Oh, what can I say? I can't stay away from Merle, Milton, and Andrea. No shame. I don't know where this is going, don't know how long it'll take to get there (I mean, the story I just finished a month ago took about two years to finish with college and work, so…). I won't leave it hanging forever, if it hangs at all, though. Even if I have three or four other stories still in progress, I always come back to finish TWD sooner or later. I just had to get this story laid out so that I can let my ideas develop as they come. Reviews are appreciated, and if you like Merle, Milton, and Andrea, I have two other completed stories—"After the Fall" and "Black Horizon".

MERLE

He dabbed off the sweat glistening on his forehead and chest with the towel Martinez threw at him. The spectators were leaving the arena in groups, laughing and talking about the exciting end to the day's celebration. Now that the people of Woodbury were a safe distance away, Martinez hit Merle in the arm.

"Asshole. You let a few punches fly."

"Hey, if y'can't take it, don't play the game, man," said Merle, swatting at Martinez's exposed chest with his towel. "Big celebration warrants a big show, so that's what we gave 'em. I tell ya, though, I thought for a second one've them biters was gonna getcha. We didn't cut off the nails, y'know—"

"Shut up," hissed Martinez, pointing to a pair of children running toward him and Merle.

"Just the fans comin' t'see their favorite pit fighter," said Merle with a grin.

Since rising through the ranks of the Governor's men and becoming the best fighter the town had to offer, Merle had become something of a celebrity to the children. The younger ones saw him as a superhero; the older ones idolized him—and some of the teenage girls had been testing their adolescent flirting techniques on him. It didn't bother Merle to be on the receiving end of so much positive attention, but he had to remember to put on that front for the children as opposed to the person he was in the presence of the other Woodbury guards.

And the person he pretended to be with the guards wasn't even the person he knew he was. No one here knew who Merle Dixon really was—except, perhaps Andrea.

The kids who came waddling up to Merle now were two of his favorites; six-year old fraternal twins who had Merle make a mark on wooden plaques their uncle had made for them when they arrived. The plaques had each of their names engraved into them and showed wear and tear from all the fights the kids had brought them to, but Merle knew that Nathan and Nina treasured those plaques more than anything they owned, which was very little.

As the two of them squabbled over whose plaque Merle would sign first, Martinez shot Merle a look of disgust. Martinez had had family before the outbreak; two kids of his own and a wife, and he had a soft spot for all of the children in Woodbury, so to see them flock to Merle who was actually inwardly terrified of children, upset him deeply.

Merle took the Sharpie from Nina, much to Nathan's disappointment, but Merle reprimanded the boy. "Hey, now, ladies go first, son." He scrawled a very messy capital "MD" on Nina's plaque next to the eleven other signatures he had written in the past year, and then signed Nathan's. Martinez stalked off, shaking his head.

The children went sprinting back to their mother, waving their plaques, and their places were taken by the Governor and Andrea. Merle had seen her watching the fight in disapproving fascination, but watching nonetheless.

"Your best win yet, Merle," the Governor complimented. "I've never seen the people chant your name with so much enthusiasm."

Andrea clearly didn't share in that sentiment, but she said nothing.

"Listen, I've got somethin' I need to talk to you about, but Milton wanted me to look over his figures for the power he's gonna need from the generators first, so meet me in the lab in about fifteen, yeah?"

"Sure thing," said Merle, though he had a feeling that he already knew what sort of job the Governor wanted him to do.

"And be a gentleman and escort Andrea back to her room."

This part Merle was only too willing to comply with, especially because Andrea didn't look at all thrilled with the idea. The Governor left them and Merle gestured toward the entryway that would lead them back onto the main street.

"I don't need an escort, thanks," said Andrea, and walked off in a huff, but Merle wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to weasel some information out of her and flaunt his victory.

"Ain't no rush, Blondie. We can get a lot done in fifteen minutes."

Andrea shot him a look of revulsion and kept walking.

"Awe, c'mon, what's with the sour face?"

"If you can't figure it out, I'm not going to tell you."

Merle quickened his pace so that he could dart in front of her and cut her off. She came to a halt just before she bumped into him.

"What?" she asked.

"Now, look here, sweetheart, even though I'd like t'be, we ain't a couple, so don't be throwin' that 'y'oughta know' shit at me. It's been a rough day for you, I'm sure, but y'can't go takin' that out on me. I didn't do nothin'."

"I don't need to discuss this with you—"

"I'm the only one here who you could discuss this with, Blondie. I'm the only friend you got now thatchoo're on your own."

"Is that what we are now? Friends?"

"Why? Y'lookin' t'be somethin' more?" Merle couldn't resist toying with her when she made it so easy. He put his tongue between his teeth in a seductive fashion that drove girls in his hometown crazy, but Andrea rolled her eyes and tried to walk around him. He backed up further to block her and gave her an apologetic grin. "Okay, okay, I'll be serious. Tell me what's up."

Andrea rested her weight on one foot with her hip jutting out, clutching her bag with her head cocked to the side. She was sizing him up, and not just physically, because the arena had already proved his physical worth. After a moment, Andrea looked down at their feet and slowly brought her gaze up to meet his eye.

"I chose to stay here because I thought that it was durable and safe and a place to thrive. I've seen the fortifications around the walls and I've seen the Woodbury army in action, so I know that this place is well-guarded. That's the kind of security I wanted after eleven months out there with the walkers and that's why I chose Woodbury over the person who helped me through those eleven months. Michonne didn't need to come to my rescue after I left the farm, but she did and I owed her for that. I thought we could make it work here, but she didn't want that, so now she's back out there and I'm in here. I thought that would be her loss, but then I saw the fight. You can pull your punches and take out the walkers' teeth, but you can't sugarcoat what's going on here. You've made these people think that walkers aren't dangerous and given them a false boost of confidence. They feel safe in here, but everyone has to go outside the walls sometime, and when they do, they won't last two minutes because they don't think they're at risk anymore. You've taught them to forget about the danger, but it's still right on the other side of the walls."

Merle had listened to Andrea give self-righteous speeches back in camp outside of Atlanta and she could go on for hours about it all, but he never found anything she had to say the least bit interesting. Now, however, she had picked up on every bit of the truth that Merle knew damn well, but that he chose to ignore as long as it kept him in the good books. He knew that the fights were just a mockery of the apocalypse and that they didn't help the people in the long run, but the Governor thought that the fights kept morale high, and Merle wasn't one to question the Governor's decisions.

Merle went along with it all because it was the easiest thing to do. He obeyed without verbal question, even if he didn't agree inwardly. The Governor said kill, Merle killed; the Governor said fight, Merle fought and earned himself respect and admiration from the crowd; the Governor said obey, Merle obeyed—for now, at least. The man's good graces may have saved Merle, but once Merle had paid off his debt, he planned to continue his search for Daryl. Despite the people here who trusted him and his abilities to keep them safe, he would give them all up in a heartbeat if it meant finding Daryl.

"Life hands you things y'don't always like, honey, so sometimes y'gotta just go with it 'til somethin' better comes along."

"I thought this was something better, but it's not. I can rely on the army to keep this place standing, but what happens when you're outnumbered by other people or walkers? Who's going to have the experience to back you up? Who's going to have the courage? You've got eighteen men and four women in fighting condition. That's not enough to hold this place against people who'll want to take it for themselves. That's not enough to keep a herd of walkers out."

"Don'tcha think we know that?"

"Then why are you teaching the people here that they don't need to be afraid of anything?" Andrea demanded.

"'Cause that ain't my call."

He hoped she would catch the subtlety without him having to say it out loud because if there was one thing Merle couldn't say, it was the truth.

"So you don't agree with what's happening here?"

"I'm just tryin' t'make it work for me."

Andrea let out a dry chuckle and shook her head. "You know, you had me going there for a while. I actually thought that this place had at least made you realize that being a selfish prick won't get you far, but I guess not, if all you're here for is the goods. When the shit hits the fence, you'll bail like always. Congratulations, Merle, you're still the biggest asshole at the end of the world."

He'd dealt with people talking down to him all of his life. With his upbringing and his telltale accent, it was a given that people saw him as poor redneck trash, and he had embraced that title. But no one could understand the lengths he had gone to and would continue to go to find Daryl. It wasn't being selfish trying to find family or to at least find out what happened to his family, and Andrea of all people should know that. If she didn't know, he was going to make her understand.

Merle grabbed Andrea's arm. She drew her other arm back to punch him, but he trapped it against her side and used his body to hold her still as she tried to fight him.

"Hey!" he said sharply, and she stopped for a moment, her ice-blue eyes piercing him in cold fury. "Y'got no right sayin' that shit t'me."

"Then tell me that if walkers burst through that door right now and overran this place that you wouldn't run for it."

"I wouldn't," said Merle firmly. "I'd stay. I'm stayin' s'long as it takes t'find my brother. Nothin' else matters."

"And what if you never find him? Or worse, what if you do, and he's already turned?"

"I'll be ready for that if it comes. I didn't have no reason t'expect that he was still alive 'til I found you, Blondie, and if you made it, so did he."

"You don't know that," Andrea stressed.

"I don't, but I gotta keep tellin' myself that. It's all I got."

Andrea wriggled out of his grasp, but didn't walk away. Merle thought he could detect sympathy on her face. She'd lost her sibling and she pitied Merle for still nurturing that hope that Daryl was alive.

"If you had known when the Governor found you that Daryl hadn't made it, where would you be now?"

The answer came so quickly, Merle didn't even realize he was prepared for it because he had thought about it every night. Where would he be now if he knew that his baby brother's life had been snuffed out?

"Dead."

This time Merle knew that he saw sympathy on her face because she looked like she wanted to touch him in some reassuring way, but after he had grabbed her, it didn't seem like the appropriate thing to do.

"You'd give up? You wouldn't even try?"

"He's all I ever had, Blondie. Y'don't give up on kin 'til y'know they're good'n gone."

"Amy died," said Andrea, swallowing hard. "We left the quarry and went to the CDC looking for answers, but the man there told us that there was nothing left. By then I'd give up. The CDC was scheduled to self-destruct and I made my decision to go up in flames with it because there was no point in going on without Amy if there was no hope for rebuilding what we'd lost. But Dale pulled me out of there and he made me realize that you have to keep going for your family. You show them that you could keep going and make something of the life you have left. That's why I survived out there with Michonne and why I chose to stay here. I want to keep going, even without Amy."

She had changed, Merle admitted it. She was still pretentious and still made of a hard outer shell, but she wasn't weak anymore. Before, she had been terrified of biters to the point where she burst into the typical damsel in distress scream whenever one came near, but she'd evolved into a warrior and Merle found that incredibly sexy, as well as slightly inspiring.

"And why'd y'wanna tell me this?"

"Because you have to make that decision too when the time comes. You can opt out or you can keep going, and I just hope there's someone there to pull you out of it like Dale was there for me."

He felt especially daring tonight. He'd never been one to shy away from grabbing a piece of ass before the world went to hell, but he'd had to get the clap one too many times, so he'd pulled back on his sexual desires, which had served him well now that there was no one to administer the clap again if he needed it. He hadn't felt a woman's touch in over a year, but the confidence he'd gained in his victory tonight and that empathy he'd earned from Andrea were enough to make him try his luck.

Merle pushed a strand of hair out of Andrea's face and ran his forefinger under her chin. "Stick around, Blondie, and there will be someone."

/ /

Merle wasn't the only one who the Governor had called to Milton's lab. The nerd himself wasn't there, but five other people were. There was Tim who'd finally earned his stripes after the army massacre the day before. Guerrero was there, a rather short man with one eyebrow permanently cocked up and a crooked grin. Merle also saw Elliot Bailey, a man the town had labeled as the comedian who was nearly as tall as the Governor, but with more boyish features, and Fletcher who had about three years on Merle with a bald head and lines around his mouth like a basset hound. And then there was Erica, a woman who had come to Woodbury's gates with her dying husband hanging off of her. After Merle killed her husband when he reanimated, she had asked to be a part of Woodbury's army and proven to be quite handy with a rifle.

In fact, all of them were a part of Woodbury's army, but none were noted for their brutality and strength. The army consisted of the brawny, the weapon-savvy, and the stealthy. These five fell in the latter two categories.

The Governor addressed them, leaning back on Milton's workbench like he was about to deliver exciting news for a new car to promote at a dealership instead of the task Merle thought he was about to assign to them.

"I won't beat around the bush with this," said the Governor. "Michonne needs to be taken care of."

Called it.

"She pulled her sword on me and she went pokin' around in stuff that don't concern her. She's smart; she got past the normal bullshit we tell everyone to keep 'em happy. If she finds someone else to take her in, she'll tell 'em about us and the threat we pose. We can't have that. You six are gonna go out there on foot before daybreak and kill her. I want proof that y'got her too. No excuses; she dies, or someone else takes her place. I'm not gonna spend the rest've my life lookin' over my shoulder for her."

"She'll see us comin'," said Merle.

"Maybe, but that's why it's the six've you goin' out there—plus one more. I want y'all to take Milton."

There were groans all around at this proclamation because Milton was the single most useless individual Merle had ever come across. He'd never seen a person turn and never put down a biter for himself. He couldn't fire a gun and got easily flustered in close contact with biters so that someone always had to come to his rescue.

"He's gotta learn," the Governor insisted. "He's smart and he's doin' me a great service in the research he's done, but he needs to be able to handle himself. Plus, he's diplomatic, and you'll need someone to talk Michonne out into the open. Michonne knows how gutless Milton is, and she won't suspect that y'all are there to kill her if he's with you. He'll call her out and then y'put her down. Erica and Elliot talk well; give Milton backup if he needs it. Merle, Guerrero, and Fletcher'll look like guards for the other three. She'll come to you."

"And you really think now is a good time for Milton to learn how to fight while we're tracking someone as dangerous as Michonne instead of having Crowley take him over the walls and teach him some techniques close to the town?" asked Erica.

"It's more because you'll need Milton to get to Michonne than for Milton's sake. It'll be a good practice run."

"You haven't told him that you want us to kill Michonne, have you?" asked Guerrero with his wily expression.

"No. He'll find that out after y'kill her."

"He won't appreciate being used like that," said Elliot. "If you're going to send him out there, he needs to know the truth, otherwise he might take chances that he wouldn't normally."

"Milton doesn't take chances," said Fletcher with a roll of his eyes. "He doesn't even shake people's hands unless he has hand sanitizer on him."

"I still think it's unfair. How would you feel if you were sent to try and bring someone back to town because you thought that they could help us thrive and then find out that you were only sent out there to be the gateway so that other people could kill that person? You're putting him in no man's land and if Michonne doesn't buy it, she'll run him right through and he'll die without ever knowing that he was cannon fodder."

The Governor stepped up to Elliot and blinked in that slow, calculated manner that had made so many of the others nervous because they all knew it was the final step before the Governor's temper boiled over. Merle could see the anger rising in the Governor's face and the color draining from Elliot's.

"Milton won't die 'cause you're gonna be his shield. You take every hit meant for him. If he comes back with even a papercut, you'll get that ten times worse. He's more valuable to me than you and he's goin' out there 'cause he's the only chance you've got at gettin' Michonne t'come out. Just get the job done and come back, but if Milton dies, I'll kill you myself when you come back. And don't try to make a run for it either, 'cause Mere'll put a bullet in your back if y'do, ain't that right, Merle?"

If the Governor said kill, Merle killed. He obeyed as long as he had to until he found Daryl. He did whatever was necessary to help him get to his brother, even if that meant shooting down Elliot in cold blood because the man had enough balls to call the Governor out on his bullshit. If Elliot had to die so that Merle could continue to look for Daryl, so be it.

"That's right."