Nox: For anyone who knows my work, I'm never an obvious Caryl writer. So to hear that I've touched even non-Caryl shippers with my last chapter really means something to me. I'm glad ya'll liked it. Also, I sort of get...a little Caryl moment in here...something bold of me. My Caryl feels were just everywhere so I had to do it! Gah! And thus we have Merle to break the moment! The prompt begins!

Thanks for your reviews guys, the alerting, favoriting. It really means a lot to me.

Disclaimer: The Walking Dead belongs to Robert Kirkman and AMC

Beautiful

Did they think he was fuckin' stupid?

He weren't goin' back to no goddamn cell. He'd been outta prison for the better part of…well he couldn't fuckin' remember, but he'd been out. Ain't no way he was goin' back in one.

So he'd walked, down the treadway, and then back. But he'd been real quiet about it. Shit, if his baby brother was gettin' some and he weren't. The world had gone bat-shit crazy.

"Damn woman." Fuck. He knew it. Course Darylena was gettin' some the minute he got back from some damn impossible mission. He didn't get nothin' in all the years they were growin' up and the fuckin' world goes to shit and he gets pussy like that.

"You'd think you'd be used to it by now." What the hell? He wouldn't a guessed the woman to be no prude, what with that asshole she'd been married to.

"But you shouldn't be." The fuck? This was turnin' into somethin' freaky.

He glanced round the corner, and there they were. Sittin' together.

Carol. That's what her fuckin' name was. She had a kid or somethin', Sarah or Sonia.

Carol was layin' her head on his brother's back, and Daryl weren't doin' shit about it. He just sat there, hunched over, like it weren't nothin' but nothin'.

That was fuckin' new. His brother never used to let nobody touch him, 'specially not no women. And where was his fuckin' shirt?

He never went anywhere without a shirt on. Never.

This was some shit that he was gonna 'ave to wrap his head round. Daryl doin' shit he couldn't understand.

What the fuck was he talkin' bout?

"Darylena!" He watched them jerk apart, satisfied at his brother's embarrassment, and stomped a couple times outside the cell for effect.

"What the hell's the holdup brother?" He weren't gonna sit there and let no woman handle his brother like that.

Carol wiped at her face, and picked up the bottle of whiskey at her side, pouring a little over the graze on his brothers side.

Daryl didn't even wince. But he did turn to look at Carol, his face questioning. He ignored Merle. And that pissed him off.

"What the hell's goin' on?" Daryl took his time before he finally decided to give him an answer. Pissed him off even more.

"What the fuck's it look like, brother?" If Merle didn't know any better, he'd say Daryl was challenging him. Somethin' he ain't done in a long fuckin' time.

Carol couldn't take the tension that had suddenly sprung up around her. It was almost suffocating. And it was almost as if it was centered around her.

"I'm just finishing my stitch, Merle. Then I can take a look at you."

"I don't need none a yur stitchin' woman. Can take care a myself." She pulled away faster this time, didn't fight back like she had before.

"I know you got hit by a bullet Merle. Carol's good with her hands. She can take care of it sure a hell lot better'n you can." A snarl ripped through Merle. This Daryl, who was different even from when they were trapped together at Woodbury, was starting to piss him off.

"Been takin' care a myself longer than you 'ave baby brother. I don't need no goddamn nurse maid to make me feel better." And Merle stomped off again, this time, for real.

Daryl sighed, dropping his head into hands. "He's still an ass."

Carol chuckled. "You think that makes him an ass?" He winced a little at the pull of the needle through a particularly sensitive spot where it was all flesh. She must have sensed it because she stopped, touched the spot gently and whispered sorry.

He didn't know how she always doin' that. Knowin' when it hurt, knowin' just what to say, knowin' how to treat him without bein' too overbearin'.

"He's probably having a fit because your shirts off." Daryl turned then, confusion written all over his face. Carol laughed this time, and turned him back around so she could finish her work.

"You know how long it took for you to let me see you without your shirt on?" He hadn't a thought of that. "Hershel was the one who did most of the work on everybody for the longest time. I can't imagine what your brother looks like if this is…" Her hand trailed across his back again, gently. "He probably doesn't want me touching him, seeing him without his clothes on." He heard her sigh deeply. "That's his choice, you know that. We can't make him take my help. I'd be more than willing to, but…"

He felt her hands hesitate. "Don't have my knife," she muttered, trailing off her thought.

"Hell you mean you ain't got your knife?" He turned on her, anger clear on his face. "It's with my things, in my cell," she said hesitantly. He jumped up, about to tear off and get it.

"Daryl, wait!" She grabbed his arm before he could take off with the needle dangling from his side. "You can't leave with it like that," she gestured to his wound. She looked around for something, anything, but came up short.

She sighed and leaned forward. Took the string in her hands, took a deep breath and bit the string off, her lips just grazing across his skin. She was a little surprised that he hadn't jumped away. She was a little surprised at her own boldness. She'd done it before, with some of the others from the group.

But Daryl was different. She couldn't deny that.

Daryl couldn't believe how close she was. But it was the feel of her lips, so close, that sent something ghostin' through him. And he knew right then that he had to go.

Carol sure as hell didn't have the courage to look him in the face then. So she avoided it, grabbed some gauze and tape, and patched it up.

"Okay." He took off like a bat out of hell then, picking up his shirt on the way.

When she put the tape back, she saw some scissors, buried beneath some extra supplies.

She groaned and buried her face in her hands.

"What's wrong, little mouse? Darylena can't get it up?" She knew he couldn't stay away for long. She could tell earlier that her interaction with Daryl had bothered Merle, and it would bring him back.

"Can I help you with something Merle? Perhaps that bullet?" It was easier to talk now, that Daryl was gone, now that his scars were gone. Merle chuckled like he thought she was joking.

"Don't need nothin' from you honey. You can't give Merle what he wants." She wouldn't rise to the bait. Ed had done so many things, tried so many things, had beaten so many things into her that Merle was like sweet apple pie to Ed.

"It's gotta be hard, having only one hand to stitch something up." She hadn't meant to make it an insult. But he took it as one. He got in her face then, teeth bared, metal stub raised, and he started yelling in her face, in this whisper only men could achieve.

"You stay away from my brother woman. He don't need nobody but me. You got that?" He put a hand on each side of her, threateningly. "He's my brother. I can take care a him. Better'n the rest of you. I wouldn't abandon him like ya'll did."

She dropped her head, because she couldn't argue that. But she wouldn't let Merle scare her away.

"That's why he stayed behind. So that he could find you." It made sense to her now. Daryl was better than that. She should have known that if he got wind of his brother, he would have done everything in his power to get him back.

"Daryl always meant to find you Merle. He never stopped looking. Maybe there were some bumps in the road, maybe he got sidetracked along the way. But he never stopped looking. And I know you didn't either." She looked him in the eyes, holding that heated gaze with her own.

"So whatever you got that's underneath there," and she pointed to his chest, "can't scare me. I've seen enough to know you both love each other and that's all I need to know."

Merle didn't say nothin'. He couldn't believe the words comin' out of the mouse. Maybe she weren't no mouse.

Fuck, he couldn't believe he was fallin' into this shit.

He sat on the chair. Stared her down, tried for intimidation. He shoulda known it wouldn'ta worked. "Can't get my fuckin' shirt off." He gestured to his left shoulder, his good hand. "Can't lift the fuckin' shoulder, can't take off the fuckin' shirt." He looked down at his hand, feelin' his fingers movin' but seein' nothin' there.

Carol watched him, then turned to her box. "Hershel, the one without the leg, says it's called a phantom limb." She was looking around her box, pulling out tape and gauze, and then producing some scissors.

"Thought you didn't have nothin' to cut with?" She looked up in surprise, her face tinting red. But she recovered quickly.

"Thought you could take care of yourself." He shrugged his shoulders, and regretted it instantly.

"Fuck woman, hurry up." She reached forward, ready to remove his shirt, and then hesitated.

This was Merle Dixon. Daryl's brother. She was going to cut his shirt off. She was going to see his bare chest. And she had no doubt in her mind that it was going to be worse than Daryl.

So she stole a breath and helped him remove his button up flannel.

"Phantom limb?" She looked up, confused. "You said some phantom limb shit." She couldn't remember the last time she'd helped a man undress himself. She figured the last time was probably Ed. Even Daryl did that himself.

"Oh yeah. It's when the mind remembers a missing body part, feeling it move and all. I saw you looking down at your…your hand and figured you were thinking about it. Hershel does that when he's thinking about wiggling his toes." He grunted, looking back at his hand.

She sat back on the bunk and took the scissors, hesitated only a moment, and then started cutting from the base up.

"He still got my bike?" She smiled a little.

"What the hell you smilin' at?" She shook her head. Just like him to think back to a motorcycle. Daryl was always making sure it was in good condition, probably just because of Merle.

"Daryl takes very good care of it." He grunted again.

"Like he does you?" She reached the neckline and looked up, meeting his gaze. But she ignored the comment, more than likely aimed to rile her up.

She put the scissors down, and paused. Was she really prepared to do this?

Was he?

"Just take it off woman. 'Fore I change my fuckin' mind." She pulled his right arm through first, the uninjured, missing one, and then looped around his back and then slowly, carefully, pulled it off his injured shoulder.

And then she saw them. The scars.

It was a patchwork of history. She'd never seen anything so brutal, so heartbreaking, so sad.

She discarded the shirt and pulled up a second chair, next to the injured arm. She tried to steel her face, to make it impassive. It didn't work.

"Ain't I beautiful?" He joked, mockingly, laughing harshly. Maybe he was expecting something different. Maybe he wasn't expecting an answer. But she answered how she felt.

"Yes." Because she knew, as she took in every mark, every jagged lump, every detailed wound that she was seeing just another part of Merle's love for Daryl.

Maybe they all weren't for Daryl. Maybe some were from Daryl. But she knew that Merle had survived this for Daryl.

And that was beautiful.

A/N: Want to know how the Dixons came to be? Check out my story The Bad, the Ugly and the Dixons. Pre-apocalyptic drabbles on their lives.