So my dear EnglishPoet18 has been missing Merle and what kind of friend would I be if I denied her that ;) This idea came to me and instead of working it into my other Merle story I decided to write this. See what one little Instagram picture does? Lol. Hope you enjoy doll this one is for you!

(Not) Meant To Be

"She recognized the strange happiness that came from loving something without knowing why you did, that strange happiness that was sometimes so big that it felt like sadness." - Maggie Stiefvater

Merle wasn't exactly sure where he was going all he knew was that the second his bike hit the highway there would be no turning back. He had spent three weeks on the road, stopping in no name towns along the way to no where, and had hoped that it would have cleared his mind. It was as if there was a black cloud of smoke following him trying to pull him back into the world of addiction but if he kept moving then it would never be able to catch up to him.

The sun had fallen below the tree line and the night air started biting at his skin. Merle could have kept going, even considered it for a brief second, but decided that it'd be better to stop for the night and start fresh in the morning. He glanced over at the blue signs on the side of the highway hoping to see some motel accommodations at the next exit only to see that the exit itself was under construction. The thought of riding the bike over the uneven pavement and kicked up gravel from the trucks had him passing the exit and taking the next.

He pulled into the town that was so small he was sure he could spit and hit the other side of it. The tear of acceleration tore through his motorcycle, echoing off the surrounding brick buildings. He noted where the gas station was to fill up in the morning before he left and the small mom and pop pizza joint that would have to make due for his dinner that night.

The motel wasn't anything fancy but as long as it had a bed and somewhere for him to take a piss he would take what he could get. The elderly woman behind the counter wrote his name down using precision penmanship in her guest book and counted the folded bills twice before tucking it away in the cash drawer. If it had been anyone but the old lady standing in front of him he would have lost his shit fifteen minutes ago. Instead he suppressed his growl of frustration as she handed him the room key.

"Room 16, it'll be just down on the end there and we have coffee and muffins set out between six and nine," she smiled so big that her cheeks pushed up her wire rimmed glasses.

Merle forced a smile and nodded, the little bell above the door chiming in his ear as he walked out of the office. There weren't more than four cars in the parking lot and all he could think about was the peaceful night sleep he'd get. Last week the room next to his had a screaming baby and he ended up leaving in the middle of the night. This room though had a bed with a wooden headboard, meager furniture placed strategically around trying to make it appear homey, and a small air conditioning unit that looked like it hadn't worked since the seventies.

He sat at the end of the bed and ran a tired hand over his face. He clicked the television on and flipped through the minimal channels before turning it back off, tossing the remote over to the chair. Now that he wasn't sitting on his bike he could feel everything he was trying to forget creeping back into his mind. He threw himself back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling fan as it spun around. Maybe this was a bad idea; he had just gotten out of jail and needed nothing more than to feel free. He wouldn't be able to run forever though eventually he'd have to go back to Georgia and back to that suffocating town.

"Fuck it," he muttered, pushing himself up from the bed and stuffing the room key into his pocket. There had to be a bar in this shit town where he could go find some chick to get him out of his own head. If not then he was going to find the closest liquor store.

As luck would have it a block over from the motel was a hole-in-the-wall bar that actually played music he could tolerate. Merle sat at the bar with the heel of his boots hooked on the rung of the stool and his forearms resting on the bar. He was perfectly content with the burn of the whiskey warming him from the inside. His eyes had swept around the bar trying to find someone he could fuck and nearly grimaced at the slim pickings. There was a tart over in a corner booth that would work if he didn't find something better but he was going to need more alcohol or a paper bag. For the time being he kept his gaze on the bottles of liquor lining the shelves wondering just how much he could drink with the amount of cash he had in his pocket.

"Southern Comfort and Sprite with no ice and a few crushed cherries at the bottom."

Merle felt the ice run through his veins at the sound of her voice and spun on his stool. Her auburn hair was shorter than he had ever seen it, her face still sprinkled with freckles, and stance still guarded. She leaned against a stool and tapped her fingers on the bar along with the beat of the music while she waited for her drink completely oblivious of him. "Lizzie."

He saw her whole body tense as she held in a breath and slowly turned so she was looking him straight on. She slightly shook her head, "No one calls me that anymore, Merle. It's Elizabeth."

"Elizabeth," he nodded, the name feeling wrong and foreign as if it belonged to a stranger.

The bartender placed her drink on top of a square black napkin and she flashed him a smile in appreciation. It made Merle frown at her automatic responses with no real fire burning behind her eyes. He pulled out the stool next to him and offered it to her. She hesitated and he let out a light chuckle, "I ain't goin' to bite ya."

"No you're bark always was worse than your bite," she blew out a breath of air and slid onto the stool. He expected to have some casual conversation, maybe catch up on what she had been up to these past few years, but she had other things on her mind. "You clean?"

The question caught him off guard but he raised his tumbler and sloshed the whiskey from side to side, "This is my only poison now." A smirk broke out across his face as he and motioned to her drink with a nod of his head, "I see some things ain't ever goin' to change still drinkin' that sweet shit."

She didn't answer and he thought back to all the times he bitched she was talking too much. What he wouldn't give right now to hear her go off on some tangent about something he knew nothing about. He thought about how her hands would wave around in front of her body, her head tilting to the side with every question, and how her forehead creased when she was thinking too hard. The quiet would have been welcomed back then but now it made him uncomfortable and wanting to fill the silence.

"What're you doin' in town? Long way from Georgia."

Elizabeth glanced over to him as if she forgot he was even sitting there. "Car is in the shop." At his raised eyebrow she sighed and continued. "Was coming home from visiting friends in New York and it started making some weird noise. Pulled off the first exit I could and here I am in this…" she waved her hand around in front of her. "This…shit hole until the mechanic can figure out how to get me back on the road." The smell of cigarettes and leather washed over her and she took a long sip from her drink. "Last place in the world I would have thought I'd run into you."

"I'm just full of surprises, darlin'," he winked and she just rolled her eyes. "What time does the shop open tomorrow? I'll head over with you and make sure they ain't going to dick you around because you're a woman."

"Don't worry about it," she shortly dismissed and Merle was sure he could feel the icicles in her voice piercing right through him.

"It'd be no trouble-" He started again but she cut him off with a heated glare.

"I don't need anything from you."

*Flashback*

Elizabeth had been working the night shift for the last three months at the hospital and it was putting a strain on their relationship. Merle worked while she slept and vise versa neither really getting to spend quality time with the other. She thought about putting in a request for the next available day position but the differential in pay was holding her back. She made a little over a dollar more an hour on night shift and if she ever wanted to move into a nicer place she'd have to save up.

The call came on her day off when she was out grocery shopping for the refrigerator that just didn't seem to stay full ever since Merle had been staying at her place. The sun shone brightly in the crystal blue sky and there wasn't a cloud in sight. Elizabeth had planned on lying out in the sun when she got home hoping to get some color back in her pale cheeks.

That was until her cell phone rang.

She could barely make out the words on the other end of the line through all the crying and though she didn't want to believe it she knew it was true. Her best friend of sixteen years had been found dead in her apartment from what seemed like a burglary attempt.

For the next couple of weeks she walked around feeling like a shell of the person she used to be. There was something at every turn that made her think of her best friend whether it be a song on the radio or even a random stop sign in the center of town. They had grown up here, made memories, fought and laughed, and in the blink of an eye she was gone. Elizabeth had stopped sleeping because the moment her eyes would close she'd only imagine her friend's dead body. She refused to eat and all she wanted was to crawl under a rock to hide from the world.

In reality as much as she wanted to disappear and melt into the shadows she needed someone who wouldn't let her. She needed that one person who would fight away the demons threatening to pull her under and help her breathe again. She needed him. It finally got to a point where she didn't care how pathetic she might sound she needed to ask for his help.

Merle was sprawled out on the couch with a permanent grin on his face, his eyes raking up and down her lean body. "Heya, sugar."

Her gaze fell on the prescription bottle on the table and a switched was flipped inside of her. The tears that rolled down her cheeks felt like razorblades as she snatched the bottle off the table and shook its contents. "I'm dying inside, Merle. Every fucking breath hurts and this? This is what you decide to do?!" In his drugged state of mind he slightly shrugged his shoulder and she threw the bottle at him. "You need to choose. Right now. It's me or the pills."

*Present*

"I know I let ya down," he muttered. He knew the dick he could be when he was high on the drug of choice for that week. At first he didn't think she heard him but then he saw her shake her head.

"You didn't let me down you showed me the asshole everyone warned me about." She should have known better and blamed her naivety at the time. When a boy was raised on the edge of the devil's backbone he was sure to be fighting demons for the rest of his life.

"I ain't that guy anymore…haven't been for some time now."

She wanted to tell him the truth about how she felt. She wanted to tell him that she had never met anyone else that made her heart skip a beat just by the way her name rolled off his tongue with such ease. She wanted to tell him that she was afraid of holding on too tightly only to end up a shattered mess, again. Elizabeth could tell he had been clean for awhile once she really looked at him but she worried how long that would actually last. Would it be a matter of days? Would it be months from now when she had let down all the walls she had built? It would be too easy to fall back into a whirlwind relationship with Merle Dixon but sometimes the right decisions were the hardest ones to make.

There was a point in time that she would have given him the world at a drop of the hat. She wanted their story to start with a 'Once upon a time' and end with them happily ever after but that had changed. She had changed. The woman who once cared too much no longer cared about anything at all. It was better that way, an uncomplicated way, to protect her heart from the nails she was sure shot right through her soul last time.

Elizabeth ran her finger along the rim of her glass for a few seconds before she finally lifted her gaze to meet Merle's. "We're not good for each other, Dixon, and you're a fool if you think otherwise."

"We ain't good for anyone else," came his reply without hesitation or anger only truth. She broke their eye contact and motioned for the bartender to refill her glass. The tattooed man mixed her another drink and looked to Merle who nodded silently agreeing that he needed the courage the liquid was bringing him.

There weren't many things in this malevolent world that he truly believed in. He didn't understand how a God could let so many good people be put through a meat grinder. People like him and his brother who were simply born into the wrong family leaving them with years of torturous nights. He could recite a few random verses from the bible that had stuck with him from when he was locked up but it didn't necessarily mean he believed. Fate had a way of stepping in though bringing his Lizzie through the door of the bar and back into his life.

Merle let his hand rest on her knee and could feel her tense at his touch. She was trying so hard to not let him back in but he wasn't going to give up that easily. He wanted to correct all the shit he had messed up when he was being selfish and Lizzie was on the top of that list. No matter how much she tensed or kept her face void of emotion she also didn't tell him to stop either. It was going to be one brick at a time but Merle was going to break down that wall. He owed her that much. He started by just gliding his thumb back and forth and after a few minutes he could feel her muscles loosening.

Elizabeth kept her gaze trained on the cabinets behind the bar as she felt Merle's hand on her knee. Part of her wanted to rip her leg away from him and slap him across the face for thinking he was going to get in her pants so easily after the damage he caused the last time his tornado touched down. Another part though was curious on how far he would go. Had he finally become the man she needed him to be? She could feel her defenses falling and it terrified her. This could just all be the calm before the storm.

With his free hand he took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and pulled one out using his teeth not wanting to lose the physical contact with her. The second he lit it and smoke billowed around them she closed her eyes and apologized to herself for what she was about to do. She finished her drink before shifting on her stool so that she was facing him. From the unexpected movement Merle's hand had slid up her leg until his pinky had brushed against her most sensitive area.

There was a flash of desire in her eyes and she took the cigarette out of his mouth setting it in the ashtray on the bar. "Elizabeth?"

"Shh," she hushed him putting her finger up to his lips. "Don't speak."

If she was going to do this she didn't want the chance of his words messing it up. Elizabeth steadied herself by placing her hands on his thighs as she slowly leaned into him until she could feel his breath against her lips. The kiss was slow and gentle both figuring out if they could do this after so many years but when Merle moved her into his lap it became more forceful. Two more bricks fell from the wall as Elizabeth wrapped her arms around his neck, anchoring herself to him.

They broke apart long enough to catch their breaths and Merle wanted to make sure this was what she really wanted. "Lizzie…"

"Oh shut up!" She groaned, resting her forehead against his chest, not bothering to correct the nickname. "Damn, Dixon, and you say I talk too much."

"Fuckin' motor mouth if I'm remembering right."

Elizabeth felt the light behind her wall fighting to come out and she quirked her head to the side as looked up at him through her lashes, "And here I thought you liked my mouth."

Merle smirked as he stood from the stool with his arm still around her back forcing her to wrap her legs around his waist. He used he free hand to slap a few bills on the bar before catching her bottom lip between his teeth.

X-X-X

He dropped her unceremoniously on the bed and while he worked on getting his belt off she shed her clothes. His eyes never once left her body, scanning over every inch remembering the places he had bruised and marked as his own. They were long since faded leaving her snow white skin clear of any claim but he knew where they used to be, where they were going to be once again once he was done with her.

Merle tugged his shirt over his head and when his eyes landed on her again his dick jumped. She was leaning against the headboard with her legs spread and a finger sliding between her slick folds while her other hand massaged her breast. He growled as he grabbed her ankles and yanked her towards him causing her to yelp in surprise. When he got close enough she ran her finger along his lips coating him with her juices. He groaned at the sweet smell invading his senses and she wrapped her hand around his shaft, pumping him a few times before adding her lips. "Shit, Lizzie."

He hated that she didn't have her long ponytail to hold onto anymore but he threaded his fingers through her short locks and guided her to the right pace. It had been a long few years in jail and when she started to massage his balls he had to clear his mind so he wouldn't cum so quickly. She could feel him throbbing against her tongue and pulled back with small pop. He was on her in a second, pinning her to the bed and nipping at her collarbone. His short stubble raked against her skin as he nipped and licked his way down to her hip where he sunk his teeth into her reclaiming his territory.

Elizabeth wrapped her legs around him and tried to flip him onto his back but her attempts were useless. His chest rumbled with a chuckle as he rolled onto his back and pulled her on top of him. She positioned herself over his dick and rocked her hips teasing him. She rotated them three more times before his hands had her hips in a vice like grip and he slammed into her. She moaned at his size as he growled again savoring how tight she still was.

She braced herself on his chest as she started riding him, her fingernails digging into his skin. As her breaths began to come out in short pants he reached back and cracked her on the ass giving her that extra boost she needed. He couldn't take it anymore and grabbed her hips, thrusting into her, taking control as he felt her getting ready to tighten around him. Their eyes met and the foundation of her wall crumbled sending her into an orgasm with him following a few short moments after. She collapsed on top of him completely spent and out of breath as his heart thumped hard in her ear.

"You're mine, Lizzie," he whispered, lazily tracing designs on her hip with his finger.

It was then she realized the love that could exist between two broken souls and that just maybe when they were together they weren't so fragile. Elizabeth knew they might not end up with a happily ever after but life was too short to spend it with anyone besides who made your heart sing.