Piranha

by ThomE.Gemcity-06

AU/canon-divergences Maggie has a twin brother named Marshall. /"If this were a movie, this would be the part where we tell you to keep this to yourself or I'll push you off the edge of the hayloft and let the piranha keep your silence. I know from experience that it's hard to hear you scream from back at the farmhouse."/WARNINGS:violence/blood&gore/SophiaLives/eventual slash/

4. Chapter 4: The Burden of Care

Start: 10-08-2023
Finish: 12-20-2024
Word Count: 23,958

a/n:

Yes! MERRY CHRISTMAS! I made it before the New Year, hope you enjoy the present. *scuttles away* I'll see you sometime in the New Year with (I hope) the conclusion of Season 2 and The Greene Farm. Prepare and enjoy!

Chapter Summary:

/The clock was ticking.

Tick,

tock,

tick./

Chapter Includes/Spoilers/WARNINGS: some piranha action, some violence, blood and gore, grief, emotional hurt/comfort, character death(s), panic attack, murder-mystery, suicidal ideation.

...The walking DEAD...

---

Piranha

Chapter 4: The Burden of Care

Marshall sat alone in the surgery shed. He'd left the door propped open with an old crutch to help light the room up as he sat at the table with his clutch of used arrows. They were covered in dry and crusted blood and brain-gloop, awaiting to be cleaned. He had three bowls in front of him: vinegar, water and dish soap, and plain water. Alongside a rag, sponge, a toothbrush. Nothing extravagant needed to clean off the dead rot. His arrows carried two different coloured fletching, solid green or solid red, and with an adjustable separation in his quiver that sat down the middle, he had an easy system. On left side was green, on the right side was red. Green equalled food, red equalled piranha. It was an easy and standard visual system he'd taken to while out hunting, just to keep a degree of separation. While it didn't matter much in this instant because he was able to sit down and properly clean and disinfect the arrows, out in the woods he didn't typically have the luxury, so it was a simple measure to be sure there wasn't any cross-contamination.

The quiet tinkering noises was overlaid with Josephine's Lullaby as he worked. While cleaning his arrows had the same almost meditative affect, like oiling the saddles or his guns, it wasn't being very effective right now due to the reason he even needed to clean them. He needed to calm down lest his next encountered ended up the same as they last he with his father, while he denied himself in the barn. He couldn't contaminate it like that. He didn't hum it when he killed. Not piranha in the barn, not piranha in the woods, not even the animals he hunted in the woods or butchered at the farm. Marshall needed the self-comfort to do that now.

Marshall wanted to be there for his family, but Beth seemed to be done with sobbing into his chest right now, and wanted to keep her hands busy so her mind wasn't. That seemed to entail a cleaning spree that did not appreciate Marshall's company or contribution. Maggie seemed soothed with Glenn's company after the younger man had worked his way back into her good graces after what went down at the barn, and Marshall was not in the mood to be a third-wheel to his twin sister and her secret-not-so-secret boyfriend.

And Hershel, well...

Their last encounter consisted of coming upstairs fresh from Beth's dismissal, to find Hershel in Shawn's bedroom (the first time that Marshall was aware of since Otis put Shawn and Annette in the barn for 'safe keeping')—not going through his things in nostalgia and mourning, but packing up his things! The viper uncoiled and lunged as his control just snapped at the sight, and venom spat. Patricia had to come and separate them, not very impressed, especially with Marshall. He got kicked out of the house to 'simmer down' and, what, Hershel got to finish making Shawn disappear? He forced himself to take a deep breath and swallowed the urge to scream. Marshall wondered what it would sound like when it finally broke free.

He knew Hershel was grieving, too. He knew that no one processed grief the same. Some cleaned and kept busy, some took comfort in another, and some people get rid of anything that reminded them of the deceased, while there were those who memorialised through mementos or tattoos. Hershel may have lost the son he always wanted, but Shawn was also Marshall and Maggie's little brother, he was Beth's big brother. Hershel wasn't the only one mourning.

After all this time... with Hershel's wilful ignorance, out of sight equalled out of mind. Like he could tell himself anything he wanted after that. Annette was in the city visiting her sister. Shawn was on a camping and hunting trip with his friends. When Marshall argued against his dad and Otis bring more piranha into the barn, Hershel would always say: "They're just sick." He'd sight the Plague and Aids, but while both sickened and killed people, when they died, they stayed dead.

Hershel had seen Annette and Shawn die and dead, and while yes, for a moment, one might think it a Miracle when they Rose again, that would (or it should) quickly turn to condemnation once your loved ones tried to eat your face off. Not Hershel Greene. So, nothing really changed around the house but for their lack of physical presence because it was easier to believe that Annette was in the city and Shawn was camping than it was that they were reanimated corpses. Almost. That all the other Poor Souls in the barn were 'just sick'.

There was no grief, just wilful ignorance. Until- Until that fateful moment just hours earlier. The self-imposed wool had been parted from Hershel's eyes, he had seen, had been faced with the truth that Shane had given him no choice other than to witness. And while Marshall would never be thankful to Shane Walsh, he could have been thankful for that. Annette and Shawn were gone for good, the whole family had seen it, and for one instant so had Hershel—before Hershel shoved his head back into the sand again. Annette just extended her stay with her sister; Shawny decided to get a place with his buddies. Like if he packed away all that was left of Shawn's existence, his step-son was just... out growing-up instead.

Marshall had started off less angry than he might have otherwise and it was all thanks to Sophia. After Patricia kicked him out of the house, the small strawberry-blond cracked through the upset shell he was encased in very unexpectedly. Like her mother before her, Sophia's hug was abrupt but no less sweet or touching. Tiny arms squeezed around his waist, cheek pressed to his stomach before she skittered back like she was afraid he would shove her away himself if she didn't do it herself fast enough.

She looked nervous under his wide stare, but determined nonetheless to voice what she needed to: "I'm sorry about your brother. I-I don't have a brother, but I think if something happened to Carl, it might be something like that. And your moms," her chin trembled. "I'm sorry! I don't wanna think w-what that's l-like, so I'm just s-sorry t-that you d-do."

His expression was soft. "Thank you, butterfly. I appreciate your concern." He silently promised to look out for Carol while they were around so the girl wouldn't come to know the feeling, at least so soon. "And that hug really helped, too. I needed that." He admitted.

She looked relieved that he wasn't angry with her. She sniffed, wiping at her freckled face. "I d-don't think I'm very good at h-hugs, though. I've only ever r-really hugged m-mom."

Marshall chuckled lightly. "That's not something you need to worry about, promise, butterfly." He lightly tugged a lock of her hair.

"Okay." Sophia gaze him a small beam.

"Marshall? Marshall?!"

Marshall jolted from the recent memory at the distant, but frantic call of his name. The arrow shaft clattered to the table and he was out of the surgery almost instantly, jumping out the door and into the dirt. Glenn drew the attention of a few of his group nearby, but Marshall only had one focus—there really could be only one reason that Glenn was shouting panicked for him like that.

His sisters.

Glenn looked relieved at the sight of him, rushing forward a few steps to meet him. "It's Beth!" he answered immediately, not bothering to wait for the man's impatient demand for answers, turning back toward the house. "She was doing dishes when she just collapsed! We managed to get her to her room!" Glenn called after him when Marshall quickly overtook him, pushing into the house.

His long stretch of legs ate up the stairs quickly and he found Maggie and Patricia crowded by Beth's bed. "What happened? Beth?"

Maggie moved aside for him, out of the three of them, she knew the least medically, so she was typically branded the gopher, and Marshall got his first good look of his baby-sister. Marshall's step faltered for a second as he was caught in a blue thousand-yard stare. That look was concerning to see on anyone. It was downright terrifying to see on his 16-year-old sister. Sunny wasn't ever supposed to have learned an expression like that and Marshall knew it was his failure that brought them here.

For weeks, they'd been in limbo concerning Annette and Shawn, and everyone else they knew in that barn. They were dead, but they lingered, so they couldn't be—so they were just sick instead. They hung out In-Between and it was in a Miracle's Hands that they would return to Living or finally reach Eternal Rest. So, there'd been no relief and not-quite grief. Hershel had set the status quoand no one had done anything to remedy it until now, until they were all too deep and Beth was the most susceptible. She was the youngest, had no experience with death besides that of animals, and never had an close encounter with a piranha. He never should have left her to her own devices, not so soon.

"Maggie, grab my medical kit." Maggie brushed passed where Glenn was hovering in the doorway. Marshall reached for his sister. "Beth? Sunny?" She didn't flinch or twitch as he simply checked over her temperature by touch and pressed his fingers to the carotid on the side of her neck. Too fast. Maggie returned a minute later with his kit, laying at the foot of the bed. "Tell me what happened again?" He forced himself to pull back from her pulse and searched through his kit.

"Everything seemed fine. Or as fine as anything could be, considering." Maggie voiced, arms crossed tightly over her chest as she looked at Beth from the foot of the bed. "I asked her earlier if she wanted to take a break, maybe talk a bit—she flat-out said 'no' and went back to cleaning. We stayed downstairs to keep an eye on her... and then she just collapsed in the kitchen without any warning."

"She didn't hit her head, I saw that much." Glenn added. Jimmy appeared beside Glenn out of breath and shook his head in silent denial at Maggie's questioning look.

"Okay. Sunny, come on." Beth didn't blink. Her normally bright blue-eyes didn't track Marshall as he leaned close. Her pupils reacted proportionate to the flashlight beam, but otherwise, there was no conscious reaction. She didn't grimace at the tight squeeze of the blood pressure cuff. She was catatonic, her blood pressure was high, her pulse rapid, breaths shallow. "I'm going to give her a mild sedative," he decided, preparing the needle. "She needs to calm down; her body and mind." He agitated a vein to the surface at the inside of her limp arm, and Patricia swiped it with an alcohol wipe before he injected. Even then, the sunshine-blond teen didn't even react to the sharp pinch. "Someone get a bowl of cold water and a cloth." She was overheated, overworked, though her skin stayed pale and sheen under the beads of sweat. Jimmy rushed off to do that, needing to feel and be useful right now after already coming up short. "Oh, Sunny." Marshall muttered, brushing back the strand of loose hair that stuck to her temples.

"Here." Jimmy returned, trying not the slosh water, even as he rushed.

Maggie watched her brother for a moment as he tenderly wiped their little sister's face with the damp cloth, looking like he had, understandably, no intention of going anywhere any time soon. Only... Maggie grimaced, glanced at Glenn and forced herself to speak: "Marshall?"

"What?" his fingers once again lingered on her pulse. Despite looking like a corpse, he knew that she wasn't but it was still a relief to feel that beat under his fingertips.

"We need to talk. Can you come into the hall for a minute." Marshall didn't move. "Beth's okay for right now. You gave her a sedative and she just needs some rest. Jimmy can look after her for a minute, Marshall. Right, Jimmy?" she asked pointedly.

"Y-yeah! Right. I-I got it, Marshall. I can look after her." Jimmy promised.

"We need to talk, Marshall. It's important." Maggie repeated when Marshall just stared down the teen boy.

"Marshall Elijah." Patricia added her own two cents worth and Marshall finally budged.

"Fine." He sighed. Marshall rose from the edge of the bed and handed Jimmy the cloth. "Damp cloth only, you don't want to make her wet. And put another damp cloth over eyes. Anything changes, yell. I'll be back in a minute, Sunny." Marshall bent down a pressed a kiss to her forehead before he followed Maggie, Glenn, and Patricia out into the hall, only partially shutting the bedroom door. "Well?" he prompted.

"Anything wrong with this picture?" Maggie questioned incredulously.

"Yeah." Marshall crossed his arms. "Our sister's bedridden, and I'm out here talking to you instead of inside there with her."

Maggie bit back her sharp retort at his snarky tone. "Daddy, Marshall. Where's daddy?"

"Daddy?" Marshall repeated like she'd thrown that at him out of left field. He realized that was the first time he'd thought about Hershel since Glenn had frantically called him, and the fact that his youngest daughter collapsed and the old veterinarian was no where to be seen sank in. "Yeah. Where the hell is daddy?" Patricia didn't even scold him for the h-word. "Why isn't he here right now?" there was a bite to his tone.

"When Beth collapsed I yelled for daddy first 'cause I knew you weren't in the house, and when he didn't come, Patricia..."

"I ran to his office." The older woman followed-up. "I knew he was in there earlier, the door closed and record playing, and thought he just couldn't hear... but it was empty, the record player was just skipping."

"Maybe he's in the stables."

Maggie shook her head. "That's where I sent Jimmy off to—he wasn't there either."

Marshall sighed. He was worried, but he was just a little more annoyed right now. Beth was his main concern right now, she was catatonic and in front of him. Hershel, he was sure, was fine wherever he was, he could wrangle piranha with nothing but a snare pole after all. "Maybe I wasn't the only one who needed to cool off."

Maggie was becoming pissed off at her twin's dismissive attitude. She understood that he was worried about Beth, but this was also their daddy that they were talking about. "What's wrong with you? Aren't you worried?"

"Of course I'm worried!" Marshall grit his teeth. "Maybe daddy just realized that he can't pack his wife and son away in boxes and just be done away with the grief, guilt, and shame, and went for a walk."

"Goddamn it, Marshall! Was that supposed to reassure me?" Maggie asked sarcastically.

Marshall could only shrug in response to stop himself from saying something more caustic.

"All right, you two." Patricia spoke up sternly, stepping in before tempers flared anymore than they already were. "I'll stay with them." She squeezed Marshall's arm both in warning and reassurance when he looked ready to argue, wanting to be with his little sister. "Go find your daddy. Please?"

Marshall sighed and reluctantly followed the couple downstairs as Patricia disappeared back into Beth's bedroom. Rick and Lori were lingering in the side hallway by Carl's temporary room's closed door, having a hushed conversation that stopped as soon as the trio descended to the first floor. They approached politely.

"Is everything okay?" Rick voiced his concerned. "We heard the shouting."

"Beth collapsed." Maggie informed the Grimes'. "She resting in her room now."

"Anything we can do to help?" Lori asked.

"She doesn't need strangers hanging around—no offence." Marshall added belatedly.

"No offence." Lori said. "Just offering help."

"We fi-" Marshall started, ready to turn back and head upstairs already.

"Actually," Maggie interrupted her twin, giving him a frown. "We could use your help, Rick." She walked determinedly down the hall, leaving the others no choice but to follow or be left behind.

"What's wrong? Besides the obvious." Rick's words were directed to Maggie as he and Lori followed down the hall, but his blue-eyes went to Marshall. While it was pretty clear Marshall would rather be upstairs taking care of his little-sister than down here dealing with whatever had Maggie worked up, under the stern expression that aged him beyond his twenty-five years, Rick could see the apprehension, the anger, the numbness. Quite the layered cake of contradictions.

"No—daddy's missing." Maggie stated, opening her father's bedroom door and stepping inside.

Rick's full attention snapped to her at the news and Lori gasped, "What?"

Marshall's arms crossed subconsciously over his chest as he entered his father's room, jaw tightening as he saw the overflowing packed boxes on the bed, the shadowed empty gap left in the open closet, drawers half or entirely emptied and improperly closed. The noticeable spots on the walls and furniture tops that used to hold pictures and items that now didn't.

"He's been missing for a few hours, at least." Maggie informed, looking at the messy state of Hershel's room with a tight frown. "We didn't notice until Beth collapsed and he never came when I yelled for him." She felt guilt about that. "He's not anywhere in the house, he's not at the stables... we can't find him and I'm worried."

"Maybe he just needed to get some air? Get some space from all... the memories." Lori suggested carefully, gesturing at the boxes.

"Marshall suggested something similar." Maggie shot a glare at her brother that had the Grimes' sharing a raised look.

"Maybe because it's a reasonable suggestion." Marshall commented, not reacting to her accusing glare. Her lashing out in her upset wasn't new, neither was the fact that it annoyed her as much as comforted her that he was visibly calmer than her. He leaned against the open window staring out... he was also being an asshole right now.

"If you're that worried about him," Rick started, looking toward the other man. "Can't you just get Athena to track him?" Rick wondered.

"While that may be a decent suggestion in a different situation, right now it's be rather useless." Marshall turned from the window. "Besides, the answer has become rather obvious." He knocked his knuckle back on the windowpane in indication.

"What?" Maggie rushed over and stuck her head out the window before cursing rather loudly as she realized what was missing from this picture.

"What is it?" Glenn asked when she pulled back, biting her nails as her mind raced. "Maggie?"

Marshall spoke before she could get words out in her disbelief, "He did go for a walk—it was just a very short one... allll the way to his truck."

"His truck is gone!" Maggie finally managed angrily. "He's not even here!"

"Well, is there anywhere he would have gone?" Rick asked, almost wishing to stay out of it with Maggie's anger and Marshall's seeming indifference. "Some quiet place he likes to drive to? Or-"

Marshall made a derisive sound. "I'll give you three guesses." He held up a flask, shaking it between his fingers, feeling the liquid slosh shallowly inside before he tossed it to the deputy. "Give it a try, Deputy."

Rick caught it, thumb tracing over the dulled engraved date on it. "I thought Hershel didn't drink?" He unscrewed the cap.

"He doesn't." Maggie answered, eyeing the flask. "Gave it up the day we were born. Hasn't touched the stuff since. He doesn't even allow alcohol in the house. That was granddaddy's, gave it daddy when he died."

Rick coughed when he smelt the spirits inside, his sinuses burned and his eyes immediately watered. "That is strong." He quickly screwed the cap back on. "It also only has dregs left." He pointed out reluctantly.

"No." Maggie denied, snatching the flask out of Rick's hand. Stopping and staring at it as she felt the weight herself, the emptiness. She stuffed it blindly in a drawer that was left hanging partially open like it was dirty and dangerous, before she shoved it closed. "No."

"Maggie, that's always been full, you know that." Marshall pointed out without delicacy. "He always said it was a reminder of the man and the father that he never wanted to be. As long as it stayed full—so was he. It was his promise, to us and he broke it!"

Maggie spun around and slapped him across the face. The other three stilled in shock, staring at the siblings, but Marshall hadn't flinched even though it was clear to see the red mark quickly appearing on his tanned cheek. Silence. Green-on-green met. Maggie's mouth was tight, hand limp at her side as her sweaty palm stung. Marshall was a stone-faced as a statue and Maggie couldn't handle it so she turned away from him.

"There's only one bar in town." Maggie told Rick, upset. "Hatlin's. That was his spot. But it-"

"No." Lori uttered as she stared at her husband, dread filling her as she recognized that damned look in his eye that the others wouldn't.

"I know it. I saw it when we went into town to resupply." Glenn spoke up, looking to Rick in understanding. "I can show you."

"What?" Maggie realized too. "Wait..." She grabbed Glenn. "No! It's too dangerous!"

"We have to get your father, Maggie. It's too dangerous out there for him. Alone, and-and drunk..."

"M-" Maggie's head snapped to her brother instinctively, waiting- no, expecting him to interrupt, insist that he was going, only...

"Nobody should be going anywhere." Marshall commented.

"Marshall-"

"No, Maggie." Marshall shook his head, his lips frowning to stop himself from sneering. "He made his choice. His beliefs shattered at his feet and he decided to run away to the bottom of a damned bottle then turn to his remaining living children!" He may have been able to temper the sneer but his tone was corrosive, his current disdain clear. His faith and belief in his father crumbling. "He's needed here. Beth is catatonic and h- the bottle was always his first love anyways. Before mama and us, Annette and Shawny and Beth." His shoulders fell back as his anger dropped to become dismissive again, "He made his choice. He chose to leave us and I guess we'll see if we're worth it for him to come back." Marshall turned and left without waiting for a response or reaction from his twin, heading back upstairs straight to his little sister.

Uncomfortable silence was left at his departure. Maggie was left a bit shell-shocked at her brother's vitriol and the other three were reluctant to break the stillness. Maggie didn't know if she wanted to break down into tears or chase her brother down with her bat more, acceptance of his words or a denial.

"Maggie-" Glenn reached out for her, his tone soft.

Maggie shook her head, arms crossed, nails digging into her biceps. Her mind raced as fast as her heart, circling the drain. Marshall checked out and she was already drowning. They were looking at her, waiting for her decide what she wanted, should happen... or... Leave daddy right where he clearly wanted to be. Send Rick and Glenn into danger for a man who went there willingly. Go herself or stay behind.

Lori grabbed her husband by the wrist and dragged him into the hallway for some privacy. Scared and angry.

Resentment welled inside of Maggie like a tidal wave. At the world, at her twin, at her father, at the situation... at herself. She looked up with tear-glossed hues and met Glenn's cool dark eyes. He looked back with care and worry. "What am I supposed to do?" her voice croaked in a whisper. "Part of me knows Marshall's right. Daddy gave up the minute he drank from granddad's flask, he left us. But-"

Glenn reached out and held her arms comfortingly. "But... he's still your dad. And you love him and you want him here with you. Hey," he hushed, stroking her arms as she sniffled. "It'll be okay, I promise. Me and Rick will bring him back." He cupped her cheek with a steady hand. "Alright? And we'll all come back and you can give him one of those scary lectures I know you're good at. Okay?"

"Okay." Maggie managed.

He pulled her close and held her for a minute, a kiss pressed to her cheek. She was a grown women who just felt like a little girl that just wanted her daddy to tell her it would be alright again like he always had, held in the arms of the man she'd fallen in love with. Hard. Bruised and battered hard. Her arms tightened around him. Glenn and Rick would bring daddy back, and Beth would be okay. It would be okay again because Marshall's words wouldn't be true.

[tWD]

"Marshall," Patricia called gently.

Marshall didn't stop his humming despite his dry mouth and sore throat, he continued to feed his little sister small spoons of saved ice, but flicked his green eyes to his auntie to show he was listening to whatever she needed to say. Beth reflexively swallowed as the melted ice reached the back of her throat. It wasn't much, but it would keep her hydrated enough for now, and maybe it would be the urge to urinate that would snap her out of her unresponsive state.

"You haven't moved in two hours—go take a breath, grab a drink yourself, eat something." Patricia murmured, walking around the bed to place a hand on his hunched shoulder. "You working yourself into exhaustion won't help Beth or anyone else."

Marshall sighed, the dimmed room falling silent, the closed curtains billows gently in the hot wind blowing in through the open window. He knew she was right, but he just... "Are you upset with me for not going after daddy?" Marshall voiced quietly, gaze trained on where he was gently playing with Beth's limp fingers, unable to look into his auntie's eyes right now.

Patricia gazed sadly at her Godson's bowed head. "No." She told him truthfully. "I understand your reasoning, the disappointment you feel for your daddy right now. You kids are grieving your mama and brother, it's finally hitting him about his wife and son. We've all been through so much loss already. The only difference is... your daddy had a moment of weakness. None of us are alone in this, you're daddy will be back. Rick and Glenn went to get him; they're good men."

Marshall looked up at her at that. "They went after him, even after I said that they shouldn't?" But could he really be angry about that? Rick and Glenn were grown men who could make their own decisions. It wasn't like he wanted his daddy to not come back, to die out there. He was just relieved that in her righteous anger at him, Maggie hadn't gone out there herself. Rick and Glenn had more practical experience with groups of piranha. While the town was abandoned and typically only had a few stray piranha wandering around when the twins had gone of short supply runs, that could change at any given day to an entire herd shuffling through. "What if she wakes up and I'm not here?" he asked her like a lost little boy, and maybe he was dragging his heels a little.

Patricia sighed and told him bluntly, but not harshly, "Maybe you will and maybe you won't. The point is... somebody will be here. It doesn't always have to be you, sweetie." She stroked his hair like a mother.

"I already missed so much. Wasn't here when I could have been. I chose to step out of her life—for 7 years. I can't and won't do that again, not now." He shook his head.

"Beth's not some little pigtailed girl anymore, Marshall. This isn't the first time she's been unwell, and unfortunately this won't be the last time she loses someone she cares about. You can't spend every second hovering over her, she's gonna have to learn to stand under her own power. At the moment, she's not going anywhere. With your daddy... out, you've got things to keep an eye on and take care of—the first of those being yourself, because, little boy, if you end up putting yourself into bed as well by burning yourself out..."

At 25 his auntie could still put him in the corner without even finishing the warning. As easy as the Count of 3. "Alright." He sighed, slowly rising. "But I'm coming back."

"Oh, don't I know it."

"Thanks, Auntie." He paused briefly to pressed a kiss to Patricia's cheek before he left.

Downstairs was empty. He was so focused on Beth, that if they weren't in her room with him, he honestly had no idea where they were. Apparently Rick and Glenn were gone after Hershel, Marshall hadn't seen Maggie since he left Hershel's bedroom. He didn't have a clue where Jimmy had disappeared off to. Athena, he knew Athena would be with Sophia, he didn't know where Sophia was though. Probably with Carl, who, judging by the quiet and open bedroom door, wasn't in the house.

Marshall stared into the kitchen pantry and the 'fridge with zero motivation or desire for anything within. He knew he should eat, but the appetite wasn't there. He just ended up slapping together a PB&J sandwich, but it didn't bring him any joy like when Beth made them as a surprise in his lunch bag for his hunting trip, which was never a surprise because she did it every time, but the warmth he felt always bloomed. He didn't feel pleasure like he did when he'd made them for Beth and she'd beam at him for it like her nickname dictated—Sunny. And a cold glass of milk, his favoured beverage, tasted sour instead.

Marshall made himself finish both, though, before he let himself leave the kitchen. If he returned to Beth so soon, he knew Patricia wouldn't be best pleased with him. He ended up sat at the piano bench off the sitting room, central to everything. The sheet music sat untouched and cluttered somewhat messily on the rack, threatening to scatter in the cross breeze as he opened up the fallboard.

It was too damn quiet, too damn empty:

another step on your own
another mile that you've flown
and I've been right by your side
there's so much more than you see
like the wind that blows through the trees
or the time that's passing by
I see the tears, they're rolling down but they're not here to stay
I know you're starin' at the clouds, tryna wish them away
when you call the stars, know I'm callin' out your name

With the natural voice talent of the Greene siblings, came the learned talent of the piano that went hand-in-hand with the Church Choir growing up, something they all possessed like their athleticism and their composure in the face of bloody situations. While he enjoyed singing, mostly to himself, he couldn't think of a day where something of the musical variety hadn't left his lips whether in lyrics or harmony, but Beth... Beth was the true natural talent of the Greene Family when it came to music and singing.

Beth was a born creative, and it had been clear to her family, back in the natural world as it was Before, the avenue of Beth's Life lay down either of two Paths. Vocal Stardom after she'd won some televised talent show or Childcare, whether that be a teacher of young children, working with troubled youth, a live-in for young ones or any other avenue thereof.

But what was the teen's future now:

you are not alone
I watch over you
won't let you go, you got to know, you're not alone
you are not alone
I watch over you
won't let you go, you got to know, you're not alone

He could vaguely hear a hushed argument going on outside the side door. He couldn't clearly hear what was being said, just that it involved more than 3 voices. Why did they decide to have it right by the house when Beth needed her peace, and him for that matter? The only reason he could think that it wasn't in the own privacy of their own little camp, was because they were going to try and drag the Greenes into it.

He rolled his eyes and continued to play:

I didn't give you the wings to not go and fly
and don't you know this ain't goodbye
'cause everything I am is who you are
who you are
sometimes the hurt, don't know how to be healed
sometimes you question if anything's real
but you call the stars, you're callin' out my name

Jesus, couldn't these people just breathe for a minute without stirring up all this damn drama? And here he'd been, just a moment ago, hating on the quiet. Karma at Her finest. He'd asked for it, but he wasn't about to bow to it. They wanted something from him? They wanted more from him? He sure as shit wasn't going to make it easier for them. They wanted something from him, then they were going to have to be adults about it and come to him, he was sick of hand-feeding them:

ya you
you are not alone
I watch over you
won't let you go, you got to know, you're not alone
you are not alone
I watch over you
won't let you go, you got to know, you're not alone

Daryl didn't bother to knock. He simply opened the door, knowing they'd at least been heard, but stayed in the doorway instead of encroaching over the threshold as he waited for Marshall to finish. After the last piano note faded back into silence, Marshall reached up and Daryl flinch-blinked as the fallcover dropped with a sharp clap.

Marshall turned his head, looking the other man over silently before their gazes finally met. At the barn, when Marshall had looked over them all, the way his gaze had lingered on Daryl last... Marshall didn't know why he expected anything from a man a knew nothing about, and Daryl didn't understand why he should have cared the way anyone looked at him.

It was interesting to see their chosen spokesperson, Marshall would have expected Lori or the older man, Dale. The one interaction Marshall had with him, he seemed one of the few actual level-headed in the group. Wasn't Shane their defacto leader after Rick? Or was this deviation toward Daryl a result of the fear and mistrust Shane had stirred up at the barn with his little snap from reality? At least they didn't try and send one of the kids, he mused. Or Shane. Or Andrea for that matter. Looks like there was enough common sense remaining amongst them to realize what a folly that would have been. With Daryl lingering in the doorway, looking disgruntled at being there in that moment, silent and fidgety under his fixed green stare, Marshall deflated. His loved-ones in the ground, daddy off drunk, Maggie off pissed, Beth comatose...

"Daryl!" came the hushed prompt behind the hunter, and Daryl hissed in irritation.

God, Marshall didn't want to be practical and rational, he wanted to be petty and righteous, but 7 years of training was hard to break from. He could blame this group all the livelong day—if they'd never shown up, would any of this had happened? But none of it would matter. It had happened, it couldn't be changed.

"Are you just enjoying the view or is there something you needed, Daryl?" Marshall finally spoke. He honestly had other, more important things to be pissed and worried about at the moment than wasting his energy being angry at fools. Individually, Daryl, Rick, Sophia, Carl, and Carol were great, it was this group mentality bullshit that left them all asinine.

"Can we talk to you for a sec?" Daryl's gruff voice was quiet but still carried.

Marshall sighed heavily. "Is this actually important or is this some more bullshit?" Alright, so he obviously still wasn't very impressed with most of the rest of them.

Daryl snorted. "If it was bullshit, I wouldn't be botherin' ya."

Marshall stared. "Fair enough, hunter. I believe that of you, at least." He rose from the bench, paused long enough to put his boots on and followed Daryl out the door. The sun was beating as bright and as hot as it ever was. He knew it had been hours, it had to have been hours, but it didn't seem like the sun had moved an inch from overhead. The whole group was there, barring Shane, Dale, Carl and Sophia. He didn't even need to prompt a response this time.

"Dale's missing." T-Dog was the one to voice the crux of this whole thing.

He blinked. "Okay." Marshall waited for a follow-up, but when all it was followed by was them staring at him, he added for clarification: "What's that got to do with me?"

Andrea scoffed, "Are you serious?"

"Yes." Was the succinct rejoinder.

"Rick and Glenn went after your father, when even you wouldn't." Andrea remarked like it was something she could hold over on him.

"I didn't ask them for that. My daddy sure as hell didn't. They're grown-ass men, they made that decision themselves." Marshall refrained from outright rolling his eyes at the woman, and simply turned his gaze elsewhere. "Why do you think he's missing? Maybe he went for a walk?" he suggested.

"He would have told somebody." Andrea insisted, indignant that Marshall wouldn't look at her when she spoke.

"Well, that seems to be going around today." Marshall scoffed. He looked to Daryl, "What did you need, exactly?"

"We need your help to find him," Lori spoke up before the man could, as much as she was displeased with Marshall for refusing to go after his father so her husband went in his stead, she was sure as hell a lot better at hiding it than Andrea.

Marshall raised an eyebrow at the hunter. "You're a tracker, aren't you?"

"I am and I can." Daryl replied. "Just need somewhere t' start. Need to borrow your dog. She can track, right?"

"At least you asked this time." Marshall remarked wryly. "She wouldn't have just gone along like Nelly otherwise."

Daryl rolled his eyes. "I was just borrowin' her. She came back just fine, didn't she?"

"So, will you help us, or not?" Andrea demanded.

"Please?" T-Dog tacked on emphatically when she didn't.

Marshall breathed deeply. "When was the last time anyone saw him?"

"Had to be before... that whole thing at the barn, right?" The man looked at the others for confirmation.

"That sounds about right." Lori said.

"I think Glenn might have actually been the last one to see him, he was supposed to be on watch." Andrea added.

"That was hours ago." Marshall sighed. "Fine. Get me something strong with his scent, but I don't make any promises." Andrea ran off to the RV and Marshall gave a sharp whistle.

"We've checked all around the main property," T-Dog said as they waited. "But he's obviously not around so we came to you."

Marshall made a noncommittal sound, he'd hope that was the case before they decided to bother him with this. He squatted as he spotted Athena approaching at a trot. She circled the group before deciding to brush passed Daryl to make it to her partner. "There's my girl." He cupped her face as she sat in front of him, scratching behind her ears. His hands brushed down her body, pressing under her vest, scratching any itches that lay beneath as he adjusted it to sit better. Typically, if she was just running around the farm, she needed nothing but her collar, but These Days it only came off when the day was done and they settled in for the night. While it wasn't exactly bullets they needed to be wary of, it afforded a bite-protection for the bulk of her.

Andrea finally jogged back up to them. "Here." She offered Marshall the same bucket hat that Dale had been wearing the day they first met. "He's usually always wearing it. Glenn had it earlier—his hat had a run-in with your sister and an egg—it's still good, though, right?"

"Yeah." Marshall took hold of the brim with minimal contact and turned to his dog. "Athena, attention." Athena's tail stopped wagging, her pointed ears went straight, and her amber gaze focused solely him. He brought the hat up, the sweat-stained inside open to her, "Scent." Her ears flickered before she stuffed her black nose instead the hat, her sniffing audible as she gave it a thorough examination. He didn't rush her or pull that hat away early, he waited until Athena sat back and made it clear she got what she needed with a low woof. "Search, girl." His final command sent her off.

The crowd watched Athena go. "Shouldn't we follow?" Andrea questioned as he rose to his feet.

"No." He told them. "Don't bother her. She'll signal me if she picks up his most recent scent trail." Marshall looked to Carol, "You should make sure Sophia doesn't try and go after her."

"Alright." Carol nodded and headed off for her daughter.

"That's it?" Andrea stopped him when he started to leave himself without another word. "We're just supposed to wait?"

Marshall paused long enough to shrug and throw over his shoulder, "Or something a little more productive than just standing around?" He didn't bother trying to understand her dark mutters or T-Dog's even reply. Instead of heading back into the house, he veered off toward the surgery. He didn't get very far before his name was shouted. He turned back to the house to find Maggie fast approaching. "What? Did Beth wake up?"

"What? No, no." Maggie shook her head. "I heard you signal Athena. What's going on?" She glanced around for said dog but didn't spot her. Marshall sighed quietly in disappointment and turned back to his original destination with Maggie on his heels. "Marshall?"

"Apparently, daddy wasn't the only one to have gone missing today." Marshall informed his sister. "Dale's been missing since early morning, but nobody seemed to notice until now because of how much the rest of the morning has been a complete shit-show."

"What?" she stopped abruptly before rushing forward again when her brother didn't deign to stop, too.

The surgery was just as he'd left it, door wide open. "They checked the usual haunts around the farm, but no luck so Athena's looking for a trail." He started collecting and checking-over the cleaned arrows that still lay scattered on the table from when Glenn had first called him about Beth collapsing.

Maggie watched him with narrowed eyes, her arms crossed. "And then?"

"And then I guess we find him or not, alive or not." He started sorting his arrows back into his quiver.

Her nails dug into her biceps as her twin's words finally set in stone what his actions relayed. He wasn't just tidying up, he was packing to go. "Are you fucking serious? You're leaving? Now? For this?! You wouldn't go for daddy, but you'll go run around in the woods for a stranger!" She shouted at him, incredulous.

"Seems so." He slid the last of his arrows in and grabbed his compound bow.

"No!" Maggie refused, blocking the doorway. "If you're leaving, then it's for daddy. Otherwise, you can march your ass back into the house!"

"Why?" He regarded her calmly instead of trying to bulldoze his way through her. "You already sent Rick and Glenn into town after him."

"What else was I supposed to do?!" she retorted. "You suddenly decided you were going to act like a child!"

Childish?

The muscles in his jaw jumped he clenched it so hard, feeling a sharp pain shoot through his head, before it eased as he swallowed convulsively. Swallowed it down and exhaled quietly. "I'm doing too much, I'm not doing enough. I'm never here when I'm needed. Everything I do is on just the left side of right." He remarked in a whisper, more to himself than her as he gazed through her rather than at her now.

Childish.

He was being pathetic, feeling sorry for himself. What did his anger matter in the grand scheme of things? He'd realized that earlier with Daryl, so why not about this? Patricia said his upset wasn't unreasonable, but to the extent of life and death? Now versus Before? It was just ignorant stubbornness—just like a child. As long as his sisters needed him... but right now they didn't want him, they wanted daddy. Maggie was very clear on that, and when Beth woke up, she'd wonder where he was. How was he supposed to tell her that daddy might be dead because Marshall was throwing a little tantrum? He'd already killed her mama, now he was going to wilfully kill her daddy, too?

"You're right." Marshall gaze refocused and Maggie blinked at him. "It was- is childish. I'm sorry. Look, I do need to help them find Dale, but when I get back if Rick and Glenn aren't back with daddy, I'll go after them, alright? Like I should have done from the beginning. I promise."

Maggie's anger quickly turned to worry and self-reproach. She hadn't been expecting this response, this sudden spiral. Not at her childish response of him being childish, not when not even her slap had garnered any reaction. But maybe he'd finally just exhausted himself at his anger since then, and her confrontation now was just the straw that broke the camel's back? It did not give a feeling of smug vindication, though.

When he stepped forward this time, she silently pressed her back against the door edge, letting him through. She didn't know what she was supposed to say.

Marshall paused outside. "It'll all work out in the end. Until then, play the radio for Beth? From experience... being stuck in silence like that, with nothing but room for all that pain and grief—it doesn't do her any good." He headed back toward the house. He needed to pack a few more things to be ready in the event that Athena managed to pick up Dale's scent trail leaving the farm, and just pop his head with Beth before he got busy—just in case.

He was in the kitchen, packing up a water when Athena's signal carried through the open window from the back of the house. Three sharp yips. Like this, when he sent her off on her own, if she failed to find a trail, she would return to him; but if she picked something up, she stayed at the location and gave a verbal signal. After a set time, if he hadn't turned up, she would repeat the signal. He shouldered his full pack and grabbed his hunting riffle from the breakfast table and headed out. He was kit out as was typical for a hunting trip, minus, or with the addition of a thing or two.

"That mean she found somethin'?" Daryl was quick to fall in step with him, carrying his crossbow over his shoulder. A clear signal that the hunter would be joining him, not that he expected anything otherwise.

"Yeah." Marshall glanced at him. "This back here eventually heads into the swamp. Don't know why he'd head back this way." Daryl grunted in agreement. Athena rose to attention as she spotted their approach by the tree line, giving a short pace, ready to move.

"Alright, we doing this, or what?" Andrea and T-Dog jogged over, armed.

"Athena, hold." Athena gave a whine but held as Marshall turned to the pair. He had two options here. He quickly ran the pros and cons as he regarded them, which scenario would cause him the least aggravation, but he was lacking a crucial piece of information. The deciding factor, if you will. He looked to Daryl: "You know 'em better. It worth the extra bodies?"

Daryl squinted at him, blinked. Still unused to people giving a shit about his opinion on anything, let alone even asking for it. Marshall was similar to Rick in that regard. He remembered the damn disaster the group search into the woods had been when Sophia had first gone missing; what a damn joke. His blue-eyes finally flickered over to the pair. Andrea immediately raised a challenging brow when his gaze briefly grazed hers. T-Dog, Daryl had found out, could handle himself and have your back, guy took responsibility for his shit. Andrea...

Gaze flickering between the three, Marshall could have laughed. A silence had never spoken so loudly before. Hell, Daryl's continued silence was a symphony in itself, let alone Andrea's mounting anger, and T-Dog's simple resignation on the matter.

"Are you serious, Daryl?" Andrea cursed.

"Damn, man." T-Dog quietly sighed and looked away; Daryl's continued silence was a ringing endorsement alright. Yeah. T-Dog vividly recalled the moment when they'd all first met Rick on that first group run with Glenn into the city. Her bluster at threatening to kill Rick without realizing the safety was still on. It was almost amusing now, thinking back to how blasé Rick had been, thrown up against the wall, gun shoved in his face while the rest of them freaked out, the only one to notice that little tidbit. So, he wasn't exactly surprised about that, himself either, really.

T-Dog still held the guilt and the weight of his fuck-up with Merle. Yeah, the guy was a racist, sexist, homophobe, the trifecta, but that didn't mean he wanted to kill him. Losing the cuff keys down that drain had truly been an unfortunate accident, though he was sure some saw it as an "accident" after what had proceeded that. And though there was some benefit to Merle no longer being in the group, like the man's bad attitude and the unpredictability that left everyone on a razor's edge (honestly, everyone was unpredictable nowadays), and the shift in Daryl now that he wasn't under the weight of his big brother's influence and thumb. He wouldn't hold it against the younger Dixon for holding a grudge, even if the man wasn't outright hostile, he was understandable snappish at everyone.

"T." Daryl jerked his chin at the surprised man in question. "Might need the extra hands." T-Dog nodded at the man, determined.

"Okay." Marshall agreed without question, trusting the hunter's judgement. He nodded at T-Dog, Daryl and Athena. "The four of us it is, then."

Andrea turned her glare to Marshall before he could turn his back to her. "You're just another sexist asshole!"

Marshall scoffed in derision. "I don't give a shit about your gender. What I do give a shit about, is if you're competent with a gun, can keep a cool head in chaos, and follow simply instruction."

"This is bullshit!" Andrea informed. "Dale is our friend, he's our group. Daryl said it earlier, we just needed your dog to find his trail. You did that, we don't need you anymore."

Daryl blinked at her like she'd lost her Goddamned mind, T-Dog stared at her in a similar state. Marshall was unimpressed and unaffected by her 'impassioned' declaration.

"Whatever." Marshall remarked. "In the span of a few hours I killed my mother and brother, I buried my mother and brother, my little sister collapsed, and my daddy fucked off into town without telling anyone to get drunk after 25 years of sobriety. You're the ones that came to me. You say you care about Dale, yet you stand here, arguing, delaying the actual search for him. I have other shit to be doing than catering to your damn wounded sense of pride." He snapped his fingers, "Athena, stand down. Let's go." He turned and headed back toward the house, in a few bounding strides Athena caught up to him.

"Damn it, Andrea!" T-Dog cursed, before calling desperately after the man, ready and willing to chase after him if need be. "Hey, man! No! Wait! Please!" But he didn't have to as Marshall came to a halt, Athena pausing a his side. "Don't listen to Andrea, we could really use your help with this. I am sorry about this whole thing with your family, but I'm also really worried about my friend."

Marshall turned back to them. "Look, you don't need to beg. You want my help? Okay. You don't want my help? Fine. Just make up your minds, because I wasn't talking out of my ass just now when I said I have other shit that needs doing."

"Yes, we want your help." T-Dog said immediately before Andrea could think to open her damn mouth. "Daryl's a great hunter and tracker, and I know he could find Dale, but these are your woods, man. And your dog clearly knows what she doing," they never would have found this trail otherwise, "With the two of you, this would go a lot faster to doing that."

"Okay. Hunter?" Marshall questioned the silent man.

"What?" Daryl was annoyed with this useless delay, just so Andrea could try and assert herself with some kind of authority—again. And at himself when Marshall called him 'hunter'. "You waitin' for me t' get on ma knees an' suck your dick?" Was Daryl sarcastic response.

Something dim in the Ranger's eyes flared briefly to life at the man's sarcastic response, which was practically an engraved invitation in Dixon-speak. "Daryl~" Marshall cooed. "Don't tease me! Athena," he pointed towards the woods with a snap of fingers, "Scent and search." Athena gave a low woof in confirmation of the command and darted into the woods. "This mean we're friends again?" he questioned as he passed the man into the woods without delay, giving T-Dog a little confirming nod and simply ignoring the woman.

Daryl rolled his eyes as he followed, "We were never friends before."

"You can't play like this with me, Daryl. I'm in a vulnerable place right now." He was only half joking as he took the lead in following after the Belgian Malinois.

It was silent as the tree line quickly fell away, Andrea's argumentative voice finally faded out as T-Dog jogged to catch up to the pair. Daryl stared at the back of the other man, there was something off that was annoying him and that was irritating him in a way that not even being in the woods after days of forced inactivity could alleviate.

It wasn't until there was a distant crack leftward, and they all stilled. He, T-Dog and Athena looked in that direction, her ears twitching forward, nose twitching as she scented the air in that direction, while the Ranger's gaze stayed focused on his canine partner, and Daryl understood what was annoying him.

"That a walker?" was T-Dog's hushed question.

Athena gave a low woof before going back to her previous scent trail as the Ranger shook his head and Marshall silently followed after her.

Marshall was silent.

As long as Daryl had known him, albeit a short, yet tiring 3 days, the man, while not loud was always making some kind of noise. Whether it was singing to himself or that incessant humming lullaby, even his damn green eyes were loud! And it was infuriating where a damn ill-timed throat clear could get you mobbed by walkers, yet...

Daryl remembered when they first met, and that damn constant humming that seemed to put Sophia at ease instead of making her more paranoid like it had done to Daryl for that first while. When they started to head back to the farm, Athena leading, Sophia slinking after her, his crossbow nearly dwarfing her, that was his focal point as his concussion and wound slowly drained him, and the stranger, the threat quiet at his back but not silent. Because as long as Marshall was humming that damn lullaby, Daryl knew exactly where he was even if he couldn't see him, and when that went silent, then Daryl instinctively knew there was danger—which was the reason for the Ranger doing it in the first place. But Silent on Marshall Greene didn't sit right.

Daryl was still surprised to hear his own low, rough voice break the silence. "You plannin' on ditchin' this place, or what?"

Marshall shot a brief questioning side-eye back over his shoulder and Daryl jerked his chin at the backpack. "Dale's an older man. He's been out here for more than 12 hours. He's either dead... injured... or at the very least suffering from heatstroke and dehydration."

"Makes sense." Daryl hadn't really thought beyond actually finding the man. T-Dog silently agreed.

"You've been real chatty lately." Marshall commented after a moment.

"Maybe this is the first time you've been silent long enough for me t' get a word in edgeways."

He remarked quietly, maybe a little pointedly, "It's just a real change to how quiet you were at the barn."

T-Dog's gaze darted between the two. Why did he feel like he was suddenly in the middle of something? He slowed his stride a little so he ended up at the back of the pack, a good decision as the proceeding followed:

Daryl's shoulders tensed a little at the mention and got a little defensive. "You waitin' for an apology? 'Cause you'll be left waitin'."

"No." Marshall told him truthfully.

"If you were expecting me to do somethin'-!"

Marshall abruptly turned around to face him and Daryl managed to jolt to a halt two feet away. "Absolutely nothing. We're strangers, so I should expect absolutely nothing from you, yet... yesterday, we talked about our brothers. And I'll admit, when I saw you just standing there with a gun with it all going down, I felt... disappointed? Betrayed? Things I'm sure I have no right to feel, because even if I know I'm really just a means-to-an-end to you right now, I still just want to be your friend." Daryl had wanted Marshall to stop being silent, and he'd gotten his wish. No more flaccid tone, no more dim eyes. His voice was quiet and intense and it trembled with the grief and the helplessness. His green-eyes were bright with unshed tears, and they bore a weight with there intensity, stilling the hunter like a prey meeting the gaze of a predator. "And because he was my baby brother, Daryl, and I pray for you that when you finally find your brother, you don't have to put him down like some rabid animal like I did."

Marshall's breath was left a little shaky by the end, and whatever little emotional tidal wave that had swept up just then, dissipated, leaving him floating in that dark abyss again. Daryl was silent in the face of him, expression unreadable, but what was he expecting the hunter to say? Thanks for the prayer?

T-Dog gave a wary look at their surroundings even though he knew Athena would detect the presence of walkers long before he did. It was really just a way to give the two men some semblance of privacy. It was an interesting surprise to realize there was more to them than one might assume, but given at how protective Marshall had been when he brought the injured-Daryl back to the farm, maybe it shouldn't be.

Marshall gave a weak chuckle that left Daryl blinking at him as the man backed off both emotionally and physically. "Wow. I heard myself just now, and it's amusing in a pathetic kind of way. Maggie called me childish earlier, but I really heard it just then: I still just want to be your friend." He turned his back to Daryl, his attention going back to Athena who had been waiting for him to get his shit together and he gestured her to carry on. "See, I knew there was a reason I liked you, Daryl! You dodged one big bloody bullet here." Of course, he just embarrassed himself in front of both men.

"Jesus." T-Dog muttered under his breath. "That was harsh, man."

Daryl grunted noncommittally and stared at Marshall's back, following silently in the Ranger's footsteps. He should have been satisfied, he finally got what he wanted. Marshall was not his friend and the man would finally stop bothering him about it. But it wasn't there.

There was no further conversation as they continued to follow Athena, a break to hydrate from Marshall's supplies and for her to re-scent Dale's hat. They were by no means going in a straight-line, the trail drifting, expected of anyone who didn't know the woods or wherever the hell they were going, the sun finally starting to shift in the sky.

"What the hell was he doing out here anyway?" Marshall questioned when they were lead into a little zig-zag pattern.

"The hell should I know?" was Daryl's curt response.

"Isn't he your friend?" it wasn't snarky, but genuine.

"I'm out here, ain't I?"

"Yes," Marshall agreed softly, understanding, "You are." Just like with Sophia.

"It's quiet out here." T-Dog commented, wanting to break the weird tension. "Thought we'd come across some walkers by now."

"We're close to the swamps now, you can feel it a bit in the ground getting damper, a little more spongy. We'll probably see some soon—they tend to get stuck in the silt. The more they struggle the faster they sink, and then with nothing around to draw their attention they become immobile, just waiting there like a bunch of horror movie scarecrows."

"That's a fucked-up picture—but a nice natural defence."

Athena whined for attention and pawed at the ground at the base of a twisted up tree, drawing their focus. Marshall patted her head in praise before sending her off again and looked at what she found.

"What is it?" Daryl questioned, gaze automatically on a swivel.

"A hammer." Marshall picked it up from the dirt and leaves. After a brief examination, he offered it to Daryl who was closest before it made its was to T-Dog after a quick look.

It only took a second for T-Dog to recognize the tool. "This is one of Dale's—he's very particular with his tools, hates people messing with 'em." He brushed off the clinging earth with his fingers. "What the hell was he doin' with this out here?"

"That is the question of the day." Marshall drew his fingertips over the ground where the hammer was found, searching for other hidden gems.

"Somethin' else?" Daryl questioned.

"Just a big-ass nail." Marshall absently twirled it through his fingers after brushing it off.

"So, he was here—doin' hell knows what—but he ain't here no more."

"He wouldn't just leave it," T-Dog interjected, finally tucking the hammer into his belt for safekeeping. "Something must have happened for him to leave it." He resisted the urge to call out his friend's name.

"Walkers." Daryl surmised just as Athena barked in signal from nearby but out of sight.

"Let's go find out the answer." Marshall led them to Athena, who was circling around her find—a dead piranha.

"Shit! Is that-?" T-Dog couldn't even finish the thought.

"No." Daryl was quick to confirm it, staring down at the splayed walker corpse. He kicked its foot. "Just some random poor bastard."

With a short stick in hand, Marshall crouched by the piranha and nudged its head this way and that. Though a closer examination wasn't really needed in this case. "Its head's been caved in pretty violently—that your guy's typical M.O?"

"No, he would have used the hammer, but that was clean." T-Dog said, glancing around. "His rifle. He's got a knife..."

As far as the Greene could tell with an already pre-rotted corpse, this was recent. Within that last 24 hours. Marshall frowned. Was there some violent asshole in his territory that he had to worry about now? He flicked the stick away into the brush in irritation as he rose, just another thing on his plate. "Let's keep going."

They were edging the swamp now and finally had their first show of live scarecrows. Two piranha pinioned in the silt up to their knees. Athena gave a quiet huff as she eyed them, but after a glance up at her handler, who wasn't very concerned, she disengaged.

"Freaky." Though T-Dogs voice was low, it seemed enough to rouse them. The natural quiet of the woods was overtaken with raspy snarls. "Damn." They struggled, twisting, reaching, yet remained unmoved.

"You just gonna leave them like that?" Daryl questioned the other man who barely gave them a lingering look.

"Unless you're willing to lose a couple bolts... 'Cause I sure ain't swimming out there to fetch them again." Marshall told him.

"But ain't it dangerous to just leave 'em?" T-Dog wondered. "What if they make it out?"

"If you two stand there like delicious bait long enough, I'm sure they'll be motivated enough to do it." Was Marshall's departing remark before he disappeared after Athena.

"C'mon, man." Daryl tsked after a moment of standing there, jerking his head in Marshall's direction, leaving after one last glare shot at the walkers.

"Alright." The man followed after the hunter. They didn't immediately catch up to their guide as the walker snarls faded behind them, but T-Dog trusted Daryl to easily be able to find them.

They heard Athena growling first and they picked up their pace. "Shit," was Marshall's clear curse followed by: "Athena, quiet." Marshall heard them come through the trees behind them, crossbow and steel hatchet at the ready.

"W-?" T-Dog started to question, his hatchet dropping slightly as the only thing in sight was dog and man.

"I'm sorry." Marshall stepped away from the swamp edge to reveal the piranha stuck within. Mostly submerged in the muck and water, only one arm, a chunk of chest, and its head were free.

T-Dog's hatchet dropped to the ground from numb fingers with a quiet thud as he stared into the face of their missing friend as he chomped on air, the click of his bloodied teeth flinch worthy. "Dale? No, man. No!" his arms sandwiched his head in despair as his body instinctively hunkered down, and he was left to stare helplessly.

"Fuck." Daryl muttered. He knew it was a possibility, but it was still a kick to the balls. Was it some cosmic bullshit? It'd been shit, one thing after another. Merle, the ambush on the quarry camp, the C.D.C., Jim and Jaqui. They lost Sophia but found her. Carl got shot but he lived. They found the Greene Farm. Three good things, now it was back to the succession of shit again? He tsked.

As much as Marshall wanted to give them time, from experience, he knew that hesitating didn't make it better. The man they knew was gone, and though he looked nearly the same as his alive counterpart, the cloudy eyes, the hushed rasp, clacking teeth and hooked fingers painted the true picture. "I can-" Marshall started to offer.

"No." Daryl shook his head. "I'll do it. It should be one of us."

"Okay." He agreed softly. "If you want to take... his body back to farm for the others, it will be easier if he's still moving." Marshall informed him as he watched Daryl linger and hesitate with his crossbow, jaw clenched.

"Yeah. Yeah." T-Dog straightened, sniffing. "Let's do that. How we gonna do that exactly? We'll get stuck, too, if we try to go into that."

Marshall shrugged off his pack and took off the bundle of rope tied to the outside. "Simple lasso should do it."

"You know how to do that?" T-Dog asked even as he watched the man quickly tied a slip knot like it was muscle memory.

"I'm a farm boy. This'll be easier than a rogue stallion." It had been a while since he'd done this, but the position and form was as automatic as his archery posture. He eyed his target as he started to swing the loop overhead, it sang through the air as he created enough momentum not to wobble and hold form, and using the natural pull at the sweet spot to release. The lasso sailed the short distance right on target, ready to hook from the outside-in—and Dale swatted it before it could loop over his arm then head.

"Damn." Marshall's lips briefly formed a pout as his rope splashed in the water. He coiled the rope back, the lasso loop now sodden with swamp water. He cracked it like a whip, getting rid of the excess.

Daryl snorted. "Thought you knew what you're doin'?"

Marshall rolled his eyes. "He's drawn by the noise and movement of the rope. Distract him so he's not snatchin' it."

T-Dog uncomfortably took up the mantle, clapping his hands obnoxiously and giving wordless shouts to drown out the whir of the lasso. T-Dog stared over Dale's head to avoid having to look into his cloudy eyes, as his single free arm steady reached for him. When Marshall's lasso suddenly snapped tight under Dale's armpit and over his neck, T-Dog flinched to abrupt silence.

"Now, grab some rope and help me pull him out."

Daryl took the offered coils and passed the end of it to T-Dog. They formed a short, spaced line behind the Ranger. It was like some twisted game of tug-of-war. They dug their heels in and pulled. It couldn't have taken more than 10 minutes, but it was still an exhausting experience. The suction of the silt was no joke. The process would have been easier had Marshall been able to lasso Dale about both his armpits, but it was made all the easier when Dale managed to free his buried arm and was able to more effectively claw his way towards them. They stumbled and almost fell on top of each other with the finally yank that abruptly pulled Dale's upper body onto solid ground. Mud flung as the caked man lurched toward them like the swamp monster.

Marshall quickly dropped the rope and grabbed Dale's waving arms, yanking them straight and bracing his knees of the back of his hands, keeping them pinned flat and harmless to the ground. While his hands kept a steady pressure on the back of his muddy head so he was chomping on dirt instead of flesh. Marshall didn't need to say anything as Daryl knelt down adjacent to him, silent and expression a tight mask as he faced the difficult task before him, but his hand was steady as he slowly pulled his knife from its sheath at his hip.

The tip of the knife sat poised at the back of Dale's exposed neck, ready to sever the brain stem. "Sorry, brother." Daryl murmured, and with the heel of his none dominant hand braced against the hilt of his knife, he put an end to the struggling husk of his friend with 5 inches of downward movement.

T-Dog's eyes had slammed shut the moment he'd seen Daryl muscles tense. He may have been able to block out the image of the hunter giving his friend his final death, but he hadn't been able to snuff out the soft sound of it.

There was a moment of silence and stillness among the two men before Marshall shifted off the now dead-dead man. As much as he may have wanted to reach out and give the hunter some kind of comfort, he knew Daryl's response would be far from positive. Instead, he grabbed the limp wrists he'd formerly been kneeling on and pulled Dale's corpse the rest of the way from the swamp and onto dry land.

"There's a blanket in my pack we can use to wrap him up." Marshall voiced quietly, going where Athena sat lookout by his bag. He set up the water bowl for her before he grabbed the blanket, a couple bungee cords hooked to the outside of him pack, and put some lighting implements within reach. Time seemed to pass by faster while he was actively distracted from it. The blanket briefly billowed out before it lay on the uneven ground, "Help me turn him and get him onto the blanket?"

They carefully turned Dale onto his back. Marshall took him under the wet armpits and T-Dog grabbed his mud-caked ankles. They shifted him over and laid his body out onto the blanket.

"Where was he bit?" T-Dog voiced quietly before Marshall could wrap the body. "I don't see anything."

"He's covered in mud." Daryl pointed out. "What's it matter? It don't change anything. Still dead. Won't bring 'him back!"

"I know he's dead, you don't have to point it out. Damn! Don't you want to know, man? What the hell happened out here? What are we supposed to tell the others?" T-Dog argued back. Daryl huffed, but agreed even if he didn't they'd ever really be able to find the answer.

"You want to do this here?" Marshall asked, looking between the two. He understood the want for answers, the need for it to be immediate and over with so they could try and move on, to have the answer to everyone else's questions. He was curious himself, too, to figure out all this drama, though there was no doubt several of the important questions would forever be lacking answers.

"Could you please check?" T-Dog asked.

"Just get it over with," was the hunter's response at the green gaze.

"Alright." Marshall grabbed a bottle of water from his bag, a handy rag from a side pocket, and double checked the small flashlight in one of his leg pockets. He knelt next to Dale on the blanket, dampened the rag and started with the head.

T-Dog watched him where he stood at Dale's feet, his arms crossed over his chest tightly. Daryl paced a silent arc opposite, gaze periodically flicking to one, to the next, to the third before grazing across the quiet perimeter then back again.

"Time of death isn't exactly as straight forward as it used to be." Marshall told them as he wiped the muck away to expose the skin below. It wouldn't be the first time he cleansed a body after death, he'd helped prepare the fallen bodies of comrades to be sent home before. So, his movements were measured but confident. He'd never been squeamish with corpses, gore and all manner of icky bodily fluids, but give him a sink full of a dishes and a chance encounter with a mystery mushy bit of food and he was full-on gagging. "This sickness, virus, contagion—whatever you want to call it—messes with the natural progression of decomposition. It both slows and progresses faster than the norm."

"You mean other than the fact that dead people come back to try and eat us?" T-Dog wondered a bit sarcastically.

"What does it matter?" Daryl interrupted.

Marshall was quiet for a moment as he thought about that. "I suppose... it doesn't actually technically matter. Just things I've come to notice. Like the fact that the muscle and ligament tissue degradation is slowed. Or the fact that their blood doesn't coagulate properly like it should, just thickens like ketchup. I've noticed that bodies don't go into rigor mortis anymore. They're still hearing and visually able despite destroyed blood vessels and cataracts that quickly form on the cornea." He finally set aside the soiled rag, and with his small but bright-beamed flashlight, gave the body before him a more intent exam than the cursory one he give while cleaning. "Death, it's like a chrysalis. A caterpillar to a moth. You don't see the change until it reanimates. And regardless of the time actually spent dead, they all go through those same rapid changes before the decomposition slows. Annette... came back... about three hours later. But Shawn... Shawny was less than that. She was sick for days and he died within minutes of being bitten—yet both showed the same accelerated degradation points."

"It took hours for Andrea's sister Amy to turn after she was bit and died." T-Dog commented. "And Jim was sick for almost two days before we left him. It makes sense it would vary from person to person like with any other sickness."

"You guys were at the CDC before here, you didn't... learn anything about the breakout there?" Marshall wondered quietly as he sat back, flicking his light off.

"Just the one scientist was left. Jenner. He had no idea about any kind of cure or vaccination. Just showed us some brain scan of a bitten person, who died, then reanimated. The brainstem lit up again, but it wasn't... bright like it'd been when they were alive. Said the virus just awakened the most basic function and instinct—to eat. And then he tried to blow us all up."

"Don't get bit. Avoid gettin' scratched. Go for the brain. That's all you need to know." Daryl stared at Marshall intently. The man's expression was closed off, but not with the same sympathy it held before. "What aren't you sayin'?" he accused directly.

T-Dog glanced at the hunter before focusing back to Marshall. "Did you find the bite?"

Marshall was silent for a moment. He swallowed. "No."

"What? What do you mean 'no'?"

"He wasn't bit?" Daryl repeated for clarification.

"You obviously missed something." T-Dog pointed out. "Under his clothes or-or a scratch-!"

"If the bite wound was enough to kill him, quick enough to leave him stranded out here, despite being in the swamp, that would be obvious." Marshall informed them calmly and evenly, leaving no room for doubt. "I've never personally dealt with piranha scratches, but I'm going to assume it's similar to a bite's infection—so unless he's been hiding some very obvious symptoms from 16 people..."

"So, it doesn't matter whether any of us get bitten or scratched or simply just die—we all turn into walkers in the end anyway?!"

"It's not really that big of stretch," Marshall said thoughtfully, "Still scary as fuck, but... nobody even knows what the origin of this thing is. Maybe scientists drilled into the wrong iceberg and found some prehistoric virus. Maybe some meteorite crashed to Earth and it's some alien virus. Maybe it's just another man-made plague because we can't leave well enough alone." His lip twitched. "Maybe it's God."

The two men stared at the man like he was, well, sprouting a bunch of conspiracy theories.

"It doesn't change anything." Daryl finally dismissed. "You go for the head—every time." And it was true. Just like back at the quarry after they'd been overrun, pickaxe to every head, whether they were already a walker or one of their people.

T-Dog was quiet for a moment before he gave a nod. What other choice was there but to accept, deal, a move on? "If a bite didn't kill Dale—do you know what did?"

"He wouldn't happen to have a family history of heart disease or blood clots? Maybe brain aneurysms or strokes?"

"No idea." Daryl answered for them both. "Did any of those things kill 'im or are you just guessin'?"

"It still doesn't explain what Dale was even doing out here." T-Dog added quietly.

Marshall sighed quietly before he clicked on the flashlight and used it to highlight his observations in the falling darkness. "There are abrasions on his head and arms which could be indicative of a fall. So, I may have left it at that—if it wasn't for the discolouration on his throat."

"And that's not just dirt?"

"If you feel right here," Marshall demonstrated, placing his fingertips on the column of Dale's throat. "You can feel the abnormality. A give that shouldn't be there. That's a crushed trachea. It also accounts for the heavier petechial haemorrhaging in his eyes, and why he was so quiet." He pulled back. "He was strangled. It's possible he came across whoever it was that killed that piranha we found earlier. I don't see a gun, so maybe they took that, too?"

"You're right. Shit." T-Dog rubbed his forehead and looked around the darkening woods warily. "You think they're still around? If they found Dale then they'd definitely be lookin' for the farm."

"If they were, Athena would know before any of us did."

"No." Daryl's voice was virtually a croak, so bogged with anger. "Some guy didn't kill 'im and steal he gun."

"You can't kn-" T-Dog started with a headshake.

"Dale's rifle's back at camp. That rat son of a bitch!"

Athena ears went back a little at the sudden outburst.

"What are you talking about, man?"

"I had Dale's rifle at the barn—didn't even give it a second thought. Shane—right under our damn noses this entire time, that smug bastard." He grip flexed on his crossbow and started to pass again in short, abrupt bursts. " As soon as Glenn told Dale about the barn, he would have known it was only a matter o' time before the others found out and Shane tried to pull somethin' over Rick's 'inaction' on the whole thing."

T-Dog stared at the man in silence. His immediate reaction was a scoff and denial, but after the initial surprise at the accusation... the dislike between those two wasn't exactly a secret within the group. "Shane always hated how Dale wasn't intimated by him like everyone else and called him on his shit." T-Dog theorized, expanding on Daryl's hypothesis, slowly piecing together a likely narrative, "Dale figured it was only a matter of time before Shane did something aggressively stupid and thought it was a good idea to come out here, tuck away the gun bag somewhere safe. Could be what the hammer and nail were for, some sort of marker. But Shane saw him, followed him. And when Dale stood his ground... Shane finally snapped—because Dale wouldn't have backed down, no matter how much Shane tried to posture. Threw Dale's... body into swamp," he glanced back at his friend's grave, "Thinking it would sink, disappear, and that was that. Grabbed the gun bag and came back to the farm..."

Marshall's thumbnail absently picked at the grooves on the flashlight's grip as he pondered on their theory. He could certainly see it, especially with Shane's opinion on the barn of piranha and volatile attitude. Dale had been in his way, so he took out the obstacle. But to kill him when he could have easily overpowered Dale? Marshall thought back to the barn. Yeah, he could see that, too.

"Just to clarify..." Marshall finally spoke, "You're entire theory hinges on the fact that Shane, a former Sheriff's Deputy, made the simple, but fatal mistake, of grabbing Dale's personal and preferred gun, instead of tossing it into the swamp after the body he had already calculatingly disposed of there?"

"Guns are a commodity, now more so than even Before." T-Dog reasoned. "Maybe he hoped no one realized. I don't think I would have," he admitted.

But Daryl rolled his eyes and spat, not realizing until too late the effect his response had because he wasn't personally affected by it. Essentially, a throw away comment: "He already made the same stupid mistake when he came back with medical supplies and Otis' gun, but no Otis!"

Everything in Marshall's awareness just seemed to fade out as the hunter's words and their meaning, went into one ear, infested his brain like hot tar and stayed there. The distant noise of nature, the faint breeze against his sweaty skin faded out. The heart that thumped in his chest like the warning toll of a bell. There was a buzz in his ears. Dark swept in. The tips of his fingers tingled. He felt like he'd just been in a car wreck but he hadn't moved a muscle. Shane. Otis. Gun. No Otis. "What?" It felt like it left him like a wheeze of air after being gut-punch, but it sounded muffled in his ears like he was underwater, only he knew it instinctively came out louder than that like talking with earplugs in.

Daryl shot a quick look across at T-Dog, realized he couldn't backtrack so he ploughed ahead, "I think he took it as some kind of sick retribution for shootin' Carl." That how he thought about it, at least.

Marshall rose, stumbled back a step before rebalancing. The flashlight dropped from his fingers, the switch knocked and a beam of light cut through the dim and across Dale's stone cold and grey corpse.

"Marshall, hey, man, you alright?" Dumb question, of course he wasn't. Man just found out his uncle was probably murdered by the guy he opened his home to, but T-Dog was still concerned.

Marshall offered no answer or even any indication he heard as he turned away. Daryl jerked out of his way as he tromped passed like a zombie, his green eyes were wide but his face was like plastic. He dropped onto to his knees in front of Athena in an action like they'd given out beneath him instead of consciously doing it—and hugged the Belgian Malinois. He distantly knew, in that tiny spark of conscious awareness that he was having a panic attack and he intrinsically needed his partner.

An Anchor.

Athena whined in his ear. She could sense his distress, could physically feel it in the minute tremble and puffs of breath, his blunt fingernails biting into her vest. So, she thumped her tail against the ground, and pawed with her own dull nails at his thigh, and panted her own breath against his neck, and licked his ear. All grounding techniques, both instinctive and trained. While she wasn't technically trained, classified and licensed as an Emotional Support Animal, they were partners and family, the care and love was real, built from trust and shared experience. They knew and understood each other, habits, quirks, triggers and all.

It wasn't the first time Marshall had a episode and Athena needed to ground him back to present and reality. The same could be said in reverse—especially when Marshall had been integrating Athena into civilian life. She was raised for war, and while military dogs were fostered in trained civilian homes the first year of life, it was but a forgotten memory by then, like a childhood forgotten.

Marshall turned his face in her thick neck ruff as he worked to collect his coherency.

He hadn't particularly questioned Otis' death. Everyone told him what happened and he was filled with guilt at not being there and grief at the loss. Otis wasn't thirty years-old anymore, he was large and he was rotund, and it wasn't such an out in left thought that he was caught and overwhelmed by piranha in the face of stamina. Marshall had no reason to even think that Shane would have purposefully murdered him—either as a sacrifice to escape or in vengeance for Carl.

Marshall hadn't interacted or talked to Shane one-on-one barring that two minute encounter during his nightly patrol by the barn to give the man his warning, but Dale had suspected and Daryl had suspected. Others, too, maybe. It certainly hadn't taken much to turn T-Dog's opinion. And if all these people who knew the man far better than Marshall, suspected him of not just killing one, but two people... Marshall wanted to ask why they never brought it up before, but he already knew the answer: why risk their place on the farm?

Marshall's hold eased, the world slowly coming back to focus with each faint thump of Athena's tail. The screaming had almost been born to freedom. It ached and it felt like he just wanted to cry but it sat there like a sneeze that wouldn't come, so there was nothing to do but go forward and let what come may.

He murmured quiet thanks into Athena's fur before he sat back on his muddy boots. He stroked her head, his back to the two men who hadn't dared to approach—had they tried, Athena would not had taken well to the perceived threat whilst he was in such a vulnerable state.

"You want Shane dead, is that it?" Marshall questioned, his voice quiet because he simply couldn't raise it higher, there was just exhausted distance. "That's why you said something now 'cause I didn't do what was expected at the barn and killed him? You have some... vendetta against him because he... cuffed you brother to that roof?"

"No." Daryl's scoff was immediate, like that was the funniest thing he'd heard. "Shane would've had to get his ass off his Shit Throne and do some actual work. Asshole never left the quarry, everyone else just fell in line behind 'im 'cause he used to be a cop. Rick's the one that cuff 'im to the roof. T-Dog was the one that dropped the damn key!"

T-Dog smacked his lips guiltily but knew better than to try and apologize to the other man for it again, not when Daryl told him to 'fuck off!' and 'I'm not the one you need to be snivelin' at!'. The flashlight beam bounced briefly in the dark as he fiddled with it.

Marshall was surprised by that tidbit. Rick was the one that cuffed Merle to that roof. Granted, his main source of info on the group had been Sophia, but Marshall had come to find that abused kids adapted to be more observant and unassuming and thus wells of information.

"Guys like Shane aren't that hard to figure out. Spent his whole life second to Rick—until the world went to shit and then he was on top. And livin' Rick's life! Rick conveniently 'died' during the evacuation and Lori and Carl were forced to rely on Shane. They'd been fuckin' since day one, too. None of us even knew that Rick existed—not 'til Carl was the one to say somethin' after Dale was the one that made some throw away comment about Shane being his dad. That's when he really started to resent Dale, 'cause Dale was the one to shatter his little fantasy of the perfect little family. Then Rick turned up, alive. Lori dropped Shane like a piece of hot shit and jumped right back into it with Rick. 'N took over the group without hassle from anyone but Shane. Shane was back t' being Second Best after he got a taste of The Best. He killed Otis for Carl. He killed Dale 'cause he was in his way. Hell, Rick's probably next on his hit list if he can get the balls to kill his best-friend, then he'll have Lori and Carl back to himself again like in the beginnin'."

"Damn, man!" T-Dog couldn't help but exclaim, both surprised and impressed. He'd never heard Daryl talk so much in one setting before, but he guessed if Daryl and Dale had one thing in common it was their impression of Shane. And while it played like some kind of Soap Opera, the pair hadn't exactly been subtle in their woodland trysts at the quarry and Shane played his part of jealous, scorned lover so well. In his heart-of-hearts Rick had to know.

Marshall reached over to his pack and fiddled with the slightly reflective bungees. All the damn drama because of jealousy and unrequited love. Of course such petty shit would still happen in the apocalypse, if you were still kicking now, then you were bound to cling to things like that. Marshall hated himself that he could still continue to find the objective justification of that bastard's actions.

"You weren't there either times, so I bet you would've have clocked it, but he was the same twitchy, sweaty mess. Eyes black from the adrenaline. Looked rough both times. Coulda almost mistaken him for tweakin'." Daryl scuffed the ground with his shoe, "Don't know if either of you realized, but his boots were caked in mud, too. Not like this shit comes out easy."

Marshall stood abruptly, the flashlight beam in T-Dog's hands jerking to his back.

"What exactly are you expecting to do with all of this? Take it back to the others, share your assumption, and then... what? Kick him out of the group? Kick him off the farm?" Marshall scoffed. "You think Rick would let us just... execute Shane?" He finally turned to face them, the beam briefly blinding before T-Dog lowered the light where it unconsciously but ironically landed on Dale's corpse again. "You ever kill anyone before? Really killed someone? Not someone turned, not someone bitten. Just a whole, healthy person looking you in the eye, hell, maybe not even in the eye." Neither met his gaze head-on, so he got his answer to that.

"Had I not been so forgiving, so soft at the barn, not wanting to kill a person in front of my family. Had I shot Shane in the back with my sidearm, like I should have, how would any of you have reacted? Armed to the teeth, already on-edge, not exactly opposed to Shane's idea of taking the barn because it wasn't like any of you actually tried to stop him. Nobody tried to help Rick so he could actually do something.

"Would you have simply gunned me down in turn, Athena, in front of my family, then turned on them too? All of your problems could have been solved: Shane would have been taken care of by a third-party, you would of had the farm to yourselves without any of my father's restrictions...

"So, what the fuck stopped you?" He demanded. "There are no cops Now. Hell, there aren't even any laws Now. It's survival of the fucking fittest and the depraved even if most of us are loath to admit it, because then that means there is no hope. Rape. Cannibalism. Murder. Who the fuck is gonna stop them but someone else's sense of morality?

"What are you expecting out of this, Daryl? What exactly are you expecting me to do?" Marshall voice was helplessly small in the face of the dark and silence. "The man killed my uncle and looked my daddy and auntie in the eye and painted him like some kind of hero. He's back at the farm, without Rick or anyone else to keep him in check, while my family is vulnerable and unaware, ripe for the picking-"

"Why do you keep throwin' your expectations onto me?" Daryl interrupted. "You're not some God damned baby and I ain't your damn daddy! It's not my damn family you're not stepping up for. So, stop being a damn whinging cry-baby and do something about it! Talkin' to me like I'm your damn therapist."

Marshall stared. That hit home like a slap to the face if he ever felt one, but one that was sorely needed. Jesus, guess he really needed to just vent his fears and rant his utter frustrations. Athena only got him so far with the self-reflections. "You should do more motivational speeches, Daryl."

"Shut up."

So, Marshall shut-up and stepped-up because standing in the woods and complaining didn't solve any of his problems and his worries. He needed to get back to the farm, check on his sisters, get a bead on Shane, and bring his daddy home. T-Dog manned the main light source as Marshall finally wrapped Dale up like some morbid candy in a wrapper, knotting the ends of the blanket before he wrapped a bungee around the outside about mid-torso to keep his arms secure, then another around the knees to keep his legs together.

Marshall shrugged on his pack. "Here." He tossed each man a simple LED headlamp with an elastic strap to wear around their foreheads. Daryl easily snatched his out of the air, but T-Dog fumbled with his for a second. He gave back the flashlight in turn. "Let's go, then. T-Dog and I will carry while Daryl watches the rear and Athena leads."

Athena took the lead with a woof, T-Dog with his focus mostly on the uneven ground before him, then Marshall, with Daryl at the back with his head on a swivel, the beams from the pair's headlamps giving them a limited bubble of light. While Athena had started them back on the same path they'd come to find Dale on, it quickly diverged to a quicker and more direct route back to the farm. They didn't pass the piranha stuck in the swamp, they even bypassed the dead piranha, and while their pace was slower due to the darkness and the burden of weight of Dale's body, they still hit the tree line faster than when tracking Dale's convoluted trail to the swamp with their various water breaks under the hard sun.

"You got this?"

"Yeah." Daryl took the knotted end of the blanket from Marshall. "C'mon." He jerked his chin and he and T-Dog started the journey back to their camp with the body of their friend between them.

"What the hell are we gonna tell 'em, man?" Marshall heard T-Dog question as he jogged back toward the house with Athena. Daryl's response was drowned out by the distant shouts and commotion as the pairs return was quickly noticed by their group.

Marshall came in through the mudroom. He quickly shed his pack, released the parched and hungry Athena to her bowls, and nearly bowled over his sister coming through the house door.

"Marshall! Thank God!" Maggie quickly pulled him into a hug as soon as she got her balanced. "What the hell happened? You were gone for hours."

Marshall hugged her back, burying his face in her shoulder. "A bunch of shit. Dale was a piranha by the time we found him. Daryl had to put him down, we brought his body back."

"Shit." Maggie muttered. She felt guilty. "And I basically told you to screw him and he died."

"It doesn't matter—he was already dead before anyone even realized he was missing." Marshall pulled back. "What about here? Was there any trouble? Did Beth wake up?"

"Beth's doing better, she hasn't woken up or anything, but she's not staring into space either. I think she's actually resting now. The music idea really helped."

"Good."

"But, uh..." Maggie rolled her eyes to High Heaven in frustration with these people, "Lori went after Rick herself."

"What?" Marshall was flabbergasted.

"Yeah. She stole my car and nobody noticed."

Marshall giggled. "What?"

Maggie's expression was sour. "Shut up. I don't know what the hell she was thinking." Probably pregnancy-brain, the twins thought simultaneously, unknowingly. "Shane went after her, it's been a couple hours, so..." she gave a helpless shrug. "Don't know what's happening with them."

Well, that left Shane gone and occupied so Marshall could move on for the moment and not be too worried about a coup in his absence. "Alright. Well, I just wanted to check-in before I went for daddy. We'll see if I run into them or not."

"Marshall," she murmured quietly before he could pull away, "About earlier-"

"Let's just both forgive and forget, okay? It's been a really stressful day for all of us. I'll be back with daddy, Rick, and Glenn, and that'll be three less things we have to worry about, okay?"

Maggie nodded. "I love you."

"Love you, too."

She chewed on her lip for a second before she blurted: "That's what I told Glenn before he left. That I loved him. I think it freaked him out."

"Okay. Well," Marshall raised an eyebrow. "Did you actually mean it, or did you just say it because you didn't think he was coming back?"

"I... meant it. I was worried he might not come back, daddy just disappeared and I can't even remember the last thing I said him, but Glenn... I said it because I wanted him to know that I did."

"Then I don't see the problem." Marshall pointed out. "When he gets back you can tell him again and he can say it back—or he's a loser and you should ditch him."

Maggie snorted. "Great brotherly-advice." But the tease made her feel better. "Go before you ruin it."

Marshall gave a kissy-face just-because and quickly retreated back into the mudroom before she could kick him in shin. He told Athena to stay and just took his pack as a whole with him. Hopefully, the three men were just merrily getting drunk in the apocalypse and didn't realize the time, instead of the 50 other not so fanciful things he could think of off the top of his head.

He headed out back and around toward the chicken coup where his own car was parked. Even with only the overhead moon to light his way, his car was still visible like an ethereal glow in the dark despite the layer of dirt and dust. He had this baby since his high school days, a 1987 Ford Pinto. He opened the unlocked driver's door, the interior stayed dark, and put his pack on the front passenger seat.

"You goin' after the others?"

Marshall started then yelped as he smashed the back of his head. He hissed quietly, palm pressed to the back of his head as he straightened and turned to the source of his fright and current pain. "Daryl. What?"

"You're going after 'em, right?"

"Yeah, I-"

"Great. I'm comin'." Without prompt or invitation he walked around to the passenger side, opening the door then stared across the low roof impatiently when Marshall didn't move. "What are you waitin' for?"

"Okay." Marshall ducked back in and manoeuvred his pack and bow into the backseat and settled into the driver's seat. Guess he was gonna have a buddy for his little road trip and not just the radio.

Daryl snorted derisively as he got into the passenger seat, managing to get his crossbow between his legs in the foot well. "What do you expect t' do with a dinky car like this?"

"Hey! Don't insult The Banana Mopeel."

"The B- I'm not even gonna repeat such a stupid fuckin' name."

"It's not stupid. It's a play on The Bat Mobile. The Banana Mopeel—get it? 'Cause it's the colour of a yummy, ripe banana peel."

"Yummy?" he scoffed.

"Oh, you have a thing against bananas now, too? You know, without proper cultivation, bananas will eventually die off and become extinct in America. You'll be hard-pressed to find any now, let alone after winter hits, then your best chance would be to go to Florida or Hawaii."

"Like I'd go to Hawaii, let alone Florida just for a damn banana."

"You say that now, just wait 'till you start craving it." Marshall reached behind him and stuffed his hand down into the crevasse of his seat where he kept his car keys. He slid the key home and the engine turned over easily, while he may not have used the car much since the start of Now, he still kept the gas tank topped-up, air in the tires and made sure the battery still had a charge. The headlights flooded the area, startling the coop into a brief clamour until he drove off, around the coop and onto the dirt drive.

Before they even reached the gate the led to the paved stretch of highway that led into town, Marshall turned off into a back road.

Daryl eyed the tight tree line that flashed by in the headlights, brief shadows popping by that may or may not have been walkers. "Do ya know where you're goin'?"

"I might've taken a wrong turn." He mumbled and smirked at Daryl's side-eye. "Of course I do, I grew up on these roads. I could drive in the dark if I had to." They bounced along, dirt spiting out behind them, "The Banana Mopeel knows how to handle it a little rough." His fingers tapped the steering wheel for a moment, "So, did you and T-Dog tell the others?"

Daryl scoffed, "You mean, tell the Shane-banger, the mousy wife, an' two kids that Shane killed Dale?"

"Point."

"You realize you might have t' fit five people in this thing, don't you?"

"Oh, there's plenty of room in the back seat to do plenty of things. Trust me, three people would be a breeze."

Daryl was silent after that and Marshall reached for the center console without looking from the uneven road ahead, turning on the CD Player. He adjusted the volume so it wasn't overly loud, just enough to be background noise. Daryl gave him a glance but otherwise didn't react as Marshall sang and hummed along in snatches as he drove. Finally, Marshall turned off the radio and slowed down. He parked and the engine went silent, taking the headlights with it, leaving them in silence and darkness.

"There's a footpath, it'll take us to town." Marshall stuffed the keys back into the seat as Daryl got out. He pulled his pack from the backseat, strapped the quiver around his hip and unclipped his bow before shouldering his bag. It still carried most of the supplies from the trip to track Dale, so he was likely to have something in it for numerous possible situations. "Come on." He took the lead, loose but ready. "Keep an eye out for piranha."

With their eyes adjusted, even with the overhead branches, the clear shine from the overhead crescent was enough to stop them from tripping over themselves. They only spent a minute of the path when there was shuffling adjacent to them. They both paused and looked, a piranha was stumbling through the trees toward them. It only took Daryl a handful of seconds to aim his loaded crossbow, wait a beat for it to manoeuvre around the thick tree in its path before it dropped with a bolt to the head. Daryl retrieved the bolt, reloaded, and after a brief survey of the surrounding area, they moved on.

It was shortly after that, that the distinct crack of gunshots reached them:

"You heard that, too, right?" Marshall murmured.

"Yeah."

"Gunshots?"

"Yeah."

They picked up the pace. Intermittent gunshots sounded, louder the closer they got, and as Marshall led then in an arch off the footpath, through the trees—they converged with scattered piranha that were drawn by the noise. Bows were shouldered and knives drawn. They were able to take a couple by surprise and from behind before they realized there were impostors amongst them. The closest's attention was drawn to the fresh-meat amongst them, while the majority were pulled toward the gunshots that became more frequent, followed by the pained human screaming.

The pair picked up their pace as they broke the tree line, dodging around inattentive piranha distracted by the louder noises, taking out the ones that veered and reached for them instead, across the short stretch of open ground before they reached the nearest brick building. Closer to the gunshots, the pain screams now muffled, they could hear a low arguing going on the next alley over.

"That's Rick." Daryl recognized.

Marshall caught movement in his peripheral and quickly grabbed the boney wrist before it could gouge into him with disgusting dirty nails. He pulled and turned, slamming what turned out to be a one-armed piranha into the brick wall. His knife thrust under its jaw and through its soft palate ending the dull-eyed beast's existence.

Before Daryl could react to the walker too close to the alley mouth, it was blasted back by a large calibre bullet that could only belong to Deputy Grimes' Colt Python.

"Uh, maybe knock first so he doesn't blow you handsome face off, too, hunter." Marshall commented, dropping the body from against the wall.

Daryl tsked. He called out, "Rick! Hey, man, that you? Rick!"

There was a brief pause, like a heartbeat of silence. The pained moaning, the arguing, the gunshots, stopped. "Who's there?" came the distinct Georgian drawl that resumed it.

"It's Daryl." He shot a bolt into the walker that turned its attention to him. "Don't shoot, we're coming around."

"Alright."

Daryl came around first, edging the corner, crossbow leading. He briefly glanced into the alley to see Glenn covering the other side from more walkers, before he backed in. Before he could shoot the closest walker, Marshall appeared. He broke its knee with a swift kick and a harsh crack, ending with swift stab to the brain, speeding up the natural downward momentum already in progress.

"What are you doing here?" Rick asked.

"Lookin' for your sorry asses." Daryl relied swiftly. He shot another walker that got too close. "Looks like just in time, too. You were supposed to be back by now."

"It got complicated."

"No, shit." Daryl eyed the irritating, squealing little piglet laid out on the dumpster, his leg impaled through the top point of a wrought iron gate post.

"What's going on?" Glenn called distractedly over his shoulder.

"Excellent question." Marshall agreed.

An arrow whistled passed Glenn's head, falling a piranha that got too close while the younger man struggled to reload his gun in a hurry. "Whoa!" A sound of startled relief left him as he looked at the dead walker, before he started to fire almost as immediately as he snapped the barrel back into place. "There's more coming!" he needlessly called back.

"What the hell is going on?" Marshall questioned, his attention between eyeing the mouth of the alley they come from, his father, who looked pretty steady and unblemished for a man who came out into town for the sole purpose of getting shit-face, but Hershel Greene had been a high-functioning alcoholic, so even with a 25 year hiatus that wasn't surprising—and the extra body that didn't belong.

"We're trying to figure out a way to get his leg off the fence." Rick informed the pair. "We're figuring it might just be easiest to amputate."

"Oh, God." The body on the dumpster whimpered.

"Wh- You want to bring this stranger back with us?" Marshall started incredulous, leaving Daryl to watch the rear. His gaze shifted from Rick to his father, "How drunk are you?" he accused. "After everything you-"

"Please don't leave me to die."

Marshall's attention was turned before Hershel could find a response and he paused. Now that he was close enough to catch sight of the man's face—maybe not so much of a stranger after all. He frowned at the sweat-coated face, "I know you." He got curious looks from the remark, but his focus was on the injured man. "Yeah," he nodded to himself as the guy tilted his head toward Marshall and he got a clearer look in the moonlight. With the mole on his left cheek, the crooked nose and gap in his teeth.

"Hey..."

"Randall, isn't it?"

"Y-yeah." Randall swallowed. "Marshall Greene. Wow, I'm surprised you r-remember me. It's been awhile since high school."

"You're seriously havin' a little chat right now?" Daryl growled over his shoulder, finally bringing out his gun from his waistband. "We'll run out of bullets before we run out of walkers!"

"Just a little one," Marshall waved away his concern. "You can handle yourself. Looks like you got yourself into quite the predicament, Randall."

"My group left me."

"And that leg," he gave a low whistle, "That leg looks pretty messed up."

"It hurts real bad." He agreed.

"I can help with that." Marshall told him, reaching up and laying his hand on the top of Randall's head. "It'll hurt for a second—though it may be Living Hell on Earth, but it's still living, right?" As soon as Marshall had realized who this man was, as soon as he put a name to the face, he knew what he needed to do. He was not going to let another fox (Shane) into the henhouse, and Randall was a wolf in sheep's clothing if Marshall had ever met one. Randall nodded. Marshall glanced up, "Where are the cars?"

Rick was watching him carefully. "The truck's across the street."

"Daryl, get ready to move this way. We're going to make a hole and head for the truck." Marshall called back to the hunter.

"Alright." Daryl grunted, firing as he slowly closed the gap between him and the others.

"Randall," Marshall turned his attention back to the man. His grip shifted on the hilt of his knife, his grip fisted into sweaty locks of hair. "It's just Plain Old Hell where you're going." Before anyone could react, try to stop him even, Marshall did it messy but quick, virtually painless. A fast, pressured draw. His sharp blade, already covered in piranha gore, sliced through flesh and tendons like butter.

Randall jerked, struggled for a brief second before he bled out. Stilled, eyes still open, gazing sightlessly into the star-speckled night sky. Fresh warm blood quickly bathed Randall's dark shirt, the material sodden and unable to hold any more liquid, it dripped off the slanted dumpster lid and ran down the side to drip and pool onto the ground.

Daryl looked over at Rick wordless shout, blinking at Marshall's hand and knife almost painted black with blood dripping almost like goo on the ground. Hershel was white as a sheet as he stared, he could see the trachea the cut was so deep, to his son's hard face.

"What did you do?!" Rick demanded, blue-eyes wide.

"Let's go. Daryl! Glenn, go, make a hole!" Marshall barked. Glenn rapidly shook his head, turning his attention back to the walkers in time to start using his empty shotgun like a baseball bat. "Hopefully that'll distract some of them. Daddy, go."

"R-right." Hershel turned, he and Daryl joining forces with Glenn.

Marshall followed passed Rick, pulling his sidearm from its thigh-holster, switching his knife to his non-dominant hand. He alternated between shooting the more distant piranha, stabbing the closer ones, and using kicks to keep from being overwhelmed. But with the five of them, they made quick if tiring work of crossing the street. They quickly clambered into the truck from the same side, Rick putting his cowboy boot to the peddle before he even managed to get his door shut, chopping off a walker's fingers when he finally managed, ploughing through and running over a few more to get clear of the crowd.

It was Rick that broke the silence:

"You killed him."

"Yes." Marshall answered simply to the simple statement. It was all a far cry from his helpless panic to T-Dog and Daryl about not wanting to kill in cold-blood in front of his family mere hours earlier. But a lot of things had changed—his father abandoning them to go get drunk being a prime one.

"Why? We could have saved him. It was just his leg!" The heel of his palm hit the wheel in angry confusion. His eyes turned to the rear-view mirror, gaze trying to seek out the other man's in the seat directly behind him, but the interior of the truck was took dark. "He didn't have to die, Marshall. No one else had to die. He was just a kid."

"He was as much of an innocent kid as I am. Can you pull over?"

"What? Why?" Rick questioned even as he slowed to a stop in the empty road, parked and turned off the truck.

"Didn't want to get too far away." Marshall left the truck, dropping the backpack from his shoulders, finally able to holster his gun after being in the crowded backseat with two other grown men.

"You're not gonna explain why you just killed him like that?" Rick questioned, following him out of the truck—shortly followed by the others.

Marshall instead questioned: "You wanted to bring a stranger back to our farm, Rick. How exactly did you meet, because I don't think it was at the Church Raffle."

Rick glanced back, trading gazes with Hershel and Glenn. "When we were about to head back to the farm, two guys showed up at the bar without warning. We tried to play friendly, but the leader quickly worked out that we had somewhere nice and cozy to ourselves. He tried to talk us into letting them join us, but when we refused, they were about to use force—I shot them first." Rick sighed. "Turns out they weren't alone. Three others turned up, drawn by the gunfire. We fell into a bit of a standstill, trapped in the bar before trying out the back way. But all the gunfire drew in the walkers. Hershel took out one of them," he nodded to the older man, "Randall was shooting on-high from the roof and that gate broke his fall, and the last guy fled."

Marshall stared at the man for a long moment, unblinking. Daryl was the one that scoffed: "And that's who you wanted to bring back to the farm, the damn guy that was shootin' at you!?"

"Are we so far gone already that'll we'll kill anyone who isn't us?" Rick questioned. No one really had an answer to that.

"Son," Hershel said. "The man asked you a question, one I think all of us would like to hear the answer to. Why did you kill him?"

Marshall paused in his search through his pack with his cleaner hand to look up at his father. He felt his previous resentment and anger bubble up. "You fucking left us! What's your answer to that?"

"Don't you dare use that crass language with me." Hershel looked ashamed but he didn't bow down, "I am still your father."

"My drunk father." Marshall scoffed. He found the water bottle he'd been searching for and dumped a portion onto his blood caked hand. "Did you actually want to come back, or did the situation force your hand?" He scrubbed his hand roughly off on the thigh of his pants, glare not wavering from his father.

"I knew the girls would safe with you looking out for them. And that Rick would be there if you did need help."

"You-" his voice came out in a hoarse croak. He swallowed, his chest ached as the truth sank in because it was like: oh, he really was going to leave us. Marshall had been angry and scared when he said those things to Maggie, because he hadn't actually wanted to believe it, but here Hershel said it, dressing it up in pretty words. Marshall's hand went unconsciously to his chest, pressing, like trying to staunch a wound that wasn't there. It was tight, it hurt. It hurt more than finding out Otis was dead, that Otis had been killed—Otis didn't choose to die, he didn't choose for Shane to kill him—but Hershel chose to leave them. They weren't enough to make him stay, to fight as long as he could to stay with them in a Hopeless World.

The hunter warily watched the man still knelt on the road, looking up at his father like everything he ever knew or believed in was harshly flayed away. If Marshall had another episode like in the woods earlier, and there was no Athena to take care of it...

Daryl always knew who his dad was. Will Dixon put up no illusion but the truth. In every strike of the belt, buckle and all. Of every slash of the switch. Every busted lip and black eye, bruised rib and broken bone. The broken bottles and cigarette burns. Every cutting word and resentment. There has never been any love or trust to begin with. Nah, it was all probably more akin to Merle. When Merle had enlisted into the Marine's and had left a 12 year-old Daryl to the tender mercies of William Dixon—something even to this day, 2 decades later, Merle still didn't know the truth of.

Merle had been more of a father to Daryl than their actual dad had been to either of them, when he wasn't doing his numerous short stints in juvie. While Merle had never been explicitly kind to him, he was leagues away from Will. Merle cared enough for his baby brother to toughen up his softness for the shit reality of the real world.

"Marshall," Hershel murmured quietly as he watched his son finally break eye contact, ducking his head and fussing with his pack, a shuddering breath working through him, "I'm an old man, I'm not meant for this world. I convinced myself these people were Sick, that a vaccine could save them. Like their carotids weren't torn open or their organs weren't hanging from their bodies, like they weren't literal skin-and-bones. I was a damn fool."

Marshall stood. "Yes." He whispered. "And you'll be an even bigger fool if you say any of that bullshit to my sisters when you get home. We've all lost the same people, so what gives you the right to give up when none of the rest of us have?" Marshall didn't give Hershel a chance to respond as he grabbed his pack and yanked the straps over his shoulders, pointedly turning away from his father. "To answer your earlier question, Rick—Maggie and I went to school Randall. Let's just say he had a... reputation. Peeping in the girls' locker room, creeping on drunk girls at parties that couldn't say 'no', torturing animals. Disgusting behaviours like that. So, you see why, in how the world is now, without even the treat of getting locked up, I didn't want to bring him to the farm with my sisters and Sophia. It was mercy." He glanced over to the silent Daryl and Glenn, "You should get back to the farm, you left worried people back there." Instead of heading to the truck, he headed for the dark tree line.

"Hey," Rick called after him, "Where are you going?!"

"I left my car back there. I'll meet you back at the farm, I'll probably even get there before you." Without a backward glance he disappeared into the woods regardless of Rick calling after him again. He automatically headed back in the direction of town despite the instinct to disappear deeper into trees, put distance between him and them. Him and his father.

It wasn't like the panic he felt with the truth of Otis' death. He was just so overwhelmed, and the last thread of his sanity was fraying, ready to snap under the weight of it all. Otis, the barn, Annette, Shawn, Beth, daddy, Shane, Dale, Randall.

Daddy,

daddy,

daddy.

He needed release or he'd collapse under it. So, when he finally stumbled to a stop, it wasn't in the dark woods, it was the edge of the abyss he'd stared into so many times this week. And this time he didn't swallow back the scream that clawed up his throat. And what came was a wretched, tortured, lost thing. Because what was this world? How many more loved ones was he going to lose? Why weren't they enough for their father?

He got no answer, the abyss just swallowed up his grief and left him feeling numb, disconnected. He was 25 years-old. He'd been to war and he had blood on his hands. It wasn't that he needed his daddy, but Marshall wanted him. And it hurt to think that daddy didn't want them back. How was Marshall supposed to reconcile with that? How could he look his father in the eye and not feel himself lacking? How could he look his sisters in the eye, knowing what he did, while they carried on with a false truth? Patricia called it a moment of weakness, but a moment could be all it took to shatter. And he felt his trust splinter. Marshall Greene didn't feel like a grown man right now, he felt like a helpless little boy who wanted a daddy that didn't want him.

The crack of a snapped twig brought him back to a reality he didn't quite want to face, but the real-world never gave a shit whether you were ready for it or not. Even still—he didn't bother to turn or pull his knife.

"Marshall."

Marshall closed his eyes. "I've had a long day, Rick. What are you doing here? I already said I'd meet you back home."

"Daryl's driving the truck back." Rick stared at his back. "I didn't think you should go off on your own. I lost you, but then I heard you yell, I thought..."

"As you can see, I'm as hardy and hale as ever." His arms briefly went up before dropping. "You should have gone with the others, I wanted to be alone."

"I was worried about you."

"That's sweet," Marshall murmured listlessly. "But you don't need to be, okay? It's just been a lot lately, you know? That's all. And that... I'd been holding that in for a while. It was either screaming, crying, or shutting down. Beth shut down, and Maggie- I made Maggie cry, so... sometimes the only thing left to do is to scream into the abyss. Maybe something echoes back. Maybe there's nothing but deafening silence." He started walking again, he could hear Rick's less certain steps following without looking back. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his small flashlight. He extended his arm out behind him. "Here."

Rick's fingers brushed his as he took it. When the former deputy flicked it on toward the ground at Marshall's heels, his shadow stretched out in front of him. "Thanks. Do you... want to talk about it?"

Marshall released a bitter and stressed laugh, before he stopped abruptly. "Maggie will be relieved daddy's home. Beth will wake up and not even realize she had to miss him. I- H-how am supposed to t-trust him again?"

"I don't know." Rick admitted quietly. "Your dad, he wasn't telling the complete truth back there. Yes, he did come out here to drink and throw in the towel. I think he was just overwhelmed in facing things head-on, but the truth is—nothing's really changed. People still die. We really were coming back when those men popped up and surprised us. It was just-"

"A moment of weakness?"

"We all have them." Rick shrugged. "We're human. We make mistakes. It's what we do after that counts. He was coming home."

"So, I'm just supposed to forgive him?"

"That's up to you."

Silence prevailed for a few moments, nothing but the sound of their soft trek through the woods at night.

"You shouldn't of had to come out here. I should have just gotten over myself and come instead." Marshall voiced. "Maybe things would be different." Maybe I never would have found out the truth about Otis. Wouldn't have to carry the burden of knowledge about Shane. But Marshall had always been a believer of truths, because they always came out in the end.

"Did something happen at the farm?" Marshall trailed to a halt. "Marshall?"

"Y-"

"Hey," Rick slowly circled around the stilled man, flashlight pointed at the ground so he could see but not blind either of them. "Talk to me. What's going on?" Rick's gaze darted across his face, while Marshall's complexion seemed so eerily pale in the moonlight, there was a lack of expression on his face. It was just slack, like he just didn't have enough energy to emote with it. In the artificial light of the torch, Marshall's vibrant green-eyes more than made of for the deficiency: reluctance, denial, helplessness, heaviness, sadness, a devastating wrath. "Just tell me." Rick whispered with his own dread. If something happened, why hadn't Daryl said anything? Would the hunter have, had Rick not rushed after Marshall so fast? Daryl wasn't exactly one to beat around the bush, but Marshall's own wariness was telling in itself.

"Dale is dead." Marshall whispered.

"What?"

Marshall continued when Rick gave no other reaction, just stared at him like he couldn't quite grasp what he'd just been told, gentle and calm, "With everything that happened today, I guess none of your group realized that they hadn't seen him since... first watch? Before the barn. By the time T-Dog, Daryl, and I found him... he was already turned."

"No." Rick denied with a shake of his head. "He was-" But when he stopped and thought about it... Dale hadn't been at the confrontation at the barn, he hadn't been at Annette and Shawn Greene's funeral... "Oh." He came to the terrible truth. One of his people had been missing for the entire day and Rick hadn't even noticed. How could that happen? There were 10 people under his care, and he'd lost without even knowing. He hadn't even given a single thought to Dale today. "Wh- Did you find the walker that did it?"

Marshall shook his head. "It was Shane, Rick."

Rick rubbed his forehead. "Oh. Okay. Good, good. And no one else was hurt?"

"No, Rick." It took a moment for Marshall to correct him, "I meant—it wasn't a piranha that killed Dale... it was Shane."

Rick baulked at that, completely taken off-guard. "What? Why would you even think-?!"

"Daryl and T-Dog think that Dale tried to hide the gun bag out in the swamp so that Shane wouldn't, well, so that he wouldn't do what he tried to do at the barn. That Shane saw him take off, followed him and... killed him. Grabbed the gun bag, hoping for the rest of us to be none the wiser."

"And what actual proof," Rick returned angrily, "Did they actually have to that bullshit theory?"

Marshall didn't back down or back away. "Daryl was the one that put the pieces together. We couldn't find Dale's gun anywhere. Before we found Dale, we came across a piranha that been recently bludgeoned to-death, T-Dog said that wasn't Dale's MO, so I thought a stranger might have come across Dale and killed him—but Daryl had Dale's gun earlier at the barn. The gun that Shane had given him at the house when he was handing out guns for his coup." He swallowed and watched Rick carefully as he landed the final blow: "And that it wasn't the first time Shane had taken a dead-man's gun when he shouldn't have—like when he brought back Uncle O's gun." That last tidbit took the wind right out of Rick's sails. Marshall's gaze searched his face, the realization, the devastation, the guilt, and finally the resignation. The answer was right there, the confirmation that Daryl had been telling the truth but Marshall needed Rick to say it, to seal it. "You don't deny it, then?"

"I can't."

Marshall nodded, his exhale shaky as he closed his eyes, his lips pressed tight. It wasn't as if he had any reason to disbelieve Daryl, the man hadn't lied to him. Not when he was the first to tell Marshall that Otis was dead, or that Otis shot Carl, or that the two of them weren't friends, so why would he be lying about this? But Rick was Shane's best-friend, and even he didn't try to deny it. It didn't make the pain any better, it didn't change the fact that Otis was dead. All it did was change a nameless, faceless horde of piranha into the detailed face of Shane Walsh. The man that the Greene's had welcome into their safe haven, had fed, clothed, sheltered—and all he did was repay them with death, one after the other, after the other.

"Marshall, I am so sorry." Marshall opened his green-eyes to stare into blue. "When I- I should have told you when I finally made the connection, no matter the consequence-"

"You didn't want to lose your chance to stay on the farm. I get it. Like I told Daryl, I'm fully aware that we're a means to an end for you. I get it. The one thing that matters above all Now is Family. We're not family, we're strangers. And a stranger is no great loss."

"No! That's not- no!" Rick denied, stopping him from saying more, for putting words in his mouth. "I was the one that should have gone to get the medical supplies, but I was so out of it, so Shane went with Otis instead. And when he came back alone... told us about how Otis sacrificed himself... I'd never been so grateful and so ashamed. You lost your uncle and Patricia lost her husband, and I was grateful!" He was disgusted with himself. "I don't- I should have said something. I just didn't want to believe something like that. I'm sorry. I know it doesn't change anything, it doesn't make any of it better. I'm just sorry, Marshall."

"I believe you." Marshall sighed, emotionally exhausted. They were left to stare at each other. "For the record—so am I." It was out there, it was acknowledged. The truth could be put back into the box again, and exactly what that meant... it couldn't be ignored—Shane needed to be dealt with. One way or another.

"What happened to Shane?" Rick finally asked the question. "Does he know that you-? Did you-?"

Marshall shook his head. "He wasn't at the farm when we left."

Rick's brows furrowed. "What do you mean? Where is he?"

Marshall inhaled deeply. He was on a role with the shitty news today, wasn't he? "When we came back, Maggie told me that Lori had snuck off to come and get you herself, and Shane went after her to bring her back. So, as far as when Daryl and I left, Shane doesn't know that we found Dale, just that we were looking. Everyone else believes that he was killed by a piranha."

"What? Why would she-?"

"She pregnant." Marshall reasoned. "She's worried. She's afraid of losing you again? Maybe she figured since she couldn't rely on anyone else to come get you, meaning me, she'd drag your skinny ass back herself. Come on," he sighed, taking the lead again. Rick fell in step behind him, fingers tight on the small flashlight, more than desperate to get back to the farm now with the night he'd had. "The car's not far now, and I heard walking is good for digestion. I'm sure she's fine. If I've learned anything today—it's exactly how much Shane cares about Lori and Carl, how far he'd go for them." Like killing Otis. "It'd almost be admirable if my family wasn't the one that suffered for it."

Rick cringed at the implications in his words. "How'd you realize...?"

"I didn't, but it seemed like old news to Daryl and T-Dog. Let's just say it's been a very informative day."

"I was dead." Rick reasoned. "They thought I was dead."

Marshall shook his head. "You don't have to justify it to me."

"I'm not. I'm trying to reconcile it to myself." Rick murmured. "I was dead, they sought comfort in each other. I'm alive, and it's over."

Now that, Marshall could certainly admire. Rick being objectively reasonable in the face of pain and what could be construed as a betrayal of his marriage. He may have been dead to Lori and Shane, but to himself he'd never stopped being alive, never stopped believing Lori and Carl were out there, just waiting for him. Marshall knew lesser men who would have punched Shane's teeth in at the very least. It the current climate, the only thing stopping Rick from outright killing Shane for it was his own morality. Rick Grimes certainly was of a special calibre all his own.

"How did Shane," Rick paused, but forced himself to actually say the words, to face the reality, "Kill Dale?"

"Strangulation. Shane crushed his trachea, I would say with his bare hands. He tried to dump Dale's body into the swamp, but it wasn't deep enough, so he didn't fully submerge before he turned." Marshall informed him, but when Rick was silent behind him, when he didn't question how Dale could have turned if he wasn't bitten, Marshall came to his own realization. "Oh. You already know, don't you?"

"Know what?" Rick asked after a second.

"That we're all infected." Marshall remarked. "That you don't have to be bitten or scratched to become one—you just have to die."

Rick sighed like he carried the burden of the world. "I already had a suspicion. Dr Jenner said something of that level to me before we all left the CDC, but I never saw it confirmed for myself."

"Daryl and T-Dog were clueless. You didn't tell your group?"

"No. I thought it would pointlessly stress them out. Do you think I should have?"

Marshall hummed in thought. "They would find out eventually, one way or another—Dale is certainly one way. They might be upset when they find out you knew, but they'll have to get over it. I don't think it actually changes anything in the end. I mean, soon enough, funerals with a body will be a rarity and it will all just be memorial services and moments of silence. Like Daryl said: headshots, headshots, headshots."

"How do we keep ending up here?" Rick wondered aloud to himself, not expecting an answer.

"The burdens of leadership—also, Misery Loves Company." Marshall quipped. "Still, your company isn't that bad to end up around..." he glanced over when Rick came to his shoulder, "You always end up talking me down or boosting me up. Must be a Rick Grimes thing."

Rick ruminated on that. Every confrontation between them when either or both of them was in some kind of crises, they both ended up talking each other down or back up to even ground. "Huh." Despite such short time in each other's company, not family yet but certainly not strangers. "There've been times where I would expect anyone to just throw in the towel and explode, but you're always so calm and collected."

Marshall scoffed. "I've been having a shitting time of that today." His knuckles whitened. "I've yelled at daddy more times today than I have in two decades, I had a meltdown with T-Dog and Daryl—which I'm horribly embarrassed about. Maggie's usually the hot-headed twin."

Rick frowned with worry. "Did something else happen?"

Marshall glanced at him, "Are you tryin' to take-up the role of my therapist, Rick? Daryl already rejected the position, so there is a vacancy."

"You've been acting as mine. I wouldn't mind returning the favour." Rick replied truthfully. "No pressure."

Marshall was silent for a moment. Talking to a therapist wasn't a new thing to him. While it was mandatory to be evaluated when he was put on extended medical leave after Rocky and when he returned, it was voluntary after he retired and had to reintegrate into civilian life. He always found a reserved third-party more enlightening than the emotional backlash from his family. His therapist in the city was most likely dead, he realized. There probably wouldn't be much more companionable moments like these between them once they dealt with the Shane-problem. "I had an episode earlier, a panic attack to be more specific," Marshall shared. "And I haven't exactly had a chance to unwind, so I've been a bit... raw, I guess. Daryl doesn't fudge around the edges," either time, "So, there wasn't exactly any forewarning before he informed me that he suspected Shane of killing Otis in the first place. It's one thing to think your loved one died in an accident, it's an entirely other thing to be told that they were killed—by a guest you let into your home, no less."

"I get it." Rick murmured softly, "I suspected about the affair. I didn't want to, you know, but I did. It wasn't until Lori finally admitted the truth about it—and trying to abort the baby, that I had no other choice but to face it. Sometimes, it just that little nudge that clicks things into place whether you like it or not."

"I don't want to deal with this either, but needs must, Rick. It's the burden of taking care of people." Marshall paused and turned to the man, looking him in the eyes, "Our conflict is the same—that he is your loved one—yet, the burden lays heavier on you. One thing is certain, Rick, Shane will not be staying on my farm. Whether that's in the form of execution or expulsion... I don't want to put that one on you but thinking of my own family, I know the safest option."

Rick was silent as he stared back, mind going through a 100 different scenarios, spinning, endless, yet they met same end. He knew Shane, and as much as he wanted to strap on the blinders, with two bodies in the ground, he couldn't make excuses anymore. Marshall's sympathetic gaze was just the cherry on top. All their group had done since arriving was create trouble and drama, burdening the Greene Family while reaping all the rewards, yet Marshall stood there, understanding.

Marshall wasn't expecting an answer from the other man. "It's just up ahead." He turned, nodding. Marshall could make out the shape of his car through the gaps in the trees. His approach grew more cautious, gaze more active as it darted around for lurking piranha. It looked like the shootout in town drew any piranha from the woods. He tossed his pack into the backseat and both men settled into the front. Keys fished from the seat crevasse, the headlights cut through the night as the engine ran—and highlighted the piranha that was skulking in the trees not even 15 yards away.

"Was that there this whole time?" Rick questioned. He'd flashed the flashlight around before he got into the car, but there was no way the beam could reach that far, thus leaving the walker undetected. It could have taken them by surprise, but it just seemed to be watching them.

"That's disconcerting and I'm backing away." Marshall adjusted the gearshift, arm across the back of Rick's seat to watch over his shoulder through the back window, he pressed the gas peddle.

The walker quickly disappeared from sight as Marshall reversed down the narrow dirt road. "Are you going to drive like this the whole way back or...?"

"Yes." Marshall responded, focused but not terse, his foot a continued pressure on the gas peddle. "There's nowhere to turn around. I already told Daryl I could drive this in the dark if need be, and my tail lights work so it's not like I'm blind. Going reverse is a fun little twist, though."

"I feel better."

"You can turn on the radio—I find that music helps."

Rick glanced at the man beside him. Marshall's face was still wan, but concentrated at the task at hand, he was more emotive than the previous blankness. The slight pinch between his brows, the way the tip of his tongue absently traced the pointed tip of his canine tooth. One side of his face was bathed in a faint rose hue from the back lights, while the other was starker from the white headlights. What was that expression going to fall back into when they got back to the farm?

God, and what the hell was Rick supposed to do? Make sure Lori and the baby were back and alright, Carl. Do a service for Dale. And Shane- Rick reached forward and pressed the knob. Low music filled the interior. He turned it up.

The clock was ticking.

Tick,

tock,

tick.

[...tbc..]

...The walking DEAD...

---

Joe Jonas - Not Alone
.

Merry Christmas... LOL?

A lot to digest with this chapter. We're moving a bit along in the plot here. Honestly, not where I intended to end the chapter, but, things happen.

Canon has officially shifted, or tilted, at least. Dale still dies, but by Shane instead of a walker weeks later. I always had the intention of nipping the Randall Arc in the bud from the beginning. Marshall was always going to kill Randall - whether that happened to be in town to bring back Hershel, or if Rick and the others managed to bring Randall back to the Farm like canon - Marshall would have gone through with the execution because he did remember Randall from high school. Randall is clearly a creep, from his reactions to his retelling of his group finding that father and his two daughters, to trying to manipulate Carl, and his 'taunting' that walker at the school... there was no way he was a 'good guy'.

A really interesting youtube video is:

"What If T-Dog SURVIVED! If T-Dog Lived in The Walking Dead Season 11 Rick Grimes Returns" - George Drake

Which kind of inspired me to want to do more with T-Dog. Originally, it was just Marshall/Athena and Daryl in the search for Dale, but I went back and rewrote it with T-Dog in company. I also think that helped sell Daryl's theory of Shane killing Dale and the Otis reveal. So, we'll see if I actually I do anything with T-Dog.

[I also went back last minute and did a rewrite of the Rick/Marshall scene in the woods at the end - I just think it flows better now]

And now Shane... to Execute or Excommunicate. Curious as to your opinion and thoughts. I mean, for the act of killing Dale alone… and with Marshall in the know about Otis... well, there's no way he can just let that go, right? So, I've made things 'fun' for me in the next chapter to deal with all this.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!