They returned to the woods with more than a dozen uprooted plants hung from and tied to the carts and packs; provided they all survive the transplanting they won't be any start to a farm, won't sufficiently supply the camp, but they'll add some nutrients, provide some variance and lessen the demand for scavenging and straying far from camp. Their bodies and carts are weighted down, but getting out of town without more than a skirmish with a small pack of walkers and a couple roamers, and never a sign of the living, lightens the load some as they make their way back.
Retracing their path, pushing the stroller and grocery cart over the uneven ground, trying the keep the pace tight while they're still rested, they talk, about showers and warm water, actual mattresses and the feel of clean clothes. They talk about the luxuries of the houses they moved through – upholstered armchairs, carpeted floors, soaps and barbecues, second stories and third stories, doors to lock, windows to bolt and barricade, books, and games, and instruments, and toilets, and walls. They talk about all the ways 'luxury' has been redefined, but they do not linger on the losses. This run feels like a win, the risk paid off, and they know enough to keep it in that light.
The trek back is slower though than their journey out; under their burden they stop several times more for rest than they had the day before, but still they make good time, anxious to return to camp, to be home, to rejoin the other six. Conversation drifts to camp repairs, and future projects, recipes to try and invent with the increase of ingredients, but their cargo winds them, and a low profile is always safest, and their voices quiet as their bodies move forward with the power of muscle memory and perseverance.
Tom though, the further they travel, can't let silence settle too long; the longer they're out their, making their way back, the more he's set on edge. With the biggest risk of their run behind them, other thoughts come in. He keeps up the idle conversation to distance himself from the uncertainty of the others' fates – Rob, John, Pete, all of them. Not liking to run the numbers on the odds that all three groups come out untouched, he rambles. "Ya'll," he starts, saying nothing more until he feels both Daryl and Beth have awarded him their interest and attention, "I'm not gonna lie: I'm lookin' forward to that mac n' cheese." He grabs a small branch down and snaps it. "Might've tasted like cardboard b'fore, but I'll take mac n' cheese any way I c'n get it now." His delivery's passively enthusiastic, but he's just passing time, breaking up the monotony through which anxiety creeps, trying to elicit a laugh or a smirk, a distraction to keep the pace up and the tension off. "An' stale cream cookies? I'm all about it; gonna dip 'em right into m' macaroni. Go full-on Walter Cunningham Jr. on it."
Daryl readjusts his grip on the crossbow where it lays across his cart, keeps his eyes pealed, and keeps moving. He isn't in a mood, but Tom's buoyant humor mostly misses its mark with him. Beth though, scoffs appreciatively after the fact.
"To Kill a Mockingbird," she says with a nod. "I get it."
The books of the past, the world of school and art and literature and history, it isn't all gone, it lingers in their collective memories along with the existence of cell phones and jet planes and working gas pumps and grocery stores and hospitals. Traces of these things work themselves in, sometimes in the strangest ways. The old life is over, but it isn't all gone — boxed food, ninth grade reading assignments, they're not wholly forgotten.
They walk on, taking time to drink, to rest and to eat. Beth is flushed and her brow and neck glisten with sweat, and at one point it takes near a quarter of an hour of rest and shade before she's able to rise and continue, but she never falters under the weight of her pack, and they keep going. When a huddle of walkers scramble after them her knife makes quick work of one of them and she moves on to another until Tom swoops in with the bat and takes the creature out for her. When there's but two left for Daryl and Tom to take down she steps away from the carnage, quickly; the foul rotten stench they've grown to live with assaulting her with new fetid severity. Beth gags, but she does not get sick. She walks on, letting the breeze find her face as she breathes in, and adjusts herself to the realities these heightened senses mean for her now. She thinks of Lori… She tries to recall how long these early symptoms last... Beth drinks, and makes for home. Eventually night falls, and their progress lags as they more with caution to insure they stay on course, not missing their mark.
In the darkness, it's not the island Tom leads them to; they're a half-mile off, upstream, when he makes the call, a low whistle making the sound of a whippoorwill. There's a moment of silence, then the call is answered, and then Rob's jumping down from his perch, tackling Tom with back slaps and laughter. His appearance from virtual darkness is followed by John and Simon both dropping from their triangulated positions in the trees from where they'd watched, and waited. Their's was the first group returned, all three boys present and accounted for.
Seeing them, knowing she Daryl and Tom are not the only ones to return, pent-up knotted tension dissipates as the fear she never realized she'd been carrying allays. Beth breathes in relief; with every step they'd trudged through the falling shadows of the woods she'd dreaded coming back to find an empty camp, to huts that that would never again be filled. Having to wait countless hours for the returns of their companions, having to worry, and count the odds, and replay every scene of violence she's encountered in her head until their return — she hadn't known that weight had been with her all the while, carried heavier on her shoulders than her pack of clothes and food and tools. She hadn't known she'd faltered.
But they did not return to find themselves alone, others had made it back; six of their nine, as a start. She is thankful; she is relieved. There has been too much loss already. Beside her she senses a similar release in Daryl, in all of them — an unacknowledged haunting evaporating from them. A head count of six is good. It is a start. It's enough to return to camp. River stones are left in the three watch perches to signal they're back in camp, and then they and their gear are on the move, downstream to reclaim huts and hearth.
Tom's on Rob in an instant bear hug as they walk back, then on Simon and John, the four of them jostling and shoving each other through the woods and to camp like a litter of puppies. It's John who leaps the river and throws down the bridge planks for the others to haul the gear over. The boys brought back two guns, several batteries, two fishing rods, a cooler full of collected food, three books, an ax, a can of spray paint, some fresh clothes, a little medicine, matches, an old pipe and a stale pouch of tobacco, netting, wire, miscellanea, and, more rare than food, more rare than weapons, nearly four gallons of gas in a portable canister. With brisk, if weary, efficiency, the goods are carted and carried in then set aside for another time.
Home again, Simon only hesitates a second or two before he hugs both Daryl and Beth. Daryl lets it happen, though he doesn't exactly lean into it. While Beth's wrapped up in her hug Daryl pulls her pack from her, gently pulling it from her shoulders and dropping it to the ground at his feet. He slaps handshakes in turn with the other two, happy as anyone to see them all still all right. For her part Beth smiles warmly, but she does not venture the extra several feet it would require to give them hugs or take their hands. She sits, and once immobile visibly melts in place.
Though they hadn't stayed, Simon John and Rob had stopped through camp at just about dusk. They'd dropped their haul and set some beans to soak and stacked kindling for a fire. Now with quick work they set themselves to lighting the fire and prepping some veggies and Daryl's two squirrels. Within ten minutes the cast iron Dutch oven is set over the growing flames. Beth, exhausted, stares blankly into the red and yellow-orange flames licking round the sides of the lidded onyx pot, and waits. The fire should have been allowed to build and die down to low flames before the pot was put on; the stew should simmer over an even-burning flame, but that's not a time frame anyone's willing to wait for at this point. They're tired, and they're hungry, and it will take enough time to cook as it is. Famished, and drained, Beth curls into herself right there in the dirt and lies in a ball waiting for the meal, unconvinced if she made it to her bed she'd ever get up again to eat. In her fatigue the hard-packed earth of the shoal, close to the fire, is a comfort, it is enough. Tired as she is may elect to never budge from that spot again, save for the certainty she'll have to get up to relieve herself; if nothing else, her bladder is starting to tell her she is assuredly pregnant.
Eyeing her lying there, Daryl grabs a sweater and crouches to tuck it under her for a pillow. While the others exchange accounts, drink cool river water and take stock of weapons, Daryl digs out one of the nylon sleeping bags and lays it over her unzipped. She thinks she makes the effort to smile before she scrunches into it and turns over onto her other side, away from the billowing gusts of smoke blowing sharply into her face, but the effort may only have been in her head. Though the smoke burns her eyes, as well her throat and nose, and the heavy smell of it fills her lungs and turns her stomach making her ill, she lacks, for the moment, the energy that would allow her to stir from this spot to another. Awake but dozing, Beth lies still, distantly listening to the voices of her group. Just feet away, always in a comforting proximity, their familiar voices mix and overlap as they prepare the meal. Stories of the two runs are exchanged, the resulting quarries are itemized and evaluated, and they wait for their dinner, wait for the remaining three. The night grows heavy and dark beyond her eyelids …
His voice is warm and raspy through the dark, "'ll put up the insulation t'morrow." Daryl's carried her from the fire to their hut and would have laid her in bed if the low roof would allow it, but all he can do is set her on her feet and support her as she wakes, and crawls slowly in through the opening. It's warm there, below the earth, snug, and home. She crawls in, across the bedding, noticing he must have worked on the space while she'd slept by the fire. It's mostly the same as she'd left it, but beneath the layers of covers the plastic ground-lining is more complete, and the cushions she'd chosen are laid out to cover the expanse of the trench, followed by their growing mounds of blankets, sleeping bags and a pillow. In terms of 'traveling light' this might be an epic fail, but even given having just spent a night in an actual bed, in a real bedroom, this hut feels to her now the epitome of comfort and coziness. When she nestles in it's unreal how soothing it is, how comforting, how cushioned and covered and cocooned she feels. Her room at home, her room at the prison, she'd spent a long time missing them, a long time wishing for them again, for something to take their place; a hole in the ground was never what she'd looked for, it won't be enough in the long run, it won't be enough when the baby comes, but her head drops immediately to the pillow, and it, and the bedding, and the roof, they're enough for now.
His face is close to hers as he crouches over her, "Happy?" His warm breath brushes her face. Beth can only muster the slightest nod of her head against her pillow, but he sees it, and it's enough. "'m taking first watch with Rob; there's water in a mason jar right here, an' some crackers if you need em, an' when it's done, if ya want it, there'll be something hot; an' — there's another jar if you need it, if ya can't get up."
"I'm okay, Daryl," she mumbles into her pillow. "Jus' tired..."
"Tired's real," he says as he makes for the exit. "Don't be a hero. Anyway, it's there if ya need it," and he drops the entrance curtain and leaves her to sleep.
Outside, the others huddle in around the kitchen fire, eating, resting, and waiting. The night stretches out around them, the stars shift their positions, and the waiting is long. They could busy themselves, they could break down the carts and packs, sort through the food and supplies and store them away, but they're not looking for a job, or a distraction; waiting, is what they're doing.
Slowly, one by one, the others succumb to sleep. The watch is kept by two through the night, and the others retire and rise as they must. Beth rises early, she stretches her back and stokes the fire. She relieves herself down river, then collects three fish from the river trap. The boys rise, each in their time, and another day in camp starts, three still not home.
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