AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

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

11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

"Well?" Carol asked.

Andrea stood with one of her tests in each hand. She stared, brow furrowed, at one and then the other. Carol pressed her again, looking for any sort of reaction that might tell her how they needed to proceed from here. She wasn't expecting Andrea's hands to start shaking almost violently. Andrea dropped one of the tests on the side of the sink. It bounced into the sink. She immediately brought her hand up to cover her mouth. She was already sobbing like it had been turned on in an absolute instant. She clutched the other test tightly in her hand and simply stood there shaking. Out of fear that she might actually fall down, Carol rushed forward and supported her enough to lead her to the toilet where she could sit.

The silent sobs finally gave way to sound and Andrea thrust the test she was holding in Carol's direction. She didn't let go of it when Carol tried to take it, though, presumably because she found herself unable to do so, and she continued to sob into her other hand as Carol turned the test to read it.

Carol swallowed against the lump that formed in her own throat and she squeezed the back of Andrea's neck and her shoulder to offer her a touch to ground her. When she let go of Andrea's hand, Andrea brought the test back to look at it some more. It was clear that she still didn't fully believe it.

"You better get cleaned up," Carol said. "If he sees you like this—he won't be able to make sense of it. He'll think you aren't happy. He'll—he'll probably start to worry that you changed your mind."

"It's—it's real," Andrea said, her voice barely coming out around the sobs that she hadn't full controlled. Carol laughed to herself.

"Did they both match?" She asked, scrambling to reach for the test that Andrea had abandoned on the sink. She found it just as Andrea hummed in the affirmative. Carol looked at the second test to confirm it. "Come on—you get cleaned up. Changed. Wear something—cute. Something that makes you feel good. It's not every day you get to tell Merle that he's going to be a...what would he be? A Daddy?"

Andrea shrugged. She was mopping at her face with toilet paper now and seeming to get it under control.

"I don't know," she said. "We never got that far in talking about it. I guess he would."

"And you're going to be a Mommy," Carol said.

The sobbing renewed itself in a burst and Sophia quickly appeared at the bathroom door. She hovered there a moment before she stepped into the bathroom.

"Are you OK, Andrea?" Sophia asked. "Is she OK, Mommy?"

Carol swallowed and nodded her head. Sophia wouldn't understand Andrea's tears because, even though she'd seen a great deal of tears in her life, she hadn't seen happy tears. She wouldn't understand, either, that Carol felt moved to tears simply because Andrea was so happy and she thought that the woman deserved this simple happiness.

"She's just fine, baby," Carol said. "She's just happy."

"I'm fine, sweetheart," Andrea assured Sophia. She held her arms out in Sophia's direction and Sophia didn't hesitate to run toward her and embrace her in the hardest hug that she could muster.

"Why are you crying?" Sophia asked. She pulled away and mopped at Andrea's face with her hands before she fell back against her in a hug again. Carol reached down and rubbed her hand over Sophia's back to comfort her.

"It's just because she's happy, baby," Carol offered.

"Why are you crying about being happy?" Sophia asked, ignoring Carol while she tried to nuzzle Andrea into ceasing her tears. It somewhat worked. The sobbing subsided, but the warm tears continued to stream down Andrea's face.

"I guess because—I'm so happy that I can't hold it in," Andrea said. "All that happiness just sort of—overflowed, sweetheart. It's just running out of me."

Andrea leaned forward and deposited the pregnancy test on the bathroom counter. She unrolled another length of toilet paper and blew her nose and wiped her face—all without really disturbing the five year old that sought to soothe her in the only way she knew how.

"What makes you so happy?" Sophia asked.

"Sophia—some things are not ours to talk about," Carol offered.

Andrea laughed, then, for the first time.

"Can you keep a secret?" Andrea asked.

Sophia nodded.

"Andrea..." Carol said, trying to do her best to let her know that her five year old daughter, though she had the best of intentions, might not be the best to keep a secret of this magnitude. She'd kept plenty of secrets for Carol, but they'd always been things that she wouldn't truly want to speak about much in the first place.

This might actually be something she wanted to share.

"You have to really keep it, OK?" Andrea said, catching Sophia's face in her hands and holding it so she could look directly into Sophia's eyes. "It's a very big secret. And it's very good—very, very good. And I want to be the one to share it with Merle and Daryl when they come, OK? I want to be the one who—Sophia—I need to be the one to share it with them, OK? First. So you can't say anything. Not until I tell you that it's OK for you to say anything. Can you do that?"

"You're happy about the secret?" Sophia asked.

"So—so—very happy," Andrea said.

"You know, Mommy?" Sophia asked, looking at Carol. Carol nodded. "You're happy?" Carol nodded again.

"I'm very happy for Andrea," Carol said. "But I'm going to keep her secret. I'm not going to tell anyone because it's Andrea's special secret and she should get...she should get to tell everyone."

Sophia looked back at Andrea and reached her hands up. In the same way that Andrea had earlier caught Sophia's face in her hands to hold her gaze, Sophia now caught Andrea's face.

"I won't tell your secret, Andrea," Sophia assured her in the most sincere voice that she could muster. "What is it?"

Andrea smiled. She didn't even look at Carol to receive Carol's attempt to tell her, with her eyes, that she didn't have to tell Sophia.

"I'm going to be a Mommy," Andrea said. Sophia's eyes went big. "I'm going to have a baby. And I just—found out."

Sophia looked to Carol.

"Mommy..." Sophia said. "Did you hear?"

Carol laughed to herself.

"I know," Carol said. "It's good news, isn't it? Happy news."

"When do you get the baby?" Sophia asked.

"I already have it. It's in my tummy," Andrea said.

Sophia immediately backed up and Carol saw the scrutiny of her daughter as she looked at Andrea from head to toe. Her brow was furrowed and her mouth was open.

"Where?" She asked.

"It's very small," Andrea said. "It has to grow."

Sophia looked to Carol for confirmation.

"It's true," Carol said. "Just like you grew in my tummy, Andrea's baby has to grow in her tummy."

"How big is it?" Sophia asked.

"Very small," Andrea said.

"Like a kitten?" Sophia asked.

"Even smaller," Andrea said.

Sophia looked back to Carol and Carol nodded to confirm what Andrea had said.

"Can you feel it?" Sophia asked.

"Not yet," Andrea said. "One day."

"Who told you?" Sophia asked. "How do you know if you can't feel it and you can't see it? How do you know?"

"There are special tests that Mommies can take," Carol said. "Andrea took them. And she found out she has a baby in her tummy."

"Wow..." Sophia mouthed, turning back to look at Andrea again. She usually looked at the woman like she was something just a little supernatural, and Carol assumed that she simply had something like a crush on Andrea. Now she was truly looking at her, though, like she was something entirely new to her.

"Can you keep my secret?" Andrea asked. "So I can tell Merle? It's going to mean a lot to him, and he'd really, really like for me to get to tell him. Can you keep my secret, Sophia?"

Sophia nodded.

"Promise?" Andrea pressed. She offered her pinky to Sophia. "Pinky promise?"

Sophia eyed her a moment before she put her pinky up to complete the pinky promise and Andrea showed her how to do it. Immediately Sophia's face flooded with joy over the thought of having a pinky promise with Andrea—something that belonged to the two of them.

"Sophia—why don't you help Andrea pick out something to wear?" Carol asked. Andrea looked at Carol. "I can clean up here. Get some sandwiches made. We'll have everything ready when they get here. OK?"

The sign of agreement that she got from both Andrea and Sophia was that Andrea got up and, after washing her hands in the sink, led Sophia out of the bathroom.

Carol picked up the tests that Andrea had taken. She turned them over in her hand. They were easy to read. The screen clearly announced Andrea was pregnant. They were much simpler than the ones that Carol had taken five years ago with Sophia. Those had been tests where she'd had to squint at crossed lines and interpret her results.

Even though Carol loved her daughter dearly—enough that she'd lay down her life for her without even thinking about it—she hadn't experienced the kind of happiness that Andrea was experiencing right now. She hadn't cried for joy. She'd cried for fear. She hadn't relished telling the baby's father the good news. She'd feared that he'd react badly and she'd be unable to protect the little thing. She hadn't had that warm rush of feeling like all her dreams had come true. She'd felt the cold rush of feeling like she might be beginning a whole new nightmare.

Even though Carol loved Sophia more than her own life, there had been very little happiness surrounding her discovery that her daughter was coming into the world.

Still, Carol was happy for Andrea that things were different for her. She was happy for her that she had the opportunity to feel so much happiness over her impending arrival.

Carol dropped the pregnancy tests into the trash can. She reached for the two that she'd taken to help calm Andrea's nerves. Not having to do it alone always made a task seem easier. Carol had gone first and that had seemed to spur Andrea on to take the tests. Carol flipped over the cardboard box her tests had come in and read quickly the way that she was meant to interpret the tests. She dropped the box into the trashcan and picked the tests up. She stared at them a long moment—much longer than she intended.

Her stomach clenched in a way that she hadn't expected. It rose and fell almost like she'd dropped dramatically on a rollercoaster. The tightness in her throat that she'd felt earlier while sharing Andrea's happiness returned and she swallowed against it.

What sense would it make to cry over a pregnancy test that said exactly what she thought it would? What sense would it make, even, to cry over a pregnancy test when she had, in no way, expected or wanted to be pregnant?

Sometimes, Carol knew, the heart had moments of not being entirely rational. Hers was having one of those moments.

For just a few moments, she stood there holding the tests in her hands and imagined what she might feel if they'd said something different. She allowed herself to imagine having a profound happiness like the one that Andrea was experiencing wash over her.

Carol couldn't even begin to imagine feeling that happy—or even really being allowed to feel that happy.

Carol swallowed against the tightness in her throat again. She stopped looking at the tests. She stopped imaging scenarios about what-ifs that would surround the lines being different and her life being different. She dropped the tests into the trashcan and turned the water on to wash her hands. When she was done, she dried her hands, wiped her face, and picked at her hair with her fingertips where pieces of it, here and there, were just starting to show evidence that it was growing just a bit.

She switched off the bathroom light before she left the room.

Andrea was in her room and Carol could hear Sophia loudly jabbering to her as she, no doubt, sat on Andrea's bed and watched while Andrea did something of a fashion show for her. She would want to pick out just the right thing to tell Merle that she was expecting. It would be a day that both of them would remember forever.

Carol smiled to herself, happy for Andrea's happiness.

And she went about making sandwiches because it wouldn't be long, now, before Daryl and Merle arrived with their minds set on a picnic and a nice afternoon in the country.

11111111111111111111111111111111111

AN and PSA: I've seen a lot of people talking about not feeling motivated to write/not having their writing mojo. It can get be difficult for everyone sometimes.

If you read and enjoyed, please consider leaving a review/comment. Not just on this fic, but on any fic that you read. It's like a hug to your favorite fic authors, and it does more for writing motivation than you can imagine!