Allison stirred slightly in her sleep. She rolled over in the bed, seeking Daryl's body to curl up against to absorb some of his body heat. After a minute or two she was more awake and realized that she was alone in their bed. She blinked a few times and noticed that it still seemed dark outside. Was it morning or the middle of the night? She reached over to the upturned box they used as a nightstand and picked up the wind-up wristwatch that Daryl had given her after one of his supply runs. "It has a second hand, you can probably use it with your medical stuff," he'd sort-of grunted as he'd handed it to her. After all this time, he was still a bit uncomfortable and shy about giving her gifts. It had made her smile at the time.

"Quarter to eight," she thought to herself. "Even if it's December there should be a bit of Sun at this time of morning." She pulled on some warm clothes, ran a brush through her hair, and then stepped outside. To her surprise, even though the sky was a dark grey, the rest of the world was white! And growing whiter with every passing moment. It was apparently a good old-fashioned mountain snowstorm. She gazed upward and was enjoying the feel of freshly falling snow on her face when a gruff voice brought her abruptly back to reality.

"Good morning, sleepy head," Rosita said somewhat sarcastically. "Care to get your ass in gear and help carry in this extra firewood into the cafeteria?"

"Yeah, OK, on the job…" Allison muttered as she gathered armfuls of the cut wood that was stacked in the "extra" pile – that is, the one that wasn't covered by a canvas tarp – and followed Rosita toward the large communal building. Suddenly a dull "thud" on her back made her stumble and drop her bundle. "What the…?" As she turned around to see what had hit her, a firmly-packed snowball struck her squarely in her chest. She looked in the distance and saw Carl, Beth, Eugene and Abraham almost wetting themselves with laughter.

"Good one!" Carl high-fived the normally mature red-haired military man.

"Whether it be a MK-19 Grenade Launcher or a snowball, my aim is always true!" Abraham shouted, pumping a fist in the air.

"Well I hope y'all are happy, now all this wood is wet," Allison grumbled as she started to pick up the lumber that she'd dropped in the snow.

"To be completely honest, said wood had been dampened by falling snow before you gathered it," Eugene pointed out.

"We're sorry, Allison," Beth said as she started walking toward her. Beth stopped in her tracks and suddenly collapsed in laughter as a very large snowball sailed past her and smacked Allison in the forehead. Allison wiped the snow out of her eyes in time to see Merle doing what looked like a victory dance. "Bingo!" He shouted.

"For Heaven's sake, grow up!" Allison growled as she pulled the cafeteria door open. "Do you know how dangerous that was?! You could've put my eye out!" she shouted over her shoulder. She shook the excess snow out of her hair and set her bundle down on the floor where Rosita was spreading out the chopped logs.

"Hey, tarado!" Rosita shouted at her. "Do you know nothing about keeping firewood dry? Take those logs outside and clap them together to knock the snow off!"

"Yes, ma'am," Allison replied. "I thought you were from Texas; what do you know about snow and wood?" she added, just a bit disgruntled at being called "stupid" in Spanish.

"Oh, I don't know, maybe Abraham has shared some of his military survival tactics with me over time," Rosita said with a touch of sarcasm.

Allison picked up the pieces of wood she'd brought inside and stepped just outside of the door of the cafeteria. After she'd beaten a pair hard enough to remove most of the snow, she opened the door and tossed the "clean" logs inside. A familiar gravelly voice made her look up suddenly.

"Hey, Gracie, I wasn't aimin' for your head, for real, are you OK?"

She glanced up and saw Merle Dixon with an almost concerned look on his face. "Yeah, I'm OK, luckily no harm done." But seconds later some sort of outrage at being caught by surprise and ambushed like that bubbled up from somewhere inside her and she muttered, "You'd think that a man with only one hand would find better methods of target practice…"

Merle remained motionless and silent for a moment, then mumbled "I'm sorry". He walked away and Allison returned her focus to her wood-cleaning project when another voice interrupted her.

"How the hell can you be so insensitive?" Beth shouted at her. Unbeknownst to Allison, Beth had been trailing behind Merle and had apparently overheard their brief conversation. Allison was taken aback not only by Beth shouting at her, but also at the young, innocent daughter of Hershel using profanity.

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Allison finally asked.

"I'm talking about you making fun of Merle's disability. My goodness, I thought a doctor would have more sense and more…" she struggled to find the right words… "compassion and empathy than to pick on someone with a handicap." She stood and stared at Allison for a moment, her face almost radiating anger. Beth then stomped away as best she could in the accumulating snow.

"But..he hit me with a snowball – ", Allison protested weakly after she'd regained her thoughts. She slowly continued her firewood-clapping duty while trying to process everything that had just happened. "I guess Beth has recovered most of her hearing in that ear, to have heard my conversation with Merle while standing so far behind him… Oh, geez, does that mean I am 'poking fun' at another disability? For cryin' out loud, what does anyone expect - I'm barely awake and first thing I know I'm being barked at by Rosita and then I'm pummeled with snowballs..." She laid out the cleaned logs on the floor so that they'd dry, per Rosita's instructions. "And by the way, those snowballs hurt!" She muttered aloud in the general direction of the cafeteria doors.

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

"Hope y'all don't mind fresh fish for dinner!" Noah called out as he barged into the laundry room, holding a stringer full of striped bass aloft.

Maggie turned around from the tub where she was scrubbing laundry. "How'd you manage to catch fish in this cold weather?"

"Glenn," Noah said. "He used to go ice fishing with his father back when he lived in Michigan."

"Of course, in this case we didn't have a flask of peppermint schnapps to keep us warm," Glenn said. He'd walked in, carrying his own string of fish, just in time to hear Noah's comment. "But I think we did OK without it."

"Your father let you drink liquor when you were a kid?" Maggie was frankly surprised. From what Glenn had told her about his childhood, his father had been fairly conservative, and sometimes strict.

Glenn laughed. "Of course not – that was his supply of 'antifreeze'. Mom packed me a thermos full of hot cocoa to keep my fingers and toes from getting frostbite."

"Why did you bring your catch in here?" Carol interrupted, a bit irritated as she wrung out a pair of socks.

"Well, um," suddenly Noah's tone of voice turned from proud to embarrassed, "because this is where the large buckets are stored, and we need to clean the fish…"

"You did good," Sasha reassured the young man as she emerged from behind one of the clothes drying racks. "You know where the buckets are, and we'll be done with the laundry in about half an hour, so you can use the sinks to clean them then."

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

That evening dinner was eaten indoors in the cafeteria, even though it had been prepared outside (despite the freezing temperature) by Abraham, who had insisted that "there's nothing like fresh fish grilled on an open fire…" Carol had taken advantage of the fire that Abraham had blazing under the grill and had roasted some chopped-up potatoes from their "cold storage" stash as a side dish.

"How do you catch fish when the water is frozen?" Carl asked Glenn as he savored the grilled bass.

"My dad used to take me ice fishing on Lake St. Clair when I was a kid," Glenn replied. He paused while a wistful smile passed over his face. "I think, looking back, it was something he could do during the cold winter months to get out of the house for a while….just some temporary peace from my mom and my sisters…"

"Tons of estrogen in a trapped environment, no?" Abraham asked.

"Yeah, looking back, you're probably right," Glenn said thoughtfully. "Dad always worked so hard at the family business – Mom did, too, …. But when business slowed down during the Winter months it seemed important to him to take some time away from home and the shop and everything… Anyway, he enjoyed just sitting on a frozen lake with a lure in the water for hours on end."

"Aww, that's so sweet," Tara commented almost dreamily. "You had some serious father-and-son bonding time."

Glenn sort of shrugged and replied, "Yeah, I guess…I dunno.." He glanced around the table and noticed that not everyone was smiling like Tara. Daryl and Merle seemed to be focused on their plates, not looking up at anyone. Eugene seemed to suddenly fidget in place and repeatedly wipe his hands with the paper towel that the group had been using as napkins.

"Honestly," Glenn said, "I remember one time I started to ask my dad a question while we were on the ice, and he just said 'Are you here to fish or to talk?!'"

"Not every father in this world is a Goddamned Cliff Huxtable or Mike Brady!" Abraham grunted as he helped himself to another slice of potato.

"Mmm, fresh grilled fish in December," Michonne said loudly, trying to change the topic of conversation. "The only thing missing is homemade tartar sauce!"

"Remember when we used to go to Captain D's?" Carl asked his father.

Rick smiled and nodded. "Oh yeah…speaking of tartar sauce, theirs was homemade."

"So was their coleslaw," Tyreese said. "Oh, and remember their hush puppies…?" He closed his eyes and sighed with pleasure. "There used to be a Captain D's less than a mile away from my apartment when I was working at - .." his voice drifted off a bit, "…well, a long time ago."

Once dinner was officially over, Rosita stood up and unofficially took charge. "All of you men, grab some of that dry lumber and carry it to the various rooms while we clean up."

A few minutes later Allison realized that Rosita meant to include her in the "we" when it came to cleaning up after dinner. She started gathering up plates and flatware along with Tara while Carol and Maggie began preparing the sinks for industrial dish washing. Sasha and Michonne had left to take their turn at guard duty, which seemed to be less hazardous recently, what with the freezing temperatures and the snowfall.

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

Merle dumped an armful of firewood he'd carried from the cafeteria into the room he shared with his brother and Allison. He paused a moment to catch his breath – who knew that you could actually work up a sweat in this kind of weather? Well, truth be told, he'd purposely picked up a huge amount of firewood while Allison was looking his way, just to show her….what? He didn't know exactly 'what', but her earlier comment about his one hand was still grinding his gears. For Christ's sake, all he did was have a little fun with Beth and the others; was that such a crime? Hell, how many times had he'd heard Gracie talk about how important recreation was from a medical standpoint, in addition to food and shelter? "I guess it's different when she's at the receiving end of recreation," he thought to himself as he left the room and closed the door behind him. He was about to go back to the cafeteria to see if anyone else needed help hauling firewood when he heard a soft, melodic voice called his name.

"Mer-ele," Beth's voice almost sang his name. His head whirled around to the direction of her voice and he saw her smiling almost coyly and slowly approaching him.

"What are you doin' all alone in the dark…by yourself all alone," he struggled to control his thoughts as Beth walked up to him holding some greenery in her upraised hand.

"Know what this is?" She asked him when she was just inches away from him.

He struggled to catch his breath and looked at the leaves she held aloft.

"Um, mistletoe. It grows wild in North Carolina…" He gulped.

"And you know the rule about mistletoe," she smiled up at him. Somehow she was radiating not only her usual innocence, but also…oh God, he struggled to not think of her that way…but in that moment she no longer looked like a teenager but like a woman….

"Uh, Princess…I…." he struggled for words but then his lips were silenced by Beth placing her finger on them in a "shush" gesture.

"You know the rule," she repeated as she stood up on her tippy-toes to meet his lips in a kiss. Merle was about to draw back, but instead something compelled him to wrap his arms around her and pull her close. He almost instinctively returned her kiss, as if his brain had lost all logical thought and the rest of his body had taken control. After a few minutes he finally managed to push away from her. "Oh God," he gasped, "what am I doing?!"

"Merle," Beth reached up and stroked the side of his head. "It's OK." She looked into his eyes and then said in that gorgeous voice of hers that never failed to melt his insdies, "Don't you get it? I love you."