You guys are awesome. That's all I can say. That and thank you! If you watch Ride with Norman Reedus, the way he looks in that show is how I imagine Daryl in this story. Also, Beth's look inspiration is from Conviction. Thank you! Hope you like this one!

…

Chapter Seven.

He knows he shouldn't go over. Nothing good can come from him going over there but Amy calls and like an alcoholic who's trying to get sober but just got a drop of whiskey on his tongue again, he goes. Amy calls and he goes. He knows how pathetic he is and the names Merle would be calling him if his older brother was to find out but Daryl doesn't care. Not now, because Amy called him. She has Randall and she still called him. And Daryl knows it's because Randall doesn't know how to do anything around a house but that doesn't matter because Amy could have called anyone else but she still thinks of him.

Daryl tells himself to stop before he stupidly gets his hopes up. It's not like Amy's calling him because she wants to get back together.

Daryl parks the truck in front of the house and he does a quick scan of the driveway and the open garage door but he can't see any hints that Randall is there right now, too. He gets out and goes around to get his toolbox from the bed. Louis is there, looking up at the house, but his tongue isn't hanging out and he's not wagging his tail. Instead, he gives Daryl a look that seems to ask what the hell they're doing there. Daryl suspects that Louis hasn't forgotten that Amy hadn't wanted him.

"Come on," Daryl says, bringing down the back hatch so the dog can jump down but Louis doesn't move. For once, he seems quite content to stay in the truck bed instead of running around with his seemingly endless energy. Daryl tries not to sigh. "Louis. Come," he says in a firmer tone, reminding them both who's boss.

The dog reluctantly jumps down from the truck but his ears are flat against his head and Daryl doesn't make him come with him as he heads up the walkway and front steps, crossing the front porch and he knocks on the front door. He had lived here for a year of his life and even before that, he had never knocked. Daryl knows it shouldn't be his concern in the least but he wonders how Amy's going to handle the bills that come with owning a house. She makes alright money at the dentist's office but his job had always brought in more and he had taken it upon himself to pay the bills. He had liked having someone he could take care of and Amy had never argued about it.

He looks over his shoulder, seeing Louis sitting on the curb, looking up at him, and Daryl tries to give the dog a smile; show him that it's alright to be here and he feels slightly stupid for trying to reassure a dog though honestly, he likes that Louis seems so concerned about him. He hears footsteps and the turning of a lock and Daryl turns back to look forward, watching as the door pulls open. And there she is.

Even after everything she did to him, Amy Harris still makes him stomach clench like he's some damn idiot kid with his first crush. He's really glad Merle isn't here to see him because Daryl kinds of wants to punch himself in his own damn face.

She's wearing a pair of those skin-tight jeans she loves so much and a button down shirt that she has the ends tied up so it shows off her stomach and bellybutton. Daryl refuses to look at her bellybutton ring. He had never really liked it but Amy had always wanted one and he admits that when she showed it to him that night when he got home from work, saying that she had gotten it during her lunch break, he didn't hate it that much either.

"Wha's goin' on?" He asks her as she opens the screen door and he steps inside.

"It's that stupid toilet again," Amy frowns.

Daryl does his best to not look around. Amy has never been the cleanest of people and has a tendency to just let things lie where they fall. Daryl has always been the more anal of the two and likes everything in its place. He can't imagine Randall being a clean freak, too. He doesn't have to look to imagine the mess the house has become.

Daryl follows her up the stairs to the second floor bathroom and he does his best to not look but Amy's ass is right in front of him and he looks at the shooting star tattoo at the base of her spine. He wonders if Randall has any tattoos because Amy had always seemed to love his – always kissing them and tracing them with the tip of her index finger and she had always asked him if he was getting another though he thinks he has enough.

Without looking at the toilet first, he stops at the hall closet and takes the bucket and plunger he's always kept on the floor and sure enough, they're still there.

"You flushin' Kleenex down there 'gain?" He asks her as they step into the small bathroom and he's aware of how close they're standing together but he does his best to ignore it. She smells like flowers as she always does but cigarette smoke, too, and he tries to focus on that. The smoke won't distract him like the flowers.

And then, oddly enough, the Doc pops into his head right then. She smells like sugar cookies. Even in the exam room, that smells like animals and antiseptic cleaning supplies, she still manages to smell like sugar cookies and he doesn't know how she manages it. Daryl would gladly rather smell sugar cookies right now more than anything else.

"Just a few," Amy says.

Daryl can't help but sigh. "Told you how many times not to do that? Kleenex don't dissolve like toilet paper and eventually, they get all clogged up in there."

"Well, I use Kleenex when I put on my make-up, Daryl. You know that," she says and she's frowning at him because if she hates one thing, it's being told what to do.

"And the trashcan is right there," he says with a finger pointed to the trashcan on the floor between the sink and toilet. "No reason why you need to be wastin' all those gallons of water. Your toilet wouldn' clog so much if you'd just use the trashcan."

Amy doesn't say anything to that. She just keep frowning at him and crosses her arms over her chest. "Are you going to fix it or did you come over just to lecture me? That was always one of your problems, Daryl. Always acting like my dad instead of a boyfriend."

Daryl doesn't say anything. He flushes the toilet to see what it's doing – the water rising instead of flushing down and when it does go down, it does so very slowly. He uses the plunger at first and he's actually grateful that he has a problem to fix. And even though it's just unclogging a toilet and he can does this without much thought to it, he puts all of his focus onto this rather than Amy next to him, well aware of her eyes watching him. He's also grateful where his hair's long enough to hang in his face and he can't see her clearly.

He turns towards the bathtub and fills the bucket of water before turning and flushing the toilet once again, watching the water rise and then slowly drain. And when the toilet bowl's almost completely empty, he dumps the water in. He does this again and again, adding the force of the extra water to push whatever's clogging the pipe out of the way. Finally, after nearly ten minutes of filling the bucket, dumping the bucket and flushing, the toilet water is flushing and going down quickly as it's supposed to.

Without a word, Daryl leans into the sink and washes his hands.

"Thanks," Amy says and he nods his head without saying anything as he dries his hands on one of the towels tossed over the bar on the wall. She turns and leaves the bathroom and he leaves the bucket and plunger in there as he leaves the bathroom, too. Let her put them away, he grumbles to himself.

He follows her back downstairs and she goes straight to the front door, opening it again, signaling to him that she doesn't want him to stay longer than he absolutely has to.

"Oh, wait!" But then Amy exclaims before he can leave and he turns to look at her.

She hurries to the living room and Daryl finally looks around though he does his best to keep the frown from his face. It's none of his business. If she wants to get ants with those pizza boxes lying around, that will be her problem. Nothing in this house is his problem anymore. He may have helped Amy pay for half of it when they bought out Andrea but it's not his house anymore and he definitely doesn't live here.

Paulie has already asked him – more than once – if he's going to get Amy to pay him back his share. He honestly hadn't been planning on it and he's still not. Amy hadn't wanted to buy Andrea out and Andrea hadn't wanted them, too, either. It had been his idea. He doesn't think Amy should have to pay him back on something that had been his idea.

"Here," Amy says and comes back to the hallway with some envelopes. "Some of your mail came here. I thought you were doing change of addresses?" She asks.

"I did. It prob'ly is takin' a while to get it processed," he says as he takes the envelopes. Bills and junk mail.

"If you paid bills online like most normal people, you wouldn't have to worry about that," Amy says and he's never understood why it bothers her so much that he has a checkbook and pays his bills the way that has become old-fashioned. He likes doing it that way and his bills are always paid on time.

He nearly says that the Doc has a checkbook, too, and seems to like paying her bills the same way as him but he doesn't. He knows Amy. If he mentions Doc, Amy will pounce and ask him all sorts of questions he won't have the answers to.

"Alright," Amy says. "Thanks for coming."

"Yeah. Pretty easy to fix yourself next time," he says as he pushes open the screen door and steps out onto the porch. Louis is still sitting on the curb in front of the truck and the dog lets his tail wag twice at the sight of him.

He doesn't tell her an amount to pay him and Amy doesn't offer. They both know he usually doesn't charge people for something as easy as pouring water down a toilet. So, he leaves without saying another word to her and before he's even gone down all the porch steps, he hears her close and lock the front door once again. He doesn't look back as he opens the passenger door and sets his toolbox on the floor and Louis jumps up onto the seat. Daryl then walks around the truck and gets in his seat behind the steering wheel. Louis's ears are no longer flat to his head and his tongue is back hanging out of his mouth.

"I think I need a drink," Daryl tells the dog, sighing heavily, and Louis just wags his tail as if he agrees completely.

…

Joe's isn't the nicest bar in town but it's not the crummiest either. Rough types hang out there – Merle and the guys he hangs around with – but Joe keeps everyone and everything in line and he's even fine when Daryl brings Louis in with him – which is anytime Daryl comes in because people in town have already figured out that the man and the dog are pretty much inseparable now.

Daryl never goes there on Saturdays. He doesn't want to run into Amy and he definitely doesn't want to see Randall's shitty band playing and screwing up everyone's ear drums. He doesn't really go to the bar that often because even so many years later, he remembers his old man and what drinking had done to him. He usually goes once a week and that's really only to see Merle and to make sure he's keeping himself out of trouble because if Merle didn't randomly drop by Paulie's house whenever he felt like it, Daryl would hardly ever see his brother otherwise.

Paulie – and pretty much anyone else in town who remembers – has thought about it more than once. Merle, being older, remembers more of their father and took more beatings. It doesn't matter that Will Dixon's been dead and gone for so long now. There are things that stays with a person no matter how much time passes and while Daryl, still with his own nightmares and scars, got the chance of having something more of a normal childhood, Merle never got that and has turned out completely different from his little brother. Daryl went out the front door while Merle wound up going out the back.

As expected, no matter what day Daryl goes to Joe's for a drink, Merle is there.

"Lil' brother!" Merle exclaims when he sees Daryl and Louis come in and he stands up from his stool, throwing his arms around Daryl and hugging him as if they haven't seen one another in months rather than just days. "What the hell you doin' here?" He asks him as he signals to Joe that he needs another beer and Daryl needs one, too.

"Jus' needed a drink," Daryl shrugs. He's not stupid enough to mention seeing Amy to Merle.

He can't help but wonder if Amy would have been happier with the other Dixon brother. Merle is older but he's more loose and fun and likes to party a hell of a lot more than Daryl. Daryl likes being home and staying in at night. He likes watching television or reading a book or being out in the woods. He's not for one going out every night and getting shit-faced. He's never considered doing that to be a good time.

That was always one of your problems, Daryl. Always acting like my dad instead of a boyfriend, Amy's voice echoes in his head.

There's a karaoke that night – a popular once-a-week event at the bar; more popular than Death by Destruction playing, that's for sure – and once Joe gives Merle and Daryl two bottles of beer, he also hands Daryl a bowl of water for Louis. Daryl bends down to put it on the floor for the dog but something has gotten Louis's attention and the dog hurries off. Daryl turns his head to see where his dog is heading and he sees her. She's sitting at one of the circular tables with her friend, Rosita – the hair stylist – and two guys. There's a pitcher of beer on their table and four glasses and they're all laughing and talking and looking as if they're having the time of their life.

But Daryl really doesn't focus on the other three. He sets his eyes on the Doc and keeps them there. He has an appointment with her in a couple of days – Louis's final checkup until the next time the dog has to go see the vet. And the last time he saw her was a couple of days ago when they ate dinner together – chicken and dumplings and coconut cake though he hadn't said anything during the meal and Paulie and Beth had done all of the talking.

He looks at her now. He tries to keep her from his mind – and he realizes that he has to try at that more times than makes sense to him. He knows she's pretty and smart and successful and she likes him enough to invite him to go see a movie with her but he's already told himself that he's not looking to have anything else with anyone; especially someone who looks so much like Amy and reminds him of his ex every time he looks at her.

But looking at her now, seeing her gasp and smile when she sees Louis coming to her, Daryl knows that there's not really a comparison between the two blonde-haired women.

Beth then lifts her eyes and seems to meet Daryl's eyes immediately. He expects her to stop smiling when she sees him. He expects her to be pissed at him for not wanting to come see Jurassic Park with her. And it's not like he didn't want to see it with her. He just hasn't been on a date forever and even though she said Rosita would be there, too, he still considered it a date and he's just not ready for anything like that yet.

Beth stands up then and says something to the others at her table. Daryl looks at the guy her eyes settle on and he's turned away so Daryl can't see his face but he wonders if Beth's here on a date with him.

With fingers wrapped loosely around Louis's collar, she walks the dog back to the bar where Daryl is, and he slides off his stool as they approach.

"I believe this one is yours," Beth smiles up at him and incredibly enough, Daryl feels his own lips twitch in his version of a smile.

There's something about Doc's smile. Whenever she smiles, the world can't help but give a smile back in return.

"Thanks, Doc," Daryl says and he reaches out, taking Louis's collar, his fingers brushing against hers as she pulls her hand back.

He looks at her for a moment. She's dressed casually and comfortably – wearing tight dark jeans and a striped-shirt that shows a slip of pale skin between the top of the jeans and the bottom of her shirt and there's an over-sized plaid shirt pulled on over that. Her blonde hair is down and he really does like her haircut. He thinks it looks good at her shoulders; not that he wastes time thinking about haircuts since he almost refuses to cut his.

He tries to think of something else to say to her but before he can, she gives him another smile. "Have a good night, Daryl," she says and then turns, heading back to her table and her friends, and possible date, and Daryl's not sure why but there's a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach now; as if he's just woken up after a too-realistic dream and he feels disappointed when he learns that it's not real. A hollow feeling of loss.

But he knows he has no idea why he would feel anything like that.

He sits there next to Merle and sips his beer and listens with one ear as Merle flirts with Carol, Joe's waitress, on the other side of the bar, serving out drinks. There's applause and the karaoke is starting up again after a break and from the corner of his eye, Daryl sees blonde. He turns and sees that Beth is taking the stage, smiling and giggling as she stands at the microphone stand, her fingers curling around it.

Jazz, big band, music begins to play and Beth begins moving her shoulders up and down to the tempo. And then she begins to sing, smiling the whole time and her body moving to the beat moving through her.

"Well, it's a marvelous night for a moondance,

With the stars up above in your eyes.

A fantabulous night to make romance,

'neath the cover of October skies.

And all the leaves on the trees are falling,

to the sound of the breezes that blow.

And I'm trying to please to the calling,

of your heart-strings that play soft and low.

And all the night's magic seems to whisper and hush,

and all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush.

Can I just have one more moondance with you, my love?

Can I just make some more romance with you, my love?"

She keeps singing and giggling as the crowd cheers for her and Daryl can't take his eyes off of her. The last time Amy had gotten up there to sing karaoke, she had sang "Pour Some Sugar on Me" by Def Leppard.

Daryl thinks he likes this song a hell of a lot more.

…

"What the hell is with you people?" Daryl grumbles as he flushes the Grimes's toilet, watching the water rise up in the bowl rather than go down.

Rick had called him this morning, asking if he can stop by before going with T-Dog to their first job that day. The toilet isn't flushing and Lori's freaking out and Carl really needs to go number two. Unfortunately for most people in town, the houses built here are small and almost all of them boast only one bathroom.

"I tried doing that bucket thing you told me about," Rick said from next to him.

"How long you do it for?" Daryl asks, taking the plunger though he has a feeling he'll have to do what he did with Amy's toilet.

"I don't know," Rick shrugs. "A few minutes. It wasn't working."

"Got to keep doin' it longer than that, Sherriff," Daryl says with a smirk and shake of his head. "At least you 'tempted it. I was over at Amy's, fixin' hers, and I know that she doesn't even know what a plunger is."

He turns to the tub and starts filling the bucket.

After a moment of silence, Rick speaks. "Why the hell were you over at Amy's?" He asks and Daryl looks at his best friend to see the man frowning heavily at him.

Daryl shrugs, flushing and then dumping the water down the toilet. "She called. Needed my help," he says as simply and shortly as he can.

"And you went?" Rick is still frowning, his voice getting a little louder. "Who the fuck cares if she needed help or not?"

Daryl lifts his head and can't help but look at Rick, surprised. Rick never curses in the house where he's got the ears of kids around who can overhear. And if he was the sort of man to curse, he definitely wouldn't curse over something like this.

"Was jus' a clogged toilet," Daryl says, watching the other man closely.

"She has a boyfriend, Daryl. He can fix the toilet from now on," Rick says firmly. "You're never going to get over her if you jump every time she calls."

Daryl's frowning now, too. "This is the first time she's called and I doubt she'll be doin' it 'gain." He turns back towards the tub to refill the bucket. "And maybe I don't wanna get over her," he mutters quietly to himself.

…

Beth sings "Moondance" by Van Morrison.

One of my first experiences as an adult was learning I can't flush my Kleenex down the toilet all of the time and learning how to unclog it myself.

Thank you very much for reading and please take a moment to leave a review!