A/N: I'm really sorry this didn't go up yesterday Saturday but I was super busy (plus, trying to edit a nice art to go with the story. Anyone wanna help?). But anyway, Hello! Welcome back to the sequel of Just Run and Survive: No More Runnin'! If you're just joining us, then welcome but please read the first story before this one as you won't understand anything. This story does not follow any of the seasons from The Walking Dead, even though the previous story relied on some pieces of Season 5 and Season 6. This is my own imagination and telling of the world. If you've already read JRS then welcome back and I hope you enjoy the sequel. I missed this so much, I hope you did too. Be prepared, my friends! You're in for a roller coaster of a journey. Let's begin!

Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead or any of the characters affiliated with the series or franchise. I do, however, own my character, Raelynn Winters, among others that will be mentioned throughout this story. Please do not use my characters or the storyline in any way, shape or form without permission or by my request. Thank you.

-A.A

You're the only one I'm gonna write to, so here it goes...

...I'm sorry, Daryl

His heart. There was something wrong with his heart. It didn't feel like it was in his chest anymore. It felt more like it was in his stomach, or his feet, flatlining on the ground. It felt strange. It felt foreign. Daryl felt strange, all throughout his body. It was as if he was suddenly aware of his entire body like the way his feet were so firmly planted on the ground and how the oxygen moved through his nostrils down his throat to his lungs. He could practically feel the nerves in his body act up in his fingertips just like they did earlier in the day. But that was before he knew what he knew now yet the feeling was the same. Daryl looked down at the paper in his hands and he realized how hard he was clutching on it, the sides were tattered from his grip and tears were visible on the sides near the handwriting. When he realized this, he folded the paper and stuffed it into his breast pocket of his leather vest. He could have sworn he heard himself groan but he couldn't be sure. All he knew was that he noticed his knuckles were hurt and there was a hole in the wall of his room. But, there was one more thing he knew.

Daryl left the house, his mind was a blurry mess and his legs seemed to be on autopilot. He moved his mangy hair out of his face with the flick of his head and walked down the street toward Aaron's place in the safe haven community, Alexandria. It's been more than two weeks since they've arrived with Aaron and it already felt so familiar. And while they had had their rows and disagreements with the Alexandrians because of the death of Pete and Aiden and other issues, Rick's group were already well adjusted to life behind the walls. Daryl would be included in that well adjusted state but now things were different. In the short distance, Daryl saw Aaron with his own backpack on his shoulders, looking at Daryl's motorcycle curiously. As he neared, he watched as Aaron fiddled with the throttle. But when he made his way over, he didn't say anything. Normally, he would be picky about people touching his motorcycle, but this was not one of the those times. Aaron looked up at him and smiled, pulling his hand away and securing putting it on the straps of his bag.

"Hey," he said, "You ready to go now?" Originally, they were on their way to go on their first scouting job since their first week. They had decided to put a stop to it for a while out of respect for the deaths that had occurred in that short span of time. Deanna, the leader of the community alongside Rick, decided that it was time to go back to normalcy and so she approved of this scout. But, Daryl didn't listen. He straddled the motorcycle and took off the brake, starting it up.

"Daryl?" But it was like his ears were being covered, all the sounds were muffled or muted. He could only hear the blooding pumping in his veins. He rode the motorcycle down the road, toward the gates where his fellow survivors, Abraham and Eugene were on guard duty. Upon noticing him, they turned towards him. Abraham saw Aaron following behind him, with a confused expression and the ginger turned back to the redneck.

"What's up, man?"

Daryl didn't answer but when the gates weren't opened for him, he put the brake on his bike and got off. He pushed past Eugene and went the gate, beginning to push it open.

"Uh, Daryl, you were not cleared to go by yourself," Eugene said, "I would advise you to wait for Aaron." But Daryl didn't listen, he continued to pull back the gates until it was completely open. Abraham saw the distress in his actions and went up to him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Daryl, what is goin' on with you?" Daryl shrugged Abraham's hand off of his shoulder. Unlike Eugene, however, Abraham didn't take the aggression lightly. He gripped Daryl's shoulder tightly and pulled him to look at him, against the wall near the opened gates.

"What the fuck is your problem? What crawled up your ass and died?" Daryl glared at Abraham and struggled against him but he wouldn't budge. Aaron caught up just as Daryl clenched his fist and muttered something under his breath.

"Daryl," Aaron said breathlessly from running towards them, "What's wrong?"

"Let me go," Daryl growled to Abraham.

"Not 'til you tell me what's got your panties in a bunch," Abraham said.

"Gone," Daryl muttered. He felt Abraham's grip loosen on his shoulder.

"Alright, bud. What's gone? The hell are ya talkin bout?" Daryl's eyes met his and he almost didn't want to say it out loud. Because then it'd be true. But that was the thing, it was true in every sense of the word.

"Rae," he said gruffly, "Gone."

At first he told himself that he would go after any of them - from Rick's group, maybe even Aaron - if they were missing. He convinced himself that he would do the same for all of them but he was lying to himself. She was different. Maybe not from the moment they met, but Raelynn Winters grew on Daryl as they spent their weeks together after they found her starving and about to take his head off in an abandoned pharmacy. He knew she always had a spunk to her, from the moment she put a gun to the back of his head and called him a 'dickhead.' In another time, looking back on it might have made him laugh. Thinking back to how he wasn't going to waste two seconds with the ebony haired woman before but they were constantly put in each other's path. And now, when they were separated, all he wanted to do was going after her. He didn't trust her at first - hell, he didn't like her in the least bit especially after trying to kill him and repeating disobeying the rules. He still didn't feel bad about shoving her face into the counter so hard that she had a bruise on her forehead for a few days. It was all a matter of security and precaution. But he always curious about her and it only grew as they spent more time together. How she killed without any hesitation or remorse; how she could probably drink him under the table and how she was so afraid of certain things. It baffled him and in that time that they were put into each other's path, they grew close. So close that maybe Daryl even regrets it now; because now all he wanted to do was find her. To find her and hear what she wrote from her own lips.

"Daryl." He looked up and saw his friend, his brother in combat, Rick Grimes looking up at him, concerned and worried, "What's going on?" He had heard the commotion - saw it, even - and he came over to see what was all the fuss about.

"She's gone," he said, "Rae's gone and I'm goin after 'er."

...But I'm a quitter

I'll only cause harm to you all...

It was all cloud and fog. Her mind was blurry and spinning around and around like a goddamn carousel and she hated it. Raelynn could have sworn she heard laughter, a light chuckling in the air but then again she didn't smell anything fresh like air. She didn't smell anything at all. The only thing she knew was her head was swimming and she didn't want to drown. It was a child's laughter, a familiar sound. But she couldn't place where it was coming from - somewhere from the recesses of her mind. She heard herself groan but her brain didn't want her to wake up because it was currently on the spin cycle. She thought it was her that groaned, that is. She didn't know. Maybe she was dead (oh what a lovely thought, Raelynn. You're fucking dead. So much for positivity, she scolded herself). Maybe the blow to the back of her head finally killed her or someone killed her while she was knocked out. This could be her heaven, for all she knew. The empty, hollow swimming feeling locked up in her head mixed with children's laughter and a faint sound of static. If this was her heaven, it was a piece of shit. But she knew it wasn't. If there was a God out there, she figure He (or She, Raelynn didn't like to discriminate) wouldn't be this cruel. She knew this wasn't her heaven.

She knew exactly what she would have wanted for this to be her heaven. So, maybe it was her own personal Hell. It was pretty damn close.

She heard something else but she didn't know if it was here or there. In her mind or out of it. There were voices, mutters and murmurs of different voices and she couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from. It felt like a ghost - like a wind that cascaded from one ear to the other and then back again. Goddamn, did her head hurt. Fuck, she thought, where's the medicine when I needed it? She didn't care if it was a little pill of painkillers or a large dose of Vicodin, she needed something for the pain. Knock her out again, if you had to, just stop the fucking spinning. Why the hell didn't her eyes open either? She tried and tried but nothing. It was like she was in an endless loop of unconsciousness. The laughter persisted in her mind along with the various voices. A child's laughter - more than one now. She really needed to wake up but all the shit in her mind was making her woozy again. Raelynn felt herself going out of it again. But before she did, she willed herself to open her eyes one more time. It was only for one second and just a tiny little parting. Her vision was blurry and she could feel her head move from one side to the other.

Holy hell, she was going to throw up. She was going to puke her stomach out if things kept going the way they were. She caught a glimpse of the blurry ground. It was progress. Dark. Brown. Soft to the touch. Dirt. Back in the goddamn woods somewhere. Across from her, she caught a quick glimpse of a pair of blurry legs and feet. She knew those shoes, those dark boots that just seemed a bit too big for the legs that were attached. Even in her delirious state, she knew who it was. Carl. She would sigh in relief if she wasn't concentrating on keeping her eyes open. Was he even alive? Jesus, she didn't want to even think about it. The muttering, laughter and spinning grew more and more and Raelynn wanted to scream, groan and curse all at once. She was going insane from it all. Her brain only managed to catch the groan and she felt herself groan in her chest. Her eyes were getting heavier, heavier until she had to shut them. Fuck, she needed them to keep them open. She had to find out if Carl was even fucking alive! She had to get to him before the people that knocked them out did. Then she heard more movement, more laughter and more voices and Raelynn was convinced that she had gone completely insane without even being conscious. But the voices seemed to be overpowering them all now. It seemed closer to her, more in reality than in her mind - so close she could even make out some of the words.

"...think...happy?"

"...know….awake?"

"...yet...eventually."

"..anything...kid...up…"

"Mm..Ugh...Rae?"

Carl. She didn't know the other voices. Hell - she could barely make out some of the words let alone pay attention to the voices. All she cared about was Carl's puberty breaking voice. She didn't give a rat's ass about the other voices; all that mattered to her was she heard Carl's voice. He was alive. In what condition was another problem entirely but that could be dealt with later - if there was a later. No, she scolded herself in her unconscious state. Of course there was going to be a later. Because she would get through this - no, they would get through this. She's gonna wake up, kick those people's asses - kill a few (if there were a few) if need be - and get Carl out of whatever mess she got them into.

But her brain had other plans. It began to mush and mash and swirl and whirl. So much so that Raelynn probably did vomit. She didn't know exactly. She was more there than here.

She shut down between the mash and the swirl, back into her incoherent mind of children's laughter and the new sounds of familiar voices running through her mind. But these voices weren't like the ones before. They were inside her mind. Jesus fuckin' Christ, I've gone completely fucking crazy, she thought to herself. I'm going crazy inside my own fucking head. She couldn't hear a word they were saying - it was all muffled and muttered - but she could tell who they were just from the sound - the hum in their tone. The lightness of it. The gruffness of it. The raspiness of it. The cheer in one and the maturity in another. The familiar voices relaxed her. They soothed and calmed her. Just before she lulled back into black, she wondered again if she was really dead. Because those voices were exactly what she wanted in her heaven.

This had to be done...

...Try to save your own ass, okay?

"What are you talkin' 'bout?" asked Rick, "What do you mean?"

Daryl couldn't take it. All the questions and no action. He needed to do something not sit there and explain. It was all too frustrating for him. He muttered curses under his breath, in his head and they echoed in the crevasses of his mind. He couldn't just stand there. He didn't want to.

"Ya know what I mean," he said deeply, "Let me go. I'm going after her." He pushed off the wall and started to push through the people that were surrounding him. But Rick wouldn't have it. He pushed him back into the wall and his eyes stared back at Daryl's blue ones.

"Not so fast," he said gently, "Let's talk about this first. How did ya know she's not here?"

Daryl sighed and wiped his mouth of the spit that he finally realized was there. It probably got there from flailing and growling like an animal. Part of him wanted to tell Rick to fuck off and go off to find Raelynn. The other part of him knew that Rick was right. As much as he hated to admit it.

"She left me a note in my bag," Daryl explained, "She said she was long gone by now so she pro'ly left late last night. I'm going after her, Rick. Don't care what you say. I'm going after her."

"Left you a note?" chimed in Abraham, "So she wanted t' go? If that's what she wants, why don't you be a good pup and leave 'er be?" Daryl growled and if it wasn't for Rick holding him back, he might've tackled him. He refrained himself though. He really want to and punch that dumb statement out of his vocabulary. Rick looked at Daryl, his hand on his shoulder gently.

"It's okay," he said, "We'll track her, alright? See if we can find out where she went." Daryl nodded, feeling a piece of the heavy weight on his shoulder lift away. Rick continued as he straightened his back, "I gotta tell Carl before we go to look after Judith. Everyone else is on double duty while we're gone." Daryl nodded and made a grab for his motorcycle. Rick walked away from the huddled group and walked down the road, toward the house. Daryl looked up and met the eyes of Abraham as he moved his motorcycle away from the crowd and inspect it once more away from the masses.

Abraham grunted, "You got it bad, don't cha?"

Daryl sneered at him but chose not to respond. He watched as Aaron and Eugene took glances at him while Aaron went home and Eugene continued with his guard duty. Daryl noticed a new scratch on the side of his bike. He had only left his motorcycle once. Fuck it, he thought to himself. Ain't a big deal, not as big as the one that left the fuckin' community. He turned off his motorcycle and led it back to Aaron's garage. He figured Rick would want to just have one vehicle burning gas instead of two. At the house, he met the eyes of Aaron who sat on the porch steps as he rolled the motorcycle to its place. Daryl didn't say anything but he nodded to Aaron and he figured that he would know that he was sorry for skipping out on the recruit. Aaron nodded back and Daryl knew that he understood, better than anyone maybe. As he traveled back towards the gates, he saw Rick rush past him. He didn't even know that he had walked out of the house to begin with. But the way he rushed past his friend made Daryl all the more concerned and he jogged toward Rick, who was heading towards the gates anyway.

"Rick, what's going on?" At the sound of his friend's voice, Rick turned around and faced aryl. He was different, in a span of only a few minutes. His eyes were frantic and darted from one place to another. His face was pale, almost gray in color while his hands were shaking as he laid them on Daryl's shoulders.

"Daryl, have you seen Carl?"

"Nah," he replied, "Haven't seen 'im since we did that job wit' Rae and the walkers."

"He's not in his room. Enid hasn't seen 'im either. Not Carol or Maggie or Glenn. He's gone. He's not here, he's gone too." Even though he was itching to find Raelynn, to see her and know she was okay, Daryl also knew that Raelynn was an adult, a grown woman who proved that she could and would take care of herself outside of the walls. She had done it for months on her own before even meeting them. But Carl was different. He was just a kid, a damn tough ass one but still, a kid. One that probably wouldn't last as long as Rae if he was outside of the walls. And his father was worried as hell about him. Daryl placed his hand on Rick's shoulder, and the ones that were on his shoulders slid down limply to Rick's sides. Daryl patted his shoulder gently, squeezing it and immediately going into a more dominant and focused Daryl.

"It's alright, man. We'll find 'im. We'll find both of 'em."

...Don't come looking for me

Goodbye, Daryl...