Abraham was driving again, but that tank was nearing EMPTY very fast. Just his luck; every time something bad went down with the gas tank, that prick Eugene was involved. Lying bastard!

He pushed those thoughts aside for the moment; everyone was pissed about that, and they were depending on him finding some damn gas.

"There should be a gas station up ahead a few miles." Rosita announced, looking up from her roadmap.

Sure enough, a Sunoco station just outside of Atlanta had gas to spare. Well, presumably every gas station now had gas to spare, Abraham chuckled, trying desperately to find some good in this day. Still, Eugene kept gnawing away at his thoughts.

"Would you look at that." Tara announced, breathless as she looked at the ruined Atlanta skyline.

"The Air Force sure tore it up in there." Abraham replied, his memories flooding with combat on two continents. "See the napalm marks on the buildings? Reminds me of Basra, back before…"

Tara patted Abraham on the shoulder, walking back to the fire engine and playing with her new yoyo. She was an eccentric one, that was for sure. He thought back, on his old platoon in Basra. It felt like it was yesterday; very vivid as the memories flooded to the front of his mind. In fact, he almost thought he could hear the bullets flying.

"Abraham!" Rosita shouted, shaking his shoulder. "You hear that?"

It took Abraham a minute to come out of the flashback when he realized he was actually hearing the gunfire he had been "hearing" earlier.

"It's coming from in the city." Tara noted, clicking the safety off her rifle.

"Whoa, whoa." Abraham commanded. "Watch it with that; it ain't a toy." He turned back to look at the city and saw smoke rising from atop one of the buildings. "Well, let's go check it out, eh?"

Dawn was lucky. The .338 Lapua shot slightly off course, blown by a strong gust of wind into her upper arm. She grunted in pain, diving for cover behind one of the squad cars as Rick and Tyreese followed up on Daryl's initial volley. Two other officers weren't as lucky; Daryl was back on the sights in a moment, turning each cop's head into fine, red mist.

The redneck was royally pissed off. He had already shot five of the cops; he wasn't sure how many he'd killed but Dawn wasn't one of them and she was at the verymost top of his hit list as he kept up the fire, covering Rick, Carol and Tyreese as they ran off. Those two cops- Shepard and Licari- had dropped to the ground; Shepard was wriggling away from the gunfire to the left while Licari tried breaking the cuffs on a car's fender.

"Daryl! We gotta cover them now!" Sasha exclaimed, firing from her M16. Daryl, out of Lapua, switched over to an M249, aimed right at the engine of the squad car Dawn was hiding behind. Dozens of 5.56mm NATO rounds slammed into the squad car's hood, penetrating and igniting the engine. The car's entire front end exploded in fury, knocking Dawn off her feet behind it from the shockwave.

On the ground below, Rick, Tyreese and Carol were barely holding on, taking cover behind two cars; Rick behind a napalm-burned Honda Civic while Tyreese and Carol hunkered down behind a scorched Ford F150. Rick took potshots at the officers with his Colt, while Tyreese was keeping them at bay with the same M1 Garand he had used to deadly effect in the last battle before the fall of the prison.

"Shit!" Carol exclaimed, her hand reflexively bolting towards her thigh. She had been hit; blood was pooling around her. Tyreese immediately ceased firing and checked her wound.

"It's your artery!" he exclaimed, ripping off his shirt to make a tourniquet. "We gotta stop the bleeding or…"

Suddenly, the gunfire ceased as a loud, blaring siren was heard. Like the cavalry of old, Sergeant Abraham Ford's fire engine roared into action, ramming right through two squad cars before Rosita, Maggie, Tara and Glenn ripped into the officers with their M16s. Tara thought she saw a few running out the way they came, two in handcuffs, but thought nothing of it as she continued the fight against the ones that were sticking around.

Shortly after, Michonne, Maggie and Carl dismounted, Carl shooting one officer between the eyes as he took aim, Michonne impaling another with her katana while Maggie strafed the hell out of a squad car as suppressive fire.

The battle was over thirty seconds after that.

"Where's Beth?" Maggie demanded, a sparkle of hope in her eyes.

Her answer came to her as Daryl ran across the lot, tears flowing from his eyes like a waterfall, falling to his knees to cradle a limp, blonde-haired body.

"No." he sobbed, holding Beth's body close, rocking back and forth in misery. "No, no, no! No! No-o-o-o-o." he broke down, sobbing as Maggie came closer, crying.

"D-Daryl, it- it wasn't your f-fault…" she consoled right before Daryl suddenly rose to his feet, hands on his head.

"Shut up!" he screamed, getting in her face. "Just shut up! You didn't give a shit about her! Running off to D.C. like it was your fucking honeymoon!"

"Daryl, I…"

"Shut up! You know who took care of her after the prison? ME! You know who taught her how to hunt and shoot? ME! You- you know who fell in love with her? ME YOU BITCH!"

"Y-You fell in love with her?" Maggie asked in shock, tears flowing down her face.

Daryl threw his arms up in exasperation. "It was right after the prison. I-I was pissed and drunk!"

"You had sex with her?!"

"No! I started shouting at her, and- and she shouted back at me! Nobody's ever done that before! I- I always wanted someone to do that! To-to give me a reason I was wrong! And she did that! Hell, she's the last fucking good person on this planet! Or she was!" he raged, dropping his crossbow on the spot and falling to the ground, sobbing his heart out.

While Daryl was sobbing on the ground, Abraham had walked up to Rick.

"Glad to have you back." Rick announced, patting the soldier on the back.

"Listen," Abraham replied very frankly, "we're out of gas. We were just topping off when we heard the shots and I'm pretty sure these assholes' bullets hit the fuel tank. It's a goddamn miracle we didn't go up like the Fourth of July."

"Alright." Rick sighed. They didn't have enough room for Beth's body; they were gonna need that space for Carol. She was bleeding out, but if they could get her back in time, maybe even go to that hospital, they could save her.

So, Rick had no choice as he walked over to Beth's body, Colt in hand.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Daryl screamed, dive-tackling Rick to the ground, punching him hard in the face over and over again. "DON'T! FUCKING! TOUCH! HER!"

"Daryl!" Maggie shouted. It took her, Glenn, Michonne and Abraham combined to pull him off of Rick.

"Get off of me!" he shouted, his crossbow pointed at Rick's head.

"Daryl, it has to be done…" Rick reminded, wiping some blood away from his nose. Daryl was passionate about her; he understood that.

"Then I'm gonna do it." Daryl replied. Maggie gave a protesting look, but didn't say anything out of fear of provoking Daryl again.

"Alright." Rick sighed. "Everyone, let's go. Daryl's gonna take care of this."

Abraham patted Daryl on the back as the rest of the group left the rooftop back to their vehicles. Maggie flinched as she heard a single gunshot.

Daryl came down a few moments later, tears in his eyes.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Daryl's rant to Maggie is based on this article on tumblr by the brilliant Dixon Ministry (*cough* Norman Reedus secretly mingling with us commoners *cough*): post/81696096375/why-bethyl-works-and-why-its-going-to-happen