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When Daryl returned to the prison, he looked like a walker himself. His eyes were that empty.
It didn't take any of them more than a minute to figure out what had happened. If Daryl was here and Merle wasn't, and Michonne was back, saying Merle had let her go … well. Of course, all of them had lost loved ones, had seen them turn and had to put them down or watch while it happened, or put them down themselves in order to keep them from turning. Carl had had to do that for his own mother, after watching her die in childbirth. This was what the world was now—death and pain and loss and sacrifice and grief.
But still. Carol felt for Daryl, because he had always been so quick to deflect emotion, to pretend he didn't feel, to act like a lone wolf. And now he could no longer deny that he had loved. His brother had always been the weak spot in that armor.
"They're comin'," he said, his voice rasping over the words.
"We should go."
Glenn turned to Hershel at that, ready to argue, but what argument was there to make? They couldn't stand against all the Governor's people. He had already done them enough harm. They couldn't sit still and let him do more. Running felt like the only thing they had left to do.
"We'll pack in the morning, be out by midday," Rick said decisively.
And that was that. Carol agreed, and she would help, but … not now. Now Daryl needed her, and she would go to him.
She followed him up to his cell, where he was sitting on the edge of the cot, staring into space. "Go away."
"All right." But she didn't. She sank down on the metal stool in front of the sink.
"I'm fine."
"'Course you are."
Daryl grunted at that, but didn't look at her, and they sat there like that for a long time.
She remembered what she had been like after Sophia, denying her grief, pushing away her anger, trying not to feel. Trying, in fact, to disappear. Daryl was struggling through that dark place now, and she would be here for him the way he had been for her.
"Stupid," he muttered at last.
Carol looked at him, waiting.
"Damn fool thing to do."
Given what she knew of Merle, a damn fool thing felt like what could have been expected, but she didn't say that, either.
"What was the point?" Daryl said, his voice hoarse. "Throwin' his life away goin' back to that asshole. He coulda just come back here, with Michonne, made somethin' of his life."
Carol wasn't so sure of that. Merle had been who he had been, and even though he had tried to want to change, for Daryl, she didn't think he'd really known how. After all, it had taken Daryl all this time to admit that the rest of them were important to him, that they were part of his family. Merle hadn't had that kind of time, and he'd had the weight of what had happened in Atlanta, and what had happened in Woodbury, to overcome as well. In her view, she imagined Merle had gone back to the Governor to end things because it was the only way he could think of to change.
Daryl's shoulders were shaking now, a rusty sound coming from him that he tried to stifle. Swiftly, Carol moved across to sit next to him, reaching for his hand. She half expected him to snatch it away, but instead he clung to her, his fingers twining with hers, as he closed his eyes and wept silently for his loss.
In the morning, they packed. Everyone was silent; it felt like the defeat it was, and no one wanted to talk about it, because to talk about it would be to acknowledge that there was no safety, there would be no home, and all there was to look forward to was endless running until eventually someone—walkers, or other living humans—caught up to them and finished them.
Daryl was crouched down next to his motorcycle, making sure it was road ready. Carol approached him, wanting to see if he was still lost in his grief or if he was coming back.
As she came near, he spoke up without looking at her. "You know, Merle never did nothing like that his whole life."
"He gave us a chance," Carol said. It was likely more than Merle had ever freely given anyone. She held out her hand, and after a pause, Daryl took it and let her help him up.
The trucks came just as they were ready to leave. Five of them, filled with Woodburyites, armed and firing even before they reached the gates. They blew up the cell block towers, taking out most of the walkers in the outer yard in the process. Then they exited the trucks, jogging up the road behind one toward the center yard, blowing through that gate, using a chain to pull down the inner gate and get inside the prison.
Hershel had taken the car, with Carl and Beth, while the others stayed behind, waiting until the Woodbury people were good and sure the place was abandoned, and then started firing, sowing as much confusion and fear as they could manage.
They stood together in the aftermath, looking at the destruction left behind.
"We did it. We drove them out," Rick said.
"We should go after them. We should finish it."
Maggie disagreed. "It is finished. Didn't you see them hightail it out of here?"
Michonne shook her head. "They could regroup."
"We can't take the chance," Glenn said. "He's not going to stop."
"They're right. We can't keep living like this." They needed to end this, and the only way the Governor would understand was defeat.
"So we take the fight back to Woodbury. We barely made it back last time," Maggie objected.
"I don't care," Daryl said.
And so Daryl and Michonne and Rick went to end it, and the rest of them stayed to defend what they had left.