Title: On My Own
Rating: T
Character: Merle Dixon
Summary: Merle ponders on why he let Michonne go free and what he is about to do next.
Disclaimer: I do not own anyone or anything from the Walking Dead!
AN: So this is only my second Walking Dead story and I know it is not the greatest, but I had to write it because it was giving me writers block on my other stories. If there are a lot of mistake I am sorry for that, but I have really bad health issues and when I finish writing something I don't have the engergy to go back through it and edit so please forgive any errors you may find.
"You back with them and get ready for what's next. I have something I gotta do on my own." I offered no other explanation and she didn't ask for one anyways.
It was probably better that way considering I had never been one for talking about my emotions; you could blame my child abusing, alcoholic, scumbag of a father for that little fact. If he was still alive I know exactly what he would be doing. It would switch from physical violence to cruel words about how I was going soft and no son of his would end up a pussy because he would kill them before he let that happen. My old man had been a bastard down to his very core; always telling Daryl and I what he would do to us of we disobeyed him and I had the scars to prove it, but I did not mind them since I got them protecting my mother and younger brother. Then my mother died and I did my best to keep Daryl out of harms way until I turned seventeen when I left home for good. Thinking back on it now, I realize I should have taken him with me, but at the time I had believed that if I was gone maybe my father would change; obviously I'd been wrong.
If I had known my father replaced me with my baby brother I would have done something, anything to keep my brother safe. People may not think I care because I work hard at hiding my emotions and for good reason, but when it comes to Daryl, well I would cross every moral I had to and I wouldn't feel bad about it nor would I apologize. Sometimes there were situations where you needed to stay emotionless to make sure you get things done the way wanted them to be. That's why I had decided to take Michonne to the governor in the first place. I had known officer friendly would lose his nerve. He was one of those people who saw the world as black and white, good and evil; he lacked the ability to see the gray areas like I could. Ever since the world went to hell things had gotten more gray. People do what they gotta do to survive plain and simple. Not all people were good, but they weren't all evil either; they were just trying to hang on and survive for as long as they could.
'Your people look at me like I'm the devil.' When I had spoken those words earlier in the day, Daryl knew it was true. His little group of survivors, smaller than I last remembered, took one look at me and wanted to run screaming. Truth is that I ain't the devil. Sure, I've done things I wish I could take back, but I can't so why should I suffer from guilt for the rest of my life? What good would allowing guilt to eat me up inside do anyways? I mean seriously, that Chinese kid, no wait, Korean was what Daryl called him, not that it mattered right now, Glenn wanted an apology, but again, what good would it do? in my opinion, saying 'I'm sorry' would never make up for beating the shit out of him and almost making him walker lunch. Then there was the fact I hadn't stopped the governor from humiliating the farmers older daughter by taking her clothes off and making lewd comments. Nobody knew this other than the governor and myself, but he had been planning to rape her until I used reverse psychology in order to get him to change his mind. I despised rapists and that was the only moral line I would never cross since I remember vividly in techno color, my father raping my mother on more than one occasion.
'I just want my brother back.' I had said those words to that one chick Carol, who still had her husband and child the last time I saw her, asked me if I was with them. Considering I was at the prison after helping Daryl out when the governor tried to get us to fight to the death, I found her question at the time to be stupid, but since I had been trying to fit in for the sake of my brother, I knew it would be best to just keep my mouth shut and so I had.
Wow, I had no idea I was almost at the meeting place. I must have gotten so lost in my thoughts that I forgot the time. There was so much I wish I could say to Daryl, but I had no delusions of getting out of this alive. My goal was take down as many of them as I possibly could in order to give the prison group a real chance at winning this war. Hopefully Daryl would understand and not think I was abandoning him because that was not the case at all. Everything I had done since the end of humanity, right or wrong, I had done for my brother. The black chick had been right; perhaps this was my shot at making things right. I had no silly ideas of getting in to heaven for this since my bad deeds far outweighed the few good ones, but doing this, well hopefully I would get the comfy seat in hell.
The End!