Beth shifts in her sleep, arching and curling her body in a great encompassing contraction of flexes, extensions, and constrictions until the stretch is exhausted and she conflates back into limp and contented slumber. Finally able to once again close her eyes without the spectres of the lost filling her mind's eye, the day's sojourn to her past life seems to have exorcised the hauntings and unknowns plaguing her. Burrowed beneath the weight of three blankets, musty from want of use, Beth sleeps soundly, more so than she has for some time. With her boots off, coat off, jeans off — rid of her most confining clothes, she sleeps freely. Rank as she still is with blood and filth, her unconscious body takes pleasure in the gift of a true bed and the creature-comforts of peace, solace, and new beginnings.
Beside her, at least tied in exhaustion and bodily discomfort, Daryl sits reclined. With one knee propped in the air and his bad leg laid out, Daryl watches the last traces of dusk disperse into the transition to total darkness. The night is milder than those most recent past, but still the deep autumn night bears a chill that will not abiat till spring. Daryl's left hand moves instinctively to rest gently on her side ― an innate gesture of guardianship he's scarcely aware of. Spring. The baby will be born by then. He'll be a father. And once again, the world as he's known it will have made a seismic and previously-unfathomable shift.
Change has long been a constant for Daryl. His volatile childhood had been upended when Merle'd up and left, abandoning him to a narrow world of violence and neglect, and no true family. With no notice, one day Merel'd returned, recruiting Daryl to a solipsistic existence of two: only Merle and he against all the living world. Then rose the world of the dead, and with it a family forged through trial. Now he and Beth are willing a new world into being, and their child will be a family formed by love and blood and faith.
Winter, fast at hand, spring, beyond, it will be all right for them. They can make it so. If they lived through this day, if they've lived through all the rest, it's possible they can continue on.
Everyone falls. Daryl knows it. Their times will come, but it will not be before the coming of this spring, nor many yet to come. They are safe tonight, under a guarded roof. If they can manage a night, they can manage more. If not this place, then someplace else. It is possible. And if possible, they will see it done. The one comfort to be found among the ghosts and absences of their friends and family is the unassailable truth that Beth and he are still breathing, still able to fashion a future and fight to defend it; still able to find grace and even joy. Unable yet to sleep, Daryl's mind is full of the events of the day.
...
They'd followed the road along the back ridge of the property, opposite that of the highway and the path already tested the last time they fled the Greene farm. Walking the tree line, the afternoon shadows shifted overhead as they made progress for an hour or more before Daryl stopped them, his leg once again throbbing and his belly not the only one growling. In a clearing just a little ways beyond the road, they stopped once more.
No longer in dire thirst, no longer in pursuit of a past-gone life, now they simply are in want of a meal. "Here, Beth." Simon moves to serve her more of the still mostly-warm ravioli. The mass-produced sauce is something closer to orange than red, both salty and strangely sweet. The pasta itself is tacky like paste and far from qualifying as Italian cuisine, but undeniably it is a comfort food now, and even more so a luxury, as most carbohydrates have become. Extending the disposable plastic food container they keep as lightweight dishes, Beth accepts the second helping and savors the taste and texture of the rare meal of canned pasta.
She's remained quiet since the farm, but the quiet shifted somehow in the hour of walking, and has a less haunted sense about it. She's still reserved and removed, but the vacant air about her has faded. Beth is altogether more present than she has been. Their luncheon is a subdued affair, and the three of them sit content enough with their un-menaced rest, none of them expecting a restorative. Daryl swipes his index finger through the remaining sauce staining the shallow walls of his emptied bowl.
Simon gulps his water, still reveling in its current plenitude. Tilting his head straight back, he readies to take another long draft when something catches his attention from the corner of his eye. The distraction momentarily hazards Simon to choke before he recovers and swallows. "Wait, what was that?" The teen half laughs, his blue eyes large with inquiry and bemusement.
Beth looks up in answer, the patina of a distant inward smile appearing as she does. ― There it is again, a little bounce in her abdomen. Simon laughs with disbelief. "What was that?" Now Daryl's turned his head and is looking too. "Beth?" Simon smiles.
"Hiccups." Her answer comes softly. Aside from what she'd said about Hershel, it's the first she's spoken in days.
Simon's brow lifts, "Yours, or…"
Her eyes are gentle as she answers. "Th' baby's."
― There it is again, just a tiny bounce.
Simon laughs. Daryl looks. The expression he wears is a mix of reserved incredulity and wonder. He looks as though he'd like to smile but is holding back, like maybe it's too soon to be glad or to delight in the miracle of the mundanity of hiccups ― the hiccups of someone so small and yet unborn. Could be things aren't right enough at the moment to allow for him to smile or to take pleasure in even this.
― There again, a little bounce. ― Simon's beaming. Tenderly, Beth reaches and takes Daryl's hand in hers. He would have licked the remnants of their meal from his fingers first but the mess of it does not faze her. Beth moves his hand to the defined swell in her torso. Resting it there to feel, Beth leaves her own hand in place, still holding his. ― There again, a bounce.
"D'y feel it?" Beth nearly whispers.
The lines at the corners of his eyes crease deeply and Daryl smiles; it looks as though he might be in danger of tearing up. Words escape the archer, but he does nod his affirmation, and his voice is heavy and gravelly when he at last does speak. "Yeh..."
"Didn't know that was a thing that happened," Simon smiles, his eyes full of the young mother's self-bouncing belly.
"Guess we c'n take this t' mean th' kid ain't scared," Daryl quips brusquely, as though he's hesitant they're yet at a point again where they can laugh and kid. It's seemed so long since last they did.
Simon half chuckles, and Beth gently breaks a wider smile in response to the simple nothing-jest. The air between them lightens as though blown through by the faintest imperceptible breeze.
Beth, never breaking her eyes from Daryl and with her right hand still on his, reaches her free hand and extends it to Simon in an invitation for him also to feel. But though he would delight in doing so, Simon remains unmoved in place, cognizant that if this moment is to be shared by three, he is not one to be counted among that trio.
His fingers now tightly intertwined with hers, Daryl hazards moving nearer and ventures the distance between himself and her to kiss her on the temple. Under the feel of his touch, Beth seems to crumple and to straighten all at once. In earnest she turns her face toward him, now gripping his hand tighter. Her blue eyes hold him truly in her wholly emotive gaze and she blinks and lets her lashes fall shut as her head drops tenderly to his. She could weep, maybe, for the release that's brightened from within her, but she would rather smile or laugh, for this coming back to herself, and to them. Daryl reaches and pulls her head close against his own.
Now rising, Simon fidgets where he stands. "I'll, uh... I'm gonna go see about finding th' wet side of a tree." Having offered his unheard excuse, Simon leaves them to themselves.
Daryl takes her in, fondly admiring her face now that a spark of her internal light has been restored. Running his fingers along her wisps of unruly curls, he ventures past the wall that had risen between them. Beth's eyes are open and watchful as she accepts the tenderness of his touch. They hold each other's gaze, newly seeing each other as whole, not wounded or in risk of death, not broken or adrift. Beth had never meant to withdraw and leave him as she had. It was instinct not intent that made her answer the fear of loss with self-imposed distancing. And now, incrementally, Beth manages to push past self-preservation. Mute distance isn't what she wants; it never could have kept them safe and it isn't what will sustain her long term. And there is a little being, still small but willing itself into being, resisting distance, resisting despair. Together, Beth and Daryl each are present in this moment as another presence makes itself known. Two quick pulses, one after another, disrupt the expected inertness of Beth's lower torso. They both look, then Beth smiles something not too far off from a giggle.
Daryl's countenance lightens as again the lines about his eyes crease with fondness and wonder. "Never saw this wi' Judith."
Beth smiles vaguely at the memory. "She did. You were doing other things." Her eyes shut then as she shakes her head remembering, her hand moving to her own swelling belly without the conscious thought of doing so. Beth's thoughts take her back. "... I was unkind to Lori about it when we found out."
Daryl looks at her with meaning. "But who more than you cared for her daughter?"
"Rick. All of us."
"Nah, a lot of it was you." He meets and holds her eyes. "You did that for her, dudn't matter what you said." Daryl too thinks back to the farm. "It was early then," his deep rasp rumbles. "Still at th' start 'f this. We didn't know what kind 'f world we was in, 'r what was still possible. We was just tryin' not t' die." Gently he holds his calloused palm to her at the source of the little pulses. "Couldn't yet think 'bout livin' then."
Beth looks at him. "... Think that's changed?"
"Y'know it has." Beth had been as much a part of the prison community as anyone, filling her roles, doing her jobs, making space for life and growth and new things. She'd been a part of its start and she'd known it at its best. "We lost th' prison," he grants her, "didn't lose th' future." He looks at her with collegial pointedness, "Right?" — Once again her belly bounces.
Given the circumstances, there's no answer but one. Every single hardship they've suffered has been endured in the name of the future. What else is there to fight for and hold on for but a chance? "Yes." — Again a little bounce.
Behind them somewhere, Simon overly rustles branches to sound the alert of his return from taking a piss. His youthful face is sweet with curiosity. "It still happening?" he asks as he draws nearer. Beth nods, and she extends her hand to his to place it in the spot. As Daryl rises, Simon kneels and waits. Expectant, his gaze shifts from Beth to Daryl to his waiting outstretched fingers. A pulse comes, igniting his face in an infectious smile. "Wild," he reflects. Simon's never seen a pregnancy up close and moments like these render him a little awestruck. His fair brown knits then in thought. "Shouldn't you have 'em too?"
"We're not the same person."
"Guess so," he muses. "That's wild; it's its own little person in there. He'll get th' hiccups if he wants to." Beth smiles an almost laugh. She lifts her eyes to the sky, squinting into the amber sun. The shadows are growing longer as their hours of daylight grow short.
Daryl follows her gaze. "Should g't movin'." Simon nods and removes his hand. Getting to his feet, he packs their meal gear. Daryl offers his hand to Beth. She takes it, reciprocating this small embrace before bracing her weight against his to rise more easily to her feet.
The remains of the fire are dampened out and three packs are once again strapped on. After a final survey of the site they move on, back to the road.
Their loads are heavy with the weight of water and food and gear, but they bear them well, grateful for the security they provide. "Walk till dusk?" Simon asks. "Expect w' could run short 'f farms by then?"
"Naw," Daryl rasps. "We'll spend th' night indoors."
They walk on, spurred by this notion, gravel and brush giving way underfoot. Beth keeps pace, still feeling the tiny jolts of life within her every so often. She's not alone. Not without purpose. Not giving up.
"I want to get off the road." She spoke the words with unmitigated assurance. No longer willing to take things as they come, no longer willing to wait and see, and make do, no longer willing to drift in an endless dismal acceptance of impermanence, Beth calls this audible.
Two pairs of eyes turn to her. Simon's brow furrows some. "Isn't like we haven't been trying."
"Yeah, we've been tryin'; we're no better for it. It took us a winter and then some t' find the prison. Rick kept pushing us and we kept movin' and movin', and we finally found it. An' it was good." Beth adjusts her left shoulder strap as she lands one foot after the other. "M'ybe that's what we've been doin': holdin' out for th' better situation, but we're done doing that. We need a place."
In less than two minutes Beth's said more than she uttered all week. Daryl eyes her, relieved to be hearing her voice again, more so to hear her voice a preference or a need. Seems like she hasn't felt a need for anything in days.
Beth looks at her companions, unconcerned with the looks her agency has provoked in them. "...Think I'h know a place we could try." The other two look to her though her focus remains fixed ahead. "Could be a bust. Been a long time."
"Haven't had a destination since we fled th' prison," Daryl weighs in. "Even a hunch is good at this point."
"Same," Simon nods, "sold. Which way?"
Beth's eyes lift in her head as she tries to conjure latent memories of something she barely knew in the time before. "... We keep on this road... then hook left in m'ybe—" she scans their surroundings… she's never walked it, and only been there two or three times in her life, but as she gives herself the chance for this old knowledge to resurface, she regains her bearings. "Four miles."
Daryl nods decisively. "Sounds good."
"Hell, yeah," Simon adds, his steps a little lighter now as they go.
Beth squints at Daryl, though the late afternoon light does not require it. "Could be a bust. It could be gone. Could be occupied. M'ybe even well-guarded."
"Could be empty," Simon counters.
Daryl tilts his head in the kid's direction as a sort of affirmation of his positivity. "Could be."
"Gotta at least try; it being our best and only prospect."
Neither Daryl nor Beth disagrees and so they three progress, never knowing what they'll find, but at long last with a destination in mind. They walk on under the clear sky of the autumn day. There is little breeze, and the turning leaves yet unfallen rest still on their branches. Beyond quenched thirst and bellies filled with the now rare delicacy of processed carbs, they feel full as they go. This new point of direction and the sense of having had come through something and survived sustains them. Every step forward signals this ugly episode may soon be put to rest: Daryl is healing, and likely out of danger for infection. Beth has managed to reclaim resolve within herself. Simon has forgiven himself.
As the three survivors near equal footing being restored between them, young Simon's left free to let go the burden of holding things together on his own. He looks to Beth, "Tell us about this place; where we headed?"
Beth pulls her focus from the road to glance at Simon. "It's, — It's a house, on a large property of land. Not exactly a farm, though I think he did grow peanuts and alfalfa."
"So," Simon presses with open curiosity, "why this place?"
"It was Dr. Singh's place. He taught biology and environmental science at the high school." Beth's thoughts retrace memories she never thought she'd revisit. "He lived off the grid, or mostly did, or was capable of it. I don't really remember. We took a field trip to his place once. Daddy and Shaun traded with him, early on, after it started. Later Maggie went. He was one of the neighbors still homesteadin'."
"What happened? He die?"
Beth has no way to answer Simon's question. She doesn't know. Her family had stayed on the property of their farm as much as possible. Then Rick's group had descended upon them, and everything seemed wrapped up in Carl and losing Otis and the horrible happening at the barn, and then Randall and Shane, and then it all fell apart. The horde drove them out and back on the highway. "Dunno."
"You didn't try this place b'fore, when y'all were on the road?"
"Never came this direction," Daryl answers.
"We weren't lookin' for a house," Beth amends. "We'd just lost ours. Rick wanted more th'n a house. An' there were so many of us then; if he'd been alive, I don't think Daddy thought he'd welcome us."
"What about now? If he's still alive?"
"Three ain't so many," Daryl mutters for her.
Beth nods in thought, innately considering all the possibilities they might meet upon arrival. "People change... Carl told me the story of Rick's friend — Morgan. He went mad on his own…"
They walk on, their footfalls the only sound on the road, trailing after them like a gravelly dirge. "We'll work it out," Daryl says. The words are resolute, but speaking words does not make them so. More wordless walking, steady and industrious. It's a strange type of silence settling over them, a sort of fusion of resilience and dogged-hope and misgivings and disquiet. Not long before they'd managed the first smiles and laughs for days, only moments ago they settled on a destination, and now the portent of danger troubles them...
"Snaps ain't th' name of the game." Beth can't hold back the unexpected smile this elicits. Pleased that he gauged it well, Simon beams but takes the win in stride, never missing a beat in launching the clues to the game. "Wait, get ready. Hope this house is empty." Simon snaps three times.
"Daryl still can't play."
"I c'n play," the archer mutters in retort to Beth's smiled jab. Skeptical, both she and Simon look at him. "I figured it out. Not ignorant."
"True," Simon rejoins with humor followed up with two snaps, still giving clues amidst their conversation. "Well, all right then," the teen smiles. "How about you start?" He snaps once. "Listen—"
"—Moby Dick," Beth speaks quickly to claim the prize. Simon grins at her, no longer feeling it was a risk to hazard a game or some levity so soon. Passing the game along, they both turn to Daryl, Simon walking backward some as he does, boasting a pleased grin on his face.
Somewhat resentful of this youthful condescension doubting he could pick up the rules to a simple campfire game, but all the same pleased for this shift in tone among their group, Daryl eyes them each with a bit of a scowl, then cracks a little smile. "Name 'f th' game is Snaps."
"Ohh!" Simon cheers his encouragement.
"Tell me if I've got it wrong." Daryl snaps hard and clear four times. "M'bye didn't learn it right. Whoever came up with this—" he snaps once with his right hand then lifts his left to also snap but—
"—Tom Waits!" Beth interjects before he can snap the next three snaps. Daryl nods his affirmation.
Simon shakes his head, "Dunno who that is."
Daryl nods toward Beth, "That one does."
Simon looks to Beth for context for the name, but Beth's eyes have suddenly filled with Daryl and Simon looks away. Beth allows her pace to fall in sync with Daryl's and her path to veer more closely to his. They walk in time, no longer distanced by ghosts or doubt. In a motion that is simultaneously effortless and brave, Beth slips her hand in his. Daryl accepts this gift. Her small hand is cold at the fingertips but warm at the center of it. He drums his fingers on the back of her hand once as he holds it, making it clear he's present and there with her, then he squeezes once and they walk on.
…
Warm there beside him, Daryl watches as Beth sleeps. The timing of this day confounds him. Could so much have happened in the course of one day? How few miles did they cover to end up as far a distance as they have today? He remembers how they woke, the silence, the listlessness and distance. But more real is the memory of her hand in his. Purposeful and intended.
"Sorry." Her voice had been soft and airy as she spoke the word while they walked, but not without weight. Those two syllables were grounded by every bit of meaning Beth bears within her.
Already relieved, Daryl had accepted the apology with grace. He let his face fall to hers, let his brow rest on hers, breathed her same air. The graveled rumble of his solemn voice drew her to him. "Was never gonna let you disappear."
Beth had nodded, fractionally and inwardly. She let his closeness seep through her. "S'posed to be stronger th'n that."
"S'posed to be human," he'd answered back. He drew her in nearer beside him then, slinging his arm heavily about her. Beth leaned in. She bent, and multiple times had kissed his scarred and calloused hand where it clasped her. He'd kissed the side of her head. "Ev'rything's okay." She nodded into him. In time, Beth had leaned into him, letting him bear her as she had not for days. Beth let him in. There on that road they traveled, she let him reach her. "We're good," he'd told her.
She nodded once more. "Daryl—" she'd started to say, but she had no need to.
"—I know," his low voice had rumbled in answer.
Her seraphic eyes fell shut then. Her lips pressed gently to his shoulder. "…I'm sorry," Beth murmured into him once more.
"We're good," he'd said again.
Now alongside her, securely in bed, Daryl yawns and shifts from the position he's been in for some some time. Beth seems at no risk of waking and though he's bone tired himself and aching, he has no sense of sleep coming on. Rising from the bed, Daryl finds the air colder than he'd expected. Had there been a spare blanket he might have wrapped it around him, but there are none but those cocooning Beth. He forgets it, not bothering with his poncho, mindful the room is a great deal warmer than the night before he spent on watch. Daryl crosses to the bathroom. This house isn't as large as the Greene's and likely not as old. It was built with indoor plumbing and bathrooms in mind, maybe as late as the1930s. Daryl looks around, for no better reason than he feels restless and too wired to crash, which is all he wants.
Beth had done well steering them here, the place seems a windfall. The sun was already sinking below the horizon when they reached the property. With the night vision goggles at the ready, they approached with alert caution, avoiding the front path altogether and circling around from the surrounding fields. They watched for some time under the cover of trees and utility equipment, scanning for signs of life or occupancy. No lights lit the house, none that could be seen anyway. The fields and yard are overgrown. Encouraged, they neared closer. They had to act fast and in full formation as they made their advance, for as lifeless as the property presented itself, it was not without the dead.
They could have done with more help; they could have done with riot gear and fences to lock shut and subsection the walkers. They could have done with a lot of what they did not have, but they made it through. Into the house through the kitchen door, from the open yard and roaming walkers they hazarded entrance into a darkened house containing they had no idea what.
The effort to block the doorway behind them was immediate. The door had been forced open some time before, that much was clear. It was clear off its hinges and the door jam was smashed and splintered. Unfazed, they were systematic in their tackling of it, having both anticipated the possibility of it and being practiced enough at the mechanics of it. Their hands and bodies scrambled in the expediency of the work, which was complicated further by the dimness of the lighting, but though their labor was quick-paced it was not frantic. Armed with a mag light, a hammer and nails, and planks pried free from an already dilapidated fence, they had lifted the door back into position and forced it into place in its frame. Daryl held the door in place against what might try to force it in again from outside while Beth and Simon held up boards and hammered them in. When Simon stepped away to mice further into the rooms to fight the dead already inside the house, Beth alone had done the hammering. It hadn't taken long, the clearing of the house. Nothing had gone sideways or caught them off guard. In clearing, they found no evidence of life or recent occupancy, only the telltale signs of the place having been raided, likely more than once. The windows were already boarded, already lined with blackout curtains. Clearly, someone had taken care to secure the house. With the back door hammered shut and the front door's security measures still in working order, they'd used the front door to clear the house of the dead, only taking them as far as the porch. No one had the energy to do much more. And then they shut the house down, closing it off to the world.
No one had bothered setting snares or trying to hunt. With his bow, Daryl had taken some easy shots at walkers from the second-story windows but left the remainder on the property to contend with in the morning. With firewood on hand, a fire was built in an interior room once the sky was dark enough to conceal the smoke trailing from the chimney. Dinner had been quick and simple, a can of kidney beans and another of peas, both split three ways with portions set aside for the next day.
The quiet that settled over them this meal was unlike the quiet that had lingered these last days. Whereas before it had been fear and world-weariness that had held their tongues, and reserve that kept them from speaking of what they've seen and done, this softness of tongue was a quiet on the other side of trauma — a physical and emotional exhaustion well earned, and one that could be recovered from with a good night of rest.
Simon had been the first to fall asleep. He never made it to a bedroom, just sprawled out on the sofa nearest the fire. Unlike him not to first survey the property and inventory supplies and assets, the quickness with which sleep overtook him betrayed how much the teen had shouldered while Daryl convalesced and Beth had receded from them, all the while he too was battling his own demons and the resonance of his first kill.
Beth was next to seek a bed, and Daryl had joined her upstairs, selecting for them the least-fouled of the bedrooms. It wasn't the fresh air that sealed his choice though. The room boasts a trellis — likely by now riddled with dry rot and loose some fastenings to the exterior wall — outside the room's west-facing window, securing for them the house's best escape route from the second level. Should they need a quick exit it will serve to scramble down in a bind.
Needing no more license than knowing the house had been secured, Beth lost no time tugging off her crud-encrusted boots. Letting them drop heavy to the floor where she released them, she never noticed as earth and gravel and weeds broke loose from them and sputtered across the floor at impact. With a singular focus on the bed, Beth had stripped off her coat, her jeans, and her sweater. The effect had been chilling but freeing and immediate, and as she'd crawled into bed she felt herself light, so much lighter than the weight of a pack and walking boots and winter clothes could amount to.
Like Simon, sleep had overtaken her fast once her head touched a pillow, and she's been out ever since. Daryl glances at her— Beth breathes heavily in her sleep, as though her exhaustion is taxing her even in slumber. Daryl aches for that. To just be heavy where he lies and dead to the world for a little while, to be out cold, out of his head, out of his weary body and just asleep. He's been running on zero for days and needs the recharge of a solid sleep. Resting where they had earlier this day on the side of the road while Simon went for water, he could have fallen asleep right there. He could have slept so easily there in the sun as the stones Simon chucked ricocheted one after another off the aluminum sign with a thud and echo before landing and skidding across the dirt. He was tired then. Now though, sleep eludes him. Tattered, frayed, and prostrate though he is, Daryl's fatigue seems to have converted into a sort of hyperdrive. They'd secured a roof to sleep under — more than a week after leaving their fortressed apartment, an actual roof and solid walls enclose them once again — but still he cannot sleep. It should be enough for tonight. It is enough after these long days and nights on the road. Whether this place will be enough for longer is a question for tomorrow — something to assess in the morning after all three of them have slept a solid eight hours and have had a chance to properly survey their prospects.
Beth hadn't said much about the place, only that if it were still standing and not guarded to the teeth or overrun beyond their capacity to clear, it was likely their best and nearest bet. She'd said nothing more of why neither she nor Maggie, nor Hershel had made mention of it before, but Daryl's mind is far from that lost winter their group had spent wandering on the road. His focus is wholly occupied by the winter encroaching fast on their horizon. Whether they'll weather it here is too soon to tell.
The room they occupy is the back bedroom. Small and under-furnished, it is plain, in an early-American puritanical utilitarian sort of way. It likely was nearly as bare before any scavengers helped themselves through the rooms. For nothing, Daryl pushes open the aged door of the closet. Mostly used for storage it seems, the small space is filled with shelves of boxes, assorted in size and mostly unlabeled. Though in more disarray than its presumed norm, the contents are mostly there — file boxes of old papers, bulky clothing items in storage, boxes of old family photographs, slides, and super 8 reels. There's a box of aged scientific instruments and a dusty shadow box of war medals. Daryl digs idly, shifting things a bit with little interest and no expectation of finding anything he needs. The small closed-in space smells of mothballs but also of citrus and cloves. Daryl detects the traces of dried orange and autumn spices but he's gone nose blind to his own scent. No doubt by this time he's well past rank. From nothing, he begins to sense his own filth, thick and entrenched. From nothing, his skin changes from innocuous to crawling, suddenly feeling the intensity of the grime and the sweat and blood and drainage and gore that cover him from head to foot. Never precious about his person, neither sweat nor dirt had ever bothered Daryl. Growing up hunting, blood, too, elicited no reaction from him and it took less time than he might have guessed for the gore and excrement of the changed world to also become nothing to him. Thus weeks or more without a bath had long been commonplace for him, but now he feels an urgency to rid himself of what he can of this last week and leave it behind as they had the farm, the barn, the cabin, and their apartment before it.
Turning from the closet he brushes against a shelf and by mistake knocks something to the ground. Daryl moves to step over it until the shapes of stripes and five-pointed pentagrams catch his eye, summoning the involuntary imagery of days gone by. The room is dark but he need not light a match or flashlight to know the colors at his feet.
Allegiance was not strongly felt by him in the times before. He was bonded to Merle: followed him, mostly heeded him, had his back, but that was the extent of Daryl Dixon's practiced faith and reverence. The triad of red white and blue stirred little in him. Whether Stars and Stripes or Merle's Stars and Bars, the mythos of nationality and patriotism had never much compelled him. Merle had served in the army, but it had done him no good. Merle'd bought into that Confederacy shit, but Daryl'd never set much stock in it. To him, faith in a flag was a piety engineered for suckers: no country had interest in the fools who died carrying its banner. Fidelity to few was the allegiance of Daryl's youth, learned hard and beaten in. Only later did he learn the calculus of caring for the many over the few, the group over himself. No flag had anything to do with it. In this new world nations amount to families — to the group you bind together. America had been little to Daryl but a prop in the us-versus-them mentality he'd been hard-wired all his life to uphold. Now it's a forgotten memory, missed no more by him than legends of folklore and Western heroes. This bit of embroidered fabric at his feet no longer is a nation. It denotes no borders or peoples. All allegiances and boundaries have long since been redrawn, bearing little resemblance to the republic the land once was home to. The battles now fought are waged for less abstract causes than sovereignty and honor. Daryl leaves the bit of canvas and silk where it fell. It means nothing to him. No longer embittered, as he was in his youth; no longer hostile or fueled by hate, he is not alone. His family is his country, his nation, and his cause. He needs no flag in the world — old or new — to know it.
In the bathroom once more, he finds and lights a tapered candle wedged into a bottle of some kind and turns the faucet to run the water into the sink. Daryl peels off his sweater. The faint sweet fragrance of warm honey fills the room as the hand-dipped candle burns evenly in the dark. Daryl next reaches for his shirt. Through the mirror, he spots something unusual behind him. He turns and takes the candles with him for closer inspection. In an alcove behind the vintage tub, where maybe once there had been cabinetry for linens and such, sits neatly stacked an ample supply of kindling and quartered logs. Beside the bath, set upon a stone-built hearth stands erect a cone-shaped wood-burning fireplace. Whether this retrofit predated the turn Daryl couldn't rightly tell, but the chimney is securely installed to the outside wall, set to feed all smoke out to the exterior. The fireplace itself, though unexpected in a bathroom, is not what's got his attention. Around the funnel and chimney is coiled great lengths of copper piping. Having never seen a setup such as this before, Daryl rightly sees it for what it is. A water heater. A tankless, gasless, bucketless water heater. Beth had made no promises for this property, she'd listed nothing to hang hope on, but she had not been wrong to steer them here rather than any other area farm.
Daryl doesn't miss a beat. He checks first the flue is open, then arranges and sets the kindling. He turns the water on, letting the well water run through the pipes, diverted now from the original plumbing to the added piping coiling around and around the surface area of the porcelain enameled fireplace then reconnecting to the shower head. Daryl positions two logs in the catching fire and stands upright the toppled bucket in the tub basin, there to catch the unused water while the setup takes time to heat. The bathroom glows warm from the fire and already the chill has been cut. Daryl tests the water. Warm. It's warm. It's ingenious. He turns the cold water on as well and turns down the hot for fear of soon being scalded. Off then comes his shirt and wool socks, then finally his tattered trousers and drawers. Naked and filthy, he stands there in the small room steaming with warmth and the aromatic scent of the beeswax candle blended with the earthy tones of firewood. Present too is the distinct fragrance of burning rosemary, dried sprigs of which were bundled with the kindling. Daryl tests the water once more, strips off his bandages, and climbs in. The sensation is unreal. "Goddamn…"
Were the lighting bright enough and had he thought to look, Daryl would have seen days of grime being washed from him, pooling at his feet before circling round the drain. The bar of soap he grabs is homemade. It sets his skin afire. The peppermint oil alights unforeseen tingles invigorating his enervated body. With one hand he washes his grizzled hair with his good arm then scrubs at the blood where it's dried and crusted at his wounds. His frame looks hollow. Maybe worsened by the uncensored shadows cast by the flickering light, Daryl looks thinner than his norm. Being laid up for a week, running a low-grade fever and eating little, he'd lost weight. It feels odd even to see himself this way. At the apartment, baths of any kind were an expenditure of time, energy, and water, and a production he mostly deemed not worthwhile. In a space shared with four others beside Beth, his moments of undress were few and hurried. Same had been true at the camp and the prison and before that on the road. Truly longer than that. His body, strong and capable, agile and well-enough formed had hardly ever been more than a vehicle for him. Disconnected from it in his youth, left to hide on it the evidence of trauma and repeated betrayals — managed mostly by avoidance and by both clothing and tattoos — his body had never for him been a thing to contemplate or assess. It simply is. Whole enough to keep him going. In this moment Daryl feels himself more hollow and more broken than before but it can't be helped. Being there still breathing, and every day healing, means none of the rest of it need be a concern.
Clean enough and warmed to his core, Daryl shuts off the water. He snatches a hanging towel and dries himself quickly. He's bleeding some but not badly. Without any cloth clean enough to strip and use for bandages, Daryl braces for the cold beyond the bathroom and returns to the closet in search of anything he might use. There isn't much. He pulls down boxes of winter clothes, digging past woolen knits and flannel-lined trousers. He finds some long johns but as they'll likely serve more purpose whole than torn into bandage strips he turns back to the bed, moving a little less stiffly after the warmth of the shower. He scans the dim room for what could be used. Daryl wipes at the blood seeping from his hip and leg. Around the base of the bed hangs pleated fabric. A decorating flourish with little purpose before the change and absolutely none now. Daryl has to trust that aside from more than a year's worth of dust it's clean enough to use. Seating himself at the foot of the bed, Daryl reaches below with both hands and rips off a great length of the pleated bedskirt.
"Daryl?" Behind him, Beth stirs, not alarmed, but on alert.
"Mm-hm," he answers. "Right here."
"You okay?"
"I'm fine." Daryl turns his head toward her, "How're you?"
Beth breathes in deeply, adjusting herself from slumber. "I was out."
"Tha's good. Go back t' sleep."
Beth snuggles back into the nest of her blankets and pillows. "...I'h dreamed of workin' showers..."
"Weren't a dream."
Beth breathes deeply again as she waits for sleep to come, "...Whut... wasn't…?"
"Th' shower. Hot water n' everythin'. Y'did good with this place, Greene."
"...Whut'd'ya mean… 'hot water'?" Beth yawns.
"A real shower, Greene. Better than."
Beth turns over on her other side, pulling the pillow beneath her head closer to her. "Nothin's better than a real shower."
Daryl half-smiles. "Y'want one? Beth?"
"...Hm?"
"A shower. Y' want one now?"
Beth's head rises from her pillow. "'A shower?'" she repeats with incredulity, at least alert enough now to track their conversation.
"Yeah."
Beth wastes no more time. "Yes."
Daryl chuckles. He'd thought so. "Through there," his nod indicates the bathroom but whether she can make out such a gesture in the darkness is irrelevant as the glowing light and warmth of the bathroom makes it clear enough where he'd meant. "Throw a log 'r two more on the fire, you'll be good." He passes her his towel in the darkness and Beth pushes the covers off her and in her sweater long underwear and wool socks she crosses to the promised paradise of heat and cleanliness, soap and indulgence. She shuts the door behind her leaving Daryl in near to total darkness.