A/N: so, this is the last chapter for this story, takes place during the Season #2 finale (that was probably one of my most favorite episodes). Thanks to all who read this and enjoyed, and a big thanks to all those that reviewed. Happy that you paid attention to my first "Walking Dead" story, I'll be working on more. A few one-shots, and then soon the story I mentioned in the last chapter, "Rain".

"Daryl?"

The voice was just a little breeze in the back of his head, drowned out by the roaring hum of the bike's engine. It was concerned, tired, weary… all the things Dale had been only a few days ago, and it made him grit his teeth and death-grip the handle bars.

"Daryl?"

The voice, a little louder this time, is determined to get his attention. Horvath never could lay off, could he? He was basically the father of the group, their friggin' Gandalf or somethin' (stupid Lord of the Rings shit). Dale had attempted from the very beginning to keep the group alive and when he'd thought it was breaking, Daryl had gone and done the most stupid thing he could think of: he'd gone ahead and promised that man that he'd keep the group alive. Him alive.

"Daryl?"

The voice was edgier now, and only it's raised tone and lack of masculinity reminded him that this wasn't Dale talking. These skinny arms wrapped around his waist, the shivering body pressed against his back as the person rode with him on the back of the bike, weren't Dale's. Couldn't be. Because Dale was dead.

"Daryl!"

The whisper-turned-shout was finally enough to get him to pull over to the side of the muddy dirt road he'd been taking, struggling to find a way to the highway. His brain didn't want him to stop, because if he stopped all the recent events would catch up to him.

But the voice was so desperate, and his own arms and back were screaming for mercy, so he cut the engine and gingerly slid off the bike, untangling those skinny arms from around him. He winced as he realized just how sore he was from navigating and riding from before midnight 'till dawn. Reopening his eyes, he looked over the ragged, lean, exhausted figure trying to get off the back seat without falling.

Oh yeah, that was right. He was with Carol.

He helped her down, slipping into his new habit of not making eye contact, because she had the same wide, blue eyes of her little girl. Worried. Scared.

Dale too had had that same look before Daryl had put a bullet in his head. And Rick, when Daryl had managed to catch a quick glimpse of him near the burning barn.

Rick was probably dead now. If the walkers hadn't killed him, Shane must've. That whole Randal stuff was bullshit; and Daryl hadn't seen it for what it was until it was too late. Shane had lured Rick Grimes into the woods alone, to kill him, and Daryl had watched… watched… them walk away. And he was once again completely alone.

"I'm sorry for making you stop," a feminine voice interrupted. "I just… I just needed a small break."

Right. Carol. How could he keep forgetting her? Maybe because he was trying to. It reminded him too much of Sophia, of his failure to protect, failure to be the 'decent man' Dale had said he could be. She looked at him with a dark, steady gaze that swirled with shy worry and a fresh gleam of steel that seemed to look right through him. He turned away, stared at the ground, tried not to look at the blood all over his boots. Could any of that blood be from his companions rather than walkers? Rick's even?

Damn. Don't even think it. The man is DEAD. Father ya move on, the better. Why was he lingering on this death and destruction longer than all the other's he'd lost in his life? It was a question he couldn't seem to answer, and that unnerved him. He tore his mind away forcefully, and glanced briefly back up at Carol. "It's fine," he murmured. "Probably jus' burnin' rubber anyways."

She nodded, and frowned at the mist-covered road ahead. "How far away do you think the highway is? We have to be close, right?"

" 's not far. Probably take 'till mid-mornin', noon at the most. But we'll get there."

"And then what?" She stared at him, expecting him to be the new-Rick. Expecting him to lead them to safety. "Do we wait here to see if anyone else made it? Or do we keep going? Do we go south, or to the coast? What… what do we do?"

If anyone made it. He didn't dare to hope. "Le's just git ta the highway; we'll take it a step at a time."

"A-And if we get there, and no one comes?"

He chewed on his lower lip, kicked a stone near his feet. "Step at a time."

She got the silent message, his protests that he didn't want to think about that at the moment. Something in the woods behind them snapped and crashed, and they both jumped. Without a word, Daryl climbed back onto the bike, Carol repositioning herself just as quietly. The engine roared to life, and just as the three walkers stumbled onto the road, they took off.

Past a burnt out farm, similar to how Hershel's had been.

Past an intersection full of dead cars and undead people.

Past a bloody mess lying in the mud, with a rag doll in the middle of it.

And, nearly four hours later, almost right past the blazing, zig-zagging pair of taillights that rounded a corner to his right, out of sight just as quickly as they had been spotted. But he had spotted it, and suddenly Daryl's heart was racing just as fast as the wheels of the bike were turning. It could be them, his mind ran away. Could be Rick. Or Hershel. Could be all of 'em. The red lights of the vehicle kept disappearing around every bend, and no matter how fast he dared to go, he could not catch up to them. He could feel Carol whispering prayers; and it was funny how before he couldn't hear her shouts, but now he could hear every word of her murmured Our Father's. Once he had told her to forget all about that religious praying stuff; now he just grit his teeth and focused on catching up to the disappearing car. Because that could be the miracle he'd always thought of but never received.

But the bike wasn't fast enough, and it didn't help that because of the two thin wheels, he had to slow down over the worst pot holes and moguls. Soon, he couldn't see those lights for fifteen minutes straight, and Carol's prayers had faded away. No, no, shit, no. Another ten minutes passed, but no more red lights in the distance. There was a chance the car was heading towards the highway, same as them; but there were so many roads going in that direction, so many turns… there was no way to be sure of anything. He hadn't seen the car close enough to recognize it.

He put on the breaks when a fork appeared in the road; and of course this was where the concrete replaced dirt. No tracks to follow now. And the air was dry and cold. He couldn't track shit at this point.

He couldn't help it. He kept the bike on but released the handlebars and slammed the palms of his hands as hard as he could onto the dashboard, so violently that Carol released him from behind. "DAMN IT!"

"Can you tell which way they…"

"DAMN IT!" Ignoring her, he leaned forward, sucked in deep, wild breaths, and tried to convince himself it didn't matter, he didn't care. He'd been – sort of – on his own before, hell, Merle had raised him, and half the time he was either locked up or high. But the mantra I don't care wasn't working this time. His chest tightened, and all he could see was the burning barn on Hershel's farm; Randal's bloodied, tortured face; Sophia, blue eyes gray and lifeless, pale skin mottled and torn. He regripped the handlebars to the point where his knuckles turned white, and keeping his head bowed, he tried to choke down the lump of hot coal in his throat. What's the point? What's the fuckin' point of lookin' and getting' used ta and respectin' just for it all ta slip right out from fuckin' under ya?

That was when the little voices in his head returned, Merle's "Told ya so, baby brother. People'll always let ya down, even 'em dead ones." Merle laughed, and Daryl steeled himself, prepared his walls, already feeling Carol's touch as foreign. Intrusive. A stranger's touch. "C'mon, little brother," Merle coaxed giddily. "C'mon back to ol' Merle. Leave 'em fags and bitches behind, ya don't 'em, not anymore."

He could almost physically feel his protective walls once again sliding into place, mental concrete surrounding him, warding off the pains of reality. He squirmed under Carol's fingers, the sensation suddenly unwelcome, her gaze boring into his back making him long for disappearing into the woods. To just vanish as he had when he was a child needing to escape the house for a bit.

He was almost even ready to leave her and the bike and just walk away, when another voice, quieter, more soothing, firmly said, "No." He fought it away, because it made him uneasy and it wasn't Merle; but it repeated "No" and then added "Left".

The hell? He withdrew even more, but the strange new sensation followed; and he released the breaks and reluctantly turned left on the bike. His hunter's instincts were the only explanation he could think of, so he told himself that, and repeated it over and over as the bike roared across the concrete road. Behind him, Carol asked whre they were going; he wasn't 100% sure, so he didn't answer.

Five minutes later, he spotted the red tail lights once more, only they were pulled over on the side of the road. And there, standing next to the car, was a sobbing woman and a chinaman. No, correction. Korean. They both looked up in unison as he screeched to a halt before them. At that exact moment, a blue pick-up truck road into view, carrying T-dog, Mrs. Grimes, and Beth Greene. And the little voice seemed to tell him good job before fading away.

Rick wasn't with them, but that was suddenly okay. Because if all these people had made it, the saintly sheriff had to be alive somewhere too.

Sure enough, when he led the group to the highway, he immediately caught sight of the familiar head of black hair and weary yet ecstatic face when both locked eyes. He pulled over a few feet, and he also noticed Andrea was gone. And Shane. Something told him Rick had taken care of the latter for good. So when the former cop reached out and took his hand firmly, Daryl accepted it as more than a greeting. More like acceptance, and gratitude, and even a new stretch of territory for the archer: partnership. Shane was gone, Rick needed someone to watch and protect his iback – and Daryl was going to fuckin' ensure this man stayed alive.

"You have Rick's ear," Dale had told him the same day he'd said, "You're a decent man," to his face.

And it was only now that he realized it had been that voice telling him not to give up, to go left.

After that, Merle's voice faded completely from his head, replaced by Rick's real one and Dale's quiet approval.

xXx 7 Months Later xXx

The prison was swiftly growing crowded, as more and more people either found their way or were brought to the safe haven. It was all these people, all these strangers, that sometimes got a bit too much for him. That was why he preferred going on runs with a smaller group of people. In this case, that was just Glenn and Maggie. As long as he ignored their nose rubs and little, naughty glances, he was fine. But seriously, this was no damn romance novel.

Runs so far were proving easy and quick, as they group now adjusted to the bountiful walkers and apocalyptic world. But this time was different. The screams came from across the street from the grocery store he and the Likesportal couple were exiting. Immediately, they were in formation – Daryl leading with his crossbow, the others following with a rifle and knife. They kicked into the café, immediately confronted by a dozen walkers. "Go, we'll cover you!" Glenn yelled, and Daryl shot three down before reaching the kitchen, kicking the door in. There was a single young man, around nineteen, within, cornered. Daryl shot down three more walkers and stabbed the last two. The young blonde man he'd just saved collapsed against the wall, panting, nodding his head wildly.

"Thank you, oh God, thank you…"

The walkers were gone, but he kept his crossbow raised. "You kill walkers before, kid?"

A small nod. "Yeah… but only three. My brother, he killed them all before he died. We came up here from Florida, man… and I only killed three. Got myself cornered, and good grief, I thought I was a goner until you showed up. You a cop?"

He already thought the kid talked to much. "Not a cop, just a guy. You… ya ever kill any people?"

The kid frowned. "Ya sure you're not a cop? Um… yeah, yeah, I-I did…"

His grip on his crossbow tightened. "Why?"

"It was my brother. He tried to kill me… he was bit, and he tried to kill me. But Mitch wasn't a walker… he was a person. He wasn't like them. But I did what I had to do."

Questions answered, Daryl lowered his crossbow; which the kid seemed to take as a prompt to turn on the lubber-lip again. "I'm glad I found some others – I've been alone for a while. Didn't know where to go. You have a camp anywhere? Know what? Doesn't matter. Can I just stay with you? Are those your friends in the other room? Man, it's great to have other people! Me and Mitch, we were trying to get up north to Maine where our uncle lives, but then Mitch said he'd already been on the road to visit us when everything went to hell, so he's probably dead, so I guess staying with you would be best…"

He was only giving the blonde 10% or less of his attention, and finally rolled his eyes at the endless torrent of words. "Don't run yer mouth ragged, kid. Let's get outta here – I'll take ya back to our camp."

"A camp? Even better!" When Daryl turned around, putting his back to the newcomer, the kid's voice went up an unbelievable octave. "Holy shit, look at those wings! I was into all that stuff before the zombies started showing up… hey, were you a clothes designer before all this?"

He nearly laughed out loud at the that guess. "Hell no."

"Well, I'll keep on trying," the kid said, smirking. "You, uh, you got a name?"

"Daryl."

"Sweet. I'm Zack Horvath."

*end*

(Zack is Dale's nephew, who was mentioned earlier on)