chapter thirty one: take care of my girl
7988 words

"Her name is Judith."

Carl had caught up to Lin as they made their way back into the prison, grabbed for her hand and told her the name of her niece.

"Judith?" Lin repeated, looking over to where Carol was still holding her. It fit her. Lin smiled at her nephew, pushed his hat off his head to ruffle his hair. "That's perfect."

"Yeah," he sighed, smiling as well. It was good to see him smiling. "Next step is a real crib."

Judith, Lin was more than glad to be able to put a name to her pudgy face, had been sleeping in a valley of blankets and not a real crib. It had been enough on the short term, but she needed more stability.

"I've got an idea. We didn't happen to clear the mailroom out did we?"

And then Lin was sitting with Carl in the common area as the sun set, doodling along the side of a plastic mail tub with a set of black permanent markers. It was like they were pretending the world was different, that this was the only thing they had to do. It felt good to pretend for a little while.

When Lin finished the side she'd taken on, she pushed it away from herself to let Carl see. He covered his mouth, hiding his smile at the words 'Little Ass-Kicker' written along the side in pretty writing. A welcome reprieve in an ocean of sadness, a break from the constant grind. She knew Lori would have liked it.

Lin brought the bin into the block and into the cell that used to be Lori's. They'd been keeping Judith there, sleeping surrounded by the blankets Lori had used. They still smelled like her, having not yet lost their scent to the muck of the dead. What Lin wouldn't give for a shower.

Beth walked the length of the block with Judith in her arms before ducking into her cell she shared with her dad. From what Lin heard, Carl and Axel were with her. Lin stepped out to see Carol calling Axel out to talk to him. She looked uncomfortable, majorly so. And it made Lin bristle instantly. No one messed with Carol. Lin only regretted not putting a bullet in Ed's head earlier.

"Everyone okay?" Lin kept her voice a mere whisper to keep Carol and Axel from hearing. She didn't whole-heartedly trust Axel yet but he hadn't exactly given them a reason not to yet. But that didn't matter when people in this world were willing to kidnap others over supplies, draw a gun over a simple disagreement, choke out a woman simply because her husband was still alive. Lin hadn't forgotten. She was sure Shane would be someone she would never forget, never forgive. Even if she someday understood his motives, had a family of her own whether by blood or by choice, she would still never forgive him. He'd broken their family apart, ruined their chances of living a happy life on a peaceful farm, admitted to almost forcing himself on her when she'd been getting drunk in the CDC. Yeah, Lin believed she had reason to hate him for the rest of her life.

"Axel was talking to Beth," Carl told her, standing at her side. It sounded harmless, until Carl told his aunt Axel had asked Beth's age. She was only 17. Axel hadn't been locked up on those kind of charges. But that didn't mean he wasn't that kind of man. Lin trusted Carol to talk to him about it. She trusted Carol to put him in his place.

"Are you okay?" Lin directed at Beth, setting a hand on her shoulder. The young girl looked from Judith up to Lin.

"Yeah. I'm alright." Lin knew she was uncomfortable. She couldn't hide it in her posture, not from her. Lin lowered herself to crouch in front of Beth.

"He makes you uncomfortable again you get any one of us, you hear me?" Beth nodded. Lin searched her eyes, searched for any sign that Beth was lying to her. But she couldn't find any. So she nodded and as she stood, kissed Beth's forehead. "I'll take Judith. Hershel and I can put her down. Can you two help out with the spare rounds? We need to get them all in clips." Lin lifted Judith up, cradling her into the crook of her arm. She could tell her niece was fighting sleep already, judging by her fussy whines and droopy eyes.

She and Hershel took turns rocking her, mumbling sweet nothings until she finally went to sleep. Lin settled her down into the mail bin, tucked Lori's blankets around her to ensure she wouldn't move.

Hershel made his way out to Beth and Carl on the stairs to the stoop.

"Finally got her down," Lin hummed. Beth was just about finished with the clip in hand, her fingers pink from pressing bullets down against the spring.

"How are we on formula?" Carl asked them both.

"Enough to last us another month." It was a good answer, gave them time. But they all knew how fast months went by, especially for a growing baby. Carl dipped his head enough to meet Lin's gaze. Rick had told him to keep everyone safe. If something happened, it was up to him to get everyone into the cells. Keeping them safe meant keeping them alive. They'd need to get more formula.

"I'll take Carol for some more at the end of the week," he settled on. Lin frowned and shook her head.

"I'll go with you, Carl." She hoped she'd have her arrows back by then.

"Your dad and the others will be back by then." Beth was more than hopeful for the lot of them. It was endearing.

"We don't know that." Lin hated that her nephew had to become this. She loved him, with her whole heart, but she hated that he had to be tough, that he had to grow up the way he did. He deserved to go to high school, to prom. He deserved to graduate and go off to college for his dream job. He turned to her, just about pinned her in place with the look on his face. "Right now, you and Judith are the only family I got."

Lin didn't like that he was saying that. He was writing Rick off before he even came back. They were going to come back, one way or another. That was the truth they had to believe, had to speak into existence. There was no other option.

There was a scream then, somewhere in the distance. Daryl had told her once back on the road that sometimes foxes could sound like people, that him and Merle had heard plenty of fox screams in their time. She'd believed him, she usually didn't question his knowledge on outdoors, but the scream they were hearing was far from a fox scream. It was human and it was somewhere close by.

"What was that?" Beth perked up in fear, glancing out each window as if to search out where it was coming from. The four went quiet to listen. Lin's hand inched to her blade.

"That was from inside," Hershel noticed.

"Carol?" Lin hurried to the door to listen closer.

"She's out keeping watch in the guard towel with Axel." She wasn't inside and they would have heard gunshots before anything made its way to the tower.

"What if they came back in for something?" Beth didn't want to risk it being Carol and they had just done nothing. "What if they're in trouble?"

"Let's check the tower, see if she's there," Hershel suggested, ever the level-headed man he was.

"How could anyone else get in?"

Lin ducked her head into the cell Judith was sleeping in, glad to see none of the commotion had woken her up.

"The tombs are filled with walkers that wandered in from outside." The scream happened again, nearly cutting Hershel's sentence in half. Someone was hurt or dying. Carl whipped around where he was sitting for his gun. "Someone else could have done the same thing." It was a frightening thought, that just anyone could stroll into the prison if they truly wanted to. Lin thought she might sleep in her cell tight.

"I'm going," Carl tried to stand but Hershel stopped him with his crutch.

"I can't let you go down there." Lin raced up the other side of the stairs, snatching her bow and the handful of arrows she had actually kept with her. She shoved them through her right beltloop like she had done all the way back on the farm. She hadn't really been anticipating having to use her bow with the rest of the group gone but she couldn't let that stop her.

"My father would go." He would and Carl was just as brave as his father. Hershel must have known this because he nodded and then Carl was at the cell block door.

"Check on Carol and lock the doors behind us." Lin didn't have to tell Hershel and Beth what to do but it made her feel better to know there was at least a plan. If someone was in the prison, she needed to know they would be okay. They couldn't lose anyone else, not now.

Carl took point with the flashlight and Lin stayed behind him, an arrow drawn in her bow. They followed the screaming slowly, careful not to make any rash movements. Lin began to recognize the path he was taking. It was the boiler room. The screaming was coming from there.

"You hear it too?" Lin asked Carl, her arms lowered and the bow string loose. She understood hallucinations but how could they all hear it? A walker lunged from Lin from their right, their momentary lapse in attention coming back to try and bite them. Lin ducked and Carl shot it, the silencer on his gun wicking the sound out of the air. Lin exhaled, thanked her nephew with a nod. The screaming returned and it confirmed both of their suspicions that it was real and not a trick of their minds. Lin pushed forward first, arrow drawn and aimed down the hall. And it was there they both saw it.

A group, five living people fighting off walkers. They both froze at the chaos before Lin loosed the arrow, watching it find a place in a walker's eye. Carl shot a walker a woman was trying to keep away from her with a shovel. At the sudden assistance, she and the man to her left spun around.

They were all sitting ducks in here, this tomb of a boiler room. No more death had to happen in here. Lin and Carl made the same choice in the same moment. They had to get these people out of here.

"Come on!" Carl shouted as Lin brought her bow around her shoulder, ran to retrieve her arrow. The woman with the shovel bristled as Lin neared but the nurse paid no attention, snagging her arrow and shoving it back into her beltloop, gunk and all. There was no time.

One by one, the group began to follow Carl. Lin pulled her bow knife, held it in Daryl's reverse grip and jabbed the biter that got a bit too close to her for comfort. She brought up the back of the group, until the man ahead of her stopped and fell to the ground. She nearly tripped on him, stumbling over two sets of legs. He'd been carrying a woman, and the first thing Lin noticed was that she was bit.

Fuck.

"Hurry!"

"Go!" The man yelled. But the group would not relent. The man with the backpack and the beanie reached to help carry the bit woman. Lin stood her ground, eyes on the door with arms raised. They were coming from both directions. Lin swiped high, slashed the walker's head near in half. Carl shot the one approaching from the front.

"You have to leave her!" The kid tried to say. She was slowing them down, had them bottlenecked in a hallway.

"No way!" It was a resounding answer from them all. Lin got it, she really did. But they had to move now. She kicked the knee of the last biter and Carl aimed around everyone to take it out. The group tightened around the man carrying the bit woman and they pushed on.

Carl led them straight back to the cell block and Lin felt the sickening churn of déjà vu swallow her whole. She never wanted to set foot in the boiler room ever again, not when death itself lived inside its very walls, waiting for its next victim to step into its hands. Not again. No one else.

Lin wrapped her hand tight around the barred door and shut it with a slam, only realizing right after that Judith was still asleep. How much time had passed? Was it daylight already? No, it couldn't be. It was moonlight coming in through the windows, the pure pale light mocking Lin as she locked the cell block door.

"Donna?" The man wearing the beanie laid the bit woman, Donna as Lin presumed, onto the ground. "Is she dead?" It had to be a family in the group, a couple and their older son. When they got the woman on the ground, it was obvious she hadn't made it. Her eyes were wide open and still, focused somewhere that wasn't here, wasn't in the prison. They hadn't made it in time. Lin thought that maybe they could have helped her, wacked the arm off at the shoulder to save her life, but how long before was she bitten? It had to have been some time before now.

Carl exhaled, brought his gun up. "I'll take care of it."

The man in the beanie had been looking Lin's way as she stood in front of the cell block door and at the cock of a gun, his head whipped to Carl.

"Whoa! Whoa, kid. Wait a minute."

"She doesn't have that long." Carl was right. If they didn't act now, they'd have a whole other problem on their hands and if Lin had to, she'd take the shot from where she was standing. There was no way in hell she was letting a walker into the cell block, not with only half of their group in there. They were all strong yes, but Carol was still weak from her dehydration, Beth would have to take Judith, leaving her without a hand to shoot, and Hershel couldn't outrun walker no matter how hard she tried. She trusted each and every one of them with her life before and she would do it again, but it fell on her and Carl to keep them safe.

"Who the hell are you two?" The other woman asked, darting between Lin and Carl on opposite sides of them room. They'd surrounded the group, an unconscious way of knowing they could keep them in check should something happen. No risks, no chances. "How did you get in here? Who are you with?"

"We can help you," Lin replied. "But we can't let her turn," she pointed at Donna's body. The man in the beanie slowly pushed Carl's gun away further, eyeing Lin curiously. Maybe it was her suspicious silence she hadn't broken until now. Whatever it was, she'd have to ask later. If she had to admit it, she'd forgotten how silent she'd been, how she fell back on not talking as a coping mechanism. No talking wasn't an option with half the group gone. But maybe it was the shove she needed in the right direction.

"No, we take care of our own." Lin could respect that. The man reached for the hammer the kid in his group was holding, jerking it out of his grip. The kid seemed just as shell shocked as his father, scared beyond his wits too.

"No, Tyreese!" The father pleaded.

"I gotta do it." The other woman began to comfort the son, pulling him in close as he wept over his mother. "Look, just take Ben and lean against the wall. It'll be quick."

Carl walked around the group to Lin. He walked into the cell block, waited for her to follow. Safety of their group, their family, was priority number one and that was nonnegotiable. They could help this group, get them back on their feet after a little bit, but they couldn't let them into the block without knowing them first. Carl shut the door once Lin was inside, didn't hesitate to flip the lock.

"Hey, what are you doing?" The woman with the shovel took instant notice of the lack of Lin and Carl when she heard the door shut. Beth had come over from the stoop, her hand on Lin's arm. Hershel stood in his cell's doorway, having heard all the commotion.

"Kid, did you just lock us in here?"

"Open the door."

They couldn't do that, not right now.

"This room is secure. You'll be safe," Carl told them. It wasn't a lie. The locks would hold against any stray walkers and the courtyard had been clear for days. Lin pulled her bow from her shoulder, dropped it against the ground beside the stairs along with her arrows. "You have food and water."

The woman didn't seem to like that answer and stomped over to the door, gripped the bar and tried to get it to move.

"Open this door," she asked again.

"We can't," Lin shook her head. "Not right now."

"Come on," she sighed, looking straight to Lin as she spoke. "We're not animals. Don't do this." Lin knew it had to be the sense of entrapment that made her so afraid. To have no freedom, nowhere to go, it was making her more than afraid. But locked doors meant safety. Her fearful eyes found Hershel next and he hurried to adjust his crutches as if to get back in his cell.

"Hey!" She shook the door hard, enough for it to bang heavily against the frame. "You can't just leave use in here! Open this door!" Lin darted to put herself between the woman and Beth and Carl, her hand on her blade hilt.

"We can't," she bit out. "Not right now." She felt like a broken record.

"Sasha!" Tyreese tried to calm the woman. "Back away from their door and let them go." Tyreese was level-headed, dedicated to the members of his group. Lin couldn't help but be reminded of Rick, even if Rick didn't seem as level-headed as he used to. The two backed away from the door and it was then Lin saw the exhaustion written on Sasha's face. They were tired. The prison was probably their first covered roof in a long time. "Look around you. This is the best we've had it in weeks." Tyreese nodded to Lin and Carl standing behind the door. "Their house." He paused to look at his group. "We got other things to do."

They had pieces they needed to pick up. Lin empathized because they'd been there. This was like the farm. Hershel didn't have to take them in but he did. He opened his land for a group of total strangers who ended up taking it from him in the end. God, Lin hoped this wouldn't turn out like this.

"We don't want any trouble," Tyreese told them. He seemed like an honest man. And maybe Lin was a smidge too trusting.

"Here," she told him, reaching down for the throwing blade in her boot. She held it out between the bars for Tyreese to take. "It's better than the hammer. You shouldn't have to do it like that."

Tyreese and Sasha reasonably hesitated to accept the knife Lin was holding out, but in the end it was Tyreese that came over to take it. "Thank you," he nodded to which Lin nodded in return.

"Get some rest tonight. All the doors are locked and I can tend to any injuries you might have in the morning." There were bound to be at least a few that needed her care.

Tyreese nodded again and backed away from the door, Lin's throwing knife in his hand.

"Shouldn't we help them?" Beth questioned. Lin watched Tyreese make his way to the Donna's body, inhale to collect his nerve, and push the knife through her head.

"We did," Lin told her. She walked to Hershel, Beth and Carl following. "I'll stay on watch on the perch until the morning." She flicked the brim of Carl's hat. "You aren't going to like this but I need you in the cell with Judith tonight." Carl knew better than to argue with her.

"Okay." Lin sighed, set her hand on Carl's shoulder.

"Thank you. Get some sleep. I'll go out the back, check on Carol and Axel." Hershel watched Lin give the commands, not as a boss but a leader, or as much of one as she could be. It was no perfect but she knew that they couldn't just turn their backs to the people in their common room and wait for them to retaliate. They would wait with baited breath for Rick and the others to return but they couldn't stop everything because it was just them still in the prison.

"I'll go with you," Hershel said, adjusting his crutches and swinging out of the room.

"Are you sure?" Lin didn't want to pull him away from the block if she didn't have to.

"I'm sure. Would be good to get some more fresh air anyways." Lin knew better than that. She knew Hershel better than that, but she still agreed to him going, taking the keys Carl offered out to her.

"Alright," she breathed. "We'll be back soon."

The night was clear and beautiful, the clouds pulled apart to reveal the full moon above. Lin and Hershel walked side by side to the tower. There were things that lingered in the air, things Lin and Hershel wanted to tell each other to make it okay. Lin wanted to tell Hershel that Rick would find Maggie and Glenn and they'd bring them back where they belonged. Hershel wanted to tell Lin that she didn't have to take on the role of leader all by herself, that she didn't have to be Rick. But neither of them could find the words, neither of them could open their mouths and make the reassurances come.

Lin knocked on the guard tower door, stepped back enough so the two in the tower could see them. Carol came out first, the watch rifle in her arms. Axel followed right after and Lin was more than glad to see they had all of their clothes on and nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. Glenn and Maggie had gone to the guard tower for a 'night watch' before when the rest of the group knew full and well they would be doing nothing of the sort.

"Everything alright?" Carol called down, leaning on the railing.

Lin sighed. How to explain this. "Carl and I found a group in the boiler room. We don't know how they got in but we have them locked in the common area."

"How many?" Carol straightened.

"Four," Hershel was the one to answer.

"Do you need us inside?" Axel glanced at the prison.

Lin looked at Hershel. Hershel looked at Lin. And it was Hershel that gave them their answer.

"No. Stay out here for the rest of your watch. Lin said she'd keep an eye on them until morning." That didn't sound quite right to Carol.

"You mean you're staying up all night?" Lin hadn't really considered that but she would if she had to.

"I'll be fine. They look like good people but they're scared and we don't know them. We can't afford to take that chance. I'll keep the back block door shut but unlocked for you both." Maybe it was just Lin being clingy but she wouldn't mind sleeping until Daryl got back. It didn't sound too terrible to have him wake her up.

"Okay." Carol and Axel bid the two goodnight, retreating back into the tower. Lin wished the night breeze could carry her back to the farm. Was it wrong of her to still think of then? The prison was arguably more secure than the farm and whatever her and Daryl were was also arguably a whole lot more fun now than it was then.

"You wake me up to take the second watch, you hear?" Lin glanced at Hershel as they made their way back into the prison. He wasn't joking.

Don't spread yourself too thin, Sunshine. It ain't all on you.

He wasn't joking and he certainly wasn't going to take no for an answer. So Lin nodded. "Sure. I'll wake you when I start nodding off."

Lin shut the door and Hershel gave her one last smile before going off to the cell he was sharing with Beth. She was glad the two of them were sticking together too. Lin sighed, brought her hands to her face. It was an indescribable exhaustion that seeped into her bones. She'd barely done anything and yet, this one day felt like months crammed together into 24 hours. She peeked into Judith and Carl's cell, content with seeing the both of them asleep. It was a relief, a heart-tugging sight of Carl on the top bunk and Judith in her mail bin on the bottom. She missed Dale. She missed Lori. She was trying not to miss Daryl because it had been just hours since she'd seen him but it was hard when the group hadn't been split up in eight months.

Lin felt like she was in a constant cycle of what she felt like she should feel versus what she did feel. She felt like she should be tough like Maggie and Carol, somewhat able to bounce right back after losing Lori. But she didn't feel like that at all. She felt weak and broken, a cracked version of the nurse that had first wrinkled her nose at the quarry camp. She felt like she was dragging her feet along, barely pulling her weight along the group. Ever since Lori died she'd felt like she was merely floating around, grounded for a few moments from here and there. But it seemed like it never stopped.

Lin sat at the top of the stairs with her bow and arrows, Daryl's leather jacket over her shoulders. The group in the common area seemed asleep, judging by the lack of any noise she heard coming from them. It was quiet around the prison, the kind of quiet Lin had wanted desperately before all of this, the kind of quiet that was unsettling now more than ever.

Time passed somewhere in between a racing river and rolling sludge. She kept winding Dale's watch with almost every hour, trying to remember just how many she'd been sitting up. Maybe she was going about this all for no reason but that was a risk she couldn't afford. It seemed all they ever were anymore was cautious, never taking risks. Was that what she wanted though?

Lin sighed. How was it that when she had a cell block of safety, her niece and nephew in one cell, her brother in law and boyfriend- she didn't feel like that word fit right but it was true- coming back soon, she felt more alone now than ever before?

Somewhere in the witching hours of the morning, when the clouds hung hazy over the full moon, Lin fell asleep sitting on the perch stairs. It was Carl who found her there and hesitated to wake her up. He checked the door, seeing that it was still locked tight. Morning would come soon.

Hershel woke next, sighed upon seeing Lin up at the top of the stairs. It was the collective agreement of everyone awake that they would let Lin sleep and despite their best efforts at keeping quiet, they couldn't control the slam of the cell block door as Carl shut it behind him. Lin jerked enough to awake herself up. Beth's head snapped over from where she was leaving Judith's cell, the sudden motion startling her.

"We were trying to keep quiet," she told Lin sheepishly, shifting Judith in her arms to hold her closer as she fussed. "Carl told us you needed the rest." Lin felt the pride for her nephew bubble between her lungs. Lori raised him right. For the mistakes Lori had made, Carl wasn't one of them.

Lin shook her head. "Don't worry about me." She stood slowly, brought her bow over her shoulders to carry it with her. Beth waited on her at the cell block door, rocking a hungry Judith in her arms. Carl took notice of them there and opened the door for them. Lin flicked the tip of his hat silently thanking him for letting her sleep the way he did, for stepping up the way he did. She followed Beth over to the table they kept the formula.

"How old is the baby?" Sasha and Tyreese stood from the table at the sight of Judith.

"Want me to take her?" Lin offered as Beth struggled to uncap the bottle with one hand. Beth gave Lin another sheepish smile, suddenly shy at the sudden questioning happening behind her.

"Barely a week," Hershel asked which was only halfway true. Judith was three days old but maybe he chose to keep it nondescript on purpose.

With her hands free, Beth was quick to rinse the bottle that had been in the cell block and grab a new one to fill with formula. She might not have been aware of the conversation behind her but Lin was, acutely so.

"To be honest, we never though we'd see another baby." Sasha reached a hand out and set it on Lin's elbow, the one beneath Judith's head. "Beautiful."

Lin was cautious but thanked Sasha anyway. Sasha then seemed to search Lin's face with her eyes. For what, Lin couldn't figure out.

"How are you feeling?"

Oh. That was why. Lin froze despite herself. She opened her mouth to answer, gaze down on Judith as she squirmed. "She's not mine," she finally said, trying to steel herself as she lifted her dipped head.

"Where's the mother?" Sasha turned to instead ask Hershel. Beth shook the bottle to mix the formula, the sound the only thing in the air. The silence was all the answer Sasha needed, all the answer any of them needed. Lin could have told them that Judith was her niece but Sasha offered her apology before she could. Maybe it was good she had done so, kept their privacy a little longer. The part of her that wanted to help others wanted to trust these people but the part of her that had been hurt time and time again refused. She could trust the group, maybe welcome new people in but it had taken Hershel a while to even tolerate Rick and crew on his land.

Beth took Judith back from Lin and though Lin didn't want to let her, she was beginning to understand why Beth was doing what she was. Back on the farm, Beth believed there was no purpose in going on, in living in this world. Now, as she doted on Judith as if she was her own, Lin could see that maybe Beth had found that purpose. Sure she was a tad too young to be a mother on her own, but she'd done right by Judith so far. And it wasn't as if the apocalypse was offering too many options for stuff like that. Lin knew she and Maggie had just gotten lucky in that department.

"Man, you people have been through the mill." Respectfully, Tyreese didn't know the half of it. As Beth passed, Hershel pushed himself up on his leg and slipped his crutches under his legs. It seemed as if they were leaving the group alone again.

"Haven't we all?" Hershel threw over his shoulder. Lin stood on her own, crossed her arms over her chest to give her hands something to do. Axel took a bowl of the noodles he'd made for everyone and offered it to Lin. She saw the bowl enter her field of vision, brought her head up to take it from Axel, smiling her thanks at him. He'd been somewhat of a creep back in the block, but since whatever talk Carol had with him, he'd been a whole new person, enjoyable even.

"It's only getting worse out there. Dead are everywhere. And it's only making the living less like the living." Tyreese was once again preaching to a very knowledgeable choir, a choir well-weathered in just how this world really was. After Axel handed Lin her food, he began to give some to the new group.

"You're the only decent folks we've come across." Lin ate her food with purpose, a swiftness that stemmed from her want to take the fence watch outside. Carl and Carol would likely be joining her as well, and Lin was halfway tempted to say the more the merrier.

"You've been out there all this time?" Hershel asked Sasha. As long as they'd been on the road, he couldn't imagine being out there from the very start.

"Our neighbor Mack, she was one of those survivalist nuts. Everybody on the block though she was crazy, worried a white streak into her hair." Poliosis, Lin mused to herself. Usually harmless in and of itself but pretty badass in appearance. "She was always preparing for the end of the world."

"Who knew?" Hershel commented.

"Mack knew. She had a bunk under her shed in the backyard. Sasha and I stayed there until we ran out of supplies. Allen and Ben were the first two people we ran into when we finally crawled up out of that hole, around Jacksonville. Used to be a bunch of us."

That's always how the story went. There used to be more people in a group and now there were only a few to carry their stories.

"25 at one point." Lin had to seriously think if their group ever got to be that big. It had gotten close, maybe when they first got to the farm, when they first melding their groups together.

"Our came was overrun six, seven weeks ago," Sasha was filling in the blanks of Tyreese's story only the way a sister could. They had to be related. Tyreese then went on to speak about Donna, the woman they'd lost the day before. Her body had been wrapped for privacy but only stowed in the corner until the morning. Hershel eyed the body. Lin set her empty bowl aside.

"We'll see that she has a proper burial." If this group didn't stay with them, if Rick didn't approve of taking in more people, then at least their dead would have a place to rest. It would sting that they couldn't pay respects the way they wanted to but the times didn't care. Lin knew that firsthand.

"I appreciate you taking care of us," Tyreese spoke honestly, kindly to the people who had taken them in, opened their safe home to them. "For a while, we didn't know who were dealing with."

"Neither did we," Hershel answered and it was the truth. People like Ed, Merle, Dr. Jenner, Shane, Randall's group, and whoever the assholes were that had Glenn and Maggie. They hadn't known they were dealing with when it came to them but they'd overcome everyone in their path so far. "We've had our problems with people."

Lin shook her head to herself, eased around the group to the block door. She peeked inside to see Beth feeding Judith the last of her bottle. When she was older, Beth would be a good mom.

"I must be the first brother in history to break into prison," Tyreese joked, hoping to lift the somber mood that descended upon the common area. He chuckled and turned when Axel offered him a bowl of noodles.

"Makes me the first white boy that didn't want to break out." Lin smiled at the good-natured jokes, pushed the cell block door open to gather her things for watch. Carol would have her rifle with her and until Daryl came back with her rifle and the rest of her arrows, it limited her to her bow which she hardly minded.

Hershel's warning about getting too comfortable in the prison did not fall upon Lin's deaf ears. It was the shoe dropping, the one thing that little group didn't want to hear. But the decision wasn't up to Hershel. Lin wanted to help them, she really did. But it wasn't her choice either. Rick in the man in charge and he'd been very emphatic in letting them know that this was not a democracy. What Rick said went and that was that.

Rick couldn't believe what he was hearing. "It won't work."

"It's gotta." Daryl only saw one option here.

"It'll stir things up," Rick tried to reason with the archer. The last thing he wanted was any more conflict in the prison. It had been difficult enough for him to process Merle being alive, even more so that Merle had been the one to willingly torture Maggie and Glenn. He'd half had the mind to think Glenn was out of his mind when he'd said it had been Merle but then he'd seen the one-armed man himself in the flesh.

"Look, the Governor is probably on the way to the prison right now. Merle knows how he thinks and we could use the muscle." Merle was Daryl's family. He wasn't going to leave him again, not after knowing he'd been so close for so long.

"I'm not having him at the prison," Maggie told Daryl honestly. After what had happened, no one blamed her.

"Do you really want him sleeping in the same cell block as Carol or Beth, as Lin?" Glenn's question was a punch to Daryl's stomach, a knife to his gut. Daryl knew the shit that Merle did, the trouble he'd been getting into since forever, but he'd never set his hands on a woman like that.

"He ain't a rapist."

"Well, his buddy is," Glenn snapped, drawing Maggie's wide-eyed gaze. He hadn't done that to her; he hadn't gotten that far.

Daryl let his teeth meet in his mouth. Merle had laid some good hits on him the way he did when they'd been younger, but he'd stood up against the Governor, gotten his little brother out of there alive. Had Merle still been the Governor's little henchman, that wouldn't have happened. "They ain't buddies no more. Not after last night."

It was an argument that no one could win, not with the history Merle had with the rest of the group, not to mention the two standing with them. "There's no way Merle's gonna live there without putting everyone at each other's throats."

Daryl wanted to think that their group was all sunshine and rainbows the way Lin did. He wanted to see that they were a family. But when it came to one decision, one person, putting everyone against each other, it was hard to look past. They were all family until someone disagreed with someone else. Merle would always be family.

"So you're gonna cut Merle loose and bring the last samurai home with us?" It didn't seem fair to him and he was unafraid to say it as he waved a hand to the woman leaning against their car. She'd disappeared on them, vanished when they'd all been together, and then she'd appeared and Daryl hadn't.

"She's not coming back," Rick was certain of that much. With everything that had happened, the way she was so closed off in herself, they couldn't take her into the group. She was too much of a liability, a grenade with no pin they couldn't have go off in the prison.

Maggie shook her head. The woman was injured, beyond the point of being left to fend for herself. "She's not in a state to be on her own."

"She did bring you guys to us," Glenn was more partial to the woman than Merle, for the obvious reasons.

"And then ditched us," Rick tacked on.

"At least let Lin patch her up," Maggie offered.

"She's too unpredictable."

"That's right," Daryl glanced her way. "We don't know who she is." He could hear Lin in his head, her voice just as frequent there as his own. No one in their group had known anyone when they found the quarry but they'd still been trusting enough to share their materials, to share their space with each other. "But Merle, Merle's blood." Daryl couldn't leave Merle again, he wouldn't.

"No, Merle is your blood. My blood, my family is standing right here and waiting for us back at the prison. And I think you know that yours is too." Daryl stiffened when Glenn brought up Lin. He hadn't forgotten about her, not for one second of the night before. She'd been the only thing he could think about in that area, save for Merle and his stupid alive face as he lodged his foot into his ribcage.

"You're a part of that family," Rick told the archer because he meant it. It rendered Daryl into careful silence. A family. Was that what this really was? Daryl was eternally waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the moment it was just him and the outside again, back to surviving. He'd always been good at surviving. "But he's not," Rick continued. "He's not."

"Man, y'all don't know." Daryl saw what was happening here; he saw the options laying out before him. It had always been Merle and him and if he could see the end of all this, he was sure he'd see him and Merle there too. When his mom died and his daddy disappeared, it had always been Merle that had been there. Daryl had to be there for his brother. "Fine." He decided. "We'll fend for ourselves." No Merle, no Daryl. That was how it worked.

Glenn stepped closer to the archer, rushing to try to change his mind. "That's not what I was saying."

"No him, no me."

"Daryl, you don't have to do that," Maggie's voice was soft, her attempt at comforting.

"It was always Merle and I before this." And it would always be him and Merle after. Whether it lied in his memories or in reality, it would be Daryl and Merle Dixon.

"You serious? You're just gonna leave like that?" Glenn couldn't piece it together.

"You'd do the same thing."

"What do you want us to tell Carol?. Shit, Daryl, what do you want us to tell Lin?" For the first time, Daryl hadn't thought of Lin when he'd made the decision he did. She never left his mind until that moment. He thought of her smile first, of how she glowed when he look at her. He thought of the way she looked at him, like he hung the sun in the sky and clouds below, how she touched him gently as if he was the only thing soft and good left in this world. He wished he could care for her the way she cared about him. But he was only bound to hurt her. And soon she'd wise up to that and leave his ass in the dust like everyone else in his life had.

She would understand him. Merle was family. How many times had Lin backed Lori, despite the dumb decisions she made? Lin would understand. She put her family before everyone else, everyone else except him. "She'll understand."

Whether Daryl knew it was bullshit or not, Rick couldn't tell but he couldn't stop Daryl as he dipped his head to walk away.

"Say goodbye to your pop for me," He told Maggie, brushing past them.

"Daryl, are you serious?" Glenn and Maggie stopped in place, unable to get Daryl to stop. But Rick didn't. He was the last chance. He was the last one who could even get close to getting Daryl to change his mind.

"Hey." He shifted around, walking backwards to Daryl's forwards. "There's got to be another way." That got Daryl to stop. The silence that passed between them was tense, concrete solid. Daryl felt like he was a kid again, backing Merle when no one else would. Lin wouldn't back Merle, not with a gun against her head. He knew that. Even for him she wouldn't.

"Don't ask me to leave him." He stepped away from Rick to Merle, to his brother. "I already did that once." Rick wouldn't let him leave as he followed. He had to think of the group over himself, over the fact that he didn't want Daryl to leave just as much as the rest of them.

"We started something last night. You realize that, huh?" Daryl reached for the hatchback lock, opened the back of the car for the bag he had inside. It wasn't near enough of the things he would have brought had he known he was leaving with Merle. Maybe he would have left the peach pit he hollowed out in the prison for Lin to find once he was gone.

"No him, no me. That's all I can say." It was all he would say on the matter. He'd made his choice. Lin would understand. Rick stood in his own form of shock at what was unfolding right in front of him. Daryl was really leaving. "Take care of yourself. Take care of Lil Ass Kicker. Carl." With his bag over his shoulder, he could leave with just a step back. What he wanted to say next would break his own heart as much as it would Lin's. "Take care of my girl."

Rick had no response. He couldn't fathom a string of words to answer to that. Daryl crossed the distance that lied between him and Merle, glancing back at Rick with every few moments. Glenn called his name again, the shit eating grin on Merle's face far from comforting him in any way.

The eldest Dixon held his one good arm out to Daryl as he approaching, pulling him into his side. And it was like that the two began to walk away. Rick had failed at a number of things in his lifetime. He'd failed his driving test the first time he took it. He'd failed tests in school. He'd failed Shane and Lori and Dale and every other person who had trusted him and lost their lives. And now he'd failed Daryl and by extension, he'd failed Lin.

He huffed hard, ripped the rifle strap from around his chest and threw it into the back of the car. Maggie offered him her rifle as well, rounding the car to jump in. Rick slammed the hatchback shut, stormed to the samurai woman.

"We patch you up and then you are gone." In his mind, he could place some of the blame on this woman, outlet his anger at Darylleaving on her. Was it wrong of him to lash out, probably? Could he take the time to care? No. They had potentially just started a war and the Governor could have already been at the prison, breaking down the walls and killing his family. As Rick pressed the gas pedal down, his hand clasped tight on the wheel with the other rubbing at his forehead, all he could think about was what to tell Lin.

an: publishing this on a saturday because i have no concept of time anymore and i finished this and got impatient. i may go back and edit some of this but for the moment im okay with how i wrote daryl's thought process AND WE HAVE OUT FIRST READER CAMEO!! toxicquake42 !! i know you said walker or alexandria but i saw an opportunity in this chapter and thought it could be cool! and with how hidden the fate of the prepper is in the show, it came only be assumed they turned into a walker so it works!! i hope you enjoyed your cameo and you're now officially in the last man standing universe!! (lmao me calling it that like i have a wiki or something) i hope you enjoyed this chapter and i will see you in the next!!

ps. i also struggled a little bit getting into lin's head in this chapter so if it seems like it then that's why and i may come back and edit this later