Walking Dead 1. Chapter 1

**_So I tried my first 'M' rated fiction- I'm a bit blushy about this but I don't think it's too bad. There are obviously some mature themes so sensitive readers are encouraged to be cautious. As always I would love to hear some feedback, particularly at knowing how well you think I broke into this new genre. xxx_**

If I don't swim soon, I'll drown. And the bedraggled corpse look will suit me perfectly well, to match the disappointment in my face. But it would be worth the inevitable leap of faith to hope to believe that you can be different- that perhaps, but because you're everything I never asked for, you could be everything that I need right now.

It takes a strong person to let go of childish romanticism to say right now, for an undefinable amount of time I want your closeness. I need that taste of chaste sweetness from the cherry menthol hard-boiled candy you keep in your top pocket, and even if it reminds you of your broken family it will only ever remind me of you. I started stealing them too y'know, taking one when I'm angry or lonely at it all. I'm not just some child anymore, not some little lost sheep you can brush off and chastise into submission. No, not at all. I won't be like those girls, and you won't be like those guys. And until both of us can stand on our own two feet again, unaided against the crippling truths and hardships of the world, we'll unite together. Please.

I used to think I was a pessimist. Because I wanted to give up and kill myself, I thought the worst of everything and everyone. It was dark and cold and I was trapped by a surmounting pressure to conform and change for others, but no, not just that, my own survival. Only, I don't have it in me to change. Maybe, it is my naivety or youthful rebellion but I don't have the will to kiss it all goodbye with that burning farm to become just another shell of vengeance and fury. Don't make me, never make me. But one day it clicked. Pessimists would have given it up all those months ago, let the walkers get me or cowardly use a bullet to do it instead. I was, in my own way, a total optimist. Not the kind I pretended to be around **_them_**, no, not the singing and cheerful mask I still wear. It still fools them, which is like a knife in my gut- but that's a different matter entirely. Right now we're talking about my **_real_** optimism. Because no matter how bad things are, or how they've gotten I still have that stupid faith that things will look better. And then things get worse and I still cling onto this ridiculous notion, it grounds me and believe it or not, it's enough.

You're the same kind of optimist as me. I know you are, we both have our masks and pains but both of us strive past it. Was that why you kissed me that night? Or is my pain totally irrelevant to you and my presence on the roof alone with you completely unrelated? You won't answer. God, I know you won't answer. Because Daryl Dixon won't do intimate, or rather not in that sense.

Yet, taking me roughly on a prison concrete floor seems like an allowed act of intimacy. Physical need perhaps makes you lash out sooner, whilst internal pain manifests to rotting you inside out. Just make sure you don't mould away Mr. Dixon. Your secret is safe with me, but I don't fear you worry that. In fact, I'm sure you'd just love for me to tell them all and let them hurt you- you relish the pain because you think you deserve it. But you don't. We don't.

You're not listening, so what's the point? Shall I just tell everyone else then? He isn't like this, not inside. The bitterness and anger are aspects of his personality that show only when he's vulnerable and lonely- just like me. There's this insane desire to cry and laugh at the same time. Because the memories of him are beautiful but the enigma I'm not privy to only frustrates me. I want more, but I fear I already know far too much- more than he thinks I know. But there's the positive light on the ability to act like a naïve little child all the time.

He ran his hands across the faint scars on my arms, the self-inflicted ones. Not because I want to die, but because I need the pain to help me to live. But he never asks, doesn't tell me to stop- just kisses them with wet lips and sighs to himself. I'm allowed to touch his too you know, the ridged edges of his back even though they hold the memories that made him this way. They're the reason I can never love him, because there's no hope he'll ever let me in. Not fully, never more than I am now.

Is it cliché to say I'm a woman now? Because I am, and I need my fix of relief too. More so perhaps that Maggie and Glenn and all those Woodbury characters who all fuck each other. Or, on the other hand, my new sexual awakening will settle down and late night visits to him won't be a necessity for me anymore. And even if my loins weren't on fire, I'd still go. As long as he lets me in these few inches, I'll steal the miles that I can.

Waiting for the prospect of the curb from him is daunting. A definite ending to our childish and sordid affairs, but no less painful than the prospect of losing sweet, innocent and unfucked dead Jimmy. Death or separation are my options, technically its only one option.

The thoughts make me cold, but already I'm starting to feel numbness creeping in. so I come to you so you can force some passion from my existence. With my fingers tangled in the long dark strands of hair and a bittersweet focus point I should be fine. No, I will be fine. I will. The concrete floor is just as loud and freeing as the thoughts in my head- some sort of poetic justice I guess.

Here you are, sitting in your cell- right on the edge of the bed- pretending you weren't waiting for my appearance. You grab my hand and pull me to a quieter and more ideal location, I swear I'll die of it's the roof again. All that cold air and noise from the walkers tends to put a downer even on the pent up relief I need. But your hand is dry and hot in mine, nearly twice the size or at least that's how it feels to me right now. It's a comfort, your hands, holding on tightly with undetectable protection coursing through them. When I pray at night, I pray for your hands.

Soon I thanking them for another reason. The way they feel through my thin vest top, the heat and pressure divine in unspeakable ways. And it's an odd supply cupboard somewhere not the roof, throwing caution to the wind I moan, feeling the way it makes your fingers tremble in an almost non-existent fashion. If you knew how in tune I was with your head you would leave, but I convinced you I'm a child to play with and so you continuously let me edge closer to my goal. Instead you slip the other hand under my top, pulling it up with unhidden aggression and letting it fall behind me. It's my own manoeuvring that untangles the spaghetti straps from my arms and my wiggling only makes you have that look on your face.

I can't face you anymore. It makes me feel so guilty.

I'm the last piece of pie at the bakery. And Daryl's hungry. The assault of his mouth is nearly enough to knock my knees from under me. God the first time, back when it was unexpected and heated, he was already inside me and I did buckle, letting only his hips and rhythm hold me up. Now I've taught myself to expect it, to brace my quivering legs and forget their jelly-like feeling. His hands are toying with the waistband of my shorts, fiddling with the buttons and impatiently grasping my arse before he tugs them down completely.

I already got the buttons undone, far too much skill he said in my ability to do that. But nibble fingers make light work of his protests and of his buttons. Next to his nakedness, I feel ashamed of my own. His firm, tanned strength so ready for this world- his fingers hold my wrists above my head. Two of my hands fit into his one. And they're loose enough for me to get out, but tight enough for me to pretend I can't. Giving him the power lets him out of him victim past and my obsessive, controlling mind. The harder he restrains me, the greater I respond- we learnt that pretty quickly.

Unlike the awkward dance or courtship we original adopted, I spread my legs for him. Letting him in to take what he wants and all too ready to give it to him, he knows this too teasing me sinfully with those damn hands and biting at my neck. I can only whimper. He's getting me ready, his own chivalrous nature and sadistic need for creating pleasure filled pain intertwining so I never know which will be the predominant force.

The noises Daryl makes are unforgettable, somehow enough to make me nearer to that impending edge of finishing. And he's barely even started. But the snap of his hips and hiss of release are, I swear, what I'll hear on my death bed. The pace is fast, and each precise movement just the right place, the right angle. And he knows this. He holds me up, tormenting my breasts again, and I had hear him growl into my neck. Like an animal, and I only moan back in unison.

He bites at my ears and, as I guessed, my fingers are twirling their way roughly to his hair. I can hear my own voice above his more subtle noises of pleasure, but somehow I only manage to enjoy the noises intermingled anyway. My other hand scratched lightly at the already messed up canvas of his back, the slight digging of my nails making him move quicker. And I feel for the only time in the day, totally whole- I know it's not love, that I'm using him to get some non-fucked up emotion so it's easier to pretend that I remember what it's like to feel satisfied in the morning.

He speeds up, hands now digging almost painfully into my hips to pull me into his thrusts. Face buried near my collar bone, sucking the tender, sensitive flesh so that I join him in his impending finish. He take a step back, removing himself form my body entirely, and that's the last moan I give him. He looks into my eyes, and I'm surprised that there's an absence of seductive smugness or the look of the hunter in him. The softness of a small frown and eyes too deep for one universe are enough to make my own charade drop.

And I don't know what's going on, his lips are on mine still forcing a kiss from my very soul. After that first heated kiss, the one that started this whole string of sex and unbeknownst comfort, he hadn't kissed me. Not on the lips. Everywhere else was game to him, but save the pecks on his cheek and neck, our kisses lingered only for hastily primal need. This was post-coital kissing- yes, still going. His hands held my chin, so gently as if I were made of glass and likely to crack under the very weight of his mouth. This was emotion, this was intimacy.

I started crying, the tenderness perhaps too much for someone like me to take. And I knew in that very moment that we were done. He wasn't going to be fucking me in every crevice of the prison anymore, because he somehow realised it was my new crutch. His heavy arms wrapped around me, pulling me onto his lap on the floor. I was in between his legs, totally naked and used, but happily so. For the encasement of his entire being was more precious to me, and I swear when he let go I was going to fall into a million little shards of Beth Greene. I was irrevocably changed by this man.

He left soft kisses on my shoulders and nuzzled my hair as I sobbed, still with that uncanny gentleness reserved for ass kicker and once kissing my scars. The sticky sweat left our bodies clinging to one another, the ground hard and uncomfortable, and the hour late. But we stayed. Tanned, muscled arms rocking me gently and doing what my own family never could. Tomorrow he would go back to being surly, and unapproachable. Particularly to me. But for those few hours his guard was down, the barrier between us non-existent and I was miles and miles into his safety defences- he knew this, yet allowed me the freedom to his being. And although hours ago that's all I had wanted, now I wanted anything less. If I were cold and naïve again is his eyes then I'd be allowed the moderate roaming and the benefits.

''We have to stop.'' His voice is gruff, if I didn't know any better I would say he was holding back tears himself. The gentle side of Dixon still fazes me, even though I've always know it's there. And I'll never know if it was the broken little-boy voice in which he said it, or the heart stopping words I was forced to hear, but I could never go back to who I once was. The world it seemed had managed to find a way to change me, though I refused and protested my guard was down, hell it was six feet under, and I could barely recognise my old life in my own reflection from that day on.

''I know.'' Detached and as broken as him.

''I'll keep you safe, I promise.'' At the time I think I scoffed, not knowing how he could possibly save me from my own hell. Then there would be a time we would be running miles together, my decapitated father just another piece of my new character a lost sister with no hope or comfort to give. But that's months away from now, in fact totally unpredicted by this man, but once a promise is made there's no way it won't be fulfilled.

I wanted to ask him if he would miss me, if the loss of me or my body was going to be the hardest thing to accustom to. It's easier enough to change a dynamic of a relationship, but much harder to turn your back after all. Perhaps one day I'll declare the thought at him, be honest why I could never let myself be nothing for him and he would in exchange tell me why he couldn't let himself be something for me.

He smells of cherry menthol, the only sweet secret craving he keeps for time alone. The removal of e from his pocket was daunting and the sheltering I had received from the weather stung for the next few days. No doubt about it though, it taught me to find my two feet. Solid on the ground I stand now, and looking back on the path I walked it feels like nothing has changed and no time has passed at all, I'm still that silly child on a farm thinking physical pain might hurt less than the bitter torment inside. But I was so far from her too, fixed in some grotesque living walker some days and occasionally real emotion will pass me by- like a butterfly in a jar. And I smile, and the way it breaks my face and heart in two encourages me for the next day.

**_Please tell me what you think xxx_**


	2. Chapter 2

**_There will be more detailed, rated chapter later but I needed this off my chest, merci! xxx_**

He found her sat in her room the next night. Unlike the torrent of days he would walk here only to pull her into a secluded location, he found himself only seeking her out to know she was there. It was weird that way- their recent activities had barely been happening long enough to call it a relationship of any kind, yet he found himself struggle to see her as the same happy child he did before this started.

Perhaps it was her unmistakable loneliness or that look of needing to be saved, the one that more often than not he would ignore in the faces of those he passed by, that made him need to stop by her cell and acknowledge her struggling to keep breathing. She was lying in bed, the covers pulled tautly over her, but she wasn't asleep. He knew this, unfortunately for finding himself learning what her relaxed face was, and it was that look that **_he_** was able to give her that made him have to stop. Though there was till the terrifying thought that she knew more about him than he thought she knew, as he saw in some of her weighted glances, it was impossible to turn and run.

No, Beth Greene wouldn't have run. So, therefore, he didn't have it in him to do that to her. Her quiet acceptance made it bearable too. She was, and this may not be a good thing, the only woman he'd ever had in his bed that didn't ask where the rigid lines on his back were from or why he couldn't let them stay the night. Instead she picked her clothes up, smiled and slipped back to her own cell until the next night or even sometimes the early hours of the morning.

And then it had become normal. He anticipated the rush of adrenaline in seeing her there blonde hair over her shoulder at the door of his cell or slinking around some corner of the prison like a temptress goddess. Everything dies. And so he killed the budding flare of happiness he got from merely hugging her tight and the pain that settled in his throat at touching her self-inflicted pain, he couldn't afford to care about her. So why was he here?

Her eyes were greener from afar than their actual sea-blue colour. And right now they pierced at him like a cats might, but she made no effort to move or show any acknowledgment of him being there. She knew that he knew that she knew. These mind games had to stop. Her awful ability to read him mind like those aliens in old 80's films and silence in everything but her throaty high-pitched moans. It wasn't like they talked much, not anything that wasn't lewd or corrupt anyway. Occasionally when he was falling asleep he would regret that he hadn't given her a 'how was your day?' or a 'are you ok?', these thoughts were becoming regular and ending his reliving his imagination's imitations of what they had just done.

He was in this predicament again when he had so much he wanted to say, but not the motivation nor the fearlessness to do it. Instead he just stared at her pale and passive face, the one she gave to those who didn't know. And he wondered if cutting of attachments with her meant he reverted so easily back to being one of **_them_** again. That was the other fear. He had no idea how she had taken this, normally a person guarded their hearts and showed emotion even when trying to restrain it. The panic and distraught emotion of Rick upon losing his wife and wanting to prove he can still leave, Carl's own shielded and guarded rebellion stemming from justified anger, Herschel's loosing of hope and self-berating to keep going. He saw them all, recognised their thoughts but kept them to himself as it wasn't his business. But other than in the throes of passion, when thoughts are evidentially closer to action than emotion, he had no idea what Beth Greene was thinking.

''Thought we stopped?'' her voice was light and yet somehow weighted down with the internal heaviness of its own implication. She wasn't going to let him off lightly for being here, and he expected no less, or he had expected to hear some complaint at his earlier bluntness.

''Seemed weird to not see ya', y'know?'' His own voice was gruffer than imagined, somehow too holding that heaviness she had instilled.

Moving into the cell he sat down on her bed, he felt her feet move back so he could have more space. It wasn't weird for her to accommodate him, but he hated how surprised she looked at his quiet thank you. Better than anybody he knew that a majority of her pain wasn't caused by him, he was the exception actually treating her like a woman not a child, but that didn't validate his taking advantage of her giving nature. Her blonde hair was spread across the pillow and her eyes had flicked back to staring at the top bunk with idle fascination, and suddenly he felt less bad about violating her, at least it gave her something to do than stare and wait for sleep.

Beth had very little in her cell, the morbid reminder of 'days without incident' sign and a few odd books scattered unread across a small wooden table, not like the loaded cells of the Woodbury residents or her sisters. Belongings meant nothing since her own were destroyed in that horrific screaming fire, but he couldn't know that for sure. Her disattachment to things would help her in this world, or perhaps her loss of them had destroyed her.

She nibbled her lip slightly, the quiet acceptance of her stony nothingness was starting to frustrate her, and he could read that in her face and hated how he patted himself on the back for the observation. She used her elbows to sit up a bit, and he looked at how frail and ill she looked when not wearing her mask. The pale skin wasn't an object of beauty when there was no smile, only sickly and pallid, making her eyes seem too dark and her lips far too unnaturally pink. She blinked slowly in lethargic interest, tilting her head at him so the blonde waves fell to the side like some thousand thread domino game.

''Why're you here, Daryl?'' She kept her level voice to that sweet tang and lethargic reality, the one he hated.

''Felt bad.'' He shrugged, biting the skin on the side of his thumb and enclosing his arms a bit tighter.

''Don't then.'' Her cheeks puffed slightly as she exhaled a breath and fell back to her staring. Her hair jumped around her at the heavy landing, and she looked so young he wanted to smile at her naïve view. Once again the flare of colour was in her cheeks, and the unbridled emotion would only last a few seconds before she captured it and his it back in some internal maze so it might never again see the light of day.

She fought to keep her eyes trained ahead, ignoring the piercing attempts at telepathy by reinstalling the cool mask of calmness. He frowned at this, felling like he had missed out on some horrific exception to her view on the world. Now he was just another person, the door had been closed and she had cut him off. It wasn't the first time, his entire life had been filled with people only simply looking at him and then putting up that wall between the two of them, it was prejudice and it was life. But Beth was alone on the other side of that wall, and it wasn't really him that she was shutting out, just the default of his human body.

He moved up, pushing her across the bed nearer to the wall, kicking his shoes off and pulling the covers over himself. He shocked face put him back into awkward embarrassment about the brashness of his own actions. But he knew not acting on impulse right now meant he might never get a second chance at climbing the wall of Beth Greene to breach her isolation.

''I didn't have a good childhood- y' probl'y know that. Worst place I e'er was, but I still miss it sometimes- like to think about goin' home though I know it ain't no good fer me.'' He coughed, staring at the slats of the bunk above as she ran her bluer eyes across his face. And although he hated giving information out, above all his own private thoughts, there was a chance nothing else would work.

She shuffled more comfortably across after a moment of letting the words sink in, eyes lighting up a bit with some form of accepting the need to come back into full consciousness. How long had she been disconnected?

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Beth felt her own focus on her breathing and beating heart deteriorate as she tuned in willingly to anything he had to say. She was afraid. Afraid that listening might make her own formed hatred of him so that she could pretend it was alright to walk away from the one person that let her escape her on catatonic depression or the act of being a fifteen year old happy-go-lucky preachers girl. It was exhausting, and the next thing to go wrong might just end it for her. Childishly she had hoped that tears would have been enough to make him leave, normally the raw emotion seemed to spook him. Unfortunately it hadn't worked, and he was here, arguably less damaged than she was.

He made her think back to the farm. No doubt about how much she loved her old home, the memories and comfort of familiarity that allowed her a different kind of freedom than she was allowed to have in this world. But alongside that the cynicism in her told her how tainted and painful those memories were, how no comfort can be found in mere timber frames, how restrained she was to the life they had all chosen for her. But what did it matter? Her home was gone, it was all gone.

But maybe that's what he was trying to tell her, in his own backwards way. That the place you're from can be filled with the bitter hardships, that made you have a negative side in the first place, but still you will always have a certain attraction to them. Perhaps everyone felt that way, or maybe the two of them were the type to seek out the things that will hurt them. She leant the side of her body comfortably against him, the narrow mattress enforced touching but easing into it would be enough for him to see the white flag of surrender. She could tell by the lethargic and bordering on rational thoughts that it was getting late and her automaton body would throw her into unconsciousness soon. Normally she would try to fight it, telling herself she needed to be awake to help protect Judy or that she didn't deserve the deep dreamless sleeps she got when everyone else suffered vivid nightmares.

There was no denying the fact that it was weird to be next to Daryl Dixon when he was fully clothed and not using his hands to make her dizzy. But focusing on him now she could appreciate his appeal in a different light to the sexual god she had been making him out to be. Fir started he looked anxious about having anxieties, she knew that much was true anyway. He was honest and raw, in this rugged charming way- but still there was decidedly something untameably wild about him. That intrigued her. He had the key to the freedom she somehow desired in her life, and although she may never admit it to anyone she wanted to have that strong independent thing. She wanted to cuss and hunt and be productive, she wanted to be valued. But that was dream too much for the old world, let alone for the new world of repression that she was in.

Drifting off she felt his hot lips against her forehead, the slight shuffling noise of his departure, but it was alright because she was pretty much already submissive to the tranquillity he had given her. It seemed her reliance on him had only displaced form sleeping with him, to needing him to sleep. But it was progress, and progress would and could only bring later change.


	3. Chapter 3

**_This chapter and the next two are mapped out! Woo once again sorry there's no 'm' yet, but next chapter will be more uh intimate gatherings of characters…_****_J_********_please tell me what you think it means a lot! xxx_**

I may have been so totally wrong about this, and correct me by all means if I am, but Daryl Dixon cared about me. He gave two shits about whether or not I could cope with the exhilaration and simultaneous detachment that was all he was willing to offer. I hadn't been, but I was willing enough to comply, if only for my own need to self-destruct. But here he was in my cell- innocently lying in the precariously golden sunlight with unintended malice playing on my heart.

It had been a long time since anyone was just there for me, not asking emotional questions or physically fulfilling the art of cheap distraction. No, this was completely physically geographic dependency. Eventually, as all inevitable things that happen, he woke up to blear groggily at me a fixed scowl already on his face. Felling small was what I was good at, as I pretended I hadn't been watching the small twitches in his waking face or how his hair was two shade of interwoven brown. He was up and adjusting himself, looking out the cell with little care and planning to stroll out with even less. That jarred with me, the casual manner and unimportance of his departure. Like I was nothing, no more than some washed up interest of his. Now his guilt was satisfied he had no need for me.

''Will you come tomorrow?'' I barely realised I was saying it, my eyes huge and demanding in a way I never thought I would try to use against a man. Especially not this man.

The pregnant pause only made it harder to look way. Do you know that feeling? When you start regret saying anything so full of vulnerability because it was only going to end in total disastrous heart break. He shrugged gruffly and stalked off back to fester in his own neurotism.

I sat on the bed totally stunned at being brushed off so easily, but also this strange mixture of having totally expected no less from him, no less at all. The stunned silence was enough to make me sit there an undetermined amount of time, my sister finally coming to find me and asking if I was alright. The smile felt unnatural, for the first time I could worry that the well placed front I put up was crumbling away from me. I was scared to find out what reactions would be the show underneath it. The whole day passed me by entirely, the struggle to keep acting like it was all okay making me simply hide in corners and ask myself what the fuck was wrong. I could barely lie without the prickle forming behind my eyelids or smile without it dropping half-sided. My escape was leaving me.

And he didn't come. I wonder if he knows now how much that hit me in the chest like his bolt might have done. How I waited the entire night with my back against the cold concrete wall in case he should stroll by and enter once again unannounced. What else had I expected? I didn't deserve him, but I didn't deserve to not have him either! Oh God, what was so wrong with me that he couldn't pop his head round and say he wanted to sleep in his own bed. Instead he left me hung up and left for dry.

I should've know he would be a no show, ridiculous really to think he might consider the continuation of treading the tightrope alongside me. But still, disappointment settles where it has no right, and there was no right. He wasn't obligated to me because I let him fuck me for his own relief, it wasn't like that, never had been and I had no right to declare that he had to sit with me now. Disappointment was displaced, put on myself in some little way so that it tasted less bitter in my mouth.

That second day hurt more than the silence of my own empty sobs waiting. It was filled with concerned looks at my red ringed eyes, the inability to smile and endless wandering. My time was up and everyone could see me for the shell that I was. And the attention crippled me. I felt like a piece of paper in a flame, curling in on myself to protect and internally scream forever. There was no end to looks, to sympathetic pats on my back from which I merely flinched and the cool hands of my father checking for a temperature. After all a sad Beth Greene must be a sick Beth Greene.

I was urged to bed earlier than I usually might, leaving me restlessly spinning around in cold, numb sheets. Maggie and my father stopped by, I think also Carol, but for each of them I adopted a still position hiding my face in the pillow and not responding. They chose to think I was asleep, and so they chose to turn their backs on me. My cell felt like my own prison, trapping me in the tight walls so that the last inches of happiness might fade into grey concrete walls and floors so I would never be myself again.

I was ready and waiting. Not like before when it was a cheap night, release and dreamless exhaustion. Colder, or a nameless emotion, I had already learnt to settle that my new state was inevitable and the façade was crumpling beneath my very fingers. I could run but it would catch me, and I was so tired of running- always running.

I didn't hear the knock- though for days after he would promise me it was there. The courage it took for him to walk through the door was matched only with my selfish cowardice in choosing to live this way. Heavy eyes, either tears or tiredness, met those of such equal statue- why was he here? Am I ashamed to admit that for a few moments i could very much imagine him as some sick figment conjured from depths of despair filled loneliness and atrocious need for the only form of intimacy I would let myself take? But he walked over like a real Daryl would do, skittish and unsure when approaching the obvious weight of emotion, then settled next to me.

The weight was real, the slight dip of the mattress so I pulled toward his close shoulder; solid, human, real. That was the second time in my life I saw him exchange his own pride for a mess of a person, that person in both cases being myself. I often wonder what we would look like outside looking in. the farmer's daughter with a river of tears to come, curled into the side of a scruffy, and equally pain filled man of steel, his arm snaking around her shoulders and offering a consoling hand. He couldn't save anyone, not ever before, but he was managing to save me.

I didn't cry the next night, nor did I hold much conversation. Neither of us cared for the false pleasantries we exchanged in the hours of the light, not like the others. Because branched out optimism, or realism in fact, allows a view of unaltered perspective. We sat once again with our backs to unforgivable concrete, sometimes late into the night and other times late only to wait for his shift on watch had ended. Like a comfort blanket I needed him to send me off to sleep, should've known then to not give him so much power over me.

There were later occasions, weeks later when it had become a matter of 'when' he would arrive not 'if', that we **_would_** talk. Small stuff really, in the grand scheme of things, just our own mourning anecdotes and memories that filtered through the subconscious. Some things we agreed on, not letting out mothers down and not saying the three cherishing words to her enough before she passed. The awkward gait of how to approach grieving a protective older brother, the domineering one who led the path for you in high school and the town- be it pleasant or damning.

Sometimes, if I squeeze my eyes together and feel the cold against my back I can pretend I'm back there, with him and he's telling me all this stuff that doesn't matter so much that it does. And he's human and reachable and I can rest my head on his shoulder knowing he'll tuck me in. you end the fantasies there, because you forget- people let you down.

One night he simply stopped coming. I never asked why but I bet I had those pity glances that would so well match his guilt-ridden gaze from somewhere twenty feet away. Instead of falling back into the reverted state I had the first time he had let me down, or the second, I somehow kept up my renewed shield to the world. Deflecting questions and smiling gratefully at nothingness.

There was one exception to my flawless plan to be normal and his avoidance of me. And his name was Zach. The kind of guy who was given as shitty as an alternative as I had, nothing to achieve and no hope at expecting the world but all the anticipation for it. He had no idea how fucked up I was, but that was because I didn't let him. Zach was a decent enough screw and a great front for being dismal when emotion was unbearable. He died, as we all do, the truth of it still incomprehensible. I'm sure he's out there somewhere, that his death is a lie, instead he's asking questions he ought not to and walking around with his sun-kissed brown hair. Perhaps he's waiting for me, or maybe really he is with my mother and brother.

Then as quickly as he re-entered he was gone, this time I felt nothing more than the rip of a Band-Aid, ready for his departure. A tight embrace, the promise of one dreamless night before a wake of undead dreams and conscious reality faced me. His last gift within that confining space.

I learnt to live without him. Independent, and yet you can hear it in my voice and the way he's implemented in every inch of my tale, can't you? That wasn't my last encounter with the hunter.

I can be honest that I never saw the prison as much more than some temporary castle from which we would eventually move, a place holder for the next excursion. But it proves that you don't know what you have until it's gone. Homesickness, there's something I thought I had exhausted. But the prison fell, and with it fell all those important ideals we pretended we still had. Dreams shattered like glassware, the hope and vivacity was left to simple crawl out individually alive.

Don't ask me what I saw.

''We gotta go, beth. We gotta go'' I would've known that voice anywhere, and I followed the orders in some agented need for order and command. So I did what I was told, I found my stumbling feet pushing one in front of the other behind him.

And I saw I was running again, but I wasn't running alone. The earth crumpled at our heels as he urged me on, sharp tugs at my bewildered arms and the emergence of a new universe behind us.

The Georgia ground is hard that time of year, the sun soaking out any of the left over moisture from freezing rains of march-time. It hurt to run on, unforgiving and unrelenting as it were. But the pain in my feet were soon eclipsed by the pain in the rest of my body. Walkers were clambering toward the noise of the prison, and thus running away lead us straight into the undead grips of lifeless faces and gnashing teeth. I kicked more out my way than stabbing them, why waste the effort when the time you squandered only meant more of them had arrived?

In his own haste Daryl pulled and tugged me where it was necessary, his mind unclouded by the settling depression that I was alright fight off. But warding off some form of breakdown was inevitably going to be impossible. No, not yet. I wonder if Daryl knew that I stole his strength, arched my back as he did and fixed piercing eyes on his legs so I mimicked every small movement of his until we stopped, panting in the grass together. He found us shade under a tree, collecting firewood as I sat and unhelpfully stared at the growing sparks rubbing my arm. This was it, the few hours I was given to grieve my father, although it wasn't said I knew after this night was over I had no right to be such a nothing.

Daryl, for the person I knew he was, seemed almost tender in how softly he touched me. Checking my arms and legs for any signs of bites of injures, he must've asked and received no answer. What would it matter if I had? I could barely feel myself breathing, only the acute pain of a stuffy head and running nose. My body was trying to cry and my mind was trying to shut down instead. It was strange, I could see him moving my hair and moving lifeless limbs as a puppeteer might but I felt none of his soft touches.

''You can't do that out here.'' He wrapped his faded black bandana around the scars on the inside of my wrist soaking up the trail of blood from pulled off scabs. I knew he was right, the smell of blood was too much of an enticement for walkers, even if it was basically nothing. Even so, I had concluded that myself- couldn't do it around the awkwardness of him and besides the darkness I felt inside told me not to in case I went too far with it.

I looked up at him eventually, curled up on myself and was surprised to see him looking back in the middle of the night. Registering I had once again been catatonic for longer than I could remember I shook my head slightly, moving my notebook out my pocket and letting the flames engulf the first few pages. The dreams were over, my father was dead and my family was gone. The prison itself, and so the last revenants were going to be burned from my pocket and my mind.

''We should do something.'' My voice was dryer but more lively than expected, I fooled myself thinking I might actually be ok.

He looked at me with equally broken eyes, the faith was diminished form him and so he reverted to a man who cared less. Finding the others was a suggestion I made on the basis of what a non-broken person might say, but neither of us truly believed that it would be possible. I wasn't ready to see anyone dead or turned, vouching for Daryl it probably wasn't a comforting idea for him either. We would inevitably end up non-stop wandering around the country of Georgia, not talking to one another but not being technically alone. He would break down into rage, hitting and pulling walkers apart for feasting upon a rabbit in one of our traps, and I would break into hysterics as they tore apart survivors on the train tracks. As long as it wasn't at the same time, the other covered while the other remembered how to piece themselves together.

Not an elegant system by all means, but it sufficed for the while we had nothing to say to each other. I wondered what it would be like if I escaped the prison alone. How would I find it in myself to keep going? Most days after all I just copied the motion of walking from the man in front of me. Alone I would be consumed, mostly by the plaguing nothingness in my head and all the non-filterable memories of everything I didn't do or could never do for them all. I couldn't be happy. So perhaps I would lay down in the woods somewhere, let the hot Georgia sun hit me so hard I could barely do anything but struggling to breath, the walkers would get me and I wouldn't care. I'd have no one to let down, to be ashamed of me. As a walker I might have died in anyway at all.

Then the change happened, the lack of living filtering into my mind like some restless desire. I hated the world and in spite of everything I needed to destroy. My own two fingers up at the shit I was put through, I voiced up, not realising it was even said before it was. But barbeque snake and this fucking hell I had inherited instead of my promises made me bolder. Angry at God, angry at myself but angrier at everyone else. What would hurt my father most?

''I need a drink.''

**_Phew that was long! Had a fantastic day, guys-let's make the week good with reviews ;) xxx_**


	4. Chapter 4

**_So my plan for one chapter is now actually three 'cause it turns out I elaborate a lot….hehe! There is some uh adult themes in this one (As promised, though I'm still very new at them) so age-check yourself please xxx thank you to beautiful reviews, followers and favouriters :D_**

In all fairness to the man, my tantrums deterred him only long enough to sulk and laugh at my pitiful finds of schnapps and golf gear. Alcohol wasn't going to solve this bitterness inside my chest, the dark that had settled there for what felt like good. But the act of perusing something was keeping me sane at least, focused and together. I wondered if that's why Daryl stayed, I was his mission and keeping track of my stupid ass kept him unable to focus on all the death. Kind of hard when_ y_ou put down the dead every day, and every time you think in that second before the blade falls- is someone doing this to Maggie? To Judith? To my father's decapitated head?

Oh shit, where was I? Not getting lost in thoughts like that is so difficult, particularly for the lack of other stimulation. Perhaps if I started to cosy up to Daryl again he would fuck the thoughts out of me- but the way he stayed so many paces in front not helping my struggling weariness told me to not even try for that. I could afford for his anger to get us killed because of me. I was promised a good drink, y'know? Daryl wove the woods and in that moment I knew he knew exactly where we were, he didn't want to find the others. It was his choice. And I resented him, but I understood because the crippling fear was enough for me to ignore the signs pointing to the rehabilitation facility to idly drag myself behind him instead.

Maybe I should have gone to find my sister. The optimism they held me in such esteem for was non-existent- I knew this, but acting on that disbelief made me feel like I was letting down tier expectations of me. Humans make mistakes, I tell myself that enough. One day it will become tangible I guess, having been echoed so oft there's no choice but to believe it like times tables. 2x2=4. Daryl and 'never have I ever' hit head first. Mistakes, so quickly they happen but so irreparable the damage.

When I said Daryl got any before, when he hacked a walker for eating a freaking bunny rabbit, this was nothing. I was the one being hacked to pieces, the words inflicting the little blows to tear me apart. He knew exactly what he was doing, weeks talking lead to my downfall- I had told his exactly how to get under my skin. That, or he was fucking good at reading weaknesses flitter across a person's face in the heat of a one sided row.

''I sure as hell never cut my wrists looking for attention-'' he used his own gestures to imitate, staring me dead in the eye. I thought how he had never acknowledged it before-not really.

That did it. The line had irreversibly been crossed with those simple words. I could brush off perhaps the faker elements of my personality, not caring about being seen by him as a child of Saint Nick's or his distain at the false optimism of singing. A switch had been flicked, I lost my grip there wanting him to shut up and leave me to calm down and cry somewhere.

The vicious tone in his voice and the bitter way he spat at me left no question of his total hatred for me in that moment. And I hated him too. But I couldn't move, my mind was reeling still from the disbelief of is cruelty. I wanted to cry, but part of me relished the aggression I already had for myself. It felt good to have someone on my side at last. He hated me as much as I hated myself. So I sat there and took it, my hand loosely around the fuzzy warmth of a plastic glass of moonshine and large eyes staring disbelievingly up at him.

We locked gaze. The radiating warmth of that sheer uncontrollable rage made my stomach clench familiarly and I knew that moment we were going to fuck or fight. It was the only response and way to end this. To this day I won't be able to say if I regret not taking that moment to start the forceful kisses or if I'm glad what then transpired was necessary for what we would then later be. Instead he dragged me up by my arm, the skin pulling awkwardly as if he knew that twisting his wrists would make it just that bit more uncomfortable for me . I was dragged outside, the dreadful promise of lessons and facing the monster head on.

If the majority of my body was struggling with worried need to control my own limbs, there was admittedly a tiny bit that wanted to cry. Cry because I missed the feel of his warmth against mine, holding me like he once did. But I said I wouldn't think about that now. More fighting, seemed that was all we were good for in the end, shouting at each other as I wriggled free. I don't know why I had to put the poor walker out of its misery, but I figured being dead was bad luck enough for the man. Fucking hell did that send the ball rolling- him screaming at me and somehow my own mind retorted before I had really caught up with what was being said.

''If it were my dad-'' my voice stopped, but it didn't matter because he covered my pain with exclaiming his own protest. He had no right for his Achilles heel to be the father I couldn't mention until that moment, the one I was angry at. And childishly I knew I was only angry at him because he died.

Maybe it was sobbing Daryl, and that even though he had walked away from my continuous need for comfort, he had initially been there for me, to hug and hold though he hated it. Or perhaps it was entirely selfish once I realised my poor daddy was being vandalised by my bitter memories. So I couldn't just walk away. My arms wrapped around him, winding myself sharply on his back and trying to pull in his shaking shoulders as he tried to throw me off.

We held each other stronger for a small while, silently breaking down in some twisted haven of a fairy tale. Little red and the woodsman holding each other and crying over the fate of poor granny. He only moved to turn around in my arms, sliding his own to me so we were chest to chest. My head on his shoulder and his arms gripping my back with the same need I had shown him. Clawing at the fabric we made it impossible to distinguish which of our limbs belonged to who or for the other to slip away. We may not be the ideal team, some days not even really a 'team' at all, but we needed one another for some unknown jigsaw to be finished.

His breathing slowed, the slight flutter of his heart fading slowly back to normal rhythm against my cheek. I knew he was back to his normal frame of mind the second his entire body stiffened in my own. Leaning back I trepidaticiously looked up at his face. The worry and anxiety from one simple movement never shook me so much. The moment couldn't end, as soon as it did I was going to be a lone again. He'd shut me out. He'd walk away. He'd let me stay here alone.

It wasn't right what I did. To kiss him so suddenly was only going to lead to more heart break, but it was me who started the flame once again.

My hands were on his face, pulling his to arch painfully, practically forcing myself into his mouth ignoring the grunts of pleasure or protest. When he kissed back I could have cried for the sheer joy of it all. Like an addict getting my fix, I curled my fingers into loose strands of his hair so he couldn't weave himself out and denounce this as a mistake.

The trail of his ghosting fingers down my arms before they settled just above the jutting hipbones made me shiver in the cool want for release, as his hot mouth kept urging at mine for more. And I would give him everything, even if he wouldn't give it back. Though it was by no means my first time, nor did he think it was, after all he was the main perpetrator- there was a definite sense of awkward care. His movements though strong and palpable, each fingertip deliciously stinging in its own way, lacked the full haphazard nature of full passion. Critiquing Daryl Dixon's intimate prowess are we?

His lips softened on mine, pulling away a fraction so he could leave sloppily hot kisses across my jaw. Taking my ear lobe between his teeth, waiting for my back to arch and press myself against him hungrily, I heard his primal grin to himself. The lion had the lamb in its mouth. Moaning distinctly, I pushed myself against his firm body, enjoying the evident arousal and knowing I had some element of control over him for the next half hour.

My clothes were clawed off, things disappearing from us as a path was made into that stupid wooden cabin. My knees buckled upon hitting the edge of the reclining chair, his heavy weight hurting but the feel of his roaming and kneading hands left little to complain about. It hand been too long, far too much time had elapsed since this passionate sin overshadowed all my other senses. Who needed logic and passion anyway?

His nails dragged down my thighs with perfect pressure as they removed my knickers with them, the material soon to land on the floor, a place I'm sad to say they would never be found from. Like a wanton little slut I melted to his touch, surrendering myself in a manner my father would've been ashamed to see in anyone unrelated, let alone baby Greene. His filthy muttering about my nether regions tightening my stomach muscles and pulling out long groans from him too. Exquisite torture, far too long in the coming but satiating every human urge and instinct I had ever known. Fixing every solution with his filling nature and hot hands across my naked body. His lips panting out and eyes rolling back, the end was nearing.

Moonshine and getting dressed. No words, no speaking- just that. Dutch courage and the heated rom left only of reminders of immature desire made us move outward. Huddling together on the small porch, the stars above so quickly that it seemed impossible today was the same day he told me I was a child for hurting.

My back was on the wooden porch, the air cooling quickly but my buzz was going so strong I didn't care. Post-coital endorphins and moonshine on an empty stomach did that to you. And all I wanted to do was smile and tilt my head from side to side in its uneven weightiness. But deeper down was the issue, the ones I was avoiding so I mumbled crazy things at Daryl. Sharing secrets of lower cost to save those that meant too much. He could never know that, even after I initiated it, I felt used. I felt cheap, and empty at being satisfied. Used, but I had used him after all- there was no claim but the feeling was still there.

I gave him my thoughts on him, paying back my dues simply with worded value. Then I told him how stupid I was, the thoughts I held onto to only have something to believe, not because I truly thought it was coherently possible. The price for them was higher, the cost of giving him another chance because it was me that it would backfire to. He could take my thoughts, those valuable nothings and along with it the physical comfort I forced him to partake in.

''You're gonna miss me so much when I'm gone, Daryl Dixon.'' I laughed as I said it, the glee in my eyes forced form alcoholic confusion and sensory overload. Masking the pain and overriding the self-censorship. He looked back with misted amusement, the long hair covering his soulless windows to it all. He could've ben thing anything, anything at all.

But it was true. To some extent I was the one who frustratingly pressed for intimacy he wasn't prepared for, the sex was nothing to the havoc I caused internally, and otherwise he would never have stopped. Where I had made my wormhole, I had never fully left his apple of a head, gaining me faster access back to my prize-old throne. Yet I barely had figured him out, only enough to precariously call sovereignty of chaos and know that I was an issue. His fingers twitched with lack of nicotine, the post-coital tipsy feeling wearing off.

The destructive element of personality comes out then. When I'm drunk and complaining how it makes me feel good, how I can't think how I could live another day without precious moonshine in my hands, it made the plan even weirder. Moonshine, the fuzzy fake joy I had in my gut and my new best friend, was going to be wasted. Poured on walls and ceiling to set ablaze and move on. The fall of a home left us alone in the wilderness, so the fall of homeliness would set us back out there for the world. Together, albeit bitterly.

**_Tell me your thoughts xxx_**


	5. Chapter 5

**_Hey guys, more adulty stuff in this. Thank you for all the beautiful support, you guys are amazing_**.

Feet don't fail me now. This can't be happening, as simple as that it just can't be. Oh, God. Oh, fucking God- please, don't hurt me. Run. Run for your life, run away from the bitter taste of everything that's slipping through your fingers right now. Visions of your father, your sister, your mother, your brother. **_Him_**. They're all going to die. They're all dead. And you? Oh, silly girl you don't get that comfort. For some unknown reason you will keep going, perpetually weaselling out of death to face its hordes of warriors head on. Ready to face an army, gnashing teeth and peeling faces? Then run, or fight. They're dead, they're all dead, and so what reason do you have to stay?

I sit up suddenly, the cold night doing nothing to hide the small sobbing noise that I make. I'm pathetic, that much I know. Daryl twists in his light sleep, a simple gaps of air enough to stir his body and make his fingers clench around the crossbow. On second thoughts, perhaps burning the cabin before we had chance to sleep was a stupid idea. The crick in my neck was inevitably going to plague me for days, making me feel guilty for feeling pain when so much shit was already happening. Poor Beth's neck.

We spend a few days more walking. The events of the cabin thought he shattered a part of my remaining self-respect, traded this disservice of my body for a less turbulent relationship with him. Sleep comes precariously now, the thoughts keep plaguing me- but the days are active enough to run on the adrenaline of hunting. Ha, to think I was a vegetarian in the last world.

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I can't bear to look at you. Did you know that? Things as simple as the slight tilt in your confused head and the thick clumped lashes when you cry, they're too much of a reminder. Death makes you sad now, but that's nothing compared to what I might do- I can break you. She walks along like there's confidence in her youthful gaze, but behind the façade is an empty inbred gentility. I wonder if that was lost if I would still hound her the way I do.

Step away, keep away. I don't want to harm you like I know I can, know that I am your enemy. She's just a kid, really. Far too trusting and honest for her own good, the kind of innocence that lives to be corrupted- and yet I find myself fighting the urge to muddy the carpet. In other ways she's too grown up, consequence of a cut-off childhood perhaps, or more likely and already present part of her personality. Like Herschel, there's wisdom in movement and consideration in thought. Part of her is too young, part of her is too old.

It's impossible to tell you that I should only be someone that you can leave. So I'll train you to hunt, to fend and search for your own path. It's not all this shit, Beth. At least, not for you- it will get better. I want to tell you, so often it almost slips out with other dangerous thoughts. There's belief, the only belief I have- this world hasn't destroyed you in the way it has others. And my selfish love for affection I never had means that I can't control myself- push me away.

We could pretend, for a little while. All those wild nights and stealing of kisses and love. Using each other, that's what I have to believe it is. Yet, the gaze she has is too heavy, too loaded with a reliance and understanding- the kind that I never got. But what could she understand, the settling disappointment of her world were familiar tales to me and though I had ditched her she was still too close. Her fingers look better on the cross bow than mine, her laughing jokes and reflection of pain to witty sarcasm are understood. Dumb bitch can look after herself.

Just as I'm thinking of treating her like a bird, feeding her up and releasing her to the wild, I know I won't. She the injured chick of a thing you find on the side of the road and keep on your windowsill for years in a weird compatible ownership. As if I'm thinking this and I hear the shrill scream, a bear trap across her ankle. Is it wrong that I see her as some damsel right now, looking up with those adoring eyes as if I'm the hero? She's wrong of course, but that doesn't really matter.

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There was a grave stone, a father grave stone. Enough to end the act of playing children, to make me slip off his awkward holding of my legs and leave his back to stare. I wanted to feel something, but all I could think of was what I was supposed to feel. I had no idea. The honour of my father's name would never be glorified on a piece of rock to be read, but who was left to read it?

Small flowers, weeds really were left by him. And maybe that's the most honest gesture we were able to give, nothing left at all but to contemplate what was lost but also what had been gained by 19 ears on the planet with wiry white-haired Herschel. As if smiling on us, his stolen grave was on a mortuary site. Empty and food-filled like nothing else we had stumbled across. Things like this are traps, we knew that then, but what did any of that matter when the trap gave us shelter, even if the price was a ticking bomb. Maybe, just maybe there was a chance the trap would malfunction.

We searched for a bit, my limping only getting more prominent due to tiredness. The stairs were the worst, but in a way they led to a singular bed room and a series of locked doors. Dark mahogany furniture like my old room at home and white crisp sheets as if we paid for an hour in a cheap motel. But it would do, despite my distain it took little for me to sit on the edge of the bed. A mattress, oh, a real soft welcoming mattress.

It was meant to just be a kiss on the cheek. A thank you for helping me get from the woods to the house, for letting me sing at an antique piano, for keeping me alive. But he moved as my lips pressed against him, leaving mine to press gently to the corner of his shocked mouth.

My eyes caught his, swimming in blue pools of lust and yet something far too deep and coded for my reading. He kissed me on the mouth next, slow and lingering, though only a peck. Gravity I swear pulled me to him, or poor life choices. He let out a breath I too had been holding. The movement of out breathless rise and fall of shoulders the other change in our bodies. And we're both to blame for the next kiss, the lingering and slow one.

The bed took the weight of his leaning arm, and obligingly I shifted across so he was on here with me. I've told you about his heavenly hands, the gentle caress and the soft way they stroked my back. A tenderness I hadn't yet been shown, his hands threaded in my hair too. But where they would have normally tugged, pulling at the blonde stands to make me moan and scream in mixed emotion, he simply held my head closer to his.

The nips on my neck were nothing to the harsh love bites of before, yet they were more sensitive making me shiver in an overwhelming desire to pant out and stretch as if we had all the time in the world. Where was the need, to rush, the unbridled lust? Instead he kissed down my body, removing the dirtied top and jeans like one might undress a china doll or a baby. His hands ran down my legs, careful to skim the skin of my ankle in a gesture of caring remembrance.

I could've been loved. Those moments his tongue and lips pressed sweetly against me like I was some prise, his softened gaze piercing my enjoyment with a primal shiver. And his mouth, torturous but never ending power over me. He was pressed to my intimacy, the shield of decorum ripped away in the most proper way. I dint care, as long as he never stopped. I lay on my back, him between my thighs and chest heaving in wonder-filled rapturement. Kill me now, kill me whilst it's this good. Unashamedly he made me weep as I came, my back arched and legs tightening around his shoulders.

He was back at my side in no time, pulling me to him and kissing me gently. He pushed sweaty hairs from my forehead and bit my bottom lip gently, waiting for my hands to curl round his shoulders forcing him to take me. Slow, steady and pausing at each thrust. It was a world I had never experienced, anticipation burning into the last nerve of my body. His hands palmed small breasts and brought them to the maddening lips of his, far too controlled for how I felt. Craziness might call this love. It wasn't, but neither was it anything we had before.

My fingers dug into his shoulders as the pleasure overwhelmed me again, this time forcing his own release from him. He held me close on his completion, so much so that I could felt he naked beating of his heart against my cheek. It was warm, like sleeping on a sunny bank in summer. Then he was getting up and getting dressed, leaving me to curl into the radiation spot of his old heat. I was surprised, I knew he was going to leave.

''Sleep, Beth- you haven't recently.'' His words washed over me like a settling spell, leaving lethargy in my bone marrow and weights on my eyelids. Perhaps, in fact I'm sure, the heavy heat of his lips on my forehead and the brush of a collapsed hand across my forehead were imaginings of my own imagination. Had I been more awake my mind would have reeled to the embarrassment of him noticing my fear induced insomnia, of course **_he_** would.

The rest was needed. Dreamless and hypnotic my sense pricked up on the sound of nothing, yet I knew that sound was him. The absence of noise walked in, stroking my cheek under the pretence of me being asleep though we both knew I wasn't. The niceness was rubbing off as strange still, yet I was too entranced to question the fate I was given. Maybe this time he wouldn't run, maybe this time Beth you stop setting yourself up for disappointment.

And there set out, as he carried me from the old bed to the white kitchen, was the greatest redneck picnic I had ever seen. The table was haphazardly set with cutlery and even a small table cloth, the jars in each of our seats. It wasn't the same way that hunting provided the meals that we would eat, nor was it the same as scrounging around a fire with cans of syrupy pears. Though there were jars in lieu of standard china plates and the menu consisted of pig's feet, cola and peanut butter I hadn't seen a more romantic location.

Did I just say romantic? Because I didn't mean it, no not like that. It was thoughtful, shall we say? Yes, Daryl had gone out of his way to accommodate the idea of homeliness though he would rather be barbequing snake with someone stronger I was sure.

I must be the most naïve girl in the world. Holding back tears over something so small, but it was him- and he had no idea of the power he had over me. The most I expected was another sign I had been brushed off, that I was getting 'too close' again and the space had to be put back. Yet, Daryl was sitting down at a table with **_me, _**totally ignorant to the rest of the world outside this mortuary. Though it wasn't the real location for falling emotions and sweet kisses in the dark, we made it the perfect place for being there. And seeing his face in the dim light, the uncertainty of his tries, made it all a bit more bearable. For the first days in months there was no sadness in my chest, the death-filled fingers loosened from around my throat. I could breathe, I was free. And he was here.

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