He ignores Rick and Abraham.
Well, he does his damnedest. Even Rosita and Eugene seem ambiguous in this back-and-forth, neither seeming too keen on splitting up, or a long, hard winter. The prison group, they wait. They wait for Rick, and his decision, for the most part.
Not Daryl. He's been too busy ignorin' them and searching high and low for atlases and maps. Flipping quickly through books on Georgia landmarks, or local architecture, he feels like he hit the jackpot when he finds a topographical map. He figures whatever way Rick decides, Daryl's gonna be prepared for holing up for winter close by. Good to have a plan.
Especially when he notices Beth blowing breath into her hands much too frequently, plumes of steam coming from everyone's mouths. He thinks about how bad it's gonna be when it starts to spit snow here and there. Thinks about all the cold weather gear they're going to need, how much of it will be easy to find. While they were in the prison, a lot of the world was getting picked over by stragglers and survivors.
In the middle of the night, when he's on watch, he finds it the hardest. Sometimes, he'll pace quiet through every room in whatever shelter they'd found, just looking over them all. Just being cautious, safe. When he thinks of Beth shivering, curled up against Sasha or back-to-back with Carl on the floor, trying to keep warm while the sun's down, he wishes hard for the prison. Everything was so much easier there. Starvation and hypothermia weren't the biggest concerns.
He tries to ignore those thoughts, too, because they didn't do anything for them now. Instead, he looked for forts, schools maybe, small prisons. If they had more people, he'd head them towards one of those gated communities he'd never have been allowed in Before Walkers. But, he thinks, those kinds of places were closer to cities, and cities meant people and death.
His eyes are aching from trying to see the tiny prints and marks in the dark, he thinks about walking the house. He tries to lean the map closer to the fire, trying to make out what that symbol meant while the flames and shadows made it damn near impossible.
Certainly didn't help when the paper got too close and started to smoulder and brown.
He throws the map to the side with a curse, patting his pockets in search of the last cigarette he had right now.
"What're you lookin' for?"
It makes him jump, her murmur from the door. He shrugs his shoulders to loosen them. "I dunno yet." He pulls his cigarette free, pulls a stick from the fire alive with flame, to light it. "What're you doin' up?"
"Couldn't sleep." She gives a careless shrug before coming down the uneven concrete stairs, stopping on the other side of the small fire. Crossing her arms. Looking away when she speaks. "You said to come to you with..."
He so clearly sees her age in her nerves right then, and it's enough to bring a small smile to his face. When he thinks of Beth, he thinks of her wild eyes when she was yelling back at him, before he made them fill with heavy tears. He thinks of her, chirping, Soon I won't need you at all or the way she'd smiled all over her face when she'd asked him what changed his mind. He hears her laugh when he picked her up and carried her into the kitchen. He doesn't remember this nervousness, this unsureness. He's not sure why it's so endearing.
He throws his hand out, telling her to go ahead and take a seat.