Chapter Seven

"I don't think its broken." Beth hissed in pain as Daryl ran his fingers up over her leg. His cold fingers passed over the holes in her jeans and pressed lightly on the sides of her knee cap. A small cry passed her lips at the sudden blare of agony that flared up at the pressure.

Daryl glanced up at her and shook his head. "It's dislocated." he looked back down at her knee and frowned, his brow crinkling."I can feel the bone moved out of place." he explained as he adjusted his crossbow and bag on his shoulders She reached down to touch her knee softly and filched at the feeling of the knee cap out of alignment. Daryl bent to help Beth stand up which she did shakily, putting weight on only her left leg. Her right leg was stiff and unable to bend or rise very high off the ground.

"What do we do now?" Beth asked quietly, fighting back tears at the pain blaring up her leg and the feeling of uselessness she now felt.

"We need to get to shelter." Daryl wrapped an arm tightly around her waist and began to lead her back onto the road. Beth tried not to groan at the slow and uncomfortable walking process, they weren't going to get anywhere very fast with her only able to walk on one leg. Silently she cursed her stupidity. They had been in the woods hunting for food as their supply was running low when she got her foot tangled in a tree root. She had toppled over and twisted at the last second to catch herself. When she twisted her ankle remained caught in the branches and she had hit the dirt floor as something in her leg popped. She had been hoping that it was only a twist or a sprain but she knew before Daryl told her that it was more than that. The pain and the sound of it had not been lost on her.

They emerged from the trees to hobble down the abandoned road, Beth's right leg dragging uselessly on the floor. Their slow gait left both of them feeling uneasy and they fell into silence both darting their eyes around nonstop, any more than a few walkers would likely be impossible to fight off with her in this condition. Silently they made their difficult trek for nearly an hour, Beth trying not to pass out from the increasing torment in her leg. They had barely gone two miles since they started and already she was exhausted. Daryl pointed to a sign that they were approaching that promised lodging at the next exit.

"We'll try there." he whispered and she nodded weakly. Silently she kept cursing at herself for tripping. Even though they weren't necessarily in a hurry to get to the Capitol they had already not been making good time. It had been a week since they had started on their journey and even though they had managed to drive for a good while they were still only just out of South Carolina, they had passed the entry sign into North Carolina early that morning. Their progress was slow, not just because of her new injury, but because of the constant threat of walkers. They were only able to walk in the daylight because they couldn't risk flashlights or walking through the night. Neither was comfortable risking themselves so unnecessarily to the low visibility. They also spent their mornings trying to hunt down game which was the cause of her leg injury and their newest delay.

Part of her was beginning to think that this whole trek was stupid but she was unwilling to call it off. Daryl seemed to need a quest as much as she needed to have a destination. She had no idea what they would even do once they got to DC but it made it easier for her to sleep knowing that they had a place to go and all of their wanderings weren't just in an aimless and never ending pursuit for shelter.

Twenty some minutes later they slowly approached a small motel. There was ten rooms in a u-shaped building, the doors all on the outside under a broken awning. In the middle of the parking lot there were two cars that had clearly crashed into each other. Broken glass littered the asphalt and pinned in between the cars a walker lay stretched out on one of the hoods. It looked up and reached for them as they passed, letting out a low groan. Near one of the doors were the corpses of two more walkers with their heads crushed in. A large dried blood stain spread from their bodies. Cautiously they approached the first motel door. Daryl helped Beth lean against the wall before he knocked faintly on the door of the motel. After a few seconds of silence they heard something hit the door from the inside and the growls of a walker. Beth watched as Daryl repeated this process on the next three doors before he finally tried to open a door. He held up a hand to indicate Beth should stay where she was.

She huffed under her breath resting her hand on the hilt of her knife. As if she could have followed him if she wanted to. A few moments later Daryl came out of the room and headed back to her. She made to wrap her arm around his waist not looking forward to hobbling even the mere twenty feet to the door but before she could he scooped her up into his arms. She gasped in surprise and bit back a smile as he carried her bridal style over the threshold of the door, kicking it shut behind them.

The room was dusty and smelled of mildew but it was clean and clear of corpses. Beth giggled as Daryl deposited her lightly on one of the beds, the pain in her leg momentarily forgotten.

"Wow I even get my own bed tonight?" she joked as she scooted back on it. After spending the last week sleeping on the floor of the woods she didn't think a mattress had ever felt so fine.

Daryl rose his eyebrows at her and she grinned reaching up to place a hand on his chest. "I'm kidding." she whispered pulling him down to press her lips to his. He kissed her back briefly before pulling away to which she made a weak noise of protest.

"We need to take care of that knee." he said standing and going to the other bed where his bag lay and rummaging through it. Beth groaned and removed her own bag from her back before flopping against the mattress and staring up at the yellowing ceiling.

"Thanks for reminding me." she groaned as the pain suddenly pushed itself back to the forefront of her mind. Daryl made a noise she thought might have been a chuckle before he came back and popped the button on her jeans. Beth's eyes opened and she rose an eyebrow at him.

Daryl rolled his eyes. "I need to see your knee better." Slowly he began to slid her jeans off, she arched herself off the bed to help him push them past her hips. As he began to pull them off her hurt leg she winced at the sensation. Finally he succeeded in easing the material off her swollen knee cap and tossed the jeans on the floor behind him.

Beth propped herself up on her elbows and looked down at her knee. Already it was swollen and she could see that her kneecap was slightly out of place as well. Taking a deep breath Beth shut her eyes and lay back again. Looking at it was almost worse than the pain. She tried not to wince as Daryl ran his fingers over it softly, even his light touch felt like knives.

"I've never broken a bone." she said through clenched teeth hoping to distract herself from the injury.

"Point for you." Daryl said absentmindedly. His fingers hit a tender spot and she was not able to bite back the cry of pain. She could feel him looking at her and tried to sit up to show him that she was okay. "We're going to have to push the cap back in place." he explained and she felt herself pale. That sounded astonishingly painful.

Slowly Beth nodded, biting her lip. "Do you know how?" she inquired quietly.

Daryl didn't say anything just adjusted his hold on her leg. Placing one hand on her thigh and the other on her ankle he slowly pushed her leg back so her leg was slightly bent. Carefully he pulled on her ankle and she felt the cap begin to shift. Beth cried out and arched her back at the pain that nearly blinded her before she felt the cap shift back into place and her muscles unclenched. The pain was still there but it was more subdued. She ran her hands over her face as she felt Daryl begin to wrap her knee tightly with a roll of cloth bandages they had taken from their last house.

"Where'd you learn to do that?" she asked gently propping herself back up on her elbows to look down at him. He didn't look up from her leg as he shrugged. Beth bit her lip at the sudden closed look on Daryl's face. She had forgotten how little he liked to discuss his past. She opened her mouth to say he didn't have to tell her when he suddenly spoke.

"Popped my shoulder out of place a few times as a kid." he shrugged as he finished wrapping her knee. "Figured couldn't be all that different to fix."

He seemed so uncomfortable Beth decided not to press the issue although she was dying to know how he had dislocated his shoulder enough as a child to have to learn how to fix it himself.

"Thank you." she whispered as he rose off his knees to sit next to her on the bed. She sat up and leaned her head against his shoulder, lightly running her fingers over her bandaged knee. She winced but the pain was not as intense as it was before.

Daryl rummaged in the back pack next to them before pulling out a small orange bottle and handing it to her. "Painkillers." he handed her a bottle of water as well but Beth shook her head.

"No really. The pain isn't so bad now." she looked at him and smiled softly. "I don't want to waste them."

"Its not a waste. You're in pain." He opened the bottle and spilled one of the little white pills into her hand. Knowing she wouldn't win this fight Beth popped it into her mouth and swallowed.

Wiping the back of her hand across her mouth she frowned down at her leg. "How long until I can walk on it?"

She felt Daryl shrug as he wrapped his arm around her waist. "A few weeks most like. It wasn't to badly out of place so it might heal faster."

Beth groaned and buried her head against his chest. "I'm sorry." she whispered her voice nearly lost in his leather jacket.

"Why?" he asked, the confusion evident in his voice as he began running his fingers through her hair.

"For delaying us. For being hurt." Beth sighed. She hated feeling so helpless and weak.

"Got nothing to be sorry for." Daryl placed a finger under her chin and tilted her face up to look at her. "People get hurt. It happens." His blue eyes were steady on hers in a gaze that made her blush and look down.

"So you're not just going to sneak out the second I fall asleep?" she meant it as a joke but the second it came out she realized she was actually afraid of it. While she didn't think that was something Daryl would do to her, or anyone, she couldn't shake the fear that she was now to useless to stay with. Daryl didn't say anything and she looked up at him in a sudden burst of fear.

An emotion she couldn't quiet place passed over Daryl's face then and he pulled her to him and kissed her roughly. She gasped in surprise at the sudden passion of it but before she could really return the kiss Daryl pulled away. He only went far enough so he could rest his forehead against hers.

"I love you Beth Greene." he whispered, making her heart beat faster at the sound. "I ain't never gonna leave you."