Stray // Daryl Dixon

As We Know It

I didn't know Morgan all that well, but Rick and Morgan had a history. We've come to find out that when the outbreak started Morgan was the first person to give Rick a chance, saving him after Rick woke up in the hospital. This meeting wasn't as simple as a reprimanding of Morgan, but instead hearing him out, because he deserved that much from Rick.

"What's going on?" Morgan asked. He had his arms folded over the dining room table, his brows pinched together. I sat beside Rick, along with Michonne and Carol.

"When I was coming back..." Rick cleared his throat, "We tried to cut off the herd with the RV. Lead the walkers away. But two of those people with the Ws in their foreheads, they stopped us. They tried to kill Scar and I, shot up the RV." Rick paused. "Now, Carol says she saw you. That you wouldn't kill those people."

"Did you let any of them go?" Carol asked, her tone extremely weary.

Morgan took a deep breath in and calmly said, "Yes, I did."

"Why?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.

"There were five of them. And I didn't want to kill five people I didn't have to kill--"

"They burned people alive," Carol cut him off, growing angry.

"Yeah," Morgan nodded his head before taking a long pause, "Why didn't you kill me, Rick, back in King County? I pulled a knife on you. I stabbed you. So why didn't you kill me?" He asked. "Was it 'cause I saved you after the hospital?"

"'Cause I knew who you were," Rick answered.

"Back there I would have killed you as soon as I look at you," Morgan confessed, almost like he was afraid of who he was at that time, "and I tried. But you, you let me live and then I was there to help Daryl and Aaron. See if I-- if I wasn't there... if they died... maybe those wolves wouldn't have been able to come back here," he pursed his lips together, very clearly frustrated and confused by his own logic and thoughts. "I don't know what's right anymore. 'Cause I did want to kill those men. I seen what they did, what they would've kept doing. I knew I could end it. But I also know that people can change. 'Cause everyone sitting here has. All life is precious. And that idea-- that idea changed me. It brought me back and it keeps me living."

My brain bounced back and forth as Morgan spoke, how different he viewed the world from me, from us. I use to think that way, I use to live that way. But now, living amongst the dead I can't remember the last time I viewed all life to be precious. I couldn't imagine encountering the Governor again and not wanting to kill him for what he had done to us. I couldn't imagine walking into that church and not putting a bullet in every one of those men's skulls all over again. And then, for the very first time, I felt scared of those thoughts, the fact that I wouldn't hesitate to do it all again. Morgan was right, we have changed, but not in the way he would have hoped.

"I don't think having that choice could be that easy," I said.

"It's not easy," he snapped.

"That's not what I was saying--"

"I-- I know," he then calmed down, realizing I was not attacking him. "And I've thought about letting that idea go. But I don't want to."

"You may have to," Michonne finally spoke up, her voice calm and easy. "Things aren't as simple as four words. I don't think they ever were."

"Do you think I don't belong here?" Morgan then looked back at Rick.

"Making it now, do you really think you can do that without getting blood on your hands?"

Morgan shook his head, "I don't know."

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I slept alone last night. Daryl, Sasha, Abraham, Glenn, and now Enid were all still out there. I tossed and turned with the lullaby of walker groans and hissing growing louder from outside the walls. We needed them back, our only hope was for the three of them to get the attention of the dead and drive them away from our walls. This place was a ticking time bomb and unfortunately, so was my head the longer it took for Daryl to return. They should have driven the twenty miles and back by nightfall yesterday, and the fact that there was still no sign of them only made the pit in my stomach grow larger.