(notes) the support has been amazing, both on here and on ao3. i'm glad this fic can be the catharsis y'all need- god knows it is for me. thank you all.
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i.
Rosita is the one who pulls Beth to the back of the church, a strip of clean t-shirt in one hand and some water in the other. Her gentle smile helps ease Beth to the ground, her back against the cracking wood, her hair getting tangled in the splinters.
"Let's get those pants off so I can see the damage," Rosita says with a quirk of the lips, crouching down beside her.
The wound looks and feels a lot worse now that Beth's anger and adrenaline has worn off. It stings as Rosita helps her pull the tight denim off her hips, and Beth hisses as she tilts her head back, trying to ignore the needle-like shocks of pain. Rosita's voice is reassuring as she peels back the material, gentle despite her unfamiliarity. She dabs at the wound with ease and caution, and Beth's hands fist in to the ground. At the hospital, Dr. Edwards had always slipped her medicine when she was in pain. But out here, she has to face it head on, gritting her teeth and managing it all on her own.
The bullet only grazed her, but it was deep enough to take out a small chunk of her flesh. Rosita bandages the wound with the t-shirt, making it tight enough to stay snug. She helps Beth stand and pull her pants back up, bloody fabric and a hole being the only evidence now.
Rosita looks at her then, studying her, but her expression is soft and almost affectionate. Beth feels a flicker of something—this woman she doesn't even know cares about her, has treated her and helped her. She is supportive without words, and she doesn't even know Beth at all.
It's a beautiful thing to do.
"Thank you," Beth says, her lips pulling up at the corners.
Rosita grins cheekily this time, nudging Beth's hip in the process. "It's nothing, sweetie. Just helping out where I can."
Beth purses her lips as Rosita leads her around a large branch, her pigtail tickling Beth's face. "You were with Maggie?"
"Yep," Rosita chirps. "Met up with Glenn after the prison. We eventually found your sister too." Rosita sends her a sneaky look. "Reunion was cute and all, but real sappy. They always like that?"
Beth can see it now, limbs so intertwined that they look like one, and her lips curl a little at the image. "Always been that way."
"Hmm," Rosita muses. "Gross."
Beth huffs out a sound of amusement, and Rosita keeps talking. "She's a great woman though, your sister. She's done things for me that—" Rosita's breath hitches a little, and Beth looks to see drawn brows and parted lips, as if Rosita is trying to assign words to whatever it is she's feeling. "Things that I admire… things that I appreciate."
"That's Maggie for ya," Beth offers.
"Sure, but," Rosita quickly says, stopping as they round the front of the church. Maggie has already perked up at Beth's entrance, her spine straightening from her slouch against the fire truck. "I think that's you, too."
Beth doesn't understand what Rosita is trying to say, but the older woman faces her completely and touches her again, as if to remind her she's there, that she's sympathizing and she's emoting alongside Beth. "I don't know you, but I admire you too. It takes a hell of a lot of spunk to do what you've done on your own." She chuckles a bit. "Something 'bout them Greene girls, I figure."
Rosita tugs on a lock of her ponytail before she backtracks off, leaving Beth with a wink and a friendly grin. Maggie reaches Beth first, an eyebrow quirked as Rosita saunters off towards Abraham and Tara.
"What was that about?" Maggie asks, voice lilting with curiosity.
Beth smiles a little. "Nothing. An introduction, I guess."
Maggie loops her arm through Beth's, silently taking most of Beth's weight against her side. "Let's go meet the others, then."
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ii.
Tara tells Beth that her stitched up gashes are like battle trophies. "They're badass, seriously," she emphasizes, eyebrows raised as if impressed.
Beth supposes maybe they are, and maybe they will be—but now, they are wounds, and they ache, and they remind Beth of things she hasn't entirely shaken off.
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iii.
Noah tends to lurk around either Beth or Daryl. He doesn't really fit in, but he has nowhere else to go, not by himself with a hindering leg and a single handgun.
"We have matching limps," Noah jokes with her on her second day back with the group, sitting down beside her on the porch of the tainted church. He stretches out leisurely beside her, his face contorted in painful relief. He sighs before throwing a smirk at her. "Except you pull it off better."
Beth's neutral smile softens into a genuine one. "Hate to break it to you, but yours is way worse."
Noah scoffs. "Little miss sass over here. I did not wake up expecting this from you, of all people."
Beth chuckles a bit, her teeth flashing in the sunlight, and Noah's expression softens. "Glad to see you laughing, though." His tone is so unlike normal that it takes her by surprise, her head twitching left towards him immediately.
"What do you mean?" she replies, but she already knows the answer.
He shrugs. "Dunno. You're just quiet. Figured Dawn must've done something after I left. You've got bruises and scars but… I can tell it's more than that."
Beth tilts her head a little. Noah is the only person here who really understands Dawn, potentially even more than Beth does. He understands Dawn's mood swings, her weak will, her stubbornness and her shattered perception of the world. Dawn was one of the scariest, most corrupted people Beth has ever seen—and she's in the back of Beth's mind, saying she's strong, saying she's weak, and Beth can't shake her.
"I saved her life," Beth says. "And then I killed her."
Noah does not shirk back; his gaze stays level, his emotions do not change. "And thank God you did."
"I wasn't gonna let her take you," Beth whispers. "You didn't deserve that."
Noah's quiet, rubbing his nose in thought. "Don't think I can ever thank you for that properly."
"Don't need to," She responds quickly. "Everyone here is throwin' 'round apologies and gratitude to me. Figure we should all just say it real silently, with our actions instead of our words, y'know?" She thinks of Daryl, then.
"I can imagine that," Noah nods. "Your sister has been worshipping Daryl for at least sixteen hours now. Offered to clean his clothes and everything." Beth snorts, but Noah keeps talking. "Obviously, just for tracking you down. You did the rest on your own."
"I had you," Beth denies him. "And my family, they were there too—in my head, I mean."
Noah rolls his eyes with a crooked smile. "You know what I'm sayin', Beth." He throws an arm around her neck, tugging her towards him and pulling on her ponytail. "You are way too stubborn. Gonna have to teach you a lesson about authority. Respect your elders."
"Elders?" she questions, her voice high and inquisitive. "What are you, eighteen?"
Noah's eyebrows shoot up. "Yeah, why do you say it like that? Are you thirty-five? Have you discovered the fountain of youth during the end of the world?"
Beth laughs genuinely, and she playfully shoves at him. "I just turned nineteen. How about respecting your elders?" Noah scoffs and puts on a scandalized face, making her laugh again. He tells her a story about his uncle and his cousin, from back before the world went to shit, and it has Beth laughing, smiling, and healing.
And if she had been paying attention—Beth would have seen the way Maggie whips to face her when she laughs, the way Daryl's head snaps up from cleaning his crossbow at the sound of her voice.
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iv.
It feels good to laugh again, to smile and be genuine. Grady Memorial had suppressed that in Beth. She doesn't wake up with a smile anymore, almost out of fear that Dawn or O'Donnel or Gorman is in her doorway, watching her, waiting for a slip of weakness or a reason to prove their place.
She still feels like she's changed severely in such a short amount of time, however. Feels hollow sometimes, when she's walking around or sitting down by herself. She's with her family but she's still not all there—a piece of her was left behind in that hospital room, discarded with the hospital gown she threw away the second she woke up disorientated and vulnerable and absolutely, positively manipulated.
Sometimes she spaces out. The worst time is when she offers to help Carl fix up the office in the church, tidying up haphazardly discarded books and papers. She spots the bloodstain near the removed floorboards, where Carl says he, Michonne and Judith escaped from. As he talks, she listens but she doesn't absorb; the bloodstains draw her in, they hypnotize her and confuse her and she thinks about Gorman's wound, or the blood spurting out of Dawn's throat, or the dark and dried resonance of death on her hands.
Beth feels crippling defiance sneak up her spine, feels Gorman's hand run under her shirt, feels the initial fear and pain from when she woke up in the hospital bed alone, her last memories of Daryl yelling at her to run, run to the road where he'd meet her, where walkers overran her and everything goes black.
"Beth?" Carl asks, concern lacing his voice. "You alright?"
She snaps back to reality with a harsh gasp. "Yeah, Carl. I—I'm alright."
Beth's lying.
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v.
Beth knows Carl will tell. She expects Maggie, but she gets Daryl instead.
"Hey," he calls out to her the day afterwards as she walks down the church steps for some air. "C'mere."
She approaches casually, her leg a little less inhibiting than it had been the day before. He's kneeling in the leaves, six or seven squirrels laid across the ground in front of him. His knife catches the sunlight, and her eyes flicker to it; smooth, bloody, deadly. Daryl squints up at her, his eyes scanning over her features. "Got a minute?"
"Sure," Beth pushes her loose baby hair out of her face, attempting to sit smoothly. Daryl stands quickly and slides a hand to the small of her back, easing her down so her leg doesn't ache. His palm is warm and it burns through the fabric of her sweater. "Guttin' some squirrels?"
Daryl grunts. "You remember how?" He hands her his knife.
"'Course I do," Beth quirks a brow. "How could I forget a Dixon lesson?"
The corner of his mouth lifts a little, and he looks at her through his long, shaggy hair. "Hmm. Show me."
It's methodical and systematic, the way she skins the squirrel, nicks the little organs out and saves the meat inside. She almost feels transported back to weeks ago—the sun beginning to start its downward arc behind the treeline, Daryl crouching behind her, murmuring in her ear the steps to cleanly save the meat. He taught her right after the first day she used his crossbow, and she picked up on the skill very quickly. Daryl's knife fits into her hand perfectly, and she moves it with ease.
She's removing the squirrel's small heart when he speaks again. "You doing alright?" His voice is softer, like the way it was at the funeral home. "Y'know, you ain't, uh—hurt, or anything?"
Beth's covered in bruises and stitches and bullet wounds, but Daryl doesn't mean that. She glances up at him, her hands slippery with the squirrel's blood. Her eyes are big and guileless. "I'm doin' okay. How are you?"
Daryl's eyes narrow in thought and he bites his lip. "M'good. Better," he adds, voice getting even quieter. Beth's skin heats and she can't stop the way her lips move, her teeth exposed in a genuine half-smile. She huffs out a little laugh at his bashfulness.
"Oh, really?" Beth aligns the saved meat on the small patch of tarp Daryl has left out, discarding the unusable bits and picking up the next one. Beth sneaks another look at him, and he's studying her, his hand rubbing his scruff subconsciously. He's watching her hands, her face, her lips. He isn't hiding it, and Beth feels his gaze in her toes. "Wonder why."
His lips twitch again. "Smartass," he grumbles. "M'serious, though."
"I'm serious too, Daryl," Beth responds, a sigh on her lips. She slips the knife under the skin, peeling back the flesh to reach the insides. "Everyone's treatin' me like some kind of doll. Don't need you doing it too."
"I know you ain't no doll, Beth," Daryl's thumb hits his mouth; his nervous gesture. "Jus' trying to make sure you're okay."
"Carl say somethin' to you?" She flips the blade in her hand so she can hold it steadier as she carefully removes a long strip of meat.
Daryl hums in agreement.
Beth is silent, and she feels Daryl's eyes on her. He's sitting back on the leaves, one knee propped up with his elbow resting on top. He's contemplative and careful with his words.
"It ain't—" Daryl sighs, his frustration focused more on his lack of articulation, his fragile composure. "It's not because I think there's somethin' wrong with ya, Beth. You can take care of yourself." And Beth's in the country club again, wine flowing down her fingers from the smashed bottle she used to kill the walker, and he's saying the same thing to her. "I just wanted ya to know that—I'unno, I'm…" Daryl rubs his eyes. "M'here. I mean it, Beth."
Her fingers stop moving across the flesh, and she faces him fully now. Daryl's an open book to her, and he has been ever since she spent those countless weeks in the woods with him. She sees sincerity, and happiness—affection, and vulnerability. "I ain't the best at this," he adds; acting as if it's a condolence, voice deep and rolling in her head like waves.
"We can go back to how it was," Daryl continues. "You an' me. I'll teach ya the crossbow some more. Some trackin'. Ain't gotta stop, jus' because there's an audience," He grins, but his words are a question, and he's asking Beth for permission.
Beth tilts her head a little, her ponytail flicking out. The movement catches Daryl's eye and he watches it for only a split second—but Beth notices all the same. She notices the way he hangs onto her words and her actions. She notices how he's been keeping close to her, even when she's with Maggie, or someone else. She notices his attachment—she thinks she has been seeing it since the funeral home, since her little oh that began her revelation, her understanding.
Her smile is sweet, slow, and full-fledged. "That a promise, Daryl Dixon?"
She sees the change in him instantaneously. He relaxes, bringing his thumb away from his mouth. "Yeah."
He scoots towards her, whipping out another knife to start on one of the remaining squirrels. It's quiet and companionable, the way they work in harmony.
But there's something about this that's different, because Beth feels electricity coming off Daryl's skin. She's hyperaware of Daryl's closeness, his size, his sturdiness. She can see every movement of his hands as he strips the squirrel down—faster than her with defter motions, removing the meat with smaller swipes of the knife. It's just him sitting down, gutting a squirrel with no semblance of restraint. He is raw and authentic beside her, and he is not cowering away. Beth is struck by how torrential this attention for him is. She guts her squirrel with only half her mind active, the other half thinking about Daryl and his tenderness and his loyalty.
Beth thinks she's known for a good bit now that he feels something for her, and as she sits next to him, their fingers and knives soaked in blood and intestines, she realizes that there's something inside her unfurling, as if seeing the sun and blooming for the first time, and it's beautiful and intimidating, but irrevocably real.
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