I'd like to apologize beforehand for this chapter. Please don't hate me. This is the way it needs to happen.
"Doodlebug doodlebug, go away home
Doodlebug doodlebug, go away home."
Beth's eyes were closed but she could feel her right hand engulfed in another's, and warm calloused fingertips were tapping out a soft rhythm with the nursery rhyme on the back of her hand.
Looking up at the ceiling, she recognized the cracks in the plaster. She was lying in the bed in the front room at the farm.
Her head turned to the right to see who was sitting beside her, but she already knew. It was her father.
"Hello, Bethy." He smiled warmly at her. "Welcome back."
"Have I been gone very long, Daddy?"
"Too long," Hershel squeezed her hand, "but time passes slow here. Still, I expected to be kept waitin' much longer."
"Daddy, are you talkin' in riddles?" Beth giggled at him.
"Maybe," He chuckled at his youngest, "but it wouldn't be anything you couldn't figure out. Your mother always said you were a sharp one. I know it'll come to you."
Beth ran her other hand over her grandmother's quilt, coming across a loose pink thread that she wound around her little finger while she puzzled over what her father had just said. "What will come to me?"
"The answer, sweetheart. The answer to every question. But especially the answer you need right now if you're going to make your way back to him."
She sucked in a painful breath at the thought of leaving Daryl, and though she made an effort to blink them back, a single tear ran down her cheek and onto the pillow.
Her voice broke when she looked at her father. "I tried, Daddy. I tried so hard, but it wasn't enough. And now I'm gonna die and he'll never know."
"Oh, my brave beautiful girl, don't you cry. There are some things in this world that are beyond all hope, but this is not one of them." He leaned forward and looked at her seriously. "Which brings us to the answer to that question."
"What is it? Tell me, Daddy."
His kind eyes travelled over her face, as though committing her features to memory. "Love."
"Love?" Beth tried to make sense of it, but couldn't.
"Love is often underestimated, Bethy, but it's a powerful thing. More powerful than a world of hate."
"That's nice, but I don't understand."
"You will, sweetheart." He got up out of his chair and looked out the window. "It's time for you to get up now."
"Okay." Beth peeled back the covers and stood next to him, following his gaze. She could see some movement outside, but the shapes were blurry.
Walking round the end of the bed, Beth turned and looked up at her father, torn, her chin starting to tremble with emotion. "I don't want to say goodbye again, Daddy."
Hershel pulled her against his chest in a warm hug, resting his chin on her blonde hair. He closed his eyes and tried to swallow around the sudden lump in his throat. "It's not goodbye, Bethy. It's 'til we meet again. You've got a long life to live, and someone by your side to live it with. I've seen it." He thought of something that made him chuckle. "You know, I can't wait."
She pulled back, still in his arms, and cocked her head at his smile. "For what?"
"To meet you children someday. They're going to be beautiful."
Beth blinked up at him and returned his smile shyly, glancing out the window again. The shapes had drawn closer, but she still couldn't make them out. Drawing in a deep breath, she hugged her father once more, saying, "I love you, Daddy."
"I love you, too, Bethy."
She pulled out of his arms and walked to the front door, pausing with her hand on the doorknob to look back at him and say, "Until we meet again?"
Hershel nodded at her with an affectionate smile. "Until we meet again."
Beth smiled back at him one last time and turned the knob, pulling back the door and stepping through.
Running straight toward the pickup truck facing the gate, Daryl noticed a woman standing with her arms folded, talking to someone else quietly. He yelled over to her, "Hey! You're that doctor, ain't you?"
She nodded, and he waved his hand at the truck. "You're comin' with me."
Denise raised her eyebrows at his order and motioned with her head at the gate. "I'm not going out there. Are you crazy?"
Daryl slid the strap of the automatic weapon off his shoulder, still hanging there from the start of his shift, and pointed it at the woman's head.
Several of the other residents gasped and took a step back in fear as he barked out the order again. "I said, get in the truck, lady. I ain't askin' again."
She cocked her head at him calmly and said, "I highly doubt that if you need a doctor you'd shoot the only one here." Daryl still held the gun on her, his eyes narrowing, but unable to argue with her reasoning, so she sighed and asked, "Your girl is out there?"
He nodded curtly and waited. She rolled her eyes and said sarcastically, "Well, since you asked so nice, let's go, then."
Daryl and the doctor headed for the pickup. While she got into the passenger side, Daryl yelled at Carlos to let them out, but the man shook his head vehemently.
"I'm not opening that gate, man."
Daryl raised his rifle again and pointed it at him. Carlos cringed back against the gate, holding his hands up in the air, but he still shook his head and cried out, "No. I'm not letting any of those things in here!"
"Gate's not gonna hold anyway, pal." Daryl pointed the end of his gun's barrel at the latch next to the man. "Open it and close it behind us, I don't give a shit, but I'm drivin' this truck outta here whether you're dead or alive. I'd choose 'alive', if I were you."
Rick jogged over, holding his hands up, trying to defuse the situation. He looked at Carlos, "Listen. One of our people is out there. You met her, right? Beth." Carlos nodded weakly, and Rick went on, "She's a good person. Just let them go get her and no one has to get hurt."
Carlos looked back and forth between the two men, gulping nervously, until finally he nodded with reluctance. Just as he turned to unlock the gate someone yelled out Daryl's name from above.
He looked up at the wall, one foot inside the truck, and saw Maggie staring down at him over the edge, crying out in a panicked voice, "You gotta hurry, Daryl! They're almost on her!"
Daryl got in the truck and slammed the door shut, turning the key and revving the engine as Carlos started pushing the gate open.
Beth sucked in a breath of air and lifted her head off the pavement groggily, blinking a couple times to clear her vision. Her mouth and throat felt unbearably dry, and she coughed weakly, pushing her hands against the rough asphalt to raise herself into a sitting position.
Blood was still streaming from her nose, and she watched two drops fall on the back of her hand as she raised her other one to her forehead. Her head was pounding, and she closed her eyes for a second, pressing the tips of two fingers between her brows to try and calm the throbbing there.
She needed to get up.
Beth tried straightening out the leg bent beneath her, but her knee protested after being twisted in such an odd position from when she fell. After a couple of tries, she managed to climb slowly to her feet, still favoring the one leg heavily, and looked ahead.
The remainder of the herd was much closer now, the first of them within a hundred feet of Beth.
There had to be four or five hundred left, and she watched them stumble over the remains of the others, clumsy in their efforts to get to their only visible prey. Her.
Beth could hear the whine of an engine in the distance, but she couldn't let herself be distracted. She raised her face up to the rising sun and closed her eyes, whispering, "Please be right, Daddy."
She let her thoughts drift to her family. Maggie and her unborn child, all the joy and laughter a new baby would bring. Glenn, the big brother she didn't realize she still needed. He was so good for her sister. Judith. Beth felt a smile spread on her face remembering how the little girl had giggled with excitement playing with those cheap red cups at the prison. She was the hope that they needed just to get through some days. Rick and Carl. They'd been a part of her life for so long that she sometimes forgot they weren't related. And Michonne, Sasha, Tyreese, Tara, even Eugene, they were her friends and she would give her life for any of them.
Daryl.
Beth felt her chest swell up and her heart began to pound a stronger rhythm just thinking of him. Her weight shifted without thinking to the leg she'd been favoring, and it flexed underneath her, suddenly free from pain.
The way he looked at her. The way he touched her. He was everything she never knew she wanted or needed. She yearned to build a life with him, become his wife. Raise a family with him. She could almost hear their children's laughter, see their faces.
Beth opened her eyes, overwhelmed by a rising sense of euphoria. She didn't feel drained at all anymore, but instead, brimming with the love she had for the people behind her. It was intoxicating.
So much so that she laughed out loud, tears of happiness falling down her cheeks, unable to hold all the joy inside.
The air around her was crackling with electricity, causing the loose hairs framing her face to rise up, yet there was no fear this time. She looked at the faces of the walkers drawing nearer, but instead of seeing the rotting flesh and exposed bone, she imagined them as their former selves, holding their own loved ones, eager to be at peace.
She would give them that.
The gate drew to the side and Daryl floored the truck, the rear wheels kicking back loose rocks on the pavement. Rick had jumped in the back just as the engine rolled over, and he hung on to the sides as they fishtailed slightly before straightening up.
Daryl could see Beth not even half a mile ahead. Her arms were out at her sides and the air around her shimmered and cracked with sparks.
The walkers were almost on top of her now, a stone's throw away, and he floored the engine just as a visible wave of energy erupted from her. It was a writhing mass of air that flowed over the ground's surface quickly, engulfing everything in its path of destruction, and only slowing after it passed deeper into the forest, felling dozens of trees in its wake before fading away to nothing more than a soft breeze.
His eyes darted back to where Beth stood, and as he watched, she started to turn toward the sound of the truck, but faltered and crumpled to the ground.
"Noooooooo!" Daryl screamed at the windshield, desperate for the truck to go faster but the pedal was already at the floor. He slammed his fists against the wheel that it was taking so long to get there.
Seconds later he screeched the truck to a halt several feet from her, yanking the lever into park and flying out of the cab. He was the first one at her side, yelling her name.
Beth's face was hidden by her hair, and he rolled her over on her back, brushing it out of the way and sucking in a panicked breath at her appearance. There was blood running from her nose and ears.
Denise ran around to her other side and immediately brought two fingers to Beth's jugular while Rick paced in the background. She shook her head after several seconds and said, "She's got no pulse. Help me get her in the truck bed. I'll start compressions on the way back to the clinic."
Daryl lifted Beth right away and went to the back of the truck where Rick already had the gate down. As he slid her body on for Denise to pull in further, Rick squeezed Daryl's shoulder and said, "I'll drive. You stay with her."
Daryl nodded and climbed in just as two cars from the safe zone flew by with people in them to take out the couple dozen walkers emerging from the trees that had lagged behind the main body of the herd.
The doctor was already planted by Beth's side, starting chest compressions. She had to widen her knees to keep her balance as Rick pulled a quick u turn and floored it.
She pressed down quickly on Beth's breastbone, elbows locked, and looked across at Daryl as the wind whipped her hair around her face. "You're going to breathe for her Daryl. Listen to me count to thirty, and then you tilt her chin back and blow two deep breaths in and then I start again. Can you do that? I'll show you how the first time."
Daryl nodded, wiping the tears away from his mouth hastily, and crawled up near Beth's head, waiting. Under her breath, Denise said, "28, 29, 30. Okay, just like this."
She pressed two fingers underneath her patient's chin and tipped her head back, opening the airway. "Now pinch her nostrils shut and form a seel over her mouth with yours. Exhale deeply twice."
Denise watched him follow her instructions exactly and nodded, returning to her compressions. She looked around, seeing that the truck was back inside the safe zone, and yelled up to Rick, "Do you know where the clinic is?"
He reached behind and slid open the window at the back of the cab, yelling to her, "No. Tell me where!"
"Turn left at the hall you were at this morning. It's the small white building around the back."
She looked down at Beth's head while she counted and muttered in between numbers, "I don't like that she's bleeding out of her ears, Daryl."
He barely heard a word she said. The only thing he could focus on now was the numbers Denise chanted, and doing his job breathing for Beth.
Maggie already had the door open to the clinic as Rick pulled up next to it, killing the engine.
Daryl opened the tailgate and jumped down, taking Beth in his arms and rushing her in, barking out impatiently, "Tell me where, doc!"
Denise pointed with her arm. "To the left! Set her on the table."
It was clearly a makeshift operating room, and Daryl turned sideways as he practically ran through the door, laying Beth out gently on the cold steel table. Denise was already lowering it so she could keep going with her CPR, and she started up again quickly.
Rick glanced across the room at Maggie. She was pacing back and forth anxiously, never taking her eyes off her little sister while she sniffed back her tears.
After Daryl did his next two breaths Denise held her fingers to Beth's neck again, searching for a pulse and shaking her head when she felt nothing.
She leaned over the table and started again, she and Daryl continuing on like that for some time.
Eventually Glenn came in the room and immediately went to Maggie's side, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. She was weeping openly now.
The doctor had just finished another set and she pulled back wearily, the exertion of so many compressions finally getting to her, and let Daryl give the two breaths while she glanced up at the clock. She held her fingers to the inside of her patient's wrist this time, closing her eyes and waiting.
When Denise opened them she looked across the table with a sigh and spoke gently, "I'm so sorry, Daryl." Her eyes dropped sadly to the body of the young woman before her. "She's gone."
Daryl gripped the edges of the table and looked down at Beth, his shoulders shaking as he gave in to his grief.