Notes: I have been away from this story for a very long time. As I promised, though, I will never abandon it. Since I last wrote a chapter I have moved across the country, been at a new job, and endured another season of TWD with a great amount of friction and strife in the fandom than I ever expected. The thing I always said through all of it, however, was "I write fanfiction. And no matter what, they can't have my imagination back." I finally feel inspired to return to this story and explore the joy of possibilities and opportunities that could have been.
Disclaimer: Copyright for The Walking Dead belongs to AMC, et al. My writing belongs to me, as do errors.
Title: "Inventio"
Chapter: "7. Every Bit"
"Holy Mary Mother of Christ Fucking Judas!"
Merle hadn't felt pain like it since that day back on the Atlanta roof. He'd been angling to bolt in a modified shelving brace through one of the fastener openings along the bed of an aging pickup, hoping to create a bracket that could be used to secure a line of riot shields. But, that fucking wrench wasn't meant to be wielded by a man with only one hand in the goddamned devil's microwave that was draining every last fucking drop of sweat from his hide.
The tool had slipped out of his grasp, torqued with his considerable muscle behind it, and ricocheted right into the bridge of his recently broken nose. The blow flattened him into a moaning, swearing mess, with his eyes streaming and blood pouring down his throat inside and down his face outside, pooling into the troughs lining the floor of the bed. He couldn't see for several minutes, and when his vision finally cleared from black with starry flashes, he swore he got a fucking retina burn from the goddamn broiler ball in the sky.
Merle struggled painfully to shift onto his side. Even though he was already laid out flat, the world spun and he felt like he was falling. He held still and let things settle, then spat a mouthful of blood and saliva and god knew what else from his mouth. Merle had sustained enough injuries to know that he needed to get out of the sun, and that the only cure for a pain this incredible pain was stillness, water, and closing his damn eyes for a while.
Being on his side wasn't too bad now. It was time to go for sitting up. He spat again before grabbing the bump of the wheel well to get started. The process was excruciating and slow. It felt like hours for every inch he gained vertical. Finally, he was sitting up, and the brilliance of the pain had started to fade to a terrible thunder. He spat again. He thought it looked like less blood. Not so bad, he thought. Time to see if he could stand.
As he edged his way toward the open tailgate, Merle wondered if his nose would be completely flat now, like one of those dogs that looked like their faces had got stomped in. Heh. The notion struck him as a little funny. Whoa, laughing though...that could wait for fucking ever if his head felt like this. Merle's feet cleared the edge, then his knees, and he waited with his boots dangling and his head resting on his elbow where it was propped on the rail of the truck bed. He reached up and swiped across his upper lip, careful to avoid jarring his tender nose. It was sticky rather than slick. This had taken long enough that the bleeding had stopped at least.
If he kept his head still, the thunder retreated slightly into the distance. Feet. Shade. Water. Merle shimmied himself to the edge of the tailgate and slid to the ground. He rested, then pushed erect, trying out his balance before leaving the safety of the truck's sturdy anchor. If he had a concussion, it wasn't too bad, he thought. His balance seemed to be alright, and slowly he put one foot in front of the other until he was inside the blessedly dark prison interior.
"Merle! My God! Have you – what happened! Were you shot? Are they back?"
Merle knew the voice was a woman. Fuck, was he destined to run afoul of every one of them today!? He left his eyes closed. That's what really mattered most at the moment.
"Naw," he croaked out. "Broke nose. Need water. And a bed."
He felt a hand along his back and a prop under his bad arm, then. Too tall to be jailbait. Not peaches, or Michonne. What was the other one?
"M-Maggie? Is it?"
"Yeah, it's me. Jesus." Merle felt her shaking her head beneath his elbow. "Let's get you over to see my Dad."
Fucking great.
He was supposed to be making nicey-nice with the Chinese kid –fuck, he was Korean wasn't he – and Merle just knew that little prick was going to make it all about his girl, this girl. Daryl'd told Merle as much. And now Merle was going to owe her all of his own.
Fucking great.
Merle had never been any good and being good to anyone, much less to making anything up to somebody he'd failed to be good to in the first place.
Fucking great.
They limped along together. Merle never understood why people wanted to help you walk when the injury wasn't in your goddamn leg, but he figured if she was leading he could at least keep his eyes closed. He hoped wherever the old geezer was that it wasn't far. The jarring from each step wasn't helping his nose none.
"Good Lord, what happened here?"
"He says he broke his nose."
"With what? An elephant?"
"Shut it, old man," Merle ground out as he let Maggie maneuver him down into a sitting position. "It was a goddamn fucking wrench."
"Language, Merle."
"Fine, fine."
"Who hit you with a wrench?" It was the woman again. Fucking great. Well, maybe giving her some good humiliation material was part of his penance.
Merle let out a hiss as Hershel leaned Merle's head back to get a better look. "I hit myself, okay!? I was –ouch goddamnit! It's fucking broken!"
"Language, Merle. I know that. But you've had it broken before, and recently. You know I'm going to have to move it some to see what's going on and how bad it is."
Merle was seeing stars again and he felt himself losing his seat.
"Maggie! I need you to hold him steady!"
"Yes, Daddy!"
And then he was leaning against her, and there was wetness on his face and all around his neck and chest.
"Well, you are quite the bleeder, Merle." The geezer had the balls to laugh then. If Merle could have trusted that he wouldn't fall down, he'd have stood up and belted him for that.
"Shut. It." Somehow the two words didn't quite seem to hook up right.
And then Merle found himself flat out on one of the prison bunks, a lower one 'cause he was staring up at the lattice work of wire that passed for prison "springs."
He attempted to rise and turn his head...and promptly decided that he'd had few worse ideas in his life.
"Hey, just stay there a while. Daddy said you should stay down for at least a couple more hours." It was still Maggie.
Merle turned his head much more slowly this time until he could see her properly. Slowly wasn't so bad. Now that that he was more alert he could feel a tightness on his face that was probably a reinforcing bandage. He'd be a mouth-breather again for a week or so. The light didn't hurt his eyes as much, and he felt a little floaty.
"He give me somethin'?"
"Yes. Just to take the edge off the pain for a while. But don't get any ideas. He's not going to give you anymore. He knows your history."
Merle scoffed. "Who doesn't? Why're you here?"
Maggie shifted in her seat, and brought her feet off the leg of the bunk where she'd had them propped up. "I said I'd make sure you didn't do anything stupid, like try to be up and around before your pain meds wore off, or you had taken your rest like he said."
Fucking great. There it was staring him in the face. "Uh...I guess I should say thank you. You did more than you had to do."
"You bet I did. What I should have done was hamstrung you and kicked what was left of your nose to the back of your skull." Her voice didn't rise a single tone, but he could feel the intensity through to the phantom fingers that still gave him fits in the cold and the damp. He needed to be careful.
He took his time and considered his options. Women were complicated creatures, and the things that usually got him what he wanted were not going to help him here. He couldn't threaten or sweet talk or bribe this one. There was a glass of water on a stool next to her, and he gestured toward it. "If I manage to set myself up a bit, could I trouble you to hand that to me?"
She rolled her eyes, but said nothing, so he commenced working his way slowly up until he could reasonably not pour the water all over himself. He reached out and she passed him the glass. His grip wasn't steady, and he hated himself and the geezer for his vulnerable state. The least he could have asked for was to have his full faculties when he faced this harpy.
Draining the glass did help him to feel better, and he handed it back to her. How to start this?
"You have a sister, dontcha? The blonde?"
Maggie narrowed her eyes at him. "Exactly what the hell are you asking about her for?"
"Whoa, there now! No need to get riled! It's just...we got somethin' in common you and me. We're big brother and big sister."
"Yeah," she said, but she was far from relaxed.
"Daryl told me that you lost yer momma to the plague. Our daddy, too. Though he wasn't much of a loss. Asshole. Beat us both on the regular."
Maggie was gradually sitting back into her chair where she'd been before. She made a non-committal sound in response.
"You feel a new kinda responsibility fer her, now that yer momma's gone?" Merle asked.
She still didn't speak, but she dropped her eyes to the floor and gave the barest nod.
"Yeah. I felt that way toward Daryl a long time. We lost our ma when he was real young, and like I said, our daddy wasn't none at all. So, it was just me and him. Truth is, that was a pretty shitty deal for Daryl."
She looked up at him then, and smirked. There it was. He smirked back.
"But that don't mean – that is, just 'cause I's terrible at it, don't mean I didn't try, and it sure as shit don't mean I didn't care. I'd do just about anything for 'im." Merle paused, waiting until he had her full attention. "Even things I am ashamed of, things that will send me straight to hell. Things I know's wrong." He waited again. Then, he saw it in her eyes. "He wouldn't ask it. And it pains him to find out, but I'd die fer 'im...and I'd kill...and worse...fer 'im."
Maggie's lips were pressed hard into a thin line. Her eyes were too bright. They burned him and he had to look away. He suddenly wasn't sure he had the balls to do this.
But, he meant it. He would do it, this, for Daryl.
He cleared his throat. "I can't say I didn't know what The Governor was capable of, 'cause I did it on his behalf enough times. What I did to Glenn, I did on my own behalf. My...I didn't know how else to find Daryl. But what he did to you. I," he paused. What did he – what could he say? "I – I can't change that. I don't know how to make that right. There ain't no apology to be had or made. I guess...I guess you...just tell me how it is."
He still couldn't look at her, but he saw her rise from her chair and watched her move to the doorway of the cell. Her back was ramrod straight and rigid. She stayed there a long while, and Merle found that he needed to remind himself to breathe.
"Here's what you do, Merle. You ask Daryl how he thinks of me and Glenn, and all of us. And then...you do for us what he'd do for us. All of it. Every bit. That's how it is. That's what you owe."
She stood for a moment longer, then, "I'll be back. Don't you move until I am." She never turned in all that time to look at him. She simply walked out.