ANDREA

Andrea had volunteered to help take care of Nathan and Nina while their mother was in recovery and also keep Janine's apartment clean, so as the rest of the town bedded down for the night, Andrea was still dusting off shelves after just putting the twins to bed. If she finished in time, she planned to start reading through Janine's rather extensive collection of books since Andrea hadn't been able to enjoy any leisurely time as of late. She would only have to wait around until ten o'clock when Erica's shift at the front wall ended and the other woman came to sleep over with the twins for the night.

When the last of her cleaning duties were done, Andrea selected a teen mythology book off of the bookshelf and started to read. She could have chosen a book on tectonic plate shifting or barnacle goose migration or even a Stephen King novel, but since she was already living in a horrific nightmare every day, she bypassed the obvious choice and decided to step out of her comfort zone. The book she had chosen had easy vocabulary and teenage wit and she found herself nine chapters in when she heard a knock on the door. Checking the watch that Tate had lent her, she saw that it was a quarter to ten.

She cracked open the door to see the Governor standing there, and she had a sudden urge to slam the door in his face and double bolt the locks, but thought better of that bizarre behavior and stepped back to allow him in.

"Are you my replacement?"

"No, but I did come to see how the twins were gettin' along," said the Governor as he strode in and looked quickly about the room. His eyes fell on the dog-eared book on the couch and he smiled. "Aren't you a little old to be reading kid books?"

"That's like asking if you're too old to have an imagination," responded Andrea. "An adult wrote that book and even though the intended audience was kids, adults can still read it. I happen to like the subject material."

"Okay, I'm not judgin'," said the Governor as he swiped up the book and read the blurb on the back. "Greek mythology? Now, that's somethin' I was always interested in."

"Really? I took you for more of an Egyptian mythology type of guy, Governor."

"Phillip," the Governor corrected. "And you'd be wrong. When I was a kid, I told my dad I wanted to be Zeus. Bein' able to shoot lightin' at anyone who upset 'im—see, I got bullied a lot and the idea've punishin' them little hooligans who hurt me was mighty appealin'. But Zeus was leader of the gods, protector've mankind—"

"And he could sleep with anyone he wanted and they didn't get to say no if they wanted to not be turned into a cow or be killed," Andrea finished. Only after she had spoken did she want to clap her hands to her mouth in horror at her stupidity. She didn't know what had made her say it, but it had come out nonetheless. She knew the real reason the Governor was here, and it wasn't to check on the twins, otherwise he would have just stood at the door and asked upfront. No, he had come to ask, or rather demand, something of Andrea since she had to stay in the apartment until Erica came to relieve her.

"Zeus couldn't keep it in his toga, true, but that's not why I admired 'im," said the Governor, assessing Andrea with a grim smile. "Is that why you admire 'im?"

"I don't. I always thought Zeus was the bully."

"Mmmm," said the Governor as he moved back toward the door. "Well, I take it, y'aren't in the mood for much more small talk, so I'll get right to it. This's just a question and y'don't gotta gimme a full-detailed explanation, but it's somethin' I gotta take stock in."

"What?" asked Andrea.

"You and Merle?"

Andrea's heart began pounding as it jumped to her throat. "Excuse me?"

"Well, walls aren't exactly soundproof here, y'know, and y'happen t'live in the room above Becky and she practically preached it to everyone at the cantina this mornin'. Plus, I saw Merle go into your buildin' yesterday and he didn't come out 'til this mornin'. He must've had quite a lot to offer."

"We're not having this conversation," said Andrea boldly. "It's none of your business and I'm not about to spill out intimate details about my personal life."

"It is my business if my best lieutenant's got his head up in the clouds 'cause he's thinkin' about you. Merle's never been with a single woman in these walls, somethin' I attribute to the fact that he's got one hand, which is a big turn-off for the ladies. But then you come along and in less than two months, he's gotcha in bed."

Andrea wasn't going to stand here and listen to this. She didn't need to explain what had gone on behind closed doors to anyone, least of all the Governor, because despite his excuse that he needed Merle focused, it still wasn't his damn business. No one needed to know the finer details of Andrea and Merle's relationship—if one even existed—and she doubted anyone but the Governor wanted to know. Wondering if it was like this for every one of Woodbury's soldiers whenever they decided to take someone into their bed, Andrea started off toward the door, feeling that she could call to Erica from the front of the building and get some backup before the Governor could say anything else, but he beat her to the door and leaned against it so that she couldn't open it.

"You're not doin' him any favors, y'know," he said. "Until you showed up, Merle didn't have anythin' I could threaten 'im with in case he got outta hand. Now I do."

"And just what's he done that would give you cause to threaten to hurt me if he didn't obey you? For that matter, what have I done that's earned me this kind of treatment? If I'd gone to bed with Milton, I can't see that you'd have grilled him on the juicy details of what happened once the door closed—"

"Oh, you're wrong there. I'd care very much about that because Milton's never gonna be able to get it up for anyone, yourself included, so if he was suddenly performin', that'd be a miracle and an intervention on God's behalf."

"What the hell's wrong with you? You're sick, you know that?"

"Now, it's no business of mine what my men do in their spare time or who they bed, but I do start to take interest in who they bed when it's you."

Andrea put her hand to the holster at her side.

"I wouldn't do that."

"Get out of the way."

"I'm not askin' for much here, Andrea. I suspect that you've known I was gonna ask this for a while now and frankly, I'm kinda hurt that you think so lowly've me when I thought we had a connection. I'll tell ya how I see things and then I'll let you decide where y'wanna go from there. I took you in, gave you medicine, and kept you safe from what's outside those walls. I gave you a second chance after your friend Michonne threatened to slice my neck open when she pulled her sword on me. I could've killed you just to be safe, but I gave you the benefit've the doubt. I let you in the army and I made you a higher ranking soldier than Erica in the time that you've been here. I put Crowley behind bars for you. And I've helped the people see your true potential; they trust you now to keep them safe just like they trust me. I'd say that makes us a team, partners even. And partners work well together, don't they?"

There wasn't enough space between the two of them for Andrea to make a move. She knew the Governor wouldn't raise a hand to her; he wasn't that kind of man. But he could threaten her with something worse than physical pain, get inside her head in a way that only someone with his verbal capabilities knew how to do. Whatever or whoever he was about to toss out onto the table, she would have to play her own cards very carefully.

"Tell me again that you don't admire Zeus for being a rapist," she said venomously.

"I don't. The fact that he and I share some negative traits is just an unfortunate coincidence. Now, you tell me what you think your options are."

/ /

Andrea set the chair underneath the doorknob of her room since she still didn't have a lock installed on it. She turned to her bed, only to find it already occupied by a passed-out Merle who was sprawled on his stomach with his head facing away from her. As Andrea took off her holster and dropped her bag on the floor beside the bed, Merle gave a snort and awoke.

His head rose off of his pillow. He rubbed at his eyes with his knuckles as he turned his head and peered at her in the dim light that came in from the street fire pits. "Wassmatter?" he asked groggily.

"What are you even doing in here?"

"I was sleepin'," said Merle.

"Look, last night was last night and I'm not coming back here after tomorrow, but you are, so let's not let this go any further."

"I honestly just came back here t'sleep," said Merle, propping himself up on one arm. "Greg lives next t'me an' he snores like a foghorn an' I needed the sleep. What's wrong with you, anyway?"

"Nothing," said Andrea, laying her pistol down on the chair beside the bed and tugging the hair tie out of her hair to start unbraiding it. Her fingers worked at untwisting the golden strands as the Governor's words ran over and over in her head with the intensity of a fire alarm playing like a broken record.

"As long as we've got an understandin', Merle's got all his appendages, minus the one he cut off himself. I'll see you tomorrow night, won't I?"

"Hey, what's up?" asked Merle, prodding her with a finger.

"Just go back to bed."

"Well, I can't just do that now; y'got me curious. What happened?"

"Nothing, I told you. God, Merle, will you just go the hell back to sleep?"

Merle crawled over to Andrea's side of the bed, making the whole mattress move as he went, and then plopped down right next to her, but he didn't put his arm around her or nudge her in a teasing way or do anything she expected of him. Instead he put his arm on the top of his thigh and leaned on it so that when she looked over at him, he had an expression that said, What the hell is your problem?

"Well, excuse the fuck outta me, woman. After all I done for ya, this's how y'answer me when I show actual interest in whatcha got goin' on? After I took ya back to your restin' bitch-faced friend an' showed ya a hell've a good time last night—"

"Don't twist this around on me like you did before," snapped Andrea. "You wanted a thank you out of me when I wasn't willing to give it, but you made me feel guilty because you found me out in the woods. Don't do that to me again. I don't owe you shit, and you can't use me—"

"Use you?" Merle repeated. "Andrea, what the actual fuck? Tell me what happened just now before y'came back here. Somebody done said somethin' to ya. Was it Kendall or Benson? Was it Milton?"

Andrea felt hot liquid brimming in the corners of her eyes and turned her face away from Merle. She was thankful beyond words for him showing such concern for her, but if he knew the reason for her being upset, Woodbury would be burnt to the ground by morning. He couldn't know what she had just agreed to do for him—not that she was actually going to go through with it. She would be long gone before the Governor ever got the chance, but when Merle came back to Woodbury without her, would the Governor make good on his promise to punish Merle, or would he let it go? She wanted to believe that the Governor would throw a fit and then bury the hatchet, but if he could talk about his childhood bullies with sadistic fantasies of wanting to zap them with bolts of electricity, he wasn't likely to forget Andrea making a fool out of him.

If Merle stayed here, he was in danger. But if he left with Andrea, what was to keep the Governor from taking out his frustrations on the rest of Andrea's friends? Tate, Erica, Wes, and Milton—poor Milton. The Governor had shown his blatant disregard for Milton's life before; he wouldn't hesitate to do it again, and Andrea couldn't allow that. But if she stayed, she would be traumatized, assaulted, stripped of everything that made her the survivor she was. She would be cut down to barely a shadow of the woman she had been after Amy died. She couldn't take this lying down, but if she didn't, more people would suffer in her place.

"Y'gotta gimme somethin' t'work with here," prompted Merle. "I'mma keep askin' til y'do, an' y'know I don't shut up."

"When you see Daryl tomorrow," began Andrea, which shut Merle up anyway, "what do you plan to do?"

"Well, I could tell ya, but that ain't somethin' I rightly figured out yet an' even if I did, I wouldn't tell ya, 'cause y'ain't answered my question."

"I need to know, because it has to do with my situation right now. If you asked Daryl to leave with you so that the two of you could run for it and start over, do you think he'd go with you? Or do you think he'd stay with Rick and the others? Or maybe, do you think that he'd come back here with you, if you asked him to?"

"Hell, I ain't comin' back here—"

"People here need you, Merle. It's clear to me that Phillip is a sociopath and without a voice of reason here, he'd let people like Crowley run amuck. You fought him on that front and the town took your side, so he had no choice but to lock Crowley up. You exposed Wade for what he was and the town agreed with the treatment of him, so Phillip didn't investigate his death. The people trust you, and you can't abandon them by leaving them in his care."

"Whose care y'suggest I leave 'em in? Milton's?"

"No, not solely, but that's where I have a problem. When I go, I can't take these people with me, even though I want to and need to because they're not safe under Phillip's rule. They need protection from him because they don't know what he is. You do. You know, Milton knows, and so does Guerrero, Erica, Fletcher, and a small handful of others. I know you say you don't care about what happens to this town, but we both know that's bullshit. Even for Daryl, you can't just leave people with Phillip in control."

"So basically, you can get away from all this, but I gotta be the responsible adult an' come back to it, is that it?" asked Merle furiously.

"One of us has to because we're the only ones who will take action. I'm asking you now if you would be willing to come back here, with or without your brother, to remove Phillip from power to ensure that the town will be safe."

Merle didn't respond immediately. The words were there on his tongue, but Andrea could see him fighting that internal battle he always seemed to be locked in combat with. The demon that had plagued his body for so long was fighting to get back in as his new set of morals kept it at bay. And though the words that came from his lips said otherwise, Andrea knew he had emotional investment in this town. "No, I ain't willin' t'do that. I ain't givin' up my freedom for these people."

"You already have."

/ /

Andrea was grateful that the Governor wasn't at the wall the next morning when she and Merle set off, because if he had been, she was sure that he would have found a reason to make her stay. Still, she couldn't get Merle moving fast enough as they headed out the gate and up the road on foot. The goodbyes that she hadn't said still weighed heavily on her mind, but she had to be optimistic and hope that she would see these people again when the Governor was no longer in charge. Even if it meant convincing Rick, Michonne, and the others to help her, Andrea had to find some way to liberate Woodbury from the Governor's tyranny.

She etched the faces of Milton, Erica, Tate, and all of the others into her brain, determined not to forget them if things didn't turn out like she hoped and praying that they would forgive her for not saying a proper farewell. She had tried to start saying goodbye to Milton, feeling that of all of them, he deserved an explanation most, but she couldn't get the words out because he had treated her with a cold distance for reasons she couldn't explain. She wanted to hug him, but she couldn't get close enough, and he had taken off before she could anyway.

So she walked alongside Merle, no longer in high spirits as she had been yesterday, but filled with dread at the prospect before her. They had set out earlier today to give them more time to get to the gas station and wait instead of risking the possibility of showing up late and running out of time. The walk seemed to take both a shorter and longer amount of time: shorter because of Andrea's anticipation to finally be back with her friends, her family, but also longer because she was left to mull over her own tormenting thoughts.

When they arrived at the gas station, they sat down with their backs to the outside wall, facing west. Merle wasn't in much of a mood to talk to her after her refusal to tell him what had upset her the night before, but she didn't mind. Her fling with Merle had been impulsive, and more of her body reacting than her mind. She had gone a long time without feeling a man and Merle had met her body's desire—though he had surprised her in more ways than one. Regardless, she couldn't have that kind of attachment to him anymore, especially if he was to return to Woodbury and she wasn't. She had to make him think that their one night together had been nothing but a one-night stand and she hoped that the Governor would buy that.

"We've got movement," said Merle after a while, standing up and pulling out his sidearm to aim it at the direction from which they had come instead of the direction Michonne had arrived from yesterday.

"Walker?" asked Andrea.

"Nope, footsteps sound too deliberate. There's more'n one, too, and whoever they are, they're human."

No sooner had he spoken that someone burst out of the trees and fell in a heap on the forest floor. Andrea had her own pistol halfway out of her holster before she realized who it was and she shouted so that Merle would know not to fire.

"Oh, I don't believe this!"

"Y'dumb-as-shit speck've cow manure!" Merle cursed.

"Milton," said Andrea incredulously, "What the hell are you doing here? Did you follow us?"

"No," said Milton in a transparent lie, but he didn't even have the decency to look ashamed at how feeble it was, and he looked even less guilty at the presence of his traveling companions: Erica, Tate, and Wes, the last of whom had a rather pleased expression on his face.

"I'm actually getting pretty good at this tracking stuff. Not as good as Merle, but I've got the hang of it now."

"This is not happening," said Andrea, losing her patience with her friends completely. "You all need to leave right now."

"You need to answer some questions first," said Erica.

"Movement," said Merle again, twisting around to face northwest and Andrea's fear that her Woodbury friends would discover Rick's group mingled with her excitement to see a visual manifestation of her liberation from the place she now hated. But it wasn't Rick, Michonne, or even Daryl who came out of the bushes.

It was Elliot, and he looked like shit.