A little less than two hours after Daryl and Allison had arrived back at his tent with her belongings the two were sitting outside by the ruins of that stone fireplace, looking for all the world like a post-apocalyptic Norman Rockwell painting. He was carving ash tree branches into makeshift bolts and she was darning the torn knee of one of his few pairs of pants.
When they'd first plopped down their armfuls of Allison's stuff just outside of his tent, Daryl had stepped inside and removed the mattress from his cot. He tossed it to the tent floor, folded the metal bed frame and brought it outside. "We'll put your camping pad next to that," he gestured with his head, "and then throw your sleeping bag and my covers on top."
She could see that he was attempting to fashion a double bed for the two of them, but she still felt guilty. A metal cot was not a pillow-top Beautyrest mattress, but it was still probably more comfortable than a pad on the ground. "Are you sure you – " she began to ask before he cut her off.
" 'S fine," he stated definitely.
After the bedding had been arranged, Allison began to pick up his discarded clothing from the tent floor with the intent of both making more room and to also start a laundry pile. She noticed a rip across the knee of one of his pair of cargo pants and set it aside so that she could repair it. Oddly enough, she had a fairly elaborate sewing kit stashed away in one of her bags – one of those that she'd packed for a trip years ago and had never unpacked, and had just continually added things to (like hotel shampoos, shoeshine rags, notebooks, pens, Crazy Glue - whatever caught a closeted hoarder's fancy) and always carried it when traveling because, well, by now it had pretty much everything.
So, lacking a TV set and a living room, that's how they ended up like Ma and Pa Kettle, sitting outside around the glowing embers of a small campfire and making idle conversation while he whittled and she darned. She'd cut a clean piece out of that old bloodied T-shirt she'd used as a makeshift bandage on T-Dog that day on the highway and used it as a backing to mend Daryl's slacks with a darning stitch she'd learned at her grandmother's knee so many years ago.
"Maybe you can teach me what kind of branches to collect for you so you can make more bolts," she commented without looking up from her work.
"Gotta be hardwoods," he replied while carefully carving the tip of a limb into a sharp point. "Ash is probably best, then beech or black walnut. No oak, though. Tends to split."
"I've got some Crazy Glue if you need it for the feathers."
"That's called 'fletching,'" he replied. "Could probably use some glue, thanks. Maybe that friend of yours will part with some chicken feathers."
"Friend?"
"That quiet woman – Otis' widow."
"Oh, Patricia," Allison nodded. "I'm sure she would, she's very nice. She gave me a little chunk of her homemade lard the other day and told me that Hershel wouldn't mind if I used some of the vegetables from his garden. Said that as a rule they grew more than they use. I was thinking I could use some of that lard to fry up some turnip and collard greens one night to go with our squirrel." She paused and sighed wistfully. "I know it's not healthy, but I did used to love my Granny's greens cooked up with a big ol' hunk of fatback…"
"Don't think we need to worry 'bout cholesterol much these days," Daryl commented. "I ain't had proper greens in I don't know how long…my Ma used to…"
His voice drifted off. Allison knew by now that if Daryl wanted to talk about his family or his youth, he would. She wouldn't press him. Instead, she remarked "I always loved eating fresh vegetables, but I truly hated the work involved. Especially potatoes…hilling the soil then going back and digging them up…of course it was always the hottest day of the year whenever Granny sent me out to work in the garden…"
"Pa used to send Merle 'n me out to pick corn when it was ready. 'Course Merle would just sit and smoke cigarettes where Pa couldn't see him and make me pick all the corn."
Allison picked up her scissors and snipped a thread. "Some of my friends in school when I was a kid had older sisters who were downright nasty to them. I remember in the third grade Arlene Boyd told me that whenever her mom left her older sister Linda to babysit her that Linda would just lock her in the closet until she heard their mom's car pull up in the driveway. Then there was this other kid…Andre something... Anyway, his parents were apparently recent immigrants from Germany or Austria. I just remember that a group of us had to stay after school for a few minutes this one day, not for anything bad, we weren't being punished…but anyway I still remember Andre's father storming into the classroom and yelling in broken English and actually smacking that poor kid in the face in front of everyone. He'd apparently thought Andre had misbehaved or something…" She shuddered and returned to her sewing. "Anyway, I think that it was that year – third grade – when I realized that every family was different and there were some that were downright weird. Well, weird at least compared to my limited experience. It wasn't until I was in high school and would watch Oprah while doing my homework that I learned that the technical term was dysfunctional." She snipped a last thread and held Daryl's pants up to inspect her handiwork. "Of course, once I really got out into the world and met different people at college and at the hospital, it seemed like no one's family was like the Huxtables or the Bradys, so who is to say what the heck really is dysfunctional?"
Daryl held up the branch he'd been carving at arm's length to inspect it. He then returned it to his lap and very delicately whittled away at some imperfections near the tip. "You wanna talk dysfunctional , there's plenty of it goin' on right here…between Lori and her husband and Shane, and the way they always push away and ignore the boy…"
"Speaking of Lori," Allison observed as she stood up and began folding Daryl's slacks. The sheriff's wife was striding toward them purposefully.
"Moving to the suburbs?" Lori asked as she approached.
Before either of them could reply she continued: "Listen, Beth's in some kind of catatonic shock... We need Hershel."
"Yeah?" Daryl replied warily, "So what?"
"So I need you to run into town real quick and bring him and Rick back." Allison mentally noted that, as per usual, there was no "please" forthcoming; that Lori's dictate was not a request but an order.
"Your bitch went window shopping. You want him? Go fetch him yourself," Daryl reasonably (in Allison's opinion) replied. "I got better things to do."
"What's wrong with you? How can you be so selfish?" Lori had the gall to be offended.
"Selfish?" Daryl stood up and leaned angrily into Lori's face. "Listen to me, Olive Oyl. I was out there looking for that little girl every single day. I took an arrow and a bullet in the process. Don't you tell me about getting my hands dirty! You want those two idiots? Have a nice ride. I'm done looking for people."
Lori looked at Allison when she heard the blonde woman giggle at the "Olive Oyl" remark. Allison cleared her throat and tried to compose herself.
"Would you at least come take a look at Beth?" Lori asked her.
"Sure, just lemme grab my bag," Allison said as she stepped into the tent and deposited Daryl's slacks near his pile of clean laundry and then picking up her call bag.
"You shouldn't be walkin' alone like this," Daryl told her.
"I'm with Lori, and I've got my machete," Allison replied. "Be back directly."
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Beth was lying on the bed, staring upward at the ceiling. "Her pulse is racing and she seems to have a fever," Andrea told Allison.
"The way she just stares and doesn't react when we talk to her," Lori commented, "I think she might be in a coma or something."
Allison didn't bother to give Lori a condescending look after she'd rendered her armchair diagnosis. Instead she spoke to the patient. "Beth? Can you hear me?" Beth didn't respond, but Allison noted that the girl blinked her eyes occasionally, which was unusual but not unheard of in a psychogenic coma. Allison gently picked up Beth's limp right arm by the wrist and held it up perpendicular from her body at shoulder level. She then let it go. As she suspected would happen, Beth manipulated her arm ever so slightly as it fell so that it wouldn't hit her face.
"She's not comatose," Allison announced to the concerned folks standing around the bed. "She may be suffering from post-traumatic shock, though." Beth didn't move or make a sound. "I could do a further test," Allison continued, speaking loudly so that Beth would hear, "just to make sure. It involves squirting cold water into the ear canal. If she's not truly comatose, it will induce immediate vomiting. It's a brain stem reaction."
The mention of vomit seemed to stir Beth somewhat out of her catatonic state. She squirmed slightly on the bed and moaned.
"Without access to psychotropic drugs…to be honest, the best remedy is probably to have her dad comfort her." She looked up at Maggie. "You can try in the meantime, but she'd probably benefit best from Hershel talking to her, comforting her…his voice and touch will probably trigger happy memories that will slowly bring her back."
Allison stood up and prepared to leave. "If she refuses food or drink after another hour or so, you might want to start an IV to keep her hydrated, since she's running a fever," she told Patricia. "Other than that, the only remedy is time."
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"Dammit, woman, I thought I told you not to be walkin' around camp alone, 'specially when it's startin' to get dark," Daryl chastised Allison when she came back to what was now "their" tent.
"I'm carrying a weapon, and I made it back just fine," she reminded him.
"This is what I get for gettin' all caught up with some woman," he growled, "you're gonna drive me to distraction."
"Oh, you know you love frettin' over me and being my big ol' protector," Allison teased him in an exaggerated drawl as she collapsed into his arms and snuggled her head underneath his chin.
He kissed the top of her head and then asked, "How is the girl?"
"Beth? Physically she's OK. She is, however, suffering from some post-traumatic shock after seeing her mother….well, you know. Anyway, there's nothing much that can be done. I'm thinking that once Hershel gets back and talks to her she'll start feeling better. Y'know, if she sees that he's reconciled to Annette's death and he comforts her and gets her to accept that that wasn't really her mother that came out of the barn…"
Daryl sat back down and started slashing at another tree branch, though not as precisely as before.
"What's wrong?" Allison asked softly.
"The barn…it reminds me of Sophia…" he muttered.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring up a sore topic…"
"Nah, I'm not talkin' about that…I'm thinkin' more about…well, what you said before about Sophia. About her daddy and…what he did to her…"
"What he MIGHT have done to her," Allison amended. "I told you before, I had no concrete evidence, it was strictly a hunch, and hunches aren't always right…"
"No, but what you said about her, about how she behaved, made sense." He looked up from his whittling. "And Carol let it happen." He clenched the knife until his knuckles went white.
"We don't know that for sure, we don't know anything for sure," Allison sat down beside him and wrapped one arm around his head. "I shouldn't have said anything, I was just thinking out loud at the time and Lori had gotten me all riled up…"
"No, you were right in speakin' up. It's something that should have been noticed, long before Sophia went missin'." His eyes looked back down at the branch in his hands. "A mother is s'posed to protect her youngin'" he said softly.
Allison sighed. "We don't know what went on in that household. I could be completely off base." She got up, went into the tent and came out with her toothbrush and tube of paste. "But I agree, a mom's main job is to protect her children." She made a point of showing him the machete hanging from her waist before heading off to the water pump to brush her teeth.
While she was gone Carol approached Daryl. "Lori's missing," she said succinctly.
"Yeah?" Daryl asked. "So what?"
"So we don't know where she is," Carol replied.
"Dumb bitch must've gone off lookin' for 'em," he scoffed. "She asked me to go fetch Rick but I told her I was done lookin' for folks."
"And you didn't tell anyone?" Carol asked incredulously.
"Ain't my business," Daryl shrugged.
She stood speechless for a moment, her eyes imploring. He returned to his whittling, indicating that their conversation was finished. Carol finally turned and walked back toward the farm house.