[A/N: Meant to have this up days ago but work has been crazy times. Really hope you guys enjoy this one.
Quick shout out to the new followers and favourites (over 200 favourites and 300 followers, pretty chuffed about that!). So many thanks to the reviewers. Sakura, what a compliment! The point of fiction is to make people feel something, so was super happy to read your review! For those of you waiting to see how the grady plot line pans out, you'll have to wait and see - but we are definitely getting to the pointy end of this story.]
They spent the next day at the funeral home, figuring the benefit to Beth's ankle outweighed the risk of the former occupants suddenly reappearing. Night had fallen and Beth and Asha were in the kitchen when Daryl stormed in, slamming an open jar of pigs feet on the bench. The cans strung across the front steps rattled faintly.
'Damn dog. What type of mutt doesn't like pig's feet?'
Asha snorted. 'That stupid dog has been toying with you all day. I don't know why you don't just give up?'
Daryl scowled at her, slumping into a chair and plucking a pig's foot from the jar. Their eyes met and her lips twitched, cheeks heating. Apparently they'd been louder the previous night than they'd thought. Beth hadn't been able to look either of them in the eye when they'd come back downstairs. But damn it, Asha wasn't going to feel bad anything that made her smile anymore.
Somewhere in the distance outside the dog barked.
She went back to packing cans and jars into her pack. Their second pack was already sitting beside the semi automatic in the hallway, packed with the first aid kit, a piece of warm clothing for each of them, a jar of peanut butter and a bottle of water.
Starting tomorrow they were going to scope out the local area, checking for somewhere nearby where they could watch and wait for the return of mysterious stockists of the house. They figured they'd give it two weeks, and if they hadn't seen the former occupants they'd stock up and keep heading south, following Daryl's original plan. The funeral home was too big and too isolated for the three of them to be able to defend it. Neither Asha nor Daryl were happy to stay there long term.
Beth thought they were over reacting.
'I'm gonna leave a note,' the young woman said.
'Good idea,' Asha said. 'Might make a good impression if we're still around when they get back.'
'That's not why I'm doing it.'
'I know. But it can't hurt.' Asha closed up the pack and dropped it in the hall next to the other one.
'So, what's for dinner tonight?' she asked, returning to the kitchen. The open cupboards seemed barely depleted by the items they'd taken. 'Peanut butter and jelly and diet soda – that's a nutritional smorgasboard right there. God what I wouldn't give for a huge bowl of freshly steamed veggies.'
'Veggies,' Beth exclaimed. 'Jeez Asha that's boring. Give me chocolate cake, and brownies and lemon cheesecake.'
Beth closed her eyes and licked her lips.
Asha laughed. 'Why do I get the feeling you can bake all of those?'
Beth nodded. 'Of course.'
'How about a steak?' Asha asked, warming to the subject. 'A nice rare steak. I never used to think that much of beef but these days I feel like I could eat half a cow. And a glass of good red wine.' She closed her eyes, drooling over the mental image.
'What do you miss Daryl?' Beth asked.
The shaggy haired man grunted, unscrewing a jar of peanut butter.
'Come on Daryl,' Asha prompted. 'There's gotta be something.'
He shrugged. 'Cigarettes…and fresh coffee.'
'Oh god yeah,' Asha agreed, 'If I could just smell a cup of fresh coffee. You know what else I miss? Turning on a tap and having clean water- '
'Hot clean water,' Beth grinned.
The string of cans across the front steps suddenly rattled vigorously.
'I'm gonna give that damn dog one last chance,' Daryl said, scooping out a pig's foot and heading into the hall.
'You miss baking?' Asha asked Beth.
The young woman shrugged. 'Yeah. Stupid thing to miss really, but-'
'Asha,' Daryl bellowed from the door.
It took an instant for the sound of feet scrabbling against floorboards and the groans of the dead to register in her brain. She leapt through the door, grabbing up Daryl's crossbow. Daryl strained, back against the front door, feet slipping, as the horde surged forward, hands and jaws scrapping around the door. The door was sliding slowly, relentlessly open. He waved desperately for his crossbow and Asha tossed it to him.
'Go,' he hissed.
Asha snarled, pulling her knife and throwing her weight against the door beside him, striking at a walker skull through the ever widening gap.
'No chance.'
There were too many. The door kept slipping open.
'We can't hold em. Ya gotta get Beth out.'
'No.'
Daryl's eyes bored into her, fierce and focused. Crossbow loaded, he was waiting for her to get out of the way before he could fire. Asha's feet skidded on the boards and her stomach sank.
'Go out the window, I'll meet ya on the road out back.'
Asha's world narrowed down to the blue of Daryl's eyes.
Don't make me leave you.
'Asha,' he hissed urgently.
She nodded jerkily, feeling as though she was tearing in two. 'The road out back,' she promised before twisting back to face the hallway.
'Beth,' she hollered.
The young woman had hobbled to the hallway. 'Grab a pack, we're going out the back.'
'We can't leave Daryl,' she said, but she was scooping up a pack even as she spoke.
Asha glanced back at Daryl, heart in mouth. For a moment Asha didn't think she'd be able to move, that her body wouldn't let her leave him behind, no matter what her mind rationalised.
His blue eyes blazed.
'Go,' he roared, shoving her in the arm, and she found herself lurching towards Beth.
She grabbed the rifle, yanked the second pack onto her back and slung Beth's arm over her shoulder. The roars of the dead suddenly surged as the door crashed open and Daryl's crossbow twanged.
Keeping Beth's arm tight over her shoulder they raced through house. Wrenching the loose board from the window Asha shouldered it open, the sound of the dead swelling behind her. She had to let Beth climb out herself, turning back to the room to drive her blade through the face of the walker that lurched in behind them.
Beth disappeared through the window, collapsing with a small cry to the ground outside. Asha allowed her barely half an instant to get out of the way before she planted her heel in the chest of the next walker, forcing it back and using the scant moment bought to scramble out the window herself. Heart thudding, she landed next to Beth, both jerking back in unison as the top half of a walker leant through the window after them groping desperately.
Asha slung Beth's arm across her shoulder, pulling the younger woman up and they staggered towards the road. She scanned the tree lined darkness, watching for the dead, but part of her mind was screaming Daryl's name as she listened to the horde swarming the house. Beth stumbled, and she tried desperately to mute down that voice.
She had a job to do.
She felt asphalt under her boots and pulled to a sudden stop, carefully steadying Beth on her feet before turning back to the house. She took an involuntary step towards it and stopped, chest heaving.
'Go,' Beth said.
The house writhed with the dead in the darkness. Asha stared, wrung with indecision. 'I can't,' she hissed in frustration.
'I'll be fine,' Beth said, hopping a little unevenly.
Asha glared at the house as if she could drag Daryl through the back window through sheer force of will – but none of the shapes reeling through the trees were Daryl, they weren't even human anymore. She swallowed the ice in her belly and tightened her grip on the knife. If he didn't show soon, they'd have to run or be overwhelmed.
'He said he'd meet us here Beth, he'll be here.'
He better, or I will go in there and drag him out by his damn too long hair.
A shadow reeled out onto the road snarling, and happy to vent her frustration and fear on something, Asha almost ran towards it, kicking it viciously in the side of the knee and planting her knife in its skull as it pitched to the ground.
She looked back at Beth, and suddenly the back of her head exploded in pain and her vision darkened. For a moment, she lost all sensation, she was nothing, hanging in the darkness, not even sure she was breathing. Beth screamed her name, stark and terror filled, but she couldn't move.
Something was dragging her along the road, skin tearing from her shoulder. Beth screamed again but her body still wouldn't respond. She couldn't see and white noise roared in her ears.
Then there was Daryl's voice, raw and raging. 'Asha. Beth. Asha.'
He was distant, but coming closer.
'Daryl.' Her voice was an incomprehensible croak. Feeling started to return, and she felt rough asphalt under her cheek.
There was a hand under her head, rough but gentle.
Daryl.
'Beth?' she croaked.
'Yeah the car, I saw,' Daryl said, voice both gravelly and soft. Her vision, starting to come back was still blurry, but she felt him gather her gently into his arms. 'What happened?' he asked.
She tried to shake her head and then groaned. 'I don't know.' She lifted tentative fingers to the soft spot at the back of her head. 'Something - someone hit me. I think. I didn't see anything.' She tried to focus. 'There was a car?'
Daryl grunted. 'We gotta move baby.'
He was comfortingly solid as he pulled her to her feet. The road spun, but she managed to hold her head upright, and she could hear the walkers around them, although she still couldn't see clearly.
'Ya ok?' Daryl asked, arm under her ribs.
'Yeah,' she said unsteadily, head thumping.
They made it about ten paces before she dropped sideways, retching.
'Fuck, Asha.' He sounded far away, like she was under water. She retched again, then swallowed hard as the nausea rolled away from her.
'Asha,' Daryl's voice sounded closer.
'I'm ok.'
'Ya ain't.'
'No.' She spat on the ground trying to rid her mouth of the taste of vomit - at least she could tell which way the ground was - and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. 'But we gotta get Beth.'
Daryl grunted, but she was right. He tightened his grip on her and they loped unevenly after the car.
The sun was up before they gave up the chase, and only then because they lost the trail. Slumped on her knees, Asha squinted against the glare, sucking breaths that seemed unable to fill her lungs. Her skull felt like it was several sizes too small for her brain and sharp white light stabbed her vision when she moved her head too quickly. The torn skin on her shoulder alternatively stung and itched as the blood dried.
Daryl stumbled across the intersection, weaving, crossbow dragging as he searched for signs of the car's passage. A gentle breeze rustled the loose leaves, rolling them across intersection and into the trees – eroding any chance they had of learning which way the car had gone.
Asha sagged defeated.
'Daryl.'
'Nah,' he grunted, weaving unsteadily but crisscrossing the intersection determinedly.
'Daryl,' she tried again.
He didn't answer, but she saw his jaw stiffen as he paced.
She sighed, walking her hands forward to stretch out on the road, head rested on her arm as she waited.
She must have dozed. When she woke, her parched throat felt like it was lined with the baking tarmac she was lying on. Her head was throbbing. Daryl sat cross legged in the middle of the intersection, head hanging and shoulders slumped. The image of dejection made Asha's heart ache and filled her with fury. Ignoring the ache in her body she pushed to her feet, wobbling on her way towards him and crouching down. She pulled his chin up, stomach lurching unhappily at his grey face and blank eyes.
'A black car with a white cross painted in the back window,' she said, recalling his earlier description of the car. 'We'll find her.'
She took her doubt and sunk it deep in her belly, next to her fear of what was presently happening to Beth.
They had to find her.
She smoothed his hair out of the way and pressed her lips briefly to Daryl's forehead, before glancing around.
'I'm gonna look for water.' The single water bottle in her pack was long since empty, and a refill was well needed.
The water in the refilled bottle sloshed in her pack as she walked back towards the intersection. She'd drunk her fill at the small creek she'd found – grateful that it hadn't been too far and that it was running clear, since she didn't have the means to boil it. It was blessedly cool under the trees and Asha concentrated with single minded determination on where she put her feet. Anything to keep her mind off Beth.
She shifted her shoulders guiltily. Yeah it had hurt when they'd lost people in the past, but it had been so long since she'd had someone taken right in front of her.
So long since she'd been personally responsible.
All she'd had to do was get Beth out to the road and keep her alive until Daryl joined them.
How could she have not even heard the car that had taken Beth?
She realised she was digging her nails into her arm and angrily shook her hand out.
How did Daryl do it? How did he take this on each time he took a group on a run?
She sagged with the weight of it.
It reminded her too much of Ren.
She shuddered, and found herself praying to a god she didn't believe in that Beth hadn't been taken by the same type of men. She didn't have it in her to follow Beth the way she'd followed Ren only to find her the same way.
She forced herself to concentrate on her feet again, trying to shift them silently through the leaf litter the way Daryl had shown her – although she'd never entirely caught the trick of it.
It was mere chance that she looked up as she reached the tree line near the road. She missed a step, leaning unsteadily against a tree as her breath seized and her stomach contracted into a tiny ball.
Daryl was on his feet, alone, cross bow raised, bolt tip a mere foot away from the face of a grey haired man in a denim vest. The man's hands were up and he was smiling despite a bloodied lip, but his relaxed stance was little comfort in view of the half a dozen or so large men who had an array of weaponry trained on Daryl.
Around half the men had their backs to her, but those she could see had the hard lined faces of men who had found the new world bloody and hadn't baulked. They stood with the easy confidence of a pack with the numbers, salivating before the kill. Asha was sure the smile on grey hair's face was meant to be non threatening, but he'd only managed a wolfish grin.
Hands trembling, Asha pulled the semi automatic off her shoulder and held it in front of her. The collection of miscellaneous weaponry pointed at Daryl consisted of a bow and arrow, a handgun, what looked like a bayonet, and a couple of hunting rifles. There was nothing to match her assault rifle.
If it had been loaded.
She took a shaky breath, and then another, a feeling of calm suddenly descending.
Either she walked away with Daryl or not at all.
Her hands were suddenly steady on the rifle as she swung it up to bear on the jackals and stepped out of the trees.
Grey hair was speaking to Daryl. 'You pull that trigger, these boys are gonna drop you several times over.'
'Not before I drop half of them,' Asha said loudly, forcing herself to speak a little slower than usual to disguise any tremor in her voice.
The man closest to her, a stocky balding guy, spun around and Asha found herself staring down the barrel of hunting rifle. She blinked once, and but feigning a nonchalance she didn't entirely feel, ignored it entirely and kept focus on the leader.
She was reluctantly impressed that none of the other men so much as glanced in her direction.
'Well now sweetheart,' grey hair said. 'You and your friend are pretty well outnumbered, ain't no reason to be doing anything stupid.'
'Stupid depends on your perspective,' she replied coolly. 'You've got the numbers, but I'd say the hardware's in my favour. Might not even things out exactly, but I won't be going down alone.'
'And all of this starts with a bolt in your brain,' Daryl snarled.
'And a bullet in yours straight after friend,' grey hair said calmly.
'Don't know about you,' Asha said. 'But personally I'm in favour of a plan that leaves less bodies on the ground.'
Grey hair suddenly laughed with the comfortable self-assurance of a man holding all the cards. 'What ya got in mind girl?'
Asha nodded at Daryl. 'He comes over here to me. We go one way, you lot go the other. Simple.'
He nodded. 'That is one option. But I feel like it might be a wasted opportunity.'
Asha's eyes narrowed.
'No-one can go it alone in this world anymore,' he continued. 'And the two of you, you're only one person away from being alone.'
'Ain't interested,' Daryl growled.
'Think about it son, ya lasted this long, you know what this world is like.'
'He'd think better from over here,' Asha snapped.
Grey hair held up his hands 'Of course, ain't no bad blood here, just possibilities for all of us.' He gestured with his head in Asha's direction. 'Go on.'
Daryl scowled at the man an instant longer before moving slowly towards her, crossbow trained on grey hair the whole time.
Asha felt as though a part of herself had been returned as fell in beside her. Her knees were suddenly weak and she resisted the urge to grab hold of him. This was not a group to show weakness in front of.
The attention of all the men came with him.
'Claimed,' said the tall man with the bow and arrow as his gaze landed on her. He spat sideways through his teeth, looking her over with a leer ten times oilier than anything Merle had ever rustled up.
Asha's skin crawled.
'Shut up,' snapped grey hair with barest show of teeth, but it was enough to quell the bowman. His smile was back in place when he turned back to Daryl and Asha.
'The name's Joe,' he started, but was abruptly interrupted by the giant of a man standing next to him.
'Dios mio, Asha is that you?'
Asha's head snapped around and she stared blankly at the grizzled Hispanic man until his dirt stained face visage suddenly resolved into a familiar face - a very familiar face but one she hadn't seen since well before the turn.
Daryl's hand snaked around her elbow as she wobbled on her feet.
'Holy shit,' she whispered incredulously. 'Tony.'
Sound of rushing blood filled her ears and everything went black.