"How did it go, Governor?"
Watching The Governor walking over with a dark expression on his face, Caesar immediately came to him and asked with worry. His worries are not unfounded since this group they are facing today is larger and far more well equipped than the ones they had encountered before.
The Governor just threw him a glance and instead stared daggers towards Shane all the while saying. "Stand down and head back!"
He quietly boarded a nearby pick up truck while everyone scrambled into their own designated vehicles. Worry is visible on the faces of everyone as their leader's silence obviously does not bode well with them.
The twenty plus fighters of Woodbury soon slowly retreated, disappearing into their views.
The fighters in the prison side also came down from the towers while Otis remained on the tower to keep watch on the surrounding area. Everyone returned their weapons under Oscar and T-Dog's watch before dispersing to return to work.
While the people like Jack, Mary, Alex, Daryl, Glenn and Hershel who held minor and major roles in the community gathered around Rick and inquired what happened since they obviously saw that the discussion did not go well.
"How did it go?" Hershel asked right after arriving with the rest.
"I saw Merle hiding at the back like a coward. It's very unusual of him." Daryl added with a tinge of confusion mixed curiosity in his voice.
Rick looked at Daryl and let out a sigh before he started narrating about the discussion that took place between him and The Governor.
"...not only did he leave without saying a word, he actually had the audacity to show his face and even make false claims about my family being his." Rick sounded extremely annoyed at the end of his words while the rest of the people who knew the story behind it just glanced at each other in silence. Those who weren't in the know grew curious but they just remained silent and observed the people around them.
"..."
"He sounds like a crazy guy."
There was short silence before Oscar opened his mouth and shared his thoughts.
"I knew that guy couldn't be trusted ever since I saw him pointing his gun at Rick. It was only a suspicion when I stumbled onto him that day, but who could have thought he already had thoughts like that since his return. Now, his manic obsession has invited trouble to our doorsteps and you still did not believe me when I told you about it." Dale finally couldn't hold it in and started babbling and disparaging Shane's name in a spiteful manner.
Daryl looked at Rick's troubled expression then at Dale. "Wait, how come we're only hearing that now?"
"Because it was only suspicions, and Rick had more faith in his friend when I told him about what I saw that day." Dale shrugged his shoulders and threw an "I told you so" look towards Rick.
"Damn, I thought it was a coincidence that they encountered us here. So if I'm understanding everything so far, doesn't that mean he had been looking for this place when he returned and didn't find anyone on that farm where your group was before?" Alex thought of something and quickly shared it with the group.
The people around him glanced at each other and realized his words made sense.
Rick was looking at Daryl, the latter figured what that look meant and subtly shook his head.
'He couldn't have followed me. I always cover my tracks each time I meet them.' Daryl was confident that Shane couldn't have followed him here since he had been meeting them for quite awhile now.
'If he really was obsessing about Lori, then they would have been here far earlier if Shane managed to follow my tracks here.'
"The real issue is not really with Shane, but with Daryl's brother, Merle. We won't hesitate to shoot Shane if the situation calls for it, but Merle is different. Daryl is one of us and I think he's only his family." Mary wasn't interested in Rick's household affairs. She was more concerned about Merle who complicates things since he's Daryl's only family.
"Don't worry, I'll have a word with him later. I'll only need to push him a little more before I can convince him to come to our side." Daryl quickly responded to her words with no hesitation whatsoever. He made it sound so simple but the people who heard him had a different take on it.
"What do you mean to have a word with him later? Could it be..that you've actually been in contact with Merle all this time and you never bothered to at least tell us?" Dale was in disbelief and couldn't help but talk to Daryl in an authoritative tone.
The two of them never really got on the same page, so Daryl was annoyed when he used that tone on him. He grunted. "Well, I'm telling you now, aren't I?"
"Stop it."
Rick quickly raised his hand and came between them. "It wasn't Daryl's fault. We decided to keep it a secret. We encountered them during our third supply run and have been in contact with them since."
"Does Michael know this?" Hershel calmly calmly asked.
Rick shook his head. "Not yet, never really had the chance to tell him."
"Enough, all you need to know is that it wasn't out of selfish reasons that we kept it a secret. We did it because we know that some of you might not like the idea and obviously, we were right just from looking at the expressions on some of you. Look, if we told any of you, some of you would certainly get curious about it and would probably go looking for them during a supply run instead of doing what you're tasked to do. And let's say you encountered them while on the road, would you be able to cover your tracks as well as I do? Obviously no and would instead get us into more trouble because of your curiosity if they managed to track you back here." Daryl yelled in anger and frustration while whipping his hand at the air in front of him.
"We also knew about what kind of people they are since we accidentally encountered them doing one of their runs, and I'm telling you, they're not very friendly people from how they treated other survivors not associated with them. Their leader? He does not hesitate to kill, even a kid died under his hand. He's that ruthless. So after witnessing all that, we had to do something and that's when we encountered those two. We just didn't expect that they would come knocking on our doors first. I even had to act like I didn't know them just to not get those two in trouble." Rick couldn't help but let out a dry chuckle at the end of his words.
"So Merle had been feeding information to you? Why would he do that? He obviously does not like Rick after what happened between them. No offense but, isn't that too much of a stretch to trust his words? We don't even know if the information he's feeding you is even remotely true." T-Dog shared his thoughts and still couldn't shake the guilty feeling when he remembered what happened on that rooftop.
"Because I'm his brother and everything all checks out. I've already verified every information he gave us." Daryl surprisingly responded calmly.
It was Rick's turn to be surprised and turned his head towards him. "You already found out where they are?"
"Yeah and I actually had no plans on telling you until today. I wanted Michael to be the first one to hear it since I know you might do something drastic if you learn about this information." Then Daryl chuckled while looking at Rick's expression. "Come on, we all know that you're not the same old Rick we met at the quarry anymore. You've been wanting to kill Shane all this time, didn't you?"
Rick did not say anything and just stared at the ground with his mouth slightly open. The others on the other hand just glanced at each other and remained quiet since they're learning a lot of things today that they might not hear the second time.