AN: Credit for most of the dialogue for this and all of the other chapters must go to the fantastic script writers at TWD; although I couldn't bring myself for my Daryl to be calling Carol a bitch in the stable scene - so that part has been well and truly CARYL'D up for your reading pleasure. Hope you enjoy!

"Does Shane think Sophia's dead?" Carl's softly spoken question had Lori looking up from where she had been checking over his schoolbooks, an expression of shock in her eyes.

"Shane's just scared."

"Of the Walkers in the barn?"

"Yeah." Carl turned back to his schoolbooks for a moment, pencil scratching across the page and then laid his pencil down. "Mom," he turned his head to face Lori. "I'm not leaving until we find Sophia. And I don't want to go even after that."

"Well, we're not leaving, Carl." Lori reassured her son, hoping and praying that Rick would be able to talk Hershel around. Carl nodded happily, and Lori tapped the edge of the schoolbook. "Now, you finish those problems." Carl picked the pencil back up and made a few scratchy notations on the page.

"I just think…she's gonna like it here. This place, it could be a home." Lori looked into his eyes and reached over to enfold him in her arms; pressing a kiss against his hair.

Daryl was struggling to lift a heavy saddle in the stables, grunting with the effort and feeling the tug of the stitches in his side. Carol saw him press a hand against his side and rushed in, she had been wondering where he had disappeared to after they had all returned from the barn and now she knew that he was preparing to go out looking for Sophia again.

"You can't…." Carol protested as she saw him falter under the strain and he heaved the saddle onto a saddle rest next to the stalls.

"I'm fine." Daryl turned away from her pleading eyes and busied himself readying the tack that was needed.

"Hershel said you need to heal. It's only been two days."

"Yeah, I don't care."

"Well, I do." Carol said quietly and moved further into the stables. "Rick's going out later to follow the trail."

"Yeah, well, I ain't gonna sit around and do nuthin'." Daryl swung open the stall door and reached up to fasten a leading rope to the halter of his chosen horse's head; making sure that it wasn't Nellie, the horse that had thrown him at the ravine.

"No, you're gonna go out there and get yourself hurt even worse. We don't know if we're gonna find her, Daryl." Her softly spoken words had him leaving the horse and turning to face her. "We don't." Carol's blue eyes filled with tears as she lifted her shoulders slightly and softly admitted. "I don't." Daryl stepped out of the stall and brought himself right in front of her.

"What?" He said in disbelief. Was this the same woman that had faced Shane earlier at the barn and told him that the group couldn't move on because her daughter was still out there?

"I can't lose you, too." She whispered, Daryl dropped the remaining tack at her feet and brought a hand up to hover at her cheek; not knowing whether she would welcome his touch. Carol blinked back the tears and forced a trembling smile to her face. He moved his hand that remaining inch so that he could feel her soft skin.

"You won't." He whispered in return, softly stroking his thumb under her eyelashes to capture a single, sparling teardrop. "You can't lose me, Carol. I haven't come this far with you just to lose you now. Don't you know that? And I won't let you give up on Sophia, neither. Okay?"

"Okay." She smiled a little and he felt her nod against his hand. "If you have to go out today, will you at least consider taking Merle with you?" She looked up and saw the smirk that half flittered across his lips.

"Was goin' too anyway. He's running a bit late, he was supposed to be in here saddling up so that I didn't tear my stitches out." Daryl ducked to avoid the playful slap that Carol aimed at his head, chuckling at how far he'd come with this woman in such a short space of time. Just a few short months ago, he would never have been able to stand this close to anyone without flinching and to have someone aim their hand at him, albeit playfully, would have send him running for the hills.

"I'd best go and see what's keeping him. I want to check along the creek bed further upstream from where I found that doll and want to be back before dark." Daryl shifted his feet and then thought what the heck? He swiftly bent his head to place a quick kiss against her cheek and heard her hiss of indrawn breath at his actions. He quickly stepped back and strode off down the stable block.

"Hey, Carol." He turned his head to call back over his shoulder, and saw that she hadn't moved an inch. "See you at dinner; best you set another place at the table, 'cause I'm gonna be bringin' yer little girl home with me. Stay safe, woman."

"Yeah, you too." Carol raised a hand in farewell and then dropped it to her cheek, pressing it against the same spot his lips had touched briefly. She stood in the still quiet of the stable block watching him saunter out into the sunlight and heard him yell to his brother to get a move on. She heard Merle's intelligible reply and saw Daryl moved off toward the camp to go in search of him.

A knock at the porch door distracted Hershel from reading the Good Book as he ate his lunch in a solitary state. "Come on in." He called out and turned his attention back to the Psalm he was reading. Rick stepped into the house and crossed the room.

"A little light reading for lunch?" He said as he reached the table and saw what Hershel was reading.

"Been working so hard lately, I get my studying where I can."

"You know we can help you out with your work." Rick said, leaning his hands on the back of one of the dining room chairs.

"It's my field to tend." Hershel replied as he briefly looked up from his bible.

"We found the barn." Rick stated and waited for Hershel's reaction. Hershel turned a page and continued to read.

"Leave it be." He warned softly.

"Well, I'd like to talk about it, but either way, your barn, your farm, your say."

Hershel finally looked up from his bible to glance over in Rick's direction. "I don't want to talk about the barn. I don't want to debate."

"Not a debate, a discussion." Rick said simply and watched as Hershel swallowed his mouthful and sat back in his chair, wiping his mouth with a cloth napkin.

"I need you and your group gone by the end of the week." He said finally and turned his attention back to his bible in an attempt to ignore Rick; but Rick refused to be dismissed that easily.

"I talked to Dale. You and I have our differences with the way we look at the Walkers. Those…" Rick chose his next word very deliberately causing Hershel to look back up at him. "People, they may be dead, they may be alive. But my people, us, we are alive right now, right here, right in front of you. You send us out there, and that could change."

"I've given you safe harbour. My conscience is clear." Hershel had made his feelings for the matter very clear and saw no reason for their conversation to continue. Rick dropped down into the chair next to Hershel and leant forward to press his case.
"This farm is special. You've been shielded from what's been going on out there. Dale said you saw everything happen on the news. Well, it's been a long time since the cameras stopped rolling." Hershel had heard enough and rose from the table to take his plate out to the kitchen, Rick followed his every move.

"First time I saw a Walker, it was just half a body snapping at me from the ground. My inclination wasn't to kill it. But what the world is out there isn't what you saw on TV. It is much, much worse and it changes you. Either into one of them or something a lot less than the person you were. Please do not…do not send us out there again." Rick left Hershel staring out of the window above the sink and walked a few paces away, he turned around and with a slightly cracked voice announced: "My wife's pregnant." Hershel turned around slowly to face Rick who continued; "That's either a gift here or a death sentence out there. If we were to stay here we could help you with the work, with securing this place. We could survive together."

"Rick, I'm telling you we can't."

"Think about this, you think about what you're doing."

"I've thought about it."

"Think about it." Rick repeated.

"I THOUGHT ABOUT IT!" Hershel shouted and Rick leant forward to plead with him again.

"Think about it again. We can't go out there." Rick left Hershel with those last words and stormed out of the house, brushing past Maggie who had heard every word of their heated exchange. She looked at her father leaning heavily against the kitchen table and turned away to slip back out of the house.