AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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"You know each other?" Michonne asked.
Like peering into a haunted house, another ghost appeared just behind Merle's back. Her fingers curled over his shoulder as the other hand found her mouth to cover it.
And Daryl didn't know exactly how to answer Michonne or what to do with himself.
"You could say that," Merle said. "This here's my—my darlin' baby brother."
"Your brother?" Michonne asked. It was a rhetorical question or, at least it might as well have been because nobody answered it and Michonne didn't wait for anyone to answer it. "Well, congratulations. You're about to be an uncle. It's late, Merle. So, does this mean you want me to wake someone to—find them a place?"
"It means we got it, Michonne," Merle said. "You can go back out to the fences."
"Bryan already took over," Michonne offered.
"Then you can go get some sleep," Merle said.
"Thank you, Mich," Andrea said. It was the first words she'd said while standing there. It was the first time that Daryl had heard her voice and seen her face at the same time since the day they'd all accepted her death. "Goodnight."
Michonne must have left after her dismissal, but Daryl missed the woman slipping away entirely. He felt absolutely unable to move his eyes from where they'd fixed on sights that seemed impossible.
"You gonna stand out there on the porch all night?" Merle asked. "Or you comin' in where it's comfortable."
He and Andrea cleared the doorway and Carol stepped inside first given her proximity to the door. She walked directly to the center of the living room that they stepped into and Daryl and T-Dog followed after.
Daryl glanced around and, for a moment, tried to take in the room around him. The cabin was a nice cabin. It was large for a couple, but maybe it wasn't too large once they'd started to build a family. Daryl tried to wrap his mind around the suggestion that this cabin wasn't just any cabin. This cabin was his brother's home—a home he shared, at least as the story went—with his wife. There was furniture. It was nice enough. And there were curtains.
Merle Dixon—this Merle Dixon—lived in a house with curtains.
"Thought you were dead," Daryl said, finding his voice or, at the very least, a hint of it. "Both of you."
"Yet here we stand," Merle said. "And we real damn alive."
"Listen—about the key," T-Dog spat quickly. "I swear man, I didn't mean to drop it. I chained the door. Gave you the best damn chance I could."
Daryl watched his brother's face. He saw Andrea's ghost fingers flex as they squeezed his shoulder. He still couldn't fully believe that what they were seeing was real and not some kind of group hallucination that was supposed to allow them to clear their consciences. Daryl's eyes trailed down. Where Merle's right hand had once been, there was a metal cuff. At least their hallucinations were somewhat real—though Daryl saw no evidence of the bite marks that would have killed Andrea if she'd truly been torn apart on Hershel Greene's farm like they'd imagined.
"We come back for you, Merle. Come lookin' for you. But you was already gone," Daryl muttered, making his confession, just in case.
"I thought you were dead," Carol said. "I saw you go down. On the farm. I thought you were dead. They left me and I ran and I left you because…"
"Wanted to go back for you, but…the farm was overrun. Thought you didn't make it out," Daryl offered.
Merle stood there, silent, with his jaw set. He looked over the three of them with gliding eyes. Andrea had dropped her hand from her mouth, but not from Merle's shoulder. She looked like she was moments away from sleeping where she stood. Her eyes, too, glided over all three of them.
"Hell," Daryl said. "Say sometin' or I'ma start to think that—that Alice woman put somethin' in the food. Some LSD or somethin' and we're on some kinda crazy fuckin' trip right now."
"We're a drug free community," Andrea offered. "Except—except for…medicinal purposes. And pot. Jerry grows a lot of pot."
Daryl laughed to himself. He couldn't help it. He laughed and the laughter was contagious, obviously, because Andrea laughed and it slowly spread around everyone gathered in the living room.
"You been dead this long and that's what the hell you got to say to all of us?" Daryl asked.
The laughter was good, though. It broke something. It shattered the veil between the living and the dead or whatever it was that had to happen because Andrea broke loose from her side of things and enveloped Carol in a hug without saying anything else.
And then Merle offered his good arm out in Daryl's direction.
"You got a hug for your brother?" Merle asked.
Daryl sunk into his brother. He felt his arms wrap around him, one at a time, and Merle unashamedly hugged him hard. As Daryl pulled away, he noticed that T-Dog looked like he was just about ready to find a window and jump out. Perhaps he wasn't sure, yet, if they hadn't been drugged with LSD and, if that were the case, he was on about the shittiest trip he could imagine.
"Listen it was a fuckin' accident, man," T-Dog said. "I swear it. I mean—you're an asshole, don't get me wrong and I wanted to punch you in the face a few times but…I never wanted to kill you."
Merle laughed at T-Dog. He laughed at him sincerely and heartily even as Andrea reached him and wrapped her arms around him to offer him some kind of comfort in his crisis.
"I was pissed as hell," Merle said. "After I cut my hand off. After I got out of Atlanta. But it wasn't you who handcuffed me to the roof with the damned Walkers all around."
"And he chained the door," Daryl offered.
"And you chained the door," Merle said. "Feels like years ago. Another fuckin' life."
"You aren't gonna hug me," T-Dog said.
Merle laughed again.
"I wouldn't fuckin' dream of it," Merle said. He offered his hand in T-Dog's direction. "But—as leader of the Cedar Falls community, I'll shake your hand. If you'll shake mine."
"I got so many questions," Daryl said.
"It's getting late," Merle said. "And tomorrow is another damn day. We don't have to answer all the questions tonight." He looked at Carol, furrowed his brow, and then looked at Daryl. "You the husband, lil' brother? That Michonne was tellin' me about?"
Daryl's stomach twisted. His heart squeezed. He glanced at Carol, but she was staring straight ahead like she was terrified to look at him—and he didn't know what terrified her or if she was simply as overwhelmed as he was.
Tomorrow was another day, though, and secrets would keep as well as unanswered questions.
"I'm the husband she was tellin' you about," Daryl said.
Merle didn't say anything. He looked Carol over a moment more, and then he looked at Andrea.
"Andrea'll—show you the extra room. Should be plenty of room for the night. Get you some clean clothes and towels and—the water works."
Merle looked at T-Dog, then.
"You—man—what the hell am I supposed to call you?"
"My name's a good idea," T-Dog said. "Unless we're picking names for each other. You want me to come up with one for you."
"I'm not callin' your ass T-Dog," Merle said. "Michonne was right. It makes you the friend with the ridiculous fuckin' name…unless you're a fuckin' German Shepherd or something."
T-Dog laughed to himself.
"I'm more like a pit bull," he said. "But—if it matters that damn much to you, what if we compromise on T?"
Merle considered it and nodded his acceptance of the name.
"Fine, T—I'm afraid there ain't no bed in the third room right now. You can sleep on the floor. We got blankets. Or you can sleep on the couch."
"It's just for one night," Andrea offered softly.
"The couch sounds good to me," T-Dog assured both of them.
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"If you're pissed, tell me you're pissed," Daryl said.
Carol was pulling blankets back on the bed and rearranging the pillows. They'd both bathed in the little bathroom in the hallway and Daryl was wearing clean underwear provided to him by his brother, but he had little else to preserve his dignity. Luckily, Carol had already seen him in various states of undress. The nightgown that Andrea had given her, too, left much to be desired if she was trying to be modest.
Daryl was trying not to look at her bare legs, but he was failing more than he was succeeding.
"Why would I be pissed?" Carol asked.
"Because—I somehow turned into your husband," Daryl said.
"I'm sorry you had to lie to your brother," Carol said. "But—without knowing the situation, it might have been for the best. I mean—a woman's always been safer around strange men when they perceive her to belong to some other man."
"You mean it makes you feel safe?" Daryl asked.
Carol sat down on the bed and rearranged her pillow so she could recline against it.
"You make me feel safe," Carol said. "But—yeah. I guess it does."
"We're gonna be meetin' a lot of people, if we stay," Daryl said.
"Were you thinking about not staying?" Carol asked.
"You wanna stay?" Daryl asked.
"I thought we would," Carol said. "Besides the fact that…that we know people here? It's—everything we wanted it to be. There are walls. It's safe. The houses have fireplaces and water and lights. There's food and a job for everyone and we could build a life here."
Daryl fixed his own pillow to mirror Carol's as she leaned with her back against it. He sat down on the bed and then he allowed himself to get comfortable in the bed next to her. His stomach felt a little odd at the thought of her words. Build a life, sounded good. It sounded great. But he couldn't help but think that his mind, which was always a bit too overactive for his tastes, ran away with a little too much.
"Yeah," he simply agreed. "We could build a life here. From the looks of it—any kinda life we wanted. I mean it ain't like a lot of the people we meet here even know us."
"It could be a whole new life," Carol said. She brushed her hands quickly and affectionately over her belly. "Start over. Start from scratch. Leave the past where it is."
"Talk to Merle and Andrea," Daryl said. "Hell—it can be a secret. All of it. Nobody has to know anything about who we were or where we come from."
Carol smiled to herself.
"Yeah," she said. "We can just be—who we are. Not who we were." She made a face and pressed her hand hard to her stomach. "Oh, I think—he or she likes that or…or else the baby's complaining about the stew." She laughed to herself.
"It moves?" Daryl asked.
Carol laughed again.
"It moves," she said. "Wanna feel it?"
Daryl watched her hand resting on her belly. He was incredibly curious about the whole thing. In reality, he wanted desperately to touch her—and he'd thought about touching her in many ways—but he wanted to feel what it was like to touch her and know that there was a whole other life taking place inside her.
"No," he said. "Nah—I'm good."
"Come on," Carol encouraged. "It's OK, you can feel it. It won't bite. Here…before it stops."
She took his hand and directed him to touch her. He let her and she pressed his hand into her. He could feel the warmth of her skin even through the thin cotton nightgown. He didn't know what he expected, but he didn't expect the feeling of something sliding against his palm like it did—brushing him as he waited for proof of its existence.
"That's fuckin' scary," Daryl said. "Movin' around like that!"
Carol laughed. He liked the sound of it. She didn't release his hand, either, even though the movement seemed to have stopped. He didn't fight her on it. Instead, he moved his hand only slightly and gently brushed it over the soft fabric that covered her belly. She didn't ask him to stop and he didn't.
"It's just a baby," Carol said. "If we're staying—tomorrow we can go back to the motel. Get our things."
"Might get a cabin or something," Daryl said.
Carol looked at him with a furrowed brow.
"Do you think—we'll all live separately?" She asked.
"They'll at least put us together," Daryl said. "Bein' as we're married, and all."
"You don't want to clear that up tomorrow?" Carol asked.
"Like you said," Daryl said, "it's safer for you. For the baby and…I don't really like stayin' all by myself no way. Unless…you wanna clear it up tomorrow?"
She was still keeping her hand over his. He was enjoying rubbing her belly for the uncommon feeling of connection to someone so very alive that it gave him, and she was keeping her hand over his even as he rubbed her. He wondered if she even noticed. She didn't ask him to stop.
"It's not hurting anything," Carol said.
"Then—it'll be our secret," Daryl said. "For a little while."
"I like that," Carol offered. "It'll just—be our secret."