She'd given Stokes strict instructions about the information she wanted from Alexandria. Names, places, dates. Important events and deaths. Births. But there was a list of names she was never supposed to speak on unless they were in pertinent danger. Dead or dying.
She didn't inform the warrant officer about the two different lists the names fell on. The first she made out of spite. They hadn't cared enough about her therefore she refused to care about them, as much as she could force herself not to.
Maggie Rhee
Glenn Rhee
Any children they may have
Still, she wept when Stokes brought her the news about Glenn. Carried herself away from the meeting with her head held high and stone on her face until she was alone in her apartments. She let out a cry of pain and fell to her knees, sobbing for the man who had been a brother to her, a second son to her father. Let the tears fall until there were none left before she pulled herself to her feet and wiped at her face, locked it all away into a deep crevice inside her chest. She didn't cry anymore, after all.
The second list was much more delicate, names that made her feel so. These were the parts of her old life that she couldn't force into a little box, shed and store away, not unless they were completely out of sight and out of mind. And even then, they were always sitting in the back of her mind.
Judith Grimes
Daryl Dixon
She didn't want to hear about them, about what she was missing. She was sure that if anything was to break her and have her give up on everything she'd built, everything she was trying to build, it would be these two. Stokes was the only one she trusted with this, the only person inside this regime who knew of their existence other than Rick.
Even after all the time that had passed she was sure that these were the only two people she would destroy the world to protect. Would burn everything to ashes if it meant they were safe. With the weight of the Republic and its army behind her, it almost made them the two most dangerous people on the planet.
NowShe must have said it louder than she intended, entirely possible her tone was off as her blood pounded in her ears. The Grimes family all stopped in their tracks and she stopped breathing, forgot how to for a moment. Everyone held still as they waited to see who would react first, and how. It would be comical if Beth's heart wasn't tearing itself to pieces inside.
The girl's mother must have seen something cross her face, resting a hand on her shoulder and pulling the child slightly back and away, as if the blonde would snatch her and run.
To be fair, if she thought she'd get away with it she might've tried.
The movement brought the Councilor back into the moment as she straightened and blinked moisture out of her eyes she hadn't realized had appeared. She attempted to put a mask back on her face but it was too late. They'd already seen. She decided to ignore the looks she was getting from everyone around her ranging from confusion to astonishment, and met eyes with the one person here who might understand her conflict. "You called?"
Rick had shut his face down much in the way she often did herself, making it impossible to read what he was thinking. He tore his eyes away from hers to look at Mercer and the other's who accompanied her to where the stood, his gaze briefly pausing on her assistant before moving back to her. He nodded, "Let's talk inside." An agreement made, she found herself shuffled into the building and into a room off the main where more people waited.
It was a small space to hold the amount of bodies inside, a few desks and chairs taking up the majority of the space with a whiteboard towards the far side of the room. The people standing in front of it turned at their entrance as they shuffled through the doorway, Mercer and his guards blocking the door and placing the three from the Civic Republic in between them and everyone else who moved to the front after entering. She waited and appraised everyone there, as this wasn't her rodeo; someone else could speak first.
She recognized the other woman in the room as Milton's assistant, and if she remembered correctly, Mercer's sister. The bald man she knew only from drawings, a piece of the past Stokes couldn't rid herself of. Father Gabriel looked at her with extreme caution, likely hearing stories about her or the CRM from the now-dead woman. His eyes darted around her group, likely looking for his former accomplice, only to come up empty. The remaining man she had to assume was the previously named King Ezekiel. It made sense to her now, looking at him. Something about the way he carried himself was poised and regal.
She met his eyes as he tried to read her, and she set about reforming her mask. She was vastly outnumbered here and it would do her no good to give away more than she allowed. Her focus was pulled away by the former Sergeant Major who was standing with his wife and daughter near the corner of the room. She completely ignored the young girl for everyone's ease. "I didn't expect for you to come here."
She blinked lazily and repeated herself. "You called." Unspoken was the subject of the call, which he assumed was the real reason she'd bothered to travel this far.
"Forgive me for being ignorant," the former king said, inserting himself into the conversation officially, "but who are you, and why did you call her Rick?" He paused for just a moment. "Is this about Daryl and Carol?" She fought against her flinch at his name, but she knew Mercer caught it as she saw his stance change out of the corner of her eye. She guessed he wasn't the only one.
She gave Rick the opportunity to answer and only spoke when he didn't. "My name is Beth Greene. I'm the Head of Council for the Civic Republic." Her focus shifted around the room as three responded to her.
"So it all worked out for you then?" The samurai.
"Greene? Maggie's sister?" The preacher.
"The Civic Republic?" The king.
She half-faked annoyance while she waited for a non-rhetorical question.
"They said you died."
The girl said it quietly as if she was unsure, but the voice behind it was strong. Beth steeled herself before looking in the giri's direction where she was half-hidden behind her parents. Both adults seemed to distrust the blonde around their child–must have seen something on her face during her breakdown outside. But the young girl seemed to have no such issue and looked at the older woman with nothing but curiosity.
Beth swallowed before simply saying, "I did." In hopes to rush away from that conversation before it could truly start, she quickly turned back to the girl's father. "Why am I here, Rick?"
He still looked at her cynically and she could not blame him. There were already a lot of reasons for him to distrust her, not including just showing up here unannounced. She supposed she could have called again, but dramatic gestures were her forte. The man in question must have realized that he would have to answer for his, apparently secret, distress call to her eventually and sighed before he responded. "We think Daryl got himself into some trouble and ended up in France." She could not help the surprise that fell across her face. "We need your help to get him back."
They were quiet as they waited for her to respond, and she tried to quickly process what he'd said. France? "How the fu–" she glanced at the child in the room before settling for just, "How?"
At this point Ezekiel decided to step back in. "When Rick and Michonne returned," he said motioning to them, "Carol attempted to contact Daryl where he last was: a boating community in Maine. She told him the news and he said he was on his way back, but he never returned." Her stomach dropped. "Carol left to look for him there, in Maine. She found out that the people who live there trade supplies for living Walkers. They put them on boats and send them across the sea, to France. And apparently, when someone disobeys their rules, they get carted to the boats as well."
She frowned, already thinking the worst. "And they said they sent him?" The former king nodded and something must have shown on her face as they all looked at her expectantly. No matter how she put this, this was going to be her fault. "After the coup," she said looking at the married couple in the room knowing they'd understand, "it came to light that Beale and Murray had been conducting their own tests with the virus, not just looking for the cure." Eyebrows went up at her admissions but she continued. "They traded with people for delts, sometimes traded for A's, in exchange for supplies. Their scientists were working with the variations of the virus. Why some act differently than others." She paused and breathed out. "We shut down the labs once we found out about them, but there was one," she stopped again. "Klubeck got away and she must have warned them. They'd picked up and gone by the time they arrived, but they left some things behind. Like notes written in French."
She let the words settle before waiting for the room to explode with questions again. Multiple people in the room started to speak before the king held up his hand to silence them. He looked at Rick and nodded to him, knowledgeable enough to know that the former sheriff and CRM would be able to ask things that were actually helpful and to the point. He fixed the Councilor with a glare, clearly not buying her didn't-know-about-it-until-after attitude. "Do you have any contacts in France?"
She shook her head. "I was never involved with international matters. I stuck mostly with teams exploring the country when I wasn't needed back in the city. Klubeck, Beale, and Councilor Hartman handled all that."
"You weren't afraid you'd run into us traveling around like that?" the wife interrupted her husband.
She fixed the woman with a glare before replying. "I already knew where you all were." The words seemed to click something into place for the other people in the room, so she continued before someone else decided to jump in. "The other two are dead and Klubeck's in the wind. I wouldn't know where to start with France," she admitted.
For the first time since stepping off the helicopter someone smiled at her. "How about with a boat?"