Disclaimer - I do not own The Walking Dead or any of its characters. I only own my original character Rayne and anything else that seems out of place.

Thank you to lyannann31, jrocha374282, FaerieQueenCrystal, xXxDragonPhoenixXx, olliensam, kmreece and filthie for choosing to follow and favorite this story.

And a huge THANK YOU to Kaikitty165 and a guest for the absolutely amazing reviews of chapter 52, they made my entire day!

So I know a lot of people love Carol, but I honestly can't stand her, so she won't be playing as big of a role in my story as she did in the show. Most of her somewhat badass moments, will be done by Rayne. I'm sorry if this pisses anyone off, but it's Rayne's story and she's my hero in this.

As always reviews are appreciated.


When Daryl and Carol had first left chasing after the car with the white cross, Carol took the time to chat with Daryl about what had happened with everyone after she had been kicked out by Rick. She was trying to find a way to bring up Rayne, wondering why there was such hostility between the two hunters now, that they both wanted to kill the other.

"So it was just you and Beth after?"

"Yeah." Daryl nodded.

"You save her?"

"She's tough. She saved herself. We were out there for a while. We got cornered, she got out in front of me and I don't know, she was gone. I came out and a car's pulling out with a white cross on the window."

"Just like that one?"

"Yep."

Carol notices a walker lying on the road that was just hit by the car in front of them, she flinches as Daryl runs over its head, the skull crunching under the tires.

"Rick's gonna wonder where we went. Tank's runnin' low."

"We can end this quick. Just run 'em off the road." Carol offers.

"Nah, we're good for a bit."

"If they're holding her somewhere, we can get it out of the driver."

"Yeah, but if he don't talk, we're back to square one. Right now we got the advantage. We'll see who they are. If they're a group, see what they can do. And then we'll do what we gotta do to get her back."

"They're heading north, I-85."

They find themselves heading back into downtown Atlanta, bringing up painful memories for Daryl. The last time he had been here was when he found Merle's severed hand on a roof, and then again this was the place where Rayne had found her way to them, so there was an upside.

The car in front of them stops in the middle of an intersection, the car just idling as if it doesn't know which way to go. "What the hell's he waiting for?" Daryl wonders.

The passenger side door opens and a man gets out dressed in a uniform, Daryl looks at him quizzically. "There's two of 'em. Is that a cop?"

"They might've seen us." Carol says.

The two of them watch in silence as the cop walks behind a building disappearing from their line of sight. They both startle as something slams against Carol's window, a walker snarling outside as it tries to bite the glass. They see the cop moving a few things out of the roadway, his attention falls on the walker still banging on the car door trying to get inside.

Daryl and Carol remain still trying not to draw attention to themselves, and after a moment the cop gets back into the car. The driver starts it up and turns down the street he had just cleared.

Daryl reaches down and tries to start the car, the engine sputters a moment then dies, Daryl cusses, "Aw, shit! Tank's tapped. They'd have taken the bypass and they didn't. They must be holed up in the city somewhere."

The walker outside the car has attracted more to their position, they can see them lumbering towards the car. "We gotta move, find someplace to hole up till sunlight."

"I know a place just a couple of blocks from here. We can make it." Carol says, rolling down her window and stabbing the walker.

The two get out of the car and head down the road, Carol leading the way, both taking out a few walkers as they come across them. Daryl goes up to the boarded door, trying to pry the nails out as Carol watches his back.

"Two more." She says seeing them coming around the corner.

"I almost got it." With a grunt he rips the wooden plank from across the door and yanks it open. "Come on."


They two move through the halls silently, knives at the ready for any unexpected guests they might encounter. Carol leads the way into a small office, the two using the desks inside to block the doors, before Carol leads the way through another door at the back of the office.

"You used to work here or something?"

"Something." Carol says as they walk in, Daryl shutting the door behind them.

"What's this place?"

"It's temporary housing." Carol answers.

"You came here?"

"We didn't stay." She says taking off her gun and laying it on the top bed. "I'll take the top bunk. I think that one's more your style."

Daryl chuckles seeing the stuffed animals on the top bed as he takes off his crossbow and jacket, lying them on the desk.

"You should sleep. I'll take first watch."

"This is locked up pretty tight." Daryl says looking around.

"I know."

"Then we're good, then."

"I'll keep first watch. I don't mind."

"Suit yourself." Daryl said as he sat down on the bottom bunk, leaning over so that he didn't smack his head.

"You said we get to start over."

"Yeah."

"Did you?" Carol asked him.

"I'm tryin'." He said, even though he seemed to be a poor job of it lately. "Why don't you say what's really on your mind?"

"I don't think we get to save people anymore."

"Then why are you here?"

"I'm tryin'." She said echoing his words as she walked over and laid down on the bed beside him.

"When we were out by the car… what if I didn't show up?"

"I still don't know."

Daryl lies down next to her, but only for a moment as they hear a distant banging. They both get up and grab their weapons, moving down the hallways back towards the sound. They find the shadow on a woman walker on the other side of a glass door and sigh, but it's the other walker shadow that comes up next to the woman that gets them both. The shadow of a little girl.

"You don't have to." Daryl says as Carol makes a move for the door. "You don't."

They head back down to the room and climb into the beds, trying to get some rest before morning.


The next morning Carol wakes up, turning her head she sees smoke coming from the roof just outside the window. Leaning over the bunk she sees that Daryl's bed is empty, grabbing her knife and gun she walks over to the window. A sad smile crosses her face as she notices just what Daryl is burning, the woman's body. A moment later she sees him walk up carrying the little girl, he's wrapped her in a white sheet as he gently places her body over her mother's on the fire.

Carol walks outside and stands beside him, "Thank you."


After the fire had died down the two went inside and packed up their bags. Daryl was shoving his jacket into his bag, it was too hot for it right now, so he just shrugged on his leather vest over his sleeveless top. "That car was headed downtown. I say we get up in one of the tall ones, get ourselves a view, see what we see."

"We can stay close to the buildings and keep quiet, but sooner or later, we're gonna be drawing 'em."


They make their way out of the building onto the street, heading for a tall building in the middle of town. Pausing by the corner of a parking garage, Daryl glances around the corner seeing at least 15 walkers milling around the area, but he also sees a bridge that connects the parking garage to the building. "All right, we can get up there. There's a bridge."

He pulls a pad of paper out of his bag and lights it with his Zippo, then tosses it as far to the other side of the street as he can. Then quickly they make their way into the parking garage, Daryl taking out the lone walker in their way.

As they enter the bridge to the building they find a makeshift campsite inside the area, complete with two tents that seem to have a few walkers stuck inside, as well as four walkers stuck inside of sleeping bags writhing on the ground. Both he and Carol stab the two walkers closest to them, and Daryl fires an arrow into the one just opposite him.

He hears the walkers in the tent snarling as they claw at the fabric trying to escape, and he shakes his head. "Some days, I don't know what the hell to think."

Knowing the walkers can't escape from the tents, the two carefully make their way past them to the door on the other side. The door is chained, but it'll open enough for them to squeeze through. Carol takes off her bag and shoves it through the opening while Daryl holds the door ajar so she can get through, then he follows behind her.

"Good thing we skipped breakfast." He quips as it was a tight squeeze to get through the chained doors.

They enter an office which seems to be untouched by anyone, except for the dust that had fallen on everything inside. "How did we get here?" Carol comments looking out the window at the destruction of the city outside.

"We just did."

"You still haven't asked me what happened. After I met up with Tyreese, the girls."

"Yeah, I know what happened. They ain't here."

"It was worse than that."

"The reason I said we get to start over is because we gotta. The way it was-"

"Yeah."

Daryl steps forward pressing his eye up to the window. "You see something?" Carol asks him.

"I don't know. Hand me that rifle." He says taking it from her and looking through the scope. Up on the highway he can see a white van with the same white crosses on the back windows. He hands the gun back to Carol, pointing in the direction. "Right there."

Carol lifts the scope to her eye, looking where he is pointing. "It's been there a while. Definitely one of 'em."

"It's definitely some kind of lead."

"We should fill up." Carol says grabbing her canteen out of her bag.

"All right."

She turns to take a drink out of the canteen, seeing Daryl looking at a piece of art on the wall, just a brown streak on a white canvas. "Hmm. What?"

"I bet this cost some rich prick a lot of money. Looks like a dog sat in paint, wiped its ass all over the place."

"Really? I kinda like it."

Daryl laughs at her, "Stop."

"I'm serious. You don't know me." She comments as she gathers his gun and backpack.

"Yep, you keep tellin' yourself that." Daryl quips as he leads the way to the door.


They head back to the bridge and Carol shoves her pack and gun through like before, then squeezes herself through. Daryl puts his bow through first, but as he moves to follow it he hears Carol call to him. "Daryl, don't."

A kid probably in his teens had Carol's rifle and is pointing it at the both of them. Daryl grits his teeth as he shoves himself through the door and stands up beside Carol.

"Get up. Hands up, both of you. Lay down your crossbow."

"You got some sack on you." Daryl tells the kid.

"Look, nobody has to get hurt. I just need weapons, that's it. So, please, lay down your crossbow."

Daryl is pissed as he lays down the bow, the last thing he had that Rayne had given to him. He was even more ticked that it was being taken by some punk teenager.

"Back up." The kid snaps as he slowly moves forward and picks up the bow, shouldering the strap. "Sorry about this. You look tough. You'll be all right." He then pulls out a knife and slices through both of the tents, releasing the walkers inside on them.

Daryl quickly pulls out his knife and stabs the closest one to him. He sees Carol lift her handgun and shoot the other one before taking aim at the kid. He deflects her shot before they take off after the kid who runs out the door into the garage and chains it behind him, preventing them form following.

The two of them make their way up to another level through the offices to an open floor towards the roof. Carol checks her gun with a sigh, "Three bullets. We're in the middle of a city. He was stealing our weapons. 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."

"Without weapons we could die. Beth could die."

"We'll find more weapons." Daryl says plainly as he takes out his knife and tries to jimmy open the door to the stairwell.

"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. I can't. That's why I left. I just had to be somewhere else."

"Well, you ain't somewhere else; you're right here. Tryin'."

"Look, you're not who you were and neither am I. I don't know if I believe in God anymore or heaven, but if I'm going to hell, I'm making damn sure I'm holding it off as long as I can."

The door opens and Carol picks up Daryl's bag, a few items inside clattering to the ground. She sees a book that Daryl quickly picks up and walks off with, the title of the book giving her cause to ponder. "Treating Survivors of Childhood Abuse."


The two of them get out of the building and make it out onto the highway, heading for the van they saw, hoping something will help them find Beth. The van is hanging precariously off of the bridge, teeter-tottering on the edge as Daryl opens the back doors.

"All right, let's get this done."

"It's not stable. I'm lighter." She says as she sets down her bag, but Daryl stubbornly climbs up inside anyway. Sighing she shoves a tire over towards the back and uses it as leverage to climb up inside as well.

The van creaks and rocks as the two of them climb into the front seats and go through whatever they can find hoping from some sort of clue. Carol notices more walkers making their way down the bridge towards them. "There's more coming. We're gonna have to fight through."

"Yeah, I see 'em."

"We have to go."

Daryl pick sup the stretcher in the back and flips it on its side seeing something stamped on the bottom. "GMH, what's that? A hospital?"

"I don't know. Grady Memorial, maybe?"

"Grady, the white crosses- it might be where they're holing up."

The two of them jump out and try to fight their way through the crowd of walkers, but there's too many for them to handle. They both jump back inside the van, Daryl shutting the back doors as the walkers claw at the back. The van rocks even more now with the walkers outside pounding on it, as the two occupants look around for something to help them.

"Anything we can use?" Carol yells over the growling and snarling of the dead.

"Nothin' but what we got." Daryl says as he realizes their only escape is down. He climbs into the driver's seat, motioning for Carol to do the same. "All right, buckle up."

Carol is having a panic attack in the passenger seat as Daryl looks over to her, "You hold on." She nods as she braces herself in the seat, her hand holding onto his on the dash. The van rocks as both of them close their eyes, they're weightless for a moment before the van smashes violently into the ground below. Luckily for them it had enough inertia and weight to keep it level so that it landed on its wheels, and thankfully the airbags still worked which cushioned their painful crash landing.

"We're okay. We're okay." Daryl groans as they catch their breath.

But their moment of piece is shattered as a body slams into the windshield. They both sit there just staring at one another as multiple bodies impact the roof of the van, blood streaming down the windshield until it's covered in red. They both then climb out of the wreckage, wrapping an arm around each other as they limped back towards the city.


After finding a secure place to take a break Carol sits down, while they rest their pain-filled bodies. Daryl offers her the canteen and she takes a drink, still gingerly holding her right arm.

"How bad is it?" He asks.

"I've had worse." She says showing him the burn on her skin from the seatbelt.

Daryl shakes his head as he sits down beside her, "Damn, that was stupid."

"We made good time down." She scoffed trying to make him feel better. "There's only three blocks between us and Grady."

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

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

"It's where we start. Come on."

They both get up and grab their bags heading the three blocks to the hospital, then ducking into a building across the street. As they walk down one of the hallways Daryl sees a walker, obviously so weak it can't stand up, lying on the floor. He smiles inwardly as he sees a machete lying on the floor by its head, he leans over and picks it up, then slams it down severing the walkers head in two.

"It's them." Carol says as she looks out the window at the hospital, seeing the vans with the white crosses parked outside.

Daryl comes over, a bag of snacks he found in his hands. "All right. Let's see what we see."

Daryl stands at the window munching on the bags of snacks as they watch the hospital. He looks over at Carol who is sitting on the windowsill beside him. "You said I ain't like how I was before?"

"Yeah."

"How was I?"

"It's like you were a kid. Now you're a man."

"What about you?" He asks wondering how she sees herself.

"Me and Sophia stayed at that shelter for a day and a half before I went running back to Ed. 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. Who I was with him she got burned away. And I was happy about that. I mean, not happy, but- 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. Everything now just consumes you."

"Well, hey… we ain't ashes."

They hear a door closing down the hallway, both of them grabbing their bags to go check it out. They find a walker still alive with a familiar looking green arrow in its throat pinning it to the wall.

"Is that yours?" Carol asks.

"Yeah." Daryl takes the machete and slams it into the walkers head, then he pulls the arrow out of its throat.

They hear automatic gunfire coming from down the adjacent hallway and move to check it out. They find the kid that took their weapons fighting off a walker, he manages to shove it towards Carol before he takes off running. With her arm in pain Carol is knocked to the ground, the walker snapping its jaws at her face from above. Daryl steps up slicing it through the head, then helping her up off the ground.

"I'm good. I'm good. You go." She pants trying to catch her breath as Daryl takes off after the kid.


Daryl finds the kid in another room trying to shove a bookcase up against a door. With his back turns he doesn't see Daryl as the hunter slams into his back, the kid hits the floor and Daryl rolls out of the way as the bookcase slams down on top of the kid pinning him underneath it.

"Plea- please. I had to protect myself." The kid cries from under the bookcase as a walker snarls trying to get through the cracked door behind the shelf.

"Why you followin' us?" Daryl yells as he picks up his crossbow.

"I-I didn't, I swear! I thought you followed me."

"Bullshit." Daryl snaps as the walker continues snarling.

"Come on, man. Plea- please! Please, please."

Daryl picks up a carton of cigarettes off the floor and pulls the last pack out, taking a cig out of the pack and putting it in his mouth. "Nah, I already helped you once. It ain't happenin' again." He lights the cigarette with his Zippo and takes a long drag. "Have fun with Hoss over there."

"No. No, no, no. No. No, no, no! Please! Please! Please! I'm sorry, please! Please! Please, please!"

"Daryl. Daryl. Stop." Carol says nodding down to the boy.

"You almost died 'cause of him!" Daryl snaps.

"But I didn't."

"Nah, let him be."

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

"Daryl!"

The walker pushes through the door and falls on top of the shelf, inches away from the kid's face. Carol seeing that Daryl isn't coming back reaches for her knife to save the kid, but an arrow wizzes past her and embeds in the walkers head.


Carol pulls the dead walker off of the shelf, then Daryl lifts it up and she pulls the kid out from under it, before Daryl lets the case slam to the floor.

"Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you." The kid mumbles as he limps over to the window.

"You okay? You okay?" Daryl asks Carol as she picks up her things.

"I'm still here."

The kid is still mumbling as he stares out the window, "I gotta go. I gotta go. They're gonna come. They probably heard the shot. If they find me-"

"Who?" Daryl asks.

"Them, people at the hospital."

This gets the hunter's attention and he stops the kid in his tracks. "Wait, wait, wait, just tell us- is there a blonde girl there? You see a blonde girl?"

"Beth? You know her?" The kid asks. "She helped me get out, but she's still there."

"They're coming." Carol says seeing one of the cars with the white cross driving past the window below.

"We gotta go now. We gotta go. We gotta go. The building next door has a basement. It's clear. We'll be safe." The kid says as he leads the way across the ground level, until his ankle gives out on him and he falls to the floor. "Ah! Ah!"

"Go, I got him." Daryl says as he leans over and grabs the kid. "Come on, get up. Get up."

Carol goes out the front doors heading for the building across the way, when she's hit by the car she saw, she bounces off of the windshield and lands hard on the ground.

Daryl moves to go help her, but the kid grabs him and pulls him back. "No, no, no! Wait, wait, wait!"

"Let go of me!"

"Wait! They can help her. 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? We can get her back. We can get Beth back."

"What's it gonna take?"

"A lot. They got guns, people."

"So do we." Daryl snarls. He had lost all three women that meant something to him in this world, and he was going to get them back. All of them.