So, this is not gotten a final edit and probably has a grammar error or two, but I'd rather get it out there for your reading pleasure and fix it later... Enjoy!
Chapter 19: Red Sky at Morning, Part III
Daryl would have gone on explaining what he overheard but for the knock at the door and an outstretched hand from Negan.
"You're standing." Negan raised an eyebrow and rested his elbows on the table.
Are you fucking serious right now? Daryl clenched his jaw to keep his frustration behind closed lips as he eased himself down to one knee, bracing his forearms on his thigh to help support his aching torso.
"You seem to have fucking forgotten yourself here, Daryl. I like you. Hell, I've liked you since that surprise punch the night we met. But you made your choice. Fucking live with it." He turned his head towards the door and called out for whoever was on the other side to enter.
Daryl had figured on it being one of the men who'd been with Negan earlier, or maybe Simon nosing around for information, not the black-haired waif of a woman who minced her way across the room with a plate of food and a knowing grin pulling at her purple-lipstick smile, which faded noticeably at the site of the half-eaten meal already on the table.
"I was hoping we could share lunch," she pouted.
Negan seemed no less happy to see her, sliding his chair away from the table with an annoying scraping sound and pulling the woman to his lap, "Hello, Molly, my love, I think you were hoping for more than lunch," he wrapped his arms around her back to pull her in close for a hungry kiss. "Christ," he hissed," the fuck do you move in this?" his hands slid to the stretched-tight skirt that had ridden up and was bunched obscenely at the apex of her thighs from straddling him.
Daryl ground his teeth in frustration. Didn't Negan realize there wasn't time for this shit? That there was a bomb likely sitting in the infirmary that could be set off at any second? Of course not, you haven't fucking told him yet, 'cause he's too goddamned busy making out with one of his fucking wives!
But Daryl's quiet huffs of impatience only seemed to spur Negan on, running his hands up and down her body and kissing all the more insistently.
The longer he knelt there, the more his aggravation turned to fear. If he'd heard and figured right, there was a fully-assembled bomb in that woman's bag. In the infirmary. With Beth. And she had no idea what kind of danger she was in. However reluctant the woman might be to set that thing off, the fact was she'd built it all the same. And, from what Daryl could piece together from his eavesdropping, she'd been forced to put it together with explosives that weren't exactly stable, materials she didn't trust to do what they were supposed to. Isn't that what she had said about the first ones she'd built for them?
"You weren't happy with what happened at the outpost. Too much fire, not enough force." It didn't make sense to Daryl; Eugene had built the devices that had gone off at the outpost. Unless they were switched out. The three men from Hilltop, whose names Daryl hadn't bothered to learn and now even more desperately hoped that Rick had, and that Jesus could convince him to share with Negan, had taken the firebombs directly from Eugene and placed them inside the satellite outpost. Which meant they were in the best position to have made a switch to something more deadly than what had been intended. An idea that made far more sense than Eugene fucking up the chemistry, the longer Daryl dwelled on it. But if this woman had messed up on the first ones and didn't feel all that confident about what she'd built now, it was anyone's guess how big a punch this device packed or if it was stable enough to hold together until it was put where they wanted it.
For all anyone knew, this thing could go off unexpectedly. And Beth was in the room with it.
Daryl was on the verge of rising to his feet and taking the iron or whatever else Negan threw at him just so he could get to Beth and warn her when Negan finally decided to stop teasing him, pulling away from Molly with his teeth dragging her bottom lip. "Darlin', as much as I would love," he emphasized with an exaggerated thrust and a groan, "to make much better use of this chair and table, I gotta deal with this," he murmured with a tip of his head in Daryl's direction.
"I don't care if he watches," she pressed herself against him.
"But I do," he gently but firmly nudged her back, "You're fucking amazing when you let go, and no one gets to see that but me." He kissed her neck, nuzzling at the nape for a moment before sitting up straighter and easing her thighs slowly away until she was standing in front of him, straightening her skirt with a disappointed frown.
"Aw, I can't have you walking away mad at me," Negan groused, pulling himself to his feet and placing his hands on her sides. "I tell you what, I was gonna save this for something special, but… if you look under my bed, there's a shiny black box tied up with a pretty purple ribbon, not too far off from the fucking amazing shade of lipstick you're wearing," he traced his thumb along the edge of her lower lip.
"You got me a present?" Molly's expression was turning eager, "What is it?"
Negan chuckled, "Oh, no, baby, I'm not going to spoil your surprise. But I think you'll know what to do with it once you open it. And as soon as I finish shutting down this latest shit-show, I will come upstairs and help you play with it," he grinned and raised his eyebrows suggestively.
Daryl didn't waste time; as soon as Negan had shut the door behind his wife, he blurted out, "They made that woman build a bomb. It's here, and they're gonna set it off today."
Negan turned to look at him appraisingly. "Huh," he clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth before casually crossing back to the table and absent-mindedly biting off the corner of his sandwich. "Not what I expected," he muttered around his food.
Daryl was incredulous," Ain't ya gonna do somethin'?"
"I am doing something," Negan swallowed. "I'm thinking, weighing out my options. Something you and your people should try sometime instead of jumping in half-assed without any goddamned forethought." He took a long swig of tea before leaning back in his chair and continuing, "She's got it in that shoulder bag of hers, am I right?"
"Think so, yeah."
Negan nodded, "Then she took it with her, knowing she was going to be in the same room as her kid, who she clearly wants to protect. So she's not going to set it off anytime soon, and she's reasonably sure no one else can set it off while she's got it. Murphy's keeping watch, he likes Beth and he likes kids. Hell, he and his brother like most people, as long as they aren't assholes or don't disrespect their faith. And they're both more capable than most when it comes to a fight, fists or otherwise. All of which comes together and says 'Negan, you got time! Sit for a spell, enjoy your meal, mull things over.' Seriously, give it a whirl, Daryl. Sit. Eat," he gestured to both an empty chair and the sandwich Molly had left behind.
As Daryl pulled himself to his feet, feeling the growing aches both from being on his knees for so long and from the earlier beating, Negan continued out loud, but more to himself than to Daryl, "They've got to know I'm going to talk to her, and the kid. And that bald dickhead's got to know he's a dead man for putting his hands on a woman and child under my roof."
"So you know he was lyin' back there," Daryl put out there, taking the seat but leaving the food untouched.
Negan snorted in derision, "Fucking bullshit he spewed in that hallway, piss-poor attempt at originality, might as well have just said 'my kid walks into walls and falls down stairs'. Fucking moron." He sighed and tipped his head back, contemplating the ceiling, "Question is, was getting caught out like this part of their plan all along, in which case things are happening exactly the way they intended? Or did you fuck things up for them, in which case they're now scrambling to salvage their operation?"
Another knock at the door interrupted his musings, "Come in," he barked.
Daryl couldn't help a quiet sigh of relief at seeing Beth, even if her expression was decidedly troubled.
"Where are they?" Negan asked.
"Ruby's in the small exam room getting redressed. Murphy's keeping her son occupied in the main room; he'll bring them both up when she's ready. But I told them both not to rush. Gives me a few minutes to show you all this," she waved the manila file folders in her hand.
"And Savannah?"
"She went on to lunch."
"Good," Negan murmured to himself before continuing, "Sit down, Doc, eat something yourself. Daryl here's too stupid to take advantage of good food when it's offered, and fuck-all knows when we'll have bread for sandwiches again, if the grain shortages are as bad as predicted."
But Beth didn't bother reaching for the plate and didn't seem to want to meet anyone's eyes, either. Daryl clenched his jaw and wished he could have just a couple of minutes alone with her to work out whatever had gotten under skin.
Negan finally caught on as well and pushed his own plate to the side, "Alright, then, let's have it. How pissed off am I about to be?"
Beth took a breath and squared her shoulders, seemingly steeling herself, but for what, Daryl wasn't quite sure. But then, he'd experienced abuse most of his life, and perhaps this was Beth's first time seeing what a grown man could do to a child. "I guess we'll start with Isaac. His wrist was only sprained, so we got that wrapped."
"He talk about what happened?" Negan interjected.
"No, neither of 'em said much. Seemed about all they could do to let me look 'em over." She opened the first folder and pulled out a crude sketch, two outline drawings of a person with no features, one labeled FRONT and the other BACK, with occasional marks on either figure and lines drawn out to notes along the sides of the page.
"Honestly, I was a little relieved," Beth said with a guilty expression on her face, "I thought there would be more. Not that any of it is good, mind, just…"
"Kids are resilient," Negan ran his fingers down the page, skimming over her notes on various bruises, cuts, and scars, "Have to really put a hurt on them to leave a lasting mark," he observed through gritted teeth. "This one here, that wraps around, that's the one I saw the edge of."
Beth nodded, "It's the freshest cut, ain't sure what made it. The welt seems too thin for a belt from what I seen before – "
"Electrical cord," Daryl offered, his gaze trained steadily on the table so his expression would give nothing away to either of the other two in the room. "Somethin' thin with ridges in the plastic casing, like from a lamp, maybe. If the cord's too rounded or smooth, it won't cut the skin. But a belt'd leave a thicker weal, with some bruisin' round the edges where the flat of the leather landed, least for the first day or so."
There was a beat of awkward silence, where Daryl could feel Negan's eyes bearing down on him, before Beth jumped in a touch too loudly, "An electrical cord would explain this odd bruise here," she gestured to a pencil mark on the other side of the drawing, "could be from the plug end hitting him. We should look for a random cord when their apartment gets searched, or something that used to have a plug but doesn't anymore."
Negan nodded, letting his interest in Daryl's detailed description go, at least for the moment. "How long do you think this has been going on?"
"You mean did Isaac come in with scars?" Beth got to the point, "Yeah, at least a couple of 'em. They're thin, and small, but they're at least a few months old. You'd have to be looking for them, but they're there."
"Looking for scars is the whole goddamned point of having a medical check before we let people into the Sanctuary. Looks like Carson's face is about to get a whole lot more interesting. Or at least one side of it. Tell me about the woman."
Negan missed, but Daryl didn't, the tightening of Beth's jaw, the tensing of her muscles at Negan's last statement. But he knew better than to call attention to it.
"How'd you know?" Beth asked, genuinely curious, "The ultrasound? How'd you know what it would see?"
Negan gave a half-grin and absently touched the end of the baseball bat as he explained, "She used to volunteer at this women's shelter, was a big thing for her. I went along from time to time. 'There's not a mark on my wife's body', that's what the prick kept saying in the hallway. The only real difference between a rich wife-beater and a poor one is that the white-collar crowd like to show off their trophy wives at company cocktail parties. Hard to put 'em in a pretty little dress and heels if they're gonna end up revealing his handiwork. A solution, if you want to call it that, is to get a soft bag, pillowcase maybe, and pack it with something that has weight, but also a little give to it. Handmade bars of soap can work, if the edges aren't too sharp. Citrus is ideal – oranges, grapefruit especially, lemons and limes are too small, have those knobby ends. Cause what they do is, get a good wind-up and swing, right into the gut. Soft belly tissue is the best landing spot, takes the wind right out of her, hurts like hell, for days after. No marks on the skin, though, all the bruising is deep inside. Do it hard enough, or enough times, you can rupture the organs, cause internal bleeding. All without the tiniest blemish. No broken bones, so X-ray's no good. But an ultrasound can see it all. So, what did you see?"
Beth pulled a heavier piece of paper out of the second folder, "I thought it was worth the ink to print out the image." Daryl wasn't sure what he was looking at, but Negan must have understood what the darkened blobs meant, because he let out a low whistle, "Surprised he didn't crack a rib, high up as he went and as hard as he hit."
"There was a little redness on her skin, almost like a rash. Maybe whatever he used for a bag wasn't all that soft."
Negan nodded. "All this for a lousy fucking bomb," he mused.
"A what?" Beth's voice squeaked surprise, and Negan held up his hand to quiet her. "Where?" she hissed.
"Probably still in your hospital wing," he replied casually.
Beth's eyes got wider than Daryl thought was possible and she was halfway out of her seat before Negan reached out to grasp her arm, "Would you calm the fuck down?" he rolled his eyes, "Honestly, the two of you, both about to jump out of your goddamned skin. The fucking thing's not going anywhere."
"I ain't worried about it going anywhere, I'm worried about it going off!" Beth fired back.
Negan gave her an exasperated look and spoke slowly, as if she were the one missing the obvious, "Any minute now, that woman and her son and her god-forsaken bag are going to walk through that door. And if there is, in fact, a bomb in said bag, I'll have her turn it off, or take it apart, or whatever the hell needs to be done to make it safe. Quietly. Without all this goddamned panic. Meanwhile, Connor is already going around getting people I know I can trust rounded up and ready in case there's trouble. And Murphy will be here, keeping an eye out while I talk with what's-her-name and get better information so I can shut this shit down and we can all get back to fucking normal."
"How would Connor know who – "
"You think I've been sitting back on my ass doing goddamned nothing all this time, Doc!" Negan took a breath and reined himself in. "I started with people who I knew never had any contact with Hilltop. And I got you sussing out folks as they come through the hospital wing, parents of your kids' friends, etcetera and so on. And the McManus brothers doing the same in their own circles. Don't you know what they used to do for a living?" Negan smirked before throwing back the last of his tea. At her confused expression he remarked, Let's just say they have a knack for sniffing out the less-than-virtuous. And knowing what to do about it. Christ, Doc, this shit tastes terrible! The hell you making us drink this slop for?"
"Olive leaves have strong antiviral properties, chamomile for antibacterial, and rose hips for vitamins A, B, C, and D, as well as flavonoids to help against cancers and heart disease and protect the brain," Beth reeled off before blushing slightly, realizing the question was rhetorical. "No one who's been to Hilltop – so you do think it's Simon."
"I think it's probably Simon. I think it's definitely at least some of the guys in his preferred crew. But I don't know for sure, or how many, or what the fuck-all they're planning to do to get what they want. Hopefully, our battered woman can fill in some of the blanks. At the very least, she can tell me what they had her building and where they wanted it to go off."
"I can't figure why they'd want to risk bringin' in someone who didn't want to be part of whatever this is in the first place," Beth questioned.
"Unless they wanted her to get caught," Daryl quietly posited.
Negan nodded in acknowledgement before putting out his own theory, "Either of you know how to build a bomb? I don't. Wouldn't know the first thing about what to do if I came across one, either. Decade's worth of cop dramas got everyone thinking they're armchair experts, but God's honest truth is, most people wouldn't have the first fucking clue what to do if they actually had to put one together. Or take one apart with its little timer ticking down to zero. Ain't like the good old days when you could Google that kind of shit. And then hit Ebay or Amazon or what-the-fuck-ever to order the parts. Probably took them months, scouring every community and outpost, every straggler they found in the woods, before coming across someone with the expertise. And that's before you find whatever shit you need to build one of the damned things."
"More than one," Daryl jumped in. "This is her second, at least." At Negan's interested look, he continued, "It's what I overheard in that hallway, 'fore ya got there."
"Before you got stupid and jumped in instead of coming to me in the first fucking place, you mean."
Daryl let the dig slide, "She built whatever got set off at the satellite station."
"How?" Negan was incredulous, and Beth's expression wasn't too far off from his.
"Couple'a guys from Hilltop went with us, they were the only ones to actually go inside. Must've swapped out what we gave 'em for whatever she made. But I heard her, clear as day, she needed more time with the one she's got because she didn't want to screw up and not give 'em what they asked for like at the outpost."
Negan crossed his arms as he considered this new information, emotions playing across his face too quickly for Daryl to rightly name them. "If that's true," he finally mused, "it would mean they still have Eugene's firebombs tucked away somewhere. Interesting. But a problem for another day," he concluded. "First I need that sweet little canary Miss Ruby to sing me a song or two. I doubt she can name all the players, but she can tell me what her little firecracker was meant to do and where it was meant to go. Can't be all that powerful, they wouldn't want to bring the whole fucking factory down on them, or fuck with the pipelines for water or power. But that still leaves a whole fuck-ton of options and potential consequences. My room would be the most obvious choice, of course, take me out, make a martyr out of me and take over while everyone's too busy freaking the fuck out about what to do next. But that needs a scapegoat, something they can rally behind – "
"Me." Beth's voice was quiet but certain, and it stopped Negan's meandering thoughts cold. "I'm pretty sure they mean to blame this on me." She slid the medical files towards his arm, flipping the top one open. "I dunno when they did it, or how, but this isn't what her file said a few days ago, and now it's the only thing I can find."
Negan skimmed the words that Daryl could barely read, both for being a few seats down the table and for the scribbled cursive in heavy ink lines. "So you're the one who first checked them in – "
"Except I didn't," Beth interjected.
Negan kept going as if he hadn't heard her, "And you knew she was hurting but saw nothing wrong. Patched up her kid a couple of times… aww, it's even got your pretty little initials. And written with that fancy-ass pen you love so much." His grin grew with each phrase until he was outright laughing, "Oh, they got your number for fucking sure, didn't they! Well, at least we know one thing," he slapped the medical reports shut, "Today is not the main event. This is just an opening act, something to warm up the crowd. Darlin'," he added, tapping his fingers on the files, "you don't go to this much trouble just for a back-up plan. They abso-fucking-lutely mean to set you up." He laughed again.
Daryl wasn't in a laughing mood. From what Negan had insinuated earlier, the doctor who saw the marks on a woman or kid and didn't say anything was just as culpable in his eyes as the bastard who put them there.
Like hell he was going to sit by and let Negan take that hot iron to Beth's face.
"You worried, Doc?" Negan chuckled, his expression going dark, "You should be. Simon, or whoever did this, wouldn't go to all this trouble and not make a copy just to make damned sure it got found. And either way this plays out, you've got a big fucking target on your back now. It wouldn't be anything for me to save you, long as you can deal with me playing favorites. But you can bet they'll jump all over that. Every fucker whose face has been kissed by that iron will be boiling mad at the unfairness of it all. So will their families. And their friends. And everyone who already thinks I'm being too soft on Alexandria, they'll make that connection, or it'll be made for them. In the face of all that, it would actually be better for me to just cover up those nasty little scars on your face with a much bigger and nastier scar. But then," he leaned back in his seat to stretch his legs, "if I do give you the iron, all those people who just love their favorite Doc will be heartbroken. And maybe a little pissed off. Maybe you'll be pissed off, too, pissed enough to switch sides, to not be Negan anymore. And use those amazing speech-making skills you were so eager to show off a few weeks ago to pull more people away from me. You do realize that's probably what put you on their radar, right? You standing up, making a big spectacle of yourself at my meeting. You wanted attention, wanted to be noticed, wanted to matter and for people to see you as someone worth knowing, someone important. Here it is, little girl, they're all gonna be looking at you now."
"You ain't gonna touch her," Daryl was done listening to Negan and his half-veiled threats against Beth.
But Negan just grinned, "And why is that? Because she's you wife? The mother of your children? Except she isn't. Because she's the town doctor? Except she's not exactly a medical professional, either. Hell, she's barely an adult." He turned back to Beth, "You might not be talking to your sister, but I am. Maybe you should have, could've gotten your stories straight at least."
"Ain't nothin' to get straight," Beth returned, and Daryl could see her hooded eyes, rod-straight spine and knew, under the table, she had one hand on her knife hilt. He'd seen it in Michonne enough times over the years to know protective 'mama-bear' mode, and was not-so-secretly pleased to see Beth unafraid and unhesitant to hold her own. "Maggie don't know what she's talkin' about. And I ain't lied, either. I came in here, I said I wanted to work in the medical wing. You're the one who started callin' me 'Doc', got it to spread round. Ain't never said I gave birth to Tim or Sunni, but they are my children and don't you dare try an' tell me otherwise. And I ain't never said how old I was or wasn't, but I came in here pregnant, can't fake that or forget it neither. I said I'm Beth Dixon because Beth Dixon is who I am."
"And your big sister had no fucking idea that you were in a secret relationship for years behind her back?" Negan taunted, on his feet now with his hands on the table. "And that Daryl Fucking Dixon, the man so goddamned honorable that, even though it does absolutely motherfucking nothing to help them, he'd rather suffer like this," he gestured vaguely at Daryl's clothes, "than turn his back on his friends back in Alexandria, would go and fuck a barely-legal teenage girl and leave her alone, pregnant, to fend for herself?"
"Maggie didn't know shit because she was too damned busy bein' wrapped up in her own relationship to see what was goin' on around her, to see that her sister was grown and holdin' her own," Daryl'd had enough and was on his feet as well. "Too focused on Glenn to spend even one goddamned day looking for anyone else when we all got split up. But you know goddamned well that the only reason I didn't keep fightin' you that night until I'd either kicked all your teeth in or forced you to kill me was because you said her name. That's it. No other reason. You said her name, and I stopped. For her. And you knew it, too, 's why you said it. Anythin' else about it ain't no one's business but hers and mine. There ain't no point goin' round with this bullshit game you're playin' when there's real problems to be dealin' with."
Somewhere in there, Daryl had apparently crossed a line with Negan, because the man stalked around the table, Lucille in hand and all traces of playfulness wiped from his face, "You think you know what game's being played here? You think I don't know what's right in front of my face, or that I don't know how keep fucking control of what's going on around me?" He stood toe-to-toe, his breath hot against Daryl's skin, "You think, just because I like having you around, like her company, that I won't end you here and now, right in front of her? You're having real trouble remembering just who the fuck you are today, Daryl, and who the fuck you're dealing with."
From the edges of his vision, Daryl saw Beth easing around the table towards them, but he refused to break eye contact with Negan, refused to be the one who backed down.
Looking back, he wouldn't be able to say for sure if it was more of a sound or a feeling, the low rumbling boom that vibrated the floor under their feet.
All three froze for an instant before Beth broke for the window, breathing a heavy relieved sigh as she turned back to Daryl, "Not the school."
As one, it dawned on them, "Hospital wing."
And Beth and Daryl were both off like a shot, moving as one through the door and down the stairs as swiftly and easily as they'd moved through the woods in their last few days together, not losing a step as she passed him the larger knife on her belt, reached into her pocket for her smaller utility knife and bringing it bear against whatever they were about to meet. Distantly, Daryl noted that Negan didn't seem to be with them; they'd left him behind to ponder just when exactly he'd lost control.
The corridor to the hospital wing was choked with smoke and dust, but the four doors all seemed closed and intact, the hall's only occupant pulling himself to his feet at the turn-off towards the room that housed the elderly patients.
"Murphy!" Beth called out and ran to him. He had a hand on his chest and was covered in dust and small nicks, but otherwise seemed fine.
"She left," he shook his head to clear it, dust falling all around him, "I dunno when, but the woman, Ruby, she… I went to check on her, see what was taking so long, but she was gone. And by the time I checked the other rooms and came back to look in on Isaac, he was gone, too."
The man seemed to set eyes on Daryl for the first time, noting the knife in his hand with interest. But Daryl wasn't bothering with Negan's rules at the moment. "Gotta find 'em both, they'll be looking to tie up loose ends." His words probably made no sense to Murphy, but Beth's eyes widened in comprehension. Now that the bomb had gone off, whether it did what it was supposed to or not, Ruby and her son weren't needed anymore, and whoever had set this in motion would be looking to silence them before Negan could get anything out of them.
"Oh, no," Beth whispered, her eyes going past Daryl to the corridor beyond. Daryl turned to see where the bulk of the dust and smoke was coming from. The double doors were blown nearly completely off their hinges, one hanging on crookedly by the top bracket and the other lost entirely. The group started to move closer to the wreckage only to have Murphy pull them back at the last second. The floor was crumbling under their feet, the concrete giving way to the floor below. But they were close enough to see the damage that had been done. The room with the elderly patients, and Aaron, was gone.