Carol and Daryl's group faces a possible familiar danger while Rick and the girls leave the prison looking for some new place of safety and the trail of the rest of their family.
Hello again! Finally got back to this one; slowly making my way through my WIPs. Thanks for your patience.
Bloodroot
It was the coughing that worried her.
Ever since Tyreese and Daryl had returned with Glenn and Maggie three days ago things had been tense, but Carol had expected that. The news that it had been the children and not Carol who had killed Karen and David wasn't something that Maggie was ready to accept, though Glenn seemed more willing to listen. But when Beth started coughing and had passed out this morning Maggie made it clear that she didn't trust Carol alone with her.
"She knows what she's doing, Maggie—you have to let her go in!" Daryl argued as he stood at the door of the smaller building where they'd put Beth in isolation.
"She's my sister!" Maggie said, tears filling her eyes.
"She's like a kid sister to all of us, Maggie; we're just as worried as you are, believe me." Michonne said quietly in an earnest voice. "But Carol's the one Hershel trained."
"Listen to them— it can't be you to go in there—think of the baby." Glenn said pleadingly.
"What does it matter? If Beth has it we've all already been exposed." Tyreese said, sounding resigned, remembering how quickly Karen and Sasha had sickened.
"You don't know that." Michonne argued, "It could be something else—but unless we let Carol look at her we won't know what it is."
Maggie looked back and forth between the other members of the group, feeling helpless, missing her father more than she could say, terrified for her sister, for all of them. If this was anything like what had swept through the prison, they were all in danger. She looked at the other side of the parking lot, to the front of the large pole building where they had made their protected camp and saw Carol sitting with Judith on her lap, playing patty cake while Luke and Carl watched, doing her best to keep them entertained to take their minds off of their worry over Beth.
"She doesn't go in alone." Maggie said, sounding bitter, but finally reluctantly conceding.
Daryl nodded and backed away, shouldering his bow, then turned and walked over to Carol and the kids. Carol stood when she saw his approach and they spoke briefly, looking back to Maggie and the others, and then Carol handed Judith over to Carl. She made a show of taking off her belt so she could slide Daryl's buck knife in its sheath off of it and hand it back to him. Next she picked up her med kit bag, including a large bottle of water and slung it over her shoulder.
Judith reached for her, babbling something that sounded like "Cama," and smiling, Carol leaned down and kissed the baby's forehead quickly before she pulled up her bandana and then applied some of the last of their antibiotic gel to her hands. She followed Daryl to the building where Beth waited; pulling on a pair of sterile vinyl gloves, part of the medical supplies in her bag.
They finally found a car that still ran after the tenth try. Almost all of the vehicles belonging to the prison group had been "monkey-wrenched" by the attackers so they couldn't be used to flee. Tires had been slashed or removed, gas tanks shot full of holes, batteries pulled out and taken—anything useful had been stripped from them. But buried under the collapsed remnants of the outdoor eating pavilion was the old open Jeep that they used for hauling garbage and dumping bodies.
Mika spotted it and Rick was able to lift the debris off of it so Lizzie could squeeze in and try to start it. It wasn't ideal—walkers could get to them more easily than in a normal enclosed car, but it still moved faster than being on foot. Their smelly camouflage gave them a certain invisibility as well, so after filling its gas tank with what little they could siphon from the generators, they took off out across the landscape, Rick at the wheel, glad the rattle trap thing was an automatic so his leg injury was a non-issue.
"Soon as we get clear of the herds we'll look for a better vehicle—a safer place." Rick assured the girls, but they were looking back down the road at the prison, their last place of relative safety, where their father had died and the woman who'd taken them in had been put to death for trying to protect them.
"Where are we going?" Lizzie asked skeptically, turning back to look at Rick.
"We need to find the others. Carl and Judith...Michonne...Daryl..." Rick said.
"Do you know where they are?" Mika asked hopefully.
"I know some of the places Daryl and Michonne used as safe houses when they were out looking...I think they' probably go to one of them." Rick said carefully. What he had was the map that Michonne had used to plot her search grids. It had been taped to the wall of her room.
Rick had searched the C block cells for any useful weapons or supplies, taking what he thought might be useful. When he'd entered Michonne's cell he saw her rainbow hued cat and smiled as he remembered their trip home, when she and Carl had bonded. In Daryl's room he searched for an extra lighter or matches, but the cubicle was surprisingly bare of any personal effects. Would the tracker really have needed so much for a few days hunt? Had he ever really planned to return? Rick didn't really have time to ponder it.
They had taken what little food remained and would've been in real trouble except they had soon come across the remnants of a camp near a swollen river. It consisted of several mobile homes that looked like they had been abandoned quickly for some reason, leaving almost all of their supplies intact. Rick felt a cold shiver as he carefully opened the door of the Winnebago, a newer model than Dale's, with Carol's trench knife raised high, searching for unwelcome passengers, dead or alive. He hesitated before he opened the bathroom door, putting his ear to it, listening for any sounds within and then politely knocked, which suddenly struck him as hilarious, and he had to stifle the laugh that bubbled up from his gut. He whipped open the door and then slumped back in relief when the small room proved empty as well.
"Clear!" Rick called back to the girls who were huddled in the Jeep, ready to bolt if he yelled or just plain disappeared. "You can come in now." He started methodically opening the cupboards, which were stocked full of canned goods and other less perishable foods like dried milk, bags of rice and boxes of macaroni and cheese. He started weeping, he couldn't help himself.
Against all odds they had survived the prison attack and made their way out of the ruins and now they had found not only shelter, but food. He looked up at the crucifix nailed to the wall of the camper above the small dining table to his right, wiped his eyes and nodded a grudging acknowledgement to the dead man hanging on it.
"Mr. Grimes?" Lizzie asked quietly from the doorway.
"What is it Lizzie?" Rick asked, motioning both girls forward so they could close and lock the door behind them.
"What happened to the people who lived here? Are they dead?" the taller girl asked.
"I don't know, Lizzie." Rick said honestly.
"Then is it OK if we eat their food and sleep in their beds—or is it bad—like...like in the Three Bears?" Mika asked, looking at the full cupboards with concern.
"I think we do what we have to do to stay alive, Goldilocks." Rick said, putting his hand on Mika's shoulder, swallowing hard. That's what they'd thought they'd been doing when they'd killed Karen and David, what he'd done when he killed the convicts, those men in the bar...Shane...
Lizzie and Mika nodded in understanding. Lizzie reached up onto the closest shelf, picked up a can and held it out to Rick.
"Spaghettios; they were my favorite." she said with a small smile.
"How's about we use the water in that river next door to get cleaned up first?" Rick prompted, spotting soap and towels in the open bathroom. The idea of being clean again seemed like a dream.
"Oh Golly Ned, yes, Mr. Grimes!" Mika grinned, "I think I'd probably just puke up the s'gettios if'n I tried to eat them when we all stunk so bad!"
"We just smell like them...like walkers." Lizzie said matter of factly, "It's not so bad." she shrugged, but set the can down on the counter next to the sink, acquiescing to the will of the group.
Rick wondered how long he could count on that to be the case, wondering just how far he could trust a girl who named walkers and killed so easily when she was afraid...
"Ok then, let's go Goldilocks." Rick said to Mika with feigned but convincing lightness, making her giggle.
Pale and sweaty, Beth looked wrung out, exhausted, her golden hair hanging in wet ropes around her face. She lay on a cot, shivering under a quilt that Carol and Daryl had scavenged in their travels since leaving the prison. She coughed repeatedly, a deep ugly wet sound and grimaced in pain at the end of the fit, looking helplessly up at the two people with bandanas over their noses and mouths, looking like bandits there to rob her. Daryl stayed back by the door, minimizing his exposure, but stayed close enough to appease Maggie's fears that Carol would somehow harm Beth.
"I have it, don't I?" Beth croaked miserably, sitting up and holding up both her hands to ward them away. "Just stay back! I don't want you to get sick from me." and then she started coughing again, falling back onto her pillow.
"Bethie, you need some water..." Carol said soothingly, moving closer.
Beth eyed the water bottle, clearly thirsty. Two empty ones lay discarded beside the bed already. Finally she nodded and Carol came close enough to hand her the bottle, which Beth opened and drank greedily. Carol sat on the side of the cot while Beth slaked her thirst, reaching into her bag and pulling out Hershel's stethoscope, one of the things Glenn had stashed in his backpack as they fled the prison. She held it up so Beth could see it, and the girl's mouth trembled as she recognized it.
"It's OK, honey." Carol soothed, moving very slowly, but Beth shied back, almost dropping the water, forcing Carol to grab and hold her wrist in a firm but gentle grip, keeping her still.
Concerned, Daryl moved closer and Beth's eyes rose to his. He saw the fear in them, but he wasn't sure if it was because she was afraid of Carol or afraid of exposing them to the virus.
"I just need to listen to your lungs, please?" Carol asked in a calm warm voice. "And take your temperature so we can figure out what's going on with you, please honey?"
Beth sighed, tears running down her cheeks, and slowly nodded, stifling a cough behind her arm. Carol placed a paper thermometer on her forehead and had the girl sit up so she could listen to her breathing, and then looked into her eyes and ears.
"How long have you been feeling sick?" Carol asked, taking Beth's wrist in her vinyl gloved hand to take her pulse, using Hershel's watch, also lent to her by Glenn.
"Since yesterday afternoon..." Beth admitted. She'd thought at first that it was just the mold and dust from cleaning, but she'd felt steadily worse until she'd fainted when she tried to get up for breakfast this morning. "I don't want to die, Carol...there's...there's so much I've never done...I've always been a good little girl—for daddy—and now he's gone and I'm gonna die and I've never gotten drunk, never let Zack..." she started crying in earnest then and Carol pulled her into a hug, shocking her. Beth cried out and pushed Carol away, but she held on to the girl she thought of as a daughter.
"You don't have what they had at the prison, Beth." Carol said. "Your fever has broken on its own, that's why you're all sweaty, and yes, you have lung congestion, but I think it's something like bronchitis—there's no sign of hemorrhage in your eyes or any other internal bleeding."
"You mean I'm not dying?" Beth asked, sounding confused, looking over at Daryl, whose eyes crinkled up, showing he was giving them an uncharacteristic broad smile of relief under his bandana.
"No, Beth, you're still pretty sick, but you're not dying." Carol pulled her herbology book out of her bag and paged through it. She held it open to a place near the front.
"What's that?" Beth asked, craning her neck to look at the pages.
"Bloodroot—we need to find some—it will help calm your cough and rid your lungs of this congestion. It grows in the woods here." Carol said, looking over at Daryl who nodded. "That and some mint tea to soothe your throat—how does that sound?" Carol asked Beth, who nodded, picking up her water bottle again to take a long drink.
"She still needs to stay in here though, right?" Daryl asked.
"Yes—she could still pass this on to Judith or Maggie-someone else with a less well developed immune system. Better if she stays in quarantine for a few days more." Carol agreed.
"Tell Maggie—okay? She must be so worried." Beth said, grasping Carol's forearm tightly.
"Right away." Carol nodded. "You lie back down and get some rest now, ok?" Beth did as she asked, looking much more serene than when they'd come in.
Maggie and Glenn were waiting outside, about twenty feet from the door, looking anxious. The rest of the group were busying themselves with various domestic tasks, but remaining close enough they could hear whatever verdict Carol delivered about Beth. Carol and Daryl came out of the building, and he put his arm around her, pulling her into a hug. The couple's embrace could be read as either relief or sorrow and Maggie called out Carol's name rather shrilly, starting towards them.
Daryl interposed his body protectively between Maggie and Carol, locking eyes with Glenn, silently warning him if his wife tried to harm Carol he'd stop her. Glenn nodded curtly and reached out a hand to slow Maggie's advance towards the other woman. Maggie glared at him, but Glenn didn't relent. Maggie stopped and glowered at Carol.
"Well? How long does she have?" Maggie said harshly and Carol saw that same streak of fatalism the elder Green daughter had exhibited when Hershel had been bitten by the walker when they'd first arrived at the prison. While Beth had set to work shortening one leg on her father's pants; Maggie had asked if she was the only one living in reality, sure her father was done for.
"Probably a good sixty or seventy years depending on whether or not she marries-married people live longer I'm told," Carol said, winking at Glenn, "At least before the Turn that was true..." she added with a small smile for Daryl who raised an eyebrow at her. "She'll be fine, Maggie." Carol told the anxious woman in front of them.
"What?" Maggie asked, baffled. She looked at Daryl for an explanation, not trusting what Carol had told her.
"It's bronchitis—still not good, but not life threatening." Daryl told them, "Carol's got some good ideas for herbal remedies that should lessen the symptoms and make her more comfortable while she's getting better. Take a few days, but she'll be right as rain—right, sweetheart?" Daryl said, looking to Carol who nodded in confirmation, trying not to feel hurt that Maggie wouldn't believe her.
"Oh my God—that's wonderful—thank you so much, Carol!" Glenn exclaimed, hugging Maggie, who looked stunned for a bit, but then her brow creased suspiciously.
"What kind of herbal remedies?" Maggie asked Carol in an insolent tone, snapping everyone else, who had been busy hugging out their happiness at the good news, attention back to her.
Carol pulled down her mask and with a blank stare dug in her bag for the book, opened it to the page on bloodroot and slapped it down into Maggie's hand. She snapped off her gloves and with a sad look she turned and just walked away, off in the direction of the peach grove, away from everyone else.
Daryl pulled down his mask and gave Maggie a pitying angry glare.
"When you're done being a stone cold bitch you should make your sister some mint tea and have someone else take it to her, she's still contagious and Carol's worried about you and your baby." Daryl grated out and then turned on his heel to follow Carol.
Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis)
"Bloodroot is one of the earliest blooming spring wildflowers. The waxy, white flower blooms just a few inches above the leaf mulch in early March. The root of this plant has a long history of use in the treatment of bronchitis, coughs, and lung congestion. Small doses relax bronchial spasms; at the same time it helps clear congestion from the lungs." Source: georgiaorganics
AN: Thank you so much for reading! If you have time to review I'd appreciate it. I've done some more research on herbs and plants native to Georgia so I have ideas for more chapters, but I'm always interested in what people think.
