In Hope Of Falling In Love (A Walking Dead Fanfic)

Chapter 43: Ah, Death, An Old Friend

Beth couldn't remember the last time she'd felt happy.

 It might have been the time when she rode her first horse or when she tasted her first rocky-road ice-cream or even that time when she, Maggie and Shawn had a fight in the pond and they all got covered in mud and daddy got mad.

 But she could remember the last time she'd felt sad.

 It was when she fought with Maggie those few hours ago when Maggie had said everyone was going to die and that felt like a splash of cold water on her face.

 She'd made room for the pain but that didn't mean she had to accept it and that didn't mean it was going to go away.

 Guilt clenched at her chest as she drove up to the prison, tears still waiting to pour. In the corner of her eye she could see the bodies, smell them, and she had to wonder  if Maggie or dad or Daryl were somewhere in there.

 Burning; dying; burnt; dead.

 As she pulled up at the gates, waiting for Rick, who was standing guard to open them, she felt her heart jump into her throat.

 Everything they needed for Aislynn and the babies were in bags in the back. She never thought she could do it; never thought she'd made it back or make it that far.

 And she could smell death. She could all but taste it on her tongue and breathe it in on every breath.

 The gate opened shakily, creaking, and she drove through it still wondering if she was prepared for what was about to happen; who was dead.

 "You're back," Rick acknowledged as she winded down the driver's side car window.

 Beth nodded, pulling the car to a stop. Her hands were on the car door handle not yet ready to come back to reality and face what had happened and who might be dead. "Dad, Daryl, Maggie... Are they okay?" she finally said, yanking on the car handle.

 The door flung open as Rick stood, refusing to say anything.

 Beth sighed. "Please  tell me-"

 "Maggie's dead," he interrupted, the words were harsh but his voice was soft, almost sympathetic. "I'm sorry, Beth."

 Rick could see anger in his eyes, anger he couldn't understand, then she began to cry.

 Rick himself had never really seen her cry this much. She'd cried when her walker-mother was shot back on the farm, she had cried when Maggie had fainted near the fence and she'd cried when  she'd reunited with Maggie and her father after the farm got overrun.

 But she'd never cried like this.

 Then it had been small sobs and now it was broken cries and constant sniffles. He had known she'd react badly but never like this, never had he know she'd act so broken.

Rick tried to place a hand on her shoulder as she stood crying but she pushed it off and that's when he saw the scar. The stitching was old but he could see how red it was now.

 Beth rubbed at it, still crying, now just coming out as endless blubbers of  "No" repeated more times than Rick could count.

 "There was nothing I could do," he assured, his hand on her shoulder, this time she didn't shrug it off. Instead she spun and pulled Rick into a warm hug, sobbing into his sweaty neck.

 For a while, he wasn't sure what to do. He hadn't hugged a girl, let alone a woman, in so long. He barely touched Chloe except for the kiss and whatever he could call what happened today. It hadn't been much, he'd woken and her small frame had been curved against him. But here was Beth, a woman, Daryl's woman, with her arms wrapped tightly around him breathing softly into his neck and crying.

 Lori had never done this.

 She had never really been the type to cry. She was more of a keep-it-in kind of woman. Maybe that's why she was with Rick. He liked to pretend he never cried but the truth was he was quite emotional. He remembered that only a few very short hours ago he cried because Maggie was dead. He hadn't meant to. She'd fallen and hit her head and it'd taken quite a long while, among the noise and bustle, at least twenty minutes, for her to turn. He couldn't even meet her walker gaze. He'd just hopelessly drawn his gun only to drop it.

 Even Aislynn couldn't do it. Poor Aislynn who had woken, holding a hand to her head, and looked up to see a very newly-turned walker-Maggie sitting right near her. She'd screamed, backing away from her and drawing her gun, much like Rick had, only to drop it and start crying.

 No one thought her death would affect them this much.

 Glenn had ran over to see what all the fuss was and had broken down at the sight of her pale body and her lifeless green eyes. Hershel had stared in shock, the news that he might possible lose both his daughters finally hit him; Beth was gone and possible never coming back and here was Maggie, as close to death as anyone could ever be.

 Daryl had been the one to finally shoot her; to put her out of her misery.

 He'd pushed his way to the front and Rick knew, just seeing from the way his body tensed, that this wasn't how he wanted things to go. Rick had wondered if Daryl was going to cry, no one had ever seen him cry except maybe Beth, but he didn't. He bravely pulled his gun, squeezing his eyes shut, then pulled the trigger. After that, he'd simply gave Aislynn a look, turned then walked away, limping at the enormous weight forced on his broken leg.

 His leg was getting better though and Hershel had said just a few hours before Maggie's death that he would be able to walk on it in a few days.

 But something like that, Rick laughed, could never keep a tough redneck like him from doing what he wanted.

 "I know," Beth said, "I know you couldn't do anything."

 The words automatically took a huge weight off Rick's shoulders. He rubbed his left palm on her back, his other holding her tightly to him.

 He, he realised, had never ever been held like this.

 "You should go see Daryl," Rick suggested, trying to keep his voice soft. Slowing, drawing in a breath, she pulled away, looking up at him with pain in those big blue eyes; eyes just as blue as Daryl's.

 Then, she nodded. "I think he'd like that," she replied, flattening down her messy blonde ponytail.

 Rick agreed. "I think he would," he smiled sympathetically. "You should go, I'll find your father and tell him you're back."

 "Thank you," Beth said, opening the car door to grab her jacket and tightening it around her wind-battered body. It was the coldest day they'd had in many, the worst day to be outside digging graves, burning bodies and burying them.

 Rick wiped sweat off his forehead despite the cold, bending down to pick up the shovel near his feet. With a sigh, he plunged it into the dirt, letting himself take another breath before staring down at the body by him.

 Maggie.

 It was going to be a long day after all, and it was only just getting started.