AN: Here we go, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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"So they were just hunting Wilds," T-Dog explained. "Straight up—guns and camo. Some real redneck shit. No offense."
Daryl laughed to himself.
"Don't worry about it," Daryl said. "I know I'm a redneck. Was borned that way and never grew out of it. So the hunting—but that still don't tell me nothing about this Maggie woman."
"She was a supporter of the hunting," T-Dog said. "She was like one of those soapbox people. It's a good idea. You know? Kill 'em all, kind of thing. But Alice..."
"Let me guess," Daryl said, "she was more the pacifist? Tree hugging hippie?"
"Pretty much," T-Dog said. "Wild-hugging hippie. From what Michonne told me? Milton said that they ended up locked in this heated debate thing. Some shit went public. One saying kill the Wilds because the Wilds were killing everybody. And one saying that locking them up and rehabilitating them was the way to go."
"Were we killing everybody?" Daryl asked. "I mean, my hands ain't clean for shit, but I didn't just run around clubbing kids to death. I don't know about you. I don't think I killed nobody that weren't trying just as damn hard to kill me back."
T-Dog stopped what he was doing and mopped at his face with his shirt. They were going to expand the clinic and, to do that, they had to clear the area around where they were expanding and dig out a foundation. There were some other projects going on around Woodbury so Daryl and T-Dog had volunteered to go on their own and get a jump start on the clinic work. It was dirty work, and it was hard, but it was the kind of work that Daryl liked. It was quiet and it was easy to see their progress.
"Milton told Michonne that a bunch of Wilds apparently busted in on Maggie's farm," T-Dog said. "She lived out in the middle of nowhere practically, and this bunch of Wilds came up. I don't know why, but they let them stay for a while. Rehabilitation on a small level or something. Put them to work on the farm. Anyway, some of the Wilds apparently just ended up killing some of her family."
"So the logical damn assumption is that, because some damn body went fool, it means that every damn Wild is just gonna up and kill you," Daryl said.
"You said it, man," T-Dog responded. "Changed her view entirely on Wilds and rehabilitation attempts. Anyway, she put in her report that she feared for her damn life with Andrea and that—well, basically she suggested she was a threat and they should consider removing her from the project and euthanizing her or some shit."
"And Michonne told you all this?" Daryl asked.
"And more," T-Dog responded. "She says Milton doesn't tell Andrea hardly anything she asks, but he'll tell her things as long as she catches him right over breakfast. It's all on his mind and he's kinda—talking to himself or whatever—and she just asks him what's going on and he just tells her."
"So—what else'd she say?" Daryl asked.
"I mean not too much," T-Dog said. "Not too much important. Just that with the prisons filling up, you know, the people were starting to get restless. Like—money's gotta go into the prisons to keep them running, but people were reading books by this guy. This scientist or whatever. And the books were saying that—well, Wilds are animals."
"We know," Daryl said. T-Dog nodded his head at him and hummed.
"But like—they're paying taxes to keep the prisons going and then it's like—if we're just animals and, worse yet, if we're animals that aren't good to ever come outta the prisons, then what the hell are they paying to keep us around for?" T-Dog said.
"So kill every damn one of us," Daryl said. "And, I'm guessing, reopen hunting season."
T-Dog hummed.
"So they got some kind of voting coming up," T-Dog said. "All "give the people what they want" style. You know? And it's like a year or two years or something and they're voting on things that the public wants. One of the things on the ballots is shutting down the prisons so..."
"So killing all the prisoners," Daryl said.
"Or releasing them as citizens into communities like this," T-Dog said. "Enough of Milton's experiment has to be done to release some real good evidence on our behalf before then or..." He stopped what he was doing, rested the shovel he was using in one hand, and used the other to draw his finger across his throat like it was a knife. Daryl shuddered a little, but nodded his understanding.
"And that depends on us," Daryl offered.
"Us and whatever the hell they have planned for us," T-Dog confirmed.
"You see Michonne a lot?" Daryl asked, seeking to change the subject because he didn't like the way that thinking about all of it made his stomach feel.
"Every day, just about," T-Dog said. "I've got a pass to go over there whenever I want. But she comes to the house too. It's to give the whole idea that—if we wanted to have a kid? We'd still have the opportunity to do that, even though she's living with Milton and Andrea."
"But you don't want to have a kid?" Daryl asked.
"No," T-Dog said. "I don't. And I don't think Michonne does either. But if she did? She wouldn't be going about it any traditional way, if you catch my drift."
"But you like being alone?" Daryl asked.
T-Dog laughed a little to himself and got Daryl's attention enough to let him know, with a gesture, that they were coming around with water. Daryl dropped his shovel, sure to find it right where it lay, and followed T-Dog down to the edge of their workspace to accept the water that was offered to them in bottles. They were glass bottles. The kind that they could wash and use over and over. The kind that could get them killed if Hurricane Maggie had anything to say about it.
Once they'd acquired their bottles and thanked the woman who brought them around, Daryl followed T-Dog toward a spot where the roof of the clinic cast down enough shade to let them sit and cool down. He waited, until they were both seated, to repeat his question to T-Dog.
"You like being alone here? Not matched up?" Daryl asked.
"I like it better than I liked prison," T-Dog said. "I guess the only downfall is I know that everyone else here is getting laid and I'm sort of flying solo. But—Milton keeps me up in everything I want. There's nothing I can't have within reason. And besides that, he has my house cleaned by one of the people that works here. I guess he figures that without Michonne I might need some help. Basically, it means I'm living like a king just because I'm as celibate as I've been for—I don't even know how long."
Daryl laughed to himself.
"I guess it ain't that bad, then," Daryl said. "Could be worse."
"What about you?" T-Dog asked. "Regretting the whole matched up life yet?"
"Not hardly," Daryl said. "Best damn thing I could have. Hell—I like everything about this place. Like Carol. Like my house and like my life that happens in the house. Like that I got a kid on the way. Like this job, even."
"You like this job?" T-Dog asked.
"You don't?" Daryl countered.
"It's not the best job in the world," T-Dog said.
"None of 'em is, I reckon," Daryl said. "But it's a good job. They tell me I'm getting paid. I'm making things happen. Things I get to see happen. Hungry when I sit down to eat and—tired when I lay down to sleep. About the best I can get."
"Living the dream," T-Dog teased.
"Damn near close to it," Daryl responded with a laugh.
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"I don't think there's going to be any trouble," Alice said. "But—if there is? I meant what I said. You just run for the fence. Get out of the way. Don't worry about me. They'll come for me."
Carol made her understanding clear to Alice one more time. She'd had to already agree to Alice's stipulations twice to even be allowed to accompany her this far. Now, unguarded as something of a test, they were both inside the high-security fences of Woodbury and they were headed straight for the house where Carol knew Daryl's brother was being temporarily held.
Alice wanted to assert that they had nothing to fear from the so-called wildest of the Wilds, and the only way that she could do that was to give up being hypocritical. If she had nothing to fear, she didn't need a guard to enter the area and interact with them. Of course, in truth, she wasn't one hundred percent sure that they didn't have anything to fear, so she hadn't wanted Carol coming with her. But Carol had finally won her over with the promise that she would get away if she needed to. After all, running was one of the things that Wilds, tamed or otherwise, did best.
They walked up the house and Alice fumbled around with the ring of keys that she carried. She found the one she was looking for and she knocked at the door of the house. To keep the porch from slowing her down, just in case, Carol waited on the ground beyond the steps.
"Dr. Walker," Alice announced. "Here to get you. I'm opening the door. Please step away from it."
She slipped the key into the lock, turned it, and then opened the door. She swung it open a little and then she stepped inside. Carol waited, shifting her weight back and forth, because she didn't know what might be happening once the woman had disappeared from view.
Merle might be putting up a fight. If he'd found a weapon, he might have killed Alice by now. She might find that he'd taken a different route and, like the man that had gutted himself on the fence, chosen that he'd rather just opt out of this life entirely.
Carol didn't have to chew on her anxiety long, though. Alice emerged from the house again and, right behind her, Merle came with a large bundle that he held against his chest. By the time he made it down the steps, abandoning his little house, Carol realized that he'd apparently wrapped everything he considered "his" up in a sheet to take with him. He didn't realize that they were constantly getting supplies here—or maybe old habits just died hard.
"I know you," Merle said, glancing in Carol's direction once his feet were on the dirt.
"Carol," Carol offered.
Merle smirked at her. He made a sound that landed somewhere between a growl and a hum.
"You shackin' up with my lil' brother," Merle mused. Carol didn't like the choice of words, but she couldn't argue the truth of the statement, so she simply nodded her head. "When I get to see my lil' brother, doc?" Merle asked. "Or you just shittin' me about that?"
"Keep on behaving," Alice said, "and I won't be shitting you about a thing, Merle. You'll see him and—before you know it? You'll be out of this enclosure and in the main part of Woodbury."
"Glory, glory, halle-fuckin'-lujah," Merle responded smartly. "And when the hell do we get freedom?"
"Soon," Alice said. "I'm your doctor, and right now your escort, but I'm not the Governor."
Alice was guiding them. Merle walked along behind her, hugging his possessions to his chest, while Carol walked quietly to the side of both of them. He looked different than the last time she'd seen him. He looked better. Alice had been treating his infection and she'd gotten him a better cuff to cover the stump of his arm. Carol knew, too, that she'd promised him a prosthetic of his choosing as long as he behaved.
And he seemed to be holding up his end of the deal.
The wildest of the Wilds, it seemed, didn't need quite as much as their guards had suggested they might. They needed medicine to cure their illnesses. They needed food and water to keep them from starvation and thirst. And they needed enough compassion to be reminded that, somewhere deep down inside, they were still human.
Because they were just as human as anyone else.
But the guards hadn't learned yet that violence is very often answered with violence.
"You got me a lil' sweet one like my brother's?" Merle asked, glancing over his shoulder at Carol while he spoke to Alice. "Mmmm? Doc? You got me a lil' sweet one like her?"
"I think you'll like her," Alice responded, ignoring Merle's manner of speaking. "She's beautiful. Still healing from some abuse in the prison, but beautiful."
"How damn crazy is the hell-cat?" Merle asked. "'Cause she's comin' outta max I know for damn sure that there's some fuckin' screws loose in there, Doc."
Alice laughed to herself.
"No more than you have loose," she responded. "She knows you're coming and, like you, she agreed to play by the rules in the interest of gaining some freedoms and getting out of the pen."
"How'd it work for you, sweet cheeks?" Merle asked, turning his attention to Carol. "You like it? You like gettin' penned up with my brother?" Carol didn't respond to him. She wasn't sure how to. She felt that, no matter what she said, she was going to get heckled. And if she was quiet, too, she was going to get heckled. That's what men like Merle did. She might as well not waste her breath or her energy. As she suspected, her silence didn't make him stop. "Yeah—you like my baby brother. Good thing you didn't know me first. Woulda been beggin' them to pen you up with me. My brother? He's the sweet one. Always has been. But—ol' Merle? He's the one'll show you a good time. Show you a real good time if you got penned up with me."
Carol tried not to make the face that she felt naturally inclined to make. It was difficult to believe that this man was Daryl's brother.
They were living proof of the nature versus nurture theory in Carol's mind.
"I promote showing ladies a good time," Alice announced, stopping their forward progress in front of another house, "but you remember the rules. You do remember them, don't you?" She turned to face Merle and he stared at her and sucked his teeth.
"Hands off unless everybody's wantin' to play," Merle offered. Alice nodded. "Weren't no rule you had to teach me, Doc. I knowed that one already. See—that's something I don't do." He laughed to himself. "Never needed to. And—I don't figure it's a real good time for nobody if she ain't into it."
"Keep that attitude," Alice said.
"But you said she's into it?" Merle asked. "Wants to play and all—and that's part of playin' this here game?"
"Just because she's agreed to the project doesn't mean it's open season," Alice said. "You still ask."
Merle laughed.
"Aye, aye," he responded.
"And we don't fight," Alice said. "No physical violence."
"Not if she don't attack my ass," Merle said. "I ain't gonna beat her, but I ain't gonna let her jump my ass neither."
"I don't think she will," Alice said. "But I'll tell you the same thing I told her, just in case. If something does happen? Restrain her the best you can and pick up the phone. Call through as an emergency. We'll send a guard to separate you."
"Any damn thing else, Doc?" Merle asked.
"Good luck?" Alice offered. She laughed to herself. "Just—maybe just one more thing...it's a little thing. Really—you probably wouldn't notice it at all, but it bears mentioning."
"What the hell's wrong with her?" Merle asked, obviously made tense by the fact that they were outside the house when he was getting some piece of possibly important information.
"Nothing," Alice said. "She's deaf."
"Deaf?" Merle asked.
"It means she can't hear," Alice said. "It's one of the things that made me sure she was really going to work well with you."
"I know what the hell deaf means," Merle said. "But—I ain't deaf."
"Congratulations," Alice said. "She communicates well. It's nothing to worry about. A little patience and a little practice and—you won't even notice it."
She waved at Merle and led him up the steps to the door. She knocked on the door, announced her presence as she had when they'd gotten to Merle's old house, and then she looked back at Merle who was standing there and looking the most concerned that he had since he'd come out of the house with his bundle. Alice unlocked the door and turned the knob.
"Her name's Sadie," Alice told Merle. "And I'm sure—you two are really gonna hit it off."
