AN: This is in a series of "shorts" that I'm doing for entertainment value as I rewatch some episodes. Some of them are interpretations/rewrites of scenes that are in each episode. Some are scenes that never happened but could have in "imagination land". They aren't meant to be taken seriously and they aren't meant to be mind-blowing fic. They're just for entertainment value and allowing me to stretch my proverbial writing muscles. If you find any enjoyment in them at all, then I'm glad. If you don't, I apologize for wasting your time. They're "shorts" or "drabbles" or whatever you want to call them so I'm not worrying with how long they are. Some will be shorter, some will be longer.

I own nothing from the Walking Dead.

I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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"People do things when they're afraid," Rick said, excusing her behavior as a way of accepting her apology.

Excusing her behavior.

She was sorry she held the gun in his face, mostly because it wasn't the kind of thing that she believed in doing, but she didn't feel like she was really wrong for what she'd done. She didn't exactly feel that she'd greatly overreacted. They really were likely to die now, in this store, because of his careless actions.

And she really didn't care for being excused, even if she'd asked for his acceptance of her apology.

"Not that it's entirely unjustified," Andrea added, reminding him of what he'd done to cause the outburst in the first place. "You did get us into this."

Rick raised his eyebrows at her. A smirk crossed his lips. He was amused that she'd reminded him of his guilt in the whole thing. She wasn't going to let him forget it. She could apologize for her actions, but that didn't mean he was off the hook and the whole thing was swept under the rug.

Rick hummed to himself.

"If I get us out, would that make up for it?" He asked.

Andrea felt a catch.

There was something different in his tone of voice. She'd heard it a million times before, though not in the same kind of circumstance. There was a hint of flirtation. A touch of challenge. If he were to save them from this—the very thing he'd caused, but he was putting that beside the point—would that make up for it?

Would she forgive him? Would they be able to start again?

It almost felt like it should be followed by a dinner invitation or something along the lines of it. It should be followed by some kind of statement that, should they survive this and should he play the role of the conquering hero, she should agree to let him take her out. She should agree to spend some time with him.

Or maybe it had just been a while and she was starting to get a little desperate. Maybe it had been long enough that she was imagining things—putting them where they didn't exist and where they didn't belong—because she wanted to hear that kind of thing again from someone besides Merle Dixon. Especially if that kind of thing came from a man like Rick. A man who, in the face of an almost certain brutal death could seem so collected.

He was wearing a wedding ring. He was searching for the pieces of his life that he'd lost his grip on. He wasn't looking for Andrea, he was looking for the woman that was wearing the other gold band. He was looking for his other half.

Unlike Andrea, he hadn't accepted that everyone was gone. He hadn't let go, himself.

Still, she couldn't quite stop herself. Whether it was entirely imagined or not, she felt like there was something there in his tone.

"No," she said, watching his features. They fell slightly. He looked disappointed. She was suggesting that she wasn't going to forgive him if he were to get them out of this. She wasn't going to let go of his earlier actions. She might have made up the meaning behind his tone, but she saw the look that crossed his face in the instant that she said the word. She didn't make that up. "But it would be a start," she added, still watching him closely.

He looked satisfied again. He nodded his head gently to himself.

She wasn't imagining it. She couldn't. She was too grounded to make all of it up.

Rick sucked in a breath and then he spoke again.

"Next time, though? Take the safety off," Rick said. Andrea looked at him in question. "Won't shoot otherwise." Andrea realized that he'd never felt in danger. He'd never felt in danger because he'd never been in danger. Her father had given her the gun for protection, but she'd never learned to properly use it. Rick knew, even when she was apologizing to him, that he'd never have come to harm from the firearm she'd held pointed at his face. "Is that your gun?" Rick asked, interrupting Andrea's thoughts over the fact that she'd made such a fool of herself.

"It was a gift. Why?" She asked. He came closer to her, reached his hand out, and took the gun for himself. He flicked the safety of the gun off and handed it back to her.

"Little red dot means it's ready to fire," Rick said. "You may have occasion to use it."

Andrea accepted the weapon back and looked at him. Her stomach churned over the whole situation. Outside the Dead were determined to break in—to tear them all to pieces. Inside she was standing near Rick and she still wasn't certain whether or not she'd misinterpreted his earlier words.

And the way he stared at her? Holding her with his eyes a moment before he turned back to check the progress of the living Dead that stirred just outside the door and tried to force their way inside? Andrea felt the troubling feeling again that made her wonder if they were just talking about the gun. It made her wonder if they were just talking about the precarious situation that they were in.

Or was Rick talking about something else too?

Could he sense something about her?

Could he practically see the walls she was desperately trying to put into place to protect herself from anything and anyone? After all—everyone was gone now. The only person she had left was her sister, Amy, and they'd never been as close as she'd heard that sisters often were. All of them, because she was sure she wasn't the only one, were afraid to even really get to know the people around them. Caring too much, at this point, could be fatal. It was only a matter of time before someone died.

It was only a matter of time before some cop came riding into town, guns blazing, and got them all caught in a department store to wait for death.

The gun wasn't the only thing in Andrea's life, right now, that was protected by a safety that she either didn't know how to disengage or was reluctant to do so.

And maybe Rick saw that.

As he walked away, though, turning his back to her long enough to assess the damage that the Dead were doing outside, Andrea wondered if she could learn to handle the safety she'd put on other things. And, even if she was getting away from herself, she wondered if Rick could be the one to teach her how to disengage it.