After the shmoopy-lovey-dovey-ness of last chapter, this one is a lot more plot advancement than anything else, though I tried to work in a cute moment or two. Be forewarned (or fore-notified?) this chapter reveals quite a bit of the butterfly effect of Beth and Daryl staying together rather than getting separated. So if you find yourself wondering "hey why is that like that" or "wait shouldn't this look like this", it's not a "this is all wrong" situation but rather a "this is all changed" one!
Notes at the bottom for the how and the whys of some changes, though, I promise. Enjoy!
Standing at the tree line, their feet toed the line between the leaf-strewn ground at the edge of the forest and the asphalt that stretched out beyond them. With no driveway or road leading up to it, Daryl could only assume it was some sort of play area rather than a parking lot; certainly there were no lines on the concrete to indicate otherwise. The square of asphalt was framed on two sides by the brick, l-shaped school building. Directly in front of them was the larger section of the building, which was several stories high and featuring numerous windows; some of them were shuttered and others open or broken, giving it the appearance almost of numerous blinking or staring eyes.
A smaller section branched out to their right, one story to the larger section's two, with large windows that made Daryl suspect it might hold the school's gym or perhaps an auditorium. The entire place had an air of desolation that was common these days, though it seemed even more noticeable here. Perhaps it was the associations that usually came along with buildings like this; the images a school painted in a person's mind of ringing bells and the screams of children gathered around or running and forth. The lack of any of that made the cracked windows, the long, overgrown grass, and the trash-strewn asphalt seem even more forlorn looking, even more desolate and abandoned.
It was only once both of them had fully scanned their surroundings that Daryl glanced at Beth and raised his eyebrow in silent question: Ready? He waited first for her nod of agreement, and only then took that first step forward, leaving the woods behind to stride cautiously across the pavement.
His gaze never stopped shifting, especially between the woods that surrounded them and the numerous windows the structure contained. Between the woods, the windows, and even the roof, there were far too many places people could be hiding with a gun or rifle trained on them, and Daryl felt dangerously exposed striding across the open asphalt. Not only himself but the woman at his side for whom he was far more concerned, though he did his best to fight the protective urges that rose up, whispering that he should tuck her safely behind him where she ran less risk of getting hit.
Luckily they made it across the pavement without his worries proving true, soon reaching the stretch of grass beneath the windows of the larger section of the building. It was there in the shade of the structure that he spotted signs of something more than just random trash and dead leaves blown in by the breezes and winds. With Beth moving carefully beside him, Daryl's careful footsteps had him rounding the edge of the pavement to peer down at the remains of what looked to be someone's former campsite.
"How recent is it?" Beth asked softly, keeping her voice low as she came up next to him to survey what lay before them.
He didn't answer out loud at first, instead choosing to slowly crouch down to survey the scene. Despite the recent rain he could still see a few matted down spots in the grass that he suspected marked where several people had been sleeping or sitting. "Hard to say," he remarked, rubbing a hand over the scruff of his beard. Several soggy, wet magazines were scattered haphazardly to the side, and an old rain-soaked blanket lay discarded near the edge of the building. In the swaying grass, Daryl's eyes picked out something else, the white of it stark against the vibrant green of the grass.
Spotting it just as he did, Beth moved first, crossing around the edges of the matted grass to reach down and fish the scrap of white fabric from the ground. It was muddied by the dirt and rain but nonetheless recognizable; not just any scrap of fabric, but a collar. "This is a priest's collar," Beth remarked out loud, running her fingers around it with a frown as she returned to his side. "What is a priest's collar doing out here?"
He had no answer to her question, other than the sudden sense of wrongness that prickled across his raised skin. So his only reply was an unsure hum as his gaze shifted back to the stretch of grass they were examining. Just in front of them stood a tall metal pole, it's sad and deflated ball still hanging from it by a worn rope, a forlorn reminder that this area had once been filled with playing kids who were now long gone- many of them probably forever. Right beneath the dangling deflated ball, however, was the largest sign so far of the campsite that had once been here. The makeshift campfire was built from old cinder blocks, with a section of what looked like fencing laid over it to form a grill.
Still crouched in silence, his eyes narrowed at the charred flesh that was somehow sitting on top of the grill. Rain and the elements and natural rot had done their damage over what had to be more than days, possibly even a couple weeks, but despite the mold that covered it the lump on top of the former fire was still obviously meat. He could even see the bone protruding from the edge of it.
The slow trajectory of Beth's hand into his vision and towards the fire pit matched the pace of the dawning realization in his mind as he studied the moldy, charred shape, and as her fingers reached just scant inches from the oddly-shaped lump of meat, Daryl growled out, "Don't!" Her hand froze and darted back, but before she could blurt out more than a 'what?' in a concerned and startled voice, he was pushing back and rising to his feet.
"Daryl-"
Turning towards her, Daryl lifted one hand to her shoulder and held her firmly. Giving a slow squeeze, he held her gaze as firmly as possible and said in a low voice that couldn't be ignored, "Beth… you don't wanna touch that."
"Why not?" Beth blinked, gaze darting from him, to the campfire, and back again, "I mean it's moldy and kinda gross, but isn't it just a deer leg, or something?"
"No." Daryl's voice was thicker than normal, a note of disgust entering his usually gravelly voice. He was loath to put voice to his thoughts at all, let alone to her; not just because saying it out loud would make it real, but because he hated the thought of exposing something as sick and disgusting as his suspicions to Beth. But she was strong. She was strong and brave enough to handle this, and he had to tell her, so after a moment he went on hesitantly, "I don't think that's animal meat at all, Beth."
"But... If it's not an animal then-" He was forced to watch as realization dawned for Beth as well; shock and then horror quickly following to chase away her confusion and mar her expressive face. "Oh god. Oh no." She stumbled back, pressing her eyes and lips shut at the same time and clenching her fists at her side as she murmured breathlessly, "That can't be- Are you sure, Daryl? Oh, I think I'm gonna be sick."
But despite the hitching in her throat she didn't flee, and though disgust was etched across her face she held her ground, making him feel an odd sense of pride even amid the horrible situation they suddenly found themselves in. He opened his mouth to reassure her, but before he could she was suddenly raising her clenched fist and releasing her tight grip just enough to expose the priest's collar she still held clutched within it.
"You don't think this is from… oh god." The fabric dropped from her hand, fluttering to the ground in a slow spiral that reminded him unexpectedly of the fall of a single feather through the air.
Despite the hint of nausea churning his own stomach, when he reached out to her and gently squeezed her arm once more his voice remained calm and steady and measured. "There's no way of knowing, Beth. Maybe it just blew in, on the breeze or somethin'. This place is full of trash. Without a body…" He broke off and swallowed hard, suddenly struck by the mental image of there being an actual body somewhere, missing what he guessed might be a single leg- or perhaps far more. Drawing in a deep breath, he pressed on, "Ain't no way of knowing for sure."
She seemed to calm somewhat under his touch, or perhaps at the reassurance of his low voice. Her gaze drifted once more to the disgusting piece of meat that clung to the gaps of the fencing it had been grilled on, but as he watched her saw her gaze slowly lift from it to fix instead of something behind him. Whatever it was she saw over his shoulder, it caused her eyes to widen, and by the time she lifted her hand to point he was already half-turned.
"Daryl-"
With the sudden tension in her voice there was no need for her to say more. At the sound of his name his gaze fixed in the direction she was pointing and he saw just what it was that had her eyes widening with worry. There, set slightly back into the corner where the two parts of the building met, was a double glass door. Only it wasn't children that ran through the doors or pressed their faces to the glass to peer out in anticipation of recess anymore. The faces that pressed now to the smudged and dirty glass were far from childhood; they were rotted and bloody, jaws opening and closing in hunger as their hands began to slap on the glass.
"C'mon," Beth murmured, beating him to the punch. "The longer we stay here, the more likely it is they'll break down that door trying to get to us."
So with only one last glance over their shoulders, they turned and made their way back across the pavement, leaving behind not only the walkers that pressed their hungry faces to the glass, but also the abandoned campfire and it's horrifying contents.
Daryl looked back once more as they rounded the corner of the building, and for a moment he thought he could just see the flash of the white priest's collar on the ground, before it disappeared from view.
So what do we do now?
The question was on the tip of his tongue and he could only guess it was on Beth's too, judging by the way she kept glancing over at him as they moved around the edge of the woods. For the moment neither of them gave voice to it though, choosing instead to study the building and the area around it for any more signs that someone- perhaps even their family- had once been here.
The campsite had revealed something utterly disgusting, but it wasn't the sort of sign they had been looking for. Horrifying contents aside, it said nothing about the fate of their family, and in a way only served to reiterate that the trail they were following was tenuous at best when it came to the possibility that it might lead to their loved ones.
So they were left to pick their way around the edges of the building, following the stretch of grass between the woods and the school. As they walked, they searched for signs of footprints or campsites or messages- anything that might give them a sign, even as both of them avoided giving voice to the idea that there might not be a sign to find at all.
As he strode almost silently through the grass, instinctively avoiding leaves that might crunch beneath his feet, Daryl's focus was pulled by a scrap of old newspaper blowing past in the breeze. His eyes narrowed just enough to see a blur of words before it blew past him, fluttering up on a swirl of air to smack flat against the trunk of a tree.
It was the tree itself, rather than the newspaper flattened against it, that brought Daryl to a sudden stop. "Hey," he murmured, lowly but urgently enough that Beth instantly came to a stop a few feet ahead of him and glanced over her shoulder at him. "Look."
Her gaze turned to follow the pointing of his finger, and both of them fixed their sights on the tree beyond. There, carved into the wood above the wind-plastered piece of newspaper, was a slashed mark.
Eyebrow raised, Beth remarked, "Would it be pointing out the obvious for me to say that's not the same mark as before?"
Surprised into a snort of laughter by her dry tone, Daryl glanced down at Beth as she came up beside him. There was a hint of a smile on her lips too as she looked up at him, tipping back her head to meet his gaze as she ran her fingers through her pulled-back hair.
"Probably," he replied after a moment, pulling his gaze from her to let it stray back to the tree. "But y' wouldn't be wrong, anyway."
Unlike the marks they'd been following all the way here- X-marks carved into the trees with a circle slashed around them- this mark was entirely different. Instead it looked like someone has slashed to the right and then down, making a mark almost like an 'r' that had tipped forward. Like the others it didn't seem entirely fresh, and he might have guessed it was at least a week old, but quite possibly more than that. It wasn't an exact science, after all.
Filled with curiosity, he and Beth approached the tree together. As his hand came up to brush away the newspaper that clung to the trunk, Beth reached up to trace her fingers over the shape etched into the wood. "Maybe someone else made this one?"
"Or the same people," Daryl mused, shifting after a moment to peer into the woods beyond, looking for more marked trees and the possibility of a new path to follow.
"The same people leaving behind a different symbol?" The pause that followed her question had him glancing back at her just in time to see her eyes light up. It was as if he could literally see the gears turning in her head, her clever mind racing through the possibilities to finally muse aloud, "Maybe they're kind of like park trails. You know, each trail or path is marked by a different symbol or color?"
The smile he gave her was as filled with pride as the look in his eyes was, and even though his only reply out loud was a hum and a "maybe", he knew she could see it nonetheless. There was a smile curving up her own lips when she met his gaze, and for a moment she leaned into him, allowing their arms to press lightly together for a few seconds before she turned her eyes back to the tree, and ventured hesitantly, "So… do we follow it?"
He stayed quiet for a moment, but it was her face that he was studying in the silence, not the mark on the tree. It wasn't really the mark that was important to him, after all, or even the trail it might or might not represent. What was important was Beth. What she wanted to do- what theydecided they wanted to do- that was what mattered. So it was her eyes that he searched, looking for an answer, or perhaps to at least judge whatever she was feeling about the question itself.
With Daryl remaining silent and watching her, Beth murmured after a moment, "We don't have to follow it. But... I don't know. I just feel like… like a part of me wants to, anyway. I know we don't have to, but at the same time I kind of feel like... we do?" With a chuckle and another brush of her fingers through the loose tendrils of hair that had come free to frame her face, Beth added, "That doesn't make sense."
"Nah," he said instantly, shifting faintly beside her with a little nod. "It does." They weren't obligated to follow it, was what she meant. They weren't being forced to. Yet both of them were curious, both of them felt, perhaps, that they needed to follow the markings on the trees. Just to see where they lead. Just to know, for sure.
Breaking the silence that had fallen between them in the wake of his distracted thoughts, Beth brushed her arm against his once more, tipping back her head to smile at him as she teased, "Plus it's like a mystery, you know? I feel like we've just gotta unravel it. Nancy Drew and the Mystery of the Marks."
Like a flower turning to the sun, his head instinctively tipped down to look into her gaze as a faint smirk pulled at corner of his lips. Though he snorted his amusement with a hint of laughter that rumbled in his chest, Daryl couldn't help but add gruffly, "Ain't no Nancy Drew, though."
"Oh sorry, my mistake," Beth replied playfully, tongue poking rather temptingly from the corner of her mouth for a second before she added, "Maybe you can be a Hardy boy, would that be better?" Before he could reply, she made a sunburst gesture in the air with her hands as she proclaimed, "Beth Drew and Daryl Hardy in... The Mystery of the Marks. What do you think?"
All he could do really was shake his head at that. Yet even as his head shook, his body was turning towards her, instinctively giving in to an unexpected urge to touch her that had him reaching out with one hand to cup the curve of her hip. "Think you're silly," he remarked, his voice low with a new hint of roughness to it.
"Yeah, but you like my kind of silly," Beth shot right back, a sweet and deceptively innocent smile on her lips as she leaned into the touch of his palm on her hip and turned her body towards his, too.
There was no denying the truth of her words. It was 'her kind of silly' that'd had his hand reaching for her in the first place. When she was playful like this it made him forget pretty much everything that troubled him. It made the weight of the world ease, so that all he felt was a fluttering lightness inside. It made him just wanna chuckle and smile right along with her, no matter what they were dealing with. "Guess your silly ain't so bad," he teased, fingers lightly grazing over her jean-clad hip and lingering for just a moment on the hint of skin exposed by the gap between her tank top and the waistband of her jeans.
That single touch of skin was enough to send a little shiver of heat through him; another new sensation he was prone to getting around Beth these days, and one that he relished as much as he felt thrown off-kilter by it. Reluctantly, not wanting to give into that sort of distraction while they were standing outside a building they already knew was filled with walkers, Daryl drew his hand back slowly, hooking his fingers over the strap of his crossbow instead before clearing his throat. "C'mon," he remarked, the warmth in his eyes belying the gruffness of his brisk tone, "If we wanna track these marks, we should get a move on. Whatever it leads to, I don't reckon we'll want t' come on it at night."
If the marks were at all connected to what they'd left behind, rotten and abandoned on that makeshift campfire, then Daryl had a feeling theydefinitely wouldn't want to find the makers of these marks after the sun had set.
With that thought clinging ominously to the back of his mind, they turned and headed into the woods, leaving the elementary school behind to follow the path laid out instead by the new slashed marks on the trees.
This time their path was a far shorter one. It didn't just wind it's way at random through the trees, but eventually turned to follow an old dirt path that was covered in fallen leaves and wind-blown pieces of garbage. It was perhaps a three minute walk, if that, before they got their first glimpse of the structure through the trees in a flash of white that peaked between the green foliage. As they closed the distance and made their way alongside the dirt path, the flashes of white slowly resolved into the shape of a long wall of whitewashed wood interspersed with windows, the entire thing capped by a peaked roof above it and what looked to be a small, almost tower-shaped structure.
"I think it's a church," Beth remarked at his side, breaking the silence and lifting her hand to trace the shape of the building in the distance. "See? That's the bell-tower, and those shapes down there around the base, those look like headstones."
He couldn't be 100% sure about the church just yet (though he was pretty sure she was right), but the shape of the headstones was pretty unmistakeable as they got closer. They were clustered around the trees in the yard of the prison, sectioned off by low wrought iron fences. If the sight of them conjured up a hint of ominousness over him, it wasn't simply because of what they literally represented as markers of the dead; after all, they were surrounded by signs of the dead pretty much constantly, these days.
No, what he saw as they approached the gravestones arranged around the side of the white building was a reminder instead of another building surrounded by tombstones, an ominous warning that he and Beth had ignored almost to their own downfall. Or at least to the near-destruction of their partnership, anyway.
The memory wormed its way into his mind, adding a hesitancy to Daryl's movements as they slowly approached the white building ahead. The closer they got, the more certain he was that Beth was right about it being a church, too; the little tower was most certainly a steeple, and as they passed a few trees, the cross perched on top of it became clear.
Together they came to a stop by the final tree, its bark scarred by the same slash mark they had been following here from the school. With one hand resting on the sturdy tree trunk, Daryl looked out and surveyed the scene.
The church was certainly old, as far as he could tell. Its white painted sides were weathered with age, the roof showing wear and tear in between the spots where it was covered by fallen leaves and other detritus. The side they had approached from was lined with windows, none of them barred or blocked in any way, though they weren't close enough to see inside from here.
The lack of boarded-up windows didn't exactly surprise him; though it was common to find homes and businesses boarded up these days, notevery structure had been turned into a makeshift shelter or had people barricaded within it. Beneath the windows, overgrown brush grew up the sides of the church, though they were not quite thick enough yet though to hide the gap he could see beneath the ground and the bottom of the building, the shadows clinging there suggesting that perhaps there was some sort of crawl-space underneath.
It was Beth at his side who eventually moved, drawing away from the marked tree to head towards the back of the church. Though neither of them had spotted a sign that anyone was present, she still signaled rather than spoke, gesturing to the back with her hand and then curving it around to suggest that they circle around the back and head around the other side to the front to get a clear look at every inch of the place.
Like the school before it, this place had an air of desolation that was especially unnerving. Perhaps it was simply the fact that it was a church; although Daryl had been far from a church goer himself, it wasn't hard for him to look at the place and imagine it full of people, chattering and catching up after a Sunday service. He might not have ever experienced a church himself, but he'd seen enough of them from a distance and in television and movies to know what they often looked like, filled to the brim with congregants.
Maybe that, or the lack of it, was what made the place seem so eerie. Maybe that was what made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up just a little bit more than usual as he and Beth slowly circled around to the back of the building, gradually working their way closer to the old, white washed walls.
Or maybe it was something else that had him on edge. Because truthfully, there really was little in him that believed at all in the sacredness of a church. If either of them would have been affected by that it should have been Beth, not him. So why did he feel as if there was just somethingabout this place? Maybe not something ominous or even eerie, but just... something. Something important or weighty, something that needed to be seen somehow?
Or hell, maybe the place really was just fucking creepy and he was letting it get to him more than normal. It wouldn't be surprising if his mind was running a little rampant when it came to ominous or eerie things, considering they'd just come from an abandoned elementary school where they'd found part of a human leg on an old campfire, after all.
Whatever the reasons behind it, the sensation didn't vanish as they moved around the back of the church and to the other side. It remained, niggling in the back of his mind and somewhere deep in his gut as he and Beth searched the perimeter of the church for any signs of occupancy. Here like elsewhere, much of what tracks might have been left on the ground seemed to have been erased by the recent rain; if he saw a track or two they were faded, impossible to read let alone to determine how old they were.
Together they approached the windows along the side of the church. Picking windows, they arched up on their toes to peer through the cloudy glass with eyes shaded against the sun, but the reflection was still such that they could see little on the inside. What Daryl could see seemed fully normal; the vague shape of church pews and an altar, with no signs of any movement.
It was only when they rounded to the front of the church that they found anything of interest. The first was a sign, hanging from a post out front just beside the simple wooden fence. St. Sarah's Church it read, and just beneath it: Episcopal. "St. Sarah is the patron saint of the Romani people," Beth remarked in a soft voice, coming around the fence to peer up at the sign. When she caught sight of the look on his face, she clarified, "You're probably more familiar with the term gypsies."
As he grunted faintly in agreement he made a slow turn to examine the dirt road they stood on and hummed when he spotted something else. There was a deep groove in the dirt road in front of the church, one that had Daryl crouching down to examine it with interest. Running his fingers over the grooves, which had been washed away somewhat by the rain but not enough that he couldn't still read them a little, he remarked absently, "Some big kinda vehicle. Maybe a truck or… a bus?"
With a furrowed brow he pushed off his knees and rose to his feet. As his fingers brushed against the side of his leg to wipe off the dirt that clung to his fingers, his gaze lifted, and what he spotted at the front of the church made his eyes instantly narrow once more.
Stark against the overgrown grass was a large mound of semi-new dirt, matted somewhat by rain and time, but still undoubtedly noticeable, especially thanks to the hand-made wooden cross that stuck out from the top of the mound.
Without a word he and Beth crossed over the worn dirt path and across the grass, their steps slowly as they approached the mound of dirt and its forlorn looking marker. That sensation of dread and eeriness rose within him again, making him feel as if cold, cautious fingers were curling around his stomach and squeezing; gently, but with a doubt noticeably.
Perhaps that was what sparked him to reach for Beth, or perhaps instead it was the memory of another grave marker; another day when they had stood side-by-side surrounded by graves and reached out for one another. Regardless of just what it was that fueled him, something did. Something caused him to reach out his hand so that the back of it bumped Beth's not once, but twice. His hand twisted faintly the second time, fingers lightly grazing the inside of her palm until Beth's hand turned silently to meet his.
It was only when her fingers curled around his own and he felt the warmth of her touch against his palm that he allowed himself to look down at the marker beneath them. It was far from the first such hand-made marker they had seen. He himself had made more than one, staking them into the ground behind the prison to mark the resting spots of their family. Like those, this one had more than just a plain wooden cross denoting its importance.
Hooked around the middle of the cross where the pieces of wood met where two dangling objects; a cross on a silver chain… and a white priest collar.
He heard Beth's sharp intake of breath in the same moment that he felt her fingers curl tighter around his own, and he knew she was remembering the same thing as him; a similar white collar abandoned in the grass beside a rotten, moldy section of charred human flesh perched on top of a campfire.
"You don't think-" Her words cut off, because she knew as well as him there was no point in finishing that question. They had no way of knowing if it was a coincidence or not. All they had was a string of objects that may or may not have been connected, that could- or could not- form a tenuous story.
Unfortunately that didn't stop that sensation was gripping a little bit tighter in his belly, even as a part of him realized with a rush of relief that nothing about this marker, the collar nor the cross, related in his mind to the family they were searching for. There were no other fresh graves that he could see, no sign that anyone else had been recently buried near this church besides, perhaps, a priest who had once belonged to it.
They stood there in silence for a few seconds longer, hands clasped together, their bodies close enough that Beth's arm pressed against his own. When they separated, it was in a smooth motion, both of them turning at practically the same time to face the church doors and the steps that lead up to them. Beth's head turned, tipping back to look up at him, her eyebrow raised in a silent 'well?' that was met by his slow nod just a second later.
The knock on this door sounded far louder than usual as the pounding of Beth's fist against the wood echoed through the church beyond. He tightened his grip on his crossbow, sighting down the length of it as Beth gripped both handles of the door, stepped back, and drew them quickly open.
When she stepped aside, nothing waited for them but a silence that was as eerie as the place itself. Hushed and almost expectant, it fell over them as if like a physical weight. Daryl almost thought he could feel it resting at the back of his neck, stirring the hairs there as he stepped into the vaulted church with Beth beside him.
Empty pews lines the rows on either side of them, and a small aisle stretched down in front of them. Above them, glass lamps hung down from the high white ceiling, dim and dusty with disuse. Without electricity, the place was lit by the light that filtered through the shuttered windows on either side. Still sighting down his bow, Daryl lead the way slowly down the aisle, feeling acutely conscious of the silence that somehow echoed in the place, as if a lack of sound could at all echo.
The aisle led down to a platform, situated beneath an arch in the wall with dark lettering written across it: He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has Eternal Life. As his eyes skimmed the words, Daryl felt the faintest hint of a crawling sensation go down his back; after what they'd found at the elementary school, there was just something about those words that resonated in the wrong way.
Instead he let his gaze drift down again. The little platform was backlit by the sunlight that streamed in through stained glass windows, framed on the right by an old organ, and on the left by an open doorway. The platform itself featured a pulpit covered in purple cloth, and beside it a small table altar with a large cross and two candlesticks. Behind it were two ornate looking chairs, what he thought might be tall lanterns or some other sort of religious paraphenalia, and another open doorway leading to the right.
Arranged around the entire platform, stark and incongruous against the holy panorama, Daryl's eyes picked out the shadowy shapes of cans, empty and lying in a long line in front of the ornate chairs. As far as he could see, it was perhaps the only sign that anyone had been here. There was nothing to be found within the pews besides prayer books tucked into the shelves in front of each seat. He saw no bodies, not even any signs of blood, let alone any other possessions or signs- in the church itself, at least- that anyone had recently taken up residence here.
Not that it meant anything, anyway. He and Beth rarely left much of a sign behind when they left a place, after all. Anyone else who had been here- if in fact people had been here, besides the unfortunate priest- might have cleaned up the same as they would have.
As Daryl stood in front of the platform with Beth beside him, his eyes scanned the gloom of the church, wondering why he couldn't seem to rid himself of that prickling sensation at the back of his neck, or the niggling feeling tugging low in his belly. His curious gaze skimmed across the stain glass windows at the back to the plain glass windows all around, and darted over the religious paintings hanging on the walls. Two signs, one to the left of the platform and one to the right by the organ pipes, featured matching lettering; what he thought might be a list of verses.
He figured Beth was probably more suited to understanding just what "ROM 6.4" and the other notations referred to, and frankly, he didn't really care much. He was too busy trying to scan every inch of the place and figure out just what it was that made him feel like he was missing something important.
In the end though, it was Beth who found the answer. Beth who stepped hesitantly up the small platform to look down at the table altar. Beth whose gaze drifted down from the decorative cross to the thick piece paper, folded in front of it, and Beth who called out to him, low and urgent, "Daryl. Come look at this!"
And it was Beth this time who reached out for his hand, lacing her fingers through his own as they stood side-by-side, peering down at the folded paper- a map, he realized after a second- and read the words scrawled across it in black marker:
You're always gonna be family.
Come to Washington.
The new world's gonna need you, Carol.
And so do we.
-Rick
I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! I debated just how much to put into the notes down here, because I didn't want to take away from the GASP moment of the cliffhanger ending, but since a lot of this just isn't ever going to get explained in the story, I want to write it out. (By "isn't going to get explained", I mean because at no point is anyone in the story itself going to say, well, because Daryl wasn't here, this happened instead of this, lol.) So here are some notes:
1) The concept of the two types of marks and where they lead comes from the marks in the show itself (there are two distinctive ones, just like in this fic) and a fan theory/explanation that can be found on youtube at /watch?v=oycLo7MjE44. Basically, they used different marks for different paths.
2) Butterfly Effects: Because Daryl wasn't with the group in Terminus, there was no crossbow sitting among the supplies for Carol to snatch up when she came to try and rescue them. Instead, she grabbed Michonne's recognizable katana instead. Armed with her blade and feeling more confident, it was Michonne who went with Rick, Gabriel, et. al, to the church food bank place, leaving Bob behind in her place to help watch over Carl and Judith. Since Bob wasn't at the food bank, he was never bitten, and when the group got back to the church he wasn't depressed and feeling the need to sit outside moping while on watch. Instead it was Father Gabriel, fixated on what he'd seen in the food bank with the walker-version of the woman he'd loved, who was outside of the church when the Termites found him. It was Gabriel who was kidnapped, Gabriel whose leg was cut off and eaten, and Gabriel who was returned as a warning. Gabriel died that evening, and was buried in front of his church. Simultaneously, without Daryl there to talk her down, Carol loaded up a nearby car with supplies and left the group behind, leaving only a note behind on the front steps of the church as a goodbye. With only Gabriel dead (not someone they felt a particular need to avenge), and Carol having left of her own accord (thus leaving no one for them to wait for or chase after), the entire family left the church for DC without staying to fight the Termites... but left behind a map and a note for Carol, just in case she changed her mind.
DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN. I've been looking forward to this chapter and reveal/twist of the plot for weeks tbh, so I hope everyone enjoyed it and is as excited as I am. Comments are always appreciated, but especially for this chapter and it's plot twisting! Thanks as always for reading.