While the kids enjoyed their prom, and each other's company, Atlanta was having a tough night. It didn't really hit Beth, how bad it could be. At first she mired herself in denial on purpose, because the drive to the city was just long enough to think of every horrible thing that might happen, if she let herself. Once they got to Grady memorial, the place was a mess of sirens and bodies. It looked like some kind of a disaster, maybe a bad accident somewhere in the city, maybe a bomb. All Annette had told Daryl before she hung up was that Shawn had been in a car accident.
It was clear from the landscape that he wasn't the only one in trouble tonight. They parked the truck far away from the main concentration of emergency services and workers. Beth got down from her seat and looked anxious at the congested entrance. All the hospital workers were bound to be engaged in more important things right now, it might be difficult to get anyone to help her find her brother.
"C'mon," Daryl looked like he was thinking the same thing, as he clasped her hand and flipped his cell-phone open. "Hey, it's bedlam out here, wanna tell us where you are? …Nah, nobody's paying attention, we'll just come find you." He hung up a moment later, his face pale, "First floor, far west."
Beth started to run before Daryl was ready, yanking him along by the arm. He picked up the pace to match her in a few strides. There had definitely been some kind of disaster. No one even glanced at them as they rushed past, and snaked their way through the entrance. Beth couldn't spare them much more than a thought as it was. Her attention was far ahead, wherever her brother was. She just wanted to hear him reassure her that he was fine, an idiot, but fine. That's all she wanted to hear and all she wanted to see was him looking at her, sheepish and annoyed at his luck. She hadn't spoken to her mom yet, she'd tried calling her at one point in the car, but her heart was pounding and there was a busy signal. She probably had others to tell.
From Daryl's grim countenance though, she could guess what her mother sounded like. She wasn't the sort of person to panic for no reason.
It's just 'cause it's one of her babies. We were too easy on her, growing up, didn't get in near enough trouble to prepare her for something like this.
As predicted, the inside of the hospital was busy too. An orderly tried to flag them down at one point, but when they ignored him, he gave up, seeming to accept that they looked like they knew where they were going. Part of her did wonder, vaguely, what had happened and why there were so many ambulances arriving right now, and why it seemed like she could hear shouting from all corners. Why no one was calm.
At the end of the hallway she finally caught sight of her parents, along with Maggie and Glenn. They were seated in a waiting area, the only quiet part of the hospital she'd seen so far, except it wasn't an air of tranquility, more like an internal scream.
Her mother looked up, her face was blotchy and her eyes were wet. Her father seemed to glance in her direction, but stayed still where he was, allowing his wife to approach her instead.
"Mom, how is he?" Beth kept a grip on Daryl's hand but stepped forward while he hung back, clearly not wanting to inflict himself on them.
"In surgery." With a nervous twitch of her head she indicated down the hallway where Beth and Daryl had just come from. "They won't tell us much. He's injured his head and he's lost a lot of blood, that much was pretty clear." Her voice broke as she got the end of her sentence.
Releasing Daryl, Beth stepped forward, intent on embracing her, but her mother had turned away to stifle a sob, with her eyes pinched shut she shook her head furiously. "It's fine," she said firmly, swallowing hard, she straightened up, arms crossed, pulling her sweater in close, as she gave Beth a forced smile. "He'll be fine. No need to be upset."
Ignoring her, Beth wrapped her arms across her mother's shoulders and squeezed. Her mother gripped her wrist tight a moment and then drifted towards the window, face blank. Her father met her eyes briefly, but there was only a grim, tight-lipped smile underneath his stubbly face.
Neither of them so much as looked in Daryl's direction. Deep down, Beth was frustrated with them, but she knew that this wasn't the moment to catch them at their best. They were too worried about Shawn to think of anything else. "C'mon," she took Daryl's hand again and led him over to the seats.
Glenn was watching the two of them closely as they approached. He had his fingers laced through Maggie's. In the seat next to him, Maggie had pulled her knees up high to her chest and was leaning into the wall and into Glenn's shoulder for support. She glanced up at Beth and Daryl as they came and took the seats beside her, "Hey," she barely managed to murmur.
"What happened?" Beth asked, as she took her seat.
"Some kind of altercation in the cab of a semi. It turned and took out about a dozen cars. Shawn was near the bottom of the pile-up, but the force of one of the other crashes pushed him out. It's a miracle he's alive, and that they managed to pry him from his car so fast. They're probably still using the jaws of life to untwist some of the wreck to rescue other people, trapped in there." Maggie's voice sounded far away, she nuzzled into Glenn's arm and wouldn't look up.
"Anybody die?" she didn't know what she asked. More than likely the answer was 'yes' and that didn't help anything.
"The driver of the semi. A few other people." Her eyes had taken on a tired, glassy sheen.
"You should try to sleep," said Glenn quietly and Beth could tell that it was his subtle way of telling both of them to shut up about this morbid stuff. There was nothing they could do but wait and see what happened. "You haven't slept more than a couple of hours the last few days," he reminded Maggie, but she didn't look like she needed reminding. Still, her bloodshot eyes stayed wide and unfocused on the end of the hallway.
It had been almost forty minutes since Beth left to go to the bathroom. Daryl had actually managed to drift off, and when he woke up, the hand of the clock on the wall had flickered over all the way to the ten. Forty minutes. "You seen Beth?" he shook Glenn.
The kid hadn't been asleep yet, but close to it, he jerked to a state of alertness, eyes immediately darting over to Maggie, who was curled up, fast asleep across two uncomfortable looking hospital waiting chairs in the corner. The only response he could manage was blinking.
"I'll go find her," he started to rise up from the chair.
"Annette, why don't you go look for Beth?" Hershel acknowledged Daryl for the first time with a sharp glance in his direction before he turned to his wife.
Annette had been leaning against the window-frame, but she nodded without looking up, then buttoned her sweater closed around her as she started down the hallway.
Hershel was seated closest to Maggie now. He was the only one of the group who didn't look dead-tired. His hands were laced in front of him as he too, watched the hallway for some sign. Or at least, that's how it appeared. Ten minutes later and the old-man was out. His chin right up against his collarbone, hands limp on either side of him.
"Five hours in surgery so far," Glenn commented. "They must think they can save him."
Daryl didn't know about any of that, but he hoped Glenn did. "Did you see him?"
"Oh yeah. We got here first," Glenn's voice dropped, he stole a glance at Hershel and Maggie, seemingly fast asleep. "Shawn was on the phone with Maggie when it happened. She's um… she's feeling pretty guilty about that. Says she should've hung up the moment she knew he was driving. But, I just told her that Shawn talking on his phone didn't have anything to do with the semi crashing."
True enough, but Daryl glanced over at Maggie, fast asleep, knuckles white, and knew how she was feeling. If he hadn't been on the phone, would it have improved his reaction time, even by a fraction of a second? Would it have made a difference?
"Beth seems alright though. Maggie was worried she'd be a wreck."
She is. "The girl's got some steel in her. They all do. But, this is serious hurt. Losing family is always a kick to the nuts."
The silence that followed was uncomfortable, constrained like the narrow hallway and shadowed doorways ahead of them. Finally, in an even softer undertone than before, Glenn offered, "I'm really sorry about your brother."
"S'okay," Daryl shrugged but couldn't look up from her hands because it really wasn't okay. There was something so entirely not alright about his older brother rotting in a jail cell. "Prob'ly just a matter of time," he added in a grumble.
"Maggie's been taking it pretty hard." Glenn leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. "They were tight." He shook his head, "And then this… At least she's still got us."
It wasn't like there was much they could do, besides show up. Stand there and worry with them, so they weren't alone. He knew Beth wanted him here but the idea that Maggie and apparently even Glenn appreciated it boggled Daryl's mind just a touch. None of them could fix anything. Was there really much value in just… suffering together? As if Glenn knew what he was thinking the kid laughed shortly at the stiff expression on Daryl's face. "To be honest the prospect of becoming a part of this family was a little bit terrifying to me until tonight. Now I get it. It's just… a lot of little things, but important."
Hershel breathed in deep in his sleep, lips parting open slightly as his head drifted back. Both of them stiffened, but the old man's eyes barely fluttered and then he was still again.
"I uh… not to be weird," Glenn turned as much of his back to Hershel as he dared and leaned over towards Daryl. "I don't know all the details or anything, but Maggie talks about it sometimes, she thinks—and I think she's right—they're going to come around."
Desperate for anything to distract him from Glenn's desperate attempts at possible-future-in-law-bonding time, Daryl absentmindedly took his phone out of his pocket. As usual, he had about a million notifications for things he didn't understand. He hadn't missed any calls, but he had missed a text message, probably while he was asleep. It was from Beth.
I'm just going for a walk. I'll be back soon. She'd sent the message about fifteen minutes after she left the waiting room. She purposefully hadn't said where she was going, which meant she probably wanted to be alone. In reply, Daryl clumsily composed you okay? Before he erased it. Of course she wasn't. Need anything? But that didn't feel quite right either. He finally texted back ok as a weak acknowledgment.
Glenn had leaned back in his chair but was still watching Daryl out of the side of his face. Maybe Daryl was being a jerk to him, ignoring him when he was trying to strike up a conversation like that. Normally, Daryl wouldn't care, but for some reason he didn't want the guy to think Daryl didn't like him. "You know anythin' about these phones?" he muttered, picking the first topic that came to mind. He held up the phone towards Glenn. "My brother gave it to me, same day he got snatched. Most of it's pretty simple to figure out, but… is there any way to get it to shut up more often?"
"What do you mean?" Glenn frowned at the outstretched phone, "Get rid of notifications? Yeah. Wow, you have a lot of apps."
"Oh yeah, Beth put a bunch of stuff on there. I've never really had a phone for longer than a couple of days before, don't really understand all the social media stuff but—"
"She made you a Facebook?" Glenn looked like he was fighting a smile. "You've got sixty friend requests pending," he laughed.
"Why's that funny?"
"I dunno," said Glenn quickly, shaking his head, but the smile stayed on his mouth. "…but have you accepted anyone besides Beth and Maggie?"
No, he hadn't. He'd glanced at it a couple of times and noticed that there were a few other people, but it hadn't been that many before, he was sure. Still, he hadn't decided if he was ever going to personally get on Facebook, or if he'd just leave it to Beth, as she'd created the page in the first place.
"Okay. I turned your notifications off. There's about a hundred from the last hour about a picture." Glenn informed him, for a moment he seemed to forget about the sleeping Greenes and his voice got loud, but then he lowered it with a cautious glance at Hershel.
"There ain't no pictures of me on there," Daryl frowned skeptically.
"You were tagged in some pictures—one in particular."
Taking the phone back from Glenn, Daryl went to see what he was talking about. On the screen was a picture of him and Beth. Clearly, it had been taken on someone's phone earlier that night when he picked her up from the dance. Sure enough, there were four other pictures of him, all from the dance, from two different angles. Some amateur photographers in Beth's high school had been quick to act. The one that was getting the most attention was right as they were walking out, with Beth in his arms as he was about to carry her out the door. She was illuminated under the soft light with her soft yellow dress and her long hair, big eyes smiling as much as her open mouth.
He was smiling too. He'd seen himself smile before, he was sure of it… but not in a long time. Not in a picture. He had to look away from himself, wasn't sure how he felt about how he looked. He just remembered how good it felt to hold her, to have her in his arms and happy to be there. Still. It's nice. He grudgingly admitted to himself. Hopefully she'll like it.
One of the first comments was Beth's friend Minnie, Daryl braced himself but all the girl had written was Beth is too cool for us. She ditched prom to run off with her hot man-friend like some kind of legend followed by six little smiley faces with hearts for eyes. Soon after that, Karen added her contribution, Love these guys so much! They are so cute! Awww. The picture had a lot of likes and the rest of the comments were similarly innocuous.
It was a little thing. He knew that Karen and Minnie were more than likely just trying to make amends with Beth, and it wouldn't have mattered to him if the idiots on Facebook had been dicks about it, but Daryl couldn't help but feel somewhat heartened that one no had taken the opportunity to condemn them, or comment on her family's disapproval. Still, the picture had only been up for a few hours.
Maybe it helped that the lighting showed her off and understated him, but they did look damn good together, he decided, fighting a smirk.
Back on his profile he noticed that he now had four friends total. Frowning, he shot a glance at Glenn before he went to check who the two new people were. He hadn't added anyone himself, which meant that Glenn must've accepting two pending requests while he had his phone. The first person he'd accepted was Glenn himself, which made Daryl snort. Fair enough.
The other person Glenn had accepted was Shawn.
He'd tried to add Daryl just a couple of days after Beth made his profile, but Daryl had never seen it, because he never used it.
There wasn't anything on Facebook yet about Shawn's accident. Probably, his parents wanted to wait until they knew something. Daryl checked the kid's profile. He was on a lot, it seemed. He had over a thousand friends.
The kid's gonna be just fine. But he didn't know that. He just wanted to believe it. Rising to his feet, Daryl tapped Glenn on the shoulder a motioned for him to get up, "C'mon. Let's go make ourselves useful, and get some breakfast for these people."
Does it feel like it's winding down? There's still a few things that need to get nice and wrapped up tight before I end this, but I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for taking the time to read!
I'm expecting the rest of these sections to be fairly snappy, and the whole story should clock out at 45 chapters, plus an epilogue that will technically be chapter 46, but it's super short and entirely skippable.
Kim and Jessie - M83
