AN: This story will be a Bethyl fic that is post Coda. She does get shot in this one but things are a little more believable with the angle of the gun and I may as well go ahead and tell you that this is not your average Bethyl fic. It will be medically sound with a sci-fi spin. Yep, I am going there. This is a Beth is immune fic. My theory on this runs deep so if you want to know specifics PM me and I will send you my theories on Beth being immune and whatnot.
That being said hello everone. This fic is a new endeavor. My daughter bethgreenesunlightqueen and I are co-writing this fic together. So please give her a warm welcome. This chapter is a little longer than what future chapters will be. Days between updates will vary but should be fairly frequent since there are two of us writing. Let us know what you think and if there is anything in particular you would like to see for this story. Thanks for reading as always! Until next time, xoxoxo
PS- Trigger warning for self harm. Do not read if you think it will affect you. Your health is important!
He shoulda told her to stay back. That thought plagued him nearly every day. All the should haves. What he should have done. Things he should have said. That was probably the thing that killed him the most; that she never knew how much she meant to him. That she never knew the words that he felt were now ingrained on his heart. Branded like fire to leather and his bones would never be the same again without the imprint of her sweet smile.
He now carried what he had left of her on his side, faithfully strapped there, a reminder that she wasn't there to remind him sometimes, but her knife could. It could remind him of all the times he'd seen her spear a walker head with it. It could remind him of the time she picked it up out of the ground, stalking off, "I'm gonna get a damn drink." He thought that might have been the first time he took notice of her spunk. He'd known it was there but something about the way he treated her that day had lit a fire under her, as his mama would have said. Once that fire was lit, it burned bright and burned long.
Sometimes that fire that she left him with still burned deep within him. Sometimes it burned with such intensity that he thought he might incinerate from the inside out. Just turn to ashes. Like the dust from whence they came. But he'd told Carol hadn't he, that they weren't ashes. He found himself chasing his tail most days with these thoughts as he watched over the good citizens of Alexandria. The governor or the chancellor as she liked to be called was Deanna and things were alright there. But he was restless. He was used to having room to roam, no rhyme or reason to the days. Just passing of time without it really passing. Just one day blended into the next and they tried to have a schedule there in the town. Even had Saturday night bingo. But the hell of the matter was that he wouldn't know nothing about normal if he tried. That time he spent just him and Beth was about the closest thing to normal he had ever had. It was why he had suggested they stay there. He thought maybe, if…..He stopped himself there. There was no sense in even going down that road.
That night had been the worst of his life until, well. It had been the worst night up to that point. Of course when she had been murdered right in front of his own eyes that trumped all the bad moments in his life, even the ones that his Daddy had time-stamped onto every inch of his skin.
The night she was taken by those hospital pricks had been gut-wrenching. It had all happened so fast. One minute they had been talking in the kitchen, by candlelight no less and he had never felt more at home than he had with Beth. Which was why he was about to tell her how he felt. Not with words, as it would turn out. He told her with a shrug of his shoulders and a sincere hope that she could see it in his eyes how much she had changed him. Made him want to be better. Better than the nothing he was. He kind of felt like he was something when he was with her. And now. He just felt empty.
He might have been too late in saving her from being taken but he knew when they arrived at the hospital that she was leaving with them, come hell or high water. Five minutes later, he was cradling her in his arms, like a limp rag doll, life had drained out of her. Life had drained out of him. He felt like he died that day too as he carried her out of that hospital, an echo of how he had carried her weeks before into the kitchen white trash brunch he had made for her. It was like he had stepped into a funhouse and the mirror distorted a beautiful memory into something wretched and dark. He carried her limp, lifeless body out to her sister, who could do nothing but collapse in a heap on the ground at what she'd seen. Through his pain, he had hated Maggie in that moment because he knew if the situation was reversed, Beth would have looked for Maggie. She wouldn't have stopped until she found her. His heart had been ripped from his chest and though he knew Maggie was her blood, Daryl felt tethered to Beth in a way that he couldn't explain. Especially since it was not something he himself could understand. Not then.
But he did now. He knew what it was. He loved her. He had never loved another human being that wasn't related to him and it wasn't even that kind of feeling that he got when he had been with Beth. He couldn't describe it enough to make it make sense. He could only say that he felt at home. He felt peace and that was something that was priceless to a Dixon.
Her words haunted him. "You're gonna miss me so bad." He did. He had figured that out pretty quick when he'd been so numbed with the pain of missing her that he had burned a circular scar into his body. He had done the very thing he had made fun of her for. He thought it a cruel irony that his words would come back to haunt him. "I sure as hell never cut my wrists lookin' for attention." He fingered the scar on his wrist. It hadn't been a deep enough cut to do any real harm. In that moment, he had just wanted to feel something other than the bone-deep numb that pulled him under and made him never want to surface.
There were two figures in the distance. He quickly dispatched his bow from its regular place on his back and swapped it out for the rifle with the scope. He perched the rifle on his shoulder and looked through the lens.
This had happened before and he forced himself to breathe in and out slowly. Some chick had showed up, blonde hair caked with blood on the back of her head. That's how they had left Beth. This girl's hair was clean as far as he could tell. But she sure was blonde. He shook his head to clear his vision. It wasn't Beth. It would never be Beth. He had to get that through his head.
"We made it." She couldn't believe it. Finally, after weeks of tracking their way here partially by car and the rest of the way on foot, they had made it. They could make out a town with walls and a large iron gate at the front. It was still a little ways off walking-wise but they had made it. They were at the promised safe zone. She and Morgan had run into Aaron and he had told them where to go and what to do. He was out scouting deep in the hills of Virginia. Beth likened him to a modern day Moses leading his people to the promised land. Beth knew her family was there. Aaron had told her. She didn't know how they would take any of what she knew to be the truth. She knew they'd be happy to see her alive. Which was weird to her. That there was a question of it. But she also knew that she remembered standing in that hallway and how everything had happened so fast. The next thing she remembered she was waking up in a car with the worst headache of her life. It had taken her forever, weeks to be exact, to get the stain of red out of her blonde tresses but the last time she'd washed it a couple days ago it had finally shone with the luster it had once had. She told Morgan she wanted to cut it but he just clucked his teeth at her. Told her she didn't need to go changing all that much before she got to see her family.
"You need to stop and rest?" She asked her travel companion.
"Nah, I'm fine." He limped along. He had turned his ankle about 30 miles back and it had bothered him some but he was for the most part okay. "We're almos' there. Ain't gonna quit now. You?" His warm eyes held a teasing glint.
She smiled back at him brightly. "Not a chance." Beth Greene was no quitter. She figured she had proven that.
Beth fingered her side, expecting to find her knife there, always forgetting that she had lost everything when she'd left Grady Memorial. She may have lost her material possessions but her life? Well guess she couldn't put a price on that. No one could. The sun was setting in the sky as they got there.
On what universe was it possible that she had survived? She had told Daryl back at that cabin that she had made it. She believed it at the time but now? She believed it was something else entirely, only she wasn't sure what. She lifted her hand to her forehead, her index finger sliding over the tiny scar that was still there though it was getting better by the day. She shielded her eyes from the setting sun, trying to see the shadowy silhouette on the watch tower of the community, but it was no use. The sun was blocking every bit of her vision and the face remained in shadow as she and Morgan slowly made their way to the gate. They approached and waited for it to open. She wasn't sure what was expected in this situation but she approached it like walking up to someone's house that you didn't know. Did one knock on a gate? She wasn't sure.
She was saved from having to make a decision by the sound of someone's voice. "Please leave your weapons in the bin provided and step to the gate." Beth looked at Morgan and he nodded. She was uneasy. After everything she had been through she wasn't sure they should just waltz through the gates no questions asked.
"I'd like to speak with the leader of your community." She was proud that her voice had come out strong, sure.
"Wait there. Someone will be with you shortly." The voice over the bullhorn came back at her. No one had shot them yet so she guessed that was good news. She looked back up at the watch tower but she could no longer see anyone.
She didn't have time to wonder where they had gone and the gates were opening. They hadn't had time to even properly widen before a figure squeezed through. A figure she would recognize anywhere, whether she could see or not. She sensed his presence before her before her brain even caught up to the fact that he was there in front of her, chest heaving. "Beth?"
In that moment that he realized that it was her, he knew he didn't dare breathe. For fear as he exhaled that she would wisp up into the sky, an apparition just like all the other times. He didn't remember radioing his backup for relief. He didn't remember pacing back and forth waiting for them to get there. He didn't remember winding his way down the staircase to the tower. It was only as he waited for the gates to open far enough for him to squeeze through that he stopped and thought about what he would say. For a moment, just a moment before they finally opened he couldn't wrap his mind around her being there, but for a moment he wondered if when the gates opened she would be gone but he had heard her voice. Plain clear. Questioning. She didn't trust them. Good. He'd taught her well to never trust anyone. He couldn't think about why she was here. Why she had survived the unthinkable. He had to see her face to face, had to touch her. He needed proof positive that she was really alive.
And suddenly there she was right in front of him, five feet nothing of blonde hair, whipped back into a ponytail just like always, blue eyes that cut straight to his heart, but gone were the girlish features. Instead she stood before him a woman. Her scars, that he'd barely had time to register the last time he saw her, were fading. Even the telltale circular one on her forehead.
Unbidden it came to him that he had new scars. His fingers mindlessly worked his shirtsleeves down to cover the one he could, the one on his wrist. The one on his hand was there for everyone to see. Some had, but no one said a word to him. They knew. Hell, he figured everyone did. Except for Beth.
"Beth?" His voice barely squeaked out and he didn't recognize the timbre. He had smoked himself damn near into the grave but this? This was a new kind of hoarse. He was near tears and he didn't give two shits who saw him cry. This was Beth. She was alive. He could care less if anyone saw him. Greater men than him had been broken for a lot less.
She had rehearsed this moment a thousand times in her head. But now that it was here she couldn't think of anything to say. "It's me." It sounded so stupid and her voice came out soft. Childlike. In an instant she was reduced to tears and normally it would make her angry. She was breaking her own rule. "I don't cry anymore." What a liar she was. Here she was with this man and she wondered if he still felt the same way she thought he did.
She had to tilt her head up to be able to look into his eyes and he was looking down into hers and Beth saw the tears form and her own vision went blurry. It's said that once one sense is lost the other four take over. In that moment, that was exactly what happened. Her eyes glazed over with tears forcing her to close them and she couldn't see but she felt his arms come around her. She moved her hands from her sides in sync with the moment, her own arms winding up around his neck as he picked her up off the ground and crushed her to him, his hands splayed across her lower back. She heard his muffled cries but she could not hear the words as they fell from his lips. Her fingertips glided against the back of his neck and tangled in the too long hair. Her own racing heartbeat blended with the one she could feel beating against time on her breastbone. His racing heart against hers. In time she swore they synchronized until they just became one. But maybe that was her girlish heart wanting things that weren't really there.
In the time it took for him to swing her around and then slowly let her slide to the ground, she never let her arms drift from around his neck. She wasn't letting go. "I'm not gonna leave you Daryl. Never again."
They were the last words that she said to him and she'd replayed those moments over and over again in her head, trying to make sense of their last night together, but it was always a jumble. Maybe now that she was here with him, they could put it all together. Just like before.
She was here. Really here and he knew she was because they had gained a small crowd behind them inside the gates.
"You know these people Dixon?" Deanna's voice came from behind him and he forced himself to let go of Beth long enough to turn. She turned with him, snaking her hand down his arm and her fingers gliding against his, palm against palm until she fit their fingers together. In that moment, he felt the rent in his heart knit together just a little. Maybe, just maybe he was gonna make it after all.
Beth looked curiously from the woman behind Daryl and back to him again beside her. Morgan had come up to stand behind her. "This is Morgan Jones. He's a friend of Rick Grimes." Beth knew she didn't have to say anything more than that.
The lady stepped forward. "Deanna. Deanna Cartwright, Chancellor of Alexandria."
"I'm Beth Greene." She surveyed the woman. She was pretty, hair a lovely mahogany color, almost like Maggie's. Maggie. She couldn't wait to see her sister. The lady in charge seemed nice enough but Beth knew better than anyone that looks could be deceiving.
She felt Daryl's hand firm in her own and she squeezed it for reassurance. She wasn't sure if it was for her or him.
"Well if you'll come with me I'll make sure we get you to processing. It won't take long." Deanna turned leaving them no choice but to follow her through the gates. She looked up at Daryl.
"'S okay. They just sign you in, you fill out a form. Then you schedule your interview." Daryl felt stupid telling her all this. They had all done it just a few weeks ago. He'd hated every second of it and he figured of all of them he probably had the least to say but once he'd gotten in there and talked with their doctor, he guessed it was their version of a shrink, Samantha, he'd gotten strangely comfortable and he'd told her all of it. Since then he'd gone back to talk to Sam twice. At first he refused to call them appointments because that meant that it was official. He could hear Merle now. "Go on Darylina, you go on to one of them head shrinkers. Didn't do our mama no good. You jus' remember that." Merle came to him still. It should be odd to him that Merle was just as much of an asshole in the afterlife but it didn't. This was Merle after all.
Sam had told him he was a rare soul. He didn't know about that. He only knew he felt better after he spilled his guts to her. She had a way about her. She was married, had two kids, a white picket fence life. He guessed she was the only one that knew about Beth. How he felt about her.
"Interview?" Beth looked at him questioningly and glanced at Morgan whose eyes were trained ahead of them on the street.
Deanna spoke up. "We have found it's useful to get to know our residents by having an interview conducted by our staff psychologist Dr. Turner. You'll also have a physical exam by our doctor. Pete." She turned and smiled at Beth as they reached the door to the first building, what must be their town hall. "You'll like them. I think you'll both like it here." She smiled again at Morgan and Beth, her eyes sliding over Daryl once before facing back forward and easing the door open.
Inside was an old abandoned post office. It had been converted to a small office with a large vestibule. However, it appeared the mailboxes were being used. "You get mail here?"
Deanna turned to look at her as she sat down at the round table in the center of the room. She gestured to the chairs on either side of it and Beth took a seat next to Daryl, never letting go of his hand. He didn't look like he was in any hurry to let go of her either and that was just fine with her. Morgan took the chair across from them.
"So Greene. Are you any relation to Maggie Greene-Rhee? You said you know Rick Grimes. They all came in with Daryl the same time."
Daryl looked at Deanna. She was always one to cut right to the chase.
Beth cleared her throat. "Maggie is my sister." She didn't want to come right on out and beg.
Deanna's eyes cut questioningly to Daryl's. "Thought Maggie didn't have any remaining relatives."
Daryl started to speak but Beth spoke up first. "Technically she still thinks that's true." Beth couldn't help the small smile that graced her lips as she spoke. The fingers of her free hand came up to her forehead. "There was an accident back in Atlanta. They thought I was dead. I mean I should be dead but somehow I survived."
You could have heard a pin drop in the room. She could feel Daryl's eyes on her. Deanna regarded her quietly for a moment. "You survived a gunshot wound to the head." She gestured with her hand to Beth's forehead where the barely visible mark told the story.
"It sounds unbelievable and if it hadn't actually happened to me, I wouldn't believe it either but he was there." Beth gestured to the man at her side. The man she had spent so much time with.
Daryl cleared his throat. "I don't know yet how she's sittin' here beside me. But I saw it. Saw her go down. It was an accident but." Daryl didn't even bother finishing his sentence. It was plain to everyone in the room that some damn miracle had occurred. Yes he was curious how but the important thing was that she was alive. She was here. Her fingers warm in his own were proof of that. That's what he was holding onto.
"I had a doctor back there at the hospital. He saved my life. Well, he did too." She smiled at Morgan across the table and he ducked his head. He never was one to accept any sort of praise.
"I was just in the right place, right time is all." Morgan statement was simple. Just like he was. She had come to respect him greatly over the past few weeks. Thought of him as family. Almost like a father or the big brother she missed so fiercely.
"Morgan found me in a car." Beth began to explain but Deanna interrupted.
"It's okay Beth. I believe you. You're alive now and we don't get many miracles. Maybe we should just take it at face value and move on. Glad you're here." She made to get up. "If you'll just wait here, Nicholas will be along to process you both. Dixon, seems like you've earned the rest of your shift off."
"Thank you." Daryl didn't know if he was grateful or just in some state of bliss but he found himself smiling at the woman.
She smiled back but she looked at him more like he'd grown horns out of his head. He guessed he didn't smile all that much.
Beth breathed a sigh of relief after Deanna left. She was nice enough but Beth felt out of sorts around her. Maybe it was just being around people again. Civilization. Society even. "Do you like it here?" If Daryl seemed like he liked it here then maybe it was an okay place. From where she had just come, Grady Memorial, she didn't know if she could trust anyone again but being out in the open where walkers roamed and worse, people looked to prey upon you, like wolves, being inside walls might be just what they all needed.
Daryl looked at her. He had a thousand questions and here she was asking one of her own. He knew his questions would have to wait most likely until they were alone. "'S alright." He shrugged. "Maybe it'll be better now." He didn't know where it came from but he was glad of it for it brought out the brightest smile coaxed from her lips, one of those thousand watt ones that he had missed so much.
She smiled at him. Daryl Dixon had just flirted with her? She didn't have time to think on it and they were joined by a tall guy with blonde curly hair. "Hey, I'm Nicholas. You two must be Morgan and Beth. Pleased to meet you." He was all business and a bit hurried. He thrust his hand towards Beth which she accepted a bit awkwardly since it was not the right hand to be shaking and that one was currently very much tied up in Daryl Dixon. She figured it might always be. They'd just be fused together from now on. She wasn't sure she minded the notion.
"Who wants to go first?" Nicholas looked between Beth and Morgan, his expression bright and open.
Beth hesitated. Her instinct was to move her hand to her wrist but currently Daryl had a tight grip on those fingers. She wanted to tell him but she didn't want to do it here in front of Morgan and this new stranger, no matter how friendly he seemed. Not even Morgan knew what she was going to have to tell Daryl sooner or later.
Her travel companion must have sensed her hesitancy. "I'll go."
"Great!" Nicholas said brightly as Morgan scooted his chair back and made to follow him out of the room. "I'll be back before long Beth and we'll get you settled. I know your family will be anxious to see you too." With a curt nod he was gone.
Then it was just her and Daryl. She turned in her chair slightly to face him. Now that they were alone, she didn't know what to say. The silence sat between them but it wasn't uncomfortable.
As if reading her mind Daryl spoke up after eyeing her for a bit. "Used to be a time I couldn't get you to shut up." There it was again, his eyes and that teasing glint in them. He was different. It was a good different and Beth decided, she liked this new version of Daryl Dixon.
Beth giggled and the sound seemed foreign coming from her lips. She looked up at him in surprise. "Wow, that felt weird."
Daryl chuckled. At what he didn't know. Life he guessed and how fate had seemed to do an about face, spitting Beth back into its atmosphere like she'd never been gone at all. "It feels good." He looked at her and for once, he was wishing he'd taken Jessie up on one of her twelve offers to let her cut his hair. He had declined every single one of them and only the last two had been in the form of a verbal reply. The other ten had only been grunts. She'd talked Rick into it the first week they'd been there though Daryl thought it could have something to do with the fact that Jessie was sweet on his brother. He didn't know if it went the other way. At least not yet. Rick was still wearing his wedding band and as far as he knew he didn't plan on taking it off anytime soon.
"Dr. Edwards said I will make a full recovery. I had some problems with remembering things at first. Not like my name or anything. Just remembering what certain words were." Beth began. Her voice was quiet. She found she didn't know where to begin.
"That doctor at the hospital?" Daryl realized she was trying to tell him how the hell she came to be sitting next to him. How she was breathing when, for appearances, when he'd left her the life had gone out of her and was left nothing more than a memory. He thought for a long time that he'd left his soul in that car where they had placed her lifeless body. He figured maybe somehow he had. And it was just now that he was getting it back, on the wings of this angel come back into his life.
"He was the doctor that saved my life. Twice it turns out now. Morgan found me in a car. I don't know how I got there but I'm guessing it had something to do with me getting out from where you buried me, I still don't remember that part, and-."
Daryl stopped her. "Beth, no." He fought to keep himself from crying again. He didn't want to relive those moments, those horrible moments when he'd had to be dragged away by Tyreese, Rick, and Abraham away from her. Away from the herd that was coming. It had taken all three of them to hold him down. All three to keep him tied to the car they had been in. They had circled back the next day but the door was standing open and there was nothing around the car but a pile of bodies and some rather full looking walkers and Daryl had cut open each and every one of them.
He had later found her sweater. That was all. It was torn and tattered beyond anything recognizable other than it had once been a fabric but Daryl knew. It was hers. He'd found the walker he'd been tracking later but on cutting it open, he had found no traces of her. Leaving him no other choice, he'd gone back to the group. They'd never been the same after that. He'd never been the same after that. He told Beth all of this now. And he only left out the parts that would reveal his truth.
"You were right." His eyes met her baby blues and she flashed him that puzzled look, like she did when something wasn't clicking just quite right. She tilted her head sideways.
"Bout what?" Beth caught his gaze between his too long bangs. They were even longer than before. Without even thinking she reached up and her fingers moved up to his bangs pushing them out of his eyes.
Daryl fought the urge to close his eyes and lean into her touch. He needed his eyes open for this. "That I'd miss ya."
Beth's hand fell back to her lap with his admission and she turned herself to face him more fully, her chair scraping the floor of the old post office with an echo sounding off the empty walls. She reached out and grabbed his other hand, now both their hands linked together. "I missed you too. When I first woke up, well both times, I asked for you. Dr. Edwards told me I did. He always wanted to meet you."
Daryl tried not to look too pleased that she must have talked about him. "Me?" Daryl snorted.
""Course. He wanted to meet the guy that taught me everythin' I know." She grinned at him.
"Now how would a doctor in the middle of the city know anything about me teachin' you to fight and track?" Daryl loved this easy banter between them. No pressure. No worries about what came next. This was what he had missed the most about her he figured. He easy it was to just be with her. No expectations.
"He came with us for awhile when we left, me, him and Morgan. Morgan found me in that car and took me back to Grady. Later, after we left there, we came to a small community. It had walls just like this one. There was a lady there about to give birth. She had the baby just fine, but then something else happened and then another and then he just decided that I was well enough to be on my own. He was needed there." Beth was quiet. It was clear that she was having a hard time with the loss of a friend.
"Maybe you could write him. We got mail that goes out twice a month now. I think I remember Carol saying something about Fallview being one of the runs." Daryl offered.
Beth beamed at him. "Real mail?" She shook her head at the notion. It wasn't that long ago that mail that came to your house was nearly obsolete, favored instead the electronic version of communication. Now here they were thrust 200 years into the past; an apocalyptic pony express.
Daryl nodded. "Mmhmm. Just last week, we got word that they are puttin' up a Pizza Hut too."
She nudged his knee with hers blushing under his gaze and that tiny half-smile when he gave when he knew he was being funny. "Stop teasin'." She admonished, although she didn't know. It wasn't like she minded. "I could go for a pizza right now. Lots of melted cheese and pepperoni." She groaned in anticipation. What things they took for granted back then.
"I would have pegged you for one of those goat cheese and spinach kinda girls." He chuckled as she narrowed her eyes at him.
Their thoughts were interrupted by Morgan and Nicholas coming back into the room. Beth was instantly nervous. She had been plying her mind with other thoughts, hoping to avoid the interrogation and the medical exam for as long as possible. "Pete is ready to see you now, Ms. Greene."
Beth looked up at him absently, feeling a wave of nausea roll over her. If she hadn't been sitting down she would have surely passed out. Her breathing got rapid and suddenly she knew what was happening. They didn't happen often anymore but for the first week after she woke up she was plagued with episodes of panic. She couldn't move her fingers and she couldn't figure out why and she looked up at Daryl and finally her fingers were free and she was about to use her hands to push up on the chair to catapult herself from the room when she felt Daryl's hands come up and cradle her face. "Beth. You're safe. I got ya."
She forced herself to breathe in and out, drawing in air like it was her last dying breath. She heard him and she saw him but she couldn't force herself to believe him. She couldn't be safe. Not when her heart thundered away behind her breastbone like it was trying to escape its cage. "No. I don't want to."
His heart broke in that millisecond it took for him to realize that she was talking about the interview process. The look in her eyes could only be described as sheer terror. Whatever it was that was causing it, he just knew it had something to do with what happened to her. He pulled her forward against his chest where she willingly went. He looked over her head to Nicholas. "It's gonna have to wait."
"It's standard procedure Dixon. You know that." Nicholas said.
"I don't give a shit about procedure. You tell Deanna's this is on me, alright? She's been through hell and back. Think we can give her some time to adjust before you go proddin' at her brain. I'll-".
Nicholas held up a hand. "Fine. Fine. I think we made some allowances for ya'lls group when you came in. We'll give her a couple days to settle in. You keep an eye on her though right?"
Daryl nodded. "Yeah man, I got this." Daryl watched the younger man's back as he retreated back out the way he came. Morgan met his eyes and nodded. Daryl tilted his head slightly. He was glad the man was giving Beth her space and at the same time he was glad she had someone with her getting here. He didn't doubt she could have gotten there on her own. But it was nice to know she hadn't been alone the entire time.
In the quiet of the room, Beth's breathing had finally steadied and he made to pull away, but he was in no way prepared for the anguish he saw in her eyes.
"Promise me that no matter what I tell you, it stays between us." Beth looked at him, her eyes begging for him to keep her secret.
"Ain't gonna tell nobody. Ain't nobody's business. You don't ever gotta talk to them if you don't want to." He didn't know how long he could hold them off with their little citizenship process but he knew one thing. They'd have to go through him to get to her.
Daryl saw her hesitation. "Hey." She looked up at him, her watery blue eyes meeting his and he saw it there. That implicit trust. He didn't know what he had ever done in this life or any other that had made this girl place such trust in him, not even questioning that he could fill whatever role that called for. "Nothin' you say to me is gonna change anythin'." He let those words hang between them. There was still no definin' what this was, no matter that it wasn't going to change, but that could all wait for now.
Beth nodded and sniffed. She took a deep breath and moved her hand to the cuff of her right sleeve and pulled it up, exposing the gnarled flesh. It had gotten better since she had first taken off the cast and Edwards had explained it all to her, but a good three inch radius around her wrist was still a mess of puckered skin and silvery scar lines where they'd tried to repair the bite. It was also where they had injected her daily "treatments" as Dawn liked to call them. They had been trying for a cure at Grady. What they hadn't known was they had the cure all along. Well to a point anyway.
Daryl stared down at her arm and looked back up at her expectantly. He had expected, well he didn't know what he expected but he wasn't real sure what he was looking at.
"I was bit". She watched as his face went from one of confusion to sudden clarity and horror, and then fear.
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