They all sat tensely quiet while they waited for some sign of the group that had left them. Judith woke up whimpering on Carl's shoulder and reached out for Carol to take her. Carol grimaced slightly in pain as the little girl crawled over into her lap. Daryl was about to reach for her when Beth stood up and leaned over the seat, "Hey, Judy, remember me? Huh? Come on up here and sit with me and Uncle Daryl," she said in a sing songy voice so as not to frighten the baby. Once Judy was on her lap, she began to sing quietly to her, "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray." As Beth sang, Judy began to clap her little hands and smile.
Something fluttered in Daryl's chest at the sound of her singing again. He knew how Merle would have laughed at him to see him being so silly over a girl but he didn't care. He'd missed her so damn bad that it felt good to be silly for a minute. "You like that Lil Asskicker, huh? You like hearin' Bethy sing?" he asked, feeling completely content watching the scene before him.
It wasn't long before the scouting party was back at the edge of the fence. Daryl leaned out of the truck and heard Rick whistling the all clear signal. He climbed down and helped the others to the ground including Beth who has carrying Judith on her hip like she'd always done back at the prison. The made a rough looking group trudging through the nearly waist high grass between the road and the fence.
"We're gonna be covered in chiggers tonight," Maggie warned them as they pushed their way through.
"Better a chigger chewin' on ya than a walker," Daryl replied garnering a chuckle from Carl and Michonne.
As they got closer, it was obvious that Rick and the others were pleased with what they'd found. He had a big grin on his face as he pulled Carl and Judy into a big bear hug. "I think y'all are gon' like what we found," he told them happily.
They walked around the perimeter of the fence to a large gate that the chain had been cut from. Several walkers with newly acquired large holes in their heads lay scattered near the gate. "See ya had a little opposition," Daryl commented but Rick just shrugged his shoulders.
They walked through the gate and across a black top parking lot. Only one vehicle sat in the designated space for museum security. It was a blue compact four door with a State of Georgia seal on the door. It was covered in dust and two of the tires were flat. There was no one inside but it didn't appear to have been moved at all in quite some time. As they walked past, Eugene wiped off a spot on the driver's side window to peer in. "I might be able to get this vehicle back in working order," he offered but no one even paused to pay any attention. He quickly shuffled along behind the others with his head hung low. Daryl wondered how it was possible that they'd ever believed the nerdy dude with the mullet could be the savior of humanity.
A small pane of glass near the door handle was broken which was obviously how they'd gotten inside. Just beyond the doors lay the body of another walker. This one wore a black and white security uniform. A neat round hole surrounded with a shadow of gunpowder now decorated the center of his forehead. "We'll clean that up later," Rick said as he kept walking along the corridor in front of them, "Now, come on and see what we found."
They went past displays of rocks and minerals as well as posters that showed different geological information about the state until they reached another hallway where they turned left. The building had skylights so they had enough natural light to see without flashlights. There were classrooms set up on either side of the hall with empty chairs and dead computer screens sitting in straight lines waiting for the students that would never come.
A door at the end of the hallway was marked "Employees Only" and it was through this door that Rick gleefully led them. Inside was a soda machine and a vending machine full of crackers, chips and candy. Both machines had been broken open but were still more than half full. It was like the place hadn't been touched. The security guard must have gone down early or he would have cleaned the machines out over the past year.
"Do I see Big Cat bars in there?" Michonne asked pushing her way forward. "Dibs!" she and Carl shouted simultaneously before erupting into giggles. Daryl grabbed a root beer from the soda machine. It was warm but damn it tasted fine. The sight of food, drink and at least short term shelter put everyone in a good mood for the moment.
"Tyrese is watchin' the front of the building," Rick told them. The fence is secure everywhere except at the front gate. We're gonna pull the fire truck around and block it and settle in here for the night. Beth get that cut on Daryl's head tended to while we get the perimeter secured. Y'all check out the rest of the building for any other supplies we can use. "
Rick headed back out with Abe, Rosita, Glenn and Sasha. Daryl still didn't like sitting around with the women and children but he didn't mind so much when he felt Beth's hand on his arm.
"Come on, Mr. Dixon. Let's get you cleaned up," she teased as she pulled him over toward a corner table. She grabbed a pack of paper napkins and a bottle of water. He sat and watched as she wet a few of the napkins and then carefully began to wipe around the cut near his ear. He didn't say anything for a few minutes as she slowly dabbed away at the dried blood and dirt that caked the side of his face.
After a while, the others had all gone off in different directions to search the building. They were alone like they had been back in the kitchen at the mortuary just before everything went to hell. He looked over at her.
"What? What are you lookin' at?" she asked playfully.
"Mm nm," he mumbled with a shoulder shrug.
"Nope. You're not getting' away with just that, not again. Come on and talk to me darn it," she demanded.
Daryl was completely flustered. He quickly stood up and walked across the room. "Let's…let's go check out some of the other rooms. Maybe they got a first aid kit or somethin'," he said, pretending not to notice the angry glance she shot in his direction. His head was throbbing worse than ever since she'd been worrying over it with those damn paper napkins. He wished for the second time that he'd held on to some of Merle's pills for an occasion like this.
Most everyone else was searching towards the front of the building. Carl was fascinated with all the displays and gadgets. He walked towards the back with Beth close on his heels. They found another side hallway leading to several small offices. The first held a desk with a bunch of pictures of a smiling Mom and two kids along with a fuzzy little white pup of some kind. He went straight for the desk drawers, digging past the assorted pens and paper clips in search of something useful. Beth picked up one of the frames and gazed wistfully at the pictures before laying it carefully face down on the desk. It hurt to remember how simple and carefree life used to be, back when they took the happiness depicted in those photos for granted.
Darryl grunted, "Aha!" as he pulled out a small box of bandages and a tube of antibiotic ointment.
"Really, Daryl? Band-aids for a gunshot wound?" Beth asked sarcastically.
"Better than nothin'," he replied as he continued the search. A half full box of stale granola bars sat in the bottom drawer along with a nearly full bottle of ibuprofen. Daryl opened the bottle and swallowed four of the tablets with a gulp of water from the bottle Beth was carrying. They took their loot and continued to the next office.
A small nameplate next to the door read, Jasper Whaley, Director. The office was larger and more nicely furnished than the previous one. The same types of family pictures were displayed, but the desk was very clean and orderly. The top drawer contained only office supplies. A small bookshelf near the back of the room revealed a hidden treasure for Daryl, an unopened pack of cigarettes stuck behind a large book on the Civil War. "Secret smoker," Daryl told Beth as he pocketed his find.
The last office was obviously the security room. One wall contained several monitors which must have connected to a closed circuit surveillance system. A sleeping bag lay in one corner with a few paperback books scattered around it along with some empty soda cans. The guard they'd encountered must have been holed up in here for a bit before he got sick and turned.
"God bless security guards," Daryl said as he picked up a half full bottle of Jack Daniels from the table on the right side of the room. He opened the bottle and wiped the neck a couple of times before taking a big slug.
"Daryl!" Beth scolded, "You don't need to be drinkin'."
"I just got shot," he told her bluntly, "I think I deserve a drink if I feel like it without gettin' a lecture about it. 'Sides, I seem to remember you being fond of a drink not too long ago," he mentioned slyly as he took another couple of swallows of the smoky brown nectar. His headache was already beginning to ease. They also found a small first aid kit in a locker behind the door. It contained some antiseptic wipes and gauze which would work to clean and bandage his wound. Beth made him sit down in the security guard's chair while she went to work patching him up.
The antiseptic wipes stung like a bitch but rather than complaining he just took a few more chugs of Jack. By the time the gauze was wrapped around his head, he was feeling no pain at all. Beth put her arms around his head and hugged him to her chest.
"I'm so glad you found me Daryl. I knew you would," she said as she held his head. He could feel the warmth of her body and hear her heartbeat. He reached up and put his arms around her waist. They stayed that way for a couple of minutes, just holding onto each other without saying a word. It was the safest Daryl could remember feeling in a very long time. Beth stepped back quickly when they heard a voice from the doorway.
"Um, hey, we were wondering where you got off to," Maggie said, looking very puzzled as she studied the situation she'd found her baby sister in.
"Oh, we're fine," Beth told her, "just found some first aid supplies to get Daryl's head bandaged up."
"Well, come on back to the main room. We found some more stuff in the gift shop," she told them and then stood waiting for them to join her. She took Beth's arm and pulled her along down the hall ahead of Daryl. He smiled to himself thinking what Maggie was probably saying to her little sister as they walked. He started along behind them down the hall but it suddenly just seemed too damn far to walk. He stepped back inside the security office and eased himself down onto the sleeping bag on the floor.
After surviving the past few days on nothing more than a couple of cat naps, he was beyond exhausted. The liquor made it seem all too sensible to just lay back and close his eyes for a couple of minutes. He was soon curled on his side snoring, the bottle of Jack still clutched in his hand.
Sometime later Daryl woke when he felt someone touch his forehead. His eyes fluttered open as he drew back slightly. He'd come to expect the worst when something woke him at night. Instead, he found a sweet face with big blue eyes bending to kiss his forehead .
"Hey, mister, you finally awake?" she asked.
"Yeah, how long've I been out?" he asked sitting up groggily.
"I don't know. A few hours I guess. Everybody else except Rick and the new guy are asleep. They're out keeping watch. They found these blankets and stuffed animals that make halfway decent pillows in the gift shop. I was just bringing you one in case you got cold. How are you feelin'?" she asked. "Does your head still hurt?"
"A little but this time I think it's more from the booze than the gash," he told her.
She sat down cross legged on the floor next to him and folded her hands in her lap. "What happened to y'all, Daryl? After we got separated? How'd you find the rest of them and what happened at Terminus? Maggie told me some of it but Rick and Glenn won't talk about it and Carol is just not talking about anything anymore. Can you tell me?"
"I reckon. It ain't pretty. You sure ya want to hear it?" he asked sincerely.
"I need to know, Daryl. I keep imaginin' all sorts of things. I know it's bad. I can see it in your eyes and in Rick's. He's so different now. Everyone is," Beth explained.
"Yeah, I guess we are," he said.
"Can you tell me?" she asked again, quietly.
"I tried to follow that car that took ya. I couldn't keep up," he told her.
"I knew you would," she said, placing her hand on top of his.
"I joined up with a group of guys for a while. They were …evil. I knew they were trouble but I didn't realize how much until they attacked Rick, Michonne and Carl at a campsite one night. I tried to talk to 'em, to stop 'em but they were on some kind of revenge trip. The leader said Rick killed one of their group before I met 'em. They were gonna hurt Carl and Rick just lost it. He ripped the leader's throat out with his teeth, Beth. With his teeth! I thought I'd never see nothin' worse than that," he told her. He'd begun to shake a little as he talked.
She leaned in toward him and put her other hand on his. He took her tiny hands and clasped them in his own before he spoke again. "We followed the signs to Terminus, figured maybe some of the others were there. It was all a trap. They took us as prisoners, locked us in a train car. After a couple of days, they came and took me, Rick, Glenn and Bob out. They took us in a room with a bunch of other men . We were all tied up, hands and feet, and gagged. They started at one end, bashing the men's heads in and slicing their throats." The memory of the sounds and smells of the abattoir room suddenly came back to him in a flash. He almost gagged.
"Daryl, you don't have to tell me any more," she said gently. "It's okay."
"Carol…..she saved us. She blew up a gas tank at the fence and stopped the executions. Gave Rick time to get free. We found bodies that they were drying like sides of beef. They were eatin' people, Beth. How could somebody do that?" He was shivering now as he continued to speak. " We got everybody out alive. Walkers got in and Terminus got overrun. Carol and Tyrese had Judith and were waitin' outside the fence. That's how we all found each other again," he continued. "Carol and Tyrese met up right after the prison fell. They'd been together like we were."
"And then you and Carol saw the black car and followed it to Atlanta and met Noah. He told me that part," she continued for him. "So much has happened to all of us. I had it easy compared to what y'all went through."
"That bitch that hurt you, Beth, I'm so sorry that happened. I should never have left you alone," he said.
"Daryl, you saved my life. Dawn and those other assholes in Atlanta were just mean but they weren't butchers. I'm sorry for what all of you had to do to survive and then you still had to come and rescue me," she told him.
"I would never have left you behind once I found out where you were," Daryl told her.
She smiled and nodded. "I know that."
Neither of them spoke for a bit, not knowing exactly what to say. That always seemed to happen when they got close to saying how they felt.
"So what happens now?" she asked him. "Do you think we'll stay here?"
"Beth, it's not gonna be like it was at the prison. I don't think it can be like that again. Rick's changed. The world's not what we thought it was. There is no safety now, no matter what we do. We're going to be fightin' and runnin' till we die. That's all that's left," he told her.
"No," she flatly stated. "No, that's not true. Y'all had bad things happen to you, did terrible things to survive but we can still come back from this. We can build somethin' good again, Daryl. Maybe here or maybe somewhere else but we're not givin' up. We're still here and we're together again. We can't give up. Daddy would want us all to keep tryin'," she told him as tears formed in her eyes.
"I don't know, Beth," he told her.
"I know. We can do it. We will do it. It's not okay to just survive. We have to live. Do you hear me?" she asked angrily as she wiped the tears off her cheeks.
"When did you get so tough?" he asked with a hint of a smile as he rubbed his thumbs across the backs of her hands.
"I had a good teacher," she replied as she leaned over and kissed the corner of his mouth.
He pulled away from her, "What …what are you doin, girl?"
"I think you're old enough to know what a kiss is," she said as she turned and snuggled into his side on the edge of sleeping bag and pulled the thin souveiner blanket over them both.
"You can't sleep here, Beth," he said quickly, scooting over to keep space from her.
"You gonna stop me?" she asked as she closed the space he'd made. With her back against his chest, she laid her head on his arm and closed her eyes. He thought about just moving his arm and getting up to leave her there alone. Maggie was going to have a fit if she found Beth sleeping with him. Hell, all of them would probably have a fit. He knew he should move and he really tried to make himself. Maybe it was still the effect of the bourbon or maybe it was just that he needed to hold onto someone but he didn't move a muscle. In fact, before he fell asleep, he put his other arm over her waist and snuggled a bit closer.