The first time he meets the brother he should have had, if life was fair and the world made sense and there was someone or something that really cared about him, he tries to kill him.
Rick Grimes. The words come out in a sneer, the vitriol and anger warring with the enormous lump in his throat when they tell him: Merle, the brother life actually gave him, is probably dead. Chained like an animal (The animal he is…something whispers, way back in Daryl's mind) to a rooftop. Left for geek food.
Daryl barely registers all of the blank, bovine faces, circling him, these "good people" he and his brother have fallen in with, out of necessity. Daryl stands in the loose circle of near-strangers and wants them to hurt the way he does.
Shane, who Daryl knows without really having to know him. Shane is Merle, with nicer teeth and a cop's badge who's shacking up with his dead best friend's wife, if you can believe anything he's saying. So, just as dangerous. No – more dangerous. Dale, the old guy who's always tinkering with his stupid RV, spoutin' off at the mouth like some school teacher and nosing around tryin' to get to how people are feelin'. The two blond sisters, standing to the side, holding onto each other. The younger one beautiful in a way that Daryl knows he never can deserve, and wouldn't even bother tryin'.
Then a new face: Rick Grimes. The supposedly dead sheriff. What a joke! But he sees something in this man, something missing from all of the men Daryl has known until now: compassion. Not just doin' something 'cause it's good for you, or for your own, but because it's right.
"What I did, I didn't do on a whim. Your brother does not play or work well with others," Rick's calm, firm voice in his face. But somehow, it doesn't seem like an accusation. Or, at least…not an accusation that includes Daryl.
Most folks that see the tussle in the dust of the camp's yard probably think Daryl concedes because he is outnumbered, outmanned. But he does so because he's found a man worth conceding to, even if he doesn't really understand this yet.
ooooOOOOoooo
Daryl waits impatiently as they all take their sweet ol' time headin' out. He sits jittering his legs, the red and yellow tails of his arrows bouncing spasmodically as he cleans bits of squirrel guts from them.
He hears Rick and Shane down by the tents talking in voices that aren't meant to be overheard. But Shane is about as subtle as an elephant in a bikini, so the anger and frustration in his voice carries towards them.
One of the woman, the one with ugly hulk of a husband and the skinny blond daughter, is diligently ironing a stack of clothing, her shorn head tilted down. He stops fidgeting for a moment, notices that she's also listening to the two friends debate the value of risking lives to save his brother.
He's not quite sure of her name, and he's not quite sure why the hell she's ironin' clothes. She must not'a gotten the memo that the world had ended.
Rick appears at the top of the low slope next to her and Daryl sets aside his arrows. Shane is at his heels.
"…..save some douchebag like Merle Dixon!" Shane's hair in on end, his voice a rough bark in his friend's face.
Daryl's gut burns. "Might want to choose your words more carefully, there!"
"Oh, no, 'douchebag' is what I meant," Shane spits at him, rolling his eyes, turns back to Rick, whose eyes bounce back and forth between Daryl and his friend. "Merle Dixon, man. He wouldn't give you a glass of water if you was dyin' of thirst, that guy."
Daryl says nothing, and not just because the sentiment wasn't directed at him. It's hard to respond to such a blunt truth.
"Doesn't matter what he would do," Rick responds, "It matters what I would do…" Daryl doesn't hear all of the rest of it. It's good to know he doesn't have to go back and try to find his brother alone in the seething tomb that Atlanta is now, though he knows he'd do it, alone, on foot, until they were worn to bloody stumps, if necessary.
But this guy. This cop. This man. Shit. Who knew there really are people that do stuff, just because it's the right thing?
Daryl stands up, squints, wraps his fear for Merle and his surliness around himself like a protective blanket. He notices the nearly-bald woman has stopped ironing. She is gazing at Rick with the saddest eyes Daryl has ever seen. She seems as sucker-punched by Rick's comment as he is. She catches Daryl's eye, and the smallest hint of a smile turns up one corner of her mouth. He nods at her, and she lowers her sad eyes, the smile dropping from her lips, blown away on the breeze.
She picks the iron back up, gets back to her pointless task. He notices her back is straighter, her shoulders squared.
The men head down the slope, towards the car, towards his brother. He suddenly remembers the woman's name: Carol.