They ran out of Terminus so fast that no one could breathe by the time that they stopped to collect themselves. Daryl's lungs burned as he adjusted the crossbow he had picked up right as he had spotted it on their escape out of Terminus as it burned to the ground, walker infested by that point.
"We're all here," said Bob, looking around at everyone.
It made Daryl freeze up where he stood in the woods, his eyes immediately glancing over to Maggie.
"Not all of us."
The painful words cut in deep, like he had been slashed with a knife across his chest. It hurt even more knowing that the words had come from Maggie, seeing her face as the sadness sunk into her features.
He hadn't told her yet, hadn't gotten a chance to while they were in Terminus. A part of him was hoping that he would not have to, but Daryl knew that it was inevitable. Maggie would ask questions and he was the one who had some of the answers. Daryl was the last one to see Beth alive.
He flinched at the thought. Thinking of her opened the wound even more, the wound that had been created inside of him from when she was taken away in the vehicle.
That dug at him, clawed at the edges of his own sanity. The guilt about the whole kidnapping practically consumed Daryl whole. It was on the brink of being too much to bear.
It hurt to think about her, even if it was only for a split second. Daryl had thought of Beth as he had been leaned over that metal trough at Terminus, Gareth telling them all that they were going to be dead and about to meet their fate. He saw glimpses of Beth when he shut his eyes, her pale skin and blue eyes and that wonderful bright blonde hair, wanting her to be the last thing that he saw before a grim death welcomed him with open arms.
When Gareth changed his mind, Daryl had been grateful for his life, but also promised himself that he would find the girl who he had imagined.
Find the girl who he let in.
Find the girl who he opened up to.
Find the girl who he felt safe with.
Find the girl who had changed his mind about everything.
Daryl needed her.
Maggie ran her hands over her bloody face. "Has anyone seen her? Has anyone seen my sister?"
He wanted to hide his face into a hole in the ground when she looked around at everyone as they shook their heads sullenly. Daryl's heart rate picked up when her eyes glanced his way.
Tell her. She needs to know.
"She was with me," he said to Maggie while he had the courage built up. All eyes turned to Daryl, making him uncomfortable as everyone and everything around him fell dead silent.
He watched as the glimmer of hope passed through Maggie's eyes, then faded instantaneously. "Was?"
Yeah. That past tense killed him on the inside too.
Daryl nodded. Maggie gripped onto the gun she had at her side, knuckles turning white, her head dropping to stare at her feet, her eyes welling up with water. When she looked back up Daryl thought he might just break down right then and there without warning, but he somehow managed to hold it together.
"What happened?" Maggie's voice cracked between syllables, Glenn wrapping and arm around her for comfort.
She's not dead, he wanted to yell at the top of his lungs. That was what Maggie thought. That was what everyone thought—that Beth Greene was dead because she wasn't strong enough to survive.
Fuck that.
She was strong and he had seen it firsthand.
Despite wanting to scream at them all for thinking that, Daryl bit his tongue and decided to say, "She's gone. Someone took her."
"Took her where? Who the hell would kidnap someone in the walker apocalypse," questioned Glenn as he examined the state that Maggie was in. "It doesn't make any sense."
Daryl weakly shrugged a shoulder and hung his head out of shame. "I don't know where. I tried…"
He didn't finish.
The memory was too painful.
"But there's still a chance she's alive," Maggie affirmed. "There's still a chance."
—
They found a church later that night when everyone was exhausted from the day of travel. Maggie had not said another word to him or to anyone since the conversation in the woods. He didn't know if that was good or bad. He assumed bad, she was probably plotting Daryl's death for not protecting her sister well enough. He wished he could tell her how bad he felt but Daryl didn't have the right words to say to her.
They arrived at the church and went inside to find a man, Father Gabriel, huddled into himself, ashamed about his past.
Who the fuck wasn't ashamed about their past? Daryl had been…until Beth made him forget about it all when they burned down the cabin.
And of course, all his thoughts led back to Beth. It didn't stop. She ran through his mind constantly.
He went off on his own later as everyone settled in for the night at the church, claiming that he was going to wander around the property. That was bullshit, a complete lie. All he needed was to get away from everyone in the dark of the woods, the security of them. That was when he let it all hit him at full force, let the emotion boil up and spill over. The sting of the tears that welled up in his eyes dripped down and fell across his face until he pulled himself together again.
When he finally made it back inside, something miraculous happened. This Father Gabriel that they found inside the church knew about a connection between Terminus and this hospital in Atlanta that was still operating—operating something sinister, something that Father Gabriel did not know much about, but it was enough to scare Daryl because Beth had to be there since the symbol of white crosses was mentioned.
I ain't afraid of nothin'.
Another lie.
He was afraid that he would lose Beth.
Daryl found Maggie on his way back in a separate section of the church when she was stuffing various items into a backpack with a rifle slung over her back. He knew exactly was she was doing, why she was packing up anything useful that she could find. So even though he asked, "The hell are you doin'?", he damn well knew what was up.
Maggie looked up, her eyes puffy from crying. Daryl hoped his own face was not that readable. "Don't tell Glenn," she told him, going back to arranging things into a bag. "I can't have him comin' with me. It's too dangerous. I need to know that he'll be safe with the rest of the group."
"You ain't goin' nowhere," Daryl said harshly.
Maggie's jaw clenched, the look of rage instantly flitting across her widened eyes. She dropped the bag to the floor and marched over to Daryl with heavy sound of angry boots hitting the floor. For a second there he thought that she might take a swing at him and punch him right in the face.
For a second he thought that he would let her. He deserved it.
Maggie pointed her finger at him. "Don't you dare tell me what I can and cannot do, Daryl Dixon. If I want to go and find my sister, my only living blood connection to family, then I'm gonna damn well do just that. Nothin' you say will stop me, you hear that?"
Her voice was angry too, but also filled with concern and worry for her little sister whose absence among the group was too in her face, too bothersome, and too much for Maggie's heart to take. She needed to act and he understood that completely.
Daryl had actually planned on sneaking out that night to head towards Atlanta after Father Gabriel tipped them off that he knew of a hospital that was connected to Terminus. White crosses, he remembered hearing that and Daryl instantly knew that was whoever took Beth from him had a white cross on the back of the car.
Stole her from him.
How fucking dare they.
All Daryl knew was that there was going to be hell to pay. He was going to find Beth and get her out of wherever she was being held. He knew that much. Daryl would die before the fucking mullet-wearing Eugene and his bullshit cure story made Daryl leave the state of Georgia without Beth.
No. He was going to stay until he found her.
That was it. Case closed.
He would find Beth Greene and make it all right again. He would get her back. That was what had to happen. He would not settle for anything else.
"You stay here," Daryl told her, more like ordered her to do. He kept his voice down so that no one else in the church heard him when he said, "I'm leavin' tonight for Atlanta. Stay with the group."
"What?"
There was shock on her face as her voice turned quiet and softer. He thought it was because Maggie was surprised that Daryl would venture off alone into the unknown to find Beth by himself. She did not know the full extent of how he felt about her little sister.
And that was another story entirely—how deeply his feeling went for Beth.
It almost killed him to think about it in that moment. He remembered all too easily how he felt sitting at that kitchen table eating dinner with Beth. He had wanted to stay there in the funeral home with her and see if the owners came back, if they ever would.
He wanted to continue to live there.
With her.
Together, just the two of them.
(What a fantasy that had been)
It seemed so stupid to think about that, how naïve he had been to think that Beth and him could have stayed and hunkered down there for a while. He would have liked that. He would have liked to finish that conversation that ended with an, "oh."
He was sure that Beth had known what he had meant at that table.
"I'll bring her back, Maggie," he vowed to her. "Even if it's the last thing I do."
He exposed the feelings to a certain extent then, Maggie's eyes narrowing before they widened in the slightest amount. Now she knew too.
"I'll come with you," she insisted.
"You'll stay here with Glenn and Rick. It's safer. Beth will want you safe," he remarked, finding it hard to say her name out loud. Daryl knew then that he could not wait any longer, seeing that there was a window of opportunity as Rick and the others were all distracted by talking with Father Gabriel in the front of the church. "Tell Rick where I went. I'll find you later."
He could not tell him because Rick did not anyone to split up again, he had made that clear. It was the only way for Daryl to get out. He had to leave unnoticed to avoid a confrontation.
Maggie grabbed his arm to prevent him from leaving. "You just gonna leave?"
"Ain't that what you were gonna do?"
The rebuttal made sense to Maggie and she dropped the subject along with her hand. She would let him leave. Perhaps Maggie had faith in Daryl, in the idea that maybe he would be able to find Beth again.
"Stay safe, Maggie," he told her, turning and headed for the back door of the church where he could sneak out to head towards Atlanta with only his crossbow with him—the only thing he needed.
"I'm coming with you." Daryl turned to see Carol coming towards him with her own weapon in hand. "I can't let you go there alone."
He hoped she hadn't heard what had been said to Maggie, that part where he let his feelings for the sweet blonde girl slip through in a cryptic kind of way.
"No," he refused, only willing to endanger his own life to get Beth back.
The only problem was that Carol was more than determined to accompany him on the journey into the city that was filled with walkers roaming around the empty streets. "I'm going. Unless you want me to tell everyone else and have them keep you here. Rick would not approve of you going out there on your own anyways. I'm comin' with you whether you like it or not. And that's that. No arguments."
Daryl had no time to argue anyways. He exchanged a look with Maggie first before he agreed to the terms. "Fine."
He didn't like the idea of Carol coming with him because there was a lot of questions that needed to be asked about the whole Karen and David situation, but he would lay those questions to rest for a little while. All he wanted was Beth back and that would be the main focus, the only thing on his brain for now.
Daryl crossed the floor and turned to Maggie before he stepped out the door, him seeing the look of hope in her eyes again, giving him some more confidence that he would find Beth, that he would find his girl. "I swear I'll find her. I'm not comin' back without her."
"Be safe," she whispered back to him.
When Daryl left the church and disappeared into the night, he was headed for Atlanta, headed towards Beth. Nothing would stop him.
Nothing.
A/N: This was another one of those pesky ideas that would not leave my brain so I had to write it down. I'm really intrigued to see how Maggie and Daryl interact when she learns that Beth was kidnapped and also how Daryl decides to go and find her. Thank you for reading everyone!