MILTON
The white lettering along his arm caught the light from the lamp at the back guard post as he slipped on his jacket. His scars were the best moral compass he had at the moment, for the past six days had seen him constantly hopping the line between what he believed was right and what everyone else's opinion on the manner was. The deciding factor, though, was this: how many more scars did he want?
He spent hours laying in bed and comparing the two dictators he had served under, trying to find some viable excuse to have turned a blind eye to the inhumane things happening around him and if he could forgive himself depending on the circumstances. In the end, it simply came down to his own preference concerning the two men: Phillip and Negan.
Phillip had been arrogant to think that Milton would always be indebted to him because Milton had never given anyone cause to think that he desired more than the simplest existence. However, that arrogance wasn't entirely mislaid, for Milton still awoke some days from a dream that seemed so displaced from this reality of his. He would dream of the most mundane existence that had been his life for so long, believing that he was still a bachelor at forty years old, living in a one-bedroom apartment in Atlanta and going through the same routine day in and day out with very slight alterations. Then he would wake, finding that the world had died outside his window and here he was at forty-three, bonded to his wife, his daughter, his best friend, his dog. Phillip could never have guessed that this would become Milton's life when he took Milton under his wing as Woodbury rose from the ashes of Doomsday.
That overly-confident way of thinking had backfired on Phillip, though. He never had reason to suspect that Milton was growing attached to other people in Woodbury, so when he discovered that Milton had played a large part in trying to overthrow him, the betrayal he had felt cut deeper than the words he etched into Milton's skin.
How, then, would Negan react when and if he ascertained that Milton had known about Merle's plans to fight the Saviors all along and didn't say anything? Would he also feel backstabbed, or would he simply be disappointed? Milton was inclined to think both, but more of the latter. Negan and Phillip were hardly similar men, even if they ruled with iron fists. Where Phillip originally acted in the shadows so that the people wouldn't see how dirty he played, Negan was outright about his sadism. Phillip shut down Milton's advice; Negan encouraged it. Both men tortured and executed their fair share of victims and proved that there was a degree of mental instability but on a personal level, Milton saw Negan as the lesser of two evils on at least one front: rape. Negan didn't tolerate it for one second. Phillip had raped Andrea and let one of his soldiers rape Elliot.
Negan knew that Milton was ever-faithful to his family, including Merle, but Negan also believed that Merle had escaped on his own. He didn't know that the two of them had parted as friends, that Merle had forgiven Milton. He didn't have the foggiest notion of what was waiting for him at Woodbury, and though Milton didn't know either, he had a pretty decent idea of what Merle had managed to scrounge together. It wouldn't surprise him in the least if that was where the prison group had gone because not two days ago, Negan had put out the call to Patrick to check in for the night, only to receive static in response. This could have been due to a malfunctioning radio or running out of batteries, but with how tense things had been at Woodbury, Milton seriously doubted it, so when Negan sent a ten-man patrol to scope out the prison, they found it deserted. No bodies, living or dead, no blood, no supplies. It didn't bode well for the Saviors, but inwardly, Milton had hope that somehow, Hershel had led a revolt against Patrick and covered their tracks well. If they hadn't simply moved on, they were sure to be in Woodbury, waiting for the day of reckoning.
With his jacket now firmly positioned to cover his scars, he continued on his rounds. He was on patrol near the south perimeter fence after asking Negan if he could take over, just to clear his head. He had paced the length of the fence forty times back and forth with no movement to be observed from the woods when a lone walker stumbled into view and caught on the trip wire that activated the can alarms. The south side was the weakest point, so Negan had had additional alarms placed to give the guards extra warning, but now that the walker was snared and rattling the cans, the noise would be sure to bring more.
"Briggs, I'm going over to free up the alarm line. Hold your fire to the south," he said into his radio. He climbed the ladder to the guard platform, draped a leg over the barbed wire that topped the fence, and then let himself fall to the ground eight feet down. Unsheathing his knife, he approached the walker from its blind side and stabbed it through the ear before untangling its legs from the alarm line. As he pushed it over onto its side, he saw blood smeared across its bare chest in deliberate patterns. He switched on his flashlight and quickly took in the letters written in red: 20 paces in, bloody tree-dig, M.
Milton quickly poured half of the contents of his canteen onto the walker's chest, rubbing out the message until nothing but dead skin remained.
"Find something out there?" asked Briggs over the radio.
"Maybe. I'll let you know."
He replaced his knife with his pistol and leveled himself where the walker had fallen, then measured out his steps until he had gone twenty lengths deeper into the trees. Shining his light on each tree around him, he settled on one a few feet to his right and found blood smeared across its trunk. At the base, there was freshly churned up soil and Milton combed his fingers through it, pulling back more and more dirt until a sufficient pile the size of a watermelon lay beside him. His hand found something solid and he unearthed a stick of dynamite. His surprise nearly caused him to drop it and he swore as he uncovered an additional nineteen sticks as well as several timers, a remote control device, and a small assortment of items that he had no idea how to use. At the very bottom of the hole, he found directions for how to assemble, arm, time, and remotely set off the explosives as well as where to place them around Savior HQ and exactly what date and time to arm them for. The directions were written in a steady hand, one he recognized as belonging to Bob. On the back of the directions was an additional note written in some of the sloppiest, lopsided print he had ever had the displeasure of deciphering, but he knew it to be Merle's.
It's happening. Plant the bombs. Use remote control if you have to, then hitail it. Be with me, or run and keep running. Tell Andrea and Asher. Woodbury shows no mercy. Don't be a dumbass. M. P.S. Judith's safe.
Milton removed his glasses and pinched his fingers over his eyelids to process this master plan he had just discovered. He and Andrea had had no plan other than to run when he returned from making the drive to Woodbury (if Woodbury fought back), but now, Merle had provided him with the distraction he needed for the battle that was now undoubtedly about to happen. Woodbury would open fire on Negan, and the plan was to drive the remaining Saviors back to the compound where explosives would create holes in the walker yard for the rebels to push through. They wanted to seal the Saviors inside and make the compound their tomb, but to do that, they needed Milton to place the dynamite in the designated spots, having never attempted such a thing before. They could still potentially accomplish their goal, but if Milton sided with Negan, it would set them back temporarily. They didn't know if Milton was with them or not, and neither did Merle, which is why Merle had given him the option to stand with Woodbury, or run and never come back. Milton and Andrea's betrayal would not be forgiven if they took up arms against Woodbury, but the town didn't know Merle was giving them this chance.
This was Merle's warning alone, a last-minute scribble (though, judging by the atrocious penmanship, it had taken Merle at least ten minutes to write the message out since he still couldn't write as well as a kindergartener with his left hand), an alternative option to being executed by the people who thought Milton and Andrea had tossed them aside. Be with me, Merle had written, not be with Woodbury. Merle was taking Milton's choice personally, even if he was giving Milton a way out if he should choose Negan over the town. Merle wanted Milton to fight beside him and end the tyranny they had both suffered under. And that had been Milton's goal from the beginning, hadn't it? To kill all Saviors for what they had done to him, to his friends, to his family? When had that stopped being Milton's purpose? When had it been replaced with repaying Negan for saving his life?
Be with me.
He could almost hear Merle saying the words, admonishing him for even contemplating anything else. Merle had been led to believe once already that Milton chosen Negan over him and Milton was in no hurry to rekindle that doubt. He read through the letter again, shaking his head at Merle's misspelling of the word "hightail", but breathing a much-needed sigh of relief at the mention of Judith. Merle knew Milton too well sometimes, for this last bit of information was what he needed to make his choice.
His watch read ten thirty, giving him four hours until shift switch. He estimated that it would take twenty minutes to set up the sticks of dynamite in each location, and if he didn't get it done tonight, he'd never get another chance because Negan wanted to leave at first light. In four hours, Milton had to abandon his guard post in an unsuspicious way, learn how to arm explosives and successfully hide them in the process, and do all of this without being seen by any of the guards.
It was a challenge, a physical and mental stimulation the likes of which he hadn't faced since Phillip had put him to work examining walker bodies with limited equipment and technology. This was his element: a seemingly impossible task set within a time limit.
He wiped his glasses clean on his shirt and set them firmly back on his nose with a newfound determination. He covered the hole and carried the sticks in the bag that accompanied them, setting out for the first mark which would be the solid brick wall right beside the front gate. Timing the guards' patrol, he waited until the floodlight was shining on the far side of the compound to sprint for the wall and then equip the first bomb inside one of the empty drums of oil that stood alongside it. Setting the explosives was surprisingly easy once he let the initial anxiety of reading the instructions wear off. Though he half-expected to blow his fingers off at every turn, he had effectively managed to set the bomb in just under fourteen minutes.
Now the problem was going to be setting the two explosives in plain sight of the wall guard, for one required him to venture into the walker yard and the other had to be placed in the old van used for cover in case of an attack just beyond where the remnants of the supply shed stood. There was no conceivable way to do this without the aid of some distraction—something Merle had already supplied him with in the form of a blazing car being driven right up the road toward the compound.
"Vehicle inbound, main road. It's blazing and it's coming in fast," said Milton, and all at once, he heard the alarm sound as Saviors rushed to the gate, armed with weapons and fire extinguishers. The fire would attract walkers, so while half of them attempted to put it out, the other half would be spreading out into the woods to locate the driver of the car.
"Get back, it's not slowing down!" shouted Denunez, and Milton scrambled for cover along with the rest of them as the car collided with the gate, knocking it down and barreling forward through the walker yard. Seizing his opportunity, Milton slipped into the yard as the fumes, smoke, and haze provided cover for him. He crossed over to a pile of metal scaffolding scraps, just out of reach of a walker that tried to grab him, and began to set up the next explosive. Now with the process embedded in his brain, he was able to equip the thing in less than seven minutes, cutting his prep time in half.
All the while the Saviors struggled to put out the fire before the car could explode and cause greater damage. Water was being thrown onto it, dirt was added to the mix, but the fire raged on, buying Milton more time to crawl under the cover van and plant the third bomb. The last bomb needed to be as close to the front door as possible, which meant sticking it to the catwalk just above and hoping no one would see it. Milton dodged through the gravel yard, tramping up the steps to the catwalk where he crouched down and loosened the putty that would help the dynamite to stick to the metallic surface. He wedged the sticks between the concrete wall and the catwalk and then took off for the outer gate, sneaking out and then coming back into sight to make it look like he had been searching the surrounding woods for the car driver.
Another fifteen minutes and the fire was beginning to die down. The scouting Saviors returned and set to work on fixing the gate. Milton lent a hand, more to make sure that no one jostled the oil drums than to actually assist, but they had constructed an acceptable barrier within the hour.
"Milton, I got Keisha to cover the rest of your shift. Come on up to my room so I can have a word with you about tomorrow," said Negan's voice at Milton's hip and he confirmed that he had received the message as fear gripped his gut.
He doesn't know, just be calm. There's no way he could possibly know what just happened.
Contending with his overreacting brain for dominance of his body, Milton guided himself to Negan's quarters, knocked, and let himself in. Negan was sitting at his dining area table, beer in hand with an unopened bottle across from him.
"Sit," he invited. "Have a drink."
"I'll sit, but I'd rather have water, if it's all the same to you. That fire made me a little parched and the last time I drank, Dumb Pete slipped me something that made me sick and passed out cold in three minutes."
"Fair enough. There's bottled water in the fridge." When Milton had opened up his water and taken a seat at the table, Negan tipped his beer can at Milton in a toast. "Here's to something better."
"That's not a very encouraging toast."
"I don't know what'll happen tomorrow, man. I keep telling myself that I should have left some guards at the town, but after the state I left 'em in, they would have killed those guards within five minutes of us leavin'. So I as good as opened up the gate for them to rebel. I invited them to, and I know that's what I'm facin' tomorrow, but I'm still hopin' to find some peaceful resolution, or as peaceful as we can reach, all things considered. People are gonna die; I'm not stupid enough to think anything else can be the outcome, but I don't want it. The fight's gonna be short and bloody or it's gonna drag out a long-ass time and be just as bloody. Either way, we'll know tomorrow, huh?"
"It looks that way, considering the blazing car."
"Yup." Negan drained his can and tossed it into the trash, then went to his wall of trophies and took Rick's Colt Python off of its nail. He set a box of bullets on the table and then offered the revolver handle first to Milton. "I want you to use this tomorrow. You can keep your pistol, but this is the one prize I wish I hadn't won, so I don't want it anymore. It belongs with someone who knew its owner."
Milton took it, feeling the unfamiliar grip of the handle and the unwelcome weight. This was Rick's and he had no place using it, let alone carrying it around.
"Giving this to me now doesn't change or redeem what you did," he said. "You could have gone back to wherever it is you came from or you could have negotiated with us. You might have made some more friends that way. But you murdered Rick and you took me and there was no way in hell that Woodbury or the prison would ever accept you as anything but a tyrant after that."
"Which is why I don't want that thing in this room anymore. It's been givin' me nightmares the past few weeks and I think that givin' it to you is some kind've poetic justice. Do what you want with it, but I'm leavin' it up to you. He was your friend."
"When this is over, I'm going to bury it with him."
"You do that. But for now, for the next six hours, go to bed, try to sleep, and be ready to move out at sun-up." Negan put his hand over the python, seeing some memory in its reflective surface as he considered his next words. "Whatever happens tomorrow, Milton, don't worry about what your old friends decide to do. You just concentrate on staying alive. Nothing's gonna touch you while I'm around, but it'll still help me if you just assume everyone's out to kill you."
"I'd rather you not worry about me. I think enough people have stepped into the line of fire to shield me as it is. If you haven't been training me for something like this since the first day, then why am I here? Give yourself some credit for helping me get this far—and with the ability to fight without my glasses. Instead of concentrating on me tomorrow, how about you focus on ensuring the least possible amount of blood is shed?"
"I might just try that," said Negan in a tone that didn't convince Milton at all, but Milton left all the same. If Negan wanted to get himself killed being Milton's bullet proof vest, that was his business, but Milton didn't plan on sticking around long enough to need any protecting.
Outside of Asher's room, he found the young man obsessively counting his bullets, but he only lingered long enough to draw a rough sketch of the compound and point out, "I won't have time to say any of this in the morning, but stay away from these spots I've marked. Don't leave Andrea's side and don't let go of your gun at any point. Also, keep Sawyer in your sights."
He didn't leave Asher any time to respond, but knew that the promise of leaving Savior HQ behind would make the young man all the more compliant to Milton's requests. Losing Merle had put strain on Asher, but Negan seemed to have lost the will to torment him as much as he had before Merle's escape, so Asher was allowed to train with weapons on the firing range while using wandering walkers as practice targets. He still wasn't nearly as experienced with artillery as Milton would have liked, but when Milton recalled how inept he had been with weapons before a battle very similar to this a few years ago, he actually found Asher's progress to be substantial.
Back in their room, Milton found Andrea sitting in the armchair, going over her own bullet count, unloading and reloading her clips and timing herself for accuracy and speed. She put her work down when she saw Negan's gift to Milton in his belt.
"I'm only going to use it on Saviors," Milton promised, then he set it down at his bedside table, went to Andrea and knelt before her, showing her Merle's note and explaining what he had just finished doing down in the yard. Andrea took the note when Milton was finished and set it ablaze with a match to eliminate the evidence.
They didn't need to say anything else to each other; both of them knew what tomorrow would bring. One way or another, this was the last night they would ever spend in this room together. There would be no returning once the explosives detonated, for Negan would know that only one person inside the walls could have set them. As to whether or not Milton and Andrea would have a home twenty-four hours from now, or if they would be alive, there was no telling, but they had tonight, and in fear of what tomorrow would bring, they retired early, nestled as closely to each other as it was possible to get as they awaited the dawn.
/ /
MERLE
Merle sat in the dog kennel, feeding the animals scraps from his uneaten meal, as he had had no appetite upon returning to Woodbury after leaving instructions for Milton. He entrusted this part of the plan to no one else, for he didn't trust that anyone fully believed that Milton would act as their inside man, so Merle had taken Bob's instructions and written a very sloppy but prompt, no-bullshitting letter to Milton on the back. He knew Milton would be hard-pressed to read his handwriting, but if anyone could read it, Milton could, and he was hoping that his concise words reached his friend better than Negan's persuasion could.
Waiting for Negan's caravan to arrive was now the order of the day, but he had a good twelve hours to get through, including what would likely be a sleepless night, so he occupied himself with getting the dogs to recognize his scent as a familiar one that was not to be harmed when they were put to the test tomorrow. The males gave him warning growls to let him know that they did not accept him as their alpha, but the female were curious enough and one of them even decided that his shoulder was a good place to sit. As they sat licking the remnants of his meal from his hands, he had to remind himself that these were dangerous animals, all trained to attack and kill when their masters uttered their trigger word. Merle hoped for Milton's sake that he left Sawyer at the compound when they came to confront Woodbury's citizens because making Sawyer fight his own litter, mother, and sire, was not something Merle looked forward to seeing. Sawyer would be ripped apart and Milton would falter if anything happened to his dog.
He laughed at his concern for a dog when human lives were at stake, but then he recalled that that was what made him so different from the Saviors; he did value life outside of his own, and not just in the form of close friends, but people in general—women, children, the elderly, the infirmed. And dogs.
He extracted a single cigarette from the pack in his breast pocket, lit it, and blew out a single puff of air. Going almost two years without one made the taste almost acidic on his tongue, but he didn't cough it out. Some habits were too easy to revert to.
"I thought you quit," observed Hershel, joining him in the dog pen.
"I did, but y'do stupid shit when you're about t'die," said Merle in resignation.
"Is that attitude really helpful right now?"
"I'm bein' realistic, ol' timer. Half've tomorrow depends on Negan bein' predictable an' the other half depends on Milton plantin' them explosives. I left 'im instructions; he's just gotta follow through with 'em."
"He'll figure it out. He's very intelligent, remember—"
"Y'think I can forget that when he used t'rub it in my face? That ain't what I'm worried about; I still dunno what he's gonna end up doin'."
"He's your best friend. I think you know exactly what he's gonna decide."
"Yeah, but even if he comes through for us, it ain't gonna matter when the bullets start flyin', huh? Everybody in this town thinks he's one of Negan's an' when it comes time t'kill, it don't matter what I say; they're gonna want his blood."
"Then you tell Elliot to give the order to hold fire on Milton. If you truly think Milton's with us, tell Elliot to pass the word and no one'll fire a single shot at him."
Merle drew on his cigarette again, pushing a dog aside as it tried to lick at the smoke.
"What aboutchoo, Mister Greene? Y'think Milton's with us?"
"I never had reason to doubt it."
Jeering his disbelief in the old man's statement, Merle inhaled and let the smoke pass through his mouth so that he could snort it out his nostrils. There was a time and place to be Johnny Sunshine, but on the eve of war was not it. "Hell, y'ever doubted anythin' in your life, or y'always been so damn cheery?"
"I doubt things every day, same as you," said Hershel, sitting down beside Merle so that another female dog with the makeshift tag that read "Artemis" could crawl into his lap. "I'm afraid, same as you, and most of the time I'm afraid of what'll happen to those I leave behind if I'm killed, same as you. But where we're different is that I haven't doubted you or Milton since you first came to us carrying Elliot on a stretcher. You're one've my own, Merle: you, Milton, Andrea, everyone at the prison as well as some folks here in town. I've got more kids now than I did when my wife was alive."
"I ain't your—"
"Doesn't mean I don't look at you that way. You're bullheaded and hot tempered and you make stupid decisions based off've pride, but I don't know a man who hasn't done the same. You don't let that rule you, though. You fight for what's yours and as hard as you try to brush us all off, you keep doin' the right thing—for us. That tells me we're yours as much as you're ours. And Milton's done the same, only without so much—showmanship. So, no, I don't have any reason to doubt either've you. Somebody's gotta have some faith in you, so it might as well be me."
"But just say, just say you're wrong…" said Merle urgently with the need for Hershel to understand his dilemma. "Say Milton walks through that gate an' shoots one've ours. What'm I s'posed t'do then, shoot 'im down?"
"The only reason Milton would have for turnin' on us would be if Negan had a gun to his head or Andrea's, but Andrea would never let Milton go through with it and if what you say about Negan bein' so protective of Milton's true, then you don't have any reason to suspect that Milton would pick the wrong side. He gave you your freedom, Merle, and not just because he wanted you outta Negan's hands. Like I keep tellin' you; he's smarter than y'think."
This was something Merle all too well, for it was what made the two of them bicker like brothers vying for an approving father's affection when the Governor was in power. Milton provided the insight; Merle provided the brawn, and Milton had always made a point of telling Merle how severely lacking he was in the intelligence department. So this maneuver to free Merle had been Milton's own way of restating that, but with graver consequences. Merle only hoped that for all of their sakes, Milton had made the right move.
"You should get some sleep while you can," offered Hershel several long minutes later.
"I ain't gonna get no sleep no how. You go on, I'mma sit out here for a while yet."
"Then I'll stay right where I am. Nobody should be facin' this night alone."
The old man didn't say it, but it was on both of their minds that companionship was preferable to solitaire because going into this night alone would make the morning that much harder to face, especially if one was plagued by one's own thoughts and nothing more for company. So Merle was content to finish out his cigarette and stroke his hand through the fur of every dog in the kennel as the males finally approached him and gave him an approving sniff.
He heard the morning coming before he saw it as spring birds chirped in greeting to awaken the day. Darkness was still settled, but a faint pink tinge was on the horizon and Negan would be chasing it, headed here.
Stretching and helping Hershel to stand, Merle went to the cowbell in the center of the street and began yanking the cord it was attached to as a signal to the town that it was time.