LIGHT A FIRE

{Author's Note: Thank you so much for the reviews/favourites and alerts :). This chapter is centred around Daryl. Enjoy! Please read and review :)}

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the character(s) you don't recognise.
Lyrics: I'd Come For You by Nickelback.

I'd fight for you,
I'd lie, It's true,
I'd give my life for you,
You know I'd always come for you…

-+-
[ON THE ROAD]

He knew it from the moment their gazes had locked back on Herschel's farm.
It had only taken a second for him to know that something was different about her.

When they had met in dense woodlands days before, he had realised that she wasn't the danger.
The blood on her clothes, the bruises marking her smooth skin and the pain behind her eyes made it obvious that she needed his help.
He had half-expected her to run at him with the knife in fear, or to at least threaten him, but when she didn't he realised that she was doing something which beforehand only Rick had done; not judged him.

Even through out all of these past years, he had come to understand that Tessa wasn't the person that Hayley had thought she was.
Tessa never pushed him to talk about his past or what he may have done with Merle, instead she talked about how she admired and respected him.
When Merle had come to the prison, he had told him that she'd only said those things to him because she pitied him, but Daryl knew it wasn't like that.
With Tessa, it never was.
What Merle had labelled as being 'weak', Daryl now realises it was something else that he hadn't felt before.

Suddenly the aura shifted as he sensed that something wasn't right.
He should be hearing her boots sloshing against the mud or her small repeated sighs at her unruly hair blowing in her face.
Only, he heard nothing.

"Tessa?"
He lifted his head up slowly, straining his ears so that he could try to distinguish what was just nature and what might be her.

All of a sudden two walkers were coming towards him as he just had enough time to quickly pick up his crossbow and aim it squarely at the first walker's head.
Letting loose an arrow, he barely had enough time to lift up his crossbow and bring it crashing down against the skull of the second one.

Breathing heavily, Daryl looked around in confusion before putting two and two together; She was in danger.

Worriedly, he started to keep his gaze focused on the ground, easily noticing the soles of Tessa's boots, as he followed the footprints to a small clearing where they suddenly stopped abruptly.
With his lip twitching due to anger, he then froze as he noticed drops of blood mingled into the puddle on the ground.
Someone had tried to cover up what had happened here.

Turning to inspect the nearby area for any signs of a struggle, Daryl could feel his hands start to shake in repressed rage at his hunters instinct telling him that she isn't anywhere around here anymore.

"TESSA!"
His voice broke as he looked around, suddenly resenting himself for not being skilled enough to handle the situation.
There were too many tracks and too much distractions that he couldn't focus his attention on what had actually went wrong.

It was almost as though whoever had done this to Tessa knew that he'd try and track them and knew exactly what to do in order to put him off the trail.
He stiffened as everything finally clicked into place: They had been followed.

Refusing to give up, he hitched his crossbow up onto his shoulder and started to trek north through the woods, using all of the techniques that Merle had taught him.
He wouldn't rest until he'd found her.

-+-
[TEN MINUTES LATER]
-+-

He had been travelling for only ten minutes when the eerie silence was breached.

"Son of a bitch! God damn it!"

Daryl swiftly turned his head towards the voice as he stealthily stalked through the trees until he could see what had made the noise.

A short, heavily-built man was trying to wrestle a walker away from him as he was slowly being backed up into another walker who almost had it's rotting teeth compressed onto his neck.

Calmly, Daryl let an arrow loose into the walker that was advancing on the man before taking out his knife and stabbing the other through the head.

It was only when the final walker had been killed that the man had turned to thank him.
But there was something wrong with the way he had looked at him.

"You bit?" Daryl looked at him suspiciously, still keeping his knife in his hand.

"Bit? N-No! I'm fine…just shaken!" The man smiled as he started to shake, "Whew! They really get the jump on you don't they?"

Sweat was running down the man's nose from his forehead, mingling into his lips as Daryl watched him grimace before indicating to where a third walker had been killed previously.

"I was just trying to find my wife and son when these undead freaks came at me! I'm still not the best fighter, but we have to survive, right?" He cleared his throat before making a big effort to kneel down in front of the third walker, "Huh, this one's holding a bandana…"

Daryl stiffened as he took the bandana from the walker's loose gripped fingers, "It's Tessa's…"

"Friend of yours? I'm sorry…is there anything that I can do?"

"Yeah…" He then slammed the man against the tree as he held him there with his forearm by his throat, "You can stop lyin'! Where is she?!"

The man then smirked, his façade coming undone right before Daryl's eyes, "Huh, I guess we underestimated you…"

Rage was rising within him at the smug expression on the stranger's face.
"WHERE IS SHE?!"

"Might want to keep your voice down 'friend', as you're good, but not good enough to survive a horde with only two arrows!"

Daryl chewed angrily on his bottom lip before shoving the man hard against the tree again, "I asked you a question!"

"I know, but do you honestly think that I'm going to tell you just like that? Come on, the only people who are still alive now are people that before all this, we would never of wanted to meet! We are all murderers Daryl."

"How you know my name? You been followin' us?!" He made a move towards the stranger.

"Yes. Turns out that even an experienced tracker and skilled huntsman can be distracted enough to lose his focus. She must have been good. Now I kinda' feel bad for what happened…"

It was the hidden meaning behind the latter sentence that had Daryl raising his right hand into a fist and bringing it down hard onto the stranger's face.
His knuckles connected with skin, tissue and bone, as he kept punching him over and over again, his hand protesting in pain but his brain not registering it.

"Stop!" The stranger rasped out as he coughed and tried to shield his face with his arms.

Daryl then grabbed a hold of the neckline of the man's shirt as he spat out in anger, "Where is she?!"

"Dead! We killed her! Harry made us…told us to! I didn't want to! I tried to save her! I swear it!" He started whimpering as he choked on his tears.

Something snapped inside Daryl at that moment.
Blind rage and the feeling of emptiness overtook all rational thinking as he could feel his lips quivering in pain whilst his fists made the decision for him.

Blood stained his skin and clothing as it only took six minutes for the pleading to cease.

Shaking, Daryl just stayed kneeling over the now disfigured body, unable to move.
His left hand was still gripping the bandana tightly as heartache threatened to tear him in two.
He'd lost her.

"Daryl?"

Freezing, he lifted his head up at the voice, "Beth?"