Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter One: Late May, Year 1

And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Daniel 12:2.

The late spring sun was warm and bright, shooting through the leaves in the forest, dappling everything green and gold. Beth's head was pillowed on Jimmy's lap, his fingers playing idly with her braids.

"Starting summer early's not so bad, huh?" He asked. Though her eyes were closed, Beth could feel the smile in his voice. The hazy, red play of light on the back of her eyelids was eclipsed by the shadow of her boyfriend's hat. He leaned down and kissed her, tasting of the berries they had been eating in the woods before settling beneath a large shade tree.

"Still can't believe they canceled school for this," Beth admitted, eyes fluttering open. "No one in Georgia's even sick with that weird virus."

Virus. That's what the news called it. Across the nation, here and there, people were burning with fever. Unable to sweat it out, the infected suffered under its weight until they appeared to die. But this couldn't be right; a dead body simply couldn't 'reanimate' as some of the more sensational news stories reported.

"Something changes in their brains, for sure," Daddy had surmised early on. "No different than mad cow or rabies."

And though those couldn’t be treated, they had been studied extensively. It was hardly a new concept, using information learned from other medical maladies, to treat new ones. Daddy had every confidence that science and medicine would prevail, so, naturally, Beth did, too.

"Not yet, anyway," Jimmy agreed. He wound a strand of her hair around his finger. "California's a good seven states away, though. Maybe we'll get lucky."

"We better be getting back." Beth sat up, sneaking another kiss before pushing herself to standing. "Daddy's probably gonna send Maggie after us any second."

She held out a hand to Jimmy, helping him to his feet as he gave her a rueful smile. "I'd rather have Shawn after us than Maggie. She's vicious."

Giggling, Beth couldn't help but agree. Of her older siblings, Maggie was decidedly the one to fear. Shawn didn't give much of a hang what Beth and Jimmy were up to so long as the latter turned up to help with the farm chores. Fingers laced together, Beth led the way back from the forest at the edge of the farm. The back gate was still unlocked; she let them in through it before sliding the bolt into place behind them.

"Still on for a picnic lunch by the lake tomorrow?" Jimmy asked, walking Beth to the back door.

"I'll have it all packed up and ready for us," she promised, accepting his chaste goodbye kiss on her cheek. "Have fun out there with Shawn and Otis."

"Mmm," Jimmy hummed, pulling a face. "Stall mucking. My favorite."

Beth gave him a final wave through the screen door, leaving her boyfriend to his fate. In the kitchen she found her mother listening to the radio, her hands covered in flour as she kneaded bread dough.

Reports of the virus spread from California to Arizona, with less than ten cases being reported in New Mexico. New York, particularly the city, had seen an uptick in recent weeks despite public safety warnings to remain home.

"You don't really believe all that, do you, Mama?" Beth asked, tying on an apron of her own and joining her mother at the counter. "That it's spreading that quickly?"

"You've been spending a lot of time with your father," Mama commented, avoiding the question. "They've been talking about doing flight bans."

"But it's not airborne!" Beth dusted her hands in flour and took up a hunk of unworked dough. "Daddy said it can only be transmitted by body fluids. Kind of like rabies."

"This is a lot bigger than rabies, honey."

The news was always going in the Greene house. Whether by TV, radio, or articles read aloud by Maggie from her computer or the newspaper, there was always word on current events. Daddy wanted to know if the virus began to infect animals, as that development could cripple the farm and his veterinary work both.

Mama worried over every new tidbit of information. Shawn and Maggie exchanged furtive glances. Beth just rolled her eyes. "There's been pandemics before, like the Spanish Influenza. It gets bad, but scientists and doctors figure it out, and then it’s better again. Like that swine flu last year. That blew over pretty quickly."

No answer came to Beth's postulating. Mama just wiped her hands on her apron and leaned over, turning the radio dial away from the news station and to an oldies channel instead. The Beach Boys soon replaced the strained voice of the reporter.

"She's giving me the excitations, I'm getting good vibrations," Beth sang along, finally earning herself a smile. Mama's smiles had been hard to come by since the schools closed early. It was only a precaution, and a stupid one at that. An extra long summer vacation, and then Beth would be on to her senior year of high school and Maggie could go back to college to finish the credits the abrupt end to the semester robbed from her.

Beth kept singing while they worked, every song that she knew filtered over the airwaves, just to keep Mama smiling. About halfway through their bread baking, Maggie came in with a basket laden with bounty from the garden. A massive head of cabbage, carrots in shades of orange, yellow, and purple, a carefully stacked mountain of potatoes.

"Oh, perfect, honey. Thank you." Just looking at Maggie's basket let Beth know exactly what would be on the dinner table. The farm had been in Daddy's family for generations, and it continued to be the meal ticket for the clan even with modern grocery stores in abundance. Coleslaw and baked potatoes, slices of fresh bread spread with butter. Every bit of the meal would come from the crops and animals tended by the Greenes. Each season's blessings determined their diet, and even the winter months were full of preserves.

"What's the use of a farm," Daddy would always say, "if you don't eat from it?"

After supper, Beth played a few hymns on the piano for Mama before heading up to shower. With the warm water washing over her, she replayed all the talk of the virus in her head. There wasn't a lot known about it. The mode of transfer—bodily fluids—and the symptoms, which included fever, sweats, chills, loss of appetite, and ultimately, 'death'. 

But not really, she reminded herself, working shampoo into her hair. Beth liked to shower in dim light. The green and white tiles of the shower seemed to dance in the shadows thrown by a couple of candles. They're not really dead.

The nature of the symptoms changed after 'death'. Appetite returned, voraciously, but fruits, vegetables, grain, sugar, cooked meat... none of it appealed to the infected. Only raw, bloody flesh would do. And the infected became aggressive, scratching and biting. Killing, even, if some of the darker news reports were to be believed.

But they were still people. That's what Daddy said. And, as childish a thought as it was for a seventeen-year-old to have, Beth was dead certain Daddy wouldn't be wrong about this.

Beth rinsed the floral shampoo from her hair, letting her worries circle down the drain along with the suds. She toweled off and pulled on an oversized t-shirt before leaving her en suite bathroom and crawling into bed. Despite her waking conviction, her dreams were often plagued by the more dire news reports. About how no cure was in sight. About how all efforts to retrieve the conscience of the person locked inside that scary, feral state were unsuccessful. Beth dreamed she was kissing Jimmy, just as she was that afternoon, but suddenly his soft kiss turned to sharp teeth. He bit at her lips as the previously gentle hands became a vice grip, holding her shrieking and trapped as his mouth traveled lower, not to kiss her throat as he had in the past, but to rip it out with his teeth.

A scream died in her ravaged throat just as Beth's eyes shot open. The shadowy sight of her bedroom greeted her, pulse jumping under her palm as she touched her neck to reassure herself none of it was real. Her legs were tangled in the bed sheets; it took a few moments of decided effort to free herself. In the bathroom, Beth filled her cupped palms with water from the tap, first splashing her face and then drinking again and again from her hands. Until the water cooled the flames under her skin, helped calm her racing heart.

Stress, she told herself. That's what Daddy would chalk it up to. All those news reports worming their way into her dreams. That was all. Her mind just trying to process the events of her waking hours. Still, even with repeating such things to herself, Beth never found solid sleep again that night. Just a few hours before dawn, she managed to fall back into dreams, only for Maggie to wake her by pounding a fist on her bedroom door far too soon for her liking.

"C'mon, Beth!" She shouted through the wood. "We got chores to do!"

"Coming!" Beth shouted back, cursing her sister and the sun alike as she pulled on a pair of sweats and shoved her feet into her boots. No point in changing when she would be collecting eggs from the equally grumpy hens, milking the dairy cows, and slopping last night's dinner scraps into the pig trough.

All her chores revolved around the animals. They liked her best, honestly. It was what made her unfit for the slaughtering, though, her bonding with the livestock. That unsavory task was left to Shawn and Maggie. When Jimmy was working, he helped Shawn with things like herding the small herd of cattle, cleaning and shoeing horse hooves, baling hay, breaking soil, harvesting. Maggie did a lot of the gardening, though she usually made appearances to help with mucking the stalls and hauling feed out to the two barns.

At the back door, she grabbed the bucket Mama filled every day with eggshells, vegetable scraps, hunks of stale bread, the dregs of coffee, and anything else suitable for the pigs. It always amazed her how heavy the bucket was each morning, how much food went to the pigs rather than the garbage. Sometimes she wondered if Mama filled it a little more than strictly necessary.

"Good morning," she greeted the waiting pigs, smiling at the way their rumps and tails shook with excitement over their food. Almost before Beth had the bucket overturned, the pigs had their snouts in the trough, happily gobbling up their scraps. Beth paused a few minutes to dole out scratches between the ears while they ate.

Six brave little piglets shouldered their way past the older pigs, forcing space for themselves at the trough. Their confidence demanded some admiration before Beth moved on to the henhouse, bidding the fowl good morning as well. "Hey, chickies," she greeted the eager, butter yellow chicks, stroking their soft, downy heads and spreading seed across the little yard in front of the coop. While the chickens and their babies were distracted with food, Beth raided their little nests, collecting a baker's dozen eggs before they had even finished their breakfast.

Maggie called the farm 'monotonous', but Beth liked the rhythm of the days. The warm animal smells in the coops and barns, the days under the sun. It was a comfortable, safe life. One she wouldn't trade for the world.

"Wouldn't it be nice if it could always be like this?" Beth asked Jimmy later that afternoon, tracing the faded floral pattern of the old bedsheet they were using for a picnic blanket. He had brought chicken salad sandwiches, a jug of cold lemonade, and thick slices of cinnamon crumb cake. "Just... living? Not really worrying much about school or jobs or..."

Jimmy reached over and tugged the end of her braid. "Isn't there a crazy virus going around?" He teased.

Beth smiled despite herself. "Besides that. We'll get rid of the virus and keep all the rest."

When he kissed her, the sweetness of the brown sugar in the crumb cake was undercut by the citrus of the lemonade. "Yeah," he agreed, taking her hand and twining their fingers together. "Altogether, the last few weeks have been pretty perfect."

Beth didn’t do well with the butchering, but she very much enjoyed being on the other side of the spectrum. When, a few nights later, Daddy roused her from her bed to help with a foaling mare, Beth happily threw an old plaid shirt that Shawn had long since outgrown over her pajamas and yanked on a pair of leggings.

“Is it the Appaloosa?” Beth whispered to Daddy, following him through the shadowy farmhouse. The electric lantern in his hand gave light to the excitement in her eyes. They had gotten the Appaloosa as payment for itself. When her previous owner had brought her to the Greene Farm, limping from a massive, infected abscess on her left hind leg, Daddy had fallen in love with her immediately. The owner was upset with the news that, yes, Daddy could treat and cure the abscess but, no, he couldn’t do anything about the scarring that would be left behind. It hardly showed, a dimple with a ragged edge, camouflaged among her cinnamon-colored spots.

“Yes, it’s Cinnie.” She was renamed from her former title, Red Appaloosa, when her previous owner told Daddy to keep her if she lived. The scarring disqualified her as a viable show horse and likewise meant she would no longer draw income for the man. Cinnie was accepted into the small retinue of horses kept on the farm, especially by a black and white American Paint named Oreo.

“Cinnamon Oreo,” Beth mused, letting Daddy guide her through the night to the horse stables by their clasped palms. “I don’t think they’ve made that flavor yet.”

“Well, we’ll get a look at it tonight, I wager. Cinnie’s young. It shouldn’t take her long to foal.”

The stables were warm, as always, with most of the horses dozing in their stalls. There was the musky scent of foaling in the air, mingling with the sweet scents of hay. Soft whinnying and huffing breaths came from Cinnie’s stall. Somewhere in the shadows, another horse answered her distress, scratching at the hay lining their stall. Beth liked to think it was Oreo.

“Hey, pretty girl,” Beth knelt beside Cinnie’s head, smoothing her mane out of her face. Big, brown eyes rolled to gaze into Beth’s face. The horse’s chest rose and fell rapidly with her panting, the dome of her stomach rippling with labor. “You’re gonna have a baby, did you know that?”

As if in answer, Cinnie pressed her cheek against Beth’s thigh. While Beth continued to smooth her hand over Cinnie’s mane, Daddy stood watch on the opposite end. Cinnie’s tail began to lift and flick, agitation mounting in the horse. Beth continued to murmur comforting words to Cinnie while her foal entered the world. Blood joined the interwoven scents filling the stables. The impatient horse a few stalls over—Beth was certain now that it was Oreo—let out a loud neigh.

“Good girl,” Daddy congratulated Cinnie, patting her flank. He and Beth moved back to let Cinnie have space to clean and greet her foal. Daddy kept his watchful veterinarian eye on mother and child while Beth stood beside him, tucked under his arm. The foal had the Appaloosa markings of its mother but carried Oreo’s coloring, all its spots black as night against a snowy coat. “What do you think we should name our new baby, Beth?”

“Cookie,” she decided almost instantly. “Fits in with the food name trends, and besides, it looks like cookies and cream ice cream.”

Daddy chuckled and kissed the top of her head. “Cookie it is, then.”

They observed the newly minted little family until Daddy felt confident all was well. Cookie found their wobbly legs, Cinnie nursed her child. A successful birth all around. Outside, night was already giving way to daylight, the edges of the sky lightening from black to gray.

“I might as well stay up,” Beth mused, watching the coming dawn for a moment. “Maggie won’t have to pound on my door this morning.”

“I think pancakes would be good way to celebrate,” Daddy told her. Usually, it was her and Mama in the kitchen, but Daddy knew his way around just fine. They worked together by the light of that lantern, avoiding turning on the lights so they wouldn’t wake the rest of their family. While Beth made fluffy buttermilk pancakes, Daddy scrambled eggs and fried up some breakfast sausage.

The smells drew Shawn out first, rubbing sleepily at his face with one hand, the other scratching at his bare chest. “Hey, Dad,” he greeted Hershel first. “Making flapjacks, Sissy?” He tweaked the messy bun crowning her head.

“Not that you’ve done anything to earn them,” she shot back. “Cinnie had her foal.”

“Oh, yeah?” Shawn took the platter of eggs from Daddy, placing them in the center of the kitchen table. Soon the sausage, a pitcher of orange juice, and a big bowl of strawberries joined the eggs. Beth carried over her heavy plate of pancakes herself. The rising sun bathed everything warm and golden. “What’d you name this one?”

“Cookie.”

“Of course.” Shawn popped a strawberry in his mouth. “I’ll go get Maggie and Mama before the food gets cold.”

He returned dressed for his chores, Maggie following on his heel. Mama had already dressed as well, not in one of the old dresses and aprons she wore for housework, but one of her church dresses. Oh, yeah. With no school, Beth had a hard time keeping up with the date. It’s Sunday.

After the family ate breakfast together, the siblings hurried through their chores to make time for themselves to shower and dress for church. Once everyone was ready, they climbed into Daddy’s old truck. Church had become their one consistent excursion away from the farm since the reports of the virus began. The Greene family had sat in the same worn, wooden pew at church for Beth’s whole life. She was fairly certain the green cushion was molded to them in their habitual oldest to youngest line up. Daddy, Mama, Maggie, Shawn, Beth.

That Sunday, the preacher read from Daniel:

“At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till this time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book.”

A few pews over, Jimmy sat with his family. He caught her eye, pulling a face that had Beth biting her cheek to keep from laughing. All the sermons lately had been about how they shouldn’t fear, how the followers of Jesus were blessed and would be protected from the virus going around. Beth bided her time through the sermon until they got to her favorite part of service: singing hymns. Though Shawn sat between them, Beth loved the way her voice harmonized with Maggie’s.

On the second stanza of How Great Thou Art?, Beth thought again how nice this slowed down version of day to day life had been.

Chapter Text

Chapter Two: June, Year 1

You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. Psalm 91:5-6.

“Arnold’s going to be staying with us this summer,” Daddy announced at dinner one day. Their cousin lived in the suburbs of Atlanta. For a solid week, news coverage had been focused on how heavily populated areas were starting to suffer. New York City’s homeless population had a boon in the virus recently, with upwards of fifty infections taking place in a single night. Those fifty souls had gone on to do so much damage that the city was placed on mandatory lockdown so officials could try to contain the outbreak. Even now, there was a strict curfew in place, with other heavily populated cities following suit as a precaution.

“It’ll be good to have some more help,” Shawn admitted, stabbing green beans onto the tines of his fork. “It’s getting a little heavy for me, Otis, and Jimmy.”

Otis, Daddy’s farmhand, and his wife, Patricia, were now relying on the farm fully as well as the Greene family. When Otis expressed that Patricia was scared to go into Atlanta after the latest reports, Daddy didn’t hesitate to bring them into the fold of the farm. They lived just down the dirt road, on a much smaller plot of land that housed a sizeable garden and a greenhouse. Now the Greenes shared milk, homemade butter and cheese, and butchering with them.

“Aunt Cara’s afraid Atlanta’s gonna be like New York, isn’t she?” Beth asked, peeking up from her plate. She was torn between thinking it was silly and a very small part of her agreeing. “They got it handled, though.”

“For now,” Maggie agreed, “but without a cure, it’s not gonna get better.”

Beth liked Arnold. They were close in age, with him only being a year older, and he had the kindest brown eyes she had ever seen. Arnold was more likely to spend time with her, too. She didn’t feel like the third wheel when Arnold was around, the way she usually did with Maggie and Shawn.

“When’s Arnie coming?” Beth asked, excited despite the dark mood of the circumstances. Daddy and Mama both smiled at her from across the table.

“He should be here tomorrow. Why don’t you get the guest room done up, honey?” After dinner, Beth retrieved clean sheets, shaking them out as she unfolded them, humming to herself as she made the bed and fluffed up the pillows. Arnie never minded doing puzzles or playing cards with Beth. She hoped he brought his guitar, like he did last year during spring break, and they could spend some more evenings singing on the front porch.

Jimmy was likewise excited over the news of Arnie’s coming. “No offense to Shawn,” he told her as the traipsed hand in hand toward the stream that cut through the forest. Beth had their fishing rods clutched in her free hand; Jimmy swung the cooler on his other side, the ice sloshing around.

“It’s only that Shawn takes the farmwork so serious, huh?” Beth teased, not a trace of offense in her voice. “And you know Arnie won’t be so bossy.”

“Maybe he’ll catch some of Shawn’s bitchiness, too,” Jimmy grumbled just as they came up on the stream. Though Beth shot him a look, Jimmy went on, settling the cooler in a patch of shade close to the bank. He drew a little, circular container out of his pocket and popped it open. Beth wrinkled her nose; live bait. She immediately passed her rod to Jimmy so he could bait it for her with one of the fat, pink worms.

Even though he always shook his head when her squeamishness popped up, Jimmy never teased her for it. If anything, the look on his face would turn affectionate, a little smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Despite disliking baiting her own hook and killing her own catch, Beth was good at fishing. She reeled in twice as many as Jimmy did every time.

They took their shoes off and waded into the shallows of the stream once the ice chest was full. The cool water felt nice. June was already proving to be muggy, the days bogged down with intense humidity that left her always feeling damp. Tiny fish swam curiously around their ankles and toes. “Do you think Atlanta will be like New York?”

“That’s why Arnie’s coming, ain’t it? His folks getting worried?” Beth nodded, watching Jimmy bend at the waist and pluck something from the water. He turned to her, hand outstretched. When Beth opened her palm, a tiny, silver charm in the shape of a heart fell into the center. “For you.”

She smiled, tucking the charm away in the pocket of her sundress, wondering whose charm bracelet the heart had once adorned. “Thank you.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Yeah, Aunt Cara thinks Arnie would be safer out here on the farm.”

Away from the city. Away from homeless and vagrants, the unfortunate souls the news blames for the spread of the virus.

“All the news stories say the trouble starts after these people die—”

“They can’t really be dead,” Beth argued. “The dead don’t come back.”

“Right, but after this virus takes hold. They change. You know they’ve been killing them? Say they’re too much of a contamination risk, can’t be cured. Wouldn’t it make more sense to round them up, observe them, try to work with them?”

“They’re killing those people?!” This was news to Beth. Terrible news. “They can’t do that!”

“They are,” Jimmy confirmed, his expression turning guilty. “Your folks didn’t tell you? I know Hershel watches the coverage every night.”

“He does…” It was just that Beth hadn’t been paying attention. She didn’t see a reason to. This was all going to be fixed soon, or that’s what she told herself. “Why are they killing people instead of trying to help them? That’s horrible.”

“Yeah,” Jimmy agreed, reaching up and plucking a leaf from a low-hanging branch. He twirled it between his fingers, setting it free to float through the air and land in the stream. They watched it sail on ahead of them, buoyed by the gentle current. “Doctors in the reports say those people are dead.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, though!” Despite the cool water, Beth was beginning to feel hot. The smooth rocks and squishy mud under her feet no longer felt nice. She waded out of the water and padded back onto the bank.

“Hey,” Jimmy caught her wrist, spinning her to face him. “I know it doesn’t.” His hands ran up her arms, over her shoulders, skimming her neck. They came to rest on her cheeks, framing her face. “I know it doesn’t.”

“It’s just going to get worse.” Beth clung to one of his wrists, blinking back the tears pricking at the back of her eyes.

“Even if it does, we’re out here. The cities will have to deal with it, but not us. We’re gonna be alright, okay?”

“Okay,” Beth agreed, not quite sure she believed it. A little shiver ran down her spine despite the heavy heat of the day. Jimmy tilted her head back slightly and brought his mouth down to hers, sealing his words with a soft, slow kiss.

They fried the fish and fresh okra the next day to welcome Arnie to the farm for the summer. Much to Beth’s delight, he did bring his guitar, and the two of them sat on the porch singing together as the first stars came out. Mama sat on the porch with them, swaying gently in the porch swing, and crocheting a new blanket with lilac colored yarn. It was the most perfect evening, a true balm to Beth’s soul.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Beth told her cousin once they had returned to the porch, their hands weighted down with bowls of homemade ice cream courtesy of Maggie. The ice cream was the softest pink, chunks of fresh strawberries dotted throughout. “Do you really think it’s really going to get bad?”

Arnie stirred his ice cream around the bowl for a beat before answering. “There’s been a few. It’s not all homeless people, like the news says. Old people, too.”

“Because they’re weak, right?” That made sense. Neither old people nor the homeless were bound to have strong immune systems.

“Yeah.” Arnie wouldn’t meet her eye. He looked down into his ice cream instead, swirling the vanilla around the strawberries. “Everyone—the professionals, I mean—all say it’s gonna get worse before it gets better.”

“But that’s like most sickness,” Beth countered with a dismissive shrug. When Arnie didn’t have a response to that, she ate a few bites before changing the subject. “I’ll show you the new colt tomorrow. His name’s Cookie.”

“Okay,” Arnie agreed, much of the tension releasing from his shoulders. “Who’s the stud?”

“Oreo.”

“I might’ve guessed. Got a name theme goin’, huh? And the mare?”

“Cinnie, the Appaloosa Daddy got when her jerk of an old owner didn’t want her because she was gonna scar.” The summer night was wrapping itself softly around them. When their bowls were emptied, Arnie took them both, leading the way inside. Beth paused in the doorway, looking back over her shoulder, inhaling some of that sweet, warm air before shutting the family in for the night.

What none of them would have expected—least of all Beth—was to rise the next morning to chaos.

“Daddy!” Maggie’s voice startled Beth from her sleep. She jolted from the mattress, knocking her pillow to the floor, and throwing back her covers. “Daddy!”

The note of fear in her voice was one Beth had never heard before. She racked her mind, pulling on a robe and shoving her feet into her boots, trying to think what the cause could possibly be. Was it the cows? Daddy had left them to graze through the night and enjoy the warmth and stars rather than herding them back into their barn. Did coyotes get in?

She didn’t see how, what with the electric fence that buzzed at the property line. But clearly something had happened. By then Beth had run down the hall, through the living room, and onto the porch. Daddy made it out before she did, but not Shawn; he slammed into her back when she stopped short. She hadn’t even known he was so close on her heels.

“Oh, shit,” Shawn cursed, shoving past Beth. His voice barely cut through the woeful, pained lowing of the cow Maggie was standing over. The herd had disbanded, most of the cows scattered to safety, but not this one. No, this one was trapped on the ground, big, frightened eye rolling in its socket, tongue lolled from her mouth. Atop the cow, tearing into her soft belly with nails and teeth, and unresponsive to Daddy, Maggie, and Shawn’s tugging on their clothes and shoulders, were two people. Unwell people. Beth could see the sallow pallor of their skin, their jaundiced eyes, the bloodstains on their hands as they took aggravated swipes at her family.

Beth jumped, breath suddenly turning to gasps, when hands settled on her shoulders. But it was only Mama, pulling her back into the house. “Come inside, Beth, you don’t need to see this.”

Mama drew her first inside the doorway and then into her arms. It wasn’t until her face stuck to Mama’s nightgown that Beth realized she was crying, heaving, frightened sobs as she clung to her mother. Arnie stepped by mother and daughter, shutting the door firmly before patting her on the shoulder. “Hershel will take care of it,” he said, placatingly, to both.

Beth worked herself out of Mama’s hold, feeling smothered more than comforted. She stood with her arms crossed tightly over her chest, hand clenched into fists. After many terrible, long minutes, Shawn, Maggie, and Daddy returned with their hands and forearms stained red.

“What did you do with those people?” Beth couldn’t help asking. The question earned her sharp looks from Maggie and Shawn, but before her shoulders could curl inward as they were want to do under her older siblings’ scrutiny, Arnie gave one a squeeze and Daddy smiled tiredly at her.

“We put them in the old barn,” Daddy told her, moving toward the sink to begin washing the gore from his hands. Beth watched the water run first red, then pink, and finally clear. Maggie and Shawn did the same. The old barn. It was on the southwest corner of the property, a fair distance away from the swaths of farmland where the cows were permitted to roam. That reassured Beth that no more of their cattle would fall in such a gruesome way. “We had to put that cow down, of course.”

“Well, sure,” Mama agreed. Her face looked a little green. Never one to be able to sit still, she pushed away from the table and began making coffee for everyone. Beth uncrossed her arms, opened her hands. Her palms wore the angry, red crescent moons of her nails. “I hope you don’t intend to butcher her.”

“No, no,” Daddy shook his head. “Even if they hadn’t torn into her digestive tract and contaminated the meat, we wouldn’t risk contagion. No; we’ll burn the body, to be safe. I don’t want it in the ground, either.”

And so it was settled. After they were all fortified by Mama’s coffee, Arnie went off with Daddy and the others to help move the carcass. Mama kept Beth back, employing her help in making chocolate chip pancakes while their family worked. Beth’s own morning chores were forgotten for the moment, her hands mechanic as she poured and flipped the pancakes.

She wanted to call Jimmy, but it was still so early. Besides, he would be by later, anyway. Still, her mind whirred with the things she would tell him once she saw him.

Usually, Beth loved chocolate chip pancakes. They were her favorite breakfast, reserved for birthdays and holidays. That morning, they tasted like sawdust in her mouth. Every time she reached for her cup of milk, she thought of the poor, dying cow.

“I don’t know if this is a good idea, Beth,” Jimmy told her some hours later, when the afternoon was giving way to early evening. The sun was low and golden, illuminating the worry on his face. Bouncing up on her toes, Beth planted a reassuring kiss on his cheek.

“We’ll be fine. Daddy let Shawn and Arnie come up here earlier to check on them. He wouldn’t have done that if it wasn’t safe.” There was a ladder leaned against the back of the barn, just below the open shutters of the window. She knew from eavesdropping on conversations she had been left out of that this ladder was the same that had once been inside the barn, removed so that the sick people inside would be trapped on the barn floor instead. Without waiting for Jimmy’s answer, Beth started climbing the ladder, trusting he would follow her.

She hauled herself through the open window and scooted over, both to get herself out of view and to give Jimmy room to do the same. Tucking herself in the corner of the hayloft, she drew her knees to her chest and perched her chin atop her knees, watching them.

One was a woman, her long, auburn hair loose and tangled. Her sundress had once been yellow, but now it was dingy and stained with telltale rust-brown splotches. Beth wondered idly what her name had been.

The other was a man, dressed in a torn sportscoat over a button-down shirt. His swollen, discolored hand was tugging futilely at the door of the barn. It was padlocked on the other side; he would never be able to open it. That didn’t stop the man, his fingers fumbling over and over, a low, rattling growl of frustration leaving his chest.

“They’re… creepy,” Jimmy whispered beside her, all breath. She had almost forgotten he was there, but now she noticed how his hip pressed into hers, how their shoulders brushed.

“They’re sick,” Beth echoed Daddy’s sentiments. “But maybe Daddy can help them. He was talking about it with Mama; I heard them.” She nodded toward the plates sitting on one of the shelves, within easy reach of the sick people. “See, he left food for them. Well, meat. They ate it.”

But the glasses of water, those were shattered on the floor, catching the rays of a setting sun as they streamed in through the window. That’s okay, Beth told herself. Cooked food is a good step over raw meat. Daddy was using the information he learned from the news reports, combining it with his veterinary knowledge, to try to find a way to help them.

“How does he think he’s going to treat them?” Jimmy prodded, his own eyes trained on the pair below them.

“He’s thinking of trying antibiotics first, to see if the infection will respond to it.” That was something other people should be doing, too. Doctors in the hospital, families of the infected. Instead of killing them, they—all the healthy as a whole—should be looking for care options, avenues to a cure.

“And if it doesn’t?” Jimmy pressed further. Her shoulder knocked into his when she shrugged.

“Daddy’ll figure it out. He always does.” Jimmy didn’t say anything to that, but he did reach for her. He cupped her cheek in his hand, kissed her softly on the temple, before standing hunched under the roof. Beth followed suit, the two of them retreating from the barn. When she was a few rungs from the bottom of the ladder, Jimmy reached for her again. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her, giggling, from the ladder.

“My legs work fine,” she told him when Jimmy continued to carry her across the field.

“Yeah, I know,” he kissed her again, this time on the back of the neck where it was left exposed by her braided hair. “But I like holding you.”

He carried her halfway back to the house before setting her on her feet. Neither of them showed much affection in front of Beth’s family, lest they be scolded by Mama or Daddy. Jimmy took her hand, though, threading their fingers together as they approached the house. The scent of dinner was wafting to them through the screen door, roast and vegetables, a more complete version of the meal given to the sick people in the barn.

She was much fortified by the fact Daddy had a plan—a good plan—for the infected residents of the barn. Dinner, unlike breakfast, tasted as delicious as Mama’s cooking always did. Again, as was quickly becoming the routine, Arnie and Beth took to the porch to sing together. Jimmy joined them that night, contributing nothing but the tapping of his boot, but it was considerably a better day than it had been when it all started, and for that Beth was thankful.

“C’mon, Beth.” A week later, the Greene Family Farm’s newest residents weren’t showing any improvements. She followed closely behind Otis, trying her best to hide her discomfort from the farmhand. “We gotta get them fed.”

Them. Collective, anonymous. Not for the first time, Beth wished she knew their names. She also wished she wasn’t so scared of them, but as they approached the old barn and heard their growling, a primal fear spiked within her. They were quieter, more subdued, when they were fed.

It wouldn’t be so hard to manage if they also weren’t insatiably hungry. “You got the key?”

“Right here.” Arnie, Jimmy, and Shawn had erected a chicken wire and post fence, essentially caging the infected in. The man could no longer reach the door. Now, when Beth and Jimmy climbed into the hayloft to watch them, he would pick at the chicken wire instead. Beth unlocked the barn door, her and Otis slipping through.

There was a loose part of the fence, nearly flush with the ground, where they passed food through. Otis stood watch, holding the new paper plates full of food, while Beth used a claw grabber tool that had once belonged to her grandmother to retrieve the plates used the day before.

It was very important to Daddy that they keep the barn as clean as possible for the infected. Lying prone on the ground, Beth could feel her heartbeat not only in her chest but in her temples, the blood roaring in her ears. This was the worst part because the man and the woman got curious. They crouched, yellowed eyes fixed on her face, swiping at the plastic arm of the grabber tool. And they growled all the while, sour, rotten breath washing over her cheeks, they were so close.

Beth hadn’t dared say so out loud, but the more days the infected spent in the sweltering barn, the more convinced she was that they were rotting. That cloying, sweet-sour smell of decay dominated the barn. Daddy said they weren’t dead, that such a thing was impossible, but… “Got it.”

Water was still something the infected avoided. They had stopped wasting their time with trying to get them to drink from cups, though Daddy had been squirting water into their mouths with a long syringe. Beth pulled the paper plates out, noting that, once again, the vegetables had gone untouched. She wrinkled her nose at the dirt-covered mashed potatoes. Not even the pigs would touch these leftovers.

Otis passed the new plates to her, filled with chicken thighs, green beans, and chunks of roasted sweet potatoes. Wasteful, she though, knowing only the chicken thighs would be gone when the patients were fed tomorrow evening. They took turns delivering the meals, this routine being added in to the rotation of farm chores.

When Beth finished, Otis extended a hand to her, helping haul her to her feet. Beth took a moment to dust herself off and then they both lingered, watching as the infected descended on the chicken thighs. They ate straight through the meat, undeterred by the bones inside. Beth’s stomach curdled and her nose scrunched at the sound of the bones breaking between their teeth.

“Yuck,” she couldn’t help saying.

“No kidding,” Otis agreed. He took her firmly by the elbow, guiding her away from the scene. “Let’s get out of here.”

Daddy would be coming soon. The patients didn’t sleep; that had been made obvious just a few days in. However, they were more subdued when recently fed, meaning that evening treatment was ideal. Daddy only took Shawn and Arnie with him, to help restrain the patients while he administered water and antibiotics. Otis walked her back to the Greenes’ farmhouse before retreating to his own home, parting from Beth with a reminder that Patricia would be by in the morning to help her and Mama with bread baking.

She passed Daddy, Arnie, and Shawn on her way into the house, wishing the three of them luck. Jimmy had gone home earlier in the evening. Beth slipped into the kitchen, lifting the kitchen phone from its cradle. They only had the one, wired and old-fashioned. She listened to it ring three times after punching in Jimmy’s cell number; he answered before the fourth ring started. “Hey.”

“Hey, you,” she returned, twirling the phone cord around her finger. “Make it home okay?”

“Yeah, ’course.” She pictured him in his bedroom, sprawled on his bed, tossing a little rubber ball with one hand, and holding his phone to his ear with the other. “How was supper?”

He was referring to feeding the patients, not the supper she ate with her family. “Fine. Otis went with me this time.”

“Good.” Sometimes, she envied the privacy with which Jimmy could talk to her on his end of the phone line. “There’s more wrong with them that your dad’s admitting.”

Beth grimaced. It wasn’t that she disagreed, necessarily. She did think that Daddy wasn’t taking it as seriously as he should be. The patients weren’t making improvements. If anything, they were in a steep nosedive. Still, she couldn’t argue with Jimmy here in the kitchen, so she simply murmured, “I know.”

Then, dropping her voice lower, Beth described the way the patients had eaten the thick thigh bones like they were nothing. Now she was imagining the way Jimmy’s mouth was surely twisting in disgust, listening to the disapproving grunt that came from his throat. He was quiet for a beat before saying, “Promise you’ll be careful with them, Beth?”

It was hardly a new request. As the week had worn on, Jimmy asked it of her more and more often. Beth couldn’t blame him; the patients unsettled her, too. “I promise.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Three: July, Year 1

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Matthew 5:4

There were no fireworks on the Fourth, at least not at the farm. The Fourth had always been one of Beth’s favorite holidays but, with stores closing and restrictions tightening in the city, and Mama’s anxiety about any of them heading into a more populated area, there was no opportunity to buy fireworks. They didn’t even go into town for church anymore, instead tuning into service on the radio each Sunday.

The Greene family still churned homemade ice cream for the holiday, as was tradition, and Daddy grilled hotdogs and hamburgers. That came from the deep freezer; no one had been to the grocery store in two weeks. Jimmy came over and planned to stay the night—on the couch, of course.

With their bowls of ice cream, Beth and Jimmy sat on an old quilt, gaze turned upward as they watched the distant fireworks exploding in the sky. Someone didn’t have the same reservations the Greene matriarch did and for that she was thankful. She rested her head on Jimmy’s shoulder, watching golden, glittering stars burst to life above them.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she told him softly. “Daddy and Shawn have been fighting.”

“About the people in the barn?” They were speaking in whispers despite being so far from the rest of the Greene family. Beth nodded into the crook of his neck.

“Shawn says it’s pointless, all Daddy’s work. That we should call authorities and hand them over.” He thinks we should kill them. That’s what the police would do, had been doing.

Jimmy fell silent for a few beats, the pair watching two red, a silver, and another golden firework explode in the sky before he spoke again. “You know,” he said slowly, “everything Hershel’s doing goes against the CDC recommendations.”

It was the same thing Shawn and Maggie, always banding together, had said. Beth stiffened, feeling betrayed. Clearly Jimmy had been discussing this with her siblings and, once again, Beth had found herself the odd man out.

“Oh, don’t do that, honey,” Jimmy changed tactics, immediately trying to smooth over this wrinkle when she pulled away from him. He caught her hand before she could stand, holding it firmly in his own. “I just meant…”

“That you think it’s dumb, right?” She asked, parroting Shawn’s words. “That Daddy’s a fool for trying? For giving those people a chance?”

“Listen,” Jimmy squeezed her hand, “tell me honestly, Beth. Are they getting better? Have you seen them improving? I know you feed them. And I know you still sneak up into the hayloft to watch them.”

Had she? In the month the patients had been contained in the barn, had she noticed any improvements in them? No. Beth shook her head, but not in confirmation of what Jimmy said. It was a futile attempt to clear her mind of what he was trying to get her to see. “There could be,” she argued. “If Daddy can just figure out the right combination of medication—”

“Beth,” Jimmy said again, more firmly this time. She wouldn’t meet his eye. He took her jaw in his hand, gently turning her gaze to his. “What is it that you think Hershel can do with veterinarian supplies that the CDC hasn’t been able to with top-of-the-line medical supplies and expertise?”

The night had stolen all the blue from Jimmy’s eyes. They bore into hers, gray and serious, asking her to see reason. Beth felt her chin wobble and hated herself for it, hoped Jimmy couldn’t feel the weakness as he held her face. “We can’t just let people die.”

Fireworks reflected in his eyes as Jimmy raised his eyebrows. Beth shook her head, denying and refusing what her logical mind knew. Their train of thought was illogical; how could they be dead, the patients, and still roaming the barn floor? Still reaching for food, devouring meat? When Jimmy exhaled in defeat, his breath washed gently over her cheeks. He adjusted the hold on her face, moving his hand to stroke from temple to chin, and very, very softly kissed her on the mouth.

They didn’t argue about it again. There was no need to.

Not even a week later, Shawn and Daddy had another argument. This time, the fight took place in the barn with the patients. Shawn was careless, didn’t mind himself. Stepped too close to the chicken wire, didn’t take note of the man reaching through, grabbing at his forearm.

The bite was superficial, barely breaking the skin. The consequences were not.

Mama cleaned it, rinsing it again and again with astringent. She laid a thin layer of antibacterial cream on it, wrapped it up to keep infection away. But the infection was already inside Shawn. The fever came before morning. His bedroom became a sickbay from which Beth, Maggie, and Arnold were barred. Only Mama and Daddy went inside, administering water and broth, plastering Shawn with cool, damp cloths as he burned.

“He’s going to die,” Beth said despondently, laying prone on her bed. Jimmy was with her, curled protectively around her frame. He pressed a kiss to her temple but didn’t disagree. No one was paying attention to them. No one was demanding that her bedroom door stay open; no one was walking the hallway, not bothering with subtlety as they peeked in on the teenagers.

Beth had been crying for hours. Sobs were beyond her. She no longer had the energy for them. They continued to fall, though, hot and desperate down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, honey.”

It was the only sentiment Jimmy seemed capable of. Beth didn’t hold it against him. She took a deep, shaky breath and nodded for the thousandth time, accepting his attempts at comfort. Then she rolled herself, burying her face in Jimmy’s chest as he continued to hold her. The fact that he was here was enough. Maggie was downstairs, pacing the little stretch of hallway in front of Shawn’s room, and Arnie was seeing to the chores with Otis and Patricia.

“Do you…” Beth began, confessing into the soft, faded fabric of Jimmy’s t-shirt what she hadn’t been able to even think to herself, “Do you think he’ll be b-back?”

“Yeah.” Jimmy’s fingers scratched lightly at her back, between her shoulder blades. They were reassuring in a way that his honesty was not. “He’s gonna be back.”

Beth nodded into his chest, her sobs renewing themselves. Jimmy held her as she cried, murmuring more comforting nothings to her. She didn’t know how long they lay like that, only that she had cried herself to the point of emptiness. For all she knew, she could have floated, weightless, right from the mattress had it not been for Jimmy’s arms anchoring her in place. Her eyelids were beginning to flutter shut, the only sound her mind was focusing on was the steady rhythm of Jimmy’s breathing, when a soft knock sounded at the door.

Though their current position was undeniably clandestine by the rules that had been laid down by Mama and Daddy, Jimmy didn’t let go of her as he looked over his shoulder. “Come in.”

It was only Arnie, lingering pale and exhausted in the doorway. “Shawn wants you, Beth.”

Her heart was heavy in her chest, head throbbing with new tears she couldn’t seem to conjure. If Shawn was asking for her, and she was being allowed in his room, it must be nearly time. Little more than a day had passed since the bite. Beth untangled herself from Jimmy, paused for a moment to let him smooth down her mussed hair. His eyes were blazing and desperate and she couldn’t quite meet them. With slow, careful movements, as if she might break if she moved too quickly, Beth pushed herself from her bed and walked to Arnie in the doorway.

Arnie tucked her under his arm, squeezing her shoulders as he led her downstairs. Neither of them said a word yet both understood what they would soon be facing. One, two, three, four… sixteen. Sixteen stairs. One, two, three, four… twenty-five. Sixteen stairs, twenty-five steps down the hallway. Forty-one steps too soon and Beth was staring at the familiar, white door of Shawn’s bedroom.

Beth took a deep, shuddering breath before pushing the door open, leaving Arnie and Jimmy behind her in the hall. Mama was sitting with Shawn, who was ghostly pale save for the dark, bruise-like shadows around his eyes. He gave her the weakest smile when his feverish eyes landed on her face. “Hey, Bethy.”

Her childhood nickname sounded like it was coming from the grave. She tried and failed to return his smile. Mama stood, offering her chair to Beth, and good thing. Her knees had nearly given out by the time she lowered herself into it. “I’ll be just outside,” Mama managed, her voice breaking over the words. She squeezed Beth’s shoulder before leaving the room.

“You look like shit,” Shawn told her, startling a weak laugh from Beth.

“I can’t say you look much better.” She reached out, took his hand in hers. His palm was burning hot and dry. When she squeezed his fingers, the feeblest press came in answer. “I’m so sorry, Shawn.”

Her sob was dry, all tears having been shed and absorbed into Jimmy’s t-shirt already.

“It’s not your fault.” His own breaths dragged down his chest, rattling his ribs. “It’s not anyone’s fault, okay? I don’t want you…” Shawn had to pause, slowly inhaling and exhaling a few times before he could speak again, “…to blame Hershel, okay?”

“I don’t blame Daddy,” she told him. “Of course I don’t!”

That got half a smile from Shawn, and he squeezed her fingers again. “Good. I love you, you know that? I know I teased you a lot, but…” another stretch of shallow breaths, “…you’re my baby sister.”

“I know.” Her dry sobs were back. She wanted to kiss his cheek but knew Shawn wouldn’t let her take such a risk. Not directly. So, she kissed her fingertips instead before pressing them to his fiery skin. “I love you, too, Shawn.”

His cheek lifted under her touch, mouth quirking again into one of those almost-smiles. “Tell Jimmy… I’ll haunt his ass if he’s not treatin’ you right.”

“I-I will,” she promised him. Shawn’s eyelids were starting to flutter shut.

“Good. Be good, okay, Beth?”

“I will be.” He nodded weakly against his pillows.

“Go,” he told her softly.

“Do you want Mama again?” Another almost imperceptible nod. Beth returned it though Shawn’s eyes were shut. She squeezed his hand one more time—for the last time, some distant part of her knew, but she couldn’t acknowledge that. All her energy had to remain focused on standing, on walking through Shawn’s room and out the door.

Mama was waiting on the other side just as she had promised. Beth found herself pulled into a bone crushing hug, Mama folding her into her arms the way she had when Beth was a little girl. No words passed between mother and daughter, but a desperate grief was communicated all the same in that brief, tight embrace.

No one protested Jimmy staying the night. He did so quietly, simply remaining at the Greene home late into the night, trying to keep Beth occupied by taking her into the living room and spreading puzzle pieces across the coffee table. Arnie was with them, sitting in an armchair and watching them work. Or, at least, Arnie was looking at the coffee table. Beth was almost certain he didn't see anything, though. Behind his glasses, his eyes were hazy and dark.

Maggie and Daddy were in the kitchen, whispering. She could hear them even though Arnie had the radio going, trying to fill the uncomfortable silence. Beth worked robotically, sorting the edge pieces from the interior pieces. She didn't really see what was in front of her, either.

God only knows what I would be without you, if you should ever leave me...

Arnie had intentionally set the radio to an oldies pop music station, clearly looking to avoid any songs that might make the atmosphere in the house any heavier. But when The Beach Boys started playing, he pushed himself up from his armchair and stalked across the room.

Though life would still go on—

They were dunked into silence with one flick of the dial. Beth blinked back fresh tears and returned to the puzzle, realizing for the first time that Jimmy had chosen one of Mama's jigsaws that showed a sweet snapshot of a litter of kittens sitting in a wicker basket.

Those kittens are probably dead. The puzzle had always existed in the house; Beth used to delight over it as a little girl. While, yes, the time frame of how long the puzzle had been owned by the Greene family made it reasonable to guess the cat models had grown and ran the course of their life, Beth was still shocked by the thought. She had been trying hard to keep her mind safely blank, but thoughts like this kept interrupting her.

Those kittens are probably dead. Daddy won't find a cure. Shawn will always be like the patients in the barn. Anyone could be next. I could be next.

They were dark and intrusive and most certainly not welcome in her head. Yet Beth felt powerless to stop their coming. They popped into her head fully formed, no pondering needed to reach these awful conclusions her mind kept jumping to.

The only methods effective at keeping them at bay, she had found, was to either bite the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood or to clench her hands so tightly her nails left crescent moon indentations in her palms. She chose the former, the pain helping hone her mind and keep her focus on what was in front of her. Then her hand reached out, steady and rote, continuing to piece the puzzle together.

Sometimes Mama came out of Shawn’s room, but only to silently meet Daddy’s eye and nod to the awful, unasked question on his face. Is he still here?

Eventually, when the night was blurring into the small hours of the morning, Daddy announced, “We might as well all try to get some sleep.”

Even then, nothing was said about Jimmy’s presence. There was merely a pointed look from Daddy, a solemn nod from Jimmy, and the latter followed her up the stairs to her bedroom. Beth doubted anyone in the house was going to sleep, but they went through all the motions anyway. She and Maggie brushed their teeth together in their shared bathroom, located between their bedrooms. Usually, this bedtime routine was filled with talk; what they had done that day, if they thought they would be able to go back to school in the fall. Not that night. They were silent, unified in their grief, but silent.

In her bedroom, suddenly shy despite the circumstances surrounding them, Beth retreated to her closet to change into her pajamas. She berated herself for the silliness even as she did it; what did it matter? Jimmy had seen her in a bikini, wasn’t that the same as seeing her in a bra and panties? But he didn’t seem to mind. He waited patiently in her bedroom, his boots sitting beside hers next to her bed. It was kind of sweet, seeing them there together, all worn leather and scuffed toes.

“Oh, you don’t have to sleep in your jeans,” she told him when he tried to slide under her comforter with them still on. “You should be comfortable if we’re going to try to get some rest.”

“Okay.” He did away with the jeans but left his t-shirt. Beth thought about offering him some sweats or something, but Jimmy and Shawn were the closest in size, and the words died immediately on her tongue when she thought of her feverish, suffering brother. So, she swallowed them instead, and climbed into bed beside Jimmy.

He held her. They didn’t sleep and they didn’t play at it, either. With Beth’s head pillowed on his shoulder, Jimmy played with her hair and scratched lightly at her back. She listened to his heartbeat and breathing, anchoring herself to him as they rode out the remainder of the night together. The light in the room deepened, darkened, lightened. Everything was awash in the softest gray, robbing the room of color, when the gentlest knock was rapped on Beth’s bedroom door.

“I got it,” Jimmy reassured her, yanking his jeans back on before going to her door. He opened it just enough to stick his head through, blocking whoever was on the other side from Beth. She pushed herself up, heart and head impossibly heavy, and she knew. Before Jimmy ever turned toward her, eyes liquid and face wretched, she knew.

Shawn was gone.

The sob that worked its way up her throat left her feeling raw and naked in a way she had never experienced before. Jimmy was with her immediately, scooping her into his arms. He stroked her hair, murmured comforting nothings to her, words that fell incomprehensible on her ears. Beth couldn’t focus on anything other than this awful, horrible sadness pulling her under the waves of grief crashing over her. She clung to Jimmy, her tears soaking into his neck, until her tears ran out and her sobs turned dry.

“Jimmy,” his name was a plea, one he could never fully answer. Still, he stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head.

“I know, honey, I know.”

“We can’t, we can’t,” she felt stuck, a broken record of words, “we can’t… put him there.”

In the barn, with the others. That’s not where Shawn belonged to be. He should be resting. “But your dad…”

The sentence was left unfinished. Would Daddy ever be able to cure Shawn, to bring him back? It was hard to believe just then. All her hope had been expended on the other patients, whose only change came in the form of further decay. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to say such things, to admit it to herself or to Jimmy, and he seemed just as stuck as she was. Daddy’s fabled cure was the only desperate hope they had, and that had never been so true as it was that morning.

There was no funeral because Shawn wasn’t dead. It didn’t matter that Maggie told her, three days later, that Shawn’s heart stopped. She had been in the room when it happened.

“He died, Beth,” she whispered while they mucked out stalls together. “I was in there with him.”

“You were?” Her own whisper came out sharper than she intended. This was news to Beth, a stinging, verbal slap to her cheek. Maggie and Shawn had always had their little secret club that she had never been allowed into. Beth got one of Maggie’s cutting looks in return, the kind that came from the corner of her eye and let her little sister know she was being a brat. Swallowing this fresh hurt, Beth made sure her tone was milder when she asked, “How do you know that?”

“He stopped breathing,” Maggie told her simply. “And Annette was holding his hand, but his went slack. He was dead… and then he wasn’t. It’s just like they’ve been saying on the news.”

Beth paused in her stall mucking, leaning on her shovel instead. The dirty hay at her feet blurred in her vision. “But do you think,” she asked, blinking back her tears, “that Daddy can fix it?”

“Of course,” Maggie said, but not until such a long pause had stretched out that Beth knew she was lying.

“Is he in there?” She asked.

“Yeah, Daddy and Arnie put him in with the other two that morning, after…” Beth nodded, not needing, or wanting, to hear the rest. They finished their shared chore in silence. After, when Maggie made to return to the farmhouse, Beth turned the other way, toward the old barn. She scrambled her way up the ladder and pulled herself through the little window. From the hayloft, she watched Shawn tug at the chicken wire and swing stall doors open and shut.

Idle movements. Mindless movements.

Unlike the other two, Shawn’s color was not so grotesque. Ashen and gray, of course, and his eyes gone sickly yellow. But his body was whole, his skin not showing any signs of decay. He still wore the t-shirt and sweatpants he must have… died… in. No shoes, bare feet shuffling through the thick layer of dust on the floor.

She knew Shawn would be placed here, but it still hurt to see. Beth sat close to the window, keeping her nose pointed toward the opening, so she could breathe the fresh air rather than the cloying scent of rot that filled the barn. After… that morning, both Beth and Mama had spent more time than usual in the house, crying together. The chores had fallen on Daddy and Maggie, Arnie and Jimmy, without complaint. Mama still wasn’t well; she spent much of the day sitting in the kitchen with a cold cup of tea in her hand, staring at the wall.

If she wasn’t staring despondently in the kitchen, then Mama was in bed. Headaches, Daddy said.

Beth didn’t stay long in the barn. Just enough time to prove to herself that Maggie’s words were true. Shawn was gone.

He wasn’t the only new resident in the barn. Five more were added before July slipped into August.

Just a week after Shawn, Arnie found Mrs. Duvall, their closest neighbor, wandering yellow-eyed along the fence line. When she saw Arnie, she walked toward him, of course. Arnie said she didn’t react to the electric current at all, grabbing the livewire in one hand and reaching for him with the other. After Daddy heard of her presence on the farm, he insisted she join the others. Daddy and Arnie, now acting as Daddy’s right hand just as Shawn used to, drove the two miles down to the Duvall’s to find that Mr. Duvall had not faired nearly as well as his wife.

What was left of him was strewn across the porch.

And then Arnie himself, late in the month. It wasn’t carelessness, like Shawn. It wasn’t one of the patients or Shawn or Mrs. Duvall that did him in. No; the living took Arnie.

As the number of sick grew, so did the hysteria. Arnie was walking back to the farm after running off to coral one of the pigs after it ran through a fallen section of the fence. Mrs. Duvall wasn’t the only ill person who saw the electricity as a small obstacle. One section had sagged and become damaged when three of them came at once. Of the infected, one was lost; they were a rowdy bunch, pushing at one another. The lost one fell onto a fence post, becoming impaled through the underside of his chin and through the top of his head.

Otis helped Daddy bury that one. The other two were quickly pulled and pushed into the ‘sick barn’. Arnie ran off after the pig. Only one came back, and not in the way he had left.

A dark bloodstain sat over his heart, a macabre boutonniere. The fact that Arnie found his way back to the barn was evidence that the living were still in there, somewhere. He was easy to contain after being found on the porch, trying and failing to manipulate the doorknob so he could enter the house.

Beth only cried for one day over her favorite cousin. She kept his guitar in her bedroom, where Jimmy stayed for the second time to console her through another awful night.

It’ll be everyone soon. Jimmy’s probably next. The thoughts, those horrid thoughts, were getting more frequent. Biting her cheek and sinking her nails in her palms wasn’t working as well anymore. She had become numb to that pain. Her cuticles began to suffer, picked at and bit until they stung and bled.

But the one that hurt the most, the one that left Beth waylaid in bed for over a week, was Mama. She knew her mother hadn’t been well after Shawn, knew she had always been ‘delicate’, in the words of Daddy. What she hadn’t known, another secret kept from her, was Mama’s habit of self-medicating. Not until it was taken too far. Not until she didn’t wake one morning, not as herself.

“Don’t come downstairs!” Maggie shouted at her on a bright, hot Sunday. The desperation in her voice had Beth frozen at the top, looking down, white-faced, as Daddy led a snarling, swiping Mama from Shawn’s bedroom.

She had taken to sleeping in there some nights since his passing.

Beth’s knees gave out from beneath her, leaving her kneeling on that top step. “No,” she said, softly at first, though it grew in volume each time until she was screaming her throat raw. “No, no, no, no, no, NO!”

Her begging did nothing but draw Mama’s attention and cause her to become agitated. Beth reached for her, too, unable to accept what her mother had become. The hottest, most bitter tears she had yet cry began to stream down her face. Perhaps it was divine intervention or perhaps it was simple fear, but something kept her rooted on her knees while Daddy and Maggie wrangled Mama outside.

“No, Mama, please, please!” She wailed even when they were gone. This was too much; this pain was too heavy. How was she not toppling down the stairs? Her lungs were on fire, unable to get enough air into them as she choked on her sobs. Shawn and Arnie and now Mama. How was she supposed to go on, to continue living in this awful, awful world?

Even her worst, most vile intrusive thoughts hadn’t predicted this.

The last days of July were lost on Beth. She spent them in her bed, drifting in and out of consciousness. Someone was always there when she was temporarily lucid. Jimmy or Maggie or Daddy. One of them was there to murmur softly to her, to work a bit of food or water into her. Each treated her like glass that might shatter if they spoke just a little too loud, moved a little too fast.

Jimmy kissed her forehead and cheeks. Maggie stroked her hair. Daddy stared at the wall a lot, just like Mama had before…

The last days of July were ones that Beth never wanted to remember.

Chapter Text

Chapter Four: Early to Mid-August, Year 1

Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Romans 12:15

In the predawn, Beth walked through dew-heavy grass toward the sick barn. No one else was awake when she slipped through the back door. Maggie had been sleeping with an arm thrown over her face. Daddy was slumped in one of the recliners in the living room. Jimmy was face-down in the guest bedroom, snoring lightly into the pillow.

Up the ladder, twelve rungs.

She only ever visited the sick barn on mornings like this when she was awake before anyone else. Jimmy had lectured her after Arnie and Mama, telling her that it wouldn’t do her any good to see three of her family members that way. After her episode following Mama’s death, Beth no longer fed the infected. But Jimmy hadn’t outright asked her not to continue her habit, merely suggesting she stop it, so Beth scrambled into the hayloft and peered over the ledge.

The little girl was new. She had short, tangled blonde hair. Beth had crafted a game of trying to guess the names of the ones she didn’t know. Olivia. She must be the one Otis was putting in the barn the day before.

Of the patients, nine now, only seven were active. Shawn, Arnie, Mama, the two from the fence, Mrs. Duvall, and the little girl. Not Olivia. Sarah, maybe. But the original two, they weren’t doing so well. Sometimes the man still walked about, but not the woman. She slumped near the wall last week and hadn’t moved since. She still snarled, still swiped, but no longer ate. No longer approached the chicken wire fence.

Beth sighed. Not even the smell bothered her much anymore. Many feet below her, Mama was scratching at the wall. Arnie and Shawn bumped into each other. The little girl had to be ‘fresh’, as Jimmy had taken to referring to them. She was pulling at the wire.

“Why should I feel discouraged? Why should the shadows come? Why should my heart feel lonely and long for heaven and home?”

Daddy had his experiments, sure, but Beth had hers, too. On these mornings, she didn’t just check in on the patients. She sang to them, too, Mama’s favorite hymns.

“When Jesus is my portion, a constant friend is He. His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches over me.”

More so than any of Daddy’s work, any of his words, these hymns gave Beth hope. When she sang from the hayloft, Mama stopped. So did Arnie and Shawn. Well, they all did. But those three did more than focus on Beth. While the others continued to snarl and took futile swipes in her direction, Mama, Shawn, and Arnie all paused.

“I sing because I’m happy; I sing because I’m free. His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.”

They paused and lifted their faces toward Beth. They quieted. They watched and listened.

“I sing because I’m happy; I sing because I’m free. His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.”

It was a catharsis. Beth was crying by the end of each hymn, tears streaming silently down her cheeks. This was the safer way she coped with her grief and fear. Those few moments when her loved ones stopped and listened to her sing buoyed her, kept Beth believing in Daddy’s affirmations that this life was not forever.

“How’re your parents?” Jimmy’s moving in at the Greene’s had been accidental. Spending the night more often was intentional. He took up the habit to help Daddy and Otis. One evening, though, an alert came over the radio: all roads in and out of Atlanta were closed. Jimmy’s family lived in a suburb on the fringes of the city.

“They’re doing good. Staying safe.” Jimmy talked to his parents every day, but he hadn’t seen them in more than a week. The one guest room in the Greene house had become his. Jimmy inherited Shawn’s old clothing. He stopped behind Beth, sneaking a kiss on her cheek as she sauteed some vegetables for dinner.

“That’s good.” This confirmation, and Jimmy’s kiss, had Beth smiling despite herself. Almost all her smiles started with Jimmy these days. His only real competition came from Cookie; the little colt was ornery and sweet in turns. When she wasn’t busy with all the homemaking tasks Mama left behind, Beth liked to sneak off to the horse stables to see him.

Patricia and Otis moved into the guest house soon after Mama’s death. It was nice having them closer. While Otis helped with the farmwork, as always, Patricia was now lending her helping hands to Beth with the house.

“How are you doing?” Jimmy asked, hauling himself up onto the counter beside the stove. He peeked into her pan, getting a full face of steam from the red onions, zucchini, and yellow squash.

“I’m alright.” Which wasn’t too much of a lie. Jimmy knew that Beth hated most aspects of this new life they found themselves in. ‘Alright’ was about all she could manage.

“Wanna go stargazing tonight?” Sticking close to the farm was a given. They didn’t venture into the woods anymore. The world had shrunk to the confines of the fence.

“Yeah,” Beth agreed, knowing they would end up sitting on an old sheet on the roof. It was one of their new favorite activities, one of the few that afforded them any privacy. They snuck up there together after dinner. The first stars were just winking into visibility when they settled themselves on a blanket outside Beth’s bedroom window. The green shingles were still a little rough under her legs, and warm from the sun, even with the sheet between them. They sat with their backs to the outside of the house.

Out here, Beth felt like she had enough room to breathe deeply, enough secrecy to whisper things to Jimmy that she wouldn’t dare say in front of her family members. Especially Daddy. While Shawn, Arnie, and Mama’s deaths had been a blow to them all, the aftershocks were affecting them in different ways. Maggie was quick to anger. Beth’s faith in the dream that her loved ones might return to her was waning. Daddy was more overzealous than ever.

“I don’t think it’s going to get better,” she admitted to Jimmy, picking at a loose thread at the hem of her shorts.

“It’s going to.” His tone was firm, leaving her no wiggle room to argue. Jimmy could speak with such conviction, and it never ceased to surprise Beth when he did so. She sent him a sidelong look, taking in the rigid line of his jaw, the fierce shine of his eyes. “It’s gotta get better, Beth. I just don’t think it’s gonna be in the way we’ve been thinking.”

Beth’s mouth twitched but she didn’t achieve a smile. Instead, she reached for Jimmy, pressing her lips to his. You would think, with Jimmy living with them full time, there would be more time for the more…physical side of their relationship. Maggie didn’t care what they did anymore, she knew. Shawn used to do his big brother duty and interrupt them at regular intervals. Mama had worried over her purity, Beth knew, and so did Daddy; Otis and Patricia had since been employed in these efforts of ensuring nothing premarital happened between the two.

These stolen moments on the roof became important to them. Jimmy’s hand threaded into her hair. He gave a small tug, guiding her head back just enough for him to deepen the kiss. Beth let her lips part beneath his, scooted herself closer. She looped her arms around his neck, seeking the warmth of him despite the persistent summer heat.

His other hand slipped beneath her shirt, curved around her waist, calloused thumb pressing into her ribs. A thrill ran through her, heart stuttering in her chest. Everything in life lately felt like a precipice, like she was staring down a descending slope into the future. This one, at least, was not so treacherous as the others.

“Beth,” her name was practically a gasp, stolen from her own breath when Jimmy abruptly pulled away from her. He still cradled her head, still had the other wrapped around her, when he dropped his head into her shoulder. It was only then that Beth realized she had inched herself closer to him still, straddling his lap. “We’re gonna get ourselves in trouble one of these nights.”

“You’re the one with a hand up my shirt,” she pointed out, refusing to take all the blame. But she didn’t move from his lap and his hand didn’t retreat, so how could she do anything other than share it? She carded her fingers through the hair at the back of his head, lightly running her nails along his scalp.

“Your daddy would kill me.”

“Only if he found out.” Slowly, he withdrew his hand, her skin feeling chilled in the absence of his heat. Jimmy lifted his head, letting it fall back against the wall behind them, and gazed up at her. Beth cocked her head toward her bedroom window, but Jimmy shook his head.

“They know we’re up here.” They being Daddy, Otis, and Patricia. If she strained her ears, she could hear all three of their voices from around the house, coming from the back porch. Beth sighed. Jimmy was right, of course, it was just…

“I know,” she kissed him again before gingerly climbing off him, resuming her chaste position beside him instead. It was a wonder they hadn’t tumbled right off the slanted roof earlier. “I’m tired of being watched all the time,” she admitted. “I feel like we’re all on house arrest.”

No one went past the fence anymore. Especially not now, when the rolling blackouts had started. At any given time, the power might go out. The news on the battery-powered radio always gave the same reason: the infected. Damaged powerlines, car accidents, intentional cuts to the power. Atlanta’s metropolis was suffering. The numbers of infected were rising and the uninfected were descending into anarchy. All roads in and out of the city were barricaded in an attempt to contain the chaos, but it didn’t sound effective.

Besides, Arnie had perished past that fence, and that right there was reason enough for Daddy to ban Beth and Jimmy from going into the forest.

“Yeah,” Jimmy’s shoulder bumped against hers when he shrugged. “Maybe Hershel will let up soon. We haven’t seen any of the infected wandering around in a while, ’side from that little girl.”

It had only been a week between the last sighting and the little girl, but Beth didn’t correct him. Each day felt like its own eternity, especially before Beth started charting them on her calendar. Seventy-four days since the start. Thirteen since Mama got sick. Twenty-nine for Shawn. Twenty, exactly, for Arnie.

“Maybe,” Beth said, though she didn’t believe it. She pushed herself to her feet, arms outstretched to keep her balance. “C’mon, we better get back in before Daddy’s yelling for us.”

One after the other, they climbed through her bedroom window. Beth hopped from her desk to the hardwood floor before turning and holding out a hand to Jimmy. He clasped it, his palm warm and steady, and followed her lead. Once on his feet, he shifted his hand, threading their fingers together.

“G’night, Beth,” he told her, punctuating it with a kiss.

“Good night.” She rocked back on her heels when he pulled away, watching him leave her room, shutting the door softly behind him. All her breath left her in a sigh, lungs deflating, and Beth marked another day off the calendar hanging above her desk.

The moon was new that night, leaving the night darker than usual. She watched the shadowy figure of Daddy cut across the lawn, headed toward the infected barn. He would be checking the locks, she knew, both on the chicken wire fence and the barn doors. Did he speak to them? She didn’t know. Maggie was his feeding partner. Jimmy went with Patricia. Now that Beth was off the rotation, Otis went alone. Beth stood watching, leaning on her desk, until Daddy returned and walked safely into the house.

While she watched, she picked at the raw, red skin of her cuticles. There was no longer anything left for her to peel or bite off, only scabs to re-open. It hardly stung at all anymore, not when she picked at them, but they would when she got in the shower. When she worked shampoo into her hair and lathered soap over her body, then the sensitive skin would give the response she wanted. Needed. A reminder she was alive, that there was something out there aside from the hazy fog of grief that dominated her brain during the waking hours.

“Hey, Cookie.” The curious little colt nibbled at the bandana tied around Beth’s head in greeting. He was a good horse, prone to prancing about the large, fenced pen and nipping at the older horses. Surprisingly, they all tolerated his orneriness, returning his teasing without causing the colt any harm.

Reaching up, she scratched Cookie behind the ear. He whinnied softly, leaning into her touch. “I bet y’all need some new hay in your stalls, huh?”

Her guard was lowered with Jimmy, of course, but with the animals, the walls came down completely. Their only expectation of her was that she would help care for them. They didn’t watch her, didn’t make well-meaning comments about missing her smile or her music. They didn’t expect her to soldier on, to keep her head up, to maintain the hope that the infected in the barn would one day be cured.

Daddy was running low on what remained of the medication he had on hand from his veterinary practice. There had been no change. There was no way to get more.

When Beth withdrew her hand, Cookie blew his breath at her. It breezed over her face, warm and moist. “Impatient,” Beth chided him, reaching into her pocket. On her way to the horses, she had filched one of the carrots from Maggie’s basket when she passed the garden. Now she held the root in the palm of her hand, completely flat, positioning it under Cookie’s nose. He sniffed for a moment before realizing he was being given a treat. For all that he liked to nip, Beth only felt the soft hide of his lips when he gingerly lifted the carrot from her hand.

“Hey!” The voice was muted, coming from somewhere behind her. “Hey, you!”

Though the words were innocuous, the tone beseeching but not aggressive, Beth’s spine stiffened. It wasn’t a voice she recognized.

A few nights ago, she and Maggie had sat on the front porch, watching the distant lights of retreating caravans of cars. The travel restrictions be damned; people were leaving Atlanta in droves. All those cars had driven straight past the Greene farm, heading to family members far off, in less populated areas. Less infected areas.

“Hey!” The voice shouted again. A man, she could tell that by the timbre. “Have you seen a little girl around here, on her own? She’s twelve, short blonde hair?”

Beth’s stomach clenched as she thought of the little girl in the infected barn. She tipped her head to Cookie’s snout, unable to make herself turn toward the voice. “Can you hear me?!”

A hand on her elbow made Beth jump, but when she turned, it was only Jimmy. He moved her behind him. “Stay back, okay?”

When he was walking away, toward the stranger at the fence, Beth realized he was carrying a shotgun. Despite how Arnie met his end, the Greenes hadn’t had any further issues with others… until today. Still standing beside the horse pen, Beth watched Jimmy and the stranger. Lingering outside the fence, this stranger was wearing a black and white baseball cap and a blue t-shirt. From this distance, Beth couldn’t discern any other features, but she did note one significant difference: Jimmy held his gun at the ready, but the stranger set his at his feet before raising his hands palm out. Unprompted.

Seeking more treats, Cookie began to nibble at her ponytail for a moment. Beth was frozen, watching the exchange between her boyfriend and the newcomer. She didn’t swat Cookie away but, when it became clear he wasn’t getting more treats, he retreated from the fence, leaving her alone.

Neither of them were shouting. Talking, yes. The stranger was making hand gestures, and she could see how he pointed to the forest behind him. But Beth couldn’t hear any of the words being exchanged. Jimmy returned a gesture, pointing toward the front gate. The stranger nodded, his baseball cap bobbing, and then Jimmy was returning.

He took Beth by the elbow again, drawing her away from the horse pen and the stranger alike. “Who was that?”

“Hell if I know,” Jimmy snapped. His tone softened in the next moment, throwing her an apologetic look. “Sorry, babe. He said his name is Glenn and he’s lookin’ for a little girl named Sophia. I told him to go ’round to the front gate and I’d get Hershel.”

Beth flexed her hands. She’d fisted them as she watched Jimmy interact with Glenn, and now they were cramping. Her palms throbbed with the indent of her nails and her fingers felt creaky as she stretched them out. “Jimmy,” she whispered, though there was no chance of Glenn overhearing. “That little girl, that Sophia…?”

“Honey, I know.”

Sophia, Sophia, So-phi-a. Three syllables. Twelve years old. Twelve ladder rungs.

“Don’t say anything about it.”

“Okay.”

“We’ll leave it up to your old man.”

“Okay.”

Jimmy led Beth across the sprawling lawn of the farm, toward the house. Up the steps—only three—across the porch, into the front door. “Hey, Mr. Greene?” Jimmy only called Daddy by his first name when he wasn’t around. It was always ‘Mr. Greene’ to his face.

“What is it, son?” Daddy stepped from his office, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He must have been reading; he was always reading lately. Through every textbook he had, every Farmer’s Almanac on his shelf. Looking, desperately, for a cure.

“There’s a guy here, says his name is Glenn,” Jimmy explained. “Said he’s looking for a little girl named Sophia.”

That wound, the one that sat behind her sternum, the one that Beth tried her best to ignore, began to ache. How would she feel, not knowing where Mama or Shawn or Arnie were? This Sophia, this little girl in the barn, obviously meant something to Glenn. That he cared for her was no doubt; why else had he come asking after her?

The way Daddy grimaced and shook his head, a silent agreement passing between him and Jimmy, was salt in the wound. Neither of them needed to say it; Beth understood. They wouldn’t be cluing this Glenn in to the fact that it was very likely Sophia had already been located in the worst way.

Beth bit the inside of her cheek, trying to stave off the tears pricking the back of her eyes. She swallowed the sob swelling in her chest. None of this is fair. I would want to know. I will know when… when… she pushed the thought aside. If. Not when. If.

And then there was the guilt. Now she wanted to hit her head while sobbing, for the secret, traitorous thoughts that kept popping into her mind. Unbidden and unwelcome. She was disgusted by her own unconscious assumption that more of her loved ones would wither away while she continued on.

While she was wallowing in this ugly bog of emotion, Daddy excused himself. From the picture window in the living room, Beth watched Daddy and Jimmy meet Glenn again at the gate. He was invited inside the fence, fell in line with them as they became a trio walking back to the house. Beth pushed off from the window seat, fairly running up the stairs and to her bedroom. Though her impulse was to slam the door, she made herself shut it softly, turning her back to the wood and sliding down to the floor.

With her knees tented, her head hung between them, Beth tried to gather herself. She wanted nothing more than to scream, to cry, to purge all these emotions. But, at the same time, she couldn’t handle the mere thought of more concerned attention on herself. Beth looked at her hands, but all her nails were bit to the quick, all her cuticles picked over. She gripped her own forearms, trying to hold herself together, and that’s when it happened.

Her nails were so blunt that it took some effort, but she tightened her grip until they sunk into her skin. Until the pain was enough to focus on, to take her mind of the miasma of feelings swirling inside her. Until the haze cleared from her mind and she let her head fall back against the door.

She didn’t draw blood, but the marks left behind were bright red and angry. That was okay; they would be easily covered with a flannel shirt, and she did need to muck the horse stalls. She just got distracted by Glenn. Evening was coming; she could say that she put the shirt on to keep the mosquitoes at bay if anyone asked. Rising slowly from the floor, Beth retrieved one from her closet, layering it over her t-shirt.

“Where’re you going, baby?” Daddy asked when she came downstairs. Her hopes that he would be talking with Glenn in the kitchen or his study were dashed. A kind face with dark, almond shaped eyes greeted her. He was young, dark hair a little shaggy where it peeked from beneath his ball cap. Glenn removed his hat when he stood, holding a hand out to her in greeting.

“Glenn Rhee,” he introduced himself.

“Beth Greene,” she gave her own name in return. Glenn’s hand was warm and solid. When they dropped the handshake, she turned to Daddy. “I wasn’t done with the horses. I just got a little distracted.”

Glenn gave her an apologetic, bashful smile at that, dipping his head. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She kissed Daddy on the cheek as she made her way to the door, promising to be quick about her chores so she didn’t keep dinner waiting. Patricia and Maggie were already working on it, Daddy said, and Glenn would be staying for dinner before heading back to his camp.

Though she smiled through the conversation, Beth thought she might throw up once she got outside. Maybe she would have, if Jimmy hadn’t been sitting on the porch steps, waiting for her. She kept walking, stalking toward the horse barn. “Beth! Hey, wait up!”

“I can’t do it,” she tossed over her shoulder, steps not slowing in their pace. “I can’t sit at the dinner table and lie to him!”

Jimmy jogged until he caught up to her. It didn’t take long for his hand to be wrapping itself around her elbow again. Beth tried to snatch her arm away, but Jimmy got a better grip and turned her so she was facing him. “We can’t very well tell him we have a whole barn full of ‘walkers’, either.”

“Walkers?”

“That’s what he calls them, the… infected.”

“But we know where she is, we know Sophia—”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Jimmy corrected. The setting sun was golden on his face, limning the hard edges of his expression.

“Little girl, about twelve, short blonde hair?” Beth repeated Glenn’s description back to him. “Ring a bell?”

“What the hell do you want me to do, go to the barn and ask if that’s her name? Like she’s gonna answer?” Something must have shown on her face, some shift, because the fight went out of Jimmy. His brow furrowed together as he searched her expression. “What? What’s that face?”

“She might,” Beth whispered. “She might respond to her name.”

“What’re you talking about?”

She met his eye, sternum aching once more as her heart began to pound. “I’ve been going to the barn, not every morning, but some, and—”

“Alone?! Beth, no, you can’t be doin’ that anymore, you know how dangerous—”

“Mama and Shawn and Arnie, they all turn around when I sing, they recognize my voice, so—”

They were talking over each other, neither really listening fully to the other. Jimmy took her face in his hands, the callouses rough on her cheeks, and tilted her head up just a bit. “No.” She had never heard his voice so firm. “We can’t—you can’t—Beth, please. I know we’re all pretending, but we know what they are. They’re dangerous. Please. Please say you won’t go back, not alone. If it’s that big of a deal, I’ll go with you, but please promise you won’t go by yourself anymore.”

There was a desperation she couldn’t deny in the way his fingers dug into her cheekbones. “Okay,” she promised. “If you’ll go with me tonight, just to see. They should be calm, right? After feeding time.”

“Alright,” Jimmy nodded. “Okay. Tonight.”

His hands shifted down, cupping the back of her head and neck, and he kissed her so very hard that it was nearly all teeth. Then he took her hand, and they finished her chores in the horse stalls in silence.

Dinner was as painful an affair as Beth knew it would be. She ate little, mostly pushing her food around the plate, and didn’t taste any of it. Each bite she took stuck in her throat the same way the lies they were feeding Glenn did.

Luckily, Maggie handled most of the conversation. She and Glenn were around the same age. They had college classes to talk about, how they never thought they would miss the homework, but they did. Glenn told them about his pizza delivery job, about being waylaid by a pack of the infected moving through the streets of Atlanta together on one of his last deliveries before leaving the city. He confirmed for them the things they were hesitant to believe from the news reports: the city was falling.

He was trusting. Glenn told them how many people were in the group he was camping with—six, counting Sophia. The exact number of residents at the Greene Farm. “Her mom’s really worried about her,” he divulged, looking forlornly at his roasted sweet potatoes.

Daddy and Maggie saw Glenn off at the gate. The stranger parted on good terms; enough so that Daddy advised Glenn to seek them out if he needed further help. Night fell with little conversation between the Greenes, Jimmy, Otis, and Patricia. Usually, they lingered in the living room, turning into the increasingly dismal radio reports or playing checkers and cards, putting puzzles together and reading.

Instead, Otis and Patricia returned home earlier than usual, and bedroom doors were softly pulled shut behind Maggie, Beth, and Jimmy. Daddy locked himself away in his study again. Beth wondered if he would spend the night in further research or if he would turn to the Bible, seeking absolution for his lies that evening.

It was easy for Beth and Jimmy to sneak out. She crept down the stairs when she was sure Maggie had gone to bed, avoiding the creakiest steps. She didn’t bother knocking at Jimmy’s door, instead quietly letting herself in. From there, they snuck out the ground floor window, making their way to the infected barn only by the light of the stars. The moon was just beginning to wax, the thinnest crescent of silver up above.

Up the ladder. Their flashlights only came to life once they were in the hayloft.

“What’d you say Glenn called them?” Beth asked, watching the infected scramble toward her beam of light.

“Walkers.” When the infected realized they weren’t getting more food, they went back to shuffling about. “They really pay attention when you sing?”

Beth nodded. “I’ll show you soon. Not tonight.”

There was already deniable proof that the little girl stumbling around the barn floor was the Sophia that Glenn was looking for. Over dinner, he described her blue t-shirt, printed with a rainbow, to all of them. Just the same as the one Beth and Jimmy were staring at now.

“Sophia!” The call startled Beth. All the infected turned, as they did with any noise, but they soon lost interest. Jimmy and Beth were too high up to be feasible targets, and they still retained enough of their sense to recognize that. But one, the smallest, stayed facing them. “Sophia.”

The second time Jimmy said her name, she began to walk toward them. Though she had come to the barn with the conviction she was right, seeing it before her was still enough to wrench a sob from Beth’s throat. She turned to Jimmy, burying her face in his neck, to muffle the sound.

Chapter Text

Chapter Five: Late August, Year 1

Do not steal. Do not lie. Do not deceive one another. Leviticus 19:11

Not two days later, while Beth was tossing slops into the pigs’ trough, there came a new visitor calling on the farm. Maggie was the one to find her, a gray-haired woman with nervous blue eyes. She timidly introduced herself as Carol Peletier, mother of the ‘missing’ Sophia.

This time Beth wasn’t able to keep herself composed. Her knees hit the tile in the downstairs bathroom, her breakfast leaving her in a sour, acidic burn. Maggie was busy that day. She was the one to excuse herself to the bathroom, following Beth. At first, she held her sister’s hair for her, but once Beth finished retching, Maggie took her by the shoulders. She rocked her little sister back on her heels, gaze steely as she met her eye.

“Beth.”

“What?”

“Cut it out.” Beth’s vision was blurry. Vomiting had made her eyes water. She blinked the moisture away.

“This is wrong.”

Maggie gave a huff of irritated breath. “Listen, I know you’re used to being the baby, but you can’t anymore. It’s time to grow up.”

“Baby?” Beth repeated, bristling. “I’m being a baby because I don’t think we should lie to this Carol lady?!”

“We’re not lying,” Maggie asserted. “Not really. You’ll see. Daddy’s gonna make them better, and then Carol will be happy.”

Beth narrowed her eyes at her sister. “Since when do you believe that?”

Another lie. This one was meant to placate her. The conviction faded from Maggie’s face, replaced with something harder. “I don’t, but it doesn’t matter. Cure or no cure, the family comes first, and keeping the secret keeps the family safe. Do you understand that?”

“I don’t like that.”

“No one said you had to.” Maggie pushed herself to standing. She didn’t offer a hand to help Beth up. “You don’t have to like anything that’s necessary, but it still has to get done.”

“This isn’t some chore I don’t like, Maggie! This is a mother looking for her daughter, and we know where she is!”

“Yeah, we do. Carol doesn’t need to.” Maggie shut Beth in the bathroom door, leaving her with no one but her own reflection. She didn’t much like who she saw there. Her cheeks were sunken, dark circles showing despite her summer tan. There were white streaks in her sun-bleached hair and splotches of red on her cheeks.

She let the water run cold from the tap and splashed her face with the water until the color in her face went down. Then she patted her cheeks, nose, and forehead dry and took another look. That was a little better, though she still looked uncomfortable and irritated. Beth had never been a good liar. When she was little, she always got caught out in any wrongdoing she did because of her habit of telling on herself.

There was no way she could face Carol again. For a moment, Beth considered holing herself up in the bathroom. That wouldn’t do; if anything, that would draw more intention. So, instead, she poked her head out of the door. Thankfully, Daddy had taken Carol into the kitchen. The living room was clear, which meant no one would notice her sneaking up to her bedroom.

Safe and private in her room, Beth opened the bedroom window and hung her head outside. She took gulps of the fresh air, filling her lungs with it, willing her head to clear. But all she could think was, this is wrong. This is so, so wrong.

Carol hadn’t come alone. Out in the driveway, Jimmy was talking to Glenn. She recognized his dark hair and his baseball cap. The fact that Jimmy was likely lying, too, made Beth feel sick all over again. She slammed her window shut, retreating into her room, sitting heavily on her bed.

Mama, Shawn, Arnie… none of them would have agreed with this. Beth believed that to be true in her heart. But then… Beth would have never expected this from Daddy, Maggie, and Jimmy, yet…

 A knock sound at her door. Her legs felt wooden as she walked to the door. Jimmy was on the other side, looking stricken. For a beat, Beth held him there, the wooden door between them, as she took in the conflict in the depths of his eyes, the frown tugging his lips down. He opened his mouth to speak and that’s when Beth pulled the door her way, giving him the space to step into her bedroom.

“Can you listen to me for a minute?” Beth nodded, but the movement cost her. It stoked that hurt, that pain she carried daily in her chest. “I know, okay? I know. It doesn’t feel good. But you know what else isn’t gonna do any good? Letting Sophia’s mama see her the way she is.”

Gaunt. A corpse’s pallor stealing all the flush her cheeks might have once held. What color had her eyes been before? It didn’t matter; they were a sickly, pus yellow now. Her hair was tangled, her clothes were grubby. The death wound, a bite mark branding her thigh, was still visible on her calf.

Beth thought about Carol, about the shake in her hands and that edge of hysteria in her eyes, and though she hated to admit it, she knew Jimmy was right. The last thing Carol needed was to see confirmation of Sophia’s fate. She stubbornly clung to the waning shreds of her anger. “She doesn’t have to see, but she still deserves to know.”

“You really think she won’t book it for the barn? And then what? If she gets in there, she’s a goner. If we keep her from the barn, who’s to say her group won’t force their way in? Either way, everyone’s hurtin’, unless we do what Maggie said. We gotta keep the secret.”

She didn’t have to cling to the anger anymore. It flared hot in her belly, licking at the raw edges of the hole in her chest. “Keep the secret!” She repeated. “What’s the damn point, if Daddy is so bent on finding a cure?!”

Jimmy moved, catching her, folding Beth into his arms. Holding her still; holding her together. “Listen to me. Glenn was tellin’ me they got some hunters, brothers—Daryl and Merle, in case they show up here, too—that have been trackin’ through the woods. They have Sophia’s other sneaker, remember how she’s only got one on? They know she’s been in this area. There’s tracks.”

He was holding her too tight, bones grinding together, breath difficult to wedge into her lungs. “And if they find out we have her and we’ve been lying, things will get worse.”

Jimmy nodded, chin hitting the crown of her head. “No more goin’ to the barn, okay? They could be watching. We can’t…”

“I know. I won’t.”

And she wouldn’t. Not because she agreed with this insanity that was infecting her family. Beth couldn’t stomach the shame of looking in their faces, especially Sophia’s. She would be avoiding the barn for her own sake, not anyone else’s.

The power went out during the last week of the month. One of the rolling blackouts simply never ended.

“Well,” Patricia said of this new development. “Good thing Otis thought to bring the bees. We’ll need the candles.”

Without any air conditioning, the house was always stifling. They took to leaving the upstairs windows and all the interior doors open in an attempt to generate some airflow. The ground floor, however, remained shut tight. Curtains drawn, doors latched.

The secret must be kept. It was a new mantra thought for Beth, one that she didn’t like any better than all the others that filled her head. Consulting handwritten, heirloom recipe books and an extensive back catalog of Farmer’s Almanacs, Beth and Patricia began learning how to cook using the living room fireplace rather than the stove and oven.

There were solar panels and a generator, both ideas that Maggie brought back with her after her first year in college, but the power for that was reserved for the electric fence and the running water in the house. Lights, air conditioning, and electronics were all considered luxuries. There were small exceptions to the electronics rule: the refrigerator and freezer stayed plugged in; sometimes Beth and Patricia would still use the stove—for canning and pasteurizing the milk—and one how a night committed to news reports on the state of the world outside the confines of the buzzing fence.

The reports were no longer local. All communication within Atlanta had been cut. These broadcasts were coming from the government, the CDC. One relayed information about brain activity experiments, confirming that after ‘death’, the infected’s brains still lit up the screen.

This virus affects the brain in similar ways to meningitis, causing acute organ distress and failure. After some time has elapsed—a handful of minutes to several hours—brain activity was noted in the infected’s MRI scans. This activity was centralized in the brain stem, giving the infected automatic body functions such as breathing and muscle control. No other brain activity was observed in any of the monitored patients.

Brain activity. That gave weight to Daddy’s belief that the infected could be brought back. Miniscule weight, but it was something new to cling to. Maybe these CDC doctors would have better luck than Daddy had.

Despite the heat, Beth took to wearing a long-sleeved shirt or cardigan every day. She wasn’t sure how else to hide the marks her nails left on her arms. The fact that she stopped biting her nails down to the quick might have seemed like progress if it weren’t for the additional fact that Beth only did that because the longer nails were more effective in achieving her goal.

She tried not to dwell on her bad habit. It only ever happened at night, in the privacy and secrecy of her shadowy bedroom.

“Good morning,” she murmured to the piglets. They were growing like weeds, but they still paused at the trough and let her scratch between their ears. As for the chicks, they had lost all their soft, butter-yellow down feathers. Their sleek, mature feathers were growing in, and they had learned to scratch for their own food. Still, Beth gave them a treat every morning as a diversion to distract all the chickens before retrieving the eggs.  

Shawn used to milk the cows, but that was Beth’s job now. She tucked her basket of eggs away on a shelf near the door before walking deeper into the barn that housed the cattle.

“Hey, mama,” she greeted the first cow, patting her neck. “Hey, baby.”

The calves, four of them, were nearly as many months old. Daddy didn’t believe in taking the calves from their mother nor did he believe in artificially impregnating the cows. Their milk consumption would ebb and flow with the natural rhythm of the herds’ life, now. And at four months, the calves were grazing more than they were nursing. They could comfortably share their mother’s milk.

“From sweet Tipperary see light-hearted Mary, her step, like a fairy, scarce ruffles the dew as she joyously springs and joyously sings, disdaining such things as a stocking or shoe.”

Now that she no longer sang to her family, Beth sang to the cows. It soothed both of them, she thought, to have something other than the often-uncomfortable business of milking to focus on.

“For she goes bare-footed, like Venus or Cupid, and who’d be so stupid to put her in silk, when her sweet foot and ankle the dewdrops bespangle, as the trips o’er the lawn at the blush of the dawn, as she trips o’er the lawn with her full pail of milk.”

Beth tried her best to eyeball the pail, judging how much milk she took from each cow. She made it as fair as she possibly could.

“For the dance, when arrayed, see this bright mountain maid, if her hair she would braid with young beauty’s fond lure, o’er some clear fountain stooping, her dark tresses looping, Diana herself ne’er had mirror more pure!”

After the milking, she always tilted her forehead to the cow’s in silent thanks. Growing up on the farm, Beth had come to see the animals not as a food source but as extensions of the family. A mutual avenue of caring for one another.

All her songs came from Mama. She sang with Beth all through her childhood; these songs were as much a part of her as her name and blonde hair. Now the cows were learning the tunes and to trust Beth when she came into their space. She went around and petted all the cows a final time before leaving with her basket of eggs and pail of milk.

On her way back to the house, she looked out to the west. Maggie was cranking the handle for the well. That was another change, another luxury. No more using the hose; Maggie had to use the old well for watering the garden. The same well now supplied water for the animals, but that was Beth’s job.

She always looked to the west, now, careful to keep her eyes from drifting to the east. To the far corner of the farm where the old barn stood.

That night, when all the work was behind her and Beth’s limbs were heavy and her mind was just a little hazy, she climbed onto the roof with Jimmy and asked him, “Don’t you think it’s silly?”

“What?” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, tucked her into his side.

“If they are really watching,” they meaning Glenn, Carol, the faceless brothers Merle and Daryl, and the unnamed fifth member of the group, “wouldn’t they notice when y’all go to feed at the old barn?”

“Maybe,” Jimmy agreed. “But maybe they’re not even watching. It’s been about a week since we’ve seen Glenn and Carol.”

Nearly a week and she hadn’t yet choked on the secret. Beth snuggled herself closer to him, seeking out his comfort. She shouldn’t have brought it up; she didn’t want to think about any of it. Her face was already in the crook of his neck, so Beth took the opportunity to kiss him there.

He didn’t chide her. Instead, Jimmy tilted his head back, exposing the long line of his throat to her. Beth kissed her way upward, then over the ridge of his jaw, until she reached his mouth. Jimmy took control of the kiss when their lips met. This time, it was his hands that guided her into his lap, the skirt of her dress billowing over both their legs. He nipped at her lips, gave back what he got when he trailed kisses down her throat, and took it father when he continued over her collar bones and down her chest until he reached the cotton neckline.

Beth’s breath had grown short, hushed gasps, and she watched him through drooping lids. His hands spanned upward from her hips, over the curve of her waist, hands splayed between her shoulder blades to keep her steady. And good thing. She found herself leaning back, giving him the space to continue kissing her skin lightly all along the sweetheart neckline of her dress. Beth found herself cursing her choice of clothing that day, her dress keeping Jimmy from going further.

He began moving upward again and Beth canted her head to the side, letting him have full range. When he reached her ear, he nipped at the lobe, taking the skin gently between his teeth, and Beth shivered, her breath stuttering further.

“Trouble,” he whispered into the shell of her ear, but neither of them moved away. In fact, Beth tugged a few buttons loose on his shirt, slipping her hand inside to feel the way his heart was racing. “We’re going to get in trouble one of these days.”

“I don’t care,” she whispered back, meaning it. When she was on the roof with Jimmy, she was able to forget the weight of her lost family members, the weight of the secret, if only for half an hour.

Jimmy didn’t argue any further as they continued to kiss and touch one another lightly, the stars overhead their only witnesses.

Chapter Text

Chapter Six: September, Year 1

Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. Romans 13:3

The farm, for all its bounty, couldn’t exist as a self-sustained microcosm. That became apparent when they started running out of amenities that couldn’t easily be replicated by Beth and Patricia. They could, with the help of a little research and digging through the Farmer’s Almanacs and a few Internet searches on Maggie’s computer.

But the fact of the matter was, they were out of laundry detergent, and they were running low on items like toothpaste, soap, and shampoo.

What they did have was gas in the tank. Thanks to Glenn, who stopped by the farm to ‘check in’ at least once a week since he first came looking for Sophia, they knew there were still a few gas station convenience stores stocked. Abandoned, but stocked.

“I’m a supply runner,” Glenn explained, his thumbs hooked under his backpack straps. He stood on the other side of the fence, separated from Maggie and Beth when he stopped to chat with the sisters on the way back to camp. His mysterious group stayed not far from the farm, in a set up of tents. Still searching for Sophia. “The Maverick a few miles southwest still has a lot of stuff. It was a new build, right before the world decided to end.”

It was a shame that Beth liked Glenn so much. He had a kind smile and his dark eyes lit up when they landed on Maggie’s face. His commitment to helping his group and keeping the search efforts for Sophia alive endeared him further to Beth. Which was why she avoided him as much as she could.

She was certain that one day she would choke on the lies they peddled about the poor little girl trapped in the sick barn.

Glenn’s information on the Maverick led to this moment. The sun was just rising, the animals had just been tended, and Beth was standing with Maggie and Patricia at the head of the long, dirt driveway. For the first time since Arnie’s death, someone was leaving the farm. Three someones. Daddy, Otis, and Jimmy planned on visiting this Maverick and stocking up on toiletries for the farm.

“Most people aren’t lucky enough to still have their houses.” That’s what Glenn had told them, eyeing the farm shyly as if he were the one that should be embarrassed by the Greenes’ good fortune. “All that stuff you’re missing is still on the shelves.”

Beth was biting the inside of her cheek again, this time to keep her tears at bay. Arnie left and never came back. The next time I see—

She bit down harder, until she tasted metallic blood on her tongue.

“We’ll be back before you have the time to miss us,” Daddy promised, touching Beth and Maggie’s hair in turn. He seemed hesitant to do more than that, to give anymore substantial a goodbye, as if doing so would take the ephemeral hope that colored his words.

Jimmy was not likewise burdened. He kept it chaste, in front of Daddy as they were, but he pulled Beth into a brief, tight hug. The gun he wore holstered at his hip knocked against her leg. Unfamiliar. Necessary. “Come back,” she whispered to him.

“I will,” he promised in return.

They stood in the driveway, Patricia in the middle and holding Beth and Maggie’s hands on either side, watching the truck drive off down the road. When it was no longer in sight, Patricia gave their hands a squeeze and said in a watery tone, “Well, girls, let’s get busy.”

“I gotta see to the garden,” Maggie said, breaking away. Summer was coming to a close, yes, but there was still plenty of time to get new seeds in the ground. Not in Maggie’s opinion, clearly.

Patricia’s face fell. Squeezing her hand again, Beth took a step toward the house. “We should get the bread going,” Beth told her. “Won’t that be a nice treat for them when they get back? Fresh bread and that jam we made yesterday?”

“You’re right, sweetheart.” Patricia tried for a smile as they walked back up the drive together.

Beth only stayed with Patricia until the bread was done baking. Within a half hour, she found herself wanting. Maggie was drawing out the gardening and Patricia had taken up her quilting.

“I’m just going to go for a walk around the farm,” Beth told Patricia, pulling her boots on. She got barely a nod in return. It was now or never, then.

Beth intentionally walked by the garden, making sure that Maggie was as engrossed in her task as she wanted her sister and Patricia to think. Maggie’s head was bent, her face obscured by a wide-brimmed sunhat. Just because the calendar knew that autumn was approaching didn’t mean the weather agreed. By the time she reached the sick barn, Beth was covered in a thin layer of sweat. The sun was only partly to blame, though. Her racing heart and the adrenaline pumping in her veins were just as culpable.

Even before she got to the ladder, the smell oozed from between the boards.

Up the ladder, twelve rungs.

That blessed desensitization she had gained during her regular visits to the barn was no more. Beth couldn’t help gagging at the bile that rose in her throat. She swallowed it back, pulling up the collar of her shirt to shield her nose.

Rotten eggs and cabbage, fish… garlic? Mothballs.

The miasma was overwhelming. It burned her nose, the back of her eyes. Beth clamped a hand over her mouth and nose, her palm and shirt acting as a filter. She blinked back the tears blurring her vision. It’s only mid-September; it’s only been three weeks; how is it this bad?

Decay had been obvious from the start. The gray skin, the jaundiced eyes, the bloodless lips. Now that gray skin was stretched tight over the bones of their faces, the jaundiced eyes were cloudy and unfocused, the bloodless lips were thin over the gnashing teeth behind them.

At this point, only Sophia had any semblance of life in her.

Of the original patients, the woman was still slumped and damn near skeletal. Her dress left her legs exposed and Beth could see how the skin and muscle had begun to slough off the bone. The man still fared better, if only slightly. He was mobile, and maybe it was because of his sturdier clothing, but his body seemed in good shape. The same could not be said for his face. One cheek had rotted away entirely, exposing the teeth inside.

Of the rowdy pair that felled part of the fence… well, they were no longer rowdy. Their feet shuffled listlessly as they walked circles around the barn.

Mrs. Duvall was quite literally falling apart. Perhaps her age prior to infection was a factor in that, but the results were grotesque either way. One hand was missing two fingers. On the opposite side, her arm hung limp at her side, as if the shoulder joint had dislocated. Her nose was gone, leaving a hollow in the middle of her face. Clumps of her hair littered the dusty barn floor.

Sophia… though mottled in shades of gray, her cheeks were still plump. Her hair was dull and straw-like, her one bare foot coated in a thick layer of dust from the floor. But she was the first to take note of Beth’s presence, tilting her head back. As she shuffled forward, she raised her hands hopeless as it was that she could reach Beth in the hayloft.

Shawn. Arnie. Mama.

She noted very small things about each of them. Shawn’s t-shirt was torn. Arnie’s glasses hung crooked on his nose, one lens missing. Mama was wearing the same earrings she had every day of Beth’s life, a set of square-cut diamonds given to her as an anniversary gift from Daddy; one was gone, now.

When it came to inspecting her family the way she had the others, Beth had neither the heart nor the stomach.

Down the ladder, twelve rungs.

No sooner than her fit met the ground, Beth was retching, her breakfast spilled into the grass.

Once, when Beth was eleven, she hadn’t minded Shawn’s warnings half so well as she should have. They had been shoeing a yearling colt together. Beth didn’t listen to his instructions to give the horse space and caught a hoof to the shoulder.

Nothing broke or tore, thank God, but she was left with a bruise so deep that it throbbed in time with the beating of her heart for weeks.

That was how her entire body felt, like an all-encompassing, bone-deep bruise. She pressed her back to the side of the barn, eyes shut, and head tilted toward the sky, trying to catch her breath. It felt like the earth was spinning too fast, like Beth could feel its rotation. The ground was wonky beneath her boots when she forced herself to walk to the closest structure: the horse barn.

Beth didn’t bother with the gate, instead clumsily hauling herself over the fence. She fell hard on her bottom, dusted off her legs, and hid herself away inside a barn that smelled of the horse’s warm bodies and sweet hay. All the horses were outside in the fenced pen, which was fine with Beth.

On shaky legs, she walked into the spare stall where they kept saddles and tacking. Among the leather, she tucked herself into the corner, drawing her knees up to her chest. Beth pressed her forehead to her kneecaps and wept.

Jimmy came back with more than just the laundry detergent, body wash, and shampoo that he, Daddy, and Otis had headed out for. Half his bounty was hidden away in the backpack—Shawn’s old one—that he took with him, only revealed in the relative privacy of Beth’s bedroom.

They sat facing each other on her bed, both cross-legged. Jimmy upended his open backpack, spilling the loot. Per Daddy’s rules, her bedroom door was left open, but the house was quiet.

The first thing Beth saw was toothpaste, several tubes of it, cresting into a small mountain of mint. There was another pile of deodorant, a few bottles of lotion, sunscreen, aloe vera.

"A personal stash," he told her, sheepish. "I know you and Patricia are working on learning how to make all this, but until then, I thought you might like to have your own."

"Thanks," she smiled up at him, truly grateful. It took some of the sting out of the day to see how he cared for her. "What was it like out there?"

There were hard candies interspersed in the good, peppermint, spearmint, cinnamon. Lemon, watermelon, cherry. Beth sorted them into groups by flavor.

"Dead."

"Jimmy."

His grin was proud, not the least bit ashamed. "Sorry, couldn't help it. We didn't see anyone else. That's why we stayed out longer than we planned, just pokin' around."

Beth nodded, continuing her categorization, when she unearthed something very different amongst the candies and toiletries. Initially, when the foil caught her eye, she mistook it for more candy. But the packets were undeniable once in her hand, daisy chained together, the rubber sheaths within squishing beneath her fingers. "Jimmy."

Now he had the good grace to appear bashful, a flush rising in his cheeks. "I just thought, you know, just in case... we should be... careful."

She nodded, plucked a strawberry candy from the stash and unwrapped it. Buying herself a little time for her heart to calm. “It was a good idea.”

“Yeah?” Beth nodded again. A relieved laugh escaped from Jimmy’s lips before he leaned forward and kissed her. They hid the condoms in her bedside drawer, beneath an old diary and some loose pens. This fledgling secret of theirs would have to be saved for later, planned for. Beth finished sorting through his looted goods, pausing when she came across a box of straight edge razors. There were two metal razors as well.

“I didn’t know if you wanted, I mean, I don’t care, don’t think I got them because I think there’s anything wrong with it…” He was rambling again. Their showers were so short now, and besides that, Beth’s last razor had been dull when the virus started. It wasn’t usable but for a few weeks after. Beth hadn’t shaved her legs or underarms in weeks, the downy, fair hair growing uninhibited. “They’re there if you want them,” Jimmy finally settled on. “But I know it’s not really a priority, and I don’t care one way or the other.”

“You’re sweet,” she told him, leaning over the goods to kiss him again. “Thank you. For all this.”

Yet her gratitude wasn’t enough for Beth to tell Jimmy about her trip to the barn. Not yet. She wanted to sit with it a bit longer, let it settle. Maybe one day she would be done mourning her family anew. That night, rather than heading to bed, she tucked herself into the window seat in the living room. Beth pulled the gauzy curtain closed, cloaking herself in lacy privacy, and watched the play of moonlight on the farm.

An owl swooped down, seizing some unfortunate soul from the grass. Cottony clouds drifted in the sea of stars overhead. Beth sat and let the bruise throb. She felt it most in that hole in her chest, but it echoed in her stomach, which clenched painfully as she forced herself to sit with this new knowledge.

And, while she sat in that hurt, she added to it. Beth gripped her forearms so tightly that the crescent moons of her nails were stained in rusty flakes of dried blood when she woke in the morning.

A few days later, Beth sat on the porch, snapping green beans. She wore a cardigan over her sundress and an apron over her skirt. The layers made her overwarm but they couldn’t touch the flush of hot shame and anger when Maggie came stalking up the driveway.

While she was snapping the beans, pulling at the strings, the world had condensed down to the porch step she sat on. This repetitive activity was allowing her to simply exist. For once, her mind was clear, and her eyes had nothing to focus on other than the beans in her hands. Until Maggie’s boots appeared in her peripheral. Sighing, she snapped one more bean before lifting her head to silently meet her sister’s eye.

“I thought you weren’t going to the barn anymore,” Maggie hissed, crossing her arms over her chest. Only the vaguest pang of regret flashed within her as Beth shrugged.

“I just wanted to see.”

“Glenn saw you.” Even this information didn’t elicit much reaction from Beth. “Falling down the damn ladder and throwing up and crying? Any of that ring a bell, Beth?”

“None of you told me how bad it’s gotten.” There was an ember of something beginning to glow, in her center.

“He’s asking about it, about you—”

“At least he cares!” The words erupted from her chest. Anger. That ember was anger. Maggie paused, clearly thrown, her own ire cracking. “I know I messed up, okay? But so did y’all.”

Beth grabbed her bag and bowl, not caring when a few of the green beans fell and bounced on the porch steps. She headed in the opposite direction and slammed the door behind her. After unceremoniously dumping the green beans, unfinished, on the kitchen counter in front of Patricia, Beth took the stairs two at a time.

Her bedroom door slammed much the same way the front door had. Beth took the extra measure of locking it and wedging her desk chair under the door to the bathroom she shared with Maggie. Then she fell, weeping, into her bed. Pushing her sleeves up, she picked at the scabs that had closed the little wounds her nails left behind.

It stung. New blood welled and Beth let it bead there, dotting her arm like macabre rubies. She lay there, prone, picking and crying until she exhausted herself.

Her sleep was near comatose. No dreams, no movement, until a knocking at the door roused her. The light had changed. When she abandoned her green beans, it had been late afternoon. It was twilight, now, soft purplish shadows stretching across her room as the last of the day’s light faded. “Beth, baby, could you open the door?”

Daddy. All her limbs were stiff when she pushed herself from the mattress. The new scabs caught and tugged at the fabric of her cardigan when Beth pulled the sleeve down. She shuffled to the door, unlocking it and letting her father into her bedroom.

He shut the door quietly behind him. Though it went against his own rules about electricity, Daddy flicked the switch and brought light to her bedroom. “I wanted to see your face,” he told her, smoothing out her sleep-mussed hair and straightening her cardigan on her shoulders.

If she weren’t already so empty, this tender care for her would have brought her to tears again. Once sorted, Daddy took her face in his hands, gently tilting her head so that she was looking up at him. “You are not in trouble.”

Beth released the breath she was holding, a muted relief letting her spine relax. Despite his quiet entrance, she had been anticipating another blowup like Maggie’s. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she whispered, meaning it.

“No, I’m sorry. I should have kept you in the loop. When you stopped helping with the feeding, I should have known you would get curious. I should have protected you better.” Before he could get any further in the apology, Beth fitted herself in her father’s arms, wrapping her own around his waist. When she was little, Daddy used to haul her up to rest her head on his shoulder. Now she could do that on her own.

“What are we gonna do about Glenn?” She asked quietly.

“Don’t make yourself sick over that,” he told her. “Glenn’s a stand-up guy. Me and Maggie agreed he could be trusted with the truth. I told him that our family’s in the barn, and that seeing them in that state upset you.”

In increments, Beth’s spine became rigid again. That earlier relief drained from her, down her torso and legs, leeching from her feet into the floorboards. It may have been the truth, but not in full. But Beth only nodded into her father’s shoulder.

“Why don’t you come downstairs?” Daddy suggested. “I think we could all do with some music tonight. Patricia put a plate back for you.”

She knew what he was really asking. Why don’t you come out of this room? What he really meant: I’m worried about you.

Though Beth hadn’t touched the piano since Mama’s death, she followed Daddy downstairs and ran her fingertips lightly over the keys. Jimmy, having taken note of her appearance in the living room, slid onto the bench beside her. “Are you okay?”

She shrugged. “Okay enough.”

Her fingers conjured the ghost of a song, touching the keys too lightly to make any noise. Patricia was lighting candles, filling the space with their soft, golden glow. She didn’t want to bother Patricia and ask for a candle to read the sheet music by, so Beth instead chose songs she knew by heart.

As I walked out one morning, down by a riverside, while gazing all around me, an Irish Girl I spied.

Beth played the folk without singing along. After finishing As I Walked Out One Morning, she played Ballinderry and Down By the Salley Gardens.

In a field by the river, my love and I did stand, and on my leaning shoulder, she laid her snow-white hand.

Jimmy sat beside her all the while. When her shoulder bumped into his as she played, it was much needed reassurance that she wasn’t truly alone. After finishing her three-song medley, Beth withdrew her hands from the keys, fisting and flexing them in her lap for a moment. Then she took Jimmy by the hand and led him upstairs, through her bedroom, out the window, and to the roof.

“Did Maggie tell you, too?”

“No, Patricia. She had a big fight with Maggie over it, told her she was wrong. Maggie’s been out in the horse barn since. I’ll bet they all have the shiniest coats you’ve ever seen once she finishes pouting.”

There was a stabbing kind of irony in the fact that both Greene sisters had sought solace in the same barn, among the same creatures. “Why didn’t you tell me it was that bad in the sick barn?”

“I didn’t want to upset you,” Jimmy confessed. Now it was his turn to fiddle with his hands in his lap. He looked down at them, picking at a callous.

“Did you know Daddy told Glenn that we have infected family members in the barn?” Jimmy nodded at her question. Beth’s shoulders slumped.

“I knew you weren’t going to agree with it, but he had to say something, and he had to do it before Glenn got suspicious.”

“He believed it, then, didn’t he?” Glenn. Kind, trusting, smiling Glenn Rhee. Of course he would have accepted that half-truth from Daddy. Worse yet, Beth was certain next time she saw him, Glenn would try to offer her some condolences or an apology, some type of empathy that he simply couldn’t help radiating for others.

It was what kept him searching for Sophia. What brought him to the Greene’s farm, his obvious crush on Maggie notwithstanding, to check on them. Neighbors, he called them, though they had no inkling where his camp was, and Glenn and Carol were the only members of their group they had met.

“Yeah,” Jimmy agreed, pantomiming throwing a fishing line off the side of the roof. “Hook, line, sinker.”

This deepening deception burned and rose in her throat. Beth grit her teeth and swallowed, hard. She hadn’t expected any different, yet the disappointment wasn’t any easier to sit with.

After her unintentional nap, Beth lay awake in her bed, staring at the dark abyss of her bedroom ceiling. The house was quiet. Her own heartbeat and breathing filled her ears.

And Beth couldn’t stop thinking about the continued lies being fed to Glenn. It filled her with burning shame though the words had never once left her mouth. Her silent compliance was just as damning, though. Sighing, Beth turned on her side, kicked her blankets off her body.

Daddy liked Glenn. Trusted him enough to place part of the truth in his hands. But, because Glenn was so unquestioning others, seeing and assuming the good in her family, he was free with his words. Beth had heard him talking about the walkers. About the noise traps they had around their camp. About the machete he carried in addition to his gun.

It’s better to use a weapon that doesn’t make any sound. Gun shots attract more walkers.

He killed them, just like the officers in the city before all hell broke loose. And that small difference between Glenn and his group and the residents of the Greene Farm was significant. More than Glenn could understand with his limited, censored knowledge about the goings on behind that electric fence.

The sound of running water interrupted her lamenting. Curious, Beth crept from her bed and to the bathroom door. She didn’t open it, of course, but she did press her ear to the wood. What was Maggie doing?

It was too late for her to be taking a shower, and besides, Beth knew Maggie already did that. With only the generator to rely on, they took timed showers now. No more than ten minutes, though five was the ideal that Daddy was hoping they could all achieve. Beth nearly went over her time that evening; Maggie had pounded on the door to remind her to get out.

This sounded like the sink, not the shower. Brushing her teeth? But why?

Her answer came moments later when, ears straining, she caught the familiar, muffled scrape of an opening window. Beth moved to her own, peeking around the curtains to watch her sister slip onto the roof. Maggie’s bedroom window overlooked the back porch. Arms outstretched for balance, starlight glinting silver off her dark hair, Maggie walked to the part of the roof that overhung the porch. She sat and eased herself to the edge, hooked an ankle around the top of a column, and lowered herself. After shimmying down, Maggie cut across the yard to the fence. She stayed close to it, cloaked in such dense shadow that Beth had a hard time discerning her shape against the night. Out the front gate, to a dark figure that could only be Glenn.

Beth lay back down on her bed, heart pounding, as if she had just witnessed a crime. She thought of last summer when she threw Maggie’s birth control into the lake, foolishly thinking she was saving her sister from the shame of their parents finding out. All she did was ruin a prescription that was hard for a college girl who worked part time at the campus bookstore to maintain. Maggie had been furious, though Shawn had laughed and ruffled her hair.

There was nothing she could do about this secret of her sister’s that she was unintentionally privy to. Nothing but add it to her own ire, that Maggie would return Glenn’s affections while deceiving him.

Chapter Text

Chapter Seven: October, Year 1

Love is patient, love is kind. 1 Corinthians, 13:4

For the second time, Glenn Rhee joined their dinner table. He didn’t have his hat this time, and he had managed to scrounge up a button-down shirt and clean jeans. Beth figured his worn sneakers couldn’t be helped; how many clothing options could he really have, living out of a tent?

He was obviously trying to appear presentable. His effort didn’t go unnoticed. Daddy’s eyes swept over Glenn’s figure, an approving smile tugging at his lips. The invitation had been extended by Maggie herself, only retroactively asking Daddy for permission after she had already told Glenn he was welcome.

When he arrived, it was with a fistful of wildflowers for Maggie and a basket of mushrooms for the family. “They’re good,” he promised. “Daryl and Merle checked them. They’re not poisonous.”

Daryl and Merle. There they were again, the watchful outdoorsmen Beth was supposed to fear, yet it was Glenn who caught her making a mistake. Neither of them even knew she existed. Glenn, on the other hand…

That fight with Maggie still sat like a rock in her stomach. Beth had already decided to stay firmly on her side of the rift. So had Maggie. That seemed to suit both sisters just fine. While Beth couldn’t fathom lying to someone in the same breath you were inviting them to eat dinner with your family, Maggie didn’t seem willing to forgive Beth for jeopardizing the big, bad secret at the back of their property.

“You’re lucky to have people who know how to hunt and scavenge,” Daddy said mildly, accepting the gift. Patricia rifled under the sink and came up with a vase for Maggie’s flowers. They were placed on the dinner table, among the candles. With the days shortening, they were relying on them more and more. Patricia was working on crafting a store of beeswax candles for them to use through the winter.

It was a lengthy process, but it intrigued Beth. When she had the time, she liked to help Otis harvest the wax from his beehouses, which were kept at the far edge of the farm, behind the guest house he and Patricia now lived in. The sleepy buzzing of the smoked bees was oddly comforting. She liked straining the golden honey into jars, watching it drip like liquid sunshine through the cheesecloth.

But she was neither scraping honeycombs nor straining the wax. She was sitting at the dinner table, gripping her chair seat so hard it was a wonder the wood didn’t break in her hands. Beth had a hard time focusing on any of the talk circling the table. In snippets, she understood that a bartering system was starting to form between the farm and the camp.

Winter doesn’t need to be so hard…

We can work together…

…plenty of vegetables…

…yeah…T-Dog would like that…

T-Dog. What a name. Of all the conversation flowing around the table, that was what stuck with Beth the most. The only tidbit that stuck with her, really. The rest was like eavesdropping on snippets of strangers’ conversation at a restaurant.

Jimmy took her hand and gave it a squeeze. Dinner—the meal, anyway—was finishing up. Beth hadn’t touched hardly anything on her plate. “Mr. Greene, it’s such a nice night out. Do you mind if me and Beth go for a walk? We won’t go past the horse barn.”

To her great relief, Daddy smiled and nodded his permission. Outside, under an October sky heavy with stars, Beth took a deep breath of the crisp, early-autumn air. The drying grass rustled as their boots cut a path through it. Beyond the fence, the trees were mottled in different shades of washed-out greens, yellows, browns, and reds. “Thank you.”

“You looked like you were drowning in there.” Beth nodded. Her hand in his was the only thing keeping her from running straight to the fence line. Were it not for the electricity, she would have jumped it. How far would she go, could she go, before something happened? A gunshot like Arnie, a bite like Shawn? She breathed in deeply again, making herself focus instead on the faint scents of hay and horses as they came closer to the barn.

“I was. All the lies… I can’t, Jimmy. It’s eating me up.” Placing her hand just below her chest, Beth felt her ribs flare and retract as she gulped the air. The deep breaths shallowed, quickened. Jimmy took her by the arms, forcing her to take a seat on the ground. He tented her legs while she gasped, guided her head down between her knees.

“Slower, Beth,” he prompted her, rubbing circles into her back, modeling with his own breathing. In for one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten… out for the same number of seconds. Over and over until her lungs were no longer on fire and her mind no longer clouded with chaotic fear. “You’re okay, honey.”

She nodded. He had brought her close enough to the barn that she was able to scoot herself to it, press her back to the familiar, worn wood. Beth let her head fall to the planks and the starlight bathe her face. “It’s going to fall apart,” she said softly. “All the lies. They always do, eventually.”

Jimmy joined her, shoulders brushing. “I don’t think Glenn would go poking his nose around it.”

“He might not,” Beth agreed. “But what about his friends? Carol, the brothers, T-Dog? We don’t know them, not even Carol, not really. If they find out walkers were in the barn, they could be liable to start asking questions.”

“Walkers?” Jimmy repeated. Beth let her head loll to the side, opened her eyes to meet his.

“I’m not stupid, Jimmy. I know they’re not… that’s not Shawn or Arnie or Mama in there. Not anymore.” He nodded solemnly. When Beth began to cry, the tears coming up on her so suddenly that she didn’t realize until they were streaming down her face, he opened his arms to her. She sobbed the remnants of her grief into his shoulder.

The confession took some of the weight off her spirit. It wasn’t just the lies that were being spouted to Glenn. It was the lies she was starting to tell Daddy, too, by pretending to believe and have faith in a mythical cure. By the time the tears subsided, Beth felt empty, but she likewise felt clean.

If Jimmy had become her sole confessor, so be it.

Emboldened by Maggie’s midnight rendezvous with Glenn, Beth lay awake late each night. Listening. Three day after the dinner, she heard Maggie again creeping around the bathroom. She waited for her sister to retreat to her room before she tiptoed to her window, watching. There was Maggie, a streak across the yard. Beth watched her go through the gate and leave with Glenn before slipping out her bedroom door.

The fourth stair squeaked. She made sure to skip it entirely on her journey downstairs. She paused on the landing, listening. No sound from Shawn’s room, though she didn’t expect there to be. It had become a veritable mausoleum after his death. She crept down the hall, pausing to listen outside Daddy’s door, but she didn’t hear anything there, either. And peering through the living room confirmed that it was empty, and no light was streaming from beneath Daddy’s office door.

She snuck down the hall, past walls lined in shadowed family and school portraits, until she got to the guest bedroom. Rather than knock, she let herself in, tiptoeing again until she reached the bed where Jimmy was sleeping. She slid into bed beside him, rolling herself toward him. “Jimmy.”

It took saying his name a few more times and taking him by the shoulder, giving a little shake, to rouse him. Though it was dark, she caught the flash of white as his eyes opened. “Beth!” Seeing her face had him instantly awake. He sat up, looming over her, a hand fluttering around her face. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Nothing.” She caught his fretful hand, pressing a kiss to the knuckles. “Did you know Maggie sneaks out some nights to go see Glenn?”

“What?” Jimmy laid back down beside her, pushing a hand through his hair. Beth hugged him. His heart hammered under the shell of her ear.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” she whispered. “I just thought… well, if Maggie can sneak around, why can’t we?”

“You caught her, huh?” His heart was calming, and his arms came around her.

“I figured if we ever get caught, I can tell her I know she’s been messing around with her boyfriend, too.” Beth leaned back in his hold, inviting him to kiss her. He obliged, a hand skimming up her back to cradle her head. From her mouth, he trailed more along the line of her jaw and down her neck.

“What if you dad catches us?” He asked, the words skimming over her collarbone. Beth let a finger trail down his chest and over his abdomen, stopping near his navel, before drawing it back up as she shrugged.

“I guess we’ll just have to be careful. And I’ll just tell Daddy that Maggie’s guilty of the same thing. Leaving the farm, too, when he told us not to do that alone.”

“Tattletale,” Jimmy teased with a laugh. The hand that had been on her hip ducked beneath her shirt, warm and calloused. She shivered as his palm met her waist. Jimmy rolled her under him, his other hand joining the first. “Can I?”

Beth bit her lip. It was dark; it wasn’t like he would actually see her. She reached for the hem of her shirt herself, tugging it over her head. Now they were even, both bare from the waist up. Now her heart was racing as Jimmy charted the curves of her waist and breasts. She let her own do the same, memorizing how his shoulders sloped into his arms, the ropy muscles from all that farmwork. He was firm where she knew herself to be soft.

Jimmy kissed her many times that night, until her lips were tingling, and her head was hazy. Is this what being drunk is like? She learned the feel of his skin, the taste of the salt. But they were careful; Beth kept track of time on the electric alarm clock on the nightstand. She didn’t stay longer than two hours, and when she hurried back upstairs, skipping that squeaky step again, Beth felt she had been made new that night.

To have her body feel pleasant, to spend those languorous hours making out with her boyfriend in his bed, to feel her seventeen years, to not be steeped in stress and fear… what a novelty.

These nights continued throughout the month. On the third, Beth brought the condoms with her, and they found a new home in a new nightstand drawer. Just in case.

The hours spent with Jimmy buoyed her through the days. With her disposition much improved, Beth found it easier to interact with their new neighbors. She smiled at Glenn through the gate, trading a bowl of eggs for the berries he brought with him. “You’re sure they’re good?”

“You only had to refrigerate grocery store eggs because they’re washed before they’re sold. These need to be washed before you crack and eat them, but as long as you leave them be, the cuticle will keep them safe to eat for about two weeks before they go bad. Do you know how to tell if an egg’s bad?” She went on to explain the floating egg test to him.

Daddy was right. Glenn Rhee was a good guy. Beth was happy that she was in a mind frame to appreciate that about him. It helped that, by her own measure, Beth had only ever been honest with him.

She went about her chores with a smile, singing to the cows as she milked. Daddy was pleased by the brightening of her demeanor, pressing kisses to her temple and saying he was happy his ‘sunshiny little girl’ was back.

“It’s good to see your smile, sweetheart,” Patricia told her when they worked together. During the day, when she had good light to see by, she began teaching herself Mozart’s Rondo alla Turca and Beethoven’s Rondo a Capriccio from the volumes of sheet music Mama left behind. These were songs she never heard her mother play. As her fingers learned the pattern of the keys, Beth lost herself in it, the house falling away so that it was only her and the piano.

Without the minutiae of work and school, it felt like endless days had passed since Arnie returned, undead, to the farm. His death had been the event that left them all, especially Daddy, fearful. But after the supply run last month, and with the knowledge that Glenn’s camp was close by, attitudes about the world at large seemed to be changing. From the days she marked off on her calendar, Beth knew it had been three months to the day when Daddy gave her permission to leave the farm for a short spell.

Beth went along with Maggie and Otis to the camp Glenn lived in. It was nestled in the sloped bar ditch off an out-of-the way road about five miles from the farm, close to the tree line of a stretch of forest. Late blooming wildflowers bobbed around Beth’s boots as they followed Glenn. They saw Carol again, who seemed a little more solid around the edges, and met T-Dog, who introduced himself as Theodore Douglas. “But I let my friends call me T-Dog,” he told Beth with a conspiratorial wink, his large, dark hand swallowing her own when she shook it.

“Beth,” she introduced herself. Using some posts and rope, they rigged up a clothesline for the camp. Glenn told them they were roughing it in tents when the camp first appeared, but now accommodations had clearly improved. There were three campers parked in a vaguely triangular shape, a dormant cookfire in the middle.

Glenn nodded toward the white and black one on the left. “Don’t ask where they came from, but that one’s mine and T-Dog’s. Daryl and Merle are off hunting, but the middle one’s theirs. Carol gets her own.”

At that, Carol smiled. It nearly reached her eyes. Her hair was growing out, framing her face in gray, wispy curls. She was already pinning washing, flannel shirts and jeans, socks and t-shirts, to the new clothesline. The sun glinted off a gold band on her left hand. For the first time, it occurred to Beth that Sophia wasn’t the only person quiet Carol might have lost.

Seeing her was harder than it was seeing Glenn. Beth made sure to keep a careful, but not conspicuous, distance from the woman. Looking into Carol’s guileless face, the kind blue eyes, made Beth’s stomach churn. She had to fight the urge to push her sleeves up, to pick at the little crescent moon wounds that were finally healing properly. To add more to their number.

So she turned away from the mirror of her own faults and looked instead at T-Dog, who seemed warm and friendly already. Surely the camper shared between him and Glenn wasn’t where Maggie went on their nights together. There had to be some other location, maybe one of the gas stations. Or an abandoned car. Beth found herself extra thankful for the guest bedroom Jimmy had moved into.

“Thanks for this,” T-Dog knocked a fist against the post of the clothesline. “I was getting tired of chasing the washing down the road every time the wind picked up.”

“It was no trouble at all,” Otis reassured them. “Boss man wanted you to have it. Hershel’s big on family, community.”

When they mounted their horses and headed back to the farm, Beth kept her gaze studiously away from the sick barn. It wasn’t that she was worried about drawing attention to it. Not anymore. Rather, she had decided it didn’t exist. It felt an awful lot less like lying if she pretended none of it happened. Out of sight, out of mind.

She had mourned her lost family more times than anyone should have to. Beth decided it was time to let them go, let them flutter away in the breeze along with the fall foliage.

Each night she secreted herself away in Jimmy’s bedroom, Beth learned something new. How grazing her teeth over the ridge of his jaw made him shudder. The sear of his palms moving up her inner thighs. One night, they lay entirely nude, facing one another. That night, Beth learned the feel of him, the warmth of pleasure on her hand. Then she learned how electrifying it was to have a hand other than her own shy, fumbling fingers touch her, enter her.

But they made it all the way until Halloween before putting the looted condoms to use. When Beth marked the day off her calendar the morning of, she had been sad to think there would be no carnivals, no passing out candy for the trick-or-treaters at the church. That night, though, after she watched Maggie fade away into the dark, Beth slipped downstairs on light feet for her own treat.

Jimmy was used to the routine now. Neither of them went to sleep before midnight, just in case it was an opportune night. He was no longer unawares when she entered, but rather waiting for him. He caught her when she came through the door, pressing her there. They had agreed ahead of time that the next time would be the time.

“You’re sure?” He asked, tipping his forehead to hers when they broke apart. Beth nodded, too nervous to say the word, her nose bumping into his. Jimmy kissed her again, slower this time, until her rigidity melted into his embrace.

“Open the curtains,” she whispered to him. “I-I want to be able to see you.”

She felt the smile on his lips when he pressed another kiss to hers. Maybe it was silly, but Beth had changed into one of her nicer sets of pajamas after watching Maggie leave. Her top and shorts were both a satiny mint color, not that Jimmy would be able to see the color in the muted starlight. After pushing the curtains aside, Jimmy turned back toward her. He wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her off her feet, startling a laugh from her. “What are you doing?”

“Carrying you to bed.” He walked backwards rather than forward. When the back of his knees met the mattress, Jimmy took a seat on the edge. Beth’s thighs straddled his waist, hands resting on his bare shoulders. “It’s alright if you change your mind.”

“I won’t.” His eyes were gray, his hair dark; an approximation of his features. Jimmy took a deep breath and nodded. Beth bent her head to kiss him. How many times had she kissed Jimmy, over that summer? She knew his lips as she knew her own, knew that when they broke away from hers to kiss the pulse point in her throat, her core would go warm and molten. Jimmy moved down her throat and across her shoulder, gently pulling the strap of her pajama top out of the way.

She shivered. “Are you cold?” Jimmy asked, pausing in his trek down her chest.

No, she nearly said. But what came out of her mouth surprised them both. “Warm me up.”

Jimmy rocked back, fingers digging into her thighs. His eyes had darkened in a way that only conjured one adjective. Desire. Holding her gaze, he spanned his hands upward, under the hem of her top. Beth raised her arms for him, let him tug the satin over her head. It fell with a soft whisper to the floorboards.

So many people had warned her against the sin of ‘premarital relations’. Yet, when he moved over her, into her, sin was the farthest thing from her mind. It didn’t hurt the entire time like the girls at school used to hypothesis, but it did hurt at first. There was a stretch, pressure, a flash of momentary pain as something gave way within her. But after that, there was only Jimmy. Over her, in her, kissing her, sharing the same air. She swallowed her own name from his lips, buried her face in his shoulder when she felt it was all almost too much.

And when they parted, both limned in sweat and the scent of the other, Jimmy said the words she had felt for months. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Though it was risky, Beth lingered in his bed after. So long that the sky had begun to lighten at the edges when she finally untangled herself from him and retrieved her clothing off the floor. Jimmy saw her back to her bedroom, the two of them moving like a pair of ghosts through the shadowy house. “Watch that step.”

At her bedroom door, he kissed her so gently that Beth might have cried if she weren’t so happy. For the first time in weeks, she realized she was well and truly happy.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eight: November, Year 1

Persevere in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. Colossians 4:2.

Sunday service had become Daddy reading aloud from the Bible while they were gathered in the living room. On the first Sunday in November, he read from 2 Corinthians:

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.

During these cozy, domestic sermons, Beth and Jimmy shared an old love seat Mama had inherited from her mother. The floral pattern long since faded into muted yellows and greens, the cushions soft and yielding. With her socked feet in Jimmy’s lap, she couldn’t help thinking, what if the inner self is already gone by the time the wasting begins?

She hadn’t been to the walker barn in over a month. Given the state of the inhabitants the last time she had been there, Beth couldn’t imagine any of them were in good shape at this point. Unless the cooler days had slowed the obviously accelerated decay of summer, but Beth didn’t want to test that possibility with evidence. What glory is there when your body never knows rest?

Of course, Beth kept these questions to herself. And Daddy was a man of God, sure, but he was a veterinarian by trade. He didn’t postulate on the word of the Lord. Daddy read a few verses and Beth played a hymn or two on the piano. So concluded their Sunday mornings, the afternoons and evenings bringing them back to the chores and rhythms of the farm.

As we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. She carried that line with her, chewing on it while she sunk her shovel into the earth. Looking to the future, Daddy decided their garden needed expanding to include feed for the animals. Before the frost could harden the ground, they had all been toiling in the plot set aside for it. Breaking dormant roots of grass, aerating the soil.

Things that are unseen. Like the souls of the walkers, gone before their bodies continued on without them. Or the truth, which Daddy was still turning a blind eye to. Or love and respect, which were the only answers she could conjure to explain why they were all still playing their parts for Daddy. Steadfast daughter, delicate daughter; loyal farmhands; supportive friend. All united in the ‘belief’ that Mama, Shawn, and Arnie would one day come back to them; in the deception maintained between the farm and Glenn’s camp. In the deception of her father.

Beth knew that Jimmy and Maggie didn’t believe there was any hope in a cure. She had her suspicions that Otis and Patricia didn’t, either. Not that she had pressed about it. Beth was still staunchly ignoring the fact that the walker barn still existed.

And she was very content to carry on in this way.

“You look like one of those western spaghetti cowboys,” Beth told Jimmy, appraising his outfit. The day was chilly, enough so that Beth had pulled on a thick, knit sweater before she and Jimmy set out to exercise a few of the horses. Overhead, the sky was thick with cool, gray clouds. Jimmy had forgone a sweater, instead pulling on an old poncho that once belonged to Beth’s grandfather. Between the poncho, his cowboy hat, gun holster, and boots… well, the getup conjured Sunday afternoons from her childhood, laying sleepily on the living room floor while Mama watched old movies.

“Spaghetti western,” Jimmy corrected her, frowning as he looked down at himself. “I think you’re right.”

Jimmy was riding Oreo and Beth Cinnie. Without his mother in the pen, who knew what Cookie was up to.

They didn’t go far, just halfway to Glenn’s camp before turning back. Or, attempting to turn back, anyway. Instead, they were brought to a pause when a police car driving on the wrong side of the road came to an abrupt stop. With a jerk of the head, Jimmy wordlessly directed Beth to move away from the roadside. She tugged on Cinnie’s reins, making a soft clicking sound with her tongue as she coaxed her out of the way of the approaching cruiser.

The car came so close to the shoulder that it was nearly in the grass. As the driver’s side window rolled down, it revealed two men. One was dark featured, from his hair to his eyes to the stubble shadowing his jaw. The one sitting in the passenger seat was brunette himself, but his eyes were a piercing sky blue.

“Howdy,” the driver said, extending a hand out the window. Jimmy leaned sideways in his saddle to shake it. “Deputy Shane Walsh.”

“Don’t do that, man,” his passenger murmured softly, but he was smirking. “You gonna try to give them a ticket next?”

Despite the teasing, they were both wearing tan uniform shirts. In another world, one that had existed not so long ago, they clearly had been officers.

“Y’all need help or something?” Jimmy asked. He didn’t offer his or Beth’s name.  

From that driver’s seat, Shane Walsh smiled magnanimously at them. “Bingo. See, we’re late to this whole world ending thing. Me and my partner here had to keep Atlanta safe as long as we could, but…”

“You mean Atlanta’s gone?”

“The dead have the run of it now,” Deputy Walsh confirmed. The news reports weren’t coming in every day now. When they did, they still discussed the country as a whole, not individual states and certainly not cities. Beth turned her eyes on Jimmy, watched his jaw clench and his throat bob as he swallowed. He hadn’t heard from his folks in a few weeks. It didn’t take much thinking to guess why, but Deputy Walsh’s words gave weight to what Jimmy already suspected.

“People are making survivor camps,” Jimmy told him. “Y’all might want to do the same.”

With a nudge of his heels, Jimmy urged Oreo forward. Deputy Walsh put the car in reverse, following them. “That where you two came from? A survivor camp?”

“Yeah.”

“Jimmy,” Beth whispered. He was being short, verging on rude. She understood why, but still, these were people looking for help. Leaning forward, she gave the officers a smile. “There’s a couple in the area.”

Maybe they could direct them to Glenn’s camp. Not the farm; Daddy would turn them toward Glenn, surely.

“Would you mind—I have a wife and a little boy, they’re waiting while we scout around—do y’all have the time to show us one of these camps?”

Beth and Jimmy met each other’s eye. She raised her brows. He gave a subtle nod to the south. They exchanged a nod, and it was settled.

“Follow us,” Jimmy said, pulling on the reins to turn Oreo around. Beth followed his lead, directing Cinnie to plod along beside them.

There was a stranger sitting beside the cookfire in the middle of the survivor camp. He had close cropped hair as gray as the sky above and a heavy brow that shadowed his eyes. The stranger watched Beth and Jimmy approach on horseback with little interest. But when he caught sight of the cop car tailing them, he gripped the shotgun resting in his lap.

“Where’s Glenn?”

“Who’s askin’?” He called back to Jimmy, eyes narrowing.

“We’re from Hershel’s.” Vague to the officers behind them; meaningful for the stranger. He must have been one of the brothers. Beth wondered if this was Daryl or Merle they were dealing with. He gave a curt nod.

“Glenn, T-Dog, and Daryl are off on a supply run. Left me to hold down the fort.” Merle, then. She noticed he didn’t mention Carol, though Beth caught the barest glimpse of the woman peeking through the curtains in her camper window. Behind them, Deputy Walsh and his partner had exited the car.

Jimmy and Beth remained mounted, watching as the officers approached Merle. Deputy Walsh introduced himself again. His partner took his sheriff’s hat off as he extended his hand, revealing curls underneath. He gave his name as Rick Grimes. They repeated their predicament for Merle, who listened with a blank expression.

“You two kids go on home,” he told Jimmy and Beth. “I can entertain the officers ’til the others get back. Tell your old man about the newcomers, huh, sunshine?”

That last bit was directed at Beth. It hadn’t occurred to her until just then that, while she knew virtually nothing about this Merle, he knew things about her. Of course, he did. Glenn was a regular face at the farm at this point.

“I will.”

“Thank you!” Deputy Walsh called after them. Beth sent a smile over her shoulder. Jimmy merely raised a hand in silent farewell. Now that that was handled, Beth wanted nothing more than to climb onto Oreo’s saddle with Jimmy. He kept his gaze toward home, his jaw still clenched, a storm brewing in his eyes.

To date, Jimmy had given her endless comfort through the turmoil of their life since May. “Jimmy.”

“I’m fine, Beth,” he dismissed the concern in her voice. Still, she pressed her heel into Cinnie’s right side, coaxing her toward Jimmy and Oreo. Close enough that their legs brushed. Beth all but threw herself from her saddle for just a moment, managing to plant a kiss on Jimmy’s cheek before righting herself. He threw her a grateful look, an understanding passing between them that this news about Atlanta would be discussed more later.

They kept the horses at a leisurely pace until they were a little more than two miles past Glenn’s camp. Then Jimmy dug his heels in, urging Oreo into a gallop. Beth did the same, the chilly autumn air nipping at her cheeks. She hoped the cold day would keep the horses from overheating as they ran. Her own heart raced as she bounced in her saddle, home taking shape on the horizon. Mere yards from the gate, they reined the horses in, letting them trot and walk the remainder of the way to catch their breath.

Otis was in the yard, so neither of them had to dismount to open the gate. He did so from the interior, waving them onto the property. “Hershel was fixin’ to send me out after you two.”

“Sorry,” Beth apologized reflexively, accepting Otis’ hand to help her dismount her saddle. Jimmy swung himself out of his and landed on his feet, taking the reins of both horses.

“We got a little waylaid,” he told Otis. “Where’s Hershel right now?”

“Helpin’ Maggie out in the garden.” Jimmy nodded and led the horses to their fenced pen. They would need rubbing down; both Cinnie and Oreo had worked themselves into a lather despite the cold air. That wasn’t the top concern for Jimmy at the moment. Beth took up the mantle, letting him stalk off to the garden.

Otis, though, stepped into the pen with her. He took Oreo while Beth led Cinnie forward into the barn. It was dim inside but not so shadowy that they couldn’t tend the horses. While they worked in neighboring stalls, Beth told Otis about the officers they met on their horse ride. He listened quietly, the only sounds from Oreo’s stall being soft whinnies and the brush moving over the horse’s coat.

“It’s good y’all didn’t bring them here,” he said when Beth finished. “What with the sick barn and all.”

“Yeah,” Beth agreed. “They seemed… okay. I mean, they’re strangers, but they were both armed and neither of them drew their guns. So they weren’t, like, antagonistic.”

“Oh, that’s a ten-cent word, Miss Greene,” Otis teased her, making her giggle. “That’s good, though. Livin’ the way they do, numbers are safety for those folks.”

“We’re lucky to have the farm.” She agreed, giving Cinnie a scratch behind the ears. “The winter’s going to suck for them in those campers.”

By the time she made it back to the house, Jimmy had evidently finished speaking to her father. She found him in his bedroom, the evening shadows lengthening across the room. Jimmy was sitting on the edge of his bed, elbows braced on his knees, and head hung low. Beth perched beside him and began threading her fingers through his hair.

He didn’t lift his head, didn’t let her see him cry. But she heard it in his sniffles and his gasping breath. After a few minutes, he rocked back just far enough to reach for her. Beth found herself crushed to his chest. She wound her arms around him and closed her eyes. When she was riding the waves of fresh grief after the loss of her family members, Jimmy lent her his strength. Now it was her turn.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured into his shoulder. Those words felt comforting when Jimmy said them to her, yet they felt insubstantial coming from her own mouth. They must have worked, though. Jimmy hugged her tighter and nodded.

“I knew. I mean, I guessed, but…”

“Knowing for sure is different,” she finished for him. Jimmy took a deep, fortifying breath. He held her for a few moments more before disentangling himself.

“They’ll keep supper waiting if we take any longer.” Jimmy stood first, reaching for her hand to take her along with him. But then he dropped his voice, quietly and desperately asking, “Stay here tonight?”

“Of course.” She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze before they went to join the rest of the family for supper.

That night, Beth fitted herself to Jimmy’s side. He cried again, quietly, and though he clung to her, neither of them spoke on this face. Beth let his tears fall into her hair without commenting on them. Jimmy sniffled and sighed.

She made sure to stay awake until Jimmy managed to fall asleep. And when she woke in the morning, Jimmy was already up and gone for his chores.

In a metaphorical way, they buried his family that night, and they didn’t speak about it again.

The radios stopped working on November 17^th. Beth marked it on her calendar after spending an evening sitting on the living room floor next to Maggie, each of them turning the knob with a surgeon’s precision. Neither of them managed to find anything other than static.

“Dammit,” Maggie cursed, kicking a socked foot against the floorboards in momentary tantrum.

“We knew it was going to happen eventually,” Beth reminded her. “Cable’s been out for over a week.”

“Let’s check the internet.” Maggie retrieved her laptop from the living room shelf it had found residency on. She powered it up and sat next to Beth again. The machine itself worked fine, but when Maggie went to check the Wi-Fi connection, there was none to be had. She cursed again and went to retrieve an old ethernet cable to try to access the internet that way. The sisters were hit with another roadblock on their way to try to access the world wide web: a screen that proclaimed there was no internet connection available.

“Well…”

“Shit.” Maggie finished for Beth. No cable, no radio, no internet. After the officers’ news about Atlanta, Beth had tried to dial out from their house phone to no avail. Without humanity to maintain the delicate infrastructure, technology had quickly fallen to the wayside.

A heavy sinking tugged at Beth’s core. They were alone. The farm was a dark satellite traveling through a darker plane of space. Her heart began to race, and her throat tightened. For the first time in weeks, Beth clenched her hands into tight fights, so tight that her nails bit into her palms.

You’re fine, you’re fine, you’re fine. She tried to combat this sudden fight or flight panic filling her by imagining the faces of everyone she cared about. Jimmy, Daddy, Maggie; Otis and Patricia; Glenn. You’re fine. They are fine.

It didn’t matter that there was proof, now, of their being effectively stranded. They had been living successfully on the farm since May. This didn’t change anything, didn’t make it any more difficult to carry on.

Still, it was significant. Enough so that the Greene sisters sat in silence on the living room floor together, letting the weight of this new reality settle over them.

It was Daddy’s idea to celebrate Thanksgiving in the wake of these new developments. Beth enthusiastically agreed and set about preparing with Patricia. They washed Mama’s best table linens and hung them on the line to dry, infusing them with gentle autumn sunshine. In between those flapping flags of champagne roses, she snuck kisses with Jimmy as he went about his chores.

Thanks to the farm’s generator, the deep freezer in the basement still worked. There would even be a turkey for this holiday. Beth and Patricia wrestled the frozen bird from the freezer two days in advance to ensure it had plenty of time to defrost. Just this once, they broke their own rules, using the oven and stove rather than the cookfire setup crafted in the living room fireplace.

Turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, sweet potato pie. Small, simple. The candles on the table gave everything a warm, homey glow on all their faces. Glenn joined them, of course.

“How are the policemen fitting in?” Daddy asked, pouring the wine Glenn brought with him into glasses. Not his own, of course. Daddy didn’t drink. But he even filled a glass for Beth and Jimmy, passing them the long-stemmed glasses with a conspiratorial wink. The wine was bitter when Beth first swallowed, but there was a hint of fruit there at the end. She liked it.

“Rick’s a real good guy,” Glenn told them, carefully cutting through the slab of turkey on his plate. “He’s got a wife named Lori and a kid named Carl. Only thing is, Lori’s pregnant, so that’s… complicated. We’re trying to figure out what to do, how to help her.”

“What about the other one?” Jimmy pressed. “That Shane guy?”

There was the smallest beat of hesitation from Glenn. “He’s alright. Butting heads with Merle a lot, but they’re getting better. Too many cooks in the kitchen, you know?”

Jimmy frowned. Maggie threw a worried look at her… Beth realized she didn’t know, exactly, if Glenn was her sister’s boyfriend or not. Did that label fit, for someone you snuck out of your house at night to see? “He’s not causing trouble, is he?”

“Not trouble, really,” Glenn shook his head at Otis’ question. “They just don’t see eye to eye on most things. Like, he—Shane, I mean—was mad that Carol let Lori and Carl sleep in her camper until we got another one for Rick and his family. T-Dog tried to let him and Rick crash in ours, and we offered to camp out in our tents, but Shane was already pissed. He shoved Merle around a bit when he said Carol didn’t have to bend to him, Daryl clocked Shane, and that was it. That’s been the biggest thing.”

A few looks were cast around the table, mostly between Daddy and Otis. They seemed to be having a whole conversation just through those looks. After a few of them, both men nodded at the other, and Daddy cleared his throat. “If it gets too much, son, we’ve got the room here. You’re welcome to stay on the farm anytime.”

Glenn’s shoulders fell in relief. “Thanks, Mr. Greene.”

“Hershel,” he corrected softly. The same invitation to use his given name had been extended to Jimmy before, though Beth’s boyfriend still maintained the formality. “And tell Rick and Lori I’ve got some medical supplies on hand. Granted, they’re mostly from my veterinary practice, but it might help ease their minds.”

“Thanks,” Glenn said again, a smile growing on his face. “I will.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Nine: December, Year 1

So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. John 16:22.

December brought with it a sense of unease that Beth didn’t expect to feel. Snow came early and became a consistent feature, though it never piled up so much as to be a burden. Her boots left tracks all over the yard as she went about her chores.

It also betrayed the shoe tracks of another. Jimmy was the one to notice them. They hedged the fence line on the west side of the property, where the animal—and walker—barns were. Only one set.

Given that there were no attempts made to hide them, the appearance of the tracks felt eerie. Almost like a message.

They didn’t have to search far for an answer. When asked about it, Glenn turned sheepish and admitted Shane was curious about the farm. “He told us he went to check it out one night. I told him there was no reason to be sneaky. He’s… wary, of a lot of things. I guess that makes sense, him being a police officer and all.”

“Wary of us?” Daddy pressed. Glenn had swung by the farm to collect some jars of fruit and vegetable preserves to bolster the camps’ diet through the winter months. When asked about Shane, he frowned.

“Everything, really. Except the Grimeses.” He shrugged, mouth easing into a smile when Patricia finished packing the basket and extended it to him. “Thank you.”

“We’ve got plenty,” Patricia reassured him. “Me and Beth could hardly keep up with all the goodies Maggie brought to us from the garden.”

Even then, Beth was in the kitchen, slicing potatoes as thin as she could. She and Patricia were going to try to make potato flour, using the instructions from one of the old cookbooks. These books used to just be heirlooms from the Greene family, but they were quickly becoming a lifeline. While she sliced and patted the potatoes dry, she listened in on this latest unsettling information about Deputy Walsh.

That ended when Daddy prompted Glenn to come with him to his study. Beth was left to wonder what they might be talking about while she arranged the potato slices on a baking dish. “We’re going to let these sit over the coals for how long? All night?”

“Five to eight hours,” Patricia agreed, squinting as she read the page in the low light. The daylight hours were becoming scarce. “But they need to be checked every two hours.”

Beth grimaced. “I wish we had another fireplace to use.”

With winter setting in, they decided to consolidate the residences. Patricia and Otis now stayed in Shawn’s old room. All Shawn’s clothes had become Jimmy’s, so it was easy enough for Maggie and Beth to pack up the rest their brother’s things and tuck them away in the attic. It had been painful, and Beth had bit her cheek so hard that she tasted blood to keep from crying, but it got done. She could see on Patricia’s face that she was going to offer to get up through the night to check the potatoes. Beth beat her to it. “I’ll camp out down here,” she said decisively.

“Oh, honey, but your room is upstairs…” Patricia began to argue, but Beth shook her head.

“I’ll bring a lot of blankets. It’ll be fun, like camping.” Beth made sure to give the older woman a bright smile to sell it. Camping in the living room would give her an excuse to be close to Jimmy, whose bedroom was also on the ground floor of the farmhouse. And she was sure all the fun she would have would be thanks to Jimmy.

In the end, Beth and Jimmy had pled their case to Hershel and would be camping in the living room together. While the trays of sweet potatoes sat over the coals, the two built a tent-like structure with the quilts and blankets from the linen closet.

They piled their pillows and the couch cushions inside the tent. Beth had the kitchen timer, so they could remember to check and flip the sweet potatoes every couple of hours. It was warm inside the blankets, the two smiling at one another. “I can’t believe Daddy agreed to this.”

Jimmy snuck a kiss. “I know. Guess we’re pretty trustworthy, huh?”

Her face heated at that, because they weren’t. But there was no sneaking around that night. They kissed and held one another, but it didn’t go farther than that. Neither of them wanted to betray this trust Daddy had placed in them, never mind that they had been sneaking around for two months at that point. Inside the blankets, they stayed up late talking, waiting for the kitchen timer to ding at them.

“Do you think we did the right thing?” Beth asked, threading her fingers through Jimmy’s hair. “Letting the officers go to Glenn’s camp?”

Jimmy was quiet for a beat. He was laying atop her amongst the pillows, his head resting on her stomach, his arms wrapped around her waist. “I don’t know,” he eventually answered. “I mean, part of me thinks better them than us, you know? But I feel bad. Glenn’s a good guy, and that Carol lady seems nervous enough without a hothead like Shane around.”

“I don’t like that he’s been hanging around the farm,” Beth admitted. “It’s… scary.”

“I won’t let him do anything to you.” Jimmy wore his gun every day. She didn’t like the idea that he might have to use it on a person, but… well, Glenn already told them that Shane was getting in physical altercations with other members of the group.

“I know.” Beth pressed a kiss to the top of his head just when the kitchen timer went off. She wriggled out from beneath him to crouch before the fireplace. The coals were still throwing heat, warming her cheeks as she flipped the slices of potatoes with her spatula. After she finished, Beth rocked back, lingering there by the hearth. She looked over her shoulder and waved Jimmy forward to sit with her.

He did so, wrapping an arm around her waist. Beth laid her head on his shoulder. It was cozy there before the glowing embers, despite everything they had been through in the past few months.

“I could get used to this,” Jimmy told her. Beth agreed wholeheartedly. With his whole family gone, and a significant number of Beth’s in the barn, and the state of the world… it seemed obvious to her that the way forward was together.

She nodded and angled her head to kiss the pulse point in his neck.

“Let’s get the Christmas tree out.”

It was Maggie’s idea, and a good one. Romance seemed to have a positive effect on her, too. A lot of her negativity had drained from her as things between her and Glenn solidified. Jimmy, Otis, and Daddy retrieved the tree from the garage. It was a large one, six-foot, and wide. There would be no lights, of course, but they could still truss it up with tinsel and ornaments. Beth, Maggie, Glenn, and Patricia unwrapped the glass ornaments that had been familiar to Beth since childhood. Reds and greens, golds and silvers; some were painted with evergreen trees and snowflakes.

Soon, the tree dominated the same corner of the living room it always had. Patricia carefully smoothed out the tree skirt, hand embroidered by Mama herself with the words ‘Merry Christmas’ and sprigs of holly. Beth, Maggie, Glenn, and Jimmy created a relay of sorts around the tree, passing and wrapping the tinsel around and around until the tree was festooned with it from top to bottom. The ornaments came next. There was a set of them, wooden rather than wood, that bore Maggie, Beth, and Shawn’s names. Those were always placed in the front. It used to be Mama who took care of that detail, but Daddy did it now.

When it came time for the star, Daddy passed it to Beth. She couldn’t reach the top of the tree on her own, of course, but that was no matter. Jimmy lifted her, laughing, and settled her on his shoulders. He gripped her thighs, keeping her steady, while she stretched her arm and fixed the tree at the top of the tree.

There would be no presents, of course. The gift of being together was more than enough.

As Christmas approached, Patricia and Beth began planning another holiday meal. It would feature ham, this time, again taken from the deep freezer. They had honey and a bit of brown sugar left in the pantry for a glaze. Some of the potatoes had been dried and crushed with a mortar and pestle into flour, but there were enough left that they could bake them for the Christmas meal.

After pouring through the cookbooks, they found a no milk, no eggs recipe for vanilla cake. Daddy agreed that Christmas was a valid reason to dip into the supply of store-bought (and scavenged) goods they had in the cabinets.

From Beth and Patricia’s canning efforts, they chose carrots and dill pickles. The former were to be roasted, the latter arranged in a glass bowl as they were.

Beth was so looking forward to the event that she thought of it even as she washed laundry in the mudroom. It was chilly in there, but better than doing the laundry outside. Still, her hands were bright red and clumsy despite the warm, sudsy water, by the time she finished. She tossed all the damp laundry into a basket. Though it was washed in the mudroom, it was hung to dry in the little sunroom set just beside the back porch. Much the same way Otis rigged a laundry line in the survivor camp, he did the same in the sunroom.

It was slightly warmer there, thanks to the pale winter sunshine glittering all over the snow outside. Beth cupped her hands around her mouth, blowing warm breath into her palms to help loosen her fingers before she returned to work. She hummed to herself as she worked, not necessarily a mindless tune, but one that morphed every time a snippet of a different song crossed her mind.

Beth continued about her work, completely content, until a rapping at one of the room’s large windows startled her. She let out a yelp, dropping the shirt in her hands. Turning on her heel, she found Shane Walsh on the other side of the glass. He gave her the same charming smile he had weeks ago when they met on the road, but now rather than endearing him to her, Beth felt a shiver run down her spine.

“What are you doing here?” She asked, loud enough he could surely hear her through the glass. The real question on her mind was, how did you get past the fence? That felt a little too rough, though. Antagonistic, like she told Otis. So, though her heart was pounding in the aftershock of Shane’s surprise appearance, Beth studied him through the glass that separated them.

“Where’s your daddy?” Shane asked instead of answering. He stood with his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, too close to the gun holstered at his waist for comfort. As for Daddy, he was at the barn. The walker barn. It wouldn’t do for Shane to find him there.

Beth opened the sliding glass door for Shane and waved him inside. “He’s seeing to the livestock,” she told him, not quite able to make herself say ‘animals’. “Come inside and warm up while you wait for him.”

“Mighty kind of you, Miss Greene.” He followed her from the sunroom and into the living room. Beth directed him to sit beside the fire. Instead, Shane wandered to the mantle, picking up family photos. He tapped his finger on Mama’s and Shawn’s faces in a group shot of the family. “Haven’t seen these two around.”

Just at that moment, Patricia appeared from the kitchen, where she had been working on grinding more dried potatoes into flour. “We lost Annette and Shawn early on,” she explained for Beth.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” A perfunctory response. Shane didn’t sound sorry at all.

“Does Hershel know you’re paying us a visit, Mr…?”

“Deputy Shane Walsh,” he suddenly recovered his manners, extending a hand for Patricia to shake. “Pleasure to meet you, Patricia.”

Miss Greene. Patricia. He knew their names even though they hadn’t been given. Beth was pretty sure this was some kind of power play. Especially since Shane seemed committed to avoiding all their questions.

“Well, Deputy,” Patricia continued, nonplussed, “I’m sure Hershel will be just as surprised to see you here. How did you manage the fence?”

Beth found herself impressed with Patricia’s forwardness. That feeling didn’t last long. Shane gave them another smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Policemen have their ways.”

How long until Daddy’s back? He and Jimmy had gone to the walker barn for feeding; Maggie and Otis were making sure the animals were squared away before the early nightfall came. Beth was already in the middle of her washing when they departed. Surely it couldn’t be much longer.

“What are you doing here?” Beth blurted, unable to help herself.

“Just paying a visit to the neighbors. Didn’t seem fair that Glenn’s always over here.”

“Because he’s invited,” Beth pointed out.

“Well, I took the liberty of inviting myself.” Obviously. Before this tit-for-tat could continue, the front door opened. Daddy came in first, stomping the snow from his boots, with Otis close on his heels. They had been discussing hay stores left in the lofts and if they might need to butcher some of the livestock, but that petered out when they simultaneously caught sight of Shane in the house.

“Hello,” Daddy said, straightening. He pulled the gloves from his hands and strode across the room. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“Not formally,” Shane agreed. “Though we’re always getting an earful about how wonderful the Greenes are from Glenn.”

“You must be one of the officers.” Daddy gave Shane a polite smile. “Deputy Grimes or Walsh?”

“Walsh.” Maggie and Jimmy had come in by then, both wearing wary expressions. The former planted her feet and crossed her arms, watching from the doorway. Jimmy drew close to Beth, though, sliding an arm around her waist so he could guide her backward away from the tension.

“A pleasure, Deputy Walsh. My name’s Hershel Greene. To what do we owe a visit from you?”

Shane didn’t bother smiling. He simply shrugged. “Just wanted to check the farm out for myself. Glenn goes on and on about it, like I said.”

“Does he? We’re partial to Glenn ourselves around here.”

Shane nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets once more. He didn’t give any word of farewell as he stepped past Daddy. When Maggie didn’t move for him, he sidestepped her in the doorway. “Well. We’ll be seeing y’all.”

With that, Shane Walsh saw himself out. Maggie turned on her heel, watching in the doorway. “He let himself out the gate,” she said.

“Give it a few minutes. Me and Otis will go lock it back.”

“How’d he get past the electric fence?” Jimmy asked, his dark brows knitting together.

“He didn’t say.” Patricia was pulling at her fingers. “Only that ‘policemen have their ways’… whatever that means.”

“Me and Jimmy will walk the fence line, see if anything’s down,” Maggie offered. With Shawn gone, Jimmy had effectively slid into his old position of fourth in command. Daddy, Otis, Maggie, Jimmy… Beth didn’t really want to know how low, exactly, she and Patricia ranked.

“I’ll go, too,” she said. “I’ve been inside all day. I need some fresh air after… that.”

No one argued with her, though Maggie looked as if she would like to. With this hesitant approval, Beth traipsed along beside Jimmy. In the quiet of winter, it was easy to make out the soft hum of the electric fence.

“I don’t know why that Shane guy is such an ass,” Maggie complained, pulling her beanie down over her ears. It was snowing again, tiny flakes that stung a bit when they hit Beth’s cheeks. “Rick is so nice. I don’t see how they were ever partners.”

“Maybe Rick’s just better at hiding it,” Jimmy suggested, taking Beth’s mittened hand in his.

“No,” Maggie shook her head. “I went with Daddy when he checked in on Lori. They were both nice. And their little boy is cute.”

“Whatever his deal is, I don’t like him.”

Beth, in her haste to go with them, didn’t stop to think about the fact that their little jaunt down the fence line would bring them close to the walker barn. There was no revolting smell wafting from it now. Did that mean they were frozen? She shuddered at the thought.

“Me either,” the sisters said in near unison.

The walker barn was thankfully absent of sound as well. They didn’t dawdle around it, treating it just like the other barn. Maggie was in the lead, Beth and Jimmy walking connected by their hands, but he brought her to a sudden stop when he noticed something beyond the fence. “What is it?”

“Look.” Mere yards from the walker barn, on the other side of the fence, was a very familiar tree. Beth’s old tire swing hung from it, dusted with a healthy layer of snow. It was a large tree with wide, long branches.

Some of which stretched out over the fence.

Though it was snowing, it wasn’t coming down nearly hard enough to conceal the outline of footprints that seemed to generate right beneath one of the branches. The three of them exchanged a look with one another. Maggie’s face was as pale as the snow. They followed Shane’s tracks from that point in a straight path to the back porch.

Beth’s unfinished laundry was clear to see through the sunroom sliding door.

Jimmy looked back over his shoulder, narrowing his eyes, glaring at the tree as if any of it was its fault. “We need to tell Hershel.”

The task of removing those damning branches fell to Jimmy. He scrambled up the trunk, straddled nearby branches, and studiously sawed through each and every limb that overhung the fence. They became firewood, and it seemed like the issue was settled.

Christmas dinner was just as wonderful as Beth imagined it would be. In a move that initially threw the farm residents, Hershel decided to invite the entire camp to their dinner table, not just Glenn.

For the first time since the world began to fall in on itself, Beth and Maggie lifted the eaves of the table to extend it. Folding chairs were retrieved from the garage, crowded around the table so that everyone fit.

Three of the faces were new to Beth. Lori Grimes was a dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty. Carl was a round-faced cutie with a smattering of freckles over his nose, his father’s too-big sheriff’s hat perched on his head. Merle’s brother, Daryl, was younger but just as reserved. He observed the dinner table conversation more than he participated, surprisingly blue eyes flicking around the table.

“Thank you all for joining us tonight,” Daddy greeted at the start of the meal, smiling at them. He raised his glass of water, silent cheers answered with raised glasses of wine. Jimmy and Beth got to indulge again. “Even before, we weren’t used to having neighbors,” Daddy confessed. “Community is a blessing, especially in these times.”

“Amen to that,” T-Dog enthused, raising his glass a tiny bit higher as others echoed his sentiment.

It was easier, now, to meet Carol’s eye from across the table. Sophia wasn’t a secret anymore. She wasn’t a person. Carol’s daughter was gone, regardless of what inhabited the barn, so Beth no longer felt like she was lying every time she looked at the woman.

Shane appeared to be on his best behavior. Beth wondered if the others knew of his intimidating visit to the farm. She was sure Maggie told Glenn, during one of their nighttime trysts, but had he told anyone? It didn’t seem like it. The deputy minded his p’s and q’s as dishes were passed around the table.

At one point, Rick let Carl take a sip of his wine. The little boy’s face crumbled, his tongue sputtering between his lips as they all laughed.

“C’mon,” Daryl poured himself, Merle, and Glenn second glasses from a bottle produced from beneath the table. “I wanna see how red those cheeks get, Chinaman.”

“I’m Korean,” Glenn corrected, but he was laughing.

Daryl even poured Jimmy and Beth more wine, when Hershel wasn’t looking, leaving the two of them just this side of tipsy. Everything was so jolly, truly, that Beth thought the ugly business with Shane sneaking onto the farm must surely be forgotten.

She went to bed happy. While the others were saying farewells down below, Beth and Jimmy snuck upstairs for their own private goodnight. Outside her bedroom door, Jimmy thread his hands into the hair at the back of her head and tilted her face upward. He kissed her tenderly and when he pulled away, it was only so far as to tilt his forehead to hers. “Come downstairs tonight.”

“I doubt Maggie’s gonna be sneaking out.” Given the frigid nights, her and Glenn’s nighttime rendezvous had also cooled.

“Come anyway,” he insisted. “I wanna spend Christmas with you.”

“Okay,” she agreed, because it really didn’t take much convincing. So, that night, while everyone else was dreaming, Beth imagined herself as Saint Nicholas as she snuck through the house. Only, she wasn’t leaving any gifts, only reaping her own once she fitted herself in Jimmy’s arms.

December 26^th dawned in chaos.

Beth was startled awake by Patricia’s screaming. She jolted up, clumsy, arms and legs tangled with Jimmy’s. They pushed at one another, scrambling to free themselves and pull their clothes on.

“It’s burning!” Patricia was shouting from the kitchen. “The barn’s burning!”

No one seemed to notice that Beth and Jimmy emerged from the same bedroom. They were both clothed in mismatched hand-me-downs from Shawn. Boots and sweats, jackets thrown over sleep t-shirts. Given how close Jimmy’s bedroom was to the kitchen, they were the first to join Patricia’s hysteria.

“Which barn?” Jimmy asked, shouldering his way to the kitchen window. “Shit.”

Beth didn’t need to look herself to know it was the walker barn. Jimmy ran back to his bedroom, re-emerging with his gun in hand. Maggie and Daddy were just coming downstairs; Otis stumbled from his bedroom.

“Stay here!” Jimmy shouted at Beth over his shoulder. She ignored him, dogging his heels as he flew out the door.

“No!”

The winter air burned in her lungs, but she wasn’t cold. If anything, the adrenaline in her veins had her flushing too warm. Especially once they were close to the flames licking between the boards of the barn.

The fire had been set from the inside.

“Oh, no.” Beth stopped dead in her tracks, her boots squashing into the mud created by the melting snow. “No, no, no!”

There was a crashing from the inside, some part of the barn’s structure giving way from the heat. Beth jumped back, startled, but that was hardly the most concerning thing at hand.

Whoever had set the fire left the barn doors open. The heat must have weakened the chicken wire barrier, too.

Mama and Arnie wandered from the confines, Shawn nowhere in sight. Beth felt her knees buckle. Jimmy caught her with a rough hand under her elbow before she could hit the ground. “Come on.” The walkers, the ones who managed to escape the barn, were likewise on fire. “We can’t let them get to the main house.”

He aimed, sights set on Mrs. Duvall’s head, but Beth threw her weight against him. The shot went wide, striking the barn. “No!” Beth shouted again. “We can’t kill them!”

It would crush Daddy.

“We can’t let them kill us, either!” Mama, Shawn, Mrs. Duvall, one of the strangers, the first man, and Sophia. Six walkers; two living. No, three. Here came Maggie.

“What do we do?!” Beth shouted over the pops and roar of the fire. It was catching, growing. The six walkers were advancing. If they weren’t careful, they were going to get trapped between the dead and the fire.

“Hey!” Maggie yelled, waving her arms. “Over here! Come to me, leave them alone!”

She wasn’t yelling at Beth and Jimmy. She was yelling at the walkers. Trying to get their attention, to call them off advancing on the two of them. It was working. As Mama turned first, and the others followed suit, Beth had the odd, distant thought that it was like a hivemind. Like Otis’ bees.

“Let it burn,” Jimmy told her when Beth turned back to the barn. He took her by the hand and drew her away from the burning structure. This was hardly a path to safety, though. With the barn a veritable pyre lighting the day far better than the rising sun was, it was bound to draw attention. Beyond the fence, three more walkers were advancing. Secluded as the barn was, they weren’t used to seeing the dead, and when they did, those persons had been corralled into the barn.

Now that barn was falling in on itself, the dry winter air lending itself to the flames. Having focused their sights on Beth and Jimmy, the walkers were beelining for the fence. The snow hindered them some, but the fence did not, undeterred as they were by the electricity. Except…

“The fence is down!” Jimmy shouted at her just when Beth reached the same conclusion herself. As the three of them advanced, the dead fence bent and snapped under their combined weight. Beth and Jimmy had slim options. A burning barn at their back, the walkers Maggie was trying to distract to their right. The rest of the fence penned them in on the left, and the new walkers were facing them.

Jimmy chose the fence. Knowing the electricity was down, he had no hesitation in planting a foot on the lower wires, grabbing the upper wires in his hand. He created a hole large enough for Beth to duck through. “Go!”

“No,” she tried to argue, eyeing the walkers. They were getting close, too interested in her and Jimmy. “Not without you.”

“Dammit, Beth, go!” He bodily forced her, sending Beth falling into the snow on her hands and knees. She was alone on the other side. The same could not be said for Jimmy. Frozen, eyes wide, Beth watched him shoot one walker in the head. Rotten blood exploded from the wound, painting the snow black.

That dead walker fell forward, thanks to the continued advance of its companions. Jimmy grappled with the weight, pressed against one of the fence posts. He managed to fling the dead walker into one of the others, sending them both sprawling to the ground. It wasn’t enough of an advantage.

He didn’t get his gun up in time.

His blood, streaming hot and thick from a deep wound to the shoulder, fell in steaming, red drops on the snow.

“NO!” Beth lunged forward. Jimmy dropped his gun when the walker’s teeth sunk into his flesh. She grabbed it now, her hands shaking far too much to take a confident shot. Instead, she bashed the metal into the walker’s temple. It sank into the rotten flesh with surprising ease. She kicked at the other walker, the heel of her boot nearly becoming lodged in its skull.

“Jimmy, no, Jimmy, please, no, please, not you,” she was begging, nonsensically, repeating herself in futile prayer that she knew would go unanswered. Her cheeks burned as the tears quickly dried in the frigid air. Jimmy slummed against the fence post, one hand clapped over his shoulder, but they both knew that pressure was no use. The snow was melting around him from the heat of his spilled blood.

Beth climbed back through the fence, pulled Jimmy to her, hands slick with his blood. “Jimmy, please, no, no…”

“Beth,” his face was bone white, eyes wide and crazed. “Beth, listen to me.”

He reached up and touched her face, smearing his blood across her cheek and lip. His voice became a gentle, pleading whisper. “I can’t, I don’t want to be one of them. Give me the gun, honey.”

“No,” she argued, shaking her head. With him in her arms, she could feel how weak he was becoming. “No, I can’t, Jimmy, you can’t…”

“Baby, I’m dead anyway. Don’t make be one of them, please, Beth.” His words were growing fainter, his eyelids twitching as he fought to keep them open. There wasn’t much time before he bled out. He was right, and he knew she couldn’t deny him. Jimmy must have seen it on her face. “Help me sit up.”

She propped him on the fence post again. When she put the gun in his hand as he requested, his was too weak to hold it alone. Though she was sobbing, pieces of her shattered heart sticking between her ribs and in her lungs, Beth couldn’t do anything other than agree when he very quietly asked her to help him.

Both their hands held the gun to his head. Both their fingers, Beth’s on top of his, pulled the trigger. Both of them fell into the snow after that fatal shot rang out, but only one of them screamed. A high, keening sound that hurt Beth’s own ears even as it ravaged her throat. She threw herself on top of Jimmy, as if this too-late protection could change what had just happened.

One side of his temple bore the small, circular entrance wound of the bullet. The other side of his head was pressed into the snow. Though her hands were slippery with all the blood, and stiff from the cold beside, she tried to dig them into the snow and turn his face so she could see it fully. Just one last time.

But a large, strong hand clapped on her shoulder. Beth panicked, thinking it another walker, but when she turned, she saw instead the same blue eyes that had winked at her the night before when he snuck more wine into her glass.

“You don’t wanna do that,” Daryl Dixon told her gently. When she looked him in the face, for some reason, Beth could only focus on the new snowflakes dotting his shaggy brown hair. “You don’t wanna remember him like that.”

She nodded though she wasn’t quite sure what she agreed to. Her ears were ringing. It was hard to hear him. Her eyes didn’t seem to work right, either. She couldn’t manage to focus on more than one thing at once. They slid from the snowflakes on his head to a splatter of that dark, dark walker blood on his cheek.

In her numbed shock, she raised a hand, intending to wipe the blood from his cheek, only to see the bright red blood on her own. Jimmy’s blood. The sight snapped her back into her body, back into that horrible, tight pain in her chest. She became fixated on her hand again. “I-I-I k-killed h-him,” she stuttered over each word.

“You did him a mercy.” His hand shifted from her shoulder, hooking around her arm to pull her to her feet. Beth vigorously shook her head. He didn’t understand. It wasn’t the gunshot wound marring Jimmy’s head that Beth felt guilty over.

“I c-can’t l-l-leave him.”

“You’re not,” another voice came from behind them. Some small recess of her mind recognized it as T-Dog’s. “I’ve got him.”

Beth couldn’t look away from her hands. Even as Daryl let her forward, feet shuffling through the snow, all she could see was Jimmy’s blood. Whatever condition the farm was in now was lost on her. There was only her hands, stained red, growing sticky as the blood dried on her skin.

"Goin' up steps," Daryl warned her when they got to the back porch. Beth lifted her feet on reflex. If it weren't for his hand on her arm, she wouldn't have been able to find it within herself to move at all.

She would still be lying in the snow. With Jimmy.

Jimmy.

Beth lifted her head as they walked through the back door, looking over her shoulder.

T-Dog carried Jimmy's limp body several feet behind them. He wasn't bringing him to the house. Instead, T-Dog was walking to Daddy, who stood in the yard, looking at the smoking remnants of the burnt barn. The ground was littered with bodies. Carol was bent over one of them, much the same way Beth had thrown herself over Jimmy.

She only got a glimpse at it all before Daryl pulled the door shut behind them.

Hours later, Beth was clean, lying flat on her back on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. There were loud voices below her. They must have been shouting for her to be able to make out the heated cadence.

Patricia had been crying  the whole time she helped Beth wash Jimmy's blood from her body and change clothes. She wasn't there now. Beth was alone.

Tears had yet to stop streaming from the corners of her eyes. She let them fall, following the contours of her temples, to sink into her hair. Beth rolled onto her side, staring out the window.

The walker barn was gone. So were all the walkers. Mama, Shawn, Arnie... Sophia. Gone. The snow still wore the evidence. Sooty smudges around the charred pile where the barn had stood. Dark stains where blood was spilled. The bodies were all gone now.

Jimmy was gone now.

That thought blockaded all others in her head. If anyone else had perished, it would be news to her. Beth's thoughts kept bringing her back to Jimmy, and once she arrived there, her mind went blank. Maybe it was a defense mechanism. The ringing returned to her ears, her mind became an empty space, and the pain in her chest throbbed before her whole body went a tingly kind of numb.

The voices downstairs were ebbing. A door slammed.

Beth pushed herself up on wooden legs. She tucked herself into the corner of her window, so she could watch who was leaving, just as she once watched Maggie sneak across the farm.

Rick's curls were easy to recognize. He was walking with his hand clasped on Shane's shoulder, but he didn't seem injured. No, that hand was there to contain, not seeking aid. Shane was being escorted to that cop car Beth first saw only a month ago.

Carol and T-Dog came next, the former wrapped in the latter’s embrace.

Though she hadn’t seen him earlier, Merle was walking in tandem with Daryl. She watched the younger of the Dixon brothers closely, staring at the angel wings embroidered on the back of his leather vest.

A guardian angel, come too late.

The thought made her want to throw herself out the window. Instead, Beth shuffled back to her bed and crawled under the covers. She pulled them over her head and screwed her eyes shut tight. Curled in on herself, arms wrapped around her torso, with the one person who could hold her together gone, Beth tried to do it for herself.

Though she was trying to keep her breathing even, the sob won out in the end. It tore its way up her chest and throat, exploding from her mouth. She choked on her sorrow, drowned in her tears, until she was so hollow she could do nothing else but fall asleep.

Chapter Text

Chapter Ten: January, Year 1

But now He has worn me out; You have made desolate all my company. Job 16:7.

Now when Beth sat on the slanted roof outside her bedroom, it was alone, and in the cold. Not that the wintry air bothered her much. Nothing really bothered her these days. It was hard to get through the numbness she found herself shadowed in.

On the roof, she had an excellent view of the farm. All the burned remnants of the barn had been removed. New snow had fallen since Christmas, obscuring the soot and ash beneath pure white. The same had happened to the bloodstains. Daryl and T-Dog repaired the length of the fence that had become damaged.

Small retribution for the damage Shane wrought.

Beth felt she was sitting with Jimmy’s ghost when she sat on the roof. She filled her lungs with icy air, exhaled it all in puffs of mist, staring at the spot where Jimmy died all the while. It didn’t matter that snow had piled anew, obscuring his blood, or that the fence was repaired. Beth would never forget where it happened.

While she stared, she tried to conjure synonyms for the sadness she carried in her chest. Words that could describe her, now, in the after.

Depressed.

Despondent.

Despairing.

Why did so many words for ‘sad’ start with D?

… Bereft.

Grieving.

Heavy-hearted.

Never finishing high school was fine. She could think of at least six words to describe what she couldn’t yet let herself feel.

In the falling out after the barn burning, Glenn moved into the farmhouse. Not the guesthouse and certainly not the recently vacated guest room.

Beth was thankful for that. She had taken to sleeping in that room, wrapping herself in the sheets that still smelled of Jimmy.

No; all pretenses had been dropped. Glenn slept in Maggie’s room. The two were as good as married. Had Beth been capable of breaking through the numbness, she might have been mad or jealous. As it was, she simply accepted Glenn’s permanent fixture at the farm as another fact of life. It wasn’t so bad, really. She liked Glenn. And he was a big help.

Glenn had, after all, taken on all the chores that had once been Beth’s.

Aside from her time spent sitting on the roof, Beth had largely stayed indoors. She helped Patricia instead. They ground potato flour to use in bread baking, deep cleaned the house, worked on making candles from the wax of Otis’ bees, planned their meals, and began educating themselves using the back catalog of Farmer’s Almanacs that lined the lower shelves in the living room.

“Hey, Beth,” Glenn greeted, stepping into the living room. He smelled like winter when he stopped to ruffle her hair. “Don’t worry, I knocked all the snow off my boots before I came in.”

“Thanks,” she murmured, not looking up from the book in her hand. There were few precious hours to read by daylight in the winter. Beth tried very hard not to use the candles more than she strictly needed to; they didn’t have a good stockpile of them built up yet. She pushed up her too-long sleeve—Beth had also taken to wearing Shawn’s clothes, the ones that had become Jimmy’s—and scrawled more notes on herbs that contained medicinal properties. There was a field guide with photographs on the bookshelves as well. Once Beth consolidated all the homeopathic remedies she could from the almanacs, she planned on foraging come the spring.

If Daddy would let her leave the fence, of course. Maybe Glenn could do it, if not. Glenn had been doing a lot around the farm lately. Beth couldn’t decide if he was serving penance for Shane or if this was just the natural course of Glenn joining their family.

Were she capable of it, Beth thought she would be happy about taking her sister’s boyfriend into the Greene family fold.

During the day, it was easier to keep her hands and mind occupied. There was always something Patricia needed help with. Nights were harder. At night, Beth tucked herself into the spare bedroom. She rolled herself in sheets that still smelled of Jimmy. Tears slid down her face, hot tracks of mourning that Beth only felt ever so slightly. She felt that she was under water, that her grief was shouting at her from the edge of the pool. It was blunted, distorted. There, but not.

Just like Beth.

She cried herself to sleep in Jimmy’s bed every night and woke every morning to face anew the fact that her nightmares were tinged with entirely too much truth.

It was an accident, the first time.

Beth had been cutting turnips when the knife slipped. The blade nicked her finger. Not a deep cut, by any means, with barely any blood beading from it.

But the effect had left her… blind-sided.

After the initial sting of pain came a… relief. Not unlike how digging her nails into her skin and picking at her cuticles had eased her anxiety. As she wrapped her finger in her apron, holding tight to staunch the blood, a small sob slipped past her lips before Beth could bite it back. She clapped her palm over her mouth and bowed her head over the kitchen counter as fresh tears fell from her eyes.

“Oh, Beth.” Of course, Patricia had heard her. The woman had done a wonderful job of filling the vacancy left in her life with Mama’s death. Patricia wrapped Beth in her arms, coaxing her to lay her head on her shoulder as she continued to cry. “Oh, honey. Cry it out. It’s about time you did.”

Beth let herself be held and rocked and soothed. Maggie had been scarce as of late, spending more and more time with Glenn. While Glenn always had a soft smile to offer her, it had been hard to catch Maggie’s eye. She always dropped them down to the floor when Beth tried to look her in the face.

Daddy wasn’t much better. Beth couldn’t stomach the immense guilt she saw there. Maggie might be avoiding her, but she was avoiding Daddy. The four walls of Jimmy’s bedroom and Patricia were the most familiar sights of late.

So, it was Patricia she clutched when the first truly meaningful tears of grief fell down her face. Unlike her nightly crying, she felt these tears. They burned her eyes and cheeks alike, choked her so that she was gasping around them.

The second time, and all the times that would follow, were anything but accidental.

That same night, before holing up in Jimmy's bedroom, Beth took one of the razors Jimmy had brought back from the supply run. She carried it, wrapped in paper, tucked up in the sleeve of the sweatshirt she wore as pajamas. For the first time since Jimmy's death, Beth was aware of her own heart. It was pounding against her ribs, blood rushing in her veins as she avoided the squeaky step on the stairs.

Another secret was being added to the confines of Jimmy's bedroom.

Sitting on the bed felt wrong, so Beth opted for the floor. The bed served as a backrest behind her. By the light of a bright, crescent moon, Beth rolled up the left sleeve of her sweatshirt and freed the razor from its paper wrapping.

The effect was not quite so overwhelming this time. Beth knew what to expect. A surge of sadness, loosed by the sting of physical pain. Though it was really more of a scratch than a cut that marred the delicate skin on the inside of her arm, Beth clamped her right hand over it.

Her breaths came in shaky stutters, more of those meaningful tears slipping down her cheeks. She hung her head as she wept, letting the tears fall to the floor.

Afterwards, she felt fuzzy all over. Like her body was filled with radio static. Her head was light, her stomach clenched, and every bit of her was simultaneously exhausted and tingling.

Before she curled herself into the nest of blankets that comprised the bedding at this point, Beth carefully placed the razor inside the bedside table drawer, next to the heart shaped charm Jimmy found in the creek just that past summer.

Purged. That's how she felt as she wrapped the comforter around herself and inhaled deeply, soaking up the remnants of Jimmy's scent. Beth thought of ancient medicine, of bloodletting and humors. Hers were clearly out of balance.

Jimmy would have told her she was being stupid. Beth was surprised to find she didn't care.

For the first time in weeks, she didn't dream of that awful morning, of snow melting and mixing with blood, of screams filling the air and the smell of gunpowder thick in her nose. Instead, she dreamt of nothing, which was both refreshing and unsettling once morning came.

Beth wasn’t sure how she felt about it.

That light, empty feeling stayed with her throughout the day. It no longer felt so much like slogging through molasses to complete her chores, to be a person. A single, true night of rest had left her with enough wherewithal to ponder. Scrutinize, really. She found she couldn’t concentrate on her reading, eyes skimming over the paragraphs without absorbing them. Her mind was occupied. Glenn lived at the farm now, and she had watched Daryl and T-Dog both come and go from her bedroom window.

Carol had notably been absent, but she didn’t blame her. Had she had the choice, Beth wouldn’t be here, either. She hoped only that the blow of learning that Sophia had continued on in the walker barn hadn’t cut Carol too deeply.

Hypocrite, she chided herself. Beth physically shook her head as if to clear it. Grasping for a different line of thought, she latched on the Grimes family. None of them, not even Rick, had been to the farm since that awful morning. Daddy and Glenn had gone to their camp to check on Lori, but no members of the Grimes family had appeared in weeks. They were spoken of, in passing, sure, but not seen by anyone other than Daddy and Glenn.

And if the Grimes were scarce, Shane Walsh had become nonexistent, neither seen nor spoken of. Beth had no idea what that meant for the man and she found she didn’t much care to find out.

She thought of Merle instead, the now-missing Dixon brother. Well, she doubted Merle was missing, per se, but he likewise hadn’t been seen since the debacle. If he was spoken of, Beth had missed those conversations. She missed a lot of conversations lately. Beth didn’t mind that so much. Aside from Patricia, she found most conversations exhausting these days anyway.

Fiddling with the page, Beth forced herself to focus more closely on the words before her. She tried to ignore the sting of her sweater tugging at the raw, rent skin on her wrist; she hadn’t bothered with bandaging it. There was no reason that she saw to waste medical supplies on her latest secret. And there was no reason to be wasting time when the sun would be setting soon, and she hadn’t made half the progress she had planned for herself today where the almanac was concerned.

She read until the light failed her and Patricia called them all into the dining room for dinner. Beth tucked her bookmark into the almanac and set it aside, taking her place beside Maggie at the table. Mealtimes were the only exceptions to the distance that had grown between the sisters. Their words were limited to asking each other to pass dishes to one another.

Beth didn’t mind this so much, either.

What Beth did mind was the faint scent of alcohol that now clung to Daddy. She minded—hated, actually—that everyone seemed determined to never speak of this. The smell was so light, just a hint under the clean soap that the family used. Sometimes Beth could even convince herself she was imagining it. If she were still sleeping upstairs, maybe she could.

On more nights than she would like to admit to, though, Beth had woken from her fugue of memory-dreams to hear clumsy stumbling in the hallway. She might make a habit of sleeping in Jimmy’s old bed, but Daddy had taken up Mama’s old habit of sleeping in Shawn’s room. Only on the nights he had been drinking, though.

Which were becoming more and more common.

The silence on the matter weighed on Beth so much because she couldn’t deny that she was arguably the most complicit. Anytime she looked into her father’s eyes, the guilt she saw there made her feel guilty. Keeping her eyes trained on the plate in front of her was much easier. She cut all her food small, spearing the bite-sized pieces on her fork and chewing carefully, lest she choke on it as she forced it down her perpetually clogged throat. Though Patricia was a good cook, and Beth wasn’t bad herself, all the meals they put on the table tasted like cardboard in her mouth.

This house is haunted, Beth thought, not for the first time, as she cut a green bean into tiny pieces.

Not by ghosts, but by memory. And in the dead of winter, they were all beginning to suffocate under the weight.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eleven: February, Year 1

“To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life… and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self.” Ephesians 4:22-24.

Beth couldn’t breathe in the house anymore. The grief was suffocating; she was tired of choking on it. Though the snow had remained heavy throughout the winter, more and more often, Beth found herself trudging through the drifts.

Patricia called it progress. She supposed in some way it might be, but not in the truly positive way the older woman viewed it. Sure, Beth was out in the fresh, icy air rather than holed up in some corner of the house, but Patricia didn’t really know why.

If she was inside, then she was close to the razor blade. If she was inside, she was thinking of the cathartic sting of the metal biting into her skin.

So, she traded the burn of rent skin for the burn of wintry air. She let it nip her cheeks and nose until they were bright red, let her hands become stiff without gloves. When she was old enough to make the transition from Sunday school to youth group, when her feet no longer hovered inches over the floor and her flouncy little girl dresses had been traded for sensible blouses and skirts, the preacher taught them about self-flagellation. A punishment that was really an expression of the love for God.

Beth supposed this was all one big, messy self-flagellation. The blade. The near frostbite. But it was never God she thought of, never a failing to the Lord that she was punishing herself for.

It was only Jimmy’s face she saw. Eyes crinkled in a smile. Face soft in that way it was just before he kissed her. Cheeks pale, eyes desperate as he bled out…

The cracking of ice under her foot startled Beth from her thoughts. She didn’t realize she had walked out onto the pond. Under her boot, the ice was splitting with spiderweb cracks. Rocking her weight back, Beth carefully retraced her steps in reverse, until she was on the snow-laden bank again. All her breath rushed from her lungs, clouding in a massive exhalation of relief in front of her face.

“Stupid,” she chided herself. It was early; so early, in fact, that Glenn and Otis hadn’t yet appeared from the house to tend to the chores. With the animals holed up in their barns and the bees hibernating in their houses, no one would have bore witness to her drowning. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

The pond froze every winter, sure, but never had they been allowed on it for this very reason. Though she hadn’t been shivering before, Beth began to now. Was it simply her being unmindful that led her to walk onto the ice? Or was there something insidious, an intent that she didn’t fully understand? Beth wrapped her arms tight around her middle. The quiet of a snowy morning was replaced with the roar of blood rushing in her ears.

A few more steps backward brought her to the point where she no longer felt like the ground would give out right beneath her feet. Still holding herself together, Beth turned on her heel. Her steps back to the house were slow and deliberate. She let herself in through the back door, stomping the snow off her boots as quietly as she could. Those boots were left in the mudroom. It was in socked feet that she padded back to Jimmy’s bedroom.

She laid herself back down in bed with her heart slamming against her ribs. One deep breath, then two, then three. So much had happened and the day was not yet truly begun.

It was while she was attempting to calm her heart that she realized the sheets no longer smelled like Jimmy. Nothing did. Not any of the clothing left behind, not the bedsheets, not herself. The winter had well and truly stolen him from her.

And it had nearly tricked her, too. Nearly drawn her out onto that treacherous ice. Pushing herself up from the mattress, Beth shed her jacket and shoved up the sleeve of the sweatshirt she wore. The pale, thin skin of her wrist and inner forearm were littered with cuts in various stages of healing. Some were rimmed in red, their scabs fresh. Others were dark and flaking. She set her sights on the latter, picking at the long-dried blood and peeling off the scabs. Pink raised scars were left behind. They may fade, sure, but others were liable to turn silver and mark her forever.

Pulling at the scabs stung just enough to clear her mind, calm her enough to think just a tad more logically. Thinking back on the morning walk, she could find no rhyme or reason for why she had stepped onto the ice. Nothing had caught her attention that she could recall and, as she already accepted, she didn’t notice that’s where she was walking until the ice cracked.

With the walker barn gone and the season keeping the dead at bay, she wasn’t paying as much attention as she should. Forgetting the dangers of the world at large was easy when the miasma of all her other muted feelings and rebuked memories was ever swirling in her head. “That won’t do,” she murmured to herself, wincing when she tugged a scab that wasn’t as set as she thought. Red beads of blood welled in its wake. Spilling her own blood was one thing; having it spilled was quite another. “I need to be more careful.”

Because, despite the fact she had walked onto that ice mindlessly, Beth Greene did not want to die. She missed Mama, Shawn, Arnie, and Jimmy deep down in her very soul, but she was not ready to leave this world. She needed to start paying better attention and stop letting the days slide by her in a blur of washed-out colors and muted conversations.

“I’ll start today,” she vowed. When the disturbed cut on her arm clotted, Beth pushed herself from the bed and stretched. There was clothing everywhere on the floor, things she had worn and discarded, all Jimmy’s. She tossed each piece into the wicker clothes hamper in the corner. It wasn’t likely she would get to them any time soon; with it being winter, laundry was slow going, and she tried to prioritize the truly dirty clothing first. Glenn’s, Daddy’s, and Otis’ usually got tended before anyone else’s since they saw to the chores.

And because Daddy spilled the alcohol on himself. Anything that reeked of booze got washed first. Beth had no idea if anyone else knew about his falling off the wagon or if that was another open secret of the Greene farm.

Even if the clothes would sit in the hamper until spring woke the earth, that was fine. The room looked better just for having all the articles off the floor. Beth stripped the bed next, the sheets that no longer smelled like Jimmy, only herself and her grief. A quick trip to the linen closet and the bed was made fresh. She smoothed her hand over an old comforter, white and blue check.

She wouldn’t be sleeping there anymore. It was time.

Not for the first time, Beth had to acknowledge that the farm was a considerable blessing in the current state of the world. Glenn and Otis returned with a fresh haul of logs from the forest, just in time for Beth to start on a fresh batch of vegetable stock. Over the roaring fire, Mama’s massive pot sat heating while she added in quartered onions, chopped carrots, heads of garlic, and chunks of celery. Fire was much harder to control than a cooktop. She would have to watch the pot, but she didn’t mind. There was the almanac to keep her company.

While the stock simmered behind her, Beth set about copying a foraging recipe for applesauce made from crab apples when a knock sounded at the door. She flicked her eyes across the living room but didn’t stand. Daddy was at the camp with Maggie, another check-up for Lorrie. Otis was home, though; it took him a few minutes, and there was a second round of knocking before he got to the door, but he answered it in Daddy’s place.

“Hey, y’all,” he greeted, stepping to the side to let the Dixon brothers step into the house. They paused in the entryway, each of them stomping off the snow that clung to their boots before coming further inside. “Should’ve just headed home, you two. Hershell’s over there with the Grimeses.”

“We were out checkin’ traps,” said the older of the two. Merle. “Let us warm our bones a minute, huh? We brought y’all a rabbit.”

Beth ducked her head, returning to her writing, when the Dixons came into the living room. They stepped in front of her cookfire, standing at her back while she continued working on the coffee table. “’Scuse us.”

“Oh, you’re fine,” Beth said, scooting herself closer to the coffee table to give them room. She peeked over her shoulder to see Daryl holding his red hands out to the fire. Merle was doing the same, except… “What happened to your hand?”

His right arm ended in a bandaged stump, but he still held it out with his left hand before the fire’s warmth. Taking no offense to her bluntness, Merle chuckled. It turned into a full laugh when he caught the embarrassment on her face.

“Leave her alone,” Daryl chided, voice low and sharp.

“Sorry.”

“Nah, don’t be. Nice to see Sleeping Beauty’s rejoined the living world.” That had her blush deepening. Beth was certain her cheeks matched the desired ‘deep pink’ described in the recipe she was copying. Merle brought his arm close to her face as if for inspection. “Your daddy’s been checking on it. Casualty of the day dumbass Shane burned y’all’s barn.”

"You were bit?" Beth asked, thinking back to the teeth marks on Shawn's arm. "But... you're alive."

"Yeah, the hand had to go." Merle shrugged like it was no more of a loss than misplacing something he didn't care about. Beth slipped her fingers under her sweater sleeve, picking at a scab at random. Her chest felt tight. No wonder Daddy had fallen back into drinking. It wasn't just the loss of their family; it was also the knowledge that Shawn could have been saved from his fate.

"I... didn't know that was an option." She swallowed, or tried to, finding her throat too dry. "Amputation."

"Neither did I, but I wasn't gonna sit by and die because some dickhead went sticking his big ass nose where it didn't belong."

All the while, Daryl stood silently through their exchange, but she could feel his eyes watching her. She refused to meet his gaze. Instead, with extreme care, she closed the almanac and her notebook alike and stood up from the coffee table.

"I'm sorry," she said again, though this time she wasn't quite sure what she was apologizing for. Her lack of manners? How she rushed from the room, bounding up the stairs and away from the conversation? How she slammed her bedroom door behind her? Certainly not for the way she doubled in on herself, sobbing, mourning her brother anew. Neither of the Dixon brothers could see how she slid down the door and hid her face in her hands.

Would she ever run dry of tears, truly? She had been crying for months. And, more often than not, she cried herself to the point of exhaustion each time. That's what happened there, just inside her doorway. Her sobs petered out to shaky breaths. Her bones turned hollow in her limbs. Beth used her sweater sleeves to dry her face and tilted her head back to rest against the door.

A new pang of missing Jimmy shot through her. He was who she would have talked about something like this with. Maggie was still around, sure, but they had never been the secret sharing type of sisters. Patricia worried enough over Beth as it was; there was no need to add this new, stinging revelation on top of everything else.

Do the best you can until you know better, and when you know better, do better.

It was something Daddy used to tell the three of them, when they got in spats with each other or other kids at school. 'Do unto others as you would wish done unto you' usually followed close after. Beth focused on that first bit. The knowledge she just gained from Merle Dixon wasn't going to help Shawn, and it wouldn't have helped Jimmy, either way. Crying for it now made her feel a little better, sure, but it wasn't 'doing better'. Neither was ostracizing herself from her family or their neighbors.

So, Beth ran her sweater sleeves over her face again, wicking away any tears that remained. She tucked herself in her window again, watching and waiting. Only after the Dixon brothers left, blotting the white snow with their darker forms, did Beth return downstairs. She finished her vegetable stock and ate rabbit stew for dinner. She listened to Otis explaining bee hibernation and Daddy giving updates on Merle’s healing amputation wound and Lori Grimes’ pregnancy and tried her hardest to be present.

When the dinner dishes were put away, Beth climbed the stairs to sleep in her own bedroom. And if the cut that joined the collection on her arm that night was the deepest yet, that was no one’s business but her own.

Beth rose with the sun, just like she used to. She pulled her boots on and tucked the ends of her flannel pajama pants into them. Her old jacket and gloves were layered atop her sweatshirt. Even though she could hear Glenn moving around in the room next door, Beth was still careful to avoid the squeaky step on the staircase as she crept to the ground floor.

Otis was already there. He turned to her, clearly expecting Glenn, his eyes widening in surprise when they settled on her face. “What’re you doing up, Beth?”

“I’m usually up by now,” she told him with a shrug. “I thought I would go feed the horses. Take some of the chores off y’all’s hands.”

“Well.” That was all Otis said, clearly stumped for words. Beth gave him a little wave and went past him. The morning was even more biting than the last, winter sinking bitter claws into the land. Was it still Georgia? Beth wondered, her boots crunching through the new, crisp snowfall. Is there still a United States?

She wouldn’t know. Even if the radios still worked, she hadn’t been in the mood to listen to anything since… “Well,” she said to herself in that same soft tone Otis had used.

It was warmer inside the horse barn, what with the good tacking on the walls and the horses’ breath misting in the air. Beth lingered a moment in the doorway, letting her eyes adjust. Slowly, stalls, hay, saddles hanging on the walls, and the darker shapes of horse heads peeking over their stalls solidified in her vision. She went to the huge sacks of store-bought feed and dipped a bucket inside. It was lucky that Daddy kept up on stock for the animals. The pigs were able to root around even in the cold, but the horses, cows, and chickens needed their food provided through the winter. They would have to be careful, next year, when they had to set back food not just for themselves but for the livestock as well.

“Hi,” Beth greeted the horses as they roused, stamping their hooves and shaking their manes. “Good morning.”

She went to Cookie’s stall first, scratching the foal behind his ear while she emptied the bucket into his feed sack. “It’s been a while, huh? I’m sorry about that.”

After spending some time fawning over Cookie, Beth moved onto Cinnie and then Oreo, repeating her greetings and apologies each time. It was easier to talk to the horses than it was to people. Beth could—and did—believe she had the animals’ full forgiveness and support. They nipped lightly at her hair, nuzzled their snouts into her hands. She could imagine them saying things like it’s okay, we missed you, it’s not your fault.

All the things she would like to hear from her family, were she brave enough to seek such platitudes from them. Instead, she made do with the horses, lingering in the barn a little longer than strictly necessary. Feeding used to be her job; now that she was here again, she realized how much she missed it. “I’ll be back,” she promised the horses.

Glenn greeted her when she stepped back through the door and into the fenced horse pen. Though she was sure he was there to check on her, his face remained affable, and he was smiling. “Hey, Beth.”

“Hey,” she returned his greeting, falling in line beside him. “Sorry I invited myself to take over one of the chores.”

“No, it’s all good. It’s good,” he repeated, slinging an arm around her shoulders and taking her with him to the smaller barn that housed the pigs, cows, and chickens—the last only during the winter months, “seeing you out here.”

She appreciated the honesty. It was a skill Glenn had, telling the truth without any of the words being sharp. Maybe one day it would soften Maggie. Beth went with Glenn into the barn, stroking the chickens’ heads and tossing their seed to them while Glenn saw to the pigs and cows. This was even better than feeding the horses. It was like when she was with Patricia; no pressure to talk, all acceptance of her quiet presence.

Beth enjoyed it enough that she did it again the next morning, and the next. By the time a week had passed, Glenn was waiting for her downstairs. Otis very easily let Beth take his place in feeding the animals and instead began helping Maggie and Hershel with other affairs that concerned the farm.

One late morning, when Beth was still settling into this new routine, the Grimes, Dixons, Carol, and T-Dog returned to the farm. This had been happening more often. Well, all except Carol, she admitted, watching them all approach on foot. Beth was taking each of the horses for a walk around the pen, riding most, but leading Cookie. He wasn’t old enough to be ridden yet and given that following his guideline was something he wasn’t really interested in, she already knew they were going to have trouble breaking him for the saddle.

“Quit it,” she chided the horse, tugging the rope out of Cookie’s mouth for what must have been the twentieth time. He blew his breath at her, warm and muggy as it washed over her face. Then he stopped following her altogether, big, brown eyes watching her. Apparently not beyond rising to the taunts of a horse, Beth turned to face him, arms crossed. “You are the most stubborn colt I’ve ever seen.”

“You talk to the horses but not people?” A gruff voice asked behind her. Beth turned on her heel, finding Daryl Dixon on the other side of the fence, leaning an elbow on the top rail. She hadn’t realized their visitors didn’t enter the house. Over his shoulder, Beth could see Daddy leading Rick and Carl through the snow.

“Horses are better conversationalists,” she told him, swatting behind her when Cookie took the opportunity to start nibbling on her ponytail. “Y’all are here early today.”

Daryl shrugged. He was wearing a poncho, a tan thing with a black and red tribal pattern. You look like one of those western spaghetti cowboys.

Spaghetti western, Jimmy’s voice corrected her in memory. Beth found she couldn’t pull her eyes away from the garment.

“Easier to use a crossbow when your arms are free,” Daryl said, spurring her from her daze and answering a question she didn’t ask, lifting the weapon in question. She nodded and meant to turn back to Cookie only to find she had dropped the rope, and the colt had wandered across the pen away from her. You win this time, she thought at the young horse, leaving him to his own devices.

“You don’t carry a gun?” She asked, her own suddenly feeling heavy at her hip. It was one of Daddy’s rules that they never leave the house without being armed. Beth took to carrying Jimmy’s.

“Too loud,” Daryl told her. Beth nodded. Carrying Jimmy’s gun was more sentimentality than functionality for her. She hoped very much she never had cause to fire it again.

Maybe she was the one who was a bad conversationalist. Beth had run out of anything they could feasibly discuss. What happened in December lay between them, a deep crevasse of unspoken, shared horror. Daryl seemed to have fewer qualms about bridging it. “What’s your name?”

The question nearly made her laugh. Did he really not know her name? After what happened just two months ago? Maybe he was just being polite, though the idea of social niceties didn’t really fit with the rough around the edges man that stood on the other side of the fence. Still, Beth couldn’t help pausing, wondering how true the question was before she said, “Beth.”

She didn’t plan on asking his in turn, having long known without a formal introduction. A shrill shriek of surprise interrupted them, anyway. Beth turned again, this time setting her sights on the pond just in time to see Rick’s sheriff’s hat going flying off Carl’s head as the ice gave way beneath him.

“Oh!” Daryl pushed off the fence immediately, his crossbow left leaning against the fence. His poncho went fluttering as he tore it over his head and threw it behind him. “You’ll fall in, too!”

He didn’t heed her shout. Beth scrambled over the fence, nearly losing her footing on the other side. She pushed herself back up and sprinted behind Daryl, trying to land her feet in the path he had already broken in the snow. Though her lungs were on fire, she made herself keep running, until she was able to grab hold of Daryl’s flannel shirt and yank on it. “You’re too heavy.”

She stopped at the bank only long enough to take her boots off, leaving them discarded, before she began walking in only her sock feet. The ice still groaned beneath her weight, just as it had the morning she stepped onto it by accident, but she slid her feet across as quickly as she could. Maybe if she kept moving, the ice would hold long enough for her to reach the spot where Carl Grimes’ little, bone-white hand was flailing about the dark water.

There was more shouting, from Rick and Daddy, both warning her to be careful. “Down!” Daddy yelled. “Get down! Spread your weight!”

Following his instruction, she army crawled the last few feet. The water was frigid when she plunged her hand in. Carl could swim, that much was obvious, but while he kept himself afloat, panic had his arms wheeling. If he slipped beneath the ice, he would be as good as gone. Her left hand was closer to him; the water numbed her skin, but she still felt Carl cling to her. She tugged him up, Carl’s other hand finding purchase on the jagged edge of the hole his body made.

Chancing sitting up, Beth grabbed his other hand, too. She hauled him, soaked, over the edge. His hair was plastered to his skull, his face so pale that his freckles stood out like bruises along his cheeks and nose. He was crying, she was certain, but so many tiny, frigid rivers were running down his face that the tears were lost among them. “Come on,” she told him. “You go first. Look, there’s your dad, okay? Go to him, fast as you can. We can’t go together, we’ll fall back in.”

Carl gave her a pitiful nod and somehow managed to get his feet beneath him. Beth sat still, hesitant to even breathe, as Carl sprinted across the ice and flung himself into the safety of his father’s arms. Rick folded his son into him as if he were much younger, burying his face against Carl’s sopping hair.

“Now it’s your turn,” Daddy called from the edge. He stood on the bank waiting, waving her forward. Though she was half-soaked from the rescue efforts and her teeth were clacking together so hard it was a wonder they didn’t break, Beth grabbed the sheriff hat where it sat a few feet from her on the ice. She did as Carl had, returning to her feet, but she chose to skate instead of run. It was just as quick and kept her from striking the ice.

Daddy caught her at the edge, enveloping her in a hug that smelled of fear, relief, and cologne that didn’t quite hide the undercurrent of alcohol. “Thank God,” he murmured into her ear. “Thank God. I can’t lose you, too.”

Perhaps it was because she spoke it so softly, or maybe it was the fact that Carl’s scream bled over her voice, or even the adrenaline that came after, but Daryl Dixon had misheard her name. This fact came to her hours later, after she had changed clothes, after she discovered that Carl inadvertently opened a fresh cut on her arm.

Either way, once Carl had been warmed and doted over by Lori for a while, the Grimes were invited to stay the night. They were given use of the guest room and Beth was glad she had made at least some efforts to clean it. Perhaps the others would have been invited, too, had they the space. As it stood, the Dixons and Carol and T-Dog were set to return to their camp, which seemed to suit the others fine.

Beth was minding the shadows, letting Daddy and Maggie play hosts. Patricia was retrieving extra blankets from the linen closet while the others were making their goodbyes. She leaned in the doorway to the living room, not realizing that Daryl had excused himself to one of the bathrooms until he suddenly appeared behind him. “Good work today, Bess.”

Bess. Her, but not quite. Softer. Not heavily burdened like her given name. She smiled a little to herself and decided to keep it, this name that wasn’t quite right. It felt nice. “Thanks, Daryl.”

She watched him go along with the rest. It was a good choice she made, she decided, rejoining the realm of the living. Nothing was the same, and a lot of it was still confusing, and almost all of it hurt every hour of each day, but if Jimmy, Mama, Shawn, and Arnie couldn’t be here, and she could, Beth knew she had to stop wasting that. If not for herself, then for them.

They wouldn’t want her to stop, so she wouldn’t. Maybe one day she might even be lucky enough to find herself on the same page.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twelve: March, Year 1

For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide, we might have hope. Romans 15:4.

The winter was giving up her hold so that mud squished beneath Beth’s boots when she went to greet the animals each morning. Stubborn snow and ice still clung to the shadows, but all the ground touched by the sun was beginning to thaw at long last. Still, the days were feasibly chilly enough that she could continue to wear sweaters and cardigans, and for that Beth was thankful.

Since pulling Carl Grimes from the ice, she hadn’t touched her arm. The cuts were all healed and, just as she thought, it looked like she had left herself with more than a few scars there. She hoped they would fade by the time the weather turned hot again.

“Good morning,” she murmured to the pigs, scratching them between the ears after emptying her bucket of slops into their trough. Their curly-cue tails wagged in excitement at sight of their breakfast. She paused to watch them for a bit, a little smile tugging at her lips. How easy it seemed to be a pig.

Beth roused the chickens next, scattering the ground with seed. The fowl pecked at the ground and one another alike. Apparently even chickens were susceptible to cabin fever. “I’ll let y’all out later,” Beth promised. While the nights were frigid and the mornings chilly, the afternoons were warm enough for the chickens to come out and scratch about for a few hours.

Outside of the large chicken coop, the spring sun was glittering on morning dew and the last of winter’s snow. The refracted light left black spots in her vision as she took in the sight while walking back to the farmhouse.

“Good morning,” Patricia greeted her when she stepped back into the house from the mudroom. It was warm in the kitchen; she had the oven going. Beth was just about to ask why she had it running when the older woman smiled and presented her with a sweet potato muffin, a much smaller version of Otis’ beeswax candles speared into the middle. “Happy birthday!”

The calendar in her bedroom had gone neglected since Jimmy’s death, the date frozen on December 26^th. As Patricia placed the muffin in her hands and Beth blew the candle out on reflex, she realized it must be right. Today was March 10^th, her birthday. She was eighteen.

She was older than Jimmy ever would be.

“Thanks,” she told Patricia, forcing a smile onto her face even as she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying. There was no milk to be had, not yet, though there was promise in the swollen belly of one of the cows. That was okay, though. Beth had gotten used to rarely drinking anything other than water. She sat down to both at the little kitchen nook, nibbling on her muffin more out of politeness than hunger.

Inside, that hollow part of her that missed all the ones they had lost ached in time with the beating of her heart.

She and Patricia had been the only ones keeping calendars. While hers had gone neglected, Patricia’s was clearly up to date. Beth doubted anyone else would be gifting her anything today, and that was very much okay with her. Now that her birthday had come to her attention, she wanted to forget it again. Maybe she would be able to convince Maggie and Glenn to let her help agitate the soil in preparation for the spring planting. It was a thought, and a good one, but what Beth ended up doing instead was quite different. She found herself holed up in her bedroom, sitting at her desk, that soft, spring light illuminating the paper before her as she filled in her forgotten calendar.

Seventy-four days between December 26^th and March 10^th, she realized. Seventy-four days since Jimmy died.

There was an urge inside her to look back at the other dates, to count the days in total for all the losses. She would have, had already started thumbing through the pages, when a noise outside caught her attention. Looking up from her desk, Beth took in the sight of a veritable caravan arriving at the farm. All those familiar campers that were once miles away were now outside her bedroom window.

Beth took roll to herself. There were the Grimes, three dark heads—the smallest obscured by a sheriff’s hat—the tallest shaking Daddy’s hand. T-Dog and Glenn were hugging emphatically. Patricia had Carol’s hands in both of hers. Standing together at the edges were Daryl and Merle.

All accounted for, except Shane Walsh.

And that was perhaps the best birthday gift of all.

“I know I’ve said it a hundred times at this point, but thank you again,” Lori Grimes told her later that day. The big, wicker washing basket rested on Beth’s hip. Daddy had sent her out to gather the bedding of their new neighbors and share extra sets from the Greenes’ linen closets. At five months pregnant, Lori’s cheeks were flushed and dewy. She was just beginning to show. “For Carl, I mean.”

The Grimes’ bedding was heaped onto all the other sets in her basket. She traded fresh sheets and pillowcases for them. “Oh, it was nothing.”

Beth always said that when Lori thanked her, like a broken record. Each time left her feeling a little silly. Carl’s life certainly wasn’t nothing, but Beth still didn’t feel she was owed the constant gratitude. Any of them would have done the same for the boy. It was just that Beth was the lightest.

Lori smiled and placed a hand on her belly. The question she had since she watched them all arriving itched in the back of her mind. Where was Shane?

She swallowed the question back and returned her smile. “Y’all let us know if there’s anything you need, okay? Daddy said he wants everyone to feel welcome on the farm.”

Moving the survivors’ camp here made perfect sense to Beth. Lori’s pregnancy aside, which was cause enough for the Grimes family, most of them had helped to save the farm after Shane’s treachery. Though Maggie had spent most of the day watching them all warily from the porch, Beth was all too happy to be Daddy’s welcoming committee.

The campers had been set up in a neat little row, like a miniature neighborhood that sat in the open pasture between the farmhouse and the pond. Carol’s sat closest to the body of water and was the first Beth visited. She decided it made more sense to venture out and work her way back to the house with her burden of laundry. She found the woman quiet but amenable. Carol traded bedding with her and accepted Beth’s welcome to the farm, but the conversation petered out soon after.

Next was T-Dog’s, which held quite the surprise inside. “Come look at this,” he told her, beckoning her inside. Beth set her basket down on the little eating nook off to the left side and followed T-Dog through to the kitchenette. He began opening every cabinet and even the little refrigerator, which did not hum with life like the one in the farmhouse’s kitchen. “Check it out.”

Each space was filled with canned goods, like a veritable pantry on wheels. “Oh,” Beth breathed, returning T-Dog’s excited grin without a second thought about it.

“I hope you folk didn’t think we would show up here emptyhanded. Patricia said it won’t fit in the big house, to keep it out here, what with all the canning the two of you have been doing. Me and Rick, we figured these cans would buy you some time to build up the garden preserves.”

“This is amazing!” She enthused, meaning it. Oh, Mama would have been so pleased… her smile faltered a bit and, not wanting T-Dog to see and also wanting to express her gratitude, she hugged the man around the waist.

“Thank Glenn, too,” he chuckled, patting her back. “It was his idea.”

The Dixon brothers’ camper stood empty. When her knocking went unanswered, T-Dog popped his head out of the door to tell her they had gone hunting, explaining that Merle was keen to get the hang of setting traps one-handed now that spring had come and game would be plentiful. So, Beth had left two sets of clean bedding on the top step, weighed down against the spring breeze with a few rocks, and moved on to the Grimeses.

Now she hauled her washing up the back porch steps, stopping at the spot where Maggie leaned over the railing. Following her sister’s gaze, she saw Daddy, Rick, and Carl rigging up additional clotheslines. “I thought you’d be happier to see them,” she commented to Maggie.

“Neighbors are good,” her older sister shrugged. “Numbers are good.”

“They are good,” Beth asserted, nodding toward the campers.

“That Shane’s not.” Maggie took up her basket. “I’ll do this. Patricia’ll need help getting supper on, now that there’s so many to cook for.”

The rest of the sweet potato muffins Patricia baked in secret had been saved for dinner. They splurged a little that evening, setting out the last of the butter to go with them once they were warmed again in the oven. There were strawberry preserves, too, and hard-boiled eggs and canned carrots from T-Dog’s pantry. Certainly not a conventional evening meal by any means, but it was nice all the same. The house hadn’t been filled with so much noise since Christmas; it was far more bolstering than the food, hearing the flow of conversation and Daddy chuckling as he recounted a story of Carl getting tangled up in the rope they used for the clotheslines.

When Beth retired to her bedroom that night, she sat brushing her hair and looking out her window. Seeing the neat row of campers eased the old wound of missing the barn. Were it not for her memory, she never would have guessed a structure once stood there, let alone housed walkers. Winter’s snow had protected and nurtured the ground, keeping the fire from scarring the earth too deeply. Already, tender green blades of grass were budding.

It was cliché, but now that it was true spring, everything did feel new again. Beth finished brushing her hair and weaved it into a simple braid. She changed from her clothes to one of Jimmy’s t-shirts, which fell to her upper thighs, and flicked on her bedside lamp for just a moment. Not long, of course, but long enough. Her nighttime routine still involved the tender skin on the inside of her wrist and forearm, even if she no longer abused it.

Now she simply took inventory. Most were fading, but there were five that were thicker, rosier. Five that would be sticking around with her, it seemed. She ran a finger over each of them every night, staring at them under the bright light of her lamp, before going to sleep. She supposed five was a fitting number. One for Mama, one for Shawn, one for Arnie, one for Jimmy. One to grow on. Beth shook her head at that thought.

One for Sophia, she decided instead. Though she had no hand in Sophia’s ending up in the barn, Beth still felt guilty every time she looked at Carol. If this was her cross to bear, carrying the memory of the five of them etched into her skin for the rest of her life, so be it. As she laid her head down on her pillow on the night of her eighteenth birthday, she found she didn’t mind half so much as she would have thought she might.

In the morning, she went about her chores, feeling as if she needed to tread lightly as she passed the campers lest she wake their residents. But there was livestock to feed, chickens to let out into their yard, cows to check on. She hoped very much that the cow would drop her calf soon; Beth already missed butter, not to mention cheese.

She wished they had goats, too. They had recipes for both types of cheese, but goat cheese would be easier to cultivate. Goats were easier to breed, too; they used to raise them when Beth was little. Ornery beasts, Daddy always called them. Beth used to run amuck along with the kids, getting them riled up until they began headbutting her, which only made her laugh.

Her reverie was interrupted when, having finished her chores, she rounded the corner of the house and saw Glenn, Daryl, and T-Dog digging. Otis had asked her earlier to check on the bees, see if they had began to wake yet, but the three working men had Beth stopping in her tracks. “What’re y’all doing?”

Glenn froze immediately, shoulders going rigid. He half-turned toward her, guilt written all over his face. “Hershel hasn’t talked to you yet, huh?”

“No?” It didn’t make sense that they were digging here. If Maggie needed more ground tilled for the garden, they were yards away from the plots.

“Shit,” Daryl cursed, toeing his shovel into the dirt and turning to shoot an accusatory look at Glenn. He didn’t expand on this sudden burst of anger, but T-Dog did.

“No one told her?!”

“Told me what?” Beth snapped, her sharp tone only intensifying Glenn’s discomfort. He took off his baseball cap, scratching nervously at his dark hair.

“Well, you know—or I guess you don’t—anyway, but—” All at once, Glenn stopped talking and a warm hand settled on Beth’s shoulder.

“That’s enough, Glenn,” Daddy said softly from behind her. “Come on, baby. I need to tell you something.”

He led her away, tucked under his arm. Had she happened upon the men a bit later, Beth might have parsed out what was happening before she found herself in the kitchen, sitting across the table from Daddy. His face was a little sallow, admittedly, and his eyes were rimmed in red, yet she couldn’t smell any alcohol on his breath. “Beth,” he said her name so gently that it raised the hair on the back of her neck in anticipation.

“It’s something awful, isn’t it?” She wedged in her question before Daddy could keep talking. Under the edge of the table, Beth pulled her sweater sleeves over her hands, balling the fabric tight in her palms.

“It’s not a storm that hasn’t already been weathered.” Beth turned in her chair, looking out one of the kitchen windows. Glenn, Daryl, and T-Dog had returned to their digging, and the vaguely rectangular shape of their efforts made her stomach curdle.

“Daddy…” She felt small, again, a little girl frightened by the dark and the imagined monsters under her bed. Only this was much worse, because intuition told her that her fear was all too real. Her chin began to wobble, and Beth turned away from the window, rested her elbows atop the red and white checked tablecloth, and hung her head in her hands.

Reaching across the table, Daddy coaxed her into giving him both of her hands. Beth still couldn’t bring herself to raise her head. She kept it bowed as if praying against the soft, earnest words her father spoke to her. “They need resting places; I know you understand that.”

“I didn’t know,” she murmured, swallowing back her tears. “Where were they?”

“In the garden shed,” Daddy revealed. “The ground was too hard to see to it sooner.”

Beth nodded, withdrawing a hand from Daddy’s so she could swipe at her eyes as she sniffled. “No one told me.”

“I know.” He didn’t try to deny or defend it. “I know. Some of them are already buried, but our family and Carol’s daughter, they’ll be on the farm.”

Another nod. More tears she couldn’t quite keep at bay. “You can visit them.”

“That’s allowed, now?”

He didn’t react to her barb, which left Beth flushing with alternating waves of shame and anger. Instead, he simply kept stroking his thumb slowly and soothingly over her knuckles. Waiting. “Today, then?”

“Soon as they’re done digging,” he confirmed.

“Can I sit here until it’s time?”

“’Course, baby.” Beth kept hold of Daddy’s hand even as she half-turned in her chair, watching the grave digging continue. They’ll need five, she thought to herself. Glenn was digging with a fervor, his hole deeper than either T-Dog’s or Daryl’s. “We’ve only got the three shovels.”

Beth wasn’t sure if she had unconsciously spoken aloud or if Daddy had somehow siphoned the thought from her head. The morning was wearing on toward afternoon as Rick and Carl appeared to help take turns with the digging.

“Are they okay?”

“What?” Of course they aren’t okay, idiot, they’re dead.

“Mama and Shawn and… are they…?”

“They were wrapped up in shrouds after the barn fell,” Daddy explained. “The shed’s not insulated.”

Oh. Duh. They were frozen through the cold, snowy winter. Theoretically, they should be much the same as they were months ago. Maybe she could… no. You don’t wanna do that. That’s what Daryl told her on that frigid, awful day when she tried to turn Jimmy’s face from the bloodstained snow.

He was right that morning and on this one. She did not want to remember Jimmy that way. But still… “Can I… I mean, before they’re buried, can I… say goodbye?”

Daddy’s answering sigh was soul weary. “We’d better go now,” he said, nodding beyond the window. Rick was breaking ground on the final grave.

She kept her eyes forward as she followed Daddy past the grave sites, past the bees—if they were humming back to wakefulness, it was lost beneath the ringing in her ears—to the garden shed. Daddy produced a key from his pocket and Beth couldn't help thinking how silly it was to lock the dead inside.

It wasn't as if they would rise again, or as if locks had stopped Shane the first time.

Amid the spades and terracotta pots, the spare hose, rake, and shears, five tightly wrapped bundles lay in order from tallest to shortest. From Shawn to Sophia.

The cloying scent of decay was muted here. More than anything, the air smelt musty from the shed being closed up all winter. Beth stared at the shrouds, imagining the features behind the faceless shapes. Shawn's smile, Mama's kind eyes, Arnie's gentle face. Jimmy... his was the easiest to conjure, whether that was because he was the last she saw alive or because of how much time she had spent committing his face to memory, she didn't know. He had been caught between boyhood and maturing, his jaw squaring and gaining the shadow of beard stubble. For the second time in as many days, Beth thought about how he was forever frozen at seventeen, but this time the thought was all the worse with the evidence right before her.

"Can I...?" Full sentences were clearly behind her today. Thankfully, Daddy understood her without words.

"I'll be right outside."

After the shed door clicked softly shut, Beth walked around to the head end of the shrouds. She knelt before them as one might kneel to pray at an altar. In silent vigil, she sat for several long minutes, acclimating herself. What did one do in a morgue? For that is where she sat, not the familiar garden shed she used to play in as a child. Beth looked at each shroud, naming them to herself in turn.

Shawn, Jimmy, Arnie, Mama, Sophia.

All the words she didn't seem able to speak to the living were unhindered before the dead.

"I'm sorry," she said to Shawn first, "that we didn't try. I never dreamed amputation could stop it. I'm not saying I don't think Merle Dixon doesn't deserve to still be here, but I do wish it were you."

To Sophia she said, "Your mom is nice. I like her. I don't know what happened to you, and I'm sorry it did, but I'm glad you found your way here after. I just wish y'all's reunion had been different."

"I don't know what happened to you, either," Beth continued with Arnie. "And I hate that. I hope it didn't hurt, either time."

Then, to Mama, "We're good at ignoring things we don't want to see in our family, huh? I think Daddy's doing better, though."

She slipped a finger beneath her sleeve, worrying at her scars, even as she stayed silent on their existence. Dead or not, she didn't want to admit her own struggles to her mother.

When it came time to address Jimmy, she rocked back a little and simply stared down at him for several long beats. Here was where her throat tightened, heart pounding beneath her ribs. His was the only shroud she touched. First, Beth pressed her fingertips to her own lips, then to the stretch of faded fabric where she approximated Jimmy's mouth to be.

"I loved you," she whispered, nearly all shaky breath as she blinked back the fresh sting of tears. It was all she could manage to say. She sat kneeling, sucking in breaths until she was able to calm the shaking in her hands and the constriction of her throat. When she felt steady enough to walk again, she did so, finding Daddy waiting for her just as she promised.

He let her wrap her arms around his middle and press her face into his shoulder, kissing her temple as she finished collecting herself. By the time she re-emerged from the shed, the graves were ready to receive their dead. Beth stood beside Maggie at the foot end of the graves while each body was placed into the ground. She twisted her fingers and pressed them together so tight that she felt her own bones biting into each other, but she did not cry as dirt was shoveled into each grave.

Nearly a whole week would pass before she realized that, when she spoke to Jimmy for the final time, it had been in the past tense.

Perhaps because she pulled him up from under the ice or maybe because, at twelve and eighteen respectfully, they were the closest in age, Carl Grimes imprinted on Beth much the same way a duckling does. He took an interest in the farm animals she tended and began following her to and fro, asking questions all the while.

"Why aren't these chickens with the others?" He asked, peering over the edge of the fence. Carl hadn't yet learned to be soothing to the fowl. They pecked at him every time he stepped into their yard.

"Well, the funny thing with chickens is, you have to let some of the eggs be fertilized and hatch if you want to keep having chickens." She nodded at the rooster, nicknamed Bitey for entirely valid and well-earned reasons. He was mean but he got the job done. Still, Beth was glad they had a second one, a much nicer fellow on the other side of the chicken wire dividing the yard.

Carl's face flooded with a riotous blush. Beth only felt a little bad for inspiring it in him. While he idled at the gate, Beth ducked into the coop to see if any of the chickens were broody yet. There were three sitting in the hay, and when she stuck her hand beneath their warm, feathery bodies, she found more than a few eggs hiding. With any luck, they would soon have little chicks running around the yard.

"But why not just put all the chickens together?" Carl asked when she returned, attaching himself to her shadow. "Wouldn't that mean more chicks?"

"We let the younger chickens handle laying the fertilized eggs," she told him. "The older hens lay for us."

She hadn't told him, yet, but they were on a sad mission that afternoon. A few of the hens had stopped laying altogether. They would need to collect the poor old birds for butchering.

With the new residents came a new order of responsibilities. Daddy still oversaw all the happenings on the farm, but Carol had replaced Beth alongside Patricia in the kitchen. Carl helped Beth with the animals. Maggie was still queen of the gardens, with Glenn and Otis' occasional help, but Glenn's primary job was supply scouting and Otis had his bees, wax, and honey to tend.

Aside from hunting, Merle and Daryl helped T-Dog and Rick run safety patrol. The measures were all Rick's idea: shifts walking the fence line—even at night—setting noise traps outside the fence, making plans for a watchtower that would allow them to see the fields and forest surrounding the farm.

With his two capable hands and background knowledge, the younger Dixon brother was given a second job that had once fallen to Shawn and Jimmy: the butchering.

Beth had talked Daddy into saving the butchering for the afternoon. They deserve a last morning, she had said. Besides, one of them will be dinner, and fresh meat is best.

Once prepped, the other two hens would be placed in the deep freezer. A massive benefit of the farm and its generator was the longevity it provided them in stockpiling. “Come on, Carl.”

Inside the pen that housed the older hens, Beth pointed out the three they would be collecting for slaughter. She gave the most docile to Carl, a buff-colored beauty who accepted her new position cuddled in Carl’s arms easily. “Good girl,” she murmured to the hen, stroking a finger over her head. “You’ll be sweet to Carl, won’t you?”

Beth collected the other two, both white, into her arms. “You’re all good girls,” she told them, softly. “It’s not y’all’s fault.”

“What’s not their fault?” Carl asked, hurrying a little to walk beside her. There were many buildings on the farm. The garden shed, the chicken coops, the stables, the barns… and the butchering shed, which was not a place Beth made a habit of frequenting. Chickens were common slaughter on the Greene family farm, but they used to send the cows off to be processed. Beth wondered what they would do now. But she pushed those thoughts from her head for the time being and blinked away the tears she always felt when she knew she was carting an animal to their death.

“It’s butchering day,” she told Carl, not turning her head to look at him. Instead, she kept her eyes trained on Daryl, who was waiting outside the she for them.

“All three?” He asked when they were close enough, unburdening Carl first.

“Mhmm,” Beth hummed, throat too tight for words. She didn’t want to cry in front of either of them. Shawn and Jimmy used to tease her lovingly for her empathy. She had no way of knowing how her new neighbors would view this quirk of hers.

Typically, Beth didn’t linger in the butchering shed. However, Carl’s curiosity was clearly piqued when he saw the killing cone anchored to the wall and the rubber-covered plucking table. She set her chickens down in the little holding pen, covertly swiping at her eyes before coming to stand beside Carl. “Y’all gonna help?”

“Three’s a lot for one person,” Beth managed. “I’ll teach Carl to dry pluck.”

It wasn’t that she didn’t possess the skills to butcher, it was simply that Beth much preferred other aspects of farming. Still too proud to show her discomfort, she watched as Daryl stroked the hen’s head just as she had. He murmured something that sounded like ‘I’m sorry’ to the chicken as he guided her upside-down into the cone. He turned her head gently, covering her face with his palm so that she never saw the knife that spilled her life blood.

“Ew,” Carl wrinkled his little, freckled nose as the blood began to stream into the bucket positioned beneath the killing cone. Once the torrent slowed, though it had not stopped, Daryl pulled the chicken from the cone and laid it out on the rubber-covered table.

“You have to work fast,” she told Carl, already tugging at the long tail feathers. “Before the body heat’s gone.”

Though her stomach was clenched and her throat still clogged, she guided Carl in plucking the feathers loose just as her mother once had taught her. He did well with the bigger feathers but it was Beth’s own nimble fingers that did away with the finer pin feathers. With two working together, the bird was soon left naked and waiting for the rest of Daryl’s knife work.

“Y’all ever scald them?” Daryl asked, nodding to an empty vat in the corner.

“We have in the cold,” Beth told him, looking away as Daryl began to work on cleaning the meat. “But it’s warm today.”

And it was, though Beth still wore a cardigan over her t-shirt and overalls. She hadn’t even pushed up the sleeves for the plucking. Now she found herself defeathering her sweater while Carl watched Daryl work.

“Wanna learn how to dress a bird, boy?” He asked Carl. Then Beth was standing alone in her waiting. While Carl got his up close, gruesome lesson, Beth retreated to the holding pen and sat beside the chickens. She reached over the wire, letting them peck at her fingers and scratching their heads. If only she could, she would have given them a final treat of some sort, but empty stomachs were better for the butchering. Less chance of contaminating the meat.

“Why’d you tell the chicken you were sorry?” Carl asked behind her. So, Beth had heard him correctly. There was a beat of almost-silence, only the wet sounds of flesh being cut through filling the shed.

“It’s not a little thing, taking life,” Daryl finally said. “Can’t treat it like it is. If you’re not sorry for it, you got no business doing it.”

Beth smiled to herself as she continued to dote on the chickens waiting their turn. Daddy was right to let them all live here.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirteen: Early April, Year 1

See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me. Song of Solomon, 2:11-13.

By April, Beth was proven right. One early morning, she and Carl sat in the chicken yard, cradling newly hatched chicks in their hands. Carl’s was butter yellow and fluffy, hers a lighter tan. “Aren’t they cute?”

“They tickle,” he said, letting the little chick peck curiously at his fingers.

“New residents?” Daddy’s voice asked behind them. Beth turned to smile at his father. He was looking loads better lately, the sadness not so profound in his eyes. Better yet, he no longer smelled of alcohol, not even a hint of it.

“Fresh from the egg,” Beth answered, holding her chick up for his inspection. Daddy smiled softly and stroked a fingertip over the chick’s fluffy head. A few more chicks, already inspected by Carl and Beth, scratched around the yard, exploring the grass. What must it be like, Beth wondered, to be born on a balmy spring morning, the world around you sparkling and new?

Once they had made all the chicks’ acquaintances, Carl went off with Glenn and Otis to help weed the gardens. Beth continued through the animal shelters, marking tasks off her checklist as she went. She checked on the cows; still no calves. Their barn was opened so they could wander and graze the farm. The horses were likewise released, after a quick brushing for each of them. Cookie was given the quickest brushing of all considering the little colt seemed incapable of standing still. He nipped at her and pranced about, showing off until Beth gave in and laughed before opening the stable stall door. The pigs were given their slops and scratches between the ears.

Smiles were coming easier around the farm. Everyone seemed eager to pass them out, even Merle, who had committed himself to the task of creating a prosthetic of sorts for his abbreviated arm. T-Dog gave her one now as she walked through the little neighborhood back to the farmhouse. She returned it brightly, waving to him.

For the first time in a long time, Beth felt light, no weight on her shoulders.

Another smile spread across her face when she encountered Daryl sitting on the front porch, cleaning his arrows. “Hello.”

He glanced up at her with eyes as blue as the spring sky above and gave her a nod in greeting. “Done with your animals?”

“Yeah,” she answered, holding up her little basket of eggs. “All settled.”

“Wanna put some of that book learnin’ you’re always doin’ to good use?”

“How’s that?” She asked, cocking her head to the side and looking down inquisitively at him. If anything, it had been the new neighbors who had to learn the routine of life on the farm. Beth was genuinely curious what it was he meant to teach her, and she sincerely hoped it had nothing to do with the arrows he was placing into their quiver.

“Spring’s a good time for foragin’,” he explained in that gruff-yet-soft voice of his.

A smile began to spread across her face. “Out past the fence?” She asked, her heart speeding just at the thought. “I haven’t been out since… well, my cousin, Arnie, he went out one day, and he came back… dead.”

“Things have calmed down since then.” He said mildly. “Most of us go out at least once a week. We always come back.”

Beth took a moment to consider that. It wasn’t as if they would be unarmed, as Arnie foolishly had been when he left the safety of the fence. Daryl was never without his crossbow, and she both wore and knew how to operate Jimmy’s gun. “Okay,” she agreed after a beat, “but I should tell Daddy, just so he doesn’t worry if he can’t find me.”

“Alright.” Daryl made no move from the porch steps, so Beth assumed he meant to wait there for her. She slipped into the house, trying not to rush in her excitement as she headed to the kitchen, where she knew Daddy was working on drying and storing medicinal herbs. They still had a stockpile of traditional medicine, leftover from the world they used to live in, but Daddy was realistic about the fact that the medicine would either get used up or expire, and they needed to have a means to continue the stockpile.

“Daddy!” His name burst out of her in her excitement and she all but tossed her basket of eggs onto the counter. “Daryl said he would take me out with him in the woods, so I can practice with my field guide I’ve been working on.”

“Oh?” Daddy asked, white brows raising in surprise. “And you want…?”

“Yes. Please don’t worry, Daddy. Glenn, Rick, T-Dog, and Daryl all go out into the woods all the time just fine.” She echoed Daryl’s own justification. “Please, Daddy? I know you would let Maggie.”

Because he had. With Lori unable to and Patricia too fearful, Maggie had been the one to provide a female perspective and collect what she could from a list of baby supplies written by Lori. Maggie even told Beth they had only seen three walkers the entire time and that Glenn and T-Dog had done away with them so quickly, she wasn’t even frightened.

“Well.” He was surely thinking of how she had not been away from the farm in nearly a year, not since the last time she had gone into the woods with Jimmy. “If you’re sure you want to go.”

“Thank you!” She squealed, throwing her arms around Daddy’s shoulders in a quick hug. Then she collected her little journal and another basket from the living room and retraced her steps outside, smiling brightly as she met Daryl again on the steps. “Let’s go.”

Daryl was looking at her curiously, another smirk tugging at his lips, but Beth was too excited to give that any thought. He let her lead the way down the little dirt driveway, heading straight for the gate. His footfalls were so quiet behind her that she had to look over her shoulder just to make sure he was still following her. Once outside the gate, Daryl sidled up beside her. “Stay where we can see each other.”

“Right, good idea,” she agreed, dropping her voice to the same soft tone that Daryl used. He nodded to the left, and they followed the fence line until they couldn’t any longer and began moving past the farm toward the forest. Beth was overwhelmed with the irrational feeling that she was breaking a rule as she stepped into the no man’s land between the farm’s fence and the tree line.

Her heart pounded and she was suddenly filled with jittery energy. Beth took a deep breath, reminding herself that this forest was no strange land to her. She had spent many childhood days among the trees, running wild with Maggie and Shawn, long before she and Jimmy had used it as an escape into privacy.

Time away, and the world falling around her, had turned the once-familiar forest into a mystic place of danger. The twists and turns of the tree branches, flocked in tender, green leaves, seemed like the sinister arms of monsters. Birdsong, softly rustling wind, and the tune of crickets, usually innocuous, now melded together in her ears as menacing as the foreboding growl of a predator.

Only for a moment. Gripping the handle of her basket in one hand and her notebook in the other, Beth pushed those thoughts from her mind. She focused on the angel wings stitched into the back of Daryl’s vest; he had walked ahead of her when Beth’s fear left her steps faltering. Though she stayed a few paces behind him, Beth squared her shoulders and followed Daryl into the shadows cast by the trees.

It was cooler under the canopy of trees, everything prettily dappled in glittering, intermittent sunlight where it filtered through the leaves. She watched the play of the light on the black leather of Daryl’s vest, on his warm brown hair and bare arms. All the tittering birds paid no mind to these interlopers, continuing with their song, and words of wisdom from Daddy floated into her thoughts. A quiet forest is a dangerous forest.

This was not a quiet forest. This forest was the same as it had been her entire life; she was the only difference now.

Beth followed Daryl through the trees for a few yards before they came to a section of the forest particularly lush with greenery. He stopped and nodded for her to continue with a, “Take a look, Bess.”

She smiled softly to herself, ducking her head over the journal page she titled ‘Spring Foraging’. Her pages were filled with written descriptions and carefully copied illustrations, but Beth still started with something that was easy to identify: fiddlehead ferns. The tightly wound curly-cues were abundant among the low-lying shrubbery in this patch of forest. Beth pulled out her pocketknife and began slicing through the tender stalks, beheading the ferns and tossing the heads into her basket.

“Have you ever had these?” She asked, keeping her voice soft and quiet.

“Yeah.” When she flicked her eyes up at him, she found Daryl standing with his back pressed to a tree trunk, not quite looking at her. In her general direction, sure, but not at her. “Me and Merle had to find our supper more often than not in our lives.”

“Is that why you hunt?”

“Why we started,” he confirmed. “Comes in handy, now.”

“Just like the farm.” He gave a hum of agreement and they fell quiet again. Beth continued collecting fern heads until the plant she was harvesting from had a complete crop of a cut.

With Daryl standing guard, Beth didn’t feel rushed as she sat beside the remnants of the fern, flicking through her pages. There were some mushrooms sprouting up from a fallen log in the little clearing, but she wanted to make sure—completely sure—she knew what she was intending to collect. She scrutinized her copy and narrowed her eyes at the mushrooms. Then she went to sit beside the decaying log and held her journal up beside the mushrooms to better compare the drawing against them. Beth was wishing she had brought the actual almanac, which had a photograph, when a deep, throaty chuckle distracted her from her analysis.

“It’s wild oyster,” Daryl told her, nodding to the mushrooms.

“I wanted to be sure.” She felt herself bristling at his humor, though his placid face lacked the same teasing she had come to expect from her older siblings when they used to tease her. “I can’t go poisoning everyone when we’ve worked so hard to make it this far.”

“Considerate of you.”

With his confirmation, Beth went about harvesting the mushrooms, too. Maggie’s garden was just getting its toehold on the season. Being able to provide fresh, foraged food until the garden began producing left Beth feeling more useful than she typically did when she wandered about the farm entertaining Carl. Most of her tasks had been taken up by others, and while she appreciated everyone’s willingness to pitch in at the farm, she had still been feeling unmoored by all the downtime she found herself left with.

But this, the foraging… well, Daryl obviously could have done it himself, yet he had still gone out of his way to ask her along. He gave her an opportunity to be useful in a new way. “I wish we’d thought to bring fishing rods,” she lamented, sighing.

“Don’t need poles to catch fish.” Beth closed her knife and tucked it away before turning to raise an eyebrow at him.

“What, are you gonna catch them by hand?”

“It ain’t hard.” Her eyebrows shot up but, as with all things she had observed in him so far, Daryl appeared confident.

“We don’t have anywhere to put fish,” she pointed out, but Daryl only nodded at her hand.

“You got a basket.” So, she did. It wasn’t even half full, either, given how broad the woven wicker was. If she moved the mushrooms on top of the ferns, there would be ample room for some fish. Chewing on her lip, Beth counted in her head. Two fillets per fish, thirteen people…

“There’s a lot of bass in the creek, but we’d need seven of them. Think you can catch that many?”

“Sure, if you’re gonna be helpin’.” Only a moment passed before Beth nodded. “Alright, then. Let’s head over yonder to the creek.”

He peeled himself off the tree he had posted himself on while she foraged, leading the way to the creek just as he had into the forest. Beth walked beside him this time, trying and failing to make her footsteps as light and quiet as his. At the creek bank, Beth set her basket safely under a tree set far back so her bounty wouldn’t get soaked. Daryl let his quiver of arrows fall from his shoulder and went to pass it and his bow to Beth. “Oh, I don’t know how to…”

“Just gotta hold it,” he interrupted to reassure her. “Anything starts to go sideways, use your gun.”

“Okay.”

He looked around again, scanning the surrounding forest with his eyes, before squatting low on the soft, damp soil banking the stream. “Watch.”

She did, her eyes flicking between the preternatural stillness in which Daryl perched on the bank and the sunlight glinting off the surface of the creek. Whatever it was that had Daryl suddenly striking the water was lost on her eyes. Beth squealed before she could remember herself and then stood in awe when Daryl withdrew his hand with a writhing fish trapped in his fist. “How did you do that?!”

“I told you, it ain’t hard.” Rocking back on his heels, Daryl withdrew his own knife from his pocket. He cut into the fish, stilling its flopping and letting the blood drain back into the creek before passing it to her for the basket. “Put that away and I’ll teach you.”

Beth placed the fish carefully in the basket and then came to crouch beside him. She placed his crossbow between them, where he could easily reach it if need be. “You wanna watch for the bubbles,” he told her, nodding down to the water.

Obediently, she stared so hard, her eyes began to feel the strain. Yet, Beth still missed this subtle signal. Daryl did not. He plunged his hand beneath the water again and came up victorious once more.

“Do it again,” she told him. Smirking, he indulged her, but not before re-checking their surroundings. After the third fish was dispatched to the basket, Beth insisted she try. Without a thought given to what would be revealed, she pushed up the sleeves of the cardigan she wore and trained her eyes on the water, just as Daryl had.

Still, she couldn’t discern the bubbles Daryl had reassured her she would see. Instead, she had to wait for his signal before reaching beneath the creek’s surface. The water was still cold from the winter, breaking her skin into a torrent of goosebumps instantly. Her fingers brushed the scales of a fish, and she grappled for it. Of course, it wriggled, and Beth had to dig her fingers in to keep the thing within her hold, but she managed to bring it up. Unlike Daryl, who could capture the fish one-handed, Beth had to hold on with both. “Take it, take it!”

Daryl snatched the fish before she could lose her hold on it, quickly giving it the same treatment the others had. It took longer for the final three fish to be caught and dispatched to the basket, given that Daryl insisted Beth ‘pull her weight’ and catch the rest. She improved, if only marginally, still needing him to tell her when to strike, but gaining confidence in her ability to wrangle the fish from the water by hand.

Some hours had passed by the time they trekked back through the forest toward the farm. Beth’s basket was heavy in the crook of her elbow, her cardigan sleeves righted, and her steps—still too loud in comparison with Daryl’s hunter’s tread—falling in tandem with his. She didn’t mind that her clothes were damp from the unconventional fishing, not even her socks, which had become sodden when she nearly dropped one of the fish back into the creek and ended up splashing herself.

The sun was bright overhead, washing out some of the blue of the sky, and Otis’ bees were buzzing happily about the farm. She could hear Cookie whinnying from here; Carol had stopped by the horse pen, reaching over the fence to scratch at the colt’s ears.

And Beth was content, if not willing to go so far as to label herself happy, in that way that pretty spring days allow you to be. Daryl opened the gate for her and as Beth stepped through, cloaked again in the safety of the farm, she smiled at all the changes that had taken place since the winter and felt that, despite the losses, things were looking up.

Chapter Text

Chapter Fourteen: Mid-April, Year 1

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith. 1 Peter 5:8-9.

Beth felt she had become a living quilt of lost souls. She carried Jimmy’s gun and now wore the little silver heart charm he gave her on a chain around her neck. Arnie’s guitar weighed down her lap, his bound music sheets beside her on the porch step. The straw sunhat on her head had been Mama’s, and the denim jacket—worn soft over time—she wore over her spring green blouse and khaki shorts had once adorned Shawn’s shoulders.

As always, because he truly had become her little pet of a shadow, Carl was close by. Rick had set his son to the task of sharpening a set of pocketknives Glenn brought back after one of his supply run excursions. There was little that they wanted for on the farm, which meant Glenn was left to scavenge anything he thought might come of use. Carl ran the knife blades across the whetstone he held in his left hand, a soft scraping sound providing a rhythmic background as Beth tried to learn the chords on the sheet before her.

Granted, starting with Dolly Parton’s Jolene might have been a bit ambitious, but Beth already played piano. Surely some of those skills had to translate to Arnie’s guitar.

“Hey, Beth?” Carl was always asking questions as he adjusted to life on the farm. Pressing her fingers against the strings lest she forget their positioning, she turned to her younger charge. New freckles were springing up on Carl’s cheeks like the dandelions in the fields.

“Yeah?” She expected him to ask something about the knives he was working on, but she got a surprise instead.

“Are your legs supposed to be like that?” Brow furrowed, Beth leaned over the guitar to peer at her outstretched legs. They were the same pale, milky color as always—a true Irishwoman, it took a lot of sunlight for Beth to tan—and she didn’t see any concerning cuts or bruises. The only thing that caught her attention was the way the sunlight glinted off the gold-brown hairs dusting her thighs and calves.

“Carl,” she said, trying to keep both laughter and admonishment from her tone, “the dead walk around. There’s bigger things to worry about than shaving my legs.”

Even so, color began creeping up Carl’s neck to stain his ears and cheeks. Beth meant to say something kind, something that would soothe away some of the crimson in Carl’s cheeks, but Rick and Lori appeared at that moment. The former looked mad, brow heavy and mouth downturned, while the latter was pale and quiet. “All three of you, get inside,” Rick ordered, urging Lori forward.

One hand on her belly, the other reaching for Carl, Lori was quick to follow Rick’s direction. Beth was slower, more curious. “What’s going on?”

“Don’t know yet.” Rick nodded toward the door, which Lori left cracked for her, silently repeating his instruction to head indoors. There were still questions on her lips as she stood, taking Arnie’s guitar and book with her.

All the windows were open inside, letting the fresh, clean breeze blow through and sunlight spill into the farmhouse. Carol and Patricia could be heard in the kitchen; before settling down for the tasks of knife sharpening and guitar practice, Beth and Carl had picked dandelions until their fingers were stained yellow and green. This had delighted the older women, who had set about dismantling the plants into roots, leaves, and flowers, sorting the parts for various purposes. They were discussing a recipe for dandelion coffee found in one of Mama’s cookbook, and did they think Daryl might be able to find chicory in the woods, and would the omission of cinnamon really make much of a difference?

“What’s going on?” Beth asked again, this time directing the question to Lori, but she got no further than she had with Rick. Lori looked a little green in the face, and Beth doubted it had anything to do with the baby she carried. Her eyes flicked down to Carl, who had obediently returned to sharpening the knives while sitting at the coffee table, though he looked out the window all the while. Lori gave one firm shake of the head, her lips pressed in a thin line.

More truthful than Rick had been, but still refusing to state what she knew.

Beth wore a frown herself as she marched herself upstairs to return Arnie’s guitar to its case in her bedroom, tossing Mama’s sunhat on her bed as she did so. The way her braids slapped against her shoulders as she rushed back downstairs was nice, a physical representation of her frustration, which she felt she couldn’t outwardly show more than that. Not to Lori, who was clearly upset by whatever had led to Rick herding them all inside like cattle to the barn.

She took Carl’s watchful eye a step further and went into the sunroom where she had a more comprehensive view of what was going on outside. Maggie was with them—of course she was—following behind Glenn as they, along with T-Dog, seemed to be searching along the interior of the fence for some clue. Daryl, Merle, Daddy, Otis, and Rick were all beyond the fence, three of them listening as Merle spoke, motioning to something on the ground with his abbreviated arm.

But what is it? Beth asked herself, arms folded across her chest. They had been fortunate that most of the dead were still concentrated in the more urban areas that the farm sat disjointed from. That wasn’t to say they hadn’t had walkers around. Last week had been a boon; between Rick, T-Dog, Glenn, and Daryl, thirteen had been dispatched and burned.

The decision to burn them hadn’t sat well with Daddy at first. Beth agreed, her sentimental heart aching at the thought of rest being robbed from those poor souls twice, but Maggie had argued all functional points in favor of burning the nameless dead. We wouldn’t have the space, we should save the graveyard for family, if we burn the bodies far off, the smoke will distract from the fact the farm is over here.

Good points all around. Good enough to get Daddy to give his word in agreement, even if he frowned as he did so.

If not the dead, then maybe a predator? Snakes came to mind first, given that Daddy and Mama had made them all study pictures of eastern diamondback rattlesnakes and cottonmouths until they knew them on sight. But one was restricted to swamps and other watery areas, and the other… well, unless the rattlesnakes had managed to build a nest and breed without any of them taking notice, Beth didn’t see why a singular snake would cause such a stir.

Even so, more snakes flashed through her mind: coral snakes, timber rattlers, copperheads. Beth shook her head to sever that train of thought, but she tucked all the names and descriptions away with a reminder to teach Carl. Red touches yellow, you’re a dead fellow. Red touches black, you’re okay, Jack.

Snapping turtles, alligators… well, no. Those were water-based fears, too. Coyotes, wolves, strays—could she call them strays, if no one was around to care for them anymore?—either way, she hadn’t heard any canine barking, growling, or howling. Brown bears or wild hogs, maybe, both would be drawn by the scent of food between the blooming garden and the livestock.

Bouncing onto her toes, she tried in vain to see if there were any gouge marks from bear claws or hog tusks, but she was much too far away to discern such details.

Then something occurred to Beth. This stretch of fence that everyone was meticulously inspecting was almost exactly across from the part that Shane Walsh compromised in December. All the fine hairs on the back of her neck rose at this realization that surely, surely could not be mere coincidence.

Feeling as if Shane was there again, encroaching on the sunroom once more, Beth stepped quickly from the room. Perhaps she should have stayed downstairs, to help with Carl, to make sure Lori stayed calm, but that’s not what she did. She retreated upstairs again, more quietly this time, shutting herself in her bedroom to sit heavily on her bed and close her eyes. Why hadn’t she thought of Shane returning? It wasn’t as if the man was dead, only banished. Maybe a part of her had hoped he hadn’t survived the rest of the winter, a dark part of herself that she didn’t want to acknowledge. It would have been easier had Shane perished while out on his own, but that clearly wasn’t what had happened.

Beth made herself breathe slowly, in and out, focusing on filling and emptying her lungs. It was not so much the dead she feared, and certainly not the threat of nature held within the forest, but Shane, the man who had driven the nail into the coffin of the world she once knew.

She thought of what her life had become. A return to chores, rising with the sun, caring for the animals, teaching Carl to do the same. Though she hadn’t had the heart to touch her piano much yet, she had drifted to Arnie’s guitar, taking comfort in learning the chords. Some nights, she still sat on the roof, and she thought of all they had lost, and it was no longer the hot knife it once was. It still stung, to conjure any of their faces, but it was neither the debilitating pain nor the concerning numbness it had been.

It didn’t take long for Beth to decide that she wasn’t willing to lose her new life the way she had her old life.

Likewise, it didn’t take long for Patricia to ask Daryl for that longed after chicory root. Beth overheard the question as she made her way out of the house for her morning chores, smiling to herself. She knew, and suspected Daryl did, as well that chicory had begun to bloom in the pasture where the cows grazed. It was a fair-weather favorite of the docile cows, munching away at the pretty, pale blue flowers. The chicory grew beyond the fence, too, spilling into the fields beyond. There was no need to search the forest.

Before the world shifted, Patricia had never much involved herself with the goings on around the farm aside from Mama’s domain of the house. That had always been Otis’ job, not hers, so while Beth found it amusing, she wasn’t the least bit surprised Patricia didn’t realize the chicory she sought grew right under her nose.

That was where Beth found him, just beyond the fence, uprooting entire chicory plants and tossing them into a basket. She paused there just inside the gate of the cows’ fenced yard, watching him. Early as it was, and with Carl sleeping later than usual—he had been up with nightmares since the slight scare a few days ago—they were the lone waking souls out there on the slumbering farm.

Well, and the cows, one of which was nudging Beth impatiently in the shoulder. Patricia and Carol weren’t the only ones who wanted the chicory. She unlatched the gate, letting the cows exit before her. While they began munching their breakfast, Beth left them to their own devices and walked closer to the fence.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to be out past the fence on our own,” she called out to him. Everything was soft in the dawn light, including Daryl. When he raised his face to look at her, his eyes matched the chicory blooms all around him.

“It’s only a few feet,” he said after a beat. “Ain’t nothing to worry ’bout.”

“Not even Shane?”

For just a moment, a fraction of a second, Daryl paused. Then he was uprooting another chicory, taking his time to work the roots free before lifting his head again. “You heard about that?”

“No,” she admitted. “But I’m right, aren’t I?”

Daryl fixed her with another blue gaze, the rosy light gleaming on the crown of his head. Then, with a jerk of the chin, he silently bid her to join him beyond the fence. Beth nodded, throwing a look over her shoulder to check that they were still the only two milling around the farm, and hurried along the fence line to the gate. She let herself through the gate, a little thrill going through her. It still felt clandestine, stepping foot off the farm, even if her destination was mere yards away and armed with a crossbow.

They left the basket waiting among the flowers while Daryl led her to the same spot the others were inspecting a few days before. There, preserved in the dried dirt, a memory captured in the mud after a spring rain, was a footprint. Beth supposed there was no way to know for sure that the boot print belonged to Shane, it still chilled her to see it. She pulled her jacket sleeves over her hands, bunching the denim in her fists before crossing her arms tightly over her chest. “But why would he come back?”

“You wanna take anymore guesses?”

“I mean, I’m sure he’s mad about getting kicked out, but…” He’s the reason Jimmy’s dead. She couldn’t put that ache into words. Beth settled for shaking her head instead. “Rick and him were friends, right? But it’s not like he’s got family here.”

“Not yet, anyhow.” Daryl turned away from the boot tracks, heading back to the chicory, but his words had rooted Beth. Mouth agape, she looked down at the dirt, then lifted her head to the Grimes’s trailer. He can’t mean…?

“Wait!” Beth whisper-shouted, sprinting forward and taking hold of Daryl’s wrist to still him. “Are you saying that Lori Grimes’s baby isn’t Rick’s?”

“I guess people think the world endin’ is a good time as any to do something stupid,” he shrugged, pulling away from her, not unkindly.

Beth sat with this information a moment, feeling like the ground beneath her was no longer as stable as it had been moments before. A few things started clicking into place: Shane’s hanging around Lori and Carl was no longer the sign of a good friendship, the cold, calculating look in his eyes when he was near Rick, his interest in the farm, his distrust of its residents.

“Bess,” her slightly-off name came to her in a tone of voice that made it clear Daryl had said it more than once. He was deep in the chicory again, watching her. “You gonna help?”

“Oh, um, yeah.” She reached into her pocket for her foraging knife. On wooden legs, she waded into the thick of the little, blue flowers and began working a plant free just a few feet from Daryl. After a few moments of companionable quiet filled only with early morning birdsong, she couldn’t help asking, “No one’s, like, concerned that Lori had an affair?”

“That’s Officer Smiley’s business, not mine.”

Something about the nonchalance of his comment struck Beth. She laughed despite the fact none of it was funny, smothering her humor in the palm of her hand. Daryl quirked an eyebrow at her in silent question.

“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s not funny.”

“You’re laughin’ a lot for somethin’ that’s not funny.” A little smile tugged at the corner of his own lips.

“It’s not,” Beth asserted. She turned back to the chicory, forcing away her other giggles. “Does Rick know you call him Officer Smiley?”

“I don’t, Merle does. To his face, so, yeah, he knows.” Beth shook her head, pulling a chicory plant free of the earth and giving it a shake to dislodge the excess soil. It went sailing from her hand to land among the mess of leaves, flowers, and roots quickly filling the basket. They worked quietly as the sun continued to rise, strengthening in light and warmth. The sun kissed the crown of her head and back, almost making her sleepy as she lost herself in the monotonous rhythm of harvesting. When Daryl spoke again, she gave a little start, accidentally slicing through a knobby limb of root. “You shouldn’t go wanderin’ around for a while. Not until we can suss out what Shane’s gonna do.”

The burning barn filled her memory. Without asking, she knew it wasn’t a possibility but an eventuality. Shane would do something, but what, they didn’t yet know.

While such an instruction coming from anyone else would have smarted, she found she didn’t mind it from Daryl. Maybe it had something to do with the genuine concern she saw in his eyes, heard in his voice. “He’s been hanging around the farm again, huh?”

“Pretty sure,” Daryl confirmed for her. He nodded to Jimmy’s gun, holstered at her hip. “You see him, ain’t a question, you shoot. Don’t gotta kill him, but you know how far he’s willin’ to go.”

And had such a blatant reference to Jimmy’s death come from anyone else, she likely would have spiraled back into the dark shadows that still haunted the edges of her mind. Instead, she merely nodded, a moment of understanding passing between them. “Okay.”

He nodded and the topic, along with all conversation, was dropped. They worked quietly together, filling Daryl’s basket to the brim with the chicory. By the time they finished, Beth’s nails were rimmed in dark, spring soil and her palms felt gritty with it. She rubbed her hands together to dislodge it, falling into easy step next to Daryl as they returned to the safety of the fence.

All the reassurance of the daylight hours faded with the coming night. After dinner, she played cards with Glenn, Maggie, and T-Dog in the living room, and that was alright, but once Beth returned to her bedroom, that old, worn anxiety began to set in again. It clenched around her heart, radiated upward to rattle her mind, and downward to curdle her stomach.

For the first time in quite a while, Beth opened her bedroom window and scrambled out. The night air was soft, the sky heavy with glittering stars. A breeze washed over her cheeks and Beth turned her face into it. breathing deeply, inhaling that gentleness into herself.

Sitting there on her favorite patch of roof, she drew her knees into her chest and rested her chin on top. Down below, T-Dog spotted her and gave Beth a friendly wave. His smile flashed in the starlight; there was a dark, new moon hanging in the sky. Beth returned the wave and watched him walk home, breathing a sigh of relief when T-Dog was safely shut into his camper for the night.

The Grimes’ camper was dark, all its residence turned in, it seemed. A soft, candlelight glow emanated behind the curtains of the camper shared by the Dixon brothers. Maybe Merle was working on his prosthetic. It had become a game around the farm to guess what he would top it with. He rebuked the idea of a hook, which would have been, well, practical. Glenn had joked he might as well figure out a way to mount a gun there, which led to Merle to go uncharacteristically quiet as he gave it genuine consideration.

Privately, Beth thought a knife made the most sense. They had a surplus of them, freshly sharpened, thanks to a combination of scavenging and Carl’s efforts.

Whatever T-Dog was doing to prepare for bed, his windows remained dark, but Carol’s was lit. Her silhouette was stamped on the curtains, a book, it seemed, in her hands. It created a pattern: dark, light, dark, light. Down the line of the roof, Maggie’s bedroom was dark. Beth didn’t entertain what she and Glenn might be doing in there; she could hear it, some nights, no need to imagine it.  

Below her, that same soft, candlelight glow spilled onto the boards of the porch. Daddy was still awake downstairs, probably looking through the old family photo albums. Beth caught him doing that, at night, a few times when she was unable to sleep and she went creeping around the house instead, trying to dispel some of her energy. Maybe one day she would find the gumption within her to do the same, but for now, the thought of seeing Mama, Shawn, Artie, or—worst of all—Jimmy, in sharp detail rather than the faded, love-worn lens of memory, was a knife to her heart.

It was easier and safer to sit on the roof with Jimmy’s unseen ghost, pulling comfort from the imagined spirit beside her.

Chapter Text

Chapter Fifteen: Late April, Year 1

Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper. 2 Chronicles, 20:20.

“Daddy?” Beth poked her head around the door, smiling when she saw her father sitting at his desk. The afternoon sunlight slanted right over him, giving a soft, golden hue to his white hair. It was growing shaggy, like Carl’s, Glenn’s, and Daryl’s. Her whole life, her father had been clean-shaven, but now a snowy beard and mustache had grown in.

“Hi, baby,” he greeted her, setting aside the book he was reading. It was a medical journal on childbirth. They had been fortunate in that Daddy’s skills at a veterinarian hadn’t yet needed translation into human needs further than basic first aid, but that would soon no longer be the case.

Lori Grimes was six months pregnant and seemed to be growing by the day. Many foals and calves had been brought forth by Daddy’s hands, but no human babies. That would change come mid-July, give or take.

“Funny,” she tapped the journal’s cover. “I was just coming to tell you, the calf’s finally coming.”

“Well,” Daddy said, eyebrows raising as he pushed himself up from his desk, “sounds like we’ve got some work to do, huh?”

“I’ll go change.” She hardly wanted the mess of birth on the sundress and knit cardigan she wore. A ratty pair of sweats and an old flannel was more appropriate, along with her rubber rainboots and the thick gloves she pulled on as she walked into the barn behind daddy a few minutes later. They didn’t have long to wait, as they had with Cookie. The little calf slipped into the world within ten minutes of their arrival.

“Heifer or bull?” She asked Daddy, scratching the mother’s head as he checked over both her and the calf.

“Bull, thank God.” They had only ever kept heifers on the farm; any bulls born were sold once old enough. Daddy and Otis had impregnated this cow last June, through artificial insemination. There were three more vials, stored in liquid nitrogen cannisters in the deep freezer.

“Are y’all going to do another?” Beth asked, smiling at the little, ruddy calf as it experimented with putting his legs under him.

“Might as well. Glenn hasn’t brought us home a bull yet.” With mother and calf deemed healthy, Daddy stepped back. The cow went about cleaning her calf while he found his footing and began rooting beneath her for an udder. “If we can get another bull, we’ll be able to diversify the herd, if we’re careful.”

Beth nodded, retreating from the barn with Daddy. Their herd was a small one, only six cows—seven, before the one they lost to walkers. Though Daddy was hardly a superstitious man, he inherited the habit of keeping seven cows from his father. If they meant to breed their herd for beef and dairy use, though, those numbers would need to increase. “He’s going to be a busy bull in a year, huh?”

“With any luck, he’ll be a father to four before he’s two years old.”

While Daddy headed back to the house, set on creating a registry of sorts to eventually track the family tree of the herd, Beth hung around. They didn’t often have calves or foals on the farm. Chicks and piglets were a dime a dozen to her, but calves and foals held a special place in her heart. She lingered at the fence, waiting for the newest member of the herd to fill his belly and begin exploring the world. Standing on the lowest rung, she leaned on the top patiently, her chin pillowed in her palm.

“What are you doing?” Carl asked, appearing beside her. Ever taking his lead from her, he was quick to scramble up beside her, leaning over the top of the fence.

“Waiting,” she said. “A calf was born today.”

“Oh. Cool.” Whether Carl really thought the concept of a calf was interesting, Beth wasn’t certain. Either way, he waited there with her. To her surprise, Merle joined them, leaning on the fence with his forearms resting on top.

“What’re we waiting for?” He asked in a stage whisper. Merle was humorous, somehow more talkative and rougher than his brother.

“A baby cow,” Carl supplied for him, echoing what he had been told, “Beth said it was born today.”

“Everything around this farm seems to be droppin’ babies.” There was a hint of bitterness in Merle’s tone. Clearly, he was not as unbothered by ‘Officer Smiley’s’ business as Daryl. “The chicks, that foal, this calf…”

He let it drift off. Carl, young as he was, remained unaware of his implication. Beth leaned on the fence, peering past the boy to fix Merle with a hard look. Rather than attempt to scold him, though, she merely corrected, while mimicking his tone, “That foal is nearly a year old, he was born before we knew about y’all.”

Merle barked a laugh at her impetuousness, dour face transforming into an appreciative grin. “Well, excuse me, Miss Greene.”

Just then, the red calf appeared, still a little wobbly on his new legs, trailing behind his mother. He had been licked clean, his fur standing up in random tufts. Beth smiled at him. “Every time we get a calf, I always think about this one poem, about a two-headed one.”

“A two-headed calf?” Carl asked, pert little nose crinkling so that his ample freckles bumped into each other. “Are those real?”

“I’ve never seen one,” Beth admitted. “But my mom read me the poem when I was little.”

Just as she remembered song lyrics with ease, The Two-Headed Calf was likewise imprinted on her memory. She quoted it softly for Carl, so as not to spook the new addition to the farm. “Tomorrow when the farm boys find this freak of nature, they will wrap his body in newspaper and carry him to the museum. But tonight he is alive and in the north field with his mother. It is a perfect summer evening: the moon rising over the orchard, the wind in the grass. And as he stares into the sky, there are twice as many stars as usual.”

The three of them were quiet for a moment and then, quite bluntly, Merle commented, “That’s some depressin’ shit.”

A surprised laugh bubbled up in Beth’s throat, both at Merle’s words and the wide-eyed, shocked expression Carl gave her. “Yeah, I guess it is. But it’s kind of sweet, too.”

“If you say so.” Merle raised his eyebrows as if questioning her sanity.

“No, think about it. The calf only had one night, but it was a perfect one. He never knew want or pain. Just a summer breeze and a sky full of stars.”

Carl canted his head to the side, considering, and Merle looked as if he was going to speak again, but he was interrupted by a dim shout. All three turned swiftly from the fence, Beth’s heart racing in fear that Shane had appeared, but it was a very different man attempting to get someone’s attention beyond the fence.

Still, neither she nor Merle relaxed. They both had a hand on their guns, and Beth had a fleeting concern over Merle’s ability to shoot lefthanded. “Go find your mom,” she instructed Carl.

He looked a tad bit wounded over being sent away. “Aren’t you coming?”

“I have a gun,” she reminded him gently, “and your mom will need someone to help keep her and the baby safe. So, go.”

He nodded, sprinting off, while Beth let Merle step forward ahead of her. Others had taken notice; T-Dog was leading the way with Rick, approaching the man, who had his hands raised to show he was unarmed. Daryl, Glenn, and Maggie crept behind them.

Otis and Daddy appeared on the porch. Beth made sure not to give them more than a fleeting glance, to avoid Daddy trying to catch her attention and call her inside just as she had sent Carl. Instead, she swept her gaze over and around the man.

“I’m alone,” he was saying, voice drifting to them on the breeze as she followed Merle closer, and it seemed he was telling the truth. “Not a thing on me. I’ll show you my pockets, if you want.”

“Who are you?” Rick asked, voice both firm and beseeching. As Beth came to stand closer to Maggie and Glenn, she wondered if this was the same tone he used when he was a police officer.

“Name’s Dale Horvath,” the man enunciated slowly, as if he truly were giving his information to law enforcement. “I don’t mean to cause a ruckus. Any of you happened to be named Rick Grimes?”

By that time, Daddy had come out to join them. He stepped around the members of this loosely configured congregation until he was up at the front, ahead of Rick himself, whose jaw had gone so tight a vein was ticking in it. “What business would you have with Rick, Mr. Horvath?”

“Not the prettiest,” Dale admitted, arms still raised in a show of innocence. “This is the Greene Farm, isn’t it? I’ve got the right place?”

There was a tense pause. A glance passed between Daddy and Rick before the former spoke again, voice gone quieter yet harder, “How do you know that?”

“Well, Shane never shuts the hell up about either the farm or this Rick fellow.” Though it was surely clear to Dale that, yes, he indeed had the right place, and that one of the number standing before him must surely be the Rick Grimes he sought, Dale made no other petition to be allowed access to the farm. He waited patiently, only asking if he might lower his arms before they grew too tired.

Dale Horvath had a thin, long nose, with close-set, honest brown eyes, a gray and white beard, and a reassuring sense of self-conviction. He wore a tired, khaki bucket hat, like a fisherman might, and a sun-faded, short-sleeve button-up open over a dingy white tank top. Most importantly, though, Dale Horvath, sitting on the front porch with a sweating glass of water in his hand, brought them news of Shane.

“He showed up in our camp in the dead of winter,” Dale explained, smiling his thanks to Patricia for the bit of toast and jam she offered him. “Said he was ousted from his last group.”

When he paused, Daddy and Rick nodded in tandem. “That’s the truth,” Daddy confirmed. “Shane was asked to leave after causing us considerable trouble.”

Nodding, Dale took a sip of his water. “I’ve got an RV a few miles outside of Atlanta,” he explained. “Picked up a pair of sisters when the city fell. Andrea and Amy are good girls, but they’ve bought Shane’s story, hook, line, sinker. I feel responsible for these girls, see. Shane’s story has never sat right with me. The more he’s talked about it, the more I felt I needed to find this group he came from, get their side of things.”

Once Dale had been given entrance to the farm, all—save for Carl and Lori, still secreted away in their camper—had come to the porch to hear what the newcomer had to say. Now, though, another look was exchanged between Daddy and Rick. The former nodded, the latter stood.

“Come inside,” Rick invited Dale, waving a hand for him to follow Daddy. Then he turned on his heel. “Daryl?”

After peeling himself off the railing around the porch, Daryl came close for Rick to speak softly to him. He nodded silently at the hushed words while Merle scoffed a few feet away. Before Daddy disappeared into the house, he reminded them all, “Company’s exciting, but we’ve still got a farm to run.”

It was a gentle reminder not to be nosy. Feeling a bit admonished, though she hadn’t done anything the others hadn’t, Beth nodded. She had stalls to muck, especially in the cow barn, remembering the bed of hay stained with amniotic fluid and blood.

Everyone branched off from each other: Maggie and Glenn to the gardens, Merle tagging along with Otis to tend the bees, T-Dog offering to help Beth finish up with the animals, Patricia and Carol retreating to the house, Daryl making a beeline for the Grimes’ camper now that Dale had been taken inside.

“Thanks for the help,” Beth said to T-Dog as she led him toward the cows.

“No problem,” he told her with one of his frequent, easy smiles. “It’s a lot of work for one person.”

She usually had Carl’s help, but she had a suspicion she wouldn’t see him until Dale left the farm. Daryl had already slipped inside the camper and all the curtains were pulled down.

T-Dog made more mess than he cleaned, a bit clumsy with his shovel, but he was good company. She recounted news of the calf while he listened, rattling off the number of new chicks that had hatched as well. That easy, genial smile never leaving his face. They worked their way through cow and horse stalls, and they were taking turns cranking up bucketfuls of water for the troughs, when T-Dog spoke.

“I’ve been meaning to apologize to you for a few months now,” he told her softly.

“Oh?” Beth asked, peeking up at him while she turned the well’s handle. “For what?”

“When Shane burned that barn, and the walkers came out… well, I’m certain I was responsible for putting down a few of your family members.”

“Oh,” she said again, arm stilling. “Th-that’s okay. You didn’t hurt them.”

T-Dog took the crank from her, gently removing her hand, and began the work of finishing her turn for her. “Still,” he insisted, “I wanted you to know I was sorry for it all.”

She nodded, watching the bucket rise from the shadows of the well. “Thank you.”

“No, thank you. You and your people have been more generous than we deserve, considering we brought the Judas to your doorstep.” He carried the bucket to the chicken coop, pouring it into their trough.

“Shane being Judas?”

He nodded solemnly. “Of course. He betrayed Rick’s friendship, and he betrayed your daddy’s hospitality. Didn’t even get any silver for it, let alone thirty pieces.”

Beth digested this comparison for a moment before nodding. It fit. “He didn’t get Lori or Carl, either.”

“No, and he doesn’t deserve to.”

Dinner had become a whole farm affair. Though the invitation had been extended to Dale, he didn’t stay for the night. The air was somber around the dinner table, evening light softening the edges of the cagey glances that were tossed around its occupants. At the end of the meal, Daddy suggested Beth play piano for their guest before he was sent on his way in the twilight.

She wondered, briefly, if Daddy realized she had hardly touched the piano since Christmas. Regardless, she went obediently to her bench, choosing Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. It was a joyful song, though the evening had not been, and she figured all of them, Dale included, could do with a little uplifting just then. The name of the piece translated to ‘a little night music’, or so the italicized words beneath the title on her sheet music claimed. It seemed appropriate to play as the day gave way to night.

After Dale left, Daddy called them all back into the dining room. They retook their seats from dinner. The candlelight accentuated the lines on Daddy’s face, throwing them into sharp relief, making him look utterly exhausted.

“I think we can all agree we’ve got some trouble coming our way.”

“Nothin’ more than a self-important dick and a couple of brainwashed broads.” Merle scratched casually behind his ear with his stump of an arm.

“The self-important dick figured out how to get on our farm and burned our barn. You’re lucky to only be missing a hand,” Maggie shot back. This fierceness was nothing new to Beth; she always knew how hot her sister could run. Merle, however, looked briefly gob smacked before he schooled his features back into their usual, hard mask.

Glenn laid a hand on Maggie’s shoulder and squeezed.

“We need more eyes on patrol,” Rick decided. “Anyone who’s able should be put on rotation.” Which, of course, only discounted Lori and Carl. Beth looked from Rick to Daddy. She could practically see the arguments forming in his mind. Not his girls, not his daughters. The only family he had left. But, no; Maggie had been out with Glenn. How was that any less dangerous than patrol? Beth, though… what would Daddy argue? That she was too young? She felt weary past her eighteen years. Or perhaps too inexperienced? But she had been taught to shoot as a little girl, same as her siblings. A gun was a tool on a farm, same as a pocketknife or a rake.

None of these potential arguments were made. Instead, Daddy nearly nodded and said, “I’ll make a schedule.”

Come morning, Beth found said schedule tacked to Daddy’s office door. Patricia and Otis were paired together, from eight a.m. to ten a.m. Daryl and T-Dog relieved them for their two-hour turn, ending at noon. Then Daddy and Merle until two. Rick and Glenn were scheduled from two to four. Maggie and Carol took over until six. The six to eight block was given to herself and Daryl; Rick and Glenn took over again from eight to ten; T-Dog and Daddy from ten to midnight. Maggie got to come back out again, with Otis. At two a.m., Daryl was out again, with Merle.

Rick and T-Dog, who did not have any set morning chores, were double-booked in the block of time between four and eight a.m.

It wasn’t lost on Beth that her name only appeared once, and at a time of day where she doubted an attack would be mounted, but she was thrilled to see her name on the rotation schedule once. The fact she got to spend the two hours on patrol with Daryl’s innate, quiet company seemed extra fortuitous.

Chapter Text

Chapter Sixteen: May, Year 2

Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. Mark 13:33.

Three weeks in and the patrols had—blessedly—amounted to nothing. None of the farm residents had seen hide nor hair of Dale Horvath again. They were all simply living on his promise to first try to dissuade Shane from his fantasies of revenge and, should he fail in that, warning the farm of Shane’s coming.

On their first evening patrol together, after they had walked a few laps around the inner perimeter of the fence, Daryl casually said, “Didn’t know you could play piano.”          

“Learned when I was little,” she told him. It was easy to fall into Daryl’s speech patterns when one was talking to him. Both the Dixon brothers spoke in abbreviated sentences, cutting straight to the point with every word they spoke. Merle could be goaded into rambling conversation, sure, but not Daryl.

“Didn’t know I was callin’ you the wrong name, either.”

Caught out, Beth laughed. “I know. I like Bess, though.”

“Alright.” Daryl looked over top of her head, scanning the land beyond with his eyes, a little smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Bess.”

Her answering smile crinkled her eyes so that the golden, sunset glow around them limned everything in blurred beauty.

"I'm just not sure I could ever," Beth told Daryl on another one of their evening patrols. The sun had just slid fully below the horizon, the last of its artistry staining the sky pink and violet. "Shoot someone to kill, you know?"

He was quiet beside her for a much longer stretch than she was used to. Daryl wasn’t much of a talker, and she pulled the weight of their conversations, but he still contributed. Looking away from the smudged, dark shadows of the trees, she turned to find Daryl's brow knit and his mouth bowed downward in a frown. "Bess."

She was entirely confused by his confusion. Beth was referencing their conversation harvesting the chicory, how he had told her to shoot Shane first, and ask questions later. Had he had a change of heart since then? "What?"

"You have shot to kill," he said, very softly. Now it was her brow that furrowed.

"No, I—" Would never. Except she had. Jimmy had been too weak from blood loss to raise that gun on his own, to pull the trigger. It was her hand that helped complete the act, yet the full context of what she had done never occurred to her until Daryl said it aloud. "Oh, God."

Pressing a palm flat to her sternum, which suddenly felt rather fragile, as if her whole rib cage might shatter, Beth stopped her patrol. I killed him. She had said those words to Daryl herself, though she hadn't meant her hand on the gun. It was the walker bite she referred to, blaming herself for this misfortune of fate. Now, though, she saw that her part had been twofold.

"I have," she confessed, a tear slipping free before she could blink it away. It fell unhindered, rolling down her cheek and dripping from her chin. Her eyes found Daryl's face. In the pale starlight, he looked as treacherous as she felt. "I did."

"It doesn't make you bad," he told her. "I told you then, and I meant it, you did him a mercy."

"A mercy," she repeated, unable to find words of her own, grappling for his instead. Somewhere, a cricket struck up a song, throwing its thin, lonesome music into the night.

"Walkers are worse than death. You saved him from that."

"... yeah." Finally, a word of her own. "I didn't..." Mean to? Yes, she did. "I didn't want to."

"Most people don't."

Another cricket joined the first. A duet. Beth nodded her head again. With a light hand, nothing more than fingertips gently pressing into the small of her back, he coaxed her into falling into step beside him again. The crickets and the quiet, low hum of the fence were the only noises for a while as they finished their perimeter lap.

When Daryl’s hand fell away, Beth felt chilled, though the night was muggy and too warm. Dark gray clouds blotted out the stars at the edges of the horizon.

"Does Carl know?" She asked, because she desperately needed the subject to change, and she was genuinely curious, anyway. "About the baby...?"

"Nah," Daryl shook his head. "Not an easy conversation to have with a kid."

"No, I guess not." How did you tell your child that their little sibling’s father was not the same as their own? Beth couldn’t hold it against Lori for shielding Carl from that unpleasant truth. “There’s only two months before, you know…”

Her feet worked fine again but it seemed her head and mouth were still lagging behind.

“Figure that’s when we’ll see Shane,” Daryl confided in her. “Never thought much of him, but I’m pretty sure he knows how to count.”

Beth laughed a little despite herself, surprised at the sudden quip, spoken so plainly she might have missed it if she hadn’t been paying attention. It went a long way in easing the remnants of the shock of realization and the subsequent guilt. Beth knew herself too well to think this would be the end of her revisiting and mulling over that December day, but she was so grateful for the reprieve that she confessed to Daryl, “I’m glad you’re my watch duty partner.”

“I just don’t get it,” Maggie said to Beth a few days later when she joined her sister in the garden to harvest green peas for dinner. “I mean, what’s his obsession?”

Shane had been the topic of almost every conversation on the farm since Dale Horvath’s visit. Well, every conversation that took place outside of the earshot of any of the Grimes family members. That was becoming an obsession that rivalled Shane’s.

“I don’t know,” Beth couldn’t help snapping just as the peas did from the vine, “I guess your affair baby is a pretty good motivator.”

“What?!” Maggie’s head whipped around, chestnut colored hair swinging around her face. Beth had always loved the richness of her sister’s hair, so much more substantial than her own pale blonde. “Beth, you can’t just say things like that.”

She bristled immediately, years of chastisement from her older siblings swimming up in memory and compounding in her muscles. “I’m not just saying it,” she retorted, tone stiff as her spine, “it’s true.”

Beth had assumed the truth about Lori’s pregnancy was common knowledge among the group, aside from Carl, of course. Surely Glenn must know, wouldn’t he? If he did, he clearly hadn’t confided the same information in Maggie that Daryl had in Beth. “How would you know that?”

“Daryl told me.” Beth was proud of the way her voice stayed steady, no hint of the tears that pricked at the back of her eyes. Once, Mama had told her, ‘the body keeps the score’. This humid, too-hot May was certainly proving her words true. “You can ask him if you don’t believe me.”

Doubt was still evident in Maggie’s eyes. Deciding she wouldn’t entertain it any longer, Beth turned away, putting her full focus on collecting the ripest peas. She picked more than necessary, per Patricia’s instructions. Regardless of who fathered Lori’s baby, Patricia was already mashing, jarring, and putting back portions of vegetables and fruits for the baby food they would eventually need.

Maggie neither left the garden nor pressed Beth for more information. A tense silence overtook the garden instead, the sisters rushing through their task. Beth didn’t hear anything from Maggie again until that night.

Usually, when Beth could hear Maggie and Glenn through their shared wall, it was a very different activity she was unwillingly listening to. When that happened, Beth would pull her pillow over her head and press it close to her ear, blocking out muffled sighs, muted moans, and the subtle thunk of a headboard bumping against a wall. Tonight, though, Beth pressed her ear to the wall, trying and failing to make out distinct words.

Maggie’s tone was raised, sharp. Poor Glenn. Beth knew how those needle-sharp words stung when Maggie decided to dole them out. Sorry.

Glenn sounded apologetic, conciliatory. Very fitting considering all his friendly smiles and the way he was always willing to help out in any way he could.

It wasn’t a long argument. Glenn was good at conflict resolution; the evidence lay in the way Maggie’s voice softened and became even more unintelligible. Though Beth didn’t spend a long time with her ear pressed to the wall, she did spend quite a bit of time lying awake after the argument petered out. Her eyes made nonsensical shapes in the dark as she stared up at the ceiling, thinking.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have told. Was it supposed to be a secret? Daryl didn’t say it was. Did Daddy know? If he didn’t, and he found out, would he be upset? Would he treat the Grimeses any differently? A consensus had past across the farm that they should close in and protect, especially Carl and Lori and the baby.

It was too hot in her bedroom, even with the window cracked open. Beth kicked off her blankets but it didn’t help. Though she only wore one of Jimmy’s t-shirts, large enough on her that it fell to her mid-thighs, she still opened her window further and scrambled onto the roof. There wasn’t much of a breeze, and it blew stifled and too warm, but it was still a reprieve. Beth wound her loose hair around her hand and lifted it off her neck. It felt nice on her bare legs. God, but she wished it would just rain.

T-Dog and Daddy were on patrol, but they weren’t the only movement on the farm. While their figures walked in tandem along the fence line, another person walked toward the cow barn. Beth had to squint her eyes a bit to determine it must be Carol—the short, gray hair was a silvery beacon in the night, but the shoulders were narrow, both arms the same length.

The quiet, reserved woman was a bit of enigma to Beth. Understandably, Carol had been rocked by the death of her daughter. Beth had been in the same dark place, marooned on her own island of grief, yet it had never occurred to her to seek Carol out. That wasn’t to say that she didn’t have a good opinion of Carol, only that she noticed that she tended to keep to herself. T-Dog was the one that seemed to spend the most time with Carol.

The cows were usually given free reign to graze and sleep where they wanted in fair weather but given the threat of Shane lurking in the shadows, they had been confined to their penned yard at night. From her perch on the roof, Beth watched Carol approach the fence. She leaned against it, seeming to watch the cows as they slumbered.

A spark of kinship fizzled through Beth at the sight. How often had she found comfort in the farm animals when she was feeling down? Tucking her knees beneath her oversized shirt, Beth smiled softly at Carol, hoping she found the solace she was looking for before turning her gaze away to give the older woman her privacy. She turned to peer into the darkness beyond the farm.

That darkness had always been there. When she was a little girl, she was convinced that monsters hid there beyond the fence. As she grew older, she understood that while wildlife weren’t monsters, that didn’t make them any less dangerous. It wasn’t deer or bobcats or the odd black bear that worried Beth now. The faceless, nameless, amorphous monsters of her girlhood imagination had characteristics now. Dark hair, a heavy nose, eyes that glittered yet held no warmth. Now she could pin a name to the ghoul she feared encountering: Shane.

When a shout rang out, his was the face that filled her mind’s eye. But when Beth turned, heart pounding, to the source—T-Dog—she saw it was no living person. Even at this distance, with the pale light afforded by the moon and stars, she could discern the jerky movements, the shuffling feet. The walker answered T-Dog’s call, snarling, pivoting in a pitifully slow way toward him. Before the walker could connect with the electric fence, which wouldn’t have killed it anyway, T-Dog drove the sharp end of the wooden spear he carried during patrols straight through its head.

Suddenly weightless, the walker crumpled to the ground. T-Dog wouldn’t chance retrieving his spear until the morning, Beth knew, not with the added risk of living predators that could be lying in wait. She prayed, earnestly, that T-Dog and Daddy wouldn’t encounter another one during their patrol shift. The noise traps that had been strung up in the trees went a long way in confusing and disorienting the walkers, a surprisingly effective deterrent. Most became distracted and wandered right past the bounty of the farm.

Of course, like all else in life, the plan was not infallible. Beth remained on the roof, watching Daddy and T-Dog make their rounds until their two hours were up and Maggie and Otis materialized from the night to relieve them. Only then did she crawl back through the window and return to bed, still not bothering to pull a blanket up around herself.

It was quiet now, both in her room and Maggie’s next door. Glenn didn’t snore. She liked that about him.

Beth slept, but lightly. The hours between midnight and dawn really weren’t so long. Morning light and birdsong woke her, given that her window was still open. The day was swathed in heavy, gray clouds. Maybe the rain is finally coming. While the world woke, Beth pulled on a worn pair of denim shorts and a pink tank top. Unfortunately, the pastel shade of her shirt was the same hue as the scars on her wrist. Despite the pervasive humidity, she pulled on a cardigan to hide them before finding socks and lacing up her boots.

She brushed her hair up and tied it into a ponytail before heading from the house for her chores. Carl was already up, too, waiting for her in the living room. “Wanna learn how to milk a cow today?”

“Really?” Carl asked, excitement lighting his face. He had been watching Beth milk the heifer every morning for a few weeks now. The process intrigued him, as she knew it would, but Beth had insisted that Carl spend those weeks observing also petting the cow and talking to her, so she would become familiar with him before she set him on the stool.

“Really,” Beth returned before cautioning, “but if she gets antsy, we’re switching. It’s no fun getting kicked by a cow.”

He was still all energy as they headed out the front door and down the porch steps. T-Dog’s walker had turned to three; Daryl, Glenn, and Rick were each hauling one away from different sections of the fence to be loaded into a wheelbarrow. Beth didn’t know where the burning site was but there was no doubt that they would see the dark smoke smudging the sky by midday.

Carl didn’t take much notice of the walkers, but the sight made the fine hairs on the back of Beth’s neck rise. Three in one night… well, that wasn’t typical.

There’s probably not a lot of living people left in Atlanta, she tried to tell herself. Walkers have to eat.

She was glad for the distraction of the milking. Carl struggled at first, worried about hurting the cow even though Beth reassured him that he could do no worse tugging on her udders than her calf did. It took twice as long as usual but Carl managed to fill the bucket with warm, frothy milk.

“Why can’t we drink it when it’s fresh?” Carl asked, carrying the heavy bucket with two hands. He was so proud of his bounty that he insisted on hauling it back to the house for Patricia to boil himself.

“We don’t really have the time or the resources for a listeria outbreak,” Beth told him. “Or salmonella or E. coli. Patricia boils it so that all that bacteria is killed before we drink it. But we’re not drinking the milk today. We’re making butter.”

The unexpected benefit of living on a legacy farm with a lot of antique farm equipment was that, when society crumbled, those antiques became invaluable again. Otis had been meticulously cleaning each piece and the handheld butter churn was ready for use. Beth’s mouth watered just at the thought of having fresh butter to slather on the potato bread Patricia and Carol baked regularly.

They delivered the pail of milk to Patricia before setting off to open the gates and doors that penned the animals in. The chickens were scratching in their little yard, the cows had been released to graze with the horses, and Beth and Carl had returned to the henhouse to collect the eggs, passing Maggie on the way, when the entire farm was rocked still by Lori Grimes’ scream.

“Mom!” Carl yelled, dropping the two eggs he held. They shattered at his feet, spilling golden yolks across the hardpacked dirt. Beth was quick to kick some straw over the mess and, while Carl bolted, she carefully returned the eggs she took from the nest before following him.

Everyone was convening at the clothesline toward the front of the farm. Otis came running from his bees, Patricia and Carol burst from the house, Maggie sprinted from the garden. Even Merle, looking as disheveled as if he had just risen from bed, was among them.

Carl had his mother by the arm, trying to convince her to put herself behind him. Though the boy carried a gun same as everyone else, Beth wasn’t sure he knew how to use it. Otis seemed equally unsure, given that he stepped in front of both of them.

The source of Lori’s fright was Dale Horvath, pale and sallow, duct tape over his mouth, a dark necklace of bruises around his neck. There seemed to be writing on the tape, but Beth couldn’t make out the words. They didn’t matter right then; what mattered was that Dale was dead and turned, the whites of his eyes bloodshot and the irises milky and dull, and he was walking straight toward them.

“Well, fuck,” Merle swore, reaching for his gun. He was the first to act, yes, but he hadn’t yet mastered shooting with his non-dominant hand. The bullet went wide, which made him curse again. “Sonofabitch!”

He can’t touch the fence, he can’t touch the fence, he can’t touch the fence, began repeating in her mind like an awful mantra. Though a tremor rocked her hand, Beth reached for the holster on her hip. It was thick, primal fear that spurned her forward this time.

Carl tried, but his bullet hit Dale in the gut, dark, dead blood oozing from the wound and staining his white undershirt. Before Maggie could get close enough to make a shot—the garden was a good ways away from the front of the farm—Beth pulled Jimmy’s gun from her holster and managed to hit the mark Merle and Carl had missed.

Dale dropped just like T-Dog’s walker did the night before.

Lori was no longer screaming but sobbing. Patricia and Maggie descended upon Lori and Carl, leading them back to their trailer.

“We ought to collect ‘im,” Otis said, nodding solemnly to Dale’s body. Beth’s hands were shaking and her ears were ringing. Panic was welling inside her, grabbing at her ankles and yanking her down to drown in it.

“I can’t,” she shook her head, backing away, bumping into Carol. She felt Carol take her by the elbow, holding her steady.

“We got it,” Merle tossed over his shoulder along with a curious look.

Beth’s ribs had become a vice grip, squeezing her lungs and heart so painfully she found it hard to breathe. It hadn’t been a conscience choice, drawing her gun and shooting as she had. Instinct. The word drifted up through the pounding in her head. Guess I was wrong. I can shoot to kill.

Later, she would tell herself that this was different. That felling a walker, even one you had met in life, was a necessity. But in the moment, she took deep, gasping, gulping breaths despite the fire it lit in her chest. She still held her gun, mindful to keep her finger off the trigger, her free hand pressed to her sternum just like the other night when she was on duty with Daryl.

Dale, she reminded herself. That was Dale. Not Jimmy. Dale.

She made herself watch as Merle hooked his forearms under Dale’s armpits and Otis took hold of his ankles. They carried him awkwardly back to the farm, laying him down just inside the gate.

“W-what…” do you think is written on the duct tape? “… should we…” go look? “…why…” can’t I finish a sentence?

“No,” Carol said decisively, answering one of Beth’s questions. “We’ll go take Carl off Lori’s hands while she calms down.”

Beth was vaguely aware that so much stress wouldn’t be good for Lori’s baby. The ringing was not necessarily subsiding, but it was dampening itself. Carol’s voice was muffled but still audible and the roar of blood in her veins was calming. Beth got the gun back in her holster before they reached the door.

Inside the trailer, Carl’s face was pale and peaked. His freckles stood out on his pallid cheeks and his eyes were still big and round with fear. When he saw Beth, he pushed himself up from the booth bench connected to the little table and threw his arms around her waist, burying his face in her stomach.

Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how fond the boy had become of her. She patted his back but couldn’t conjure any comforting words. How could she tell him it was okay when it clearly wasn’t? How could she tell him he was safe when Dale’s walker had been sent to convey the opposite?

So, instead, she let Carl cling to her and wet her shirt with his tears while Carol disappeared into the bedroom of the trailer to help with Lori.

“You’re a good shot,” Daryl told her that evening when they took their shift. The clouds were still heavy overhead, withholding their rain, blocking out the light of the stars.

The duct tape on Dale’s mouth had ‘Soon, Rick’ written on it. Though he wasn’t family, though they had hardly known him, Dale did them all a service in trying to help, and it cost the man his life, so his body was interred into the little graveyard along with the others.

“Thanks.” It wasn’t cold, but Beth still pulled her cardigan tighter around herself, chilled by the memories of the day.

That was all that was said about it. As they continued their laps in the night, with only the crickets’ songs filling the quiet, Beth began to relax. Daryl’s silence didn’t make her feel petulant or judged. His was the kind that gave space. It didn’t demand explanation.

If she had the words, she might have explained her gratitude, but the day had exhausted her emotionally, and she didn’t. So, instead, she continued to walk companionable, silent laps around the farm with Daryl at her side.

Chapter Text

Chapter Seventeen: Early to Mid-June, Year 2

Children are a gift from the Lord; the fruit of the womb is a divine reward. Psalm 127:3-4.

Though Beth had hardly put Dale to the task, and though she had been the one to put him to rest for good, she was feeling considerably and irrationally guilty for the events that transpired a few days ago. All it took was one off-hand comment from Lori about how she wished they had signed Carl up for piano lessons ‘before the world fell apart’ and Beth found herself sharing her bench with him.

“Okay, tell me the white keys again,” she instructed him, pointing to the first in the row of ivories, far to the left.

“It’s alphabet order,” Carl recited to her. “But only to G.” He pointed to the first key she had indicated, tapping them as he went, not hard enough to evoke any sound from the piano. “A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and it repeats all the way down.”

“What about the black keys?”

“They get two letters.” He tapped the first just as he had the whites. “A-B, C-D, D-E, F-G, G-A.”

“But what’s the difference between the A and the B on this black key?”

“The A is ‘sharp’ and the B is ‘flat’.” Beth was left with the impression that Carl was likely a very good little student when schools still existed. After he correctly identified each key on her piano, Beth began guiding him through learning the warmup scales she used. The notes rose and fell in a pattern, one her fingers knew so well, Beth could probably play the scales in her sleep. Carl’s fingers were clunkier, halting and starting, but he managed to memorize the order fairly quickly.

She had sheet music for her scales, but this was how Mama had taught her to play. Before she learned to read the music, she learned to play the scales, learned to be comfortable on the bench. It was the only method she knew, so, she told Carl the same thing Mama had told her years ago, “When you learn your scales, I’ll teach you a song.”

The song in question would be Mary Had a Little Lamb, but Carl didn’t need to know his first foray into becoming a pianist would make use of a nursery rhyme he surely thought himself too old for. Beth already planned on telling him that it would be a good one to know for the baby if he raised any complaint over it.

“What about your guitar?” Carl asked, all excitement as he bounced on her piano bench.

“It’s not my guitar,” she corrected him, pulling the dust cover over the piano keys. “It was my cousin’s guitar. I haven’t learned much on it yet.”

She didn’t have the time, now that she had patrol duty on top of her typical chores. Carl’s lessons took up even more of her time, not that she was complaining, not that she would tell him that he was a contributing factor on why she had yet to learn guitar.

“But you could teach me that, too?” He asked, blue eyes wide and eager. “After you teach yourself?”

Beth couldn’t find it in herself to deny him, so she smiled and agreed.

The coming summer did nothing to relieve the brutal humidity. Heat was simply added to the mugginess, which left the animals languishing and sleepy and the humans irritable. Maggie came in from the garden with sweat streaks and a scowl staining her face. Otis spent more time with his bees than usual, wanting nothing more than to avoid the unintentionally sharp words Patricia used as her patience waned throughout the day.

Merle glared. Rick paced even when he wasn’t on patrol duty; Dale’s undead appearance had gotten under his skin. So much so that Lori and Carl were moved into the main house, something that frustrated Maggie to no end. It came up time and again during Beth’s least favorite chore—washing the dishes after dinner.

They no longer did the washing up in the sink, not that the water didn’t work. So far, things were holding up on the farm, but they tried to conserve water as much as possible, using the pipes only for bathrooms. The first time Beth and Maggie had loaded the dishes into the washing tub on the back porch, it had reminded her of Mary and Laura Ingalls. All wistfulness the memories of Beth’s own girlhood spent reading about prairie girls was quickly dashed when she realized how much harder the chore was without the convenience of modern sinks.

Now it had become a place where the sisters grumbled, washing away their complaints along with the remnants of dinner. Beth’s complaints were usually about the weather or the work or the animals; Maggie’s tended to be about people.

“I wish we could let the animals out past the fence to graze,” was the closest that Beth came to complaining about their neighbors and the situation that they brought with them. Maggie, however, did not hold back.

“Lori and Carl aren’t even family,” she groused, scrubbing hard at a plate. Probably imagining it was Rick’s face, Beth thought ruefully to herself as she carefully dried the silverware. They couldn’t risk anything rusting.

“It’s for their protection,” Beth tried to assuage her sister’s anger, repeating Daddy’s justification.

“What about our protection?” Maggie volleyed right back. Her brows were knit so tightly Beth worried they might collide with one another.

“Neither of us are twelve,” Beth pressed on, sparing a glance at her sister, “or pregnant?”

Maggie shot her a look, color flooding her cheeks. “Definitely not. Me and Glenn are careful. I just barely ran out of birth control pills a month ago. They last longer when no one’s throwing them in the lake.”

Despite her anger, they laughed over the memory of Beth doing that very thing in an attempt to keep her sister from getting in trouble. “Good,” Beth set aside the silverware and reached for the glasses next, “I like Glenn.”

“Yeah, me too.” Some of the ire fell away and Maggie’s face softened. It made Beth smile. Things had shifted a little since she took down Dale’s walker. Maggie wasn’t quite so prone to scolding or talking down to her, now.

Carl and Lori were given Jimmy’s old bedroom downstairs, which was fine. Really. Beth had moved everything she wanted to keep into her own bedroom months ago. Including… “I have some condoms if you and Glenn need them.”

That jolted Maggie so that she rocked back on her heels, mouth dropping open. She flicked some of the soapy water at Beth, hitting her right in the face. Beth laughed and raised her hands to try to defend herself. “Beth!”

She dipped her hand in the suds, flinging some back Maggie’s in retaliation. “I had a boyfriend living on the farm first!”

“Right under mine and Shawn’s noses!” Maggie was giving her an odd look. It almost felt like they were getting to know each other, acquaintances rather than sisters.

“Only yours,” Beth corrected. “It was… after.”

That sobered both of them for a beat. Beth went on drying glasses while Maggie took up the washing again. “I’m surprised Shawn didn’t come to bitch me out for letting it happen.”

“You didn’t let it happen,” Beth corrected. “You didn’t notice it happen.”

Quiet hung between them, growing heavy and thick like the ever-present moisture in the air. Beth stared hard at the glass in her hand, making sure to wick away every lingering droplet with her towel. If she focused on that, and only that, then she could keep herself calm.

 The clouds still refused to break, but Maggie didn’t. “You’re right.”

“Hmm?” Beth hummed, peeking at Maggie from beneath her lashes.

“I didn’t notice,” Maggie echoed her sentiment. “I should have.”

“It’s okay,” Beth shrugged. What’s done is done. Nothing was going to change those lost months. Though she hadn’t rolled her sleeves up at all, Beth still shook her left arm a little, making sure her cardigan covered her scars.

“It’s not.” They were dancing, now, around the apology Maggie clearly felt she owed Beth. For treating her like she was still a kid, as if her childhood hadn’t stopped along with Sean’s heart. For not paying attention when Jimmy was the only lifeline that kept her from becoming marooned in a sea of grief and regret. For letting her sister swim back to shore alone after Jimmy died. “I’ll pay better attention, now.”

“Okay,” Beth agreed, not looking up from the glasses in her hands. She didn’t want Maggie to see the fear that was at the forefront of her mind. What if it’s too late?

Beth still kept her bedroom window open at night, not so much to cool the room, but so she could hear better. Evening after evening, she and Daryl walked their laps along the fence line, and nothing happened. Nothing of note, anyway. The crickets played their song. Field mice and rabbits scurried around as the daylight faded.

A hound had been baying in the distance when she and Daryl completed their rounds. Beth sighed, turning her ear toward it. “I wish we had a dog.”

“Must be plenty out there,” Daryl told her, nodding towards the trees, but Beth shook her head.

“They’re wild by now, I bet. The barn cats know better not to bother the chickens, but a dog that’s got the taste of blood’s no good.” Forget the chickens. A big enough dog might get it in their head to go after the pigs, or maybe even the calf. It wasn’t worth the risk.

“What d’you want the dog for?” Daryl asked after a beat. Beth shrugged.

“It’d be loud. A dog could wake the whole farm, baying like that, if someone came around who shouldn’t.”

“Like Shane.” Now, she nodded.

“Like Shane,” she confirmed, and that had been that.

Conversations with Daryl were exceedingly easy. It was one of the things she liked about him.

If they couldn’t have a dog, Beth could have an open window, and that went a long way in comforting her. Knowing there was no glass to dampen the sound of a threat coming helped her sleep easier. The trade off was mosquitoes, unfortunately, but itchy spots here and there was a price Beth was willing to pay.

She watched Daddy and T-Dog every night, now, sitting at her desk and slapping at the pesky mosquitoes. There hadn’t been any other walkers, but who was to say there wouldn’t be? Every night where Beth watched Daddy come back to the house unscathed was also one where she sighed in relief before crawling into bed.

Though it wasn’t raining on the farm, it was raining somewhere on that night in mid-June. The seventeenth, to be exact, if Beth’s calendar was correct. She turned her face toward the cool night breeze, inhaling the fresh, faint scent of the distant rain. God, I hope it comes to us.

Not only would it cool everything down, it would surely dissuade her mosquito friends from visiting. A new one lighted on her arm and Beth brought her palm down on it, grimacing at the squelch as it’s little body burst under the weight. She was glad it was too dark in her room to see anything other than a small, dark splotch where the mosquito had been.

The worst part of whacking on was always wondering whose blood ended up on you.   

She turned her attention instead to the laundry flapping on the lines outside. Carol had washed each piece of baby clothing—all greens, yellows, light blues, white, and tan—and hung them to dry. Beth knew the line-dried pieces would smell of summer and sunshine and she could think of nothing better to welcome a baby into. The moonlight, diffused through patchy cloud cover, stole all the color from the tiny clothes. They looked like miniature flags being ruffled by the breeze.

When Daddy and T-Dog came into view again, Beth watched them instead, until they could no longer be seen from the vantage point of her window.

It was a comfortable routine. Were it not for the mosquitoes, Beth might have fallen asleep entirely. She was drowsy, letting her mind wander a bit as she continued surveying the farm. Carol’s camper was dark; so was T-Dog’s. The Dixon brothers had a light on. Daryl was sleeping, surely, in preparation for his next patrol. Maybe Merle was working on his prosthetic. It had been slow work, one-handed and his non-dominant one to boot, but he refused to let anyone help him with it.

The light was out in the Grimeses’ camper, too, but Beth knew Rick was the only one inside. Carl and Lori had already gone to bed by the time Beth returned from her patrol. She wondered if there was strife in Rick and Lori’s marriage. How could there not be? After her faux pas with revealing the paternity of Lori’s baby, Beth had been careful to keep her opinion that Carl and Lori had moved into the farmhouse not merely because of safety.

A muffled scream pulled Beth from her sleepy reverie. She stood so quickly that she banged her knees on her desk and sent her chair clattering to the floor. Before she could even rub the soreness from her bashed knees, a flurry of knocks sounded at her door.

Beth had to limp a little to move as quickly as she did across the floor, flinging open the door to find Carl, his face shining pale with fear in the dark, eyes glistening with tears.

“Hurry!” He begged her, reaching out and closing his hand around her wrist. “Something’s wrong with my mom and the baby!”

Though she was clad only in her oversized t-shirt, Beth let Carl drag her downstairs. This is way faster than I usually go downstairs. They stepped on the creaky stair, and it groaned once, twice as Carl rushed. Why didn’t he get Maggie?

But Maggie wasn’t Carl’s buddy around the farm. She was. So, Beth was the one who had to follow Carl to the bedroom door, the one who had to open that door and take in the scene inside. The light was on, but Beth wished it wasn’t. Had it been off, she wouldn’t have had to see how the bed was soaked in Lori’s blood, or how Lori was hunched over her belly, face pale and dark hair clinging to tear-stained cheeks.

“Go get my dad,” she prompted Carl, wrenching her wrist out of his hold. When he lingered, eyes flicking between Beth and his mom, she yelled, “Go! Hurry!”

“It’s the baby, I’m losing the baby,” Lori wailed, curling tighter around her middle. A long, low groan slipped past her lips. Did miscarriage hurt? Beth had no idea. How similar was it to labor? Was this labor?

There was so much blood.

Beth set a tentative hand on Lori’s shoulder. “Should you lay down? Would that help?”

Lori only shook her head, another scream erupting from her. Maybe it will wake up Maggie.

“Okay, okay.” She didn’t know what else to do besides try to staunch the bleeding until Carl came back with Daddy. Beth snatched up the bed sheets, trying to find a swathe that wasn’t soaked and stained red. When she managed to locate a spot, she bunched it in her hands and pressed it between Lori’s legs. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

Yet another wail came from Lori as Beth pressed as firmly as she dared. The blood didn’t stop, seeping through the sheets. Her hands became warm and slick from it and the flow didn’t seem to stem whatsoever. Beth was on the verge of screaming herself when a familiar hand took hold of her shoulder.

“Let me see, baby,” Daddy said, soft and gentle. Beth was all too willing to step back, to wring her bloodied hands. She took one, two, three steps back before realizing Carl hadn’t appeared with Daddy.

“W-where’s Carl?”

“Maggie’s got him.” Daddy was still using that careful tone he spoke to injured animals in, but now it was directed primarily at Lori. Where Beth had been unsuccessful, Daddy convinced Lori to lay down, to stop folding herself as if she could close her body and stop what Beth was quickly realizing was a massive hemorrhage. The fight seemed to be going out of Lori as she wilted against the pillows. Her pupils were blown wide, making her eyes look dark and crazed, and she was clutching at Daddy’s forearm.

“Don’t let my baby die,” she pleaded. “Please don’t let my baby die!”

“Shhh.” There was blood on Beth’s hands. She looked down at them, at the red stains on her palms, and her heart began pounding. A roaring started in her ears. “We’re going to take care of your baby, don’t worry.”

“You have to get them out,” Lori continued to beg.

“We will.” Daddy smoothed back some of the sweaty hair from Lori’s face. “It’s your choice.”

A sob cut through the room and Beth couldn’t rightly say if it was Lori’s or her own. T-Dog appeared at the doorway, holding the veterinary kit that Daddy kept ready in his office. Without looking away from Lori, he held out a hand, taking the kit from T-Dog, who then came to crouch beside the bed. Where was Rick?

“Hey, Lori,” he said softly, taking her hand in his. “Mind if I pray with you for a bit?”

She must have said yes, because T-Dog began reciting a scripture Beth knew well herself:

People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these’.

Daddy was rooting through his kit. Once, when Beth was very little, he explained to her that people were animals, too. That was all Beth could think as he removed one of the gleaming, sharp scalpels that she knew from many hours of watching him tend the farm animals would slice easily through skin and muscle. How many times had she seen a scalpel such as that drain or debride a wound?

Now it cut deeply into Lori’s abdomen, her hand gripping T-Dog’s so hard that her knuckles had gone white, tendons threatening to break through the skin of her arm. There was even more blood now, which Beth would have thought was impossible, but it filled the room, her nose.

“Jesus’ hands are on your baby,” T-Dog was telling Lori. Could she even hear him through her screams? “He’ll keep them safe.”

“Beth,” Daddy’s voice sharp, commanding. “I need you to hold her legs.”

“O-okay.” Beth came forward, though she very much didn’t want to, and pressed her hands into Lori’s thighs, just above her knees. While Lori begged for her child’s life, her body instinctively tried to defend itself from the pain. Her legs tried to lift and buck as Daddy cut deeper. The sound of ripping flesh was so awful that Beth had to grit her teeth and close her eyes.

And then… and then, the fight went out of Lori. Her legs stilled, her screaming faltered and turned to sobs, and a watery cry filled the room.

“It’s a girl,” Daddy said, his own hands covered in blood and fluid as he brought the baby close enough to Lori’s deathly pale face for her to see.

“She’s beautiful.” Lori needed T-Dog’s help to raise her arm, to tenderly touch the baby’s cheek. Beth let go of Lori’s legs and good thing. Just moments later, the light faded from Lori’s eyes, and the slippery, tiny weight of the baby was being pressed into her arms.

“Get her out of here,” Daddy directed, tying off and cutting through the baby’s cord with lightning speed. Though the baby was covered in blood, too, Beth cradled her close to her chest, stepping quickly out of the room.

As broken as Lori Grimes’ body was, a walker was still a walker, and the baby was still crying heartily. Unsure what else to give her, Beth pressed a knuckle to the baby’s mouth. She gummed at it eagerly as Beth carried her away from her mother’s deathbed and into the shadowy, empty living room.

“Hi,” she said softly, hunching a shoulder and rubbing her cheek against it to clear away the tears that had begun to fall down her cheeks. What else were you supposed to say to a baby? “Let’s find you a blanket, huh?”

Beth was wrapping the baby up, buffing some of the blood carefully from her cheeks, when the front door opened. Rick and Carl materialized from the night, one looking like a dead man walking, the other downtrodden and scared.

“Hi,” Beth said again, this time to the remaining members of the Grimes family. Neither of them answered verbally. Carl was looking at the crack of light streaming through the bottom of the bedroom door. Rick took a stumbling step forward and paused, eyes closing as he took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. Deciding to meet him in the middle, Beth stepped forward, too, holding the baby out to him like a proffered gift. “It’s a girl.”

“A girl,” Rick repeated, looking robotic as he let Beth deposit the baby into his arms. He looked as if he might fall right over. Beth took him by the arm, turning him so that he sat heavily on the couch.

There was still blood on Beth’s hands, a fact that made her want to scream and sob herself, to scrub her hands until the skin was raw. Instead, she reached for Carl, grabbing his arm when he made to move toward the bedroom.

“Don’t,” she said softly. “Come see your sister.”

By the time the sun rose, the farm had changed again.

Daddy cleaned the tools he used. Beth scrubbed her hands and changed her clothes, adding her bloodstained t-shirt to the pile she helped T-Dog feed to the fireplace. The flames reflected golden on his dark skin and eyes. They didn’t say a word to each other as they got rid of the evidence of what happened that night.

The mattress was ruined. It was too big to fit in the fireplace. Daryl appeared to help T-Dog remove it from the house. In the dark, they carried it to the garden shed, where it would be stored until it could be taken to the larger burn site they used for walkers.

Under that same moon, Rick dug a grave for his wife. Carl named his baby sister Judith, after a kind teacher he had in the past.

Carol, Maggie, and Patricia saw to Lori’s body after Daddy finished stitching her back together. Not that the stitches would fix anything other than making it easier to move Lori without her falling apart.

Somehow, as the farm moved in stricken silence, Beth ended up with Judith once more. She was diapered and clothed, now, swaddled in a blanket and sleeping soundly. Thank God that Glenn had thought to scavenge formula on his runs. Better safe than sorry, he had said at the time, surely never imagining how true those words would become.

He stood vigil beside the deepening grave, now. So did Daryl and Otis, Carl between them. Every now and then, one of them offered to take the shovel from Rick, but he continued digging without responding to any of them.

Beth sat on the porch steps with Judith to watch. Somebody wedged themselves into the space left beside her and she turned her head to see Merle. “A cripple, a newborn, and a nanny,” he said. “Quite the group, huh?”

“You’re not a cripple,” she told him, but Merle only smirked.

“Easy for you to say when you’ve got two hands. Who’s this, anyway?”

“Carl named her Judith.”

“Judith, huh?” Merle leaned closer, peeking at the swaddle in Beth’s arms. “Hell of an arrival you’ve had here.”

When Beth looked up and blinked, trying to keep fresh tears at bay, she saw that the clouds had cleared from the sky. Through the watery kaleidoscope of unshed tears, there weren’t twice as many but infinite, blurry stars in that summer sky.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eighteen: Late June, Year 2

With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. Song of Solomon, 2:3.

If you looked only at the dark whisps of hair that dusted the crown of Judith’s head and curled at the nape of her neck, you could make yourself believe that she was Rick’s child. Look into her eyes, though… Those were Shane’s eyes. Not Rick’s vibrant blue or Lori’s warm hazel. Judith’s eyes were dark, the pupil hardly discernible from the rich, brown iris.

Just like Shane’s.

Not that her paternity mattered. What mattered was that Judith, hardly a week old, needed to be cared for. So did Carl. Rick wasn’t able to do that, not with the way he broke after Lori’s death. T-Dog and Daddy both spent a lot of time with Rick. Daryl picked up his chores. His patrol slot was given to others.

The task of Judith and Carl fell to Maggie and Beth. They took turns, after the siblings were moved from the guest bedroom where Lori had died into Shawn’s old room. That was fine, too. Shawn’s things had long since been packed up, what Daddy, Maggie, and Beth didn’t keep for themselves as mementos, and taken to the attic. Now Carl’s clothes hung in the closet and Judith’s were in the dresser.

A little bassinet stood in the corner of the room. In spite of his grief and anger, both mixing into a thunderous look that haunted Carl’s face, he was a little gentleman when it came to the Greene sisters mothering his sister. He let them have the bed and slept on a pallet on the floor. It was easier to keep them downstairs, where the kitchen was closer, and Maggie and Beth could easily stumble into there for another bottle when Judith woke in the night.

Carl, unlike Rick, refused to be more than a few meager feet away from Judith. It was clear to all of them that he considered her protection and well-being his own personal duty. No one interfered with this.

Beth felt like a ghost in her own house when she crept through the house with Judith on her nights. Giving the baby her knuckle to gnaw on until she was able to get a bottle in her mouth was a great strategy when it came to keeping Judith quiet. She tried very hard not to wake Carl if she could help it; the dark circles under his eyes looked as if they had been etched there permanently.

Twelve was young, but not so young as it used to be. It made Beth’s heart ache to see him so serious.

“There,” she murmured to Judith, replacing her knuckle with the bottle. “Better now, huh?”

Beth walked back and forth across the kitchen, swaying Judith while she suckled on her bottle, singing the old lullabies Mama once sang to her. “Down by the river is a tall willow tree, who weeps all night for you and me.”

As she sang and swayed, Judith’s eyelids fluttered. She was sleepy, too, but she was also a tenacious eater. Those same eyelids shot open and she fixed Beth with her dark, dark gaze. “And its lay down low, my love, and its lay you down, my own true love, the shadows are falling, the night has come, and its lay down low, my love.”

Eighteen was supposed to be young, too, but Beth didn’t feel it. Her back and shoulders ached from too much work and too little rest. She couldn’t entirely blame that on Judith. The whole reason she and Maggie took turns each night was so that they could catch up on sleep between. That seemed to be working fine for Maggie, but Beth hadn’t been as lucky as her sister. Maggie hadn’t been in the room as Judith was cut from her mother’s body in an emergency, fatal C-section. She didn’t shoot Dale’s walker. She didn’t help Jimmy end his life.

All three of these events had become a conglomeration of horror in Maggie’s dreams. Beth tried not to hold it against her sister.

“Under the branches of the brown thorn tree the wild bird is watching over Lios Na Shee.”

Lios Na Shee. The Fairy Fort. When she was little, so much younger than her siblings, Beth had tried her best to conjure the fair folk. She would build circles of twigs and pebbles, trying to emulate the traps they set for unsuspecting humans, as if the trick would work both ways.

Now, as she walked Judith back and forth, she wondered if the world would ever be safe enough again for Judith to have such days of sunshine and folly.

When Judith drained her bottle, Beth lifted the baby to her shoulder, rubbing and patting her back to help release any trapped air or gas. “You’re a good girl, Judith, did you know that?”

She got a little grunt in answer. After Judith was settled, her feeding done and the baby yawning, Beth brought her to the living room to rock her. They sat together beside the fireplace, where the logs were banked and not quite extinguished. Faint, red coals glowed among the ashes, waiting for Patricia to come and stoke them back to life for the breakfast cookfire.

Beth meant to rock Judith back to sleep and then return to the bedroom, but even after her eyes fell closed and her breathing became deep and even, she found herself lingering there. Something about the warm, light-but-solid weight of Judith in her arms was comforting. So was the back and forth of the rocking chair, the quiet of the night. It was finally raining, and it fell gently, pattering softly on the windows.

Soon she found herself nodding to sleep, too, her head drooping only to shoot back up when she found herself drifting off. After the fourth time of this happening, Beth forced herself to stand and shuffle back to the room.

Carl was still sleeping, curled up on his side, his blanket kicked off. His sheriff’s hat sat beside him on the pillow, waiting. Beth tiptoed past him to lay Judith in her bassinette before laying herself down in Shawn’s bed.

It’s ironic, she thought to herself. I don’t have nightmares when I’m with Carl and Judith, but I can’t enjoy the better sleep.

But she could have a few hours before Judith woke again, and Beth had long since learned you had to take what you could get in this world.

In her own bedroom, the night brought her sick visions. Sometimes she dreamed that she was Lori and Daddy was cutting into her. Other times she dreamed that Dale’s walker wore Jimmy’s face. When that happened, she found herself frozen, unable to pull the trigger. Jimmy’s walker would advance, the electric fence doing nothing to stop him, toppling over it and jerking but not stopping, until his teeth bit deep into her shoulder.

Regardless of which dream came to her, she always jolted awake, a scream lodged in her throat so that she choked on it.

These dreams, coupled with her nights caring for Judith, left her with her own dark smudges under her eyes. This hardly stood out as of late, though. They all wore similar looks of haunted worry. For Rick and his children, for the unpredictable but ever looming threat of Shane.

The exhaustion every worry brought with it left Beth feeling like she was moving through molasses. Especially during patrol duty, since it was her last task of the day. Her boots shuffled along the ground and she no longer tried to match Daryl’s careful, quiet tread as she walked beside him.

“How’s Little Ass Kicker today?” Though Maggie and Beth were Judith’s chief caregivers during the night, she was passed around during the day. It wasn’t written down, but there was some sort of unspoken schedule for Judith just as there was for patrols. At any given time, she might be held in anyone’s arms, even Merle’s.

Not Rick’s, not very often. But that was okay. She didn’t want for love or attention.

“She spit up on Glenn,” Beth told him, smiling tiredly. “He freaked out.”

Beside her, Daryl exhaled sharply. She had come to understand that this was a sign of amusement in him. He rarely smiled or laughed, though she had seen both from him. His humor was subtler. You had to look for it.

“’Course he did.”

“In Glenn’s defense, it was gross. All chunky and white. She had just finished her bottle.”

Though it was when she felt the weight of the day the most, her patrol time with Daryl was also the part of the day she most looked forward to. The days were so long, now, that the sun set during their patrol. That evening, the sky was painted in dusky blues and violets, the setting sun a flaming orange in contrast. It spilled the last of its golden light on them, which burnished Daryl’s summer tan to a subtle bronze.

Beth’s own tan was much fainter, and patchy at that. Her face and neck had tanned, milky white deepening ever so slightly, as had her legs, between where her shorts ended and her boots began. But her arms were still as pale as ever, given that she hid them beneath her cardigans.

Given that Daryl only wore shirts with the sleeves cut off beneath his vest, he didn’t have the same tan line problem that she did.

“How’s, um, how’s Rick?” She ventured, keeping her eyes on the darkening blues and purples of the sky. The crickets were taking up their nightly tune. Beth had come to associate it with Daryl. “He hasn’t been by the house in a few days.”

Well, that was only partly true. Rick had been at the house, but not inside. He had a new habit of sitting beside the fresh dirt that covered Lori’s grave. Actually, he was doing it just now, and Beth had to make a concerted effort not to turn her head and look at him.

“Managing.” Daryl left it at that, changing the subject immediately. “You?”

“Me?” She asked, surprised enough to turn her head and look him in the eye. She found the usual, watchful gaze there. “I’m fine.”

It wasn’t her mom that died—not this time, anyway. Beth didn’t realize she had begun to fiddle with the sleeve covering her left arm until Daryl’s eyes flicked down to it for just a fraction of a second before returning to her face. She dropped her hand immediately, curling both into fists beneath her sleeves.

“I am,” she asserted, though Daryl hadn’t spoken again. That gaze alone had left her feeling exposed, accused.

They were quiet for a long time after that. Daryl always walked closest to the fence. They walked directly in front of the sun, Daryl’s shadow stretching and falling over her for a few feet until they passed it. “S’okay if you’re not.”

“I don’t think we have time to be,” she admitted quietly. Between her chores, Judith, and Carl, Beth felt like she hardly had time to breathe as of late. Beside her, Daryl shook his head.

“We ain’t got time to not be,” he argued. “Not with Shane comin’.”

Soon, Rick. “Do you think he’ll still want the farm? After he finds out Lori’s dead?”

“A dog that’s got the taste for blood isn’t any good,” Daryl answered, using her own words. “Shane’s gonna have to be put down, same as any dog.”

Though the day was still plenty warm even with the recent rains and the receding sun, Beth shivered and bunched the sleeves of her sweater in her hands. “You really think it will come to that?”

“I think Shane’s gonna blame Rick for Lori dyin’, just like Rick blames himself. Unless he’s dead, he’s not gonna stop tryin’ to burn this farm of y’all’s to the ground.”

It was something she had always known, since the first time Shane showed he knew how to breach the defenses of the electric fence, but not something she wanted to admit. Beth bit the inside of her cheek. She couldn’t argue with Daryl’s truth, so she only nodded. They fell into silence again, as usual, but now Beth glared at every lengthening shadow and turned her head toward every small noise as night drew closer around them and the sun slipped further below the horizon. Shane was everywhere and nowhere and that was the problem.

When their two hours ended, Beth meant to return to the house as she usually did, but Daryl didn’t turn that way. He was in the habit of walking her to the porch, but this time he turned not toward the house but toward the little row of trailers. “Leaving me to walk home alone?”

“Nah,” he tossed a look at her over his shoulder. “C’mon. You’re gonna stay up to watch your old man do his rounds anyway, might as well have some company for it.”

Tonight wasn’t her turn with Judith and, given this first astute observation he just made about her routine, she didn’t doubt that Daryl knew that, too. So, she fell in step with Daryl once more, not heading toward her own home but his.

There was a pair of lawn chairs in front of the Dixon trailer bracketing a firepit. Given that there were animals, candlelight, and pairs on patrol at all times, no one thought it worth the effort of trying to hide the farm. Especially not with Shane lurking somewhere in the area and already knowing exactly where the farm was. A fire was already going in the pit and Merle sat on the steps of the camper rather than in one of the chairs. Beth could smell the bittersweet scent of chicory coffee in Merle’s cup.

He watched the two of them approach with a look on his face that was hard to read. Beth thought it looked partly amused, partly cautious. His tone was light when he teased, “Finally brought your little stray pet home, baby brother?”

Beth bristled instantly. “I’m not a stray,” she said, sending Merle a sharp look, gripping the back of the lawn chair so that the plastic creaked under her fingers. “I lived here first.”

That only caused Merle to throw his head back and laugh, holding up his abbreviated arm in a show of surrender. “She’s got sharp teeth,” he said, pushing himself up from the stairs, still only addressing Daryl. “Better watch it if you don’t wanna get bit.”

He gave the cup of half-finished coffee to Daryl before loping off to meet Glenn. The schedule was all wonky, now, changing drastically for some and not at all for others. Everything had been shuffled around to accommodate the needs of Rick, Carl, and Judith, not that anyone complained.

Daryl took one of the seats, nodding at the other. Beth came around to the front and perched on the edge. “Daddy and T-Dog don’t go out until ten, you know.”

“Yeah, but Merle’s out now, which means he can’t bug you anymore than he already has.” Beth nodded and settled back in her chair just a smidge. After Daryl lifted the empty cup sitting on an overturned milk crate and Beth nodded, she found her own cup of chicory coffee in her hands. She wasn’t much one for coffee before or now, but she was grateful to have something to hold and take up some of her attention. The light was shifting, fading, gold settling into a purple-tinged twilight.

When she took a sip of the chicory coffee, she found it much different than the way she remembered regular coffee. This was nutty, just a little sweet in its aftertaste, and earthy. It wasn’t so unpleasant that she didn’t want a second or third sip of it. Actually, she decided after the fourth, it wasn’t bad at all.

Digestion, inflammation, blood sugar regulation. She knew the benefits of chicory, carefully recorded in her own hand in the journals that filled the bookshelves in the living room. It was soothing, too, she realized as she relaxed further into her chair, though she thought that might be true of any warm drink.

Beth very much wanted to ask Daryl what, exactly, Merle had meant by calling her his ‘stray’, but she had a suspicion she already knew the answer. Daryl would only be affirming what she had already guessed: Merle saw her as a little pet, something that needed to be guided and babied, much in the way her siblings had viewed her for much of her life.

It was confirmation that Beth didn’t want, so she sat sipping her coffee quietly, watching the first stars begin to twinkle into existence overhead.

“T-Dog told us ’bout what happened in that room,” Daryl ventured, after he had exhausted the tasks of refilling cups and feeding more twigs into the small fire in the pit. He didn’t look at her as he said it, instead pushing a twig more firmly into the heart of the flame.

“Did he?” she asked, looking at the reflection of the stars in her cup. She swallowed hard, palms itching just thinking about that night. Beth had to fight the irrational urge to check that her hands were clean of blood.

“Yeah. Sounded awful.” Now Beth looked over at him, finding Daryl watching her. Not exactly expectantly, but he was clearly waiting for her to speak.

“It was,” Beth confirmed. “I’m glad Daddy came as fast as he did. I didn’t know what to do. He said it was probably a placental abruption, that Lori probably had preeclampsia, and we didn’t know. That’s why there was all that blood.”

She shivered again thinking of how it had flowed like a river despite her best efforts to dam it. Beth drew her cup closer to her chest and dropped her voice down to a whisper, as if Rick might overhear her where he still sat beside the grave. “Daddy said Lori would’ve died either way, but Judith could be saved. That’s why he agreed to… do it… when Lori asked him to. He says we’re lucky, too, that Judith’s as healthy as she is, being born a month premature.”

Daryl nodded and quiet blanketed them again. The fire was nice. Beth felt herself growing pleasantly sleepy, like she did when she held Judith in the rocking chair. She drew her knees up into the chair with her.

“Been sleepin’ okay?” Daryl asked, startling her awake. Beth hadn’t realized she was drifting off until then. She inhaled sharply and lifted her cup before it could tip any further and spill. Buying herself a bit of time, she took a drink.

“Does anyone in charge of a newborn sleep enough?” She countered, quirking a brow at him.

Instead of answering, he studied her for a moment, then reached over and took the coffee cup from her hands. “Go back to sleep, Bess” he told her. “I’ll wake you up when shift changes.”

Beth was bone tired now that she had ventured so close to sleep. Her limbs felt heavy, and her head stuffed full of cotton when she nodded at him. She didn’t think she could manage it again, but after watching the fire dance and lick at the air, she found herself lulled into a light doze again. Despite being curled up in a plastic lawn chair, it was the most restful sleep she’d had in over a week.  

It felt like only minutes passed before Daryl was gently shaking her shoulder. Beth blinked up at him. Night had truly fallen while she napped, thick and dark at the edges of the glow thrown by the firepit. “Hey.”

“Hi.” She was a little stiff from sleeping in the chair. Beth stretched her legs out before her, arms up over her head, waking her muscles. “Thanks for that.”

“Anytime.” She thought he meant it in a polite way, the way you would answer any stranger thanking you for a small favor, but two days later when their patrol shift ended, Daryl nodded toward the tailer again.

Merle was just as bemused as the first time, smile widening as Beth plunked herself down in the same chair as last time before he could say anything. “Welcome back.”

“Thanks for having me.”

And he laughed again, clapping Daryl on the shoulder as he went past. Beth curled herself into the chair immediately, letting her head loll against the back of it as she watched Daryl take his own seat. “Were you serious about letting me nap?”

When he nodded, a smile stretched across her face. “Bless you, Daryl Dixon.”

The nights were Daryl led her to that lawn chair and she napped beside his quiet, watchful form were the best spurts of sleep she got since Lori died. No nightmares, no waking in a cold sweat. Only a warm fire and a peaceful doze before being gently shaken awake. Before June ended, she grew used to waking to see Daryl’s face limned in firelight and smiling every time.

Chapter Text

Chapter Nineteen: July, Year 2

Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare for war! Rouse the warriors! Let all the fighting men draw near and attack. Joel, 3:9.

Now the sisters’ complaints revolved around the unavoidable, unsavory aspects of newborn care. As they sat on opposite sides of the dish tub, Maggie proclaimed that she totaled ten wakeups the night prior.

“Think that’s worse than the blowout she had night before last?” Beth asked, raising her brows at Maggie. “It was so bad I had to wake up Carl and have him help me rinse her off in the sink.”

Maggie laughed, scrubbing off a spot of gravy from a plate before passing it to Beth for drying. Patricia and Otis had no children of their own and with less than a year having passed since losing Sophia, no one thought it appropriate to ask Carol to do the rearing. Which was how Judith—and Carl, to a lesser degree—had fallen into the Greene sisters’ hands.

“I think she likes you better, though,” Maggie admitted. “She sleeps better on your nights.”

“Only because I sing to her,” Beth shrugged. “You should try it. Puts her right to sleep after a bottle.”

That morning, Beth crossed out July fourth on her calendar. There was no ice cream this year, no fireworks, no celebration. What was the point, when there didn’t seem to be a United States either? She doubted anyone knew the date, anyway, today or any day. That didn’t stop her from noting Judith’s birthday on the seventeenth of last month. Quietly, of course, because Judith’s birthday was also Lori’s death day.

After Daddy had measured and weighed Judith—eighteen inches, six pounds and five ounces—using more veterinary tools, Beth wrote that down, too. Rick might be lost in a fog of remorse, one that Beth knew well, but she thought he might like to have these details he missed.

“I tapped out and got Glenn after the eighth time,” Maggie admitted, though Beth already suspected that. Unfortunately, her body had become attuned to Judith’s cries. When Maggie walked by Beth’s bedroom door the night before, muffled as her vocalizations had been, Judith’s voice still pulled her from her sleep. She had sat up, patting her bed dazedly, before her eyes adjusted and she realized she was in her bedroom, not the room Carl shared with his sister.

“It’s nice that he helps,” Beth murmured when what she really meant was, it’s nice that you have someone to help. That flare of animosity wasn’t Glenn’s fault, though, and it wasn’t fair to pin it on him. As if summoned by their conversation, Glenn came through the back door smiling.

“I’ll go dump that,” he said, stooping to take the wash bin from them. The suds were low and dingy, the water gone cold. Beth took the bin that housed the plates and cutlery—twelve plates and twelve sets—while Maggie took the stacks of cups. They all returned inside together, moving around each other in a well-practiced dance in the kitchen as they dumped the water and placed everything back into their cabinets and drawers.

She had always thought of the farm as one big, complicated waltz. Daddy called it a well-oiled machine, but Beth preferred the imagery of dancing around the massive space, with everybody continually interchanging their partners as they went about their tasks.

Beth’s dance began with the sun, when she woke and pulled on her clothes and boots, and headed outside. The mornings were always glittering with dew lately. Early morning light refracted off the droplets on the grass as she made her way to the pig pen.

Sometimes Rick was already awake, or maybe he hadn’t yet slept when she saw him sitting vigil at Lori’s grave. Beth always waved to him when he was out there though Rick never paid her any mind, let alone returned it. Otis always waved back at her, though, when she caught sight of him far off with his bees while she went on to slop the pigs.

She still told the pigs good morning and scratched them between the ears as they lapped up their slops. Then she moved on, greeting horses and cows in turn. Carl usually turned up by then. He still very much liked to milk the cow and Beth didn’t feel any need to encumber him. She stood at his shoulder, though, watching both him and the cow to make sure everyone remained on good terms.

After that, the dance depended on the day of the week. Sundays still brought church services with them, though now Daddy and T-Dog took turns in reading aloud from the Bible. Her skill revealed on the night they hosted Dale, now Beth added a hymn or two to their services, though she never sang along as she played the keys. Only Judith ever heard her sing these days. Or, well, nights.

Mondays were washing day. Carol was her partner for this task. They collected all the laundry together, washed it together, hung it up on the lines together. Their conversations were limited to the happenings on the farm and Judith, but that was okay. She liked Carol well enough and found their lapses of quietude as comfortable and companionable as those she shared with Daryl.

On Tuesdays, she baked with Patricia. Potato flour was still their main resource, though Maggie was tending a small patch of wheat in her garden. If it grew well, she planned to expand it next year, letting it grow beyond the fence where it would have ample space.

Wednesdays were spent with Daddy, documenting the progress and growing stock he was making with the medicinal herbs grown both in the garden and harvested from the forest. With the threat of Shane always on everyone’s minds, Daddy didn’t like the thought of Beth leaving the fence. It was her love for her father that kept her complying.

Beth spent her Thursdays with Glenn and Maggie, helping with the garden or making lists of things they needed to look for on the next supply run. The issue with this activity was that the list was growing ever longer and there was no remedy in sight. It was agreed upon by everyone that, in the exception of a true, dire emergency, no one should be straying far from the farm until Shane was handled.

Unfortunately, with the ball in this veritable boogeyman’s court, they had no idea when that would happen.

Fridays she dedicated to Carl as much as she could. They played piano or churned butter or mucked stalls; whatever it was, they did it together. The last thing she wanted was for her little friend to fade into the shadows as she once had, eclipsed by the needs of his infant sister and the eccentricities of his unwell father.

It might have been a bit selfish, but Saturdays were her favorite. That was when she reserved time for herself to hole up in her bedroom with Arnie’s guitar on her lap as she sat cross-legged on her bed. She played for hours on Saturdays, sometimes cutting her finger tips, all of them forming calluses as she became acquainted with this new instrument.

And always, through all the patterns of the days, Judith was passed around amongst them, the tiniest dance partner of them all.

Beth didn’t always nap when she sat in the lawn chairs with Daryl. Sometimes she had something on her mind, something she had been pondering throughout the day. Carl still stuck close to her, still helped with the animal chores and still gamely sat through piano lessons. But, understandably, he had become quiet. Taciturn, even. His smiles were very rare, now, reserved for Judith.

Beth knew that quiet. She also knew that companionship was better than words, so she never pressed, never prodded. Carl would talk when he was ready, and she would listen. Until then, she would be his mirror, his shadow. A buoy in the ocean of sadness.

Exactly what she had needed when she turned to a razor blade herself.

So, she saved those ponderings for Daryl, on the nights she joined him in front of the Dixon camper. One evening, she sat with her cup of chicory coffee and said, “I think Lori made her peace with it, at least.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded, taking a sip of coffee.

“There’s no way she didn’t know. I mean, that it was either Judith lived of both of them died.”

Next to her, Daryl nodded. He had his arrows in his lap, meticulously cleaning each one. Without his vibrant blue eyes fixated on her face, it was easier for Beth to say these things.

“My brother was the same way,” Peeking at Daryl, she found him still steadfastly cleaning. One would think that with how little Daryl responded outright it might feel like talking to a wall. Rather, Beth found his near silence comforting. He didn’t interrupt her or try to make her feel like her perspective wasn’t right. “He got bit, when it was all just starting. One of the walkers from the bar bit him, actually, and we didn’t… well, no one though to just hack his arm off.”

As she said it, she turned her attention to Merle, walking come ways off with Glenn.

“But Shawn, he was okay with it in the end.” She nodded to herself, a warm sense of conviction spreading through her chest. Or maybe that was just the coffee. Beth liked to think it was a sign from Shawn, confirming what she said.

“Easier to be okay with it when you’re the one leavin’.” Only every so often did Daryl toss a tidbit her way. She was getting the sense he wasn’t one for idle talk.

“Yeah,” she agreed, thinking now about Mama and Jimmy. Their faces still hurt the most to recall but it wasn’t debilitating anymore. Not a fresh wound but rather the bone-deep of an old injury that was carried for the rest of one’s life. “It’s everyone that’s left behind that has the hard time with it.”

For once, she didn’t think of herself, but Rick. She supposed he was doing a little better. Spent less time beside Lori’s grave and more time with Carl and Judith, even if the new routine was somehow more morose than the other.

“World’s for the livin’, though, regardless of what dead bastards would have you believe.” His arrows finished, Daryl carefully loaded them one at a time into his quiver. The rods gleamed and the fletching at the end was neatly prepared for their next flight.

“How long do you think the walkers will be around?” After setting his quiver aside, Daryl finally turned to look her in the eye.

“Depends, I guess, on how fast they decompose. Some of ’em don’t look so hot anymore. But everyone’s gonna turn eventually.”

“Do you think Judith would?” The idea occurred to her as he was talking. “Everyone’s infected, right? Or that’s what the news was saying when things were getting bad. But I wonder if it would cancel out, somehow, having two parents who were infected.”

Though he didn’t smile, his face softened a bit in the firelight, eyes shining with amusement. Beth felt her cheeks flush and ducked her head to look into the dark depths of her cup.

“You got a funny way of thinkin’, Bess,” he told her, “but I don’t figure any of us intend to outlive Judith to find out.”

Even this, words that would have been a reprimand in Maggie’s voice, was said so matter of fact that she didn’t feel any shame for her ‘funny way of thinking’.

Another night, she asked, “Do you think anyone let the zoo animals out?”

Daryl was always doing some task while she napped or rambled. In all honesty, she had to ask that question to avoid the one of surprise that nearly left her lips when she saw Daryl carefully sewing a large hole in the toe seam of a sock.

Now he looked up and asked, “Why, you got a better idea than a dog?”

A laugh bubbled up in her, spilling out. “A lion would eat a lot more than the chickens.”

Beth asked because she was certain she heard a peacock earlier that day. It wasn’t unusual, if not common, to keep peafowl on a farm. They had a distinctive call, almost like someone crying, but much louder.

“Merle always wanted a monkey,” he told her, nodding to the distant form of his brother walking his nightly rounds. “Knew a guy once who kept one as a pet.”

“A monkey? No, thanks. They’re too smart to be trained. They’ll eat your face or something.”

Beth settled back into her chair, letting her head loll back to take in the stars overhead. Without all the light pollution that once marred the night sky, the stars were dizzyingly thick. She always wondered what it would have been like to grow up with all of them visible. Would they have lost their wonder?

“Anyway,” she said to the stars, as if she was wishing upon one of them, “I hope someone let the free. What a terrible way to go, locked up and starving.”

She could feel Daryl’s eye on her cheek but Beth couldn’t bring herself to meet it. So, instead, she watched the stars, and he watched her.

As July wore on a nervous energy infected the farm. That awful promise of ‘Soon, Rick’ hung like a heavy cloud, threatening to unleash a storm at any moment. Beth found herself thinking of Dale more and more often as she scanned the land that lay beyond the fence.

The courage it had taken to seek them out, to warn them… God, she prayed several times a day, I hope he’s in heaven. There’s no one I know more deserving.

Every breeze that ruffled through the trees, every little sound that came from the far-off trees turned sinister. At night, when she held Judith in her arms, Beth cuddled the baby just a touch closer, glaring at the amorphous shadows that haunted the corners of the dark house.

Yet, with all that apprehension drawing her tight as a bow string, Beth was still unprepared when it all started.

When the evenings weren’t spent in easy conversation or easier sleep, Daryl still walked Beth back to the porch. It was a comfortable rhythm, the routine slotted in amongst her others. Early mornings feeding and caring for the animals, afternoons with various tasks, washing dishes with Maggie, patrol with Daryl, an alternating schedule of nights in the lawn chair and bouncing Judith in her arms.

On one such evening, when Daryl was walking Beth to the porch, listening to her prattle on about cattle breeding—Daddy and Otis had taught Glenn about insemination that day and he was not a fan—when a shot rang out.

They were on the far side of the farm, where the fence edged closest to the forest. After seeing Glenn and Merle appear on the opposite side of the farm, Daryl had wordlessly reversed their path so they could walk back toward the house. They had to round the pond, first, and were walking just along the bank when the shot sounded.

Beth screamed before the bullet hit a mark, and then she screamed louder when Daryl half-spun away from her. His foot lost purchase on the soft ground below them. On reflex, Beth grabbed his arm, meaning to keep him from slipping into the water. To her utter surprise, Daryl was clutching to her as well, throwing her to the ground none too gently before dropping his weight mostly on top of her.

When she slammed into the earth, the impact stole the breath from her lungs. She ended up face down, vision obstructed by the long grasses that grew along the pond bank and the glare of a blazing, setting sun. In her panic, her deepest fears telling her that Daryl was dead and turned, she kicked at him. He boot heel caught him sharply in the knee, earning a hissed curse as he threw himself more bodily over her, using his greater size and weight to pin her to the ground.

“Stop it!” He hissed at her. Hearing his voice took a considerable amount of fight out of her. She stopped struggling though her heart still threatened to burst from her ribcage and her breath was still half-sob, half-gasp. “I’m fine.”

“You got shot!” Beth argued. He scooted off her, though they remained belly-down in the grass. There was enough daylight left that she could see the blood streaming down the left side of his face. At his temple, just above his eyebrow, the skin was burnt and rent. She could smell it, burned flesh and blood, curdling in her stomach even as relief washed through her.

“Just a graze,” he corrected. “Piss poor shot.”

That piss poor shot was deep enough that Daryl had to rub the blood from his eye. It left his hand stained red. Beth swallowed back the sudden rise of bitter bile in her throat. She made herself breathe through her nose, ignoring the unpleasant smells Daryl’s proximity to her brought with it, and out through her mouth. Chaos was overtaking the farm, shouts and gunshots alike.

“Chicken coop’s closest,” he told her, and Beth understood immediately. They needed to leave the grass. They needed to assess the situation. “Stay low, follow me. A movin’ target’s a hell of a lot harder to hit.”

“Okay,” she nodded, chin hitting the ground with the motion. “Okay.”

Daryl rose first, staying crouched, taking a moment to swipe more blood from his eye before he motioned for her to rise. When she was on her feet, he took her hand, and then they ran.

It was the most desperate sprint of her life, zigzagging as muzzle flash lit up the forest. Whoever was shooting was doing so with abandon, at least five guns pointed at the farm from the back, the shooters concealed by the trees. The moving target strategy likely would have worked better had the gunfire not been so random. As fast as they moved, it wasn’t fast enough to stop Beth from catching one of the bullets.

This time when she screamed, it was in pain. Her arm burned. The bullet blazed a path clean through, she could feel that, tearing through skin and muzzle. Daryl only looked back for a fraction of a second to confirm she was still alive and then he spurred them on faster. All Beth wanted to do was curl in on herself, try to make herself small enough to escape the pain. It was only his hand and forward momentum that kept her moving until they were able to crouch again behind the cover of the chicken coop.

“Lemme see,” he commanded, not waiting for her to answer as he began tugging her cardigan off her shoulders. The bullet wound was in her bicep, the blood gluing the fabric to the site.

“It hurts,” she all but whimpered pitifully, tears falling thick and hot down her face. The pain and flames left in the wake of the bullet radiated outward so that her whole arm felt shattered.

“Yeah, bullet holes do that.” She grit her teeth as he manipulated her arm, checking that it could still move, prodding the wound. That made her vision blur and blacken at the edges, the pain almost too much, and Daryl murmured an apology. Once he seemed satisfied that it was a through-and-through shot and her bones didn’t seem broken—even if they felt that way—he ripped two strips from the bottom of her knit cardigan. One was tied hastily around her arm, the other around his own head to soak up the blood still flowing from his own wound.

“Remember when we talked about shooting to kill?” He asked and Beth nodded, trying her best to swallow back her fear. She swiped the tears from her eyes. “Now’s that time. For Judith and Carl, alright?”

“Judith and Carl,” she repeated like a mantra, nodding again. “Okay.”

Still, they lingered a moment, surveying the farm. The shots were still ringing at their backs, which was terrifying and had Beth continually flinching, but there was something happening at the front of the farm, too. Though the light was failing and details were becoming fuzzy and indistinct, she was certain she recognized Shane, though his head appeared shaved, at the front gate. And there was Rick, walking with his back ramrod straight to meet him.

“What do we do?” She could feel the tremor in her own spine, half inspired by pain and half by terror, but she knew they had to do something. They couldn’t sit here, hiding behind the poor chickens, while Rick marched toward what could very well be his death and a firing squad was doing their best to do in the rest of the farm.

“We ain’t got rifles,” he nodded behind them and then winced, “like them.”

“Returning fire wouldn’t do much, huh?”

“Nah.” His eyes slid over to Rick and fixed themselves there. “I’m goin’ for Rick, you’re goin’ to the house.”

“We’re splitting up?!”

“You wanna trade?” He raised a brow, notably the one on the opposite side of the graze. Beth opened her mouth to answer but her voice got swallowed up by a loud, desperate yell from Rick and Shane both.

“CARL!”

Beth turned in time to see the boy fall much less dramatically than Daryl had. For a split second he was walking and then he wasn’t. Shane rounded on his heel and sprinted a short way to another form that materialized from the gathering dark behind him. Rick dropped over Carl, bent protectively.

So much for splitting up. They were in tandem once more as they ran toward Rick and Carl. Beyond the fence, Shane took the other person by the shoulders and slammed his head into their nose. The other man dropped and Shane went with him, straddling his chest and pounding his fists into the man’s face with a ferocity that chilled Beth to her core.

“You idiot!” Shane’s voice was thick and terrible and punctuated by the meaty thumps of his fists. “I told you, I told fucking all of you, not,” the impacts turned wet, just like Rick’s hands, coated in Carl’s blood, “the,” it wasn’t a gut shot, thank God, but the abdomen was never a good place to be hit, “kid!”

There was a rattle, like dry bones in a grave, and Beth knew without looking that Shane had beat that man to death. What was more important was Carl and the wretched look on Rick’s face when he lifted his head to look at her.

“Take him inside.” Beth nodded immediately, her arm be damned. Good God it hurt when Rick placed Carl’s weight in her cradled arms, but Beth only grit her teeth again and bore it. “Hurry!”

She ran as best she could up the long drive, praying the whole time that no other bullets found them. There weren’t as many shots firing and Beth couldn’t—wouldn’t—consider if that was a good thing or not. Carl was limp in her arms, face deathly pale, blood staining his shirt. She couldn’t comfortably shift him to open the door, so she kicked at it instead, yelling as she did so.

“Daddy! Daddy, hurry! Let me in, please, let me in!” She was poised to kick again when the door opened under her foot. Beth stumbled inside, someone—Carol—catching her injured arm and drawing her forward. She cried out as the wound began to bleed anew and Carol apologized effusively. “Where’s my dad?!”

“With Judith, in his office.” Of course. It was the most interior room, the place where Beth used to huddle as a child, playing with her dolls under the desk when the odd tornado watch came their way. There were no windows in the office. Less chance of a stray bullet finding the baby.

She couldn’t hold Carl anymore, not now that her arm was angry again. Carol helped her bring Carl to the couch, where they laid him as gently as possible, and Beth immediately pressed her hands hard against his gunshot. “Go get him!”

The outside world fell away from him as, once again, the Greene residence was thrown into chaos. Daddy appeared but Judith did not. Beth was given orders for gauze, for antiseptic, for the long tweezers from the vet kit. “Bullet has to come out,” he told her. “Too close to his lungs to risk leaving it in.”

Carl was moved to the floor, atop an old sheet, and Beth found herself holding the highest wattage flashlight they had in the house over his prone body the same way she once held a light for Shawn as he worked on the farm equipment. Only Shawn poked into the innards of machinery, not that of a non-responsive twelve-year-old boy. Daddy retrieved the bullet while Carl bled and bled and bled. The wound was cleaned and sewn shut and never once did Beth take her sight off the faint, fluttering rhythm of Carl’s chest as he breathed.

“Oh, baby, you’re hurt, too.”

“I’m fine,” Beth shrugged off his hand on her shoulder. “It went through. I’m fine. Daddy, we can’t let Carl die.”

“I’ve done what I can.” When had her father aged so much? Deep worry lines scored his face and his eyes were shadowed by dark circles. “It’s in God’s hands now, honey.”

“And He’s been so helpful lately,” Beth grumbled, not feeling an ounce of guilt for her anger and blasphemy. Daddy didn’t scold her for it, either. He did, however, make her sit still and let him properly clean and dress her wound when she refused to leave Carl’s side.

He would have been more comfortable in bed, surely, but neither of them made to move him. “No sense in it when he’s this fragile,” Daddy told her. “I’ll go get him a blanket and pillow.”

Beth took Carl’s hand. It was limp in hers but neither too warm nor too cold. She watched his shallow breathing. The entire world had condensed to this. Even when others began streaming in and conversation began to fill the house.

“They ran after Shane died,” T-Dog reported.

“Where’s Rick?” Maggie asked.

“Burying Shane.”

“Everyone else alright?” Came Daddy’s voice, a professional inquiry if Beth had ever heard one.

“I think my ankle’s twisted, but it’s okay.” Glenn. “You good, Mags?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

“My idiot baby brother got himself shot in the head, but he’s fine. Wouldn’t come in. Said he’s gonna cover Rick.” Merle.

“Any idea if anyone’s still out there? Besides Rick and Daryl?” Carol asked but her only answer was Judith’s cooing. Those coos turned into grunts and Beth knew from experience that Judith would soon be demanding a bottle if no one got one in her mouth. She barely spared a glance up at the baby before returning her vigilant watch of Carl’s breathing, though.

Beth squeezed his hand. Carl’s remained limp.

“Where’s Otis?!” Patricia asked, voice tinged with hysteria. She was the only one near a window, peering anxiously through the dark. “Has anyone seen him?”

No one had. A murmur buzzed just like Otis’ bees, everyone whispering, comparing notes. When was the last time they saw Otis? They didn’t see him during the firefight? No one remembered passing him on their mad dashes to the house, to safety?

An answer didn’t come until a long while later when, after a cursory knock and announcement of their names in a strangled voice, Rick and Daryl let themselves into the house. The former looked like death walking, his lip split, one eye blacking, a necklace of bruises not unlike the one they saw on Dale blooming around his neck. Daryl was a touch too pale but nowhere near the corpse white of Carl. Her cardigan had been tan but the strip around Daryl’s head was the color of rust.

Rick came to drop himself beside Carl and Beth relieved her post for him. She went to Daddy instead, perching herself on the arm of the chair he sat in, leaning her head on his shoulder.

“You seen Otis?” Merle asked. For the first time, she realized he had finished his prosthetic. A knife was strapped to the stump of his arm. He was cleaning blood from the blade.

“Yeah.” Daryl confirmed, leaving it to that one syllable. It was all he needed to say.

Beth closed her eyes but that did nothing to stop the stabbing pain in her chest when Patricia wailed.

In the morning, Beth was relieved to find all the animals alive. Spooked but uninjured. “Y’all are smarter than us,” she told the livestock, giving them their space as she fed them.

There was a fresh pile of dirt outside the fence. Another was awaiting Otis. Daddy had seen to that grave. Glenn was limping a little as he helped T-Dog and Daryl collect a few bodies for the burn pile.

The details of the night had come to her in surges. T-Dog told of running out of the fence to put down the walkers that resulted from the firefight—only one shot, but four more by way of that one biting them. That accounted for the blood on Merle’s prosthetic. “We didn’t want them walking into the fence,” T-Dog explained. “Had enough problems going on.”

Daryl reported that Otis didn’t turn, which was some small comfort for Patricia. “Found him before he was up again.” He died from a gunshot to the thigh. The blood all around him spoke to the nature of the injury.

Maggie was tilling the dark earth where Otis died. No need to draw in predators with the scent of blood.

Daddy gave a summary of Carl’s injury and treatment. He asked, tentatively, if Rick knew Carl’s blood type. When it was revealed that father and son were a match, blood was drawn for a transfusion before Rick would consent to his injuries being treated.

Maggie took Judith last night even though it was supposed to be Beth’s turn. Actually, it wouldn’t be her turn for a while, not until her arm healed. When she changed her bandage that morning, she found her arm deeply bruised around the hole there. It was too small to warrant stitches, so it was left open to dribble blood and heal on its own.

Daddy reassured her that the bone wasn’t broken. As she dumped slops in the pigs’ trough, the jolt of pain in her arm disagreed with that assessment. She probably shouldn’t have been doing any chores, but she was able-bodied enough, so she didn’t see a reason not to.

It was a lonely morning without Carl. He had woken briefly, had accepted some water, and fallen immediately back into unconsciousness.

With the animals taken care of, Beth trudged back to the house. She let herself inside and turned left for the hallway, for Shawn’s room. After a light knock, she let herself into that room, too.

“I’ll sit with him,” she told Rick. “Go sleep a little bit.”

“I’ll just be on the couch,” he said. “Holler if he wakes up.”

“Will do.”

The chair Rick vacated for her was still warm. She took Carl’s hand in hers. He still didn’t squeeze back when she did, but his eyelids fluttered a bit, and that was better than last night. She would take it.

With a sigh, Beth leaned forward so she was slumped half on the bed. She resumed her activity from the night before, eyes trained on Carl’s chest while her mind hounded her with the same question that had been in her head when she woke after a few fitful hours of sleep.

How many times can the farm fall apart and put itself back together?

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty: Early August, Year 2

A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. Proverbs, 17:22.

It took a few days, especially on Rick’s end, since his story came in starts and stops and long moments where he stared at nothing, but the puzzle of what happened that July night finally pieced.

Their suspicions had been right. Shane wanted the farm, wanted the others dead, and wanted Lori and Carl as his victor’s prize. And, of course, Judith.

No one asked Rick, of course, but it was a question that Beth wondered at when she was angry over this latest blow to the farm. Did Shane know? That Lori died, that he had a daughter? Beth hoped he did.

There was just one piece missing from the puzzle, one at the very center, and the fact that it was missing gnawed at the edges of Beth’s mind.

Where did Shane find all those people to help him?

Lethargy had settled over the farm along with the dog days of summer. Patricia spent much of her time fighting back tears. Carl asked questions Rick wouldn’t—or perhaps couldn’t—answer. With Shane gone, Beth would have guessed morale would improve, but the opposite happened. Of the six dead that were collected and burned, none of them were blonde, let alone women. Dale had described the sisters—Andrea and Amy—for them, but they were seemingly absent from Shane’s makeshift army.

One had been young, older than Carl, but younger than Beth. He wore a blue backwards baseball cap and had been the only fatality they directly caused. It was impossible to say who, exactly, shot him. Glenn, T-Dog, Maggie, Otis, and Merle had all been returning fire. The kid had died and turned and taken four others to the afterlife with him.

Another was older, old enough that his black curls were going gray at the temples. In death, his skin had gone ashen and waxy, and Beth hated to think of T-Dog’s lovely, rich skin and friendly face looking like that.

The third looked nothing like Jimmy save for over-long hair and a similar age of death, yet he still made Beth catch her breath. It was likely because his death wound was a bite to the shoulder. That similarity was enough to overcome his dark hair and thick brows, conjuring Jimmy’s features in their stead.

The fourth was the only woman, her hair dark, eyes open and sightless as they stared up at the sky. Beth thought that, if it weren’t for the jaundice that characterized the eyes of the walkers, his eyes might have matched the sky they couldn’t see. Her stomach was ripped open, entrails spilling from the cavity of her torso.

There was the man that Shane beat to death, too, of course. His face had no discernable features left.

Before they could be carted away and burned, Beth left the fence, spurred forward by a sudden, undeniable need to see them. She knew if she didn’t give her nightmares a face to use, her mind would conjure something far worse. No one objected to her looking into the faces of these dead men.

In total, the night had claimed six lives. Six lives, and only one from their side. It was favorable odds for a battle, Beth guessed, but the aftermath didn't feel like triumph.

A summer ago, Beth had been certain the virus was nothing to worry about. She thought she would be back at school in a few months to finish her interrupted senior year. That had been the school's plan, to reconvene the following fall, and for the seniors who missed their opportunity to graduate to do so in December.

Now August had come around again, and nothing was as it once had been.

Beth would never graduate high school, never go onto college as Maggie had, but that didn't bother her like it had in the beginning. She had learned a lot of lessons since then that were far more valuable.

She thought about this while sitting with Judith in the patch of shade on the side of the house. Judith lay on a blanket spread over the grass, enjoying both the warmth of the day and the mobile that hung over her. Glenn had been exceedingly thorough in gathering supplies for the baby. His care combined with Lori's knowledge had resulted in, at least, no lack of resources when it came to seeing Judith through her infancy.

"That's silly, isn't it?" She asked Judith, pulling on one of the stuffed animals hanging from the mobile so that it came lower before starting on a slow climb back upward. Judith didn't laugh yet, but she smiled often, gummy and wide.

She didn't know that both of her biological parents were dead.

Last August, there were no graves on the farm. Shawn, Mama, and Arnie were already dead by then, but they didn't rest. Beth yanked on the toy again, Judith cooing all the while, and looked up and across the farm. The burn scar where the old barn stood was fading. New grass was growing, fertilized by the ashes.

Last August, Beth would have been upset to look to that spot and see it empty. Now she sighed in relief. She understood, now, that being a walker was a fate worse than death. Beth recalled how Mama used to turn toward her songs, head angled to where Beth sat in the hayloft, how the music calmed her. Daddy wasn't wrong in saying there was something left of the living in a walker.

But he had been wrong to think he might cure it one day. That mistake had cost Shawn his life. Mama's, too, really.

It didn't all click for her until Jimmy was dying in her arms and begging her not to let him turn, but she understood now. Her gaze slid away from the empty patch—maybe they would build another barn there one day—to the graveyard that sat close to the garden.

She could name the graves in order even from here, too far away to make out the names carved into the plain, wooden crosses. Well, not so plain. Maggie had wound a little wreath of flowers around each of them.

They were in death order.

Shawn, Mama, Arnie, Sophia, Jimmy, Lori, Otis.

Seven crosses. Seven graves. Seven heartaches. Only five patches of grass, though. Lori and Otis hadn't been buried long enough for the earth to reclaim them yet.

The eighth grave on the Greene's land was beyond the fence that protected the rest of the farm. It was unmarked. When the earth turned Shane Walsh back to dust, there would be nothing to remember his resting place by. But for now a dirt pile sat over top and Rick was carrying Carl on his back, the wide brim of that sheriff hat shielding both their faces. Beth watched as Rick set Carl down and then turned her attention back to Judith.

What would he say to Carl? That, in the end, the world made Shane a bad person? Maybe he always had been and the circumstances they found themselves in simply revealed it. Beth didn't like that thought, that people could go their whole lives pretending to be upstanding, only to fold at the first opportunity and let that concealed depravity run free.

"You girls ready?" Carol's voice broke into Beth's reverie. She looked up to find Carol smiling. When she came to the farm, her gray hair had been shorn short. It was growing now so that it curled prettily around the delicate features--a pointed chin, a thin nose, heavy lashed eyes--of her face.

It was washing day but Beth had been of no use. Carol wouldn't let her help until her arm healed though she had no issue with Beth tagging along for company. Especially today, when they found themselves in charge of Judith. This was the first day Carl had been well enough to leave his bed for a significant stretch of time. Rick clearly wanted to get the ugly business of explaining Shane's death out of the way.

"I can get her," Beth tried to argue when Carol bent to retrieve Judith from the blanket.

"Nonsense. You hold her one way, her head is right on your arm. You hold her the other way and she'll be kicking her feet on that bandage." If there was one thing Judith loved to do, it was wheel her legs and kick her feet. "That's Daryl's fault, calling her Little Ass Kicker. Gave you ideas, didn't he?"

Carol, it occurred to Beth, was probably a really good mom to Sophia.

She gathered up Judith's blanket and mobile instead, following Carol back into the house. All the windows were thrown open in an attempt to cool it down before the house had to be shut up again at night. In the living room, blankets were folded neatly at the end of the couch, a pillow on top. That was Rick's bedding. With the other guest room still empty of its bed, he had taken to sleeping on the couch in the main house.

Beth overheard him thanking Daddy and reassuring him that, once Carl was well enough, he would take the children back to the camper and 'get out of y'all's hair'.

Carol kept Judith, feeding her a bottle and talking to her about the day, while Beth went further into the house to the kitchen.

"What are we making tonight?" She asked Patricia. As often as Beth could, she came into the kitchen to help. It was far too hot to light the cook fire in the fireplace, so they had been making good use of the grill outside on the back porch.

"Merle and Daryl brought in doves," Patricia nodded to a plate on the counter. A pile of birds sat there, relieved of their feathers and heads and other various bits not good for eating. While everyone else seemed determined to make sure Beth followed Daddy's orders, no one tried to stop Daryl from ignoring advice and going into the woods to hunt while mildly concussed. Probably because he always brought something for dinner back with him. "And Maggie sent in yellow squash and zucchini from the garden."

So it was doves and vegetables that got cut and prepped, slathered in butter and herbs, and placed on the grill. More than once while they worked, Patricia murmured 'excuse me' and stepped away for a moment to press the heels of her hands firmly against her eyes. Shortly after Otis was buried, she beseeched them all not to treat her like she was made of spun sugar, to continue on as they had before. It was what Otis would have wanted, she insisted.

Only because of this wish did Beth continue working as if there had been no interruption. They had all given Patricia their platitudes and condolences the day Otis was buried and then tucked it all away as she requested.

That didn't mean that Patricia was a rock, though. If anything, she was prone to sudden bursts of sentimentality, which was how Beth found herself drawn into a tight hug in the middle of their cooking work.

"Oh, honey, your mama would be so proud of you," she said, patting Beth's hair. "Helping with that darling baby and sweet little Carl. And you were so brave the other night. I wish she were here to see how much you've grown, what a strong young woman you're becoming."

She wouldn't let herself cry over her husband, but Patricia's feelings had to go somewhere. These ramblings were the outlet.

"I'm glad you think so," Beth said, patting Patricia's arm and trying to ignore the way her own burned in protest of the hug.

When Patricia got twelve sets of tableware out for dinner by mistake, Beth quietly put one back before she could notice.

“Hey, survivor.” Merle greeted Beth by patting her on the head after she slipped into her seat. Well, it had been Merle’s, but he stood when he saw her coming. “How’s the arm?”

“Still attached.” He laughed and flicked her on the side of the head before going to take a seat on the front steps of the camper.

“No gangrene?”

“Not a smidge.” In truth, her arm ached even when it was held still. Worse, it itched infuriatingly as the muscles and skin knitted themselves back together. She couldn’t scratch beneath her skin, so she tried her best to simply ignore it. Merle’s talking about it wasn’t helping. Deciding to ignore him, she shifted in her chair and turned toward Daryl. “Daddy said to tell you he’ll take your stitches out after dinner.”

Indeed, it was only late afternoon. The sun was far too high in the sky for her usual visits here at the Dixon trailer. Daryl was skinning their dinner in question: squirrels. The Beth of a few years ago would have wrinkled her nose in disgust at eating squirrel meat. Now her stomach growled at the thought; every dinner that involved meat had become exciting. Daryl and Merle were hunting regularly again, now that Shane was in the ground.

 Daryl nodded and continued sliding his wickedly sharp game knife between the skin and muscle of the squirrel in his hand. A few others, already prepared, sat on a platter. “You can take those in to Carol when I’m done with this one.”

“Where’s your manners, baby brother?” Merle taunted, raising an eyebrow. Except for at the dinner table in the big house, Merle had taken to wearing his knife prosthetic around the clock. Beth wondered, privately, if he slept with it on. And if he did, how he avoided stabbing himself in his sleep with it. “Making an injured little lady carry game herself.”

“She said her arm’s still attached,” Daryl returned, not looking up from the squirrel he was tending to. Beth raised the arm in question and gave it a shake in Merle’s direction, ignoring the slight burn the motion caused.

“Everyone’s gotta pull their weight on a farm, bullet wounds or not,” Beth tacked on. “I guarantee those pigs don’t care if my arm’s hanging by a thread so long as I dump the slop bucket in their trough.”

“Yeah, but pigs are assholes,” Merle said, a conviction in his voice she hadn’t expected. “Those little piggies out yonder in their pen probably make you think of Wilbur and Babe, but you ever met a wild hog? Fuckers don’t even fear God.”

“He’s just bitter because he’s got a five-inch scar on his calf from a wild hog,” Daryl cut in. Then he offered his tray of squirrel meat. “Happened a decade ago, but he’s still dramatic about it.”

The tray was light; squirrels didn’t weigh an awful lot. “Well, sorry about your calf, but my pigs have never so much as nipped me,” Beth informed Merle as she stood.

“Give ’em the chance,” Merle called after her as she returned to the house, “and they’d eat you, too!”

Though he was by far the most severely injured, Carl was healing faster than anyone else. Daddy attributed that to Carl’s youth. While Beth tried her best to ignore the urge to pick at the scabs on her arm and Daryl’s burns flaked and Glenn’s ankle was still tender, Carl’s color seemed to improve by the hour. Within two weeks, he was back at the dinner table, gamely shoveling his food into his mouth. He sat between Rick and T-Dog at the table, sometimes leaning on the former when he grew tired, often smiling at a joke the latter told him.

Dinner talk centered around farm matters and Judith. They skirted talk about injuries, Shane, Lori, Otis. It came out in phrases like, we need to add antiseptic to the supply list or the new watch schedule has been worked out.

Two chairs had been removed from the table, one for Otis and one for Lori. They sat in the sunroom, now, like two wooden sentinels.

Beth and Carl still sat on the piano bench together but now they played together rather than one leading the other. This was a necessity while they healed. They both bore injuries on their left side. It hurt to stretch her left arm across the keys; it hurt Carl to move too much at all. They sat side-by-side, their left sides together, using their right hands to play like some sort of conjoined beast. Only the simplest beginner pieces—Mary Had a Little Lamb, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, and Jingle Bells—were played this way, and wonky, to boot, but it was… cathartic.

Probably because it didn’t require Carl to speak, which he did little of in those days following Shane’s attack.

They were only two weeks into August, and Beth could feel that it was going to be a brutal, uncomfortable month.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-One: Mid-August, Year 2

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. James, 1:2.

The nightmares returned like a delayed reaction. Beth was just starting to feel like she had dodged them when, one night, she found herself in the clutches of the worst she’d had in a while.

In her dream, Beth walked through an abandoned farm. The big house was empty. Well, of anyone living, anyway. She ‘woke’ in the dream on the couch, her body stiff, Judith’s wails filtering to her through the shut bedroom door. Beth went to it immediately, flinging it open to find Shawn’s old bedroom a pristine time capsule of how it looked when he left it.

No bassinet in the corner. No sleeping pallet on the floor. Zero evidence of Carl or Judith to be found. Before she could recover from this surprise, she heard her name being called in a very familiar voice.

“Beth!” came Mama’s voice. “You’re going to miss out on pancakes if you don’t hurry!”

The kitchen, just like Shawn’s bedroom, was empty. No one sat at the little table where the family used to eat breakfast together, but it was set for five. Mama’s phantom voice spoke of pancakes, and there they were, rotten and fly covered. Beth raised a hand to her face, shielding her nose from the putrid smell.

“C’mon, honey!” A lot of people had called her ‘honey’ in her life, but Beth’s favorite had always been Jimmy. Now his voice called to her from the front of the house, as if she would find him standing in the open doorway, waiting for her. “We got stalls to muck!”

She knew no one was there yet she couldn’t keep her feet from carrying her forward. Through the living room and out the front door to stand, alone, on the porch.

And, God, she truly was alone. The grass grew unruly and thick with no livestock to graze over it. All the fences around the animal yards were dilapidated and falling, their troughs rusted. Even the air was still, no wind, no life, breezing through. It was dark, but Beth thought the word ‘night’ too generous for this moonless, starless world.

Then came a chorus. A cacophony of voices she knew well—Maggie’s and Glenn’s, Daddy’s and Rick’s, Carl’s, T-Dog’s, Patricia and Carol, Daryl and Merle—shouting her name like a chant. Beth, Beth, Beth, Beth, BETH!

Only now she wasn’t alone. The voices came from walkers, discernible only as darker shapes against the field of black that surrounded the farm. Those voices, their voices, came over the typical, awful, throaty growl the walkers made. Every direction she looked, Beth saw the impending mass of shadowy walkers, closing in on her. There was nowhere to go, nothing to defend herself with.

Her only option was hurling herself back inside and slamming the door shut. Beth pressed her back to the door, sliding down to the floor, drawing her knees up and dipping her head between her knees, hands gripping her hair. She sobbed as the walkers came close enough to begin throwing themselves against the exterior of the house, to scratch at the siding, to tap at the windows.

“Go away!” She shouted, retreating into herself. “GO AWAY!”

When Beth woke, really woke, it was to a damp tangle of sheets, cold sweat covering her body. Her heart was in her throat and she choked on it, wild eyes darting to the window. The open window. Through it, she could see the starlight glowing softly along a farm that was very much alive. The cows and horses slept beneath those stars. A cool night breeze washed over her face. Crickets were still singing, performing the night-long concert they began every evening during her and Daryl’s watch shift.

Slowly, as if a sudden movement might launch her back into the nightmare, Beth untangled herself from her bedsheets. Feeling the wood grain under her bare feet was reassuring as she padded across the floor to the window. She first pulled the window shut and then the curtains before pulling her sleep shirt over her head. It was damp, too, having absorbed all her primal fear before the nightmare released her.

She didn’t bother to study the sky before closing the curtains, but her body told her that dawn wasn’t far off. after pulling her bedsheets back into place, Beth laid herself down in only her underwear, pulling the blanket folded at the end of the bed over herself. Curled on her side, Beth didn’t sleep, instead trying her best to calm herself down. Her crocheted blanket was a little scratchy on her bare skin but in a comforting way. She could barely remember the grandmother that had made the blanket for her but that didn’t diminish the solace it had brought her throughout her life.

Beth focused on her breath, forcing it to slow, willing her muscles to relax. They did so in degrees and, eventually, that awful, hunted feeling left her. In its wake, a bone deep exhaustion settled into her bones. It made her muscles feel fuzzy, like TV static, and her head felt a tad bit numbed. She lay like that, resting without sleeping, and watching the light shift and brighten.

When the day drew near enough, Beth rose once more, this time pulling on a long-sleeve, cotton shirt and hooking a pair of overalls atop the shirt. She dug in her dresser for a pair of socks, pulled them on, and followed them with her boots.

Usually, her sole goal while dressing was to cover the scars on her wrist. Today, it was to cover as much of her skin as possible because someone had to tend to Otis’ bees now and the task had fallen on her shoulders. She was cursing her own curiosity as she headed downstairs; no one else had hung around the hives, asking questions.

But first, the animals. Though Carl improved by the day, Daddy had yet to clear him to return to chores. Beth dragged her feet as she moved through hers. She scratched between the pigs’ ears—“You would never eat me, huh?”—and stroked the chickens’ feathers. Beth petted Cookie’s neck and talked to him for a good, long while. The cows got extra attention, too, especially the heifer producing milk.

Morning had truly taken hold by the time Beth made herself trudge to the back corner of the farm where the bees were housed. Their buzzing got under her skin, infecting her spine with nervous energy. With her sights set entirely on the hives and the little shed that sat beside them, where Otis kept his hat and gloves, Beth was entirely unaware that she had drawn someone’s attention until T-Dog laughed.

“It’s bees, girly, not war.” With no hat, no gloves, and wearing a short-sleeve t-shirt, T-Dog was very calmly removing a top off one of the beehives.

“You’re going to get stung,” Beth told him, staring hard at the uncovered frames. The onslaught of disturbed bees never came, though, and only then did she notice the smoker sitting at T-Dog’s feet.

“They’re too sleepy for that,” T-Dog disagreed. “I’m not allergic, anyway. I’ve been stung before. You?”

“Not, I’m not allergic.” Once, when Beth was little and still in the habit of running around the farm barefoot, she had been stung on the heel after stepping on a bee visiting a dandelion. The sting burned, sure, and her foot was tender to walk on for a few days, but she never had a reaction to it.

“Good. Come give me a hand before they wake up.” Together, moving from frame to frame, they checked on each slice of the hive. Just as T-Dog said, the bees were sleepy, moving drunkenly about their work.

“Otis collected the spring flow in June,” Beth told him, her voice a little tight as her throat thickened. It was hard to talk about any of the dead. “I remember, because he asked me to let him know when it was mid-June. I have a calendar I’ve been keeping.”

“Huh,” T-Dog murmured, carefully replacing the frame they just inspected. “What day is it?”

“August eighteenth.”

“Any idea when we should collect again?”

“September.” Remind me again when it’s September, would ya? “But… I don’t know how to do that.”

“Bet we can figure it out.” She envied T-Dog’s ease that morning. Not just with the bees in the moment but his entire attitude concerning their care and upkeep. Beth, on the other hand, was terrified of losing this very valuable resource by making a mistake. She tried to emulate T-Dog’s calm as they finished their rounds.

“I’ll start looking through the almanacs again,” she told him when they were finished, “but I think a book dedicated on beekeeping would be better.”

“If you can talk the scavenging crew into swinging by a library, more power to you,” T-Dog said. “Glenn plans on heading out soon as his ankle stops bothering him. He doesn’t want us to run low on formula for Judith.”

“Who’s on the scavenging crew?” They hadn’t wanted for much on the farm, thankfully, between the beginning of Shane’s obsession to his end. This would be the first time a ‘crew’ was heading out.

“Glenn, Rick, and Daryl. Used to be a bit bigger, ’course, but Shane and Merle lost their spots for very different reasons.” Betrayal and death for one, amputation for the other.

“They don’t think Merle’s knife would be… handy?” T-Dog grinned at her bad joke.

“Actually, too handy. Someone’s gotta hold down the fort, right? That’s why the crew got smaller and the watch dogs grew. This farm outsizes our old camp by a mile. Need more hands—and knives—at home, just in case.” As they walked back to the house for their breakfast, T-Dog knocked his shoulder into hers. “We’re the eyes on the home front.”

The thought that she might rank among the likes of T-Dog and Merle, who she considered true survivors, left Beth’s face flushing. She didn’t think it was a fair comparison, but she decided against telling T-Dog so.

Another dream that visited Beth as she processed the latest wave of disaster involved her taking on Otis’ death. The bullet that pierced her flesh buried itself in her thigh instead of sailing through her bicep. Blood flowed freely and heavily, soaking her pants and the earth beneath her at an alarming weight. She found herself unable to stand, unable to move. Rooted to the ground, Beth had no choice but to watch her family and friends be gunned down by the intruders who accompanied Shane that night.

She didn’t like to think about that one at all. It managed to rip a cry of “No!” from her lips as she woke, again, drenched in a cold sweat. Just as she had after the other nightmare, Beth tossed her damp pajamas aside and curled herself beneath her blanket.

It took a long time, but her heart calmed and her breathing evened. But she never went back to sleep after a nightmare. No matter how far off the dawn was, she laid there beneath her blanket, watching the light change until she was able to get up and dress for her chores. This nightly routine was beginning to leave her more exhausted than ever.

If Daryl had any comments on the swiftness with which Beth fell asleep in her lawn chair every night after their rounds, he kept them to himself. Her internal clock was attuning itself to this routine. Most nights she woke on her own a few minutes before Daryl would have shaken her shoulder. As she came back into herself from those snatches of true, restful sleep, she would study the man sitting on the other side of the fire pit.

Beth knew the way the orange light of the fire played over his tanned skin, how it highlighted the muscles in his arms as he went about any number of little tasks that kept his hands busy. Sharpening knives. Polishing silverware from the kitchen. Mending clothing. Braiding together cord into lengths of stronger rope. She knew the shift in color at his temple from dark, blue-purple to the perversely almost healed, sickly green-yellow of an old bruise. The way the red-black scabs gave way to pink, new skin. The little pucker of scar tissue where the stitches had sat.

On the night of August twenty-second, Beth’s eyes fluttered open and she took in the sight of Daryl quietly shelling pecans. She had become mindful of the date again lest she miss the day she and T-Dog needed to collect the next honey flow from the bees.

“Heard y’all are heading out tomorrow,” Beth murmured.

“Oh, yeah? Little birdy tell you that?” Daryl cracked another pecan and worked the shell free of the meat. Instead of tossing it into a bucket with the others, he held out a hand and offered it to Beth. She let him drop it into her waiting palm and then popped it into her mouth, chewing slowly.

“Yeah,” she said after she swallowed. “A little birdy who wears baseball caps.”

“Mouthy, that one.” Beth smiled sleepily.

“Hey, do me and T-Dog a favor?” He glanced over at her, eyes dark and unreadable in the shadow of his brows.

“What’s that?”

Beth’s cheeks heated and it had nothing to do with the fire. She felt shy, suddenly, with her request. It seemed silly compared to other items on the list. Ranking much higher were necessities: Judith’s formula, any medicine or first aid supplies that could be found, a new mattress for the bedroom. Rick’s plan to move his children back into the camper had been intercepted by Daddy. He insisted that the Grimes family—or, what remained of it—to become permanent residents of the big house. Shawn’s old room would become Carl’s while Rick and Judith would inhabit Jimmy’s. Beth’s own baby clothes had been brought down from the attic, which was one less worry on the list.

“It’s just if you happen to see something like this. I mean, you don’t gotta go looking for it, or anything, okay?”

Daryl shot her a raised brow. “Spit it out, Bess.”

“A beekeeping book,” she blurted out. “We don’t know what we’re doing and I’m scared we’re gonna end up killing the bees.”

“Beekeepin’ book, huh?” Daryl repeated, a smirk playing at his lips. “Big ask.”

Beth’s face flushed again. “I know. That’s why I said, don’t go looking for it, or anything. Just… if you happen to see one.”

“I’ll keep an eye out,” he told her, that smirk still in place.

“Okay,” Beth nodded to herself. “Thanks.”

“Any time.”

Come the next morning, it felt perverse to be on a farm that felt as empty as it did. Though she hadn’t been much happy with God lately, Beth found herself sprinkling the day with little prayers. When Glenn was trying to get the old truck to start, she prayed the gasoline in the tank hadn’t degraded so much that they wouldn’t be able to use it for travel. After they managed to get the engine to turn over, she prayed that the gasoline would hold, and they would be able to use the truck to haul their considerable list.

When Rick, Glenn, and Daryl drove away, all neatly lined up on the bench seat with Glenn driving and Daryl by the window, his crossbow poised and ready, Beth prayed they would be safe all the day through and return home as whole as they left it.

With her prayers exhausted and the truck no longer in sight, Beth committed herself to her day’s task: taking care of Carl and Judith. She didn’t mind being the default babysitter. Carl was her little buddy, after all, and she was pretty fond of Judith, too.

“How’s the…” Beth motioned to her side, unsure how to phrase it. Carl didn’t much like talking about his injury.

“It’s okay,” he told her. The color had returned to Carl’s face, though he still hadn’t joined her for chores. Daddy said he was healing well, that he was lucky to be so young. “How’s your arm?”

“Itchy.” God, but it bothered her. She wanted nothing more than to pick at the twin scabs on either side of her arm. Beth knew that would only lead to infection, though, so she made do with distracting herself with falling back into the old habit of picking at her nailbeds instead. “But Daddy said it’s almost better.”

“Yeah, me too.” Carl was still a boy of few words. Considering that he was at the center of the majority of the recent aftermath on the farm, Beth couldn’t blame him. They settled into the living room together, sitting across from each other at the coffee table, and began working on a puzzle while Judith napped on the couch. A line of pillows stood like a guardrail, keeping the baby from rolling off the edge.

The puzzle featured a band of wild mustangs thundering down a hill. Beth had always liked the puzzle, the grand feeling of freedom the mustangs evoked. She sorted the edge pieces while Carl collected the interior pieces. It was a one-thousand-piece puzzle, and she chose it for a very specific purpose: to keep Carl distracted for as long as possible. They were quiet as they worked.

“Have you ever ridden a horse?” Beth asked, working on bringing the shape of a tan colored mustang to life while Carl searched the box for pieces that would match the black one he was working on.

“One time at, like, a carnival?” Carl’s hair was getting long enough that his shaggy bangs hid his eyes when his head was bent down. “But it was old and fat.”

“When Daddy says it’s okay, I’ll take you out to ride one of ours.”

“Not that little one that’s always biting you, right?”

Beth laughed. “Cookie doesn’t bite, he nips. He’s just a brat but he’s not trying to hurt me. No, he’s too young to ride. We’ll get him trained to take a saddle in a few years. Cinnie’s really sweet—that’s Cookie’s mom. She would be good.”

“Okay,” Carl agreed easily. He agreed to most things these days, not really caring one way or another. The apathy made Beth’s heart ache.

After the puzzle was finished and Judith was up from her nap, they took her out to the sunroom. Carl—and Judith by extension—were on strict orders to remain in the house. The sunroom had to do for her usual outdoor playtime, not that Judith much seemed to mind. Sun-warmed jasmine, geranium, and begonias perfumed the space. These leftover relics from Mama were now cared for by Maggie.

Carl shook various stuffed animals in front of Judith’s face while she stared wide-eyed and smiled her gummy little smile. Beth read aloud to both of them from an old, well-worn copy of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe:

            “Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,

            At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,

            When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,

            And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.”

“So, he’s like, the hero, right? Aslan?” Carl asked, letting Judith grab hold of the little elephant he shook above her face.

“Yeah. The metaphor is that he’s God.” Judith pulled the elephant to her face, mouth open. She was probably getting hungry.

“What’s a metaphor?” Carl asked.

“It’s like… when someone says someone else has a heart of gold. They don’t really have a golden heart, and God’s probably not a lion, but it’s, like, a symbol for the meaning.”

Carl digested that for a long moment. Just as she was about to go back to her reading, he said, “Kind of like Sophia’s doll, right? It’s not Sophia, but Carol keeps it tucked into Sophia’s bed in her camper. Like she’s still tucked in safe.”

“Yeah,” Beth agreed. “Like that.”

Their scavenging crew didn’t return until late. Beth was just thinking of offering to sleep on the pallet bed in Carl’s room so he wouldn’t be alone when T-Dog gave a loud whoop! Headlights cut through the front window, momentarily bathing his face in yellow lights.

The old truck was ricketier than ever as it rolled onto the farm. Glenn seemed to have it running on hope, prayers, and fumes, but it was running. Beth followed Carl into the twilight, Judith in her arms. A white, rectangular shape jutting out of the truck bed spoke to success: Rick just scored himself a new mattress.

“Dad!” Carl shouted, running at full tilt. Well, as full as he could manage; he pressed a hand to his left side halfway down the drive. Rick lifted Carl up into his arms as if he were much younger and let him remove the sheriff’s hat from his head. Though it had become Carl’s favorite accessory, he had insisted his father take it with him for luck. Now it was in its rightful place and Rick was setting Carl back on his feet so he could reach for Judith.

“They didn’t give you too much trouble, did they?” He asked Beth as they transferred the baby from one set of arms to another.

“Never,” Beth reassured him. It made her a little antsy, Rick being in charge of Judith, even if he did consider her his daughter. But she recognized the hypocrisy in that view. If a mental breakdown was a disqualifier for caring for a baby, she should be on that list right along with Rick.

Besides, with her new nightmares, she doubted she would be much help with Judith during the night.

Beth and Maggie took all the medication and first aid supplies into the house for Daddy. It needed inventorying, but that could wait until the morning. Until then, it all found a new home in his office.

“Look,” Maggie said, pulling something sanitary but not necessarily first aid related from a familiar canvas bag. “I asked Glenn to get them for us.”

A pack of disposable menstrual pads was placed in Beth’s hands. It felt like holding gold. “Oh, thank God. I wasn’t looking forward to figuring out what to do when we ran out.”

“There’s four other pack in here. We’ve got some time.” Unfortunately, though the world had more or less ended, monthly visits certainly had not. Beth was immensely thankful for the solar panels and well each time it came around.

“Kiss him extra for me tonight,” Beth said, handing the pack over to Maggie once more. Those pads would be stashed away in their shared bathroom, along with a hoard of soap and shampoo, not to mention the condoms Beth put in one of the drawers. While everything was falling into antiquity around them, the Greene sister’s bathroom was a stronghold of modernity.

Beth went to bed happy enough, with their scavengers back safe and several more months secured before she had to face another consequence of living through the end times. That happiness wasn’t enough to keep the nightmares at bay, but, well… beggars couldn’t be choosers, she supposed. She didn’t expect any other surprises, her ‘long shot’ request for a beekeeping book having slipped from her mind, but when she stumbled outside to feed the animals, she found one waiting for her.

Sitting on the fence around the pig yard was a book. It had a sticker on the spine, denoting that it had once belonged to the Senoia Branch Library. When Beth picked it up, she found that it had that slightly dusty, old paper smell of a library. Across the cover was a glossy, close-up photo of bees working in a hive and the title The Beekeeper’s Handbook.

Were it not for their grunting, the pigs might have gone forgotten as Beth smiled to herself.

“Hush,” she told the impatient pigs. “You’ll get your breakfast soon enough.”

She had to tuck the book under her arm for the time being, carefully keeping it out of harm’s way while she went about her chores. Once finished, she brought her new book up to her bedroom. Inside the back cover was the library card, bearing stamped check-out and return dates. Spurred on by a wave of sentimentality, Beth took one of her beloved pens and wrote the names Beth Greene and Theodore Douglas on the card.

Beth had long been daydreaming about making honey cookies once they had enough stored away. Carol mentioned them once, and what substitutions could be used to make them, and the idea lodged itself in Beth’s musings.

As she began flipping through the book, she promised herself that the first batch of cookies made with the honey she intended to harvest would have Daryl Dixon’s name on them.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Two: Late August, Year 2

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous as wolves. Matthew, 7:15.

Morning chores were lonely without Carl. On the mornings when the nightmares had her heading outside as the sun rose, and the day was so tender and new, it was easy to pretend that she was the only one around. Mourning doves cooed from the trees, the grass was slick with dew, and the sky was the softest periwinkle. With the neat rows of graves standing vigil and the rest of the farm sleeping, how could her imagination, fresh off a night of horrors, not spin a yarn where she was the lone living soul on the farm?

Well, besides the animals, who greeted her with wagging, curly tails in the pig yard and clucks and ruffled feathers streaming from the henhouse. The cows let her stroke their heads and hug their necks. Cookie nibbled on the end of one of her braids when she stretched on tiptoe to press a kiss to his forehead.

Beth scooped up one of the barn cats, a veteran calico named Holly, and cuddled her close to her chest. She took the cat with her into the horses’ pen with her to watch the last of the sunrise. While she went about her chores, the blue of the sky had strengthened, morning rays staining the clouds closest to the sun orange. Further back, the clouds deepened into shades of magenta and violet.

“Pretty, huh?” she said, scratching at the underside of Holly’s chin as she purred.

When day took full hold, the sun risen and already warm at that early hour, Beth carried Holly back inside the horse barn. It was the cat’s preferred location, not to mention the place where she kept her latest litter of kittens. Beth laid Holly down beside the little, blind kittens, five in total. “Here’s your mama back.”

Outside the barn, the farm was waking. Maggie appeared from the backdoor, heading for the garden. Perfect, Beth thought. Really, Cookie was a little overdue for groundwork training. But tacking was included on the list of things that needed collecting, mindfully put there by Daddy, and Beth was certain she would need treats to bribe the colt with if he was going to follow commands.  

The idea that Cookie, who spent most of his time annoying the other horses, would easily give into tacking was a pipedream. With enough carrots and celery, though, and with some free hours on that Saturday, Beth thought she might be able to convince the colt into a rope harness, at least.

Beth scrambled over the fence, deciding it would be easier to climb it than open the gate with all the horses in the yard, and jogged over to the garden. She found Maggie there, her face shadowed by a sunhat, watermelon-printed covering her hand and wrists and half her forearms.

“Hey,” Beth said, coming to a stop behind her sister. “Got any carrots or celery to spare?”

“Sure, if you help me get rid of these damned hornworms first.” The fat, green worms were often the bane of Maggie’s existence in the summer. From time to time, the tomato plants became plagued with them. Maggie nodded to the shallow pan of soapy water, already dotted with the corpses of the hornworms.

“Okay.” When Beth was a little girl, this had been one of her favorite ‘games’. Both Maggie and Mama convinced her that rooting around the garden for pests—hornworms, grubs, snails—was fun. Her little fingers became skilled at plucking the bugs from stems, leaves, and soil. It was a point of pride all through her childhood that Beth could clear a garden patch of the unwanted guests so quickly.

Beth forewent the gloves, though she knew there were more pairs in the sunroom, just a few yards away. The hornworms squished a bit between her fingers. That was the reason she was so quick with it when she was little. She hated the liquidous feel of the fat worms between her fingers. Better to toss them into the waiting pan and move onto the next one quickly.

It was cooler here in the garden. Maggie had already watered, the scent of damp soil filling her nose. Even so, Beth soon found herself sweating under the plaid flannel she wore over her tank top and shorts.

“You always were good at this,” Maggie smiled at her, distracting her from her internal lamentations. She didn’t want to wear long sleeves but she also didn’t want to expose the scars on her wrist. Never mind that they had faded into thin, silvery lines that were hardly distinguishable from her pale skin, unless you were looking at her wrist in just the right light.

“I’d much rather do the snails,” Beth grimaced as she plucked a particularly fat worm off a leaf. “Way less gross.”

“Not the grubs?”

“Ugh, no!” A shudder ran down her spine just thinking about the bloated, pale bugs and their red heads and creepy, searching mouths. Maggie laughed as the finished deworming the tomatoes.

When she was little, her reward for ‘de-icking’ the garden was candy. Now it was a few stalks of celery and some carrots, pulled fresh from the soil. Beth rinsed both at the well before using her pocketknife to cut the celery and carrots into smaller chunks. All the treats were tucked into the pocket of her shorts before she headed back to the horse barn. That was her intention, anyway, though she was soon stilled by a shout from T-Dog.

“Company!” He shouted at the top of his lungs. It was the code word the farm residents settled on for alerting one another that an unknown, living person was spotted. “Company!”

Beth looked around to see who else was out. Maggie appeared from the garden, nodding for Beth to return to her. With T-Dog and Rick on duty, they were already in a favorable position.

Carol was inside with Judith and Carl. Patricia was likely still in the kitchen; she planned on baking new loaves of potato bread, Beth knew. Daddy was probably with her. Where Merle was, she couldn’t say, but Glenn was surely still asleep after taking extra watch shifts in the wake of Otis’ death and Daryl was still out in the woods. Beth watched him leave from her bedroom window this morning, in that first light of dawn, to go check the small game snares he and Merle set yesterday.

“Think it’s…?” Beth began to ask but left the question hanging. No one really talked about Shane on the farm. His name had taken on an air of superstition in the weeks following his death. She raised her eyebrows instead, hoping Maggie understood. Do you think it’s someone who was helping Shane?

"I'm going to go get Glenn up," Maggie told Beth, leaving her stranded downstairs. Part of Beth wanted to go back outside, to see this company for herself. A larger part knew that Carl would be frightened, though, so she squashed her initial thought and headed down the hall.

He was easy enough to find. Until Rick finished his morning patrol, Carl was under Patricia and Carol's jurisdiction. That meant he had to stay close, usually in the kitchen or living room. She found him in the latter, lying on the couch, an old copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in his hands.

"Hey," she flicked the brim of his hat to get his attention. "We've got company."

Sitting up was still an ordeal for Carl. He slipped a piece of string between the pages for his bookmark and held the book out to Beth. After she took it, Carl gingerly pushed himself off the couch, a strangled noise slipping from him as he did so.

If her arm had ached and pulled and burned, she couldn't imagine what Carl's stomach felt like. Though she knew Daddy was as careful as he possibly could be, that surgery to retrieve the bullet was hasty by necessity. She wouldn't be surprised if equal damage had been done removing it as the bullet itself causes when it lodged itself in Carl's abdomen.

"Okay." The effort left him pale, but Beth continued to let him manage himself. Carl rebuked all the pity sent his way, even when that pity was only imagined. "Where's Judith?"

This was another aspect that was discussed at the dinner table: contingency plans for Carl and Judith. The question of who would oversee them was answered by Carl himself: Beth.

She was the only option, save for his own father, that he would accept.

"Right here." Carol rounded the corner from the hallway with the baby in her arms. "She's already had her morning bottle, and she's got a fresh diaper."

Judith was passed from Carol to Beth and then she took the Grimes siblings upstairs with her. Inside her bedroom, Beth pulled her bedroom curtains closed and turned the lock on the door.

"Here," she handed Carl his book back. "Read wherever. I'm gonna try to get Judith to nap."

"Can I lay back down?" He asked, eyeing her bed. "I won't mess it up."

He meant the carefully stacked pillows and the tightly tucked corners. With her nightmares waking her early every day, Beth had taken to meticulously making up her bed as if it weren't the location of her suffering.

"It's fine, go ahead." Beth settled Judith into the cradle of her arms. Only the faintest protestation remained on her arm as it took the weight of the baby. Judith blinked up at her with those big, brown eyes and Beth thought she caught a flash of recognition there.

She remembered this routine, their nights together. Beth smiled and, very softly, began to sing.

"Oh, in the woods there was a tree, the prettiest tree you ever did see, and the tree was in the ground, and the green grass grew all around, all around, and the green grass grew all around."

"Hey, I know that song," Carl said. "We sang it for a music program one year. All the classes had a different part. We did the one about the nest."

Beth smiled at him before continuing the song. There was a verse about a limb next. She tried to ignore the faint sound of the front door shutting downstairs. Carl clearly heard it, too; he flinched.

"And on that tree, there was a limb, the prettiest limb you ever did see, and the limb was on the tree, and the tree in the ground..."

There were footsteps on the stairs. Beth used to wake, just a little bit, to listen to Maggie return home safe after nights with friends. Or to listen to Daddy or Mama come to her bedroom door to check on her. These steps didn't sound like Maggie or Daddy.

"And on that limb, there was a branch, the prettiest branch that you ever did see..."

With her belly full and Beth's rocking and singing, Judith was very nearly asleep. Her eyelids fluttered as her dreams took hold. Beth brought the baby to rest on her shoulder, her milky, sleepy breaths huffing against Beth's neck as she went to open her bedroom door when the steps stopped outside of it and someone knocked.

Rick stood on the other side, his mouth a thin line among the stubble of his growing beard and his blue eyes cold and flinty. "Our guest wants to meet everyone on the farm."

"Judith, too?"

"He asked for her especially." Beth's stomach twisted painfully. So, her suspicion was right. This mysterious company was someone who knew Shane. Though she didn't need further confirmation, she met Rick's eye and read the hard truth there. They exchanged a nod.

Beth waited in the hallway for Rick to gather Carl up. Any other time, she was sure he would protest being carried on his father's hip like a much younger boy, but not today. Neither seemed to mind how Carl's legs dangled or the fact that he was too old.

"Behind me," Rick told her over top of Carl's head. Beth nodded and fell in line, following father and son downstairs.

Company was a man. Of course it is, Beth found herself thinking. This man was considerably nondescript compared to Shane, lacking any unique features and the fire that had characterized his predecessor. Nor was he genuinely affable like Dale, though he was giving them all a smile that Beth was sure was supposed to be warm.

It wasn't.

Still, she committed the man's face to memory, openly studying him just as he did them. His hair was brown, shorter than Daryl's, strand straight unlike Rick's curls, and graying at the temples. Stubble dusted his jawline and chin. Dull blue eyes under a heavy brow, a straight nose, thin lips.

And he was tall. Taller than Daddy, Rick, T-Dog, Glenn, Daryl, and Merle. Perhaps that was why, despite his initial quiet and the unassuming way he stood with his hands in his pockets, he seemed to fill the living room with his presence.

"Hiya," he greeted. His smile widened but his eyes remained dull. "Let's see, the boy is Carl, I never did know the baby's name and I suspect Shane might not have, either, and you must be Beth, right? The other Greene sister?"

It was not this man's height but rather his chilling power play, showing he knew things about them, things that could only have been provided by Shane, that made Beth feel small. When he fixed his eyes on her, she refused to return his smile. He didn't seem fazed by this but rather turned his gaze around the room, as if taking roll in his head.

"Just missing a few, now, huh?" Only Daryl, Beth corrected in her head. The man's information was clearly outdated. While he used the same play at intimidation Shane favored, he clearly hadn't had eyes on the farm since the failed attack.

"Only one," Daddy corrected aloud. "He'll be in shortly, I'm sure."

"And which 'one' is that?" He asked, though he kept his eyes on Rick. If he was half aligned with Shane as he was making himself out to be, Beth had no doubt he viewed Rick as a villain.

As if Rick were the one having an affair right under his best friend's nose, as if Rick attacked the farm not once but twice, as if Rick meant to steal family and livelihood from others.

Beth dipped her head over Judith's, inhaling the sweet, clean scent of baby shampoo from the crown of wispy, dark hair there.

"You're so good at guessin'," Merle, who was leaning against the wall next to the front door, arms crossed tightly over his chest, taunted before Daddy could answer, "why don't you tell us?"

"Mighty defensive over there," the man said, rocking back on his heels just a bit to cut his eyes over at Merle. "Must be your brother, then. Daryl, right?"

No one answered him but he seemed to take it as confirmation. Beth followed his eyes as he took stock once more. "All the Greenes; Hershel and Maggie and Beth. The Dixons are brothers, Merle and Daryl. Then we've got the Grimes, Rick, Carl, and the baby. Everyone else is random, right? Glenn, Patricia, Carol, and T-Dog, all with no relation to each other besides this farm y'all got going on here, huh? What's that, nine, ten adults? Plus the two kids? Not bad numbers."

"We do alright for ourselves," Daddy said mildly. No one was sitting. No one had offered the man a drink or a chair. "You know an awful lot about us, but we don't know your name."

The man waved away Daddy's hint. "Not big on introductions, myself. Let's wait for Daryl, then I'll only have to do it the once." He gave another one of his hollow smiles. "That leaves Otis and Lori unaccounted for, huh? Well, not unaccounted. I'm sure I can guess where they are. I'm sorry for your loss, there."

In the doorway to the kitchen, Carol and Patricia stood shoulder to shoulder. The latter held a towel, wringing it between her hands. Her shoulder was pressed to Carol’s. Beth was glad she had someone to lean on for support. Rick had let Carl down before they finished descending the stairs; he stayed close to his children. Considering that Beth was still holding Judith, she was likewise partially blocked from the guest thanks to the way Rick had his body angled.

While Beth was thankful for the grounding, warm weight of Judith against her chest, she also found herself regretting it. She shifted the baby, balancing her bottom on one arm, so that her other could be free to reach for her gun. Beth was close enough the hallway that she was confident she could run to one of the bedrooms if things started to go south.

Judith, for her tender two months of life, was everyone’s main priority on the farm. That wasn’t changing today.

Though she knew Maggie woke Glenn up for the occasion, no sleep lingered on his face aside from a crease line from his pillow. He had his arms folded over his chest and leaned close to Maggie where they stood in a three-person clump along with Daddy.

T-Dog mirrored Merle on the other side of the front door, the two of them effectively forming a two-man team ready to barricade if need be.

Their guest seemed to be content with waiting them out. He paced around the living room, stopping to look at the family photos that lined the mantle over the fireplace. Then he lifted the dust cover on Beth’s piano and pressed a few of the keys, crafting a disjointed little song before it lost his interest. He turned to the jar of wildflowers on top of the defunct TV, rubbing a pale yellow petal between his forefinger and thumb.

Returning to the farm to see it empty clearly raised alarm for Daryl. When he returned, it was with an unneeded knock on the front door to announce himself. Two large rabbits, still tied up from the snare that ended their lives, swung from his belt. His crossbow was loaded with a bolt ready.

“Hey,” he said simply, stepping into the house. Daryl lowered the crossbow so that the readied bolt was pointing at the floor. He kept his back to the front door, completing the line of resistance that T-Dog and Merle had begun.

“Hello, Daryl!” The guest greeted with a clap of his hands, his voice taking on a singsong quality. “Well, now that we’re all here, let’s finish these introductions. My name’s Philip Blake, but my people,” he stopped to chuckle quietly, “well, they think I’m a little bossy at times, so they’ve nicknamed me the Governor.”

Blake sent a smile around the room, one that no one returned, and Beth could see the appropriateness of the nickname in that moment. He was as sleazy as any sham politician she had ever seen campaigning. “Now,” he said, turning to Rick, “are you gonna tell me that little darling’s name? Or do I have to keep wondering who, exactly, Shane was so hellbent on saving?”

Rick was silent for a beat, shifting his weight so that he more fully blocked the baby from Blake’s line of sight. “Her name’s Judith,” Rick said, “and she never needed saving.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Blake held his hands up, palms out, in a conciliatory fashion. “No need for hostility. I said Shane was hellbent, not myself. Now, when he showed up at my gates with Andrea and Amy, I was a little skeptical myself. Peddling us this story about his lady being held against her will, about how his baby was being kept from him. Tall tale, y’know?”

Carl sucked in a breath beside her, eyes flicking up to Judith. Clearly, when Rick spoke to him about Shane’s fall from grace, he left out the infidelity and true parentage of his sister. Now Carl’s brows were knit together, his mouth ajar with a question he wasn’t quite sure of.

“C’mon,” Beth whispered, nearly all breath, nodding behind her to the hallway. She stepped back and Carl copied her, slowly retreating until they were out of the living room.

“Did he mean that?” Carl asked, his words covered by Blake’s continued story.

“Andrea, bless her, vouched for him. He found her and her sister, taught them how to use their guns like proper little sharp shooters. They’re both on my firing squad now.”

Beth took a deep breath. It really wasn’t her place to say, to further ruin Carl’s view of his parents. “Does it matter?” She whispered back. “Me and Maggie, we have different moms. Doesn’t make us sisters any less.”

“They’re also the only two that came home from Shane’s little ambush plan. You folk are lucky that Andrea’s good to her word. She told me Shane’s to blame for one of the deaths and that your people only killed one of mine. Considering two of yours died that night, too, I think we can discount the tragedy of the others being turned by the dead and call it even.”

No one corrected him about the timeline of Lori’s death. That was information for them to keep and a secret Shane took to his grave.

“Mighty kind of you,” Daddy said after a beat. “Is that the reason of your house call, Mr. Blake? Settling up our score?”

“Mostly,” Blake confirmed. “It’s a favor to Andrea, too. She wanted me to see for myself if Shane’s baby was okay. Said it would help her sleep at night, knowing her friend’s death wasn’t for nothing. Little hard to verify, though, with her hidden away in the hallway.”

Another tense beat of silence passed. Beth wondered if Daddy and Rick were doing that thing they had started, where they met each other’s eye and had a whole conversation without ever speaking a word aloud. Carl turned his eye back to her, panicked, but Beth shook her head. “It’s fine.”

And if that was a lie, God forgive her.

“Beth?” Daddy called. “Bring Judith back in here for a moment, honey.”

She didn’t want to, but Daddy wouldn’t have given the instruction if Rick didn’t agree. Beth made her feet move forward, legs feeling numb, and returned to the living room. She stopped just beside Rick, readjusting Judith so that Blake could see her sleeping face.

When he stepped forward, arms raising, Beth stepped back. “You said you wanted to see for yourself,” she told him, her voice far steadier than she felt. She was terrified that if he held Judith, who was admittedly small for her age, having been born prematurely, he would realize that she was no newborn. “Not hold for yourself.”

Philip Blake stopped, hands falling back to his side. His expression went blank, all light fading from his eyes, as he looked through her. Not at her. Though Beth knew it was impossible, she felt like he was staring into her very soul, not just her face.

She refused to look away.

And then Blake smiled, persona slotting effortlessly back into place. “She’s sharp, this one. You’re right, I did say ‘see’.”

He made a show of tucking his hands back in his pockets before bending at the waist to get a closer look at Judith. Did he see Shane’s face in hers? He saw something, of that Beth was certain. For the first time, his smile was genuine as he watched Judith sleep for a few moments.

“Well,” he said as he straightened. “Looks like little Judith is in good hands. I ought to be on my way back before Woodbury’s missing me. Thanks for the visit.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Rick said, patting Beth on the shoulder as he passed her. Daryl moved from in front of the door and he followed behind the other men, so that Blake was effectively sandwiched between him and Rick.

T-Dog and Merle stepped onto the porch to watch.

“Take them back upstairs, honey,” Daddy told Beth. She was all too willing to agree. After retrieving Carl from the hallway, they returned to her bedroom, where Beth laid Judith in the middle of her bed. Carl came along with her to the window to watch Rick and Daryl walk Philip Blake down the long, long dirt drive that led to the gate.

“He meant it, then?” Carl asked, eyes fixed on his dad’s head. “My mom…?”

“Yeah.” Beth felt wrung out, too exhausted to try to pretend otherwise.

“That’s why Shane was so crazy, huh? Why he wanted the farm?”

“He wanted it for him and your mom and you and Judith,” Beth confirmed. “And when he didn’t get it, when your mom decided she made a mistake and didn’t want anything to do with him, he couldn’t accept that.”

Carl fell quiet as they watched from the window. Down below and far off from the house, Daryl and Rick were waiting and watching, too. Philip Blake departed with a wave to the two men. It went unreturned.

“I don’t like him,” Carl said softly, nodding after Blake’s retreating form.

“Me either.”

It took several hours for Beth to remember that she had treats in her pocket for Cookie. Actually, it wasn’t until she was on her evening patrol with Daryl and saw that colt enjoying the cool twilight in the horse yard that she remembered.

“Oh!” She exclaimed, reaching into her pocket. The celery stalks were a little browned, but the chunks of carrots were fine. “I forgot I was going to try some groundwork with Cookie.”

“You forgot you’ve had vegetables in your pocket all day?” Daryl asked, sounding a touch incredulous. When Beth made for the horse pen, Daryl followed after her.

“Yeah, well, we had unexpected company,” Beth reminded him. “God, that guy was a creep.”

She climbed up onto the third rung of the fence and called for Cookie. He sauntered over immediately, saying ‘hello’ by nibbling on the tail end of her braid, as was his habit. “I have something better than hair for you,” she told him, tugging the strands free. “Here. You get them for free today.”

Cookie ate his treats from the flat of her palm with a pleased huff of his breath. “But next time, you have to work for that,” she told the horse, patting his neck before hopping down. “Now, go to bed. I have patrolling to do.”

“Those animals ever pick up English, I know it’ll be your fault.” Daryl told her as they returned to their usual patrol route just inside the wide, electric fence. “Talkin’ to ’em all the time like they’re people.”

“Hey, it could be a good thing,” Beth was quick to counter. “They probably see and hear all sorts of things. They could be on patrol duty, too. I’ll bet none of them like Philip Blake, either.”

“No one ought to,” Daryl agreed. The frivolity their conversation held just moments before faded away with the daylight. Though it was a balmy summer night, Beth felt a shiver go down her spine.

“He’s gonna be back, huh?”

“Or we’ll go to Woodbury,” Daryl agreed. “He wouldn’t’ve mentioned it by name if he wasn’t invitin’ us.”

Beth didn’t like the sound of that at all. She crossed her arms over her stomach, hugging herself, and kicked at a stray rock in their path. “I thought the end of the world was supposed to be lonely.”

“Nah. People suck. The world endin’ just gives them more reasons to be awful.” The rock rolled into his path. Daryl hit it with the side of his boot, deflecting it back into her reach. Beth kicked it again before peeking up at him. He was actually doing patrol, scanning his eyes around the area above her head. Beth didn’t see how he had such a keen hunter’s gaze considering how he let his shaggy hair fall into his face and eyes all the time. The sudden urge to reach up and push the strands aside washed over her.

She balled the sleeves of her flannel in her fists instead and kicked her rock again. “You don’t suck, at least.”

“No?” Daryl asked, pausing his watch to send a smirk his way. This time when Beth kicked her rock, it tumbled beneath the fence and out of reach.

“Nah,” Beth smiled as she mimicked him, bumping him with her shoulder. “Thanks for that. And the book. If you wanna keep eating honey, though, don’t read about how the bees make it.”

Daryl ducked his head, a true smile flashing across his face for just a moment. It lit him up like a candle, that tough veneer falling away. She wanted to see that smile again, she realized, and made the split-second decision to get it out of him as often as possible.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Three: Early September, Year 2

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. John, 10:10.

Beth thought she just might be going crazy.

I'm not sleeping enough, she told herself. I'm too stressed about stupid Philip Blake.

She refused to call him 'the Governor', except when she and Maggie were washing the dishes. Then she said it in a mocking, put-on British accent. The Gov'na.

That was the only logical reason why this boot print, perfectly captured in the dusty floor of the hen house, was bothering her so very much. It wasn't her boot print was the thing. She pressed her own boot firmly down into the dirt floor to check. The treads were different. Beth wore Western boots; her heel left a clear mark devoid of the vertical lines that crossed the rest of the sole. Her boots tapered slightly toward the squared toe.

"Hey, Carl?"

He appeared from a row of roosts, his basket heavy with eggs. Daddy finally cleared him for light farmwork: following Beth around, gathering eggs, milking the cow. No slopping, no carrying water buckets from the well, no hauling anything. "Yeah?"

"Let me see your shoe for a second." He slipped one off without verbal question, though confusion was clear on his face. Beth flipped it over. The tread on his sneaker was nothing like the print in the dirt, either.

"Something wrong?" Carl asked, voice edged in anxiety. The world hung heavy on his shoulders, too, between Lori's and Shane's deaths and the recent encounter with Blake.

"No," Beth tried to give him a reassuring smile. "Just trying to figure out who else has been in here. The chickens are used to me and you, but if someone they don't know is hanging around, it might make them stressed and make them act out."

"Act out?" They traded the basket of eggs and the shoe.

"Yeah, they'll eat their babies. Or their eggs," she explained, raising her basket. "It's, like, a thing with animals. If they get too stressed, they'll cannibalize their offspring."

"Really?" Carl's little, freckled nose wrinkled in disgust.

"Gross, huh?" That boot print still nagged at the edges of Beth's mind. She was no tracker, certainly no Daryl or Merle, and it was hardly as if she had the treads of everyone's shoes memorized. And yet... that print in the dirt had the fine hairs at the back of her neck pricking.

She tried to ignore it while she and Carl walked back to the house with their eggs and milk, but it stayed there, dogging her every step.

Maybe if the boot print had been the only odd thing to happen throughout the first week of September, she could have let it go.

But then clothing went missing from Carol's clothesline. She left them to dry overnight after getting sidetracked with the wash thanks to a nasty stream of blowouts from Judith. When Carol went to retrieve the clothing in the morning, one of Maggie's blouses and a pair of her jeans were missing from the line.

Her first assumption, of course, was that Beth took them.

"Why would I?" Beth asked, thinking of her sister's propensity for boring, muted solids. Vastly different from Beth's pastels, florals, and plaids. "I have my own clothes."

She didn't bother looking up from her bee guide, where she was reading about what would happen should the queen bee die. It was interesting, really. A larva would be chosen by the worker bees and fed 'royal jelly', a secretion made by the bees, that would help the larva develop into a fertile, long-living queen bee.

Worker bees only lived for a few weeks but queen bees could live for years. Beth thought that was ironically fitting to human rulers and workers, too, calling to mind kings and queens growing wealthy and plump off the toiling of peasants.

"Someone took them." Maggie was like a dog with a bone, standing in Beth's doorway with her arms folded over her chest.

"Well, it wasn't me," Beth said as she turned to the next page in her book. "Did you ask Carol?"

"She's the one who noticed they were missing. Just empty clothespins on the line where they were. And don't ask me if I asked Patricia, we're not the same size."

"Maybe it was Glenn." She drew a leg up to her chest, resting her chin on her knee while she continued reading about queen bees and their dreadful duty of forever laying new eggs. "Maybe he's got a thing for wearing women's clothing and he just hasn't told you yet."

From her spot on her bed, Beth could feel the anger in her sister's stare. If she lifted her head to meet it, though, she would have dissolved into giggles. Instead, she pressed her mouth against her kneecap, concealing the smile threatening to pull at the corners of her mouth.

"You're spending too much time with those damned Dixons," Maggie snapped when she accepted that Beth wasn't going to bow under the weight of a lengthy silence. "Saying shit that I would expect to come out of Merle's mouth."

Maggie didn't so much as slam Beth's bedroom door as she kicked it shut. Her reaction had the opposite of its intended effect. A younger Beth would have scrambled off her bed and ran after Maggie, spouting apology and seeking forgiveness.

She wasn't that little girl anymore. Hell, she hadn't been for a long, long time, and every new instance where the world showed her just how hard it could be, Beth felt even farther removed from her.

Watching her bedroom door for a beat, Beth considered the chasm life had wrought between her childhood and adulthood. Now Philip Blake stood at the edge of it. He hadn't said in so many words that he and his Woodbury would be a problem for the Greene Farm and its residents, but that was hardly necessary. Beth had seen enough of human nature now to understand implications and to have an imagination that had no problem filling those gaps until they came to fruition.

"Did you know you're a bad influence on me?" Annoyingly, even her sleep had been disrupted by these thoughts of a spirit among the farm. Rather than nap as she usually might, Beth sat curled up in her lawn chair beside Daryl's and stared through the night at the dark shape of the tree closest to the fence. They theorized once that Shane had used that tree to breach the electric fence that wrapped around the entire perimeter of the farm. Jimmy cut off those old, overhanging branches, though.

"How so?" Daryl was sewing again, this time patching a pair of Merle's pants. Beth watched the firelight glint off the needle as he pushed and pulled it through the denim.

"Well, Maggie was really complaining about Merle, but I spend way more time with you." She didn't know why saying that out loud made her stomach flutter the way it did, but Beth tried to ignore it.

Maggie wasn't going to make her feel embarrassed about this routine of hers. Not when she never noticed a much more detrimental routine Beth developed not so long ago.

Her fingers slid under the sleeve of her shirt to worry at the scars concealed beneath. When she peeked up at Daryl through her lashes, she found him watching her. Beth withdrew her fingers immediately, clenching her hands into tight fists as she hid them entirely beneath her sleeves. "Know how some of her clothes went missing off the line?"

"Yeah, heard about that."

"Well, she accused me of taking them, like I ever would," Beth couldn't help but roll her eyes here, "and I told her maybe Glenn took them and she just didn't know he likes dressing up sometimes, and she got really mad and told me that's something she would expect Merle to say and that I spend too much time here."

His shoulders shook and he lifted a hand to his mouth, using the back to stifle the laugh he was clearly trying to contain. "Shit, Bess," he said, shaking his head.

"She was mean first," she defended herself, trying not to sound too petulant. "Anyway, I didn't take them, but somebody did."

"Yeah," Daryl agreed, totally noncommittal. Beth cut her eyes at him.

"That's all? Just 'yeah'?" It wasn't as if she had shared her suspicions with him. Yet Beth found herself mad that he didn't validate them, prior knowledge be damned.

When he met her gaze, his was steady. Not cold, not exactly, but measured. A clear push back to her sudden mood shift. "You got any idea who?"

"No," she admitted, chin jutting to hide how much the admission deflated the fight in her. "Not a who, really, but a why."

Beth told him about the boot print, hesitance fading away when he didn't immediately discount her notion as silly. "We wouldn't notice a few eggs going missing here and there," she said, picking up steam again, "or a few things from the garden. The clothes were probably a gamble, yeah, but I think it just shows whoever is taking it really needs these things."

"You don't think it's the Governor?"

She wrinkled her nose at his use of the stupid name. "Unless Blake likes wearing women's clothes, I doubt he has anymore need of them than Glenn."

"So, it's not someone messin' with us, that's what you're thinkin'? It's someone stealing 'cause they need it?" While Daryl didn't sound fully sold, he also didn't discount her notion entirely, and that was enough to keep the spark alive in Beth. She nodded.

"That whole psychological thing was Shane's game. I don't think it's Blake's. He didn't have any trouble showing up here, bold as day."

"How do you figure they're gettin' past the fence?" Daryl asked. His hands had stilled in his lap, sewing forgotten for the moment. All his attention was on her.

"Well, that's not so hard, if you know how an electric fence works. They would just need a good length of metal, something to conduct the electricity from the fence and ground it, then they could climb over without too much trouble. They would still get shocked, sure, but not so bad they couldn't make it."

"You ought to tell your old man," he said with a nod to the farmhouse behind them. "Might be onto something."

Beth wondered if he could see her blush through the night. "You should. Daddy doesn't listen to me."

"I ain't gonna take your idea from you."

"But you should. Daddy and Rick listen to you."

"And you're so sure they won't listen to you?" He pressed. It was more than he usually contributed to their conversations when she was here with him each night after patrol.

Beth dropped her eyes to her lap and began fiddling with a loose thread on the hem of her shorts. "It's not like with you and Merle. He calls you 'baby brother' all the time even though you're grown, but he respects you and listens to you. Half the time, Maggie writes off whatever I say just because I'm younger. And Daddy listens to Maggie more than he does me."

She had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep her chin from wobbling. What an immature thing, to cry after complaining about her family treating her like a baby. It wouldn't win her any credibility. Beth bit until she tasted blood, and then she swallowed it back, letting the flare of pain ground her mind.

Those six years between her and Maggie had always felt like an impasse, a crevice she could never hope of stitching together the way Daryl stitched Merle's pants. She knew there were more years between her and Daryl, probably a decade or more if she had to guess, yet it felt easier to find equal footing with him than with her own sister.

"That's a shame," Daryl murmured after a long moment of watching her.

"That's life," she returned with a shrug. Then, finding the courage to meet his eye again, she asked, "So, are you gonna tell Daddy and Rick?"

"I'm gonna tell 'em the idea came from you," he amended. "Told you already, I ain't stealin' your words."

"As long as they come from your mouth, they might actually be listened to."

Beth didn't sleep that night, but she didn't talk anymore, either. She set about winding the loose thread around each of her fingers until the tips went numb. Daryl kept on quietly sewing beside her. When it was time for shift change, they stood in tandem and he quietly walked her back to the house.

They parted with a little wave from Beth, one that Daryl returned after a beat where she thought he might say something. He didn't, though, and the evening was left at that.

When it was decided that the farm residents should pay a visit to Woodbury, just to see where it was Philip Blake came, Beth was shocked when her name came up as one of the members of the scouting crew heading out.

"Really?" She asked Daddy across the dinner table, raising a disbelieving eyebrow.

"Really, honey. I want Glenn's hands free in case anything goes sour. Don't tell me you don't remember you're the best driver the farm's ever had." Beth stabbed her fork into a piece of carrot a few times. Maybe she should have been excited, and she was, but she was also a little hurt. It wasn't that Daddy thought her capable of helping, it was that Glenn needed his hands free.

"Okay," she agreed. "I'll drive."

The thing about it was, she was a good driver. You had to be when you started driving at ten so that your dad and brother could easily hop off the vehicle and get work done with the convenience of a chauffeur waiting for them.

After dinner, when she and Maggie were washing dishes, an apology was extended. "Sorry I yelled at you about the clothes."

"Sorry I said Glenn was a cross dresser," Beth returned as she wiped down the wet plates and cups.

"He thought it was funny," Maggie said with a shrug. "I guess I was the only one with a bad attitude about it."

Beth gave a hum of recognition but no other answer. They were nearly done with the silverware when Maggie spoke again. "He said you think whoever took them isn't who we think."

"I just don't quite see what purpose they would serve the Gov'na," Beth put on her exaggerated, posh British accent. "Unless he also shares the desire to dress in women's clothing."

"Quite, quite." Maggie adopted the accent and flicked some soapy water at Beth, who held her hands up to protect herself. Then, dropping the act, Maggie said, "It's not a bad thought, really."

"Thanks." She wiped down the silverware as Maggie handed it to her piece by piece.

"And getting to go off the farm, that's exciting. I have to stay back this time. Daddy wants me to help run patrol while y'all are gone."

"I'm just driving," Beth said to a fork. "Nothing important."

Glenn, Rick, and Daryl would be doing the work, if there was work to be done.

"If it gives us an advantage over the Governor, it's important." Maggie sounded so confident that she looked up.

"Do you really think we need an advantage?"

"We can't be too careful after Shane."

Even if she knew it was true, Beth hated the necessity of the caution. She hated the precedence Shane set. Carol, Rick, Daryl, Merle, T-Dog, Glenn... they were all good people. Merle was grating, sure, but not bad. Not like Shane.

Then again, Philip Blake called himself the Governor. The moniker brought to mind nicknames given to serial killers by news outlets. A guy like that was never good. Bad stroke of luck to encounter two of them back-to-back.

"Yeah," Beth conceded. "I guess so. Hey, what about that Andrea girl?"

"What about her?" Glenn appeared by then to haul the heavy tub, full of dirty water, for them.

"Why do you think she was so invested in Shane? I mean, it sounded like Dale did way more for her and her sister, but that didn't stop Shane from killing him."

"Sounds like a bad judge of character to me," Glenn said as Maggie opened the door for him. He dropped his voice to a whisper as they came into the house. "I never liked Shane. One time, before we came to live on the farm, Shane and Merle got in a huge fight. It was over Sophia, actually."

It never occurred to Beth to wonder how the others met one another. "She was with y’all? Before she went missing, I mean?"

"Yeah. I ended up with T-Dog first. I knew the Atlanta streets pretty good since I used to deliver pizzas. His church was pretty close by when shit started hitting the fan. I went there to hide and ride it out a bit, thinking, you know, they don’t usually lock churches. T-Dog was there waiting for anyone who might want shelter."

They followed Glenn into the kitchen where he dumped the dirty dishwater into the sink while the sisters quickly put away the dishes. "We were trying to find a way out of the city when we ran into Carol and her family."

"You mean Sophia?"

"Yeah, and her piece of crap husband, Ed." Without a second thought, Beth followed Glenn and Maggie upstairs. The house was quiet. Rick and Carl were in the habit of taking Judith on an evening walk and Daddy had always liked reading after supper. All three of them filed into Maggie's room as Glenn kept talking. “He would hit them, Carol and Sophia. In front of us and everything. Well, not in front of Merle and Daryl, not after they beat the snot out of him for it. I didn’t feel bad at all when walkers ate him. That’s what happened, when we lost Sophia. A herd of walkers came into the camp. Her and Carl ran off together but only Carl came back. Ed was napping in his tent and, well, he got a hell of a wakeup.”

"Good riddance," Maggie declared. When Glenn sat on the bed, she flopped herself down, laying her head in his lap. Beth took the seat she loved best in her sister's room: the soft, velveteen loveseat tucked in the corner.

Maggie's room wasn't a place she had inhabited frequently since her sister last came home for college. No one knew then that it would be the last time she did that though she had a whole year left of school before such things stopped mattering. While she was away, Beth used to come into this room to sit in the seat and read. She always was jealous of it, though it hadn't crossed her mind in quite a while. Now she tucked herself into it in much the same way she tucked herself into the lawn chair outside the Dixon trailer.

"You knew about all this?" Beth asked Maggie. A wave of guilt tugged at her, embarrassment in the undertow. How much did she miss while she was mourning her family, Jimmy, and life as she knew it?

"Glenn filled me in," Maggie said mildly. "Now you will be, too."

“Yeah, so after Sophia didn’t come back, Carol just lost it, you know? Daryl went off into the woods immediately to look for her. Pissed Shane off, I think because he was already trying to boss everyone, and Daryl didn’t wait for a discussion. He started saying some awful stuff, how if their only hope was a backwoods hick who was probably inbred that Sophia didn’t have a shot in hell. That pissed Merle off and next thing we knew, he’s on top of Shane, beating the shit out of him.”

“Sounds like the fight was over Daryl, not Sophia,” Beth pointed out.

“Well, the first one, yeah. But then Daryl came back with Sophia’s doll, and it really lit a fire under him. He was determined to find her and Shane was determined to cut the loss. So then Shane and Daryl got in a fight and what made it all worse was that Rick agreed with Daryl. That was really the end of it, I think. Shane and Lori must have already been fooling around by then, but when Rick went against Shane, it was like the nail in the coffin. You guys know the rest, pretty much.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Beth agreed. “But how’d y’all meet Daryl and Merle anyway?”

"Oh, so me and T-Dog linked up with Carol, Sophia, and Ed. We thought we were gonna manage getting out of the city when we met Daryl and Merle. They were coming back from the city limits. Cops and stuff were still important in those last days and the Atlanta PD had military backup trying to keep people inside the city."

"We heard about stuff like that, on the news and the radio." Beth's old gratefulness at having avoided such trials came back in full swing. God, they were so lucky to have been on the farm from the get-go.

"Sucked to live through. So, anyway, we linked up with Merle and Daryl after Merle said, 'You gotta be dumb as fuck to be goin’ that way. Turn around, we'll go with ya'. Didn't sound like much of a choice and none of us had any better ideas, so we did."

Glenn was playing with Maggie's hair with one hand, the other holding hers with their fingers threaded together. Beth swallowed down the flare of longing that flashed through her chest. "Merle’s lucky that he proved himself too useful to leave him high and dry. He kept calling me General Tso and T-Dog Uncle Tom until Daryl finally got him to knock it off.”

Sounded about right for their crass, inappropriate neighbor. Beth often had the sense that Merle was only there, on the farm, for Daryl’s benefit. Still, the man lost his hand trying to help them, so whether it was for his brother’s benefit or not, she was grateful for that fact.  

“He was making fun of Daryl the other day for holding Judith. Asked him if he needed a skirt and apron,” Maggie tossed in. “He’s a good tracker, sure, but we have Daryl, too. Do we really need both Dixons?”

“I don’t know, he’s crazy good with that knife hand. You should see how easy he takes out walkers with it. He’s an asshole, but sometimes you need assholes on your team. And you get to hang out with him tomorrow on watch duty while we’re off scouting, babe.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” Glenn promised, leaning over Maggie to give her an upside-down kiss. Beth decided her visit was over. She made a disgusted noise that prompted Maggie, still occupied with her lips pressed to Glenn’s, to flip her off. Using their bathroom, Beth retreated to her own bedroom. After re-tying her ponytail, she went downstairs to join Daryl on patrol, thinking over the new information she learned from Glenn all the while.

Come morning, Beth and Carl rushed through the morning chores. Rick wanted to get an early start to the day so that he wasn’t away from Judith and Carl for longer than necessary. They took the old truck, which had a bench seat that fit three, leaving Daryl as the odd man out in the bed. He didn’t seem to mind, though, claiming that it was better to have the room to use his crossbow.

“Be safe out there, baby,” Daddy told her, taking her face in his hands and bending to kiss her forehead. His beard was scratchy on her skin. “You boys bring her back to me.”

“That’s our main goal,” Rick reassured him, the two men clasping the other’s arms. “You stay where Carol knows where you are,” he continued, addressing Carl. “And help with your sister.”

That Judith was not Rick’s biological child was of no consequence to Rick. He took he from Carol’s arms and put his other around Carl’s shoulders, hugging his children close.

Maggie and Glenn stood on the other side of the truck, which did not provide them with half as much privacy as they seemed to think. Their goodbye was full of kisses and whispers.

“Don’t do anything stupid out there, Darlina.” Merle used his good hand to ruffle his brother’s hair.

“I thought our main goal was finding Woodbury,” Glenn joked, coming around the backend of the truck with his mouth noticeably flushed and wet from Maggie’s kisses. Daryl touched his own mouth, alerting him, and Glenn hastily wiped the back of his hand across his lips.

“Ready?” Rick asked, an amused smile tugging at his lips. He passed Judith back to Carol and Maggie caught Beth’s hand, giving it a squeeze, as she moved past her. Glenn and Rick began piling into the cab. Before he hopped into the bed, Daryl held the driver’s side door open for Beth.

The truck had been taken out once before. She knew it was in good repair. What worried her was if the gasoline would hold and allow the truck to run. They had a few cannisters in the bed with Daryl; as the fuel degraded, it took more to make a vehicle run.

After Daryl tapped the roof of the cab, signaling he was ready, Beth turned the key in the ignition. The truck came to life same as it ever had and, as she put it into drive, she let out a breath of relief. T-Dog waited for them at the gate, waving them through.

“Be safe!” He called after them.

“Always!” Glenn returned, leaning around Beth to smile at his friend. He had taken the middle seat, leaving Rick in the passenger, where he had the window rolled down so he could easily talk to Daryl. “Was Maggie lying when she said you’ve been driving since you were ten?”

“No,” Beth confirmed, glancing past him to Rick. As if the former police officer might issue her a ticket for this crime. Surely the statute of limitations would have run out even had the world not ended. “Daddy and Shawn taught me so they didn’t have to always have to stop and start the truck. I used to drive them wherever and then sit and read while they worked.”

She eased the truck down the remainder of the long, dirt path that led to the farm. When she came to the paved road, she paused. “Which way?” She asked Rick.

“Left, for now,” he told her, consulting the map he held in his lap.

“Woodbury’s a real place?”

“Yeah, a neighborhood just outside the city,” he confirmed. “Should be easy enough to find.”

That was news to Beth. When Blake spoke of the place, she assumed he had named it as well as himself. She felt a little better knowing they had an actual destination to head toward and weren’t driving into parts unknown. “How long do I need to drive in this direction?”

“About five miles. I’ll tell you when it’s time to change course. If we need to stop unexpectedly, Daryl’ll knock on the back window to alert us.”

“Okay.” Simple enough. Though initially nervous, Beth soon relaxed into the routine of driving. Debris littered the street so that she had to weave around it here and there. Abandoned cars, or pieces of them, anyway, supplies, dispatched walkers. When she had to swerve around a nearly skeletal one, ribs reaching toward the sky like so many tiny, searching arms, she gave an emphatic, “Ew.”

“It’s bad out here in some places,” Glenn told her. “Hey, do you like driving with music? Officer Killjoy over here wouldn’t let us have any last time.”

Beth smiled at him after she got them righted on their course once more. “There’s this CD in the glove box that says, ‘I Hate You, Kevin’ on it. Me and Maggie made it after her second year in college when she got cheated on. It has a bunch of angry breakup songs on it.”

“No way.” Glenn reached for it immediately. It was easy to find; the same title was written in permanent marker on the jewel case. He fed the CD to the player and, moments later, Since U Been Gone filled the cab and streamed out the windows.

“So much for subtlety,” Rick said with a shake of his head, though he made no moves to turn the music off.

“I think we ended the CD with Bye Bye Bye,” she told Glenn, having to raise her voice above the music.

“Oh, this is great,” he enthused. “I’m gonna tease her so much when we get home.”

After about five miles, just as Rick said, he shouted over Picture to Burn to tell Beth to turn left again, this time at a defunct streetlight. “What do I do if there’s walkers in the road?” She shouted back, not wanting to lower the volume when Glenn was clearly having the time of his life between them. “Like, moving ones?”

It felt wrong to call them ‘live’.

“You don’t want to gum up the engine,” Rick yelled back. “Try not to hit them, if you can help it.”

There were walkers milling about here and there. A thick clump of five or so bumped into one another in the bar ditch to the right of them. The rural streets that surrounded the farm were giving way to abandoned settlement. Shops with busted out windows, buildings torn down to their tacks, others burned to skeletons.

On the idyllic farm, with its animals and laundry lines and crowded table at dinner, it was so easy to forget that the world around them had fallen apart. Beth soaked it all in with wide eyes as she drove.

It was downright depressing.

Only half the CD played through before they came within sight of Woodbury. Now Rick did lean over Glenn, turning the volume all the way down. “Pull off the road,” he told Beth.

She guided the truck onto the grassy shoulder. Woodbury lay hidden behind corrugated metal, massive tires stacked high, and a set of dark barn doors that comprised a gate. Unlike the farm’s electric fence, it blocked the residents from sight.

But not from sound.

Even as far back as they were, they could hear tell of other people. Voices shouting to each other. Children laughing.

“How many people do you think live there?” Beth couldn’t help asking, staring hard at those gates. For all its sprawling acres, the farm suddenly felt tiny in comparison.

“That’s what I’d like to find out,” Rick admitted. “Be nice to know what we might be up against.”

“Probably a lot,” Glenn threw in. “There were a lot of people that night Shane came.”

“Surely less than a hundred, though.” Rick was staring down at the map, tracing the edges of Woodbury on the paper. “It’s not that big of a neighborhood.”

“Still a lot compared to eleven.”

“Twelve,” Beth corrected. “Not that Judith can help much in another attack, even if Daryl calls her Little Ass Kicker.”

“I think we need to start looking around for that thief of yours, Beth. Maybe we could strike a deal with them.”

It’s not my thief, she thought. She didn’t want to argue the point, though, not when she was so pleased to simply be taken seriously about the possibility.

“Maybe Daryl could set a trap for them,” she said instead, meaning it as a joke, but a rapping on the roof let her know she had been heard. Beth smiled to herself. “What next, Rick?”

“Better head home before we draw attention to ourselves,” he decided quickly. “We’ll come back again if we need to, with a better plan, now that we’ve got an idea of the place.”

Beth nodded and drove the truck back onto the road, turning a wide U so that they headed back home.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Four: Mid to Late September, Year 2

Is anyone among you sick? Let them call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise them up. James, 5:14-15.

Daryl and Merle didn't so much set a trap as they simply spent a few nights hanging around the chicken coop and the garden. It meant Beth and Glenn ended up duty partners in the meantime, which wasn't unpleasant at all. Glenn told her stories about wild things he saw as a pizza delivery boy before Atlanta fell. Beth told him childhood stories about Maggie, intentionally picking the ones she thought might be most incriminating in any way.

Nothing came from those nights. The Dixon brothers decided to pull back and create a false sense of safety. Clearly, whoever this thief was, they were carefully watching the farm.

Or maybe they just didn't have any needs at the time.

Either way, Beth knew one thing: she hoped the thief hadn't perished. Not because she was afraid of her theory being wrong, but because she had come to have a soft spot for this imagined person.

The ingenuity to bypass the fence, the bravery to breach the farm, the desperation that drove them to steal.

If she was right, and this was a person in need, she would rather they were identified and assisted rather than taken out of this world.

Beth crossed September 18th off her calendar with no small trepidation. Today was the day she and T-Dog would collect the fall flow from the beehives. Carl reassured her upwards of one hundred times that she would be fine while they saw to the morning chores. Though she smiled at him in appreciation, the truth was that it did little to calm her nerves.

"Ready?" T-Dog asked as he handed her a pair of thick gloves. There was only one protective jumpsuit, which fit neither of them. They made do with wearing long pants tucked snugly into boots and long sleeves. The gloves, at least, seemed pretty universal. Beth's were roomy but T-Dog's seemed to fit well.

"Absolutely not." Beth tucked her gloves into her back pocket and tied a bandana firmly in place at the back of her head. It was tight over the bridge of her nose and, just to be safe, she tucked the tail into the crew neck of her long sleeve t-shirt. "Let's get it over with."

The smoking was the easy part. It didn't take long at all to get the bees eased into the fugue state a good smoke brought them. T-Dog pulled a frame out of the closest hive and held it at arm's length over the massive soup pot they were using to collect the honeycomb. Thankfully, no sleepy bees lingered on the comb, and Beth was able to scrape the frame with the capping knife immediately.

They worked in tandem this way, pulling frames, dislodging bees when needed, cutting the comb free of the mesh. A few bees, drunk and bumbling on smoke, flew in dizzying circles around them. These bees posed no threat, though, just trying to get home to their hives. They left Beth and T-Dog be and the two honey collectors returned the favor.

Soon enough, they had a full pot of honeycomb, and the bee frames were clean and ready for the winter stock to be made.

Grinning behind her bandana, Beth lifted both her hands for a double high-five. T-Dog's gloves smacked against hers in victory. "See? Not half as bad as you thought," he told her, smiling wide.

God, but it felt nice to be good at something in this world. She would be riding the high of this success for days, she knew.

After the honey was strained and the comb set aside to be used in candle making, Beth went to bed that night feeling better about the world and her place in it since the apocalypse started. She pulled on one of Jimmy's old shirts, blew out the candle sitting on her desk, and slipped into bed feeling... hopeful.

It was so foreign that she had to sit with it a moment.

Things had gone wrong, and they had lost people, yes, but things had gone right, too. She had done things right.

Beth was the one who pulled Carl from the lake. She was the first to act when Dale's walker was set on the farm. Daddy got the most credit for Judith, of course, but Beth knew she played a part in the baby's safe arrival, too. And when Rick passed Carl to her, bleeding and pale, there hadn't been a second thought about taking him.

There were smaller things, too. The animals. Helping cook. Washing dishes. Night shifts with Judith, patrol with Daryl. And now, the honey.

I can do things, she realized. I can.

Even if people—meaning Daddy and Maggie—didn't always listen to her. Rick trusted her with his children. Patricia and Carol called her name first to help with things. Glenn didn't question her joining the last scouting mission. T-Dog thought she was capable. Merle thought she was funny.

Daryl listened to her.

For someone who had spent much of her life inside the constraints of a box labeled 'sensitive youngest daughter' and 'annoying little sister', it was quite the revelation. Beth was fairly buzzing with it as she laid in her bed, staring up at the ceiling.

Maybe she wasn't made for this world, not the way the Dixons clearly were. And maybe it had taken her longer to adapt to it, longer than it had taken Maggie, certainly.

She was still here, regardless. There was a proper cemetery in her backyard but Beth's name wasn't on any of those grave markers. That had to speak for something.

It was that idea, that she was still around for a reason, wove itself through her mind as she drifted to sleep.

For the first time in a long time, she slept through the night with no nightmares. She opened her eyes just before sun up, her internal clock still as true as ever, and rose unburdened.

Beth pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, wrapping her old chore jacket around her, and hastily braided her hair. By the time she descended the stairs, she found Carl dressed and waiting for her at the base.

"Ready for the day?" She asked, flicking the brim of his hat playfully. He batted her hand away and nodded.

"I never thought much about living on a farm before," he told her as they stepped out into the rosy, dawn light, "but I like it here."

"Yeah," Beth agreed with an easy smile. "Me, too."

When another handful of days passed with no sign of their elusive thief, Daryl and Merle decided to take the hunt outside the fence. Both were skilled animal trackers; wouldn't a human be much the same?

"Easier," Merle insisted, all confidence, arms crossed carefully over his chest so as not to cut himself with his knife. "People make more dumb mistakes than animals."

"I would prefer they come back alive, unlike the animals you bring us," Daddy cautioned gently. "I'd like to talk to this person. They're obviously hurting for resources, and we have an empty camper."

Leaving the farm had its own sort of ritual. They tended to group together in the living room, a pre-emptive vigil should the adventurers not return. Beth stood behind the armchair, leaning on her elbows. She was making faces at Judith while Carl held her. At three months old, Judith smiled often, but no one had yet gotten a laugh out of the baby. It had become a competition among the farm residents to see who could win the title.

“Yeah,” Merle agreed while Beth widened her eyes as far as they could go for Judith’s entertainment, “not a lot of real estate left in the farmhouse, huh? Nobody else got kids and there’s only one farmer’s daughter left to snatch up.”

He was teasing, but Beth still raised her head to send him a sharp glare and her hand to flip him off. Quickly, though, before Daddy noticed or before Carl could see. Merle saw, though, and annoyingly, he grinned. She shouldn’t have expected anything less.

“Sorry,” Daddy said, though he didn’t sound it at all, “Beth’s the youngest, she doesn’t know how to share a room.”

The thing with Merle Dixon, she was learning, is that he was the textbook definition of a pest. Beth could imagine he had once been a schoolyard bully, those traits never maturing in a positive manner, so that he became an adult who found entertainment in getting emotional rises out of people. If you didn’t give Merle the rise he was seeking, he moved on.

T-Dog handled the man in much the same way. He never rose to the discriminatory undertones of Merle’s jokes. As a result, he quickly moved on to another target.

“Be safe out there,” Rick said from where he leaned in the doorway to the kitchen. Those had become the magic words that ended one of these little rituals. The group began dispersing. Rick moved to join his children, Beth headed for the stairs, Maggie and Glenn began walking toward the back of the house while holding hands, Patricia and Carol ducked back into the kitchen. Daddy went through the front door with the Dixon brothers to complete the final aspect of the ritual: walking those venturing out to the gate.

Upstairs, in her bedroom, Beth grabbed her guitar and maneuvered herself, the instrument, and Arnie’s old chords book out the window. She nearly had Jolene down, but she wanted to be able to play it perfectly before she moved on to another song.

There was a soft, mild breeze blowing. It tugged at the loose tendrils of her braid so that Beth had to tuck them behind her ears. She had to put a foot on the chord book, too, to keep it from flying off the roof. Once settled, she fitted the guitar under her arm and began to strum at the strings. A few tuning adjustments had to be made and then she was ready to play.

Beth must have improved since first picking up the guitar. Below her, Glenn paused in his work weeding the garden and helping Maggie ready autumn seeds to croon, off-tune, “Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jooooooleeeeeeene!”

Maggie placed her gloved hands over her heart and picked up the song from him, “I’m beggin’ of you, please don’t take my maaaaaan.”

She could play and sing at the same time when her instrument was the piano. Beth wasn’t quite there with the guitar yet, still having to think about the chords as she played them. She smiled instead at Maggie and Glenn’s antics as they continued crooning the song to each other as they worked in the garden.

Shane Walsh was dead and buried and, for the moment, Philip Blake was far away and nonconsequential. The farm felt bright as the early fall sunshine. Even the thief, whoever they might be, couldn’t cast a shadow.

“Did y’all find anything out there?” Beth asked the same evening. She held three lengths of cord in her hand, keeping them still while Daryl braided them into rope. The cords were strung between their lawn chairs like powerlines.

“Just walkers.” He had his head bent over his work. The sun was setting earlier, now, and they had only the light thrown by the little firepit to work by. Beth watched the firelight burnish the dark tones of his brown hair bronze and gold.

“A lot?” She asked, tamping down the sudden wave of anxiety that crested within her. Aside from Dale, Beth had yet to confront a walker. The idea of them grouping together into a single-minded, killing horde, as Glenn had described them doing in the city, was something that Beth feared greatly.

“Nah, just two.” His fingers were nimble and quick—Jack jumped over the candlestick, her mind interrupted—as they went about their plaiting. When the brothers returned from their tracking efforts, Daryl had been coated in dirt. They were only clean now because Carol refused to give him a plate at supper until he scrubbed the grime away. “They were tied to a tree.”

“Like, they died there? How awful.” The flash of pity she felt for these nameless, faceless, dead things reminded Beth that Dale had been the exception, not the rule. Walkers and people were still very much interchangeable in her mind. Only instinct had spurred her to shoot Dale.

Sentimentality would have allowed him to continue roaming the earth in that form.

“They didn’t die there.” Daryl reached the end of the cord. While Beth still held her side, he brought his close enough to the flames to seal his end. “Someone tied ’em there the same way you would tie a horse. They were missin’ their arms and bottom jaws. Merle walked clear up to one of ’em and looked it in the eye.”

He held his hand out for Beth’s end of the cord. She laid it there as she asked, “They didn’t try to attack y’all?”

Daryl shook his head. “Reckon they were as tame as you can make a walker be.”

“Did y’all kill them?”

There was a pause during which Daryl sealed the other side of the cord rope and looked up to meet her eye before answering. “No. Merle wanted to. I talked him out of it.”

“Really?” Daryl wagged the end of the rope at her. Beth took hold and braced her arm. She knew he would tug on the rope, already wrapped around his forearm, to see if the sealing held. “Why?”

“Them walkers meant somethin’ to someone. Maybe like the barn y’all had.” Daryl shrugged as if he hadn’t said something incredibly considerate. “If they belong to our thief, no reason to stir up bad blood before we even meet the guy.”

There had been apologies from the others, of course. Regret that Shane would never offer for the desecration of the walker barn. Really, the only sincere condolences had been attached to Jimmy, the sole person lost that day who had been alive at the time of the barn falling. Carol was the most understanding, but then, her daughter had been in the barn with the others.

This, though. This was true understanding of the reason why the barn existed in the first place. It touched Beth’s heart more than she ever could have put into words, so she didn’t use any. She simply leaned over and wrapped her arms around Daryl’s neck, hugging him tight for a moment.

The evidence of his surprise at her affection came in the form of tense shoulders. Her embrace was too quick for him to even begin raising his own arms, not that Beth expected him to, considering she sprung it on him. Daryl looked just a little flustered when she withdrew, which only made Beth’s smile widen.

Had one of the young pigs not slipped between their legs and escaped the pen, they never would have found her.

"Dammit," Beth swore when she failed to keep the animal contained with her foot like she usually did.

"I'll get him," Carl said immediately, turning on his heel. Though she was sure he would feel that sprint later, she didn't stop him. He was becoming more and more frustrated when anyone coddled him post-gunshot.

"The rest of you are getting a treat later," she told the other pigs with their curly, wagging tails and excited grunts. They followed her like ducklings follow their mother to the trough. Grunts became squeals as they crowded one another and the slops began to flow.

"Beth!" Carl was shouting from somewhere to the left of her. "Come here! Hurry!"

Figuring the pig was giving him more trouble than he anticipated, Beth slung the handle of the slop bucket on a fence post and jogged toward the sound of his voice. The pig, however, was in Carl's arms, and he was standing at the shoulder of a stranger lying prone on the ground.

The stranger was a woman and, even in this compromising position, she was beautiful. Her lashes were dark and naturally curled upward, her full, parted lips had the most perfect Cupid's bow Beth had ever seen, and though her skin was currently tinged a concerning gray, it wasn't a stretch of the imagination at all to imagine the warmth and glow the deep tone must carry in health. All around her head, her dreadlocks fanned around her. The stained pink and purple striped bandana she wore tied around her head was dark with sweat.

And she was wearing Maggie's clothes.

Beth looked over her shoulder. This far out on the farm, the big house was quite the stretch. The little neighborhood of campers was much, much closer. "Go put the pig up and then go get T-Dog or Daryl, whoever opens their door first. I'll stay with her, but she's too big for the two of us to carry."

Which was only half-true. Beth thought she could handle holding half the woman’s weight—she was taller, yes, but a touch too thin. She didn’t want to overburden Carl, who, despite his best efforts to argue otherwise, was very much still healing.

"Okay," Carl agreed, too-big hat bobbing when he nodded his head. While he set off on his task, Beth continued to study the stranger.

Despite the pallor in her face, Beth didn't think she was dead. Or, if she was, it was recent and they were lucky she hadn't turned. Crouching beside her, Beth set a tentative hand against the woman's soft cheek and found it burning with fever. This close, she could see the faint rise and fall of her chest.

Beth moved her hand lower, pressing her fingertips into the side of her neck. There was a pulse, but faint. The handle of a sword was visible over her shoulder. Beth didn't imagine that would feel good against her spine, but the woman was clearly unaware of it.

"She dead?" Daryl asked from above and behind her.

"No, but she's not very alive, either. Could you carry her to the house?"

"Yeah." He came around to the woman's other side. Daryl worked the strap that cut across her torso free, leaving the sword on the ground after he slid his arms beneath her and lifted her. "Could you get that? Carl and T-Dog are gettin' your father and Rick."

The sheath was narrow, the sword much lighter than she would have thought. Beth imagined the sword inside was thin and wickedly sharp. It must be, for this woman to have been surviving for who knew how long presumably on her own.

They walked together, Beth with the sword and Daryl with the stranger, across the farm and up the porch steps.  She opened the door for him and followed him inside the sunny living room.

Carl was absent, likely in his bedroom with Judith, but Daddy and Rick were waiting. "Lay her on the couch," Daddy instructed her.

"She's got a really high fever," Beth told her father, fiddling with the woman's sword. "And her pulse is faint, her breathing is shallow."

He smiled his thanks at her frontloading of the situation before doing his own assessment. Daddy prodded at the woman’s neck, too, though his lingered, pressed further, obviously checking for more than the weak pulse Beth found. Gently, Daddy placed a thumb on the woman’s closed left eye and lifted the lid. The iris was so dark that Daddy had to lean close to check her pupil.

There was no need of proximity to see the broken blood vessels staining the whites of her eye red. “Beth, honey, go get my kit, please.”

If anyone still had it in them to argue that humans weren’t animals, too, Beth would point them to her daddy’s medical kit. Some pieces were specific for the human anatomy, scavenged from the rural clinic some thirty or so miles from the farm. Most of the pieces, though, were from his veterinary practice.

The stethoscope he removed from the kit once Beth returned to the living room, for example. How many times had she seen it pressed to the chests and bellies of horses, cows, pigs? Now it was pressed to the woman’s sternum as Daddy listened intently to heart and lungs. That she was sick was no question, but the silent with what? hung over all of them. Daddy lingered, listening, before commenting, “She’s got some fluid in her lungs.”

“How bad is it?” Rick asked. He stood behind the couch, arms crossed over his chest, gazing down at the woman.

“I can’t tell without an x-ray, which we don’t have.” Beth watched as Daddy took the woman’s hand in his and carefully pinched the skin on the back. It stayed peaked, speaking to dehydration on top of everything else. “Beth, go see if the nebulizer’s batteries still work. If they do, I need five milligrams of nitroglycerine.”

“Okay.” She was the only one given direction. With no way to contribute, Daryl and Rick drifted toward one another. They began talking in low tones while Beth headed to the hall closet. Shawn used to get the worst, hacking coughs any time he was sick; the nebulizer was the only comfort he had during such spells. For that reason, it was always loaded with batteries, and to Beth’s relief, there was still life in them. The machine hummed to life in her hands when she flicked the button.

All the medication was kept in Daddy’s office. She knew which shelf held the liquid medication and she quickly found the nitroglycerine. The vial came with her and she set about loading the liquid. “Think this will help?”

“I hope so. I didn’t want to risk giving her a diuretic when she’s already dehydrated. A vasodilator should help just fine, if the pulmonary edema isn’t too advanced. I wish she could take it orally, but we’ll have to take our chances with nebulizing it.” Daddy gently lifted the woman’s head while Beth slipped the straps for the nebulizer mask into place.

Beth kept time for Daddy on the clock while he wrote down what vitals he could: the woman’s heartrate, the temperature read from an old, mercury thermometer. When fifteen minutes had passed, they removed the nebulizer mask. It was hard to tell, but Beth liked to think she was breathing more easily afterward.

Rick and Daryl were still in the room, their attention split between the events occurring in the living room and watching the farm through the front windows. Addressing Rick, Daddy asked, “Is there anything in that camper you or the kids need?”

“No, it’s all been cleared out,” Rick answered, eyes sliding back to the prone woman.

“Good. I want her moved there, if you don’t mind carrying her again, Daryl. Could you get the windows open and sanitize this room, baby?” Daddy asked, to which Beth nodded. “I can’t say for certain what she’s sick with, or even make an educated guess, without her conscious. We’ll get her set up in the camper to minimize risk of Judith contracting whatever it is.”

So, a new member of the hodge-podge farm community was added to the number. This one had no name and wore Maggie’s clothes, but her boots were her own. At least, they were unfamiliar to Beth as she loosened the laces and slipped them from her feet. She set the boots beside the bed that had once been Rick and Lori’s, where the woman now rested. Then she balanced the sword in the corner, in clear sight of the bed.

“Think that’s a good idea?” Daryl asked, nodding to the corner. Beth shrugged.

“If she wanted to kill us, she would have already. That’s Maggie’s missing shirt and pants she’s wearing. She’s known where we are and she’s been breaching the fence for at least a month.” Beth didn’t have to accompany Daryl to the camper, she knew that, but she was beginning to feel a responsibility for the woman. Maybe it was because Carl found her. Maybe it was because she had already been feeling sympathetic toward the cunning stranger before she ever saw her face.

“Reckon you’re right,” Daryl conceded. Now when he nodded, it was toward the door. He waited for Beth to leave the bedroom first, shutting the door behind them. Outside, the September sky was that unique, intense blue of an autumn day. No clouds marred the azure expanse and the trees that lined the horizon were just beginning to turn red and gold.

“Do you think those walkers were hers?” Beth asked, eyeing those trees and their shifting leaves. Daryl made a noise of agreement, something between a hum and a grunt, which left her smirking to herself. Man of few words. So unlike his gregarious brother, who had already crafted nonsense backstories for the walkers in the woods. According to Merle, they were the dead lovers of the thief. ‘They were more successful juggling two guys than Lori was’. “I wonder who they were… before.”

“Maybe she’ll tell us if she lives.”

“Maybe.”

Their new patient was quiet, manageable. A surprise, sure, but not enough of one to disrupt the rhythm of the farm for long. Beth broke off from Daryl to finish the chores she and Carl had abandoned after discovering the woman. The chickens needed fed, and once they were, she returned to the house to help Daddy gather the supplies for the woman’s care.

“Patricia offered to nurse the poor lady,” Daddy told her as she set the nebulizer and nitroglycerine in an old, plastic tub along with various other supplies. Acetaminophen and ibuprofen, for the fever, along with one of the mortar and pestle sets from the kitchen. Until she was conscious, Patricia would need to crush the medication and combine it with water to pour down the woman’s throat. Beth added in a jar of honey, one of Otis’ rather than the newer stuff she and T-Dog managed to harvest, and a jar of bone broth.

“That was nice of her,” Beth commented, checking over her collection with the list Daddy wrote out for her. The backside of the paper had care instructions for Patricia.

“I think she needs this as much as our guest does,” Daddy admitted. “She’s been trying to fill her days as much as possible since Otis passed.”

“Still, I hope she doesn’t have to play nurse for too long.” With her haul completed, Beth lifted the tub and tucked it under her arm. “It would be nice to have another face around the farm, if our guest wants to stay.”

Whoever they were, the walkers found themselves—not of their own volition—outside the gate. They were tied there, as they once were to the tree, waiting for their keeper to wake from her fugue. Rick only agreed when Daddy proposed that Daryl and Merle retrieve the walkers because he thought they would be a good deterrent. Now that she had the opportunity to see them up close, Beth wasn’t so sure.

“I guess they don’t have to eat, then, huh?” She asked Glenn, who was as curious as she was. They stood together inside the gate, watching the tethered walkers shuffle their feet and bump off one another. Daryl and Merle had tied their ropes so that they only had a very short range of motion and couldn’t bounce off the electric fence.

“I don’t think they could if they wanted to, missing their bottom jaws like that. She was smart to take their arms off, too.” Glenn curved his hands into menacing claws and swiped playfully at Beth. She giggled and batted his hand away. “Scratches from walkers are just as bad as the bites.”

For three days now, their guest had laid burning in her sickbed. The fever was persistent, yes, but her swallow reflex remained in place. Honeyed water and bone broth sustained her well enough. She was so dehydrated that, though Daddy had managed to piece the supplies together for a catheter while she remained unconscious, it hadn’t yet been filled. Daddy remained concerned about that, of course, but he was taking heart in the fact the nitroglycerine was taking effect. When he checked her lungs, Daddy said her breathing was improving, the liquid in her lungs dissipating.

“How awful that would have been, to drown in your own lungs while being that dehydrated.”

“I’d like to see Blake try to visit again with our new guards.” Not that Blake had tried, but still. There had been radio silence from Woodbury since Blake announced his presence and the existence of his community. Beth was thankful for this peace, but she put no stock in it continuing. It would end, eventually. It always would. That was the way of the world now.

“I don’t know, they’re not very vicious. Daryl and Merle swat them away like flies when they go out to hunt.” The walkers became tangled in one another. Had they had their lower jaws, perhaps they would have been taking bites out of each other’s faces. As it was, they were in a sort of stalemate, each trying to walk int the opposite direction and neither having the wherewithal to think of moving out of the other’s way.

“Unstoppable wind, immovable mountain,” Beth murmured with a wave of her hand, recalling an old paradox one of her English teachers had once posed to her class.

“Hey, Wind!” Glenn shouted at the walkers, drawing the attention of the nearest one enough for him to alter his path. He began continuously walking into the gate instead of into his companion. “You gotta pay attention. It’s rude to block Mountain’s way.”

Beth laughed, which only served to catch Mountain’s attention. The walkers ended up tangled once more, slamming into each other and the gate in turn. These walkers hardly seemed as if they were ever human, dismembered and decayed as they were. Though Beth felt a little guilty teasing them, though neither the walkers nor their ill keeper would ever know, she didn’t see them in the same light she had her reanimated family or even Dale.

She wasn’t sure if that could be chalked up to unfamiliarity or their degraded state, and, to be honest, she didn’t much want to think of it. Either way, the result was the same: she viewed the walkers before her as more creature than person.

She really didn’t want to know that Daddy would think of that.

There wasn’t much time to mull over the notion. Just as their voices had captured the notice of Wind and Mountain, a sudden shriek had Glenn and Beth turning on their heels.

“Oh, shit!” Glenn cussed, reaching for the gun holstered on his thigh. Beth’s mind took a moment to catch up, to make sense of the horrific scene before her. Patricia, mild and motherly, was attacking Carol, her friend. As Patricia’s hands scrambled for purchase, grabbing at Carol’s clothes and skin alike, Glenn sprinted forward.

Beth watched, stricken to immobility with Wind and Mountain grunting at her back, as Glenn took hold of Patricia’s shoulder and yanked her away from Carol. T-Dog had materialized from somewhere, pausing for only a moment to assess Carol’s state before moving to put himself between her and Glenn and Patricia.

Or, more accurately, Glenn and the walker Patricia had become. Blood streamed from every orifice on Patricia’s face. Gore streamed down her cheeks like tears, from her nose and into her mouth and falling over the ridge of her chin like a bright red waterfall. And her eyes… the jaundiced, unfocused yellow, unnatural and awful, latching onto Glenn as T-Dog drew a sobbing Carol away.

Glenn was backtracking, trying to get space between him and Patricia. When he had just enough, he angled his gun under her stained chin and pulled the trigger. More ichor shot skyward as Patricia’s short, second life was ended.

Only when the aftereffect of the gunshot was ringing in her ears and Patricia was truly dead on the ground did Beth remember how to make her legs work. She walked forward until she was just beside Glenn, peering down at the bloody, pale body at their feet. “What the hell happened?!”

The answer to Glenn’s incredulous question wouldn’t come for more than an hour. Not until after Daddy had come to assess Patricia’s corpse and Glenn, thinking of their sick patient before any of the others, went inside the camper to confirm she still lived.

“It’s the illness,” Daddy surmised, still crouched over Patricia’s body. “It’s not common, of course, but exceedingly high fevers can cause hemorrhaging. I warned Patricia that she might get sick, but I never imagined this…”

No one could have.

When Carol noticed that Patricia hadn’t been out of the camper since the day before, she went to check on her. Patricia had been sleeping on the little couch inside the camper, close to the woman’s bedroom, with the door shut between them. That had been a precaution to keep Patricia safe, not the other way around, should the woman pass and turn while Patricia slept.

Only, the opposite happened. It was easy to see that through the close proximity of treatment, Patricia contracted whatever sickness had brought down their guest, and quickly succumbed to it. “That fluid in her lungs,” Daddy continued, nodding toward the camper, “must have been blood.”

“How could it have happened so fast?” Beth asked, unable to tear her eyes away from the ragged, gaping hole in the crown of Patricia’s head. Blood pooled beneath and around her head like a macabre pillow.

“Well, Patricia was a bit older than our guest,” Daddy began explaining, though Beth was only half-listening. She kept thinking, was that what Jimmy’s head looked like after I shot him? It was a persistent question, circling her head as she tucked a hand under the sleeve of her sweatshirt to run her fingers over the scars hidden there. “That could be one factor. With no one to stop the fever from spiking…”

There were more pressing matters than either their dead friend or their patient, still held in the limbo of the sickness she carried. “Hey, Mr. Greene, sorry to interrupt,” T-Dog was apologizing, stopping just on the other side of Patricia, his voice soft, “but when Carol was trying to get Patty off her, she ended up getting scratched on the arm.”

That certainly took precedence over Patricia, who was beyond help. Daddy was rising instantly, telling T-Dog to bring Carol to the house so he could sanitize her wounds. Scratches were not necessarily the death sentence a bite could be, not if you cleaned it well and avoided infection, but there was no guarantee to it.

Beth found herself standing vigil, still worrying at her scars, when Glenn returned with a teary-eyed Maggie in tow. “We’ll bury her beside Otis,” he said, by way of comfort.

“No,” Maggie said at the same time Beth argued, “We can’t.”

“What do you mean?” Glenn asked, brow furrowed beneath the brim of his baseball cap. “We bury our own.”

“We can’t bury Patricia. We don’t know what she’s sick with.”

Beth nodded along with Maggie. “We wouldn’t butcher a sick animal.”

“She’s not an animal, she’s a person,” Glenn asserted, cheeks reddening.

“She was sick,” Beth insisted, “and we don’t know if it will stay in the ground with her. We’re already all infected with one virus, we don’t need another.”

“She would understand,” Maggie continued. She crouched beside Patricia as she said it, gently closing her sightless eyes for her.

“What are we supposed to do, just toss her in the woods?”

“No, because then animals would get at her, which is both awful and an infection risk. What good would that do if it ends with Daryl and Merle bringing back tainted meat?”

Glenn shook his head, though Beth thought it was more in denial of the facts of the matter than at her explanation.

“We’ll have to burn her,” Maggie said, sounding none too pleased with the prospect herself. “That’s the only thing that would kill the virus, too.”

“We burn walkers, not people.” The fight had gone out of Glenn’s voice and left behind petulance.

“We’ll be burying a lot more if we don’t burn her. Daddy will agree.”

“I’m gonna go talk to Rick.” Usually, the farm residents and the survivor camp members felt entirely blended. Daddy and Rick made decisions together. But Patricia had wedged a crack in this collaboration with her death. Beth and Maggie watched Glenn jog toward the house.

“We can take her ring,” Beth said, “ and bury it in Otis’s grave. They can still be together.”

“Sweet of you.” Maggie was still crouched. She took Patricia’s hand and wriggled her wedding band, gold and glinting in the sunlight, from her finger. It was passed from sister to sister and was tucked away safely in Beth’s pocket.

While Glenn went into the house, T-Dog returned, a sheet in his hands. He walked solemnly to the three of them. “We should give her the decency of cover, at least, while things are settling.”

An old, faded floral bedsheet became Patricia’s shroud. “Either of you know when our hunting crew will be back?”

Maggie looked at the sky. The sun was nearly to its midpoint. “Should be soon. They usually bring game back around noon, to give themselves time to skin it, and Carol time to cook it for supper.”

“Alright. Come on, then, your father wants the two of you inside.”  Beth didn’t like leaving Patricia out there alone, dead or not, but she followed Maggie all the same. Her stomach was in knots as they climbed the porch steps. God, but she hoped it wouldn’t come to an argument. Things had been working so smoothly since Shane was gone.

In the living room, Carol sat in one of the armchairs, her bandaged forearm cradled in her lap. Daddy and Rick were standing, listening to Glenn as he pled his case for entombing Patricia in the ever-growing graveyard. Carl and Judith were nowhere to be seen. Only Beth knew how frustrated Carl was to be continually barred from these discussions under the illusion of caring for Judith.

Beth made a mental note to fill him in when she could.

“I hear you, and I get it, but we can’t,” Rick said when Glenn finished his spiel. “Sentimentality doesn’t trump science, and we can’t be too careful. The risk is too big.”

Glenn’s shoulders slumped as he deflated under Rick’s siding with logic. She wished it could be different, but then, she had felt that way a lot within the past two-ish years, and wishing hadn’t done her any good yet. It certainly wasn’t going to help Patricia any.

“Alright,” Glenn conceded, his voice gone small. Rick reached out and squeezed his shoulder in consolation.

“I’m sorry, son,” Hershel tacked on. “Patricia used to help out with the veterinary work. She would understand, I promise.”

There was hardly time to waste, either. Glenn and T-Dog set right to work collecting enough wood to feed the fire that would become Patricia’s funeral pyre. They didn’t take her far, only out to the gravel road that ran in front of the farm. Fire couldn’t be risked, either.

Though she couldn’t be buried, the same funeral rites that the others had gotten stood for Patricia, too. Daddy still read aloud from the Bible. Ecclesiastes 3:1-22, to be exact. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven…

Daryl and Merle returned around line seven: a time to rend and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak. The Dixon brothers were silent as they sidled up to the little congregation of mourners watching the flames lick at Patricia’s shrouded body.

But the business wasn’t done even as the fire caught and blazed. Burning bodies stunk. Rick offered to stay with the fire, feeding it logs as it did its job. Daddy led the rest of them back inside the gate, past the grumbling but harmless forms of Wind and Mountain, but not into the house. Carl and Judith were sent back inside but all others were congregated on the porch.

“I know no one’s going to like this much,” Daddy began, gaze flicking around the group, pausing on a few in particular, “but I think it would be best if a quarantine was put in place for a few days to make sure no one else has contracted the illness.”

“All of us?” Maggie asked, always ready to be the first voice to argue.

“Those who have had direct contact,” Daddy amended. “Myself, Beth, Daryl, Glenn, Carol. We’ve all either touched our patient or Patricia. Carl didn’t touch her when y’all found her the other morning, did he?”

“No,” Beth confirmed, heart sinking. She couldn’t argue with this precaution, either, though she didn’t like it. Confinement in her room was not something she was looking forward to, especially when thoughts of Jimmy and his death were still gnawing at the edges of her mind.

“If you’re all quarantined, who’s going to take care of the mystery woman?” T-Dog asked. Before Daddy could say he would, Maggie cut him off.

“I’ll do it. If Glenn’s in quarantine, I’ll have to be somewhere else, anyway. Besides, God forbid, but if Judith comes down with it, she’ll need you.”

Out in the open air, they worked out the details. Maggie would stay in the camper until either Glenn was cleared or the woman woke up. T-Dog gamely offered to take over the cooking and kitchen chores. Beth vouched for Carl’s ability to tend the animals in her absence. A pause was put on patrols given that most members of the farm wouldn’t be able to fulfill their duty for the time being.

“Don’t think I’m gonna start playing nurse if you catch fever,” Merle warned his brother. Daryl only shrugged.

“You’ll get some practice with your knife if I turn.”

Beth didn’t like that joke. The whole situation had her biting the inside of her cheek to stave off tears, but that exchange nearly did her in. When ways were parted on the porch, Beth went upstairs with her heart hung. The speed with which Patricia waned, died, and turned had her spooked. She turned the lock on her bedroom door behind her, thinking, surely I wouldn’t remember how to work a lock.

Shawn used to tug at the padlock on the chicken wire in the early days after his turning. Sometimes Beth still wondered if, had they put the key in his hand, he would have attempted to use it.

But she didn’t think to lock the bathroom door. A knock came from it, distracting her from her morose thoughts. “Sorry for arguing earlier,” Glenn’s voice said from the other side.

“It’s okay,” she said, drawing near to the door. They left it closed between them, neither wanting to defy Daddy’s quarantine orders. Beth walked up to it, splaying her hand on the wood. “Do you feel anything?”

“I kind of have a headache,” Glenn admitted. “But I don’t know if that’s because I’m sick or because today sucked. You?”

“Today did suck,” Beth agreed. “Just tired, but like you said. I could be sick, or I could be sick of the day.”

“I’ll check in tomorrow, okay? Every morning until we’re able to get out of here.”

“Okay,” Beth agreed, leaning her cheek on the door for just a moment. “See you tomorrow? Or, well, hear you, I guess?”

“Yeah, hear you tomorrow, Beth. I’m gonna go lay down.”

“Me, too.” But she lingered by the door, listening through the wood for the soft sound of the other bathroom door shutting. Only when she was certain Glenn was back in Maggie’s room and couldn’t hear did she take her desk chair and wedge it beneath the doorknob. She didn’t want a turned Glenn to come into her room anymore than she wanted her reanimated self to be able to wander out.

Beth didn’t lay down, though. She sat heavily on the edge of her bed and scrubbed her hands hard over her face. That old feeling of something’s gotta give washed over her.

It was only mid-afternoon but Beth pulled her boots off and curled herself under her grandmother’s blanket, just as she did after a nightmare. Only now it was the waking hours she sought to shield herself from. She closed her eyes tight and watched the play of light behind her closed lids, willing herself to keep her mind blank, not to think of snow and blood and gunshots.

Quarantine, she said to herself, sounds a lot like hell right now.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Five: October, Year 2

For I will restore health to you, and I will heal you of your wounds. Jeremiah, 30:17.

The first day of October dawned after a fitful night of sleep. Beth’s nightmares had taken a stubborn turn with no remedy, no lawn chair, no quiet huntsman sitting sentinel while she rested. She had been in her room for two days now with no other symptoms other than anxiety building within her. Since she couldn’t tend to the animals herself, Beth went to her bedroom window and watched over Carl doing it instead. His sheriff hat bobbed down below, the pigs’ slop bucket bouncing off his thigh as he hauled it out.

He slopped them over the side of the fence rather than opening the gate. Beth didn’t blame him. What other unsavory surprises might Carl encounter if one of the ornery, half-grown pigs slipped out again? Not that she blamed the nameless patient for Patricia’s death; she could no more control the virus she was sick with than any of them could control the virus that compelled their bodies to rise again after death.

From the pigs, Carl went to the chicken coop. This was nearly the exact opposite of the route Beth usually took him on. He was intimidated by the larger animals still, she knew. When they went together, they visited the horses first, then the chickens, then the pigs, and saved the cows for last, because of the milking. Carl was under strict orders not to milk without Beth, though, so that was one less chore he had to see to.

Though she knew she was too far away from him to help, Beth still felt the obligation to watch over Carl. It eased her own worries some to watch that hat bob around the farm in the early morning light. Honestly, it made her feel a little less lonely, too. Unless she was watching from her window, she didn’t see a living soul all day.

She heard Glenn, sure, every morning and evening when they checked in with one another. And she heard Daddy when he came by to ask through the door if she was feeling alright. T-Dog announced himself with a jaunty knock when he brought her food, but Beth waited until she could make out the sound of his footsteps on the stairs until she opened the door.

Most of her day, it was just her and her thoughts. Or, more accurately, Beth’s attempts to run away from her thoughts. Once she watched Carl return safely to the house, Beth moved from her window to the bathroom door. She unwedged her desk chair and set it to the side, letting herself into the bathroom. Maggie’s door was locked before she went about quickly running through her own maintenance.

Beth brushed the sleep tangles from her hair and then braided it back, thinking of the deft way Daryl braided cord into ropes. She plucked the pink toothbrush from the cup next to the sink. Maggie’s was green and Glenn’s blue, three little bristly sentinels of their shared bathroom. The electric lights and the kitchen appliances stayed off in the house so that the running water and central air could be used instead. Beth thought that was a fair trade as she began brushing her teeth. She would much rather spend extra effort cooking and making candles than not be able to shower, brush her teeth, flush a toilet. After rinsing her toothbrush, she splashed some cool water over her face.

Beth had always been fair in complexion but her reflection looked downtrodden and wan when she met her own eyes in the mirror. Deciding not to linger on that, she took the two steps away from the sink and to the bathroom door to knock on it softly. “Glenn?”

“Still breathing,” he called back to her.

“You okay?” Glenn’s headache had turned into fever, though Daddy had so far managed to keep it from reaching the height Patricia’s had soared to.

“I feel like shit,” Glenn called back. His voice sounded hoarse and exhausted.

“I’m glad you’re still here,” she said through the door. “Get some rest.”

“Me, too,” Glenn agreed. “Hear you tonight.”

“Yeah,” Beth agreed, “hear you tonight.”

And, until Daddy came to check on the two of them, that was the extent of Beth’s human interaction. Erring on the side of caution, Daddy decided that Beth should stay in her room for five days before she would be let out of her quarantine. The sickness took Patricia in far less time, and Glenn developed symptoms almost immediately after felling Patricia’s walker.

In those three days, Beth had spent the majority of her time teaching herself a new song from Arnie’s chord book. She was unfamiliar with the artist, someone who once called themselves Iron & Wine. The song was called On Your Wings and it had a repetitive, hypnotic chord structure for much of the song. It was almost like a lullaby in that repetition, but the chords were plucky enough to hold attention rather than ease it away. The lyrics, though, were the real draw of the song for Beth.

“God, there is gold hidden deep in the ground. God, there’s a hangman wants to come ’round. How we rise when we’re born like the ravens in the corn. On their wings, on our knees, crawling careless from the sea,” Beth sang softly to herself as she strummed the strings. This song was much easier than Jolene, her fingers having already memorized the composition and rhythm.

Her mind was free to mull over the lyrics. Each verse seemed a lamentation of the ways of mankind. The chorus was a repeated plea to God Himself: ‘God, give us love in the time that we have’ and ‘give us love, give us love, give us love, give us’ on loop until the next verse began.

“God, there are guns growing out of our bones. God, every road takes us farther from home. All these men that you made, how we wither in the shade of your trees, on your wings, we are carried out to sea.”

She wondered about Glenn, lying on the other side of their shared wall. Fever stricken in Maggie’s bed. Could he hear how she obsessively played the same song again and again? Her fingers were becoming calloused from pressing so often to the strings. Did he get any comfort from the sound? Was it woven into his fever dreams?

Were those dreams better than her own?

Try as she might, Beth hadn’t been able to shake the image of the bullet wound opening Patricia’s skull into a dark, dreadful maw of a mouth where there shouldn’t have been one. That image plagued her dreams and guilt blanketed her mornings. It wasn’t Patricia she mourned in her dreams but Jimmy, come to haunt her October. How fitting.

In her dreams, there was no Daryl to stop her. She lifted Jimmy’s head from that bloodstained snow, turned his limp neck so she could see the damage wrought by her love for him. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed in her dreams, pressing her hand to the hole in his skull as if it could ever staunch the blood flow or heal the harm to his brain. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”

Every night since Patricia died, she dreamt the same dream. Every night, she placed her hand over the bullet hole, knowing what would happen next.

Every night, Jimmy’s death wound expanded. Widening, deepening, surrounding Beth as she wept until it grew large enough to pull her into its gravitational pull. The dark would consume her until it was all she knew, until her mind fought against it, until she woke with her heart stammering and a scream lodged in her throat.

And then she would lay staring at her ceiling until she could will her body to calm enough that she no longer felt she was teetering on the awful, frightening precipice of death itself. If it was still full dark outside, she might fall into a sleep that was neither deep nor restful until dawn approached. If the light was already turning gray, she would pull herself from bed to sit beside the window and wait for Carl to appear.

After confirming that Glenn had also survived the night, the guitar became her solace. The reprise of each chord and verse and chorus helped calm her. She knew just how to move her hands, just which words to sing next. There were no surprises within the confines of On Your Wings. She was the song’s master and servant all at once.

But even that couldn’t sustain her for a full day. When her fingertips felt like they might split and bleed, she stopped for the day, breaking the spell she cast over herself. The guitar was returned to its stand in the corner. The chord book was returned to its place on the shelf.

A note was added to Beth’s calendar on her desk with every day that passed in this manner. It never changed.

Glenn’s still alive.

Leaving her room on the sixth day felt surreal. In her confinement, the rest of the house ceased to exist in her mind. There was only her bedroom, the shared bathroom, Glenn’s raspy voice through the door, Carl’s hat bobbing across the farm out the window. Suddenly, the hallway in her childhood home seemed foreign. Her footsteps were intentionally as quiet as she could make them as she snuck downstairs to surprise Carl.

She remembered to skip the squeaky stair.

He was in the mudroom, pulling on Shawn’s old chore jacket that Beth had given him. The smile that stretched across her face at the sight of her friend threatened to split her cheeks. “Hey.”

“Beth!” Carl shouted, turning toward the sound of her voice. He only had one arm in his jacket. The other side flapped like a wing as he threw himself at her.

Beth laughed as she caught him, arms around his shoulders as his snaked around her waist. “Miss me?”

“Every day!” He enthused, stepping back to smile up at her. It had only been a few days, sure, but Beth felt like Carl had grown in that time. Or perhaps she was just noticing now that the difference in their height was beginning to shrink. Either way, it inspired her to catch him up in another hug before they ventured out into an autumnal morning where the frost crunched under their shoes and the crisp air nipped at their cheeks.

“How’s the farm been?” Beth asked as they walked out to the barn and Carl fixed his jacket.

“That horse you like so much, Cookie? He’s been kicking at his stall. Dad says he’s probably restless, but Hershel said I couldn’t let any of them out without you.”

“We’ll let them out into the yard today,” Beth decided. “I’m sure they’re all going stir crazy. Cookie’s just the loudest about it.” After running through a report on the other animals, which included showing Beth a scab on the back of his hand where Bitey the rooster had pecked him hard enough to draw blood, Carl moved on to updating her about the human residents on the farm.

“Me and Dad and Judith are all good,” he told her happily as they slopped the pigs. “T-Dog, too. Carol’s arm’s okay now and she hasn’t been sick. Her and T-Dog have been taking care of Maggie’s garden. Maggie said that lady’s name is Michonne. She woke up the day before yesterday. Merle never got sick, either, but Daryl is. Not as bad as Glenn, though.”

“Daryl’s sick?” Beth asked. The other details he unloaded for her were tucked away, this one taking precedence.

“Yeah, but not very.” She envied his ability to still believe that when things could go wrong, they wouldn’t. “Maggie didn’t look so good yesterday, either.”

Shit. “Where is she?”

“Probably with y’all’s dad. He wouldn’t let her sleep in the camper with Michonne last night, not after what happened last week. Hershel told her to take his bed. You didn’t see him on the couch when you came downstairs?”

No, she hadn’t, because the shadowy living room hadn’t been her concern. She headed straight to the mudroom to see Carl without sparing a thought to the health of anyone else. When she didn’t answer, Carl shrugged. “She’ll be okay. Glenn and Daryl are.”

“Glenn’s still running fever.” Or, at least, he had been the day before. Beth had developed a habit of padding into the bathroom and eavesdropping through the door when Daddy went into Maggie and Glenn’s room to administer medication for him. “What about Michonne? Is she better?”

“Recovering. Hershel said the fever made her really weak. She’s been awake, but she still mostly sleeps.” Of the farm residents, eight had escaped the clutches of the fever. One was a baby, though, so really seven. And that was only if they were counting Carl, which Beth did, but she knew Daddy and Rick would be hesitant to place further responsibility on his slight shoulders. Even with such depleted numbers, Carl’s name hadn’t been added to patrol duty. “Daryl’s the same. No more fever, just weak.”

“Recovering,” Beth repeated, to which Carl nodded. God, but she hoped it stuck. She hoped there were no more bleeding eyes, no more deaths creeping up in the flames of fever. “Let’s get this done. I wanna talk to Daddy about it all.”

Before noon, Beth found herself taking her sister’s place as nurse. Daddy wasn’t thrilled to ask it of her, but she jumped at the opportunity.

“I’ll do it,” she said immediately when Daddy suggested she may need to step in and take over Michonne and Daryl’s care. “Then you can sleep in my bed. You really shouldn’t be on the couch, Daddy, it’s not comfortable. But if I’m sleeping in Rick’s old camper, then you can have my room, and Maggie can stay in yours, and it will be so much easier to take care of her and Glenn.”

Daddy gave her a soft, affectionate smile before cupping her face in his hands and pressing a kiss to her forehead. “You’ve always been my bighearted girl, Beth. I don’t know if I like the idea of you sleeping with a stranger in the same camper, though.”

“Patricia did,” she reminded him. “And Maggie, too, even after Michonne woke up. She just now got sick, right? And Michonne is on the mend. I’ll move her sword or lock the bedroom door, whatever, but I really don’t think she would hurt me. She’s been on the farm who knows how many times without hurting anyone.”

It was a lot of faith to place in a stranger, and she knew it, but Beth couldn’t help it. Before ever seeing Michonne’s face or knowing her name, she had developed a soft spot for their wily thief. Her illness and identity and the peculiar, handicapped walkers she kept had only deepened that sentimentality. Michonne had become a pet of sorts in her mind, a stray needing help and love.

That mentality was verging dangerously close to the one that led her to believe that walkers could be cured and should be kept in the old barn, but Beth didn’t give a damn. Michonne was alive and very clearly had been on her own, Wind and Mountain aside, while stealing from the farm. She was obviously smart, strong, and a survivor and, laid low by this illness as she was, those qualities demanded acknowledgement and respect.

Daddy paused, studying the face of his youngest child still held in his hands. Something quick, complex, and indecipherable passed over his eyes before he nodded. “Alright, baby,” he conceded, “Michonne and Daryl are your patients now. I know you’ll do right by them.”

“Thanks, Daddy,” she beamed, standing from his office chair to hug him around the neck. “Don’t get sick, okay? Glenn and Maggie need you more right now, but I need you, too.”

“I’ll do my best,” he promised with another kiss, this one to the top of her head, before sending her off to see to her new charges. Beth went to Michonne first, buzzing with the excitement of truly meeting this new person. Though Daddy told her that she was still bedbound, Beth knocked on both the front door of the camper and the bedroom door before letting herself into the room.

Michonne turned her head on the pillow to fix her with an exhausted stare. Her eyes were still tinged red from the burst capillaries, but they didn’t look half as bad as they had when Daddy first checked them. She was wearing different clothes, now, a t-shirt Beth recognized from Maggie’s own pajamas drawer.

“Hi,” she greeted with a tentative smile that Michonne didn’t return. That was okay. “I’m Beth, Maggie’s sister.”

“Is she sick?” Michonne croaked out in a sandpaper voice. The sickness had really done a number on her. Beth didn’t like the thought, but she couldn’t help but wonder how close Michonne had come to the bloody, awful death Patricia suffered from the same illness.

“A little,” Beth hedged. Did Michonne know about Patricia? She decided not to mention it. “Maggie, Glenn, and Daryl haven’t been half as sick as you were. How are you feeling? Do you need anything?”

Did she know her walkers were at the gate? Did she know how close she had come to death?

“No,” she rasped. Then she turned her head to look up and out the little window beside the bed and Beth had the distinct impression that she was being dismissed. She smiled anyway.

“I’ll be back later with medicine and food, if you’re up for eating. Daddy says you need rest more than anything right now, so I’ll leave you to it.” Beth didn’t wait to see if Michonne would say anything else. She shut the door softly and made for the other bedroom, where Maggie had been staying. The sheets on the bed would need to be replaced. Beth stripped the bed and folded the sheets and comforter carefully before tucking it under her arm.

She had gone this long without catching that awful sickness. Now wasn’t the time to start risking it. The bedcovers Maggie had been sleeping in were deposited in a growing pile of laundry in the mostly defunct laundry room in the farmhouse. Though they technically could have run the washer, it was considered an unnecessary luxury. Too much strain on the solar panels. Carol and Patricia had been washing laundry by hand. Beth made a mental note to help Carol with the task whenever they both had a free moment.

For now, she gathered new bedding from the linen closet in the hallway, peeked her head in Carl’s open bedroom door to smile at him and Judith playing together and wave at the baby, and headed back to the camper. If she thought Carl looked taller after less than a week of separation, it seemed Judith had grown by months. She was laughing, bright baby giggles, as Carl flew a little stuffed toy overhead and periodically brought the toy down to rain ‘kisses’ on her face. The scene warmed Beth’s chest. That, coupled with her restored freedom, had her walking on light feet.

After making up the bed anew, Beth went about tidying up the living room. There was a half-finished puzzle on the coffee table that Maggie had left behind. A few dishes were waiting in the sink to be carted back to the big house for washing. She left the puzzle untouched and collected the dishes. That, at least, she could do for Carol and T-Dog. It wouldn’t be as fun without Maggie to talk to and Glenn’s playful interruptions, but maybe the routine of washing dishes would help bring some normalcy back to the day.

Beth decided to do those dishes and help with dinner before venturing back out to the campers. She already had the inkling that Michonne was one for privacy, so, when she brought her a thermos of soup, some buttered bread, and fresh water for her supper, Beth laid it on her nightstand and told Michonne she would be back later to get the dishes.

When she set out for the Dixon camper, though, she took both her own thermos and Daryl’s. T-Dog, Carol, and Merle all ate their meals in the dining room. Only those who were ill or caring for the ill had different eating arrangements. That meant that Daryl would be alone in the camper he shared with his brother.

Just like when she approached Michonne’s camper, she knocked on the front door before letting herself into the Dixon’s living room. It was surprisingly tidy for two men living there. A throw blanket was draped over the back of the little couch. Faded gingham curtains hung from the windows. A heavy, glass ashtray was the only thing that sat on the little breakfast nook that broke the adjoined kitchen and living room apart from each other. The light was dim inside, with deeper shadows gathering to her left. That was because the bedroom door on that side of the trailer was closed. Looking to the right, Beth saw a bit more light streaming through an open door.

Taking a gamble, she headed for that open door, poking her head around the doorway to see Daryl sitting up in his bed, clad in a gray tank top and a book cracked open in his hand. Her arrival didn’t go unnoticed. He looked up from the pages to meet her eye, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.

"No offense, but you look like shit."

She would have liked to fake some offense, at least, but she was so pleased to see him that she smiled instead.

"You're one to talk. Got any idea how pale you are?" His eyes were weary, the blue dull and tired rather than electric with fever. And his hair, while dark and damp, was surely from a recent shower rather than sweat, if the scent of clean soap was any indication.

"Doesn't take a genius to figure that when you feel like shit, you look it, too. What'd you bring me?"

"Are you this insulting and demanding with all your nurses?" She asked even as she began opening the thermos of bone broth and vegetable soup for him. Beth handed it to him along with a spoon before pulling her own thermos from the basket. Lacking any seating options, she perched herself on the empty top of the built-in bedside table.

Her feet dangled between the table and the bed. The set up of the bedroom was exactly like that in Michonne's bedroom: a little, screened window above the double bed, built in shelving, a nightstand, a dresser. Were it not for the occupant of the bed being wildly different in this camper than the other one, Beth might have felt like she had been here before.

But Daryl Dixon's sparse bedroom was not a place she ever anticipated being. She could see clothing peeking from the not-quite-shut dresser drawers. His boots sat beneath his bed, the toes poking out. Spare arrows sat atop the dresser and his game bag hung limp and empty from a hook on the wall. That signature crossbow was wedged between the bed and the wall, within easy reach, should he need it.

Yet she had jumped at the opportunity to take over Maggie's nursing duties when her sister fell ill. She wanted to get out of her room, to do something, anything. Carl could handle the livestock for a few more days now that Michonne and Daryl were both on the mend.

"Gotta keep the fight alive," he said simply, drinking the vegetable soup straight from the thermos. 

Beth took a swig of her own soup. The carrots and potatoes and onions had been stewed to softness. They gave easily between her teeth, filling her mouth with the hearty, comforting flavors of healing. "We're just trying to keep y'all alive, period. Our mystery woman's name is Michonne, by the way. She's awake now. Doesn't look much better than you, though."

"Ain't nurses supposed to be nice?" He asked, tired, muted amusement in his tone and face.

"Guess I missed that lesson of nurse school. It's been a real baptism by fire lately, you know." She tapped the heels of her boots against the wood panel of the table beneath her. After a beat, she tacked on, "I'm glad you're better, though."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Her face felt warm and she dropped her eyes to the dim, liquid depths of her thermos. She finished the dregs of her soup, just to have something to do other than meet the attentive blue eyes she could feel watching her.

Doing so meant she missed when Daryl scooted closer across the bed. Close enough to reach over and grab hold of her boot, to begin wriggling it free of her foot. "Alright, c'mon."

"Come on where?" She asked, though she didn't fight it as he removed first one and then her other boot.

"Ain't this what we do? You come over and take a nap, I do somethin' actually productive."

Beth felt her face flush again as her boots thudded to the floor. Daryl's face had become unreadable as he scooted back to the far side of the bed and patted the empty space between them. If her exhaustion hadn't been bone-deep, Beth told herself, she would have refused. It was only, he had a point, that was their routine, though usually with quite a bit more space between them. And she was tired, and that empty stretch of bed did look inviting...

"Give me your thermos." She deposited both on the table behind her before hopping off. It took more than a bit of effort to ignore the heat in her cheeks as she laid down beside him on the bed, on top of the covers. "What super productive thing are you going to be doing while I nap?"

In answer to that, Daryl waved a familiar, worn copy of Gone With the Wind at her. The spine was cracked and she knew for a fact most of the pages were dog-eared. That book had been Maggie's favorite for years.

Beth snorted. "Most everyone in that book is a terrible person."

The pillow under her head didn't smell like the clean soap she caught a scent of earlier. No; it was woodsy and herbal, smelling of the forest that encased the farm. And why shouldn't it? Daryl spent most of his days out there, especially when they were searching for Michonne.

"You're supposed to be sleeping," he reminded her, cracking the book open in his hand. He was more than halfway through.

"Don't let me sleep too long." Beth lay curled on her side facing him. Her knees were pressed to his leg beneath the covers.

"Never do," he reminded her. She watched him read for a bit as she let her muscles relax into the mattress. Sleep was already blurring the edges of her mind and vision alike. Before long, her eyelids were fluttering, and Beth didn't make any effort to fight their descent. She fell straight into a deep, if short, sleep.

And she didn’t have a single dream.

She woke an hour later to light that had gone entirely gray. Daryl’s book was abandoned between them; he was watching the last colors of the burning sunset fade outside. Were it not for the shift of the light, she might have thought her eyes were only closed for a few moments.

He hadn’t noticed her waking yet. Beth watched him watch the sky. The light had washed all color from him so that his neck and face were merely pale, his hair merely dark. No shades of brown or fading summer tan. In profile, his nose was softly rounded. A lock of hair fell over his forehead and cut across his eye. Beth had no idea how it didn’t bother him to have his hair in his face all the time. She was tempted, as always, to reach up and move it out of the way for him. Beth just might have done it this time, mind still hazy with sleep as it was, if Daryl hadn’t moved first.

A hand settled on her knee, which wasn’t where it had been when she drifted off. Beth was thankful for that gray light and the cover it gave her as she realized that, in her sleep, she had shifted and one of her legs was wedged between his. Daryl’s hand was warm and heavy through her jeans. “Feel better?”

“Yeah,” she managed to squeak out. “Thanks.”

Though heat radiated in her cheeks and spread down her neck and into her chest, Beth didn’t move an inch. Not until Daryl gave her knee a small, light pat and withdrew his hand. Only then did she push herself up from the bed, smoothing down her own mussed hair, and untangled herself from him. “How far did you get in the book?”

“War’s over,” he told her, nodding to the book on the bed.

“Everyone’s about to get worse than they already are.” She thought of On Your Wings again: guns growing out of our bones, every road takes us farther from home.

“Sounds about right.” They sat beside each other in the deepening dark for a moment. The air felt heavy, as if a storm were rolling in, but Beth knew the day had been clear and calm and a peek out the window confirmed that. Leaning over the side of the bed, Beth retrieved her boots and slipped them back onto her feet.

“Thanks,” she said again, resisting the urge to begin fiddling with her sleeves. “I take it back, you’re pretty nice to your nurses.”

There was an amused huff of breath from beside her. “I didn’t let Maggie nap on the job.”

“I’m sure Glenn would appreciate that. I’ll be back tomorrow?” She meant it as a statement, but her words lifted at the end and morphed it into a question.

“You know where I’ll be,” he told her.

She nodded, though she doubted he could see it. He was barely discernible as day gave way to night. Beth gathered up the thermoses they ate their dinner from and moved toward the door, pausing before she left. “Goodnight,” she murmured over her shoulder.

“Night,” he returned to her.

There was no reason for her heart to be racing in her chest like it was. The thought of encountering Merle as she left the camper didn’t occur to her until after she left the Dixons’ and sprinted the short distance back to Michonne’s. Once safely concealed inside, she walked to the dark kitchen and deposited her basket on the empty counter before running her clammy palms on her thighs, wicking away the uncomfortable moisture on her jeans. Then she turned on her heel and marched over to Michonne’s bedroom door, rapping her knuckle on the thin wood. “Hey, Michonne? I’m back. Do you need anything?”

The silence from the other side of the door stretched for so long that Beth nearly thought her new roommate had gone to sleep. But then came the quiet, raspy voice. “No.”

“Okay!” She answered, her voice sounding brittle in its brightness. “Goodnight, Michonne.”

“Goodnight.” Her smile felt a little shaky as she stepped away, retreating into the dark on the other side of the camper, where her new, temporary bedroom was located. Beth pulled her boots off and tucked them beneath the edge of the bed, like Daryl’s, like she did in her own, true bedroom. She peeled her jeans down and kicked them off her ankles, yanked her sweatshirt up over her head and replaced it with an oversized t-shirt.

This bed, oddly unlike Daryl’s, felt foreign. The pillow wasn’t molded to her head like the one in her bedroom and the mattress was much firmer than she was used to. Only the bedding was familiar and that wasn’t enough to help her relax. She lay in the dark, staring up at a ceiling she couldn’t see, hands folded over her middle.

Nothing happened, she told herself. It was just a nap. I always take naps next to… him.

Somehow, just thinking Daryl’s name felt salacious. She kept him anonymous as she pushed away the memory, trying to distract herself with other thoughts. How were Glenn and Maggie doing? She should have gone up and checked on them.

Her guitar was in her room upstairs in the farmhouse, along with the chord book, but that was okay. She had played On Your Wings often enough to have it memorized. Closing her eyes to the dark, Beth envisioned the chord book pages in her mind’s eye, fingers tapping on her own midriff as she mimed the movements.

Beth ran through the song twice before she felt calm enough to roll to her side and attempt sleep.

It wasn’t enough to keep the nightmares at bay. She started awake sometime in the very early hours of the morning, finding no escape from the darkness that tried to devour her in her dream. Perhaps it was the unfamiliar surrounding that heightened her fear, or memories of Patricia, or something. Whatever it was, Beth woke in such a panic that she wasn’t able to choke back the scream that built in her chest every time the dream came. Her hands scrambled over the covers, searching for something, anything, that felt solid enough to reassure her that she wasn’t tumbling through an awful, lightless, liminal space between life and death.

“Beth?” Her name in an unfamiliar voice didn’t help anything. Someone moved through the dark, someone put their hands on her shoulders to still her, and someone firmly repeated her name. “Beth.”

“Michonne?” She asked, her rational mind dredging the name up through her fear. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Her voice was still strained, her throat raw from the violent coughs that had burst the capillaries in her eyes. When Beth floundered through the dark and latched onto her hand, Michonne didn’t pull hers away.

“Waking you up. I’m sorry, I’m okay.”

The bed dipped beneath Michonne’s weight. Any concerns over her recent infection were entirely gone from Beth’s mind. She didn’t shirk away from Michonne as they sat together in the dark. Michonne let her hold her hand as Beth caught her breath and her pulse calmed in her veins. Only then did she comment, “You have nightmares.”

“Sometimes,” Beth confirmed, her own voice small. It was easier to make confessions when you couldn’t see the listener’s face.

They fell silent as Beth’s breathing regulated. Exhaustion filled in the empty pockets adrenaline left behind. Michonne gave her had a squeeze and murmured ‘me, too’, before stealing from the room just as quietly as she had come in. Beth strained her eyes through the dark for a few minutes, trying and failing to see any movement, before lying back down.

In the morning, she wondered if that had been a dream, too.

Beth felt a little nervous as she returned to the Dixon camper the next day. Merle was gone to supper at the farmhouse again. T-Dog, apparently deciding that Michonne and Daryl were well enough for solid foods, sent along baked sweet potatoes and zucchini along with hunks of bread.

After setting Michonne’s dinner up on a proper plate for her, Beth took the basket containing her and Daryl’s meal with her. She repeated the routine of fixing plates for both of them before carrying them into his open bedroom. “You’ve moved up in the world of invalids,” she told Daryl, passing him a plate.

“T-Dog’s hospital food, huh?” Beth took a seat on the nightstand again, toeing off her boots and letting them fall to the floor. She set her socked feet on the bed and balanced her plate on her lap.

“Better, I’d bet. I’ve never had hospital food.” Daryl didn’t comment on that statement. She watched him take a bite of his bread, toasted and slathered with honey, instead. They ate in the relative silence of chewing and forks scraping plates for a few minutes. Beth kept her head bowed over her plate though she could feel Daryl looking at her from time to time. Studying.

Eventually, he said, “You didn’t sleep any better last night.”

“No,” she agreed, leaving it at that. Well, for a beat before she remembered Michonne’s visit in the night and tacked on, “I have nightmares sometimes.”

“Pretty regular,” he said, and Beth didn’t immediately realize he was correcting her. When it donned on her, she shrugged and stabbed the tines of her fork into a piece of zucchini. “But not here.”

This time Beth nodded. She still couldn’t bring herself to look up at him.

It wasn’t a discussion. When Daryl finished his plate, Beth stacked it on top of hers and took the place he made for her on his bed. He cracked his book open and Beth watched him read until she fell asleep.

And when she woke, her ankle was hooked around his.

This continued throughout the week. They ate dinner, Beth slept, Daryl read. At every waking, she found that, in her sleep, she had sought him out in some way. A leg threaded with his. A hand on his forearm.

Neither of them commented on it.

By the end of the week, it even stopped feeling clandestine.

The farm righted itself before October could draw to an end. Beth’s nightmares didn’t lessen in frequency, but she managed to learn how to pull herself from the unconscious horror before the scream erupted from her lips. What sleep she lost due to this routine was regained in Daryl’s presence. She reclaimed her place in the lawn chair, resting in the warmth of the firepit, once Daryl was cleared to resume watch duty with her. Michonne, Daryl, Glenn, and Maggie all recovered. Chores were shuffled back to their original owners. The watch schedule was shuffled a bit after Patricia’s death—and though Carl attempted to argue his way onto it, his name was still absent from the paper—and resumed.

By the end of the month, the world felt steady again. Not perfect, of course, but then, it never had been. Beth dug in her desk drawer and withdrew the last few hard candies she had from the stash Jimmy scavenged for her a lifetime ago. She tucked them away in the palm of her hand, closing her fist around it, before heading downstairs.

“Happy Halloween, Carl Grimes,” she greeted him, holding her closed hand out. His palm opened beneath her fingers, and she dropped the candies there, smiling at the excitement that lit his face.

“Where did you get candy?!” He asked, singling out a cherry one and unwrapping it. Carl popped it in his mouth before shoving the other pieces in his pocket.

“I’ve been saving it for a special day,” she told him.

“Is it really Halloween?” Carl asked. Even if it weren’t, the mood of the world certainly fit. Heavy, dark clouds hung low in the sky and everything was crystalline and damp from a rainstorm that had persisted through the night.

“Give or take,” Beth told him. Their shoes squished over the soft mud beneath the yellowing grass. “If my calendar’s accurate.”

They ate the candy, a sweet and insubstantial breakfast, as they went about the morning chores. No sooner had they made it back to the house than the rain started up again. Most of the day was spent under a dreary, gray drizzle.

Halloween was the first night when everyone, even Michonne, crowded around the dining room table once more. Her health restored, the invitation to remain on the farm permanently was extended to her. So far, it seemed like it would stick. Wind and Mountain still lingered outside the gate. Michonne joined the lives being built within it.

The same tentative hope that sprouted each time things improved on the farm began to take root in Beth’s chest again.

A/N: As promised, a little snippet from Daryl's P.O.V:

She was right, most of the characters in the book sucked. Daryl liked the action parts but reading about Scarlett and Rhett's sorry marriage was a real downer. Even if she was awake, though, he wouldn't have told her she was right. Then that smug little smile would be on her face. He liked that smile more than he would admit.

He liked watching her sleep, too, but he sure as hell wouldn't admit to that, either. Made him sound like a creep.

Usually, they were outside and the fire lit and shadowed her face in turn. Now there was only the soft glow of late afternoon sunlight, which was failing, fast. It left her in cool tones: pale skin, save for her cheeks and lips, which were a soft pink, and her eyelids, the softest lilac from her poor sleep. Her hair coiled like a white-gold snake where her braid fell over her shoulder. It bobbed with the rise and fall of her shoulders.

Bess sighed in her sleep. Though her name had since been corrected, he still thought of her with the name he misheard the first time she said it. He used it, too, of course, at her request. His mistake had turned into a nickname.

Here, next to him in his bed, she slept curled on her side, arms drawn up close to her chest. One leg kicked out as she shifted, her heel connecting with his shin. Daryl went entirely still as he waited, but aside from hooking a leg over his, she didn't stir again.

Now it was his turn to sigh, his in relief. It was bad enough that he prompted her to sleep here, even if only for a nap. The last thing he needed was Merle barging in while Bess was cuddled up to him in bed. He was keeping track of the time by the light, or what was left of it, anyway, though he doubted he needed to. Bess had the uncanny ability of waking herself up from these little catnaps of hers after an hour or so of sleep.

Sure enough, her eyelids fluttered open before he needed to wake her. Her face was soft and muted as she rejoined the waking world. Daryl finished his paragraph and stretched his arm out, resting his hand on her knee, as if it were the most natural instinct in the world. He felt the way she stiffened for a fraction of a second beneath his palm. Shooting a sidelong look her way, he asked, “Feel better?”

He nodded and patted her knee, withdrawing his hand. The palm felt heated, as if he had held it out to a fire instead of the denim of her jeans. Beside him, Bess sat up and began fussing over her hair. “How far did you get in the book?”

“War’s over.”

“Everyone’s about to get worse than they already are.” She had that skittish look on her face, the one she got when she was second-guessing something. He could practically see the gears turning in her head.

“Sounds about right.” He hoped, fiercely, that what she was second-guessing wasn’t this. Maybe he had been too pushy, taking her boots off like that. Teasing her into taking a nap here, in his bed, which was surely much different than napping curled up in that lawn chair like she usually did.

Merle called Bess things like his ‘stray’ or his ‘pet’ when she wasn’t around. Daryl couldn’t help it. He saw something in her, something wayward and overlooked, that reminded him of himself in a way. Bess was younger than him, he knew that, but not so young that this—her being here right now—was out of bounds. Still, maybe he had been too forward. Overstepped. Made her uncomfortable.

“Thanks,” she murmured softly, pulling Daryl from his self-chastisement. “I take it back, you’re pretty nice to your nurses.”

He barked out a breathy, almost laugh. “I didn’t let Maggie nap on the job.”

“I’m sure Glenn would appreciate that. I’ll be back tomorrow?” The note of hope in her voice spread over his worries like a balm on a burn.

“You know where I’ll be,” he answered, careful to keep the relief out of his voice. Bess nodded and began packing up her little wicker basket. She pushed herself up from the bed and, for the first time since that fever took hold of him, Daryl felt a chill in her absence. He had to squint to still see her as she headed for the door.

“Goodnight,” she said, pausing in the doorway for just a moment.

“Night.” Only when she was gone, the front door opening and shutting to signal her departure, did Daryl slink down in his bed. If there was one good thing this damned sickness that lady—Michonne, he reminded himself—brought with her, it was the excuse of being worn out. Daryl screwed his eyes shut and pulled the pillow Bess had used over his head.

He would be damned if he had to listen to Merle and his taunting tonight.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Six: November, Year 2

Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do. Ecclesiastes, 9:7.

Michonne was an intriguing enigma as she acclimated to life on the farm. Beth had been half expecting that she would take Wind and Mountain and leave once she was feeling better. Mistaking Michonne for reticent would be easy. She was hardly an open book, watching but not speaking, yet Beth still felt she had a good idea just who this woman was.

Whether by choice or design, Beth found that Michonne was most often with herself or Maggie. If choice, it made sense; they were the ‘nurses’ who had cared for Michonne while she was sick. If design, well, that was just another testament to Daddy’s kindness, pairing giving Michonne tasks with people she was already somewhat familiar with.

When Michonne wasn’t helping Maggie with the garden—toiling soil, planting onion sets and garlic cloves to slumber through the winter and wake in the spring, tending the radishes, beets, and turnips that would grow quickly and help sustain them through the coldest months—she was helping Beth with tasks Carl wasn’t yet ready for. He might have been able to muck out the stalls and pitch new hay for the animals to bed down in, Daddy wouldn’t let him. Not yet. It had been months since he was shot, yes, but without the tools needed to accurately see the internal healing, Daddy was erring on the side of caution with Carl.

So it was Michonne who wore Maggie’s old rubber boots and Michonne who trudged through excrement with Beth.

“Maggie will want all of this for her compost pile,” Beth told Michonne, pausing to wipe the sweat from her brow. Mucking stalls got your blood up, even on a chilly November day, but she refused to remove her sweater as Michonne had. She watched another shovelful of hay and manure get added to the wheelbarrow they were quickly filling. “It’s gross, and it stinks, but it’s the reason her garden does so well.”

The horses were whinnying and stamping their feet outside in their yard. None of them liked having their barn closed to them but, given that Michonne was a new person to them, Beth didn’t want them getting antsy inside the barn while they worked. They could be impatient and demanding outside, so long as the low, gray clouds that hung overhead held onto their rain.

Michonne was quiet in a way that made Beth feel like she should fill the space with conversation. When she did speak, Michonne did so in measured words. Idle chatter was of no value to a woman like her, so Beth didn’t waste their time with it.

“We used to have walkers on the farm,” Beth told her as they continued to shovel. “On purpose, like yours. We fed them, wasted a lot of food on them, honestly, because it was the early days and we hoped that the infection could be reversed. They would have been a lot easier to manage without their arms and jaws, though.”

This information was absorbed, perhaps tumbled through Michonne’s head like a river stone in a current. Beth would never know. It was hard to read anything on Michonne’s face, placid and patient as it was. After two more shovelfuls, though, she asked, “Were they people you knew?”

“Mostly.” After a stall was cleared of old, soiled hay, they took up brooms, sweeping the dirt floor as clean as they could. The work was so much faster with two. “My mama, brother, and cousin were all in the barn. Carol’s daughter, Sophia, ended up in there, too. We didn’t know who she was at the time, only that she was a sick little girl and wanted to help, when we still thought this was something that could be cured. Is that why you kept yours? You knew them?”

“I knew them,” Michonne confirmed, leaving it at that. Beth already suspected as much but she liked having the confirmation. It was another stroke in the portrait of Michonne in her mind.

Beth found it easier to simply not sleep than face the nightmares. Jimmy featured heavily in them as the anniversary of his death approached. There was the black hole dream, of course, but others had developed as November took hold. In others, Jimmy morphed from living to walker in the blink of an eye and attacked her. Or he called from his grave, asking Beth why she did that, why did she shoot him, why did he kill her? The words were muffled by dirt but no less awful for it.

To avoid them, Beth simply did not sleep. Not alone, not at night. She wedged herself into her windowsill instead, watching the play of clouds and stars in the sky. It had been a wet and dreary month so far, so many nights were spent watching raindrops race down the pane of glass with her forehead pressed to the cold, smooth surface. On fairer nights, she watched owls wheel and swoop through the air.

One night, she watched a fog roll in, thick and white. Fingers stretched and curled, threading unhindered through the electric fence. She imagined that fog a miasma of her returning internal despair, all the nightmares she couldn’t face come to her in a different manifestation. If it still hovered when dawn approached and she ventured from the house with Carl, she predicted it would trip her, drag her unwilling to the grave she dreamt of. No need to sleep when your mind crafted nightmares during the waking hours, too.

Most nights, though, she simply stared despondently out the window.

It was exhausting, yes, but effective.

Her only rest came in the snatches stolen after her watches with Daryl. It was too cold and wet to sit outside any longer, to have a fire in the pit. Now she slept on the couch, curled up on one end, while Daryl ‘did something productive’ on the other. She was too tired, now, to keep track of his activities. Too tired for any conversation.

She simply stepped through the door Daryl held open for her and headed straight for the couch. Her boots were abandoned beside the coffee table, her socked feet pressed to Daryl’s thigh while she drifted off. Before, she was able to wake up on her own, but now it was necessary for Daryl to wake her. He always let her sleep as long as possible, waking her moments before Merle’s watch shift was set to end.

Due to Patricia’s death, and Michonne’s still recovering lungs, their watch schedules had been extended. Everyone was on patrol for three hours now instead of two, to help bridge the gap left. For nearly three hours every evening, Beth slept a dreamless sleep and woke to Daryl shaking her shoulder.

“C’mon, Bess,” he would say, hand hovering, ready, as she groggily pushed herself up to sit on the couch. She scrubbed at her face, willing herself to wake up. With numb fingers, she would pull her boots back on her feet. She felt like that fog, on these wakings: insubstantial and slow.

“Sorry,” she tended to apologize, stretching, trying to fit her mind back into her body.

“S’okay,” he always said, pressing a hand into the small of her back to prompt her forward. Now that it was colder, he wore flannels with the sleeves intact beneath his leather vest. Sometimes a leather jacket was layered on top, but if he was leaving the farm to hunt, it was a poncho that he donned.

These were the curious little things that her somnolent mind latched onto during these evenings. The colors in the flannel; if he wore an outer layer and which was it. Waking up was easier when they stepped through the camper door again and the cold air bit at her cheeks, burned in her lungs.

About two weeks into this new routine, as he walked her through the dark back to the farmhouse, Beth told him, “You don’t have to let me do that, you know.”

“Everyone’s gotta sleep sometime,” he told her simply. She was thankful the porchlight at home was never on and he couldn’t see the way her face heated at such easy reassurance for her habits.

"I didn't know we were racketeering now," Beth grumbled, following Maggie into T-Dog's candlelit camper. When her sister knocked on her bedroom door after she returned home from the Dixons', she hadn't known what to think. Maggie came proposing they 'go out', as if there was anywhere to go on the farm on a chilly, damp November night.

"Sorry to disappoint, but this shine was found, not homebrewed." Merle, lounging on the kitchen counter as if it were the most natural seat in the world, raised a glass in her direction.

Etta James played in the background from a battery-operated record player sitting on the coffee table:

Don't know why

There's no sun up in the sky

Stormy weather

Since my man and I ain't together

Keeps raining all of the time

By the light of several candles, Michonne, Carol, Daryl, and Rick had taken over the dining nook with a game of poker. Glenn was on watch with T-Dog, meaning they were temporarily absent during this odd bit of carefree time that was so rare on the farm.

"Where's Carl and Judith?" Beth couldn't help asking. Rick looked younger, much less harried, here in the candlelight sitting beside Daryl. This was good for him, she was sure, a break from raising two children and what had to be a complicated process of grieving Lori and Shane.

"Judith's asleep on T-Dog's bed," Rick nodded to the left, where a bedroom lay. All these campers had the exact same floor plan, it seemed. Beth wondered what lot they had been taken from. "Carl's back home."

Home. Her home. Maggie's home, Carl's home. It had changed a lot over the past two years. Beth realized she liked it, 'home', just as much now as she did before.

"Here," Maggie passed a glass to Beth. It smelled like artificial cinnamon. "Probably the closest you're going to get to apple pie in a while."

It was some of that scavenged moonshine Merle toasted her with upon their arrival. She raised it to her lips and took a tentative sip. It burned in her nostrils and her mouth, firey even as she swallowed and it trekked down her throat and into her belly. But there was the faintest, familiar taste of cinnamon and apples, so Maggie wasn't wrong.

The moonshine was better on the second sip, now that she knew what to anticipate. She found herself on the floor with Maggie, picking up where someone else left off on a large, complicated puzzle forming on the coffee table.

"This happens a lot?" Beth asked, pressing a piece into place.

"Only here and there," Maggie told her. Beth took a drink from her cup to drown the sting of exclusion with the burn of moonshine.

Had they thought she was too young, a baby? Lumped in with Carl and Judith, the actual children she asked after? "But we want to make it a weekly thing."

"Oh, okay," was all the response Beth could conjure. They worked on the puzzle for a bit, listening to Etta James and the disgruntled comments from the poker players when bad hands were gained.

Judith began crying and Rick left the game to feed her. Maggie took over his hand and, to Beth's surprise, Merle dropped himself into her sister's spot.

"Survivors gotta cut loose a little, too, if they wanna keep survivin'." He clinked the rim of his cup to hers, as if in cheers, and nodded to her moonshine. It was still mostly full. Taking the cue, Beth raised it to her lips and took a big gulp. That brought a sharp smile to Merle's face. "Atta girl."

"Are you going to help or did you just come over here to bug me?" Merle set his own drink down, sheathed prosthetic knife in his lap, and reached his hand over to begin sorting through the pile of puzzle pieces Maggie left behind.

Glenn and T-Dog arrived and Michonne and Carol left for their patrol. With his cheeks flushed and energy buzzing in his movements, Glenn tugged on Beth's ponytail and said, "Come on, let's give Maggie and Daryl a run for their money."

"What if I don't know how to play poker?" Beth asked, pushing herself up to follow him. He shot a look over his shoulder at her but Beth only smiled sweetly. Glenn shook his head and reached behind him, ushering Beth into the little bench seat in front of him. She ended up sitting across from Daryl, wedged between Glenn and the wall. Her knee knocked against his as she settled in.

Beth picked up Carol's abandoned hand and pulled a face. Was it just misfortune or did Carol not know how to play? Shawn taught Beth when they were kids. They used to bet using M&M's. Now they used poker chips, crowded around the plastic table top between the benches. Beth knew no money would be attached to the chips.

Currency was void. Everything they owned, now, was either scavenged, hand-me-down, grown, or created.

"What's that song you were playing when I was sick?" Glenn asked as the game revived in earnest. Maggie had a miniature skyscraper of poker chips stacked in front of her.

"It's called 'On Your Wings'," Beth told him, exchanging another card when it was her turn to do so.

"I could hear you playing," he said, "over and over again."

"That was probably your fever," Maggie cut in. The truth was that Beth did play the song on repeat, multiple times a day. "Just guitar, or could you hear her singing?"

As if her cheeks weren't already flushed, the fire of embarrassment burned brighter at Maggie's question. She ducked her heads over her cards, keeping her eyes trained on the red and black numbers and symbols there.

"I didn't know you could sing!" Glenn seemed delighted by this revelation. He bumped her shoulder with his but Beth only frowned.

"Like a bird," Maggie confirmed for her.

"I wasn't singing," Beth grumbled. She hadn't been, not loudly, anyway. "Just playing guitar."

"Yeah, that's all I heard. Where were you playing? It was, like, crystal clear."

"On my bed," Beth said. "The wall between our rooms is thin, isn't it?"

She hadn’t meant it to be as cutting as it was, but when Beth looked up from her cards to Glenn’s face, she saw his cheeks turning red as realization fell over him. Beth flicked her eyes to Maggie and saw the same caught-out expression on her features.

Behind them, Merle laughed, loud and sharp. “Well, hell, if you can be heard in the other room, I guess all the rumors about Asian peckers are wrong.”

Beth nearly dropped her cards so she could hide her face in her hands instead. Under the table, the pressure of someone’s boot atop hers kept her from doing so, but she still burned with shame as Glenn laughed nervously and Maggie glared at the table.

“Merle.” His brother’s name was a warning. Daryl pressed his foot down a little harder, not enough to hurt, only to reassure, on Beth’s before withdrawing it.

“Sorry.” He didn’t sound it. In fact, Merle continued on, “Maybe they’ll give Judith a playmate soon, huh? Little thing running around, half farmer, half rice picker.”

Beth regretting her quip more and more by the second. Were she not hedged in, the wall on one side and Glenn on the other, she would have bolted from the room by now. There was a window right above the little eating nook. Maybe if she stood on the table and tried hard enough, she could launch herself out of it. Give herself to the nippy November night rather than subject herself to another moment of embarrassment.

That weight was on her foot again, demanding her attention. She turned her head from her contemplations about the window to Daryl’s face. He raised his eyebrows, which Beth took to be a silent question. You alright? She imagined him saying in that gruff voice of his.

As the season turned to colder days, Beth had found herself feeling raw again, like she was losing layers of skin by the day. She had taken to dressing in heavy knit sweaters, too big for her, filched from the box of winter clothing in the attic with her mother’s name on it. They helped, a little, but not just then. All of her felt exposed and, as was becoming the pattern with him, she found herself unable to censor herself from Daryl.

Just then, she didn’t know what she was. So, she shrugged in answer to him, and then took a hearty pull from her glass of moonshine to dull the sharp edges of regret and shame stabbing into her ribs from inside her chest, trying to break through her skin. She was so stupid; she shouldn’t have said anything. Now she had Merle going, and Glenn was getting the brunt of it, as he often did, because Merle Dixon was an idiot who liked to make off-color remarks for the hell of it.

It was her fault, and Glenn didn’t deserve it, and Maggie was going to be mad at her, and—

Daryl’s foot became more insistent, pressing harder, verging on painful as the sole of his boot forced itself down on her toes. He was simply trying to get her attention. He had no idea how much it grounded her, how it brought her out of the hateful haze that was beginning to cloud her mind. 

She met his eye again, a placid depth of calm blue in direct juxtaposition to the whirring thoughts in her head. The others were still talking—arguing, probably—but the words were unintelligible to her. T-Dog’s camper had shrunken down to half the table, to only Daryl sitting across from her, to his foot on hers. Beth’s inner chaos began to ebb away and her lungs remembered how to stretch with her breathing.

Just when she no longer felt like she was on the verge of dying, Daryl pulled his foot back again. The camper righted itself, words gaining meaning, everything coming back into focus. Beth sent a shy, grateful smile across the table to him and the night returned to the lightheartedness it had begun with.

The sole bright spot of the month fell on the fourth Thursday. Though Beth couldn’t say the United States of America stood any longer, the Thanksgiving tradition still did for the farm residents. Beth liked this iteration better, devoid of any false sentimentality messaging for a feast that likely never happened and contrived familial joy. Now Thanksgiving felt genuine, because she was truly thankful to still sit around a table of friends and family.

Nothing about the meal was ‘traditional’. There were venison steaks, courtesy of the Dixon brothers, instead of turkey. The potatoes were baked instead of mashed, smeared with butter that Carl churned. Sautéed spinach and garlic roasted radishes rounded out the spread, and Carol’s honey baked apples were their dessert.

Daddy used an Irish blessing, their hands clasped around the table and heads bowed, instead of a prayer of thanksgiving as he used to in her childhood. Rather than list examples of good fortune and thanking the Lord for them, Daddy said simply:

“May God grant you always a sunbeam to warm you, a moonbeam to charm you, a sheltering angel so nothing can harm you, laughter to cheer you, faithful friends near you, and wherever you pray, heaven to hear you.”

The answering ‘amen’ was still murmured around the table. Beth, seated between Maggie and Carl, gave each of their hands a squeeze before letting go. With everyone crowded around the old dining room table, the autumnal chill couldn’t touch her here. It was warm and golden, thanks to the candlelight, and everyone was smiling.

Even with her fill of good food and company, though, Beth couldn’t find it within her to sleep at night.

The most notable thing to happen that month, though, was the disappearance of Wind and Mountain. One day, they were growling and bumping into each other at their post just outside the gate. The next? Carl and Beth stepped outside to see to the animals and encountered a morning far too quiet. They looked at one another, perplexed, before their eyes began searching their surroundings.

“Oh,” Carl breathed, grabbing Beth’s arm. “Look, they’re gone.”

He pointed to the front of the farm where the gate was now clear of tethered walkers. “Huh.”

“What do you think that means?” Carl asked, his perplexion giving way to worry. Beth looked toward the camper that had become Michonne’s, to the faint line of candlelight visible through a gap in the curtains. Beth wasn’t surprised to see it; in fact, she looked for it every morning, because Michonne had trouble sleeping, too. More often than not, that light was there.

“I think it means she’s staying,” Beth told him.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Seven: December, Year 2

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 1 John 4:18.

"Here, play this so I can hear it," Beth instructed Carl, setting the sheet music for Jingle Bells in front of him. It was the simplest Christmas carol she had for the piano. Her hypothesis was that if she had Carl play for her on piano, she could listen and configure the chords for guitar. There was an open notebook on the end table beside her, ready to receive inked instructions for herself.

"I'm glad everyone agreed about Christmas," he told her, leaning over the keys to read the notes. Sheet music was something Carl was still learning, though he was pretty good at following along when Beth showed him a song.

"It's Judith's first, and we've had a hard year. I think we all need some Christmas." Beth held the guitar on her lap, waiting patiently. She knew Carl would play slowly, in stops and starts, repeating sections until he got them down. All the better for her, though. His hesitations would give her time to listen, to envision the sheet music for a carol she had been playing since she was younger than him, and translate it to what she had learned about playing guitar.

In this halting way, they spent nearly a week learning to play an instrumental duet of Jingle Bells.

Just as her guitar had become salvation during her quarantine, her piano was the saving grace of December. Aside from their practicing of the duet and Beth teaching Carl the easier Christmas carols to play on his own, she had begun a new routine of playing songs that challenged her. Unfamiliar songs, not the familiar, nearly rote hymns she spent her childhood playing. These songs stretched her focus, her mind, and her body.

Vivaldi’s Winter. Tchaikovsky’s Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy. Trickier carols: God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and Carol of the Bells.

She tended to play around dinner time, when the others were arriving for the one meal that was eaten as a full group. The first time, Carol’s clapping when she finished her piece had startled Beth. It hadn’t occurred to her that anyone was listening. With her hands tingling, the bones and muscles coming down from the fervor with which she had played, and her mind still swimming with the sheet music that seemed to imprint itself onto her retinas, she turned to find Carol applauding her.

“Thanks,” Beth murmured, feeling irrationally shy considering she was playing in a common area of the house. Of course, it stood to reason that everyone currently in the house could hear her. She simply hadn’t expected anyone to pay her much attention.

But here was Carol giving her a soft, complimentary smile before ducking back into the kitchen.

Her solo concerts expanded to include Judith, who loved all things musical, whether that was silly songs Carl made up for her, lullabies sung to her by Beth or Maggie, or T-Dog’s record player. Now she was Beth’s constant, her evergreen audience, gurgling and laughing in her bouncer. Sometimes she was in her walker instead, a sole ballerina scooting around the living room while she played Waltz of the Flowers.

Judith’s excitements were only background noise for Beth. They hardly pulled at her attention, which was focused solely on the piano and sheet music before her until the song was finished. For the duration of whatever song she was playing, the farm and the month of December fell away from her. It was a daily sojourn into temporary peace, her mind ceasing its usual cacophony of grief, regret, and anxiety as the days inched closer to the anniversary of Jimmy’s awful, tragic death.

Unlike other concert pianists, Beth wasn’t dressed to the nines. She was still in the habit of wearing her mother’s sweaters, baggy and falling to her mid-thighs, the sleeves rolled at her wrists. Her hair was either braided or tumbling from a loose ponytail.

And if she had an audience outside Judith, she was intentionally ignorant of her spectators. Even after the last note was played, Beth kept her attention on the sheet music. She began leafing through the pages, choosing the song for tomorrow’s session, reading over the notes and studying them. Acclimating back to the farm, even if only her mind was away in reverie, was necessary. She wouldn’t rise from the piano bench until she felt steady enough to join everyone congregating in the dining room. Only then would she stand and retrieve her infant companion, taking Judith with her.

Beth’s guitar was hardly neglected. She began bringing it with her to T-Dog’s when she and Maggie ‘went out’. The camper had the air of a speakeasy or a pub, which was what inspired Beth to learn and share Irish drinking songs, such as The Wild Rover. After a few play throughs, the others learned the chorus and all sang with her.

And it’s no, nay, never

No, nay never no more

Will I play the wild rover

No never no more

In the privacy of her bedroom, Beth began teaching herself a new song to add to her repertoire. Jolene and On Your Wings were joined by Pressing Flowers. The byline had the name ‘The Civil Wars’ printed on it. Beth liked it because, much like On Your Wings, the chords were repetitive, melodic, and oddly comforting. The lyrics, however, couldn’t be more different than the plea to a higher power that was her second musical fixation.

Pressing Flowers was, decidedly, a love song. The plea here was not to a temptress or God but an unnamed paramour. The one making the plea was neither a jilted woman nor a disenfranchised believer. This narrator was beseeching, proposing several meeting places for the lovers. A garden where the weeds grew tall; a back porch where ivy climbed, a poem of an iron bed.

But it wasn’t the romance within the song that held her interest. It was a few lines toward the end, one that wheedled into her brain and became stuck: You and I, well, we’re just pressing flowers. They’re dying, but they’re ours.

That was how this entire life felt, since the virus set in and the walkers rose. Pressing flowers. Days and moments preserved in fragile memory; a timer ticking over her head; knowing she had been plucked and just waiting for the day she wilted.

The soporific effect of Daryl Dixon’s presence had yet to lessen. After days filled with helping Carol and T-Dog plan a special Christmas dinner, retrieving ornaments from the attic to hang on the artificial tree Maggie and Glenn assembled in the corner of the living room, and the menial chores that had to be maintained even as the earth gave way to the cold grasp of winter, the Dixon camper felt like solace.

“Sorry I’m so boring to hang out with,” she murmured one evening as she curled herself up on the side of the couch she was becoming to think of as ‘hers’. Though she was wearing thick, woolen socks, she still felt cold. It was frigid and awful outside. She pressed the soles of her feet more firmly against his thigh and tucked her hands beneath her cheek, hoping to help warm her stiff fingers.

“Sleepin’ or not, you’re better company than most,” he reassured her, catching her foot and giving it a small squeeze. His task as of late was preparing kindling, which he did by shredding birch bark with his hands until it resembled a clump of cotton more so than it did a part of a tree. The kindling was placed in several cardboard boxes, one for each household on the farm. Though he insisted this was necessary, crucial, even, Beth didn’t understand the need. Still, she liked to watch him work.

Before he set to the task, though, he reached behind them for the blanket on the back of the couch. Beth had a sudden wave of nostalgia for her mother as he tossed the blanket over her. The dull ache of a healed, but never forgotten, wound flared through her chest. Phantom pain.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Now he picked up the birch bark he had been collecting from the forest and manipulating it between his fingers. Beth watched him, head pillowed on the arm of the couch, as she let the exhaustion unfurl inside her. It had to be contained during the day, avoided at night, but for these few hours beside Daryl, she could give in.

“Me and T-Dog had to move the beehives closer to the compost pile, it’s been so cold,” she told him, eyes already growing heavy.

“Yeah?” He asked, not because he wasn’t interested, but because they both knew she would soon be dropping off. Daryl had developed a habit of asking after the half-formed thoughts she offered him before she fell asleep.

“Mhmm,” she hummed, and then she was gone. The explanation, that the compost pile gave off heat thanks to the chemical processes of decomposition, would have to wait.

“Why is it so damn cold?” Carl asked, rubbing his gloved hands together. They were both wearing several layers beneath their heavy chore jackets. Substantial, white clouds of mist puffed in front of their faces with each breath. Beth shot Carl a sharp look.

“Your dad’s gonna ban you from talking to half the farm if you don’t stop cussing so much.” Daryl and Merle were certainly no strangers to curse words, and Glenn and Maggie were much looser with them when out of earshot of certain people, namely Daddy and Carol. “Daryl’s convinced there’s gonna be a blizzard, but I don’t see how he would know that.”

“Would the animals be okay if that happened?” His brows knit together beneath the brim of his hat.

“It’s way warmer in the barn than it is outside, remember? They insulate it themselves between their body heat and the hay.” Inside the barn, which was indeed much warmer than the penned yards just outside, the horses were restless. Not Cookie so much, being the youngest and least experienced, but Cinnie and Oreo were pacing their stalls. Daisy and Comet had their heads bent over the wall that separated their adjoining stalls, huffing at one another, as if having a conversation.

The pigs, while happy for their slops as always, moved in a congealed mass rather than racing one another to be the first to the troughs. They had to scatter the seed for the chickens inside their coop, not far from their rows of nests. Even the roosters were, well, roosted.

Seeing how the livestock was hunkering down did make Beth begin to feel a little uneasy. They knew, after all, when the weather would change. More so than humans. Or most of them, Beth corrected herself, thinking of Daryl and his tinder boxes. Everyone had one by now ‘just in case’. There was one sitting beside the fireplace in the living room. Beth wasn’t sure how the others might manage to use the tinder, should push come to shove and the heat of a fire become necessary in the campers. Maybe Daryl had a plan for that, too. She wouldn’t doubt that he did.

Throughout the day, she kept looking to the sky through the windows, but it stayed the same it had since the morning. Hazy, white clouds banked on the horizon; the brittle blue of a winter sky overhead. While Beth and Maggie washed the dinner dishes, talking about how exciting it would be to have the electric lights on the Christmas tree—an indulgence Daddy fully backed, seeing as it was Judith’s first Christmas—a strong wind began to blow out of the north. It brought with it those hazy clouds Beth had been peering at all day, quickly filling up the sky.

“Better bundle up before your watch shift, Bethy,” Maggie said, squinting at the clouds. “Looks like snow tonight.”

“A little too early for a white Christmas.” They were still two weeks out from the holiday. Maggie was right, though. She could feel the tendrils of cold air leaking through the edges of the windows in the sunroom where they washed the dishes when they weren’t able to do so outside. Maggie took the cleaned dishes and Glenn took care of their heavy, suds-filled wash basin so Beth could go upstairs and change before her watch rotation.

Beth pulled a pair of leggings from her drawer, quickly stepping out her jeans to pull them on before layering the denim back on. She exchanged her sweatshirt for a long-sleeve t-shirt and then pulled on one of Mama’s thick, knit sweaters before double-layering her socks and lacing her boots over them. Digging through her closet, Beth found the heavy, sherpa lined snow jacket hanging at the back. She zipped it up before adding a pair of gloves and pulling a knit beanie over her pigtail braids.

As if the ever-present exhaustion wasn’t weighing down her bones enough. Beth felt cumbersome as she treaded downstairs, but when she opened the front door, she found that the northerly wind had teeth. It bit at her cheeks and nose, hardly discouraged when she pulled her hood up over her head. Her eyes stung as she turned into it out of necessity, vision blurred a bit as she went down the porch steps and headed for Daryl.

“You’re not cold?” She asked, regretting opening her mouth when the wind snatched the words so painfully from her tongue. There was no way to tell how many layers he had hidden under his poncho, but he looked decidedly less bundled than she did. The hand holding his ever-present, ever-ready crossbow was only partially covered by a fingerless glove.

“Freezin’ my balls off,” he corrected her. It caught her so off guard that she laughed aloud, though the wind fairly ripped that away, too. He nodded toward the fence and, though the cold was wedging itself between the layers of her clothes and trying to needle beneath her skin into her bones, Beth trudged forward. Little did she know that Daryl’s suspicion of the weather would come to fruition just three laps along the fence line.

Snow began falling as gently as it typically did and, for a few minutes, Beth felt a little smug. All that wind was just bringing in a regular snowstorm. Then the snow began to fall more heavily and the wind somehow managed to strengthen further and the world went white. Those softly falling flakes were projectiles, now, pricking her skin and assaulting her eyes so that she was left blinded.

The blizzard came on them so suddenly that it was a wonder they made it inside anywhere, let alone the Dixon trailer. Beth could only credit Daryl's impressive sense of direction, for the whipping snow had left her blind and snatched her breath from her. Were it not for his hand clutching hers tight and leading her forward, she knew she would have stopped, would have been one of those frozen corpses found in a snowbank after the storm.

She gulped down air once they were out of the brutal, stinging snow and howling, furious wind. "Oh, my God," she said, a useless sentiment, but she felt she needed to say something. It was all she could say before her teeth started to chatter so hard she worried they might crack.

"Yeah," Daryl agreed. He hadn't released her hand but rather continued to trail her through the dark camper. In the kitchen, he managed to rummage through a drawer, find a lighter, and bring a single candle to life. Using its dim light, he located a battery-operated radio and flicked it on.

Almost immediately, Daddy's voice came crackling and thin over the airwaves. "....Glenn and Merle inside the big house."

"I'm inside," Maggie's voice came next, confirming her safety.

"Inside with Michonne and Carol," T-Dog's voice reassured.

Daryl pressed on a button and lifted the radio close to his mouth, "I got Beth."

Beth. Not Bess. Because that name was only used between the two of them.

"Stay warm, everyone." She could only assume Carl, Judith, and Rick were likewise safe and they simply missed that information during their mad dash inside. She was thankful it happened during a shift change, when no one was far from shelter.

"Crazy, huh?" She asked to fill the soft, shadowy quiet. Beth wasn't quite sure how she kept finding herself here, in obscured privacy with Daryl.

"Here," he said, opening a cabinet and withdrawing a bottle of whiskey. Two glasses were poured before she could say anything, one of them pressed into her gloved hands. "It'll warm you up."

"Okay," Beth agreed, taking her glass and retreating to the nearby living room. She banged her shin on the coffee table, her familiarity with the place stolen by the dark. A hiss escaped her teeth as she maneuvered around it and onto the couch.

Daryl came behind her, candle in one hand and cup of whiskey in the other. The former was deposited on the coffee table while he took a drink from the latter. Now that she could see the table somewhat, Beth placed her glass there and began working her boots off. She peeled her gloves from her hands and her beanie from her head and dropped them into the quickly growing pile on the side of the couch, but decided to leave her jacket on. Then she took her glass back and curled herself into her edge of the couch, knees drawn up, whiskey cradled close to her chest.

It burned a little as she drank but that burn soon softened into a warmth that spread down her throat and through her chest. "Thanks," she told him. "You always seem to be getting me out of trouble."

"Ain't no trouble," he corrected her. "Just survivin'."

"Well, you're good at it. I wish I was that good." The couch was small. He really wasn't that far from her. Beth guessed that was true every time she was on that couch, she just hadn't really considered the fact. But the frigid wind and sting of the pelting snow had, for the time being, erased all tiredness from her.

This was the most awake she had felt in Daryl's presence since the sickness raged through the farm.

"You've made it longer than a lot of people," he reminded her. "This blizzard ain't gonna be what does you in."

As if in disagreement, the wind surged and howled, battering the camper so that it shook. Beth raised her eyebrows at him but Daryl just shrugged. She laughed and stretched her legs out just a bit, so she could wiggle her toes until they were beneath his thigh. His eyes darted down, looking at her socked feet, but he didn't object.

In fact, after a beat, he reached out with his free hand to curl his fingers around her calf. Beth's heart slammed against her ribs.

"You'll have to sleep here tonight."

"Won't be the first time," she reminded him. His thumb was tracing a short path along the line of her leg, up and down, up and down.

He gave a small, amused huff of breath. No, it wouldn't be the first time, but it would be different. Only a month had passed since the illness that debilitated the farm. The weather had turned since then, Beth's outdoor naps becoming indoor, couch naps instead. She hadn't laid in his bed since he was recovering, and she certainly wasn't going to sleep in Merle's.

Maybe the couch. That would be fine, though is was small and narrow. It served well enough during her naps.

She sipped on her whiskey so she wouldn't have to think too much about it. Daryl was right about it helping to warm her after the sprint through the blinding snow. It loosened her, too, so that she leaned back into the arm of the couch and wriggled her feet further under his thigh.

His hand slid up a little, hooking behind her knee.

"You know," she mused, giving her glass a little shake so the amber liquid swirled around, "if I have to be stuck in a blizzard with someone, you'd be my first pick."

"Yeah?"

"Mhmm," she hummed, sending a shy smile across the couch at him. "T-Dog or Carol or Michonne wouldn't be bad, either, I guess. I could do Maggie or Glenn, but not both together, stuck up and waiting out a storm. Carl would be fine, too, but then I would have to be in charge, especially if we had Judith, and then I would be stressed the whole time. I like Rick well enough, I just don't really know him yet even though I take care of his kids. There's Daddy, too, but he would be babying me like he always does, and I really can't blame him for it. And if I was stuck with Merle, he'd be a bother the whole time because he would be bored. So, yes, you're the best option, and I'm happy I'm here with you."

No verbal reply came after her rambling, but he did give her leg a squeeze. She liked to think it was in agreement.

The candle burned a little lower as they finished their nightcap. First one than the other glass was abandoned on the coffee table beside it. Wind and brutal, punishing snow continued to slam into the exterior of the camper. The interior was cozy, if not entirely warm, and Beth found herself growing sleepy. Her head began to nod without her awareness.

Another gentle squeeze on her leg had her eyes opening when they nearly succeeded in falling closed. "Alright, c'mon."

"Bedtime?" She asked. When he stood, her feet were left chilled.

"Bedtime." He offered her a hand and she took it, letting herself be guided through the dark camper to his bedroom. This fact had the odd sensation of thrilling and calming Beth in turns.

She knew for a fact she wouldn't have a nightmare if she slept next to him.

But also... she would be sleeping next to him.

It was too cold to be over the covers like all the times before. She shrugged out of her jacket, folding it carefully, and waving a blind hand through the dark until she felt the corner of the nightstand she knew was beside the bed. Her jacket was deposited there. Out of routine, her hands found the button of her jeans beneath the sagging hem of her sweater. She popped it through the hole and tugged the zipper down before it occurred to her what she was doing.

"Um," she half-turned, trying to locate Daryl in the hazy dark the blizzard had brought with it. But her face and chest were heated and the words withered on her tongue before she could force them past her lips.

"Yeah?" Daryl prompted over the sound of rustling fabric. She wondered what he was removing. His poncho, surely, and the boots he still wore when they were on the couch. Earlier in the day, he had been wearing a thick, henley shirt under his vest rather than a flannel. Poncho, boots, vest, at least. It was too cold to forego too many layers.

Beth had on legging beneath her jeans. Surely that meant it was okay to take hers off. She swallowed back her embarrassment and said, instead, "I still have nightmares."

"But not here," he reminded her. Beth reached down until she found the bed and peeled back the covers.

"Not usually, but who's to say..." She climbed beneath the blankets and rolled on her side facing the middle of the bed, waiting for him to join her. "I'm sorry, is all. In advance. If I have one tonight."

There was silence for a beat and Beth listened only to the tempo of her own frenzied heart before movement became her answer. The bed dipped under his weight. She could tell from how he laid down he must be flat on his back, but the rustling of fabric made her think he must have turned his head toward her.

Beth couldn't decide if this darkness was a blessing or a curse. She almost wished he had brought the candle in there. Not that his face was often overly expressive, but Beth liked to think after all the time they had spent together as patrol partners had allowed her to begin gauging his emotions. When I can see his face, that is.

And she could not see his face here. She could hardly see his silhouette, slightly more solid than the surrounding dark. Beth could only feel him: his weight on the mattress, his body heat seeping into the sheets, mingling with her own.

It was reassuring, as it always was. As the warmth sunk into her bones, her anxieties began to fade away. “You’re apologizin’ for a nightmare you haven’t had?”

“Yeah,” she admitted.

“They that bad?”

“Sometimes.” Not in a while, but then, she had been avoiding them as much as possible what with the anniversary of Jimmy’s death approaching. Though he didn’t press, she felt compelled to explain, “They’re always about the people we’ve lost.”

She didn’t want to speak the details into the shadows, didn’t want to summon those awful things that hid in the recesses of her mind. Even this small mention sent a shiver down her spine.

“Still cold?”  

“I’m okay,” she murmured. “Thanks for not making me sleep on the couch by myself.”

The exhaustion was beginning to win out again. Her eyelids closed and Beth had to put concerted effort into opening them again to gaze through the dark. A vague notion that Daryl likely had night vision as well as weather intuition occurred to her when he said, soft and distant in her fading consciousness, “Go to sleep, Bess. You’ll be alright.”

“Okay,” she agreed, letting herself be pulled under.

The first few hours were the blissful, nonexistent black of her naps. Somewhere around midnight, however, the blizzard’s wail snuck into her unconsciousness. It hooked itself there and began to take shape; her mother’s specifically. Preternaturally loud, it filled the house, which was stuffy and too hot, and somehow, when it startled her from ‘sleep’ and she jolted upright in her bed, Beth just knew.

This was the July of a year ago, when Shawn died.

And then it wasn’t.

Lori’s voice took up the wail, and suddenly it was just this past June, the night Judith was born. There was a different bed, not her own, before her and her hands were slick with blood. Then the cry morphed to Judith’s moments after her birth before accelerating, deepening, coming not from a baby but from a little girl.

Sophia. Or, at least, what Beth imagined Sophia must have looked like when she was alive. She was screaming in the barn, and Judith was gone, and Beth’s hands were clean. Now she had a bird’s eye view, sitting in the hayloft beside Jimmy, watching Sophia scream as the walkers closed in around her.

“They do need to eat, I guess.” Jimmy’s voice was the only one she had encountered in this hellscape that was normal. She turned to him, ready to retort, but it shriveled on her tongue.

There was a freely bleeding hole in the side of his head, and she knew exactly how it got there. When he lost his balance and began to topple over the edge of the hayloft, Jimmy grabbed her wrist, taking Beth with him.

The stomach-dropping, heart-pounding adrenaline of that fall was still within her when she jerked awake. First, a gasp as her eyes flew open, met not with the ceiling of the old barn as she anticipated as the dream still clung to her, but instead impenetrable black.

Then, a sob, as the wind continued its caterwauling, mocking her waking mind just as it had her subconscious.

Finally, a hand, warm and solid, settling on her shoulder. A voice, somehow soft and gruff all at once, prompting her. “C’mere.”

It was all the invitation she needed. Beth scrambled across the stretch of mattress that separated them, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face in his shoulder. Unlike her own, Daryl’s breathing was even. She tried to match hers to it, slowing her inhales, calming her exhales. His heart was steady, too; she could feel his pulse thrumming in the side of his neck beneath his cheek.

A rock to cling to in the squall of her residual terror. A rock that still smelled like the snow, that sharp, cold scent it carried, yet also somehow like the warmth of sleep. Her desperation was met with hesitancy as his arms slowly came around her.

“Told you,” she said, the sound muffled against his neck. He was still wearing a shirt; Beth had a handful of it at his back clutched in her fist.

“What happened?” Beth’s answering sigh was a shuddering thing. She gave life to her nightmare again, telling Daryl how it began and morphed and ended. He listened intently, or at least she felt he did, as she whispered the words. When she was finished, a beat of silence passed between them before he asked, “Are they always like that?”

Beth nodded. Daryl’s arms tightened around her just a bit. He didn’t offer her platitudes or reassurances or false promises they would stop. Only his presence, here in this moment, which was more than enough. It was something, much like Michonne, that he just understood.

Maybe he had nightmares of his own, like she did, like Michonne did. Maybe they all did. Beth wouldn’t be surprised by that.

As the fight or flight began to drain away it made room for worry to replace it. Beth became hyperaware of herself: her cheek pressed to Daryl’s throat, the way she clung to his shirt, her torso flush against his, their legs tangled. Frightened or not, she had overstepped, fairly tried to crawl into his skin when he offered her comfort. Beth felt herself flush with shame, suddenly too hot regardless of the blizzard still raging outside.

Just when she was going to wriggle away, though, she was stopped by the sound of his voice interrupting her self-consciousness. “You can stay.”

That took all need of escape out of her. Every muscle that tensed in anticipation of scooting away from him went lax once more. “Okay.”

There was some shifting, though. Daryl rolled onto his back. Beth fitted herself under his arm, readjusting to pillow her head on his shoulder. Even with the world still a flurry of unrelenting white outside the window, Beth could feel that it was nowhere near dawn. She pressed her lips firmly together against a yawn and waited until it passed before whispering, “Sorry.”

“For what?” Daryl asked. “Havin’ the nightmare you already told me you were gonna have?”

Well, when you put it that way… “Yeah, pretty much. And thank you.” Before he could question the gratitude the same way he had the apology, she added, “For being here.”

“Didn’t have much choice.” There was something almost bashful in his tone as he deflected from it. Beth smiled to herself and watched the swirling snow for a moment longer.

“Still,” she murmured before closing her eyes in the pursuit of sleep once more.

The wind was still howling when she woke many hours later. She was alone in the bed, now, the covers tucked tightly around her, and an extra blanket piled on top of her. Beth blinked at the shadows; she had burrowed beneath the covers. When she poked her head out, she found that the air was chilly. A little taste of the frigid air that had assaulted them the night before.

Sitting up, she found the room awash in weak, gray light. Shapes and tone could be made out now though the world was still largely devoid of much color. She found a cup of water waiting for her on the nightstand, next to the jeans and sweater she had carefully folded and left there the night before. Though still dressed in her shirt, leggings, and thick socks, Beth blushed to see her clothing sitting beside a bed that was not hers.

Reaching for the cup, Beth downed the water before peeling back the covers and giving herself over to the cold that waited outside the warmth of the bed. She pulled her sweater back on, tugged her jeans over her leggings once more. Then she pulled up the bedding, smoothing it back into place, before taking the elastics off the ends of her braids and deftly redoing them.

At the bedroom door, which was left shut, she had the irrational thought to knock on it. To announce her presence in some way, as if Daryl didn’t know she was there. As if she hadn’t slept in his bed with him the night before. Beth shook her head at herself and grabbed the knob instead, letting herself through the door unannounced.

The gray light of the continued blizzard was turned golden by candles in the living room. There were a few scattered on the coffee table, occupying the space their whiskey glasses held the night before. A couple more sat on the kitchen counter. But much of the light actually came from the stove, a warm glow emitting from it. It took a moment for Beth to realize that the electric stove the camper had surely come with had been replaced by a woodburning stove.

“Huh,” she said, watching the flames through the clear pane of glass at the front. “That’s handy.”

Why hadn’t she noticed this before? Surely the Dixon camper wasn’t the only one outfitted this way. They all ate dinner together in the evening, yes, but everyone saw to their own meals the rest of the day. Only the residents of the farmhouse used the kitchen or the cookfire in the living room fireplace with regularity.

“People gotta eat,” Daryl returned to her. Regardless of what he had or hadn’t worn to bed the night before, he was dressed for the day now. The familiar sight of the stitched angel wings on his vest greeted her as she watched his back. It was much warmer in here, between the candles and the stove, and Beth drifted closer, to the little booth adjacent to the kitchen.

Just moments later, a plate containing a fried egg and a piece of honeyed toast was set before her. Clearly, she fit the category of ‘people’.

“Thanks,” she murmured, truly touched. There was the habitual dinner at the farmhouse every evening, sure, and the special holiday dinners they had, but no one had cooked for her, just for her, since her last birthday when Patricia made her muffins.

Daryl was also people. He had a plate of his own and slid it across the table so that it was right across from her. A cup of chicory coffee was passed into her hands before Daryl scooted across the bench on the opposite side of the table.

“Welcome.”

Were it not for the continued storm outside, it would have been a perfectly peaceful morning. Or was it afternoon? There was no way to tell with the way the sun was entirely blotted out. It was domestic either way, with their shared meal and their knees knocking each other’s. Beth tried to wrack her mind as she ate for something to say but could only conjure phrases that contained ‘thank you’ or ‘sorry’, and she worried about sounding like a broken record and annoying him.

Finally, it occurred to her to ask, “Where’d y’all get those stoves?”

“Same place we got the campers,” he said with a shrug. “Yuppie outdoors shop just outside the city.”

“Glamping instead of camping?” Beth asked, picking up her toast to take a bite.

“The hell is that?” Daryl asked around a bite of egg, his words muffled a bit. She smiled and made a point of chewing and swallowing before explaining.

“Yuppie camping. Luxury campers,” she waved a hand to gesture around them, “generators, not so much enjoying nature as tolerating it.”

She could see the type in her mind, a total antithesis to the man sitting across from her. Pre-distressed jeans and flannel bought new from an overpriced outlet store, brand new hiking boots that would never see a trail, a total lack of survival knowledge clear on their face.

From his nod, it was clear that Daryl caught her meaning. “Yeah, that’s the type.”

The wind battered into the camper anew, so forcefully that the glass in the window creaked, making Beth wince. “When do you think it’ll stop?”

“Maybe in a few hours,” Daryl said with a shrug. “Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Maybe never,” she said with an eyeroll. He ignored her petulance. “I’m glad we overfed the animals yesterday.”

They would have been getting hungry and antsy otherwise. Beth didn’t bother to tell Daryl that he was the reason she decided to direct Carl to help her give extra portions in all the troughs and feedbags.

“They’ll be fine,” he agreed mildly. “Might go a little stir crazy, but they ain’t gonna starve in a day.”

Neither would they have but Beth was thankful for the breakfast regardless, especially since she didn’t have to make it. Though she didn’t say it, she insisted on taking the dishes and washing them using the water provided by a portable water tank balanced on the edge of the sink. “Where does the water go?”

“Pipes lead to a gray water tank on the driver’s side. Just gotta dump it once its full.” Daryl was standing by one of the lager windows in the living room, peering through the blinds. “Probably gonna be a few days before anyone can get to it, though.”

Curious, she wandered over to the window once she had placed all the dishes into the drying rack. Out the window, she could see that the snow had accumulated greatly since it started the evening before. It continued to do so as the storm raged on. Through the curtain of white, she could just barely make out the vague outline of the farmhouse.

“I’ve never seen it like this,” she told him, mesmerized by the dual brutality and beauty.

“Georgia ain’t known for blizzards.” Georgia. It was odd to think that they still lived in a state rather than simply on the farm.

“Thank God for that,” she said, wincing when the wind surged once more. “I’m starting to get a headache.”

The Dixons didn’t spend a lot of time inside their trailer. If they weren’t out in the woods, they were doing something. Patrol inside the fence, dealing with the infrequent walkers who wandered too close to the farm, breaking down and processing the meat from their trapping and hunting.

They didn’t have the distractions of a bookshelf or puzzles or a radio. Beth found herself longing for her guitar or piano as she subjected herself to Gone with the Wind just to have something to do. She found the book on the kitchen counter of all places and took it with her to the kitchen floor, sprawling there to soak up the lingering heat of the stove.

“Blizzards are boring,” she complained to Daryl after a few chapters.

“I’d put you outside so you could change your mind, but I think the door’s blocked. Wind’s facin’ it.” Beth frowned, not having thought of that before, but he was right. That snow was liable to be piled up against the front door.

“Rude of you.” He was sitting on the floor with her, also soaking up the heat, but Daryl was meticulously cleaning his arrows and crossbow. He might characteristically be smudged with dirt more often than not, but never that crossbow. It was kept impeccable. Beth stuck a finger in between the pages of her book and nodded to the weapon. “Have you always had that?”

She meant before, or if it was something he came to use later. Like the gun she inherited from Jimmy. It was currently on the counter, so she could lay on her stomach while she read. She didn’t need it here, anyway. Only Daryl was in the camper, and she doubted very much a human could trudge their way to them right now, let alone an erstwhile walker.

“Had one since I learned to hunt,” he told her, continuing to inspect and clean every perceived bit of dust from the bow. “Been through a few over the years.”

“And you learned to hunt from Merle, huh?” She asked, quirking her eyebrow. Daryl picked his head up at that, mild surprise coloring his face. Beth smiled and said, “I pay attention.”

Though her opinion about the characters in Gone with the Wind stood, she turned her attention back to it, not so much because she was enjoying herself but because reading helped keep her mind off the dull throb in the back of her skull that the wind kept there.

When there was no more heat to be gleaned from the stove, Daryl fed it new tinder and logs to revive it. They fed themselves some of the deer jerky and dried apples that were in stock in the cabinets, still sitting on the floor. Between the blizzard and the shortened days of winter, what little light there was failed and deepened to black punctuated by the glow of candles.

Unlike for breakfast, they didn’t bother to leave the kitchen floor for their dinner. Beth sat tucked into the corner where the L of the counter was formed, with Daryl across from her. He had retrieved the whiskey and glasses from the night before, pouring a generous helping of the amber liquid into each of them.

“I still think blizzards are kind of boring,” she told him, drawing her knees up and setting her whiskey glass atop the left one, “but I’m still glad it’s you and me stuck together.”

“Ain’t the worst thing that’s happened, huh?” He asked, raising his eyebrows. Beth giggled.

“No, not by a longshot.” But she quickly sobered, mind drifting thing to the worst thing. When she crossed the date off her calendar yesterday morning, it had been the fourteenth of December. Today was the fifteenth; tomorrow would be the sixteenth. There would only be ten days left until one year had passed since Jimmy died. Beth took a big gulp of the whiskey, letting it burn down her throat, the flames radiating through her chest. She stared down into what remained in her glass and blinked her tears away. “Sorry.”

“For what?” He always asked as if he hadn’t a clue. Beth had a feeling it had less to do with ignorance and more to do with getting her to say it aloud. To focus on it rather than sweep it under the rug. Not so much a lack of manners as it was a direct, pressing form of compassion.

“Being a Debbie Downer.” The rim of her glass was wet where she had drank. She put a finger there, dragging the moisture around the rest of the rim as she circled it. “You’d think I’d be over it by now.”

She missed Mama, Shawn, and Arnie, yes, but she didn’t continue to mourn them near as heavily as she did Jimmy. And though she was sorry for having to shoot Dale the way she did, it didn’t affect her half as much as helping Jimmy do the same. Beth forced herself to take a deep, shaking breath, to fill her lungs with the woodsmoke and whiskey and beeswax scent that filled the little kitchen. She let it out from her mouth, creating tiny waves in the miniature ocean in her glass.

Daryl waited until she collected herself enough to raise her gaze up from her glass to meet his. Only then did he say, “It ain’t somethin’ you have to ‘get over’.”

“No?” She asked, throat gone thick. The tears returned and doubled; unable to blink them away, she used the sleeve of her sweater to mop them up instead.  

“No,” Daryl confirmed. He never used many words, yet he always managed to say more than anyone else. It was this quiet assurance that erased the guilt she felt for still struggling with coming to terms with Jimmy’s death.

Mercy. That’s what Daryl had called it. Her hand over Jimmy’s, helping him put enough weight on the trigger to fulfill his dying wish. Beth took another deep breath, this one a little steadier than the last. “He didn’t want to turn.”

“And you didn’t let him.” Beth nodded.

“It’s my fault he got bit.” It was the uglier, harder to swallow side of the coin that named her merciful. This was a perceived truth Beth had been carrying with her for nearly a year.

But Daryl was shaking his head. “It ain’t anybody’s fault.”

This wasn’t comforting, though, not like his earlier words. If anything, they made her angry. It swelled up in her, sudden and drowning, overfilling her chest so that it spilled from her mouth when she snapped, “Then who am I supposed to blame?”

“Who do you blame for your mama?” Daryl challenged her. Beth felt her brows knit together. “Your old man?”

“What? No! It’s not Daddy’s fault, she—” killed herself, though Beth hated to think of it that way, even if it was true.

“What about your brother? Never would’ve been bit if there weren’t walkers in the barn, right?”

Now that anger was taking root and building. “Don’t put words in my mouth!”

“I ain’t!” He shouted back at her. “I’m askin’ you, whose fault is it that your brother’s in the ground?”

“No one’s! It was an accident!” She was gripping her whiskey glass too tightly. Her hand ached around the glass.

“Then why do you think you gotta blame someone for Jimmy?” Beth hadn’t realized he knew his name. They were all virtual strangers a year ago; how quickly life had changed. At the sound of his name, all the fight went out of Beth. She slumped against the cabinet behind her and dropped her gaze back to the last of the whiskey in her glass.

“Because he told me to stay back and I didn’t.” The tears had started in earnest again but Beth didn’t try to stop them this time. She gave a sniffle before admitting, “I followed him outside anyway. And then he told me to go, to leave him, and I didn’t, I lingered. I can’t help but think it might’ve never happened if I just listened and stayed out of the way.”

“Or it would have all still happened anyway, only he would’ve died alone.” In all the time she had spent thinking about and regretting that day, the reality Daryl proposed was one she had never considered. “You loved him a lot.”

Beth sat quietly for a few moments, just feeling. The warmth of the fire. The solid wood at her back. The glass in her hand. Then, finally, “Yeah, I did.”

“He died a better death than most get in this world.” Did he? It wasn’t painless, that was for sure, but it wasn’t drawn out, either. It had been on his terms. He hadn’t been alone. Beth supposed Daryl was right, and that made her sob all the harder. She clapped a hand over her mouth, trying to stifle the sound, but she wasn’t very successful.

Daryl had held her without having to be asked last night. Beth took a chance that still held now, setting her glass on the floor and reaching for him. Just like the night before, she hid her face in the crook of his neck.

He didn’t offer empty words. He just held her and let Beth cry.

“Still think blizzards are boring?” Daryl asked maybe an hour later. It was full night now, surely, or perhaps Beth was just worn out from the day. Either way, the exhaustion hummed in her bones as she climbed back into his bed.

“I think they suck,” she said wrapping herself in the bedcovers. “No offense.”

Daryl just chuckled. Just as he had the night before, he laid flat on his back beside her. Considering that she had slept snuggled in his arms the night before and spent at least half an hour crying in them that very evening, Beth saw no reason why they should keep up this pretense. She scooted closer to him, close enough that she could feel the proximity of his body even in the dark.

He shifted, too, raising an arm for her to fit herself beneath. Beth wrapped and arm around his waist and settled her head on his shoulder again. “I’ll try my very best not to have another nightmare.”

“Don’t worry ’bout that, Bess,” he told her, “just get some sleep.”

He didn’t have to tell her twice; she was already drifting to sleep, the vague thought that it was warm and safe here against his side.

The blizzard blew itself out by the morning and life continued on the farm, though now it was under nearly three feet of snow. That made for interesting mornings with Carl, their hands clasped together as they waded through the drifts. Many, many paths were cut through those drifts before the snow was cleared away enough to make movement on the farm easy again.

All the animals—even the bees, thanks to the compost pile—made it through the blizzard just fine. The people, too. Spirits were high once again when the twenty-fifth rolled around and they ate another special dinner around the table. Beth and Carl played Christmas carols together. Rick plugged in the lights on the artificial tree and they all smiled at the wonder on Judith’s face as she soaked in the multicolored strands.

Wrapped gifts were foregone, just as they had been last year, but Beth still privately maintained that she had received the best gift of all. She wondered if Daryl was aware of it. Her napping habit had dwindled again, and she instead spent her evenings after patrol duty helping Daryl with whatever task he had set himself to.

That was because, after the second night of the blizzard, she was no longer having nightmares. Beth slept through the night every night again, dreaming nonsensical, benign things. If she dreamt at all; more often, her sleep was undisturbed by imaginings.

Which meant she was able to fully appreciate it when the twenty-sixth of December dawned calm and peaceful. New snow had fallen, gently, on Christmas Day. Fragile sunlight glittered over it while she and Carl went about their chores. After he had been sent inside to warm up, Beth lingered, heading to the quaint graveyard with its wooden crosses beside the garden.

Someone had placed evergreen boughs on each of the graves. They looked oddly festive, between the sparkling snow and the greenery.

Beth couldn’t conjure any words for Jimmy. She didn’t make a habit of visiting the graves, honestly, so she felt like she should have had something to say, but she didn’t. Standing before Jimmy’s grave, with her hands clasped behind her back, she simply regarded the cross that marked his final resting place. Somehow, Beth felt that he was watching her, too. And, somehow, she got the sense that he understood.

What, exactly, she couldn’t quite say yet, but she knew they agreed. Something passed between them, between time and space, and Beth gave a little nod before turning away and heading inside.

A Small December Snippet:

"Why do you know how to do that, anyway?" Bess asked from her side of the couch. Though she was curled up, her socked feet pressing into his thigh, she hadn't fallen asleep. She was watching him patch up a pair of Merle's pants instead.

"Life skill," he told her. She made a small huff, not quite a laugh. Daryl looked over at her and saw that Bess had slipped her right hand down the left sleeve of her too-big sweater. She did that sometimes when she was drifting off.

He knew what was there, concealed beneath the long sleeves she tended to wear. That first day he took her foraging, when he taught her how to catch fish with her hands, he saw them. She must have forgotten them in that moment. It was the only time he had ever seen her scarred arm bared.

Bess must be touching those scars when she slipped her hand beneath her sleeve. He wondered how that might bring her comfort, reminding herself of a time when she had hurt herself. That had to be where those scars came from.

"Who taught you?" Bess asked, sleeve tenting as she moved her finger back and forth.

"Merle." That was the answer for how he learned most things in his life. Who taught him to fight, to track, to use the stove, to wedge a chair under a doorknob, to sew, to spell his own name? The answer was always Merle. He had taken all his cues from his brother for as long as he could remember.

How to be quiet while Mom, a vague and faceless concept, slept. How to be quieter when Dad was around. How to take a beating with a two-by-four and not cry. How to look mean at people so they wouldn't pity you when you were bruised and scabbed.

"Maggie doesn't know how to sew." She did that, sometimes. Tried to compare their older siblings as if Merle and Maggie had the least bit in common. "She says it's too boring. I think it's just 'cause she's bad at it."

"Gotta have patience for it," he told her. "Maggie don't strike me as one much for that."

"No, she's not," Bess agreed. Her eyes were growing heavier. Give it a minute or two more and she would be out. Daryl continued sewing, peeking out the corner of his eye to check when she dropped off.

When her eyes drifted shut, he relaxed into the couch a bit. Her socks were green, printed with little pink bows. Bess’ hand was still down her sweater sleeve. He gave it another minute before he reached over, helping it slip free.

She didn’t quite wake, but she did respond to his touch. Bess clung to his fingers, pulling his hand along with hers when she tucked it beneath her cheek. It made for an awkward, uncomfortable position for him, half-dragged from the couch, having to balance on one foot, but Daryl didn’t dare move until her grip went lax and he was able to pull his hand away without disturbing her.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Early January, Year 2, Part I

For we are strangers before you and sojourners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no abiding. 1 Chronicles 29:15.

Shortly after the New Year, which was celebrated with popcorn and moonshine in T-Dog's camper turned occasional bar, the sun was shining bright and brittle on a January afternoon when a surprising sound punctured the cozy bubble that wrapped around the farmhouse.

Carl and Glenn were playing checkers on the coffee table. Maggie was lounging on the couch, sketching out plans for her garden come spring, humming along with the record Daddy was playing in his office while he and Rick worked on their supply log. Beth lay on her back on the floor, holding Judith aloft above her, making whoosh-ing and mechanical noises as she wheeled the baby around in mock flight.

Never mind that Judith may never know what an airplane was or that humans used to take to the air like birds.

"King me," Glenn gloated. Unlike Beth, who tended to play a little easier on Carl due to her fondness of him and his age, Glenn did not hold back. Where she was on the floor, Beth could see the back of Glenn's head and Carl's scowling face. The fourth game in a row clearly was not going in his favor.

Judith gave another gurgling laugh and pumped her legs as Beth wheeled her around in a figure eight motion.

And then the phone rang.

Maggie's head snapped up. Glenn's hands froze above the board, the move he was making forgotten. Carl, as always, looked immediately for Rick. Judith's flight came to a sudden stop, which only made her giggle more.

Beth sat up and tucked the baby into her lap, curling herself around her, as if the shrill ring was a physical thing Judith needed protection from. She grabbed hold of Beth's braid and began twirling and tugging it.

"Hello?" Daddy asked, clearly confused, picking up the dusty, corded phone sitting on his office desk. He used to take appointments on that line for his veterinary practice. Her initial hope had been that the ringing would be a fluke, but through the open door of his study, Beth watched as his brow furrowed and his lips tugged down into a frown. He held the phone to his ear, listening.

And then, after a beat, Daddy simply said, "We'll see you this evening, then."

"See who?" Carl asked, raising himself to his knees to peer more clearly into the office.

Daddy didn't look the least bit pleased by the prospect of this particular house guest when he said, "The Governor."

Ranks closed upon the news. Daryl and Merle were retrieved from the forest, where they were checking their traps as part of their daily routine, though winter had left them bare almost always. Michonne was taken into Daddy's office so that the full extent of their knowledge of Philip Blake and Woodbury could be imparted on her.

Glenn paced. Maggie watched him.

Carol and T-Dog talked quietly to one another while they rummaged through the pantry. What winter stores to use? Was he coming alone? Did he say?

When Judith fell asleep for her afternoon nap, Beth stood from the armchair in the living room and, instead of taking her to her bassinet, she took her upstairs to her bedroom instead. Carl followed on her heels.

Only once the door was shut did Carl ask, his face peaked and pale beneath the brim of his hat, "What do you think he wants?"

"Maybe nothing," Beth said, laying Judith down on her bed and building a barricade of pillows to keep her from rolling off. "I hope nothing. Shane's dead. He doesn't have any business with us anymore."

Unless he had changed his mind about calling it fair between their communities. Maybe Philip Blake had a petty streak he kept hidden on his first visit to the farm.

"He has to want something," Carl argued, looking miserable as he dropped himself into her desk chair. "He wouldn't come all the way here if he didn't."

Though she agreed, she wouldn't dare tell Carl so. He was scared enough as it was. Instead, she said, "It will be fine. Your dad will be there, and you know he won't let anything happen to you. And I'll sit beside you just like always. Plus, Michonne always carries her sword around, even to dinner. She could probably stab him from across the table if she really wanted to."

That got a little, tremulous smile from Carl. Beth was glad of that, of course, but she had no other words of comfort to offer him. Her mind was working in stops and starts; she would begin to theorize what was coming their way only to hit a roadblock.

The burning barn would appear in her mind's eye and then it would go blank. Jimmy's bone-white face... blank. Otis, reanimated... blank. The burn of the bullet ripping through her arm, Carl's slack body as she carried him... blank. Like she was running away from the memories just as she had her nightmares.

She didn't think Philip Blake and Shane Walsh could be put in the same category, no, but she did think they must be birds of a feather in some way. Blake never would have freely given Shane support if they weren't in agreement. But where Shane had been impulsive, impatient, and narrow-sighted, Blake had been affable at first meeting and then quietly stepped away for weeks. Was he scheming in that time away? Who was to say?

And what was his goal? Shane's had been Lori, Carl, and Judith. What was Blake's? She couldn't even begin to guess, and that alone made Blake feel more fearsome, an elusive boogeyman that haunted the edges of her mind, than Shane had been.

A man who could wait could plan, and there was no pregnancy timeline pressing down on Blake as there had been on Shane.

"It'll be fine," she said again, sitting on the edge of her bed and looking down at Judith. Her curls were coming in thicker. She had dark lashes, like Lori, brushing the top of her rosy, rounded cheek. Splayed on her back, legs askew, arms flung up beside her head, she was the picture of ease. Beth envied her the ability to be so unaware. "It has to be."

When Philip Blake arrived at the farm for the second time, it was once again alone. He came in a nondescript gray car that didn’t have a front plate. Beth would bet it didn’t have a back plate, either. Harder to track without identifying details and it wasn’t as if Rick’s former profession still stood in this world.

Blake was certainly dressed for dinner. Beneath the winter coat he hung up on the hook in the entryway he wore a nice, ironed button-down shirt. No one else had gone to such effort; they had a farm to run, season notwithstanding, and they dressed like it.

“Thank you for having me,” Blake enthused, extending a hand to Daddy to shake it. As if you didn’t invite yourself, Beth thought from where she sat with Carl in the living room. They had been playing the piano together, as a means of distraction for both of them, but both their fingers had stilled on the keys when Blake’s knock sounded at the door.

“It’s good to have friends in this world,” Daddy returned mildly. And you’re not one of them, Beth tacked on silently for her father.

“C’mon,” she whispered to Carl, “let’s go set the table before he tries to talk to us.”

It felt wrong to lay down eleven plates instead of the ten that had become common. Well, twelve, if you counted the little sectioned plate they gave to Judith now that she was old enough to eat pureed fruits and vegetables. Only a spoonful or two ever made it unscathed to her mouth, One of Judith’s greatest joys in life was getting her liquidous food on her hands and then clapping so it splattered anyone who was sitting in her ‘splash zone’.

Wisely, no meat and no preserves were used in the meal served to Blake. Beth was of the opinion that he had no reason to know about the pantry or the freezers. Better to serve him a hodgepodge stew of vegetables and almost-stale potato bread. She made a mental note to compliment Carol and T-Dog on this farce.

Other than the fact that Philip Blake sat at the opposite end of the table from Daddy, everything was outwardly the same. Beth still sat between Carl and Maggie at the table. She was still firmly in Judith’s splash zone. If she sat just right, Maggie’s head blocked Blake, and she didn’t even have to look at him.

But Carl was both rigid and hunched, guarding that now healed bullet wound in his abdomen as if it were new. Maggie kept gripping Glenn’s hand beneath the table. Beth could hardly swallow her stew; there was a pit of dread in her stomach and her throat felt tight besides.

At the end of the table, Philip Blake was all smiles and questions. “This a heritage thing?” He asked, gesturing vaguely around with his spoon.

“The farm’s been in the family a few generations, yes,” Daddy confirmed.

“You two young ladies grow up here, then?” Blake asked, repeating that spoon-waving motion, though now directed at Beth and Maggie. While her sister managed a small, tight, ‘yes’, Beth only nodded.

“What do you raise here?” Cattle, horses, chickens, pigs.

“What do you grow?” Depends on the season.

“How many acres on this place?” Forty.

It took up to this fifth question before Beth realized that he was only inquiring about the Greene family. Not once did he comment on Patricia’s absence or the addition of Michonne. Despite his initial interest in Judith during his first visit, Blake didn’t ask after her a single time. It was as if the other nine people weren’t there.

Blake was hosting a veritable interrogation about the pond and water well on the property when Maggie asked the question that was beginning to nibble at the edges of her mind. “Why are you here?”

He was forced to stop mid-question thanks to Maggie’s interruption. Leaning past her, Beth peeked down the length of the table. Blake looked surprised, at first, and then the briefest flash of anger lit his face before it was replaced by a smile. It didn’t touch his eyes. “Well, Maggie,” he seemed to bite the syllables of her name, “I came here to extend an invitation.”

“An invitation for…?” Daddy prompted, sending a warning look cattycorner across the table to Maggie. From the corner of her eye, Beth caught Glenn squeezing Maggie’s hand again.

“A tour of Woodbury, of course,” Blake stated as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. For the first time, his empty smile was directed at the entire table, though he noticeably paused when he looked at Rick, Glenn, Daryl, and Beth. “A proper tour, that is.”

Beth immediately looked down into her bowl.

“After some reflection on conversations with our dear, mutual friend, Shane, I believe we may share some common interests.” Her stomach heaved the pit, lodging it in her ribs. Beth couldn’t say for certain what those common interests were, but memories of the walker barn flashed through her mind, for surely there was nothing else that he could be referencing.

Raising her head, she sought Daddy’s eye, but he was watching Blake carefully down the length of the table. As he did so, Rick said, “A ‘proper’ tour would be nice.”

Blake’s smile gained a knife’s edge as he turned it toward Rick. “The invitation is only for the Greenes, I’m afraid.”

“And me,” Glenn suddenly said, his voice far more forceful than Beth had ever heard it. “I’m going if Maggie’s going.”

“Glenn’s a part of the Greene family,” Daddy confirmed before Blake could pose any opposition to his intrusion. Beth felt Maggie’s hand touch her knee beneath the table. She clung to that hand, an unseen line of defense forming between her, Maggie, and Glenn.

“Alright,” Blake conceded. “Beth knows the way to Woodbury, don’t you?”

He sent a wink down the table to her that made her want to squirm in disgust. She made herself sit still and impassive, only nodding in response, just as she had earlier. They had been seen, then, that day that they went to scope out this mysterious colony of survivors.

“Well!” Blake slapped his palms against the table in a short, jaunty rhythm, like an excited child. “That settles it! We’ll see you folk tomorrow.”

Now that she could sleep on her own again, Beth stayed awake and joined Daryl in his after-patrol tasks. On the evening after Blake 'invited'—though Beth thought 'coerced' was a better word—the Greenes to Woodbury, she sat opposite Daryl at the kitchen nook in his camper.

They had cups of chicory coffee but no eggs or toast. Their hands were instead busy with crafting new noise traps from spent cans.

"Good thing 'bout walkers is if they decompose enough, they get dumber than shit," Daryl had told her when they began their work. "Noise confuses 'em."

Beth had nodded and drawn her knife, ready to cut the cans and thread them onto some twine. They had been working quietly until Beth looked up, her chest too tight to contain the words she had been trying to keep contained since she stepped out of the house to join him for watch.

"Daryl?"

He hummed in response, not looking up from his can, carefully cutting a small hole into the bottom.

"If I don't come back, you'd look after Carl, wouldn't you?"

That got him to still. He left his knife blade wedged in the tin and raised his head. After a beat, he said, "You're comin' back."

"Don't say that," she shook her head so vigorously she felt the tail end of her ponytail brush her cheek. "You don't know that."

"I can guess." He wasn't so much arguing as stating fact, his tone mild rather than incensed. "No reason for the Governor to want any of you dead."

"But you don't know," she repeated, hating the panic rising up her throat and spilling into her voice, but also unable to stop it. Daryl remained still across from her, watching. Calm. So much so that the longer he was quiet, the slower her frenzied heart beat. With nothing for the chaos in her mind to react to, she likewise had to come off the ledge she found herself off.

"Okay," Daryl agreed at length. "I don't know."

"And you would look after Carl?" She prompted again. Carl Grimes, who had lost too much too young, who desperately needed someone in his corner who wasn't attached to the complicated feelings he had about his parents' misgivings, Shane's attempt to steal his family, and the parentage of his baby sister.

"Yeah," Daryl nodded, "I'd look after Carl for you."

"Thank you." Her shoulders dropped as the tight rigidity melted out of them.

"You're not gonna put me in charge of that spoiled ass horse of yours, too, are you?" He meant Cookie, she knew, who was not so good at his groundwork exercises but consistently excelled at getting treats out of her.

"You know, now that you mention it, I think I'll write it into my will. 'I, Elizabeth Greene—'"

"Your name's Elizabeth? I've been way off the mark."

She smiled, tapping the toe of her boot against his shin in reprimand for interrupting her.

"'—bequeath Daryl Dixon ownership of the spoiled ass horse, Cookie, and request mentorship of one Carl Grimes, should Philip Blake prove to be a serial killer moonlighting as some sort of politician, resulting in her untimely end.'"

"Amen," Daryl murmured, earning himself another kick under the table.

"Just for that, I'm making you sign in blood."

She couldn't sleep that night, but then, who could? Daddy had still been in his study when she sent Carl to bed. He insisted on staying up with her, but around midnight, his head started to bob as he fought off sleep. In the shadows of her own room, Beth changed into pajamas and laid down, knowing she would spend more time than not staring up at the ceiling.

Glenn and Maggie were talking in the room next door. She could hear their voices, though not their words. It picked at the scab that contained the loneliness in Beth's chest, letting some of it bleed back into the cavity. It pressed on her lungs and made her ribcage ache. She rolled onto her side, curling herself around the dull, familiar pain.

It was harder, walking this world alone, than it had been when she had Jimmy. Not that Carl wasn't a good friend, the best she'd had, and in her private thoughts she had come to think of him with the same familial affection that colored her memories of Shawn.

But Carl was young, and though she listened to his thoughts about the turns of his life, she didn't see him as a confidant. If anything, Beth was very careful not to add to the weight Carl carried on his slight shoulders. This helped her in a way, gave her something to focus her energy on, but she would never burden Carl with this knowledge. She was a caretaker much more than he was a partner, and she was fine with that.

Being needed, she had learned, was nice, even if she was now worrying over who would listen to Carl should she not return from Woodbury.

If anyone fit that word, confidant, it was Daryl. He knew much more of the inner machinations of her mind than anyone else on the farm, even Daddy and Maggie. Or, more honestly, especially more than Daddy and Maggie.

She had no qualms baring her soul to Daryl, though, this quiet hunter who pressed her and gave her space in turns. He seemed to be able to read her as well as he read the weather and the lay of the land.

Though she was alone, Beth pulled the covers up over her cheeks to hide them as they heated when her mind drifted to those two days she spent with Daryl during the blizzard. Unlike the first morning, she woke before him on the second. It had been nice, so nice, to be held. To wake up just as she had fallen asleep, tucked under his chin, his arm still warm and securely wrapped around her shoulders. Beth had laid completely still, feigning sleep, just so it could go on for longer.

But now she was alone in her bed, making do with her blankets pulled tight around her. She didn’t manage to sleep, no, but she dozed here and there. Blessed moments when her whirling mind went quiet enough she got something that resembled rest before her internal clock told her the sun was coming and it was time to tend the chores with Carl.

He was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs, like he was most mornings. It was rare for Carl to oversleep and need Beth to rouse him. Seeing him there that morning, knowing she would be leaving the farm into something unknown, had her chest feeling constricted. She hugged him impulsively, but it was what they both needed. His arms were immediately around her waist as she caught him about the shoulders.

“I don’t want you to go,” he admitted into the thick weave of her sweater.

“I don’t want to go,” she confided in him. Too soon, they had to part, to keep up their routine. The sun was slow in coming in winter. They had just enough light to see by that they weren’t tripping over one another. Some of the blizzard snow had melted; no new snow had fallen. It wasn’t nearly so deep nor so fluffy anymore. Especially on their habitual path they took among the animal pens, the snow had been reduced to dirty slush and compacted ice.

“You’ll be careful, right?” Carl asked, still fretting, as they filled feed bags with hay.

“Yes,” Beth promised. She couldn’t make many to him, but she could promise this, at least.

“I wanted Dad to go with y’all, but he said no.” Beth knew that father and son had been arguing since Blake revealed that Shane was Judith’s father. It was an uncomfortable truth that Carl was having a hard time grappling with.

“I know,” Beth said, because she didn’t want to tell him it would be okay when it might not be. “I would’ve liked Rick to come, too.”

“But you have your gun, right? And a knife?” He peeked at her hip, where Jimmy’s gun was indeed holstered. She patted her pocket where she kept her knife.

“I don’t leave the house without them,” she reassured him. Carl nodded. “Don’t blame your dad for not coming with us, okay? Blake’s put us in a tough spot. We don’t know how many people live in Woodbury, but it’s enough that he didn’t mind losing a few in that shootout with Shane. I think, for now, we have no choice but to play by his rules.”

“Okay.” Carl sounded none too happy to be agreeing, but Beth knew he couldn’t argue. Not with the logic she just presented to him.

“Just help with Judith until I get back. I’ll bet Rick’s gonna help with patrol with so many of us gone today. And if she’s napping, see if anyone else needs help with anything, even if its something gross like taking entrails to the barn cats if Daryl and Merle get anything in their traps. You won’t worry so much if you’re keeping busy.”

“Okay,” Carl said again, because really, what else was there to say? After all the animals were tended, Beth and Carl began to trek back to the farmhouse, where Daddy, Maggie, and Glenn were already waiting on the porch.

“Ready, Bethy?” Daddy asked when she and Carl began mounting the porch steps.

“No.”

“Yeah, me either,” Glenn said. He raised his arms above his head, stretching. Glenn usually wasn’t up so early. He took late night patrols, Beth knew, so Maggie didn’t have to. “Should we get this show on the road?”

Blake had given them no time frame on when he expected them to be in Woodbury. Daddy and Rick had decided the night before that it was best to hedge their bets and leave so early in the day, they couldn’t be accused of being late. It would also keep this impromptu visit from disrupting routines on the farm too much.

“Go inside,” she whispered to Carl, giving his arm a squeeze. “I’ll be careful. Promise.”

Carl nodded before ducking in through the front door.

Unlike when Beth went with Rick, Glenn, and Daryl, they didn’t take the old truck. Daddy didn’t wany anyone out of the relative cover and protection of the body of the vehicle. They took the van instead, the one Daddy used to drive for house visits. Large enough to haul his veterinary equipment and, if need, animals that were on the smaller side. It grumbled unhappily when Beth turned the key in the ignition, but after a few sputters, the engine came to life.

Beth backed the van out of the detached garage where the farm vehicles were kept. Thankfully, despite the protestations from the engine, it seemed to be running fine. The wheels turned easily enough when Beth pivoted the van and began following the dirt path down to the fence.

There were two figures lingering beside the gate: Rick and Daryl. Beth thought of Wind and Mountain for a moment, but it had been weeks since the pair of walkers had guarded the gate. She could only assume that they were resting, truly, now. Rick and Daryl were decidedly not resting and she doubted they would until the unlucky Greenes had returned to the farm. Both stood with a tautness to their muscles as Beth eased the van down the lane, careful not to slide on the thick ice. If the dirt road was this slick, she was nervous to see how the paved roads had fared this winter.

The brakes were still good in the van, a fact Beth learned when she stopped just before the gate. Rick motioned for Daddy to roll the passenger side window down. When he did so, Rick leaned his arms on the car door, peering inside. His eyes lit on each of their faces before he said, “Y’all be careful out there.”

“We will be,” Daddy reassured him.

“Y’all aren’t back by nightfall, we’ll be heading out.” He inclined his head toward Daryl, who stood at his shoulder. “Merle, too.”

Over Rick’s shoulder, Beth met Daryl’s eye. He raised his brow so subtly she might have missed it had she not been watching him intently. You good? He seemed to be asking, silently, though Beth’s imagination conjured his gruff voice for him.

She nodded in return. It wasn’t a lie, not really. Though her heart was fluttering in her chest and her stomach had twisted itself into knots, she wasn’t too bad off. I’ve already survived the worst, she kept reminding herself, thinking of all her loved ones who lay in the little cemetery beside the garden. I can survive this, too.

“Alright,” Rick was saying, straightening, patting the passenger side door the same way you might pat the flank of a horse. “Off y’all go.”

“Hold the fort down until we get back,” Daddy returned. Through the windshield, Beth watched Daryl open the gate for her to drive through. He wore his vest overtop of his jacket. The last thing Beth saw of the farm were those wings stitched onto his back.

The roads, as it turned out, were unpleasant in a way that Beth had not anticipated. With thick ice impeding her ability to swerve around obstacles, she had no choice but to roll the van right over the frozen form of walkers more than once. The crunch of ice and bone giving way under the tires was nauseating. She grimaced each time, silently apologizing to whoever it was she was so unwillingly running over. Sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry.

Other than that, though, the drive was uneventful. The radio didn’t play anything other than static, so it was turned off. Daddy didn’t have any CDs in the van. Only their quiet breathing filled the vehicle’s interior. It seemed wrong to even speak, as if some spell had been placed over them, and voices would render it defunct. The sun was out, bright but cold, glittering over ice and snow.

It took longer to reach Woodbury this time, what with the ice, but Philip Blake stood outside its gate, smiling as if they were right on time. He motioned for Beth to park the van amongst some other vehicles that sat waiting to the left of the gate.

“Welcome, welcome!” He enthused when they began climbing out of the van. “Drive go okay?”

“A little crunchy,” Daddy said. Blake threw his head back and laughed.

“Quite the experience, isn’t it, driving in the winter now?” He knew, of course, the road conditions. It was hardly as if he had walked the distance between Woodbury and the farm yesterday. He clapped Daddy on the shoulder as if they were old friends and Beth had the sudden urge to rip Blake’s hand away from her father. She settled for curling her hands into fists and hiding them beneath the too-long sleeves of her sweater. “Come on, everybody, I’ve got so much to show you!”

Blake kept up this jovial schtick while introducing the four of them to a man named Milton. He had mousy, thinning brown hair and small, watery eyes behind a pair of oval-rimmed glasses. Milton, he claimed, was a scientist. “I think you and Hershel will have quite a bit to talk about,” Blake said, all but pushing Daddy toward the man.

Milton, to his credit, seemed genuinely kind when he invited Daddy to see his lab. And then, under the guise of professional commonality, Daddy was hewn away from them and the group dwindled to three.

Now it was Daddy’s retreating back, that heavy canvas jacket he wore in winter and the whisps of white hair pulled into a small tail all that Beth saw as Blake directed them forward. “Maggie, for you, I’ve got Miss Andrea Harrison.”

The mysterious Andrea, heretofore only known in name, turned out to be a smiling woman with blonde curls pulled back from her face. She extended a hand for Maggie to shake. “I’ve heard you’re a gardener,” she was saying. “Let me show you the greenhouses we’ve got here.”

Andrea was not half so formidable as Beth’s imagination had built her up to be. This fact did nothing to make her trust the woman leading her sister away.

Maggie threw a furtive look over her shoulder as she, too, was separated, eyes latching onto Glenn’s face. He nodded for her to go. “A runner and a guard, that’s how Shane described you, Glenn.”

Blake threw his arm around Glenn’s shoulders like they were old buddies. Beth stayed on Glenn’s right side, as far from Blake as she could manage while there was still two of them. She had no delusions that she and Glenn wouldn’t likewise be separated. A ‘divide and conquer’ strategy seemed to be what Blake was going for.

“These are my guards,” Blake was saying, steering the two of them toward a group of heavily armed men. “Show Glenn the watchtowers, boys. Their farm’s severely lacking in long-range surveillance.”

“Will do, Governor,” one of the guards said, giving Blake a two-finger salute that made Blake chuckle.

His hand settled on Beth’s shoulder. He gripped the bones a tad too tight as he forced her to turn with him and head in the opposite direction. “Beth Greene.”

“Philip Blake,” she returned, pointedly using his given name instead of that stupid moniker.

“I’ve got a new face for you to meet, too,” he told her, his tone implying she ought to be thrilled by this fate. Though it was cold out, there were children running and playing through the streets of Woodbury. Snowmen dotted several of the snowy yards that lay in front of the neat rows of houses.

“Who is it?” Beth asked, not really because she wanted to know nor because she had any desire to converse with Blake, but because the silence between them was making her nervous. She fought the urge to slip her hand beneath the sleeve of her sweater and worry at the scars on her inner left wrist.

“Someone very special to me.” Of course, his own lodgings lay in the center of the town. Why wouldn’t they? When you were the leader, there was no reason to position yourself on the vulnerable fringes. Moreover, rather than a stand-alone residence like the ones they had been passing, Blake was directing her to an apartment complex. Extra padding, she thought to herself.

As she followed him up a flight of stairs, Beth desperately wished she was anywhere but here. She was, though, and she followed Blake past a family that smiled warmly and waved at him. They, too, addressed him as ‘Governor’.

“Welcome to my humble abode, Miss Greene.” Blake held the door open for her. After a half-second of hesitation, Beth managed to get her feet to move forward over the threshold. It was a quiet, shadowy, nondescript place, much like its occupant. To see it without context, Beth wouldn’t have thought twice about the apartment, just as she wouldn’t have thought twice about Philip Blake if she passed him on the street in her previous life.

Though Woodbury clearly had electricity—she had seen light shining beneath the crack beneath other doors, if not in the hallway itself—Blake didn’t turn on any of the lights in his apartment.

“Sorry to leave you in the gloom,” he said, as if divining her thoughts, “but the light excites Penny a bit too much.”

No lights, but as Beth was directed farther into the apartment, she could hear music playing. Something soft and soothing; an instrumental lullaby, she thought. And, beneath that music, an almost rhythmic thumping that was entirely out of tempo with the song.

“Wait right here a minute,” Blake directed Beth, waving a hand vaguely at the living room they stood in. She took a few steps back, her imagination conjuring different monsters. Some sore of beast, perhaps, one of those escaped zoo she once hypothesized about to Daryl. In her heart, which was racing, she knew. She knew why the bile rose in the back of her throat, why dread had sunk into the marrow of her bones. Yet she refused to accept it until Blake opened the bedroom door.

A little girl came stumbling out. A little girl with a cloth bag over her head and a straight jacket restraining her arms. The skirt of her blue dress was stained with rusty patches. Her legs, bare until the ruffled, lacy edge of her socks sprang up from her shoes, were the mottled gray of dead flesh.

“Hi, Penny,” Blake greeted the undead girl. “I have someone here who wants to meet you.”

Beth thought that was a generous way to phrase it. Penny turned toward Blake’s voice, shuffling forward. With the bag over her head blinding her, she ended up walking right into his leg. A heavy, liquidous wheezing emitted from the bag, reminding Beth of Michonne’s labored breathing when she was sick.

Blake gently pulled the bag up and off Penny’s head and then took her by the shoulders, turning her to face Beth.

There was an unhealed scrape on her forehead and a cut on her cheek, held closed by butterfly bandages. Penny’s face looked much like Sophia’s when she resided in the barn, though Penny’s cheeks weren’t half so sunken. Her face was a sickly gray-green, though, with darker splotches and visible veins. And her eyes, like those of all walkers, were milky and discolored.

“She… she doesn’t try to bite you?” Beth asked, staring with her mouth agape at the little girl. Were it not for the condition of her skin, or the sour-sweet smell of decay rolling off her, she could have been mistaken for a living child.

There was a ribbon, blue to match her dress, tied into her hair.

“Of course not!” Blake said, clearly pleased by this. “You haven’t forgotten your daddy, have you, Pen?”

She looked away from Beth to cant her head up toward Blake, as if listening. Beth watched, still shell-shocked, as Blake took Penny by the shoulders and guided her forward. She complied with nothing more than a little gurgling sound in the back of her throat.

Blake lifted Penny and sat her on the couch, where she remained, her eyes still trained on her father.

"How...?" Her voice failed her, scarcely more than breath.

"Milton calls it exposure therapy," Blake explained, lovingly caressing Penny's hair. Though his hand was close to her face, and Beth could see the little rows of teeth behind her parted lips, Penny didn't so much as nip in his direction. "It's a combination of keeping her well-fed and interacting with her every day. She doesn't speak anymore, but she's still responsive."

Penny remained sitting on the couch, following her father's movements as he crossed the room to the bookshelf housed there. He pulled a copy of Where the Wild Things Are off the shelf and held it out toward Beth. "Here, this was her favorite. Sit down and read it to her."

It was not an invitation no matter the bright tone in his voice. Beth understood that. So, she took the book and perched herself on the edge of the couch next to Penny.

Her head swiveled to look at Beth. Breath wheeled from her parted lips. It smelled faintly metallic, faintly of blood. Beth had to swallow, hard, as she opened the book to read.

"The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another, his mother called him "WILD THING!" and Max said "I'LL EAT YOU UP!" so he was sent to bed without eating anything."

As she read, Penny leaned to the side, as if trying to see the pictures on the page. Beth obliged and angled the book, not so much because she was concerned about Penny's line of sight, but to keep the undead girl from getting any closer to her.

"That very night in Max's room a forest grew..."

Her body did not feel like her own. Or, rather, Beth no longer felt like she was in her body. She read on reflex, the words feeling thick on her tongue as they formed. Still leaning to the side, Penny watched the book intently. When Beth reached the pages illustrating the wild rumpus in the forest, a rattling sigh fell from Penny's dark lips.

It sounded disconcertingly like the ghost of a laugh.

"...but Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye and sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day..."

Penny was still but her father was not. Flicking her eyes up from the book, Beth saw Blake in the kitchen, pulling something from the fridge.

"...and into the night of his very own room where he found his supper waiting for him..."

Blake was humming to himself as he worked, preparing a bowl of something.

"...and it was still hot."

Beth closed the book and held it on her lap. Penny continued to stare at her with her milky eyes.

"It's not hot," Blake said, turning back towards them, "and it's early for supper, but it is Penny's mealtime."

He held a bowl and spoon out for Beth. Numbly, she took it from him, peering into the bowl of bloody meat. Her stomach churned violently.

"It's not human," he reassured her. "I don't want her to get a taste for it. That's pork, in her bowl."

Penny had caught the scent. She leaned closer, clumsily scooting across the small gap between them on the couch. Though her teeth gnashed together, she still didn't try to sink them into Beth's flesh. It was the pork she was after, trying to get her face close enough to the bowl to take a bite, though the restrictions of the straight jacket kept her from doing so.

Beth spooned up some of the bloody pork and offered it to Penny, who approached the spoon with all the grace that Judith did during dinner each night. Try as she might, her snapping jaws didn't quite latch onto the spoon. She bit the side, got a few pieces into her mouth, and chewed hungrily. More chunks fell back into the bowl than she got into her mouth.

With the second spoonful, Beth maneuvered the utensil between Penny's teeth and dumped the pork onto her tongue. This proved vastly more effective, and Penny gave a rumble that might have been content as she chewed.

Beth was still quick to draw her hand away from Penny's face after each spoonful. If Blake had any criticism for her feeding methods, he kept them to himself. All Beth could think about was that old adage about biting the hand that feeds you, and as impressed as she was with Merle and his prosthetic knife, she had no desire to find herself in the same league.

"You feed her like this every day?" Beth asked. She was amazed her voice remained even. A low-frequency tremor had infected her body. The spoon clacked against Penny's teeth, prompting a low, guttural warning growl from her. "Sorry."

"Every day," Blake confirmed. "Same time, every day. Careful of her teeth, they’re a little weak.”

Because her gums are rotting. Beth made sure not to knock the spoon on Penny’s teeth this next time. She ate the entire bowl… happily? “Has she always been like this? I mean, since…”

She didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to step on any toes. Blake gave her a napkin. Though she very much didn’t want to touch her, Beth leaned forward to wipe a dribble of blood from Penny’s chin.

“No,” Blake said, his tone shifting, sounding a bit far-away. “No. She was wild at first. Exposure therapy. It’s taken months of progress to get her here.”

“How long?” Beth asked. Penny was still staring at her. She wanted to look away but felt she couldn’t. Undead doll dressed in nice clothing—straight jacket aside—or not, Penny was still a walker. Still a threat. She could only hope that Blake would mistake her fear for politeness, considering the way she maintained eye contact with his daughter.

“Coming up on seven months,” he told her proudly. Seven months. Judith was nearly seven months old. In an awful way, Penny Blake and Judith Grimes were the same age. “Want to brush her hair?”

“Oh… okay.” Did she have any choice but to agree? No.

“Here, Penny,” Blake took her by the shoulders again. “Come sit on the floor. Beth’s going to brush your hair.”

He guided her to sit on the floor before Beth. Penny’s back was cold where it rested against her legs. Blake handed her a hairbrush.

Penny’s hair was in much better condition than her skin. It wasn’t really tangled. How could it be, with Blake brushing it every day for her? The brush moved easily through the strands. That was, until, she hit a snag toward the back. When she tried to work the brush through the tangle, she was met with a sickening, wet sound as a small patch of Penny’s scalp came loose and detached from her skull.

The smell was horrid, bringing up memories of the walker barn, Carl’s gunshot, Judith’s bloody birth. Penny’s reaction was secondary. Her scalp ripping clearly hurt her. She kicked her legs, began hissing and growling in earnest, and for the first time, turned her head to try to bite Beth. Before Blake could get the bag back over Penny’s head, Beth felt her teeth graze across her jeans.

And then the bag was in place, and Penny was in her father’s arms. Beth watched as Blake whispered to her, soothing and placating, and Penny’s wildly kicking legs calmed. Her hissing and growling petered out to the wheezing from earlier. Only when she was returned to that docile state did Blake put her feet back on the ground and guide her back to her room.

Beth sat on the couch, dumbfounded by these turns of events, her mind and body working in overdrive. She couldn’t latch onto a single thought, though she still held the brush in her hand, and her instinct couldn’t seem to decide between staying put, running, or hiding. Before she could make a choice, Blake was back, his demeanor entirely different.

There was no time to react.

He crossed the room in just a few long strides, snatched the brush from Beth’s hands, and raised his other. The back of his left hand struck her face with such force that the golden band of his wedding ring split her skin. Blood for blood.

Beth gasped as a white-hot flash of pain overtook her. Her own hand raised, protectively covering the wound, and she could feel hot blood seeping between her fingers. The same hand that struck her clamped around her upper arm, roughly hauling her to her feet. She tripped over them as she followed, tears welling and blurring her vision. Beth was upset with herself for crying, but she couldn’t help it. Her face hurt, and she was scared, and she didn’t know where Blake was taking her, and she had the horrible feeling that she would die in this apartment, alone and very much not on her terms.

But Blake only took her to the bathroom. He all but tossed her inside and, thankfully, Beth was able to keep her feet beneath her. “Clean yourself up,” he snapped at her, slamming the door behind him.

With her free hand, Beth fumbled along the wall until she found the light switch. Once it was on, she had to sit on the edge of the bathtub, cradling her cheek, to gather herself. Blake had brought her here to play a game, that much was clear. Though her doll had been returned to her room, Beth knew she wasn’t done playing yet. This game wouldn’t end until she was back on the farm, inside the safety of the electric fence.

So, she sat for a moment, catching her breath, willing herself to just stop crying. When she was able to choke back her sobs and breathe somewhat evenly, she stood to face herself in the mirror. Her hand was bloodstained, as was her left cheek. There was a sizeable welt there, when she gingerly pulled her hand back, a decent laceration in the center from that wedding ring. Beth washed her hands first, scrubbing them twice with soap, berating herself for touching her face on reflex that way.

Stupid, she told herself. You were just touching a walker.

Though it hurt—God, did it hurt—she made herself rinse the cut on her face thoroughly and twice as well. Then, with a shaking hand, she reached for the doorknob and turned the lock before undoing her jeans and shoving the denim down. She had to check, she had to see, that Penny’s teeth had done her no damage. Though her leg didn’t hurt, she needed this absolute confirmation. And she got it when she managed to push her jeans down to her ankle, revealing her shin where Penny teeth had come so close, too close. The skin there was unbroken, not so much as scratched.

“Oh, thank God,” Beth exalted quietly to herself, pulling the denim back into place. “Thank God.”

She was still bleeding from her cheek, though, and now she was crying again. When she looked at her reflection again, she saw a mess. Blotchy cheeks, red eyes, redder blood, the beginnings of a bruise blooming in the delicate, thin skin around her eye. Beth made herself breathe through her nose and out her mouth, smoothing back some of the loose strands of her ponytail.

“I’m okay,” she whispered to her reflection. “I’m okay.”

Beth opened the medicine cabinet, finding cotton balls and antiseptic inside. She cleaned her cheek again, took a wad of cotton balls, and pressed it firmly to the bleeding, whimpering as she did so. There were more of those butterfly bandages in the cabinet, but Beth didn’t dare touch them. If she could get the bleeding to stop, that would be enough. Daddy could stitch it closed at home, if it needed it. She just needed to get it clean, and finish playing Blake’s game, and then, maybe, he would take her back to Daddy.

It took a few minutes, but her blood clotted. She wiped away the last of it from around the wound and made sure her hands were clean. Then she took a washcloth hanging on a hook beside the sink, wet it through, and pressed the cool, damp cloth to her face until the redness faded away.

Only then did she unlock the bathroom door and open it just enough to peek through. The apartment on the other side was still cloaked in shadows, but she could see Blake, sitting at the kitchen table, head bowed over a glass. He had said it was early in the day for supper, but Beth thought it earlier still for a drink. She kept that thought to herself, though, shutting the bathroom door behind her as quietly as she could. That instrumental music was playing again, louder this time, spilling from beneath Penny’s bedroom door.

Though every fiber of her being wanted to, Beth didn’t dare leave. Not without Blake’s direction and permission. This was his apartment, his community, his game. She walked into the kitchen instead, not even daring to sit as she came around to the side of the table opposite him.

“I’m sorry,” she ventured. “I… Daddy didn’t let me touch the w—patients in the barn. I didn’t realize Penny is so… delicate.”

It was a gamble, but after her morning with Penny, how could her presence here be the result of anything but the walkers they used to keep in their barn? Shane had surely divulged every secret he knew about the farm to Blake. He had to buy the manpower given to him for his attack on the farm with something.

“It’s alright,” Blake said, more to his glass than to her. The liquid inside was clear but pungent. Tequila. “Dr. Stevens will stitch her up, good as new. I’m sorry,” he continued, raising his gaze to Beth’s face. “I shouldn’t have hit you.”

No, you shouldn’t have. “It’s okay.” It wasn’t. “Penny was hurt. Any father would be upset.”

“Yours going to be upset about that?” He waved a hand toward her cheek. Beth tried to smile but found she couldn’t, not with the way her skin protested.

“He’ll understand,” she lied. “I’ll explain to him.”

Blake nodded. Beth pulled at her fingers. He lifted his glass in a one-sided toast and threw back the rest of the liquor. “Even with the accident, I think Penny liked you. I’m sure it won’t happen again, now that you understand.”

“No,” Beth agreed, her stomach twisting anew, “it won’t.”

“You didn’t interact much with the people in your barn, huh?”

“Daddy and my brother took care of them, mostly, but then my brother ended up in the barn, too.” Beth didn’t like the expectant look on his face.

“But you did anyway, didn’t you? You wouldn’t be so accepting of Penny if you hadn’t.”

“I… I used to sneak into the barn and sing to them,” Beth admitted. “They would stop and listen.”

Blake nodded. “See, you do understand. I knew you and your folk would.” He tapped his finger to his temple. Then he pressed his palms against the table and hauled himself to his feet. “I hope you understand, but I can’t have you walking through Woodbury with your face looking like that.”

“Of course,” Beth murmured. How could she walk among his people with the evidence of his brutality on her face?

“I’ll take you out the back way, to y’all’s van,” he told her. “The others won’t be long. I didn’t want to keep you from your own people.”

There was a fire escape outside the living room window. Blake instructed Beth to climb through and then down the backside of the apartment complex. From there, he led her through some alleys to a back gate. They didn’t pass a single soul on the way. This back gate was just as heavily guarded as the front and the towers, but if the guards there had any ill opinions about Beth’s appearance, they weren’t voiced. The guards waved jovially to Blake as he led Beth through.

Woodbury, she learned, was not so large, even if it did house considerably more people than the farm. It didn’t take long to walk around the perimeter to the little car lot at the front of the community, just outside the fence. Blake walked in front of her the entire time. Though Beth had driven the van to Woodbury, it was the door of the backseat that Blake waited beside.

He opened the door for her, and the first thing Beth saw was Glenn, beaten and bloody, prone on the backseat. “Wait here and keep Glenn company a while. Your father and sister won’t be long.”

Beth knew her eyes were wide, but her heart had lodged itself in her throat, so all she could do in answer was nod. She climbed into the backseat carefully, lifting Glenn’s head and laying it in her lap while Blake shut the door behind her. Glenn groaned as she settled him, one eye—the one that wasn’t swollen shut—cracking open.

“What happened?” Beth whispered, though they were alone in the van.

“Hey, Beth,” Glenn managed in a hoarse voice.

“What happened?” She repeated, eyes roving over him. His cheek was bruised, likely from a punch, in addition to the black eye and split lip he was sporting. Glenn had an arm wrapped around his torso. Did he have broken ribs, too? His knuckles were busted and bleeding.

“Got in trouble.” He raised his other hand slowly, touching her cheek just below her own wound. “You?”

“I got in trouble, too,” she told him.

“Troublemakers,” Glenn said, cracking the smallest of smiles, holding his fist aloft. Beth knocked her knuckles against his, but her laugh quickly turned into a sob. She turned away from him, covering her mouth with her hand to muffle it.

A half hour or so passed before Daddy and Maggie returned. Glenn fell asleep in that time while Beth ran her fingers through his hair. His breath wheezed, not unlike Penny’s, which made her think all the more that his ribs were injured.

They came alone, no Blake in sight. Beth watched them approach through the windshield. Both looked terse and worried but, unlike herself and Glenn, they appeared uninjured, and for that she was thankful.

“Daddy!” Beth called out when he opened the passenger side door. “Come back here, Glenn’s hurt.”

“Well, so are you!” Daddy’s eyes were wide and colored with guilt as he looked into the backseat.

“No, I’m fine, I already cleaned mine. Here, let me move.” She slid out from beneath Glenn’s head, laying it down carefully before hopping out of Maggie’s way, who was reaching for Glenn already.

“Oh, my God,” Maggie sobbed, curling herself around Glenn, hands fluttering around his face. “Oh, my God!”

“Hey, I’m okay,” he murmured, though he didn’t open his eyes. Beth went around the back of the van and let herself into the front seat, waiting. Once Glenn convinced Maggie he was worse for wear but not in mortal danger, she reluctantly retreated to the passenger seat to give Daddy space.

“Take us home, Bethy,” Daddy instructed her after he was settled in the back with Glenn. In the rearview mirror, she watched her father lift Glenn’s wrist and press his fingers firmly against the veins there, monitoring his pulse.

As she guided the van away from Woodbury, Blake stood at its gate, smiling and waving them off as if their visit had been nothing more than a social call.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Early January, Year 2, Part II

For we are not fighting against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm. Ephesians, 6:12

On that ride home to the farm, each member of the Greene family revealed how their time in Woodbury was spent.

Beth told about her undead doll, Penny, and the incident that led to Blake’s physical reprimand. She insisted her face didn’t hurt, which was a lie. The laceration in the center of the welt throbbed with each beat of her heart, and the swelling of that delicate skin made it harder to drive, as it partially obstructed her vision.

Maggie said the greenhouse was a ruse. Instead, Andrea took her to a church in Woodbury, where family members of those who died in Shane’s attack on the farm were waiting for them. They didn’t put their hands on Maggie, no, but their verbal attack was none too easy.

Glenn’s experience was evidenced by the blood and bruising staining his skin, but he still confirmed he was beat for insisting on joining them when he hadn’t been explicitly invited.

Daddy spoke of awful experiments conducted by Milton. He read through the logs, which detailed how Milton tried to maintain some thread of cognizance between life and death, how he tried to ‘rehabilitate’ walkers, how he tried to encourage some sentience from them. At the time, in Milton’s lab, Daddy didn’t know that Penny was the reason, but now those puzzle pieces fit nicely together.

Each new revelation weighed heavier on Beth’s soul until she was amazed the van still moved beneath them.

Home. Beth had never been so relieved to see the farm. She drove as fast as she dared on the icy roads, a primal need for safety spurring her forward. The more distance between all of them and Philip Blake, the better.

Rick was there, bundled from the cold, waiting at the gate. He must have spotted them heading back in from the main road. When Beth eased the van close enough, he pulled the gates open, and quickly shut them behind the vehicle.

Beth didn’t bother parking in the garage. Doing so would take Glenn farther away from the main house, since the garage was detached and sat between the main house and the guest house Otis and Patricia had once resided in. She stopped on the dirt road instead, looking between Glenn and the house, judging the distance. Maggie jumped from the passenger seat immediately, opening the back passenger door for Daddy.

Somewhere along the ride home, Glenn had drifted and fallen asleep. His head lay pillowed on Daddy’s lap, breathing deep and even, thank God. Gingerly, Daddy lifted his head so he could slide his leg free.

There was a bloodstain on his tan pants from Glenn’s injuries.

Though he had been so careful about it, the movement roused Glenn. He groaned, one eye blinking open.

“Hi,” Maggie greeted him, her voice soft. She bent over him, searching for an unabused stretch of skin to press her lips to, and settled for kissing him at the hairline. “We’re home.”

He made another noise, more of a grunt than a word, and tried to push himself up. Though Daddy had gone inside to ready supplies, Beth, Maggie, and Rick managed to help Glenn climb out of the back seat. He sagged against Rick once his feet were on the ground. Rick pulled Glenn’s arm around his shoulders and wrapped a supporting arm around Glenn’s waist. Maggie kept pace with them, fretting on Glenn’s other side as he was guided inside.

This left Beth to bring up the rear, trudging through the slush to the door Carl held open for all of them. His face was pinched with worry as he watched Glenn being hauled inside. When he turned to look at Beth, that worry melted to surprise, as if he couldn’t fathom that she could return harmed, even to a far lesser extent than Glenn was, from Woodbury.

“Holy shit, Beth!” He swore, wide eyes fixing themselves on the mark on her face.

Ducking her head, Beth mumbled, “It’s not that bad.”

That was the lie she was telling herself, anyway. Between the throbbing and the way the cold air stung the sensitive skin, she knew the next time she looked in the mirror would be more gruesome than the first, now that the wound had time to sit and develop.

Rick and Maggie eased Glenn onto the couch. Daddy had set up a triage tray of sorts on the coffee table and Beth wondered how much more horror the downstairs level of this house could hold. With Judith balanced on her hip, Carol peeked into the living room from the hallway.

“I’m going to my room,” she told Carl, hurrying up the stairs before he could ask to come with her. Now that she was home safe, the realities of the morning were closing in on her. They weighed heavily on her shoulders and chest alike, and by the time she reached her bedroom, Beth found herself short of breath. She tucked herself into the space between her bed and desk, drawing her knees up and laying her forehead on her knees.

In through the nose, out through the mouth, she told herself, calming her breathing as she tried to stop the other thoughts whirring through her head. Beth kept revisiting the danger of Penny’s teeth skimming across her jeans, how her skin split upon impact when Blake struck her, seeing the extent to which Glenn was beaten.

And the chilling realization: Philip Blake is worse, so much worse, than Shane ever was.

Beth likely would have remained paralyzed by this revelation had Carol not come knocking at her bedroom door. She assumed, as she pushed herself, that she would find Carl on the other side. When Carol’s open, understanding face met her, Beth was struck by a wave of relief.

“Hi.” Carol raised her hands, the left holding medical supplies, the right a small ball of, inexplicably, snow. “Let’s see to that face, huh?”

Carol directed Beth to sit on the edge of her bed before joining her there. She took the snow, packing it into a washcloth she drew from her supplies and then held it to Beth’s face. “Hold this here a while. Those rings hurt like a bitch, huh?”

“How… oh,” Beth said, meaning dawning on her before the question was fully out of her mouth. “I’m sorry.”

“My pain is your gain today.” While Beth held the ‘ice’-pack to her wound, she watched Carol ready her supplies. A bottle of antiseptic, a tube of antibiotic ointment, and a handful of butterfly bandages. “The swelling is the worst part. Makes it all look worse than it really is.”

Had she the headspace for it, Beth would have mourned the cruel fact that Carol possessed such knowledge. As it was, the adrenaline was finally ebbing away, leaving only a fuzzy, buzzing exhaustion to fill in the space it left behind.

It was nice to sit, to not think, to have someone else make decisions for her. So, Beth sat and let Carol tend to her, tucking away her fear and worry and remorse for later. After the snow had sat on her face for a few minutes, Carol had her draw the pack away so she could finish cleaning the wound. The antiseptic made her eye water, but it didn’t sting too terribly. Carol was quick and efficient in her work, fanning Beth’s face with her hand to speed along the antiseptic drying, and then smearing on a thick layer of antibiotic cream before covering it all with the butterfly bandage.

“There,” Carol said, her voice much, much brighter than Beth felt. A headache was mounting in her head. “All set.”

“Thanks.” Her cleanup of the supplies was as efficient as her care. Then, before she could even ask for it, Carol instructed Beth to lay down on her bed and pulled her window curtains shut for her. Beth curled herself on her right side, mindful of her bandages on the left side of her face, and stared at the bottom drawer of her desk, the one that still wore the crayon flower doodles she drew there as a child.

Carol patted her head like she was still that child before quietly leaving Beth to the quiet and the shadows. Only then did she cry, silent, hot tears that slid down her nose and cheek, seeping into her pillowcase. These tears were not wrought from fear like her earlier ones in Woodbury. She felt like she was leaking more than she was crying, all the excess emotion from the morning streaming from her.

She would have liked to sleep, honestly, but Beth knew there was hardly time for that. When the leaking stopped, she pushed herself up from her damp pillowcase. Carol had left the wound care supplies on her bedside table for her. She swung her legs over the side of her bed, bones feeling as creaky as the old wooden boards when they took on her weight as she stood.

There were still things to do. She wanted to know how Glenn was. Carl needed to know she really was okay. Daddy would surely be adjusting the watch schedule—again—so that Glenn’s name was taken off the rotation while he healed.

Downstairs, the house was somber. Glenn was sleeping again, looking better for having all the blood cleaned away and his injuries bandaged. Maggie sat on the floor beside the couch, running his fingers through his inky hair and watching his face as he slept. Here, Beth stopped, peeking over the back of the couch at Glenn’s prone form.

“Is he alright?” Beth whispered. It was hard to tell in the winter shadows that pervaded the house with all the electric lights off.

“He’ll live.” Maggie said, voice hollow. Beth decided not to linger there. She sought out Carl instead, rapping her knuckles on his bedroom door. The space had changed considerably since he took it over. Carl, interestingly, was much tidier than Shawn had been. Clothes made it all the way to the hamper instead of languishing on the floor. Some of the covers of comic books had been cut off and plastered to the walls as decoration. A little line of broken pottery pieces and bits of glass, tidbits of years gone by on the farm, sat on the dresser. Carl liked finding them scattered around the farm.

“Hey.” She hauled herself onto the dresser, careful not to disrupt his collection. “I really am fine, okay? It looks a lot uglier than it is.”

“What happened?” Carl asked, the question bursting from him, as if he had been struggling to keep it inside until Beth came to offer explanation.

“He hit me.” Beth was surprised by the wobble in her chin as she said it. She took a deep breath and fixed her eyes on the Superman poster behind Carl’s head rather than his face. “Blake. He… he was mad. I hurt his daughter on accident, when I was brushing her hair. His daughter’s not alive, she’s a walker, but he treats her like she is.”

“Like… like the barn?” Carl asked, frowning.

“No, not like the barn at all. It’s only Penny—his daughter—I think. He says they’re ‘rehabilitating her’ by treating her like she’s still alive. He reads to her, feeds her, brushes her hair. He made me do all those things for her while I was there.”

“He’s crazy,” Carl said, as if it were a simple thing. As if naming him so resolved all the issues that came with it.

“Yeah,” Beth agreed, suddenly too exhausted to explain any longer. “He is.”

Dinner was an exceedingly somber affair. Glenn slept through it, his plate kept warm in the kitchen for when he woke. Their horror stories from the morning were repeated for the other members of the farm.

“I don’t think he’s looking for a cure himself,” Daddy admitted after surmising Milton’s experiments for everyone. “I think he’s trying to keep his daughter around until one can be found.”

“His daughter?” Rick asked, but Daddy looked at Beth, yielding the recounting to her.

Looking down at her plate rather than her friends and family, Beth told the table, “He keeps her in his apartment, in a locked room, with music playing to keep her calm. There’s a routine he follows. He reads her a story, feeds her meat, and brushes her hair. She wears a straight jacket so she can’t scratch him, and if she gets too worked up, he puts a bag over her head so she can’t bite.”

“The kid’s dead?” The next question came from Michonne. For her to speak, this woman of few words but many actions, the information must have been truly upsetting for her. Beth nodded, still looking at her plate.

“Sick fuck,” Merle enthused from down the table.

Maggie took the tale from there, relaying the Woodbury residents’ anger over their lost loved ones, how they placed the blame on the farm rather than Shane, and speaking for Glenn, too. When Blake sent him off with his guards, they did take him to one of the towers, but not for a tour. Once locked inside, they took turns beating him as punishment for overstepping Blake when he invited himself on the Woodbury trip.

“Alright, what do we know about this Governor?” Rick asked, sounding weary but proactive. “And Woodbury?”

“If we’re counting children, I think it would be reasonable to estimate about one hundred residents in Woodbury,” Daddy offered.

“Even though they were angry, I don’t think they’ll act on their own, not like Shane. They all follow the Governor like a cult.” Maggie was likely right about that. Though Beth hadn’t seen many of the residents herself, she had seen the guards that took Glenn, and they were nothing but military-like obedience.

When silence stretched out over the table, Beth realized, belatedly, they were waiting for her to speak. She lifted her head but found she was unable to look at anyone other than Carol. It was her eye she met when she said, “He’s lefthanded.”

That was enough to end dinner conversation. Beth looked back down at her plate, pushing her food around it with her fork more than she ate. When it was time to clear the table, Carl was quick to offer to take Maggie’s place washing dishes so she could return to Glenn. They did so in silence, carrying the heavy tub of water between them when they were done.

By the time she pulled her jacket and beanie on for watch duty with Daryl, Beth would have liked nothing more than to go to bed instead. She trudged forward, though, pushing herself to meet him there in front of the house like always.

Again, she found herself ducking her head to hide her face. Beth tried, anyway, but Daryl’s hand caught her chin, tilting her head back up into the waning evening light. She let him turn her face and inspect the bruise spilling past the edges of her bandage.

“Sorry bastard,” he murmured, a quiet anger she hadn’t heard before coloring his tone.

“I’ll show you after watch,” she promised him. Daryl nodded, hand falling away from her face. Their watch shift, like much of Beth’s day after returning from Woodbury, was spent in a strained silence. Beth wasn’t sure if anyone else felt the strain, but she certainly did. As the sun dipped lower, so did the temperature. For once, she didn’t mind the cold so much, if only because it numbed her face some.

Daryl walked stiffly beside her, glaring into the deepening shadows beyond the fence. His demeanor only added to her internal struggles, leaving her pondering some way to alleviate it. When she couldn’t figure out how to broach any topic, Beth found herself reaching for his hand and closing the small distance between them.

"I'm okay," she promised, giving his hand a squeeze, "really."

"Okay." He squeezed her hand back and then they parted. Not, Beth thought, because she had overstepped by reaching for him, but because they needed open hands. This was patrol, after all. She might need to draw her gun from her hip holster. He might need to pull his crossbow from his back.

Practicality.

The sun set and a silver-white, bloated moon rose. It gave off nearly as much light as the evening had contained. Everything became washed of color, only shades of gray and black and silver remaining. In that moonlight, Daryl's hair was black, his eyes silver.

All the patches of stubborn snow that remained from colder, wetter days shone in the shadows.

When they passed the barn, Beth could hear the horses and cows moving and talking amongst themselves. Quiet whinnies, huffs of breath, the rumble of lowing deep in a cow's chest. They were as restless as she felt, though theirs was inspired by the overly full moon, whereas hers was the leftover adrenaline of being invited into Philip Blake's world.

It was a quiet three hours. They looped around the fence line perimeter twenty-three times—Beth counted. And then, when they saw the dark figures of their relief appear, Daryl nodded toward his camper. Beth, already walking in step with him, turned to follow.

The layout of the camper had become familiar enough to Beth that, even in the darkness, she was able to make her way to the couch. She perched herself there, waiting, knowing Daryl would return with a candle or two.

Just one that night. He held it in his hand, and instead of sitting beside her on the couch, he positioned himself on the coffee table in front of her. His knees knocked against hers and Beth shifted to make more room for him. Beth peeled the bandage away while he took his seat.

Holding the candle aloft, he motioned for her to lean into the light. He took her jaw in his hand again, leaning close to inspect the injury. "That son of a bitch," he muttered.

"It doesn't hurt," she said, even though it did, even now with nothing touching it.

"You're a bad liar, Bess."

“It’s clean,” she said instead, switching tacks. “Carol took care of it.”

He released her face and Beth sagged into the couch without him holding her up. That exhaustion was back, but that was no surprise. The Dixon trailer had long since become a safe, comforting place for her. She wrapped her arms around her torso, hugging herself, and looked up at him as she admitted, “I’m scared.”

Daryl set the candle to the side on the coffee table, leaving them in the softest, gold-edged shadows. “Of the Governor?”

“Philip Blake,” she corrected him.

“Why d’you do that?”

Beth stretched her legs out, threading hers with his. “It’s important what you call things. I called walkers my family for too long and it cost me a lot. Calling Blake ‘the Governor’ makes him sound larger than he is.” She sighed, letting her head fall back on the cushion behind her. “He still calls his daughter Penny.”

“And he feeds her?” A shiver ran down her spine as she remembered the way the spoon scraped over Penny’s teeth.

“Animal meat,” Beth told him, “or at least he said that’s what it was. I don’t want to think about it being anything else.”

Daryl had a habit of falling quiet and turning watchful. She could feel his eyes on her, but Beth’s own were drifting shut. Her mind was teetering on the edge of sleep when he spoke again, laying a hand on her knee and giving it a little shake as he said, “Bess.”

“Hmm?” She hummed, trying and failing to bring herself back to full wakefulness.

“Why did he hit you?”

“Oh,” Beth didn’t realize until then that she hadn’t explained at dinner. “I was brushing her hair, and the brush got stuck, and when I pulled on it, I accidentally ripped her scalp.”

“Penny’s?”

“Mhmm.” She finally managed to work her eyes open again. “She almost bit me.”

“But the Governor put a bag over her head?”

“Yeah.” Beth pushed herself up to sitting again and rubbed gingerly at her eyes. If she stayed reclined, she knew she would fall asleep for good.

“…What the fuck?”

She laughed despite herself. “That’s a Dixon family favorite word today.” Stretching her arms over her head, Beth finished rousing herself from the grips of her almost-sleep. “Aren’t we supposed to be working on fishing lures?”

The awful day was done and she wanted nothing more than to leave it behind her. Thankfully, that intuitive understanding of his endured, and Daryl led the way to the little kitchen booth without another word about Woodbury, Penny, or Philip Blake.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty: Mid to Late January, Year 2

Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you. Deuteronomy, 31:6.

For someone as beaten and bloody as Glenn was, he had surprisingly few broken bones. Most of the fingers on his right hand were taped together, broken from attempting to defend himself, and a few ribs were taped up. His jaw was sore and badly bruised, but still intact, and though Daddy had worried about the bones around his eye, they seemed to have held strong despite the swelling and inflammation.

His concussion was the most concerning injury and the reason the living room became Glenn’s sickbay. Daddy didn’t want him trying to manage the stairs. Maggie took to sleeping in the living room, too, sometimes curled up in one of the armchairs, other times on a pallet on the floor.

“They’re cute, huh?” Beth whispered to Carl one morning as they tiptoed through the pre-dawn shadows. Glenn’s arm was hanging over the side of the couch and Maggie was holding his hand, even in her sleep.

Beth’s own injury had been as minor as she insisted, in the end. No stitches were needed, and now that the swelling had receded, the most concerning part of her appearance was the hideous bruising. The edges were already healing, gone a sickly yellow-green that reminded her of walkers’ eyes every time she looked at her own. Around the cut, where the bruise was deepest, it still stained her skin in mottled shades of blue and purple.

“Adorable,” Carl agreed with an eyeroll, pulling on his chore jacket.

It was peculiar, to say the least, how after every awful thing that had happened on the farm, life managed to settle back into… normalcy. Well, a new version of it, anyway. Each iteration came with a loss. Usually of a person, a physical hole left behind where they once stood.

But each time Beth caught Carl looking at her eye, face drawn with comingled worry and fear, it struck her again that this time what was lost was safety. Lori died, but Carl was still safe; Shane died, and he was safer for it. That awful bleeding sickness didn’t touch him. He survived the ice and the bullet.

That ringing phone, Philip Blake at their dinner table, Beth and Glenn’s wounds, all of this was evidence that they were no longer as safe as they once considered themselves to be, if they ever were to begin with.

“Do you think he’ll want us to go back?” ‘Us’, as if Carl had attended the first awful excursion to Woodbury. It probably made it less scary for him, Beth thought, to think of applying to the entire farm.

“Maybe,” Beth hedged as they trudged through a bitter early morning wind to the chicken coop. She didn’t want to admit to the possibility that she was steeling herself for each night when she laid down in bed: that she would be returning to Woodbury. Still, she never felt right leaving Carl such a vague answer, so she continued, “But it will be okay next time. We know better now.”

They knew better than to argue with Blake. She knew to be more careful with Penny. Next time would be different. Next time, everyone would come home unharmed. This is what Beth told herself, assuaging her own anxiety and fear over the prospect of setting foot in Woodbury again.

She gave Carl what platitudes she could muster, not wanting to burden him with her own issues. It was a different story in T-Dog’s trailer, where the light atmosphere of comradery had darkened a touch. There were still drinks, still cards, still music playing in the background. But now Maggie and Beth fielded questions about Woodbury.

Maggie’s were mostly about the people. Do you think Andrea wants some sort of revenge for what happened with Shane? How many people were in the church?

They asked Beth about Woodbury, not about Blake or Penny, and she was thankful for that. She had seen the most of the settlement, being the last taken to her fate. It was T-Dog’s idea to start the map. They spent the better part of a night with their heads bowed over paper as Beth drew.

“The back gates are here,” she explained, marking a section of the exterior wall. “Or, at least, somewhere in this area. It was hard to see everything… after.”

Beth touched her cheek, just under her black eye.

“Hey, it’s okay,” T-Dog was quick to console her. “This is great, Beth. There’s a lot here we didn’t know before.”

“I can add more next time. I’ll pay better attention,” Beth promised. She and T-Dog had been working at the coffee table. Maggie sat with Michonne, playing cards at the table. She turned over the back, fixing Beth with one of the withering looks she used to give her when she thought Beth was annoying her.

“I told you to stop saying that,” she snapped. “We’re not going back there.”

“You don’t know that,” Beth returned, as she had been since this argument between them began. It started when Daddy called them into his office, to apologize. Maggie said it wasn’t Daddy’s fault. Beth said the same, of course, but had added on that it would be different ‘next time’. Those words had lit a fire in Maggie, one of refusal and denial.

“Neither do you,” Maggie reminded her, voice still sharp. But she did. Beth just didn’t know how to make Maggie understand that.

“Okay,” Beth conceded, not in the mood for arguing. “But if we do, I’ll update the map.”

If she found resistance in Maggie, there was only curiosity in Daryl. Not the morbid kind, but not quite curiosity for curiosity’s sake. This was weighty, somehow. She could feel it each night, when they were alone in the camper, when Daryl held a candle aloft and angled her face this way and that to inspect her healing face.

“It’s hardly a death wound,” she reminded him on one of those nights. “I haven’t even got gangrene.”

“Just ’cause it’s clean, don’t mean it should’ve happened.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry bastard,” she joked, though none of it was funny, just to keep herself from focusing too much on the thrill that went through her chest at his proximity. “It happened, but I survived, okay? And it won’t happen again. I’ll be more careful.”

“Next time.” He drew his hand away. Beth watched it go. “You really think you’re goin’ back there?”

“Do you think you could stop Woodbury if we said no to Blake?” She asked, raising her brows. “It’s not like I want to go back, but it’s gonna happen. Me and Daddy, at least. He’ll want us to go back.”

Across the table from her, he leaned back, arms crossed over his chest. Appraising. “What makes you think you’re so important, Bess?”

Despite its phrasing, it wasn’t a demeaning question. Curious, but… weighty. Beth tugged her sweater sleeves over her hands. “Who else is gonna play nanny with his creepy undead daughter?” She asked her lap as much as she asked him.

“Why are you?”

“I think Glenn is evidence enough of what’ll happen if we don’t play along.” She was still fiddling with her sleeves. Under the table, Daryl’s boot intentionally—and gently—knocked against her shin. When she raised her head, Beth found the candlelight burning in Daryl’s eyes.

“You ain’t gotta be scared of him,” his words were firm, solid, laying the unspoken promise over her shoulders like a shawl meant to keep out the cold. “Okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered.

“He’s just a man. You said so yourself.” Beth nodded in agreement. “He wants to act up again, he can be dealt with.”

“Who’s gonna deal with him?” Beth asked, her mind going to Daddy first. Violence, even in return to a harsh hand, was not his way. It was the smallest tilt of his head, as silence stretched between them. That invisible shawl drew more snugly around her as the gravity of the silent confirmation filling her chest. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Beth nodded, squeezing the fabric of her sweater where it was balled in her fists. She chewed on the inside of her cheek. Something was shifting, she knew that, but she was too frightened to look it in the face, to put a name to it.

Yet she was willing to walk into it. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he echoed her, sounding a little amused. She felt shy, dropping her gaze to the plastic tabletop. Unlike T-Dog’s, it was scarred here and there from knife nicks. Beth followed an especially long line of one with her eyes. “But I’m still going to be scared of Penny.”

“You’d be a dumbass not to be afraid of a walker.”

“Well, I didn’t ever finish high school, but I don’t think I’m that much worse off for it,” Beth joked. The world they lived in now demanded a different form of education. Before meeting Penny Blake, Beth had thought she had a hard go of learning her lessons. Compared to Philip Blake, she practically had a college degree in understanding walkers.

“Nah, you’re doin’ fine,” Daryl reassured her, stretching and reaching behind him to retrieve the box of lures they had been working on. They were crude things, really, but he swore they would be endlessly useful come the spring. “Knowin’ how to rig a lure from junk’s gonna do you more good than calculus ever did.”

Some of the questions were about Penny. When they came, it was usually from Michonne.

“She didn’t try to bit you at all?” Michonne asked, clearly perturbed by the notion. Wind and Mountain were missing their jaws; the walkers in the barn had always been a danger.

“Not until I hurt her.” There were baskets strewn all around the sunroom. One for the main house, one for Michonne, one for Carol, one for T-Dog, one for the Dixon brothers. They took clothing down from the indoor lines, tossing articles to the different baskets. “But before that, no. Even when my hand was close to her face while I was feed her, she didn’t try.”

It was as taboo as it was curious. Neither Daddy or Maggie were willing to talk about the peculiarities of Penny Blake. Any talk of ‘recognizable’ walkers was, by unspoken rule, avoided around Carol. The residents who had been witness to the old barn burning were hesitant to discuss walkers as anything other than a plight to be purged.

Michonne, filled in on the post-apocalyptic history of the farm as she was, hadn’t been present for all the big emotions surrounging the barn burning. She didn’t feel that strange mix of guilt and relief Beth had sensed in the others.

“Even with her arms in a damn straightjacket,” Michonne groused, tossing one of Carol’s sweaters so it sailed in an arc across the room and into her basket, “she could do serious damage with her teeth.”

She almost did. “Maybe it’s because he feeds her every day,” Beth speculated. “You know, like, she’s not hungry? I mean, when you took the arms and jaws off yours, their behavior changed, right?”

“They were never fed,” Michonne told her, voice suddenly hard and bitter. It caught Beth so off-guard that she paused, one of Carl’s t-shirts in her hands, and she stared at Michonne. The back of her head gave little away aside from how stiff her spine and shoulders had become.

“Ours were,” Beth offered. “In the barn. They were calmer after a meal. I… I don’t think Penny is the rule, though. I think she’s the exception. And I think that’s going to be Blake’s undoing, when she… dies.”

“When?” Michonne asked, half-turning to raise an eyebrow at Beth over her shoulder. “You got some plans you’re not sharing with the class?”

“No.” Her hand was on her cheek, fingertips prodding gently at her cut before she could help herself. A residual, cold shiver of fear ran down her back. It was easier to agree not to be scared of Blake when Daryl was around. On her own, she couldn’t keep it at bay. “No, but… how long can they last, really? The walkers?”

“I had mine for nearly a year,” Michonne informed her. Beth nodded.

“The same in the barn. Even if they do last for years, though, there’s no coming back. There just can’t be. And, besides that, it’s pretty easy to see that Penny is a secret. He keeps her locked in a bedroom inside his apartment most of the time, while he’s out playing politician.”

“You think one of his own would…?” Michonne asked.

“Would you like to learn that the guy you’ve been calling ‘the Governor’ and who you owe your life to was lying to you the whole time?” When Michonne shook her head, Beth shrugged. “Me either.”

Sometimes she could hear Daddy and Rick arguing. Not quite fighting, never raising their voices, but arguing, for sure. While Beth walked the hall with Judith in her arms, humming to the baby while she drank her bottle, she would catch snippets from Daddy’s office.

…can’t just let him get away with hurting our people…

Beth kept Judith in the hallway rather than taking her to rock in the living room so they wouldn’t disturb Glenn. He was healing well, which made all of them feel better, but she had caught the anger on Rick’s face when he looked at hers and Glenn’s bruises.

…numbers for retribution…

They didn’t have numbers for retribution, is what she figured Daddy was saying to Rick. It was true. Even if they put a gun in Carl’s hand—which was itching for more responsibility, anyway—that only put their numbers at eleven. There was easily ten times as many people in Woodbury, and they had no idea how many were children. The odds were simply too risky.

…won’t let a Shane situation happen again…

Which was a future they all wanted to avoid, Beth had to admit.

“All done?” She whispered to Judith. Stepping in to take care of her in the night while Rick and Daddy spent long hours discussing what their little farm community should do was no problem for Beth. She wasn’t having nightmares, no, but she was still restless at night. Penny hounded her thoughts and preemptive anxiety about returning to Woodbury twisted her stomach.

Maggie’s denial be damned, she thought to herself, lifting Judith to her shoulder and patting her back. We’re going to have to go back.

There was no sense in fighting against it.

Once Judith was asleep, Beth carried her into Rick’s bedroom and laid her back down in her bassinet. With a light kiss to the baby’s curls, Beth whispered ‘sweet dreams’ to her before peeking into the living room.

Glenn must be feeling better. In the moonlight streaming in through the windows, Beth could just make out the shadowy figure of Maggie, wedged between Glenn and the back of the couch. She retreated into the hallway again, poking her head around Carl’s bedroom door. He was harder to make out, given that his curtains were pulled tight against the night, but she could hear his quiet snores and knew he, too, was sleeping well.

Rick still hadn’t left the office. She took the baby monitor up to her room with her, laying it on the pillow beside her so she would wake up quickly should she hear Judith over the airwaves.

Before the month was over, dinner became a council meeting where additional duties were doled out.

“Girls, I know he’s young, but once we’re past the second year mark with Cookie, I want you to start saddletraining him. He’s large for his age and we need another horse able to work and carry a rider.”

Maggie shot an incredulous look at Beth. It used to be Shawn and Jimmy’s job to train the horses for riding; now it would fall on their shoulder. Beth bit her tongue before she could ask Maggie if she would rather craft a ouija board and ask Shawn and Jimmy’s ghosts to handle it for them.

“Okay,” Beth said for both of them. “But he’s going to throw us. At least once.”

“Maybe not, if you keep up a steady stream of treats for him.” There was a teasing twinkle in Daddy’s eye. It didn’t last long.

“I found an old Red Ryder BB gun and a few boxes of BBs in the attic,” Rick said. “Which means shooting practice for you, Carl.”

None of Maggie and Beth’s unease stained Carl’s face. If anything, it lit up in excitement at the prospect. “Really?”

“Tomorrow,” Rick confirmed, smiling at his son. “After you finish your chores with Beth.”

Carl raised his fork above his head in a victory salute. But Daddy and Rick weren’t done there.

“T-Dog shared the map of Woodbury he’s been making with Beth. I think we need to expand on that idea. We need maps of the surrounding areas, the road and land between the farm and Woodbury. When spring’s here, Glenn, Daryl, and Merle will begin scouting and working on the maps.”

“And everyone,” Rick looked at each face around the table, “needs to be familiar with the lay of the land. No more holing up on the farm all the time. We’ll all be going out, learning the important locations. It’s time to be active players in the world at large.”

So, that was the culmination of Daddy and Rick’s late night debates behind closed doors. No one spoke of Blake, and though Beth thought that an oversight on their part, she held her tongue. Maggie was upset enough over being roped into the Cookie responsibility.

It wasn’t a full remedy, and much of it couldn’t begin for another month or so, but it was a start.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-One: February, Year 2, Part I

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Isaiah, 5:20.

“Yeah, that’s a good job,” Beth complimented Cookie, digging in her pocket for another slice of wizened apple. If he was meant to be ready for the saddle by May, she needed to make sure his groundwork was flawless. With other horses, such attention wasn’t necessary, but for one as ornery as Cookie? She wasn’t taking any chances.

Holding her hand flat, she let Cookie nip the apple slice from her hand. He wasn’t compliant so much as he had the routine memorized. Better yet, he no longer spooked at the sound of Carl’s target practice. The BB gun wasn’t particularly loud, no, but the shattering glass could be. He used the empty bottles and cans from T-Dog’s collection, the remnants of which were collected to be used in the noise traps Daryl and Merle hung from the trees in the forest.

Waste not, want not.

Though the afternoon was quickly slipping away from them, Beth took Cookie for another lap while Carl and Rick continued shooting practice.

Aside from a light yellow stain where the bruise persisted, and a thin, pinkish line where the new skin had closed her wound, Beth’s face was greatly improved. Winter’s chill no longer poked icy fingers at it even with a new fall of snow crunching under her boots and Cookie’s hooves.

“You know, I might regret saying this,” she told the horse, leading him back toward the warm barn, “but I think we just might survive saddle training yet.”

Rick and Carl had wrapped up target practice by the time Beth was securing the horse yard gate behind her. They paused so all three of them could walk back to the house for dinner together. “How’s the horse?”

“Probably plotting, he’s been too good lately. How’s the shooting?”

Carl’s head was high, which meant it had gone well. His chest was fairly puffed with pride when he informed her, “I hit eight out of ten targets.”

They exchanged a high five just before walking through the door. Even in the living room, they could smell the roasting rabbit. Daryl and Merle had gotten lucky, happening upon enough to feed everyone for dinner. Beth’s stomach growled and her mouth watered; they tried to be conservative with their meat consumption, in case there came a time they really needed it, making sure the freezer stayed well-stocked. These rabbits were the first in weeks.

It would have been a wonderful end to an already good day had the phone not rang while Maggie and Beth were washing up the dishes. Both froze, a sudsy plate in Maggie’s hand, a cup half-dried in Beth’s. They met each other’s frightened eye.

“That’ll be the Gov’na ringing, it will,” Beth said in a thick, atrocious British accent, when what she really wanted to say was, I told you so.

“Shit,” Maggie swore as they both stilled, as if they could overhear the conversation Daddy was having several rooms away. “What does he want now?”

“Probably not to finish these dishes for us.” Beth finished drying the cup she was working on and added it to the bucket of cleaned dishware. It spurred Maggie back into action and, in quick tandem, they got the dishes squared away in record time. “I’ll take these and then come back to help you with the water.”

Glenn was greatly improved, no longer mottled with contusions, and he had been cleared navigate the stairs again, but his ribs had not yet healed. Beth left the bucket of dishes on the counter and hurried back to the sunroom. Together, she and Maggie hauled the tub outside to dump the dirty water into the same icy patch just off the side of the porch that they always used.

Beth was putting the dishes away, more to give her hands something to do and try to keep her mind off the fact that Daddy still hadn’t come out of his office than anything. This phone conversation was taking much longer than the first time Philip Blake took the time to call. She desperately wanted to know what was being discussed before she had to head out for her watch shift.

But her luck had clearly run out for the day. Daddy was still behind closed doors when Beth, frustrated and on edge, had to pull her jacket on and meet Daryl outside. Her breath puffed in front of her face, crystalizing in the cold, when she huffed in exasperation.

“Horse eat your hair again?” Daryl asked, singling out the lock that stuck out from her braid, rendered too short to fully braid in after Cookie had nibbled on it when her hair had been loose.

“No,” she knocked his hand away, meeting his amusement with a glare. “Daddy’s on the phone with Blake again.”

“Oh, shit, sorry.” He turned to look back at the house over his shoulder while Beth folded her arms over her chest and kicked at a patch of snow.

“I just know I’m going to have to go back.” The last sunlight of the day was glittering on the snow, which Beth usually would have though was pretty, but just now she wanted to continue kicking it.

“Not alone.” He knew better than to try to contradict her on the matter. Beth wouldn’t hear any attempts at pacifying her consternation from him. “No matter what that bastard says or demands, Hershel ain’t gonna let you go by yourself.”

“I know, I know.” She took a deep breath, letting the icy air fill her lungs. When she blew it out, a long cloud of condensation streamed from her lips. “I know I won’t, but I also know what I’m in for. I don’t know what he might make someone else do.”

They walked an entire, silent lap before drawing near enough to the house for Daddy to call out to her. Beth shot Daryl a look full of trepidation before loping off toward the house. To her surprise, though, Daddy was waving him forward, too.

“But patrol…” Beth trailed off when Daddy shook his head.

“Watch can wait,” he told her. “I’ve already nabbed Merle, but I need all three of you.”

Daryl had appeared by then, following when Daddy ushered them inside. The side door he had used was closest to the kitchen, where Merle was already waiting, leaning against the counter. He raised his brows when he saw them.

“What’d Blake want?” Beth asked, cutting straight to the marrow of the matter.

“Never did like to beat around the bush, have you, Bethy?” Daddy asked, looking none too pleased to have them all in the kitchen. “You know what he wants, honey. The three of you.”

That he asked for her was of no surprise to Beth, but the other two… when she struggled to fall asleep, she would lay in her bed and think about who would be summoned to Woodbury next. Her own name never left that list and neither did Daddy’s. If anything, though she hated to think of it, Carl’s name was the one she expected. A twisted playdate between a dead girl and a live boy.

Other than Carl, she thought Michonne the most likely. She was new to Blake. Beth thought, surely, she would have drawn his attention, but she appeared to be nearly invisible to the man.

“What’s he want us for?” Merle asked the question weighing on Beth’s tongue. “Daryl likes holding Judith from time to time, but ain’t neither of us babysitters.”

“He said he wanted their doctor to look at the prosthetic you made for yourself,” Daddy explained. “Said he figured you wouldn’t come without Daryl, and he wanted to avoid another, uh, ‘misunderstanding’ like Glenn had.”

The fact there were no instructions for Beth told her all she needed to know on that front, so she asked a different question. “When?”

“Tomorrow. According to the Governor, he understands that running a farm takes a lot of time and effort. He said there was no need to head out as early as last time, to see to chores and other duties first.” Daddy’s gaze fixed on her left eye. “That bruise isn’t quite gone.”

“I’ll cove it.” Expired or not, surely she and Maggie could scrape together enough makeup to hide the bruise for a few hours. What was a rash after what had already happened to her face? Daddy sent Daryl and Beth back to their watch. Merle walked with them for a few yards before branching off to the Dixons’ camper. It wasn’t until he was out of earshot that Beth looked up at Daryl and said, “I told you so.”

“I never argued with you,” he reminded her mildly. The sun had finished setting while they were inside with Daddy. Now the starlight glowed softly all around, reflecting off the snow.

“Don’t argue with me about this, either, okay?” She asked, watching his face as he scanned their surroundings. Beth had little concern for the small chance they might see a half-frozen walker or an owl. Tomorrow was already occupying her mind.

“Argue with what?”

“I know you’re already mad at him,” him being Blake, of course, “for last time, but please, just don’t, okay? Don’t say anything about it. I… I can’t stand the thought of what happened to Glenn, happening to you. I won’t be able to focus on Penny if I’m worrying about you.”

Daryl turned his head, studying her for a beat while they kept pace with one another. The night shrunk down to their boots crunching over the snow, the familiar, ever-present hum of the fence, and their warm breath puffing in the cold air while she waited.

“Okay?” She asked again, voice falling to a whisper she could hardly hear over her own heart.

“Okay,” Daryl agreed after another beat.

Beth nodded, scrunching her sleeves into her palms and squeezing them tight before shaking them back out. Her relieved sigh took the tension out of her shoulders and spine. “Thank you.”

Carl was not so easily dealt with. Rather than holing up in the Dixons’ living room after watch, Beth returned straight to the main house to talk to Carl and Maggie. She found the former in his room, reading a comic book by candlelight. He glared up at her when she let herself in.

“You can’t go back there,” he said in leiu of a greeting. “He hurt you.”

“I don’t have a choice, Carl,” she reminded him, crossing her arms tight over her chest. “Remember what happened to Glenn when he didn’t listen?”

“Last time, you said you would be okay, and you weren’t. What if something worse happens this time?” Carl pressed on, throwing her favorite reminder back at her. “Like Glenn?”

“It won’t.” Beth insisted. “And I won’t be by myself. He wants Daryl and Merle to come, too.”

“So, what?” Carl tossed his comic book to the side, pushing himself up to perch on the edge of his bed. The candle threw his features into harsh relief and shadows, making his young face look more sinister than it should. “We just keep playing by his game? Running off to Woodbury every time he calls?”

“If it keeps you safe, yes. And Judith and Daddy, yes, Carl. I’ll keep playing his game as long as it’s keeping all of you safe, so don’t give me shit about it, because it’s for you. So you can stay here, where I know nothing bad is going to happen to you. As long as that’s true, I’ll keep running off to Woodbury to babysit his creepy undead daughter, okay?”

He was cowed by Beth’s sharp words, anger melting from his features as he dropped his gaze down to his lap. “Sorry.”

“I know you’re scared.” Beth sat beside him on the bet, guilt immediately washing over her for speaking so harshly to him. “And I know it’s frustrating when everyone treats you like a kid who can’t do anything. They used to do that with me, too. But being able to stay behind, to help here even if you’re not happy about it, that’s important, too. I know Rick’s itching to get inside Woodbury himself, but he stays behind, and he keeps the farm safe.”

“Okay,” Carl agreed, still staring down at his hands. “But I’m not a little kid anymore. My birthday’s in the summer, too. I’m thirteen now.”

His birthday silently passed, overshadowed by everything else that had happened that season. “When?”

“June twenty-seventh.” It felt like a punch in the stomach.

“I’ll put it on my calendar I make,” she promised him. “Judith’s is on June seventeenth.”

“When’s yours?” Carl asked. His voice was thick.

“March tenth,” Beth told him. “I’ll be nineteen. Nobody really noticed, but they didn’t start treating me like I wasn’t a kid until I turned eighteen. Sorry, but I think you’ve got another five years of me bossing you around to look forward to.”

She bumped her shoulder against his, coaxing a little, watery smile from him. Beth pretended not to notice when he wicked some tears away on his sleeve. “That’s okay.”

“Are we good now?” She asked, not wanting to leave their little tiff unresolved, even if she had sworn up and down everything would be fine.

“We’re always good.” For all his postulating about his maturity, Carl sounded very young, his voice gone small. Beth couldn’t help but hug him.

“I’ll see you in the morning, okay? Get some rest. I’m putting you in charge of walking Cookie tomorrow while I’m gone.” She left Carl in his bedroom before heading upstairs to Maggie and Glenn’s. She knocked softly, in case Glenn was already sleeping, and waited until the door opened a crack and Maggie’s face peeked through.

Though the words would have been far more fitting here, Beth decided not to repeat the I told you so she had tossed at Daryl. “Hi,” she said instead. “Do you still have your makeup?”

“Makeup?” Beth waved a hand at the left side of her face.

“For this?”

Maggie’s face hardened as understanding lit in her eyes. “Oh, shit, yeah, I do. Come on,” her hand snaked out, taking Beth by the wrist and pulling her into her dark bedroom, “we better test it now so we have time to think of something else if we need to.”

“Okay.” Maggie led her through the room, past a sleeping Glenn, into their shared bathroom. Once the door was shut on her side, Maggie flicked the light on. They didn’t make a habit of using the electric lights, but they couldn’t take any chances with this.

“Here, sit on the counter. That’s where the light’s best. I used to sit up here before school.”

“Me, too,” Beth admitted, hauling herself up onto the familiar spot. “I learned it from you.”

In her life before, Beth had only ever made use of mascara and lip gloss. It was all Mama let her wear, telling her she had ‘plenty of years’ to paint her face once she was out of high school. Beth would sit on the edge of the tub, listening to whatever CD was playing, watching in awe as Maggie darkened her eyes and brightened her cheeks and coated her lips in cherry red before going out with her friends. Sometimes she sat and daydreamed about the day she would do the same, or, better yet, when Maggie would teach her all the tricks her practiced hand achieved.

Never, in any of her daydreams, did Beth imagine that day coming in the context of hiding the remnants of a bruise from the man who dealt it to her.   

“You’ve always been paler than me,” Maggie murmured, rifling through a large, canvas bag printed with little, multi-colored hearts. “Here, I used to use this in the winter. I bet it will match okay.”

Beth closed her eyes as Maggie came closer, so she could work on her eyelid, too. She felt the liquid, cold from sitting in its container, dabbed onto her skin. Then Maggie’s finger, featherlight, blending it out. Her sister’s breath puffed on Beth’s cheek as she worked.

“Okay, open you eye, and let me see.” She blinked, the bathroom light harsh after growing used to the softer candlelight. Maggie took her face by the jaw much like Daryl did, turning her face this way and that under the light, frowning all the while. “Crap, no, you can still see it. We’re going to have to do some color correcting.”

Maggie wet a washcloth under the tap and handed it to Beth, digging through her makeup bag some more while Beth cleaned her face. The makeup washed away easily, leaving behind the jaundiced bruise and pink line of new skin.

“What’re you looking for?” Beth asked, watching Maggie pull out lipstick after lipstick.

“I need a purple for the yellow,” she explained. “They’re opposites on the color wheel. I learned that in mandatory art class.”

At least you got to go to college. Secretly, Beth had always thought Maggie squandered her time in higher education. When the virus started spreading, Maggie still hadn’t declared a major. Beth, in contrast, had known she wanted to study to become a veterinarian, like Daddy.

She supposed she could still do that, in a way, learning from her father himself.

“Here, look up,” Maggie said, lifting her hand in victory. A plum colored lipstick was brandished there like a trophy. “I don’t want to bruise you up more while we’re trying to figure this out. I’ll just try it on this part under your eye.”

Beth tilted her head back, staring up at the ceiling, while Maggie set back to work. “I’m gonna tell you a secret, okay?”

“Okay?” Beth echoed, anxious anticipation squeezing her stomach.

“I’m going to ask Daddy if me and Glenn can move into the guesthouse.”

“Oh,” the syllable deflated from her in surprise. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Maggie fanned her hand near Beth’s face, drying the lipstick a little before pulling the concealer out again. “After he got hurt, it kind of dawned on me, you know? I mean, I love him, and he loves me, and we really don’t know how much time we get with the people we love in this world, so…”

She sounded giddy, and were Beth able to look down, she knew she would have seen a wide smile on Maggie’s face. Instead, she kept her eyes trained on the ceiling. When the pain came, it was no longer the searing jolt it once was. Jimmy’s memory brought with it the old, familiar ache that accompanied Mama, Shawn, and Arnie.

“That’s great,” Beth said, knowing her sister was waiting for her to say something, anything.

“You think so?” Maggie took a step back, motioning for Beth to lower her face. “Oh, yes, this is gonna work! Turn around and look.”

In the large mirror behind her, Beth studied the fruits of Maggie’s cosmetic labor. The bruising under her eye was entirely gone, not peeking through even a little bit when she turned her face in different angles.

“I really do think so,” Beth reassured Maggie’s reflection in the mirror. “But you know what Daddy’s gonna say. He’ll want y’all to get married… however that works now.”

“I know, I know, I’m working on that part. I’ll figure something out.” Now that they had worked out her facial bruises, Beth washed away the makeup once more. “And then you can use my room, too. Maybe you could have, like, a little apartment setup, turn it into a living room kind of thing or something.”

“Would you care if I gave it to Carl?” Beth asked instead. “Not that the apartment thing isn’t a good idea, maybe I’ll do that for a little while, but Judith will need her own room eventually, too.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Maggie shrugged. “It’ll be yours once I get Daddy on board, do whatever you want with it.”

“You don’t think it will be weird?” Beth asked. “Living out there?”

She was thinking of Patricia and Otis, but Maggie just shrugged again. “Life goes on. We gotta keep going even if others can’t.”

“Yeah,” Beth agreed. “You’re right. It’ll be weird being up here without you.”

“You’ll have to try a lot harder to steal my clothes,” Maggie teased her. They exchanged a smile and then Beth hopped down from the counter.

“I’m gonna go to bed,” she told Maggie. “Big day again tomorrow.”

“Yeah, Daddy told me…” Maggie trailed off awkwardly, flicking the light off and plunging them into darkness. “Night, Beth.”

“Night, Maggie.”

Beth shut the door on her side, pausing with her back pressed to the wood. Maggie and Glenn getting married, moving into the guesthouse… life goes on. She sighed again, feeling off kilter between Blake’s continued demands and the conversation with Maggie. That feeling stuck with her as she changed into her pajamas and slid under the covers. Her sleep was fitful, never quite deep enough to bring rest with it, but thankfully devoid of nightmares or dreams at all. She woke often, peeking at the window, trying to judge how close the dawn was.

Eventually, she gave it up and rose before the sky began to lighten. She crept to her closet, turning on the light inside, and searching through the clothes hanging there until she found her favorite, thick Fair Isle sweater. It was warm and soft, patterned with a diamond pattern and evergreen trees. Flicking off the closet light, she dressed in the dark, and scraped her hair into a ponytail by feel alone.

It was too early to rouse Carl for chores. She crept downstairs, avoiding the squeaky stair, and snuck into the kitchen to brew herself a cup of chicory coffee. While she waited, she watched the last of the stars fade through the kitchen window. When her coffee was ready, she took it into the living room, sitting on the couch and staring into the red glow of the last embers of the fire in the fireplace while she sipped her drink.

Everything will be fine, she told herself. Everyone will come back safe and sound.

Beth repeated this mantra to herself as the day began to bloom and the embers gave out to gray ashes. By the time she finished her coffee and stood to get Carl for the chores, she almost believed it.

"Listen, I'm not saying you have to kiss the ground he walks on or anything, but do y'all think you could try not to be all scowling and oppositional? We can turn around and y'all can get another look at Glenn before you make up your mind."

From the far passenger side of the truck, Merle let out a long, low whistle. "She always that bossy?" He asked Daryl, as if Beth weren't sitting behind the wheel. "You into that kind of thing, baby brother?"

If it weren't for the ice on the road, Beth would have slammed her foot on the brake to shake him up a bit.

"Fine, be mouthy and get your ass kicked," she grumbled, swerving around one of the lumps of snow that denoted a frozen walker hidden beneath it.

"You heard Hershel, man," Daryl said to Merle. "He doesn't want us making trouble."

"You let anyone tell you what to do these days?" Merle continued to needle. "Really going soft, huh?"

"If it's soft to play along so a psycho dictator doesn't have you beat to death, who gives a shit?" Beth snapped. "At least he'll be alive."

"She really is mouthy," Merle said, and Beth knew it was another attempt to get under her skin. She ignored it. "Ornery as that horse of hers."

"Lay off her," Daryl said, voice low but sharp.

It was nearly noon by the time they left the farm. Beth and Carl had tended the animals, Daryl and Merle checked their traps, and Maggie again worked magic on Beth’s face to hide the bruising still staining her face. When the three of them piled into the old truck, Daddy and Rick had been there to see them off. Now they were on the road, heading back into the lair of the beast.

No music played though Beth knew Glenn had left the CD in the dashboard player last time. She turned the volume all the way down before she ever turned the key in the ignition. Merle had his window rolled down, inviting the icy air in with them, but she didn’t mind the cold. It helped keep her mind focused as she navigated the roads to Woodbury.

“He’s probably going to try to separate us again,” she told them. “Wherever he wants you to go, just go. The sooner we get it all done, the sooner we can go home.”

“Nervous, Miss Greene?” Merle asked, clearly incapable of listening to Daryl.

“Yeah, that you’re gonna say something stupid and get us all killed,” she retorted, making Merle laugh. It was bitter as the wind blowing in through the window.

Ahead of them, Woodbury’s gates were coming into view. Someone’s arm waved from the watch tower. It was answered with the gates opening and Blake appearing before Beth had pulled up and put the truck in park among the other vehicles in the little lot.

“Hello, friends!” He greeted with a bright smile. “Welcome, Dixons; welcome back, Beth!”

Blake waved them forward, in through the gate, which were swiftly closed behind them. Though the road there had been icy, the asphalt inside the gate had been cleared. They walked easily as they followed Blake through the residential street. He had his hands in his pockets, the picture of ease, while the three of them fell in a line where Beth was hedged in between the two brothers.

“I’m so glad our… difficulties last time haven’t kept y’all from visiting again. How’s Glenn?”

Beth glanced at Daryl and Merle, the former nodding to her, the later miming zipping his lips. Then she rolled her eyes skyward before saying, “He’s better now. Thank you for asking.”

“Glad to hear it.” Like Daryl, Blake wore a vest, though his was the puffy outdoor sport variety, over a button-down shirt and a pair of ironed slacks. He really takes this governor thing seriously, Beth thought to herself. “We’re heading to see Dr. Stevens. I was going to ask her advice, if Glenn needed it, but it’s good to know Hershel’s got a handle on it.”

Dr. Stevens, like Milton, had a dedicated space for her practice. She greeted them at the door of what otherwise Beth would have assumed was a regular house, if not for the red medical cross that had been painted on the front door. Dr. Stevens was an older woman who wore elegant gold hoops and a beaded chain on her glasses along with her navy blue scrubs and sneakers. Her full lips stretched in a small, close-lipped smile. “Hello, Governor.”

“Hey, Dr. Stevens,” he greeted, stepping forward and into the house-slash-hospital without invitation. “Too busy for visitors?”

“Not at all,” she assured him, turning to greet the others instead. Her eyes fixed on the sheathed tip of knife peeking from the sleeve of Merle’s jacket. “You’re Mr. Dixon, I take it?”

“We both are, Doc. You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

Dr. Stevens raised a brow before her expression smoothed once more and clarified, “You’re the Mr. Dixon with an amputated hand?”

Now Merle raised his arm and waved the sheathed knife around a bit. “Ding, ding, ding.”

Blake laughed as if Merle had just told the most hilarious joke and clapped him on the shoulder. “He’s a hoot, isn’t he?” He asked no one in particular. “Well, Dr. Stevens, I hope you have a fun time with these two. Sorry, gentlemen, but I’m taking Beth with me.”

And here it was, the moment that she had been dreading, dropping like the blade of a guillotine to separate her from Merle and Daryl. She tried her very best to return the smile Blake gave her, but when he turned to lead her from Dr. Stevens’ residence, she threw a look over her shoulder, searching for Daryl’s eyes.

When she found them, they were calm to her internal storm, reassuring enough that, for a moment, she no longer felt like the ground was falling away beneath her feet. He nodded at her and she returned it. You’ll be okay.

Though she was still nervous, Beth tried to make good on her promise to T-Dog, paying attention to her surroundings. Dr. Stevens’ place was situated on the left side of the settlement when you entered the front gate. When they began mounting the stairs inside his apartment complex, Beth made sure to count them. His apartment was on the third floor; the plaque on the door, when they reached it, read 306B.

“Penny’s missed you,” he told her, holding the door open for Beth.

She didn’t notice it the first time, but now she caught the note of something cloying and floral in the air. Beth wondered if it was some sort of air freshener, or maybe a candle or perfume, to mask the scent of decay.

“Is she… okay?” Beth asked, not quite sure how you questioned the non-existent healing of a dead girl’s scalp wound.

“I told you Dr. Stevens would patch her up good as new.” She waited in the living room while Blake went to open Penny’s bedroom door. “No harm, no foul, remember? Your face looks splendid, too.”

“Oh, thank you.” The apartment door opened into the living room, the kitchen was to her left, open concept sort of layout between the two rooms. Penny’s bedroom was just off the living room, too, straight ahead when you entered the front door. There were two doors on her right. Beth knew one was the bathroom, but she couldn’t remember which.

“Hey, Pen,” Blake said from the doorway, poking his head into the darker room, “Beth’s here to see you.”

Just like the first time, Penny blindly followed her father’s voice. Her clothes had been changed since the last time Beth saw her. Now she wore a purple dress with a gauzy skirt along with the same ruffled socks and shiny, patent shoes. Unable to see with the bag on her head, Penny walked right into her father’s legs. He chuckled and took her by the shoulders, turning her toward Beth. “Go ahead.”

It took a moment for her to realize he wanted her to remove the bag. Swallowing back her refusal, Beth came forward and knelt before Penny, working the bag carefully up and off her head.

“H-hi, Penny,” she said as the girl’s milky eyes focused on her face. Today, a little butterfly barrette held her hair off her face, keeping it away from the butterfly bandages on her forehead. “I like your dress.”

Penny sighed, metallic breath washing over Beth’s face. She forced herself to smile and stood up.

“You’re a bit late for dinner,” Blake told her, sounding truly remorseful about it, “but just in time for Friday movie time. Did you know it’s Friday?”

“Um, yeah,” Beth said. “I, uh, keep a calendar, so I can keep up with the days.”

“What’s the date?” He asked like he was conducting a pop quiz, guiding Penny to the couch just as he had last time.

“Um, February eighteenth.” When he waved a hand in invitation, Beth perched herself on the couch, a healthy few feet of distance between her and Penny.

“Winner, winner!” Blake enthused as if she had answered a million dollar question. “For your prize, you can pick which princess movie you watch with Penny.”

He retrieved a plastic box from beneath the TV and set it in Beth’s lap. It was full of DVDs.“You’re not watching with us?”

“Not today, no, I’m sorry to say. We have something special we want to show you guys later. I’ve got to go help set that up. But I just know you girls are going to have the best time together! Penny especially loves the songs, so don’t feel shy if you want to sing along.”

“Oh, okay, um…” flustered, Beth took hold of the first DVD her hand touched. She came up with Beauty and the Beast. “Here.”

“Excellent choice!” He took the case and the box alike, stowing one under the TV once more and cracking the other open to retrieve the DVD. Beth watched him intently, ignoring the way Penny was peering at her. Blake fed the DVD into the player and turned the TV on before standing, placing the remote in Beth’s hand. “There’s a pitcher of water in the fridge if you get thirsty. Bathroom’s right there, if you need it,” he motioned to the farther door. “Make yourself at home until I get back. Mi casa es su casa, and all that.”

Then, to Beth’s absolute horror, he paused on his way out the door to take Penny’s face in his hands and plant a kiss on her forehead. “Be good for Beth, okay, Pen? You girls have fun!”  

“What the fuck?” Beth whispered to herself once the door clicked shut behind Blake. Penny wheezed, canting her head curiously at her. “I’m, um, I’m gonna go to the bathroom real quick, okay? You just sit tight.”

She stood carefully from the couch and began walking backwards, refusing to turn her back on Penny, straightjacket be damned. Penny stayed on the couch, though, watching Beth as she fumbled for the doorhandle and slipped into the bathroom. Though she doubted it would matter much, Beth still locked the door.

On shaky legs, Beth lowered herself to the edge of the tub, staring hard at the interlocking black and white tile on the floor. “Oh, God,” she mumbled to herself, wrapping her arms around her middle, wishing desperately that Daryl was ther with her. Or, better yet, that she was at home.

If she wanted to go home, though, Beth knew what she had to do. She had to play. Beth gave herself a few minutes to pity herself and gather her nerves, and then she stood. Using a tiny, single square of toilet paper, she dabbed carefully at her barely restrained tears to keep them from ruining her makeup. As she did so, a little blue sticky note stuck to the corner of the bathroom mirror caught her attention. She pulled it free of the glass to read the message written there in loopy, blue ink:

You are loved and appreciated more than you know.

—A

“A as in… Andrea?” Beth whispered to herself, replacing the sticky note in the exact same spot. She wasn’t sure who else it could be, but then, the only Woodbury residents she knew by name were Milton, Dr. Stevens, Blake, Penny, and Andrea. There was Amy, too, but Beth hadn’t heard Andrea’s sister’s name since Dale died, so who was to say if she was still alive?

She unlocked the door and poked her head around the edge, but Penny was still on the couch, staring at the TV screen. The glow cutting through the dim room, limning her face, made her appear even eerie than usual. On the screen, Belle was in the middle of a musical number. Penny was clicking her teeth together in time with the music, like some strange, unsettling approximation of singing.

When Beth took her place beside her again, Penny turned her head to look at her, teeth still clicking. She seemed almos… expectant.

“L-look, there goes that girl, she’s so peculiar,” Beth sang in a trembling voice. “I wonder if she’s feeling well? With a dreamy, far-off look and her nose stuck in a book, what a puzzle to the rest of us is Belle.”

The lyrics came back to her easily, recalled from sunny afternoons of her childhood, twirling around the living room as she sang along to the VHS tape.

Penny seemed pleased, stopping her teeth chattering long enough to make that gurgle-sigh she had when Beth read to her last time. She swayed back and forth a bit, not unlike the way Mama would when Beth sang to her from the hayloft in the old barn. When the song was over, Penny’s attention returned fully to the movie.

Beth couldn’t do the same. Her gaze kept flicking nervously to Penny. When another song began, Beth sang obligingly, and Penny clicked her teeth, and so an hour and a half of Beth’s life passed in strange, musically-punctuated horror. Blake hadn’t returned when the credits began to roll.

“Okay, um,” Beth wiped her sweaty hands on her jeans, “maybe… another movie?”

She didn’t know what else to do, but the animation and music at least held Penny’s attention, and the longer it was on anything other than Beth, the better. Splitting her attention between Penny and the box, she quickly returned Beauty and the Beast to its case and pulled The Little Mermaid out. Once she had it fed into the DVD player, she all but ran back to the couch, wedging herself in the corner.

Halfway through the movie, the apartment door opened, and Beth was ashamed at how relieved she was to see Philip Blake’s face. He came in smiling, his grin growing wider when he looked between Beth and Penny on the couch and Ariel and Eric riding in a carriage on the TV screen. “Two movies! Penny, you spoiled girl.”

“You… you were gone a long time,” she said to Blake. He came to the couch, lifted Penny, and sat beside her, settling his daughter on his lap.

“Yeah, sorry about that, Beth. Took a little longer to set up than I anticipated. Was Penny good for you?”

“She was perfect. I’m, um, sorry about the second movie. I… didn’t want to go too far off her routine.” Blake waved her concern away with a flick of his wrist.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. Thanks for watching her. She would thank you, too, if she could. You don’t know how good these visits are for her.”

Beth smiled but couldn’t hold it for long, not that Blake seemed to notice. He was watching the movie with Penny. Almost as an afterthought, he looked at her over top of Penny’s head and said, “Your friend Daryl’s waiting outside for you. I was going to walk the two of you to the event, but I think I’ll finish this with Pen first. They’re not going to start tonight’s show without me, anyway.”

It was a gift of a dismissal and Beth wasn’t going to question it. “O-okay,” she said, trying to move normally, willing herself not to run to the door. “Thank you for inviting me again. It was… fun.”

“Any time, Beth,” he said, his smile much more substantial than hers. “Any time.”

No sooner was she through the door than Beth was throwing herself into Daryl’s arms. He caught her around the waist, Beth’s face buried in his neck. One of his hands shifted, cradling the back of her head, while she inhaled the familiar scent of leather and outdoors. “You good, Bess?”

“I’m fine,” she reassured him, squeezing one more time before stepping back from him. “It was okay. Where’s Merle?”

Something dark flashed over his face. “Can’t keep his damn mouth shut to save his life,” Daryl grumbled, taking her by the elbow and dipping his head low, near her ear. “Listen, we’re fixin’ to see some shit, and you gotta stay calm, you hear?”

“Okay?” Beth asked, confused and frightened by the shift in his demeanor. He looked down the long hallway before walking toward the stairwell with her in tow.

“Just stay with me,” he continued as they descended the steps. “I ain’t gonna let anythin’ happen to you.”

“Where are we going? Blake said there was going to be a… show?”

“Yeah, a fuckin’ show, alright.” Outside, the sun was low in the sky, beginning to set. It was past dinnertime back home, but Beth wasn’t the least bit hungry. Her stomach was in tight knots. Milton was standing outside the apartment complex, waiting.

“Ready?” He asked when they appeared. “Where’s the Governor?”

“He, um, he said to go ahead, he had… something to finish,” Beth explained. Milton shrugged.

“Let’s go.” He offered no explanation as to where, simply began walking. Milton led them on a winding path through the streets of Woodbury, deeper and deeper, until there were no more houses, no more children being called in for dinner. In the back corner of the town, tucked away from sight, hidden behind a defunct warehous, was a loose circle of metal bleachers and floodlights.

“Hey, Mamet,” a man at a table smiled at Milton. “You strapped today?”

“You know I don’t carry.”

"What about your friends?" The man pressed, nodding at the crossbow slung across Daryl's back.

"They're guests of the Governor."

"Yeah, so's the guy fighting tonight." Turning from Milton, the man demanded, "Hand 'em over. No weapons allowed in the ring."

A look passed between Beth and Daryl before he nodded. She hated to do it, but Beth unholstered her gun and handed it across the table along with her knife.

Daryl did the same with his bow and knife. "Any extra arrows on you?"

"No."

"Names?" When they hesitated, the man sighed. "So I can label your shit. You want it back after, don't you?"

"Beth," she said, reaching behind her to squeeze Daryl's wrist when he stiffened at the man's tone. "And Daryl. Thank you."

"Enjoy the show."

"You can stand wherever," Milton told them. "I don't recommend sitting if you actually want to see anything. I do, however, recommend the south side of the ring, if you want a bit of space between you and the dead. That's my preferred location."

"What are they all talking about?" Beth asked as Daryl promptly ignored most of Milton's advice, drawing her to the front of a gathering crowd.

"My shit for brains brother agreed to fight in a ring of walkers."

"What?!"

And there was Merle, stipped of his jacket and knife alike, only the heavy, metal part of his prosthetic remaining attached to his arm. Despite the cold, he sauntered over to Daryl and said, "Roll my sleeves up."

"You're a fuckin' idiot," Daryl berated him even as he helped fold the flannel sleeves of Merle's shirt. "You get bit again, you sure as shit deserve it."

"Hear the way he talks to me, sunshine?" Merle asked, smiling at Beth. A frenetic kind of excitement twinkled in his eye. "He saves all the sweet talk for you."

"Why the hell did you agree to fight walkers?!" Beth whisper-shouted at him. "Who does that?!"

Merle shrugged and smiled. "Sounded fun. Y'all gonna bet on me? Here, give me a kiss for luck."

He tapped at his cheek, but Beth kicked at his ankle instead. Merle laughed and dodged away from the toe of her boot.

"He's crazy," Beth told Daryl when Merle, goaded on by a rowdy group of men drinking beer from cans waved him over to look at his prosthetic, was out of earshot. "Like, actually insane."

"He ain't fightin' walkers, he's fightin' the champion of this bullshit fight club," Daryl corrected her. "But, yeah, he's off his rocker."

Another man appeared, stout and barrel chested, waving his arms as he got the crowd worked up. The spectators around them started chanting his name over and over again.

Ham! Ham! Ham!

"There's no way that's his real name," Beth mumbled, no matter how fitting it was for the man. He was pumping a meaty fist in the air. Her stomach clenched tighter.

If Daryl had any opinions about that, she didn't get to hear them. Blake had arrived, parting the crowd like Moses parted the sea, stepping into the lopsided circle the crowd had made.

"Good evening, Woodbury!" He shouted, smiling. The crowd returned the salutations. Good evening, Governor!

"We've got a special show tonight! One of our neighbors, Merle, was so taken by the idea of our walker ring that he had to jump right in. He's going up against Ham, our champion for the last five fights in a row."

The 'Ham' chant returned. With the fight approaching, the crowd surged forward a bit, condensing, jostling. Beth nearly fell into Daryl. From inside the warehouse, five men appeared, a tethered walker in front of each of them. They were held with the same kind of tether used on livestock, guided toward the circle, and positioned to make a loose, deadly barrier around the ring.

Blake waved Ham and Merle forward, instructed the men to shake hands, and wished them both luck. Then he excused himself from the ring and someone began counting down. Three, two, one...

"Fight! Fight! Fight!" The crowd shouted and Beth had the odd, horrible feeling that she was back in middle school. Boys fought sometimes, if you could call it that, grappling at one another's clothing and sometimes getting a sloppy punch in by sheer luck. A crowd formed then, too, other children eager to witness such a display of small-scale savagery.

This was no middle school fight. The walkers swiped, just out of reach, at Merle and Ham as they circled one another, sizing the other up.

Beth had never liked those middle school fights, scurrying away from them when they broke out, and she liked this even less. Ham took the first swing, his dense fist missing Merle's face by mere centimeters as he ducked back from it. Reaching for Daryl's hand, she threaded her fingers through his, squeezing tight as Merle swung his arm low, catching Ham on the hip with a thwack! of metal on muscle.

To her surprise, Daryl was far more affected than his outward appearance would lead one to believe. He clung to her hand, fingers gripping hers so securely, she wouldn't be shocked if she found fresh bruises there later. For now, though, her attention was dominated by the way Merle ducked, swerved, and struck, his movements fluid as any well-practiced dance.

As the two men toyed with one another, they drew too close for comfort to the walkers. Their searching hands snatched at skin and clothing alike, though Ham and Merle were moving too quickly for them to find purchase. Then, tiring of the game, Ham went in for his own attempt and came up with a handful of Merle's shirt. He yanked, hard, forcing Merle close enough to get a better hold.

Ham dropped both of them to the ground. Dirt plumed around them as they fell, Merle atop Ham, and began to wrestle for dominance in the fight.

Merle might have only had the one hand to grab with, but his partial prosthetic proved beneficial enough in close combat. He caught Ham on the temple with it, stunning him enough to squarely pin him, his knees pressed into Ham's arms as Merle straddled his chest.

"So, what, I keep him down for ten?" He asked while Ham struggled against his weight.

"No," Blake called over the crowd. "No one explained the rules to you? Once you enter the ring, you only leave one of two ways: victorious or dead."

Daryl's hold on her hand tightened further, bone pressing into bone. This news only deterred Merle for a moment, but it was long enough for Ham to wriggle mostly free from beneath him. Merle rolled away, agitating more dirt, and rose to his feet.

"Alright then, here, piggy, piggy," he taunted, curling his fingers as if calling an animal to him.

Beth held her breath as Ham charged forward, an animalistic snarl rising into the night as he did so. He tried to knock Merle off his feet again, but he held Ham by the shoulders, driving his knee up and into his opponent's stomach.

That snarl turned to a wheeze as Ham's breath knocked from him. While he gagged, Merle swung, landing a solid blow that sent Ham sprawling and bleeding into the dirt.

"C'mon, big man! Ain't you the king of this shit hill?"

Ham had no sooner gotten his feet under him than Merle was hounding him again. He darted in to land a hit and then out to avoid retaliation, frustrating Ham more and more. Merle pushed the man to the point that he roared in rage, threw himself forward, hands aiming for Merle's throat.

Which brought Ham close enough for Merle to rear back and slam his head off the other man's, disorienting Ham enough that when Merle swung his weight and sent him straight into the wanting arms of a walker, no fight came of it.

Ham's jugular artery was pierced, blood spurting, sinew and veins trailing like gory ribbons from his ruined neck, before he even knew what was happening.

Beth's terrified scream was cut short when Daryl used their linked hands to heave her against him. He pressed a hand to her head, pinning her face against his chest, where she could no longer see the carnage others were cheering for.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-One: February, Year 2, Part II

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Matthew 10:28.

“Here.” Daryl plunked himself beside her on the rickety metal bleachers and held a steaming cup out in front of her.

"What is it?" She wrapped her hands around it even as she asked, welcoming the heat as it seeped into her palms. The night was frigid. Even the stars twinkling into existence overhead seemed icy.

“Hot chocolate.” Beth peeked at him to see if he was serious.

“You’re joking,” she accused, but he shook his head. Lifting it closer to her face, she took a sniff, the sweet, warm scent of hot chocolate filling her nose.

“Courtesy of the Governor.” The man in question was the only one still standing at the edge of the fighting ring. Blake had his back to them, feet planted wide, arms crossed over his chest. Ham, rather than being dealt with and taken off for burial, was allowed to reanimate and added to the ranks of walkers who typically lined these fights. After Merle refused Blake’s invitation to remain in Woodbury and defend his champion title, the one smart decision he had made that night, he had been made to fight each of the other men who participated in the fighting league.

For half a second, Beth considered pouring the hot chocolate out on the ground. Sniffing it had been a mistake, though. The scent woke the hunger in her, and before she could give it a second thought, she took a sip. Warm, rich, chocolate washed over her tongue. She closed her eyes, savoring it, and then offered the cup to Daryl.

“It makes the day suck a little less,” she told him when he hesitated. “And you know this day has sucked.”

After a beat, he took the cup and lifted it to his lips. He stared at the cup and its contents for a moment before passing it back to her. “You good, Bess?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Beth said with a nod, more to convince herself than Daryl. He raised his eyebrows. It hadn’t worked. “No, I am. Until we get home, I’m okay. We have to be until then.”

“’Kay,” he relented quietly. Both turned their attention back to Merle, who was smiling even as blood from a split lip stained his teeth. That sinister, manic grin, more than the chill of the night, had Beth shivering. She scooted closer to Daryl, until her thigh was pressed to his.

“You know, the Vikings had these warriors that would go, like, feral during battle. They called the berserkers.”

“You sayin’ Merle’s a berserker?” Daryl asked.

“I’m saying I’ve never seen someone fight five people back-to-back and still have the wherewithal to keep going.” Six, if you counted Ham, who Merle technically killed. Well, no, there was nothing ‘technical’ about intentionally tossing someone into the deadly, devouring jaws of a walker. Since Merle refused to stay in Woodbury, each fight was being timed and judged to create a bracket for the residents who engaged in the fighting ring.

Six fights in and Merle had yet to be judged the loser.

“It’s exhausting just watching him,” Beth took another drink of hot chocolate and held it out to Daryl again. Down below, Merle drove his knee so forcefully into some guy’s diaphragm that he vomited. “Good God.”

“Not the first time in my life I’ve been thankful Merle’s my brother and I don’t gotta deal with shit from him like that.” The warm cup found its way to her hands again, ever so slightly lighter.

“How many guys are left?”

“Four.”

“There’s ten whole idiots in this town?” Beth was shocked by this realization.

“Nine,” he corrected her, nodding toward the warehouse. If she strained her ears, she could hear the muffled growling and snarling from the walkers. “Ol’ Ham’s on the other side of the ring now.”

Beth shivered again. Daryl gave her another look. “I’m fine.”

He didn’t press her. They continued to share the hot chocolate slowly, stretching it out even as it cooled, making it last until, finally, Merle had run out of opponents. Victorious and bloody, he rose from the fighting ring no less bloody than Glenn had been last month. Though he was still grinning like a fool, he needed Daryl’s support to leave the shoddy, would-be stadium.

One look at the ire on Beth’s face and Merle began laughing, though it was strangled on something wet, and he had to turn his head to the side to spit out a glob of blood. “Gonna lecture me all the way home?”

“No.” Philip Blake escorted them back to the man at the table, their weapons returned to them. Beth took Merle’s knife and tucked it into her pocket with her own. He didn’t carry a gun regularly, not yet; he was also a part of Carl’s target practice, learning to shoot with his non-dominant hand now that they had ammunition to spare.

When it came to Daryl’s, he took his knife, but shook his head at his crossbow. Merle’s arm was slung over his shoulders, Daryl’s around his brother’s waist, as he half-carried him. “Keep hold of it.”

She settled it on her back, like she had seen Daryl do countless times before, to keep her hands free. It was heavier than she anticipated, pulling uncomfortably on the muscles around her shoulders and spine. But she needed her hands free; she knew how to shoot her gun, not this crossbow.

“Hell of a show,” Blake complimented, hands in his pockets, an easy smile on his face as he walked with them through the dark, empty streets of Woodbury. “Offer always stands, Merle. We like fighters around here.”

“Yeah, and I like my baby brother.” Merle reached a hand over to pat Daryl’s cheek, leaving a dark smudge behind. Even without seeing the color, Beth knew someone’s blood was left there. “He ain’t gonna leave the farm, and I ain’t gonna leave him. Sorry to disappoint.”

“No disappointment,” Blake reassured him. “Family’s important to me, too.”

Though Blake didn’t leave the gate with them, he stood in the gap of it while Daryl helped Merle into the far passenger seat of the truck. More than Blake’s gaze, Beth felt the unseen eyes of the men hidden away in the guard towers. She held nearly every weapon they had; she stood waiting, watching them back through the night, while Daryl got Merle settled. Beth didn’t look away until she heard the soft click of the truck door behind her.

Then Daryl’s hand, chilled from the cold night but still familiar and reassuring, took her by the shoulder to guide her around the bed of the truck. Only once they were on the other side, obscured by the cab of the truck, did she relax a bit. Daryl took hold of the crossbow strap and she let him lift it up and over her head. “You good to drive us back?”

“I’m okay,” she reassured him. “I just want to get out of here.”

He nodded and opened the driver’s side door, sliding along the bench seat into the middle, setting his crossbow on his lap. Beth climbed behind the wheel and shoved the key in the ignition. For all his foolish bravado, Merle was slumped against Daryl, his head resting on his shoulder.

“Think you oughtta have those lights on?” Merle asked, words fuzzy around the edges, as Beth pulled away from Woodbury and back onto the road.

“As tempting as it is to never have to deal with Blake again, I don’t really feel like hitting a deer tonight, you know?” Not to mention the risk of black ice, walkers, living people. “It’s not like they don’t already know where we live.”

“Fair,” Merle conceded. Soon after, a soft snore filled the cab.

“He really shouldn’t be sleeping,” she told Daryl. “He could have a concussion. We should keep him awake until Daddy can look him over.”

“Nah,” Daryl disagreed. “He didn’t get hit enough for that. Merle’s come up fine from worse.”

Beth shrugged and continued driving. Now that they were out of Woodbury, away from the immediate danger of Philip Blake and his goons, exhaustion was sinking into her bones. Between that, and the intrinsic safety she felt in Daryl’s presence, Beth no longer had it in her to fight against and contain her emotions. A few cathartic tears slipped down her cheeks, dropping from her chin to fall and splatter in her lap. She took a deep breath, in through her nose, letting it expand her lungs and fill her chest, and let it out slowly from between her lips.

“I don’t know how many more times I can go back there,” Beth admitted in a whisper, not so much because Merle was sleeping, but because she was frustrated and ashamed with herself. For all her talk about willingness and protection in front of Carl, her bravery was failing her now. There was no space for it when her mind was filled with fear and doubt, all brought to her by the undead, bound hands of Penny Blake.

In the rearview mirror, another set of headlights blinked into existence. Beth’s breath caught, eyes widening as she chanced a glance in Daryl’s direction. He was turning in his seat, peering out the rear window as Merle grumbled incoherent complaints at him, but he didn’t seem half as worried as Beth was.

“Keep drivin’,” he told her. “It’s just Rick.”

“What’s he doing out here?” Beth asked, wanting to look back for herself, but not willing to risk it on an icy, dark road.

“It’s well after dark, Bess,” Daryl reminded her. “I’m surprised Rick didn’t go all the way to Woodbury.”

In the events of the day, Beth had forgotten the contingency plan. Should a group—whether foraging, completing a supply run, or traveling to Woodbury—fail to return before sundown, a secondary group would go scouting for them.

Rick was not driving the van but his old police car, causing her confusion. It must be kept somewhere off the farm, just in case, for Beth hadn’t been aware Rick still had the car at all. He followed them home, and when Maggie opened the gate, Rick continued following them up the dirt road. Beth didn’t bother parking in the garage, preferring instead to end the night as soon as possible. Besides, Daddy had come out of the house, and there was nothing she wanted to do more than hug him.

Maggie joined that hug so that Beth became squished between her father and sister. It was brief relief. Though Merle’s injuries were his own making, he had returned in little better shape than Glenn had, and he needed tending. Daddy left Beth with Maggie and Rick, who both clearly wanted answers to questions they had yet to ask. In the distance, hardly discernable in the night, Beth was fairly certain Michonne and Carol were on watch.

“I can add a few things to the map tomorrow night,” she informed Rick. “A lot, actually.”

“Good. That’s good. What happened with Merle?” He held the door open for Beth and Maggie to enter the house. Daryl hadn’t taken Merle inside, instead opting for their camper. The house was quiet as the three of them stood talking in the entryway.

“There’s a fighting league in Woodbury. Like, for fun, I guess. Merle fought in it.” That was the short version of events, but Beth was too tired to expound on it.

“How was…?” Maggie asked, letting her question fade into the shadows, but Beth filled in the blanks.

“Fine. He wasn’t even around much today. He was setting up the fighting thing. I just had to sit and watch Disney movies with his daughter.” Even were she not exhausted, Beth didn’t think she would share more details about Penny. She hadn’t told Daddy, either, not wanting to explain the… slight humanity the little girl retained in her undead state.

Beth’s rationale is that she didn’t want to burden Daddy with any guilt or doubts about his past actions. As for Maggie, she found it hard to confide the eerie details of Penny Blake, the old wall of skepticism her older sister regarded her childhood tales standing tall and insurmountable. Too often, Beth had been met with a dubious look, her natural sensitivity cited as evidence against her. Did it really happen that way, or was the situation misconstrued through the blur of Beth’s tears?

“I’m okay,” Beth tacked on when Maggie looked as if she was going to ask another question. “I just want to go to bed.”

“Okay,” Maggie relented.

“Get some rest, Beth.” Rick gave her shoulder a squeeze before she walked off toward the staircase. Once in her room, she toed off her boots and kicked them in the direction of her bed. Then she threw herself on the mattress and buried her face in a pillow. Beth didn’t scream into it, though she was tempted for a moment. Instead, she just took a moment to let her body acclimate to full safety and calm down.

After a few more deep breaths, she raised her head and gazed into the shadowy corner of her bedroom, thinking. What game is this? What’s his end goal?

It seemed obvious: for Penny to be returned to him, fully. But that was too simple. That didn’t warrant playing with the others. If his only goal was healing Penny, wouldn’t Daddy be enough? Yet it wasn’t Daddy who had been called to Woodbury twice. It was her. How did she fit into this equation?

Beth decided she didn’t want to dwell on the implications and possibilities of that question. Instead, she pushed herself up from her bed, and went into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth. She assumed Glenn was asleep on the other side of the door, so Beth left the light off, washing the makeup from her face and brushing away the last tastes of hot chocolate from her mouth in the dark.

Daryl was right; Merle didn’t have a concussion. Much like Glenn, though, he did have a few busted ribs. His knuckles were fractured, which was a crippling injury until they healed, considering he only had the one hand.

Beth updated the map she and T-Dog started, and Rick took great interest in it. He studied her sketches, asked clarifying questions, and seemed to be committing all he could to memory where Woodbury was concerned, though he had yet to set foot in the town himself.

Her bruise finished healing. Merle’s started to. Glenn resumed his rotations on patrol. Philip Blake left them alone for the rest of the month.

Everything began to fall back into routine. An outside observer might not notice anything different at all.

But Beth had felt the shift between her and Daryl. He had offered her… something, when he told her that he would deal with Blake if something happened to her again. What that something was, she wasn’t quite ready yet to put a name on, but Daryl seemed to quietly understand that. They didn’t speak of it, but she felt it there between, sometimes.

When his gaze lingered on her face during patrol. When she helped him with some task in the candlelight camper. When someone said something funny at dinner, and her eyes flew to him to see his reaction.

Something was budding there as surely as the spring leaves would do the same on the trees in a few weeks. That something was as quiet as Daryl, as ephemeral as the mist of her breath on those cold winter days, but it was there, and its sheer existence made Beth feel just a tiny bit better as she moved through the last days of February.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Three: Early March, Year 2

Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12.

After a few weeks’ of contemplation, Beth found her fist knocking on Michonne’s door on the second day of March. Snow still clung to the ground and the air was still icy in her lungs, yet Beth thought the sunlight looked different. Softer. It illuminated Michonne’s face when she opened the door.

“Hi,” Beth said, smiling. “Could I talk to you for a minute?”

Michonne nodded wordlessly and stepped back, letting Beth walk into the camper. It wasn’t nearly as austere as it once had been. There was a blue and purple knit blanket on the couch, a vase of silk flowers on the coffee table, and a rainbow cat sculpture, of all things, on the end table. Seeing it made Beth smile to herself despite the nervous energy that had her stomach twisting in knots.

“You can tell me no, if you don’t wanna talk about this,” Beth told her, pulling at her fingers. “I had more questions about your… your walkers.”

“What about them?” Even now, in her home, Michonne kept her sword close at hand. She set it beside the couch as the two of them took a seat there.

“Did they ever… act human?” When Wind and Mountain had toiled outside the gate, they did nothing more than listlessly bump into one another and shuffle their feet. “I mean, I know walkers respond to sound, and they can see and smell, and they growl a lot, but did they ever do… other things?”

Michonne regarded her quietly for a beat, brows furrowed slightly. “Is this about Penny?”

“Yeah,” Beth admitted. “She’s not just calm, she’s… responsive.”

“How so?” Michonne seemed genuinely curious. Beth nibbled at the inside corner of her lip as she gathered her thoughts.

“I haven’t really told anyone this stuff, except Daryl a little bit,” she began. “He doesn’t really get it even though he listens, because he’s never thought of the walkers as anything but a threat. Daddy would understand it better, but I don’t want him to feel bad if I tell him about this. Penny’s different. She looks at you when you talk to her, and she sits and listens to stories, and this last time, she watched movies. Like, sat and fully watched them. And she makes noises, but, like, different from the ones walkers usually make. Sometimes she sighs and when she was watching the movies, she would click her teeth together when the characters were singing, like she was singing.”

That furrow between Michonne’s brow deepened, a line forming in the center. “Beth…”

“She did hiss and growl, but only after I ripped her scalp. She felt pain, Michonne.” Beth took a breath. It shuddered a bit in her lungs. “She’s different. None of the walkers in the barn acted like her. I was just wondering if yours ever did.”

“No,” Michonne shook her head. “They never had the chance. I took their arms and lower jaws off soon after they turned.”

“You knew them.” Beth had suspected as much, though she never asked confirmation. It had simply made sense to her. You didn’t keep walkers around that you hadn’t known in life. Their lost barn and Philip Blake were further proof of that. Now her heart ached for Michonne. She reached across the couch and took Michonne’s hand, giving it a squeeze.

“Yeah, I knew them.”

“I’m sorry.” She knew the hard way that her remorse changed nothing, but it was the truth. Beth was sorry something so awful had happened to Michonne. Aside from Shane Walsh and Blake, she hadn’t yet met someone who deserved the cruelties of the world they now lived in.

Michonne seemed to understand, too. After returning Beth’s squeeze, she murmured softly, “Thank you.”

“Thanks for letting me ramble. It helps, getting it out of my head.”

“It does, doesn’t it? Come ramble any time.” For the first time, she was graced with one of Michonne’s smiles. It was a bright flash of sincerity in an otherwise stoic face, and it prompted one of Beth’s own immediately.

Carl had made her swear to tell him when the first day of March was. Not when it was March tenth, he was sure to clarify. The first. He would keep up with the days in between, he reassured her. This had piqued her curiosity, but Beth kept her questions to herself. She didn’t want to spoil the earnestness in his face, not when she found it so adorable.

March tenth, the nineteenth of her life, dawned cold but mild. It had warmed just enough to start melting the snow and icicles. The eaves were dripping and the ground was slushy under their boots when Carl and Beth stepped outside for their chores.

It felt like promise that morning.

Thinking back to exactly a year ago, Beth’s chest ached anew for Patricia and her kindness, which had ultimately been the harbinger of her death in this world. She didn’t dwell on those thoughts, knowing Patricia wouldn’t want her to, instead turning her face toward the warming sun.

“Here,” Carl said, waiting until they were lingering outside the pigpen, watching the swine push and jockey for the prime spots at the lip of the trough. He had his hand outstretched, fingers curled over something. When she placed her palm under his, Carl dropped something green and pink into it. Beth drew it closer to her face, seeing that it was a simple, braided bracelet. “I know it’s not a lot, but I learned how to make them at summer camp the year before everything happened, and I wanted you to have something on your birthday.”

Beth smiled and slipped the bracelet onto her wrist immediately before pulling Carl into a hug. “It’s perfect,” she told him. “Thank you.”

She hadn’t expected to get any gifts, which was fine with her. Sometimes she regretted how she kept the calendar and was aware of the passing of things like birthdays and holidays. It saddened her to see them come and go unacknowledged, yet she kept the fact it was her birthday to herself. She had only told Carl because he had shared his, and she made a mental note to start thinking of something to give him for his when it came around in June.

“I think me and T-Dog are going to move the bees back out today. Do you know how they keep the hive alive in the winter?” She doubted their bees had any need for this, since they were in the garden shed beside the compost pile, but she had still read about how bees behaved during the winter months in the book Daryl got her. Carl shook his head. “They vibrate their bodies to generate heat, especially for the queen. If they lose the current queen before a new queen larva hatches, the whole hive can fall apart.”

“You don’t think it will get too cold again?” Carl asked.

“Maybe, but we can always move the hive back into the shed. They probably won’t come out again for a few weeks still, but with all the snow we got over the winter, the first flowers will bloom earlier once it warms up.”

When she and T-Dog did move the hive, they left their beehouses close the shed, just in case. It was still too cold to pull up any of the frames, but when Beth bent and pressed her ear against the wood, she could hear the bees buzzing. “They’re alive.”

Smiling, T-Dog patted the top of one house. “Atta bees,” he said. “I was not looking forward to figuring out how to come by another hive if ours bit it over winter.”

“We could’ve made that a Dixon problem,” she pointed out. “I’ll bet Daryl and Merle know how.”

“Yeah, but we can’t make everything a Dixon problem. I’m glad Rick’s sending us all out in scouting teams once it’s warmer. We should all know how to tough it on our own, just in case, even if we do have a beautiful thing going here on this farm.”

Those words stuck with her throughout the day. It was beautiful on the farm. Where the snow had melted, the grass was already coming back to life. Cookie, excited to be allowed into the horse yard again, pranced and whinnied, trying to rile the older horses into play. Glenn sat with Maggie in her garden, helping her toil and aerate the soil in preparation for spring planting. Even the little graveyard, with their wooden crosses decorated with wreaths of dried flowers, seemed lovely to her just then.

It took some of the sting away, realizing she was now two years older than Jimmy when he died. While he remained frozen at seventeen, she was freshly nineteen. She spared a small, apologetic smile for the cross that was his.

Beth didn’t often visit the graveyard. She preferred to look at it from a distance, to think of the souls who rested there from afar. That’s what she did now, sending the dead a small wave with the flutter of her fingers, before heading inside the house.

“Everything okay, Daddy?” She asked, poking her head around the ajar door of his office. Judith lay in only her diaper on his desk, in leu of a proper examination table, as she was measured and weighed for her monthly check-up. Beth’s eyes caught on a bottle of bourbon on the windowsill, but Daddy only smiled.

“Don’t worry, Bethy,” he nodded toward the bottle. “All the Orajel cream Glenn brought back seems to be too far out of date and Miss Judith’s having a hard time with her teething. It’s old school, but a little bourbon on her gums will help.”

As if on cue, Judith gave a little whimper while gumming at her closed fist.

“It’s been quiet today,” Daddy tacked on, which had become his answer to Beth’s coded question. When she asked if everything was okay, she was really asking if they had heard from Philip Blake.

“Okay,” she smiled as Daddy caught Judith, who was determined to roll herself off the desk. “How is she? Besides the teething?”

“Perfectly healthy. I’ll bet she adds crawling to her list of tricks soon.” She could already roll, sit up on her own, and clap. Judith also liked swaying to the music when Beth played piano or guitar for her. She especially liked when Carl joined in, playing the keys while Beth plucked the strings, laughing and clapping in delight as she danced.

Judith was truly their shining jewel of the farm. Despite her tragic entrance into the world, she brought nothing but smiles to everyone’s faces, even Michonne’s. She had been wary of the baby at first but was warming to her. By all accounts, aside from their ongoing cold war with Woodbury, as Beth had come to think of it, life on the farm was calming and looking up once more.

And that, in her estimate, was a fair birthday present on its own, though she was endlessly touched by Carl’s gesture with the bracelet. She left Judith and Daddy to their checkup while she headed upstairs, deciding to immediately start brainstorming ideas for Carl’s birthday gift.

“It’s my birthday,” Beth said that evening, following Daryl inside the Dixon camper. He gave pause just inside the doorway, looking over his shoulder at her.

“Shit, really?”

“Yeah, it is. It would be rude to make me work on my birthday.” It was gloomy inside, the days still too short for Beth’s liking. “Let’s play a game instead.”

She knew her way around the camper by now, even in the shadows. Beth collected two glasses and the first bottle of liquor her hand touched from the kitchen while Daryl lit a few candles in the living room. In that dim light, Beth realized the bottle she took was white rum.

“What game is that?” Daryl questioned when he saw the bottle in her hand. “Bess Gets Drunker’n Shit?”

He tapped the label where it stated the alcohol inside was eighty proof. Beth was not well-versed in alcohol, though she often partook in drinking it with Daryl or at T-Dog’s. “I have faith in you getting me home, drunk or not. You’ve never failed yet. Besides, it’s my birthday.”

Daryl let loose a little sigh and took the bottle from her, cracking it open while Beth smiled in victory and took a seat on the couch. He filled their glasses halfway up as she pulled her boots off and tucked them beneath the coffee table.

“Do you even know any drinking games?” He asked, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing haphazardly onto the kitchen counter, not so far away, before sitting beside her on the couch.

“No,” she admitted, bringing her cup close to her nose to sniff the contents. It was sweet and faintly fruity. Beth brought it to her lips to take a drink, finding it much milder than the harder spirits usually drank at T-Dog’s. “I like this.”

“I figured as much,” he murmured. “It’s why I said you’ll end up drunk off it.”

“I just wanted to get out of making more noise traps,” Beth confessed with a shrug. “I keep nicking myself on those little pieces of glass we’ve been using. I figured I could use my birthday as an excuse.”

“How’d you know it’s your birthday?” Daryl asked, taking a small drink of the rum. “Don’t drink this like juice, even if it tastes like it. You really will get drunk.”

“I have a calendar. I’ve been keeping track with it since the virus started spreading and everything was getting shut down.”

“No shit?”

Beth giggled and drew her legs up, sitting cross-legged now. Her knee pressed into his thigh. “That’s your favorite cuss word tonight, huh?”

“Know how many days it’s been?”

“Six-hundred forty-eight.” He looked like he was going to curse again, but he took a drink of rum instead. “That’s a lot, huh? It’s almost two full years.”

Daryl nodded and drank again. Not liking being so far behind him in progress, Beth gulped down more of her rum until they were even. “Didn’t I tell you not to chug that?”

“Yes, Mr. Dixon,” she rolled her eyes and mocked at his chiding tone. Daryl gave her a disparaging look. Beth raised her eyebrows. “We both know I’m not a kid, so don’t treat me like one.”

She was a good bit younger than him, sure, but she wasn’t stupid. There was no way he didn’t feel what was between them, what had been building steadily since December, when that blizzard forced them together for two days.

“No,” he agreed, shifting so that he was facing her more fully on the couch, “You ain’t.”

Her heart thrilled at this confirmation, scant as it was. Beth shifted, too, stretching her legs across his lap. Daryl stilled for a moment, staring down at her legs, before laying a hand on her knee. It was warm even through the denim of her jeans. She took another drink of her rum, this time to calm herself.

“You keep nicking yourself?”

“Mhmm, look.” Beth set her glass on the table and leaned forward, showing her left hand. There was a good one on her middle fingertip. “Makes it hard to play guitar when my fingers are on the verge of bleeding.”

He picked his hand up from her knee and took hold of hers, dipping his head low to scrutinize the scabbed over cut. Daryl ran his thumb over it, which left Beth’s breath hitching in her throat a bit, before letting her hand go. His dropped back down to her knee.

“Tell Carl to get better at shootin’ so he can stop with the glass bottles and start with the tin cans.”

Beth laughed and reached for her rum. “He’s pretty good, actually. I guess it helps when your cop dad is teaching you how to shoot.”

“Yeah, Rick’s a good shot.”

Leaning against the cushions, Beth sunk into the couch a bit and changed the subject. “I was telling Michonne about Penny. She said her walkers never acted like her.”

“Can’t really eat off a spoon with half a mouth.” She laughed but there was no humor in it.

“The walkers we had in our barn, they were never like that, either. But sometimes I wonder…” the sentence trailed off verbally, but her mind continued where her voice failed. Would they have been, had they been put into a routine, like Penny? Was this little undead girl truly the exception to the rule?

“She ain’t gonna get better, Bess.” He said it gently, or as gently as someone with such a gravelly voice could.

“I know,” she said with a sigh. “I know. Maybe Blake does, too, but he doesn’t believe it. I’m afraid of what he’s willing to do to try to make her better. And I know, I know, he’s just a guy, but he’s delusional, and so was Shane before he got desperate.”

“You been listenin’ to Rick?” Beth shook her head. Daryl ran the pad of his thumb along the curve of her knee. “He’s been sayin’ the same stuff to your old man.”

“He’s right. Daddy always wants to see the good in people, and I get that, but I think all the good in Blake begins and ends with Penny.”

Daryl gave her a look as if considering whether to say something or not and then deciding against it. The rum in her glass was getting low. No more than a mouthful was left. Leaning over her legs, he retrieved the bottle and raised it over the rim of her glass in silent question. Beth nodded. It was her birthday, after all. She watched the clear liquid fill the glass once more.

Drinking at T-Dog’s had clearly given her some semblance of tolerance. It wasn’t until she was sipping on that second glass that Beth began to feel that pleasant, fizziness in her head that categorized an alcohol buzz. She felt loose, sinking further into the couch, Daryl’s hand slipping between her knees.

“Last time, in Woodbury, when Merle…” threw Ham straight into the jaws of a walker, “…was that the first time?”

“No,” Daryl admitted, catching her meaning without her having to ask after such a horrible thought directly. “People were goin’ batshit in the city, after. It ain’t like it was for fun or nothin’, but when it’s you or them…”

“Have you?” She wasn’t surprised when he nodded; she wouldn’t have asked if she didn’t think she already knew the answer. What surprised her was that it didn’t shift her opinion of him in the slightest. Instead, Beth sighed and said, “I used to think all killing was bad, because that’s what they teach you in church, but after you’ve done it, it’s easy to pick out the gray areas, huh?”

“Regret havin’ to do it, but not doin’ it,” he surmised in that simple way of his. Beth nodded in agreement. “Think you can do it again?”

“I don’t think we’ll have a choice. Or, no, I guess the choice will be us or them, and I’m not choosing Woodbury.”

He gave her leg a squeeze, seemingly in silent agreement, but it was more than reassuring. Maybe it was the alcohol’s influence. She usually tamped down thoughts of Daryl outside of the context of being her friend. After Merle’s teasing in Woodbury, she was still having a hard time meeting his eye, her embarrassment delayed by the initial need for survival. Since returning, she found herself in a very different gray area more and more, where the edges of her friendship with Daryl were blurring into something… weightier.

Like when she felt the echo of his squeezing her leg behind her navel, an anticipatory tug that she formerly associated only with certain looks Jimmy gave her once their relationship had turned physical.

Beth took another drink of rum so she wouldn’t have to think about it. “I really created a downer of a birthday for myself, huh?”

“We can pin that on the Governor, too,” Daryl offered, but Beth only rolled her eyes.

“I hate that everyone calls him that,” she admitted. “I guess he would make a good politician, though, hiding his twisted lifestyle from the public eye. Oh, did I tell you, I think he’s got something going on with that Andrea lady? I found a note in his bathroom last time I was there. It was some bullshit about him being a good leader, but it was signed with an ‘A’.”

“Bouncin’ from Shane to Blake,” Beth smiled at his use of the man’s actual name. “Some taste, huh?”

“Maybe she’s just, like, really into psychopaths who fixate on farms,” Beth said with a giggle, but Daryl’s face had hardened and sobered. Her brow furrowed, and she was just about to ask Daryl about it, when he drained the remainder of his rum and filled his glass again.

“You got ahead of me,” he said by way of explanation between drinks.

“Oh, I didn’t know we were competing.”

“Celebratin’, ain’t we?” He held his glass aloft and, forgetting entirely his earlier, sudden demeanor shift, Beth clinked hers against his despite there being no toast to cheer. “You ever drank this much?”

“No, I usually only have one at T-Dog’s,” she said after another swig of rum. “My dad’s an alcoholic, did you know that? Maggie says it was really bad after her mom died, but I never knew, because Daddy didn’t drink when I was little. Not until the barn… but he’s better again. He says it never goes away, though, that once you start one bad habit, you can always fall back into it.”

Without thinking about it, she glanced down at her left arm. As always, the scars there were covered with her sweater sleeve, but Beth still spared a frown for her own bad habit before pushing it from her mind. She didn’t want to think about that.

“I hope there’s not ever a reason for him to fall back into it, though. Maggie and Glenn want to get married, and Daddy loves having Judith in the house. He should get to be a grandfather.”  

Daryl raised his glass again in silent cheers. She mirrored him and drank when he drank. A cozy silence fell over them for a few beats before Daryl said, “Bring your guitar here.”

“Hmm?” Beth hummed. In that silence, her mind had wandered, not anywhere particular. She was just warm, maybe from the alcohol, maybe from the fact she was half-sitting in his lap, and his hand felt nice on her leg, and the rum was buzzing in her head.

“Then you can cut your fingers on guitar strings instead of glass.”

“Oh, you’ll think I’m really annoying,” she told him. “I play the same song over and over again until I have it down. The one I’m working on right now is really long, too, like it takes almost ten minutes to play.”

“You’re not gonna annoy me.” He was doing that thing again, saying so little and yet everything. Beth felt her face flush.

“No?” She couldn’t help asking, needing the confirmation her musical presence wouldn’t be a nuisance. After he got better from the sickness that swept through the farm, Glenn had asserted that Beth’s music helped him and was nice to listen to. But how many childhood days had been spent anxiously waiting for Maggie and Shawn to leave the house, so she could do the same thing—play songs on the piano by loop until the fine muscles of her hand knew them by memory—without being called annoying?

“Nah, it won’t.” He squeezed her leg again. Another physical confirmation.

“Okay,” Beth agreed shyly. “If you’re sure.”

“I am.”

Their talk continued like that, whatever passing thought that grabbed Beth’s attention passing through her lips. More than half the bottle of rum was consumed in that time; Daryl cut her off after her third glass.

“I ain’t being responsible for your first bad hangover,” he told her. Though she pouted, she put the glass on the coffee table and conceded.

It was terribly dark when it was time for her to go home. Thick cloud cover blotted out the stars and moon. With alcohol likewise dimming any shyness inside her, Beth grappled in the dark until she caught hold of Daryl’s hand. She giggled as he helped guide her, tripping, back to the house. Usually, when he walked her home, it was to the front door, but not this time. He brought her to the back, which was a much shorter walk.

“You best not fall down those stairs goin’ to bed,” he whispered. “You break your neck and Hershel will break mine.”

That made Beth giggle all the more. “Daddy would never.”

Though much of their talk had been anything but cheery—how could it be, with Philip Blake hanging over them like the heavy, dark clouds above?—Beth felt light and carefree in a way she hadn’t for… well, six-hundred forty-eight days.

When the back door of the house swam into vision, hardly discernible in the shadows of the night, Beth reached for the handle. It became an anchor as she half-turned back to Daryl and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Goodnight!”

“Night, Bess,” floated back to her as she slipped inside. She had to hold tight to the stair railing to keep her full balance, but when she fell into her bed, she was happier than she had been in more than a year. And if she had a headache pinching her brain when she got up to do chores with Carl by the light of a new dawn, she would never admit it.

As of March eleventh, her guitar took up semi-permanent residence in the Dixon camper.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Four: Mid to Late March, Year 2

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:12.

One day in mid-March, Beth came downstairs at just the right time to see Maggie, Glenn, and Daddy disappearing behind the study door. She smiled to herself, knowing what surely must be coming. Though Maggie, Glenn, and Daddy stayed tight-lipped about what was discussed, Beth still sat at her piano before dinner that night to play Can’t Help Falling in Love while the farm residents came in to sit at the table.

The others might have been a little confused at her private joke, but Glenn was smiling like the cat that ate the canary, and Maggie swatted at Beth’s head as she played until, laughing, she gave it up. Beth abandoned the keys to throw her arms around first Maggie’s neck and then Glenn’s.

Things moved very quickly on the farm after that closed door conversation.

Preparations for a celebration—though not a wedding—began to take place. The ceremony was small and private, taking place in Daddy’s study. Beth played several roles: ringbearer, maid of honor, best man, and witness all in one. She didn’t question the origins of the ring too much, though she knew for a fact there were no jewelry stores around outside the city. Atlanta, as far as they were concerned, belonged to the dead. None of them had been back since it fell.

Beth knew that meant the ring, pretty and sparkling on Maggie’s left hand, must have come from a walker. It was clean, though, and Maggie was thrilled to have it, so who was she to question it? When Daddy asked for it, Beth placed the ring in Glenn’s hand and watched him slide it onto her sister’s finger. She hoped Mama and Shawn were watching, that the missing pieces of their family were there, literally, in spirit as Maggie Greene became Maggie Rhee.

As for the celebration, just a few days after the small wedding, Beth was hunting around the farm for Judith, wanting to bring her in to paint her nails. She, Maggie, Carol, and Michonne were all doing theirs, the only approximation of a bachelorette party or bridal shower they could really give Maggie, and Beth didn’t want to exclude Judith, little as she was. Rick was on duty and Carl was practicing with the BB gun. Neither she nor Carol had Judith, which meant she had to be with one of two other frequent caregivers: T-Dog or Daryl.

Peeking out the windows confirmed what she suspected: T-Dog was checking the beehives, an activity he wouldn’t haul Judith along for, and the baby in question was sitting on the front porch steps with Daryl and Merle. The brothers had their heads dipped close together, reading something from a large sheet of paper Daryl held open before them. Judith was propped in his lap, and if Beth had to guess, the way the paper wavered and shook from time to time was due to Judith hitting her little hands against it inquisitively. She was a curious baby, always watching, always exploring.

She crawled all over the place when let down, both inside and outside, and at nine months old, she was already trying to pull herself up on furniture. Sometimes, when those old, habitual morose thoughts entered her head, Beth mulled over the fact that Judith had been in the world now for longer than her mother had carried her and known her.

No such thoughts were in her head as Beth stepped out the door to collect the baby from the hunters. She leaned over Daryl’s sitting figure, meaning to pluck Judith from his lap, but her hands ended up braced on her thighs instead as she inched closer to see what they were reading. Before her was a pork butchering diagram.

“What’re y’all doing?” She asked, though it was obvious what was coming. Beth thought of the pigs and how happy they were to see her each morning, curlicue tails twitching and excited huffs filling the air. They didn’t usually butcher pigs in-house on the farm, preferring to sell the animals. Those days, of course, were long gone.

“Learnin’ to make sourdough,” Merle said sarcastically at the same time Daryl gave the more accurate and honest answer, “Figurin’ out how to slaughter a hog.”

Beth pushed aside the urge to flick Merle on the back of the head as she studied cuts such as ‘ribs’ and ‘leg ham’. She would be lying if she didn’t say her mouth watered a bit at the ‘bacon’ label. “Where’d this come from?”

She had never seen it before and doubted it had been found among the extensive backlog of agriculture and livestock materials on the farm. “Glenn picked it up on one of his runs, long time ago. Been holdin’ onto it since.”

“Little out of season for butcherin’, spring and all,” Merle took up his brother’s explanation. “Lucky we got spoiled ass pigs at our disposal.”

Beth did roll her eyes at the older Dixon brother, though he couldn’t see it, and reached over the younger’s head for Judith. “I think what you meant to say,” she said, taking Judith and settling her on her hip, “is, ‘thanks, Beth, for feeding the pigs so well they can be slaughtered in any season’.”

“Ain’t never seen pigs get honeycombs as treats, of all damn things, ’til comin’ here.”

Taking a moment to narrow her eyes at the back of Merle’s head, Beth settled Judith more comfortably on her hip and tamped down her annoyance. Rather than continue their little back-and-forth, she said, “Well, have fun, and don’t tell me which pig it is. Me and Judith have a nail appointment to get to.”

Beth took Judith inside with her, to the living room-turned-nail salon. The windows were open, letting in the gentle spring air, and keeping the nail polish fumes from invading the room. Maggie was arranging glass bottles of nail polish on the coffee table, lightest to darkest, in various colors. Carol had already started, filing away at Michonne’s nails.

“Found Judy,” Beth announced to them, carrying the baby with her to the armchair. Though Judith immediately started trying to wriggle her way down, Beth didn’t dare set her on the floor to wreak havoc on the waiting polish bottles. She fit Judith into her bouncer instead, pressing one of the buttons so that a tinny rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star began to play. It would entertain Judith long enough, surely, to get her tiny nails swiped with a layer of color.

“What color do you think we should give her?” Maggie asked, scrutinizing the bottles. “Or should we do a rainbow?”

“Rainbow,” Beth decided. “They’ll be more fun to look at.”

While Beth helped keep Judith’s attention away from the wet polish by singing her silly songs, Maggie caught her tiny hand and began painting. Judith’s left hand quickly became decorated with pink, purple, blue, green, yellow, and orange pastel nail polish. Her right hand got the same treatment and, after Beth had blown on her nails to make sure they were dry and Judith was at no risk of ingesting wet nail polish, she was freed to bat at the hanging toys attached to the bouncer.

Peeking over her shoulder, Beth saw Carol meticulously painting Michonne’s nails with emerald polish that looked stunning against her dark skin. Her attention was drawn back to hers and Maggie’s own nail session when her sister asked, “What color do you want?”

Beth chose for herself a soft lilac that reminded her of the prized bush Mama used to tend to. It was under Maggie’s care now. The bush was just getting its green leaf buds; the flowers wouldn’t come in for another month or so.

“You packed fast,” Beth told Maggie as she began running the brush across her nails. For the past few days, she had heard Maggie and Glenn rifling through the room, packing various belongings. The boxes were carted across the farm to the guest house. When, feeling nosey, Beth had looked into the room, she found it emptier each time.

“We wanted to get out of your hair,” Maggie said with a sardonic little smile. Beth blushed, recalling the evening she inadvertently called Glenn and Maggie out for being too loud during sex. “Don’t make that face, it’s not your fault. We both wanted the space, too, and it’s available, so why not use it?”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Maggie switched hands and continued painting. After getting Judith situated, they had moved to the floor together, sitting cross-legged facing each other.

“Still going to ask Carl to move up there with you?”

“Yeah.” Maggie’s suggestion that she use her soon-to-be-empty room as a private living room of sorts hadn’t really appealed to Beth. If she was honest, she didn’t want to be alone towards the end of the long hall upstairs. Given the choice, which she was, she would choose Carl to be her new next door bedroom neighbor. While Beth’s nails dried, Maggie held up the bottle of lilac polish next to various shaded of purple glitter until she found a good match.

When it was Maggie’s turn to have her nails done, she chose a robin’s egg blue with silver glitter to go over top. Something borrowed, something blue, Beth thought to herself as the sunlight caught and shimmered on Maggie’s ring. Carol’s were a cheery coral once Michonne was done with them.

Later that day, when she met Daryl for their turn on watch, he picked up one of her hands to study her nails in the last light of day as the sun set. He lifted it up and splayed her fingers, watching the golden light flash over the glitter. “Pretty.”

“Daryl Dixon thinks my nails are pretty,” she teased, taking great joy in the way he bashfully ducked his head and the slight flush on his cheeks. “How’d your work go today?”

Beth made it a point not to look toward the pig pen, lest she try to determine which one it was that Daryl and Merle had chosen for the slaughter. While she fed them every morning and often scratched their heads affectionately, the pigs didn’t have names. Neither did the chickens, aside from Bitey, and there were little if any warm feelings there. Daddy had been careful to impart on her the risk that getting attached to the animals raised for food carried for his sensitive daughter.

“Merle’s knife came in real handy,” he told her. When Beth pulled a face, knowing how often that knife was turned on walkers, Daryl smirked and reassured her, “We sanitized the thing first.”

“It kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?” Beth mused. “A butcher with a knife hand being a cut above the rest.”

He shot her a deeply unimpressed look at her horrible pun, but Beth only smiled. The next evening, they had roasted ham that was basted with honey prior to cooking, and Beth had to admit that when her mouth was watering over it, the identity of the pig that provided the meal meant little to her. At the end of the meal, Beth and Maggie still washed dishes together. Maggie still waved to her as she left for watch with Daryl.

But when she returned home, the house was noticeably emptier and quieter than she was used to. It was Maggie and Glenn’s first night in their new house. Carl and Judith, unless the latter had woken hungry, were typically asleep when she returned home each night. Rick left for a watch shift when Daddy returned from his, and Daddy went straight to bed each night after his turn.

As she climbed the stairs to her room, Beth’s chest ached. It wasn’t the same as the empty, jagged cavern of loss that she still felt from time to time. This ache, though it pricked at her eyes as well, was full of a weighty, bittersweet joy. She had wanted nothing more than for her sister to get this, for Daddy to experience a daughter getting married. Though it was a huge risk, and though Judith was not yet a year old and they all held their breath over Judith’s existence in this world, Beth hoped Maggie got to have a baby, too.

For that night, though, she had to content herself with lingering in the doorway on the other side of the bathroom that connected their rooms, peering into the shadowy emptiness that now filled Maggie’s. She smiled to herself, knowing Mama would be so happy for Maggie, and imagined how excited Shawn would be to have Glenn for a brother.

Tomorrow she would help Carl cart his stuff upstairs, this brother the universe or perhaps the grace of God had given her to ease the pain of losing Shawn. But for tonight, she would sleep alone in her little stretch of upstairs hallway.

Unsurprisingly, Philip Blake had to rear his awful head to besmirch the joy they felt on the farm. He called to ask, just a week after Maggie and Glenn were married, if Hershel and Beth would mind terribly much coming over? He hated to call so last minute, of course, but some things could not be controlled, and there was something he really wanted the two of them to see.

Neither were thrilled with this proposition, especially since it came in the afternoon, meaning it would almost certainly be dark out by the time they arrived home. They were still in no position to say ‘no’ to the man; Rick’s scouting and safe zone plans were still on paper. So, Beth settled into the driver’s seat of the old truck again, with Daddy sitting on the passenger side of the bench seat.

Beth took a deep breath through her nostrils and let it out through her mouth. Woodbury was quickly becoming her least favorite word to hear. “Ready, Daddy?”

“As I can be, baby.”

She began easing the truck backwards, out of the garage. As she did so, Maggie waved for them to stop. The windows were down, letting in the cool, soft spring air. She hoisted herself up on the passenger side door and leaned through the open window to press a kiss to Daddy’s cheek. Then she scurried around the front side of the truck to repeat the same thing on the driver’s side, kissing Beth in turn.

“Y’all be safe,” she told them, trying to smile, but failing immediately. “I still think I should go, too.”

“No, honey,” Daddy said, not for the first time that day. We can’t act out like that. It went unsaid but it hung between them. “You hold down the farm until we get back, okay? You’re still a Greene, even with that ring on your finger.”

Maggie did manage a smile after that; nothing made her happier that March than her new marriage to Glenn. “Okay,” she said, “I can do that. I’ll see y’all later.”

With an extra goodbye bestowed on them, Maggie stepped back and stood watching as Beth turned the truck and began driving down the long path to the gate, where Rick and Daryl stood waiting. They opened the gate for Beth to ease the truck through, and Rick reminded them that he would leave the farm and come for them if they weren’t back by nightfall.

“We’ll do our best,” Daddy tried to reassure Rick. Beth went with a mumbled, ‘no promises’. Rick was on Daddy’s side of the truck and Daryl on hers. While Daddy reminded Rick of a few tasks that needed to be done that day, Beth turned to her own side, where Daryl was leaning against the driver’s side door.

She met his eyes, which were darker than they typically were, and her stomach gave a butterfly ring flutter to see it.

“Hey,” she said softly, “don’t worry too much about me, okay?”

“I’ll try my best,” he returned, equally as quiet. Beth gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

“I’ve always come back so far, huh?”

“Just make sure to do it again.” Beth nodded, a silent pledge, before she shifted her foot off the brake and took herself and Daddy out of the safety net the farm had become. She pulled onto the road and began to remind herself that she was fine, this was fine, everything would be fine, as she turned them toward Woodbury.

Still, she couldn’t help telling Daddy, “I hate this.”

“I do, too, honey.” With the warming weather came a thawing not only of the land but of the walkers. They scooted along the road like disconcerting, wriggling beasts, drawn by the sound of the truck’s engine. Those more able-bodied shuffled along the roadside here and there, bumping into one another and stumbling over rocks.

“There’s more of them around,” Beth noted. This didn’t seem like a coincidence.

“Probably making their way out of the city,” Daddy reassured her, but it did nothing to calm the suspicion rising inside her. Philip Blake had a steady supply of walkers, or at least knew where to round some up, as proven by his insane fighting ring.

“Maybe.” No need to put her doubts in Daddy’s head, she decided. Jimmy’s gun felt heavy in its holster as she navigated the truck carefully around the walkers. Daddy was the one to teach each of them to shoot, just as Rick was now improving Carl’s skills. She knew he was as fair of a shot as they came but that didn’t little to soothe her worries.

Unfortunately, the road to Woodbury had become so familiar that, even with the walker roadblocks, it flew by in the blink of an eye. All too soon those damned gates were looming large before her. For the very first time, Blake wasn’t waiting outside for them. This raised the fine hairs on the back of Beth’s neck.

The only thing worse than looking at Blake was not knowing where he lurked.

“I guess we should knock,” she grumbled, parking the truck alongside the other vehicles that sat in Woodbury’s parking lot. Beth’s palm itched with the urge to reach for the gun at her hip. She curled her fingers into a fist instead, letting the nails cut into her palm.

“It would be rude not to,” Daddy said, sounding nearly sardonic. Beth wasn’t in the mood for jokes, not here, not now. She took a deep breath, inhaling deceptively soft and sweet spring air, and squared her shoulders.

God, but she hated this place.

There was no need to knock. Before they were close enough to reach out toward the gate, it was swinging open, one of the guards shouting down from his tower to another on the ground. “Hey, tell the Governor the girl’s here!”

The girl. A chill ran down Beth’s spine despite the warming sun overhead.

Inside the gate, Woodbury was the same as ever: a deceptively cheery community, with children playing in the streets as their parents hung laundry on the line and watered their gardens. The illusion was shattered when Blake came jogging toward them, an unsettling excitement shining in his usually dull eyes.

“Just the faces I wanted to see!” Though she wore one of her signature cardigans over her blouse, his jovial tone left Beth feeling exposed. She pulled that cardigan tightly around herself and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Why are we here?” Her brusque tone only gave Blake pause for a fraction of a second. Then he smiled and clapped a hand on Daddy’s shoulder, as if they were old buddies.

“That’s our Beth, huh?” Blake asked. Beth’s stomach revolted at the word our. “Always getting straight to business, isn’t she? C’mon, then, Milton’s waiting for us.”

At the name ‘Milton’, alarm bells began going off in Beth’s head. She shared a look with Daddy and saw her own fear mirrored back to her. Considering Milton’s line of work in Woodbury, nothing good was waiting for them at the end of the path Blake was leading them on. When she extended a hand to her father, Daddy was quick to wrap his around Beth’s.

He gave hers a reassuring squeeze as they followed behind Blake’s quick pace. They were led to Milton’s lab and ushered inside by Blake, his hand moving frenetically as he waved them ahead of him.

“Guests are here!” He called out as if they had entered a party. Instead, they were met with the sight of an old woman laying prone on a hospital bed. Her chest rose and fell thanks to the intubation tube protruding form her mouth. A tape player sat beside her head, playing the voice of a young man recounting a story about Easter Sunday: singing hymns in church, dyeing eggs, eating roast for dinner with a bouquet of lilies on the table.

Milton smiled. “Excellent. Welcome, Greenes, this lovely lady is Mrs. Yearwood. That voice you hear is her son, Jacob. He very kindly agreed to record a tape for us to help his mother maintain a small bit of awareness. Of course, without an EEG, the awareness is only a hypothesis. That’s what these experiments are for, to test my hypothesis.”

There was a long pause. The blood roared in Beth’s ears. She had a feeling that she knew the answer to Daddy’s question before he even asked it. “How… how do you test it?”

“Well,” Milton had taken on a tone of showmanship; he was a magician, now, eager to reveal his trick, to let them in on his secret, “first, we remove this.”

He took hold of the tube and pulled. It made a wet sound as it exited Mrs. Yearwood’s throat. Without a breathing apparatus to do the work for her, Mrs. Yearwood’s frail, bird-bone chest stuttered and went still.

“Now we wait,” Milton glanced down at his watch, noting the time. “I’ve found that the longer a tape plays, the longer reanimation takes. Mrs. Yearwood listened to the tape for two hours before you arrived. Her predecessor, an older gentleman named Martin, listened for ninety minutes. His reanimation took six minutes. Should my hypothesis hold true, Mrs. Yearwood should be joining us in about seven minutes or so.”

Beth took a step back toward Daddy. She hadn’t been there for Shawn or Mama; her hand had stayed the process for Jimmy. Though she had seen death and seen walkers, she had never seen the bridge between the two. Daddy took hold of her hand, his dry and papery while hers was clammy and cold. He gave her fingers a squeeze before asking Milton, “How did Mrs. Yearwood pass?”

“It was naturally her time,” Milton said, eyes flicking between his watch and the body before them. Blake, for his part, stood in the doorway, leaning against it as he observed. Before Daddy could ask, Milton continued, “Martin was ill. Cancer. He was receiving treatments before, but, well… anyway, I’ve also found that those who have time to prepare for death perform better than those that die more… abruptly.”

“Milton’s been doing this since the beginning,” Blake said from the doorway. “And every time, he gets a little bit closer to cracking the code of maintaining cognizance.”

Beth thought of Penny. The music, the routine, the feedings. Blake already had the code; did Milton know that? Surely he did. Why else would he be doing these ‘experiments’?

Because Penny can’t be a test subject, she realized. She’s too valuable to Blake.

Others must suffer, must die, must perform for Milton, for Penny’s benefit.

“Four minutes to go,” Milton informed them. Beth found she couldn’t look at any of the men in the room, not even Daddy, so she focused on Mrs. Yearwood instead. Her skin was wrinkled and worn; she had lived a long life before she had succumbed to this. The lined cheeks were as pale as the pillow beneath her head, a head crowned with a white gossamer cloud of hair.

Someone had clipped a pearl-studded barrette near her temple to keep the hair off her face.

Her lips were blue, just like the veins visible beneath her thin, translucent skin.

“Three minutes,” Milton updated. There were restraints around her wrists, tethering her to the bed rails. Raking her eyes down the sheet covering Mrs. Yearwood’s body, Beth saw similar bindings peeking out near her feet. Restraints were probably a good idea. Beth thought of all the walkers in the barn, how they milled around and bumped into one another and became so… excited… every time they saw a living person.

Blake left his post by the door, coming to peer over Milton’s shoulder. Mrs. Yearwood hadn’t so much as twitched since her last breath. She was still as, well, death. But that was soon to change, Beth knew.

Milton’s two- and one-minute warnings passed in a thick air of sick anticipation. They were creeping toward eight minutes when it began. Quickly, Milton turned the volume up. Jacob Yearwood’s voice dominated the space.

I tried to write my name in cursive with the magic crayon, but it ended up looking like gibberish, remember, Mom?

A croaking breath expanded Mrs. Yearwood’s chest.

And all Tammy’s eggs were pink that year. No one could convince her to use any other dye.

Her crepey eyelids fluttered open and her wizened lips pulled back to reveal slightly crooked, yellowed teeth.

Remember, Gran insisted she didn’t need any help with the deviled eggs, even though she was more than half-blind by then? She used cinnamon instead of paprika by mistake.

“Hello, Mrs. Yearwood! Have a nice nap?” Milton asked. Perhaps she had cataracts before her death, or perhaps her body had already begun to decay before the breathing tube was removed. Either way, the whites were tinged gray and the pupils were milky in a sea of watery blue as they locked on Milton’s face. Something between a growl and a groan rumbled up from her throat.

Like a doctor, Milton withdrew a pin light and shined it into Mrs. Yearwood’s eyes. The clouded pupils dilated and she rose from the bed with a speed that didn’t match her frail body. Deeper, more desperate growls emitted from her as Mrs. Yearwood homed in on Milton’s hand. She flung herself with frightful strength and abandon, straining so hard against the restraints binding her to the bed that the terrible, sick sound of breaking bones became an undercurrent to her growls.

Just as when Penny’s scalp ripped, the injuries infuriated Mrs. Yearwood. She thrashed harder, bound wrists and ankles be damned, and Milton stood over her frowning with disapproval.

“Mrs. Yearwood,” Milton said firmly, sounding for all the world like he was scolding a toddler, “you need to calm down!”

The same could be said for Beth. Fight or flight had taken affect in her body, adrenaline coursing in her veins, and were it not for the hold Daddy had on her hand, she would have ran by now. He held her fast, though, so it was that Beth bore witness when Blake stepped forward to lay a heavy hand on Milton’s shoulder. He was frowning, too, and when Milton looked over his shoulder at him, Blake shook his head decisively.

Looking disappointed and not a little defeated, Milton withdrew a gun from his holster and pressed the barrel to Mrs. Yearwood’s temple.

When Beth helped Jimmy to his death, the gory aftermath had spewed away from her, staining the snow. She was on the far side of Mrs. Yearwood, though, so all that still-warm blood splattered her face and dampened her hair and clothing. Her scream was lost to the loud shot, distorted by the ringing in her ears thanks to the gun firing in such close quarters.

Daddy drew her under his arm, curling her into her side, as if the damage hadn’t already been done. This wasn’t Milton’s house, this was the farm; it wasn’t spring, it was winter. There was crunchy snow beneath her boots and she was cold, but not her hands, her hands were warm, because Jimmy’s hot blood was staining them.

Her cheeks weren’t cold, either, because she was crying, and she hated herself for it, hated that she was showing her weakness in front of Blake of all people.

Breaths dragged painfully down her throat and into her lungs as she gasped for them. No, she was not on the farm, the gun was not in her hand, Jimmy was long dead. You’re in Woodbury, she reminded herself. You’re not home. You’re not safe. You can’t act like this here.

She took another burning breath through her mouth, deep, letting it fill her lungs with the heat of it, tasting the odd and awful metallic tang of blood and gunpowder, and pushed herself away from Daddy to right herself.

“I’m sorry,” she said, pulling her sleeves over her hands and bunching the fabric in her palms. If there was blood on them, she didn’t want to see. “I’m fine.”

Neither Daddy nor Milton looked like they believed her. Genuine concern was coloring her father’s face, and Milton seemed remorseful at the least, but Blake grinned. “Good! Penny’s excited to see you. Milton, why don’t you explain more of Mrs. Yearwood’s process to Hershel while Beth takes a walk with me?”

“I don’t think—” Daddy began, but Beth shook her head. It was as he had been telling Maggie earlier; they were in no position to be arguing with this dangerous man.

“I’ll go,” she told her father. Beth couldn’t bring herself to make an empty promise that she was fine. She already wasn’t as she stepped away from Daddy to follow Blake, careful not to look at Mrs. Yearwood for too long. The power of the gun had thrown her so that she laid with her upper body hanging off the bed. Blood was still dripping from the exit wound. Beth was thankful her ears were still ringing and she couldn’t hear it.

I wonder where the bullet went, she thought, following Blake through more of Milton’s shop and out the back door.

Of course, it was the back door, just like when her face was cut and swollen from Blake’s ring. He couldn’t let his people see her painted in blood. It was through the backways, the alleys between the outermost houses and the fence, that they traveled as far as they could before venturing, quickly, to the apartment building he lived in. Only once they were in the privacy of the stairwell that he commented, “You’ve seen someone die like that before.”

I’ve been the reason someone died like that before. “Yes.”

“Someone you were close to?” He framed it as a question, but Beth knew better than to interpret it as anything other than a statement. She nodded anyway and left it at that. Blake didn’t get to know about Jimmy. When her silence stretched out for a flight of stairs, he changed tack. “Noticed your nails were painted. You covered your face, when Milton shot Mrs. Yearwood. Penny loves having her nails painted, but I’m no good at it. Think you could do them for her?”

The prospect of having to touch Penny Blake that much made her blood run cold in her veins. “Sure.”

“Excellent!” At the top of the stairwell, he held the door open for her. “She’ll be so excited.”

Though her body very much did not want to, Beth forced herself to follow him down the hallway to his apartment. Upon walking in, he quickly snatched something off the couch: a lacy bra that he balled into his fist, neck turning red. “Sorry about that.”

“Her name’s Andrea, right?” She was surprised to hear herself ask, but she was so tired of this game, of Blake holding things over her head. Beth knew things, too. “I’ve only met her the once when we first visited, but, you know, all the stuff with Shane… I’ve heard about her for a while now.”

“Andrea,” Blake repeated, nodding, looking nonplussed at Beth’s probing. “Yeah, Andrea.”

“Does she know about Penny?”

“Uh, no.” The bra was stuffed into Blake’s pocket. He walked toward the bedroom door, Penny’s, and turned the handle. “Far as she knows, Pen’s bedroom’s always closed as a memorial of sorts.”

Penny herself stumbled from the dark recesses of the room, blinking as she came into the light. A soft gurgle fell from her lips as she looked up at her father. He reached a hand out, ruffling her hair lightly. “Hey, baby girl. Beth’s here to see you again.”

Another gurgle of acknowledgement. “Milton’s never found another person as… responsive as her?”

“Not yet,” Blake confirmed, stepping past Penny to retrieve something from the bedroom. He came back with a half-mask made of thick leather, straps streaming from it. “I hate putting this on her, but its necessary if I take her jacket off. Come here, Penny.”

She had been watching Beth but turned at her father’s bidding, shuffling closer to him. When she saw what he held in his hands, a low growl emitted from her. “She hates it, too,” Blake said, kneeling before his daughter. “C’mon, baby, just for a little while, okay? Beth’s gonna paint your nails for you, but we can’t have you trying to bite, can we? You know it’s gotta be this way, one or the other, for everyone to be safe.”

Though she continued to growl, Penny remained still, letting Blake fit the mask to her face and secure the straps in place. Once her mouth was covered, he reached for the clasps behind her back, loosening them. This brought his face incredibly close to hers; Penny pressed her cheek to his. Beth wondered if her teeth gnashed beneath the mask, unable to sink themselves into her father’s neck.

It looked affectionate enough on the surface.

Blake was careful as he worked Penny’s arms out of the sleeves. Like her legs, the skin was mottled with signs of decay.

“Alright, there we go. Here, let’s sit you on the couch with Beth, and I’ll get some nail polish from your room for you girls to use.”

Beth could feel the blood drying on her face. It pulled at her skin a bit, itched against her scalp. “Um, shouldn’t I…?”

“No,” Blake said from Penny’s bedroom. “It’ll be good for her self-control. Desensitize her to it a bit.”

She didn’t agree in the least bit. Still, she perched herself on the edge of the couch beside Penny, and gave the undead girl a tremulous smile before checking her hands. They had bloodstains on them, too, probably from when she shielded her face, as Blake had said.

You can do this, you’re fine, her mouth is covered, she can’t bite you.

Blake returned with a bottle of glittery, baby pink nail polish and held it out to Beth. “Her favorite.”

“Pretty.” Her hand shook a little bit as she took it from him.

“Don’t be scared,” Blake told her. “She can’t bite. I’ll stay here this time, just in case.”

“Okay.” Beth set the nail polish on the coffee table and glanced at Penny. She sat calmly enough, waiting. Steeling herself for the cold, rubbery feel of her undead skin, Beth reached over and took Penny’s little hand in hers.

“You know, it’s not true, what they say.” Beth held Penny’s hand in one of hers and reached for the nail polish bottle with the other.

 “What?”

“About nails. They don’t keep growing… after. Penny’s haven’t.” Dead or not, the glittery polish took to the nail just as it was supposed to. The pale pink looked too delicate, too new, in contrast to her gray skin.

“Well, that’s lucky, I guess. You don’t have to cut them.” Penny had become intrigued by the activity. The thin skin of her eyelids were a deep, deep purple, as if she were wearing matte plum-colored shadow. Beth felt more than saw the moment Penny spotted the blood on her hands. The little, decaying fingers tensed in her loose hold, a wheezing breath sounding from the little girl. She leaned closer, bending herself in half, sniffing at Beth’s hand.

Beth could hear Penny’s teeth clicking together beneath her mask.

She took a deep breath, trying to keep the yawning, instinctual fear at bay, but all she got was the scent of musky decay filling her nose. Were it not for that mask, she would be a goner.

“Keep painting,” Blake instructed her. “She’ll calm down in a minute.”

Swallowing back the terror in her throat, Beth did just that. Though Penny kept sniffing, the teeth clicking stopped as she watched the repetitive strokes of the brush across her nails. When Beth finished her left hand, she laid it in Penny’s lap and reached for the right, repeating the process.

As she worked, though, she found a roadblock. Penny Blake didn’t appear to have a nail on her right pinky finger. Curious, Beth leaned closer to double-check; the light, as always, was low in the apartment. As she did so, Beth forgot herself, forgot the blood soaked into her hair and staining her face.

Penny did not.

The scent intrigued her once again. Sniffing in earnest, she brought her face to the crown of Beth’s head, pressed her nose there.

“Just stay still,” came Blake’s voice through the residual ringing and the blood roaring in her ears. “No need to excite her.”

Beth nearly choked on the sob she held back behind her teeth when she felt Penny’s jaw working beneath the leather mask.

“She lost that nail early on. Never grew back in.”

Despite her best efforts, tears slid down her face, heated with terror as they burned her cheeks. The one saving grace was that she still held Penny’s hands and, walker though she was, she was still a little girl. Beth was still stronger than her. She held fast to those hands, feeling the bones creak beneath her palms, refusing to let go, refusing to give her the chance to grab, to scratch.

“It’s good for her, smelling blood. Especially when she can’t have it. Desensitizes her, you know? Helps her learn boundaries.”

She thought that was bullshit, noted it as such in some far corner of her mind, while her forethoughts began chanting in prayer. Don’t let her bite me, don’t let her bite me, don’t let her bit me, pleasedontletherbiteme—Penny pressed her face painfully against the crown of Beth’s head. The mask was too thick for her to bite through but not so thick that Beth couldn’t feel the dull edge of her teeth as they scraped harmlessly against it.

Penny gave a huff of foul, indignant breath when it seemed to finally click that her attempts were futile. The undead girl rocked back, releasing Beth from the masked threat she bore.

Still, she didn’t let go of Penny’s hands, regardless of the fact that they were cold and felt disturbingly like mushrooms beneath her living skin.

“See?” Blake asked, sounding triumphant. “She knows better. Go ahead and finish her nails, huh? I’m sure Daddy Dearest must be itching to have you back with him. We shouldn’t keep our elders waiting.”

With her throat still in the vice grip of fear, Beth could do nothing other than nod as she continued to paint Penny’s remaining nails. Across from her, the girl continued to sniff, as if inhaling and savoring the scent of the gore that clung to Beth.

How she managed to keep her hands still enough to finish the job, she would never know. Blake was delighted once she was, raising Penny’s tiny gray hand up to her face to see. “Look how pretty, baby! Tell Beth ‘thank you’.”

A gurgling noise came from beneath Penny’s mask. Beth told herself it was merely coincidence. Still, she murmured ‘you’re welcome’ in response, lest she anger Blake. Pleased, Blake told Penny she could keep her hands free to admire them, and led his daughter back into her dungeon of a bedroom.

Then he slung his arm around Beth’s shoulders, a facsimile of familiarity, and led her through his apartment door. “Let’s go find Hershel.”

“That’s some pair of shoes,” Merle commented, smirking down at Beth’s purple, glittery high tops. Pulling them onto her feet had brought to memory early mornings of readying herself for school in a different life, a different world. Jimmy’s initials were still legible where he had written them on the right sole in permanent marker.

“My boots are still drying,” she told him. Was her voice as hollow as her chest felt? She didn’t live in that before world anymore, she lived in this one, and this world brought with it awful people and awful things.

“Get too much cow shit on them?” Merle continued to needle. Beth currently possessed neither the desire nor the energy to entertain anything other than the bleak reality they were in.

“No, an old lady’s brains.”

On that note, Daryl came through the camper door with his crossbow in hand. The bluntness of her words affected the brothers in different ways. While Merle—for once—was left speechless, Daryl was staring hard and searching at her face. Beth chose to look at the ground rather than at either of them. “Ready?”

“Yeah.” He came down the steps and came to walk beside her. Maggie and Glenn were still making rounds; they would catch up with them eventually, send them back to the guest house and wedded bliss. They had been kind to offer to take Beth’s shift, yes, but after cloistering herself away in her bedroom through dinner and washing Mrs. Yearwood’s blood and detritus from herself and her clothing, she had come to hate the empathetic silence she found herself in.

So, she put on her stupid old sneakers and went to ask Daryl if he wanted to do their usual watch rounds together before she began to lose her mind.

Now she was filling her lungs with soft evening air and the sky was blazing orange and red along the horizon as the sun slipped below it. Daryl was walking silent and solid beside her and, for the first time that day, she didn’t feel the chilling shadow of impending doom.

They had been walking for a few minutes before Daryl asked, “That true? What you told Merle?”

With no small amount of effort, Beth pulled her eyes away from the small, distant figures of Glenn and Maggie to meet his eye. She nodded. Daryl swore under his breath. “Anything else?”

Now Beth looked guiltily down at her hands, were her cuticles were picked raw and the nail polish was chipped off the majority of her nails. After taking a shower and washing her clothes and boots in the tub, Beth had sat on her bed wrapped in a towel and took to destroying her nails. “He had me paint his daughter’s nails.”

A shiver of memory shook her spine and tears pricked at the back of her eyes as she continued, “He took her straight jacket off and put a mask on her face instead. She didn’t hurt me, but… she would have, if she could. She tried.”

The silence beside her held none of the usual comfort Beth usually found in his quietude. When she looked back up at him, she found every line of his face hardened to a knife’s edge as he glared into the darkening sky. “Daryl?”

“I’m gonna kill him.” The ferocity in his tone caught her off-guard.

“You can’t,” she said, reaching over and catching him by the forearm. The muscles were tense beneath her palm. Beth slid her hand down toward his wrist and wriggled her fingers beneath his where they were clenched into a fist. After a few moments of effort, he let his fingers go lax, and Beth was able to thread hers between them. He let her take his hand and squeeze it but when she raised her eyebrows in question, he shook his head.

“I’m gonna.”

“I’ll start following you around the farm if you even think about leaving by yourself,” she threatened.

“I ain’t doin’ that,” he told her, “but I am killin’ him. First chance I get.”

In the dimming twilight, Beth realized he was serious. There was no hint of hyperbole in his voice or posture. It was weightier than a promise, more akin to a vow, and her shoulders shook anew, though this time with anticipation.

He meant it. Really meant it.

Beth was very aware of her heartbeat and its rhythm beneath her ribs.

“Okay,” she said, hardly any strength in her voice. Now it was his turn to squeeze Beth’s hand before letting go.

A Snippet From March:

For the first time in weeks, Bess didn’t touch her guitar when she came into the camper. That guitar’s residence in the corner of the little living room was a frequent point of discussion for Merle. It started with the guitar, he said, and sooner than later, she would be leaving her shoes—not the silly, purple ones she was wearing right now, but her worn and scuffed boots—then her books, her clothes, herself.

Daryl didn’t bother giving his older brother the confirmation his teasing tried to force out of him: he wouldn’t mind in the least bit.

“I’ll tell you all the sordid details,” she told him, bent in half as she undid the laces on her sneakers. “If you want.”

He had already heard them from Hershel, but he had a suspicion Bess needed to talk about it. That would be preferable to holding it in, than letting it fester. Though she wore long sleeves like always, his eyes flicked down to her left wrist.

“Tell me,” he said, setting his crossbow against the wall and sitting beside her on the floor where she was taking her shoes off. Daryl took hold of her ankles, swinging her socked feet into his lap.

Tell she did. As if he weren’t already pissed the hell off at the man, his opinion of the Governor tanked further as Bess told him about the experiments being run within Woodbury’s walls.

“I didn’t notice my boots until we got home,” she told him, staring down at her feet as if she still wore them. Daryl pressed his thumb into the arch of one foot and drew it upward. Bess sighed. “You wouldn’t believe the mess.”

Her eyes were unfocused. He wondered if she was recalling a snowy winter day, red on white, a smoking gun in her hand. Then she gave herself a little shake, as if bringing herself back into the present, and gave him a weak little smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I told you he’s sleeping with Andrea. Her bra was on his couch.”

It wasn’t funny, not really, but if she wanted to change the subject, he would let her. Merle probably would have cracked a joke about Andrea having a very specific kink, but Daryl simply listened. Sighing again, Bess leaned her head against the side of the couch. They were wedged in the small space between the couch and the wall, where she usually left her shoes. Daryl sat in the corner, watching her in the low candlelight.

“I just want things to be happy, you know? Maggie and Glenn got married, and I thought, ‘This is good. This is how it should be.’ And then Blake has to come around again and ruin things.”

He meant it; God, but he meant it, when he told Bess he would kill the sorry son of a bitch. She had gone quiet, staring at the wall above his head, and then the tears started to slip down her cheeks. It wasn’t the first time she had seen her cry, and just like all the other times, his heart gave an uncomfortable squeeze at the sight. There was something resigned about her tears now.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“You’re fine.”

“I just hate it.” Her arms were wrapped around her middle, hugging herself. “I hate him.”

“Me, too.”

Bess nodded, still staring above his head for a moment. Then her teary eyes slid to his, and though there was a watery edge to it, her smile was much stronger this time.

 “Thank you.”

“For what?” He asked, brows drawing together. He hadn’t done anything… yet.

“For being Daryl Dixon.” She shifted a foot, kicking him softly in the ribs.

“That ain’t much,” he said, thankful the light was too low for her to see the way his neck and ears burned.

Bess shook her head. “It’s everything.”

When he walked her home that night, and they paused on the back porch under the moonlight as had become their custom, Bess wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face there. Her breath tickled on his skin as he held her close, a hand splayed between her shoulder blades. The clean scent of floral soap filled his nose where it was pressed against her hair.

For the second time that night, he was thankful for the shadows. Just as she had on the night of her birthday, Bess pressed a kiss to his cheek before ducking back into the house.

If Merle still hadn’t run out of comments to make about her guitar being in their living room, he sure as hell didn’t need him spying Bess kissing his cheek during his watch rounds.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Five: April, Year 2

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. Romans, 13:8.

Now the only thing seeping into her hair was the warm sunlight as she moved through the forest, trying to place her footfalls in the same route Daryl took before her, though she wasn’t able to mimic the silent way he moved through the trees. Birds twittered and sang overhead, hopping among the branches, and Beth wondered how many of the bees that flitted among the flowers belonged to her and T-Dog’s hives.

“Think the baskets worked?” Beth asked, keeping her voice low and soft.

“Hope so.” It was warm enough already that Daryl was wearing sleeveless shirts again beneath his vest.

“Don’t tell me you’re tired of eating deer meat,” she teased. While she was tired of the gamey taste, she would never say so aloud. The time for being picky about food had long passed.

“You can be sick of somethin’ and grateful for it at the same time,” he said over his shoulder. There was a rustling from their left. With much less grace than the hunter just ahead of her, a walker came growling and stumbling through the branches. It dropped, an arrow buried in its forehead, before it could get within a yard of them.

“Thanks.” It was an ‘older’ walker, most of the hair gone with only a few tufts clinging to the mummified scalp, and its clothes had rotted away. Decay was so advanced that, though Beth paused to study it for a moment, its gender couldn’t even be discerned.

You can rest now, she thought to it, the only form of funeral this nameless soul would get.

It was cooler by the stream. She would’ve liked to dip her feet in, but they hardly had the time for that, so she settled for swishing her hand through the water instead. Tiny minnows scattered at her intrusion while Daryl gathered trout from the basket. The water became stained and blotched pink as he bled them.

“You come for just the hell of it?” He asked, though he didn’t really sound like he minded, as Beth snatched her hand back from the water.

“I thought I was here for company’s sake,” Beth returned. Rocking back, she sat on the bank and watched Daryl work. Each fish was slashed and strung with quick efficiency. Once the last one was on the line, he tied it securely around rock near the water and left the fish to keep cool. Daryl came to sit beside her, arms resting on his tented legs. Beth shot him a look. “If I knew we were gonna lollygag, I would’ve taken my boots off.”

“Go ahead.” He waved a hand toward the stream, but Beth wrinkled her nose.

“You go the water all bloody.” She scooted a little closer to him and laid her head on his shoulder. “I’ll just sit here with you instead.”

“You know fish shit in that water,” he pointed out, “but you had no problem puttin’ your hand in it.”

Beth looked at the hand in question and reached over, wiping the palm and back in turn against his jeans. These moments—quiet, private, simple—were becoming more common between them. And not just after their watch rounds.

Daryl might slip into the barn while she was grooming the horses, leaning against the wall and watching as she brushed their coats and manes. Or she would linger after dinner, staying downstairs in the living room, reading or playing her piano, if Daryl was chatting with Rick. They partnered often for card games at T-Dog’s, and Beth was no stranger to the Dixons’ front steps.

When they found themselves in one of these quiet moments, it was only a matter of time before Daryl posed the same question to her: “Doin’ alright, Bess?”

“Yeah,” she answered. “As I can be.”

Though it was a warm day, and though she was leaning against his side, a shiver ran down her spine as her mind turned unbidden to Penny Blake. That had been happening more and more often lately. Her scalp tingled with the memory of that awful, too-close feeling of the dead girl’s mouth. Eventually, through a series of watches, she had divulged the full story of what happened on her most recent trip to Woodbury to Daryl.

She refused to tell Daddy, not wanting to make him feel guilty. And she didn’t want to ruin Maggie’s newlywed happiness. And Carl was simply too young. That dwindled her confidants down to Daryl and Michonne, and the latter had absorbed the information with a stony face, and they had yet to speak on it more.

“You don’t gotta go back, you know.” That was categorically false. Rick was also privy to all knowledge of Woodbury, though that was less confiding and more reporting. Each time Beth returned, the maps she and T-Dog worked on got a little better, a little more detailed. And each information report fanned the fire that had been growing under Rick to do something.

“Yeah, I do,” she reminded him softly. “Who else is gonna get as much information as I can?”

It wasn’t a question of if she would walk through those gates again. It was when.

“You can tell Rick no.” It was always the same half-hearted debate. They both knew how it would end; their lines had yet to change.

“I could,” Beth conceded, “but I won’t.”

Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply, memorizing the cool, clean scent of the stream, the greenness of spring, the mud, Daryl. She wrapped her arms around his, squeezing herself closer to him for a moment before letting go.

“Come on,” she said, pushing herself to her feet. “Everyone’s gonna be waiting on us.”

It was a month early, with Cookie just shy of his second birthday, but Beth was also infected with that need to do something. While Rick’s took the form of puzzling over how to land a strike on Blake, Beth found herself setting a saddle on Cookie’s dappled coat. It wasn’t the first time he had worn the saddle, and he didn’t mind it half so much as he did his bridle, but this would be the first time he bore the weight of a person on his back.

Maggie was supposed to be helping her train the colt to ride. Beth had considered drawing straws with her sister to see who had to take the saddle first, but had ultimately decided to do it herself. She couldn’t control a lot in the life at the moment, but she could control this.

“Come on,” she told Cookie, scratching him between his ears before taking hold of his reins. “Let’s walk your jitters out.”

She led him from the barn into the soft spring sunlight spilling over the horse yard. The other horses milled about, much calmer than Cookie, who was tossing his head and gnawing at his bit. Dramatic, she chided him internally. She turned from Cookie to her small crowd of on-lookers. Daddy and Maggie she had expected; Daddy only agreed to let her start riding Cookie if he was close at hand. Carl—and the rest of the farm—were curious. Most had never seen farmwork of this type before, though Rick had completed horse riding training as a sheriff.

“Remember, baby, if he wants to throw you, don’t fight to stay in the saddle.” Daddy said, stopping Beth as she led Cookie out of the pen. Given his temperament, they had both agreed it would be safer for all if Beth took him out of not only the pen but the electric fence. “Just let yourself drop.”

“I don’t think he’s going to buck,” Beth said, tossing a look over her shoulder at Cookie. His eyes were bright, excited, but not scared or frenzied. “I think he’ll bolt, if anything.”

“Then you need to turn him,” Daddy reminded her. “Don’t let him run straight away, or he’ll be liable to run himself to exhaustion and take you with him.”

The first few rides used to be Shawn and Jimmy’s responsibility. Daddy never let Maggie or Beth in the saddle on a young horse until they had acclimated to having a rider.

But things had changed.

“You’re really gonna ride the devil horse?” Glenn asked, all excitement. His dark eyes shined under the brim of his baseball cap. Before she could answer, a hat was plopped on her head as well: Carl’s sheriff hat. Rick grinned at her.

“Seems like you need it more than Carl.” He ruffled Carl’s bared hair.

“And lose it?” She asked, taking the hat and returning it to Carl’s head. “I wouldn’t dare.”

“Girl’s braver than you, Darylina,” Merle goaded his brother, smacking him with his sheathed knife prosthetic. “You wouldn’t catch my baby brother dead in a saddle.”

“You don’t like horses?” Beth asked, thinking of all the times he stood against the wall while she groomed the horses. He never offered to help, never took up a brush.

“Hate ‘em.” Daryl confirmed, eyeing Cookie suspiciously. Beth tucked that fact away; she would be teasing him over it later. For now she only smiled and led Cookie forward. He walked compliantly enough as she led him by the reins, and he eventually stopped trying to shake the saddle from his back. Beth took both of these things as a sign of good luck. She brought him a decent way out from the fence before she brought Cookie to a stop.

“I’m gonna get on your saddle,” she told him softly, rubbing a palm against his muzzle. Then she reached into her pocket for quite the treat, a secret one she had hidden in the very back of the bottom shelf of the pantry for this very occasion: a sugar cube. When she first found them, her first thought had been to give them to Carol, but then Cookie’s face had come to her mind.

Carol had done wonders with the honey she and T-Dog harvested from the bees. It was a good sugar replacement, and much more bountiful than half a box of forgotten sugar cubes. Holding her palm flat beneath his nose, Beth let Cookie lap up the treat from her hand.

“If you don’t throw me,” she told him, giving him another scratch between the ears, “I’ll bring you more.”

While he was still amenable from his treat, Beth grabbed the reins and a handful of Cookie’s mane, planted her left foot firmly in the stirrup, and swung herself up into the saddle. No sooner did her weight meet his back than the horse was off, hooves pounding the newly sprung grass beneath them. Told you, she thought to Daddy, ever more yards behind her as Cookie ran. She let him go for a bit before pulling on the left rein, forcing him to stop his sprint and turn. Keeping the pressure on the left side, Beth managed to get him in a full circle before he was yanking too hard against her.

Afraid he would snap the reins, Beth let her hand go slack, and Cookie bolted once more.

This routine of bolting and turning circles was repeated over and over, for nearly a half hour, before Cookie wore himself out. Beth could smell his sweat; he had worked himself into a lather. Her arms and legs felt as if they had congealed into wobbly jelly from holding the reins and clinging to the saddle. She couldn’t imagine how Cookie’s legs must have felt.

Cookie huffed and shook his head, righting the bit in his mouth. Beth let him wander—at a walk now—while he calmed down.

“See?” She said, feeling just as shaky and worn-out as the horse. Taking a risk, she took the reins in one hand and leaned forward enough to give his head a scratch. “It’s not so bad, huh? Just you and me.”

He gave her another huff, almost as if disagreeing with her, and Beth laughed. It didn’t take much of a nudge to convince Cookie to turn back toward the farm. As he ran, Cookie had inched them closer and closer to the road. It was on one horizon, looming cracked and black behind them, and the farm, shrunk small with distance, waited for them on the other.

She let Cookie take his time returning them to the farm. He caught his breath as they did so, his ribs no longer flaring beneath her legs. Beth let herself settle into the saddle more comfortably. Cookie didn’t want to run anymore; she didn’t worry about him going anywhere other than home, to a long drink and more of the sugar cubes hidden in her pocket.

A sleepiness settled in among the buzzing in her muscles. Considering she was still in the saddle, and Cookie hadn’t run to the road or the forest, Beth was taking his first ride as a success. A major one. Beth was in desperate need of one.

That victory, which had sat warm and glowing in her chest while she was still in the saddle, had dimmed considerably by the time she stumbled stiff-legged into the Dixon camper that night. She had been stupid to think she could do her watch rounds with Daryl after taking Cookie out for his first saddled ride. Beth let herself fall onto the couch, taking it for herself, and stretched her aching legs in front of her.

“I’m gonna have to mentally prepare myself to climb upstairs later,” she lamented for herself, throwing an arm over her eyes. All the muscles in her legs ached, and she could have sobbed with the relief of laying down.

She felt Daryl lift one of her feet, hanging over the armrest of the small couch, and begin pulling the laces loose. Peeking from beneath her arm, she watched as he gently worked her boots off her feet for her. With his head bowed his hair fell forward, obscuring his face. What she could see of his features conveyed a contentedness that brought some of the warmth back to her heart.

The Dixon camper had come to feel homey to her. It was familiar and safe, and though the nights were no longer so frigid, and would be quite pleasant with a fire going, they hadn’t stopped their routine of spending time together in the privacy of indoors.

With her feet free, Daryl set her boots down next to the couch, and then walked around the coffee table to sit in the armchair on the other side. Beth rolled onto her side, tucking her hands beneath her cheek, and winced when her legs protested the movement.

“You’re crazy,” he told her, leaning back in his chair, “gettin’ on that damned horse.”

“Merle said you’re scared of horses,” she reminded him, quirking a brow. “Is that true? Mighty hunter Daryl Dixon is afraid of a colt?”

“I ain’t scared of ’em, I just don’t trust ’em.”

Beth narrowed her eyes at him, scrutinizing. “You got bit, huh?”

“Nah.”

“Kicked?”

Daryl shook his head. “Uh-uh.”

“Then what did a horse ever do to you?!” She asked, throwing a hand up in exasperation. The thought that anyone could dislike horses to the degree that Daryl did was simply unfathomable to her.

Now Daryl shrugged before surmising, “Exist.”

Beth rolled her eyes and rolled onto her back, staring up at the shadowy ceiling. “You’re impossible.”

“No one’s forcin’ you to be here, Bess,” he reminded her, which made her cheeks heat in a sudden blush. She chewed on her lower lip for a moment while she thought over this new facet of him some more.

“So, when you hand around the barn while I’m grooming them, and you’re holding up the wall, it’s definitely not because you’re scared of them?” All those moments were cast in a different light now as she recalled them. The way he watched her hadn’t merely been interest; he was waiting for something to happen, to intervene.

“It’s because I don’t trust the fuckers,” he confirmed.

“You would never ride on?”

“I’ll walk my feet off to the bone first, and then I’ll crawl ’til my arms are stumps, and then if someone throws me over a horse, I’ll let myself fall headfirst so I’ll break my neck.” Now she let her head loll, turning back to him, narrowing her eyes again.

“Dramatic,” she accused.

“Didn’t your old man tell you himself that that thing was liable to throw you off?” He pointed out. Beth raised a hand and waved the concern away.

“Any horse could, if you spook them enough. I knew Cookie wasn’t going to, not today, anyway. It’s not in his temperament.”

“They talk back to you or what?” Beth laughed out loud at the very concept. Her sudden amusement in the middle of their debate drew a small grin from Daryl as well.

“What a pair we’d make, huh? A horse whisperer and someone scared to death of them, even if he won’t admit it.”

“I ain’t scared,” he insisted anew, leaning forward a bit in his chair, “I just don’t trust them.”

“You know, two things can be true at the same time. I don’t trust walkers and I’m scared of them. See?” It hurt her to do so, but she rolled back on her side. Given the space constraints of the campers, they really weren’t so far from one another. There was only the coffee table between them. If she stretched her arm out as far as she could, she would almost be touching him.

“That’s just common sense,” he told her. She noted that he didn’t quite rebuke her point. Brows raising and mouth opening to call him out on it, Beth was cut off when he said, “You know, you ain’t all that easy yourself.”

His teasing her back surprised her so much that a laugh fell from her lips before she could stop it. Beth pushed herself up and mirrored his posture, leaning forward and meeting his gaze straight on. “Okay, rude. You know, you’re usually nice to me when I come over.”

“I took your boots off for you, Cinderella, that ain’t nice enough?”

“The prince puts her shoe back on at the end,” she corrected him. “You went out of order.”

“Sorry,” he said, humor still alight in his eyes. “Wasn’t much for fairytales growing up.”

“That’s okay, you can make up for your lack of knowledge by putting my boots back on before you walk me home.” It felt a little presumptive but she knew he would, if she asked. Or so she thought, but now Daryl was raising his brows at her.

“Gonna sleep in them?” He asked. “You barely made it up the steps.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. I still have to walk up all the stairs at home unless I wanna sleep on the couch and listen to Judith cry all night. She’s having sleep regression, you know.” The circles beneath Rick’s eyes were becoming impressive. Judith spent most of her nights awake, which meant her father did, too. Now that Carl had moved upstairs with Beth, the plan had been to put Judith in her own nursery, but that was quickly dashed when Judith decided she simply couldn’t sleep anywhere other than in Rick’s arms.

“Just sleep here,” he offered her. That blush bloomed in her cheeks once more. It wasn’t like she hadn’t spent the night here before. But that had been necessity, not an active choice she made. Staying the full night was quite a bit different than her old napping habit.

“Wouldn’t be the first time, huh?” She said with a nervous smile. “But then who would wake Carl up for chores? We might live in hell, but he’s still a teenage boy, and he likes to sleep in. Or try to, anyway.”

“You think it’s hell?” Some of the humor had sobered from his eyes.

“Not the farm,” Beth clarified, “and not the forest around it. But the road, and everything past it? Yeah, that’s hell.”

Quietude stole over them. Levity left Beth’s thoughts as they turned to memories of Penny and Blake and Woodbury. A tiny, cold, rubbery hand in hers. The bite of metal splitting her skin. Unfamiliar streets, unfamiliar faces. Mrs. Yearwood’s blood splattering on her face.

Beth took a deep, shaking breath and realized she had curled her hands into fists, her nails leaving half-moons on her palms when she straightened her fingers. Her voice had turned small and tremulous when she admitted, “I hate the idea of going back.”

They both knew she would. Rick was starting to craft contingency plans and they were all reliant on Beth’s intel she brought back from Woodbury. Aside from the fighting ring, no one but Beth had been so deep into Woodbury. She was certainly the only one who had been inside Blake’s apartment, though Daryl had come close the time he was left in the hallway.

“I know,” he said softly. It was enough, this quiet acknowledgment that what she had endured had value to it. The way Beth saw it, the longer Blake wanted her to play babysitter, the better. So far it had kept Maggie and Glenn from having to return. Carol, Michonne, T-Dog, Rick, and—most importantly—Carl had yet to be ‘invited’. If she could protect her friends and family this way, then Beth would gladly keep walking into hell.

Beth extended her hand between them and Daryl took it, giving her fingers a reassuring squeeze.

The stairs sucked.

Daryl left her boots untied when he helped her put them back on. After the grueling ascent to reach the hallway, all Beth had to do after shuffling to her bedroom was toe the boots off. She fell onto her bed and groaned into her pillow.

He was right. Even with the implications that would have come with it, she should have stayed.

She didn’t bother trying to get her jeans off, instead pulling a blanket over herself and closing her eyes tight. Before she drifted off to sleep, she performed her new nighttime routine: letting herself think of Blake and Penny, feel the fear the father-daughter duo plagued her with, and then locking all of that away in the back of her mind.

The stairs sucked no less in the morning but at least she had Carl with her. She held onto his arm with one hand and the banister with the other, gingerly moving down the stairs so as not to make the muscles in her legs any angrier at her than they already were.

“You’re not riding that horse again, are you?”

“No,” thank God, “it’s Maggie’s turn today.”

They had agreed to switching off on who would train Cookie each day. It was generous to call the day between a ‘rest’ day. Beth still had the animals to look after with Carl and Maggie had the garden to see to and prepare. Not to mention the dishes each night, though at least they could suffer through that one together.

“When do I get to ride?” Carl asked. Now that his shooting training was coming to a close, he was eager for a new responsibility. Being able to ride—truly ride, not just sit in the saddle while someone led the horse by the reins as he had in the past—was important to Carl. In lieu of learning how to drive, this was a marker of maturity in his mind. Impending adulthood.

“Cookie? Maybe never, with the way he acts. But I heard your dad asking mine which horse he thought would be good for a beginner to learn on.” Rick knew how to ride; it had been part of his sheriff training. “I bet you’ll be in the saddle soon and then you won’t be making fun of me, because your legs will be stiff, too.”

They went out to tend the animals, waving to Maggie and Glenn, already getting an early start in the garden, as they went. Carl milked the cow for all she was worth, but she was running dry. They would have to start rationing the butter until the pregnant cows dropped their calves later in the season. She was explaining as much to Carl as they left the cows to feed the pigs, but her eye caught on Glenn, no longer in the garden but at the fence line, talking to someone.

At first, when she saw the build and complexion of the man from the corner of her eye, she had thought it was T-Dog. But that couldn’t be right; he liked to help Carol with the meals, and breakfast had yet to be eaten. Turning her head for a better look, she noted that this man had a heavy beard and wore a dark, knit cap on his head.

“Hey,” she stilled Carl with a hand on her arm, “who do you think that is?”

The man came armed. Beth could see the barrel of his rifle peeking over his shoulder. He didn’t seem angry, though, he was gesticulating with his hands. Whatever words passed between him and Glenn, they were civil.

“I dunno,” Carl shrugged. “Probably not from Woodbury. Seems too nice.”

Beth gave a small huff of amusement as they continued to watch. Glenn called for Maggie over his shoulder, shouting at her to get Hershel, ‘for our company’. He said the last words with emphasis, louder, in an attempt to rouse the rest of the farm.

“Go feed the pigs,” Beth said to Carl, still watching.

“No way, I don’t want to be left behind.” He was already reaching for his gun, but Beth knocked his hand away.

“His rifle can shoot a hell of a lot farther than your pistol,” she chided him. “Don’t do that unless Glenn draws his.”

But Glenn was continuing to chat amiably with the man, leaning an elbow carefully on one of the fence posts. They looked like two neighbors discussing the morning paper, not strangers in a world where new faces often meant danger.

Daddy appeared from the house while Beth and Carl were walking with a put-on air of casualness closer to the fence. Their attempts to get closer were foiled when Daddy shook his head at them. "Inside, both of you."

Carl's shoulders deflated with disappointment but Beth hooked her arm around his and steered him toward the house. "We're going together, at least."

"At least," he grumbled as she drew him forward. Rick was waiting for them just inside the door, handing a yawning Judith off to Beth and murmuring for Carl to stay close to them both before following Daddy. "We always get stuck babysitting."

Beth didn't have the heart to correct him. She was the babysitter; he was one of the babies she minded. No need to lump the teenager in with the baby, especially when said teenager was glowering at Daddy and Rick through the window.

"Your dad knows there's no one better to protect Judith than you," she attempted to mollify him. Judith laid her head on Beth's chest and took hold of her braid, gently tugging on it.

"Look, whoever that guy is, our dads think he's okay. They're letting him come in the gate and he's even giving Glenn his gun," Carl reported from the window. She came to stand behind Carl, seeing that he was right. Maggie was following behind with Daryl, Merle, and Michonne. She must have retrieved them when Glenn’s announcement failed.

“Go get Carol and T-Dog from the kitchen,” she said softly to Carl. His disappointment had turned into anticipation. He sprinted across the living room and hooked around the open doorway to the kitchen. The three of them rounded the corner together just as Daddy opened the front door for the unknown man.

Unlike when Blake appeared at the farm, this stranger’s presence didn’t immediately feel Beth with dread. He wasn’t smiling, and he was obviously a little nervous, but his hands were lax at his sides and he moved with a natural calmness that soothed her nerves.

“Hello,” he greeted, eyes flicking over their faces. But when they landed on Beth, his face flooded with such obvious relief that her earlier discomfiture returned. She held Judith’s dozing form closer to her.

Everyone came filing in and Maggie came to stand with Beth. She still wore her gardening gloves and there was a streak of soft, fresh-tilled dirt on her cheek. Maggie raised her eyebrows questioningly at her but Beth could only shrug.

“Good morning, everyone,” Daddy greeted. “This here is Tyreese.”

Tyreese gave a small wave and nodded. “Hi. I’m a supply runner and guard at Woodbury,” here he raised his hands, palms out, in a show of innocence, “but I’m not here on any business of the Governor’s. I’m here on my own.”

“What business is that?” Rick asked from his post near the front door. T-Dog had never moved from the doorway to the kitchen, and Daryl and Merle had gone to stand at the entrance to the hallway. Between the blocked exits and the fact that everyone but Tyreese was armed, were Beth in his shoes, she would have been much more nervous than this man seemed to be.

He nodded in Beth’s direction, and when all the eyes in the room turned toward her, she felt her cheeks heat and wished she could hide entirely behind the sleeping baby in her arms. “She’s the only one from y’all’s group who comes every time.”

“She is,” Daddy confirmed for Beth. “What of it?”

“I just wanted to make sure that she was okay,” Tyreese said, voice dropping in volume and softening. “That he wasn’t.... hurting her.”

If her face was hot before, now it was burning. “Oh, my God, no!”

Disgust and revulsion had her stomach churning painfully. The thought had never even occurred to her, that she was what Blake was interested in, not past the torment he put her through with Penny. Daddy was equally as gob smacked by Tyreese’s confession, white brows furrowed close together, and mouth fumbling for words to say in response.

“You think we would let her go back if that was happening?” Rick asked.

“Your fuckin’ Governor,” Daryl all but spat the word, “would’ve been dead a long time ago if that was goin’ on.”

Tyreese ignored both of their outbursts, still watching Beth’s face. He seemed to want the confirmation from her, not those around her. Beth shook her head. “No,” she said again, more firmly. “Never. He’s got Andrea for that, right?”

“Yeah,” Tyreese agreed, nodding, questions still sparkling in his dark eyes. “He does.”

She could have told him about Penny, could have explained it all away with the fantastical tale of an undead little girl who was existing in a perpetual in between space between human and walker. That felt like a betrayal, though, not of Blake, but Penny herself. For all the innate danger she posed, Penny was still a little girl. Beth had seen her watch movies, knew for a fact she could feel pain.

Tyreese held her gaze for a beat longer before nodding, accepting that she wasn’t going to speak more on the context of her visits to Woodbury. He was no fool, though, and couldn’t seem to help asking, “It’s something to do with Milton’s work, though, isn’t it? I’ve seen some of y’all go with him.”

“You don’t know anything about what goes on in the community you live in, do you?” Rick asked, studying Tyreese from the back.

“I know supply run routes and my guard schedule and that my sister’s been safe since we came across Woodbury,” Tyreese said in defense of himself and his lack of knowledge. “But if the Governor was hurting her,” he nodded in Beth’s direction, “that’s something I couldn’t abide by.”

“Your sister know you’re here?” Rick asked, to which Tyreese nodded.

“She’s the only one. She won’t tell.” It wasn’t lost on Beth that Tyreese omitted his sister’s name each time he spoke of her. He had someone he wanted to protect, too.

“Were you here,” Beth heard herself asking, “the night Blake sent people to attack us?”

She didn’t often think of the bullet wound scar marring her arm, certainly not half as much as she thought of the marks on her wrist or the faint line on her cheek, but now it throbbed with the memory of pain. Tyreese shook his head. “I heard about it, but we hadn’t come to Woodbury yet when that happened.”

Beth nodded. “Thanks for your concern, but I’m okay.”

“Well,” Tyreese looked all around the room again, “that ever changes, you know my name and face now. And you know where to find me.”

He was being genuine. Beth could see it in his face. The others saw it, too; there was no other reason Rick and Daddy would have allowed Tyreese to walk away with no further questions. They did escort him, though, which had become routine when a new face appeared on the farm. Maggie took Judith from Beth’s arms and told her softly, “Go finish with the animals.”

“Come on, Carl,” she called him to her. While Tyreese had been in the room, Beth hadn’t so much as spared a glance Carl’s way. Now she saw that he his face was pale beneath his hat, freckles dark and vibrant against the pallor. She reached for his hand and he let her take it, palms clasped together.

“What did he mean?” Carl asked quietly as they returned to their chores. “About… hurting you?”

Carl knew some things. He knew that Judith was not his father’s child and that it meant his mother had cheated with Shane. Hell, now that he lived on a farm, he had seen animals copulating. The first time that happened, and he had been curious about it, Beth had redirected his questions to Rick. She didn’t know for sure if a conversation about sex had followed.

But she was sure that she was taking considerable liberties by explaining this to Carl. She waited until they were in the pigpen, dumping the slops, and she could dip her head close to his. “Sometimes, bad people don’t give you a choice. If they want to… touch you, they’ll force you.”

“And that Tyreese guy, he thought the Governor was doing that to you?” Another thing Carl lacked was an understanding of Penny Blake. That was a line she decided not to cross without Rick’s knowledge and consent.

“Yeah,” Beth said, watching the pigs eat hungrily from their trough and trying not to think of walkers. Of Penny. “And he was really nice to come check up on me, but Blake’s not doing that, so it’s all okay.”

She wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince herself or Carl.

Tyreese’s visit wedged itself into Beth’s brain. She thought about the implications her visits to Woodbury must carry for the residents. Did Andrea think that’s why Beth frequented the community? Was she under the impression that Beth was being used by Blake, and if so, did she not care? Her opinion of Andrea, though formed mostly through tangential information, had never been high. If this were true, that opinion was going to plummet even further.

Though her body was safe from Philip Blake, she would be lying if she didn’t admit that Penny Blake had posed a considerable danger to her person several times now. She had no choice about that, either.

A lot of things had happened without her input, against what she would have chosen. Mama, Shawn, Arnie, Jimmy. Otis and Patricia. Shane had taken a multitude of choices away from a lot of them. But she had made choices in this world. It was her choice to rejoin the world of the living after spending so many months in the gray mists of mourning. Her choice to be put on the watch schedule, to spend her evenings at the Dixon’s camper, to take Carl under her wing, to saddle train Cookie, to play Blake’s game and keep his attention away from the others.

All these thoughts were swirling through her head as she followed Daryl into the forest the day after Tyreese’s visit. They kept nagging her as they moved through the trees, as Daryl held back branches so Beth could move more easily. And when they stopped a handful of yards into the woods so he could get to work, she began thinking about the man before her.

The safety and comfort she felt in his presence. His teasing side, that she only saw when he was with herself or Merle. How nice it had been to sleep beside him during the blizzard. His walking her home every night. That awful night in Woodbury when they watched Merle in Blake’s fighting ring. Drinking together on her birthday. How she had kissed him on the cheek before going inside.

There was a choice here, too.  

"Daryl," Beth said, leaning against a close by tree trunk and scrutinizing him, "what are we doing?"

"Thought we were riggin' up noise traps." He was. With his hands raised above his head, tying one of them into the drooping branches of another tree, she got an excellent view of how the muscles in his arms and back flexed. Beth had the crossbow, holding it for Daryl while he worked.

It was much heavier than he made it seem.

"You know what I mean." It came out softer than she intended. She watched his nimble fingers finish tying off the string that secured the trap and then he turned back toward her. Daryl's eyes had gone dark, his face focused but otherwise unreadable, and Beth had the sudden impression that if he was the hunter, she was the prey he sought. A shiver ran through her as she clarified, "You and me, what are we doing?"

"What do you think?" He asked, voice equally as quiet as he took a step toward her. Beth set the crossbow down beside her, never looking away from him. It was a humid, overcast day; a spring shower was likely on its way, but she doubted very much that's why the forest felt as if it had gone silent around them, the air charged with something electric.

Crossing her arms, she squared her shoulders against her nerves and said, "I think we've been dancing around something for a while now."

His eyes flicked down, just for a fraction of a moment, to her lips. Then he raised them to her eyes, fairly pinning her to the tree. "Yeah?"

"Don't play dumb." Daryl was close enough to touch, if only she uncrossed her arms. The toes of his boots were mere millimeters from hers. She had to crane her neck up, thanks to his proximity, to look into his eyes.

"I ain't," he countered softly.

"You don't like when I have to go to Woodbury," she stated, beginning to build her case. Beth waited for him to shake his head. "But you never try to stop me from going."

"You're safer going than not, with the way that sick bastard operates," Daryl pointed out.

Beth couldn't help smiling just a little. This was something she had argued with Carl over, a concept he couldn't wrap his mind around, after she explained what Tyreese had feared. Friends close but enemies closer and all that.

"You were mad when Tyreese said he thought..." she didn't like to even say it. The very thought of Blake standing this close to her, looking at her the way Daryl was, made her skin crawl. She would gladly choose his striking hand, wedding ring cutting into her flesh, every time over that.

Though Beth's arms were still crossed, Daryl raised one of his. He reached for her braid, twirling the tail end of it around his finger. His face had darkened when she brought up Tyreese's assumption, and when he looked up at her again, she shivered at the emotion she saw there.

"I would've killed him already if he ever thought to touch you like that."

Another shiver shook her shoulders at the gravity of his words. A small part of her was shocked that this vow to kill another person affected her so positively. But in this world they lived in, it was practically a confession. Beth uncrossed her arms and reached for him instead, sliding them beneath his leather vest to wrap around his back.

"But you don't insist on going with me every time, how Glenn insisted on going with Maggie."

"You think I don't know you can handle yourself?" Daryl asked, his hand shifting from her braid to curve around the back of her head. "You handle this world just fine on your own, Bess."

The compliment threw her, mouth opening to argue, but no words came to her mind. Did he really think that? It wasn’t how she saw herself. If anything, he was a pinnacle of a survivalist in her esteem, along with Michonne and Merle. Unable to form any opposition, Beth changed tack.

He was already close enough that she could feel his breath washing over her face. It really didn’t take much, maybe an inch or two, before the remaining space between them was bridged and she pressed her lips to his. The kiss started soft and warm, nothing more than a light touch. Beth pulled back, worrying she had taken a misstep here, but the hand cradling her head stopped her retreat. But he did not kiss her again, not yet, tipping his forehead to hers.

She could feel the restraint in that hand, and in the one that came to rest on her hip. “I’m sorry, I—”

“You ain’t got nothin’ to be sorry ’bout,” he said softly, voice gone thick, and it clicked for Beth that this hesitancy was not fueled by lack of desire. “I want you to be sure.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked, genuinely confused. Beth tried to meet his eye but they were too close for her to manage it.

“There’s a lot of years between us, Bess.” Oh. This was an age thing. How silly was that?

“I’m nineteen,” she informed him. “Plenty old enough to make my own decisions.”

“And I’m almost double that.”

How unfortunate that he probably couldn’t see her roll her eyes. “Yeah, you’ve already got a foot in the grave.” She spanned her hands along his back, pressing her palms into his spine to try to draw him closer. “I’m positively sure I want you to kiss me again.”

She tipped her head and managed to catch his mouth again before he could doubt it any further. He leaned into it this time, into her. That warmth from before quickly caught between them as Beth let her mouth fall open beneath his. She didn’t mind the bite of the bark at her back, not when Daryl was weaving his fingers through her hair and holding her close.

His thumb pressed presently into her hipbone and Beth fisted his shirt in her hands. She wanted him closer, would have been fine with sinking into this tree if it meant taking him with her, but she knew that wouldn’t be happening. Not right now, out here in the woods, where animals or people, living or dead, could catch them unawares. Beth would have to settle for the feel of his body pressed to hers, his hand tangled in her hair, his mouth working over hers.

God, but it felt good to make choices for herself.