intact ➵ beth is alive

» 5

"Who the hell are you—"
"I'm a friend, don't worry."
The arms raised and the cam demeanor was so foreign to her, she had no clue whether to trust or berate her instincts.
"I don't know that!" She spits, stepping closer to the man in the windbreaker, her knife dauntingly raised high.
"I get it, stranger danger. But I'm a friend, I won't hurt you."
"I don't know that." Beth snarls, feeling rogue. Dangerous. Like Daryl, hissing and single syllable answers.
"My name is Aaron. I-I live in a community, it's safe there. 15 foot walls, steel walls. We're thriving, there—"
"I don't give a shit." She spits, striding up closer and closer until her knife is pressed threateningly close to his neck, threateningly close to break skin and draw blood.
The man is hardly taller than her, maybe an two inches, but given her tangled mane of hair, angry red scars and mangled fierceness, she would be afraid, too.
"Wait, wait," the man half begs, dropping his pack to the ground. "Look, you can look through it. I only have a gun on me, that's just for protection against the dead people."
Beth glances down to his feet where the pack is thrown, her eyes wild when they flick back and forth.
"Where is it." She demands.
"Waistband of my jeans—oh, okay."
She's quick to analyze, her hands fast as she loops through his jeans and yanks the gun out.
"I'll make sure not to tell my boyfriend that you did that."
"Did what, take your fucking gun?" She spews menacingly, raising the gun to meet his forehead.
"Sit down."
The man nods, eyes wide as he slumps against the tree.
"Say you gotta name?"
"It's Aaron. Um, I live in a community, not too far from here. It's not exactly walking distance, but I brought a car, it's down there." He raises his hand to point, but her aim on his forehead never wavers, not as she sits before him, single handedly rummaging through his pack.
"'f you were wise, you'd know when to shut the hell up."
The man, Aaron, was seemingly quiet for the first time.
"Let's play a game." She speaks easily, looking through the discarded contents, the pack now completely empty.

You really don't know this game?
Never needed a game to get lit before.

Beth glances back up at Aaron, who's gaze follows her every move.
He nods.
"I pick somethin' up, tell me what the hell it's for, 'less it's somethin' obvious."
He doesn't answer as her gaze is directed towards the supplies.
"Pick now t' be quiet?" She hisses, her accent thick.
"Sorry-I wasn't sure-yeah."
Beth's eyes flicker through the supplies, her hands gazing over the water canteens and canned goods, until she meets an envelope.
"This. What's this." She demands, her eyes threateningly as she raises it.
"Just what I wanted to show you, actually," Aaron speaks, reaching forward to open the package. She hesitantly hands it over, reaching for her knife.
"The community I was telling you about, we'd love to recruit you. At least, have you audition. Really, it's an interview, but the community has 15 foot tall steel gates, see in this picture," he points, "Sorry for the bad picture quality, we found an old beaten up camera and used that for the pictures."
Beth glances up, and he immediately looks down, "Uh, you probably don't care. Last guy in this group didn't."
"It's fine," she mumbles, retaliating from her daunting high.
"It's okay. Sorry."
"Oh, you're not usually mean?" Aaron raises an eyebrow, and she notices the smile tugging at the edges of his mouth.
"When my life is on the line, yeah," she murmurs, shuffling through the pictures.
"Um, the community—I'd come, I really would. And I might come back later on. It's just, I'm looking for people."
Aaron shrugs. "There's lots of people in Alexandria. Who are you looking for?"
Beth sighs, shaking her head.
"I think they're in Richmond."
"You don't want to drop by? See if they're in Alexandria? If they're not and you really don't want to stay, you can leave."
Beth exhales slowly, closing her eyes and leaving them shut, nodding before she can even realize she is.
"Okay."

➵

"Would you mind if I recorded our interview?"
Beth gazes up from her twiddling thumbs to meet the eyes of a short woman.
"Sure."
"Wonderful," she grins warmly, setting up a recorder. "My name is Deanna Monroe."
She turns, as if she's supposed to sit down on the chair, but decides against it, her hands grasping at for the back of the chair.
"Have a seat..."
"Beth."
"Have a seat, Beth."
She bites the inside of her cheek, focusing on the floor as she hardly shakes her head.
"How old were you when all this started, Beth?" Deanna pursues, her hands finding her jaw. "You look young."
"'m twenty." She states, her eyes meeting the older woman's. "I was sixteen."
"Were you with a group?"
Yes. A good group. A strong group. A man with a son and a daughter, stern and willful, her sister who was smarter than she knew and a brother in law who cared for her sister more than she could have thought.
And Daryl.
"Yeah."
"What happened to them?"
She's a mess of uneven inhales and exhales as she murmurs, "I don't know."
"Ah. We won't dwell on that, anymore, if you don't want too. Your scars—"
Beth glances up, her stare threatening, an icy glare.
"Something else we shouldn't dwell on, I suppose. We have a doctor. Can get them cleaned and check out, if you'd like."
Once, when she was at the funeral home, a time after burning houses and drinking moonshine, she had risen earlier than he had, found a nearby creek, and took it upon herself to wash the clothes he had peeled off and haphazardly around the room. The sheer amount of dirt was permanently underneath her nail beds, and if there was ever a cure, a revelation to the apocalypse, she'd carry the blood and dirt underneath her nails, the knowledge and wiseness and skill under her belt.
When she'd returned, her plans to quietly creep and place the clothes back in the room never saw through. Not when she found him, back bare, adorned with dark tattoos on a small portion of his shoulder and the rest, crowded with scars. She'd seen her fair share of abused horses show up on her father's farm to know the marks, know  belt's imprint on skin when a mark wanted to be left.
But she is not a hunter. She is not a tracker. She is not light on her feet.
He twists around, a look on his face she'd never seen before, and she's dropping clothes and stepping out quicker than she imagined.
It remains unmentioned.
"What?"
"The scars. I'm sorry if it's a touchy subject, but we can get them looked at if you'd like."
"Oh. Maybe."
Deanna smiles, baring white teeth.
"I was a congressperson. Ohio. Fifteenth district."
Beth furrows her eyebrows, her eyes dire to meet something different. Bookshelves crowded the tiny room, filled with large sorts of books, all seemingly decaying. A clarinet sits next to a stack of books on a shelf.
"I sing." She finds herself whispering, more to the instrument then to Deanna herself.
"I still sing."
"Were you a music teacher?"
Beth turns, shaking her head, unconsciously sinking into the fleece chair.
"Looked at schools. Colleges. All near Georgia, didn't want to leave my family. I liked working on my daddy's farm. It was quiet."
"And after?"
"They came."

➵

She is dreaming.
She is walking down the streets of the quiet town that is Alexandria with Aaron, where he is showing her where she will stay for the time being if she decides to stay.
She is not envisioning Maggie and Glenn walking side by side with Rick and Carl, carrying Judith.
"Beth?"
"Who—"
"House is all yours. Told everyone to let you get settled in, so don't worry, no one's gonna be bugging you tonight."
"Okay," she mumbles, dropping the keys she had little grasp on as her feet carry her as her brain is urging no, no this is an illusion, you're delusional, this is not them, you are seeing things. Her brain crying no, no it cannot be, you are sick, you were shot in the head, you are seeing
"BETH?"
"Ohmygod—"
"BETH?!"
Screeches of her name fill her ears and the scraping of boots on pavement all too familiar come to a stop until she's enveloped in the arms of shakiness and tears, colliding to the ground.
"You're...ohmygod," Maggie breathes, her hands shaking as they come to meet Beth's cheeks.
"Well, fuck." An accent laughs breathily behind the two of them.
Beth turns her head to see Rick, eyes shut and mouth smiling and Carl, eyes wide and laughing.
"Wow."
"Judithmadeit," she whispers, slowly slipping from Maggie's arms as she reaches high for the infant.
A familiar gurgle of laughter is all it takes, and Beth is sobbing the tears that she'd finally found.

uno more chapter until it's over, i'll focus on the drabbles and welcomed sentiments solely afterwards. i don't really envision any more projects after that, but maybe something will come to me. i think it's good that im focusing on those two for now, though, but i hope you enjoy this and the last chapter! bethyl reunion coming soon for the soul :^) BYTHEWAY MY BIRTHDAY IS JANUARY SIXTH likenormanwoah AND I LIKE SOUTHPAW. SO SOUTHPAW BETHYL AU WOULD BE NEAT LIKE okbye