Newly Revised
Sophia and Merle were standing watch while others went out to look for Sasha, who was looking for Bob, who had gone missing. They assumed the man was with Daryl, Ani, and Carol, along with the damn kittens she took everywhere anymore, as they had all gone missing too. Both the hunters were worried about the fact that the other two had disappeared but also knew that at least Daryl and Ani were together. Merle had told Sophia that they were probably just out in the woods making up for lost time and they'd be back soon enough, though that didn't stop either from worrying. It didn't make any sense for the two of them to just wander off alone and Merle, especially, didn't like the fact that they were missing. They'd disappeared without a trace and without anyone seeing them leave and that felt like a punch to the gut. Unless they had a flashlight, following their trail would be impossible and even if they did, they couldn't risk it. Merle wasn't about to risk Sophia when they didn't know where those assholes from Terminus were. Going out with a flashlight with that knowledge would be like leading a moth to a flame. She had already insisted on standing outside to wait for Ani to come back and that was why they were in front of the church, but he wasn't letting her go any further than that. Or, at least, he hadn't until Sasha, Tyreese, and Rick came back up to the church and the little girl went running to them.
"Did you find them?" Sophia asked quickly.
"No," Rick told her as they went back inside the church. "We didn't find anything at all."
"Stop," Sasha told the priest once they were inside, walking right up to him menacingly. "What are you doing?" she asked him as he looked around scared out of his wits. "This is all connected. You show up. We're being watched. And now four of us are gone."
He scoffed while looking around again and said, "I don't...I don't have anything to do with this!"
"Sasha, put the knife away," Tyreese chided right after Michonne told Sasha to stop when she pulled it out.
"Who's out there?" she pleaded with the man, ignoring everyone else in the room.
"I—I don't have anything to do with this," he repeated.
"Where are our people?" she asked, a threat in her voice and the way she leaned towards him.
"I don't have anything to d-"
"Where are our people?!" Sasha screamed at him, cutting off his repeated blabbering.
"Please, I don't have anything to do with this," Gabriel insisted. "I-"
He trailed off as Rick pulled Sasha away from him, a cold look in his eye as he quietly asked, "Why did you bring us here?"
"Please, I—I," he stuttered.
"Are you workin' with someone?" Rick asked.
"I'm alone." He insisted, "I'm alone. I was always alone."
"What about that woman at the food bank, Gabriel?" Rick asked. "What did you do to her? 'You'll burn for this'? That was for you. Why? What are you gonna burn for, Gabriel?" Rick asked him as he grabbed him by his coat. "What?! What did you do? What did you do?!" he yelled at him.
"I locked the doors at night," Gabriel said before repeating, "I always locked the doors at night. I always locked the doors at night. I always..." He started breaking down, taking a deep breath and looking past Rick as if he was seeing what was happening all over again. "They started coming, my congregation. Atlanta was bombed the night before and they were scared. They were—they were looking for a safe place, a place where they felt safe. And it was so early. It was so early," he repeated as if he was pleading for understanding. "And the doors were still locked," he said before breaking down as he said the next part. "You see, it was my choice. There were so many of them and they were trying to pry the shutters and banging on the sidings, screaming at me. And so the dead came for them. Women...children. Entire families calling my name as they were torn apart. Begging me for mercy," he sobbed. "Begging me for mercy. Damning me to hell. I buried their bones. I buried it all. The Lord sent you here to finally punish me," he said, falling to the ground. "I'm damned. I was damned before. I always lock the doors. I always lock the doors," he reasoned as he sobbed as a whistle sounded from outside.
Glenn and Maggie both went to the windows and looked out, Glenn telling them, "There's something...There's someone lying in the grass."
Even as the others opposed, Sasha had the door open and was running down the steps before she screamed at the sight of Bob. He was barely conscious and his leg had been cut off and bandaged as a sign that he had been left as a message. Walkers were drawn to Sasha's screaming and started pouring in around the church, spurring Rick, Glenn, and Merle to start defending the distraught woman as Maggie and Tara helped her carrying Bob into the building. It wasn't an easy task with how loud Sasha had been in her grief and how dark it was as the dead poured in around them. They were being swarmed by the walkers and trying to make their way back into the church themselves when a gunshot sounded from nowhere and the walker behind Rick fell. Merle looked out into the woods, realizing there was no way they could tell where the shot had come from or who fired it as Rick started shooting aimlessly into the woods.
"Stop that, Friendly!" Merle shouted. "Wastin' bullets we ain't got and could hit the others if they're out there! Get into the church!"
He pushed Rick and Glenn towards the door with his stump and made sure they were in the church before dropping his knife and slamming the door shut. He made sure to barricade it with one of the pews using Sophia and Carl's help to push it in to place. The others fretted over Bob as he began to wake up while Merle and Sophia took up positions at the windows to keep watch. They didn't know if the others had been captured by Terminus or not, but Bob had definitely been on the receiving end of their grotesquery. Sophia was clearly stressed out about the entire situation as she kept an arrow on lock while her brow was furrowed and her eyes never left the window. Merle had to admit he was worried about the girl almost as much as he was his baby brother and sister. She had been through so much; lost her dad, got lost in the woods, almost died from saving others, had been tossed aside by her mother, lost her home, gotten shot, and now the woman she'd come to rely on as family was missing. Worse than that, she was missing when the girl needed her the most with how her mother had been acting added to the fact that Carol was also missing. He was all the girl had and while he tried to behave himself around her, the stress of not knowing where Ani and Daryl were was taxing his patience. Merle tried to remind himself to stay calm for Sophia as the others tended to Bob and he told them what he could remember of what happened.
"I was in the graveyard. Somebody knocked me out. I woke up outside this place," Bob said as he tried to sit up, Tara doing her best to help him . "It looked like a school. It was that guy, Gareth. And five other ones. They said the rest of them were dead thanks to us." He began to breath heavy as he spoke, "They were eatin' my leg right in front of me. Like it was nothin'. All proud like they had it all figured out."
"Did they have Daryl and Ani?" Merle asked, noticing Sophia's look and adding, "Or Carol?"
"Gareth said they drove off," he told them before he started moaning.
"He's in pain," Sasha told Rosita. "Do we have anything?"
"I think there are pill packets in the first aid kit," the woman said, going to get up to get them.
"Save them!" Bob told her.
"No!" Sasha protested.
"Really," Bob assured her, crying as he showed her the bite on his shoulder. "It happened at the food bank."
Sasha forced a smile as she told him it was fine, but in reality, she was dying inside as the entire room went quiet. Less than a week, she'd gotten less than a week with him, barely any time at all, and he was being taken away. The attraction had been instant, she had to admit, but trusting him and opening her heart to him had been difficult with everything that she'd been through. And now that she finally had, was finally happy, Sasha's world was being ripped in two. She couldn't help the sob that escaped her lips as he groaned in pain while laying back down. Everything that she had been through, all the pain and heartache of losing not one, but two different camps, and she had finally found Bob and now she has to say goodbye. This had honestly been the first time she had let herself open up and try to find happiness and this was the reason why. Sasha just knew that happiness was short lived in this world; Glenn and Maggie as well as Ani and Daryl had gotten lucky.
"There's a sofa in my office," Gabriel offered as he watched them all. "I know it's not much, but..."
"Thank you," Sasha told him after a moment's silence.
"I got him," Tyreese said while standing up and going over to Bob.
"I'll help ya," Merle told him, clapping his shoulder and taking position on one side.
"Do you know the place Bob was talking about?" Rick asked Gabriel as the others moved Bob into the office.
"It's an elementary school," the father said while nodding his head. "It's close."
"How close?" When Gabriel didn't answer, Rick reiterated, "How close, Gabriel?"
Gabriel relented after a moment, informing them, "It's just a ten minute walk through the woods from here, due south of the graveyard."
Carl and Sophia took Judith with them to a corner of the room that was a little darker so she could get some sleep as the adults talked about their plan. All the talking had kept the baby awake and she was getting fussy, leading Carl to rocking her while Sophia quietly hummed. Sophia hummed one of the songs she'd heard Ani singing to herself when she walked around the prison or was on guard duty alone in the tower. She had been waiting for Daryl to get done with whatever he'd been doing at the time and walking the fences singing when she'd turned around and screeched because Sophia had been standing behind her. It made the girl smile proudly at the memory as she hummed the song and Carl complimented her voice. She quietly told him about the story of how she trained herself to be so quiet that she'd snuck up on Ani to learn the song. Judith was slowly starting to fall asleep when Maggie came out of the small office, Sasha staying by Bob's side while Tyreese and Tara watched on.
"Does he have the fever?" Rick asked.
"He's just warm," she said. "I wish Ani was here. I don't know the right herbs to help him."
"Jim lasted almost two days before we left him," Glenn recalled. "Don't know why we didn't help him with herbs back then. Might've lasted longer."
"Ani didn't think about it until later. Told me hindsight is 20/20 and she was too in her head from everything that had happened at the camp to think about helpin' Jim like she should've," Sophia informed them as she walked over to her bag. "It's something she said she regrets. These will help with the pain, and this will reduce the fever a bit. It won't do much, though."
"Thank you. It's a good thing she taught you this stuff," Maggie told her before going back in the other room.
"Started as a way to keep me away from my daddy," she informed them before her face fell and her shoulders drooped, both Ani and her mother gone without a trace. "Ani's always protected me."
"She'll be back 'fore ya know it, girly. Don't you worry 'bout that," Merle told her from his spot at the window.
Abraham sat listening to the others talking about their past and realized that some of these people had been together from the very beginning. It was almost like him and Eugene; it'd only been a couple months in when he lost his family and the man showed up. He had spent the entire time since protecting the man and getting him from Dallas all the way to Atlanta with minimal incident, though they had lost several people along the way. It was obvious to him that these people had suffered as much as they had, if not more, which was why they were so tight knit. It also explained why Glenn and Daryl had been so adamant about finding Maggie and Tiny. Although, if he was being fair, up until he found this group, he had honestly thought Rosita was the only woman he'd ever find. He wouldn't jeopardize his mission or put it on hold just to find her if she went missing, though, and that was the difference between him and the rest, even Tiny. The mission would always be more important than some piece of tail that may or may not be dead. He could understand the need to find Tiny more than anything else considering her strategic intelligence and apparent knowledge of natural medicine, though even with that thrown in, he wouldn't stop.
"Time for a reality check," he told them all as he stood up. "We all need to leave for DC. Right now."
"Daryl, Ani, and Carol are gonna be back," Rick said sternly even as Rosita grabbed her bag and started toward the door. "We're not goin' anywhere without them."
"I respect that, but there's a clear threat here to Eugene," Abraham countered. "A threat made even bigger by the absence of your fighters. I need to extract his ass before things get any uglier. So if y'all won't come, good luck to you. We'll go our separate ways."
"You leavin' on foot?" Rick asked.
That made Abraham stop and turn angrily back at Rick, rounding his shoulders as he bellowed, "We fixed that damn bus ourselves!"
"There are a lot more of us," Rick threatened quietly as he walked up to the tall man.
"You wanna keep it that way?" Abraham asked him, not at all threatened by this man. "You should come."
"Ani saved your life. Carol saved your life. We saved your life."
"Well, I am trying to save yours! Save everyone's!" Abraham yelled, cutting off whatever Rick was going to say though he knew he was trying to leave the group he owed by right.
"We're not goin' anywhere without our people," Rick repeated calmly.
"Your people took off!"
"They're coming back."
"To what?! Picked over bones?!" Abraham roared, his anger getting the best of him so he didn't notice as Merle crept behind him.
"You're not taking-" Rick started, going to grab Abraham's arm.
"Do not lay hands!" the man yelled menacingly, going to get up in Rick's face only for an almost equally tall man to reach out from behind him and place him in a standing rear naked choke hold.
"Now, Ani taught me all kinds of moves back at the prison when all we had was time," Merle whispered threateningly in the man's ear, even as he tried to break the hold. "So you're gonna listen, and you're gonna listen good else I'm gonna put ya to sleep 'stead of just holdin' ya. Now, my baby sister and brother are out there. They'll be back. And you're gonna wait the night for 'em to get here. They ain't back by noon, well, they know our headin'. They'll come after us. Me and the girl will go with ya, soldier to soldier, man to man. She's a damn good hunter and knows some about herbs and how to use 'em, so she'll pull her weight. You understand?"
"Do you really think that you're gonna be any safer leaving right now in the middle of the night?" Glenn tried to reason with the now still redhead as Merle had applied more pressure to stop his struggling.
"Yeah," Abraham breathed heavily as he fell to his knees, Merle still on his back, but easing up a little now that the man was subdued.
"We need each other for this," Glenn said as he knelt down to look Abraham in the eyes. "We need each other to get to DC! We can get through all of it together!"
"I'll go with you, too," Tara said, walking over to Abraham who was finally released from Merle's hold bent on one knee with one hand on the floor. "If you just stay one more day, I'll come too. Okay?"
"Glenn and Maggie, too," he managed to get out through his heavy breathes.
"No," Rick said.
"Good luck, then. I'm not interested in breaking up what you have here. Rosita, grab your gear."
"Abraham," she tried, not really wanting to leave in the middle of the night.
"Now! Eugene, let's go," he said, hollering the man's name when he refused to move. "Move it."
"I don't want to," Eugene said, wanting to tell everyone the truth so that they wouldn't leave, but scared of the consequences; as Ani had said, Abraham was going to be one righteous fire of fury once he did.
"Now," Abraham growled, instantly making Eugene give in and get up.
"You aren't taking the short bus," Rick said as the three began heading towards the door.
"Try to stop me," Abraham threatened.
"You really wanna go through that all again, son?" Merle asked the man as he stood in front of the door.
"You had the drop on me last time, you one-hand asshole," Abraham said while stomping towards the older man, who simply rounded his shoulders and prepared for a fight.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Glenn yelled as he got in between the two, giving Merle and Rick both meaningful looks before turning to Abraham. "You stay. You stay and help us, and we will go with you," he said, pointing to Maggie and himself.
"No," Rick said.
"That is not your call! Just like Merle going!" Glenn told him. "You stay, help us."
"Half a day. Come high noon, we're taillights," the man said, nostrils flaring as he tried to keep himself calm. "I'm not waitin' for the other damn shoe to drop. Even if it means bringing Tiny along."
"We will leave with you," Maggie enforced.
"Twelve hours. Then we go."
Abraham went to sit back down only to be blocked by Merle who warned, "You know, Ani, she would've kicked your ass too. She won't put up with this bullshit you've got goin' on."
"And what bullshit is that?" Abraham huffed angrily.
"Not dealin' with your bullshit, that's what. Whatever it is that makes you fly off the handle like that. She's gonna make you tell her, and then she's gonna bug ya 'bout it 'til the cows come home. So you might as well start practicin' restraint now," Merle said with a shrug before smacking him on the shoulder. "You ever need a sparrin' partner, you let me know. A good fight is always helpful to get the stress out, and we soldiers love a good fight."
Abraham just watched Merle's back with a quizzical expression, wondering just who the man thought he was to just come over and give him advice like that. He could tell the man was a soldier by the way he carried himself and the fact that he kept himself well kept. Merle had also managed to make it to where he couldn't fight back, the man's arms locked perfectly to choke him. He'd have thought the man had been a marine from that, only to be told otherwise. If Tiny did make it back and they all took off together and she'd trained Merle to do that, he could only guess what she was fully capable of. He knew she was a fighter, there was no denying that, or that she was damn good with a gun. On top of that, she was a trained psychologist, according to the others and even Eugene himself, one that knew how people think and could plan ahead. It wasn't just that she could read people in general, but that she could read situations and manage risk assessment quicker than a tornado could flip a house. Honestly, he'd rather wait until she got back, but it simply wasn't a risk he was willing to take with the fate of the world on the line.
"We know where they are," Rick said. "We know how many there are. We know where they are goin' and what they're plannin' on doin'. All we gotta do is make them think we're fallin' for their trap."
"And how do you suggest we do that?" Rosita asked. "We don't have a lot of guns, we have next to no bullets. Eugene can't fight and we have a baby to worry about, plus two kids. How exactly do you plan to pull this off?"
"Sleight a hand, missy," Merle answered.
"He's right," Rick agreed. "We take the weapons, leave the kids, Eugene, Tyreese, and Gabriel here with Bob. The rest of us, we make them think we're headin' towards the school."
"We take the better part of the weapons, make 'em think we left this place defenseless," Merle continued.
"We head into the woods, use the dark to our advantage. Walk a little ways down the road then cut through the woods."
"Wait for 'em to make their move and creep back around. Keep it dark in the church and use it as cover for a surprise attack."
"They won't stand a chance," Michonne added.
"They think they're in control," he told them. "We're in here and they could be anywhere. But we know exactly where they are."
"Plan's got stones, I'll give you that," Abraham told them.
"Make our move before they do," Glenn summarized.
"That's right," Rick agreed. "They're not counting on us thinking straight."
"Are we?" Rosita piped up, thinking this was the stupidest move they could make when they could wait the night in the church. "I'm just making sure. It's a big play."
"Remember what these people are capable of," Rick told her.
"Your Ani seems capable of worse," she chided.
"No," Abraham denied, surprising everyone. "Might be cookier than a cockatoo, but I don't see her goin' cuckoo for human crispies. Girl's carryin' around damn murder kittens, for Pete's sake."
"Didn't realize you were such a big fan," Rosita said with a raise of her eyebrows before looking down and crossing her arms. "Are we doing this or not?"
"Tyreese?" Rick asked, turning to the big man.
"Yeah?"
"You up for this?"
Sasha came out of the office then and readied her rifle, "I'm going with you."
"You should stay with Bob," Tyreese commented.
"No," she said. "I wanna be out there. I wanna be a part of this."
She walked back into the office, Tyreese following along behind her to try to talk her out of leaving Bob and reminding her how he was after Karen. They all listened to the quiet conversation and the promise Sasha managed to pry out of her brother. There was nothing he could say, nothing he could do, that would change her mind. She had to be a part of this assault and had to be a part of ending the people from Terminus who had harmed him. Even if he had been bitten, even if it would have been over no matter what she did, at least he could have gone peacefully. He could have passed on without the pain of having his leg cut off, the trauma of watching people eating it in front of him. They could have spent the last bit of time just holding each other but instead he wasn't even conscious. Even if she knew it was revenge, Sasha was boiling with a rage that she didn't want to put out, one that she wouldn't.
As she walked out of the office, she looked at Rick and nodded her head, all of them readying themselves to leave. Rick and Merle both talked to Carl and Sophia separately and gave them their own tasks while they were gone. Rick, Sasha, Michonne, Glenn, Maggie, Merle, and Abraham left the church and made it seem like they were heading out and into the woods towards the school. Tyreese sat beside Bob in the office holding Judith as they waited for the others to make their move. Eugene and Rosita sat on the back wall with Sophia and Carl standing watch on opposite ends of the room. Carl stood with his face to the door while Sophia stood with hers to the window. They stood back to back while Gabriel simply sat looking worried on the floor by his desk. It couldn't have been more than five minutes after the others left that the church door was broken open. Carl pulled his gun and aimed it at the door, Sophia swinging around to stand side by side with him as she raised her bow.
"Well, I guess you know we're here," Gareth's voice called out. "And we know you're here. And we're armed. So there's really no point in hiding anymore."
"It's gonna be okay," Carl whispered to Sophia.
"I know," was his reply.
Both her and Carl were calmly looking at the door while Rosita nervously crouched beside it with her gun out. Eugene and Gabriel looked like they were about to shit their pants as they heard the people walk around the small chapel slowly. Tyreese did his best to keep Judith calm while putting her down in a little basket the priest had and getting in front of her defensively. He had been protecting the baby since they had been forced out of the prison and he wasn't about to stop now. Carl and Sophia were taking slow and steady breaths to help themselves keep calm, a tactic Ani had suggested and Merle had forced them to practice. Merle had been adamant that when it came down to a fight, those who kept level heads were those who would win, which was the line he'd used on her to get her to stay behind. Sophia knew she wasn't in the best mindset at the moment as both her mom and Ani were missing and it had her scared. What if those people had them and she never got to see them again? What if she was alone again with only Merle to make sure she was safe? It wasn't as if her Pops couldn't do it by himself, but Ani had been there for her from the start and her mom was her mom. She still loved her and wanted her mom around even if they were having issues and her mom had said something hurtful. Besides, they needed someone to make sure Judith stayed safe when Tyreese wasn't comfortable with hurting the living and Rosita seemed scared to. Carl and Sophia both had already taken the lives of other people as they had needed to; they weren't scared of doing it again.
"We've been watching you," Gareth's voice rang out once more. "We know who's here. There's Bob, unless you've put him out of his misery already. And Eugene. Rosita. Martin's good friend Tyreese. Carl. Sophia...Judith," he finally said. "Rick and the rest walked out. With a lot of your guns. Listen, we don't know where you all are, but this isn't a big place. So let's just stop this now before things get more painful than they need to be. Look, you're behind one of these two doors and we have more than enough firepower to take down both. Can't imagine that's what y'all want," he said as the cocking of guns echoed throughout the chapel. "How about the priest? Father, you help us wrap this up, we'll let you walk away from this. Just open the door and you can take the baby with you. What do you say?" he asked as Judith began to wail and Gabriel began to pray, Carl running to his sister to calm her down. "I don't know. Maybe we'll keep the kid. I'm starting to like this girl.
"It's your last chance right now to tell us you're coming out," Gareth said after a few minute's pause.
"Are we done?" one of the others asked him.
"We'll hit the hinges," Gareth told the man next to him, not noticing Merle and the others creeping back in behind them.
Two of the group from Terminus took positions in front of the door, ready to fire, when both fell to the floor after pings rang throughout the walls of the church. Gareth could just barely make out Rick's outline from where he stood, gun raised and seemingly alone. He couldn't see Merle, who had taken one of the shots from the door, hiding in shadows with his own silenced rifle raised. His little girl was in that office and he'd be damned if he was going to wait for some signal when the rest of their group were already in position. Those from Terminus were rather unperturbed by Rick's presence as he held his gun on them, ignorant of the threat that they were truly under. Abraham and Sasha were on either side of the room and there were only four of the assholes left. Honestly, they could have just killed them all without wasting a second, but that wasn't the way Sasha nor Rick wanted to go about it. While Rick simply wanted to end the cannibals once and for all; Sasha wanted revenge for Bob. None of those from Terminus lowered their guns, but they all lowered their guard down even as Rick demanded they put their guns on the floor.
"Rick, we'll fire right into that office, so lower your gun-" Gareth threatened while pointing to the door only for Merle to shoot several of his fingers off and dropping the man to the floor in shock and pain.
"Put your guns on the floor and kneel," Rick said as he moved closer.
"Martin, there's no choice here," Gareth commanded the man standing next to him in the baseball cap after the others refused.
"Yeah there is," Martin tried to defend, only for the Abraham to surprise him.
"Wanna bet?" he asked as came out of the dark from beside the men, the others also making themselves known with Merle coming to stand next to Rick, all of them carrying weapons.
As Sasha, Michonne, Abraham, and Rick walked up to the four remaining member of Terminus, Merle made his way over to the office door. The one thing this entire fiasco promised was the overwhelming shedding of blood by those that called dibs on the actual killing. Merle had done a lot of things in his day and killed a lot of men, but that didn't mean he'd done so brutally. He could see it in the eyes of Sasha and Rick particularly that they were going to leave an overly grotesque scene. The last thing he wanted was for the children to be subjected to such a sight when they had already seen Rick gut a man. They didn't need any more nightmares than they already had even if they were growing up in a time of kill or be ripped apart or used. When he had become a man who gave a shit about kids to the point that he started watching what he said and how he acted? Either way, he'd promised the girl he'd be there to protect her and he wasn't about to break that promise anytime soon.
"Stay inside for a few more while we finish up out here, got it?" he told the kids after knocking on the office door
"Got it!" Carl and Sophia replied at the same time.
Gareth didn't even bother to cry or weep even though he knew his life was ending as he sarcastically asked, "No point in begging, right?"
"No," Rick said.
"Still," Gareth said. "You could've killed us right when you came in and you didn't. There had to be a reason for that."
"We didn't want to waste the bullets," Rick told him flatly with a slight shrug of his shoulders.
"We used to help people," Gareth sincerely informed him. "We saved people. Things changed. They came in-" he groaned and scoffed. "After that...I know that you've been out there, but I can see it. You don't know what it is to be hungry."
"You're right," Rick agreed. "We had people who know what they were doin'. People who would've been able to help you."
"You don't have to do this. We can walk away," Gareth reasoned, hoping that the agreement from Rick along with the thought of someone willing to help them from their group would give them some leeway. "And we will never cross paths again. I promise you."
"But you'll cross someone's path," Rick countered. "You'd do this to anyone, right? Besides, I already made you a promise."
It was a damn blood bath was all Merle could describe it as when Rick began landing blow after blow to Gareth's head with the red-handled hatchet from the bag. Sasha took her knife and started stabbing Martin over and over again while Michonne bashed in the woman's head with the butt of her rifle. Abraham took pleasure in using his rifle to beat the other man to death, spraying himself in blood as they all finished their grizzly task. Merle heard the office door open and whipped around to chastise the kids, only to see Tyreese standing there looking horrified at the aftermath of their group's attack. Merle couldn't help but feel sorry for the man as he walked back into the office defeated; he was not made for the world of the damned. Even when he was enraged, he was too soft to kill a human and he wasn't overly fond of killing walkers unless he was in immediate danger. For as big as the man was, he had a the tender heart of an innocent fawn and would likely never be able to give into violence without anger. Merle shook his head and looked back over to Rick and the others as they stared at their handiwork and the preacher came out of his office with a horrified look on his face.
"It could have been us," Rick reasoned.
"Yeah, Friendly, it could've," Merle said before walking into the office himself to check on the kids.
"But this is the Lord's house," Gabriel cried.
"No," Maggie said, realizing now what Ani had meant the one time Maggie had tried talking religion with her so long ago. "It's just four walls and a roof."
