Thanks everyone for your really great reviews on FanFic, you spur me on! They made my day. I'm thinking that I'm going to wrap my other two stories with one or two finishing chapters and just focus on this one.

TTWH 18

i

Daryl

I woke up the morning after the funeral right on cue as the light streamed through the walls of the sky blue tent with my big brother's arms wrapped tightly around me like they always were since Woodbury. I didn't know what the hell we looked like if we didn't look like a pair of fags – not that I had a problem with gays as long as they kept their hands and their dicks to themselves and didn't touch me. But then I knew that most of the animals who attacked me would have said they were straight, probably complete with a trail of dead wives or girlfriends if anyone who didn't know what were had asked them.

Merle was snoring like a diesel engine in my ear. God knows how I managed to fall asleep in the first place. He was always such a hog.

'Get off me.' I growled and he spluttered. As usual, I was feeling smothered and fighting back the beginnings of the familiar panic that threatened to pull me under even though it was him. My brother and I was OK now.

He stirred in his sleep and tried to pull me closer. I pushed him off and slipped away.

'Where ya goin', baby brother?' He half-mumbled sleepily and reaching for me with his arms. 'Ya barely let me touch ya before...'

'Before I got gang-raped? Ya know why!' I said the word aloud for the first time and it felt good.

He winced despite himself when I said those words and was wide awake then, looking contrite – a rare look for him. 'I didn't mean …'

Yeah.' I snarled back. 'Yeah, ya did.' Part of me really believed that he was glad that what had happened to me left me needing him. Had he taken advantage of that? I just couldn't help lashing out at him.

'Daryl! I didn't mean...' He got up on his elbows. 'Come back!'

'Give me some space, Merle.' With that I unzipped the tent and slipped out. I was in a pissy mood and it wasn't really my brother's fault.

...

'

I was sitting outside having a smoke when Beth came and sat next to me when she'd always glanced at me sideways with a little scared deer-caught-in-the-headlights-look. I rolled my eyes mentally because I wasn't looking for company just then, had escaped my big brother for a while and I could tell that she was feeling guilty and needed some reassurance. I remembered defending her to her Dad – she must have read more into it than I , I knew what I did was the reason for it. She thought she'd killed that piece of shit. I thought it was weird because she didn't normally seek me out – was always just on the periphery sometimes when I hung out with Glen and Maggie. Didn't speak much but her big baby-doll eyes would be watching her elders and soaking everything we talked about. She was hungry for experiences of all kinds, I could tell.

At age 17, she must think I was ancient – not quite as old as her old man but still fucking old even though Merle was always telling me that I looked young for my age. Didn't believe him though because I knew that his flattery alwayshad an ulterior motive.

'Do ya mind if I join you?' She tossed her hair and sat a few feet away from me.

I bit back my initial reaction which was to snap, 'Do I have a choice?' and merely nodded and grunted at her. Even offered her a cigarette which she declined like I knew she would. The little precious princess wouldn't do anything her Daddy and big sis told her not to do.

'I don't know what to do and I have such a stinkin' headache.' She rubbed her temples with her fingertips.

'Well, then ya shouldn't drink so much ya pass out.' I hissed, not looking at her. I knew it was a low blow but then again, she should have left me alone like she usually did.

She recoiled. 'Daryl...'

'Yeah, I know.' I said, hopefully without judgement in my voice. 'I know ya been drinkin'.'

She turned on me and I flinched as she yanked my arm. I yanked it just as violently back and moved further away from her. 'Get off me.' I snarled.

' I'm sorry.' She replied meekly. 'I jus' want to know ...how do ya know?'I turned around to glare at her. 'Jus' know. Don't need to tell you how.'

'Does anyone else?' She whispered, worried now. Had she noticed the missing bottle he'd swiped from her...did she even remember it?'

'Only Merle. He ain't gonna tell no-one.'

'Fuck!' She hissed and now it was my turn to stare at her in surprise. I didn't say anything though but just raised my eyebrow.

She sagged and buried her head in her hands. 'I do it ...jus' 'cos sometimes I feel so bad...can still their faces...my family, comin' out in that barn.' She started to weep piteously. 'Then, I...I ...need t drink to sleep, get the images out of my head.'

I turned around and just glared at her. Eyes hard. Because what did she want? Pity? We'd all been through shit and lost people along the way. Well, maybe me not really. I hadn't lost any blood-kin that I gave a shit about. There was only my brother. But maybe him dying would have been more merciful because I had lost him.

Because he'd lost himself.

I thought about shaking her until her teeth rattled and some sense came into her head. But that would mean touching her and the thought of that freaked me out right then.

'What do ya want? Think ya the only one who has pictures in their head that they don't want to see every night before they fall asleep?'

'No..but...' She blushed furiously because she'd forgotten what happened to me while wallowing in her guilt.

'Suck it up.' I knew I was being mean but I just didn't have the energy to deal with her petty teenage crises right now. Had my own problems. Like how to control my crazy brother and his sick sexual urges.

'You're a fuckin' bastard, jus' like ya brother! I thought ya were better than him!' She leapt up in anger.

I stared at her in surprise, not because of what she said because I'd never heard her swear before.

Yeah, ya don't know how right ya are. I raised my eyebrows at her as she rounded on me with fists clenched and I was pleased to see the fire in her eyes. She was showing some backbone at last.

'Ya gonna run away now or sit down and talk to me then?' The words were out of my throat before I had time to think about them and stop them. Sit down and talk to me then? When all I wanted was to be left alone to my own thoughts. Sort out my feelings about brother and what we did. Everything we did even if he'd stopped trying to get into my pants. So where did that come from? Too late to take it back.

She wiped her eyes and just stood there, looking at me and looking back towards the camp where her family and friends were. Clearly undecided whether to stay with this rough redneck man who yelled abuse at her or to stay and talk about whatever was on her mind.

Didn't matter, I knew what it was and it wasn't only about the drinking although the two were connected.

'I'm sorry.' She sat down again with still enough space between us to fit another person. Fine by me.

I blew out some smoke circles before I stubbed out the end on the grass.

'Daryl...'

'Yeah?'

'When Caesar died, I was passed out drunk. If I'd been watchin' him...'

'Ya think ya could have saved him? Didn't ya Dad say that it was a natural death and not to worry?'

'But...but I don't understand because he was gettin' better!'

'And ya feel guilty. But believe me, ya wouldn't if ya knew the things he did. Merle told me he'd heard rumours flyin' around that place about what the bastard did with his friends to prisoners.'

I stubbornly tried to protect him through this lie. Didn't tell her that he was one of them.

She let out a small sound of distress when I'd thought (maybe hoped) that she wouldn't understand what I was getting at. Turned out she did.

'That shouldn't matter. Daddy says you should treat people all the same and make them better if you can 'cos we are all human. Hippocratic Oath.'

I couldn't help scoff at her childish and naïve view of people and especially of the world we now lived in.

'Yeah...some of us are. So...' I drawled, feeling like this could get interesting and maybe talking to a little girl wouldn't bore me rigid, 'If he was the Governor, do you think we should treat him, patch him up and let him go on his merry way? So he could come back with backup and kill us all?'

I turned to her as I rolled another, taking my sweet time. Letting her think about this conundrum.

She was pondering the problem deeply so I decided to give her another push.

'Do some people deserve to be saved and others to die? Who decides?'

'God decides.' She answered without hesitation.

'So, if they...really hurt ya and ya sister - let's say violated ya both (she went white at this word like I knew she would) - but somehow they don't manage to kill ya and you see them again doing it to someone else, is it OK for you to kill them? Would it be for revenge or self-defence to stop them from doing it again to you?'

I didn't realise but I was trying to seek the opinion of a teenager – an unworldly one at that- to make me feel better for what we did to Jones and his crew. Now to their victim, Caesar. But Caesar (according to Merle) hadn't always been a victim. He'd joined in with them and enjoyed it.

'I don't know! I didn't know he was bad! If he was such a threat to the group, why didn't you or Merle tell us?'

'Ya still ain't answered my question.'

'I don't know! How should I know what's right or wrong? Anyway, since when did you become such a philosopher anyway?'

'Get out of here, kid.' I shooed her away but not too unkindly. 'I need some time alone. Jus' sayin' I don't think ya should waste ya time feelin' guilty for that piece of shit, is all.' I gratefully took another deep inhale and blew out more corn-circles in the air.

She left without a word but I noticed that there was a definite skip in her walk when she'd slumped over her, all slow and dejected.

Had I done that? Made someone feel better, lightened their load?

'