The Walking Deth - Part I
An Unexpected Journey - Chp VII
Reunion
We came to the decision to make camp right there in the furrow besides the train tracks. We were all too worked up over being reunited to think about moving on. Bob, Sasha and Maggie told us stories about their travels. How they had found the bus from the prison, but Glenn hadn't been on it. How they fought a herd of walkers in the fog with no visibility. About how Bob near got bit and was saved by his bandage. Beth told them about our journey too, but she left out a few of the grizzly details, and to my relief she didn't mention anything about us.
Beth told them a stretched truth of how she and I had stumbled across a warehouse, when Len and his cronies came back and were planning on killing us, but Anton had come to the rescue. Maggie and Sasha looked at him with big doe eyes, like he was superman. Bob looked at him like he was competition, and I just kept my mouth shut.
Later Beth and Maggie walked off alone together in to the trees, and when they came back their eyes were red and they had clean trails through the dirt on their faces and I knew they had been crying. They could have been talking about Hershel, or maybe about Glenn, or maybe about what happened to Beth. It was hard to tell, as they had so much to cry about.
While Beth and Sasha stood around the fire, debating on how to dig a good pit, and Bob and Anton were bonding over some military stories, in a lingo I couldn't understand, Maggie made her way over to me. She determined eyes were fixed on mine, and she was marching boldly, like she had something important to say.
I tried to think of something I could do to pretend to be busy, i wasn't ready to have this awkward conversation yet. I looked to my crossbow, maybe I could run off and claim I needed to hunt. My eyes then went to my Busse. I may just need that for protection, against her. I tried to look for any distraction or excuse not to talk to her, but my brain was racing too fast for me to grasp on to anything.
"Beth told me everythin' about what happened with you two." She said stopping before me with her arms crossed over her body.
I froze on the spot. Has she really told her everything? And was Maggie about to beat my head in for it?
"It must have been awful for her. Having an experience like that, with some...dirty old man."
Well that was harsh, and a little unexpected.
"Now just hold up one damn minute -" I started to protest.
"I know you did everythin' you could for her." She interrupted. "And it weren't your fault."
Okay so maybe Beth had told her that she was the one who made the first move, and I just went along with it, because that was what happened. Still there was no reason to be calling me names.
"If you and Anton hadn't been there, it could have been much worse. Just imagine, your first time bein' like that."
I stifled a groan as I realised what she was talking about. It was what Len and the others had done to Beth, not what I had done to her. And if she thought that was her first time having that kind of experience, Beth obviously hadn't told her anything about us yet.
"I'm very grateful that you took care of my baby sister." She continued.
"Any other man probably would have taken advantage of a teenage girl out there vulnerable and alone, needin' another person for survival. They might have made her feel obligated."
Well that was a knife twisted into the gut. Any other man might have made her feel obligated. That was what Anton had said too, and Beth hadn't denied it. That wasn't what I had intended, I never felt like she owed me anything, but I couldn't speak on what Beth felt.
Maggie was studying my face now, and I hoped it wasn't revealing too much of my guilt. She leaned in and planted a kiss on my cheek.
"You're an honorable man Daryl Dixon."
She gave my shoulder a squeeze and then walked away back to Beth and the others, leaving me alone and confused.
That night, Beth slept in wrapped up protectively in Maggie's arms, and I spent the night questioning every move I had made since leaving the prison.
In the morning Sasha and Maggie raided Beth's bags, like a pack of wild dogs fighting over a bone, trying to find the Pecans we had shelled back at the grove. When they had emptied the bag of them they roasted them over the fire, using a piece of corrugated sheet metal. I knew that a few handfuls of Pecans weren't going to feed the six of us, so I started sharpened my knife and cleaned the grit out of my Stryker ready to go and hunt something worthwhile.
Beth had been sitting in the dirt running her fingers through her blonde hair and tying it back into a pony tail. She spotted me sitting on the tracks watching her and she got up walked over to me and dropped down beside me.
I looked over at the others who seemed to be too preoccupied to notice Beth and I. Maggie and Sasha were laughing by the fire, Bob had stepped off the tracks to take a piss and Anton was sitting in a ditch with lathered soap all over his head. He was scraping away at the growing stubble with his knife, looking into a piece of broken mirror.
"What the hell is he doin'?" I said, nodding my head towards him.
Beth looked at him and then back to me.
"It's called grooming." She reached out and flicked through my hair.
"You should try it some time."
I growled and playfully pushed her hand away.
"What ya need groomin' for out 'ere?"
She gave her shoulders a shrug.
"I donno - to look pretty?"
I looked back over to Anton, rubbing over his glistening wet head, and admiring his model looks in the mirror.
"Is pretty what you like?" I asked.
She gave me a grin and then reached out her hand and slipped her fingers inside my shirt, just below my collarbone. She looked like she was about to pull me in for a kiss, then her eyes flicked over to Maggie, who must have been watching us. She pulled her fingers out of my shirt and then brushed them over my collar pretending to be removing dirt.
"You don't wanna tell your sister huh?"
She pulled her hands away from me and placed them on her knees.
"I just can't talk about that kind of stuff with her yet. She's worried 'bout Glenn, I can't have her fussin' over me too."
"It's better we don't." I grumbled.
She raised an eyebrow at me.
"Don't ever?"
"Do we need to?"
It came out snappier than I intended it to, but I was feeling like shit about what Maggie had said. The thought of coming out with it all had my guts all twisted up inside. She looked kind of hurt at my tone, and I started getting the guilts again.
"Are you mad at me or somethin'?" She asked.
I stopped thumbing the fletching on the bolt I was holding and put it down alongside my Stryker.
"I ain't mad at ya." I explained. "I'm a lil mad at myself if anythin'."
"Why?"
"You know." I gave my shoulders a shrug, not wanting to get in to the discussion. She waited for more.
"Your sister said somethin', I been thinkin' on it."
"Thinkin' what?"
"That maybe I had taken advantage of you, bein' a vulnerable girl. Maybe you was thinkin' you owed me somethin', that's why you were always all o'er me."
She was shaking her head, and looked somewhat amused at what I had said.
"Daryl Dixon, I know perfectly well that I don't owe you anythin' I did what I did with you 'cause I wanted to and for no other reason."
I tried to shrug away the discomfort I was feeling. I still found it hard to believe that a young girl like Beth could have a true interest in someone like me. I don't think anyone else, including her sister, would believe that she did either.
"Don't know that your sister would be believin' that." I said nodding over to Maggie.
"You don't worry 'bout my sister, I'll deal with her when the time is right."
When would the time be right? Maybe in another few years when she wasn't still a teenager, if either of us were able to make it that far.
I snapped the bolt I was fiddling with into the quiver and then swung my Stryker over my shoulder and stood up, ready to run from the uncomfortable conversation.
"Would be nice for us to have some alone time again." Beth said as she pushed herself to a stand beside me.
I looked around at our group that had exploded over the past week from two to six.
"Bit hard to be alone with people 'ere." I pointed out.
"You goin' huntin'?'" She asked motioning to my bow.
"Yeh" I replied, wondering why she was asking such a dumb question.
"Think I could come? Get some more training in?"
I actually wanted to be alone. I wanted to think about what was going on with us. But the way she was looking at me made me think she wouldn't take no for an answer, and she did need to get some more training.
As soon as we had got far enough into the woods so that we couldn't be seen by the others, she grabbed me by my shirt and dragged me in for a kiss. I tried not to respond at first, telling myself how wrong it was, but the taste of her and the feel of her against my body made me give in.
It was a hard and messy kiss, filled with all the tension that had built up since that night I had heard her talking with Anton. She was pushing herself into me, grinding up against my thigh and rubbing her hands through my hair. When I felt me dick start to move I dragged the bow in between us and pushed it back on to her.
"Thought you wanted to train?"
She pouted a little, and then took the bow tucking the stock into her arm and holding the grip. She turned around to the woodland behind us and raised the bow peeking through the sight.
"What's for breakfast anyway?" She asked.
I searched around on the leave covered ground and through the thicket of trees and bush for a trail.
Up in the oaks I could see what looked like a nest in one of the cavities of the bole of the tree. Squirrels were fast movers and small targets, but the only thing large and slow around here was walkers, and we couldn't eat them.
"There'll be squirrel around 'ere somewhere." I told her, pointing to the trees.
Beth rested the Stryker on the ground and pulled out a dart from the quiver, she tried nocking it on the bow string and I chuckled at her.
"Wha'?" she whined.
"Didn't I show you this before?"
"You showed me, but I didn't do it myself. I don't remember."
I stepped in behind her and bent over to take the bow. I placed my foot in the stirrup and drew back the bowstring, and latched it into place.
"Now you put the bolt here." I showed her where to place it.
She took the bow back off me and nocked the bolt and then put the stock back to her shoulder, turning her face in to look through the sight.
I tilted her head away a bit and pushed the stock down.
"You gotta be careful of the kickback, don't want no more black eyes." I advised her.
The bruising on her face around her eye was almost gone now, and she would be pissed to have another one so soon.
My cheek was pressed up against hers, guiding her face into position. She turned her face sharply and gave me a peck.
"Concentrate." I growled gently.
"I can't concentrate with you pushing up on me like that." She replied.
I put my finger to my lips telling her to hush and then took a step back from her. I had spotted the Grey, halfway up the tree cleaning its face with its paws. I took my finger from my lips and pointed it up to the branch. She followed it up and then raised the bow ready to fire.
She pulled the trigger and let fly at the squirrel missing it by a couple of inches. The bolt flew past the tree and into the low brush beyond. The squirrel darted away out of sight.
We both went into the brush and began searching around for the bolt, kicking around leaves and sticks and dirt and crawling under bushes. We couldn't see it anywhere.
Rather than waste more bolts which were shit fuck to come by and fucking shit to make, I decided to confiscate the bow, and let her do some tracking. She led the way, and I kept my eye out for animal traps in the leaves.
We came across the trail of a deer. Beth was the one who spotted it, picking up on the fresh droppings and then finding a spot of grass that had been recently munched on, amongst the leaves. I hadn't seen a deer in months and it would have been a nice change from what we had been eating, but a deer could only be taken down with a well-placed bolt, and I was glad I was carrying the crossbow.
I followed Beth along the trail watching her hips sway from side to side. I was sure she was walking that way deliberately. A few times she stopped suddenly, making me walk into her and she would push herself back into me. It was a little annoying, but also a bit of a turn on.
It was pretty nice out here alone together again, seeing her happy and hopeful, and flirting with me again. It made me dare think about us having some kind of happiness together, maybe at this Terminus place. Once we had got up the courage to talk to Maggie about it.
What she said before about really wanting me, might have been true. She had Maggie here now, and all the others to keep her safe. She was probably almost right to take care of herself by now. But she was still here with me shaking her ass at me and driving me crazy.
If she kept it up, I was going to have to forget about that deer and do something to her that her sister wouldn't approve of.
"You best stop wigglin' that ass at me girl, before I throw you up against that there tree and have my way with you." I growled at her playfully.
She looked to the oak I had nodded my head at and began walking over to it, giving her hips wide and exaggerated swings. She braced her hands against it, took a wide stance and pushed her ass out towards me, and glanced back over her shoulder with an inviting look in her eyes.
"You mean this tree?"
AN: Norman said Daryl isn't the type to have a woman up against a tree in the moonlight. But it's daylight now so...