A/N: apologies for any editing errors! thank you for reading & reviewing - it gives me life. xoxo -c
Chapter 5: thread of the thing
Beth shows up at the farm daily, at least for a few hours, which she spends either sitting inside a comfortable air of silence or conversing, mostly about the farm and the work and the horses and the heat, with Daryl, apart from the times when her dad or Sean needed her to take down measurements or make notes and reminders in the patients' charts.
They don't speak about the night he came to her family's home for dinner, nor what her sister said then. They don't speak about not speaking about it, either. It makes for an elephant in the room, but not one that truly seems to bother either of them.
She'd heard her dad apologize one day earlier that week, while she brushed out the mane of a chestnut filly. He and Daryl were standing just outside of the stables, and she'd tried to will herself not to listen but couldn't stop herself from holding her breath with as much conviction as she held onto their words.
Daryl's response hadn't been any sort of shock. A mumble, probably a shrug, though she couldn't exactly see it, and a "'s nothin'," spoken in such a tone that she knew he likely was staring down at his feet rather than her father's pale eyes.
Beth crouched a bit, then, stealing a glance through the cracks in the wooden frame of the stall.
"My children - Maggie especially - really had a difficult time coping," her daddy said, leaning slightly against a fence post, "with Annette's death. Their mama, as you know. None of them - none of us - realized just how far it'd gotten when she took a turn. An' we didn't know just how quickly she'd deteriorate after that turn. Maggie leaned on Glenn, Sean leaned on our practice and the work we do, and I - I and Annette both - leaned on Bethy. And though she took the weight of it - of us, of her mother, 'specially as she grew more frail and less independent, less coherent - I always thought what hurt her the most was what people 'round here, in this town, said and thought - the rumors and questions without care.
"Maggie - well Maggie seems to have coped all along with her pain and grief by flingin' herself into any shred of that sort of thing she catches on the wind. Maybe it eases her pain 'cause it's not about her – not about us, our family."
"'M sorry," Daryl replied after several thick moments of silence. "'Bout Annette. I remember her - from before. From before Merle got put away."
Beth inhaled sharply, feeling suddenly frantic and guilty – she wasn't meant to hear this.
"Thank you," Hershel replied, placing a gentle hand on the younger man's shoulder. "If it ain't too much to ask, don't hold Maggie's behavior against her. But 'specially try not to hold it against my Bethy."
Beth exhaled then, finally, and silently but quickly exited the stables, running freely off into the acreage beyond.
Xxx
It's a Wednesday. Beth is seated at her small kitchen table, tapping her soiled nails against its surface. She's fuming.
Papers are sprawled between them, along with calculators and checkbooks, and all the other necessities of the more unpleasant parts of planning any major event.
"I know you're workin' over there, but I'm gonna ask you again: who in the the hell did you invite that wasn't on the list, Zach?" She asks, and her voice might actually be acidic. "There were not two hundred people on the guest list – the one we made together - last I checked. I don't even know or know of two hundred damn people. I sure as hell don't want that many people lookin' at me on what is supposed to be the best day of my life."
Zach looks up from across the table, over the top of his laptop, meeting her narrowed eyes.
Sighing and scrubbing a hand - moisturized and manicured - down his face from forehead to neck, he closes the computer, which is probably the most rational thing he's done in the last few hours they'd been sitting across from one another in Beth's apartment.
"Relax, Beth," he says, "everyone knows only like - what? - thirty percent of the people you invite actually show up?"
"I didn't ask you about the statistics you probably Googled five minutes ago. Who are these extra guests? How could you've just suddenly forgotten about one hundred extra people that you apparently care enough about that you want them to be at our wedding?"
"They're mostly partners at the firm," he says, rising and crossing the room to mix another drink. Beth eyes him. "And probably some of their closest associates, too, I guess – I mean, it's a big firm, Beth. You know that. Lots of 'em have families, too. I'll be the next one up for partner. You know how much that means to me. To us."
"Well, that's great and all, but couldn't we have just, oh, I don't know, invited them over for a simple dinner? One that costs a hell of a lot less than this one?" She sounds harsh, but she can't find it in her at this moment to care. "You know how much I don't want a huge gathering of strangers."
"I didn't think it'd be that big a deal," Zach says, coming to stand behind her. He kisses the top of her head and she fights the sudden urge to launch it upward and directly into his chin. She's never considered herself violent, but lately, he has been bringing out whatever violent tendencies lie dormant within her at an alarming frequency.
"It's a lot of money, Zach," she says, exasperated. "It's like you somehow don't realize that. And that's how it's been – not only with wedding planning, but with planning our entire life!"
"Your dad's a fuckin' vet, Beth," he snaps back. "I honestly didn't think about the money part."
"Yeah, he sure is a vet. In a tiny, rural, poverty-stricken town filled with hard-working people that he rarely charges full or fair prices."
"Let's take a step back," Zach says, sitting in a chair just to the right of her and scooting it close to her side. "Okay, invitations already went out. We can't un-invite. I'll talk to my parents, I'm sure they'd be willing – "
"No!" She says, slamming her hands down on the table with an impressive amount of force. "That isn't the point. You're missing it. I don't want to be stared at and judged by strangers. I don't want to never be included in decisions that you keep making that impact us both. You can't just fix it with money or status or kisses and hugs. Don't you get it?"
She rests her forehead on her hands, shoving the papers further towards the middle of the table and away from her.
"We are three months away. And I'm just finding out about this now, because we're getting RSVPs returned. Don't you understand how that could make me feel?"
"Beth," he says, voice quiet. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you or hurt you or not include you. I knew you wouldn't be open to this, and – "
"But you did it anyway! As if I wouldn't find out?" She cuts her eyes to his, and, for once, she feels like she sees a trace of fear or remorse in his.
Sometimes it's the hope that hurts us the most.
"This isn't productive," he says, standing and making his way toward the shoe rack. Because that is what he does in the face of conflict, and she's left chasing a resolution. "I'm gonna head home, okay? We can talk about this – "
Beth can't stop the bubble of laughter, which may actually be bordering on hysteria or devastation.
"We won't, so why even say it?" she says through the waves and efforts required to choke back and swallow the sobs threatening to rise.
"We will. I have a long day tomorrow. I'll see you Friday night, okay?" Once he's donned his shoes, he takes the few steps back to where she sits. Pulling her up to stand and wrapping his strong arms around her, he rubs the pads of his thumbs under her eyes, though she's not sure if any tears had ever been able to form. It's hard for her to cry anymore, not when it comes to this.
"I love you, Beth Ann Greene," he says, his brown eyes exploring the depths of her blues.
"I love you." She says it, but she isn't sure it's really her voice anymore.
Xxx
She spends the entire next day at the farm. It's tranquil and hot and quiet. Her daddy and Sean, after weeks of daily annual checks along with running the clinic, have both taken a mental health day off and are probably – hopefully, Beth thinks – sleeping the day away.
Lori and Rick are spending the week at the summer camp where Carl's staying. She isn't even sure if Daryl is working today.
But it's the place she could come visit when she was feeling down – like when girls at school threw rocks at her, when she and her high school boyfriend broke up, when her mama could no longer recognize her face.
It was the place that she always felt comfortable enough to think about those difficult things in life that everyone faces – anger, sadness, grief, longing, conflict, life changes. Things that she couldn't think about with a clear mind in any other environment. She sometimes spoke to the horses about her problems. Sometimes she solved them with a saddle and a ride through the acres and acres of land here.
She arrived early morning, noting the regular vehicles, apart from her dad's or Sean's of course, parked along the side of the dust and gravel of the driveway. Daryl's truck was here too, but she didn't see him as she exited her own.
His nature was such that, even if he were there, she still felt she could do some much-needed mind- and soul-searching, so she didn't waste another second before entering the stables and reaching up high on the wall for a saddle, blanket, reins, and leathers. She entered the pasture, seeking her favorite horse to ride, a beautiful appaloosa she'd years ago named Inez.
Soon, she mounted, and the horse gladly galloped under her steer, seemingly just as eager to escape her reality.
Xxx
She's not sure how long they've been riding when they approach a little creek. She squeezes the reins to slow and then stop Inez. Beth dismounts and finds a spot to sit and stretch, while Inez stays within a few yards of her, munching on the lush grass underfoot.
Beth lets her mind wander and travel and process all of which worries there within.
She knows she loves Zach. He'd stayed with her while her mom was sick, despite the changes that had accompanied that time, which was fairly early in their relationship.
Beth's personality had changed when her mom's secret disease was exposed, too, and she wasn't so naïve to think that Zach hadn't noticed. But he'd loved her through it, in his own way: supporting her while she had to take a leave of absence from work, while she took a leave of absence and eventually a permanent leave from school, while she spent sleepless nights obsessing and crying and exuding misery.
She can't reconcile that man, the one who stayed firmly beside her during the worst time of her life to date, with the one who didn't seem to even think twice about considering her feelings, her opinions, or her thoughts when it came to planning their upcoming wedding, their upcoming marriage, and their future.
Is it possible that he, too, changed? And she'd been too distracted by grief and coping and moving forward that she failed to realize?
She sighs in frustration at the cyclical thoughts to a non-existent destination and decides to switch gears. She reclines back onto her elbows, extending her neck to allow the mid-morning sun to cover her in a blanket of warmth, and instead tries to clear her mind of all thoughts.
It's a technique her therapist told her about once, a few years ago; Beth thinks she'd called it a reset, or maybe a recharge. Clearing the mind and setting aside the unhelpful, anxiety-fueled thoughts that plagued her. To cope. To function. To move forward.
Exhaustion must have been the only things remaining there in her mind's recesses in that moment of clarity, because Beth can't stop the persistent, heavy pull of sleep that shortly thereafter takes her under.
Xxx
She's sure she's dreaming, because she sees but can't truly feel the thick strands of her mother's auburn hair. Her skin is clear and smooth, and her brown eyes – much like Maggie's and Sean's – are wide and filled with love.
It's nothing like the tangible memories securely stored in her rational mind, the ones that are mostly comprised of her emaciated, grey face and body during those last few weeks of her mother's life.
Her awareness doesn't inhibit her from reaching out, though, or smiling through the fog that surrounds them.
They're there, in Rick and Lori's pasture, lying side by side, as streams of sunlight reach them through the trees.
She notices her mom's nails are clean and pink and full of life, that they're both wearing white "summer dresses" as they once called them.
When they speak, their voices are rich and echo in a way that Beth not only hears but feels on the edges of her mind.
"I don't know what I'm doin', mama," Beth says, turning onto her side. She marvels at how soft the ground underneath her feels against her skin and the fabric of her dress.
Her mother's beautiful face twists toward her own and her smile, so full and consuming, makes Beth feel better in an instant.
"You know what's right, Beth Ann," mama says. "There's more waiting."
She curses internally at the cryptic nature of dreams.
"More what?" she asks, pressing a hand to the soft skin of her mother's shoulder.
"He's more," mama responds with a smile. "Curiosity becomes you, it always has."
"Zach?" Beth asks, becoming just a bit frantic as she sees the dissipation of the fog in her periphery. "Mama, who?"
"When you know…." It's the last bit she comprehends as she's roughly thrown from the peace of her mind's creation.
Xxx
The steel toe of a boot repeatedly tapping her thigh is what brings her back, and she's pissed the moment she opens her eyes.
The sun is near mid-sky position now. How long had she slept out here?
"Thought you might'a been dead." A rough voice. She's squinting through the hot rays of sun, and everything hurts, but the smell of the wildflowers in bloom around her make it infinitesimally less horrible.
She immediately springs up into a sitting position, knocking her head into something hard.
"Jesus, Beth," the rough voice yelps. "What's with the headbutt?"
Her eyes fly open. In her periphery, she spots Inez not far from where she'd been when Beth had decided to rest.
"Daryl? What the hell are you doing?" She moves a hand to her forehead, which she realizes now had moments earlier collided with his.
"You really askin' me that?" he snaps, flopping back onto the grass under them. "Saw your truck. Didn't see you. Been lookin' for hours." He sounds bored as he speaks, with an edge of irritation that Beth certainly does not miss.
"Thought you were a farmhand, not a one-man search-and-rescue. I was just – I don't know, sleepin' for a minute." She crosses her jean-clad legs, still in the process of fully awakening.
Daryl turns his head toward her from where he sits just inches away, and Beth sees an array of questions there in his eyes.
He looks away after several moments, pulling at some blades of grass near his knee. When he speaks again, his question is surprising.
"Ya wanna get outta here? Show me where to find some of that good booze you were tellin' me 'bout?"