All I Ever Will Be
Chapter 25 - There's More
Author's Note: Again, a huge thank you to you guys for reading, following, favoriting and reviewing! The support has really kept me wanting to keep moving forward on this fic and I'm really excited with where it's taking me! I hope you guys are enjoying reading it as much as I am writing it!
Daryl's head was spinning. "Answers?" he repeated.
Rick nodded. "Guy's name was Watkins. Talks about some airborne disease that they couldn't control or contain. He was afraid before it even started. Months before it started." He took the notebook and tucked it into his back pocket. "Let's take a look around downstairs and see what we find. Maybe there's nothin', but maybe…maybe there's somethin'."
Rick had a sense of hope in his eyes that Daryl had seen before - just before they'd taken the prison. Like maybe this could be something. Maybe it could mean something. Daryl stuffed his hands into his back pockets, pacing a few steps, then turning back, thinking. Answers. What would answers mean? What would they do with it anyhow? Did it even really matter? Did they even want to know? "I'm gonna grab Beth," Daryl said, chewing on his lip. "She'll want to come."
"Sure," Rick said. "Michonne will wanna come too. Carl can watch Judith."
An uncertainty rose inside of Daryl, rattling him. He couldn't quite understand why, but without a further word, Daryl went to find Beth, knowing exactly where she'd be.
Beth was back at the piano, gliding her fingers over the ivory. The house was massive and beautiful, but this was her favorite part about it. The piano was white and glossy, as though it had never been touched - not a scratch on it. Miles different from the piano at the Greene's farm. It had been old and barely standing - an instrument Daddy had as a child. Thinking about it made her heart ache.
She played absentmindedly, her nimble fingers flying over the keys, pushing them by memory. She'd settled on Moonlight Sonata, one of her favorites. It was one of those songs you could only play on the piano - you couldn't sing it. Hauntingly beautiful. She felt Daryl's presence in the doorway and hit the wrong key by accident.
Pulling her fingers back, she looked up at him. His eyes were fixed on her.
"We're going down to the bunker." His voice was steady and deep.
"What for?"
He shrugged and looked away from her.
"What for?" Beth repeated.
"The blueprints," Daryl said. "Had a lot more information than I realized. There's more down there. Gotta check it out."
"More?" Beth pushed him.
Daryl hesitated in the doorway, then released it, coming to sit down with Beth at the piano. "Remember that notebook we found the first day we were up here lookin' around?" he asked, staring down at the keys.
"Yeah," she said, feeling anxious.
"Never read it," Daryl said. "Shoulda took the time to look through it."
"Daryl." She placed her hand flat against his back, gently, knowing it was still tender.
"Rick said it's some sort of journal - from that guy we found. The professor. He was part of the CDC. Got out when things got bad - says he knew about the virus or whatever it was before it ever even happened." He looked up at her then, his long bangs falling into his eyes. "Rick thinks we might find answers about whatever caused all this." He shifted his gaze to the window behind her. "The walkers."
Beth's skin had formed goosebumps as she listened to him. "Answers?" she asked, repeating what he'd said earlier to Rick. "What's that mean?"
"Dunno," Daryl answered. "Not sure Rick does either. But come on and look with us. I need you down there with me."
"Oh Daryl," Beth sighed, letting out a large breath. "I haven't been down there since…"
"I know," Daryl slid his hand around Beth's hip, sliding her easily across then bench so that their bodies met. She smiled a little at him, looking up, their faces close now. "If we go together, won't be so bad." He leant forward slightly, barely touching her lips with his own, as though he was unsure if he should kiss her, so she pressed herself against him, bringing her hands to his shoulders and pulling him towards her.
He tasted like breakfast - sweet from the applesauce. His lips were much softer than the first time she'd kissed him, likely from how well they'd been eating and staying hydrated over the past few weeks. His lips were plump and full of life now, begging to be kissed all the time. And Beth didn't mind, kissing him all the time. He was hers. Her Daryl. He would be hers no matter if they found answers or not.
They stood in the garage. Beth next to Michonne, next to Daryl, next to Rick who was holding the rolled up blueprint under his arm. The bunker door looked smaller than she remembered it. She had struggled to close it the last time she'd climbed out of it and it blended into the floor, the edging barely visible. It was an ingenious design, meant to keep away the living, not the dead.
"C'mon," Daryl said gruffly, reaching for the handle, tugging at it with both hands, his muscles bulging as he pulled. The door came up, thick and heavy, slamming into the concrete floor to reveal a dark hole with a faint light visible at the bottom. He sat on the edge, dipping his legs into the dark abyss, gently letting his body fall. Beth heard him hit the metal frame of the stairs below, his hands still visible at the top. He gestured for the rest of them to come forward.
Michonne went first, sitting on the floor and swinging her legs in, dropping down with Daryl's help. Beth was next, carefully lowering herself in. She felt Daryl's arms, familiar and strong, keeping her legs straight and supporting her back as she jumped down onto the metal frame. Rick came last, landing solidly on the top, rattling it. Beth wasn't sure the stairs were meant to support four people at once, so she started down them quickly.
"Leave it open," she heard Rick say to Daryl, as he hurried down behind her.
They all reached the bottom quickly, facing the open door, supported by the chair that Beth had placed there when Daryl and her had escaped upstairs. She stopped at the doorframe, seeing the large room where they'd been kept when they'd first arrived. It had only been a few weeks, but it felt like a lifetime since she'd been down there, collecting the painkillers for Daryl. She'd done it quickly, rushing to be back with him after she'd finished, partly because she was so afraid of losing him, but also partly because there'd been things down here that she hadn't dealt with.
She clung to the doorframe, both arms on the siding and she felt Michonne and Rick slip past her, in awe of the size of the room. She watched them as they wandered about, feeling Daryl behind her. He wasn't touching her, just close to her.
"You okay?" he asked gently.
She nodded, not sure if she believed her own answer, hating that this was so hard for her. You're a fighter, she reminded herself.
"C'mon then," Daryl said, slipping next to her. She reached out for him, grabbing his wrist and then his hand. He looked at her, concerned, taking her hand in his own, squeezing it so tightly she thought her bones might break. "It's alright," he reassured her. "There's not much to find in this room anyway. Rick said there's other rooms we haven't even seen yet."
She saw Rick in the distance, weaving in and out of the rooms with the metal doors, his hands still holding the massive blueprint. Michonne was investigating the kitchen area behind the pillar, so Beth and Daryl went to sit in the living space.
Once it seemed that they were satisfied with their exploration, Rick sat on one of the couches, Michonne following suit, and spread the blueprint out in front of them. He stared at it, turning his head, trying to make sense of it. As Rick explained their pathway to the next room, Beth's eyes made their way towards the door where she'd been held, tuning him out completely.
The body was still in there, it had to be. She had an odd urge to go and look at it - to see what she'd done for some kind of sick closure. To make it real. She'd killed someone. Killed someone. The thought shot through her heart and raced throughout her body - an unexplained anxiety that she couldn't contain. She felt nauseous and sad, trying to suppress the sudden emotions that had been brought on by being down here again.
"Alright?" Rick said, looking at Beth.
She snapped out of it and nodded. "Yeah," she said, looking at Daryl. He squeezed her hand again.
"Alright," Rick said again, rolling up the blueprint and standing up. "Let's go."
Beth's hand felt frail in his own and she seemed distant and anxious. Daryl was good at reading people, but Beth especially. They'd spent so much time together the past few months, it was hard not to sense what she was feeling. He knew her kill was weighing heavily on her mind, and he'd blamed himself for that. He had yelled at her the other day, bringing it up, needing to make her feel bad because he couldn't figure out his own feelings. He'd wished he could take it back.
He wasn't sure if she was ready to come down here quite yet, but knew she wouldn't want to stay upstairs for something like this. The time down in the bunker had bothered him too. They'd made it out alive, yes, but with a price. They'd almost been killed. Beth had almost been raped. They'd both killed living people, not just walkers. And now, the thought of finding information that might explain what had caused The Turn. Well, it was all very overwhelming, even for Daryl.
Rick was determined though, pushing the wall forward, revealing the hallway outside the hidden door. The lights in the hall flickered on and Rick urged them to follow him.
They were close together now, Rick heading up the line, Michonne behind him, Beth next and finally Daryl. Opening the door was dangerous, Daryl knew - anyone could have wandered into the tunnel since Beth had covered up the entrance in the forest.
The concrete tunnel was quiet though, their footsteps echoing off the walls, making their steps sound louder than they actually were. Rick guided them through a series of turns and Daryl marked their way back with a piece of chalk Rick had found upstairs in a junk drawer.
Finally, Rick stopped in his tracks. He looked to his left and then to his right. "I think this is some kind of storage room," Rick said, pointing to his right. "And this room, is labeled as a lab."
Daryl went to the right first, pushing in the wall, feeling it give way easily. The wall cracked open and the stench of rotting corpses washed over him, making his eyes water and his stomach churn. There was an unmistakable groan of a walker inside and Daryl tensed, reaching for his knife he'd grabbed before they'd started their journey.
The head of a dead man tried to push forward through the small opening that Daryl had made, but the body was too large to fit through. The walker's head banged against the concrete, peeling what little skin it had left away from the cranium. Daryl plunged his knife into the bone, killing it instantly. It fell limp, sliding down the concrete and Daryl pushed into the door again, sliding it open.
The room was dark, so Michonne handed him a flashlight which he clicked on and shone around the small room. The smell of bodies was overwhelming and as Daryl stuck his head in, he saw that the floor was littered with the dead. This must have been where their captors had kept the bodies of everyone they'd killed - rather than dispose of them outside the bunker. Fucking gross.
The light revealed that there were stone shelves, built into the wall, but all of them were bare. "Nothin' in here," Daryl said. taking his head back out, holding back a gag from the smell. Beth and Michonne both had their hands over their noses and mouths, but Rick nodded at him and Daryl closed the door behind him.
Rick went to the door on the left, pushing it with his shoulder a few times before it even started to budge. "Daryl," Rick said and without emphasizing anything, Daryl came beside him to help put some weight into opening it. The door finally gave way, shifting in place, allowing enough space for everyone to pile into the room.
Lights flicked on as they stepped inside, revealing what was clearly a scientific laboratory. The room opened up just as the other one had - large and circular, with a large concrete pillar in the middle, holding up the ceiling above their heads. The other side of the door they had just opened was pure steel with a large locking mechanism. It was almost like they were stepping into a large bank safe. Anyone who came into this room could completely lock themselves in from the inside.
The layout of the room was nearly identical to the other one, except instead of metal doors on the back wall, there were clear, glass ones, that led into different rooms, though they were all shrouded in darkness. There was counter space along the entirety of the walls all filled with different metal faucets, burners, scales, scattered papers and microscopes.
From the ceiling above the counters were cabinets with clear fronts, revealing all sorts of glass beakers, flasks and cylinders inside. It was clearly a space that had been worked in, with papers and journals scattered about the countertops. Around the circular pillar there were all sorts of expensive looking equipment and machinery. Daryl couldn't even take a guess at what they might have been for.
"What are we looking for?" Michonne asked quietly, breaking the silence.
"Anythin' - supplies or food mostly," Rick responded. "The usual."
Well that was something Daryl could do, find supplies. It was something he was good at. Something familiar. He knew Rick was looking for more, but he didn't want to say it out loud. Daryl sensed he hadn't even told Michonne what he'd read in the journal. Maybe he was waiting until he'd read through the whole thing. Or maybe he wasn't trying to worry her.
Beth veered off from Daryl, heading towards a cabinet, dropping his hand. As she let go of him, his shoulders relaxed. He realized he was tensed with her beside him, holding in the emotion he'd felt radiating off of her. He hated seeing her anything other than happy. He internalized all the negative things she felt - pain, anger, hurt. He supposed that's what all of this came with - love. Hurting for someone when they hurt.
He made it to the wall and went to open one of the doors on the far left, the inside coming into view as he came closer. The room was small and square, with a single chair in the middle. There were monitors mounted on the walls, four across and four high, sixteen in all. He opened the door, curious, and a hum met his ears. A light flickered on, and the monitors came to life, different landscapes coming into view.
Movement caught his attention, and he saw a familiar sheriff's hat bouncing across the screen. Carl. He was at the front of the house, pacing up and down the front stairs, Judith tottering nearby in the grass. The wheels turned and Daryl realized the screens must be set up to cameras surrounding the property and the bunker. He switched his focus to another screen, looking at the forest surrounding the house, then to another which showed part of the concrete tunnel.
All of the monitors were working, except one in the middle. It was still black, though on the top, a green light was illuminated next to a small square. Daryl shrugged it off, fascinated by the technology in the small space.
He stuck his head out of the room and yelled, "Hey! C'mere and take a look at this!"
Footsteps came closer towards him as Rick, Michonne and Beth crowded around the door to the room, peering in. Rick's face looked stunned, his eyes taking in the screens, watching Carl and Judith outside. Beth and Michonne both looked mesmerized too. It had been a long time since any of them had seen any sort of television or computer screen working. It felt foreign and unworldly.
And then, the dark, blank screen jumped to life, a woman appearing, her face worried and worn. "Who are you!" she shouted at them. "Who are you and what have you done with Watkins?"