GIVEN TO FLY [Daryl Dixon]

PROLOGUE

She heard the gunshots ringing out from the hallway and thought the worst. Mercedes was in a patient's room to check on him while his visitor was there, and had been talking to the man while it happened. They'd become sort of friends in the time his friend had been in the hospital. She liked him.

"So, how's he doin', Doc?" Shane Walsh asked her, looking down at his friend, Sheriff's Deputy Rick Grimes.

"The same," she answered, looking down at the man's chart. He was in a coma, and there were no signs indicating that he was waking up anytime soon. "I'm really sorry, Officer Walsh. I wish I could do more."

"You're doing what you can, Doc. S'not your fault." He sighed as he looked at Rick's face. "Good news is, he's not getting any worse, right?"

"Right." She nodded her head, and that's when they heard the gunshots. Lots of them, all at once, from more than one gun. And the screams. They were almost more deafening than the gunshots.

Mercedes and Shane stared at each other wide eyed for a moment, before she ran to the door and peeked our into the hallway. The military was there, in the hospital, and they were- oh, fuck.

She tucked her head back into the room and held the door shut. "What is it? What's going on?" Shane asked.

"The military's here," she breathed. "They're. . . they're massacring everyone. Doctors, nurses, patients. . . they shot them all."

"Then we gotta go." Shane had a gun with him, but just the one, and against the military. . . their odds didn't look good. He started searching frantically around Rick for how to unhook him from all the machines. "C'mon, Doc, help me out here!"

"Shane," she said, trying to stop him. "Shane. Shane!" He finally stopped to look at her and she sighed, tears in her eyes. "You can't unhook him. The machines keep him alive while he's in the coma. If you unhook him, he'll die."

"He stays here, he'll die," he retorted, determined to get his friend out of there. When he couldn't figure it out, he looked more distressed than she'd ever seen him, and begged his friend to wake up. He didn't, he wouldn't, not for a long time, if ever.

Mercedes heard footsteps coming down the hall and started, pushing Shane down and huddling next to him beside the bed. Someone came in, lingered, and left after deciding the room was empty but for the man in the bed.

They stood back up, and Shane whispered to Rick for a while. Then, tears in his eyes, he told her, "we gotta go."

Her eyes widened and she shook her head at him. "I'm not going anywhere. I still have patients that need me. He," she said, pointing at Rick, "needs me."

"I heard 'em upstairs and down, Doc." He took her by her shoulders and looked her in the eyes. "Everybody's gone. But we're not. We're still here, right? So we gotta go."

"I can't- I can't leave him." Her voice broke as she choked on tears. "I can't just leave him here. How can you?"

"He's a vegetable. There's nothing we can do for him. But we don't know what's happening in the rest of the city. I gotta check on his wife and kid, they're my responsibility now."

"My daughter," she breathed, realizing that she had to leave, whether she wanted to or not.

"Then we have to go, right?" She finally nodded her head, and he moved to the door, gun in his hands. She took one last look at Rick before they left, tears running down her cheeks.

They moved into the hallway, and saw bodies everywhere. Everybody she knew, treated, talked to, worked with- gone. Her heart ached for them.

They went to go down the hallway, but a group of people turned the corner and started toward them. But no, they weren't people at all. "Shane," she said, getting his attention, "those people. . . they're. . . they're dead."