"There was a problem in Atlanta." Shane broke the news to Daryl, well, partially. Everyone watched from the side like they were waiting for him to blow up. A part of me wants to be mad after them for staring like he's a zoo animal, but another part of me is thinking the same thing as them.
He's gonna be pissed, and when he's pissed he's gonna start throwing things.
We're all silent while he looks around like he already has an idea of what's wrong. But he has no idea what actually happened. Not even close.
"He dead?" Is the only thing that Daryl said. My eyebrows raised and I crossed my arms as I stand next to Rick. I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Shane shakes his head. "We're not sure."
"He either is or he ain't!" This time Daryl raises his voice, and I take a step back off of instinct. He's never yelled at me before, and I don't want him to start now. If he's mad at Shane for just telling him, I can only imagine what he's gonna do whenever he finds out that I went with them, and I still didn't help Merle.
Rick steps up from beside me and I almost cringe as he speaks. "No easy way to say this, so I'll just say it."
"Who are you?" Daryl questions him. He doesn't look happy to see this new guy telling him about his brother. I wouldn't be either. "Rick Grimes."
"Rick Grimes. Ya got somethin' you wanna tell me?" Daryl mocks him, and if this were any other situation I would've laughed. But right now I'm too scared to even move.
"Your brother was a danger to us all. So I handcuffed him on a roof, hooked him to a piece of metal." I look down in shame. I can't imagine the pain Merle's in right now.
"He's still there." I see T-Dog walking up behind Daryl with a bunch of logs, and I know he feels the same way that I do right now. We both know we're about to suffer.
"Hold on. Lemme process this." Daryl pauses. "You're sayin' ya handcuffed my brother to a roof? And ya left him there?!" He yells loudly at Rick and I flinch. I think Daryl noticed because he glanced at me.
Rick only nodded. "Yeah."
Daryl starts breathing hard, and I already know what's about to happen. He throws the squirrels that he caught on his hunt toward Rick, but he ducks and it instead lands in front of my feet. I flinch back again, almost stepping on Glenn's shoes now.
Shane immediately tackles him, because apparently testosterone solves everything, and Daryl pulls out his hunting knife. My eyes widen and hurry closer to be next to T-Dog.
"Watch the knife!" I call out to Rick as Daryl tries to attack him again. He slashes and misses Rick. He's moving slow and reckless, the only thing fueling him right now is his anger.
Rick and Shane work together to detain him, and I feel my eyes start to sting. I feel so bad, not only because of what I didn't do for Merle, but because Daryl doesn't even know yet.
"Ya best let me go!" Daryl yells out. Shane drops him to the floor. "Choke holds illegal."
"You can file a complaint." Shane taunted him, and I scoffed and turned my head. "Come on man, we'll keep this up all day."
Rick gets down to Daryl's level and talks in a calm, steady voice. "I'd like to have a calm discussion on this topic. Do you think we can manage that?" He asks. Daryl nods, and Shane finally lets him go.
Daryl drops and holds himself up on his hands and pants as Rick keeps talking him. "What I did was not on a whim. Your brother does not work and play well with others." Now that is something that we definitely know of. And Daryl knows it too, but a part of me knows that in this moment he doesn't give a shit.
"It's not Rick's fault. I had the key. I dropped it." T-Dog steps in as well.
"You couldn't pick it up?" Daryl asks quickly.
"Well, I dropped it in a drain." T-Dog confesses, and I look at him with furrowed brows. I didn't know that part, I thought he had just left him because they didn't have time to get him out. I move to stand beside him.
I look down at my new boots, and I can tell that Daryl notices them too from how he glanced at them for a second. We left Merle in Atlanta because we were reckless, and I brought back fucking boots. I brought back boots, but not Merle.
Daryl grimaces, but I can't tell whether it was from what T-Dog said, or if he's just upset at everything. Either way, it makes my stomach drop and my eyes to sting again.
He stands up and looks between the both of us."If it's supposed to make me feel better, it don't." I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I knew he would be mad. If he's this mad at T-Dog for making a mistake, I have no clue how mad he'll be when he finds out I didn't do anything at all.
"Well maybe this will." T-Dog pauses, and I look up at him, waiting for him to talk.
"Look, I chained the door to the roof—so the geeks couldn't get at him—with a padlock." Well shit, he should've started off by saying that. If that were the case Daryl would already be halfway to Atlanta.
"It's gotta count for something." Rick points out from behind Daryl.
He wipes his eyes and in that moment I realized how upset he was. I never thought I'd ever see him even close to crying, but that's exactly what's happening. And it's my fault.
"Hell with all of y'all!" He throws his arm out as he yells, and I look at him with my eyes threatening to spill tears too. Except I don't wipe mine. The difference between us is that whenever I cry, everyone sees, and everyone knows how weak I really am. Whenever he cries, he can cover it up and no one will ever question it. I wish I could be like that.
"Just tell me where he is, so I can go get him." His voice breaks the more he talks, and the shame sinks deeper into my head and my heart. I'm drowning in guilt for a man I met a couple of months ago. He must hate having me around, I'm like a clingy dog.
"He'll show you. Isn't that right?" Lori calls out from outside the RV and we all look to her. I see Carl in the doorway and I frown at the concerned look on his face.
"I'm going back." Rick says after a second, and I step up to be next to him.
"Me too." I say immediately. Daryl shakes his head and walks towards me. "No you're not." He tells me, but I shake my head this time. He scoffs at me, and I walk away to get my things from my tent. Everyone else is still talking outside, but I need some space anyways.
I open my zipper and grab my crowbar, I put on my sheath with the knife Daryl gave me in it, and I put the newer knife the brothers gave me with the flowers on it in my back pocket. I go to grab my hat but then remember that I lost it. I let out a sigh.
At least I might be able to find it whenever we go back.
I hear footsteps behind me and look out of my tent to see Sophia jogging up to me.
"Hey-" I can't even say anything before she wraps her arms around my waist tightly, and hugs me.
"I don't want you to go." She buries her head into my side, and my heart breaks just looking at her. I brush my fingers through her hair with my free hand.
"I'll be back Soph, I promise." I pull away to look at her face and see fear in her eyes. I crouch down to her level.
"I've never broken my promises before, have I?" I ask her, and she shakes her head. Without words, she puts out her pinky and I smile.
I intertwine my pinky with hers to seal the promise and she finally lets go and nods to herself.
"Just be careful, ok?" She asks softly, and I nod and ruffle her hair.
"Always."
Sophia leaves the tent, and I follow shortly after. I know I have to talk to Daryl.
I find him in his tent getting his crossbow and getting ready to leave. I take a deep breath, and he hears it and turns around to see me. He also sees the crowbar I'm holding and the sheath attached to my belt.
"You're not goin' girl. I don't care what ya want to do." He declares, but I just look down at my boots again. My stupid, worthless boots. He doesn't get the chance to say anything else before I cut him off. Here goes nothing.
"I was there."
He looks at me in confusion, his eyebrows pinched together and his eyes narrowed at me. "What do ya mean you were there?" He asked in a tone of voice that makes me want to cry again. He sounds so angry at me. Not at T-Dog or at Rick, at me.
"I was in Atlanta with them." I stayed quiet for a couple of seconds and let it sink in. That I was there, that I didn't save Merle, that I was stupid and didn't do the smart thing and stay on the roof. I just had to play the superhero.
"You were there? So you saw them cuff Merle?" He asked, and I can tell he looks more angry now. He's starting to understand what I'm saying. I nod.
"I'm sorry." I say barely above a whisper. I don't want him to be mad at me.
I can hear him take a deep breath. "Why didn't ya help him? Get him outta there?" He asked sharply.
"I was with Glenn and Rick. We were drawing the walkers away, and we just assumed they would've unlocked him." I paused to take a breath, "I'm so so sorry, Daryl. It's my fault, if I had stayed on the roof I would've helped him I promise-" I don't get to finish before he cuts me off.
"Sorry don't change nothing." If he said that to anyone else they wouldn't care, but he said it to me. I don't want him to be mad, because I care about him and Merle, I need them. He can't be mad at me, or then I don't know what I'd do if I lost them. I can't loose them.
"And I know this screws with the plan of going by ourselves, leaving this camp behind, and I'm sorry for that too, but we can get him back and just go, we don't need-" I start to ramble again, and Daryl cuts me off again.
"We gotta go. No telling what that crazy son of a bitch's do." He walks out the tent again like nothing happened, and I'm left by myself. I take a deep breath, and then I step out as well.
It's my fault he's still on that roof, now it's time to own up to it.
~~~
Glenn backs up the van and I hop into it once it stops moving, Daryl following me.
"I still don't think you should come, Car." He tells me firmly, but I shake my head and look up at him.
"I've done it before, left him behind. Might as well do it again and bring him back." I tell him, determination in my eyes. He shakes his head at me, but gives up. He knows that he can't control me, even if he wants to. He's not my dad.
Before we can say anything else, there's banging on the side of the truck. I look out and see Dorothy standing there angrily, Pierce jogging to us as well.
"Carmen Presley." She says my full name sternly as if it's a weapon.
"Dorothy, I have to do this-" she cuts me off before I can finish my sentence. "No, you don't! These Dixon brothers have you brainwashed, it's a good thing that Merle's gone, then maybe you can get some common sense." She spits the words at me angrily, glancing to Daryl with apprehension.
Pierce lightly grabs her arm to try and pull her away from us. "C'mon. You can't control her anymore, things are different Dorothy." He tries to reason with her, but she is firm in her place.
"Pierce. There's no way in hell she's going there by herself! She'll die out there, and then it'll be on my hands. She's too fucking stupid to come back alive, and she doesn't care what everyone will think of us if she doesn't!" She throws her arms around in the air as she yells, and I see Rick glancing at us from his spot next to Dale and Jim. He's just now finding out the monster that Dorothy is.
"Ya better watch ya mouth, Huxley. She ain't your kid, so leave 'er alone." Daryl jumps into the conversation, slightly moving in front of me to block me from his view. She scoffs.
"Are you serious? Pierce, this is ridiculous-" she turns back to Pierce, but he looks around for a second before cutting her off.
"Ok, ok. I'll go with 'em, make sure they come back." He tells Dorothy, trying to get her to stop making a scene, but Daryl cuts in again.
"Well, there's no way in hell I'm lettin' ya in the van with 'er." He nods his head to me as you talks, but I step forward. He lightly pushes me back again.
Rick walks up this time. "Is there any issue?" He asks with his hands holding his belt the way cops do. Dorothy is the first to speak up immediately.
"Actually, Pierce was just telling Daryl that he was going to join you guys." She says, putting a hand on Rick's arm with a sickly sweet fake smile, completely disregarding that I'm here at all. He kind of moves his arm away from her and I have to look away so that I don't laugh. But Daryl is still glaring at her and Pierce.
Rick nods and pats Pierce on the shoulder. "That's brave, sir. I appreciate that." I can tell that Pierce doesn't like him much, as he tries to avoid his touch. "It's not problem." He says nonchalantly.
Daryl scoffs, but walks away back into the van as Pierce jumps up with us. T-Dog approaches as well, getting into the van with us. Rick gets into the front seat of the car, and I look at Sophia sitting at the campfire one last time. I wave with a smile, and give her a heart with my hands. She smiles sadly, and gives me one too.
After that Daryl and T-Dog close the shutter, and I sink back into my spot. The truck starts moving, and we are leaving the camp behind, once again. Hopefully this time, instead of bringing back some stupid boots, we'll bring back Merle Dixon
~~~
Thank you for reading this chapter!! I honestly had a lot of fun writing the scene with Dorothy and Pierce arguing with Carmen and Daryl. It's always an excuse for me to give you more reasons to hate Dorothy, but I hope this time you can learn more about Pierce and his nature of trying to make her happy.
They are about to go get Merle! Unfortunately, Carmen's gonna be very upset, but the good news is that we'll see him again a couple seasons from now, so stay tuned ;)
If you have any sort of feedback or questions please feel free to comment or message me. It is always appreciated!!
Once again, thank you for reading Pretty When I Cry!