AN: Here we go. This is the last chapter of this story. AN at the end.

Character death warning.

I hope you enjoy (and you know what I mean). Let me know what you think!

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It had all broken loose like the figurative hell-break that the world had always said would come. Daryl had been out by the truck, loading in some of the boxes of food and other supplies they'd secured, when he had heard Alice calling out…thought he didn't know where the sound was coming from.

And that was pretty much how the whole thing from that moment forward would be for him. He would hear things, but he wouldn't know where they were coming from. He would see things and he would react, but it was a knee jerk reaction. It was a trained response. He did nothing from that moment forward as a reaction to anything he understood.

The Walkers came crashing down on them like a wave of rotted flesh and bones, and just like an expected wave, it took them all by surprise and took their feet right out from under them. By the time that Daryl was fully aware of the Walkers, the darkness of the night making it almost impossible to see them clearly, they were already crashing through the makeshift camp that they'd set up in the yard. Some of the Walkers, undeterred by fire, walked right through the campfires and lit up the area just enough that Daryl could see a little of what was going on.

And once he could see it? It didn't look any more promising.

People screamed and scattered. They ran for the house, they ran for the barn…he didn't even know where everyone was running and he doubted that they knew either.

It was complete and utter chaos.

Gunshots rang out and it became apparent that they were trying to make a stand. They were trying to fight the Walkers that they couldn't outrun, to fight the herd they couldn't break through.

And if they wanted to fight? If they were going down? Daryl figured he was going down fighting too. He had a lot more to fight for now, after all, than he'd ever had before.

Around him the world burned and it crashed down. He didn't know where the screaming was coming from, and he didn't know if the screams were screams of fear or pain. Buildings were burning and grass was burning as flaming Walkers set other Walkers aflame and they lunged at anything and everything they thought they might eat like morbid torches.

Daryl fought Walkers even though his eyes were blurred with tears from the smoke and from the offering of his tired and pained muscles that suggested they might feel better if only his eyes would cry for them.

He didn't know how long he fought, but eventually he became aware of the sounds of less gun fire and more vehicles. When he focused his attention on it, cars and trucks were leaving. They'd made a large enough dent in the Walker herd that they could get through. They were mobilizing and they were escaping the farm. They were headed, he supposed, probably back to the highway to pick up where they left off.

Daryl ran back toward his truck. When he got there, he ripped the door open and looked around him. He could see nothing and he couldn't make sense of anything that he heard…until he heard the sound of his brother's motorcycle. Somewhere in all of this Merle had found the bike, since he would have been the only one with the keys, and he was headed out too.

Daryl cranked the truck and got in, and even as he slammed the truck door shut, trying to look around through scattered flames and the roaming bodies that could have belonged to Walkers or frantic people, he became aware that he wasn't alone.

In the foot of the truck, balled up and looking at him from the floorboard, was a pair of eyes that glowed in the blazing firelight outside.

Daryl laughed, confused and relieved all at once.

"What the hell you doin' there?" He asked.

"I ran," Sophia said. "It was the only place safe that I could find…"

"Where's ya Ma?" Daryl asked.

Sophia shook her head.

"She was trying to get Lori to leave," Sophia said. "They were loading up…the truck and the jeep? They were going to take them. She told me she was coming with them…told me to go with the farmer girl…Beth."

"Where the hell's the kid?" He asked.

Sophia slipped into the seat and shook her head at him.

"She didn't make it to the Jeep," Sophia said. "And I got scared…I saw you here earlier…I ran to the truck."

Daryl nodded at her and drove the truck toward the farm house. The house was ablaze now. The fires that were burning all around them were spreading in the dry grass and something had set the house on fire. They'd better move, he thought, before all the patchy fires set the vehicles to exploding.

He saw what he needed to see, though. The escape vehicles Sophia had mentioned were gone already. If anyone was making it off this forsaken place, it would be Lori Grimes. Somehow Rick would see to that, as would everyone else who lived to be her guardian angels. And Sophia had said Carol was sticking to her side, so that meant that she was headed out of here. She was headed toward the highway where she'd expect to find Sophia waiting on her with the farmer girl and whoever else she'd left with…and she'd be horrified if she got there and saw that none of them had made it.

Daryl turned the truck away from the house and directed it toward the highway, commanding to Sophia that she put her seatbelt on as he didn't bother going around any of the fences that they came to and hit any Walker he was sure wasn't big enough to stop the truck.

They might make the highway before anyone else.

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Daryl pulled the truck to a stop in the median. He'd been driving down the wrong side of the highway the whole distance, but he hadn't been pulled over by anyone. Sophia had been quiet, probably feeling as terrified as he did, and she'd clutched the "oh shit" handle of the truck until her knuckles were white and her lips were a tight line.

As they had neared the place where she'd been lost, what seemed like ages before, Daryl had felt his heart flutter slightly. He saw Merle's motorcycle, and he could see a few people. They were the late ones to arrive…

As his headlights illuminated the scene in front of him, though, he couldn't see several people…and Carol was among those missing. Daryl yanked the truck door open and fell out almost in a panic.

"Stay in!" He yelled to Sophia. If she'd thought about disobeying him, she rethought it.

"Where's Carol?!" He called out, his mind overtaken at the moment.

Merle, who was standing there, his body almost crusted over with Walker gunk, looked at Daryl and shook his head. Daryl could tell that Merle was trying not to lose his mind.

"Where's Carol?" Daryl asked again, directing the question toward Rick who was standing with his wife. Daryl figured their kid, like Sophia, was closed up in their vehicle for safety.

Others were missing too…a lot of others. Now that Daryl was looking at them all? Their own group was picked down and so was the mass of people who had been calling the farm home.

"Where is she?" He repeated, the words being the only ones he could manage at the moment.

"They left her ass," Merle said. "Left her…left…"

Daryl looked around. It didn't take much to tell who they'd left. It would have been harder to figure out how the hell the ones they took got chosen.

"We'll go the fuck back," Daryl said.

"It's suicide to go back there," Lori offered. "We've already lost so much!"

"We've got to stay together," Rick offered. "We can't lose anymore."

Daryl shook his head.

"You don't wanna lose anymore then we turn our fuckin' asses around and we go the fuck back and get our people!" He yelled, not even expecting, himself, the rage that bubbled up in him. "We're goin' back!"

"Dale's dead," Lori said. "The others probably are too…I lost everyone else that I was with…I only got out because of T…"

"Did you see 'em die?" Daryl barked at her.

She stared at him and he might have lunged for her, female and stick thin as she was, if Merle hadn't caught him around the chest to hold him back from acting on what pure adrenaline and anger at the thought of leaving people behind, without a way to escape, brought up in him.

"Easy brother," Merle growled at him. "We goin' back…goin' back right now…get in ya truck…"

Daryl fought against him without even realizing it.

"Get the fuck in ya damn truck!" Merle yelled in his ear, snapping him out of the rage that he felt for a moment. "Get the fuck in the truck," Merle repeated, his voice softer, letting go of him as he did. "Get the fuck in ya truck an' say bye to the nice people…'cause once we go back? Get ours? We ain't comin' back."

Daryl nodded at Merle and headed toward the truck.

"Can I go with you?" T-Dog asked. He looked nervously at the group and then back toward Daryl. "They left Jacqui too. I wanna go back. I'd be glad to go on with you afterwards, or you can send me back if you don't want us along."

Daryl glanced at Merle and then nodded at T-Dog.

"Let's go," Daryl said. "Wastin' time could be costin' lives."

T-Dog didn't say anything else, but he ran Daryl's truck.

"Soph's in there," Daryl said. "Tell her ta shove over."

"What about all of us?" Rick asked. "You're just going to go off on your own? If everybody's dead? You're going off on your own? What about the group?"

Daryl opened the door of his truck.

"Well you can all go straight ta hell, officer," Merle called out. "I'll see ya when I get there."

Daryl didn't feel he had anything to add, so he got in the truck and followed Merle back toward the farm, wondering if they'd beat the sun there and trying not to think about what they might find.

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Before they even reached the farm, Daryl saw Merle swerve sharply ahead of him in the light of his headlights. He slammed on the breaks of the truck, and tried to figure out what was stopping his brother, his speed important to outrun straggling Walkers, but then he saw what it was. Running right for them, barely looking like more than a Walker herself at the moment, was Andrea. Daryl stopped the truck behind Merle long enough to allow his brother to get the exhausted blonde onto the back of his bike. He looked around, but immediately he didn't seen any of the others.

He smiled slightly at T-Dog, though, and saw the same look on his face. If one could make it out, they all could…all they had to do was give them the chance.

Closer to the farm, Daryl saw his own blessed sight. Merle made the bike hop, confusing him for a moment, and slowed. Daryl realized the "flashing" taillights from his brother were just to get his attention because as soon as he looked around, he saw the sweetest sight he could imagine. He spilled out of the truck, leaving it running, and caught her up in his arms, holding her to him like a rag doll.

But they didn't have time to spare. Not right now. They had two, but there were others left behind.

"You're OK? You're not bit?" Daryl asked, already walking back toward the truck, even though he hadn't let Carol's feet touch the ground yet.

"No, I'm fine…I'm fine…Sophia…" Carol spoke into his neck.

"Is in the damn truck waitin' on ya ass…you late," Daryl said with a chuckle.

T-Dog got out, quickly changed to the back of the truck, throwing himself back there among the supplies that Daryl had packed in earlier, and Carol got into the truck, immediately tangling up with Sophia in a hug.

"Missin' Jacqui an' fuckin' Alice!" Merle shouted out as Daryl started around the front of the truck to get back in and continue.

"Keep drivin'!" Daryl yelled back at him. "We'll pick 'em up down the road!"

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They'd made it all the way back to the farm and Daryl had led the way in so that he could use the truck as a shield to physically knock down Walkers that might get in their way. The small fires were burnt out by now, but the bigger ones blazed on. Many of the Walkers, it seemed, had moved on, following each other right on away from the space as their food supply lessened.

Carol directed Daryl to the burning structure of what had once been the haunted farm house, saying that's where she'd been saved by Andrea, and where she'd thought that the woman had gone down, surprised to see her now on the back of Merle's bike and tired but otherwise OK.

She'd last seen Alice and Jacqui in the house, but she didn't know where they'd gone from there. She'd lost them both entirely.

Daryl commanded her to stay in the truck with Sophia when he stopped it. He got out and T-Dog threw himself over the side and shot a look at Daryl over the truck. Merle got off his bike.

"Andrea…get in the truck. Wait with Carol?" Daryl commanded.

Clearly shaken, the blonde did exactly what they asked her too, moving as quickly as she could on shaking legs to take his place in the cab.

"Where are they?" Merle asked.

"Just gotta look," Daryl said.

They wandered around, the glow from the fire all they were using to light their way, and looked for two lost people like looking for a needle in a haystack. They might not ever find them, and Daryl knew that. Both women could be gone by now, running in a different direction entirely. And if they were? They'd probably never see them again unless fate made them cross paths somewhere.

But still they had to look.

Sometime into looking, though, Daryl felt like they weren't getting anywhere and he could tell, every time he glanced at Merle, that he was thinking the same thing.

"They prob'ly gone," Daryl said. "Run off somewhere…we ain't gon' find 'em."

Merle's only response, then, was to bark Alice's name out. If he couldn't find her, he'd yell at her to come to him. Daryl thought about pointing out that he was calling what was left of the straggling Walkers to them, but when Merle stepped forward and stabbed three of the in rapid succession, growling out in frustration, Daryl figured that he already knew.

So he did all that he could do and fell in with T-Dog to help Merle take down the Walkers that he called up to them every time he barked out the name. All of them still making slow progress forward in the direction of the barn, even though there was no particular reason for them to choose any specific place to look.

They didn't get too far, though. They stumbled upon, trapped like sheep in a pen by some of the burning debris that had fallen from the barn, two Walkers feeding on a downed body that either hadn't turned yet or was too far gone to ever reach the point.

The first sound Daryl heard was T-Dog's reaction the moment that he realized, just a second before Daryl realized it, that the downed body had once belonged to Jacqui. And the second sound he'd heard was his brother react, just as he realized, a moment before Daryl realized it, that one of the feeding Walkers, both losing interest in their meal and rising slowly, turning to come as close to them as their accidental pen would allow, sniffing out the fresh meat to be had, was Alice.

Daryl didn't have time to react or even think before Merle stepped forward. The unknown Walker dropped immediately as Merle pushed Alice's body backward with his other arm to keep her from biting at him while he downed the Walker that had very likely bitten her.

From the looks of it, they'd become trapped there…maybe they'd been lucky enough to be knocked unconscious by the debris, or maybe they'd simply been unlucky enough to be trapped with the Walker. No one would ever really know…the dead didn't talk.

Merle kept pushing Alice back, as she lunged for him again and again. He seemed to be having some kind of conversation with her. Daryl couldn't hear more than his spat curses. Just as he thought he was going to have to step in and end it, Merle put her down and let her drop with the others, not having pulled his blade from her skull. He crawled over the debris that had served as their pen and Daryl thought he was going after his knife before he saw what he was actually going for. Alice's knife was on the ground. Merle used it to assure himself that Jacqui would stay down and then he stood up.

He looked at the knife in his hand and slipped it into his sheath before he crawled back over the debris.

"We gonna bury 'em?" Daryl asked, not sure what to do in the moment.

"No," Merle said. "Wherever they goin', they'll get there alright. Important damn thing is we put 'em down…"

Daryl didn't say anything else because there wasn't anything else to say. He glanced quickly back at the body of the woman, more of her neck missing than was intact at this point, and turned to head toward the truck.

"It was quick at least," he commented. "Tore her throat out…she ain't suffered long."

He didn't know why it mattered. Dead was dead. But it did matter.

"Only damn way ta go these days," Merle said, steering his feet in the direction of his motorcycle now. "Send Andrea…we got to get goin'. Time ta hit the road."

Daryl didn't have to speak to Andrea at all. She spilled out of the truck and headed straight for the bike at a trot, obviously having regained some of her strength. Overcome with his own grief, T-Dog didn't say a word as he got into the back of the truck again…fitting himself into the tight little spot that Daryl had left empty when he'd bungeed things in because it was always where Alice had liked to ride to harass him through the cab window.

Daryl got into the truck and could see Carol asking him with her eyes. He nodded slightly at her and reached a hand over, squeezing her shoulder in response with it and she slid closer to him, sandwiching Sophia tightly between them.

When Merle cranked the bike, Daryl took one last look around the haunted farm that they should have left days ago, and thanked whoever was up there and paying them any attention at all that they were leaving with what they had.

And then he followed his brother off the farm and opened up the speed of the truck to keep pace with Merle as he led them down the road.

It didn't matter where they went from here.

After all, old road dogs didn't care where the road went. They simply followed it as it rolled on in front of them, always aware that, one day, always "hopefully some other day", the road had to end.

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AN: And with that, we've reached the end of our road. I hope that you reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. I thank you to everyone who read and everyone who reviewed for keeping me going. I appreciate it very much!

I hope that you enjoyed the story and I hope to see you "down the road" somewhere with another story!