Beyond Help Chapter 1: From the Yard, a walking dead fanfic

A/N: Welcome to the first chapter of Beyond Help! This is something that I never really intended to write. Believe it or not, this came from a prompt on Tumblr about Daryl being injured and Carol caring for him, and has morphed into this – an AU speculative fic about what may be to come at the end of season 3 and what could happen afterwards. While I can't promise that the original prompt will actually appear, I can say that the major shipping in this story will be caryl. So without further ado, I give you the first chapter of Beyond Help.

Disclaimer: The Walking Dead and its characters are not mine. Read at your own risk; contains scenes of violence, despair and character death.

I. From the Yard

The window to the storage room exploded, showering the catwalk in shards of glass.

Ducking around the corner, Carol gripped her rifle to herself and slid down the cement wall, not noticing the way its rough surface bit at the skin of her shoulders not covered by thin red tank top. Her breath was coming in short gasps. She knew if she didn't calm herself, if she didn't gather her head, shoulder her rifle and set her sight down its barrel, she'd be no help to anyone.

Taking a deep breath and pressing her eyes shut, she tried to ignore the voice whispering in the back of her mind – the voice that told her they were beyond help.

That they were pretty much dead already.

The yard was in chaos.

Bullets ripped through the thick, pre-dawn fog and pelted the prison walls in a torrent of unquestionable superiority. Gun fire lit the outer perimeter still doused in blackness, outlining the forms of the men – living, breathing men – who fired them.

The moans of the walkers and the squelching of their rotting limbs dragging against the fencing pressed in on them. The grotesque sounds serving as a grim reminder to the living. A reminder that this world belonged to the dead, now. A reminder that the dead cared naught for the outcome of the wars of men.

Carol exhaled slowly and opened her eyes. Her fingers fumbled to press fresh cartridges into her rifle like Daryl had taught her. Somehow, it had seemed so much easier in the light of day beneath is watchful gaze.

Daryl.

Hot tears burned her eyes. She couldn't afford to let her mind wonder where he was or if he was okay. Not with the hounds of war breathing down her neck.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

The war wasn't supposed to begin in the early hours of the morning when only Carl was on watch. It wasn't supposed to begin when the rest of the prison lay unsleeping in their cells, staring up into the nothingness wondering what that day would bring. It wasn't supposed to begin until noon when Rick and the Governor were set to meet to discuss their terms.

Nothing was supposed to be this way, and yet it was.

Swallowing one last calming gulp of air, Carol leaned around the corner and gazed down the black, metal barrel of her rifle. What she was aiming for through the fog and blackness, she wasn't sure, but she couldn't sit and hide when the rest of her family could be pinned down, or worse. Settling her sites over a dark form along the tree line whose gunfire had been trained on the catwalk since the window had shattered, her finger pumped the trigger, and she prayed to god she killed the son of a bitch.

Bang

On the third shot, the figure dropped. A swelling of pride filled her chest for a fraction of a second before she shoved it down. The group had been heading to the yard when the gunfire had first broken out – there was cover there, space to move. Without another thought, she moved, her feet flying down the stairs to the yard below.

~::~

"Carol, get down."

Ricks voice cut through the turmoil, and she felt her body react before her mind had a chance to process his words. Diving down behind a slab of sheet metal, she took a moment to look at the man whose hands they'd trusted their lives to. A layer of dirt and sweat covered his face but not enough to obscure the hollowness below his eyes or the grey hairs that had found their way into his beard. His chest heaved from exertion, and his hands gripped the handle of his pistol with white knuckles.

A barrage of gunfire sounded and a spray of bullets ricocheted off of the metal at their backs like high pitched thunder. Carol flinched, curling her hands over her head as if they'd keep her safe if one of Woodberry's bullets decided to tear through their thin shield.

"How much ammo do you have left?"

Rick's mouth was moving but she couldn't process his words.

"Ammo. Do you have any ammo?" He gestured with his pistol, a fleck of desperation in his eyes.

She felt her head nod mechanically as the sound of a man's scream tore through the air. Glancing over her shoulder, she nodded again with more insistence. "One, maybe two shots left. What're we –" Her question died in her throat as she saw Rick's face fall. It said it all – gave her the answer that somewhere, deep inside, she already knew.

They were nearly out of ammunition.

They were out manned, out gunned, and as the first hints of sunlight began licking up into the sky, they knew it. And so did their enemy.

The grating squeal of the gate being slid open pierced its way into her heart, and she blinked back the tears that sprung up in her eyes. They were in the yard. This was it. After a year surviving, of living in the constant presence of death, this was how it was going to end – strung out, defenseless, in the shadow of a prison. There'd be no colorful dawn to signify their passing, no reds or pinks or oranges to commemorate the family they'd formed or the challenges they'd overcome. No, they'd pass from this life beneath a morning sky as bleak and grey as the walkers along the outer wall that moaned in anticipation for their flesh.

"Carol, listen to me." Rick grabbed her chin with his free hand, jerking her to attention. "Listen to me," his voice hissed. "We need to fall back inside the prison. Do you hear me? Fall back to the prison – if that gate is open it won't be long before the yard is crawling in walkers. If Woodberry wants this yard, they can deal with the walkers. We need to get out of here."

She felt her head nod once more as her senses returned, the wave of despair ebbing from her mind.

"Make for C Block; tell everyone you pass to do the same. Ready? On three" Rick pressed what Carol suspected were his last four rounds into the chamber of his pistol before nodding his head. "One… Two… Three."

And she ran.

All around her the sound of gun fire and foreign voices shouting about biters, the sound of walkers on the trail of living flesh and of that flesh screaming as it was ripped apart filled the air. And still she ran. Deep down, she knew that if she paused even for a moment, she wouldn't have the strength to carry onward. As her hands reached out for the cement wall of C Block, another sound filled her ears.

The sound of a still-living man groaning.

Glancing around the corner into the supply alcove, Carol's heart dropped into her stomach.

Hershel.

A trail of blood lead from the center of the alcove to where he leaned against the tin wall pressing one hand to a gaping wound in his abdomen. His eyes were shut, and she could see his breath coming in short and shallow gasps. A small hand gun lay limply in his other hand.

Her own blood running cold in her veins, Carol hurried to his side and knelt down next to the old veterinarian. "Hershel, can you hear me?" Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

The shuffling sound of approaching walkers spiked her heart rate.

"Hershel, I need you to answer me," she said more forcefully.

His eyes slid open and his lips moved, but only a rush of breath came out. Tears streaming down her face, she could only shake her head – his silent plea evading her conscious mind. Suddenly, his arm jerked, and she jumped back. It was only when the empty click of his gun filled the quiet between them that she fully understood.

Please.

He was asking her to end this on his terms and not at the ravenous jaws of the walkers or by the slow insidious nature of his injury. He was asking her to give him a permanent death so he didn't have to rise up as one of the undead.

Raising her rifle, she gazed down the barrel at a man whom she had come to love, a man who had come to represent family and values, the man who had taught her what it meant to have a spirit that was unafraid. She imagined pulling the trigger and seeing his life end at her hands. Her hands shook, her vision blurred, and she lowered her rifle.

"I'm sorry, Hershel. I just can't."

Taking a step towards him, she placed her rifle in his already-cold hands and lifted his finger to the trigger. Turning her back to him, her world froze as the sound of a single shot filled the tiny alcove. It was only when she heard Glenn's voice yelling to an unknown someone to get inside that her feet remembered how to move again.

She rounded the corner, shaking and breathless, and followed Maggie into C Block.

The sound of Judith's wails echoed off the cement walls and filled her ears as she looked around what remained of their group. Rick stood nearest to the door with his hand on Carl's shoulder. Both men, for it would be an insult to call the latter anything but, stared straight into the cold floor. Maggie had shouldered the screaming infant and buried her head into Glenn's neck. Beth leant un-moving against the wall, her usually bright eyes blank. They had gone to sleep the night before as a group of ten. They stood here now as a group of six. Pulling her arms around her middle, Carol thought back to her foolishness in ever calling this prison their home.

Daryl had been right after all – it was nothing but a tomb.

In that moment, she finally allowed herself to wonder about the fate of the man who she'd inextricably and indefinably tied to her heart. The last she'd seen him, his back had disappeared around the back of the prison with his brother in an attempt to flank Woodberry's onslaught and provide suppressing fire.

It seemed fitting that a man such as he wouldn't die inside a prison. He was a man of the woods, of the open air.

She felt a choked sob begin to form in her throat when a rattling from outside the main door tore the group from their stupor. Without a gun, Carol pulled her knife from its place on her belt and drew in a deep breath. The sound of gruff voices and a burst of frustrated automatic fire punctuated the tense stillness that had fallen over them.

Pressing his finger to his lips, Rick pushed the single, half-emptied box of ammunition that they had left inside the prison towards them, renewing a sense of fight into their nearly broken minds.

The end of the war may have been upon them, but that didn't have to mean their end was near.

~::~