When he found Sophia in the lobby, Daryl tapered off his run and ended it by walking a swift circle before bending over to catch his breath. The girl was just playing with Carl. It was a squeal of delight - not a cry of fear – she'd let out. The kids had found a luggage cart, and Sophia was lying on it on her back, her splinted leg stretched out, while Carl pushed it.

His heart still thumping with a fading beat of fear, Daryl growled, "Quiet down!" He rubbed his head, which was pounding.

"You okay, Mr. Dixon?" Sophia asked.

"Just need to hydrate."

Carl helped Sophia up and handed the girl her crutches. Casting Daryl a worried look, she hobbled away from the cart, which Carl began riding flat on his stomach while using his feet to push.

"Are you sick?" Sophia asked Daryl.

"Nah. Just keep it down."

"Look, Soph!" Carl cried. "No hands!"

While Sophia was distracted by Carl's demonstration, Daryl made his way to the breakfast room. He almost turned around when he saw how many people were there, but he was thirsty and his head cried for liquid relief, so he went inside and poured himself a tall glass of Sunny Delight.

Lori shook her head. "I don't know how you stand that fake orange juice."

"Perfect for a redneck screwdriver," Daryl told her. He'd never had such a cocktail. If he was going to drink vodka, he just drank it straight from the bottle. But he figured that would give Lori a new image to add to her book of stereotypes.

"I could use a little hair of the dog myself," Rick said from where he sat massaging his forehead.

"You really should have stopped after that third glass, honey," Lori told him. "Be glad I cut you off after four."

Daryl chugged the Sunny Delight, set the empty glass down hard on the counter, and seized the bottle. While he poured himself a refill, he said, "Carl's ridin' the luggage cart standin' up with no hands and a pair of scissors."

That got Lori moving. Daryl took her vacated seat next to Rick, set down his Sunny D, and then nodded to the black coffee in Rick's cup. "Where'd ya get that?"

"Carol found a mobile power pack and plugged in the pot."

As if on cue, Carol set down a cup of coffee in front of Daryl. "Looks like you can use it."

He looked up at her, wondered if she'd told anyone she had found him in her bed, and muttered a thanks. Carol sat down next to Andrea at the far end of the table.

"Where's T-Dog?" Andrea asked. "I know Glenn's still sleeping it off."

"Think he's in Darlene's room," said Rick.

Andrea raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Sure sounded like it last night." Rick shook his head. "We cannot drink like that again. What if some walkers or a gang had busted in?"

"No one's busting through that pile of furniture against the lobby doors," Andrea said. "And the side exit doors are solid as can be and only open from the inside."

"Still think we were idiots," Rick said. "The only people sober were the kids."

"Carol was sober," Daryl said. She'd actually been a little buzzed after that second glass, but, playing the responsible mother, she'd stopped drinking at that point.

"And Lori was sober as a judge," Carol said.

"I was sober, too," Andrea insisted.

Carol laughed.

"Mostly." Andrea smiled. "You know what? Maybe we should have done it. Life is short. At least we all had fun last night."

T-Dog strolled into the room whistling.

"Some of us more than others," Rick said.

Andrea chuckled. Apparently she wanted to live now. Daryl had never fully believed in her suicidal funk. He didn't doubt Andrea had plenty to be depressed about. They all did. But there was no time for attention-seeking in this world. If you wanted to check out, you should just check out quickly, and not bother other people with your petal-picking "she kills herself, she kills herself not" bullshit.

"There's hot coffee?" T-Dog asked. Carol got up to get him a cup, but he waved her back into her seat and got his own.

"So where's Darlene?" The lilt to Andrea's voice was half scolding, half teasing. "Still sleeping it off?"

"I think she might be," T-Dog said. "Think she's sleeping very soundly right about now." T-Dog sat down on the other side of Rick. "So what's the plan? We rolling out when Glenn drags himself out of bed?"

Rick nodded, but there was a change in plans a half hour later when Sophia heard a boom of thunder that rattled the lobby doors and Carl spied a flash of lightening through the cracks in the boarded-up windows. In another few minutes, rain was battering the building. Rick suggested they stay for one more night to be sure the storm had passed. It appeared to be moving north east, which was the direction they planned to go.

"Want that shit 'head of us 'fore we hit the road," Daryl agreed. "

"Besides, some of us could probably use a day to recover from our hangovers," Andrea added. "Not me, but some of us."

[*]

After brunch, the kids discovered the hotel's game room and begged to use it. Carol went with them to take a look and found the room was not missing its door handle like the others. Instead, it was locked tight. Through the narrow window, she saw a walker rattling around, bumping into the pool table. The men must not have bothered to clear the room because it was contained.

"There's a walker in there," she told them.

"I know, but can't you just ask Mr. Dixon to kill it?" Sophia pleaded.

"The room is locked anyway," Carol told them.

"Darlene can pick locks!" Sophia insisted.

"Pleeeeease!" Carl begged. "There's a fooz ball table in there."

"And board games!" Sophia added.

"I'll ask them to clear the room," Carol promised. "But if they don't want to then you two don't whine about it."

"Yes, ma'am," Carl said.

[*]

Darlene couldn't pick that type of lock, so Rick put a silencer on his rifle, told everyone but Daryl to leave the hallway, and shot it off. Daryl kicked the loose door open and took out the walker with his crossbow. T-Dog dragged its rotting body out a side door. He came back soaked by the rain.

"Get yourself changed, T," Darlene told him. "I want to shoot some pool."

Everyone ended up in the game room, even Daryl, but he didn't join in any of the reindeer games. He sat by himself on the couch against the far wall and began cleaning the handgun he'd taken from Carol. Had it needed cleaning? She didn't even know how you were supposed to tell if it did.

Sophia took her sweet time looking over the board games in the book case while Darlene and T-Dog started a game of pool. Carl and Rick made use of the fooz ball table as Lori stood on the sidelines to cheer both husband and son. Glenn found a deck of cards, and he and Andrea sat at one of the small, circular tables to play Jin Rummy. Glenn groaned as he studied his hand.

"You do a lot of kneelin' to that porcelain God last night, honey?" Darlene asked him.

"My room stinks now," Glenn muttered. "Think I'm going to switch to a new one for tonight."

"There ain't no more without windows," Darlene told him.

"He could sleep in your room," T-Dog said with a grin. "I mean…you won't be using it tonight, right?"

"Don't make assumptions, sugar." The balls cracked across the pool table as Darlene struck her eight ball.

T-Dog looked a little confused, but he didn't press the issue.

"You can sleep with me," Andrea said.

Glenn's eyes widened.

"Not with me," Andrea clarified. "In my room. In the other bed."

"Oh. Okay. Thanks."

"That one," Sophia decided finally, and lifted a hand from her crutches to point to The Game of Life. Carol took it down from the bookcase and brought it to the only available surface - the right end of the coffee table. The left end had handgun parts scattered all over it. Sophia sat on the couch not far from Daryl and rested her crutches against the arm. "You want to play with us, Mr. Dixon?"

"Dunno how."

"I'll teach you."

Carol sat down crosslegged on the floor on the other side of the couch.

"What color do you want to be, Mr. Dixon?"

"I ain't much for board games."

"Why not? Didn't you play when you were a boy?"

Daryl began putting the pieces of the gun back together. "Bought a bunch of cheap games at a yard sale once, when I's eight. Used the money I earned collectin' beer cans from 'round the creek."

"How can you earn money collecting cans?" Sophia asked as she began counting out the money. Carol noticed she was making three piles and hoped Daryl relented and agreed to play rather than disappointing her. She thought maybe her daughter had developed a bit of a childish crush on the man who had saved her life.

"Used to be ya could turn 'em in to a recyclin' center, get a little money." Daryl slid the reassembled gun in his waistband against his back. "When they wasn't made from such cheap shit."

"And you didn't like playing the board games you bought?" Sophia asked.

"Didn't have no one to play 'em with. Merle's too much older'n me and thought they was for sissies anyhow."

"What about your mom?"

"She'd play for a bit and then fall 'sleep, or stumble and knock the board over. 'Cause she'd be - " Carol shot him a warning look and he stopped. "She'd be tired."

"My daddy knocked over the Christmas tree once when he was tired," Sophia said. "It made him so mad, he threw the porcelain baby Jesus against the wall. I tried really hard, but I couldn't glue Jesus back together."

Carol flushed with shame to think how many times Sophia had witness her father's drunken destructiveness.

"That's a'right," Daryl told her. "They say Jesus can glue 'emself back together."

"So you never played the games you bought?" asked Carol, wanting to change the topic from that unwelcome memory.

"Tried to play 'em by myself," Daryl answered. "Put 'em on my bed. Run back and forth and play both sides of the board. Got tired of losin' to myself. So I took 'em out in the woods one night and burned 'em all. The fire was right pretty."

"Well you won't lose to yourself this time," Sophia said. "You can lose to me!"

One side of Daryl's lips curved ever so slightly, in what Carol was beginning to recognize as his smile. "So sure ya can beat me, are ya?"

"I'm really good at Life."

"Well, I suck at life."

Sophia's brow crinkled. "I thought you'd never played?"

"Meant the real deal. Might do a'right in the game. Ya get to pick your parents?"

"No," Sophia said. "But you get to pick your path!" She put a pink car and a yellow car on the Start space. "What color do you want to be, Mr. Dixon?"

To Carol's relief, he didn't let Sophia down. "Blue." Sophia picked up another car and set it on Start. "Nah, not the pansy powdered blue," he told her. "The man blue!"

Sophia switched out the light blue car for the dark blue car as Carol stifled her laugh.

When Sophia reached the first fork in the road, she said, "I'm taking the career path."

"No, sweetie, take college," Carol insisted.

"Why?"

"Because a good education will mean a nice job," Carol answered. "Better paying."

"Ain't nothin' wrong with the trades," Daryl insisted. "And look, path's shorter. Get ya to the finish line faster. Don't the first person to the finish get some prize?"

"You get extra money," Sophia said. "For being the first player to retire."

"But you'll make more money over the course of the game if you go to college, Soph," Carol told her.

"Then why didn't you?" Sophia asked. "In real life?"

Carol could feel the heat rise to her cheeks. She'd been accepted to Georgia State University, but she hadn't gotten a scholarship, and she had no way to pay, with her parents dead and that looming mortgage on the family house. So she went straight to work full-time instead, at a menial job. "Well I – "

"- 'Cause she knew a college degree wouldn't be worth shit in the zombie apocalypse," Daryl said. "But yer mama's right. Take the college route." He pointed at the arrow that led in that direction.

Sophia shrugged and moved that way.

When it was time for Daryl to get married, Sophia slipped a little pink peg into his car. "Did your wife die from the superflu?" she asked.

"Ain't never had no wife."

"Why? You're plenty old enough."

"Sophia!" Carol scolded her.

"Never found no one who wanted me to be her husband," Daryl said.

"Were you looking?" Sophia asked.

Carol shot her a warning gaze.

"Not real hard," Daryl admitted.

"I don't ever want to get married," Sophia said. "Unless I get to be the husband."

Carol's heart jumped in her chest. "What do you mean?"

Sophia shrunk back into the couch. She toyed with her money, which she'd put on the end table next to her seat, and shrugged. "Just seems better to be the husband is all. You always get what you want. And you never get hurt. Well...until you die."

Daryl coughed and spun. The wheel whirled and whirled and whirled. Carol stared into its spiral and felt like she was about to cry. It stopped abruptly. Daryl picked up his car and slapped it down – one – slap – two – slap – three- slap – four – slap – five...Daryl leaned close to Sophia and half whispered, "Look at Lori." At the moment, Lori was standing near the fooz ball table on the other side of the game room, her hand on the small of Rick's back, as he spun the knob for one of his players. She was laughing, and so was Rick. "Ain't always bad to be the wife."

Carol quickly ran two fingertips around the edges of her eyes to hide any evidence of the solitary tears that had escaped. Her voice cracked when she told him, "You just had twin babies."

"Spin for presents!" Sophia insisted as she drove the blue and pink pegs into the back row of Daryl's car.

[*]

Daryl left when the Game of Life was over and went to the breakfast room where he could clean his own handgun in peace and quiet. That one he kept toward the front of his pants, since he was holding onto two now. He'd just put it back together and racked it open when he sensed a presence and looked up. Carol was leaning against the open entry way.

"Can you start teaching me to use a gun today?" she asked. "Please? I just want my daughter to know a woman can…" She stopped, swallowed, and looked at the floor.

"Cain't fire guns in here," he said.

"Rick did. To shoot off that lock."

"Shouldn't of."

"Please."

He felt sorry for Carol after all the things Sophia had said during the Game of Life. He could tell Carol felt humiliated and ashamed by those dirty family secrets, and the woman, despite her bad taste in husband and her failure to leave Ed sooner, had done far more to protect Sophia from her father than Daryl's mother had ever done to protect him from Will Dixon. Carol just wanted to protect Sophia now. And she wanted it almost desperately. How could he say no to that?

"Get started today," he agreed. "Go through the basics with ya. But we ain't shootin' yet."