Inspired by the song "What Hurts The Most" by Rascal Flatts. Because I am cruel. warning: CHARACTER DEATH. SERIOUSLY. DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T LIKE CHARACTER DEATH.
Or don't like Tara/Beth because that is the main couple. Also if you don't like Caryl because that is also here.
"Tara, will you call me, please? I know what Daddy said was cruel but... Please call me." Beth begged into her cell phone for the fifth time in an hour, ending the call and setting the phone down on her lap. She sighed and stood to her feet, walking down the stairs and into the kitchen where her father and mother were sitting, deep in conversation. "Why did you have to say that?" Beth asked, alerting her parents to her presence.
"Bethie.." Hershel said, looking up her.
"No. Don't 'Bethie' me." Beth said, crossing her arms over her chest. "Don't 'June Bug' me either." Her voice broke, despite the fact that she was trying to not cry. She was trying to be strong, trying to stand up for herself, for Tara. For the relationship she wanted to have. For the relationship she was going to have. "Why would you say something so cruel to her?"
Hershel stood to his feet, trying not to get angry with his youngest child. "You don't..."
"No. Don't tell me I don't know what I want or who I am or who I'm going to love. I know who I am, I know what I want and I know who I love. And that's Tara." She said firmly. "And I get that you don't understand it, but I don't care. And I'm sorry, Daddy, that that's not what you want for me and I'm not your perfect little daughter. I'm sorry I'm not Maggie." She spat out her older sisters name, bitter of always being compared to Maggie by her parents. She loved Maggie, but she wasn't Maggie. They were two different people.
"Beth, I.."
Beth cut off her father again, something she'd never do if she wasn't so damn angry. "You what? You hate me? You want me out of your house now?"
Hershel set his hands on Beth's shoulders. "I'm..." He was cut off by the doorbell ringing. Beth took a deep breath and shut her eyes before turning around and walking away from her father. She walked to the door and opened it, seeing Rick Grimes and Shane Walsh standing at her door step.
"Sheriff... What are you doing here?" Beth asked, looking up at Rick then to Shane. Neither of them had a happy look on their face.
"Beth... It's Tara." Shane said. Beth felt her heart drop in her stomach and she choked on her breath. "We found her truck about an hour ago, she collided with a drunk driver."
Beth choked on a sob and took a deep breath. "She's... She's dead?" She asked.
"I'm sorry, Tara." Rick said, reaching out a hand and pressing his hand on her shoulder. Beth covered her mouth and began to sob heavily, her back shaking. Rick pulled the young blonde into his arms as she started to sob, glancing up at Beth's father. He'd done this call several times before, loved one notification of a death. It wasn't easy, it was never easy. Especially when you knew not only the victim but the person you had to tell. Rick tightened his arm around her and patted her back.
"Beth.." Hershel spoke again. What do you say to your daughter when she loses the love of her life?
Beth pulled away from Rick and turned around to face her father. She couldn't see anything asides from the tears in her eyes. "You did this. You chased her away to die!" Beth shouted. Hershel opened his mouth, but it didn't matter. Beth didn't want to hear anything that her father had to say. "I hate you!" She yelled, walking past him and running back upstairs to her room.
As she ran up the stairs, Beth could hear Rick give his condolences and leave. Beth slammed the door to her bedroom shut, leaning against it as she cried. After a few moments, she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, dialed Tara's number and held it to her phone.
"Hey, it's Tara. Not here, leave a message and I'll probably never call you back."
"Tara, please... Please tell me Rick and Shane were lying and you're not dead. Please, just... tell me it's not true." Beth sobbed into the phone, knowing that if anyone could even hear this voicemail that they wouldn't be able to make out what she was saying. "Please... I love you, don't... Please don't be dead." The woman cried, walking over to her bed. She sat down on top of it and hung up the phone, tossing the cell phone on the side of her and collapsing to the bed, tugging her pillow against her chest. Beth buried her head into her pillow and sobbed until she fell asleep.
"Hey... I'm Tara.. Your new lab partner." A voice said, breaking Beth out of her concentration as she was studying and she looked up, stunned to see the beautiful brunette in front of her. Beth cleared her throat a few times and nodded before speaking.
"Hi.. Yeah.. I remember Ms. Peletier telling me about you. I'm Beth... Greene, sorry I missed our first lab together." Beth said, setting her pencil down between the pages of the book as Tara slid into the seat next to Beth. Beth shut the book to be able to give her full attention to the girl next to her. If she didn't, Beth knew she'd end up getting distracted by her books and ignore the person next to her. Beth had had the flu over the last week, it was her first day back. So, she was trying very hard to catch up quickly.
"You didn't miss anything. We took notes, dissected frogs, and some girl puked." Tara laughed softly, not wanting to get thrown out of the library. Tara had moved here from two towns over, after getting kicked out of private school.
Beth made a face, she was never good when it came to bodily fluids like vomit. "That sounds disgusting." Beth said, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear.
Tara made a face. The frogs hadn't disgusted her, it was actually kind of interesting. The vomit, however, had almost caused her to vomit too. She wasn't going to mention that. "The vomit or the frog?" Tara asked, leaning back in her chair. Beth craned her head around to look at Tara and smiled.
"The vomiting. I don't mind the frog thing so much, my Dad's a vet so I'm always around that... Dead animals, that is." Tara looked at the pretty girl next to her, who was strikingly nice to her. Don't crush on another straight girl, Chambler. Can't afford to move again. She thought to herself as she found her bag and pulled out a piece of paper.
"This is the lab that I did for the frog dissection. Thought you might like to see it, considering Ms. Peletier probably doesn't have enough dead frogs to do that over again." She joked.
Beth smiled. "You don't know Ms. Peletier's boyfriend." Everyone knew Ms. Peletier's boyfriend, Daryl. He was a local mechanic, along with a local hero. Several times over the year when kids have gone missing, it was Daryl who found them in the woods. He was also a prolific hunter and trainer, which explained how he was always able to find kids in the woods. Jokes were that Daryl could hunt with his eyes closed. Of course, Beth always figured that was just a joke.
Given Ms. Peletier's short hair, Tara had assumed that the woman was gay. She should really stop giving into lesbian stereotypes. "You know, I had thought she was a lesbian." Tara admitted. Beth raised an eyebrow at the girl next to her, tilting her head to the side. "Guess I'll actually have to study this year." Tara partially joked. Beth's eyes widened briefly, wondering if she was joking or being serious. Beth covered her mouth to prevent her laughter from becoming too loud. Tara grinned at her, giving Beth a playful wink. "I'll see you in Biology today, Ms. Greene." Tara stood to her feet, picked up her backpack and turned around to walk away from Beth.
"Bethie?" Maggie asked, opening the door slowly and looking in on her little sister. Beth was curled up on her bed, her head buried in her pillow. She walked into the room and crawled onto Beth's bed, gently lifting the pillow up from Beth's head and stroking her hair. She held her head up for a second and set Beth's head on top of her thighs, stroking her hair.
"Is she really dead, Maggie?" Beth asked, opening her eyes.
Maggie was surprised she was awake, she had thought that Beth had fallen asleep. "I'm sorry, Beth. She is." Maggie's voice cracked as she spoke, she really loved Tara and thought she was good for Beth. Sure, she might not have been exactly who Maggie imagined her sister falling for, but Beth loved her and who was Maggie to stand in the middle of that? No, their father was going to do that enough.
"Did she suffer?" Beth asked softly, looking up at her sister. Maggie looked down at her, wiping some of her tears from her face.
"No, baby. Shane said she didn't." Maggie said. She didn't know if that would comfort her at all, but she needed to tell her that. Tara died immediately, it was a head on collision. "Tara's sister called, she... She's gonna work on planning the funeral. I can't imagine what she's..." Maggie leaned down and kissed her sisters forehead. "I love you, Beth."
"I love you too, Maggie." Beth took in a deep breath and sat up just enough to wrap her arms around her sister. As soon as Maggie's arms wrapped around her and her hands rest on her back, Beth began to cry again. Maggie tightened her arms around her sister and tried to shield her as much as she could from the pain she was feeling.
Beth picked up Meghan Chambler in her arms, missing the way she would get excited when she would come over. She kissed Meghan's cheek and held her close to her, walking over to Lily and giving her a long hug. Maggie and her boyfriend, Glenn, followed behind her. Beth wasn't sure if she could cry anymore, she felt like she was all dried out. The past week she'd done almost nothing but cry.
Still holding Meghan, Beth walked into the long viewing room, averting her eyes from the front where the casket was. She looked along the crowd, the sheer amount of people there making her want to cry. The place was completely packed with people from their school, from her out of town friends. Beth covered her mouth and set down Meghan, kneeling down, and cupping the sides of Meghan's face. "I'm gonna go say hello to some of my friends but I'm gonna sit up there with you and your Mommy, okay?" Meghan nodded and Beth kissed her forehead, before making her way through the crowd to find her science teacher from two years ago, Carol Peletier.
"Ms. Peletier?" Beth asked in a soft voice. Carol turned around and looked down at Beth with tears in her eyes, wrapping her arms around Beth without needing to be asked.
"Oh, Beth. I'm so sorry." Carol said softly, slowly stroking Beth's hair. Beth choked out part of a sob, she had always considered Carol to be the reason she and Tara had ended up together. If it hadn't been for her putting them together as lab partners, it probably never would have happened.
"Thanks for coming, Ms. Peletier." Beth said as she pulled away. When she did, she noticed that Carol's long time boyfriend, Daryl, was standing next to her. "You too, Daryl." Beth said, finding more tears to come out. Without thinking about it, Beth leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Daryl Dixon, resting her head on his chest. "Tara really liked having you around."
Daryl let out what sounded like a choked chuckle, but Beth knew there was no way that Daryl was crying over her girlfriend. "She liked m'moonshine." He partially joked. Beth squeezed her eyes shut and let out a soft laugh.
"I'm actually going to miss her coming in my bedroom through my window reeking of the stuff." She said as she pulled away from Daryl. "Thanks for coming."
Daryl nodded curtly to Beth, who wrapped her arms around Carol again before making her rounds with people that she knew from school and from Tara's old school. She was doing everything to avoid having to go see the casket, but she knew that she had to.
When she was finished making her rounds, Beth knew it was time to go to the casket, the one thing she'd been avoiding.
The hardest thing about all of this was the closed casket. According to Lily, Tara was unrecognizable from the accident and she wanted people to remember Tara the way she looked before she passed away. She wasn't going to get the goodbye that she wanted, that she felt that she deserved. Beth walked down the aisle and stopped at the casket, pressing a hand to the smooth top. Lily had gone all out, wanting Tara to have the best funeral she could. Beth helped where she could, but a lot of it was overwhelming.
A part of Beth wished she could take one last look at Tara, but knew that Lily didn't want that to be the way she remembered her girlfriend. Beth sighed and shut her eyes, leaning her head over to press her forehead against the cool wood. "Goodbye, Tara." Beth whispered, even though she knew inside that there was no way that Tara could hear her right now. "I love you."