AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

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

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The food had practically appeared on the table in front of them before Andrea, holding Carol by the hand, could guide Carol to her seat. The room was crowded. People sat at tables and laughed and talked. The surrounding din was that of any noisy diner or restaurant when so many people were gathered together and happy to interact with one another. It had been a very long time since Carol had even seen a crowd so large of living people, and it was a little unnerving. She relaxed into her seat, though, as she got used to the feeling, and her relaxation, in turn, helped to relieve some of the sensations of claustrophobia that were making her lungs feel tight.

"I can tell you're probably thinking—am I imagining all this?" Andrea said from across the table. She laughed to herself and Carol caught the laughter and echoed it. It made her relax even further. Andrea's lightness was very different than her demeanor at the farm—when she'd been suffering so much from a sense of hopelessness and loss—and it was pleasantly contagious.

"I have to admit, it's…kind of amazing," Carol said.

"When we first got here, I felt the same way," Andrea admitted. "I was used to a handful of people at one time, but not like this place."

"Everyone lives here?" Carol asked.

Andrea nodded.

"They're—in and out," Andrea said. "I mean you know how it is. Sometimes people leave for something and they don't come back. Sometimes they get killed on a run or something happens. Other times they go looking for something else. Something better. Some go looking for their families. Sometimes people are forced to leave because they just don't work here. We're not keeping people locked up in barns anymore while we decide what to do with them. If you're out, you're out. Don't come back and—if you do?"

"So, you're a capital punishment society," Carol mused.

"Believe me," Andrea said, "I don't like the idea of killing people. And I certainly wouldn't promote killing people just—just because you want to or you feel like it. But—the world has changed. This isn't the world we used to know. And if it comes down to them or—my people?"

"I understand what you mean," Carol said. "I'm not condemning anyone. And when it's only been the three of us? You understand more and more what it means to want to take care of your people."

Andrea smiled at Carol and leaned into the table.

"Three of you and soon—four!" Andrea said. "I'm so excited for you! I can't believe it! I mean—I thought there was definitely something there, on the farm, but I didn't realize that there was quite so much there!"

Carol smiled to herself. She could feel that Andrea was genuinely happy for her. Whether she was happy for her theoretical relationship, the baby she was carrying, or both, she was genuinely happy. Carol felt a rush of warmth for the genuine emotion.

"I didn't really realize it either," Carol said. "Not—not all of it."

She cared for Daryl. She'd been intrigued by him from the beginning, she'd been attracted to him immediately, and she'd grown closer to him as time had gone on. She found him wonderfully complex. She wanted to know him better. She wanted to uncover everything that she was certain was there underneath each layer that she sometimes saw peeled back just a little. She felt that there was a certain understanding between them for shared life experiences—she'd seen the scars on his back and she'd heard him mention his father with less than kind words. She felt a yearning to touch him. To love him. To appreciate him. She felt a desire to give him things—affection and true tenderness—that she thought he might never have known before. She was grateful to him for what he'd done for Sophia, especially since he had been under no obligation to do anything of the sort, and she was grateful to him for all he continued to do for her. She was always happy to simply be in his presence, and every day she felt a little more drawn to him.

She couldn't imagine being married to him. She couldn't imagine that he would ever want that—especially now that they were surrounded by other people—but she was grateful that he was willing to temporarily extend her the courtesy of offering her what protection the mask of a marriage could offer her until they were settled, and she was grateful that he was willing to face whatever backlash, with her, that might come when their fabrication came to light. She could only hope that everyone would understand that they hadn't really meant to be deceptive, and they certainly hadn't meant any harm. She hoped feelings wouldn't be too hurt.

And she hoped, at the very least, that she could keep Daryl as a friend, because she would hate to lose that. If she had to lose any chance of knowing him as anything more, she at least hoped the friendship remained.

But she wished, for just a moment and sitting across the table from Andrea, that the deception was real. It saddened her to think it wasn't.

"We wanted to look for you," Carol offered, feeling the compulsion to apologize and to explain herself to a woman who had asked her for neither. "When we—found each other on the highway? We wanted to go back for you. I saw you go down, but…I didn't want to believe it. Lori said she was sure you that you were bitten, though, when you went down. Surrounded. Rick said—you were gone or dead by the time we found each other. The farm was overrun."

Andrea smiled to herself, it wasn't a sincere smile. Her sincere smile fell. She picked up a piece of meat from her plate and set about making herself a sandwich with one of the biscuits that had been delivered to them.

"I understand why you couldn't come back," Andrea said. "Getting away from the farm was hard enough. But—Rick was the only one that was right. The farm was overrun. And by the time you got back? I would've been gone. I didn't have a choice."

"What happened?" Carol asked.

"Everybody left," Andrea said. "Everyone was gone and the last I saw of any of them were taillights. I didn't have too much time to think about it, at first. The herd was right on top of me. They were right behind me. I ran and I fought until…I was sure I was going to die. I was almost ready to die. And then—Michonne saved me."

"Michonne—from last night, Michonne?" Carol asked.

Andrea smiled and nodded.

"She came out of nowhere," Andrea said. "Like something from a fairytale. She fought off the Walkers that were around me and she took me somewhere to rest and get some food and water. I stayed with her after that."

"She doesn't seem like she has the best personality," Carol said.

"Michonne takes time to warm up," Andrea said. "More time with some than she does with others. She likes to observe people for a while. She's—not quick to trust. But she's a wonderful person to have as a friend."

"But—Andrea—how did you end up with Merle?" Carol asked.

Andrea laughed to herself. She chewed through a bite of the biscuit sandwich she'd made for herself and the expression of pleasure that she made over it made Carol's stomach growl despite her abundance of food. She set about copying Andrea's actions to make a similar sandwich for herself in order to appease the craving that suddenly overcame her.

"Do you mean," Andrea said, holding her hand up to guard Carol against seeing her practically talking with her mouth full, "how did I end up in the same place as Merle, or do you mean how did I end up married to Merle?"

"I want the answer to both," Carol admitted.

"It was—a freak thing," Andrea said. "Mich and I were—we were wandering, really. We were trying to decide where to go. Where would be best to just start over? Where could we make a life that we could actually live? We were just sort of wandering, like I said, and I started to get sick. And then I got really sick. Honestly, I thought I was going to die. But we kept going because we didn't really have a choice and we didn't have anywhere safe—at least not that, you know, stayed safe for long. So, one day, we heard people. We thought it was strange. We weren't near a highway. Michonne preferred to stay on back roads because the highways tended to have more little pockets of Walkers, or at least it seemed that way. Anyway—we heard these people. Michonne normally wanted to avoid any people we came across, because she hardly trusts anyone at first, but I convinced her that we should go investigate. I think she only agreed because she thought I was going to die, too, and any help was better than no help at all. We ended up at a barn. The house that had been there had burned down, but the barn was still standing. And there was an SUV parked outside the barn and there were people there, building a fire. We were just watching them, hiding, and then we weren't alone anymore. While we were watching them, someone was watching us. They snuck up behind us in the woods. I turned around and—it was Merle. I couldn't believe it. Whether it was the shock or the—the sickness I had, I don't know. I passed out. And when I woke up, I was inside the barn. I was doing better. And Merle was there—ready to explain everything to me."

"So, you married him," Carol said with a laugh.

"Not right away," Andrea said. "He was with a small group. They had a doctor with them. He's still here, actually. We have four doctors. We take very good care of our doctors. Anyway—they had supplies and they were headed for the mountains because Merle argued that it would be the safest place to go. People survive up here, you know? It's what they do. And the landscape makes it difficult for Walkers to move around. It especially makes it difficult for them to bunch up."

"That's what Daryl said," Carol said with a smile.

"He wasn't really wrong," Andrea said. "Michonne wanted to go to the beach. Sail to an island somewhere. Live off the sea. Merle convinced her that the mountains would be a better choice. Either that or…she was outnumbered."

"But—you hated Merle at the quarry," Carol said.

"To be fair," Andrea said, "everyone hated Merle at the quarry. Including Merle. It took me a little while to realize that—it wasn't Merle we hated. It was his addictions and who those addictions turned him into." She shook her head. "The group that he was with didn't really know that Merle."

"But you did," Carol said.

"They respected him," Andrea said. "They'd all been in a kind of bad situation. Their larger group crumbled. Most of them died. He stepped up; you know? He was prepared for me to tell them everything he ever did, but…I decided not to pull the rug out from under him. It wouldn't have accomplished anything good."

"And we all deserve a second chance," Carol offered. "A chance to start over."

"We're all rebuilding ourselves," Andrea said. "I didn't mean to end up with Merle—married to him, I mean. And if you'd told me at the rock quarry…"

"But it was a different Merle," Carol offered.

"He is a different Merle," Andrea said. "And he's even a different Merle when he's meeting with people about what we're going to do and when he's alone, with me, talking about everything."

Carol couldn't help but smile at the expression on Andrea's face. She had been turning over the idea that Merle and Andrea were married almost all night long. It seemed entirely impossible. It seemed like mixing oil and water. She couldn't imagine that Andrea could be happy with Merle, but looking at her across the table, she wasn't sure that she could be convinced that Andrea could be happier with anyone else.

"You're married to Merle and he's leading a drug-free community," Carol mused.

"Except for pot," Andrea said.

Carol laughed to herself.

"You told us," Carol said, "that someone named Jerry grows a lot of pot."

Andrea smiled.

"We have poppies, too, but that's only for medicinal purposes and our doctors monitor the use of the serum they extract from the poppies. The pot we're not strict on. The liquid refreshments, either, as long as people don't really abuse them. We have an old man here who makes a variety of liquid refreshments. The community hasn't always been drug-free. Believe it or not, that's one of the changes that Merle made when he took over."

"To help himself stay sober?" Carol asked.

Andrea hummed.

"And because it was easy to see what drugs were doing to some of the people here," Andrea said. "Nothing good was coming from it. So, we just made the rule—you're clean or you're out. If you're addicted, and you're having trouble coming clean, we'll help you, you know? People go through shit. But you have to try. And we're not bringing it in."

"And a baby?" Carol asked.

Andrea beamed.

"She's so little," Andrea said. "And I'm scared to death. It just showed up on the test and Alice said it's way too soon to even tell anyone because literally anything could happen, but I just couldn't keep it to myself."

Carol swallowed against the lump in her throat. She nodded.

"I understand," she said. "It's good news, and you want to share it. And, hopefully, nothing happens except—you have a beautiful baby. You said she?"

"I don't know she's a girl," Andrea said. "I mean she's so small she's…hardly worth mentioning to most people. But Merle and I both felt so uncomfortable saying 'it' like we didn't know what it was—like it could be a baby or a…or a kitten or something. So, we decided to just call the baby something."

"And you chose a girl because you want a girl?" Carol asked.

Andrea laughed.

"I call her a girl," Andrea said. "Because Merle calls him a boy. And he said he couldn't imagine that we'd have a girl so…I do it just to irritate him. Besides, all the bases are covered. It's a girl, it's a boy. Merle calls it Schrödinger's baby."

"It's both and neither until you know," Carol offered.

"You got it," Andrea said.

"Merle's happy?"

"Happy doesn't begin to cover it," Andrea said. "That's another reason we decided to share it. We wanted to enjoy every single minute of it, you know? We didn't want to miss anything."

"Yeah," Carol said. "I know. I understand."

Her stomach ached at the words, and she could only half pretend it had anything to do with the sandwich she was eating.

She could understand the sentiment, but she couldn't really share the experience. It had been best, when she'd been married to Ed, to try to keep his attention away from her pregnancies—especially since she was almost certain there had been one before Sophia; one that she never talked about because there'd never been much confirmation beyond a gut feeling—and to keep his attention away from Sophia as much as possible after she'd been born. This pregnancy, too, had been something that Carol had kept to herself. She hadn't enjoyed it for fear that it would end and for some irrational fear, perhaps, that someone would deny her the simple pleasure of enjoying it for herself.

With two or three months left in the pregnancy, Carol wasn't even sure she knew how to enjoy such a thing.

Or that she could if she wanted to try.

"So—what happened with everybody else?" Andrea asked. "Did you get separated by a herd or something?"

She snatched Carol out of her daydream and Carol forced herself to eat another bite of food simply because she was aware that she needed it.

"I guess you could say we got separated," she offered, "but it wasn't exactly a herd that did it. Honestly, it was Daryl."