Uh oh, the chapters keep coming, which inevitably means my work and homework are lagging :( Thanks for the feedback you fabulous few, it absolutely keeps up the motivation! This is a short one, no answers. xx
The smell is nocuous. Beth swallows, conscious not to breathe through her nose. Though almost every sensation had been wrung from her overtaxed body, her sense of smell is still all too with her. As the cold damp jeans that cling uncomfortably to her begin to stiffen some and dry, the odor of dinge and muck and mildew and blood wafts all about her. The rain had stopped sometime in the long night – first reduced to a quiet drizzle, then all-together. There was no shelter to find. Finally they'd taken cover beneath a thick tangle of overgrowth and there they waited. The rain stopped, eventually light broke, the ground dried some, there's been no further sign of walkers, but still they have not been delivered. There is no deliverance. This is it. Every time they let themselves forget, the new world forges another strike against them. The rain will dry, but winter is coming and they are still exposed. The night is ended but it will come again, all too soon. They are still living, but the walkers have not been cleared. And they are very much on their own.
Beth slept some, she thinks, a hazy sleep of exhaustion. When her eyes opened and once again she was conscious of seeing she felt no reprieve, no rest from her respite. She is chilled through, possibly never to be warm again. Her body aches, and though she comes-to. the sense of dullness and detachment from the world does not abate. Motionless she sits now with legs hugged to her, waiting for nothing, waiting to be dragged once more to somewhere else. She is not aware of her body's shivering, she barley registers Daryl's disrobed figure passing back and forth before her.
Stiff and likewise drenched, Daryl had met the early dawn with industry. On his own he set a perimeter alarm line, he unpacked what he could and set the blankets and clothes to dry in what sun breaks through the forest cover. He gathered and laid out wood to dry as well, though it will be some time before any fire will catch. He checked and rechecked their food for any spoiling from the dampness, then Daryl'd put his knife to work, shaping makeshift bolts. Their ammo is low. They'd started off with little, and the night had exhausted the majority of their supply. Beth had packed what she could of the camp's unfinished arrows, and Daryl's used the morning to replenish what he can.
"Hey," he grunts, once it looks like maybe her eyes are staying focused. Beth's lashes flutter imperceptibly, and for a moment it looks as though she'd been looking for him, but then her eyes settle again on the mud in front of her, and there her eyes stay. Daryl offers her some dried meat, but she doesn't even shake her head. "Gotta drink," he tells her, not intending to be overruled by silence. "Dehydration'll get worse." When Beth doesn't move he moves to her, and with one hand cupping the nape of her neck, he makes her drink. Beth chokes some, but she does drink, then nothing. She is still, like a small animal caught where it ought not be.
Daryl eyes her through the messy-hanging shags of his wet hair. She's unresponsive. "Take them wet clothes off." He's undressed down to his drawers and bare feet; clean clothes Daryl has no need for, but dry clothes, dry boots, can mean living versus dying. Trench foot, pneumonia, exposure, even blisters, these are not to be taken lightly. "Greene." When she does nothing more than blink, Daryl pulls at her sweater himself. Slowly he peels it off, taking care not to jostle her too much. Then off come her layer of shirts; Daryl tugs them over her head, gently pulling her arms out one by one. Daryl leaves her her camisole. He would have taken it as well, but leaving her that exposed when she's this wounded seemed harsh; she'd somehow be too vulnerable without it. "'Kay," he holds out his hand to her and beckons, "bottoms."
Beth looks at him. There's distance between her and him when her words move through her lips. "I'hm bleeding," she tells him. Her voice is unsubstantial, like a faint gust of breeze.
Daryl's attention flashes to her with grim expediency. "Walker?" Beth's face and clothes are smeared with the stains of blood. What portion is hers? He looks at her, inspecting her arms, her back. "Beth?"
Beth's eyes study the splatter on her boots, the footprints she'd left in the mud; there's something about her lack of movement or engagement that has the air of being underwater. Beth is submerged. The only thing keeping her tethered to his world is the gradual tightening sensation around her legs and hips as her jeans dry about her… "No." Beth blinks, and her clear crystalline eyes find him through the haze. "Daryl," she speaks. "I'm bleeding."
The archer's eyes narrow, and he fights not to look away, not to break the connection. Like her in the night, he does not have the words. The language does not exist; words fail to convey. There can be no rendering of meaning. Their child may be lost.
Daryl winces. If he were someone else, or if she were someone else, Daryl might search for words to speak, but he does not look for words. His narrow eyes blink back what could be tears, and his face distorts with pain. Silently he sniffs, and shifts to sit beside her. His rough hand finds hers, so much colder and smaller than his own. His tanned, muscled arm wraps about her body, and keeps her close to him. Daryl would take action, if there were any action to take, but though he is a man who gets things done, there is nothing to be done, nothing that can be done. If it's happened, it's all behind them. Beth and Daryl sit with the silence, they sit with the uncertainty.
In his presence Beth finds the air to breathe. Her small frame shudders, but she breathes. Daryl's lips press to her head, and her barren eyes fall closed. Beth keeps her legs pulled tightly to her. Holding tight, she pulls herself back into her own body, tries to make it whole.
"Anythin' t' be done?" The deep raspiness of his solemn voice grounds her, keeping her close. She's lost so many homes since she met him, but she isn't lost with him.
Beth's head shakes. "Jus' the waiting."
Daryl sniffs again, wipes his face on his shoulder, and holds his eyes closed tight till again his vision clears. "You g'nna be al'right?" In this he does not speak of her heart or of her spirit.
There can be no knowing. There is no knowing their fates, or what lies in store for them, where their missing people are. There is no knowing what this means, for the child or for her. It could be an indicator of a trauma. It could signal a stressed and overtaxed body. Or this bleeding could be marking an end. Waiting is all there is.
Too caught in the darkness, too bruised and battered from such recent cutting losses, they cannot hope, they cannot exercise faith; they cannot even know if losing the child this way – if in fact they have – is not in the end for the better. There is just the reality in which they exist: there is danger, no sanctuary awaits them, they are alone, there is bleeding. And now there is waiting.
His lips press together, and Daryl gruffly nods. "Mm,hm."