Doppelganger:
Because there are worse things than losing your memory. Sometimes you can end up losing a piece of yourself. In which the gunshot changes Beth in more ways than anyone anticipated. Dark-ish. Beth-centric. Hints of Bethyl. Twoshot.
Because I love me some Dark!Beth.
I own nothing but this idea I had on a whim.
Doppelgänger: German: literally "double-goer"; is a look-alike or double of a living person, sometimes portrayed as a paranormal phenomenon, and in some traditions as a harbinger of bad luck. In other traditions and stories, they recognize your 'double-goer' as an evil twin.
"I wish I could just…change."
-Beth Greene
Face sticky and wet she tries to blink but finds her lashes glued to her cheeks. Another attempt and she finds herself staring into darkness. Disoriented, she reaches up with both hands but finds her movement halted.
She is trapped but she does not panic at the revelation. Instead she feels out her surroundings until there, she feels something jutting out. She pulls on it and watches as a hatch—the trunk she sees now—pops open.
Light spills forth and blinds her for a second and the brightness forces her to close her eyes.
When she opens them she can finally see.
The world is bathed in red.
Something trails a wet path down her forehead and over her face and she wipes at it slowly. Pulling away she sees more red and it stains her hands a deep red. She rubs at her eyes, clearing away a substance that makes her hands feel sticky.
The world has color now, the red haze no longer there. She frowns at that and looks to her hands. The red is on her hands and she stares at her fingers, opening and closing them, studying the red and the way it stands out against the pale slivers of her flesh.
She likes the way it looks and rubs it against the clear parts of her skin. She scrutinizes it closely, looks at the varying shades or red against her skin, at the way it cakes around and under her fingernails. She clenches her fists, brings them to her sides and looks up.
Alive, she thinks and she glances around, taking in her surroundings. She's on a deserted road, forest on either sides of her and two abandoned cars settled at her back. There is a person, rasping and growling, slowly shuffling there way towards her.
Walker, the word pops into her mind with sudden clarity. They are not alive and they are dangerous. She watches the walker snap their teeth and she knows instinctively to avoid being bitten.
The walker gets closer and she stands still, waiting, watching its approach with—trepidation? No, no that's not right. Fear?
No.
It feels a little like…
Excitement.
The world is bathed in red, she thinks, the corners of her mouth curling in a cruel smile. The walker is feet from her, jaw opening wide as it lunges forward—
She grabs a shard of broken glass off the floor and slams it down through the walker's head. A laugh bubbles out of her mouth as she watches it go limp.
The world is bathed in red and she likes it.
.
.
.
The walker she kills has no possessions. No weapons, no food, just an insatiable appetite that she ended with one strike to the head. She moves to the abandoned cars next and there is nothing in the first car, just a handful of bloody cloth. Red intermittently drips into her vision and, curious, she peers at her reflection in the overhead mirror.
There is a hole in her head.
She looks at it, really looks at it, and wonders in a detached manner why she's not dead. A dark desire to touch the wound enters her thoughts and she quickly quells it. Instead she grabs one of the bloody cloths and rips a shred of it off. She ties it around her head and the wound is sufficiently removed from her mind.
She enters the second car and finds it just as bare as the first so she begins to walk. She doesn't know where, just that she should.
She finds an abandoned machete on the next walker she kills, the blade thumping uselessly against his thigh as he shambled after her.
She ducks under his outstretched hand and plunges her shard of glass deep, deep into his skull until just a tiny sliver sticks out. The walker falls bonelessly to the floor and Beth takes the opportunity to unbuckle his belt and retrieve the machete and its holster.
She loots around in his pockets and comes out with a zippo lighter and a half carton of Millers that she stuffs in her back pocket. She doesn't know yet if she's a smoker but the sight of it causes her hands to twitch so she takes it on a whim.
She also finds a smashed and melted unopened snickers bar that she tears into immediately. The chocolate is heavenly on her tongue and she savors every bite.
She kills a few more walkers in her path until she finally finds one that has something useful. She kills him quick, decapitating his head in one smooth motion. It reminds her of a woman, one with dark skin and a serious face. Her name escapes her but she remembers her nonetheless.
She rifles through the walkers clothing and finds a handgun. It is small, fitting perfectly in the palm of her hand. She checks the cartridge and sees that it is full so she puts the safety on and tucks it behind her into the waistband of her jeans.
.
.
.
The fist time she saw Negan she was surrounded by a circle of dead walkers, their heads decapitated and resting uselessly at her feet. He approached her at a steady pace with two other men and Beth watched them come to a standstill before her circle of corpses.
The lead man toed one of the still rasping walker head before resting his foot atop it. Adding pressure he crushed it easily beneath his boot.
"Hey there, little lady." He said and gave her a grin that was all teeth.
"Hey there, ugly bastard." She responded with a fake grin of her own.
The man's eyebrows shot up to his hairline but he continued to smile at her. He swung a baseball bat covered in barbed wire at his side and Beth's eyes were drawn to it. The man at his side grinned and walked past the littered bodies until he stood a foot away from her.
"She's a pretty one," He leered. "'Cept those ugly scars and that bandage wrapped around her head. What'chu got hiding under there, hmm?" He asked as he reached forward to touch her face.
Beth swung her machete before he could touch her, effectively chopping off his arm in one smooth motion. Blood arced up to spray her shirt as the man screamed in pain.
"Whoopsy-daisy," Beth muttered. "Let me fix that for you." She swung her blade again and decapitated the man, letting his head roll back to his group. His body fell with a thump just as the other man fumbled to pull his gun out of its holster.
Beth threw her machete like a throwing dagger before the man could complete his actions. It hit his head with a solid thunk, blade still shaking from the force of her throw, and the man fell over, dead.
She turned impassive eyes to the leader to see how he would retaliate, hand reaching behind her to the small hand gun she kept tucked in the waistband of her jeans.
The lead man however just smiled in a crazed fashion.
"Two words, kid: Bad. Ass."
He took a step forward and Beth pulled out her hidden gun and aimed it at him. He strode forward confidently until his chest brushed against the barrel.
"Gotta name, Blondie?" He asked, smile still present.
Beth cocked her head to the side and considered him closely. He was tall, her head only reaching his chest, and broad in a way that spoke of great strength. She wouldn't be able to take him on in a fair fight but she didn't fight fair. And her gun would level the playing field in her favor.
"Beth," She finally said, finding no reason not to tell him. "I think my name is Beth."
"You think?"
She remained stoic at his tone.
The man scoffed.
"That name's too girly and weak for you," He said in a condescending manner. Beth was oddly pleased at his words, at the thought that he considered her strong.
"What's your name?" She asked without thinking, gun lowering minutely with the continuation of their conversation.
"Negan," He said, smirking. "A good, strong, name for a bad ass such as myself. And this here is Lucille." He caressed his barbed baseball bat lovingly. Beth narrowed her eyes and sneered.
"Sounds like a nerdy name to me," She said and the man prodded her with the end of his baseball bat.
"Watch your mouth, brat." He looked around the clearing for a second before looking back down to her.
"You want to come with me?" He asked but Beth knew he wasn't really asking. He would drag her along even if she declined.
So instead she just shrugged her shoulder and slipped her gun back into the waistband of her jeans. She was fine travelling alone but something in her yearned to be part of a group. It was an odd feeling and one she wasn't sure she liked.
"Sure." She told him and he gave her a feral smile.
Negan walked her back to his camp—which was much bigger than the average camp—and the people milling about cast him and her weary glances. Beth stared them down, taking a perverse delight in the way they flinched from her attention. A man broke away from the group and strode forward to meet them.
"Where are Pete and Michael?" He asked Negan before he cast her a look. His eyes lingered on the fresh blood stained on her shirt and smeared on her face.
Negan smiled and threw an arm over her shoulder.
"They're dead," He said grandly, proudly, and Beth felt herself preen under his obvious approval. "Little lady killed them."
The man blanched and turned wary eyes to her. Beth smiled at him, unintentionally copying the man at her side.
"She has a pussy name, so we're just gonna call her…Death."
.
.
.
She builds a reputation in the camp and that is a feat considering the men that traipse through it. Negan is, and always will be, top dog. Only the truly stupid or desperate ever go against him.
The ones that do don't have enough time to regret before they are killed. Negan is famed for his brutality and feared for his ruthlessness.
Beth, on the other hand, is famed for her apathy to everything. She watches the women as they are beat and raped and doesn't bat an eye at the abuse. Men, women, children—she does not care about their fate.
But when she sees blood, she smiles.
She smiles, reaches out and smears their blood around, rubs it into her hands, licks it from their skin and make them bleed more because red is her favorite color.
Beth is famed for her apathy but she is feared for her delight in bloodshed. And Negan loved her like a proud father loves his daughter.
Beth shows no outward emotion towards the mans affection and he loves her all the more for it.
"My little grim reaper," He coos, brushing bloody fingers against her cheek after they kill a man and his two daughters. "My little death."
Beth ignores him, choosing instead to carve a crude "W" into the man's forehead.
"How many is this for you?" He asks once she is done.
"Forty-seven," She says. "I'm catching up to you, old man."
He snorts in a playful manner before carving an "N" into the two young girls.
"You and your dumb group of idiot wolves won't catch up to me, honey." When he is done, they tie the two little girls up to trees and take the man back to camp. He is placed with the other walkers and locked away until they need him. Negan smiles, ruffles her hair, and leaves when he spots one of his 'wives' walking out of another building.
"Don't wait up for me, kid," He says with a smirk and wink. Beth doesn't respond, instead choosing to go to the infirmary.
The nurse frowns when she sees her, and it isn't like when she frowns in disappointment towards other patients when they get hurt. This is a frown full of malice and contempt. The nurse hates Beth. Probably cause Beth killed her husband. But the nurse isn't dumb so she won't say anything.
So Beth smiles.
"I got a booboo," She says and points at the stab wound in her thigh.
"Can you remove your pants?" The nurse asks in a brisk tone. Beth nods, sits down on the nearest bed, and does it without any problem. A man lying down in a bed further down wolf whistles at her and Beth flips him the bird before the action even processes in her mind. She gives her hand a shrewd look after that and places it at her side.
The nurse drags a chair to the bedside—letting it screech all the way—and sits on it stiffly. She prods at Beth's leg in a not very gentle way, and huffs when it bleeds a sluggish path down her thigh.
"It didn't hit your artery," She says and produces a curved needle and thread. "But it will need stitches."
And she pierces Beth's skin with the needle. There is no warning or offer for anesthesia. But Beth doesn't care because the pain doesn't register, not even a little bit. The nurse seems to frown at her lack of reaction and Beth smiles.
Jokes on her.
When the nurse finishes she places a bandage over her stitches and leaves. Now Beth is left with the man she flipped off earlier. She looks over to him and she can see that he is fairly young. At least thirty if she was guessing right. His hair is dark brown and thick and there was a five o'clock shadow along his jaw. And he looked healthy, not an injury in sight.
"See something you like, sweet thang?" He says and arches a brow.
"Why are you in here?" She asks, ignoring his question entirely.
"I'm dyin'," He said theatrically and threw an arm over his face. He peered out a moment later and Beth gave him an unimpressed look.
"Cancer," He finally said and spread his arms in a grand gesture. "The zombie apocalypse hits us and that's still the way I'll end up dying." His statement ends with a hint of bitterness.
"How long you had it?"
"I was diagnosed right before the apocalypse hit." He says with a mirthless smile. "No time for any chemotherapy or what not."
"You're still alive." She points out and he nods his head in agreement.
"Yep, that's true. Lived much longer than the doc predicted, that's for sure. But damn, this cancer sure does suck. Feels like you're constantly being sucker punched, it hurts that much." He chuckles and runs a hand through his hair.
"I guess that's a good thing though. The pain lets me know I'm still alive. If I stop feeling that, well, I guess I'm gone then."
Beth stared at him for a long while, unsure how to respond to that. Finally she says, "I don't feel pain. Not anymore. Does that mean I'm dead?"
He looks at her closely, eyes darting to the cloth tied around her head and back to her face.
"You were shot in the head, Death." He says. "Who's to say you aren't dead already. Who's to say we aren't all dead and this is where we go after."
And she doesn't know why but something in Beth acknowledges a place after death.
"Then this is hell, I suppose."
.
.
.
When Beth leaves the infirmary she immediately runs into Donald. The man skitters when he sees her, eyes darting anywhere but at her face. A faint scar resides on his forehead, a rough three lines that make a "W". Beth had carved it onto him herself, laughing the entire time he screamed.
"Donald," She greeted.
"Death," He muttered in greeting, still refusing to meet her eyes. He bounces on his feet nervously and Beth watches him with a faint sense of amusement. Here was this tall, imposing man, cowering away from her. It causes a delightful sensation to flutter through her stomach.
"Where are you going?"
"T-to the cafeteria, ma'am." She hums and nods her head.
"We're going on an…expedition tomorrow, Donald. Tell Alex and Smith."
Donald nods his head eagerly.
"Where are we going?" He asks.
"Shirewilt Estates," She says. "I heard they got walls."
Based off of the tumblr post someone made regarding the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hide statue seen in the Shirewilt episode and my belief that Beth is taking Carl's role and thus his relationship with Negan. This idea has been in my head since November.
And if you're wondering how Beth survived a gunshot wound with no medical treatment, well…this is fanfiction bruh :).
Thank you for reading now please review! Critiques are welcome and greatly appreciated.