Thank you for reading!
When they realized what Merle had done, that he'd taken Michonne because he knew Rick wouldn't, Daryl went after him. Because this was all his fault, yeah, but also because Merle was a Dixon, and if Daryl could save him from his own stupidity, he was going to.
He found Michonne in a field, stabbing a walker's head with her big sword. "Hey. Where's my brother?" She stared at him without speaking, and he wondered if she'd done what he would have in her shoes. "You kill him?"
She shook her head. "He let me go."
Daryl understood what she didn't say, that Merle had gone back to the Governor empty-handed. Damned fool was going to get himself killed. "Don't let anyone come after me," he told her, and he hurried after Merle before he did something they'd all regret.
Rick had gathered everyone together, outside by the picnic tables. Carol sat holding the baby, thinking what a beautiful day it was. She wondered how many more days, beautiful or otherwise, they all had in them.
It took him a moment to start. At last he said, "When I met with the Governor, he offered me a deal. He said—he said he would leave us alone if I gave him Michonne. And I was going to do that, to keep us safe." Into the silence that followed, he said, "I changed my mind. But now Merle took Michonne to fulfill the deal and Daryl went to stop him and I don't know if it's too late."
Carol felt a chill. She'd known something was wrong, but this—if Daryl got too far, if Merle and Michonne reached the Governor and then Daryl came in …
"I was wrong not to tell you," Rick continued. "And I'm sorry. What I said last year, that first night, after the farm … it can't be like that. It can't. What we do, what we're willing to do, who we are—it's not my call. It can't be. I couldn't sacrifice one of us for the greater good because … because we are the greater good. We're the reason we're still here, not me. This is life and death. How you live … how you die. It isn't up to me. I'm not your Governor. We choose to go. We choose to stay. We stick together. We vote. We can stay and we can fight or we can go."
He didn't ask for the vote right then, walking away as if sensing that they all needed some time.
Carol was proud of him. It wasn't easy to give up control, or accept that you might have to live by others' decisions.
Daryl made his way cautiously toward the rendezvous point. Michonne had said Merle was a in car, so he'd be way ahead; Daryl felt the need to hurry and catch up, but it made no sense to get himself killed rushing into something, either.
He could see signs of a fight. Walkers had attacked; at least one man was down, walkers still feeding on him. Good riddance, Daryl thought. He considered taking out the walkers just on principle, but there wasn't time for that right now. They weren't looking at him, anyway, too occupied with their fresh kill.
Continuing on, Daryl could see the walkers' bodies lying where they'd fallen. Everything here was quiet now. Even the sounds of chewing from the feeding walkers had faded. Whoever had been here, they'd withdrawn from the field.
He saw another body that had been alive to start off the day, that was now walker food. Probably they'd all end up that way. No help for it, really. Might as well give up. Except that wasn't in Daryl. Long as he lived, he'd fight to stay that way. And now he'd fight for others, too. For his family.
Ahead of him, another walker ate noisily, and this time, Daryl took him out with an arrow to the back of the head. Too many of those damned things in the world.
He loaded another arrow as he moved past the freshly dead walker and found another one hungrily feeding.
And here it was. The moment he'd been fearing all this way—the moment he'd been fearing since that empty rooftop in Atlanta. Because this walker was his brother. Had been his brother. Wasn't nothing anymore. Just another mindless corpse.
As Daryl stood there, the thing looked up at him with his brother's face. There was nothing left in those pale blue eyes, nothing that knew Daryl. Nothing that knew anything.
His chin quivered, his eyes stinging. Damn it all, anyway. He fought the tears. It wasn't safe to break down here. Hell, it wasn't safe to break down anywhere anymore.
The walker stood up, nearly falling over the body it had been feeding off, coming for him, for his life. And Daryl let him come, sobbing now, trying to catch his breath. He pushed the walker back, screaming "No!", but it kept coming. He pushed it again, and again, and then finally he shoved a knife through its flesh, knocking it back onto the ground, pinning it there, while he plunged the knife in over and over until it was gone. Like the world was. Like his brother was.
At last he fell over onto his back, weeping into the sky. He was really alone now. The last Dixon.
Except that he wasn't alone. The people waiting for him at the prison weren't Dixons, but they were his family.
With an effort, Daryl got to his feet, taking a deep breath to calm his sobs. He could cry when he got home. He could cry on Carol's shoulder, and she would understand. He would hold himself together until then.