Abraham is at it again, his voice big and booming, a foghorn across Terminus' courtyard.
"Aw, hell no," he's saying. "Hell. No."
She doesn't turn to look as she shares a bland lunch of butter beans and creamed corn with Maggie and Glenn, Sasha and Bob. None of them do. Not even Rick who's shifting down next to them, a tin of peas and a bottle of water balanced precariously in one hand. Abraham's always getting uptight about something. Always getting others uptight too. Wasn't anything new really, wasn't anything to worry about. It was no doubt to do with Eugene, something he'd forgotten or something he pretended to forget to piss Abe and Rosita off. Yeah, she knew it was deliberate. Beth had gone through a phase of passive aggressive rebellion once too. Only difference was she did it when she was thirteen not thirty-two.
Point was though that nine times out of ten whatever Eugene was or wasn't doing was unimportant, irrelevant, not nearly as big a deal as Abraham made it out to be. And it could easily be fixed without the level of melodrama he liked to put into it.
Nothing to lose any sleep over.
So they ignored it. When you started getting sucked into Abe's worries it was like a whirlpool you'd never swim your way out of. Just kept coming back round to the same thing. Eugene should have been in DC already, they were all wasting time, too much dead weight (although he never phrased it quite like that - even he seemed to realise the hypocrisy of that statement). Regardless, it made for a few interesting moments between him and Daryl, him and Rick, him and Glenn.
Same shit, different day, different level, different air freshener, Daryl would say. Rick, ever the diplomat, would silently agree.
She eats another mouthful of beans, while Sasha and Maggie tuck into the corn. Butter beans, dull, lifeless, like cardboard. No one complains though, definitely not her, the fact that there's food is a win. Beggars can't be choosers and they aren't starving. Another win.
And the day is bright and there are no walkers at the fences.
All things considered, it's a good day. Not perfect, not flawless. But good. And she'll take good.
"Jesus Christ," Abe swears again.
Maggie rolls her eyes. Sasha shakes her head.
Beth glances over at him. He's standing now, facing the gates, hands balled into fists, shoulders twitching. He takes a step forward and then stops as if he's changed his mind and turns to look at her.
Directly at her.
That's a shock. That's a surprise. That's unexpected.
He didn't usually pay her heed. Not really. Michonne yes, Maggie yes, Sasha yes. But not her, not Beth Greene who he thinks of as some of that dead weight. Not Beth Greene, the extension of her badass older sister, Beth Greene, the one whose bond with both Rick and Daryl cannot be understood unless you'd actually walked in their shoes for the past two years, which he hadn't. Beth Greene, the girl who made it.
Not just another dead girl.
Truthfully, though what exactly were an ex-marine and a farm girl going to talk about anyway? The weather? The walkers? Food maybe? Rick was right, food really was all any of them ever talked about.
In the few weeks she'd known him they'd had one conversation, one real conversation. It'd been a rainy afternoon, the last of the spring showers before the wetness gave way to the summer heat and they'd all been inside, miserably watching as the downpour outside beat at their fences and soaked their washing. They were all restless, all a little on edge because of a hole in the fence they couldn't get to and the fact that their food supplies were dwindling and the weather was messing with Rick's plans for a run.
And Maggie suggested a song.
"C'mon Bethy," she said. "Sing us something to pass the time."
She'd wanted to say no, the word sticking in the back of her mouth, while she wished Maggie hadn't spoken so loudly because everyone was looking at her.
Everyone.
Like Daryl.
She glanced over to him where he sat with Rick in the corner, legs drawn up, crossbow on the floor next to him, aimed at the wall. He didn't smile, didn't nod, didn't do anything to encourage her one way or another. He watched. Waiting for her answer.
Her answer which was still "no".
There was something very weird about all that, something she couldn't put her finger on. As if somehow what Maggie was asking was an invasion of privacy. As if Maggie was asking her to do something very intimate in front of a crowd. Maybe it was because the last person she'd sung in front of had been Daryl lying in that coffin, his eyes on her like she was the only thing in the world worth looking at. And that was intimate. She knew it then, she knows it now. It was something just for them, for him and part of her wanted to keep it that way.
But then she'd thought about her dad and how much he enjoyed her singing and how if he could be here with them right now, she'd sing until her voice broke and cracked, until there were no more songs left to sing.
Whichever came first.
She shrugged. "Ain't no jukebox."
And Daryl's eyes said more than his mouth ever could.
So she sang Lou Reed's Perfect Day, trying to force the feeling away that she was now doing this for Maggie, for Daryl, for the irrational belief that she could hold onto what was left of her family by doing what they asked. It wasn't only them though. It was for everyone, even the new people, even Tara, Abraham, Rosita and Eugene. Even though she barely knew them, she didn't want to see any more death.
She was also tired of losing people.
She glanced to Daryl at the thought, remembering how she'd held him in her cell the night Zach died.
Look how far we've come, she thought. Look how far. And I ain't going to lose you too.
So she sung for him. For them. It'd been a good afternoon in the end, a really good afternoon. Almost perfect in fact. Daryl's eyes never left her, not for one second while she sang, even while he fidgeted with a broken arrow in his hands, even while his leg bounced and he bit down hard on his lip. And when she was done, he was almost smiling. When she was done, she was too.
She thought he'd come to her then. Lord knows, she'd been waiting long enough. So had he, but Daryl walked to his own tune and she knew enough about him to know that when he does - if he does, she reminded herself - it'll only be when he's sure. Sure of her, sure of him, sure of everything because Daryl Dixon has no game, doesn't know the rules and regulations of flirting and courting and dating. He comes right out and says it even when he doesn't know what he's saying himself. You know.
But it was Abraham who'd approached her, which - to be fair - was an improvement on Eugene always finding excuses to talk. He hadn't said much, told her that her singing was pretty and that he could also hold a tune once upon a time. Not like her. Nowhere near as good he kept emphasising, but he was ok, his voice wasn't nails-down-a-chalkboard bad. She'd said that maybe they could sing something together, something they both liked and then he'd called her Lady Bowman and made a quip about how she was messing with his heart now.
And that had been it. Any conversation they'd had since then had been nothing more than a few pleases and thank-yous, maybe a "pass the salt" or a "where's Daryl". Never even a "how's it going" or "good to see you". As she thought, wasn't much an ex-marine and a farmer's daughter had in common.
But not today. Today he's looking directly at her.
Directly at her, even as he says the words. The words she dreads.
"Mother of Christ Bowman, what the fuck have you done?"
His voice was strangely calm, sure there was an edge to it, but there was always an edge unless he was flirting with one of the women. But the look on his face, the way he's looking at her, the fact that he's talking about Daryl is enough to turn her blood to ice, make her swivel around in her seat, follow his gaze.
See.
She doesn't know what she'd expected.
Daryl had gone on a run alone that morning, looking for medication for Eugene. He had some or other skin condition that was exacerbated by the riot gear Abraham wanted him in and no one bothered to tell Rick and Michonne to pick some up before they'd left on their run a week before. So, tired of Eugene's in depth description of the look and smell of his rash as well as a foray into the actual underlying cause of it which seemed to involve a lot of pus and other bodily fluids, Daryl had taken it upon himself to go into the closest town where there was a pharmacy and he could find some unpronounceable antihistamines and antibiotics. It was a short run, easy to do alone. He was due back any minute.
She's looking forward to it. She's saved his lunch. They could walk the fence again. She's going to tell him she'd decided to keep the red dress - the one he told her to wear. Maybe he'll hold her hand again, maybe not and they'll just talk. Maybe they won't even talk. Sometimes they don't need to and the pieces of the puzzle that is them just fit together so perfectly that talking about it just seems redundant.
She doesn't know what she'd expected.
But it isn't this.
Except when she let her fears drag her down and it is.
He leaves the gate open as he staggers across the courtyard, barely able to stand, legs buckling and caving as he stumbles, grasping at his right arm, red with blood soaking through his shirt.
It takes her a second to fully comprehend what's happening, a second to realise that this is serious, a second to realise he's not going to stand upright for much longer. That he's wounded.
Oh God, please don't let it be...
And in that second, she's eerily reminded of how she watched him go down decades ago when they still lived on the farm and he'd come out of the woods wearing a macabre necklace of ears and walker guts before Andrea had shot him. They thought she hadn't seen it, but she had. She saw a lot of things those days that others wanted to protect her from. There ain't no protecting anyone from horror these days. Ain't even really a good idea to try. She'd watched from the porch, heard the sound of the gun, the explosion as he went down, the way Rick had hurried him back to the house, the way her dad had cleaned him up, let him sleep in his bed. She hadn't cared much then, not in a real sense anyway, she didn't have an emotional attachment to these invaders living on their farm. Not like Maggie. Not like her dad or Patricia. She was too numb at that point, too numb from what was happening, from her increasing loss of faith in her daddy's beliefs. Too numb to care.
But now? Now she's not numb. Not numb at all as she flies out from her seat, pushing past Abraham and Bob as they stand there gaping like idiots. Not numb as she charges across the courtyard, barely hearing Maggie calling to her, barely aware of Rick on her heels. Not numb as she reaches him first, shoving her shoulder under his arm, grabbing him around his chest, as he stumbles, as he leans heavily on her and threatens to pull them both onto the gravel.
Someone is saying his name over and over again and with a start she realises it's her. Her as she's trying to keep him standing, her as she's trying not to cave under his weight, her as she's trying to find the source of the blood and dreading the moment that she does.
"Not bit..." he grits out between his teeth, his eyes already glassy, his blood soaking through her white vest, the one with the pretty brocade neckline. "Not ... bit ... Beth."
She lets out a breath she hadn't been holding. And it feels like every fear, every worry she's ever had goes with it. The thought of him being bitten, the thought of him being infected is not one she entertains, not one she allows herself to dwell on but it's always there, lurking just below the surface of consciousness, sometimes even reaching up tentatively to invade her thoughts before she can push it away, shake it out of her brain like an insidious, sticky cobweb.
But it is there.
Every time he goes out the gates, every time he puts himself on the line she can't help that feeling that it's almost inevitable that one day he'll come back to her with a bite mark, big and round and suppurating and she'll have to find a way to say goodbye.
Or worse, one day, he won't come back at all.
But not today.
Because today he's here. Even as his blood courses down his arm, runs out of his veins and leaves a mess on the tar, the gravel, the weeds, he's here. Alive.
Not sick.
Not infected.
Not bit.
Not today.
They stagger again, veering towards the fence, his body almost covering hers so that her face is pressed to his shoulder and she can't see anything as she desperately tries to keep him up, keep him standing. It's like a dance, a death dance, but she doesn't know the steps and neither does he and that comforts her somehow. She thinks she feels tears on her cheeks but she can't be sure it's not his blood because he's going down fast, pulling her with him, his hand fisting on the back of her top, grabbing at the cotton so it pulls tight around her throat, over her chest. If he goes down, she'll never get him up, not alone.
"Daryl..." her voice is strangled and she still can't see his wound, his arm, but he's falling now, they're falling. His legs crashing into hers, his hands grasping at her, at her clothes, her hair, at the air.
And then suddenly the pressure is off her as Rick reaches them and grabs at Daryl's wounded arm, shoving it over his shoulder, stabilising them.
It's always been the three of them really, bonds forged separately and together, closer than friends, closer than family.
The apocalypse has a way of putting that into perspective.
Or not.
"I got you," Rick says. "I got you."
And it sounds like he's talking to both of them.
Daryl mumbles something, which sounds like he's telling Rick off, but she can't be sure because all she wants is someone to bandage him up, stop the flow of blood, put it back into his body instead of leaving it to drip all over the ground. But no one moves as they stagger back to the tables and somehow this pisses her off even more. Bunch of them waiting around, mouths open, like fish out of water.
"Don't just stand there, somebody help him," she half says half shouts the words as they head towards the benches. His arm is slack around her neck and she thinks they're more dragging him than anything else, but his head is turned towards her, hanging but resting against her shoulder.
It's Sasha and Bob that move first, which is good because they're as close to emergency response as any of them have right now.
"Get him inside to the infirmary," Bob's saying, as he holds the door open "we can't do anything out here."
Sasha's already on her way, Maggie too, Glenn close at her heels.
"You Stookey, you," Daryl slurs as Abraham pushes Beth aside to take his arm, yelling at her to go and close the gate. Briefly she wants to fight him, because the last thing she wants to do is let Daryl go, let them take him away, but Abraham is at least three times her size and built like a brick shithouse, so she lets it slide as he and Rick pour through the door, all shouting, a flurry of feet and hands, as they all but carry Daryl to the makeshift infirmary inside Terminus.
Leaving her outside, door slamming in her face.
Dead weight indeed
