"Beth!" Mika ran over to her. "Oh, my God."
"Mika!" Beth grabbed her and hugged her. "You're okay?"
She nodded.
"Thank God." Beth began to cry. "I'm so glad they didn't get you."
Daryl ground his teeth. "Did they?"
"No," Ty replied. "I got one of the assholes, and Beth got the other. He got close, but she got away."
"How?"
"I bashed his face in with a machete," Beth told him. "You were beaten too? Are you okay?"
Daryl blinked. Beth sounded so cold. She wasn't the type to brush over something like that. Beth has never killed another living being before. What happened? Did he do more than Ty or Daryl knew? Or was Beth coping this way? She wasn't fragile, but being forced into this world in the way that they were... She wasn't strong. She wasn't Maggie or Michonne or Sasha. She was just a girl forced grow too fast and have no choice but to be strong. She wasn't there yet. Daryl and Ty would have to guide her. Otherwise she'll become twisted, like Carl used to be.
"Daryl?" Beth looked his face over with her big blue eyes.
"Fine," he muttered, "I'm fine. Are you able to walk?"
"Not good," she admitted. "My ankle hurts like hell. Walkin' ain't gonna be easy or fast."
"I'll stay with her," Mika offered.
"That's sweet, but if y'all get into trouble, there's not much you can go." Daryl leaned against the car. "I'm gonna get some water and we're gonna get cleaned up before any of us go wanderin' off."
"I'll go," Ty corrected. "Mika?"
She nodded and followed him, taking his hand with hers comfortingly.
Daryl plopped down on the ground and groaned softly, Beth looked over at him then brought her legs in and rested her arms on her legs, holding herself close. They didn't say anything, Daryl wasn't sure what to say, and Beth didn't want to talk about it, not with Daryl. She wanted Maggie, but she doubted she would ever see Maggie again. She wondered now how Daryl could be so confident that he would find Carol alive and in one piece. She didn't have it in her, and Daryl's life seemed far worse than hers. She just got the feeling the bottom feel out a lot for him, so how was he so sure? He wasn't a hopeful man just a while ago? Did something happen? Pff, he probably wouldn't tell her if anything did.
"Do you think we're gonna find her?" Beth asked him.
He was silent for a long time. The last time he swore up and down he would find someone, they turned up dead and reanimated. He didn't even want to picture Carol that way. It made him ache to even think about her like that. "I do."
"Why?"
"Why?" He looked at her, frowning. "You're askin' why?"
"Yeah, I am." She met his eyes. "How are you gonna find her? We don't even have any tracks. How the hell are we gonna find her?"
"We found Ty and the girls without followin' their tracks."
"Tsk, by pure freaking chance." She pulled her legs closer. "We'll probably find her walkin' around, bit."
Daryl didn't say anything.
"If she wasn't torn apart by a pack of walkers, if she hasn't been raped and murdered first." She didn't let him talk. "Don't tell me it ain't possible. It almost happened. Right here with me and Mika. If you hadn't been there, Mika woulda been—"
"She wasn't," Daryl cut her off. "You wasn't neither."
"'Cause of what? Luck? Droppin' a machete in the wrong place?" Beth scoffed. "I just barely got away, and when I did..." Her eyes filled with tears. "I butchered him, Daryl. I didn't stop."
"Beth—"
"I couldn't stop."
He reached over and set a hand on her knee, she flinched, and he moved his hand. "I'm sure he deserved it."
"How do you do this?" She looked at him, holding herself with her arms. She didn't know how he could kill people, even if they deserved it. She wasn't this person. She didn't relentlessly attack someone, not even walkers. She felt disturbed by what'd she done, but the most horrifying part was... She didn't know if she felt horrible about killing a man or if she felt—
Beth jumped out of her seat and ran over to a tree, where she threw up until her stomach was raw. She started crying again, and she felt absolutely sick.
"Beth."
"Leave me alone."
Mika and Tyreese returned as Beth walked away from Daryl, Mika set the water she was holding down then ran after Beth. Tyreese and Daryl prepared a fire to boil the water for cleaning their injuries, checking in on Judy was woke up, and Mika found Beth curled up against a tree. She caught her breath and walked over to her.
"Mika, go back to Daryl and Ty." She didn't have to look up to know it was Mika. She just knew.
"No." Mika was more than worried about Beth. She knew that whatever happened to Beth was horrible, and she knew Beth wouldn't recover alone. Beth had killed someone, not a walker, but a living, breathing person. Mika could never imagine what that would do to someone. She wanted to help Beth. She couldn't be there for Lizzie, but she was going to be here for Beth.
Mika sat beside Beth. "How'd you lose your mom?"
"She got bit." Beth drew her legs in.
"Mine too. It was my fault."
Beth lifted her head to look at Mika. "I doubt that."
"No, it was." Mika met Beth's eyes. "Me and Lizzie were supposed to stay behind. I was six, and we were trying to get to the quarantine zone, but we needed supplies—that's why my parents were out." Mika sighed and crossed her arm. "Lizzie thought I was asleep, but I was waiting up for Mom to read me a bedtime story."
Beth turned toward her. "How does that make your mom's death your fault?"
"Because I wasn't waiting in the house. I was outside, and when I saw my parents coming back to the house, I ran to them. I was yelling, and I didn't know there were walkers nearby. Mom saw them coming at me, so she grabbed me and held me so close that I couldn't breath. She got bitten everywhere, protecting me."
"Mika—"
"I should've been in the house, but I wasn't, and she suffered for it." Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she tried not to cry. She had to be strong. She had to be.
"That wasn't your fault. Your mom died to protect you. She made that choice, because she loved you very much."
"Did your mom died for you?"
"No. She just died."
Mika ran her hand under her nose, Beth lowered her legs and grabbed Mika, pulling her into her lap and holding her like she would Judith, her arms around Mika's stomach. Beth rested her forehead on the back of Mika's head and thought of what Maggie would do. She stopped herself then. She wasn't Maggie. She wasn't Carol or Sasha or Michonne. She was Beth Greene, an eighteen-year-old girl who's lost her mother and father and possibly her older sister. She had to find strength in that. If she let herself drown in sorrow and anger and hate, she was a dead girl. She had to fine strength in the fact that she was alive right now and never lose sight of that girl who lived before this world, because she was important to Beth. She was everything Beth had to keep to truly survive this world.
Her surviving up to this point was only because she was sheltered, and she only had one job to do: take care of Judith. She now had to take care of all of them in ways that Daryl and Tyreese couldn't. She wasn't Carol, and she didn't want to be Carol. She had to find a way to be herself, but better. Stronger. She had to be a survivor, and Mika had to be one too.
Beth smoothed Mika's short hair down. "Do you understand that we will never be the same again?" Mika nodded. "But the future is in our hands. The future and the present are our hands, and we can't let the past take that away from us."
"How?" Mika whispered. The road in her mind was clogged with doubt and pain from the losses they'd suffered. Mika knew she felt for more than just herself, she always had. She was too different from Lizzie from the start, and Lizzie was always the strong one, even if she was messed up. Lizzie took the easy way out, but Mika was still here, her heart was still beating in her chest, powerful and loud. It was telling her every single day she woke up to be strong like Lizzie, kind like her dad and sweet like her mommy, but even that didn't clear the fog in her mind. Maybe that was how it was supposed to be. It was like their current state, and they were okay. They were alive and together and okay.
––
Daryl wet a rag with the still-warm water as Tyreese changed Judith and made sure she had something to eat as Mika and Beth joined them, both smiling and they were holding hands. To anyone else—hell, and to Daryl and Tyreese—they looked like sister. Daryl hoped Mika had helped Beth, and Beth helped Mika.
"Here, let me." Beth took the rag from Daryl's hands and lowered herself down onto her knees as she wiped the blood from his face. He would have a black eye and a couple large cuts. She cleaned off his cheek then wet the rag again and wiped at the cut above his brow. "I'm sorry about what I said."
"Could be true."
"But I didn't need to remind you of it." She squeezed out the water. "I know we'll find her."
He grasped her hand as she reached up to wipe the last of the blood off his face, and he squeezed her hand comfortingly. "Yeah, we will."
She smiled. "You will. Otherwise you'll have me doubting your tracking skills."
"Tsk, no way in hell that's gonna happen."
"Good, 'cause I'm starvin', and some meat wouldn't kill us."
He smirked. "Damn slaver driver."
"'Course." She sat beside him. "Hey, Mika, could you get me a rag, please?"
"Sure." Mika hopped out of the car and dug through the bag Ty had gotten out of the trunk. She wet it in the pot of water and held it out to Beth. "Do you want me to do it?"
"Thank you, but I got it."
Daryl climbed to his feet and picked up his crossbow. "Hey, Mika, c'mere."
"Why?" She walked over to him.
"I wanna show you something." He guided her through the woods to look for something to eat, and as proud of her as he was that she came and helped him when those men were about to kill him, she needed to know how to protect herself. "You don't like guns much, do you?"
"No, but I understand we have to use them." She laced her fingers together. She felt nervous about being out in the woods alone with Daryl. She was scared more men would come or walkers. She didn't have a lot of ammo left, and she didn't want Daryl to pay for that. Thankfully, he had gotten a lot of arrows from the men that attacked them, and they had a few more crossbows, though Daryl would never give his crossbow up. It was as attached to him as his winged leather vest. They were like his trademark. It's how Mika knew him for the longest time at the prison, but now she knew him as Daryl, and she was starting to love him as Daryl.
"I hear you like to learn," Daryl told Mika as they trudged through the woods.
"I love to learn!" Mika beamed. "Learning is one of my most favorite things!"
"Good, 'cause I'm gonna show you some things." Daryl pointed to a spot in the ground and they crouched down beside it. "Tell me what you see."
She looked at the trench. "It looks like a ditch. Why does that matter?"
"'Cause it ain't just a ditch. See how the ground kinda has a tunnel shape?" She nodded. "That's where you wanna set the noose."
"Noose?" Mika asked.
"I'll teach you how to make a simple slip knot when we get back," he assured her. "See, you're gonna tie one on both ends, and you tighten one end to a branch. You can hide it with leaves and put sticks all around it, so any animal that goin' by have to run this way. Right into the trap."
"Won't they suffer?"
"That don't matter." She frowned. "When you're out here, Mika, you gotta think about who you're with and what you gotta do to keep 'em safe and alive. If me and Ty and Beth was to die or get separated from you and Judith, you would have to keep her safe. You would have to find food for her and yourself."
"Don't say that."
"Fine, use it as a last resort. I'll show you what's edible and what ain't."
They headed deeper into the woods, Daryl showed her the difference between poisonous mushrooms and edible mushrooms. Mika seemed to enjoy what he was showing her, and he was actually enjoying himself too. He hadn't felt a sliver of joy since Carol went missing, but Mika brought out a small smile in him. She reminded him of Sophia—so sweet and so small. He wouldn't let her share Sophia's fate, and he wouldn't let her share Carl's either. He would make her strong, but never take away her innocence. Ass Kicker needed someone in her life with such light.
"Hey, Daryl, look!" Mika took of running.
"Mika!" He ran after her.
She saw tracks that looked like the ones she'd showed her before, and she hoped with all of her heart that they were Carol's. She needed them to be. She wanted to wrap her arms around Carol and hug her tightly. The tracks looked relatively fresh, so maybe she was right around the corner.
Mika's heart was beating faster and faster as her shoes hit the ground over and over. She was breathless, but she could see a vine-covered fence just ahead, and she smiled. If that fence wasn't broken then maybe that's there Carol was. Maybe she was safe and recovering from the damage the men had done. Mika just knew that was it. Carol was resting before she came and found them and brought them here.
Daryl saw the fence and he had a bad feeling about it. He didn't want to know what was beyond this gate, but if Carol was there, dead or alive, he had to know. These tracks were indeed Carol's, and they were fresh. They weren't the only ones there, however. There was another set of smaller prints, and Daryl knew they weren't a man's because they were small and light, like Mika's. Carol came here with or after a child. Why? Who?
Perhaps he had it wrong. Perhaps Carol wasn't injured, just lured. This was like Hansel and Gretel and the candy house. He didn't like this. Carol wouldn't be led by a child, not with Beth and Ass Kicker and Mika and him waiting for her. Would she?
As they neared the vine-covered fence, they saw and smelled fruit and cooking meat. It made their mouth water, but they had to focus on Carol. Daryl kept low, thankfully Mika wasn't very tall yet, and they crept along the fence. They saw an opening in the vines and peered through.
It was beautiful and untouched by walkers inside. There were flowerbeds and gardens covered with lush vegetables and fruits and there were chickens scampering around with their chicks, and there were goats and even sheep wandering around, though they were in a pin. They had babies and were so adorable to Mika. Daryl was shocked by all of it.
There were rows of small cottage-looking houses, and there was smoke coming out of only one of them. That was the probably the only one in use, since the others looked empty. They all looked well taken care of nonetheless, and Daryl could see at the bottom of the fence there were reinforcements that would last quite some time. It was the perfect place to start over, and they felt it could be a good place.
A small child walked out of the cabin with a basket in her arms. She began to fill it with vegetables and fruit and even some flowers. She was well-fed, though young, and her soft ginger hair was braided over her shoulder. She wore worn shorts and with a blue graphic tee. She looked so familiar to Daryl, and he narrowed his eyes as she faced them to unearth some potatoes.
She had the same big brown eyes, splatter of freckles, nose and smile as Sophia Peletier. She was humming softly, and she seemed so happy. And just when Daryl thought this couldn't get any more insane, Carol walked over to her and began to help unearth the vegetables. They were smiling and made quick work of it.
Daryl heard Mika gasp at the sight of Carol, and Daryl stared. She wore a blue dress with her hair brushed and a pendant dangling from her neck. She wasn't the same Carol Daryl had lost on the road. What the hell was going?!
