"Feels weird." Daryl rolled off the air mattress.

"I think it's deflating on us," Carol replied.

"Probably 'cause you fucked me so hard."

Carol splutter laughed. "Well, can you blame me?" she asked. "I don't have stiches anymore, and I just got engaged." The mattress sunk further down. "Just get the sleeping bag."

In the glow of the Winnie the Pooh nightlight, Daryl crawled bare-ass naked across the nursery floor toward the closet. Carol rolled on her side and admired him as he unlatched the rolled sleeping bag from his pack. "Get me my PJs, too," she told him. "I'm getting cold now." Their clothes lay scattered and draped across the nursery furniture. Her panties had ended up caught on the mobile of the crib, and her shirt on the diaper changing table.

Daryl unzipped her backpack and tossed her PJs to her. He pulled out pair of sweatpants from his own pack, stood, and pulled them on.

"Boo!" Carol said. "Now I can't admire your backside."

"Well, you're putting tops and bottoms on. Imagine my dismay."

Carol laughed. "I love it when you say things I don't expect."

"Hell kind of things?"

"Imagine my dismay. And when you say it with that accent. And that gravely voice. It's perfect."

"Pfft."

They put the deflated air mattress aside but kept the blanket and pillows. They unzipped the sleeping bag and lay on top of it, snuggling beneath the warm fleece blanket, Carol curled around Daryl's side. "You think anyone heard us?"

"Soph was dead asleep on that couch when we got back from Rosita's."

They hadn't told a soul yet about their engagement. There was too much going on. Rick was still meeting with Milton, and Lori and Carl had gone to bed by the time they got in.

"It's amazing Rick found his friend," Carol said. "I wish Mika's uncle was there, or Luke's grandmother. I wish those poor orphans could find some family."

Daryl squeezed her against himself in a half hug. "They have," he whispered.

"You're right. They have a big sister in Sophia. A big brother in Dixon. A little brother in Andre. And a whole house full of adults who love them to pieces. Including me. But we have to watch Luke when he gets older. Those curls. That face. He's going to be a heartbreaker when he's eighteen."

It should have felt strange, talking about a future a decade from now. It should have felt strange, after two soldiers were killed on the road, and a third shot, by a wolf-like pack of people who weren't quite human. It should have felt strange, after the Governor had tried to burn down their house and slaughter Daryl's nephew.

It should have felt strange, but somehow…it didn't. Because their world was also growing. Woodbury was no longer a phantom to her, after her visit here. And now, there was another camp out there, with good people, fifty of them. Communities were blooming in the ashes of this fallen world, and they were cooperating with one another. And suddenly, a future – a real future - seemed possible.

December 24

While the citizens of Woodbury crowded around the windows of the café jostling to read the copied, posted list of Terminus names, anxious to find friends and relatives on the roll, Carol, Daryl, and Sophia had breakfast with the Grimes family around their kitchen table.

Rick had mentioned to Carol, in private, that Lori had a tendency not to cook pancakes all the way through. "But she wants us to be a storybook family," he'd told Carol. "This family that has pancakes for breakfast." Carol didn't think pancakes for breakfast was particularly storybook. She'd always put a full breakfast on the table on weekends in front of Ed, and their family had been far from storybook. She'd also told Rick, "You know, maybe Lori just wants the family time. Maybe you should volunteer to cook the pancakes."

But this morning, Carol had volunteered to cook the pancakes. It was her thank you for hosting them and allowing Sophia to have such a good time. The kids' evening had not been badly interrupted by the gunshots. Once they knew Daryl, Carol, and Rick were safe, and they'd been told the gates were closed, a pack of walkers eliminated, a wounded soldier stabilized, and everything secure, they'd just wanted to go back to playing Dungeons and Dragons. Some might have called that callousness, but Carol preferred to think of it as resilience. Children were strangely resilient, and in this world they would learn to be even more so.

Daryl was the last to sit down at the table because he'd been waiting for the second pot of coffee. He put cup in front of Carol's plate and then his own before settling in and picking up his fork.

"So what happened last night?" Lori asked. "What did Abraham say?" After Rick gave a brief summary of Terminus and the attack on the road, Lori said, "I'm glad you didn't go on that trip like you wanted to. To think…" Lori shook her head.

"But if dad had gone," Carl said, "maybe Franco and Big Tiny would still be alive. He'd have kicked all their asses!"

"Carl!" Lori scolded. "Language!"

Rick, however, smiled down at his pancakes. But then his expression grew suddenly serious. "There's something else." He sighed and sat back in his chair, wrapped his hand around his mug of hot coffee, and braced himself for what he was about to say. "Shane had been there. At Terminus." He told them about Shane's two-week stay.

"You have to go get him!" Carl exclaimed.

"He's not there anymore, Carl. He left over three weeks ago. He's long gone. But I thought you'd be glad to know he's safe."

"Well, I don't know that, do I?" Carl asked despondently. "If he left over three weeks ago! And he left them all his guns!"

"He didn't leave them all his guns," Rick reassured his son. "He took a handgun, a rifle, and a shotgun, and about a thousand rounds of ammunition with him. He had a trunk full of water and storage food they traded him. And you know tough he is." Rick's eyes flitted briefly to Lori and then back to his pancakes.

"Is he ever coming back?" Carl asked.

"We don't know," Lori told him. "But he's doing what he felt he had to do."

"And you're good with that?" Rick asked her. "Shane doing what he felt he had to do?"

"Of course I'm good with it," she said.

"Good, because there's something I have to do. After breakfast, I'm going to Terminus."

"What?" Lori asked. "On Christmas Eve?"

"I need to see Morgan. See how he is."

"With those bandits on the road?" Lori practically yelled.

Daryl glanced at Carol like he was asking her how they could extricate themselves from this impending domestic spat. Carol gave him a weak smile and sipped her coffee.

"Rosita and Bob are coming with me," Rick told her. "I'll have backup. And we'll have a medic this time."

"Abraham had backup," Lori insisted. "And now Big Tiny and Franco are dead."

"Those W's are probably all dead," Rick assured. "If they're not, their ranks have been decimated and they probably don't have many weapons. Abraham said they only had five guns between them, and he took all those. "

Lori looked by no means reassured. "Can't you at least wait until after Christmas? Until the last Friday of the month? Isn't that when you said Abraham scheduled for trade trips?"

"I'll probably be back tonight," Rick assured her. "Christmas morning at the latest. And besides, Tara wants me to investigate the scene where they slaughtered those W's. Go through their pockets, find out what I can while the scene's still fresh. And we need to burn Big Tiny and Franco before their bodies start to rot. They deserve an honorable cremation. Abraham and Axel had to move quickly, because of Sasha's wound, and they couldn't do any of that."

Lori sighed.

"Morgan saved my life, Lori. I need to go see him. And I'm a deputy, and I have a crime scene to investigate. It's work."

"It always was work with you, wasn't it?"

"God!" Carl slammed his fist down on the table. The plates rattled. "Can you two just stop!"

Maybe the move to Woodbury hadn't done as much to improve their marriage as Carol had initially thought. She cast Sophia a worried look. Shouting among family members always made her cringe, for obvious reasons. But Sophia looked more worried about Carl than about the shouting. She was in the chair next to his, and she reached over and put a hand on his shoulder, as though to calm or comfort him.

Lori, for her part, appeared startled by Carl's outburst. "We're not arguing," she lied. "Rick, honey, you be safe on this trip." From the chair next to his, she leaned over and kissed his cheek. "I love you."

"I love you, too," Rick said.

Carl exhaled and went back to eating his pancakes. Sophia slipped her hand away and asked him if he wanted more syrup. Tension eased, and the conversation shifted to other topics. Rick suggested that in two weeks, instead of Daryl and company coming back here to trade, he and Carl come to them. "That way Carl can see all the kids." Carol could tell Lori was itching to say something abut the danger of taking Carl outside the gates, but she held back.

"That would be awesome!" Carl said.

"Should have Carl kill a walker on the way," Daryl said. " 'S what we did with Soph. She did a great job."

Sophia beamed proudly, but the mention of walker-slaying made Lori shift uneasily in her chair. "I don't know about that."

"We'll discuss it privately," Rick replied. "But you agree taking Carl to see his friends in two weeks is a good idea?"

"Yes, of course, honey," Lori said, sounding like maybe she didn't agree, but she was going to go along with it for now, in front of the kid and the company.

"Where is Andrea?" Carl asked.

"She uh…she must have left early this morning for work," Lori told him, which led Carol to believe Andrea had probably spent the night somewhere else.

"Actually, she's right here," said Andrea as she walked into the kitchen.

"There's pancakes if you want them," Rick told her.

"Uh…no thank you."

"Carol cooked 'em," Daryl said.

"Oh, in that case…." Andrea made herself a plate, but as all the chairs were taken at the kitchen table, she ate at the counter. Before she began eating, however, she reached into the front pocket of her long-sleeve blouse and pulled out a folded sheet of paper and handed it to Daryl. "It's a copy of the list of all the Terminus names. Milton thought you'd want to show everyone at Fun Kingdom. Just in case. You never know."

Daryl nodded and slipped the list in his own front shirt pocket.

"The soldiers are loading Daryl's pick-up truck now," Andrea told them after her first bite. "With that crate of fresh vegetables and the thirty gallons of gas we agreed on. Also, there are four bicycles in there for the kids for Christmas, from me and Lori and Rick. And a set of training wheels for Andre."

"And the box of presents?" Lori asked.

"And the box of presents," Andrea echoed.

"Sophia already opened mine!" Carl exclaimed.

"Oh, yeah?" Carol asked. "What did you get, Sweetie?"

Sophia reached down inside her shirt and pulled out a 18K white gold necklace with a diamond-studded swirl pendant that housed a blue sapphire at its core.

"Oh. Wow," Carol said. That looked like it cost about as much as her first car.

"From Carl?" Daryl looked at the boy suspiciously.

Sophia shrugged and tucked the necklace back inside her shirt.

"We have a jewelry shop," Lori explained.

"We have eight little useless shops here," Rick said. "They were part of the original town."

"The bicycle shop isn't useless," Lori insisted. "Neither is the café or the bookstore."

"The bookstore doesn't have any D&D books," Carl complained. "It's all travel books and books about Georgia and coffee table books."

"There's a whole children's book section," Lori insisted.

"Yeah. Of picture books," Carol griped. He looked at Sophia. "We got some for Andre, Luke, and Mika."

"And one for Glenn," Andrea said with a smirk from the counter. Rick chuckled.

Carol knew from her tour that Woodbury also had a flower shop, a gift card and stationary store, a beauty salon, and a clothing boutique. The clothing boutique had once sold strange, impractical, gaudy clothes for women only, designed by the owner, and there wasn't much left inside. She supposed the women of Woodbury had picked it over. The loud, floral, wide-sleeved blouse Lori was wearing now had probably come from the boutique.

"We found someone, by the way," Andrea said to Rick as she poured herself a mug of coffee. "You know that girl Eryn?"

Rick glanced at Carl.

"She's in the lower school," Carl explained.

"She's nine," Andrea continued. "Her aunt's name was on that list. Kristen Miller. Milton wants you to bring the aunt back here when you go to Terminus today if she's willing to come."

"Andrea knew you were going to Terminus today?" Lori asked. Rick gave her a warning look. She glanced at Carl and then back at Rick and said only, "I'm happy Eryn found some family."

"Milton says we'll take her in permanently," Andrea continued. "He also said if you want to invite this Morgan Jones and his son to live here, you can. But that's it for now. Just those three. The Council met this morning and confirmed Milton's decision."

Carol wondered who had more influence over Woodbury's mayor – the Council or Andrea.

After breakfast, Carol and Daryl went back to the nursery to pack up. "Wanna stop by that jewelry store?" Daryl asked. "Get a real engagement ring and weddin' ring?"

"No," Carol said. "I want my wood jasmine ring. It's simple. Classic. Elegant. Hand-carved. And it matches my knife. I don't need a separate engagement ring. And we'll tell Sophia Christmas day. Make it a sort of Christmas present for her."

"Kind of a lame Christmas present for a kid."

"I think you'll be surprised. I think you'll find she's more excited about our engagement than anything under that tree. She really likes you. She loves you, Daryl. And honestly…I think she thinks of you as a father but doesn't quite know how to express that."

Daryl swallowed and rocked back slightly on his heels.

"Relax." Carol kissed his cheek. "It's not like I'm asking you to change diapers here. Just keep doing what you've been doing."

"Bet changin' diapers would be easier 'n beatin' off Carl Grimes."

Carol chuckled. "I'm not sure he meant anything romantic by that gift, Pookie. It was just something he thought she would like because she's a girl."

[*]

Rick walked with Carol, Daryl, and Sophia to the gate, where they were joined by Bob and Rosita.

"Any good-looking men at Terminus?" Rosita asked Rick as the guard rolled open the gate.

"How would Abraham feel about you asking that question?" Rick replied.

"I doubt Abraham would feel a damn thing. He sure didn't seem to be feeling a thing when he dumped me last night."

Daryl glanced at Rosita with a combination of surprise and concern as they walked out the gate the guard had just rolled open. Looking uncomfortable, he walked over and began cranking down the drawbridge. Sophia helped him, as best she could. There was no hurry this time.

"After you three left," Rosita told Rick.

"Seriously?" Bob asked.

"He said when he met me, he thought I was the last woman on earth. But now he knows I'm not."

"Damn," Bob muttered.

Rosita exhaled. She clinched her teeth, Carol thought, to restrain the possibility of tears. "At least he had the decency to dump me before chasing her. He didn't make a fool of me behind my back. I'll give him that much. But she must have given him some kind of green light on that trip."

"Wait," said Bob, looking confused. "Who do you think he left you for?"

"Sasha."

Bob laughed. "I don't think so."

"It's been blindingly obvious to me for two weeks that he likes her."

Bob shook his head. "Well, that may be, but that doesn't mean she returns the feeling. Sasha's with me."

"You? Not likely."

"I don't mean anything official, it's just… we've been connecting. And last night she kissed me. In the infirmary."

"On the cheek?" Rosita asked. "For helping to save her life?"

"Not on the cheek. There was tongue. If we're talking green lights."

Rosita shook her head. She laughed. "And he was so cocksure."

Bob smiled. "I think Abraham really screwed the pooch on this one. And I bet there are plenty of men in Terminus who would be more than happy for so much as smile from a woman as beautiful and capable as you."

"I like you," Rosita said. "You're okay."

"Drawbridge is down," Daryl said loudly. Sophia had overheard at least some of this exchange, and she looked uncomfortable to be listening in on adult matters. In fact, her expression was a lot like Daryl's at the moment.

Rick walked over the drawbridge first, followed by Bob and Rosita and then Carol and Daryl, with Sophia between them.

"Aw, shit!" Daryl cursed once he was on the other side. "Look at this!" He swung has hand toward his pick-up truck.

"Look at what?" Rosita asked.

"Bullet hole! In the bumper! And another one's stuck in the sideview mirror. Who was that shit shot on the platform?"

"How can you even tell with all the dents and scratches on that thing?" Rosita asked.

"I can tell, trust me." He strutted up and pointed to the bumper. "Bullet hole. Lucky it didn't hit a tire." He walked around to the front of the side view mirror. "It's cracked all to shit on this side."

"Well, from the looks of the rest of your truck," Bob said. "It's nothing a little duct tape won't fix."

"Shut up, Betty Ford!"

Rosita chuckled. "Betty Ford. Oh, I'm calling you that all the way to Terminus now."

Bob shook his head and walked on to the armored vehicle.

When Carol and Daryl were in the truck, with Sophia wedged between them on the bench seat, Daryl slipped the keys into the ignition and grumbled, "Damn well better start."

It did. As they drove off the dirt onto the street and headed in the direction of Fun Kingdom, the bed full of bikes and boxes and their packs, Carol asked, "So what did you think of Carl's gift, Sweetie?"

"I don't know," Sophia replied. "I pretended to like it, but it's kind of lame. I mean, I got him five D&D books! And a set of dice!"

Carol chuckled. "Well, he doesn't have sixteen different gift shops at his disposal. And it is a pretty necklace."

"Yeah, but Patrick gave me a really cool set of wood dice. That he whittled himself!"

"Patrick?" Daryl grunted. "Hell is Patrick giving you Christmas presents for?"

"We're friends," Sophia said.

"That skate rat give you a gift too?" Daryl asked.

"You mean Jody? No. Neither did Owen. But we're not really friends like me and Patrick."

Carol smiled and glanced in the rearview mirror as the armored vehicle disappeared over the horizon, driving in the opposite direction toward Terminus.

[*]

Carol and Daryl were both watchful on the drive back, aware that some of those W bandits might still be out there somewhere. Daryl pushed the accelerator a little harder than usual, and the truck moved fast enough that it was shaking slightly, so they made good time. Glenn greeted them at the gates. "Awesome! Bicycles!"

"They're for the kids," Daryl told him.

"I know that," Glenn said. "It's just…I used to make bike deliveries in Atlanta. With the pizzas, you know, in high traffic. You'd be surprised how quick I am on one of those."

"You can ride mine sometimes if you want to," Sophia assured him. "It's adult-size. Dual suspension mountain bike. It cost over a thousand dollars in the old world!"

The kids immediately wanted to use their bikes when the pick-up truck rolled to a stop outside the House of the Future. Andre was especially excited, saying over and over, "I got a big boy bike! I got a BIG BOY bike!"

T-Dog put on the training wheels for him while he waited impatiently to join the other three kids who were already racing back and forth on the walkway and around the vegetable beds. Meanwhile, Carol went inside to put the rest of the wrapped presents under the tree for tomorrow. When she came back outside, Andre was pumping his bicycle so fast the training wheels tipped up slightly on one side before landing on the ground again. The adults were pouring over the list of Terminus names.

Michonne recognized one. "I can't believe this! My sister's on here!"

"Said you had a brother," Daryl replied.

"I meant my sorority sister. Jocelyn Wesley. We went to law school together." She laughed and shook her head as she handed the list to T-Dog. "She helped me through a lot of terrible stuff back then. I mean, not as terrible as what this world's thrown at me, but it sure felt like it at the time. When's Woodbury going on its trade trip?"

"Last Friday of every month," Daryl told her.

"Think I could get in on that trip? Go see her? Would someone watch Andre?"

"I'll watch him," Carol assured her.

"I'll go with you," T-Dog said. "I'd like to see Woodbury. We can take my van. Then you can hitch a ride to Terminus with their trade team, and I'll hang out at Woodbury until you get back and drive you home."

"I bet there are a lot of women in Woodbury," Patricia observed.

"You can come with us, if you want," T-Dog told her. "And Daryl says there aren't a lot of single women under seventy there."

"He just volunteered that information?" Patricia asked.

"I asked about the demographics. That's all. Hey, you're the one who said you didn't want to jump into something new so soon after losing Otis."

"I did say that," Patricia admitted. "But I think I'd like to see Woodbury, too." She smiled at him. "I'll come with you."

The list was passed from person to person, but there were no more familiar names.