She was sitting at the moon-shaped table in the newly delegated meeting room when his voice broke her away from her thoughts. "How does it feel, Councilor?" Okafor tilted his head to examine her more closely, taking in her defeated posture and pensive expression. "You don't seem excited. Good," he admitted. When her face changed to one of confusion he explained further. "People who are happy to be in a place of power are the ones who abuse it."
She narrowed her eyes at him and ticked up one side of her mouth in a smirk. She was teasing, he knew. "Is that why you wanted me to take it instead of you?"
"No," he admitted while giving her a small grin. "You're the right one for the job. The changes we're making, they're all your ideas anyway." He didn't say the other reason, he didn't need to. They both knew; she needed to be in a position to protect herself once they all found out. Better to take a place on the Council than risk ending up as a lab rat locked away with no way out.
She hummed at him and dropped her eyes, waiting for him to either continue or leave so she could go back to whatever she was thinking about before he arrived.
"Beth," he interrupted her again, waiting for her to meet his eyes once more. "Everything you've done to get here will be worth it in the end."
She nodded, still looking solemn. "Yeah. It'll be worth it." She had to repeat that to herself every morning until she believed it.
NowShe felt him tense up, even from so far away. "The hell does that mean?" he growled.
She frowned at him and swallowed before answering. "Means a lot of shit has happened and—" she shook her head. "It wouldn't have done anyone any good for y'all to be there. Any of you."
He squinted at her like he was trying to read her mind. "Well which is it?" She blinked at him. "You were protecting us or you didn't want us around?" He took a few steps towards and she took one back. "You're saying one thing one minute and another the next. You're contradicting yourself in the same damn sentence." His eyes bore into hers. "Which one is it?"
She shivered at his look. "I–Do we have to do this now?"
"You ok enough to see straight?" She gave the barest of a nod. He would've missed it if he wasn't scrutinizing her so closely. "Then yeah, now , Beth." He kept his eyes on her and forced himself to hear her out, whatever she had to say, without losing his temper. He'd try his best anyway.
She turned her face away from him to watch the slow waves move over the beach. "Rick being gone was my fault," she admitted. "I didn't take him but I kept him. Couldn't leave until he did. He didn't know," she clarified. "Not until Michonne showed up and I had to get involved. To save them." She looked back at him finally. "That was about a year ago."
He swallowed. "So you've been home for a year?" He hadn't been, so he couldn't blame her for that time lost, except
"No," she said. "I was running my own community. They radioed to tell me about you, being here."
His face ticked with confusion. "Surprised Maggie let you outta her sight." He could tell he'd hit the money on something when she looked down at her feet. Watched her shift her feet and fidget her hand at her side. "She don't know." It wasn't a question, just an observation from her stance and her inability to meet his eyes. "You going to tell her?"
Beth huffed at him. "Does she deserve to know?""
He blinked and took a step back. "It's Maggie ."
"So?" She asked incredulously as she pulled the cardigan closed around her as she folded her arms. The breeze in the wide open space was starting to affect her and she fought off the chill. "She didn't seem to care much before I died, why would she now?"
"She's your sister," he tried to reason with her. When all she did was roll her eyes, the last of his patience snapped. "The fuck is wrong with you?!" he growled at her, angriest he'd been since the last time they stood toe to toe yelling about dead men in the woods. "Acting like you don't give a shit about me or anyone else. Then why the fuck are you here?"
She rolled her eyes again, his tone wearing on her. "Yeah, I don't give a fuck. We'll just ignore the fact that I'm standing on a beach in France, hmm?" She walked right up to get in his face as much as possible. "We'll just ignore that I dropped everything to be here, pulled favors I didn't have stacked, and had to make a deal that could put everything I've built over the last ten years in jeopardy, because I don't give a fuck ." He could take his high-and-mighty attitude and shove it, and she had to stop herself from actually doing the motion. Putting her hands on him would get them nowhere.
Except she forgot what staring into those piercing blue eyes felt like when standing only inches away. Forgot what it was like to just be in his proximity, to feel hairs on her arms stand up as he picked her apart piece by piece.
Her face fell out of its sneer as she looked at him up close. He had aged, of course, just like she had but he'd done it well. Where she was marred by scarring on her face, he just had one scraping across his eye that made him look ever more badass. His hair was longer but gone were the days of him hiding behind it, peeking at her through stands. His beard had some grey now, but framed his downturned mouth perfectly. All in all, he looked good for ten years older and she hated that she'd noticed it.
He hummed at her, disbelieving. He'd either missed or ignored her perusal, likely the latter. "And what's so goddamn important that you'd hide away this whole time?" She could tell him. So many others knew at this point that it wasn't even really a secret anymore, but something held her back. He took her silence as a lack of an excuse. "Yeah, I didn't think so." He looked her up and down and she suppressed a shiver as he threw his words at her. "You can go back to where you came from."
She blinked and he was gone, turned away from her and moving at a hasty speed towards the fortress the French had called home.
She stood completely still for a few moments before she released the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, and the tension in her body with it. She sagged with the weight of the emotions she now let herself feel as tears pricked at her eyes and a sob caught in her throat. "No," she whispered to herself as she forced it all back down and swiped at her eyes. "We are not doing this."
She watched him walk away for only a few more moments before turning away to look at the landscape. There wasn't anything around for miles other than the castle in the distance, the sand and the sea. She shivered again as the wind caught under the sweater she wore as she debated which direction she should go in for warmth.
She could follow the man who clearly hated her to a place she'd likely be prodded at and questioned. Or she could steal the truck sitting nearby, head off on her own to another coastal town. Track down the Panacea, or find some other way home. She'd done what she came here to do. She didn't need to stay now that she'd found what she came here for. Especially since she clearly wasn't wanted.
Except something told her that that wouldn't be the end of it. They'd track her down, or Maggie would once they told her.
Beth exhaled and counted to five before breathing back in and turned towards the structure Daryl was headed to. He was almost there, walking far faster than she was going to. She took her time, walking at a leisurely pace and enjoyed the view as she walked up to the castle. The Nest, they'd called it.
As she got closer she saw a figure standing near the oversized stone gate, waiting for her. "I wondered if you'd ever get here!" Isabelle called out to her. She motioned with her hand once Beth got a few feet away. "Come. I'll take a look at your arm."
The fortress was just that–a maze of stone walkways and rooms that she'd never take the time to learn the map of. Hopefully they wouldn't be here that long for her to need to. After many twists and turns they came to a large room that had been fashioned into a communal bedroom. The French woman led her nearly to the end of the row of bed before motioning for her to sit on one, as she moved a chair nearby and sat in it. Beth shucked the sweater off one shoulder to expose the length of her arm covered in bandages before Isabelle silently unwrapped them and began applying some kind of ointment. She'd finished and started applying new, clean bandages when the younger woman spoke up. "Just say it."
Isabelle looked up at her in surprise. "What is it I'm supposed to say?" she asked.
"Whatever it is you dragged me into here to say. Just get it over with."
The French woman looked back at her work and continued to gently wrap the cloth around the injured limb. "I brought you in here to attend this," she said, lightly squeezing her arm. "Though I can say something if you'd like." Beth gave her a look so she continued. "You've been gone a long time, I gather? I imagine he'll need time to adjust. We humans struggle with change." Beth said nothing as she finished with her doctoring and released her. "He seems to be the type to need more time, especially when he's been badly wounded." She smiled at the younger woman and stood. "There's some extra clothes in the chest over there. You can take whatever you want."
With that, she walked from the room and left Beth to sit in silence while she overthought the events of the day. After spending time pushing everything she didn't want to feel to the side, again, she stood and walked to the wardrobe Isabelle had pointed out before. Inside she found a long-sleeve shirt that wasn't too big, and put it on before replacing the oversized sweater she'd become attached to.
She considered hiding out for the rest of the day and letting her headache fully disperse, but her stomach disagreed as it grumbled with hunger. She hadn't eaten since the small bites she took the night before while trying to stay conscious.
Her stomach won out over her instinct to avoid getting lost in this labyrinth as she walked from the room and tried to retrace the steps she'd taken earlier. After some definitely wrong turns and at one point, ended up outside, she eventually found her way to the dining room. With most of the floor covered with tables and chairs, she waded through the people staring at her to a table in the center of the room with an assortment of breads and fruit. She picked up an apple and took a bite, not realizing how sensitive her teeth were feeling from the migraine, and winced. She couldn't waste it now that she'd taken a bite, but she was really regretting her choice when she heard the child she once raised giggle from the corner of the room.
Near the far side of the room where the windows merged into a walkout balcony, were the people she'd traveled with and the one they'd come to find. Judith was telling some story as she sat between her parents, Daryl grinning at whatever it was she was saying. The boy, Laurent, was there too, standing near the gruff man and absorbing the scene. They all looked happy, as they should, and it filled her with another wave of sadness that she didn't want to deal with.
She swallowed it down and decided that the best way to reinforce the beliefs she'd put on herself over the years was to fake it until she made it. She slipped her Councilor facade into place and marched over to the table they surrounded. "Have you radioed Dane yet?" she asked, as she inserted herself into their conversation, interrupting their laughter.
The adults sobered the fastest, while the two children looked at her with clear curiosity. "No," Michonne responded. At her frown she continued. "What about Carol?"
"Carol?"
"What about her?"
Beth and Daryl questioned speaking over each other. She threw him a look while he pointedly avoided her gaze.
"We can't leave her behind," Judith said innocently. "We have to find her too."
Daryl looked at the couple across the table and their daughter, eyes wide. "She's here? Why?"
Beth rolled her eyes and ignored him. If he was going to pretend like she didn't exist then she'd do the same. "You don't know for sure that she's here," she pointed out to the young girl.
"But she could be," Rick countered. "We need to make sure before we head home, and the ship gave us two months. We have time," he said, nodding towards his brother. " We found Daryl a lot faster than I thought we would."
She closed her eyes and exhaled before opening them to faces who didn't realize how ridiculous they were being. "So, you're going to traipse around the continent until you maybe find her?" she asked. "She might not even be here."
"How is that any different than finding Daryl?" the young boy questioned. "You came all the way here to find him?" She was getting really tired of people asking her about the difference with Daryl. It just is .
So of course he had to go and make her ask herself why that was. "Just because you're ok with leaving family behind don't mean we are."
She stepped back as if she'd been slapped and looked at him disbelieving. "You really want to talk about leaving people behind? To me ?" she half yelled, not noticing that half the room was now staring at the group and the other had fled.
"ENOUGH!" Michonne ordered, standing from her seat as she threw her hands down on the table. "I warned you," she said, pointing at the blonde.
The woman in question turned her anger away from one target to the other. "This," she gestured around, "is not me. This is all of you not looking at the bigger picture for what it really is. We came here for Daryl." She pointed at him. "There the fuck he is. Carol could be at the bottom of the ocean for all we know. Take this win for what it is, and let's get out of here." She looked around at them all as they processed what she said.
"I ain't leaving." She rolled her eyes and grit her teeth, pain flashing behind her eyes as her sensitive nerves fired off. "Not unless we know for sure she's not here."
She dragged her eyes over to the couple who's eyes moved from Daryl's to her. "Bigger picture hasn't done a whole lot for us Beth," Rick threw at her. Her eyes flashed with anger and she knew they all saw it. "We're staying until we know."
Beth closed her eyes and tried to breathe through her nose to calm down. It didn't help much. She wasn't used to people questioning her, especially when she was giving a logical argument. Not when she was right. "Fine, stay." She shook her head at them. "Chase after a ghost. I'd say 'Good luck' but you kind of suck at finding people." She looked directly at Daryl as she threw out the harsh comment, and she watched as he started seething.
She turned to leave and almost ran over the woman standing behind her, looking at her with sadness. "That was the opposite of what I said," the French woman whispered to her. Beth just frowned and went around her, heading for the nearest exit.
Outside and out of sight, she let go, breathing heavily to release everything she'd been holding in. She gasped as someone snapped her out of the lightheadedness she felt expelling it all. "You should stay," the boy said. "I think Daryl needs you as much as you need him."
She huffed. "Yeah, ok."
Laurent just grinned at her. "He was lost, even before he came here. I think you are too." She frowned at him. "You can find yourself again. Together."
He looked so hopeful, and he believed every word he was saying to her. She shook her head at him and looked away towards the setting sun. "I don't think I exist anymore."