So I thought this fanfic was going to end with just one more chapter, but it's actually going in a different direction now. I have no control. I just go where the muse takes me. She's taking me in a dark direction now. As the group struggles to unite against Negan, Beth is going on her own journey. She hasn't fully let herself see where's she's been and she needs to do that before she can move on.
So here's Part 2.. In which Alice (Beth) falls down a rabbit hole of sorts and gets lost while her trusty family of weird rodents (really just the people she loves) continue to fight the Red Queen (Negan, that bitch!) and possibly find an ending that isn't necessarily happy, but better than flat out fucked up and sad.
12. She had cried into his chest, sobbed and apologized because she just couldn't do this. She couldn't keep going and pretending that she'd been so strong and made it and overcome all that she'd been through. She hadn't overcome anything yet. What she didn't realize is that she had to face it head on first. She held his vest twisted in her hands and he hadn't seen her cry this hard since her daddy had died. When her sobs had eased up and her breathing evened out she had whispered in his ear.
"I'm just too broken. Is that even a thing, being too broken? Bullets and monsters are stronger than girls and they leave scars like mountains that are too tall to climb." she sighed and he swallowed a lump in his throat. She was babbling and her voice didn't sound at all like the girl that had walked across the clearing to him, strong and confident and definitely angry. Now it sounded small and tired and, well, too broken. Daryl was helpless. He could barely move, he couldn't lift her up and look her in the eyes and remind her of how strong she really was and promise her that she'd get through this. They would get through this. But would they? He didn't know. He didn't fucking know anything anymore. He felt her shivering in his arms and he struggled with the blanket that was draped across his legs. He must have made a noise of some sort because Rick and Michonne were suddenly there beside the bed looking down at him and their faces spoke volumes.
"I need a goddamned blanket. She's.. she's cold." Daryl said hoarsely. Michonne gently unwrapped the blanket from his legs. She covered them both looking down at Beth. She glanced at Daryl and when their eyes met he saw fear in hers. The two people he had come to use as a guide to where they stood and what they needed to do were falling apart just like Beth, just like him.
"Are we givin' up?" Daryl asked looking Rick in the eyes. He needed the truth. Because it was bad. As bad as it had ever been.
"Is that an option brother? Should we?" Rick had tears in his eyes, but he also had something else. Something that gave Daryl a little bit of hope, besides the hope he held against his chest, warm and alive even if she was a little lost.
"No. Can't be. We don't work like that." he glanced at Michonne. "You with us?" he asked her. There were tears on her cheeks, but she nodded her head vigorously laid one hand over Daryl's and with her other hand she reached for Rick.
"We're going to Hilltop and we're gonna get help for you and Maggie and we're not giving up. He doesn't realize who we are and what we can do. We're gonna play his game, but we will not go down without a fight anymore." Rick said. Daryl latched onto that declaration from his brother and willed himself to believe. Words had power. He knew that.
The drive to Hilltop took all night. Daryl wasn't sure who got them there. The pain in his arm seemed to intensify as the night wore on and he suffered through it in a blurry haze that only seemed to clear when Beth cried out in her sleep plagued by nightmares that he couldn't chase away. He vaguely remembered trying to calm her down by whispering softly into her hair, but he's no fucking poet and the pain made it impossible for him to make any sense anyway. She tossed and turned, but subconsciously she must have at least known that she was with Daryl and he was hurt and she needed to be careful. He told himself that if only as a reassurance that he wasn't losing her to the fears and insecurities in her own head. Cause he felt like she was slipping backwards. Maybe falling down that hole she never let herself see before.
Dr. Carson came to the RV. He gave Daryl a shot for the pain while they moved Maggie into the clinic first. Daryl drifted back into a fitful sleep. The last time he had been fully aware of what was going on Beth had been asleep next to him. Now the sun was shining in a window next to the bed he's lying in and Beth's gone. His throat was dry and his body felt heavy and he couldn't even call out.
Beth had woken up when the Dr. and another man came into the RV to move Daryl. When the lifted him it hurt and he moaned in pain and she had admonished the men.
"Be careful! He's hurtin'." Rick had been there too and he'd taken her hand and led her out and showed her where they were.
"I want to stay with him." She wasn't interested in seeing Hilltop. Being out here alone without Daryl made her anxious. Rick watched her a little too closely and it made her uncomfortable. She tried to follow the men as they took Daryl away from the RV. But Rick held her back.
"The Dr. is gonna look him over Beth, make sure there aren't any bullet fragments in his shoulder and see about stitching it up." he spoke softly like he was talking to a skittish animal that might bolt at any second. "He'll be fine. You can see him after. I'll find out where you can stay and wait…"
"I'm gonna go for a walk." she said in a voice that was high and tight and didn't sound anything like her. She stepped around Rick and headed towards the gates they had driven through when they arrived. But Rick followed her and caught up.
"Beth! You need to stay inside the walls. It isn't safe out there." he reached for her arm and she jerked it away. She turned away from the gate, but kept walking leaving Rick standing there watching her.
She walked for a few minutes without really paying attention to her surroundings. Suddenly she was enveloped in a smell that hit her right in the chest. It made her stop and take a good look around her and she saw it. There was a small makeshift stable and inside a fenced in area was a horse. The farm came tumbling out of her subconscious like a butterfly, beautiful and fleeting. Beth walked towards the stable longing to lay her hand on the dusty brown horse's flank. She knew instinctively it would be warm and hard and the darker hair of it's mane would be coarse and would tickle her arm if she stood close. She climbed up on the bottom rung of the fence and the horse, curious, lazily walked in her direction. It nickered softly and she held her hand out, it bumped its head gently against it.
"Well look at that!" An older man came around the corner and spotted Beth with the horse. "That old nag won't let anyone touch it." Beth pulled her hand away. "Who are you?" he asked.
Beth didn't respond. She stepped down from the fence and started to back away. Another younger man joined the older one. He eyed Beth suspiciously.
"You came with the group Jesus brought it didn't you? Rick's group from Alexandria?" He looked around Carl's age. She noticed the way he looked her up and down and decided to use that to her advantage. She nodded slightly.
"You like horses?" the older man asked. He had a kind face and it made her heartache because he reminded her of her daddy. The horse put its head over the fence and blew a breath out of its nostrils. She nodded again and stepped closer and rubbed its nose.
"I lived on a farm, before.." she said quietly. And something dark coiled in the pit of her stomach. 'You haven't lived there for a long time Beth. You don't live anywhere now.' That was new. Voices.
"There were injured brought in, you guys met up with Negan I heard?" the younger man was obviously fishing for information. Beth figured she could use this too.
"My sister is sick. And my boyfriend.." Boyfriend. That sounded so cliche. It wasn't the right word, but maybe it was the word they'd understand. "My boyfriend was shot." Saying it made her anxious. She needed to find him and make sure he was ok. But she also needed out. These walls, the walls were too much right now. The older man headed back in the direction of the stable. The younger boy came over to where Beth was standing.
"What was he like? Negan. I haven't gone on a run yet." he asked greedily as if it was something he had to know.
"How old are you?" Beth asked him. He puffed out his chest.
"I'm 16." he said and then his face fell. "But.. I, I have a lame hand. Birth defect. They won't let me go." Suddenly the boy looked every bit his age, maybe even younger. The four years she had on him felt like more. Beth felt a tightness in her chest as she caught sight of the hand in question hanging by his side.
"You're lucky." she said. "I need to get outside the walls, is there a way?" Beth asked him.
"Sure, the gate." he said smiling at her.
"I can't use the gate. I, I have to get out unseen. I just need to breath a little." she struggled with the words and then it came to her. The old Beth and her sweet charm. "I just.. they won't let me see my boyfriend yet and if I can go out and hunt it will help. I'm really worried about him." she hung her head and bit her bottom lip. He was staring at her uncomfortably which meant it worked.
"I know a way. Come on." he said and she followed.
Birds chirped and the winds blew the tree branches back and forth over her head. It might have been beautiful to someone else, but Beth was just walking in circles. Afraid to go too far and terrified to go back. She kept hearing Negan's voice in her head and the screams. And sometimes the voices she heard were echos in the hallways of the factory. Dark and cold and the closest to hell she had been since the world turned. She had to take deep breaths and bring herself back from those moments when the voices in her head blurred the world that was around her now. Was she losing touch? She knew she was broken. She remembered what she had told Daryl in the RV. "Woulda been better off dead.' Whose voice was that? It wasn't her own. She didn't believe that. She couldn't. She'd always had hope. She'd held on to it like a promise. Or at least she had. She couldn't remember when she let go of it. It was so hard to hold on to. She was tired. She'd been through so much. She had tried to hold on to hope and faith and all that stuff that everyone seemed to think was so special about her. She just wasn't that special any more. She wasn't much of anything anymore. A noise just beyond the trees got her attention and she unsheathed her knife and moved quietly between the trees. She expected a walker, a dirty stumbling walker. But it wasn't that, it wasn't that at all. It was a fawn. A tiny little thing, it's back speckled with white spots. It nosed at the grass and Beth slid to her knees her face in her hands. The little fawn startled at her sobs and ran off into the woods.
Rick walked into the room where Daryl was recovering. Daryl sat up disregarding the pain in his shoulder. He felt a whole lot better than he had last night.
"Where is she? Where's Beth?" he swung his legs over the side of the bed.
"Hey I don't think you're supposed to be up moving around yet." Rick said. Daryl could tell he was keeping his voice even so as not to give anything away. He knew Rick well.
"Don't fuck with me Rick, where is she?" Daryl asked again. He still had on his pants and he searched the room for his shirt. He was staring feel anxious. He knew Beth's state of mind right now and he was scared, yes that was it, scared with her out of his sight.
"She wanted to go for a walk. I told her not to leave the walls." Rick said.
"You did what? You let her go off on her own?" Daryl growled. He found his shirt and struggled to get it on. His shoulder was bandaged and it made it almost impossible to move that arm. "She ain't in her right mind Rick! I don't know what she'll do!" Rick reached for the shirt and held it up so that Daryl could out his arm in the sleeve.
"Calm down. She's out there. We'll go get her." Rick told him. Daryl didn't bother buttoning the shirt and he tugged on his boots with one hand leaving them unlaced. He followed Rick out of the room in the infirmary. Dr. Carson was in the front room, a small office.
"You need to be in bed Daryl. You're gonna rip those stitches out." he said eyeing Daryl.
"M' fine. Gotta take care of something." Daryl said heading for the door.
"I'll bring him back. Won't be long." Rick told the Dr. and he followed Daryl out the door. They walked back over to the where the RV was parked. Aaron and Rosita were there.
"You guys seen Beth?" Daryl asked. Rosita shook her head.
"No. Not since we got here." Aaron said.
"She was over by the stables." Sasha said. The girl was standing by the back of the RV. Daryl looked at her.
"When?" he asked.
"That was a while ago. She hasn't come back by here since." Sasha said.
Daryl took off in the direction of the stables. Maybe she had gone to see the horses. That made sense, kind of. Even with all the drugs his shoulder was beginning to ache now and the panic in the pit of his stomach was growing. But she had to be here. Where would she go? He gnawed at his thumb nail and glanced over at Rick. There was a kid in the corral with a horse when Rick and Daryl walked up.
"Hey have you seen a blonde girl wandering around here?" Rick asked. The kid looked up and eyed Rick and Daryl.
"Yeah, yeah she came in on the RV with you guys." he looked at Daryl. "You're her boyfriend, the one who was shot? She wanted to see you, said they wouldn't let her and just wanted to walk in the woods, hunt or something she said." the boy smiled.
"Where's she at?" Daryl barked. "You let her out that gate?" The boy looked a bit taken aback and scared. Daryl scanned the bot of wall he could see from here.
"Well no.. She said she couldn't go out the gate.." he said timidly.
"Where'd she go?" Rick asked. An older man came out of the stables and approached them.
"Is there a problem here? Robert what's going on?" he asked.
"Were looking for Beth, the blonde girl that was here talking to Robert earlier." Rick said.
Daryl was pacing now. He was ready to explode. "Where the hell is she?"
"Woah now.. Hold on. She was here. Petting old Scout. Where'd she go Robert?"
"He got her over that wall damn somehow! Where's she at boy?" Daryl was angry now. She was gone. She'd gone outside the wall alone. no telling what could happen to her.
"I, I showed her the ladder and the rope." Robert said.
"What the fucks that?" Daryl bellowed.
"She couldn't have gone down that rope." the older man said.
"If it was a way out she damn well could! Rick gotta get out there!" Daryl turned and headed back towards the main gate. Rick started to follow.
"Wait you can't walk around out there with him injured. I have a jeep for runs. I'll get it. Meet me at the gate." the older man told Rick.
"Daryl wait! Hold up! That guys is bringing a jeep." Rick caught up with Daryl.
"Why'd you let her go man? She's… she's…" Daryl struggled with the words and eventually gave up and just kept walking.
"What do you mean she's not right in the mind Daryl?" Rick asked. "She seemed to be doing good."
"She puts up a good front, that girl. But she's just, she's having a tough time. She ain't faced what she's been through. That's a lot of demons for one girl. She needs, I gotta find her." Daryl turned his face away and Rick saw him wipe his eyes with the back of his hand.
"You love her." Rick said quietly. Daryl nodded slightly still not making eye contact. "She's out there. We will find her. I'm sorry man." Rick said.
The older man from the stables drove up in a small jeep. Rick and Daryl jumped in and when they got to the gate the man just waved and the person guarding it let them through. The circled around to the ladder and rope where Beth came out and went out from there. After about 30 minute of searching Rick spotted her between two trees.
"Stop here." he said. He jumped out first even before Daryl could get the door open. Beth had her gun pulled and pointed at the jeep. "Beth. It's me, Rick. Lower the gun." Rick said gently. Her hands were shaking and she moved slowly backwards. It figured he'd come looking. Like she was some helpless kid. She was frustrated, but she wasn't gonna shoot him. The safety wasn't even off.
"Go back Rick I.. " Then she saw him. Daryl. She dropped her hands to her sides the gun hanging loosely. "Daryl.. you're hurt. What are you doing out here.?" She looked at him. His shirt unbuttoned and flapping in the wind. She could see the bandaged shoulder underneath. He hadn't even laced up his boots. But he was here. He came looking for her.
"Are you crazy girl? Goddammit Beth! Why are ya out here?" he marched towards her and right at that moment all he wanted to do was grab her and kiss her, he was so relieved to see her. She let the gun slip from her fingers and she just stood there watching him walk towards her. And she was tired, so tired. Something in her eyes and the way her whole person seemed to just deflate took Daryl a bit by surprise. He expected resistance and anger. He approached her and put his good arm around her and his hand on the back of her head. She didn't fight it. Didn't want to. "I gotcha. Come on." he whispered. She held on tight to him, but she was careful of his shoulder. That was there in the back of her mind even though everything else seemed to be mixed up.
"You came back for me this time? Didn'tcha.." she laughed a little. "You both came back for me." She wanted to scream, 'cause I'm not a dead girl' but she knew that was a crazy thing to want to scream and she knew that her mind was rebelling against her. She'd told him she was broken. She felt the cracks getting bigger little by little. But he was here now and she wouldn't fall completely apart. If she did he could just pick up the pieces and put her back together again. Like Humpty Dumpty or a puzzle. He could chose. Eeney, meeny, miney, moe.. The last thing she remembered is screaming for real.