Thank you for reading!

Being back with Merle wasn't the way Daryl had expected it to be. He'd remembered the two of them, the Dixons, on the move, working together, making things happen. But Merle was content to sit around, waiting for a squirrel to cross their path. A squirrel. Like that was going to be enough for both of them for the day.

If Rick was here, they'd have built a shelter by now, they'd have made a plan, scouted the area. They wouldn't have spent half the day wandering with nothing to show for it.

But whenever Daryl suggested anything more active, Merle accused him of trying to trick him into going to the prison.

And maybe so. Maybe Daryl missed the people who had become his family. Maybe he felt guilty leaving Carol behind without a word. Maybe he wasn't the people-hating loner he used to be. Then again, maybe Merle had grown soft, living the easy live over there in Mayberry, letting the Governor tell him what to do. He was convinced that the Governor had raided the prison by now and killed everyone there.

Daryl tried to tell himself it wasn't possible, that his people would fight … but without him, could they hold off an armed force? He didn't know. And he didn't want to think about it.

Either way, standing around here was getting them nothing and nowhere.

Moving through the woods, they started to argue about which river they were heading toward, neither willing to give the other an inch, both of them sure they were right.

This was the part about being a Dixon—particularly about being the youngest Dixon—that Daryl had conveniently forgotten about. The part where he was never right, always talked over and taken for granted. Rick hadn't done that. Carol surely hadn't. Even Hershel had started to come around and give Daryl some credit. And he had left them all for this jackass who thought he knew west from south and was getting them completely lost in the woods.

In the distance, he heard a baby crying, immediately thinking of lil asskicker. What if they'd had to run from the prison? What if they were out here in danger?

Daryl started making his way toward the sound, while Merle followed him insisting it was raccoons. Like Daryl didn't know a baby's cry when he heard it.

Coming out of the woods by the river, they saw a family trying to stand off a stream of walkers up on a bridge. Daryl hurried toward them, wanting to help, hearing the baby's cries above all the rest of the sounds, while Merle followed him, complaining with every step.

There were two men, both speaking Spanish, on top of a truck, while a woman held the crying baby in a car. Walkers were between the men and the car, and they were getting in the open hatch of the car. The woman didn't have long before they got to her.

Daryl dropped his bag and started taking out walkers. Once he'd cleared them a space, one of the men dropped down to help. Daryl took care of all the walkers near the car, closing the back hatch on the head of the one who'd been crawling in after the baby.

Merle got off exactly one shot—a clean headshot; the Dixons had always been good with guns—and that was when a walker nearly got behind Daryl. He didn't lift a finger otherwise.

At least, not until the area was cleared of walkers, at which point Merle opened up the car where the woman still held the baby, and started looting it, holding a gun on one of the men when he protested in Spanish.

"Let 'em go," Daryl told his brother. But Merle ignored him, climbing half into the car while he looked through the people's things. Pissed off at the whole situation—what were these people doing out here with a baby if they couldn't handle a few walkers?—Daryl poked Merle in the back with the crossbow. "Hey. Get out of the car."

Merle froze. "I know you're not talking to me, brother."

Looking at the two men, Daryl ordered them to get in their car and go. Before he was forced to do something he didn't want to do—either shoot his brother, or let him steal these people's stuff.

While he held Merle at bay, they did as he ordered, and the car pulled away, driving off the bridge.

Merle pushed the crossbow out of his face, and they stood there glaring at each other before Daryl stalked off the bridge, not looking back to see if his brother was following him.

"The shit you doing, pointing that thing at me?" Merle demanded.

"They were scared, man."

"They were rude, is what they were. Rude, and they owed us a token of gratitude."

Daryl growled. "They didn't owe us nothing."

"You helping people out of the goodness of your heart, even though you might die doing it?" Merle sounded genuinely bewildered. "Is that something your Sheriff Rick taught you?"

That was what it meant to be a Dixon. Always and only to look out for yourself and your kin, and let everyone else go hang. But Daryl wasn't like that anymore, and he didn't want to be.

The argument went all the way back to that rooftop in Atlanta, where Daryl had gone back to in order to save his brother, where Merle had cut off his hand in order to get away. But it went back even farther than that. In their scuffle, Merle tore the shirt off Daryl's back, and was reminded of just how far back their differences went—all the way to when they were kids, and Merle left in order to stop getting beaten up by their dad, and made Daryl the new whipping boy. Literally.

Daryl had had enough. He wasn't a Dixon anymore, not if that meant going back to the miserable selfish way of living Merle seemed to want to cling to. He gathered his things and stalked off.

"Where you going?" Merle called after him.

"Back where I belong." Back to his real family.

"I can't go with you."

He could. If he wanted to. He could come with Daryl and make himself useful, and then people would accept him, despite the things he'd done. But he wasn't willing to do that. "You know, I may be the one walking away—but you're the one that's leaving. Again."

And he left his brother standing there, without a backward glance.