a/n: let's just say the season finale destoryed me. also, the flashbacks with beth + the sheriff hat may or may not have inspired this.
trigger warning: rape. this is rated a hard T.

metamorphosis / ch.1
no time for tears

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Long after the days begin to blur together in her head, Beth forms a plan.

She's figured out the rotations of the men. The strong, bulky one comes in right after the light peeks through the boarded-up window near the ceiling. After him, she counts for two hours before an old, balding one takes his turn. Beth can hear the hustle and bustle of lunch time in a nearby room, and afterwards a variety of different men have their way with her broken, hollow body until they've been satisfied thoroughly. The sun sets, the crickets and cicadas start chirping, and the final man takes his turn.

This man, Beth has noted, is younger than the rest. He talks more than any of the other men who visit her. He talks about how good of a girl she is, how pretty and tight her body is, how he fucks better than any of the bastards set up in the camp. His words used to feel like sharp needles insistently poking at her skin, but now Beth is numb, and they bounce off her conscience like some kind of sick, everlasting game. Beth has studied this man.

After a while — Beth can't quite say how long — the men leave her unchained. They see the way she curls around herself before and after they do the deed and they deem her a domesticated, fragile pet. For the most part, they're right; for days on end Beth convinces herself that she will live the rest of her life locked up in this cellar being raped five or ten times a day by men whose names she will never know, but faces she will never forget.

Then one day, she changes.

Sometimes, more than one man visits her. One man will violate her, and the other will watch with a drink in their hand or a cigarette between their lips. There's conversations occasionally, but Beth has managed to tune everything out in hopes of being able to ignore the man between her thighs. Beth will catch a couple of things every once in a while, but nothing ever interests her.

"I swear," a blonde man leaning against the cellar wall begins, fiddling with a worn lighter and a cigarette for a moment. "If I see one more goddamned Terminus sign, I think I'll burn it down."

The man hovering over her chuckles and his lips curl, showing yellow, rotten teeth. "Wonder how many people fall for that trap a day."

"Trap, huh? You think they kill every son of a bitch who knocks on their front door?"

Beth's legs are yanked apart. "Nah. Probably fuck most of 'em instead." The man grins at Beth, her glassy eyes barely registering it.

In her peripheral vision, Beth sees the blonde man step up behind the other one. "Bet your little bowman friend is there right now, living a good life, not even considerin' how you're doin'." After the men finish with her and cut the lights off, Beth sits up in the cellar and pushes herself back against the wall. She looks up at the window in the corner of the room, and the men's conversation plays in her head.

For the first time in forever, Beth thinks of Daryl.

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Perhaps the most valuable thing that Daryl has ever taught her is how to kill a man. On a night after they'd burned down the moonshine cabin, the duo sit around a fire chewing overcooked squirrel meat while the brisk air kisses at their exposed skin.

"Daddy used to tell me this story about how he and my uncle went on a camping trip one summer," she starts, wiping her fingers on her pants. "They lost all their food when my uncle accidentally kicked both their packs off a cliff while he was sleeping." Beth laughs and Daryl rolls his eyes.

"That's 'bout the dumbest thing I ever heard," Daryl chuckles in between bites of squirrel.

Beth laughs as well. "Yeah, I think so too. Basically, they woke up with no food and easily twenty or thirty miles between them and their car. Now, my uncle had this grand idea that the two of them should test out their survivin' skills, right there in the middle of the woods. So they go out there, they shoot this squirrel, they cook it up with a fire, and they eat it."

"How'd it taste?"

She grins then, all her pearly-whites glinting in the firelight. "Daddy said it was just about the closest thing to eatin' his own shoe he's ever had."

Daryl's eyes crinkle as Beth laughs at her own story, her fingers tangled in the fringe of her blanket. "I'd have to agree with your dad. Squirrel ain't the most tender of meat."

Beth's laugh dies as the fire crackles into the night's air. She looks at Daryl then, eating his squirrel meat viciously and savagely like he's crunched on time, and she thinks he's the most beautiful thing she's seen lately. Beth hurriedly flicks her eyes away as he looks up at her.

"Y'know, sometimes I dream about killing him," Beth says into the fire. She can almost hear Daryl stop chewing. "The Governor. Sometimes I dream that I'm standing right behind him when he kills my daddy and I grab Michonne's sword and I try to cut 'em to pieces, but I just keep poking him like some kind of pincushion."

She looks at him as he swallows. "Ain't nothin' comforting 'bout that kind of dream."

Her laugh is bitter and fragmented, a complete one-eighty from her usual tinkling giggle. "If I was standin' behind the Governor when it happened, and if I had the chance to kill him, I don't think I'd know what to do."

Daryl doesn't respond immediately; he finishes his squirrel and licks his fingers clean, washing it down with a meager sip of water. When he's done, he looks at her — really looks at her; Beth can feel his icy eyes burn straight through her bones — and then clears his throat awkwardly.

"First thing you do when you wanna kill someone is figure out how to not be killed by them," Daryl says, hands held out in front of him. Beth's eyes are wide as he continues talking.

"Sometimes they've got a gun, and if you're face to face that means you gotta be real sure to go low so you don't get shot. If they've got a knife, keepin' their arms away from you is the most important thing. If they've got a bow, you wanna keep moving at all times."

Daryl explains to her then how to kill a man in many situations she's never thought of. It's full of hesitation and awkward tension, but Beth listens patiently as he uses his hands to demonstrate how to thrust a knife or how to handle a chokehold. He's blunt and graphic, but Beth wouldn't have it any other way because sugarcoating how to murder someone is the most ridiculous thing she can think of. At the end of his lesson, there's silence as Daryl fleetingly glances at her as she evenly blinks at him, hands clasped together under her chin.

"Thank you," she says. "Maybe my dreams will end differently now." And they do.

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Beth can usually hear the stairs to the cellar creak as the men come down the stairs. She knows they never rush; they take slow, haughty steps as if they imagine her behind the closed door flinching at each step they take. Beth gives herself five or six seconds of leeway time.

Dragging the crate over to the corner of the room with the window, Beth tests the strength of the wooden box. She's easily under a hundred pounds now although she wasn't much before, and she's almost pleased with herself when it doesn't collapse under all her weight. Standing on the tips of her toes, Beth's hand brushes a rusted nail.

She can tell the boards were thrown up hastily and without a hammer, most likely with the butt of a gun or something else. The nails are surrounded by damaged, splintered wood, and Beth picks the most accessible one and starts to get to work. In minutes her nails are short and bleeding as she claws and pulls at the splinters around the nail, but she is almost giddy when she can grab the edge of the nail and tug.

Her joy is cut short by the telltale thumping of heavy boots on old stairs, and Beth whirls around in fear. She jumps off the crate, pushes it as silently as she can somewhere near to where it used to be while dumping her pile of splinters into a can, and curls up on the floor, trying to steady her breathing. The door swings open and the balding man spits onto the floor in a greeting, unbuttons his pants, and gets to work.

After her usual routine of laying limp and lifeless, after the young man visits her at midnight and whispers in her ear, Beth looks up at the boarded window with almost unnoticeable droplets of blood on it, and she smiles.

A few sunsets later, Beth has pulled the nail from the wood. There's been several close calls, but the immensely strong feeling of satisfaction as she grasps the long, rusted nail in her dirty palms is indescribable. Beth's pants never stay on her much anymore, so she tucks the nail into her sock and prays she doesn't pierce herself. Beth waits until the day of her bi-weekly feeding, and then counts down the unbearable minutes to midnight. Beth leans against the back wall and fiddles with the nail, imagining how she's going to kill the man over and over again in her head. It's like a script, and as the moon shines through the window, Beth knows her lines.

The young man struts down the stairs, and her eyes glue onto him as he opens the door and shuts it behind him. Beth knows he can tell there's something different about her as he arches his brow. "Lookin' a little alert tonight, aren't we?"

Beth doesn't say anything until he has his pants down and he's ready, tugging on her leg until she's flat against the floor. Clearing her throat and speaking for the first time in weeks, Beth's gravelly voice echoes in the empty room. "You don't hurt me as bad as the others."

The way he fucks her that night is mindless, and he's more talkative than ever, his head buried in her hair and her legs pushed up against her chest. It's perfect and ideal in every sense of the way, and he doesn't notice as Beth's hands slip into her socks and pull out the nail. Just like Daryl told her, she drives it up his jugular, waits until she feels him freeze and hears the first gurgle, and then pushes him away from her.

Hastily, Beth rummages through his discarded pants until she finds his belt with his knife attached. She feels like God, who has not been on the forefront of her mind for quite some time now, might have just given her a blessing. Beth ends his sadistic life with a knife through the skull, and she stares at the blood on her hands. It's thinner than walker blood, but it gives Beth a sense of relief.

Beth quickly throws on her torn clothes and cinches the man's belt around her bony hips. He's got a gun with ammo right beside his knife, and Beth almost barks out a laugh at how much these men underestimated her. Beth knows she has time, so she pops out the remaining nails with her knife as quietly as she can and gently sets the wooden boards on the floor. Concentrating all of her waning strength, she pulls herself up through the window into the night air.

She hasn't smelled the freshness of the woods at night in such a long time that Beth considers standing there just to let it sink in. She's not stupid, so she looks around for a patrol before bolting through the trees as fast as her thin legs can take her. She runs until the sun comes up over the horizon, and by dawn she collapses on cold asphalt. With her face pressed against the road, Beth laughs until she can't breathe.

Pushing herself up, Beth looks left and right. She has a fifty-fifty shot towards a town with food, water, and supplies. Surprising herself, she takes off towards the woods, Daryl's voice echoing in her mind.

Days go by, and Beth survives. She gathers water from a stream into a plastic bottle she finds in the woods, and she spends almost an hour stalking a squirrel until she pounces, severing the critter's head and leaving its starving, malnourished body untouched. As she skins it and roasts it on a small fire, Beth remembers when she was doing the same thing with Daryl at her side, teaching her how to track and how to kill. When Beth finishes her squirrel and licks her fingers, she checks her traps and sleeps for a brief few hours.

In the morning, Beth keeps moving with no endpoint in mind. She doesn't know where she is; Beth is certain she's still in Georgia, but she could be hundreds of miles away from the funeral home in any direction. She vaguely remembers Daryl leading them north after the fall of the prison, so she watches the sun rise before heading south. She only runs across a couple of walkers before she finds train tracks weaving in and out of the woods, but Beth keeps her cover as she follows the tracks from the safety of the trees.

As Beth stops to wash herself in a dirty, muddy pond, she hears the distant moan of a walker and finishes up with a sigh. Drying her hands on her shirt, Beth unsheathes her knife before following the noise until she finds a small herd of them mindlessly stumbling down the tracks. There's only six or seven of them, but in Beth's weak and vulnerable state she knows she will never have a chance unless she moves as silently as possible. Taking a breath to steel herself, Beth moves forward.

She stops when the skittering sound of a rock hitting metal breaks the constant noise of moans and nature. Beth quickly ducks behind a tree, eyes glued onto the herd that moves towards the clattering pebble. Beth can handle animals, she can handle walkers, but Beth doesn't know if she can handle a human while she's so unprepared in the wilderness. Her breath comes out in shaky, stuttered intervals, and she crouches behind the tree, eyes scanning the edge of the woods on the other side of the tracks.

When Tyreese steps out from behind the foliage, Beth almost collapses in both shock and relief. She shakily pulls herself to her feet and grips her knife hard, watching as the burly man destroys the herd with little effort. He stands amidst the bodies, clothes splattered with blood, and finishes off the stragglers.

Beth almost runs to the tracks to meet him, stopping only when the crunch of her boots on leaves causes Tyreese to whirl around with his gun aimed at her face. She can't stop her small smile when he lowers his weapon and his eyes widen in disbelief.

"Beth?" he says, his confusion reflecting in his intonation. "That you?"

"Yeah," she replies, out of breath. "It's me."

Tyreese huffs and slides his gun between his shirt and his pants. "Well I'll be damned," he says, stepping forward and crushing her in an unexpected hug. She was never close with Tyreese — she often talked to Sasha instead — but finding a familiar face after her life was ripped away from her is such a comforting thing that she weakly squeezes him back.

As he pulls away, Tyreese gives her a weak smile, and Beth notices how empty his eyes are, how shallow and lifeless they seem. She doesn't question it; she's sure hers look the same. Beth clears her throat as Tyreese looks at her, and she opens her mouth to speak until she's interrupted.

"Tyreese?"

Beth peers around him to see who is speaking, the voice painfully familiar. Beth sees Carol and, cradled close to her chest, little Judith Grimes, who beams down at her from the treeline.

At the sight of the infant's face, seemingly unscathed by the wilderness around them, Beth almost weeps on the spot. Instead she approaches Carol, runs a knuckle over Judith's soft and pudgy cheek, and tries to hold down the tears as Judy gurgles and reaches out towards her.

"Looks like she's happy to see you," is all Carol says, a small, patient smile on the older woman's face. Beth laughs through her tears and sheathes her knife, arms out to hold the baby.

"I'm happy to see her too."

Later that night after Tyreese and Judith head to bed, Carol steadily asks her how she managed to survive all alone in the woods. Hesitantly, she tells Carol about Daryl.

"He taught me how to track, how to hunt, how to kill." Beth says, hands fiddling with the tattered edge of her shirt.

Something in Carol's eyes react as Beth mentions Daryl. "He's dead?" Carol asks, voice faltering on the last syllable.

"Don't know," Beth sighs. "He's just gone."

Carol doesn't ask her to elaborate, and Beth's grateful she doesn't. She finds herself unable to put words together to describe her past situation, her relationship with Daryl, her utter dedication and fondness of him. Beth rubs her temples. "I want to find him."

"I'm sure you do," Carol says. "We're heading towards Terminus. Have you seen the signs?"

Beth hasn't. "No. I've heard of it."

There's a question in Carol's eyes at the vagueness and discrepancy in Beth's answer, but the woman has an unimaginable ability to read and sense people's emotions, so she doesn't say a word.

"Daryl might be there. Hopefully, Rick will be too."

Beth looks at the fire crackling in front of her, and she can almost taste the overcooked squirrel on her tongue. Daryl's barking laugh, his potent eyes, and the sound of him screaming at her to run tattoo themselves into her mind.

"Yeah, hopefully," she says.

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In the morning, the four of them take off down the tracks, Judith in Beth's arms. She tries to summon her past optimism and hopefulness, but it just rings dead in her mind. Beth notices the concerned glances Carol throws her way and the silent looks thrown between her and Tyreese. The blonde doesn't say a word; she just bounces Judith in her arms and keeps her eyes glued forward.

Daryl, she repeats in her mind like a mantra. Daryl.

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a/n: so uh i don't know anything about squirrels or killing people or how to survive in the wilderness. feedback would be appreciated; thanks for reading. xx