AN #1: Hello everyone! Thank you so much for your reviews and support. I love you all so very much! I apologize for the delay; I'm an overstressed teenager who needs to sleep less and study more.

Disclaimer: Do I need to keep doing these? It's getting exhausting. I do not own or write for The Walking Dead or AMC.

OoO

She took the lead after that.

She sprinted ahead, botts pounding on the ground. She never stopped; she had found her hope.

He was glad.

She ran until he yelled for her to slow down.

"They're just ahead!" she gasped, wiping the sweat from her red forehead. "Someone has Judith, and they're just ahead of us! We have to hurry!"

He doubled over, crossbow and rifle slipping from his shoulders onto the gravel.

"Just… Slow down… We can't keep up like this…" He shook his head slowly, squinting up at her.

Her eyes were too bright, wild, a crazy Joker grin plastered on her face.

"They're so close, Daryl! I can feel it. I know it."

Her voice, its intensity, scared him.

He stood up slowly andappraised their location, trying to listen and call back memories of the the railway map at the same time.

He smirked, hearing what he needed to.

He pointed up the slope to their left. "I saw a river on the map. We need to get some water in us, and then we we'll come back," he tried.

She shook her head vigorously. "I'm not thirsty. We need to move. Let's go."

He stared at her, worry etching lines across his forehead. "It's getting dark. We haven't had anything to drink in over 24 hours."

Her eyebrows drew in slowly as she pondered his words.

He waited, staring her down.

She sighed loudly, rolling her eyes as she stomped over the small hill and started climbing, scrambling over the patchy grass, grabbing onto roots and weeds for leverage as she went.

oOo

He knew they were close by the persistent buzzing in his ears.

He slapped at the mosquitos reflexively, cursing to himself, begging God to send a can of Off down from heaven to relieve their poor skin.

They didn't bother with boiling the water. The river was relatively clear, and was flowing, so Daryl deemed it safe enough.

Plus, they didn't exactly have anything to boil it with.

They squatted there for several minutes, sipping silently, straining to listen for the sounds of the dead over the mosquitos and the river.

And the screeching cicadas.

Daryl hated the sound. Cicadas had always meant the beginning of summer in the old world, and summer meant a whole lot of father-son bonding time.

And no free lunches.

But even in this new world, the cicadas dredged up bad memories. Particularly of a summer spent in a tent by a big white house and a barn filled with horrors that would haunt him every day for the rest of his life.

He didn't like cicadas.

He doubted Beth even registered the noise. She hadn't proven his paranoia yet, what with her sweating so damn much, shivering every couple minutes. He tried to tell himself it was just a little case of heat exhaustion, maybe some dehydration mixed in. Something just wasn't right.

He tried convincing himself she couldn't be sick. She never had had fence duty. She was always with Judith, or helping Carol with the kids, or helping her daddy with whatever he did. She never came in contact with the fence walkers, and as soon as Patrick happened, she was sent with the kiddies into quarantine.

So she couldn't have gotten sick.

But something just wasn't right.

And he was beginning to think that she may not tell him if she were truly feeling bad. That she may just walk herself to death, and he would be none the wiser until she fell to the ground, dead.

Beth stood to start the trek back to the little valley. Her eyes were scary blue, magnified by her flushed face.

She set off at a brisk trot, leaving Daryl to scramble to his feet as she made her way to the slope.

He knew she thought he didn't want to find Judith, that he was indifferent to the little girl. But that just wasn't true. He loved her, more than he loved most of the people in his life.

But she was obviously safe. Someone was changing her diapers and keeping her fed and killing the walkers along the railway. Someone was protecting her, had kept her alive this long.

Which was more than he was sure he could do.

But Judith was practically Beth's baby, had been from day one. Hers and Carol's.

He swallowed past the lump in his throat.

His hope was wearing thin. The chances of Carol having Judith were close to zero.

So, logically, the tracks should not – could not – belong to Carol.

He knew this.

But it didn't matter.

He had to know.

And Beth needed to see Judith, to check her over, to kiss her forehead and hold her close. He knew Beth. That baby was her hope.

And he was going to make sure that hope stayed alive.

OoO

They walked through the night, taking short breaks every hour or so. He let Beth sleep, and pretended to sleep when she watched for him.

Haha. Like he was going to sleep again.

Daryl hoped that by sleeping little, they could gain on whoever had Judith and maybe catch up with them. If they had the baby, and at least one other kid, they would be sleeping during the night. They'd have to.

Him and Beth, however, did not need to.

They had been skirting dead walkers throughout the night, stumbling over them and nearly faceplanting in their blindness. But when the sun broke over the horizon, Daryl noticed something that made his heart sick.

The heads of the walkers they were passing were different than the ones they had seen the day before. These had not been put down by quick, thin blades. These had been bludgeoned to a pulp with a blunt object.

He had seen Tyreese's victims before. Had seen how he worked with that hammer.

He straightened from the walker he had been inspecting. Beth was watching the rising tree line, gun in hand. She was tapping her foot impatiently.

Daryl kicked it for posterity. "It's Tyreese. He has Judith, probably Maggie or Sasha a couple of the kids, too."

Beth's look of irritation grew into maniacal joy.

"Are you sure?! How do you know?" she laughed out.

He shrugged. Pointed halfheartedly at the gravel.

"One man's tracks. Someone else, a little smaller. And one or two kids," he paused, breathing deep.

"Tyreese is the only guy I know who kills walkers with a hammer."

She threw her head back and laughed louder than he thought he had ever heard her laugh.

He resisted the urge to hush her, and followed meekly behind when she plowed ahead again, blonde ponytail swinging as she galloped away.

Now he knew, for certain, that they weren't trailing Carol. There was no way that Carol would go anywhere near Tyreese. Not if she had told Rick what she did. And certainly not it she had actually done it.

Nothing made sense to him. If Tyreese was with Sasha, the most likely option, then they would have turned off at the evac point. If he had Maggie with him, they would both probably know where it was, what with Sasha, Hershel, and Glenn being on the Council.

So why did the tracks carry on? Why would they have found the diaper further out?

The thoughts hurt his head.

It's not Carol.

It's not Carol.

It's not her.

The words felt blasphemous in his mind.

oOo

AN #2: Thank you so so much for reading! I can't wait to reunite our babies. I want to do it right! I'll try to bust out another chapter before Sunday, so stay with me friends! I appreciate each and every one of you. Hugs and cuddles!