CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"Take watch. Eyes open, head down." Rick told Maggie as he gave her the keys. "Field's filled with walkers. I didn't see any snipers out there, but we'll keep Maggie on watch."

"I'll get up in the guard tower, take out half them walkers, give these guys a chance to fix the fence." Daryl said as they all moved to the back set of steps.

"Or we use some of the cars to put the bus in place." Michonne suggested.

"We can't access the field without burning through our bullets." Hershel said.

"So, we're trapped in here." Glenn said. "Alright. There's barely any food or ammo."

"Been here before." Daryl reminded them. "We'll be alright."

"That's when it was just us." He argued. "Before there was a snake in the nest."

"Man, we gonna go through this again?" He questioned as he stepped toward him. "Look, Merle's staying here. He's with us now. Get used to it."

"Hey—" Rick tried to get between them.

"All y'all."

"Is that all you have to say to Andie? Get used to it." Glenn asked as Daryl made his way up the steps, and the brunette walked out of her cell. "Not like you said anything before you—"

"That's enough!" Andie snapped as she leaned over the railing, and Daryl stopped on the perch as he looked at her. "You wanna pitch a fit about Merle because of what he did to you, fine. But leave me out of it. I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself."

"After what he did to you—"

"Merle didn't touch me." She stopped him before he could keep going. "That was the Governor, and he'll get what's coming to him. But make no mistake, I am nobody's victim. Not anyone before, and sure as hell not that one-eyed prick's. So quit using me and what happened to me as one of your reasons to sell your point."

"And you're ready and willing to play house with Merle after he gave you to the Governor?"

"Do all men have this issue hearing women when they speak?" The teenager asked as she looked at Michonne.

"Yes." The older girl nodded.

"Glenn..." Andie sighed as she rested her weight on the railing. "I don't know what game you think this is, but I'm not playing anything. Especially house... Fact is — it's beneficial to have someone on your side who knows how the other side thinks. It also helps that the bastard was in the military. So, as much as I'd love to kick his ass and tell him to go pound dirt, this is the hand we were dealt. And cards is a game I play well. So, shut up about who lives where and help us come up with a plan for the next time the Governor shows up on our front step."

"I wouldn't ask you to live with the Governor after what he did to you." Glenn argued.

"Merle didn't threaten to bring you my severed hand unless you stripped naked in front of him, he didn't bend you over a table and press himself up against you." She said, and Daryl's knuckles were ghostly white as he gripped the railing. "You have been wanting to ask what exactly happened in that room, haven't you? I know you've been thinking it was something more. I told you he didn't hurt me, but that wasn't good enough. You had to keep making snide comments and accusations, calling him a rapist. So, let's set the record straight — he didn't rape me. He humiliated me, made me feel less than human — like I was just some object for his amusement, something he could toy with... Why is it so important that you know?"

"Because I was supposed to protect you! I was supposed to be keeping you safe!"

"Says who? Why was it your responsibility to protect me out there?" She questioned, and his gaze flickered to Daryl before he looked down. "Are you kidding me?"

"Andie—" Glenn started, but she turned to Daryl.

"I am not Glenn's responsibility or Rick's, and I sure as hell am not yours." The brunette said, and he stood up straight as he looked at her. "I don't know if it's you viewing me as a child or thinking that I need a man to come along and save me, but I've been looking after myself my entire life. I got myself this far without needing a man to come running to my rescue every five minutes, and that's not about to change now."

"They have a point." Rick said, trying to defuse the situation. "You always put everyone else before yourself. They're just trying to look after you the same way." 

"How is that any different than you putting the safety of the group above yourself? Or than you, Daryl, and Maggie following a stranger into hostile territory to find us? How is it different than T sacrificing himself to save all of us? Or different than Daryl choosing to leave with Merle rather than come back here?"

"T died. You wanna use a different example?"

"T-Dog made a choice." She argued. "No different from me or anyone else. So, if what happened to me is somehow Glenn's failure, then that makes the state of his face my failure. I'm a fucking adult, and I've never been coddled before now. You can all stop treating me like an incompetent child who needs to babysat all of the Goddamn time." She then walked past Daryl and went down the stairs that pointed toward the common area.

—

Andie was sitting on the floor of the generator room when the door opened. She got to her feet, carefully rounding the corner with her gun raised, and she sighed when she saw who was standing there. "What do you want?" The brunette questioned.

"I'm surprised you lowered the gun." Merle said as he shut the door behind him. He walked over just in time to see her slide back down the wall, then she wiped a tear from her cheek. "Your friends are worried about you."

"And they sent you? Must not really be my friends."

"Nobody sent me. Glenn's organizing teams to look for you, mentioned that this was a room with one entrance — it's close, easily accessible. I took a guess you'd be here." He explained.

"And what makes you think I would want you to find me?"

"I don't think you want anyone to find you. Ain't that the point of leaving the cell block?"

"He does have some level of intelligence." She said sarcastically.

"I don't know in what way, but I know that you're important to my brother." Merle said, and she looked down at the gun in her lap. "I was hoping you and I could bury the hatchet, for his sake."

"What do you want, Merle?" The brunette asked as she looked up at him. "Forgiveness? Do you have any idea what that sick son of a bitch did to me?"

"I do now. How do you think I got to lookin' like this?" He motioned to his face — he had a welt under his eye that looked like it was gonna bruise, and split in his lip. "I know the Governor's capable of a lot of things, seen him do some nasty shit. But I ain't never seen him do to a woman what he did to you, and I didn't know what he was planning when he said he was gonna talk to you."

"If only your ignorance changed anything." She sighed as she rested her head against the wall, looking up at the ceiling.

"I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of in my life, but I ain't a rapist. Can't say I have any tolerance for 'em neither." He told her. "I was only looking for my brother when I took you. I'd been talking to Andrea, she said he was still with your group as far as she knew. Glenn was with them same time I was. You two were my ticket to him, I didn't see anything else."

"If you came out here to try and smooth things over between me and your brother, it was a wasted effort." Andie told him.

"You're a stubborn one."

"You aren't my problem. I don't care where you live."

"Ooh, I get it." He chuckled. "You really do have a crush, and you're mad that he chose me over you."

"No."

"It's cute, really. No need to be embarrassed."

"You're an imbecile."

"Explain it to me then."

"You wouldn't understand." She shook her head as she got to her feet.

"Does this make us friends?"

"No."

"Bygones?"

"If it'll make you leave me alone."

Merle followed her out of the generator room as they headed back toward the cell block, and he annoyed her the whole way. "So, tell me more about your crush on my baby brother."

"I don't have a crush on anyone."

"It's okay, sugar baby. We're at world's end. Old rules don't really apply no more."

"Call me that again, and I'm gonna shoot you."

"Wait, how old are you?"

"Fuck you, Merle."

"Are you of age?"

Her eyebrows furrowed as she glanced over her shoulder. "Meaning?"

"Not a minor."

"No, I'm not a minor. Will you leave me alone?"

"How old are you?" Merle asked as they walked back into the commons, and everyone turned to look at them.

"Fuck off."

"Hey, baby brother,  we were just talkin' about—" Merle groaned, doubling over as he held his side; Andie elbowed him in the ribs.

"About how much more I can stand before I can kill him." The brunette said. "The answer's not much, in case you were wondering." She said as she looked down at Merle.

"I'm growing on her."

"No, you're not."

"She's gonna like me soon."

"No, I won't."

"We'll be friends, don't worry."

"No, we won't."

"Well, she doesn't want to kill me anymore."

"Yes, I do."

"She hasn't killed me yet."

"Yet being the operative word."

"She's a bitch."

"Hey, look at that." Andie smiled as she patted Merle's shoulder. "You finally got one right."

"Most women don't admit to that."

"Admit it? Hell, I take pride in it." She told him as she walked over to Carol. "Who's the blonde?"

"Andrea." The older woman told her. "She was with us on the farm."

"Oh, right. She looks vaguely familiar."

"Aren't you the girl we were keeping prisoner in the barn?" Andrea asked, and the teenager smiled at her.

"I'm moving up in the world. No one's more surprised than me." She said sarcastically. "But it sounds to me like you're moving in the opposite direction."

Her eyebrows furrowed, not understanding why Andie seemed so hostile toward her. She didn't even know the teenage girl, barely spent any time around her at all.

"You all live here?" Andrea asked, changing the subject.

"Here and the cell block." Glenn told her.

"There?" She pointed toward the open door, and he nodded. "Well, can I go in?"

"I won't allow that." Rick stepped into her path.

"I'm not an enemy, Rick."

"We had that field and courtyard until your boyfriend tore down the fence with a truck and shot us up." He told her.

"He said you fired first." She said, and Andie scoffed.

"I was standing over T-Dog and Lori's graves when he fired the first shot. We didn't even know he was there until a bullet whizzed past my head." The teenager said. "I got lucky he missed... Axel wasn't as lucky."

"Who?"

"An inmate who survived in here." Hershel explained when Carol pulled the brunette into her side.

"We liked him. He was one of us." Daryl told her.

"I didn't know anything about that." Andrea said. "As soon as I found out, I came. I didn't even know you were in Woodbury until after the shoot-out."

"That was days ago." Glenn said accusingly.

"I told you, I came as soon as I could."

"No, you said you came as soon as you found out." Andie argued. "So, either you found out when you saw your boyfriend trying to kill Daryl and Merle and chose not to do anything. Or you're even dumber than you seem. Either way, I'm really not sure why we're entertaining her being here when she's in bed with the Governor." 

The blonde turned then and looked at Michonne. "What have you told them?" She questioned.

"Nothing." She told her old friend, stone-faced.

"I don't get it. I left Atlanta with you people and now I'm the odd man out?" She asked as she looked around at each member of the group.

"He almost killed Michonne and he would have killed us." Glenn spoke up.

"With his finger on the trigger." She pointed at Merle. "Isn't he the one that kidnapped you? Who beat you?"

"Who was put in a grudge match against his own brother, told to kill him or die?" Andie added, regaining her attention.

"Look." Andrea sighed. "I cannot excuse or explain what Philip has done. But I am here trying to bring us together. We have to work this out."

"There's nothing to work out." Rick told her. "We're gonna kill him. I don't know how or when, but we will."

"We can settle this." She argued. "There is room at Woodbury for all of you."

Merle scoffed. "You know better than that."

"What makes you think this man wants to negotiate?" Hershel asked. "Did he say that?"

"No." Andrea admitted.

"Then why did you come here?" Rick questioned.

"Because he's gearing up for war." She told him. "The people are terrified. They see you as killers. They're training to attack."

"I'll tell you what." Daryl got her attention. "Next time you see Philip, you tell him I'm gonna take his other eye."

"No. You tell him that he should've killed me in that room." Andie said, and the blonde looked over at you. "Because now I'm gonna kill him...and anyone else who gets in my way."

"We've taken too much shit for too long." Glenn interjected. "He wants a war? He's got one."

"Rick." The blonde turned to him. "If you don't sit down and try to work this out, I don't know what's gonna happen. He has a whole town. Look at you..." She turned to look at the rest of the group. "You've lost so much already. You can't stand alone anymore."

"You wanna make this right, get us inside." Rick walked up behind her.

"No."

"Then we got nothing to talk about."

"There are innocent people!" She turned as he made his way into the cell block.

Daryl stood up from his seat on the round table, and Andrea looked at him. "You wanna know what kind of man your boyfriend is?" He glanced at Andie. "Ask him what he did to her."

The teenager shifted uneasily on her feet as Andrea turned to look at her. Carol then pulled the younger girl into her side, squeezing her arm as she tried to comfort her.

—

They hung a sign up in our town
"If you live it up, you won't live it down"
So she left Monte Rio, son
Just like a bullet leaves a gun
Charcoal eyes and Monroe hips
She went and took the California trip
Oh, the moon was gold, her hair like wind
Said, "don't look back now, just come on, Jim"

Oh, you got to hold on, hold on
You gotta hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here, you gotta hold on

Well, he gave her a dimestore watch
And a ring made from a spoon
Everyone's looking for someone to blame
If you share my bed, you share my name
Well, go ahead and call the cops
You don't meet nice girls in coffee shops
She said, "baby, I still love you"
Sometimes there's nothin' left to do

But you got to hold on, hold on
You gotta hold on and take my hand
I'm standing right here, you gotta hold on

Well, God bless your crooked little heart
St. Louis got the best of me
I miss your broken China voice
How I wish you were still here with me
Oh, you build it up, you wreck it down
Then you burn your mansion to the ground
When there's nothing left to keep you here
When you're falling behind in this big blue world

You've got to hold on, hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here, you gotta hold on

Andie was sitting next to Beth in the cell block as she sang. The brunette's eyes were closed as she rested her head against the wall; the two girls were sitting on the ground not too far from the bottom of the stairs.

"Sing something with me." Beth nudged her, and she opened one eye as she looked her way.

"I don't think anyone wants to hear my tone-deaf version of Ramble On."

"Guess that means I finally found something you can't do." The blonde chuckled, and her eyebrows furrowed as she lifted her head and looked at her.

"What are you talking about?" Andie asked.

"You're the best shot in the group, you never have a problem taking out walkers hand-to-hand, so I'd bet you're good in a fight." Beth said, and she looked down at the knife she'd been toying with in her hand. "Knew it... You're brave, strong, smart. And you're pretty."

"Thanks for the ego boost." She chuckled.

"How do you know all this stuff?" The younger girl asked. "You couldn't have learned it all after the walkers came around." She waited for an answer, but Andie didn't seem like she was gonna have one.

"All that and a mysterious background." Merle said from where he was leaning against the door to the common area. "And she likes classic rock."

"Are you reaching a point?" Andie questioned.

"I'm sensing Daddy issues."

"Oh, good God." The brunette shook her head as she got to her feet, then she headed up the stairs to her cell.

"I hit a nerve?"

"Leave her alone, Merle." Daryl told him, and he chuckled as he looked at his younger brother.