Disclaimer: I don't own Walking Dead but I do own my OCs. I don't own the information I got from the Walding Dead Wikia .
Beth is woken by the sunlight coming through her window. A window? She sits up and surveys her room, walking to the window. She's shocked to see the ruins of Atlanta. Beth bangs on her door, and in comes Dr. Steven Edwards, his medical aid Sam, and officer Dawn Lerner. After introducing themselves, Dr. Edwards tells Beth she's at Grady Memorial Hospital. Dawn coldly informs Beth of her debt to them, just after Sam tells her he and the Doctor fixed her broken wrist and stitched up her cheek.
Uncertain and wary of her environment, Beth follows Dawn's orders to go along with Sam and Dr. Edwards on their hospital rounds. Dr. Edwards seems nice, business-like. An average white guy, he's got a beard and seems in his forties, on the short side with a big belly. Sam on the other hand, is a younger guy, maybe thirty-two, tops. He's tall, over 6 ft. and probably half Asian. Very lean but strong, too, like he played several sports.
Beth's observations are interrupted when they come to the first patient. He was hooked up to several machines, but after the doctor did his check-up, he told Sam to pull the plug and before she knew it, Beth was wheeling a dead body through the halls. Of course the doctor jammed a knife through the patient's temple, but Beth still had questions. Why had they killed the man? Couldn't they have saved him?
"If a patient doesn't improve almost immediately, we pull the plug. Resources are scarce," Dr. Edwards replies. Beth nods quietly and Sam steers them to an elevator shaft.
"If the bodies are still warm," Sam starts, "the dead will come for them. Cleans up most of it."
"Oh," says Beth. She's going to need help getting used to this.
.
At the cafeteria, Beth is approached by a guy in uniform.
"You're lookin' better n' better," he says. Beth doesn't reply. "Me and my boys had a lead on some guns, we were far out. Then we saw you wriggling in the road and I ran out to get ya. You don't remember, do ya?"
"I was fighting off a walker, then everything went black," she says.
"It was high on your thighs when we got there. But I got out there first, jacked that rotter out," he tells her. "I'm Gorman. You know when someone does you a favour, it's courtesy to show your appreciation." Beth ignores his disgusting hinted undertone and continues taking her food. "Unless you want me to write down everything you're taking. Everything costs something, right?"
Beth looks up in shock, but before she can say anything a curvy black woman comes to her side.
"And nobody is gonna go along with your type of payment," she sasses. Gorman walks away and so does Beth and the woman who stood up for her.
"You're new, ain't ya?" she asks.
"Yeah, thank you. For helpin' me just there. I'm Beth."
"Jewel. Nice t' meet you," Jewel says with a smile. Gosh, her smile is blinding, especially with the contrast of her caramel coloured skin.
.
Dr. Edwards re-stitches Beth's cheek after the wound was opened by Dawn. She was lashing out because of bad news she'd gotten about a patient, and slapped Beth. Dr. Edwards leaves Beth to give her privacy, allowing her to put on the clean shirt one of the launders left for her. She finds a lollipop in the pocket and smiles, knowing it was one of the two she saw Dawn scolding earlier. One was a girl; tall, blonde, blue-eyed gorgeousness and a tall, thin handsome black guy.
Sam takes Beth with him when Dr. Edwards is called to a patient down the hall and they find a woman, Joan,who's been bitten. Her arm has to be amputated but she refuses treatment, then it is revealed she was trying to escape from the hospital. Despite his obvious discomfort and disagreement to the treatment plan, Sam urges Beth to help hold Joan down while they saw her arm off.
.
After the horrific scene, Beth takes her bloody clothes straight to the laundry room where she meets the two launders.
"You okay?" asks the blonde. "I'm Marina. That's Noah, or the lollipop guild."
"Beth. And thanks for that."
Noah shrugs. "Figured you needed a pick-me-up after this morning," he pulls out some scrubs. "Here, these should fit."
Beth takes the clothes, then an intake of breath like she was going to say something, but in rushes Jewel, the girl from earlier.
"It's Keenan," she says, out of breath.
Marina's eyes go wide. "He... Did he wake up?"
Jewel can't get another word in until Sam comes in, holding his own bloody clothes. It doesn't look like Sam knows anything about this 'Keenan,' but with the looks Jewel and Marina are giving him, he will soon.
"Oh, hey Beth. I'm so glad you've met Jewel and Mar," he says casually, setting his laundry in a basket. He ruffles through to find the scrubs his size. "They're good friend of mine. We-"
"Sam," Marina stops him.
"What?"
Marina eyes Jewel, waiting for an answer from her. Noah also seems very interested in what's going on.
"He's awake," Jewel says. "Keenan's awake."
Marina and Sam immediate push through the doors, running out into the hall. Luckily Jewel and Noah stay back with Beth to explain what's going on as they walk the halls for Keenan's room.
"So were you all a group when you came in?" asks Beth.
"No," says Noah. "Marina and I found each other right when this started and were on our own for a year, found a walled community in Richmond and stayed there. Then we found this place."
"Wow. So, you've been here... about a year, huh?" Noah nods. "But the rest of you seem so close, have you all been here since-?"
"No," Jewel stops her. "Marina, Sam, Keenan and I have all known each other since... Well, I've known Sam all my life. Then Marina and Keenan I met in high school- they had an on and off again thing that didn't resolve officially off until we were twenty-something. Then..."
It sounds like Jewel is going to say more, but Noah finishes for her.
"Jewel had been with Sam, and they got here around six months ago. But Keenan came in around when Marina and I did, and... he's been in a coma since."
Beth absorbs all this fairly quickly. So the four besides Noah all know each other, and ended up here nonetheless. Wow. And poor Keenan.
"And... Now he's awake?" Beth replies.
Jewel breaks into a smile. "From all that, all you cared about was that the famous Ken-Barbie lookin' one is unconscious?"
"No, I- I-"
"I'm jus' playin'," Jewel teases. "Now c'mon, I wanna see Keenan. He'll like you."
"Thanks," Beth says. Did she say he was famous?
Since Daryl left the church he's felt guilty to leaving his family again, but after the time he spent with Carol and becoming such close friends... he couldn't not go with her. And now? They could get a shot at finding Beth.
Daryl and Carol make their way into what looks like an executive's office. Carol looks out the window at the burned and destroyed city below. Carol says that Daryl still hasn't asked her what happened after she met up with Tyreese and the girls. Daryl says he knows what happened that they ain't here, and if it was worse he doesn't wanna know because they were around the same age as his own girl.
"I started over," Daryl says. "After the first coouple months, I actually tried to forget about my life b'fore. And being with y'all, though it made me miss my fam'ly even more, it... it helped make me start over. Now I've got them back, and it feels so good. But what... what I'm tryin' to say is we don't start over because we want to. We start over because we have to."
Daryl finishes his little speech and Carol smiles before he notices something outside. He looks through the scope of Carol's rifle to see a van of the bridge- the van has two white crosses on the rear window, so he thinks it could be a lead to whoever has Beth. Carol starts filling up her canteen from a water cooler, gathering their things before they head out.
Daryl and Carol make their way back through the small opening in the chained door. Carol pushes the rifle through the doorway and goes outside first, noticing that there're two tents with walkers inside. When Daryl gets outside, a tall, thin black guy is holding a rifle at him.
"Lay down your weapons," he says, shakily. They hesitate. "No one needs to get hurt just... we need your weapons."
Finally, Daryl and Carol comply. The thief tells them both that they look tough and that they will be , he cuts the tents open and lets the walkers out, before running away.
Daryl stabs one of the walkers, and Carol pulls out a pistol and shoots one of the walkers. Carol points her gun at the guy's back, but Daryl pushes the gun away so she misses.
They chase after the guy, but he is gone. Carol asks Daryl if he thought that she was going to kill him, and that she was aiming for his leg. Daryl says that he was just a kid, near Beth's age. Carol points out that he got their weapons and without weapons they and Beth could die.
Daryl and Carol make their way to the van on the bridge. The van is halfway off the edge of the bridge, headfirst. Carol points out the obvious that's it's unstable, but they continue to scavenge in it for supplies. As they search the van, a horde of walkers approach. Daryl notices hospital supplies in the van, and Carol tells him she knows Grady Memorial Hospitalis nearby.
The walkers approach and Daryl and Carol use their best efforts to kill them, but they're not gonna get the whole herd. Accepting their fate of not killing their way through this, Daryl asissts Carol asthey climb into the front of the van. Daryl tells Carol to buckle up, as the walkers push the van off the bridge. The van lands right side up, andDaryl and Carol are dazed, but they are both okay, thank God (if there is one.) A couple of walkers fall off the bridge onto the van. Daryl and Carol make their way out of the van and take off on foot.
Daryl and Carol are stopped outside a building to rest, and Daryl gives Carol some water to drink. Carol's shoulder is injured, but she says that she's had worse. Carol jokes that they made good time getting down.
Carol says they are only three blocks from Grady. Daryl and Carol enter a building, and Daryl finds a very weak walker on the floor, still holding a scarily familiar machete. He takes the machete and uses it to put down the walker. They look across at the hospital. Daryl tells Carol a little about his past, how Scarlet was always into knives and machetes, and that she had one just like this one. Carol tells him that it's not odd to find one out here, since the machetes are pretty good zombie killing weapons. She jokes that Scarlet might've had a secret obsession with the apocalypse, and Daryl replies quickly saying that no, she didn't have an obsession with anything but music.
Daryl hears something, and they both go to investigate. It's a walker that is stuck to the wall by an arrow. Daryl confirms it's his, and then they hear gunfire, they walk around the corner of the hall to see the thief trying to lift a bookshelf off two struggling people. There is a walker struggling to get through the door that was behind the bookshelf.
Carol catches up, and Daryl and Carol take their weapons back. The thief asks why they followed him and begs them for help, but Daryl says he already helped him once and it "ain't happening again". Daryl finds a carton of cigarettes and lights a smoke. Carol yells at Daryl to help the guy, but Daryl says to let him be and walks away. The walker pushes through the door and is about to get the thief, but Daryl turns around and shoots the walker with an arrow at the last second.
Just as Daryl takes another puff, a young woman peeks her blonde head from under the bookcase. Her eyes lock with Daryl, and he drops his cigarette. The space the blonde created enough for the other trapped person to get out- it's a tall, thing Asian guy who doesn't notice the people around him. He and the thief lift the bookcase of of the blonde and then she brushes off, getting thoroughly checked out by the Asian.
"Daryl Dixon," she scolds. "Didn't Scar get you to stop smoking?"
The Asian finally whips around and sees there're two other people in the room. His eyes widen and he steps up really close to Daryl. If it were anyone else, it would be seriously wrong to get up in Dixon's personal bubble. But the Asian finally broke his stare and pulled Daryl in for a quick, tight hug.
"Sam," Daryl greets, smiling just the slightest bit. The he turns back to the blonde. "Marina. You aren't to say a word'a this to Scar, alright Cullumbine?"
She shakes her head, long pale locks shaking around her head. "Shut up, Dixon." She walks over and gives him a hug, too.