Pretty When I Cry

Stupid Boots and Merle Dixon

"There was a problem in Atlanta." Shane broke the news to Daryl, well, partially. Everyone watched from the side like they were waiting for him to blow up. A part of me wants to be mad after them for staring like he's a zoo animal, but another part of me is thinking the same thing as them.

He's gonna be pissed, and when he's pissed he's gonna start throwing things.

We're all silent while he looks around like he already has an idea of what's wrong. But he has no idea what actually happened. Not even close.

"He dead?" Is the only thing that Daryl said. My eyebrows raised and I crossed my arms as I stand next to Rick. I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Shane shakes his head. "We're not sure."

"He either is or he ain't!" This time Daryl raises his voice, and I take a step back off of instinct. He's never yelled at me before, and I don't want him to start now. If he's mad at Shane for just telling him, I can only imagine what he's gonna do whenever he finds out that I went with them, and I still didn't help Merle.

Rick steps up from beside me and I almost cringe as he speaks. "No easy way to say this, so I'll just say it."

"Who are you?" Daryl questions him. He doesn't look happy to see this new guy telling him about his brother. I wouldn't be either. "Rick Grimes."

"Rick Grimes. Ya got somethin' you wanna tell me?" Daryl mocks him, and if this were any other situation I would've laughed. But right now I'm too scared to even move.

"Your brother was a danger to us all. So I handcuffed him on a roof, hooked him to a piece of metal." I look down in shame. I can't imagine the pain Merle's in right now.

"He's still there." I see T-Dog walking up behind Daryl with a bunch of logs, and I know he feels the same way that I do right now. We both know we're about to suffer.

"Hold on. Lemme process this." Daryl pauses. "You're sayin' ya handcuffed my brother to a roof? And ya left him there?!" He yells loudly at Rick and I flinch. I think Daryl noticed because he glanced at me.

Rick only nodded. "Yeah."

Daryl starts breathing hard, and I already know what's about to happen. He throws the squirrels that he caught on his hunt toward Rick, but he ducks and it instead lands in front of my feet. I flinch back again, almost stepping on Glenn's shoes now.

Shane immediately tackles him, because apparently testosterone solves everything, and Daryl pulls out his hunting knife. My eyes widen and hurry closer to be next to T-Dog.

"Watch the knife!" I call out to Rick as Daryl tries to attack him again. He slashes and misses Rick. He's moving slow and reckless, the only thing fueling him right now is his anger.

Rick and Shane work together to detain him, and I feel my eyes start to sting. I feel so bad, not only because of what I didn't do for Merle, but because Daryl doesn't even know yet.

"Ya best let me go!" Daryl yells out. Shane drops him to the floor. "Choke holds illegal."

"You can file a complaint." Shane taunted him, and I scoffed and turned my head. "Come on man, we'll keep this up all day."

Rick gets down to Daryl's level and talks in a calm, steady voice. "I'd like to have a calm discussion on this topic. Do you think we can manage that?" He asks. Daryl nods, and Shane finally lets him go.