Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape or form have any rights to The Walking Dead, AMC or any of the characters from that show, I'm only borrowing them for my own sick, twisted amusement.

A/N: Hey peeps, I'm still alive. I AM SO SORRY it took me so long to get this chapter out to you. With the summer time upon us, I am an outdoorsy girl, so this is my time of year, between fishing, hunting and camping, I have been failing in my duty as a writer and for that, I apologize to my ever diligent readers. I hope you can forgive me. It doesn't help that I have a coworker out on workers comp for an injury and we're all pulling extra shifts. Once again, I am sorry for the delay. I hope everyone enjoys this next one.

To my wonderful reviewers:

Noorey: I never understood why he took it either. It's not like they have any ice to keep it cold or a doctor to sew it back on. Anyway, thanks for your review hun.

pink champagne218: It bugs me out too when people write Merle off as public enemy number one. Sure, he's a giant racist butthead who needs a good kick in the ass but like Daryl, I think all of his internal problems stem from the horrible childhood he had. As cruel as he was to his brother, I think that in his own distorted way, he was trying to do what he could for Daryl. Once again, thanks so much for your input and I hope you like this next one.

Enjoy everyone!

~~~~~~~TWD~~~~~~~

The muffled sounds of people arguing welcomed Arielle as she slowly regained conciousness, not helping the extreme pounding within her skull. She groaned softly, bringing her hand to her head to try and rub the pain away. The voices abruptly stopped, followed by someone quickly moving across the room in her direction. She felt a warm hand softly caress her hair.

"Elle? Ya awake, can ya hear me, baby?" Daryl's voice softly whispering in her ear. Arielle stirred at the sound of his voice then slowly opened her eyes, squinting against the harsh sunlight pouring in through the open blinds. A shadow passed over her face, blocking the light from her eyes. She turned to look up into Daryl's concerned face, she couldn't help but smile stupidly at him.

"A girl could get use to this." She whispered, laying her hand upon his which was rubbing along her jawline. The concern that had been completely covered on his face was now quickly replaced with a look of pure confusion.

"What? Blackin' out in an alley crawlin' with walkers, leavin' me totally worried that ya were never gonna wake up?"

"No, waking up and the first thing I see is your face." She explained, wiping the semi-permanent scowl off his face. He smiled slyly at her.

"I think ya musta hit ya head pretty hard, talkin' sappy and shit." Daryl offered her a hand, slowly pulling her into a sitting position. Her vision tilted slightly but she took a few deep, calming breaths and closed her eyes, waiting on the dizziness to finally subside. Once the room stopped spinning, she gave her head a light shake. Opening her eyes, she took in her surroundings. They were no longer outside but back in one of the offices they had cleared out earlier that day.

"How'd we get away?" Daryl pulled himself up onto the desk as well, scooting closer to her. Even in light of their dire circumstances, her stomach did a small flip and a warm rush spread through her body as Daryl's arm wrapped around her back and his fingertips trailed softly along the skin on her arm.

"Well, after ya decided to take a nap, Rick and T-Dog came runnin' up the alley and chased the others off, not before they took Glenn with them. I threw ya up on my shoulder and we booked it the hell outta there before we became lunch." He paused when her eyes quickly darted across the room, searching desperately in vain for her friend who obviously was nowhere to be seen. She found Rick and T-Dog sitting at a desk across the room, talking intently with the latino boy that she recognized from the alley.

"Glenn? Is he.. do you think they..." Daryl firmly shook his head in denial.

"I don't think so. We got their man so maybe his douchebag friends will wanna make a deal." His voice was low, his eyes taking in her reaction to the news. She pulled her legs up to her chest, balling into herself as she always did when she didn't know how to cope with whatever was going on around her at the time.

"Thanks for saving me, I really mean that, didn't feel much like dying today but what if they don't want to exchange him? What about Glenn? What are we going to do? I mean, we don't know what their capable of. God knows what they could be doing to him right now, they could be torturing him..." She began to ramble and felt as though she were about to crack as the fear for Glenn and her distress over Merle took over her completely. Tremors coursed through her body and she couldn't stop them no matter how hard she tried. Arielle forced a few deep breath through her lungs which seemed pointless. Her eyes were burning and she couldn't absorbe the breaths, no matter how deeply the air pushed in and out of her lungs, it didn't feel like it was there at all. She wondered if this was what a panic attack truly felt like. Daryl jumped off the desk and stood in front of her, moving closely to her and grabbed her face, pulling her gaze roughly to his.

"Hey, cut it out, ya gettin' yaself worked up and ya need to be calm. If ya fall to pieces and the rest of us have to stay here and babysit ya, whose gonna go and save his skinny Chinese ass?" He asked firmly, trying to get her pissed in order to pull her out of whatever frenzied thinking she was dragging herself through.

Arielle didn't meet his eyes, her voice coming out in an automatronic manner. "Korean."

"Dammit, I don't care! He could be from fuckin' Mars for all I care! Ya need to pull it together and stiffen that upper lip, Elle. This is serious shit." He snapped, caring less and less about the inquiring gazes he was now receiving from the other side of the room. He couldn't handle having Arielle fall apart right now in the middle of this situation, in the middle of this god forsaken city. Daryl definitely wasn't going to say this to her face right now but if she didn't get her shit together, he had no problems with hog-tying her and dragging her back to camp. He was unwilling to take the chance on venturing out into the city with her being emotionally and mentally unstable, he couldn't even guess at what may happen.

Arielle bit firmly into her cheek, stifling the words that she truly wanted to yell at Daryl.

He's only trying to help, don't say anything you'll regret later. The always annoyingly right voice in her head pleaded. She knew that she had to toughen herself back up or, well, she didn't know what would happen. There was just no way in Hell that she was going to leave Glenn behind, much like Merle. And as for Merle, they were gonna just have to see what happens. She wasn't estatic on the idea of roaming the streets of Atlanta, looking for Merle's ass because he got a little impatient.

She sighed loudly and stood up from the desk, pressing herself tightly against Daryl's warm, firm chest.

"You're right. I lost my head for a moment. I'm okay." She said, lightly placing her hand onto his chest, looking up into his eyes. Daryl stared down at her, unconvinced if she was actually ok.

"Maybe ya should stay here while we talk to these 'people'. It'll be safer for ya and probably them too." He suggested, instantly regretting his comment. Arielle's eyes lit on fire and her mouth pursed tightly.

"Not happening Daryl. I'm not getting left behind." She snapped, quickly stepping around him. He grabbed her shoulder and spun her around.

"Jesus Elle! Why do ya always have to do this? Why can't ya just for once listen to me and stop tryin' to kill me? Ya takin' years off my life with all this damn worryin'. I ain't gonna risk losin' ya."

Arielle pinched the bridge of her nose, shaking her head. The man clearly didn't get the point. You don't leave your crew hanging.

"Did you forget the talk we had earlier? You can't hide me from the world, Daryl. Can't avoid being constantly in the crosshairs."

"Don't mean that ya gotta always be throwin' yaself in the line of fire." Daryl said, shaking his head in frustration.

He threw his hands up. "Whatever, ya gonna be the death of me, girl." He gave her one last hard stare before walking over the others, not knowing what to say to her now. Arielle breathed deeply once then joined him. The said boy turned to look at her, scanning her up and down in a very unsettling way before smiling.

"Morning, chica."

Arielle rolled her eyes then turned to Rick. "So, you lost our Korean and picked up a Latino? He better suck at Poker like Glenn does."

~~~~~~~TWD~~~~~~~

I know it's very, very short but I PROMISE that I'll have the next one out either tonight or tomorrow morning. I just wanted to get this out there to let everyone one know that I wasn't kidnapped or dead. Believe me, I missed you guys and I can't wait to get your input, whether it be good or bad because of my absence. Hope ya'll are having a great summer!