…
When the twins were four, Jack got sick; really sick. And in such isolation on their mountain, they were used to common colds and sinuses, but few illnesses too serious. When Jack got as sick as he did, they were all terrified because how did he get so sick and was this the sickness?
Thankfully, it hit in the winter and they were able to pack snow all around him to fight his fever and with willow bark tea Beth held to his lips, helping him swallow it down, they were able to get his fever down after a day and night of no sleep. And even after the fever was broken and he seemed to be coming out on the other side, still alive, the whole family was still terrified.
"Maybe he got bit by somethin'," Daryl thought and even though they checked every inch of him and couldn't find any kind of bug bite – and in the winter, how would he had been bitten by a bug? – that seemed to be the only kind of explanation that made any kind of sense.
It took a couple of weeks for Jack to be fully recovered, but afterwards, Beth and Daryl – and everyone – noticed the slightest difference in him; something that none of Beth's tonics or plants could cure. Afterwards, Jack's energy was never what it could have been. While all of the other kids – including his twin sister, Ceci – raced around, doing farm chores and playing like the kids they were, Jack could join them for a few hours, but by one or two o'clock in the afternoon, he was completely wiped out.
Daryl, Beth and the others could only assume that wherever the fever had come from, it had left something behind that they couldn't see without an MRI so everyone in the family did what they always did. They learned and adjusted and knew that Jack had to get things done in the morning before his energy was rock bottom in the afternoon.
And because of Jack's energy level, it's why the plan is to head out even before the sun is fully risen in the morning. The sooner they can head out, the more distance they can cover.
Beth wakes Eli, Cecily and Jack up when it's still dark outside and makes sure everyone washes their faces, brushes their teeth and empties their bladders in their bathroom bucket before she begins going through their clothes.
"Remember," Beth tells them. "It might be a bit warmer in the afternoons, but it's still cold in the mornings and at night so wear layers."
"Mom," Eli sighs with the impatience of a twelve-year-old who obviously feels like he doesn't need his mom to tell him such things. "We can dress ourselves."
"Yes, you can, but that doesn't mean I'm letting you leave until I approve of what you're wearing," Beth quips back and ignores Eli's heavy sigh as he turns to the chest on the floor at the foot of the bed where all of his clothes are kept.
That age, as Rosita likes to say when Aiden, and brief moments with Bee, has a slight attitude.
"These, mama?" Six-year-old Cecily asks, holding up her pair of earmuffs.
Beth smiles. "I don't think so, sweetie. It might be too warm in the afternoon for earmuffs." She turns and digs in the chest where Cecily and Jack's clothes are both kept. "This might be better," she then says, pulling out a black knit cap, and Cecily nods, smashing it down on her head with a smile, and Beth smiles, too.
"'member you all pack plenty of socks," Daryl says from across the room, arming himself with knives. "Don't care if you wear the same underwear, but you need to keep your feet dry."
Beth looks to their three kids. "You're bringing underwear, too."
"How long are we gonna be gone, mama?" Jack asks.
"I'm not sure, baby," Beth shakes her head. The night before, in the kitchen, she packed away enough food to last them for two weeks – two good meals a day – but even doing that, she had wondered if two weeks would last them.
Jack turns and digs around the trunk and then turns, holding every single pair of socks that he and Cecily own in his arms. Beth laughs lightly and nods.
"Good plan," she says and Jack turns to shove them all into his backpack.
She watches as the three kids pick the clothes they are going to wear today and then pack some more to take with them, overseeing, but letting them make their own decisions. She then looks over her shoulder to Daryl. And feeling her looking at him, Daryl moves his eyes to her and he gives her a small smile; a smile that Beth is able to give back to him.
"You sure about this?" Daryl had asked her the night before as they laid in their bed together.
"If you don't want to do this-"
"Stop," Daryl cut her off right there. "I've got no problem with goin'. I jus' wanted to make sure that this is somethin' you really want to do. I can go by myself and get what you want."
"Yes, because sending you away from home for a few weeks would really help me sleep at night," Beth retorted and Daryl smirked, lifting a hand to move a bit of hair from the side of her face. "I want to go and see it," she then said in a whisper. "I want to see if there's anything still there. I want the kids to see where I come from."
"I never got to see your bedroom in the farmhouse," Daryl said, more like he was thinking out loud to himself, and Beth smiled, a laugh slipping past her lips, and Daryl brought her in closer to him so he could reach her lips with his.
Once everyone is dressed and both Beth and Daryl look over what the kids are wearing and what they've packed, they head from their tree house, Beth pausing at the top of the stairs to look around the big room and to make sure that they haven't forgotten anything.
Over the past few years, Daryl has made a few changes to their tree house. He built stairs in lieu of a ladder and the first floor deck had been enclosed and insulated, making it a bedroom for him and Beth.
Up the stairs in the big room, Daryl has built the twins bunk beds into the wall and Eli has his own bed. They have a curtained-off section where they keep their wash tub, toilet bucket and wash basin for their body's needs. There is also a table and benches, their wood-burning stove, and counter-tops where Beth cooks or writes and the kids do their homework or play games. Glass and plastic jars line the shelves Daryl built for her, filled with all sorts of flower petals, leaves, roots, barks and spices – either used for cooking or medicine; Silly ceramic mugs that have been found over the years are situated on their very own shelf. They also have books that the main family cabin can't hold any longer; if their family has one thing in abundance of, it's books. There are two over-stuffed armchairs and a chess board set up on the table between them. Braided rugs are situated on the floors. The kids each have a heavy quilt on each of their beds, all folded neatly now. Eli has the garden gnome that his Uncle Glenn had given to Beth so many years ago and it now sits on the windowsill next to Eli's bed, watching over him as he sleeps.
There is only one photograph of the Dixon family – taken twelve years earlier when Eli had just been born on an old Polaroid camera that Beth and Daryl had found in someone's garage. The film had already been yellow with age and the camera had died for good not long after. The picture – Daryl and Beth in bed with newborn Eli in Beth's arms – is framed and hanging on the wall right at the top of the stairs. There are two other pictures framed – one Beth had taken of Daryl and one Daryl had taken of Beth when they had first found the camera all of that time ago.
If Beth thinks about it, she gets sad that Cecily and Jack will never be able to get their picture taken, but then she remembers that millions of others long before the world ended never got their picture taken and even now, in their family, besides Aiden and Eli, the other children don't have their pictures either.
"See you soon," Beth whispers to the room.
They are going back to the Greene family farm, yes, but that hasn't been home for so long. This, right here, is her home with Daryl and their children and this is the home she is going to miss and the home they will all be returning to once they finish with their journey.
Beth finally turns to head down the stairs and stops when she sees Daryl waiting at the bottom of them. He looks up at her and she looks down to him and she gives him a small smile. Daryl's own lips twitch a little, but it doesn't stay for long as he keeps looking at her.
"We'll be home 'fore you know it," he tells her as she comes down the stairs.
"I know," she nods and Daryl slides a hand onto the back of her neck and kisses her on the temple.
She doesn't doubt that they'll be home again. They're Daryl and Beth Dixon, after all, and they've made it this far.
…
Even though it's so early, the rest of the family is awake as well at this time to see the Dixon family off. With spring right around the corner, planting season will be upon them soon, but for now, the ground is still too hard to begin just yet and they're still working on their stores of food built up for the winter months.
"Green pepper omelets," Aaron tells Beth as she steps into the kitchen where he's already at the stove and Eli, Cecily and Jack are already sitting at the table, eating theirs. Aiden, Bee, Gracie and Carrie are also at the table, still half-asleep, eating omelets as well. It seems like Teddy, the baby, is still asleep in Spencer and Rosita's bedroom. No one would ever think to wake a sleeping baby.
"That sounds great, Aaron. Thank you," Beth smiles to him.
This past harvest, they had seen an overabundance of green peppers they had never had before and most of the winter had been spent, eating green peppers at least three times a week. By now, everyone was sick of the sight of them and certainly could hardly stomach them anymore, but they kept eating them. They wouldn't let any food go to waste – though the adults have pretended that they don't know that the kids have been feeding their livestock their portions of green peppers for the past couple of months.
Beth goes to the living room where the food she has packed away is set on the floor, waiting to be taken, and she kneels down, looking and going over it all again. She turns her head when Rosita kneels down next to her.
"I don't want you to go," Rosita whispers to her. "If something… we'll never find out if anything happens to any of you and what would we do without you?"
Beth gives her closest friend a small smile and without a word, she pulls Rosita into a hug, Rosita hugging her tightly in response. After a minute, silently, they both pull apart.
"When me and Daryl first met you, you were going back home to Texas. Even though you had no idea if there was anything left, you still wanted to go home," Beth reminds her.
"And we lost Eric and my uncle…" Rosita exhales a shaky breath. "We never should have gone. What was left wasn't home anymore and I hate that that is my last memory of it. We don't need anything. We have more than enough food and blankets and clothes…"
"I just want to see it," Beth shakes her head. "I can't… even if people have ransacked it, and I'm sure, by now, there's nothing useful left, there will still be things that no one would want. Pictures of my family, personal things… I want those things, Rosita. I'm the… I'm the only one left," she then whispers, her tears nearly flooding over from just saying that fact out loud.
Rosita looks like she's about to join in and cry, too, but she pulls Beth into another hug and this time, Beth is the one to hug her tightly; almost squeezing her too tightly.
"Beth, your omelet and the coffee are ready," Aaron calls quietly to her from the kitchen.
But Beth and Rosita keep hugging one another and don't make a move to break apart.
…
"Are you sure you don't want to take one of the donkeys and the cart?" Matt asks him for the third time.
And again, Daryl shakes his head. "I don't know what we're gonna to run into out there and if somethin' happens… I'm not losin' one of our donkeys." He rubs the snout of one of their grey donkeys, smiling a little as the animal munches on his breakfast of dried grass. "And the wagon should be big enough to hold our things we're bringin' with us and what we find and still have space in it for Jack when he gets tired in the afternoons. Eli and I can take turns pullin' it."
"And are you sure you have to do this?" Spencer asks from the stool he sits on, milking one of the goats.
Daryl doesn't hesitate in nodding this time. "Beth wants to do this and I'm goin' with her. And Cecily and Jack are six now. They need their trainin'."
Matt and Spencer don't say anything to that.
They rarely leave their mountain and runs are just as rare. They don't need to go one them as they used to. They have everything they need. As Beth likes to tell them all, what they need, their mountain provides. But just because they are in isolation – never seeing another human and seeing just a handful of walkers a week – none of the adults allow the children, for even a second, to forget what kind of world this is.
When Eli and Aiden were both younger and Bee was six, they had taken them on a run to a town; and the kids had wound up saving all of their asses when they had been ambushed. Cecily and Jack are six-years-old and this is a good age to get them out there and give them a bit of hands-on training, while silently hoping that they'll never have to actually use it.
In a couple of years, it will be Carrie and Gracie's turns and then Teddy's a few years after that.
The barn door opens and all three men turn their heads to see Anna step in, a big basket held with both arms. "You should have enough eggs to last you the next few days and since it's still cool out, they should be able to last without spoiling."
"Thanks, Anna," Daryl gives her a small smile. "Beth's packin' us enough food to keep us out there for weeks." He notes that Spencer, Matt and Anna all frown at that. "We'll be back as soon as we can," Daryl then promises them. "The farm actually isn' too far away from here. Maybe four days walk and then we'll spend a couple days there and then four days walk back here."
"Why are you doing this?" Matt is the one to ask. "I know," he then hurries to add. "Beth wants to go back, but why? Why now?"
Daryl is quiet for a moment and he rubs a hand on the donkey's snout again. "Eli… the older he gets, he's lookin' like me, but he's lookin' like Beth's brother, Shawn, too. It's makin' Beth ache when she notices more and more things about Eli that are like his uncle. Beth wants to go back to the farm so she can find some pictures. The kids have no idea what any of their family on that side looks like."
Anna, Matt and Spencer can easily all say the same thing. Anna and Matt's daughter, Carrie, and Spencer and Rosita's kids, Aiden, Bee and Teddy, have absolutely no idea what any of their family outside of this mountain looked like and somewhere away from here, in old houses in old towns and cities where they used to live, there are still the family pictures, dusting and fading away in albums, put away on shelves.
He wishes he had a picture of Merle – to both have for himself and to show the kids – but Daryl can't remember any Dixon family pictures in the first place.
But, besides Cecily and Jack needing to get out there and seeing this world past their mountain, Beth wants to do this and there's no way he won't do this for Beth.
"And last time I was there, 'fore the herd ran us off, I had a flannel shirt I really liked. Wanna see if it's still there," Daryl tells them with a small smile on his lips.
Spencer and Matt smile to themselves, too, and Anna sets the basket of eggs down before coming to Daryl, standing on her toes and wrapping her arms around his shoulders in a tight hug. Daryl closes his eyes as he hugs her back just as tightly.
"'member how you were when Spencer, Rosita and Aaron found you and you first came to me and Beth?" Daryl asks her. "You were the toughest six-year-old I ever saw. I wan' my kids to be just like you."
Anna lets out a laugh at that, but it's mixed with a sob and then her body starts to shake as she cries into his shoulder, and Daryl keeps hugging her. Matt is looking down to the straw-covered floor, his fists clenching and unclenching, stopping himself from taking hold of Anna himself, and Spencer is staring down to the small bucket of milk he's filling. Both seem to be trying their hardest to hide their own thoughts and worries.
And just like he had said to Beth just a little bit earlier, Daryl promises the same thing to Anna now.
He knows making promises is useless and not to mention, just tempting the fates, but Daryl does it anyway because even though they may all know that promises shouldn't be made, that doesn't mean they don't want to hear them when they need to.
"We'll be home 'fore you know it."
…
My 100th story on this site! Thank you very much for reading and please take a moment to review. This one is going to be around six chapters or so.