Autumn seemed to happen over night. Though the days had been getting shorter, night falling earlier and earlier, the Georgia air had remained warm – at times, unpleasantly hot – but when the sun rose on the little white church it found frost on the grass.
The exhausted survivors were slowly to wake and it was after ten o'clock by Rick's watch before they began divvying up tasks for the day.
Abraham had found a church bus in the lot behind the building. There was some damage to the engine, but he was confidant that it could be repaired with help from Rosita and Eugene. Rick would take Michonne, Gabriel, Sasha and Bob to the food bank, and Tara, Glenn, and Maggie would go with them to town to search the other buildings. Daryl wanted to hunt, Carol volunteering to go with him, and Tyreese offered to stay and take care of Judith.
Beth couldn't help but notice that once again, she was relegated to staying back and being cared for with Judith and Carl.
The morning crawled by for her. She played with Judith, reading to her from some Sunday School books she found in the Church office, and tried to ignore the feeling of uselessness and exclusion that hung over her. By early afternoon, Judith was rubbing her eyes and yawning, and as Beth settled the baby into a basked they were using as a crib she began to look around for something to do.
She could hear Abraham and his crew working on the bus outside; Eugene's somewhat pedantic explanations and corrections punctuated by Abraham's colorful swears. Tyreese and Carl were sitting on the front steps of the church, tying tin cans on to a length of twine to set up a walker alarm. None of them needed help from her. She sighed, glancing around the sunlit sanctuary until her eye fell upon two empty 2 liter jugs.
"Where are you going?" Carl called after her as she carefully edged around him on the Church steps.
"To get some more water!" She called back. Her pack, which had been among the supplies they had buried in the woods outside Terminus, held both jugs neatly.
"You shouldn't go alone," Carl jumped up and sprinted to catch up with her. "Tyreese, I'm going with her – okay?"
"I'll be fine, Carl. Really."
"But you don't even know where the stream is!" His pale face looked sharp and serious beneath the wide brim of Rick's sheriff hat.
"I know it's this way, and Father Gabriel said you couldn't miss it," She knew he was right, and that going alone was reckless and unnecessary, but it only made her feel more useless to be escorted by a boy four years younger than her.
"I don't care. My dad said we shouldn't go anywhere alone." His determined tone made it clear he wouldn't yield.
They walked in silence through the red and brown forest, the leaves crinkling under their feet. It wasn't long before they came to the small stream and, crouching down and swinging her pack from her shoulder, Beth began to fill the bottles under Carl's alert watch.
She had placed one jug back in her pack - Carl gallantly offered to carry the other – when the sound of crunching leaves made them both turn.
Daryl was striding towards them, a few squirrel carcasses hanging from a rope around his neck. He grunted by way of greeting.
"Good hunt?" She asked as he fell in step with the two of them.
" 'S alright. Cold weather's gonna make it harder to find meat."
"Where's Carol?' Carl asked. Daryl froze and and color drained from his face.
"She ain't back at the church?"
Beth and Carl exchanged quick glances.
"We haven't seen her all morning."
"Shit!" Daryl swore, turning suddenly and running in the opposite direction.
"Daryl, wait!" Beth called after him, striving to catch up with the added weight of the full water jug on her back. Carl was at her heels.
Panting hard, arms lifted to push branches away from his face, Daryl tore through the forest before breaking out onto a dirt road. Beth stopped short behind him, hands on her knees, wheezing.
There was an old gray sedan parked on the shoulder. Daryl was leaning over the driver's seat, testing the ignition, but the engine wouldn't turn.
"What...the hell...is going on?" Carl asked through ragged breathes.
"We found this car last night when we went for water. Shoulda known she was gonna run!" He slammed the car door shut with one swing of his arm. Beth could feel the anger and frustration emanating from him. He was pacing now, studying the ground around the car. He put her in mind of a hound dog, sniffing for the trail of a scent.
"This is her," he said more to himself than anything, settling upon a set of boot prints that led away from the car and down the dirt road. Without warning he set off running again, eyes fixed on the ground below him.
"I'm going with him!" Beth straightened up. Before she could start off, Carl grabbed her arm.
"Wait, my Dad - "
"We'll be back soon, she can't have had much of a head start! Just tell them what happened!" She broke his grip and ran after Daryl, leaving Carl alone and calling after them both.
The couldn't sustain the run for long, and soon Carol's tracks veered from the dirt road back into the forest. It was harder for Daryl to follow here, and they had to pause occasionally for him to study the ground. The shadows were growing long behind them and a gnawing dread had begun to settle in the pit of Beth's stomach.
She had thought they would catch Carol by now. The woman could only have a couple of hours on them, and they were walking at such a brisk pace. But now, even if they did find her, it would be dark long before they could make it back to the church. Her dread only intensified when she thought of Maggie, who must be back from her run and worried sick.
Daryl had spoken only to give directions or voice his findings - "she turned her", "go left", "watch that branch". The woods were quiet, aside from a couple of walkers that stumbled at them and were quickly put down. Beth's shoulders ached from the weight of the water in her pack, but she didn't complain.
They seemed to have walked in to a state park. She saw trail markers every so often and even a sign describing the local wildlife obscured beneath years of grime. Now, they were coming up on what looked like a picnic shelter.
It was a simple rectangular building with two large archways on two sides. Inside were three rows of picnic tables. A couple of outdoor grills were stationed outside the shelter.
Beth paused and studied the shelter, unsure how to proceed. She knew that he wouldn't want to stop until they found Carol, but she didn't want to pass up shelter for the night.
"C'mon," He said to her, turning to see why she'd stopped.
"Daryl...you can't track in the dark. And she has to stop for the night soon, anyway. Come on. Let's just stay here tonight." She looked pleadingly into this his eyes, anticipating a fight. He didn't reply, but kept walking.
"If you lose the trail you'll only give her a bigger lead." She called to his retreating back, swinging the pack from her shoulders and letting it fall with a thunk. "We'll start again as soon as it's light, okay?" And without waiting for a response, she pulled her knife out of the holster on her hip and went into the little shelter.
Leaves and pine needles had gathered and decayed on the cement floor, creating a slimy mulch beneath her boots. She surveyed the little shelter, and, seeing no walkers or piles of leaves big enough to conceal one, re-holstered her knife. She heard him sigh and follow her into the shelter.
They had developed a routine after they escaped the prison together and they fell silently back into that rhythm now. Beth used a branch to clear the fallen leaves from one of the little grills and rebuilt a little fire underneath the grate. Daryl, meanwhile, sat at one of the picnic tables, carefully skinning and gutting the squirrels he had caught earlier.
As their dinner cooked, Daryl and Beth turned the picnic tables on their sides and moved them to block the archways of the picnic shelter., leaving a narrow gap to allow them in an out. Soon the squirrel skins were crackling and brown and the two sat leaning against the wall of the shelter eating as night fell.
He hadn't spoken to her since they had stopped for the night. A week ago, she would have interpreted his silence as annoyance. Now she knew he was simply lost in his own thoughts, concerned for his missing loved one.
"You're awful stuck-up, Daryl Dixon," she said gently, picking at the squirrel carcass in front of her. He shot her a questioning look from beneath his bangs and slowly chewed his own meal.
"You always make everything about you. It's not your fault,".
"I shoulda known she was gonna run,". He said after a pause.
"Why is she running anyway?" Beth had been asking herself this question all morning, but had been afraid to break Daryl's concentration. He studied his hands before answering, as if deciding how much to tell her.
"Carol will do anything to protect us. She does the stuff no one else wants to. That get's too tough, after a while."
"But what – oh." Beth recalled that Carol hadn't been in the prison the day it fell and something she had almost forgotten fell into place. "Karen and David?"
"How'd you know about that?" He asked quickly.
"I overheard Daddy and Rick talking." She pondered this new information – that Carol had killed two of their own, ostensibly to save the rest of them. She understood where Carol had been coming from, but she still wasn't sure she thought it was okay.
"Carol kind of said the same thing about you once," she said suddenly as another memory surfaced. "Well, not really the same but – she said you live by a code. And that you can't stand to lose anyone. And she's like that too, I guess. She has a code she live by, even if she doesn't always want to to do it." He only nodded in response and fell to eating more vigorously.
The little fire they had cooked by died quickly without their encouragement. The sun was gone, taking it's warmth with it. Beth and Daryl slid single file in to the picnic shelter and Daryl moved the picnic table to close the gap and seal them in for the night. He had always taken first watch after they escaped the prison, and they both assumed the old order would be followed. He sat in the corner of the shelter, knees bent, arms across his chest, hands tucked into the warmth of his underarms.
Beth had kicked clear a little space on the floor, and, wrapping herself in the blue quilt from her pack, she tried to get comfortable on the cold cement. A chattering breath from Daryl reminded her that he had only his flannel shirt to keep him warm.
"You're freezing!" She sat up and glanced at him.
"It's nothing," he shrugged.
"Daryl, don't be stupid,", and rising, she went over to sit beside him, throwing half of the blanket over his legs.
As they made contact- her entire right side aligning with his left – she felt him stiffen. Beth rolled her eyes in the dark. He was so like her Dad's old mare, Nelly. One day Nelly might nuzzle you, nip affectionately at your clothes, and the next she'd recoil if you tried to pet her neck.
Carefully, Beth adjusted the quilt so that it was tucked beneath her and behind her back, sealing her in from the neck down. After a tense moment, Daryl jerkily uncrossed his arms and did the same to his side.
They were pressed together at the hip, legs bent, her knee ending along his mid thigh. Her head came just up to the top of his shoulder. His left arm was wedged between them, and she wished he would just move it around her shoulder so that they could be closer – for the body warmth, of course, she told herself. Slowly, he began to relax, but when she glanced up at his face she noticed he was carefully looking anywhere but her direction.
"What are you going to say when we find her?" She asked softly, hoping to distract him from his own embarrassment.
"I dunno,".
And she understood that he wasn't be dismissive; Daryl genuinely had no idea.
He woke at the first gray rays of light, blinking confusedly in the chilly air. His left arm ached from being held straight at his side all night. Looking down, he could only see the top of Beth's blonde head. She had burrowed down deeper under the quilt, her face now resting against his chest.
He had fallen asleep on watch. Shit. How had he let this happen? The last thing he could remember was listening to the wind rattling the leaves and her slow, quiet breathing. He knew he was getting tired, knew he should wake her, but she had been so peaceful and warm and he wanted to put it off just..a little...longer...
Reckless, he chastised himself, hitting his head hard against the wall behind him. Stupid. We're lucky a walker didn't come up on us. He jostled his shoulder to wake her, calling her name.
Beth inhaled sharply and slowly raised her head. Something in her confused, drowsy eyes tugged at his chest. She looked so sweet, so unconcerned.
"Why didn't you wake me up for my watch?" She asked groggily, leaning away from him and stretching her arms up.
"Fell asleep," he said a little bitterly. "I gotta piss,", and moving quickly away from her, he slid back one of the picnic tables and slipped out of the shelter.
The chilly air hit her like a slap across the face as he moved away. Shivering, she quickly repacked the quilt and followed him.
The sight of his back, legs slightly spread, arms in front of him as he emptied his bladder made her blush a little. She hadn't expected him to be right there. Wordlessly, she went in the opposite direction to take care of her own needs, squatting behind a wide oak trunk.
The memory of what had happened last time she left him to go pee by herself was sharp in her mind, and, as she balanced with one hand on the tree trunk, she couldn't help but look around nervously. Re-buttoning her jeans, Beth stood up and surveyed the morning around her. The sky was clear – she hoped it would remain so – and the rising sun was beginning to warm the air. Beth couldn't help but wonder how long they would keep the search for Carol up. What if she had found a car and they lost her trail? At what point would Daryl call it quits? And would they be able to find their way back to the church? Her stomach dropped again at the thought of Maggie. Lost in her thoughts, she didn't hear the footsteps behind her until a large hand fell on her shoulder.
Shrieking, Beth spun around and her small fist made contact with Daryl's mouth. He staggered back, his teeth biting into his lip and drawing blood.
"Oh no! I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry!"She apologized profusely shaking her smarting hand.
"The hell was that for?!" He rolled his shoulder against his mouth, wiping away the trickle of blood.
"I...thought you were a walker," Beth lied quickly. She didn't want him to know she had been thinking about the night at the campsite.
"You were gonna punch a walker?"
"It was a reflex," she said meekly. "Are you okay?" He took in her appearance – her hand, still shaking to dull the pain of hitting him, her furrowed brows, her teeth biting her own lower lip in concern – and laughed a little.
"I'll live. C'mon. Her trail goes this way."
His mood had improved since the day before. He seemed more sure that they were following the right trail, and more confidant that they would soon catch up. To her surprise, he broke the silence not long after that had begun walking.
"We could keep doing what we were doing, ya know,".
She looked up at him confused. His face flushed a little and he looked away, tossing his hair from his eyes.
"I mean before the funeral home. You learnin' to track and shit. I could keep teachin' you things, if you want."
"Oh," she said, comprehension dawning, "Oh! Yea, I would like that. What else could you teach me?"
"How to throw a decent punch for one," he shot her a sidelong long, and she couldn't help but giggle. "But also how to hunt. How to gut and skin what you catch. Just...anything," and he gave a noncommittal sort of shrug.
"Yea, that...I'd like that," she said again a little shyly, and the fell back into silence.
The trees were beginning to thin now. The trail they were on ran parallel a paved road, and Beth wondered again what they would do if Carol had come across a working car. Daryl was moving at an increasing pace, and she was certain they were moments from finding her.
The unmistakable slamming of a car door broke the morning calm. Daryl shed his pack in one quick motion and began running at full speed in the direction of the sound. Branches tore at his arms as he pelted through the trees, and, breaking suddenly unto the clear road, he crashed into the driver's side door of a gold pickup truck.
Carol was seated behind the wheel, and she jumped at the sudden collision. Before she could react, he was darting in front of the truck, his hands keeping contact with the grill. Deftly, he opened the passenger door and swung himself inside.
Carol was still frozen in the act of turning the key. She turned to him, her jaw clenched in a mixture of frustration and wariness.
"What are you doing here?" She asked him.
"I was gonna ask you the same thing."
"I couldn't stay," her hand dropped from the ignition, and her gray eyes turned to search the road in front of her. "Not after the prison. Not after... you have no idea what happened. With Tyreese and...the girls."
"I don't need to know. It's done." His eyes sought hers, and she hesitantly turned to meet them. She took in his face – his eye still purple from the attack outside Terminus, a fresh cut on his lip, but a gravity and assurance in his face that was new to her.
"We've all done things we ain't proud of...things we don't want anyone to know. Doesn't matter anymore. We get a fresh start."
"It isn't that easy," her eyes misted slightly as she shook her head.
"It ain't easy, but it's true."
In the rear view mirror he saw Beth break into the road behind them, both their packs on her shoulders.
"She came with you?" Carol asked.
"Yea,"
"Interesting choice," Carol raised her eyebrows. They watched as the thin girl stood up and shrugged off the packs. Unsheathing the knife at her hip, she turned and walked purposefully back towards the treeline. Daryl could see now a lone walker stumbling towards her, graying arms swinging. She move decisively, thrusting her knife upward and halting the walker in his tracks.
"She's tougher than you'd think," Daryl smiled a little and rubbed his chin, before turning back to Carol.
"You wanna go, you wanna leave the group, I'm going with you." He promised, and she knew he wouldn't back down. "But we gotta get Beth back to the others. We can gather supplies, too. And if you still wanna go, we'll go."
Carol nodded once in reluctant agreement as Beth, opening the back door, climbed into the seat behind them.
"There's a map in my bag," Carol said, gesturing towards her pack in the backseat. "See if you can find a way back towards the church," and, swinging the car around, they headed back the way they came.