To all you lovely readers: Thank you for reading, and thank you to those of you who make the extra effort to review! Reading your responses is so valuable, and so very much appreciated. This is another short little chapter, please bare with me, you might be getting a few of these until the story settles out a bit. Your empathy for these two and the boys is really lovely, and I hope you can see their trials as part of the landscape of their world, and not a plot device to yank you readers back and forth. (Do not worry too much for B&D, I've got their backs.) You might've gotten a little spoiled with these back-to-back updates, but I have a feeling that in a chapter or two they may start to dwindle for some time (running out of already-partially-written/plotted material and running out of free time for a while), I hope you'll stick around during the quiet spells.
The bleeding carried on for several days more. Not as heavy, but there, and no less unsettling. Beth is uncertain what amount should concern her and what amount could maybe give her reason to hope. All could still not be lost... But she does not know. She hadn't started showing, how much would be lost? She thinks maybe more? But then she's thin, and no doubt undernourished – would that matter? Measuring a life in her own blood is not a thing easily done. She's reticent about any estimation that may lead her to hope, or to kill hope when it should not be. Her bruised exhausted body aches all over, but the cramping's been minimal. When measured together, are these signs of life? Even if so, the bleeding cannot be good. Never has she felt so disconnected from her body, and so she remains quiet and still, and tries hard to concentrate. With all her focus, Beth Greene tries to ignite a small spark of life within her. She tries to feel a fluttering, to feel some reason to hope, but she had felt nothing even before the fall, and she can feel nothing now. Her womb is silent, but still she strains to hear it. As she'd kept herself running alongside Daryl through that dark night she'd kept the child alive inside her with adrenaline and sheer force of dogged will, but in the stillness of inaction she's lost that grip, that willful knowing. Now she does not know; now she waits. Beth whispers into herself, Live. Live.
The pregnancy'd frightened her – having a child when she'd never expected to, and having that child in the open – it frightened her, but now the thought of not having the child— The silence is miserable. Live. She can't speak to him yet; she cannot use her voice and risk not hearing a sign. She listens, but she cannot believe. Believing, trusting, knowing – she is not able to yet. But she can command. And in that there is a sort of faith, else how else could it serve? Live.
They rested a day under that tangle of vines and moss and tree. Daryl scrubbed her worn and threadbare denim as best they could be, and he sat, straitening and sharpening stick after stick, forcing his hands to be busy when no thing of matter, no act for the better, could be done.
When day broke again they did not move. If Beth's body is demonstrating trauma, they cannot move. They stayed another day in their cramped alarm circle. Daryl did not hunt, Beth hardly moved. Another day came and went. By then they were dry, by then they could build a fire, by then Beth could sleep.
When the fourth day broke the shock had dissipated some. Enough that Beth would eat without being prompted, enough that Daryl could think past this grove of trees.
After a meager meal Daryl packed their bags, then helped her to her feet. There is nothing there in that spot worth staying for, but nothing ahead of them promises more. They do not walk to find something; they walk to not be sitting. They walk to not be silent and still and helpless. They walk to not be dead.
The woods change little as they navigate through them. It all looks the same to dull unseeing eyes; it all is the same to guarded hearts. Again what they have is walking, though they cover little distance. Again they're alone with nothing but what they carry. Heaviest of their loads is anxiety, grief, and remorse. Live. A sort of functioning numbness follows them.
The forest too is quiet, echoing back to them their own footsteps. Without the running of the river the woods seem muted; without the jostling and joking of seven well-loved companions, the woods are desolate and haunting. Without the assurance of a child, all the world is these empty endless woods, filled only with trees and the rustling of leaves, the mocking calls of birds and the unearthly whir of insects, but absent of life. Still, every sound that stirs, Beth imagines emits windy whispers straight to her. Live.
Live.
The sun sets, and then it rises, and in the interim they were on their own, and little changed.
They do not travel far in their journeying – this walking is not for want of a change in scenery. They walk because they do. They sit under new trees, and sleep under different brush, simply because it is not where they sat or slept the day before. Eventually, words find their way back to them. Eventually conversation returns — quiet and sparse, but essential.
They speak each other's names, and beneath the familiarity of their voices, their spirits called solemnly to one another. It is not in them to remain distant from the other. As Daryl strides beside her, stolid and closed in, her hand slips into his.
That slight touch, her absence of hesitation, the joint camaraderie and commiseration it evokes in him, pierces through to him, and while his heart muscle constricts, he squeezes warmly her small hand. He is not alone; he is not the last man standing. Beth Greene is still beside him, and if she is, perhaps the child's still with them too.
"Think we need to get back to roads," Beth breaks the silence. "I can't be in these woods anymore. There's nothing here."
Daryl grunts to concur. It was not without reason they'd taken to the woods, but they cannot remain there any longer. Something has to change, and if not the things they would will to be different if only they could, then setting will have to do. Once again in the woods alone, they find they are ill prepared for winter when it comes, and that, at least, they can strive to mend.
** Credit to Miss Emily, the line "windy whispers" is from her song (my favorite!) "Jonathan" **