"I got it," Daryl grunts. Walking slowly through the shadows of the stale barn, he's disinterested in Beth's watchful hovering. Moving past her, he shuffles stiffly and with a great deal of pain, but he's doing it. There's no other choice but to. Lying still all day wasn't making him feel any better, so, as long as he's got to bear the pain, he'd rather be taking some sort of action while doing so, even if all it amounts to is hobbling over the same couple dozen yards of the dilapidated structure. He couldn't take one more hour of stillness. His head was too full of quiet and the doing nothing left him too open to thoughts he didn't want to think and to memories he knew better than to revisit. The visions of the hunting cabin are best left behind them, unexamined as they three dig in, grasping for a future. Without supplies, without much ammo, without a plan, they're back to square one. Again. Only not one of them now is at their best. Steeling himself against the physicality of it, Daryl's aware the lacerations and bullet wounds may well prove the easiest to come back from of what they've suffered. It's not missed on him Beth's distant earnestness has not faltered since the dust of their escape settled, and in the cold shelter of the barn her doe eyes look almost black as she waits, observant but detached. Quiet, and mostly still, she is not without action, not even without purpose, but any former desire within her seems winded, as though she's been left passionless and drained. Beth manages, still, the rote motions of duty and life maintenance, but whether directly by the events at the hunting cabin or finally by the unrelenting amassing of every loss, every near-death, every heartache, debasement, and lived-through horror endured for years on end, she's been undeniably shook, and now seems shaken from herself. Beth's there, but not. Unharmed, but not. Daryl winces as his bad leg takes his weight. If nothing else, being on his feet gives him some sense of working toward a measurable recovery when all else feels incorporeal.
Determined, he moves slowly across the length of the barn, his bad leg dragging as he focuses his weight on his good one. Simon had fashioned for him a crude support from an old splintered plank he'd wrapped and padded with fabric scraps, but it's awkward to wield and just days after Daryl already feels the pressure to be independently mobile. When Beth wordlessly reaches out to him an assist he's quick to swipe her hand aside. Being handled, even by her, even when cut and twice shot, does not square with his vision of himself. He's never gone so far as to mask the pain — fronting as though he were as untouchable and unfeeling as stone; Daryl has no need to feign invincibility. But as these wounds won't kill him, it falls to him to resume and recover. It isn't in him to be tended, he never learnt it. Daryl Dixon never learned vulnerability in the vein of reliance. He'd never had the means to try it. Taciturn to be sure, he's never emotionally false. It isn't beyond him to admit to his pain and, if pressed, his bouts of fear, but the owning up to the first — self-evident as it is — gains them nothing, whereas the second may yet be too raw to reveal and claim.
Too true is it that this interlude of theirs in this barn is not real; it has not brought them safety. But though they three must all know it, not one of them has spoken to give it credence. The quiet headiness of the mildewed straw-strewn barn and the slatted streaks of shadow-filtered sunlight in the wake of unyielding brutality cast a sort of other-worldly spell over them. Undeniably though, the dangers of the outside world still await them, and this reprieve, they all know, will only last so long. Already they feel acutely the need to return to the road. As quickly as possible Daryl's got to be moving on his own, and thus he paces the barn, taking the dull and shooting pain in stride as the cost for still yet breathing. Although his companions might assert otherwise, there is no allowance for the infirm; there are too few of them for him not to pull his weight, too few for him to be laid up for too long. Daryl passes Beth, intent on taking this piss on his own, to move independent of her. His body moves like dead weight as he shuffles. His shoulder throbs, so much so even the lower half of his arm feels the hurt of it. All feeling in his leg seems to radiate straight to the burning discomfort of the healing gash in his thigh. What hurts most though is his hip. It keeps him from putting pressure on his leg as he steps gingerly through the slatted shadows falling over the hard-packed dirt floor of the barn. He'd stumbled when he first stood two days earlier, grimacing at the new level of pain the pressure and upright position brought him, but he's refusing to be cowed. Leaning now, his forearm against the plank wall, Daryl unfastens his trousers to relieve himself. Beth waits, bundled in a knit cap and a drab hooded oversized hunting jacket. The chill is in her, not deep-rooted, not set-in until spring, but there, like her breath is, visible before her. Her keen darkened eyes stay on him, watching for a sign should his stamina give way to his pain — should he stumble or lose his strength. Since the encounter her words have been few but her eyes have silently been on him for days. Strained and exhausted as she is, drained by fear and horror and degradation, Beth only has the capacity to focus on their survival. Not even that; survival, for now, is too big a thing. His recovery only has been her focus. Food, water, the consolidation and rationing of their supplies, it's fallen mostly to Simon.
His back to her, Daryl feels those wide eyes of hers still on him. He turns and spits. "I'm alright," he mutters, waving off again the sobering steadfastness of her attention. Dutifully, Beth looks away, but that hadn't exactly been his meaning. Their circumstances are bad, but they're not dire. By now, this extended quiet of hers is bearing down on him more than the violence, more than the necessities they lack, more than not having a plan. Daryl understands what they went through — what they witnessed and what they risked. He doesn't exactly feel chatty himself, but between them she's always been the one to break the heavy silences. Aside from the wordless inward vigil she'd kept, waiting to learn if her fall had indeed cost her her baby, it's always been Beth to take up their recovery. Every time it's been her who found a bright side, who made a remembrance, gave an embrace, mustered a smile. It's been her who soldiered through in expectation of better times. Not even excepting for her fall, it's been Beth before Daryl to find something to believe in. Hopelessness had never been Daryl's shortcoming, but Beth could always grasp onto the good more quickly than he could. Her ability to do it has become for him a thing to rely on. But there in the barn, living as refugees, it's not been with them. He'd never push her to come back from something sooner than she's able, but this time, battered and broken as he is, Daryl feels himself unequal to taking up the balance. They're low on options, they've just seen maybe the worst of what this new world has to offer, and he's in no small amount of pain. Daryl's seasoned enough to take comfort in their making it through — the three of them, as well as the baby — but like her, he has little to say above the necessary, and by now nearly everything between the trio can transpire without a single word spoken. Their silence then lingers, uninterrupted by walkers that never descend, or by plans that never reveal themselves, or occupation that rarely presents itself. It takes no words to light a fire, no discussion to set a snare or shoot and clean a barn owl. They needn't debate the rationing of water nor the tactical decision to lay low. The changing of Daryl's dressings can be done in quiet, as too can most of what little fills their time.
Daryl does not take her quiet as weakness; not in this context, nor would he in any other. Beth's strength by now's well-tested, and she's weathered worse than this, but still, as bandages are changed, and he and Simon talk over rehabilitation and strategic next steps, the intermittent silence of the barn is beginning to echo back to him the absence of her voice. He hasn't seen her smile in days. There's been no lightness in her features, no break in her heavy demeanor, not since that initial flash of relief when he'd first opened his eyes. She's herself, but not. Beth Greene, but not. And Daryl lets it be. They all recover at their own pace, in their own ways. She'll come back. They get to come back… Daryl believes it. As Rick had. As her father had. As if only the Governor had. But in the meantime he misses her. She's there, dousing fevers from his brow, ladling broth to him with a spoon, tying bandages and monitoring infection, but as a sort of nursemaid on autopilot. The friend he has in her has not been around, and Daryl neither wants a governess nor a minder. He'd welcome her though, his closest friend, his companion, the will-be mother of his child. He'd take her, sitting beside him, snuggling beside him, holding him and pressing her lips to him, smiling silent whispers to his head. But that Beth is underwater, and for the time it might be just as well; Daryl isn't looking for a hindrance to his healing. It's better that he's up, better that he's walking, better that he's not being nursed too sweetly.
His trousers fastened, Daryl slowly makes his way back. The wound in his leg'd opened once a few days back the first time he put weight on it. He isn't looking to be stitched up a third time. The whistled call of a bird sounds just before the barn door pulls open. In tandem, both Beth and Daryl immediately turn their heads to confirm it's only Simon making his reentry. It is he, dangling three killed field mice by their tails and carrying a modest reaping of water from the makeshift dew catcher. "Snares were mostly empty." A small hollow thud sounds in triplicate as Simon drops the little carcasses onto the slanted hood of the SUV.
Daryl surveys the quarry as he passes, taking a crossways seat in the front passenger side where the door stands wide open. "Not a whole lot."
"No," Simon concurs. "Guess we're lucky we even got three." The snares he set have not yielded much these past days, but even so, they've been eating lean, holding conservative with their rations. As little as they've managed to source, maintaining an extended stay in one place as they have been at least allows for snares and hunting; they won't have that chance on the road and they'll need what preserved food they have once they're again on the move. Simon, more from habit than anything else, glances both at Daryl and Beth, "Whaddaya think? Roast 'em? Or stew 'em?"
Shadowed as they still are in the aftermath of this latest violence, Daryl appreciates Simon's singular style of treating everything as business as usual. It's not tough to recognize the kid is not all right. He's still struggling with what he saw, and what he did, and Daryl knows he's been sleeping little and dreaming it all over again when he does. Even so, he's up, out there trapping field mice and working for water. He's turning to Beth to make culinary calls when she's barely spoken in days, treating her not like she's fragile but one of them, just as she's always been. He isn't treating her at all. Regardless, she does not answer, as both Daryl and Simon knew she likely would not. Beth is hardly eating; she's nowhere close to holding an opinion on what it is she eats. Yet Simon had asked anyway, choosing the path of feigning normality until it's restored. And Daryl likes that. He takes solace in someone else — Simon — being there, filling the voids, taking up the burden of conversation when the most he can muster is a grunt and words at present evade her entirely. He'll stay with Beth till everything he's got runs out, even past that. No question. But the work of two broken people trying to recover from a grievous knockdown is inarguably mitigated by the presence of a third. The trick to coming back, Daryl's found, is timing and counterbalances: His body is worn and busted. More than that, he's not free of the brutality they came up against or the good he failed to do. Still sharp and clear is the mad fear he'd felt on behalf of his own family just as he saw the remains of another cut down and ravaged. He needs time. But he is not alone in this. While Daryl works toward his self-reconciliation, Simon grapples with the implications of his first kill, executed in close quarters with intention, surrounded by the blood and destruction of innocents he'd risked all to intervene on behalf of. And Beth, not shocked, not scared, not browbeaten, but unrooted, anchorless in the wild chaos of the new world order's ambivalence to suffering. Proven more than four times over, Beth knows justice to be a hollow word now. Safe is equally hollow. Strong, prepared, seasoned: all are hollow. Family is all she still has to cling to. And she's doing her best to manage continuing doing just that.
There, in the impermanent shelter of the barn, not one of them is whole. Daryl, Simon, and Beth, each of them knocked down from themselves, turn to time for their gradual restitution. Until then, whatever accustomed balance characterizes their trio is suspended and their stopgap group dynamic shifts and adapts as necessity and collective collateral damage demands. It was Beth who'd kept her head during their flight from the cabin and she who'd played the surgeon. As immediacy waned, her deflated stagnation since has been offset by Daryl's dogged resolve to recover. He is not well, in body or spirit, but dark as his temperament and their current outlook are, his marksman's aim is set on getting there. And then there's Simon: not solid, not yet okay, but nonetheless taking up the slack, when and where he can. The managing of provisions, mindsets, and fortifications — by standard practice shared by all — now vacillate between the three of them when taking part exacts too high a levy from some. Receiving no answer about the food, once more, in the absence of consensus or any discourse at all, Simon single-handedly takes up the mantle of conversation, meal prep, and congeniality. "Maybe not a stew. Water's still low. The drip-drop's not producing what we need." He looks from Beth to Daryl. "Think we know now it's not your leg that'll fix when we shove off. We'll need water, soon."
Given this prospect, Daryl looks from Simon to Beth. Blinking, he appraises her and her readiness to return to the road, seeing past the aloofness she's sunk into. Daryl then judges his own condition, weighs their alternatives, then nods resolutely with a murmured grunt. "Mm-hm."
"Tomorrow?" he confirms. At Simon's suggestion, Beth looks from him to Daryl.
The lines in Daryl's face shift and crease as he deliberates contingencies and implications. "Yeh," he rumbles in agreement.
Simon nods in concord. He looks again at his companions. With little else to settle, Simon picks up the matter of food. "I'll roast these. We've still got th' dandelion greens. Won't be much. I'll reset the dew catchers and we'll turn in."
...
They're quiet as they, hunkered down beneath blankets, eat their meager meal in the back of the car. Their stomachs are sour from the lack of food and raw wild greens, but they make do with what they have. This isn't their first skirmish with hunger, and as long as they've got rations they're still holding off on, they're at least in control. Daryl takes a single sip of water then nudges Beth with the bottle to pass it off. She looks at it slowly, then in a daze takes it from him when for a second time he nudges her with it. She takes a sip, letting the cold water wet mouth, not enough to relieve it, but she focuses on the fleeting sensation of the cool drink moving down her throat into her stomach. When the drink is no more than a memory and a wanting for more, she sets the bottle nearer Simon. "Another," Daryl mutters. Beth just looks at him, hard. She may be pregnant, but it was he who'd been cut and shot. He was the one who lost all that blood. If he's not drinking more she's not. Daryl scowls, but she isn't looking. "Said 'another.'" Beth ignores him again. This time she retracts her hand from her mouth, pulling away the morsel of meat she'd been lifting to her lips.
Simon feels the tension building; that's only going to piss Daryl off. "Go ahead," he nods, chucking the bottle back between them. "We'll find more soon. Another two sips won't sink us. There's gonna be a creek out there somewhere. The rains'll be coming soon." Daryl looks at Simon then at the grimy plastic bottle, already less than half full. He likes the kid's optimism, but drinking up their stores on just the flimsy hope of finding more doesn't land with him, no matter how lightheaded he's been getting.
Daryl turns his attention back on Beth, still holding that bit of meat between her fingers. He'd tell her he yields, that it's safe to go ahead and finish the little bit of food they have without him haranguing her, but he's sensible of the risk he'd be running of only making it worse and coming across as more badgering. She still needs time; he can't strongarm her. She does finally finish what bits of mouse she had left, well after the others had finished theirs. In a sort of appraisal of her finishing, Daryl takes up her hand by the wrist and licks any lingering juices from her forefinger and thumb with the whole of his mouth. They haven't been playful with each other since before they ever fled the car that night. Seemingly so long ago was it that he quoted Joni Mitchell back to her; since they held one another and kissed in the cold night under the stars, sheltered more by each other than the heat of the open car door. It seems forever ago that they last saw their apartment encampment — since they parted ways with Bonnie, Walter, and Hadeel, then packed the SUV in search of something better. So long ago. They hardly even touch now beyond her requisite nursing. They'd held hands at the beginning, but as his strength stabilized she withdrew. Not once has he grabbed her head close to him just to kiss her crown. Her fingertips still his, Beth allows him this bit of intimacy, even meets his eyes at the end of it, but she does nothing to reciprocate. Beth looks long into his eyes, but she does not, or cannot, smile.
The night grows colder, and though their eyes have adjusted, the vehicle is dark with only one battery-lit headlamp. Maybe only from habit, Simon wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, despite there being nothing there to wipe. The meal had been altogether too scant to spare any stray trace to be left on the lips, but it's possible he's done it solely as a sort of trick of the spirits — if not the stomach — that a larger meal with greater taste had been consumed than what was. He yawns then, rubbing at his eye, and turns to Daryl. "Split watch?"
With a low grunt, Daryl stretches and nods. "I got it." None of them has been sleeping much, but given that driving's beyond the capabilities of his wounded right leg, his contribution can be staying up, giving the others at least some hope of rest before they clear out at daybreak. The offer made, Daryl lifts his hooded eyes to look at Beth. He's never relied on words spoken to discern Beth's thoughts, but in this couple day reprieve not only has she been silent, her deportment, too, has been less scrutable. A seeming veil has fallen about her, shrouding his friend and lover from him. Aware he's been nothing of an open book himself, Daryl does not fault her for closing in if she needs, but he looks at her now, before they close the door on yet another countless passing-homestead, to assess if she — if they — are substantively still all right. In the low dim haze of the lantern light, he sees her: pale, solemn, weary-eyed, but there. He still very much recognizes her as her. Somber and sunk in trouble though she is, she has not slipped too far away from herself. Seeing this, and so appeased that still she is his own known Beth Greene, Daryl nods once and clears his throat. Addressing the whole of their trio but neither one in particular, he affirms in his gruff rasp, "We get back on the road, find a highway, pinpoint landmarks, then make a plan."
"And water," Simon adds from the side of his mouth as he brushes his teeth with toothpaste wetted only with mouthwash.
"Right," Daryl nods in affirmation. "Water an' fuel."
Simon cracks open the passenger door to spit, then pulls it shut again as he tucks his toothbrush back into his pack. He settles then, back into his blanket, not quite yet horizontal, but getting there. Their task as they'd set out from their last town had been daunting enough: find permanent shelter to last the coming winter and in preparation for the coming baby. Tomorrow, when with the approach of dawn they embark again, they'll face no lesser undertaking, only now with less fuel and fewer ammunitions, all while down an able-bodied person by one and braced spirits by more than one. There's no knowing what awaits them. But there's no option but to go. Beth had chosen the barn for immediacy. Attending to Daryl before he bled out had been all that factored. Coverage from the road was limited; there had been no time. But even had the place been less poorly situated for a camp, had there been a spring on site or more wildlife about, there'd still be this inevitable going. Be it days or weeks later, eventually, there'd be leaving, and so what awaits them on the roads and in the backwoods can neither be excuse nor deterrent. There seems nothing ever but the going.
With the strength that he has, Daryl pitches himself forward to scooch to the door, swinging it open so that he might similarly swing out his bad leg. Using the car's frame for support, he shuts one door close to pull the driver's one open. With a near inaudible grunt, he hefts his body into the seat behind the wheel and pulls it close behind him. It's uncomfortable up in the front, and less warm without the other two so near, but if his true pain isn't enough to keep him up and watchful through the night, he's banking that the discomfort of his appointment will do its part. "Hey," he rumbles, reaching his arm backward to the others. As answer, Simon's head twerks up, rousing him from his comfort. He recognizes the wordless request made by Daryl's outstretched hand and Beth watches as Simon rises from the nest of blankets to pass over the makeshift arrow-shaping kit. Taking hold of it, Daryl swings the sack over and extracts from it his materials.
The steady sound of sharpened steel scraping off wood shavings fills their small world as all else stills. Simon cushions his head as Beth slowly finds herself a position of comfort. Breaths slow. Time slows. Blankets stiffly stained with blood and filth are pulled close and hunkered-in beneath. Growing daily a little more uncomfortable in her changing body, Beth adjusts the pillow supporting her lower back and stretches and flexes the limbs she's barely had occasion to use. None of them, in fact, is at all accustomed to this disuse of their bodies. With no true expenditure of energy in several days, their bodies are restless and tense, making it just as uneasy for the two in the back to fall asleep as it is for the one in the front to stay awake. But, eventually, those who had intended sleep found it, and he who'd intended to keep watch stayed alert and busy-handed.
The cold hours of the night passed slowly. Daryl lit his way through it with the headlamp slung about the rearview mirror, dimly lighting his brisk hands as they worked rhythmically to shape the crude weapons they rely on. In their quiet hours of respite they all had worked some on the shaving down of bolts. Daryl, too, as much as he was up to it, had worked some on target practice. Bracing his busted body against the tension and recoil of the bow was a matter — as much as walking — he needed to circumvent time's natural recuperation to re-master before the need for it arises. The world won't wait for him to heal. Cocking the bow is much harder now; the pain of his gunshot radiates through his shoulder and arm each time he does it, but he wouldn't quit, so long as he could bear it, even when Beth had warned against risking a reopening of his wound. Time and time again he'd fired, damp with sweat despite the chill. All of it is harder — the cocking, the bearing of the weight, and the brunt of the weapon's kick. All of it is pain. His aim is off as well, but he can fire, and he can move. If it comes to running, he's got to trust adrenaline will kick in. He's as ready for the road as he can be in this time frame, and, powerless to do more, he leaves it at that.
Behind him Daryl can make out the two distinct breathing patterns of Simon and Beth, both finally well asleep. He scrapes faster at the bolt point, sharpening it for deadly impact. He stretches his leg, rubs at his eyes, and keeps at it.
. . .
"Hey," Daryl rumbles softly. "Wake up. 's daylight." Beneath his touch Beth stirs and wakes, her eyes quickly acclimating to her surroundings. Beside her Simon wakes, pushing his stiff body up by the elbow. "Here," he rasps heavily, as Daryl extends a hand to Beth to raise her more easily from her nest of blankets. She accepts and uses the brace of his weight straining in his forearm to pull herself upright.
The barn is just barely grey with early morning light; beyond their walls, the sun is not yet up. They are stiff from the cold — sore from the muscles they'd clenched all night against winter's bite. Already having tread the length of the barn twice and taken a piss, Daryl, bundled in another self-created poncho sourced from a blanket of woven wool, leans his weight now against the car, waiting for the others to get in gear. Beth straightens her knit cap then rises to gingerly test her legs before fully standing to exit the SUV. Once certain that she is steady, Beth moves slowly, crossing to a spot behind a plank wall before crouching to relieve herself. Simon throws his hood on, grunting, "Mornin'," to Daryl as he passes. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he walks the distance from their vehicle to the barn's double doors, and after careful study of what's beyond them slips out. He'll take a leak, bring in what little water the dew catcher collected, and one last time check and then disassemble the snares. If there's nothing in them they'll likely just leave without eating. They'll dip into the rations later on, eat something cold; there's no use in spending any time here on it. Two of the snares are trampled, a small pack of walkers must have pushed through sometime in the night. Another is set, but whatever it'd caught had wriggled free. Maybe he'd reset it poorly, maybe whatever it was was just too small or quick to get caught. Another two snares were empty, and Simon took them apart. Only the final one yielded any success, a ground squirrel caught, and either stunned or dead. Carefully Simon releases it and gives the creature a quick and decided whip of its head against the ground to confirm its death. Simon's glad for the meat but feels slowed by the prospect of cleaning and cooking it before they break camp. Again there's not much water, but he rolls every drop from the catch tarp into the container, then seals it and unfastens and folds and rolls the tarp, carrying it under his arm with the water basin in one hand and their meager quarry in the other. "Got a squirrel," he announces upon re-entering the barn. "Just one." Daryl, exhausted on his feet, stands pretty much in the same spot where he had been when Simon ventured out. Beth though has found employment and is busy in the back of the vehicle working to straighten and reorganize everything that had gone to chaos in the past span of days.
Anything past use she's left dumped on the ground. She consolidates meds, consolidates food and gear. She resituates baggies and go-packs, store tubs, cookware, and melee weapons. She folds blankets, plumps pillows, and sets to making the bed. Daryl reaches through to touch her lightly. Shaking his head, he utters, "Don't bother; jus' gonna muss it up." Beth looks momentarily at him but she stretches the layers of blankets out anyway, tugging them tightly just so, keeping at her task. Daryl lets his hand fall away, figuring he never should have interfered. Who is he to judge making a bed can't be a path back to oneself?
Simon's pulling his knife to skin and clean the squirrel when he looks up after Daryl's whistle. With the kid's attention gained, Daryl nods his head in his own direction. "Give it here," he tells him. "Go'head, start th' fire." Simon crosses to him, picking up the skillet on the way, and passes them both off to Daryl. Wielding his hunting blade handily, Daryl makes quick rote work of the squirrel while Simon lights the fire by striking several times at the flint over the small pit he and Beth dug their second day in camp. The bundle of wood shavings and straw catches and slowly Simon feeds it twigs and more straw, blowing on it to fan the flames until the burn is strong enough to sustain the addition of chopped-down planks of wood. It won't be a large fire, but there isn't much to cook. Daryl, already having flayed and cleaned the thing, now goes to work cutting it down into little cubes. "Beth," he speaks, "lemme g't one 'r two 'f them skewers." Beth looks at him, then digs into one of the small storage tubs for the skewers they'd packed. She finds them and hands over three. "Hmph," he nods. "Good thinkin'." Daryl skewers the small pieces of meat evenly by three, then winces as he moves to take the skewers and the skillet to Simon and the low-flame fire he's stoking. Beth does it instead.
She takes the cast iron pan, too heavy for Daryl to have been needlessly bothering with, and the bits of meat ready to cook. She needs no instructions; when the fire is strong enough not to be extinguished by it, Beth sets the seasoned skillet over the flames and waits for the heat to take hold and disperse. When she knows that it has, she places the skewers crosswise to balance and roast evenly without being licked and singed by flames. Simon meanwhile checks the fuel tank, despite filling it being among the first things he'd done when they reached the barn. He assesses the weight of what gasoline is left to slosh around in the one jerrycan still not empty. Judging by the hollow feeling of the aged plastic gas can and the ease he has in splashing the contents from one side of the container to the other, there's not a whole lot left but still enough to count for something. "Tank's full," he reports to Daryl who's just cleaned his knife and sheathed it. "And we've got this." Daryl's eyes narrow on it as he listens to the kid slosh the remainder around.
There's a low sort of rumble that sounds from the back of his throat as Daryl factors and estimates. "Seven hours, maybe. Could be more. With no lead feet, more." Simon nods, not quite sure of the meaning of 'lead foot' but taking it to mean the same as what both Beth and Daryl had noted about not breaking and accelerating too much and letting the car coast on its speed as much as it can. Simon tests the plastic cap a third time, then stores the can safely upright in the back among the packs and other supplies. Beth, judiciously employing the thickness of her coat sleeve pulled over her hand, rotates and checks the meat as Daryl checks his adjustments to the taillights and headlights.
The faint scent of roasting flesh reaches their senses and the smell of it makes the morning feel a little less empty and a little less cold. They hadn't held out much hope there'd be a hot meal to start the day. As Beth makes a final rotation, not bothering with salt or seasoning, Simon strides up beside her and places three mugs atop the skillet. Until they replenish their store, they've given up boiling water — at least for what they're certain is safe — so fearful are they of losing a single drop to evaporation. But they do still heat their water, in this way providing at least a short-lived, carefully measured, warming of their bodies from the inside. Beth leaves Simon his then, with the aid of Simon's hand at her elbow, rises to bring the other two skewers back to the car where Daryl waits with heavy eyes.
"Th'nks," he nods as he accepts her offer. The meal is not robust but scant neither. A single squirrel can adequately feed three people, maybe more so were they not already underfed. But no one is keeping score of minor losses; a meal of any kind — and a fresh warm meal at that — gets tallied as a positive, even while there's no one readily equipped to note it. The meat is cooked through and subtle in flavor. Daryl pulls a chunk off and pops it into his mouth. He chews slowly, delaying his swallow. Eyeing Beth, he waits for her, too, to eat. She does. Still holding the steel-ringed handle in her pull-over sleeve, Beth picks at the first strip, tugging it off the post and raising it to her mouth. Confirming she feels no nausea in doing so, Beth sets the small hunk between her lips. By instinct, her mouth begins instantly to salivate and the hunger in her stomach more to churn. Strangely, the hunger mostly had let her be in recent days, but though even now she does not feel hungry, her body vies jealously for whatever nourishment it can claim.
Swallowing, Daryl makes the small effort to clang his skewer against hers, making a tinny unexpected sort of cheers between them. Beth's eyelashes flutter and her gaze truly finds his. Imperceptibly he winks at her, just once, just a flicker of a heavy eyelid too long deferred from sleep, but it's there, telling her he sees her. Beth breathes, and nods. She edges a little closer. She chews and eats another bit of meat. And so does Daryl, eating two pieces at a time between yawns and a deep brow rub, trying to stay clear-eyed until he's cleared to crash.
By now, Simon's kicked in and stomped out the fire and set the pan aside to cool. Holding his skewer between his teeth, Simon hands off the mugs, one to her and one to him, taking a swig from his own, mindful that the contents won't last long. He rubs at his matted mess of blond hair, stomping his feet to stay warm. "All packed?" Daryl defers to Beth. Needlessly she looks behind her into the back. All is settled and accounted for. She indicates as much. "You good to drive?"
Beth sniffs through the cold, "Yeh."
Simon nods and picks up the still-hot skillet. Handling it carefully, he sets it atop a strip of cardboard at the foot of the bedding. "I'm calling it a night," Daryl yawns, pulling himself into the back. Before lying back to collapse dead asleep, he takes hold of the waist hem of her coat and wags and tugs it slightly to and fro in his hand. "Head away from the way we came in on," he tells her. "Find th' highway, keep clear of towns and cars f'r a while. Those assholes might've not followed after at the time, but we've been off the road all this time, we don't know where they are. We put miles behind us and here b'fore we stop f'r anything. Don't need t' speed, but we're getting our asses clear 'f here." Beth listens, then when released moves round to the driver's side door.
"Sounds good," he nods soberly. Simon secures the mugs, closes the car doors, and carries with him to the barn doors a ration of water he'll keep up front with he and Beth. He looks first through the splintered chinks, then pushes open the doors. Hand on the gun at his waistband, Simon calls back to Beth, "Gonna check the road, sit tight." Simon steps out into the sunlight and makes his way up the dirt path back up to the road. By now the sun has crested and the sky is light. His clouded breath leads his way as the crunch and scuttle of gravel kicks beneath his feet. The morning air is brisk but clear, fresh smelling after the heavy stale air of the barn and smoking fire. Birds some ways off chirp, and lingering brush crickets call their whirring "katydids" from beneath the fading chaparral; all else is quiet. He looks one way and then the other. Nothing. Nothing but land and a coming Southern winter. No walkers, no anything. Nothing but what he hopes at least is a chance.
"Hey," Daryl rumbles from the back, arching his head so that maybe he can catch a glimpse of her. "You need t' talk about it?" Low though he's speaking, his words ring loud over the still and settled quiet. Behind him, seated in the driver's seat, Beth sits with her hands poised on the wheel, the key set in the ignition, her foot lightly rested on the break. Her inaction waits in anticipation. She says nothing. "Beth—"
He'd heard her. Sometime in the night or early morning their first night — no, maybe it'd been their second — he heard her. She'd been outside the car, most likely huddled somewheres in a corner of the barn, maybe even outside in the black night. He'd heard her when she'd thought herself alone and only she among them awake. He must have woken to it; he had not felt her leave. It stopped his breath to hear it, carving him open and prostate. The cry she'd made was broken and childlike and desperate, unlike any cry he has heard her make before. It was heart-wrenching, hearing her gasping and sputtering for breath. Still it echoes in his ears: Beth's sobs, violent, audible, and agonizing. She couldn't breathe and he couldn't help as he'd listened to her choke on her misery. But now, there in the front seat, Beth does breathe, deep, and slow. "I'm all right."
Daryl rubs his eyes and relaxes his neck so as to slump back into the bedding. He couldn't see her from this position anyway, and he's in pain, and only hazily alert. "No shame if you're not."
"I'm fine." Daryl could have predicted that'd be her answer. "Nothing happened to me."
Daryl's face twitches as he listens to her, her lost voice disjointed from her person. He lets her assertion linger. "You know I'm gonna be all right," he tells her. Beth's eyes fall shut. She hadn't known. In the instant, in the first hours that followed, she hadn't known if he would make it through. She'd stood up on that crested ledge on her own, watching the butchery, distanced but not detached. At the time, adrenaline had kept her focussed, but now in the quiet she comes back to it: That windy slope in the dark, making out the shapes of her family, discerning them from whom they were trying to help and those they were trying to defeat. It had been dark, and she'd been far off, but she'd seen. She'd heard. It was a different kind of terror than being in the midst of something: Watching at a remove while innocents are claimed, watching as shots fire, knives thrust, family risked, as an indifferent blade cuts through a beloved father, as bullets tear through love and futures. They're sitting there in this moment, having come out of it "all right", but it isn't over. None of it is gone. The world that nurtures these happenings is lying in wait somewhere down the line. And the visions come back to her. And the cavernous gutting feeling of helplessness. She bears this, tempering it with the learned knowledge that, no matter what, a person perseveres. "Sy too," he adds. Beth listens, if not to his words, then to the gnarled raspy bass of his voice. "Remember th' fever?" Daryl invokes. "Back at the prison... Me an' 'Chonne and Bob an' Ty went for meds. You was in quarantine with Ass Kicker and the kids… And your pop—" Beth stares into the sunlight let in by the open doors, "—was in A-Block, tending them that needed it. Rick told me later, Maggie tried t' stop him. An' your ol' man, he spoke t' them 'bout all the times we couldn't change things; your dad went in there, risking his life t' give th' help he could." Daryl pauses there, maybe to let his words find impact, maybe to straighten in his head the thing he's trying to say. "We did that. We tried. Risked our lives for others." He murmurs ruefully, "At least we did that. An' now we keep going. That's on us. As much as th' other part."
A figure silhouetted by the light crosses into the barn. Simon signals a thumbs up and Beth is quick to turn the key. The engine ignites; Beth shifts from the breaks to the gas and drives to meet Simon at the entrance. She breaks for him, just inside the shadows of the barn, and he swings open the front passenger door, climbs in, and shuts close the door behind him. "We're good," he affirms, and Beth, with both hands at the wheel, pulls out from their derelict shelter of so many days to head back to the road. The car bumps and jostles over the graveled earth, and it feels to them much longer than it has been since they've been in a moving vehicle. Beth makes the turn and keeps going.
They proceed. Without music or conversation, with the heat set low and two sets of open eyes, they drive. Daryl surrenders quickly to exhaustion, and the coarse cadence of his slumber with the sound of first the dirt and then the pavement passing underneath is all that sounds aside from the mechanics of the car.
"Mid August" posting did I say? Yikes! I'm sorry about that. I do have the next 2-3 chapters mostly drafted (although not at all edited yet), and I hope to have another posted within the month. (I guess we'll see...) After those next couple of chapters though I'll be back to writing from scratch for a while until I reach my next cluster of partially drafted (or at least thought-about) sequences. Meaning: posting frequency might pick up a little in the near future before it slows again. I hope you all are well. Thank you, SO MUCH, for reading!
[PS, I finally got to do Talking Dead this season, twice! S10ep1 & S10ep3. (The second time I was so close to getting my question on the air, but the woman who did make it on was so nice and did a fabulous job, so no regrets!]