"No. Don't give up hope just yet. It's the last thing to go.

When you have lost hope, you have lost everything.

And when you think all is lost, when all is dire and bleak, there is always hope."

Pittacus Lore, I Am Number Four

After I put the grenade inside the tank and made sure no one was shooting at me I ran to the courtyard, where I last saw Cecilia and Rick. I checked inside the overturned bus but found nothing, I even looked down at the bodies around and praying that I wouldn't find a blonde girl among them.

"Cecilia! Cecilia!" I shouted at the top of my lungs as I frantically searched for her.

I ran and searched everywhere until I saw a blonde girl running towards me, except that it wasn't the blonde I was looking for.

"Cecilia, have you seen Cecilia?" I asked Beth, who shook her head at me. I started to run but she grabbed my wrist, stopping me.

"No, we have to go, Daryl," she told me with sorrow. "I just came from there, I was looking for Judith. There's no one else in there."

"I have to find her, Beth!"

"I'm telling you, everyone left already and we have to go now!"

"No!"

Beth started to pull me with all her strength but she didn't get to move me even an inch from my spot. I looked in disbelief at the prison that was in flames and all the walkers close to us, some were feeding already. I couldn't just run and abandon Cecilia.

"Come on!" Beth yelled at me. "I promise Cecilia isn't there, no one is! Come on, please Daryl!"

Reluctantly, I allowed Beth to pull me away from the prison, I ran behind her as I looked back at the building and all around us, hoping to see the person I care the most about but we reached the woods and still didn't see anyone we know.

"Daryl! Daryl!" Beth shook me, interrupting my thoughts, my memories of what happened hours ago.

"What?" I snapped.

We were sitting by a small fire we made because the weather was really cold. I kept reliving those last moments at the prison, thinking that I shouldn't have left, I should have looked for Cecilia a bit longer, maybe I could have found her, why did I let Beth pull me away? I should have not allowed that.

"We should do something," she told me, I didn't look up at her, I just kept staring at the fire in front of me.

I had my knees bent and my elbows resting on them, I hadn't moved at all in maybe two hours, being a tracker teaches you to stay in a position for longer than anyone else, teaches you to be more patient too.
"You want to find Cici and I want to find Maggie, we aren't the only survivors. We can't be," she told me, actually believing what she was saying, she was sure more people escaped. "They are alive, they could be, you know? Rick, Michonne, they could be out here as well. Maggie and Glenn could have made it out of A block. They could've."

I wanted to yell at the naïve girl, make her stop because she had been like this for hours, being positive and having hope. I had hope until the sun came down, for some weird reason I didn't feel the need to look for Cecilia anymore because deep in my heart I knew she was gone and if she was gone, what else do I have left? Nothing. No one.

"You're a tracker," Beth exclaimed, she kept talking but I heard her voice distantly. I really wanted to just shut her up but my body felt so heavy I couldn't even bring myself to tell her to keep her mouth shut. "You can track. Come on! The sun will be up soon, if we head out now, we can... Fine. If you won't track, I will."

If this would be another kind of situation and if I wouldn't be so damn depressed I would have laughed so hard at her. She wouldn't be able to track even if the tracks were right in front of her with a sign in front of them, it just wasn't part of her.

Getting sick of me and my attitude, Beth stood up, grabbed a knife and walked away from my sight, going into the woods. Knowing I couldn't let her go on her own, even when I wanted to, I slowly stood up, stepped over the fire to kill it, grabbed my crossbow and went after her.

I was so numb I just followed while she tried her hardest to find anything that could prove someone else was alive, if she found them, good, if she didn't... well that's life now.

Hours and hours passed, it was daytime already. Beth just kept walking several steps ahead of me while I just followed her, I kept looking at the ground, a part of me wanted to find something but I didn't allow myself to get my hopes up because I would end up disappointed and even more heartbroken.

Beth kept telling me to be positive while I kept ignoring her, I hadn't said more than a few words since we ran away from the chaos the Governor made. What would I say? I couldn't be bothered with Beth and her positive attitude, why couldn't she just accept the truth?

As we kept walking deeper into the woods, I did find some footprints on the wet ground, I knelt in front of them, moved the leaves to the side and revealed some small footprints. Beth approached me quickly.

"Could be Luke's or Molly's," she muttered happily. "Whoever they are, it means they're alive."
"No," I said without any kind of emotion, my voice was husky and hoarse from lack of use. "This means they were alive four or five hours ago."
"They're alive," Beth stated, obviously getting sick of my shit. Well, I was sick of hers so we were even. "Why are you so negative? Yeah, Cecilia is missing but my sister is too and I witnessed how my father was killed and I still have hope!"

"Good for you," I snapped, standing up.

"I just don't get it. When Cecilia was taken you were sure she was alive, you didn't give up and when she went missing before I even met her, you gave everything to find her, why not now? What's so different about this time?" Beth shouted at me. "You love her, don't you? Then why don't yo...?"

"Don't ever even dare say I don't love her!" I shouted back. "Just don't! Don't even imply I don't love her enough. If I have ever loved someone it was her, so don't ever even insinuate I don't."

Beth didn't say anything else, she actually looked a bit scared from my outburst, she turned around and walked away from me once again and I had no option but to follow her, as she kept looking at more footprints. Not far from there I found something else, grapes on the floor, someone had stepped on them.

"They picked up the pace right here," I informed Beth, my tone had gone back to normal. "Got out in a hurry. Things went bad."
"Wouldn't kill you to have a little faith."
"Yeah, faith," I scoffed "Faith ain't done shit for us. Sure as hell didn't do nothing for your father."

I knew I shouldn't have said that but I couldn't take it back now and I wasn't going to apologize, I was upset and I had the right to be as upset as I wanted and Beth had to stand me.

My back was facing her, so I turned around and found her glaring at me. I knew she was trying hard not to say anything at me or even hit me, I could see in her eyes how bad she wanted to say something to me for the awful thing I just said. Instead, she turned around and plucked some grapes from the tree in front of her.

"They'll be hungry when we find them," Beth muttered to me.

Feeling bad about what I said, I slowly approached her as I took out a bandana from my pocket. I lightly tap her arm, offering the bandana to her. She ignored me the first time so I did it again. She turned to look at my hand this time and slowly took it from me, putting the grapes on it.

I started to walk away slowly to give Beth a chance to catch up with me. When I made sure she had finished getting more grapes, I accelerated my pace, this time it was me on the lead. Fortunately, Beth said no other word for maybe five minutes.

Then we came across two dead walkers, I approached a plant next to them because I saw blood, bright, red blood.

"That ain't walker blood," I told Beth.
"The trail keeps going," Beth said, refusing to let her hopes fall. "They fought them off."
"No," I said as I looked at the ground. "Got walker tracks all up and down here, at least a dozen of them."

I kept looking down at the tracks when I heard snarling and Beth slightly screamed in surprise. A walker was trying to get at her. I tried to shoot him but Beth was moving so much I could shoot her instead. I threw my crossbow at the ground and rushed to them, grabbing the walker by its shirt and pushing it to the ground, Beth quickly grabbed her knife that had fallen to the ground and stabbed it, I quickly pushed it away from me and stood up as I panted.

"Come on," I mumbled after I picked up my crossbow.

Being so upset at what happened, for almost losing the only person I had left. I stormed away from that place and only about a minute later I came across some railways, the snarling of walkers could be heard. And in fact there were three walkers some feet away from us, they hadn't seen us because they were feeding.

I felt such a huge rage when I saw them eating people I considered my friends, people I lived with for weeks, some even for months. I grabbed my crossbow and in less than a blink of an eye, I shot the first walker right in the middle of its head. I reloaded my crossbow quickly and shot the two other walkers, then before I let Beth said something, I ran to the scene and grabbed the three arrows.

I tried my hardest to not look at the remains but I couldn't help but see out of the corner of my eye, I knew them, I knew the people they were eating but I was so relieved the victims were all male, Cecilia wasn't here.

"See?" I yelled at Beth, who was stunned, looking at the scene. "This is why I don't have hope this time. They're all dead or they will be soon."

I started walking away from there but I was stopped dead in my tracks when I heard her crying. I turned to look at her but didn't do or say anything. I couldn't comfort her, it wasn't in me, the only person I could comfort was Cecilia and she was the only one that could comfort me.

Not knowing what else to do, I just turned around and started to walk away, we needed to keep going. We couldn't just break down because we found some of our own in the middle of the woods, we needed to move on and find shelter, some food and water and even other clothes, the temperatures were dropping and the days and nights were getting colder and colder.

For the rest of the day none of said a single word to the other, Beth kept breaking down from time to time, I could hear her as she walked behind me. Not once I turned to look at her, it wouldn't do any good, me looking at her wouldn't make her feel better.

Later, I stayed up all night long. I couldn't fall asleep even if I hadn't slept since we escaped the prison, every time I closed my eyes I saw Cecilia, sometimes good things sometimes bad things and I really didn't want to see her, so I refused to sleep, to even close my eyes for a long time. I had to stay up as long as I could.

I put my hand inside my pocket and felt the texture of the object that had felt so heavy even when it couldn't weigh more than a few grams. I had tried hard to ignore it but now that Beth was sleeping and I had nothing to distract me with, I grabbed it and took it out.

There in my hand, I had three pictures of Cecilia and I. I held them in my hands for a very long time before I finally dared to look at them. The light from the fire allowed me to see them a bit.

The first was of us, taken about a week after I proposed to her, she was hugging me from behind, her arms wrapped around my neck, the ring on her finger could be seen but now with this light I really couldn't see it but I knew it was there. Her smile was the one thing I found myself staring at for a very long time, her dimple slightly showing in the picture, but again, with this light, I could barely see the picture, much less little details like those.

The second was a selfie Cecilia wanted so bad to take. She begged me for hours to do a funny face but I still refused. I was serious in the picture while she had her tongue out and was winking her left eye. It was not until now that I really regretted not doing a stupid face, it would had been hilarious.

The third and final picture was the picture Rick took when we were sleeping, the very first picture of us together. It was my favourite and the one I always carry with me. I was glad I got the chance to get the other two and be able to see her again, to see her smile and to see her bright eyes full of life.

I felt my eyes getting watery but I wouldn't allow myself to cry, not yet, not now. I took deep breaths and put the pictures back in my pocket, not being able to look at them any longer, seeing her was too painful.

If Cecilia was in fact d... dead, I only hoped she didn't suffer, that she wasn't gutted alive, that if she died, she was shot and instantly killed. It was harsh to think like that but it was like she wanted, she said she would kill herself before allowing a walker to eat her alive.

As I looked at the fire in front of me I remembered when the farm was overrun and I believed she had died. It took me months to get over it, if I ever did. It took me months to stop grieving her, I thought about her every day and night even when we had just known each other for three months or so and during most of that time we weren't that friendly.

She wasn't even my friend back then, not until I found her in those woods and now she had become my fiancée, we had been together for around a year. The pain I felt back there when I thought I had lost her forever was nothing compared to what I'm feeling right now. I couldn't explain with words the magnitude of the pain and the worst of all was the uncertainty, not knowing what happened to her.

I wasn't sure why I was refusing to cry, I had learnt crying was acceptable, maybe I believed that whenever that first tear fell from my eyes I would be accepting she was gone because even when I was depressed and being so negative I still had a tiny hope deep inside of me.

A part of me didn't want to look for her because I was petrified of finding her half-eaten remains or her body as a walker. I could stand her death to some kind of extent but if I ever see her as a walker, I knew I would die that day.

Hearing her snarling instead of her sweet, soft voice and her melting laugh would kill me but the worst of all would be seeing her lovely icy blue eyes being replaced by the greyish colour of the walker's eyes.

After the farm incident, I had Carol everyday to painfully remind me what her eyes looked like, that's why I pushed everyone away and refused to look Carol in the eye. I didn't know back then how much I already loved that girl even when everyone else seemed to notice it.

"I miss you, damn it!" I exclaimed louder than I intended. Actually, I never intended to say that out loud. "Where the hell are you?"

I looked up at the night sky and even through the thick vegetation of the trees I could see a small portion of the night sky. A sad smile reached my lips as I remembered that night after I found her and we stayed up all night staring at the night sky. She was captivated by the amount of stars that could be seen and the beautiful moon.

I was still in a lot of pain because of the arrow that went through my torso and those two falls so she actually helped me walk outside and not even after we both sat on a bench she let go of me and we stayed even closer to keep ourselves warm and because we felt comfortable being like that, thing I never thought could happen.

Since I met her she made me go push all my limits and made me go beyond my comfort zone, she changed me to a better person. She made me stop being and feeling lonely and wanting to be, and showed me that I could be loved and accepted, not just by her but by everyone in the group, that I could actually do something good for someone else and be needed instead of being unwanted.

Hell, I even proposed to her, thing I didn't even dream of doing ever, not even after I started dating her. I always believed the person that would be closest to me would always be Merle and just him but I came to realize I was wrong.

"If you are alive," I muttered in a low tone as I kept looking at some of the stars in the dark sky. "Please give me a sign, tell me in some way that you are still alive."

I shifted a bit so I was lying on my back now instead of on my left side. I wrapped my arms around me in hopes to warm myself a bit more, my arms were completely bare and I didn't have any long-sleeve shirt at the moment.

I blinked and looked back at the sky and a few seconds later I saw a shooting star. My thin lips parted slightly in surprise as I sat up, still looking up. I blinked a few times and before I knew it, that first tear fell from my eye but it was from happiness, from hope. That was the sign I asked for only a minute or two ago.

I wiped my tears and took a deep breath to calm down, not wanting to wake Beth up and be seen like this. But soon the hope and happiness was replaced by skepticism, I was never a believer of anything.

"Give me just one more sign if she's indeed alive," I whispered. If I was given one sign I could be given the confirmation, right? Better to be sure than follow a fake hope only to be crushed.

By midday the next day Beth and I finally made a break and ate the grapes she saved for Molly and Luke, now we knew they were dead or at least one of them was. There was a small shoe that belonged to a kid next to the bodies we found the day before.

Unfortunately, that was all we had had in almost two days and honestly I just felt more hungry after eating those. I proposed to Beth that we should go out of the woods and look inside some houses or even shops for some food, since we hadn't found much food in these woods, not even animals to hunt, I hadn't seen a single squirrel.

Surprisingly, Beth hadn't said much today, the hope that was visible in her blue eyes had died out a bit, thing I didn't like that much because I was the negative one here, the two of us just couldn't give up, there had to be some kind of balance between the two of us.

As we walked through the woods I looked at Beth, I couldn't help but compare her to Cecilia. Both are young, around the same age, they both are blonde and have blue eyes. But Cecilia is taller and stronger, plus she has those adorable freckles on her cheeks and shoulders and around her collarbones.

And in personalities they couldn't be more different. Beth iss compassionate, sometimes way too much while Cecilia is a bit indifferent and even heartless with others. Beth is social and enjoys spending time with other people, Cecilia prefers to have some distance and it is hard to get to her. Beth cares so much about other people, not just her family or people close to her but about strangers too, Cecilia in a way is selfish in that sense, like with the Randall thing, she didn't give a damn about what was going to happen to him but she cares about her loved ones and would give her life for them. In a way that os good, that she doesn't care about other people because sometimes that can get you into trouble but that saddened me because I know she is like that for all the people she let in and eventually disappointed her and broke her heart.

Cecilia rarely gets scared and is a strong-willed person while Beth not so much. Beth can shoot, yes, but Cecilia has been doing it for years, even before this mess even started, she is beyond good and she isn't scared to pull the trigger, Beth has to convince herself before doing it.

Beth needs to be taken care of, she was the youngest kid and I suspect she was pampered and spoiled, she was the baby of the house, Cecilia only had herself to depend on and even until now she mostly only relies on herself. If she were here I wouldn't have to babysit her or keep an eye on her all the time like I feel I should do with Beth. Ever since we ended up together I feel like instead of being a team and take care of each other I have to watch Beth all the time because she's not made for this world, because I feel like if I fall asleep for a second or just don't pay attention to her, something is going to happen to her. With Cecilia, even when I worry about her, I know she can keep herself alive and I trust her to keep us both save.

As we were close to get out of the woods, three walkers came towards us. I raised my crossbow and killed the three of them with an arrow each, without any word towards Beth, I approached them and grabbed my arrows.

I knew Beth wished she could be with anyone else but me, I didn't need to ask her to know that and honestly I wished Cecilia were here with me instead of Beth.

A few minutes later of complete silence, I spotted a few houses, which only made me quickened my pace, feeling my empty stomach burning and growling.

I headed to the closest house and knocked on the door and waited for walkers to come but none did, still being carefully I kicked the door open and walked in with my crossbow in hand.

"Go to the kitchen, check for anything we can eat, I'll go upstairs," I told Beth.

I went up the stairs, two steps at a time. There were four rooms and all the doors were opened and this place seemed empty, there were no signs of walkers or even people.

I went to the master bedroom and went into the walk in closet. I quickly took of my shirt, threw it to the ground. I went through the father's clothes and quickly chose a long-sleeve brown shirt, which was a bit loose but it was good enough for now and I grabbed two more, this weather was going to get colder and colder. After that I put on my leather vest again and ran downstairs.

"What do we got?" I asked Beth as I walked into the kitchen.

"Not much," she said sadly. "Some crackers, a can of peas."

"Just that?" I disappointedly asked.

"Yeah."

I grabbed a packet of crackers and started to eat, Beth did the same, grabbing one packet as well, leaving us with only three more and the can of peas.

"We have to look in the other houses," I told her. "And you have to find some other clothes."

Beth was wearing a sleeveless shirt and she has frozen during the nights, the weather plus no eating made us both so cold.

After we finished eating, I looked through the cabinets and found a big garbage plastic bag, I put the rest of the food in there and walked out the door without saying anything to Beth but she eventually followed me.

We walked to the house next to the one we just left. In this one we found two walkers in the living room, I took care of one while Beth stabbed the second in its head, staining her shirt with blood in the process.

This time she went upstairs to find some clean and warmer clothes while I went to the kitchen, searching inside each counter and cabinet, we didn't have much lunch but there was more food in here than the last house.

I found a huge bag of chips, two cans of soup and one container of water, it was sealed so I opened it and took a big gulp of water. It felt so good to finally drink something that I wanted to drink more but I had to save some for Beth and we needed to ration for the following days, I had no idea how much longer we were going to be like this.

When Beth came down with a clean shirt and a warmer one in her hands, I offered her some water, she thanked me and drank some of it. I told her what I had found, I had already put it inside the bag and I didn't want to show her and lose time.

"I found this," Beth told me, showing me two bars of chocolate.

"We'll eat that tonight," I said after I had walked out of the house. "We need the calories."

The third house we went into was completely empty, no walkers and no food, nothing. Disappointed, we headed to the house in front of that one. As always we knocked on the door and once we made sure no walkers were inside the house we got in. This time both of us went to the kitchen and luckily this one had more stuff.

We found some cans of food, three small bags of chips and a bag of cereal. This could last us even more than a week so I was really happy with all the things we found in these four houses we had searched.

"I'll go upstairs," I told Beth.

"Why? We already have clothes for now."

"I might find something valuable," I said, shrugging. "Put the rest of the things inside the bag," I told her, handing her the black plastic bag. "I'll be right back."

With that I went up the stairs quickly. After checking it was safe I went to the closest room to the stairs. It was a young boy's, apparently. There was a small bed with a cover of dinosaurs, and there were a lot of little cars and stuff animals on a shelf. On the night stand I could see a picture of the family that once lived here. The parents, that couldn't be more than forty, two girls, the brunette one, like the father, was around fourteen, the blonde one was around ten and the father was carrying a small boy, he was probably four or five. They all had big smiles on their faces.

Sadly, I turned around and left the room and walked into one of the girls' room. This one was too pink for my liking and compared to the other room, too messy. There were clothes everywhere and the bed was undone, the other room was neat. I looked inside the drawers and found some cigarettes in the drawer of the girl's underwear, apparently this was the room of the oldest girl. I put the pack inside my pocket and left the room after checking the whole place.

Next to it was the master bedroom, which was neat as well. I looked everywhere for something useful, I had this feeling in my gut that I was going to find something in here. I found nothing in the mother's thing, except a vibrator and diet pills, like if I needed those.

I really hoped I was going to find something in the father's thing. I opened the drawer of his night table and found some sleeping pills, I kept those. I also found anti-depressants pills, apparently this family had some problems.

With a sigh I stood up and went to the walk in closet, which was really neat and arranged. I looked every little corner, leaving the drawer of the mother's underwear for last. I opened it, moved the stuff a bit and was surprised when I felt something hard in there. I grabbed it and realized it was a small gun, I smiled at my luck and there were two boxes of ammunition in the other drawer, where the bra's were. Probably this one was the thing I felt like I was going to find. Beth was out of ammunition by now and I was low on mine, we needed this.

I felt no need to look into the last room that apparently belonged to the blonde girl but a part of me didn't want to leave this house and wonder if I could have found something else, so I went there. The first thing I noticed was a picture of her from the newspaper hanging on the green painted wall, she was smiling and had a golden medal on her neck.

'Peters, from the USA Junior Squash Team won first place in the World Junior Championship in Italy.'

I looked around the room and saw several trophies and medals, most were from second or first place and only a small part were from a third place. This girl seemed like the perfect daughter. She also had prizes from Olympics in school, including Math related prizes.

On the other wall, which was painted white, I saw another picture of her, she was with a boy and apparently he was her teammate. They both were smiling with their racquets in hands and golden medals over their necks, the girl had two of them.

'Peters and Johnson win golden medal for USA in the Juniors Panams Games in doubles.'

There was a small article below the picture and for some reason I spent the time to read it, it was like something was pulling me to do it.

'Matthew Johnson (13) and Cecilia Peters (12)...', I stood up straight and took a deep breath when I read that name. Cecilia. I closed my eyes tightly for a second before crouching down again to read the rest. '... and Cecilia Peters beat the pair of Colombia, Ana Rodriguez and Luis Leon in the final, getting the gold. Peters also managed to beat Kayla Darren from Canada 3-2 in a tough game, (11-9, 10-12, 6-11, 11-8, 15-13) in the singles category to win the desired gold medal.'

The blonde girl of the picture was named Cecilia Peters, I bit my lip at the thought of my Cecilia. I sat on the made bed and wondered what Cecilia's room looked like when she was a little girl, like the one in the picture. She had always been messy or so she has told me, so her room wouldn't look like this. But she told me she had a nice house and good stuff, and her mother always kept the the whole house very neat and clean because Ed liked it that way and because when people visited they wouldn't assume anything bad was happening.

I looked at the night table and saw many gummies for athletes, the ones that give energy plus some chocolates. I found a small bag close to the bed and put all of that in the bag plus the gun and ammunition, I sighed and walked out of the room, closing the door in the process, when I did I saw the name 'Cecilia' on a wooden tag on the door. I looked away quickly and decided it was better to leave, I had taken long enough in that last room.

When I was on the middle of the stairs, something hit me, making me stop dead in my tracks. That was the sign I asked last night for, the confirmation of the sign I got. Hot tears filled my eyes as my knees just gave away and I plummeted to the ground; she was alive.

I took a deep breath as I decided to go up again, taking the wooden tag on the door with me as a reminder to not lose hope, to know that I got the two signs to know that she is alive.

My Cecilia is alive.

Hello guys! Now we know what's happening to Daryl. Hope you enjoyed the chapter and that you had a great Christmas and thanks for keep reading this story.

I always have such a hard time to write on Daryl's POV because he is such a complex character so I always try to capture him as best as I can.

QOTD: Do you have pets? What kind and how many? :P