AN: Wow, I can't believe I have a new chapter of this up. It is largely due to an inability to write Caryl at the moment, encouragement from Imorca and a rash of reviews from littleshelly. Thank you for finding the fic, Shelly, and showering it with new love. I don't expect much response but for those that read this, I would love to hear your thoughts. The next chapter has already been started and I'm hoping to feel this one for a little while at least.

Part Sixteen

Carol

She shouldn't have come.

Carol realises the depth of her mistake the second Merle walks in the door. He looks nice. Really nice, and as she admires him, as her hungry eyes sweep up and down a form she'd never have looked at twice back at the quarry—never noticed was impressive until this second chance had been granted—she knows that she's advanced beyond curiosity, beyond the urge for simple friendship and fallen headlong into sexual attraction.

It's been so long since she's felt anything for a man but revulsion, but Merle barely looks at her and she's left feeling adrift, discarded and unimportant. It hurts for a moment and she's starting to fill with resentment, but then her mind clears and she realises she has no right to resent anything, and instead, she allows herself to just feel the attraction, to play with it, knowing that with their choice to leave Woodbury, any kind of interest between her and Merle was never going to have the chance to flourish anyway.

She's flushed from this awakening, liking the new prickling awareness she has of this man and even though she expects nothing from him, she can't tear her eyes away. She is not so involved in her admiration that she's dulled her senses to other dynamics in the room, though. The other man dining with them, Milton, has barraged her with questions and too soon some of them point toward a direction she doesn't want to comply with. She forgets about Merle as Milton draws closer to his real point, his true desire for knowledge and while mentally she's shaken that he has no filter for the potential pain his questions might cause for survivors, she's bracing herself for the inevitable grief that still hasn't left her behind, and she knows in her heart that it never will.

"Have you lost anyone to the virus?"

When the question arrives she almost loses it, swallows down heavily on the urge to vomit on Phil's immaculately clean floor as the images of her last view of Sophia raises up to obliterate everything else. Who hasn't lost someone to the virus? she wants to scream at him, but before the words come roaring out of her mouth, Michonne is touching her, protecting her, helping to deflect the stupid man's curiosity and it suddenly occurs to her that while the virus might have taken the one she's loved most in her life, it's also given her these friends who she knows would lay down their lives for hers. Carol blinks back tears and squeezes Michonne's hand, gratitude welling up inside her until she almost bursts from it. And Andrea… The sacrifice Andrea makes to talk about Amy just to save Carol the trauma of answering to this clueless man overwhelms her. These women love her and Carol is now surer than ever that their need to leave Woodbury is solid. This is more important, this thing they have together, more valuable than whatever stirrings of lust she might be having toward Merle.

As Michonne clings to her hand and Andrea leads Milton across the room, Carol wonders about Lori, allows herself to miss the other friend she's had since this mess began and she hopes that wherever the group found after the farm fell that they are safe. That Lori is safe, and though she doesn't believe God is listening to her anymore, she offers a quick prayer to that effect. She's found value in her friendships, found a force she's never been allowed to discover before, and even though she stands in a precarious position right now, Carol does wish she'd had the chance to have this with the brunette, too.

A crash from the kitchen draws her attention back to the strange current in the room and she's confused by the complexity of expressions she notices. Phillip looks smug as he sweeps a derisive glance across Merle and then to her, like he's made a connection between them that they haven't even made, and it makes her skin crawl. She wishes his conclusions weren't true, though she suspects, at least on her part, that they are. Merle is uncomfortable, she can tell this straight away, his once steady gaze now skittering away from her as he changes his whole composure into someone she barely remembers from the quarry. His crass implications caused the crash and a woman runs from the kitchen screaming at him, and Carol watches it all as if from afar. She recognises the contempt he aims at this new woman, and the strange lack of body behind his claims of planning to be elsewhere for the night, and then it all clicks into place. It's like she needed the mental and emotional distance that being faced with the loss of Sophia had given her to see that he is trying his hardest to protect her, and by default her friends, because they've stupidly raised Phil's suspicions and she rightfully appreciates the danger in that.

Eva is quickly subdued by Phil and Carol watches with fascination. This was her, once. Oh no, she's never raced across a room to lay into a man, but she's been controlled that instantly most of her married life and she can see now the fear in Eva, the crushed hopes that the woman has had in Merle, and then her fear as she's almost pushed back into the kitchen by their host. The sparkling merriment at the unexpected entertainment seems to shine so brightly in Phillip's eyes that Carol has to catch her breath. It's there, so plain to see, and yet she can tell Andrea doesn't. It scares her that her friend has surrendered this skill to see beneath the surface because of the appearance of safety, the offer of companionship, and Carol knows they need to leave soon before the bubble is popped and one or all of them ends up hurt.

Around the dinner table, Milton comes to life. He is given free reign to talk about his projects, to report on his studies and his morbid curiosity about the things Carol knows intimately have nothing of their true selves left, and it chills her blood.

"Are you…experimenting on people?" Michonne asks the question with just the right inflection of disgust to make the dinner guests squirm, but she's staring Milton down so hard that Carol is amazed that he doesn't even register it. Instead he becomes animated, excited, and speaks clearly and at length of the things he hopes to discover and provides clues to the means of achieving this.

"One of our residents is dying of cancer," he says and Carol can't help but shudder. It's unfair they are faced with death walking around, trying to pass their disease onto the rest of the world, but those that survive must also fight the old diseases like cancer as well. Her muscles begin to ache just thinking about it and then a drink of water gags her and she has a coughing fit right there at the table. Phillip glares at her, his face screwed up with no attempt to hide his disgust as he covers his mouth with his napkin. Carol covers her own with both hands and tries to cough it out while trying not to laugh, wishing she had the courage to just cough in his face and give him influenza so she could provide Milton with a more intriguing test subject.

The look on Merle's face is strange, like this experiment planned on the dying man has come as a shock to him, but as quickly as he stares at Milton like he wants to pull his teeth from his gums, he's once again wrestling with his meal, all the while ignoring the disruption Carol's lingering illness has created at the table. Carol has barely tamed herself when he's slammed his fork on the table and shoved his chair back, on the move before he's even fully standing.

"Thanks for the invite, Governor. I best be off." He turns to her and tips his head, gaze sweeping across Michonne and Andrea as he prepares to leave. "Ladies."

He's almost at the door when Carol starts coughing again, and there are tears in her eyes from frustration with herself as well as with this dinner party. She sees now that they are of no consequence to Phillip except as potential rats in his social experiment, and Carol realises she's afraid of this man and the power he wields over the people in this town, and she's desperate to get out of it. To get away from him before he eats them alive.

"Merle," the Governor calls out just as he's reached for the door handle and Merle pauses, peering back over his shoulder at the man that seems to hold everyone's fate in an iron grip. "I wonder if I might ask you to take Carol back to their rooms. She's obviously still not feeling well."

The objection rolls like thunder across his face, but Merle nods, his jaw clenched. "Come on then. I ain't got all day."

In that moment Carol believes he really doesn't. She believes he really does have somewhere else to be, and there is a twinge of disappointment that exists alongside relief. He's not free for her to fixate on, to lust after. No harm will come from her imagining what it might have been like, in celebrating the awakening of the libido that she suspected was all but dead from years of abuse and neglect, but now she at least understands there are limits and she finds that reassuring. There's no room for embarrassment as she finds herself alongside him, because he's not available to her like that. There's no risk of losing her heart to him, or leaving it behind once they leave this place, because he's not hers to give it to her. The realisation is both freeing and painful, but at least she knows where she stands, and she knows what she is capable of. She will have this short walk to her apartment and then she can dive into planning with Michonne on how to get them—with Andrea—out of this town.

Michonne clasps her hand under the table and clenches it tightly before Carol stands, and in that one brief touch Carol has received the message. Their decision stands and they will get out as soon as they can. Carol thanks their host, asks they pass along her gratitude to the cook, and then Merle is striding out the door and leaving her behind.

She hurries after him, expecting he will be miles ahead of her in this pitch black town in curfew. Instead, she slams into his back as she turns out of the stairs to leave the building. His strong arms hold her steady and then they linger and that swirling desire swivels out of its rest to stir up sexual awareness down low in her belly.

"Easy there, sugar. Don't want you fallin' and breakin' somethin'." He pitches the words as a low growl in her ear, his breath warm as it stirs the fine hairs along her throat. His hand his resting low on her hip and she can't move, knowing that if she does it will only be to push herself closer. It's only when he finally draws away from her that she realises she has both hands braced against his chest, and she's a lot slower to let go than he is.

He leads her home by the light of the moon and by familiarity, she guesses, but when she doesn't seem to sense their path quite as skilfully as he does, he takes her hand and her heart does rapid skip jumps in her chest. His hand is big, rough and he exerts only a small amount of pressure, but almost instantly she imagines scenarios where this hand might caress her naked body and her blood becomes hot as lava hissing through her veins. She feels light as a feather but heavy as lead, and Carol giggles at the incongruity of all these sensations caused by Merle Dixon, of all people.

"You ain't coughin' no more."

She laughs again, struggling to keep herself quiet so she doesn't draw attention from the sentries on the far gate.

"I choked on my water. Poor Phillip thought I was spraying Ebola across the table."

Merle squeezes her hand almost imperceptibly and if she wasn't so hyperaware of everything right now she might not have noticed. She does, though, and she takes a foolish chance and squeezes back, feels giddy when his stride seems to slow and the walk is guaranteed to take longer.

It's a heady rush, this sensation, the warmth from his hand creeping up her arm. She's nervous, excited, confused what this means, but in the moment she doesn't want clarity to flush away the exhilaration of walking beside such a man, with her hand curled within his. She knows she is only destined for brief moments, though, and she focuses on breathing normally. Carol closes her eyes and focuses on the pleasure of holding his hand, reliving her adolescence like he is her first boyfriend, absorbing the feeling of elation at capturing the man she's had her eye on and it strokes her ego like she hadn't remembered happening in a very long while. She is following him blindly until he stops and she bumps gently into his back. It's sensory overload and she's buzzing by the time he draws her around, showing her they've reached her building. Wordlessly he leads her to the stairs, draws her to the top and then they wait outside her door, eyes adjusting to view each other in the dark. He hasn't let her go and all at once Carol knows he wants to kiss her but that something is holding him back. She wants to know what a kiss would feel like after fifteen years of not experiencing it.

"Merle, I thought you were meeting someone?" she prompts, her voice husky as lust creeps along and corrupts every thought process she has.

Before he answers, she knows. There was no one, he made it all up to divert Phillip's attention from them and her breathing picks up while she waits.

"Naw, just wanted to get out of that place. Didn't know Eva was gonna be there." She hears the words he doesn't add, the ones that show how honourable he is, and how much he cares despite how hard he fights it. She saw how little Eva meant to him, and now she knows there's no one else, but what she doesn't know, not for sure, is if she's anything to him at all. It doesn't matter, because she can see the good in him anyway, and it's impressive and admirable and without saying a word she understands that he doesn't even know it. He's saved her life, protected her tonight, protected her from Ed back at the beginning of it all, and doesn't even have a clue how much that is worth to her.

"You're a good man, Merle Dixon." She stands on tippy toes and kisses his cheek, tries to ignore the startled reaction and the way he rears back from her. While he's floundering in that reaction, she slips through her door and closes it softly behind her.