The First Time He Really Noticed Her

She wasn't a talkative one. She didn't particularly have a fair share of stories to tell, or perhaps she wasn't the type to tell them. Maybe that's why he didn't really pay attention.

Or maybe he just wasn't being honest with himself. He just didn't care.

Merle kept calling the people rats, squeaking unnecessarily and too scared of everything to stay put.

Even so, he thought he remembered Merle describing her as a mouse. Her alone. But at the time, he wasn't listening. He wanted nothing to do with them. Hell, even now, he wanted them all gone. Doing shit like that, cuffing his brother to a roof. Doing something people wouldn't even do to an animal. Merle wasn't a bunch of daisies, but he sure as hell wasn't a dog.

But Merle had…spirit. He couldn't stick around for even a few days. Not even one fucking night. Finding it like that—his severed hand and the blood…the sight of Merle's blood stained his eyes like a fog; just like the fog that had been there the next morning. The morning after the Walkers attacked the camp.

All the fog had evaporated as the scorching sun began shining down on them. The Mexican woman was huddled close to her crying children as her husband helped the black guy pick up the bullet wounded Walkers lying everywhere. The blonde woman, Andrea, was sitting, cradling the bit girl as if she wasn't just going to get back up and take a chunk out of her jugular. Daryl scoffed as he continued to look around him. These people were pathetic. It was simple. No guilt. How many fucking times did he need to explain that?

He roughly pulled at one of the filthy dead bastard's legs to drag him over to the pile where they began igniting the bodies. The Asian boy kept holding his sleeve up to his nose as if that was going to mask the stench. The cop, not Shane, but the other one, Rick, was standing by his wife and discussing what they needed to do. Discussing it like it wasn't blatantly obvious. They needed to leave. And they needed to put a bullet between that girl's eyes before she made an even worse ending to this failing day.

So he marched up to Rick, pickaxe upon his shoulder as he began spewing out reasons. He remembered calling her a "time bomb". Rick cocked his head and asked him what he suggested they do, and Daryl looked him straight in the eye and told him to take the shot. Do what they all knew needed to be done. But then she, his wife, told him to let her be. As if she had any authority.

He shook his head and scoffed, marching off to return to his work.

"Wake up Jimbo, we've got some work to do." He growled to the man in the cap as he stalked over to Morales to help him drag a damn heavy shit brain to the pile behind them. It was only a matter of time before the Asian told him he wasn't doing something right.

"H-hey, what are you guys doing?" He began, but his voice sounded more desperate than snarky. "This is for Geeks. Our people go over there."

Daryl very nearly rolled his eyes. He made a comment back, something about how it didn't make a difference.

Then the young man got even angier. Yelling at him, telling him how it seemed more proper to let their bodies rot in the earth then letting them be turned into ash. Daryl looked at him for a long while before he exhaled in a long breath and began moving the body. Whatever. It wasn't like he had much do about anything lately anyway.

They were pulling the body to the other pile, the god damn pile of bitten humans that was so important when he made one last smart ass remark. "You reap what you sow."

"You know what? Shut up man!" Morales barked at him, but Daryl wasn't spending time singling out him to chew back at. He dropped the body roughly and stormed off. "Y'all left my brother for dead. You had this coming!"

He shook his head, his entire body pulsating with anger. He turned his head and looked at Rick, at his wife, and that short haired woman. He looked away from all of them, rounding, trying to blow off some steam.

Then they found out that that crazy one in the cap had been bitten. And to add to that, they still weren't decided on what to do. With the live one or the dead one.

Bunch of pussies.

When he tried to fix it for the sons of bitches, they pointed a gun to his head, talking about how they don't kill the living. Well hell. Ain't gonna be much more living when they keep around threats as such.

They didn't want his help? Fine. The last time he would actually try and do something useful for these ungrateful bastards. He went off looking for something else to lay his pickaxe in. He made his way round inbetween the Winnebago and the bright red Challenger. He had put the point between the eyes of two walkers, and when he was going to finish off the last one, she appeared.

He had seen her before, no doubt, but there was nothing that made her stand out amongst the others. She was gray. She was hollow. He didn't give her, much less anyone, a real look. But still, there she stood, looking down at the damn ugly son of a gun, all gutted and showing bones. The sun was beating down on her skin and she looked splotchy and red and sweaty. There were tears streaming down her cheeks as she spoke and told him that she would complete the task; that it was her husband. She would do it.

Daryl was so shocked by her proposal that he didn't object. He slowly handed her the tool and stepped back a few feet, knowing that he should give her time to mourn her husband, but something told him that she was mourning for her well-being rather than his. She looked like she was about to collapse with emotion when she lifted the weapon and slammed the pointed end into her husband's skull. She let the point stay still lodged in his brain, making Daryl think she would let it stay that way, when she lifted the tool slowly over her shoulder and swayed for a bit before she slammed it again into his head. And again. And again. All the while sniveling and sobbing and grunting with force.

Daryl watched in peculiar shock as the woman continued to beat the man's skull until it was nothing but mesh. His fingers were tense as he did not know what he could possibly say or do or even think of. And he flinched, God, he flinched. It was painful to even watch her. To have to hear her making those painful sounds as she continued.

He looked at her, found her side profile as she swung again and frowned at her. He didn't know the reason, but he liked to imagine he understood after all those years with his old man. He wondered if her situation didn't differ much from his.

He looked at her as she stopped, holding the pickaxe to the ground by her feet as she lifted her shoulders, turning her head to one side, trying to hid herself, and tried to swallow. That look on her face, he wondered why it made his back tense. She hung her head and let her tears run for another minute, seemingly forgetting that he was her audience. He wondered why he was even still watching. Then she dropped the axe and held her palm over her heart as she slowly walked off, her head still hung.

He watched her leave, watched as she returned to one of the camping chairs and sat down slowly. Lori was talking to Rick and Shane was off watching Jim and no one was watching her. He didn't even know her name.

No. No one was paying attention to what she was doing.

Daryl turned back to look at the ruined face of the man below. He didn't know his story, but somehow he knew he got what he deserved. All because Daryl had watched her; had finally seen past the pointless small talk of the rest of them and seen a person. Had seen what she had just done. And he knew.

He just knew she had gotten her retribution.