Notes: I just wanted to thank everyone who read, favorited, followed and reviewed this. Being my first fanfic it was really fun and exciting and I appreciated every single one. However, I have other ideas I want to work on so I've decided to wrap this one up. This will be the last update.

Chapter 14: More than Surviving

Kaesta clung tightly to Daryl. The wind whipped around him, tattering at her face. Behind them, the farm burned and the dead walked in droves. Ahead of them the road was uncertain.

"Look, there!" Kaesta shouted to be heard. The young woman pointed excitedly at the car in front of them.

The engine of Merle's motorcycle roared as Daryl pushed it forward, catching up to the other vehicle.

"Looks like Glenn and Maggie," he snorted as they got closer.

"Thank God they're alive," Kaesta exclaimed.

"Though'cha didn' believe in God," Daryl sneered.

Behind him Kaesta rolled her eyes. "It's a figure of speech."

As they pulled up next to the car they were met by Glenn's smiling face through the window. The grin he wore spread from ear to ear. Next to him, Maggie too was happy to see them, but her eyes were puffy and red from tears.

Daryl motioned for them to pull over. The bike was too loud to hear them over the engine as they drove side by side.

"Everybody else?" Glenn asked. Daryl winced at the words. His new found family and he didn't know who was alive nor where they were at.

Maggie came around and stood next to Glenn. "My dad? Beth?" She asked after her family with an unsurprising urgency.

"Dunno," Daryl told her in his gruff and calloused voice.

A hand came up to Maggie's mouth as she choked back a sob.

"C'mon now," Kaesta spoke quietly, her voice soft and soothing as she hobbled over and placed a warm hand on Maggie's shoulder. "That doesn't mean nothing. They could be safe, we just got to try and find them."

Tears were still streaming down Maggie's reddened, puffy face.

"It's going to be alright. C'mon, we're going to need your help. Can you manage that?"

Wiping her eyes with the back of her head Maggie nodded a silent affirmative.

Daryl watched as Glenn let out a little sigh of relief. Snorting to himself, he glanced sideways at Kaesta and gave her a little half-smirk. She was good with people in all the ways he wasn't. She was tender and kind. She was friendly and easy-going. Yet even though they were worlds apart, they weren't so different. It's why he liked her.

As the two vehicles threaded their way down the roads, they came across others from their group. With each person their hearts were torn. There was happiness and relief that yet another person had survived the assault, but there was also fear and sadness for those still unaccounted for.

Daryl led the way. Up ahead on the highway was Rick, Hershel and Carl. The reunion was bitter sweet as everyone exchanged tales with regards to who they saw escape and who they saw go down. Among the fallen were Jimmy and Patricia. Everyone was accounted for, either living or dead, except for Andrea. There was little doubt that she had not survived, but no one had actually seen it with their own two eyes. If by some miracle, she could still be out there.

"We need to keep moving," Rick told the weary and forlorn group standing before him. "We need to find somewhere safe."

"We thought the farm was safe," came the protests. "What makes you think anywhere is?"

"We'll find somewhere we can fortify and defend."

There was little enthusiasm but the band of survivors followed. They were on the road again in search of a place to stay and in search of some hope to keep them going. However, it was not long before they ran out of fuel and found themselves stranded. Kaesta found herself silently cursing the universe and desperately waiting for something good to balance the bad.

Where they set up camp for the night they were exposed. Terribly exposed, but it was the best they could do with the hand they had been dealt.

As the last strands of light faded from the night sky they huddled around a fire and listened to Rick speak. So many secrets came out. They were all infected. Rick had known since the CDC, a time before Kaesta had met them, she gathered. Some doctor named Edwin Jenner had whispered it to him as they fled and he hadn't felt it imperitive to share with the rest of them. Rick had killed Shane, his own partner. For them. For the good of the group. That was how he justified his actions.

"This is no longer a democracy," Rick told them. He was taking charge. It was his way or the highway.

Kaesta felt her chest tighten. She glanced nervously toward Daryl, the one man she trusted more than any of them. He gave her a reassuring nod.

When they had first found her every fibre in her being would have been screaming at her to run. Without a doubt she would have picked the highway and taken her chances on her own. Kaesta had what it took to survive out there.

But as her eyes scanned the group around her Kaesta realized that she didn't just want to survive. She wanted more than that. Her eyes finally settled again on Daryl. A life, albeit as fucked up as that life may be, that is what she wanted. As much as it terrified her to stay, she couldn't leave. These were her friends and her only family now. Wherever they went, whatever happened next, she would follow. There was more to life than just surviving, after all.