All I Ever Will Be

Chapter Nine - Reflection

The water from the faucet was running and Beth stared at it, feeling it with her fingers, letting the liquid run over her skin. The water was cool, running between the gaps in her fingers and disappearing down the metal drain in the middle of the basin. She brought her fingers to her hair. The mass of it felt heavy and sticky, tied back with a worn rubber band that she untangled and secured around her wrist. She was sure there was a mixture of dirt, grease and blood in her blond locks. She hadn't washed her hair since the prison.

Beth bent her knees to dip her head into the basin, awkwardly turning to try and get her hair under the water. She settled for flipping her hair over her head, her eyes staring down into the sink, watching the water turn red. Her arms felt frail and shaky as she threaded her fingers through the tendrils of her dirty strands, trying to pull through the knots that had formed over time. At some point before the prison had fallen she'd braided small braids into her hair and they were still there, so she pulled them out as the water clung to her head.

She worked through the mess carefully, taking her time, watching the water finally turn clear as it cleaned the blood and dirt. It was satisfying, getting her hair clean and she gathered it up in her hands, pulling into a long roll and squeezing it to drain the excess water into the sink. She let it free down her back, the wetness clinging to the back of her neck and shirt. It felt nice - a part of her being clean, but she couldn't shake the terror or the disgust she'd felt from that man.

Without thinking, her hands made it to her waist, tugging the denim higher on her hips, quite aware that the button at the top had fallen off. Her pants felt loose around her waist - the lack of food was catching up with her, so she threaded the rubber band she'd taken from her hair through the holes in her jeans to keep them from falling down.

She was done doing what she'd needed to do and from the sounds of it, Daryl had gone to explore. She didn't know what to do. Her thoughts were catching up to her, screaming in her head. And on top of it all she'd kissed Daryl. As she thought about it, she felt foolish and childish, like a schoolgirl figuring out that she had a crush. It was all so very silly.

Daryl hadn't reacted, or maybe she hadn't let him. It was a weird thing to do, she knew - kissing him. She wasn't even quite sure why she'd done it herself, just that she needed to be close to him at that moment after being manhandled by a stranger. She couldn't really make sense of it, but Daryl was home for her. He was familiar and kind and tender when he needed to be, protective and fierce, especially around her when danger prevailed. She needed him. And it was becoming clear to her now that she might want him in a way she hadn't considered before.

Daryl grabbed his bow and ran outside into the main room following the sound of fists on a door and screaming. He found the door rattling in its frame. A woman's voice came from the other side - "Help me!" she screamed. "He's turned! Let me out!"

"I'm comin'," Daryl yelled from the other side, his eyes darting quickly back to the door where Beth and him had been staying. The keys still dangled from the keyhole, so Daryl sprinted back, grabbed them and came back, fumbling to stick the key in the lock.

The woman was screaming still, but no longer pounding on the door. Daryl heard the unmistakable groan of a walker on the inside. The lock clicked in his hands and he burst into the room which looked identical to the one he had been in with Beth. The woman was to the left, cornered by the walker.

Daryl reacted quickly, bringing his bow up to shoot. The bolt hit the walker square in the back of the head, but he hadn't been quick enough. As it fell, he saw its teeth tearing away fresh, bloody flesh as it fell backwards, away from the woman. She was bit, and she would turn.

Nevertheless, Daryl ran over to her. She looked as though she was in her mid-thirties with short black hair, dark features and a thin nose. Her shoulder was torn apart, the muscle quite visible under shreds of skin. There was no way to save her.

She was sobbing now, hovering over the dead walker, unperturbed by her mauled shoulder . "Oh Robert," she was sobbing. "No, no, no," she repeated, cradling his head gingerly. She caught her breath and looked up at Daryl with agony in her eyes. "Thanks for trying."

"You're bit," he said, staring at her.

She looked towards her shoulder, her face pained and she winced, bringing her fingers to the shredded flesh. "Yeah,"" she said sadly.

"Sorry," he said. "We could try to wrap it up?" he suggested.

The woman shook her head at him. "Nah. And nothin' to be sorry about. You tried. Was bound to happen sooner or later."

He didn't know how to respond, so he helped her to her feet instead. Together they walked out into the main room, Daryl grabbing the keys back from the door on the way. He tried to guide her towards the table in the makeshift kitchen so she could sit and rest before the inevitable happened, but she wandered off from him, half laughing, half crying. He decided to let her be - who was he to guide someone on how to spend their last hours?

Daryl turned his attention back to the room that Beth was in. He saw her head appear in the doorway looking anxious.

"Hey," Daryl said, jogging over. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she said. Her wet hair hung heavy down her back and over her shoulders, leaving little wet spots on her dirty shirt. He could feel himself staring at her lips, unable to forget their kiss, wanting another one again, so badly. His face flushed against his will and he shoved his hands in his pockets.

"What's goin' on?" she asked him.

"There was some other people in one of the rooms," Daryl said, throwing his head over his shoulder to signal towards the door he'd opened. "One of them turned, the other one is bit. She's wanderin' around."

Beth's face fell. Another dead girl. Another dead man. It seemed endless. "Are there any others?" she asked.

"Haven't checked yet," Daryl responded, feeling slightly anxious about what might be behind the other doors. Beth placed her hand on Daryl's shoulder and then moved past him towards the woman who was now rummaging through the things on the bookshelves, sporadically throwing them on the floor, adding to the mess.

"Hi," Daryl heard Beth say to the woman as he moved towards the next closed door in the room. "I'm Beth," she said. She was so open, so welcoming, so bright. So unlike Daryl. She was too good for him - a light in this dark, decaying world they lived in and he was...well, what was he really? What was he to her? Maybe he was just someone she needed for protection. Nothing more.

He was tired of trying to understand or make sense of it, so he started the task of looking in the other rooms. At the first locked room he put his ear up to the door, hearing silence. Good sign, but didn't mean much. He stuck the key in the lock and turned, opening a room that held a dead man with a knife in his skull, laying face down on a bare mattress. The room was the same as the one he and Beth had been in, so he took a quick look around before moving on.

In the next room he wasn't quite so lucky, being greeted by a pair of walkers, both female and severely decaying, indicating that they'd been trapped for a while. Daryl put them down quietly, leaving their bodies where they landed, scanning the room quickly and exiting. The two rooms after were both empty and Daryl assumed the people who had run and now lay dead in the larger room had been trapped in one and the two men had slept in the other one. He didn't take much time searching for things, wanting to be sure there were no extra bodies to worry about.

The next and last room was locked and wouldn't budge with the key that had opened the rest of the doors. He nudged it with his shoulder, but it was stuck in place, the handle firm and tight. He decided not to pursue it further and realized his exhaustion was setting in.