ꜰᴏᴏʟ'ꜱ ᴍᴀᴛᴇ || ᴛᴡᴅ

034: ᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴏᴀᴅ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ

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The death of Beth Greene made the group lose something. Something human. An integral part. Almost like the human side of them. The hopeful side. 

It was as if she was a part of every person, even Rosita and Tara, who she didn't ever meet. As if she made up a chunk of everyone's soul, and now she was gone, and piece of everyone else was too.

And important part. A part they needed. A part they no longer had.

And that gap got bigger when Rick returned from a run without Tyreese.

It was sudden. They went with the new boy, Noah, who Beth and Rachel had befriended, to his old home, where there was a settlement, but it was down. Tyreese was bitten, and died on the way home. He returned with a sword hole in his forehead, and half his arm missing. 

They buried him beneath some trees in a field.

Danny hadn't realized how big that part Beth took was. He didn't realize she was the one who made him believe that people outside of Sophie, Taylor and Sami were good. 

He felt angry. All the time. He always wanted to hurt. He didn't know if it was hurt someone else, or himself. He found if he stubbed his toe by accident, he'd often do it again, harder. If he tripped, he wouldn't try stop himself from falling. 

After three weeks, their cars were out of gas, and they were out of food, on foot to Washington.

The hungrier you got, the less you cried. That was the one thing Sami liked about the hunger. He no longer had to cry silently at night while 'going to the toilet'. He just didn't cry.

Every day was just about walking. There was hardly any hope of a future, of a destination. It was just about taking the next step.

With the heat, Daryl couldn't even find anything to hunt other than worms, though Sami thought he'd puke and the thought and rather wanted to keep the little bit of food he had down.

Danny wouldn't write to him much. Or sign. He'd just get through each day. Sami thought it would be best to give him the space he wanted. If they found somewhere to hole up, he could talk to him about it. But making him face his feelings, out here, on the road, would probably just get someone killed.

So, Sami looked after Apollo.

He was feeling the hunger, too, but Sami always gave him more than half of whatever he had, and carried him once the cars had to be ditched, unless they were in the woods, so he wouldn't be too tired, and wouldn't burn his feet on the road. 

A small group of walkers would gather behind them each day, but they'd ignore them until they were camping, since they were much too weak to fight them properly.

Maggie wasn't doing well. Obviously. She didn't speak to anyone. Sami had tried, but she was quiet. Glenn was similar, only speaking to him about what they were doing. How much food they had, how long they had left to get to Washington. 

Rachel had been almost completely silent, too. She kept her teddy in her bag. 

Sami had tried to get Daryl to talk to him a few times, but he just grunted, or said he was sick of loosing people. He never spoke of Beth.

Gabriel, Abraham and Eugene had stuck with them, too. Rosita and Tara already agreed to regardless. Sami made an effort to hide his rosary beads around Gabriel.

They found a small bridge, and used it to take out the walkers in the late afternoon, tossing them down it if they didn't manage to stab them, so that they didn't need to use too much energy.