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They track the car for hours, slowing when it slows, ensuring that they stay hidden in the shadows and dips of the road. Aside from a few terse questions Carol is silent beside him, and Daryl is grateful that he doesn't have to try to speak around the clenching in his chest, especially when the sun starts to rise and their route takes them past the funeral parlour, its door wide open and their makeshift warning system of hubcaps and cans strewn into the yard and trampled into the dirt.
He recognizes one of the back roads into Atlanta and slows even further when he sees the car ahead bending into the turn. He has to drift farther back than he's happy with to avoid being spotted, grits his teeth and smacks the flat of his hand against the steering wheel at the worry that he'll lose the bastard again.
"We'll find her," Carol says softly from the passenger seat.
You don't know that, he wants to snap out. But the voice in his head belongs to her, telling him the same damn thing when he insisted they'd never see Maggie or Rick again. He was wrong and she was right, and believing in all she taught him has been one of the only things keeping him going over the past few weeks. He tries to hold onto that hope now, but he still can't quite bring himself to agree out loud. He manages not to flinch when Carol briefly rests her hand against his on the wheel, squeezes his tense fingers once before letting go.
"We'll find her," Carol says again, and this time her voice is firm and decisive.
Daryl can feel her eyes on him, coolly appraising, so different from the Carol he met in that mountain camp a lifetime ago. He takes his eyes momentarily from the road to glance at her, to give her a curt nod. Only then does she look away, back to the barely-seen bumper of the car ahead.
We'll find her, Daryl tells himself. He repeats it like a mantra, rolling it through his head in time to the whoosh of the wheels on the concrete. We'll find her.
* * *
They ditch their car in an alley when they see the other cross-marked cars in front of the hospital, leaving the driver they've been following to circle around while someone from inside opens the gates. It takes everything in Daryl not to charge in after him, and the only thing that stops him is the knowledge that doing so isn't going to accomplish anything but get himself killed. And he could handle that – he's made peace with losing his life sooner rather than later long ago – but he sure as hell ain't gonna be responsible for getting her killed, too. They need a plan.
So they hole up in a building a few blocks away for a little while, creeping past charred rubble and staying in the shadows. The city isn't as filled up with walkers as he expected it to be, most of them long strayed into the countryside to form up into the massive herds that block their travel at every turn. It's easy enough to avoid the few dozen still in the vicinity of the office tower while they count their ammunition and discuss how to approach the hospital unseen.
"I stagger up, begging for help," Carol says again, "and they see me and open the gates…"
"No," Daryl says for the fifth time. "Ain't havin' you risk your life for this. And then I lose you too? Nuh uh."
"And I wait until I'm inside and past the guards before pulling out my gun," Carol insists, ignoring him. "While their attention's on me you can scale the back wall—"
"We got no idea what kind of firepower they got in there! It's too fuckin' dangerous."
"Our lives are dangerous," Carol says. She raises an eyebrow. "Besides, it's all we've got."
Daryl hangs his head, rubs the heels of his hands against his gritty eyes. He's too tired to think straight, too tired to make a coherent argument. He hears Carol shift carefully against the wall, the shuffle of footsteps outside as a walker makes its shambling way past the crumbled entranceway. Feels every second hanging heavy on his shoulders.
"You know I'm right, Daryl," Carol says after a long moment.
He lifts his head, mouth open to try again, to convince her that there must be another way. But he's saved from answering by the sound of the explosion.
* * *
They barely bother with concealment, darting from building to building, avoiding the walkers that are also drawn to the noise and the commotion. They round the last corner to see the black cars ablaze, the flames from the explosions of their gas tanks having spread into the front of the building. The courtyard is filled with thick grey smoke, but he pushes into the melee through the breached gate, only barely aware of Carol fanning out to his right, gun at the ready. Once inside the yard he can make out ethereal forms in the mist, walkers who have broken through the gate and are now making their studious way to the doors or grasping at those who stagger outside, choking and overcome by the smoke. The smell of it pinpricks his eyes and dries his throat, and he wonders for a moment what kind of accelerant caused the fires.
He shakes his head, pushes the thought from his mind and lashes out at a walker, the butt of his rifle taking off the top of the geek's head. Nearly stumbles over a cop lying prone on the ground, on the walker bent over his body and gnawing industriously on his looping intestines. He holds back a cough as he staggers toward the front doors, hardly able to see more than a foot in front of him. He only knows he's getting closer when he starts to feel the flames tinge his exposed skin, and he grits his teeth determinedly even as the fire and smoke conspire to drive him back.
"Daryl! We can't stay here!"
He twists his head in the direction of Carol's voice. "I ain't givin' up!" he tries to yell back, but the acrid smoke scalds his throat and turns his words into a rasp of protest.
"We have to go," she insists, and he feels fingers scrabbling at his arm, nails trying to hook into the leather. He pushes away, not even sure if it's Carol or a walker who's trying to reach him, and is nearly driven to his knees as a bout of fresh coughing rips through him. He feels an arm come around his shoulders and ease him toward the gate where the smoke isn't as thick, where he can take a shallow breath without feeling as though his throat is going to rip apart in shreds of bloody flesh. "We can come back," Carol says in his ear, and her own voice is ragged and harsh. "But now we have to go."
He manages a nod. A few moments in a building away from the worst of the fumes, time to soak his bandanna in cold water and tie it over his mouth and nose. Then he'll return and search the hospital. He's not giving up. He's not.
Daryl drapes his arm around Carol's waist and stumbles toward the gaping gate, trusting the woman at his side to keep any stray walkers at bay. He can barely concentrate on making his legs obey him, so he nearly stumbles to the ground when he hears the voice. Her voice.
"Daryl?"
He spins around, squints through the grey mists of the smoke. At first he thinks he must be seeing things, imagining what he wants to find, but then she staggers into view. Clad in filthy green hospital scrubs, her face covered with scrapes and bruises, one wrist in a dirty and bloody cast. She is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.
"You came lookin' for me," Beth says wonderingly.
"Course I did," Daryl says, and then his legs do fail him. But it doesn't matter because she is there, kneeling in front of him, and he can wrap his arms around her shoulders and nuzzle his nose in her hair and breathe her in, alive and safe and whole in his arms. He pulls back enough to see that her eyes are streaming and he can't tell if it's with tears or simply from the smoke, but he raises a shaking hand to brush them away, his touch soft and careful amongst the cuts and purpling welts. "How--?"
"Molotov cocktails from the fifth floor window," Beth says, "and a heck of a lot of luck."
It's not what he meant, but it doesn't matter. He closes his eyes and gently touches her lips, her hair, the shell of her ear. He can't breathe, and it has little to do with the bitter smoke still billowing from the rapidly spreading fire in the building and the smoldering cars.
"Walkers!" Carol calls out.
The precariousness of their position rouses him as he hears Carol let out a burst of gunfire from his left. He doesn't know if Beth lifts him or if he lifts her, but they wrap their arms around each other and make their way through the gate. He doesn't want to let her go; is forced to when half a dozen walkers approach and he's still so weak he can do little more than watch as the two women take them on, standing back to back and dispatching the geeks with ease. As soon as the path is clear he reaches for her again, twines her fingers with his and lifts her hand to graze her dirty knuckles with his lips.
"Missed you," he manages to croak out.
He looks up in time to see Beth's face light up in a brilliant smile. "Told you so," she says.