iv.

Daryl volunteers for a couple of additional shifts at the watchtowers and stays in Merle's room while his brother drinks himself to sleep every night, and all of that keeps his plate full. It's just as well, because now there's no need to find out whether Glenn is still coming by with his lunch.

Just as well, because this is just the way it should've always been.

So when Shane calls for a meeting, Daryl first thinks about dodging it. But a day in Woodbury blends right into the day after without a whiff of change, and the sameness of it eventually gets to everyone. It's not hard to see why the men are itching to go out on a hunt whenever there's a chance, so Daryl saunters into Shane's room at the last minute.

Shane is pacing the length of his room like a dog trapped in a kernel.

Everyone stares at his bed, which has on it a dark olive jacket, one of those army fatigues. It's filthy, with rips along the collar and mysterious stains all the way down the front.

"Um, what's that?" asks Glenn, giving voice to everyone's unspoken question.

"Found this at the bottom of the bags they carry with them whenever they go on week-long supply runs." Shane doesn't stop pacing, and barely-controlled anger seeps through his every word. "Scouring the areas, they call it."

Daryl fingers the fabric, and looks up at Shane. "What the hell that's got to do with—"

"What do you think it means, Daryl?" Shane is livid. "Look, look. It's a military fatigue, what some of them wear when they're out. Remember where we first met Harold and his gang? How far were we from the Air Force base?"

Daryl's thoughts abruptly reach a disconcerting conclusion. He looks around just in time to see everyone else's do. Dale looks ghastly stricken, and Carol brings her hand to her mouth. Glenn looks almost comically wide-eyed—Daryl might've laughed if there was an ounce of laughter left inside him.

Rick is silent for a long time. "Are you sure?" he asks, meeting his once-friend's eyes directly, probably for the first time since finding out that Shane had been sleeping with his wife.

Shane briefly looks startled, like the rest of them, but he nods firmly. "We need to find out, Rick."

For another long moment, Rick considers his friend and the rest of them. "All right," Rick decides, picking up the jacket from the bed. "Let's go talk to Merle, then."

And to think Daryl had once thought Rick Grimes knew how to use his head— "Wait, just wait a goddamn minute," says Daryl, getting between Rick and the exit. "What's the plan here? Just walk in there throwin' accusations every which way? Just 'cause you all think some woman we met on the road could've been—"

"Her name was Jenny," Andrea snaps at Daryl. "Jenny and Nick Clarkson."

"And Frank and Hazel," adds Lori, quieter but no less angry.

Everyone's remembering how Jenny Clarkson recounted her last few days and then went ahead to kill herself a day after. So is Daryl. "You don't—you don't know it was them."

"No," says Rick, impassive. "No, we don't. So we find out."

There's no stopping them, and they go on to do exactly that in the manner Daryl's foreseen.

"They've been told to keep their pilferin' to a minimum," is all Merle has to say to that.

Shane places both of his hands on Merle's desk and gets right in Merle's face. "Then obviously you can't control your own men. Or maybe a cold-blooded murder doesn't count as pilfering, as you put it."

"Harold," says Merle, meeting Shane's glare squarely.

Harold steps up from behind Merle. "No, sir," he says lightly, "what they described hasn't happened."

"You heard the man," says Merle. He leans against his chair. "So you got nothin'."

Shane clenches his fists and unfurls them. And does it all over again. "We know what we saw."

"Your word against ours. Like I said—nothin'."

Shane looks like he's a fraction of a second away from putting his fists to good use, but Rick presses a hand against Shane's chest and puts a stop to everything. "Thank you for your time," he tells Merle, composed and level, in stark contrast to Shane.

After ushering out the rest of the group, Rick stops at the door and turns around. "Merle, whenever you go out with your men," he asks, "what do you do when the things you hunt come right back at you?"

Merle's grin only grows. "Oh, we all do what we've gotta do, don't we?"

"No," says Rick. "No, Merle, we don't."

Daryl doesn't follow after them.

By the side of one long, seemingly endless highway, they left behind four graves.

And now, Daryl can't even remember what Jenny's face looked like when her lifeless body was laid out at her husband's side, even though Daryl stared at it for the longest fifteen minutes of his life while he was digging a grave for her.


"What does that matter?" is one of the questions that come up when Rick Grimes, in his infinite wisdom, brings the matter to the town hall meeting and appeals to everyone's conscience to try and stop the scouting parties from doing whatever the hell they want whenever they're outside.

It goes as well as one would expect.

Daryl stands at the corner and watches the indifferent and disbelieving faces in the crowd. The Warden looks almost bored, Harold looks amused, and Merle—Merle is Merle. Lori and Andrea try to talk to some of the women in the group. Glenn is talking animatedly with that Sue woman, who shakes her head.

When Daryl staggers back to his room after that unpleasant waste of time, Glenn is waiting for him. "They killed Jenny's husband," the kid speaks up the moment Daryl steps inside. "They killed the elderly couple they were traveling with. They may as well have killed Jenny, too, and no one cares."

"You don't know it was them," says Daryl, automatically.

"You really believe that?" Glenn asks, like he knows what Daryl believes when Daryl doesn't even know himself. Like he knows what Daryl should believe when Daryl doesn't.

And Daryl has had enough. "So what if it was, huh?" He ignores the dismay on Glenn's face. "Were you fuckin' asleep for the last few months? Out there, right now, it's kill or be killed. When're you ever gonna get that through that thick head of yours?"

"Daryl, God—" Glenn takes off his baseball cap and rakes a hand through his hair. "What if it was me in that grave now? Is it okay because they did this to someone we don't know? People here all think it's fine, because they never met Jenny. They don't need to believe it, they don't have to believe it, because that's just easier."

"Don't kid yourself. You think I'd think twice about slittin' your throat and leavin' you dead if it meant saving my own hide?"

Anyone with half a brain might be hurt by this, but no, Glenn just looks at him. "You can tell yourself whatever you want if that makes you feel better, but it doesn't make it true."

"Oh, but it does," says Merle, at the doorway. "Like I said to your friend Rick Grimes, we all do what we gotta do for survival. Ain't no man's principles gonna come between him and that."

Glenn doesn't turn to Merle, and his eyes remain on Daryl, who can't offer a single thing that the kid wants to hear. Glenn stares at his own chest, then pulls the cap down on his head again. When he leaves, he still doesn't look at Merle.

Neither does Daryl.

"Got something to ask, Daryl?" asks Merle.

"No," says Daryl, because he doesn't. Merle will offer no other explanations, because he hasn't got any and Daryl doesn't have any need for one.

His brother watches him for another moment and then places his good hand on Daryl's shoulder. "Good."

It's familiar as always, looking the other way.


It takes a couple of weeks before everything's truly shot to hell.

Frankly, Daryl is surprised it lasted this long.


When the meeting is called in Shane's room for the second time, Daryl shows up mostly because he's surprised that they even asked him to join them. But he has to pause at the doorway, because something about what he's seeing isn't quite right.

"Where's Shane?" asks Daryl, finally.

No one answers. At the corner of his eye, Daryl notices, almost absently, that Carol is crying. The others' faces are no better.

"He didn't come back from the last run," T-Dog eventually answers. His eyes are hard.

For a second, Daryl isn't sure what he's just heard. "The hell does that mean?"

"C'mon, man, what do you think happened?" T-Dog spreads his arms wide. "You actually need me to draw you a diagram? Wake the fuck up, man. Wake up. Don't you see what's goin' on? Or will you get it only after he kills every one of us?"

Daryl watches their faces. Glenn is avoiding his eyes. And then Daryl sees it. "No," he says, without thinking, "Merle wouldn't—"

"You tell me," says Rick, who's been silently staring at the empty bed that belongs—belonged—to Shane. "He's your brother. You know him. You know what he's capable of. So, tell me—wouldn't he?"

Daryl's mouth is dry, and he can't get a single word out.

"Right," Rick says, voice low. "That's it. We're leaving."

"Like hell you are," Daryl snaps. Except when he looks around, everyone is equally somber, and Glenn is still avoiding his eyes. "So what, you're just gonna up and leave? Go outside? Y'all are out of your fuckin' minds."

"Yes, we clearly are," says Andrea, "but what's more crazy would be staying."

Daryl turns to Rick, suddenly desperate. "You really gonna risk your family out there again? With those things still outside?"

"I asked Shane," says Rick. "I asked him to go with them, in case something happened again, and I didn't think—" Rick's face shuts down, just like that, and he turns to Daryl so fast that Daryl takes an unintended step back. "Tell me you think every one of us would be safe here, and not just from the things outside. Tell me that, Daryl, and we're all stayin', no more no more buckin' authority, no more questions."

Rick holds his gaze for another moment.

Daryl still doesn't have any response for him.

"We're leaving," Rick tells everyone, his eyes still on Daryl. "Start packing everything we brought in, but do it slowly, and quietly."

Daryl has to dig his fingernails into his palms to fend off the urge to hit something, preferably someone's face. "Fuck this," he says, taking a couple of steps backward. "Fuck all of this. I'm out."

"Daryl, look," Glenn says, pleadingly, when Daryl walks past him, "Daryl, Rick got us this far."

Daryl whirls around. "No, we got us here. We. We, all of us."

"No, yeah, you're right." Glenn backs off immediately. "We did. We did, and now, Shane isn't here anymore."

And just as soon as that's said, Daryl's anger is leeched away, deflated. "Shit," he murmurs, running a hand through his hair.

Daryl should've known better, because this only makes Glenn come at him with renewed determination. "Daryl, just—there's something wrong here, don't you see it? And something's really off with Merle. I mean, even more than before. He's not—he's not sane. Can't you see that?"

"Don't." And there's a flash of rage again, welling up to choke him. "I don't got no reason to listen to this."

"Daryl," Glenn persists, even knowing all too well what happened the last time, because that's what he always does. "You have to come with us. You can't stay here, not when all of them are, not when Merle is—"

Daryl feels cornered, ambushed by emotions he refuses to name, so he reacts in the only way he knows how. Daryl closes the space between them until his index finger is digging in Glenn's chest. "If you talk shit about my brother again, I will beat the shit out of you."

It would've been easier if Glenn got angry, or turned away in disappointment, or even punched him in the face. As it is, all he does is quietly flinch.

After a frozen moment, it's actually Andrea who slaps Daryl's hand away. "Come on, Glenn, save your breath." She puts an arm around Glenn's shoulders and steers him away from Daryl. "It's falling on deaf ears."

"Once a man decides not to hear anything, there's nothing you can say to change his mind," Dale says, and now the resignation in his voice seems strangely more fitting than his ever-present hope. "Is there?"

The last part is aimed at Daryl, but he's not listening, because he's already exiting Shane's room and walking down yet another endless grey hallway.

Shane, thinks Daryl.

Shane asked them once: How long, until they get to one of us for good?

And now, the rest of them are leaving. And Glenn—

It's easy, too easy, then, to pick up the bottle of whiskey from Merle's room and swallow a mouthful. And then another.

And another.


They try to leave. The Warden doesn't take it kindly.

"You're here because we invited you in, graciously and magnanimously," says the Warden, from behind his desk.

T-Dog is immediately riled up, but Rick is, at least on the surface, all politeness. "We mean no offence, and we certainly don't want to be a bother to you and your people," he says. "We just want our vehicles back, and we'll be on our way."

The Warden looks like he might give in to consider the possibility, looking indeed magnanimous. "Well, can't spare you any gasoline, of course—"

"Hey, we brought in half of the—"

"That's understandable," says Rick, cutting off T-Dog with a quick, sharp shake of his head.

The Warden continues on smoothly, like he was never interrupted, "But then, how are we to know you won't give out the location of Woodbury to people and make things difficult for us?"

"Our say-so," says T-Dog.

"Our word," says Dale. "You have our word, Warden."

The Warden is shaking his head dramatically. "I'm not sure whether that would be ever good enough."

"But," says Harold, "'suppose you can always try asking nicely." He's wearing one of those smiles that make Daryl want to bash his head against any wall that's within reach. "See if that gets you anywhere."

Rick remains quiet for a long moment before he speaks up again: "What happened to the prisoners of Woodbury Penitentiary, Warden?"

There is a sudden silence descending in the room. Daryl, standing at the back of the office, doesn't fail to notice how how Harold shifts uncomfortably behind Merle, and, because Daryl knows what every little movement of Merle's means, how Merle's shoulders stiffen ever so slightly.

"Some of them must've made it," Rick continues mildly. "So, did you know what you were doing, lettin' them loose like this? Or do you actually condone what they're doing?"

"I do no such thing—"

Rick ignores the Warden and turns to Merle at the Warden's side. "Tell me then, Merle," his voice trembles, just a little, but his eyes are still hard, "how did Shane die?"

"Accidents happen," says Merle, with one careless, and yet precise shrug. "So do mistakes. Say," he snaps his fingers, and his smile comes alive, "just like losing a key for some handcuffs."

The next second, a punch lands Merle on the floor. Harold and two others pry Rick away from Merle and hold him down. T-Dog and Dale are restrained even before they can cross the room to reach Rick.

Merle pushes away from Daryl's hands, trying to help him up, and wipes the blood on his mouth with the back of his hand. "When those things took a bite out of him, Grimes, he pissed on himself. Like a worthless, gutless pig." Merle's smile, streaked in red, looks ghoulish. "He squealed."

Once before, just once, Daryl's seen Rick Grimes lose his temper. And even then, his anger had been held in tight, cold and sharply burning. This time, he lets it loose completely. If any of them were allowed to carry a gun outside the armory, there wouldn't have been anyone left standing.

As it is, even Rick Grimes in a rage can't fight off a large number of men by himself with only his fists, and he goes down in a heap of tangled limbs.

"Escort him to solitary and the other two to the holding cell," the Warden orders dismissively. "Let them cool off for a few days. I'm sure that will change their minds."

Daryl's still crouching on the floor when his brother gets up and walks over to stand behind the Warden, and when they take Rick, T-Dog and Dale away.

And suddenly, Daryl remembers Rick's words, just as they took their first step toward Woodbury.

A prison's designed to keep people from going in and out.


"Where are they?" asks Lori.

Neither Merle nor Harold deigns to answer the question, so it's Johnny who does, smiling his weasily smile: "The penalty box, on the account of 'em gettin' all violent and all. Hey, why don't ya use your feminine wiles to convince your husband to change his mind about this whole crazy leavin' thing he's set his mind on?"

Lori puts her arms around her son and Sophia—tightly, like that would help keep them safe. "Thanks for the suggestion," Lori says, carefully choosing her words, "but I have no intention of trying to change his mind. We're all on the same page about leaving."

Carol and Andrea move closer to stand behind Lori. It's a feeble, futile gesture.

Daryl is standing in the middle of the large, white hallway of the medical ward, just outside Carol's room. His legs feel like they've been bolted on the spot. He can't enter and stand behind Merle and his men, nor can he take a few steps farther and stand between them.

"Well, you're gonna hafta wait a while for your men, then, 'cause the Warden, well, he says they ain't gettin' out until they calm the fuck down." Johnny walks around to poke at the half-packed bags laid out on Carol's bed, randomly picking up items. "And hey, you wouldn't be tryin' to steal these pills for your kid, would you?"

"Those are what Dr. Stevens prescribed," Lori answers, her face tight.

"What, didn't Doc tell you?" asks Johnny, looking scandalized. He shakes the bottle of pills in his hand. "There's this rationin' over pills now. The Warden says everyone's gotta respect the line-up, but he might make it go quicker, just for you, if you ask real nicely."

"Good looking boy, ain't he?" says Merle, hovering close to Carl. "You wouldn't want to get him coughin' again, now, would you?"

Lori leaps in front of her son, pushing him behind her. "You stay away from him," she practically snarls, like she could and would smother Merle with her bare hands if he came any closer. She could sometimes look like any passing breeze would knock her over, but ten men might be able to stop her from fighting for her son—and even then only if she's six feet under.

Daryl doesn't move. He can't.

"Hey, Merle," says Andrea, stepping between Lori and Merle, all smooth-like. She has a bright and terrible, maybe even flirtatious, smile on her face. "You really think a mom worried sick over her kid can make this any fun for you?"

That gets Merle's full attention. Daryl knows she's got balls, but he's got to hand it to her this time, because she continues it with, "Why don't you ever pick on someone your own size?" Andrea's smile is still so terribly, mockingly bright. "That is, if you're ever up for it."

There's that glint in Merle's eyes, one that Daryl recognizes from some of the more unforgettable hunts they've been on together. Merle's hand grabs her arm and Daryl takes a half step forward, but then there's a sound behind him, and he turns around to see Glenn drop his bag onto the floor.

"No," says Glenn, pushing Daryl away and walking into the room. "No, you can't do this. Get your hand off of her."

Harold easily backhands Glenn before the kid even gets anywhere close to Merle, sending him sprawling across the floor.

"You little shit," says Merle, releasing his grip on Andrea and turning to Glenn. "You speak only when you're spoken to."

Carol reaches Glenn's side first. "You're worse monsters than the things out there," Carol says, pushing Glenn behind her and turning to Merle. She's standing taller than Daryl's ever seen her. "You should be ashamed of yourselves."

"Oh, you just wait your turn, woman," says Johnny.

Daryl's halfway across the hallway when they're interrupted by the footsteps of the Doc coming down the corridor in a hurry. He doesn't stop to give Daryl a second look and rushes into the room. "Carol, what in the world is—" He stops at the scene unfolding in front of him and does a slow double-take.

After a moment of awkward silence, Harold explains, "Just resolving some misunderstandings, Doc. Never you mind."

The Doc pushes his glasses up his nose and takes another look at Carol, and Andrea, and the children. "I think all of you men should leave. Now."

"Now, Doc," says Johnny, who has the audacity to look wounded, "that ain't too kind of you, is it now."

"I think this has gone on long enough," the Doc counters. "Don't you think so, Mr. Dixon?"

Merle stares at the Doc, who stares back with the blandest expression on his face. But not even Johnny is dumb enough to piss off the doctor who might have to fix him up some time in the future, so Merle, after a moment, takes a step back with both arms raised, and turns around. His men follow behind him.

Daryl doesn't, and Merle doesn't wait for him. Andrea turns to Lori and the children, and Carol and the Doc are at Glenn's side right away. Glenn waves their help away and staggers backward until he finds a wall and slides down against it.

"Fuck." The kid's arms come up to wrap around his head, like he wants to be buried under them. "God."

For a long moment, the kid doesn't move.

"Glenn—"

Daryl only realizes he's stepped through the doorway and made it across the room when Glenn shakes away the hand that Daryl, unthinkingly and reflexively, offers. Glenn staggers up by himself and looks Daryl in the eye.

"You were right." The kid speaks clearly, even though his voice seems shriveled up and dead. "You were right, before. I don't know you. I never did."

Glenn's eyes are red but dry. He walks over to his friends without one backward glance.

No tears, thinks Daryl. Not this time.

So, at least in that, something has changed.

Daryl feels laughter at his throat, the kind that claws and rips and leaves cracks behind, as he turns away.


There is a crow, flying by low and cawing.

A prone body is on one side of the road, a ghastly outline covered in chalk-white dust. Shane's body is right next to it, bleeding red.

A familiar voice whispers at his ear, "What're you ever good for, anyway?"

"A turkey shoot," the answer echoes.

Daryl wakes up in cold sweat and finds himself in an empty cell that is supposed to be his home, and tries to remember how he's got there.


Things have changed again when Daryl wakes up from another liquor-induced stupor.

It's Carol who frantically wakes him up. "Daryl, you seen Glenn? No one's seen him since yesterday, and his room—" She struggles to compose herself, looking thin and frail. "Daryl, there's blood."

Daryl tumbles out of his bed. His mind is a whirlwind and his leaden legs wouldn't work on his command, but his feet know where to go, so they propel him forward. His first stop isn't Glenn's room, and he doesn't have to go far to reach it.

"What did you do?" Daryl asks, pressing a palm against the steel doorframe to hold himself upright—and to keep his hand occupied.

"Sometimes people don't listen," says Merle, lying on his bed with a drink at his mouth. "They've got to be kept in line."

Daryl's feet feel unsteady under him again. He kneels at his brother's bedside. "Merle, what did you do?"

Suddenly, Merle's hand shoots out and grasps at Daryl's shoulder, tightening painfully around it. "Hey, hey, hey, that kid's been fillin' your head with filthy lies, pittin' you against me. But, see, all that kid needed was just a lesson, a rough hand."

Daryl closes his eyes. "Merle."

"Needs a hand." Merle laughs at that, at himself. It's a bleak and bitter sound. "A hand."

You're exactly like him, said Glenn, all without words.

You're right, thinks Daryl.


A well-worn red baseball cap sits crumpled on the cement floor.

Daryl stares at it until his eyes burn.

He's more than familiar with its shape and its shade, though it's now streaked with dirt, and dark stains run along its rim.

Daryl slides down along the wall until he meets the ground.

There are bloodstains on the floor, and on Glenn's bed. At the far corner, water is steadily leaking from the small faucet into the white clay sink.

The sound of its every drop tears into his chest.

The decision comes easily, after.


He's never been one for grand plans—that's always been Rick or Glenn. But Daryl's got one thing on his side: he knows his brother.

He corners Andrea in the hallway to the cafeteria and boxes her in with his body when she tries to twist out of his grip.

"I've got trouble," he says quietly, one hand still pressed just above her shoulder, "with sleepin'."

Andrea's smile is hard and brittle. "And what would you like me to do about it? Sing you a lullaby? Hold your hand until you fall asleep?"

Her words and tone dance just on the right side of mocking, but her eyes are set sharp, and Daryl lets himself feel the cuts. "Mind if I borrow 'em pills of yours?"

The look in Andrea's eyes changes into something less cutting and more curious, if still guarded. "I might have some left," she treads carefully. "What do you need them for?"

"Tomorrow, it's Annie's—his wife's—" he stops, because that doesn't matter. "My brother could use some. You might wanna use them, too. For dinner."

It takes a couple of seconds, but she figures it out, because she's never been dumb.

He doesn't need to search for words, not this time, because he's thought this through. "Then maybe you'll want to look in on Lori and Carol and the kids," he suggests quietly. "Around midnight. Might be a good time."

After a moment, she nods once. "Okay, I just might."

And then she slaps his face, hard enough to sting.

"You keep your filthy hands to yourself," she snaps, before whipping around and walking away to the opposite direction.

Just as Daryl tries to get his head back on straight, he catches a couple of men from security walking closer. "Shit," says Johnny, laughing at him. "Frigid bitch, ain't she?"

"She's that," answers Daryl, feeling his jaw. It's the same spot where Glenn socked him once.

It doesn't hurt.


It's not difficult to figure out where the men are being kept, and it's even easier to look up the shift schedule. No one gives him a second look, because he's Daryl Dixon. A few hours before the time he's set to move, something occurs to him, so he takes an unplanned detour and sneaks into the medical ward.

It soon proves to be a mistake, because each bottle looks exactly the same as the next one, and while he fumbles around looking for any kind of medical records with his clumsy hands, the door opens, and the Doc enters and turns on the light.

And then freezes at the sight of Daryl.

The Doc looks at Daryl, and at Daryl's gun, and then slowly shuts the door behind him. In Daryl's one moment of indecision, the Doc leans over and takes out a bottle of pills from a glass cabinet. After some consideration, he takes another bottle from the cabinet and hands both over to Daryl.

"They will need this," the Doc says, and then pats himself down and fishes out a key holder from one pocket of his lab coat. "And use my key. It will get you to the north wing. That's where the solitary cells are."

Daryl's been planning to use a bolt cutter, so this is a welcome aid. Still, Daryl looks up from the key he's holding. "Why?"

Daryl hasn't looked carefully before, but now he notices the Doc's disheveled grey hair and bloodshot eyes. The Doc takes a breath and says, "Just because everyone's looking the other way, it doesn't mean they want to." And then he smiles, a painful kind that seems to swallow emotions more than letting them out. "And because I wish I wasn't so afraid."

With that said, the Doc sits back on his chair and pulls out a chart. "Tell them I wish them luck, if you can."

And the man begins to flip through his charts, scribbling stuff and adding notes as he goes along.

Daryl can't think of anything to say, not even a mere thanks that's always worth so little, so he leaves and closes the door behind him.


Andrea is, as expected, right on schedule. Most of the men not assigned to sentry duty are solidly drunk after Merle's freed up the last box of loot from a liquor store. Anyone who isn't drunk has fallen asleep after having a bowl of soup from the cafeteria.

Just after a shift change, Daryl breaks out Dale and T-Dog from the holding cells and sends them to round up the women and the kids.

He's got no particular plan on how he's going to find the cell they got Rick locked in, but it becomes easy when he sees a man on watch in one dark corridor. It's even easier to make the man go to sleep with one well-aimed blow to the back of his head, and then to steal his keys.

It turns out he doesn't have to use them, because the door's left unlocked. Daryl finds out why when he enters the cell and sees Rick Grimes on the cot.

He's been handcuffed to the bolted steel frame of the bed.

There's a hacksaw lying within his reach, its sharp edges splattered with blood.

Merle, thinks Daryl, and for a long moment cannot breathe. God, Merle.

"Daryl?" Rick asks, visibly suppressing flashes of pain.

Daryl grits his teeth and walks over to Rick's side. "Can you walk?"

Rick manages a nod with some effort. "Yes."

Daryl uses one of the guard's keys to free Rick from the handcuffs. Daryl doesn't shudder at the look of Rick's left hand, raw and bloody around the wrist, and loops his arm around Rick's waist to pull him to his feet.

"You're all leavin' tonight. T-Dog knows where I left the trucks, three miles north, so he can lead the way once you're all outside. Most of your stuff's there." Daryl puts two bottles of pills in Rick's jacket pocket. "Painkillers, courtesy of the Doc. The other one's for your kid, in case that cough he's got comes back again."

Rick watches him for a long second that they don't have.

"Why?" Rick asks, stopping them in their tracks just as they're about to slip out of the cell. "Tell me why you're doing this."

It's an echo of the question that he's asked the Doc, and he doesn't have a half decent answer. You don't get to choose your family, Daryl doesn't say. He doesn't say, He's my brother. He doesn't say, He wasn't always like this. None of that matters, so he says, "Glenn's still here somewhere. You up for this?"

Rick stares at him for another moment before nodding. "Let's go."


The kid is crumpled at one corner of a tiny solitary room, a few cells down from Rick's.

His face is a clotted mess, mottled in red. His left eye is almost swollen shut.

Daryl slides down next to him and listens to the thready, brittle rasp coming from the kid's cracked lips.

With every difficult breath Glenn takes, Daryl feels a dent at his lasting image of Merle, his brother's strong, callused hands that had always seemed larger than life.

"Daryl," says Rick, quiet and worried.

"C'mon, kid." Daryl places a hand around Glenn's neck, as gently as possible. "Easy. Easy, it's alright. You're gettin' out of here."

The kid stifles a pained groan, flinching away from Daryl's touch.

Daryl reaches out with his other hand and carefully turns the kid's face so that the kid can't look away from him. "Glenn, hey, listen. The tunnel from the 60s, from that evacuation plan of yours—remember where that is?"

Slowly, Glenn's eyes slide over to Daryl's.

"Think you can find the way out?" Daryl asks, though it's one of the few questions that he knows the answer to.

Finally, there's recognition in those eyes.

Glenn's nod is slow, but firm. And he lets Daryl pull him onto his feet, to carry him forward.

Rick, watching from the doorway, holds the door open for them.


The underground tunnel curves and twists and unwinds to form a veritable maze, and their flashlights draw zigzag patterns of light on the ground they tread. Daryl thinks he might've seen the same passages in nightmares that he can't recall.

Glenn leads the way. When his steps falter, Daryl holds him up again and they push forward.

In the near darkness, their progress is slow and careful and quiet, but that's also why they're able to hear the footsteps coming from the other end. Daryl signals the rest of the group to halt, and creeps forward by himself. Ahead, the main tunnel branches out into several different paths, and Daryl waits by one corner.

A spot of light grows larger, and then it reveals a moving shape, which gradually turns out to be Harold, his rifle digging into the back of a man wearing white—the Doc, Daryl realizes, as he watches the man walk slowly, hesitantly, in front of Harold.

Just as they're turning the corner, Daryl yanks the Doc toward him by the arm and swings his rifle to deliver a satisfying, vicious blow to Harold's head.

"I'm—I'm so sorry," stutters the Doc, looking up at Daryl, and then at Harold, who's out cold on the ground. "They found out I gave you the key—"

"They?" asks Daryl, and whirls around.

And Merle's there in front of him.

"What're you doin', Daryl?" asks Merle, unhurried and pleasant.

Almost involuntarily, Daryl lowers his gun. He can't point his gun at his brother, not even without any intention to shoot. It occurs to him, somewhat belatedly, that he should've stirred another sleeping pill into Merle's whiskey.

"I'm lettin' them go, Merle," Daryl says, and his voice, by some miracle, does not shake. "They don't belong here."

"That so, huh?"

Merle takes a step toward him. The grip on his gun is wavering, but it points directly at Rick, who has come up behind Daryl. And it's not just Rick. Everyone is now standing behind Daryl.

"What's waitin' for them out there, then? Other than certain, horrible deaths?"

"We're willing to take our chances," says Rick. His face is pale but calm, with his good hand tight around his boy.

Merle's face crumbles into something ugly. Daryl remembers a night not so different from this one, the night after the cancer finally took Annie away, after it had eaten at her little by little until nothing was left of her on her deathbed. Merle had cursed at the world, then.

And tonight, Merle cocks the rifle, sluggish but unerring in every movement. "You'll never make it out alive, Grimes, I assure you."

"And neither will you," says Lori, before she fires a shot into Merle's chest.

Everything stops.

Rick stares at his wife. Everyone stares at his wife. Lori, however, doesn't spare a glance at Merle, who's fallen to the ground, or at her husband, or even at her son. With her gun lowered, she's looking at Daryl.

She's waiting for his judgment, Daryl realizes numbly.

Merle tried to kill her husband and threatened her son. She has every reason to shoot him. And by that same token, Daryl has every reason to do the same. Family is family, she seems to be saying, all without a single word.

Daryl watches Carl Grimes, both of his small arms tightly wrapped around his father's waist. He watches Rick. And Lori, looking at Daryl, her thin frame unwavering.

He can't look at Glenn, not his open and hurting face, so he watches his brother. Merle's still alive. There's a telltale sign of his chest rising up and down. Up and down. And again. Slow, but it's there.

Daryl lifts his trembling finger from the trigger.

For quite some time, no one says another word.

The Doc, breaking the tableau, pads over to Merle, adjusts his skewed glasses and feels for Merle's injuries. "I don't think it hit anything vital," the Doc concludes, with something strangely like relief.

Daryl doesn't realize when he's dropped the gun and crashed at Merle's side, but he has. And he doesn't even feel Glenn crouching beside him, until the kid's hand is on Daryl's shoulder. It's surprisingly steady, the feel of it. Daryl can't bring himself to shake his hand away again, so he doesn't.

"We need to go," Andrea speaks up first. "We don't have long 'til they wise up and figure out what's happened."

She quickly rounds up the rest of them and hurries them toward the opening of the tunnel. Carol turns to the Doc and extends a hand. "Come with us."

The Doc shakes his head. "Go, all of you. They won't do anything to me. They can't."

"Let's go," Andrea repeats, this time standing at Daryl's side, and only then Daryl realizes that she's speaking to him. That wasn't the plan. That's never been the plan.

"I will see to your brother," the Doc says, looking at Daryl. "I promise."

"I—" Daryl stops, and stares at his bloodied hands and at his brother. "Merle—"

"We need you," Andrea says, even though it's always been the other way around. But she says it simply, like that's all there is to it, like she isn't telling him to leave Merle, his flesh and blood, behind.

"It's the end of the world." Dale places a gentle hand over Daryl's other shoulder. "You said so yourself. Remember that? You can be anyone you choose to be."

"Daryl," says Rick, and nothing else.

Glenn doesn't say a word. He doesn't have to. His head is almost resting on Daryl's shoulder, and Daryl can feel him breathe.

Merle, he thinks. God, Merle.

Daryl runs a hand down his face, and breathes in.

"Let's get the fuck out of this hellhole," he says.

They do.


END