AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

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

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"I can have anything I want?" Sophia asked.

"Anything," Daryl assured her.

She looked at Carol with a very concerned expression on her face.

The restaurant wasn't that nice. It was a steakhouse. It catered to middle and lower income people. You could come dressed any damn way you wanted, and there were peanut shells on the floor. Sophia thought it was fancy, though, and she'd started worrying about the money from the moment that Daryl had set her on her feet in the parking lot and readjusted her cut for her, assuring her that they could both wear them inside.

Clearly, something was bothering her and something had set it off in her little mind.

Five-year-olds didn't worry about money, Daryl figured. And, if they did? It was because someone had taught them to worry about it. He'd been worried about money back when he was Sophia's age, but that was because his mother had been worried about it. She'd talked about it all the time. There was very little in life that got the old man stirred up like too much money going out on something he didn't want to put it on.

It didn't have to be said. Daryl knew it instinctively and his stomach had ached over it since the parking lot. Ed had, at least once and probably many times, beaten Carol over money.

And Sophia had seen it, at least once, to understand why it was that money could be so terribly concerning.

Now, sitting and worrying over her meal—most of which would go home in a doggy box—Daryl was thinking that it might have been some kind of special occasion or some meal that had led Ed to get his family back to somewhere private just in time to unload his frustrations on Carol. They had been somewhere like this, and it was stirring up bad memories for Sophia and, evidently, Carol by extension.

Carol had drawn into herself, slightly, with Sophia's concerned glance. It was as though she could connect with Daryl's own mind and know that he was working things out. She was ashamed. The damn world with all its judgement—and there had been plenty of that following them since some of the people gnawing on steaks had seen the cuts when they entered the restaurant—had taught her to be ashamed of what she'd suffered.

Daryl's first move was to put his arm around Carol's shoulder. She flinched. It was a gentle flinch. Barely perceptible. Brought about, no doubt, by bad memories and slightly heightened senses and emotions. His second move was to reach across the table and gently touch Sophia's arm, tapping his fingertips against it to ground her and draw her back to him and away from whatever she was remembering.

"I mean it, Soph. You can have anything you want. It's a big night. We gonna celebrate. Have somethin' good here. Go to the mall. We got big things to do. But first, we gotta decide what we wanna eat."

"Did you win a promotion?" Sophia asked.

She butchered the last of her words slightly, but Daryl understood it. His stomach tightened a bit more. It was a word she had no reason to know, really. It was, also, undoubtedly the key to the past memory that she was worried over. There was a reason that Sophia had dedicated a word—which was relatively useless to her—to memory. Daryl didn't need the details. For some reason, Ed had gotten a promotion, taken them out to dinner—alone or with someone else to celebrate—and it had come in a little too expensive. Carol had paid the price. More than likely, she'd paid the price many, many times for something that was more expensive than Ed thought it should be, but Sophia had seen or heard this one. She remembered it. It had left a scar on her little mind as surely as it had left one of the many scars on Carol's body that Daryl did his best to convince her were beautiful.

"No," Daryl said. "I didn't get a promotion." He caught the sight of the waitress coming and gave her a friendly wave and a somewhat apologetic smile to let her know that that they weren't ready yet. He turned his attention back to Sophia. "I weren't gonna tell you 'til after we ordered, but—I guess it don't matter. Sophia—this is your night. It's about you."

"What'd I do?" Sophia asked.

Daryl laughed to himself.

"You were the most amazin' little girl that—anybody's ever seen," Daryl offered. "Always are. But—it's a celebration."

"Like my birthday?"

"Like a second birthday," Daryl said. "Got an envelope. Your Aunt Andrea dropped it off. Do you know what them papers in that envelope said?" He got a head shake, but Sophia had almost forgotten the menu she was holding and she had wiggled around to lean closer to him, fixated on the story. He smiled to himself again. "Said you was officially Sophia Dixon. You know what that means?"

Sophia looked at Carol. Daryl let his eyes glance over Carol. She had promised to let him have this—to be the one to tell Sophia the news and handle, at least, most of whatever the little girl might go through in regard to understanding everything. Now, Carol wasn't drawn up into herself like she'd been earlier. Instead, she was dabbing at her eyes with her napkin, and Daryl reminded himself that he should ask the waitress, when she finally came to get their order, for a handful more of those napkins. It was a really big night for their family and Carol, with their little one churning out more hormones than she knew what to do with, could get teary eyed over nearly everything, including a few of the commercials that had come on television lately. Daryl moved his hand enough to squeeze Carol's shoulder affectionately.

Sophia looked at him with concern, her eyes coming back from examining Carol. The tears were hard for her to interpret. Carol's tears, these days, were so common that they were likely impossible for the little girl to read right now—they kept Daryl turned around, too.

"What does it mean?" She asked, practically whispering the words like they might share a secret.

"Means you're my daughter," Daryl said. "All the way. Official. Ain't nobody never had no daughter more official than you're mine. And that? Means I'm your Daddy."

Sophia visibly relaxed.

"For real?"

"For real," Daryl assured her. "All the way. You ain't got no other Daddy but me, now. How you—how you feel about that?"

"Good," Sophia said quickly, but there was some residual concern on her face—and likely a lot of questions would bubble out here and there. Daryl was ready for them, whenever they came. He gave her his best reassuring smile.

"We can talk about it whenever you want," he offered. "As much as you want."

"Are you happy, sweetheart?" Carol asked Sophia.

Sophia relaxed more, then, and smiled at Carol. She nodded, clearly just a little overwhelmed with everything she was being asked to digest at once. Daryl smiled to himself, reminding himself that she was still very small, and her world—her world was very full of things to understand and process.

"She's good, ain't'cha, Soph? You good?"

Sophia's smile grew a little more. She turned it to Daryl.

"I'm good," she said.

"You a Dixon," Daryl said. "Free an' clear now. What'cha wanna eat?"

Sophia looked back at the menu. She couldn't really read it—at least not most of it—but she'd wanted one to hold and she'd wanted to see the pictures.

"Can I have a potato with sour cream?" Sophia asked.

"Do you one better'n that," Daryl said. "We'll get you one with everything on it. Cheese and bacon, too. You want that?"

Sophia nodded.

"You want steak or chicken, sweetheart?" Carol asked.

Sophia looked at Daryl. She tensed back up again, slightly. Daryl's heart squeezed hard. She was so small, and so precious to him, and she didn't deserve to have all the thoughts and feelings that she must have had to live with every day of her short little life.

"Soph—I don't know what…I don't know what you're rememberin', OK? I got me some ideas. And I don't like not a damn one of 'em, but that ain't got nothin' to do with you, OK? Just—I don't like that you got it to remember. But—that's just a memory. And they're scary, and they hurt us sometimes, right here." Daryl tapped his chest and then his temple. "Is what you're rememberin' hurtin' you there?" Sophia nodded. "You wanna talk about it?" Sophia glanced at Carol and back at Daryl. She shook her head. Daryl nodded his acceptance. "Memories like that can hurt us in them places, but they can't hurt us no other way. OK? I'm your Daddy now, Soph. Remember that?" Sophia nodded. "We're gonna celebrate that. Because everything you're rememberin'? Whatever it is? It don't happen again. Not on my watch. Not in my family. It don't happen with Dixons—and we're all Dixons here."

Sophia relaxed again. She wiggled in her seat.

"I want steak," she said quietly. She glanced around at surrounding tables. That was where she usually got her best menu suggestions when they went anywhere to eat. "Can I have some bread and—some of those peanuts?"

Daryl smiled to himself.

"You'll ruin your appetite for your meal if you eat all that," Carol offered.

"And we'll take it home for tomorrow if she does," Daryl said. "Soph—I meant what I said. You can have anything you want to eat tonight. And—if you're good while we pick out a Christmas tree at the mall, you get a present and ice cream when we leave."

"Can I get a doll?" Sophia asked.

"You can get a doll," Daryl confirmed. "Whatever baby makes you happy."

"Can I get a puppy?" Sophia asked, directing the question toward Carol.

"They don't sell puppies at the mall, Sophia," Carol said. She didn't look up from the menu that Daryl already knew she wasn't really studying. Sophia looked a little deflated, and she gave Daryl a frustrated look. She was reassured, now, and she was five years old. Her attention span wasn't long enough to hold onto her worries too long when she'd been promised there was no need for them.

Daryl, she knew, was her ally in the quest for a dog. He winked at her and shook his head ever so gently. She smiled and accepted the message—not right now.

Daryl pulled Carol close to him, his arm around her shoulder drawing her toward him like he was reeling her in. She came willingly and smiled when he kissed her cheek. As surely as he'd erased Sophia's concern over bad memories, he'd erased her tension. Sophia was fine, so Carol would be OK.

"What's Pea Baby wantin', Sweetheart?" Daryl asked, his lips near her ear.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the woman from the table near them making a face. He laughed to himself at her obvious disgust over a simple exchange of affection. She probably judged him for the leather. She definitely judged him for Sophia's leather. She didn't know that the leather tied him to the only family that had ever been worth a damn to him—and the leather helped Sophia sleep at night because it was a reassurance that the boogey man, even though she knew him to be real in a way that many other children did not, wasn't hiding under her bed—or under her Mama's bed.

The woman was judging him for kissing his wife's face. For nuzzling her ear in public. And maybe it wasn't the best way to present himself, but she didn't know that he'd just adopted their little girl, and that his wife was growing their new little baby, and that he was busy chasing away dark shadows left on the lives of both his leading ladies by a monster.

She didn't know any of that. All she knew was that a biker, clad in a leather cut and club rockers, was indoctrinating his child to something she didn't approve of and kissing his woman in public—and she could hardly eat for her dislike of the whole damn thing.

So Daryl, when he'd planted one more kiss on the side of Carol's face, winked at the woman and nodded his head in her direction so that she turned pink-faced and grumbled something at the food in which she'd suddenly become much more interested.

Carol glanced at him in question, having missed everything except the slight gesture with his head. Daryl dismissed her question with a smile and a shake of his head.

"So—what's gonna satisfy Pea Baby's palate?"

Carol smiled to herself.

"Steak?" She said, the statement coming out more like a question.

"You askin' or you tellin'? Because you're gonna know better'n me."

"I kind of want—a potato," Carol said. "But I want a salad, too."

Daryl laughed to himself.

"Then we'll do steak an' potatoes all around," he said. "And we'll get salads on the side. And we'll make sure we get a basket of them good lookin' rolls and a bucket of peanuts. That oughta hold us all 'til we get to the ice cream parlor later."

"We can't eat all this and ice cream," Carol protested.

Sophia suddenly looked worried. Daryl offered the little girl a smile.

"We can handle it," Daryl assured Carol. "Shoppin's gonna be hungry work. We gonna need our energy to pick out the perfect Christmas tree."

He looked around, catching the attention of their waitress, and waved her over. Peace had descended over their table. The concern that had been stirred up by the passing-by of a bad memory had been relieved, at least for the moment.

Daryl relaxed into his seat. There was nothing left to do now but enjoy their time.