AN: Wow, I want to thank you all for all your positive reviews and messages. They mean so much. I'm glad to see that everyone is still enjoying our story here and is excited for what's to come.

I'm working around academic writing, and I have to admit that I'm momentarily neglecting my other stories, but at the moment I'm wrapped up a little in my thoughts for Sweet Junction. Please forgive typos and such…these things happen.

I hope you enjoy!

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Michonne's part of the first step of their, perhaps bumbling, master plan was the easiest part. She had to get Carol out of her apartment and away from the bathtub oasis. She needed to find some positivity for her friend.

Meanwhile, it was Andrea who had the most work to do in the beginning.

Andrea shoved open the door, balancing the Styrofoam containers. She looked around the apartment and recognized the telltale signs of a conversation between Merle and Daryl. There was an empty glass on the counter and a puddle of what she imagined, from the smell, was whisky that had run off the counter and dripped onto the floor. One of the chairs at the card table was flipped on its side. She sighed, knowing she'd have to clean it up or they'd be housing all the rats in the building before the sun went down.

Andrea put the containers of food on the table and called out, trying to see if any of the men remained on the premises. Daryl came shuffling out of his bedroom, but there was no response from the room she shared with Merle.

"Did you run Merle off?" Andrea asked.

"Fuck him anyway," Daryl said. "I ain't done a damn thing to him. He's the one flappin' 'round here like an ass. Done gone off ta see if he can't hold down some damn stool at that bar, I betcha."

This was going to go easier with Merle gone anyway, and Andrea knew she had all the time in the world to collect Merle from the Watering Hole. She'd consider it, for the time being, like daycare for Merle and focus her attention on the youngest of the men she apparently shared her life with now.

"Well," she said, walking around and sitting up the chair, eying the dripping mess she'd clean up later, "as long as you've had your little chat with Merle, why don't you have some lunch with me and we'll talk."

"Ain't hungry an' I don't want ta talk ta ya ass no way," Daryl growled. He rubbed at his eyes and Andrea knew that he hadn't been sleeping.

"Sit down, Daryl," she said, trying to use the best mom voice that she could find. "You haven't eaten today and even if you don't talk you're at least going to listen."

Daryl grumbled and growled a little, yanking back the chair that she'd just sat up and plopping into it. Andrea went to the drawer and dug out two forks. She returned to the table, taking her own seat, and offered Daryl one of the forks and one of the Styrofoam boxes.

"The first thing you need to know about life, Daryl, is that Merle Dixon is the last man you ever need to take advice from," Andrea said, opening her box and beginning to eat.

"Yeah?" Daryl said. "What the hell ya know 'bout that anyway? Don't look ta me like ya done too damn good yaself."

Andrea shrugged and nodded a little.

"I admit, I could have done a hell of a lot better. But just like you, I got to where the hell I am by my own devices. Didn't have a whole lot of help. My parents weren't exactly blue ribbon prizes either," Andrea said. "I did learn something, though, along the way."

"What's that?" Daryl asked, with little to no interest in his voice.

"I learned how to tell when a man is full of shit," Andrea said. "Had to get lied to more than once to do it, but I developed one hell of a bullshit detector, and right now you're blowing it up."

"Yer fuckin' my brother an' you're tellin' me I'm full a' shit?" Daryl asked.

Andrea chuckled.

"The difference, Daryl, or rather one of the differences, between you and your brother is that Merle knows he's full of shit, and you haven't figured it out yet," Andrea said.

"The hell you on about?" Daryl asked.

"Oh come on, Daryl. What was that shit with Mary Ann Walsh last night anway?" Andrea asked.

"I reckon I got a right ta fuck who I want," Daryl said. "Don't know why the hell I gotta answer ta you about it."

"Come on, Daryl, that was the most unsatisfying fuck in the history of fucks," Andrea said. "Even I was frustrated afterwards and I was just listening to the shit."

"The hell was ya listenin' for?" Daryl asked, sulking a little.

Andrea snickered.

"The walls in these lovely apartments are made out of cardboard at best, Daryl. I'd have had to be struck deaf not to hear it," Andrea said. "You didn't want to fuck Mary Ann."

"I fucked her, didn't I? Reckon I wanted to an' I did," Daryl said.

"Did you fuck her because Merle told you too?" Andrea asked. Daryl glanced at her and she did her best to focus her eyes on his so that he would feel trapped and wouldn't look away as quickly. The result was that he simply narrowed his eyes at her and refused to respond. "Daryl, the first rule of life is that you never take advice from Merle," Andrea said. "Especially not when it comes to women…Now, tell me what happened with you and Carol."

Daryl looked at her like he wanted to tear her throat out with his teeth, and Andrea knew she hadn't been wrong about the situation.

"Ain't nothin' ta tell, ya damn nosy ass. She don't want no Dixon in her life an' I don't care. I was tired a' fuckin' her anyway," Daryl growled.

"Ahh, there's my mini-Merle again," Andrea said. "Now that you're done with that, what really happened? What did she say?"

Daryl shook his head a little and started to rearrange the food in his plate with his fork. Right now Andrea didn't care if he built a string bean and mashed potato castle as long as he told her what she needed to know.

"Don't know," Daryl said. "Said some shit 'bout not knowin' what tha hell she wanted an' if I knew what I wanted an' then that was it."

"And what do you want?" Andrea asked. She watched the elaborate mess that Daryl was making of what was supposed to be his lunch. The look on his face changed, and Andrea realized, even more than she'd known it before, how alike and how different Merle and Daryl were.

Merle was harder than Daryl. Really, more than that, Merle had perfected the crust that he believed made him harder. Andrea knew that Merle really wasn't very hard at all. He was hurt, and like most hurt people he'd developed a scab to help protect the wound. There were times, though, like when he drank too much, that the hard melted away to reveal the sad, scared, wounded little boy that had somehow got trapped underneath all those years of a man who wanted to be a hard ass.

Daryl also had the same little boy inside, but he hadn't built the shell to be quite so thick. The boy in Daryl was closer to the surface, peeking out more often than the one in Merle. And right this moment, the little boy was looking out at her and almost begging for help. She wondered, for just a second if Daryl was going to cry.

"Daryl, you can tell me the truth," Andrea said. "I'm not Merle, and I'm not judging you. What do you want, Daryl?"

Daryl looked at her, glaring, and she knew that his anger was all he had when the little boy inside felt threatened or scared. Merle had it too. It had caused Merle to punch a hole in the bedroom wall that she'd hung a dime store picture over, and it had caused more than one broken glass around the apartment. The scared little boys would be why they'd never have nice things, she thought.

Andrea shook her head gently at Daryl and smiled.

"Don't look at me like you hate me," Andrea said. "You don't hate me. I make you pancakes, remember? Nobody can hate the maker of the pancakes."

"Fuck you," Daryl growled.

"We covered that," Andrea said. "Daryl, I know you don't love this place. I know you don't love spending your free time at the Watering Hole. I know you don't even like ogling women, and you didn't like fucking Mary Ann Walsh. So what is it that you do like, besides pancakes? What is it that you want, Daryl?"

"It's stupid an' it ain't gon' happen, so what the fuck ya wanta sit 'round her talkin' with me for? Ain't'cha got no damn friends with pussies ya can talk to?" Daryl asked, his voice rising louder as he went. "What the fuck you want, Andrea? Ya fuckin' happy with ya fucked up life? Ya ain't nothin' but a damn whore an' everybody in town knows it, 'cept now ya Merle's whore an' he don't even give a flyin' fuck about'cha!"

Daryl got to his feet and Andrea swallowed. She wasn't going to let Daryl's words upset her. She knew that's all that they were. They were words. They were the words of a scared, angry little boy. She had to keep reminding herself of that. She was encroaching on territory that scared the shit out of Daryl. She was trying to talk about feelings, and even though he had more of them than many people did, he was scared to let any of them out except the hate, anger, and rage that he'd been living off of since before he was weaned.

"You're right, Daryl, I don't have everything that I want…not yet," Andrea said. "One day I might though. I guess that if I had to say what I want, then one day I'd like to have a place to live that didn't smell like goat piss. I don't know that I'm all about the Leave it To Beaver lifestyle, but I'd maybe like to be something a little more respectable than Merle's whore…I wouldn't mind going back to school eventually. Maybe get some kind of degree? Be something more than a barmaid."

Daryl stood there, staring at her. On his face was all the apology she needed. He hadn't mean to say what he'd said, but he wouldn't admit it. Dixons never said they were sorry, at least not in those words.

"Sit down, Daryl. Eat your lunch. Tell me what the hell you want," Andrea said.

Daryl sighed and took his seat again. He forked a mouthful of his earlier masterpiece into his mouth and chewed, staring at the plate for a moment.

"I wanta be like Hershel," Daryl said.

Andrea had not been expecting that response, but she tried not to choke on the food that she was eating. She nodded a little.

"You mean you want to be a cattle farmer?" Andrea asked.

Daryl shook his head.

"Don't care 'bout the damn cows," Daryl said. "Ya ever met Miss Jo?"

Andrea nodded. She'd known Hershel and Jo Green for as long as she could remember. They were good church going folks, the kind that had always had so many wonderful things to say when Amy was growing up. The kind that urged her, when she started working at the Watering Hole, to turn away from the life that she was living, the life that everyone thought she was living, and to come to church. That magical brick building with the ugly stained glass windows that was supposed to turn her into everything she'd never been and would likely never be.

"Yeah, I know her," Andrea said.

"They always smilin' at each other," Daryl said. "An' she don't ever let him be outside the house for more than an hour 'fore she comes out an' she asks him if he wants somethin' and sometimes he does an' sometimes he don't, but they always smile."

"So you want Miss Jo?" Andrea asked. "Or rather…you want your own Miss Jo?"

"Told ya it was dumb," Daryl said, pouting into his food again.

Andrea smiled.

"It isn't dumb, Daryl. You want a happy relationship, that's all," Andrea said. "People have certainly been after far loftier goals since the beginning of time."

Daryl played with his food and Andrea heard the punching noise which could only be the sound of him having shoved his fork too deep into the Styrofoam. She groaned a little to herself imagining the mess that would probably leak out of the bottom of the box. The fact that they didn't have rats as big as German Shepherds was a surprise.

"What about Carol, Daryl? Are you pissed off because you thought she was going to be your Miss Jo?" Andrea asked.

"Told ya," Daryl said. "I don't give a fuck about her."

Andrea watched as his frustration drove him to stab harder at the box that had done nothing to him. She reached her hand across the table and put it on his arm.

"We're being honest here, Daryl, and I'm not going to tell Merle a single damn word of this conversation. Were you pissed because you thought that Carol was going to be that? Is that why you fucked Mary Ann Walsh?" Andrea asked.

Daryl rolled his eyes at her.

"It don't matter no way," Daryl said. "She don't want nothin' from me an' Dixon men don't live like Hershel Greene. We ain't made that way."

"And there's Merle again," Andrea said with a sigh. "Listen, Daryl, your brother is jaded in a lot of ways. He thinks that Dixon men don't live like Hershel Greene, but what he's really saying, the words that you don't hear, is that he's terrified that Merle Dixon can't live like Hershel Greene. Genetics doesn't have a damn thing to do with relationships. If you want to live like Hershel then you damn well do it and tell Merle to suck his own dick if it bothers him. Who your parents were don't determine what your relationships will be like. You decide that. If you want to have a relationship like that, though, you're going to have to work at it, and you're going to have to work just as hard at it as you've ever worked for anything in your life. Hershel and Jo might make it look easy, but that's just what it looks like from the outside."

"What you know about relationships no way?" Daryl asked. "Look at ya, Andrea. Ya ain't got no damn relationship goin' on here."

Andrea smiled.

"Do you think that Daryl? Do you think that this isn't a relationship? You think that I wake up every morning sunny as hell and can't wait to cook breakfast for your brother, and for you for that matter? You think that I like that Merle gets caught up feeling sorry for himself and drinks until he's a pathetic excuse for a man? The asshole puked on my feet two nights ago, but you know what I did? I cleaned him up. I got him in bed. Then I cleaned the bathroom up. It's no Hershel and Miss Jo romance, Daryl, but it's as real as they come," Andrea said.

"Merle don't want no relationships. Ya stupid if ya don't know that," Daryl said.

Andrea smiled again.

"Merle wants a relationship just as bad as you do. The difference is that he's far more terrified to admit it than you are. I figured that out the first night I spent with him. Underneath all that bravado about not giving a damn if he ever saw me again was a man who was terrified I was listening," Andrea said.

"Merle ain't scared a' nothin'," Daryl said.

"Merle is scared of plenty," Andrea said. "Same as you. You let me worry about Merle, though, and you worry about Daryl." Andrea paused a moment and watched as Daryl chewed at his lip, contemplating what she was saying. "Do you want your Hershel Greene and Miss Jo relationship?"

Daryl stared at her, the glare from earlier gone now. He looked, at this moment, like a kid that had just been asked if they wanted a new bike for Christmas but was afraid of the stipulations that would be put on the gift.

"Do you want it?" Andrea urged.

Daryl nodded, but didn't respond verbally.

"Do you want it with Carol?" Andrea asked.

"She don't…" Daryl started.

"Let me worry about what Carol Ann wants and doesn't want," Andrea said. "Do you want it?"

Daryl nodded slightly, cutting his eyes at her again.

"Are you willing to work for it? And that means no telling me to fuck myself every time I open my mouth and no more calling me a whore…" Andrea said.

Daryl started to open his mouth in protest, but stopped.

"Yeah…I reckon…" Daryl said.

Andrea smiled.

"Fine, then we've got a lot of work to do, but you're well on your way already to wearing suspenders and high waters," Andrea said. "You just better be a better student than you are a housekeeper."