Merle was a stranger to feeling shy. He couldn't remember a single moment in his life where the feeling had ever made itself known. Sure, he had seen Daryl's shyness his entire life, but witnessing it and experiencing it were two completely different things. Merle, intentionally, exuded confidence and an ego the size of Georgia. This, this was something completely new. And he wasn't sure he liked the feeling. He handed her the list he made her and ignored the shyness bubbling up inside of him.

He had wanted to show her that he cared, that he knew the lists were a part of her. He wanted to show her that even if she kept making them, he would be okay with that.

He focused on the woods around them, pointedly not watching her.

"Merle?" She asked.

He took a deep breath before he looked into her blue eyes. "Yeah, suga?"

She hesitated, "Thank you. This means a lot to me."

His eyebrows rose, "Ya don't gotta thank me."

"I was so scared when I realized I gave ya that. I never meant for you to see that. Or, anyone for that matter. The fact ya didn't laugh an' ya cared enough to show me…it means a lot to me," She admitted.

"I figured ya didn't. Look, ya ain't gotta be scared to tell me anything." He swallowed past the lump in his throat. He was surprised when she leaned in and hugged him, her arms tight around his waist. He put his own arms around and let his chin rest on the top of her head. He relaxed, surprised with how right it seemed. "I wasn't the nicest or most carin', before, to you, about all of this an' I never meant to hurt your feelings or make you feel bad."

Instead of speaking, she instead just hugged him a little tighter and nuzzled her nose into his chest.

After an undetermined amount of time, he asked a question that had been bugging him for a long while. "Why would I need fuzzy socks?"

She lifted her head and looked Merle straight in the eyes. Her voice held no tone of teasing, only seriousness. "Everyone needs fuzzy socks."

His face must have shown the confusion he felt with her statement. He couldn't imagine a need for fuzzy sucks. "They're warm and fuzzy and soft. It's like your feet are in heaven."

"That so?" He asked and kissed her forehead.

She nodded and began to grin. It reminded him of the purple cat from Alice in Wonderland. The Cheshire Cat. He had liked that cartoon a lot when he tripped on acid.

"I think you'd look good in purple ones."

He damn near choked on his saliva and his eyes widened dramatically. He forced himself to take a deep breath. Then he rolled his eyes so hard he gave himself a headache. "You ain't catching me dead in no damn purple fuzzy socks."

She giggled, "That's okay, I can picture it easily enough. They're a lightish purple and like, kinda ratty, 'cause you've worn them a lot."

He knew exactly where they were going and had a plan for clearing the building. It was simple. She stayed the hell outside and out of sight until he gave her the all clear. He knew better than anyone what she's capable of. But the thought of her in a building potentially full of the dead, in a way riskier situation, gave him the chills. Too much could go wrong and something inside him screamed to keep her as far from danger as possible.

He expected it when Beth told him to, "Fuck off" and that she could "handle her own."

He insisted that she stay out of harms way or else he would turn them the fuck around and go home empty handed.

She glared daggers at him at him as he walked away and entered the building on his own. He could feel the glare even once he was inside. He couldn't find it within himself to care.

He easily cleared the building and double checked it before returning to the angry blonde. He stopped outside in time to see her putting a knife into the ear canal of a rotter. A sense of pride washed over him as she pulled the knife out and wiped it clean on the corpses tattered clothing. Merle leaned against the side of the building and waited for her to finish and notice him. When she did, he simply asked if she was ready and headed back into the building.

He waited for her just inside the door.

"Why exactly are we at a toy store, of all places?" She asked, as she glanced around the room.

"To get what I need, and I figured there might be some good stuff here for the youngin's."

Beth nodded as if that was the most normal thing on the face of the earth. As if it wasn't the exact opposite of everything anyone had ever said about him.

"Will you tell me about your life before?" She looked over at him, an almost wary expression on her face.

"It ain't sunshine and daisies, I'm not real sure it's anything you want to be hearing." He attempted to hide the wariness that he felt from showing on his face.

"I mean, I know a little about your past. I've known Daryl a long time. I've seen his scars. If you don't want to tell me, that's okay. We all have our own burdens and histories." She shrugged. Beth's body was relaxed, and she faced towards him. He had to fight to resist the urge to lash out.

"I'll make you a deal, girly. We get what we need out of here an' as we work, I'll tell you about my past. How's that sound?"

Beth nodded and smiled, silently agreeing. She didn't speak but grabbed a cart that sat abandoned nearby and began to walk down the aisles, looking at the items displayed. Merle did the same, grabbing a cart of his own. He however, started on the other side of the store. He made his way through a couple of aisles before he began to talk in a quiet voice that could just barely be heard from where she walked.

"I've always been a bit o' a troublemaker, in all honesty. It wasn't till Daryl was born that I really started getting myself into trouble, though." He thought back to all those years ago when his ma and pa brought the baby home. "I realized not longer after my ma told me that she was pregnant that things weren't gonna get any better 'round there. My pa was always beatin' on her an' me. He didn't hit her much when she was pregnant. He saved most of it for me. He was a no-good drunk. I hated him. I still do, I suppose."

He glanced away from the shelves and over towards her. He didn't miss the way she had her head cocked to the side, like she was listening intently to every word he said, even as she kept her eyes on what she was doing.

"When they brought Darylina home, I knew I wouldn't let him go without if I could help it. I was too young for any sort of job, an' shit, I had no clue on how to take care of no baby, but damn if I didn't try. I started selling drugs to get money for formula an' all the shit a baby needs. It landed me in juvie more than once. Mostly, I had acquaintances, not friends. But those acquaintances knew I wasn't fucking around. I made sure if I was locked up that they'd take my cut an' deliver what the boy needed to my place, discreetly. Ma was drinkin' too. She didn't have a spine, but she did her best to take care of him with what I brought home. Daryl got older an' he was stuck to my side like glue. It didn't bother me none. It meant he wasn't at home in that shitty trailer that was falling around us, it meant he wasn't gonna end up being used as our pa's punching bag like ma an' me."

"That didn't save him though, did it?" She whispered.

He felt defensive momentarily before he bit down on the anger that surged up. He realized instantly that there was no bite to her tone. No judgement there. "No, it didn't." He agreed.

Their eyes met from across the store and she nodded once in acknowledgement.

"I didn't know. Not till I saw the scars on his back as a grown ass man. Scars he hid from me an' everyone else. If that fucker wasn't already dead I'd hunt him down an' kill him. Slow an' painful for what he did to Little Brotha."

"Did he die before the dead started walking?"

"Yeah. Supposedly some sort o' hunting accident in the woods surrounding his trailer. If ya ask me, it wasn't an accident. He probably owed someone a debt an' wasn't paying up. Whatever the case, I'm glad the bastard ain't around anymore."

Merle returned his focus onto the shelves in front of him, his mind wandered away from the tragedies of his past momentarily as he took in the sight of why they were in the toy store, in the first place. Fidget spinners. He realized that it was probably silly, but he figured maybe if she had something in her hands it would help her to distract herself from writing the lists. Rid one habit but replace it with something else. He assumed it might work. He's seen enough ex-smokers do the same thing. They'd exchange the cancer sticks for something like a straw to chew on or hold in their fingers, cut down to the same length as a smoke, or sunflower seeds to fill the void that comes with giving up on a big bad habit.

He looked at the huge selection of different spinners and fidget cubes and grabbed a few different styles of both. The fidget spinners were interesting, to say the least. One he picked up was a heavier metal, with money symbols etched into it. Another was gold and black, with Batman symbols. Another with blue and red, with Superman symbols on it. The fidget cubes came in different two-tone color groupings. They didn't have as much variety. Merle intentionally grabbed several different weighted spinners, considering that her hands are vastly smaller than his own.

After finding the ones he would take back with them he pulled the backpack from his shoulders and quickly placed them inside one of the smaller pockets. He wanted to show them to her later.

"Ya find anything you think them little ones will like?" He called out to her.

She laughed. "Oh yeah. Board games for days. There's a few here that I used to play with Maggie an' Shawn when we were kids. Don't laugh, but there's a version of Monopoly here that I think the whole group would enjoy playing, that I really wanted."

"They got more than one game o' Monopoly?" He asked, surprised.

Even from a distance he could see her eyes widen dramatically. "You didn't know that? C'mere," She waved her hands dramatically.

Merle tried and failed to resist a grin at her theatrics. It briefly reminded him of the fact that she's still so young, but he quickly forced the thought out of his head. Young isn't necessarily a bad thing.

He pushed his cart over to her and looked at the shelf filled with boxes in front of her. His own eyes widened as he took in over 20 different versions of the classic game.

"Look, theres Cheaters monopoly, which is the one I'm actually excited about. There's Ultimate Banking Edition, Empire, Junior, Mega, Pokemon, Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, U-Build, Here and Now, World and US editions. There are so many different ones. Oh look! They have the Millenials version here."

"Sounds like a bunch o' geeks got together an' had a hay day." He chuckled. She bumped his arm with her elbow but giggled, nonetheless. "Ya gonna grab some o' them an' bring them with us?"

"Hell yeah!" She blushed as the slight swear fell from her lips.

"Ya kiss yer daddy with that mouth?" He felt relaxed in a strange way, that he hadn't ever felt before. He was still on high alert, sure, but his soul felt relaxed, as he joked and teased Beth.

"Yup," She popped the 'p', "But I think you an' Daryl are rubbing off on me. Pretty soon I'll be swearin' like y'all do, and lord help us all if my daddy hears some of those come out of my mouth."

"Ya jus' keep them sweet little swears between you an' me, then. It can be our dirty little secret, Suga," His mind jumped to a vision of the two of them alone in a room, no space in between their bodies as he kissed her and touched her, laying close together on a bed, one of her legs thrown over his as the kept their bodies as close to each other as they could.

A blush bloomed on her cheeks as she smiled at him lazily. He didn't miss the fact that her eyes appeared to be half hooded.

He took a step closer to her and placed his hand on her elbow. The blush deepened but she lifted her eyes to his and tilted her head slightly as she licked her lips. His hand moved from her elbow, ghosting up her arm to rest against her rosy cheek. She leaned into the touch. He moved slowly, like he was approaching a skittish dog, before he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers in a tentative kiss. She kissed him back with out any hesitation. He pulled away, letting his forehead press against hers, as she took a shaky breath. After a few seconds he kissed her again, allowing the kiss to deepen and for her to lead it. One of her hands rested on his chest, above his heart. He felt the slight tremor in her fingers as her other hand went to the hair at the base of his neck.