I'm excited! I started writing in February of this year and as of right now I have a little over 1,000,000 words archived on this site! XD

Anyway, I liked this chapter a lot because it hopefully helps you understand Merle a little better. That was my intent anyway. I have a lot to do this week so it will be quite a few days before I update again. I have to repaint my kitchen and a few others rooms and that is going to be a task, trust me. So, I hope you enjoy this one and, as always, thank you all for reading and reviewing! =)

Toy Soldier

Through the small windows set into the walls at each end of the attic Carol could tell that it was barely dawn. She stretched out like a cat and then rolled over onto her side, facing the sleeping man next to her. He was sprawled out on his stomach, arms shoved under the pillows and, to her surprise, a small smile threatening at the corners of his mouth. He didn't look intimidating in the least. There were a lot of words she would use to describe him. Sexy, mysterious, complicated, gorgeous and insatiable being a few. But right now she had to say that he just looked... adorable.

This thought, and the reaction she knew he would have to being called something like that, had her grinning.

She rolled back over and raised up on her elbows. She didn't know where the dress had gotten too now. After last night, out by the pond, she was pretty sure that the only thing that was going to happen once they made it to the attic was sleep. They had made it all the way up but didn't quite make it to the makeshift bed before clothes were coming off once more. It was outlandish, a woman her age carrying on like that. But he opened up many new doors that she had never explored before, and she was ready and willing to explore them to the fullest. For a man that was as reserved as he had been the whole time she had known him in that other world, he was certainly up for anything when it came to the two of them.

But now it was time to get down to business. They had a lot to do and a short amount of time to do it in and play time was over. They technically weren't even suppose to be here. This wasn't theirs just yet. Today was the day that everything was suppose to be finalized. It had gone much faster than she had thought it would. The family that had inherited the place was more than eager to sell it and since she had such a large down payment to hand over, the process went amazingly smooth.

She spotted her dress a few feet away. Her underwear was still somewhere by the pond, along with his shirt and both their shoes. She eased over slowly, reaching for the dress but she didn't get very far. A strong arm went around her and jerked her backwards, causing her back to slam into a hard chest.

"Where the hell you goin'?" he muttered sleepily into her neck.

She swallowed hard, unable to ignore the fact that certain parts of him were a lot more awake than others. "We have to get a move on. There's a lot to do today," she whispered.

He groaned unhappily but loosened his grip on her. "That's the damn truth."

She laughed and reached for the dress again. She had thought of almost everything last night. Everything but a change of clothes. She hurried into the dress and then stood there, looking down at him with her hands on her hips. "That means you need to actually get up, Daryl."

He cracked one eye open and then shook his head stubbornly.

"You're acting like a child. Even Sophia gets her butt out of bed when I tell her too."

"Sophia ain't got nobody keepin' her up all night either."

Carol felt the heat rise in her cheeks. It was true, sure, but he hadn't objected so it was his fault too. She was pretty sure he had been the one that initiated it the second time. Maybe. "We have to get up," She nudged his foot with her own. "I'll just leave without you then," she threatened, knowing full well that she was bluffing.

He groaned and raised up, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. His hair was sticking up at odd angles and the scowl on his face had her grinning from ear to ear. "You're the goddamn devil, ya know that? We coulda slept in for a little while."

"Not really. This house isn't ours yet. As of right now, me and you are trespassing."

He scooted down to the edge of the bed and grabbed his jeans but didn't make a move to put them on. He was frowning. "Seems to me like since we done broke the law that it shouldn't matter now."

"I don't remember you being this crabby in the mornings during all those months," she nudged his leg this time and cried out when he grabbed her by the leg and pulled hard. She fell right on top of him as he laid back down. He had an arm around her waist and there wasn't any breaking the hold no matter how hard she struggled. It didn't help that she wasted a lot of energy laughing at that smirk on his face. She laughed, sure, but she also marveled in his change. This wasn't either man she had known but a perfect mix of the two.

"Keep squirmin' and we really ain't leavin' yet," he said in a low voice that had her going still. All the teasing was gone, replaced by a dark gaze that had her ready to give up the fight and spend the rest of the day up in the attic with him.

All she wanted to do was slip the blanket the rest of the way down his hips and there wouldn't be anything separating them at all. The dress was hiked up and she figured by now some duck was probably wearing a provocative pair of panties as a necklace. But they had too much to do for any of that. With more than a pang of regret she eased herself off of him. His eyes went wide.

"Are you serious?" he asked, like he was a man that had never been turned down in his life. He blew out a frustrated breath and sat back up when she put her hands on her hips and tried to give him a severe look. "We have to clean up out there and then get back home. I have to meet with Doug and we need to go talk to Rick and Lori. I think you should call your brother."

He groaned and then threw off the blanket, yanking his pants up and over his hips. "You call him. I'm done tryin'."

He stood up and then tried to dodge her attempts to smooth his hair back down. She didn't want to talk to Merle. Merle was stubborn and he wasn't ready to believe a damn thing she had to say. But every time she had tried to talk to him Daryl had been with her. He had been civil to her the one time she had talked to him alone. As civil as Merle could be, anyway. Maybe if she could just get him alone she could get him to listen to reason. While they were at the prison they had managed to become, for lack of a better word, close. She was pretty sure that was only because Merle respected her because he knew that when it came to Daryl, there was nothing she wouldn't do to protect him. That was important to a man like Merle, who had the same dedication to his brother.

It was almost comical that the strongest person in their group would have two people constantly willing to put his life above theirs. Her and Merle were two people that would gladly die for Daryl, even though Daryl was the last person that needed it. She could use that. The reason he hated her now was because he thought that she was out to hurt his brother. All she had to do was worm her way into the cracks in the man's armor. She needed time to talk to him. She needed him to understand that she would rather die than ever hurt Daryl. Merle was cold and he was cruel and pretty much ruthless but one thing was true. He loved his brother. He had a funny way of showing it, sure. But it was the truth.

"What the fuck are you thinkin'?" Daryl asked once his boots were on. He was looking at her with narrowed eyes.

"You're right. I'm going to talk to Merle," she said, a hint of excitement coloring her words.

He was in front of her before she could even blink, his face angry. "The hell you are!"

She crossed her arms over her chest. "Yeah, I am."

He growled and then stomped off towards the stairs. "We ain't even gonna fight about this. You ain't goin' anywhere near Merle. Not alone."

She laughed, causing him to stop in his tracks and turn around. She shook her head. "You don't control me."

He glared at her but then his face cleared and he nodded. This had her instantly suspicious. "You're right. I don't control you. Talk to him all you want. Just don't threaten to slit his throat in his sleep. You gotta remember which Merle this is." With that he turned around and disappeared down the stairs, the new bow slung over his shoulder. She stood there staring after him, stunned.

She headed down the stairs herself but he hadn't waited for her. She didn't catch up with him until she made her way to the pond. He had given up to easily and she didn't trust him at the moment.

"Daryl?" she asked in a tentative tone as he balled up the blanket and shoved it under his arm. He had found his shirt and slipped it on already.

He looked up, smirked and then flicked her panties at her like he would a rubber band. She snatched them out of the air right before they hit her in the face and then shoved them into her bag blushing furiously. She studied him quizzically, tilting her head to the side.

"What?" he asked after he shoved the empty beer bottles into the cooler and then picked it up.

"It's hard to explain," she said vaguely and then turned to lead him back to the house after snatching her shoes up off the ground.

He caught up with her easily despite the fact that his arms were full and all she carried was her bag and her shoes. "What's that suppose to mean?" he asked.

She shrugged. "You're different."

"What the hell you mean, I'm different?"

She chose her words carefully. "I was expecting one or the other, I suppose. The man I met at the quarry or the man I left at the prison. You aren't either."

He stopped in his tracks, his eyes growing harder as they met hers. "What's that suppose to mean?" he repeated but now his voice was as hard as his eyes.

She shook her head, taking in his features. "Different circumstances change people in different ways, Daryl. The same goes for me if you really think about it. I'm not the woman you met at the quarry and I'm not the woman you had to let go of at the prison. I'm different. We both are. As much as we've been through, we get to..."

He frowned and studied her just as intently as she studied him. "Get to what?"

She smiled. "It's almost like..." she struggled for the words to articulate what she was feeling. "It's almost like we have to figure each other out again. Like we're not those people at all really. We're... different."

"How?"

She laughed then and was relieved to see the corner of his mouth turn up. "The man I met at the quarry wouldn't have ever hit me in the face with my own underwear. The man at the prison would have probably ran from them. And neither man would have tried to con me into having sex all morning instead of getting right down to work. You're different."

He groaned and she was delighted at the redness making its way up his face. "I wouldn't have ran from'em. And if I'd tried a little harder we wouldn't be talkin' right now, that's for sure."

They started walking again, both lost in thought now.

~H~

After everything was loaded up Daryl stood next to his truck, looking in at the bow that sat there propped up against the back of the seat. She came out of the house and made her way towards him with a smile on her face. She was going to talk to that realtor guy and he was going to go hit up a few places for more weapons and then they were going to find someone to hire to build a twelve foot high block wall to surround sixteen acres. That should be fun.

She reached up and kissed his cheek, still smiling. "You should see if Dale will come over tonight. Maybe seeing us together again will stir some memories for him or something. Maybe I can invite Amy over. You know how close her and Andrea were to him."

He nodded and then caught her around the waist before she could even turn around to walk to her car. "Be careful," he said, his eyes meeting hers and holding them.

She smiled and nodded and then her hand was on the side of his face. He had the overwhelming urge to kiss her palm but he opted for her lips instead. It was less cheesy in his book. She melted against him, sliding her hand around to the back of his neck. They stayed like that for much longer than necessary. He got it then. He understood what she was saying earlier and it actually made him relieved.

He wasn't the guy from the quarry and he wasn't the guy from the prison. He didn't have to be either and she didn't expect him too. The same went for her. She wasn't either woman. She was different. In this world she was someone else altogether. And she was his.

He finally pushed her away gently. "You're the one rushin' me all mornin'. Get your ass movin'." She backed up a few steps, a dazed look on her face as he turned his back on her and walked around the side the side of the truck. When he looked back she was already pulling away. He followed her until they split up once they hit the city limits. He was grinning when he stopped outside of the pawn shop.

~H~

Merle splashed his face with cold water several times before he finally looked at himself in the mirror. His hands were shaking and his eyes were wild. He looked like he had just blown through five grams by himself.

"Pull yourself together mother fucker," he rasped as he tried to catch his breath.

He stumbled out of the bathroom and made his way to the kitchen but there wasn't any drugs left. He had decimated his stash of everything. There wasn't even a beer left. He was broke too so there was no way in hell he would be able to get anymore. Not for a while anyway.

He couldn't stand to sleep. He hated sleep. He used to not be all too picky about what kind of drugs he put into his system but not anymore. Before he would take just about anything. Uppers, downers, laughers, screamers. Now all he wanted was something to keep sleep at bay. Anything he could get his goddamn hands on that would wire his ass or trip him out for hours was what was on the menu for ol' Merle. But there was nothing left. He was losing weight already. All of the speed he was consuming was getting to him. He itched all the time and he shook all the time but he was awake, by god and that was alright with him.

He tried to hide the majority of it from his brother. He tried to still his hands and most of the time it worked. Now he didn't have to worry about it because his brother was long gone. He felt like one of them dumb ass kids from those Nightmare on Elm Street movies. He had finally fallen asleep. And of course he had dreamed.

"You turned yourself into a two bit pussy henchman for that sack of shit!" He roared at the empty house. He lifted the coffee table and slammed it into the wall, once, twice, three times before it broke into pieces, growling and foaming at the mouth like an ape with rabies.

Tonight he had killed. Not here in the real world but in that horrid fucking place in his head where he had been reduced to a one handed fucking crony to that son of a bitch Governor. He kicked the couch until it was turned over and then he stormed into the kitchen, picking up that table as well and beating it into the side of the refrigerator.

He had to do something. He had to do something to stop the mother fucker. He wouldn't ever be that man's bitch. And a bitch is all he was. His brother, Merle's own flesh and blood, had bonded with that group from the quarry while Merle was playing soldiers with that psycho fuck in Woodbury, telling himself the whole goddamn time that he was in charge of his own ass when in all reality his ass was owned by that James Jones wannabe mother fucker.

"Fuck you!" he screamed before he collapsed, panting, into the only chair that had survived his rage.

Daryl was off with them fuckers, hunting their food, having their backs and living the family life while Merle was the one off playing house. Merle wasn't a stupid man. People could think so all they wanted but it just wasn't true. No, he didn't resent his brother for the things his brother did. He would be the first to admit that if anyone could change for the better at the end of the world it would be his baby brother.

He wouldn't ever voice it out loud but he knew Daryl was a good man. A real stand up guy on the inside. Hell, the boy had more honor than any man Merle had ever known. But he hid it around Merle. He knew what his big brother would have to say about any pussy shit like that. And so for most of Daryl's life, that was how Merle kept him under his thumb. He was all the boy had and as soon as Merle was out of the picture he makes nice with the good sheriff. He gets cozy with the whole lot of them and then he goes and falls ass over teakettle in love with a married woman.

He knew they weren't crazy now. He knew that it wasn't Carol putting the shit in their heads with some sort of voodoo bullshit. But he wasn't about to bow down to the bitch. He didn't care how much sense it made to listen to her. He was his own man. She wasn't anything to him and now it seemed like, because of her, he wasn't shit to his brother any more. And this pissed Merle Dixon off more than anything else. He planned on taking care of that. Maybe Ed would win her back, but he doubted it. Either way, he wasn't losing his brother this time, he wasn't losing his hand this time and he sure as fuck wasn't going to become Philip Blake's toy soldier.

Maybe he was being petty. Maybe he shouldn't hate the woman as much as he did. She seemed like she really had Daryl's best interests in mind. She loved his brother so much that she was even willing to bring Merle himself into the fold. But none of that would make up for the fact that she had taken the only family he had away from him. She came first now. Merle was just somebody that Daryl had to deal with. He had lost so much in that other place. His brother, his hand, his sense of self. He couldn't let that happen. Maybe he could learn to deal with Carol. Accept the fact that she came first now. But he had other things to worry about at the moment. Things like keeping Philip Blake from turning him into a stone cold murderer.

He had an idea then and stood up quickly. He didn't know how much time he had before the world was going to end but he needed to get the Governor out of the way before that. He wasn't taking any chances on letting that son of a bitch live.

He rummaged around in a few drawers until he found what he was looking for. A phone book. Sure, he knew there was easier ways to look people up but he didn't know anything about that computer shit and he wasn't going to be caught dead in some library trying to navigate one either. He righted the kitchen table and scooted his chair up, flipping through the pages until he found the B's. He knew Philip had mentioned where he had been from and Merle knew that it hadn't been too far away. He just couldn't remember the exact name of the town. Good thing he had a phone book that covered surrounding counties as well.

With a shaking finger he started looking for every Philip Blake that was listed. He would check them out ten at a time until he found him and when he did, he was going to kill the man.