…

Chapter Fifteen. Girl's Night (Plus Daryl).

Girl's gone and bought more flowers.

The Doc really has no set hours. Just like her pops had run the practice, if someone needs to see her, she'll be open for them. So sometimes, she doesn't seem to have a moment's rest with people flooding her phone, wanting to see her. And then, other times, she has stretches of hours with no one needing her. And when it comes to times like that, she's either outside, planting flowers all over the house, weeding and making sure they're watered a good amount, or she's in her parents' room, going through their things, trying to decide what to do with all of it. She'll sometimes go into the barn to help Otis with something or other or just to do checkups on the horses. Years ago, the farm used to have cattle and pigs, but Hershel had sold both off and after that, he was a strictly horse and cotton man. But in the later years of his life, even the cotton had dwindled. Growing cotton was labor intensive and even with Otis and hiring men to help them with picking every season, it became too much work, so the cotton crop got smaller until now, it was just a bit of land that Otis could handle himself.

He understands why Beth doesn't want to sell the farm though. Even though it's not nearly as much of a working farm as it used to be, it's been in her family for generations and the Greene land stretches out beneath the Georgia blue sky. It's a lot of land worth a lot of money, but Beth doesn't need the money and he will never admit it out loud but he likes knowing someone who doesn't give a shit about money and holds onto land for sentiment.

After dropping T-Dog off at his house after a day's work, Daryl pulls up the dirt drive of the farm, looking at the new flowers that have been added in the dirt around the house, and he parks beneath one of the shady trees in front. He gets out and Louis hops out after him and he can hear piano tinkling from inside. Must have been a slow day for her.

He climbs the front steps and can't help but let out a sigh when the cold air of the house hits him as he goes inside. July in Georgia is no picnic and he can't imagine how either of them would have gotten through it without central air. In the house they had lived in when his old man had still be alive, there hadn't been an air conditioner and Daryl knows what it was like to live without one and he isn't looking to live like that again.

Daryl looks into the living room and Louis goes trotting over to greet Beth after being away from her the whole day and Daryl sees that it's not Beth playing the piano but a little girl wearing a dirty dress with no shoes on her bare feet.

"Remember to keep your fingers curved," Beth instructs the girl in a gentle, patient voice and reaches over, curving the girl's fingers over the keys.

Daryl doesn't know the girl's name but he recognizes her. Her whole family's got that same near-black curly hair. They live in shacks and trailers in the woods outside of town and everyone knows they cook meth out there and deal and the cops raid them a couple of times a month and when Daryl's hunting in the woods, he makes a wide berth, keeping his distance from them. He figures they're worse than the Dixons ever were.

"Much better," Beth beams at the girl.

The girl smiles, too, but then looks to the clock. "Gotta go. Thanks, Doc!" And within a second, she has slid off the piano bench and has run out of the house, her bare feet carrying her quickly down the dirt road.

Beth turns on the bench and rubs Louis behind his ears and looks to Daryl with a smile. She is so damn pretty when she smiles. Of course, he's quickly realizing that the Doc is pretty when she does just about anything. There's just something about her. Sometimes, he looks at her and he swears that she's damn near glowing.

"Givin' lessons now?" Daryl asks.

Beth shakes her head. "Just to her and I don't charge her anything. I figure her learning piano is the better thing in life for her to learn."

And that's another thing with the Doc. She's just good. Plain and simple, she's good.

"How'd your meeting go today?" She asks, standing up from the piano bench and she begins heading into the kitchen, Louis trotting right after her and Daryl follows after them both.

"T says it went pretty good," he shrugs and watches as she fills the tea kettle with water before putting it on the stove burner.

Even though he had been the one to suggest it, he admits that he had been a bit hesitant at becoming roommates with Beth Greene. He had no idea how to be someone's roommate. He went from living with his mom to getting his own little apartment – with Merle crashing on the couch most nights – and then he lived with Amy but they weren't exactly roommates. And now, he's living with a girl who's pretty and nice and probably one of the best people he's ever met but he's not with her and they're just friends and Daryl had no idea how he was supposed to live with a girl like that.

But it's been a week and he thinks it's going pretty good. He was waiting for some awkwardness but having a roommate you like, Daryl has realized, is just like living with your friend and that's what he considers Beth. A friend. Maybe that's why this is easy.

"And how do you think it went?" Beth asks.

Daryl shrugs. "Plannin' Committee is a bunch of anal uptight assholes," he says before he can stop himself but he nearly smiles when Beth bursts out laughing at that. "Givin' me the third degree on what kind of wood 'm gonna use to mend it and I only have four colors to pick from to paint it 'cause it has to fit in with the rest of historic downtown. It's a damn gazebo. Not the Vatican," he grumbles and Beth laughs again.

"You know how important that gazebo is," Beth reminds him.

The kettle starts whistling and she takes two tea bags down from the cabinet and fills two mugs with the steaming water. She then hands him a cup of the tea and keeps the other for herself. They stand across from one another, the kitchen island between them, and he watches as she takes her first small sip.

"Yeah, I know," he still can't help but frown though. "Some important guy a hundred years ago made some speech there. I know."

Beth smiles around the rim of her cup before she takes another sip and Daryl takes a much larger swig of his tea, liking the way it burns the back of his throat as it goes down.

"I 'preciate Spencer givin' 'em my name, but I don't know if I'm their guy," Daryl then admits. "Whole reason I started buildin' my own stuff was 'cause I like to build what's in my head without someone tellin' me what to do."

He looks to Beth and she's standing there, sipping her tea, and she seems to be in deep thought. As if she's really listening to what he's saying and is thinking of something helpful to say in reply. And that's another thing with Beth. He never feels like he's wasting his breath when he's around her. Amy can say all of the bullshit she wants but he did listen to her. He always listened. It was her who could never seem to be bothered with him.

And that's the thing. The more time he spends with Beth, and they're just friends, he realizes just how little Amy did for him. Beth treats him like a human being and Amy, near the end, acted as if Daryl should be grateful that she was spending any time with him at all. It wasn't always like that. Daryl's playing their relationship enough times over in his mind. That first time she told him she loved him, she had sounded as if she had absolutely meant it. They had fun together and they had had things in common and things had been good.

In the beginning anyway.

Daryl still has no idea what had changed. Did he change? He doesn't think so. He thinks he's pretty much always been this guy. Amy obviously is the one who changed. Or… did she? Maybe this now is who she has always been and for some reason had hid that from him.

"I think," Beth speaks, pulling him from the thoughts he really doesn't want to be having anyway. "You should make a sketch of the way you would want to change the gazebo. Make sure you use whatever wood and paint they want but draw it the way you see it. And show that to them and see if they'll be on board. That way, it's still the gazebo, but it's yours, too."

Daryl shakes his head. "Plannin' Committee will never go for that."

Beth just shrugs and smiles. "You'll never know that for sure if you don't at least try it."

Daryl doesn't know what to say to that so he doesn't say anything. Instead, he just stands there and sips his tea and he can't stop looking at her. He wonders when it happened where he stopped looking at the Doc and comparing her to Amy the whole time. He wonders when he reached the conclusion that there just is no comparison between the two women. Past their blonde hair, that's pretty much where it ends.

"What are you doin' tonight?" Daryl asks because it's Friday night and she's probably going out with Spencer and Rosita. He wonders if she'll invite him. The more time he spends with the three of them, the more he admits to himself that he really enjoys himself.

He's always had Rick and Shane, and Merle and T-Dog, but as he told Beth, they all have their own lives and Daryl is finding that maybe they're all going through different things in their life right now. Rick has the family. He's a husband and a father and those are his priorities. Shane loves women and being with as many as he can and he shows no signs of stopping. Merle is Merle and even as brothers, Daryl has had little in common with him. And T-Dog and him get along great and T loves to build just like him but if the man's not working, he's at church and Daryl has never been the religious sort.

But with Beth, Spencer and Rosita, they are all younger than him and yet, when he hangs out with them, maybe it's not obvious or something they don't think about because he never feels like he should feel uncomfortable with them.

Beth's cheeks turn a noticeable darker shade of pink. "Actually… your mom invited me over tonight," she admits.

"What the hell?" Daryl can't help but ask with a slight frown.

"We had such a good time together, baking the coconut cake, and your mom called me earlier this afternoon, asking if I'd like to come over this evening," Beth says, blushing if she's embarrassed and Daryl realizes that she's unsure of his reaction because he's still frowning. "If it makes you too uncomfortable, I won't. It's making you uncomfortable," she then decides for herself. She sets her mug down. "Let me just call your mom-"

"Nah," Daryl steps in front of her as she moves towards the phone on the wall. "It ain't makin' me uncomfortable. Just took me by surprise, that's all."

His mom wants to spend time with Beth? She never called, wanting Amy to come over so they could spend time together. Then again, Beth isn't acting like spending time with his mom is a chore while Amy had never seemed too eager about going over there for dinner.

He nearly frowns to himself. What the hell? Why couldn't he see any of this when he had been with her? It almost scares him how blind he must have been for the past two years, not seeing things everyone else could.

"I actually gotta go over there later, too," he hears himself say quickly for some reason.

"Really? Your mom didn't mention that."

"Yeah," he shrugs then, making sure his face is blank and he's casual. "She mentioned that the shower is drippin' and I just want to check it out for her. I'll give you a ride."

Beth smiles at that and if she knows that he's making that up just on the fly, she doesn't act like it. She just goes back to the island and sips on her tea and he wonders why his mom asked the Doc over and exactly what Paulie had planned when she did.

…

Paulie comes out of the house and waits on the front stoop when she hears the pickup truck pull into the driveway. Daryl can see the look she's giving him. She's wondering what the hell he's doing there. But when he steps out of the truck and walks around to lower the gate for Louis to jump out of the back bed, Paulie's smiling and Beth's coming up to her, Paulie instantly wrapping her arms around her in a hug.

"You are so sweet to give up your Friday night to spend it with a lonely, old women," Paulie tells her but there's a lightness in her voice as she speaks.

"You're not old," Beth is quick to tell her.

Paulie just smiles and pats her cheek affectionately before looking to Daryl and he can only hope that she doesn't say anything that will give away the fact that her shower's not really dripping – as far as he knows – and she never asked him to take a look at it. He looks at her and hopes that that's all conveyed on his face and that Paulie can read it.

"Hey, honey. Wasn' expectin' you 'til tomorrow," Paulie says smoothly and Daryl nearly exhales a sigh of relief. He loves his mom.

"Yeah. Didn' wanna impose on your girls' night, but I wanted to check on that leaky shower for you," Daryl says.

"Well, thank you," Paulie plays along. "But you're right. You can't have any of our pizza or wine," she says as she ushers all of them into the house. "I wasn't sure what kind of pizza you liked, Doc, so I just got us a cheese."

"Oh goodness," Beth says as she sees the pizza box on the coffee table along with a bottle of red wine. "It looks so good. Thank you for doing this, Paulie."

"Thank you for coming, Doc," Paulie smiles at her. "Please, make yourself at home. And Daryl," she turns to look at him. "You can go start on that shower."

"Yes ma'm," Daryl says and feels himself nearly smiling.

He looks to Beth and she's smiling at him and for a second, he thinks maybe she knows that he really didn't have plans to come over here until she mentioned that she'd be coming but Beth couldn't possibly know that.

She's just smiling because that's what Beth does. She smiles.

He turns and heads to the bathroom down the hallway. He looks over his shoulder, expecting Louis to be behind him, but instead, the dog has abandoned him to stick with Beth. She has taken off her shoes and have sat down on the couch, bending her legs and brining her bare feet up. And Louis has taken it upon himself to jump up onto the couch, placing himself over Beth's feet as if he's going to keep them warm for her.

There's nothing wrong with Paulie's shower, but Daryl turns on the water for a moment before turning it off and watching it swirl down the drain. Yeah, nothing wrong with it. No drips and it's draining fine. But Daryl can hear Beth and Paulie, laughing, from the living room so he keeps himself in the bathroom, not wanting to go out and interrupt. It's good to hear his mom laugh like that; like she doesn't have a care in the world and she may be in her sixties, but right now, she's just a woman, hanging out with a friend, drinking wine and eating pizza and watching some movie that sounds like it's probably a chick flick.

He's not too sure why he's there. It's Friday and he and T don't have any jobs lined up for tomorrow. He could have just stayed at the farm, in his room with Louis, working on his sketch of his ideas for the town gazebo because Beth's idea of him making his own drawings to present to the planning committee. Amy never would have come up with a suggestion like that.

And maybe that's why he's here. Because Beth's not Amy and she's here, spending time with his mom, and maybe, deep down, Daryl thinks he wants to spend time with Beth, too.

"Oh God," Paulie suddenly says. "Doesn't that tickle?"

Beth gasps. "You've never…"

"No, no. Will wasn' exactly a givin' man in bed," Paulie says.

Daryl wishes he is able to cut his ears off at that.

"And was Mr. Dixon… after he died, did you…" Beth struggles to ask the question and just the simple idea of Beth knowing anything about his mom's and old man's sex life is enough to make Daryl want to turn and bang his head against the tiled wall of the shower.

"No, no. Will was my only. I was so young when I fell in love with 'im and then, there was just 'im for years. I didn' run 'round on him like he did on me. He would have killed me," Paulie says and pauses, taking a swig of wine. "And then, he died and I had to take care of my boys and was too busy for anythin' else."

They're quiet for a moment, drinking wine and eating another slice of pizza and watching their movie that sounds pretty damn dirty, in Daryl's opinion.

"What about you? Why aren't you engaged or married? You're smart, successful, beautiful…" Paulie says.

Daryl is down the hallway and he swears he can hear the Doc blushing.

"Thank you," Beth murmurs quietly. "And there was Zach in high school but once high school ended, so did we. He was my first."

She must be making a face because Paulie laughs softly then.

"Terrible?" She asks.

"Aren't most first times?" Beth then laughs a little, too. "Pretty sure he wasn't even in the right hole the first time."

Paulie bursts out laughing at that and Daryl's face explodes with fire, his mind suddenly assaulting with all sorts of mental images; images that he really doesn't know if he wants there or not. He feels like he's wrong for thinking the things he's thinking of now. It's the Doc. They're friends. They're roommates. Thinking of her naked now makes him feel like the biggest fucking pervert. He's about right on the same level as Merle now.

To make them think he's still working, Daryl turns on the shower once more but after running it for a moment, he turns it off, and the conversation is still going on in the living room. Why are they talking about this stuff? Did they forget that he's here?

Beth continues. "And then, there was a boy in college but it really was… well, he was in love with me and I felt so bad because…"

"No whoosh in the stomach?" Paulie guesses.

"I've never felt anything like that and I… I want to feel that more than anything," Beth says.

"You will," Paulie tells her and she sounds so confident; as if she can see into the future.

"Did you ever feel the whoosh?" Beth asks.

Paulie's quiet for a moment. "I met Will when I was thirteen and what thirteen-year-old girl doesn't get a whoosh in her stomach when a handsome boy pays attention to her?"

"He was handsome?" Beth asks.

"He's still the most handsome man I've ever seen," Paulie says and her voice sounds sad and far away and Daryl swallows. He hates that his mom can still sound sad when talking about his dad; as if she actually misses him. And maybe she does – despite everything he did. Daryl doesn't know though because he's never taken the time to ask her. Talking about Will Dixon isn't high on his list of possible conversation topics.

"Merle looks like me, but Daryl… he hates this but he looks like his dad," Paulie adds.

And she's right. There's few things in this world that Daryl hates hearing more than that he looks like Will Dixon.

Finally, not able to fix something that's not broken, he leaves the bathroom and heads back down the hallway into the living room. Beth is sitting on the couch with Louis and Paulie is sitting in the recliner. The bottle is half-way empty and there's one triangle slice of pizza left in the box on the coffee table. When he looks to the television, he sees that whatever movie they had been watching has been turned off and instead, they're watching Lifetime. Both look up and smile at him as he comes into the room.

"Fix the shower?" Paulie asks and she's smiling.

"Yeah," Daryl says and then looks away from his mom to look at the television. "You done watchin' your dirty movie?"

"It wasn' that dirty," Paulie says. "But it was too sad, so we turned it off. Have the last slice," she then offers and Daryl doesn't need to be told twice.

He sits down on the couch, next to Beth, with Louis between them and he takes the slice, bringing it to his mouth as he leans back in the cushion behind him. From the corner of his eye, he sees Beth sipping at her wine and smiling as Paulie is talking about her favorite Lifetime movies and Beth says that her mother used to love Lifetime movies, too.

Daryl doesn't say anything. He has absolutely nothing to add to this conversation. So he eats his pizza and keeps quiet and the whole time, he tries to remember if he ever felt that whoosh when he was with Amy. He's pretty sure he knows the answer.

…

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