The blackness enveloped him like an endless void, an ocean of sticky tar he was trapped in, sabotaging his efforts to break free from it. Everything was muffled, muted, grayed; completely devoid of clarity, sharpness, or focus. Vaguely he could make out bits of his surroundings. He could feel something hard beneath him, and a heavy covering of some kind keeping his body firmly locked in place to that hardness. Slowly the darkness began to recede, and light began to trickle through; as much as he'd struggled to free himself of the all-consuming blackness, the light wasn't welcome either. It felt as though it were burning his retinas with its harshness. He felt pain. There was tremendous pain all throughout his body, pumping through his veins to distribute itself thoroughly and concentrating most intensely in his neck and head. Then there were the noises, distant yet close enough to be coming from within his own head, loud yet barely even audible. It was a chaotic cacophony of which he'd much rather have no part, especially since it was magnifying his splitting headache.
The information he was so clumsily taking in was blurred, distorted, running together like an eggs' broken yolk mingling with the uncooked white, but not mixing to make something of substance to which he could form something discernable from, come to any conclusion as to what it all meant. He was just floundering in confusion, like a fish flopping on the bank, desperately trying to make its way back into the life giving oxygenation of the pond.
Maybe if he could just focus on one thing, he could tether himself to it and pull himself from this pit he was sinking in. Trying to weed through his disorientation, he focused on the most overwhelming of the sensations, something he could relate to well. The pain. This, perhaps, wasn't the best idea he'd ever had. He'd thought the pain had been bad before. The misery flooded through him, bringing with it a nausea that almost overwhelmed him; the throbbing in his head escalated, drowning out all other noises with a dull buzzing. He could feel hands pressing on his chest now; why did they have to press so hard? He wasn't going anywhere. He'd nearly pulled entirely from the oppressive darkness he was captured in and was absolutely exhausted by it. The hands were moving frenetically over him, more than one set he thought, although he really couldn't be sure of that. There was a hand slapping his cheek now. Who the hell was hitting him? He'd worked this hard to escape one hell, only to find himself in this new one; at the mercy of others, tied down and weary.
Finally, his eyes fluttered open and once they slowly adjusted to the brightness he became more aware of the reality of his situation. The hardness beneath him was a table, and what he'd previously thought were bonds strapping him to it was in actuality a light sheet draped over him. The abusive hands belonged to Andrea and Carol who, in fact, were being as gentle as ever. Their faces hovered above his, mouths moving, eyes concerned. As the buzzing in his head began to fade, he could make out the words.
"...you feeling?" , this from Carol.
Simultaneous with Andrea's, "... us a big scare there, Daryl."
Dazedly he stared at them. What had happened to him? He couldn't seem to remember. He felt weak and battered, but the reason for this currently escaped him. "Happened?" he asked in little more than a whisper.
Rather than answering, Andrea asked a question of her own, "You don't remember?" At his bewildered expression, she exchanged a glance with Carol, "Merle. He..." she began but was cut off.
"I remember now." Daryl's voice floated weakly up to them. At the mention of his brother's name, it all came flooding back to him. "Is he? Did I?" He couldn't finish the question, but the women knew what he was asking.
They were silent for several moments, exchanging another strange look between each other before Carol finally replied, "He's dead, Daryl."
He wasn't really surprised at her answer, even as he was completely shocked by it. He'd been determined, and nothing stood between him and his goals once he set his mind to it. But this was Merle. Nothing could kill Merle, but Merle. Seems that wasn't as true as he'd thought. He wasn't even sure how he'd done it. He could recall brawling with his brother next to the fire pit, but that's where the memory ended.
Andrea began to prop him up slightly while Carol held a cup and straw to his lips. He sipped at it slowly, the liquid soothing his parched throat. He wondered what the looks the two women kept exchanging meant, but was too tired to focus on that just yet; he'd deal with that later. Andrea gently laid him back down as his eyes began to close of their own accord.
"Get some rest," Carol's voice wafted over him as he drifted off, "we'll check on you again in a bit."
Carol breathed a sigh of relief. Daryl had woken up. She hadn't killed him with her pathetic excuse for administering stitches. She had just finished changing his bandages with Andrea's assistance when he'd begun to stir. First it was just a twitch of his hand, then his eyelids fluttered. They began to try to rouse him, patting his cheeks gently and lightly planting palms on his chest to keep him from overturning however unlikely, judging by the weakness of his movements. When his eyes finally opened, she could have jumped for joy. It'd only been just over a day, but after the amount of blood he'd lost, she'd begun to fear his sleep would be eternal. He didn't stay awake long, but that hardly mattered; he'd awoke!
Once he'd fallen back to sleep, she gave him one last look before gathering the bloodied bandages to throw out and the first aid supplies to put away. Andrea'd already wandered back over to Shane and T-dogg to help them board up the windows with the tables. They now only had two tables left, but that was fine; it opened up a lot of space, and they had the bar to sit at anyhow. Lori was sitting at the only other remaining table with the kids, overseeing their homework.
She decided to go tell Rick the good news. She found him in the gas station portion of the building with Glenn and Dale. "I see you've been busy in here." She informed the men.
"Oh yea, we just thought we'd rearrange this stuff, maybe set up a couple of the tents in here or something. Have an indoor campground." Rick gestured to the cleared space they'd created. Although a much tighter squeeze than before, there was still a clear path to the items on the shelves, a couple were even behind the counter now and the space it opened up was enough for two, maybe even three tents.
"That'll be real nice, Rick." Carol was liking this place more than she'd expected to. It was, of course, at tighter squeeze than being outside, but it certainly offered much more protection, and putting tents up would provide a bit of privacy. However, the best part so far was that earlier on that morning Rick and Shane had gotten the generator working and found that they did indeed have hot and running water. "I wanted to tell you, Daryl woke up."
Rick brightened, "Really? Is he still awake?"
"No, he wasn't awake long, just a minute or two, but that's a good sign." She said tentatively, more like a question than a statement.
"Well I'd say it is," Rick smiled.
"I was wondering, what should we tell him about Merle? He already knows he's dead. He asked, so Andrea and I had to tell him, but we were bringing Merle's body with us to bury. What do we tell Daryl now?"
"The truth, I guess." Dale said calmly, "I'm sure it won't be pleasant to hear, but we can't lie to him about it."
Carol balked a bit at the idea that she'd want to lie to Daryl about this. "Well, of course I don't want to lie to him about it. I guess I'm more asking how we tell him, and when?"
Rick stepped in to lay down the law as he so often did, "I don't want to tell him Merle came back just yet; we'll wait till he's a bit stronger. And if Daryl wants, we'll go back and get Merle's body and bury him like we'd planned."
Carol nodded and headed back to the other room to help Sophia with her schooling.
"Glenn, are you alright?" Dale asked, "You're looking a bit pale there."
Quickly averting his gaze from where he'd been picking at the bandage around his palm, Glenn's response was a bit flustered. "Yea, I'm fine, Dale." Looking between the two older men, he could see they weren't buying it. "I guess I'm just a little nervous or something. I mean, Daryl may have killed him, but I'm the one who put Merle down for good. And I know I did what I had to, and Daryl basically condoned it by killing Merle himself, but at the same time it's like, Daryl never gave me permission to dispatch his brother."
The look Rick was giving him was somewhere between amused and surprised. "You think Daryl's going to be mad at you?"
"Yea, I guess." Glenn nodded, looking down at his feet.
Unable to contain a small chuckle, Rick clapped the young man on the shoulder. "Glenn, I don't think you have anything to worry about. If you had done nothing, then I think Daryl would have been mad at you. Remember, 'Zero tolerance for walkers.' He said so himself."
"You're probably right." Glenn agreed, offering a small smile before turning his attention back to moving shelves, not wanting to continue the discussion. The truth was he didn't know what was bothering him. He felt like he might be coming down with something. It'd begun with a headache the night before, one which he'd hoped to be rid of upon awakening in the morning. That was certainly not the case. In fact, the headache was much worse today, and the throbbing in his ankle was intensifying along with the burning ache coming from the slice in his palm. And now that he thought about it, he felt positively awful in comparison to this morning, the aches now seeping into his bones as well and a nauseated sensation churning in the pit of his stomach. He'd wanted to hide his illness from the others, they had enough to contend with right now, he didn't want to add to the burdens. Although, at this point, he was beginning to wonder how much longer he could keep hiding his discomfort. Dale had already mentioned his pallor, how long did he honestly think he could hide this? What was even wrong with him? This felt like no sickness that he'd ever come down with before. He decided just to ignore it for now, hoping it was just a fluke, and he'd start feeling better soon, but deep down he knew this wouldn't be going away.
A couple hours later the group had gathered in the diner to eat lunch. Glenn was feeling worse than ever now, and only picking at his food.
"Don't you like it, Glenn?" Lori asked, casting a searching gaze.
"It's fine," he replied listlessly, "I'm just not very hungry."
"You don't look well." Carol pointed out. "Are you sick?" Without waiting for an answer, she reached out placing a hand on his forehead. "Glenn, you're burning up!" She exclaimed.
"Yea, I guess." Glenn consented. No point trying to hide it now, they were gonna find out anyway.
"What's wrong with you, Glenn?" Shane asked, suspicion leaking into his voice. "Were you bit?"
"No, I wasn't bit. I'm just coming down with something; it started last night." Glenn defended himself. "I just didn't want to say anything, add more burdens to everyone right now."
"Glenn, you can't ignore these things anymore." Andrea chided, jumping on the bandwagon. "We don't have doctors around anymore. When you get sick you don't need to be pushing yourself."
"Yea, you're right. Sorry. Look, I think I'm just gonna lay down." Glenn removed himself from further chastisement and scrutiny. He moved over to his pallet from last night and lay down, burrowing under the covers searching for the warmth that'd been eluding him all day.
The others looked to each other after Glenn's departure then resumed their meal and quiet conversation, resolving to just let the man rest for now. Carol stood after a few minutes, "I'm going to check on Daryl."
She walked to the table the wounded man inhabited, taking note of his still pale skin and the dark rings circling his eyes. She checked the bandages on his wrists covering the deep lacerations the ropes had caused. He'd be lucky if they didn't scar. Once finished she, checked the bullet wound. When she pulled the gauze back, his eyes slowly opened.
"Hey," he whispered.
"Hey yourself." Carol smiled down at him. Seeing that Daryl was awake, Rick and Dale made their way over.
"Good to see you awake." Rick told the other man.
"Thanks. Where's my crossbow?" Daryl asked.
"Oh, well you didn't have it on you when Merle led you into camp." Dale broke the news gently. "I can only assume it's somewhere in the woods still."
"Shit. That's right. He made me drop it and my knife. I gotta go back for 'em." Daryl made to get up.
Quickly pushing him down Rick halted whatever little progress he'd made to sit upright. "Whoa, there! I don't think you're ready for that just yet. When you're back on your feet I'll go with you to get your things, but right now you're too weak. You nearly died on us, Daryl."
"Well damn, at least let me sit up!" After being helped to slide off the table, and seated at the booth, he was quite winded. "What happened to me anyway?" he panted slightly.
"Merle shot you. The bullet grazed your neck, and you lost a lot of blood. We weren't sure you'd make it for awhile there." Rick told him.
"Damn." was all Daryl replied with. They sat there in silence for a minute until the quiet was interrupted by Glenn's harsh coughing. "What's wrong with him?"
Carol looked over at the young Asian, he was huddled up on his side with his back to them. "He's sick."
"Sick? Like bit sick, or sick sick?" Daryl asked.
"Sick sick." she answered. Just then Shane and Andrea walked over.
"I think we've got a problem." Shane stated grimly. "He's coughing up blood over there, and he's delusional."
Rick nodded, "Ok, I agree that's not good, but you're leading me to believe there's more to this."
"Thing is," Shane looked Rick in the eye, "he's acting an awful lot like Jim did."