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Out of the smoke and the chaos, Daryl saw a running figure. It was Beth, holding a rifle. "I was trying to find the kids, to get them on the bus!"
It was too late for the kids. It was too late for everyone. Daryl would have preferred to leave alone, nothing weighing him down or holding him back or reminding him of the dream that almost happened, but … he couldn't leave Beth on her own. She couldn't manage alone. "We got to go, Beth. We got to go."
To her credit, she didn't stop to argue. She could see it had all gone to hell just as well as he had, and she ran with him.
They ran through the forests, familiar places to Daryl after all the time he'd spent hunting—but the familiarity also meant he knew how played out everywhere around them was. Nowhere to go, not if they wanted to find food or any usable supplies. Between Woodbury and the prison, they'd cleared everything out in a pretty fair radius.
The walkers they ran past mostly ignored them. Rich pickings at the prison right now, all of them headed that way. Maybe some were after other survivors, but Daryl didn't stop to scout or look for familiar tracks. It would hurt too much when he didn't find them.
Reaching a clearing, they slowed just enough for a few of the walkers to catch up to them. Beth's pistol was out of bullets, but the crossbow still worked. Daryl made sure he grabbed the used bolt out of the walker's head. Who knew when they'd have time, or a place, to stop and make more arrows.
In the middle of a field, they both fell, unable to run any farther. As he lay there, looking up at the sky, beautiful and blue with fluffy white clouds, Daryl couldn't count the vultures circling above his head. And he started to cry, knowing what the birds were seeing.
Beth, next to him, was sniffling as well, holding her tears in as quietly as she could. A better man would have reached for her, tried to comfort her … but what was the point? She'd just seen her daddy brutally murdered right before her eyes, seen the only home she had taken over by the dead, and they were nowhere, with nothing. Anything he might have said would be a waste.
It came to Daryl, lying there, crying, trying not to see the faces or think the names of the people he'd been stupid enough to let himself love, that maybe he could just stay here, lying in this field, looking up at the sky, and let that be the last of him. Just … let the walkers come for him. Let dehydration or starvation or those damned vultures end it all. No more exhaustion, no more scrounging, no more world of dead people.
And then Beth made a new noise, a small whistling snore. She was asleep here in the muddy field. She was just a girl, little more than a kid. She didn't deserve any of what had happened to her—not the dead, not the running, not the loss, none of it. What she deserved was another chance at a real life.
So he pushed himself to his feet and started moving in circles, ever wider, keeping Beth's small sleeping figure in sight, collecting wood. When he had an armful, he woke her, gently, and they moved toward the trees, building a fire as night began to fall.
They sat over it, Beth watching the flames and Daryl looking out into the darkness, alert to whatever might be coming at them.
"We should do something," she said softly. She lifted her head to look at him, waiting for a response. When she didn't get one, she said it again, louder this time.
Daryl looked up at her, but he didn't say anything, hoping she'd let it go.
She didn't. "We aren't the only survivors. We can't be. Rick, Michonne … they could be out here. Maggie and Glenn could have made it out of A block. They could've."
He wanted her to stop. He didn't want to hear those names, or feel any spark of hope. They were dead. All of them. Dead and gone, the only thing left of them probably walking by now.
Deliberately, Daryl looked into the fire. Let something come out of the dark that he didn't see. Maybe that would be better.
Beth got to her feet. "You're a tracker. You can track. Come on! The sun'll be up soon. If we head out now, we can—" He didn't move, and she stared at him, angry and disappointed. "Fine! If you won't track, I will."
She dug her knife out of the ground and stalked off into the dark. Part of Daryl, the part that couldn't accept any of this and wanted to have died with the others, would have let her go, let her find whatever waited for her out there.
But the other part of him heard Carol's voice telling him to get off his ass and go after the girl, to protect what was left. So he did what she told him, and got to his feet, kicking dirt into the flames out of long habit until the fire was out, and he picked up the crossbow and followed Beth into the darkness.