WELL it's been a little bit! I had some trouble writing this after focusing for so long on something else in a different style, so this was a bit hard to get back into. I thought I was gonna hate it, but when I went through and edited it, I actually kinda liked it. Surprise surprise. Anyway I hope you all enjoy, too.
OH! And keep your eyes peeled for a familiar location besides just Terminus. Wink wink.
The closer they got to Terminus, the more walkers they came across. Even without the fires burning like a beacon, it was as if something within the complex ahead was a klaxon call to the undead, beckoning them close until they milled around it like a shambling phalanx of unruly guards.
Or perhaps the dark dreams that had plagued him last night still lingered in Daryl's mind, tendrils of blackness clinging inside his mind and making him see through their nightmarish filter.
He was certain they must be. After all he knew rationally that whatever lay ahead wasn't some fortress of evil, like in the horror movies he'd once watched. It wasn't pulsing with some dark magic, summoning the hordes of undead to guard it. It was simply a place. A building, or perhaps a series of buildings, the demise of which had been loud and explosive and impossible to ignore. The walkers that filled the woods weren't summoned to it, they weren't any sort of evil undead guards. They were simply brainless rotting corpses drawn mindlessly on by loud noises or bright lights in the distance, unerring once they'd set on a path unless something else distracted them.
Of course, just because they weren't agents of evil drawn to guard the complex up ahead, didn't mean they weren't still dangerous. Daryl was fully aware of that as he and Beth made their way through the woods paralleling the railroad tracks, heading slowly towards whatever lay ahead. Their plan, following Daryl's nightmares last night and both their logical concerns, had been to keep off the tracks and work their way closer until they could find a vantage point from which to oversee whatever Terminus contained.
They had counted on running into walkers amongst the trees; after all, they'd been seeing more and more of them every day since they'd left the Mill. One or two walkers they handled when they needed to; either he or Beth came up behind them to stab them in their heads or Daryl shot them from a distance instead. Others they avoided simply by keeping their ears tuned to the sounds of groans up ahead and shifting their path around them. They were focused, intent on their surroundings. Prepared.
But neither of them heard or sensed anything that raised a single alarm in the moments before they stepped into a small clearing and came unexpectedly face to face with a group of undead.
There was something close to ten of them maybe, clustered around something in the center of the clearing. In the split seconds that followed, Daryl's gaze shifted rapidly, spotting something on the ground between the walkers that he could only assume was a corpse; animal or human, he didn't know. Whatever it was, it had clearly drawn the group of them together He didn't have time to figure out what exactly it was from here, and frankly it didn't really matter when the already standing walkers were turning towards him and those on the ground were rising to their feet with hungry groans.
Without hesitation he raised his loaded crossbow, shooting the nearest walker between the eyes before dropping his bow down to reload as quickly as he could. Beth might have had her own bow slung across her back, but her wrist wasn't healed enough yet to use it even if she'd known how to handle the new bow. Instead when he glanced over at her she had her knife already clutched in her good hand, fingers curled tightly around the handle.
The second in which his gaze met hers seemed both impossibly slow and far too fast, all at once. He wanted in that moment to reach for her, to push her behind him where he could keep her safe, and yet at the same time he knew without a doubt that she could protect not only herself but him, too. He knew she could protect herself but god, did some part of him wish she didn't have to. Emotions rose within him, protectiveness and frustration and affection and something else, something warm and desperate all at the same time, but he didn't have the time to form what he was feeling into words even if he'd been capable of putting name to it all. All he had was that one second, that one brief moment of her eyes holding his.
And then he was rising up, loaded crossbow in hands as Beth drew away from him, arcing out to the left to target the nearest walker she could find.
He lost sight of her in the melee that followed. Here and there through the shambling bodies he glimpse a flash of blonde hair, or the sight of a leg striking out to hit a knee, followed by the downward sweep of her blade, but then she would disappear again, blocked by the bodies in between them. Even as his stomach plummeted he kept fighting, firing off bolts until the walkers got too close, cutting off his ability to continue to load his crossbow.
Daryl slung it over his back and drew his knife without hesitation, gaze flicking rapidly around the clearing in an attempt to count the walkers. Were there four standing? Or five? It was hard to tell, and a clump of them were closing in on him fast. Rather than wading into the remaining bodies he reached out to roughly grab one, slinging it around to slam it against a nearby tree and then drive his blade down right between its eyes. His head turned, not only in time to catch the spray of rotten blood across his neck, but something else as well. A sharp cry from behind him that pierced his ears and made his stomach clench.
He spun around, letting the walker's body fall to the ground in a slump as he pulled his blade free. With that cry of mingled panic and frustration still echoing in his ear, his sharp gaze scanned frantically over the scene, searching through the remaining bodies until he spotted the flash of blonde hair that made his stomach lurch all over again.
There. Beth.
She lay on the ground, face screwed up in a grimace a she struggled to hold up the walker that was on top of her and pinning her down. It was big, male, and barely decomposed, and the only thing keeping its snapping jaws from reaching her face was her injured arm wedged beneath its chin right up against its throat. He'd have known she was in pain even without knowing about her injured wrist; he could see it etched on her face and hear it in her whimpers as she struggled to force the corpse off her.
(In his dream he had lost her to a sea of the undead that had pulled her apart and swallowed her in their massive swelling sea of decomposing limbs. Now there was only one, but the image remained in his mind, stark and terrifying. One was all that was needed, in the end. One walker rising over her like the tide to drag her away from him.)
But even in her obvious pain and panic, Beth didn't give up. He watched as her free hand reached up, yanking her knife from where it had been thrust into the walker's shoulder in what he assumed was their earlier struggle, or perhaps in the fall itself. He watched, seconds seeming impossibly slow, as she fought to raise it up, struggled to line up her aim even as the walker pressed down on her injured arm.
He was in the middle of rushing towards her, knowing in his gut she could take care of herself but not capable of just standing by and watching, when from the left another walker lurched into view, dragging itself across the ground by its arms, focused hungrily on Beth where she struggled to free herself.
With a snarl fueled by a protective fire that roared within his chest Daryl whirled, raising his leg to slam it down on the walker's head, the resulting crunch sending blood and brain matter splattering across his pants as well as the matted grass.
As the blood dripped from the sole of his boot, Daryl turned just in time to see Beth thrust her knife directly into the skull of the walker that had her pinned beneath it. He was moving even before the blade fully hit home, and a mere second after she let out a low cry and fell back with the heavy weight pinning down her arm he was there, reaching down to curl his fingers into the walker's torn shirt to pull it bodily off her.
Again their eyes met, his gaze finding hers through the shaggy hair that hung in his eyes, relief that she was okay surging through him in one intense moment- thank god, thank god, she's okay, she's okay- before her gaze broke away and flickered behind him."Daryl!" She gasped, struggling to sit up as he tugged the corpse half off her. "Behind you!"
Responding instinctively, he was forced to leave the corpse still half over her as he turned around with a frustrated grunt to see the last two walkers just a few feet away and closing in. Silent except for the growl rumbling low in his chest, Daryl surged forward. One foot went out, kicking the left walker in its knees and making it stumble back as he raised his knife and drove it into the other walker's eye. One push of his hand against its shoulder and it fell to the ground, freeing his blood-slick blade in the process. Eyes narrowed in complete focus, Daryl strode forward a few more steps and caught the final walker with one more kick, this time sending it to its knees seconds before his blade came down to drive right down into the top of its head with a wet crunch.
There was a grunt behind him and he turned, pulling his blade free one last time, to see Beth finally push the walker's corpse off her legs to free herself with a heavy sigh of relief.
Through every moment of the last several heated minutes he had moved instinctively, fueled by anger and protectiveness to be sure, but at the same time (mostly) feeling oddly distant to most of the emotions building within him. Now they spilled rapidly over in one big rush, like a pot of simmering water set to boiling so quickly that it overflowed. He was only half aware of closing the gap between them, the moment blurred until he fell to his knees beside Beth and reached for her with a low noise that was more simply a worried, pained sound than any actual words.
His hands brushed down her shoulders, her arms, her sides, and back up again, searching almost frantically for injuries- or worse, for bites. He wasn't even aware that he was speaking out loud- "Beth, Beth, god, Beth…"- until she curled her fingers tightly into his shirt and breathed roughly back, "Daryl. Daryl. I'm okay, I swear. It didn't get me. I got it."
And she had. Of course she had. Hell if she'd had to, she coud have brought down every one of the walkers they'd just faced. But it had been too goddamn close. He'd seen that monster pinning her down and snapping its rotten blood-stained teeth inches from her face, and even the memory of how strong she'd been and how she'd struggled to save herself couldn't banish the anxiety that twisted in his gut.
Only her words could. Her soft reassuring words- "I'm okay, Daryl, I'm okay."- and the warmth of her so close to him. A shudder went through Daryl's body as he lifted his hands to cup her cheeks and tilt her face up towards his. First he just pressed his lips to her forehead, feeling her soft, warm skin against his mouth and then, with a sigh, he tipped his head down to rest his forehead against her own.
He was aware that they weren't safe here. He knew they sat in the middle of a clearing surrounded by blood-matted grass and heaped walker corpses and that at any moment another could stumble into their midst. But he took the moment anyway. He took the few fleeting seconds to breathe her in, to rest his forehead against hers and just feel her there, with him, safe. Alive.
His fingers carded lightly through her hair, tracing around the shape of her ear as he cupped the side of her head and then finally, slowly drew back. Only when he had met her eyes for another few seconds- the gaze everything and yet not enough at the same time when a part of him wanted to just sit there drinking her in for hours- did he finally look down at her arm with a frown that furrowed his brow.
"Your arm…?" The worry penetrated his relief again, roughening his voice.
"It hurts, but not too bad." Beth's frown matched his own as she looked down at her arm, the bandage dirtied now and stained with what he figured was the walker's gore and blood. "It's my fault. I was gonna stab him but he came at me faster than I expected and I hit his shoulder instead. Lifted my arm to stop him… my bad arm, of course. Like an idiot." She shook her head. "He pressed right into it and it hurt so damn bad that my knees gave out on me and I fell and…"
And the walker had very nearly gotten her. He knew that as well as she did, but neither of them said it, at least not aloud. She'd survived and that was all that mattered for now. They didn't need to put into words what almost happened. They had enough to handle as it was, without adding bad omens to the mix.
"C'mon," he said roughly, emotion over the things left unsaid thickening his voice as he rose into a crouch and slipped his hands under her arms to help her to her feet. "Need to get somewhere safer. Somewhere up high, like we planned. High and safe. Maybe a tree, or somethin'..."
"You're lucky I'm a farm girl, Daryl Dixon." The playful words, coming seemingly out of nowhere, caught Daryl off guard. As he steadied Beth on her feet he looked down at her and raised an eyebrow in question. With a laugh and a nudge to his side, Beth just teased, "Because I'm a climber. Trees, fences, barn ladders... I'm a tree-climbing machine."
He looked her up and down from her head to her toes, gaze lingering for a moment on the injured arm she held close to her stomach. Despite the fact that they were both covered in blood and surrounded by walker bodies, a smirk tugged at his lips as he teased,"Even basically one-armed?"
"Oh yeah," Beth went on confidently, adjusting her injured arm to hug it close to her stomach as she flashed him a warm smile, "I'm a basically-one-armed tree-climbing machine. Just you wait and see."
It stretched out in front of them like a perfect tableau of the world they lived in now; a large complex of fire-blackened brick buildings bordered by the dark slashing lines of numerous abandoned railroad tracks. Despite the damage of what seemed to have been not just any fire but an explosive one, the structures of the large buildings were still visible, and beneath the smoke stains the letters written out on the windows could still be read:TERMINUS.
But the buildings, the fire damage, the broken windows... none of that was the most noticeable feature of the train station complex.
What stood out most as they looked over the large complex wasn't the damage wrought by the explosion or even the complex itself, but the massive herd of walkers that filled every inch of the place. They milled in and out of the buildings and around the broken down fences, stumbling into open box cars and filling the air with the sounds of their groans, which carried through the air right up to where they sat perched in a tall tree.
Despite her joking tone, Beth had amusingly turned out to be right about the tree-climbing thing. Of course it helped that they'd chosen a good solid tree with nicely spaced branches, and that he'd taken her bag so all she'd had to carry was her bow at her back and her other weapons stuck in her belt and sheath. Regardless, she did pretty damn well at climbing for someone who had only one uninjured arm, keeping the other one tight to her chest as she used a combination of her legs and one strong arm to pull herself up branch by branch in a powerful display of muscles before he'd remembered to follow her.
Now they were perched safely at the top of a tree, each on their own branch and turned to face the complex beneath them. From within her bag Beth had drawn out their small pair of binoculars, a find from one of the farmhouses back by the Mill. The 'just in case' item was proving as useful as he'd expected now as he watched her raise them to her eyes and survey the scene in front of them.
Rather than ask her what she saw, Daryl just glanced at her, waiting patiently until Beth lowered the binoculars and looked at him with a faint smirk. "Yep. Walkers. Lots and lots of walkers." She shrugged one shoulder. "I mean I shouldn't be surprised considering how many we saw heading towards it past the mill, and how many must've come from another direction, but…" Beth's gaze was drawn back out over the complex and she shook her head as she breathed out, "Lord is that a lot of walkers."
After a moment she stretched out her hand and offered him the binoculars, and as he took them to raise them to his own eyes, Beth went on, "There's no way anyone is alive in there. I mean they'd have to either be too idiotic to know to leave or…"
"Or they couldn't get out," Daryl remarked with a grunt as he focused on the buildings below.
"Mm. Which means they're probably one of the walkers we see milling around down there."
Through the lens of the binoculars, Daryl surveyed the scene. He didn't linger long on the walkers, Beth had pretty much covered everything interesting about them when she stated there were a ton of them. No, what he focused on was the actual complex; the buildings, the box cars, the torn and trampled flowers that seemed to have once decorated the complex and there, off to one side, a darker concentration of burned objects and the corpses of walkers. Now that was something far more interesting than the hungry, groaning undead wandering past it.
"Reckon I figured out what caused that fire," Daryl grunted, lowering the lenses to glance over at his curious companion. Silently, he offered her the binoculars back and waited for him to raise them before he leaned over, balancing carefully where he was straddling the branch. With one hand gripping between his feet so he didn't slip, he used his free hand to gently turn her head in the right direction. "There. See all that fire damage, the piles of walkers all around it like they kinda sprayed out from it? Reckon that's a fuel tank. Or it was, before it exploded."
"Huh." Peering intently through the lenses, Beth swept her gaze back and forth as she asked in a low murmur, "On purpose, though? Or accidentally?"
"Hard to say." His gaze drifted back and his brow furrowed as he studied the scene. "Might be impossible to say for sure without gettin' close, and there ain't no way we're managing that." He drew his hand back and rubbed it over his chin, feeling the coarse hairs of his beard against the pads of his fingers. as he went on thoughtfully, "Way I see it, could've gone both ways. Could've just been an accident. Fuel tank blows up, and the fire can't be stopped, plus it calls all the damn walkers nearby. Whoever was in there would've had to make a run for it, kill whatever they could… Would account for the other bodies here and there."
"Or it could have been on purpose," Beth mused, following his train of thought and using her own clever deductive skills. Sharp as a tack, she was, and he not only admired it but found it undeniably attractive. "Someone from the outside or the inside could've blown it up for a distraction, or to help someone escape," she went on, breath hitching just faintly as she finished, "... maybe even our family."
"Maybe." Daryl looked over at her just as Beth lowered the binoculars and looked right back at him, the hint of frustration in her eyes telling him she was thinking exactly the same thing he was. They had no way to tell for sure without at least getting in there, and that required risking one of the largest herds of walkers either of them had ever seen.
Neither of them intended to take that risk, and though he didn't need that confirmed, the way Beth reached out to gently squeeze his hand reassured him regardless. No matter how much they both ache to know if the buildings within held information about their family, they wouldn't risk it. ("The most important thing is keeping each other safe. Staying together. Everything else is secondary.") She watched him for a moment, gaze lingering against her own before she turned back and narrowed her eyes at the scene before them instead.
"Well, if we can't get in there and we can't risk trying to get the herd out to get in there… maybe we can circle the place, see if there's any other signs to be found?"
It sounded like a risk to him all the same, but at least it was one far less dangerous than the two of them walking right into a walker-infested train complex. So after a long moment, Daryl looked up at her and gave a slow nod. Right now, it was their best chance of finding any sign that their family had been here, and whether or not they'd gotten out.
The woods around Terminus were still thick with walkers, and after their adrenaline-filled experience earlier, neither Daryl or Beth had any intention of taking risks. They moved slowly and carefully in general circle through the trees around the complex; avoiding walkers when they could, and killing others only when they had to.
Through the trees here and there they saw glimpses of the tall wooden fences that surrounded Terminus, most still standing but some torn down by the mass of walkers. It wasn't hard to figure out where the herd that had passed the Mill had come through, for example; they left a wide and obvious trail through the woods, right up to the torn down fence in the distance. Daryl and Beth however were too cautious to follow those paths, leading as they did right into the heart of a complex overrun with the undead.
It was tough enough going making their way around it, cautious and on edge for every groan or shuffling step that drifted on the breeze towards them. Although, in what he figured was a positive in the long run, their extreme caution made them intensely focused on their surroundings; from the sounds in the air to the tracks and markings strewn all around them.
Unfortunately they'd been circling the complex slowly for the better part of an hour, maybe more, and he'd yet to see anything but the tracks and trails of all the walkers that had come through… Until, unexpectedly, his sharp gaze spotted something different marring the trunk of a nearby tree. Just loud enough for her to hear, he hissed, "Beth, wait." As she instantly slowed to a stop beside him, Daryl turned to the left, closing the gap between him and the tree in a few steps. "Look," he grunted simply, gesturing up at the trunk.
He didn't need to say much more than that. At the movement of his hand, Beth's own gaze focused on the tree, her eyes narrowing as she spotted the same thing he had; a circled X slashed onto the trunk, exposing the lighter wood beneath the bark. Coming up to stand beside him she inspected it as he did, watching as he raised his fingers to run them over the mark.
"Can you tell how recent it is?"
With a shake of his head, Daryl replied, "Dunno. Hard to say. Ain't brand new, but it's not very old either." Knowing how unhelpful that was, Daryl glanced behind them through the trees to where he could see the still standing some some distance away. With a thoughtful hum he began to look around them, inspecting the nearby trees for any other marks.
He could tell the moment Beth caught on, pulling away from the tree they stood by to make her way past him; inspecting the other trees while always keeping him in sight. "Here," she called out, her voice just loud enough to carry to him. She stood some distance away, running her fingers over a similar mark slashed into another tree.
Grunting softly, he tugged at the strap of his crossbow and moved quickly to join her, coming up at her side as Beth remarked, "They were marking a path, you think? So they could find their way back? Or… so they could find their way too something?"
"Maybe." Again he looked from this one to the last, and beyond it in the direction of Terminus. "Either makes sense."
"Do you think it's…"
The end of that sentence was left unsaid, but Daryl didn't need to hear the actual words aloud to know what she meant. Their people. Their family. "Dunno," he responded lowly, wishing he could tell her something else, wishing that he could somehow know it was them.
"But it's a trail, right? It's something. Better than nothing, anyway." Beth's fingers brushed once more over the markings and then she looked up at him. His eyes met hers, so big and wide as always and this time just faintly bright with what he knew what her unerring sense of hope. Despite everything, she always seemed to hold onto it; and for his part, he couldn't deny that look in her eyes.
"It's somethin'," he grunted after a long moment of just holding her gaze. "Something to follow, anyway. Whether it's them or not, chances are it might lead to a shelter." That, above anything else, was what he figured they needed right now. A place to spend the night and regroup, re-wrap Beth's arm and hell, maybe even take a few days of rest before they figured out what to do next.
His gaze lingered on her for a few moments longer. Those protective instincts might have been flamed into a roaring fire a few hours ago, but they had been there before and they remained now. A low, ever-present simmer that seemed to guide his decisions daily now with one mantra: Keep Beth safe. Right now that meant shelter, because with shelter would come everything else she'd need.
So with a nod, he pointed ahead of them into the woods and remarked gruffly, "C'mon. Let's go." And when she raised an eyebrow at his rough tone and he saw a hint of her sweet smile tugging at her lips, Daryl's expression softened, his worry receding a bit as he allowed himself to tease instead, "Let's put those trackin' skills of yours to the test again, hm? See if you can follow these markings."
As always, she accepted his challenge with a glint of confidence in her eyes and a warm little smile, and as she took off into the woods he trailed close behind her, keeping one eye on her and the other firmly on the woods around them.
It was impossible to determine just how old the marks on the trees were, but the path they followed confirmed to Daryl that they had to be at least a week old, probably longer. There were no tracks to be seen, or at least not following the path marked by the odd circled x-shaped slashes in the bark of the trees. Whatever tracks there might have been at one point- left by the makers of the marks or anyone else following this same path- were long since gone now, erased by the numerous rain storms that had happened since.
Here and there both he and Beth spotted the tracks of walkers, but those were always headed in the opposite direction, following staggering, winding paths back towards Terminus. He had to admit he felt better now that they were heading away from those buildings, from what had become in his mind almost a sort of beacon of death.
It helped that he was following Beth now, and if she was a beacon than she was one that stood for the exact opposite. One that was light instead of dark, happiness and life instead of death. Hope instead of dread. He followed the swing of her ponytail, the lilt of her soft hums, and the slight sway of her hips as she strode confidently through the woods, following the path marked on the trees.
When the signs eventually lead to the edge of the trees and a dirt road, they both paused at the edge to peer in both directions. Even before the car that had stolen her, they'd both wisely avoided any sort of roads, even quiet ones like this that seemed more like it might be a driveway or private road than anything else. Roads even now often meant people though, and people meant danger. So it wasn't surprising that when he looked at Beth in silence, she nodded to the right, where the woods continued to parallel the road providing a far safer path.
Their path was confirmed a short distance ahead, where they found yet another mark on a tree at the side of the road. Checking to make sure they were still following the right trail was the only time they left the complete safety of the trees, veering closer to the dirt road to search for the markings on the trees that lined it before drifting back under cover again.
Despite the trees obstructing much of their view of the road they were walking parallel too, Daryl eventually got a glimpse of a structure up ahead. They climbed a slight incline and there, up ahead through a gap in the trees, he spotted the pointed tip of a roof piercing the landscape.
He and Beth approached the structure from the side, staying amongst the foliage rather than taking the road that led directly to it. As they got close, the structure became clearer. It looked like a hundred other cabins he'd seen before, one-room hunting cabins made from rotted old planks, all dotting the woods around these parts and throughout Georgia. This one had one little step that led up to a tiny porch in the front, which was shaded by a small overhang of corrugated metal covered in old dry leaves. The roof formed a peak above it, and below was a single door with two small windows on either side; one decorated with a pair of old, dangling deer antlers, and the other with firewood stacked in front of it in what might once have been a neat pile, but had long since formed a messy, abandoned tumble of logs.
By his guess, it had been awhile since anyone had lived there. As they got closer, he spotted a junky old car sitting out in front, long abandoned and probably drained of gas by his estimation. As they rounded the left side of the cabin, he saw an old gas grill tangled up in an overgrown bush, the cover still opened and adding to the air of abandonment that clung to the place.
Despite the aura of forgottenness they made a full circle around the small cabin, checking as they went for any signs of people. All they saw were the marks of disuse; dirty and dusty windows, nothing boarded up, nothing that might have served as warning alarms or any kind of deterrent against the walkers.
So in the end as they came back around front again they left the woods and crossed to the front of the cabin. Daryl stood there on the dirt road peering up at it, one hand curled around the strap of his bow the other hanging at his side. His eyes narrowed against the light of the sun as it sunk lower in the sky, illuminating the shack in front of him. As far as he could tell, it really did look abandoned. Except for the markings on the trees he saw no signs that anyone was around or even had been, though he knew the recent rain had probably washed away whatever footsteps might have once marked the dirt road even a few days ago. All things considered, it looked like a good place to at least spend the night.
But then again, the decision wasn't his to make, at least, not alone. Slowly he drew his eyes away from the view of the desolate looking cabin in front of him and glanced to his right, to the slender young woman standing beside him, blonde hair glinting in the later afternoon sunlight.
"Whaddya think?" He asked curiously, voice low and just loud enough for her to hear as he peered down at her by his side.
"Yep. A cabin." Her dry voice and the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her lips echoed her tone earlier when she'd looked over Terminus and pronounced 'yep, lots of walkers', and Daryl just chuckled for a moment and shook his head. He liked her way of doing that sometimes. Breaking an unnecessarily serious mood with a little teasing joke. But she was just as capable of being serious too, as she was just now when she leaned slightly into him, her arm brushing his as she said in a softer voice, "Well, we need a place to stay tonight and it looks safe enough. Sturdy walls, and a roof overhead, with no sign that it's occupied… at least not from here."
He hummed his agreement and after a moment, unslung his crossbow to settle it in his hands and give a nod towards the cabin ahead. "Check the inside to be sure, and then decide?"
Beth fell into place behind him, drawing her knife in a smooth motion as they moved slowly up the dirt path to the front of the little cabin. They split only when they reached the porch, him going to the left window and her to the right, both of them shading their hands to peer into the structure. He saw no movement within and Beth didn't seem to either, but they were cautious nonetheless, falling habitually into their usual pattern; she knocked on the door and stepped out of the way as she opened it, leaving him standing there with his bow upraised in anticipation of an attack from within.
There was nothing inside to greet them though; at least, nothing moving. As he'd guessed from outside it was one single open room. Above them the arched roof was covered in more corrugated metal laid over the wooden ceiling beams. The wooden walls of the cabin were hung with cardboard, unfolded boxes taped and stapled to the walls; a method of providing insulation that he was plenty familiar with. As a child his father had taken him hunting and they'd crashed in a cabin kinda like this, only it hadn't been there's. His Pa had lied about that, though he and Merle had both laughed when the real owner came and kicked their drunk asses out, leaving Daryl stumbling to catch up to them as they headed home.
Unlike that hunting cabin, clearly well-used, this entire thing looked abandoned. He saw a few wooden chairs, a sturdy table, and a couple buckets, but not much else except dust and dirt. The only things of real interest were the fireplace against the opposite wall, and more oddly, a large white cooler sitting on the floor in front of it. His Dad'd had one just like it, only it had been red and in the summer it had always been full of ice and cans of beer that would glisten with droplets of water every time he pulled one free. This one was empty though and had been for a long time. The lid was missing and its sides were stained, and it was just sitting there randomly in the middle of the floor of the cabin.
He found nothing inside when he went up and peered into it, but his gaze lingered. So did Beth's when she came to stand next to him, peering down into the empty container as if they both expected they might find something there if they looked long enough.
But of course there was nothing. Not in the cooler, hell, not in the whole place. It was an abandoned hunter's cabin plain and simple, but it had a door that shut solidly and a roof over head and frankly that was good enough for him, tonight.
"C'mon," he grunted out, slinging his bow back over his back and then bending down to flip the cooler upside down. "Sit."
"What?"
She blinked up at him in confusion, but she was moving to take a seat even before he began to answer, "Gonna check that arm an' rewrap it. Then we can get this place secure for the night. Sound good?"
Daryl waited until she gave a nod and a smile, because despite his gruffness this really was meant to be a team plan. Everything was now, with the two of them. Sometimes that was a conscious effort and other times it just happened, but it always felt natural now regardless. Gone were the years and years- decades, even- when his decisions had always been about what Merle wanted. Now it was Beth. Or him and Beth, because despite the fact that he'd often willingly do what she wanted, he knew she'd never even ask him to do something if she didn't think he wanted to.
He lowered himself to his knees in front of her and settled his bag close, and as he began to unwrap her arm so he could examine it, she remarked, "So what do you think? Was anyone staying here?"
In response he just looked up at her, raising an eyebrow as if to ask silently: What do you think?
Her little giggle made a smile flicker briefly across his lips before he looked down again. His touch was gentle, careful peeling away the layers of her dirty bandage as above him she answered her own question, "It's dusty, so I don't think anyone has lived here in a bit. But there's… footprints, here and there." Beth's gaze swept the floor for them again as she continued, "Like maybe someone- or more than one person- were in here at some point, semi-recently. I don't think they were walkers, either." At his questioning grunt, she clarified, "Well, the footsteps are normal, not staggering. Plus, you know, walkers aren't very good at politely opening and closing doors, in general."
That got another chuckle out of Daryl as he undid the last of her bandage and set it aside. Gingerly he began to inspect her arm, applying pressure carefully and frowning when one or two of his gentle touches made her wince.
"Don't think you re-fractured it or anything," he remarked after a few moments, "But y' definitely strained it. Or that piece of shit walker did, anyway." He sat back on his heels for a moment, surveying the room around them. "Might be a good idea to brace it again for a day or two. Make sure it's set well, just in case."
He rose to his feet, looking for something he could use to brace her arm with, as behind him Beth gave a sigh. "I'll be more careful, next time. I shouldn't have put my arm up like that. I'm such an idiot sometimes."
"You ain't an idiot, Beth." Daryl turned to her, hating the frown he saw on her lips, his gaze as intent as his voice was as he went on firmly, "You made a mistake but you were just acting in the heat of the moment, on instinct. None of that makes you an idiot, alright? Besides, next time you'll remember."
The furrow in her brow smoothed out, and he was rewarded with a smile that he couldn't resist responding to, and not just with a smile of his own. Forgetting the task at hand he found himself crossing back to her. Sitting on the cooler the way she was, her head came up to his stomach now, and when he reached out to cup her face he had to lean down to meet her. His lips pressed to the top of her head as he lowered slowly into a crouch, resting his forehead against hers just like he had back in the woods when he was all full of relief that she was safe and unharmed.
He still felt that relief right now, but there was more to it. A different sort of depth. He felt relief simply that she was there. That she was with him, that she had no intention of being anywhere else and neither did he. Despite neither of them knowing what tomorrow would bring, let alone tonight, he felt content just having her there with him, forehead pressed to his, lips parting to exhale her breath and allow it to mingle with his own.
They sat there like there for half a minute, until her soft hum had him pulling back to look at her. His fingers traced along the curve of her cheek, lingering a few moments later until finally he made himself rise back up to his feet and crossing over to the window by the table. "Let's get that arm of yours wrapped up again, and then secure this place and settle in for the night, alright?"
Take the planning one day at a time, that was what was best these days. Tomorrow or in the next couple days maybe they'd head out again, follow those marks carved into the trees and see where they lead. But tonight it was Beth's wrist, then securing this cabin, and doing their best to get a good night's rest. Well that, and apparently also...
"Can we use the fireplace before it gets dark?" Beth's sweet voice cut into his thoughts. "Have some warm dinner, maybe heat up some beans?"
Standing by the side window he eyed the trees through the glass, searching for a branch that would be just the right size for him to cut off, peel the bark away and turn it into splints for her wrist again. But at the sound of her question he turned, lips quirking into a half smile. "If that's what you want, then yeah."
"Oh, is this a what Beth wants kinda night? Cause in that case, I also vote for having some pecans, and settling in to read tonight once we get everything secure." From her seat on the cooler she flashed him a grin, her happiness and the way it seemed to brighten even the air in this dingy cabin keeping him mesmerized as always. "So is that a yes?"
As he drew his knife and made his way to the door, Daryl just gave a grunt and rolled his eyes, acting as if she were being completely ridiculous going on about a 'what Beth wants kinda night'.
But he knew the truth. As far as he was concerned, every night could be a what Beth wants kinda night, when it came to stuff like she was asking for, and frankly he wouldn't mind one bit.
I hope you all enjoyed that, I honestly do. Thank you all for continuing to read and thanks in advance for any comments you leave; I love every single comment I get and they always fuel me to keep writing. (I'd especially love to know if y'all recognized the familiar location in here!)
And if you haven't see it yet, please check out When I See You Again (/s/11274120/1/When-I-See-You-Again) the very long (33k+ words) one-shot I posted last week.