The First Time He Chose Her Over Merle
Everything had just happened so fast.
From the moment at the prison that he had looked up to see the dead streaming into the courtyard, things had been moving lightning quick without any time to really think.
First, they had only just cleared the prison again when they had headed off to this town in the middle of nowhere to look for Glenn and Maggie.
The trip there had been grueling in and of itself. Rick seemed to be barely hanging on, and he watched him with concern. And he watched Oscar and this new person - Michonne - with anxious suspicion. Oscar seemed like a good sort, but he'd never seen him really fight. And this woman had come out of nowhere and he didn't like it one bit that she was with them, like she was a part of the group.
Then they had made it into town and suddenly it was a different kind of fight. For the first time, they weren't fighting drooling brainless bastards but fighting the living who had guns and could think. It was chaos.
He had been covering the group's retreat over the school bus when he had run out of ammo and been surrounded. Someone had cocked him hard over the head and the next thing he knew, he was being dragged, blindfolded and half-senseless, into a screaming circle of more people than he had seen alive in almost a year.
He had barely been able to understand what was happening. Where he was, who all these people were, why the hell everyone was yelling, how the fuck Andrea was standing there looking at him with shock, but most of all, what his brother was doing in the circle with him.
He had been forced to fight Merle but that had barely begun before smoke and bullets were filling the circle, and he was running with Rick and Maggie and Merle through the woods for half the night.
And now they were standing here in the middle of the road, him, Rick, Glenn, and Maggie, and even though things had finally slowed down with the killings on one hand, everything still seemed to be moving as fast as ever on the other. He just couldn't believe they were having this damn conversation, and it was all moving too quickly for him to try to make sense of it.
Back at the town, he had chosen Rick over Merle. When he had heard Glenn say that his brother was there, everything in him had told him to leave, go find him, go find the only blood he had left in the world. But then he had had Rick in his face, all but begging him to stay and help. And he had. Didn't that mean a thing to these people? He had given up the chance to go find his brother. His brother who the damn group had abandoned to die a year before. He had given that up to stay with Rick and the group and watch their backs and try to get away with them, not Merle. Now to have to stand here and hear Rick tell him that he wasn't worth the same damn loyalty, the same damn courtesy, the same damn, hell, worth, as the rest of them.
It just didn't make any sense. They were willing to let that woman come back to the prison, that woman with a freaking sword who never spoke and seemed more dangerous than him and Merle put together. She was a goddamn stranger. More than that, she had abandoned them as soon as they got into town and went off to Lord knows where, leaving them to fight alone and lose Oscar along the way. Still, she was somehow good enough to bring into the precious prison, but not him and Merle.
In the back of his mind, he understood that Rick and Glenn and Maggie were saying he was welcome back, just not Merle. They were all so damn anxious to assure him that they weren't abandoning him, just asking him to abandon Merle. Again. But he kept pushing that aside, because he and Merle were a pair. There was no him without Merle. Couldn't they see that?
Merle wasn't no rapist, Jesus Christ. Did he honestly have to stand here and reassure them all of that? Did they think that's what kind of person his brother was and did they think if there was even a chance of something like that happening he would be arguing to bring him back to where they lived? To where she was?
Maggie's reaction made sense. She had never met Merle before at the quarry, had only knew him at the town. And he could tell by the look on her face and the fact that she was wearing Glenn's shirt instead of her own, that something had happened to her back in town. Something horrible. He winced away from the look in her eyes. He understood why Maggie couldn't get it.
But Glenn? He had lived with Merle for weeks back at the quarry. And yeah, Merle had been an asshole and high as a kite the whole time to boot. But he hadn't hurt nobody or, he sighed to himself, succeeded in hurting somebody. And yeah, Glenn's battered face told him clearly enough what Merle had done in town. But shit like this happened nowadays. Dammit, hadn't he had to do the same thing to that stupid kid Randall back at the farm to try to get information? And freaking Shane had about broke his arm restraining him at the quarry. And Rick had pulled a gun on him three freaking times. Andrea had even shot him in the damn head. He'd gotten past all that, in time, and they could get past all this shit with Merle, in time. If they would try. But they weren't even willing to try.
And Rick, damn Rick for making him choose like this. After what they had been through and what they had done for each other. He had thought that Rick at least would understand. But a whole year of watching each other's backs was being wiped out in one conversation. He could see Rick's face and knew that he wasn't thinking of him as himself anymore, as his friend Daryl, but instead as just a Dixon, like Merle. And Dixons were white trash - everybody knew that. It had been this way his whole life. He'd been a fool to think it had finally changed.
Then Glenn played his trump card. He asked him what she would think of him leaving. But it backfired. That was the last damn straw, the one thing that convinced him to go. He looked at his friend in contempt and told him that she'd understand. Unspoken, he thought, the way the rest of y'all can't. She wouldn't have ever asked him to leave Merle. So she'd understand why he was leaving now, he just knew it.
His mind made up, he turned his back on all of them and chose Merle. And as he walked off with his brother, he forced himself not to look back. He forced himself to be zen and start forgetting about all of them. Hell, at the end of the day, he'd known them all less than a year. They weren't blood and they never would be. Wouldn't be so hard to move on.
Alone together that night, Merle took first watch while he slept. It had been days since he had. Several hours later, when Merle kicked him awake to take watch, he felt clearer and more rested than he had in weeks.
He sat in front of the fire and watched his brother sleep. Things had finally slowed down and he could hear himself think. It had always been the two of them, him and Merle. People came along and stayed for awhile - family, friends, women - but it didn't matter nothing who they were or why they came along, they all left in the end. And then it was just the two of them again, him and Merle.
But sitting here alone, head finally clear, he was beginning to think that he'd made the biggest mistake of his life. Was he really never going back to the prison again? Never see any of them again, never go out to hunt for supplies for Lil' Asskicker, not be there when that bastard "Governor" came to kill them all? And shit, call a spade a spade, what he was thinking about the most was her.
He'd told Glenn that she would understand, and in the heat of the moment with everything moving so fast, he had known that she would. But now, that seemed so wrong. He couldn't understand why he had thought it. Sitting at the fire, he tried to convince himself that he'd done the right thing. She would have said the same things as Rick. Hell, if Rick wouldn't trust him, she would have done the same thing. She and Rick were so different in so many ways, but so alike too. He told himself she wouldn't have accepted him with Merle either, just like the others.
But as the hours passed by, sitting quietly by the fire, he just couldn't stop thinking on it, and he knew it wasn't true. And more than that, he knew that she wasn't going to understand, because he didn't really understand it any more himself. Had he really left without saying goodbye, without even going back to the prison to explain it to her? And was he really never going to see her again after just finding her? How had she reacted when Rick came back and told her? Had she been angry? Had she cried? He couldn't stop thinking about it.
After he had found her in that tomb and brought her back, he had sat there next to her cot and watched her sleep. And he had just been so damn relieved and so thankful that he could barely swallow past the lump in his throat. It was a miracle. When she had opened her eyes finally and smiled at him, he hadn't never wanted the moment to end.
Then she had been leaning towards him and clutching him closer, and he had been in shock as she kissed him. He had hesitated. Not because he didn't want it, hadn't wanted it for so long, but because she was so weak and so disoriented. And he wondered whether she was just doing it because she was grateful that he had found her. But her lips had been so warm and soft and all he wanted was to crush his hand in her hair and pull her closer, then climb into bed with her and run his hands down her body, to be with her finally, the way he had wanted to for so long.
But she had been in pain and when he heard her gasp, he felt like a freaking pervert, thinking about sex when she had been so hurt and he hadn't even had Hershel come down and make sure he was okay. He had left as fast as he could.
After that, there hadn't been a moment alone with her. He had thought as he left that when he came back, they could finally have it out between them. He'd say what he felt even if it embarrassed the hell out of him and maybe she felt the same, and then they could go forever together. And now that was all gone. He was never going to see her again and he'd never know what she would have said. And he hadn't even said goodbye.
The next couple days with Merle played out the way they always had before. Fighting, hunting together, arguing, protecting each other. But something had changed. He loved his brother, hell, he had to and always had and always would. But it wasn't enough. They couldn't live like the two of them had done before here in this new world.
The tension was building in him every hour that they stayed away from the prison. Merle wasn't stupid. He knew he was trying to get them headed back to the prison. They were sniping at each other more than usual. It finally came to a head when his brother grabbed him by the collar and pushed him to the ground. They had it out between them, and he told Merle he was headed back. Then he turned in the direction of the prison and moved as fast as he could.
If Merle wanted to follow, he would. It he didn't, well, hell, he'd just have to learn to live with it. He had before. The only thing that mattered anymore was getting back. To the prison, to the group, and to her.