Note: Mentions of attempted sexual assault.

The trail had continued for a few miles as far as Daryl could tell; a trail that he did not really know was hers. Except he did. It was not a naïve hope, or Beth having rubbed off on him, he knew her boot track, he knew her gait. Then there were the random Ds left scratched on surfaces and the broken tumbleweed, knotted and lying on the ground nearby. None of it was a fluke and he knew. There was no hope involved; Daryl knew.

What was just a hope was that she was still okay at the end of it. It was harder to tell within the concrete of a city, the only clue able to give him any sense of time were the broken weeds and from the broken stems, Daryl figured that he was only trailing behind Beth by ten or twenty minutes. Half an hour maximum, but so much could happen in that half an hour. The tracks indicated that she was travelling with someone else and Daryl wanted to read that she was behind the other person most of the time, but he could not be sure on this concrete. There was definitely someone else travelling in the same direction, but Daryl could not tell who was following whom.

It came back to hope again – the hope that Beth was travelling with someone, a friendly someone and not being tracked by the same someone that had taken her. This could all be for nothing if she was being followed, if a Walker happened upon her before Daryl could get there. That alone was a silly thought. Beth had proven her ability to take care of herself even if it had been when Daryl was still pissed and angry, taking it out on her. That had been in a golf club, in the woods where they both knew the terrain at least somewhat more than here in a city. Walkers were always a risk no matter how proficient anyone was.

This could all be for nothing.

All too quickly, Daryl came upon a building with a black car parked outside, a white cross in the rear window and he hesitated, crouching back behind the building he was passing. Her trail might continue on, he knew that, he knew that he should actually check around the area, see if her trail went anywhere else. The car was too much of a coincidence though and he felt it best to check it out before returning to looking for Beth. There was a chance that the car had found Beth in this building. Maybe that second set of prints had been following Beth and had brought reinforcements. There was something about the car, the building; the hairs on the back of Daryl's neck had pricked up.

Shit, he thought, what if I am too late and it isn't even the fucking Walkers?

There was no way he could lose her again. Never again.

Glancing up at the surrounding buildings, Daryl checked to see if he could see any movement and something caught his eyes high on the third floor of the ten-floor glass fronted building in front of him. Waiting for the movement to stop, Daryl dashed across to the open door and snuck inside. All the glass was off-putting to Daryl. There were no shadows to lurk in, no abundance of furniture to crouch behind and anything outside would be attracted to any movement at all. This was not a safe place to be.

Why would Beth have come here? Sure, she probably had never been in a city so large, but she had learnt something from him, hadn't she?

Then it dawned on Daryl that perhaps this was where Beth had been held or was at least potentially being held now. With caution, Daryl checked around the building's foyer, apprehensive and on high alert. There were three elevators, the doors to two wrenched open and a door behind the desks. The third elevator, the one with the doors closed had some scratching sounds coming from behind the doors. Daryl did not even risk banging on it to see if there were Walkers inside. Inside the two open elevator shafts, Daryl could see pretty far up. It was a viable option he nodded to himself before heading to the door, immediately noticing a boot scuff mark on the edge.

Bending down, Daryl gently touched the dirty mark and it was fresh and he was pretty sure it was Beth's. The scuffing made it difficult to identify completely, but it was the right size. The next question he asked himself was did she put it there herself or was it evidence of a struggle? He could not be too late, he could not lose her again. He opened the door and, although the foyer was bright with light, blinked his eyes, squinting them against the bombardment of light from the stairwell. Something else surrounded by fucking glass and as his eyes adjusted, Daryl saw that there were already a few Walkers approaching. He slowly moved backwards and let the door close silently. There was no way he was going to risk climbing those stairs and attracting more, even if it was only for three floors. Glass broke no matter how thick it was.

Back at the open elevator shafts, Daryl slung his crossbow on to his back and sheathed his knife, and started climbing the safety ladder that run up the shaft, jumping up to reach the first rung that was just out of reach for his standing height. It took only a few minutes before he scaled up to the third floor, wrenching open the doors, making far more noise than he had planned. With his hands on the edge of the floor, Daryl pulled his body up, his arms straining under the force. Swinging up his left leg, Daryl got his whole body up and free out of the elevator shaft, pausing for a moment before deciding to leave the doors open. They might need a quick exit and Walkers would not be climbing up or down it.

With his bow back in his hands, Daryl looked around the corridor. All the doors that lined it at varying intervals along the length were closed except for one which was open just a crack. Approaching it quietly and slowly, Daryl leaned to peer through the slightly open door and saw two men on the other side. One was dressed as a cop, his gun on the other guy who was wearing what looked to be hospital scrubs and was on the floor with a bleeding lip. There was no sight of Beth. Even without Beth being visible, the scene seemed clear enough to Daryl. He had never really trusted cops. Why should he start now?

With the toe of his boots, Daryl gently kicked the door open, holding his breath in case it had a squeak. Neither man seemed to see him as Daryl quietly approached behind the cop and knocked him out with a whack of the bow to his head. The bleeding man on the floor flinched away slightly and Daryl aimed the bow at him with one hand whilst the other reached around the cop and found his handcuffs. He slung the cuffs at the black man and jerked his head up.

"Put 'em on," he growled and the bleeding man barely even hesitated before crawling over and doing as ordered. "Who ya here with?"

"No one." The kid was clearly lying.

"You lyin' t'me, boy." It was not a question. "I'm'a lookin' for someone. Only reason ya not out cold is I never trusted no cop."

Except Rick. Always Rick. He should have brought his brother on this mission.

"And I have no reason to trust you."

"But I got reason to shoot ya." The bleeding kid pointed at a closed door behind a large mahogany desk. Ignoring the kid, deciding he was no threat and if he wanted to run, he could as far as Daryl cared, Daryl went to the door and opened it as slowly as he opened the other. There were two more doors, one open to a small toilet and wash room, the other was wide open and Daryl quickly hid beside the door frame, out of view. With a few quick glances of sharp movements to check out the room, Daryl leant his head back against the wall and released a long slow breath and preparing for just a moment. There was a cop pacing back and forth across the room and someone on the bed, on all fours. From the quick glance, Daryl thought the person on the bed was wearing scrubs, their white ass out and Daryl's steady breath increased at what he had seen and needed to do.

It was easy, of course it was, Daryl had done far worse, but he just needed a moment. A quick moment before he would act because that white ass, he was certain it was Beth. He had never tried to look at her naked form all those times that it had been just the two of them, but they had managed to bathe the night of the shack fire. It had not been enough to diminish the smell of smoke on either of them, but they had bathed none the less and Daryl had seen her naked from behind. In the moonlight, he had seen a decent sized patch of darker pigmented skin on her right ass cheek, the same mark that he could see on the ass on the bed just behind him.

That cop was dead.

Daryl took one last look around, just in time to see the cop undoing his belt and zipper, and he acted with all calculations already done. The arrow flew without much effort and hit the cop straight through the ass and groin. A loud thump resounded across the whole room as the cop fell to the floor groaning in pain. The girl on the bed turned.

"Daryl!" It was Beth. The relief on her face must surely have mirrored that which he felt. His eyes quickly fell to the floor and Daryl jammed his thumb in to his teeth as Beth stood up and fumbled at the scrubs, securing them at her waist once more. He looked back up at her and she was covered, a flush on her face, her arms bare and loose at her sides. "Thought it was you."

His eyes flashed to hers.

"Saw ya leavin' that car last night. Knew you'd come. Knew you'd save me."

"Saved yaself, Greene."

"Guess so." Her eyes fell away from his first and down to the cop who was still lying bleeding out on the carpet. Unsheathing his knife, Daryl moved towards the cop nearer his head and went to end him but Beth stepped forward. "I… can I…?"

"Ya don't gotta."

Her breath came out long and shaky as she nodded her head, a tear slipping down her cheek that Daryl could see at his distance. She moved away towards the side of the bed and he saw a knife there. It must have been hers. Maybe she had been planning on using it on him just a few moments later. Spinning his own knife, Daryl held it out to her hilt first and she gave him a watery smile, accepting it over her own and bent down near the cop's head. The cop was still alive, his eyes pained but on Beth and Daryl doubted she could do this. Or he doubted that she should.

It was something that she needed to do. He could see that clearly in her. What had happened to her since the car had taken her? She was wearing scrubs, had she been in a hospital, with cops? Cops that appeared to be in to beating kids and raping girls. The answers scared him. This would help her survive, killing a man, but he hated the fact that she needed to learn this and all he could do was watch her as she did it. With a stubbornness Dixons were renowned for, Daryl refused to look away. Once the knife was fully in, Beth let out a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob and she tried to pull it back out. Her hand was shaking and the bone of a human was stronger than that of the walking dead, his own hand moved without conscious thought, covering hers and helping her small, fragile hand.

As she wiped the now free knife on the cop's clothes and handed it back to Daryl, Daryl stood up and asked her with a mumble, "He who took ya from the funeral home?"

Her head shook, eyes on the clean carpet past the man who had been bleeding out. "Not sure. Jus' woke up in a hospital. Alone."

Her eyes flickered up at him where he was watching her carefully. "I chased that car." Their eyes met then and Daryl felt his lungs stutter in something he could not comprehend. "Been four days," he grumbled as if she did not know. Her eyes fell away then and he distracted himself from the awkwardness by retrieving his bolt from the groin of the cop. "Ya been alone wi' these cops, that guy…" He jerked his thumb behind him at the bleeding kid in the room next door.

"Uh-huh." The wide blue eyes were focused on the cop now and Daryl knew she was starting to spiral down in to some feeling that he could not keep at bay. He had no idea how to bring her back.

"That, uh, what he…" He could not find the words and he started angrily pacing across the room. From the corner of his eye, he saw her shake her head.

"No. He tried, but no, he never… None of them ever…"

He nodded his head at that, popping his thumb in between his teeth and biting down just a little bit too hard to keep his rage in check. Then she started crying and his angry steps froze, her quiet sobs filled the silence, exploding across it. Head falling forward until her chin must have been against her chest, he could see and feel her shoulders shuddering and he knew then that she needed something from him, just as he had after the prison and was drunk on moonshine.

Daryl was unsure he could give her anything.