AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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"It's structurally sound enough for a couple nights," Daryl said.
"Agreed," Shane said, looking around.
The farmhouse wasn't Buckingham Palace and it wouldn't have been their first pick if the possibilities had been endless, but it was fine for now. It had some of the things they needed most for the time being. It was close to a creek, had a manual pump indicating the presence of an underground well, and it would do a decent job of keeping the elements—and the Walkers—off of them while they figured out what the hell to do next.
The place had been damaged, though, by a fire. Without some kind of forensic background—or whatever the hell would have made him an expert in such things—Daryl couldn't very well tell what it was, exactly, that had caused the fire or what had put it out. He couldn't say why it had happened. A decent guess, though, was that a fire had been burning in the fireplace of an upstairs bedroom and, for whatever reason, the people who had been there left without putting it out. Some of the flame had clearly escaped to the floor, though it clearly hadn't been an engulfing blaze. It had only burned up one wall, and there was damage to the ceiling that extended into the attic. It had burned up to the roof, but only in what appeared to have been a straight column that took out a small section of the roof. The lack of more extensive damage led Daryl to believe that it had been raining when the fire began to spread—and the rain had taken care of extinguishing it.
"We keep people outta that one room an' it oughta be fine. Don't see too much structural damage elsewhere. Second floor ain't cavin' in, at least."
"I think it's still a good idea to keep the majority of our people on the first floor," Dale offered. "Just in case."
"You won't hear no complaint from me," Daryl said. "We'll pull them mattresses down. Anything else that'll make a decent bed. Block off the livin' room for a living area. Turn the rest of the downstairs into sleepin' spaces."
"How do we decide who gets what space?" Rick asked.
"We all get all the damned spaces," Daryl said with a laugh. "There ain't but so damn much room. We drag them mattresses in to sleep on and whoever's sleepin' gets to sleep on 'em. Don't worry—you gonna get yours just as much as any damn body else."
"Do you have something to say to me, Daryl? Because we really don't have time for this kind of ongoing hostility."
"I got plenty to say to your ass," Daryl said. "Problem is that I don't got the time. Like you said—we don't got tons of time. We gotta get dry wood, Rick. For a fire in the fireplace downstairs. We gotta get water for drinkin' an' bathin'. Gotta set up space for sleepin'. And since I'm the only damn one of us that seems capable of hittin' the broad side of a barn with a bullet, I gotta see if I can't get us some meat to stretch what lil' bit of food we got left as long as we can possibly stretch it. Then—maybe—if I ain't too damned tired, I'll entertain you with sayin' all the hell I got to say."
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"Mama…" Sophia said.
"Shhhh," Carol breathed out, shushing her before she could begin to worry too much or too loudly. She smoothed Sophia's hair down and adjusted the blanket over her. She leaned and kissed her forehead. "Go to sleep, sweetheart."
"But—how long are we gonna stay here?" Sophia asked.
"Until it's time to leave," Carol said. "Don't worry about that now, OK? You just get some sleep."
"Are you leaving?" Sophia asked, trying to sit up again. Carol tucked her and her doll—one of the few possessions she'd saved from the CDC—back into the bed on the floor once more.
"I'm only going to the other room," Carol said. "With your Daddy and Andrea. But we'll be in here soon to sleep."
"You'll sleep with me?" Sophia asked.
Carol hummed.
"Right there. On that mattress. With your Daddy. And Andrea's going to snuggle right here with you, OK? But you go ahead and get some sleep, sweetheart. Close your eyes. We're safe here."
Sophia seemed to relax a little more with the promise that they were safe and the careful explanation of how the night would unfold. She was just a child, and this was all terribly overwhelming—even for the adults. She liked having some clear idea of what was coming next, even if it was only an idea of what would fill the next few hours.
Carol kissed Sophia's forehead one more time and then she got up from her spot on the edge of the mattress. She eased out the door, leaving the camping lantern burning that would act as a nightlight for Sophia and Lori's son, Carl.
In the living room, all the adults were crowded into the tight space. There had been a bit of conversation going on since they'd finished eating and shared weak coffee that was truly little more than slightly dirty hot water.
They were working out the basics—who would keep watch and in what order, mostly, was the main topic of discussion. Or, at least it had been when Carol had taken Sophia to tuck her in.
They'd all bathed in shifts—mostly sponging off with water heated over the fire—and now everyone was mostly quiet with only a few tossed words being exchanged here and there.
"We can't stay here long," Rick mused.
"With the hole in the damn roof, Rick, I don't think anybody planned to move in for good," Shane grumbled.
Irritation was palpable in the space. Everyone was tired. They were exhausted. The CDC felt like it had happened a long time ago, but in actuality their ears were still ringing from the morning's explosion.
"How long will we stay?" Lori asked.
"A few days," Shane said.
"Is it safe to stay here a few days?" Lori asked.
"If you're worried about the roof, it won't cave in," Dale offered. "We all looked at it. The damage is only in that one small area."
"From the looks of it, it didn't burn long," Glenn added.
"I'm worried about those creatures," Lori said. "Walkers."
"We're a lot safer in here than we are out there," Daryl said.
"And then what?" Rick asked. "We spend a few days here and where do we go next?"
"I guess you got a great idea that you about to share with us?" Daryl asked, lighting a cigarette.
"Jenner said that they lost contact with everyone," Rick said. "Just because they lost contact doesn't mean that we're the only people left."
"I guaran-damn-tee you that we ain't the only people left," Daryl said. "That's one of the things that worries me about as damn much as them Walkers—if not more."
"There could be strength in numbers," Rick said. "Survival."
"Or we could be walking into a trap," Shane said. "Look—we tried the CDC. We damn near didn't make it out alive, Rick. We need time to get over that. Regroup. We need a couple days to get our heads on straight. Then we move on."
"To where?" Lori asked.
"Somewhere that ain't the damned CDC," Daryl said. "Somewhere we can—hole up for the winter. Try to scratch out some kinda damn life for ourselves."
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On the one hand, Andrea would've been proud of him. He hadn't had drugs since he'd woken up feeling like death. No matter how damn much he'd wanted to die since then, he hadn't had any drugs. At least, he hadn't had anything stronger than the shit the doctor gave him to aid in the healing of his hand.
Merle didn't like to take much for pain. Really, he preferred to feel the pain. The pain, at least, gave him something to feel—something to think about—that wasn't the pain in his chest.
He'd been sorry to see Amy's corpse when he'd unwrapped the cloth that had been bound around her. She'd been a decent kid, really, even if she was a bit of a brat sometimes. He hated knowing she ended up in a hole with her neck torn out and her brains blown clean out of her skull.
But he had felt relief enough that he'd nearly passed out when he realized that it wasn't Andrea decaying in that sheet.
He didn't know where the hell she was, and he may never know where the hell she was, but at least she wasn't in a hole at the camp. As long as he knew she wasn't there, he could imagine that, somewhere, she was alive.
He felt like she had to be alive. Maybe it was just some kind of infection-fever-induced insanity, but Merle had a feeling that he would just fucking know if Andrea was gone. He felt like something in him would know. It would notice her absence in the universe.
"Like a disturbance in the Force?" Alice, the doctor had asked him when he'd tried to explain his feelings in the truck—both of them looking for something to distract them from the fact that they'd just desecrated a grave together. Merle had admitted it was a stupid fucking idea, but the doctor had said that she'd never said it was stupid and, maybe, it was possible.
She said she was willing to believe that soul mates, or whatever Merle wanted to use as his terminology of choice, might be connected on an emotional level that transcended all rational knowledge of space and time.
She told him she was sure that Andrea was out there somewhere and, whether she really believed it or not, it made Merle feel better. It made him somewhat fond of the brunette doctor, too, that she'd humor him in such a way.
Whether or not he ever saw her again, he simply felt better to think that he was still living in the same damn world as Andrea. Admittedly, though, he wasn't entirely crazy about the idea of continuing living in this shitty existence.
But he didn't believe in offing himself—at least not in the traditional sense.
Andrea might be proud of him that he'd given up the drugs, but he hadn't given up booze. In fact, Merle drank more now than he'd probably ever drank in his whole life.
In Woodbury, the rules were simple. Every damn body had some way to contribute. Maybe you were just the person who handed shit out where they got their rations, or maybe you were the person who cooked food to hand out, but every damn body did something. You contributed. You earned your keep. And each person did the job to which they were best suited.
The Governor had declared that he saw a great deal of potential in Merle—that was one damn thing that nobody, before him, had ever seen. He'd given Merle a job as something of a right-hand man, which was pretty damn ironic considering that Merle lacked a right hand entirely at this point.
Merle's jobs involved a lot of Walker disposal and Walker handling. The messier, rowdier Walkers, he killed. He kept them from bunching their asses up, along with others who also cleared the Walkers, in areas where they might threaten the walls of Woodbury. The ones that were easier to handle, he helped cage. Caged walkers had their teeth and fingernails removed. Basically, they were rendered harmless. They could put on a good show, but they really couldn't follow through with anything. Several nights a week—and any time that morale seemed to drop for one reason or another—like old fashioned gathering to watch a demolition derby or something of the like, the people of Woodbury could go to the fights where they watched people battle it out with the harmless Walkers until, ultimately, the creatures were killed.
Most of the people seemed to enjoy the fights, and Merle didn't give too much of a shit about what the hell people did to bother passing judgement. He enjoyed the fights, himself. He fought some of the Walkers, voluntarily. It wasn't part of his job—he just liked blowing off steam by being given permission to beat the absolute hell out of the creatures.
There would be more to his job, he'd been promised that much, but the Governor was giving him time to settle in. Soon, he'd be leading scouting parties to look for supplies and families to welcome back to Woodbury. For now, though, he was expected to hang close to the community.
Merle figured it was because the Governor wasn't sure if he was a danger to himself right now. What the hell the man didn't know was that Merle had always been a fucking danger to himself. The only thing, arguably, that had kept him alive this damn long was Andrea.
He liked to believe she was alive somewhere—even if he never saw her ass again.
Merle spent his off-hours drinking. Sometimes it was beer. Sometimes it was whiskey. Sometimes it was the potent corn liquor brewed by one of the residents.
It didn't matter to Merle what it was as long as it provided him at least a momentary escape from the pain.
The pounding on the door was loud and hard so that Merle would be sure to hear it, even if he might have been well on his way to being passed out by now.
"What is it?" He called, not wanting to get off the bed.
Merle's apartment was in what had once been a small motel in Woodbury. All the rooms were small—a bed, a table and two chairs, a dresser with a television that didn't work because it pulled too much electricity from the grid, a nightstand, and a small bathroom that did work.
It suited Merle just fine for all the use he had for it.
"Merle? Open up."
Merle recognized the Governor's voice. He got up, grabbed a cigarette and his lighter, and walked to the door. He threw it open, blinked against the blinding light of the outside—it was his day off, and he had nowhere to be—and he focused on lighting his cigarette. It was hell to do it left-handed, but he was learning.
Dixons were fucking adaptable if nothing else.
"What's up? Somethin' goin' down?"
"All's quiet on the western front," the Governor said with a smile. "I was concerned about you, though. Nobody saw you at breakfast."
Merle scratched at his bare chest.
"I prefer to drink my breakfast some days," he said. "Somethin' like a corn smoothie. Liquid diets an' shit—they all the rage."
"Somehow I believe that the nutritional intake of your chosen breakfast is something that Alice would find lacking," the Governor said.
"She'd find somethin' to bitch about," Merle said. "One of my services is makin' it easy for her. What can I do for you?"
"I'm concerned about you."
"Don't be. I don't need nobody hoverin' over my ass. I been weaned a while. I only like tits for recreational purposes these days."
"I didn't think you needed anyone to hover or mother you. Still—you could use a little cheering up. I've got something I want to show you."
"Unless it's some kinda direct order, I'ma pass," Merle said.
The Governor laughed to himself.
"Then consider it a direct order, Merle," the man said. "Get a shirt. You haven't even seen half of Woodbury, and you shouldn't spend your whole day inside with the curtains closed. Come on—we're going for a walk."
Merle growled to himself, but accepted that the man wasn't leaving and, if he did, he'd only send Alice up to bother him next. He didn't say anything, he simply went after a clean shirt.