"It doesn't matter. If we find her or not. It only matters that we tried. She's my sister."

"Maggie…" Daryl stopped himself, and took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. He crossed his arms over his chest, kicking up specters of dry dirt with a boot toe, trying to avoid seeing those red-rimmed eyes again.

But she wasn't looking at him now. She was looking out towards the west as shafts of sunlight traveled through cottonball clouds, painting the hills in golden patterns. "Daryl, I need this." Her lower lip trembled slightly, and she bit down for control.

He raised his eyes, peering at her thoughtfully. She stood tall and strong, shoulders set determinedly, her chin lifted as she continued to look away from him; but her face betrayed her anguish. Daryl couldn't stand that look. Maggie had always been one of the strongest of them. Her current state just served to remind him of everything that had changed since Terminus. They were in such a good place. So many of them had survived. But nothing could fill the dark abysm of those they had lost. And he knew it couldn't last, the peace they had found here and now. There would always be something. Walkers, disease, starvation, other assholes…no, this was just a temporary reprieve. What would happen to them all? Dying one by one. Rick was so sick…Daryl was fairly certain he wouldn't make it to this summer.

Seeing Maggie like this worried Daryl more than he cared to admit. She was slowly leaving them all. It itched at him. In that moment, seeing her standing there crying and looking over the Georgia landscape like it was the gateway to heaven, Daryl awoke to the realization that the reason he'd been wanting to leave, possibly never to see any of his friends (family) again, these people who he would lay his life down for…was because he didn't want to be there to see the shit hit the fan once it inevitably happened again. He didn't want to be a witness to this slow unraveling. Fighting was easy. It was fast, over and done with, winners and losers. But they were all really losers now, weren't they? This world was never going to be right ever, ever again.

He didn't know what to do. I mean, really, it didn't matter anymore. He could take Maggie, and she might die out on the road; they might both die by any number of causes out there. Or he could leave her here, and she could die of goddamn pneumonia in a month, or whatever the hell Rick had.

Or he could stay with her here. And he might find an ounce of happiness in this new crappy world. If she would be willing to give that to him, to both of them. "Maggie. I didn't mean to get your hopes up or nothing. I hadn't even thought this through properly. I was just, you know, bouncing the idea off of Sasha, see how crazy she thought I was." He stared at the dirt again, feeling too repentant to look her in the eye. "I don't think I'm gonna go…"

At that, Maggie turned to face him, sniffing. "Why? You deciding to be a coward all of a sudden?"

He knew she was speaking from a place of pain, and that she was just trying to get a reaction out of him. But her words sliced through him just the same. A coward? Not exactly the impression he intended to give her right now. Here he was making decisions in order to possibly get closer to this girl, and instead he was driving a wedge between them over an issue that hadn't even been something she'd been aware of a day ago. Fantastic… A day ago, Daryl probably wouldn't even have given a rat's ass about Maggie Greene's opinion of him, and now he was judging himself poorly by her emotionally driven response. This is why in his previous life, he'd preferred not to listen to any female opinion on anything.

He looked her dead in the eye. "Well, maybe I am being a coward, but I sure as shit ain't taking you out there in those woods. Not after everything this group's been through. I'll put myself out there maybe, but I ain't taking anyone else with me, no way."

The anger went out of her. Maggie might be an emotional wreck right now, but she wasn't mean or stupid. "You know I didn't mean that."

Daryl picked the axe back up from its place against the woodpile. "Uh huh," he grunted, turning his back to her. He heard her quickly stride up behind him, and he knew it was coming before he felt her place a warm hand up and under the hem of his flannel shirt, grazing the skin of his right hipbone above his leather belt. His whole body tingled from a blaze that started deep in the pit of his stomach…and from that little spot near his groin she was caressing right now.

He still had the axe in his hand, but let the blade settle into the dirt. "What are you doing?" he managed to gulp, looking at her sideways as she moved closer to him, yet still not touching him anywhere else.

"Daryl, I didn't mean that. You know all of us here owe you everything." Her voice was still a little ragged.

Daryl looked down at where her tan wrist disappeared under his shirt, then purposefully into her eyes. "You don't owe me anything, ok?" And great, now she looked like he was being reproachful of her, which he guessed he was. Was she really trying to trade sex for a free trip to wilderness territory with him? Whatever she was doing, she was continuously reminding him of the type of guy he was definitely trying never to be, ever again. The warmth that had flooded his systems a few seconds ago instantaneously abated.

Thankfully, she withdrew her hand and backed away, leaving only the awkward atmosphere between them. Daryl didn't turn to look back at her, but when she spoke, her voice was stronger. She seemed to have snapped out of her desperate attitude and now just sounded completely embarrassed and flustered. "I'm sorry. Really. Daryl, I'm so sorry. About last night…"

His shoulders drew up a little bit at the mention of the night before, but he didn't speak.

"I'm not ready to talk about it yet. But I didn't mean it like that last night, like how you just thought I meant…that. I…uh…I don't know. I don't know how I meant it, but it wasn't that I thought I owed you something. I'm so sorry if I hurt you last night…or today. I'm so sorry." And with that, she was gone, fled around the corner of the house.