…
"It's so big, mama," Cecily says in a hush, awed, as she looks to the house that rises from the field.
Beth can't answer her; all she can do is nod. Her throat feels thick and tears are stinging her eyes. She didn't know why she thought it, but she had been afraid that the house wouldn't still be standing. One of the barns – the one that burned that night of the herd – was obviously gone, but the other barn still stands as well.
It's quiet; so quiet as it always had been. She wonders what the house looks like inside and she tells herself that she'll find that out very soon. At the moment, Daryl has told her to stay back in the trees with Jack and Cecily – just for a moment – as he and Eli go ahead. She watches now as her husband and oldest son move through the grass, having grown to their knees (and she thinks of all of their animals that would gladly chew all of those blades down again), and simultaneously, both release their bolt and arrow, both sinking into the skulls of two walkers ahead. And once the bodies fall, besides the birds chirping, it truly is practically silent.
The house stands magnificent as always; a truly impressive farmhouse even with the white paint having faded over these many years, the constant exposure to the sun and other elements with no one around to maintain the upkeep. A few of the windows have been broken, too, and Beth thinks of that horrible hurricane from years earlier – back when they had still lived in the St. George subdivision – and she wonders if the farmhouse had seen the same storm.
Beth watches with bated breath as Daryl and Eli climb the steps of the front porch and Eli is the one to bang on the door, both he and Daryl waiting. Beth waits, too, holding her breath and if she had been paying attention to anything else other than seeing her childhood home again after all of this time, she would notice that Jack and Cecily are absolutely still and silent as well, watching their daddy and big brother and waiting for the "all clear" signal and that they could come out from the trees.
Daryl and Eli both pause, listening, and then Daryl gives Eli a nod. They must have heard something from inside and Beth watches, her chest burning from still not breathing, as Eli is the one to push open the front door – she notes that the screen door is gone – and Daryl sweeps inside.
Beth so badly wants to step out of the trees and go to the house, but Daryl made her promise that she would stay put until he knew it was safe for her and the kids. Beth thinks this might be the worst. Three days of walking and camping out hadn't been bad whatsoever. It had actually been enjoyable – the Dixon family being out here, their own version of a family vacation, seeing the world. But now, having the farmhouse right in front of her and not being able to go to it yet, the wait and anticipation of going inside is agony.
She knows it's not even five minutes before Daryl steps onto the porch again and lets out the call of a Sparrow – his usual signal for everything being all clear. Jack and Cecily take off immediately, bursting from the trees and running through the grass to see who can reach the house first. Beth had thought she would run, too, but her legs feel shaky beneath her as she takes her first few steps and she forces herself to walk. She will get there soon and falling to the ground won't make her get there any faster.
Eli has come out onto the porch now as well and all four are watching her as Beth slowly approaches, her eyes never leaving the house in front of her. She feels nervous though she has no idea why.
Finally, she looks to Daryl. "Were there walkers inside?" She asks.
"Just one," Daryl answers. "A guy. Think he was livin' in there and just…" he trails off.
Beth doesn't need him to finish.
She nods and looks back up towards the house.
"We're waiting for you, mama," Cecily informs her. "You go in first."
"I…" Beth begins to say and does her best to swallow the thickness in her throat. "Now that I'm here, I don't know if I can," she then admits. She lowers her eyes from the house in front of her to look at her family, all standing on the front porch and all looking at her.
"One step at a time, mama," Jack is the one to wisely say.
And then Eli. "We're not in a hurry, mom. Whenever you're ready."
Daryl comes down the steps to join her on the ground. "Wanna wait? We can make camp out here and go in tomorrow," Daryl tells her in a quiet voice.
Beth pauses, thinking that over, but she then shakes her head. "No… I don't want to wait. I just need… could I go in first? Just by myself for a minute?"
"Hell, yeah, you can," Daryl says and taking her hand, they head up the stairs together. He then looks to Eli, Jack and Cecily. "We're gonna give your mama a few minutes," he tells them and all three nod their heads.
Beth stands in front of the open door, able to look down the hall towards the back of the house. She can smell inside and it certainly doesn't smell like home anymore, but that doesn't mean that this isn't home. Daryl and the three kids hang back as Beth takes the first step over the threshold. The sun is shining through the windows – and where the glass used to be in some spots – and the way it hits the wood and reflects from the walls, Beth's knees nearly buckle. It's all exactly the same.
The wallpaper on the walls is faded and curling and Beth touches it with light fingers. How silly would it be if she cut some of this away so she could hang it up on the wall in her and Daryl's bedroom back home?
She can feel her family watching her as she slowly turns right and steps into the front sitting room. Most of the furniture is still there. The coffee table and two of the chairs have oddly been taken by someone. Brown leaves that have blown inside crunch under her feet as she steps forward, her eyes trained on the fireplace in front of her; more specifically, the fireplace mantel.
They're still there. The frames knocked over and covered in dust, but they're still here.
Beth notes that her fingers are shaking as she picks the frames up. Old Greene family pictures – black and white photographs of grandparents and great-grandparents and her daddy's sisters and brothers that she hasn't thought of in so long. There's a picture of her daddy and mama standing on the front porch of this house, Hershel's arm around Annette's waist and mama is in the middle of laughing as daddy smiles.
Beth lets out a choked sob, looking at the picture, her hand lifting to cover her mouth. She hasn't seen them in so long… She hates to admit that she has almost forgotten what they've looked like, but here they are and their visions and voices rush back to her as if she's just seen and spoken to them yesterday.
She takes all of the pictures and turns to set them down on the dusty couch. She's definitely taking those. And as she lifts her head again, she goes completely still again.
The piano against the wall… it's still here. She had thought, well, honestly she had thought it would have been chopped up for firewood by someone a long time ago, but no. It still stands against the wall, the sun shining onto the keys as if beckoning her to come forward.
And that's what Beth does, her fingers already itching. She hasn't played in so long. The last time had been so long ago, that night in that funeral home she and Daryl had stayed in before heading out again the next morning. That had been the last time. Beth doesn't even know if she even remembers how to play anymore.
Still, her hands lift – almost an instinct – and her fingers curl over the ivory keys. It's not safe to play. It's too loud and it will attract walkers. She tells herself this to get herself to stop and yet, Beth doesn't move away. She's here and now, she can't step back.
She plays one note. To no surprise, the piano is horribly out of tune, but Beth doesn't care about that. The note bounces off right in the center of her chest and again, she lets out a choked sob.
She then pulls the bench out so she's able to sit down before her fingers curl over the keys once again.
Her fingers seem to remember everything as she moves them quickly up in a scale and then down again, fingers crossing over fingers, light and flawlessly; as if she hasn't missed a day of practice in all this time.
She hears movement behind her and then all three kids are there – Eli on one side of her and Cecily and Jack on the other, all watching her play the piano with fascination. They have seen pianos, but with trees growing through them or kudzu covering them up, and other than on their records, they've never heard one in the flesh either. They watch, silent and still, as Beth trails off from one scale into one of the songs she remembers, humming along to her playing.
"It's amazing," Eli says, hushed as if he's in a church, looking upon something holy, and Beth smiles, her fingers never stopping in their song.
She doesn't see Daryl, but she can feel him and she knows that he's watching her from the doorway – just like he had so long ago in that funeral home.
Beth doesn't even think. It's as if she has no control over her fingers as they begin playing the next song and Beth quickly realizes – and remembers – what song it is. She begins to sing and she can feel Daryl's eyes staring directly into the back of her head.
"We'll drink up our grief,
And pine for summer.
And we'll buy beer to shot gun,
And we'll lay in the lawn,
And we'll be good."
Suddenly, she's so much younger than she is, sitting among flickering candlelight. She had lost her daddy, the prison, everyone and she sat among the candles, still able to sing and play the piano. She and Daryl hadn't had anything besides one book-bag between them that they took turns wearing. They hadn't had any semblance of a home, always walking, finding a spot for a night or two before moving on and walking again. They hadn't had enough food or changes of clothes. They had been walking, trying to find any person from their family, but even as they walked with that agenda in mind, it very much felt like each and every day, they were walking with no idea where they were going.
When the last note plays and it fades into the air, Beth turns on the bench to look at Daryl, her eyes wet. Eli, Jack and Cecily all move in towards the piano now to test the keys with their own fingers, all playing at once – telling each other to do it quietly, but so excited to be playing an actual piano. Sure enough, Daryl is leaning against the doorjamb, watching her, and to Beth, it looks like his eyes are a little wet, too.
Beth is able to give him a small smile and Daryl's lips twitch at her in reply.
…
Eli and Cecily are running from one room to another, calling out as they explore and discover a new nook or cranny. Beth listens with a smile as she heads up the stairs to the second floor, thinking how daddy had imagined the farmhouse one day sounding just as it does now – when she, Maggie and Shawn grew up and moved out and came home again with their own families.
Daryl is carrying Jack in his arms, the boy sleeping with his head resting on Daryl's shoulder. His afternoon naps last for an hour or so and when he's awake again, he'll join his brother and sister in exploring.
Beth's bedroom is the second door on the left and she walks straight for it now, wondering what could be left. They aren't here for clothes or food or bedding. Anything useful a person usually thought to take while out on a run for materials, that's not why Beth has come. They have everything they need back at home.
She stops in her bedroom's doorway, once again, the breath catching in her throat. Kudzu has started to creep inside, slowly making its way across one of the walls through a broken window and she must admit, it looks creepy as hell, but she only thinks that for a moment before looking to the rest of the room.
Her room.
The bed is stripped – to no surprise – but she hardly even looks at that. Instead, she steps forward and smiles as she goes to the low bookcase against one of the walls. She picks up one of her brown plastic horses, coated in a fine layer of dust. She blows on it, watching some of the dust fly off in a great cloud. She turns as Daryl follows her into the bedroom, stopping so he could look around.
His eyes land on one of the faded out posters on the wall before looking to Beth with a smile. "Justin Timberlake?" He asks.
Beth smiles, too. "You married a much younger woman, Daryl Dixon, or have you forgotten?"
Daryl just smirks and still holding Jack, not wanting to set him down on the dirty mattress, he begins making a slow circle around the bedroom, looking over everything that had made his wife who she was when she was sixteen-years-old and this was still her bedroom.
He looks over the dusty trophies on one of the shelves and blue ribbons hanging on the wall – talent shows and a year of playing soccer and competitively riding horses. He looks at her desk and sees spiral notebooks and two textbooks still left from her school days – a biology book and another on world history.
"Hey," he says, looking to her and Beth, who is going through her dresser drawers – almost all of the clothes have been taken and what haven't, they're home to mice and moths now – lifts her head to look at him. "You wanna take these back with us?"
Beth comes to see what he's referring to. "Definitely," she instantly agrees with a single nod of her head and then smiles faintly as she opens the top notebook on the pile to look at whatever notes she had written during class another lifetime ago.
Daryl snorts when he sees the B.G. + J.C. written in a heart at the top of the first page.
Beth smiles, too, almost laughing. "We'll take the notebooks, too. These are all filled with class notes. It will be good for the kids and school."
"Mama!" Cecily suddenly bursts into the room, breathless. "Can I have this?"
Beth instantly turns to see what their daughter has found and is holding.
"What are you gonna do with that?" Daryl wonders, looking at the ice cream scoop in her hand.
"Of course you can have it, baby," Beth smiles before turning back towards her desk to see what else she might find to take with them.
"Daddy," Cecily sighs, as if impatient with him for not already knowing. "When it snows! The perfect snowball maker and I can make a bunch of 'em all at once to hit unsuspecting people and walkers with."
"I already told you the last time you did that, girl. You just piss the walkers off when you hit 'em with snowballs," Daryl says though Beth, not even looking at him, can hear the amusement in his voice that he's trying to hide.
Beth doesn't doubt that Cecily can hear it, too.
"Yeah, but now, I can kill a walker so I can piss 'em off all I want!"
"Cecily," both Daryl and Beth simultaneously scold her, but the girl has already left, running away with a laugh, her feet pounding down the stairs.
"Jesus," Daryl breathes.
Beth laughs softly as she opens the top desk drawer, finding a pink eraser, a small pencil sharpener shaped like a rainbow, dried pens and some pencils. She finds an old empty canvas pencil pouch, too, and she puts the pencils, sharpener and pink eraser inside to take back with them.
"Merle reincarnated, that one," Daryl mutters and Beth laughs again before opening the first drawer on the side. Her fingers still when she sees what's inside and Daryl notices. "Wha' is it?"
Beth pauses before picking the metal box up and setting it down on top of the notebooks. There is a lock and she remembers the combination. In an instant, she remembers the combination.
She looks at it for another moment, but then shakes her head. "I'm not ready to open that yet," she confesses, looking away from it to move her eyes to Daryl, still at her side.
"No hurry," Daryl tells her with a small smile and though he's definitely curious now, he also knows it's none of his business whatsoever; not until Beth makes it. "We're here for a couple of days."
…
Thank you to rckyfrk for giving me the idea of what song Beth should play on the piano and thank you so much to everyone reading and commenting! The next chapter, we will see Beth going through more of the farmhouse and Daryl and the kids helping.