Hello! BIG 'Thank You's to all the consistent readers, those of you who have stuck with this story over this very long break, and especially enormous 'THANK YOUs' to the reviewers! It really helps to continue the writing to hear from readers on what works / stands out (even in the times when I know I'm disappointing reader's wishes, i.e. not letting D&B track down the gang that robbed them)!
Please note: I went back and revised/expanded the last chapter maybe by a third. The basic story is the same, but hopefully I did a better job at addressing Beth's choice to help these guys.
Okay, here's the next mini installment. (I met Emily Kinney Tuesday night (10/14/14) at her show, and it prompted me to try to get back into this story.)
"We wouldn't just take someone." The silence of their steady footsteps breaks with these words.
They've been walking for near half an hour now, carrying the one, following where the other leads, their progress impeded by the load being born and the quick pace they'd been keeping. It is a tenuous trust established between them — one half of one party had been taken against their will, one half of the other had been mercilessly beaten.
"'Someone'?" Daryl grunts bitterly. He's still on edge, not wholly convinced these two strangers should be trusted, or that he and Beth should be helping them, following where this Michael leads. "Young pretty girl on 'er own ain't any 'someone'." Ahead Beth walks on, never faltering in her pace, despite the exchange and implications being made behind her. She knows what Daryl fears. She's cognizant of the dangers he keeps referencing are out there lying in wait for her, but all she can do is live with it. And be smart. Beth can't cower every time the savage aggression of men rears its head. She would not be Hershel Greene's daughter if she did. Beth walks on, keeping several paces ahead, making, when directed to, slight adjustments to the course she's blindly treading.
With large intent eyes, not unlike Beth's, Michael looks at Daryl over the drooping bloodied head of his friend, "That's not us." His delivery is unquestionably earnest.
Daryl grimaces, but he keeps walking. He can't know what this is, who these two are, where they are heading, or what, or whom they will find when they arrive; but whoever these two are, it's for certain circumstances could be much worse right now if they had been someone else. Beth could be dead. Or gone. He doesn't know if they should be helping these strangers, if they should be walking towards their camp as they now are instead of clearing out and hightailing it in the opposite direction. Are they walking into an ambush? Would they have been pursued if they had ran?
Nursing his suspicion, Daryl listens as in pieces as they walk the kid — the one who's able to speak, tells some of his story. He recounts briefly the story every still-living person has in universal variance: The initial escape — the move from home and the familiar to a life in purgatory as a refugee of the road. He touches on broad strokes, but never paints the picture. The gist is he no longer has a family. And he's been in these woods a long time. This 'Michael' does not feel especially dangerous, and seems to be telling the truth — all the regular tells point to it — and Beth has this longing to believe.
But there are liars who have themselves so convinced, the lies they tell are their truths. And Daryl is wary of falling in.
It may turn out these guys are harmless. Could be they may even be assets. Tyreese, Sasha, Michonne, they had all been strangers at one point. Even Beth, and Maggie, and Hershel. Even Rick. Is he really never going to trust no one again? No one but Beth? Is he going to keep it just her and him always? They need numbers. Numbers help. No one can make it on their own. Daryl knows having numbers again, might, at some point, be worth the risk. But is it now? Is it with these would-be kidnappers?
Daryl eyes these guys. He replays the story he was told: So much about this new world is act-first-talk-later, but if he had come across someone in the woods, seemingly alone, presumably scared, would he have grabbed them up without a word? Spirited them away like these two had tried with Beth?
No. Not with someone older than a child. Not in the absence of immediate threat from walkers. He wouldn't. But these two did. Should that be telling him something?
Uncertainty hounds his steps. Has survival by suspicion and living so long on edge made him unable to recognize good intentions when confronted? Or is her unextinguished desire to find community pushing him to trust when he should not?
Daryl doesn't over think it; he gets out of his head and keeps his eyes and ears open, and his senses honed. Andrea trusted the Governor, and it got her killed. She took a risk making choices trusting things could all work out; it couldn't have turned out worse. He'd trusted the Governor had disappeared. He'd believed he'd finally get more time with Merle. He'd believed they'd make the prison work, that they could have some kind of life there, that the kids 'd be okay and they would stay together as a group, he and Rick and Glenn and all the others. None of them had wanted to believe the Governor was as dangerous as he was; that day at the fences, Daryl'd told Carl Rick had it handled. And then the sword struck Hershel's neck, hacking into him, like no living man deserved, least of all Hershel Greene.
Daryl clears his throat. He can't think too long on Hershel. Neither can he on Merle, nor on the group, or on any whom they've lost. Thinking on things gone by sets him on edge, his fists clench, his jaw strains.
He tries at the calculations: Is saving these two lives, which certainly he and Beth had, enough to counter-balance the fact he'd beaten one of them to nothing, if indeed they do have more people waiting for them? Who's coming out on top in this equation? The arithmetic of survival is tenebrous; there are too many x-factors. Survival — and more than that, trust — is incalculable, and unquantifiable. What is calculable is the death count. Bodies can be counted, but not losses, they're bigger, and more immeasurable. He wants to get away from this, grab Beth and get the hell out. He'll risk the possibility they'd be turning their backs on their first break since the prison's fall, because if they can't be sure, if suspicion is clouding his instinct, it's best to play it safe, and keep it just the two of them. But in his head he hears Beth's voice telling him there are still good people, and Hershel saying they have to give people a chance, and Glenn telling him to take a risk. He walks on.
As they cover ground the one called Michael tells brief pieces of his story, but what little he relays through labored breaths is none too illuminating, and with every pace the question hovers over them, haunting their progress: Who are these guys?
Twice more in their journey they encounter walkers, but only a few, and the kid Michael proves resourceful in dispatching one despite still being unarmed. It's unclear whether this should count in his favor or against him — is he capable, or just that lethal? Bits of stories of quick escapes and past lives do not earn him Daryl's trust. All he knows to trust is Beth. Daryl keeps his eyes on the treeline, on the path Beth is forging and the trail they're leaving behind them. He'll never forgive himself if this is a trap.
As the sun inches towards midday they follow the stream to where it deepens, its now fast-flowing waters cutting further into the ground without getting all that much wider. Under the cover of the tall whistling trees their path takes them to a sort of plateau, half level with and bordered by the water, and half broken down into a crumbling difficult-to-scale ledge, making a natural bastion.
By the looks of it, the plateau had at one point been an island skirted on either side by breakaways from the same creek, but in time the point in the stream where the water diverged became clogged with drifting debris and the scratched-together structures of river animals. In a dry season, likely many years before, that creek bed dried out and slowly, with rainfall and erosion, dropped away, rendering the 'island' a kind of shelf, lined by deep, fast running water on one side, and sort-of cliffs, maybe nine feet at their tallest, on the other. The spot is well-situated, nestled among tight-grown pines banking the river just before it drops, and below, at the base of the shelf, water pools where the river cuts back, bending round in a deep hole before running west on lower ground, spreading back into a thinner trickle.
The plateaued rampart is small, stretching length-wise maybe no further back than thirty feet, across maybe fifteen at its widest; it would take a keen, resourceful eye to recognize it as the refuge it is. Though it'd be easy enough to pass it by, not see in it its potential, likely it's the safest, if not only, harborage in these open woods. Contingent, as ever, on the people who lay claim to it.
Daryl stops and takes the spot in, impressed by its situation and the forethought of these people for seeing the location for what it is. Looking further he sees its boundaries have been further fortified with a trench dug at the bottom of the steep slope; this place is worth defending. Immediately his eyes scan for trouble.
His gaze narrows; Daryl's head shifts imperceptibly toward Michael, but he keeps his eyes trained on the fortress of sorts. He hitches their burden better against his weight, "You find this place?"
But the kid leading them isn't thinking about the story or the positioning of his camp, his mind appears singularly on his broken friend. Daryl shoulders more of the weight of the fading Peter and follows the kid Michael up to the river's edge; Beth, now in close follow behind them, is sharply aware of their surroundings, staying alert and remaining cautious. Though she was willing to believe his story, and chose to help deliver these two back to their camp, she is reserving her judgment, withholding her trust, until she better knows who and what they're dealing with. Trust is never earned if not given a chance, but it's worth nothing if it's given away freely. To trust is an act of hopeful faith, and that is in short supply; it cannot be squandered.
From the stillness there's an immediate and sharp whistle from Michael, then he calls out, "Bridge! Now!"
While I would love nothing more than to blow off work and school and midterms to work more on this and my other stories, my updates will most likely still be gapped (I have a tendency to slip into a vortex of fanfic writing, and I'm trying to fight that as best I can! Thanks for continuing to read, I love hearing from you!)