Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead. But I really hope one day I work for them!

Author's Note: Here's chapter 4! I'm a few hours later than my other chapters have been getting uploaded, but hopefully that's not too big of an inconvenience. I had a mention about the language in the story, and I feel the need to note that I don't use this language lightly. I also write in the Digimon fandom (go on, you can laugh! It's okay. I understand), and I feel extremely awkward using any kind of cursing in those stories because they come from a children's source material. This? This is definitely not a children's source material, and I am not using any language that feels OOC for the story. I do not use foul language on a whim; I just feel that this story kind of asks for it, so I didn't deny my gut feeling and went for it. I'm sorry if you find it offensive, but like I said back in chapter 2, it's not exactly going to get better!

Enjoy!

Chapter Four

The cliff wasn't very far away when what was in his stomach decided to make an encore appearance. Daryl had been nauseated for a while now – longer than he realized – but this was the ultimate indignity. Piling on insult over injury. He had to force himself to get this shit, and now his body wanted to throw it away again? What the FUCK.

What he threw up wasn't much, way less than what he figured was making him feel so goddamn sick. And he just kept doing it, kneeling on the ground like he was praising the motherfucking desert gods, making his mid-afternoon prayers as he dry-gagged all over the sand. Over and over again, until he was crying out in pain between spasms. It hurt like a bitch. His belly was killing him, clenching and twisting so hard on nothing.

Finally, it stopped, just enough to let him sit back on his tailbone. His forehead rested forward against his knees, his eyes trained on the ground. Blood was dripping and pooling in his lap. He figured it was probably his ragged lips, but when he reached up without much interest to double-check, he discovered it was his nose. It was so dried out that the membranes were cracking, just like his lips. He tasted the blood in the back of his throat and that made him heave a few more times again.

He almost wanted to cry when he was done, but there were no tears left to cry anymore. Good Lord, he was so lonely. He was going to die out here. No one to hold his hand or slip him a big bottle of water. No one to put their arm around him and tell him to rest, relax, it would all be okay. Not that he would let most people do that, but he would let Carol. And that sounded exactly like something she would do; she would tell him it was all going to be okay. But she wasn't here, and nothing was going to be okay. Nothing here, anyway. He couldn't do anything anymore. He was done.

He hoped Rick would look out for her. He wished Tyreese hadn't had died. At least, then, he would have been there to offer her some comfort. He would be able to love her in a way that Daryl was pretty sure he would never be able to. But he did. And he would never be able to tell her. Not now. Not ever.

"Daryl, c'mon, check it out!" Carl grinned down at him. He was holding Daryl's old crossbow in his hands, the one he had been given to practice with. It was almost as big as him and seemed to swallow him whole. It looked awkward in his hands, like it didn't quite fit there, but that didn't wipe the grin off of the teenager's face. "I've been practicing. You've gotta see."

"Stick to your pistol, son," Daryl tried to say. His tongue lied motionless in his mouth, numb, as if he had just gotten a monster shot of Novocain at the dentist's office. He shook his head as his eyes slid shut.

"Daryl, come on! I've been practicing, and I've gotten pretty damn good. The silencer is nice and all, but bullets aren't retrievable. I can do this. Please? Will you just watch? I promise I won't mess up as badly as I did last time."

He wanted to point out that his last attempt hadn't actually been that bad. It wasn't like he had accidentally shot someone. But they never did find those three crossbow bolts, and he wasn't really looking forward to losing even more. Those things didn't exactly grow on trees. Well, they did, but he meant literally. Or figuratively. Whatever. But the kid had only recently started opening back up to Rick, so he was still starving for attention from the older males in the group besides his father. And whatever Daryl could do to help out Rick and Carl's relationship, he wanted to do. Because that was what you did for your family, and that was how he looked at Rick and Carl. Family. Better family than he'd ever had, that was for damn sure.

So, he stood up and wiped the blood off of his face the best he could before giving a curt nod. Carl gave him a grin before he aimed the crossbow off into the distance. He followed all of the basic steps of archery, listening to all of the tips that Daryl had given him over the past several months, before he finally pulled the trigger. The arrow sailed through the air like a thing of beauty. It soared pure and true, fast as a bolt of lightning. It arched into the air before it disappeared out of Daryl's line of sight.

"See? I told you!" Carl said, practically jumping where he stood. "I got the bull's eye and everything! Go look, Daryl! Go see for yourself! I bet you tomorrow night's dinner that I got the bull's eye."

He was too tired. It was way too far. He couldn't make it, but he would. Somehow, he would. Because he loved his family, even if it wasn't the one he was born into. It was the one he had chosen – or, more appropriately, it had chosen him, and he would do fucking anything for them. Even walk insane distances just so Carl could know if he had hit the bull's eye or not.

"Okay, Carl," he said in his garbled crispy-dry voice. "I'll go get it for ya. If it ain't a bull's eye, you owe me two nights worth of dinner."

"Deal."

Daryl smiled at the kid, who was still so young and had so much life to live and yet had grown up so damn much since the first time he had seen him in Atlanta, before he turned and chased after the elusive arrow.

x X x

"Beatle definitely has something," Karen shouted over her shoulder.

She was holding onto the overeager bloodhound's raggedy leash with all of her weight, making the collar strain against the dog's neck. Beth was standing in front of the dog, holding Daryl's poncho that now had a nice glob of dog slobber all over one side from where Beatle had gotten a little too enthusiastic in his sniffing. Rick was hesitant to trust an untrained sniffer hound, but he knew that they were running out of time and chances in finding Daryl alive. They didn't have a whole lot of choice.

"He's saying we go west-southwest," she pointed.

Rick gave a curt nod before turning to the group that was gathered to help the search. Only ten people and one dog, not nearly enough to try to search this vast desert. It was a massive area, and they were lacking the manpower for a serious Search and Rescue operation. But none of the elderly or younger children would have been able to withstand the heat, even with the water. Sasha was still a mess over her brother's death, and she was back with them, acting as an armed guard but more than likely taking this precious time to grieve.

"We stay in pairs, alright? Never get more than ten feet apart. Don't let this terrain fool you. I know it looks wide-open, but if you want shade – and hopefully that's what Daryl was looking for, he's smart, a survivor – you may cram yourself into a spot that you'd normally overlook." Rick had never been part of a Search and Rescue mission quite like this. The closest he had come was with Sophia and look how that ended. He tried not to let his uncertainty show. "So, don't overlook anything. I mean it. We're only going to get one shot at looking over this area… He's been out here for almost 36 hours already. In all likelihood, he's got no supplies, no water, no nothing. We gotta get to him soon. All right?"

Everybody was standing around him, listening to his speech. Their faces were tight with anxiety, brows creased with determination. They didn't want to leave this desert empty-handed. They had already lost one man; they didn't want to lose another. But Rick had a totally different reason to be determined. He was starting to believe that Daryl wouldn't be walking out of here, but alive or not, he was going to find him, set him right. The man would do the same for him.

Next to him, Carol's expression was hard to read behind a pair of expensive sunglasses that she had looted on one of their runs. She and Beth had returned from dropping Sasha off with sunscreen for all, and there was a dab of it spread across her nose. She wisely wore long sleeves despite the heat, and she was exuding a calm, implacable, steady as a proverbial rock attitude. No one, except her surrounding family, would have been able to guess that she had been weeping almost uncontrollably an hour ago. She had been standing over the smoldering fire pit of Daryl's last known location, eyes red and raw, and her sunglasses dangling from her fingers.

She was not crying now. Neither were Glenn, Maggie, Hershel, Michonne, and Carl. Beth looked like she wanted to, but she wouldn't let herself. Her pale face gleamed in the sunlight, young and scared and wary.

It was past high noon and blistering hot. It had to be 120, at least. Nothing moved in the heat but the loyal-to-a-fault humans. Daryl had to be holed up someplace. It was the only answer Rick's brain would even tolerate, much less accept. The alternative kept trying to rear its ugly head in the shape of a decaying, shriveled walker hand, but he wouldn't let it. He had to hold onto that little piece of hope.

At the time that Daryl's family, not by blood but through the bonds forged by the world ending, was gathering together to start their trek through the dry hardpan of the desert, Daryl was not, in fact, holed up. He was walking toward that elusive cliff, his gait looking distinctly like a guy who'd had about a dozen over the legal limit. He was reeling, lurching, staggering with every step. But he was moving forward. He was whispering to himself. The words weren't possible to understand, even if Rick had been next to him. Daryl wasn't really even aware that he was talking. But in his mind, the words were echoing over and over again.

"Just a few more feet… C'mon, just a few more… Fuckin' arrow, where are ya…?"

The group turned and faced southwest, and Daryl walked past a mummified walker before retching just a few feet away. He gathered himself back up to continue along his path and whispered, "I see ya… fuckin' prickish arrow… Few more feet…"

x X x

Hershel shadowed everybody in the Dodge Ram truck on one side, and Beth bookended the group in the Hyundai Tucson. Both cars were stocked full of all of the water that they could find and other supplies. Hell, they had even managed to find a few handheld fans where the batteries weren't quite dead yet. A human body lost about a quart of water an hour if the temperature was around 100 degrees. It was definitely above that. Most of the group was starting to already look quite wilted. But looking at night, while cooler, wouldn't be worth it. There were too many chances of overlooking possibilities.

Daryl didn't have that long anyway.

A familiar sense of calm had settled over Rick as he walked, head swinging from side to side as he inspected the ground. He was trying to use some of the skills that Daryl had taught him, trying to track his movements, but the desert wind had come through and swept every little sign of it away. Well, not every little sign. Every so often he would see a broken twig, a crushed bit of tumbleweed, an overturned rock – it all gave him hope. He knew that if they were still searching by nightfall, they would have to give up and move on. He knew that if they didn't find Daryl before the sun vanished beyond the horizon, his walker self may have marched itself into Canada long before they ever got close to where he had spent his last moments.

They had to find Daryl now, in the next several hours.

"Doesn't seem like so long." It was Maggie talking from somewhere to Rick's right. She wasn't complaining, just making an observation as she stared out across the vast desert. "He'll be okay, won't he?"

It was Glenn who answered her. He didn't sound very young and instead brutally frank. "Under normal conditions, sure. It can take up to two weeks to die of dehydration. But in the desert? Only takes a day or two."

Maggie didn't reply. At least, not loud enough for Rick to overhear.

At his side, Carl sighed tiredly and took a drink from his water. "How far could he have gone?" he asked him. His voice was low, trying to make sure it didn't carry. "It can't have been that far, can it?"

Rick decided to just be honest with him. "Daryl is in excellent physical shape. With no supplies, no water – he still might have gone further than you think." He pulled out his own water bottle and took a swig from it. "If he took shelter during the hottest parts of the day, moved during the night and early morning… We know he didn't stay in the first coolest place he could find and wait, so that could easily be twenty-five miles… thirty?"

"That far?" Carol on his other side was the one that asked the question. She had been eavesdropping on the conversation, though she did not look the least bit embarrassed at speaking aloud. Even behind her sunglasses, she looked sick at his answer. "Jesus, Rick… we won't get that far before nightfall."

"No," he agreed softly, "we won't."

She stopped so that she could turn to stare at him; on his other side, Carl also came to stop, curious. "We've got the direction. Why don't some of us take one of the vehicles and go on ahead?"

"Yeah, Dad," Carl said, catching onto the idea. "We'll cover more ground."

He met both of their gazes. "We could miss something along the way."

"Let Karen's damn dog loose then," Carol snapped. "He's freaking out anyway. He can smell him! We can keep up with him in the cars."

She was right. A part of him wanted to leap at it headfirst, no questions asked, but with the idea came a whole new set of problems. But it was faster. At this crawl, they were never going to find Daryl in time. And if they didn't, what was the point of it all? What was the point of the farm? The desert?

Rick nodded. "You're right. Give her the word."

Carl moved first, running across the sandy ground to the brunette woman to deliver the news.