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[dum_spiro]

((OOC: Set in The Walking Dead TV canon, spoilers for Season 5, Episode 1. All are welcome, if you're not canon familiar this is a zombie-overtaken version of rural Georgia, outside Atlanta.))

***

[The smoldering, overrun compound that used to be Terminus is left behind as Carol jumps the fence and lets herself out, taking advantage of the heavy blanket flopped over barbed wire that Rick's group must have used. She ignores the screams of those still living and the inhuman growls of walkers as they feed themselves into a frenzy. It might seem cruel of her, if one was blissfully unaware of the goings-on inside those fences just before the flames and rampaging began.]

[A brief glance at the surroundings, assessing the footprints and parted underbrush (she picked up a few tracking skills... here and there... ) and quickly she determines which way they went. Carol was quite serious when she told Tyrese she has no intention of staying, but first she has to find them. Make sure her efforts were worth it and they all got out, and most importantly reunite Rick and Carl with Judith, Sasha with Tyrese. So she goes, stomach churning despite how calm she'd felt while unleashing destruction on Terminus and its twisted population.]

[She hasn't quite let go of the hope that she won't have to leave, but she's prepared to.]

[Her face and hair are caked with red clay, and she's wearing clothing covered in entrails -- not just spatter, but as though she rolled and splashed inside a fresh, open corpse. In one hand is an automatic rifle, in the other a crossbow. She looks like she's been through a brutal war.]

[She has. She won.]

Comments

[dum_spiro]

[Sure. One big, happy family. She'll show up and they'll know she saved them and there'll be hugs and forgiveness and they'll all go on their merry way. Absolutely.]

[Carol says nothing. It's a very sharp, cutting silence; she's saying quite a lot within it. Fear, resentment, overwhelming grief... and, if you listen hard enough, resignation. But onward she walks.]

[dealt_hand]

[Shee-yit, he's just trying to make light of his little brother's mommy issues.]

[For all the dumb shit that comes out of his mouth, Merle's not stupid. He knows a pregnant pause when he hears it, and in spite of how fast things've been moving the past couple weeks, he knows when something's up. That silence stretches out a long while, and when he breaks the silence his tone is conversational, but notably more serious.]

You gonna tell me what we're walkin' into?

[If Rick and his fellas are gonna be greeting 'em with weapons drawn, he'd like a little warning.]

[dum_spiro]

[Specifically? Not unless she has to. But generally, she supposes he as a right to know.]

I don't know if I'll be staying with them. I haven't been since before the prison fell. [Make of that what you will, Merle. Or continue to ask deeply personal questions, she supposes, would be the other option.] But it shouldn't be dangerous. I just need to tell Rick where to find the baby. [If it weren't for that, who knows if she'd have it in her to try and approach them?]

[dealt_hand]

Huh, [he says, mostly to himself,] Figured she got et.

[Be a right shame, he guesses, but that's a hazard of the world they live in. Merle has no illusions about the likelihood of anyone surviving, least of all their little mascot.]

Guess it ain't my business, what you did to get yourself outta his good graces.

[Except his tone suggests it very much is his business, thanks. Hell, if he's one of them, the way they all try to say it is, then the way he sees it an explanation is the least of what she owes him.]

[dum_spiro]

[Oh, she quite gets his point, and it earns him a sidelong glare that might be more intimidating if it weren't cut by being completely emotionally exhausted. She owes HIM? Who just saved whose ass, back there?]

[If he were the other Dixon brother, then she'd owe him an explanation. An apology perhaps, even if she still feels her actions were the right call at the time. Protecting the group has to come first, but she is sorry, so sorry, that it had to be that way. That she couldn't tell him. That she couldn't say goodbye.]

No, it isn't. But it's not a secret. [Not anymore. She hates what she did but she's not about to deny the truth. And anyway that's hardly the sin weighing heaviest on her mind right now.] I killed two people to try and prevent the sickness from spreading through the prison.

[dealt_hand]

[He barks a laugh at that, sharp and short.]

Too little too late, sweetheart,

[he answers, maybe just a little touch of bile creeping into his tone. He still ain't well and he knows it; living through that flu, he's not inclined to fault anyone for trying to keep it contained.]

No wonder you look like you're marchin' to the chair. Sheriff Rick don't take kindly to puttin' down the livin', less he's the one doin' it.

[dum_spiro]

[Carol really, really hates to admit it, but Merle has a point about the double standard. A resentment she didn't have until after Rick claimed he couldn't trust her with his children. Given how things went with Sophia, those words cut her deeply.]

I had to try. [And it was worth the try, she feels. How many could have been saved if she'd succeeded? And they would have, likely, died even had she not stepped in...]

[Those are rationalizations, and Carol knows it. But she has to feel like it was for some reason, some good purpose, that she didn't kill two innocent people and give up her only family for nothing.]

[dealt_hand]

Sure you did.

[He's not being sarcastic, though she might take it that way, just out of habit. He so often is. Merle's got a little sympathy for the position she finds herself in, here; he's killed too many men ever to be trusted. Don't matter, even if he wanted to turn over a new leaf.]

Daryl know 'bout it?

[Could be a chance his baby brother'd follow her into exile, maybe. If so... well, that matters more than how Merle feels about her killing sprees.]

[dum_spiro]

[Another few beats of silence. That is, though not the exact question she's been asking herself, the heart of the matter. Whether Daryl would fight for her, or turn his back. She couldn't, and wouldn't, blame him for the latter, she'd decided, but it would still hurt like hell.]

[She absolutely hates that Merle can probably tell just how much that bothers her.]

I imagine Rick told him.

[dealt_hand]

[No lie, if Daryl chooses her over the infamous capital-fucking-lettered Group, Merle's gonna be just a bit put out since his attempts to compete haven't gone so hot. He thinks, maybe, he can deal with it, though.

No question he's going if Daryl goes.]

Guess we're gonna find out.

[One big, happy family, eh?]

[dum_spiro]

[To Carol's mind, Merle sounds amused by the prospect which is not improving her mood. Hell if she'll give him the satisfaction of showing it, however.]

You didn't see any other survivors? [Not that she'd be eager to take them under her wing necessarily, but it would be good to know if there's another group traipsing around.]

[dealt_hand]

Ain't seen anyone but one'f the fellas who nabbed me,

[he says, with a grim satisfaction that makes it plenty clear the state that fella was in. That gun came from somewhere, after all.]

Had our buddies locked up in a cattle car, far's I could tell.

[He'd have found a way to get them out. Really, he would have. He's sure of that.

Really.]

[dum_spiro]

[The way he says 'our' sets her protective instincts prickling. He's not entirely wrong though, which keeps her quiet on the matter.]

And their stuff on display in other rooms. Weapons on one table, other things on another. Stuffed animals. Like their own personal store. That was beside the freezer. [Those rooms were one of the things that made her decide to set the walkers on that woman who tried to stop her, rather than kill her outright.]

[dealt_hand]

[Come to think of it, Carol, your kill total's probably creeping past his pretty quick.]

Huh.

[It almost sounds like a laugh, but it's not; there's a definite note of disgust in his voice. Shit makes Woodbury look like Sesame Street, and the truth is some of what they pulled for the Governor, he never quite felt right about it. He did it, but that don't mean he liked all of it. The prison folks, he figures they wouldn't believe him, so why talk about it?]

You know for sure they made it out?

[He's got to ask. He didn't see, but if she did, it'd help settle him.]

[dum_spiro]

They made it out. [Her tone is almost defensive in its certainty.] Just before I blew the propane I saw them take Rick, Glenn, Daryl, and Bob and four others into one of the rooms but they weren't there when I passed through later.

[dealt_hand]

Good.

[Not that he was seriously entertaining the alternative possibility, but... Shit, it's his kid brother, if anything happened, yeah, he'd blame himself.

For a minute or three they just walk while he mulls it over, but let's face it, Carol, leaving you alone is a little too close to being nice. Merle Dixon never met a wound he couldn't rub salt in.]

Guess they're lucky Rick cut you loose when he did.

[dum_spiro]

[The Carol Merle met back at the quarry would have hung her head and kept quiet about that insult, not trying to disrupt anything. (Honestly, there would have been no joke to crack because her, killing people? It would have been unthinkable.)]

[Now...]

Guess you're lucky the Governor didn't keep you around for that last fight.

[dealt_hand]

Had a good run of luck lately.

[he answers mildly. Christ, lady, you got a pair. Could be his misjudged you. Or you've lost it. Either way he's entertained.]

Hackin' up a lung back on death row I figured anything'd be a better way to go. Lucky I got to see the error of my ways.

[he continues, conversationally, making light of exactly how ridiculously fucked up their lives are on a continual basis. Because only pussies get fazed by that kinda thing, duh.]

[dum_spiro]

[It's a fine line, in this world, between guts and insanity. She's still on the right side of it, but she doesn't underestimate guilt and how it could blur that line.]

[And just out of curiosity, where does getting left to fend for yourself by a woman wearing walker guts rank on your list of ways to die, Merle? Making light of the plague that she sold her soul trying to prevent is just not on her list of great qualities. Not that she ever would leave him really; he's Daryl's brother. But he is talented at making people think about doing crazy things just to get him to shut up. Or maybe she's not as far on the right side of the line as she thought. It's not the easiest moment to tell, given what she's wearing and what she just did.]

[Carol doesn't reply, just pauses to try and decipher which way the trail leads. Probably best that she keep her mouth shut, nothing good can some of engaging in that line of discussion.]

[dealt_hand]

Mmmmmhmmm,

[He hums, mainly to himself. Plenty of people've done some crazy shit to shut Merle up, including leaving him to die an ugly fucking death of exposure. He's too much of a self-assured asshole to worry about what she might do. Besides, he at least knows her well enough to think she wouldn't take him out, if only for Daryl's sake.

After a beat, he offers up,]

Left.

[dum_spiro]

[Carol pauses just long enough to remember that considering whether Merle is being truthful is a waste of time.]

Thanks. [It's not really gratitude, just reflex. And so left she goes.]

[As soon as she's closer she's got to get out of this outfit. It's starting to really get to her, the smell.]

[dealt_hand]

[He wants to get there as much as she does. Maybe more, since he's apparently the one in good graces, ain't that a piss.

The only reason he wants to talk is 'cos she doesn't, getting on other people's nerves is his number one hobby.]

So where you gonna go if the Sheriff turns his back on your heroic rescue?

[It's a testament to how impressed he is that he's actually half curious, not entirely just taunting her.]

[dum_spiro]

[Number one hobby and number one talent. She already has an answer for that, fortunately, otherwise she'd be so much more irked.]

Tell him where to find his little girl and be off. [His words are automatic, a foregone conclusion. She can make it on her own. Maybe she wants to. Being with them again after all that happened, Carol has no idea how it'll feel.]

[dealt_hand]

Mmhmm. Where to? You pick a direction yet? Gonna look for new people?

[Or just vanish into the sunset like a lone, rabid wolf?]

[dum_spiro]

I don't know. [That's a lie, she knows exactly the answer. But it's none of his damn business what she'll do, or why.] Haven't had the best luck with other people.