Carolina in my mind
Chapter 4
Andrea was sick when she was brought into Woodbury. Carolina knew that. But her knowledge of the event didn't prepare her for how truly horrible the woman looked. Another day or two out in the woods in her present condition and she would have been one of the dead. And since the helicopter pilot was in worse shape, Carolina was left to deal with Andrea alone while Dr. Stevens tried to keep the pilot alive. At least long enough for the governor to question him.
It took Carolina three tries before she was able to sink an IV line into Andrea's dehydrated veins. The way Michonne was hovering over her wasn't helping. But she still managed it, immediately starting the fluids and antibiotics. Once that was done, she turned the tap as cold as it would go and filled a small metal bowl with cold water, tossing a clean rag into it and shoving it at Michonne. If the woman was going to insist on hovering over her friend, Carolina figured she might as well help.
"See if you can wake her up enough to get some tylenol in her," Carolina instructed. Michonne didn't verbally agree. But she did turn and begin to wipe her friend down with the cold cloth. Andrea didn't come to completely, but Michonne was able to revive her enough for her to swallow the pills Carolina handed over along with a sip of water.
"Do you need anything?," Carolina asked, taking a step towards Michonne before quickly changing her mind and retreating to the other side of the cot they had Andrea laid out on.
"I want my weapons back!," Michonne hissed. "Why are we being held here?"
Carolina sighed. She understood the woman's frustration. But Michonne wasn't helping herself with her attitude. If these men wanted to rape or kill her, they would have already done it. The only reason there were multiple armed guards in the room was because Michonne was being so combative. When she watched the show, Carolina had no idea how intense of a fit the woman threw before she was put under armed guard. To be honest, even Carolina was a little afraid of what Michonne might do next.
"Your friend almost died," Carolina said, using the gentle voice she usually reserved for children or frightened animals. "Her fever was over one hundred and two when she came in. I think she has walking pneumonia. Or at least bronchitis. Plus she was extremely dehydrated." Carolina watched Michonne's reaction to her words. Which wasn't much. The woman was like an impenetrable fortress. But she did move closer to Andrea, placing her hand protectively on the woman's shoulder. "I just want to help her. But you've got to understand that we have to protect ourselves too." From your crazy fucking ass, Carolina thought but kept to herself.
Leaving Michonne with that little nugget to digest, Carolina stepped from the room. There was nothing else she could do for Andrea at the moment. And she needed a break from Michonne's constant untrusting vigilance. She sighed, scrubbing her face with her hands and pushing her hair back out of her face.
"Is she awake yet?," Merle asked. He was pacing up and down the hall like a tiger in a cage, stopping just long enough to watch Carolina shake her head. She lowered herself into a small metal folding chair, tucking her feet underneath so Merle wouldn't trip over them as he paced. Carolina knew why he was so worked up. The last time he saw Andrea, she was with the group that left chained to the rooftop. The same group Daryl was with. Merle was no doubt hoping she might know where Daryl was. Or whether or not he was even alive. But this was information Carolina knew from watching the show. Apocalypse Carolina most likely would not have this knowledge. Because she'd never seen Andrea or Michonne before in her life.
"What's wrong?," she asked. "You know her or something?" Carolina tried to look at the situation objectively. If her boyfriend was suddenly wound up over another woman, especially an attractive one, she didn't think she would like it. In fact, she might be suspicious of his motives. "She's not your ex is she?," Carolina added, crossing her arms under her ample breasts. That was pretty good, she thought to herself, all those times I helped out with the school play really came in handy. Even Merle seemed to be buying her act.
"NO!," Merle groused, gesturing toward the room with his bad arm. "She was with those assholes that cuffed me to the roof! I just wanna know if she has any idea where my fuckin' brother is!"
Merle stopped his pacing, turning on his heel as though Carolina's words had only just now fully penetrated his mind even though he already responded to them. He approached her, nudging her knees apart by inserting his shin rather forcefully between them. His other leg joined the first so that he was looking down at her from between her parted thighs.
"Jealous?," he teased. Carolina smiled up at him, trying not to laugh at the cocky look on his face. He reached down, rubbing his hand over her hair. And after the stress of the long day combined with her anxiety over her extended absence from normal life, Carolina found herself eager to lean into his touch. She turned her head, resting it against his stomach as her hands slid up to rest on his hips.
"I'm not interrupting am I?"
Carolina jerked her head back, turning towards the oddly familiar voice. Her eyes widened as she looked up to see the governor heading towards her down the narrow hallway. Seeing him made Carolina react in pure terror, jerking up out of her chair and slamming into Merle. Her body collided with his forcefully, knocking her towards her chair. She fell back onto it, missing the seat and tipping it over as she went down. The metal chair clattered to the floor. But her ass took the worst of the fall. And she nearly took Merle down with her since her legs shot out and tangled up with his.
"What in hell?," Merle cursed, looking more startled than angry at her sudden spastic behavior. Carolina cringed when both he and the governor approached her, gently helping her up off the ground.
"Are you alright?," the governor asked. Carolina nodded, confused by the genuine concern on his face. She glanced back and forth between the two men. Quickly deciding that the lesser of the two evils might protect her against the worse, she tucked herself into Merle's side. Gripping the back of his shirt in her fist, she regarded the taller man with a wary look.
"She hit her head last night," Merle announced, obviously feeling the need to defend her odd behavior. Carolina caught the worried inflection in his tone. And she immediately forced out a smile. The last thing she wanted to do was start trouble for herself. Especially with the governor.
"What happened to your head?," the governor asked. "Those steps in your building aren't coming off the wall again are they?" Carolina shook her head. She didn't know what steps he was talking about, but she didn't fall on them. She wacked her head on the headboard when she woke up in the middle of the goddamn apocalypse.
"No," she replied. "I hit my head on the headboard."
The governor barked out a laugh, quickly lifting his hand and trying to turn it into a cough. And Carolina felt her face turn about ten different shades of red as she wished she would have just kept her big mouth shut. After her doctor co worker's reaction to her injury, Carolina should have known that everyone else was going to make the same assumption about what she was doing when she hurt her head. And Merle didn't look ready to correct that assumption either. Instead, he was biting back a rather large grin. Carolina rolled her eyes at him, feeling actually grateful to the governor when he quickly changed the subject.
"Have you gotten a chance to talk to her yet?," he asked, ticking his head towards the room Andrea and Michonne were being held in. Merle shook his head.
"She's still out," he huffed. "I wanna talk to 'er first," Merle said, though Carolina noticed that he was smart enough to use a respectful tone when he spoke to the taller man. With how quickly the governor nodded his approval, Carolina guessed this was not their first time discussing the matter.
"You'll get your chance. I'll still need to speak with them after," he agreed. "Were they both part of that group? Or just the one?"
"Just the blonde," Merle confirmed.
Carolina breathed a small sigh of relief when the governor headed back the way he came, letting one of the other men know that he wanted to be alerted when Andrea regained consciousness. Once the man rounded the corner and disappeared from sight, Merle turned his attention back to Carolina.
"Maybe ya better go home and get some sleep," he suggested. "Ya seem a little jumpy." Carolina shook her head. The doctor was still busy with the helicopter pilot. Someone needed to stay and keep an eye on Andrea. At least until she woke up.
"I'm fine," Carolina insisted, though it was far from the truth. She was a lot of things at the moment, but fine wasn't one of them. Seeing the governor in person really shook her up. And Carolina was starting to wonder how much Merle really knew about the man. Merle was complicit in killing anyone that tried to leave town. And anyone else the governor considered a threat. And he knew about Milton's weird experiments. Though those weren't technically being done with any ill intent. But she wondered if Merle knew how depraved the governor really was. Did he know about the man's secret room? The one that contained a wall of decapitated heads. Carolina shivered despite the stuffy stale air surrounding her as she thought about the injured man down the hall. The one who's head was going in a fishbowl as soon as he told the governor where his comrades were. She doubted Merle knew about the governor's creepy trophy room. Or about Penny.
Carolina sat back down and watched Merle as he resumed his nervous pacing as she pondered the depth of his involvement in the governor's more unsavory extra curricular activities. She wasn't sure how long she sat and waited. But by the time Martinez poked his head out of the well guarded room to tell them Andrea was waking up, Carolina's butt was sore from sitting in the hard metal chair.
Carolina approached the woman, checking first to make sure the tylenol reduced Andrea's fever. Then she quickly ran the tests she couldn't while the woman was unconscious. Other than her nasty racking cough, Andrea was doing worlds better than she was when she was carried in. The color was returning to her cheeks. When she spoke, her throat was dry and scratchy. Carolina offered her a cup of water, giving Michonne a dirty look when the woman bumped into her and nearly made her spill it before she could hand it off to Andrea. When Carolina was done with her exam, she retreated back against the wall instead of leaving the room.
Carolina knew when Merle entered the room without having to turn her head. Andrea's face said it all. The look on her face was a mixture of fear and shock. And maybe a little guilt mixed in. Andrea clearly never thought she'd have to answer for what she did when they ran and left Merle chained to the roof. As Carolina listened to them talking, she began to feel a small kernel of guilt forming in her own stomach. Andrea might not know where Daryl was. But Carolina knew where he was. If Andrea and Michonne were in Woodbury, that meant Daryl and the rest of the group had already taken up residence inside the West Georgia Correctional Facility. Carolina could lead Merle to his brother right now. But not without answering a lot of questions that she didn't have rational answers for.
Merle sat down in a chair and pulled off the metal sleeve he kept over his arm. The sight of the jagged stump where his hand should be paused Carolina's internal struggles momentarily. She had only seen Merle's wrist once before. In their bedroom. With the lights off. Seeing it under the harsh fluorescent lighting of the infirmary was a different matter entirely. On the show, she mostly remembered seeing some really bad CGI and some even worse prosthetics. In person, it was much much worse. The scarred flesh was rippled and twisted. And looking at it, Carolina felt an intense surge of sympathy for Merle. Rather than a monster, she saw him as someone that survived enough horror in his life for ten men before he was forced to saw his own hand off at the wrist with a dull blade to keep from being eaten alive by undead cannibals.
Before she realized what she was doing, Carolina had already crossed the small space between them, placing her hand on Merle's shoulder. She blinked away the unshed tears in her eyes before she looked down at him. The harsh mask of bitterness he'd been directing towards Andrea melted away for just a moment. His expression softened as he looked up at Carolina, his good hand moving to rest over hers. Carolina glanced back up, taking in the look of curious surprise on Andrea's face. Carolina gave her a tentative smile before she removed her hand and returned to her previous position against the wall. The corner of Andrea's mouth twitched up. It wasn't much. Like it had been so long she forgot how to actually smile. It wasn't much. But at least it was something to start from.
