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GRIEF HAD A wild way of materialising. With five aggregate stages, one has to not only endure the unbearable loss, but undergo a procession of agonising emotions, so suddenly, just to feel only half fine. For most, grief will ostracise them wholly from loved ones; numbing all candor to the world. It had been like that for Daryl. Seeing Merle as a walker had numbed his body, paralysing each last muscle down to the very fibres that assembled his body. Merle was his only role model when growing up, despite how awful of an influence he truly had been. Merle was the reason Daryl made it.
Ellie and Daryl, finally, returned to the prison in the early hours of the morning, roaming silently into the prison, hand in hand. Many of the group members that had been awake enveloped them, but neither had a remote interest in any discussion. They headed instinctively to the perch together, mirroring their relationship prior to its destruction, leaving many of the group baffled at their behaviour. Rick's squinted eyes remained sewed on the two as he identified how lifeless Ellie's eyes appeared to be; how different they were since the last time he had seen her the day prior. Their trauma hadn't been apparent to anyone but River.
"Ellie," River called out gently upon their arrival at the perch, reaching out slowly to clutch her sister's arm, "what happened?"
"I'll explain tomorrow, okay?" Ellie whimpered, her eyes pooling with hot tears once again as the events replayed over in her mind deafeningly.
"Mi dispiace," River whispered as she promptly gave her sister's arm a squeeze, before allowing her to continue to the perch alone with Daryl, "I'm supposed to tell you that we're packing our shit and leaving for the night, sorella."
Ellie couldn't discuss the matter at hand, no matter how hard she tried to. Even if she wanted words to make sound, it was as though her voice box was exhausted. All that she was able to do was nod. Once River had left, neither one hesitated to sink down onto their backs, permitting the softness of the mattress to drink them whole as they slowly shut their eyes in unison. All they needed was some silence. Daryl was blindly entering his grief cycle, unbeknownst to him the first stage was the most brutal of all. Denial.
"He can't be dead," he whispered, not bothering to wipe away the tears that dripped down his face from his elevated angle, "Merle can't die."
Ellie sighed as she pushed her body closer to his, and hesitantly folded him into a soft embrace, "Nothing could kill Merle, but Merle."
"The Governor couldn't have killed him," Daryl growled as the image of the Governor slaughtering his brother simply played on repeat in his mind, "He ain't dead..."
"I won't let him get away with this, I promise you," Ellie asserted, her teeth gritted viciously as the pain of losing Merle really had affected Ellie, too, "I'm going to kill him... not before I make him suffer, first."
"We both will," Daryl whispered once again, before, finally, his sobs ceased, forming rapidly into rage as his chest surged and collapsed quicker than ever, "This ain't enough!"
