"It's not safe out there alone."
The worry in Sophia's voice breaks through Daryl's indecision where he's pacing at the edge of the woods. Being out overnight in the woods isn't uncommon for him, even with walkers to dodge. He's too skilled to be caught out by unthinking dead lumbering around. Although last night, perhaps it's a good thing nothing was loose out there. His skills of observation certainly were crushed under emotion.
"I was fine. You shouldn't be this far out from everyone."
Measuring the distance to the nearest adult, Daryl shudders. Granted, Shane's on top of the RV with Dale's rifle, and of all the men, Daryl's certain the ex-deputy is their most precise marksman. He's looking their way, too.
Sophia seems aware of that, waving her hand in the RV's direction before patting a fence post slightly taller than the ones to either side of it. "Shane said he'd keep an eye out on me if I didn't go further than this spot."
"And your mama was alright with that?" Daryl honestly expected Carol to barely let her girl out of her sight long enough to pee for at least a week. Instead, he can see Carol near the RV, hanging laundry on an improvised line. She's got a clear view of Sophia's perch, which turns out to be an overturned plastic bucket.
"Why are you out here, girl?" he asks, trying not to let fear and frustration turn that last word into something insulting. "Ain't safe, just like you said."
Worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, she sighs deeply. "The others didn't see when you went off last night, but I did. You were crying. I worried that maybe your brother..."
Daryl's blood runs cold at the idea anyone saw him cry. "My brother what?"
"That maybe he was dying. But I asked Beth this morning, when she went to get the eggs, and she said he was gonna be okay. But she was real worried when she heard you were out in the woods all night."
Christ on a cracker, these girls are already nosy and gossiping about him. He wants to be angry, but she looks so concerned, all for him. There's a bruise on her face, ghosting a cheekbone, along with scabbed skin. It's easy to recognize the signs of an encounter with a small tree limb, as he's had them himself. Instead of sticking close to her mama like a scared puppy, like he expected, she's sucking it up and watching the woods that ought to terrify her.
Sophia is facing her fears - for his sake.
Daryl remembers Hershel's assumption last night, about Sophia being his. For years, Merle preached about how neither of them were father material. Even swore he gotten himself snipped so there'd never be any women coming to lay paternity claims on him. Although he hadn't worried about sowing wild oats the way Merle had, Daryl hadn't argued with the idea they were both too broken to be responsible for children. It didn't stop him from wondering, though, what having a kid might be like.
It's such a fucking lie, what Merle led him to believe. All this time, at least fifteen, maybe eighteen years, Merle had a kid out here being raised on this idyllic farm. From Beth's calm acceptance and Patricia's accidental admission, Hershel may have raised Beth, but she's known at least for some time Merle is her father. She's happy about it, content sitting next to Merle like he isn't the addict capable of such breathtaking rage Daryl thinks it's a miracle his brother ever made it to thirty, much less fifty.
Reaching out, he's proud to see his hand doesn't tremble when he ruffles Sophia's hair gently. The contact makes the worried expression disappear, and she looks so pleased, he thinks if she were a puppy with a tail, it'd be wagging right off.
"Did I miss breakfast?"
"Sorta." Sophia grins and fetches a small tupperware container from the grass near her bucket-stool. "I saved you a little egg sandwich."
Fumbling the lid off, Daryl scoops up the biscuit, which has a fried egg tucked between the two halves, along with a slice of tomato. She's watching expectantly, so he takes a good-sized bite and hums appreciatively. In the distance, both Carol and Shane are watching. Carol's interest makes sense, with Sophia out here. Shane's not so much, unless he's worried Daryl might get them thrown off the farm somehow.
"Is it good? I wasn't sure how you might like your egg."
"You made this?" Daryl just assumed Carol as the cook, but it makes sense Sophia knows how.
"Yeah. I like my yolks runny, so I left yours like that."
"Got it right the first time then." Taking another bite, Daryl figures he's delayed the inevitable enough, so he chews and swallows. "Grab your bucket, kiddo. Let's go let your mama see that I'm all in one piece."
Checking in with Carol gets him a ladylike grimace and a suggestion to bathe, but only after she's studied him carefully for signs of any mishap during his night in the woods. Remembering the pristine cleanliness of the room Merle was in, he decides not to argue. He isn't willing to head to the farmhouse, not yet, but bathing in the pond he saw just might work.
It's not a full bath, but at least he doesn't smell like he's been on a three day bender and slept next to a manure pile after. After passing Carol the clothes he also scrubbed clean to hang on her clothesline, he ventures toward the house. He still out of place inside, but no one fusses when he approaches, not even when he spends a full ten minutes arguing with himself about going in. They know he's there, because the front door is open to let a breeze inside. The screen door doesn't give much privacy, and he can see the ladies of the house moving around in the back, kitchen maybe.
Finally gathering his courage and packing away the ache from last night, he tugs the door open and makes his way to his brother's side. Merle's in much the same position as yesterday, although sitting up against a mound of pillows. There's still an IV, but his skin is starting to peel despite the salve, which has got to itch. Merle sets aside the book he was reading, studying Daryl with the saddest expression he's ever seen Merle manage.
"I'm sorry, baby brother. For more things than I can ever tell you."
Daryl isn't sure where to start with asking just what all Merle should be sorry about that Daryl doesn't know yet. Pacing at the end of the bed, he bites at his thumb, taking note the regret seems to be genuine. For the first time in years, he thinks he might be seeing the Merle he knew as a kid, before time, the Marines, and drugs wiped him clean of what goodness he had in him.
"How did you have a kid without me knowing?" he asks at last. In the end, that's the most important question he needs answered. Old Hershel makes sense a bit, Daryl not knowing about him. But Beth? That twists his gut and makes it hard to breathe. "Why did you lie to me about not wanting kids?"
"Jesus, Daryl. I didn't lie. Never wanted kids. I barely kept you alive and sure as hell didn't do a good job of raising you." Merle sighs, fiddling with the hem of the quilt. "Beth... Beth is both the biggest fuck up I ever managed and the best thing other than you that I ever had."
Not finding any words to respond, Daryl just stares until Merle continues.
"I fucked up. Stupid shit, was too high or too stupid to realize the condom broke. And Beth's mama? She was as messed up as me. Worse in a lot of ways, since at least our daddy was a bastard but not one who looked at us the way her stepdaddy did her. So when she found out she was pregnant, she was gonna get an abortion. I gave her the money even."
"But she didn't, cos now you got Beth." Daryl does the math, wracking his brain for any women who stayed around Merle for longer than a week or two. Not knowing how old Beth is makes it harder, but even back then, he can't pull up any names or faces.
"She couldn't do it. Couldn't blame the baby. So I told her I knew a good place the baby might go, if she could keep herself clean. I think it was the only time she was clean and sober for a year straight in her life." Merle sighs, watching Daryl pace. "She overdosed before Beth turned one."
The guilt on Merle's face when he talks about the overdose is the missing piece for Daryl. Only once does he remember someone close to Merle dying of an overdose enough when Merle actually cared enough to rage over the loss.
"Wendy. That hair dresser you graduated high school with." She'd been around more than most women, off and on for years for a weekend here or there, never long. She'd also been a year or two older than Merle. Daryl doesn't remember ever seeing her pregnant, though.
"Yeah. That's Beth's mama, the one that birthed her."
"I could have helped you with her, Merle. Why'd you give her away?" Daryl can't claim strangers if Hershel isn't a stranger.
"Daryl, you drank as bad as I did back then. Last thing you needed was a baby dependent on you."
When he meets Merle's eyes, fighting the flinch at the reminder he barely remembers his early twenties, which were spent more drunk than sober, all he sees is understanding. Getting free of his daddy's roof hadn't saved Daryl the way he always thought it would. Cheap beer and shitty whiskey hadn't either, though, and somewhere along the way Daryl earned his Dixon stripes by being the worst sort of asshole when drunk.
The thought of a helpless baby living with that Daryl? Oh fuck no.
"First time I saw Beth, she was the tiniest damn thing. Born early, barely five pounds. Looked like you as a baby, all pretty and curious and too good for the world. Brought her here to Hershel and Annette, and they agreed to raise her. Hershel made me swear to stay away until I was sober. Never managed it. Got myself snipped first chance I got, though. Couldn't expect him to take on another baby if I fucked up again."
"She knows you. Ain't afraid of you. Why?"
"That's Hershel and Annette's doing. He never gave up hope I'd clean my shit up like he did, so he told her the good and the bad both. Me turning up here after the world turned upside down, guess that gave her hope." Merle sighs, shifting as if he's going to scratch the peeling sunburn, but stops himself. "I swear to you, Daryl. First time I saw her since she was a newborn was waking up here after Hershel saved my ass from the sunstroke."
It's funny, even seeing the sun blistered skin, it's the missing hand which worried Daryl the most. But he grew up in the South, with all its dangerous heat and humidity. Working outdoors like he has all his life, he knows what drove Merle to saw off his own hand, and it wasn't the cocaine. It's the way the Georgia sun baked him on that rooftop until anything was better than his brain broiling right inside his skull.
"All I can figure is that delirious as I was, I remembered Hershel's a veterinarian. I couldn't come back to you just to make you put me down, baby brother. I've done a lot of fucked up things to you over the years, but you having to put a bolt in my head wasn't gonna be one of them."
"At least I would've known you were alive." Daryl doesn't bother to hide the fear he'd felt ever since finding Merle's hand. "You left me with people with no reason to watch my back."
Logic tells him Merle's fevered brain made the right choice, running for Hershel and medical care. The part of him that will always be the boy Merle kept leaving behind doesn't like logic. If it hadn't been for the attack on the quarry camp and losing so many able-bodied people, he isn't sure the cops would have wanted him sticking around.
Normally, Merle might scoff at Daryl's fear or even belittle it, but whatever lingering regret plagues Merle is still there. Instead, it's concern Daryl sees on his brother's face, and to his shock, Merle pats the bed beside him with his left hand. "C'mere."
He ought to resist, but Merle is as clear headed as Daryl's ever seen him. All of last night's hurt piled onto days of uncertainty about his brother's fate or how he'd cope if Merle was gone forever makes Daryl take the offer. He expects Merle to drag him into a bear hug, but the damage to his skim makes the embrace an almost delicate one, tipping Daryl's head to his chest as Merle runs a hand over Daryl's damp hair.
Easing his arm around Merle's waist to hug him, careful not to bump his healing arm, Daryl takes advantage of Merle's bout of unusually soft affection to stay put. It wasn't uncommon when Daryl was small for him to be allowed to use Merle as a pillow, especially anytime things got really bad with their father. This isn't the first time Daryl's had to be careful not to injure his brother more just to draw comfort from each other
But it's easily the first time he's ever been this close to Merle as an adult without ridicule about being too sweet or too girlie. Merle loves him, says it more often than most might expect, but it's always hidden in some way no one could call soft. 'I'm the only one who loves you' is Merle's preference versus actually saying he loves Daryl. Daryl generally replies with, 'Like anyone would love an asshole like you if they weren't your brother.'
Worn out by everything since he came back to camp to find Merle missing, Daryl throws caution to the wind. "Love you, Merle."
The gamble pays off, because Merle chuckles softly, his chest vibrating with the sound. "Love you, too. Get some sleep."
Maybe he's over forty instead of a kid, but Daryl finds he still finds sleep the safest when Merle's watching over him.
Dusk is falling when Daryl wakes up, still curled against Merle's chest, and the twelve-hour nap is the longest he's slept at a stretch in decades. To his surprise, Merle is asleep beside him, his good arm still curled around Daryl. When Daryl moves, Merle's fingers tighten in the fabric of his shirt.
"Gotta take a piss, Merle," Daryl grumbles, and as he expects, Merle lets go but doesn't fully wake.
A girlish giggle is quickly smothered. "Bathroom is right through that door."
He knows that voice and rolls to eye Sophia where she's sitting in a chair behind him. She's got some sort of sketch book in her lap. "You sneak inside or did the other girlie kidnap you to babysit us?"
Sophia smiles happily. "They decided to have a big group meal while you slept. The ladies are all fixing supper. Glenn, too, but I think he's getting in the way more than actually helping."
Now that his attention is brought to it, Daryl does smell something delicious. Either they were successful hunting prior to yesterday's interrupted trip or one of the cows out there made a trip to the freezer farm. Easing off the bed, he heads toward the door Sophia pointed out, closing it for privacy and taking time to wash up some, too, more to settle his mind than truly needing the scrubbing.
He looks like he's coming off a three-day bender, head feeling as achy and stuffy as it ever did with a hangover. Emotions are always harder to process than alcohol for him. Sighing, he figures he can't hide in a bathroom forever, but he's lucky it's still only Sophia watching over Merle. She's gone back to drawing while waiting on him but tucks the colored pencil into a little zippered pouch when she sees him.
"Hershel did ask if you minded meeting him in his study, though. But only if you wanted to."
As much as Daryl might like to ignore the invitation, he does have questions he didn't ask Merle. With some rest, he does understand Merle giving Beth away better than he did. But why is Hershel someone Merle trusts that much, but Daryl knows nothing about him at all?
"I will."
A flash of her sketch catches his eye, and when she sees him look, she turns it where he can see it. The detail on the sunflowers is as good as any he's ever seen in a book illustration, and he tells her so. She ducks her head shyly, tracing the center of a flower with a fingertip.
"Maybe I can draw some of the wild stuff if you show me? I've got a good memory."
Sketching in the woods never occurred to him, but he thinks of the battered and extensively read field guides he filched as a kid and nods. "Could find you some books, too. See if you can do better drawings than they have. Bet you could."
The faint praise earns him another of those bright smiles. "I'll sure try. I can sit with Merle while you go see Hershel, if you don't want to leave him alone."
Sophia knows Merle from the quarry, and if she's not wary of him even now, Daryl figures she'll be alright babysitting his softly snoring brother. "Don't miss your supper to do it," he cautions, and she agrees and gives him directions to Hershel's study, which turns out to be a cramped little office where Daryl see the first signs that Hershel is a veterinarian and not just a gentleman farmer. Daryl's never seen so many animal related textbooks in one place anywhere.
"Sophia said you needed to see me."
Hershel closes the book he's reading, and the cover reveals the veterinarian is studying up on the human side of medicine. He gives Daryl a wan smile, motioning toward the chairs opposite his desk.
"Have a seat, son, if you like."
As much as Daryl would like to stay on his feet, Hershel seems harmless enough, and he did save Merle's life. Picking the chair closest to the door, Daryl settles into it and tries not to jiggle his leg. Anxiety wraps around him like a second skin, making staying still a hard task. He can spend hours being still out in the woods, but in front of people he always tamps down on the urge to be far away.
"Your mother saved my life once, and I repaid her poorly for the gift she gave me."
That hadn't been what Daryl expected Hershel to say, and startled, he jerks his gaze up to meet Hershel's eyes. He can't imagine poor drunken Lisbet Dixon saving anyone. "How so?"
"My father was much like your own turned out in the end, although alcohol was his sole demon. When I was fifteen, he nearly beat me to death in a drunken rage, so I ran. My mother's only sister took me in, even though her husband didn't care much for the idea of a half-grown boy living with them."
Hershel opens a desk drawer and draws out a small frame, offering it to Daryl by laying it on the desk closest to him. Daryl is surprised to recognize the woman in the ancient Polaroid. His mama never looked so neat and tidy that he remembers, but based on the teenager next to her and the girth of the maternity dress she's wearing, this is at least fifty years old.
"She was pregnant with Merle when I arrived. I think that's what won your father over in the end, having a built in babysitter. He was three or so when I went off to college on a scholarship your mama helped me apply for. I came home every holiday and summer all my undergraduate years." Hershel sighs deeply. "I fell victim to my father's malady by the time I started veterinary school, and your father discovered the unholy temptation of pharmaceuticals. LSD and quaaludes, if I recall his bragging back then."
"So you turned into a drunk and stopped coming around cos my daddy was a druggie?"
"I stopped coming around because your mama didn't trust me around your brother."
Daryl scoffs, setting the photo down with more care than he really wants to treat it with. "She sends away the drunk but keeps the asshole who couldn't go a week without getting high and beating the shit out of her? You must've been a mean drunk like your daddy then."
At Hershel's flinch, Daryl knows he's hit close to the mark.
"Never to women and children, Daryl, but yes, I was one hell of a mean drunk. Landed myself a cell overnight more than once for drunk and disorderlies. I stayed a drunk until I nearly lost my family over it. My first wife, God rest her soul, she put her foot down that she wasn't raising our little Maggie alongside an alcoholic. I sobered up before Maggie was two, and I haven't touched alcohol in twenty-two years now."
Just in time to adopt Beth, Daryl thinks, and as upset as he was about the adoption and still is, he feels a trickle of gratitude toward the woman who sorted Hershel out. Over two decades is a long time sober, and Daryl has an equal helping of resentment that Hershel's sobriety didn't include reuniting with his extended family. To have someone other than Merle back when he was barely an adult? Maybe his life would have been far different.
The old man seems to have the same realization, because he reaches for the photo and tucks it away with the saddest expression Daryl's ever seen that wasn't over someone being dead. "I should have come for you when your mama died, Daryl. Will Dixon might not have even fought me taking you away with Merle off to the Marines. I can't make up for that, and I truly am sorry."
"I survived."
That's the summary of Daryl's life, he supposes. Surviving when no one bothered to encourage him to, from being born too early to enduring life with Will Dixon to having no actual goal to his life except just that, to survive.
A knock on the door interrupts anything else Hershel might say. Daryl doesn't know the girl, but based on her age, he thinks this is probably Maggie. Another cousin he never knew, along with her late mama. He wonders if Patricia or Otis is related, but it doesn't matter. Hershel seems content to let everyone stay, so Daryl has time to sort it all out.
"Supper's ready, Daddy. Just waiting on the two of you to come to the table."
It isn't the most uncomfortable meal Daryl's ever sat through, but it ranks among the weirdest. The quarry survivors are all too aware they're in the dark about the family dynamics, and the two leaders are uncertain how to even cope with Daryl. He lets them stew over trying to figure out how the dirty redneck became more important than them. His answers aren't for them to know, not yet.
Merle, the sly bastard, sleeps through it all.
A/N: Well, ahem, the one-shot became a two-shot, which became a three-shot?
I have some scenes planned with Sophia, Beth, and Carol (?) that just wouldn't fit in this chapter, so y'all get a bonus.