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Chapter 10

Aliya sat the plate of biscuits and eggs in front of Merle. He looked like hell, bloodshot eyes rimmed by dark circles, sallow complexion, grimacing from the worst beer hangover he'd had in years. She reached into the pocket of her sweatshirt and plopped a bottle of aspirin down on the table. "I'm sure you're used to much stronger, but this is it around here." she said quietly. "Eat up."

Merle grunted and tossed a hand-full of the small white pills into this mouth, washing them down with the still-steaming black coffee Aliya had sat in front of him earlier. He eyed the auburn-haired woman with a good amount of suspicion.

"Why you being so nice ta' me?" he grumbled.

"Because you're Daryl's brother." she shrugged, sitting down.

"I noticed he weren't here when I woke up this morning." the large man smirked.

"No. He wasn't." she said. "He's gone into town to get you some clothes. He'll be back in a couple hours."

"He told me how y'all cleaned out the town." he said, stuffing half a biscuit in his mouth.

"Yeah. We didn't get 'em all, but most of them, at least. Evens the odds when we do need to get supplies." she nodded.

"He said that it was yer' idea." he said, still chewing on the biscuit, crumbs now on the front of his t-shirt.

"Guess so. No big deal, just common sense."

"Well, now, Missy, what's common sense ta' you may be a lil' bit diff'rent from most folks." he smiled.

"What're you gettin' at, Merle?" she looked at him and cocked her head sideways, sitting down opposite him with her own cup of coffee.

"I knew yer' Daddy." he said, almost beaming.

"Daryl. Dammit, he told freakin' told you."

"Now don't be gettin' pissed off at him. I woulda' figured it out sooner 'r later. Hell, ya' look just like yer' old man."

"Should I even ask how you knew him?"

"Business." he said firmly.

"Powdered, liquid, dried?" she grinned. "Or were you more into hardware?"

"All of the above." Merle gave a deep belly laugh. "I 'member ya'. You were just a little shit, long red hair bouncin' all over, taggin' along after yer' Daddy, watchin' everything going on like ya' were tryin' ta' learn tha' business. Hell, ya' couldn't a' been more than ten or eleven."

"Like father like daughter." she smiled wistfully, rolling her eyes.

"S' damn shame what happened." he said, taking a long gulp of coffee. "Fuckin' snitch, had to be. Wish I coulda' been there when it went down."

"What's done is done." Aliya said grimly. "We need to talk about the future, not about the past, Merle."

"Suppose so." he said. "What'cha' got on yer' mind? Aside from porkin' my lil' brother, that is."

"Shut it, Merle." she said. "If you're going to stay here, you gotta' behave."

"Aw, Baby, I always behave." he grinned from behind the coffee cup.

"I'm serious, Merle. No drugs. No fights. Stay away from the women. Help out with shit. Keep your mouth shut."

"That's all?"

"Merle, I'm serious. They didn't even want you to stay the night last night. You were such a pain in the ass before...you know...they don't want you around. You fuck up and Daryl's gone too."

"Good, we should both be gone. We don't owe those assholes nothin'. 'N fact, I gotta' score ta' settle wi' a couple of 'em anyhow. Fuckin' leave me on a roof...ta' die. Fuck them!" Merle was almost shouting now.

"Look, Merle. This ain't all their fault and you know it. You know you were fucked up big-time that morning and you were attracting attention to the whole group by shootin' walkers from that roof, not to mention wasting ammo. What you were doing was outta' control and they had to stop you. I don't particularly like what they did and they're not feeling good about it now either, but it's all over. They went back for you the next day. You know they did because you took their van. That's twice you put them in danger - and that time your own brother was with them. Ever stop to think of that? You put Daryl in danger? Your own brother."

"They fuckin' left me to die on that roof. Look at what the did to me." he said, taking the prosthetic hand off and waving the scarred stump at her. "Look what they did." he said, his voice cracking "My own fuckin' brother din't even help me."

"No Merle, you did that. You didn't have to. That door was chained. Daryl told me that they had to take the bolt cutters to it. Those walkers weren't gonna' get through there. You coulda' shut up and they wouldn't have even known you were up there." Aliya argued. "You made a bad choice because you weren't in your right mind. If you hadn't been high, maybe things would have turned out different. You gotta' get your head on straight, Merle Dixon. Things aren't like they used to be. You can't get fucked up all the time anymore - no one can. We all gotta' have our wits about us all the time now. Or we die. Plain and simple."

Merle was quiet. He just sat there fuming, his face getting redder by the minute. He didn't look at Aliya at all. She hated to make him mad right off the bat, but she had to say it. She had to lay it all out, right in front of him. She wasn't going to back down on this, she was going to call him on every little thing. She was a little bit nervous that he was not saying anything now, but she was hopeful that maybe, just maybe, a little of what she'd said would start to sink in that thick skull of his.

"Merle, your brother loves you. God knows why, but he does. He needs you. By default, that makes you important to me, too. So, please don't fuck this up. Ok? Please? Just, be cool and try to get along with everybody. You don't have to like them. Hell, I don't like most of them. But we have to work together to survive. We have to get along. You understand?"

"Those assholes owe me. They fuckin' owe me, Aliya."

"I know. I'd feel the same way. And maybe one day you can pay them back. But right now, you can't. I will do my best to keep them away from you, but you gotta' promise me you're gonna' try too."

"I'm gonna' pay 'em back for damn sure, Missy."

"But not now. Merle. I swear. You do something stupid, you do something to fuck this up and I'll put a bullet through that thick skull of yours myself...and you of all people know I was raised not to be 'fraid to do it."

"You wouldn't dare. 'Cause a' Daryl." Merle looked at her stone-faced. "You couldn't risk losin' him." He could not believe she was threatening him. What fuckin' balls this girl had!

"Daryl would never know." she said quietly, turning her head aside slowly and taking a slow sip of coffee, her voice cold, unemotional.

It was at that point Merle Dixon realized Aliya Henderson really was her father's daughter.

XXXX

Aliya had been running interference for Merle and Daryl for a couple weeks. Merle refused to eat with the group, so the three ate after the rest of the group was finished or sometimes they ate in Daryl's room. Merle had been on his best behavior and both Aliya and Daryl were just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Merle had been good. Too good...and they were starting to worry.

Daryl flopped down on Aliya's bed. Bridgette was in and out, depending on her mood and when she was sleeping elsewhere, Daryl stayed with Aliya.

"Tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Tomorrow. I think Rick said it's about 30 miles, all highway. Hopefully it won't be clogged too much. I hate that." she said, kneeling to untie Daryl's boots which were hanging over the edge. She pulled them off one by one and tossed them aside, running her hands up and down his shins slowly. "We need a big train. With a cow-catcher on it to move them cars outta' the way!" she laughed. She cllimbed up on the bed aid down next to him and wrinkled her nose.

"Ya' be careful tomorrow." Daryl said seriously. "Don't like it when yer' in town without me."

"I'll be fine. Besides, Merle's going. He'll have my back."

"He'd prob'ly like ta' have yer' back n' yer front n' everythin' in-between, too." Daryl shook his head.

"Naw, he's got a thing for 'idgette." Aliya had made a habit of dropping the "b" from her name as a private joke between she and Daryl. "You know he actually took a shower the other day?"

"No shit?" Daryl's expression changed from surprise to concern again. "I'm serious. Watch him. Keep an eye on 'im." Daryl didn't have to come out and say it, Aliya knew what he was getting at. Merle would be looking for a couple things- guns and drugs - and one was just as potentially dangerous as the other.

Aliya nodded her head. "I will." she said quietly.

XXXXXX

Aliya, Merle, Glenn, T-Dog and Stuart searched cars in the small parking lot of the local airport. There were at least a hundred of them, left there by people scrambling by any means to get out of the metropolitan area and get to safety. The walker activity was average, with Rick and Shane and Andrea keeping an eye on things. Everyone had a weapon, including Merle, who had been handed a baseball bat. They were not to the point that they could trust him with firearms yet, not after the incident on the roof.

Not having a weapon pissed Merle off to no end, but he went along with it, mainly so he could go along. He knew that deep down, if he was given a weapon, somehow, either intentionally or not, he'd end up turning it on Rick Grimes. "Off-a-suh Rick Fuckin' Griiiiimes," as he said often, with a fair amount of visible spit added to his disgust. Merle was playing it cool today, though. He needed to find shit and he needed to find it as soon as possible. And by shit, he meant, anything he could get his hands on that was stronger than alcohol. At this point he didn't care if it was oxy, vicodin, speed, meth, crack, coke or even lil' Jefferey's a.d.d. meds. He needed to get fuckin' high and he needed to get fuckin' high as soon as possible. Merle needed the bullshit to go away. Just fuckin' go away. At least for a while.

In the space of a couple hours, they had searched half the cars. Food, clothing, weapons, water, drugs, anything usable was loaded into boxes on the back of a pick-up with the idea that they would all sort it later together back at the house. There wasn't a lot in the cars, these were the people who had escaped, so they decided to finish the other half of the cars and then try the small terminal. There were a fair amount of walkers inside, nothing they couldn't handle with a little coordinated effort, but they had to finish the parking lot first.

Aliya watched Merle as well as she could, given that she had her own work to do. He seemed to be doing ok. He wasn't much on women's clothes, choosing to paw through suitcases without picking out salvageable items, but he could sniff out booze like a blood-hound and he'd found several handguns in glove compartments and under seats, which the others quickly removed from his possession.

What Aliya didn't see was Merle searching the interior of the now-dusty late-model black Dodge Charger. He put his hand between the seats by the console and discovered a zip-lock bag of pills. At least three hundred little pills. Merle licked his rough lips with his equally dry tongue. He looked closely, squinting that the contents of the fat plastic bag. Round. White. The number "10" on one side and "OP" on the other side. Holy fuck! This was just too good to be true. Merle squinted again, rubbed his eye with his good hand and took a second look. Sure enough. He fished under the seat and found another ziplock bag. It was full of grass. He opened it up and it smelled kinda musty. Hell, he didn't need grass. Mellow was nowhere he wanted to be lately. He checked the glove compartment and found a chrome-plated 9mm Baretta.

"Merle?" Aliya called from a couple cars over. "You find anything?"

"Just a couple melted Hershey bars, Sweet Thing." he lied as he stuffed the pills into one boot and the Baretta into the other. He had to work hard to flatten the bag out enough for it not to show, but he finally got them hidden. "Nothin' in here a' t'all' he said, beaming. Merle, you shooore is one lucky fucker, he thought to himself.

Aliya scooted around the car and walked up to him. She looked him in the eyes, searching for any indication that he'd found something, anything, without her knowing it and had taken it already. They were his usual steely-blue Merle eyes, heavily lidded, crinkly in the corners, a little blood-shot but no more so that usual. She nodded to him. "You ok?"

"Right as rain, Shadow."

"What did you call me?"

"Shadow." he grinned. " S'what yer' Daddy always called ya'. His little Shadow."

"Christ. Nobody's called me that in years." she swung the rifle over her shoulders and hung her hands from it. "Jesus, Merle." she said, trying to keep him from seeing how shaken she was that he'd called her by her childhood nickname. "We're about done here, I think. Let's finish this. Head inside, see what we can find."