A/N: SPOILER ALERT! This takes place in 3x09 so if you haven't watched it yet, be warnedI'm sorry! It's short and rushed but there were too many feels and I literally couldn't stop!

I hope to work on this, so let me know what you think!


"What about Carol?"

Fuck. He had hoped Rick wouldn't mention her name. Keep her out of it. He should have known better. He saw the Fear in Rick's eyes. Fear of Merle. Fear of losing him – the main source of food and a solid part of their survival. It made perfect sense really. Rick was desperate, and desperate men would do anything to get what they wanted. Or what they thought they needed. Even if it meant hurting a friend.

"She'll understand"

It sounded ridiculous even to his ears. Of course she would understand. She understood everything. Every time he yelled, every time he screamed or stalked away from her - either from fear or embarrassment. All his moods, his stubbornness, all of his faults. She would look at him with those big soft eyes and he would know that she understood him. Understood everything he was saying to her... and more importantly everything he couldn't say to her.

But that wasn't the point, was it? She would understand, sure. She would even forgive him for it. Any anger she might feel once she heard that he had turned his back on them, on her, without even so much as a goodbye, would quickly fade and she would spend her nights hoping he would be okay. Because that's who she was.

But she would be in pain. And it would be because of him. Because everything he was taught, and everything that was beaten into him by his father and then his brother, demanded that blood came before anything else. That blood and kin were the only thing that mattered.

So he had chosen blood over family. Chosen kin over strong friendships that had been built in a world that had been destroyed and he had chosen Merle over... something else. Something that couldn't be defined and something that he had no idea how to handle.

He had chosen Merle over Carol.

And he wasn't sure how he was going to forgive himself for it. All he could do was spend his nights hoping she would be okay.