"I shiver, thinking how easy it is to be totally wrong about people to see one tiny part of them and confuse it for the whole, to see the cause and think it's the effect or vice versa."
Beth felt her eyes opening. The situation put her on edge, she didn't know where she was. The last she remembered was Dawn and a loud popping noise. She assumed with the eerie visit to her old farm home, that popping noise was a bullet that hit her. She just wasn't quite sure. She tried to sit up quickly to gather her surroundings.
"Don't move too quickly, you have a nasty head wound. I cleaned it best I could. You remember your name?" A man wearing an old military jacket and tired looking eyes asked her.
Beth briefly wondered if she would be in a similar situation as Grady. She felt guarded and unsure.
"My name is Beth, Beth Greene. Why are you helping me?" Beth needed that question answered. The answer would let her know if he was a good person or not.
"I'm trying to catch up with an old friend. He was leaving me signs. I saw you near his hat" The man gestured to Rick's sheriff hat, "Looks like you were in a shallow grave and had clawed your way out. I knew I had to help. Redeem myself" The man told her gruffly.
"Redeem yourself?" Beth felt her breath hitching. She didn't want to be stuck with some man with a fucked up sense of right and wrong trying to redeem himself.
"I failed my family, they were innocents. Rick is like family, if I can help save his family maybe when I finally go I'll be with my family" The man told her honestly. He got up and began fiddling with various items among the room.
Beth could read people really well by now. Despite the head injury she felt confident in the man's words. Sure, he might have been a little weird. Watching as he flittered about the room playing with intricate traps she realized his level of genius. He might have been quirky but the way this man built things was unreal. Beth realized she had been observing him without asking him his name.
"What is your name?" Beth was interested. Maybe Rick had mentioned this man before, and that would add another piece of trust to be awarded to this strange man.
"Morgan Jones" he told her with a small smile.
Beth racked her brain with that name. The only snippet of conversation she could remember was Rick saying something to her daddy, but she wasn't quite sure. The memory was fuzzy.
"Here is some water" Morgan threw a water bottle at her. "This'll help you build up strength. We gotta leave soon if we wanna catch Rick and his group"
"How did you know what to do for me? I mean if I was so injured that my family assumed I was dead…?" Beth trailed off and let the question hang in the air.
"Before the turn, I was a trauma nurse for the army. I had recently retired and had begun a residency with a neurological team. The combination of both helped with that nasty head wound." Morgan told her.
"How long have you been treating me?" Beth felt dread at that answer.
"Close to two weeks, which is why we need to leave soon to catch up with Rick. I had to flush the wound and bandage what I could. Plus, waking from a coma is always tricky. It took you a week to stay awake, you've been conscious in spurts" Morgan informed her before hunkering down at a desk in the corner of the room.
Beth sipped on the water bottle. She felt better that Morgan was talking about catching up with Rick. She figured they must've assumed she was dead to have left her partially buried. She wondered briefly if Maggie was with them and the kind of grief she must have been going through. She couldn't imagine the grief Daryl was going through.
It must have been something fierce with the way Merle had reacted at the farm home. Beth felt a pang in her heart. Morgan was right, they needed to travel soon so they could catch up to them. She wanted to show Daryl that he might be the last man standing, but that she would be damned if it wasn't for a very long time. She needed to prove that she wasn't some dead girl, but that she was a survivor.
Beth moved her feet off of the bed and onto the floor. She wanted to test her strength. This would give her a good idea if she were able to travel or not. Standing straight up she had a dizzy spell slam. She closed her eyes tight and let the dizziness wash away.
She could feel Morgan's eyes on her. Tracking her movements around the room. After the initial dizzy spell she felt well enough to walk. She looked at a nearby map. She could see Rick's messy scrawl and a red line leading to Richmond.
"He left that for me in case I get too far behind I guess" Morgan told her.
She was thankful that her quiet companion was at least willing to communicate with her. She nodded her head to let him know she was listening and understood. She walked the perimeter of the room, stopping at the bookcase. Looking at a few of the titles, seeing if any were worth taking on the road. She had seen a farmer's almanac that was worth taking. Those books were always filled with useful information.
Morgan from the desk had opened a music box, probably to get the screws out of it. The lullaby was familiar. She remembered her Mama singing it with her.
Beth hummed the lullaby the words slipping through her lips before she could reel them back in.
Somewhere over the rainbow way up high
There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby
Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true
The words caught in her throat. She remembered telling the doctor at Grady that she still sang, but she wished she could be singing for her family. Not that her present company was unpleasant, he could be much worse.
"You've got a beautiful voice, you didn't have to stop" Morgan told her kindly.
Beth felt her mind swirling to the funeral home. She remembered Daryl's gruff words telling her to keep singing. The little bit had lit a fire inside of Beth's belly. She knew deep in her gut come hell or high water she would rejoin her family. She would show Daryl and her family that she was tough, that she was a survivor as well.
"More importantly, I think we should reunite that voice with your family. You feel comfortable with travel at sunrise?" Morgan asked her.
"Whatever it takes to get to them, I'll be ready for" Beth said confidently.
Beth almost laughed at the absurdity of the team she and Morgan made. The song bird and the crazed inventor. Those titles meant nothing Beth realized. Those titles didn't define either of them.
She was thankful to see Morgan as a whole instead of just his fractured pieces. The same way she was thankful he viewed her the same way.
She was happy to know that beginning tomorrow she would be a few steps closer to seeing her family once again.
A/N: So, we have Morgan and Beth getting ready to hit the road.
Though, I do have a favor to ask of my readers/friends. My close friend jazznsmoke is taking a step back from beta'ing to concentrate on some other things. I'm really excited for any project she takes on and I send my love her way. But I am prone to mistakes and will be in desperate need of a beta. So, if any of you are interested please let me know!
As always, let me know what you think of the newest chapter.
Disclaimer: I don't own TWD or any of its characters