a_littlefaith | (no subject)

Beth hasn't had the car for very long, just a few weeks, but it does what it's supposed to. She'd made sure to find something safe, something she would feel comfortable putting Judith into, and she'd done a lot of homework and research to make sure she wasn't getting take advantage of.

It's been a long time since she's been behind the wheel of a car, but it turns out to be the sort of thing one doesn't forget all that easily and she passes the test on her first try, officially certifying her to be allowed to drive in Darrow.

While she's mostly content with walking and public transportation, she has to admit it makes certain things a lot simpler. Getting groceries is no longer a giant hassle, because she can just load her bags into the trunk and head home, where she gets Carl to help her bring them upstairs. Getting to and from gigs at bars that are further away from home is so much better. Ever since those guys had busted her guitar, she's been a little nervous walking home with it late at night, but with the car she just has to throw it in the backseat and everything is fine.

The next step, though, is the most important one. Teaching Chuck Hansen to drive.

When she pulls up and parks in front of the building where he's living now, she can't help but stare. She knows his friends had left him their condo, but she'd had no idea it was so fancy and she almost can't picture Chuck being comfortable in there. She sends him a quick text to let him know she's there, then leans back in her seat and turns up the radio and waits.

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"Yeah, I guess it would," Chuck says, almost like he's a little surprised by the truth in that logic. It's still hard to apply it to himself, especially when he doesn't know how much about Laura he should share. Her history isn't really his business, nothing it's his right to go publicizing. Beth is a friend, though, one of the closest ones he's got here, and he thinks maybe he can try to hedge it well enough. "She's... been hurt before, I mean. Physically. And had guys who were only interested in sex. I don't want to seem like I'm one of them, you know? I don't want to push her."

He still remembers, too vividly, how he found her on the beach, bruised and bloody and practically naked, wrapped in a plastic tarp. He hadn't needed to ask, then, what happened to her; the scene spoke for itself. What he's found out since, though, makes it all a hell of a lot worse. "'Course, I don't just want to tiptoe around her, either."

Beth nods and she doesn't know exactly what that's like, but she can imagine there's a fine line between the two. It's a weird thing, because she'd never been hurt, not like that, but the memories of Gorman are still there. So even though he'd never actually put his hands on her, on this body here, she has the memories of him having done so. She doesn't want to claim she knows what it's like, being assaulted like that, but in some weird Darrow sort of way, she does.

"Can you tell her that?" she asks. "Just be honest and say what you said to me. And tell her she can be honest with you, too, because I think..."

She pauses, her nose wrinkling a little. "I got all those memories, remember? And the worst was... well, y'know, but there were other things, too. One of the cops at that hospital did awful things to the women there and he tried with me and- and anyway, I think it's just important she knows she can be honest with you. That she can change her mind and you're not gonna push or be mad."

Though the idea of Beth being assaulted like that isn't anything he likes thinking about, Chuck would be lying if he said it didn't help a little to hear it from her, and not just as a theoretical sort of thing. Granted, it's not like anyone's experience will be exactly the same, and he knows it makes him fortunate that he can't begin to imagine that, but there's a small measure of reassurance in that. So, too, is there in her phrasing. That someone tried with her doesn't make it any better, but at least he didn't succeed in what he was trying to do. The thought alone makes Chuck feel vaguely murderous. There's nothing to do with that, though, except go hit something later.

He might be violent, prone to picking fights, but save for several people he's punched in bars after too much to drink, he'd never do so with anyone who couldn't fight back and hold their own, and never with that sort of intent.

"Not sure talking about feelings is really my strong suit," he points out. "But yeah, maybe. I don't want to bring it up, but I don't want it to be this... thing, either, that's always overhead." Pausing a moment, he glances over at her. "I won't ask about it, but please tell me you beat the shit out of that asshole."

It's not a good memory, not by any means, but Beth finds herself smiling grimly anyway. The same thing has happened to other people in Darrow with their memories and she's not sure how they've reconciled it, the new memories with what they've actually lived through, but Beth has to treat them as if they've really happened. Because they have in a way.

"There was this jar on the desk beside me," she says. "Y'know how doctors sometimes keep suckers for kids. It was a jar like this. I smashed it on his head."

She doesn't tell him about the candy Gorman had forced into her mouth. How even now the sickly sweet taste of artificial green apple makes her stomach churn.

"And I left him there," she says and she doesn't feel guilty about this at all. "With a dead body. A girl he'd... he'd been raping her. She killed herself because of it, so I left him there and she reanimated and killed him."

"Good," Chuck says, simple and definitive, his jaw set and his head ducking in a slight nod. The bastard deserved it, as far as he's concerned. Maybe there were no zombies in his world to take care of the matter that efficiently, but he'd gladly have beaten the face of someone like that to a bloody pulp, or left them on the street during an attack with the rest of whatever city safe underground. Whatever awful things people have said or thought about him, however true they might be, he isn't heartless. And though he hates the idea of anyone trying to hurt Beth as much as he hates the idea of someone hurting Laura, there's some consolation in the fact that she made him pay for it. "I hope he died slowly and painfully."