Manhunt

If he hadn't been so stupid, he wouldn't be in this mess.

Negan chose him. Of everyone in that line-up, Negan chose him. Lucille was meant for him, and then it would be done. Rick would back down, Michonne would rally him, and they'd go back to Alexandria to prepare for all out war.

They'd win. Eugene would come up with something brilliant, and his ammunition factory would give them enough to overtake every one of Negan's bases. Abraham and Rosita would lead firing squads. Jesus and Maggie would convince the Hilltop to fight with them, and just when everything seemed lost, Glenn would weasel them out of it like always.

But Glenn was dead, 'cause Daryl couldn't keep his damn mouth shut.

"…Meeny, miny, mo," Negan snarled, pointing a hairy knuckle between his eyes. Before he knew it, Daryl had been dragged to his knees in front of the rest of the group, and Negan was swinging an aggressively garnished baseball bat around behind his head. He was spouting curse words like they were gum wrappers, littering the air with his taunting profanity.

Daryl caught Rick's eye. He was helpless. Defeated. They were surrounded. There was no way out.

Negan's speech seemed to have found its climax. This was the moment. Daryl was going to die.

All he could think of was Denise. No - not Denise, who had died in the vain at the hands of a man watching pompously to his left. It was her words. She had begged to stop being afraid. He was a good person. He had to wake-

"Rick!" he suddenly found himself bawling. "Find her– tell Carol I-"

Rick's eyes widened. Lucille was high in the air.

She never came down.

"Now her I'd like to meet."

Daryl felt a strong arm lift him back into a standing position. Two goons approached, ready to hold him in position, but Negan motioned them away. He put an arm around Daryl.

"If I ain't mistaken, Carol's one of those fuckers who killed a few of my very close friends. Am I right?"

Of course he had been listening that day. Daryl saw Maggie working it all out, and preparing a false name. He couldn't be the only one of his group wondering just how many radio's Negan had tapped into, or what else he had heard of their plans.

There was flick at his cheek that made Daryl's knees nearly buckle underneath him. "Answer my goddamned question!"

"Yes!"

It was Glenn who answered. Glenn, who was going to be a father. Glenn, who had more lives than Carol herself. Glenn, who couldn't have shut up.

Glenn said some other things. She left. We don't know where she is. He doesn't know where she went.

Dwight said some things, too. He's good out there. He's a tracker. He knows things – he knows her. We can use him.

Everything after that moment was hazy in Daryl's memory. Negan somehow handed him off to Dwight and a few other jackasses. He was given a task: help Dwight find Carol.

Glenn was given a death sentence. The one clear thing left in Daryl's memory was the sound Maggie made as her life fell apart.

It had been only two days since Carol had seen the smoke from Alexandria. Smoke was never a good sign.

"It was a body," Morgan declared so early in the morning that Carol didn't have the words to express her exhaustion.

He'd been following her since she left. Less than a week already seemed like more than a month, and she was tired of begging him to leave her. She sat up.

They were in a shed. They would have stayed in the cabin, but Carol had decided it was too obvious. The shed was clean, not lived in, and the door was easily barricaded. It was safe, comparatively. She reached over to her pack, and took out a single meal bar.

She ate the whole thing. If Morgan wanted to loiter, he'd feed himself.

"How do you know?" she asked after dropping the wrapper on the floor. Murder was out of the question, but littering was still fine at the end of the world.

"There were people outside last night. Heard them talking about it."

Carol was furious.

"You should have woken me up!" she hissed. "You could have gotten me killed!"

"They weren't a threat."

"They didn't check the shed?"

Morgan shook his head. "They checked the cabin. Moved on this morning. Obviously had somewhere else to be."

He had a dreamy look that Carol couldn't keep herself from questioning.

"Who was it?"

Morgan didn't have to say his name for Carol to know it had been Rick. Probably with Michonne. For all she knew he was in on Morgan's stalking, and they'd spoken while she was asleep.

Then again, Carol didn't sleep lightly anymore. She couldn't.

"Who was it?" she asked again, but this time she didn't mean the visitors.

"It was Rick-"

"-The body."

"Glenn, I believe."

It took 3 seconds for Carol to convince herself to snarl instead of cry.

"It should have been you," she said, and she wasn't sure if she meant it.

She was injured, still. She had come across some Saviors at the start of their journey, and she had made it out without a single casualty. Morgan found her just in time, saving her from approaching Walkers. He patched her up, she rested a bit, and she tried to bolt when she saw the smoke. He didn't let up.

"I'm moving on," she told Morgan, standing and pulling her backpack on. She walked out the door without waiting for him to follow her, and impulse she'd fallen subject to just a few times in the past several days. She headed South. Morgan followed, and she didn't have the energy to stop him.

She wondered if the Saviors she'd let live were the same ones who killed Glenn. And she wondered if it was worth it.

Three days since Negan, and a little less than that since Daryl saw Glenn's ashes polluting the sky. Dwight and the Saviors had celebrated that morning. They forced Daryl to toast to it.

There was no way out.

Dwight made him track, and he made him track well. Daryl had been lucky enough to find the footprints of a woman he knew couldn't be Carol, since she wasn't dumb enough to leave tracks.

Dwight didn't have to know, and he was dumb enough not to figure it out. Yet.

The sun was almost finished setting, and one of the Saviors was starting a fire. Another one shoved a fistful of cold beans into his mouth. "You'll need your energy for tomorrow," he laughed.

The others ate, and a few went out for a late scavenge, but Dwight taunted Daryl from across the fire.

"You starting to feel the burn, man?"

He motioned behind Daryl's back, where his wrists had been bound so tightly he wanted to cut his hands off.

Daryl didn't answer.

"You know, I thought you'd be better at this. After all, she's left a good a trail. Should have found her by now."

"She don't want to be found," Daryl grumbled. He readied himself for another one of Dwight's deaf jokes. It never came.

"See, I had a feeling that might be the case. If you and her are so close, I think you would have taught her a thing or two."

Daryl shrugged.

"Think she'd be smart enough not to leave tracks. Or at least, her partner would have."

Daryl tried to hide his bewilderment. He was never good at faking. Carol never taught him how.

"From what your dead-head friend told us, she went out alone. Greg found a guy's footprints next to hers."

"It's Morgan," Daryl lied. "He went out after her."

"I have no idea who that is," Dwight crooned, "But I know you've led us out on a goose-hunt. I should punish you-" a few Saviors were watching by then, excited by the promise of a show, "-but I'm way too beat to really enjoy it. Save it for morning?" he asked the thugs.

They practically cheered.

Daryl knew he was breaking when Dwight added, "And then you'll start leading us in the right direction."

It was the cheering that made Carol look up from Rick and Michonne's footprints in the mud. The sun was setting, and while the sky was blocked out by trees, the smell of smoke let her know that others were close. She didn't know who they were, or which side they were on, but something inside her chest told her to avoid them.

Morgan's eye bore into her, awaiting instruction.

"Go home," she ordered.

He scoffed. "How many more times you gonna try that?" he challenged, and she wanted to wipe the smug grin off his face.

"I'm not going back," she affirmed.

Another knowing look. She hated Morgan for that.

"Let's say I did leave you. I go back, and I tell Rick you're all right. You think he'll let up?"

"Rick sent me away once, and he never came after me. He's fine."

"What about the others? Tobin? You and him, you were something before you left, weren't you?"

If Daryl had asked it, she might have laughed.

"Tobin is good, but he's not mine. He deserves better."

"You know, my wife tried to leave me once. My son-" Morgan's voice broke, and Carol didn't have enough malice to ask for his name, "-was just a few months. He cried for a long time, all through the night. I could have been more helpful."

Carol remembered Ed all those nights that Sofia had kept him up. I have work in the morning. This is getting ridiculous. You shut that damn kid up before I do-!

"She went to her Mom's place." Morgan was still talking. "I got better at it. Being a dad. I thought it was just having a job and paying the mortgage, but it was more than that. I had to be there. She came home one night, while I was sleeping on the couch. I was holding him on my chest, and he was out light like a light. I woke up with the sunrise and put him in his crib. I found her in the bedroom, sleeping like a- well, like a baby."

Carol rolled her eyes. "I don't care about your marriage." Morgan raised his brow. "I get it: she had to see you work for it, see your progress. She didn't want to do it alone. You became a half-decent father, so what? I'm not leaving because I'm alone."

"I know. You're leaving because it hurts to much to stay." He breathed deeply. "Duane didn't stop crying when his Mom came home, and I didn't get any better than I had before she came back. It hurt her every night, until he got older. She came back, even though she was still aching."

No thanks to you, Carol was about to jab when the rustling started.

There were two of them, and they were definitely Saviors. Carol and Morgan hid behind a fallen tree. One of the Savior's spoke.

"I'll bet it's the ones from the mansions, trying to throw us off the path. The bearded guy and his samurai bitch. Giving angel-wings a free out. There out here somewhere. Can't wait to see the look on his face when we take the girl out in front of him."

"Negan might find out."

"I don't mean like that, I just mean tearing her throat out or somethin'. It'd make him piss himself, or better. Anyway, we can't take the Sheriff. Negan wants him to hisself."

They passed, and Carol hushed Morgan before he could do something stupid like try and convince her to stay put.

She followed the Saviors as they searched for Rick and Michonne, and then back to where the fire was roaring when they'd failed. She kept a safe distance. She could see Daryl's jacket, more worn than ever. She could see his arms bent uncomfortably as he slept on his stomach, his face dug halfway into the dirt. She could see the others settling down around him, deciding who would stay on watch while they tucked themselves in for the night. There were nine. She knew the one with the burnt face was Dwight.

Just as she was formulating a plan, Morgan was next to her.

"You can't give in. Not this early. You're doing so well."

She glared at him, appalled. "I'm not doing this for you."

"I know. But you know I'm right."

He was right. She hadn't killed the two men before. She had still survived.

Glenn hadn't.

Now Maggie was alone. With the baby coming.

And anyway, she would have died if Morgan hadn't found her.

"You are right," she agreed.

But this was Daryl.

"Go after Rick and Michonne. Warn them," she ordered as she searched through her bag. Her fingers slid back into her trench knife as though it were a warm mitten. She almost remembered the time Ed had taken her and Sofia skiing in Vancouver. Almost.

"I don't want you to do this," Morgan was pleading.

"Are you going to stop me?"

It took almost a minute for him to shake his head. "No."

"Good." Carol was too determined to be surprised. She waited for Morgan to leave before adjusting her bootlaces. She had to be ready in case they woke up.

The night guard was useless, practically asleep by the time she slit his throat.

And it still hurt.

When morning came, the first face Daryl expected to see wasn't Morgan's.

He leapt from the ground, not realising that his wrists were unbound until his fingers were on his crossbow, which he held aggressively at his head. Morgan crouched calmly, still surveying the scene.

Daryl hadn't even noticed the blood.

Dwight was the cleanest, a finely pressed hole straight through the place where his ear should have been. It had been quiet. The killer took no pleasure in it. Daryl couldn't tell if he was jealous.

"You did this?" he asked Morgan, but he already knew the answer.

Morgan didn't look up. "She told me to stay here, in case any Walkers passed by. She didn't want to wake you."

"Where is she?"

Morgan shook his head. There was space before his next words. "It didn't have to be like this. There was a better way."

"Nah," Daryl disagreed, trying to return the blood flow to his right wrist as he massaged it. "Not with them."

Morgan rose. "I have to tell Rick."

"He out here?"

"With Michonne." Morgan was distant. "We need to make a plan."

He turned his back. Daryl saw the knife. He snatched it, holding it by the blade. Even the knuckles were stained with blood.

"Tell me which way she went." Daryl was willing to fight, but in a moment of indifference, Morgan pointed South, and then he drifted away.

Daryl ran like he was chasing a startled horse, and he knew that in many ways his chances of catching Carol were pretty much the same. He needed to find her, and to stop her from whatever stupid thing she was planning on doing to herself next. His mind flooded with worst-case scenarios, and he knew that most of them ended with never seeing her again.

He was just about to throw himself into the mud when he came to the stream, but she was there.

Her back was turned, and she was kneeling halfway into the water, scrubbing her hands in it frantically. She was shaking – worse, she convulsing.

They weren't alone.

Daryl killed the Walker before it's mouth reached the back of her neck. It fell into the water. More blood.

Carol showed no sign that she'd even noticed.

"You could have died right there!" Daryl was screaming, Denise and the soda still fresh in his memory. Carol was still washing. "If you can't watch out for yourself, then you shouldn't have come out here!" Washing faster. "What the hell did you expect me to do?!"

Washing slower. Slower. Stopping.

She was still shivering, but her shoulders were different. She was coming back.

"You do that for me, and you think I'm gonna let you die out here?"

Her backpack was closer to her than him. She grabbed it before standing up.

"You left your knife. How were you going to hunt? Eat," he corrected himself. Hunt seemed too dangerous. Too close to home.

"Take this," he offered, all too harshly, as he held the trench knife out in front of him.

Finally, she turned around.

"I don't want it," she told him.

Neither could keep from looking the other in the eye.

"Take it anyhow."

She did, by the blade. She bent over and unzipped her pack.

"You should leave it out."

"I won't need it."

"You planning to die?"

It came out angrier than he had hoped. She seemed as hurt by as she should.

"I'm not planning to kill."

He didn't have an argument. He wanted to thank her for saving him, for risking everything, and for compromising herself in the process – but he didn't want to remind her. She knew, anyway. She always knew what was going on in his head.

"I'm not going back," she swore to him. Or maybe to herself.

"I'm not asking you to."

"Then why are you here?"

Daryl scanned the clearing, buying time. He found her eyes again. "Negan's after you."

"I know."

"You can't go back to Alexandria."

She was clearly confused. "So?"

"Negan sent me out after you. I can't exactly come back empty-handed."

She understood. "Daryl, you can't come. You saw what I did. I can't do it again."

"Still not asking you to."

"That's not the point." She was harsh now, pissed. At him? "I will. I would," she corrected herself. "I can't help it."

"Then it won't come to that."

"It always comes to that."

This was it, the biggest wrench in their friendship: they knew each other too well to argue, and they were both always right.

He backtracked: "I know why you left, I just don't know why you went alone."

"I just told you."

"Sure, but I thought you'd at least take Robin… Dobin?"

"That's not funny." Except that she was smirking. "He's a good person."

"Would you do it for him?"

Silence. She breathed. "I think I'd do it for anyone," she admitted. Daryl could see how much it hurt.

"If you have to be out here, I get it," he told her, "But I have to be out here too. You and I both know that neither of us is gonna let the other one starve, or worse…" he trailed off. "We do this, it's together. You can't stop that."

"You'd let them fight Negan alone?" She was searching for something, anything to make him leave.

Denise's voice haunted him. He couldn't quite face it, but he could get close:

"You think I'd let you fight this?"

A day later, they'd be sleeping in an abandoned storefront, waiting for a Walker hoard to pass them by. A week later, they'd be on the road, trying to find another full tank of gas before theirs outlived its usefulness. A month later, they'd see the smoke.

Maybe Carol always knew she was going back, and that she'd have to fight for the lives of the family she'd made along the way. Maybe she knew she'd have to kill again, and that it would come as easily to her as baking a tray of cookies. Maybe she knew how much it would hurt to add number after number to her kill list until she had to flip the page of her journal and start again on the other side - he'd been there for that. Her bed seemed less empty with him in it.

Maybe she knew that he would find her, just not how much she'd wanted him to.

Or how much it would mean.