A/N: Alright, you guys. First off I need to apologize for the enormous amount of time it took me to get this chapter up. I was having a hard time bringing this story to a close, and it still isn't quite there yet, but I didn't want to force myself to write a chapter. Abby and Daryl are important to me, so thank you all for taking the time to learn about them and love them like I do. xxx
Part Twenty-Five
Daryl and Abby were outside the walls, and it was a fucking miracle. Never mind the fact that they had Gareth and two of his lackeys in tow, or that the rest of their family was still being held prisoner in a train car, prime to be slaughtered if the next few hours didn't go as planned. No, the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Dixon had been entrusted with semi-automatic weapons, and were now walking free through the woods was a win by anyone's standards. They'd hit their ground double, but it was time for a grand slam.
Even though Abby wasn't the expert tracker between the two of them, Daryl kept her several steps in front of him. Any distance between her and the cannibals behind them was nothing to scoff at, and anyways, for their plan to work she'd need to be the one leading this party. Settling terms for this outing hadn't been simple. There was no guarantee that Gareth wouldn't renege on his side of the bargain, even if Daryl and Abby did manage to locate their tormentors. And there was still the possibility that the men Gareth had described couldn't be found.
It was a damn good thing that Daryl and Abby's lives weren't contingent on making this plan work.
Gareth took them on a tour of the last three sites they'd been ambushed. At the last one, Daryl crouched down on the ground and made a show of scanning the leaves for clues.
"Looks like there were three of them," Daryl rasped, even though whatever tracks those men might have left were a week gone at best. It was far easier for him to spot the distinctive prints of a deer that had been through here, probably only a few hours before.
"Sounds right," Gareth said slowly, perking up a little.
"But it looks like they split up," Daryl continued, "One of them went off this way, dragging something behind them. Then the other two went east."
Gareth took a step closer, "Are you saying the last person these assholes took—they could still be alive?"
"Can't say for sure," Daryl explained carefully, "It was almost definitely a person, that they were draggin' behind them, but ain't no way of telling if that person was alive or not. Though I gotta say, ain't a lot of sense in cartin' along a corpse with 'em, when they could just leave 'em for you to find."
"So we need to go after them," Gareth said quickly, "Let's go."
"I dunno, hoss. I say if they split up, we should too. Better we find all three of 'em and take 'em all out at once. If we just go after the one, we might end up goin' in there blind. Could be the other two are up high, keepin' watch. Nah—split up, that's what I say. But it's up to you, I suppose."
Gareth was nodding, so Daryl shot Abby a hard look.
"Why don't I go with these two...gentleman," Abby said, motioning towards the personality-less men to her right, "And Gareth, you and Daryl head out and try to get back your friend. Unless of course, you don't mind me and Daryl captaining the rescue mission..."
"That's not happening," Gareth interrupted sternly, and Abby had to bite back a grin. Man, these college dropouts were easy to manipulate. Before they parted ways, Daryl reached out for Abby's hand and squeezed tight, holding her gaze. It could have meant a lot of things. Be careful. Hold tight. Come back. Stay sharp.
But Abby didn't have to think hard to recognize what Daryl was really saying. Love you.
She squeezed him back, tight and purposeful, before reluctantly watching her husband walk away.
TWDTWDTWDTWD
Daryl noticed as they walked that Gareth was watching him far more attentively that the ground. The younger man hadn't spent much time outside those walls of his, not before the outbreak hit or after. It was clear from the way he tripped over the smallest twigs on the ground. And even more evident in just how oblivious he was to the sights and sounds around him.
For example, Gareth didn't seem the least bit suspicious of the fact that the path they were on was leading them closer to Terminus, rather than farther away. Hardly an intelligent tactic for a handful of men trying to avoid capture. But, for a teenage girl hoping to identify her family members inside...keeping close but invisible was about as good as it could get.
Daryl had an inkling for whose tracks they were following. He'd seen them before. But it was impossible, because no one thought she could survive this long, not out in the wild and certainly not on her own. Maggie more obviously than anyone, because when everyone had been catching up in that dark train car, she hadn't once asked about her sister. Did anyone see her get out? Is she alive? No, Maggie didn't say a word because if no one had spoken up without her prompting, the she could be sure that to hope was hopeless.
They edged upon a collection of buildings, the closest of which was a large, brick, cubic structure that had once been a town hall.
"They're in there," Daryl said definitively. "M'thinkin' you take the front, I take the back. I'll bust in and scare him out, then you can pick him off when he comes out the front. Easy."
Gareth was quick to agree. Outside the walls of Terminus, he was hardly an expert on war tactics, or surviving high-risk situations. He and his people had derived one way of doing things, and they stuck to it. But out here, Daryl was king.
Daryl walked quietly around the side of the building, and as soon as he was out of Gareth's line of vision, he broke into a sprint. The petite tracks led to a shack directly behind the large brick structure, and Daryl ran up to it. He tapped twice on the front door and managed to whisper and shout simultaneously, "Beth? Beth, it's Daryl. I'm gonna come in, alright? Try not to shoot me."
The archer opened up the door slowly, and immediately found that his warnings had been in vain. Not because the shack was empty—Beth was standing dead in front of him, looking a little worse for wear but otherwise intact. But because the only weapon in her possession was a small knife.
"Jesus, it's good to see you," Daryl sighed, and hardly flinched when the girl ran straight up to him and wrapped her arms tightly around his waist. He patted her back a few times, albeit awkwardly, then took a step back to look her over.
"You can't come back with me," Daryl struggled to explain quickly, "I know it don't make sense, but the people at Terminus—"
"Are cannibals," Beth supplied for him, and Daryl's eyes widened in surprise. "I saw," Beth clarified when Daryl cocked an eyebrow at them. "I knew I couldn't go in there, but Daryl, I can't stay out here either. There are these men. I think they're staking out Terminus...but they caught sight of me, and I, I just barely got away—they're tracking me. They have been for days. And it's only a matter of time before—"
"That ain't gonna happen," Daryl soothed her, "Hey. Look at me—you're gonna be fine. 'Cuz they've got a lot of us locked up in Terminus, but not all of us, see? So here's what you're gonna do. You follow those tracks up farther North. About fifteen miles. Then you're gonna veer east 'til you hit a church." Daryl handed her his knife, "Carol's up there. Maybe others. But you take this, and you make it there. Tell Carol we're at Terminus, that they're holding us here."
Beth took ahold of Daryl's knife and stared at it with wide eyes. "I'm not sure I can make it there alone," she admitted.
But Daryl shook his head. "You made it this far. If ya did that, then y'aint half as weak as ya think you are. I'll muck up the trail so those assholes can't follow you. Or those fuckers at Terminus. But you can do this, Beth. You have to. Your family's countin' on you. Maggie is."
Beth looked up at him with watery eyes but nodded determinedly. "I won't let you down." She flexed her fist around Daryl's knife, gripping it like a lifeline. "Tell Maggie we're gonna come for her."
Daryl smiled grimly, "I will, kid. Now I'm gonna go distract the jackass I'm with, and you're gonna make a run for it."
This time, Daryl did jump slightly when Beth grabbed him in another fierce hug. But he managed to return it tenfold. He just fucking hoped, more than he'd ever allowed himself to hope, that between Beth and Abby, they all managed to get out of this alive.
Daryl walked into the town hall through the back, hurried through, and exited the front. Gareth was standing at the ready, but Daryl shook his head morosely.
"Nothin'," Daryl spat, "Musta picked up roots today, by my reckonin'. Before it rained. 'Cuz if there was a trail outta here, there ain't one any more." He spat at the ground in mock frustration. "Best bet's to meet up with Abby and your two buddies now. Let's hope they had better luck than us."
"Better be more than hope behind that," Gareth said, "Because I'm not sure how I'm going to feel if you and Abby both happen to come up empty handed."
TWDTWDTWDTWD
Gareth and Daryl headed back to the spot where the Dixons had parted, and the archer made a show of picking up Abby's trail and following it off into the wood. It had been a few hours walk away, and a few hours to make it back, especially with Gareth's lazy ass in tow. But for that Daryl was grateful. It would make the next part all the more believable.
He pointed at a divot in the ground. "See this? They picked up the pace startin' right here. Musta spotted somethin'."
Gareth seemed convinced, so Daryl trotted forward, mimicking a man on the hunt. "Yeah, right here," Daryl said lowly, "This is where they found 'em. These men we're after, they big guys?"
"Huge," Gareth confirmed. "That's part of how they took over to begin with. They didn't have our numbers, but they had the muscle."
"Yeah, these tracks match that. Big guys. And see all this dirt kicked up here?" Daryl pointed at a patch of try earth at the ground, and Gareth nodded. "They had themselves a scuffle, our guys and theirs."
Daryl took off over the upcoming hill, staring hard at the ground as if he were transfixed. He screeched to a halt at the top, and when Gareth belatedly managed to climb the small peak, the younger man joined him in gaping slack-mouthed at the sight before them.
Both of Gareth's men were dead. Stabbed repeatedly, neck's broke, and put down before they could turn. Abby was no where to be found.
Daryl made his way over slowly, walking in a circle around the scene rather than trekking directly through it.
He looked Gareth in the eye, and kept his mouth in a short, grim line. "They took her," Daryl growled, "They took her alive."
Gareth eyed the ground with clinical attentiveness. "How do you know?"
"Those tracks right there," Daryl said, pointing, "Her shoes were sliding against the mud, but those lumped up spots, those happened when she tried to get them off of her. They dragged her away kickin'...fuck."
Daryl squatted on the ground and ran his hands through his hair, taking the appropriate amount of time to compose himself. To someone who hadn't grown up in the woods, those tracks in the mud could look like just about anything. A horse, maybe. Combat boots. The last remains of a girl who'd been dragged to her death. Or, maybe, the purposeful digging of a woman who knew a thing or two about faking a trail.
"We've gotta go after her," Daryl announced, jumping to his feet. "C'mon. Now. While the trail's still fresh."
"You're kidding, right?" Gareth scoffed. "We've already lost two men today! Now it's two against two, and I don't like those odds."
"Your men died 'cuz they were weak," Daryl pushed, "And you fuckin' know it. That's why ya asked me to come out here to begin with. I'm not leaving Abby with those fuckers, alright? And if you try to make me, well you can shove that deal of yours right up your ass!"
Gareth smirked dangerously at him. "We'll see how you feel about that when it's one of your friends on are barbeque tonight. You know archer, I considered doing this civilly. I really did. But since you can't manage to play well with the other pooches, here's how your life's going to go: when we get back to Terminus tonight, one of your friends is going to die. Then, tomorrow, we'll come out here again. And if you don't find those men, we'll be eating another one of your buddies. And it'll keep happening, every day, until you do what you were made to do and track down those scumbags."
Daryl squared his shoulders and held Gareth's eye. "Fuck. You."
And Gareth only smiled.
TWDTWDTWDTWD
It took three men to hold Daryl back as Gareth dragged Rick out of the train car and towards the butcher room.
"No!" Daryl screamed, struggling fruitlessly. "This was about me! It was about me you stupid fuck! Leave him alone!"
Gareth turned to make one last snide remark. It was on the tip of his tongue, Daryl saw that. But then an explosion rocked through Terminus and sent them all down to their knees.
Daryl took a heady kind of pleasure in seeing the panic on Gareth's face. He shoved Rick towards the men holding Daryl back, "Take him! C'mon!"
And he didn't wait to see whether they'd responded appropriately before sprinting off towards the front gates. Rick and Daryl shared a smug grin before the pair lunged simultaneously, snapping elbows and sharp knuckles dropping the three men easily.
It was a rush to get to the fences. There wasn't time for Daryl to explain just who had set off the explosion, and really, he didn't care so long as his family could get out of here before Gareth's people regrouped. They snagged guns as they went, fought off the herd as well as the Termites and vaulted over the fence and into the woods.
They got out. They got out, but Abby was no where to be found.
"We finish them off," Rick was saying, and Daryl couldn't agree more. He was shouldering his gun and nodding along when the crunch of branches ahead of them caught everyone's attention.
Daryl's legs were propelling him forward before her name had reached his lips.
"Abby."
He swept her into his arms and pressed his head into her neck, breathing her in and listening to the rapid drumbeat of her heart because yes, she was here and alive and just fine. Daryl stepped back to get another look at her. His eyes swept for injuries, and when he found none, his forehead fell back to her shoulder, and he had to bite back a sob of relief.
"Hello stranger," Abby murmured, and Daryl laughed none too quietly, pulling her close again. Finally, he saw Carol out of the corner of his eye. She was speaking quietly to rick, and when she looked over to him, they shared an understanding nod.
"Abby," Daryl murmured again, and picked up her hand to kiss the ring he'd given her.
"Mr. Dixon," she replied just as softly.
He smiled widely, and thought nothing about the gallery of spectators behind him, who were likely confused as all hell to see him fawning over a woman they'd never met.
"Mrs. Dixon," Daryl responded and kissed her soundly on the lips. "Beth?" Daryl asked, once he'd pulled away.
Abby's expression crumbled. "She saw Carol and I," Abby began to explain, "She was shouting. Still far away, and just, too fucking loud. There were walkers after her. But then a car came out of nowhere. Two men knocked her out, and put her in the trunk. We ran after them, ran for miles, but..."
Daryl glared hard at the ground.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
But Daryl only shook his head. "It's not your fault," he sighed, "It's mine. I thought if she'd already made it that far...thought if she could just get to you and Carol..." He finally lifted his head up. "It's on me. I'll talk to the others...Maggie. But for now, we just gotta get ourselves out of here."
"Wait," Carol said suddenly, sharing a smile with Abby that was surprisingly warm. "You need to come with me."
TWDTWDTWDTWD
Daryl spotted Tyreese, exiting the shack with Judith in his arms, and while Carl and Rick broke into a run, Daryl just pressed his face into Abby's hair to hide what could have been tears.
Things weren't going to be easy. They were still out on the road again, without food or shelter. And they had a girl to find. But with his wife on one side and his brother on the other, and the rest of his family crowded around them and smiling for once, Daryl thought that maybe things would work out for them. Just this once.