The Prisoner Of Woodbury

Chapter 14

Merle is afraid of what he will find when he makes it to the catacombs.

Perhaps the Governor has done his worst. Beaten and broken her. Left her to suffer.

It's his worst nightmare. The one he's been having since he left. The one where his leaving caused her unspeakable pain. Where she pays for his defection.

He can only hope it hasn't come to that. The Governor has had other things on his mind, after all. Revenge, chief amongst them. For what Michonne did to him. For the attack on Woodbury. For the prison group having the audacity to think they ever stood a chance against him.

Another possibility is that Milton was able to protect her. Merle hopes that he did, but who knows what atmosphere prevailed after the attack? It pushed their unstable leader sheer over the edge, Milton was no doubt terrified of getting on the wrong side of him and ending up as one of his 'exhibits'. Merle cannot blame him if he decided to err on the side of caution.

These thoughts make him increasingly nervous the closer he gets to his destination, with one in particular becoming an ever more painful ache – the fear of how she will react to seeing him again. It's an ache that causes particular alarm because of the feelings involved.

Virgin territory for a man one could never call a virgin.

He thinks of the women in his life. The reasons he wanted to please. The encounters. The things that were said and the things hidden behind the things that were said.

This is nothing like any of that.

Indeed, this is nothing like any relationship he's had in his life, period.

Because it matters to him.

What she thinks of him.

How she might feel about the fact that he left her behind.

He protests that it hasn't been all that long since he left, doubts it was even two weeks, but two weeks is an eternity when left in the dark. He knows it was an eternity for him, and he'd been surrounded by other people and their plans... how must it have been for her? Alone. In that hellhole. With nothing else to think of.

She must hate him. For abandoning her. That he did not want to makes no difference - he left without so much as a fare-thee-well.

If only she could know how much he thought about her whilst he was away. How much he wanted to put things right.

Powerless to do so, all he had left was to think of what might have been.

So that's what he did.

What he does.

He invents stories for her.

Of the happy life she once lived. The happy life she could have had without the Governor. The happy life where their leader never noticed her and she was just another clueless soul in their clueless town. Maybe their paths might have crossed some day... Maybe he would've talked to her...

Maybe, maybe, maybe...

He's almost there, and the closer he gets, the more he hopes he can do this one thing for her.

In his mind's eye, he can see it.

The world where they get away. Steal a car and drive as far as it will take them.

Fast and loose... Lemmy knew the deal...

Find a better place.

Some place where we fit, where we're good, where it's enough...

Merle knows all too well that wherever they might end up she'd be treated as a freak, and that most people are too far gone to even consider that she might be some kind of answer, maybe even a way out of this misére, but he likes to pretend.