The aftermath of Dwight's murder of Sherry has unexpected consequences. Caryl get a tiny sweet moment and the plan moves ahead.
Bethesda
The pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem was famous for healings. People with illness gathered there believing that an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. In the bible story, Jesus heals a man there without using the waters.
'Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him,"See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you."' John 5:14
The name of the pool is said to be derived from the Hebrew language and/or Aramaic language, beth hesda (בית חסד/חסדא), meaning either house of mercy or house of grace. In both Hebrew and Aramaic the word could also mean 'shame, disgrace'. This dual meaning may have been thought appropriate since the location was seen as a place of disgrace due to the presence of invalids, and a place of grace, due to the granting of healing.
"Saddest fucking thing in the world: Man tears." Negan said derisively, looking at Dwight weeping over Sherry's body which was laid out on one of the exam tables in the Infirmary.
"He loved her." Kayla said in a weak voice from her bed. Her right arm was hooked to an IV, her left, which now ended at her wrist, was propped up and wrapped in layers of gauze, blood starting to seep through the end.
Mark came in, carrying what was left of Amber. In contrast to Dwight, the younger Asian man was stoic. If one didn't know he and Amber had been a couple when they came to Sanctuary you would've thought him just another minion tasked with delivering the corpse. He laid her on the other exam table and stepped back to stand next to it, looking down at her body.
"She was my wife." Negan said darkly, glaring at Kayla, pushing Dwight away from Sherry's body and then looked to Dr. Carson. "How the fuck did this happen?"
Carson made a show of examining Sherry's body and then took a scalpel and excised the graying and bloody skin over her throat around the larynx.
"Dwight, was she allergic to anything?" Carson asked, pulling back the skin and muscle to expose the swollen and bruised inner surfaces of her throat. Anyone who knew what they were looking at would've been able to tell that the damage had been done by someone closing their hands around her neck and choking the life out of her, but the doctor had to play this a different way if they wanted Dwight's help in escaping.
Dwight raised his reddened tear stained face to the doctor, wiping his nose on his sleeve and looking down at Sherry's face again. She hadn't been turned long enough to start the worst of the process of decay, but she had been shot through the head; a small caliber bullet had left a little perfect circle right between her eyes, but the exit wound in the back of her skull was much larger and bloody brain matter oozed out onto the exam table from it.
"Nuts..." Dwight mumbled. That was the lie they had agreed upon. In reality Sherry had no allergies.
"Peanuts?" Carson asked leadingly.
"No—ones...ones that grow on trees." Dwight said distractedly, pushing Sherry's hair off her face and then picking up a cloth to try and wipe away the blood outlining her mouth and splattered down onto her chin.
"Tree nuts. Walnuts, almonds, cashews..." Carson nodded. "They're used in a lot of things..."
"Then why the fuck would she eat any?" Negan said with distaste, "She was stupid, but she wasn't that stupid."
Dwight looked up at him reproachfully.
"They aren't just in food—they're used in lotions, shampoos and soaps as well." Erin said, speaking for the first time. The tree nut story had been her idea. While with the Wolves she had a patient who had died from an allergic reaction to them. "She may not have known what she was using had their oils—a lot of what we have is scavenged, no labels."
"Or someone knew and deliberately gave her stuff tainted with the shit." Negan said, narrowing his eyes and looking over at Kayla.
"Right, and then I stuck my hand in her mouth to make sure she swallowed them and she tried to bite it off." Kayla rasped sarcastically.
She and Amber had come into the bedroom looking for Sherry and had been immediately attacked by her walker. Amber's throat had been ripped out before they could even react and Kayla injured when she tried to pull her away. Amber had turned almost immediately. Kayla tried to push them back into the room and lock the door, but she'd been bitten and knocked down and they'd escaped into the hallway and attacked others.
Erin and Carson had found Kayla when Dwight brought them to see Sherry and they'd done the emergency amputation within minutes. After they'd given her the shot of morphine from Negan's private stock and she'd been feeling no pain, she'd asked them to cut around the head of her serpent tattoo if they please could when they took the hand. So far she hadn't spiked a fever nor shown any other signs of the walker infection.
"Things like this happened even before the Turn." Carson said, looking over at Negan. "It was a stupid accident—anaphylaxis—a fatal allergic reaction. Only now death comes with an added bonus."
"How many did we lose besides these two?" Negan asked Mark, but he didn't respond; he just continued to stare down at Amber's body.
"Hey asshole, boss asked you a question!" the big burly body guard that had ordered Daryl out of the hallway earlier barked at Mark.
"All she wanted was a safe place for us." Mark monotoned, his breath sounds heavier as he continued. "She put up with you sticking your dick in her so we could have a safe place to stay."
"She made her choice, son." Negan shrugged, "She kicked you to the curb and she had a good life here as my wife. She was a sweet girl who could really take cock, but she's dead so we gotta move on."
"Rapist." Mark said distinctly and then swiftly raised his arm.
The roar of the gunshot was shocking in such a small space.
Erin threw herself over Kayla, trying to protect her while Carson simply dropped down to the floor out of the line of fire.
"Motherfuck!" Negan yelled as the white hot sear of the bullet tore through his shoulder, throwing him back and spinning him to the side.
The bodyguard's AK-47 spat out a line of fire once and Mark fell, clutching his belly, bright red quickly gushing over his hands and the 9 mm handgun he'd used to shoot Negan.
Dwight watched it all dispassionately, the first shot, the bodyguard's retaliation, the way the automatic weapon's power almost cut Mark in half, how quickly Negan recovered and rose, Lucille in hand, enraged, charging across the room to the half dead man who'd just lost the woman he'd loved.
"You fucking fuck! You fucking shot me!" Negan roared, incensed that someone so insignificant would try to harm him, and then he realized he was also outraged at the accusations Mark had flung at him as justification, "We do not rape here! Amber was my wife—"
"Amber loved me." Mark gurgled, spitting out blood, "She wanted me, not you! You hurt her. You raped her. You raped Sherry. You raped Kayla, Diane, Ellie..."
"Shut! Your! Fucking! Mouth!" The barb wired bat raised and fell over and over, punctuating Negan's furious words of denial. There was blood and brain matter and bits of skull with skin and dark hair coating the bat and the floor and Negan when he'd finished reducing Mark's head to a stain on the tile.
"Carson!" the bodyguard yelled, summoning the doctor once his boss's rage was vented. He came forward, supporting Negan with an arm under his uninjured shoulder and half carried him to the exam table where Mark had placed Amber, shoved her body off onto the floor and sat Negan there.
Carson stood, removing his vinyl gloves and snapping on a clean pair and then started gathering supplies to work on the gunshot wound, stepping over the remains of the dead couple and then moved to Negan's side, cutting open his shirt to visualize the field and then holding a gauze pad to the wound.
"Hold this with pressure." Carson instructed the guard, but he shook his head no, whether from squeamishness or because he needed his hands free to remain on guard, he didn't say, but Negan grunted and set Lucille on the floor so he could hold the pad.
Erin eased off Kayla and they exchanged a look that said, too bad Mark was such a lousy shot.
Just then more armed men burst in, probably having heard the gunfire.
"Everything clear in here?" Ward asked, looking at the carnage, his eyes going wide when he saw Carson working on the boss, using a syringe of lidocaine as a local anesthetic in preparation for going fishing for the bullet.
"Under control." Negan said casually, his rage vented. "Flesh wound."
"Uh—okay, well we have-we have bit of a situation upstairs." Wade said carefully, looking like he'd rather be somewhere; anywhere else.
"More walkers?" Negan asked, starting to stand, but Carson made an annoyed noise and pushed him back down to the table.
"You need to sit still or I'm going to sever an artery in there and you'll bleed out and be dead before I can do anything about it." Carson ordered tersely.
Negan snarled but did what he was told.
"What is it?" Erin asked, coming to assist Carson, holding the tray of instruments he'd need to go in after the slug within his reach.
"Not walkers—Archer sent us for the Doctor—it's Carol." Wade said, wincing to have to tell them this news.
"The baby?" Carson asked, stopping work and frowning in concern.
"He said she's in pain, she's cramping and there's blood...I saw blood on the sheets..." Wade nodded, his mouth tight, obviously upset.
"No...No—oh shit..." Negan said softly, his eyes sliding guiltily to those of the body guard, Anthony, who'd been outside the door; who had heard everything, who knew what he'd done with...to...Carol earlier.
"I'll go." Erin said quickly, putting the tray onto the table beside Negan, and looking at Carson, "You have to finish this."
"I'll get there as soon as I can." Carson said, nodding. "Some of you, take care of these bodies and start working on disinfection procedures, I may need a cleaner space if I have to operate on her here."
"Operate?" Negan choked out.
"She could be losing the baby." Erin said, gathering supplies to take with her.
"I need to go to her—" Negan said anxiously, trying to rise again.
"I will sedate you if I have to!" Carson bit out, his face set and stern. As much as he might entertain saying fuck you to his Hippocratic Oath and just letting Negan bleed out, the end result of that would be a bullet in his own head. He was a doctor, not a martyr.
"Wade, get the doctor up to Carol now!" Negan barked, gesturing rapidly, "Rest of you fucks get to work! Dwight, get off your ass and help clean up the mess your bitch made."
Dwight's eyes shifted to Negan, his face a cipher's. He stood and shook his head in disgust, then walked unhurriedly out of the room, following Wade and Erin.
"They'll be coming soon." Daryl said, turning back from peering out the door peephole to look back at her, his bow at the ready.
"You heard shots—do you think there are more walkers?" Carol asked. She sat on the bed wearing a more modest maternity dress that she had found buried in the bags of clothing piled in a closet in the wives' quarters. She'd had it in her backpack, along with warm leggings, Daryl's flannel and her boots, planning to wear the clothes in their escape, which was now postponed. Daryl had slipped across the hall and retrieved it when the rest of the men fighting the walkers had left.
"Don't know." Daryl shrugged. "Wade didn't say anything about more."
"Because we scared the shit out of him with that blood—how's your hand?" Carol asked.
It had been her idea to stain the sheets beneath her and the dress with blood to make it appear as though she was spotting badly, indicating something wrong with the pregnancy. Daryl had sliced open his palm to provide the red stuff.
"Always ready to bleed for you, sweetheart." He gave her a little crooked smile. When she frowned at him he made a dismissive noise, flexing his grip against the big Band-Aid, "It ain't too deep. Stuff you put on it hurt worse."
She'd slathered it in triple antibiotic cream after first dousing it in rubbing alcohol from her back pack kit. They didn't need him getting an infection.
Daryl saw she was still frowning worriedly at him and he crossed the room in three long strides, sliding the bow to his back and before he could think better of it he leaned down and brought his lips down on hers in what was meant to be a quick comforting kiss, but his free hand closed around her nape, her lips too sweet to abandon as quickly as that kind of kiss should've required.
Carol's hands reached up and held his face, welcoming the deepening of the kiss, responding to him with warm ardor. To her his mouth felt beautiful, gentle and yet firm, comforting and yet full of the desire that flowed between them.
Then he tasted blood, all at once remembering she'd bitten through her bottom lip during the assault she'd just endured.
"I... sorry, I'm sorry. He just... he hurt you... I shouldn't have..." Daryl murmured when he broke the kiss, looking ashamed, trying to pull away, but she held him still.
"You never would." Carol said firmly, making him look into her eyes to see her trust in him.
"Archer?" The name called out loudly and the pounding on the door demanding entrance were their signal to move apart, but Carol unhurriedly lifted her face to his, asking for another kiss.
The second was better than the first because he knew that she wanted it, wanted and welcomed his touch, his kiss, still trusted him despite his belief that he had failed her.
The pounding grew more insistent so they finally released one another and Daryl nodded down at her before he turned and headed for the door glancing back at her before he slid open the dead bolt to make sure she was ready.
"Showtime." She smiled a tiny grim smile at him and gave him an eye roll before she started breathing in short gasps, hyperventilating and grimacing as if in pain. It was so convincing he took a worried step back to her, and then she winked at him and nodded towards the door.
Woman deserves an Oscar. Daryl thought, shaking his head and setting his face into a mask of worry as he unlocked the barred door.
"Where in the cock sucking ass fucking hell are we supposed to get that?" Negan asked Carson, running his free hand through his swept back hair. His other arm was in a sling to keep the stitches over the bullet wound from opening up and he was pacing like a caged wolf, sweat pouring off of him.
Believing himself inured to pain Negan had refused painkillers, but under the guise of administering anti-biotics Carson had shot him up with some Demerol so he was flying pretty high. They wanted him off balance, not thinking clearly, his brilliant strategic mind focused only on getting help for Carol.
"I might... "Daryl said hesitatingly, playing his part in the plan, "I might know of a place."
"Spit it out, Archer!" Wade said impatiently. He was feeling off balance by the last few days' events as well. Something had gone wrong between the boss and the woman they'd taken from Alexandria and Negan was boiling over with guilt. Anthony, Negan's main guard, had taken him aside while Negan hovered over the woman and told him what he'd heard through the door of the royal suite earlier. Had the man he'd pledged himself on bended knee to kill and die for really forced himself on the small pregnant woman?
"When we was heading for DC, one of our people, Bob, was a Navy medic." Daryl said, leaning on the side of the doorway to the other room where he could see both what was happening with Carol, who Erin was monitoring, and the rest of them discussing their next course of action in this office room next door.
"And?" Negan said impatiently.
"He'd been stationed as a corpsman in the big military hospital there, Walter Reed in Bethesda, before the Turn—said it had everything you could ever need for medical care. Thought we'd make that one of our stops to resupply." Daryl finished.
"They cleared personnel out those military facilities pretty quickly—and hospitals tended to get overrun with the dead so that might've kept looters away from it." Wade nodded.
"And you think it would have the equipment and drugs you need to help her—help her hold on to the child?" Negan asked Carson.
"I honestly don't know. She's showing new signs of hypertension and stress I haven't seen before. Her BP is sky high and physically..." the Carson paused, giving Negan a censorious look.
"Clear the room; I need to have a word with the doctor." Negan said in a low deep voice. "Archer, stay with Carol. Wade, start picking men and vehicles for the mission."
"Sir?" Anthony asked, unsure if he was supposed to leave.
"Wait outside." Negan said coldly.
When everyone else had left Carson crossed his arms over his chest and took a deep breath before he spoke.
"In my physical examination of her, I found seventeen livid bruises on Carol's body, primarily on her breasts. In addition she had bitten through her lower lip and there was semen and saliva trace on her upper body and face." He gave the results clinically, but not dispassionately. Carol had asked him to do the equivalent of running a rape kit. Although controlled, his distaste and outrage at what she had suffered was clear.
"Someone attacked her." Negan murmured as if trying it on for size.
"No. You did this." Carson said, his chin up, shaking his head slowly, staring the other man down. He had treated every one of Negan's wives for the results of his sexual excesses. He knew all of Negan's dirty little secrets.
Several expressions passed over the leader of Sanctuary's face like the stages of mourning—denial, anger, bargaining, depression and then finally acceptance of his guilt.
"Is she going to lose the baby?" Negan asked.
"As I told you before, if we were in a modern hospital with the right monitoring equipment and drugs to keep preterm labor at bay I would say no. If I have to deliver now? There's almost no chance the child would make it and I'd probably lose her too." Carson said.
It was all true except for the fact that Carol had come through Negan's assault without any major changes in her physical condition. She was stronger than she looked.
"I need to atone for what I've done to her." Negan said, nodding, his pupils wide, his voice soft and distant. "I need to ask for her forgiveness."
"Getting the medical supplies to save her baby will go a long way towards doing that." Carson said evenly, keeping him on task.
Negan nodded again and then abruptly strode through the door and opened it, surprising the guard who stepped back, and Daryl who was standing next to the patient bed where Carol was sitting up and sipping a bottle of water. Both stoic guardsmen came to attention, weapons at the ready.
"Stand down." Negan ordered. "I need to have a word with my wife." He pulled up a chair and sat down next to the bed, Daryl taking up a position at the foot of the bed and Anthony next to the outer door.
"Erin said you were shot..." Carol said, infusing her voice with gentle concern before he could speak, reaching out her hand to him. From across the room tending to Kayla, Erin watched the little drama, while Carson stood in the office doorway.
"It's nothing." He said quietly, taking her hand in his. "I'm much more worried about you."
"I'm... I'm not as resilient as I used to be." Carol sighed, holding her free hand over her abdomen.
"You shouldn't have had to be. I behaved abominably to you. When I think that I might've endangered you and the child... after I promised you I would never..." he broke off and raised tear filled eyes to hers. "I'm sorry."
Carol looked down as if in deep thought, weighing his words.
"I'm going to go to a place Archer told us about—Walter Reed hospital—the one in Bethesda." Negan continued, speaking quickly, a note of pleading in his voice. "Carson says they have the things he needs to help you."
"Do you know the story? The Pool at Bethesda?" Carol asked, looking up him. Once upon a time she had been a very religious woman; she knew her bible as well as Hershel.
Negan frowned and shook his head no.
"It was a place in Jerusalem where sick people went looking for miraculous cures. Every once in a while an angel stirred the pool so whoever stepped into it first after that would be cured."
"Doesn't seem quite fair." Negan scoffed. "What about all the others who were waiting there?"
"Jesus didn't think so either—he cured a man there waiting to get into the pool. When the man asked him why he had cured him, a sinner, Jesus said, "See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you."
Negan narrowed his eyes at her, not quite sure if she meant him to glean a larger lesson from the story than the origin of the name of the city where the hospital was located.
"Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you."
He'd hurt Carol; bargained to use her body to slake his lust in return for leaving her friends alone. Then Sherry had choked to death on a fucking nut, killed sweet little Amber, he'd been fucking shot and now he was in danger of losing Carol and the child. His head was spinning.
"Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you."
He stared at Carol who smiled at him expectantly and a bit sadly. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles.
"I'll save you." Negan promised, "I'll go to Bethesda myself and bring you back the god damn cure." And then he bent his head, touching his forehead to her hand.
Carol kept her head down, her eyes on Negan, but her mouth twitched up at the corner when she heard Daryl's soft sigh of relief.
AN: Cross your fingers, they're on their way!
From the popular almonds, cashew and walnut to the lesser-known pine nut and lichee nut, tree nuts come in many shapes and sizes. Along with peanuts and shellfish tree nuts are one of the food allergies most often linked to anaphylaxis—a serious, rapid onset allergic reaction that may be fatal. A tree nut allergy usually lasts a life time; fewer than 10% of people with this allergy outgrow it. An allergy to tree nuts is one of the most commonfood allergies. Tree nut oils, which may contain nut protein, can be found in lotions, hair care products and soaps; those allergic to tree nuts should avoid using these products. People with these allergies should carry injectable epinephrine (epipen) which can reverse the reaction. If not you can die within minutes.
