Thanks for being here!
Beth and Daryl kept their secret for another few days. It was past sunset, and closer to late evening the day after their own return when they finally heard the whistle sounding through the trees. Their progress home had been slow, and they had had to make several reroutes to avoid a roaming herd and signs of a transient encampment; their run and their road home had been dangerous, with several close calls, but the third group, Pete James and Michael, made it back, alive. James' whole right side is covered in bruises and road rash – the abrasions running from his face to his arms and torso – the consequence of an evasive maneuver he made to clear a blockade and shake the horde that had been closing in on him. Michael's shoulder was dislocated and popped back in, and Peter had twice had to repair a puncture in his front tire, but they made it back, not one had been lost. A muted stiffness had taken over camp in the lengthy hours that stretched between the arrivals of the first two groups and the third; it lifted when the three made it back over the river. First the waiting and then the reunion governed the ongoings of the camp, as have the refurbishments and preparations for winter. Their news could wait. But when Beth's stomach involuntarily emptied itself while she accompanied Simon on a run to check the traps, gagging at the smell of walkers as they passed, it seemed like it was necessary to share the news. If the pregnancy is to affect the camp, their operations, make anyone a weak link, or impact or jeopardize any encounters with walkers, that information needed to be shared.
They waited for dinner.
The faces in the camp — though become loved — are not the faces Beth had ever imagined relaying this news to. But there are no longer parents, no longer siblings, no longer second-family friends. They're all gone, slain or scattered, and these faces, these young adolescent faces she's known for just weeks, they are what is left.
It was a strange endeavor, speaking this truth outside of family. Though she'd always wanted a child of her own she'd never thought it'd be her with this news, in this world. She'd witnessed it with Lori, she'd dreamt it for Maggie, but never for herself. It seemed too impossible — each of them finding love after the fall, starting new families after their first one collapsed. Though she was growing, Beth had felt a certain arrested development within the prison, within the group — kept young, kept the near-child, by those who needed the comfort that such things as youth, and innocence still could be. There was a sense she got that if they could not protect and nurture it within themselves, they could do so in her. Rick, her father, Michonne, Sasha, even Glenn and Maggie. Maybe everyone but Zach and Carl had seen her that way. She hadn't minded so much — it felt safe, and it was one more way she could contribute to the group — but it'd kept her from imagining a full life for herself. She'd wanted a child for herself one day, before all this, but then she had Judith. She'd wanted a partner to love and be loved by, but she had her father, and Maggie and Glenn, and all the others. It had been enough. She'd made her plans for others because it cost too much to have expectations for herself, plans that could never come true. Boyfriends were lost, homes burned down and laid waste to, hostages and killings and accidents and heartbreaks. It was safer to stay removed. But there is no thing as safe. And planned or not, she did find a love, a partner; and a child and a new family is coming to them, through the ashes of all they've lost. And now as it happens there is no father, no Maggie, no Glenn, no Judith or prison family, just her. And Daryl. And the baby. And the only ones to tell are the faces round the fire.
These seven had come together as young men and boys — even the oldest of them still dependent upon his parents, on the structural systems of university and dorm life; most of them still in school, still at home, still virgins — and in their time together they have grown; they have seen things and done things and outgrown things and learned things and lived without things and all but given up on certain things. Over time, after outliving so many, finding a mate, a person to be with, closer than a comrade, closer than a brother, in this world, became a prospect so foreign, so distant a fading dream as would be a world without walkers, without hunger and destruction, as would be a world without chaos and danger as its central components. Here in the woods alone, pocketed and insulated from the larger violent world, they have managed to fashion an assemblage of a life of relative peace and comfort, but ever still though it is a barren life, devoid of any future but one — with any grace of luck and chance — strung together of another series of days and months just like the ones they find themselves in now. Brotherhood was the family they built, it is the family they have; trust and bonds are the means they have for expansion. Beth changed that.
Not one of them had seen her as a viable opportunity, it wasn't why they brought her in, but her news, it affects them, differently for each one. It's a thing they don't know exactly how to hear, or how to respond to. After it was spoken, nobody got into the long term: Will they stay? Can they stay? What is safe? What is smart? They let it lie, there is time. Some conversation happened, but before long they dispersed, everyone to their tasks, the camp seeming to take it in stride. Dishes needed washing, traps needed checking, kindling needed gathering, and the perimeter needed walking and monitoring.
"A baby?" the voice is sunken and unguarded. From behind her Simon steps softly over a log and mutely takes a seat beside her at the fire where she scrubs the meal's food scraps into the flames. The night is quiet, the others still in camp have gone to bed or gone down to the river; it's just them, having already collected the meat grease and stored it in a jar. Beth's eyes rise from the embers and she looks at him, and nods. Simon rubs at his eye, "Didn't see that comin'."
"No," Beth agrees.
In the dimness, just beyond the reaches of the dancing circle of light thrown by the fire, Simon worries his fingers, interlocking them in and out, picking at cuts and scars. His head lifts. "You scared?"
Beth finishes her work and puts aside the pots and plates to later rinse in the stream, "I try not to be scared."
The boy nods, concluding, "There are better things to be. Brave," he offers, "for one."
"Hopeful," Beth volunteers.
"Determined."
She smiles distantly, looking into the past, past all the hurt and violence and loss, straight to something good. Her eyes go soft, "My father was all those things."
Simon looks, studying her profile as her memories take hold of her expression, mindful that he not look too long, that he does not transgress that private arena of memory and family and mourning. Beth now and then will mention her father, but they've all noted the way she and Daryl dance around the subject of him. Something happened, something dark, something worse than a walker death. He bites at his thumbnail, then swallows. The fifteen-year-old glances at her and then at his feet. "You're all those things." He scratches his face, strangely uncomfortable with this kind of candor. "Baby will be too."
Like Beth's, his focus gets lost in the fire.
In the interim of conversation his shoulders slump, and Simon's head settles slowly into his palm. He doesn't say more, but the boy's fingers pick idly at his ear-length white-blond hair, methodically, distracted. He's finding himself ill at ease, without the self-awareness of knowing why. This unexamined reaction — the dull ache of something missing, the dichotomy of hope, and fear, and something else… It fills him, threatening to overpower him, though he does not know it for what it is. The boy is at a loss for his reaction, unable to keep from sinking into inscrutable melancholy. He lives in death, they all do; they've had to reconcile themselves to it. But life? New life… amongst all this death… A possibility of something beyond death and living in the shadows of a fallen world? It complicates a world he'd thought he'd come to terms with. The toll is heavy, and nebulous.
He looks up when a friendly slap on the back jostles him from his abstraction. Michael drops kindling for the morning fire by the pit then drops himself beside his friend. As Mike says something or other to Beth about a redesign for the fire pit, Simon's shoulders begin to shake imperceptibly. So uncontrolled is he over his reaction to the news. The torrent of unexamined emotion takes him by surprise, and a wave of shame strikes down hard on him, aggregating his confusion and upset.
Though he's in no state of mind to, he wouldn't be able to name the trigger if he were; it isn't sadness, anxiety or envy. The thought of a baby, of never being a father himself, of life continuing around him and without him — it haunts him. Could there be a future they hadn't thought to prepare for? Should they be doing more than just waiting around, biding time in the forest? Is their survival of seven not nearly enough? He's buoyed some by the strong genial arm Mikey claps around him, pulling him in tightly, wholly impervious to Simon's embarrassment at needing to be comforted.
Under the weight of his forest brother's arm Simon's muffled trembling quietly settles, and the three stare into the darkness as the stars emerge above, all the while Michael keeps his arm strong and steady about Simon's shoulders, jostling and patting him as he does. When he feels another shudder take over, Michael takes a breath and starts a song, averting his eyes to save his friend face, and smiling distantly instead into the burning embers.
A year from now, we'll all be gone—
His voice is low and heavy, and warm like the fire. Beth's eyes raise and look to him, but easy-going Michael and his clear ringing baritone remain in the moment; he buddies up and sings.
All our friends will move away,
And they're goin' to better places
But our friends will be gone away.
The song is sad, and sweet, and forged with nostalgia and longing. Beth recognizes the tune, she knows this song she thinks, peaceful and quiet and blue. The words come back to her as he carries the tune, strong, and insistent, like life.
Nothin' is as it has been,
And I miss your face like hell;
Faces, names, stories, they find their ways into these three between the spaces of the lyrics. Memories flood, but still Simon breathes in, soothing himself somehow in their gloom—
And I guess it's just as well,
But I miss your face like hell.
Been talkin' 'bout the way things change—
The cadence and emotion builds, and the catharsis is not lost on Beth, for whom it's been so long since she's wept, or sung, or mourned—
My family lives in a different state;
If you don't know what to make of this
Mike's head and foot bob with an extended enjoyment of the beat—
Then we will not relate.
So if you don't know what to make of this,
Then we will not relate.
O-oh oh, o-oh oh, o-oh oh,
Low, and deep, and steady, Michael's solemn chanting haunts the night —
O-oh oh, o-oh oh, o-oh oh, o-oh oh, o-oh oh
Rivers and roads,
Their song is somber, and heartfelt, and alive —
Rivers and roads,
— in its darkness it is emboldening, strong, and resilient. It's been so long since Beth has sung, and it is a balm to her spirit, the same as it is for Simon.
Rivers 'til I reach you.
As Beth takes up the chorus, bolstered some by Simon, Michael continues the lonesome wailing chanting, over and over, till it reverberates through their hearts —
Rivers and roads,
Rivers and roads,
Rivers 'til I reach you.
Rivers and roads,
Rivers and roads,
Rivers 'til I reach you.
As the notes fade into ether, Simon wipes brusquely at his eyes and breathes in. "Fuck," he mutters. Tightly gripped fists press at his forehead, then the shape of something like a smile emerges. He sniffles, and breathes in, and lets it go. All things must be endured.
"It'll be okay," she affirms softly, in the darkness. The dying fire pops and cracks. "We're all going to be okay."
Simon nods. There's no reason to cry.
They linger there in the quiet, as if in a spell. Then in the dying light, Michael spies the ropey scars on Beth's wrist. He blinks, and waits a minute, then asks with a nod, "What's that?"
Beth looks down, her eyes following his; fractionally her wrist shifts, and her bracelets drop into place. Her eyes drift to the fire. "Another life."
Her companions allow the reality to settle, then Simon takes heart, a kind of wry boyish look appearing on his face as he sniffs away the traces of a tear, "That's another life." He nods towards Beth's abdomen. He laughs slightly at himself as he makes a final brush at his eyes, but Beth feels strong, and revived. Michael pats his comrade on the back and musses his hair.
"Rivers & Roads" by The Head and the Heart. Sorry, I know a lot of readers despise "songfics". /watch?v=Q8yLwuDi2mA
If you're reading, I would LOVE to hear from you. Concrit, or even a quick "hello", makes my day! (How are we feeling about the boys? OCs are tough!) xx