WEEKS PASS BY AND SLOWLY, Madison and Shawn both grew used to being with a group. Their tents were placed side-by-side to each other, neither of them wanting the other to be too far away in case something happened. Madison had gotten stronger over the weeks T-dog had spent teaching her how to fight, and even occasionally went on runs with Glenn so the two of them could cover more ground and gather more things to bring back to camp.
However, she was coerced into sitting out of the most recent one because it was decided Glenn would be taking a group with him, and Shane wanted to keep a few able-bodied people back at the camp to help defend it if something came up. Madison just so happened to be one of those people, and she would have been fine with that decision if Shawn hadn't been one of the people chosen to go on the run. She was somewhat comforted knowing that he was going to be with T-Dog and Morales, but disturbed to know that Merle was also going to be among the group. Merle was a hot-headed bully who hated when shit didn't go his way and he always acted on impulse. That kind of person is dangerous to have in a group.
And it didn't help that T-dog had attempted to radio the camp. The connection wasn't that good, his words were cutting in and out, but Madison had been able to make out enough of his words to know that the group was stuck in some building with walkers swarming around it. Shane had said there was nothing they could do about it, that going after them would just be risking their own lives and cost more people to be lost. Deep down Madison knew he had a point, but it still pissed her off nevertheless and she and Amy both cussed him out before storming away in anger.
She sat on the edge of camp by herself, brooding silently as she cleaned her hunting knives to find a way to pass the time. Carl had found his way over to her and talked her ear off for a bit until Lori called him over so that she could give him a haircut, which left Madison to her thoughts once more. But she didn't like thinking. Thinking only made her come up with multiple scenarios of how the group down in the city would attempt to escape, and each one only ended up with Shawn's death.
It terrified her.
Footsteps from not faraway from her caused Madison to glance over toward the sound. She was met with the sight of Daryl trudging back toward the woods, most likely heading off on another hunt. He glanced over at her, and something about her expression had him slowing to a stop. "Somethin' wrong?" He asked gruffly.
Madison looked back down at her hunting knife and turned it to clean the other side of it. "Just worried," she admitted. "That's all."
Daryl scoffed. "You mean 'cause of that bullshit 'bout the group being stuck?" He didn't seem worried at all. "Nah. They'll find a way out of that shit." Madison's silence made her doubt in that statement pretty clear, and the worry in her eyes didn't fade. Daryl pursed his lips, not understanding why it seemed to matter to him how the brunette was feeling. "So, what, you just gonna sit here and waste time mopin' about it?"
Madison shot him a glare. "So what if I am?" She demanded. "Is that any of your fucking business?"
His eyebrows rose. "Damn, woman, you ain't gotta be so hateful."
"Whatever," she muttered, turning away from him again. "Happy hunting."
Daryl took a couple more steps toward the woods, then paused once again. Before he could stop himself, he asked, "D'you know how to hunt?"
Madison was taken aback at his question. "My father tried to teach me a few times, but I wasn't very good at it," she answered honestly.
"Well." He hesitated. "D'you wanna give it another shot?"
She looked at him in surprise. Daryl never let anyone go hunting with him, not even his own brother. "You serious?"
"When am I not?" He countered. "Besides. It'll give ya somethin' to do other than worry."
Madison sat there for another minute, contemplating his offer before deciding he had a point. Maybe if she was so busy learning how to hunt, she wouldn't think about the group down in the city so much. Maybe it would pass time and maybe, if there were any sort of miracles left in this shitty world, Shawn and the others would make it back to camp safely by the time she and Daryl got back.
"Okay," she said, gathering her things and standing up. "I'll come."
They were gone until well into the next day. Daryl never let her use his crossbow to shoot at any of the squirrels, and it wasn't smart for her to use her gun and attract any unwanted walkers, so for the most part she learned how to track animals and how to tell which way was North, South, East or West. Daryl was actually pretty knowledgeable when it came to things like this, and Madison listened intently to any advice he gave her, taking it seriously. She didn't ask many questions, but when she did they weren't stupid ones, and not once did he have to repeat himself. He appreciated that she paid attention and took it seriously. Even though she was annoyed that he wouldn't let her try to shoot with his crossbow.
But their goals had been accomplished. She had learned a few things about hunting and had also been too busy paying attention to what Daryl was teaching her to give the group's plight a second thought. Worry had faded the more she applied herself to what she was learning. They had even come across a deer on the way back to camp, something that was hard to come by those days.
"Mother fucker,"Daryl cursed when he shot the deer again and it still continued running. "C'mon," he told Madison as he took off after it. "Ain't no way in hell we're losin' that damned thing." She hurriedly followed after him, being careful not to fall behind as they gave chase to the wounded deer. It took a while, though, and Madison was beginning to think they should just call it a lost cause.
But then they broke through some brush, and were not only met with the sight of camp members— but also the sight of their deer, having been mauled on by a walker that now lay on the ground with its head dismembered from its body. "Son of a bitch," Daryl spat in annoyance. "That's our deer! Look at it, all mauled on by this filthy, disease-bearing, motherless proxy bastard!" He angrily kicked the body of the walker as hard as he could.
"Calm down, son, that's not helping," Dale told him.
Daryl stormed toward him. "What do you know about it, old man?! You take that stupid hat and go back to On Golden Pond!"
"Daryl," Madison said, shooting him a look.
Daryl glared at her, but turned away from Dale anyway. "What? We been trackin' this deer for miles, Madison." He began yanking his arrows out of the deer. "Was gonna drag it back to camp, cook us up some venison. Whaddaya think, think we can cut around this chewed-up part right here?" He gestured to the area the walker had been feasting on.
Shane shook his head."Nah, man, I would not risk that."
"He's right," Madison agreed with a sigh. "We don't know if the disease transfers to animals."
"That's a damn shame." He huffed. "Well, I got some squirrel. 'Bout a dozen or so. That'll have to do."
Madison started to move to head back toward camp, but jumped slightly when the jaws of the walker head near her feet started chomping. Her hand immediately flew to the hunting knife in her boot, but Daryl had already shot one of his arrows through the head before she had a chance to do it herself. "C'mon, people, what the hell? It's gotta be the brain. Don't y'all know nothin'?"
As he walked off, Madison started to follow him. "Where's Shawn?" She asked Glenn on her way past. "Is he okay, did he—"
"Madi!" Her brother called out before she could even finish asking the question. Madison whirled around to see Shawn sprinting toward her with a tired grin on his face, and she hugged him as relief coursed through her body. He's okay. He's okay.
But there was one person that had went out on that trip that didn't seem to have made it back. And Daryl wasn't happy about it. "Merle!" He shouted. "Merle! Get yer ugly ass out here! Got us some squirrel! Let's stew 'em up!"
"Oh, shit," Shawn muttered as Shane and the new guy Madison had only just noticed followed after Daryl and asked him to stop so they could talk.
"What?" Madison asked him, but he was too busy watching the interaction to respond.
"There was a, uh... there was a problem in Atlanta," Shane was telling Daryl.
He stopped and turned to him, and for the briefest of moments, his expression fell. "He dead?" Daryl asked, afraid to know the answer.
Shane hesitated. "We're not sure."
"He either is or he ain't!"
The new guy moved forward. "No easy way to say this, so I'll just say it," he told Daryl.
"Who are you?" Daryl demanded. Madison was wondering the same thing.
"Rick Grimes."
"Rick Grimes?" Daryl mocked menacingly. "You got somethin' you wanna tell me?"
"Your brother was a danger to us all. So I handcuffed him on a roof, hooked him to a piece of metal. He's still there."
Madison's jaw dropped. She knew how much of an idiot Merle Dixon was, but to handcuff a man and leave him for dead? That was messed up. "What the fuck—?" her words were cut off when Shawn elbowed her arm slightly and shook his head.
Daryl wiped some of the sweat off his forehead, and they could all see the anger building up inside of him. "Hold on. Let me process this," he said bitterly. "You're sayin' you handcuffed my brother to a roof... and you left him there?!" He was shouting at that point.
"Yeah," Rick confirmed quietly, clearly ashamed by his actions.
There was a brief moment of silence where no one moved. Then, all of a sudden, Daryl flung the dead squirrels at Rick and then lunged at him when the man dodged them. Rick shoved him off, and T-dog ran forward as Daryl yanked out a knife as he got back up, swinging it at Rick. "Watch the knife!"
Shane ran up and locked Daryl in a choke-hold, preventing him from attacking Rick further as he tried to make Daryl calm down. It wasn't working. "You best let me go!" He shouted furiously.
"Nah, I think it's better if I don't."
"Choke hold's illegal," Daryl spat.
"You can file a complaint," Shane said sarcastically. "Come on, man. We'll keep this up all day."
"I'd like to have a calm discussion on this topic," Rick told Daryl. "Do you think we can manage that?" When Daryl finally agreed to it, Shane let him go. "What I did was not on a whim. Your brother does not work and play well with others."
"Understatement of the year," Shawn muttered under his breath. This time, Madison was the one to elbow him and keep him quiet.
T-dog stepped forward. "It's not Rick's fault. I had the key. I dropped it."
"You couldn't pick it up?!" Daryl glared at him.
He looked ashamed of himself. "Well, I dropped it in a drain."
Daryl scowled. "If it's supposed to make me feel better, it don't."
"Well, maybe this will. Look, I chained the door to the roof... so the geeks couldn't get at him. With a padlock. It's gotta count for something."
Madison couldn't help but speak up. "Even if they can't get at him, he's still handcuffed and stuck on a roof," she pointed out with a frown. She hated Merle's guts, that was for damn sure. But no one deserved to die like that. "He'll die of thirst or starve to death if he can't get out of there."
"What were we supposed to do, Madison?" Andrea asked. "It was either cuff him or we all were going to die."
"Hell with all y'all!" Daryl shouted angrily. "Just tell me where he is so's I can go get him."
"He'll show you," Lori spoke up, turning to Rick with a bitter expression on her face. "Isn't that right?"
Rick hesitated, but ultimately nodded. "I'm going back," he confirmed.
As he turned and walked off to gather his things, Shane followed after him. Madison turned to her brother, a look of contemplation on her face that he noticed straight away. "Uh-uh," Shawn said immediately, scowling at her. "I know that look on your face, Madison. You are not going with them, not for some dickhead like Merle."
Daryl's head snapped up instantly, both at the insult to his brother and at the mention of Madison joining the group. He glared at Shawn but said nothing, for Madison was already talking. "Shawn, regardless of what kind of person Merle is, it's wrong to leave him like that," she told him. "And— and if that was you out there... it wouldn't matter to me what you did. I'd come after you no matter what, because you're family. And I'd like to think that someone would help me, too."
Shawn shook his head. "No, it's too dangerous—"
"I know how it is out there. And I know what I'm capable of now," Madison cut him off. "This is my decision, Shawn. You can't change my mind." When he merely frowned, clearly unhappy with her choice, Madison turned to Daryl. "Are you gonna let me come, or what?"
He stared at her for along moment, his blue eyes unreadable. "Alright. Fine." Daryl nodded. As Shawn stalked off angrily, the redneck pointed at her and added, "But you better not fall behind. I ain't gonna be responsible for ya getting' hurt."
Her eyebrow rose and she smirked. "What, are you worried about me?"
Daryl's gaze narrowed. "As if." He scoffed and turned away to go gather his things. "Go get yer shit together an' quit botherin' me, woman."
Madison shrugged and did as told, knowing they'd be leaving as soon as they could anyway. She checked to make sure her hunting knives were tucked into her combat boots, made sure her gun was loaded and on safety, and then made her way to Daryl and Rick when she didn't see Shawn. Disappointed that her brother was so angry with her that he wouldn't even say goodbye, Madison tried to shake it off. Part of her agreed with him, that Merle was an asshole and didn't deserve this rescue mission. But the other part of her, the nurse part, could never live with herself if she knowingly left a man to his death without even trying to help him. And another part, one hidden deep down inside of her, didn't want Daryl to lose his brother. She didn't want him to experience that kind of loss, that kind of grief. For reasons unknown to her, a piece of Madison cared about Daryl's well-being. And it would be compromised if his brother died.
"So you and Daryl, that's your big plan?" She heard Lori asking Rick as she walked closer to them.
"Madison's comin' too," Daryl told her.
Lori shot him a dirty look. "You're taking Madison on this suicide mission, too?"
"He's not taking me anywhere, Lori," Madison spoke up as she finally reached the group of people. "I offered to go and help."
Lori heaved a deep sigh."So the three of you, then. That's it?"
Rick turned and looked at Glenn pointedly, causing the Korean to look upset. "Oh, come on!"
"You know the way," Rick explained. "You've been there before: in and out, no problem. You said so yourself," he told Glenn. "It's not fair of me to ask, I know that, but I'd feel a lot better with you along. I know she would, too."
Shane scowled deeply. He was not happy with this rescue mission, perhaps even less than Lori was about it. "That's just great," he snapped in annoyance. "Now you're gonna risk three men and Madison, huh?"
"Four," T-Dog spoke up.
Daryl huffed at this. "My day just gets better and better, don't it?"
"Daryl," Madison scolded. He glared at her in response.
"You see anybody else here stepping up to save your brother's cracker ass?" T-dog asked Daryl pointedly.
"Why you?"
"You wouldn't even begin to understand. You don't speak my language," T-dog said dismissively.
"That's five," Dale said with a frown.
"It's not just five," Shane disagreed, shaking his head as he turned to Rick. "You're putting every single one of us at risk. Just know that, Rick. Come on, you saw that walker! It was here. It was in camp. They're moving out of the cities. They come back, we need every able body we've got. We need 'em here. We need 'em to protect camp."
Rick still wasn't budging with his decision. "Seems to me what you really need most here are more guns."
As they conversed about the trip and what all it would entail, Madison walked off when she caught sight of her brother watching them from a distance. She sighed when he shot her a dirty look, tucking her thumbs into the back pockets of her jeans. "Shawn, I don't want to leave knowing you're angry at me," she said softly.
"Then don't leave," he told her stubbornly.
Madison pursed her lips. "Shawn—"
"No, Madi, you don't get to come over here and try to make me okay with this," Shawn snapped at her. "The first time we met Merle Dixon, he held a gun to my head and threatened to kill me. Now karma finally caught up to that bastard, and you want to risk your life to try and bail him out?"
"Yes," Madison snapped right back, beginning to lose her patience as they grew shorter on time. "I don't care how bad of a person he is, Shawn. I'm a good person. Okay? I have to believe that," she told her brother, desperate to make him understand, desperate to make sure they didn't part on bad terms. "Before this world went to shit, I... all I ever wanted to do was save lives and help people. It was all I ever dreamed of ever since I had to watch my mama die from the inside out... after I couldn't do anything but watch the cancer kill her. I worked so hard to become the kind of person who makes a difference and saves people. Don't ask me to turn my back on that."
Shawn's expression softened, but he shook his head again. "I'm sorry, Madi. I'm still not okay with this. I just don't think Merle is worth risking your life. You're all I got left, y'know?"
"Don't say that," she said. "I'll be fine, Shawn, and one day we'll get back to our family—"
"Our family's probably as good as dead now, Madi," he cut her off bluntly. She started to protest, but he continued on. "We both know it, no matter how much you deny it to yourself."
Her eyes welled with tears. He was right. She knew he was. But she couldn't bring herself to admit it. Instead she said, "Shawn... I'll come back. I'll be alright. Okay?"
"No. Not okay." But he sighed and allowed his sister to hug him, anyway. "I love you, sis."
"I love you too, little brother." Madison hugged him tightly before finally letting go and walking over to join the others she was leaving with. As they drove away, she felt the distance between she and her brother growing larger and an unrest began to settle inside of her.
She prayed to any god that was listening that he would be okay. Whether she survived this trip, or not.