When Milton wakes up, it's to someone knocking on his cell bars. He sits up and puts his glasses on, brushing his hair off of his forehead; he had meant for Carol to cut it a few weeks back, and it kept slipping his mind. It's Andrea standing there looking smug and holding a plastic container with Raisan Bran inside of it. She tosses it to him and he catches it with both hands.
"Thanks."
She nods and comes fully into his cell to sit at the foot of his bed. He isn't sure what time it is, but she looks as if she's been up a while.
"Did I miss breakfast, or. . .?" It's then that he remembers his guest. His eyes go wide and he shoots out of bed, dropping the container on his sheets by her. "Merle-he was-" He looks from the now-empty bed space to his friend. "He was here. Andrea, he came back, he-"
She nods again and cuts him off.
"I know."
His anxiety and confusion overtake him. He's about to panic, having an anxiety attack for the first time in years. If the man has gone off like that again, he swears to himself that he might just kill him.
"Where did-"
"He's fine, Milton." She gestures for him to sit down again and waits to speak until he hesitantly does so. "He gets up every morning before sun-up. Always has. He had breakfast with everyone this morning." She raises her eyebrows, and he knows that she's about to chastise him. "Everyone but you." She hands the cereal back to him. "Eat that. Rick's debriefing him on everything that's happened while he was gone, so you can't talk to him right now anyway." She stands to leave. That last thing he hears from her before she goes is that he should probably take a shower first anyway.
He brings his shirt up to his nose to smell himself and agrees with her: a shower would be nice.
By the time he's done eating and has found his bathing supplies, the showers are empty. He's never been one to be comfortable with other men being able to look at him nude, so he's relieved. That relief is a thing of the past though when he finishes up, wrapping a towel around his waist, and turns to see Merle standing there, apparently waiting for him. His arms quickly come up to cover his chest, but that just causes the towel to drop to the ground. He makes a sound similar to a squak, hard to hear over Merle's laughter and snide remarks, and grabs it, putting the now-soaked thing back around his waist. He holds it up with one hand while using his free arm to go back across his chest. If it all wasn't enough to make his face heat up as red as possible, Merle's remarks about covering up like a woman would do it.
"What-what are you doing in here? You're obviously not taking a shower; you don't have anything with you."
He has pride that even through his embarrassment, even through Merle looking him over, his observational skills are still up to par. Merle doesn't have anything to clean himself, doesn't even have a different change of clothes with him. If Milton had to guess from his appearance, he would say that the man had taken a shower already.
Milton decides that it's better to quickly dress himself than to stand there like an idiot, waiting for Merle to turn around or leave-considering Merle has a perfect opprotunity to humiliate him, he doubts either is going to happen any time soon. He goes over to his pile of clothes on the bench and starts with his underwear and pants first, then the shirt, and then he sits to put his socks and shoes on.
"Wanted to make sure you knew ta meet me at our usual time today."
Milton's tying his shoes a little harsher than necessary. He's looking down at them but makes sure to glance up at Merle, meeting his eyes, every few seconds. He's still angry; part of him doesn't want to forgive Merle. It would probably be easier just to dislike him if their friendship would cause him so much worry. He doubted he could get the hunter to be more careful. Merle has Daryl, and that isn't enough to keep him from going off alone on suicide missions. What could Milton do to stop him?
"I'm not the one who needs a reminder."
Everything about Merle-his expression, stance, tone of voice-changes into something of awkwardness and uncertainty, though he tries to hide it behind his usual walls of, as Milton has deemed it, bullshit; it's crude, but it's the perfect way of describing it. He's acting as if what happened isn't a big deal, but Milton can be past it, past one of his walls, now.
"You ain't still mad at that,are ya?"
It's now that Milton realizes what he's trying to do: he doesn't know how to apologize or to say something, something's hard for him to get out. But he knows that he did wrong, that he hurt Milton in a way, and he's trying to get past it. Milton has figured out a part of who Merle Dixon is, and he plans on holding onto it, on filing it away. It's important, and once Milton figures this out, part of his anger subsides. He looks up at Merle without breaking contact now.
"I have every right to be." His hands brace themselves against the bench, hoping that Merle won't notice how much they're trying to shake. "I was worried about you for days."
The atmosphere seems odd now that the words are out in the open. Milton feels insecure with himself in a new way, waiting for Merle's verbal lashing to begin. It doesn't though. He's simply gaped at for a moment; the expression is soothing in a way. He can't be made fun of too badly if Merle's looking like that, can he? Of course, Merle could be body dyed pink and still have a few sassy words to say about everyone else in the building.
"Didn't know you cared so much, darlin'."
A tidal wave of irritation raises back up at the name-Merle still isn't completely forgiven, and even if they had already been on solid ground, Milton wouldn't have appreciated it-but he lets it go, having realized that the conversation could be leading somewhere significant for them. Somewhere different.
"Yeah, well. Try to remember that the next time you go gallivanting off." Milton gets up from his seat and starts heading for the door. "That is, if you care."
He leaves Merle there by himself. The older man would normally follow after him, but for once he isn't sure what to say and he doesn't want to just run his mouth as usual. He can tell that he's going to be on thin ice with Milton for a while, and though he isn't quite sure why, that bothers him.
"Huh."