What can I say after last night? (S5 mid-season finale aptly named "Coda") Stay strong. xx
Daryl shifts and keeps his eyes peeled. Night's fallen and he's standing watch with the towheaded kid, the young one. Two keep watch instead of one any time two or more of them are out of the camp, like two are tonight, but Daryl wouldn't have slept anyways, won't for days, not till every fiber in him knows it'll be all right if he does. It'll take longer than that probably until he'll stand down off of night watch and allow himself to close his eyes while Beth too sleeps. Until then he'll sleep days, little spells while Beth's alert and on watch. Being taken in by this group of kids 's not broken up the unit he's built these months with her; he'll look out for and help anyone he can, but still, primarily, it's their twosome he's fighting for. And it's one another's back they'll each be watching while the other sleeps. Then again, there's an unease he feels about passing out and leaving her on her own to contend with these boys, should complications unfold and circumstances take an unsavory turn. Daryl grits his teeth— Better to sleep together? Or in staggered shifts? He hates these layers of doubt. But he trusts her toughness, and that she can handle herself, and knows that that, and that eventually they'll both need sleep, are the only two solid truths he's got to work with. That and that they need people. Still, he can't work out how things have to be now there are newcomers in the mix.
They've agreed to stay on, for now, that's where things landed, and from what he's seen and heard — despite the terror and fury brought on by the events of the morning — he doesn't anticipate trouble. The morning's commotion put him on edge for sure; so panicked was he he might have killed those two boys if things had played out even just slightly differently, but he's let it go. Moving forward, as ever they must, demands not dwelling on what's past. This is where they are now, and if he tries, he could maybe make this work. But there's always the knowledge they've been generous with trust before, and many times have come to regret it. Though, as he stands there keeping watch, thinking these thoughts, he knows if Beth could be party to this line of thinking she'd point out all the times the extending of their trust had paid off: Hershel letting the Atlanta group stay (though admittedly that wasn't exactly a case of trust); bringing Michonne in, bringing in Axel and Oscar, bringing in the survivors of Woodbury, bringing in the folks from the road. And in the end, even bringing in Merle. Each chance taken had proven worth it. If he and she'd had the chance during any of this — to step aside, to talk this out between just the two of them, Beth might have argued there were more people who had deserved their trust and made the group stronger than those like the Governor. There may even be some truth in it, but all the same that truth does nothing to negate or mitigate the unflinching truth of the road: People. Are. Lethal. Humankind can be vicious and calculating and merciless. One thing they've learned, too many times now: Danger begets danger. The times create the people who live in them.
But knowing all that, still Beth and Daryl have chosen to see if they might make a place for themselves here. In these woods, with these boys, they're taking a different kind of chance. And so Daryl stands guard as the darkness circles in around the camp, while Beth and the others eat and converse. He stands alert, on guard and at the ready, but no more on edge than he's used to — his immediate concerns quelled (at least for the time being), Daryl tries to settle himself into the mindset of being back with a group. He'll never relax though, not fully; it was a mistake to have ever allowed himself that luxury at the prison. Safety does not last. And in this moment of transition from two to group, he's staying sharp, keeping all his senses active, and feeling out the makeup of the camp.
The kid Simon he's on watch with stands on a rock, several paces from Daryl, slowly, methodically raising and lowering himself from the balls of his feet. He's wearing night-vision goggles, staring out into the wilderness, silent, and strangely almost serene.
Daryl glances over at him, and the low rumble of his gruff voice breaks the silence surrounding them, "How old are'ya?"
"Fifteen." Simon pushes the goggles onto his forehead. "I think. Just turned thirteen when all this happened."
Daryl grunts. "Thirteen." His eyes shut momentarily, then he tries to force himself out of that mind frame with a shake of his head. "I know a kid 'bout your age."
The boy Simon turns his head toward Daryl. "'Know' or 'knew'?"
Uncomfortable, Daryl shuffles his feet into the dirt. "Don't know."
The kid studies him unblinking. "You got separated?"
Worrying his bottom lip, Daryl stands there, his eyes resisting focusing on anything. "Mm-hm," he sort of mutters. He'd had to move past it, their losses; to some degree he and Beth Both had, but it didn't make talking about it, or dwelling on it any easier.
"You knew him before?"
Slowly Daryl shakes his head, "Naw." His eyes lift up to the appearing stars, and back his head tilts heavily, the thoughts and memories on his mind too weighty and big to be held upright. "...No. ... That's not—" He cuts himself off and instead just shakes his head roughly, "Don't miss nothin' from b'fore."
Simon looks at him, this forbidding looking man, gruff and silent, brawny and dangerous, claiming not to miss anything. Who is he? "Nothing?" he retorts. "Not your family? Or your friends?"
Daryl glances back where she sits further back around a low burning fire with the two other boys, and watches Beth. He does miss his friends, and he misses his family, but all that came to him — in some ways even Merle too — in this new world. When the change struck, Daryl, like everyone, lost everything, but the losses since then have been far more devastating. The spaces left open by the fallen prison and their people haunt him in the rare stillnesses he finds. Their absences creep in when his guard is down, eating at him. Mostly his thoughts and efforts stay trained on Beth and himself, putting everything they both have into staying alive one more day, each day they wake, but in times of quiet, when he can afford it, his mind drifts, without permission, unwittingly back to the farm, back to the prison, and to the fields where men he loved — Hershel, Dale, Merle, were cut down and destroyed. Those were the ends he knows— What about the others...?
Daryl clears his throat, and looks back to the kid, back to the woods. "You been here a year?"
Barely visible in the darkness the kid responds with a nod. "More than." This Simon's quiet, he doesn't say a lot.
It had just barely reached midday when Beth and Daryl had committed to staying on, but there'd been no sharing or story swapping to follow. Peter's cuts had had to be washed, and his body bound; there was food to find and kindling to gather, walkers to kill and camp adjustments to be made. Daryl sniffs in the chilled air, "You been together since the beginning?"
"Pretty much." Simon does not tell the story of his mother and younger brother's ends — how he'd lost them early on, right at the beginning, leaving him — still very much a child in many ways — alone in a world increasingly more savage and breaking every day further from the rule of law.
The silence that follows is packed with untold stories, Daryl recognizes it well. He clears his throat. "You knew all these guys in your old life?"
At that moment Simon drops the binoculars back down to the bridge of his nose and scans the woods. Daryl, in turn, follows suit, and though he's kept his senses trained on the surrounding borders of this little encamped jetty the entire time he's been feeling out this new companion of sorts, he now turns and actively scans the woods. He may not have night vision goggles, but Daryl's spent more than the last two-and-something years in the woods at night; he's been studying and listening to the sounds and shifts of the Georgian backwoods his entire life. And he sees nothing out there. Either this Simon kid is tuned in to the natural world in a way Daryl's never seen, or he's overly jumpy. Could be he's just cautious. Cautious is good, Daryl reasons. Cautious is smart. Still, there's nothing out there. Still, Simon watches, intently, and only after the passing of several silent beats does his body slacken some and he pushes the military-grade glasses back onto his shaggy bleach-blond forehead, then like nothing he returns from his absolute focus back to Daryl, and his companions, and their little spot in the wilderness, and to the stories that brought them to calling this place 'home'. Daryl waits. They've got time. "Ya knew 'em?" he prompts again, the natural gruffness in his voice possibly difficult to distinguish from brusque impatience.
"Yeh," the younger one murmurs in the shadows. "Most of 'em."
Simon does not tell the story of James rushing home from college at the start of all of this to look for his mother and for his younger sister and kid brother, and for the rest of their family. As it played out the only one left for James to find was his cousin John, younger by three years. John, or 'Jo-Jo', as the ones who have known him since childhood sometimes call him, lived next door to Peter — James' best friend and a junior in high school when the world stopped — and Simon tells how James found the two of them, John and Peter, holed up at Peter's with what remained of their families, fending off the creatures with baseball bats, golf clubs and tire irons. As it'd happened Jo-Jo's best friend Rob — one of the two they're waiting on to return to camp — had been with them at the point things took a dire turn and the doors and windows had to be shut tight and staying off the streets became more than prudence; within no time staying put suddenly was essential to survival. Rob couldn't make it to his family's home, he couldn't make it down the street. It had of course taken some time to learn what was needed to take the dead down definitively. It took longer not to be petrified.
So Rob was with Peter and John when James made his way back to town. When they were organized enough to attempt evacuating and to seek out more stable shelter the group made a stop at Rob's. It was a good thing. His father was still there, immobilized by the loss of his family and the disappearance of his eldest son; Rob's resurrection was enough to get him moving, to get him out, but one night, swarmed by a herd in the early days in a refugee camp, he'd been claimed, and Rob was left just one more survivor who'd out-survived the rest of his family.
Rob is where Simon entered the story. He'd lived across from his family his entire life; Simon had on some occasions played with John and Rob, and they'd all three gone to school together. It was Peter and James, hanging at his cousin's house, who'd urged Simon to climb out his bedroom window and join in on a late-night drive in Peter's "borrowed" family car the summer he'd turned twelve, back before there were much graver worries than being discovered by parents for driving unlawfully without permission and without license.
By the time they'd got a plan and supplies to get out of town, hardly anyone was left, few parents, few kid siblings, very little. Simon, with no one left but him in his own home, after watching his sole parent be devoured in protection of him and his siblings, had gotten out with James and Peter and the others.
In the midst of the panic and the carnage Peter had quickly taken charge and gotten them out of their overrun town, and in time, when refugee camps and emergency shelters started falling, either to the rotters or to looters, he and James got them out of the towns, off the roads, and away from the reaches of the living as they watched as humankind turn more and more savage. It was into the woods they escaped, where they could create their own fortress of sorts, and eek out a modest, small-scale self-sufficient survivors' enclave. Along the way, they lost people and gained them, but the group as it now stands, seven boys under twenty, together in the wilderness, have been together mostly from the start. The small one, Mike, they'd met at some point on the run and taken in, just as Peter had early on banded up with Tom — another in the group not presently in camp. Tom, Simon retells, originated from Missouri; his family's journey east to reunite with family in Georgia had met some complications. And though none were claimed by walkers, in the end, none but he were left standing. Peter's timely intercession likely saved his life.
Daryl listens to the outline of their history, intermittently he nods. Most of the boys have a link to one another from before the fall — a family tie or a bond of friendship, or neighborly connections. (He thinks he sees some good in that.) And now they are a family, lost boys who found themselves in a world of chaos and carved out a world of their own among the trees, among the wilderness, and away from the real dangers of this new world — men.
Daryl doesn't press for details. These are already stories he knows. Stories he's lived, and seen, and tried to forget. The world is full of them; they don't all need to be told. But Daryl's not through asking questions. "How's it you've never been overrun?"
"By the dead?" Daryl nods. "We have. Big packs of 'em — hundreds — 've moved through these woods twice. We get outta their way; circle back when it's clear. But," he indicates, gesturing with the machete he holds, "we're not really in their path. They move between city centers, we're nowhere near that. They move through highways where there's more clearance for them, we're nowhere near that. We're not a big group; we don't draw attention to ourselves."
"'s a mistake," Daryl grunts, "if you think that makes you safe."
Simon looks at him, with earnestness, and a slight smile in recognition of the fruitlessness of it all. Sooner or later the beast that's out there hunting the world will take them all; he knows they're just biding time. "We've got dead-proof borders, for the most part. We keep watch, we've got these," he glances upwards to his forehead and his night-vision goggles. "We got distracters out there. We've got escape routes and exit strategies. We travel light. Few times we've had to leave we've been back the next day. Two tops."
"What about people?" Daryl's voice comes off darker than the night around them.
Simon doesn't respond at first. But his voice is airier than Daryl would have expected after such a pause. He was expecting a story — one similar to his and Beth's, such things seem largely unavoidable these days. Even with the numbers and the power they had at the prison... He had been expecting a story, or at least the absence of one — a dark and heavy silence bearing witness to the stories left untold, but Simon's eventual reply is not so easy to decipher. "We don't see a lot of them. It's been a while."
In the darkness sounds the light lilt of Beth's soft giggle. Daryl sees her face lit, by more than the campfire; she is pretty. She looks happy. Daryl turns back to the dark woods, back to the watch, stealing a glance in his counterpart's direction, "How long?"
"Months. More. Sometimes it feels like we're the only ones left. Like there's no anything anymore; just us. And the wilderness..."
"It's not," Daryl grunts. "There's a lot still out there besides a bunch o' kids playin' campout."
"Of course," Simon nods.
"More 'n the dead," Daryl adds.
"Yeah..." Silence settles between them, and each listens to the sounds of the night. Behind them is the soft chatter of the other boys, and Beth. "You've said that b'fore, tonight," Simon breaks the quiet with some reflection.
Daryl's head turns stiffly toward him, "Said whut?"
"'Kids,'" Simon says. "'Kids,' 'playing,' 'camping.' Seems like you don't take us very seriously."
Daryl kicks the ball of his foot into the damp ground, "Knew 'nough to claim this place," he offers.
"That was Peter," Simon says flatly.
"Good eye," Daryl acknowledges.
"We're not still alive by dumb luck."
"M'bye not," the older one allows, "but luck's got us all in its sights. Gonna run out one day; can't control ev'rythin'. No matter whut skill you got." Daryl swings his arm, "No tellin' who could be through here tomorrow. Or what they'd be after."
Simon studies him. He's used to adults — or, he was, when there were still adults around to be 'used to' — trying to make things better, trying to fix things, or at least try to make you feel better. But this man is doing anything but trying to make him feel better, but maybe that is the best way to take care of someone these days. Though, in Simon's book, he and his friends are doing all right. They don't need to be made to feel better, they don't need to be looked after by a grumbling, suspicious, middle-aged, battle-worn stranger; they're doing all right, with no losses for months.
"Whut'chya do if someone comes in, try'n t' take this place? Lay claim on whut's yours?"
"Is that what you're trying?"
Daryl looks at him, his eyes empty. Softly, sadly, his head shakes. "Naw." Daryl misses the weight of his Stryker hanging down his back, or heavy in his arms. He misses so many things. "But someone will. Some day. Whut'llya do?"
Simon looks at him again. It's been a long time since he's had to make out someone's nature, interpret their purposes and decipher their character. "If it comes down to us or them, I think we'd leave."
"Just like that? Leave everything you've got?" Daryl questions.
"'s just stuff. We haven't got much. We're pretty Thoreau that way. Better to lose and walk away; lose it anyway if you're dead."
Daryl thinks on this. He knows it's not what Rick would say, nor Carol, or even Glenn. "'s what Beth'd say."