Scarlett Greene hadn't spoken since she was twelve. After her Daddy was arrested for abuse when she was seventeen, she is sent to live with her Uncle Hershel. Her life gets better, but the trauma is still there.
When the apocalypse begins, she take...
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letting go
AFTER A WHILE, SCARLETT GOT THEM SOME WATER AS THEY SAT ON THE PORCH GETTING SOBER. Judith had eaten again, and she had a changed diaper. Scarlett took her out of her dirty onesie and put a shirt on her. She tied it off to make it fit her. It was too big, but it would work for now.
"I get why my dad stopped drinking," Beth said after a little while.
"You feel sick?" Daryl asked her.
"Nope. I wish I could feel like this all the time, but that's bad."
"You're lucky you're a happy drunk," Daryl commented with a smirk.
"Yeah, I'm lucky. Some people can be real jerks when they drink," she said, looking at him pointedly.
Daryl nodded, glancing at Scarlett. "Yeah. I'm a dick when I'm drunk." It was quiet for a moment before Daryl spoke again. "Merle had this dealer, this janky little white guy, tweaker, one day we were over at his house watching TV. Wasn't even noon yet. We were all wasted. Merle was high. We were watching this show and Merle was talking all this dumb stuff about it. He wouldn't let up. Merle never could. Turns out it was the tweaker's kid's favourite show and he never sees his kid, so he felt guilty about it or something. So he punches Merle in the face, so I started hitting the tweaker like hard, hard as I can. And he—he pulls a gun, he sticks it right here. He says, I'm going to kill you, bitch. So Merle pulls his gun on him. Everyone's yelling. I'm yelling. I thought I was dead over a dumb cartoon about a talking dog."
Scarlett hummed, her hand ghosting over her stomach. "How'd you get out of it?"
"The tweaker punched me in the gut. I puked. They both started laughing. We forgot all about it. You want to know where I was before all this?" Beth nodded. "I was just drifting around with Merle doing whatever he said we were going to be doing that day. I was nobody, nothing, just some redneck asshole with a even bigger asshole for a brother."
Scarlett grabbed his hand. "You miss him, don't you."
Daryl did not answer, so Beth nodded at Scarlett.
"I miss my family. Rick. Carl. Sophia. All of them," Scarlett whispered.
"I miss Maggie. I miss her bossing me around. I miss my big brother Shawn. He was so annoying and overprotective. And my dad. I thought—I hoped he'd just live the rest of his life in peace, you know," Beth continued. "I thought Maggie and Glenn would have a baby, and he'd get to be a grandpa, and we'd have birthdays and holidays and summer picnics. And he'd get really old, and it happen, but it'd be quiet. It'd be okay. He'd be surrounded by people he loved. That's how unbelievably stupid I am."
Daryl squeezed Scarlett's hand. "That's how it was supposed to be. Red, earlier, you looked like you were protecting yer stomach—"
"I didn't drink with y'all because I think I'm pregnant."
That was her first time saying it out loud.
Daryl and Beth stared at her in shock.
"I'm alone with a baby that's not mine and maybe a baby that's on the way. I'm terrified and want to go crawl in a hole and die, but I'm here. We're here. It won't be like we wished for, but we'll make it work."
Beth's eyes widened. "A baby? Another one?"
"Another," she whispered, placing her hand on her stomach. "If the flu didn't kill it, I will by not being able to take care of it. Ain't life a bitch," she finished with a tight smile.
"We'll do it. We'll figure it out, Scarlett," Beth promised.
"Love your giddy optimism, Bethy, but I don't know this time," Scarlett finished, squeezing Beth's hand.
"I wish I could just change. Stop being so optimistic."
"You did change. Both of you," Daryl grunted out. "Hardly the women y'all were when we met."
"Not enough. Not like you. It's like you were made for how things are now."
Daryl shook his head. "I'm just used to this, things being ugly, growing up in a place like this."
"But you got away from it."
"I didn't."
"You did."
"Maybe you got to keep on reminding me sometimes."
"No. You can't depend on anybody for anything, right? I'll be gone someday," Beth said morbidly.
Scarlett shook her head. "Stop it."
"I will. Maybe you too, Scar. But Daryl," she nodded to Daryl with a look that made Scarlett smile. Beth was trying to make Daryl feel better. "You're going to be the last man standing. You are. You're going to miss me so bad when I'm gone, Daryl Dixon."
"You ain't a happy drunk at all," Daryl scoffed.
"Yeah, I'm happy. I'm just not blind. You got to stay who you are, not who you were. Places like this, you have to put it away," she told him.
"What if you can't?" he whispered out after a moment. They heard Judith babble something.
"You have to or it kills you."
Scarlett looked up at the sky, thinking of her Daddy. She thought of how long it took her to break away from his torturous words and actions. She thought of how much she had grown because of the group. Because of Rick. Daryl. Carl. "We should go inside," she whispered to them, holding Judith to her chest.
"We should burn it down," Beth commented, nodding her head to Daryl.
Daryl was going to protest, but Scarlett shook her head. "We're going to need more booze."
"You wanna?" he asked her with wide eyes.
"Let's call it a big 'Fuck you' to both our pasts," she told him with a nod.
They strapped Judith to Scarlett as they made sure all of their supplies were on them; they poured moonshine all over the cabin. They were laughing as they did so.
Finally, Daryl took out the money he took from the country club.
"Wanna do the honors?" Daryl asked Beth as he lit the end of the money on fire.
"Hell yeah."
Scarlett watched Beth throw the money inside causing the whole cabin to alight in flames. She began to laugh as she shielded the flames from Judith. It was a liberating feeling, for some reason.
It was as if she was turning a new chapter in the book. She felt the weight leave her shoulders. She glanced at Daryl and Beth, causing them to give her a questioning look.
"I'm gonna have this baby. It ain't dying," she told them. "No more holding onto the past. We're movin' forward."
Beth clapped and cheered, hugging Scarlett.
She turned to the cabin, giving it the middle finger.
"Come on," she told them.
With smirks on Scarlett and Daryl's faces, they lifted their middle fingers up.
