"Ain't this something special."

The last time she had looked him in the eye he had been feverish with drugs – now all that remains is an intense focus. Where the hazy man from before had been frightening and brutal, this clear headed version of himself promises a level of violence beyond anything else.

Merle's gun hand is steady - steadier than T-Dog who trembles minutely with every breath; his jaw tight with denial at the ghost of his past. He already sweats with the weight of the gun, arms heavy.

"How you doing there, sugar-dick?" Merle doesn't take his eyes off T-Dog, but she knows he talks to her. "Miss me?"

Cal's eyes narrow. "I had hoped you were dead."

Merle grins lazily - a ruse. Nothing can deny the intensity of his gaze, the rigidity of his body. He is a loaded gun.

"You know me. Ol' Merle's fuckin hard to kill."

She doesn't reply, instead taking in the clean shaven jaw, the washed shirt, the metal contraption - shiny and new - in the stead of his missing hand.

"And you." Merle's eyes are bright as he stares T-Dog down.

"We don't want no trouble, man," T-Dog's voice is calm.

Merle's eyes narrow. "No trouble," he parrots. His trigger finger itches – she can see it twitch. He could have run into people less involved in his disfigurement and there would still be trouble. He'll want to kill T-Dog, she thinks. He'll want to kill him and then find Rick - there is no doubt in her mind.

"You got a camp, Merle?" She asks, voice calm and steady despite the hammering of her heart. Anything to drag his attention away from pulling that trigger, from the revenge she knows simmers under his skin.

Merle laughs. "Me? A camp? Now ain't that a funny idea..."

"What do you want?" T-Dog breaks his silence, his eyes for Merle and Merle alone.

Cal feels a spark of terror, not for herself but for her companion.

Merle's face splits with a smile - jagged and violent. His attention wholly fixed on T-Dog.

"Well, first things first."

Merle shoots, once. The soft thunk of his own suppressed gun is the only sound Cal hears before T-Dog is screaming, screaming, screaming. His thumb is gone, shot clean off. His own gun uselessly skittering down the road.

And there is blood everywhere.

T-Dog falls to his knees, clutching his ruined hand, fingers gripping uselessly at his wrist as blood rushes from his body.

Merle spits, unphased by his own brutality or T-Dog's pain. "Remember when you left me to die on that roof? You an' Rick? Feels kind of shitty, huh?"

She grits her teeth, wanting to rush to T-Dog's side but not trusting the very real threat of Merle's hate. She's tasted his brutality, his cold ruin.

"Second: I want you to take me to where you an' yours call home. I got a bone to pick with our Sheriff friend."

Despite his injuries, the obvious shock crashing over him, T-Dog manages to look Merle in the eye. "Fuck. You."

He scoffs a laugh. "You sure you wanna be sayin' shit like that right now, boy? Huh?"

T-Dog glares, pale and sweating from pain. He says nothing.

Merle spits again and looks at Cal where she stands. His eyes cascade away, following the line of the gun where it had flown from T-Dog's shattered hand and skittered on down the road. He walks a step to put himself between the gun and Cal.

"You see my baby brother?"

Cals stares him down. Eyes blank. Mouth set in a thin line. Despite the coolness of the day, she can feel sweat bead at the base of her throat, her upper lip. She's stared down nightmares before, but never a breathing Titan of terror.

"Yes."

Merle sucks on his teeth, gnaws at the phantom of tobacco. "Where is he?"

"I don't know," she whispers.

Merle's jaw sets, eyes narrowing. "What was that?"

Cal spreads her hands. "We were separated from them a few weeks back."

The lie feels real to her. The lie feels like truth bleeding from her lips.

She doesn't lie for herself, but for him - for them. For people she's come to care for in the last few weeks, for people this monstrosity wants to maim and dehumanize and break. She thinks of Daryl and the anger he had hidden behind so vehemently in those first days, an anger that had shielded him from the others - even her. It had taken quiet moments to tuck herself into the hardened places of his heart, and softer moments still to unwind him from his hurt, but he had let her in - he had let her closer in those moments than anyone else in years.

And now - now as she faces down the shadow of his past.

She isn't about to let Merle ruin him.

"He's gone. They're all gone." Ain't nothing left.

Merle doesn't believe her – she can tell. His eyes, icy and focused, wash over her. He's looking for a lie, he's looking for secrets. But he won't find any in her face or wardrobe – her clothes are old and dusty. Even her gloves, clean and new as they are, don't say a word.

Merle steps closer to her, holding her gaze. He stands just out of her reach, handgun trained on her.

"Let's say for a moment that I believe ya," he drawls. "Where was the last place you saw 'im?"

When she doesn't respond immediately, Merle wiggles his trigger finger at her. "Now ain't a good time to keep mum about my baby brother." He looks at T-Dog, the gun lazily following his gaze.

Cal swallows.

Merle's finger slides against the trigger, ready. T-Dog doesn't look away from him and his gun, his jaw tight as he stares down the barrel.

"We were at a farm," he breathes.

Cal looks sharply at T-Dog. His eyes meet hers, imploring and careful.

"We were overrun by a herd. Last time I seen that many... Atlanta maybe -" he laughs. It is a hollow sound laced with pain. "We lost a lot of good folks. Got separated from the rest."

Merle looks at Cal. "I'd want to see this farm for myself."

"Of course."

Merle's face cuts into a grin. "Good!" He glances down at T-Dog. "Ya hear that, my man? We're going to go on a roadtrip."

T-Dog doesn't say anything.

Merle ignores his silence and gestures to Cal. "Take that knife off your sweat little leg there, girly. Can't have you tryin' for a repeat performance."

Her lips tighten as she unhooks the rigging of her knife sheath, her eyes never leaving his. When she finishes he gestures to the ditch at the side of the road.

"Toss 'er in."

She doesn't hesitate. She tosses it into the ditch, refusing to break eye contact with Merle – something that makes his grin grow wider and wider.

"I almost forgot the size of balls you got danglin' between your legs." Merle takes a step forward and pushes his gun into the soft flesh at the bottom of Cal's ribs. "Almost," he mumbles.

Cal is still staring him in the eye. Staring and staring. She can feel her jaw aching from how tight it is. Her lips feel cold. Her back is slicked with sweat.

When he uses the knife of his metal arm to push back the brim of her hat, the edge breathing past her nose and cheek, she finally drops her eyes.

"Good girl," he steps away, gesturing to T-Dog. "Now help this nigger up. Trucks just down the road."


The truck with the dead man is Merle's ride. He tosses around words like rendezvous and mission. Cal stops listening, instead she shoulders T-Dog's weight, supporting him as he weathers blood loss and shock.

Merle leans over the dead man, toeing his legging. "Stupid boy got himself bit, looks like. Told him not to stick his hands in dark places."

After a moment he shrugs and rifles in his pockets. "You're drivin', doc." He tosses her a set of keys.

She catches them.

T-Dog is squeezed into the back seat with the boxes of supplies. Merle takes the passenger seat, gun propped on his thigh pointing at Cal. When she settles in the driver seat she feels the reality of their situation crash over her – and the sharp bite of deja vu.

"Come on, darlin'. We ain't got a lot of daylight left."

She starts the truck, and they drive.


They had gone in circles. They had wandered for weeks, dodging herds and avoiding towns and choked roadways, and in the end the distance from the house to the Greene's farm was just under fifty miles.

It's early evening by the time Cal recognizes the area; the town Merle had abandoned her in rises up around them, eerie and dark. The sun has almost entirely set, casting the world in a murky light that sets her on edge. Her hands are tight on the steering wheel, knuckles white.

"Little walk down memory lane, huh?" Merle smiles at her, eyes flashing. "She tell you that she stuck a knife in my back?" Merle glances in the mirror at a sweating T-Dog in the back. "This bitch tries to leave me high and dry - wounded, no supplies - and then sticks a fucking knife in my shoulder."

Cal grits her teeth. She hates him.

Merle notices; there is wicked joy in his eyes. "Don't get mad, girly. Just trying to get the truth out in the open."

T-Dog huffs a laugh - a dry, brittle sound.

Merle glances over his shoulder. "Got a problem?"

"Nah, man," T-Dog slurs. "Just a cough."

Merle snorts, "uh huh."

Cal slows as they pass Hatlin's bar where Rick and Glenn had encountered Randall's people. She eyes the cars left behind, the skeletons strewn across the drive that had been picked clean. It isn't the first time she's seen the aftermath of a gunfight, but where the others had turned her stomach now she feels nothing. These people had chased her down, their intention murdering whatever empathy she might have possessed.

They drift on, passing moments from their intertwined past. Merle laughs lowly as they pass the very drive that had seen their battle.

"Want to finish what ya started, girly?"

Cal grinds her teeth.

"Best keep an eye on this one, boy," Merle growls, glancing at T-Dog over his shoulder. "She keeps secrets."


The farm is dead.

The long and winding road to the Greene's house is littered with bodies. The grass is flat where once a half thousand undead trod. The house is dusted and ruined; windows and doors shattered where hundreds of hands had pressed and pushed.

Cal stares at a dark stain where she had watched Patricia and Beth succumb to reaching hands and eager mouths.

"This place is a shithole," Merle states, standing on the porch of the Greene house. He stares out across the vast pastures that had been flattened by the herd.

"What were you expectin'?" T-Dog growls, hunching over his maimed hand at the hood of the truck.

Merle sniffs at him, and points at Cal with his knife. "I was expectin' her to be lyin'."

Cal stares at him as she plucks off her gloves, stowing them in her back pocket.

"Come on, girly. No need to be like that. You know I can't trust ya – not after last time."

Cal doesn't look away from Merle. She throws the truth to the ground between them, refusing to play this game of his. "You mean the gun I was hiding from you?"

T-Dog snorts. "Can't say I blame you."

Merle's expression flattens.

"And then he tried to take my stuff. After I saved his life a couple times," she drones, still staring, staring, staring. "He almost killed me. Left me for dead and all that."

T-Dog glances between them, his discomfort growing as he realizes the thunderous look on Merle's face and the equally distant, detached stare on Cal's.

Merle's gun is on her in moments, finger hovering over the trigger. "Where's my baby brother?"

"I told you: I. Don't. Know."

"Pardon me if I don't believe you."

"Doesn't change the fact that I haven't seen him for almost a month," she bites, almost convincing herself. The gloves on her hands burn with heat.

Merle moves towards her, slow like a predator. The gun is still in his hand, finger hovering, waiting. He stops a breath away, his words a low whisper.

"If you're lying to me... I'll kill you both."

She doesn't need to see the gun to know he's pointing it at T-Dog. She doesn't need anything more than the promise in his words, and the sudden calm in his eyes.

Cal meets his gaze. Boldly. "I'm not."

Merle holds her eye for a moment longer, jaw tight as he considers her – and then he nods. "Alrigh'," he sets back, a lazy smile dragging across his face. "Then ya won't mind if we check the house."

T-Dog glances at Cal, but she doesn't look at him – her eyes are for Merle alone.

"By all means," she bites out.

Merle grins, a shadow passing across his features. "Best show me around there, mosquito-bites." He gestures with the gun: lead the way.

They enter the house.

It is dead inside. Stale air presses into their lungs.

Time and an absence of life have reclaimed the home, greying the curtains with dust and rot, scattering filth across the floors.

There is a walker slumped at the bottom of the stairs, legs crushed into a pulp where it had fallen and the rest of the herd had trampled over it. It is as cold as the others had been, its eyes following them with a sedate, mild interest. It creaks as it shifts in want, but even the mild Georgian winter has deep claws, and the walker remains motionless.

Merle crushes its skull with his heel.

Cal leads through the Greene's home, through the dusty rooms of a different time. Merle slinks through the house more carefully than she remembers, prying open doors with practiced quiet, sliding into shadows as if he's always lived in the dark. He reminds her of Daryl in that moment - the thought repulses her.

The upper rooms prove to be empty, untouched. Unsurprisingly Merle rifles through the medicine cabinets; surprisingly he leaves all the prescription drugs behind.

When they return to the main floor he sweeps towards the kitchen, leaving them in the sitting room. T-Dog slumps onto the couch. Cal hovers near him, squared and stiff, watching Merle.

She doesn't look at T-Dog – she doesn't even glance at him. But her hand, tucked low and out of sight, points at Merle where he pokes around in the kitchen, her thumb cocking an imaginary hammer, her finger pulling an invisible trigger.

T-Dog sees it, every moment of it, and he knows she isn't going down without a fight.

She's declared war - and as quickly as she declares it, she clenches her hands into fists to hide the evidence.

Merle flicks cupboards open with the tip of his knifed arm. The shelves are lined with canned and jarred foods.

"Funny you guys never thought to come back here."

The lie rolls easily off her tongue. "We wanted to."

"But you've been wanderin' ever since," Merle says.

"Yeah."

"Just the two of you."

"Yeah."

He watches her, gun still in his hand, knife glinting where it hangs at his side. He stalks from the kitchen, moving just out of her line of sight. A wicked smile cuts across his face when she swivels to watch him – it disappears just as quickly as it arrived, shadowed by the intelligent gleam of his eyes.

"Easy there girl, ain't gonna hurt you."

"I don't like turning my back on wild dogs," she replies flatly.

Merle makes a sound – something between a laugh and a growl.

"Smart."

"Maybe," Cal watches him circle the room.

Merle taps the edge of his knife against a framed picture on the mantle, a thin layer of dust collecting over the smiling faces of the Greene family. "You got family, Cal? Someone you care about besides this asshole?"

She stares at him, at the sedate way he rolls his eyes at T-Dog and back to the picture of Hershel and his family. Everything is so carefully measured – the threat so painfully evident that she wants to scream. And in his threat he rouses from her the submission she has wanted to remain a gentle truth – a soft place to call home in the night, a pair of hands to guide her in the dark, someone to chase the loneliness from a world gone awry.

Daryl.

She realizes that he is something to her - something more than just someone to protect from this bag of dicks. She isn't certain what, but she knows it is deepening, quickening into something she hasn't felt in ages.

"Yeah," she says.

She isn't going to lie about this.

"Imagine havin' a captive audience – two people who saw that someone when you thought he was dead." Merle turns, the gun lazy in his hand. "What would you do?"

"Hey hey hey," T-Dog, swaying and weak and sweating, pushes himself from the couch. "We're lookin' for him too, man."

Merle ignores him, his eyes on Cal.

"Well, girly? What. Would. You. Do?"

She recalls the woman and her daughter being torn apart. An old vacuum pipe in hand. The closet was so dark and quiet. And suddenly the doll is in front of her eyes. The doll abandoned at the creek. Soggy and wet. The crossbow leveled on her. The defiance that had followed.

Don't be afraid.

Cal regards Merle coolly.

Merle's expression flattens and his eyes harden. "You still an icy bitch after all this time, huh?"

She doesn't respond.

"Ain't surprised." Merle stalks through the living room, the tip of his knife dragging across pictures, wall hangings, digging into the dusty paint. Cal watches him carefully, jaw tight as he draws nearer and nearer until he's beside her, shoulder to shoulder.

His breath is hot and rank and disgusting against her neck.

"You know where my brother is." His eyes are unwavering, daring her to continue the lie. "I can be mighty amiable 'bout this whole situation. You can scribble it down on a map, I won't even drag your sorry asses with me. How does that sound, sweet cheeks?"

"Lay off her man," T-Dog hisses. "We ain't seen him."

Merle drawls. "Huh. That right?" He makes a point of looking Cal up and down. "Then where's all your gear? I know she packs light, but she sure as hell packs smart – havin' no gear ain't smart. Ain't that right, little girly?"

The gun presses into her ribs, right along the old scar where he had caught her with a knife so long ago. She tries not to show her fear, but the satisfaction in Merle's searching eyes leave her breathless. He knows.

He knows her.

He knows her almost better than the very people she wants to hide from him. He's seen her at her worst; he's pushed her to her worst. And maybe - maybe he had her at her best too. She remembers hesitating when she found him, his hand so erased it had been nothing more than a stinking stump of burnt flesh. She had helped him when the next person might have very well just gone - left.

She had saved his life.

How many lives had she saved?

His. Just his.

He knows her. Her knows her better than the very people she wants to hide from him.

Which means she has to tread the ground he hasn't known. She has to walk the path she hasn't walked since those early days, when scrambling over the bodies of the dying was the only way to survive.

Don't hesitate to shoot first.

She feels like her teeth might break she clenches her jaw so tightly. She had been a fool to think she could lie to him – Merle was many things, but an idiot he was not.

On the couch T-Dog is silent, watchful.

"I'll ask one more time: where's my baby brother?"

She doesn't look at T-Dog – she doesn't even glance at him. She holds Merle's gaze, her eyes wide as the gun digs into her ribs.

"Okay," she sighs, almost breathless. "Let me see a map."

They go together to the truck outside. Merle fishes a map out of the glove box. It's old and weathered, splattered here and there with grime and crusted drops of something. He lays it out across the hood of the truck, in the same spot where Rick and Daryl had poured over the map to find Sophia. It wasn't so long ago, and yet...

T-Dog leans heavily on the truck's nose, and scratches at one of the brown specks staining the city of Atlanta. He looks almost bored, except his eyes never leave her. He watches her like a hawk – waiting.

"Alright, sugar tits," Merle gestures to the map in a grand flourish.

Cal stares at T-Dog, his crippled hand, at the flecks of gore spattered across the map. She glances at Merle.

"Whose blood is that?"

"Does it matter?" He rests his hand on the hood of the truck, gun drawn on T-Dog.

T-Dog's expression doesn't falter; there is no fear in his eyes. He's with her, she realizes. He's with her until the end.

Cal steps forward, swallowing thickly as she looks down at the map.

Where did you go to escape a man? Where did you go to kill him?

She points at a town, the name familiar to her. She can't recall where she's seen it, only that she has. It's a good a place as any – far enough from their new home to be safe.

Merle looks at where she points.

"Huh."

"Around there," Cal clarifies. "I won't tell you more until we're closer."

Merle stares at the map, nodding slowly. "You sure?" He asks.

She stares at him, uncertain of his tone. "Yeah."

Merle nods. "That your final answer?"

She hesitates.

He looks down at the map. "Woodbury," he announces.

The only warning she gets is a soft breath of a laugh.

The metal arm catches her in the side of the head, slamming her against the hood of the truck. She's too dazed to cry out, and instead scrabbles uselessly as he drives her cheek against the hood of the truck. The knife is a breadth away from her nose, the tip digging into the blood stained map.

"Uh, uh, uh." His gun is drawn and digging into T-Dog's forehead. He laughs – a raspy and grinding sound.

"Let me ask you one more time, darlin'," Merle speaks plainly. "You sure that's where my little brother is? Answer carefully – I might kill this nigger if you get the answer wrong."

He draws back the hammer.

Cal knows he isn't bluffing.

This is it. The end of the road. No way out. She wonders if the rest of them would survive Merle, or if he would blow through like a hurricane and kill everyone.

She looks up at T-Dog. He holds her eye for a long moment, jaw tightening.

His left hand. She sees it.

Fingers pointed, thumb cocking an invisible hammer, pulling the trigger.

T-Dog ducks and bats Merle's gun hand away, pulling his metal arm away from Cal. The two men swing into one another, a soft breath leaving T-Dog as Merle slams into him. He winds his arms around Merle, holding him back as Cal rolls off the hood of the truck and away.

She is frantic, darting for the gun in the dirt. It's heavy in her hands even as she rounds on the two men. T-Dog still clings to a bucking, writhing, yelling Merle; T-Dog's face contorted in concentration, the last vestige of strength poured into his moment.

She points the gun at Merle.

"Stop."

Merle goes limp, eyes wild and jaw tight as he looks down the barrel of his own gun. Her finger is on the trigger.

T-Dog suddenly wheezes, pulling away from Merle and collapsing against the truck. Merle and Cal look at him, at the blood painting his side and dripping from the tip of Merle's knife.

Cal looks at Merle. Merle holds up his hands.

"Now wait one-"

"Keys," she demands, pointing at her feet.

"I ain't giving you my truck."

Her eyes narrow, finger twitching against the trigger – itching, itching, itching.

"Keys. Now."

Merle doesn't look away as he carefully fishes the keys from his pocket. He makes a show to reveal his hands, empty save for the broken fob and single key.

He takes a step forward.

Cal shoots him in the foot.

A breath leaves him; pain and rage paints his face.

Merle doesn't say a word as he hits the ground, he only stares at her. He stares at her as she moves forward, pulling and pushing on T-Dog until he's settled in the passenger seat of the truck. He doesn't look away even as she settles into the driver seat, revs the engine, pulls into reverse and speeds down the drive.

He doesn't look away.


Twilight is upon them.

She doesn't look away from the rearview mirror until they've turned off the main drive. She wants to watch every moment she puts space between her and Merle. She wants to see him shrink into oblivion.

"Cal," T-Dog's voice is quiet or maybe it's the ringing in her ears.

She's never shot someone before. Don't hesitate to shoot first.

"Cal."

Suddenly remembering the blood on his shirt she looks at T-Dog and pales.

He's staring out the window, eyes unfocused. His hand is pressed to his side, clutching at the thick, dark blood that spills between his fingers. His chin nearly hits his chest, so lost in some wayward thought is he, that he startles himself and blinks at her drunkenly.

"Cal," he repeats.

"We need Hershel," she hisses, shrugging out of her jacket and shoving it at him. The truck swerves dramatically, but she manages to right it and tuck the coat against his side. "Put pressure on that."

T-Dog nods, and turns to look out the window. His eyes, unfocused, stare out at the dying light of the day.

She drives faster.


A/N:
This is not a chapter I'm wholly confident in. This was a shit show to write.

I waffled between several chapters of them being held hostage, and one where it was over as quickly as it started - something I started realizing was more realistic when looking at how volatile Merle was in the first half of season 3. Merle brutalized Glenn for very similar reasons to Cal and T-Dog, but Glenn really lacked any involvement in Merle's rooftop holiday, whereas both Cal and T-Dog had tried to off him at some point. I decided that this was probably the second most volatile situation I could stick Merle in (the most being with Rick present), and decided that this meeting would reflect that. Thus he came, he saw, and he fucked shit up.

Also, I apologize for the delay in these chapters. I am currently working on an original fiction as well, and only have so much time to write.

Much love!