It is a strange feeling to be willingly escorted into a prison.
Merle has an inexplicable urge to let Rick rough him up a bit. Give the onlookers a show.
Old habits and all that.
He quips that maybe Friendly and Shane could do the good cop bad cop routine on him, and the deafening silence he gets for that, accompanied by what could only be described as a chillingly hostile eye-f*ck from Rick, makes it clear that that particular half of the King County duo is most definitely out of commission.
His caustic sense of humour would also have him ask where the rest of the welcoming committee got to, but that would be pushing his luck. Everybody knows what the absence of familiar faces means these days. Indeed, the prison group makes for a sorry sight - even more so after Woodbury, and that might be a fantasy world – a group of sheep lead by a wolf, but if this is reality, Merle can understand why you might prefer to lie to yourself.
It is hard to find comfort in these walls. Merle swallows hard as he's shown through the cell block, not because of his long and complicated relationship with places of incarceration, but because of whom prison cells now remind him of. He's never looked at it like this before. When it was just about him, he could push those feelings of dread aside, file them away in some compartment of his mind, bury them under layers of bravado and bad attitude, but it isn't just about him anymore and he hates it – every single inch of it – this ugliness... this gloom... it closes in on him... makes him want to tear everything apart...
How does she stand it?
He thinks back to the time when they were still warily circling each other. When she could barely look at him. He remembers saying something to her, can hardly recall what it was now - was just running his mouth as he always did, and at some point it dawned on him that she was actually listening… taking notice...
And that did something to him...
He can't describe what, but the idea that he had given her something, even if it was just some miniscule amount of attention...
He was hard on himself for it later. Put himself down with the usual accusation of going soft, because according to the gospel of Merle Dixon there was no worse sin than that, but now, as he takes his place in a cell not entirely dissimilar to hers, he feels close to her. Understands what it was he'd been trying to do and why.
How he wishes he could have spent more time with her. It pains him to think that he knows practically nothing about her. But what could he have done? Those who had known her had given him nothing. Not even her real name. Had given up on her as soon as she'd outlasted her 'usefulness'.
It was no doubt easier that way. Why trouble yourself with something so inconvenient as guilt when you can pretend she's just another test subject or ignore her entirely?
And the erasure of all she had once been would be complete... were it not for one thing...
The photo.
Merle pulls it out of his pocket and sighs. He's looked at it what feels like a million times and yet it never fails to enchant him. She has a quiet loveliness about her that brings tears to his eyes. In former days, he'd likely have written her off as a wallflower or a plain jane, but only because secretly he knew she was too good for him.
He often wonders what she'd been thinking in that moment, what had she been doing? Where had it been taken and by whom? What had that person been to her?
Merle has asked himself a time or two if it had been the Governor who took the photo but can never bring himself to believe it, because for someone so lovely to gift the Governor a smile like that goes against the laws of all that is right and good…
As to how it came to be where it was, he assumes Milton found it whilst collecting her possessions after she died. Kept it as one last relic...
Sadly, it hadn't been enough for him to do right by her.
Then again, Merle can hardly have claimed to have done much better on that front... has probably made things worse...
It makes him ache. Want to get her out of there. Need to get her out of there. It's a restless ache that would have him do something stupid like march on down to Woodbury and take on every man dumb enough to stand in his way.
Fortunately, he's interrupted by his brother before he loses himself in that particular reverie. Unfortunately, if the look on Daryl's face is anything to go by, this isn't going to be the sort of warm brotherly chat one might hope for now that they finally have a moment's peace. So Merle sticks to bad jokes, knowing what kind of discussion they are likely to have. He is aware that his brother will see through anything less than the truth, and genuinely wants to level with him, but how exactly is he going to do that? How does one explain such a thing?
Err... yeah... so I've been hangin' out with this dead girl lately...
He runs a shaky hand over his face because there is no way to broach the subject without it sounding like some kind of sick joke.
This leaves him with no choice but to deflect.
It's a good thing then, that he has a subject at hand that cannot fail to attract interest.
"I guess y'all wanna know 'bout the Governor, huh?"
Merle's intel is not well received by the prison population.
Nobody likes to hear they're outnumbered and outgunned. Particularly when that information comes from the enemy.
Merle briefly considers correcting them on that point because in light of recent events it isn't entirely accurate, but thinks better of it, because it isn't entirely inaccurate either.
These aren't his people.
The thing is, those aren't his people either.
In fact, all he can currently say with any certainty is that 'his people' consists of Daryl and himself. That's it.
But of course it isn't…
and therein lies the rub.
You see, the rational part of him is telling him to get the hell out of dodge. Yes, the prison offers security in a dangerous world and under normal circumstances, one would have to be a madman to pass that up, but these are not normal circumstances. The Governor is coming. He might suggest a meeting, maybe even offer a deal, but he would rather watch the prison burn than let them have it. That is why they cannot stay.
The problem is, he doesn't listen to the rational part of him anymore. Couldn't if he tried. Because the part of him that abandoned rationality a long time ago is screaming at him. Drowning out any calm decision he might make. Turning his stomach at the very thought of moving on.
You cannot leave her.
A terrible image is etched into his mind and if the difference between what she was and what she is wasn't terrible enough, then the image of what she will be…
Tears spring to his eyes at the thought of her so broken, rotten and alone.
He's up and pacing - twitchy as a dope fiend, and Daryl is asking him what his deal is, and jesus christ, how much he wishes he could tell him.
"You reckon biters have a soul?"
Silence.
An agonizing, seemingly never-ending silence that practically derails the conversation before it has begun.
Daryl's expression serves only to emphasize this. Indeed, he could not have looked more stunned if Merle had announced he wished to be called 'Sparkles' from now on. It would probably be easier if that was what he was trying to tell him.
"What...?"
Oh boy...
"What the hell are you talkin' about?"
"You know, some trace of who they were before?"
"What…?"
Daryl looks as if he's in pain trying to get his head round the nature of this conversation. Merle isn't sure if it's because it has come so far out of the left field as to be absurd or because it's coming from him – a man not known for philosophizing on this, or indeed any such subject.
Prob'ly both.
"What are you sayin' to me? You think they're still alive?"
He's angry now. Good and offended. A veritable stormcloud of suspicion. Merle can sympathise, he really can, and is therefore unsurprised to hear Daryl shoot down the very notion. "Believe me, they ain't."
A yearning for a time when this was how he had seen things overcomes Merle, making him wistful. How much simpler it had been back then, in those days before he caught a glimpse of a world where life and death are locked in some kind of strange and terrifying embrace.
"What if some of 'em were?"
Oho. He's done it now. The hackles are well and truly up. The eyes narrow into slits, the nostrils flare, the brow scrunches into an angry jag.
Merle tries to diffuse. "I seen somethin'... at Woodbury..."
"Yeah? Well guess what? I seen somethin' too!"
Daryl is yelling. Pacing. Getting up in Merle's face with that formidable Dixon temper they both know so well.
So much for diffusing.
"I seen a wacko at the CDC blow up the whole buildin' an' nearly take all o' us with him!" Daryl gesticulates wildly with his arms, a demonstration of the explosion mixed in with his own anger and Merle is stunned, because this is the first he's heard of any of this.
"An' you know why? Cuz those things ain't human! He showed us! Their brains are toast! You get me? There ain't nothin' left in there!" He taps the side of his head with an irate intensity, "An' that guy was a scientist! Opted out because there ain't no point! Cuz you can't do nothin' with them 'cept kill 'em and can't do nothin' with us 'cept flick the switch."
Merle is uncustomarily dumbfounded, not only by the details, but by Daryl's fierce delivery. He's quick to rally, however.
"It ain't right... your man... he don't know the whole story..."
"An' you do, do you? You know more than the CDC, is that what you're sayin'?"
Daryl doesn't wait for an answer. With a shake of the head, an incredulous look and a muttered comment about how it must be "good shit they're smoking at Woodbury", he leaves his brother to return to the group.
Merle scowls and sits upon his cot. That went about as well as he could hope for really.
The thing about places is that they transport you to other places.
The prison transports him to her cell.
Especially as night falls, because her realm was eternal night – bathed in unnatural light – garish and cold, just like all that surrounds him here.
As exhaustion overcomes him and his eyes fall shut, his mind becomes confused as to where he is. Has him thinking that he is back there. With her.
Has him thinking he needs to get up. Go to her. Hold her. Comfort her.
But he cannot.
Because there is someone else there too.
Blocking the way.
A shadow hanging over her...
Her distress is a siren.
Merle feels it as keenly as his own.
Every hair stands on end.
Every muscle contracts.
Every molecule of air is sucked out of the room.
He is afraid.
Tumbling headlong into panic.
Cannot speak.
Cannot breathe.
Cannot move.
Can only watch.
Light hits the shard of glass, illuminating the chilling face...
Then...
the light goes out...
… and the shadow engulfs her.
.
Merle wakes up screaming.
As the prison community begins to accept the information Merle has given them, the pitch of hostility towards him lessens somewhat.
His unwillingness to sugarcoat the truth might make him an unpleasant character, but no one can deny that this is the bitter medicine they need in the fight against the Governor.
It is also the only thing that appears to redeem him in the eyes of his brother, who, much to Merle's chagrin, has at some point decided to start handling him like a raw egg.
Not that the group would notice, no indeed, he openly defends him to all detractors and Merle's heart swells because of it, but at the same time, he also seeks to put distance between them, leaving Merle at a loose end for most of the day and all the twitchier for it. Then there's the fact that for want of a better description, Daryl looks at him funny. Like he's some sort of puzzle he neither understands, nor knows how to unravel.
It is driving Merle mad.
An interesting development to be sure. Strange and new. Not the fact that Daryl thinks he's losing it, no, Merle's done enough crazy shit over the years to succeed on that front with alarming regularity, but the fact that it is bothering him.
An unusual inconvenience. One that comes with not having access to drugs - his usual method for abandoning all cares.
Cain't take the edge off no more... nor dope the hamster up...
... and the wheel is turning so fast he can hardly stand it.
As Hershel arrives, he's sweating like he's fresh off smack and spitting out curses aplenty. He warily sizes him up, wondering what degree of disappointment and disapproval to expect.
As it turns out, he ends up being pleasantly surprised.
The old-timer is merciful in his choice of sermons and seems to have nothing against shooting the breeze with 'the black sheep' a while.
Merle's genuinely glad he does, because this man, (resemblance to Santa aside), was clearly the voice of reason at the prison, and would likely be the one to stop Rick from doing anything stupid.
He's not so upbeat however, as to forgo the opportunity to remind him what they are up against, and that might sober the tone, but if there is one thing they sorely need to grasp, it's that the Governor will show no mercy. They've disturbed the nest. For that alone, he'll want blood.
Hershel thanks him for his time, clearly perturbed by what he has to say, and where Merle would happily return to his sweating and cursing, one thing the old man said takes root in his mind and try as he might, he cannot pull it up and toss it aside.
It was what he said about having more time. How his amputation had given him more time with those he loved – and the idea - that gratitude, he knows it so well and yet as he looks at his brother now... sees the distance between them... he feels such sorrow at the circumstances that have put them so at odds with one another.
He wants to go to him. To make things right... but... no combination of words seems up to the task... any attempt to explain will only push him further away...
He makes the decision is silence.
Steels himself for what he has to do.
Maybe the time he's been given wasn't all for nothing. Maybe he can do one last thing to change the way things go.