AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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Merle watched as his sister-in-law steeled herself with a few deep and purposeful breaths. He worked his fingers around her arm, satisfied he had a good hold. His other arm was braced to hold her body at just the right angle. She closed her eyes. Merle's chest ached and his gut felt like he'd been sucker punched and the air just couldn't get quite back in. Carol—Mouse, as he'd affectionately called her since he'd first met her—didn't deserve what the man had done to her. She didn't deserve what he'd done to her today—what had finally costed him his life—and she didn't deserve what he'd done to her in the past that made her know exactly how to prepare herself for the pain that Merle was about to have to inflict on her.

Merle didn't have a choice, though. Daryl couldn't do this. Or, rather, he could, but he shouldn't have to. With the help of Jim and the man who called himself T-Dog, Daryl was dragging Ed's sorry corpse out of camp. They were starting the hole so he could be fertilizer and, at least, contribute in some useful way to the world as worm food.

Andrea couldn't do it. She wasn't strong enough, not physically, and she was doing everything short of playing a snare drum while doing some kind of exotic dance to keep Sophia thoroughly distracted.

Merle was the only one that could do it, and he felt obligated to pretend that it didn't bother him. He felt obligated to push, from his mind, that this skill was one he learned before his voice had solidly changed—and that he remembered, all too fucking well and far too clearly, what his mother's face looked like when she steeled herself up for what she knew was coming.

"You ready?" He asked.

Carol laughed to herself.

"I'll never be ready, Merle," she said. He understood the sentiment. He pretended that it didn't make his very soul—black as it must be after all these years—feel itchy inside of him.

"Just take a minute," Merle offered. "Breathe. Relax. While we waitin'—was thinkin' about…Sophia. She oughta have somethin'. We oughta do somethin' to say…insteada it's like a scary ass thing, yyou know, we oughta have some kinda party like your old man ain't here no more an' he ain't never gonna be."

Carol smiled to herself.

"I like that," she said. "But not a party. They wouldn't understand."

"Just somethin', then, that she might like?" Merle asked. "What'cha think she might like?"

"Something to—make her fully a Dixon," Carol said. "Just something symbolic since I get the feeling that the court's never coming through with that adoption."

"Take her out cleanin' rabbit snares just outside of camp?" Merle offered. "Get her to help—provide some food to put on the table? Let her go full Dixon."

Carol smiled.

"She would love that," Carol said, clearly imagining how pleased the girl would look with her string of rabbits, walking back into camp between the two brothers who, although they weren't perfect, by any means, would do their best to teach her what the hell a man ought to be.

Before Carol could realize what he was doing, and purposefully allowing the haze of her happiness over thoughts of her daughter to anesthetize her a little against what was coming, Merle snatched Carol's arm at the right angle to move the joint back into place. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see the expression that went with the strangled cry she released. He turned his face away, quickly, and left the tent as fast as he could. He knew she needed comfort, but he couldn't offer it. He wasn't good at that kind of thing, and he didn't want her to know that it made him feel like he'd just taken a boot to the sternum.

"It's back in now. It'll heal quick. I'm sorry, Mouse," he spat on his way out of the tent. "You stay put. I'm sendin' Andrea."

Merle didn't have to go far to find Andrea. She was hovering, outside of the RV, and she rushed toward Merle as soon as he'd stepped out of the tent.

"Carol's OK?"

"Could use a sling. Gotta stabilize that arm. And get her something—some Tylenol, or somethin', if we got it," Merle offered. "Soph?"

"Amy's got her," Andrea said. She's teaching her how to tie fishing knots in the RV so she can take her fishing later."

Merle nodded his head.

"I gotta help 'em bury the body," Merle said. "You oughta go—tend to Mouse."

Andrea offered Merle a soft smile. She hugged herself, like she was cold or seeking just an extra bit of comfort. It wasn't cold—not yet—so he assumed it was a natural reaction to everything that had been happening lately.

"You OK, Merle?" Andrea asked.

She'd be worried. It was things like this—things like what seemed to be happening around them every day—that would have him looking for a way to run away. And if he couldn't, or wouldn't, run away physically, which he absolutely wouldn't in these conditions, he'd always run away mentally.

"I'm as fine as anybody else is, Andrea," Merle said.

"That wasn't what I asked," Andrea said.

"I'm clean," Merle said. "And I don't got shit on me. So, you don't gotta worry about it. I'ma stay that way."

"I'll take care of you later, Merle," Andrea said. "Promise."

There was an innocence in the words—a sincerity—that almost seemed out of place with the meaning behind them. Andrea clearly sensed that Merle needed some release. Andrea understood him. She understood him too damn well, maybe. She put up with shit he ought not to put her through, but he didn't always feel in control of himself. He didn't always feel like he understood himself. Sometimes, Merle felt like Andrea understood him better than he understood himself.

She would know that he usually sought release, if he couldn't find it by ingesting some chemical substance, in physical activity. He coaxed, from his body, whatever chemicals it had to offer. His preferred release was to fuck her—sometimes in ways he didn't even intend and sometimes begged forgiveness for—whenever possible. He couldn't fuck her ten ways to Sunday at the moment, though—the atmosphere just wouldn't allow it, and they had things to do. And, since that was his preferred release, he would have to settle for the chemicals he got from other physical exertion. He would have to settle for digging a hole and burying an asshole.

Andrea pecked him quickly on the cheek. She patted his shoulder. And then, hugging herself again like she was warding off the cold that wasn't surrounding them, she rushed on toward the tent where Merle had left Carol.

Merle lit a cigarette for himself. Before directing himself toward the area where he knew his brother and some others were working on a hole that would be deep enough for Ed's remains not to end up dragged all over the place by wild animals and smelling up the world worse than it already stunk, Merle headed toward the place where they kept their tools. It was likely they'd come up short. They'd probably only taken one shovel to allow for the dragging of the body. Ed hadn't been a small man, and moving his corpse, when it was dead weight, wouldn't have allowed for carrying much more.

Merle intended to carry what he could in the way of shovels and something like a pick axe to break up the hard dirt they might encounter as they dug.

While he was sorting through the tools, smoking his cigarette in peace, Shane walked up behind him. Merle was aware of his presence long before the man spoke, but he pretended that he wasn't for Shane's benefit.

"We can't just have people killing each other," Shane said.

"Holy shit, Officer Jumpy," Merle mused, laughing to himself. "Your paranoid ass oughta know better'n to sneak up on some damn body like that. You'll get a pick axe through the skull that weren't even intended for you."

Shane didn't look amused. Of course, Merle couldn't say that, in all the time they'd been there, he'd ever really seen Shane look entirely amused. He was decent enough as a leader—in that he didn't mind dealing with absolutely everyone there, and their sometimes whiny ass needs, when Merle might have lost his cool with too damn many of them—but he was jumpy as hell and he was too damn intense about shit that didn't have to be so serious. The world was hurtling straight toward hell, and they were all hanging on for the ride, but this guy could still manage to make shit far too funereal.

"I mean it, Merle," Shane said.

"I know you do." Merle laughed to himself.

"People start killing each other and—where does it end? Where do we stop killing each other?"

"I guess we don't," Merle said. "We keep on killin' them that needs it, maybe. Listen—we ain't walkin' around killin' people for eatin' the last of the Ho Hos. Ed Peletier had that shit comin' for decades. You saw what he done to Carol just now. He'da done a helluva lot worse, too, if he'da had half the chance. If my brother hadn't got in there an' got him fuckin' killed. The hell would you have done if it had been that lil' boy of yours that mighta been about to fuckin' sodomize like the sick fuckin' pervert he was? Hmmm? Or if he was beatin' on your lil' skinny ass woman? Bustin' up her face an' tryin' to rip her fuckin' limbs off? What would you have done? Can you tell me you'da done different than what my lil' brother done?"

Merle saw the muscle in Shane's face jump as he considered what Merle had said. He might pretend that he disapproved, but Merle could practically smell it on the man. Whether or not he'd been this way before the world turned—and Merle had to somewhat believe he had been, because he'd known a lot of cops in his life and, whether it was the personality that led to the job or the job that led to the personality, he knew that there was always something a little different about them—Shane was a man who had something rattling around inside of him that had cracked and at least begun to shatter.

Merle hummed at him.

"Got my answer," he said. "Ed got what's been comin' to him. What the hell he deserved. Ain't sorry the fucker's dead."

"There are other ways to handle conflicts," Shane said.

Merle laughed to himself.

"Like you wouldn't beat a man?" Merle asked.

"When it's my job…"

"Consider this Daryl's job," Merle said. "He promised that woman, when he married her, that he'd do everything he could to protect her. He put it right there, in his vows, his own damn self. He took that oath serious. Real damn serious. He meant it. And today, he made good on that shit. It was all in the line of duty—protectin' his fuckin' woman and his kid. You don't know shit, Officer Jumpy, about what the hell family means to a Dixon." Shane was still staring at him. The muscle had relaxed in his face, though. His jaw was no longer clenched. Merle laughed to himself. "Didn't know you had such strong damn affections for Ed," Merle offered. "If you was so enamored of his ass, you shoulda been the one that got there first. Broke up the fight. Negotiated a different outcome. Play innocent all the hell you want, Shane, but you stood back like the rest of 'em. You let it happen. You ain't got a spot of blood on you. You didn't even lift a pinky to try to save that man. You wanted him dead as much as anybody else. You let that shit happen. But if you gotta run the fuck around an' snort an' say you didn't? That you're against what happened? Hmmm? If that's what you think you gotta do to keep the peace around here when people ain't so much as had a disagreement about shit except what the fuck to do with that piece of shit that's already rottin' as we speak? Then you pretend your ass was against it, but don't believe—not for one fuckin' minute—that I don't see you, and that I don't know you never tried to save that man because you wanted my brother to kill him."

Shane knew it was true, and he could only fake so much indignance.

"I'm keeping my eye on you," he said. There was very little emotion behind the statement, and there was certainly less than he meant to put behind it for show. Merle dropped his cigarette butt, ground it out with his shoe, and shrugged his shoulders before collecting together everything he'd decided to take with him to make the burial just a little easier.

"Aww, shucks," he drawled. "I'm flattered, but I already got me a wife and—I really do prefer fuckin' a good piece of pussy." He winked at Shane. "But I'll keep you in mind, Officer Jumpy, in case somethin' ever fucks me up bad enough that the wind starts to blow in the opposite damn direction."

"Go to hell, Merle," Shane offered. Merle couldn't tell, but he thought the man might have actually lightened up a little, for a second.

"Looks like I'm goin' as fast as I fuckin' can," Merle offered. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I got some ground to fertilize."