Broken Halo
Chapter 9
"Can I talk to you for a minute?" Michonne looked up as Rick came to sit beside her.
"What's up?" she asked.
Rick sighed and looked over at Beth and Daryl who were getting ready to go hunting. "I don't want her out there. Anything could happen. I know she's working through some shit, but if they get into a tight spot…" He trailed off, shaking his head. Too much could go wrong and Michonne understood that. "Do you think you could take her? Maybe help her work through some of her issues?"
Michonne nodded her head, looking over at the girl. "Yeah, I can do that." She got up as Daryl and Beth headed for the door. "Hold up you two." She walked over and stood in front of Daryl. "Let me take Beth for a while. I think I can help her out."
Daryl looked at Beth. He wasn't going to make the choice, it was up to Beth and Michonne respected that. Daryl wasn't a controlling man, he'd let her make up her own mind. She bit her lip but nodded her head, clearly nervous. He kissed her head. "I'll be back in a few hours, okay?"
"Love you," she whispered.
"Love you too." He walked out after kissing her again.
Beth looked at Michonne. "What are we going to do?"
"Well, we're not staying here." She knew taking Beth out was basically doing what Rick didn't want, but she knew that if Beth stayed in this room for the rest of her life she was never going to work through anything. She put an arm around her shoulder and led her out of the building. "Don't worry; we're not going to go far." She led her outside before taking her sword out from its sheath on her back. "Here."
Beth took it looking wary. "What am I supposed to do with this?" she asked.
Michonne nodded to a lone walker wandering around not far off. "Take out some aggression." When Beth gave her a startled look Michonne just smiled. "Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere, anything goes wrong I'll be right here." Michonne watched her timidly walk up to the walker, the sword raised. She knew Beth wasn't going to be strong enough to take its head off, or any other appendage, but that's not what this was about. This was about picturing her attackers and letting out her anger and frustration on them.
Beth started hacking away at the walker, slicing it's tendons on its legs so it couldn't walk anymore. She just kept hitting it, and hitting it, and hitting it. When her arms grew too tired she pushed the blade through its head and collapsed onto the ground beside it, panting. Michonne slowly walked over a small smile on her face and approval in her eyes. "How did that feel?" she asked.
Beth looked up at her and smiled for the first time in days. "Really, really good," she admitted.
Michonne nodded approvingly and helped Beth up. They started walking, just around the perimeter. Every time a walker came close enough Beth killed it, every time she got a little happier. "You wanna talk about it?" Michonne asked after Beth killed her forth walker.
Beth frowned and stared at the ground as they walked. She shook her head. "I know everyone watches me, waiting for my next freak out. I can't help it, I just..." she sighed, and shook her head. "It feels like everything is shrinking, closing in on me, I can't breathe and my head goes light, and I just…I lose it." She looked up at Michonne. "I can't help it."
Michonne nodded her head. "We know that, and we don't blame you for that. You're working through some shit, we get that."
Beth frowned. "When Maggie came back from the Governor…she was depressed and her and Glenn fought, but it didn't take her this long to get over it. I feel like people look at me and just wish I was like Maggie, or you."
Michonne stopped and looked at her. "No one thinks that. You might not be the strongest physically, but emotionally you are."
"Doesn't feel like that."
Michonne shook her head, putting her arm around her shoulders as they continued to walk. "You are. It didn't take Maggie as long because Maggie wasn't raped. You were, more than once." She looked down at Beth. "You are strong Beth."
…
It went on for weeks. Every time Daryl went out hunting, Michonne and Beth walked the perimeter, going a little deeper into the woods each time. Most of the time they were silent, Michonne would watch as Beth killed walkers. If she wanted to talk then she started a conversation. Each day she was getting a little better and the group could see it; she was smiling more, laughing more. Everything was going great, until Carl and Rick came running in one morning.
"We gotta go." They started packing up things.
"What's goin' on?" Daryl asked as he helped Beth with their things.
Carl looked up, grabbing Judith. "There's a huge heard coming this way, they're going to blow right through this place." He handed Judith to Carol as walkers started to flood in through the doors.
Beth grabbed her knife and gun. People started shooting as they finished grabbing whatever they could carry. She threw her bag over her shoulder and buried her blade into the skull of a walker who was lunging for Daryl. She kicked it off her knife and ran out with him. They weren't just coming in through the front door, they were everywhere. There had to be just as many as there had been on her farm, maybe more. "Daryl," she called out, warning him of the walker he was about to run into.
He didn't hear her and she ran past him, pushing him out of the way and grabbing it by the front of what little shirt it still had and put a bullet in its brain pan. She was getting reckless, she knew that, but it felt so good to kill something. Every face was one of the men who had raped her, and every one of them needed to die. As the others ran through the open door she stood there and took shots, each one putting a bullet into another one of her attackers. She was forced to leave when Daryl grabbed her arm and pulled her away. It didn't stop her though. Every walker she past that the other ran by, she stopped and either shot or stabbed. By the time they reached safety, she was covered in walker blood, but she felt damn good.
