[october 31]

[a_littlefaith]

The last time things had been this hard, Beth had stolen a kitchen knife and taken it to her wrist.

She isn't going to do anything like that now, but when she thinks about everything that's happened over the past few weeks, that's the only thing she has to compare it to. The only time in her life when she remembers feeling even a fraction of the despondency she feels now. Right now, standing on this increasingly gloomy street in the midst of falling ash, Beth Greene has lost everyone she's ever loved. Her family, everyone in Georgia, then Michonne, then Rick and Carl and Judith, all at once, like somehow she should be able to handle that. Somehow she had, somehow she'd gone on, convinced herself that's what they would want her to do.

And then five days ago it had been Daryl.

She'd spent five shaky days with Kili, then told him she was going home to check on the cat only to find herself walking into this. Whatever this is. She's been here for a few hours now and it's been mostly quiet with the exception of a small swarm of overly large bugs that she'd dispatched without much of a fight at all. But now night is approaching and with it has come a sense of foreboding she can't quite explain.

She's alone. More alone than she's ever been.

She's tired, too, and her chest hurts from breathing in the ash, but she's still moving, keeping close to the buildings, trying to find somewhere safe to spend the night. The giant bugs aren't the worst of what's waiting for her out there, she knows that, and she coughs and wipes her face, leaving streaks of ash behind. And she keeps going.

[This is timed to before she finds Daryl. Her fear is versions of herself who succeeded in her suicide attempt and are now walkers.]

Comments

[iwasmore]

"Beth." Noah sets the lantern down on the sink, and grabs a clean towel and a bottle of water for her, offering them over. "You can clean up, if you want."

He sits down on the edge of the tub, watching her with sad, pale blue eyes. Her Southen accent is comforting, different than his, more pronounced, but close enough. And along with her blue eyes and gold hair peeking through the ash she reminds him so much of Cassie. It aches for a moment, right where his heart used to beat.

"They're spectres," he says, using Krem's word for them. He doesn't want to say ghost, doesn't want to share a label with them. "Or demons, maybe. I keep seeing different versions of me, rotting and decaying. Sometimes they show up as someone you know, too. Or used to know."

"They can hurt you. You have to be careful. But, they only seem to come out at night. That's the only good part in all this."

[a_littlefaith]

Maybe it's selfish of her to find comfort in that, but there's a sense of relief that comes with not being alone. With the idea that Noah, too, is seeing awful versions of himself that are rotting away. Now that she's had a little time to think, she's begun to wonder if there's not a reason for the things they're seeing. That version of her, the version that succeeded in ending her life, that's been something that's haunted her for a long time.

She doesn't ask, though. The details aren't her business, not unless he wants to tell them.

She laughs a little when he says that's the only good part, then wets the towel and wipes some of the ash from her face. "You said there's other people here?" she asks. "How many? Do... is there someone here named Daryl?"

[iwasmore]

"There aren't that many, but I wouldn't know how to put a number to it. Definitely not as many as the regular Darrow. Most people, I think, stay hidden a lot, so the streets are kinda empty," Noah explains. He hasn't met anyone who hadn't come from the other Darrow, but there's no way the general populace is here. You'd be running into people all the time. It'd be a lot more chaotic.

"I haven't met anyone named Daryl, but-- he's someone from regular Darrow, right? I don't think everyone from there has shown up here. But he could," Noah adds, not sure which would be more of a reassurance for her. He rubs the side of his face, over the smudge that has nothing to do with ash. "People seem to come at random."

[a_littlefaith]

"He is," she says. "But he hasn't been there for five days."

Which doesn't necessarily mean he's here. It could very well mean he's gone, that what happened to Rick and Michonne and Carl and Judith happened to him, too. She'd tried looking for him and Kili had helped her, but five days is a long time for someone to be gone without a single word.

She wipes more of her face clean and then takes a deep breath, trying to calm herself. There's nothing to be done right now, nothing she can do in this state. She needs to be calm and she needs to rest and then she can go out there again. Then she can look for him.

"So it's just like that?" she asks. "All the time? The ash and the... the things out there?"

[iwasmore]

"Oh, I bet he has been here, then," Noah says, offering a faint smile of reassurance. Daryl is obviously someone she cares about. Noah's heard of people disappearing completely, and while this place isn't much of a consolation prize, it's better than being gone forever. "I'll help you look for him tomorrow, when it's daytime."

He nods to her question. "It gets calmer during the day, you can look for supplies and stuff, and the...things don't really come out. It's when the sirens go off and everything goes dark that you have to be careful."

[a_littlefaith]

"Okay," she says. "Thank you."

But she doesn't know if he's right about that. She doesn't know if Daryl is really here or if he's just gone, just back to Georgia like all the others. Maybe she's the only one left in Darrow, maybe this is what she's made for now, this awful place with the ash and its monsters, with that terrible version of her creeping out of the dark and telling her everything she's never wanted to hear.

Reminding her that she's weak. That she'd failed. That she wasn't able to be strong.

"You saw me," she says. "The... that other version of me." She glances down at her left wrist and her bracelets are gone. She's glad she hadn't been able to wear the watch Daryl had given her for her last birthday, she's glad she'd just wrapped some cheap, beaded bracelets over the scar this morning before ending up here, because if the watch had fallen off out there, she knows she wouldn't be able to stand it. But the beaded bracelets must have snapped in the fight and now her wrist is bare, her scar visible. "I tried. I... my mom had just died. But I didn't do it. All that stuff she said, it's wrong."

[iwasmore]

"Hey, it's okay," Noah says softly. He covers Beth's wrist with his cool fingers and looks her in the eye. "You don't have to explain. I'm not gonna judge you. These...things, they just want to hurt you."

He can't even imagine what it must have felt like for her to watch some version of her stab itself in the wrist like that, to listen to its vile taunts. It was hard enough for him to watch, and he hadn't lived through that trauma.

He slides his fingers down and holds onto Beth's hand instead, giving it a gentle squeeze. "I'm really sorry to hear about your mom."

[a_littlefaith]

He's really kind and Beth smiles slightly, squeezing his hand in return. People like them, no one expects that they'll be the strong ones, no one expects them to be able to fight, but she thinks they've proven otherwise right now. They're still here, after all, they've come through and they're here.

Tomorrow will be another day, another fight, but she thinks they'll be able to make it.

"Thanks," she says. "Do you think we'll be okay?"

[iwasmore]

"I know we will be," Noah says with more confidence than he feels, but he's been trying really hard to be as optimistic as he can be, for the others and himself. "We all have each other's backs, you can stay as long as you want. And I promise I'll help you look for Daryl tomorrow."

Noah gives Beth's hand another squeeze and then stands up to go look for something in the dresser. It's dark, but he can see in the dark so it's okay. "What does he look like?"

[a_littlefaith]

"He's kinda average height. Older than me, he'll be forty-one soon and he's got brown hair, kinda about this long," she says, gesturing. "And blue eyes. My phone isn't workin' or I'd show you a picture." It's hard describing Daryl, because the things she thinks makes him especially identifiable aren't going to be so easily seen by people who don't know him.

"If he's here, he's probably gonna be carrying a crossbow," she adds a second later. "It wasn't in the apartment that I can remember." And he doesn't always take it everywhere with him, he only carries it when there's something he needs it for, whether it's tracking or training, but it hadn't been there. She'd looked for it. Like Michonne's sword, she would have kept it somewhere safe, somewhere special.

[iwasmore]

Noah listens as he roots around in he top dresser drawer where Krem keeps some odds and ends, turning to look when she gestures how long his hair is. "Average height, dad age, long-ish brown hair, blue eyes, crossbow. Got it," he says. He hasn't seen anyone with a crossbow, or anyone that age who fit the rest of the description, but like he'd said before, that doesn't mean the guy isn't here.

Krem has some leather cords in the dresser. Noah doesn't know what for, but he's sure Krem won't mind him using them. He brings them over to the bed and sits down, carefully braiding them together like the friendship bracelets they used to make during day camp when he was a kid. Once he makes four of them he ties the ends together to make one large bracelet, and offers it to Beth with a soft smile. "Here. Since you lost your other bracelet."

[a_littlefaith]

Her nose wrinkles a little when Noah says Daryl is dad age, but the expression fades when he offers her the bracelet he's just made. It's such a sweet gesture and she always feels a little bit like her bracelets are her security blanket, so to be without them now feels strange. But Noah has made her a replacement when he doesn't have to, in a strange, scary world like this where he barely knows her, and she smiles, then sits down beside him.

"Can you put it on for me?" she asks, her voice trembling just a little. It's been a long, hard day and while she still believes the best in people, kindness like this always makes her feel a little bit like her heart is full to bursting.