In the morning they move on. Following the river, following the plan, keeping an eye out for all they may encounter. In the afternoon, after outrunning a pack of walkers after killing what they could, they walk more. Onwards, letting the journey be the destination until something more solid takes shape.
Beth's in the lead, favoring scaling stones and muddy embankments over the smoother grassy path just several steps off. She's bored, and the scrambling, while exacting extra exertion, is giving her something to do, something slightly less mindless than one level footstep after another. Besides which, they two no longer are obliged to choose their paths by terrain; they are barefoot no more. Each shod step marks a small victory in their ledger.
"How did you know?" she asks him, breaking the comfortable silence that had settled upon them.
"Know whut?"
"That we hadn't seen this river before. You said we were west of this before; how did you know?"
"Beth," Daryl admonishes.
She glances back over her shoulder, "What?"
"You been payin' attention at'all?" She doesn't like being reprimanded by him, nor does she enjoy being a source of disappointment to him. "Gotta keep your eyes open."
"I am," she defends.
"Yeh? F'r whut?"
"For walkers. For tracks. For supplies. For food. For danger."
"In that order?" he prods, preferring 'danger' be foremost of what she's looking out for. "Girl, you gotta be looking for a lot more 'an that."
"What else is there?" she asks over her shoulder as she just barely keeps her balance skidding down a crumbling slope.
Daryl shakes his head, "Jesus." Beth has picked up a lot during their time on the road. She's a decent tracker — if the tracks are fresh, and not too small; she can skin and cook their game, she can kill a walker fast and efficient, she can make tough calls and quick, she can build fires, she can set up camp, she can move quickly and without noise, and loads more, but he's worried he hasn't taught her enough. And she needs to know everything. If they get separated, if something happens to him, Beth needs to know. He looks at her directly, "You know what direction we're headin'?"
Beth stops and looks up at the sky, she looks at the shadows, and she looks back at where they've come from. Daryl waits, impatiently, looking on as her face screws up in thought. She should know this faster. "South-west."
"An' how do you know?" his follow-up is quick.
"The shadows. Sunrise — east; sunset — west."
His volley of questions keeps coming. "What time is it?" Beth looks up again— "No," he stops her. "Stop looking."
Beth thinks. "After noon. Maybe, three. About?"
"And what's different about this creek than the one we were on b'fore?"
Beth studies it. It doesn't look identical, but neither does it look notably different. The terrain has changed some, but that's true also as they have followed this same creek these many days; she thinks... Daryl cuts her off; she's taking too long.
"Is the creek bed muddy or rocky? Are there weeds in the water? What color is the soil? What kind of trees are these? Where is the moss growing?" He interrupts his steady barrage of questions to edify her on an important point— "Moss always grows to the north. Remember that. If it's not too close to the ground, and if it's not on or under a constant source of moisture, then moss grows on the north side." He looks at her, "You gettin' me, Girl? Observant — that's what you've gotta be. There's a lot you gotta be payin' attention to: Where the sun is. Where the wind's comin' from. How many turns you make, and which direction. What kinda path or road you're on. What sounds you're hearin', and what sounds you're not but you should." He looks at her. "Beth, you hearing me?" She nods. "This is important."
"I know." She nods again. "I get it."
"You can't forget these things."
"All right."
She said 'all right', she said she got it, but he doesn't let up. "You gotta know where you are, in relation to where you been." His emphatic implication being, she knows, that a person has to know where the danger is. She doesn't trouble with pointing out the fallacy in that. Nobody knows where the danger is, because honestly, it's everywhere, and it changes from moment to moment. But what would be the point in saying it? Daryl likes to feel he's got a handle on everything, as she also likes to feel he does, and they're just starting to recover from their last serious brush with danger, still all too real — felt in the emptiness of their stomachs and in their paucity of real weapons. There's no reason to bring it up. So she nods dutifully, gives him a smile, and lets it pass. Everything he's saying is in love after all; he's not angry, he's trying to keep her safe, trying to prepare her, trying to keep his girl alive and keep them together.
Beth walks on, hitching the tattered pack she's carrying higher on her back as she does. Less than a quarter-mile on she breaks the silence again. "If you could have anything, right now, what would it be?"
"Huh?"
"We're walking along this path hoping to come across abandoned campsites, hoping to find things we need — what do you hope most to find?"
"I don't want to play this game."
"It's not a game, Daryl, it's a question. Conversation. We can't be silent always. So," she looks back at him with a half-goading Beth smile, "what would it be?"
Daryl strides several paces more before answering. "A tank."
Beth laughs, though he hadn't said it to amuse. "No you wouldn't," she says easily.
"Yeh? Why not?"
"'Cuz," Beth smiles, though her back's to him, "you're not like that." It's so plain to her.
"Like whut?"
"Outdoors, Daryl. You need to be outside, not, shut up in some steel war machine. What would you do with a tank? That's not who you are. That's not how you survive. You couldn't get food with a tank," she points out. "Couldn't be secret or stealth."
"Wouldn't get messed with."
"I don't know," she considers. "Seems like a person with a tank is a person other people'd have their sights on."
"Whudd'ya want me to say?" he grunts. "I want my bow."
"I know." Beth walks. She shouldn't have brought it up. His answer should have been obvious. Beth can't even think of what she wants. She wants so many things, and has so little, the thought of asking for just one thing is daunting. What one thing could make a difference? What one thing could make a practical dent in all that they lack? She wants a feather bed, but it won't save their lives, and it couldn't travel with them. She'd like a car, or Daryl's old motorcycle, but that wouldn't get them fed. She'd like food, but that wouldn't make them safe, and they could never carry enough on their backs to keep them fed. She'd like shelter, but shelter's something you have till you lose it again; no matter that it seems so, she's coming to fear it is never really safe, and walls don't equate to food. She wants their family, but they're not just going to run into Rick and the others camped out waiting for them on the bank of this creek. Though how she wishes they would. She wants people, a community, numbers, but trust does not come easily. Maybe Daryl was right last night: wishing is getting harder. But Beth does not let that stop her, and in the end, she too wishes for Daryl's crossbow. They can make the rest happen on their own.
Except for family. That is too big a thing for a wish. Finding the others will require more than passive wishing. Even with prayer, and active, living hope, it sometimes to her seems impossible. (But those thoughts she keeps to herself.)
"Hold up," he grunts, "gotta take a piss." And Beth stops and waits, looking into the sky, shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun while Daryl leans one hand against the trunk of a tree and relieves himself.
Beth wipes her brow with her sleeve, and occupies herself trying to see if she can spot any fish beneath the ripples where the creek runs fast and deep over rocks. Still looking, absently Beth touches her head where her hair once was; not finding it gives her pause, and just for a second her fingers stretch further to be sure. But it is all gone, she's just not yet adjusted to it not being there.
Daryl winces, having caught all this in his periphery vision. "Prob'ly a liability," he mutters, turning back to her, "as it turns out." She looks at him, for some indication of his meaning, not realizing he'd been watching her, and Daryl flicks at the back of his head where a long blonde ponytail would've been if he were her. "Yer hair. Maybe nothin' but a target." Daryl bites at his thumbnail absently as he considers the world as it stands. "Seems like nothing good comes of being a pretty girl in this world. Maggie. The girls Randal's group come across. Whoever was being held in those storage garages. It isn't safe. Not out here on the road for sure. "The world's different."
Beth looks at him in open earnestness, "Different how?"
Daryl studies her, then smirks, answering like truer words have never been spoken: "World used'ta fall all over itself for a pretty girl." He nods at her, "You were in high school; don't pretend you don't know."
"I think it's pretty silly you're talking about high school. And," she adds as they start up their walking again, "you don't know exactly what you're about." Daryl's eyebrows cock at her and she expounds. "Daryl, I don't mean to be callous, but, it's not like the world's ever been especially safe for women. 1 in 4 girls 're victims of assault in college."
Never having heard anything like that, and especially now that his view of college girls has changed somewhat dramatically since knowing the Greene sisters, Daryl's face wrenches in response. "Naw." His head shakes imperceptibly. "Can't be true."
"Could be more," she says walking on, "not ev'rything gets reported." She isn't being glib.
"Jesus." He paces angrily. "Whut'ch y'all payin' all that money for?" But there's no use getting enraged about it now, that world's gone, and he shakes his head and lets his indignation fade. His eyes drop solemnly; Daryl can't explain it, because Beth's in no more danger now than she was a second earlier, but he wants to reach out and pull her to him, to feel her against his chest with his lips buried in what's left of her hair. But he doesn't move. He lets her be.
"Anyway," she says, "you're the target between us, Daryl Dixon. You're strong, you act fast, and you're not afraid. You're a threat to every group we meet. You're the target, Daryl, not me."
Daryl hates this conversation. He hates this world. He hates that Beth is so pragmatic and naïve at the same time about something that's keeping him up nights. With only two of them, what chance is there for long-term survival? He doesn't trust anyone but her, no one but her and their absent family, but they need numbers. But if he can't trust others it's less dangerous to stay on their own. Daryl trusts who stands with them; right now that's only Beth. Anyone opposite them is opposition, a threat till neutralized, and a problem to be solved. No one can make it on their own, but maybe he and Beth can make it as a pair. Maybe they can make it till they find a group, someone worth their trust. What haunts him is another standoff, one they won't be able to walk away from. He'll die to protect her, but the catch there is his death will do anything but protect her. How does it not end with him leaving her alone, vulnerable and exposed?
What he wishes for is a private world of they two, where they are safe, where it can always be like it was between them last night: Passionately entwined, wrapped up in the heat of one another, quiet, and at peace, the other's partner, the other's guide, happy, and fulfilled. Nothing used to scare him, he could battle the world without much weighing him down, but loving Beth has given him something he can lose — something enduring, but so defenseless against outside forces.
Daryl looks at her: strong, lean, fair, resilient, walking on, mile after mile, keeping a steady pace, her pretty blue eyes, in that pitilessly close-shorn head, fixed with hope on the bleak unknown before them, telling herself she's not a target, telling herself a crossbow or a wish will make the difference for them. Daryl wants her prepared, but he wants her Beth. He doesn't want to break her down in anticipation that someone else will. He chooses not to contradict her.
He looks away, and sniffs, to break the heaviness of the words that have been spoken. "Guess we better get ourselves off the road," he says, trying for a lighter air. "The both of us."
Beth looks at him plainly. "I'm going where you're going." Her slight smile sparkles in the aftermath, and it strikes him so, something in him almost tears up, but Daryl shrugs it off and grabs at the strap on her shoulder and lovingly pushes her ahead of him as they pick up their pace.
Somewhere above them a cardinal calls, answered by another. The tree branches rustle in the wind.
Behind her as he walks Daryl stops and stoops to pick up something he's spotted caught between the rocks. He carries it with him some paces, and as he catches up with her, he holds her still with a quick grab to her wrist, and takes the feather, delicate and blue, tucking it gently behind her ear.
His creased eyes squint at her. Beth's long girlish hair is gone, but she is unchanged. Then he bites his lip and strides on. Somehow the incident with the bandits had put them at odds, but they're finding their way back, step by step.
Beth smiles, her dimples deepening, then walks on, following where Daryl leads.
Okay, this may be it for a while, I just wanted to throw in this little chapter before I took the break, though really the last chapter was a pretty satisfying stopping point. The next segment of chapters are still unformed and are the chapters involving that idea I was looking for some feedback on (no one got back to me, so, if it falls flat it's on you :-) j/k)
If I post again you need to scold me because that means my procrastination has persisted and I'm not taking care of work & school :-/