Just another one-shot! I have totally made up an ending to this half of the season so assume they went to save Beth, no one was hurt and they all got back together! (Except the group already headed to Washington) Yay!
He thought he knew what family was. He thought your next of kin letting themselves die for your half-life was the end of conventional relationships he would see. Perhaps in a way he was right. He didn't ever see a conventional family again. But he did see her, and the family she held open in her heart. It was from metres away he watched the Grimes family reunion, he watched them grow and struggle and toil. Furthermore, he became a member, but in his melancholy always stayed five paces behind so he could frame them in his minds eyes, so he could frame her.
Noah struggled with the undergrowth, his shoes scuffing under the dead weight of his leg. She was pulling at his arm insistently, her own speed waning. It had been hours. But they had somehow escaped, her not a glimpse of the others as Noah sneaked her through the lower floors of the distracted hospital. The rambling though the concrete jungle had easily given way to the escape vehicle, it was how they began the trek. Once the small car broke down, he pointed her to the meet up place on the map. To his surprise she looked silently at the sky, unbeknownst to him in total imitation of another she had watched too closely so many times before. She pointed them on their way, climbing the steep bank with a little help from him, a kind smile at the ready. Now it was dawn, the cold night had passed and the sickly sweet smell of dew stuck to them like a film of irremovable moisture, cleansing them of the past. He enjoyed the warmth of her hands clutching his bicep, the numb fingers blindly urging him on.
She stopped near abruptly. Her eyes focused where the woods cut out to a harsh cross of concrete, a junction of empty promises. It was then her hands let go, his body feeling the numb stagnant air for the first time. She struggled, her blue uniform muddied and haggardly hanging from one ghostly shoulder, a lost look of devastating hope on her face. The wind whipped her hair around, impatient fingers pulled it away as she glanced at the floor as if it might reveal its stony secrets.
''We had hours advantage, said we would meet at noon, right?'' His own voice was hoarse, but he couldn't complain to thirst when her entire family had launched a rescue mission on her behalf.
The smile didn't reach her eyes but she said thank you politely anyway.
They sat together. At first on the steep bank on the side of the road, and then in the shade of the woods as the Georgia sun rose. Occasionally she would comment on what she thought the time was, or he would tell a lame joke to which she would giggle and offer him some of her own. Still a nervous energy came out all the pathetic attempts they made at conversation, tip-toeing around the issue at hand. As the sun rose her talking got faster; telling him about her horse Nelly (although not her end) and the kind of music she liked way back when. He watched the breeze tickle the small strands of lost hair on her neck, her fingers pressed anticipating against pert lips, hoping that the moment might last forever. That they could sit, thigh pressed against thigh for years to come, forgetting the problems of the world.
And he had hoped and hoped.
Then the others arrived, he watched her eyes light up at the sound of engines. Her leg twitching nervously against his, her excited eyes and anxious lip biting, making him more and more conscious of her presence. Only he didn't mind. He liked that someone was close, someone safe- she was safe. He shared the anxiety, barely knowingly the gruff group that had adopted him. Still long enough to grow bonds to those he felt he was beginning to know.
It felt like a chance that as the leader and the woman with the katana came out of the car, the boy just younger than him climbed out the back. Beth was already gone by the time he had noticed this. Her exhaustion had dissipated and she ran at the young man, jealously flew threw his mind until he heard the shriek of infantile joy. Beth turned to him, waving heavily as if it were some 8th wonder of the world. Her other arm was resting the young toddler, hugging it close and speaking in a soft tone, gentle tears falling down her face.
And she couldn't put the infant down, her eyes staring at the child like a mother might and muttering odd sentiments about her size or shape of her face. The child seemed to cling as insistently to the gentle warmth of tender embrace as Beth did. Rick patted the back of her back, staring at his child and leaving Beth to her obvious familiarity as primary caretaker. It was from metres back Noah saw the impacting hole that she had left behind, the roles had been forced to leave and the joy with which she relished picking them back up.
Carl and the woman, too, seemed to leave her to her peace with the child. So Noah did as well, smiling as she rocked the child back and forth forgetting her own exhaustion with a reverent joy that ran off her like streams of sunshine. He heard her call over some ecstatic sentence, but it caught in the wind leaving it to come off as a soft laugh. He came to love the tinkling sound.
Soon another car arrived, more barely known people got out. They laughed too loudly and shook his hand where he was, hugging each other and the others in turn. Once again his eyes flicked back to Beth where she seemed in polite conversation with some of the new members. Next to him a man slouched, holding a wound on his arm and smiling with him.
''I didn't know how bad the world had gotten, and then I saw that there were still people in it making it worth living.''
For a moment the man seemed, to Noah, to be talking exclusively of Beth. And he remained to consider the priest had some psychic power of thought for some time, keeping his thoughts in check whenever he found himself in conversation or next to the man. It never dawned on him that perhaps the entire group could become their saviours in turn and that more than the one spotlight he had cast existed. There were good people. They were good people.
There was a small crowd around Beth. Her face lit up in a smile as they all half hugged and rubbed her shoulder affectionately. He thought how beautiful she was, never considering how her eyes glazed over, not with happiness, but with the sad thought that the last time she saw these people she had yet to be an orphan and had the companionship of kinship. Alas there was no Hershel to welcome her home, no Maggie either to her hearts dismay, and as she asked her mouth still smiled happily at the news. She was alive. Small pink lips said a small prayer of thanks.
Amongst her own kind she was smaller somehow, the air of confidence she had given off before had been reduced to a fresh lull of compliance. Her womaness reverting back to the role of mothership that made his stomach clench protectively. He wanted to hold her and stay where he was admiring her all at the same time. His father would note the goofish look a man lost in a woman for the first time a hearts let off the lead of life to love freely.
Perhaps it's cruel how quickly we construct lives for ourselves, build houses in our minds with a freedom and obligations that another cannot rightfully give to you.
Noah thought unconsciously had glad he was, how lucky indeed to be taken up and to meet these people.
Only one more car was expected, that of the grey haired lady and Daryl. His anticipation for them was greater than the others. He owed his life to them, and had nearly taken theirs. There was debt he knew he had to pay back and so he was conscious of their absence. God forbid something happened, he could never forgive himself nor be forgiven.
He saw the last car pull up. In his peripheral vision he rick rock Judith, patting her back carefully and smiling in relief of the two last figures emerging from the car. He watched Daryl get out the driver's side, slam the door and walk around the car quickly. The gruff man's eyes travelled quickly over everyone.
Noah looked at Beth, she was stood frozen hands clutching each other against her chest. Her heart was beating a mile a minute but her calmness suggested only a nervous worry of whether or not carol and Daryl were alright. He expected her to sigh and smile at any moment, to walk over to the woman and tell her how silly she had been to doubt the others. Only she didn't move that way at all.
Instead Noah watched her eyes remain fixed on Daryl a second longer. Then he saw her stumbling first step, as if it were as unexpected to her as to him, before she was running. Her loud footsteps echoed as everyone watched, the sound only distracted by the heavy smack of the crossbow hitting the ground next to the redneck. His arms fell instantly around her, covering the blue fabric near entirely in its ferociousness, as she catapulted into him at full speed. He heard what he thought was another tinkling laugh, though it came out as a sob. And the two of them stayed wrapped up in each other, unmoving more moment after moment, not caring that a sea of confused onlookers stood pondering. He felt a heaviness in his heart, a disbelieving stubbornness yelling over the feeling of being kicked in the gut.
It was perhaps more evident to the others, who knew Beth and Daryl had forged together some closeness whilst finding their way to the others, at least enough of a bond that he felt obligated to save her. But it had been the closed off nature of Daryl to not mention the girl other than once in a moment of high emotion admission to Rick and then once to Maggie as a necessity. The urgency of their embrace seemed out of place, and yet as his chin rested on her head it felt only natural that they should make an alliance of sorts.
She stayed near his side for the rest of the day. And to Noah's irritation Daryl didn't seem to grow tired of it, if anything he gave her little jobs to do; letting her help clean the crossbow or collect twigs for bolts. Mostly they sat in silence, she sandwiched between the two of them in the car as they started their journey, playing happily with Judith or merely smiling as if she were in a disbelieving state of euphoria. He damned the hours that had left him falling for the smile that so obviously was given freely to any who held part of her heart. As he did, just not enough to claim it as she could his.
As they travelled further north, toward what he believed was Washington, Beth's head lulled left onto Daryl's shoulder. The man almost tenderly moved his hand to rearrange his jacket in a more comfortable manner, slouching ever so slight in unconscious need to comfort. From the front carol's eyes gazed through the rear view mirror:
''Maggie's gonna have a field day.''
He made a grumbling noise, looking out the window pointedly though Noah thought he caught the curious smirk in the front seat.
Beth woke up curled closely to Daryl. Baby Judith had been taken from her by Noah, so that she might curl her legs up under her despite it kicking him. He didn't mind, not so much because it was her, but because he was aware of the need to claw back some points. A dissatisfied jealousy had taken over, yet he could begrudge her nothing because he could see the tender look in her eyes reflected so clearly in what Daryl hoped were his own masked matching ones. They shared a look of joint bashfulness in acknowledgement of the shift in their dynamic.
Noah was there to watch her.
He saw it fall into place. He saw the fool he had been to fall love with a woman already wrapped up in the strings of Cupid's crossbow.