Summary: Set in S2. What if Andrea had been able to take out those two walkers on her own? What if Andrea had never ran into Michonne? What if Merle had saved Andrea from a walker?
A/N: Merle never lost his hand when he got off the rooftop.
It was a beautiful day, as Merle Dixon walked through some woods alone. He was used to being alone and had been alone most of his life. That is, the days he wasn’t with his brother and wasn’t protecting his brother, Daryl, from their father.
He stopped, hearing a noise of someone struggling with someone or something. He could hear that one noise was unmistakably a walker. So, he followed the noise and entered a clearing where Andrea, whom he preferred to call Blondie, was keeping a walker from biting her whom was on top of her, while trying to grab her knife with her free hand. Knowing he couldn’t let anything happen to her, considering he cared about what happened to her, he used his foot to kick it off and then killed it with a knife through the head.
Andrea put her knife away and then looked up at someone that she thought she would never see again, much less be saved by.
“Merle?” she said, as everything continued to be blurry.
“It’s me, Blondie,” he assured her. Then, seeing that she looked sick but hadn’t been bitten, he knelt down by her and promised her, “Ol’ Merle will take care of you.”
A moment later, everything went black for her.
He gently picked her up in his arms and started walking, knowing he had seen a car he could hotwire about a mile back. Plus, Merle never broke his word to anyone. That, and he cared about her. It was how she was. She was like him. She was alone and an outcast, forced to become who she was to this day. He could only guess the one reason why she was who she was now. She had had a smart ass mouth on her the first time he had met her, but she hadn’t been all that tough like he saw she was now. And then he remembered that last time he had seen her, she had had a little sister named Amy. He figured that something had happened to her sister and that’s why she was so tough now. He had always admired her from the first moment he saw her.
When she woke up, she saw that she was in the passenger’s seat of a car, Merle driving. Then she remembered that Merle Dixon, out of all the people in the world that was left alive, had saved her life from a walker. Something she hadn’t expected from him.
He tossed her a water bottle, which landed lightly on her lap.
“Drink up. You’ll need your energy if we’re gonna be working together. Plus, you’re dehydrated. You need to get rehydrated. That’s the best I can do for you right now until we can find a pharmacy. You’re sick. What happened? How long have you been out there by yourself?” he said, getting right to the point.
She slowly took a sip of it, thankful, for once in her life, for Merle.
She looked at him, as she answered him.
“We got overrun by walkers at a farm we were staying at. I got separated from the group after I rescued Carol from some walkers. A couple of them followed me into some woods. Ever since that night, I’ve been out on my own. That was about six months ago. What happened to you? Where have you been?”
“I left to be on my own for a while. Then I headed back to go find my brother. I’m still looking. When you were last with them, was my brother alive? He okay?”
“Last time I was with them, Daryl was alive. Why didn’t you stay on that rooftop? We went back for you but you weren’t there.”
“I didn’t think anyone would be coming back for me, so I did what I could and I left. So, what happened? You’re not who you were a year ago the last time I saw you.”
“I lost Amy. We got overrun by walkers in the camp the night that they came back from looking for you. A walker bit her and she died. She came back and I had to shoot her. She was the only family I had left. Now she’s gone. After that, I had to become strong and live for Amy.”
“I’m sorry about your sister, Blondie, but I kind of like the new you.”
Andrea went back to slowly sipping the water and looking out the window at the road, as Merle continued to drive.
Once they found a pharmacy, he left her in the car while he went to get what he needed to take care of her. She needed her strength back and he could only play her knight in shining armor for so long. Though, he admitted that he didn’t mind being her knight in shining armor. It actually felt good to be saving someone else’s ass that wasn’t his brother’s.
A few minutes later, they were back on the road again.
Before dark settled, they had settled in a little white house.
As Andrea slept in a bedroom in a warm bed, Merle kept watch from inside, not wanting to let anything happen to either Andrea or himself.
A month later, after Andrea was no longer sick, they packed up their stuff and left in the car, aiming to find Daryl and the others. So, everyone lived as happily ever after as they could. After all, they were still in the middle of an apocalypse.
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