"Three bullets," Carol hissed as they made their way through an empty floor in search of some emergency exit stairs. "We're in the middle of a city. He was stealing our weapons," she griped. "Did you think I was gonna kill him? I was aiming for his leg! Could that have killed him? Maybe, I don't know. But he was stealing our weapons."

"He's a damn kid!" Daryl snapped.

"Without weapons we could die. Beth could die," Carol countered.

"We'll find more weapons," Daryl grumbled.

"I don't want you to die. I don't want Beth to die. I don't want anybody at the church to die – but I can't stand around and watch it happen either," Carol huffed. "I can't. That's why I left. I just had to be… somewhere else," she admitted.

"Well, you ain't somewhere else!" he shouted, whirling around to face her. "You're right here. Tryin'." Daryl couldn't help but wonder what that even meant now.

"Look, you're not who you were and neither am I," she sighed, setting her bag on the ground. "I don't know if I believe in God anymore – or heaven – but if I'm going to hell," she raised her eyebrows at him before he turned to find the emergency exit. "I'm making damn sure I'm holding it off as long as I can."

Daryl's lip curled in annoyance and he shoved on the door to find that it, too, was locked. He pulled his hunting knife back out and jammed it into the seam and started to work the door open.

He was angry. He was hurt – but most of all, he was disappointed. Was this what trying looked like?

With another frustrated yank on his knife the door popped open. He turned back to Carol as she picked up her bag. Her grip on the strap slipped and the bag tumbled to the ground, pencils, pens, a box cutter, and a book spilling out onto the floor.

Treating Survivors of Childhood Abuse.

Daryl looked up from the book to glare at Carol, snatching it off the ground. He opened his mouth to say something biting, but nothing came out. What would he even say? It wasn't like Carol didn't know – didn't understand. So, instead, he threw the book to the ground and left down the stairs.

.

The trip to the overpass happened without much incident and with absolutely no conversation. There was nothing to say that would have mattered, anyway. Daryl needed to take his time and focus on finding Beth. Not to talk about his feelings.

By the time they reached the van, they had managed to attract the attention of several walkers who slowly shambled their way over. They needed to get in and get out.

"Alright, let's get this done," he said, popping open the back doors of the van. It rattled as it hung over the side of the overpass.

"It's not stable. I'm lighter," Carol said.

Daryl scoffed and jumped up, ignoring the loud groan the van gave at his added weight. He got to his feet inside, climbed to the driver's seat, and began rifling through the visor, scanning the papers he found. Carol climbed in after him and started going through the glove box.

He came up with nothing, and it seemed Carol had had the same luck as she glanced out the passenger window.

"There's more coming," she informed. "We're gonna have to fight through."

"Yeah, I see 'em," Daryl grumbled. He climbed to the back of the van, followed by Carol, and started rummaging through what little was back there. He flipped over a gurney and found three letters written on the bottom in black sharpie.

"GMH, what's that? A hospital?" He asked.

"I don't know. Grady Memorial, maybe?" Carol offered, more concerned with the gathering crowd of walkers.

"Grady, the white crosses—it might be where they're holing up!" Daryl said, excited at the prospect of getting closer to finding Beth.

They hopped out of the van and were immediately swarmed. Daryl pulled his knife while Carol fired her last rounds from her revolver.

"Daryl!" She called as he put down the closest walker and kicked the next away from him.

"Go, go, go, go!" He commanded, and they jumped back into the van.

"Anything we can use?" Carol asked, desperately searching for a solution.

"Nothin' but what we got," Daryl said.

And then a terrible, stupid, ridiculous idea came into his head that he knew he would regret. But what other option did they have? He climbed back into the driver's seat, Carol into the passenger's.

"Alright, buckle up," he said, pulling the seat belt around his body. "Hold on."

He braced his hands against the dash and Carol grabbed his hand. The van rocked, shuttered, and moved forward. His stomach rose into his throat and for a moment he was a little kid again with Merle riding a roller coaster they couldn't afford. And then they were hitting the ground hard and his bones felt like jelly as they vibrated under his skin.

"We're okay," Carol breathed. "We're okay."

He and Carol looked to each other and he felt a smile spreading across his face until there was a hard thud against the windshield, the glass cracking as a walker hit it. For the next few minutes, they waited inside the van, nursing their aching bones as it rained walkers.

.

"Here," Daryl said, holding out the canteen of water. After walkers stopped tumbling off the overpass, they had limped their way into a depot, finding a safe place to hide and recoup.

"I'm fine," she said, grimacing as she held her side.

"Prove it." Reluctantly, she reached up with her good arm and took the canteen, taking a sip of water with great effort. "How bad is it?" He asked, chiding himself for the ridiculous plan.

"I've had worse," Carol assured.

He leaned forward as Carol pulled her collar aside for him to see the dark purple and splotchy bruise on her shoulder.

"Damn, that was stupid," Daryl sighed, straightening.

"We made good time down," Carol teased. Daryl scoffed and sat down beside her.

"We don't tell Anna that happened," he said, shaking his head.

"My lips are sealed," Carol said with a smirk. "There's only three blocks between us and Grady."

"We need to find a place nearby, scope it out, see what we can see," he explained.

"You really think we're gonna find out what we need to know just by watching?" Carol asked.

"It's where we start," he said, nodding. "Come on."

.

Eventually, Carol and Daryl made it to another office building just a block away from Grady. On their way through, they passed a walker with a machete. Daryl put it down and took the bladed weapon.

Beside the walker was a plastic bag containing smaller bags of potato chips. His stomach twisted at the reminder of food.

"It's them," Carol called from the window. He approached and stared at the tall hospital building.

"Alright," he said, handing Carol a bag of chips. "Let's see what we can see."

.

Carol sat on the window ledge, picking at her chips while Daryl stood, greedily eating every bit of chip and crumb he could find in the bag. Once he was sure it was empty, he crumpled the plastic up and tossed it to the ground. Looking to Carol, he finally decided to break the silence.

"You said I ain't like how I was before?" He asked.

"Yeah," Carol said.

"How was I?"

Ever since Daryl had calmed down from his initial upset with how things played out back at the office building – with the kid and Carol's willingness to shoot him – her words had been bothering Daryl. He couldn't stop wondering what she had meant, how exactly he had changed. Maybe Carol saw something he couldn't – maybe the others did, too.

Carol pursed her lips, thinking. "It's like you were a kid. Now you're a man," she explained.

Daryl considered her answer. He wasn't sure how to feel about it or if he was satisfied.

"What about you?" He asked after a brief pause.

Carol didn't say anything for a moment, staring at her hands as she picked apart a chip. She dropped the crumbs into her bag and wiped off her hands.

"Me and Sophia stayed at that shelter for a day and a half before I went running back to Ed," she sighed. "I went home, I got beat up, life went on, and I just kept praying for something to happen. But, I didn't do anything. Not a damn thing."

Daryl watched her as she stared out the window, seeming to relive the memories of someone else as she explained herself.

"Who I was with him… she got burned away. And I was happy about that – I mean, not happy, but…" she trailed off, looking to Daryl. "And at the prison I got to be who I always thought I should be – thought I should've been…. And then she got burned away…."

Carol shook her head, turning to look back at the hospital. Daryl bowed his head, wondering if that was what Anna and Rick and Michonne and everyone else felt. If who they were just got burned away.

"Everything now just… consumes you," Carol said, cutting into his thoughts.

"Well, hey," he called softly. She looked to him. "We ain't ashes."

They didn't say anything for a moment as Daryl's affirmation sunk in. There really was nothing more to say.

Somewhere in the building, a door slammed shut. Daryl and Carol jumped to their feet, grabbing their bags and weapons and going to investigate the noise. They followed the sounds of a walker snarling down a hallway. They came upon the corpse pinned to a wall, one of Daryl's crossbow bolts through its neck.

"Is that yours?" Carol asked from behind him.

"Yeah," Daryl sneered, plunging the machete through the walker's head before he pulled his bolt from its neck.

The second the bolt came out, rapid gunfire erupted from a room down the hall. Carol rushed forward first, coming around the corner just as a walker fell on her. She cried out in pain as she fell to the floor, unable to use her bruised right arm to defend herself. Daryl quickly ran over, catching sight of a tall lanky figure running away down the hall, and chopped the machete into the walkers head.

"Oh, God," Carol groaned. "I'm good," she assured as Daryl hovered over her. "I'm good. You go," she said.

With her insistence that she was fine, Daryl took off after the figure. He followed the sounds of a struggle and came upon the thief trying to push a bookshelf out from in front of a door. Daryl dropped his weapons and gear and sprinted forward, throwing his whole weight into the kid, shoving him into the bookshelf before they collapsed to the ground.

With a groan, the bookshelf leaned forward and Daryl rolled out of the way as it fell, pinning the thief to the ground. A walker came, pressing itself against the door the bookshelf had previously been holding shut, trying to squeeze through the sliver of space between the door and the frame.

"Plea—please!" The thief begged, grunting as he tried to lift the bookshelf. "I had to protect myself."

"Why you followin' us?" Daryl snapped, leaning over him as he gathered their stolen weapons.

"I—I didn't, I swear! I thought you followed me," he insisted.

"Bullshit," Daryl grumbled.

Daryl spotted a white box of Morley Lights and set his crossbow down, picking the cigarettes up. He pulled one from the pack and stuck it between his lips.

"Come on, man. Please! Please, please," the kid begged.

"Nah," Daryl said, lighting the cigarette. "I already helped you once. It ain't happenin' again." He glanced over at the walker as it continued to squeeze through the door. "Have fun with Hoss over there," he said as he picked his crossbow up and walked away. He ignored the continued cries of No from the kid.

"Daryl," Carol called. "Daryl, stop!"

"You almost died 'cause of him!" Daryl snapped, whirling around.

"But I didn't," Carol countered weakly.

Daryl looked between Carol and the kid before scoffing. "Nah, let him be."

"I'm sorry! Please, I'm sorry!"

"Daryl!"

He ignored the both of them as he continued back down the hallway. He heard the thud of the walker falling against the bookshelf, and he paused.

"He's a damn kid!"

Daryl grimaced as his own words echoed back at him. Damn, he thought, turning back firing a bolt into the walkers skull just before it bit into the kids face. As he walked back towards them, Carol pulled the dead walker off the bookshelf so that Daryl could lift it.

Once it was up high enough, Carol helped the thief slide out from under the shelf and Daryl let it fall back with a crack.

"Thank you, thank you!" the kid said, out of breath.

Daryl stepped over the shelf, approaching Carol as she climbed to her feet.

"You okay?" He asked as the kid frantically limped to the windows. "You okay?" He asked again.

"I'm still here," she said, nodding.

"I gotta go. I gotta go," the kid hissed. Daryl turned to face him. "They're gonna come. They probably heard the shot. If they find me…"

"Who?" Daryl asked.

"Them. People at the hospital," the boy said, trying to make his escape.

"Wait, wait, wait, just tell us—is there a blonde girl there? You see a blonde girl?" He asked, forcing the kid to take a step back.

"Beth?" the kid asked. "You know her?" Daryl exchanged a look with Carol, the kid turning between the two. "She helped me get out, but she's still there," he explained.

Carol glanced out the window, "They're coming," she warned.

"We gotta go now. We gotta go. We gotta go," the kid said, frantic again.

Daryl led the way to the first floor as Carol and the kid limped behind him.

"The building next door has a basement," the kid explained. "It's clear. We'll be safe—Ah!" he said. As he was trying to run, he fell to the ground.

"Go, I got him!" Daryl said, gesturing for Carol to continue on. "Come on, get up. Get up," he grumbled, hauling the kid to his feet.

"Okay," he groaned. As they made it to the lobby, Carol stepped outside, checking the area as she stepped out into the street. Tires squealed and a hatchback came to a screeching halt as it rammed into Carol. She hit the windshield before sliding down the hood to the ground.

Daryl rushed forward, but the kid grabbed him.

"No, no, no! Wait, wait, wait!" He hissed.

"Let go of me!" Daryl demanded.

"Wait! They can help her," the kid explained. "They're the only ones who can. They have medicine, machines, a doctor. You go out there, you'll have to kill them, okay? And then she can't get their help. Is that what you want?"

Daryl ground his teeth as two men came out with a gurney and loaded Carol up in the car.

"We can get her back. We can get Beth back," the kid assured.

"What's it gonna take?" Daryl asked as the car sped off.
"A lot," the kid sighed. "They got guns, people."

Daryl's lip curled as he paced, anger boiling in the pit of his stomach.

"So do we."