. CHAPTER TWO .

I

Slowly, Daryl peels the bandage from my leg and all that I see is a bundle of blood, pus and a small pale slit where the bone shyly peeks through; he is methodical and I am a mess, squirming when he pours something transparent along my leg and it seems to sizzle, but Daryl doesn't say anything to soothe my whimpering and simply pats it dry with tissues. I bite my fist, a bad habit I can't fight even when my teeth bruise the flesh. I feel grateful for his help and guilty for it, too. Merle is snoring in his bedroom and I wonder if Daryl chose to clean my wound once his brother was asleep because he was afraid Merle might say something cruel - and whether he was afraid of that cruel something being said to him or to me, well, I couldn't quite decide. Daryl has bandages hidden in a duffel bag and he hauls this from behind the shelves across from us, should anyone try to steal from us. He trails his finger along the stitches to assure himself they aren't torn or anything and still I flinch from the unforgiving sting that spikes through my skin and his eyes flicker upwards, his lips twitching in something akin to an apology.

"Merle wants us gone in the morning," Daryl mutters, balancing on his haunches with the bandages in his hands. When I stay silent, he glances at me as if gauging what was wrong when he finds me fiddling with my fingers, and I hear him shift and then sigh. "All of us. Find somewhere different. Safer, I guess."

"Good." I shuffle beneath my blankets, still staring at him when he leans forward to fix the bandages around my leg. "Daryl?"

"What?"

"It's hideous, isn't it?"

"No," he said, without even pausing to ponder what I said. "No, it ain't hideous. It's healing. It'll scar..." - he stood, tossing the leftover bandages in the bag and turning towards the armchair where he slept across from me most nights - "...but the way I see it, a scar is better than a bite and it's better than being one o' them, ain't it? You survived something bad, something most of your friends didn't. You got a scar and you got a small limp, but you didn't lose your leg and you didn't lose your life, Maisie. Ain't that enough for you?"

I was feeling flush, embarrassed even. Daryl threw the bag behind the shelf with a small huff and I was hoping I hadn't upset him. He flopped into the sagging armchair that gave a soft sigh as if it was deflating, letting his legs dangle over the edge, holding his hands behind his head and closing his eyes.

"I didn't mean to seem vain, Daryl," I murmured quietly, feeling compelled to defend myself somehow. "It's just-...Well, it's just Merle said-..."

"Don't listen to Merle," Daryl muttered, without opening his eyes. "My brother's got scars too, but they were his doing - he got them doing stupid shit, brawling in bar-fights and stuff. Stupid shit. And he says stupid shit too."

"Oh, I know he does," I mumbled, mostly to myself. A little bit louder, I stated, "He just hates me, that's all."

"He don't trust easy. He never has. Don't take it personal."

We were almost falling asleep by the time I spoke again, timid and tired.

"Daryl?"

"What?" he grumbled, his voice sounding hazy with sleep.

"Thank you."

Peeping at his silhouette from beneath my blankets, burrowing myself against my pillow, I saw him shift and then heard him sigh. "Don't mention it."

II

We stood in a house that was hardly built, that was a slab of cold concrete and cut wires hanging from the ceiling; it was raining heavily and we were shivering, having taken shelter in this hovel, afraid because we had seen Biters stumbling around in a small herd, with about ten staggering towards the road. I was leaning against the wall, feeling a cold droplet of rain running along my cheekbone and curling my soggy cardigan around my shoulders in the hopes of feeling warmth, staring at Merle through a curtain of wet hair and feeling a certain sort of loathing for him again. He was stomping around, stubborn and huffing about the stupidity of staying in this house. I slid slowly along the wall, wiping rainwater from my skin with my sleeves and resting my leg because it was aching from the small bit of limping I did when Daryl went in the house to deal with Biters and I had to balance by myself. Daryl was somewhat grumpy too, growling about the wood being too wet to burn. He was soaking too, but he was stubborn about it - the only thing I had seen him and Merle share was this vexatious stubbornness, as if admitting I'm cold was simply too much for them to cope with, that it meant being too vulnerable. His eyes slid towards where I sat shivering and he ran his hands through his hair, sighing heavily.

"You should sit," I said, teeth chattering.

"Yeah, and lose a finger or two to frostbite because I can't make a damn fire? I don't think so," he spat, surprising me with the venom in his voice.

"Better than losing a leg," I said with a shy shrug, hoping he'd remember what he'd said.

He did. I saw it in the sagging of his shoulders. "Is it hurtin' you?"

Daryl had a talent for asking this as if he couldn't care less if my leg was hurting or not - it was a nonchalant shrug or a steely stare, this sort of hardness that he'd employ when he thought something was too emotional for him. It was hurting, but I suppose I was suffering from being around the brothers too much, because I was being stubborn too.

"No, it isn't," I said firmly, but he didn't seem to believe it, staring at the damp bandages with a frown.

"I'm tellin' you, brother, we should'a blazed through them bastards," Merle hollered from the hallway. He came marching in, moody and mean. You could tell by how he was staring at Daryl that he was hoping for a fight, because he disagreed with his brother about staying in this house and he was hungry and tired from trudging through the rain for what he thought was a bit of rubble and debris.

"With the gas almost gone? Get ourselves stranded on the road, in the rain, with no food or water or even somewhere to sleep?" Daryl grumbled, hands on his hips and glancing down at the wood that wouldn't burn for him.

"Oh, because we got ourselves a real pretty place instead, didn't we?"

"It's shelter from the rain, Merle, it isn't-..." I tried, but he wasn't having it.

"Ain't nobody askin' you for your opinion, little lady," he growled, giving me a harsh glare. "You just sit there and thank your lucky stars I ain't tossed you out a' this shelter you're so fond of and into that rain, alright? This don't concern you."

"Merle-.." Daryl began, but his brother was bent on saying whatever it was that was in that brain of his, if he even had one.

"I figure we should'a tried to get even a little bit further, because we're gon' starve if we stay around the woods. You catch a rabbit or two and call that a feast? Hell, that ain't enough to feed Peaches over there which seems to be your priority, instead of your own fucking brother! I say we head towards the city-..."

"We left the city because it was crawling with them!" Daryl snapped, and we all knew who he meant when he said 'them'.

"They were bombin' the bastards when we left!" Merle hissed. "We don't know how many are still there and we don't know how many are here, walking around them woods. Way I see it, it's a gamble we gotta take because we stay here any longer and we might as well start diggin' our own graves."

"Great, let's start with yours," I muttered, and his eyes met mine, flashing with fury.

"Shut your mouth, Maisie Bellerose," he sneered, saying my name as if it was making him nauseous. "Let the men decide this, lady!"

"Oh, you are such a sexist-..."

"If I say something you don't like, sweetie, then you're free to hobble on out'a here and fucking starve for all I care, fact, why don't you do that? Ain't nobody stopping you, go ahead, see how long you last with that leg 'a yours, you ungrateful-..."

"Shut up!"

This explosion from Daryl was enough to silence us, enough to make us shift our eyes from one another in shame, but Daryl was staring us down without mercy. He ran his hands along his face again, and I felt horrible for making him angry. I had never heard him shout like that, with such frustration, such finality, because then he said, "We'll stay in this house and we'll sleep here. Because we ain't got nothing better and we should be grateful we even found it. In the morning, I'll find food, even if it is just a rabbit" - he gave Merle a scathing glare, obviously offended by that - "and then we'll decide what we're doing. Understood?"

Merle, probably stunned by how his baby brother was bossing him around, tried salvaging his pride by nodding as if that was exactly what he had been thinking all along, like that was the very thing he'd been trying to explain and Daryl was just voicing it for him. Daryl strode past him, towards where he had hidden the truck between the trees, returning with blankets and tossing them to us without a word. I took my soggy cardigan off, stripping to my underwear and wrapping myself in the plush blanket - they did the same, all of us silent as if Daryl was our parent and we his scolded children, watching him grab our clothes and taking them into the hallway to hang on the banister of the stairs in the hopes of drying them.

"I'll take first watch," he said firmly, and we didn't dare disagree, nodding in a daze.

In the morning, he did find a rabbit. In fact, he found three and he slaughtered them all with arrows and anger.

III

Merle wasn't always mean; I feel I should tell you this, because when we fought I found it hard to grasp what it was about him that Daryl thought was good enough to warrant his brother's behaviour, and sometimes I saw it. When limping through the forest with my leg, he'd find berries and show them to me and then he'd say something like, don't ever eat that, Maisie, not if you don't want your ass itching for about a month after. Small offerings of solidarity that, while they didn't happen often, told me that Daryl hadn't been kidding when he said his brother didn't trust easily - and I was eager, greedy even, to gobble the small glimpses of goodwill that he gave, given we'd been hiking around Georgia together for what I thought was an eternity, but that they said was only about two months. What I'm trying to say is, being with the brothers was not all bad, even if Merle had a meanness to him that meant he could hurt you with his words, words that could cause you to shrivel and become something small. We didn't always fight. I thought I should tell you that.

Daryl - well, Daryl had this meanness to him too, but he could swallow his words and smother them and stay silent when Merle couldn't. He couldn't help his coldness when something came too close to his heart, but sometimes I thought that wasn't because of what was happening - the Biters and this struggle to survive, I mean. He'd been surviving something different. Something that was still a struggle even without the Biters and the bloodshed. He had this anger rumbling in his belly, always bubbling within him, you could tell by his temper. He could swallow his words and bury them deep, but that didn't mean they didn't spew from his mouth whenever the fury that fed him became too much and freed itself. His calmness could cloud that dormant temper if you weren't careful, and you could become collateral damage when he couldn't contain it.

If I'm telling you that, then I should tell you that I had been in a shell with them, too. A shell in which I could shelter myself, because I had this - this fear, I guess, because I could fall asleep with the brothers and in the morning, if they weren't around, I had this agonising horror, whispers in my head that I'd been abandoned. Then Merle would emerge from the bushes, saying something gross like, I just had a hell of a piss, Peaches and I'd feel guilty for believing they'd left me behind. I couldn't help myself - if Daryl had been swallowing his meanness, then I'd been swallowing my fear, and that meant I had to wonder when it'd find a way to free itself, too.

IV

I had to bathe myself with the brothers, which I suppose seems very bizarre. I stood in my panties and matching bra, which had small daisies dotting its navy blue cotton, basking in the blazing sunshine and the cool water caressing my calves. You could hear birds chirping and the river rumbling - and then, slicing through that tranquility, a tsunami of icy water and a wail of infernal laughter from Merle Dixon himself, who had leapt from a high cliff and hit the water hard enough for it to prickle my flesh and force me to squeal, holding my hands around myself in a sort of hug to protect myself. Daryl stood nearby at the edge of the river, eyes sweeping the forest for the slightest rustle of the bushes because a Biter might be rumbling through them, but I could see him cursing Merle beneath his breath for being too noisy. I had been shy about bathing around them, mostly because I thought Merle might leer and I was a little embarrassed about anyone seeing my leg without bandages, but he was almost childish about it all, crashing through the water or becoming a cannonball to splash us. We'd been taking turns because of close calls with Biters and also because of my leg, the fear that I might fall, with my balance still being somewhat wobbly. I was healing, but I had a hatred for even glancing at that gory stitching scarring my leg, especially when I had to strip the darn bandages and let it breathe, as Daryl said - as if it was alive.

Merle was swimming towards me, and in my head I was humming the 'Jaws' theme, just waiting for him to try something. "Hell-o Peaches!"

"Merle."

"What's the matter, Maisie? Tryin' not to look at big ol' Merle? Tryin' to preserve your innocence?" he purred, but he was grinning, playing games again.

"I thought you were repulsed by my scar," I replied, trying not to smile.

"Well, I reckon if I sort'a hold my hand, like this-..." - three fingers, folding to cover his left eye, then craning his head at an angle - "...then I can ignore that itty-bitty little cut."

"That's all you'd need? I'd need a blindfold if I was anywhere near you like that - hell, I'd need something even stronger. Sensory deprivation, that's what I'd need."

"That mouth a' yours might get you in trouble someday," he roared, chuckling loudly. It always felt like Merle was permanently loud, like he couldn't possibly contain himself.

"Oh, it already has. It definitely has."

I left him, hearing his explosive laughter again, plodding towards the edge and limping along to where I left my poor dress with its stains of dirt and blood. I found Daryl still stood staring at the forest, and I sat behind him, slowly shrouding my scar beneath folds of bandages. Merle was still splashing around, singing to himself. I was squeezing my hair, ringing it tightly and feeling the water trickling along my flesh in ticklish rivers, making me shiver. Then I shook my head, slapping myself with strands of hair still heavy with water, and Daryl said, "You're like a wet dog."

"Charming."

"I didn't mean-...I meant dogs, when they're wet, they shake like that is all. I didn't - forget it."

I was stifling a smile, pretending to pout instead. "You're saying I'm a bitch, is that it?"

With his skin a splotchy scarlet, he spat, "I ain't callin' you anythin', I jus'-..." - but my smile was my betrayal. I was trying to guess what he was thinking, which was always a gamble with Daryl. Merle was always obvious, with that mouth of his blabbing everything in his brain without thinking it through. With Daryl, you had to do a little digging. I saw his shoulders relax, his eyes roll, shaking his head - but that didn't mean anything, because he dipped his head as if he was holding something in. Then I saw his smile. That shy, fleeting smile I was becoming so fond of.

"Where will we go?"

"That's a hard question," he said quietly.

"No, it's a simple question. It's the answer that's hard."

He shrugged, staring at the horizon. "I guess we'll do what Merle was talkin' 'bout. Head towards the city, because we ain't findin' shit out here, and we don't got that much food left, or bandages for your leg and we might find medicine, too, if we're lucky."

I suppose that meant the pills he had accused Merle of having really weren't the healing sort, and I had a small niggling worry tumbling around in my tummy when I thought about that, but I smiled at Daryl, nodding at him. "Okay, the city it is."

"You think you can make it that far?"

"Of course," I replied cockily. "Personally I thought my limp was becoming a little bit more graceful, you know, like I was gliding almost."

"Ahuh. Well, you tell me that tomorrow morning when we gotta do some walking," he murmured.

"How dare you! I can handle myself, I don't need you to judge me, Dixon, I can-..."

"Maisie?"

"What?" I huffed, holding my wet hair and giving it a harsh squeeze again in my anger.

"Now you're being a bitch."

It was my turn to stare at him as if I'd misheard him, with my skin a blotchy beetroot and my lower lip falling in surprise, hearing him trying to hold in his laughter and failing miserably - then, when I was readying myself for a smart retort, I realised it was the first time I'd heard him laugh that loudly, and I held my tongue because I thought he had a lovely laugh, all husky and low. This is Daryl Dixon, I thought. This is Daryl Dixon, and I like him a lot.

Sometimes you forgot, with all the horrors we'd seen and how stoic he was, that he was still human beneath it all - and this was simply a beautiful reminder of something I hoped I'd never forget again.