AN: Whoops I'm in Newfoundland (and a lot of you probably don't know where that it). But yea my parents surprised me with a trip to visit my grandma and now I'm all the way across the country my from precious computer. I had saved a daft of the chapter though luckily and at least get to update this fic. It's on my iPad though so it's probably slightly shitty.
It was early in the morning and Daryl was in what could now be considered his usual spot in the train car. Maggie was standing across the car from him, holding the makeshift bandage and talking in hushed voices with Bob. Daryl kept trying to eavesdrop on their discussion. They were after all talking about him.
If he strained his ears enough he got tidbits like:
Maggie whispering, "Well does it look…?"
And Bob replaying, "It's hard to say…"
But other than that he was just staring at their moving lips, unable to read them.
The pair stole a glance in Daryl's direction then went back to their conversation. They were the only ones in the car talking, besides Carl and Michonne. Who were distracting themselves some sort of slapping game and every now and then you'd hear someone call the other a cheater or a teasing comment. It was amazing how inaudible they were able to be.
The rest of the car had been pretty much silent for a long while. Daryl hadn't spoken to Abraham, Rosita or Eugene since the argument about Tara. Eugene had tied to break the silence with facts about dinosaurs and some other biology stuff, but Abraham just cleared his throat and Eugene shut his mouth. There was no other attempt after.
That was two days ago. Which meant that for two days the entire escape plan had come to a complete halt all because neither side wanted to back down. All they were doing was sitting around. The group from the prison talked amongst themselves and Abraham's group whispered to each other.
Daryl wondered if they were planning their own escape plan actually. Not that any of it would work. Scientist Eugene might formulate a plan, but the three would never be able to pull it off. Not with the amount of people there, which Daryl was guessing was at least in the high teens, if not the twenties. They needed everyone in this car and even then some maybe.
Everyone knew that too and could see the affect it was having inside the walls. Rick was the one it was getting to the most though, the idleness of it all. The night before, while everyone was asleep, he tried to reason with Daryl. He said that someone had to be the bigger man if they wanted to get out with as minimal casualties as possible, which was true. Daryl even thought about it while going to sleep himself. Dixons weren't ones to back down, but he had others to think about.
A cease fire is what they needed.
However, when he woke up and chose to take the high road, Maggie swooped in like some bat out of hell and demanded to take a look at his wound. She began putting him in a right foul mood and all thoughts of apologies started trickling out of his head. And it got even worse worse when he actually let her.
Maggie had been unwrapping it, trying to be chatty with him to distract him from the amount of jostling she was putting him through, when her sentence was cut off and her face dropped. She gaped at his arm and Daryl thought she might be sick. Which would have been stupid because she had told him she gutted multiple walkers and finger painted messages to Glenn with their blood. A little gunshot wound shouldn't have sent her across the car with her tail between her legs.
Daryl had asked her what was wrong as soon as she stood up, but she didn't answer and went to go get Bob's opinion instead. Bob was supposed to have been a medic in the army or whatever, but he'd been no help at all since Daryl got shot. He probably didn't want to hurt nobody or have Daryl lose it on him like he had once before at the animal hospital.
Daryl looked down at his arm to make self-assessments, since Maggie and Bob were ignoring his questions. It didn't do him much good though. He had no idea what he was supposed to be looking for though. All he saw was angry skin and streaks of old blood.
He didn't know if it was bad or good. As a child when his father took the belt to him or tossed him around, he'd take to the woods for a couple hours, nurse his wounds in the creek a bit and wait for the old man to pass out. Then he'd go home try to ignore the constant stinging feeling. The wounds healed into scars and he didn't question it or asks for a second opinion.
But that was before the turn. In this world now, he wanted it treated and he wanted it done right. Hershel fixed him up when he got injured on runs, he was the expert. Maggie and Bob had to tell him something or at least know something though.
"Well maybe if…"
"How do you suggest we..?"
Daryl caught another part of their conversation as he looked up from his failed assessment. He listened as hard as he could this time. Sending a look over at Carl and Michonne to keep either noise level to non existent.
"No that's no good…"
"What's no good?" Daryl moved from his spot against the car.
Maggie bit lower lip and lowered her voice even more.
Daryl raised his and asked again, "I said, what's no good?"
Bob actually decided to take notice and opened his mouth to speak to Daryl, but Abraham beat him to it. "You're clearly on the break of a raging infection on your arm. I can tell that from here."
"No one asked you," Daryl grumbled at Abraham.
"Well actually Daryl, he's right."
Daryl turned back to Maggie, "Excuse me?"
"It really needs to be cleaned and sewed up… or it's going to fester."
. . .
Beth stared at her plate and moved the vegetables on it around with her fork. The peas would roll around the edge, then roll on back her way and she'd go on a push it around again. She ignored the other side of the plate completely, not even wanting to think about what was on it. Instead she rested her chin on her hand and continued to devise her and Maggie and Glenn's breakout.
Most of her ideas were being born and centered around Gareth's skeleton key, but kept hitting dead ends the further she got into the thoughts. She'd taken her time to look around Terminus and take in crucial factors like watches or exits. There seemed to be 24 hour watches and one exit, making a few ideas nearly impossible. The one thing they could do would be scale fences, but that was all dependent on how far away the fence was from the train car.
She had yet to come across any train cars yet and wasn't able to exactly sneak away and search. Gareth had decided he'd continue to show her around and he didn't seem to take her near the "food storage". But now having seen much more of Terminus, she had a fair idea of where they had to be located and the proximity of the fence.
"You look different."
Beth looked up from her peas and planning to see Becca sitting down across from her with a plate stacked sky high with meat.
Gareth, who was on Beth's right hand side talking to Cameron, jumped out of his conversation and decided to contribute to Becca's comment. "It's her hair. She's been wearing it up for a few days now. I told her I didn't like it, but she is insist on it."
Beth smiled to herself as she heard the distaste in his voice. She had her pony and braid in since her initiation day and he did not only not like it, but she was pretty sure he hated it. The moment he saw her, his face went all twisted and he told her she should take it out. She felt great hearing that. But it didn't change the fact that he had an infatuation with her. He always had to be touching her. Even now Gareth was sitting with hand possessively on her leg.
"Its fine," Becca waved at his comment and smiled in Beth's direction. "It's just different from our Beth. We've only seen her with it down."
Beth nodded in agreement even though she didn't believe she was their Beth.
Gareth shrugged, "Maybe I guess..."
"Anyway, Beth has Gareth taken you to pick out a weapon yet?" Becca changed the subject and looked around by Beth to see if there was a weapon strapped to her.
"Oh yeah — I was going to take her to after breakfast actually," Gareth said. "She knows how to work a gun already so it won't be that hard."
"Well that's good," Becca nodded, "I'm more of a knife girl myself."
"I did have a knife on me when I got picked up," Beth had been wondering where that had gone since she got there. It was obvious it was taken away but she wanted to know where it was taken exactly.
"You can have that back too, as long as you don't try to cut me with it again," Gareth laughed and stuck his arm out to show the healing cut Beth had made before.
Bet laughed a little and put a sweet smile on her face, "I promise I won't."
. . .
Gareth sat patiently as he waited for Beth to finish eating, not noticing when he wasn't look that she was tossing her meat into the flower bed near them. When he was paying attention she shovelled peas into her mouth, feeling like vegetarian was a good way to go again, and made it look like everything was satisfying. When her plate was empty they got up and started walking to the painting warehouse, where some of the weapons were kept.
Beth let him walk shoulder to shoulder with her, but remained quiet and he talked about which weapons he like to use the most. He was preferential to guns and offered to teach her how to use the bigger ones if she wanted to upgrade from handguns. Beth nodded and smiled and tried not be be utterly creeped out by his excitement.
When they finally got to the warehouse Beth walked quickly through the dark hallway to the painting room and found several people in there. They smiled and nodded at her and went back to their work. But when Gareth walked in they didn't do just that. They straightened up and peered curiously at the two.
"Beth is picking out her weapons today," Gareth announced and a few of them clapped excitedly even.
Beth waited for Gareth to fish the skeleton key out of his pocket and looked around the room at which door might lead to the weapons room. There were threes door that it could be home to. One was a steel door with a big lock on it. The others were just thick wood, possibly broom cupboards.
Beth started heading in the direction of the steel door when Gareth cleared his throat and pointed in the direction of one of the wooden doors. Beth followed and waited for him to open in.
When the door swung open all Beth could really think was that it was in no way a broom cupboard. Gareth switched the light on and revealed a room that was huge and the walls were lined floor to ceiling with different types of weapons.
"Impressive…" Beth said and stepped into the room, already eyeing a 9mm.
"A lot of our guest haven't had a need for their weapons," Gareth picked up one of the guns hanging on the wall, shined it a bit with his shirt and put it back. "Have a good look around."
Beth took that suggestion and wandered a little further in. There were plenty of guns and knives, more than she could probably count. She picked up them up and down and inspected a fair few of them until she was almost on the other side. She managed to spot a knife and sheath that was close, if not actually hers and strapped it around her belt.
She was just about to go back across the room, to grab the 9mm she had been looking at first when something caught her eye. Unlike everything else in the room, it wasn't hung up nicely. It was thrown in the corner of the room without care. Beth walked towards it and looked over her shoulder at Gareth.
"What's this?" Beth asked, even though she knew exactly what it was and who it belonged to.
AN: It feels good to update after such a long while. It's like almost 3 am here but I just felt the need. If I have access to a computer and a little more wifi I'll update again, otherwise I'm not home until Saturday so keep a weather eye out.