AN: Hi everyone! Here we go, another little chapter.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Uncounted days they continued on together, aimlessly, continuing down one road and another. These days life was more repetitive than it had ever been before and boring was a blessing. They ate when there was food to eat, hunted when there wasn't, and they rolled up and down what back roads they could, clearly retracing their own steps from time to time, sleeping crammed together like sardines in the truck at night for whatever protection the rusty shell provided them.

The life they led now, if it could even be called that, was oddly conducive to familiarity. Daryl felt like, even though conversation was sparse between them all, that he and his brother already knew their brunette travelling companion better than many of the people they'd known for years outside the hellish snow globe of rotted corpses that they found themselves trapped inside of now.

And either it was the environment changing his perception, or she was damn near meant to be a Dixon with the way that she seemed to simply blend in and work with them when it was necessary and yammered back and forth with them in the rare moments of down time that they found.

So Daryl knew, the morning that he saw Merle bitching at her and following her around in a tight circle just by a stream that they'd found to wash up some things in and to fill their canteens, that Merle was strung out on something, because he doubted at this point that Merle would have given her quite the run around he was giving her otherwise.

"Get the fuck off of me! I'm telling you I'm going to bust your skull wide open on these rocks if you don't!" Alice howled out at Merle, stepping away from him once more. He closed the gap between them, laughing to himself in the odd sort of laugh that he had when he was flying high on something, a laugh that wasn't his normal laugh.

These two could very well be why Daryl hadn't found a single thing for them to eat while he'd been wandering around the area hunting. Merle and Alice would run all the game off for a hundred miles if they kept up their bitching.

"Fuckin' cunt!" Merle responded. "Get the fuck back over here…why the hell you bein' such a lil' bitch about it…tryin' ta tell ya stupid ass you just ain't knowed no good damn thing!"

As Daryl got closer, he knew what the shit was about. It was the same thing that it was always about when Merle got strung out like this around Alice. He would get horny and decide that he could turn her, since she was a rather "loud about it" dyke and that pissed Merle off because she was, in Merle's words, not too bad to look at and she was the only woman around, maybe the only woman alive.

"Merle!" Daryl called out. "Merle! Back the hell off her!"

Daryl didn't figure that Merle would do anything to her except try to be nauseatingly persuasive, to put it nicely, since Merle didn't believe in violence of any kind against women, but the drugs sometimes turned Merle into someone that even Daryl didn't recognize.

Merle turned quickly at Daryl's approach and smiled at him, licking his lips. One look and Daryl knew that his brother was not in his right mind. He glanced at Alice who was standing, now, behind Merle. He hoped she knew what they were both dealing with now.

"What the hell you want, Derlina?" Merle called at him. "You couldn't do a damn thing with her no way…mmm hmmm…what she needs is a real damn man…someone knows what the hell he's doin'…you ever even took yours out lil' brother? Damn dick'll fall off ya don't use it…"

Daryl wasn't moved too much by his brother's words at the moment. He knew that they weren't Merle's words. He was cursing himself, though, because he still hadn't found the stash that Merle had and now it was clear that he'd hit it harder than he needed to. He'd hit it hard enough that they didn't need to deal with his ass like this.

He wasn't paying attention to Alice, though, and she apparently wasn't fully aware of what was happening since this was the worst that Merle had been since she'd run up with them.

"You're such a dick!" She called out. "Holy shit! If I wasn't a lesbian, I would be just from hearing you run your nasty mouth!"

Merle turned back and Daryl hissed to himself.

"You call me nasty? You lily lickin' bitch!" Merle said.

Daryl didn't hear what Alice said next because he lunged at Merle, already knowing that he was about to do something that he'd regret later. He made it to his brother a moment later than he'd hoped, and the smack that his brother doled out to the woman rung in his own ears even as he caught Merle around the arms.

"Fuckin' hell, Merle!" Daryl growled in his brother's ears. "You so damn outta ya skull you just about knocked her ass out!"

Merle fought with him, then. He turned the frustration or whatever it was that he felt toward Alice on his brother and they rolled around for a moment. Daryl slamming to the ground and his brother following after him. They might have fought until one of them killed the other, but Merle's body suddenly went limp and fell forward on Daryl. Daryl realized, then, that he had been knocked unconscious, and looking around his brother's body as he worked to roll him to the side, he discovered that Alice, blood running down from her freshly busted lip, was still holding the rock she'd used to knock Merle out with.

"D'you fuckin' kill him?" Daryl spat.

Alice wiped at her face with the hand not holding the rock. She shook her head.

"No…but I sure as shit stopped him for a little while," she responded.

Daryl got out from under his brother's body and came over to look at Alice's face. Her lip was good and busted, but it wouldn't cause any lasting damage. He went over then to look at Merle, but he figured he'd live through what she'd done…at least he hoped he would, and Alice was the one among them that at least claimed to have a medical degree.

"He wouldn'ta hit your ass if he weren't on whatever the hell he took," Daryl responded, not knowing what else to say.

"But he did hit me," Alice said. "And I thought it wasn't a good damn idea to hang around waiting to see what else he might do right now. We'll tie him up, put him in the truck until he comes back around and this gets out of his system."

"He'll be real pissed he wakes up an' we've tied him up," Daryl said.

Alice laughed.

"What the hell does it matter if he's pissed?" She responded. "We don't untie him until he gets un-pissed. Now come on and help me before he comes to and I have to hit him again. I'm trying to avoid causing him permanent brain damage beyond what he's done to himself."

1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

"You fucked up," Daryl said. "You busted her mouth…you mighta up an' raped her."

Merle cringed at Daryl's words, another indication that he was finally out from under the cloud of his artificial personality.

He'd raised hell when he'd woken up in the truck, his arms and legs bound. He'd raised more hell when they wouldn't let him loose even to feed himself and Alice had forced him into the first spoon feeding that Merle had probably ever succumbed to since he'd come out of diapers.

But finally he'd stopped raising hell, and now that night was getting close, he was showing signs of having come down from whatever high he was on, if he wasn't clear altogether. Daryl had untied him and he was talking to him now while Alice refilled canteens and loaded the back of the truck so that they could break camp first thing in the morning.

"I wouldn't rape no damn body," Merle growled. "I ain't like that an' if you don't know that then I don't know you."

Daryl shook his head at his brother.

"You ain't you when you take that shit," Daryl responded. "You tellin' me you'da busted her ass in the face you weren't strung out on that shit?"

Merle clenched his jaw at Daryl, but Daryl knew the answer to his own question.

"She prob'ly deserved that shit," Merle said. "She's a mouthy bitch."

Daryl nodded his head slightly.

"She's a mouthy bitch," Daryl said. "But you an' me know that don't give you no right ta raise your hands to her. Merle…look at her. She can't fight you off with her bare hands…an' you know what the hell you always said. You don't raise your hands ta no damn woman unless she's man enough ta make it a fair fight."

"Bitch thinks she's a man," Merle growled.

Daryl shook his head at Merle.

"Listen to yaself! Ya make me fuckin' sick! Them drugs mean that damn much to you? They mean enough ta you that you'd go beatin' on a woman? They mean more ta you than ya damn moral code?" Daryl had never wanted to spit on his brother before, not really, but at the moment he did. He'd had it with him and his drugs to the point that he could almost feel himself offering Merle the ultimatum that it was him or the drugs.

Merle sucked his teeth.

"That woman ain't nothin' ta us," Merle said. "She ain't blood."

"No," Daryl responded. "She ain't blood…but she's more ta me than a sack a shit that rots ya damn brain an' has ya actin' like you ain't no damn better'n some kinda animal."

"You watcha mouth, boy!" Merle responded. "Don't you go mouthin' off, callin' me some kinda damn animal!"

"You ain't one," Daryl retorted quickly, "but when you take that shit…you don't seem ta remember you ain't."

Daryl heard Alice coming up to the truck again, grunting under the strain of the heaviest of the water barrels that they'd gotten from her little camp. Daryl stepped away from Merle, leaving him to sulk over yet another discussion that the drugs had to go, and he helped her heave the barrel into the back of the truck.

"That's the last of them," she said. "We're all filled up, but we're out of food, so we've got to hunt in the morning and we should look for somewhere to go looking for canned goods. I saw some houses not too far from here, I could check them out."

Daryl glanced back toward his brother, sitting half in the cab of the truck, and then nodded his head slightly. Merle hated the idea of searching houses for food. He found it, somehow, less respectable than hunting. Daryl might have thought that it had to do with not wanting to steal, but that wasn't the case because Merle was more than comfortable with removing other things, things they couldn't use now if they wanted to, from houses under the claim that they'd been left behind and they were unwanted, so he was claiming them.

But Daryl knew that food was more valuable to them at the moment than anything that might fill a bank account somewhere.

"We get some time tomorrow, I'll take him hunting," Daryl said. "You go an' get what the hell you can."

Alice nodded her head at him slightly.

They started toward the cab of the truck to bed down for the night and Merle hopped out, presumably to allow Alice to take her place in the middle, and Daryl saw her visibly flinch when Merle reached his hand out and caught her face under the chin.

"Ya face OK?" He asked.

Alice relaxed.

"Nice to have you back," she said, his hand still holding her face. "I think I'll probably live."

"Shouldn'ta hit'cha," Merle growled. That was about the closest you'd ever get to an apology from Merle Dixon, and Daryl knew it. Apparently Alice knew it too.

"It's alright," she said. "Shit happens…just don't let it happen again or I'll knock you out again and surgically remove your testicles."

Merle chuckled, licking his lips a little at her challenge. Daryl chuckled too because he doubted, sincerely, that it was a challenge at all.