****Real quick.. Before we get started, I'd like to take you back to chapter 9… Huge story inconsistency here! And that is a big pet peeve of mine! I can't believe I actually did it myself! But it was a minor character who really doesn't matter in this story or in the series itself IMO.. anyway let's return to the matter of Father Gabriel.. And I apologize profusely!
You guys: What happened to Father Gabriel? Did Rick deal with him? Did Daryl kill him?
Me: Oh shit! I let that slip by! I can't believe it!
You guys: So?
Me: Um.. Idk.. Let's just say Rick took him to a galaxy far, far, away.
You guys: Well ok.. We didn't like that whiny, crybaby anyway!
If this is a sorry sad way of dealing with an inconsistency and you would appreciate an actual update to the chapter just inbox me.. It really won't have anything to do with Beth/Daryl.
OK on with Chapter 11!
Rick took the stranger back up to the cabin at gunpoint and sent Abraham down to help Tyreese and Beth with Daryl. Daryl had already started to regain consciousness when Abraham walked up to them. He sat up pushing Beth away and at the same time calling her name.
"Beth what the hell.." Daryl touched his head.
"I'm right here." Beth said kneeling down beside him again. Daryl tried standing up.
"Hold up there soldier. Let us help you. That's a nasty head injury." Abraham said. He and Tyreese helped Daryl stand. He stumbled a little and Beth came up behind him.
"Where's my crossbow? What happened?" Daryl grumbled in typical Daryl fashion.
"I have your crossbow. The door on the truck hit you when that guy opened it." Beth said.
"Rick's got him up at the cabin." Tyreese said.
"Who the hell is he?" Daryl asked.
"That's what we're gonna find out." Abraham said. They started walking and Daryl stopped.
"Beth?" he said. She walked around Tyreese and stood in front of Daryl.
"You ok?" he asked. She nodded and she reached up and wiped away blood that had leaked from under the flannel she had haphazardly tied around his head.
"Alright, alright.. Let's get back to the cabin." Abraham said.
He says he's from a safe place- Alexandria, and he's been out looking for survivors.." Rick told the others who had gathered in the cabin. The man was sitting in a chair with his hands and feet tied up.
"Why did you do what you did then?" Beth asked accusingly. Her and Carol were at the table with Daryl taking care of of his wound.
"It was an accident. I didn't know that you were right outside the truck. I was going to try and signal your look out." the man said.
"How many weapons do you have? Are you alone?" Daryl pushed Carol's hands away after she taped gauze to his wound.
"My name is Aaron. I have one gun and a knife. That's all. They were for protection from the biters." he said. the others just looked at him. Daryl stood up and Beth grabbed his arm.
"I'm fine!" he shrugged her hand off his arm and walked over to Rick. "DId you ask him yet?"
"No." Rick said.
Daryl looked at Aaron. "How many walkers you killed?"
"I don't know, a lot." Aaron said.
"How many people you killed?" Daryl asked.
"Two." Aaron said.
"Why?"
"Because they tried to kill me."
Daryl looked at Rick.
"You said you were alone, is that true?" Michonne asked.
Aaron shook his head. "No. There's someone who is supposed to be waiting for me further out. Just one.."
Rick grabbed him by the front of his shirt.
"You said you were alone!" he said.
"I am! I do have a partner. We have a meeting point." Aaron continued to explain what he and his partner were doing and where the supposed meeting point was.
"Back in the truck. In my bag. I have pictures." Aaron said.
"I'll go back for them." Tyreese volunteered.
"I'll go with you." Daryl said.
"Daryl you're hurt, you can't.." Beth started.
"I'm fine." Daryl said without looking at her. He couldn't look at her because he knew he'd see the confusion in her eyes. And he couldn't deal with that right now. He grabbed his crossbow and followed Tyreese out the back door. Beth just watched them leave. She bit her lip. When Judith started crying she was almost relieved. She looked at the others and sighed.
"I'll get her." she said and she left the room and walked into the bedroom. She picked up the baby and smiled at her. Taking a turn with Judith was fine, but she wasn't going to fall back into the role of full time babysitter.
Tyreese and Daryl came back without the bag and no pictures.
"Where are they Aaron? What kind of game are you playing?" Rick said.
"Eric must have come back. He must have taken the bag. There were flares in there so we could signal each other. He must be looking for me." Aaron said.
"Or there is no bag or pictures.." Daryl said. Beth walked back into the living room. She had heard Daryl's voice and was relieved that he'd come back so soon. His head injury and weird behavior had her worried. She walked towards him and he looked at her and walked away. Beth stopped and just looked at the floor. She didn't know what was going on. Daryl glanced at her from where he stood by the table and he knew just by the set of her shoulders that he was hurting her.
"How far is this meeting point? Let's send a group to verify that he's at least telling the truth about this." Daryl said. And it would get him out of the cabin away from Beth so he could figure out what to do with his feelings.
"That's a good idea." Rick said. He pulled Daryl aside. "Or we could just take care of him and be done with it." He spoke quietly so the others didn't hear him.
Daryl shook his head. "Not yet. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. If there's no meeting point or we have any trouble then we take care of him."
"I'll go." Glenn said.
"Me too." Maggie said.
Abraham, Rosita and Michonne agreed to go to. They all gathered their things in preparation to leave. Daryl grabbed his backpack. He knew Beth had come up behind him. He didn't turn around.
"You're going?" she asked softly. His shoulders stiffened and she took a step back.
"Yeah." he said.
She didn't say anything else and when he finally turned around to face her she was gone. He hesitated debating wether to go and look for her. He needed to say something. He was being a complete asshole and he knew it. This was probably for the best. He was bad luck. Beth was just going to get hurt with him. When he was with her he let his guard down. And when his guard was down bad things happened. He'd protect her. That would never change. He'd promised her that. But he'd do it from afar. Or as far away as possible considering their situation.
"Let's head out." he told the others.
"Try to be out of these woods before dark. Or find someplace to stay for the night." Rick told him.
Beth had gone up to the loft. She watched from a window as the group left. Daryl held the gate for everyone and then took a last look around the yard before he closed the gate behind him. Beth turned away from the window as Sasha walked into the room.
"You okay Beth?" she asked.
"Yeah." Beth said. "I was just.. Just looking."
"He'll be back." Sasha said.
Beth started walking towards the stairs. She stopped and turned towards Sasha. She smiled, but it was a sad smile.
"I know." she said.
Downstairs Rick was talking to Aaron about Alexandria. Beth half listened as she joined Carol at the kitchen table. Carol was listening too.
"Do you believe him?" Beth asked her quietly.
"I want to. But it sounds too good to be true." Carol said. Beth nodded.
"It seems like anything good is a lie or never lasts." Beth said.
Carl came in from the front door. He looked nervous.
"Dad there are a lot of walkers down by the fire truck." he said.
Sasha came down from the loft. "Let's go clear them out."
"I'm coming." Beth said.
Rick glanced at Sasha.
"Good. We need all the help we can get." Sasha said.
"You're gonna take Tyreese too?" Rick asked.
"Yeah. We'll take him. Four should be good. It doesn't look like a horde." Carl said.
They found Tyreese out back and headed down to the fire truck. Beth focused on the task at hand and tried not to think about Daryl. That was her goal for volunteering after all. She didn't enjoy doing this, but she could and she planned on getting better at it. There were about 20 walkers milling around the truck. Everyone immediately went to work clearing them out,
"Guys, look at this!" Carl said. There was a body on the ground at Carl's feet. It wasn't a walker. It was a dead human. It had obviously been attacked by walkers, but looking at what was left it was easy to tell what had happened. That and walkers didn't attack other walkers.
"You think this guy was running from these walkers?" Tyreese asked.
"What if he was looking for us?" Beth asked.
"Maybe it's Aaron's partner. He's coming from the direction the others went." Sasha said. Beth stepped back towards the back of the fire truck. Suddenly a walker came out from behind it. It reached for Beth. She tried to step out of its reach, but it grabbed her upper arm and its nails left two long scratches. Beth screamed and Carl stabbed the walker in the head.
"Oh jesus." Tyreese breathed. Beth's eyes were wide. She looked at her arm and up at Sasha.
"What does this mean?" she wiped at her arm.
"Don't touch it! We go back now!" Sasha took Beth's other arm. "We'll fix it." she said a little more gently. "Don't worry." Sasha wasn't sure this was true, but Beth's face was white and terrified. She wanted to keep her calm. Carl ran ahead and burst through the back door.
"Carol we need a first aid kit!"
"Who's hurt?!" Rick asked. Right then Sasha came through the back door with Beth. Tyreese followed behind.
"What happened?" Carol pulled out a chair and Beth sat in it.
"A walker scratched her." Sasha said.
"What does this mean?" Beth asked again softly. Her heart was pounding. She looked up at Rick. He kneeled down beside her and checked out her arm.
"Do we still have peroxide?" he asked.
Carol sat the brown bottled on the table in front of him.
"Clean her arm. Boil water and clean it with that and then use peroxide again." He told Carol. Sasha grabbed a pan and got water from the bathroom pump. Carol used a cloth and poured peroxide on the scratches. She wiped the wound. Beth whimpered more out of fear than pain. Rick looked at her and smiled. Her eyes filled with tears.
"Hey, it's gonna be okay." Rick said. He took her hand in his.
"Be honest. You don't have to sugar coat it. Am I infected?" Beth asked.
"Honestly? We have never dealt with a scratch before. Any infection can kill us, we know that. And we know regardless of how they die once a person is dead they change. So we'll keep your wound clean, watch for infection and go from there. We can treat infections, we've done it many times before Beth." He looked her in the eyes the entire time he was talking to her. Sasha brought the hot water over and Carol finished cleaning the scratches and she bandaged them up. Aaron watched from his chair a concerned look on his face.
"We have some antibiotics. I am going to give you those too." Carol told her. Beth nodded.
She stood up and took a deep breath. Rick wiped the tears from her cheek. He put his arms around her and hugged her.
"I know you're scared. Hell I'm scared too! But I think it's gonna be okay. We'll clean it again in a couple of hours and keep cleaning it every couple hours." he said.
"Thank you Rick." She hugged him back.
"But you have to promise to relax. I know you want to help out more and you have been, but for now just take it easy." he told her. She nodded at him.
"We also found a body down there." Tyreese said.
"Human?" Rick asked.
"It was at one point." Carl said.
"What did it look like? Was it a man?" Aaron asked frantically.
"Yeah it was man. But there wasn't much of a face left." Carl said uncomfortably.
Aaron was visibly upset. "What was he wearing?"
"I don't remember." Carl said.
"You have to remember!" Aaron yelled.
"Hey calm down!" Rick walked over to him.
"I'm sorry. It might be.. It might be my partner. It might be Eric." he said.
"I think he was wearing brown pants." Tyreese said.
"I don't remember much about him, I'm sorry. Beth was hurt and I.." Sasha felt terrible watching the man's face.
"Rick I have to ask you to take me there. Please. Let me ID him. You can keep me tied up. I just, I need to know." Aaron said.
"Let's take him Dad. The walkers are all down." Carl said.
"Carl, I.." Rick started.
"I'll help. Probably a good idea to find out if it was his partner or someone else who found us." Tyreese said. Rick agreed and he Carl, Tyreese and Sasha escorted him back to the fire truck. Beth stood at the back door watching them. Carol was at the table taking inventory of their meds.
"We have a lot more antibiotics than I thought. We can keep you on them for a few days." she told Beth. Beth looked at her bandaged arm. She hoped that Daryl was going to be gone overnight. She didn't want to see his face when he found out about the scratches. He'd blame himself and that would make her feel weak and stupid. Daryl was an enigma. She didn't know exactly why he had started pulling away from her. And she certainly wasn't going to sit here and wait for him to come back and make it all better. That was not an option. Because maybe he didn't want to make it all better anymore anyway.
