Please excuse me for a moment while I freak out about this story having over 200 followers. That's a big milestone for me. You guys rock! :)

Here's chapter 26. Enjoy!

Beth and Daryl made it about 80 miles south of the cabin before deciding to look for a place to spend the night. It was late afternoon, and although they could have continued on for some time, both were still quite tired from their lack of sleep the night before. The drive thus far had been uneventful; they had only hit two traffic snags that had caused them to backtrack and choose a different route, and they hadn't encountered any difficulties with walkers or people. Beth had proven to be a decent navigator, as she had guided them on a somewhat spider web-like route that stuck to county highways and only passed through tiny towns. They had stopped in two towns along the way, but only to siphon gas. Beth had wanted to search the local stores for supplies, but being within the city limits of the unfamiliar small towns had made Daryl nervous, and he had vetoed her desire to search for supplies beyond where they had stopped for gas. The truck's gas tank was currently about 2/3 full, and they had extra cans of gasoline stored in the bed of the truck for when they ran out. All in all, it had been a successful first day on the road thus far.

"We should probably stop soon," Beth said, glancing up at Daryl from the map in her lap. "We're getting close to Americus, which is bigger than most of the towns we drove through today. We should probably avoid it if we can."

Daryl nodded and kept his eyes on the road. "Keep your eyes peeled for a farmhouse or somethin'," he instructed. "If we're close to a town, I'd like to avoid campin' on the side of the road if possible."

They had barely driven another two miles before the very opportunity they were hoping for presented itself. Daryl slowed down at the sight of the long dirt driveway ahead. The mailbox at the juncture of the dirt driveway and the paved road indicated the presence of a house down the dirt road. He turned down the driveway, the truck kicking up plentiful dust behind them as they approached the farmhouse in the distance.

Beth readied her knife as Daryl pulled to a stop in front of the small white farmhouse. He grabbed his crossbow from the seat between them and arched his eyebrows at Beth, silently asking if she was ready. She gave a nod and they both exited the truck, eyes and ears on alert for any sounds of nearby threats. Everything was quiet outside the house, and Daryl's eyes scanned the horizon around them, thankfully seeing nothing heading their way.

He jerked his head toward the house and Beth followed behind him up the porch steps. Daryl banged loudly on the door and waited. After a few moments, two snarling bodies threw themselves against the door. Daryl raised his loaded crossbow and Beth reached for the doorknob, quickly pulling the door open and sending the trapped walkers sprawling out onto the porch. Daryl swiftly put an arrow through the skull of one walker, while Beth slid her blade into the forehead of the other. The pair cautiously entered the house and did a quick sweep of the ground floor. They found no other dead lurking inside, and Daryl began creeping up the stairs with Beth right behind him.

There were only two bedrooms, and they were able to quickly discern that both were vacant. Daryl opened one of the two other closed doors in the hallway, which revealed a linen closet that was stocked with towels, bedding, cleaning supplies, and spare toiletries. He made a mental note to come back for the supplies once they had finished clearing the house and went to open the last closed door.

He was hit with the overwhelming smell of decay and had to fight the urge to gag. The door led to a bathroom, and the bathtub held the remains of a corpse that had been decomposing for quite some time. It was impossible to tell whether the corpse had been male or female, but Daryl quickly discerned the cause of death. A knife rested on the edge of the tub, and the tub itself was stained a dark rust color, the remnants of the long-evaporated blood-saturated water that had once filled it. It had been a suicide, and from the looks of the situation, one that had happened in the early stages of the outbreak. Daryl glanced back at Beth behind him and noticed the look of horror and disgust on her face. He quickly shut the door again and backed away from it.

"We'll just stay downstairs," he muttered. Beth nodded quickly in agreement and turned to head back downstairs. Daryl noticed that her hand had gone to her wrist, her fingers rubbing along the scar that remained from her own suicide attempt. He reached out to her and gently grasped her arm, prompting her to stop her retreat and turn back to face him. Her expression was blank, but her eyes betrayed her. Daryl could tell that she was distraught over the memories of what had happened so long ago at the farm. Beth knew that Daryl could read her like a book, and she looked away, feeling ashamed.

"You ain't that girl anymore," he said firmly. She looked back up at him sharply and drew strength from the intensity in his eyes. "You're stronger than that now."

She nodded. "Wouldn't be here if I wasn't," she agreed, but her voice sounded weak to her ears. Daryl's fierce gaze didn't waver from her eyes.

"We both got scars," he murmured. "But we're stronger than the scars. They're from the past, and they don't matter anymore."

Beth drew in a shaky breath, feeling moved by his words. She stepped close to him and slipped her arms around his waist.

"You give me more strength than you'll ever know," she said. "With you, I can get through anything."

There was so much blood. It covered every inch of the bathroom floor, and it was growing in volume. Beth couldn't tell where all the blood was coming from. It was rising up to her ankles, and she stumbled backwards in an attempt to get away from it. A figure suddenly rose from the pool of blood, and the source of the flood was revealed. The blood poured from the slit in the man's throat before her, causing the level of the blood to rise even more. Beth slipped in the sticky puddle and was suddenly immersed in the red fluid, her whole body going under.

She thrashed about and tried desperately to get to the surface. She was drowning. A hand reached into the pool of blood and she grasped it frantically, drawing a huge, gasping breath as she was pulled out of the depths. Her entire body was covered in it, and she blinked the red stickiness out of her eyes. Her gaze traveled to the hand that had rescued her, only to see that the hand was decayed, the skin rotted away and revealing pieces of bone that was still wrapped tightly around her wrist. Beth screamed, but no sound came out. A sinister decomposing face emerged from the pool of blood, the look in its eyes so like the one her last victim had given her just a day before. Beth tried to scream again, begging for help, but once again, it was silent. The rotting face slipped back beneath the surface of the pool of blood, and the hand still attached to her arm began to drag her back under with it. Beth struggled against it, but she was too weak to fight it. She was sliding back under, and she tried desperately to scream again, but her voice once again failed her. She was screaming and screaming, but only silence came out.

"Beth! Beth, wake up!"

Daryl's voice was frantic, and Beth shot up from where she lay on the couch, gasping for breath. Her heart was racing and her cheeks were wet with tears, and as she laid eyes on Daryl hovering above her, she saw the horrified look in his eyes.

"Oh god, it was a dream . . ." Beth said hoarsely. Daryl pulled her to his chest and held her tightly.

"You were screamin' in your sleep."

"I . . . there was so much blood," she whispered. "I was drowning in it. And one of the men from last night . . . he grabbed me, but he was dead, and he was trying to drag me back into the blood with him . . ."

Daryl's hold tightened on her, and he rubbed slow circles on her back.

"Just a nightmare, Beth," he murmured, his voice rough. "Not real."

Beth nodded and stayed in his embrace for a few moments, allowing her heart rate and breathing to return to normal. When she no longer felt the lingering effects of the nightmare, she pulled away.

"How long was I asleep?"

"Just 'bout an hour."

Daryl had allowed Beth to sleep first, volunteering to take first watch. She wondered if his absence after becoming accustomed to sleeping next to him had prompted the nightmare. After what she had endured the night before, she wasn't surprised that she had been haunted by the ordeal without his comforting presence next to her. She sighed and sat up on the couch.

"I can't sleep without you next to me."

Daryl exhaled slowly. "I can't stay with you, Beth," he said regretfully. "It ain't safe like at the cabin . . . gotta keep watch. Gotta keep us safe."

"I know," Beth nodded. "Can you at least stay with me a little while?"

It reminded him of their first night together at the cabin. How Beth had wandered out onto the porch where he had been keeping watch, and told him she couldn't sleep because of the memories of her kidnapping replaying in her head. He remembered how he had agreed to stay with her until she fell asleep, and how heavily his heart had been pounding when she had first laid her head on his chest. He almost smiled at the memory.

"Course I will," he replied gruffly. "Got the perimeter alarms set up, so if anythin' wanders up here, I'll hear it."

Beth smiled, but it felt stiff. She patted the couch next to her, and Daryl didn't hesitate to oblige her. He lifted the pile of blankets that were covering her and laid down on his side, and Beth curled her back against him, both of them fitting together perfectly on the narrow couch. His arms circled around her protectively, and she sighed as she felt the comfort of his embrace.

She tried to close her eyes, but even as relaxed as Daryl's arms made her feel, sleep didn't come easy. Her adrenaline was still pumping from her dream, making her feel more alert than tired, regardless of how exhausted her body actually was. After several unsuccessful minutes of trying to fall back asleep, she huffed impatiently and turned around in Daryl's arms to face him. His intense eyes met hers, sending a shiver to her core.

Beth's soft lips found his, kissing him gently as if he were fragile and could break under the pressure of her lips. He tenderly returned the kiss and felt himself almost melting against her. His hands moved from her back to tangle themselves in her unruly blonde hair, and the kiss quickly started to become more heated. Her lips parted slightly, and she released a soft moan when Daryl's tongue tangled with hers. She pressed her lower body against his, and he groaned and withdrew his lips from hers.

"Beth . . . are you sure you wanna do this right now?"

"Yes," Beth replied somewhat breathlessly. "I want to feel good things, not fear or anxiety. I want you to make love to me."

It was all the reassurance Daryl needed. His lips fiercely claimed hers again, this time holding nothing back. His kiss was dominating and possessive, and it only increased the intense heat that was growing in the pit of Beth's stomach. He ran his teeth over her bottom lip and bit down slightly, eliciting another soft moan from her. Daryl repositioned himself so that he was on top of her, laying between her legs and grinding his growing erection against her. He reached between their bodies and unbuttoned Beth's pants, and she assisted him in shimmying them down her legs along with her underwear. She kicked them to the floor but left her shirt and sweater on due to the chill of the unheated house. When her hands went to unfasten Daryl's pants as well, he grabbed both of her wrists in one hand and stilled her.

Beth barely had time to shoot him a questioning look before he flashed her a quick smirk and scooted down the couch, his head disappearing beneath the blankets. She giggled, but her amusement was quickly stifled when she felt the first touch of his tongue to her center. She gasped and clutched the blankets tightly in her hands as Daryl's tongue tantalizingly traveled along the length of her slit before returning to her already swollen clit. She felt one of his warm hands on her abdomen, and his thumb pulled her hood up to expose more of her clit to his eager mouth. He swirled his tongue around it and Beth moaned breathlessly, squeezing her eyes shut to give herself over to the pleasure he was giving her. He varied the pressure and speed of his tongue; he knew just the right way to give her what she needed.

When Daryl felt her thighs beginning to twitch, he used his free hand to insert two fingers inside her. Beth cried out from the added pleasure, and he could tell she was quite close to the edge. He began flicking his tongue against her swollen nub ever so delicately, almost not even touching her, and he could tell from her labored breathing that his teasing was almost too much for her.

"Daryl, please . . ." Beth gasped.

He grinned against her and obliged, pressing his tongue harder against her and using his fingers to tug at the sensitive spot inside her. Beth released a shuddering moan as she came, her muscles clenching tightly around his fingers. He kept his tongue pressed firmly against her clit as she rode out her orgasm, jerking against him with each wave that passed through her. He crawled back up the couch so that he was positioned on top of her once more, grinning down at her triumphantly as he always did when he had managed to give her such mind-blowing pleasure.

Beth fisted her hands in his hair and pulled him down into a fierce kiss. Her tongue mingled with his and she moaned as she tasted herself on his tongue. Her hands quickly went to the button and zipper on his pants. Before she could tug them down, Daryl fished a condom out of his back pocket. Beth tugged his pants down his thighs while he tore open the condom and rolled it on. He slid into her without hesitation, loving how wet she was.

Beth hooked her ankles around his back and rose her hips to meet each of his slow, hard thrusts. Each time, he withdrew from her almost completely, pausing with just the tip of his cock inside, before slamming his length back into her. He repeatedly hit the sweet spot inside her, and the combination of intense pleasure and near pain soon had her nearing her peak for the second time. Daryl began to speed up, his thrusts still deep and hard, and it wasn't long before Beth's walls were clenching around him in another orgasm.

"Fuck, Beth," he grunted. He pumped himself into her a few more times before finding his own release. Panting, he tried not to collapse completely on top of her as the pair of them attempted to catch their breath. After a few moments, he withdrew from her and quickly removed the condom, tying it off and flinging it to the floor to deal with later. He rolled off of Beth and positioned himself on his side next to her, his back against the back of the couch. He slung his arm across her body and tugged her closer to him, earning a small giggle from Beth.

"That was exactly what I needed," she said, snuggling against him. "I think I'll be asleep in no time."

Daryl grunted a little in response and tried not to give in to the urge to close his own eyes.

"I'll stay here with you till you fall asleep," he said. "Then I gotta go back outside for watch."

"Mhm," Beth agreed sleepily. "Wake me in a few hours. You need sleep, too."

Daryl nodded and placed a kiss on the side of Beth's head. He felt content, and knowing Beth felt the same made it all the more enjoyable. He hoped the next day would be just as successful as their first day on the road had been. But Daryl knew that even if they ran into trouble, they would be able to get through it, just as they always had. They were a team, and a damn good one at that.

I know this may not have seemed like the time or place for smut, but I was having smut withdrawals, and I had my reasons for feeling smutty today (you know who you are!). Hope you enjoyed, and please review! :)