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The signs of the man's passing were so easy to follow that a child could have done it. Broken branches and obvious footprints in the loamy forest floor might as well have been road signs pointing the way.

At every step, Beth fought down the urge to run. Don't get your hopes up, she reminded herself, but it was futile. In her mind, she was already envisioning the reunion. Was her sister still alive? Who else had made it out when the prison was overrun? Carl? Baby Judith?

Daryl was thinking, too, although with less optimism than Beth. Probably ain't even them. Rick's a common enough name. But the long haired man picked up his pace anyway, carefully watching the woods around them for signs of trouble.

Ash seemed to sense their agitation. He stayed close to Daryl, lowering his head to sniff the ground every few steps and glancing back at both of them to make sure his pack was intact.

They had gone less than a mile when they saw the building peeking through the trees a hundred yards ahead. Worn, whitewashed clapboards were peeling in the golden twilight, and a single spire rose above the greenery. No one was visible outside. With Daryl leading the way, they made a wide circle around what was clearly an old church house, scanning their surroundings for clues to what they would find inside. Several times they crossed footprints and broken branches, all indications that whoever had been coming and going from this place hadn't been particularly concerned with masking their movements. All was quiet, both at the tiny church and in the forest all around them. The last light of sunset fled quickly from the sky while they made their circuit, and shadows pooled and merged across the leaf-carpeted ground.

As they curved back to where they had started, Beth made a soft clicking sound to draw Daryl's attention, then pointed to a tree off to her right. There was a mark carved on the trunk, an X with a circle around it. Daryl shrugged. The mark seemed fresh, the exposed wood still white in the rough gouges. Who had made it and what it meant were mysteries. Perhaps it was someone's bread crumb, part of a map for moving around the countryside. Beth made a mental note to watch for other marks. They moved stealthily forward a dozen more yards and then dropped into a crouch behind a low-growing bush to observe. The silence stretched out, unbroken, as the day's last light fled from the sky.

Daryl hated to go into any new situation blind, but he was starting to doubt that there was anyone in the small wooden building after all. "What do you think, boy? You smell anything?" he whispered to Ash, but when he turned to look, the dog wasn't there. The canine was doubtless doing his own investigating. He glanced over at Beth. Her head was cocked to the side, as if listening intently, and her focus was trained on a dense copse of pines close to the front steps of the church. Just as he was about to ask her what she heard, a series of liquid shadows separated from the darkness beneath the pines and darted toward the double doors in silence. One, two, three, four, five, six - there were half a dozen men, and they arranged themselves in a semicircle around the doors.

The moonlight spilling down into the clearing revealed flashes of the weapons they carried: long knives, a couple of machetes, and at least one rifle. As the man with the gun turned his head to signal to the rest, Daryl recognized him as one of the thugs that had almost stumbled across them as they slept the morning before last. He nodded to Beth.

As they converged on the front steps, Beth fought the urge to call out a warning. These were the monsters they'd been tracking, and she and Daryl shared the slim hope that their friends were nearby, maybe even within those wooden walls. But a shout would only draw the attention of the attackers and eliminate their one advantage, the element of surprise.

Daryl's face showed the same conflicted thoughts. Finally, he took a chance. Pursing his lips, he emitted a perfect imitation of a meadowlark.

Brilliant, thought Beth. It was the signal Rick's group had always used to warn of nearby danger or to signal for attention without calling out and bringing walkers down on their heads. At night, the lark's distinctive daytime call stood out among those of nocturnal birds. Their daytime signal was a nightingale. She doubted the cannibals would know the difference, but if it really was Rick and company inside the little church, it was as good as a phone call.

As she'd expected, none of the cannibals looked around, not even when Daryl's "lark" called a second time. Instead, the leader counted silently to three and then he and the bulky man beside him both rammed their shoulders into the heavy timber of the door. With a splintering sound, the doorframe busted apart, freeing the deadbolt holding it closed. The whole group of cannibals spilled into the darkness beyond, leaving the churchyard empty.

The shouts of alarm Daryl and Beth expected never came. They could hear the leader's sing-song voice, taunting and wheedling, as if trying to flush out his prey, but nothing else. Daryl had just about decided the place was empty after all. He was turning to signal to Beth when he heard a familiar voice that stopped him in his tracks.

"Y'all just made a bigger mistake than your last one," the voice drawled, and Beth's eyes lit up with recognition. She could picture the owner of that voice, his beard rough, his hands clenched around a weapon, and his steely blue eyes flashing dangerously.

Moving as one, she and Daryl crept up to flank the broken front door, trusting in the shadows to hide their movements.

The blast of a shotgun broke the stalemate, and a body flew backwards through the opening so fast that Beth nearly fell off the porch in surprise. It was the tub of lard who had helped break down the door. One look at his shredded face made it clear that he would not be getting up again. Suddenly the air was full of grunts and crashes, battle cries, gunshots, and screams of pain.

Beth and Daryl rushed in to find that all of the cannibals had been dispatched except the leader. He was standing in a ray of moonlight, a smirk on his face, as he and Rick-Rick!-faced each other over the barrels of their guns. A stand-off.

Daryl stepped out of the darkness. In one smooth motion, he brought the barrel of his own pistol up behind the cannibal and pressed it against his head, just behind his ear. "Drop it," he growled.

Beth heard gasps and whispers from around the room, but she couldn't see anyone. She held her breath, waiting for the man to do as Daryl had commanded. Finally, he moved as if to lower his gun. Beth relaxed her shoulders, but too soon. At the last second, like a lightning strike, the cannibal dropped into a crouch and swept Rick's legs out from under him, then rolled onto his back and swiveled to point his gun at Daryl instead. Rick fell hard, cracking his head against a pew, and lay still.

"I knew someone was following us," the man snarled at Daryl. His finger crept toward the trigger, but before he could pull it, a fur-covered missile flew out of nowhere and clamped its jaws over his wrist, causing him to drop the rifle.

A gurgling cry escaped the gunman's throat as he scrabbled at Ash's muzzle, trying to push him off. His efforts only caused the dog to tighten his grip. Daryl attempted to line up his pistol for the shot but hesitated, afraid of hitting Ash in the struggle.

A metallic scraping sound was followed by the swish of a machete blade, and the man's throat bloomed with a jagged red line, blood welling out of it in a torrent. He fell over, and Ash sprang away.

Rick stepped into the watery light. His forehead sported a large knot above his left eye. He addressed the dying man. "I made you a promise." He tossed the soiled machete down on his twitching body and stood there while the flow of blood from his throat slowed and stopped.

Beth fell to her knees in relief and gathered the squirming dog into her embrace. "Good dog, Ash!" she laughed through her tears, "Good boy!" She felt Daryl's arms wrap around them both.

Somewhere in the dark edges of the room, a match flared to life. Soon candles and a lantern flooded the sanctuary with flickering light. At last, Beth raised her head from Daryl's shoulder and searched the small crowd peering down at them. She was suddenly afraid, not ready to put her hope to the test. Afraid to ask, to find out that her sister, her only family-

"BETH!"

Maggie slammed into the trio from the side, sending Ash running for a less alarming place to recover. Daryl stood up awkwardly, leaving the sisters to their reunion. They hugged each other briefly, fiercely, both of them laughing through a wash of tears.

Maggie pulled back slightly to stare into Beth's dirt-stained face, as if she were afraid to take her eyes off of the younger woman. "Bethy…" she whispered, choking back a sob, "I thought… we looked for you…"

"I know that," Beth soothed her, giving Maggie's shoulder a squeeze. "We weren't sure if y'all had made it, either. I never stopped hoping, though."

As Daryl watched from a few feet away, a strong hand gripped his shoulder, and he spun around to find a heavily bearded Rick grinning at him.

"I knew you were out there somewhere!" He pulled Daryl into a bear hug, pounding him on the back so enthusiastically that Daryl fully expected to find bruises later.

"Wouldn'ta made it at all if it hadn't been for her," Daryl admitted, with a nod toward Beth.

A look of surprise briefly flashed across Rick's face and then was gone without comment. "I missed you, brother," he said simply.

Daryl swallowed past a sudden tightness in his throat. "Me too."

When Maggie finally let go of Beth, others moved in to take her place, hugging and staring and clasping hands with Beth and Daryl, as if they were two ghosts come back to life. In a way, Beth mused, that's exactly what they were. She was relieved to see most of their friends had survived the fall of the prison, including baby Judith, who seemed to remember her just fine, judging from the way she held out her chubby baby arms to Beth. She wrapped the warm, wiggly girl in her arms and marveled at the miracle of holding her again. Only Sasha held back from the love-in, her grim expression and solemn greeting hinting at a recent tragedy.

There were new people, too. Beth tried to hold on to names as Rick introduced them, but most of them swirled away in the river of her rushing thoughts.

Tyreese and someone named Abraham carted the still warm bodies of the cannibals out into the night while Glenn made quick work of warming several large cans of beef vegetable soup from a crate in the corner. In no time, the smell of food curled through the air, drawing everyone into a loose circle on the floor of the nave. A serious young woman with dark eyes and a green army hat stood watch outside the doors.

Over their meal, Rick filled them in on what had happened to the group since escaping the prison, with the others chiming in here and there with details. It turned out they'd all been split up at the beginning, too, in pairs and trios, each small band on their own and not sure who else had survived. It made for quite a story, and though Rick was clearly skimming over some of the more gruesome details, Beth was glad she wasn't there for the encounter with the murderous Claimers or the terrifying walk through that pitch black railroad tunnel with Glenn. The specter of Terminus was still so fresh in her mind that when Rick described the grisly execution of Sam on the killing floor, she found herself trembling with pity and revulsion.

Almost without thought, Daryl, who was sitting next to Beth, reached over to comfort her. As he entwined his fingers with hers, he glanced up and found Maggie looking at them, her eyes narrowed in speculation. As much as he wanted to look away, he forced himself to meet her gaze. After a long moment, she finally blinked, and returned her attention to Rick. I'm sure she'll have a few words for me later, he thought wryly. Somehow, with Beth's warm knee pressing against his and their hands curled securely together, he couldn't find the will to worry about it.

"There's one other person you ain't met yet," Rick was saying, "and to be honest, I'm not sure if you'll get to. Father Gabriel bugged outta here in the middle of the night last night. He's… well, he's an odd one. Not quite sure what to think of him yet."

Beth looked at Daryl.

Daryl cleared his throat. "He ain't a tall black guy that wears a preacher collar, is he?" At Rick's nod, he sighed. "Don't think you'll be seein' him again. We crossed paths with him a mile or so from here. He'd been set on by a small herd, and we were too late to save him."

A murmur of sympathy and something else Daryl couldn't quite place passed through the circle. Whatever the man's story had been, it didn't seem to be a happy one. A silence fell over the group. The sound of crickets rose on the air, as if in eulogy for the man who had inadvertently brought Daryl and Beth back to the people they loved.

"That's enough about us," Rick said, finally. "What happened to y'all? Have you been together since the prison? Did you find anybody else?"

Daryl glanced at the young woman beside him. The hour had grown late, and Beth's eyelids were beginning to droop. "That's a long story," he said, his mouth tilting up in an affectionate half smile. "Think we could tell it in the morning?"

Maggie snorted; whether in amusement or some other reaction, Daryl couldn't tell. Rick just raised an eyebrow.

"I suppose we could, at that," he drawled. "We've got some decisions to make, too. There's more for us to talk about. Might as well get some rest while we still have these four walls."

The circle broke up, and one by one, people moved off to find a place to stretch out. The pews seemed to be popular. Daryl found Beth's bag and brought it over to her. Without a word, she yawned and laid her head down on it. Daryl covered her with the sweater she'd taken off during dinner and then made his way to the front steps. The GI Jane was still out there.

"I'll take the watch for a while, if you want," Daryl offered. "I ain't ready for sleep yet."

The tough-looking brunette leveled him with an appraising look and, with a hint of approval in her expression, dipped her chin in the affirmative. "Yeah, all right. Thanks." She offered a hand. "I'm Rosita."

"Daryl."

Rosita nodded and ducked back into the white clapboard building.

Cocking his crossbow and resting it on the handrail, Daryl leaned against the doorpost and looked out into the forest, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, savoring the quiet, broken only by the low scrapes and rustles of the group settling down for the night. He was happy to be back with Rick and the others, but he had to admit that a very small part of him wished he and Beth were alone back on the homestead, talking over dinner in front of the fireplace.

Instead, here they were, reunited with their family after months apart. It was amazing. He couldn't believe they'd found them. What were the chances? Maybe Beth was right about that higher power looking out for them. It was starting to sound as plausible as anything else.

He let his mind drift over the memory of the night before the smoke, the night he'd finally let himself admit that he had fallen in love with Beth Green. What would happen now? How would the others react? "Screw it," he muttered, "I don't care what they think about it." And it was true. The old Daryl might have run from it, but now that he knew her, loved her, nothing was going to keep him from Beth's side. In fact, when his watch was over, he was going to march right over to where she was sleeping and lay down with his arms around her the way he was aching to. Might as well show everybody how things stood.

The sound of the church door opening behind him jerked him from his thoughts. He looked to see who could still be awake at this hour.

Of course it was her.

"Can we talk?" Maggie asked.

Why did walkers never attack when you really needed them to?

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