A/N: ALMOST didn't think I was gonna get this out today because of the holiday but I did it! This is a very action-focused update, but I got a few little Bethyl moments in. I hope you enjoyed it.
The night of the Butcher's planned attack fell on a full moon. If that was coincidence or planning, she'd never know. Either way, despite the lack of any lights or torches, the glow from the moon was enough to lightly illuminate most of the camp, at least for someone whose night vision had improved quite a bit over the last year or so. From her perch atop Maggie and Glenn's cabin, Beth could see essentially the whole of the camp, which looked a good deal different than it usually did.
For starters, the cars and trucks, which were usually parked along the side of the wall, had been arranged at various spots within the open area behind the houses to allow for coverage for some of the fighters. There was a car almost directly in front of her, and off to the right across from the space between cabins three and two was one of the two trucks. The other was off to the left, closer to the first guard-RV, and the SUV was off to the right, in front of the second RV.
She could dimly make out the shapes of people positioned around her. Michonne and Rick were behind the truck to her right, Tyrese and Sasha behind the truck to her left. Carol was in front of the RV she shared with Enid, who was reluctantly holed up inside, albeit with a weapon and Bear to help guard her. (They hadn't wanted to send him across the lake with Alberta, for fear he'd bark and give them away. Set the task to guard Enid, he would hopefully stay quiet… unless he needed to give warning.) Though she couldn't see them, she knew Eugene had been positioned at the end of the palisade wall by cabin one, where it met the lake, while Hank had taken that same spot on the opposite side near cabin five, her and Daryl's cabin.
If she looked down over the side of the roof she was positioned on, she would have seen Maggie and Glenn where they were standing beneath her, backs to the wall of their cabin. Tara and Rosita were in a similar position between cabins one and two, while Ivy and Noah had taken up a position behind cabin three.
Beth looked to her right, where she could just barely see Daryl's silhouette laying atop the roof of cabin three. Beyond him lay Carl, on top of cabin two, though she could only just see him from here when he moved slightly. All three of them were armed with their bows, prepared to act as snipers. Though she would have loved to be side-by-side with Daryl (her preferred way to fight), she understood the logic in spreading them out; in fact, it had been partially her idea to begin with.
Tearing her gaze away from Daryl, Beth shifted her focus back to the gate and the watchtower RVs on either side. According to Enid—who had unlocked the gate at their instruction—the Butchers usually came in the dead of night. It was a hard thing to judge without clocks or watches, but they'd been waiting for an hour or so now, which wasn't too bad. It was certainly cold, and the others had been moving around out of view to keep warm, but it had the benefit of giving them plenty of time to adjust their eyes to the darkness.
For her part, Beth was keeping her hands warm with some gloves, waiting for the first sign of their arrival to remove them. She didn't want her fingers to be too cold to use her bow. Thankfully, she ended up not having to wait much longer. In the distance she heard a faint whistling sound, one she was intimately familiar with by this point in time. An arrow flying through the air, followed by a soft 'thunk' as it hit the 'head' of the dummy guard they'd positioned on top of the guard tower. Made of shirts and pants stuffed with leaves and a ball for a head with a hat on it, it didn't look very convincing by day; neither did its companion on the opposite RV. But at night, in the dark, it looked like an almost perfect silhouette, which was all they really needed.
The dummy tipped over and hit the top of the RV with a thump, followed seconds later by the dummy guard on the opposite RV. Beth inched to the left as she took off her gloves, and whispered down to Maggie and Glenn, "They've taken out the guards."
Faint whispers to her left indicated Daryl was telling Noah and Ivy and presumably Carl was informing those near his cabin, though she couldn't hear that from here. The message was supposed to be whispered around to everyone nearby, after which they had instructions to remain quiet as long as possible. The goal was to lul the Butchers into a false sense of security, to coax them into Haven, tempting them with darkened cabins full of presumably-sleeping people.
Only they weren't sleeping, of course, and the cabins were all empty.
In the distance she could see the gates cracking open. Someone opened them just enough to slip between the gap, and then pushed them open from the inside to reveal a good-sized group of shadowy figures standing beyond. They remained somewhat spread out, a small group of them coming just inside the gate to look up at the RVs on either side, while several more ranged out behind them at a safe distance. Though she couldn't name their weapons from here, she could tell they were armed. Enid had told them that the group had guns, but usually went in with melee weapons to avoid waking whoever they were attacking for as long as possible.
It was a smart plan, for all that it was immoral and evil.
She thought about reaching for the pair of binoculars, but they wouldn't do much in the dark anyway. Briefly she thought of the movies she'd seen where people had things like night-vision goggles, and bit back a soft, longing sigh. She probably wouldn't have been able to have those even if it hadn't been the apocalypse or whatever.
In the distance, the figures seemed to have decided the guards were dead. They brought in everyone that she could see, at least, and split into two groups; one started to go left and one to the right. They'd expected the Butchers to split up, so this wasn't surprising. But it did mean things were about to get a lot more fast-paced and frantic, and soon.
Gloves to the side, Beth pulled her crossbow close and stared down it, lining up a shot. Her gaze tracked the group to the left as they moved quietly in front of the left RV and towards the truck parked near it, the one Michonne and Rick were hiding near. From here, the men still looked mostly like vague silhouettes, but she was pretty sure there were around four or five of them in each group, which tracked with Enid's estimations. She'd speculated there were around twelve of them in total, and that they'd leave one or two people back in Clayton to watch over the prisoners and their stash. Which meant they'd been expecting around ten or so men tonight.
The group of men moved past the truck that hid Michonne and Rick. One of them trailed slightly behind, and when he passed by the end of the truck, Beth saw a shifting shadow and the glint of a blade. Michonne. She came up behind the man, slipped a hand over his mouth, and slit his throat with the katana in one gruesome slash. But she made almost no noise doing it, and a second later Rick was there, helping her to pull the body out of sight behind the truck.
The other men appeared not to notice.
Beth leaned slightly over the edge of the roof again and signaled to Maggie and Glenn with her hand, pointing one finger up to signify one person and then jutting her thumb down to indicate he'd been taken out. She glanced back at the group; it was easier to count them now as they got a little closer, and with her free hand she held up four fingers at her sister and Glenn. One down, four left.
Shifting back into place, she stared down the sight of her crossbow at the men in the distance. They were getting closer now, and she probably could have hit one of them, but they would definitely hear the crossbow and they wanted to keep them in that sense of security for as long as possible. Then from the other side of the camp Beth heard a muffled cry and a thump; she turned and saw the distant shadows of the second group clustered around a spot behind the RV. A smile tugged briefly at the corners of her lips. They'd found one of their traps.
Specifically, that one was a pit dug into the ground. They'd originally started digging it to see if they could make a well, but it had come in handy for the attack today. They'd sharpened sticks into spikes stuck into the bottom, and covered the top with a tarp hidden under leaves and dirt. Enough to pass as the ground in the dark, at least, until you stepped on it and fell to the ground.
Her gaze darted back to the group of four on her side of Haven. They had stopped, heads craning back over their shoulders in the direction the distant cry had come from. "They must have traps," one of them muttered just loud enough to hear. "Be careful, go slowly."
Oh yes, Beth thought to herself with a hint of a vindictive smile, we have traps. And going slowly isn't going to help you at all.
She almost felt bad about it. Almost. The old version of her might have hesitated to shoot them, might have felt guilty or argued that killing was never right. And she still agreed with that on some level. Killing was wrong.
But sometimes it was still necessary. When a group of unhinged men decides to sneak into your camp in the middle of the night to murder everyone and take your supplies, well, that was the sort of situation where killing became almost unavoidable.
She waited until the group of four men got a little closer to the cabins, and then lined up a shot. One man was trailing just slightly behind, his head a perfectly visible target under the light of the moon. Beth took a second to get it just right, calculating the angle she needed against the speed at which he was moving and his expected progress. She inhaled deeply, exhaled, and in between heart beats, she took the shot.
The crossbow bolt whizzed across the camp and hit the man in the head with a loud thud. He fell over with a grunt. It was better than a scream, but between the sound of the arrow and the loud thump of his falling body, her shot hadn't gone unnoticed. "We're under fire!" The man who appeared to be leading the group called out sharply. To her right she could hear the sound of Carl and Daryl firing their bows as well, but her gaze remained fixed on her group of men.
The three remaining Butchers spun towards the fallen body, giving Maggie and Glenn time to creep up from behind them. Glenn was armed with a crowbar and Maggie with a machete. They both had guns, but like the Butchers, were trying not to use them for a myriad of reasons; partially to keep any walkers nearby from overhearing and coming to the camp, but also so that the other group of men were less likely to be drawn to any particular fight.
Beth watched down the scope of her bow as Glenn swung at one of the men, hitting him in the side of his head. He staggered but didn't go down; she had just enough time to think that he must have had a seriously thick skull before everything started to go sideways. Maggie had her machete raised to attack one of the other men, but he spun around early and caught sight of her before she could hit him. He ducked under her outstretched arm and grabbed for her, pinning her free hand behind her back as he reached for the hand that still clutched her the machete.
It took all her self control not to shout out her sister's name and give away her position. A frantic glance over at Daryl told her that he'd spotted the situation already, too, and turned to angle himself at their fight inside of the one to their right.
Beth lined up a shot, or tried to. The man holding Maggie kept moving as she struggled to fight him off. She didn't want to hit her sister, couldn't bear the thought. But perhaps Maggie hadn't forgotten in the panic of the fight that Beth was there. She dropped suddenly to a crouch, pulling the man forward against her back so that he was fully exposed. Beth took the shot. In the darkness, her aim wasn't exactly correct, but she still hit him. The bolt lodged into the man's arm and he screamed as he dropped his hold on Maggie and stumbled back. Beside her, she heard the sound of Daryl taking his own shot; the bolt whizzed by and hit directly into the man's back. This time, he fell, though she couldn't say if he was down for good or not without a head shot.
Glenn was still fighting the man he'd hit with the crowbar, struggling to get in another shot as the man swung at him with a knife whose sharp point glinted wickedly in the moonlight. And when she flicked her gaze to the right, to where Maggie was crouched on the ground, she saw the remaining third man lunged towards her with an ax of all things raised above his head.
Beth raised her crossbow again, desperation making her throat go dry. She could see Tyrese and Sasha in the distance, running to the group from where they had been hiding behind the truck, but they wouldn't get there fast enough. She tried in vain to get a good shot but it was so dark and the man was moving so quickly. She took the shot anyway, almost slamming her fist onto the roof when the bolt grazed his neck but did nothing to stop his forward momentum towards Maggie.
And then Glenn pushed away the man he was fighting, knocking him down with a swing of the crowbar at his knees. He didn't pause to see if it felled the man, just dodged him and turned, running to get in between his wife and the Butcher as the broad-shouldered man swung the ax down towards her sister's crouched body—
—And instead, sliced with a painful wet thunk into Glenn's outstretched arm.
"Glenn!" That was Maggie's voice crying out, as she struggled to her feet and reached for Glenn. The man pulled his ax free with a vicious laugh and raised it to swing again, only to stop suddenly, the ax in the air, his entire body shuddering as Sasha planted her own machete right into his back.
"How do you like that, you shithead?" Sasha pulled the blade free and Beth almost let a hysterical laugh slip free. But there was too much happening to stop now.
To her right, Rick and Michonne were engaged with the second group of men, four of them still standing, not counting the one she assumed had fallen into the pit. Carol was assisting them, fighting from outside the RV. Noah and Ivy crept towards them to join the fight, only to freeze at the sight of two more men creeping through the front gate with their weapons out. That made eleven. Perhaps Enid had been wrong about the count. They'd always known the numbers might be fuzzy.
Spotting Tara and Rosita coming up from behind the RV to help Michonne, Rick, and Carol, Noah and Ivy instead peeled off and raced towards the two men coming down the center of the camp.
And then to her right, by the edge of the lake near Cabin One, Beth heard a pained scream. Eugene? Carol stopped mid-fight and turned to look over her shoulder. With Tara and Rosita joining the fight against the four men—now three, one of them had fallen down with Carl's arrow in their shoulder and Rick's hatchet smashing into their head—Carol took off running in the direction of Eugene's post.
Beth turned back for a moment to the fight in front of her. Glenn was on the ground clutching his arm while Maggie hovered over him, half focused on him and half focused on using her machete to ward off any attacks. Tyrese and Sasha had a handle on the guy Glenn had hit in the knees with his crowbar, but suddenly the man with the bolt in his back struggled to his feet. Damn, he was about as stubborn as a walker when it came to going down.
But just as she lined up an angle to shoot his head, something else cut into her attention. Barking. Frantic barking.
"Bear," Beth exhaled under her breath. Bear was inside the third RV guarding Enid, but it was unguarded now, since Carol had darted away to help Eugene. The RV was too close to cabins one and two for her to get a good view of it from here, so Beth gave into impulse without further thought. She shimmied off the roof towards the front of the cabin, dangling from the edge for just a second before dropping to her feet. A second later she heard a thump to her right and spun sharply, only to see Daryl a few feet away, standing at the back of cabin three.
"Well c'mon girl, what are you waiting for?"
If it had been any other time, she might have smiled. Instead she just closed the gap between them and then they ran in unison towards the RV.
They followed the path along the lake shore until they reached cabin two. Beth could see a hint of moving shadows in the distance where Eugene had been guarding that edge of the palisade, but she didn't have time to figure out who it was. They cut through the gap between cabins two and one, and from here Beth could see that the RV door had been pulled open. A man hovered just outside, perhaps hesitant or taken aback by Bear, who stood at the top of the steps, teeth bared in a snarl as he bit and snapped at the air between him and the attacker.
"Enid," the man called out in a thick southern drawl. "Call your little pet off, Enid, I know you're in there. Maybe if I bring you back to Avery with both arms broken, you'll finally learn a lesson…"
She knew it was Walker even before Daryl muttered the name beside her, his voice seething with anger. She would let him have this one, without hesitation. The sound of Bear's barking covered their approach, allowing Daryl to get all the way up behind the man without him noticing. Beth hung back, covering them with her bow while Daryl grabbed the man from behind. One hand gripped the back of his shirt and the other the back of his head. He turned the man just slightly and slammed his head into the side of the RV once, twice, then a third time. When he pulled back and let go, Walker stumbled and swayed on his feet.
He half-turned, enough for Beth to see blood trickling down his face in the light of the moon. With a scowl, Walker reached for Daryl, hand fisting in Daryl's shirt to try and pull him close. But it seemed to be exactly what Daryl had wanted. He gripped the man's arm, one hand on his wrist and the other on his elbow and used the man's wobbliness to push him down towards the ground, into a crouch. All he needed was leverage.
As soon as the man was low enough, he raised his knee and slammed his booted fist down on the man's elbow joint with a hard stomp and a terrifying snapping crunch.
The man screamed, the sound guttural and rough with pain. Daryl reached for his collar, gripping his shirt and pulling him half-up as he growled into his face, "How do you like it, asshole? Huh? Still feeling like goin' around and breakin' the arms of innocent little girls?"
If Walker tried to answer, the words were lost in a wet whimper of sound. Blood spilled down his face and his lips; he must have bashed his mouth one of the times Daryl had slammed his head against the RV.
Before anyone could say anything else, a figure came into view in the doorway of the RV. Beth had just enough time to register that it was Enid, arm raised, something flashing in her hand… and then she slammed it down into Walker's back as she hissed, "That's for Avery, you fucker!"
This time Walker fell to the ground and Daryl let him, stepping forward as the man crumbled into a heap on the ground. Blood poured from the knife stuck in his back and dripped to the ground, but both Daryl and Beth were more focused on Enid. She stood there, empty hand still raised, body shaking. "Is he dead? Did I…."
Daryl crouched beside the man and put a finger to his neck. "Not yet. Gonna have t' get him in the head so he don't turn."
"I… I can't…" Enid glanced frantically from her hands to Walker and back again. "I don't think I can do it…"
From what she'd told them earlier, Beth knew this wasn't Enid's first time killing someone, but up close and personal like this, it never really got easier. She lowered her crossbow slightly as she moved towards the girl, skirting Walker's body. "It's alright, we'll handle it." Daryl was already standing up and aiming his bow at the man's head, and Beth kept her eyes on Enid as she heard the release of the bolt and the thunk it made as it hit the man's head. She didn't want to think too much about how it sounded different when it was a human versus a walker.
Bear stuck his head around Enid's side, and Beth could just faintly make out the shape of his tail wagging in the dim single night light that was lit inside the RV. "Good job keeping Enid safe, Bear." She looked up at Enid and gave her a tentative smile. "You did good too, Enid. You got him." Her voice was soft but firm; she was aware of Daryl moving behind her to guard them both, but had a feeling that Enid needed to hear what she was saying, "You stopped him. He won't hurt you, or Avery, or anyone else again."
She held Enid's gaze until the girl stopped shivering and gave her a soft nod in response. Only then did she ask, "Do you want to stay inside with Bear, or did you want to come with us?" She glanced over her shoulder at Daryl, and added, "I think we should go check on Carol and Eugene?"
"Carol?" Enid immediately stepped out of the RV, Bear at her heels. "If Carol needs help, I want to be there."
"Alright, take your knife," Beth murmured, gesturing towards Daryl, who had thankfully removed the knife from Walker's back and handed it to Enid.
As the girl readied herself, Beth took a moment to look around and study their surroundings. She could hear fighting in the distance; muffled shouts and the sounds of weapons. Some were further off in the distance where Maggie and Glenn were. She had a brief worried thought for Glenn and that axe hit he had taken to his arm, but there was nothing she could do about it right this second. Her gaze shifted closer, where Rick, Michonne, Tara, and Rosita fought their group of men; it was hard to see in the darkness, but she thought there was only one or two of them left standing. She heard a very distinct sort of groan from the pit trap nearby, and had a feeling that the man who had fallen into it had died and turned; thankfully there was no way it could get out of the pit, so that didn't have to be taken care of right this second.
Enid closed the door to the RV and they took off, Daryl leading the way, with Enid and Beth behind him, Bear loping in between them. She'd thought about putting him back in the RV, but his job had been to guard Enid; she didn't want someone going in there and finding him alone and hurting him. Besides, at this point, it didn't matter as much if he made any noise. The ran around the back of cabin one, and towards the left-most point of camp, where the palisade wall met the lake. The closer they got, the more defined the shadows around it became, until it was clear that there was at least one person down on the ground (maybe two?) with another person crouched down behind the closer shape.
The crouched figure's head turned as they approached, weapons up but lowering slightly the second they realized it was Carol. "It's Eugene," she said quickly, her voice a bit hoarse. "Someone came around the wall and stabbed him in the back. They were still grappling when I heard Eugene's cry and ran over here. The other one is down." Her gaze shifted to Daryl and she confirmed. "The Butcher won't get up again… but I'm worried about Eugene."
Bear whined as he sniffed Eugene, but he refrained from getting too close, thankfully. Instead he crossed the gap to sniff at the attacker; after a few moments he turned back towards Eugene, and Beth was relatively satisfied that the man's attacker wouldn't be a problem anymore. If he'd been alive, or conscious, Bear would have noticed.
Beth slipped her crossbow onto her back and hurried to crouch and Eugene's side. "Do you need help?" Carol asked worriedly.
"You cover us with Daryl. Enid can help me. Right, sweetie?" She looked up at Enid and saw a look of surprise flash across her face, followed by a brief hint of pride. Enid nodded eagerly and dropped to her knees beside Beth as Carol rose to join Daryl, turning their backs to the trio as they stood guard.
Eugene was lying on his stomach, which was good because it allowed Beth to get a look at the stab wound in his back without needing to roll him over. The blade was still there, sticking out of his sweater in a spot just a little below his left shoulder. "It's hard to see much without better light, but it looks like they missed his heart, anyway. That's good."
Enid leaned over to look, keeping her hands on her thighs. "Should we take the knife out?"
"No, not yet," Beth said quickly. "You should always wait to remove a blade or an arrow or something else like this if you can. Though it seems counterintuitive, once you pull that out, there's nothing plugging up the wound. The person could bleed out, if you're not prepared."
She checked Eugene; he seemed to be unconscious, but there wasn't too much blood around him, it seemed the knife and his position were stopping him from losing too much. "We need to get him to our cabin," she said, glancing over her shoulder at Daryl. "Can one of you get one of the stretchers? There should be one behind cabin three." They'd made a couple stretchers in case of an emergency like this during the attack, and stored them outside cabin three, since it was the central cabin.
"I'll go," Enid remarked, brushing off her knees as she rose to her feet.
"I'll guard her," Carol said quickly. "The fighting seems to be confined to the space in front of the cabins, we should be safe if we go quickly."
The two took off, leaving Beth on her knees with Eugene and Daryl standing above them, crossbow in hand and ready. Bear stood to her side, staring off into the distance, his ears perked and his nose tilted into the air to sniff. Daryl spared a second to glance down at her and ask gruffly, "Y' need me to do anythin'?"
"I'm gonna need your help to get him onto the stretcher, but nothing else right this second." She could hear the worry in her own voice and she suspected Daryl could too, because he took a second to reach down and gently squeeze her shoulder before turning his attention back to the cabins in the distance. She focused on Eugene, applying pressure on either side of the knife in his back to stem the slight bleeding. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, after all, the blood wasn't gushing or spurting which meant they probably hadn't hit an artery.
"He'll be alright," Daryl remarked in a low voice. "You'll figure out what to do when you get him back to the cabin."
"I don't know." Beth hated the worry in her voice, the hint of doubt, as much as she hated feeling it right now. "I know I'm all we have, but I'm not a doctor, Daryl. A stab wound could be bad…"
"You've handled gunshot wounds before. You've gotten a lot of experience in the last six months." He half-turned towards her, and in the moonlight she saw the belief in his eyes even as she heard the conviction in his voice when he added, "You'll know what to do. I bet you're already runnin' through them steps in your head, ain't you?"
Unexpectedly, Beth laughed, though she kept the sound as quiet as she could. "Wash your hands, be ready to apply pressure the moment you remove the weapon, hold until the bleeding stops, rinse the wound with sterile water… you might have a point." Her eyes crinkled with a smile as she looked up at him, then suddenly shifted at the sight of movement in the distance. She couldn't lift her hands, pressed to Eugene's wound as they were, but she did nod in the direction past Daryl, who turned immediately and sighted down his weapon.
It was Carol and Enid, running towards them; Enid was pulling the empty stretcher while Carol ran beside her for cover. For a moment Beth and Enid's eyes met and then suddenly, a shadow stumbled between them, blocking her view. She blinked; it wasn't a shadow but a man, wounded and limping, but pointing a gun directly at Enid nonetheless. It seemed they had either decided to stop caring about making too much noise with their guns, or the man was too injured to care.
Carol caught sight of him and began to raise the bat in her hand, but she was too slow, Beth could see that from here. Luckily, Daryl wasn't. He already had his bow raised and the shot sighted, and in just a second his bolt was darting across the space between them to slam into the head of the attacker. He collapsed to the ground in front of them, forcing Enid to go around him with the stretcher. Carol simply jumped over his body without a glance back.
"Well that was a bit close for comfort," Carol exhaled as she and Enid came to a stop in front of them. "Thanks for that."
"Any time," Daryl replied with a nod.
"Let's get him loaded on the stretcher," Beth remarked, her hands still pressed on either side of the wound. "Daryl, can you take his feet? And Enid, his head. I'll keep pressing here, then we just lift him in unison. Try not to jog him as best you can, we don't want the knife moving too much and causing any more damage."
It wasn't easy, but they managed to get Eugene lifted and loaded onto the stretcher, which was made from a series of thin, flexible saplings bound with rope in a zig-zag pattern. Because of the knife, they kept him face-down, and Beth made sure his face was positioned so that he could breathe still.
The stretcher was designed to be pulled by one person if needed, with the back end dragging on the ground, but Beth didn't want to risk anything with the knife still in Eugene's back.
She started to ask for Daryl to take the head end, only to be interrupted by Carol. "Let Enid and me try. Eugene isn't too heavy, we can manage. That way the two of you can both have your crossbows free, just in case."
Beth was unsure, but Carol and Enid managed to lift the stretcher with relative ease; Carol taking the head end and Enid the feet. Soon they were on the move, moving past the cabins at a speed as close to hurrying as they could manage without putting Eugene at risk. There were a lot of things that needed her attention. She had to make sure Eugene was alright, that the knife wasn't moving too much, that Carol and Enid still had a good grip. On top of that were the distant sounds of fighting and the shifting shadows all around them that she was supposed to be keeping an eye on.
They made it all the way past cabin three when their luck changed again. She had taken her gaze off the surroundings just long enough to check Eugene, when something broke away from the shadows. It slammed into her back, hands grabbing at her arms and waist, sending a part of her mind careening back to the memory of Gorman. (Be a good girl for me, Bethy.) But then there was a snarling beside her head and the clacking snap of hungry teeth, and she flashed back to the present. Not Gorman. A walker. Someone had died without a head shot and turned.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd fought a walker this fresh. These days they were usually long-turned, weak and slow. This one was none of those things. Its arms and hands were strong where it grappled around her waist, trying to hold her close so it could bite her with its snapping teeth. The guttural growls sent an icy panic shivering across her skin, aided by her instinctive reaction to the feeling of anyone, dead or alive, grabbing her like this.
But she wasn't going limp, she wasn't panicking, despite the shocked low cries of Enid and Carol. She could just see Daryl, his eyes dark as he struggled to get a shot lined up without hitting her. She would need to help him out. She moved instinctively, drawing up her knee and then kicking back at the walker's knee cap. It groaned and loosened its grip on her, and just as she started to pull away, she heard a growl from below.
Bear.
The dog lunged, grabbing the walker's other leg by the jeans and biting down hard. He whipped his head back and forth, pulling the walker as he did. The movement sent it completely off balance, and allowed Beth to rip herself free from its grip. She spun around and called, "Bear, come!" The dog gave one last frantic whip of his head and then pulled back with a snap of his teeth at the walker, which fell to its knees. A second later, Daryl's crossbow bolt flew past her to bury itself in the walker's eye with a loud wet thunk. The walker fell over, dead, and she exhaled in relief.
"Yet again, that was close," she muttered as Daryl came up behind her.
"You an' Bear had it," he said with a drawl, resting his hand briefly on her lower back to steady her. "I was just backup."
"I know, you always have my back," she murmured, turning her head to look over her shoulder and letting herself hold his gaze for one lingering, reassuring moment. Then she turned her focus back to the task at hand. "Alright, let's get Eugene to the cabin before we run into anything else."
Thankfully they made it to the cabin without any further interruptions. The sounds of fighting in the distance were still present but quieter now, and more spaced out, as if perhaps there was only one fight still going. She hoped it was going well for their side, and they weren't about to be attacked while she had Eugene on the table.
Literally, because there wasn't much anywhere else to put him.
When Beth rushed into the cabin ahead of the others, she hurried to clear off the low coffee table in front of their couch, and instructed Carol and Enid to just lower the stretcher onto it. It was the easiest and biggest working space they had, at least without trying to get the stretcher up their narrow stairs to the bed.
(This was why she wanted a separate room for a medical area, so they could have some cots or other beds easily accessible for things like this. But that was unfortunately a thought for another day.)
Once they got Eugene settled, Beth moved around the cabin, lighting candles and finding their solar-powered lamps and bringing them all as close to Eugene as possible. As she moved around the room, she saw that Daryl looked like he wanted to go outside to take up watch; at least, she could tell he was itching to by the way he kept looking from her to the door and back again. But despite knowing that, she realized she wanted him here. Needed him here; both to ground her, and because she knew he would trust her and do what she wanted without action.
His eyes held her for a moment and then, as if her need passed through the air between them, he said gruffly, "Carol?"
He glanced at the older woman and she nodded almost immediately. "I'll guard the door. Enid?"
"Actually, I could use Enid's help too," Beth remarked as she grabbed a book off her shelf, as well as the working bag she had created, filled with most of the medical tools she might need that they'd scrounged up from local medical centers. (People stole medicine and weapons, but most everything else was in abundance, if you were willing to risk walkers to work. Most people hadn't lived long enough to think about stealing supplies like stethoscopes or medical gloves, or things like forceps and irrigation kits. They'd even gotten lucky once and found a full tactical medical kit, inside the trunk of a car which, judging by the parking tag hanging from the driver's mirror, had been a local EMS.)
Enid looked surprised. "Me?"
But Beth just looked up at her with a slight smile. "Yes, you. You have steady hands and I know you're interested in this stuff, so you'll be my assistant."
As Beth dropped the last of the supplies she needed near Eugene, Carol gave them a brisk nod. "Alright. If I hear or see anything… well, I'll make sure you know."
As Carol went to stand on the front porch, Beth said to Enid, "C'mon, let's wash our hands quickly and get some water boiling." Beth filled a kettle of water and set it to boil on their stove (hopefully the smoke wouldn't be too noticeable in the middle of the night). They washed up as best they could and then Beth dried her hands and she and Enid slipped on pairs of medical gloves. It was nowhere near the kind of protection someone in Eugene's situation really needed, but it was the best she had. She didn't want him to get infected.
"What d'you need me to do," Daryl asked, crossbow still held low in one hand as he stood near Eugene, keeping an eye on the man.
"I'm going to pull the knife out very carefully, and then I need you to put these clean towels over the wound the moment I do. I need you and Enid to use them to apply pressure. We're going to see how bad the bleeding is, and if we can get it to slow enough to treat him. While you apply pressure, I'm going to get some blankets to keep him warm."
She glanced at Enid's questioning expression, and added, "For shock. A lot of people go into shock when they suffer something like this. It's important to keep them warm. I'd build up the fire if we weren't in the middle of this… situation… since we are, blankets will suffice."
Aware of the knife still sticking out of Eugene, who appeared stable for now as far as she could tell, but still unconscious and looking pale, Beth gave a nod. "Alright, let's do this."
She had Enid hold one of the solar lamps as close as possible, and gently wrapped her fingers around the handle of the knife. To be honest, she had stabbed a lot of walkers in the last couple years. Everytime involved pulling the blade from their flesh, usually their heads. But it was always fast and gross and usually she looked away and besides, these days most of the walkers they ran into were rotted corpses. It was a lot harder pulling a knife from a human being, and it didn't help that she was trying to do it as carefully and slowly as possible.
Somehow, she did it. She got the blade free. Immediately, Eugene's wound began to bleed, but in the brief moment she had to study it, she felt a sense of relief; it wasn't gushing, it wasn't a rush of blood. It still needed to be stopped, but it could have been worse.
"Alright, towels!" Daryl leaned down and pressed the folded clean towel to Eugene's wound. (She would have preferred to use gauze or something more medical, but they didn't have much gauze and she'd rather save it for when she had to actually dress a wound. These days, they had to make due.)
As Daryl applied pressure, Beth hurried to get some of their stash of blankets and draped them over Eugene's prone body, keeping clear of the wound and covering mostly his lower body, with a smaller blanket over what she could of his upper body. She stopped to crouch next to him, checking him over. "Still unconscious, but his heart rate is a little higher. That makes sense if he's losing a little blood now."
It would take fifteen minutes before they could check to see if the bleeding had slowed. Beth counted as best she could in her head, using the mental timer to remind Daryl and Enid to switch places holding pressure in even intervals. About ten minutes in, the single towel had begun to bleed through a little, so Beth had Daryl add a second one on top of it.
It was about twelve minutes in when she heard a commotion at the door. Beth reached for her bow on the chair as Daryl raised and sighted his crossbow almost instantly. Beside him, Enid flinched, but kept her hands holding pressure.
But when the door opened seconds later, it wasn't the Butchers that came through. It was Maggie, with Glenn stumbling beside her, his good arm slung over her shoulder. His other arm hung limp beside him and Beth was stunned to see how pale he was. "He's losing blood," Maggie gasped as she stumbled into the kitchen. "But it's done. Rick said it's done, they're all dead. At least that he can tell anyway. They're doing a big sweep of Haven, but he told me to bring Glenn here."
She didn't even have time to really register what Maggie had said, let alone celebrate. Eugene was still unconscious before her and Glenn was bleeding all over her kitchen floor. "Get him on the floor by the table. Elevate his arm and rest it on the chair so you can have access to the wound. Lean him against the chair in case he passes out. Elevate his feet with a pillow if you can, too.. Daryl, bring another of the clean towels, you and Maggie do the same thing again with Glenn's wound, apply pressure for fifteen minutes, we'll see if we can get the bleeding to slow."
For a second, she heard herself speaking but it sounded almost like her father's voice. Or maybe his voice was echoing just in her head, in her memories. She could remember him giving instructions like this when she was a kid, only it wasn't people he was helping, it was a pig or a dog, or some other animal.
Daddy, she thought to herself as she stared blankly at the towel on Eugene's back. I wish you were here to help me. I don't know what I'm doing.
She could see him in her mind's eye for just a moment, blue eyes warm and bright, cheeks a rosy red, a hint of a smile behind his thick bread. And she could hear his voice saying simply and encouragingly: Yes you do, Bethy. Go on and do it. You know you can.
The nickname didn't bother her, not when it was him. She opened her eyes, drew a deep breath, and sat up on her knees as she gave Enid a smile. "Alright. Let's check that wound."
It was another three hours before she finally got to sit down, collapsing back into the living room chair with a deep sigh. Dimly she heard Daryl walk around behind her, felt his hands rest on her shoulders to gently rub her sore, tired muscles. She looked down; her clothes were still stained with dried blood, but at least her hands were clean. She'd gone down to the lake to wash them, not wanting to waste water, and wanting to reassure herself that the camp really was clear. That it was theirs again.
Eugene was sleeping on the couch, because she'd wanted to keep an eye on him overnight. He'd regained consciousness, but not until after they'd stopped the bleeding, cleaned his wound with boiled and cooled water, and dressed it. (It was too deep for stitches, she didn't want to seal the bacteria in and risk infection so, per the book she'd thankfully had on hand, she'd simply applied some antibiotic ointment they thankfully had, and bandaged it. He'd need to wash it twice a day for the next couple days, and keep reapplying the bandage, and then they'd look at it and go from there.)
But he was alive, at least for now. And so was Glenn, though it had been scary for a little while there, when his bleeding took longer to slow until she'd remembered to apply a tourniquet. (She'd blamed herself for not thinking of that immediately and to her surprise it had been Maggie rather than Daryl who had overheard and told her it wasn't her fault, and that she was doing an amazing job. She'd felt at least a little better about herself after that.)
They'd gotten the bleeding to stop finally and Beth had cleansed out Glenn's wound as well and gotten a look at it. Whether because of the angle, or because Glenn had darted in front of Maggie to save her and thrown off the trajectory, it wasn't a deep wound. Beth was glad for that. She felt comfortable cleansing it one more time and then applying sutures with the surgical thread that was in her trauma kit. Then she'd rigged up a sling for Glenn with a scarf they had, and kept an eye on him, until he'd seemed more stable. A warm blanket and some water had helped. She wanted him to eat, but only when he felt able.
In the end she'd let Maggie take him next door, as long as she promised to keep an eye on him and call her if anything went wrong. They were halfway there (Glenn slung between more Maggie and Daryl for even support), when Rick, Michonne, and Sasha came by to get their (thankfully more minor) injuries treated as well.
At this point, the sun would be up before she saw anything resembling sleep or a bed. Though they'd slept late this morning and taken a nap around dinner-time (most of them, in preparation for an all-nighter), she felt run ragged by the fight and the medical battle after. Even now, it hadn't really dawned on her that they'd done it. They'd won, they'd fended off the attackers, they'd saved Haven for the first time.
She looked up at Daryl who stood behind her, hands gently rubbing his shoulders. Their eyes met, and she felt a wave of love for him warm her to her core, far stronger than the warmth of the fireplace. She reached out hand up to where his rested on her shoulder, and gave it a squeeze. "We did it," she murmured, her voice a hoarse whisper. "We saved Haven."
No sooner had she said it than the door burst open, slamming so loud against the wall that Beth and Daryl jumped and Eugene gasped in his sleep. She looked up, hand on her chest, to see Enid standing in the doorway, face white, hair wild, and eyes blazing with panic.
"She's in labor!" Enid gasped out the words.
"What, Maggie?" But that made no sense. Maggie wasn't even halfway there, she couldn't be in labor…
"No. Brigid. The one the Butcher's have hostage?" Enid bent over for a minute, hands on her knees, gasping as if she'd run all the way. And she probably had.
"Take a few breaths, girl. That's it." Daryl held out his palm, encouraging the girl to slow down. When she seemed to have caught her breath, he nodded and finished, "Now get it out, nice and simple."
Enid took one more deep breath, and finally managed to get out, "One of them had a radio on him. They must only have two; one here, one on someone back at camp. He was trying to radio and let them know that Brigid, back at their base… she went into labor. Beth—"
Enid stood up straight, hands clenching into fists at her side as she stated firmly, "We need to go rescue them. Brigid, and Avery. We need to go now."
A/N: Nope, I didn't kill anyone. I couldn't do it. I thought about killing Eugene but, ugh, I don't know. If you were hoping for people to die, hopefully Walker's satisfying death makes up for it. But I really like how this chapter turned out. It was a different sort of battle than those they've had before, ones where they were in control for once. I like that, and I liked getting to show off Beth's improved medical skills. (Also, I am not a doctor or a nurse so if some of this is wrong, I'm not surprised. I researched as best I could but it's tough to find answers besides "go to the hospital" haha.) Oh and uhhh... enjoy the cliffhanger! Thanks again for all you comments, see you hopefully next week!