Disclaimer: The Walking Dead, and subsequently all that pertains to it, belongs to its creators, including Robert Kirkman, as well as AMC, and not me.

A large portion of this story, including plot and specific dialog, is taken directly from the episodes. This chapter features exact dialog taken from episodes two and three of season one. If that's not your cup of tea, here's your notice. Also, apologies in advance for any grammatical or structural errors, this isn't beta'd.

Idea originally came from a prompt over on the kinkmeme, though I don't have the link for it at the moment. I'll find it and post it later. Sorry.

I've decided to break the story up by the series, sorry for any inconvenience; title taken from Episode One of Season One as well as the comic book of the same name.

Glenn has officially decided that he has made a terrible mistake with not coming alone on this supply run; up until now he's made every trip by himself and hasn't had any major problems. Just in and out. However, the second he brings along additional people? It all completely goes to shit. To be fair, a lot of the blame does seem to fall on this new guy that they helped rescue from that abandoned tank: Rick (what a dumbass). With all the shooting and noise he'd made, they've found themselves completely boxed in by a group of walkers.

Regardless, Glenn lets out a sigh of relief once he and Rick burst back through the department store's side door into relative safety. Relative being the operative word here because Andrea almost blows Rick's head off in a fit of rage over the situation until Morales gets her to back off; it appears she has no problems laying all the blame at Rick's feet and she yells at him about how he's pretty much killed them all. When Rick voices his confusion, Morales and the rest of the group lead him out to the front of the store where a group of walkers is attempting to bust in through the double glass door entry way; they proceed to explain the situation further now with the added bonus of a colorful walker backdrop: all of the shooting has essentially rung the dinner bell for every walker in the area. Rick seems to be genuinely remorseful over the situation he's caused. However, they're interrupted again by the sound of even more gun shots; Glenn gives a quick glance around to see who is missing and comes to the realization that it's his brother-in-law mere seconds before Andrea announces it to the group.

Shit, Glenn thinks, before he urges Rick to follow after the others who are already taking off in the direction of the roof, where it appears the sounds of the gun shots are coming from. He bursts out of the door and onto the roof behind the others to see his brother-in-law, Merle Dixon, firing off shots into the city of walkers below; Glenn gets a good look at Merle's face and feels an uneasy pit form in his stomach—this isn't going to go well. He's proven right mere moments later when a fight breaks out in the group after heated words are exchanged between T-Dog and Merle: Rick gets punched and knocked aside before Merle gets T-Dog on the ground and refuses to let up. Morales tries to help but is just as easily repelled. Glenn doesn't know what to do, especially when Merle whips out a gun, so he stands back with Andrea and Jacqui as Merle starts spouting about how he's in charge now.

They quickly drag T-Dog out from underneath Merle's grasp once he stands up to continue talking about how he's the boss now and Glenn flinches when Rick comes up beside him and knocks him in the head while he's distracted; as he's struggling to recover, Rick quickly pulls out a pair of handcuffs and cuffs one of Merle's hands to an old pipe. He considers intervening up until the point Rick digs the drugs out of Merle's pocket: Merle's unpredictable when he's drugged out of his mind and it would be safer for all of them to just have him incapacitated right now. Besides, he's not in any true danger at the moment, so Glenn bites his tongue and sits back, ignoring the looks Merle sends his way.

The group attempts to settle down on the roof after that minor shitfest and they find out more about Rick while explaining their situation; he was a cop from a small town outside of Atlanta who is currently looking for his wife and son and came into the city looking for the answers, such as the refugee camp. Glenn's group mentions that that's a pipe dream, but they have a small camp of survivors on the outskirts of town. A group that they need to get back to, but it appears that finding a way is going to be difficult because the streets are so unsafe; Rick mentions something about trying underneath the streets in the sewers and Jacqui pipes up that the building they are in might have a drainage tunnel that could lead into the sewer in the basement.

They, minus T-Dog and Merle, all head down to the basement and sure enough, find some sort of tunnel apparatus. Ugh, and they of course volunteer Glenn to go down into it. However, Glenn has to speak up and explain that he doesn't want all of them going down there—look at all the shit that bringing this many people with him has already caused; he rather not take the chance and get himself killed. With Rick's encouragement, he doles out duties to each member of their small group—Rick and Andrea take guard duty, Jacqui takes watch and Morales comes with him—before he heads down into the hole. At first, things seem promising until they reach the actual sewer tunnel and run into a grated entrance and a walker eating a rat. Fuck, curses Glenn inwardly as they hurry back the way they came, this idea's a bust.

When he, Morales and Jacqui meet back up with the others, Morales informs Andrea and Rick that the sewer tunnels are a no go. Glenn notes that the walkers have finally broken through the first set of glass doors and are steadily working on the next and final set. Worried, Andrea states that they really need to find a way out and soon so they all head back towards the roof. Once there, Rick pulls out his binoculars and scans the area, finally settling on a construction site a little ways off from their current building. He mentions how they always leave the keys for the trucks on site, but Morales and Glenn point out the flaws in this plan: they'll never get past the walkers, there's no way to distract them and so on. Rick wonders how the walkers actually operate and Glenn mentions that they're sort of like dogs while Andrea comments on them using their sense of smell, citing the key factor that, "they smell dead and we don't."

Rick's quiet for a few moments before he leads the group downstairs yet again and explains his plan. To be fair, they're all skeptical about this but as Rick points out, they're quickly running out of time and appear to be out of other options. Two members of their group run outside to grab a walker they had previously killed in the alleyway during their rescue of Rick and drag the body inside. They grab some overcoats, gloves and face masks and quickly put them on. Glenn figures that this should be treated with the band-aid approach—just rip it off quickly. Or in this case, just smash this fucker's face in and rub guts all over yourself quickly. Because of course, he's been volunteered again to go. He's just prepared himself for it when Rick lifts the ax to swing down on the corpse but freezes at the last minute.

Then he stops, kneels beside the guy and pulls out his wallet to tell some touching story about his life and how it meant something. Glenn gets it—but he'd really like to get this over with. And hey, at least this guy was an organ donor; that makes him feel better about this situation. Once that's over with, they proceed to hack the hell out of this guy and smear his insides all over himself and Rick and Glenn tries really hard not to, but he can't help it and he ends up puking. When they're finally ready to go and Rick warns the rest of them that they need to be ready for when they get back, Glenn gets ready to ask about Merle but T-Dog beats him to it. Rick hands over the key to the handcuffs, effectively putting the responsibility onto T-Dog.

Sufficiently covered in a plethora of freaking walker guts, he and Rick head out the door and successfully shamble past two walkers. Glenn feels the stirrings of hope that their plan might actually work when the walkers don't pay any attention to them. He's a little freaked, okay a lot freaked out, when they crawl under the bus and emerge on the other side to find themselves completely surrounded by walkers. Thankfully, the stench of walker guts continues to effectively hide their own scent underneath and they begin to stumble their way toward the construction site. Glenn can't believe their luck and mentions that they're actually going to make it to Rick, but he warns Glenn not to draw attention to himself. Of course, their luck can't hold and it begins to pour down rain onto the both of them, effectively starting to wash off the guts and their disguise. Horrified, Glenn starts to panic and calls out to Rick. "The smell is starting to wash off, isn't it!?"

At first, Rick tries to calm him down by protesting that it isn't, but he gives up quickly enough and swings an ax into the forehead of the walker sniffing closest to them and orders Glenn to start running. After that, it's a panicked, mad dash toward the construction site and they quickly climb over the fence as fast as they can. Glenn grabs the ax and heads for the key box while Rick stays behind and shoots at any of the walkers climbing over the fence in attempts to give them more time. Once Glenn gets the box open, he grabs a set and tosses them to Rick before taking off toward the corresponding vehicle, in this case a white truck. The two of them barely make it before the gates holding back the walkers come crashing down.

They drive off in the truck to avoid the herd behind them and Rick mentions that they need to create a diversion so that he can get back to the department store loading bays to pick up the rest of the group and asks Glenn to relay the plan back to T-Dog via their radios. When Glenn questions how they are supposed to create such a diversion, Rick responds that they'll need to make a lot of noise. This leads them to setting off a car alarm and hot wiring a red sports car which Glenn drives around the city and back to the loading bay and uses to draw as many of the walkers away that he can. He winds his way through town until he finds himself on a familiar highway.

He doesn't relax until he sees the truck ahead of him on the highway, signifying that Rick was successful in getting everyone out—or at least, he hopes that everyone got out. He passes the group and calls out to them, for once, enjoying himself and the ride: it's been a while since he was able to just let go and have a little fun. With that thought in mind, he pushes his foot down on the gas a little harder and continues on his way to the camp, unfortunately unable to shut off the car alarm. When he gets back to the camp, Shane yells at him for it but he doesn't let it spoil his mood—that unfortunately happens when the rest of the group returns and he realizes that one of the group members is missing: his brother-in-law. And seriously, it's great that Rick is actually Carl's dad and Lori's missing husband and their family is whole again, but what the fuck about his family? Merle might not have been the best person around and he probably actually hated Glenn's existence, but he was still his family and he certainly meant something to his husband—.

His husband. Daryl. Oh shit.

Glenn retreats back to his tent while everyone enjoys their reunions and wonders just what the hell he's going to tell Daryl, just how the hell he's going to explain that he left part of their family behind handcuffed to a roof-top. Before he knows it, a couple of hours have passed and Dale comes to tell him that it's time for dinner and he shuffles solemnly out to sit by the fire and doesn't eat anything. He just sits and listens while Rick talks about his experience of waking up and feeling disoriented and making his way to Atlanta. Shane also briefly gets into it with Ed, the abusive bastard, but thankfully it's only a slight verbal spat.

Finally, Dale brings up the subject that Glenn's been stuck thinking about all afternoon. "Have you given any thought to Daryl Dixon? He won't be happy to hear his brother was left behind."

"I'll tell him. I dropped the key. It's on me." T-Dog speaks up, quietly and sadly.

"I cuffed him. That makes it mine." Rick counters.

"I did what I did. Hell if I'm gonna hide from him." T-Dog responds.

"We could lie." Amy butts in.

Like hell they're—like he's—going to lie about it, Glenn thinks furiously before Andrea says, "Or tell the truth. Merle was out of control. Something had to be done or he'd have gotten us killed." She turns to look at Lori specifically, "Your husband did what was necessary. And if Merle got left behind, it is nobody's fault but Merle's."

Glenn internally winces at Andrea's words, but he's having trouble finding fault with them, the first set at least. Merle was drugged off his ass and waving a gun in their faces. Brother-in-law or not, Glenn's not sure if that would have stopped Merle from shooting him if he had spoken out against him. But still, they shouldn't have just left him handcuffed on that roof…regardless of whether or not they want to admit it, they are all still at fault somewhat for Merle's fate.

Dale skeptically looks around at all of them, "And that's what we tell Daryl? I don't see a rational discussion to be had from that, do you? Word to the wise—we're going to have our hands full when he gets back from this hunt."

Frowning, Glenn looks around at the members of the group. He knows that Daryl can be a little rough around the edges and he doesn't really open up to people, but he's not a bad guy and he's certainly nothing like Merle. He assumes that most of these people have formed their opinions on Daryl based on his association with Merle and that's not really fair. Before this whole mess started, Glenn and Daryl hadn't even seen Merle for close to a year; the only reason they were sharing the same space now was so that Daryl could try to get a handle on some of Merle's behavior so that they could continue to stay here.

"I was scared and I ran." T-Dog says, "I'm not ashamed of it."

I am. Glenn thinks. And I wasn't there. I should have told Rick to uncuff him before we left.

"We were all scared. We all ran. What's your point?" Andrea asks.

"I stopped long enough to chain that door."

Glenn freezes, feeling a small seed of hope begin to grow for the first time since he got back this afternoon and found out that Merle was in fact missing from the return party.

"Staircase is narrow. Maybe half a dozen geeks can squeeze against it at any one time. It's not enough to break through that—not that chain. Not that padlock. My point—Dixon's alive. And he's still up there, handcuffed on that roof. That's on us." T-Dog continues with conviction, looking each of the Atlanta party in the eyes before getting up to leave.

He's right. It is. But Merle could still be alive and it's possible that we could go back for him.

Andrea glances over at T-Dog leaving before looking back at Rick, "I don't mean to bring race into this, but it might sound better coming from a white guy."

Glenn just feels sickened by the whole thing at this point. Seriously? "I'll tell him. It'll be better coming from me."

"How the hell will it be better coming from you?" Shane questions incredulously.

Glenn rolls his eyes so hard he hopes these people can feel it. "Because he's my husband and Merle was my brother-in-law." Then ignoring the looks from the group, Glenn gets up and dusts himself off before starting to make his way back toward his tent before they can start badgering him with any questions.

The next day finds Glenn sitting outside his tent once again considering what to do about the Merle situation. No one's approached him to say anything about what he had revealed last night, but he's caught several members of the camp outright staring at him—namely Dale, Andrea, Shane and T-Dog. And Glenn, he gets it, he really, really does. They hadn't really acted like they were married—they're sleeping in separate tents for fucks sake—but things have been pretty crazy lately what with the world ending and they've had bigger priorities to attend to. There's also the fact that they really don't look like they should even be in a relationship according to some people, let alone married, but Glenn says fuck that shit. Who cares what they look like if they love one another? Who cares if Daryl's clearly over a decade his senior, that he's Korean or that Daryl's a god damn sweaty-redneck. He doesn't care what these people think.

He eventually comes to the realization that there really is no way to sugarcoat what went down in Atlanta and resolves to just hope for the best when he hears the startled screams from several kids in the camp. He jumps up and rushes after a group of people who include Rick and Shane and they all stumble upon a deer that's clearly been shot with some of his husband's arrows. While Glenn personally finds that fact interesting, everyone else is more interested in the fact that a walker has managed to make its way up to camp and is currently eating said deer. Fuck, Daryl's going to be pissed. About more than one thing now. Glenn groans and Andrea and Amy shoot him twin questioning glances.

It doesn't notice them at first, too busy eating the deer. They just stare at it for a few moments before it finally catches a whiff of their scent and rises with a growl. He, Shane and Rick each take turns bludgeoning the walker with their weapon of choice (best to avoid gunshots whenever possible to avoid the noise) until Dale finally beheads it with an ax. He claims that this is the first one they've ever had up this far and Jim comments that they're running out of food in the city and thus must be seeking out other places for sources. They hear a rustling in the bushes and turn in that direction, weapons raised, but Daryl comes stomping out of the woods complaining about how he'd been tracking this deer for a couple of days only to have it gnawed on by a "filthy, disease-bearing, motherless-poxy bastard."

After he shoots the walker's decapitated head to officially kill it and scolds them as a group, he retrieves his arrows and heads into the camp shouting for Merle. "Oh, god." Glenn stutters out loud, hurrying after him.

Glenn finally catches up to his husband, who's still calling for Merle to come help him with the squirrels he'd managed to catch and grabs a hold of his hand. "Daryl. Wait, there's something I have to tell you." Daryl doesn't jerk out of his hold, much to the surprise of the others, he's sure, who've apparently gathered around to watch the spectacle, but instead turns and gives Glenn his full attention, after giving him a quick once over for any visible injuries.

Unfortunately, Shane chooses the moment to intervene. "Daryl. Just slow up a bit. I need to talk to you." Seriously? Didn't they just talk about this last night? Didn't he say that he would tell Daryl?

"About what?"

"About Merle. There was a—a problem in Atlanta."

Daryl drops Glenn's hand and takes a step away from him, turning his full attention to Shane. "He dead?"

"We're not sure."

"He either is or he ain't!"

Rick decides to make the situation worse by butting in with, "No easy way to say this, so I'll just say it."

Daryl shoots a confused glance back at Glenn before turning back to Rick. "Who are you?"

"Rick Grimes."

"Rick Grimes. You got something you want to tell me?"

"Your brother was a danger to us all, so I handcuffed him on a roof. Hooked him to a piece of metal. He's still there."

"Hold on. Let me process this. You're saying you handcuffed my brother to a roof and you left him there!?"

"Yeah."

Daryl merely stares at Rick for a few moments before taking a swing at him, only to be tackled by Shane. This causes Daryl to pull out a knife and go after Rick. The situation escalates until Daryl finds himself in Shane's choke-hold with a gun trained on him and Glenn's nearly hysterical. This could have been prevented (okay, maybe not, but it could have been handled better if they had just stayed out of it and let him handle it)!

"You'd best let me go!"

"Nah, I think it's better if I don't." Shane snarks back.

"Choke-hold's illegal."

"You can file a complaint."

"Come on, man. We'll keep this up all day."

"I'd like to have a calm discussion on this topic." Rick says, kneeling down to where Shane's gotten Daryl on the ground. "Do you think we can manage that?"

"Mmm, yeah." Daryl finally relents and Shane shoves him to the side.

"What I did was not on a whim. Your brother does not work and play well with others."

"It's not Rick's fault. I had the key." T-Dog butts in, again. "I dropped it."

"You couldn't pick it up?" Daryl asks annoyed.

"Well, I dropped it in a drain."

"If it's supposed to make me feel better, it don't." Daryl spits as he gets up off the ground and starts to walk away. Glenn takes a step in his direction, unsure of his welcome at this point (not that he blames Daryl). To his surprise, however, Daryl doesn't rebuff his advances so Glenn continues until he's standing directly beside him.

"Well, maybe this will." T-Dog replies. "Look, I chained the door to the roof so the geeks couldn't get at him—with a padlock."

"It's gotta count for something." Rick says.

"Hell with all y'all!" Daryl shouts, distraught. "Just tell me where he is, so's I can go get him."

"I'll show you." Glenn says quietly, reaching over to reclaim Daryl's hand. He turns to look at him and Glenn just wants to beg for forgiveness, but Lori chooses that moment to speak up as well.

"Rick'll go as well. Isn't that right?"

When Rick confirms it with, "I'm going back," Lori turns and heads into the trailer, obviously dissatisfied with his decision.

Daryl spits and picks up his bow and arrows, before stalking over to the truck, yanking the door open and jumping inside. Glenn looks over at the others briefly before walking over to the tent to grab his backpack then follows after. Once he gets in the truck, he looks over at Daryl and feels so overwhelmingly ashamed once again. "Daryl, I'm so, so sorry."

Daryl sighs wearily before reaching over to tug Glenn into his side. "Tell me."

Burying his face in Daryl's neck, he spends the next several minutes relaying what went down on the supply run from having to rescue Rick and how that fiasco turned into having to find a way to escape from the department store. His voice gets small when he gets to the part of the story concerning Merle, but Daryl doesn't force him away, merely holds him tighter. When he's done, Glenn doesn't know what to do with himself, he just feels like a horrible person—he left his brother-in-law chained on the roof of a building like an animal—but Daryl merely brushes a kiss a top his head and mutters, "We'll make it right." Nodding, Glenn leans up to press a kiss to his cheek before moving back to his own seat, wiping his eyes before the others get in the car.

"Jesus Christ, what's taking them so long?" Daryl mutters angrily, laying into the horn. A few moments later, Rick and T-Dog finally join them and Glenn slips into the driver's seat to start the engine He pulls out onto the dirt path that leads up to the winding road that will lead them back to the city and hopefully Merle.

"He better be okay." Daryl sneers over at T-Dog. "That's my only word on the matter."

"I told you the geeks can't get at him." T-Dog replies. "The only thing that's gonna get through that door is us."