A/N – I've been dropping comments about Merle and a 'warrior queen'. When I've done that I've not had anyone in particular in mind. A lot of you assume Michonne for obvious reasons and because I've written them before. I have a hazy memory that Merle has referred to her has his warrior queen – Nubian Queen in the show most definitely – but in my earlier writing I think he has too. Someone who reviewed chapter nine made the point that they wanted Beth to be the warrior queen (negating the fact that I've already written her chapter) because Merle was 'too damn racist to roll over for a black chick'.
Through all of this, I've been personally hesitant to do Maggie, simply because I loved the Merle and Maggie chapter I did in Walking Dead Hook-Ups.
So, Merle kindly took me aside and whispered in my ear. From that little whisper, the resulting story has been born. I give you, Merle, Maggie and Michonne. Merle and his Warrior Queens.
My last character's of Merle's Women. Multiple POV's and, at the present stage two to three chapters, depending on how Merle decides to go.
"You're not goin' after him?" Maggie stared at Rick in shock.
"No, he made his choice." Rick's tone is firm, he won't look her in the eye.
"Yeah, Merle did and I get that, but Daryl, you won't go after Daryl? You are a pussy Rick Grimes." Maggie seethes as she turns away.
She seethes as she grabs at weapons and shakes her head tersely at Glenn. He sighs and arms himself as well.
"You do realise we're going to save Merle Dixon Mag's?" He asks her as they drive silently.
"Don't matter, Daryl is who I'm goin' after. There's Michonne." Maggie spoke as she gestured ahead.
Michonne got in the back seat and directed them. She said nothing else. They catch up to Daryl and he gets in as well, Maggie passes him some water and he drinks slowly.
He directs them to a turn-off and from there they proceed on foot. Maggie didn't even hesitate to get out of the vehicle, Daryl was family. She might not be able to stand Merle but for Daryl she'd learn. If he survived.
Daryl and Glenn are caught up in the fighting immediately. Maggie hangs back, skirts the edges, taking care of the already dead as she watches Michonne in action. The woman was lethal. A warrior.
Words, human words distract her and she heads in that direction. Her handgun is out and in her hand, safety off, her footsteps are silent and she is short enough that she doesn't need to crouch to pass under the windows.
A fight is going on inside. An inhuman growl sounds and she steps to the door in time to hear Merle Dixon speak.
"I ain't gonna beg, you'll never make me beg." Maggie snorts silently to herself, she knew damn well any woman could make a man beg. But this wasn't the time or the place.
She watched the governor cock his weapon and she holstered her own silently as she took out her knife instead.
As if he was a walker, Maggie grabbed the back of his hair and shoved the knife with all her hatred boiling up inside her. Adrenalin, loathing, fear and sheer terror gave her the needed strength. Practically going en pointe to get the added height she needed, Maggie pierced the back of his skull, her knife severing the governor's brain stem and making him drop like a sack of potatoes. Exactly like a Walker would have.
"Think you can threaten to rape me and get away with it motherfucker?" She questioned snidely as she stepped over his corpse like the waste it was.
"Get up, 'm not touchin' you and you cause one iota of trouble back home and I'll be dealin' to you exactly like him you got that Merle Dixon?" She questioned Merle ferociously, knife in her hand dripping blood onto the busted floorboards of the shed as she did so.
"Yes ma'am, I surely do." Merle slurred at her as he tried to wink. "Fuck that was hot, you're wasted on your chink." He mutters as he forces himself to stand
"There's more than one kind of hunter Dixon, you should know that." Maggie says to him as she gives in and helps him to his feet.
At least Merle Dixon didn't make her skin crawl, not anymore anyway. They stop at the governor. Merle makes her strip him of weapons which Maggie does with reluctance.
Then they head outside.
##########
Michonne lets Merle rest on her shoulder, he'd been beaten good by the governor. She doesn't listen to Glenn and Maggie as they talk in the front seat, or Daryl's odd contribution to the conversation. She's debating with herself as to whether she'll stay or go.
She wants to go, more than anything, she wants to leave the prison and its inhabitants and never look back. She'd survive and survive well.
And that's why she decides to stay. Because surviving wasn't enough anymore. She wanted more after Andrea, she needed more. She needed family.
When they get back, she ignores Rick for the time being, they'll settle later. She lets Merle lean on her again and with Daryl she gets him inside and onto a cot. She helps Herschel tend him, holds him down when Herschel sets his fingers.
Nods when Herschel says he'll be lucky if he doesn't lose them.
Only when Merle is clean, tended and sleeping does she tend to herself. Weapons first, cleaned, oiled and re-sheathed. Now her body. She follows Daryl to the showers and they strip and scrub themselves in silence
"You and he had some sort of bondin' experience?" Daryl asks though Michonne thinks he knows the answer is yes.
"Yeah." She answers him, though she doesn't know why.
"He likes you. More, he respects you, if anyone can keep him in line here it'll be you, don't abuse that though. You won't like what he becomes." Michonne stops and stares at Daryl, not having a clue what he's talking about.
Before she can question him, he's dressed and out the door, hair still dripping.
##########
He hurt. He hurt everywhere. His bones felt brittle, as if rolling over in bed would make them break like twigs. He knew time was passing, knew he'd been beaten and he knew that Phillip was dead. He remembered who had killed him. She'd been a warrior.
Someone read to him at night, a woman. She sounded different sometimes, but mostly she had a quiet, intense voice. Her drawl thicker than other times.
And the bible thumper, read the bible of course. Merle didn't have the strength to tell him he knew the fucking book back and front.
Time passed in a haze of pain, broth, water and smells. He couldn't see too well at the moment so he was relying on all his other senses.
It was through sound that he realised two women were reading to him, a different one each night. One with a soft Georgie cadence in her voice, the other not so soft, deeper, more…earthy.
Merle drifts on the pain, surfing it like he'd always wanted to learn to surf a wave.
More time passes.
##########
Winter had arrived by the time Merle was up and around. He was still recovering, but he had his eyesight back, and he'd kept his fingers through Herschel and Michonne's diligence. He is walking the yard, exercising as per Herschel's orders one day when Maggie drops in beside him silently.
She doesn't say anything, just walks with him. It becomes a habit. But even so, winter has passed and spring arrived before she starts to speak to him. Her first words a shock for the fact that she spoke, but not a shock about what she opens their conversation with.
"You owe me and Glenn an apology." She says no more, Merle doesn't speak as he concentrates on stretching out his legs and making sure to exercise his sciatic nerve as it had been acting up.
"Guess so, maybe I'll get to it one day." He says laconically. Maggie snorts and after her usual laps at his side she peels off and is on her way.
Merle thinks on it for several weeks and spring has given way to summer again by the time he decides an apology is in fact in order.
Still though, more time has passed before Merle judges that the time is right. Glenn has returned from a run and is now back from the showers. Merle knocks on the office door he and Maggie use as their living quarters.
Glenn never speaks to him directly. He opens the door and blinks before he jerks his head in an acknowledgement to speak. "Sorry Chinaman. You got me riled up, not saying where Daryl was, but that ain't an excuse. Just sayin' there was a reason. Still sorry, I never thought he'd even think anythin' like that against your girl. Sorry." Merle says no more and doesn't wait for a reply.
A few days later, Maggie is just about to leave him after her few laps around the yard when Merle touches her forearm with his left hand, fingers grasping a little too tightly as he's lost sensation. When Maggie flinches, Merle steps back, both hands raising in surrender. "Whoa, sorry girl. Just wanted to say I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He knows he doesn't need to explain to Maggie, Glenn will have no doubt already told her he'd apologised.
Maggie nodded at him and kept walking for an extra lap. She mentions Beth and Zach in passing and Merle realises it's her way of saying he's stepped up in her estimation. Not forgiven per say, but he's maybe a little higher than a snake these days.
He doesn't even try to figure out why the fuck it matters what she thinks of him.
##########
Michonne is different, they'd made their peace before his confrontation with Phillip. She'd read to him along with Maggie and unlike Maggie, Michonne spoke to him and continued to read to him after Merle realised he needed reading glasses and they hadn't yet managed to hit an Optometrists store on any of their runs.
It was weird the places they needed to hit to get up a good stockpile of things. With industry having ground to a halt, they really needed to stockpile all sorts of shit. Glasses being something few people thought of but lots of people ended up needing.
Shaking his head one day several months later, Merle idly watches Maggie and Beth take fence duty and talk. Looked like the little one was trying to convince her older sister of something. He watched idly, chewing on a piece of hay as he worked and kept an eye on them out of the corner of his eye. They were working the fence that had been breached last week, he wasn't yet convinced that it had been repaired properly. He didn't get a say in shit like that. But he knew Michonne agreed with him and that she'd mention it to the right people.
She had said no to a seat on the council which Merle could appreciate, she was too much of a lone wolverine, like he was really. Shaking his head he watched the sister's argue as they finished their duty and kept to himself.
A couple of days later he looks up as shapely hips encased in sturdy brown suede sit down in front of him at meal time. He felt Daryl's start of surprise as he looked up to see emerald eyes peering seriously at him. "You wanna make it up to me?" Maggie asks him simply.
Merle chews silently as he forks up more food. He was thankful most people serving were kind enough to cut up his meat without making a big deal of it now. He was too damn tired these days to act as if he had two arms anymore. He didn't and that was a fact he had to learn to live with and compensate for properly. Cutting up meat wasn't one of those ways if he could help it.
"Well that depends on what you'd be wantin' me to do for you sugar." He drawled, unable to help himself. Why should he? It was a question that just oozed to be given a sexual answer.
Maggie surprised him though by just rolling her eyes. Guess he'd have to try harder. But she spoke before he could try. "Mind outta' the gutter Dixon." She frowned as she looked over at her baby sister who was feeding the cops brat of a child. Not that Merle had anything against kids in general, but he didn't like the cop, never had. Didn't like his cunt of a wife and her snotty way of looking down on people. Plus he'd never liked their fucking stand in, the best friend and bed warming deputy either. Though he'd never pretended to be something he wasn't. Merle kind of respected him for that.
"Beth wants to start makin' runs. I want you to teach her how to survive best. If you say she's good enough then fine. But no one else." She isn't pleading with him, but there is something close to begging in her tone. It makes Merle stop and look at her. Look beyond the even matter-of-fact tone.
"She won't be, ain't got the survival instinct." He returns her matter-of-fact tone, ignores Daryl's hiss of anger beside him. "I'm right little brother and you fuckin' know it, first time out she'll be zombie meat." He finishes firmly and looks back at Maggie. She agrees with him, he can tell.
But, "It's why I want you to do it. Daddy agrees." And that nailed Merle's objections back into his throat. Her old man, more than Maggie, Merle felt he owed Herschel. Man had saved his life, saved Daryl's life, saved his sanity too, not that he'd be telling people that.
"Fuck." Its acquiescence. He knows it and Maggie knows it. But again she surprises him by not gloating. Instead she looks sorrowful. And Merle gets it. "You want her to fail?" He's incredulous in a way, but he shouldn't be. He's seen the way Maggie protects her family.
Not answering him, Maggie stands. "I'll tell her to find you, you be as hard as you need you hear me Merle Dixon? She needs to know what it's really like out there, us sayin' it don't make it enter her head properly." She says the last sentence wearily and Merle just nods.
Well, fuck. "Tell her to come with…what's that kids name? Uh, four-eyed kid, P-somethin? He was askin' me the other day. Be good for them to spar with each other." He says as he stands himself. "Part payment, take my plate back for me, I gotta piss." He ignores Maggie's second eye-roll as she scoops up his plate and takes it back to the kitchen.
That night in bed, Merle thinks of how the hell he's gonna teach two greenhorns to fight to survive. He wondered if the survival instinct he mentioned could be taught. And he realised that while Maggie didn't think it could be - was in fact banking on him failing with Beth – that he wanted more than anything to prove her wrong, prove to her he could do something, something worthwhile. And ensure that Beth did indeed have or learn the survival instinct and the other one…Patrick. That was it, Patrick.
"Shit." He muttered as he rolled over in his bunk. "So fuckin' stupid." Huffing, Merle willed himself to sleep.
##########
Days turn into weeks as Merle works with Beth and Patrick. He is diligent, making them work on their cardio strength so they can run miles if they need to, just as he has needed to in order to survive. But the most important thing, is teaching them to survive other humans.
"They're worse than the fuckin' zombies." He's past caring if Beth flinches at his swearing, she's getting used to it, doesn't cry anymore when he bawls her out for being sloppy, erratic and uncoordinated. Patrick surprised the hell out of him by being the complete opposite.
But he'd had a harder time with putting a zombie down. Despite her frail appearance, Beth had no qualms about putting a zombie down permanently at all which Merle was grateful for. Other's had tried to take lessons as well. So many in fact the council had asked him to take on a regular group, every other day. Beth and Patrick were different though.
They garnered an audience sometimes. Herschel, Maggie, Daryl, Glenn. But Michonne was the most frequent one. And she helped. She or Merle ganging up on them sometimes, making them both work for it. And Merle would be lying if they weren't actually improving. They were. Both of them. But still, it was inside, behind safe walls. It was different outside.
And that was what they needed now. He pondered how best to approach the subject. Herschel beat him to it, sitting down one night. "They need to go out there Merle, I know it and you know it." He speaks plainly, a hint of fear in his features though his voice is strong. "And as much as it pains me to admit it, they need to go out there without Maggie and Glenn, Rick or even Daryl." He continues. "I've come to like Patrick, he reminds me of my son. I don't want to lose him either. But they need to go out, you need to take them out."
Three days later, he wakes them both and they leave at dawn. They're scouting. Travelling a little ways and looking for game tracks. He makes sure Patrick has a cord wound around the lugs of his glasses so they won't fly off his face and leave him blind. They walk, they watch and Merle doesn't kill one zombie, they take care of each and every single one.
"Human's'll be different, ain't no way I can tell you how different, it's somethin' I hope you never have to figure out, but they are. And some zombies'll be different too." Merle breaks off over their campfire as he says that.
"How?" Beth asks him curiously. She had outgrown her fear of Merle, which he was kind of thankful for.
"Because there's always one that'll get through, into your headspace. Like maybe kids, pregnant women, old people. There'll be a type that'll get to you sooner or later." Merle says.
"Parent's." Patrick's whisper is so low they barely hear him.
"Children." Michonne's answering whisper comes through the night making Merle sigh.
"Wondered when you was gonna show yourself." He said, having caught her on their back trail several hours ago.
"Just letting you go, seeing how they coped with your boorish ass." She returned nonchalantly as she came into the light and sat down beside him. Close beside him.
It was new, their physical intimacy. Something they didn't talk of, it had just happened. She laid down, sword close at hand and rested her head on his thigh making Beth's eyes widen and Patrick's jaw drop. "Wake me when it's my turn." She rolls with her sword so her back is to the fire and closes her eyes as Merle's left hand strokes her dreads back from her face.
"Gonna need to redo 'em soon." He murmurs, ignoring the other two as he strokes her hair, looks at the regrowth.
"I know, hate it though, it's hard as hell to do." He knows, he's seen her struggle to extend them.
"Chop it all off then." He answers her in a low voice again making her laugh.
"Ain't gonna happen, that's worse, still got some vanity, unlike you." She pokes him with the handle of her sword and settles down again as he huffs a laugh.
He sees Beth and Patrick exchange a look and then Patrick grins and settles down. Beth sits up, staring at the fire. Merle is listening to the woods and starts a little when she speaks softly hours later. "My sister wants me to fail, doesn't she?"
"Yeah, but you won't, wasn't sure at first, but you won't." He says no more, doesn't need to. Beth has something in her that he sees in few other people. Something so hidden he knows no one else has even realised it's there. Something that had shocked the ever-loving shit out of Merle when he realised it.
Beth has killer instinct.
Patrick had survival instinct. If they teamed up as he was going to make sure they did, they'd be good together, damn near unstoppable. "You and Patrick make a good team, should stick together outside here, you play to each other's strengths, that's something that's needed out here these days.
"Okay, how do I make sure we do that? He'll probably want to go with Carl or Daryl, he's kinda' got a crush on Daryl." Beth says.
"I'll fix it, you just don't turn him down when he asks to go on runs with you sugar, I'll take care of the rest."
"I won't, I'm not stupid." Patrick surprises them by sitting up. You say we should go out together, I'll go out with Beth. I mean," He stopped with a flush that was visible despite the dying fire making Merle guffaw and Beth giggle and Michonne chuckle so quietly that the other two didn't hear her.
"We get it Superman, we get it." Merle laughed at the look in Patrick's face. "What? It's the glasses." He said making Beth giggle and Michonne look up at him and roll her eyes.
"Just don't call me Lois!" Beth exclaims quickly making Patrick's jaw drop, maybe in disappointment, Merle isn't sure.
"Nah, you're like a fuckin' wraith or something. Silent and deadly, like a weed in a novel I read once. Where once you got caught up in it, it kinda' just killed you. Wouldn't let you go. I remember it slid into this one person's wound, licked up another's come and shit. It was a fuckin' crazy novel." He glanced over to see Beth and Patrick staring at him in shock and horror. "What? It was a fuckin' compliment. Jesus!" He exclaimed in irritation.
"So, like…Patrick is Superman and I'm Weed? Or Wraith?" Beth said with a sarcastic tinge to her voice making Michonne laugh loudly enough for them to hear. She sat up.
"No," Michonne answers as she settles beside Merle and he lies down with his head in her lap now. "Ivy, like poison ivy. If Patrick is Superman or maybe S because it's shorter you're Ivy, like Poison Ivy, she was a villainess in the Batman comics. Gotta keep it in the family." She murmurs and Patrick cackles.
"D.C!" He exclaims as he realises.
"Huh?" Beth asks making he and Michonne laugh again and Merle snicker.
"Battle of the comic book brands. D.C. Comic's versus Marvel. I think I'd like Clark or maybe Kent better than Superman though, one syllable, shorter and shit." Patrick says and then his eyes widen at his cursing.
"Ain't no adult out here who's gonna get on you for cussin' boy." Merle says as he closes his eyes and ears to the discussion as it continues.
When he wakes in the morning, warmth is at his back, sturdy and musky-smelling. Michonne. Some of her dreads are over his neck from where she has buried her face at his back but Merle doesn't mind. Feeling her tense a little, he knows she's awake too. "Guess you're wantin' other's back at the compound to know then?" He asks her quietly as he watches mist travel the ground, slowly dissipating as the sunlight hits it.
"Guess, time do you think?" She asks a little hesitantly making him realise she's as uncertain of him as he is of her in a way.
"Don't guess there's a right time for anything much anymore."
"Mist…I mean Merle, how come you don't say prison?" Patrick interrupted them in a matching quiet voice as he is on watch now.
"Done my time in prison, it weren't pleasant, don't need to be reminded of it again is all." He looked over as he sat up and Michonne stayed down. Patrick looked at him intently and nodded.
Standing, Merle stretched and groaned a little, "I'm getting too damn old." He muttered to himself as he walked toward the trees to take a leak and help his morning hard on subside.
When he returns to camp, Beth is stirring the fire to life and putting some water on to boil. She hands around the dried bars that they'd taken to making for people who went out on runs. They looked fucking disgusting since they combined dried meat as well as fruit and grains, but they did the job without being hassle to carry and they didn't need reheating. Food was nothing but fuel these days.
Sliding a hand up the outside of Michonne's thigh, Merle dug his fingers into her hip to wake her up and she sat up and took a bar from him and a cup of tea from Beth.
They talk aimlessly as they get ready for the day. It is as they're breaking down their camp that they're interrupted by a woman stumbling through the forest into their clearing. "Please, food…" She trailed off as she fell in a graceless pile at their feet.
"Shit." Merle looked over at the kids and then at Michonne who was scanning the surrounds, as was Beth he noted with approval. Patrick glanced around, quartered everything and knelt at her side with a hand on his knife.
"She passed out?" Merle asked him as he took up a water bottle and poured some into a cup.
"Seems so." Patrick took it from her, "She hasn't got any bites that I can see.
The woman stirred then, "No I'm not bitten, I have children." She finished inanely. "I was looking for food and I smelled your fire. I couldn't find it last night."
"You left your children overnight?" This from Michonne as she finally turned to the woman. Something passed over her face and Merle knew she was thinking of her son and that she'd never have left him alone like this woman had.
"Yes, they're not babies and they're safe." This from the woman. He looked at Michonne and she looked back. Then Merle looked to Beth and Patrick,
"Your trip, your call." He says to them. He knows what the council's rules are but ignores them. This was their choice, this was their rite of passage in a way.
We'll go with you to have a look. Now that Beth had realised there was no immediate danger, her mothering instinct took over. She offered the woman a breakfast bar and they broke up their camp quickly. Merle could tell Patrick was unsure, but of what he couldn't tell.
Beth's killer instinct was so deeply buried she registered no danger. But a frown was marring her brow. Merle would bet she was thinking on what kind of woman would leave children, even older ones alone.
When they begin their trek, the woman latches herself onto Beth, seeing her as the youngest. The most frail.
It would be to her detriment.
##########
Michonne sighed as she leaned down and wiped her sword clean on the long gauzy skirt the woman was wearing. She watched at Patrick dry retched even as he looked through the cabin, scavenging for anything useful.
Beth was sitting on the porch, knees drawn up, rocking herself silently as she looked out at the sunny day. Merle sat silently with her, Michonne having gestured for him to follow her out and keep an eye on her.
"Guess this is what Merle was talking about, the killer instinct and stuff." Patrick finally said as he gathered the few things they'd find useful back at the compound. And look at that, she was calling it a compound now too. Shaking her head and then nodding, Michonne agreed.
"It is, don't worry, you both passed. You did good. And Merle is right about you working well together, as a team and keeping each other's back. You both did it instinctually." Michonne said matter-of-factly as she gathered up what Patrick had found and began to distribute it among their packs.
Neither of them look at the dead zombies littering the floor. Three of them of varying ages. The oldest looking to be around maybe twelve. The youngest just a few years old. The woman had tried to feed them to her children.
"Is it wrong to feel good that I'm alive?" Patrick asked her suddenly.
"Absolutely not. But its normal to think it is." Michonne said now. "Perfectly normal. You'll learn unfortunately to take your pleasure when and where you can find it and to let the guilt go. But Patrick?" She stopped and looked over at him, making sure he was listening to her. And he was listening to her attentively, eyes huge behind his glasses, face sweating and flushed from his dry heaving and the general heat of the cabin. "Never, ever let go of your humanity."
He nodded, then looked down and Michonne could see he was processing. Then he nodded again with more certainty. "I won't." He looked up, directly into Michonne's eyes, startling her with their intensity. "Thanks Michonne. You're good for Merle, you make him smile." He flushed suddenly, from the top of his hair and down under his shirt to god knew where.
Chuckling, Michonne shook her head. "Thanks Kent." She said, calling him after Superman's alter ego, or was Superman Clark Kent's alter ego? She pondered as they packed and then walked outside before she decided it was something to discuss with Carl when they returned.
"Let's go, this place reeks." She said as she tossed the Molotov cocktail she'd made back inside the doorway to where they'd spilt the remaining kerosene to burn the place down.
When they're back at the compound, Michonne and Merle find themselves accosted by Maggie, wanting a rundown of how Beth acted, or reacted. "Girl is fine." Was all Merle would say though, irritating Maggie no end.
And so it begins, Beth going on runs, not regular or anything, but she and Patrick are back-up. They both keep their primary occupations in the compound. But they're among the few who don't mind going on runs with Merle, so when his rotation is up, they go too.
But that doesn't always happen. One day months later, as winter chills them all, Patrick and Beth are with another group when they unexpectedly come upon a small herd.
It is a bloody, brutal fight and casualties are suffered.