"She wanted to lose herself in him. To tie his arms around her like a tourniquet.

If she showed him how much she needed him, he'd run away."

– Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park

Once inside, we noticed there was not a single soul in the streets. The men on the scaffold were very far away so they couldn't spot us.

I wondered where everybody could be and I instantly thought about the place where Merle thought another man as walkers surrounded them, the arena.

I led the others to that part of Woodbury and as we came closer we could hear the Governor speaking to the people. But of course he would give a hypocritical speech as usual. I almost rolled my eyes as I heard his voice.

"I should tell you that we'll be okay, that we're safe, that tomorrow we'll bury our dead and endure, but I- I won't, because I can't."
As the Governor spoke we sneaked further in, luckily the lights didn't reach this far and we weren't seen, we hid behind some big containers and waited for the best opportunity to get Daryl.

"I'm afraid of terrorists who want what we have. Want to destroy us! And worse because one of those terrorists is one of our own. Merle!"

I stopped dead in my tracks when I heard his name, I turned to look at him in the crowd and when I found him I saw a man had a rifle against his back and another was taking his knife away from him. Merle looked shock and betrayed. I guess I was right, Merle was in the way and the Governor was going to get rid of him. And it was then when I realized the Governor had a bandage over his right eye, I saw it before but it was like my brain finally processed that information, I also noticed that it was slowly becoming soaked with his blood.

"The man I counted on, the man I trusted. He led 'em here and he let 'em in. It was you," he exclaimed as he pointed a finger at Merle. "You lied, betrayed us all."

Then I saw two men, dragging another one to the arena. He had a bag over his face but I could only assume it was Daryl and when I saw the man's leather vest with those wings on the back, there was no doubt it was Daryl. He was in deep problems but at least he was alive and I was going to try everything to save him.
"This is one of the terrorists!" the Governor exclaimed as the men dragged Daryl almost to where the lights were, so everyone could see him. The Governor grabbed him by his arm and pulled the bag off of him, revealing his face. "Merle's own brother."

Everyone gasped in disbelief, but the one that was most shocked was Merle. He was staring at Daryl like he couldn't believe Daryl was right there. Daryl didn't looked as shocked to see him, he looked confused and helpless. He knew that it was next to impossible to get out of this one but he didn't know we were inside, trying to save him.

"What should we do with them, huh?"

"Kill them!"

"What? What you want?"

"Kill them! Kill them!" everyone shouted, I even spotted Chris, Amanda and Wayne in the crowd. They were also shouting it. "Kill them now!"

"You wanted your brother," the Governor said to Merle after he walked to him. "Now you got him."

The people kept shouting 'kill them' for several minutes, it was crazy. How could they even want that?

"I asked you where your loyalties lie. You said here. Well, prove it. Prove it to us all. Brother against brother." I shuddered when I heard that. "Winner goes free. Fight to the death!"
"Y'all know me! I'm gonna do whatever I got to do to prove..." Merle said as he punched Daryl making him fall to the ground, Rick had to put a hand on my shoulder to remind me I couldn't run to save him. "That my loyalty...!" now he kicked Daryl. "Is to this town!"

Great, and now they were bringing walkers with snare poles, just great. Great...not. It was then when Daryl finally reacted and punched Merle.

"We have to do something Rick!" I whispered to him.

When I turned around again I saw Daryl had his hands around Merle's neck, suffocating him and then they were both on their feet, back against back as walkers cornered them. So now they were fighting against the walkers instead of each other.

"Now!" Rick told us.

I pointed at the walker that was closer to Daryl and shot him, people started screaming. Maggie was on a place higher than us and had a better view, she was killing the rest of the walkers and some people as well. Rick then threw another smoke grenade, as Maggie then shot the light bulbs, making everything get darker, the only lights came from the torches plus there was smoke filling the arena.

It was a complete chaos. People screaming, running away, walkers on the loose, gunshots everywhere and smoke all around making everything so hard to see.

"Daryl, come on!" I shouted as he was taking his crossbow from Bowman. He turned to look in my direction, our eyes met for a second or two, until I broke out of my trance, ran to him, grabbed his hand and pulled him with me, joining the group, and all of us ran away from there.
With our guns raised we made our way to where the buses where. Luckily there was no one there. Not even the guys that patrol the walls, no one.

"They're all at the arena, this way!" Merle exclaimed.
"You're not going anywhere with us!" Rick said quickly.
"You really want to do this now?" I guess Merle has a point.

Merle moved forward and started to kick one of the sidings to make a way through, while the rest of us looked around in case someone had come after us.

"Come on!" Daryl exclaimed. "We've got to go!"

Daryl grabbed my hand and pulled me with him, we were followed by Sean, Maggie and lastly Rick. Outside, Merle was killing a walker.
"A little help would be nice!" he exclaimed.

Daryl let go of my hand, grabbed his crossbow with both hands and killed two walkers but there were around twenty more, all the noise in there attracted them. Maggie, Rick, Sean and I shot at some of them too.
"We ain't got time for this!" Merle shouted and then ran away, Daryl was going to go after him when he noticed none of us moved.
"Let's go!" he exclaimed and then once again he grabbed my hand and pulled me with him.

The way back was extremely dangerous. There were walkers almost everywhere and sometimes we had to hid until they had walked past us. We didn't dare to use our guns because of the noise, we didn't want to attract even more.

"Are you okay?" Daryl asked me, looking from toe to head after some walkers had walked away from us and apparently no more where around.

"I'm good, you?"

"You shouldn't have come, it was too dangerous!"

"If I hadn't gone, they wouldn't have found you so quickly! I was there for a few days, remember? I know where things are. And I had to go!"

"No, you didn't," he said as we started walking again, we were in the very back of the group.

"Yes, I did! That's what we do, don't we? We save each other no matter what. You went in those woods for days, you risked your life for me. I had to go in there and get you out of there or at least kill the person that killed you, I had to."

"But you..."

"It doesn't matter, we are out now, we are. It's done and I'm alive and you are too, it's all that matters, okay?"

Daryl said nothing else to me but I felt how he gave my hand a squeeze. We kept walking, avoiding walkers as much as we could. We were in those woods for a very long time, it was already light when we finally saw the car, Michonne and Glenn.

"Rick! Oh, thank God!" Glenn exclaimed as he saw us.

Glenn stood up from the ground quickly and walked to us, Michonne followed him closely behind. Apparently they got along while we were away.

"Now we got a problem here, I need you to back up!" Rick said quickly but both Glenn and Michonne grabbed their weapons as soon as they saw Merle with us.
"What the hell is he doing here?" Glenn shouted.

"Hey, hey, hey!"

Sean, Daryl and Maggie tried to get Glenn to lower the gun while Rick and I tried to handle Michonne, who kept trying to get to Merle.

"Put it down!" Rick told her, now pointing his gun at her.

"He tried to kill me!" she shouted.

"Look what he did to me!" Glenn yelled.

"He helped us get out of there!" Daryl exclaimed.
"Yeah, right after he beat the shit out of you!" Rick told him.
"Hey, we both took our licks, man," Merle said, I just glared at him.

"Shut the hell up!" I exclaimed.

"Jackass!" Daryl said at the same time.
"Hey, shut up!"
"Enough!" Rick screamed.

Michonne once again tried to get at Merle, and from there everyone started screaming, especially Michonne, Glenn and Daryl.

Get that thing out of my face!" Daryl shouted at Glenn, who was pointing at Daryl instead of Merle. He slowly lowered his hand.

"Man, look like you've gone native, brother!"
"No more than you hanging out with that psycho back there!" Daryl shouted at Merle as he took a few steps towards him, who had his back against a tree.
"Oh, yeah, man. He is a charmer, I got to tell you that." Merle then turned to look at Michonne. "Been putting the wood to your girlfriend Andrea. Big time, baby!"
"What? Andrea's in Woodbury?" Rick asked me. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"We had more important things to discuss, besides I thought you saw her at the arena, she was right there next to the Governor. But don't worry about her, she's there because she wants to."

"You know Andrea?" Rick asked Michonne, who didn't answer so Merle did.

"Yeah, she does! Her and the Blondies spent all winter cuddling up in the forest. My Nubian Queen here had two pet walkers."

"To protect ourselves!" I said quickly, since everyone's expression changed to horror ones.
"No arms, cut off the jaws, kept them in chains. Kind of ironic now that I think about it."

"Shut up, bro!" Daryl shouted before I could.
"Hey, man, we snagged them out of the woods, Andrea was close to dying."

"You pointed a gun to us, tied or hands, blindfolded us and took us there!" I exclaimed.
"Is that why she's with him?" Maggie asked.

"Yeah. Snug as two little bugs. So what you gonna do now, Sheriff, huh? Surrounded by a bunch of liars, thugs, and cowards."
"Shut up!"

"Oh, man, look at this. Pathetic!" Merle exclaimed. "All these guns and no bullets in them."
"Merle, shut up!" Daryl shouted at him.

"Shut up yourself! Bunch of pussies you roll..."

Rick couldn't stand it anymore, he hit Merle with the back of his gun and Merle fell unconscious to the ground, I took a deep breath of relief.

The rest of us minus Michonne gathered around to discuss what will happen to Merle. For obvious reasons, Glenn and Maggie were completely against him going back to the prison with us, Sean never liked him, Daryl was practically begging Rick to let him come and then there was me, who only said we could give him a chance but mostly kept quiet because I knew what Merle had done and it was awful but I also knew that Merle had a good heart and he could be nice to people, like he had been to me, back at camp, or when he warmed me to not go with Michonne.
"It won't work!" Rick said.
"It's gotta." Daryl exclaimed.
"It'll stir things up."
"Look, the Governor is probably on the way to the prison right now. Merle knows how he thinks and we could use the muscle," Daryl said to Rick, he had a point there.
"I'm not having him at the prison," Maggie said quickly.
"Do you really want him sleeping in the same cell block as Carol or Beth?" Glenn asked.

"Maybe we could keep him in another cell block," I muttered with a shrug.

"He ain't a rapist!" Daryl exclaimed.

"Well, his buddy is."

Wait, what? I looked at Glenn with a confused expression while Maggie looked at him in disbelief. Did something happen to her?
"There's no way Merle's going to live there without putting everyone at each other's throats," Rick said.

"We could give him just one chance, Rick," I said.
"So, you're gonna cut Merle loose and bring the last samurai home with us?"

"She's not coming back."

"What?" I exclaimed.

"She did bring you guys to us," Glenn said. Thanks Glenn.
"And then ditched us! Besides it was Cici who gave us most of the directions."

"Actually, it was her, Cici was too busy flirting with Daryl to give us the direc..."

"I wasn't flirting!" I exclaimed quickly, slightly putting my hands on Sean's chest and pushing him. I felt how blood rose to my cheeks but I tried to keep my cool, but I didn't even turn to look at Daryl, who was also blushing.

"Hey!" Sean exclaimed, pushing my hands away quite forcefully as he stepped back. I glared at him as I took a couple of steps towards him.

"Stop!" Rick said quickly stepping in between both of us when he noticed I was about to say something else to him plus pushing him again, I usually try to have the last say.
"At least let my dad stitch her up," Maggie said to Rick, changing the topic quickly.

"She's too unpredictable."

"She's a nice person, she won't be a threat, I promise."
"We don't know who she is!" Daryl said to me. "But Merle, Merle's blood."

"I'm trying to help Merle too!" I almost shouted at Daryl in disbelief. "How can you say that?"

"Merle's blood," he repeated.
"No, Merle is your blood," Glenn told him. "My blood, my family is standing right here and waiting for us back at the prison."
"And you're part of that family," Rick said, looking straight at Daryl. "But he's not!"

"He warmed me, though," I muttered. "He gave me a chance and he deserves one too, let's give him a chance and at the first mistake then we kick him out."

"No!" Maggie, Glenn and Sean exclaimed. I could understand Maggie and Glenn but why Sean was so against it? I glared at him and he just glared back.
"Man, y'all don't know," he muttered. After that there was a very long awkward silence. "Fine. We'll fend for ourselves."

"What? Daryl!" I exclaimed, getting right in front of him and looking straight at his eyes, he looked away from me. "You can't leave!"
"No him, no me. It was always Merle and I before this."
"Don't," Maggie said.
"You serious? " Rick asked in disbelief.

"You're just gonna leave like that?" Glenn asked.

"You'd do the same thing," Daryl said and then turned to look at Maggie. "Say good-bye to your pop for me."
"Daryl, are you serious?" Glenn asked as Daryl started to walk away.

I jogged to catch up with him and got in front of him to stop him. I didn't notice but the others hadn't move from their spots, even when they kept saying things to Daryl, probably to give us some space.

"Daryl, this is crazy."

"He's my brother."

"Hey, look at me!" I demanded and finally Daryl looked back at me, his eyes showed sorrow and sadness but also determination. "I just got back, Daryl! You can't abandon me like this! You can't do this to me!"

"I have to do this, Cecilia," he said as he put both his hands on each side of my shoulders, my eyes were filling with tears. "I hate that it came to this but I can't leave him, he's my blood! You'd do the same for Sophia!"

I flinched when he mentioned her, that was low for him. How could he compare Merle with Sophia? She was just a little girl while Merle was a bastard, a nice bastard sometimes, though.

"I'm sorry," he muttered. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to."

"You mean most to me than anyone back in there, don't do this."

"You are going to be fine. You've got Rick, Glenn, your friend the samurai, your mother, Carl, you'll be fine, you'll get over me soon."

"You know that's not true," I told him. "I couldn't get over you during these last eight months."

"You are just making everything harder!" he shouted at me as he dropped his hands to his sides. "It kills me to leave you, alright? Especially now that I know you are alive but my brother is alive as well and I left him once, I won't do that again!"

"So now you are leaving me," I whispered.

Daryl walked past me but I stopped him, quickly wrapping my arms around him from behind. I heard him and felt him take a very deep breath before he put his hands on top of mine. He kept them there for a while before making them separate. I thought he was going to walk away again but he turned around and wrapped me in his strong arms.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to me as I hugged him again and buried my face in the crook of his neck.

"You are an idiot, you know that?"

"Yeah, I know." And with that he kissed the top of my head and slowly he let go of me, walking to the car and opening the trunk, while I just stayed there, a few feet away from him, looking at him, trying hard not to cry in front of him. Feeling like I everything inside of me was slowly shattering.

Rick finally approached him and tried to persuade him as well, but Daryl just kept grabbing supplies, not even looking up at Rick.

"Take care of yourself. Take care of lil ass-kicker," he said as he finally looked at Rick. "Carl. He's one tough kid."

Daryl put his backpack on his shoulder and started to walk away, where Merle was already waiting for him. Daryl did look back at Rick but didn't glance in my direction.

"Hey, Blondie!" Merle called out for me. "Why so sad? You can come with us, you know? We never got to that farm and have that cuddling night, it's our chance, what do you say?"

I looked at Merle, actually considering his offer. Merle hadn't been bad to me, quite the opposite actually and if I went with him, Daryl was there as well but then I clearly heard Carl's voice in my head.

"You weren't there when I needed you the most, do you get that?"

"I'm here and I'm not leaving."

"I needed you!"

"But I'm here now and I promise that you will never feel alone again, okay?"

"How can I know you mean it?"

"You have to trust me."

I said nothing to Merle, I just looked down to the ground and slowly turned. I could hear Merle calling for me but I didn't look back, it would kill me to see Daryl there, walking away from me, forever. I just walked to the car, where Michonne was waiting for us, opened the door of the passenger's seat and got inside and once there the tears started to fall down my face, which I wiped quickly before everyone else got in.

As on the way there, we were six people but this time Daryl wasn't here and no one dared to sit in the passenger's seat with me, that's why I chose to sit here, to be as alone and away as I could from the others.

I leant my head against the window so none of them could see my tears, I hated to cry in front of people, I hated to be seen crying. I tried not to cry but then I remembered seeing him walking away and that broke me every time.

The ride was very quiet, well most of it. We stopped halfway there, though, there was a car in the middle of the road that didn't let us pass. Only Michonne and I stayed in the car, I was feeling so sad I couldn't find the strength to get out and help them.

"I'm sorry," Michonne muttered, putting a hand on my shoulder. "This..."

"I don't want to talk about it," I snap at her, it wasn't my intention. It just came out like that.

"When you do, you know where to find me."

I could hear Sean, Maggie, but mostly Glenn and Rick shouting outside, I heard Daryl's name being said and I felt how more tears were threatening to fall down but I closed my eyes tightly and stopped them from falling.

Minutes later the four of them got inside the car again, none of them said a single word. I never looked back at them but I knew all of them were looking at me, I could feel their stares on me, specially Maggie's and Glenn's because they were right behind me.

When we finally got back to the prison, it was my mother who opened the gate. I had my head leant against the seat and at first, I didn't even try to get out of the car. Rick, who was the only one inside the car now, put his hand on top of mine, which was resting on my lap. I turned to look at him and saw how sad he was as well.

"I knew you wanted to go too, thanks for staying," Rick told me.

"I did it for Carl," I muttered.

"I know." He nodded. "Let's go."

I got out of the car and seconds later I was embraced by my mother, I was becoming so numb I didn't hug her back. I couldn't. She let go of me, but then cupped my face and kissed me on the forehead and that broke me again.

"It's okay," she whispered to me. "It's going to be okay."

I don't really remember how I got back inside the prison but I found myself lying on a bed and soon I started crying. I think I had never cried so much in my whole life and I didn't even know why I was so shattered, it wasn't like Daryl died, it wasn't like he betrayed me in some way, it wasn't like he chose him over me. He was his brother, I couldn't compete with that, I'm just a girl he saved, I'm just a 'camp-mate', nothing else. It didn't have to hurt so bad, not like this but it was killing me.

Teresa and Oliver came to me and sat on the bed next to me. Teresa rubbed my shoulder trying to make me feel better but I didn't even turn around to face them.

I wanted to turn around and meet everyone with a smile on my face, I wanted to joke and play something with Carl, I wanted to hug my mother and my friends, I wanted to tell them how happy I was to be back but I couldn't keep pretending I was okay, I did it for almost a year and I ran out of strength to pretend I was okay. I couldn't hide behind a smile or a tough shell anymore, I couldn't.

Eventually both Oliver and Teresa left with a sigh of disappointment and I was left alone for a few hours, the next person that came to see me was Michonne, but Rick was outside making sure she wasn't going to do anything stupid.

"I'm sorry," she muttered. I didn't say anything, I didn't even turn around to look at her, I just kept facing the wall. "I know you care about him."

Michonne then sat next to me on the bed and rubbed the top of my head, trying to comfort me. It was then when I finally looked at her.

"Why does it hurt so much, Mich?" I muttered. My voice was raspy from lack of use and from all the crying.

"Because you love him," she simply said, which made me jerk my head in her direction and just gape at her, I was going to tell her she was crazy when she started talking again. "I said you love him, not that you're in love with him, even when you are but you can't admit it or you can't see it yet, but you do love him, just like you love everyone else in here. You spend lots of time with the few people that are left and you get attached to them, want it or not. You are more attached to him than what you'd like to admit, that why it hurts so bad."

"I guess," I said with a slight shrug.

"Besides," she continued. "It's the second time you've lost him. You were hurt the first time and barely got over it, then you find him only to lose him a day or two later, you weren't prepared to lose him again."

"Since when did you become so... sentimental, saying things so deep like that?" I said with a small chuckle.

"I've got my moments." She shrugged. "And just so you know, I saw his expression when you were talking to him, he almost cried when you hugged him, he does care about you too."

"Was this what you felt when Andrea and I stayed in Woodbury?" I asked, trying to ignore what Michonne said because it would make it all harder to bear.

"Yeah, it was similar," she said nodding. "But it was worst because it wasn't just one of you that was leaving me, the two of you decided to stay, I felt like I lost everything. You have at least seven people here that care about you and won't abandon you but that day I lost everyone I cared about."

"I said I was going to join you later."

"But I wasn't sure if you were going to do that, I wasn't sure if you could find me again," she told me. "And who knows? Maybe you could get attached to that bastard and leave me for him."

"Merle?" I asked in disbelief. "I would never leave you for him, he's a good man, though. He just makes stupid decisions."

"He's not good, Cici," she told me. I was going to tell her what Merle did for me back in camp but I wasn't ready or wanted to tell her that now. "Anyway, it's good to see I got you to talk, those two said you wouldn't even look at them."

"Those are my best friends from before everything happened, it had been so long since I last saw them and we weren't in the best of terms so now it's a bit uncomfortable between us."

"Sorry to hear that, what happened?" I just shook my head at her. "Well, then tell me about the people that we rescued."

"The girl, Maggie. I only knew her for a couple of weeks, we weren't that close but I got really close to her sister, Beth, the blonde girl, we did or attempted to do something stupid and her father and Maggie kind of thought I was to blame and looked at me oddly after that and Glenn," I said taking a deep breath. "At the start of everything, Glenn and I were always going on runs for supplies and due to our time alone we got really, really close. It got to a point where I told him more things than to Oliver and Teresa, that's why I needed to save him. I couldn't lose him, not like that, not without having the chance to at least say hi again."

"Do you want me to take you to him?"

"No, not now. I'm not in the mood to see anyone right now."

Then Rick approached us and said it was time to take Michonne to a cell again, I asked him if it was possible to not lock her up but he just shook his head.

"I'll be fine," she whispered to me. "I'll be back and when I do, you better tell me about the rest of the group, alright?"

"Okay."

Michonne walked out of the cell where I was, and Rick took her away. I just turned around again and faced the wall again. I closed my eyes trying to sleep but minutes later I heard my mother talking to Beth, she mentioned Sophia, she mentioned me and she mentioned our father and they talked about Daryl and Merle, all of that made bad memories to resurface and without noticing I started crying again and this time not only for Daryl but because of all that had happened.

"I don't see why he had to leave, Merle sounds like a jerk," I could hear Beth saying.
"Men like Merle get into your head, make you feel like you deserve the abuse."
Several moments when I witnessed my mother being beaten came back into my mind, some were when I was only five, others when I was thirteen, they just got worse with time. Then I remembered other times when the target was not longer just her but me as well and eventually Sophia too. I remembered when I tried to stop him from hitting Sophia one time, he pushed me against a wall, started beating and kicking me, he pulled me up only to being slammed against the wall again. That was the worst time ever, I woke up in hospital a week later, my mother took me there, she lied, she said some men were trying to steal our things and they beat us up because we didn't want to give them our things. I had four broken ribs, broken neck, broken collarbone and shoulder... and a broken heart.

I never really believed I deserved that kind of abuse, I never believed neither of us did but I was too weak to step up, I was so defenceless I couldn't do anything. I was just a kid, I was confused and damaged, all I could think was to run away but that failed every time I tried.

"I'm hardly the woman I was a year ago, but if Ed walked through that door right now breathing and told me to go with him, I'd like to think I'd tell him to go to hell."
I almost scoffed at her, a part of me wanted to believe that was true, that my mother had finally toughened up but the other part of me knew she wouldn't do that and even it she had actually become strong, what was the use now, anyway? My father was long gone now, she should have toughened up years ago.

"Stop it," I said to myself.

All that had made me get all that rage and resentment towards my mother again and I didn't want that. I almost lost her forever, I didn't want to be mad at her again, I wanted to forgive her. So instead of keep listening I put the pillow over my head to not hear them anymore and make my rage stronger, shutting the whole world out.

I couldn't post last week so I might update twice this week.

What do you think of this chapter? What do you think will happen when Cecilia and Daryl meet again?

Speaking of Daryl, what do you think will happen in the Season Finale this Sunday/Monday?