It's only been minutes and Beth has never been more scared in her entire life, not since those men attacked her all those weeks ago. She again got that frisson of fear that sent a jolt of electricity through her body and she knew that she was going to have to think fast. She knew where Daryl's gun was. Thankfully it wasn't upstairs. Ever since the episode with those men, she had taken to carrying it with her.

She had let her guard down the past couple of days being snowed in and not expecting any passersby. It's a mistake that she wished now she hadn't made. Then she could have just passed Daryl the gun pretty as you please as he'd come in and asked for it. It probably wouldn't have gone that smoothly but she couldn't keep her mind from the what-ifs at the moment.

She fought to control her nerves and saw Daryl watching her out of the corner of her eye. The man had directed them to sit down at the table and he was sitting across from the five of them, Beth, Daryl, Pastor John and Dale and for whatever reason the man had Chester to sit right next to him. Beth again felt that stab of fear in her gut and there was something very off about this man and the way he kept eyeing her up and down.

"So let's have us a little talk here with the missus. I am wondering if she knows what happened to my brother Joe." He sneers at her and his black beady eyes rake over her body once more and she has to fight not to throw up. It's not going to do anyone any good if she goes and gets sick right now.

Suddenly she thinks of something that might work. "I need to go check on my patient. Then we can have that talk."

"What patient!" The man bellows and gestures with his gun. "You some kind of doctor or something."

"I am." Beth lies easily. "The man in the other room is sick with influenza. You shouldn't even be here." She says and she steels her jaw and looks at him with nothing but determination and Greene fortitude staring him down. "But I need to check on him or he might die. I don't think you want an innocent man's death on your hands." She glances to Dale and he doesn't challenge her at all. If anything, he looks relieved that she has provided a distraction.

She waits and she thinks for a minute that the man is going to refuse her and then she doesn't know what she's going to do to get the gun that she desperately needs to right this situation. She whispers a prayer to God above that he's watching out for him and reminds herself that luck has been on their side so far. She and Daryl had been through so much together already and she'd be damned if she was going to let some vigilante bandit take all that away from them.

"I'll go with you." He says and she quickly shakes her head, momentarily panicking because if he goes with her, he's going to see that she has lied and that the patient has died. She is almost certain that this man is somehow affiliated with her patient lying dead in the back room.

"You can't. He's contagious. I'm already exposed, so I'm the only one who should go." She doesn't think he'd let anyone go with her anyways, but she mentions that for good measure.

"Be back in five minutes or your beloved gets it." He leans forward and brandishes the gun in her face and she can practically feel the tension coming off of Daryl beside her. She wants to tell him that it'll be okay. She wants to tell him that she loves him. She wants to bury herself in his arms and never let him go again in their entire lives.

She nods quickly and even bats her eyelashes at him once for good measure which seems to appease him as he sits back in his chair in satisfaction. "The ladies always love me eventually." Beth fights the urge to be sick again as he runs his thick tongue across his lips, spittle gathering on his chin.

She steels her resolve and leaves the room, not sparing a backward glance at anyone, lest she give up her plan.

Daryl can hardly control himself as Beth is leaving the room and the man has his eyes on her backside. There is something that wells up in him that makes him know for certain he comes from the Dixon bloodline. He sees nothing but red but somehow he manages to hold onto his temper and sit there. He doesn't know for sure, but he's almost positive Beth has gone for the gun. He doesn't know why she's lied to him about being a doctor or about there being a patient being in the back room.

For all he knows there could be, but he doesn't question it. He's just glad Beth can think fast on her feet and she definitely has by the time she leaves the room. The man goes on and on and Daryl tries to tune him out as he worries about Beth, worries about all of them. But it's hard to tune him out when he's going on and on about what he's going to do to them all.

"As soon as I find out what happened to my brother, we're all going to have a little fun. Starting with me. Guests should go first don't you think and this seems to be a fine establishment you're running here. And if you don't mind my saying so, Daryl, your little missus is my cup of tea."

Daryl did mind him saying so. He minded very much and if the situation was different the man would be picking his teeth up off the floor for even looking at Beth the way he'd been looking at her, let alone speaking of her in such a manner. But right now he had a gun pointed straight at him and he wasn't planning on getting shot today. He would not do Beth any good at all if he got himself killed. No, he'd have to wait and bide his time and trust that Beth could get to the gun. She hadn't been gone a minute yet and he was already antsy for her return.

"It must be mighty nice to have a woman like her to come home to. I used to have that." The man looked out the window a minute. "Maybe I could have that again. Maybe I'll just take your missus to be my own. I could claim her."

Daryl clenched his fists in his lap. Fucking prick would do no such thing. He'd rip his throat out with his teeth if he had to. What the hell was taking Beth so long anyway? He wanted to punch this bastard right in his mouth. Daryl didn't say anything to the man, just looked at him. He had plenty he wanted to say, but he didn't trust himself to speak just now.

"Who's this patient anyway?" Lou suddenly asked.

"Just a passerby. He was real sick. Is real sick." Dale spoke from beside him and he didn't look at the man but there was something off about the whole thing.

"Huh, a couple of my guys were sick too. Then the storm hit. But all my people are holed up in a cabin down the road. Abandoned. I got caught out getting supplies."

Daryl knew the place. It was the old abandoned farm house on the edge of the town. They'd passed it on their way in the first time they'd come through here all those weeks ago.

He thought again about Beth and what was taking her so long. Was she having trouble finding the gun? Was she able to find it at all? Did the mysterious patient she was taking care of need her longer than necessary? As he stared at the end of the gun pointed at him, he prayed to a God he wasn't even sure existed anymore that she was okay and she'd be back soon. Their lives depended on it.

Beth hurries down the hallway and heads to the back room, fishing the key from her pocket. She hadn't wanted anyone wandering in there so she'd locked the door.

She opened it and for whatever reason felt relieved that the man's body was still covered with the sheet. She didn't know what she expected. It was just somewhat disconcerting to have a dead body in one's home. She thought again of how they'd need to dispose of it and didn't know how they were possibly going to get out of this situation to do that much.

She couldn't think about that now though. Her earlier thought about falling ill had sparked another one. She crossed the room to the fireplace where she'd left wet cloths warming by the fire. Handling them carefully as they were quite warm, she placed two on her forehead and one on the back of her neck and held them in place for a couple of minutes, as long as she dared. She was guessing she had been gone about three minutes. She planned to be back long before her five minutes were up.

Finally feeling reasonably warm, she placed the cloths back onto the hearth and dried herself off, and retrieved the gun from her cloak. As an afterthought, she crosses the room to the patient and uncovers his face. He doesn't look dead still. He just looks like he's been sleeping and if for some reason, that awful man wanders in here, he won't know immediately that she's lying.

Satisfied that she's done enough and worried that she's already been gone too long, she takes the gun and tucks it into the top of her skirt and covers it with her long shawl and walks back out of the room, closing the door behind her. There is really no need to lock it now.

She walks back down the hallway and she feels sorry for what she is about to do, but it couldn't be helped. Hopefully Daryl will be able to see through her ruse and reach her before anyone else so she could get him the gun.

She walked back into the kitchen to find Daryl seething with anger, barely keeping it in check. Better now than never.

She puts her hand to her forehead just as she reaches Daryl. "Oh my, I think I'm going to faint." She allows all the muscles in her legs to relax and lets herself slump to the floor, her eyes shutting and letting her head fall to the side.

Daryl frowns and his heart catapults into his chest as he sees Beth slump to the floor. But then his instincts take over and he knows she is acting. To his practiced eye, he knows what she looks like when she's ill and she was just fine when she walked out of the room. Still, as he crouches over her, she feels hot and clammy and without really knowing how she's done it, he knows she is providing the distraction they need. He feels a surge of pride at her quick thinking and resists the urge to lean down and kiss her square on the lips.

He feels along her waistline and feels the gun and quickly gets it into his hand and leaning over her to disguise his movements, he tucks it into his breeches and covers it with his shirt. For appearance sake, he leans over Beth's chest and presses his head down to listen to her heart and it's all he can do as he tears himself away again to look at the room at large.

Playing into her distraction and knowing what she's done, he addresses their captor. "She's ill. She has a fever."

As if the man does not believe him, his hand shoots out and before Daryl can stop him, his hand is pressing to Beth's forehead, his fingers lingering a little bit too long and he licks his lips as he pulls his hand away, a gesture which Daryl wants to rip his tongue out for.

But he seems satisfied. "We need to get her lying down in another room." As Daryl speaks it aloud, he finds that he likes the idea very much. Beth, to her credit, appears out cold.

"No way. We're all staying right here." The man snorts as if he is about to laugh.

"She's sick. She needs to lie down." Daryl says again.

"It really won't do anyone any good if she is in here. She could be contagious." Dale says and Daryl could honestly hug the man he's so happy he's thought of that.

The man pauses for a long minute and finally nods his head. "You can put her in the room with the other patient. I wanna take a look at this person myself. Just to make sure. But we're all gonna go together." Lou says and Daryl notices that Dale tenses up beside him.

Daryl picks Beth up into his arms effortlessly and notes how much heavier she is since she has relaxed her entire body. If he didn't know better, he would think she was really unconscious with fever. Lou lets them lead as he points a gun directly at Daryl's back and all Daryl can hope is the guy doesn't have a happy trigger finger.

They reach the room and Dale opens it and the man in the bed doesn't awaken when they enter. Daryl goes over to the other bed in the room, a small cot and lies Beth back on the covers.

Suddenly Lou is screaming at them. "That's Dan! You sonofabitches, what did you do to him. Wake her up. Wake that doctor up and make him better right now." He's forgotten about holding his gun up for the moment and is crouching over the other man in the adjacent bed.

Daryl knows it's now or never. He pulls the gun from his waistband while the man's back is turned.
"She ain't gonna do no such thing." He makes sure that Lou's head is turned so he sees what's coming for him and pulls the trigger, the bullet hitting him right between the eyes.

He slumps over on the other body and Beth sits up beside him looking around at what's just happened, the relief obvious in her eyes as he gathers her up into his arms. It's over and they're together and right now, with his lips pressed to her hair and her sobbing into his chest, this is really all he will ever need in this world.

It takes hours, but between him, Dale, Pastor John and Chester, they are able to dig shallow graves for the two men once they shovel out a fair bit of snow from the thick blanket that covers the church cemetery lot. They choose two plots near the woods and they don't mark the graves with anything other than two stones at each head. Daryl figures it's more than either of the men deserve.

Daryl and Dale had gone down to the farmhouse to check on the other men. They didn't say anything between the two of them, but they knew when they got there, what they'd have to do. They weren't going to take chances on any of these men coming to terrorize them anymore. It wasn't a chance they were willing to take.

However, when they reached the farmhouse, it was cleared out. It seemed they knew what was good for them, cut their losses and left town. For that, Daryl was extremely grateful.

By the time he dragged himself back inside, Beth had drawn him a bath in their room and he walked in and shut the door, leaning back against it.

He would like nothing better than to take her to bed and ravish her but he had the death and stench of two men on him and he wasn't touching her until he was properly cleaned up.

She was nowhere to be found anyway, so he stripped himself down and lowered himself into the warm water, groaning aloud at how good it felt. He could see a trail of water between the hearth and the washtub he was sitting in so she must have carried all the water herself.

About five minutes into soaping himself up, the door to their room opened and Beth walked in, looking about as tired as he felt.

She didn't say a word. She just looked at him, a smile in her eyes and began to strip herself naked in front of him.

Despite his exhaustion, he felt himself grow hard as her breasts came into view and then as she slipped her last garment from her body and she walked over to stand in front of him at the washtub, he leaned forward and pressed his wet face into her naked stomach and wrapped his arms around her his hands gripping her hips on either side. Just like that, she climbed into the tub with him and sat down right across from him, draping her legs over his, nearly sitting in his lap.

He took the tin cup and wordlessly dripped the water down the front of her body, the droplets collecting between her breasts. All at once, he pressed his lips to hers hungrily and she met his kiss with equal fervor.

He kisses her until they are both breathless and panting for air and finally he pulls himself away to look at her, taking in her big blue eyes appraising him. "It was real good thinking what you did, Beth." He says and she smiles softly at the praise.

"Just did what I had to do. I would have shot him myself if I had to." She didn't say it and neither did he, but he was glad it hadn't been left to her to do that this time. He still had vivid memories of standing over her when she was covered in blood in that grove.

"I know you would have. Glad you didn't have to." He says in a whisper.

They finish their bath as quickly as possible as the water is rapidly cooling in the chill air and Beth is starting to shiver. They get out and dry off and locking their door, they both fall into the bed, not bothering to dress in their nightclothes.

By some unspoken agreement, they just want to be as close as possible. Even if they don't make love tonight, he just wants to feel her skin against his.

They lie on their sides looking at one another before finally she speaks.

"Daryl, I love you. I was so scared." She says and her eyes well up with tears as he pulls her into his arms.

"Shh, it's okay. You don't gotta be scared now. I love you too, Beth. And I'm here and I ain't going nowhere ever again." It is a promise he intends to keep. And as she tucks herself into his side, everything is alright in his world again. Beth is safe and she's in his arms and that's the way things are gonna be from now on.

Hope you like the chapter you guys! It's something I have had planned since I wrote Trail of Memories. Don't worry there will be more sexy times later but I hope you liked their little reunion at the end. Thanks for reading and please leave a review, xoxoxo