Chapter 40

She was nudged awake by an insistent paw of a hand. Said hand curved her hip with a firm enough hold to rock her back and forth as it moved. When she didn't respond, it tightened its grip, shook her with a degree more of force. If she wasn't so tired, Beth might have taken the disturbance of her sleep as a warning that she should immediately heed.

As it was though, she simply grumbled and rooted stubbornly into her pillow.

Which spasmed under the pressure and tried to slide out from under her head.

The sigh was in no way feigned, if slightly dramatic, and she raised up enough for him to move if that's what he wanted. Far be it for her to insist on the loss of all feeling in his arm that he'd probably already succumbed to in order to let her sleep as much as she had. But the only noticeable change was that the hand on the ridge of her hip sunk down to palm her still naked mound.

"Uh-uh," she grumbled, only a little more intelligible than her previous noises.

First a nose, and then a warm pair of lips began to nuzzle at her shoulder, like a large animal looking for attention. His answering rumble vibrated its way down to her tailbone and Beth couldn't stop the small curving of her lips. She was very careful when she laid her head back down, didn't arch that tailbone into him, or give any other kind of sign that she was interested in his current train of thought.

Maybe it was the fact that she could feel no insidious amount of trembling in the body pressed to hers, or in the fingers that twitched impatiently on her hood, made it so holding him off didn't spark her anxiety.

It also felt good — to let him make a wet mess of her shoulder with tongue and teeth.

Make him talk her into it a little.

A bit of fun maybe…

And didn't they deserve some fun?

Her murmur when he bit tenderly at her bicep was taken as an all clear, and two sure fingertips pressed past her lips and against her clit.

"Daryl." His name huffed into the quiet early morning-tinged room stopped him in mid-rotation. She almost made a crack, wanted to ask him if they'd fed him little blue pills while he was at the Sanctuary, but it died in her throat. "Ain'tcha had enough?"

Something about the question tugged at her memory before he was digging thick fingers into her thigh, successfully turning her onto her back. At the same time, the arm under her head was pulled free and her eyes clicked open when she hit the mattress. Able to get impressions of him only; a flash of his naked shoulder, the shaggy hair that tickled her face, his heat and weight that sandwiched her against the thin cot, Beth sighed from happiness instead of weariness.

Knew it was going to be hot, that damn tongue of his, liquid rays of the damn sun contained in that too often grimacing mouth.

He gave her a growling, "C'mere." And then that heat poured across her lips and dropped like molten honey to lick along the inside of her mouth. The ploy, the one where she acted uninterested in the hopes of getting him to go back to sleep, got shot to hell with the moan that guttered its way out of her throat. "Ya' fuckin' fell asleep on me last night, girl."

Had she?

Her answer, if she'd been able to formulate one, was interrupted by his second round of attack. The hands that had been on their way to contentedly fist themselves in his hair were pulled away and pinned to either side of her. What had happened last night? It felt so long ago. They'd gotten each other off, that much she knew, he'd been so gentle with her.

And she'd asked him afterward if they could —

Oh, right.

The memory had her hips searching out his. Feet firmly planted and thighs flexing, Beth bowed her spine until she could rub, in her mind, apologetically against him. Daryl grated out a few wonderfully rough sounds in response and the clamps on her wrists clenched that much harder. His tongue swirled around the tip of hers not dissimilar to how she'd do to the tip of his cock. And with that thought it was like she had him hard and throbbing against her taste buds, shooting salt and curses down her eager throat.

Always left her raw and smiling.

Beth whined when the kiss ended abruptly.

"I didn't mean to," she half whispered. "It's like we were layin' there and then there's just nothin'."

Daryl hummed and pulled at her arms until they slid up over her head. Muscles that couldn't remember the last time they'd been anything other than sore muttered obscenities at the position. But she wasn't able to do anything except gaze at her chest as it rose until he trapped one nipple between his teeth. Repeating that damn swirl until she panted with each breath, his focus was absolute, circa the first days of them rolling around in their bed at the ASZ.

And like then, there was something devout in how he lapped at her. Like each lick was an act of contrition. A prayer that begged to be heard and answered. For him to be delivered from the hell that still threatened to hold him fast, to let him have and keep the peace he found in her for just a moment longer.

"Ain't waitin' no more," he groused, moving to the other side of her chest and scraping his beard against the sensitive skin there like he was bound and determined to drive her crazy.

Beth's lungs attempted to laugh but it was too stuttering to qualify.

"That so?" she asked. The smile she wore got turned into an open-mouthed, trembling-jawed cry of surprise when he sucked a patch of skin next to her belly button into his mouth. Bit down. Like the one to her bicep, it wasn't hard, but it had her walls clenched tight and aching when he let it go just to lick over the spot again and again. "D-did you get any sleep?"

He certainly felt, well rested, to say the least. She was honestly trying to figure out whether or not her initial diagnoses of his mental state was accurate.

Daryl nodded against her hip bone. "Got plenty."

Plenty, her greatly aching ass.

She doubted that. Or, if by plenty he meant he'd managed to get two to three hours of uninterrupted slumber. There was no time to check this suspicion though because his slow descent of her body had landed him at the apex of her thighs and any will to examine other things quickly left her.

The knowledge that they couldn't fuck themselves through his trauma was still very much present. But it was early, he was warm and wanting between her legs, and Beth knew they wouldn't get many more chances for a setting like this one. Hating and loving herself for her lack of self-control, she swiveled her hips just to feel the pull of abdominal muscles that were just as aching as her arms.

Still over her head, bent at the elbow, hanging off the top edge of the cot. Daryl wasn't holding them anymore, but Beth couldn't seem to remember how to unhinge the joints, bring the limbs back to where they'd been. The man was driving her past distraction. Far past. And he didn't seem much interested in letting her regain her bearings whatsoever.

His first long drag up her outer lips whiplashed an electrical current over her skin in a delicious wave that stole her next breath completely. Beth let the damn thing get taken, good riddance, a little oxygen deprivation was well worth it for the trade of his tongue tensing enough to push past the first fleshy barrier to the cluster of nerves beneath.

In a similar movement, as she'd done earlier, Beth pressed her heels down, urged Daryl further with the tilting and raising of her hips. In times like this one, he'd often used one large hand to keep her in place, an anchor to stop her from levitating right the fuck away from him.

This time though, this time he let her.

Braced on one arm, two fingers plunged in with a suddenness that had her hissing through her teeth. It felt like he nodded against her cunt, encouraged her to let loose with more pleading noises as he rolled his tongue along her shining folds. Her voice refused to get out as much as she wanted it to, seemed to be battling her heart for space in her throat. No doubt her heart would win the fight for the territory, each beat swelling the tight space and constricting with her pulse.

Not unlike the way her pussy was around his questing digits.

A shiver was rippling throughout her nervous system. The slow and so steady convulsion brought her arms from their forgotten place. She used the new mobility to reach down and fasten her hands into his hair. The force of the air as it tore its way through that too full throat of hers made it feel like she might, in fact, be dying.

The whole apocalypse was throwing itself at them and they kept throat punching it in return.

Each time they did, it earned them enough time to regroup.

To hold up their middle fingers at the world while it burned down in front of them.

Tried to take them with it but hadn't managed to. Not so far at least. Not right now.

"Oh, fuck," she gasped, still through gritted teeth, her jaw aching.

Daryl stopped to heave a breath against her wet-slicked thighs and center. "Still wanna go back ta' sleep?"

"Yer talkin' too much," Beth answered, her accent notching up with her need. "Get back to what'cher good at."

Whenever she'd sass him like this in the past he'd laugh or growl at her in reply. But again, this time was different, this time, he did as he was told —

"Oh, fuck!" The expletive burst once more from her mouth, and Beth slammed a palm over her mouth, the one that wasn't already busy yanking Daryl deeper into her. He shook his head quickly like he was disagreeing vehemently with something, but his tongue swept weeping swaths of fire across her pulsing clit. "Fu—"

Her lower half was lifted off the cot and Beth pried her lids apart enough to see the glittering of his eyes. His inquiring hum sent trilling sparks straight through her. There was humor there. It was buried in lust and muted by the darkness that still mobbed him, but he still twinkled the merest bit of mirth at her.

Jesus, I love him so much.

Only her shoulder blades touched the thin pad now and even they were barely brushing. Felt like he wanted to suck the come straight out of her. Wanted to lick until he reached her core, to curl his fingers until she was bawling at him to stop. The sight of her shuddering stomach ending with his rapt gaze and her legs thrown over broad shoulders sent her over the edge. The wiring of that short-circuiting nervous system burst in such beautiful ways until she had to close her eyes once more to keep it from leaping from her to the room around them, to the man between her thighs.

To keep it all from catching fire.

It seemed like Daryl knew it too. Her last snapshot — his lids slid shut as he drank her down.

She was still quaking down to the marrow when he dropped her back to earth, or in this case the old camp bed, and covered her trembling body with his. There was no way she could be moving, but she was, one hand went to the back of his neck to force a kiss that was going to happen regardless. The other hand unhelpfully tried to guide his heated length into her, but probably got in his way more than anything else.

Despite that, he eased into her with a groan, a few shallow thrusts and she felt just how easy it was for him to move inside of her. How soaked she was. What he'd done — was still doing. As much with the sight of him, rangy lines and a half-lidded gaze, as with the way he expertly manipulated her body without a word needed.

Beth broke the kiss in order to breathe. Plus, she wanted to look, to see him. To fuel that wet trickle, that tickled, as it slipped in a thick drip between her cheeks. She only got a brief view of Daryl's pleasure twisted face though, before he was hiding it against her neck. Then there was the heave and curl of his shoulders and back. The scars and tattoo ebbed from view each time he pulled almost completely out before snapping his way back in.

"Fuck's righ'," he murmured heatedly, rubbing her skin deliciously raw with scruff and nipping bites. "Christ, Brier," Daryl's voice rasped and broke, "wanna fill you up so bad, girl."

Her body shook and vibrated itself nearly to pieces like she'd already come again just from his voice in her ear. The sound that slipped out was just as involuntary, but her reply came straight from her soul.

"You can," she whispered, but it echoed so loudly in the greying room around them that she might as well have screamed it.

Daryl jerked to a stop.

His panting was almost enough to collapse her ribcage but she didn't try to move either of them in search of relief. There was something balanced here. A thing that had scrabbled its way back from being so off-kilter. Daryl's control. His need to protect himself and everyone he cared for, was no doubt warring its way to shreds inside of his already scarred mind.

He might pull himself out of her right now.

Might give her a look that made her want to die.

Beth had stopped breathing completely by the time he did move. The heartbeat in the walls that stretched around his cock stuttered and flexed. A withering fear took over her limbs and joints, made her grasp at him when he reared back to rest on his knees. Fingernails dug white lines of worry down his tanned forearms and she was only able to lighten their pressure, not remove them entirely from his barely giving skin.

Had she just asked him to willingly repeat the psyche shredding events that had almost utterly ruined him? Had she meant it? Her mind had chased its tail on the subject. That was certain. But it still had mostly been kept at bay by the haze they'd inhabited together since they'd been reunited. Yeah, it had happened, several times already as a matter of fact, but this time, her words were far too conscious. They were more aware, miles away from the desperate truce they'd shared until now.

Maybe he'd just been talking. Things that spiraled in any sex-blurred mind.

Maybe she'd just been talking too.

Except from the look on his face, and the slamming of her heart against her sternum, Beth knew they both realized that wasn't the case.

All the details and the why nots were still there, but she couldn't listen to them at the moment.

Couldn't help how badly she wanted to feel exactly what he'd described.

That hot gush. The way it spilled into her. Kept her warm, and wanting more.

She was one more labored heartbeat away from begging him to say something, when Daryl hauled hard on her thighs, dragging her up his legs and bringing them flush once more.

"Still wantin' it rough?" he asked. She wasn't sure how much her anticipation was clouded with concern, but she sucked in a breath and nodded anyway. "Ya sure?"

A quick, "Mhmm," was all she could manage and then he had her vised in place and he was moving.

That gulp of air she'd captured wasn't long in staying. Daryl cracked his hips forward and the traitorous bit of oxygen abandoned her with the sound that their skin made as it collided. One of her hands flew to claw itself around the canvas-lined bars of the cot; the other one slammed into the wall next to her head, nails unable to find purchase no matter how desperately she tried.

He was going to fuck her right off the narrow bed and onto the floor and she didn't think, by the harsh expression he wore, that he'd give a single shit about it. He would just keep going, thrust her right past the uneven flooring of the trailer and into the dust underneath. For right now though, he had her captured tight and wasn't letting her budge other than the reverberation from each teeth clicking impact.

Beth tried to keep quiet. She did. The shelter was sturdy enough, the fortification around them sound, but there were still people within easy hearing distance and she'd never been one to willingly share her and Daryl's sweatier activities.

So her unlucky bottom lip was held prisoner, for all of five seconds, until she had to let the poor thing go or bite clean through it.

Even then, her cries were barely louder than the great gusts of air pulling heavily into her man's lungs. It was as if the longer and harder he fucked her the closer to her heart the sensitivity of her throbbing walls spread. It yawned up into her and swept down each limb like a blazing shine shack in the Georgia woods. The orgasm built until it wasn't so much that she wanted to come as that she needed to.

Needed to make it peak and stop because the thumping thing in her chest was going to burst.

When she dove a cramping hand downward, however, she was slapped away with an accompanying growl that had her eyes peeling back open. She couldn't remember shutting them but now that she could see once again, Beth couldn't say that her vision was much improved. It was static-tinged and flaring with each jolt that he sent through her.

Daryl answered her whine with another guttural rumbling and shake of his sweat-covered head.

The next noise out of her was truly piteous and she couldn't get within the realm of caring. A glance took in the way his arms flexed around her shaking legs, the play of skin as it stretched taut over his stomach, the white flash of teeth that were bared in determination, also to allow a greater flow of much-needed oxygen.

Beth canted her hips and clenched around him as hard as she could.

Her release left her with a wrecked sobbing sound.

It was like the clearing (was it really only little more than a day ago now?) but so much more.

There wasn't the worry of walkers stumbling onto them or Saviors. She was more sure about his mental state. Mostly, it was that she could see him. When her watery eyes opened to him still pumping into her, Daryl's face had gone from utter determination to something so tortured and open that she cried out again, unable to make the words that were needed to ask him.

To ask him if he were alright. To tell him he could stop.

But then he dropped her legs to get a new hold on her hips.

Two more stuttering thrusts and a heady warmth pulsed into her with each twitch and throb of his dick. She was just able to catch his larger frame when he all but fell on top of her. They were both shaking, she knew that distantly, but the tremble wasn't an awful one.

When her breathing didn't hiccup on the way in, and his skin didn't twitch with every pass of her fingers along his back, Beth thought it finally ok to break the silence.

"I think," she tried, voice clicking with the dryness of her throat. "I think ya broke it."

To reinforce what she meant, Beth gave a mildly weak clench around him.

The scoffing sound that buffeted her ear was a welcome one; so was the nuzzle that followed it.

"Nah," he said, pulling out slowly and then stroking a few careful pads against the swollen flesh, his fingers tracking through the slow leak and rubbing it against her hypersensitive clit. "Just makin' sure it stays good an' broken in."

"Oh re—"

She stopped when he lifted himself up enough to gaze at her.

Haunted.

Trauma, it was such a bitch to repair. They all knew it. He was doing his absolute best to joke with her. To not beg her to tell him that she was ok. That she was joking too. To not break down again in relief and grief over everything he'd been through, everything that had been done to him.

A calm smile turned up the corners of her mouth.

No need to press her luck, either of their luck, come to think of it.

"That's exactly what I wanted," she said reassuringly.

Her hands moved to make soothing passes across his wet scalp. And again, she compared what he did now to what he'd have done before. Before he'd have gotten half bashful, shied away from her or if he were having a steadier day, he'd maybe have searched the truth of it in her eyes and been content. Now, he blinked his eyes closed and dipped a chin in answer, taking her words to balm whatever wound was within him.

The ability to accurately track time was lost after he went back to pillowing his face on her chest.

Maybe she should be concerned, with how quickly and utterly she'd been falling asleep lately, but then again, sleep had always been easier to find once Daryl was with her. She was never so safe as when he was within reach. Clearly, her body was well aware of this and was doing all it could to maximize on his close proximity once again.

It'd be nice if they could get some more rest. Wonderful really. Her body might be used to running at peak levels in less than desirable conditions, but it didn't mean she should push that too much or too often. Lord knew it would literally come down to life and death soon. Just like it always did, always had, since the world started to include things like the dead walking and men worse than fairytale monsters.

Thing was, she (and therefore Daryl too, if he cared) could now hear properly, without any distractions, how many people were up and moving. Not a lot, not like there were many people here to make all that much noise period, but there was a hushed discussion going on at the next trailer over from theirs. Also seemed like she could just catch the light clumping sound of boots passing by.

She tried and failed to not put together the fact that if she could so easily hear these more unexceptionable sounds, that it would be startling easy for those persons making them to have heard her…

Daryl sighed and adjusted so that his nose was buried, apparently quite happily, into her neck.

Well, it was far too late to take any of it back now anyway.

He stretched, seeming to still be in the process of catching his breath, bathing her chest with his exhale. Beth hugged him, little presses, and she grinned at his timid kisses to the underside of her jaw. There was without a doubt more of a calm. Where she'd heard ear bleeding static and high pitched tones from his frequency, now it was more of a turbulent white noise. Still disconcerting, but not as bad, not for now as they lay together.

But that couldn't last forever.

"You know we have to get up, right?" she asked, huffing out a breath when he tensed. "Time didn't stop," her fingers dug into his hair, attempting to pull him up with no success, "no matter how great ya are at makin' me come."

That got him to make a confusing noise, both grumbling and murmuring like he'd prefer a second round in order to prove her wrong and might not agree with her findings at all in the first place.

"Guess we could always talk," she reasoned, somewhere between exasperated and laughing when he tensed even more. "Ya know, about how we're trying, or at least letting it happen, to have a kid? You really wantin' to?" Her throat closed up a bit when his fingers spasmed against her ribs. "Or did you just do it because I said you could? Because you're tryin' to make me happy?"

His ear dug into her chest when he shook his head but offered no further explanation.

Hmm, that answers a whole lot of nothin'.

But he was wire tight against her and it didn't seem like prodding at him more would help any.

"We best be gettin' vertical," she sighed, patting his back as she did. "They're likely to send someone to check an' see if my heart's still beatin' after what they heard ya doin' to me."

She thought her teasing would have him huffing or cringing, but he moved only marginally, nodding at what he found.

"It's pumpin' jus' fine." His answer, again, wasn't overly helpful, and certainly didn't have her thinking that he was going to move. Worry prickled across her hairline, and then he grumbled, "They c'n fuck off if they don' like it."

Well, that was at least in the realm of what she'd expected.

"Since when are you ok with people hearin' us?"

He raised up at last and fixed her with a look.

Shit.

Probably about the time he thought no one would ever hear her in any capacity, ever again.

She tried once more with humor. If it didn't work she'd pack the trait in for the day. "So hearing's ok but you were all concerned about anyone seein'?" A half-hearted motion towards the window in the door to clear any confusion, and she gave him what she hoped was a teasing smile. "I'm just trying to get a handle on your new rules."

His head swayed up and back slightly at her words. "Ain't like I'm pickin' an' choosin' shit."

Welp, ok ixnay on the humor then. We'll try again tomorrow, folks.

"I know," she said quietly. "Sorry, I'm trying to figure out where your head's at is all." His lip curled unhappily and she rushed to finish. "Doesn't mean I'm thinkin' after a couple of days and a few times with me is gonna be an instant cure or somethin'." The expression he wore mellowed slightly. "Just makin' sure…" She wasn't quite sure how to say it, finally settled on the only thing that made sense without putting undue amounts of pressure on him to be back to what he construed as normal. "That you're with me."

Surprisingly, after a beat, he released a quick breath. Not a laugh, but not quite shock either.

"Was thinkin' that the other day," he explained at her raised brows. "On the way back from the stream." She nodded, easily remembering because he'd freaked her out more with how he'd zoned out than when he'd started ripping her clothes off. An unaware Daryl in walker-infested woods was a nightmare situation. "M'not doin' that shit again."

As if he wouldn't allow it to happen through sheer redneck stubbornness alone.

Like the human mind worked that way.

Heck, with Daryl, it just might.

"Good," she said, pulling him down for a quick kiss. "An' I'm not dead." Shock widened his narrow eyes and she slid a soothing pass over his suddenly sallow looking cheeks. "Told ya I'd remind you. Didn't I? Every day if you need me to."

Daryl swallowed and shook his head a little, more to himself it seemed than anything else.

"Think I'd rather feel ya," he pushed into her hand for emphasis, "instead a' havin' to hear that."

"Not as comfortin' as I'm meaning it to be, huh?"

And this time his lips twitched, in a spasming almost crying kind of way. "Nah, not really."

"Alright," she murmured, kissing him again, but longer and much slower. "If I have to, I guess it can be touchin' if that's what helps."

She won a wry look from him this time. "Goddamn martyr, Brier, anyone ever tell ya that?"

"It's just my cross to bear." Her words got lost somewhere in bringing him in for one more meeting of mouths, this one involved her questing tongue and the backs of his teeth, the probing length of his own. "Now c'mon, we gotta make ourselves useful."

"Right," he grumbled, and clambered to his feet, body popping here and there. "I've heard the damn Greene tagline enough."

She stuck her tongue out at him, but only for a second before her clothes were hurled at her face.

Once dressed they made their way carefully from the trailer — carefully because they were both still banged up pretty good, if for different reasons — looking around for any familiar faces.

On impulse Beth gave a jerk of her head, indicating to Daryl that she wanted to go around to the backside of their trailer. He nodded and fell into step beside her, bare forearm brushing hers as they all but trudged around the utilitarian structure. She wanted to know if the people that she'd heard earlier were still in the midst of their conversation. Didn't want to intrude or eavesdrop, but there'd been something about the low tones that sounded like they might be saying something she and Daryl would want to know about.

Sure enough, Jesus stood with Glenn and Carl. The three men in a loose circle. Glenn's arms were crossed and he looked a unique kind of unpleased that sparked warning sounds in Beth's brain. Carl appeared no better; there was no arm crossing but she saw clenched fists. In comparison, Jesus was a steady kind of calm that spoke of a man trying to keep the peace.

Here they went again.

A new day.

A new fight.

"What's going on?" she asked, her gaze set on her brother-in-law. "Is Maggie ok?"

A quick glance around at the gazes that met hers saw one set of raised brows and other carefully blank expressions that let her know that, yes, they had heard absolutely everything that had just happened between her and Daryl, but were trying to be adults about it.

She appreciated the heck out of it.

So did her prickling cheeks.

Only prickling though, so maybe she was becoming less hung up on things like that. No time to ponder on it now though, not with the stormy countenances blinking back at her. Not with the knowledge of whatever had them looking so dour had been discussed for close to half an hour now. Meant it was something her and the man next to her needed to know about. Daryl was a silent sentry to one side. His tension something she could feel in the tightening of her spine.

Pitty, she'd been so nice and boneless such a short time ago.

"Yeah, she's fine," Glenn answered with a nod. "She's up on the wall for guard duty."

Beth nodded but couldn't help the frown that happened too. "Should she be doin' that? After everything?"

Her sister's significant other gave her a tired smile and shrugged in a helpless way. "You try and stop her," a bit of a smile that didn't hit his eyes, "she doesn't see anything wrong with it."

Ah, well that was a little awkward.

Beth hoped her sister and Glenn weren't having problems. After the scare with the baby and the group of them being taken, like Maggie had told her after the attack on the Savior's outpost, it wasn't worth it. They, all of them, needed to be a united front.

"We had an attack here while you guys were being kept hostage." Jesus's statement might have shocked her once, but now, all she did was nod to show him she was listening. Recorded the information he gave her about Maggie taking charge and saving lives like it was nearly everyday news. That's what they did now. Rescued people from those claiming to be saviors or wolves or whatever in between. "I think she feels like if she doesn't personally keep watch, that it'll happen all over again."

So she was coping.

Beth took in that detail as well. Daryl's heat pulsed along her arm, reminding her how they were all coping in whatever ways they could. Even if it wasn't healthy. Even if it was exactly what they'd agreed with themselves that they shouldn't do. It was all about getting through the day and finding moments to live for.

"You want me to go get her?" she offered, completely serious. Maggie could be stubborn as all get out, and disregarding her own possible state for the sake of argument, Beth was more than willing to remind her sister that she had more than just herself to be worried about. "Get her off the wall? Make her rest?"

Glenn said, "Can you?" Right as Carl said, "That's not what we were talking about."

"Hell was it then?"

Everyone, including Beth, turned their focus to Daryl who appeared very unhappy with the decision he'd made to speak. Face twisted uncomfortably, he rolled his shoulders and eased closer to Beth seemingly unconsciously.

It was still early. Obviously not the dark of the early morning she'd been woken to when he'd decided he wanted her, but now that she was outdoors she could tell that the color that had seeped into their trailer had been minimal. The tones that met her eyes now were all muted, all tired shades that didn't want to start the long grind of the day.

She might have been projecting…

"Some of us want to go check to see what's going on back home." Carl's words were backed up with a thrown glare at Jesus who simply blinked back at him in response.

"You want to," Glenn corrected gently, looking as tired as Beth felt. "And I'm not saying," he continued at the teen's angry glare, "that I don't see your point. Alright? But the more often we all go sneaking over to Alexandria and back, the more likely we are to be seen."

"Or taken," Jesus added, his tone said it wasn't the first time he'd made the argument. "Again."

"It's really easy for you all to say, 'wait and see what happens' when you've got who you care about most here already." Carl's stare lay heavily on Beth and Glenn in particular, sliding to Daryl but then quickly away. "I have no idea what's happening to my dad, or Judy," he continued, listing each name like a punch to their collective gut. "Michonne, or Enid."

"We were just there yesterday," Glenn reminded him. "I know it feels longer than that, but we can't risk making that trip once a day. There's no way we're not seen."

The teen's teeth flashed in a near snarl. "You—"

"Carl," Beth bit out, clenching her hands in a similar fashion to his. "Knock it the hell off." Ignoring the surprised faces of some and the pissed off one of another, she continued as evenly as she could. "Anytime one of us acts without thinkin' things through what happens?" It wouldn't help to wrap things up if she let him answer, so she steamrolled whatever his open mouth was about to let loose with. "We die."

The noises surrounding them dissipated and Beth could feel it in her eardrums.

The quiet.

"Or someone we love does, or people who don't deserve to do. And yeah, even when we do have a plan, things can go pear-shaped real quick." She didn't realize she'd moved until she was tipping her head back a little to look up at him. "But I'm sick t'death of burying our family, and that's if we're lucky if we get to lay 'em to rest properly."

Carl's throat jerked in a way that told her he was thinking of his mom, and his glare only intensified.

"I know you want to," she said lowly. "But we don't have the numbers to go against the Saviors right now. And I don't know about you, but I'd really like to avoid having history repeat itself." She felt how her expression went slightly pleading. "If we don't learn from our mistakes, we're not gonna make it. They'll win and we'll never get the chance to wipe that stupid fuckin' smile off Negan's face."

He was about to argue with her. To spit out some kind of response or a dig that aimed to release some of the impotent rage inside of him, when she felt that familiar heat at her back. She didn't know what Carl saw. Might be that her man was glaring fit to scare a herd of walkers into turning tail and running. Just as likely he could be doing a look that tried for veiled begging but failed miserably in doing anything other than showing anyone with eyes the very soul of the man looking back at them.

Or maybe, he just stood and allowed himself to be seen.

The last of them to lash out.

To act without thinking.

To lose who he cared about most because he thought he knew better.

All she knew was when Carl's sight tripped up to where Daryl was over her shoulder, the turmoil in him seemed to redouble before dying away to a simmer. The relieved breath that escaped her lips was followed with a hug neither one of them were expecting. The teenager was stiff as a rod in her arms at first, clearly not appreciating the effort, but similarly to Daryl, after a few beats, he grudgingly wrapped her up and gave her back a quick squeeze.

Backing up enough to look at him, Beth gave what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

"We'll figure something out. Ok?"

He sighed and opened his mouth to respond but then —

"Carl!" They all tensed when Maggie's voice split the air. "Glenn! Everyone!"

There was a certain amount of intensity in her sister's voice, but not fear, not that Beth could tell. People were moving around her. Glenn and Carl both racing away at the call. She turned to do the same and was met with a solid wall of Daryl.

"I wonder what that could be about," Jesus muttered, but he obviously noticed the same thing that she had and didn't hurry when he moved to be in sight of the wall where Maggie had called from. "They're opening the gate."

When she made a move to go around Daryl, to get a look for herself, his hand flashed up to wrap around her arm. His eyes were panicked when she followed the line of his arm up to his face in confusion. This was going to be an issue. And she meant more than just this instance alone. She'd seen it back in the clearing too, or when she'd come into the trailer after talking to Maggie and Sasha.

He didn't want her to be in danger.

The idea of it freaked him out to a startling degree. But she'd meant what she'd told him. He had to be able to trust her to take care of herself in a fight. To believe in them as a team. She didn't want to sound like a broken record, but they couldn't keep repeating history or they'd wind up in the same terrible mess as before.

"Daryl."

His too quick breathing caught and held until he let it eke out of him. A struggle like the one she'd seen in Carl, but far more tumultuous, was raging inside of those murky blues. Made her think about stories she'd grown up with. Sunday school classes that centered around the war over a person's soul. She could see a whole battlefield within each of his blinks.

A nod was all she got but it would have to do for now. As a kind of compromise, she let him go ahead of her, to give him a chance to tell her to go back or be a human shield, she wasn't sure. Could be either. Was probably both.

At this point, she thought it pretty obvious that nothing awful could be happening. After all, there were no screams. No calls to action. And, if it had been the Saviors coming to check for runaways, her sister would hardly have hollered the names of two of the said escapees so that God and everyone could hear it.

When they cleared the trailer's edge she about ran into Daryl's suddenly immobile frame.

There was a group that had just come in. The two collections of people standing loosely as two people in the middle spoke. Beth's hand gripped Daryl's as a full-blown smile split her face when she saw who it was that spoke to her sister.

Rick.

After everything, they might actually be able to once again regroup and see if this freaking God forsaken apocalypse was ready for another round. Beth sure as hell knew she was.

She wasn't dead.