It's been a while. Thanks for hanging in. xx Jody

Big clouds of black smoke billow in the air behind them, climbing the sky as they head the other direction. The heavy lifting of the morning behind him, Daryl walks a bit aimless through the new growth of the woods, letting her lead the way. "Feelin' better?"

"Mm,hm," her dimples deepen as her smile amiably spreads. "Feels good to walk. Feels good to feel the world's a little larger th'n that camp."

"Uh, huh." Squinting into the sun he bites off a hunk of dried squirrel meat, stringy and tough as he chews. "Meant what I said, you know," Daryl murmurs as he trails behind her. "You're workin' yourself too hard."

"Let's just, walk." Beth glances back to him over her shoulder. "No scoldin', no plannin'."

Daryl nods and grunts his assent. "Whatever you say. Lead th' way."

Beth cups her hands inside the cuffs of her thin long sleeves, tightens the straps of her small pack, and climbs. The air is heavy and loaded with the possibility of rain, but the sun still shines brightly on the leaves and foliage in the changing autumn air. The temperature is dropping, just. It's slow, gradual, like the summer heat's not ready to loosen her grip, but still there's a briskness underneath, catching up from the shadows. Winter is coming; one day it'll be on them, clinging, like summer never happened. She thinks they'll be prepared.

They walk, covering good ground. Beth, glad of some activity, does not mind the distance when there's no uncertainty in their ending destination. Having a bed, a camp, people to return to, makes the several miles they'll cover easy. Her legs, lean, and in want of use, carry her on at a steady pace, but she senses him several paces behind her, never quite catching up. When her path takes her to a young sapling grove, Beth pauses and drinks. Standing there, surrounded by the fluttering leaves of the saplings, Beth lowers her canteen from her mouth, her lips wet from the river water, and she looks at him. "… We're alone," the smile on her tanned face is quiet, and sly, traced with a stitch of purity. Her eyes watch his foot falls as his body moves him closer to her. "We could fool around."

Daryl's eyes, cool, and blue, and narrow, flit to her, and hold her there in his concentrated gaze, steady and relishing. He blinks, slowly, and contained in that moment there's the slightest bite of his tongue, charged with desire. "We could," he nods temperately, but then his long agile strides start up again over the forest ground. "Or you could get some miles on those legs an' get some exercise; 'll be good for you." He spits unceremoniously to his side and calls her with a deft dip of his head. "Walk the snare line; get some greens." In silence Beth wipes at her mouth with her sleeve, tightens the lid on her canteen, and resumes the journey. He's moving backwards in wait for her, only turning back round when again she passes him. Daryl's eyes are watchful as she does, as she eclipses his pace and moves ahead. He shakes his focus from her charming figure with a light shove at her back, pressing the butt of the bow against her where what weight her small frame carries so enticingly sits shifting below her yet unchanged waist; "Do sumin' useful, girl."

"'Soo worthless,'" she echoes back to him, not goaded by his benign critique.

"Nope—" Daryl's grunt is gruff and heavy with certainty. "Didn't say nuthin' close to that."

Pressing on as he'd directed, Beth smiles, knowing he cannot see it, and enjoying the steady sound of his light-footed steps behind her.

The grove behind them now she ducks beneath the low thick-growing branches of the Georgian maples and keeps her eyes active. Beth stills herself in place when behind her a soft whistle alerts her to slow. Frozen, she scans her surroundings, finds them clear, then slowly turns and meets his eyes.

With a jerk of his head he utters, "Come'ere," and beckons her closer. The bow, an extension of himself, points to the forest floor ahead of them. He doesn't mean it for a place to lie down; she knows that, so her eyes follow his point and never find his face. "Tell me what we're trackin'." He hands the crossbow to her and gives her a little directional push forward. "No good gettin' rusty."

Beth looks, her features newly focused on the ground ahead of her, her arms adjusting to the heft of the bow, lighter though than Daryl's taken Stryker. She surveys… staring keenly for some time… "The grass n' leaves aren't crushed; they're raised, or flattened. Very faint – you c'n only see it in places…" Gingerly she steps forward, peering closer to affirm her assessment. "… It's a snake."

Daryl leans forward on one leg, the whole of his body coming up close and warm behind her as he leans in to study her finding. He nods with definitive approval. "Good eye. But we ain't trackin' no mud snake. Take another look," he uses an arrow to point, "what else is there."

Undeterred, Beth looks, narrowing her eyes, treading lightly as if not disturbing the ground beneath her will help her to read the ground ahead of her. She shakes her head. "I don't know. Daryl, I can't track squirrels; don't know how I saw the snake."

"It's bigger than a squirrel. Look again."

Beth looks at him first, but he just motions her eyes back down and she follows, looking. "Oh," she pauses. "It is bigger." Her brow furrows. "That's not a walker though. It's too deep, an' small."

"Naw," he confirms. "Keep lookin'."

Beth leans in closer, then looks up pleased, "There're are two of 'em. Side by side."

"Uh,uh," he shakes his head with a smirk, "there ain't. There's one. So you know: ain't too many Georgian animals travelin' two-legged, not that size." The arrow in his hand points lightly this way and that, "This fella's on th' move." Daryl looks past her at the trail. "See something else?" he nudges. "Between the legs?"

She hadn't, it's too faint, but she sees it now, in places. "Pushing. Or, blowing."

"Right. Now think."

It comes to her before she names it, and the light in her face tells him she's got it. "It's a pig. A wild boar or something."

Gratified, Daryl twirls the arrow between his fingers, "Feel like some bacon?"

The shadows stretch and loom long as Daryl's hands cup at his mouth and he lifts some on the balls of his feet and calls, "Yo!" He, a worn out Beth and the slain hog wait at the riverbank for someone to appear to drop the bridge boards. All around them in the distance in each direction the fires still burn; the smoke pillars climb the sky, in dusty gusts of pestilence and rot. The air remains thick and unbroken, no rain yet, but loaded with the possibility of it. Daryl waits, shifting his weight with impatience. His whistle as they'd neared seems not to have been heard, there's no sign of anyone moving. "Bridge!" he barks, unable to quit pacing though he's been on his feet since break of day. No bridge comes, and seeing no one's coming, Daryl shakes off the crossbow and passes it over to Beth as he backs up for room to make the jump.

Weary and fading, Beth watches Daryl once across the bank pull the boards from the shrubs and drop them over the river crossing. He's winded from the effort it took to get the pig back to camp, but singularly driven by the work ahead — of butchering it quickly and getting it over heat and flame. Glancing over his shoulder as the planks thud into place, Daryl breathes and grunts. "Must still be workin' the pits." Not thrilled to be out so many pairs of hands when there's a slaughter this size to see done, his movements are quick and sharply efficient. On the clock since his knife severed the animal's arteries, Daryl loses no time crossing back to the outer bank, where, though more exposed, the circumstances of the weight and size of the beast, and the mess the butchering of it will spill, necessitate the work take place. Holding out his hand for it, his fast grip and steady forearm catch the bow as she bends her knees to toss it back to him. He lets her step past him over the river, but he can't let her linger there, can't let her rest like he'd thought she'd be able to; he'll need her hands, and still they'll be outnumbered by heft, and mass, and time. Like so many times before, Daryl finds them warring against the elements, against rot and flies and maggots. He'll be damned if he'll let this much effort, this much good meat go to waste by spoiling. Not with a group of nine to feed, not with so little game left in the woods, not with so much hunger lurking ever around them.

Pacing, heaving heavily, he eyes the hunted game splayed out in the weeds near the water's edge. "Can't get this done quick enough, jus' us." Daryl wipes his brow, smearing dirt and blood into his sweat as he does. "It'll be a mess. Bes' hope none of 'em assholes come an'…" He stops and scans the woods… no signs of walkers. "Havft'a build a fire out here—"

Daryl considers moving the slaughter site to one of the four pit fires. Their efforts in doing so would benefit them should they happen upon one still tended by their group. Meeting up would secure them the extra hands they need, and a fire already built and ready would save them time, and give them the heat and smoke they need to preserve and cook the bounty. Daryl again breaks into action, and Beth follows, gathering brush and branches for fuel. The further distance to drag the pig, not to mention the water that would carted, needed to clean the flesh, then more walking, in the dark, back to camp with the cuts — all argue against their leaving camp for any one of the distant burning pits. Every minute he's not working the day's efforts come closer to being for naught. It'd been hard work and heavy labor to get the pig back this far; had the hog been any larger they never would have been able to get it back at all. As it was, they'd already spent the better part of the day tracking the animal then herding it back round closer to camp, knowing the further out they killed it, the longer they'd have to drag it back, and the more likely they'd have to surrender it to walkers. The time to head to one of the four fires has passed; they have to make do here, and under the gun.

Daryl breaks off heavy branch after heavy branch, snaps them and drops them on the growing pile meant for the pig-roasting pyre. "We'll bring over the smoker. Get the cuts over heat; burn what's left. Won't be pretty."

All this she already knows; while mostly it's hares and squirrels and fowl they get, this is not Beth's first slaughter. What's more, she was raised on a working farm, and just like him has been living in a world infested by the rotting walking dead; she doesn't need his distracted preamble. Her stomach may be less dependable, but she hasn't lost her nerve. Beth shrugs off her load and removes her knife from her belt, then her canteens of water. She cuts down branches and shrubs, building the structure of the fire they'll light. Briskly Daryl drops the cut-and-run pack he'd carried with them all day, unsheathes his hunting knife, and drops to his knees. Resting the bow against a good-sized rock behind him he rinses his hands in the cold stream then takes up his knife. Handling it deftly he sets himself to the butchering before the animal starts to rot or spoil and all their work was done for nothing. "Hey," he calls behind him to her, "they let the fire die? Could use the embers."

Beth raises herself on her knees as her eyes move to the fire pit in camp. It is cold; no light or driftings of smoke emit from it. She looks to the hut where Michael lies; he needs to be checked on — but beside her Daryl's already hard at work under the time clock of food safety, and the ever-weakening light. "Beth—" Beth focuses, rummages through their things for the flint, and directly sets herself to starting a fire. Beth strikes at the flint, shooting off sparks with each crack, and blows on the catching tinder to strengthen the blaze.

The fire set and building, Beth lends her hands to the skinning. "Pull harder–" he grunts, spitting to the side. "There." The stretching-tearing makes a sort of wet stripping sound as from head to flank the hog is flayed. It goes slowly, the lack of light doesn't help, and fat they would've been better saving gets cut off with the skin. Knives flick and shave and saw; tough bristly skin is tugged and peeled. The fire licks and snaps.

The animal mostly skinned, Beth feeds the gristle and the flesh to the crackling flames. Daryl saws and cuts, wielding the lethal blade with deftness as the darkness falls. Preciseness here is paramount, not to cut too deep. If the innards are nicked, or the intestines break, the meat will be lost. It's vital, and the light is bad. They spill out, ugly and wrinkled, grey and pink. They can't be brought to the fire, not without the threat of tearing open, not without even more mess. Beth cuts off some pieces for fish bait for the traps then picks out some larger branches that have caught fire and set them atop the pile of guts to burn, and keep out of the river.

The smell would be bad if the air weren't already filled with the smoke from walker pits. The stomach and intestines burn, and Daryl gets to carving. As he does, Beth sets the cuts in the reassembled smoker and over fire. "Salt– Beth, where is it?" Heavy as she's moving now, slowed by weariness and sickness, Beth scrambles to fetch what is needed, to be the hands needed and to provide the light necessary to keep the cuts and the meat clean. She pulls the salt from her pack and hands it over. Once she steps away to be sick. Daryl keeps up with the butchering, coating some cuts with salt for drying, setting others aside for roasting and frying, and others still for smoking. His hands are diligent and agile and his breath comes somewhat labored under the focused hurried exertion. Fueled by the memory of so many nights and days spent hungry, Beth returns to the work, waxen and flushed though she is. The work is necessary, and it bears her forward; the greenness always passes, the hunger never does unless they work.

"S'a'lright," he grunts, as he catches her slowing. "Eat sum'in; take a rest."

"Can't eat."

"Sit then. Stoke the fire."

Beth breaks off more branches and fuels the fire so that it reaches and spits. The smoke climbs, though invisible now in the dark. She sets in the embers the small aluminum pot from Daryl's pack, filled with water, ham, a pinch of salt, and a fistful of the greens they'd collected during the day's walk. She sets it to simmer and her eyes grow heavy from the watching. Her purposes slacken, and in the stillness her inactivity makes way for, unconsciously she slips into sleep.

The air is savory with crackling salted pork when he nudges her, his warm breath close to her ears, "Green." Beth stirs then startles. Her eyes flash open and readily she jerks herself up. Daryl's face is streaked with blood and sweat and dirt, as hers is also though she cannot see it. His soft eyes crease as he looks at her while she wakes. "You're al'right."

Beth looks to the still uncut haunch muscle, the roasting carcass, to the burnt innards, the singed and smoking meat, and at him, then to camp. It's dark. "They're not back?" Daryl shakes his head. "You checked on Michael? Did he call?"

"Naw." Daryl holds out his hand to her, "Com'on. Take a break; eat sumin'." He lifts her to her feet, takes up her pack and his, the crossbow, and crosses with her into camp. He drops the gear and re-crosses to the far bank for the pot of broth and the strips of pork sizzling on branches, and bends at the river's edge where the morning's dishes were left to dry and takes up three bowls. Making do in the dark Daryl pours the broth into the bowls for her.

"I can't find any water bottles. There aren't any here."

"There's one in my pack."

"But—" Daryl fishes his out, presses it into her hand and takes from her a bowl of warm broth and swallows it without attention to the temperature. With bottle of water in hand and a dish of broth she crosses to Michael's hut, unhappy he's been left alone so long, regretting the agony he must be suffering. Though she'd called his name once as she'd tended to the fire he hadn't answered, so she approaches quietly, not wanting to disturb what little rest he manages to get through the pain.

She ducks in, into the darkness. The hut is a tangle of bedding and unrest, but there's no Michael lying there. With water and soup still in hand Beth moves directly to the boys' other two huts— "He's not here."

"Huh?" Daryl grunts through a jawful of meat. "What'd'y say?"

Beth steps closer, intent. "He's not here. Michael's not here." Daryl looks up, his mouth full. "He wouldn't leave," she asserts flatly.

Daryl stops, straightens some from his crouch, breathes, wipes his brow, and opens his mouth to answer. Before sound emerges another sound interjects itself – the heavy rasping snarling of walking rotters – Daryl sets aside the meal in his hands and takes up the nocked and loaded crossbow. In one movement he turns, aims, and fires, shooting the walker maybe twenty yards off. When his quick eyes are certain there's no more in his company he just as quickly turns back, drops the weapon and pulls out his knife with an effortless flip of the handle. Ready. He looks around, all is still. "Mikey!" he calls through cupped hands. No answer, he isn't near. Daryl re-sheathes his knife. "Smoke prob'ly got t' be too much."

"But he can't walk."

Daryl takes up his meal again and looks at her through a squint, "You forget? Your old man was up and walkin' pretty much as soon as he was awake."

"There're no crutches here."

"Beth," he exhales, "we been carrying walkers all mornin'. They could carry Michael if they wanted."

"No one said they'd all be leaving camp."

"Plan was to burn the bodies, an' keep the fires from spreading. If the wind picked up, they could'a needed all hands, or the smoke got too thick in camp, or they just didn't want to leave him on his own." Daryl wolfs down what's left in his bowl then drops it by the riverbank. "Sit tight," he gestures with the bow, "gotta get back; check the heat, finish up."

Daryl crosses back to the butcher site and Beth turns back to camp, studying it with brow knit. She watches Daryl, his silhouette enlarged by the flames behind him. Sipping the broth she watches him work at the final slab of meat. It doesn't take her long to cross back to his side, it's not a job easily done with two hands. She carries to him a bunch of smoking brush to keep off the swarming flies and bugs. They work, silent, all light but that from the fire long diminished into darkness. They transfer meat to the fire, catch grease with folded foil as fat drips while the pork cooks. They adjust the heat directed into their smoker and turn the thin slices as they sizzle in the pan. No movement comes from the woods; no one advances toward camp.

Beth's eyes reach his. "We should look, don't you think?"

Daryl looks up, he wipes his brow. He scans the sky, his expression crossed and creased. He looks at her. He breathes. The black smoke from the pit fires still haunts the air, so still they must be burning, but with this much time, she's right, the others should be back. He looks at her, his shoulders heavily burdened; while time slips past Daryl weighs things in his mind. "Naw," his head shakes stiffly. "Fires – burnin' all day like they was – likely drew in walkers; if they did, this is the safest place t' be." He cleans his knife, and tosses a piece of scrap onto the fire. "They maybe had t' take a long way back." He glances at her, unsteady. "They're trav'lin' slow with Mike's leg like it is." Beth nods, these things could all be so. Their not being here doesn't have to mean they ran into trouble with walkers. Doesn't have to mean they've been overrun.

Staring into the fire Daryl speaks up, his voice gnarled with tension, "If they ran into walkers, they might'a got pushed back. Could'a had to run, might be circling back some distance." Beth looks at him, she nods again half-heartedly. "They didn't get overrun." He snaps a twig. "They c'n handle themselves."

Beth rises, "We should look. Daryl, we should go look."

His words are leaden. "They'll make it back." His eyes narrow back on the embers and Beth crosses the boards and reenters camp. In the shadows he's left grimacing and cleaning.

"Daryl–" her voice is static with caution "–was this you?"

"Huh?"

Beth's eyes are trained on the ground before her. The night is bleak, but still in the darkness she can make it out: the cellar pantries, they're laid open, empty and cleared out, but fast.

Neither she nor he had lingered in camp long enough to catch it before, too distracted by their kill, by their tasks. But there they are, empty and left gaping. "Beth?"

She's stark and shaken when she speaks. "They're gone."

Daryl's on his feet and beside her instantly. At their feet floorboards lie thrown aside as they never are. The oils, the seasonings, the staples and preserves they've labored to amass are gone. Had Beth and Daryl not had their go-bags with them, had they not carried with them salt, flint and a pot, they might have discovered this upset so much sooner.

Single-mindedly they tear through the brush, to the armory holds and hidden supplies. It's all gone, the weapons, all: the machetes, the couple guns and small cache of rounds, the knives, the flares and the fireworks, all of it. Gone.

"They–" Beth stumbles over her shock, "they wouldn't have taken it all out on runs…"

"No."

"They didn't take Michael because of the smoke."

"No." Daryl's hand flexes over his knife handle. "That's not what this is."

Spurred to action and frantic, Beth searches the camp. Returning to the huts more thorough, she sees what she should have when first she'd looked for Michael and not found him. It's not just the pantries and arsenals that have been cleared; the huts have been raided. She'd attributed the disarray to Michael's restlessness, and hadn't looked any further into the other huts beyond finding he was not there. She finds the go-bags are gone, same with a lot of the bedding. But not everything. Not the trinkets, not the personal tokens and collected small possessions of each of them. Those things remain, but their owners, they're gone.

"Daryl—" Beth's voice waivers. The sense of safety, of home in this place, disintegrates around her. Daryl brushes past her in action, no longer in denial, no longer looking past the obvious. The time for action is upon them – has been upon them – and he's springing to it. Beth's eyes follow after him, but she doesn't move. "They wouldn't—"

Daryl waives her off with the quick flex of his hand as he tries to work this out— Did they have to run? What from? Is there anything out there, in the darkness? Is the camp secure? Are they surrounded or abandoned?

Gravely they turn their eyes again on the camp – the camp they've sat in and waited in all night, seeing now what they should have noticed long before. Everything's changed: this is not the home they've lived in for close to three months. The place they stand in now is empty, and desolate.

"Wouldn't leave…" she whispers, ignoring his signal for silence. "They wouldn't just leave." In this void she is rendered so small, insistent in her will to make true what she speaks, to make herself believe what sounds she makes. "They wouldn't just leave."

Daryl shoulders the crossbow. "They would," he says definitively, "if there was a herd, if there was another group." He leans in behind her and palms one of James' books, jamming it into his back pocket, then breaks away back into action, keenly eyeing the woods around them, trying to put it together. "Simon said as much the first night. Sign of trouble, they evacuate. Someone wants the camp, they give it over."

"But," Beth blinks, handling her hilted knife, unsteady where her feet hold her to the ground, "no one's here. No one's taken the camp. …" She looks around. "No herd came through here." Beth looks to him for confirmation, but she already knows this is true.

Miserable, Daryl's head shakes imperceptibly, his voice breaks. "No."

In the eerie silence broken only but the ever-running creek and the repeated cry of a mockingbird, the shadows of their missing comrades seem to loom and haunt. Where are they? What has happened?

"…They could be coming back…" She doesn't like the look she gets.

Beth pulls the flashlight from her bag. They scour the camp, looking for tracks, looking for signs of a struggle, looking for anything that will leave some trace of a clue as to what happened, what drove those seven jostling resilient boys from camp. But there is little to find. Personal items, some clothes, some blankets, cooking gear, all still there. Weapons, gone. Packs, gone. Food, gone. Group, gone.

"Daryl—" Beth chokes. He's by her side in an instant, looking at what she's uncovered beneath her own pillow, where it's never been before. John's Glock pistol, the only weapon left behind aside from the quiver of unfinished arrows. Daryl glances from it to her uneasily, then pulls it out. This was not on oversight. John did not just happen to leave this behind when all other weapons were extracted. This and it's half-full magazine was left for them. Its wordless message echoes in that small space: arm yourself.

"Uh, uh," he shakes his head, backing out, leaving Beth behind staring at the bed. "We gotta go. — Beth," he presses. "Get movin'."

He sweeps the grounds with the light. The ground is rifled with footprints, as it always is; there's no way to make out alien footprints from those that ought to be there. Beth's chest and throat constrict as her face grows hot and flushed. Panic sets in; breathing stiffens— "Daryl?"

Daryl signals for her to stay where she is and with flashlight and crossbow he leaps to the other bank and looks, for tracks, for clues. Nothing. If there'd been anything they'd already trampled over it. There's the pig and the fire, not much else. Wordless he crosses back to camp and scrambles down the face of the ledge. Shining the light this way and that, he searches. There are footprints, but the riverbank is mostly stones, and all of camp walks the embankment each day. It's too dark, too overlapped to make out any definite trail. He flashes the light across the river—

"—Daryl." Above him Beth's voice is quiet and grave. At once his head lifts towards her, abandoning the study of the prints at his feet, then he leverages himself to climb back up to her. Her face is ashen white, and Daryl's trained eyes follow hers. In the dirt, between the huts, where her gaze is focused, is a small splatter of blood.

He looks, and he winces. It isn't walker blood. Even in the dark he can see that. As if in physical pain he cringes, and then he moves to action. He's back in the huts, grabbing from them what little gear and goods remain in camp. Crossing once more back to the pig, Daryl hastily snatches up what meat can be transported, then crosses back and sinks the bridge boards in the river with a kick. Their two daypacks in hand, Daryl stuffs them with supplies: clothes, blankets, tools. He throws canteens to fill at Beth but she only stands there. "Fill 'em, Beth," he commands her sternly as he moves quickly through their borders, making split-second calls on what to leave and what to keep. "Com'on, g't goin'," he urges her, not cutting, but urgent all the same. "Can't stay here. Beth—" The sound of her name repeated breaks her into action, and she fills their three canteens and a fourth she's able to find. This is a thing she can do. In the face of this breakdown of their world, in this way she can act. Getting water — she can see this little bit through until things clarify. Across from her Daryl's already shouldering his pack and weighing the weight of Beth's before he hands it to her. "Com'on." Beth doesn't stir. "Beth," he says, gesturing at her with her pack. "Can't stay here."

Beth's eyes focus strangely on the packs "… We're going after them, right? We'll track them; catch up, find them?"

"Dunno." His breaths are quick and single-minded, "Tracks 'r weak." He holds the pack out to her once more, and his voice drops with defeat, "Com'on. It's time."

"We don't have to leave— We go after them, bring them back—"

Daryl shakes his head. "We do. This is what leavin' looks like." It kills him to say it. "They ain't comin' back."

"They could. Whatever this is, whatever made them leave, they could come back. That's the plan — if something happens, leave for a day; leave the camp behind and come back to what's left. They can come back."

"Baby—" Daryl mutters, visibly upset, "that ain't what's happ'ning."

Beth's eyes search his expression for something she can hold onto, "You don't know that for certain."

"The blood," he levels at her feet. "Jo Jo's gun. There're footprints, Beth. Lots of 'em. Not ours, not theirs. On the far bank. Somebody came."

Beth doesn't bother with asking who; she knows there's no answer to be given. The asking would be a reflex from another time. Her body knows she should be in full action by now, but moving makes this one more home she's leaving, one more group lost. It's building in her like a storm.

"Rounds fired las' night could've brought groups in." He looks away, anxious to be gone. "If they was anyone good, they would've waited. If our people left 'cuz they'd wanted to, they would've packed their shit, left word. They was taken, forced off." Daryl swallows grimly. "Com'on, put this on," he extends the pack to her once more, "we gotta move. Can't stay here."

"We can track them, we can find them." Daryl checks the crossbow. "Daryl—"

"We're gonna try. Listen, there weren't no struggle, not from any sign in the camp, which means whoever this is they had numbers, and they had firepower. Couldn't be anything else. They didn't let them wait for us. We got one crossbow, couple knives, a revolver with two rounds and a pistol with eight. You saw the blood."

Beth shoulders the pack he's been pushing at her, and handles the pistol. "Which way?"

Daryl eyes her, the camp, raises the bow, and jerks his head to the lower bank. Beth follows him and they scale the ledge to where Daryl spotted the tracks. He shines the light and two pairs of eyes scan. Then Daryl catches it. He signals wordlessly, and they step into the creek, the icy water flooding their shoes and biting at their skin.

They cross the water, fighting the current, and Daryl leads them into the woods. The pace they keep is driven but calculated. Her whisper travels with them over the crunch of leaves and stones underfoot. "How far behind are we?"

"Hours. Five; could be more." He crouches some as walks, covering ground with speed and close study. "There," he points. "See, there's a lot of 'em. Could be fifteen." His eyes catch hers and his lip worries. "Can't take you into that."

Beth's severity battles his instinct to protect her. "We can't not go. An' you can't do this on your own. They're not gonna be expectin' us. We can take them in an ambush. We can set walkers against them. You were right not to go after our weapons before, but this is people. The baby's not an excuse." She blinks. "It may not come to gun fire."

Daryl's head shakes gruffly, pulling them back on course. "If they got taken, then they got muscle, an' artillery. Not for nothin', but our boys ain't battle tested; not with the living. The people we're trackin' 've got whatever they came in with and all we had in camp." He steps carefully. "We don't got the ammo or the numbers."

"The boys will help." She looks at him, "We can get this done."

It's madness to follow. They're under-armed, outpaced, following what kind of people they don't know, when it'd be safer to turn the other direction and run. They've left their camp, lost their group, and in the chaos there's Beth Greene, whom he's most beholden to protect, pushing for a fight. He thinks, as they scramble and run, keeping coverage under the branches, behind the foliage, of the secret she carries inside her; he doesn't want to risk her in a battle. He'd run with her in the opposite direction if he could, but that's not who they are. That won't keep them going.

They run. Beth stretches her legs to keep up. They follow the trail, veering away and back from the river. The tracks are cold, hours old by now, cut over by walkers and squirrels and field mice. Daryl and Beth move quickly in the dark, assisted by the night vision goggles Beth had carried in her pack all day. They keep up their stride, knowing they're hours behind. They'd wasted time. Too much time.

Early on they passed one of the fires. It was dying, but it still burned. There was nothing there, but burning flesh. A few times they run into walkers. They kill, and they run. They do not use the guns. Hours pass, and they barely stop to rest. A rustling follows them. Together they turn in formation and ready. The first walker breaks through and Daryl releases the trigger and shoots. He retrieves the arrow under Beth's coverage, who takes another down with her knife. Daryl pivots and strikes hard at a third, forcing the reclaimed arrow in at the temple then kicks it away. Beth, off balance some from her pack, pushes one back from her, then shoves it once more as it lurches forward again; swiping her knife at it it stumbles and she kicks it down, expunging it with a forceful stomp. Behind her with a driving thwack, Daryl drives the butt of his crossbow into two more then fires into the last. The night is still again, save for their breaths. Wordlessly they check in, then regroup and resume.

Daryl re-grips his bow and trudges on. "Count your rounds. Ammo's low; hold fire till you got a clear shot."

"I know."

He knows she does, but he doesn't stop. "You take a shot, take cover somewhere else. Don't be where they know you are." Beth nods. She knows this. Their speed quickens. "If things go wrong, you run. Not to camp. We get separated, run north; tallest tree. Stay there. Give it an hour, then run. Keep off the highway, find—"

"Daryl—" she cuts him off. "We're not there."

He huffs and nods, and ducks under a low branch. He glances back, his sharp eyes hold her steady, and then he doubles his pace. "Keep up."

They journey on.

Up ahead in their path claws a snarling gnawing broken figure. A walker, crumpled over on itself. Beth moves in to strike it down with her knife, but when doing so she stumbles backward. Distraught and heaving, she retches like she's going to be sick. Daryl steps in; pushing her back, he raises his blade evenly in a forceful drive – then he sees it. His striking hand wavers. There's a shudder, then contact. The blow is forceful and solid, meeting blunt resistance. Then he too stumbles back, surrendering his knife. Daryl's face creases and shadows with disgust. And pain.