Chapter One
-o-
"Oh my little bird what have you done?
Fell in love with Mr. Setting Sun.
So beautiful you made the sky your own,
then it disappeared left you alone."
-o-
Beth had always been a firm believer that what was meant to be will be. Life at the animal clinic had taught her that; sometimes the worst and best things happened for a specific reason at a specific time. Like when little old Jean had come in to inform them of the death of her old dog and had fallen in love with a stray that was being handed over. After a thorough health check and the seven day claiming period, the scruffy little mutt trotted off home with her, fondly dubbed Tramp.
She had seen life and death come through their doors, cases of extreme violence and cruelty mixed together with moments of pure unadulterated love. She had seen both the best and worst of humanity in some of those moments, and both had taken her breath away in completely incomparable ways. People entered and left Greene's Veterinary Hospital in different states, some relaxed after a routine checkup, some relieved to discover that their only form of companionship was indeed healthy, some elated after their prayers for a miracle had been answered, some heartbroken and leaving with only the ghost of a memory to follow behind them.
But sometimes a being so broken would enter the building looking for solace that it was impossible to know what the best course of action was. Was it cruel to allow their suffering to continue, or was the light within them too strong to diminish just yet? Was it right to fight for them - with them - or had this cruel world taken more from them than their soul could take?
Beth Greene had seen them all; lived their ecstasy, consoled their agony, held them together when all hope seemed lost. She knew people almost as well as she knew their animals. As a child she had always been able to see when a person's beloved pet wasn't going to make it, even before her father had told her to go and find Annette, her mother, for some sweets so that she didn't have to see him deliver those damning words.
I'm sorry, there's nothing more we can do.
As a child she had sworn that she would change that when she grew up. When she got bigger, she would save them. It wasn't enough to save most of them, she had to save every single one.
My little ray of sunshine, her father had called her with a small smile.
She didn't understand the concept of true pain, had never looked into the eyes of someone who had fought their battle and lost. The knowledge that sometimes there is kindness in death wasn't available in any of her father's veterinary books. It wasn't a lesson that could be learnt from study and it wasn't a lesson that she would learn until she turned fifteen and Annette was diagnosed with Leukaemia. The disease had plagued her mother for two years and finally, Beth could see the issue with saving everyone, with throwing every treatment at them in order to keep them alive for as long as possible.
Finally she saw that keeping alive a being whose only constant was the agony of hopelessness was crueler than allowing them the dignity of death.
She saw it in her mother's tired expression, her usually bright blue eyes had always seemed to hold all the answers to the world. Those eyes had dulled, the rich blue diluted with red and yellow where her organs had started to fail.
Beth had understood.
As her small family had gathered she had seen it. She had seen as Annette's small frame found the release of pain that it had been so desperately seeking. At the end, there had been no pain, just love and the knowledge that Annette's spirit would remain with them long after her physical body was gone.
Beth had felt as though she were a different person leaving that hospital. Gone the childish belief that the world was perfect. Her first heartbreak, the first time the world had truly twisted into something lustreless.
Tainted.
And it hadn't even been from a boy.
She had lost her mom and a part of herself with her departure. But with it, she had gained a determination and a wealth of knowledge that she could go on and better help both the animals and also their people.
She was still her father's little ray of sunshine, but she was strong.
Throughout high school and college, her grades never wavered. To the outside world, Beth Greene was still perfect. Beautiful, patient, smart, kind. She had a life, a career, a boyfriend; in the eyes of everyone else she had it all figured out.
In the eyes of Beth Greene, everything was crumbling.
June 29th should have been just any day, the date was nothing special; no big occasion, which was why Beth couldn't understand how everything had gone to shit so quickly.
Her boyfriend was moving his things out of their apartment and there was a mob enforcer bleeding all over the floor of the clinic's examination room.
-o-
Woodbury, Georgia was a small town located on the outskirts of Atlanta. It was a quiet, picturesque town often referred to as somewhere people come to retire in peace, surrounded by vast open spaces and the gentle chug of the occasional tractor. Its residents knew each other by name, attended the same church, the same celebratory parties and events.
A homely town, undisturbed by the hustle and bustle of the nearby city. Close enough to be a convenient commute for its younger residents, but far enough to escape the constant buzz of activity. It was a town of white front porches and rope swings, beautiful in both the glorious summer sunshine and also the icy cold of the winter snow. Children grew up in jeans and cowboy boots, either running or riding around with their friends, teenagers could be found climbing down trees or trellis' to escape the watchful eyes of their parents.
Beth Greene had always lived there, the first twenty two years in her parent's farmhouse and then in an apartment in the center of the small town with her long term boyfriend, a local police officer, Shane Walsh. She lived for the freedom of the countryside, exploring the grassy woodland or galloping across the open fields on horseback with her blonde hair streaming behind her. Never the wild child like her sister, Maggie, other than in those moments of pure bliss, where nothing mattered other than her, the horse between her thighs and the dirt trail that she had ridden many times throughout her life.
She remembered one of Annette's old sayings.
Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt, for there's nothing truer or more dependable than an old dirt road.
The city was different. Loud, busy and devoid of the influx of colour that was found in Woodbury. There was too many people, all of them strangers to both Beth and each other. But her father loved his animal clinic, loved the small community within it.
Beth had graduated from college as a veterinary nurse, originally specialising in small animals, but studying through an open college course to be able to also work with horses. The years of study involved in becoming a vet had never appealed to her, not wanting to spend so long away from home, instead preferring the hands on approach that came with her nursing course, especially with her father being alone in the clinic with only their receptionist, Karen, and their overnight vet, Andrea, to keep him in order.
Her father had never been the most organised of men when it came to paperwork, so why should the clinic's medical records be any different?
Beth adored her job, she really did, but whenever she looked at the piles of paperwork that were left to both her and Karen, she mentally revised her opinions on pyromania. She often stayed late on Fridays to do any leftover paperwork so that they could have a quick dart when the surgery closed at midday on Saturdays, and June 29th was no exception.
Usually it was dedication that kept her there until well after 10pm, but today it was an avoidance technique; she didn't want to go home to her now empty apartment. Or, even worse, to still find Shane clearing out his things. It had been a bad day all around, an operation going awry when a cat had had arrived having been hit by a car and her heart had given out before any action could be taken, followed by a stray text, meant for her boyfriend's secret lover that had accidentally found its way to her.
Beth didn't want to go back to the apartment, to the place where Shane had taken other women. She couldn't bear to go back to the bed where he had seduced someone else.
Yep, it had been a shitty day through and through, Beth thought as she filed the last of her paperwork, rubbing at her eyes wearily and ignoring the pricks of emotion that threatened to overwhelm her when she glanced at the photograph on the wall. Her and Shane the previous winter, all smiles and laughter as she flicked snow at him.
Deep in the memory, she didn't hear the quiet ding of the clinic's doorbell, hadn't even realized that she'd forgotten to lock it until the shadow fell across the doorway, snatching her out of her reminiscing with a startled gasp.
"What are you doing?" Beth breathed, her right hand flying towards the tray of surgical utensils to grasp at a scalpel when she caught sight of the man before her.
Long, unkempt dark hair fell partially over his eyes, facial hair that was a few days past stubble was flecked with red– blood, a small voice from the part of her brain that wasn't reeling in terror supplied. He was dressed in dark blue jeans, ripped at the knee and covered in what Beth could only hope was mud. The sleeveless evergreen coloured shirt was covered by a similarly sleeveless leather vest that was frayed around the edges and looked as though it had seen better days. Beth recognised the tattoo on his left forearm, the angel wings framed by a crossbow was a symbol of one of Atlanta's local gangs, infamous in the area for property and bank theft as well as the occasional sale of moonshine.
And she'd left the front door of a clinic full of easily sellable medicinal drugs open.
Shit.
Her breath came in a shaky gasp as the man shuffled, his right shoulder leaning against the wall, but he didn't move toward her.
"What do you want? I don't have access to the safe. If you leave I won't call the cops," she told him, hating the quake in her voice and gripping the scalpel more tightly to stop the tremor in her hands.
He wasn't advancing on her like she thought he would, and on second glance, she couldn't see a visible weapon- not that that was anything to go on. His shoulders were rounded and stiff as though he were in pain, rather than square and threatening, and his fists clenched at his sides.
"I ain't gonna hurt ya, girl," the man's voice, gruffer – huskier –than she imagined it would be, broke through her thoughts and her eyes flew once more to his face.
"W-what?"
"I said I ain't going to hurt you. I need- I need help. This ain't a robbery so you can put that down," the man tilted his head towards her hand.
"You need help?" Beth narrowed her eyebrows, noting once again the blood tinging his facial hair and the dark patches on his clothing.
Not mud then after all.
Her gaze travelled down his torso, to the clenched fists, noting the darkness there and then moving downwards once more to see a drop of blood on the white floor tiles.
"You're bleeding," she remarked, not quite ready to drop the scalpel just yet.
How many movies had she seen where the bad guy convinced the woman that he was harmless only to grab her as soon as she let her guard down? Beth felt a spike of panic as she realized that she mostly likely couldn't overpower him; he had the advantage of both height and strength.
But he is bleeding, and quite heavily by the looks of it, her brain supplied unhelpfully.
"Look." He took a step forward, stopping when she jumped backwards and opened his bloody palms out to her. "No weapons."
Flinching, he grasped the edge of his leather vest and pulled it open, exposing both the bloody shirt and also the lack of a gun.
"I won't beg, and I'll go if you ask me to," he promised, meeting her eyes for the first time since she had noticed him.
Blue, a deep, rich colour that didn't match the hard lines of his face.
"Show me where you're hurt," Beth ordered, raising her chin and fixing him with the sharpest look she could manage, hoping that she managed to pull it off.
Judging by the beginnings of a smirk that pulled at the side of the man's mouth, she hadn't been successful, but he followed her order anyway, pulling his shirt up to reveal the laceration on his side.
From where she stood it looked about four inches long, still oozing blood.
Fresh, not clotted yet, but not too deep for him to bleed out.
It would need stitches. She'd never had to stitch a person before, dogs and cats yes, people not so much.
"How did you get that?"
The man's face twisted and he cocked his head to one side.
"Cut myself shaving."
"Of course you did," she replied, feeling one eyebrow raise as she took a cautious step forward, still holding the scalpel.
His hands moved back to his sides, palms wide and flat in what Beth assumed was supposed to be a gesture of reassurance and she stopped, motioning to the examination table. "I'm gonna need you to lie on there, if you wouldn't mind."
"Ain'tya gonna at least buy me a drink first?" He asked, his attempt at sarcasm falling flat when he winced, whether through blood loss or the tug on the cut as he moved, Beth didn't know, but he pulled himself up onto the table and lay back, pulling his shirt up so that she could see.
Close up, the gash looked worse than Beth had originally thought; one edge started directly above his hipbone, curving outwards around his side in what was obviously a knife wound. She slowly set the scalpel down out of his reach before reaching for a pair of surgical gloves.
"Why didn't you go to a hospital?"
"Hospitals require insurance and explanations and I ain't got neither," he said simply, watching her face as she weighed up her options.
The logical part of her brain told her not to get involved, to send him on his way. But the other part of her, the stronger part, told her that that wasn't the way she had been brought up. He hadn't tried to force her to help him, which he easily could have done and technically he hadn't broken in.
Everyone deserves a chance, her father always said.
Beth just hoped he wouldn't use his chance to kill her.
"What's your name?"
His brow furrowed momentarily in confusion at her question, but the name that came out of his mouth rang true.
"Daryl."
"Well, Daryl, I hope you're not allergic to anaesthetic because otherwise, this is going to hurt like hell," Beth mused, her voice thankfully sounding more confident than she felt.
Daryl's face relaxed, realizing what her words meant and his eyes found her own, gratitude showing within them as he nodded, the movement short and sharp.
"Thank you."
