They fed her powdered milk and water.
Four times a day, the grey-haired doctor would return to give Beth more painkillers. Four times a day Beth hid the pills in her cheek until she could take them out without being seen. She kept them in the pockets of her jeans. It wasn't so much a plan forming in her head as a dozen fraying threads of bizarre thoughts. She could deal with the pain on her own, maybe she wouldn't be able to later.
If everyone she'd ever loved was gone and her fate really did lie here, with these freaks, did she want to go on?
She had to get back to Daryl.
Maybe Judith and all the other kids had been killed at the prison. Maybe Rick was dead, and Carl, and even Michonne. Maybe she'd never see Maggie or Glenn again either, but she knew that Daryl was out there. He'd run after her and called out her name.
Daryl Dixon was alive. She would find him and they would pick up exactly where they left off. With him being too nervous to say a damn thing to her—and her being content to sit in silence, nervous about reaching up to push the hair out of his eyes.
They would survive together.
Behind her cot in the hospital was a drain jutting out from the wall. Around the drain was a long, heavy chain and looped through the last link was one side of a pair of handcuffs. They'd only secured her left wrist, so that she could wash herself on her own a little more easily, and without straining her ribs further. Alone in the hospital, Beth had nothing to do but listen to the distant drip of water and try to figure out what she was planning to do with the painkillers, and which bone in her thumb was the right one to break in order to slip her cuffs.
She wouldn't kill herself. What would Maggie say? She didn't have to imagine that, Maggie had told her exactly how she felt about it in elevated decibels back when Beth tried to cut her wrist. Had Maggie stayed on the bus? If Beth knew her sister, she'd have to say no. Maggie wouldn't stay on the bus. She was too fearless to stay in safety while people she loved were still being shot at in the prison yard.
If Beth did kill herself, it wasn't just Maggie she'd have to answer to in the next life. Her father would be waiting for her there…
If he knew, Daryl wouldn't just be angry with her, he'd be crushed. He blamed himself for so much already. She hadn't realized it at first; the day that they'd found the redneck still and got lit on Moonshine, he'd finally started talking.
Really… he'd started yelling.
"You lost two boyfriends, you can't even shed a tear. Your whole family's gone, all you can do is just go out looking for hooch like some dumb college bitch."
It stung, because it was at least partially true. She didn't know what to do. She just wanted a goal to accomplish. Her father was dead. Judith was gone. They couldn't find Maggie. "Screw you. You don't get it." She'd just wanted something she could control.
"No, you don't get it! Everyone we know is dead!"Drunk-Daryl was a dick. He said as much later; she'd accepted his apology before he even offered it, because she knew he was in mourning, just like she was.
"You don't know that!"
"Might as well be, 'cause you ain't never gonna see 'em again. Rick. You ain't never gonna see Maggie again."
"Daryl, just stop."
"No! The Governor rolled right up to our gates." As frightening as it was to hear Daryl shouting at her, it was even worse when his voice started to break. "Maybe if I wouldn't have stopped looking. Maybe 'cause I gave up. That's on me."
When she saw how quickly his anger was turning to weeping, she couldn't help but reach out, "Daryl."
He shrugged her off, "No—and your dad." How could she have forgotten the respect that Daryl had for her father? He'd been forced to watch him die, just like she had. "Maybe—maybe I could have done something."
Drunk-Beth didn't hesitate to throw her arms around his waist while he broke down crying.
Learning that she'd ended it herself would wreck him. He'd think he should have been able to find her, save her in time, just like he blamed himself for the Governor's attack and her father's death.
After they left the prison, her mind had drifted towards suicidal thoughts for a few dark, fleeting instances, but she was able to get through it. Daryl got her through it… Moonshine and Daryl, but mostly Daryl.
"I wish I could just... change." She'd confessed to him while she was still floating on the feel-good fumes. It was the best time to talk about sad things, because they weren't pricking her in the heart quite so bad as when she still had all her senses intact.
"You did." Daryl said.
"Not enough. Not like you. It's like you were made for how things are now." Whenever she tried to picture him before the apocalypse… she just couldn't. He was a hunter. A killer. His crossbow was slung on his back or in his arms. He was always a little beat-up and filthy. She couldn't imagine him living any other way.
He looked like he knew what she was thinking, "I'm just used to it, things being ugly. Growing up in a place like this."
The Moonshine Shack was a miserable place, isolated and riddled with obvious signs of neglect and disdain. "Well, you got away from it."
"I didn't."
"You did."
"Maybe you got to keep on reminding me sometimes."
"No. You can't depend on anybody for anything, right?" She spoke his own philosophies back at him. That was one way that they were very different. She wouldn't survive all on her own, but he could. "I'll be gone someday."
"Stop."
"I will. You're gonna be the last man standing. You are. You're gonna miss me so bad when I'm gone, Daryl Dixon."
"You ain't a happy drunk at all."
Peace of mind settled in once the grief let up. Her father had been murdered in front of her. For the second time her home was overrun by the dead. Her sister was pulled away from her. Her people were all scattered or dead. She'd lost Judith. Mourning for them took over her mind and her heart for a while.
Daryl took it just as hard, and she'd been too wrapped up in her own tragedy to see that. He shut down. She blew up. They dealt with it separately and then they dealt with it together.
It was good. They were good.
Her hatred of Terminus grew the more she thought about how impossible it was that she had actually been happy, against all odds. She had nothing. Again. Nothing except Daryl.
He kept her safe. He kept her hopes up. She was happy with him.
Like a pin straight to her heart, she recalled their last conversation together.
"I'm gonna leave a thank-you note." At the time it had seemed like the perfect thing to do, they'd taken their food and used their shelter. The world was different now, but all the same, she wanted to preserve something of the old world. A thank-you-for-letting-us-rob-you note seemed like the perfect compromise.
"Why?" Daryl had taken a pause between spoonfulls of jam to question her.
"For when they come back." Except Daryl thought they might be dead, he'd implied as much. "If they come back. Even if they're not coming back, I still want to say thanks." Maybe her words could reach the dead somehow.
"Maybe you don't have to leave that." Daryl surprised her, just when she thought she was figuring him out, "Maybe we stick around here for a while." Ever since they left the prison, he'd kept them moving, even after the trails went cold. They never stuck in one camp for long. "They come back, we'll just make it work. They may be nuts, but maybe it'll be alright." He'd sounded hopeful.
"So, you do think there are still good people around," she heard herself laugh, not because it was funny, but because it made her happy to realize it. "What changed your mind?"
"You know."
"What?"
With a little shrug of his shoulders Daryl only mumbled, "Uhduno."
"Don't 'uhduno'… What changed your mind?" She watched him, waiting for his answer.
He didn't say it. He'd only looked at her, a depth of feeling in his eyes that she hadn't expected. For an instant she felt a light flutter in her chest and she was sure she knew what he was refusing to say to her.
Whatever was left of the smile on her face vanished. It wasn't funny. It was a serious thing, reading a man's mind. "Oh."
He was wide open and vulnerable. In that moment she'd understood him perfectly, but in the chaos that followed, it felt like a dream. Maybe she had imagined it. Now that she was alone in Terminus' hospital, she went over the exchange in her mind, trying to recall every subtle instant.
…He hadn't said it.
The hospital door swung open with a squeak. Beth didn't look up, but let her eyes creep to the side. It was about time for the grey-haired doctor to bring her more medicine.
Sure enough a meal was lowered in front of her face, but this time was different. It wasn't just powdered milk, it was a full plate. Her pills were on the rim of a proper supper.
The other difference was that the plate wasn't being held out to her by the grey-haired doctor.
"I thought you might like some real food," the young man had a genial half-smile.
"It that chicken?" Even as she asked, she thought it looked more like pork.
"Sure is," he set the plate down on her lap and took a step back, folding his arms as he inspected her from the toes up.
"Y'all have chickens?" She moved the blackened meat away from the obligatory green vegetables, finally picking up a single pea and placing it between her lips.
"No, I just ran to the supermarket and picked this up," said the young man with a dry cadence. "I've wanted to get a look at you since Brady dragged you in here. He thinks you're mother material."
"Yeah, he said so," Beth ate another pea.
"You going to eat that one mouse-bit at a time or what?" he cocked at eyebrow at her. "The fact is, Brady's a bit of a moron, you might have noticed."
"I don't think I'd be a good mother. You should just let me go. I'll get myself eaten by walkers in a day or two, but that's my problem, not yours," she cast her eyes up at him while still keeping her neck bent over the plate.
The young man didn't respond to what she'd said for a few minutes, instead he just watched her. Unease began to settle in as the silence stretched on.
"I'm Gareth, by the way." He didn't ask for her name.
She didn't give it. "I don't think I'd make a good mother, Gareth."
"Do you get your period regularly?"
Giving in to hunger, Beth picked up the meat with her fingers and took a bite, raising and lowering one shoulder as she did.
"That's one thing that can disqualify you. The stress and the lack of regular food… since the world ended, some women have a hard time. You know what I mean. Then there are women who are too good at being killers. They can do both if they want, but there's something about a killer that just doesn't want to nurture. Isn't that interesting?"
Not really. Beth took another bite of the chicken.
"So, what I'm trying to say is that having a uterus isn't enough. If you're not a mother, that doesn't mean we let you go. It means we find something else for you."
"I'm not much of a killer, either."
Gareth's face was fixed in an easy smile. She imagined that before the dead rose, he would have been the kind of person who everyone found likable and easy to talk to. He wasn't like Brady at all; who tried at charm and instead landed somewhere in the realm of intensely creepy. Gareth was even more unnerving, because she knew that once upon a time, she would have trusted him immediately.
"We know that," he inclined his head to her. "You're not a killer, but you're not exactly docile either."
"Thank you?"
Smirking, Gareth shook his head, "It's not a compliment. It's a problem. You're not docile. Do you know what the word recalcitrant means?"
"Recalcitrant? Like rebellious?"
"You resist authority, don't you?"
Earlier in her life, Beth might have been able to deny it with conviction. "Only when authority and I disagree."
"That right there is the problem. You think it matters if you don't agree?" He clicked his tongue and frowned at her. "Women who don't understand that we're doing them a favor, keeping them protected and fed? That in return, they owe us a little... blind loyalty?" he laughed, "We don't want them. It's too much trouble dealing with someone who's biding their time to try and escape. It compromises the whole operation."
Taking a minute to think and make sure she understand everything he'd said, and hadn't said, Beth finally opened her mouth and took a deep breath. "So, let me go."
"If you can't be a mother, we'll find some use for you. I'm going to give you the night to think about it. We're not big on the bother of rebellious mothers. If you really mean no, then we'll take no as an answer."
"But I still can't leave?"
Gareth shook his head and walked to the door, "You're not leaving Terminus. We'll find a use for you." He punctuated that sentence by shutting the door behind him.
Instead of mulling over her fate at Terminus, Beth spent the night trying to slip her cuff. Daryl's brother had cut his own hand off to get free from handcuffs once. He was a big man with big wrists and hands. Beth, by contrast was all made up of little bones, skin stretched taught over smooth angles. All the same, she couldn't slip her wrist out.
She tried to break her thumb, but couldn't muster the will or strength. She was too unsure about what was the right way to do it. If she didn't break the bone properly, she might just end up injuring herself and still being stuck in the cuff.
All she had left to work with was her teeth. She'd heard about animals chewing through their own limbs to get out of traps before. She wasn't up for chewing her hand off, but maybe she didn't need to. Her fingers and wrists were dainty enough that she might be able to slip her cuffs if she could just shave off some of the flesh of her thumb. Her stomach churned at the thought, it was already upset from the meal she'd taken from Gareth earlier. She threw up into her piss-pot, then finally took a few of her pocketed painkillers and started chewing into her thumb.
"Why do I have to stay out here alone?" Sophie's big solemn eyes never failed to bring a wave of sadness and anger into Carol's heart. It wasn't fair, and she knew it.
"We don't know what it's like in there. I'm not risking you and Judith until I know for sure it's safe," Carol felt like she'd already explained this to her a dozen different ways, and still, the girl didn't get it.
She was a good babysitter, at least. When Judith did cry, which was rare, Sophie knew how to hold the baby in exactly the right way to mollify her right to sleep. They'd built a hiding place for her out of fallen tree branches. The girl still couldn't shoot, but she was getting proficient with a knife, at least. She was a good climber. Even the trees that didn't seem to have hand-holds were no match for her. After a lot of discussion, they'd decided that Tyreese and Carol would go into Terminus alone.
At first, Carol had wanted to go in by herself, but Tyreese wouldn't allow it. In case something did go wrong they'd have a better chance of getting out if they were together. Besides that, he'd finally made a good point when he told her that Terminus might be suspicious of her if she tried to claim that she'd come all by herself. People didn't make it very far on their own, and especially a woman like Carol would cause them to raise eyebrows. They might immediately assume that she was a scout.
Tyreese going in alone wasn't an option either. As he'd put it, he didn't trust himself to recognize the signs might indicate that it wasn't worth it to risk bringing in Judith and Sophie.
They left her in the woods with the baby, a gun, a knife and instructions to climb if a walker found them.
Still uneasy with this compromise, Carol walked silently besides Tyreese towards Terminus, wishing she could have convinced him to stay with the girls.
"You're cold to her," Tyreese accused Carol. "She's a helpless girl, lost everyone she ever knew before the turn. She needs a little affection, that's all. I know you do care, but you've got to show it."
"She needs to wake up. The sooner, the better."
Tyreese sighed at Carol's tone.
"She trusts like a mirror." So do you.
It was something that Carol had picked up on the moment that Sophie jumped down to Tyreese. Neither of them thought anything of it. Tyreese could have been anybody; any type of filth eager to torture, rape, humiliate and kill her, but from the blank, innocent way that Sophie still stared at the world, Carol knew immediately that the thought had never crossed her mind. Sophie couldn't imagine hurting anyone, so she couldn't imagine anyone who might want to hurt her. She'd seen horrible things, and it hadn't awakened the survivor in her yet. How much hope could there be for someone like that?
As if reading her mind, Tyreese said, "Don't give up on her yet. Give her a chance."
The first thing Carol noticed about Terminus was the lax security. Part of what had gone wrong at the prison was that they got too complacent and too comfortable. There was more than one way to be dangerous; even if the people of Terminus weren't predatory, if they were satisfied with sub-par protection, they might be just as dangerous. She'd rather have a small group of people who were vigilant, who looked out for one another, than a large group of idiots just waiting to get each other killed.
The sheer size of the place was impressive. Their set-up was promising. She saw potted plants, an herb and vegetable garden. It was like Terminus wanted to show off its set-up before they ever saw its people.
The first person she saw was a woman with long brown hair tied in a braid. She was casually looking through the herbs, checking to see if any of them were ready to be plucked and used. From the instant that Carol saw her, she knew that this woman had already seen them coming. She had the decided air of not really minding if they snuck up on her, like she could see them out of the back of her head. She turned and greeted them with a smile, "Well, you arrived."
"And that means we survive?" Tyreese spoke first, while Carol and the woman sized each other up.
"That's right. I'm Mary," the woman smiled and gestured for them to follow, "I'm sure you've got questions. Why not come have a meal, take a load off. You must be tired."
It was then that she smelled the meat.
Memories - Within Temptation
