"The stars are so bright tonight." Beth closed her journal in her lap and tipped her head back to look up at the stars through the canopies of the trees above them. "It reminds of back on the farm, how you could just see every star at night."

At first she heard Daryl just grunt in reply (a normal response), but then he surprised her by adding, "S'better now, with all the cities dark. Can see more."

"Mhm." Beth looked down at him across the small fire, where he was sitting with his back against the tree, one leg stretched out and the other knee drawn up. "Do you know the names for them?"

He shrugged. "Not really. Know the North star, for navigating by. And Orion, the hunter." He gave her that faint smile that was really just a quirk of the corner of his lip (one of her top favorite Daryl smiles and yes, there's a ranking system). "Always liked that one."

Beth slips her journal back into her bag, and looks over at him. In the last couple days, they've been making these sweet sort of overtures to each other. First it was the little gifts like her knife and the herbs she'd gotten him, then it was Daryl showing her how to track, and yesterday they'd had this sweet moment when they'd playfully teased about making snow angels. She kinda wanted to do something else, to reach out to him again. Beth had been finding that she likes having this new connection to him, this new sort of... friendship, or whatever it is.

"Do you wanna know some of the names? And the stories?" Beth bit her lip, and then ventured shyly, "Cause I know some, I could tell you."

He studied her for a long moment (making her skin prickle a bit for some reason), and then gave a slow nod. "Alright, I guess."

That was pretty much a resounding yes, by Daryl Dixon standards, so Beth got up and moved around the fire towards him. "C'mere," she said as she sat next to him and then shifted down to lay beside him with her head on the grass.

"What're you doing?" She could see him looking down at her with a quizzical expression on his face that made her giggle.

"C'mon, Daryl! Lay down. You can see the stars better, like this."

He sighed, but after a moment she heard him shifting, and felt him lay down next to her. His arm pressed just lightly to hers, and neither of them made a move to pull it away. After a few seconds, Beth pointed up at the sky and traced out a shape. "That one is Cassiopeia. In Greek myth, she was put there as punishment for saying that her daughter was more beautiful than the sea nymphs. Which I think is kind of awful, honestly. Who would punish a mother, for saying their daughter was beautiful?"

Daryl scratched at his head with a 'humph', before stretching his arm back to tuck his hand under his head. After a moment, he murmured, "The Greeks were kinda dicks, weren't they?"

Beth just laughed. "Yeah, sometimes." She examined the sky for another moment, and then pointed out a different constellation, "That one is called Lyra, and see that one, over there? It's called Aquila. They're only visible in the summer. There's a Japanese myth, about the principal stars in each constellation. I read it in a book, once."

She trailed off to look at him, and though Daryl's gaze was fixed on the sky above, after a moment he grunted and asked, "What was it?"

Beth smiled to herself at the hint of curiosity she heard in his voice. "The story goes that Vega was a celestial goddess, who fell in love with a mortal, Altair. When her father finds out, he's so angry that he forbids it, and he puts them both in the sky, separated by the Celestial River. That's the Milky Way."

After a moment, Daryl made a low sound she took to be discontent at the story, so she looked over at him a bit and added, "Supposedly every year, on the umm... 7th night of the 7th moon, there's a bridge over the celestiel river, and they're reunited." Beth sighed as she leaned her head back onto the ground. "I think it's romantic, but also really sad. To be in love, and to be forced apart like that. Don't you think so?"

Silence filled the air for a long, long moment, before Daryl shrugged gently beside her. "Dunno if I believe in that."

"In what? Love?" Another shrug, and Beth frowned. Some part of her was bothered, knowing he didn't believe in love. Before she opened her mouth though, she thought back to what he'd told her that night, drunk on moonshine, all the things about his family... and she felt a pang inside at the growing idea that maybe he'd just never known love.

"Well." Beth spoke carefully, looking up at the sky and not at him. "I've never been in love before, so I don't know if it's real or not, but... I think it is. I know I loved my Daddy and Mama, and Shawn, and I love Maggie, too. And I know my Daddy loved Maggie's Mama, and my Mama after that, and ... and I like to think they're together again, now."

He was silent, but that was okay. Beth had gotten used to his silence, and it didn't bother her now. Silence wasn't always a bad thing with Daryl. Sometimes it meant he was thinking, sometimes she thought it meant he was just not sure what so say.

After a moment, she went on softly, "I think they're at peace, wherever they are. I used to think they would go to heaven, but I dunno. I just think they're together, and happy, and peaceful. Maybe they're together looking at the stars somehow, too. That'd be nice. Cause this is really peaceful, don't you think?"

Finally he nodded, maybe more comfortable now that she wasn't talking about completely sad things. "It's nice."

"Yeah." Beth settled back against the grass and shifted a little closer to him, just enough that their arms pressed together, and her leg nudged lightly against his. It really was peaceful. Beautiful, too. When the song popped into her mind, it was almost completely random. She wasn't sure why that song of all songs came filtering into her mind. It was warm out, and though there was a crisp hint of night-time cool to the air, it was nowhere close to winter or Christmas, after all. But there was just something about the sky and the quiet and the darkness (and Daryl) that brought it up inside of her.

Without questioning it anymore, she started to softly sing, "Silent night..."

"You know it's not Christmas, right?" Daryl's voice broke into her song and cut her off.

"Daryl, shh." She looked over at him, eyes narrowed, until he rolled his eyes. With him quiet, she started again, "Silent night, holy..."

"Gonna call all the walkers to us, like that."

Beth huffed and went silent. She stared up at the stars again, but the peaceful moment felt like it was gone. Or it almost did, until...

"Didn't mean y' needed to stop." His voice was so soft it was almost a whisper, but she heard it, and smiled.

"Silent night, holy night, all it calm, all is bright, round yon virgin, mother and child. Holy infant, so tender and mild. Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace..."