AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

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

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Sophia was tired, and Daryl had picked her up and, slinging her across his hip, he'd carried her the last of the distance. As soon as she was in his arms, she'd seemed to realize how exhausted she really was. She'd wrapped her arms around his neck, and she'd leaned into him, growing quiet for the rest of their walk.

Daryl was tired from carrying her when he reached the final distance—the open field between the woods and the farmhouse—but he didn't complain. He gritted his teeth against the ache in his muscles, and he kept going.

Even from the distance, Daryl heard the farmhouse door squeak when it opened. The body that bolted out of it was Carol's. He heard her cry out, her voice practically sounding wet with anguish.

"Sophia!"

Daryl winced. The pain in her voice hit him like a barb.

Carol was running honestly as fast as her body would allow. She stumbled—over rocks, uneven ground, or her own feet, it was impossible to tell which. She hit the ground hard, but she was up again before Daryl had hardly even had a moment to register everything through the slight haze he felt of exhaustion and mild dehydration.

"She's alright!" Daryl yelled. "She's OK. Don't'cha hurt yourself!"

Behind Carol, out of the farmhouse, came Andrea. She was jogging, but she hadn't picked up the same speed as Carol. Behind Andrea came the old woman. She was walking, wiping her hands on the apron she was wearing.

Sophia had been sleeping, Daryl figured, since maybe five or ten minutes after he'd picked her up. He'd felt her when she'd drifted off. Her body had slipped into being dead weight, and her arms had fallen free from his neck, requiring him to support her entirely as he moved with her.

When he yelled at Carol, Sophia woke. Like any person waking from a deep and well-needed sleep, she had to get her bearings. She mumbled something to Daryl in the grumbly voice he was accustomed to hearing from her in the mornings when her mother woke her for school. And then, realizing what was going on, she squirmed for her freedom.

"Mama!"

"Hold on—let me put'cha down first, 'fore I drop ya!" Daryl barked.

Sophia stilled enough to let Daryl put her down and then she launched toward Carol at practically rocket speed. The two collided and went down, Carol hit her knees first, and her body dragged Sophia down practically on top of her. Neither of them seemed phased by the fall or the fact that they were no longer standing.

Daryl could hear Carol's crying as he approached, she was constantly repeating Sophia's name, and Sophia was crying too, clinging desperately to her mother.

Daryl slowed his steps to catch his breath. There was no need to run. Andrea and the old woman—Jo, as she preferred to be called—had stopped any rushing as well.

When they closed in on Carol and Sophia, Carol was practically holding Sophia like an infant, cradled in her arms and across her lap. She was rocking her body as she rested on her knees. Sophia looked as content as she possibly could, and she was simply caressing her mother's face with her fingers.

Without saying anything, Daryl, Andrea, and Jo kept a silent vigil around the two of them for a few minutes. Nobody said anything. Nobody did anything to interrupt this moment.

Then, as though there were a precise moment when all things simply ended naturally, Carol stopped staring at her daughter's face. She looked up and searched out Daryl.

"OK," she said. "OK."

There was no explanation as to what "OK," might mean, but Daryl thought he understood it. He nodded at Andrea.

"Help Soph?" He asked.

Without question, Andrea stepped forward and helped collect Sophia. Carol practically passed the girl over like a baby, despite the fact she was ten years old. Sophia got to her feet and, immediately, wrapped her arms tight around Andrea. Andrea hugged her back for a moment before she started leading her toward the farmhouse. Jo went along with them, and Daryl heard her telling Sophia that she had some lunch for Sophia when they got inside.

Daryl hung back a moment with Carol. Finally, he leaned down and caught her under the arms the same as he would to lift Sophia. He was tired from carrying Sophia, and his arms ached, but he didn't really care. He pulled Carol up and helped her get her feet. He looked over and bent down to dust off her knees. He could tell, quickly, that she'd at least skinned one of them because there was already a wet blood stain on her knee.

"You hurt yourself," he said, flipping his shirt over his hand and using the inside of it to mop at her face as best he could.

Carol quietly let him do what he need to do. Then, she fell into him and wrapped her arms around him. He stood with her, his arms around her, for as long as she needed. As with Sophia, there was always a moment, with Carol, that seemed to be just the right moment when something was done. She pulled away from Daryl and caught his face in her hands. She stared at him, and he held her eyes. He loved her eyes. They were beautiful. He'd always heard that eyes were the widows to the soul, but he'd never really believed that until he'd met Carol. Carol's eyes were the windows to her soul.

"I love you," he offered, because he felt like he couldn't not say it at that moment.

She responded by kissing him deeply, and he wrapped his arms around her again and held her until the kiss was done.

"I love you," she said, when the kiss had broken. "Thank you…thank you…you found my baby."

Daryl smiled at her.

"I found our girl," he said. "Yours and mine. And—she damn near done it herself. She was at the car, Carol. Found it this morning."

"She's OK," Carol said. "She's—OK."

"She's fine," Daryl said. "Dirty. Prob'ly hungry and thirsty. Tired. But she's gonna be just fine. All them things can be taken care of."

"She's—OK," Carol repeated.

"She is," Daryl confirmed, understanding that Carol needed to process all of this. "You—oughta know that…she wanted to know if she done good. Wanted to know if she done it like a Dixon." Carol smiled at the words. "I told her she was damn Dixon to the core." Carol's smile broadened.

"She is," Carol said. "Oh—she is. She's…Dixon to the core. And she's OK, Daryl. She's…OK."

"She's fine," Daryl said. "Come on. I wanna see what them knees look like under them pants," Daryl said. "And—you look like you could use somethin' to eat and a nap right alongside of her. I know you ain't slept since was gone and I don't think I've seen you take more'n a bite of food."

Daryl slipped his arm around Carol and tugged her back toward the farmhouse. She came with him, hugging him and leaning into him.

"She's OK," Daryl said, "so we gotta make sure—everybody stays that way now."

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Carol and Sophia had both eaten well, both had bathed, and both were currently passed out asleep in the bed. It was early to go to sleep, but Daryl assumed there were much greater crimes in life than sleeping when exhausted.

Daryl, too, had eaten and showered. He was clean, now, and he'd washed off the feeling that he'd been wearing for the past few days—that heavy concern that Sophia wouldn't be found safely and that the rest of his family might be threatened by the heavy sadness such a tragedy would bring. Daryl understood, as well as anybody might, that sadness could be just as dangerous as any other wound.

Jo and Andrea had served them food. Jo had brought them towels and clean clothes—some of which she had for Sophia out of her daughters' cast-off clothing that hadn't yet been donated or taken to the church, according to Jo. The only interaction they'd had, so far, with everyone else were a few quick hugs and tossed words of congratulations, and most of those had come from Glenn, T-Dog, Jacqui, and Dale.

The house was big enough to hold all of them, realistically, though it would be more than a bit cramped, and people would have to share their space. It didn't seem right to intrude so much on these people who didn't owe them the shelter they were giving them or a place on their farm that seemed, honestly, quite safe in comparison to everywhere else they'd been so far.

Dale and Glenn were sleeping in the RV. Jacqui and T-Dog had erected a tent that, apparently, they were sharing. Daryl didn't know if they'd said anything about their relationship to the older couple that, if the religious items throughout the house were any indication, might not agree with such a thing between two unmarried people, but he wasn't going to turn them in as a counterfeit married couple.

Daryl was exhausted, and he really could have slept where he stood, but he felt like there were things that he needed to do before he slept. He needed to make sure that the necessary work was done before he could rest. They were going to put up other tents—including one for Andrea—despite the fact that Jo insisted, as any kind person would, that there was no need for people to sleep outside. Daryl figured that, as soon as Sophia and Carol were rested, they would all move outside as well.

They appreciated what Hershel and Jo were giving them, and they didn't intend to take advantage.

Daryl wanted to be sure that Andrea's tent was secure and comfortable before he let her go out there for the night.

As Daryl walked through the house, he passed into the little sitting room, or parlor, or whatever the hell they probably called the room where everyone almost always seemed to be gathering as they hovered outside the bedroom where Carl was, apparently, still in something of a struggle for his life. Daryl didn't know exactly what was wrong with the boy—he'd had surgery, but there was internal bleeding or something or other that the old man was fixing as best he could—but Daryl didn't feel too bad about not paying attention to the details when very few people close to Carl had so much as inquired as to whether or not he'd found Sophia alive or dead.

In the room, on a couch, Daryl found Andrea. She was offering over her arm to the woman about Daryl's age—whose name, he had learned, was Patricia— and Patricia had drawn from her what Daryl felt was a truly significant amount of blood.

"You oughta take that much?" Daryl asked, made uncomfortable by the quantity in the bag.

Andrea reached her free hand up to pat at Daryl's side. He took her hand and, at that point, noticed the bandage on her other arm.

"You done this before?" Daryl asked, his heartbeat speeding up in his chest and his stomach twisting slightly. His muscles tensed, and he immediately felt protective of Andrea against whatever threat might be after her now.

"We're taking the upper limits," the woman offered. "But we we're monitoring how much we take. Until the bleeding's controlled, we need what we can get, where it's available."

"I'm a universal donor," Andrea offered.

"And you don't fuckin' look good," Daryl said quickly. "She don't fuckin' look good! Get that outta her damn arm—fuck—put some of it back…look at her."

Everything that happened next was a blur, really. All of it would, forever, be slightly distorted in Daryl's memory—like looking at something through an oddly shaped glass that changes the size and shape of everything. Sometimes, when things dissolved into chaos, they just seemed harder to sort out. Everything happened quickly, and in-slow motion, and all together, and one event at a time—and it all happened that way at once.

Patricia questioned Andrea about how she was feeling. Andrea insisted she was fine, and Daryl protested. His sister-in-law would say that. She'd been manipulated, at least that's how he was feeling, into handing her very blood over for a child. And, to save a child, Andrea would give anything she could. Still, Patricia must have either thought Andrea didn't look good or she thought that Daryl was a risk to her, because she quickly stopped what she was doing and bandaged Andrea's arm as tightly as she had the other.

Patricia got up to take the blood she'd drawn to the other room, Daryl mentioned that he was going to check the tents but that, maybe, Andrea ought to see about something to eat or drink. He called for Jo, and Andrea had insisted she'd be fine.

She'd barely hit her feet before she hit the floor with the same force as a sack of potatoes thrown from the roof. There had been absolutely no effort, on her part, to catch herself or to stop her fall. She'd gone out, cold, the moment she'd stood up, and she remained unconscious on the floor.

Daryl hit his knees beside her and the old woman was in the room before he knew it. That was, really, when it all went blurry for Daryl.

There were voices—Jo's voice calling for someone, Patricia's voice, high-pitched and frantic, insistent that she hadn't overdone it, other voices mingling with the melee—and then Daryl's voice that, frankly, felt to him like it was issuing forth from his body, but like it didn't belong to him anymore. He wasn't even fully in control of his own words as they flooded out. He heard them, it seemed, from somewhere else entirely.

"Leave my fuckin' family alone! Leave her the fuck alone! I'll fuckin' kill you…break your damn neck!"

Daryl didn't know who he was threatening, honestly. He was threatening no one in particular and anyone who needed it. He simply couldn't breathe—and it wasn't because of the arm that went around his throat to cut off his air and make him easier to subdue.

He was dragged by more than one set of arms. Multiple arms dragged him. There had to be multiple arms, because he wouldn't be moved otherwise, but he was moved—he was dragged outward. He was dragged into the coolness of the night. He was dragged down steps. The house blurred in his vision.

Daryl fought, and he spat, with every single bit of energy left in his body, and then he dropped against the hard ground, and he closed his eyes.

When he opened his eyes, sucking in cool night air through what felt like a bruised throat, he wondered if he might have been sleeping in the dirt for a while.

"You're OK, son," Dale offered, bending over him. "You're OK. Maybe you ought to just—stay down for a minute."

Daryl vaguely remembered what had happened and how he'd ended up here. He remembered it, at least, in a distorted manner. What he did remember, though, was the sight of Andrea unconscious on the floor after the woman had take from her more blood than she had to give.

"I'll kill 'em," Daryl said.

"So you've been saying," Dale offered.

Daryl felt the weight on his chest and realized it was Dale's hand. He was leaning most of his weight on Daryl's chest to convince him to stay where he was.

"If they killed her? I'ma kill 'em."

"Andrea's OK, Daryl," Dale offered. "She's OK. Jo already came out and said she's come back around and they're taking care of her. Jo's with her. She's taking care of her. She's going to be fine."

"Tired of…my family payin' the fuckin' price—payin' some fuckin' price—they don't even own nobody shit."

"Yeah," Dale said, apparently content to sit in the dirt with Daryl for as long as that was required. "I told them that, too. Something like that, at least. I think we're all going to talk about it. Together. A big group meeting. But I think it might be a good idea to wait until tomorrow. Let everyone get some rest so that everyone can be involved."

"We might not have until fuckin' tomorrow," Daryl said. "They're killin' my family."

"I think you need to rest as much as anyone," Dale said, patting Daryl's chest. "Nobody's killing anyone. OK? I'll talk to them. Everyone's safe until tomorrow. I promise you that. I told Jo, and she's talking to Hershel. You'll sleep with Carol and, if it makes you feel better? I'll keep watch outside Andrea's door. I'll stay there all night, if it makes you feel better. But—there's no threat. And it can wait until we can all talk tomorrow. I think emotions are a little too high right now, and everything always looks better after a good rest."

Daryl sucked in a deep breath—as deep as the weight on his chest would allow—and let it out. He was exhausted—utterly and completely exhausted. Until he'd been lying in the dirt like this, he hadn't realized how very exhausted he actually was.

And he was unaccustomed to being treated the way that Dale was treating him right now. Still, he was tired, and his body was heavy, and he appreciated this moment of handing over the weight of things to Dale.

"What do you say? Can we get some rest?" Dale asked.

"Yeah," Daryl breathed out, already wondering if he even had the strength to get himself back into the house, but feeling oddly confident that, if he didn't, Dale would help get him there.