Noxi: As far as Sunday goes, I am pissed. So I bring you this. Daryl's reaction to Carol not coming back.

The Walking Dead belongs to AMC and Kirkman.

Finding Home

He gripped the jasper tight in his pocket, staring Rick down, feeling the gazes of those watching closely.

"The hell you mean she's gone?" He swallowed back another retort, biting back the anger that threatened to consume him. This just weren't possible. They'd gone on a run together. Rick and Carol.

Now, Rick had come back and she hadn't. And Rick had told them some bullshit lie 'bout how she needed to go. He looked around at the others, feeling their concerned gazes. Maggie was silent, but looked worried and worn out. Michonne looked weary, but disturbed by this turn of events.

But it was the one who wasn't there that he felt the most. The one who should have been there. He couldn't believe it – her absence.

She couldn't be gone. No, not gone. He turned on Rick, quick, rapidly losing any feelings of respect he had gained over the past year and a half.

"The hell you mean, you left her?" he growled dangerously low, feeling like a caged animal. Rick didn't just leave Carol behind. He wouldn't have done that. Not his friend.

He watched in disbelief as Rick turned away, shifting on his feet and cleared his throat softly. Daryl didn't miss the way his hand rested gently over his gun, or the sudden defensive stance that he took up.

"Things changed," he said gruffly, looking around, catching the eyes around him. Daryl's blood ran cold, and all he could hear were the walkers at the fence, and the metal ringing in his ears. That was the old Rick. The one that used to call the shots, and make orders. The one that used to tell them how it was gonna be. The one that called himself leader.

"She changed." And then he was boiling inside, unable to contain it any longer.

He lunged at Rick, feeling the anger release like a coil within him. He wanted blood.

"Stop it!" Maggie sprang between him and Rick, her hands pressed fast against his chest. He was breathing hard and he couldn't stop his head from spinning. But he wouldn't hurt Maggie, and as her voice penetrated his thoughts only one thing pressed at him harder than the thought of Rick's blood.

Carol. Gone.

Carol –

"Why?" he screamed, turning his back on them. Carol. She was out there, alone, with nobody. She had no one. Feelings of loss and abandonment overwhelmed him, and it was like he was seven again, his Ma was dead and Merle weren't there to protect him against his ol' man.

It was like his family had left him all over again. 'Cept this time, it was Carol who were in trouble, and he didn't know how to stop it.

"Daryl, it ain't the time for this." He turned on Rick so fast, wanted to tell him so many things, wanted to beat the ever loving shit outta him. He hadn't felt the urge to do that to someone in a long time.

"It ain't the time? Carol's gone," he spat, "and you left her!" he screamed. She was a part of the group. She was family.

"And for what?" He could feel Tyreese and Michonne circling him, could feel them pressing against his back. He shook his shoulders, feeling the weight of their presence pushing ever closer at him, hating how suffocated that made him feel.

They should be on his side.

"Carol's family," he said vehemently, feeling like something had been ripped open inside of him. "You don't just abandon family." Rick was silent, waiting, as he paced the courtyard and Daryl hated that calculating look in his eyes.

He was controlling the situation and he thought Rick had given that up. He thought Rick had stopped being the leader. Instead, he was just doin' it whenever it was convenient for him.

He breathed in and out, subduing the urge to put a bolt straight through his throat, and unclenched his jaw.

"Where'd she go?" he asked, stomping over to the gun he'd left against the shed, pulling it across his shoulder to bump next to his crossbow. He'd go after her. He'd chase her down if it was the last thing he did.

He hadn't been raised to abandon family. He took care a his own, simple as that. Didn't matter what they did. Family was family, Merle was proof of that. His whole life he'd been takin' care a Merle and not once had he been thanked, or given anything in return. Merle did a lot of questionable shit and he didn't always like it.

But Merle had been family. And he never walked away from that.

And he wasn't about to now.

"You won't find her Daryl," Rick said desperately. "Daryl." Daryl turned and stormed over to Rick, brushing Maggie aside and getting right in Rick's face.

"You listen to me," he whispered heatedly, nose to nose now, coming so close he could smell the sweat on his skin, and see the sweat from his pours. "I told you once when it comes to family; no them, no me." He watched the shift in Rick's eyes as he realized how serious he was.

And he was. He wasn't gonna let this shit fly. He didn't know what the hell Rick was thinkin', leavin' Carol out there on her own, but he sure as hell wasn't gonna let that go. He'd let them walk all over Merle and he regretted it every day since; he wasn't gonna let the same happen to Carol.

"She got in the car Daryl," Rick kept on, "she drove off – "

"That's cos you didn't give her no choice!" he snapped back, "you abandoned her!" He felt a pain more familiar than he cared to remember rise in his throat, cutting off his air. He couldn't believe he was hearing this, from Rick. He thought Rick had been better than this. He thought he had given this shit up.

"She killed them," he whispered fiercely. His fist connected with Rick's jaw, so hard and so fast, he didn't even have time to register what he was doing before Rick was falling to the ground and his knuckles were bloody.

Daryl stood stunned, as the words rang through him, his hand aching. He didn't move as the shock ran like ice through his blood, watching Rick's eyes waver, conflicted.

"She what?" Tyreese screamed, approaching Rick fast and hard, like a bull seeing red. Daryl stepped back quickly, feeling the hole open up further in his chest. He was lying. Carol wouldn't do that. She wouldn't kill anyone.

Not his Carol.

Rick watched him, closely, as Tyreese started yelling in his face. But not once did he take his eyes off his.

"What do you mean she killed them?" Michonne asked quietly, that quiet edge lacing her voice. Rick sighed, rubbing tiredly at his jaw, getting to his feet wearily.

"She killed them. Dave…Karen," he admitted hoarsely, turning away from them.

Daryl felt the world tilt as Tyreese turned a rage he'd never seen on Rick before, and the others went silent, shocked by his words. And Daryl felt the world go quiet around him.

Carol had killed Karen and Dave. She'd done that. Killed their people, and then burned them.

His hands began to shake, and his legs tensed, and if he could have, he would have run – right then.

"Yer lyin'," he whispered, feeling lightheaded and dizzy. There wasn't anything holdin' him down and if he didn't get answers now, he was gonna burst.

Tyreese turned on him, angry, raging, and stormed toward him, huffing and puffing. "The hell he is!"

Daryl grabbed him up the by collar of his shirt, and pulled him close, seething as Tyreese gripped his forearms hard enough to bruise.

"Let me go Daryl," he growled.

"Carol's family," he hissed, "she wouldn't do that." Tyreese gripped his arms tighter, and Daryl nearly let him go.

"I said," Tyreese spat out, eyes wide in rage, "let me go." Daryl searched his face, looking for the hit that might be comin'.

"Carol wouldn't kill Karen," he spat, watching the anger and the pain shift in Tyreese's eyes and he could see that nothing would get through to him. He had lost someone he loved. And somehow, Daryl could understand that.

He hated that, but he did understand it.

"They were friends," he growled, pushing Tyreese away, backing up himself, taking them away from a situation that would only get out of hand. "She wouldn't do that. And if you believe that? On his word alone?" he said, pointing at Rick accusingly, "then yer a fuckin' fool," he muttered. "Carol protected us. Took care of us. She kept us together. She was the one takin' care of us when he wasn't," Daryl argued, looking each of them in the eye.

"There ain't no proof a what she did. And until I see it, hear it from her myself, I ain't believin' shit," he said heatedly, before turning away and walking for the gate.

"Daryl!"

He kept walking, ignoring Rick, knowing that he had to go. There were people here who needed him, he knew that. But if there was ever anyone who he wanted to help?

"Daryl!" He stopped, head down, staring at his feet as Rick's voice shot through him like ice.

"She told me." Daryl looked up at the fence, watching as the walkers pushed mercilessly against the metal. He knew one day soon, this place wouldn't be safe anymore. And just maybe, it already wasn't.

"She told me she did it." Daryl swallowed hard, trying to breathe, clenching his fists as his nails dug into his palms. He pushed down the urge to turn around and hurt them. Because that's what he wanted to do.

Hurt them all. Especially Rick.

He didn't think that Rick, of all people, would abandon Carol. The woman who had stood by Lori's side when shit had hit the fan. The woman who had cared for his children. The woman who had followed him even when she didn't trust him. The woman who had given so much to the group, she had practically become the one it relied on.

Carol.

"Doesn't matter," he murmured hoarsely, glancing back over his shoulder. "I'm goin' after her."

He'd find her, and he'd figure this shit out. Whatever it was, he didn't like it.

He didn't believe it. He didn't believe for one damn second that Carol did it. How could she kill them and then not tell him 'bout it? Somethin' was off, and he wanted answers. Answers from her.

"You're needed here Daryl," Rick said in one last desperate attempt to get him to say. "We've got a home to protect."

Daryl turned on his heels, saw them all staring after him, and felt the anger grip him inside. He expected it from Tyreese, but not the girls. "You're right," he said, taking a deep, steadying breath, "and I'm goin' to do that."

Rick looked like he was about to say something else when Michonne put a hand on his arm, stopping him.

"She told you, and you just left her out there. She needed you," he snapped. And for the first time saw the cold-blood look in Rick's face.

Rick could talk about protectin' family, and their home. But Daryl knew where his was.

"To hell with you. I'll find her," he growled fiercely and turned away from them all, before he really did something he'd regret.

Who the hell was he to talk to him about bein' needed? He'd been here for this family since the beginning, even when they didn't want him. Carol had been here for this family, even when the world was eating her alive, takin' everything she had ever loved right out of her hands.

And now, they were going to abandon her too?

He'd find her, and he'd figure this shit out. He'd talk to Carol himself, and he'd know what was what. He wasn't gonna just walk away from her.

"You're on your own then!" Rick called after him, as he headed for his bike. He could hear Maggie protesting, and he thought that maybe Michonne would be the one who wanted to come with. But no one even tried.

And it didn't matter.

"Good," he growled, and adjusted the strap on his shoulder, feeling the crossbow shift on his back. But it wasn't just the crossbow's weight that shifted over him. His eyes met the sun, and his resolve strengthened. It was a different weight. It was the weight of her. He didn't know where she was, or where she'd gone. And now, he would have to find her, out there, somewhere in this mess of a world.

But it didn't matter. He was goin' after her, and he was gonna find her.

"I'm comin'," he whispered, hand finding the jasper in his pocket again, fingering the rock absently. The idea of her, out there alone, made him want to disappear again.

But he wasn't goin' nowhere without her. Not this time. He was gonna find her.

One way or another.

A/N: So I've got a lot of scenarios in my head about the way Daryl reacts to however Rick approaches this situation, and this is merely, in part, the first visceral reaction that I had to it. I am angry, and therefore I feel that Daryl should be as well. And I am not sorry about that. He and Carol have come a long way and it would be a goddamn shame if he simply let her go without a fight. And if Rick lies about her? Well then, I sure hope that bites him in the ass.

Thanks for reading kittens. Love y'all.