Ch. 21
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Daryl had never felt so cold during late fall, but as he lugged the food from the trunk of Rick's car to the R.V., he was shivering.
"Ya alright?" Beth asked quietly as she walked to his side.
He had leaned against the R.V. and was taking deep breaths, his stomach churning a little. Since he laid down from his watch the night before, he had been feeling bad.
"Yeah, just feelin' off s'all."
Beth lifted a hand to his forehead, and he almost laughed because no one had ever done that to him before.
"Daryl, you're really hot," she said. "How long have ya felt this way?"
"This mornin' I guess. Maybe last night a little. I'll be fine." He tried to walk past her, but he got a little light headed and leaned against the car.
Beth shook her head. "A fever isn't somethin' we can brush off anymore."
"It ain't like we got medicine."
"Yeah, well, we'll keep an eye on it. For now, go rest in the car. We'll let Merle drive for awhile."
Daryl nodded, his head starting to throb. "Okay."
Beth walked with him over to the car and opened up the door, he slipped inside and laid down across the middle bench seat.
"I'll be right back."
Once the door was shut again, he threw his arm over his eyes to block the light. It had started out feeling a little like a hangover when he woke up, but as the day progressed, the worse he felt. Even the little bit of water he drank turned his stomach, but he tried to push on.
They were just about three hours from D.C., and the last thing he needed was to be getting sick right now.
Once the car was back in motion, Beth placed his head on her lap and started stroking his hair. It felt nice, but his stomach was getting the better of him. Maggie leaned over the seat from the very back a few times to ask him how he was, but he let Beth answer for him. They hadn't gone far at all before he was telling Merle to pull over and he hopped out of the car, vomiting in the grass.
Beth was right behind him, knife drawn in case any walkers were around. He hadn't even thought of that kind of threat when he leapt from the vehicle, but at least Beth had his back.
"Ya okay?" she whispered.
"Nah," he muttered. "I fuckin' hate throwin' up."
"Me too," she said and took the red rag from his back pocket. "We'll get to D.C. soon, and we'll get ya doctor. I promise."
"Ummmhmmm." He let her help him back to the car then laid heavily into the seat.
They passed through D.C. about two hours later. Going into the city limits wasn't a possibility. There were huge barriers across the roads, but what was worse was that there were hundreds of walkers along those fences.
"It's gone," she had whispered against his cheek.
"We got pretty fuckin' good luck," he muttered.
They turned around and drove back towards Virginia. Not having a place in mind to go, but not willing to go north any longer.
It was a couple of hours before they stopped to find some fresh water. Daryl was still sick and laid up in the car. Beth stood outside his window, and he watched her body language to see what was going on outside.
Movement caught his eye from the opposite window as a walker popped into view. He hollered her name, and she saw it and lept into action. He laid there, his stomach flipping as more and more walkers flooded from the over grown field they had stopped beside.
That was a stupid move on their part. No vantage point.
He tried to sit up, but he ended up turning his head and dry heaving into the floorboard as the battle went on outside. He couldn't even hold his head up to see where she was or if she was still alive, and he didn't want walkers to hang around because he had been too loud or moving, so he laid still, closing his eyes and willing his stomach to settle down as the growls of the undead passed by the car, sometimes running into it.
It seemed to last forever, and the sun had lowered in the sky by the time the last of the walkers had passed.
He raised up and saw no life at all.
Daryl closed his eyes and groaned as he saw what looked like a body over in the grass, walkers surrounding it, but he couldn't tell who it was. His eyes were blurry, and he was getting dizzy just from sitting up.
The walkers around the body hit the ground after several silent shots, and Daryl watched as two men stepped into the road. One caught his eye and went to him, opening the door and saying, "Are you bit?"
"Nah," he mumbled. "Sick."
The man nearest him looked to the other man behind him, and they nodded at each other. "We can get you help. We have a safe zone about an hour away."
"Beth," he whispered. "I need Beth."
He shook his head. "I'm sorry. We don't have her. Your people got overrun and had to leave. She probably figured you'd be safe in the car."
"Can't leave," he groaned and bent over, vomiting bile into the floorboard.
"You need fluids or you'll die. Then you'll be no good to Beth at all, right?" The other man said. A kind smile cut across his face, and Daryl nodded.
"Beth said I'm stubborn."
A hand touched his forehead before getting pulled back fast. "Are you sure you're not bit? You're burning up."
"Not bit," he slurred and went to lay back down.
"Eric, get the truck. We got to get him back."
"My bow," he said. "I need Beth and my bow."
"I've got your bow," the man said. "We'll find Beth."
Daryl nodded and blackness clouded his vision as he passed out.
This run reminded her of the one after the prison, walkers on their heels, no end in sight, and leaving something precious behind her.
Merle had to drag her away, screaming as the walkers surrounded the car, leaving Daryl inside.
By nightfall, she had cried as much as she could while sprinting through the woods. Rick carried Judith most of the time then she took over once they were a good bit ahead of the walkers.
"We need to hide. Let 'em pass then go back for Daryl," she said as everyone breathed hard.
They had lost Tara at the very beginning of the attack because she had pushed Sasha out of the way and ended up taking the bite herself. If Daryl had stumbled out, trying to find her and fight them off, they would have lost two people in one day.
Sasha leaned against a tree with Bob next to her, trying to talk to her, but she just looked like she was in shock. She had tried to grab Tara back, but it had been too late. Beth remembered what that was like, having someone ripped apart as you held onto them. She shook her head to clear it of the image of Patricia and the farm and an entire lifetime ago it seemed.
"We will, but we can still hear 'em behind us, Beth," Rick said. "We can't double back yet."
"Then just let me," she begged. "I'll be quiet."
"No, girl," Merle said and shook his head. "Daryl's smart. He wouldn't've left that car after he saw how many there were. Him distractin' ya woulda got ya killed. He's still there."
"For how long?" She asked quietly. "He's sick. What if he dies?"
Everyone got so quiet that the walker growls grew more pronounced. "We can't think about it yet. We gotta move for now."
Her mind stayed on Daryl, but she ran further away from him, walkers still on their trail.
Please, God, keep him safe.
It was on loop in her thoughts as she ran through the woods and took step after step away from him.
Daryl woke up in a soft bed with cool sheets.
After blinking a few times, his eyes adjusted to the light, and he looked around the room. It was a neat bedroom, books lining one bookshelf and a huge bay window in front of him that let in tons of afternoon light.
He wasn't sure how long he had been out, but he knew for certain that Beth wasn't wherever he was.
Daryl tried to stand and the I.V. pulled at his arm, so he grabbed the pole and used it as a cane to walk himself to the window. He blinked again as he looked out over the front yard of the house he was in.
The grass was green and trimmed. The streets were clean and the houses were all in tact.
He looked down the road, and he drew in a sharp breath at the huge steel wall that circled the community.
A throat cleared from the door, and the man that saved him walked inside. "Well, you've already looked around, so I guess I should just say, 'Welcome to Alexandria'."
"Alexandria?"
"Yes, Alexandria, Virginia."
"We were north of y'all. We were near D.C. How the fuck will she find me?" The man tried to move forward, but Daryl charged forward. "Take me back!" He hollered, his head swimming at all the movement. "Right the fuck now!"
"It's been days," the man said. "You were very dehydrated."
The room spun a little as he tried to focus on the man. "Fuck," he whispered. "No."
The first thing she saw when she broke through the trees was the SUV's door was open. She gasped as she ran towards the back door. Merle was at her heels, and they stopped side-by-side. Beth gripped the frame of the vehicle looked at the old vomit that had dried on the floor, knowing it hadn't been there when they had ran.
He was gone.
She imagined him getting worried about her, trying to help, thinking he wasn't as sick as he was.
Beth felt Maggie curl her body around hers, rocking her softly. She didn't say anything, though, and she was grateful for that.
It was Carl's voice that finally got their attention. "His bow's gone. Daryl wouldn't go anywhere without his bow."
Beth snapped her eyes up to him and started looking around. Merle was already up the road a few hundred yards when he yelled, "New tracks in the mud. There was a car here a coupla days ago."
"Where were they headed?" Rick asked as Merle walked toward him.
"South."
Everyone looked around before nodding. If that was the only thing they had to go on, then that was what they would take. After they buried the remains of their lost, they all loaded back into the cars that they had abandoned and went back the way they came.
They only drove thirty minutes before they stopped on the side of the road.
"There's no real way of knowin' which direction they went," Rick said. He looked at Beth. "We gotta find a place to last the winter. Maybe we stick around here, and we'll look for Daryl, too."
"We're just gonna give up?" She asked.
"Those tracks were from the day we got separated. No tellin' where he is, but once he's better, I'm sure he'll come back to this area, so we don't need to go too far. He'll look where he last saw us," Merle said and patted her shoulder.
Beth closed her eyes for a moment then looked around the group. They were battered, morale was at an all time low, and they were three members down.
"Okay," she whispered. "We'll stick close."
It took a little while, but they found a house they could stay in that night. It was down a county road with woods surrounding it.
There were no fences or protection from walkers. The windows hadn't been boarded up and the first floor had a wrap around porch with easy access to the windows.
She could imagine Daryl's hesitation as Rick declared it their place to stay for the night.
"I'll take first watch," Merle said and stood up.
Beth almost volunteered to go with him, but Carol beat her to it. Since they had gotten overrun, Carol had stuck close to Merle. It seemed like she thought he was going to break down after leaving Daryl behind.
"Ya all right?" Maggie asked as she sat down beside her.
Beth shook her head. "Nah, I'm really not. He could be anywhere. Good people. Bad people. What if he got taken by a group like the one that killed all those people in Richmond?"
"Daryl's strong," her sister said quietly. "He's gonna survive this."
She wanted to shake Maggie. She knew Daryl was strong. She knew he was capable. He was also sick, vomiting, dehydrated, and alone when they left him. He was hard headed, and he would do anything he had to do to find her again. She knew that.
After Maggie left her to go and look for Glenn upstairs, Beth sat there on the couch and picked at the sleeve of her sweater. It was gray and ripped now, but when she had found it, it had been pretty. That had been a long, long time ago, though.
"Do you mind if I sit with ya?" Noah asked and pointed to the furthest end of the couch.
She shrugged and waved her hand. "Don't matter to me."
They sat quietly in the darkness for a long time before he whispered, "They don't know the kind of people me and you are."
Beth looked over at him and tilted her head in confusion. "What?"
"The cops that tried to take you. They thought you were weak. They thought I was weak, too. I waited, though. Snuck out meds here and there at first then just decided to go all in. I drugged 'em with their evenin' meals right after I broke the medicine cabinet open. There was no way to kill 'em all, but they made the mistake of thinkin' physical weakness meant mental weakness. I got out, offered to take some of the wards with me, but no one wanted to go. I took a car and headed home, but home wasn't there no more."
Beth sat quietly, thinking about his story and the men that had tried to take her from the funeral home. "Bad people seem to be risin' to the top," she said.
Noah shook his head. "The good'll catch back up. It just takes a little longer for them to reason it out."
"There's no time to reason out here. Ya either get killed or ya kill."
Noah stared at her for a moment then asked, "Is it really that cut and dry?"
Beth looked at the red rag she had tied around her wrist. She had been washing it out when the walkers came and she had to run, so she had stuffed it into her pocket. Daryl's dark blue eyes flashed through her thoughts and she nodded. "It is. If I find out the people that took Daryl hurt him or killed him," she choked on the last word, "I'll burn their world down."
Noah shifted away from her then looked at his feet.
He didn't say anything else, and she knew she didn't need to.