death coming up the hill.

[littlemissfutility]

Her first, shallow breath in is filled with dirt--that's what wakes her, coughing out and out to try to expel the irritation in her lungs. The realization of the darkness comes next, as she blinks and shifts, her eyes gritty. Everything's pressing in on her, trying to fill in the spaces in her nose and mouth and she can't breathe, everything tastes like mud, and--

Oh, God--oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, ohgodohgodohgodohgod--

She kicks and punches, scrabbles what she hopes without words is up, her lungs burning, halfway certain that she's going to die like this, trapped under too much dirt packed over her. The earth is heavy, she doesn't know where she's going, and her head is pounding with the effort of moving without air to fuel her.

A hand is the first thing to make it to the surface. It takes her a moment to recognize the sensation, warm sunshine without more soil blocking it, but when she does, she reacts like a cornered dog. Scratching up, reaching, doing everything she can to get to that place where the ground stops.

Beth spits filth when her head breaks the surface. Air fills her lungs, then disappears again in more racking coughs. She's a mess of dirt and tears and (after that long stretch of hacking) puke, unable to do anything except try to get everything that doesn't belong in her out.

Comments

[disheveling]

He's lost, again, because of course he is. He's been lost since Georgia, where he managed to drop his map (which he barely knew how to read anyway) into a creek, and had to evade a small hoard of walkers before he could get it back. So now he's been trapezing through the woods aimlessly, running dangerously low on provisions, with only a dulling hunting knife for protection.

Not that he would use it if it came to it, probably. He hasn't thus far, save once, finding more success in running than fighting. Somehow, it's left a string of bodies in his wake anyway. Not on purpose, never on purpose.

One of these days, he should probably just succumb to a hoard and save everyone the trouble. But there's something to be said about the human survival instinct.

He trips over what he thinks is, at first, some snarled roots, and sighs with irritation as he regains his footing. It's then that he realizes it's not tree roots, but a hand, and it's very much reaching.

"Bloody fucking hell!"

Monty's strangled shout would be embarrassingly unmanly if anyone were around to hear it. He hits the ground ass-first, scrambling back as the thing claws its away out of the earth. It's a walker-- a girl-- she's coughing, she's-- Jesus Christ she's alive. Shit, he should probably help her.

Now, Monty scrambles forward, gripping her hand to help pull her out of the dirt.

[littlemissfutility]

It takes time for her to realize that there's a hand wrapped around hers, and that she's squeezing it like it's the only thing keeping her from falling back into the earth and drowning. Not until she's coughed, barfed, coughed some more, and finally managed a few breaths without feeling like she's choking.

She has to let go of it, whoever it belongs to (Daryl, Maggie, Rick, Carol, please--) so she can scrub the dirt and tears from her eyes. But when she can finally see, it's...no one she knows. A guy, maybe a year or two older than her.

Beth breathes--in and out, shaky but clear, in and out--and looks at him, like maybe if she stares, she might recognize his face. Or maybe like a deer looking at an oncoming car, too startled by the sight before it to remember what to do next.

After a moment, she swallows, wincing a little at the bitter taste in her mouth. (She's a mess, even if she hasn't realized the extent of it yet, from the mix of dirt and dried blood to the new additions of tears, spittle, and snot.) Her voice rough, she manages to croak out, "Who are you?"

[disheveling]

The girl is a mess, but Monty has to believe that anybody would he a mess if they clawed their way out of the dirt. What doesn't make sense is why she isn't more of a mess. As in, why isn't she shuffling and moaning and trying to kill him? Was she mistakenly buried when someone thought she died? That would he mightily messed up.

He's still reeling, but since it doesn't seem like she's keen on attacking him, his guard is admittedly relaxed. It's a miracle he isn't dead yet, honestly.

"Your knight in shining armor, darling, what the hell happened to you?"

A thank you would be nice. He did just help pull her from the ground. She's probably still in shock though, so he'll give her time to gather her bearings.

[littlemissfutility]

"I don't know." The joke doesn't register as a joke at the moment; she's still staring dully at him, like explanations might burst out of him. You were taking a dirt nap for this very good reason, and your family is just around the next corner. Her memories of the very last things she remembers...they're faint, amorphous. Seeing her people again, feeling the cool metal of a pair of surgical shears against her arm. Everything blurs together from there.

It occurs to her, after a moment, that she's sitting next to a pile of vomit and that she really, really doesn't want to be. (It has also occurred to her--on some level, at least--that her legs are still half buried, but that's not something she can think about right now. Noticing that means looking head-on into the fact that all of her was underground just a minute or two ago, and that's something she can't even begin to confront.) Bracing herself against the ground, carefully avoiding the puke, she starts to try to lift herself up.

"I gotta get going," she says, like she's in any shape to do more than wobble towards standing like a newborn fawn. Her legs have all the substance of willow leaves under her. "I have to find them."

[disheveling]

She doesn't know. A girl just clawed herself out of the ground, is inexplicably not trying to eat his flesh, and she doesn't know how she got there. The amnesia doesn't seem to go back too far though, because she's apparently very keen on finding someone.

Monty, too, avoids the puddle of vomit as he steps towards her, reaching forward to simply take her by the elbows and steady her. This is a very confounding situation. But at least it gives him something to do that's not wander aimlessly.

"Hold on just a second," he suggests. "You just climbed out of a shallow grave and you've no weapon. Does trapezing through the woods seem like the best idea right now?"

[littlemissfutility]

That stops her for a moment, staring at him--short is all she thinks for a moment, he's smaller standing up--in confusion. Of course she has a weapon, she had--

Her hand goes to her hip, arm slipping from his grasp, and finds nothing. No hunting knife, not even its sheath. A glance down at the churned-up dirt, where all there is to see is dirt and puke slowly soaking into it. Something unpleasant shivers down her back, fear and the vague sense of violation, like waking up in the hospital and realizing someone had bathed her.

"They took my knife." Beth rubs a hand across one dirty cheek, where her skin is itching where the salt from her tears is drying against it. Her thoughts are still coming much too slow, almost stupid, but they're starting to coalesce back into something that feels like sense. Was it Rick and them, or Grady? She can only live with the thought of one of those. "I need my knife."

dear lord sorry my tags are so slow rn

[disheveling]

He has a knife. Not a spectacular one, he doubts it could even skin a fox if it came down to it, but it's tucked into the back of his pants in case he needs it. He's more likely to run than anything else, but it's nice to have options. Especially during the apocalypse, where options are few and far between.

But he'll just keep that information to himself for now. He hates that all of this has made him a distrustful creature, but it has, and he is.

So instead, he keeps one hand on her elbow, mostly because he's not convinced she'll stay upright for long. She's just a waif of a thing, likely to blow away with the next strong wind. He'd say skin and bone, but now he's seen skin and bone.

"Maybe one thing at a time, yeah? What's your name, darling? I'm Monty."

it's okay, you've got mothers to surprise

[littlemissfutility]

"Beth." She focuses on him again, and this time, it feels like her thoughts are coming together a little more easily. It's not a good feeling, admittedly; now that there's room in her body for thinking as well as breathing, she's moved beyond he's small to they buried me oh my God they buried me they-- . But at least her brain feels like it's starting to work.

So she has to think. They buried her, and that means they though she was dead, and that means they went on, because that's how this works. She has to dig her nails into her palms to keep herself from crumpling into a new mess of tears, and it's still a near thing, her breathing going loud and purposeful in the way it does when she's trying not to sob. That means they can...they can catch up. They can find them. They'll find Rick and Carol and she'll hug Daryl and tell him she's sorry he had to see whatever happened, but she's okay now, and they'll find Maggie and it'll be okay.

"Did it look new?" she asks Monty, her voice a tight fit in her throat. "Did it look like I was just--just--"

But God, she can't say buried.

[disheveling]

This has got to be the wildest thing he's stumbled upon since all Hell broke loose, and he's stumbled upon a great many things that would make one falter. He's got to admit, though -- she's handling this a hell of a lot better than he would be. Which is embarrassing, so he's grateful he's not the one who was buried alive.

That's terrible of him, though. He's probably the one that deserves to be buried alive, at least.

He's not sure which answer she's hoping to hear, so he hesitates a moment, trying to read her expression. A habit leftover from always trying to say what it was his father wanted to heat. It was easier with him, since she only looks like she's trying not to burst into tears. Can't blame her for that though.

"No," he says truthfully. "I didn't realize you were there until your hand..."

It seems insensitive to say 'until your hand burst out of the ground.'

[littlemissfutility]

For a moment, Beth's too startled by the answer to be upset by it. They must've just buried her--she couldn't have just been under there, alive and waiting for the right moment to come out of a coma or whatever just happened. But there are little bits of grass mixed in with the dirt, like the world had started to blanket back over her body. Like she'd really been dead, and then somehow...somehow, she'd started breathing.

She draws back a little, moving like she's forgotten she's not alone, to look over herself. Blood, old blood, down her front, the stains that never came out after the country club. Slightly newer blood as well, but only splotches. Awkwardly, she pats over her arms through her holey grey cardigan, and then her shoulders and collarbone, looking for rot that doesn't exist. And then her throat and up it, and that's when she finds the scar under her jaw, a warped circle with rough, raised edges. All of her freezes but her fingertips--she keeps touching it, rubbing the edges, her eyes wide in her dirty face as the world closes down to her hands and the bullet hole they're moving over.

I was really dead. Dawn shot me and they left me here under the ground and I was really--

She feels like she's going to barf again, whirling away from the boy--Monty, Monty, he's still here--and bending double. There's nothing left in her but bile, burning up her throat as she retches over and over. When she finally stops, feeling hollow and wondering vaguely if this means there's a bullet in her brain someplace, she wipes her mouth on her sleeve and straightens up a little shakily. All she wants to do is curl back up on the ground, ideally someplace away from the puke, and cry until everything stops, but even in the middle of this, she knows she can't do that. She has to do something that's actually doing something.

Which is where Monty comes in, maybe. Facing him again, after he's watched her cry and throw up and claw her way out of a grave, is more difficult than she expects, but thinking about him gets her out of her own misery for a second or two. Her brows furrow together as she regards him, and finally, finally, she asks, "Where's your people?"

[disheveling]

Ah, so that was definitely not the answer she wanted to hear. At least the repercussions for getting it wrong aren't as bad as they would be if he were standing in front of his father right now. Beth whirls away out of his grip and doubles over, and maybe it's awful of him to think so, but that's far better than being struck in the face by his father's strong hand.

No, it's definitely awful of him to think so. Percy would tell him as much, if he were here. Hell, if Percy were here, this conversation might have gone a little more smoothly.

He waits patiently as she reaches, doing her the courtesy of looking at anything but her. It might he nice of him to hold her hair, but he doesn't know her all that well, and he's pretty sure there's already vomit in her hair, besides. Not to mention he never even held Felicity's hair back when she was sick. God, he was a terrible big brother.

When Beth finally straightens up and faces him again, Monty pulls his gaze away from where he'd been pointedly studying a cloud shape in the sky. He looks at her expectantly, waiting for the next question, and it's delivered like a punch to the gut.

Half of his people are in England, and God only knows what's happening over there. The important half are buried two state lines over, and Monty can't will those words out of his mouth even if he wanted to.

"I don't have any," he says simply.

[littlemissfutility]

The fact that he doesn't try to help her is for the best; she might not be quite as disoriented as she was, but being held by her hair wouldn't go over well at the moment. She's already relieved to find that he wasn't watching her for the last minute or so. All these realizations, the shooting and dying and burial, feel skin-flayingly personal, and she doesn't know more about Monty than his name and accent.

Nobody just doesn't "have any" people--not after two years of a world full of hungry corpses. It'd be near impossible to live alone here; even if it wasn't, it'd be desperately lonely. There are things there, maybe a little in Monty's face and a little in the air around them, left unsaid, things Beth understands. I'm sorry is on the tip of her tongue, but she has the vague sense that she's better off proving it than saying it to him.

And she knows that she isn't going to get far on her own, any more than Monty will. Nothing on earth could persuade her to return to the shadow Grady casts, but that doesn't mean she can pull a Daryl and run around in the woods by herself. That Monty doesn't have anyone is a sun-bright sign. Her gaze fixes on him, steadier by the moment, and she asks the first question. "How many walkers have you killed?"

[disheveling]

He doesn't want to talk about it, and for a moment he thinks she's going to push anyway. As much as he knows he won't survive long without the protection of another person, he'll sooner walk away than discuss how he lost the love of his life and his sister since all this started. He's grateful when it doesn't come to that, and they allow the rest to hang unsaid between them.

If he were less selfish, he'd walk away anyway. Everyone who sticks around him ends up dying to protect him. She's better off finding her people on her own.

His brow creases at her question, finding it new and a little ludacris. What's it matter how many flesh eating zombies he's done away with? Especially since the answer is zero, unless the time he locked a small hoard in a burning barn counted. That was just common sense, though.

"As many as I've needed to," he answers. Hopefully it's as satisfactory as it is vague.

[littlemissfutility]

Beth rolls her eyes, starting to slip back into old habits and mannerisms. More proof, maybe, that she's waking up, remembering who she was before she ended up in the dirt. "So how many is that?"

It doesn't have to be an exact number, but it has to be something. Not this vague bullshit about as many as I've needed to--which sounds to her like the number's big but he's embarrassed about that for some reason. It's been two years, everyone's killed a lot of walkers.

(Maybe he's hedging because of her, she thinks. Because of the whole "used to be dead" thing. But she's not like them.)

[disheveling]

Monty rolls his eyes right back, perching hands on his narrow hips in an exhasperated imitation of his sister. The longer they stand here asking each other stupid questions, the more likely some walker hoard is to stumble upon them and rip them to shreds. But it seems like she's going to be annoyingly stubborn over this, so he squints up at the sky as he tries for a better answer.

"I don't know, it's not as if I've been taking the time to keep up with a tally." He drags his teeth across a chapped bottom lip. "Like, a dozen I caught on fire. And possibly a few I hit with a car but I didn't stop to check their pulse."

He should stop being snotty, probably. Technically, it was Felicity who caught the hoard on fire, and all Monty did was lock the barn doors. It was a team effort though. It had to count for something.

[littlemissfutility]

He's stubborn--but Beth is, too, and she's not going on until she has the answers. If he's part of her group and they eventually find Rick, then he'll be part of theirs. And that means she has to do this right.

(Besides, there's no way in hell she's going to sleep around him without knowing the answers. She needs the opportunity to weigh what he says, and how he says it.)

"That's good enough." It's hard to imagine getting through this long, killing less than twenty walkers, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen. He might've spent most of his time in one place, and other people might have been the ones who did the killing. However it worked, she's pretty sure he's telling the truth, and that's good enough for her. "How many people have you killed?"

[disheveling]

The second question has Monty's gaze snapping from the tufts of grass in the dirt to Beth's mud-streaked face. It's impossible to stifle his initial expression of hurt and unbearable sadness, but he manages to cover it rather quickly with a look of indignation, brows drawing together.

It's been months since he put Felicity in the ground, and even longer since they both had to do the same to Percy, but both wounds are still as fresh as if they happened last night. He couldn't kill Percy on his own -- Instead, he'd clutched his love's body to his own until he felt that last rattling breath, and then Felicity had been the one to pull the trigger. It was hours before Monty could bring himself to bury Percy, and his entire body ached from endless, bone-wracking sobs as he did so. Felicity hadn't been any easier, but she was alive enough to hold his hand when he did it. Some nights he'll wake up in a sweat, the ghost-feeling of his sister's hand in his, or Percy's head against his shoulder.

That's an unfair question. Not a day goes by that he doesn't think about those two, but it was just getting easier to breathe when she reopened those wounds. Now every breath is like his lungs are pressing against broken ribs, a deep ache echoing in his body.

"Why would you ask me that?" Indignant as his expression is, he can't help the tight emotion in his voice.

[littlemissfutility]

"Because--" she starts, swallowing her instinctive answer. He looks--and sounds--like she just betrayed him, despite hardly knowing him, and it feels so obvious why. Because anyone he's killed, he didn't want to. She could have hit him, and it would've probably hurt less. That's...that's something she can understand.

So she doesn't tell him it's because she has to. She takes a breath, wishing they could do this someplace else, someplace that felt more sheltered than this. "That's what we ask when we want someone to come with us. There' three questions, the last's why you did it."

It occurs to her, as all the words come rushing out of her mouth, that he might want to stay on his own. Maybe she should've started with that, the fact that there's a reason to this, but Rick wouldn't've. Rick would keep that close to his chest until he'd decided someone was okay.

But I'm not Rick. And I don't want to be. I don't want to hurt him after he--

So instead of waiting for him to answer, she keeps talking, hoping it's the right choice. There's a tense, nervous energy running through her words, impatient and unsettled. "Like...five. I've killed five people, I think. One of them, they tricked me into it, and the others--" But she can't go that far, can't bring herself to tell him about Gorman's hand moving up her shirt or the impotent fury of seeing a man her father's age being kicked to the ground. Her lungs box up hard when she even imagines saying the words. "They hurt people. I--I think one of them killed me."

[disheveling]

Monty wishes he could run. He could. Running from issues instead of facing them are his specialty. His father becomes overbearing with pressure and expectation? Flee to the states to finish up school. Arguments with Percy? Find the nearest glass of liquor and a warm mouth. Zombies? Nothing makes him run faster.

Just because he pulled her out of the dirt doesn't mean they owe each other anything. He'd like to just turn his back on her and her wound-opening questions. But he's acutely aware of the fact that he might not stumble upon anyone else for awhile, and he's not cut out to make it on his own.

He exhales sharply out his nose, gaze darting up as he rubs dirty palms over what was once expensive designer jeans.

"My sister and my best friend," he says tightly. It's easier to say when he stares at the sky instead of her. "I had to, they would have become one of them."

Walkers. A shudder slips down Monty's spine. Despite what a hell on earth this apocalypse has made things, it seems to be a universal agreement that nothing is worse than becoming a rotting, shambling corpse. Everyone will avoid that by whatever means necessary.

When he does look back at her, he's smoothed away the lines in his brow, his expression more controlled again. "They obviously didn't do a good job, since you're standing here playing twenty questions with me."

[littlemissfutility]

"I shouldn't be." She felt what's under her chin. He's probably seen it by now--if nothing else, he must have noticed her fingering the spot with the gingerly hands of someone who'd been hoping to come up empty in a search. Whatever happened to her underground, it shouldn't have.

Monty's comment feels biting, Beth realizes after a moment, and she can't tell if it's meant to be. She hurt him by asking about her family, that much was obvious. But she'd had to, and this...God, it all still feels so new. If she could curl back up in the dirt and cry, she'd be settling into it right now.

Instead, she tries to think. They have to find someplace safe. Not Grady. Food, water, shelter. And they have to find her people.

So first...first, she looks at Monty, pressing her lips together hard for a moment or two. She's just assuming he wants in. That's first. "You shouldn't be alone out here. You don't have to be, you know."

[disheveling]

He doesn't necessarily mean for it to be biting, but it's hard for it to come out any other way when he feels wound so tight that he might just snap into pieces. Before all this, he could have easily settled the feeling with a drink or two, maybe something a little harder if the dealer down the hall had anything in stock. But that's not an option here in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees and probably zombies not too far off. The most he can do is try not to work his jaw too hard and remind himself that she didn't mean to reopen such fresh wounds.

Actually, she's clearly having a rougher day than he is, and that already makes him feel a tiny bit better. At least somebody didn't try to put him in the ground. Silver linings and all.

When he looks back at her, it's with a milder expression, his gaze flicking from the hand at her chin to her eyes. They're a very pretty blue, behind the dirt and grime.

"I won't be a good companion," he says. As much as he doesn't want to traverse this world alone, it doesn't feel right to not give her an out, especially when so many people seem to die around him. "You're likely better off on your own."

[littlemissfutility]

"You seem okay so far." That doesn't really prove anything--there were moments when Dawn had seemed okay, like her moments of harshness were cover for something softer--but without Monty, she doesn't know where to start. The thought of disappearing into the woods without someone to keep watch while she sleeps is terrifying. She can't leave herself so vulnerable and expect to make it.

Beth Greene survives on trust, first and foremost. She lives because there are people around her who help her, people she helps in turn. (She also survives on whatever happened underground, but that's not something she wants to touch right now.) However Monty's managed, he doesn't seem like the kind of person who can keep going without someone at his back. He's not Daryl.

[disheveling]

There was a time where "you seem okay so far" would have pricked him like an insult. It would have made him crank the dial on the charm, show her his dimples, and prove to her how much better than okay he is. At one time, he could have flirted her right out of her clothes and into bed. Now, okay is probably one of the nicer things he's been called. One cheek dimples in response, a half smile that, for once, has no ulterior motive.

"Don't say I didn't warn you." Reaching behind his back, his fingers find the hilt of the hunting knife tucked into the back of his pants, which he pulls free.

One time, Monty did this and the person he was offering the weapon to thought he was attacking. He ended up with his back against a wall and another sharper knife held to his throat. He's learned better since, and he moves slower in order not to alarm her.

"You'll probably be handier with this than I am," he says.

[littlemissfutility]

She takes the smile as an agreement, confirmed by the way he warns her a second time. It's a good start--or would be, if he didn't start pulling a knife on her.

For a moment, her breath stops. She's reaching for her own knife, finding nothing at her hip--they took it, duh--and dimly, she realizes that he's offering the handle of the weapon to her. Forcing herself to relax, Beth reaches for it, taking it from Monty.

"I'm okay." With knives, she means, but maybe the reassurance is a good idea in general. Without someplace safe to keep the blade (God, she misses her sheath), she tucks it carefully in the back of her jeans, the same way he had it. So. Weapon, gotten. They need food, water, and shelter for the night. And then they need a plan. Beth glances around the trees, but they don't offer any answers. It was kind of Rick to bury her out of the shadow of that damned hospital, but the upshot is that she has no idea where she is. So she looks up toward the sun, shading her eyes. "Do you know what time it is? We gotta figure out what direction to go."

[disheveling]

And just like that, he has a companion again. Before Beth, it was a brother and sister pair -- Helena and Dante. Dante fell early to a hoard, which was unsurprising as it was tragic. The only time he caught Helena crying over it was late one night when they both thought the other was asleep on opposite sides of the campfire.

It was another few months before Helena died too. People around Monty drop like flies, and somehow, he always manages to make it out of trouble by a hair. Maybe Beth will be stronger. Maybe she won't be one that dies too.

Without a working watch, it's hard to judge the time, but Monty squints up at the sky too and considers how long he's been traveling today.

"About midday," he guesses. "I passed a stream about a mile back that way."

He's gesturing in the direction he came from, glancing at her apologetically. "No offense, love, but you certainly look like you've clawed your way out of the ground. Might be nice to clean up a little."

[littlemissfutility]

Midday seems right. The sun's so high that she can't figure out east and west--so they can't start traveling. And even if they could...where would they go? Rick and the others could be anywhere out there; it's not like they had reason to leave a note. In case this is a ruse, we're going to see what Florida has to offer.

So bathing's as good an idea as any. At least she can be clean, maybe wash the taste of mud and acid out of her mouth. She nods, more decisive than she feels, and makes a sound of agreement. "This dirt itches."

(Even at her filthiest, it didn't make her want to scratch at her arms. She's not sure if it's because it's dry(ish) dirt, or because the knowledge that it's her grave clinging to her that makes it so much worse.)

Beth starts off the way Monty points, trusting that he'll follow her. He's given her his knife, which seems like greater proof than anything that he's in this for the long haul. "Do you have much food?" she asks, because that's going to be the next most important thing, after water.

[disheveling]

Monty does follow, so comfortable and trusting it's a miracle he hasn't gotten himself chopped up in a million pieces by now. He's very good at talking himself out of situations, and he's gotten very lucky in meeting mostly kind people. One of these days, his luck is going to run out, and everything is going to catch up to him at once, and he's probably going to deserve it.

Until then, he'll just follow the next friendly person and hope she has a lot of luck, too.

"Not a stitch," he says, sounding falsely chipper. "There were blackberry bushes along the stream, though. I probably didn't eat all of them?"

The truth is, Monty is immensely grateful that the modern world doesn't have a lot to offer in the way of mirrors, because he's never been more dismayed with his own appearance in his life. His hair is flat and dull, and while he's always been slender, lack of food leaves him uncomfortably skinny. Everything he wears seems to hang off him awkwardly, and he's had to take up a belt to keep his jeans on his hips. Suffice to say it's not a good look on him.

He speeds up a bit to fall into step beside her, keeping a safe distance in case his next question makes her want to hit him. "I'm sorry, but I can't not ask — how did you get buried alive?"

[littlemissfutility]

Blackberry bushes? That's not enough to feed either of them, especially if they're going to be hiking. Beth bites down on the worry trying spring up from her gut--she never got a chance to learn enough about tracking to really hunt, and she doubts Monty has any skill there. Pointing it out, though, might just make Monty worry. (How has he gotten this far without any food? She almost can't believe it.)

Maybe after I get cleaned up, we can go downstream and try and catch fish. If it's a fishing kind of stream. Or there might be crawfish in there under the rocks, if they can manage to catch any without getting pinched.

Her thoughts get derailed as he speaks again; for a moment, all she can do is stare at him in shock, her whole body tensing up. He didn't really just ask that, did he? It's not like he's stupid, from what she can tell--he has to already know the answer. There's something about his words that makes them sound insincere, enough so that she wonders if he's asking to hurt her, some kind of revenge for making him answer the three questions. This might be how he felt when he gave her that look.

He answered her, though. So Beth forces the words through her lips, trying not to give in to the pressure heating up in her cheeks and the corners of her eyes. They already went through the crying thing once; if she falls into it again, it'll be without him looking at her like he's waiting for a good story. "They thought I was dead."

[disheveling]

It's unsurprising that it's a sore topic, given that he just watched her crawl out of her grave. There's a reason he's still out of arm's reach. (He's not stupid — he knows better than to give a girl a knife and then ask her an insensitive question while standing right next to her. He spent a lot of time saying shitty stuff to his sister then failing to outrun her.) Maybe it's a tiny bit satisfying after she uprooted him with her previous questions, but he finds he feels more guilty than anything else.

How annoying it is, that the zombie apocalypse brought along with it an ever-growing conscience. He can only ignore morality so long when so much of his days are filled with tough decisions and death.

It's not that he doesn't believe her — he has no reason not to believe her, really. It's just that it doesn't make sense. He wishes Felicity were here, because she was always able to make more sense of this stuff than he can. He swears, had they made it somewhere with the right facilities, she could have solved this whole crisis single-handedly.

"The dead reanimate unless you kill the brain," Monty says, quoting word for word what Felicity had said in the past. "We're not really in a place where people can think we're dead, are we?"

He hopes he doesn't sound insincere or condescending, because it's honestly not his goal. He wants to understand, because it's not every day you pull a girl out of her grave.

[littlemissfutility]

He has a good point, and Beth doesn't know how to answer it in words. The thought of saying all of it, what little she's figured out in the last half-hour, is worse than just about anything else she could talk about right then. There's a long silence while she stomps toward the stream--she can hear it, just beyond sight, where she's hoping she can hold her breath underwater until the idea of Monty's question doesn't make her want to give up on everything.

But he's going to want an answer, and hell, she kind of does, too. And it's not like she gets what's going on here; maybe he can figure it out for them. Beth doubts it'd be any comfort to know why she's not dead, but it's not like there's any comfort in not knowing.

So eventually, the stream close enough that she could refuse and run for it, dive in fully clothed and refuse to answer, she stops. (She'd ruin her boots if she did that.) Turning toward Monty, she reaches for him. "Give me your hand."

[disheveling]

The silence is long enough that Monty doesn't think he's going to receive an answer. Which is annoying, seeing as he answered her insensitive questions, but it's not like they owe each other anything. They're traveling together, and Monty's definitely going to be leaning on her to survive. But she doesn't owe him answers or an explanation, and he doesn't owe her any, either.

They've reached the stream now, and even though Monty took advantage of it when he came across it the first time, he's itching to strip off his clothes and dive back in. He hasn't felt truly clean in several, several months, but any shower or dip in the water is better than nothing.

He's about to pass her, content to jump in immediately, but stops short when she reaches for him. His brows arch mildly, but he's surprisingly obedient when he offers her his hand. Hopefully she's not about to break his fingers in some violent retaliation.

[littlemissfutility]

God, that'd be disgusting. Beth isn't about to do anything that randomly cruel--she despises that kind of thinking too much for it even to occur to her. Mostly, she's just glad he's not arguing or demanding to know why, because that just brings her back to explanations she's sure she can't get through without crying.

Once she has his hand, she pulls it over to her, and if that means he's going to have to take a step forward, risk coming a little closer, that's that. With a precision she doesn't want to own, she draws his fingertips up underneath her jaw until she's sure they must be brushing against the scar. A puckered circle, decidedly similar in size to a bullet, the exact location she was touching when the second round of barfing started. He can figure it out, right? He has to have fired a gun before.

Maybe. Just to get the point across, she mutters back an echo of what he'd said a few moments ago. "They thought it was killed."

[disheveling]

She takes his hand, which isn't surprising, but he isn't prepared for the way she tugs him closer. His step is messy, clumsy against the uneven ground, but he's too distracted by the way she pulls his hand beneath her chin to notice. Her skin is streaked with dry mud and dirt, and when he stands closer to her, he can smell that she's been packed beneath the earth. But all of that is secondary to the scar beneath her chin. A bullet wound. He's never seen a healed one before, but he doesn't need to. He knows what it is when his fingers graze it.

Monty can't help the way he recoils. His hand slips from her's as it draws back to his chest, body moving half a step with it. Somebody shot her. Somebody shot her through the head and buried her, and then he watched her claw her way out of the ground.

"Why aren't you--" He struggles with the rest of the sentence, unable to put the right words together when his mind is racing. Maybe this means Percy is alive. Maybe this means he didn't kill his own sister. Maybe he's not really all alone in this desolate, piece-of-shit world after all. "How are you alive?"

[littlemissfutility]

"I don't know." It's burning her up inside--she's supposed to be dead, and yet she's still here, lost and alone with a boy who looks at her with eyes that see someone else in her stead. That's what happening, isn't it? He's seeing everyone he's lost, my sister and my best friend, and asking why she's the one standing there in front of him.

She'd be doing the same, in his place. Would be, if she could afford to let herself. Why is she the one who kept living? When her mother could be alive, or her father, or Shawn. Lori could be alive to be Judith's mother. Judith could be alive, a happy, smiley baby instead of a casualty she's sure the prison took. A scientist who could actually solve the sickness and save the world.

And instead, it's her. It's been a long time since she last felt so insignificant.

"If I knew, I'd tell you," she adds, after a stricken, painful silence. It isn't enough, but at least it's basically true, and it's all she has to offer him. They'd better keep going, find those blackberry bushes of his and hope they won't starve to death out here.

[disheveling]

Could Percy be looking for him right now? Could Felicity? They're both buried in Virginia, though opposite sides of the state. Felicity had told him to burn her body, but he couldn't bring himself to literally set his sister on fire, no matter how many times he threatened to do so in their years together. He'd give anything to hear her call him a baby or a coward for not doing it.

Maybe he can. He's got to get back to Virginia somehow. He'll tear the whole damn state apart to find them. If they're alive. If this isn't a fluke. If Beth isn't some modern miracle whose blood they'd have to harvest for some kind of cure.

Fuck. He spent too much time hanging around Dante and Helena.

She doesn't know any more than he does. But he'd like to keep her around, just in case, so they can stumble around this situation together. At the very least, he'll stand a better chance at getting back to Virgina with someone at his side. For now, he'll keep his endless questions to himself, if only because they're insensitive and likely to just upset her instead of retrieve answers. Thankfully, he's rather good at the slow-burn, charm-them-til-they're-talking sort of thing.

"Okay," he says, taking another step back, his shoulders easing down from their tense state. "Since we're certainly not going to solve anything by standing here, let's just keep going and focus on not dying tonight.

He pauses, teeth dragging over his bottom lip, unable to help the next words that tumble out of his mouth unbidden: "Well — dying a second time, in your case."

[littlemissfutility]

Beth stiffens, her shoulders hunching slightly, at the word dying--worse still, when he keeps talking. He's upset, she thinks, he's saying it to hurt you, though she doesn't know that for sure. What she has to go on is that horrible way he'd asked how she's alive, when they both know he really means why. Why her, when friends and family of them both have suffered and died for nothing? Why does she get to come back without rot and a ruined brain, when her own brother was transformed into a monster? Bringing up dying again feels like a slap in the face, and she can't help but assume it's supposed to.

"Yeah," she mutters shortly, not looking at him, and stalks down the shore a few yards. She needs a minute, or maybe twenty, without somebody being an asshole about the fact that she's here; her skin's prickling with dirt and anger and a loneliness too large to name. The water is clearer than she'd expected, and deeper, and both those things are a relief. Less chance of leeches, better chance of feeling clean by the end of this.

Pulling off her cardigan, she lays it on a tuft of grass, followed by her boots and socks--and then she pauses. Wearing her jeans into the water is a recipe for being a different kind of itchy and uncomfortable for the rest of the night. But stripping down in front of Monty, even just to her underwear, feels like an impossible task.

"Turn around," she calls to him, the demand brittle-edged. The reason has to be obvious enough, right? If he makes her explain why, after everything else he's said, she might just leave him here.

[disheveling]

That was definitely a poor choose of words. Two steps forward and one step back, and Monty always manages to land his foot right in his mouth one way or another. It's only gotten worse since the world went to shit. Communication skills tend to get a bit rusty when most of the population is a moaning, shambling mess. He opens his mouth to apologize, but ends up closing it a second later, lips pressing into a fine line.

She doesn't seem like the right-hook type. But neither did his sister, until she was fourteen and socked him in the nose for reading her diary. Sometimes the best thing to do when he's already got his foot in his mouth is to just swallow and shut up.

He hadn't realized he was watching her until she calls to him, and he snaps back to attention. He wishes this were summer camp and he were sneaking off to the lake to skinny dip with the girls two cabins down, but instead it's the zombie apocalypse and his new companion values modesty, of all things.

"Right," he says, turning away from her as he begins to ditch his own clothes. It'd be nice if they could stumble upon a mall, because Monty would give anything to trade his grotty threads for something fresh. He'd settle for Abercrombie at this point. Once down to his underwear, he splashes into the creek directly behind her without hesitation.

[littlemissfutility]

The water's cold, making her skin rumple up into goosebumps on her arms, but as soon as she gets in, she can see the dirt coming off. The creek bottom is sandy, some flat rocks to speak of, and she's careful not to get her toes under any of them. Crawfish might be under there, or God knows what else, and she's not risking it.

Even after she's up to her bra in water, she keeps turned away from the shore, pointedly ignoring even the possibility of Monty seeing her. It's bad enough that she can't do this alone, but it'd be worse if she watched him stripping and splashing around and maybe watching her back. The idea of anyone's eyes on her, running down the thin, straight lines of her figure, makes her throat taste like bile.

Instead, she pretends she's alone, pulling the elastic band from her hair and curling up into a little ball so she can fit herself under the surface of the water. It helps with getting the dirt out of her filthy hair, not to mention the crusty bits of what she's worried are blood or worse. More importantly, she can't hear anything under the water. As long as her breath can hold her, she's alone.

It takes forever to feel clean again. Her fingers are pruny by the time she's ready to walk back to the shoreline. Which means looking around for Monty and saying, "Turn around again."

[disheveling]

The water is chilly, but the sun shines in patches through the trees and Monty chooses to stay right where the light envelopes him. The closest he'll ever get to a warm bath again, which isn't close at all since the water is still cold enough to raise bumps on his skin. Once upon a time, he bathed in a jacuzzi tub, and now he's chest deep in a sandy creek.

It's impossible for him not to glance at her once or twice, his gaze lingering on the sharp lines of her back. Food scarcity has them all uncomfortably bony, but her angles are sharp like being underground sucked the life out of her. It's a long time before Beth decides to climb out of the water, and Monty has taken to floating on his back in the meantime. He hears her voice through the water lapping at his ears, and he gives quite the inelegant splash as he rights himself and turns away from her again, digging his toes into the sand.

"I just feel like modesty is a lost concept after the world has gone to shit," he says, as if they'd been holding a conversation the whole time. "Might as well Adam and Eve it at this point, it's not like--"

He stops abruptly when something passes over his foot. He doesn't even have the chance to glance down before he's pinched. Though he's pretty sure it would hurt less if someone took a nutcracker to his big toe. He lets out an unbidden shout, trying to scramble backwards through the water, shaking his foot frantically beneath the surface. It's more like he's dragging himself through cement, with all the good it does.

"Bloody fucking hell, it's got me, get it off, get it off--"

He's reaching for her without looking, trying to reach beneath the water to rip the crawfish off. For a moment, he forgets that she's not Felicity, but a stranger.