Their car dies just after Greenville, Beth thinks it's a miracle that it made it that far in the first place. Now that they must carry everything themselves they abandon the nonessential items, though Morgan insists on carrying one can of gas in case they find another working car up the road.
Beth knows they've made it to South Carolina, and that god willing it will only be a matter of time before they cross into the next state. She thinks of her family following this path, finally leaving Georgia behind, some of them for the first time. She wishes she could've been there when Daryl crossed the state line, she wonders if he had shared the moment with any of the others but does not believe that he would. It must have been a lonely first for him, to leave everything he had known behind, and have nobody realise it.
Morgan insists they clear as they go, though having Beth with him and a quest to fulfil seems to curb some forms of his obsession. They will never be able clear everything, not unless they were to stop in one place for a long time, but she respects his determination and does what she can to help him fulfil what he sees as his destiny. It makes their journey slower, but Beth likes to think that maybe they are making it safer for future travellers, that every walker they dispatch is one less that can cause harm.
Morgan doesn't speak much, and Beth finds herself filling the silences when it is safe to do so, telling stories about Rick and all their family, from the time they arrived at the farm, to the fall of the prison. She doesn't speak much about that last, terrible day when she lost her father, when she lost everyone except Daryl. Morgan seems to realise it's not something she wants to talk about and doesn't press. Instead he begins to speak of his son, little stories from his childhood, while Beth remains quiet, encouraging him to do so. He still needs time to heal, but it seems that he is finally ready to try.
There are days when Beth wonders if they're among the last people left alive, so lonely is the road. She both longs for the sight of other people and dreads it, knowing so much more now about humanity than she did before. There are still good people, she knows that, but it seems to her that in this new world they're few and far between. She thinks of Daryl, of his insistence that he would handle anyone they met, and longs for his strong presence.
I've never relied on anyone for protection before
She knows that she can do this, that she can make it through without him, but she longs for him to be by her side all the same.
They're a day's walk from the North Carolina border, about to settle in for the night in an abandoned car by the roadside, when they hear the screams.
A young girl's screams, terrified, begging. Beth doesn't hesitate, with one glance at Morgan she's out of the vehicle, gun in hand, and running in the direction of the sound, knowing without needing to check that he's following close behind.
They come upon a clearing in the forest, a young man lies dead to the side while two men hold the girl down, one with his hand over her mouth to stop her screams as he curses at her, pawing at her, ripping at her shirt.
Beth doesn't stop to ask, doesn't negotiate or wait to see how it plays out. She shoots the man on top of the girl in the head, while Morgan kills the other attacker.
The girl is staring at them, frozen in place, her eyes wide and scared.
"It's alright," Beth tells her, crouching down and reaching out a hand slowly like one might soothe a frightened animal, "You're safe with us."
She hopes that it's true.
The girl's name is Ashima, Ash for short, and they bury her brother there in the clearing. The other two bodies they leave for the carrion crows, or walkers.
Ash is only thirteen, too young to be on her own, too young to be alone in this world with no family. She tells her story, how her family had held out on their own for as long as possible, then joined a safe zone around 50 miles away. They had been there almost one and a half years before it was attacked by a herd, her mother dying in the initial onslaught, her father while on the road. Her brother had died in that clearing, trying to protect her from what remains of humanity in this world.
"We're trying to find my family again," Beth tells her, "I was separated from them when I was injured and then Morgan found me. You can join us, I know you'll like them all when we find them again. They're good people."
The girl nods once, her expression doubtful, and Beth wonders if she's weighing their chances of ever finding what they seek. In the end it doesn't matter, the girl has nowhere else to go.
Washington DC might be their goal, but Beth remembers Noah's words about the safe zone in Richmond. If Noah is with her family then it's possible they might head there first to deliver him back to his own people, that some of them might even choose to stay behind. Beth knows that Rick would want walls for Carl and Judith if possible, and the chance to grow up safely.
She broaches the idea with Morgan that night after they've made their camp and the older man nods, agreeing with her. "It's on our way anyway, we'll stop there before we decide whether to continue to DC. It could be a safe place to stay."
"Nowhere's safe anymore," Ash comments, looking down at the sheaved knife in her hands that she'd taken from her brother's body, and Beth knows she's thinking of her own safe zone that fell, all the people lost with it.
"But we have to try," Beth tells her gently, "We have to have faith that one day we can find a place, that one day this will end."
"And things will go back to the way they were?" Ash asks, the impossibility of it implied in her tone.
"No, things will never go back to the way they were, but there has to be a future that's better than this."
They had it at the prison for sometime, that something better, and Beth wonders if any safe haven they find will only ever be temporary. Just because it can't last, it doesn't mean that she should give up on hoping for it, for a time to simply be.
"Get some sleep," Beth tells the young girl, "Morgan and I will divide watch."
She has begun teaching Ash what she can while they're on the road, teaching her both how to survive and how to protect herself. It gives Beth a sense of accomplishment, passing on the skills that she was once taught. This girl isn't so much younger than her, only a year or so younger than Carl, and yet protected by walls almost since the turn she has only just started to learn how dangerous this life can be.
"Who taught you all this?" Ash asks her, as Beth demonstrates how to light a fire using a piece of glass and a mirror after making her dig the pit.
"Rick and Shane taught us to shoot when they first came to the farm," Beth tells her, "Some of the other skills I learned from my group while we were on the road before we found the prison. Daryl taught me the most though, how to track, set snares, clean game, how to aim and fire a bow." Beth wishes she had a bow now, so she could hunt for food. She can't help the smile that comes to her lips as she thinks of him teaching her, even as a sense of longing rises from deep within her gut, her throat becoming tight as the feeling threatens to overwhelm her.
"Who's Daryl? Is he a member of your family?"
Beth shakes her head, still smiling. "They're all my family now, though Maggie, that's my sister, is the only blood family I have left. Daryl... Daryl is something else."
She thinks she knows exactly what he is to her, what he could be, but how can she put it into words, here and now, when it has never been discussed between them? There is so much to say, and so much to feel, and she cannot bring those words out of her heart until he's there in front of her, able to hear them for himself.
"Like that, huh?" Ash asks her, one eyebrow raised, and Beth can't help the blush that comes to her face.
"Maybe." she replies, before pointedly turning the girl back to their task. Maybe. All she truly knows is that she needs to find her way back to him again.
Teaching Ash, looking out for the younger girl, makes her wonder if this is how Maggie felt about her for all these years. A desire to protect, but also to encourage, to see her spread her wings. Beth thinks about Maggie often as they walk down the long road to DC, and wonders how she's doing, whether she's missed Beth as much as Beth has missed her. Maggie believes that she's dead now and Beth wonders if her sister had held out hope until that moment, or if she'd never expected her to survive after the prison fell. Maggie is strong, always has been, and so Beth had never doubted that she'd make it, that she'd find Glenn again. Maggie though... Beth knows that part of Maggie still sees the scared girl clutching a cut wrist when she looks at her. Maggie was always relieved that Beth's duties kept her mainly inside the prison and away from danger.
Beth can't blame her for that, for underestimating her and trying to keep her safe from harm.
Maggie will see though, when Beth returns. She'll see exactly what the world has made of her little sister, what was always inside of her, only waiting to emerge.
As the days pass by, Beth counts the miles remaining between them and their goal, wishing that they could find another car to enable them to travel faster. She is impatient to see everyone again, fearful of what might have happened while they've been separated. It is difficult to keep her hopes alive on days when they encounter herds, needing to detour miles out of their path to avoid them, on days when they spot evidence of other people, hiding until the danger has passed.
Morgan still doesn't speak much, but he takes a fatherly approach to the younger girl, assisting Beth in teaching her what she needs to know in order to survive, and Beth sees the changes it brings in him as the days pass, the slow setting aside of his grief. His obsession with clearing has also been eased by his mentorship of Ash, noticeably less willing to place her life in danger than his own and Beth's.
As for Ash, Beth notices that the young girl's confidence increases by the day, with every new thing she's taught. She works particularly hard at the self defence lessons, and while they never speak about it, Beth knows that she still thinks of those two men in the woods and what they would have done to her. Beth knows, because there are nights when she has nightmares of Gorman overpowering her, when she sees Joan screaming through the amputation and knows that it could just as easily have been her. Beth knows that Ash needs to speak about what happened, but the girl isn't ready to, and Beth won't push her before she is.
Beth finds herself telling them both stories in the evening, of her life at the farm and later at the prison, sometimes, though rarely, she speaks of her time with Daryl. She never talks about her time at the hospital. It is still too raw, too difficult to speak of. Beth wonders if she will ever want to speak about it, or if it will fester inside her, a scar upon her as much as the ones that mark her face.
She knows that one day she will need to let it out, to put it away for good, but for that she needs her family, she needs Maggie, she needs Daryl. Beth had never killed another person before her time in Grady, and now she has four lives upon her conscience, even if one of those was committed unwittingly. Can she come back from that? She has to, and she will.
She knows she isn't the same girl that Maggie last saw in the prison yard, scared and still so innocent of the true evils of the world. She knows she isn't even the same girl who ran with Daryl, heartbroken and refusing to give up hope, slowly but surely finding the reason she needed to keep living, a new sense of belonging. Beth understands now, she knows where the true danger lies - not in the walkers, but in men and women who believe that their word should be law and who will do anything to ensure that it remains so. It is the people who crave power that Beth must now be wary of, whether they are like Dawn with her personal empire, or Gorman, wanting power over a woman's body. It would be so easy for her to become bitter and disillusioned, but Beth refuses to give up on her hope that good people still exist. There's her family, isn't there? There was Noah at the hospital, and here on the road there's Morgan and Ash. Maybe where they're going there'll be more good people, and they can make a home.
And if there's not, if those people should turn out to be false too, well, Beth knows better now how to recognise them.
Morgan estimates that they are a week's walk away from Richmond, Virginia, and Beth can feel the hum of anticipation rising in her. She doesn't know exactly where the safe zone that Noah mentioned is, but they'll find it, and when they do she knows that they'll either find her family or some trace of them to follow.
"What are you going to do when you see them again?" Ash whispers to her one night, huddled next to Beth on the upstairs bed of the isolated house they're camped in, while Morgan keeps watch below.
Beth hasn't allowed herself to daydream about it, forcing herself to focus on the journey rather than what awaits her at the end. She doesn't want to be disappointed if she doesn't find them in Richmond, so she's trying not to get her hopes up.
"I don't know... Give Maggie the biggest hug I can, I s'pose, tell her how much I love her, and then Glenn, and Carol and Rick, Carl... And when I get to hold Judith, Lil' Asskicker, I'm not going to want to let her go."
"And Daryl?" Ash hasn't forgotten about Daryl. As a teenager in the apocalypse, Beth supposes that even her vague hints at feelings is the closest that Ash has gotten to romance in a long time.
"I don't know," Beth admits, because she truly doesn't, she has no idea what she'll say to him again when they meet, or how he might welcome her. Will he be as affectionate with her in front of the others as he had been alone? She wants to believe that he'll hold her as tightly as she will want to cling to him, she wants him to put his arms around her and never let go. Most of all, she wants to be comforted. She wants to know that she is home again and that the long nightmare is finally over.
It is strange that she should associate that with him rather than Maggie, but Beth knows that it's true. She won't be home again until Daryl Dixon enfolds his strong arms around her and holds fast, as she had once held him. She is the one that now needs to break, to fall apart and have someone else hold the pieces together as she had once done for him. He will know when he sees her, he will know what it has cost her to come this far without her needing to say a word.
"But I won't leave him again."
A/N: A huge shout out to those who have left reviews, I love you all! I'll try to keep getting the chapters out quickly :) Please do review to let me know how you're going, or even to let me know your favourite 5B theories!