Follow Me, Beth
Chapter 4

"Beth… Beth."

She felt the weight of a hand pressing down on her shoulder. She grabbed it tightly and tried to push it away, causing pain to jolt through her tender wrist. Beth's eyes snapped open, her heart in her throat as her eyes narrowing enough to focus on the figure hanging over the back of the sofa.

"Beth… it's me," Maggie said, her fingers uncurling from her younger sister's shoulder. She glanced at Beth's white knuckles as she continued to clench Maggie's wrist, as though her life was at stake. "Are you okay?"

When she let go, Maggie recoiled, giving Beth room to sit up and get her bearings.

"Yeah…," Beth said. The truth was that, no, she wasn't okay. Her heart was racing, her wrist was throbbing. She didn't know who she thought was jostling her, but in her mind, it was nothing good. She was awake and yet she felt like she was still waiting to wake up from that nightmare. She clasped her hand around her wrist, feeling how weak and sore it still felt when she moved it wrong. She then paused and looked up at Maggie, noting the concerned slope of her brow and the tension in her mouth.

"I'm fine. I just forgot where I was," Beth said. unsure who she was trying to convince. Maggie or herself.

"That gets easier," Maggie assured her, but not knowing anything Beth had been through all of this time, she didn't know how long it would take for her to feel safe.

"What's that smell?" Beth asked, still rubbing her wrist.

Maggie smiled, "Breakfast. Come on."

Beth sat up and moved the blanket down off of her. She paused again as her feet touched the floor where Daryl had laid last night. She looked around for clues as to where he was, where he'd gone, if he'd be coming back. Maybe it was silly to worry here, in this place, but she hadn't yet shaken the fear that this could all be taken away again at any moment. That, again, she could wind up alone, separated from the people she loves.

On the chair across from her was Daryl's blanket and pillow, neatly stacked. Her mind played over a hundred scenarios over the dumbest things before Maggie's voice broke through again. Her thousand-yard stare having not gone unnoticed.

"You comin'?" Maggie asked, placing down a plate of food and a pitcher of freshly squeeze orange juice on the table.

Beth stood up and walked over to the table, noticing it was set for three. She placed her hands on the back of the wooden chair and, even though she knew she was hungry, she'd woken with such a knot in her stomach, she wasn't sure she could eat. She looked over at Maggie, who was taking her seat. "Uh, where's Daryl?"

"Oh, he had to go check the perimeter with Rick. They do it every morning. Check the walls for weakness and breaches," Maggie said. "He didn't want to wake you. He'll be back soon."

"Hey, look who's up," Glenn said as he came out with a plate in each hand, both containing scrambled eggs and toast, just like the one Maggie has put down in front of Beth. "We worried you might sleep right through breakfast. Sit down. Let's all eat."

Beth shook her head and smiled. "That's sweet, guys, but I think I'm just gonna get dressed and head out. Look around, get my bearings, stop by the clinic."

"You feelin' okay?" Maggie asked.

"Mmhmm. They just wanted me to come back this mornin', after I'd a chance to settle in and calm down," she said.

"Well, just… sit down and eat somethin' first," Maggie urged. She noticed the look on Beth's face. "You gotta eat, Beth."

Beth opened her mouth and took a breath, shaking her head again. This was Maggie, not Dawn. Maggie… not Dawn. But being told to eat actually sickened her. "I'm not hungry."

"Sit down, Beth."

"Maggie." Glenn almost chastised her, noting the shift in her tone.

"No," Maggie said, looking at him. "I want her to sit down and have breakfast with her family and talk to us, because until yesterday, we thought she was dead." She looked back to Beth. "Just sit down, eat and talk to us."

Glenn reached under the table and slid his hand over Maggie's knee, giving it a gentle, but firm, squeeze as he glanced at her.

Beth pressed her lips together in a firm line, frowning and shaking her head. "I gotta go to the clinic. My wrist hurts," she said before turning and walking over to the clothes that were left on the back of the couch for her. She picked them up and looked back at Maggie and Glenn before she moved to Daryl's room to change.

"What was that?" Glenn asked in a sharp whisper, leaning in closer to his wife. "What is wrong with you?"

"She's different."

"So are you. So am I," Glenn said. "You don't get to judge her."

"I'm not!" Maggie said, wide-eyed and defensive.

Glenn sat back in his chair a bit and he sighed, shaking his head. "Then what's going on?"

Maggie shifted in her chair enough to face him. "I gave up on her," she said.

He closed her eyes and groaned, "Maggie—"

"Daryl didn't and I did. And she talks to him, but not to me," Maggie said.

"I thought you said you were okay with that—"

"I am, but I'm not. She's my sister and she won't talk to me. I should be me, not him," she said, tears welling up in her eyes.

"It's her first morning back. It's been months since we've seen her and you can't expect her to go back to the way things were at the prison, with your father. None of us have been able to do that. You've got to go easier on her," he said. "This is a lot for her and we don't know what she's seen out there… what she's been through—"

"We would if she'd tell us!"

"When she tells us is not our call. We can't force it out of her with eggs and orange juice," Glenn said, gesturing to the meal in front of them. "Is that what this breakfast was all about? Because I thought it was our way of welcoming her home, not… trying to interrogate her."

"I just want to know where my sister's been —"

"We do know where she's been. We've been there, too, and it's not a good place. It took us a while to feel safe here. Let her feel safe," he said. "She'll tell you when she's ready."

"I don't know what to do for her. Our dad would know. It's like back at the farm all over again. I don't know what to do for her, Glenn," Maggie admitted.

"I don't think it's up to you to do anything, Maggie. She loves you, but she may not need you for this, not right now. She knows what she needs. She needs him—"

Maggie opened her mouth, objections lining up on her tongue.

"Just like you needed me," Glenn finished quickly, causing Maggie to deflate in her argument. She looked at him sadly and shook her head. Glenn slid his hand over hers and gave it a squeeze. "She needs time, and she needs her sister to just be there and be patient with her. Let her come to you," he said.

"I'm supposed to look out for her."

"Beth can look out for herself, now," he said, knowingly.

Maggie looked up when she heard Daryl's bedroom door open, just down the hall. She saw only a flash of the blonde hair moving past the kitchen doorway before Beth fully disappeared into the living room. A moment later, she heard the front door open and close. She knew Beth would be back, but that closing door gave Maggie a flutter of fear that she hadn't felt since before she'd told herself that Beth was dead.

Glenn looked down and sighed. "Look, I know this isn't just about Beth." He moved his hand down and placed it over Maggie's stomach. "I promise, it'll all be okay. We don't have to hide this from her. She'd be happy for us. You should tell her."

She shook her head. "No."

"Maggie—"

"Not yet," she said, sternly.

"Why?" he asked.

"How would it sound?" she asked. "Oh, welcome back, Beth. Told myself you were dead. Let myself believe it? Moved on, settled down, started to build a family. Found a way to be happy without you?"

"You make it sound awful," Glenn said. "It's not like that."

"We moved on, Glenn," Maggie said, the guilt written all over her face, laced in the depths of her voice.

"We… chose to keep living—"

"We moved on and she was alive. The whole time," Maggie said. "But we moved on."

Glenn ran a hand down her hair and leaned in, kissing her temple as she sniffled. "I know… and we'll fix this. We'll make it right. We will." He picked up the fork beside her plate, lifting her hand and closing it around the utensil. "But right now… you should take your own advice… and eat something."

"Where's Beth?" Rick asked as he pushed against another wall, testing it with his full weight.

"Still sleepin' when I left," Daryl said. "This one's loose." He set down his crossbow in the grass as Rick came over, handing him a can of orange spray paint to mark the weak spot for the construction crew to come and secure the rivets and welding on.

Rick watched Daryl spray the large X and an arrow pointing to the section. "Shouldn't you be with her?"

"Hmm?"

"With Beth," Rick clarified.

"Naw, Maggie's there," Daryl said, stepping back and stuffing the paint can back into Rick's satchel.

"Yeah, okay," Rick said, "but… shouldn't you be with her?

Daryl picked up his crossbow again and slung it over his head, fixing it behind him as he turned to look at his brother. "Why?"

Rick rose an eyebrow and shifted his weight back as he stood with a questioning manner. "Really? You want to act like you're not—" One look at the nervous tension in his eyes and Rick knew this wasn't the time to inquire about that reunion he'd witnessed and just what it meant. He merely fixed his satchel at his side and nodded. "Alright. Fine. Maggie's with her."

"Yeah. She is," Daryl said, walking back up to Rick. "Can we finish this?" he asked, moving past him and continuing along the wall.

"Mmhmm," Rick hummed before turning to follow.

After they were finished, they made it back to the road and started back to the house. Daryl nearly collided with Rick when the man abruptly stopped.

"What the hell?"

Rick merely nodded of to their right before gesturing where Daryl should be looking. "Might wanna to look into that," he said, glancing to Daryl.

Beth was completely turned around. On her own, she'd have had her bearings already, but this was the first place in months where there were people. More people than she'd ever seen in one place in years, honestly. More than at the prison, far more than at the hospital. It was the people who threw her off, now. She wondered when that happened.

She took refuge on a stretch of plush, green lawn beside a quiet pond. It looked like a painting, at least up until the metal walls cut through the landscape in the distance.

"Hey."

Beth turned and looked up to see Daryl walking towards her, his crossbow slung across his back. Rick was behind him, on the road. She saw him nod and continue walking, no doubt heading back home to wake his kids, if they weren't up already. She looked up at Daryl as he came around to sit down in the grass beside her, setting his crossbow aside.

"Thought maybe in this place… you wouldn't have that thing attached to you anymore," she said with a smile.

"Can't ever be too careful," he said, studying her in that way that she'd come to recognize. He was trying to get a read on her without actually coming out and asking how she was. "How long you been out here?"

She shrugged and looked at the water, little ripples appearing on the surface, suggesting there was life somewhere below. "An hour, maybe…"

"Did you eat?" he asked. The way he said it, though… she knew that he had a reason for asking. He probably knew what Maggie and Glenn were planning, but he couldn't have known how poorly it would go.

She shook her head. "No."

"I thought Maggie and Glenn were makin' you breakfast," he said.

"They did." Beth looked at him. "But I had to get out of there."

He figured it out pretty quickly, what probably happened. "She's just worried about you."

"That makes me feel awful," she said.

"What do you mean"

"Guilty," Beth said, looking at him again. "I feel guilty."

"Why?"

She sighed and looked ahead, dropping her good hand into the grass and twisting the long stem of a weed around her fingers. "Because she worries, now. Too much. And I can't help but think how much easier it must have been for her when she thought she didn't have to worry about me anymore."

"You mean when she thought you were dead," he said.

"Yeah," Beth said, looking at him again, her large blue eyes unusually sad at the thought. Not the thought that Maggie would choose to lose hope that was alive, but that her being alive would hold Maggie back in some way. "I get that she moved on. I would've wanted her to. I want my sister to be happy, and all she's doing now—"

"Is worrying," Daryl finished. He nodded and looked down at the grass, plucking a few blades of it himself and tying them into little knots. He got it, now. He understood Beth, probably better than anyone else, and he understood where she was right now. That feeling of wanting to belong, but being unsure if you could.

"She's kind of intense," Beth said.

Daryl glanced over at her. If there was one thing he learned from Beth, it was that silence wasn't always golden, and that leaving things unspoken, unaddressed — not putting them away — would kill you, your heart. "You should talk to her."

"And say what? All of the things she wants to know… I can't—"

"Then just tell her that you're okay. That she doesn't have to worry so much," he said, looking at her.

Beth lifted her head and then slowly looked at him. "Am I okay?"

Daryl dropped the grass he was fiddling with and reached out, putting a hand on her knee, his eyes searching hers with a sense of conviction that felt new to her, in some way, and yet deeply familiar.

"I plan on making sure of it," he said. "That's a promise."