Welcome To Evangrove - A Walking Dead ff

Chapter 2 - Impossible

The next morning came colder than the last. Merle was already bundled up and sitting on the porch, watching with a stoic expression the fresh snowfall rest upon last night's built up mounds of white. Their footsteps were no more, as if they had not stumbled up the driveway to stay the night in a stranger's home. It was a quaint moment to reflect on the wonders of nature, and the chasms that snow seemed to create, as it came neverending from the whitest of white sky above.

Daryl came moments later through the front door, obviously looking for Merle by the erratic way his blue eyes searched and how they relaxed with a tender, but restricted sigh when they met their target. Merle looked almost comical, the way his odd shade of purple scarf hid most of his neck, revealing only a peculiar bald head with a furrowed, almost angry expression. Daryl, however, knew that his expression was the same regardless of emotion behind it, as Merle was always the better poker player. An impeccable bluff, which made itself known when his lips suddenly curled into a smile and he said "What, thought I left without 'ya?"

"Wouldn't be the first time." Daryl shot back, merely a force of habit rather than a grudge from their past. He's almost apologetic when he lets out another breath of air, and even goes so far as to wave his hand, dismissing the words like one would a puff of smoke.

"Times've changed, lil' brother." Merle says, his tone oddly chipper, and thrusts upwards from his clearly warm position on an old wooden bench that once served as the house's. "Don't go nowhere without each other, Dixons come in a pair." Daryl smiles at his words and props open the front screen door with his foot, momentarily glancing back inside.

"I left some bolts inside -" And then he vanished within the candle lit darkness of the house.

"No rush." His brother calls back. Merle, being a man who hadn't a good hold on focus if the situation didn't call for it, tottered on the porch for a few moments before finally trotting down the stairs and onto the snowy blanket that had been tucked over the land the previous night. The moisture and snow was hell for his prosthetic limb, which he'd later have to tuck a knife onto if he wanted it to be of any use while hunting, but he poked the instrument into the snow and smiled at the dent it left, fondly remembering when that mark would've been a hand print. Just as Daryl had promised, he was out and ready in just a minute or two, tucked in his own array of tattered jackets and scarves, though his was more carefully positioned so that it wouldn't obstruct his line of sight. They truly were an odd couple to those who knew them as vest wearing, bare armed sweaty men, instead of their pink cheeked shivering bodies which replaced that Georgia summer visage.

Hours later, when the sun lessened and sunk behind pale gra clouds, is when mother nature's inhabitants made themselves known. Ah, the hunt had so far gone well, as Daryl caught yet another doe in the winter's clutches, though this one led no child behind it. Merle warned him to stop hunting the females, or there would be no new generation to populate the forest next spring. He understood, and that was the last deer they hunted that day. It went well, but rather uneventful, until the cool sound of a wolf's howl filled the morning air. This, meant trouble.

Daryl raises his crossbow and points it in the direction of the sound, which is followed by barking and one more canine's cry. Merle, however, is less cautious, and walks a few feet towards the animal's howls.

"Merle, no. I don't got 'nough bolts for a pack." His brother warns, voice portraying his tense, unhappy nature. "They're probably just s' scrawny as us, no meat on their bones. More trouble than they're worth."

"S' not th' dogs - listen." Merle raises his only hand to less than two inches above his head, signaling the silence he'd asked from his younger. At first the quiet continued, not even the barking illuminating the emptiness, but there it came - soft, barely audible; a woman's voice. In the recesses of his mind, Merle could've sworn he recognized it, but this wouldn't have been the first. Those first few months at the prison, out for supply runs, even a walker's growl sounded like her soft voice. A wild animal's whimper sounded like her's. It took a long time to convince himself she was dead, or long gone, and yet as the woman's voice continued - like she was arguing - it sounded so familiar.

"So?" Daryl protests. "Man, we ain't goin' t' save no girl, c'mon. We don't even know th' -"

But he was gone already, running off towards the sound. He'd tell himself and Daryl, when they got to where they were going, that he thought she needed help. Not that he thought it was her, but that whoever it was needed their help - and maybe she would've paid them with something kind in return. Thinking that was a good excuse, and solidifying the way he'd explain it to his brother, he doesn't see the rock in front of him, but lands face first into the freezing white ground. He barely has time to understand the situation, what happened, before he hears the low growl of a wolf above him, hears the gums smack when they lift apart and growl. The heat from the animal's breath is hot and damp on his scalp, and for a second, Merle regrets his stupid hayfever delusions.

"Calm down boy." Comes the woman's voice just moments later, a stern, but feminine tone.

Merle's tongue catches in his throat, his body tensing. He doesn't want to look up. Doesn't want to believe it.

"Alright, c'mon pal, get up."

He doesn't listen, and can hear Daryl finally catch up from behind him, and shout at the woman - at her - to lower the gun. Suddenly, their tense and angry voices stop, clench in their own throats. Merle can go on no longer, and succumbs to the curiosity. Slowly, he raises his head and neck, chin grazing the soft, powdery ice, and his baby blue eyes meeting the hazel ones of a woman he had last seen five years ago.

"Quinn?"