AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Daryl had stood uncomfortably to the side and held Rose, who spent a good deal of her time sleeping and most of the rest of it sucking at her mother's breast, while Alice had seemed to torture Carol a bit. Everything she did, she assured him, was for Carol's benefit and was to promote her body healing from the ordeal of having brought Rose into the world after giving her such a nice home for nine months.
Carol didn't seem to mind, even though she did occasionally make some complaint known through a facial expression or sound of discomfort. Apparently, she was more aware of what was expected than Daryl could admit to being.
Alice had a fool proof way to keep Carol working with her, though. She'd simply refused to look over the baby until she was done with her inspection of Carol, and Carol was more than willing to cooperate with anything to have the reassurance that the infant was as right as rain.
When Alice declared Carol as healthy as she could honestly hope for her to be, and had declared that she could do anything she felt up to doing—as long as she was reasonable and sensible about things—Daryl had felt a great weight lift off of him.
He'd carefully handed over the baby for inspection, and she'd tolerated Alice's presence for a moment before deciding that she didn't care for the doctor's decision to undress her. She liked her pajamas, and she wasn't ready to give them up.
Alice clucked her tongue and teasingly chided the newborn over her angry howls, and she examined her gently before passing her over to Carol and asking her if she could get her latch. Apparently, Alice thought it might be a struggle, or at least something that took a moment, but their baby girl was good at one thing—she could and would attach herself to her mother's breast without the slightest need for any kind of convincing.
Immediately, she hushed howling, pleased with what she'd been offered, despite her lack of pajamas.
"OK—you're a pro at that," Alice offered. Carol looked pleased with the praise at her ability to do something correctly when it came to the baby. "Is she sucking?"
"Not really," Carol said. "I don't think so. Not right now. Maybe—a little?"
"It's OK," Alice said, her voice soft. "It's not a test. It's fine either way."
Carol sighed, and Daryl felt his chest tighten. From several feet away, he could feel her anxiety. She feared being wrong. She feared doing something wrong. She feared being labelled as a bad mother. Maybe she even thought that someone—Alice or some invisible monster—would take the baby away from her because she couldn't answer some simple question. Alice didn't seem interested, in the slightest, in taking the baby away, though.
Instead, she took advantage of the baby's contentedness to examine her while she was happily occupied.
"She looks good," she said, her voice at a level that Daryl immediately noticed was meant to be soothing. Now, though, he could tell she didn't mean to soothe the baby. She meant to soothe Carol. "Everything sounds good. Her heart is strong and those lungs are unmistakably strong. And clear. And, Carol? Right now, she might just be self-soothing a little with your nipple, but she's still getting a little colostrum even doing that, and it's going to help her get what she needs to be healthy. Besides that, this is her time to practice. She's learning to suck and breathe all at the same time. It's preparing her not to get choked—to really know how to nurse—when your milk comes in. So, if it doesn't bother you? I'm sticking to what I said before. Do this as much as she wants—as much as you want. It's good for both of you."
"How do I know if she's getting enough to eat?" Carol asked.
"Is she fussing a lot?" Alice asked.
"Only if we don't put her on there fast enough," Daryl offered, even though the question hadn't been directed at him. He felt apologetic, but Alice didn't seem offended. "We're learnin', though, that she's got these kinda puppy noises she makes before that happens."
Alice laughed to herself at the baby's puppy noises, perhaps.
"We'll keep an eye on her," Alice ceded. "I'm expecting her to lose a little before she gains. All my books tell me that's normal. We'll watch how much she loses, though, and whether or not she starts to gain back. We're going to trust your body just a little bit, Mama. It hasn't let either one of you down so far. It made her strong and healthy, and it got her here that way, too, without letting you get too worn down."
"And that's despite what the hell Rick done half-starvin' her ass to death for prob'ly over six months," Daryl offered.
Alice nodded.
"Let's trust Mother Nature just a bit longer, and we'll just keep an eye on things."
Carol agreed that she was fine with that as long as she had Alice's reassurance that the baby was healthy.
"Can my brother see her?" Daryl asked.
"I told you—you can do whatever you feel like doing as long as you're not in the mood for any kind of hanky-panky. Mama's gotta heal."
Carol seemed to think that was really quite funny, and Daryl was grateful just to see her so amused. They both thanked Alice, and Daryl saw her out of the house. By the time he came back to the bedroom, Carol was sitting on the side of the bed with the baby in her arms. She was dressing the little girl in one of the outfits that she'd stacked up, earlier, on the nightstand.
"Do you like this little pair of pajamas?" Carol asked, smiling at the baby she was dressing.
"I like all of it," Daryl lied. He honestly didn't care one way or another.
"For meeting Merle and Andrea?" Carol asked.
Daryl laughed to himself.
"Merle ain't even gonna notice what she's wearin'," Daryl said. "So, you dressin' her for Andrea."
Carol smiled to herself.
"Will you go find them?" She asked. "While we get ready?"
Daryl agreed that he would, and he'd left her to do what she wanted while he searched them out. Finding them hadn't been too hard. They'd both anxiously come back to the house to meet the baby. When they got back to the house, Daryl intended to leave them in the living room while he went to help Carol, but she'd surprised him by meeting them in the living room.
She didn't look at all like she'd just brought their baby girl into the world the day before.
She'd swapped her nightgown for one of the loose dresses that she wore while pregnant—looser now because, though her belly hadn't disappeared entirely, she had lost some of the belly she'd sported while the baby had been growing.
She met them with the baby in her arms and passed her over to Andrea, who practically dove for her, before winking in Daryl's direction. He realized he was looking at her, brow furrowed, because he hadn't expected her to look so put together in such a short amount of time. He relaxed a little with her wink and watched how happy she looked to be showing the baby off to Andrea.
Merle, for his part, stood over to the side. He seemed to understand, instinctively, like Daryl, that this was some kind of ritual that had to be respected and followed.
For a moment, as Andrea admired the baby, Carol hovered close enough that the two women might have been slow dancing. She'd kept her hands next to her like she might need to snatch the infant back in a moment's notice or catch her if Andrea might decide to let go of her the way that Daryl sometimes irrationally feared that he might. After a moment, though, Carol relaxed and backed away to give Andrea a little room to breathe while she held the baby and cooed over how beautiful she was.
The baby girl was awake for the moment. She'd been given one of the pacifiers that she would accept. There was only one type that she would accept. The nipple, Carol said, must be different than the others. It must be, in some way, superior to the others. The baby would cry and choke, almost, around the others. These she would suck with only the slightest expression of suspicion on her face.
She regarded Andrea with suspicion, but she didn't squall at her the way she had with Alice. Of course, Andrea was not trying to remove her clothes. The baby, already, was a big fan of her clothes and blankets. Once she'd been bundled, wrapped, dressed, or swaddled in something, she was really quite against giving it up again. She liked being warm and snuggled.
Daryl was not quite sure why, and he could tell from the way that Merle watched everything with eyes shifting from place to place, that he wasn't quite sure why either, but the whole thing drew tears from both Andrea and Carol. They cried together, tears with smiles, and hugged each other around the baby that was content enough, despite the fact she seemed as confused with the exchange as her daddy and uncle clearly felt.
When Andrea had finished her inspection of the baby, she somewhat reluctantly passed her over to Merle's arms after they had a short and quiet discussion of how he might best hold her with only one hand to help him support her.
Andrea lovingly placed the baby in the crook of Merle's right arm, and he slipped his left hand under the bundle.
Daryl didn't miss his immediate smile or the look that he exchanged with Andrea. It made Daryl's stomach tighten, because he believed he understood it. For one brief second, the look wasn't about Rose—it was about Andrea showing Merle what it was like to hold a baby and, perhaps, that it was possible despite his disfigurement.
It seemed like a long way away, but Daryl knew they were thinking about the day when Merle would be holding their own child.
The moment passed, Andrea turned away slightly pink cheeked and gave him some space to rock and admire the newborn.
The baby apparently decided she was growing tired with the attention, and she didn't stare at Merle for long before she apparently closed her eyes and decided to go to sleep. Daryl could tell from Merle's reaction the moment that she'd made the decision. His whole body visibly relaxed, and his smile was genuine. He talked to her, in a tone of voice that Daryl hadn't heard from his brother since the day their mother had died, quietly about taking a nap and letting "Uncle Merle" handle things for a while—since he was certain she'd been busy keeping the house safe and under control since her arrival the day before.
Her choice to nap breathed an air into Merle that Daryl could practically feel across the room. Daryl understood. She gave him the same kind of confidence when she trusted him enough to close her eyes and leave it all up to him.
Carol finally urged Merle to sit and, slipping her hands under his arms, she led him to a chair and helped him to get comfortable, seeming to read his mind that he wasn't sure how to sit with the baby. She took her own seat, noticeably more gingerly than she usually did, on the couch, and Andrea sat on one side of her while Daryl sat on the other.
For a while, they sat and talked—Andrea mostly filling the silence with stories of what was going on outside the walls of the house during the hours since Daryl and Carol had left. Carol filled the rest of the time answering Andrea's questions about what it was like to have the baby—both in the sense of delivery and in the sense of sharing their home with her now—in ways that wouldn't leave Merle visibly cringing too much.
When Rose finally woke and decided that she had had enough of visiting and would much prefer to snuggle with her mother and nurse, Merle had relinquished the baby and Carol had thanked them both for coming before disappearing to nurse her in privacy.
Merle hung back, on the porch, after Daryl showed them out of the house.
He didn't say anything. He simply smiled at Daryl—a half-smile, but a sincere one, nonetheless.
Finally, Daryl broke the silence.
"Got me a baby girl," he said.
Merle laughed to himself and nodded.
"You damn sure do," he offered.
"She's a pretty lil' thing," Daryl said.
"That she is," Merle agreed.
"Looks like her Mama," Daryl said.
"I imagine she does," Merle said. He raised his eyebrows at Daryl. "You done good, brother."
Daryl felt a strange sense of relief as his gut seemed to unknot itself. His secrets were still safe.
"Yeah?"
Merle nodded.
"Go enjoy your girls," Merle offered, stepping off the porch without another word and half-jogging to the point, quite a few feet off, where Andrea had realized she'd left him behind and had stopped to wait on him to catch up with her. Daryl saw her slip her arm through Merle's and lean her head against him as they walked back toward their own home.
