Walking Dead 1. A Momentary Thing

He runs. And runs. And runs. His lungs burn, aching with the chill of the approaching autumn. His heart pounds with the beat of his feet upon the pavement. Leaves crunch, crawl, and scatter around his steady tread. The darkness eventually gives way to light as the sun rises somewhere to the east. He keeps putting foot in front of foot. Getting nowhere. Falling even further behind the farther he gets. The road continually looms ahead before silently disappearing into the morning fog.

His feet fail him. Slowing. Stopping. Giving up because they can go no further on this journey at the moment. But his head, his heart keep chasing. The crossbow he always keeps at his side falls. It clatters in the morning stillness echoing off the emptiness that surrounds the crossroad he's found himself at. His trusty fucking crossbow can't help him now. Traitor.

As his knees tremble, he gives into their shake and collapses, gasping for the breath he's not even sure he wants anymore. The throb in his lungs subsides allowing his thoughts to drift beyond the physical struggle of continuation. Now he starts to see her face - her messy hair and that stupid, silly braid she was constantly fixing over and over again. He sees her smile through her tears. He sees those earnest, hope-filled blue eyes cutting him deeper and sharper than Michonne's sword. Again, his breath leaves him.

He shoves her back. Tries to force her into the place he keeps all the things he can't let himself think about. That pit of bleak despair that he hides away yet remains buried beneath every single day of his miserable life. That fucking sunken chest that is brimming with his failures and his guilt and his weaknesses. One more blonde girl won't matter. After all, she's tiny compared with the rest. Small and sweet and bright and gone, gone, gone. He'll be able to sweep her away with hardly a moment's notice.

Except, he remembers. She's heavier than she looks.

He wonders if this is why Merle lost himself beneath the haze of substance abuse. Could pills and powders help him now, too? Was Merle right all this goddamn time? Had he let Rick and Carol and the others…had he let their pretty words tease him, coax him into a false sense of safety, of family? Had he let…**_her_**…had he let **_her_** push him over that final ledge? The one that leads to the ghosts of smiles and laughter and happiness? The one that leads to the ephemeral mask of love? The one that dangles the shiny, fake, plastic things in front of you until you've thrown yourself off a fucking cliff? The one that kills you in the end - a death that you choose willingly, even hopefully, drunk on the haunt of emotions?

Clamping that dark place down, his mind goes hollow. He focuses on the brisk wind that bristles across his neck, drying his sweat-soaked hair with her gentle, biting touch. All the warmth that's invaded his defenses over the past couple of days folds in upon itself, fluttering against all the places deep inside that he doesn't ever give name to out loud. The mechanical inflating of his lungs takes hold, and his body returns to its former strength. The memory of her soft little hand and searching fingers disappears with the soft click of a distant lock.

When the men surround him, he stands in the middle and stretches himself inside the body he knows so well. The creak of his knees, the throb of his knuckles, the guarded stance of his shoulders hug him close as he finds himself back at the beginning. He stares across at the man who could be so many others he's known. Father. Brother. Self. He almost hears Merle's laughter and goading coming from within this mirror of a man. This he knows. This he understands. This place where there is no time for silly games and the burning of pasts not yet dead. Pasts that find us wherever we go. Even at the end of the goddamn world.

"Name's Joe."

But in the pause before his muttered response a glitch bleeds through. Before he can get his own name on the tip of his tongue, another escapes from the hollows of yesterday.

He blinks, "Daryl."

For just the tiniest faint of a second, his breath held an entirely different thing. A spark. A fire that, once lit, refuses extinguishment.

**_Beth_**.


	2. A Moment Claimed

He feels her before he sees her. The men - the monsters - who took her are splattered all around him. Covered in their own blood. She did this to them. She saved herself. He knows how that can change a person. He's scared for her, of her. What if he turns around and her light has vanished? What if she's only the ghost of her former self?

The air inside the warehouse stills, settles, suffocates. He can't even hear his own breath. He's not even sure he's actually still breathing. His fingers close around themselves. His knuckles whiten as he fists his anger and fear into the smallest of knots. The setting sun throws haphazard bursts of dusky light across the broken, shattered glass. Shadows stretch backwards. His reaching out behind him, beyond him, beckoning.

He hears her knife as it clatters on the cemented ground. Startled, he flinches at the sharp and unexpected release. Slowly, his feet turn him around, almost on their own accord. His eyes quickly dart to the dropped weapon – dripping with the heat of her kills, with the liquid of former lives. Her boots, her jeans, her once yellow shirt is covered with the angry red of her captors. Her hands shake under the weight of the things she's had to do, of how far she's had to go. Of the choices she's made to keep surviving – to keep living.

Her sob starts deep in her belly before lashing out at the musty corners of this derelict relic of the before – now a tomb filled with the death of so many things that can no longer exist. Not anymore. Her tears drag paths of dirt down her face. She hits her knees before he can get to her. She's on all fours bellowing beneath the anguish of the cold, harsh places she never intended to travel. Before he can pull her into his arms. Swallow her in the safety of his embrace.

He sees himself doing these things. Being these things. For her. For him. But he doesn't move. Instead, he whispers her name.

"Beth?"

Of course, she can't hear him. Not through her cries and gasps for air. But he needs to know she's still her. Because if she's not – if she's too far gone – it's his fault. His own damn fault. And there won't be anything he can do for her. Offer her. Give to her. Because if she's lost, he is too. And there won't be any turning back if her fire's gone out. Because her fire is his fire is their fire.

"Beth?"

His voice is louder now – a cry, a shout, a desperate plea. He almost chokes on the possibility of it all. He's lost in the confusion of how endings can be beginnings and how death can be life and how beauty can hold such ugliness. In between sobs she settles back on her knees and before he can register what has happened her eyes are on his and her hands are reaching towards him and his heart which surely hasn't been beating all this time thumps again, hard and fast and terrified within his chest.

"Daryl."

His name is just a murmur in her breath, but it's the loudest goddamn thing he's ever heard and his body reacts on impulse. She is in his arms, his fingers tangled in and around that stupid, silly braid. He buries his head in her neck, in her hair, just in her and inhales the things he lost, the things he's found. Her sobs turn to tortured laughter as her fingers claw at his chest as if the only place she can ever be safe again is wrapped inside of him, down in the pits of him where the anger, the hurt, and the death can't reach her. Because he won't let it find her. Not there. No, not ever there.

"Claimed," he growls gruffly into her neck, gripping her harder against his chest. "You are claimed." He promises again and again until she softens around him and her breath evens and her fingers go lax. "I claim you," he whispers one final time as the sun sinks behind the treeline and the world settles into the darkness of night and she sighs quietly in her sleep.


	3. A Moment Revealed

Maggie is beyond elated to have her sister back. Even if sometimes she no longer resembles the annoying little shit who used to run and tell Daddy every time Maggie secretly called her boyfriends after everyone had fallen asleep. She's still Beth; she still smiles and laughs and sings lullabies to Judi when Rick can't calm the ornery toddler. But there's an edge to her now. There are moments when her bright blue eyes cloud over with a darkness that you might blink and miss. But Maggie knows her too well for that.

She hasn't asked Beth all the details of her kidnapping and subsequent escape. She knows Beth fought her way out of a desperate situation with four bullets and one hunting knife. She knows Beth tried for days to scrub all the blood out from underneath her fingernails. She hopes that her sister will come to her and purge those heavy things that only Maggie can see are weighing her down.

Well, not only Maggie. Daryl Dixon sees them, too. He's the one who found her, after all. He's the one who carried her back to their camp all night while she slept her way through the nightmares and demons that Maggie fears will haunt her until her last breath. Maggie worries about this because she wages war on her own demons night after night. And she never wanted that for her sweet little sister.

But Beth doesn't come to Maggie. No, Beth goes to Daryl. And at first, Maggie thinks the older man must be annoyed by Beth's clinginess. But as she watches more closely, she notices the tiny way that Daryl's shoulders relax when Beth's around. She notices the softness of Daryl's voice when he speaks to her, the way her smile manages to take years off his face.

So Maggie doesn't think anything of this newfound bond her sister has forged with such an unlikely man. These two had been through so much together after the fall of the prison, the nights surviving in the wild, and the brutal events that followed their single peaceful night in that godforsaken funeral home. That's what survival does to people – at least that's what survival does to her people. It brings them together. She's even found herself seeking out the company of Bob or Sasha more than the others. Sometimes even more than Glenn.

But then a stranger thing happens. Maggie wakens one night and can't find Beth who should be sound asleep right beside her. Panicking, Maggie sweeps her eyes across the rest of her family spread all around in their sleeping bags. She sees Glenn and Rick and Carl and everyone else. But no Beth. And no Daryl. That's when she remembers that Daryl has first watch.

Quietly getting to her feet, Maggie silently crosses the train tracks moving towards the higher ground just ahead where Daryl should be perched. As she gets closer, she sees that he's right where he should be, back against a large pine tree. She also sees that he's not alone. The soft, dying embers of his fire illuminate the all too familiar blonde head of her missing sister. Her baby sister. Who is right now curled up between the legs of a man old enough to be called much too old. Much too old even for Maggie.

Instinctually, anger burns through Maggie as she races towards the two. But just as she's about to yell and scream and rant and rave, she hears Beth whimper. She watches as Beth shakes and sobs and lets all her hurt wash over Daryl. She watches as Daryl tightens his hold on her, tries to draw her inside of him, tries to take all the bad and the wrong and the evil done to her and soak and absorb it into himself so that Beth can breathe again. So that she can wake up tomorrow and laugh and smile and joke and sing and live for another day. Even if it is just one more day.

Maggie watches as this gruff hunter of a creature soothes and heals and loves her sister under the cover of this black night and the shadows of a half full moon. She sees his lips against Beth's ear whisper all the things she needs most to hear like Glenn has done for her on so many similar nights when the darkness threatens to swallow everything whole.

Maggie closes her eyes and lifts her chin skyward, silently praying to whomever or whatever might still be listening. She prays for her father. She prays for all those long since gone. She prays for the family she's found all currently pressed close together in the shabby little camp that is more home than so many houses back before the turn.

And finally she prays for her sister. She thanks the gods above that Beth has found Daryl – has found a sense of safety and love in something, in someone – which is not even a thing that should exist anymore. But for her sister it does. And it's Daryl that's done that for her. It's Daryl that's managed to be something, to give her something real and tangible to believe in again. It's Daryl that's become her reason to fight through the night. And Maggie suspects that Beth might mean even more to him. Because this once shattered man is suddenly looking a hell of a lot more unbroken beneath this revelatory moon.

Making her way back to camp, Maggie finds herself grinning so hard her face hurts. The world as it stands doesn't offer many such moments so Maggie basks in this small thing that has become so huge as she crawls back into the sleeping bag she shares with Glenn. He shifts towards her and she wraps herself around his body and giggles into his neck feeling the gentle wash of her own warm, happy tears.

"Everything okay?" Glenn mumbles, still half asleep, unconsciously pulling her closer.

"Yeah, it's just Beth." Maggie feels her eyes growing heavy again with sleep.

"She okay?"

Maggie nods against his shoulder. "Yeah, she's fine. She's safe now. There's no more need to worry."


	4. A Moment Hoped

When he hands her the crossbow, the others look at him with a dubious disbelief. And he gets that, he does. Because she doesn't look like much. But they don't know the fire that rages within. They can't see her past the caregiver role they've placed her in. And so he glares back at each and every one of them with all the defiance he can muster. Not because caregiver isn't a valuable role. But because no one person is ever just one thing. When his gaze falls back on her, he sees the doubt written across her own face. And it makes him hot and angry and frustrated beyond belief. So he pushes the shiny new bow at her again, forcefully. She has to hand Judith off to Carol in order to take possession.

He knows she can feel what the others are thinking. That's she's not worthy of this gift. But then he sees her pause and brace herself under a steely resolve. And something inside him slips. He has to swallow and press his hands into fists to keep from touching her. But then the wariness creeps back into her face and the moment washes away.

"Thank you," she quietly mumbles, "but maybe…"

"No. It's yours." He sees Maggie, standing slightly behind her sister. smile knowingly. Like she understands something that even Daryl doesn't know yet. Or isn't willing to know yet. The look makes him nervous and he glances down at his feet awkwardly, aware that everyone's still staring at him and at her, waiting for some sort of explanation. Nervously, he risks one last tiny look at Beth and then turns. Almost tripping over himself to get away.

The mill they've made camp in for the time being, abandoned long before the world went to shit, is big enough that he can disappear quickly and easily. He climbs the rickety iron stairs to the roof where he's set up his own supplies, tent, and lookout perch. Away from the others. He tells them it's so he can keep watch, but mostly that's a lie. Mostly he's just afraid. Afraid that what Joe said was right. That outdoor cats can't be indoor cats. And so he's isolated himself once again.

Except he rarely spends his nights alone. She comes to him over and over again. She doesn't say anything, not a word. Just crawls inside his tent and clings to him through her nightmares. Because if she doesn't, she won't sleep. Not ever. And so he lets her. But it worries him. Because when she doesn't come, he can't sleep. He tries not to think too much about what any of it means. He tries to pretend that no one notices.

If he's being honest, his nights aren't the only thing that belong to her. He finds reasons to stay close to her. To be there if she needs anything. To protect her. At least that's what he tells himself. Because it can never have anything to do with her. With her smile, with her light touches, with just needing a glimpse of her stupid, silly braid. There's no room for that. In this world. In his world. There never was. So he'll keep lying to himself every time she gives him the slightest attention, every time she gets close enough for him to feel the heat from her body collide with his, every time her fingertips dance across his bare skin during the longest, sweetest nights he's ever spent.

And he'll lie to himself about why he gives her that crossbow. The one he found earlier that morning on a scavenging run to the closest town. He'll pretend it was for her. So she can protect herself and feel better, safer, more secure. He'll pretend it's so the others can see how well she handles the weapon, how good her aim is. So that they'll understand her worth. Like he does. Like he hopes she does.

But really, it's for him. It's so he'll have an excuse in the mornings when she wakes up and goes about making her escape from his tent, his arms, before the others can notice. Now he'll be the one to wake her up, long before the sun rises. And they'll flee together. To the woods. To the quiet places no one else will ever know. Where he'll teach her to hunt and track. And she'll teach him to laugh and hope. And they'll lose themselves in the glow of dawn and the mist of morning. And if he accidentally on purpose gets close enough to smell the scavenged soap on her skin, at least they'll be covered in the cloak of darkness in what will feel closer to a dream than reality. And so he won't have to blame himself for hoping the things he's never been allowed to hope.

And when they return to camp, before she's beckoned by the hungry cries of babies and the many needs of the others, maybe she'll thank him. Maybe she'll reach for his hand one more time. Maybe, if he's lucky, she'll risk standing on her tip-toes to press her lips against his cheek like he's seen her do so many countless times to Rick or Glenn or Judith. And maybe then he'll feel like he's had enough. That he's had his fill. Or maybe he'll never know what enough means when it comes to her. Perhaps she'll do none of these things. Or many more. Or maybe he'll reach for her this time, next time. Whatever the case, she's teaching him to hope and so he hopes. He hopes so hard it hurts.


	5. A Moment Discussed

He's not sure when he first notices an actual difference. They've all changed in their own ways. And new group dynamics have been forged since the day they first lost each other only a few weeks ago. But those few weeks feel like years and nothing's really the same. But they're back together now. Safe and sound for the moment.

And now Maggie laughs comfortably over squirrel stew with Bob and Sasha while Glenn tells Tara a story about his days delivering pizza in-between first-shooter weekend-long marathons. Carl and Michonne spend countless hours reading comics out loud to each other from a stash she found recently. Their laughter stirs something inside of him.

Eugene, Abe, and Rosita still stay mostly to themselves, but Rick has come to respect Abe and their mission. Tyreese and Carol sit together quietly in the evenings, and sometimes he sees Ty place a hand on her shoulder to ease the burdens she carries there, but also so she never forgets the people they've lost and the things they've done.

As he rocks a sleeping Judith in his arms, his eyes seek out the man who has become a brother. More than Shane ever was. And he instinctively knows now that the quickest way to find him as the light weakens is to seek out a certain blonde haired woman once so easily overlooked. They spend nearly all their time together these days. It's easy to blame guilt for this companionship. Daryl, after all, wears his guilt and blame and shame - his heart - on his sleeve. His shoulders sag beneath the incredible weight. Rick knows he blames himself for her capture and her pain and her kills.

But slowly, as the days shorten into winter, Rick sees Beth begin to take those things back. And Daryl's shoulders creep a little higher each and every morning, noon, and night. They spend long hours at dawn scouring the nearby woods for game - small and large - to feed the group, yes, but also to feed a new desire in themselves. And it's clear that neither one really knows what they're doing or what is happening. But Rick sees. And he knows Maggie sees because every once in awhile he catches the older sister smiling in such a certain way. At a man that on paper seems entirely wrong for little sisters.

His eyes finally spot Beth near her sleeping bag. She's cleaning her gun and her crossbow by firelight, and he's surprised to find her alone. But he figures Daryl is on the rooftop keeping watch over them all. Over his family. The first one he's ever had and the one he feels overwhelmingly responsible for. Even if he does so silently. And Rick's glad that he doesn't have to shoulder that burden alone.

Perhaps he's waiting for her to come to him. After all, there have been many nights when Rick's awoken to find her sleeping bag empty. And he's never worried about her safety in those moments because his gut tells him she's probably somewhere safer than she's ever been.

Tonight, though, Rick thinks he'll pay his friend a visit. They haven't had much time to talk alone and there are so many things that need saying. He walks Judith to Carol who happily takes the sleeping baby into her arms. As he passes Beth, she smiles at him and he smiles back. These days her smile is once again reaching her eyes. He wonders if Daryl knows how much he's done for her, meant to her.

Despite his seemingly silent approach, he knows Daryl hears him coming. He's sitting on the roof's edge, fiddling with an arrow, and doesn't turn around. Just speaks instead.

"You're early tonight."

He pauses. Not quite sure how to proceed. Because in saying those words Daryl's given himself away. And not to the person he meant to.

"Well, if I'd have known you were waiting, I'd have come a hell of a lot sooner."

Just as he'd imagined, Daryl jumps at the sound of his unexpected voice, clumsily dropping the arrow over the edge and onto the ground below. A very telling moment because Daryl is a lot of things but clumsy isn't one of them.

Daryl recovers quickly, eyes darting down to the dropped bolt. "Thought you were somebody else."

"Yeah, I know." Rick smiles at him then and heads over.

"Know what?" Daryl's guard is immediately up. Locked firmly into place.

"Oh, nothing much. Just that most nights you aren't sleeping alone up here." He looks him in the eye when he says this. His tone gentle, trying to convey a sincere, honest, friendly intention.

Daryl's words spit themselves out of his mouth. In a rush to explain himself. "She has nightmares, Rick. And she says being up here makes her feel better. And I guess it does cause she don't seem to have them much anymore." He briefly returns my eye contact, but only very briefly. I can feel his nervousness. "I keep waiting for Maggie or Glenn to come up here and punch me in the gut. But I ain't touched her. At least…not like that…you know."

Rick sees him start to panic. Sees the instinct to flee move into his muscles. He reaches out to grab his shoulder. To ground him, center him. "I'm not here to accuse you of anything. You and Beth are both adults. I know and they know that you wouldn't hurt a hair on that girl's head. Besides, Maggie already knows." Daryl's shoulders relax so he steps back.

Daryl's hand darts up to scratch behind his ear and he scrunches his face at Rick questioningly. "She the one sent you up here to talk to me?"

"No one sent me. From what I can tell, she seems pleased. I think she's grateful for the things you've done for her sister." He tries smiling again. It's a thing that still feels wrong on his face.

"I ain't done anything. Nothing no one else wouldn't have done." The sun has now set and the sounds of night have filled the silences between their conversation. In the distance an owl hoots and a bullfrog croaks. "Do you think I should make her stop? Tell her to sleep in her own bed?"

He wonders how long Daryl's needed to talk about this. To ask these questions. He gets mad at himself for failing to be a person Daryl feels he can come to. Not that he knows the first thing about what to tell him. His own relationships with women have never exactly ended well.

"You're a smart man, Daryl Dixon, with a good heart. I'd say to trust your gut because I sure as hell trust your gut. I think everyone here would follow your gut off a cliff."

"Well, y'all ain't exactly the smartest sons of bitches that ever existed. I know about some things - survival things. But other things…I ain't never had a reason to know nothing about those things." Daryl turns from him at that moment and he can feel the conversation is over. That he needs it to be over. He sees him eye the roof hatch with worry, and he knows Daryl needs him to be gone before she gets here.

He turns to head back inside, wishing he had some magical words to relieve the fret and fear and worry. Because what's happening to his friend, his brother is something most people in this world don't get anymore. But that doesn't stop people from wanting. That doesn't stop humans from needing. This thing has wrapped itself around Daryl and Beth. And it's a privilege to watch their story unfold. To watch something beautiful become a thing that happens to those who deserve. Even if there aren't happy endings anymore.


	6. A Moment Awoken

When I awoke in camp after Daryl carried me away from that warehouse, everybody spent hours and days looking in the opposite direction. I felt more lost then than when I was held in that sweaty, smelly hell of a place. Sometimes I just wanted to shout at them what had happened. How those men had made me watch the things they did to the other woman. The woman whose name I'd never know. The woman who would never get to tell her story.

Daryl asked, eventually. During one of the first nights I crept away to find him in the middle of the night. Drunk on something harsher and far more bitter than moonshine. I'd whispered my story to him feeling oddly distant from myself. Not that I even knew who I was anymore. Then I'd cried myself to sleep in his arms, more from exhaustion than emotion. I'd woken up the next morning back beside Maggie. He'd carried me in the night again. It was a lot to ask of the man, I knew. But I'd keep on asking anyway.

In my nightmares, two things always happened. The woman whose face was going to haunt me until my final hour - and perhaps beyond - always died the same, ugly, brutal death of before, but in my dream, I stood over her body and laughed. And in the next moment, I was sticking my knife in the monster's neck, his blood washing over my hands and onto my face and into my mouth. Just as I began to choke on the metallic tang of the life I was taking, the man's face would without fail become my father's. I'd wake panting and clawing at my own throat.

But it has been weeks now since all that. I've done my best to bury the hate I have for those men, for myself back into some desolate place I never knew existed. I think my father's memory resides there as well, but I hope that's not always the case. When I'm holding Judith in my arms, I find myself having to remind myself to smile at her sometimes because it can be easy to forget. And last night I sang with Maggie after dinner for the first time in a long time. Because Daryl asked me to.

Daryl. He's sitting next to me right now trying to show me how to skin and gut a rabbit. I'm watching his hands move inside the small creature. They're covered with the animal's blood and I'm trying not see my own hands caked in red. I think he knows what I'm thinking, though, and he won't allow it. So he grabs my hand and places it on the rabbit. I take a deep breath and finish the job. And I don't know why but gutting that bunny feels like shedding so many layers of dust. I walk away lighter and better, cleaner and happier. He sees that in me and smiles. At me. He's always smiling at me these days.

The first few nights I crawled into his bed were just a means to escape the terrifying things I saw when I shut my eyes. He'd been there. He'd seen. We'd shared something even before. On the run, when we'd burned down that cabin and tried to reduce his past to ashes. So going to him felt right. Felt like the only thing that made sense. When the nightmares stopped, I still kept going though. To him. I kept waiting for him to push me away, refuse me. But he never did. And then he'd found that crossbow and given it to me. Spent every morning with me, now, wandering the woods. Sometimes we'd hunt or track or he'd teach me things. Sometimes we'd just talk about random stuff. Sometimes we'd walk alongside each other silently.

There are times when he's concentrating on something that I just stare at him. Trying to see him, to know him. His eyes are blue. Like mine. Which surprised me at first because I'd always just assumed he had brown eyes. Brown hair, brown eyes - like every part of him was dirty. But that's not true. His eyes are blue and his beard is filled with grey and his lips are pink. His tongue darts out of his mouth more than anyone I've ever known no matter what he's doing. And his hands look like they've seen and done things no one should ever see or do - lined and cracked and weathered. But I've seen those hands hold babies, hold me and know that they're the safest place in the world to be.

If I'm being honest, most days when I'm staring at him now I just want him to stop what he's doing and put those hands on me. I want him to mark my skin with those dirty fingers and bore holes into my flesh with those blue eyes and bruise me with those pink lips. Lips that I want to turn red with use. But I don't know how to communicate this so when he does touch me - in those small, innocent moments - I try to slow down time. I try to memorize the heat that flares through my body.

I don't even care what the others will think. What Maggie or Rick or Carol or Glenn will think. Because I am no longer a thing that needs protecting. I am no longer some dusty relic of innocence. I am a woman. And I've done the things I've done. I've killed and maimed and injured to survive. I've slashed my wrists to make sure breathing is still a thing that matters. And I've come out on the side of living each and every time. And living now includes this man. And if it's the last thing on this earth that I do, I will find a way to get his hands on me, to wrap my legs around him, and pull him inside of me. The others can just go fuck themselves.


	7. A Moment Earned

She hasn't come to him in three nights. Three long, excruciating nights that have left him frustrated and angry and confused. Maybe even broken. He spends his lonely evenings now searching for some reason, some badly spoken word, some moment where he fucked up. Because it has to be his fault. It's always his fault at the end of the day when the quiet settles in and the holes that surround him, the holes within him open up and suck the marrow from his bones. But despite his desperate, wondering mind, he can't figure what he did to deserve this new abandonment. So he settles on the fact that she must have just finally come to her senses.

But during the day she treats him no differently. Hell, she even still comes every morning to wake him so they can go into the woods. Their joined place of worship. She still smiles at him, teases him, touches him like nothing has changed. Just yesterday she had spent what felt like an eternity cleaning and bandaging a cluster of wasp stings he'd received when his arrow went amiss. She'd startled him, trying to keep him from shooting a good-sized rabbit. But she'd seen what he hadn't. The three babies following at a distance. He's pretty sure he'd risk a thousand more hurts just to feel the gentle pressure of her fingertips rubbing the alcohol across his skin again, her breath quickly following as she tried to dry the moisture so she could apply the gauze and tape.

As the minutes tick away slowly through the night, he shuts his eyes tight, awash in the ghost of her fingers, in the memory of her cool, soft, sweet breathe and her pink, puckered lips. It's almost too much. He pinches himself to calm down. But then he hears her. Or, well, he hears something. He hopes it's her, prays it's her.

"Hey." She whispers her greeting as she plops down beside him. She's never once muttered a greeting when she comes to him in the night. Never once. He's so taken aback he doesn't respond.

"Your eyes are open so I know you're not asleep. You want me to go?" She almost, almost sounds hurt.

"No, sorry. Just didn't expect to see you here is all. You ain't come in a while." He tries to keep his voice even, tempered with a stoic resolve he doesn't feel.

"I know. I just thought...I just wanted for you, maybe, for you to come to me this time." She doesn't look at him when she says this. Just braids and re-braids her hair in the darkness. "But you didn't."

He knew he'd fucked up somehow, but hadn't expected this. How was he supposed to come to her while she slept pressed against her sister or next to Judith - surrounded by the prying, judging eyes of so many others? Again, he doesn't respond. At least, not with words. Instead, he sits up, faces her, watches her. Imagining the things he could do, wants to do. Reaching for her hair, her hands, her neck, her face. Pushing his mouth against hers. Pulling her to him, against him. Touching her, tasting her, drowning in her. He swallows and does nothing.

She lifts her head slightly, eyes flicking towards his. She gives him a small, sad smile and starts to push herself up and away from him. Without thinking, he grabs her behind her knee to stop her, to plead with her to stay. But, again, no words leave his mouth. His hand tightens around her leg, and he notices how his hands can almost wrap themselves around the width of her here. And he thinks about how he should be providing her with more food, more nourishment, just with more, more, more.

She drops back down onto her knees, squaring her slight shoulders at him, looking fiercer than he's ever seen her.

"What do you want, Daryl?"

His body erupts with the heat of all the images her words provoke in his mind. He feels himself shake underneath their weight. Demanding his attention. Calling him on his bullshit. Bruising him with all his fear, want, desire. He has to dig down deep, really push through the muck to find the courage to say anything at this point. To say to her what he most wants to say to her.

"You."

He feels himself mouth the word, but doesn't know if he actually made a sound which is strange considering the suffocating silence. He's too terrified to look at her for any response. Too terrified of her rejection. Because he knows he shouldn't want her, can't want her. And that she can't possibly want him.

So he jumps when he feels her fingers gently slide through his hair and her lips softly touch the scar on his forehead where Andrea shot him. He doesn't know why, but she's pulling him to her, against her. She rests his head against her chest where he can hear her heart racing just as fast as his must be. And something in him lets go. A relief, a weariness. His hands and arms wrap themselves around her and he holds on for all he's worth. The thumping of her heart, his heart, calms, and his breaths align with their rhythmic drumming. Sleep wanders in and embraces him alongside her.

The last thing he remembers before he succombs to the rest he's deprived himself of for so long, is her fearless, sweetly murmured promise, "You've got me, Daryl Dixon. And you'll always have me. And now I wonder what you'll do with me?"


	8. A Moment Awaited

He knew she was waiting on him. Waiting on him to make a move, to cross that line. And God how he wanted to, could barely stand not to just grab her, lie her down, and do the things that people do to each other - fast and slow, hard and soft. He could concentrate on nothing else. Could hardly hold an intelligible conversation with anyone else. And he couldn't talk to her at all. Not at all. Because talking to her would include being near her. And being near her would mean being close enough to touch her. And touching her would mean spark and fire and burn and heat and his complete undoing. He was terrified and thrilled. Thrilled and terrified.

He'd been with other women. So many other faceless women. In drunken hazes, against the side of his truck or the grimy wall of whatever bar Merle had led him to. But he rarely ever knew their names. Had never cared what happened to them beyond that one quick and dirty physical moment. In and out. Easy. Just as empty as he'd begun.

And now this girl, this woman who deserved so much more than that. But how? They lived in a communal camp, there was no real privacy, and he didn't know the first goddamn thing about really pleasing a woman. Sure, he could get the basics done. But those basics, his basics would hurt her - bruise her, mark her, claim her - in a way that he was sure she knew nothing about, could not even imagine. Because he was also mostly certain she'd never been with anyone before. Regardless, she'd never been with a crude, roughened asshole of a man who didn't know how to satisfy a woman like Beth. a woman who needed a man so far beyond what he had to offer.

Here he was. Jumping to conclusions. Because he'd never even so much as kissed her. But in his mind she was already naked and open and trembling beneath him. He was already lapping the sweat from her body with his tongue, listening to her soft moans as his hands pulled her hips against his. There were times when these visions - these images - were so real he'd bite his tongue so hard he bled just to keep himself from marching across their camp fire and roughly grabbing her hand to pull her into the woods far enough away from the others that they wouldn't be able to hear her cry his name when he finally pushed himself inside her against a tree. He felt a bit like he was going insane. Like he'd lost his mind and there was no way back.

And he knew she knew. She watched him, half smirking. Lying in wait. Which only made things worse. Did she know what she was asking for? Did she understand the implications of what they'd be doing? How the others would respond to him and her? That she could get pregnant because they had no real way to be safe anymore? These moments, when the questions circled around him and made him dizzy with worry he wished he could just go back to being the loner on the outside, to just circling the idea of this family. The one no woman in their group would think twice about. But then he'd hear her laugh or feel her eyes on him or imagine his hands in her hair and be right back where he started.

He'd even stopped going with her into the woods every morning. Stopped teaching her the things she needed to know. Because he couldn't trust himself with her there, alone, surrounded by the tranquility, the beauty, the sheer virility of the forest. Instead, he went on runs with the others. Drowned himself in busy work alongside Carol or Maggie or Glenn or Rick. He'd even found himself listening to Eugene's inane mutterings about the benefits of the undead apocalypse on the cause and effects of global warming. And that's when he knew things had to stop. That he had to admit defeat. To surrender himself at her feet. And so he plotted and planned and psyched himself up enough to take her on their first single, solitary run together since they'd fled the prison. To a neighborhood he'd scouted with Michonne and Carl the previous week.

As they approached the houses, the homes of real life ordinary couples from before the turn, he grabbed her hand to halt their progress. She turned towards him with her eyes all big and round and hopeful and as blue as the sky just before a summer sun shower. They were filled with concern, with curiosity. Her tiny little tongue darted out to lick her lips and he stopped breathing thinking about that same tongue running over and up and along the places on his body that hadn't been touched in over two years. And he almost chickened out. Almost turned around and headed back to the others so they could protect her from him and him from her. But she kept walking. Straight to the nearest house. Right up to the front door. Disappearing inside without so much as a pause.

And so, he followed.


	9. A Moment Undone

He finds her in the kitchen, rummaging around through the drawers. Her back is turned to him and all he can do is stand, stare, and watch her methodically search drawer by drawer, cabinet by cabinet. He has no idea how to proceed from here. No idea how to make a move, let alone the first one. So he waits for her. He waits for a woman 20 years younger to act like the adult and make a decision.

As he watches her, he begins to see the tremble in her fingers. Begins to see a clumsiness seep into her movements. He lets out a sigh of relief and goes over to the kitchen table and pulls out a chair.

"Sit down, Beth." She jumps as his words echo through the empty carcass of a house. All of her bravado has fled her, leaving behind the quiet, sweet woman with so much left to learn and so many things left to teach. She turns slowly, seeing him motioning to the chair as he hops onto the tabletop to have a seat, tossing his crossbow behind him.

Her boots drag skittishly across the linoleum. Fear and apprehension written so clearly across her features. It's her uncertainty that calms him down, that grounds him, that frees him from his own fear. He still doesn't know what move to make, but he's pretty sure he understands the move not to make. As she steps closer, he tries giving her a tiny, little smile. An upturn of his lips. A small reassurance from the corner of his mouth. She smiles back and his heart skips a beat.

She sits in the chair and for awhile, both just stare at their laps. He picks at the dirt in his fingernails, searching for the right thing to say - or just a thing to say. She pulls at the loose denim threads of her jeans where her bony, dirty knees have worn through the material. Finally, he clears his throat as if just the broken silence will somehow find a way to say all the things that need to be said.

Their eyes flick back and forth to each other, filled with the nervous awkwardness of inexperience and those first, brave steps into unchartered territory. Being a man of few words, he abandons a preconceived need for conversation and instead reaches across the divide between them to touch, to finger that stupid, silly braid she still stubbornly redoes a million times a day - the one he sees Judith pull and grab and chew and destroy over and over again.

"Why do you always do this - keep a braid?" It's the only thing he can think to say.

"My mama used to give me a braid every morning. Ever since I was just a little girl. She'd sit me in front of the mirror on her bureau and work her fingers through my knotty bedhead, smiling at me even when I was squirming to get away. And now, I guess, as long as I keep braiding she'll always be with me in some small way. And it reminds me to keep smiling even when I don't want to. And to keep living even when surviving seems like all I can do." Her eyes catch his and he can see the tears brimming, begging for release. But she holds them back and smiles instead.

"I barely even remember what my mother looked like. Sometimes, I can forget she even existed." He drops the braid and returns his hand to his lap.

"Is that why you're so good with girls?" Her smile has grown into a full-fledged grin and he can hear the mirth, the teasing in her voice.

He snorts. "I just ain't had that much practice, is all. At least, not with the kind that you wake up to in the morning." He can feel himself blushing at what his words imply. Which is utterly ridiculous for a grown-ass man. If only Merle could see him now.

"Am I - would you want to wake up to me the next morning?" She keeps her eyes looking shyly down at her lap.

"I already do, don't I?" He watches her out the corner of his eyes. Trying to read how the conversation is going. But he's failing miserably and growing more unsure by the second.

"No, I mean, after...you know." He can see her gather all the courage she can muster to finally raise her head to him, despite the blush spreading across her cheeks.

His throat suddenly feels dry, scorched - feels used up. The air is heavy with what isn't being said. Heated and charged with the things they are feeling and the things they aren't doing, but so very desperately wished they were. He needs her to say it, though, to put a name to what she wants. So that he knows she is ready. Ready for her and for him.

"Beth, I've been with a lot of women. Too many to count, probably. And I ain't never stuck with any of them more than one or two nights. Truth is, what I want so bad right now is to put you down on this table and make you beg me to do things to you that you can't even imagine right now. But I'm scared if I do that, if I let myself at you like that, that it won't be a matter of me sticking around through the night. But rather, you running as fast as you can to get away from me. Cause I ain't sure there's a gentle bone in my body and that's what I want for you, more than anything. Someone gentle. Someone who won't hurt you the way I will." He can barely believe all those words came out of his mouth. But they did and she's still looking at him. And now the blush is gone. So, so gone. And what's left on her face is burning holes through his resolve quicker than he can catch his breath.

She stands up, abruptly, and is between his legs before he knows anything has happened. Her hands are on his knees, running up his bare arms before he can stop her. And then her fingernails are crawling, climbing up his neck and into his hair, pulling at him and all he can see is red. Red, red, red.

"I'm no virgin, Daryl. I don't want gentle. And I sure as hell ain't going to break. Now put your hands on me. Please."

And so, he does.


	10. A Moment Aflame

His hands find their way immediately to her hips. Her docile, slight, begging little hips. His grip is hard and urgent as he pulls her to him. His fingers snake themselves over the top of her jeans and the pads of his thumbs rub across the sliver of skin exposed there. The feeling of her soft against his skin hardens every last inch of his body with desire.

He knows she wants his mouth on hers. Wants his tongue dominating hers inside the confines of her hot mouth, but he's never been the obvious kind. Instinctually, his lips move towards her neck instead. He's telling himself to hold back, to stop, to keep from tasting her because once he does he won't be able to undo the damage he's done or the damage he's about to do. But the way she's squirming against him makes coherent thought next to impossible.

His lips glide slowly - oh so slowly - just above the flesh of her neck. He feels the submissive, sweet, downy hairs that cover her from head to toe tickle the chapped, roughened skin of his lips. He inhales her, audibly. Literally trying to breathe her in, soak in her, intoxicate himself with her. Unconsciously, he grinds her hips against his and the whimper that comes from deep within her undoes him.

Moving his mouth further north, finding the place where her pulse throbs against her throat desperate for release, he finally takes her into his mouth - licking, nipping, and then sucking that pliable, beating proof that she's alive. That she's more alive than she's ever been. And God, she's moaning and begging and calling his name over and over again.

As his mouth continues its assault, he feels her weaken. Feels her muscles go lax beneath the control he's taken from her. And something in her release brings him back to himself and he pushes her back. He looks at her. She's woozy from his mouth and his tongue and his hands. Her eyes are heavy with heat and desire and him. She's panting and he's panting. And her eyes find his and widen in question. She gains an inch of control and pushes herself back at him, but he keeps her away - at arm's length - as he steadies himself.

"What's wrong?" Her voice is barely a whisper. He doesn't know what to say, really. Can't imagine why he stopped as he looks at the uncontained need for him so boldly written all over her face. He shuts his eyes and tries to remember something beyond the ache in his groin.

"This just don't feel right. I mean, it feels right, but it feels wrong at the same time. It feels dirty. Sneaking around with you in secret like this. And fast, too fast. You ain't like all those other girls from before. I don't want you to be. You deserve better, is all." He knows he's ruined the mood. Ruined this moment. A moment that has been so goddamned perfect for him, but he wants it to be perfect for her as well. And stripping her naked in this house and rutting against her before he's even good and properly kissed her isn't what he wants for her. He wants his time with her to be slow and gentle and burning. He wants to make her stretch and moan and tremble beneath him for minutes, for hours on end.

But Beth has other ideas. She positions herself back between his legs, and this time he doesn't stop her. Her hands move up to cradle to his face. She kisses his forehead, his eyes, his cheeks, his nose. "The others aren't stupid. They know about us. They know where we are. They know what we're doing. If they objected, we'd have heard all that by now. Consider this moment of privacy their blessing. And the reason we're moving so fast here, Dixon, is because we've spent the last two months moving slower than molasses."

She kisses him, then. Moving her lips lightly against his. Darting her tongue out to take her first taste. His hands bypass her hips this time and wrap themselves around her waist. He pulls her plush against his chest as he begins to kiss her back. Her persistent, stubborn tongue fights itself beyond his lips and into his mouth. Her fingers begin to twist his hair urgently between her fingers as her desire mounts. He can feel her nipples bud through her shirt and harden against his chest. Now it's his turn to moan.

Gripping her sturdily, he stands and puts her on the table in his place not once breaking their embrace. Pushing her further back, he climbs onto the table, onto her, and she wraps her legs tightly around him as he kisses the breath from her body. He spends the next hour, day, lifetime making her moan, making her shake and tremble, making her beg and plead, making her quake with need and hunger, making her hoarse from crying his name. He enters, pushes, thrusts inside of her. And she pushes back, meets him at every turn. Leaves him a complete and utter fucking mess. A mess that she kisses and soothes and loves back to whole before scattering him all over the table, once again, with some new exploration, some new yearning.

And he quickly realizes how lost he's been his entire goddamn life without this girl - this woman - beside him. Challenging him, surprising him, angering him, and yes - even loving him. He realizes how vastly wrong he's been about who's in charge here. Because it certainly isn't him, has never been him, will never be him. And he's so beyond willing to just give himself away to her.

To waste away in her hands.

To let her consume him.

To die in her hands, at her hands, in a moment when he's never felt so fucking alive.


End file.
