AN: Hi everyone, here's another chapter here.

Looking at the plans I have for this story, I'm estimating we've got just a little bit more to go in this story.

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

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"You promised I could finish it!" Sophia whined.

She was tired. She was exhausted. Her eyes showed it. They were slightly bloodshot and the skin around them had taken on the slightly purple hue that meant that she'd pushed too hard to stay awake. It was past her bedtime and even Daryl felt it—because it was past his bedtime too.

It was Saturday night, so they could all easily sleep late the next morning, but all good things had to come to an end at some point.

"It's time for bed, Sophia," Daryl said. "We're all goin' to bed and that means you gotta go to bed too. You ain't gonna have no fun playin' the game if you don't got nobody to play with."

"You promised," Sophia whined again.

She could barely put the energy behind the whining that such a severe complaint merited. She was simply too exhausted for it. She'd already given up sitting on her own accord and she was slumped with her head in Carol's lap. She only sat up, every now and again, to half-heartedly take her turn. She wasn't enjoying the game she was so desperately attempting to continue playing.

Carol passed her hand gently over Sophia's face and hair. When Sophia closed her eyes to the sensation, Daryl was a little concerned that she wouldn't be able to open them again and he'd have to just carry her to bed and forego brushing her teeth for the night.

"You did promise," Carol teased Daryl with a smirk.

"I'm tired, you're tired, and Soph—you're tired," Daryl said. "It's time to call it a night. I promised you could finish the game when I thought you were gonna pick Uno or something. I wasn't planning on you picking Monopoly."

"Why don't we put it on the table?" Carol offered. "Then the game can just—wait until morning. We'll finish it tomorrow."

Sophia opened her eyes from where she was resting them and offered Carol a smile for her suggestion. The only thing better than a game that could potentially last all night was a game that had the chance of stretching over two days. Daryl wasn't foolish enough to believe, after all, that Sophia's greatest interest was in playing the game, but rather it was simply guaranteeing that they were spending more time together.

For the time being, she seemed unable to get enough of the "time".

"Can we do that?" Sophia asked, looking at Daryl. "Can we save it for tomorrow?"

Daryl tried to pretend like he had to carefully consider things, but he knew he wasn't too good at making Sophia sweat. He laughed to himself.

"Yeah," he said. "We'll put the game on the table. Just like it is. But right now? Get to the bathroom and brush your teeth."

Carol pushed Sophia up like the girl might need help sitting up. But as soon as it was decided that she was going to bed, she really didn't seem half as tired as she had before. Sophia got to her feet and started toward the bathroom, stopping in the middle of the hallway and turning back before she made it there.

"You're both gonna read me a story?" Sophia asked.

"One of us is gonna read," Daryl said. "The other's gonna listen."

"You both gotta read," Sophia protested.

"Long game," Daryl said. "One story. So you just figure out, while you're brushing your teeth, which one of us you want to read."

"Mama," Sophia declared, apparently not having to think too hard about it, before she turned and finished the trip to the bathroom.

Carol laughed to herself and turned her eyes in Daryl's direction.

"Sorry," she said, keeping her voice low.

"For what?" Daryl asked, heaving himself up off the floor. He offered her a hand and helped her get to her own feet.

"For—her wanting me to read, I guess?" Carol said, clearly unsure of why she was apologizing. Daryl understood it, though. She felt the need—almost like a compulsion—to apologize for absolutely everything. She'd been taught, and Daryl knew the lesson was one that took a great deal of time to undo, that her entire existence was something for which she should be apologetic.

"I'm glad she wants you to read," Daryl said. "And—I'm even more glad that you don't get bothered by her hanging all over you and wanting you to do everything for her."

"I like it," Carol said. "I'm—I guess I'm—is grateful too dramatic to say?"

Daryl shook his head.

"No," he offered. "It's alright to say. I know what'cha mean. Come on, Mama. It's time to read before Soph turns into a pumpkin."

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Being in Daryl's arms was still a strange sensation to Carol. She was very slowly growing more accustomed to it, but it still seemed odd. The way it felt, when Daryl held her, was a feeling that she simply wasn't used to.

But she loved it, and she almost feared losing it.

She could feel the affection in his touch. She could feel the pleasure that her nearness brought him. It almost felt like a vibration that transferred from his skin to hers.

She shivered nearly every time his lips found contact with some odd part of her skin that he seemed to want to pay homage to. Skin that was used to standing up against rough and unloving treatment was now being delicately caressed and kissed like she was fragile and breakable.

Carol enjoyed it, but the invitation to vulnerability almost scared her.

"This has been the best day," Carol breathed out.

"Mmm hmmm," Daryl hummed out, the sound carrying long and low.

"The best day," Carol mused again. It was true. It had been the best day that Carol could imagine. The best day that she'd never really dared to imagine before. But there were insecurities that still churned around inside her body—fears she hoped would disappear with time but that hadn't quite left her yet. "What'd your brother say?" Carol asked, running her fingers through Daryl's hair as he held her in the bed that they now shared.

"What?" Daryl asked.

"Your brother," Carol said. "What'd he say?"

"What do you mean?" Daryl asked, breaking away from the nuzzling he would probably deny that he enjoyed to such a great extent.

"About us," Carol clarified. "I know he must have said something. What'd he say?"

"The hell's he got to say?" Daryl asked with a laugh. "Nobody pulled his damn string, there weren't no invitation for him to say nothing."

Carol laughed to herself.

"You don't usually have to invite people to say things," Carol said. "Everyone wants to share their opinions. What'd he say about us? I know he must've said something. When I wasn't around. When I was in the house. Does he think—you're making a mistake? We're moving too fast?"

Daryl hummed.

"You don't know my brother too good," Daryl said. "But I'm bettin' you don't actually want to know what Merle's opinion on nothin' sounds like."

Carol considered the many implications of such a statement.

"I do," she said. "I want to know. I want to know—what Merle had to say."

Daryl pulled away from her then and sat up in the bed. Her eyes were adjusted to the darkness of the room well enough that she could see him, some illumination coming to the dark room from the outside light that shined through the window and kept the house and neighborhood from ever being entirely dark.

"He said you looked like a damn fine piece of ass," Daryl said with a smirk. He raised his eyebrows at Carol. "There—you wanted to know? That's what Merle's opinion on shit is."

Carol wasn't sure if she fully believed Daryl. He wouldn't lie to her, and she was confident of that, but she was almost certain that he would bend the truth or eliminate pieces of it because of how he feared they would make her feel.

"What about us?" Carol asked.

"What about us?" Daryl asked.

"What'd he say about us?" Carol asked. "About you? About—this?"

Daryl brought his thumb to his mouth. His nervous reaction to things was to chew at the dried cuticle skin that formed around his closely shorn nails. He would harass it almost mercilessly. It was an indication to Carol that Merle had said something, and it was something that Daryl was trying to figure out if he wanted to share or not.

"He didn't say much," Daryl said.

"But he said something," Carol pressed. "You can tell me. I can handle whatever it is."

Daryl hesitated. He hummed at her. He harassed his cuticle a bit more. Then he sighed.

"Thinks things is happenin' fast," Daryl said.

"They are," Carol said.

"They are," Daryl said. "But—that seems to be how the hell we do things. And he knows that too. Merle—when he met Andrea? I don't think they went out on two or three dates 'fore he was tellin' me he felt about her like he ain't never felt about a woman in his whole life. She had him crazy. He said he couldn't think of nothing else except—except when he was gonna see her again. If he said what she wanted him to say. If he done the right thing. If a woman like that—with all them brains and all that education—would ever really be serious about a man like Merle who would rather go to a Drag Race any day over the theater or some shit. He was pissin' his pants the day he come to work—jumpin' around like he couldn't even stand to be in his own skin—carryin' a ring around that he was trying to decide if he ought to give it to her or he ought to just return it to the store and give up on his fool idea of trying to make sure he seen her every single day 'cause she weren't going nowhere."

Carol smiled to herself.

"And Andrea said yes because Andrea loves Merle," Carol offered.

"She said yes," Daryl agreed. "Either because she loves him or—she's crazy. Maybe she's glutton for punishment. Hell—she might be on a mission from God. I don't know. They bought them a small house. Then they got them a little bigger one after that. They were moved twice before they got to their first anniversary. They were married and moved twice before they'd known each other a year and a half. We—I guess we just don't do things slow. Once you know you like it...you can just feel like something's gotta change. You're just—it's like you're standing just outside a door. You gotta know what's on the other side. You gotta take a chance and just—go on."

"What if you don't know what's on the other side?" Carol asked. "That door—could be the threshold to hell. I've walked through that one before."

Daryl laughed to himself.

"Or it could be the damn gates to heaven," he said. "One way or another—burn your ass up or make you happier'n you ever thought you could be—you gotta know."

Carol swallowed.

"That's how Merle felt? When he married Andrea?" Carol asked.

"The way I see it," Daryl said. "Way I feel too."

"Like you want to—go on through that door?" Carol asked.

"Just waitin' on you," Daryl said. He laughed to himself. "I'm knockin'. Just—waitin' on you to answer it."

"Ed always said it was me that ruined our marriage," Carol said. "He said that—once he was married to me? I changed. I was impossible to live with. He said he loved me, but I made him the way that he was."

Carol knew that Daryl had heard it from her before. She knew that he was likely to hear it again. And she was grateful that he didn't seem to mind. He had a patience that didn't seem to ever run out. Maybe he was wired that way or maybe it was raising Sophia that had made him that way. But Carol appreciated his patience. She appreciated everything about him.

"An asshole is always an asshole," Daryl said. "Damn near borned that way. You didn't make him nothing that he weren't set on being from the word go."

"You don't know that," Carol said. "You don't know if being married to me would—change your life entirely. And not in a good way."

"You right," Daryl said, quite sincerely. "I don't know. And you don't know what it'd do to your life neither. I didn't know what the hell was gonna happen when I brought Sophia in off the doorstep years ago neither. Didn't know how my life would change or how I was gonna feel about it. But—I don't regret it. Never have. Not even one single solitary day since she come into my life."

"I can't marry you," Carol said. "I'm still married."

"Won't always be that way," Daryl said. "And I can wait. Waited this long. I can wait however long you need. Just—lettin' you know it's you that's needing the waiting. It ain't me." He fell silent for a moment and then he spoke again, starting his words with a hum that suggested he wasn't entirely settled on them, but he was putting them out there anyway. "If you wanted to marry me tomorrow? I'd do it. Once you made up your mind? Tomorrow or next year—it's all the same."

"People will talk," Carol said. "That wouldn't bother you? You're sure of that?"

Daryl laughed to himself.

"Gonna do that anyway," he offered. "That's one thing they're good for. I might as well be gettin' the good out of whatever the hell it is they're talkin' about me for."

"I love you," Carol said, a little afraid of the fact that the words were so desperately true for her.

"I think I've loved you for a long time," Daryl said with a laugh. "So it's good to see we're heading in the same direction. Now it's you that's gotta ask yourself if—well, if you're sure you want this. Me. Sophia. Twenty-four seven bein' a wife and a Ma. What I got to offer, because it ain't a lot. What I might want in the future, because it might be a lot. Might even—wanna do it again, ya know? Another kid. Lil' brother or sister for Soph. You wantin' me? All that? You don't know no better than me what you might be walking into."

Carol laughed to herself, her chest fluttering a little at the thought. It was a lot to even entertain the idea of going directly from marriage to Ed to marriage to someone else. But Daryl didn't feel like "just someone else". Daryl didn't make Carol feel like "just someone else".

"I don't know," Carol admitted. "But—I'm dying to find out."