Nothing is done entirely for nothing, said the fox of dreams. Nothing is wasted. You are older, and you have made decisions, and you are not the fox you were yesterday. Take what you have learned, and move on." ― Neil Gaiman
She didn't know what was louder…the pounding of her own heart or the thrum of the motor as Daryl pegged the gas petal, wringing every last ounce of speed out of the small car.
"What do you mean, they've got Beth? What happened?" Carol heard her voice crack on the girl's name, as she studied the man hunched over the steering wheel. Even by the light of the dash, she could see the way his fingers tightened to white knuckles.
He chanced a sideways look toward her before turning back to the road and the slight gleam of red in the distance. "After, we made it out. Couldn't find nobody else. Hell, I thought they were dead. Didn't see how anyone could have gotten out of that mess, much less all of them. I was with her for a while." He trailed off, his cheek flexing as he mulled something over in his mind. "It was something to do….keeping her alive, thinking that maybe if I could just get this one thing right, maybe everything else could be too. Then we got caught in a herd and I told her to run and they took her. I tried to catch em but she was just gone."
Carol felt her heart drop at those words. She was just gone. Another sweet and good and gentle girl lost despite their best efforts. Her hands started shaking so she clasped them in her lap, hiding them between her knees. The walls within her trembled with the strain of holding back a wellspring of images and emotions she'd tried so hard to forget.
"Carol," his voice pulled her back, the concern palpable as he glanced at her again. "You okay?"
Gotta be….they came readily to the fore, a knee jerk response but she couldn't say them. She couldn't say anything. The words knotted in her throat, a twisted snarl that refused to let her go. Her hand lifted and hovered, wavered in the air as she fought to give form and substance to what she was feeling. Lost little girls. Six months, six years, or sixteen. It didn't matter to this hellhole of a world they were living in. The good could not last. it all came down to butchers and cattle…and the butchers would always win.
Tears burned hot and fast as they leaked down her cheeks, branding her as her own bill rolled through her mind. Her hands were red, dripping and soaking by now. Good intentions or not, when the time came, she didn't hesitate to grab the hilt, pull the trigger, to do what had to be done. But then what was left to fight for when the last hope in the world was just gone?
"Talk to me," his fierce whisper tethered her again. Somehow, his hand had wandered over without her notice and firmly captured one of hers. She stared at the tangle of their fingers made, wide eyed and wondering at his inexplicable ease with touching her. He didn't hesitate. Didn't brace or flinch at the thought. It just happened. As simple as breathing. Her hand in his, palm to palm, his thumb making jerky circles on hers.
"She was too sweet and too little and she wouldn't shoot the deer," she choked out. "She said everything works out like it's supposed to. She laughed when she found that doll." The dam breached and out it came, dribs and drabs and then a flood, surging and frothing and tearing down anything that stood in its way. "Lizzie….she didn't understand….said she'd make us see…why didn't I see it? She was just gone….laying there in the grass with her hair around her face like a halo. Gone. Just like that. I didn't know. I swear to God I didn't know she'd do that. How could she do that to her sister? That sweet little girl."
He sounded like he had in the woods when he grabbed her, panting like he'd been running for miles. Her fingers ached in his taut grip, and she cried out softly as the bruised flesh sent a lightning strike of pain up her arm. He immediately loosened his hold but kept his fingers curled around hers. "And then what?" Daryl prodded gently.
"She couldn't be around other people. Tyreese and I knew it after that. She'd have killed Judith eventually. It had to be done or we'd have all died out there. I had to. It had to be me." Her voice croaked, her throat closing off as the wave crested. All the guilt and pain and heartache coalesced into a thin, misty fog that enveloped her and pulled her down. She tucked her chin into her chest and wept…for him, for her, for all the lost little girls, and for this sad and broken world that was all they had left.
He was murmuring as he laid his head on top of hers, eyes still on the road as they followed after that distant ruby gleam in the darkness. "Shhh. It's all right. Hush now, sweetheart. It's all right. I got you. I'm right here. Right here."
She didn't answer as she wiped her sodden cheeks with her shirt tail and took a last shaky breath. She felt like she'd been hollowed out, gutted and cracked open for the whole world to see. But it was Daryl's face she found when she looked up. Daryl's eyes looking back at her. Daryl's hand that held on even as she fought so damned hard to let go. "We'll find her. We will."
Those words weren't as firm and decisive as they'd been the last time she spoke them but the belief behind them was as unyielding as bedrock. This world wasn't kind to the sweet ones, the innocent ones, the ones that held on to hope no matter how dark the storm. But this time….this time….everything would work out like it was supposed to. They were going to get Beth and bring her home and Heaven help anything or anyone that stood in their way.