"I don't like him." Gabry had been repeating ever since they'd left the Governor's apartment. "He looks at me like...like he's hunting." Merle rolled his eyes and helped her shrug into an overcoat. She was being a bit melodramatic by making these analogies all morning, or at least he thought so. No, he wasn't a fan of the Governor either, but her mistrust was aggravating.
"You're going to have to get over that, darlin'." He said, and clapped her over the shoulder.
"He took my knives, what do you expect?" She looked at herself in the mirror and scoffed. "I'd rather have a hoodie." She said, hating the way the hunting jacket was heavy and stiff.
"You're going to have to get over that, too."
She frowned.
"I will find you a hoodie. Damn." Women. World goes to shit, and she's still complaining about clothing. "Don't matter what you look like. Sure Milton will take you as you are."
"I don't want to be a guinea pig."
Merle rolled his eyes for the ump-teenth time. "Find somethin' else to gripe about, will ya. Let's get goin'. S'posed to be going out scouting with Martinez."
He opened the door for her, indicating she needed to get a move on.
"Merle?"
"What now?" He turned to face her where she stood in the middle of the apartment. She fiddled her thumbs anxiously, and that jacket looked like it was going to swallow her up.
"Do you really think he's still alive?"
Merle hadn't stopped thinking about his brother for one day. It haunted him, the not knowing part. "I thought you weren't. Yet here we are."
She wasn't sure if that was supposed to make her feel better, but she followed him without question to where this man Milton would be "examining" her. It was a dark space in a warehouse on the edge of the little town, and there he had rigged up an examination table. She was impressed with the amount of electricity he was able to generate, but she kept her eyes focused into Merle's back as they walked in.
"Hi, Gabry, right? I'm Milton Mamet." He extended his hand to her, and little nervous, himself, under Merle's intimidating gaze. She shook it, and he led her over to the table. "Hope Woodbury has been welcoming enough," he cast a side glance to her chaperone, "get comfortable, I'm just going to ask a few questions before we begin."
"When you're through here, just send 'er back over." Merle said, and then gave Gabry a nod goodbye. She felt like a child being left on their first day of school.
"So...you knew him before this?" Milton asked once Merle had gone.
"Yes."
"Extraordinary that you found him through all of this." Although, he didn't seem to think it was so "extraordinary" that she had known the loud-mouth redneck, but more or less that she had been able to find someone she knew, at all. "Have you been feeling any pain?" He asked while he pulled on a white glove. "Anywhere around the bit or elsewhere in your body?"
"My muscles have just been sore, like when you get the flu. The bite just feels like a bite. I can't say any of it is...noteworthy."
He noted it anyway. "Any other symptoms such as vomiting or fever? Nose bleeds, even."
"When Bexley-" She paused briefly, wondering where that girl could be at this moment, and if she were okay, but she continued, "-when she found me, she told me I had been unconscious for almost five days. She also told me that I had a fever and looked like death."
Milton hastily scrawled all that down and then wrote something off to the side. "Anything note worthy about the walker that bit you? Anything in the eyes, the way it walked or smelled?"
Gabry shook her head. "Can't remember," and then she added, "Sorry."
"Was there anything that Becky gave you for the fever?"
"Bexley." Gabry corrected. "And she gave me acetaminophen."
His pen stopped briefly, seemingly surprised, but he jotted that down with the rest. "When did you start to feel better?"
Gabry still had a runny nose, and her back still ached, but the soreness in her arm was now only from bruising. "I guess maybe two weeks after it happened. It's hard to tell, it's sort of merged into a cold now."
He then drew her blood and then turned around and handed her a plastic cup. "You don't have to do this now. Just bring it back tomorrow. I just...just want to explore all the possibilities."
She nodded and then narrowed her eyes at the little man and studied him. He wasn't a wolf in disguise, but rather one of the sheep. She could tell this by the way he hadn't made eye contact with her, or the way he cowered when Merle had been present. "What were you before this?"
He cleared his throat. "I worked in a Biology lab at the University of Georgia. I'm...I'm not from the CDC, but..." He realized that this may not be the most impressive thing to say, so he didn't finish.
"You're trying to help," She acknowledged, "That's the most I've seen anyone do lately."
Milton smiled. "So, what about you? What did you do before all of this?"
"Nothing. I was thirty and still living with my parents."
"But you knew Merle?" Milton, like most, found it hard to believe that someone like Gabrielle Williams was acquaintances with Merle Dixon.
"Yeah, more so his brother." Which reminded Gabry that she had better things to be doing. "Are we done here?"
"Not quite. Just a few more questions and then...then you can go." He stammered, finally meeting her eyes and giving a shy smile.
He asked her about past illnesses, any diseases in her family that may have been hereditary or any genetic "mutations", any heart problems, hormone changes, the list went on and on until it was about mid-afternoon. He then went over future procedures and what he wanted to test and what she should expect.
He planned to bring creepers into these little tests.
She wasn't sure how she felt. The walkers on the road hadn't attacked her, but what was to stop the others from doing so? She may have been impervious to infection, but was not impervious to be ripped apart.
Milton sent her on her way, claiming he needed time to go over what he had gathered, and so Gabry left him and headed back to her apartment. Out on the streets people had suddenly appeared, going about their business, chatting to one another about things like the weather as if they weren't held up in some town because the creatures outside the walls wanted to eat them. Gabry, someone who had been very people-oriented in her past life, put her head down and kept walking.
She was walking so fast she almost bumped into someone.
"Excuse me." She muttered, and tried to make her way around, but her eyes landed on the woman's belly.
"Oh no, pardon me." The woman said, and then realized she'd never seen Gabry before. "I'm sorry I don't believe we've met." Gabry was too focused on her physical appearance, astounded by her clean curled hair under a red beanie, the peacoat and the suede boots, and the tight sweater that stretched across her swollen belly. Hadn't this woman gotten the memo? Appearance no longer mattered
What really irked Gabry was her smile. Like it were any other day and the dead weren't walking. It was a smile you'd give a neighbor who had given you fruitcake for the holiday, or one you'd force to get through a conversation with a girl you knew had just been talking about you. It was fake, whatever it was, and by the look she was casting, she wasn't too impressed with Gabry's attire.
"I'm pregnant." She finally said to Gabry, who's eyes were still locked on her belly.
"I-I see." What did people say now? Was it a good thing to be pregnant at this time? Where was her husband? Forcibly Gabry said, "Congratulations."
"I'm Dee," She held her hand out, "You are?"
For a moment she almost lied and said, 'Hannah Dixon', but then she said, "Gabry."
"Well it's nice to-"
"Gabry!" For once that man was a saving grace. She wheeled around to greet Merle, already walking towards him and away from Dee. "Miltie done with ya?"
"Yeah, I was just heading back to the apartment."
"Everything go okay?"
"Yeah." She still had the plastic pee-cup in her pocket. "Milton seems nice."
"Oh, so you actually like someone?" Merle raised his eyebrow, earning a smack on the shoulder from her. "Talked to the Governor. You can have your knives back whenever you go outside the wall."
"Look, those were given to me by a friend, and I'd rather not leave them with some stranger." She scoffed. "Especially one I'm not fond of." She cast her eyes back up the street where the scavenging party had returned, and the tallest man was surrounded by citizens. They seemed to like him, but they couldn't see. They still thought the past world existed. They had no idea what it was like on the outside of the wall...what this world turned men into, dead or alive.
"Cheer up, I've got you something." Merle shuffled through the bag and pulled out a navy blue Under Armor hoodie. Her eyes lit up, and he would've brought her all the hoodies in Georgia if it meant he got to see that look on her face.
"I can't believe it, you actually found one."
"You doubted ole' Merle?" He didn't expect her to pull him into another hug, but she did. He could get used to her arms around him.
"Not for a second." She muttered, and then pulled away to look down at it again. "You don't know what this means to me. Thank you, really."
He furrowed his brow together, but smiled. "What's a hoodie mean other than to keep your skinny ass warm?"
"Means I have someone looking out for me." She said.
He caught himself before his grin could grow any bigger, and elbowed her in the ribs playfully. "Don't get soft on me. Get outta here." He shoved her off towards the direction of the apartment, and watched as she walked away, thankful that no one was around to have seen the exchange, because then they might think he had grown soft as well.
* * *
"What do you do on runs?"
When Merle returned to the apartment she had already pulled the hoodie on and had curled up in the armchair. She had her eyes averted out the window.
Thinking she would be asking to join, he gruffly replied, "Whatever the Gov'nor says."
She made no comment to this, but instead asked, "What do the rest of the people do?"
Merle racked his brain, trying to guess what she was trying to get at. Again he said, "Whatever the Gov'nor says."
"And if the Governor told you all to jump off a bridge would you do it one at a time or all at once?"
"What are you trying to get at?" Merle asked as he unlaced his boots.
"Since when did Merle Dixon follow the rules?"
"Since he lost his hand." He growled. "If you're thinking you want to be out there just to find Daryl, trust me, I've already checked under every stone."
She didn't say anything. There would be no convincing her, and Merle knew that, but she didn't need to be out there. Not yet, at least. And if she proved essential to Milton, the Governor would never let her go.
Merle entered the bathroom, and immediately noticed the cup on the edge of the counter with yellow liquid inside. Before he realized what it was he had picked it up.
"Uh...Gabry...what's in the cup?"
From the other room he hears, "Piss!"