Thanks for reading!
So this community is like Alexandria but not quite as it is in a different location. So there are similarities but I took many liberties as I always do.
Thanks again, leave a comment.
They slept for an hour, maybe two. When Beth woke again, Daryl was crawling back into bed behind her, carrying the chill of the outdoors with him. Cigarette smoke hovering around him. The cabin had settled into the depths of night, the fire banked low, a chill in the air. She rolled over and snuggled closer into him. His arms wound tightly around her.
"You know you're not fooling anyone. We all know you're smoking." She smiled sleepily looking up at him. It was well past one in the morning, late by Beth's standards. It was worth the lack of sleep.
"Am I in trouble?" He mumbled into the top of her head.
"Maybe," she teased.
"Well, it ain't the first time."
She was happy. Gloriously used up. Sore in the best possible way. And Daryl holding her, his arms enfolding her body, was something she'd never known she was missing. Until now.
It definitely hadn't been that way the first time. She had sex the first time because she was…bored. Nothing to do in their tiny town. Everyone else seemed to be having sex. So why not her? It had been less than earth-shattering and she was left wondering what the big deal was.
She hoped everyone experienced what she had with Daryl at least once in their lives.
Beth felt a bit of anxiety leaving the cabin when it disappeared over her shoulder. The woods thickened and the branches eventually blocked her view. Daryl placed a hand on her shoulder. A show of solidarity, of comfort.
Hardly making a sound, they followed an animal trail cutting through the forest in a single file line. Beta first, Lydia, Chubs snug into his carrier, zipped up into Lydia's coat. Beth, behind them, and Daryl, last in the line.
The weather was in their favor for the moment. Sun shining bright overhead. The air was sharp but once you got walking it was just enough to keep you from sweating. It was slow going, which they had expected. They had to stop every so often so Chubs could eat and stretch his little legs. He did not like being in the sling very much. It was getting on in the afternoon and they had planned to hike a bit longer when he started to wale. Kicking his feet and waving his fists. Lydia did her best to quiet him, but he wasn't having it.
Everyone else was getting tired and hungry as well so they decided to stop for the fourth time. They found a clearing by a stream and Lydia sat on a large rock. and he quieted when Lydia began nursing him. They kept their voices low, talking to a minimum. Even still, Lydia had been abnormally quiet.
Beth squeezed her shoulder and asked if she was okay. When she looked up at Beth, she knew she wasn't. "I'm sorry," she whispered. Chubs didn't appear to be very hungry. Still, the thought was if he'd eat, he'd sleep and they could get in a bit more walking.
Beth frowned. "What? Why would you be sorry?" She asked gently, really looking at her. Lydia's face was red and her forehead was beaded with sweat. She was breathing heavily.
It had been easy to forget Lydia was a kid herself. She was mature and had a baby who she took great care of. At that moment she looked young and scared. Like she was afraid they'd leave her because her baby was being a baby.
Beta had gone ahead to scope out the direction they were heading in and Daryl was standing near the water. Always keeping an eye out for trouble.
"We need to go back. We have to go back," she spoke in a near pack, a high-pitched edge to her voice.
"Why do we need to go back?" Beth kneeled in front of her.
Lydia ran a hand over Chubs' head affectionately. Moved him to her shoulder, patting him on his back. "I'm an inconvenience." Taking a breath, she calmed herself enough to speak softly. So softly that her words almost drifted away on the breeze. Her eyes met Beth's and to her surprise, they filled with tears.
"No, you're not an inconvenience. Don't be silly."
"I'm a burden on Beta. On you and Daryl," her eyes went to Daryl's who was now standing behind Beth, listening. One ear on them, one ear on the surrounding area.
"You're not a burden," Beth said with certainty.
"If it wasn't for me you wouldn't even have to be here right now."
"I wanted to come. I volunteered," she reminded her. "And we're already well on our way." Beth tried to reassure her. It was hard to do since she wasn't sure where all this was suddenly coming from.
Lydia was silent for a few moments, eyes shifting from one shadow to another. "What if they try to take away Chubs?" Her whisper was barely audible as though she was sharing her deepest, darkest secret. Tears streaming down her face.
Beth, thoroughly confused, asked," Why would anyone do that?"
This time Daryl spoke up. "Ain't nobody gonna lay a finger on Chubs. They'd have to go through me first."
Beth looked at him over her shoulder appreciatively. He didn't know Lydia well but his first instinct was to protect her and the baby. That was the first time she allowed herself to consciously think she might be in love with him. It had been only a few months since he came to her house. Things move quicker now. The stakes are higher.
Life was precarious before, there were no guarantees then either, now it was downright dangerous. No one knew what tomorrow might bring. They were all essentially walker bait. If it wasn't the walkers, it was the humans. Or the elements. You could be taken out any second. Hiding what you felt was a waste of precious time. If you were lucky enough to find something, someone, you held on to that.
"I told you, Lydia, worrying about that is a waste of your energy." Beta appeared in the clearing, back from scouting. "I won't let anything happen to either of ya'."
"But," she began, the tears were coming too fast making it hard to speak.
"Lydia," Beta held up a hand, his shoulders slumped and he shook his head. They'd apparently been down this road before. "We talked about this last night."
"Talked about what?" Beth asked, shooting a look at Beta. She placed her arms around Lydia feeling useless to help.
"Lydia's Ma was a loose cannon," Beta spoke to Daryl and Beth, sitting on another boulder near the water. Telling them what Lydia wouldn't, or couldn't, say. "We were afraid she or one of her people would take Chubs. I'm not sure why, she never showed any interest in him otherwise. She tried a couple times to get to him while Lydia was sleeping."
Lydia hiccuped on emotion, holding Chubs even tighter. "I should have watched him closer."
"Bullshit. You had to sleep at some point," Beta told her. "You didn't do anything wrong." His voice was strained with impatience. Not for Lydia. For the situation.
This explained why Lydia rarely let anyone else hold Chubs. She vehemently refused to let Beth watch him while she caught up on some rest like Beth suggested a couple of times. If she or Daryl, or even Beta, was holding Chubs, Lydia stayed close by.
"Since then she'll get these… I don't know, panic attacks I guess you could call them, around new people. Took us over an hour just to approach your place, she was so afraid. She's afraid someone's gonna take him." Beta focused on Lydia again. He spoke in his deep, no-nonsense way. "Which will not happen while I'm around."
"Or while I'm around," Daryl agreed.
"Or while I'm around," Beth echoed their sentiment, only more gentle. And she meant it. No one was going to hurt Chubs or Lydia.
Lydia sifted her eyes to each of them, her tears slowing. Chubs had nodded off safe in her arms. Beth could not imagine being in her place. Not being able to trust her own mother. Lydia had to go through pregnancy and delivery and having a newborn without her own mother's support. It was heartbreaking enough. And then to have her mother try to harm her child in some way.
Lydia finally smiled, albeit through her tears, taking a deep breath. It was obvious she was trying, not very successfully, to reign in her emotions. "Thank You," she whispered to Beth and then Daryl, her face softened for Beta.
They decided to set up camp for the night there in the cleaning by the steam. It was getting late in the afternoon and night came quickly. They didn't want to be stuck in the dark pitching a tent, finding food.
Once they got the tent set up, Beth insisted Lydia and Chubs turn in early. She was wiped out, emotionally and physically. Beth was glad she'd gotten a few good meals in Lydia before trekking back out into the wilderness. She may have been too weak to make it to the community if she was in the condition she had been in when they got to the cabin.
Very few calories plus nursing a baby was not a good combination. She needed to be fed and hydrated. At the community, hopefully, she'd receive better food on a regular basis. That was the whole point of this - to find Lydia and Chubs a better situation.
Beta insisted on doing watch for the first half of the night because Daryl had gotten and cooked squirrel for dinner. He disappeared into the dark perimeter of the area they'd set up camp. Beth set up a tarp over a branch forming a makeshift a-frame tent for her and Daryl if he chose to share it with her. It wasn't much; it'd at least keep the dew off of them.
Daryl wandered over to the tent where she was spreading out a sleeping bag underneath the tarp. "Guess we'll have to share," she said with a smile. " Ya know, for the body heat," she laughed nervously.
"Oh, is that it, huh? Body heat?" He chuckled, bending to watch her through the opening of the tarp.
"You don't have to," she said, suddenly insecure. Just because they had sex once, did that mean they were together? Together… whatever that meant. She knew how she felt, but had no idea what he was thinking.
Some things never change.
By way of answer, he took off his coat and spread it out over the sleeping bag for added warmth and sat down, taking his boots off and positioning them just inside the opening so he could get them on in a hurry if need be. He then climbed into the sleeping bag.
She inhaled a quiet breath of relief that he would be sharing the tent with her. Keeping her layers of clothing on, she took off her coat and bunched it up for Daryl to use as a pillow. She shimmied in next to him. Neither seemed to mind the tight fit. Resting her head on his bicep only then was she able to relax.
How easily they moved together as if it's always been that way.
Beth was tired and her legs ached from the strenuous walk. It was mostly downhill as the community was a few miles south. Walking downhill was almost worse than going up. It was so quiet she had no doubt they'd hear the slightest noise within a mile radius. Having grown up on the farm, well out of city limits, she was used to the quiet. The few times she'd been in the city it was too much. Too much noise and chaos. She'd choose her little cabin in the woods any day, or the farm. But the farm no longer existed; she sometimes had to remind herself.
Daryl's rumble of a voice interrupted the silence. "Do you think Lydia will be okay?"
"Yeah, once she's settled at the community, realizes it's safe, she'll feel better about things."
"Havin' a kid in this mess gotta be really hard."
Beth chuckled. "Ya' think?"
"Don't get sassy now," he teased, yawning.
She smiled up at him though it was too dark for him to see, leaning into his neck. She breathed in his outdoorsy scent, placed a kiss just below his ear.
"Doesn't seem fair he's gotta grow up in this hellhole we call earth." Daryl's arm rounded her waist and pulled her closer to his side, leaning into her.
Beth thought for a moment about his cynical words. Though she saw his point, it made her sad. That's not to say she's blind to how things are but it was possible to find the good left in the world. "Life can't just stop, Daryl."
"I suppose not," he conceded.
"After my dad died, I felt I had lost everything, and I just about had really lost everything. I made the decision to come to the cabin Everything was the same, it was just like my dad had left it the last time he was there. His presence was so real I could almost physically feel it." She took a breath before continuing.
"Anyway, I go outside wondering how I was supposed to go on without my parents and there's this single flower, a daffodil, sprouting up in the middle of the yard. Way up here, in the middle of nowhere… a daffodil. And," she rolled her shoulder, "It seemed important. It was like my dad was trying to tell me everything was going to be okay - if I wanted it to be." She traced her lips from his neck, along his jawline. She cupped his chin and angled his face to hers. Her mouth, close to his. "Life goes on. Flowers grow. People find one another, they fall in love. Fall out of love. Babies are born. People die. All that said, you can't be afraid to build a life."
"People find each other?" He asked, zeroing in on that part. "Fall in love?"
"Uh-huh. We found each other," she whispered. "Didn't we?" She hadn't meant it rhetorically and when he didn't answer, she asked again, "Didn't we find each other?"
Daryl shifted, pulling her to lay between his legs. "Yeah, I suppose we did find each other." He cupped her chin with his thumb and forefinger, kissed her.
She was happy it was dark, she didn't want him to see the tears pooling in her eyes or the flush on her cheeks. "Are you afraid?" She asked, her voice small and quiet.
"'Fraid of what?"
"Of life. Of living. Surviving and living are two separate things, Daryl." She'd been watching him for months now. He was always on guard. Well, they all were. He was more so. It obviously stemmed from somewhere much deeper than the fall of the world. This cynicism he felt was a mainstay for him.
"What 'bout you, are you afraid of living?" He asked, wrapping his arms tightly around her.
"I'm afraid of not living." She said, inches apart in the pitch black. "The only way out is through," she repeated one of her favorite quotes.
"What's that mean?" He asked.
"This is a second chance. The only way to get past what we've been through, all that we've lost, is by moving on, building up from the absolute bottom. "
Embarrassed she'd opened up that much, she backed away a little bit. The tiny space she created felt like a gaping canyon.
"Hey," he said, pulling her back to him, whispering in her ear. "I ain't afraid of nothing. 'Sept what I feel for you. I never thought of a life beyond just wandering around, surviving. Even when I was with my brother, we struggled." His lips traced from her ear to her shoulder, burying his face into the smooth skin of her neck. "Now, I feel differently."
"What changed your mind," she asked, breathless from what his lips were doing to her. His mouth stole the words from her mind. His hands took her thoughts. She gladly went along where his body took hers.
"You did."
They arrived at the community with very little mishap late the next day. A few walkers were easily dispatched. One by Beta, one by Beth. Lydia, while distracted and not her usual self held it together. She even let Beth carry Chubs in the carrier for a while. As they approached the community, he was once again tucked in safely in Lydia's coat.
Lydia tried to apologize to Beth. She wouldn't hear of it. She was only being protective of her child. Beth would never fault her for that.
The community was once a mining village, long, long ago abandoned. When she was young and they were visiting the cabin for the weekend or on a holiday, her daddy would take them there occasionally on an adventure.
The town was just scary enough to be entertaining to a ten-year-old. Her mother did not like it when they went there, claiming it would frighten Beth and give her nightmares. Which it did but only because Shawn and Maggie made up scary stories about the village being haunted by the souls of miners past.
Then people passing through had told her someone turned it into a community for survivors of the outbreak. It made sense, she supposed. Further away from the cities, fewer people, fewer walkers. Gates lining the small town were already in place. Housing. Wells for a clean water source. It just needed some repairs to make it a functioning town again.
When she finally visited she was surprised to see just how well it had come along in a relatively short amount of time. The people were cautious. Friendly once they discovered her connections there.
The main entrance was a small tunnel, an unused road above it, the far end of it now blocked by large doors on a pulley system. The guards, aware of their presence probably for a few hundred feet from lookouts above, wound the handle and opened the door slightly.
As they approached Beth reached out to squeeze Lydia's hand. "It's going to be okay," she tried to reassure.
A young man Beth didn't recognize stood in front of the opening. Daryl was close behind her, Beta and Lydia behind him.
"Hello," he spoke with caution, hesitation clear. Daryl took a step closer to Beth. She looked over her shoulder, conveying without words that she'd handle this. "Do you have business here?" He asked.
"Hello," Beth copied his greeting. "Actually I was hoping you might have a place for friends of mine. They're looking for long-term shelter." The man looked behind her at Daryl and then Beta and Lydia. Chubs was well hidden and asleep.
"Do you have any weapons?"
"'Course we do," Beth answered, with a knowing smile. Who didn't have weapons anymore? She had given everyone their weapons back when they left. No one traveled even short distances without being armed.
At the same time, she noticed the gun slung on the man's belt. She was curious why they'd give such an important job to someone so young and seemingly inexperienced.
"Can we speak with Deanna?" She asked and the man visibly relaxed, his stiff back drooped.
"You know Deanna?"
"Yes, I've been here before but I don't remember you," she said, turning the tables on him. Asking him the questions. "What's your name? I don't think I caught it." He just hadn't provided it.
"Aiden. Deanna's son."
"Oh yes. She has two sons if I remember right."
He nodded signaling for someone else to open the gate the rest of the way. He gestured them through the gate and into the town square. "You all stay here and I'll be back in a few."
All four of them watched as people of all ages meandered about, going about their business. Houses lined the street. There was even a sidewalk. Flowers. A large building they used as a communal kitchen and cafeteria where something delicious smelling wafted in the air.
"Something smells good," Beta cautiously spoke quietly like he didn't want anyone other than the three of them to hear.
"Wonder what it is," Beth replied.
"Who cares, long it ain't squirrel," Daryl said breaking the tension they all felt. Beth stood by him, touching her hand briefly to his.
He'd brought her to what she thought was her end more than once the night before. Best way to keep warm, Daryl had insisted, as he took off more and more of her clothing. Beth hadn't disagreed.
As ridiculous as it seemed after last night, here in the light of day, holding his hand outright felt like a bad idea. She had a feeling Daryl wasn't the type to publicly display his feelings. He would feel the less everyone here knew about them, the better. By contrast, Beth couldn't care less what everyone knew.
Lydia murmured, "Wow. It looks the way it used to."
Beth nodded. "They've worked hard to rebuild."
Daryl and Beta remained silent. Watching and waiting for trouble. "It's safe here," Beth assured them. "Trust me," she practically pleaded.
Daryl shrugged. "The other shoe can drop anywhere."
"They'll just let anyone in here, don't they?" A voice interrupted them, grabbing their attention.
The group turned toward the voice. Daryl's hand automatically went to his knife. It was an unassuming man, short in stature with dark eyes, dark hair sticking out of a dingy white baseball cap. He wore a green t-shirt and jeans. And his smile told everyone he meant no harm.
Beth smiled back at the man and went to him, flinging her arms around him. "Great to see you, Beth," the man said, holding her back by the shoulders, looking her over. "It's been way too long this time."
"I know, I know," Beth replied. "I just been busy with the cabin and all."
"Uh huh, you think your sister will buy that excuse?"
Beth laughed. "Doubt it."
Just as the words came out of her mouth a woman came out of the same building the man had. She was munching on an apple until she saw Beth. She dropped her apple and sprinted over to her. "Beth!" Throwing her arms around her so hard, Beth was kicked back a couple of steps.
"Hey, Sis," Beth said into the woman's hair, clinging to her shoulders.