Daryl was gone again. Hunting. Or something. Beth didn't really know what he did in the woods. Probably just leaving to be away from me, she thought, drawing circles in the dirt.
She didn't know why Daryl had to keep walking away. It wasn't like she was being loud. She'd barely said two words since he'd grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the prison, since the walls had come crashing down and the flames had gone up and up and up… She looked over her shoulder at the dark gray smoke still flooding the sky to their west, and the tears came again.
"Stop it," she muttered, angrily wiping them away. "Don't be a baby. You've got a job to do."
Daddy always told her that. Ever since she could remember, he'd always been giving her things to do around the farm or around the house. When she was real little, it was just basic stuff, like collecting eggs and drying dishes. As she got older, she started milking the cows, brushing the horses, and picking beans. She liked the outdoor work more; she liked being by the animals and singing in the open air. Cleaning her room, helping with dinner… Those things were less fun, but she always got them done too.
Maggie had always hated chores. She'd huff and grumble, and Daddy would have to remind her three or four times a week to get everything done before she finally got around to it. Sometimes Maggie used to bribe Beth into doing them for her, and sometimes Beth did. Sean fell for that trick a lot more, though. He was always saving up for a car, he said, and Maggie's allowance helped.
He never got the car, Beth thought, and the stupid tears started up again. Why should she cry for Sean? Sean had been gone a long time now. He'd been the first to come down with the flu, and poor Annette had cried buckets when Daddy couldn't find his pulse anymore. Even if they'd known how contagious it was back then, and what was going to happen, Beth doubted that Annette would have left his side for a second while he was still breathing. She was a good mom, and a good step-mom.
Beth squeezed her eyes shut. "Can't cry," she told herself. "Got stuff to do." But when she closed her eyes, she saw the Governor's scowl as he raised the sword, saw the red blood staining Daddy's clean shirt, saw him topple over and…
She put a fist to her mouth to stifle a sob. Daryl'll never come back if he catches you crying, and then what will you do?
There was a time when that would have been all right with her. When she saw Sean and Annette come out of the barn… It hadn't been that she'd wanted to die; she just hadn't seen the point of living. When the people you loved no longer loved you back, why bother loving at all? And if you can't love, why live?
But she wasn't like that anymore. She wasn't. Annette was gone, and Sean was gone, and…and Daddy was gone. But they were together somewhere, and she was here now, and it was time to move on. She had a job to do.
Something rustled to her right, and Beth yanked her knife out of her belt. It rustled again, and she got to her feet, breathing quietly. "Daryl?" She whispered. Silence. Whatever it was, it was gone.
Or had gotten away. Beth grimaced. If her voice scared it away, that meant it was an animal, which meant it was food, which meant she'd passed up a good meal. And good thing it was only some creature - if it'd been a walker, she'd be dead. Anyone else in the group wouldn't have waited around to be attacked; they'd have been the attacker.
She clutched her knife tighter. She thought she was done feeling like a burden? Beth remembered what life was like before they'd found the prison, when they just wandered day to day in search of food and a place to sleep. Rick had been the leader; he'd made that clear after the barn burned and no one argued. They were all just looking for someone else to make the decisions, she thought, because no one knew what to do, and no one wanted to be at fault if something went wrong. And stuff went wrong a lot, but never fatally wrong, so she guessed that made Rick a good leader.
Daryl was his "right hand" man. Rick gave the orders and Daryl ensured they were carried out. He was also their main food supplier during that time. He'd wake up before anyone else in the morning in search of breakfast, and barely ate anything he brought back. His crossbow saved them half a hundred times; so did Rick's gun.
Glenn and Maggie were their scouts. They were good with their weapons, and they were always driving ahead of everyone else to search of some shelter. They'd had to sleep in their cars more than once, but usually Glenn and Maggie found some safe place for the whole group to stay.
Daddy was their doctor. Everyone got sick that winter; it was colder than she could ever remember it being before, though maybe that was just because she didn't have an electric fire, walls, and a furnace to keep her warm at night. She missed pajamas, and thick socks.
T-Dog was their firearms instructor, and their bodyguard. Whenever there was a noise, T-Dog was the first to check it out. Once, mistaken an old mannequin for a walker and nearly gutted the thing before he realized it wasn't fighting back. (It was dark, he insisted afterwards.) They'd laughed about that for a week.
Carol and Lori could cook on an open fire and stitch up the holes in their clothes. Even if they couldn't, Carol had just lost her daughter and Lori was growing increasingly pregnant. No one would have minded if they couldn't have contributed, but they did anyway.
And Carl would have shot anything that moved if someone had given him a gun. That was why no one gave him a gun for a long time.
It was just Beth who'd been useless. Sing us a song, Beth, they'd say sometimes, and she'd do it because it made her feel relevant, but what did she do otherwise? Complain about the cold and the hunger, which everyone did, but at least they were all doing something about it. Beth was just…there.
At the prison, she'd been resolved to fix that. She knew how to fire a gun, but she didn't need a gun to take out the walkers on the gates. A metal pole and a good push was all it took, and she could watch the bodies drop and keep track of every walker that didn't manage to kill one of her friends because she'd done something about it.
And then when Judith was born, she had a job she loved. She was never going to be a mother, but her time with Judith came close. Even after Rick started taking care of the baby a bit, Beth was still her main provider. She fed her, cleaned her, got up with her in the night. Her crib was in Beth's cell. Beth knew what foods she liked and what times she napped; she knew what songs to sing to stop her from crying and where her chew toys were when she started teething. Having Judith around, having a living person to take care of, that was a good job. And she was good at it.
"Oh, God." The knife slipped from her hands as Beth knelt down again, clutching her knees. "Oh, God. Judith…" The one time that little girl was truly depending on her, Beth hadn't been with her. And now she was… "Oh, God…"
She put a shaking hand to her mouth and forced herself to take a breath. Maybe she was okay. Maybe someone had picked her up. Carl. Anyone. Someone must have taken her to the bus. Beth would never see her again, but that didn't mean she wasn't okay.
Maybe they were all okay. Maybe Maggie found Glenn, and they'd gotten on the bus too. The first people Rick would have looked for would have been Carl and Judith, so maybe he got them and they were together. And Michonne, and Carol, and…
And maybe they were all dead and she was a stupid little girl. Daddy was dead, that she knew for certain. She hoped the Governor was dead. She'd never really hoped that for anyone before, and she wondered if she'd go to Hell for thinking it, or if Daddy would tell her she was going to Hell for thinking it. But it doesn't matter what Daddy would say because he's dead and the Governor's to blame.
"Why him?" She said softly. "Why my dad?" Hershel Greene was about as close to a saint on earth as Beth believed anyone could be. He was tough but fair, strong but kind. He preached forgiveness and he followed through on it; how else could he have kept Rick and the rest of them around after they massacred the barn walkers, even if they'd been right to do it? He'd suffered through hardship and triumphed over it; he'd always believed there was something good still to come, even at the end of the world.
"Don't you dare cry," Beth told herself. "Just get to work."
Beth pushed herself up again and walked once around the perimeter of their small camp. She'd helped Daryl string the metal around the trees in hopes of hearing any nearby walkers; after their night in the car trunk, they hoped the biggest herd was past them, but they could never be sure.
Seeing none nearby, Beth slipped outside their makeshift fence and made a bigger circle. Then another. Then another. There were no walkers, but there were wild berries, and she collected those in her shirt and brought them back to camp. She put most of them in a jar she'd found the night before, and left a few just outside the camp in case a few stray rabbits came wandering over.
She was just slipping out again when a voice rang out, "What the hell are ya doin'?"
Beth paused, like a child with her hand in the cookie jar. "Just…checking up on things."
Daryl grunted. "That ain't your job."
"Yes, it is," Beth snapped, and Daryl raised an eyebrow. "The only way you stay alive in this world is by staying on top of things. You can't just wait around for someone else to do it for you."
Daryl glared at her. "You can't take care of yourself out there."
"I can," Beth insisted. "Because I have to."
Living.
That was a job.
That was a good job.
I actually wrote this for my dad, who is still not over a certain season 5 episode involving this character. I wanted to try and see Beth's mentality in season 4 - she's clearly gone through some trauma and is trying to figure out how to cope in this world. I think she sort of clings to this idea of having a job and a purpose, not unlike Abraham in season 5/6. And without the prison...what's her job? Why not just try and commit suicide like she did in season 2? What changed? So that's this. I own nothing.