WILDFIRE -Beth Greene

Home Sweet Home

That same day they started the hunt for Sophia, again.

Standing around a car Rick, Jessie, Shane, Daryl, Andrea, Hershel and Maggie were examining a map to plan out their best plan to find the little girl as Glenn, Lori, Carol, T-dog and Gwen set up the stupid, impossible tents.

T-dog, Lori and Carol tackled the two bigger ones and Glenn and Gwen took on the painful task of the small ones. As she does just so, wrestling with a pole of her and Jessie's tent, reasonably far away from the rest (to avoid old man snores), she completely misses the footsteps approaching from behind.

A sweet, the sweetest Gwen is sure she's ever heard, voice makes her jump and drop her pole, "Need any help?" She spins around to find Beth, smiling down at her, squinting slightly in the sun.

Gwen swallows pretty hard and awkwardly clears her throat as she stands up and steps in line with the girl to examine her work, "Think I'm doing a pretty good job." She says, out of breath, as they take in, the indeed, breathtakingly horrific tangles of material and metal she's left in her wake.

Beth laughs, "Well, of course, I can tell you're doing great work but maybe I just needed an excuse to talk to you. It kinda feels like I haven't spoken to someone my age in years, I was hoping we could be friends." She laughs a bit awkwardly and smiles at Gwen again, who grins back.

"Alright then but, as I'm sure you know, the requirements of strengthening the bonds of new found friendship is helping the person you are befriending with their mundane tasks, even when they don't need it, of course."

They smile at each other again and Gwen can feel her stomach flutter in a way that she's not used to as she looks at Beth's lopsided grin, "Well alright, think I can manage that." Beth's starts untangling the mess Gwen had previously made and Gwen kneels down beside her to begin arranging the poles out in, what she thinks, the right order.

Beth shakes her head with a smile, "No, no, they won't fit like that," Gwen watches her as she corrects more of her mistakes, "Didn't you ever go camping as a kid? How is it possible you can be so bad at this."

"Hey!" Gwen tries to defend herself as she playfully shoves her new friend, "Go easy on me! I was a city kid, okay, Farmers Daughter." She says the nicknames in a mocking tone because, of course, Beth would know how to do something like this.

"So, City Girl, what are you good at, besides putting up tents?"

Gwen jokingly rolled her eyes at the name and turned to the girl as they worked, "Um, putting up tents in a flawless manner is kind of the extent of my abilities. And, you know, I'm not too bad a patching up cuts and scraps but I've got nothing on your dad."

Beth smiles proudly for her father, "What else could you ever need, I guess."

Questions and answers were thrown back and forth as they finished up, Beth inching increasingly closer to Gwen, who couldn't stop her body from tensing up and her throat drying out at the girls closeness. But Beth had taken no mind, their skin and shoulders brushing as they worked, their laughter intertwining, until their bubble was burst by Hershel, telling them how'd they'd start looking for Sophia tomorrow.

Gwen could swear Beth had straightened up and moved away from her as he approached and she stayed that way until he began to make his way inside.

Beth lets out a slight cough and stands up, almost to attention, Gwen thinks, "Think we did a pretty good job."

Gwen stands up behind her, "All in a days work, though if we're being honest, you were kind of just here for emotional support, you know, seeing as I did all the hard parts," The girls smiled because that hadn't been the case at all. All the parts Gwen would start, Beth then had to go over them as she laughed at how poor the other girl was at such a simple task and even though it was technically at her, Gwen realised she just loved hearing that laugh.