Panacea - {Daryl Dixon Fanfiction}

Day 230 - Someday Girl

It'd taken ten days for Gabry to get through the tests that Milton had set up for her. It wasn't that he had concluded anything about her condition, he had just run out of trials to put her through. She had stood face to face with biters, moved around them, touched them and when it came down to her or a screeching rat, they had gone for the rat. The only thing that attracted them to her was her voice if ever she spoke, and yet they never bit, only grabbed.

Milton had sat down to explain this to her in the best way he could. "Whether it's your white blood cell count, macrophage set-up, helper t-cells or the stability of your dendritic cells..." Milton blubbered over his notes for a moment before putting them aside, realizing they were much too complicated, and saying, "Whatever happened, your body broke the fever that was supposed to kill you, and when your brain didn't die, the virus didn't have a chance to take over. It could have been because you were out in the cold, but that would mean anyone bit when it's below 40 degrees would have a surviving chance, and believe me, that's not the case. You most likely came down with the flu right after, because your immune system was weak from fighting off the virus. This doesn't mean you won't turn when you die, the virus could be sitting and waiting, but this does mean that you're going to outlive most of us." He folded his hands in his lap and waited for her to process this.

Gabry swallowed. "Does this mean I can help people?"

Milton sighed. "I'm not sure. But if you could, you'd be the panacea."

* * *

"Pana-what? The hell s'that mean?"

Gabry rolled her eyes while Merle popped another handful of sunflower seeds into his mouth. "It means that I could cure everyone."

Merle chuckled, and spit a shell onto the floor. "How's that, sweet cheeks?"

She lay on the bed, looking up at her toes against the wall. "I don't know. I wish I did. I wish Milton did."

"Ah, he could be full of crap." Merle spit another wad onto the floor. "What does he know?"

"I could save people, Merle." He clearly wasn't seeing the whole picture, of course it's not like he was trying. "I just...I just don't know how." And then it came to her like a slap in the face that she should have seen coming. She flipped over onto her belly and watched Merle dump another palm of seed into his mouth. "I could go on runs."

Merle spat. "Yeah, right. Governor s'not going to send his most valuable person out into the field. Nice try, though."

"I'm his most valuable asset! I can go where no one else can. I can walk right through those things without being seen." She argued like a stubborn teenager.

"No." Merle said, "It's not biters you have to worry about, it's the people you encounter."

Gabry sat up on her knees. "Then teach me to fight! Give me my knives, teach me to use a gun. C'mon Merle, don't make me sit around here with these people who have no clue what's going on. I want to help," she begged.

Merle chewed on a shell. "Ain't my decision."

She growled, knowing very well who's decision it actually was. "If I convince him to let me go out there, you owe me a pair of sweatpants."

He furrowed his brow at that, but said, "Deal," anyway. She then hopped off the bed and went over to the coat rack and pulled on her hoodie and slipped on her boots. "Where you think you're going?" He asked her.

"I have some convincing to do." She said, and as she laced up her boots she cast a disgusting look to the wad of seeds that had be spit onto the floor. "And clean that up, while I'm gone." She then ducked out the door and closed the door behind her.