Changing To Adapt ➵ TWD

➵ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ꜰɪꜰᴛʏ ᴛᴡᴏ

"Glenn!"

"Lucas?" Glenn appears from around the green Hyundai, limping over. "Thank god."

They move in sync and crash into each other, holding back at arm's length to take catalogue of their injuries. Glenn looks fucked up.

Lucas winces when his eyes land on Glenn's wrecked face, "I take back what I said before, I hate shopping."

"Dude, I told you to stay behind." Glenn breathes out, pulling away.

Lucas goes to retort, but a woman limps out from the protection of the car. He reacts on instinct, reaching for his gun only to remember it isn't there.

Glancing behind him, Glenn quickly shakes his head and holds an arm up to block him from moving any closer. "She's with us. She helped Rick get us out."

Shoulders visibly deflating, Lucas stares at her. 

She narrows her eyes back at his searching gaze, but doesn't do much else. It puts him at ease.

Multiple footsteps move through a patch of dry leaves behind them.

"Rick?" Glenn calls out, his eyes finding the man over Lucas's shoulder. His body slumps, "Finally."

Except Lucas drags him back when he tries to move forward and fights his confused stare with a guilty one. "You ain't gonna like this-"

"Glenn, we got a problem here," Rick says, holding out a placating hand. He's already stressed about Glenn's reaction, and he should be.

Because as soon as Glenn sees Merle, he's yanking his gun free and driving past Lucas, "What the hell is he doing here?!"

Michonne, apparently, has her own beef with Merle and unsheathes her katana to point it his way. A katana. "He tried to kill me!"

The noise goes from a two to a solid ten, Glenn and Maggie yelling at Merle, Daryl attempting to defend his brother, and Rick just trying to make sure nobody gets hurt in the process.

Overwhelmed by the jump in volume, Lucas backs away to watch it happen.

"He helped us get out!" Daryl defends, his hand placed up in front of Glenn's gun.

Even Rick, who stands in front of Merle, snaps back over his shoulder with; "yeah, right after he beat the shit outta you."

"Aye, we both took our licks man-"

Daryl briefly glances over his shoulder to spit at Merle, "Jackass."

"Hey, shut up!" Merle bites back, pressed against a tree.

Michonne tries to push forward, taking the opportunity of their tense silence to raise her blade. Maggie's gun is now pinned on her, "Hey, hey!" And Daryl stops Glenn again, with a harsh, "Get that thing outta my face!"

Merle, the fucking idiot, laughs. "Man, look like you've gone native, brother."

"No more than you hangin' out with that psycho back there." Daryl snaps back.

"Oh, yeah, man. He is a charmer, I got to tell you that. Been putting the wood t'your girlfriend Andrea. Big time, baby." Merle looks directly at the woman with the katana.

"What?" Glenn breathes out, eyes wide. "Andrea's in Woodbury?"

"Right next to the Governor. Knew his name." Lucas finally adds in. "She wouldn't come back with me."

Michonne moves to attack, again, only to be shut down by Rick. "I told you to drop that!" He stares down at her, his eyes hard. "You know Andrea?" Rick lowers his voice, "Hey, do you know Andrea?"

"Yep, she does. Her and blondie spent all winter cuddlin' up in the forest. Mm-mmm-mmm. Yeah. My Nubian queen here had two pet walkers. No arms, cut off the jaws, kept them in chains. Kind of ironic now that I think 'bout it."

That's. . . actually genius.

"Shut up, bro." Daryl grits out.

"Hey, man, we snagged 'em out of the woods. Andrea was close t'dying." Merle shrugs.

Lucas squints at the woman.

She helped Andrea when they couldn't. After they left her at the farm. Hell, he thinks they should be thanking this girl.

"Is that why she's with him?" Maggie asks, her breathing a little off.

"Yeah. Snug as two l'il bugs." Merle smiles, smugly, and looks at Rick. "So what you gonna do now, Sheriff, huh? Surrounded by a bunch of liars, murderers, thugs, and cowards."

Lucas doesn't miss the pointed look Merle sends him. And now he really wishes Glenn got his business done before Daryl stopped him.

"Shut up!" Rick tosses over his shoulder.

Merle straight up laughs, as if he's not staring into the face of his death, "Oh, man, look at this. Pathetic. All these guns and no bullets in them."

It's Daryl that turns around and gets in his face, "Merle, shut up!"

"Shut up yourself!" Merle moves forward, spit flying from his mouth, "Bunch of pussies you roll-"

Rick knocks him the fuck out. 

They watch him drop to the dirt in satisfaction. 

"Asshole." 

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Sorry for the late update! And sorry it's a bit short as well. The next one should be up sooner because I've been editing a lot.