AN: Here we go, another little chapter here.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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Daryl flipped the slices of bread into the plates as quickly as he could, put more on to cook and delivered the plates to the table where his two oldest daughters, Lizzie always trying to mimic her older sister, were sitting and looking pouty over the fact that morning had come and disturbed everything they'd had planned for their lives.

"Eat," he commanded as he put the plates down. "Bus is coming soon."

"This is gross," Sophia complained, poking her fork at her breakfast.

"It's toad in a hole an' you've always liked it," Daryl responded as he went back to the frying pan to flip the breakfasts waiting there.

For years he and Carol had the family running as much like a well oiled machine as they could possibly get it to run. Their organization and willingness to divide each and every task of the day wasn't so much owing to the fact that they liked it that way as it was owing to the fact that this was the only way that things got done when your household was occupied by so many people, all of which had to be somewhere by a given hour almost every morning.

"Well I don't like it now," Sophia protested from the breakfast table. Mika appeared at Daryl's side to await her plate. When her breakfast was ready, he flipped it onto a plate an offered it to her. "Do you know how many calories are probably in this?" Sophia asked.

Breakfast on a plate for him, toast and jam for Carol. Daryl quickly turned off the eye of the stove, moved the pan he'd been using, and went for the items that would make up Judith's "first breakfast," her second one and more substantial one offered to her at daycare.

"I don't," Daryl said, putting the jar of baby food on the tray of Judith's chair and putting the plate of toast by Carol's seat before ever getting around to taking his own chair. "An' it don't matter. What the hell you worried about calories for anyway…"

The conversation was broken by the appearance of Carol, barefoot still, but dressed, who came in with Judith and got the girl in her high chair.

Since she didn't stop to offer him one, and since he hadn't really seen her all morning, Daryl got up quickly and pecked the lips she puckered for him when she saw him coming. She smiled when he pulled away and he couldn't help but do the same.

"You know how many calories is in toad in a hole?" Daryl asked.

Carol rolled her eyes around like she was searching for the answer and then shook her head, offering Judith food in between bites of her own.

"Why?" She asked when she'd swallowed.

"Sophia here is concerned about it," Daryl said.

"You're too young to worry about calories," Carol said. "Besides, it's good for you. Eat your breakfast."

"You're built like ya Ma," Daryl offered. "You ain't gonna get fat."

Sophia rolled her eyes at him.

"That means it'll all go straight to my hips," she said in a sarcastic tone of voice that made Daryl chuckle and made Carol protest loudly the insult she felt at such a comment.

"Them hips are the reason this tables so crowded," Daryl commented, reaching over to playfully swat at Sophia who was smiling now. "You better watch yourself."

"Mama!" Mika said suddenly and with wide eyes. "I forgot that I was supposed to bring cupcakes for the bake sale!"

Carol groaned.

"You want me to take her somewhere? 'Fore school?" Daryl offered quickly.

Carol shook her head.

"No," Carol said. "How many times have I told you that you've got to tell me these things as soon as you find out about them?"

Mika offered an apology.

"Get my purse," Carol said. "I'll give you some money and you can just give them that."

"That's not really very good for the bake sale," Lizzie offered.

"There'll be more food there than gets eaten," Carol said with a sigh, accepting her purse from Mika who had gotten up to get it, not wanting "dilly dallying" to be added to her morning's offenses. "They just want the money anyway."

She offered Mika money across the table and then went back into the billfold to come up with a dollar.

"Here," she said, offering it to Mika. "This is for you to get whatever you want."

Lizzie's hand came across the table too and was filled with a bill.

"Sophia?" Carol asked. "Anything going on at your school?"

"No," Sophia answered honestly. "But I could get something out the vending machine at lunch."

Carol offered her the dollar at any rate.

"Thought you was worried about calories?" Daryl asked. He snickered at the expression of his daughter. He turned his attention to Carol. "You gettin' off on time today, right? So we can talk?"

Carol looked at him and made a face. He widened his eyes at her.

"You can't go working all night every night," he commented. "It was almost eleven thirty when you got home."

"I'll be home at six," Carol said. Her tone of voice indicated that she was having the last of this conversation. Daryl knew she wasn't ready to talk about things in front of the girls yet, but he felt they were speaking in enough code that even Sophia didn't know what they were talking about. She wouldn't have any reason to suspect it at any rate. "We'll talk then."

"When are we going to talk about my car?" Sophia asked.

"I didn't know you had one," Daryl commented.

Sophia growled at him and he chuckled to himself again. It was really the only way to get through the emotional ups and downs that sharing his house with five women of varying ages could offer. He had to find things humorous whenever possible.

And Sophia's sixteenth birthday was coming up in four months. She'd already begun to worry about it. Like he assumed every teenager was, Sophia was concerned about this birthday. It was a birthday of monumental importance. It would be the shining year of her life, or so she thought, and one of the most important aspects of it was the chance to get her license and, if she was lucky, obtain some sort of transportation that would get her off the bus and offer her the freedom that she craved with every waking hour.

She'd been worrying about it since about a month after her fifteenth birthday. And nearly every time that she'd brought it up, Daryl had done something to irritate her, pretending most of the time that he'd forgotten entirely the day that she'd ever come into the world…even though, arguably, she was the one of their children they'd been most prepared for and planned for the most.

"Come on, Daddy! MJ got a car when he turned sixteen!" Sophia whined.

Daryl chuckled again.

"MJ ain't no kinda reference that you should be using to get what you want," Daryl said. "Besides…MJ bought that car. Worked a job, earned his money, got that car. He fixed it too. Fixed it in his spare time. I'm not just shellin' out money for you to have a car when I ain't so much as seen you offer to do the chores around the house you have to do without moanin' about it."

Sophia's face said she clearly wasn't amused by the game changer he'd just thrown at her. It was the truth, though. Every one of the girls had chores, most of which they rotated off depending on the day, and every one of them acted like they were doomed to a life of indentured servitude instead of like they were doing basic things that needed to be done around the house and were, essentially, cleaning up the messes that they helped to make.

And Merle Jr., known to most of them more commonly as MJ, had worked at the shop since he was fourteen. He'd worked nearly every day after school, every weekend, and all summer. And as far as Daryl could recall, he'd only missed a day or two in three years. The car that he'd bought himself had started out a rolling piece of trash and he'd turned it into a pretty nice car.

That was a whole different idea than simply sinking money into a vehicle and handing the keys over to his teenager.

"I can't get a job if I don't have a way to get there," Sophia said.

Daryl ducked to the side and looked under the table.

"How 'bout that," he commented. "You got two feet!"

"So what?!" Sophia protested. "We're not even going to talk about this?!"

She shot a look at Carol who was really far more interested at the moment in getting Judith's shoes on her feet.

"We'll talk about it," Carol said. "Just not right now. Your dad is right, at least partially, and we'll have to discuss things."

"Everyone at school gets cars for their birthday when they turn sixteen," Sophia grumbled.

"Everyone?" Carol commented. "Well…that's going to be terrible if you're the only person at school who doesn't get a car on her sixteenth birthday."

Daryl chuckled at the sarcasm dripping off Carol's words. She wasn't interested in the slightest in discussing this, especially not over breakfast.

"It's a parent's job to scar they're kids," Daryl commented.

"Well you're doing a good job of it!" Sophia protested.

He got up from the table and got the brown bag lunches he'd made before he'd even begun breakfast.

"Time for buses, so time for a move on," Daryl said.

And the three oldest girls, Lizzie and Mika trying to be the "good children" for the moment since Sophia was hell-bent on having a rough morning, got up to get their lunches. He offered each of them the bag with their lunch and got a quick hug in return for it.

Then they passed by, hugged and kissed Carol goodbye while she was gathering up breakfast dishes that would get washed after work, and filed out the door with their book bags.

And Daryl sighed with relief when the door closed behind them.

"What's left to be done?" Carol asked, walking around him and putting plates into the sink before he came with glasses and she went back for what was left.

"Nothin'," Daryl said. "I just gotta put my shoes on. You?"

"Same," she commented.

"You takin' Jude?" He asked.

"Yeah," Carol commented, I've got time.

He caught her with his arms around her and pulled her to him so she kissed him, even if it did seem a little reluctant.

"That was a sorry kiss," he commented.

She laughed and went back in for another, this time with more enthusiasm than before.

"What are we going to do about the car thing?" Carol asked. "We need a real answer for her."

Daryl groaned.

"Lemme think on it? I don't got an answer right now and neither do you," Daryl said.

"Talk tonight?" Carol asked.

"Got other things to talk about tonight," Daryl said. "But you get off work early enough and we might have time to cover it all."

Carol groaned, but she offered him another kiss and sunk into him for a quick hug before pulling away from him entirely.

The breaking of the hug was the signal. They were off and the day had officially begun. She would go her way and he would head down the road to the shop he shared with his brother so they could get things opened up and get started.

"Go get your shoes," Daryl said. "I'll get Jude cleaned up."

"I'll bring your shoes," Carol said.

By the time she came back, wearing her shoes and brining his, he had the youngest ready to go and Carol gathered up her bags and the ones pertaining to Judith.

"Who's pickin' her up?" Daryl asked.

"I've got her," Carol said. "I'm going to see if I can get off by five today. I think…I need to come home, and we need to talk. Can you be home?"

Daryl nodded.

"Make my own hours," he confirmed with a wink.

Carol nodded at him and he offered her one more kiss and passed her Judith.

"I can feel it," Carol commented. "It's going to be a long day."

"We'll get through it," Daryl said. "It's what we do."

She offered him her best "tired and not ready to start the day" smile and nodded before she started out the door, wrestling with her load of things to carry. He would have offered to carry it for her, but she was hardheaded, most of the time, about carrying her own things…so he figured he'd just show up ten minutes late and wash the breakfast dishes instead.

She would be stressed about everything for a few days, maybe even for a few weeks. She always was when life popped up with some kind of surprise for them, but he knew that if she had her time to come to terms with things and work things out for herself, she'd be back to her "in control" self.

And they'd work through this too. Just like everything else.