Hello everybody. I really wanted to get this chapter out yesterday, but I've been fighting a cold, and my brain was just too fuzzy to make coherent sentences appear on the screen. Sorry! Thanks to those of you that are reading and enjoying this story! All the little emails I get saying that someone has followed or favorited this make me grin. Keep it up!

Guest: Thank you SO much for saying that this is one of the best fanfics you've read! That means so much to me, and I can only hope to keep you feeling that way! I'm trying hard to make that happen. I'm also glad that the fight/beating scene was good in your opinion. I sometimes have trouble with action scenes like that, so I'm happy you thought it was good. Now you get the answers to some of your questions. I hope they live up to expectations. Thanks again for you wonderful words and support! You rock!

Chapter Four – Nothing More

To be bold, to be brave. It is the thinking that the heart can still be saved, And the darkness can come quick, The Dangers in the Anger and the hanging on to it.

We are Love, We are One, We are how we treat each other when the day is done. We are Peace, We are War, We are how we treat each other and Nothing More

Tell me what it is that you see, A world that's filled with endless possibilities? Heroes don't look they used to, they look like you do.

- The Alternate Routes

Daryl awoke in a fit of panic and rage. He had known he shouldn't 'a trusted that woman, kind eyes be damned. There weren't no good people left in this world, and now he had proof. The thought that Beth probably had that proof too made bile rise up his throat. She didn't deserve whatever was happening to her, and he hadn't been able to stop it. Those thoughts only made his rage boil up even higher, and that was saying something considering the predicament he had awakened to.

He didn't know where he was, just that he couldn't move, and he was blindfolded. Not to mention the fact that he could hear a good sized herd of walkers surrounding him. That bitch must have tied him up, blindfolded him, and left him for walker bait. He would have been better off getting beat to death. This was straight up sadistic.

He tried to focus on a way out of the situation, straining to find the ropes binding him. After a moment a new panic enveloped him; there weren't no ropes. He just couldn't move. Then he realized he couldn't feel a blindfold either, he was blind. Panic and rage tore into him in massive waves. What the hell was goin' on? Was he dead? He sure as hell hoped this wasn't what death was, because he didn't think he could stand it.

He struggled to move, putting all that fear and anger into the fight, and managed to sit about six inches off the bed before he collapsed back with a soft moan. He immediately heard movement coming towards him; bare feet on a wooden floor. Then he felt the padding beneath him sink slightly, and a cool hand pressed lightly on his forehead.

"Take it easy. Yer safe." A warm voice said softly.

The woman hadn't left him after all. What the hell was she thinkin'? It weren't safe there with a pack of walkers outside the door. He tried to sit up again, and this time managed to get an elbow beneath him, and stay about halfway up. It hurt like nothing he had felt before, but he weren't no weak little pussy, so he toughed it out. "Wha'd ya do ta me? I can't see nothin'."

The woman sighed and patted his arm softly. It sent spasms of pain through his body, but he ignored it. No weakness. "Your eyes are swollen shut. I've been putting poultices on them, and it's going down. I think you'll be able to peek out of your right eye after the next one." He felt the weight disappear from the pad beneath him and the momentary warmth went with it, only to return a few seconds later.

"You need to lay back so I can put these on your eyes. It will only need to be on for about five minutes, then we'll see where yer at." He felt her ever so gently push his shoulder back, as she said it, but he fought to remain up.

"I ain't layin' back 'til ya tell me what's goin' on!" He wanted to roar it at her, but was mortified to hear that he sounded more like a breathless little girl than a pissed off man.

Her hand retreated from his chest, and he could almost hear her teeth gritting together. "Fine." She ground out after a moment. "What do you remember?"

Daryl shifted his weight slightly, trying to get in a more comfortable position, only to find none existed. He grunted slightly as he gave up and laid back down. She had agreed to explain things to him, and that would have to be good enough, because he was just going to pass out like a little bitch if he stayed up a moment longer. "I 'member ya showin' up out 'a nowhere, and tellin' Joe ta leave, an' tha's 'bout it."

"Okay. I'm going to put the poultice on while I talk so you can see sooner. That okay with you?"

Daryl just grunted and she must have taken it for an affirmative, because he promptly felt something cool and damp going over his eyes and left cheek.

"Well, you remember the pertinent details. After you went unconscious I dragged you back here, and pulled you up into the house. I had to put your hip back in the socket, so I gave you a little laudanum to get your muscles to relax so I could do it. I also wrapped your ribs, and stitched you up in a few places." She paused and seemed to straighten a blanket he hadn't even realized was covering him before she continued. "Since then I've just been doing the poultices and giving you IV fluids."

"I've got a fuckin' IV in me?"

She laughed softly, a sound that reminded him more of little birds high up in the trees than a person. "No. I took it out about 20 minutes ago. You were pretty well hydrated, and started trying ta rip it out in yer sleep. Yer kind of violent in yer sleep, you know?"

Daryl grunted again, and thought over what she had said, and how she had said it. She had the weirdest way of talking. For the most part she didn't sound like she belonged here in the south, but every once in a while she would slip with a heavy southern drawl that could only be found in places like where he had grown up. And to make things even more confusin' her damn voice sounded almost familiar. Not like he had heard it before, but like he had heard one a lot like it before. He didn't like bein' confused one bit and managed to get a little more pissed off by it.

Suddenly he remembered what had caused him to get his ass beat into a piece of poorly butchered meat, and his blood ran cold. "Where're my friends?"

"Joe and those guys?" she asked with confusion.

Daryl managed to shake his head back and forth a couple times before his brain rattlin' in his skull hurt too bad to keep it up. "Naw, not those fuckers. The ones they was shootin' at."

There was a moment of silence and then she replied, "Oh them… I'm not sure. If they're smart they're somewhere out in the forest. If not, they went back to the tracks."

Daryl jerked upwards, managing to get into a fully sitting position, though he didn't get that far without significant pain. Screw this shit. He needed to get past the walkers outside and get to his friends, his family.

"The hell are you doin'?" Emma gasped in surprise, as she watched her patient jerk upwards. She reached out to push him back down, but his hand snapped out and slapped her away.

"I gotta get to 'em." The man snarled at her as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed. She was blown away by how tough he was, and how foolish. He was on death's door, blind, and there were at least 100 biters at the bottom of the tree. What in the hell was he thinking he was going to do?

Emma took a deep breath, and conjured her most commanding voice, the one she had used to stop his beating, among many other things. "Stop."

His movement stilled for an instant, and she felt a bit of hope before he abruptly rose to his feet and stood beside her. "I gotta help 'em. Joe'll kill 'em if I don't."

Emma reached up and ran her fingers through her hair, her braid stopping their downward movement at the base of her skull. Her fingers dug into the skin there, trying to keep herself calm as she looked at the man swaying in front of her. Was he always this crazy, or had the world changed him as much as it had changed her? With a deep breath, she realized he probably was always this crazy. He would have had to of been in order for him to help her the way he had. She sighed again, and addressed him. "How do you plan on helping them? You can hardly move, you're blind, and you don't have any weapons."

His head jerked towards her, and she could see that he was peering at her through his right eye, the swelling having gone down enough to allow it. "I can see, and I'm movin'. The hell more ya want, girl?"

She shook her head, and looked him hard in the eye. "Why don' ya have a look outsi' an' see wha's waitin' for ya'?" She felt her skin pale at the way her mouth had betrayed her. She hadn't talked like that in more than ten years. Even after… everything had happened she had managed to sound like she had a brain in her head, but in that one sentence she had sounded like the hillbilly trailer trash she really was, and she was absolutely horrified.

She watched as he slowly moved over to the window opening in her tree house. Once he reached it he peered out, and though his face was too swollen to show much emotion, she knew he was confused. "Down." She said flatly, and watched as his head swiveled to look at the mass of writhing bodies beneath them.

"Shit." he muttered, turning to look at her again.

"We're not going anywhere tonight." Her voice offered no argument, and he limped back towards her.

"I gotta help 'em." He whispered with a defeated voice.

Emma's mind began to race. She felt immeasurable guilt for not helping his friends, but she simply couldn't. She had already fulfilled her obligation to the man that had saved her. She had done that simply by stopping the beating, and had surpassed it by bringing him to her camp and getting him fixed up. She couldn't be going out there looking for even more people that could hurt her just because she felt guilty.

"You wouldn't be any help to them in your current condition. All you would do is get yourself killed. I worked pretty damn hard ta keep ya alive, and I wouldn' appreciate it much if you went and killed yourself as a thank you." There went that damn hillbilly hick again, taking her voice and putting words in her mouth.

She watched in surprise as he slowly lowered his battered body onto the grass-stuffed mattress on the bed. She looked at him hard and saw that his eye was filled with self-loathing, the last spark of hope flitting out of it and floating up toward the ceiling.

"They'll be fine… I'll find them for you tomorrow." She jerked back at the words her own mouth had spoken. She had no intention of sneaking from branch to branch in order to find this man's people. Hell, she didn't even know his name, and she had already fulfilled her debt. She didn't owe those other people anything, and at this point she didn't really feel like she owed her historical savior anything either. And yet she had now said she would go find them, and deep down she knew it was the right thing to do.

The man was staring at her intently, his eye still only just barely open, and yet it was still capable of pinning her to her spot. It seemed to be looking right through her, seeing all her secrets and unraveling them. Then he abruptly dropped his gaze, and started chewing on his thumb. After a second he nodded his head a couple times and swung his legs back up on the bed.

He cleared his throat, and glanced up at her looking rather uncomfortable. "Uh, I guess I ought'a thank ya for what ya did." He looked away from her, and started back up on his thumb again. "Name's Daryl." he mumbled around his finger.

Daryl had to admit he was feeling a little better than he had when he first woke up. Of course it didn't take much to feel better than that; he had seriously considered the possibility that he was dead after all. He was now propped up on a bunch of furs with a blanket over his dirty pants. The woman had offered to take them off and wash them for him, but he wasn't about to get naked in front of a woman that wouldn't even tell 'im her name. He had given her his in the hopes that she would reciprocate the gesture, but no such luck. She had just smiled and walked over to the little camp stove in the corner, returning with a bowl of rabbit and carrot stew.

That had been about an hour ago, and he had since finished off a second helping of stew and a full canteen of water. She had offered him more laudanum so he could sleep, but he refused on account of not really wanting to be passed out cold again anytime soon. Now he was unfortunately facing a fairly pressing matter, and didn't much want to bring it up. After squirming around on the bed for a few minutes he just couldn't hold it any longer and cleared his throat to gain the woman's attention.

She was bent over a pile of dried plants, carefully pulling leaves away from the stems, and tossing the unwanted parts out the window and down to the ground below. She glanced up at the noise he made and he shifted his eyes away from her uncomfortably. "You ah… got a privy up here?" He cleared his throat again and dared to look up at her.

She had a faint smile on her face, and he could swear he had seen it somewhere before. "Just aim out the window… piss on 'em." The small smile spread into a toothy grin, and she chuckled quietly as she indicated out the window with her free hand. Then her head ducked back to her task and she mumbled up at him, "I won't peek."

Daryl felt his face redden at the thought of pissin' right out the window, not four feet from the woman. However, at that point his bladder didn't really give a shit if he was embarrassed, so he flung the blanket off and slowly rose to his feet while clutching his deeply pained ribs. He made his way across the small room on shaky legs. He may have been feeling better, but this was by far the worst beating he had gotten in years. His dad had knocked him 'round on par with this a couple times, but that was a distant memory. The only ass-kickin' he could clearly remember that was even close to this one was the one those fukin' meth-heads had given him after he got that Squirrel girl outta that trailer.

As he pissed out the window, trying to hit as many of those fuckers as he could in the process, he realized that night had been in the back of his mind ever since he was able to crack his eye open. He figured it was because he had the same busted ribs and swollen eyes, but something tugged at the back of his brain telling him it was more than that.

He shook himself off and zipped back up before striding back to the bed on stronger legs. Nothing like the relief of an empty bladder to perk a man up. He sat on the edge of the bed and started up chewin' on his thumb again. Smoking wasn't a big part of surviving with the walkers, but after smoking ten or twelve of the cancer sticks with Joe he was feeling the craving with renewed force. He waited a moment to see if the woman would look up at him of her own accord, but when she completely ignored him he cleared his throat again to get her attention.

"I don' suppose ya got any cigarettes stashed up here, do ya?" He pulled his finger out of his mouth long enough to talk before he went back after it with renewed vigor.

She looked up at him, her brows furrowed and her mouth in a rather grim line. He studied her more intently for the instant he got the chance, taking in all he could about her appearance. She did have some of the biggest brown eyes he had ever seen, just as he had thought in his rather delirious state when he first saw her. She also had high cheekbones that stood above the shadows of hollow cheeks. Her eyes had dark circles beneath them as well, and her skin was pale. He guessed that she had made him a good meal, but she didn't eat very well herself, at least not on a regular basis. She had full, red lips above a small chin. Overall she had a rather heart-shaped face, and was quite pretty in a dirty and hungry kind of way.

Finally, after she studied him just as intensely as he had her, she shook her head a little. "No. I've got a little weed if you want that instead though."

Daryl's eyebrows shot up painfully. Where the hell did this girl get weed? And for that matter where did she get the opium to make the laudanum she had given him? Was she some kind of drug dealer before the shit hit the fan, and she just had her stash with her? He kind of doubted it. She didn't really look like the type for that profession, not that there was a type for dealers.

He realized she was staring at him inquisitively, and he remembered she had offered him weed. Though he had to admit it would take the edge off nicely, he didn't want anything clouding his judgment if things went south with her. He shook his head, "Naw. I'm fine. Thanks anyway."

She looked at him for another second before nodding and dropping her eyes back to her work. A few strands of hair had come loose from her braid and fell over her forehead, and she blew them away with annoyance. When that failed to move the errant strands she ran her long fingers up through her hair and pushed them back.

The movement made the breath suddenly catch in Daryl's chest and his eyes squinted in spite of the fact that they were barely open in the first place. Somehow her fingers running through her auburn hair triggered the memory that had been dancing in the back of his mind for the last hour. This girl was a little taller, and a hell of a lot more grown up, but that was what happened in ten years. Kids grew up, and old folks died. The round chipmunk cheeks and been replaced by concave shadows, but those eyes were the same. There wasn't fear on the outside like it had been ten years ago, but it was still there, lurking in the deepest recesses.

It all made sense now. Why she had saved him, and why she looked and sounded so familiar. His mouth opened, and the word came out before he had the chance to think it over, "Squirrel."

Thanks for reading!