I ain't my brother.

He pulls her knife from the pocket of his coat.

"I found this," he says.

She swallows thickly at the sight of it, the memory of Merle in her eyes, fear and anger so potent it hurts his teeth.

He moves forward, carefully and quietly, to place it on the counter next to her. He hesitates, fingers nearly brushing her arm, the heat of her a sharp contrast to the night he had come from.

"Thank you," she whispers, not quite meeting his eye.

He makes a sound in the back of his throat. His thumb ghosts the shape of her elbow.

"We might know where he's from, Daryl." She says it so evenly that he wonders if she wants him there at all.

Daryl's heart climbs into his throat at the thought.

"It's a town called Woodbury. He - he knew about it. I tried to say we were from there, but he knew. He knew."

Woodbury. He'd seen the name on Glenn's map. It was just under twenty miles away. Close enough to be a threat if her assumption was correct. The bloody footprints in the field had been hobbling in that direction. If that's where he was from, Merle would find his way back to his group. He was too hard to kill, too stubborn to die.

"We might not be safe here."

He doesn't say anything at that.

Cal's voice is even. "He won't stop looking for you. Probably ever." She folds her hands together, her knuckles white. "Rick is out there right now with Glenn and Maggie, checking to see if we'll be safe."

"Why you telling me this?" He grouses, glowering at everything except Cal. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his coat. As much to hide their shaking from her as himself. "You want me to leave? Go out after 'em?"

"That's the last thing I want," she breathes.

His eyes meet hers. The distance between them is minute; he can feel the gentle warmth she exudes even in the cold belly of the house.

He darkens. "Then why the fu-"

"It has to be your choice, Daryl."

His choice.

He scoffs and turns away, trying to shrug off the sudden pounding of his heart. "Just over the next ridge," he mumbles.

"Yeah."

"If he's that close, you won't be safe. None of you."

"I'm more worried about you."

Daryl looks over his shoulder. "Don't be."

"That's what happens when you care about someone. You worry."

He watches her, the soft expression on her face, in her eyes. It's for him, he realizes, and that thought makes him squint uncomfortably at the fine grain of the panel flooring. He tries to rouse that familiar anger - the one that chases people away and never lets them in -, but he finds it slipping through his fingers with every thought, every memory of how Cal has always looked at him.

"I worry about what he'll do to you. I worry about what you'll do to yourself - for him."

"You don't have to-"

"I do," she says.

He wants to argue. He wants to tell her no, no, no.

But she's right. He'd followed Merle down the drain more times than he could count. What would be one more? He came from a fucked up world made of gutters and beatings and burnt down double wides and he'd never wanted to leave that life because it was familiar and Merle was there, his only ally, his brother. It took the end of the world for him to get away from it - and the first opportunity he had to run back to his past, he did.

"He might be blood, but you don't owe him anything. Least of all everything you are. But that's your choice, Daryl. It'll only ever be your choice."

Your brother scares the shit out of me.

But you don't.

But you don't.

But you don't.

The double wide would always be there - and the scars and the smell of burning cigarettes and the jingle of a belt. He would always be angry and impulsive, but he wasn't Merle. And Cal - Cal saw that. She had treated him like he was worth a damn. He'd never really known that. Even Merle had only ever treated him like a proxy. He'd only ever treated him like he belonged back in that double wide, alone and miserable.

Do you want to be alone, she'd asked. He's still struggling with the idea that he deserves anything else. He isn't sure if it's even possible for someone like him.

But that's why he came back - for a chance.

To try at a different life.

"And if I don't wanna be alone?" He asks.

She's looking at him with that look. The one that chases away the anger and the doubt. It makes him think the world might be better now than it was.

"You don't have to be," she whispers to the small space between them.

He takes in a long, ragged breath. "Cal…"

"Come on," she tilts her chin towards the kitchen table, and the steaming bowl of soup. "Eat your soup, it'll warm you up."

Daryl eats, and she waits.

She leans against the counter, watching him from beneath her lashes. Her knife is heavy in her hands - heavy with a story she hasn't told to the end. She shoves it unceremoniously into the pocket of her coat.

She can still remember the feel of the blade sinking into Merle's shoulder. She can still recall the glide of it along his arm.

When Daryl finishes she goes to his side, her breath caught in her lungs, and words like lead sitting on her tongue.

"Come," she says, reaching out to touch his wrist. His fingers twitch at the contact, but he does not pull away.

It was only ever Merle and me. Until it wasn't - and I had nobody.

Gently she says, "You've still got winter on you."

Finally he meets her gaze. There is worry in his eyes - something she knows he can't help.

And if I don't wanna be alone?

You don't have to be.

"Come with me," she whispers, pulling him to his feet.

He goes with her.

She leads him from the room with careful steps, the house not betraying their retreat from the kitchen. Even the stairs leading them up, up, up do not creak or sigh. The door to their shared space, their small corner away from the rest of the world, opens to reveal the the only place either have felt at home in years.

Home. Home. The pile of blankets, her own pack neatly tucked in the corner, Daryl's few items littered about. A small flashlight hangs from the ceiling by a piece of twine, and she drops Daryl's wrist long enough to twist it into brightness. It sputters once before flaring with a dim light.

There are shadows around Daryl's eyes, a grim set to his jaw. He doesn't look at her, but down at the blankets, their assorted items. Although his face is lined with worry, his tension visibly falls from his shoulders the longer they stand in the half light.

A deep quiet extends between them.

And it is deafening.

After a long moment he utters her name, and it falls from her lips like some half broken thing. There is an almost-apology there, in the way he looks at her - but she shakes her head.

"Just keeping an eye on you."

It is an explanation and promise both.

Cal wakes to the sound of a door sighing shut. Somewhere in the house comes a faint rise of voices, whispers edged like knives.

Daryl's breath is a hot trail down her neck, his hand splayed across her ribs. It's the first time she's woken to him against her back; it's the first time she's felt his hands on her.

Someone walks past their door, the floor creaking once. It's enough to rouse him, and she feels his fingers stiffen as he slips into waking. It is a long moment before his hand lifts away - its absence is a shock.

"Daryl," Cal says into the dark.

He makes a sound at the back of his throat.

She rolls over to face him. Even in the dark she can see the outline of his perpetually grim expression, made softer in this moment by the last vestiges of sleep.

"I want to tell you what happened with Merle," she says. Her story. The one with an untold ending. One he knows, but doesn't - not really. He knows she was beat to shit, but not the rest - it's never really come up. "I want to tell you everything."

He stills at that. She can practically feel him taste it, mull it over, and swallow it whole. Eventually he nods. "Alright."

It takes a moment to gather her thoughts, to still the rapid beating of her heart. In the quiet of the house, in the dark of their shared room, she begins.

"I saw him on a rooftop in Atlanta…"

It unfolds slowly. She regales him with how desolate Atlanta had been, what it had been like hearing someone roaring from the rooftops without a care in the world - and the creeping hopelessness upon realizing he had gone quiet. She recalls with startling clarity the first moments in finding Merle, how the smell of burned flesh had overpowered even the rank stench of the dead. She whispers through her decision to save Merle's life - and the subsequent days of begrudging camaraderie that had followed.

And through it all Daryl listens, silent.

"I found a gun," she admits. "And I hid it from him."

"You didn't know him," Daryl's voice is a familiar rumble. "Smart thing to do."

Cal smiles ruefully. "Maybe. Didn't matter. He knew I was hiding something. He found out. And then he wanted all the supplies, everything that mattered - and I couldn't stop him."

The fight falls from her lips - those moments she can remember.

She can still feel the pain of it all, albeit muted and hollow. A memory made softer by shock and adrenaline and the time since then and now. The phantom of Merle's hand on her face, cracking her head against the concrete was the only thing that persisted, even now. She could feel his thumb digging into her jaw - and the look in his eyes as he roared in her face.

And the silence that had followed after she came back. After she crawled out of unconsciousness only to realize their scuffle had invited whatever walkers might be near.

Merle's brutality had hounded her even after he left. That short, stumbling run for her life; that terrible moment where she had fallen and nearly given up.

Merle had done that.

His final cruelty.

To make her want to give up.

There must be something in her eyes, some far away look that worries him. Daryl reaches out and touches her gently on the wrist.

"Hey," he mumbles. His thumb coasts along her pulse. "Come'on back."

She blinks at him, refocusing on the here and now. Daryl is close - close as he's ever been, but somehow he feels closer. She takes him in; his thumb running along her pulse, his brows knitted in concern, something in his eyes that's been there for a while and still hasn't been truly named.

She knows what it is.

She feels the same way.

His thumb absently traces her pulse, rubbing into the palm of her hand, and back again. His fingers curl around her wrist, holding it against his chest. That simple touch sends her heart skittering. The distance between them so minute that his breath touches her lips.

"What happened after Merle?" Daryl asks.

Cal frowns. "Randall's group - and then… You."

You.

You.

A word has never resembled Elysium, but in this moment it does. It falls from her lips like a prayer, like a whispered confession. In that moment it resembles three words that Daryl might never have heard in his life. In that moment it resembles three words she has not felt in ages.

It is the next part of her story - the only part that truly matters. She says everything and nothing with that single sentence, that single word.

And he understands. She can see it in the sudden intensity of his gaze, the stillness that takes him - and the sudden, stuttering breath he releases.

When he pulls her closer in an embrace, tucking her beneath his chin and just holding her, she releases a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"I don't want to be alone either," she whispers against his neck.

His hand traces down her spine, and his fingers curl against her.

She drifts away into dreaming. He doesn't.

He holds her until her breathing evens out - and he holds her long after.

Her shirt had risen up sometime in the night. He tugs at it, pulling it down over her side. He nearly winces when he brushes the bottom of scar that he knows stretches down from her ribs to the dip of her waist. He knows who gave it to her - and he knows she gave as good as she got.

He can feel the faint pucker of the scar beneath the thin fabric of her shirt. His fingers strum the length of it.

His brother did this.

His blood.

Merle.

He left Merle out there. A part of him is filled with regret, but another part - his heart, he realizes - rests easy. A door had opened before him, and it led somewhere familiar and miserable and alone.

Do you want to be alone?

He knows what would have happened if he caught up with Merle - the same shit that always happened. He would have followed his brother to the ends of the earth, and he'd have no one. Not even Merle. Especially not Merle. And what he would have left behind…

Cal had never made him feel alone - not once. Not even when she had let him go.

Daryl releases a shaky breath into her hair.

I don't want to be alone either.

When he shuts his eyes, Daryl drifts into dreaming, and it is a quiet, peaceful place.

Cal wakes alone.

Her heart skips, but when she reaches across their nest of blankets to find his place is still warm and freshly tousled. She shuts her eyes; it wasn't a dream. He had come back.

She can hear voices downstairs. Heated conversation that makes her hold her breath and listen.

"...nowhere... "

"...but…. Walkers…"

"... can't expect… condition!"

A lull in the distant conversation forces her up, though she wraps herself in the warm blankets and toes on her boots. The door of their space creaks open to reveal the dim light of early morning. She edges down the stairs with quiet steps.

"What do we do?"

"What can we do?"

Cal freezes in the doorway to the living room. T-Dog is propped up, Glenn's map draped over his legs. Hershel and Dale sit on either side of him, brows knitted as they follow Glenn's tracing finger from where he squats beside them. Rick stands over the map, his back to her. Maggie hovers at the window, peering through the drawn curtains with a furrowed brow. The rest of the group speak in quiet voices from the kitchen.

Dale is the first to see her - he gestures her closer. She takes her space beside a grim-faced Rick.

When she meets his eye, he shakes his head.

Not good, his eyes say.

Oh.

"They're building a wall along these streets. Expanding. Every walker for a mile out is dead - anything beyond that is too stiff with the cold to care," Glenn explains, his jaw set with worry. "And they're pushing out. It looks like they're pushing out every chance they get. Some of the walkers along this boundary here were fresh kills. That's hardly more than a mile from here."

Cal stares down at the map, at the area Glenn has highlighted in yellow - and how close it sits to the faint dot that indicates their home.

She swallows.

"We can't stay here." It's Rick's voice that breaks the tension of the room. Everyone looks at him, at the grim set of his mouth. He frowns down at the map.

"Rick," Hershel says softly. "T-Dog and Lori…"

Rick holds up a hand to stay him. "Once T is back on his feet, we go. We can't stay here. Not with them so close."

Daryl appears out of nowhere, two cups of coffee in hand. He tucks one of the mugs, steaming and fresh, into Cal's hands with a murmured for you. His fingers graze the back of hers in parting. The other he hands to Rick, accepting a tight-jawed nod of thanks.

Rick's fingers are white-knuckled on the coffee mug. "We got people we need to protect."

Hershel frowns at him. "And moving them is the best option?"

"If Merle's rollin' with them, yeah." Daryl grouses. "I know what kind of people Merle likes running with - and they usually ain't good people."

A silence follows his words. The sort that is filled with things unsaid - almost accusatory. Cal can see it in the way they avert their eyes, their lips curling and twisting and pinching white - you were going back to him, you left us, you were going back to him, are you a good person?

She knows Daryl can feel it. He stiffens beside her.

She tucks herself closer to him, her shoulder against his.

"We'll leave when T is good," Rick repeats.

"I'm good to go now -" T-Dog moves to get up.

"T," Rick warns.

His voice is enough of warning. T-Dog stops, grimaces, and sinks back onto the couch with a pained sigh.

"What are we going to do, Rick?" Cal asks softly.

This isn't a democracy anymore, he'd said.

Everyone stares at the map, expressions pinched at how close, how close, the yellow highlighter edges to their home.

Rick's voice is firm, and they know it as truth. "We leave at the end of the week."

Author's note:
First of all, thank you for sticking with me. Thank you for the absolutely amazing feedback and encouragement I have received. Your support is enough to keep the bandwagon hoppin'. Truly.

Secondly, I retract all previous statements. THIS was the hardest chapter to write. It has gone through several rewrites from start to finish (about five). This version is some wild amalgamation of all of its predecessors, and I'm still only somewhat pleased with it. I apologize if it isn't up to snuff, but at this point I just wanted to give you something. I knew what I wanted to give you, but I have no idea if I managed to convey it correctly.

Thirdly, I'm considering taking on a new fanfiction project. Something light and fluffy (or smutty?) to counteract this heavy af shit show of a fanfiction I've dedicated so many years to, and help revive my soul. If you have any prompts or suggestions, let me know! If you'd like to see Cal in a scene from a future season, that works too.