Powdered Gold: September
When Beth had shut her eyes, it had been full dark outside. But when she opened them next, she was greeted with a fuzzy lilac twilight. She woke overly warm, her cheek stuck to Daryl's bare back. Beth carefully pulled her cheek away, studying the angel-and-demon tattoo and the scars that decorated his skin. He had never told her where the scars came from, and Beth had never asked. Now, though, she gently kissed the ridge of one of these scars, causing Daryl to shiver under her touch.
"We slept through the day," she whispered, hugging herself to him once more.
"Mmm," Daryl agreed sleepily, shifting and rolling so that he faced her. A calloused hand swept her sleep-mussed hair from her face before he bent his head to kiss her mouth. "Apparently we're makin' a habit of it."
"Sleep is good for broken bones," Beth pointed out. "And we needed it. Even with the truck, we've been traveling on foot a lot lately."
"Fractured bone," Daryl corrected, smirking. The light was fading quickly, casting Daryl's features into muggy shadows.
"Oh, yes, fractured bone according to Dr. Cian." She corrected, one hand lazily charting the landscape of his chest. "I suppose we're safe, huh? If they were going to kill us, they had ample opportunity to do it over the past twenty-four hours."
"Mmm," he said again, stopping the trek of her hand with his own. He twined his fingers with hers, raising their hands from the blankets so he could run his lips over her knuckles. "Maybe they like a show, and they're waitin' to ambush us outside as soon as our lazy asses get up."
"Then they're great actors," she shot back, "and wasteful, for giving you medical supplies just to kill you."
"You ain't gotta be smart to be mean," Daryl pointed out. They pair were interrupted by someone knocking on the front door, the sound faint but intelligible in their borrowed upstairs bedroom.
"I guess we're taking too long for their liking," Beth teased, slipping from the covers to pull on her jeans and tank top. Daryl did the same, both of them dressing quickly and making their way downstairs in tandem. Rather than an ambush, though, there was only Dierdre standing on the porch.
The woman smiled at them, eyes raking over their mussed hair and hastily thrown on clothing. "Get enough rest?" She asked, a mischievous glint in her eyes that caused Beth to blush though they had been merely sleeping. Why was she still so shy about her relationship with Daryl when others were around? "We thought y'all might want some supper."
Beth hadn't realized she was starving until Dierdre made the offer. Her stomach panged with her hunger, leaving her nodding emphatically, not waiting for any reaction from Daryl. "Please."
She led Daryl by the hand through that lilac twilight, using her other to smooth her hair. They followed Dierdre back to the cabin she shared with her wife, and they were greeted with the sight of Nessa poking her head out of a candle-lit kitchen and smiling. The twins, Callum and Cian, sat at a similarly lit table with their own wives, Samantha and Brittany. Maisri, the little girl belonging to Cian and Brittany, sat on the floor close to her mother's feet, occupied with a game of dolls.
Like Nessa, they were greeted with more smiles. Hardly the death squad Daryl described, Beth thought, giving his hand a squeeze before they took their seats at the table. The pair was easily absorbed into the story Callum was telling, recounting an early morning in the woods with Cian and how they were very nearly skunk-sprayed when they went out checking snares.
"He almost backed into the fence!" Callum concluded, laughing around mouthfuls of his dandelion salad. It was not quite harvest time, but Beth had seen the gardens at each cabin teeming with fresh produce. There were juicy, bright red tomatoes tossed in with the wild greens on her plate, and crisp red onions, too. She had been too tired, the night before, to pay much mind to what had been given to her at this very table.
"I would take the voltage over a skunk any day," Cian enthused, reaching across his brother to snag a roll from the basket at the center of the table. When Nessa appeared from the kitchen, it was with a tray of steaming bowls that she set in front of everyone in turn. Brittany prompted Maisri to get in her chair while Beth took a sniff of her food. Rabbit stew.
Chunks of meat swam in a thick broth dotted with green onions, potatoes, and carrots. She peeked at Daryl beneath her lashes. To anyone else, his face likely seemed politely blank, but she could see her own thoughts echoed in his blue eyes. The MacDonalds lived well here. The food was good, soon settling Beth's rumbling stomach at ease.
The MacDonald family carried the majority of the conversation until Maisri began to droop in her father's lap. Cian lifted her easily and carried her from the room.
"She always falls asleep just after dinner," Brittany explained. "From sunup to sundown, that girl is on the go. Maisri can hardly stand to sit still long enough to eat."
"Just like her daddy," Ness explained, eyes twinkling in the candlelight, "and her uncle. The boys were just the same growing up, weren't they?"
"Y'all are lucky Maisri was a singleton," Deidre agreed, shaking her head. Samantha had also disappeared from the table, but had just returned, a bottle of wine in her hand. Nessa pushed back from the table, ducking back into the kitchen and returning with her hands brimming with wine glasses. "I thought the boys might do us in some days. Either of y'all have siblings?"
An innocent enough question. Still, Beth found herself stopping short. Maggie, yes, she still had Maggie, but Shawn…
"I have a sister named Maggie," Beth heard herself saying. "And a brother named Shawn, but he passed… early on… in all of this." She gestured vaguely with her hand. Nessa's features were sympathetic across from her, and Samantha gave her shoulder a small squeeze when she poured Beth's wine for her. The man beside her was silent, but she felt Daryl's hand rest warm and reassuring on her thigh under the table.
"Beth, Maggie, Shawn…" Dierdre said each name, canting her head to the side. She raised an eyebrow in silent question, making Beth smile despite herself. Before she answered, she took a sip of her wine, finding it sweet on her tongue.
"Cherry wine," Samantha explained, interrupting. "Callum and I have gotten good at making it… or, at least, we like to think so."
"It's good," Beth told her, before turning to Dierdre. "My daddy's name was Hershel. We had a farm, too."
"I told you she had Irish in her," Dierdre leaned back in her seat, clearly pleased with her assessment of Beth. Beside her, Nessa rolled her eyes before giving her wife's hand a loving squeeze.
"Mama thinks she can snuff out anyone with Irish descent," Callum explained, leaning over the table conspiratorially. "It would be annoying if she wasn't always right."
"What about you, Daryl?" Nessa asked, neatly diverting the conversation away from any gloating Dierdre might have had. "Don't leave us in suspense."
Under the table, Beth took his hand in hers. She gave his fingers a tight squeeze and watched him take a hearty drink of his wine, swishing it around his mouth before he swallowed. "My brother died 'bout a year ago."
Sympathetic looks were given all around. It wasn't lost on Beth how Daryl dropped his gaze to his wine glass. She gave his hand another squeeze.
"And the two of you?" Brittany prompted, obviously trying to turn the conversation onto lighter topics. "How did y'all meet?"
Here, Beth swallowed, immediately deciding to give a sanitized version of events. "Daryl and his group came across Daddy's farm," she told them. "It was just me, Daddy, and Maggie by then. We decided to all join together. Our farm wasn't like yours. We couldn't keep the walkers out, after a while."
"Walkers?" Callum asked. "The dead, you mean?"
"Yeah," Daryl confirmed. "Walkers."
They didn't provide any other specifics, keeping the painful memories of the prison between them. After a beat, Cian asked, "So, y'all got separated from the others?"
"Yeah," Daryl said again. "We all went in different directions."
"We've been trying to find them," Beth tacked on. "But we haven't had much luck."
Only the poncho from Terminus, and the plan to go to D.C… and the wild hope to see them all again.
More sympathetic looks were thrown around. Beth took a long pull of wine just to have something to do. Beside her, Daryl did the same. A heavy air had settled over the dining room. Beth was surprised the candles didn't go out under the pressure. Samantha was the closest to her; she reached across the table and laid her hand on top of Beth's.
The MacDonald's were kind, yes, but their farm was an anomaly in this world. It was obvious from the forlorn looks on their faces that they had no experiences to conceptualize even these barebones details they had provided. They don't even know the half of it.
When Beth met Daryl's eye, it was clear they were on the same page.
Later that night, by candlelight, Beth sat down at the vanity in their borrowed bedroom and began to brush her hair. Other than glimpses of herself in windows and bodies of water, this was the first time she had seen herself in nearly a year—since they left the funeral home.
She was very tan, from all their days traveling under the summer sun, and her hair was bleached nearly white. Her face was thinner than she had remembered, but that could be said for her entire body. Ropy muscles—not unlike Daryl's—had formed along her arms and legs.
Daryl was just the same as her, skin tanned a leathery brown that made his blue eyes nearly glow. Even his dark hair was streaked through with bits of blonde here and there from basically living outside. They were more alike now than Beth ever would have imagined they might be. Looking into the mirror, she felt entirely removed from the person she had been at the prison.
What did they see? She wondered. Looking out the window, she could just see the tiny, cherry-red light of Daryl's cigarette. He was smoking on the balcony just off the master bedroom, waiting for Beth to be ready to go back to bed. When they look at us, who do they see?
Beth tried to picture herself and Daryl from the MacDonalds' perspectives. Two ropy strangers, smudged with dirt and wearing threadbare clothing. One injured, but not so badly to mask his natural distrust of other humans. What was it that had made Nessa and Callum think to invite them in? She wasn't sure she would have done the same, had she been in their place. But she was glad they had.
Sighing, Beth set the brush down and pushed herself up from the vanity bench, pausing a moment to blow out the candle flame. She padded across the wooden floor on bare feet, poking her head around the edge of the open glass door. "C'mon," she prompted quietly, extending a hand to Daryl.
He put his cigarette out carefully in a small potted plant before testing it on his finger. The butt was stuffed in his pocket when he deemed it cool enough. Daryl held nature to a higher respect than most people; littering wasn't in his nature. She led him to the bed, rolling her eyes once more at Daryl's habit of wearing his jeans to sleep even indoors. The most he did was shed his shirt and shoes before slipping beneath the covers with Beth.
"How's your arm?" She asked, lapsing into their habitual whispers. Beth ran a finger over the hard plastic encasing the injury. He obligingly stretched his arm, but did not roll his wrist; that motion, she was sure, would be too much even with the splint.
"Better," he admitted. "Doesn't hurt so much."
"Mmm." Beth tipped her head back, catching his mouth with hers. Neither of them seemed intent on breaking the kiss; Daryl gathered Beth up, holding her against his bare chest. Her fingers weaved themselves into his shaggy hair, keeping him in place as she kissed him thoroughly. But breathing was still necessary, and when Daryl pulled back for both air and to pull Beth's tank top over her head, she ignored her anticipatory shivers to ask, "What do you think of them?"
"They're good people," Daryl admitted, calloused hands surveying the curves of her waist as he settled her in his lap. "And they got it good here. But they ain't gonna keep it if they don't wise up to this world."
Beth frowned but didn't disagree. Her own family farm and the prison were proof enough for his words. Not wanting to dwell on those thoughts, she pushed them from her mind, only to have them replaced with a fresher unpleasant memory. Jay's face flashed in her mind again, that cocky smile, his dark eyes flat in a poor attempt to hide the ill-intent he held for them. Wrapping her arms around his neck, Beth hugged Daryl to herself and pressed a kiss to the thrumming, strong pulse just below his jaw. Then she shifted, trailing her kisses along his neck, stopping to nip at his collarbone. His hand gripped her thigh, breath hitching in his throat.
She was so very thankful that Daryl was wise to this world; that, despite its best efforts, the universe hadn't wrenched him from her. Beth felt her throat squeeze with the emotion, blinking back tears before they could attempt to fall. Daryl, she knew, was a man of action more so than words, and she was determined to convey her sentiments to him with her body if words were going to fail her.
"Doctor's orders were to keep weight off the arm," he murmured, his own hand now tangled in her loose hair. She was trekking her way down his torso with her mouth. Now, her lips curved in a bemused smirk, just over his hip bone.
"I think we can manage."
She drew back, hands eager to relieve him of his remaining clothing. Daryl responded in kind, and with the barriers gone, he laid her gently on her side. He hadn't closed the balcony door behind him, leaving the pair bathed in moonlight. Beth kissed him again, body alight with the feel of his bare skin against hers. One of his hands trailed over her body, cupping and spanning in turn, until he caught her leg by the knee, giving a gentle tug to press into her. Beth sighed, kissing his lips and wrapping a leg around his hip, bringing him deeper. They both shuddered and Beth's sigh became a moan of his name.
Arching her back, Beth was overcome with the need to be as close to him as possible. She would drink him up, she thought, were that possible. Instead, she had to satisfy herself with burying her face in his shoulder and clinging to him, feeling the heat of his body and his strong, racing heart reassuring her that he was very much alive. They were both so very much alive.
Laying on their sides wrapped up in each other as they were, the pair were slow and quiet in their lovemaking. Beth's hands were in his hair, caressing his face, her hips moving in an easy rhythm with his languid, deep thrusts. Daryl kissed her often, and deeply, cradling her to him.
…they shall become one flesh…
The thought was vague, insubstantial as smoke in her mind, but her body echoed the sentiment. Beth felt as if her edges were blurred, bleeding into Daryl's, so that it seemed impossible to know where she ended, and he began.
I love you, she thought next, unable to find her voice for anything other than small, wordless sighs and moans.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
The night air was cool, a small breeze ruffling her hair and whispering across one bare shoulder peeking from the covers. Sleep hovered on the fringes of her mind, but she still turned toward Daryl's touch when he brushed her mussed hair from her face. His lips were warm, pressing a kiss just at her hairline.
"I told you once, Bethy, and I meant it." Opening her eyes was a bit of a struggle, but she found him limned in moonlight, looking over the top of her head more so than at her. She was just about to ask what he was referring to when his thumb skimmed the ridge of her cheek bone. "We ain't dying."
For once, words had failed her but came in easily for Daryl. "Neither of us. You hear? We ain't leavin' each other."
"I hear you," she murmured, catching his hand and drawing it to her mouth, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. A contented smile played at her lips, and her chest glowed with a deep, warm happiness that was echoed in his still-flushed skin. Wrapping her arms around him, Beth drew closer to Daryl so that their limbs were tangled and their breath shared.
Beth fell into a comforting, restful sleep—her first in weeks.
It was easy to fall into a rhythm on the MacDonald farm. They left the curtains open, so that they both rose with the sun when it began to lighten the horizon. Beth did farm chores each morning: milking the cows with Dierdre, gathering fresh produce with Samantha, tending the livestock with Cian. Daryl spent more time with Nessa and Callum himself, checking traps and hunting and surveying the land all around the farm.
He was happy to be proven somewhat wrong; the MacDonalds were, at the least, cognizant enough of the state of the world to do daily perimeter sweeps. Any and all walkers they encountered were quickly done away with.
"What d'you do with 'em?" Daryl asked quietly, pulling his knife from the skull of one such walker. The blade came free with an unsettling, wet, pulling sound.
"Huh?" Callum hadn't been paying him much attention, more interested in the deer tracks he was studying. They disappeared in the underbrush, and Callum was evaluating the branches and leaves, looking for any sign of the deer's direction.
That one question likely sent the deer, if it were still in the area, running scared. Callum's voice was too loud for the quiet sounds of the wind ruffling softly through the leaves and birds chirping to each other.
"The walkers. D'you leave 'em? Burn 'em?" He dropped his voice lower, hoping Callum might realize he, too, needed to be quiet. They had to be doing something with them. Other than the one Daryl had just felled, he hadn't seen any sign of walkers around.
"Cian would be pissed if he knew I was out here letting you use that arm. It really doesn't hurt? No? Then pick your side, you want the feet or the head? We toss them over the ridge a little ways to the west of here, to keep them from piling up." Not a single drop in octave.
Effective enough, Daryl decided. He hooked the walker under the arms, grimacing at the rubbery, dead feel of the skin. It had always bothered him how the walkers were neither warm nor cold, they just… were. Perhaps he should have taken the booted feet instead, as Callum just had. This walker was light, at least, more skeleton than anything at this point. It didn't take long to transport the walker to this ridge Callum had described.
Daryl smelled it before he saw it, that pungent, sour-sweet smell of death and rotting. A 'ridge' indeed, the land dropped suddenly into a deep valley with steep sides. Carrion birds cawed in annoyance at their arrival, temporarily turning the sky dark with their clutter of wings.
The valley was full of bones—picked clean by the birds that now waited in the branches above their heads—and fallen walkers alike. "Ready?" Callum asked, beginning to swing the legs of the walker they held between them.
"Yeah." They tossed the walker over the edge, its landing signaled by a squishy plop. Daryl grimaced at the sound and stepped back, leaving the birds to their gruesome feast. Under the squawking cover of squabbling birds, Daryl turned to Callum. "You're too loud out here."
"What?" Surprise was evident on the other man's face, eyes widening beneath furrowed brows and mouth hanging slack.
"It's quieter now," Daryl explained. "No cars, planes, less people. Means you gotta be quieter, too."
"Huh." To his credit, Callum's contemplation was pitched much, much lower. He continued in a whisper, "Makes sense."
The rest of the traps were checked in relative silence, Daryl and Callum exchanging gestures more so than words. Their bounty was comprised primarily of small game—squirrels and rabbits—but neither complained about that. Any meat was welcome, always, and a portion of it would be smoked and stored for winter.
Another detail of the MacDonald farm that had impressed Daryl: their winter stores. But such a resource also made the farm all the more covetable. Reassuring as the weight of the game in the sack was, knowing the lengths people would go for something like the meat smoking shed made his stomach roil.
Daryl didn't often think of the Governor. On the rare occasion the wretched, evil man made an appearance in his mind, he had the tendency to shove such memories away. He did so now, as they came in through the gate, preferring instead to focus on Beth's smiling face.
Her cheeks were flushed with exercise. A farmgirl herself, he knew Beth wasn't one to shy away from the hard work of livestock. That must have been what she was doing, for when she met with him just inside the gate, she brought with her the soft, warm, musky smell of animals. Smiling up at him, she lifted his splinted arm, cradling it in one hand. and ran her fingers lightly over it. "You're not doing too much, are you?"
It was the same question every day, when he came back into the safe confines of the electric fence. "Nah," he told her, as had become the routine. "Feels fine."
"Good." She smiled again, stretching on tiptoe to kiss him demurely on the cheek. Her hand lingered a moment on his chest, a finger idly running over a button. Most things, he could do with no help, despite his splint. Buttoning his plaid shirts each morning was not one of them, with how stiff the splint held the fingers of his hand. Beth had been buttoning his shirts for him, a smug and teasing smile on her lips every time.
He caught her hand with his good one and gave it a squeeze before pressing the game bag into her palm. "Here, carry this for the cripple."
"You're hardly crippled," she grumbled, scrunching her nose at the game bag. A farmgirl, yes, but one who looked away during the butchering… if she attended them at all. Beth shot him a look, tightened her grip on the game back, and jutted her chin out in that stubborn way of hers. The late afternoon sun glinted golden off her braided hair as he followed her to the barn, where Callum would do the butchering of the game. Daryl would have liked to do it himself, but the same stiffness that kept him from doing up his own buttons made him concerned he would taint the meat should a clumsy move rent open the intestines or bladder of the game animals.
Instead, they left the game bag in Callum's care, Beth following Daryl back out of the barn.
"They got a whole valley of walkers not even a mile out from the farm," he whispered to her, after a quick scan of the fields revealed they were, for the time, alone outside. A slight shiver shook Beth's shoulders, her nose wrinkling again.
"Efficient, I guess, but… I would be suspicious if we had come across that instead of Nessa and Callum kayaking."
Daryl shrugged. "Maybe. There's a high ridge right 'fore the valley. Walkers might could stumble right in there on their own, drawin' others over with all their racket."
Beside him, Beth grimaced, obviously not sold on his reasoning. "Keeps the crows fed," he couldn't help pointing out. "Can't really expect them to be out botherin' the crops when they're full-up on walkers."
As always, his teasing caught her off-guard. She paused before laughing, covering her mouth with one hand. "Daryl!" Beth chided in the midst of her humor. "That's gross."
He held the door open for her when they reached their cabin, ushering her in ahead of him.
"It's honest," he defended himself, only now speaking at a regular volume. "And smart. I gotta give it to 'em there."
"Credit where it's due, and all that?" She asked, toeing off her boots and padding around the living room in her sock-feet. Aside from the Sunday dinners—for that apparently was the day of the week when they had slept through all waking hours—each household fended for themselves for dinner. Food stores were open distributed among the cabins in the respective pantries. Beth stopped at theirs, drawing the doors open to peek inside at the jars of grains and baskets of produce. "What do you think?"
They had agreed to give more than they got while staying on the MacDonald farm, which meant being conservative in the goods they used. "There's still half a loaf of that bread I made," Beth mused aloud, hands reaching for tomatoes without waiting for his answer. She plucked two of the larger fruits from the basket, taking a sizeable cucumber from another, and turned on her heel in the next moment to begin poking through the drawers for a knife.
Eating before sunset was their routine while traveling, and they weren't deviating from it now. As Daryl had keenly pointed out, sticking to schedule would make it easier to adjust back to life on the road once they left. So, with golden evening light streaming through the windows, they sat together in the living room and ate tomato and cucumber sandwiches while playing checkers.
Though summer was coming to an end, and they had several windows cracked, it was hot in the house. Daryl watched Beth unbraid her hair then coil it on top of her head and secure it with a tie before fanning her neck with her hand. She bit her lip, looking down at the board, before smiling and jumping two of his checkers he had left undefended in an oversight. But the smile was not long for the world, slipping from her face in the next second as if it had melted away from the heat.
"Daryl?" She asked, looking a little pale beneath her tan. A shaft of sunlight fell across her face where she sat, leeching almost all the color from her eyes. They looked like pale blue marbles, murky with concern. His Beth, she was never one to beat around the bush. "What if we don't find them? If we get all the way to D.C. and they aren't there? What then?"
He rocked back where he sat, taking a bite of his sandwich and chewing slowly as he thought. What would they do? He hadn't given it much thought, if he were honest. If he didn't like to think of the Governor, he liked thinking of this possibility even less.
"What d'you wanna do?" Daryl asked instead, turning it back to her. If she left it up to him, he had no problem continuing the vagabond lifestyle they had already adopted on their trek to find the others. That didn't mean she wanted the same, though.
The question threw her. She pursed her lips and squinted. "I… don't know. I've been so focused on finding Maggie, but… there's a lot of time to think here, isn't there? Now that we're not always on edge, waiting for the next danger? And, so, I've been thinking what we'll do if we can't find them, but I can't ever manage to think of a Plan B."
"Well, shit." Daryl shrugged, quickly finding himself in the same position as Beth, unable to think of an alternative. He hadn't realized just how much he was hoping to see Rick, Carol, Glenn, Carl… all of them. Needing something to do, he overtook one of her checkers, landing himself on her edge of the board. Plucking one of his lost pieces from her stack, he kinged himself. After nearly a minute had ticked away on the clock sitting on the mantle behind him, he admitted, "I don't know, either."
To his surprise, Beth laughed, but it hardly held any humor in it. He startled at the sound, brow furrowing as he looked up at her. "I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, huh?"
"Yeah, if it ain't fallen all to hell like the rest of this world." Her dour humor was contagious, making him chuckle despite himself. Beth smiled in return, finishing off her sandwich and taking another of his checkers for her stack.
"Your turn," she told him around a mouth full of food.
Keeping up their outdoor routines also meant sleeping in shifts, despite the two-layered safety of the electric fence and locked cabin doors. Beth liked to sit on the balcony when it was her turn to stay up, enjoying the last of the soft, warm nights and tipping her head back to take in the stars. Daryl had taught her constellations while on the road; she quizzed herself on them now, their names and placements and mythos.
When she did sleep, her nightmares were at bay. She hadn't had a bad dream—about Daddy or Maggie or Daryl—since coming to the MacDonald farm, and for that she was thankful. It was easier to keep the darker thoughts away when they didn't visit at night.
"How ironic," she murmured quietly, taking in the stars on the thirteenth night they had been there. Of course, she was keeping count, feeling more and more bolstered by each day Daryl didn't pose an argument that it was time to leave. She had meant it wholly, when she had chided him over his injured arm. "I don't dream about not being able to find Maggie, but now I think of her at night, anyway."
At the funeral home, she had a habit of talking to herself when Daryl wasn't around. That habit had returned now, not that she was left wanting for conversation partners. Maisri in particular would have talked her ear clean off if she had let her. Callum and Samantha's little girl was all mouth. In truth, the girl was energy personified.
Beth didn't feel like she was talking to herself, though. She knew she wasn't praying, either, but she did feel as if she were speaking to God when she sat under the stars like this. When they had first come to the MacDonald farm, she had hoped the family would not only be Irish, but Irish Catholic, as her daddy had been. That hope was thwarted on the second Sunday, when the Sabbath passed with no mention of service.
At the prison, Hershel had held family church with her, Maggie, and Glenn. They hadn't needed a church, or pews, or instruments. Now, Beth didn't even have a Bible at her disposal, but she knew her psalms and many verses. She recited them to herself, mouthing the words just as she used to when she read along in the pew, sandwiched between Maggie and Sean each Sunday.
Her need for worship had been sparked anew following their arrival on the farm, her prayer answered.
"Thank you," she whispered to the cosmos, not for the first time. "Thank you for letting me keep him."
Half-turning, Beth looked over her shoulder to where Daryl slept in their bed. She could just make out his form, a more solid black against the shadows of night. If she squinted her eyes, she could see the gentle rise and fall of one shoulder. It was nearly time to wake him for his shift; the moon was dipping low toward the horizon. The night breeze was soft on her face; she liked to think it was in answer to her gratitude.
A movement caught her attention, flickering at the edge of her peripheral. A light; no, a lantern. It glinted off the form of Cian, coming back from the barn. Even from her elevated position, Beth could see the lines of exhaustion on him. He had been up all night, she knew, helping one of the mares who had begun to foal. Considering Cian's absence from dinner—which had been eaten outside, in Nessa and Dierdre's garden—the mare must have had a hard time of it.
Now, Cian walked quietly through the grass, along the natural path that had formed from his own cabin to the barn. He didn't seem to notice Beth, sitting on the balcony and swathed in starlight.
Maybe he's just tired, she mused. Of the multitude of things she had learned from Daryl, being environmentally aware was a huge one. She liked to think she would notice someone watching her as intently as she was watching Cian MacDonald. Curious, now, Beth tapped the toe of her boot on the metal balcony railing. The clang! that followed was a little dull, sure, but definitely out of place on a summer night where the only other sound was the breeze rustling through the grass and crops.
Cian, though, did not react. Frowning, Beth realized Daryl might be right. She decided to try a second time, kicking the railing harder in the hopes of gaining a reaction from the man below. The second attempt was louder than the first, though still not something that would wake the tiny neighborhood of cabins.
Not loud enough to draw Cian's attention, but more than loud enough to rouse Daryl from bed. He appeared in the sliding doorway behind her, chest bare and crossbow ready.
"The hell was that?" He murmured to her, scanning the night with his eyes. She watched his gaze alight on Cian, his back to them now, walking up the steps of his own porch. Still unaware that he was not alone in the night.
"It was me," she assured him, reaching up to place a hand on the back of his thigh. "I just wanted to see if he would hear me."
Cian was inside now, having slipped soundlessly into his front door.
"Oh." The line of Daryl's shoulders relaxed, crossbow drooping in his hold. "Did he?"
"Not at all."
"Hmm." Daryl offered her his good hand, hauling her to her feet beside him. He took a moment to kiss her quickly on the mouth before ducking inside for his shirt. "C'mon."
Inside, Daryl helped Beth off with her shoes before pulling back the rumpled bed sheets. Beth hated to sleep in her jeans, but if they intended to leave soon, she knew she had to keep herself used to it. Another effort in keeping up their on the road routine. "Don't forget to wake me up before sunrise for chores, if I don't wake up on my own."
"Sure, Bethy." He kissed her again before leaving her in the almost-dark of the bedroom. Now, Daryl's form was backlit by the starts. He stood smoking on the balcony, the smoke curling like pale ghosts in the night. She watched the smoke rise around him, letting her eyelids grow heavy until sleep took her.
"We should tell them."
The words tumbled out of her mouth the next morning, preceding a bite of bread smeared with raspberry preserves. Daryl was chewing on a bite of his own bread, jaw working slowly while he stared at her over the coffee table. They tended to eat their meals there, sitting on the floor, rather than use the dining table tucked into the corner of the kitchen.
"Tell 'em what?"
"You know." She had to swallow around the sudden lump in her throat. "About the prison… and how it fell. So they can understand."
Daryl took another bite, chewing this one with the same maddeningly relaxed pace. "Why?"
To this, Beth scowled. "I just told you why," she snapped, the patience thin on her voice. "We owe them for helping us, anyway. Maybe more than we even know. Who knows what could've happened if we had stayed out there, with you being hurt. I… think they need to know, so they can understand. So they don't fall, like the prison did."
Daryl's features settled into that blank look he did so well, though the darkening of his eyes betrayed him. He must have known this himself; he dropped his gaze to his thumb, stained with a bit of preserves. Raising his thumb to his mouth, Daryl deftly licked it off. The corner of his mouth very nearly quirked into a smirk. "Then tell 'em, Bethy."
Relief escaped her lungs in a deep sigh. Beth smile ruefully herself; of course Daryl would stick the responsibility on her. He never has been long-winded. And their story would take some time to tell, as well she knew. A chill ran down her spine, though she didn't give herself time to decide whether it was in anticipation or fear. Instead, she pushed that thought aside at the same time she pushed herself up from the floor. She paused only to slip on her boots and stoop to kiss Daryl before heading out the door.
Milking the cows had always been Beth's job on her daddy's farm. He used to say that Beth was the best at it, because of her gentle nature and how it calmed the heifers. Of the three of them, Beth always came back with more milk in her bucket than either Maggie or Sean.
Perhaps Hershel was right, because now that Beth was on edge, the memories of her childhood farm and the prison smarting like pinpricks in her mind, the cow she was trying to milk was agitated herself. By the fifth hoof-stamp, Beth gave up, rocking back on her stool. Between her feet, the bucket was pitifully empty.
Nothing on the farm escaped Dierdre's sharp, bright notice. Beth's lack of skill with milking that morning was no exception. She felt the woman's dry, warm hand clap on her shoulder. "I guess the girls are in a mood this morning. Let's leave them to their breakfast and go see the new foal; we'll come back to milk after."
Beth let herself be led away from the cattle, to the stables where the horses were kept. It was warm with the scent of horses and hay; the air was still slightly tinged with blood from the night before. On reflex, the faint smell made her stomach turn, but the instinctual fear was soon suppressed and forgotten by the sweet sight of a gray and white foal still a little uncertain on its long, knobby legs.
"Hello," Beth greeted the new filly, extending out a hand for her to smell. The mother—named Bunny for her soft, smoke-gray color—stood docile. One huge, dark eye rolled toward Beth but quickly dismissed her as a non-threat. With her baby duly occupied, Bunny turned in their stall and helped herself to her feedbag. "What's your name?"
"Honey Muffin," Dierdre provided for the filly. "Cian let Maisri name her."
"Honey Muffin," Beth repeated, smiling despite her earlier nerves. "What a sweet baby you are."
"She got her momma's temperament, that's for sure."
Accepting some nuzzles from Honey Muffin, Beth found herself duly bolstered in a way that the livestock had always done for her in her childhood. When she had been sad—because Daddy hadn't come home, or she had argued with Maggie, or Sean had teased her—Beth would run straight to the barnyard. The quiet love, empty of platitudes, had always calmed her soul.
"We lost the farm to walkers," Beth said, the words tumbling out of her mouth before she could even give a thought of how to tell the story. "My daddy's farm, in the beginning of all… this. And we needed a place to stay. Rick—he was the leader of Daryl's group, before we all joined together—his wife, Lori, was pregnant. It took a few months, but we found a… mostly abandoned prison… and we managed to make it our home. It was nice, at the prison. Hard, but nice."
Dierdre stilled beside her. Beth could feel the woman's eyes boring into her cheek, but she kept her own trained on Honey Muffin and Bunny. She fell silent for a moment, thinking of everyone they had lost. T-Dog and Lori, early on. All those that the virus took. Merle and Hershel.
"There was a sickness," Beth went on. "The scariest thing I had ever seen. Daddy said it was a mutation, that it was bound to happen sooner or later with the way people were forced to live. People who caught it… they would get fevers so high they would start to bleed from their eyes and noses. They all died so fast, and of course, when they died, they turned to walkers. It was a heavy blow. We had hardly recovered from that before another group became aware of us. They followed a man that called himself the Governor."
She hated the way her voice broke over that sorry son of a bitch's name. Beth had to swallow hard to be able to go on.
"Losing the farm was just bad luck," she told Dierdre, finally peaking up at the woman through her lashes to find her face carefully blank. "Not the prison. That was because of people."
Beth paused, unable to expand on how the prison fell. She blinked back her tears and swallowed the lump in her throat, deciding to glean over those details.
"It was overrun with walkers, and we had to run. All of us ended up separated; I meant to find my sister, but I ran into Daryl first. He took my hand, and we ran. It's been me and Daryl on our own since then, you know? For nearly a year, now. We stayed in an old funeral home, just us, all winter, then we started traveling in the spring. We know our family is still out there, somewhere, and we want to find them. But… the Governor wasn't a one-time thing. We've met other people dangerous people on the road."
There was a lengthy pause, one filled only by the soft nickering of the horses to one another. Honey Muffin, bored of Beth now, had retreated to her mother for her own breakfast. Though Dierdre's face remained smooth as a placid lake on a still day, several unnamable emotions flickered through her eyes, far too quick for Beth to recognize any of them.
"You survived for a year on the road?" Dierdre finally asked.
"It's not so bad," Beth found herself admitting. Her heart was no longer pounding in her ears, the dull roar of her blood ebbing away. "If you know how to survive."
"Which Daryl does," Beth continued, nearly smiling despite herself. "And he's taught me, but I would probably still be in that funeral home if it weren't for Daryl." In her mind's eye, she could see how Daryl would drop his gaze at such a compliment, lips pursing against it.
"But that's not the important part," Beth went on, making herself raise her head and meet Dierdre's eye. She was a tall woman, having several inches of height on Beth. "We're very thankful y'all took us in when we needed it, but we wanted you to know… it's beautiful here, and everyone is so happy, but so were we, before it was taken from us. We don't want y'all to make the same mistake we did."
She still couldn't quite read Dierdre's eyes. That made Beth anxious anew, so much so that her hand started to drift toward her scarred wrist. Get a grip, she told herself, balling her hand into a fist before her fingers could brush along the scar. Dierdre, of course, caught the habit. Her eyes flicked down, but she made no comment on it.
"I hope you'll tell the others," Beth told her, meaning it sincerely. "And I'll answer any questions you have. Or you could ask Daryl, but I can't guarantee you'll get much explanation out of him."
"No," Dierdre said slowly, the ghost of a smirk touching her lips. "He's not one for words, is he?"
"He's not," Beth agreed, "but he would confirm everything I've told you."
"I imagine he would."
The older woman left it at that, pressing Beth's milking bucket into her hands once more. Farm work waited for no one and nothing, Beth knew. Her hands grew steady again with the familiar, rhythmic work of milking. Likewise, her thoughts calmed to the steady, hissing stream hitting the bottom of the bucket. She finished her chores with Dierdre in a silence that didn't feel as companionable as it had the day before.
Two days passed before Daryl found the handwritten note tacked on the front door of their borrowed cabin.
Come to dinner tonight.
There was no signature, and he couldn't have said with any certainty which of the MacDonald family the handwriting belonged to. Yet there was also no need to guess. Something about the strong, bold lines spoke of Dierdre. He pulled it off the door, tucking it in his pocket before slipping through the door.
"Bethy."
"Yeah?" Her voice drifted down the stairs; Dierdre must not have known she was home. Daryl had been out hunting with Callum, the pair successfully bagging three rabbits. The meat would be smoked, to be kept back for winter.
Dropping his crossbow at the foot of the stairs, Daryl headed up to her. Beth wasn't hard to find; they didn't use many of the rooms in the house. There she was, tucked into the little bedroom window seat, limned in late afternoon sunlight, head bent over her task of patching up a pair of his worn-through socks. "What's up?"
She didn't lift her head, focusing as she slipped her needle through the edges of the hole. With a flick of her wrist, she expertly tugged the thread and drew the hole closed. Many months before, she had done the same thing when sewing up his rent flesh. The scar on his thigh ached dully with the memory.
"Jury summons." He passed the note to her, watching her open and read it for herself. The color drained from her face as her eyes moved over the words.
"I think you mean trial summons." Beth looked up at her from under her lashes. "I made a mistake, didn't I?"
Her voice was small, the doubt contained within it tugging at his heart. Frowning, Daryl shook his head even as she continued. "Your arm isn't even all the way healed, and now we're gonna get kicked out of here!"
Daryl caught her hand before she could run her fingers over her scar, gently raising her to her feet. He lifted her fingers, pressing the knuckles to his mouth. "And so what if they do, Bethy?" The words were murmured against her skin. "We have a plan for when we leave this place already, don't we?"
"Well, yes," she admitted, the words bitten between her teeth. "But I was the one who pushed for us to stay here, so you could heal."
"Would a few more days in this thing really make that big of a difference?" Raising his arm, Daryl offered the splinted limb for her inspection. "It ain't even hurting anymore."
The little scowl tugging at the corners of Beth's lips refused to budge. He knew there was little he could do to change the tide of her mood when the swell was this deep. Sighing, he admitted, "We oughtta pack, just in case."
"Just in case," she echoed, drawing away from him and immediately moving around the room to make the preparations. Their worldly possessions were scarce; it took only a matter of minutes for Beth to have their life condensed and packed away into her backpack once more. "Think the truck is still there?"
"Should be. It was when I checked last week."
"You've been out that far?" Her surprise was punctuated by the streamer of her ponytail, blonde hair flying as she turned to face him. "Daryl!"
"Someone had to check on it," he said mildly, raising and dropping one shoulder in a casual shrug. "Don't tell me you wanna go to D.C. on foot, 'specially with fall comin' on."
Pursing her lips, Beth spared him of any comment on his ornery reply. Instead, she dug into the pockets of the backpack, rifling through until she had uncovered all her hidden bullets and deposited them in her own pockets. Her little handgun was slid into the waistband of her jeans, hidden beneath her shirt.
Daryl watched all of this and questioned none of it. Should they be turned out this night, they would have no guarantee of time to prepare after the verdict. Best to hedge their bets and do it now. He reached over his shoulder, running a hand and counting the arrows in his quiver by feel. Six bullets, eight arrows. Patting his own pocket confirmed the presence of his knife; he knew Beth's was likely tucked into her boot, where she liked to keep it.
The sun had already slipped below the horizon, twilight leaching the color of their surroundings to muted shades of grays and purples as the light of day failed them. Their hosts didn't have the same survival compulsion to eat while there was still ample light. Daryl held Beth's hand the entire walk from their small cabin to the sprawling main house owned by Dierdre and Nessa.
They were greeted at the door by the latter, who opened the house to them with the same bright smile she had since the day they had met her. Nessa's smile could be a good sign… or she might just be considerably better at social graces than her wife. The same could certainly be said about Beth and himself, after all.
"Welcome, y'all!" Nessa's voice betrayed no sign of strain. "Come in, come in."
Inside was warm and heady with the scent of roasted meat and vegetables. There was a sweet note to the aroma as well; more of that cherry wine, no doubt. Nessa ushered them into the warm, cozy dining table. Candle flame glittered over glassware and heated the vases of wildflowers so that their scent was nearly intoxicating on their own.
With all the empty chairs—Callum, Samantha, Cian, Brittany, and Maisri noticeably missing from the dining room—the room was entirely too empty to feel as suffocating as it was. Perhaps that was only Beth, though. She leaned to her left, toward him, even after they took their seats. Daryl pushed her cup of wine toward her, silently prompting her to take a sip to steel her nerves. Still playing hostess, Nessa produced a bowl of shelled pecans and set it before them.
"Maisri was put to work today collecting them. Spent the whole morning in the yard with her bucket. Brittany said it was the best nap she's had in months, when she tired herself out." The smile lighting up her face seemed genuine, her dark eyes sparkling with mirth. Like the wine, the pecans got pushed toward Beth. She nibbled at one plucked at random, smiling and nodding along with Nessa's story.
Either Maisri was excellent at judging which pecans were good and which were rotten or someone had carefully filtered through her harvest. Daryl popped a few in his mouth himself, sweet, buttery flavor spreading across his tongue. He was only listening to Nessa and Beth with half an ear, the other straining for Dierdre's arrival. What had Beth seen in her face, to assume they would be kicked out?
When Dierdre did come into the dining room, it was with a platter stacked with plates, as if she were a waiter in her own home. "Sorry about that wait," she apologized, setting down a dish filled with meat, root vegetables, and bread rolls.
Judging from the color and smell of the meat, Daryl guessed it was blackbird. Unlike Beth, he was unabashed with eating regardless of the outcome of the night. One bite and his guess was confirmed, the taste immediately reminding him of their travels. The only difference was that they didn't have seasoning spices to work with when they roasted their birds over small campfires.
"Thank y'all for having us," Beth said before taking a bite.
"The pleasure is ours," Nessa assured them each before shifting her attention solely onto Daryl. "How's that arm? Cian about has a conniption fit every time he sees you head to the woods with Callum."
"S'fine," Daryl murmured. "Doesn't hurt anymore."
"That's good to hear." Though Nessa's smile stayed soft and genuine, it was obvious the topics of small talk had been exhausted. Conversation fell to the wayside as the four of them ate. Dierdre did them a small kindness in allowing them to finish their food before broaching the subject they had clearly been called to dinner to discuss.
"Beth… shared some things with me," Dierdre said, keeping her voice mild as she primly folded her napkin beside her plate. "Things that Nessa and I agree need to be discussed further."
Daryl and Beth shared a glance. She raised her brows ever so slightly; he nodded in much the same fashion. "Ask us anythin' you wanna know."
Across the table, Nessa and Dierdre looked at one another as well. The ease of silent communication was echoed there, a wordless conversation borne of deep understanding of one another. Their gaze was broken with a sigh on Dierdre's part. "Tell us about this farm of Beth's families'. How and why y'all lost it."
Under the table, Beth reached for his hand. She gave it a squeeze hard enough to hurt and her shoulders rose and fell with a deep, centering breath. "Because we were stupid." The words took Daryl aback; Nessa and Dierdre were likewise affected, eyes widening in surprise. Beth pushed on before a word could be said. "We didn't want to admit what was going on in the world, and that nearly cost us everything."
She went on to explain how Hershel had wrongly hypothesized the virus that turned the dead to walkers was a curable sickness. Daryl's fingers were going numb in the death-grip she maintained on his hand, but he didn't dare try to pull away while she described how her mother and brother were kept in the barn.
"Daddy didn't mean to, but he gave us all false hope. And that was dangerous, to think we could fix them, that they could come back. We didn't take the walkers as serious threat, because we were still thinking of them as people. Daddy, me, Maggie… we all could've died, and it would've been our own fault."
"And what changed your mind?" Dierdre prompted, not missing a beat. Beside her, Nessa had gone pale, sympathetic eyes fixed on Beth's face. With a nod to her left, Beth motioned toward Daryl.
"They knew better, the group Daryl was with."
It wasn't until she squeezed his hand anew that Daryl realized she was waiting for him to speak. "We'd been in the city. Atlanta. We saw more of 'em, so we understood there was no comin' back." He shrugged. "But y'all know that already."
"We weren't prepared, because we didn't think of the walkers as a threat. Not really. Y'all are ahead of us, at least, with your electric fence."
"And the walker pit." Daryl added. Truly, he had been impressed by the ingenuity of that maintenance tactic. "Wish we had something like that at the prison. Maybe then the fences woulda held."
"This prison… Beth said y'all lost that, too, but not to walkers. To a man… what did you call him?"
"He called himself the Governor," Beth clarified. "And so did the people who followed him."
"How did he take the prison from your group?" Dierdre asked next, making an attempt at casualness with her tone and the way she stood to gather the emptied plates. Another look was exchanged between Daryl and Beth; how much truth to tell? They nodded at one another, agreeing instantly—all of it.
"He wanted it," Beth started simply, "And so he decided to take it. He took two of our people hostage—my daddy and a woman named Michonne—and h-he said he would trade us, the p-prison for their lives."
In the candlelight, her eyes shone bright with restrained tears. Beth blinked them back, swallowing hard, opening her mouth to plow through. Under the table, Daryl's thumb pressed against her scarred wrist, reassuring as it was halting.
"Michonne's got a sword," Daryl told them, "and the Governor used her sword to decapitate Hershel in front of all us. Then his people attacked us and the prison fell."
He didn't elaborate further, nor did he reveal any details about Merle. That was something he would always hold close to his chest. Beth had dropped her eyes to their clasped hands, her throat still working at swallowing down her ever-present grief over her father. Across the table, Daryl met first Dierdre and then Nessa's gaze, hoping they would understand there would be no other details provided.
There was a lengthy pause. Nessa watched Beth, waiting until she raised her blonde head to prompt, "Then your group became separated, right? That's how the two of you came to be traveling alone?"
"Yes," Beth had recovered enough to take their tale back from Daryl. "I wish we could say that the Governor is the only bad person we've met, but that's just not true. That's not the world anymore."
She told of the men in the woods, early on in their travels, the ones who have spoke of 'claiming'. There was openness in her voice and transparency in her wording, admitting to killing the men they encountered before running. Beth described for them the burnt-out settlement of Terminus, of finding their only clue to the wellbeing of their family: Daryl's poncho, now safely stored in her backpack.
And, of course, she told of Jay and his eerie attempt at lulling them into false trust. Her shiver reverberated in Daryl's palm, flush with hers. Thinking about the man's cold, dead eyes made his stomach twist, but he kept himself still and his face blank. "That wasn't so far from here," Daryl tacked on to the end of Beth's story. "Ten, twenty miles, maybe."
The same shiver that had gripped Beth now shook Nessa's shoulders across the table. Good, he thought. Now it's real.
"Look," Beth began to surmise, "y'all are real good people. This place is valuable. Your fence, your livestock, your fields. Not to mention the cabins, the hunting, how close it is to the river. We had it good at the prison, but y'all have it better here. If the wrong sort of people come along…" Here, Beth shook her head.
"You needed to understand, before we go," Daryl supplied for her. "We reckoned it was a better way to repay y'all than the work we did."
Both Dierdre and Nessa looked pale in the candlelight. Spent, Beth drained what was left of her wine before pushing away from the table. "We can leave tonight, if you want us to. Night or day, it doesn't matter to us."
"Do you want to leave tonight?" Dierdre asked, surprise evident in her voice. "After you just told us how dangerous it's been for you out there?"
"It's dangerous for everyone." Beth shrugged. "But we can handle it."
"Go to bed, honey," Nessa told her quietly, reaching across the table to lay a hand atop hers. She smiled, soft and sympathetic. "What kind of hosts would we be if we turned y'all out after laying your hearts bare like that?"
More firmly, Dierdre added, "We promised you our help until Daryl's arm healed, and he's got a few more days owed to y'all on that front. Everything you've told us tonight doesn't change the people we've come to know over the last few weeks."
They did as Nessa suggested, returning to their borrowed cabin to rest. Skittish as a cornered animal even with their reassurances, Beth laid down with her gun close to hand and her shoes on her feet. He knew she didn't fear the MacDonald's; they would do them no harm, he was confident. Still, she was ready to run, if need be.
He left the windows uncovered, starlight turning Beth's hair silver where it streamed across her pillow. Taking his side of the bed, Daryl reached for her, trailing his fingers along her cheek. "Why'd you think they'd throw us out, Bethy? Because we told them we've killed people?"
She turned to him, eyes drained of color just as her hair had been. That almost-white gaze was eerie, making his skin prickle despite himself. Beth slid a chilled hand under his shirt and let it rest on his back. She idly traced one of his scars.
"Maybe… but I don't really feel bad about that," she admitted. "I know I should, but I don't. We've never done harm to anyone who wouldn't have done harm to us. I… I don't know. I thought, maybe, once they realized we weren't like them, they wouldn't want us around."
Beth pushed herself up, so that she loomed above him. "I didn't realize how much I've changed until we were around people again." Her smile was rueful, tugging at her lips just before she dipped her head to kiss him. "I'm like you, now. Well, kind of like you. I would still rather bathe indoors and sleep on a mattress instead of a pile of leaves."
"Hey, now. The woods are good to you if you're good to them." He tugged gently on her braided hair. "You're like me now, huh? You gonna start guttin' and skinnin' our game?"
At this, she crinkled her nose in disgust. Smirking, he slid a hand behind her neck to hold her still while he kissed her again, long and deep. "There ain't nothin' wrong with knowin' how to survive this world, Bethy."
"I should stop apologizing, huh? Mama used to tell me the same thing."
"Yeah," he told her, pulling her into him and tugging a blanket over them both. "Stop apologizin' and go to sleep."
She buried her face in his shoulder and sighed. Her breath was warm and ticklish through his threadbare shirt. "I love you," she murmured. They didn't tell each other often. They didn't need to, not with the life they had been living, showing each other daily. It was there in the way she washed his clothes and took his hand, giving it a quick squeeze when they couldn't chance talking. And in the way he listened to her scolding about keeping clean; in the way he did the butchering with his back to her, so she didn't have to see the bloody work.
The words were always a little hard for him to say. He had loved his brother, of course, and he loved Rick, Carol, Glenn, Carl… loved them all fiercely. Not quite in the same way he loved Beth, naturally, but whether the love was brotherly, friendly, or soul-consuming, he wasn't sure if he had said or heard the words fewer times in his life.
He pressed his lips to the top of her head, inhaling the scent of her. Sunshine, a hint of soap, the lingering musk of the animals she worked with daily. He swallowed to clear his throat.
"I love you, too."
Despite Beth's fears at being marked other, they completed their stay with the MacDonald's without a hitch. Not a word was said about the dinner at Dierdre and Nessa's. Beth didn't bring it up and neither woman offered; she had no doubts Daryl didn't bother to broach the subject, either.
Life had lapsed back into the rhythm it had taken before that dinner. It had only taken one day for Beth to settle back into it, despite herself.
On their final morning, Daryl woke her well before dawn. She stumbled sleepily from the bed, groped for her boots in the dark, and pulled them on before fumbling her way down the stairs. Beth had insisted on tending to the animals one final time, a parting gift of sorts. Daryl had insisted they leave before sunup, so that they didn't waste any of the daylight hours.
It was dark and chilly in the barn, but Beth knew her way around. She cooed softly to the animals to gently wake them from their slumbers and avoid startling them. With the horses freshly fed and watered, the same done for the cows and the heifers milked, she slipped outside to find the sky that stony gray that precedes dawn. The stars along the horizon were just beginning to fade.
Goodbye, she thought, taking a last look at the barn. She would miss the MacDonalds, of course, but working with their livestock had made her feel close to her family again.
Daryl was waiting for her on the porch, puffing on one of his treasured cigarettes. The cherry glow of its end gave away his location though he lurked in the shadows of the doorway. When she drew close, he passed off her backpack to her and took up his crossbow.
"You ready?"
"Where'd you put the splint?" She asked, glancing at his bare arm. He had rolled up the sleeves of his flannel, exposing the swath of tanned, healed skin. The bruising had faded and no traces of swelling remained.
"Left it on the kitchen table." He offered the cigarette to her. Plucking it from his fingers, Beth took a pull for herself. She rarely if ever smoked though the occasional drag of nicotine was calming on the nerves. No wonder so many people took up the habit, before.
Beth had expected to leave through the gate uninterrupted and steal away into the forest. The MacDonald clan had other plans. The lot of them stood like waiting sentries. Callum and Cian were talking quietly with one another. Nessa held Maisri's sleeping weight against her shoulder, gently rocking the little girl. Brittany and Samantha each held something in their hands, though in the pre-dawn light, Beth could not say what it was.
"Thought you could sneak out like two teenagers heading to a party, did you?" Dierdre teased once they drew close enough. Beth felt her cheeks heat despite herself.
"We didn't want to disturb y'all," Daryl provided for her. Judging from the tightness at the corners of his mouth, he was taken by surprise himself. Not that he would give anyone the satisfaction of knowing that if he could help it.
"We would be terrible hosts not to see y'all off," Nessa said over top of Maisri's head. She shook the little girl gently to wake her. "Tell Beth and Daryl bye, baby."
Maisri lifted her sleep-mussed head, rubbing at her eyes as she half-turned in her grandmother's arms. "Bye-bye."
"Going away gifts," Brittany said, stepping forward and pressing a folding blanket into Beth's hands. "It will be cold soon."
"And refreshments for the road." Samantha's basket was covered with a plain white cloth. I can rip it up for bandages, later.
There were hugs and claps on the shoulders all around, not to mention some good-natured teasing about not breaking anymore bones. Dierdre kissed Beth and Daryl's cheeks in turn, holding them tight against her.
"There are still good people, too," Dierdre whispered to Beth when it was her turn. Once released and laden down with their gifts, Beth found herself sad at their leaving. She gave their friends a wavering smile before ducking her head.
"If, God forbid, you don't find your family… the electric gate is always open to you two," Nessa called out to them. Daryl thanked her with a wave of his hand before placing it on the small of Beth's back and ushering her forward. Even the buzz of the fence seemed to say 'goodbye'.
She forced herself to keep her eyes on the forest, welcoming the cover of the leaves as the trees enfolded them. Above her head, the morning sky was cluttered with a mottled pattern of green, yellow, and orange. At her side was Daryl, moving quiet and solid beside her.
"The truck," he breathed, already back in the habit of speaking softly. With a tilt of his head, Daryl charted their course through the forest. Taking a deep breath of chilly morning air, Beth nodded.
To the truck. To Maggie.