A/N: Hiii Bethylers! Sorry the updates have been so sporadic, I am working full time, beginning my EMT certifications and prepping to take the MCAT so I have been swamped! However, this story is still on my mind all the time and I have BIG plans for it and I am excited to keep going. So if you stick with me, I promise it will be entertaining. (:
Thank you to everyone who reads and favorites and follows. Particularly for those who are sticking with my story! I love y'all! Extra shout out goes to those who review: Agni, hossfan, monicadixon, Mourisan, draegon-fire, Fuzzysocks2813, DarylDixon'sLover, Lily18AC, Avaleigh1, AutumnPriestess, Buffygurl077, Reignashii, mrskaz453, ReedusRocks and guests. Seriously, every single review is like fuel to me!
Companion song: "I Will Follow You" by Rivvers
Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.
Only a few more days until the real show is FINALLY back on but for now, I have a nice LONG chapter! Enjoy!
/
Chapter 25: Flag
Six fucking days.
It had been six days since she left Alexandria. And Morgan was infuriating him. Well, to be fair, everything was infuriating him.
"She's fine, Daryl," Morgan said casually over a bowl of cereal.
"You've been sayin' that for days but you can't possibly know that," Daryl almost shouted as he gripped the marble countertop. He was happy that nothing was sitting on the counter in front of him, because he probably would have chucked it arcoss the room. "She didn't take a damn radio, and you said she'd only be gone for one day but it's been six."
"She's safe," the elderly man insisted again, still irritatingly calm.
"I never should've listened to you! You stopped me from trackin' her down the first day, and then that storm came. Now there's not going to be any signs of her left out there to fucking follow!"
Michonne stood in the hallway, making no attempt to conceal the fact that she was staring at the two grown men arguing. He knew that she was trying to stay out of the fight, she was just there to make sure things didn't get out of hand, but she was going to get dragged into it now. No free shows for her.
"What do you think of this?" he said glaring at her.
"Beth's strong. Stronger than any of us, living behind the walls for two years," Michonne almost laughed.
Maggie and Glenn walked in the front door, along with Rick and Judith. They were in the middle of a conversation but stopped immediately when they looked at Daryl's face. He wondered what he looked like to make everyone fall silent immediately.
"Go upstairs and find your book, honey," Rick said to Judith. "What's going on in here?" he asked, turning on his law-enforcement-voice once the little girl was upstairs.
"Everything is fine, Rick." Morgan said reassuringly.
Rick doesn't take his eyes off of Daryl though and Daryl responds, "Everything is not fine. The two of you stopped me from goin' after Beth last week and after that storm last night, I'll never be able to track her."
"I'm sorry Daryl, it was a bad call. But Morgan says she's fine. She's got a lot of experience out there," Rick's face drooped into a bored expression. Like he was already sick of this conversation. Daryl had talked to him about it more than once during the last week, but his flippant attitude pissed Daryl off.
"What about you?" he shot at Maggie. Her hands wrapped protectively over her stomach when his rage was directed towards her.
"If Morgan says she's fine, then I'm sure it's true," Glenn interrupted, trying to take the attention off of his wife.
"Even if we wanted to go after her, there's not gonna be any trail left. Can't do anything but wait for her," Maggie spoke up too, not willing to just hide behind Glenn.
"Typical," Daryl snorted. This was exactly like last time Beth was gone. Maggie wrote her off last time and Beth got killed. All of them were doing the same thing now. Just leaving her behind, alone.
Rick was his one hope. The one person who might go out on a limb for him, he went out searching for Lori and Carl without a prayer, so he could understand Daryl's need to go out on a ridiculous search for Beth. "I gotta find her, I can't leave her out there…alone… again."
He fell silent. He couldn't believe that he just said that in front of a room full of people. Even though they all knew how he felt, he never thought he would actually say it out loud.
None of them spoke. The house was full of a silence so thorough that it felt as if there was an overwhelming crowd pressing in on them.
Finally, Morgan stood up, leaving his cereal bowl on the table and grabbing his stick on the way to the front door, "Come with me Daryl."
He hesitated for a moment, but he trailed after Morgan just to get the hell out of the house with everyone staring at him. As he walked next to the man, not saying anything, he began cooling down, his anger and embarrassment fading slightly with each step out in the morning light.
The night of the funeral, Beth had walked out of the house after Angela played the piano. He knew she went home because when he followed behind her a few minutes later. She was in the shower, he could hear the water running, so he sat on his bed to wait for her to come out and get dressed to see if she remembered anything from the song. He fell asleep waiting. And the next morning, she was gone. Apparently, she'd woken Morgan up and explained to him that she was leaving for an undetermined amount of time. She took weapons from the armory and Lucky was with her, but she didn't say where she was going or why. But now that Morgan was taking him somewhere, he thought maybe the man lied. Perhaps she did tell Morgan more than he shared with them initially.
They walked until they reached the western most building in Alexandria. It's just an empty house; no one likes living along the west wall because walkers tend to come from that direction so you can always hear the growls. The house is unlocked of course, and they don't say a word as they climb all three flights to the attic, and then out of the attic to the roof. Morgan climbs to the top, grasping onto the chimney for support since they are at the top of the slopped roof. Out of his top jacket pocket, Morgan pulls a small cylindrical tube. Upon closer inspection, Daryl realizes that it is one eyepiece of a binocular, the other part must've broken off. Nothing in this world was whole anymore.
Morgan peered through the eyepiece, making adjustments to the little knob on the side. "There," he finally said, pointing out into the wilderness.
He passed the eyepiece to Daryl and then instructed him on where to point it, "Two clicks North of the tallest tree along the horizon… do you see it?"
Daryl looked but couldn't tell what the old man was talking about, "Why don't you tell me what I'm supposed to be lookin' for exactly?"
"The green flag."
And then he saw it. The flag was small and somewhat triangular. It was a green that melded in with the tops of the trees, and the shape made it innocuous too. The entire thing blended in with the forest so well, that even with his trained hunter's eye he didn't think he would have seen it if Morgan hadn't pointed it out.
"She always keeps it with her. We have a routine. Did this all the time when we were out there alone. If we got separated, by a heard or by bad weather, we put our flags up to signal that we're okay," Morgan seemed pleased with himself for this idea but Daryl saw a big flaw.
"But if she put it up six days ago, how do you know nothing happened to her between now and then?" he accused.
"Beth puts it up every morning at dawn and takes it down every night. That way I know she's okay since she can get to it twice a day." This made Daryl feel slightly better. "It was Beth's idea actually. I know it's not perfect. But she needed a brake from this… place. She doesn't remember a time like this, with cities and neighbors and school. This isn't normal for her, it's all as foreign to her as the outside world is to the rest of these people."
Daryl nodded, he knew all of these things. He could figure as much, but it was comforting to hear someone else confirm how Beth was feeling.
"You can keep that until she gets back," Morgan said motioning towards the eyepiece still in Daryl's grasp. "Look out for her."
Morgan started back towards the window to the attic, and Daryl barely pushed out a grunted, "Thanks" before the man disappeared back into the abandoned house.
/
He walked along the quiet street with silent footfalls. The gray light of morning was just beginning to penetrate the air. Everything was cast in monotone colors, drowned out by the colorless nature of the pre-dawn.
When he clamored on top of the roof, he pulled out the binoculars and began searching for the flag. It was not up yet, but the sun was still several minutes from rising. Which was actually what he was hoping for. He kept missing her, arriving after Beth had already put the flag up or taken it down. She was safe, the flag told him as much. However, Daryl was hoping that by getting there early today he might actually be able to catch a glimpse of her climbing up the tree to tie the flag in it's safe spot.
But he waited.
And waited.
The sun came up behind him, tinting the whole world in the yellow shine. But now, it had been ten minutes after sunrise and the flag still was not up. His back had begun sweating from the heat of the sun hitting it. The eyepiece was pressed so hard into his face that there was a deep ring cut into his skin.
Time clicked by. However, when it was thirty minutes passed sunrise, he knew something must be wrong.
Beth had been gone for thirteen days and the flag was always up at sunrise.
He scrambled back through the window and his feet pounded on the pavement as he raced back to the house. The front door flew all the way open, slamming against the wall as he banged inside. "Rick! Michonne! Morgan!" he bellowed up the stairs.
Morgan came in first from the living room, already dressed and looking like he'd been awake for hours. Michonne and Rick were next, weapons in hand despite their half-dressed state.
"What happened? Is it the wall?" Rick was already headed outside while still latching his belt.
"Beth's hurt. The flag isn't up. I'm goin' out to find her." Rick actually looked relieved for a moment, happy that it wasn't the precious walls that were failing. Daryl looked expectantly at them. Waiting for them to do something, start a search party, pack some bags, anything. Morgan tore the binoculars out of Daryl's hand and raced out of the open front door. He'd never seen the old man move so quickly.
"Alright, we'll go out and get her. Let's get some food and weapons and then Abe and Glenn can get a truck," Rick said.
"I'm going out now. I can't wait for everyone else," Daryl padded upstairs and grabbed his backpack that he always kept packed with the essentials.
His crossbow was already on his back and there was a gun in his bag, but he decided to stop at the armory and grab an extra box of bullets. Michonne reached out, holding his arm for one moment, "Don't go out there alone. It's stupid and reckless. Just wait until we get everyone together."
"I won't sit behind and do nothing. Not again," he ripped his arm out of her grasp. "Morgan knows where to go, I'll get a head start and leave you signs from her tree."
When the front gate to Alexandria opened, his motorcycle roared beneath him like a wild animal and he took off. In the one rearview mirror he had remaining on his handlebars, he saw Isobel close the gate behind him. After a few miles though, he screeched to a halt. The air smelled fowl. It was sour and decaying so badly it would have made him throw up if he hadn't become so accustomed to the smell during the years since the world ended. Walkers were close. It had to be a huge group if he could smell them without being able hear them yet.
"Shit!" he cursed aloud.
He should go back to warn the city that a herd was on the way. But Beth was out there alone, who knows if she had been hurt last night. It might have been more than 15 hours at this point. Could she be bleeding out? Could she have been captured? What if she'd been caught in the herd that was making their way towards the town now? But if there were walkers coming, the city needed to prepare. Isobel was on the wall today and she was notorious for missing things because she brought old magazines and books up to the wall. She was even caught painting her damn nails while she was on watch.
"Shit!" He shouted even louder as he turned his bike around and began flying back down the road at over 100 miles per hour.
He got to the wall, shouted at Isobel to open it and rode on his bike straight over to the garage. As expected, Rick, Abe, Morgan, Michonne, Glenn and Maggie were all packing a car and pouring over a map.
"Herd's coming!" He shouted at his family over the continued grumble of his bike.
"Where?" Rick yelled back.
"Smelled 'em 5 miles west of the wall. Didn't see them yet so I don't know how many there are. But the stench makes me think it's an even bigger group than the one from the canyon."
"Glenn! Get the shooters together," Rick ordered. Glenn tossed the bag he'd been holding into the truck bed and sprinted off towards the houses of the eight sharp shooters that they put on the wall in emergencies.
"Go get Beth and then come back. We'll need you both," Rick said with a nod to Daryl.
Daryl didn't need to be told twice. He would have gone no matter what Rick said, but it was nice to have his best friend's blessing. So for the second time, he rode out of Alexandria. This time, no one was coming for back up. And he was leaving the rest of his family to fend for themselves against a huge hoard of undead monsters. While he flew down the highway, he let himself wonder where this herd came from. It had been more than a year since there was a large group of walkers this way. Even out on runs, they hadn't seen more than a couple dozen at a time. Now, in the last two weeks this would be the second group of over a hundred in the nearby area—first at the hospital now outside the city. Were they migrating across the country? Was it just a coincidence that all these walkers were in the area right now? Or was there a connection between the two herds?
The street had more obstacles in it as he got farther away from Alexandria, and to get to where Beth had been he had to take back roads he'd never been on before. There was a large congregation of destroyed cars next to mile marker 194 and he was fairly close to Beth's tree, he guessed it would only be a few miles off the road. So he turned the bike off and leaned it all the way on it's side—the side with the already broken mirror— and scattered some of the trash and broken glass from a nearby car over the bike. Making it look like just another abandoned vehicle.
With his crossbow in his hand and the pack on his shoulder, he started into the forest.
It had been close to an hour of walking until he found the tree where Beth had been tying the flag. The flag was ripped and dirty a few yards away under a bush. He picked it up and shoved it in his pack. This was not a good sign, but the most worrying part was the slew of footprints around the tree. Daryl counted at least nine different sets. They all took off in the same direction, further away from the road and Alexandria, so Daryl followed them. After a half mile he found one dead walker and after another quarter mile he found yet another body. They were both shot through the head, the person wasn't the best shot, because it took three bullets to hit their mark. He knew it couldn't be Beth. The remaining footprints were all human, which was clear from the regularity of the gait.
He started running now.
Daryl knew it was louder and would make him less alert to his surroundings. But he needed to get to Beth. Five people were going after her. Their footprints were almost on top of each other, telling him that they were following her path. He was actually relieved to see three walkers feeding on a man after running for another ten minutes. The walkers had come from the side, probably drawn in by the noise of the people he was now following or maybe they were drawn by the smell of fresh blood, the corpse was mangled and torn to pieces at this point so it was impossible to tell how the guy died. Before the walkers could even look up from their meal, Daryl had slashed his knife through their skulls. He didn't want to have to worry about them on the journey with Beth back through the forest.
And even though the signs were grim—four against one—he refused to believe that Beth died.
After almost another full hour of half-jogging, half-walking through the woods, he came to a spot with several unusual footprints. It looks as if the people had stopped here. The footprints showed that three people stood in a circle, maybe one had been pacing. Then, the triad headed off towards the North. Initially, he couldn't find any other footprints. And his heart sank into his stomach in fear. What if these men—Daryl felt certain they were men based on the tread and weight of the prints—had picked Beth up and carried her away? There had been 5 people coming into the small meadow, but only 3 sets of prints left.
He forced himself to slow down and look more carefully. Daryl made concentric circles, getting larger and larger around the meadow. And eventually, after several frustrating heart-racing minutes, he found what he had been looking for.
A small boot print.
It was Beth's and it was only part of a print. From the markings it looks like she had used a branch to soften the effect of her footprints behind her.
He found himself almost smiling.
She was covering her tracks.
Beth must have gotten far enough ahead of the group that they couldn't see her, so she grabbed what she could and hid her trail. This must have been why the men had stopped to confer. Her plan worked because the men had gone in the completely wrong direction.
But there was one piece of the puzzle he still couldn't figure out. There was one set of footprints missing. Where did the fourth man go that had been following Beth? There hadn't been any other bodies so he must still be alive. And his footprints clearly lead into the meadow, and then disappeared same as Beth's.
However, he didn't have time to think it through and followed her trail further into the woods.
If Rick, Morgan and others had been coming he would have had to leave a more obvious trail for them to follow him, but since they were preoccupied at Alexandria he kept his tread light.
Daryl was forced to slow down in order to focus on the small signs of Beth's trail since her footprints were obscured now. Eventually, he came across a small stream. He guessed at a direction and chose downstream. Several yards downstream he found two sets of footprints at the edge of the water. One of them was Beth's set. The other set was big—too big for a woman—but they weren't heavy enough to be a large man. Then he saw the blood.
It was fresh, still slightly red, and there was a smear across one of the rocks at the edge of the water. It looked like someone had hastily tried to wipe the blood off and just hadn't gotten all of it. When he moved the rock aside, he saw there was a lot more blood underneath it. The river was at a low point but with the clouds that were now swelling in the sky, it was clear it would rain soon, fill the river and wash everything away. Just in case the other men caught up to them, he pushed the bloody rock into the stream and got an even bigger one to cover the puddle.
Beth had clearly been here. She'd been smart enough to keep footprints and evidence near the creek bed where it would be cleared away. But she was bleeding, heavily. He wondered how much further ahead of him she could be. She must've been moving exceptionally quick despite her injury.
Where did she go next?
There weren't any footprints and Daryl figured she was smart enough to walk in the water so no tracks were left behind. But did she go upstream, towards the East, or downstream, towards the West?
He took a guess and started walking against the flow. It would be harder this way but this direction but he just had a hunch. After walking for about a mile, he finally caught something. A paw print.
Lucky. He thought with a sigh of relief. If Lucky was nearby, that meant Beth had to be close too.
So he set off at a run following Lucky's trail. Beth must have taken a different way but since the other men likely didn't know she had a dog, they wouldn't follow this trail. Just out of hearing range of the creek, he heard a twig snap to his right. He froze and lifted his crossbow in that direction. But when he saw black fur and a wagging tail coming his way he dropped his arms. Lucky bound out of the trees and stood on his hind legs briefly out of excitement.
Daryl reached a hand down and scratched his ears, "Happy to see ya too, Luck. Now where's Beth?"
His ears perked up at Beth's name and then he turned and shot through the trees. The hunter ran after him as fast as he could and he realized how out of shape he'd become during his time living in Alexandria because it was only a few minutes before he was winded and had a side cramp trying to keep up with the dog.
Happily, the dog came to a stop soon after that. Then, underneath a large tree, surrounded by shrubs. He saw her.
Beth was on her knees, covered in blood.
In a second, he inspected her injuries from afar. She was in a small tank top again, that at one time had been green. Now it was covered in mud, sweat and blood. A t-shirt, completely soaked red in blood, was tied around her rib cage. There were scrapes all over her, shoulders, neck, arms, and there were a number of rips in her jeans. However most of the blood on her didn't appear to be hers.
She was kneeling over a young boy that was about 15. He was easily as tall as Daryl but probably didn't weigh much more than Beth herself. The kid was mostly bones. But blood was spurting from a stump that was his left arm. Beth had made a tourniquet out a jacket and a stick, but the blood was still coming.
"Ya gonna stand there and stare or are you gonna help me cauterize this?" she barked at him without even turning around.
He didn't know how she realized he was there, but it didn't matter right now.
"It'll take too long for a fire to get hot enough," he replied but he began gathering sticks and underbrush anyway.
"No. Pull a bullet apart and get out your lighter, we're gonna use the gunpowder."
"Mark," she said to the boy, whose face was so pale it looked as if he was already straddling the line between life and death. "Bite this and stay quiet. It's gonna hurt like hell." Beth stuck a large stick in his jaw and Mark dutifully obeyed without opening his eyes.
Daryl's fingers fumbled with a bullet from the box he'd taken from the armory this morning but he eventually pried it open with his knife. Beth laid Mark on his side and Daryl carefully poured the gunpowder over the open wound. She soaked her last piece of fabric in water from her bottle while he did that. Then he handed Beth his Zippo from his front pocket and moved to hold the boy still. Daryl watched as the small woman in front of him took a big breath in, steadying herself. And then, she lit the powder on fire.
After only a moment that felt like an eternity watching this kid's arm burn, she staunched the flame with the damp shirt in her hands. The boy's jaw clench and then, it went slack along with every muscle in his body.
Daryl reached over and felt his neck, finding a faint pulse he confirmed, "He just passed out from the pain."
Finally, for the first time, Beth looked up and her blue eyes met his.
She looked exhausted and disheveled, but it wasn't like he had ever seen her before. Beth was tired and clearly in pain, but there was something missing in her expression. Daryl couldn't place it and right now, he didn't care.
"Let's see that wound," he said nodding at the bleed on her abdomen. She looked down in surprise, as if she'd forgotten it was there. She untied her own makeshift bandage and lifted her shirt. The cut was deep, going through all the layers of the skin, but it was just shy of penetrating fully into her organs. It was almost 8 inches long but he felt a weight lift from his shoulders, knowing that it was something she could heal from.
"I've got needle and thread in my pack," he said pulling it over from where he'd tossed it. He also grabbed a tiny, single shot bottle of alcohol. But when he went to pour it over her wound she stopped him.
"Clean his wounds first, this one isn't so bad." Daryl obeyed, cleaning some of the cuts on the boy but he saved a splash for Beth too.
She winced when he poured it on the cut but didn't say anything.
Carefully, with as steady hands as he could manage he stitched up her side. Daryl tried to move fast enough that she wouldn't have to endure for long, but slow enough that he didn't hurt her further. She gritted her teeth and didn't say a single word of complaint while he worked.
In the back of his mind, it registered that he had his hands on Beth's soft skin, could feel the lean muscles of her abdomen and the bird-like bones of her rib cage beneath his fingers. And the edge of her black bra was peeking out from the bottom of her shirt. But he tried not to notice it, tried to keep his thoughts focused on the task at hand.
Finally, he was done.
"What's next?" he asked her glancing around.
For the first time, he noticed the machete sticking out of the wooden stump with an arm lying next to it. There was a bite mark, flesh torn raggedly from the skin, just below the elbow. That must be Mark's arm. Beth cut it off to try to save him.
"Let's get everything cleaned up. I wanna be ready to move as soon as he wakes up."
So they walked around the little clearing and gathered their things again. Daryl pulled his spare shirt out of his backpack and tossed it to Beth.
She looked up at him, her expression soft and eyes widened a little in surprise. "Thank you, Daryl," she said with such sincerity it made his heart beat pick up in pace.
He shrugged and mumbled in response, " 'is just a shirt."
"Yeah. But thanks, for everything… For… for coming here," she sputtered. It was unusual to see Beth so lost for words. But it somehow made her more endearing to him.
Daryl was even worse with words so he just grumbled a quiet, "No problem" and he busied himself with digging a small hole to toss the arm into. He didn't want the smell of blood attracting any more walkers.
"Figured Morgan would cave and tell you about the flag. How far behind you is he?" She asked as she pulled his maroon shirt over her ripped and bloodied tank top.
Glancing up, he saw how the shirt engulfed her, swallowing her up and looking more like a dress than a shirt. Her muscled, tan colored arms poked out from the ripped off sleeves like little twigs on a sapling. Beth tied the shirt into a little knot at the front by her stomach. A smile tugged at his lips upon seeing this. It was something Beth used to do back at the farm so many years ago.
"No one else is comin'," he responded. He'd hoped this point wouldn't come up because he knew she would want to go to Alexandria and help against the herd.
"Why not?" she said with narrowed, suspicious eyes. She knew Morgan well enough to know that he wouldn't just leave her.
"There was a herd, big one, headed towards Alexandria when I left. Told them to stay behind and keep everything safe and that I'd get you on my own."
"Daryl, we gotta get back there!" She had taken a bag of homemade jerky out of her pack to each but was suddenly shoving it back in, along with the lighter and everything else scattered around.
"It took me hours to get here, gonna take even longer if we're trying to carry him," Daryl gestured at Mark still laying with a blood soaked rag under his head as a pillow.
"Can't just do nothing, sit around and wait. What if they run? How would you find your people again?" She was struggling to keep her voice down, not wanting to give their position away.
"So what do you wanna do? Sling his unconscious body on my bike and ride home in the middle of a rain storm?" he quipped sarcastically.
She sagged in defeat, "You only brought the bike?"
He nodded somberly, "Didn't think we'd have a guest."
Beth looked at him then like he was a complete idiot.
"What?" he asked.
She looked pointedly at Lucky, laying in the dirt with his ears up scanning the surrounding forest for noise.
It hit him.
"Shit Beth. I didn't even think about Lucky. Ran outta there so fast, and they were supposed to come behind me with a van… Fuck. We'll find a car, it'll be fine."
He was an idiot.
She leaned against a tree, one hand on the strap of her backpack, the other hand on her own crossbow. Beth glanced up through the trees and so did he. The clouds were getting dark, hazy gray and even though it was only afternoon, the light was already fading. "It's going to be dark in a few hours, it'll probably rain before that. We better set up a camp or something if we're waiting here," she said simply.
"You sit down and eat something, it shouldn't be too long till he wakes up," Daryl insisted.
/
The silence was full of unspoken questions, but it was still comfortable.
Familiar.
Sitting out in the woods, eating jerky and stringing a wire around trees with Daryl felt oddly normal. Certainly more normal than sitting around the dinner table with everyone else back at Alexandria.
"So how did you find Mark?" Daryl finally asked, starting with what Beth guessed was the simplest question on his mind.
"Group of guys caught up to me. Lucky was tracking a buck and he must've gotten too far ahead. They ambushed me at the tree. Came the other direction so I missed their tracks. Cornered me… all five of them," she looked mad, and he guessed she was mad at herself for almost getting caught. "But they were slow, malnourished and uncoordinated, only carrying knives and definitely didn't expect me to put up a fight. Still probably would have gotten nabbed if it hadn't been for Mark. He gave me an opening. During the fight, he turned on the guys. Stabbed one of them right in the leg. Gave me a window to get a good punch on the closest one to me, I think I broke his nose and shot an arrow in another one's shoulder. Then I ran. And so did Mark. Mark wasn't in good shape. He was the worst off of all the guys, I thought about ditching him but he told me that was 16. Been held captive by those freaks for months, usually… tied up at night and constantly under their watch."
"What the fuck for…" Daryl started to ask, but the question died on his lips as he realized the answer to his own question and balked at this.
He remembered, all those years ago the group of men he'd run into, the men who claimed people and objects as theirs. The ones who called dibs on people's lives. 'The little ones don't last very long out here', that guy had said to him. And he remembered their plan for Carl and Michonne. This group must have been the same breed of guys.
"Would've done the same to me. One of them caught up to us and stabbed me but Mark pulled him off of me. That's when the walkers caught up to us too, got Mark's arm. Eventually we got far enough ahead of the group that I could cover our trail," She finished simply.
The rain started then. And Beth made a waterproof tent over Mark's face with her jacket and some strategically placed sticks. She let the rain wash over her, turning her face up towards the sky as the cold drops clattered on her face, cleaning all the scratches she'd gotten from tramping through the trees and all of Mark's blood from her clothes.
When she glanced up, Daryl was slouched against a tree, trying to stay somewhat dry underneath the leaves. He was staring at her though. And in his eyes she saw a tenderness that she wouldn't have believed possible when she'd first met Daryl in that airport.
His eyes flitted away and she again felt a flutter of familiarity in her brain. But when she tried to focus on the feeling, it flitted away from her. Like a butterfly you'd attempt to snatch out of midair. The things that she suspected might be memories came to her a lot when she was with Daryl. He was clearly some sort of trigger. But it was like a screen that turned off immediately every time she tried to look at it. The same thing happened when she'd been listening to the teacher play the piano at Rosita's funeral.
"So did you find what you were lookin' for out here?" he asked her quietly, using the tip of his knife to pick at his fingers.
"No. It was stupid to come out here alone like this. I realize now that what I'm looking for is back there… with all of you," she could feel this truth sinking into her now. She hadn't known it until that very moment in the rainy forest with Daryl, that this was true.
If she wanted answers, if she wanted her normal to be something other than death and walkers, she would need to really try with her family.
Daryl just nodded his head once.
After two long seconds of silence, a rattling noise came out of the darkness from under the jacket on the ground to the right of Daryl. Mark was walking up.
/
A/N: Well, Beth has finally realized that her place is with Daryl and the others.
What did you think about the flag idea? What about Mark? Do you like him or no? When will Daryl finally figure out that Beth cannot feel fear anymore?
Side note: **please do NOT try to cauterize wounds at home, the method used in this chapter would work but it is extremely dangerous and should ONLY be attempted in a last ditch effort to save someone's life like this. NOT in today's word where you could call an ambulance**
Hope the long chapter was satisfactory for the time being! Thank you everyone for reading/following. PLEASE REVIEW (:
Next time: find out what happened with the herd at Alexandria. Plus, are these large groups of walkers a coincidence? Or is someone behind them? Will the family need to pick up and move again? Find out!