AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!
111
"I don't half wanna be called out about anybody in the damn area anymore," Merle said. The lemonade he was drinking with Alice was actually delicious, even if it had come from a powder, but it did nothing to numb any of his internal aching since he'd brought no alcohol with him out to the new community, and Alice hadn't brought anything with her when she'd come bringing the beverage and a small igloo cooler full of ice. At least she'd been kind enough to bring him an abundance of tobacco from a run that someone had taken recently. "It's always the same, Al. Either they're too damn sick in the head to save and we gotta do shit to deal with it—and the I have nightmares for days about the people I've had to fuckin' kill, Alice. Women lookin' damn rabid, but you just fuckin' know…you know they weren't always like that. And if they ain't too damn sick in the head, then they too damn sick in the body, an' we haul their asses back to Woodbury, but they never make it any damn way."
The porch railings weren't up on the house, but the porch floor was up. They sat on it, side-by-side. It was getting darker, and it was dangerous to be out after dark where the Walkers had the unfair advantage of being able to see just as well as they did in the light without the need of a light—something that drew Walkers like moths to a flame. Alice had likely brought her overnight bag, as she often did, stowed in the trunk of the car she'd borrowed from Philip. She had a sleeping bag in Merle's house already. She came to visit when she needed to escape Woodbury for a bit and needed to escape the pressures of being a doctor, a surgeon, and, really, something of a savior.
Merle would let her be just Alice and, sometimes, she really seemed to need to be just Alice.
And Merle didn't hate the company. Knowing Alice was in her sleeping bag—sometimes hearing her breathe and knowing he wasn't entirely alone in the world—helped Merle sleep better than he would have ever wanted to admit.
It was nice to have friends in the world. Merle missed his family desperately, and he doubted that would ever change, but at least someone, somewhere, had seen fit to throw him a few friends to keep the demons at bay.
"How the hell do you think I feel, Merle?" Alice responded. "Every dead body is a testament of my failure. My uselessness. At least you can build this—all of this. I'm clumsy, and I have a brown thumb."
Merle hummed and raised his eyebrows at her.
"You ain't useless. Everybody needs the doc sometimes, and we've seen a few that's lived."
Alice smirked.
"I'm glad you see my usefulness," she said, her smile growing slightly. "You've hauled in most of those people that have lived, if I have to remind you of that. Stop declaring everything we do a complete failure. Philip sends you out because you've got a pretty level head, Merle. You make the quick judgments that have to be made to keep people from losing their lives needlessly, but your quick decisions aren't rash."
"Philip likes to send me out because he knows I can pull the damn trigger that needs to be pulled when there ain't nobody else that's got the balls to pull it. I'm just gettin' tired because it seems every damn group's got a blonde in it, and they call me out with wavin' that damned bit of steak in my face like they done found her ass this time, and I get high just to get knocked fuckin' low again. Besides that—every damn time one of 'em dies…we can't save their asses from the bites or, worse, whatever the hell some sick bastard has done to 'em…or every time they're so fuckin' gone in the head that the merciful thing is to put 'em outta their misery, and I gotta pull the damn trigger—every damn time, Alice, I keep thinkin' that every fuckin' one of 'em weren't mine, but they coulda been somebody's Andrea."
Alice patted him on the back.
"We're going to find her, Merle. I really believe that."
Merle hummed. Alice got up, unfolding her legs and stretching her back dramatically. She walked down the steps and opened the driver's side door of the car.
"Where the fuck you goin'?" Merle asked. "Late. You got no damned business traipsin' back and damn forth with dark comin'. You get stopped 'cause some shit's in the road and the next thing you know your ass is overrun and you ain't got a soul with you."
"Relax, Merle," Alice said with a laugh. She pulled a duffle bag out of the car and came back up the porch steps. "I brought my toothbrush. And…" She pulled a bottle of vodka from the bag. "A little social drink won't hurt either of us. But the bottle's going back to Woodbury with me tomorrow."
She tipped the bottle into Merle's glass and then her own. She refreshed both their drinks with some ice from the cooler and a little more lemonade from one of the two plastic gallon jugs she'd brought. Merle clanked their glasses together and rolled them both another cigarette from the supplies she'd brought.
It didn't take long, at all, for the vodka and the nicotine to blend in Merle's bloodstream. He felt a little lightheaded, and a little lighter than he had. As always, though, his thoughts went back to Andrea while he listened to Alice lament, a little, her losses in the world. She understood about Andrea. She had her own blonde she'd been looking for for a while now—Melodye. Merle let her talk for a while because he knew, just like she knew his hurt, that sometimes it hurt, but it felt good, too, just to say their name for a while—just to talk, and to hear it out loud, like they were still there.
"I miss your broken china voice. I wish you were still here with me. You build it up. You wreck it down. You burn your mansion to the ground…" Merle mused after he'd refilled both their drinks.
"The hell does that mean, Merle?" Alice asked with a laugh. She thanked Merle for the drink and the cigarette he lit for her.
It was dark now. Serious dark, as Alice teasingly called it. The last time she'd gotten up to piss, Alice had brought the lantern from inside the house and lit it between them on the porch.
"From a song," Merle said. "I used to sing that song to Andrea."
"Sounds romantic," Alice said with a snort.
"Just—reminds me I been fuckin' shit up forever," Merle said. "Always felt like one day this day would come. She'd just be gone. Guess I always hoped I could convince her not to let it happen, but I sure didn't do shit to keep it from happenin', did I?"
"Maybe the vodka was a bad idea," Alice said. "You built all this. You aren't going to burn this shit down, are you? Because that's really not how the hell I want to go, Merle."
Merle laughed to himself.
"I already burned my mansion down, Alice," Merle said.
"Easy, Merle," Alice said, patting his leg. She took the vodka bottle back from its spot on the porch and tucked it into the bag that hadn't made it inside yet. "You built this house to be a home. This nest'll get feathered one day."
"Ever the fuckin' optimist," Merle said.
"Well, somebody has to be."
"What about you?" Merle asked. "You got the same optimism for your life?"
"I'm the first to meet every new group at the gate," Alice said. "Half of it's to keep whoever the hell I can alive and earn my keep. The other half's to get a good look at that token blonde you say every group has."
111
Carol squatted by the tree for what felt like her fifth time peeing that night. She cursed herself for the extra cup of tea she'd had with Andrea and Patricia, and the extra two glasses of water she'd used to wash it down when she'd realized that she was feeling thirsty and had forgotten to drink for most of the day.
When she only had to pee, she didn't feel the need to go too far to relieve herself. If it was good enough for the men, Carol, Jacqui, and Andrea had agreed that they, too, could piss beside a tree without anyone complaining.
The last time she'd been awake, Carol had checked the RV to make sure that all was well. Sophia was sleeping soundly with Andrea, and everyone else seemed to be comfortable enough as well. She doubted, this time, that she'd go back. She didn't want to risk waking anyone else and disturbing them just because she was awake. It was bad enough that she kept stirring Daryl up every time she had to relieve her bladder—which had obviously decided it hated her and never wanted her to rest again.
Carol could blame her waking on her bladder, but mostly she blamed her bladder issues on the troubled trio that always seemed to be complicating their lives. She was sleeping fitfully because she kept getting stirred up by snatches of their commotion. Rick and Shane had brought home some asshole that was, without a doubt, dangerous. Hershel wanted something done with him. He wanted the situation handled by the time the sun came up. Daryl had suggested putting a bullet through the man's brain in the most humane way to get rid of him and to ensure that, as Daryl put it, shit didn't blow back on any of them. When his idea had been shot down by Rick, who wanted to pretend that he suddenly couldn't fathom killing the stranger, Daryl and everyone else had gone to bed to leave Shane, Rick, and Lori—who had her own opinions about the whole thing—to deal with the situation.
Carol didn't know what they'd decided, exactly, but she knew there had been waves of commotion as they'd explored different options. She'd heard snatches of it, and it had pulled her from sleep. She was convinced that, rather than her bladder rousing her from sleep, it was being roused from sleep that made her bladder think she might as well relieve it while she was up.
It was dark, but Carol could see a little because the moon was full. The light burning inside their tent kept her aware of the tent's location.
For the first time in a while, Carol couldn't hear anything—no arguing, no voices carrying, nothing. It was silent. Whatever was done, it seemed, must be done.
Then she heard the gunshot.
As quickly as she could, Carol made it back to the tent. Daryl was awake and smoking, clearly having decided to stop trying to sleep when his wife was determined to do anything else.
"Daryl—did you hear that gunshot?" Carol asked, coming into the tent.
"Did," Daryl confirmed, his voice still heavy with sleep.
"What do you think it was?" Carol asked. "Do you think we should be worried? Wake the others?"
"It was far off," Daryl said. "Weren't right around here. I heard Rick an' Shane goin' at it a while ago. Maybe they decided the way to finally deal with the asshole was to drag him off somewhere an' shoot him."
"You think that's all it was?" Carol asked, her stomach twisting uncomfortably. She was more uncomfortable about what the gunshot might mean for them than she was about the fact that the man might have lost his life. This world, it seemed, had changed a great deal about how she felt about things and what she found acceptable.
"More than likely," Daryl said. "You done pissin' for a while or…you gonna go again in like two minutes?"
Carol felt her face grow warm.
"I drank a lot before bed," she said. "I'm sorry. Truth is—I'm kind of thirsty."
Daryl laughed to himself.
"That canteen over there's full," he said.
"If I drink it, I'll have to pee again," Carol said. "Maybe it's just nervous bladder or something."
"You know what you nervous about?" Daryl asked. "Can I help?"
"Everything," Carol said.
Daryl laughed quietly in response.
"Yeah, it's been a hell of a day," he said. "But—everyone's OK right now."
Carol hummed.
"I checked on Andrea and Sophia earlier. They're sleeping well. They didn't even hear me come in."
"Good," Daryl said. "Get you some of that water and then come here. Snuggle down. Let me hold you. You and your nervous ass bladder get some sleep."
"Asshole," Carol said. "I'm nervous now because of that gunshot."
"Don't think too much about it," Daryl said. "You just come snuggle with me. I'm done wide-ass awake, so I'ma stay up a bit and keep an ear out. Probably won't be long I'll hear Rick an' Shane comin' back from shootin' that asshole. That's probably all it was. You get some sleep. I'll let you know if there's anything to worry about."
Carol did drink some of the water. It was sweet, cool water, and she thought it tasted every bit as good as it had earlier when she'd drank far more than she should. The tea, too, had been delicious. Her taste, it seemed, was heightened by her forgetfulness to drink. She reminded herself to be careful not to become dehydrated again—at least not while they had a place to stay and plenty of water to drink. Satisfied, she settled down next to Daryl in the blankets, and he held her.
She sighed, already feeling her body float with fatigue.
"You think you'll sleep?" Daryl asked. Carol hummed at him.
"I feel safe with you keeping watch," Carol said.
"You are safe," Daryl said. "Long as I'm alive—I'll do whatever the hell I can to make sure you an' Sophia are safe."
"And Andrea," Carol said. Daryl laughed quietly.
"And Andrea," he assured her. "Get some sleep. I'll keep an ear out for the assholes' return."