Chapter 6: but there's another one who brings me to your door

She directs him up the road past the farm heading away from town, and from there onto a side road that turns to gravel pretty quickly, cutting into thicker woods, and right about then he's sure she's Up To Something.

For one thing she hasn't said much, though the cheerfulness he heard on the phone and saw in her when she came out to meet him doesn't seem to have faded. She's just been looking out the window - rolled down to admit the breeze, because the day is getting kind of hot and all the wet rising out of the ground is making it humid - and humming along with the radio.

He's pretty sure she's too young to really know a lot of these songs. But he likes listening to her hum. Humming isn't usually a good thing to listen to, but she does it well. Tuneful. A little edge of that sweet voice he heard the first night and hasn't heard again.

But otherwise she's being quiet. Okay, he can be quiet too. He likes quiet. It comes naturally to him. He lights up another cigarette and she doesn't even make a face at him. She doesn't look at him at all.

So he - to the extent that he can without slamming them into a tree - looks at her.

He realizes that this is the first time since that night where he's seen her hair when it wasn't wet and tangled. It's still a little tangled, in a way that looks more windblown than anything else, pulled into a ponytail high at the back of her head. She's made one small braid to the side, and unlike the rest of her hair it's neat, careful, something somehow almost elegant about it. The wind pulls at her, pulls at the edges of her gray tank top, and when she lifts a hand to push loose strands out of her face the bracelets on her wrist click softly.

She's changed them. Not all of them, but there are some beads there that she didn't have before.

She's not wearing any makeup at all that he can see.

So something else he knows, in an absent kind of way, is that she's pretty in several different states of appearance. Her prettiness is versatile. Variable in nature. She might be pretty basically all the time.

That's interesting.

The sun is heating things up, heading well into the hottest part of the day, but the shade is cool, and the trees are bending low, pressing in closer. Far to the right he can see the golden edge of a meadow, but they veer away to the left and it recedes, and the road takes them deeper. It's barely even a service road anymore. He wonders if anyone uses it very much.

This started weird and it's getting weirder, but he doesn't mind.

But he does have questions. They start down a slight incline and he shoots her another glance.

"You wanna tell me where we're goin'?"

"Nope." She smiles at him and looks away again, fingers drumming on the edge of the door. Not to the music now but to some beat only she seems to hear. He didn't really expect anything, but he was curious to see what form no would take. What he got, among other things, was that smile, so it was definitely worth asking.

Over the grumble of the truck and the rattle of the gravel off its sides and undercarriage, he hears something rustling in the brush some distance away. Wonders what it is. He didn't plan on doing any hunting while he and Merle were here, but he does have the crossbow back at the apartment.

He really doesn't want to leave after Friday. But he hasn't yet come up with a reason to stay. Aside from the obvious. Which he can't really present to Merle and expect to get anything but trouble, and then leaving anyway.

"You said you were gonna show me somethin'."

"I am. Don't get impatient. Ain't like it's goin' anywhere."

So whatever it is, it's stationary. Not like that's a huge jump, but it's a clue. It's in the woods - he assumes - and it's not moving.

That doesn't exactly narrow it down.

"You at least gonna tell me how much further it is?"

She gives him a look, one brow raised and a smile still tugging at the corner of her mouth. Her front teeth are very slightly crooked. "Not that far."

He blows a stream of smoke out the window and the breeze carries it away. Beneath it he smells crushed green things, damp soil, old wood, water. Maybe he doesn't know where they're going, maybe he doesn't know a lot of things, and maybe later he's going to have to come up with some kind of story for Merle about where he was and what he was doing...

But he can't think of anywhere else he'd rather be.

And then thinks about Merle and coming up with a cover story, and something else hits him. Because she's out here with him, by herself, and that's...

"Your dad know you're out here?"

This time the look she shoots him is just a touch sharp. "Why the hell you care?"

"Why the hell you care if I care?" This seems like it's becoming a catchphrase of theirs. A catch-exchange. That's cute. "'cause I don't want him gettin' the wrong idea and comin' after me with a fuckin' shotgun, girl."

She hasn't turned her face away from him, and now that raised brow is raised a bit higher. "What's the wrong idea, Mr. Dixon?"

So that's a little awkward. He looks away, looks back at the road, and he actually thinks about the wrong idea and something in him gets extremely uncomfortable. So far he's been thinking about that mostly in vague terms to the extent that he's been thinking about it at all, but he doesn't think Greene is likely to do the same.

"Nothin'. Look, just-" He breaks off and slows to guide the truck over an especially deep dip in the road. It's getting rougher the further they go and the shocks on the thing are pretty much shot. "He know, or not?"

She still doesn't answer, teeth catching her lower lip. He glances at her long enough to see that, and he thinks about her sneaking out and the teenage daring that made her do it and the same daring that - he's sure - made her kiss him the way she did, and the way her eyes danced after. Dodging puddles, graceful in the moonlight with her wet dress clinging to her. Climbing up the trellis back to her room.

She's out here with him and Daddy almost certainly doesn't know.

She's a nice girl. But she's not a Good Girl.

For the first time - except maybe not really for the first time - he thinks that might genuinely be a problem. For him.

This girl might get him into some kind of trouble.

"He don't know, does he?"

"He's out workin'." When she looks at him again there's a kind of stubbornness in it, almost like she's challenging him to make a thing out of this.

"Your mom?"

"At the store. With Shawn."

"So it was just you back there." Just for a moment he forgets the road - and really, road is being charitable at this point - and stares at her. "So you're out here and nobody knows."

"So?"

"So I could be a fuckin' serial killer or somethin', Greene, Jesus."

"Already said you weren't a creep," she points out, and while the stubbornness remains, there's that smile again, like sun trying to edge clouds aside. "Anyway, if you wanted to serial kill me I think you coulda done that already."

He huffs a laugh - because she has him there. He could have. And he thinks if he was inclined that way, she never would have gotten in the truck with him to begin with. Because he's not a good liar, and because...

Because she can see right into him. So apparently she saw something she trusted.

Something she liked.

"Anyway," she adds, looking out the window again, "you'd have to catch me first. And I'm fast." She does smile - not at him. At the trees and the sun flickering through their branches. "I'm faster than you'd guess."

He thinks maybe not. He thinks his guess might be a good one.

"What're you gonna tell 'em?"

"Mm?"

"'bout where you were."

Her smile this time is for him, small and warm. She's happy to be here too - he can see it, and he knows her well enough now to know she wouldn't pretend. She asked him to come out here because she wanted to be out here with him, and there really isn't any other idea to it than that. He doesn't think she wants anything else from him. He doesn't think she thinks he wants anything else from her.

From the start, the nicest thing was just to occupy roughly the same space.

"I'll think of somethin'."

"Somethin' that won't get me killed?"

She lays a hand over her chest, solemn. "Cross my heart, Mr. Dixon."

"You wanna stop callin' me that?" He turns his attention back to the road. It's started dipping downward again, and the water he can smell has a fresher, cleaner edge to it. He's pretty sure he can hear it too, though still distant. A stream, maybe. Or a creek.

"What should I call you?"

"Just... Daryl works fine. Just Daryl."

"Okay," she says softly. "Daryl." And again there's that light touch on his arm, and just as he's looking at her - a little startled but not as much as he would have been before - he also sees that the road is branching, and while the right branch swings back up again, the left continues down toward what does indeed appear to be a creek - water moving quick over dark rocks and shimmering in the light, a sharp meander bending out of sight.

And something else through the trees, still some distance away. Old wood, old stone. A structure. He can't quite see it, other than that it's there.

She nods at it. "Down there."

He already knew, was already turning.

The road isn't a road anymore, and he can see that the way ahead is suddenly a lot steeper. It's actually becoming dangerously muddy, and it's not long before he pulls them to a stop and shakes his head, leaning out and surveying the ground. "Less you wanna push this thing back up the hill, we're walkin' from here."

"Alright." She swings the door open and climbs out, stretching, looking around. Not as if she hasn't been here, but just... looking. Like all of this is very much worth looking at. Like there's something about being here that gives her particular pleasure.

He slams the driver's side door closed - doesn't bother to lock it, no one in their right mind would steal it and he doubts there's anyone else out here anyway - and walks around to her. She turns to him and he really feels - in a way he hasn't before - how much bigger than her he is. Not in a bad way. Not in a way that feels wrong or dangerous. And it's not like they haven't stood face to face before, and it's not like he didn't know she was petite. But there's something about it now that sends it right into his gut and into the part of his brain that governs and dispenses instinct.

He likes it. For some reason. He can't recall ever feeling this way before.

"So where to?"

"Down here." She turns and starts heading down the way they were already going, the dirt track sliding down toward the water, moving slowly so as not to slip in the muddy bits. Bemused, he follows her, and he's half aware that he's keeping an eye on her, gauging distance, ready to attempt to catch her if she falls.

It's not something he has to think about. It's the instinct thing again.

It's not a long way. The ground levels out again, though it gets even muddier, and the trees back away, and they're standing in a patch of slightly mushy grass that ends in a rocky bank. The creek, he can see now, is almost more of a small river, probably not deeper than his waist in the middle but flowing swiftly. The branches have thinned out as well, and wider shafts of sunlight break through and catch nodding clusters of white and yellow wildflowers, raise the color of the grass to an almost aggressive glow. It's actually a lawn, he realizes, or it was. He guesses it would be almost impossible to tell for anyone who didn't know what they were looking at, but one thing that was beaten into him from an early age was how to read a landscape, and this has all the appearance of something that was, at one point in the distant past, cultivated and cared for and maintained.

And he can see why, and he can see it immediately. A line of flat, almost overgrown stones lead up to it - a path. Once. There are walls - flat gray stone that looks as if it might have been laid by hand - and little else. No roof. But a wide doorway, just the hint of an arch, and here and there what must have been the exterior wall is high enough to suggest a second and long-fallen story. Beyond the door are other walls, a series of them - rooms, maybe. Further in, the ruined stack of a chimney. Grass all throughout, as far as he can see - grass and more wildflowers, and vines twisting green fingers through the stones. Perhaps holding the whole thing together just as much as tearing it apart.

A house, maybe. Or this close to the river it could have been a mill.

Even with the chuckling sound of the water over the rocks, it's very quiet.

"So," Beth says, and turns to him, and there's something about her expression that's almost expectant. Almost... Maybe even the slightest bit nervous. Like she's not sure what he'll think. Like what he thinks of it matters to her.

"This is what you were gonna show me?"

"Uh huh." She glances back at the ruins, slipping her hands into the pockets of her jeans. "I come down here sometimes, just gettin' away from everythin'. It's a long walk, but it's not too bad, and I don't think anyone else even knows about it. I never find beer cans or bottles, so I don't think anyone comes down here to drink or anythin'. Never seen a single other person."

He looks at her, and he looks at it, and he tries desperately to find words for what he's feeling. It's sudden and overwhelming, and it seems entirely out of place somewhere so essentially peaceful. Because he's understanding. Understanding what it means that she wanted to show this to him, if she's never seen anyone else here, if she doesn't think anyone else knows about it.

Anyone else.

He can't be sure, and in fact it would probably be stupid to assume, probably be the height of presumption, because she has a family and friends and a boyfriend... But he is sure. He's sure all the same.

He's the first person she's brought out here.

And what the fuck is he supposed to do with that?

"You just said you didn't like bein' in town. So I figured... I mean, this is about as far from town as anywhere I ever go, and it's nice, and I... I dunno, I thought maybe you'd like it." She definitely sounds nervous now, and that's so strange, because before this moment he would have seriously doubted such a thing was possible.

He steps forward, closer to what was once the front path. If he lets his eyes unfocus just a touch, feels the place rather than sees it, he can just make out where a garden might have been, to the right of the door. A patch of flatter ground, overgrown but overgrown in a way that suggests the presence of a long-gone fence. Flowers? Vegetables? Both? Impossible to say. Impossible to say much of anything about this place, except that it was and is there. But he can feel it. He can feel it everywhere. This place is ruined, but it's far from dead.

He can see why she comes here. He can see that very clearly.

"I do," he says softly. "Like it. I do."

"Good." She moves past him, and just as she does he catches sight of her face and the smile she's wearing is wide and pleased. She reaches back and touches his forearm, little more than a graze of her fingertips. "C'mon. There's more."

Of course there is.

In what seems to be becoming something of a refrain, he follows her through the door.