DARYL:
He would be lying if he said that Merle's state didn't concern him. Once, when he came back from juvie, Merle had passed out dead-drunk on the couch for four days, which Daryl didn't worry about in the least because that meant he could play basketball to his heart's content without his brother interfering. When Merle woke up he gave Daryl a few dollars to go and buy groceries and when Daryl returned home, he was gone. This was normal behavior and it never bothered him, but now, when Daryl most wanted Merle to wake up, his brother was being a stubborn jackass. Hershel insisted that Merle was just trying to recuperate after the toll the physical pain took on his body throughout the course of two days, but the old man didn't have the faintest idea how damaged Merle was mentally and emotionally after the ordeal.
Andrea revealed everything that had happened during Daryl's absence and also the extreme measures Merle had gone to in order to keep the Governor's men off of Daryl as he lay unconscious on the floor of the torture bunker. More often than not Daryl had been as helpless as he was at age six and he had come home with a cut lip and broken wrist after being beat up by the kids who hung around the back alley behind the school. Sniffling and wincing, he expected to find his mom in the living room smoking, watching her favorite soap opera. She might not have been much of a mother, but she would have bandaged him up at least and maybe, if she was feeling extremely generous, taken him to the ER. But she wasn't home; instead Merle had been there to greet him and wrap his wrist in an old t-shirt while telling him to toughen up. It was a hard lesson to learn, but one that Daryl learned fairly quickly, not that it did him any good back at Woodbury. He had spent the majority of the time passed out or incapacitated which left Merle and Andrea to protect his worthless body.
Some help you are, jackass, he reprimanded himself, but then the voice of reason that Merle never managed to flush out of him pointed out, But you carried 'im outta Woodbury and got 'im up in that tree. Y'went back t'the prison for help. That was certainly true, but they all could have walked back to the prison together, maybe even changed Michonne's fate if Daryl had been conscious to take care of himself instead of dumping the responsibility on Merle's shoulders. Now, look here, y'idjit, you go blamin' y'self for every little thing that happens t'him from here on out and you're gonna have a serious mental problem. He knew what he was doin' and he did it willingly without you askin' 'im to. Damned if he don't at least give a shit about you after all, t'go through everything he did just so that they'd kill you last.
Kill him last. At what point had Merle realized that there was no escape for them this time, but still resigned himself to defending his little brother with his dying breath just to give Daryl a few more precious moments of life? Where had that act of selflessness come from in self-absorbed, careless, indifferent Merle?
Well now, that one's obvious: Andrea. Looks like Merle's hots for her never died out. Only those hots turned into real, no-bullshittin' feelings. Go figure.
But it all made sense, if he actually thought about it. Merle was an alpha male and Andrea was an alpha female. They balanced each other out nicely because she challenged him and used validity which went way over his head and he brought Andrea's puffed up head down to earth once in a while. Did that mean Daryl felt like a third wheel? Absolutely not. If anything, he felt like a double set of wheels in place behind the forefront ones, acting as the support and the guiding link to connect his brother's life and Andrea's.
If Merle ever woke up, he and Andrea would take their relationship further and Daryl was perfectly content with watching it happen so long as his brother didn't go ape-shit on Rick, T-Dog, and the others. Even if Rick had saved his life, Merle was ungrateful and he held onto grudges far longer than was healthy which was how he landed himself chained to the rooftop in the first place. That fault was entirely his own and not Rick's, but Daryl would never say that out loud where Merle could hear him.
It was a difficult thing, sitting by Merle's sickbed and trying to force feed him broth or water, but if that's what it took to bring him back around, Daryl would do it. He only let Andrea take over occasionally because if Merle woke up, he didn't want his brother freaking out on someone else and hurting himself out of anger or panic. Hershel had set his ribs, two of which were broken and the rest of which were severely cracked on one side. His face was not the work of surgical reconstruction, but given time, it would look almost like normal. The bullet wound in his shoulder was the least serious injury and would heal the quickest provided that he left it alone and didn't pick or prod at it as was his tendency.
Daryl's wounds were on the mend, but he hadn't had any sunlight since Merle was brought in which certainly wasn't contributing to his health. Even at Hershel's insistence, he and Andrea refused to go far from Merle's sickbed. The two of them even shared nightshifts but as the days wore on, it became more and more frequent for one of them to pass out in the chair beside Merle's bed and be awakened by the other sometime later.
For Daryl, it was now sometime later yet again, though he woke up on his own to find himself with his head planted on Merle's legs, having keeled forward in his chair at some point so that his arms, now asleep and floppy, hung uselessly over the floor. Sitting up with a sliver of drool coming out of his mouth, he stretched and rubbed the back of his neck to massage out the soreness. He reached over to feel Merle's forehead but jumped back in alarm at the sight of his brother's eyes glaring at him. For a split second he wondered if he could be dreaming, but when Merle smacked his hand away and made some unintelligible sound in his throat, Daryl dismissed the possibility.
"Water," said Merle, his voice sounding like a dying cricket.
Daryl nearly tripped over his chair in his haste to grab a water bottle from the rickety bedside table. He spilt a small puddle on Merle's chest and if his brother had been in any position to do so, he probably would have hit Daryl so hard in the face that his head spun around to sit backwards atop his neck, but as it was, Merle could barely hold the water bottle himself.
"Calm—the—hell—down—boy," he said raspily as he took a small sip and let the water wash over his parched lips. When he had drunk his fill, he set his head back, visibly exhausted. Staring up at the bunk above him, he asked, "How'm I doin'?"
"Hershel took care've everything," Daryl assured him. "We didn't know if you were gonna make it, though. You've been out of it for—days."
"And you've been sittin' there the whole time?" Merle guessed, scanning Daryl up and down. "Y'look like shit."
Daryl scowled. "Well you ain't exactly a pretty pixie y'self," he retorted.
"Where is she?"
Of course, there could only be one person "she" could refer to, but Daryl was still groggy and a little slow as he asked, "Who?" which earned him a roll of Merle's eyes.
"I wanna talk t'her. Go get—ow!"
Merle clapped a hand to his ribs as he tried to sit up and Daryl shushed him on the spot. "Keep your voice down, y'idiot, or you'll scare everyone half t'death! They're all sleepin', but I'm gonna go get Hershel. Stay here and I'll-," He cut off, thinking of how stupid that had just sounded and praying that Merle hadn't noticed, but no such luck was with him.
"Naw, I thought I'd get up and do a few jumpin' jacks, maybe run some laps 'round the prison, y'dumbass."
Daryl collided with Andrea just outside the cell and they both latched on to each others' forearms to steady themselves. Nodding his head at Merle, Daryl silently told her that his brother had finally woken up and she slipped into the cell, taking his formerly occupied seat. Through the bars Daryl saw his brother's expression soften just slightly at her presence.
"It's about time you woke the hell up," said Andrea in an almost reprimanding tone.
"I'd like t'know how this is my fault?" said Merle.
Daryl left them to it but returned a few minutes later with Hershel hobbling along on his crutches and Rick accompanying him. At first Daryl had protested Rick's involvement because the sight of his face was not likely to improve Merle's mood at this hour after having just woken up from a coma, but Rick insisted that he lay down the rules for Merle while he was still unable to strangle anyone. That plan shipped a sail the moment Rick stepped appeared in the doorway because Merle tried to make a go for him and Andrea pushed him back down, only to have him swear in pain.
"You move that suddenly again and you're looking an additional six months of lying in that bed along with the two months you already need to heal," said Hershel serenely. "I don't care if I have to smash a brick over your head to knock you out, son, you need to be still."
Perhaps the shock of being called son by the crippled man was too overwhelming for Merle to find a proper comeback or maybe he was actually heeding Hershel's advice but either way he stopped moving and Rick precariously entered the cell.
"Back from the dead," he said in an attempt at light conversation.
Merle held up two fingers and then let his forefinger drop to give Rick the bird. "That's twice, y'little son've a-,"
"Merle," said Andrea sharply.
"Look, I know there's no love lost between us," said Rick, squatting down on Merle's level but staying wisely out of his reach. "I as good as maimed you, I'll admit that, but I also fished you out of the river when you were drowning, so I don't owe you anything. You can call me what you want to my face and hold a grudge until the day you die, I don't care. What I do care about is what you plan to do once you're mobile again. Whether you stay here on move on, it makes no difference to me. I only ask that if you do leave, you do it without causing a scene. Leave us how you found us. If you stay, you've gotta earn it."
"Bullshit," said Merle, wincing while Hershel checked his bandages and tested his ribs. "If gettin' kidnapped and tortured by psychopathic mercenaries, sneakin' out've a heavily guarded facility, climbing and fallin' from a tree into a river, nearly drownin', fightin' same said psychopathic mercenaries, all the while sufferin' from a bullet wound, a stab wound, a mutilated face, broken ribs, and any number've cuts and bruises and then goin' into a coma ain't enough t'qualify me already for earnin' my spot here, I say fuck you and I'll be on my way."
"Just shut up," said Daryl. "You know damn well you can't get anywhere in your condition, so even if y'haven't earned your right t'be here yet, y'still have t'stay 'til Hershel says you're good t'go. It'll make everyone's lives a hell've a lot easier if y'just hung up the pride and listened t'someone for a change."
Merle had never looked so sober.
Hershel and Rick returned to their respective cells shortly after, leaving Daryl and Andrea to console with Merle who had a very dark expression on his banged up features. He looked from Andrea to Daryl and spoke mainly to him as he said, "Hope y'realize I ain't plannin' on stayin' here."
That was what Daryl was afraid of.
Good-grief. Rough start to 2013, y'all. Death, broken limbs, stress, college…I won't go into details, but it's been hard for me to actually sit down and get anywhere with this story, so I'm sorry and I appreciate all of you who have waited, reviewed, and waited some more. Thanks!