AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

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

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Jeanne-Louise was as happy to see them as she always was when they came in the diner. She embraced Daryl as soon as he came through the door—more like welcoming an old friend into her home than a patron into a business—and she offered Carol a similarly warm hug. When Carol embraced the old woman, she was immediately aware of how thin and frail she must be, even though she didn't appear to be so. Carol could feel nearly every bone in her body, even though the old woman had a decent amount of padding just around her middle.

"You want pie, baby?" Jeanne-Louise asked, pulling out of the hug with Carol to immediately direct her question to Daryl, but Carol assumed it was a sweeping question for anyone who might want pie. The diner smelled delicious—like all manner of food cooking—and Carol could imagine that Jeanne-Louise had been busy cooking since the earliest hours of the morning to stuff her pie safes in preparation for the day.

"What kind you got?" Daryl asked.

"You just had a doughnut," Carol offered.

Daryl laughed.

"It don't matter," Daryl said. "If Jeanne-Louise says she's got pumpkin pie, it cancels everything else out that you ever eat. You gotta eat it."

Jeanne-Louise beamed at Daryl's estimation of her pumpkin pie. She slapped his shoulder with more force than Carol imagined the old woman to have in her body, and Daryl laughed at the gesture.

"Find a table if you can," Jeanne-Louise offered. "I got pumpkin pie and fresh coffee, comin' to ya."

Carol smiled to herself when Daryl changed his position enough to rest a hand against the small of her back. It was a small sign of affection, but she appreciated it.

To say the diner was busy would have been an understatement. Jeanne-Louise and her husband, Frank, were friends of the club. They were under the "care" of the Judges. It was more than evident that they had absolutely no qualms about the "leather," as Faye had called it, that was filling the streets this morning. Out front, they'd put a homemade sign on the window, written in marker on a piece of cardboard that had likely been ripped from one of their supply boxes. The homemade nature of the sign made it no less inviting, though, than anything official would have been.

"Welcome Bikers!" The sign announced in large letters scrawled enthusiastically over the cardboard. Inside, the nature of that message was palpable.

The whole building was practically oozing with leather and Carol saw cuts, that day, that she'd never seen before.

"Boss! Hey, boss! Baby Brother!"

The large man that stood halfway in the aisle in front of them and waved both arms like the diner was small enough that they'd never find him, must have been the man that they'd come specifically to meet. He was holding a table—not that Carol imagined too many people would try to take from the large man that which he did not want to give, even though his smile suggested that he would probably give them anything they wanted—so Carol and Daryl quickly sat down across from him.

Daryl had called him, asking him where he'd prefer to meet and what he wanted to do, and he'd insisted on the diner. He'd said that he hadn't had breakfast yet and, from what Carol could see if him now, that might be something that mattered a great deal to him.

He had clearly started without them. Jeanne-Louise hadn't cleared his table yet, and there were plates shoved to the side that were practically clean, but were evidence that he'd already polished off a large breakfast. Directly in front of his seat sat a cup of coffee and three small plates with three different kinds of pie slices. Carol could immediately tell that, though he would probably give them whatever they asked for, the pie wasn't for either of them, and it was freshly arrived at the table.

He looked happily at both Daryl and Carol when he sat, and then he looked at the pie with as much happiness. He dragged one of the plates near him and picked up his fork like a man who was about to eat the first meal he'd had in days.

"Apple, pumpkin, chocolate," the man said. "Jeanne-Louise knows how to wrap up a meal."

"I take it your bacon an' eggs was good?" Daryl asked.

The man laughed.

Carol let her eyes ghost over the front of his cut.

Over one chest it, a small patch declared him "Independent."

"Bacon, eggs, and those grits had ham and cheese," the man said, clearly fondly remembering the food for a moment before he put a large forkful of pie into his mouth. He offered the plate in Daryl's direction and hummed at him. When Daryl shook his head, he did the same to Carol.

"We got pumpkin coming," Daryl offered. "Don't wanna be rude. Carol—this is Kahuna."

The man smiled and swallowed his pie.

"The Big Kahuna's my road name," he offered. "But my real name's just Jerry."

He offered a hand over to Carol and she took it and shook it. She was already smiling at the man, and she realized that she couldn't stop that. There was something about his smile that was absolutely infectious. She knew enough bikers by now, though, to know that many of them were, honestly, very jolly people, but they could offer a different face to the world, too, when necessary. She had no doubt that Jerry—the Big Kahuna to his friends—could be intimidating if that were what he wanted her to see.

Daryl wouldn't have chosen him, specifically, if there weren't a reason for that choice.

"Carol," Carol offered back to Jerry as he shook her hand.

"Your Baby Brother's old lady? The one Merle calls 'Mouse'?" Jerry asked. It was funny to hear the man refer to Daryl as "Baby Brother," especially given that he was probably younger than Daryl. Carol had started to realize, though, that a good many of the bikers she met referred to Daryl with some version of that moniker. Carol nodded her head and Jerry's smile returned, full-force, before he looked back to Daryl and raised his eyebrows. "Good job, boss," he offered. Carol felt her face grow warm.

"Don't go gettin' no ideas," Daryl said.

"I've got an old lady now," Jerry offered. "Nabila."

"Yeah?" Daryl asked. "She here?"

"She's at her mother's in Atlanta," Jerry said. "But she's coming to visit."

"If she comes to Liberty, she's liable to find a house she wants and you won't have no choice but to settle down here," Daryl said.

"I'm looking to settle down," Jerry said, but I don't know if it'll be here.

"You won't get Jeanne-Louise's pie nowhere else," Daryl offered. The old woman had just approached, and Daryl had made the comment as much for her benefit as for Jerry's. She placed the pie on the table in front of Carol and Daryl, and she placed a coffee cup for each of them that a young girl, who was obviously working there at least part time, passed to her before she slipped back toward the front again.

"You need something else, sugar?" Jeanne-Louise asked Jerry.

"I think I'm OK," he said.

"Coffee?" She asked.

"Maybe a little more," he ceded.

"You give me a minute," she said, before she clapped him on the shoulder and walked away to loudly and happily greet someone at a table near them.

"So, you're independent?" Carol asked. Jerry looked at her and nodded. "What does that mean, exactly? I get confused with the words, still—nomad and independent and…"

She let it drop off. He was already nodding knowingly and understandingly. It was only reasonable, he seemed to be saying with only the slight crease between his eyebrows, that she would get confused when there was so much to know.

"Nomads are part of a club," Jerry offered. "They just don't stay in one place. Like a Judge that's not part of the Liberty chapter or not part of the Atlanta chapter. I'm an independent."

"And that means?"

"Jerry ain't pledged to no club," Daryl said. "He ain't a Judge, and he ain't a Savior. Like an independent contractor."

"No club," Jerry reiterated.

"But you're clearly friends with Daryl."

"Jerry's friends with everyone," Daryl offered.

"No offense," Carol said, holding a hand out in Jerry's direction, but looking at Daryl, "but—isn't that dangerous?"

Daryl laughed to himself. He took a bite of the pumpkin pie.

"She's smart," Jerry interjected before Daryl could arrange his food enough to speak. "That's good."

"She is smart," Daryl said. "And you right, Carol. Would be dangerous if I meant that the way you took it. What I mean to say is Jerry's friends with them that deserve his friendship. But—he's more friends with the Judges than he is with anybody else."

"I agree with the Judge philosophy," Jerry offered.

"Then why not be a Judge?" Carol asked.

Jerry shrugged.

"I like my freedom," he said. "I do what I want, when I want. If that means that Merle reaches out to me and—I just don't want to do something, I'm not under any obligation."

"You wanted to do this?" Carol asked.

Jerry shrugged again and nodded. He'd moved on to his second piece of pie, and he'd piled his dish up with the rest of his plates. Jeanne-Louise must have heard the clanking of dishes, because she reappeared, filled his coffee cup, and swept away the dirty stack of plates without doing too much to interrupt the conversation. Jerry still waited until she'd stepped away, though, to continue speaking.

"I knew it was big when Merle called to say Andrea had been hit," Jerry said. "I've been asking around since then. Trying to get some news. I'll save that for the meeting."

"You seen Merle already?" Daryl asked.

Jerry hummed. He smiled to himself.

"Before he was even good and awake this morning," Jerry said. "Saw they're finally building a house on your land out there."

"They're really settling in," Daryl offered.

"I saw that tummy that Andrea's so proud of," Jerry said. He beamed. "Looks so good on her. I told her mine's bigger, though."

"She's been trying to get Merle to want this for at least eighteen years," Daryl said. "Now she wants everyone to just take at least a minute and recognize it's finally happening."

"Looks good on both of 'em," Jerry said. He looked back at Carol. "Back to you, Mouse. I knew I wanted in on this for a while. I don't like the fact that some people just don't know how to behave. When I got the call that you'd been hit, too, and that Daryl was looking for someone to watch over his old lady, I thought that might be the spot for me. I've been meaning to spend a little time in Liberty again."

"You have some information about who hurt Andrea?" Carol asked.

"Maybe," Jerry said. "But meetings are for things like that and breakfast is for good things. I already saw Merle and Andrea—and Merle Junior, but they wouldn't tell me anything about Baby Brother."

Carol tasted her pie and, one bite in, decided that Daryl was right. The pie was good enough to cancel out anything else she'd already eaten. She smiled at Daryl, when he smiled at her, but she nodded at him so that he'd be the one to share what he wanted with Jerry.

"Carol an' me—gettin' married next weekend. Out at Hershel's farm. Fall wedding and all that. Nothin' formal, though. Everyone's invited. Just food and music and all. Woulda done it this weekend, but Sophia ain't never been trick or treatin' so we gonna do that this weekend," Daryl said.

Jerry held his hand up.

"You're getting married?" He asked, sounding every bit as excited as any woman ever had over the impending nuptials of a friend. "I'd hug you both if this place weren't so crowded! You didn't tell me I was taking care of something as special as like—marriage level old lady."

Daryl beamed.

"I got me a daughter, too," Daryl said. "A lot's changed since I seen you last, brother."

Carol assumed they had been friends long enough that their lack of club affiliation didn't discredit their "brother" relationship.

"A daughter?" Jerry asked.

"Sophia's five," Daryl said. "Gonna be six come March."

Jerry laughed to himself.

"I haven't been outta Liberty that long," he mused.

"Sophia's my daughter," Carol offered. "Daryl's adopting her. We're telling her today and—we're telling everyone else tomorrow. At the meeting."

Daryl shook his head.

"I wish to hell we could come up with a better way of sayin' that," Daryl said.

Carol reached her hand across and patted his arm.

"It's just until everyone gets caught up," Carol said. "They're going to expect some explanation of how you got a daughter that they didn't know about for five years."

Daryl frowned, but nodded his understanding. He tasted more of his pie to take, perhaps, the bitter taste out of his mouth.

"So, keep your mouth shut on it, if you don't mind," Daryl said, to Jerry, around his pie.

Jerry drew a dramatic "X" across the part of his cut that declared him "independent."

"Wouldn't dream of ruining it," Jerry said. "I'm keeping both of them?"

"Got a tail on Soph already," Daryl said. "Don't make the work you're doin' any less important to me—I want you to remember that. Top of your priority list, and we'll make it worth your while."

"You always do," Jerry offered. "She'll be safe with me." He smiled at Carol and offered her an affectionate wink.

"I know she will," Daryl offered. "I got her today, though. We got errands to run. I'ma be with her all day. I'll have her tomorrow, too. I'll let you know when I need you."

"You know how to get me," Jerry said. "I'm heading out to Hershel's when I finish. Check in on him and Jo."

"Teeter's out there, too, now," Daryl offered.

Jerry smiled.

"Is he excited about Merle Junior and Sophia?" Jerry asked.

"As much as he can be," Daryl offered. "I know you haven't seen Teeter in a while. Don't be surprised, Jerry, if you find that—Teeter ain't quite who he used to be."

Jerry's smile faded a little.

"He's still looking for Wilma?" Jerry asked.

"Now more than ever," Daryl said, nodding his head.