The twin foam pads of my bunk were both uncomfortable and comfortable enough for me to have the best night's sleep I had had in a week. I was tired from Woodbury in so many ways and it was good to wake up and feel well-rested. Even if I woke up to a scowling face of freckles glaring down at me. A soreness in my arm told me she had just pinched me.
"Good morning."
"Breakfast is ready." She said. "It's oatmeal again." She turned away, pointedly stepping loudly on the walkway.
Some bit of grey matter in my head understood. She was happy to see me back, but she was still mad I had left in the first place and so she was acting like she didn't care I had returned. That same piece of grey matter warned me not to just tell her I knew this and not to ignore it either. Not unless I wanted to embarrass and upset her. When had I gotten wiser about women? Maybe Haley had knocked a few things loose.
Rick was on watch and that meant I could take in almost all the new faces at once. Axel, Michonne, Oscar, Sasha and Tyreese with Allen still over in the infirmary. I considered the five of them and then how Dale and Theodore weren't here now… I had spoken with Axel a couple of times, never with Oscar and my only words with Sasha and Tyreese had been at gunpoint. I didn't know where to begin on rectifying that though and so I said nothing now as I ate.
Maggie went to the infirmary to cover for her father so he could be there as I went through everything I knew about Woodbury. Glenn stood watch so Rick could observe the others. I described everything as I had before; Woodbury's walls and their vulnerabilities, the militia who guarded those walls and their weapons and skills, the average Woodbury citizen and their almost 1950s take on survival, the mown lawns and flower gardens in the streets, what I knew of their supplies, the National Guard vehicles they possessed, Merle Dixon, Milton Mamet, Milton's journals, Haley and finally the Governor himself. Michonne glowered through most of it but especially when I reached him. I described him as I had interacted with his public persona and my own suspicions about him based on my life experiences and Michonne didn't like that I wasn't painting him as an utter monster as she suspected. But he hadn't sent people to kill me. Not so far as I knew anyway; right now there could be people looking for me.
As before they were all quite astonished by the degree of detail I could provide and how much I had learnt in such a short time. Without Milton's journals, I wouldn't have known anywhere near as much as I did about Woodbury's inner workings but everything else however; they were amazed I could describe specific weak spots in the wall and how the people dressed.
What I described wasn't what they wanted to hear. I confirmed what Daryl had already told them; that Woodbury wasn't a camp full of psychopaths. A camp full of psychopaths could be dealt with in a straightforward manner and with no guilt but a town full of ordinary people was a whole other issue. How did you approach that?
I only half-listened as Andrea and Michonne took a hard-line position which boiled down to the white woman wanting to shoot the Governor in the face and the black woman wanting to slice him open. The others were warier about running into anything guns blazing. I didn't know where to start with all this so I had nothing to say. For me, there was no easy answer. How could there be? We were talking about a tiny settlement going to war with a small settlement. It was insanity.
"What are we talking about fighting for?" Hershel asked. "These people wouldn't want to fight us, not if they know about us. They've no reason to. If they know about us and know that we mean them no harm, why would we have to fight?"
"Because none of that matters to this Governor." Andrea answered him. "We're here and we're a threat to him."
"So? The man can't just start a war without support. If the people in this town know about us, there's nothing he can do. We can nip this in the bud before it goes any further."
"They killed-"
"I know they did. But we don't know who it was, or why specifically. If Bas says these people in Woodbury are good people; this Governor can't do a thing."
"Maybe not officially. But we already know that they didn't know anything about the attack here. They don't even know why they lost some of their people."
"And if it stays a secret, he can't bring more than half a dozen men against us. We're prepared now. We can defend against half a dozen men."
"Only if we see them comin'." Daryl growled. "A few guys hiding in those trees can take a couple of potshots and be gone before we can do a thing. They'll pick us off one by one."
"That's it they come back at all." Hershel wouldn't let it go and sounded so much like Dale; optimistic that people couldn't be that awful.
"They'll come back." Rick sighed. "Can't just leave it like this. She killed too many of 'em to just let it lie." He pointed at Michonne. "And we killed a couple so we're a target too."
"So what do we do? Prepare for an attack and hope we wipe them all out, Governor included?" Oscar inquired. It was hard to tell if he was serious or sarcastic.
"So Woodbury never knows what happened and picks a new leader and then we introduce ourselves?" Carol asked dryly.
"Shouldn't we try to talk to this out?" Tyreese asked. "Hershel's right, if those people know who we are, if they know we're good people, how could they try to kill us? Why would they even want to kill us?"
"I'm sure the Governor could give them some good reasons." Michonne spoke in a low voice, full of menace and a lot of paranoia. She was right though. I had no doubt he had a few soundbites that could whip up an angry mob.
"So we don't give him the chance. We go there. Now, even! We go up to the gates, we tell them who we are and make sure the whole town knows about us."
"That's crazy." Andrea countered.
"Why? Take Glenn, Maggie, Hershel, Sasha, me, yourself; you don't look dangerous. We look like normal people. Good people."
They argued about it, back and forth, and finally Rick decided that Hershel and Tyreese had a point. At the very least he could see Woodbury for himself and maybe it could be possible to stave off further violence. Maybe…
"Me?" I asked. "Why me?"
"You've been there."
"Exactly. They see me, the spy, that ain't gonna build trust."
Rick glared at me. "You can vouch for them. They can see you vouch for them. You made some friends there, didn't you?"
"Not really…"
"You're going." He declared, and I was going.
Two vehicles, eight people. Myself, Andrea, Glenn, Hershel, Maggie, Rick, Sasha and Tyreese. That left Daryl in charge of a seething Michonne who did not like this peaceable course of action. Daryl wanted to come because seeing his brother was his top priority but Rick convinced him to stay, in case something happened at the prison and in case the people in Woodbury saw me and thought Merle was another spy in their ranks if he had a brother in ours. I didn't know if this was a good or bad call.
As a group we were decidedly unthreatening though individually Rick and Tyreese stood out. Tyreese was a big man and Rick's grizzled appearance and hard stare said he was not to be messed with. The rest of us were rather unassuming, except for weapons. Rick had no desire to come out here unprepared.
"You've been busy while I've been gone." I remarked of the three rifles sat between me and Hershel in the car.
"We trained and everything." Glenn replied, almost grinning. "We might even be able to hit something."
"It shouldn't come to that." Hershel didn't like this talk. He didn't like the weapons. I couldn't blame him. The black rifles were entirely too business-like for my calm. Compared to the motley array of weapons we had used before the winter, shotguns and pistols mostly, there were so many more 'hardcore' guns around now.
"I shouldn't be here." I made my protest again.
"Afraid of seeing certain people again?" Glenn asked.
"Yes. People don't like being spied on."
"Anyone in particular?"
"Well the Governor ain't gonna be happy to see he's been played. And Merle's going to be…" I bit my tongue because Hershel was present. "He's not going to be happy when he sees me, or you, or Andrea, and especially Rick."
"No one's happy today." Maggie remarked.
"At least we had breakfast."
"If this goes right, we stop this insanity before it goes any further." Hershel declared. "We don't have time to waste on this, and if what Bas has said is correct, Woodbury can't afford it either. We need to be building, preparing for the next winter, not trying to destroy each other."
"What Michonne said, what I saw of the Governor…" I shook my head. "He likes being in the king of his own little world. He can't have neighbours like us. Not like Rick."
"What about Rick?"
"The Governor rules. Rick rules. The Governor plays it nice but no one argues with him. Rick's just got us. Think about it; a close little group? That makes us more powerful than Woodbury right now. Rick more powerful than the Governor."
"Unless he turns the whole town against us." Glenn said.
"Twenty or thirty of them, against us? It's still not even."
"We'll see." Hershel said. "We'll hope for the best."
"If you're here, I guess Allen and Lori are okay?" I asked.
"Lori's regaining her strength. Allen's a problem."
"Problem?"
"The man lost his son. He's angry." Hershel didn't elaborate. There was no need.
I thought about the situation, as I had at Woodbury, and here I again concluded that with all the people out for blood and the Governor's personality that conflict was inevitable. Maybe this plan could work, but I didn't see how it could possibly last. The Governor couldn't be who he was with us encroaching on his sphere of influence while Allen and Michonne wanted vengeance. Andrea, perhaps, could be placated for Dale while everyone else would prefer no one else to die and didn't see the value of an eye for an eye for Ben, Dale and Theodore.
It had been said more than once; a few guys in the woods outside the prison could snipe someone. We would fight back and then we would have a full-scale war on our hands. It could only end one way; one camp or the other in ruins and infested with walkers.
It was ridiculous.
Glenn hit the brakes hard and the seatbelt stopped me cracking my face on the seat in front of me. "Oh, shit, shit, shit!" I heard him say as he removed his own belt and exited the car at speed. So did Maggie. Hershel and I were only a little slower.
I knew the two SUVs. They had been at Woodbury. Small comfort that the occupants seemed as surprised to encounter us as we were to see them. The difference was that they didn't know who we were. Not immediately.
"Tall man on the left." I told Rick. "That's the Governor."
There were eight of us and six of them but I only had my pistol and they would dismiss Hershel as a threat because of his age. Like us they had pulled off the road and taken shelter behind their cars.
"How do you want to play this?" Andrea had her hunting rifle. Dale's rifle.
I did something very stupid. I stepped out from behind cover. It was an incredibly stupid thing to do but it allowed them to see me clearly and I saw a ripple first as they aimed at the clear target and then as they recognised me. I could only name the Governor and Martinez but I recognised the other four. One had been the first man to clumsily shadow me during my first day in town. Even at this distance I could see their surprise and then they readied themselves again.
"Let's talk!" I called and I could hear a roaring in my ears. Six men were aiming at me and I assumed if they fired at me, more than a dozen rounds would come at me in a near instant and at least three of them would drop me. It wasn't like when I had approached the town. This was unpredictable.
Like the Governor deciding to stroll out onto the road. He carried a bullpup rifle casually in his hand; very casually. If it was meant to be a show of force without being overtly threatening; it was effective. So was his strolling gait.
I stepped forward and I sensed movement behind me that turned into Rick. Rick had an M4. I had the insane thought that just like with Tomas; Rick had the bigger gun.
We met in the middle. Rick and the Governor with their assault rifles, and me… With a crowbar and pistol. Rick had his machete on his belt and I noticed the Governor only had a small knife on him. Odd considering he was always telling his people to save their rounds.
"So you ain't lost." He said to me.
"Depends what you mean." I heard myself say.
"So what's the deal? We took you in and you were spying on us?" He chuckled. "And now you're leading a raiding party against us?"
"How about we cut the bullshit?" Rick asked without any kind of preamble. "You found Bas missing this morning and you figured he must have come from the prison. So you were on the way to take care of things."
"I was just out looking for one of my missing citizens." The Governor lied blatantly and he enjoyed doing so. He enjoyed someone knowing he was full of it. "And instead I find he was a wolf in sheep's clothing."
"You already attacked us once." Rick mused. "You thought this time you'd go yourself to make sure it was done right. No more screw ups. Now here we are and you can see it ain't gonna be so easy."
"He always like this?" The Governor asked me and I didn't answer. I liked that Rick was cutting straight through the bullshit. I liked to do the same thing after all. "Now I know why I was on this road, but I can't figure out why you are."
"We were thinking we could talk this out." Rick spoke calmly. Peaceably. "Before this really gets out of hand."
The Governor chuckled again and Rick remained stone-faced. "Out of hand? You're harbouring a dangerous fugitive who killed three of my people and then you killed two more protecting her."
Rick practically frothed. "Your guys came to our place and opened up on a bunch of unarmed people! We had one man armed and they killed him without any warning! They killed an unarmed man who was going outside to cut some grass! The boy here and two kids are only alive because his body shielded him! Another kid wasn't so lucky; he died in his father's arms!"
The latter part seemed to affect the Governor. It was one thing to shoot at adults and another at kids after all. I had to wonder though how many of Woodbury's "acquisitions" had come at the expense of families. They couldn't all have been armed men that could be rationalised away with 'them or us'. But it only lasted a moment. "We got ourselves a problem here. You've got a dangerous woman back in your hideout, and you're sending spies into my town?" They were both still holding their rifles loose by their sides but I knew they were ready to whip them up and put a burst through each other in an instant. They both just wanted the invitation. "Now you're saying you want to talk?"
"I've got people who want me to talk this out. Me? From what I've heard there ain't a conversation that can change nothing. Seems the twenty miles between us ain't enough."
"You tell him that?" The Governor asked me again and it was evident he kept addressing me to annoy Rick.
"We've got a woman who says you massacred people for their supplies and I've seen the paperwork." I replied and liked his frown as he tried to understand the remark. "And I know people like you."
"People like me?" He grinned.
I shrugged. "You love being in charge." I had nothing else to say.
"We can walk away from this." Rick said, having regained his former calm. "You stay on your side of the river and we'll stay on ours. Maybe even we can work something out down the line. We lost people, you lost people but it ain't enough yet to make this unworkable. But it's up to you." The threat was in those last five words.
"I care about my people." The Governor replied with equal calm but with the same threat in the same number of words. "I don't take their deaths lightly."
"They wouldn't have died if you hadn't sent them after Michonne. If they hadn't attacked our home."
"I sent them after her to watch her back and she cut them to pieces. Unprovoked too. Unless you think five armed men shot at her, missed and then let her get close enough to slice them up? I sent them out there to watch her leave our territory, and she repaid my kindness by killing three of them and wounding another."
"They shot her."
"In self-defence. And I hear she's still up and around so it can't even have been a flesh wound." The Governor became tense. "You know what you've got there? When we picked her up she was like a cornered animal. We took her in and had a doctor look at her and you'd have thought we were taking cattle prods to her. We gave her a room and a bed to sleep in and she acted like it was a cage with some straw." He pointed at me. "Same room you got. We tried to talk to her and open up about what she had been through out here, and she attacked my people. When we realised there was nothing we could do for her, we honoured her wishes and let her go. We offered her a vehicle and she chose to walk out the gates. Wouldn't even take a can of beans for the road. I do the Christian thing and send some of my boys to watch her back for a little while, and I had to tell their families they weren't coming home. I had to lie to them and say it was the biters because if I told them it was the stranger we brought in and tried to give a home… Well, if I told them the truth maybe the next stranger at our gates would have got a bullet, or a rope and a tree."
The only part that was sincere to my ears was what he thought of his people but I knew he only wanted them to remain open and trusting so that he might continue to recruit other survivors. If they became frightened and paranoid, he couldn't grow his 'cult' as Michonne referred to it.
"What's your point?" Rick asked.
"Ask yourself what you're fighting for."
"I don't care about her. I care about my two friends your people gunned down. I care about that kid. I'm here and I'm being reasonable. That boy's father? He wants your head. One of the women back there? You killed a man who was like a father to her. I care about my people." Rick echoed him deliberately. "And right now, I'm the only thing between my people and you." I noticed the Governor glanced at me, maybe taking Rick literally for a moment. "All it'll take is one of them with a rifle to end this. You want to walk around with a target on your back?"
"Ain't that what we all been doing for a year now?" The Governor replied, completely unfazed by the threat. It was a pretty empty threat considering the ever-present danger we all lived with. Maybe the bulk of the Woodburyians had managed to ignore it but not the Governor. Not the five men backing him up right now. He looked at me again. "You should have stayed with us. You really want to fight for a prison?"
"I don't want to fight." I said. "I do what I have to."
He nodded a few times. "I can respect that. Tell you what; I'll even tell young Haley the truth about you."
I couldn't tell if this was a threat or not. Or if he was just trying to get under my skin. I said nothing.
"You really want to do this?" Rick asked.
"Like the kid said." The Governor replied. "We do what we have to do."
"So what now?" Rick had that hard-cast to him. "You want to do this here?"
"Six against eight?" The Governor grinned again. "Or just six against six? I don't think either of us wants to commit suicide right here. We start shooting, we destroy the vehicles and whoever's left gets eaten by all the biters that show up and our people never know what happened. No, we walk away now and then we drive to our respective corners and then… Well then we'll see, won't we?"
I had served a purpose here but now I was stood awkwardly to the side as two alphas stared each other down, neither willing to be the first to back away. Not because they feared the other shooting them in the back but instead simple unwillingness to back down. It was ridiculous but also deadly serious. The Governor's mocking sense of humour however meant he could scoff and turn away like he was amused by what they were doing. He cared though.
Rick turned away and for a moment I was left standing in the road by myself between two lines of rifles and I remembered when one of my biggest fears was being stuck between two groups armed just with handguns. How times had changed, and yet, not changed at all.
The same stand-off happened at the cars though I thought it was the Governor's men rather than him who were the problem. Martinez had a row with him that we could see even from a distance and it didn't help that Andrea was just as sure that if we got into our cars they would pump them full of lead. It was the Governor, who forced his people to embark, who ended it. It wasn't honourable as he had pointed out he had no advantage here.
In the car I told Glenn, Maggie and Hershel what had been said. I told them about how the Governor had tried to spin everything so that our side were the aggressors and his version of events regarding Michonne. I noticed their awkwardness regarding her feral behaviour because the way she had acted at the prison meant the Governor wasn't lying about that. They didn't believe it was altruism that had led to him sending men after her though.
"One question, son." Hershel asked when I was done. "Do you have a death wish?"
I could only answer this honestly. "I don't know."
]
I let the adults bicker and so my options were to go to the infirmary where Rick sent Carl to visit Lori and baby Judith and where I could feel especially awkward in the presence of Allen, or I could go to my cell. I went to my cell. Hershel was seeing to his patients which meant Beth was free to listen to the others arguing about how to fight a war. She didn't stay for long and so just like that I found myself lying on my bunk with two girls sat beside me. Beth and Sophia together wasn't awkward, unlike if it had been one or the other. The three of us felt like kids hiding from their rowing parents.
"So…" I had to break the silence in the cell because listening to the debate out there was too painful. "How was your week?"
"Long." Beth answered.
"I learnt to use a bow."
"I learnt to use a submachinegun." Sophia replied.
"… You win." I said. She was sat closest to my head. "I can't imagine that."
"Neither can I and I've done it."
"What about you?" I asked Beth.
"Not yet."
"They taught her but not you?"
"I know how to use rifle." Beth reminded me. "Just not one of those army guns."
"It'll be me next then." I had thought learning to use a revolver had been an ordeal. But an assault rifle? Or maybe a submachinegun of my own; that was more my style. Style? Guns weren't my style at all. But I couldn't see myself sneaking around cutting throats…
"Do we really have to fight?" Beth asked the question for all of us.
"Or we can leave, somehow. Get one of the prison buses working and then all of us can go. Go where? And we'd leave behind most of the supplies here… We can't go… So yeah, we have to fight." I had this little row with myself and then sighed. "Right now the Governor's at Woodbury, telling them the story about the bunch of psychopaths living in the prison down the road. Probably telling them we're all former convicts who took the place over. They'll buy it. Then after they've had a week of training, he'll ship thirty people down here to attack us."
"Eighteen of us, and a baby." Beth thought aloud.
"Tyreese can't shoot. He can't even hit a target accidentally." Sophia said and it was weird to hear her say something like this. "I couldn't shoot a person. …Again…" Beth and I both put our hands on her arms. "Could you?"
"I don't know." Beth answered honestly.
"I've hurt people before, so maybe." I said. "But that was very different and a long time ago."
"Who did you hurt?"
"Someone trying to hurt me." So many 'someone's. When you were homeless, it was law of the jungle. People stabbed each other over shoes. Over a slice of pizza thrown in the trash. I had been stabbed for being in someone else's territory as they saw it.
"Why did you learn how to use a bow?" Sophia inquired.
"The Governor decided I would fit in defending their walls, and they use bows to save ammunition."
"Like Daryl." Beth remarked.
"Saving ammunition for us…" I couldn't help but have this dark thought aloud. "It's all insanity."
"Insanity?"
"Woodbury has problems. They've got a lot more people than us and they're living off what they scavenge from the countryside. It's okay for now but it's not… Sustainable… We were going to start planting crops. Properly farming. They've got planters like we have but they're growing flowers instead of food. They need to focus on food and water. We need to focus on water; we have to go outside the fence for water from the creek. We've got more important things to do than fight over… I don't even know what we're fighting for. For… Who gets to be king of the wasteland…"
"The dead rule the wasteland." Sophia said to the opposite wall and Beth and I both stared at her. "Woodbury has walls. We have fences. To keep the dead out because the dead rule out there. All they have is inside their walls and all we have is inside the fences. We can't control anything outside and neither can they because there's a thousand walkers for every one of us and them."
It was an astonishingly bleak thing to hear and especially from a thirteen year old and yet she summed up the pointlessness of the conflict perfectly. The prison and Woodbury had fewer than a hundred people between them and given it was a minor miracle how few of us on both sides had been killed by walkers since the winter, it was insane that now we were losing people to the living. It was ludicrous for us to fight.
"What do you think's going to happen?" Beth asked me.
"The way I see it, the Governor's either going to try and pick us off one by one or he'll attack in force. Picking us off is risky because anything could happen out there and it'll take him days to rally his people around wiping us out and getting them armed and prepped for an attack." I thought about the sedate lifestyle that the people of Woodbury enjoyed. "If he can even get them to do it. He'll have to cook up a story… He'll tell them we murdered the men Michonne killed and then say we were planning to attack Woodbury next."
"And you were our spy in their town." Sophia mused. "I'd believe it."
"Me too." Beth agreed. "People are scared."
"So that leaves Rick with two options; kill the Governor and hope whoever replaces him is ready to live and let live. Or wait for them to attack and kick their asses… But depending how it goes, we could be outnumbered as badly as four to one." After all, Axel didn't like violence, Tyreese apparently couldn't shoot straight, Allen was still shot, Lori was a non-combatant, they would keep Carol, Beth, Carl, Sophia and probably me out of a battle, and the core of people that Rick truly trusted and counted on was Andrea, Daryl, Glenn and Maggie. Sasha and Oscar were unproven and only an idiot would believe that Michonne didn't have her own agenda. That meant Rick had eight soldiers and one maverick. "So whatever they come up with out there… It ain't gonna be pretty." Nine people while if the Governor brought every able-bodied citizen of Woodbury, he could bring as many as forty although the ones he would able to rely on would be the same number.
We heard someone on the stairs and then coming up the walkway. I saw Daryl before we saw me and he frowned to see me lying behind the two girls. He pointed a grubby finger at me. "C'mon!"
They let me get up and I complied without a word because his baleful eyes were especially grim. Not that anyone else's were any better, although Michonne's were far and away the most savage. Rick's expression told me I was about to learn why.
"You know where Merle sleeps at night?" He asked.
It wasn't the question I was expecting so I took a moment to recover. "I have an idea."
"Can you get Daryl in and to Merle without being seen?"
"Just Daryl?"
"Just Daryl." Rick nodded and I saw the hateful look Michonne shot him. I got it. We were going to Woodbury to retrieve the man who had shot her and knowing Merle, had probably hurled a lot of insults her way before inflicting that injury. We were doing this rather than attacking Woodbury. "Small group of us goes out tonight. You get Daryl in, you bring Merle out and then we ain't got no complications on the inside."
"What if Merle doesn't want to go?"
"He's my brother." Daryl growled at me.
"I meant, what if he wants you to stay at Woodbury and won't take no for answer? If they catch us, Merle will make sure you stay alive but they'll drag me to the centre of town and have me shot."
"Or they'll shoot all three of you." Andrea suggested.
"Merle ain't gonna stay there if he can leave with me!" Daryl insisted.
"What if he doesn't want you on the losing side?"
"I know my brother."
Judging by the looks of frustration, they had already had this argument and I wasn't contributing anything new. Rick felt he owed a debt to Merle and he owed Daryl loyalty and so he had to do this. The only question was whether I would go along with it. I owed Merle Dixon nothing and given his temperament, I had no idea if he would give up Woodbury for Daryl. I really could believe he would have us taken prisoner so he could try to talk Daryl around while not giving a single shit what happened to me. However, while I owed Merle Dixon nothing; I did owe Daryl Dixon. I wouldn't be alive without him. Neither would Sophia. So even though I didn't like it, I had to go. I nodded contritely.
"This is stupid." Michonne declared.
"I'm going!" Daryl snarled at her. "You can't stop me!"
"We're going for Merle." Rick insisted. "No sideshows."
"Who's 'we'?" I inquired.
"You, Daryl, me, Andrea and Michonne." He replied and then answered my question before I could ask it. "If there's a problem between Merle and her, we're gonna find out about it out there; not here."
I didn't know if that meant forcing them to confront each other in a place where they couldn't afford to do anything stupid, or because if there was a problem Rick intended to cut one or even both of them loose. I didn't want to think about it. "I'll pack my things." I said.
This meant telling Beth and Sophia what was going on. Sophia got straight to the point. "But you just got back!"
"Yeah…" I couldn't argue with that. I had just gotten back and now for the second time in a day I was hitting the road. "Look, you remember Daryl finding us out there?" I didn't need to specify when. "He didn't give up looking for us. He found us. So I owe him this."
She thought about it, and didn't like it. "That's a pretty good reason." She acknowledged. "Is that the only reason you're going?"
"I had a good reason to go this morning when we thought we could talk this out. Now I've got no business going to Woodbury, except for Daryl."
"And then you'll come straight back?"
"In, get Merle, get out. That's the plan."
Sophia gave me a piercing stare, her freckles bunching up as her eyes narrowed. "Do you really think it'll be that simple?"
"No." I admitted and Beth gave me a look but Sophia appreciated my honesty. "It never is, is it?"
"What could go wrong?" Beth asked, offering me a way out. I didn't take it.
"A lot." I said. "But I expect it to; so I'm ready for it."
Sophia nodded. "That's good." She nodded again. Then she hit me. "You're supposed to stay in your weight class!"
She had me there. I was definitely getting into trouble well above my class at the moment but there wasn't anything I could do about it. "After this… They'll keep me at the back." It wasn't quite a promise but the three of us knew what it was like to be kept out of harm's way. That wasn't going to change with the promise of a pitched gun battle.
She thumped me again. "For Daryl." She accepted and then glared moodily at the wall she had decorated. Beth gave me a look and I couldn't tell if it was concern for me or for her. Perhaps even it was disapproval. It all depended on how she was interpreting Sophia hitting me.
]
It had been a long day and now I was on the road again. We took a different route, going miles out of the way in case the Governor had set a watch or even ambush at the bridge on the direct route. It was possible the Governor and his picked band might attack tonight so Glenn had strict instructions to stay well-hidden while keeping watch from the yard. In the dark, a small group of men could pierce the outer fences with wire cutters but once they reached the fence of the inner yard they would be vulnerable. A few sentries lurking in the inky shadows could cut them down without ever being more than a muzzle flash. Piercing the prison from the other side would mean making it through the walkers that infested it. In the dark. No one could possibly be insane enough to attempt to crawl through unfamiliar, infested buildings in the dark.
I figured that what we were doing was insane enough anyway. The five of us were decidedly mismatched and it might almost have been amusing to be in their grim company if not for the seriousness of this road trip. I had serious reservations about both Andrea and Michonne being here considering both wanted the Governor's head. There was also the fact that Merle would not be happy to see the man who had cuffed him up on that roof. I couldn't say anything though because I had used up all the credit I had the other night. All I could do now was what I was told. Keep my young mouth shut. And watch the occasional walker caught in the low beams whip by the windows.
When they judged we were close enough to the town, the low beams were switched off and we drove in the dark so the lights weren't a beacon. This was grim. But nothing compared to when we stopped so the noise of the engine would not be heard in the town. We would walk the rest of the way.
Michonne was still limping but she made short work of any walkers we encountered. She had a habit however of slicing off their heads and ignoring them, leaving them like little landmines in her wake. Landmines that bit. I sank the chisel of my crowbar into them and wondered how many headless corpses there were out there with these nasty surprises next to them.
Still, she was useful to have leading the way.
Woodbury at night was just as I had suspected. The fires on the inside silhouetted the guards on the walls so that if we had been here to attack, a few good shooters could have picked off a half dozen guards with ease. At the main gates, they periodically switched on the search light and while it could be used to blind an attacker; it would only last a few seconds before the light was shot out. The search light had to also draw the attention of walkers that might otherwise have passed by.
The only part of the wall I had seen from the outside had been the gates and the stretch I had used to depart so it took me time to find my bearings and find the best point to get in with the shortest route to where I knew Merle slept.
"You lost?" Rick hissed in the darkness.
"Trust the thief, officer." I replied, forgetting about the lack of credit I had. Rick however accepted it. The others were a little more impatient. "There."
"What's 'there'?"
"See the wall? See the guard sitting in the chair on the far end?"
"…No." Andrea admitted.
"They're there. Trust me." I got Daryl's attention. "We move up on the left along the building there, we're in the shadows and then we can get up to wall without being spotted. When we're there, whoever's sitting in the chair can't see us unless we do a little dance to get their attention."
"You sure?" Rick asked.
"He's sure." Daryl could obviously see it himself; he was a hunter after all.
"How long?"
"You mean 'If we ain't back in twenty minutes'?" I asked. "It takes as long as it takes. I can't make any promises once we're inside. We could be at Merle's room in two minutes or we could need twenty minutes because a patrol stops for a smoke break outside the building. I don't know."
"Give us an hour." Daryl offered. "Nuthin' can take longer than that."
"One hour."
Of all people to do this with, Daryl would have been my first pick. He made no noise with his feet and only the soft sounds of his crossbow shifting on his back gave him away. Too soft for any guard to hear. At the prison the wind made the fences rattle while here the abandoned town surrounding the occupied core made all kinds of noises. It was more than enough to cover our soft sounds.
He gave me a leg up onto the wall and I took his crossbow and then offered him an arm. I was hardly built for hauling him up but he launched himself and so I was only helping to propel him up. The guard further along was awake and had a crossbow of their own across their lap and they were completely oblivious of us just yards away or the man and two women out there watching him.
Daryl needed a moment to take in the glowing interior of Woodbury and then we slipped down. While I wasn't versed in hand signals, it was easy to communicate silently with the man. I wished Merle lived in the exterior though so this would have been simpler. Instead we had to flit from shadow to shadow, watching for patrols and guards on the walls taking a moment to look over their shoulder. Then we reached a point where there were no shadows.
'That building. There.' I told Daryl silently.
'There?' He asked and I nodded. I watched him acknowledge that there was no way to approach it unseen in the dark; the braziers burning in the middle of the street made it impossible. "Stand up." He whispered, taking his crossbow off his back.
"What?"
"Stand up. Walk with me. Act like you belong."
I knew all about hiding in plain sight but the two of us walking across the street in the light went a little too far. But there were no cries of alarm. No challenges. With his crossbow in hand and our casual stroll, we just looked like a pair of sentries on patrol. I kept my crowbar close by my side because I hadn't seen anyone in Woodbury using one.
We slipped inside the unlocked building and there was nothing strange about that. My observation was that in these places, they only locked interior doors leaving people free to enter and leave without causing a disturbance.
'Where?' Daryl asked.
I pointed straight up. Obviously Merle would be on the top floor where he would have the height advantage. I watched Daryl take in the clean interior and heard him sniff to confirm his senses were correct and the carpets were somehow scented.
My fear was that Merle would hear me picking his lock and a shotgun blast would tear the door, and us, apart. There was nothing I could do with that fear though; just get the door open. I hoped I was right about this being Merle's room; we couldn't search every room in the building.
The hand that closed around my throat told me I had got it right. I was hauled in through the door I had just opened and Merle had me on the floor in an instant. He would have caved in my skull with the maul he had transformed his right hand into if Daryl hadn't put his crossbow against his head.
"Merle?"
The grip on my throat didn't slacken. "… Daryl?"
"Let the kid go."
I sensed Merle look down at me and he removed his hand from my throat but kept his knee on my chest. He found my left hand, confirming who I was and his suspicion was obviously that I had come here to kill him on behalf of Woodbury's new enemy. But Daryl being with me was not expected.
"Let the kid go." Daryl repeated softly.
Merle pressed his knee down on me hard to stand up and it was meant maliciously, even if he complied. I picked myself, not sure which hurt more; my crushed chest or throat. "Told you the last time I saw your brother he was alive." I shut the door.
Merle found a lamp and in its dim light, the Dixon brothers were reunited. Daryl lowered the crossbow and was plain astonished by Merle's clean-cut appearance. Merle was astonished to see his brother alive and well and in his apartment in the middle of the night.
"That hurt?" Daryl nodded at his missing hand.
"The hell you think?" Merle replied.
"We found where you cauterised it." Daryl told him. "Then we lost yo trail. We figured you was heading back to camp. We thought you took our ride."
"I don't know about no ride. I couldn't drive. I could barely stand. I was nearly dead when they found me."
"They?"
"The Governor. They went up to Atlanta to see what they could find for Woodbury. And they found me." Merle looked at me sourly. "And you, baby-brother? Who'd you end up with?"
"Same people as before. The ones left after the walkers came anyhow. Ain't many of us left now."
"Ain't many." Merle repeated while nodding. "That right? So that black sumbitch who dropped the key-"
Daryl cut him off. "He's dead."
"Dead?" Merle couldn't conceal his disappointment.
"He was shot when your Governor attacked the prison. Or maybe that was you."
Merle, surprisingly, was appalled. "You're at the prison?"
"Yep. They killed three people. T-Dog, Dale and a kid; Ben. And we killed two of them."
"That wasn't me."
"Yeah?"
"I ain't been to the prison. I was laid up here, after I got this." He still had the band-aid on his nose. "And I stayed here this morning." Meaning he knew a version of events from that meeting.
"Why?"
"Someone had to take care of the place." Merle answered. "Or maybe, I wasn't meant to know who was at the prison…"
"Governor don't know about me." Daryl said.
Merle turned on me. "What did you tell him, boy?"
"Tell who? The Governor?"
"Me, asshole!"
"I told Daryl the truth; that you were here, you were the Governor's lieutenant and you hadn't given up looking for him. I told you Daryl was alive, and here he is. I thought about telling you the truth when I left, but I didn't know how you'd take it. Better you hear it from Daryl."
Daryl proceeded to lay it out for him. Everything that had happened since they had been separated and he was concise. He left nothing out and Merle's expression got particularly dark. "You tellin' me the Nubian Queen and Officer Friendly are out there waiting for me?"
"Rick ain't gonna let you two fight. And if you want to fight Rick, we gonna have a problem."
"A problem?" Merle growled.
"Yeah. That's how it is. I don't give a shit about her, but you ain't laying a hand on Rick."
Merle smirked and I was actually scared by it. He held up his arm. "I only got the one."
"I get it." Daryl nodded. "And I ain't asking you to like it. But you can come with us and try to work something out, or you can stay here while the Governor tries to kill us all." Every time Daryl said 'the Governor' he filled the four syllables with utter contempt. Curiously, despite Merle's admission it was the Governor who had saved him back in Atlanta, it didn't bother him in the slightest. Not even a twitch.
"You gonna try and fight him?" Merle asked instead. "There's what? A dozen of you?"
"More." Daryl growled. "I seen the people here. Ain't gonna be much of a fight if they come at us."
"You don't know what you dealing with, baby-brother. The Governor ain't a man you fuck with."
"Too late."
"Yeah, I know." Merle nodded. "Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay." Merle repeated and turned around and took an assault rifle from beside the couch of his apartment. Daryl brought up his crossbow. Merle laughed. "What you gonna do, Daryl? Shoot me?" Merle slung the rifle on his shoulder. "You ain't got the stones, even if I let you."
"You comin'?" Daryl lowered the crossbow in surprise.
"I ain't stayin'." Merle said as if it was obvious.
"Then can we be goin'?" I asked.
I felt very out of place alongside the two brothers. Like a weasel accompanying hunting dogs. But we walked across the street unopposed and then crept through the shadows. Like Daryl, Merle made no noise. We paused to allow a patrol past and they didn't see us just yards away. The patrol, a man and a woman, were talking about us; the prison group. They were arguing about how biters were bad enough without a bunch of convicts loose in the backyard.
"Convicts?" I whispered when they had passed.
"That's what he said." Merle replied. "Bunch of convicts who took over their old prison." He chuckled. "And you their lil bitch-boy spying on us for them."
I was going to reply when we heard a pistol snap in the night and the three of us instinctively got low; Merle unslinging his rifle. It was just a single shot and that made no sense. The patrol came running back and gazed down the street in the direction it had come from. We heard people calling to each other, making inquiries and no one had a clue it seemed.
What came next was a man's scream, long and penetrating, that shook even my two grizzled companions. "The hell?" Merle thought aloud and I tried to make sense of it.
"Walkers?"
"Maybe. Been awhile." Merle grunted and then the three of us got even lower as a weapon burst in the night; emptying a full magazine in seconds and I heard glass break and more people screaming.
"Time to go." Daryl growled.
"Look." I said and the guard who had been watching the stretch we had used to enter had abandoned his post and was now streaking toward us, heading toward the source of the noise. We let him pass and the man had no idea how close he came to the three of us. The way was clear.
We could use the ladder this time and Daryl went first to be recognisable to the others who had to be watching with weapons raised. Merle followed next and I was about to step forward when someone called my name, or at least a close approximation.
"Basil?"
I recognised her voice and I also recognised the bow. She had the arrow ready but hadn't drawn the string yet. I knew that she could draw it and shoot me in an instant and no action hero leap from the wall would save me at this range; she didn't have to aim for the head.
"Hi, Haley."
"The hell you doin', boy?" Merle snarled up at me.
"Do you really want to shoot me?" I asked her, ignoring him.
"Yes." She threatened to draw the string. "Who the fuck are you?"
"You remember the lil girl I told you about? When I told you about how I lost my fingers?" The reminder did not improve her mood. "She's real. She lives at the prison. That's where I live. That's who I live with. Not a bunch of crazies. Just normal people. That little girl, a boy and his new baby sister."
I saw her doubt. "The fuck are you talking about?"
"The Governor attacked us. That's why I came here so we could find out who attacked us and why. He attacked us, Haley! They killed three people! One of them was our age!" What I was saying was not convincing her. Just confusing her. "I don't know what's going on over there." It sounded like a riot had broken out in the middle of town. "That ain't us. I came for Merle; Merle's brother's with me! Merle's coming with us."
"It's true!" Merle's voice rang out loud behind me and this made Haley lower the bow in shock. "Now let the boy go!"
I leapt but not backward out of town but forward; into it. Haley raised the bow again and the movement saved her. The sword smashed into the weapon instead of her neck and knocked her over onto her back. The blade would have come stabbing down on her through her midriff except that I shoulder-charged Michonne and sent her sprawling. Now the sword came at me and I blocked it with the crowbar and the clash of metal on metal sent agony through my hands. Hers too. Enough to jolt her to her senses and recognise me.
The first time I had seen her she had been filthy and shot. Now she was beat to hell and for some reason; soaking wet. Her blade was black.
"What did you do?"
She glowered at me and then turned and ran for the wall. I stood in shock and watched her leap over the wall. Giving Haley enough time to grab me and her archer's arms caught me in a death grip as she threw me against the wall.
"I don't know what she did." I said. "I don't know what she did but it wasn't part of the plan. We came here for Merle. Just Merle."
"She was going to kill me!"
I had no response to this. The noise in town had only gotten worse and I could hear people nearby.
"You stopped her…" She said and also realised I wasn't trying to fight her. "What the fuck is going on, Bas?"
"I don't want to fight you. Crazy Lady there, and the Governor; they want to fight. But not me. Not the rest of us. We don't want any of this." I told her and she tightened her grip and her jaw. "I'm sorry." I said. "You've got to let me go now." They were checking the walls. "Unless you want to be the one to kill me." I glanced downward and she flicked her eyes down and saw the pistol on my belt. I could have grabbed it and shot her already. She let me go.
"What the fuck is going on?" She repeated.
I really wanted to explain it to her. I really did. But I didn't have time. "Whatever he says about us, any of us except the woman with the sword; it's not true. If he tries to make you attack the prison; don't go!" It was all I could say and then I knocked her down. She wasn't expecting it and I could only hope she understood I was giving her plausible deniability as I grabbed my crowbar and scrambled up the wall as people yelled at me and then shot at me. I leapt from the wall, painfully hit the ground and then I slewed to the right as I ran on all fours like a dog. The people who climbed the wall were looking straight ahead for me and I was well away before they scanned in other directions.
I ran straight into a walker and in my state of adrenaline, I smashed it down with four blows before I was aware I had even hit it once. It was a broken mess at my feet as a hand grabbed my collar and hauled me away. For a fleeting moment I thought it was Theodore, back from the dead to keep me focused again. Instead it was Merle.
Rick had the Python on Michonne and while my adrenaline was coursing through me, hers had run out to leave her slumped on the ground beneath him. There were downed walkers all over the ground.
"What the hell happened?!" Rick snarled.
I waved at Michonne and I could find no words. None at all. I mimed my head exploding instead.
Rick lowered his weapon. "Get her." He growled at Daryl.
Andrea took Michonne's sword while the Dixon brothers took her. Her strength really was gone that all she could do was give Merle a death glare as he grinned at her.
"How's the leg?" He asked.
"How's the face?" She retorted and Merle laughed. If this was the confrontation Rick had wanted to take place out here, then it was a miserable trade for whatever the hell had taken place behind us in town.
There was no time or energy to waste on explanations. Walkers had been drawn to the gunfire in town and Andrea and Rick cut a messy path through them with the sword and machete. Andrea didn't have Michonne's finesse but she enjoyed using the sword. A little too much I thought. I felt superfluous with the crowbar and I felt the nick that Michonne had put into it with the sword.
There was no pursuit from Woodbury though we heard shooting, presumably as they took down the walkers coming at the walls. That would pin them down for a while. Longer if there were any herds nearby.
We made it back to the vehicle and after a brief argument about seating arrangements of all things, we took off into the night.
]
The interrogation took place in the common area. Hershel stitched up Michonne's leg again but there was little he could do as her face swelled up.
While I had been reintroducing the Dixon brothers, the trio outside had been attacked by walkers. In the silent struggle in the dark, Michonne had vanished and Rick had been powerless to do anything but stay put as he waited for us to return.
Before Michonne had found herself surrounded by wary but friendly people. That wasn't the case now. Andrea had apparently struck up something of a relationship with her while I had been gone and she was the one who glared the hardest; worse than Rick. Maybe she felt betrayed.
Michonne was perfectly candid about what she had done. She had gone to kill the Governor. Before Rick could start shouting however she described how he hadn't been there and instead in his apartment she had found a room full of fish tanks with walker heads in them. An aquarium of severed but still living heads. Before we had a chance to process this, she described what else she had found. A little girl kept captive in a cupboard. A dead girl.
Where did you even begin trying to pick all that apart? Michonne thought the latter part was the most disturbing but for those of us who had been at Hershel's farm; a man keeping a walker penned up wasn't anything new. I saw Hershel look away with shame and then look back again as Michonne confessed to putting the girl down in front of the Governor who had returned to find her in his apartment. With his daughter.
I sat in the corner, barely listening as she described fighting with the man, thinking that in retrospect I was glad not to have tried to get into the Governor's rooms. I didn't see how I could have maintained character had I made these discoveries. I would have leapt over the wall in broad daylight, regardless of who saw me, and ran.
Maybe she sensed my distress. Maybe she was just exhausted after being roused by all the noise in the middle of the night. Either way; Sophia leaned on me and I was grateful for the distraction.
The first shot we had heard had been the Governor trying to shoot Michonne. The scream had been Michonne stabbing him in the eye with a piece of glass. And then before she could kill him, help had arrived for the Governor and she had been forced to flee. That was all she would say. She had failed.
"Put her in a cell." Rick said, sounding exhausted. Michonne meanwhile was spent and offered no resistance. None at all. "Him too." He added, pointing at Merle.
"The fuck you talking about?!" Merle snarled but Rick had already brought his gun out. I guessed it was too familiar an experience for Merle because he shut up immediately.
"You really want to push me tonight?" Rick asked, his head tilting in the familiar danger sign I knew.
Merle did not. He let himself be caged as well.
"Anyone else?" Andrea asked pointedly.
"That depends." Rick put the gun away at least and pointed at me with a finger instead. "What were you doing?"
"Me?"
"Who were you talking to?"
"Haley." I said.
"You said that weren't gonna be a problem."
"It wasn't. She saw me. She recognised me. She thought I was an enemy. I managed to talk her down, and then I saved her life when the crazy bitch back there tried to cut off her head!"
"She.. Whut?" Rick asked while Sophia had taken hold of my arm.
"She was going to cut her head off, but Haley's bow got in the way and then I stopped her from stabbing her. So she attacked me. Then, I don't know, the crazy switch flicked and she got the fuck out of there."
"Then what?"
"Then Haley put me up against the wall and wanted to know what the hell was going on. So I told her. And maybe she believed me. She knows I stopped the crazy bitch from killing her. She knows Merle left willingly. But what she's going to think if it turns out the crazy bitch killed the Governor-"
"Can you stop calling her that?" Andrea demanded.
"No, I mean crazy bitch." I raised my crowbar. "See that?" I indicated the gleaming nick in the metal with my thumb. "That was when she tried to cut me in two." Sophia was seriously beginning to hurt my other arm as she gripped and twisted. "She went to assassinate the Governor, she was going to cut off Haley's head and she tried to kill me. You got a better name for her?"
Andrea did not.
Rick at least satisfied with my story. It was the one thing he could be satisfied with. He shook his head as he mulled it over.
"Is he going to live?" Glenn asked the obvious question.
"If he was only stabbed in the eye, it isn't necessarily fatal." Hershel answered. "Not with proper medical care and it sounds like he'll have gotten that."
"But… Heads in fish tanks?" Maggie asked. "They'll realise he's crazy, right?"
"Maybe…" Rick said and sighed. "The way he talked this morning… He'll be able to justify it. Especially after he was viciously attacked in his own home." He turned and kicked the cage and the crash reverberated around the cell block for several seconds before fading into silence.
"So she just kicked over the ant hill." Tyreese suggested. "What does that mean for us?"
"That they might show up tomorrow looking for revenge for him, or they'll see the heads and his dead daughter and think he's as dangerous as us and they'll get rid of him. …And then come for us."
"Or he'll talk his way out of it and in a week, he'll come for revenge with the whole town behind him." Oscar sighed. "This is all so fucked up!" He declared. "Heads in fish tanks?! How'd the world out there get worse than it was in here?"
No one could argue with his opinion. But this uncomfortable fact didn't change anything. Michonne and I had painted a picture of a charismatic power-hungry man and Rick had seen it for himself. That it came with a powerful dose of insanity only made him more dangerous.
"Everyone go back to bed." Rick decided. "We'll figure this out in the morning." That seemed optimistic but what else could he say?
]
As I endured the oatmeal torture that was breakfast, Sophia interrogated me about Haley. She was much more thorough about it than Rick who was listening in intently and didn't have the talent to hide it. The others were quite open about their interest, especially Carol who was amused by her daughter's not-jealousy.
They were all interested by my description of my initial meeting with her and for the obvious reason that like me they were baffled why a woman would flirt with me out of the blue. I described her as 'sarcastic' and 'mocking' and that elicited knowing looks. I was not so open about my first archery lesson with Haley because that had been too intimate and I wasn't sharing those details. But I also made it clear that during my time at Woodbury I had spent a good deal of it in Haley's company which was the truth.
"I have no clue about her." I concluded. "All I know for sure is that she liked meeting someone else without a family. Woodbury doesn't have all that many stories of people losing everyone…" It was a good note to end on I thought because it suggested a platonic bond. It was a foolish thing to believe though.
"She likes you." Sophia declared.
"She told me to figure it out."
"That means she likes you."
"Does it?"
"Yes." Carol answered this time. "It does."
"And you saved her life." Sophia accused.
"I owed her that. I lied to her and she was kind to me even though she didn't have to be. And crazy bitch back there had no right to chop her head off." She was still in her cell, still asleep as she recovered from her fight.
Sophia thought about it and conceded I had a point. I didn't know if she was showing her age being jealous or if that was normal whatever her age. She was unimpressed I had protected Haley though; apparently that was our thing. I didn't know what to say to her.
"You done broke that girl's heart." Merle declared. As much as Rick would have liked to keep him in a cell, he didn't have any reason to given how Merle hadn't needed any persuading to come here and because Daryl wasn't going to have his brother caged. But Merle was a long way from forgiving any of the Atlanta crew and that was going to blow up at some point. Like now maybe. "When we found you gone, and then when the Governor said you was a scout for a bunch of raiders…" Merle tutted. "Crying shame."
I said nothing because anything would encourage him. Silence however was also an encouragement. He would have continued on but Rick coughed and Merle decided he would rather glower at Rick than make my life miserable.
"Is she pretty?" Sophia asked me.
I had anticipated this question. "She thinks so." It was true and Sophia liked hearing about Haley's vanity but she was suspicious. Suspicious of what it meant and what my answer actually meant. It was hard for me to say. I hadn't understood what had been going on between me and Haley at the time and I was even more confused after last night. My gut told me that she had just been playing with me and it was merely a budding friendship she felt had been betrayed. However, my gut had no experience in these things so its feelings weren't to be trusted. It would truly suck if this actually was my first romantic experience with an age-appropriate girl.
On the other hand, it was at least a distraction from the prospect of being gunned down by an angry mob outside and from the tensions inside the cell block.
Once again I retreated back to my cell with Beth and Sophia. Sophia had a few memories of Merle while Beth knew nothing. She knew Daryl and liked him but Merle had in a very short time created an impression. Because I was enjoying that Sophia was still unimpressed with me, I decided to share the thought I had had with Haley about the Dixon brothers. "Daryl's quiet and Merle's loud. Merle was an addict back in Atlanta but he's clean now. Still angry though. Don't get in his way." I advised.
"He just left Woodbury? Just like that?" Beth asked.
"Wouldn't you drop everything for Maggie?" I replied, giving her something to think about. "I don't think Merle's the nicest person on the planet, but he does care about his brother. That's one thing I do know."
"Don't you know everything?" Sophia asked.
"No…" I said carefully. "If I did, I wouldn't have to leave this cell."
She glared at me and it seemed I could look forward to a lot of catty comments in the days ahead. A strange thing to anticipate when you were facing bullets.
]
After all my recent adventures I finally got a chance to rest. Rest but not relax. Although the preparations were supposedly 'just in case', I didn't think anyone believed that the Governor wouldn't recover and wouldn't stay in power and everyone fully expected a fight. I was not invited to the strategy meetings, not that I could contribute anything to a plan for a gun battle; nothing that wasn't already known. Whenever I was on watch, I felt horribly exposed. The only advantage we had was the yard being above the field which meant anyone attacking up from the treeline and up the field would be shooting upward. This would make it much more likely that they would fire high over our heads. By lying down at the fence, we had some small cover. I felt like a wall of sandbags would have been more of a comfort but we didn't have the sacks and pillow covers wouldn't do it.
Daryl and Merle kept going out, keeping an eye on Woodbury and I suspected keeping Merle out of trouble. Merle and Michonne treated each other with a disturbing politeness while nursing an obvious grudge. That politeness was in stark contrast to the passive-aggression with which he treated the people who had left him behind in Atlanta and I found it odd until I realised that for Daryl's sake he wasn't going to try and kill Rick. But if Rick gave him an excuse to knock out several teeth, he would take it and goading him with jibes and sarcastic comments was pretty much every other sentence out of Merle's mouth when he was at the prison. I saw him at Theodore's grave and I half-expected him to spit on it. He kind of did when he launched into a rabid rant at the small mound of dirt; the general gist was that Theodore was stupid to have died before Merle could kill him. That was the gist; Merle used a lot of racial slurs to convey the message. He really had given a lot of thought about what he would say and do to Theodore for dropping that key.
And Rick heard it all which meant he could easily guess Merle's feelings toward him for locking him up there in the first place.
Attitudes toward Michonne varied wildly, with some feeling that the conflict might still have been resolved without a battle but that was impossible now that she had made it very personal. Others felt that what Michonne had done should have been the plan from the start and Merle was perhaps the strongest supporter of this view; he said had he known what she was going to do, he would have helped. Despite the fact that he would have died had the Governor not picked him up, it became very clear, very quickly that Merle sincerely despised the man. Anyone who thought Merle was a Woodbury spy swiftly gave up on the idea. What wasn't clear was why Merle hated him and Merle wasn't the kind of person to share his feelings. In the short time I had known him in the camp, I had been pretty sure that being a bully came as naturally to Merle as breathing but it seemed there was a line that Merle didn't cross and the Governor had kicked him over it. What that line was when Merle was a violent racist…
Allen was outright delighted to hear about Michonne attacking the Governor. Against Hershel's strongest protests, he discharged himself from the infirmary so instead of recovering indoors with medical care close at hand, he could instead sit out in the yard with a rifle in his lap, waiting for the attack. He wanted them to attack and he was visibly impatient for it, having at least accepted he was in no condition to attack Woodbury. I thought if the attack did come and he dived for cover, he would tear open and bleed out long before he could shoot the Governor who was now for all intents his mortal enemy; the same thinking that drove Michonne. At least with Allen I knew his motivation; kill the man he felt had killed his son.
Allen I understood but Michonne I did not. Her hatred for the Governor was very personal but we didn't know the exact details of her time in Woodbury so how could we know if her roaring rampage of revenge was an appropriate response? But how could she have murderous hate for the Governor but not for Merle, the man the Governor had sent to kill her and who had succeeded in shooting her? Unless it was a façade and the moment the Governor was dead, she would move onto the next item on her list. This was concerning for me because after our fight at Woodbury, there was a distinct possibility I was now on that list.
Allen, Merle and Michonne gave me a lot to think about and they were just three people. I heard Axel and Oscar talking about how familiar it was to be surrounded by angry, dangerous people.
On a more positive note, with Allen having left the infirmary it meant Lori was free to use it as a de-facto nursery. I think we were all grateful because I heard Judith crying one night and the thought of enduring that in the cell block was awful. Between stints on watch, keeping Beth and Sophia company while visiting baby Judith, Carl and Lori was just about the only thing to do. Not that a newborn baby was any kind of entertainment because even if she was awake, all she could do was just lie there. Watching her coo had an effect on the women but not me.
Rick flitted about with a nervous energy. The others seemed to have a plan to defend the prison but they weren't sharing it yet which meant it had to be desperate. There seemed to be no intent to attack Woodbury, especially after what had happened. Merle was in favour of ensuring the Governor really was dead and Andrea, Allen and Michonne supported this. Rick however didn't want to get dragged into a pitched battle, especially in their territory.
I found myself taking an evening shift on watch with Sasha and Tyreese and I had to ask them. "Why are you still here?"
Sasha had very intent eyes though not quite as intense as Michonne's. "Excuse me?"
"You lost someone coming here. You lost someone being here." I said. "No one would blame you for leaving. There's no reason for you to fight for this place."
It had occurred to her and she gave Tyreese a look. He shrugged. "We brought him here. We have to stay." He meant Allen.
"It's not your fault."
"No. But it's our responsibility now."
"And where else are we gonna go?" Sasha asked. "If we leave, wherever we go… It'll just be more of the same."
"You think so?" I found that depressing.
"It was before we got here."
"People out there…" Tyreese stared at the ground for a moment before looking back out. "It's dog eat dog."
"Man eat man." I corrected and they both gave me a 'Not funny' look. "More of the same for me." I mused, although the game hadn't necessarily been lethal. "I feel ridiculous." I said, referring to the MP5 I had been given. Carol and Sophia had shown me how to use it. Sophia hadn't passed up the opportunity to mock me as she tutored, acting as if she was special forces when she had only received her own lesson a few days ago. Unlike her, I didn't get target practice. "If they came right now, you're the only one who could do anything." I told Sasha.
"You two can scare them until the others come out." She replied wryly, giving her brother a look. He had an assault rifle and I knew he wasn't much use with guns. That made two of us. It was an odd choice of sentries then but if an attack did come we expected it early in the day. Not a dawn raid but still in the morning. If he brought Woodbury at night, they would likely end up shooting at each other in the dark and we could just sit back and watch. I doubted he would come with just a couple of guys and pick at us at this point. I didn't think he would have the patience for that. But what did I know? I had thought that the Governor was just a man drunk on power; not a psychopath who kept severed heads in fish tanks and his undead daughter in a closet…
(13,017)
Author's Note's;
I should have posted this weeks ago but I got distracted. I wrote most of this in a single night not long after the last posting. As always, things happened that I didn't intend. I knew I would get Merle out of Woodbury but I hadn't intended that would be the same event to see Michonne and the Governor have their confrontation. I didn't like the Woodbury arc in the comics as I felt it was the point the comics abandoned the original premise and started revelling in human depravity (Although meeting a serial killer in the prison was bad enough) and I'm glad the show never went deep into it. The show however I felt made Michonne far too suspicious and paranoid despite spending the winter with Andrea. You can understand why some people interpreted her as jealous of the Governor stealing Andrea away from her. In my timeline, Michonne being alone that whole time makes her suspicion and rage more understandable.
I also wasn't planning on Bas meeting Haley again and so it seems very contrived, I admit. But as Bas never existed, having him interact with characters who died keeps things in balance. It gives him a personal stake in the conflict without disrupting too much. It's tempting to write a chapter from Haley's perspective to see what's happening in Woodbury but I don't want the story to sprawl. Bas and Sophia are the focus of the story and the fact they don't know what's happening a lot of the time is the point. Try to imagine things from the perspective of the 'follower' type characters in those early days. They don't know what's going on and they have to trust in Rick and the other leaders. That means they have fewer opportunities for adventure, admittedly.
I enjoyed writing the Governor and Rick's meeting. An Arrow on the Doorpost vibe but different. I thought it would be interesting for the two to meet before Michonne puts out his eye; a chance for Rick to see the public persona rather than the darkly unhinged version he encounters in the meeting.
Still can't think of a title for the story. I've had no flash of inspiration.