Thank you so much for your patience while I've been working on this chapter and my many, many, many school assignments! I can't say how much it means to have regular readers, I truly can't express it, and the support for the story has just been lovely and so, so appreciated. I would probably still write this story even if it had zero readers, but without you all, firstly it would be way less fun, and secondly it might take 12 years longer to complete. (Not an exaggeration, some of my MSCL stuff I have been working on for decades.) I've had, though, a very fanfictiony interim while I've been gone. I finally read Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl (last page had me crying), and I saw Miss Emily perform again (5th time), and gave her a copy of my one shot "Without You: A Requiem" when I met her for the meet and greet. Weird? Probably, I don't know, I'm still a little conflicted, but it's a pretty harmless & loving piece, so I just did it :/ Anyway, here's the next chapter. (I just this week finished one class but now am starting up my crazy intense one that will last through July, and then, maybe, I might be done with grad school(!) which might mean just work, real life, and some more hours in the day for writing! Thank you for reading! Thank you for coming back! Thank you for reviewing!
"Where would we'go?"
Daryl's rumbled question hovers in the air above them, occupying both the spaces between them and the uncharted expanse of the world beyond their four brick walls.
Beth's blue eyes look up at him from beneath the steady fixedness of her dark lashes. "East?" she offers, her conviction malleable. "North?"
Daryl looks at her, his clear eyes keen in the shadow of his knit and heavy brow. He's in no hurry to see them back on the road, exposed and open and suspended by chance, but if it's going to happen, the plan's got to have a hell of a lot more shape to it than that. East. North. He makes little effort to mitigate his scowl.
"Don't we gotta figure out where we are? First?" Simon speaks, brokering neutrality by way of reasoned pragmatism.
"Been figured," Daryl grunts. "Maps in th' fly shop pinpointed us pretty close. But knowin' tha' don't tell us nuthin' 'bout where there is t'go." Here he again looks at Beth.
In answer Simon speaks, though even he doesn't back the suggestion fully, "Whudd'a 'bout a military base?" His cautious open eyes flash sharp and quick between the two of them, like maybe there's some warding off the inevitable "... Think any of 'em are still up?" At times, he can seem so much younger than fifteen, something in his eyes or intonation, or in the way his gamely worldliness doesn't keep him from reaching for the better.
Daryl rubs at his mouth, pulling at his jaw. The line he's drawing on their risk threshold is rigid. "Fort Benning fell," his gravel voice rumbles. "Bon told us 'bout Fort Jackson. With all the overrun high schools an' hospitals and refugee camps we've come upon, and all the military vehicles an' gear we seen appropriated by asshole civilians, can't be many that're standing–" Daryl tugs at his beard, flexes his scarred and calloused fingers "– if any. They weren't prepared for this kind o' thing, an' a lot of people out there weren't lookin' t' be ruled by martial law. Hell, military themselves — whut's in it f'r them t' keep at it? Got their own selves t' look out for."
Not one easily dampened, Simon tries again, "A farm?" No response comes and Simon looks at them both, at their uncomfortable reactions. "We'd have wells," he offers soberly, despite his near certainty he's already been overruled. "Crops."
"Awfully difficult to monitor, or secure," answers Beth.
"No t' mention clear," Daryl affirms. "Any unclaimed property's gotta be overrun. We ain't got the numbers or the ammo. Can't be done. Not worth what it'll cost."
"So?" the kid asks, looking at his two companions. "Then what?"
Here Daryl defers to Beth; this is her campaign, he's not sold on their leaving. Here in this place they have relative security, they're hidden from the casual eye, they've got some cache of supplies. Water though... That's been rough. The two rains they finally got added less than two inches to their barrels, and didn't make much of a difference to the river, except muddy it some. Fidgeting his fingers in tireless inaction, he looks at Beth, seeing both her – her physical self as she is right then, and too all that waits ahead of her. She's feeling restless, he gets that. Though she's preparing, in her quiet private ways, for what is coming – burrowing a quiet safe space within herself, insulating it with reserved love and peace, feathering it with unsung songs and the music and warmth of a new mother and the nurturing of a new life – her efforts all are internal, mental, and deep within herself. Daryl gets she's making home a thing within herself, not a place dependent upon these walls; he gets that she's feeling she can't count on what they've got. Events have pushed them all to it; she's been near hardwired to this mode of thinking, igniting in her this drive to action. Daryl understands it, but does not see this as a time to be risking outright gambles. He does not fault her for siding with instinct, but there's no clear resolution to her instinct being at odds with his. He won't argue with Simon though, they do need long term water security. They haven't got that here like he'd figured they would by now. He harbors no yen to face the road again, would never rally behind a motion to move just to move, still there's no faulting Beth for capricious folly, not usually, and certainly not concerning this, making it tough now to just dismiss her. "Beth," his rough voice charges her, "what do you want?"
In the dimming light in the apartment they'd claimed for theirs, Beth looks at them both. Her eyes drift from face to face, feature to feature, from one pair of blue eyes to the other, all the while deliberating and weighing the stakes. There are no guarantees. There's not much left in the way of informed decisions. Leaving would be a risk, no question. She can't just say leave and have that be the final word; she can't take four lives up in just her two hands with the utterance of a single word. What she knows she feels is nowhere near knowing what they'll come up against. Her inevitable answer is certain in its conviction; the path still indiscernible. "I'h want," she starts, "t' stay ahead of what's coming."
"Yeh," the older one grunts, his narrowed eyes blinking soberly.
"Yeah," the other nods.
They all want that. It would help if they had an inkling to go on. Having had near every move they've made since the turn forced and thrust upon them, choice and agency – though they've often begrudged and mourned their absence – now loom as heavy burdens upon them, taxing, and unwieldy.
Dawn breaks in muted winter streaks as for the final time they step outside their front door. Little more than three weeks after the others' departure sees them making their own. With a final heavy clamping-shut of the door, they leave it closed and blocked off behind them, then walk away. Stepping into the street with just their three packs is counterintuitive; opening themselves to the vulnerabilities of the open road is not a thing they've chosen lightly. In the end, it hadn't been any argument one of them had made or lost that brought them to this leaving. It had come down to the essential matter of what they could not do without, and in the end that is water. The town is proving too dry to stay. They couldn't continue using what little fuel they have driving back and forth to the stream, and the walk, already lengthy, is made considerably more so and perilous, as to make the most of the journey a person must employ both hands in transporting the water, and in as such not only overtax the body but leave it vulnerable with no weapons in hand. What clinched their exodus though was the fouling of the water. Upstream something's contaminated it, walkers most likely; maybe a spillage of some kind, but whatever the cause, it's not in Beth's head this time and it's made staying finally impossible. Once more their hands are being forced: As low as reserves are, they don't have the time to wait it out. If staying's not an option, they need to be on the road and moving before Beth can no longer easily travel.
Facing running dry before waiting out the fouling, facing, too, running out the impalpable clock looming over them, over Beth, they act, thankful at least it isn't violence that's pushing them out. Out the doors and into the brisk morning air Simon knives the day's' first walker with a curt efficient thrust, Beth shivers and adjusts her pack's straps, Daryl hoists the loaded crossbow, and ten weeks after making the town theirs they head out, together rejoining the road and the trials and terrors that come with it.
Loading as much food, water, gear, blankets, and fuel as they can fit, they pack the boxy Japanese hybrid SUV and settle in, Beth in the back, Daryl at the wheel, Simon riding shotgun. It didn't seem plausible when Simon'd reminded them that he'd never learned to drive. He'd have to learn, but his not knowing precluded anything manual, clinching the decision to leave behind the pickup and camper shell, that and the gas it would take. Left behind, too, is the four wheel drive American SUV, and the compact hybrid hatchback. The Prius had been tempting, gas being as scarce as it is, but Daryl wanted to be sure there was room to stretch out in, should someone among them, namely one in particular, have to; should they all have to, if out there shelter too proves scarce. Buckles clasp tight, car doors close shut, echoing heavy metallic clunks through the empty streets, and Daryl reaches and turns the key. The engine ignites. Daryl's muscled forearm flexes as he grips and spins the wheel, the dark etchings of two letters pulling on his flesh as the arm strains into the tight turn, maneuvering around a careening walker and an old smash up in the road. The vehicle handles well enough, and Daryl navigates to the edge of town. The larger SUV or truck would have ensured better handling of uneven terrain – bodies, dirt roads, debris – and the truck bed and shell would have provided more usable space for travel and coverage, but other factors than the gas shortage and Simon's never having been behind the wheel had to be accounted for. Among their considerations were the eventual repairs any ride they chose would inevitably be in need of; they bypassed then anything Swedish or German, and though American made might make for easier repairs, the US candidates run on more fuel, of which they have none to spare; thus Daryl's handle on Japanese engines – minimally different in most respects – settled the call. In the end they'd fixed on the somewhat odd looking Honda Element. It had been Simon's find.
"Look," Simon had shown them the night before last, "this is th' one." In the lingering light of dusk Simon then had tugged open the doors, pulling them open like church doors into an opening wider than anything. "Hold on." He hopped in, climbed over the driver's and passenger's seats and flung open the opposite doors in mirror image so that the whole vehicle was then rendered a great steal passthrough. He looked then to Beth and Daryl, a satisfied smile faint in the corner of his drawn mouth, "Watch," he'd commanded. With that Simon pulled some levers, cranked and pushed and pulled at handles, and like nothing the car's whole interior was a flat bed. The grin he wore as he looked up, pushing the hair out of his eyes was unmistakable. "Look," he said, though clearly they saw. "An' we c'n do just one side – someone sleepin', someone driving, someone in back behind th' driver. An' look," his eyes flashed as he again moved to action. With more pushing and pulling, a little heavy breathing, the back seats disappeared into the side walls, opening up the back and the full floor. "So much space." He looked them both in the eye then. "We c'n do this." He then handed over the manual, "Check the mpg; respectable." Daryl had taken it. Beth had watched as he read, then wordlessly nodded. Large as the vehicle is it's less efficient than a smaller hybrid, but it's no gas guzzler, and Simon was right, it would give them space, it give them options. Beth could be safe inside this, comfortable as her time approaches.
The car bumps and bounces over potholes and cracks in splitting asphalt as they drive, over debris and failing roads. Leaving town behind them they make a gamble for the highway. Though it's more likely to be traveled, if their aim is to get away from the contaminated water, to find some place new, maybe find some place viable and potentially stable, then back roads that'll tangle them up in the same cluster of towns and creeks they've been running through won't do them any good. The open road stretches out before them, betraying no evidence of what's out there beyond, giving no sign of deliverance or destruction. The automatic transmission shifts into a higher gear as forward they drive, into what they hope will not be their undoing.
Morning light follows as they drive, reaching out with them and the distance they drive in silence. Beth's cheek presses cooly against the icy window and she wonders if they should soon expect snow. The prospect seems impossible, dry as it's been, but the cold is unmistakeable. Winter and the season's storms may be dragging their feet, but assuredly they're coming, it's all around them, in the grey skies, the chill in the air, the thinning trees. But this day the roads are dry, and clear for driving. Distantly she watches the road pass beneath them.
As they barrel forward Beth tries to think of the last time she'd been in a moving vehicle. Surely just before they'd taken the prison. So long ago. Nearly another life ago – actually, in some ways. Then T-Dog had been with them, and Lori, still carrying Judith. Now they're gone, not just they but everyone, and it's Beth now who awaits a child. So many miles between then and now… She is glad to not be walking. She is thankful for heaters and deep welcoming upholstered seat cushions, but the sensation of being moved forward by no motion of her own is nearly wholly foreign to her by this point. She wonders if she'll be sick. The world runs past them in breathless endless sprints – trees, road posts, crossroads, all already behind them as soon as they come within view. She's sure that they are flying, but she wonders if really they are, if she would have thought so two years earlier when she was still accustomed to it. Faint are the memories of wispy starry nights when she and her friends blared music, driving madly and beautifully into youthful, tamely wild adventures. She recalls Shawn teaching her to drive the farm's old truck, rusted, stiff, and jostling in the beating sunlight. She knows there were once stolen nights with Jimmy spent in cars and in back seats, but so much of that old world has grayed, and faded by this point; in the forefront of her mind are days and nights spent driving with Maggie, Glenn, and her father, following Rick and his family and Carol, following Daryl on that old bike of his brother's. Still so vivid to her are the endless hours spent crouched and hunkered in a trunk with Daryl, sweating the fear and the tension, straining tightly against the silence and the anxiety. He was so close then, the heat from his body radiating against hers, his breath mingling all those many taut unquiet minutes with hers, his sweat pooling as hers did, his muscles straining as did hers to be ready, flexing against the wait and the weight of that waiting, all that long and terrible night and well into the morning – there with her, but so far away. He wasn't talking to her then, he was only looking past her, only seeing loss, only seeing danger, barely able to see survival. He'd been walled off, from her, from the world, hard and impenetrable. But things had shifted since then, and the life lived since that moment now commands the largest real estate of her mind. Daryl. Simon. The baby. The future.
Early dawn by this point has broken into day, but Beth, due both to discomfort and anxiety, had not slept much through the night, and amidst the inaction of the car ride the deprivation catches up with her. Settling in, she allows the hum of the engine and the vibrations of the window frame against her leaning head to lull her to a quiet calm. Her eyelids grow gradually heavier with every blink and flutter. Ahead of her, drift back the occasional voices of Simon and Daryl, one learning from the other how to read the road, how to read the control panel, how to keep control at high speeds, or what to do if the car should spin out. Simon in turn reads some from the manual, the bits extolling on how best to maximize the hybrid engine's efficiency, while behind them Beth watches the sky, distantly listening, and taking in the ever shifting view of trees and foliage, blurring together in a long streak cutting through the sky, erasing the roadside carnage just below her eye line. All day they drive. Then further.