itsi3 - I'm excited for that meeting too!
HGRHfan35 - When you make assumptions it makes an ump out of...wait...
DarylDixon'sLover - Maybe...
Yazzy x - Yes but did you know Daffy Duck was Donald's long lost cousin? Stew on that one for a bit! Thanks for the review and all the others! ^_^
peonies01 - If you love Merle chapter's you'll love this one...I loved this one!
Merle's Right Hand - You're half right...next chapter should be more interesting once everything calms down.
MollyMayhem84 - Because if I kill her, I have no one to kill off later and will have to kill off someone we both like...do you want that to happen?
Jack And Honey - Hey, saw the new manip, loved it. You kill, slayer! Also, I'm so glad someone appreciated my nod to Steve Earle...I just figured 'you never come back from Copperhead Road' to be a poetic way to describe what happens at that group's farm. ^_^
Brazen Hussy - Hey, babes, guess who's featured pretty prominently in this chapter? You'll enjoy it!
Surplus Imagination - When Daryl's stronger he'll get a beat down, in the meantime enjoy Carl getting a beat down...of sorts.
amber24-03 - Thanks for the review! I hope you enjoy this chapter...might let you down...
Hey? See my cover art? Sure you do! Merle's Right Hand made it and she's lovely and I think she's kind of a killer when it comes to art and stuff. So...read her fic's and go to my profile page and follow the link to her art blog and enjoy some really lovely art! You're welcome in advance!
Chapter Ten: Congo Savanne
**Carol**
They had tended to the beaten stranger first, Herschel and Mrs. Douglas stitching his face up, before they moved on to fixing the mess Daryl and the Lieutenant had done to themselves.
After putting Annie and Judith to bed, ensuring Carl was on the wall and Beth was watching over the children, Carol headed to the infirmary to offer her assistance, passing Grace who stood sullenly on the wall.
Unlike Carol, the woman was beyond livid, but it must have been her Catholic teachings that kept her on the wall, quietly calming down minute by minute.
Carol couldn't be angry, she didn't own Daryl. He was his own man. And while she may have been upset he had gone off in his condition, she had no right to think for a minute she had the right to be angry at him for leaving.
Of course that didn't mean she didn't want to yell and scream at him for doing something so dangerous in his condition, but she supposed a bit of that submissive housewife remained in her when it came to something like this.
Did no good yelling at him, he'd only yell back.
Smiling at the woman and young boy who huddled in a shadowy corner of the infirmary near the new man, Carol kept on with the water for the men.
The sisters had tried earlier to get the woman and boy inside the dorms for a meal, but they refused, remaining quiet and steadfast by the man, the woman's arm draped protectively around her son and they ate quietly, head's bowed.
At least Daryl and the Lieutenant had the forethought to look like dogs who had done something they knew would get them in trouble, the Lieutenant refusing to meet her eyes, Daryl watching her carefully, gauging her facial features, waiting for her to begin her tirade.
At his side Merle sat, looking very displeased with his brother, telling the Lieutenant about finding Andrea and Tyreese and the Marine who seemed to know him.
"Delgado?" The Lieutenant asked, toying with his thin hospital blanket, covering his torso as best he could. "Yeah, I know him. We're lucky, he's a good man."
"Yeah, well he wants to meet with you before he lets our people go."
"Hm, makes sense, wants to feel us out, establish an ally or something, always good to have friends."
"Unfortunately," Herschel broke in as Carol wearily set the pitcher of water down and poured each man a glass as the old man stitched the Lieutenant's shoulder over again. He looked mildly angered at having to redo them, having to waste the medical thread. "Unfortunately, you had enough excitement to last you a few more weeks in bed."
"But if it's to get out—"
"No more excuses," Herschel snarled.
Everyone in the infirmary stilled.
"Now, I have wasted enough time and medical thread on you two misfits and I'm not going to, now you stay in this bed, both of you or I'll strap your asses in myself."
Carol and Mrs. Douglas exchanged a look, before she turned and headed out again, following behind Merle who was storming off in typical Merle fashion.
Moving towards the wall where Grace was still stewing and with great difficulty mounted it without the aid of one of the many crates they had placed around the wall for that purpose.
Grace helped her up some, before the two women settled into gazing out at the woods around them.
"I was talking with Mr. Mamet earlier," Grace began. "He thinks it might be best if I sent a couple of the sisters in full garb to Woodbury on his next trip."
"Couldn't hurt for them to see you're not monsters." Carol replied.
"No, I sent Sister Joan out today and I worried the entire time, these women may not be under my leadership anymore, but they're my family and I won't risk sending them out again."
Carol looked over at her.
"I'll go in full habit," Grace stated. "And I want you to go with me in habit too."
"Are you sure we should deceive them like that?"
"Better to dress like a shepherd and lead the lambs to safety, then to remain a wolf and frighten them deeper into the hills. Besides," she added with a small grin, "it might be good for the both of us to get out from behind these walls for a bit."
"When homicide isn't an option, huh?" Carol teased.
Grace laughed softly. "I am so mad right now."
"I think I am too."
"Not as much though, are you?"
Carol scuffed her boot on the top of the wall. "Well, I've sort of come to expect this of Daryl, he's kind of like a wild animal, doesn't like to be chained."
"Very poetic, but too forgiving of you."
"Says the ex-nun?" Carol inquired.
"Call it my merciless side coming out in the wake of my sins."
"I'll go with you," Carol said finally, after a moment. "We'll need someone to watch Judith though."
The two women cast a glance in the direction of Carl who was sitting sullenly on the east wall, gazing into the darkness.
"He won't go anywhere," Grace replied.
"Why?"
"I snuck into his room and took his spare ammo out of his pack."
"Grace!"
The woman covered a smile politely. "I know…I feel awful."
"No," Carol said, "you don't."
"A little," Grace admitted. "Truth is," she added after a moment, "I don't think that boy is as brave as he likes people to think."
"He's just young," Carol said, defending Carl. "He's been through a lot."
"Haven't we all?"
They stood on the wall for a moment longer in silence, before Grace sighed.
"So what do you think? Should I go into that infirmary and welcome them back or should I slap his face?" She asked.
"Turn the other cheek," Carol suggested with a soft smile.
"And then slap that one too? Sounds like a plan," Grace replied.
Carol chuckled, turning her eyes over the landscape as they stood on the wall, half behind the trees, but still with a good view down the cattle trail.
"Grace, raise your rifle, what is that down there? Walker?" She asked.
The woman raised her weapon, looking down the sight. "I can't tell, it's so dark, better give the others a head's up."
Nodding, Carol hurried off down the wall, heading to warn the others, when Grace called after her.
"It's Rick!"
Peering into the darkness of the late evening, Carol struggled to make out the man as he approached the gate. She hurried along the wall, heading up to meet him.
Merle hurried over to the gate from where he was seated on the back of a truck sharpening his blade, reaching it as Rick stepped in, brushing past Sister Mary Claire.
Carol hopped down from the wall, noticing Rick had something in each hand, but unable to make them out in the dark.
"Where the hell have you been?" Merle demanded.
Rick tossed whatever he had been holding in his left hand down onto the ground, it rolled for a ways and came to a stop at Carol's feet.
"Hunting," the man growled lowly, pushing past Merle, heading for the church, his right hand wrapped around what looked like a lawn mower blade.
Staring down in disbelief at the head of a man, Carol touched a hand to her collar, over the wooden rose.
"Is that the Governor?" Carl asked from across the gory decapitated head with a little too much interest.
Looking up, Carol's eyes sought out Merle, who was standing angled like he wanted to follow Rick, but remaining unsure about it.
"The people from Woodbury shouldn't see this," she said to him quietly.
"I'm on it," he growled, reaching down and scooping up the head.
Gazing after Rick, Carol debated going after him, but Carl scurried off in the same direction as his father and she decided against it for the moment.
"Is he bit?" Sister Mary Claire asked and suddenly Carol was reminded that that was a very real possibility.
"No," Grace said from the wall where she had joined them, eyeing Merle as he exited the convent grounds with the head. "Rick wouldn't come back if he was going to run a risk of harming us."
Still, once Mary Claire turned to give Merle come coverage outside the gate, Grace subtly motioned for Carol to follow Rick.
She did, heading for the church.
Stepping inside quietly, she found Carl sitting in the back, eyes on his father who sat in a pew somewhere near the front of the church.
Carefully she approached, offering a small smile to Carl who blinked sullenly back at her.
Reaching the front, she eyed Rick who sat with his hands in his lap, the bloody, disgusting blade across his knees.
He was trembling and looked pale, worse than he looked at the prison, shaken, half mad maybe, broken possibly.
Slipping into a spot at his side, Carol looked him over for bite marks or any other wound that would cause them serious problems later on.
She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off quickly.
"I'm fine." He growled.
"I'm glad."
Moving in closer to him, she smiled grimly. "We were all worried about you."
"I killed them all," he confessed suddenly. "The Governor, he wasn't there, so I hunted him down."
Unnerved by the way he was shaking, Carol reached out to calm him, hands falling on his bloody ones.
He jerked away from her.
"If you're not a member of this group now, you die. No quarter given to anyone," he growled.
"Rick—"
"I killed them all, Carol, and I wanted to put their heads on pikes," he went on firmly. "I don't have mercy anymore," he tilted his head. "Killing's easier than talking."
"Rick—"
"There's new people here, dad," Carl broke in, standing in the aisle beside them calmly. "Daryl and the Lieutenant brought them back."
Carol eyed the young man, who stood so eerily calm with his hands in his pockets.
"We should execute them like we were going to do with Randall." He suggested casually. "Before we lose any more people."
For the first time Carol was really beginning to see the toll his mother's death had taken on Carl, he wasn't just cold and distant, but there was nothing left inside him, see could see how empty he was just by looking at his calm stance and his flat eyes.
Rick eyed Carl quietly, still trembling like a newborn fawn.
"New people?" He asked.
"We'll discuss it in the morning, Rick, after you've slept," Carol broke in, trying to diffuse a dangerous situation. "Carl, you should be on the wall, who's watching for you?"
Carl blinked at her. "I don't have to listen to you, Carol. You want the wall watched, watch it yourself."
"Get your ass on that wall before I knock you spinning on it," Merle growled, marching up the aisle, heading for them.
"Fuck off, Merle. I shouldn't have to listen to a one handed redneck loser," Carl replied.
Cuffing the boy hard upside the head, Merle snatched the boy's gun before he could go for it and dropping the clip out of it onto the floor, threw the piece as far as he could down the aisle, stooping down and pocketing the clip. "Get on that goddamned wall!" He ordered.
"That's my son," Rick argued, still too far gone to really do anything about it as Carl stalked down the red carpet, heading for his gun.
"Yeah, take him in hand then, little asshole's been marching around here bossing people around, threatening to leave with your baby girl while you're off wandering the countryside!" Merle shouted.
As much as she hated when he lost his temper, Carol had never been happier to have Merle with them as she was completely over her head with Rick and Carl. She moved to stand beside him, wrapping her arms around herself. It was odd to her how in that moment she felt safer beside Merle than anyone else present.
"Rick, maybe you should go for a nap, I'll start heating you some water for a bath, you can wash that blood and gunk off you," Carol suggested.
"I don't need sleep," Rick argued.
"Get some rest, Officer Friendly, it'll do you good," Merle suggested.
"He's right, Rick, please? You're just exhausted, it won't do you any good to get sick on us," Carol urged, moving forward to carefully drag the lawn mower blade off his lap, not missing his hand which looked like he had sliced it open on the thing.
Handing the blade to Merle, Carol moved in cautiously and finding Rick a little more docile then he was before, she wrapped her arms around him carefully.
He was a big, strong man, but in her arms he felt delicate, breakable and she held him tighter as a shiver ran through him.
"Come on," she whispered. "Let's get you to bed, Rick."
Looking over and up at her, then Merle, Rick repeated, "I killed them all."
Carol didn't know how to help him and it ruined her, she didn't want him to see her cry, so she remained silent lest a sob escape her open mouth.
It was Merle who replied to him, with a shockingly gentle, "you did good, Rick. You earned a rest."
Looking over her shoulder at Merle, Carol found she was seeing him for the first time. How far he'd come before her very eyes, she didn't even see him growing, but she understand then why she felt safe with him.
Feeling tears coming, Carol buried her face in Rick's neck, recovering herself before pulling back with a smile. "Come on. Come get some sleep, Rick. Everything will better in the morning."
Slowly he rose with her and Carol finally managed to lead Rick out of the church and into the dorms, Merle close behind her.
Settling Rick into a bed, Carol backed out of his room and covered her mouth, finally allowing herself to cry for him. He was such a nice man, one of the decent ones and he had fallen so far and so fast.
Beside her Merle stood awkwardly as she wept, still holding on to the lawn mower blade with a grimace on his face.
"It'll be okay, little sister," he rasped.
Sniffling back her tears, Carol nodded, offering him a weak smile, reaching out to grasp his upper arm companionably.
"I'll watch over Officer Friendly tonight," he assured her.
Carol eyed him for a moment, before moving in to wrap her arms around his waist.
His body went completely rigid and he remained that way until she released him.
"Thank you, Merle."
He flinched. "Whatever. Get the fuck out of my sight, take this thing with you."
Taking the lawn mower blade, she offered him another small smile, before leaving, heading for Grace on the wall to get her up-to-speed.
The Voodoo Dialect
Congo Savanne – Not much is known of this violent, temperamental loa, but what is known is that he is a fierce and strong force. Savanne eats people. He grinds them up as we would grind up corn. He often appears in the skin of a white man and he is a loa not to be messed with.