Disclaimer: I do not own anything you recognize. Although I don't know a fangirl out there that wouldn't love their own personal Daryl Dixon.

AN: Sorry it has taken me so long to post chapters these days. Originally this chapter and the next were supposed to be one big long chapter but I decided that there were enough pages to cut them into two different chapters. I haven't finished the next chapter yet but if I'm lucky I can get it finished by the time I go to bed, whenever that will be.

P.S. Although I don't ask or demand that you review on my story, mostly because I'm bad about not posting reviews myself, please know that when I get reviews it makes me happy and makes me feel like people are actually reading and enjoying my story.

Chapter 33

Once it had been discovered that they could be shown a way into Woodbury the group started discussing on going to get Adrian, Maggie, and Glenn. Everyone had been more than shocked when Rick and Daryl had informed the rest of the group that Kale was alive and in the prison with the woman that they had saved earlier that day.

Kale was in some ways the boy they knew eight months ago but in others he was a stranger. From what he had told Beth and Carl while they had been visiting when Hershel had been patching up him and his friend, they had been on the road by themselves since he had met up with her right after escaping the farm.

Or they had been until they had been found by a group of people from Woodbury and taken there.

Kale had also been caught up on what all had happened to the group since they had split up at the farm. They had lost Trisha and Shane on the farm, they had all gotten separated that night but had all met up on the road the next morning. Everyone had shown up by vehicle except for Adrian who had come crashing out of the woods after running all night.

He had been told that they had told her that they had lost him at that farm and no one knew if he was dead or alive. They told him how she had fainted after being told that but when she had woken up some time later that she had gone into a hysterical panic. She had remained in shock for a few days before she had shut down and distanced herself from everyone, even Daryl.

Kale had seen how Adrian and Daryl were at the farm and for her to have cut herself off from him, it had to have been bad. Beth went on to tell Kale about how Adrian had finally snapped out of her deep depression and had slowly become a member of the group again. The farther along that Lori had gotten into her pregnancy the more Adrian had looked out for her.

She then told him about how they had found the prison and had settled in. When Kale had asked where Lori was, although he already knew she had to be dead for Beth and Carol to be taking care of the baby girl he was currently holding, but he wanted to know how.

Beth told him how one of the inmates they had thought was dead had actually survived and after they had cleared out most of the walkers, he had tried to take it back and get revenge on them by letting walkers loose that they had locked away.

Adrian had been with Lori, Maggie, and Carl when everyone had gotten separated with all the walkers on the loose. Lori had died giving birth to the baby, which it had turned out had to be cut out of her and as a result had died. T-Dog had also died that day and they had also thought that Carol had died as well until Daryl had found her.

Kale was excited to see his old group and he had hated seeing Maggie, Glenn, and most of all Adrian being taken by Merle. He had wanted to help, telling Michonne that he knew them but they had both been injured and had been better off finding the prison first.

His arm had needed stitches and he had told Rick and Daryl that he was going with them to help save Adrian and the others but they told him that he was to stay there.

It was getting time for them to leave and they were hauling everything that they would need to help them get in and out. The group going consisted of Daryl, Rick, Oscar, a new member since he didn't know him, and Michonne. Carl was staying behind with Hershel, Beth, Axel, Carol, the baby, and himself.

Adrian didn't know how many hours they had been there. No less than six at this point. As far as she knew Merle had been going between her and Glenn trying to get the other to talk but the longer he tried, the more frustrated he got. Merle had left Adrian's room about twenty minutes earlier but she hadn't heard him go back into Glenn's room. At that point she didn't know if that should have scared her or not.

After every beating from Merle Adrian would take note of her injuries. It was time to take note again.

She still couldn't see out of her right eye, which sucked, she had some pretty long gashes in a few places where she had been cut but nothing that needed stitches, her jaw was a mass of bruises, her lip was good and split open, which she had made sure to spit in Merle's face.

Over all she wasn't too bad, but when Merle had started beating on her ribs and stomach, she knew she would hurt for a while. Her daddy had beaten her in those places enough for her to know that the bruising there was pretty deep and would hurt for at least a week.

A few minutes later Adrian heard a noise that put a ball as cold as ice of dread in her aching stomach. The growling of a walker. Then she heard a door open and heard Merle's voice yelling words she didn't understand and then heard a door shut. She heard things falling and finally after a few minutes, much to Adrian's relief, she heard Glenn yell.

A few minutes later Merle walked back into her room. "What did you do to Glenn?" she growled, long past the mood to verbally spar with him. "Let's just call it a little payback for Atlanta." Merle answered, a knowing smirk on his face. Only this time he thought he had beaten all of the energy out of her and had made the mistake of getting within range.

Adrian clenched her teeth and kicked her leg out sideways with enough force to knock Merle's feet together causing him to fall on his side, still within range. Adrian kicked out both feet, each foot going for a different target.

Adrian's left foot hit it's target, Merle's stomach, the same time her right foot did, his face. She was only able to get in one more good hit with both of her feet to his sternum before Merle grabbed onto her ankle and pushed her back with enough force to throw her chair backwards. The chair hit the cement floor hard enough that the back of her head slammed into the floor hard enough to make her see stars.

Before she knew it Merle was standing over her and repeatedly punching her. Adrian knew that if she could just push some of the painful fog in her head away she could fight him some more but she had been fighting back and getting beaten for hours and it was started to really take a toll.

Adrian had just enough energy to try one last thing and she just happened to be in luck.

Merle grabbed her chin in a firm, bruising grip and forced her unfocused eye to look at him. "Now tell me where your group's at." he said.

Adrian quickly jerked her head out of his grip and bit down hard enough on his left arm to draw blood. Merle started to curse loudly at her as she locked her teeth into his skin for as long as possible.

This went on for a good minute before Adrian felt the cool metal of Merle's right arm slam against the side of her head, knocking her out cold.

Adrian didn't know how long it had been since she had been knocked out but she did know one thing, and that was that her entire body felt like one big bruise. She didn't even bother to note how badly her injuries were at that time. What she did think was strange was that someone was softly petting her hair, which at some point had been unbraided.

At first her pain filled brain thought it might be Daryl. She even managed to groan out his name. "Adrian!" she heard Maggie cry out as the petting stopped. "Adrian, are you okay?" she heard Glenn ask, although his voice didn't sound exactly right. "Maggie? Glenn?" she asked opening her eyes just enough to make out their figures. "What happened? Why are we together now?" she asked, closing her eyes against the harsh light.

"I told them about the prison. I'm sorry, Adrian. They were going to kill Glenn." she heard the fear and regret in Maggie's shaky voice. "Shh. It's alright. It's alright." Adrian whispered, weakly reaching her hand up to touch whatever part of Maggie she could first to comfort the scared woman. She managed to land her arm on Maggie's upper arm and weakly patted her arm while repeatedly whispering "It's alright".

After a minute Adrian dropped her arm and quietly rested her body. She didn't fall asleep so she heard everything that Maggie and Glenn were saying. "You just wait til I get back to Daryl. First thing I'm gonna do is inform him that his brother is still a callosal dick." Adrian groaned as she tried to roll onto her side but decided that it was too painful to stay that way.

Adrian heard Glenn ask Maggie again if The Governor had raped her, to which she denied a second time. She then felt Maggie move and guessed that she was hugging Glenn. Adrian was glad that Glenn was there for Maggie. Maggie was a strong girl when it came to walkers but sometimes the horror of men was too much to handle alone. Maggie wasn't emotionally strong enough to handle it alone.

Adrian knew that she could handle it mentally by herself but after being with Daryl for so long, she didn't want to handle it alone like she had had to before. Adrian heard Glenn stand up, since her head was resting in Maggie's lap, and then began to hear him grunting from another part of the room.

Adrian opened her eyes to see Glenn ripping the arm off of the walker that Merle had thrown at him earlier. Glenn then started to stomp of the arm her had just ripped off, pulled the skin back, and took out the bones he had just broken for them to use as unexpected weapons.

"Adrian, will you be able to run when the time comes for it?" Glenn asked, knowing that she would have to do it herself because he and Maggie couldn't do it without them all getting killed. "Yeah." she groaned rolling onto her back as Maggie got up to go to him. "Just let me rest here til that time." she said.

They heard movement outside the door, and while Adrian couldn't move at her normal speed, she amazed the three of them when she stood up then her body should have allowed. The door opened and Maggie and Glenn charged out first. Maggie had a man around their age pinned to a wall as she shoved her makeshift weapon into his throat.

Glenn charged Merle, who knocked Glenn's weapon away from him. Merle ended up knocking Glenn to the ground and put his knife to Glenn's throat. Maggie quickly grabbed up a gun that was dropped and aimed it at Merle's head.

Adrian went to pick up one of the bone knifes that had been dropped but didn't get to see her plan through of picking it up and against Merle's throat before more guards came in as back up.

They were all recaptured and brought back to their room. They were each forced to their knees in the middle of the room. Adrian was slowly building up some energy and managed to turn her head to see a man come into the room with three bags.

Maggie, who was barely holding back tears, told Glenn she loved him before the first bag was thrown over her head. The next one went over Glenn's, who was still starring at Maggie.

Adrian looked up at Merle and glared at him with the coldest stare she could manage, which even in her beaten state, could have killed a man stone dead if looks could kill, before the last bag was forced over her head.

"Get up! Off your knees." someone ordered them after each of their hands had been bound tightly with duct tape. 'The world ends and duct tape is still the go to object for such things. Well, they do say don't mess with the classics.' Adrian thought as someone roughly grabbed her arm and forced her to stand quicker than her body really allowed.

They were each lead from the room when something hit the floor and exploded, scaring them all. "What the hell?" Adrian cried out, surprised.

Suddenly it got hard to breathe but whoever it was that had a hold of Adrian's arm had let go. Adrian suddenly felt another hand grab her arm, only this one she knew intimately. The bag was suddenly ripped from her head and standing before her surrounded by smoke, was Daryl.

"Daryl!" she whispered to him. "Come on, let's go." he urged her pushing her ahead of him to follow the others.

They were all quickly freed of their duct tape and lead out of the building they were being kept in. Daryl had let go of Adrian to help cover them but she had stayed right beside him. They heard a commotion not far away and had to hide somewhere quickly because they were almost literally having to drag Glenn and Adrian was starting to fall behind.

They ran to the first building they came upon and ran inside, aside from Glenn and Adrian who had practically dived inside. Glenn was propped up against a small cabinet with Maggie beside him, while Adrian clutched both sides of her severely bruised ribcage on the floor.

Daryl ran straight past Adrian to see if there was another way out of the building and came back to inform them that there wasn't. Daryl came back to see Adrian writhing on the floor in what could only be pain. Daryl shouldered his crossbow and walked over to where she was on the floor.

He knelt down on one knee and started to check her over. Rick then asked them how badly they were hurt. "Agh, I'll be alright." Glenn told him. "Adrian?" Rick asked.

Adrian tried to answer but she was trying to get a handle on the immense pain spiking from her ribs. Daryl forcefully rolled her onto her back and jerked her shirt up to check out what was hurting her so much.

Her ribcage and stomach was a mess. What was once only that morning beautifully, scarred tan skin was now a party of blue, black, and purple bruises.

Daryl went on to look at the rest of her but other than some cuts and more bruises she was okay as far as he could tell. But she wasn't breathing like she was supposed to. "Rick, she ain't good." Daryl said putting her shirt back down and looking up at their leader.

Daryl then looked back at her and gently propped her against the closest wall. He looked at her bruised and cut face, pressed a hard kiss to and uninjured section of her forehead, and then stood, looking back at Rick.

Adrian was finally able to breath somewhat normally when Glenn told Daryl that Merle was alive. "He did this to us. Captured us, brought us here, and then tortured me and Adrian." Glenn told him as Maggie was helping him put on a light jacket they had found. "You saw him? Face to face?" Rick asked Glenn. "He threw a walker at me. He was gonna execute us all." Glenn said.

"So, what? My brother's this Governor?" Daryl asked, shocked at the news of his brothers' living status. "No." Maggie said. "He's his lieutenant or something." she told Daryl.

"He know I'm still with you?" Daryl asked them. "Rick, we're sorry. We told him where the prison is. We couldn't hold out." Glenn told Rick. "I told you that was alright!" Adrian growled between her teeth and she tried to stand up to get to Daryl. they had only been apart for a few hours but after everything she had went through that day, she just needed to hold him.

"Daryl." she called out to him but he was in too much shock to acknowledge her at the moment. Rick told them it was time to go after making sure that both Adrian and Glenn could walk to the car they had parked some miles away. Maggie helped Glenn stand while Oscar helped Adrian up since Daryl was trying to convince Rick to let him find Merle.

Rick was trying to whisper but Adrian heard him anyway. "No matter what they say, they're hurt. Glenn can barely walk, it's a miracle that Adrian can even stand, you said so yourself that she was badly hurt. How are we gonna get outta here if we get caught? I need you with me on this. Now are you with me?" Rick asked urgently.

Daryl was quiet for a second. First he looked at Rick, then cast a quick glance at Adrian who was starring back at him, then back to Rick. "Yeah. I'm with you." Daryl said walking over to Adrian and took her from Oscar. The second that Adrian touched Daryl she wrapped her arms around him with as much strength as she had, which admittedly wasn't much at the time.

Daryl wrapped his arms around her but eased the pressure when he heard her hiss sharply in pain. She then lightly pounded her fist against Daryl's back a few times. "Don't you ever hesitate like that again." she told him between clenched teeth. "Sorry, babe." he said as he quickly placed a light kiss on her bruised and bloody temple.

They quickly ran out of the building they were hiding in after Daryl had thrown out some gas grenades to help cover them. Adrian had been lucky that the idiots holding them captive had kept her weapons outside of their cells.

Adrian had her bow and arrows over her shoulders, her knife back in it's holster, and was currently holding her gun at attention. Honestly it was more weight that her body could take at the moment but she would mortally wound herself before admitting it aloud.

They were hidden well enough by the gas but they were still being shot at and everyone was returning fire. Finally they made it forwards enough that they found a place big enough for them all to hide for a moment.

"Yall get out, I'll help cover yall." Daryl said as he reloaded his gun while Maggie and Adrian helped cover them from their spot. "No! We need to stay together." Maggie yelled before she fired again. "Damn straight we're stayin' together!" Adrian yelled as she fired. Daryl had decided that he was staying and there was nothing Adrian could do about it.

Rick told them to get ready, and even though it was NOWHERE near the time or the place, Adrian grabbed a handful of Daryl's sweaty hair and pulled him in for a hard, quick kiss. "You stay alive and you damn well better come back to me!" she growled at him as she let him go.

Rick told them to move and Rick and Daryl covered them as Oscar climbed onto a school bus to help Maggie, Adrian, and Glenn up so they could get over the fence.

Oscar had managed to get both Glenn and Adrian onto the bus before he was shot and killed. Maggie checked on Oscar and began to yell for Rick.

Rick climbed onto the bus and began to yell for Daryl, as did Adrian who was trying to help Glenn up.

They had made it over the wall and had taken cover behind a car outside of one of the fences surrounding Woodbury. They were now waiting on Daryl to join up with them. They hadn't been there long but Adrian knew that something wasn't right. The shooting had stopped but Daryl still wasn't there yet.

It had been decided that since the woman who had shown them there, Michonne, hadn't seen Daryl on her way out that Daryl had been captured. Rick told them that he and Maggie were going to take a few guns and go in and find him.

Adrian wanted to go too but Rick had ordered her to go back to their car with Glenn and Michonne, saying that even though she was good at playing tough at the moment, he knew she was seriously hurt, as was Glenn.

Not wanting to waste time arguing, Adrian relented, telling Rick that he better bring Daryl back alive or she would cut him up for walker bait. It was an empty threat but the meaning was still clear. Rick and Maggie took back off towards the town to find Daryl, while Adrian helped support Glenn, who was also supporting her, was lead back to their car by the also injured Michonne.

They didn't know how long it took them to get back to the car but by the time they did, Adrian and Glenn were exhausted. They both collapsed onto the ground mere feet from where the car was parked and just stayed there for a while.

After about ten minutes Glenn managed to get up and half crawled his way over to the side of the car and sat up against it.

But Adrian was just fine where she was. She must have been comfy enough because the next thing she knew, she was asleep.