i am strong

the walking dead + underappreciated relationships [4/?]:

Rick smiled and gives her a nod. “ Please….It shouldn’t take very long. ” he said as he heads into the bathroom. It doesn’t take long but he struggled to find a good, clean shirt.

Tonight wasn’t an ordinary night afterall. Tonight he was going to confess his feelings and hope she accepted them.

He could understand if she didn’t. He was much older than her and he wasn’t sure if she was interested in him that way.

He comes out of his thoughts and quickly dressed and comes back downstairs.

Beth is in the kitchen.

“ Beth…” He starts;his voice catching in his throat.

Nodding, Beth heads down the stairs making her way over to the couch.  First, she folds up the throw blanket and drapes it over the cushion, then she slips her cowgirl boots on before heading into the kitchen. 

Opening one of the cabinets over the counter, Beth pulls out two bowls but she hesitates, chewing on the inside of her lower lip.  Judith is asleep, and she’s not sure if she should go and wake her or not for dinner now.  She turns, glancing towards the stairs before the young woman pulls down another two bowls and grabs four forks from the drawer to bring them to the table.

She knows Carl won’t be back for dinner, and she isn’t going to wake Judith now, but she did want to leave them out just in case.

Carrying the four bowls over, Beth leaves two stacked at the end of the table before she sets one bowl down in front of Rick’s seat, and the other bowl down where she’d sit for the meal.  Softly, she places down two forks and then puts the other two forks near the other bowls.

By the stove is the bowl of pasta Rick had made.  She carries that in her arms over to the center of the table and  starts to put some in his bowl, and then her own.

He looks around noticing how nice the house looked. It was a far cry from the blood and dirt on the street outside.

He makes his way over to the table not wanting his nerve to get the better of him. He really liked her.

He takes a seat at his place at the table. “ I want to ask you about something….”

Placing the napkin neatly on her lap, Beth picks up the fork, but she stops when Rick says he wants to ask her something.  “Oh, uh, yeah, sure.” She puts her fork down and looks at him, her eyes flickering over to the stairs in case Judith comes down and wants something to eat.

Her blue eyes look back at him, and all of a sudden, she’s nervous.

> judith SNEEZED. all the dust coming up from the board games she was shuffling through tickled her nose and caused a squeak to come OUT. her house had an old stash of games in a closet in the hallway, and judith had NEVER even searched through it till now.

finally, she set her eyes on a fresh pack of playing cards. out of all her OPTIONS she’d decided that that was what she wanted to play. when she was YOUNGER, maybe 5 or 6, beth had taught her how to play go fish just to pass some TIME. but now they could play for fun, which made things a million times BETTER.

“BETH!” judy shouted, going hurdling down the stairs at full speed to meet THE woman sitting in the living room. a large smile spread across her face as she ENTERED the room, holding the cards in one hand and waving them around like a PRIZE.

Beth didn’t mind babysitting for Judith.  She viewed the younger girl as her own, even though she knew she could never take the place of Lori.  So when Rick had asked before he headed out, Beth happily came by.  Besides, it wasn’t like she was far anyway.  There were benefits to living in Carol’s empty house.

The blonde walked in just as Rick was leaving, in time for him to tell her that Judith had been upstairs in her room.  He’d given his little girl a kiss goodbye before he let Beth in and went running his errands with Daryl throughout the community.

It wasn’t too late in the evening yet, so Beth knew she’d have to make them dinner at some point, but if Judith was busy right now, the blonde didn’t want to bother her.  Beth knew the girl would come down eventually.  Her blue eyes shifted to the piano in the living room and a smile came to her lips.

Just as she finished tuning the piano, she heard her name being screamed and little feet storming down the stairs.  Beth whipped around on the bench and smiled when she came into the living room.

Gentle blue eyes wandered around their area.  She didn’t really talk much about these kinds of things, not even to Maggie…so she didn’t know how she could even start to tell Glenn.  And luckily enough, Maggie wasn’t around.  Actually, it was just the two of them on the street as they walked through Alexandria.  Maggie was hopefully with Deanna.

Was he not going to like what she was about to say next.

And when Rick’s name left her lips, he could feel himself pale- Maggie wouldn’t like this at all– but, considering it wasn’t a crime, Glenn figured that she really didn’t need to know– he certainly wasn’t going to tell her for fear of starting World War III.

“Course not,” she shook her head, trying to keep her pale blonde hair from flying in front of her eyes.  “I mean, should he?”  And then she immediately regretted asking, taking a closer step to her brother-in-law.