The Storm Within

Before

"What the hell you doin', Beth!?" Daryl growled, grabbing her woollen sleeve as she strode past him, hurting her.

"Let go of me!" Beth hissed, yanking herself free, the scissors cold against her skin, their blades about to be baptized by blood. She had to do this, nobody else. Only she understood; only her spirit had been tempered for this moment. Somehow she found herself in front of Dawn, feeling like she was about to fall, a chasm cracking open within her. But her hand was steady, ready to strike the very heart of hell itself…

"What is it, Beth?" Dawn said impatiently, looking past her at the others, not seeing the threat right in front of her.

"I get it now," Beth said quietly, her heart hammering in her chest, the blood a dim din in her ears.

At this, Dawn just tilted her head to the side, coldly contemplating Beth as though she were an insect. Beth just studied her in turn, the whole world hanging in the balance between them, and then she suddenly struck, a flash of silver fracturing the darkness.

After

Beth leaned back, the irregular rumble of the van's engine reverberating through her spine. Silence and sweat permeated the air, the others deliberately avoiding making eye contact with her whenever she happened to glance around. Beth looked down at her bloodstained hands instead, a testament to what she'd become.

"You… you shouldn't have done what you did back there, Beth," Tyreese said quietly, finally daring to voice what they were all thinking.

Beth slowly raised her blonde head, her gaze meeting Tyreese's grave one, jaw tightening in unconscious response to the mounting tension. But she felt no regret for what she'd done, only relief that she'd done it. Dawn had had no intentions of letting them leave Grady alive, with or without Noah, hell-bent on having the upper hand to the very last, forcing Beth to act. With deadly precision, she had ended the war, stabbing Dawn through the throat with her own scissors. "And why shouldn't I have done it?" she asked, her voice low and dangerous.

"Because you could have brought the whole place down upon us!" Sasha suddenly exploded, the memory of Officer Shepherd's shouts to STAND DOWN! still ringing through her skull.

"But I didn't, did I?" Beth said, shrugging her shoulder, infuriating Sasha even further.

"You were out of line, Beth," Sasha said from between gritted teeth, "utterly and completely," –

- "Hey, you didn't know her like I did" –

- "And you should know your place!" Sasha spat, a shocked silence descending in the wake of her words, everyone holding their breath.

" My place?" Beth then said, struggling to keep her voice steady.

"We risked our necks to get you and Carol out of there, and this is how you repay us? With sheer, selfish recklessness!?" –

- "That's 'nough," Daryl said quietly, the hidden warning in his words making silence fall again.

At this, Beth glanced down at her bloodstained hands once more, feeling the full weight of Daryl's gaze upon her, unwilling to bear its burden. From the moment she'd left Grady Memorial, she'd begun to distance herself from Daryl and the others, unable to give voice to the storm within. There were walls around her heart when there hadn't been before. Her tentative bond with Daryl seemed to have been severed, and what could have been, would now never be.

Beth threw another handful of dollar bills onto the fire, before wrapping her arms around herself, the cold night air biting into her bones. Maggie sat opposite her, the flames casting amber shadows across her worried face, Glenn taking her hand, a moment of silent communion passing between them, briefly stilling Maggie's torment. She didn't know how to reach her sister; how to come back from giving up on her, if she ever could.

"Hey," Noah said, sitting down beside Beth, startling her.

Beth hesitated. "Hey," she then said, averting her scarred face from his.

"I… I just wanted to say, uh, thanks, for what you did," Noah said nervously, his voice cracking slightly, "y'know, for having my back like that."

"I promised to get you home," Beth said quietly, staring into the dying flames, "and I'm goin' to."

"We're all going to get you home," Glenn interjected, making Noah glance up. For a moment, they stared at each other, and then Noah nodded awkwardly, heartfelt thanks filling his face, his silence saying more than words could. Glenn nodded his head in return, the corners of his lips quirking upwards slightly, and then he got up and walked away, embarrassed by Noah's gratitude, much to Beth's bitter amusement.

"Your brother-in-law's a good guy," Noah then said to Beth, uneasily noting the sullen way she watched Maggie stand up and follow her husband over to where he was now feigning to examine the van's engine by firelight.

"Yeah, whatever," Beth said abruptly, before getting to her own feet. "I'm turnin' in." But as she made her way over to the back doors of the van, Daryl blocked her path, his crossbow slung across his shoulder, a brace of squirrels over the other.

"Hey," he said uneasily, glancing over at Glenn and the others, "can… can we talk?"

Beth raised her eyebrows. " You want to talk?" she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "That's a first."

Daryl flushed hotly, remembering their fight back at the moonshine shack.

"I've got nothin' to say," Beth then said, barging him aside, "so back off, okay?"

Daryl watched her clamber into the back of the van, feeling like the ground had been cut out from under his feet, and then he turned and stalked back into the woods, seeking shelter from the storm.

Hey, where will you be waking up tomorrow morning?

Hey, out the back door, goddamn

But I love her anyways…