They developed a council because they might have left the modern world behind them but they were still people and people would always find conflict with one another no matter how much they had in common or how close they all became living up on their mountain. The council would also make decisions if a big enough one came across their paths and the community would respect – and follow – their word.

Hershel sat on the council since going to Clear Rock Mountain was his and Annette's idea in the first place and down below, the community had always respected the man and his opinion. Caroline Rothenberg, Jim's wife, was also a council member because she had actually been a lawyer down below – before she lost all of her faith and love in the judicial system. The final council member was one who didn't want it at all and that was why Hershel felt he was perfect for it.

Of the three seats on the council, Merle Dixon occupied the third and last one.

If someone had told Merle Dixon that he'd be leaving the comforts of his life – of cable television, of his cigarettes, of all of the women at all of the bars, of other things he snorted and smoked – he would have thought they were high on something, too, because why would Merle even consider leaving at all?

He did alright, money wise. A couple of his cousins cooked and Merle pushed it and to a state of meth-heads, he had plenty of customers. That was what Dixons did. Some families were doctors or plumbers and this was what the Dixon family did. They cooked and sold meth. His Cousin Richie exclusively grew and sold marijuana – the guy having a green thumb and growing really nice pot plants because of it – and didn't touch anything else but for the rest of the family – even the women – they were all about meth.

When he was eighteen, he had had a brief moment of thinking about something else; got it in his head that he could be something other than a meth-dealing Dixon. He signed up for the army because he got paid a little bit of legal money and it would get him away from a while; namely his old man.

He couldn't believe his mom went and had another baby with the son of a bitch.

It was bad enough she was still married to him instead of leaving his ass years ago but to actually go and have another baby? Merle couldn't believe it when she told him.

Daryl being born really fucked with his plans. Merle was going to get the Hell away. He had already been in juvie a couple of times and honestly, he liked it better than being home. He got three meals a day and had a bed at night and he wasn't freezing or burning up. Yeah, there were fights with the other guys but he wasn't getting wailed on by his dad every damn day. Every time his sentence was up and he went back home, he counted down the days until he was eighteen and could go and get himself away.

But then, when he was fifteen, Daryl was born and Merle held his baby brother, hating the kid for coming around and screwing things up because how could he leave his brother alone with their old man, but he loved him, too, because this was his baby brother and fuck anyone if they thought they would touch him.

Merle noticed something. Will didn't go after Daryl. The baby grew into a toddler and it was as Will Dixon didn't even acknowledge the little kid's existence. He still went after mom and Merle but never Daryl. So when Merle turned eighteen, he thought joining the Army could work. Besides getting some money for it, it would get him the Hell out of here for a while.

But Merle forgot one thing. He really hated listening to anyone telling him what to do and pretty much from the get-go, Merle showed attitude to his ranking officers; not exactly the best thing to do in the US Army.

He was dishonorably discharged and when he was twenty-two, he was back home. This time though, no moving back in with Will and mom. Merle got his own trailer and got involved with the family business and he figured that he was a Dixon and despite giving something different a shot, this was what Dixons were supposed to do. Nothing wrong with that. Supply and demand.

The people demanded and the Dixons supplied.

It was how it was and Merle figured it was how it would always be.

One thing was different though. Will had finally noticed Daryl and was going after him now, too.

Merle heard rumors. Rumors that sounded too fucking insane to ever be true. Hershel Greene and his wife, Annette, the town vet and the woman who led sewing circles at the church, were leaving town. And not just leaving town but disappearing from this whole damn world.

He didn't believe it at first. People didn't do things like that. People were too comfortable with electricity and indoor plumbing and their fancy wi-fi, showing off their lives on social media like others actually gave a shit. And no offense to Hershel Greene – who was one of the few men in town who didn't cross the street when he saw a Dixon walking from the opposite direction – but Merle couldn't imagine that kind of man doing it.

But the rumors didn't disappear. They grew stronger.

And now, it just wasn't the Greene family. There were three other families going away with him and Merle listened closer when people would talking about it in the bars at night on their third or fourth beer. They were going up a mountain. No, Hershel had found them an island off the coast. Don't be stupid! They're going all the way to the swamps!

Merle had a hard time believing anything other than the mountain story. These mountains offered a lot more for people than most realized. Hell, there were stories about others who had gone up there to live, these mountains so big and stretching on for so long, who was to say it was true or not? Maybe Hershel doing the same wasn't the craziest thing Merle had ever heard. It didn't mean that Merle was going to do off and do the same but still, it wasn't the craziest thing he heard.

But he went back home to his trailer after a night out and Daryl was waiting for him – bruised and still bleeding and he was a boy of ten, trying so hard to keep from crying, in front of his big brother.

Merle stared at his baby brother and then at his shitty trailer.

Maybe, going up some mountain with Hershel Greene and a few others might have made more sense in that moment than anything else in this fucked up world.

Hershel, Otis, Jim and Morgan were the other men and they helped Merle build his own little cabin with a room for him and a room for Daryl. The four families had brought up as much furniture as they could and they had no issue with sparing a few pieces for the Dixons who had joined them.

In just the first week, Merle was sitting in a chair outside their place with Daryl sitting on the ground next to him, watching as Merle was skinning a rabbit. And Daryl smiled. His first smile in more than a week. And seeing it across Daryl's face, well, Hell.

Merle found himself smiling a little, too.

It wasn't easy for Merle those first few weeks. He had been smoking and drinking and snorting since he was twelve – or thereabouts. Cutting himself off cold wasn't exactly something he ever wanted to do but he had given himself no choice and his withdraw spread quickly to the others.

Morgan and Jenny took Daryl into their home for a few days while Hershel sat with Merle in the Dixon home, wiping Merle's sweat away and cleaning out the puke buckets and hardly blinking an eye as Merle shouted and screamed all sorts of curses at him.

"I want to go back! Let me go back!" Merle screamed as he tried to push through Hershel for the door but Hershel was strong – for an older man – and all he did was push Merle back, keeping him back.

"You don't want to go back, Merle," Hershel would tell him in that calm voice that only pissed Merle off more. "There's nothing down there for you, son."

"I'm not your fucking son!"

"You and your brother are safe up here. You need to be up here. God wants you up here."

Merle's response to that was dropping to his knees and throwing up in the bucket.

Hershel got another cup of water and knelt down next to Merle as he emptied his insides out.

"You and Daryl belong up here," Hershel said and this time, Merle couldn't find an argument with that.

His body was in the worst sort of pain and he would race down the whole side of this mountain if someone was waiting for him with something so snort up his nose but deep down, Merle knew Hershel was right. Merle had looked at his brother's bruises and had made the decision for both of them to come up here – to be safe and try to have something good.

He couldn't go down there again. There was nothing down there for him anymore.

There had never been anything down there for him.

"What would you say about helping me make some decisions around here?" Hershel asked him on the fourth day when the worst of it was over and Annette had brought him some broth because broth might have been the only thing Merle might have been able to keep down.

Merle was sitting up in his bed and he even managed to give Annette the smallest smile as she handed him the bowl and spoon. She smiled back and he was stunned as she leaned in and kissed him on the head.

"You look great," she said and he snorted with a laugh.

He then looked to Hershel. "Make some decisions? Who put you in charge?" He slurped up a spoonful of broth.

Hershel, sitting in a chair next to the bed, just leaned back with a smile. "You all did when you decided to follow my crazy ass up here."

"Hershel," Annette gently hit his shoulder but she was smiling at him and Merle choked on the next spoonful of broth he had taken at the sound of church-going Hershel Greene cursing.

Spending all of the time with Merle during his withdrawn had clearly been a bad influence on the man.


THANK YOU!

A little shorter but I loved writing from Merle's POV and I hope you liked it, too! In the next chapter, we will see time moving forward with a few more additions to the mountain family/how they are surviving and Daryl and Beth getting a little older.

Also, I'm playing around (a lot) with ages of the characters. Just go with it lol