Daryl's assessment of the tracks around the hearse took an eternity as far as Rick was concerned. Hershel, T-Dog and Glenn had all arrived with firearms and a meagre supply of assorted ammunition, and Carol had dutifully brought water and a selection of rations to the men for their journey, but Daryl was still crouched low to the ground, trying to sort one footprint from the next.
"Well?" Rick finally asked impatiently, chomping at the bit.
The redneck at last straightened and wiped his hands on his battered jeans. "I think she was knocked out and carried by someone."
Rick's hands curled into angry fists. "How do you know?"
"Look here," Daryl gestured, calling the attention of the other men to a particular set of tracks. "This set of prints is much deeper than the others, like someone was carrying something real heavy."
Rick squinted, but could see no difference between the various indentations in the earth. He decided he'd just have to trust Daryl. "Okay, then those are the prints we follow," he commanded.
Glenn cleared his throat nervously. "I hate to say it, but… how do we know a walker didn't get her?"
The icy glare the Sheriff affixed on the younger man actually had Glenn taking a step backwards.
T-Dog was quick to intercede. "There'd be a lot more blood if one of them had," he said. "Walkers aren't exactly known to nibble delicately."
The logical answer satisfied Glenn and seemed to calm Rick slightly.
"I'll take the lead," Daryl interjected. "I don't want you all messing up my tracks."
The men advancing through the forest that day were a sombre bunch. T-Dog and Glenn were wracked with concern for their friend, while Daryl focused on tracking the woman he'd very much come to admire.
Rick's journey, however, was marked by his entrapment in his own personal hell. He was disgusted with himself for not leaving Lori sooner, for making Andrea exist as some sort of home-wrecking, fallen woman. He convinced himself that he had damaged her somehow, had dragged her into fulfilling his own selfish needs. She'd fought through the death of her sister, raised herself up from suicidal thoughts, become the best marksman in the group, brought him profound strength in his weakest moments of self-doubt… and he'd left her alone on the hood of a car. He couldn't recall ever feeling so low.
What was tearing him up inside more than anything else though was the fact that he had never told her he loved her. And he did. He knew now that he did, that he had for a very long time. Every cell in his body, every nook and cranny in his heart overflowed with a love that defied everything he'd ever thought he knew about love. She was the first thing he thought about when he woke up in the morning, and the very last thing on his mind when he drifted off to sleep at night. She was his nourishment, his oxygen, his will to battle on. She was the flashing beacon he looked to when the world around him was a mess of rotting corpses and devastated dreams. And he'd never told her. If he couldn't find her, couldn't tell her how he felt… he knew with everything that he was that the self-loathing he felt in this moment would follow him to his grave.
Consumed with self-pity and grief, Rick failed to see Daryl signal for the men trailing him to hold up, and plowed into a wall of halted bodies. "Sorry, sorry," he muttered, looking disoriented as the group all turned to look at him. "Got distracted for a minute. What's the hold-up?"
Daryl was once again hovering over the ground, examining his surroundings. "Trail gets a little muddled here," he tossed back. "Looks like a couple walkers came this way, but I don't think they met up with whoever's got Andrea." He gestured to some drag marks in the leaves and damp soil. "Walkers don't pick their feet up when they walk, so they leave these kind of scratching marks, and these ones are covering up the prints we're following. No sign of a struggle though; they must've missed each other." He got to his feet and considered his options.
"Goddamn walkers," T-Dog muttered.
The redneck rubbed as his chin as he thought. "Alright, let's fan out a bit, see if we can't pick up the trail again." He briefed the men on what to look for: bent and broken foliage, disturbed undergrowth. It was a basic tracking tutorial, but he didn't have much choice. He crossed his fingers and hoped that he'd be the one lucky enough to reconnect with the trail, because there was a good chance the untrained eye would miss it.
The men dispersed, and Rick found himself trudging along near T-Dog.
"You doin' okay?" the black man asked after several minutes of silence.
Rick sighed and shook his head. "No." He looked hollow, deflated somehow.
T-Dog knew it would be futile to try offering any empty platitudes, or to suggest that everything would be okay. They had all seen too much to know that their new world didn't hold such promises. Instead he held his tongue, waiting to see if Rick had anything else to say,
He did. "Remember that day in the tower, when you asked me if I was in love with her?" the Sheriff asked.
T-Dog nodded. "Sure."
"Well, I am." Rick blew out a long breath at the sound of the words being said out loud, bringing home the reality. "Goddamn, I am. I love her."
T-Dog's expression was sympathetic: the group leader suddenly looked very lost and helpless. "I figured as much, even back then," he said, offering Rick a smile. "It was all over your face."
"You think she knew?" The other man's desperation was palpable.
T-Dog grinned and nodded emphatically. "Oh, yeah. I think she knows," he confirmed, his correction of the verb tense poignant. "Even if you never said it, she knows it. Women are like that."
Just the thought lifted Rick slightly. "Thanks, T-Dog."
A holler came up suddenly from somewhere to the left of the pair, and they immediately went crashing through the brush towards the source. They pulled up sharply just before they tripped over Daryl squatting over a few marks on the forest floor. Hershel and Glenn arrived seconds later, out of breath, on edge. "You find the trail again?" gasped Glenn.
Daryl nodded grimly. "Think she must've come to around here. Looks like there was a bit of a struggle before she was cracked on the head again." He gestured warily at a few rust-coloured drops. "We got a bit more blood, then the tracks get deep again."
Rick's face was a thinly-veiled mask of rage. "I am going to fucking kill whoever did this," he ground out between gritted teeth, one hand gripping the butt of the Python. Not one single man in the group doubted it for a second.
Daryl stood, and the men saw that he clutched something in his hand, something small that was concealed by his large fist. "Yeah, about that…" the redneck began, his tone quiet, his face inscrutable. He held up his hand and opened his fingers, revealing a vaguely familiar leather bracelet balanced on his palm. "I think she must have pulled it off during the fight."
Glenn frowned as he tried to place the accessory, sure he had seen it before. "Is that…?"
Rick's voice was deathly quiet as it sliced through the thick air, sending a shiver down the spine of every man in the group. "Merle."
