A/N: I don't mean for this chapter to come across as bashing Carol but I needed the dialogue to be this way. I love her character and understand why she did what she did (though I don't agree with it but hey, I'm not Carol) but I needed this to work this way…this is how the story mapped out in my head and I have to do it this way.
Chapter 2 –
Beth had woken a couple of times during her nap with the sound of the cellblock door opening and closing, each time with another sick person being brought in. She had blearily recognized that it was Karen and David entering before falling back asleep.
She woke to find her cell room dim, almost too dark to see in. She looked groggily around her new cell and saw that a lantern had been brought in and sat on the floor beside her bed. She pushed herself into a sitting position and looked blearily outside of her cell door to the windows on the opposite side of the cellblock from her. The sun was still up, so she assumed that she hadn't taken too long of a nap. Beth heard the door to the cellblock open and remained still and quiet as she leaned on her cot to see who was entering. She could see the outline of a woman with short hair and recognized it to be Carol. The older woman entered the cellblock carrying two jugs of liquid, glanced around cautiously before closing the cellblock door and locking it. Beth frowned at this but said nothing.
Carol walked calmly passed Beth's cell, unaware that she was in there watching and Beth heard her steps go several feet further, until she could barely hear her footsteps anymore. Beth remembered that there was an exit door and figured that Carol had left through that. This confused her though. Why would Carol walk through the cellblock of sick people and risk getting sick herself? Then the blonde heard the far door open again and foot steps returning. They stopped halfway down the cellblock at what Beth assumed was Karen's cell. She stood up and heard soft words of comfort from the older woman, and smiled in gratitude that Carol was willing to risk her health to help take care of them. Although her actions previously were odd and confusing, she thought to herself that maybe Carol had brought water to help them stay hydrated.
Then Beth heard it. That unforgettable squelching sound of a knife cutting through flesh and she froze, her mouth dropping in horror.
Then Beth heard steps moving a short distance and she figured that David's cell was right across from Karen's and shivered. Then she heard the awful squelching sound again and knew what was happening. Carol had killed Karen and David. Beth shivered again, but this time it was from fear. If Carol knew, or found out, that Beth was in here too, did that mean she would kill her as well? Beth's eyes flew to the cell across from hers, the one with the visitors' window and then to the cellblock door. She could lock Carol into the cellblock to keep her from getting away with murdering two of their friends. But then what? She couldn't risk leaving and infecting the others, namely little Judith.
Beth could feel a pressure building in her chest and realized that she desperately needed to cough. She swallowed tightly and did her best to hold her breath as she listened in horror as Carol dragged the bodies out one at a time. When the door opened for the first body, Beth waited a moment before allowing her coughs to come out. Her knees buckled under the force of the coughing fit and she began to taste iron in her mouth, gagging and choking on blood as it came up her throat and dripped to the floor below her. Beth heard the far door open again and pushed herself to stand, though she felt herself sway and fought desperately to remain upright. She quickly grabbed the lantern and any other supplies in her cell and dashed across the hall to the other cell with the window as she heard Carol's footsteps hurry towards her. She carefully dropped her pillow and the lantern on the cot and turned to close the door.
Beth heard Carol's footsteps were almost to her and she slammed the cell door shut and pushed whatever moveable furniture the cell room happened to have in it into the corner of the door so that it couldn't budge. Beth looked up and met Carol's eyes that filtered quickly from surprised to sad.
"Beth, I…I didn't know you were in here! You're sick too?" Carol asked through her bandana and Beth barely nodded, fear and illness holding her lungs hostage.
"Beth, you have to understand what I am doing and why. I'm doing this to protect everyone! If I don't do this, it could spread to Judith, Carl, Daryl, everyone...I have seen how you look at Daryl, I know you care for him deeply…if I don't do this, the two people you care about most outside of your family, Judith and Daryl, will get infected. They'll die, Beth. Please, open the door…" Beth gave a choking sob and wiped the blood trail off her chin as she stood up.
A little while later…
"RICK! DARYL!" The two men in question turned quickly to look in the direction of Tyreese's yelling. "COME QUICKLY!" The two men raced as quickly as they could to Tyreese and they could see anguish written all over his face. Carol came out of Cellblock C with concern on her face. "It's Karen and David!" Tyreese explained as he led the three of them through cellblock A. Daryl glanced briefly at Beth's cell and paused when he saw that the sheets were undone from the bed.
"Where's Beth?" he asked, making Rick, Tyreese, and Carol turn to face him. Rick could see a brief flash of concern and panic cross the hunter's face before it settled behind a stony mask.
Carol and Tyreese looked at each other, confused. "Beth was in here?" Carol asked and Tyreese shook his head.
"We can find Beth in a minute, you need to see this. Look," Tyreese pointed at the blood trails heading down the hall and around the corner. Daryl felt his heart sinking as he ran with the others to follow the blood trail. He paused slightly when he picked up a weird, burning smell but hurried with the others to investigate. His brain was telling him the worst. That Beth, Karen, and David had died and with the burning smell, he could only assume that they were burned now. He came to a stop outside and stared at the two burnt bodies. There were only two and one he knew for certain was David's. After a quick glimpse at the female body, he could tell that it wasn't Beth and a soft sigh of relief escaped him.
"It's David and Karen…somebody killed them and set them on fire!" Tyreese yelled out, his grief taking over.
Back to Beth
"Where's Beth?" his voice made Beth's head snap up from where she was curled up in the corner of her new cell and she smiled gratefully when she saw him. Her smile quickly diminished when she realized Carol was with him as she pretended to not know she had ever been in the cellblock. Tyreese grabbed Daryl's attention right as Beth was about to make her presence known and the group quickly left to discover the remains of Karen and David. Beth sighed in relief and forced her shaky body to stand up, only to double over and start coughing again. She did her best to cover her cough with her shirt and grimaced at the taste of iron and choked on the pool of blood she started coughing up.
When her coughs calmed down, she looked at her shirt and hands and felt the fear returning. It looked like she had been stabbed with as much blood that was on her shirt. Her head shot up when she heard fighting and yelling down the hall. Had they figured out who had done it so quickly? No, she could hear now that Tyreese, Rick, and Daryl were yelling with Carol yelling, "stop." Beth heard everything quiet down outside before the door slammed open and Tyreese limped angrily down the hall, past her cell door and left the cellblock.
"Carol, why don't you go help Tyreese, see if you can get him to Dr. S. I'll get Rick to Hershel," Beth heard Daryl say and Carol gave him a quiet "okay" in return. Carol came to a stop outside of Beth's cell and looked at her sadly before leaving. Beth shrunk back into her corner at the look but released a breath she didn't realize she was holding when the door shut behind the older woman.
"A'right, let's go. Then I'm goin' to go find Beth," Daryl told to Rick, who gave no response. Beth stood up and walked to the door of her cell and opened her mouth to announce her location. Instead of words coming out, Beth began to cough and choke as more blood ran from her mouth.
"Beth?" she heard Daryl call out over her choking. She stuck her arm out between the bars of her cell door to reveal her location but when her coughing and choking got worse, she found herself collapsing to the floor, and pulled her arm back into the cell to help ease her down, holding onto the bars of the door to guide her. Her eyes fixated on the pool of blood she was coughing up and onto the floor and she felt her lungs burning for air. She heard the two men come running towards her cell.
"Shit, Beth!" Daryl called out as he tried to open the cell door. "What the…you jammed it shut?" Her blue eyes rolled to meet his for a moment, a soft nod her only response as she struggled to calm the coughing and breathe. Her vision was growing dark from lack of oxygen and her arms were shaking from holding herself up, blood trickling from her open lips to the floor below her. "You saw who did it, didn't you?" the hunter asked.
Beth spit up the last of the blood in her throat and began gasping and coughing for air. She nodded to answer Daryl's question and shakily stood to remove the furniture from the door jam. She pulled on the small table as hard as she could but found she didn't have the strength to do it and looked at Daryl helplessly.
"C…" she choked out, around her sore throat. Daryl and Rick froze and watched her as she swallowed and tried again. "Ca..rol…did it… Daryl and Rick looked at each other sadly before Daryl shook his head.
"Beth…are you sure?" he asked, his voice heavy. She took a deep breath and nodded as tears formed in her eyes.
"Yes…she told me…she told me that she did it to protect everyone," Beth answered strongly, as her breath caught back up to her but her voice began to waver as her tears began to flow. "She didn't know I was in here…she killed them, and dragged them outside. My coughing gave me away, so I ran in here and jammed the table into the door.
"She told me…that I needed to let her in and that she would make it quick and painless. She told me I needed to do it to protect you and Judith," Beth sobbed out, her eyes fixed solely on Daryl. Rick watched as the two people in front of him crumpled. Daryl, at the idea of almost losing Beth and at the realization of what Carol had done. Rick's attention snapped back to Beth as her sobs grew heavier. "I almost let her do it…I'm sorry, I almost did." Daryl growled and ran his hand through his hair real quick.
" 'Nough of this!" Daryl yelled out and he kicked the bars to Beth's door to push the inch or so it had opened back to closed. Daryl then reached through the bars and pushed the table out of the door jam so that he could open the door.
"You need to stay back! I don't want to get you sick!" Beth cried out, making Daryl curse.
"Dammit woman, I've already been exposed before now when I helped kill the Walkers in Cellblock D and I've been in here long enough that I'm sure it's just an extra dosing of it. Rick, go see Hershel, I'm gonna help Beth get settled and then we're gonna have a counsel meetin' to determine what to do." Rick glanced cautiously between the two before nodding and leaving them.
Daryl shifted uneasily for a moment before stepping over the blood to pick up Beth and the lantern. "If ya want, I can move ya to yer own isolation area? I'll tell yer dad and Maggie where ya are and that'll be it, a'right?" Daryl looked down at Beth as she began gasping for air again. He knelt beside her and held the pieces of her long hair that fell out of its ponytail back as she began coughing and choking again while rubbing circles on her back. "I don' know how to help ya, sweetheart…I'm no doctor…and we've cleaned out every pharmacy around us of medicine…I don' know what else t'do…" He let out a sigh of relief when her coughs settled and she wiped the blood off her face with her shirt again. His eyes fell to the bloodstains and how they had almost turned her entire shirt red. Concern filled him at the sight of all the blood she had coughed up.
"Ask…daddy…bout a vet clinic…" she gasped out and Daryl looked at her funny and she let out a tired sigh before turning to face him with watery eyes. "Vet medicine is very similar to human medicine…" she took a shaky breath before continuing. "Should…I…" she paused, meeting his eyes before shaking her head. "Never mind, it's a dumb question."
"No, come on, ask me," he pushed and she sighed.
"Should I…have let Carol in?" the question escaped Beth's lips quietly and her eyes stayed glued to the floor. Daryl sat there stunned for a moment.
"Is that what ya want? To give up and die?"
"…No…I want to live…but I don't want to die by drowning on my own blood. I don't want to turn into a walker…Daryl…please, don't let me turn into one of those things…" Beth said all of this while she wiped her hands clean of the blood on them and reached out to grab one of Daryl's hands but stopped when she saw that her hands still had dried blood on them and pulled them back to her lap. Daryl grabbed her hands anyways and forced her to look him in the eyes.
"I ain't gonna let you die, Beth Greene, and you sure as hell ain't ever gonna become one of them. You understand me? Now, you're supposed t'be the one with the hope and faith. You're supposed t' remind me to keep having them, not thinkin' you ain't gonna make it. I need you to continue to do that, okay? Now, come on. I'm gonna move ya to another isolation area." Beth nodded and accepted Daryl's help in standing and moving her to another cellblock with a visitation room and window. Once he helped her get comfortable, he stood up and went to the door.
"I'm gonna go find you some medicine, a'right? I need you to keep fightin', Beth. Stay with us…with me and Judith, you understand. We need ya around," and with that, Daryl closed the door and left.