I'm sorry about that cliff hanger but really, it needed to stop there. Just so you know up front, this isn't one of those stories that ends with it all being a dream. Just read on and hopefully things will start making sense. I'm hoping so anyway! Thank you for reading!

We're Dead and this is Hell

Sophia knew there was something very wrong before she even opened her eyes. It was just a feeling. A pressure in the air that felt off. She had felt it before, many many times. With an overwhelming feeling of trepidation she opened her eyes. Directly above her she saw patches of clear blue sky through a canopy of tree branches. She felt vulnerable and exposed. She sat up quickly, glancing around with wide frantic eyes.

She was on the ground, dead leaves protecting her from the hard packed earth below her. The area looked familiar. Just an ordinary place, really. She had been in the woods plenty of times. She must have been out there on some mission with Carl and had somehow fallen asleep.

She was lying to herself. She knew that the woods she was now in weren't the woods her and Carl and the other kids had explored. These woods weren't protected by the high walls that secured the property where she now lived. Where was she? That wasn't the right question. The question was, when was she? She stood up and spun around, leery of turning her back on the open space around her. She was slowly remembering what had happened before she had woken up here. Memories started pummeling her, driving her to an almost panicked state until her eyes fell on a familiar figure.

Merle was sitting there with his back against a tree trunk, his legs were pulled up with his forehead resting on his knees. "Merle?" Sophia said his name hesitantly, like he would fade away if she startled him.

His head shot up and he stood up quickly. "Bout fuckin' time," he said, his tone relieved. "You was out cold. Where the fuck are we?"

Sophia studied the land around them. She groaned out loud. "I don't think you want to know," she muttered as he sidled up next to her.

"The fuck you talkin' about? We're suppose to be in some parkin' lot in Bum Fucked Egypt Georgia. How the hell did the two of us get here?"

She met his eyes briefly. "I can't explain it. Just follow me."

She expected him to argue or demand answers but he kept his mouth closed and followed her through the woods. She was kind of in her element here. He was not. She found the trail quickly, glancing behind her to make sure Merle was still following. He was, glancing around nervously.

"This looks familiar," he said, more to himself than to her.

She snorted. "It should. We've both been here before." Just then the path opened up and they stepped through. She heard Merle curse under his breath at the site before them.

"Sophia! I've been looking everywhere for you!"

Sophia turned towards the sound of her mom's frantic voice.

"You've gotta be fuckin' kiddin' me," Merle groaned.

"It won't last long," she whispered. "Just go with it or everything can get all messed up. I'm telling you, you don't want to get stuck here."

"We're dead, ain't we? We fuckin' died and gone straight to hell!" His voice was getting louder and she slapped his arm.

They were at the quarry now, a long long way from their home but along the same time line. Sophia felt a headache coming on. She hated the quarry. Her mom was rushing towards her and Sophia couldn't help but grimace at the ugly clothes she was wearing. Carol stopped in front of her, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Sophia, where have you been?" Carol demanded.

Sophia cleared her throat and tried to remember how to look like a cowed little girl. "I was just..."

"She was helpin' me. Cut the kid some slack, Carol," Merle said suddenly.

Carol's blue eyes went wide as she glanced at Merle and then looked down. "The least you could have done was let one of us know that you were taking her away from camp. Now Ed's upset about..."

"Fuck that!" Merle growled. "I ain't havin' her near that son of a-"

"I'm sorry, mama," Sophia said quickly, cutting Merle off. He hadn't acted like this at the quarry. He had to learn how to keep himself in character. All they had to do was play a role. Be who they were then. Everything would be fine eventually. She hoped.

Carol glanced at Merle one more time before she took Sophia's hand and started leading her away. Sophia glanced back, giving Merle a look that she hoped he understood. He couldn't act so different. And neither could she.

~H~

Merle walked through the camp and smiled to himself as all of the others looked away as he passed. Everyone avoided him like the plague. Sophia said they wouldn't be stuck here forever. They weren't dead. All they had to do was act like the people they had been at the quarry. That should be easy.

He went to the spot where he remembered their little camp had been and stopped in his tracks when he saw Daryl knelt down by the fire. He cleared his throat, causing Daryl to glance over his shoulder. "Where the hell have you been?" Daryl asked.

Merle chuckled darkly. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you, little brother. Did I miss anything?"

Daryl gave him an odd look but then shrugged, poking at the coals with a stick. "The lady with the asshole husband been runnin' around like a mad hen lookin' for the little girl. If she don't turn up soon I'm thinkin' about goin' out and lookin' myself." Daryl seemed to tense, like he was waiting for Merle to remind him that it wasn't any of their damn business.

Merle didn't say anything at first, not until finally Daryl looked up, his eyes guarded. "The kid is fine. She was with me," he said.

Daryl scowled. "You? What the hell would you do that for?"

Merle ignored the question. "What'cha think about Carol?"

Daryl frowned. "Who?"

Merle studied him to see if he was only acting like he didn't know the woman's name but he seemed to honestly not know her. "The one married to the asshole."

Daryl shrugged. "I think she's a dumb ass for putting up with that slimy shit head she's married too."

Merle sighed and chewed on his bottom lip for a second before he spoke again. "You ever think about fuckin' her?"

Daryl's face flamed and he tossed the stick into the fire and stood up. "You're such a bastard, Merle. I ain't even gonna answer that."

"You should talk to her. Kick her husbands ass, bring her to the tent and show her a good time. Trust me, she'd be all over you if you'd just stop actin' like a fidgety ass freak."

"Merle?"

Both Dixons looked up into the disapproving face of Sophia. Daryl groaned but Merle just waited for her to go on.

"We need to go," Sophia said quickly.

Daryl looked at her with a scowl on his face. "What the hell are you talkin' about? Go on somewhere kid. Merle is the last person you need to try to make friends with. Go on." He tried shooing her away.

Sophia rolled her eyes. "I forgot how difficult he was then," she said to Merle. "Come on, it's time." Ignoring Daryl Sophia grabbed Merle's hand and tried to drag him into the woods.

He stopped and glanced over his shoulder. Daryl was staring at him with his mouth hanging open. "Don't forget, baby brother! You go after that woman and you tap that ass!"

"Oh my God!" Sophia hissed, pulling on his arm even harder.

With a chuckle Merle finally gave in, following her into the woods.

~H~

Daryl sat quietly next to the bed, in a chair he had stolen out of another room. He had thought that they were dead. Seeing the two of them lying there in that parking lot, so still, he had been sure that their peace was finally over and the torment and trauma of this life would consume him and Carol both. He had felt everything they had worked so hard for vanish before his eyes. There were three people that he loved. Three people that held a piece of him that he could never get back, and two of them had been lying there, lifeless, before his eyes.

He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. It had been Michonne who finally placed two fingers on Merle's neck, searching for a pulse. She had done the same to Sophia. When the words left her mouth that they were both still alive Daryl almost bulked at the news. If it turned out that it wasn't true, he couldn't handle it. He couldn't risk grabbing a hold of that hope just to have it ripped away again.

It had been Shane and Tyreese that helped the two other men, the men with Michonne, put Merle and Sophia into the back of the truck. All Daryl could really remember about the ride back to the farm was that it seemed to have taken a very long time.

"Hershel's finished," a soft voice said from the doorway.

Daryl looked up into Carol's bloodshot eyes. She was exhausted. So was he. Sophia was lying in the bed. Although she was breathing Daryl couldn't help but feel like there was no life there. Hershel had inspected her but there wasn't a mark on her. The blood had been from Merle. Sophia was uninjured but seemed gone all the same. Daryl turned, his gaze falling back onto the girl in the bed. He wasn't sure if he wanted to hear what the verdict was. It seemed like, after all these years, he was finally getting to see a glimpse of the brother that Merle could have been. He wasn't ready to lose that.

"It's all up to Merle now. I don't know details but everything went as well as we could have hoped," Carol whispered.

Daryl cleared his throat. "Merle's strong. He'll pull out of it." He didn't recognize his own voice and he was too far gone in his despair to even try to believe his own words.

"Daryl, we should get something to eat. Annette is worried to death. The others are worried too," she said softly, placing a hand on his shoulder. "We won't be able to do anything for either of them if we run ourselves into the ground."

He stood up and stretched, taking note of every crack his body made. He wasn't even sure how long he had been sitting there. A quick glance at the window told him that it was still dark outside. "How are you holding up?" He asked, genuinely curious.

She glanced down at Sophia, motionless in the bed. "I guess I trust that she'll come back. She always comes back. And Merle is Merle. He isn't going anywhere until he's damn good and ready to go."

He followed her out the door, looking back at Sophia's still form one last time before he slipped out of the room. His mind didn't register passing anyone in the hallway. If he had then he would have seen Carl sitting by the bedroom door, waiting patiently for news of Sophia.

~H~

Sophia led him through the woods, unsure where she was taking him. To say that all of this was confusing the hell out of him was an understatement. He had no idea how any of this was happening. A part of him was still pretty positive that they were dead. Death had never scared him before. It was just one those things that you couldn't dwell on too much because it was something that was happening whether you were ready for it or not. He knew a lot of people were afraid to die but he wasn't one of them.

This situation, however, scared him. If they were dead, was this it? Was it just the two of them forever, with only small glimpses of the people they cared about? Was this the answer to that big mystery?

"You look like you're trying to go to the bathroom," Sophia muttered.

He scowled. "I just don't get it. I really don't get it. You say we're still alive but there's no way," he grumbled, kicking a branch out of his way.

Sophia just shrugged. "Trust me, this isn't death."

"Then what is it?"

She frowned and squinted, like thinking about it was giving her a headache. He gave her time to figure out how she was going to explain to him what was happening to them. "It's kind of like... almost death. It is for you anyway. It's not like that for me. For me it's something different but kind of the same."

He snorted. "Well I'm glad that you cleared all that up for me. I feel a lot better now."

Her little face became pinched and she fell deep into thought for a long time. So long, in fact that he kept worrying that she was going to fall into one of those weird trances. Finally she sighed. "You know how I can go to those other places?"

"Like the one we're in now?" He asked dryly.

She nodded. "Yes. And do you remember those dreams you started having after meeting my mama?"

Merle grimaced but nodded.

"And by now you know that those weren't just dreams, right?"

He glanced at her. The truth was, he wasn't sure what those had been. He knew they were terrifying and he knew that there was a lot of truth in them. But he just didn't know what they were. "I know they weren't just dreams. Couldn't have been."

She nodded. "Exactly. See... all of that really happened. It happened because things led to all of it to happen." She made another face, knowing that she was being more confusing than helpful. "Okay, let me put it this way. Where we are now, is another reality. It doesn't belong to us. We're on the outside of it. But it's very real. The people back there, our people, are real. This is their reality. This is their... plain. Sometimes they are more flimsy, like this one, where we fit right in. Daryl could actually see you and it was almost like you were suppose to be there. You became a part of this reality, even though you came from another one. Other times we're like... watching everything happening around us but no one can see us. No one can communicate with us. But it's all real. It's all happening. It just doesn't belong to us so we can't interact with it. We're... I guess you can say we're like ghosts. Do you understand what I'm saying so far?" She looked at him like she doubted it very much.

"Are you fuckin' with me? Sounds like you're talkin' about quantum theory. That shit isn't real, kid."

Sophia stopped in her tracks, her eyes wide with disbelief.

"What?" He groused. "Is it a sin for a grown man to read a book or two in his life? Quit lookin' at me like that, goddamn it!"

"You've read about-"

"Yeah, asshole. I've read about it. But it ain't real."

She gestured around them. "Obviously, Merle."

He narrowed his eyes on her. She was such a smart ass little shit some times. He waved an impatient hand at her. "Well, go on with it, damn it."

She still looked at him like she'd never seen him before but she started speaking again. "Well, when my mama got into that accident, something happened to me. I don't know what it was but Ed- See, he was upset and he hit me. He hit me so hard that I didn't wake up for a long time but he knew he couldn't take me to the hospital so he just kind of tried to nurse me back to health on his own. While I was knocked out I just... I left myself."

"Astral projection? Oh, come on, Sophia! You expect me to believe that?"

She shot him a look but she did stop with her ramblings. "And you expect me to believe that you get bored sometimes and read things about Physics? Face it Merle, nothing I've told you so far is as weird as that."

"Okay, so somehow you pulled us all into the reality that we've been living?" He offered, trying to get her to explain further.

"Something like that. Maybe Ed knocked a few things loose up there," she pointed to her head absently. "Now I can do these... things. I can see things. I don't know why you're so important. I don't know why you always seem to be with other versions of myself. I want to figure that part out. It's just hard. As soon as I feel like I finally get it it all just kind of slips away. It's like, I'm not suppose to know why. I'm just suppose to keep everyone safe no matter what. When something happens to change that, when something comes along in the future that threatens us, well, you come to me."

Merle knew about some of the other things that the girl had seen but he hadn't really thought about it as much as she did. "Maybe you should just try to let it go."

She shook her head and stopped again. "It's my job, Merle. It's up to me. All of it." Her eyes grew damp but her chin came up, refusing to cry no matter how much she wanted too. "I'm strong enough to watch out for all of us. I've got this thing and if I waste it then how could I live with myself?"

He looked away from her, not wanting her to see what must have been written all over his face. Somehow, this scrawny little kid had grown on him so much that the thought of everything she had to deal with kind of broke his heart. He didn't want her to feel like it was all on her. But he couldn't deny that that was the truth. What a heavy load to carry for such a small girl. "You said that it was harder to feel it. You told me that something was changin' in there," he tapped her on the top of the head with his finger.

She nodded. "It was. And now here we are."