AN: I've rated this story T but I'll move it up to M for later chapters. There are mentions of suicide in the first chapter so please be aware of that. I'm planning on updating once a week. I hope you like it and that I do the characters justice. This is my second foray into writing for The Walking Dead.

Some major events will stay the same but there will be quite a bit (a lot) of divergence. I have this outlined through the end of Season 2 but if the spirit moves me I'll take it farther.

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Chapter One: Dixon & Greene

Beth Greene spent the first eighteen years of her life on her family's farm. Her Daddy said that the land had been in their family for nigh on six generations. The land, he said, was in their blood, running in their veins, singing in their capillaries. Her Daddy was a bit of a poet. She rode horses, learnt to make pie crust from scratch, and memorized the feeling of rich earth crumbling though her fingers. She laughed with her sister, loved her Mamma, hugged her Daddy, and teased her brother. In the summer she ate peaches til she was set to burst and on Saturdays she ushered groups of school children on tours of the dairy and the hatchery. Beth helped bring new life into the world when it was foaling season, read cheesy romance novels, and sung in the church choir.

When she was twelve she let Jimmy McCune kiss her. She let him stick around after that too. She liked the feeling of his hand in hers and besides she had known him practically forever. Beth knew it wasn't love but she thought maybe it was good enough for high school. Sometimes she let herself daydream about moving up to Nashville where she would play her guitar for groups of sparkling strangers in dim bars. In her mind's eye Beth could see her life stretched out behind her. Her childhood was bright, golden, full of love and wildflowers and picnics, but there were flickers of darkness lurking there too, black shadows that threatened to reach out and pull her under.

When Beth was seven she almost drowned in the mill pond. She knew that she wasn't supposed to be swimming on her own, knew she'd get in trouble, but it had been hot and the water had looked so cool and inviting. She had dipped her toes in first and then waded in, liking the feel of the water wrapping around her, smooth like her Mamma's silk robe. She had kept going out into the deep, treading the water with her little arms, just like Otis had shown her earlier that summer. But then she had gotten tired and had started towards the shore but her body had failed her. Turned out she had gone out a lot farther then she had meant too.

Suddenly she was under the surface, eyes open, gazing out into murky gradated green and blue. It had been peaceful, perfectly still, almost like she had been placed between two panes of glass and pressed there, hung, preserved in the silence of the water. Being under the water hadn't hurt a bit, it was lovely, dark, and serene. The bottom of the pond looked like a forest in miniature, rich foliage swaying in the breeze of the current. She maybe would have liked to stay there, but when her face burst above the surface and her lungs began to take ragged gulping breaths of fiery air... well that had hurt something fierce. Maggie had been the one to pull her out. She could still remember the panicked look in her big sister's glass green eyes as she dragged her limp body onto the bank. She hadn't been scared until then and after that she didn't go swimming for a long time.

When Beth was ten her Granny, her Mamma's mamma, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. She had faded pretty fast after that. They had gone to see her a couple of times, only to find her staring out the same window at the old folk's home. She hadn't know them, even when Beth had clambered up into her lap, pressed her hands to her Granny's cool papery cheeks, and looked into eyes that were the exact color of her own. There had been no recognition, no spark of memory, only endless pale blue that had somehow reminded Beth of when she had been underwater, that day when she was seven. Cool, serene, lovely, but empty. Beth knew then that her Granny was gone. They had gone to the funeral six months later. Everyone had cried but Beth, she had grieved a season before.

Her Mamma and Shawn died when Beth was sixteen. They had been coming back from a football game and the roads had been slick from an ice-storm. The police officers who had come to the door said that it had been instant, that they hadn't felt any pain. It was a kind thing to say but Beth thought that it had rang untrue. Things were a bit of a blur after that, no matter how hard she thought about it she couldn't remember all of what had happened. She couldn't remember the funeral or if she had remembered to make sure her Mamma was buried wearing her favorite dress. She had never seen her Daddy cry before and she had never seen Maggie so angry. It was like they didn't even know each other, all locked away in their own grief, wandering through the pain on their own, like they were dead too, but still walking. Beth only remembered feeling empty, void, the world and her faith falling away until she was stuck in some in-between space. Not living, not dead, not breathing, not drowning, suspended. She might have like to stay in that in-between, been content there like she had been under the water of the mill pond, but the mirror had shattered and there had been blood on the bathroom sink and on the floor and on her jeans and just everywhere and lord it hurt. It burned and her knees had felt weak as she yelled her sister's name, red rushing from her wrist.

After that she managed to graduate high school and broke up with Jimmy when he wouldn't stop looking at her like she was gonna break, like she was still bleeding. She moved to Atlanta, bracelets ringing her scarred wrist. Maggie had said that she could move in with her and Herschel hadn't wanted her to leave the farm at all. Beth didn't listen. She rented out a crappy apartment in a bad part of town and found a roommate and a job as a waitress at a rundown diner. Her apartment was small and drafty and her roommate was sweet, if a bit loud. She started to pull herself back together piece by piece, started singing again, started baking pies, and planted a tiny herb garden on the ledge of the fire escape outside her apartment window. She got stronger, a little more sure of herself. She tried to put it all away. And then she had met Daryl Dixon.

Beth took one look at him and saw herself before the mirror shattered. She saw the same trapped look, saw someone hanging in the balance, in the in-between. He walked right into the diner and slid into a spot in her section at the counter. He was all lanky grace, coiled muscle, and sharp blue eyes. There was dirt under his cracked and bitten fingernails and he smelled like cigarette smoke. His beard was patchy and rough and his flannel shirt needed mending but Beth thought that he was kinda beautiful and more then a little lost. She had chatted his ear off, pouring him at least three cups of coffee, and burning his toast. She had told him her name and about the farm and for some reason she had told him about how her Mamma had liked to sing in the kitchen while she was doing dishes. He had hardly looked at her, only spoke in grunts, and left a few crumpled dollars for her tip.

She thought fore sure that she would never seem him again but he was back the next day sitting in the same spot, biting at his thumbnail. She told him more and more about her life and she managed to wring his name out of him. Daryl Dixon. She learned that he had an older brother and that he liked to go out into the country to hunt when he could. The other waitresses began to tease her about him once he had shown up everyday for two weeks and she knew at least one of them was jealous, which she kind of liked.

And then one day he hadn't come. Beth had waited as time ticked by. She left work feeling absolutely miserable and disappointed and she was furious at herself for feeling that way. She hardly knew the man, didn't really know anything concrete about him, just his name really. But in the end, after walking the long way home and a lot of angry muttering, she finally had to admit to herself that she had a crush on a thirty something biker who wore a cut with angel wings sewn onto the back. She thought it was something to do with his eyes and how they would kind of shine out at her when she said something that he thought was funny, or how his lips would quirk up just a little, or how his fingers would brush hers just so when she refilled his coffee, sending an electric zing up her spine.

He was gone for eight days. Eight long,dull tedious days. When he came back he slid into his regular seat and raised his eyes to hers almost sheepishly. They had just looked at each other for a long moment until he looked away. Beth clutched at her forgotten coffee pot. "Brother came back into town, had to help him out with some stuff," he had mumbled looking back at her again.

"Oh," she had breathed and then poured him some coffee. She hoped he hadn't noticed that her hands were trembling. Swallowing her pride and summoning her courage she had asked him to come see her sing at a local coffee shop that night. He hadn't said anything for a long moment and then just grumbled maybe. They hadn't really talked much after that but she could feel his eyes on her hot and steady as she moved across the diner.

Beth hadn't let herself hope that he would come. When she saw him at the back of the coffee shop she had to fight to keep the waver out of her voice. He looked so nervous, so out of place, shuffling from one foot the other, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans. And then afterwards she had come up to him, grinning from ear to ear, and he had led her out back to the alleyway, pressed her up against the brick wall, and kissed her. Kissed her and kissed her and kissed her and she had never felt so happy in her entire life.

After that there had been a lot of fights and a lot of making up, a lot of miss-communication, sullen looks interspersed with wide smiles, and flash fire kisses. Daryl Dixon was never going to be what one would call a romantic, never going to take her out to some fancy uptown dinner or write her poetry. He wasn't a wordsmith. He never told her she was beautiful but he didn't need too. She could tell by how he looked at her, how he swept his rough fingers across her soft skin. Daryl was more likely to bring her venison then chocolates and sometimes he closed himself off so thoroughly she despaired of ever truly knowing him. But bit by bit they fell into each other and it wasn't always easy but it was always worth it.

It took two months for her to tell him about the scar on her wrist, pulling back her bracelets so he could see the long jagged length of it. It took him four to let her fully see the marks that crisscrossed his back. It took her even longer to convince him that she was there to stay. She wasn't going anywhere and that she loved him. She knew he still struggled with it, could see it in his eyes sometimes, could tell when he got frustrated, could see that he couldn't understand why she was still sticking around. But they got by, and they were happy.

Daryl Dixon looked at her like she was strong, like she was sunshine, bright and light and precious. And she was. Around him she was everything that she wanted to be. With him she broke the surface of her past, came up for air for the first time in a long time. He told her once that that being with her had burned him up. Like her love had cleansed him. She knew what he was talking about. They had both been consumed by things in their past, nearly destroyed, but they had both come out the other side. They weren't ashes.

Maggie about blew a gasket when she found out. There had been a lot of yelling and a lot of fluttering hands and a lot of 'what's Daddy going to say.' Maggie had accused Daryl of using Beth, of taking advantage, told her she was too young to know what love was and that she was being stupid and naive. The final straw for Beth had been when Maggie had mumbled something about how he would more then likely end up beating her and she didn't want to see Beth come home with bruises. They had fought then, loud and long, Greene spitting fire at Greene until they both guttered out. Beth had left slamming the door of Maggie's apartment behind her. They didn't talk for three weeks after that no matter how many times Daryl urged Beth to call or visit. Eventually though, after Maggie began to see how good Daryl was for Beth and how very good Beth was for Daryl she apologized to both of them. Beth had accepted the apology with a fair amount of grace. Daryl told Beth later that Maggie had taken him aside afterwards and threatened to skewer him with a pitchfork if he ever hurt her baby sister. They both believed her.

Telling her Daddy that she was in love (because that's surely what it was) with a redneck biker nearly twice her age wasn't something that Beth had ever imagined she would have to do. But she did it. It had gone about as well as she could have expected. He hadn't yelled or made a scene, just sat there and listened his lips set into a firm line of disapproval. She hated to disappoint her Daddy and that's all she had seen in his face that day but he came around, quicker then Maggie truth be told. Her Daddy had suffered under his own fair share of abuse, seen how anger and resentment could warp and twist people if they let it. Hershel had fought and barely won against his own demons and he found it impossible to judge a man who was clearly trying to put his past behind him.

The night Beth had met Merle he had grinned at her like the Cheshire Cat, slapping Daryl on the back, crowing about his baby brother had finally got himself a damn fine piece of ass. His eyes had been wary though as they ran up and down her body, sharp and piercing and Beth thought that maybe Merle could see all the way down into her soul, could see the mirror shattering and the blood on the bathroom floor. If her Daddy's talent was seeing the good in people then Merle Dixon's was seeing the weakness in them. She had trembled under his gaze but only for a moment. After that she had took Daryl's hand and firmly told Merle to fuck off. The words had felt foreign on her tongue but they had made Merle smile, toothy and almost charming, but the wariness didn't leave his eyes. Merle was an asshole but deep down he loved his baby brother, maybe even more fiercely then Beth did.

So it went. Beth stayed working at the diner and signed up for classes the next semester at the community college, just gen ed stuff mainly, until she figured out what she wanted to do. She thought she might like to be a music teacher. Daryl started doing odd jobs around town. He started running after Merle less and less, told Beth that he was trying to put that part of his life behind him She never pushed him about that though, knew that was something he had to decide on his own. He still got angry sometimes and she still got sad too but they were good together. It was spring and everything was fresh and new and heating up. Sometimes they just sat out on her tiny fire escape and talked until they fell asleep, her head against his shoulder. They were good, they were so good. Beth could see her future spread out in front of her, a winding golden road with ups and downs, peaks and valleys. She knew Daryl would walk it with her. The only thing Beth couldn't foresee was the goddamn zombie apocalypse.