If I offer up cookies, will it make my apology for this update taking so long go any better? Yes? Well here, have some internet cookies! Ahem, anyway, sorry for the delay. I've been under a lot of stress lately and it's making it harder for me to write. I will try my best not to take so long to update again, I really need to stay in the rhythm of updating.
WARNINGS: Mentions of past sexual assault (detailed by the characters).
Daryl might not have been able to stop Beth from riding on the back of his bike after they'd continued their journal away from the town they were now all referring to as Wolfville, but he had been insistent on her resting every time they stopped. The one comfort to Beth was that she wasn't the only one being similarly looked after; on their latest stop she'd spotted Maggie herding Glenn back into the RV like a mother with it's chick, or perhaps like one of the old cow herding dogs they'd had back at the farm, guiding a wayward injured cow back into place.
She was ensconced in the little bed in the back of the trailer, where Daryl would occasionally pop in to check on her in between taking care of camp or setting up watch for the evening. Tomorrow they would go scouting for their new home, and since she was intent on going with him, he'd insisted she get some rest.
Because she was so intent on going with them, Beth didn't protest, even though she wanted to. It wasn't like she was really injured, after all. At most she'd had a mild concussion, and the wound on her head wasn't even enough to need stitches. Not like Glenn who, although he'd thankfully proved not to have rabies, still had a horrible wound on his arm that needed frequent care.
But because she wanted to go, and because she saw the worry and concern in Daryl's eyes every time he came to check on her or fussed over her, or even let his gaze linger for a moment on the new little scar on her temple, she didn't protest.
Even though it was really boring just sitting here, resting on the worn comforter in the little back room, with nothing for company but an old ragged paperback and the occasional sounds of voices drifting through the small, propped-open window. Her bow really didn't need to be cleaned more than once or twice after all, and she could only peruse the local map they'd found so many times before even that became boring. So when she heard the click of the trailer door opening, Beth perked up immediately in interest that didn't fade even when she realized from the brim of the hat that it was Carl coming inside and not Daryl.
It was in random moments like this that Beth realized how much Carl had grown up in the time since she'd first seen him. That fragile little boy on the brink of death was now a lanky young teenager who possessed this odd mix of cocky confidence, dark humor, strength, and awkwardness. It was the awkwardness she saw now as he stood just inside the trailer, his shoulders hunched as he peered down the space at her from under the brim of his hat. "You busy, or something? Can I…"
"Come here, Carl. I'm not busy at all." She smiled warmly, trying to make him feel at ease by adding, "Honestly I'm bored out of my mind, you have no idea how happy I am to see you. Not that I wouldn't be happy to see you even if I wasn't bored out of my mind."
Some part of what she'd said must have resonated with the boy, because he looked far less awkward and was smiling shyly as he came down through the trailer and into the little bed area, perching at the edge of it when she patted the comforter beside her.
"Dunno why he keeps making you rest," Carl said after a moment, "You said you weren't really hurt, right? And you're strong…"
A smile tugged gently at Beth's lips, and a reassuring tone slipped into her voice as she replied, "I'm not really hurt, but Daryl's just being careful. He wants to make sure I'm 100% when we go out to scout tomorrow, you know?"
"Yeah." For a moment Carl fell into a silence that had Beth studying him, watching as he picked at the comforter on the little bed and furrowed his brow as if considering what to say, or perhaps how to say it. Curious as she was, Beth didn't pressure him. She could be just as patient with him as she was with anyone else, and her patience was rewarded a minute or so later when he finally ventured, "About tomorrow… I was wondering…"
She might have been patient, but she could tell he needed some prompting, so she softly responded, "Yeah?"
With a shrug of his shoulders and a quick glance at her and away again, Carl mumbled, "Was thinking maybe I could come with you guys tomorrow. On the scouting team."
It wasn't the most unexpected thing he could have asked, really. Beth's eyes didn't widen with surprise or anything, she just studied him for a moment, letting her gaze take him in from the weight of his shoulders to the way he didn't seem to want to look at her for too long. It was as if he were just anticipating that she might say no, or possibly anticipating that her next words would be something like 'have you asked your father?'. It might have been the first words on anyone else's lips, but by now Beth knew well enough that a question like that was probably the last thing he wanted to hear, or at least it was right above a quick 'no'.
So instead she asked simply, "Well first of all, how about you tell me why it is you wanna come with us?"
"It's just…" His brow furrowed again as he trailed off, but Beth just watched in silence, following the pattern of the sun with her eyes as it shown through the small trailer window to light on the worn fabric of his hat. When he reached out himself and tugged lightly on the brim, Beth glanced up at his eyes in time to hear him mumble, "It's gonna be our home, you know? I wanna be there… when we find it."
The quiet that fell between them after wasn't from judgement or confusion. Beth examined his face in the silence, and there was nothing but understanding in her voice when she eventually murmured, "It's been a long time since we've had a home, hasn't it? Not just time-wise… a lot of things have happened since the prison." When he nodded faintly in response, Beth went on gently, "Finding a home after all of that… would be really good. It could mean a chance to start over."
"Like you said," Carl remarked, his voice just faintly gruff in a way that reminded her of his father. These days it wasn't hard to look at Carl and see the man he might become, a man as strong and capable as his father was. "Back in Richmond, that day we voted… it's a chance to make something good, and..."
"...and finding the right place is the start of that. The start of something good, hopefully," Beth finished for him with a gentle understanding nod.
"Yeah. Yeah, it is." When Carl finally looked up at met her eyes, Beth met them readily. There was a look of understanding in her gaze, a faint and reassuring smile on her lips letting him know that she felt what he was trying to communicate.
"I know it's important to me," Beth said after a moment, "Finding a new place, making a new start. As much as I've healed since… the hospital… finding a place, a home, I think that's what I really need. What we all need, to really be able to not just heal but stay healed."
Carl nodded. "Me too." Again silence fell between them, but it was far from awkward. Beth sat up and shifted a little close to Carl, sensing that he might need the reassurance of her hand sliding gently up over his back. She didn't say the words out loud, didn't tell him he could let it out or talk to her if he needed to, but it was there in the quiet, in the rubbing of her hand in a circle over his back and the tilt of her head gently onto his shoulder.
"There were these men. Joe and the… Claimers. That's what Daryl calls them." As his low voice stuttered a bit, Beth stayed quiet beside him, still rubbing her hand up and down his back. She knew he was talking about, had heard some of it from Daryl in the time since they'd all been reunited, but this was Carl's story to tell. He didn't need any interruptions, just her quiet presence reassuring him to go on, "In the fight, the one where Dad and Daryl and Michonne killed them… before that… one of them got me." As he spoke his voice began to crack and break, and with each new admission, each new hoarse word she could feel his body shiver and tremble beneath her touch, "He grabbed me from behind, he... he pushed me down and pinned me to the ground. I could hear- I could hear him unbuckling his- his pants and- and I couldn't stop him and-"
She had promised herself she wouldn't interrupt him, but Carl was shuddering beside her, shaking through what she could only guess was the first and only time he'd ever spoken these words out loud; the first time he'd told his story since it had happened all that time ago. Weeks and weeks and he had been keeping it bottled up inside, and if anyone understood, it was Beth. It had taken her time to tell even Daryl, and she'd not told anyone else what had happened to her, except in the vaguest references.
To bear her own pain and anguish she could handle, but feeling Carl shiver like he was trying to stop himself from shaking apart was almost too much for Beth to take. She wrapped her arms around him and when he turned instinctively towards her she guided his head into the crook of her neck. His hat fell off in the process but neither of them noticed it falling to the wayside; all Beth could focus on right now was the trembling of his body as she brushed her hand over his back and stroked her fingers lightly through his hair.
"I c-couldn't stop him," Carl's broken voice was muffled against her shoulder as he shuddered in her arms. "I couldn't s-stop him, I couldn't do anything, I couldn't stop him."
"I know. I know, Carl, I know, and it's so scary, not having any control. It's so scary…" Beth knew that experiences like the ones they'd both had could not be quantified or qualified. Even with the memories of Gorman's hot breath and groping hands running through her mind she couldn't say I know exactly what you felt because I went through the same thing… because she hadn't. She had gone through something, and he had gone through something else, and both had been awful and horrible in ways both similar and not.
But she did understand, as much as anyone could. Holding him, Beth remembered that terror she had felt, the moments of panic, the seconds that had felt like hours in which she was desperate and afraid that she couldn't do anything to save herself.
There lay the difference, though. She had been able to save herself, to fight back and regain control. Carl hadn't, and Beth had a feeling that was plaguing him more than anything else. He needed to get that sense of control back somehow and now she understood why it was so important to him to be able to come with them tomorrow. He needed to be there, to be doing something, to be there in the moment where they found the place they were going to make their own.
For a few minutes she just held him, rubbing circles across his back and remembering a time when her own mother had done the same to her... remembering when his mother had done the same. She remembered Lori holding her close in the cab of the truck as they fled the destruction of her home, when Beth was broken and lost and her only safety was in the woman who had saved her life as she'd watched Patricia get torn apart. Like Lori had held her, Beth held Carl, stroking her fingers through his hair until his trembling slowed and began to ease.
Only then did she murmur softly, "I'll talk to your Dad, okay? I'll make sure you can come with us tomorrow. I want you to be right there with me when we find the place we're gonna make our home, okay? I know how important it is for both of us."
She felt the moment the words registered with him, how the tension eased from his body, brought out with the tide of an exhaled breath. He lingered in her arms a few moments longer and then pulled back, and though he sat up straight and reached quickly for his hat, she could see the vulnerability still lying beneath the surface of the strong facade he was doing his best to reassemble.
As Carl perched the sheriff's hat on his head, Beth pointed to her black bag, tucked on the floor next to the bed. "Can you hand me that?"
Grunting just faintly at the weight of it, Carl hefted the bag onto the bed, and despite the emotional moment they'd just shared Beth saw curiosity in his eyes as she reached inside. She and Daryl had their own bags each but most of the time they shared. Half of her stuff was in 'his' bag, half in her own, though really both bags were just theirs. In this case her bag held two books, but she was careful to only take out her own and set it on the bed between them.
As she pushed the bag aside and out of the way, she ran her hand over the book and gave Carl a soft smile. "This is something Daryl got for me. Since Richmond we've been working through it, reading it chapter by chapter."
"That's what I see you guys reading sometimes, at night?" Carl's apparent fascination at having figured out a mystery had Beth smiling, even if he was only half right. Sometimes it was this book but other times it was Daryl's, one he was far more private about reading though he always did so with her in his arms.
"Mhm. I know books probably aren't that exciting to you, and maybe it seems like a silly idea but a lot of stuff in here has really helped for me. I'm not asking you to read it, don't worry-" She reached out to tug on the brim of his hat, smiling when he gave her a faint smile of his own in response, "But if you want… maybe I could show you some of the things I learned from it, you know? And we could talk sometimes about what happened, and how you're feeling."
A furrow appeared in his brow again as he looked down at the book and then back up at her. "Is that what you and Daryl do? You… talk about it, and stuff?"
"We do. It helps. Maybe it sounds a bit scary, or even kinda cheesy, talking about your feelings and stuff but it really does help. It's helped me every day since I got out of that place."
"Beth, when you were in there…" Carl swallowed hard, ducking his head down and mumbling out the words, "Were you… I mean did they..."
He didn't finish, but she knew what the question was anyway. He wanted to know if what she'd gone through had been like what he had or if it had been worse even. She could tell by his embarrassed expression that he felt uncomfortable about asking it, and if it had been anyone else she might have refused to answer. But it was Carl. He'd just opened himself up to her and showed her the darkest fears he'd kept trapped inside.
Still, if it had only been a sense of obligation, of you-show-me-yours, she wouldn't have let her own secrets out. But it wasn't just that. It was that he was in a place where maybe he needed to feel that connection, to know that he wasn't alone, and she was in a place where she was okay with giving him that bridge to cross. Each step she had taken away from the hospital with Daryl at her side had made her stronger, and now she felt like she was strong enough to do for someone else what Daryl had done for her. To reach out and be that support, that understanding guide. Not to do everything for him, but to just help.
"No," she said softly, her fingers slipping beneath the bracelets on her wrist so the pads of them could trace across the old ridge of her scar. "But there was a man, and he'd decided that I was his. I wasn't the only one who he'd… claimed in that way. He followed me around, he harassed me and then one day he cornered me." As she spoke her voice edged into dullness and she could feel her chest faintly tightening, but this time she was in control. She drew in slow and even breaths and she remembered the warmth of Daryl's arms around her, his chest pressed to her back and anchoring her.
Added to that was the knowledge that Carl needed to hear this- needed to really hear this from her, honestly and with no attempts to dumb down the words. He was a child, yeah, by the standards of his age, but in the last few years he'd had to grown up fast just like she had. In times like these, she knew it was right to speak to him like the adult he was capable of being when he needed to. Drawing in a deep breath and feeling her own strength as well as the strength that Daryl gave her even when he wasn't there, Beth went on slowly, "He pinned me to the desk and he had his hands under my shirt, and he wanted to… to rape me. But I stopped him. I grabbed a jar of lollipops on the desk behind me, and I smashed them over his head and…" She bit her lip and looked down. "-and he died."
"You killed him?"
"No. Sort of." Beth shook her head, both in disagreement but also to clear away the memory; the scattershot colors of the lollipops spilling across the floor, the wideness of his eyes, the sound of his screams as Joan got her revenge even in death. "A walker got him." She said the words simply, although the entire thing was far from simple and she knew that. So after a moment Beth looked up at him and answered more truthfully, "One of the women he had raped-" There really was no use in mincing words, no use in sugar-coating something that had nothing to do with sweetness, "-she had killed herself right there in the office. She turned and I saw it, and so when I hit him he fell and she got him. So in a way, I think I did kill him."
He wasn't the only one she'd killed, but in some ways he was the one that haunted her the most. Even now sometimes, even with all the healing she'd done, his voice still lingered in her mind and in her dreams. Maybe it always would, or maybe time and care would make him fade into nothingness. Maybe in time Carl's memories would fade too, although Beth had a feeling that though they might both be able to recover and become strong, they would ever completely forget.
She and Carl sat together in silence for a few long moments before Carl's gaze dropped away from hers and he gave a gentle, simple nod.
"Maybe we could talk sometime. About the books, or about feelings or whatever. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad."
Beth just smiled and nodded in return. Maybe it wouldn't be bad. Maybe it would be what both of them needed; but if she could help just Carl, even a little, that would be enough for her.
A little while later Daryl found his way back to the trailer and her, as Beth had known he would. Somehow he seemed to know instantly that she was feeling somewhat vulnerable and upset. Maybe he had seen Carl leave, maybe he could simply see it in her eyes or etched across her face… maybe he just knew because he was Daryl and she was Beth and these days there was a shared language between them. It wasn't his language or her language anymore, it was theirs. Dixon and Greene.
However he figured it out wasn't really important though. What was important was Daryl climbing without hesitation into the bed with her, drawing her back against his chest and wrapping his arms around her to hold her close. What was important was the feeling of safety she had gotten the moment he stepped into the trailer, a sensation that only deepened as he grew closer, as he held her against his warm frame, as she turned onto her side to curl against his chest with his legs braced on either side of her body, solid and reassuring.
Her cheek pressed to his chest and she breathed in deep, surrounded immediately by the familiar scent of him that like everything else about Daryl, only seemed to anchor and ground her. He was her life raft in an endless churning sea, a steady buoy grounded to the ocean floor below, just as she was so often for him when he needed her to be.
Or maybe instead they- in their togetherness- were that buoy. Maybe together they were an island in the middle of that sea; small and buffeted by the waves but providing safety from both water and storm. If they were an island, than it was one she wished she could live on forever.
Beth didn't know how long they lay there quietly together but eventually she felt herself relaxing. Her vulnerability faded, like cracks in her shield that had been filled both by herself and by his belief in her. Slowly she tilted her head so that the tip of her nose just lightly grazed the underside of his jaw, and she hummed as she felt his hand fit itself perfectly to the curve of her hip.
"Carl told me what happened," she murmured into the safety of his neck, "That night, with Joe and his group. And I told him about… the hospital."
Daryl said nothing at first, just pressed his lips lightly against Beth's temple and held it there until she exhaled a deep breath, banishing the last bit of tightness from her muscles. Only then did he murmur in a low, gruff voice, "Must've took a lot, for both of you."
Between those simple words she read his pride in her and Carl both, his understanding of how tough it had truly been for both of them to detail their trauma. Daryl always meant far more than he said, and by now Beth truly did understand that. Not only did she understand his real meaning but she could feel it and appreciate it, too.
"He wants to come with us tomorrow," she murmured as she shifted up a bit, resting her cheek against his shoulder as her face nuzzled into the crook of his neck. "I think he should. He needs to be able to be in control, to be able to do something for once. Being there when we possibly find what's going to be our new home… that could be good for him, you know?"
For his part Daryl just nodded in agreement, but after a moment he ventured, "Rick, too. Should be there. He doesn't show it but… I reckon he's more worn down than he looks." She heard the concentration in Daryl's voice as he spoke, with that deep understanding of the people around him that even he still didn't realize he had. Daryl was observant in so many ways and it showed, even if few other people were observant enough towards him to see it. After a moment, he added, "I think everyone is worn down, but especially Rick and…"
Beth had been briefly caught up in her memory the other day in the middle of the wreckage they'd left behind in Wolfville; the sight of Rick clinging to Michonne and just holding her close as if he'd never been more grateful. Worn down, she thought, was the right word for it. But then Daryl's hesitancy pulled her thoughts away and when his voice trailed off she pulled back from his neck enough to glance up at him and meet his gaze with a question in her own.
"Worried about Carol still, s'all." He kept his words gruff and short, but with Beth he didn't need to say much. Not now, anyway. From conversations held late at night or out in the woods when it was just the two of them, she knew he was worried about Carol and her lack of belief in the potential for what was ahead of them; that he was afraid of her giving up, of getting lost to her own demons.
(She knew, though he didn't say as much in words, that he worried about Carol the same as he'd worried about Merle once. That he was afraid of what demons could do to the people he thought of as family, as siblings. That he was worried of waiting until it was too late, and losing someone else.)
"Maybe she should come, too," Beth suggested simply before pressing a soft and reassuring kiss to his cheek. "Maybe she should be there too, when we find our new home. Well, hopefully." A faint smile crossed her lips and she chuckled a little. "Be kinda silly if we built up tomorrow as this big thing with this whole scouting party and the potential to help everyone, and after all that we don't find anywhere good enough."
Though his chuckle rumbled through them both, after a moment Daryl shook his head. "Nah. We'll find somewhere."
"You think so?" She quirked an eyebrow at him, but the look in her eyes was all love and understanding, a kindred connection to this man that she felt deep in her heart, her soul, right down to the root of everything that she was.
"I do. Just feel it, s'all." For a moment their eyes met and Beth could see everything she was feeling mirrored in her gaze. And even though a second later he blinked and chuckled and wrapped his arms around her to tug her close again, she could still feel it, that rightness resonating within them both, right through their bones.
Tomorrow would be good. It just would be. They both knew it.
The next day when the scouting group assembled, she didn't just have Daryl at her side but Carl and Rick as well. Once he'd agreed to let Carl come and Michonne had volunteered too, it hadn't taken much of anyting to get Rick to agree to come with them. Along with the five of them they also had Tyreese, Sasha... and Carol.
Beth didn't know exactly what Daryl had said to Carol in the private conversation they'd held off near the edge of the woods, but whatever he'd said had been enough to at least get her to join the group, though perhaps not enough to erase the skepticism that lingered on her face. But she was there, and that was what mattered for now.
Before leaving the town that they'd nearly gotten trapped in by first wolves and then walkers, the group had swept every building. It had been Daryl who'd remarked that if they'd almost risked dying here, it might as well have been worth something.
One of the many supplies they'd found and gathered had been a pair of walkie-talkies. Rick had one clasped in his hand now and Maggie had the other, as Rick had put her in charge of watching over the rest of their group along with Rosita, and Tara.
"We'll check in every 20 minutes, alright?" Rick testing his walkie talkie one more time, and then slipped it back into his pocket. "We go an hour without checking in, you send someone to find us. We'll head southeast, keep Clayton behind us." They'd given the city a good berth, despite the potential for supplies it was also a risk they weren't willing to take right now, after the last town full of wolves and walkers both. "Follow the signs we saw for those vacation rentals and cabins and see if we can't find somewhere just right. If we have to stop for the night we will, but hopefully we'll find something before then."
It was early morning now, and the hope was they could find someplace before night fell; if not to make their new home, than at least to shelter for the night before they continued looking. The only reason they were splitting up at all was because it was just easier on foot to get places without the sound of the vehicles drawing all the walkers and wildlife around to them.
So it was on foot that they headed into the woods, making their way parallel to the small mountain road they had been driving on. The group was mostly quiet, though occasionally soft convos broke out as they headed purposefully in the direction Daryl was guiding them. He was intent on the task at hand as always, maybe even more so than normal…. but even he strayed from his focus occasionally; once Beth looked over and saw him slowing to point out tracks to Carl, who crouched down to examine them with the same avid interest Beth remembered showing herself when she'd first been learning.
Sensing movement beside her, Beth glanced over to see Rick coming up next to her, his own gaze on his son as well as he remarked, "It's good for him, learning this stuff."
"All of it is," Beth agreed with a soft smile. For a moment she just studied the two figures knelt off to the side; Carl's smaller frame right next to Daryl's, mimicking the way the older man crouched with his hands dangling between his knees. Both of their long dark hair fell into their eyes, though Carl's hat prevented him from copying the way Daryl ran his fingers through his to shake it back.
Everything Carl had told her last night had been in confidence, and Beth had no desire to break that. But she did think that some things were important for Rick to know, if only to better help Carl with what he needed. That was what had her peering up at him to say softly, "It is, you know. It's good for him, and it's important. He needs to be doing things like this; things that he's in control of, things that are important. He needs to have that…" She paused but only for a moment, the words of her own self-help book coming to mind as she finished, "-agency. He needs to feel like he has agency, you know?"
"I do." Rick looked into her eyes for a long moment as if to reassure her that he meant it. "I know how important that is. For all of us."
And for himself too, Beth knew, though he didn't say it out loud. She couldn't help remembering the way he had been back at the prison and how her Daddy had helped him find himself again, helped him come back from his loss by giving him things to do, something that he could control even if it was as simple as gardening. Maybe this could be that for him again. Maybe it could be that for all of them.
But Beth didn't say that aloud, at least not now. She just briefly reached up to squeeze his arm and give him a soft smile before her attention was caught by the sight of Daryl rising to his feet and glancing back at her.
Even as she moved to meet him and walked at his side, their arms brushing as they lead the group in the direction of the first potential set of cabins, Rick's words lingered in her mind. This place they were trying to find was important to all of them for so many reasons. Not just the idea of safety and security in a physical sense, but the safety that the future offered. The promise of a place that was theirs, but also a place where they could do things. Where they could build and grow and not just survive, but live.
It mattered, perhaps more than any of them realized, and that only put a heavier weight of importance on the need to find the right place.
Unfortunately, the right place wasn't so easy to find, though on one hand Beth couldn't help thinking that maybe that was a good thing. If the first set of cabins they'd come across had been perfect, Beth would have figured it was too good to be true. She didn't subscribe to the notion that everything that came easy was too good to be true, but it did have some merit.
But the first group of cabins they'd found had been clustered in the middle of the woods. They were sturdy looking, though there were only three of them, and a waterfall nearby into a small pond provided a water source. But as Daryl pointed out, the cabins were right in the center of the woods, with barely a clearing around them. If they couldn't get the benefit of height, they at least needed a clear line of sight around the cabins to watch for walkers even after they managed to get a possible wall up.
Not to mention three cabins wasn't really enough for their group as it was, let alone if (by some chance) they ever expanded.
The second set of signs they'd followed had lead up higher into the hills to a spaced out series of wooden cabins. Though they had the advantage of height, there was no natural water source nearby. Even beyond that the cabins were in horrible shape; the roofs had caved in on two of them, and water damaged had destroyed those and worked it's troubles on the others, too. They'd marked down the location on the map along with the first one, because despite the shambled state of the cabins they were a possible source of supplies, including lumber. But after that they'd moved on, conscious of the time ticking by and the afternoon sun beginning it's slow descent as they headed back towards the road and the next set of signs they'd spotted yesterday on their drive.
From the moment they spotted the first of these new signs, Beth felt a twinge of something inside that she tried for the moment to ignore. It wasn't a first hint of warning bells, no, those she knew by now to never ignore. It was something else entirely, something soft, something perhaps just as dangerous as warning bells in it's own way.
She tried to ignore it. But as they followed the small dirt road up into the hills with the sounds of water in the distance and birds chirping around them, it became harder and harder to deny the twinge of emotion she felt within her each time she saw the small hand-carved wooden sides reading 'Haven Cabins'.
Maybe it was the name; Haven. It seemed almost too pointed, too obvious, and yet she still felt that light sensation bubbling up within her as they moved quietly and carefully up the path that bordered what Daryl said was a pretty good-sized stream that headed in the opposite direction they were moving. According to Daryl, that meant there might be a source up ahead like a pond or a lake, and that only made that soft fluttering feeling inside of her grow a little bit more.
That feeling that only continued to bloom as they reached the part of the road that broke through a gap in the forest and wound through the clearing of grass that stretched ahead of them. As the group came to a stop to drink in the sight before them, Beth stood in silence as well and just… looked.
In front of them stretched a field of overgrown grass, it's lightly swaying green acquiring a tinge of gold in the late afternoon sunlight. The same sunlight sparkled on the surface of the lake in the distance, making the water glisten even more amid it's reflection of the blue sky above. But what really held their attention sat at the edge of the lake; a line of six wooden cabins built side-by-side. From a distance each appeared sturdy and whole, with no sagging roofs or visible holes. They saw no walkers trundling around the edge of the lake or any of the houses, no signs of broken windows or busted down doors.
There was only tranquility, and the gentle lapping of the lake water against the rocks at it's edge, the soft cry of a bird overhead and the rusting of the trees in the faint breeze… and the feeling welling up inside of Beth and perhaps in Daryl as well, she realized as she felt him reach out and curl his hand around hers.
It was a dangerous feeling and a promising feeling all at once. A feeling born from deep within, rooted in dreams, capable of sparking into something wonderful or burning up in a failed inferno. It fluttered in the breast like a bird's wings, aching to burst free and take flight, and even in a world as cruel as this one could be, Beth knew it's name as well as she knew her own.
Hope.
I hope you enjoyed this update and that it was possibly at all worth the wait. Reviews are love, thank you for continuing to read!