"Hello, Charlotte, please." Mark said as he gestured to the twin bed that had been fashioned into a makeshift gourney.

"How are you feeling?" He asked as he wheeled the ultrasound machine over to the side of the bed as she eased herself up onto the bed and lay back against the headboard.

"Like I swallowed a watermelon. " she replied flatly.

Up until now, at most she looked like she had just eaten a big meal, or was putting on a few.

But all that had changed a few weeks ago. Now it seemed like she was getting bigger every day, and there was no hiding it from the rest of the group any longer especially since summer was now in full swing, and she could no longer hide under bulky winter clothes.

Thankfully, the fussing and congratulating had died down to a somewhat manageable level.

Mark chuckled ruefully.

"Well, that is to be expected, you're entering the third trimester which is the time when the baby will do most of their growth.

"Fuck, so I'm gonna get... bigger?" Charlotte said

Mark nodded soberly

"I'm afraid so, and with as petite as you are, it will seem like you are huge but I assure you that its all normal."

Charlotte cursed under her breath, up until now, pregnancy had been surprisingly manageable and she was even able to go out on supply runs with Maggie to the hospitals in the area to stock up on meds that they had depleted over the course of the long hard winter they had had.

"Now I know you're going to hate this, but from here on out I will have to advise against you going out on runs until the baby is born. " Mark added, as if reading her mind.

"So what am I supposed to do? Sit at home and knit?" She bit back sharply.

Mark sat back and rubbed his chin thoughtfully for a noment.

"Didn't you say that you had medical experience?"

"Well ... my sister was an ER trauma care nurse, and she ... she taught me everything she knew. " Charlotte said, swallowing against the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat at the memory of her sister.

God how she wished she were still here, she'd know just what to do. And lord knew she could sure as hell use her support right about now.

"I could always use some help around the clinic, and I could use someone to run the pharmacy that knows medications you know since Kelsey ..." he trailed off, his voice cracking with emotion.

Kelsey had been the person who ran the pharmacy, her and Mark had gotten REALLY close and it had been plainly obivous they both were head over heels for one another, but neither had the guts to make a move.

Then, just as Mark had finally scraped up the courage to tell her how he felt, an illness swept through the town, one of those previously trivial illnesses that would've been easily treated in the old world, it wiped out almost half the town, and Kelsey was unfortunately one of the casualties.

True to her oath as a nurse, when she fell ill, she shut herself away with the rest of the infected and had cared for them until the bitter end.

Charlotte thought on it for a moment before nodding

"Alright, Medic Mark, you got a deal. " she replied

Mark nodded approvingly in reply as he rubbed some gel on the wand of the ancient sonogram machine.

"Do you still want the sex to be a surprise?" He asked.

"Daryl wants it to be a surprise." She replied as she rolled her eyes.

Mark laughed as he maneuvered the wand around on her stomach.

A picture slowly materialized on the screen.

Look here, there's the head and the hands, oh look! They're sucking their thumb! " Mark said with a laugh.

Charlotte was overcome with so many emotions that she couldn't even reply. For the first time she could clearly make out the form of a child on the small, dim, flickering screen.

THEIR child.

"Well, everything looks to be normal, and as far as I can tell, you have a very active and healthy baby in there. Are you making sure you're eating enough and taking the vitamins I gave you?" Mark asked as he looked over his glasses at her.

Charlotte's tendency to skip meals and not take very good care of herself was famously known around the group.

"Well, I don't have any way to print out a picture but I can do this..." he said as he reached over and grabbed a Polaroid camera.

"Thats not necessary, Medic Mark." Charlotte tried to protest, but Mark waved her protests off and snapped the photo anyway.

"You will want this later, trust me." He insisted with a smile as he handed the photo to her.

She swung her legs over the bed and eased into a standing position.

"When's Daryl due back?" He asked

"Not sure, I never know anymore, he took a car, so it could be a while." She replied.

"I'm surprised he agreed to go at all." Mark said with a laugh.

"Oh trust me he didn't, but with the winter we've had, we damn near exhausted all of our meat rations, and no one is as good a hunter and tracker as Daryl."

As if on cue, the door to Mark's makeshift office came crashing open with so much force that it bounced off the wall, startling them both.

There stood Daryl, he looked positively feral. He was covered from head to toe in dirt, grime, and blood. His brilliant blue eyes flashed wildly as they darted from Charlotte to Mark.

"What happened?! Is everything okay?!" He growled breathlessly

Mark put his hands out in front of him in a placating gesture.

In the world before this hell hole, Mark had done a few rounds in the psyche ward of the hospital he had worked at.

Before that, he was a medic in the army, which is where Charlotte had picked up the penchant for calling him 'Medic Mark '.

Both were skills that Charlotte did have to admit came in handy when it came to dealing with feral sumbitches like Daryl and her.

"Everything's fine, Daryl. Though I did advise against going on any further supply runs until after the baby is born..." Mark began.

Daryl rounded on her.

"What the fuck, Charlotte?! I told ya I didn't want ya goin no more!" He roared at her.

"Well, just like how you're the best hunter, I'm the best errand runner and one of the only ones who knows anything about the different meds we need from abandoned hospitals."

"That's different an' ya know it!" He fired back as he paced to and fro in front of her and Mark.

Charlotte had to bite back a grin, he reminded her of Ezekiel's tiger, Shiva when she was agitated.

"Charlotte, I hope that you know how important it is that you don't go out anymore until this baby is born. Your blood pressure was a little elevated, which is normal, but it could cause you to faint, and I don't think I need to tell you how disastrous that could be out there. You also have to remember that you don't just have yourself to think about anymore." Mark said.

Charlotte felt a pang of guilt shoot through her as she put her hand on her stomach. What could she say? He was right, she hadn't been thinking about the fact that she had a kid to worry about now.

Mark seemed to sense this, because his gaze softened and he out an empathetic hand on her shoulder

"I know this is new for you, especially since you never thought you'd be in this situation."

"You can say that again." Charlotte said under her breath as she blew out a sigh.

"But ... As much as it sucks, you're right. The last thing I want is for something to happen to this little ..." She trailed off, unsure of how to refer to the baby since she didn't know the gender and saying 'it' just didn't sit well with her.

She suddenly turned to Daryl.

"I wanna know!" She blurted out.

He looked at her as though she'd lost her mind.

"The fuck you Talkin bout?"

"The sex of the baby, I want to know." She said firmly.

Daryl held her gaze for a moment, but seemed to sense how important this was to her, and his intense blue eyes softened the way that they did only for her.

"Okay, pirate girl, if you wanna know." He said.

Mark smiled benevolently at them as he picked up Charlotte's chart.

"I wrote the gender down, just in case you ever changed your mind and wanted to know. You'll be having a boy."

An ocean of emotion suddenly washed over Daryl. In a little under six months, he would be the father of a son.

Panic, terror, dread, excitement ... And Finally ... determination all crashed into him at once. He was going to make damn fucking sure that he would be the father he never had, no matter what it took.

He glanced at Charlotte and he suddenly saw her in a new light, not only as his partner and soulmate, but also as the mother of HIS child ... His son.

Desire suddenly flooded through his veins like lava.

He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her towards the door.

"Daryl! What gives ...?" Her words died in her throat as he turned sharply and looked at her, desire and need burning hot in his intense blue eyes.

Her mouth turned upwards into a coy smile that said 'what are we waiting for?'

His mouth turned up into a grin as they hurried out of Mark's makeshift clinic.

AN: Holy crap! I am so sorry for the lack of updates to this story! my stories usually grow organically, and in all honesty, this is not where I saw it going, it just ... it surprised even me, so I was stumped on his to move forward with it, then it just ... Came to me. Please bear with me, as this will be new territory for this Character as well as myself lol.