Mercy

After he saved her from the walkers, Daryl hardly spoke a word to her as they walked through the forest towards a destination she wasn’t even sure he knew himself. The sun was beginning to slowly rise, giving them more light to walk by. But that didn’t calm her nerves any. If anything, it made her feel worse. The sun coming up meant that Ian and the others would be waking up, and that meant that they’d probably be on the lookout for her – or more likely, the walker they thought she’d become.

“Don’t worry about them fuckers,” Daryl spoke to her, calming her unspoken fears. “They ain’t gonna find us where we’re goin’, and we’re already far enough ahead that they ain’t gonna catch my tracks.”

She just nodded, knowing that at this point, it was better to keep her mouth shut than say anything and risk losing him as an ally. Why he’d come back to help her, God only knew. If he existed, Mercy thought sourly. Could God exist in a world like this? And if he did, why had he allowed such a terrible plague to take over the planet’s population?

They continued walking for what felt like three or four hours until Daryl finally stopped. They were near the edge of the forest; Mercy could see an old country road just beyond a few dozen trees. At first, she was confused as to why they’d stopped until she let out a scream when a gunshot sounded out as a bullet lodged itself in a tree not two feet from her head.

“We ain’t no fuckin’ babysitter’s club, Daryl!”

She groaned when she heard Merle’s voice drifting down from above her head. She looked up and found him sitting on a branch about twenty feet up, an angry expression on his face and gun pointed straight at her head.

“She’s different,” Daryl called up to his brother. “Put the gun down. She’s comin’ up!”

Mercy’s eyes widened as she looked over at Daryl, and then back up at Merle. There was no way she was going to climb that tree without Daryl going up first. She had no doubt that his older brother would push her off the limb and then she’d be in worse shape than she had been so far. Broken bones lead to infection in this day and age, and that lead to death.

Death…Well, everyone knew what that led to.

“It’ll be fine,” Daryl murmured to her, a half-cocked smile on his face as he patted the tree. “Merle ain’t stupid enough to hurt you if I send you up. He knows I’ll shoot ‘im if he does!”

He called the last sentence out a little bit louder to his brother, a stern look on his face as the eldest Dixon dropped a rope ladder down, finally relenting to Daryl’s words. Mercy swallowed hard as she grabbed the ladder with both hands, placing her feet on the bottom rungs.

“You ain’t gonna fall, I got you,” Daryl reassured her.

His words almost made her feel like they were kids again. That was exactly what he would have said to her back then, when he was trying to get her to go on one of his crazy trips into the forest. Looking back, none of it seemed so crazy now as it had then. She was grateful now for all the time he’d spent out there in the trees. If he hadn’t learned how to survive out there, God only knew that she wouldn’t be here now. And he probably wouldn’t be, either.

She nodded and began climbing up the tree. It took her a little longer than it probably would have taken Daryl; she wasn’t nearly as accustomed to living outdoors as he was. When she finally reached the branch that Merle had been on, he’d slid over a little so she’d have room to sit. The stench of alcohol on his breath almost made her want to vomit, though she held it and her words back, knowing that it wouldn’t help her case with him any.

“Baby brother seems to have taken a fancy to you,” Merle muttered under his breath. “Ain’t nobody caught his interest like you. He’s been all up in knots about you. Mercy this, Mercy that. Who the fuck are you to him, his savior?”

“Shut up, Merle,” Daryl growled at his brother. Mercy looked down and saw that Daryl was already halfway up the tree. He glared at his older brother before he sat down on the branch next to Mercy. “You see any movement from up here while I was lookin’ for her?”

Merle shook his head and then reached for the flask on his lap, taking another swig.

“Ain’t seen nothin’ since that campfire last night. Seems pretty quiet now. Those walkers you ran into, there’s another pack of ‘em about a mile east of here. They been scatterin’ all mornin’.”

Daryl nodded and then looked at Mercy, his eyes narrowed.

“You didn’t get scratched or bit, did ya?”

She shook her head immediately, already knowing that they hadn’t gotten close enough to her to infect her. He studied her arms for a few moments before he nodded, leaning his head against the trunk of the tree. He looked more exhausted than he had the last time she’d seen him, and Mercy couldn’t help but wonder if he ever got to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time.

“Might as well get comfortable, princess, ‘cause we’re stayin’ here ‘til tonight,” Merle told her as he stretched his arms above his head. She arched her eyebrow and then looked at Daryl, wondering why he’d treed them.

Wasn’t it more dangerous to not get out of the forest?

“Shit, baby brother,” Merle laughed. “The bitch ain’t gonna make it halfway outta Georgia with us ‘fore she gets bit. Might as well just put her out of her misery now.”

“Shut up, Merle,” Daryl warned his brother again. “She’s with us now, don’t talk about her like that. Mercy and I…we’re old friends. She’s family just the same as you. So you keep your goddamn mouth shut or you’re on your own, Merle.”

Mercy’s eyes widened. She had never expected Daryl to pick her before Merle. It was never a situation she’d ever had to put herself in because when it really came down to it, Daryl had never been in a situation like that. When they’d been kids, Merle had been the one to leave. Daryl hadn’t chosen Mercy over him.

But now?

Well, now it seemed that the brothers’ relationship was just as strained as it always had been.

Merle grumbled under his breath but didn’t say another word, indicating that he’d rather not get kicked out of the group. Daryl closed his eyes as he leaned back against the trunk of the tree. After about twenty minutes, Mercy looked behind her and realized that another overgrown tree limb lay almost horizontal to the branch she was laying on, and she took the opportunity to lay back.

It was going to be a long day, she realized. She just hoped that the Dixon brothers didn’t kill each other by the end of it.



By nightfall, Mercy was beginning to wonder if it had been a good idea to follow Daryl to the tree. The two brothers hadn’t stopped bickering all day, and sitting in the middle of it all had given her a headache. As if the fighting hadn’t been enough of a stress on her mental wellbeing, God had seen fit to throw a thunderstorm into the mix and now, she was not only frustrated and hungry from not eating all day, she was cold and wet, too.

“Is there any way we can find some kind of roof?” She finally asked Daryl as he was preparing to head back down the tree so that they could keep moving. He just shrugged, placing one foot on the top rung of the rope ladder.

“Depends on if there’s any abandoned houses nearby,” he told her. Mercy arched her eyebrow and then smiled, pointing just behind Merle.

“There’s one over that way. I don’t know how you didn’t—”

“You mean the one that’s infested with walkers?” Merle laughed. “Honey, if you think you can get all them corpses out of there, go ahead and be my fuckin’ guest. Me and baby brother here will keep on walkin’ through the rain ‘til we find something that’s actually safe.”

Mercy flinched and then got on the ladder once she heard Daryl call up to her that she should start making her way down. About halfway down, she heard Merle yell something down at them, but she couldn’t hear through the thunder. When she reached the bottom, both she and Daryl looked up at Merle.

“Come on down!” Daryl called up to his older brother.

Merle shook his head and pointed in the direction that she and Daryl had been walking from earlier. Daryl heard them before she did and even without the light of the moon to help her see, she watched as his face drained of color.

“They found us,” he muttered under his breath, grabbing Mercy’s arm. “C’mon, sweetheart. We gotta get outta here or we’re walker food.”

“What do you—”

She didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence as she heard gunshots ring out over the thunder. Mercy couldn’t stop herself from letting out a loud scream as she and Daryl began running faster. Suddenly, she found herself grateful for the fact that there was a thunderstorm – it helped cover the sound of their running and she had no doubt the rain was making it difficult, if not impossible for whoever was following them to track their movements.

Finally, they reached the road that she’d seen earlier on in the day and Daryl came to a stop, looking both ways. It was obvious that he, too, felt a little desperate and that scared the shit out of Mercy.

What the fuck was she supposed to do if her rock was scared? Daryl had always been the strong one between the two of them. He’d always been the one to protect her and keep her safe. What was she supposed to do if he couldn’t do that anymore?

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” Daryl murmured into her ear as he pulled her closer to him just as the sounds of people yelling got closer. He wasn’t trying to run anymore, which frightened her. What was going to happen?

“I got you. Just remember that, Merc. I got you, and you got me,” he whispered into her ear.

His words left her even more confused as a group of people surrounded them. What shocked the hell out of her was that she recognized them all – Boyd, Alison. Scott.

Ian.

“Well, well. Looks like we found her, guys,” Ian’s dark laugh sent a chill down Mercy’s back as she looked up at him, Daryl’s arms both wrapped protectively around her. “And it looks like we caught one of the rats with her, too.”

A small whimper left Mercy’s lips. This scared her more than anything. Back when they’d been running, Daryl had said something about becoming walker food. She didn’t know what that meant, but knowing Ian and knowing how sadistic he was, this scared the shit out of her. She suddenly wondered whether or not she’d make it out alive – and whether or not she’d even want to.