing her out of her reverie.

"Sorry," she said quickly, her cheeks flushing in embarrassment, and she hurried off to find some lighter branches she could haul back to the cabin. She tried not to look at him as they worked, but it was difficult. When Daryl announced that he was going out to hunt, Beth was almost relieved.

Daryl Dixon was going to be the death of her.