Daryl held tightly onto Beth's hand the whole way home. While it was only about a 10 minute drive from Walmart to her house, to Daryl it seemed like hours had passed by the time they pulled into Beth's driveway. He tried to stay calm, but it was hard not to work himself into a frenzy, at least in his mind, over this situation. But he told himself he would stay outwardly calm, for Beth – she needed to know that he could be strong when she couldn't be. It wouldn't be easy, he knew enough about himself that he often didn't handle anxiety and negative emotions well – but he had to be Beth's rock right now. He had to show her that he could be strong enough for both of them.
Daryl hardly got the truck into park before he was jumping out, running around the back, unbuckling Beth, and pulling her out of the seat and onto the driveway. He couldn't help but think that Beth was almost like a rag doll; she was able to stand on her own, but she had no tension at all in her body, allowing herself to be pushed or pulled whichever way Daryl chose. He guessed that meant that she trusted him, if she was even capable of thoughts like that at the moment. He gathered her bags with one hand, closed the truck's door, and placed his arm firmly around Beth's shoulder, leading her up the driveway and onto the front porch. He didn't bother to ask her for the key – she hadn't said one word to him since he'd first seen her at the store, and he couldn't imagine she was going to start talking all of a sudden now. He went to the flower pot, the one she'd told him she hid an extra key under, and he was glad to find that she had returned it to that location after they'd used it on Friday night.
He got Beth into the house fairly easily. If Daryl was going to find a bright spot in all of this it was that Beth hadn't fought him, not in any way or with anything he'd done. He knew he needed to get her to her room, get her cleaned up, but he wanted to be sensitive about it – he was incredibly fearful of making the wrong move and having her breakdown even further. Daryl left her bags and her purse on the counter in the kitchen, telling himself he'd come back to put her ice cream into the freezer, and started to lead Beth upstairs to her room. He considered scooping her up, and carrying her – it would have been much easier and efficient, he thought – but he didn't want to scare her. He had no idea what had happened to her to cause this state of shock that she seemed to be in, and his mind went wild thinking about the possibilities.
Once in her room, he went straight to her bathroom and turned on the water in the jacuzzi tub. Beth needed to clean the sand off of her body and wash her hair, but he thought that a bath would be best for her – he was worried about her ability to stand up in the shower for more than a few moments and he hoped that the hot water of the bath would soothe her physically and emotionally. Daryl couldn't help but hope that if Beth felt better physically, it would only serve to help chase away whatever demons she was battling in her mind. When he came out of the bathroom, Beth was standing in the exact spot where he'd left her, still staring blankly ahead, her posture somewhat slumped and limp.
"Beth… I'm going to take your jacket off now, okay?" Daryl said to Beth, speaking in somewhat of an exaggerated way. He didn't want her to be scared – he wanted to go step by step with her, explaining everything he did before he did it and giving her a chance to protest. Daryl waited, but no response came from her. He couldn't stand this, and he didn't know what to do to get through to her. His heart was pounding and all he wanted to do was shake her out of this state.
"Beth?" Daryl asked again slowly. "Can you at least look at me?". She didn't. She didn't move, hardly blinked, and Daryl wasn't sure if his words were evening registering in her mind. Daryl slowly took his hand and moved it to her chin, edging her face up towards his. And he met her eyes then, and although they looked weak and scared, she didn't shift them away. Beth was hidden somewhere inside herself, but she was looking back at Daryl now and he hoped that meant that she knew he was there with her. In that moment, Daryl took that as a small victory.
"I'm taking it off now…" he told her again. And he slowly unzipped her lifeguard jacket and pulled it off of her. Daryl checked her arms and back quickly, looking for signs of other scrapes or cuts like the ones on her shins. But there thankfully weren't any. Beth was left in her red swimsuit and although Daryl wanted to help her get it off, he knew he couldn't, knew he shouldn't. It wasn't because it would have been something sexual; Daryl just knew she'd experienced some sort of trauma, and he knew enough to know that he couldn't put her in a vulnerable state like that. He'd experienced a lot of his own trauma and he knew that the best thing to do for someone afterwards was to be as gentle and guarded as possible. So he led her into the bathroom, bending down to help her remove her flip flops, and speaking to her, again in that slow and exaggerated way.
"Beth… You've gotta get all that sand off… And wash your hair. If you don't wanna take your suit off, just get in the tub with it on… It'll be alright. I'll clean the scrapes on your legs for you when you get out, okay? Only if you want." He waited. And she said nothing.
"I'm gonna lay some clean clothes out on your bed and shut the door. You put them on when you finish. Take all the time in here that you want though. I'll be here. I'm not leaving." He waited again. Still nothing.
"I'm gonna go downstairs for a few minutes… take care of a few things. But I'll be back up here to check on you, okay? I'll be just outside the door to your room. Take your time, okay? I'll just be right outside waiting." Daryl held his breath. He'd settle for a head nod or a grunt – but still nothing.
After a moment passed, he decided to just let her be. The water had filled up in the bath tub enough to be shut off, so he quickly turned the knobs and walked back towards the bedroom. He hoped that she would move when she was ready. He checked around the bathroom, making sure her robe and some clean towels were within reach – and once he'd seen that they were, he shut the bathroom door to give her some privacy and then quickly set about on his task of finding her some clothes. He'd been in her room a few times over the last week, but not often, and not for very long. He didn't know where anything was and he hated to just pillage through her things, but he didn't feel like he had much choice. After opening a few drawers in her dresser, he stumbled upon her underwear – so he grabbed a very plain looking pair of boy shorts and closed the drawer again quickly. He was fairly certainly she didn't wear a bra around the house – and in this moment, that wasn't much of a concern to him, either. He continued opening drawers and was happy to find a sweatshirt that he'd seen her wear often at home – it was old and over-sized and said Georgia Bulldogs on it. He knew she liked it and hoped that if he sat it out for her, it'd make her feel comfortable. He also found a clean pair of shorts for her, just like the ones that he always saw her in when she was just hanging out around the house. She must have had a dozen pairs of those same ones in the drawer and Daryl couldn't help but smile at that.
Daryl laid the clothes out carefully on her bed. He moved towards the bedroom door, only to stop once he'd reached it. He wanted to listen, just for a moment, to see if he could detect any sign that Beth was actually getting into the bath, or moving around at all in the bathroom, for that matter. He stood there for a good long while, when he finally heard some shuffling around, the sound of something wet hitting the bathroom floor, and then the water in the tub sloshing around. His heart surged just a little, knowing that at least Beth had taken a few steps of her own and undressed and gotten into the tub.
He finally felt comfortable going downstairs, if only just for a few minutes, to give Beth some privacy and to deal with the groceries. He quickly put her ice cream in the freezer and pulled the other items from her bags out, sitting them out neatly onto the counter. Daryl briefly considered taking Beth a glass of wine, or a bowl of ice cream, or a magazine – but he couldn't very well barge into the bathroom with those things, while Beth was naked and practically catatonic in the bath tub. He moved his focus towards the bags in the back of his truck – he knew he couldn't leave all of those things there and he needed to move them now. He didn't know how long he might be here with Beth, but he wasn't planning to leave her in this condition and he didn't know how long it might take her to snap out of it. He was thinking about his plan when he heard a phone ringing. He quickly realized it was coming from Beth's purse – he was curious for a moment, but ignored it. He had bigger things to worry about in that moment than who was calling.
He walked quickly out to his truck, not wanting to be away from Beth for too long, examining all the bags and quickly deciding on a plan – he would move all of the non-perishable items into the backseat of the truck, which would keep the front passenger side clear in case he needed to take Beth somewhere. And, he would take all of the perishable items inside. There was no reason to just let them go bad out here and he didn't know what kind of groceries Beth had – if this situation was as serious as he thought it was, he might be here for a while, and they might need some of these things like milk, juice, and eggs. Daryl made quick work of his task – and within five minutes, he'd moved all the items he needed to into the back of the cab and had gotten the others inside.
As he started to unpack the groceries and find a home for them, he heard Beth's phone ringing again. And again, he ignored it. But only a couple of minutes later, it was ringing again, and Daryl couldn't take the sound or the curiosity – so he dug through her purse, pulling out her phone when he finally found it buried among all of the junk in her purse. The call had ended, but the display registered 17 missed calls. He tapped the button that displayed the list, eager to find out who had been calling so often. The list came up and Daryl saw that all 17 missed calls were from someone very familiar. And he saw red.
Zach.