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So, they’d stumbled upon the man and the woman. Sheer blind luck. But that wasn’t right, nothing lucky about being found by this group. Must have been the other way round then, someone had gone and used up the last of their luck.
It was all making his stomach clench and he was already so gut-sick over Beth being gone that he knew he wasn’t going to be able to make this work out. Not at all. He’d had serious doubts about Joe and his sad posse being able to track their prey and he’d put the idea of it out of his mind. But here it was. Two of Joe's men, Daryl chose purposely not to know their names, had rushed back through the underbrush at them, making enough noise to alert every Walker this side of the Ochlockonee and the crossbow halfway up to certain death before he allowed himself to breathe and see who it was. Daryl had just tensed up, shoulders riding around his ears, goddamned stomach aching like it hadn’t since he’d been a boy. listening with a lowered head to them report the news of their findin's.
The day was nearly done, sun gone down over the spindly trees, the last of its light guttering out, and he decided he’d just fall behind and melt away into the shadows.
They weren’t going to let him get too far out of their sights, though, so he made a pretense out of ambling along the far edge of the group as though he were scouting point and when they snuck out from the cover of the woods, he was only several sideways steps away from seeing the poor unfortunate fucks who had done Joe wrong.
He could hear voices, Joe’s rising, the male timbre of rage, and then, another voice.
It was the end of the world and all the rules had been disemboweled. They were crafting new rules with blisters on their hands and blood spattered on their faces. So much of their humanity had been vomited up onto the shoulder of the road they were traveling together. And that was the key, the togetherness. As each day and week became a month and then a year, they were changing, evolving, de-evolving. As individuals, but more, as a group. Their individuality was defined by the whole. They were becoming something more than what they had been, something markedly different.
Family. But not in the old world sense of the word.
And he had spent long confusing moments considering it. Examining the fact of it, and he had decided that perhaps, maybe, if you squinted and looked at it both up close and from afar, it had merit and worth. Things that mattered still mattered, and the things that never should have mattered to begin with could no longer matter at all. Theirs was an existence of survival. But for what end? That was where the changes were being wrought, all of them had become as though flayed, their rib cages broken free of the hard breastbone and laid open so that their tender hearts were exposed. To one another. The organ itself and the lifeblood of emotion that kept it beating.
They were surviving for love. A human animalistic unbridled loyalty and love. Blood would always be thicker than water but the world was turning the blood in their veins into fidelity for their brethren, their chosen family, and it was singing in their ears.
And when he considered it like that, he could feel his heart swell with the emotion. The love he felt for his band, his tribe, his people, his family.
So he loved them. Fiercely. And it was overwhelming at times because it was a responsibility. But it was also tempering, as though it took the end of times to strip pretense off his bones and leave his skeleton to harden in the fire of love. His body had become a weapon. The blade that would slew any, living or dead, who threatened that which he held closest to himself. That which defined his life.
He felt as though he’d been boxed about the ears. His head ringing with pain and his body bending in agony. He took the long silent strides through the dark night until the small campfire lit his way. The sight of Rick with the cold muzzle of Joe’s gun pressed into his temple staggered him. It was the body blow he had been waiting for since he’d run out of tracks pointing him towards Beth. He went low, hands on his knees, and he dry heaved into the leaves.
And that was it; he couldn’t be any more empty. Everything was gone that was soft inside of him and it was time to offer the only thing he had left.
He stepped out onto the roadway.